Hello Scoop -

I'd hate to disappoint you, especially after all the entertainment you and Mark provided me with today.

NASA Watch now kind of reminds of that old Saturday Night Live news sketch: Francisco Franco Still Dead!

If we only had a list of the number of times you reported Goldin's imminent departure -- ah, and could we also have another list, this one of all the NASA Watch rumored replacements as well?

Amazingly enough, I don't hold these against you. You've done pretty well for someone who prints hot rumors from single sources and hysterically magnifies small problems into major calamities.

What does irk me is your support for Tumlinson and his idiot schemes - and I think that some other people here are pretty fed up with it too. That not only includes the Mars people like Eby, but those concerned about the health of our launch industry, and at least one person who is concerned with the impact hazard.

When you talk with Tumlinson, you can tell him that if he wants to bring business to ISS, that's okay; otherwise he's just pissing in the soup, and in the future I suppose I'll have to do my best to discourage him from it. The same thing holds for finding NEO's: if Tumlinson wants to bring in amature astronomers, like the Planetary Society is already doing (ahem, stealing Lou's idea?), that is okay, but if he thinks amatures can handle this problem then he is simply full of shit.

Yeah, I didn't get invited to the Playboy Mansion, and I didn't make a bundle with an internet deal. But as our troops close in on bin Laden tonight, working from bases in the Former Soviet Union, I can take a certain satisfaction in knowing that I did my best for some 27 months to defend Bush Snr's decision to take Russia up on its request to join ISS. This defense is also likely to be valuable as Bush Jr forges a new arms agreement with Russia over the next 6 months.

Also, I can take a certain satisfaction in knowing that some 700 of the world's top scientists and about 300 of the world's top science journalists regularly enjoy my reports on matters concerning the impact hazard via the Cambridge Conference.

Sorry, but that's about as "pithy" as I can get tonight -

EP