News Jan. 21

I listened to Morning Edition.

Of course, there was a report on Iraq. In Basra NPR folks talked to regular people, dock workers and such. An interesting report on their feelings on troop withdrawal and voting.

More speech parsing today. Reporters brought up questions like, "How will Bush mend fences (in Europe)?" Also they were wondering whether or not the speech actually helped in this regard. According to polls, a majority of Europeans believe Bush's re-election will be bad for security.

Interesting reports from Titan. Turns out it rains methane there. Cool. Also a longer report on Boris Smeds, a German communications engineer who basically saved the whole Casini project. He was a nobody on the project, just supposed to check to see if the "dial tone" was there so that Casini could communicate, but got the idea that they better test by actually transmitting data. Did not get anywhere with the idea at first until a management change, then the head guy thought, hey, why not. Good thing, too, or the whole mission would've gone down the toilet. Horray for the low man on the totem pole. It pays to be persistant.

There was a fun interview with Dave Plotkin from WPKR in Winter Park, FL on his attempt at the longest continuous broadcast for the Guiness Book of World Records. Strange.

Following up on the inauguration festivities, there was a lengthy report on the Balls. The Bush's apparently went to each one, spending about 5 minutes at each. They made the Commander-In-Chief Ball their last stop, finishing up by about 10 PM. As usual, none of his fans were disappointed, even if the Bush's didn't stay but a couple of minutes. Will these people never learn? When will they become disappointed? Sigh.