In August 1954 Hall joined the Western Development Division as the chief of Propulsion Development, and directed the development of engines for the Atlas, Titan and Thor missiles. In 1957 he was the director of the Thor development program and supervised the installation of Thor missiles in the UK. He also headed the Minuteman project, and then went to Europe, where, at the urging of the Pentagon, he started the French Diamant missile project, a nuclear warhead-carrying IRBM which was central to President De Gaulle’s desire for France to have an independent nuclear force separate from the US and NATO.
My comment I had always suspected the American elite wanted France to face off against Russia this way. Splitting NATO was useful to preventing the Russians from being aggressive on the continent.
Must read on rocket development on that link. Ed was central to all of it. No one else mattered nearly as much. Nor has mattered as much since. Not even Musk. Goddard was early with ideas, von Braun mattered as well in a huge way. Musk matters a great deal. But Ed may have tied more of the loose ends together than any of them at a key stage of developing the engines. Also, we talk about public space programs versus private enterprises, it was always both.
I never knew if Ed and his brother Ted kept in touch. But this is a photo from 1980 at Ed’s home in CA. Ed is on your left. Ted on the right. Ted was a Harvard Ph.D in Physics at age 18. The youngest man at Las Alamos.
Fun note on summer mornings Ed and his wife Edith would play tennis on their court above our driveway. She would tell Ed he sucked in bed that morning to throw him off his serve. She would tell my mother he was her best lover.
If you read the link, Ed did a stint in US special forces in east Germany under Russian control. He could be a SoB. Seriously the most entertaining man I will ever meet.
“I have a lot of respect for Elon and what he has accomplished,” Iger said. However, given “the position [Musk] took, in quite a public manner,” Disney concluded that its association with Musk and X/Twitter was “not necessarily a positive one for us.”
Disney is not saying that Musk did something wrong, only that it was inconvenient for Disney. Said in other words, Disney is caving in to public opinion, be it good or bad, right or wrong.
Wow. Not sure what to say about that. Maybe Disney did not want to be associated with someone who thinks Pizzagate is real and Democrats are sacrificing children?
Take off the blinders. Your hero is melting down in front of you.
Like most vulgar expressions of the more decorous—at least publicly—pre-Internet era, the phrase’s origin is difficult to ascertain. Google Books, which searches an extensive digitized catalog, shows a printed debut in 1971 in The Show Business Nobody Knows, a book by Earl Wilson, a gossip columnist who was known for exposing JFK’s broad interpretation of his marital vows. Wilson, like Johnny Carson, pegs its origin to showbiz and names perhaps the earliest adopter as none other than comedian Red Buttons.
Is anyone really surprised by this? Bibi has long demonstrated that he is more than willing to suffer anti-semitism if it can further his aims to control Gaza and expand into the West Bank.
What did Bibi gain from this meeting you might ask?
Instead of disavowing his own antisemitic speech, the CEO has sought to placate powerful Jewish entities by banning certain forms of pro-Palestinian advocacy. In a brazen betrayal of his supposed commitment to free speech, Musk pledged to ban the pro-Palestinian slogan “from the river to the sea” from his platform. In response, the Anti-Defamation League and Israeli government certified Musk as kosher, with ADL president Jonathan Greenblatt praising Musk’s “leadership in fighting hate,” and Israel’s ministry for diaspora affairs thanking the billionaire for “standing on the right side of history.”
Funny because I only have met one person who talks about his retirement that way. He is 72 years old. He can not move off his barstool but is criticizing everyone else. He is a stockbroker. His clientele comes out of the five bars he frequents. He can not afford to retire but Musk can. LOL
Linda Yaccarino has to be seriously questioning her career choices now. In the unenviable position of having to address Musk’s comments, here’s what she went with:
Yaccarino described Musk’s comments as an “explicit point of view about our position.”
“We’re a platform that allows people to make their own decisions,” Yaccarino wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, late Wednesday night. “And here’s my perspective when it comes to advertising: X is standing at a unique and amazing intersection of Free Speech and Main Street — and the X community is powerful and is here to welcome you. To our partners who believe in our meaningful work – Thank You.”
Which is basically a confirmation of Musk’s position. When advertisers express serious concerns about advertising on X, the company’s response is essentially: it’s your choice, and we’re not going to do anything to make you more comfortable advertising with us.
On the other hand, it’s probably inadvisable to allow advertisers to directly influence editorial decisions regarding what media decides to cover or not cover (or how to cover). This has, for example, been an ongoing problem in automotive media. The big advertisers (and there are only a few really big ones) strongly influence what and how things are covered. It used to be almost direct control, but now it is at least indirect, but the editors know where their bread is buttered. This is one of the reasons why Consumer Reports explicitly stated that they don’t accept any advertising at all.
I’m pretty sure that Musk believes that he is a “champion of free speech”, but perhaps he will mature someday and realize that editorial decisions are taken all the time, and for all sorts of reasons. Some of which may be distasteful to him, but nevertheless often have to be taken.
And then of course there’s the perennial issue with media, especially modern media in which control is very widely diffused and can’t always be detected. There are clear indications that our “enemies”, primarily China and Russia, but others as well, are using media (various types of media) to influence public opinion, and to even cause specific political outcomes. Usually the latter is near impossible, but when two sides of a political divide are near 50/50 in support, it becomes much easier because you only need to sway a relatively small number to influence the overall result. This is perhaps something that ranked voting could solve? I haven’t thought it through yet, and it only just occurred to me as I type this.
{ “Media Matters knowingly and maliciously manufactured side-by-side images depicting advertisers’ posts on X Corp.’s social media platform beside Neo-Na-t-zi and white-nationalist fringe content and then portrayed these manufactured images as if they were what typical X users experience on the platform,” the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas said. “Media Matters designed both these images and its resulting media strategy to drive advertisers from the platform and destroy X Corp.” }
If true, then the advertisers were manipulated into pulling their ads?
If X wins this suit, months from now, will there be widespread reports that it was manipulation?
I’m not sure how X could win this suit, unless Media Matters actually claimed that their findings were representative of “what typical X users experience on the platform.” I don’t believe they did. And even then, because of the timing of the Media Matters article and Musk’s “actual truth” tweet, it will be hard for X to prove that any particular advertiser pulled their ads due to the article vs. Musk’s own statements.
Also, there’s no way this type of lawsuit gets resolved in X’s favor within “months” - it will take years, assuming X pursues it to a final decision. Which I think is pretty unlikely.
