Or how many reporters cover your event. I recall a Black Panther rally in Dallas that was attended by 50 people. 10 Panthers and 40 members of the press.

But how good that Ms. McIntire has something to keep herself busy with in her long retirement.

"Maybe next time GNAW-N-PIS should offer free weenies and beer."

Heh. Sounds like the weenies were there...dunno about the beer.

At the end of the article Maria says, "But there are still a lot of people concerned about 24 pounds of plutonium going off." By "going off" did she mean "launch", or do these bozos really think that a failure will result in a mushroom cloud? Or are they content to give that impression even though they might know better?

Did you happen to see Bruce's defensive post on this topic on his blog? Bizarre. He mentions receiving several "mostly nasty" emails, then proceeds to quote from one that he considers "one of the milder ones". Funny thing: it's not nasty at all -- not even the slightest bit. Bruce has apparently chosen to set the bar extremely low regarding what constitutes being "nasty". Either that or "nasty" is defined as disagreeing with Bruce.

Huh, you're right.

What's odd about that "nasty email" thing is that he posted one of the "milder ones". If I were to post any hate mail here, it would be the worst, most loony one. For one thing, the more unhinged it is, the more entertaining it is. For another, it is a useful way to represent the quality of argumentation from the other side -- if their feedback is largely mean-spirited, unhinged, inarticulate, potty-mouthed, etc., one need only stand back and allow their own words to discredit them.

You're missing a couple of other howlers in that post. The guy in the "nasty" email uses the same reason to argue that we should go out and colonize the universe that Gagnon has used to argue that we shouldn't, namely that we've ruined the Earth, rendered it uninhabitable, and used all the resources up. Maybe he thinks the email is nasty because of the cognitive dissonance it caused him.

The other howler is where he says that NASA has already endangered all life on this planet with failed nuclear launches, and then lists a bunch of nuclear accidents to prove it. Only, just one of them involved NASA, and most of the others were Soviet-built. And even there he admits that the material from that NASA accident is safely isolated at the bottom of the ocean.

What a joke. Does the guy even read what he writes?

Just out of simple curiosity: How long has the New Horizons mission been in the works? My (Extremely Rough) guess, based on other space missions, is close to ten years or so, from getting the money from congress, to designing the craft, chosing the instruments it will carry, along with actually building the thing and a whole host of other things.

Now, if Bruce and his comrads had this much lead time, why did they wait until a few weeks before the launch to start protesting?

That doesn't make much sense, although most of what he does doesn't make much sense.

New Horizons itself has been in work since 2001, but Pluto missions have been proposed since 1990:

"Scientists captivated by Pluto and the mysterious Kuiper Belt are no strangers to long waits. Since 1990, several missions to Pluto have been proposed only to be quickly abandoned for largely budgetary reasons. The most recent false start was Pluto Kuiper Belt Express, which NASA canceled in 2000 after its estimated price tag more than doubled. In 2001, under pressure from the U.S. Congress, NASA held an open competition to find a cheaper way to do a Pluto flyby and ultimately selected the $500 million New Horizons proposal but did not request any funding for the mission. Congress funded the New Horizons program as a budget earmark for two years before NASA finally got the message and started requesting money for the mission."
(http://www.space.com/spacenews/businessmonday_051212.html)

Thanks for the clarification.

They've had about 4-5 years to try and cancel this mission, and they are waiting until a few weeks before launch.

"Winds Halt Launch of Pluto Spacecraft"

Bruce huffed, then he puffed...

Heh.

But now he's moved the goalposts...see the "Homework" entry above.