Deval Patrick thinks that it’s just a darn shame that we live in a free country. Guess he’s just revealing his inner Tom Friedman.

“Zombie” has been running a frightening series on the state of our educational system all week. Here’s today’s installment, but there are links to the previous ones.

…to Mars:

International co-operation in space was very difficult and in many ways inefficient, the second man to walk on the moon said.

“But I think if we can take the English-speaking people … we can have American science, technology and bring together the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa … and have a togetherness organisation,” he told AAP in Sydney on Thursday.

For some reason, I don’t think that the White House will be as happy about this as it was with some of his previous statements. It doesn’t sound like he’s quite on the same page as Charlie and the Muslim outreach.

Gotta love Buzz.

Some wisdom for students, from Walter Russell Mead, on how to survive the coming popping of the academic bubble.

Lexington Green:

Beck is attacking the enemy at the foundations of their power, their claim to race as a permanent trump card, their claim to the Civil Rights movement as a permanent model to constantly be transforming a perpetually unjust society.

He is nuking out the foundations of the opposition’s moral preeminence, the very thing I proposed in this post.

Actually, it’s more like the pretense of their moral preeminence.

…of MSM grief. I don’t think it’s in their nature to ever get to acceptance, though.

…and the endangered Democrat majority:

It was during the health care debate that the essential building block of the Democratic majority – Independent voters – began to crumble. It was evident in the generic ballot. It was evident in the President’s job approval numbers. It was evident in Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts.

What’s really amazing is the ongoing delusion (notoriously assisted by Bill Clinton) that once they passed it, it would magically become popular.

They used to say that Social Security is the third-rail of American politics, but given 1994 and this year, I think that health-care “reform” (at least democratic socialist style) is. And this time, the donkeys jumped on it with all four feet.

…and all we have…

…for who is and is not a “moderate“:

It isn’t the snarky first part of this statement that is interesting; that’s banal, and while revealing in its own way, it’s de rigeur for the sort of people we’re talking about to on the one hand demand no one reach conclusions on the basis of necessarily limited information when it comes to them and their mascots, but who feel free themselves to rush to entirely unsupported conclusions regarding their opponents and targets, and express them in the snarkiest way possible, all the while holding the self-conception that they’re stalwarts defending civil discourse. Of course, one commenter doesn’t control anything, any more than I “create the narrative” (If only!). But this comment will be a useful example for how those who do set the terms of debate do so, and a facet of the mindset behind it.

Be that as it may, the truly interesting part is the expressed definition of what qualifies as a “moderate Muslim.” Alchemist expressed what I suspect a lot of people on that side of things believe, without fully articulating it even in their own minds: For them a “moderate Muslim” is simply anyone who isn’t trying, either directly or indirectly, to kill them.

This truly does reflect having two standards, however. In normal discourse, this isn’t generally the standard for moderation: David Duke isn’t considered moderate just because he himself never engaged in a lynching and had learned how to express himself in such a way that it’s virtually impossible to find a statement where he openly and clearly encourages violence or terror. Yet people can get in trouble with the widely-respected SPLC for example,simply sharing a stage with him in a debate. We understand he’s not “moderate” in spite of the suit and tie, and the carefully couched statements.

Rauf is no moderate in my book. But then, I think that moderation is overrated. Goldwater had it right when he said that extremism in defense of liberty was no vice.

Famous Hollywood nit-twit John Cusak lets his nut flag fly. Iowahawk has some pitches for him.

I’m driving down to Anaheim in a few minutes for Space 2010. Not sure if I’ll be posting from there — depends on the Internet situation.

…versus political philosophies.

I have some problems:

I very much doubt that anyone in the space community rejects Obama’s position purely out of hate for the man or his other policies or even his political party. Indeed, it often seems as though on the one issue of space Republican and Democrat positions are switched around completely.

This might be due to the fact that there are so few people – and in particular so few Congressmen – who are actually interested in space in general or NASA in particular. Those outliers might be swaying the majority that doesn’t care about space.

Similarly one cannot say that all Boomers are nostalgic for Apollo, nor are the “Homers” simply looking out for their own district at the expense of the country and its future. The categorizations just don’t match reality.

I disagree. Few people fall neatly into one of the three camps, but they do capture the reasons for opposition, at least from conservatives. And as I understand it, “Boomers” and “Homers” are nostalgic and parochial, by the definition being used here (i.e., “boomers” doesn’t mean baby boomers in general, but rather those specific ones with an Apollo nostalgia). And while “Haters” isn’t a very nice label, there are in fact people who are opposed to this policy for no reason other than it was put forth by this administration (just as there were a lot of Democrats who would have cheered the VSE had it been offered by someone other than the evil Buuuuuush). As I wrote in April (where does the time go?):

The so-called conservative opposition to this new direction in space policy seems, at least to me, to come from three motivations: a visceral and intrinsic (and understandable) distaste for any policy that emanates from this White House; a nostalgia for the good old days, when we had a goal and a date and a really big rocket and an unlimited budget (what I’ve described as the “Apollo cargo cult”); and, in the case of such politicians as Senators Shelby, Hutchison, Hatch, et al., pure rent seeking for their states. Of course, these aren’t mutually exclusive: For some, all three apply. But none of these reasons addresses the problems with the status quo or the wisdom of the new policy.

But the bigger problem is trying to map the three space visions onto the two-dimensional Nolan chart (which is itself oversimplified — for example, it doesn’t usefully distinguish between legitimate concerns about national security and jingoism). I don’t know how to do it, myself, though I have to confess that I haven’t tried. But then, it wouldn’t even occur to me to do so. I have in fact written a 4000-word essay on what a conservative space policy might look like, that I’m shopping around right now, though I may just distribute it at the FreedomWorks BlogCon next week in Crystal City, and publish it here. But it’s complicated.

Jeff Foust, on the upcoming test of the five-segment SRB.

What a waste of money. If they insist on using these monsters for a heavy lifter, it will be so heavy that it means a new crawler and crawlerway at KSC. But they’ll get lots of jobs out of it, I guess.

They’re not a bubble — they’re just “frothy:”

How much foam is there on top of this fiscal frappe? Treasury bond yields are down about 40 percent in the past six months, as Gross also notes — a frothy market indeed. But I do not think Gross is showing much guts in his proposed wager: True, the U.S. government probably is not going to default on its debt in the near future. (Probably.) And, sure, he’s right that the values of the bonds will fluctuate but “won’t double, and they won’t go to zero.” But here’s the thing: They don’t have to. The government doesn’t have to default, and the value of the bonds doesn’t have to double or go to zero to cause all sorts of havoc in U.S. finances. Interest rates are very, very low — but even as low as they are, we’re still piling on debt so quickly that any serious uptick in the government’s cost of borrowing — and no, it does not have to double — could send us into a Greek-style fiscal crisis, especially if it should coincide with, say, the second and even more painful decline in a double-dip recession. Or a financial shock caused by an international crisis in, oh, Iran. Those are the kinds of risks that the Leviathan-on-a-leash guys never really account for: “Oh, everything will be fine, so long as everything is fine.”

Goody.

…to the moon. Thoughts from Dennis Wingo (who I’ll probably see in Anaheim this week — maybe even today).

This reminds me of Mike Griffin’s ridiculous comparison of Constellation to the Interstate Highway System (not to imply that Dennis’ analogy is in any way ridiculous).

…”liberals” admit defeat.

…is in the very best of hands.

Instapundit has a roundup of links, including a good sampling from ReasonTV. I have to say that, not being religious (in either worshipping God or the State) it’s not my cup of tea, and I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to attend, but neither can I imagine that I would have felt in any way uncomfortable there.

I agree that it was Tocquevillian. Much as my fellow non-religionists want to get upset about it, the fact is that this is a fundamentally (though not fundamentalist) Christian nation in its history and culture, and when the political class pushes too hard against those core values — the golden rule, thrift, virtue, self reliance — there’s going to be a revolt. That’s, finally, what we’re seeing this year. I’m sort of glad that McCain didn’t win, because he wouldn’t have turned up the heat under the pot anywhere nearly as quickly. With Obama, Pelosi and Reid, the frog finally noticed that things were getting a little too warm.

[Update a few minutes later]

Commenter “John” has it right:

That is most of America. Most of America is not attractive or cool. Most of America is white and older. Most of America is patriotic and religious. Unless and until Libertarians figure out a way to talk to these people, they will always be a fringe movement.

Yup.

[Monday morning update]

I can see November from the Washington monument.

And it’s not a pretty sight, if you’re a Democrat and/or statist.

I just don’t get all this hate on uncovered boobage and Alan Simpson. If rights to seeing and saying tits aren’t constitutionally protected, what are? The very word is enshrined and embedded right there in the middle of “consTITution.”

In fact, I think that this invention, while not the worst one in the world, is right up there, and clearly unconstitutional (audio may not be safe for work).

[Via Burge on Facebook]

Looks like the Lions will be playing an exhibition game today, and I get it on NFLHD. I wouldn’t walk miles to see them, but I guess I can make it upstairs.

I hardly ever have canned soup — I find it pretty easy to make from scratch, if I have the time. But I just tried some Progresso chicken with rotelli. I enhanced it with leftover chicken breast, and added water, but I still found it too salty, and the carrots and the noodles too mushy. I suppose that overcooking is inevitable with canning, but if this is the best (and they certainly price it that way), what are the rest like?

…your education dollars. Part of the Republicans’ platform this fall should be to abolish the Department of Education. No one would be able to accuse them of going back to “Bush’s failed policies” with that one. Well, at least not credibly.

…but not much hope:

The situation is a striking turnabout from 2007, when more babies were born in the United States than in any other year in the nation’s history. The recession began that fall, dragging down stocks, jobs and births.

“When the economy is bad and people are uncomfortable about their financial future, they tend to postpone having children,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University. “We saw that in the Great Depression the 1930s, and we’re seeing that in the Great Recession today.”

“It could take a few years to turn this around,” he added.

Then again, it might turn around on November 3rd.

…in the Gulf. Well, duh. It helps a lot that Bush didn’t go out of his way to wreck the local economy with a senseless drilling ban based on fraudulent science.

…from the Lightworker:

We know that when it comes to the high life, Democrats believe in partying hardy, sending taxpayers every bill they can while living lives of luxury the rest of us can ill-afford. We know, too, that Democrats cheat on their taxes and wrangle government deals for their relatives with a feeling of entitlement that is sure to put the term “public servant” in disrepute for the next century. Thanks to the growth of government on the Lightworker’s watch, we have seen public employees now eclipse the earnings and benefits of private workers, with the only end in sight the fate of Greece.

Praise to the Lightworker and his fellow Democrats for teaching us these essential lessons, which reinforce our will to throw them all on the unemployment lines posthaste.

I’m hoping that in a few weeks, we’ll be taking them to school.

…taking it seriously:

…James Madison, one of the chief architects of both the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, echoed Coke’s words: “That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations.” Similarly, Rep. John Bingham (R-Ohio), the author of the first section of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which applied the Bill of Rights and other unenumerated rights to the states, said that the 14th Amendment included “the liberty…to work in an honest calling and contribute by your toil in some sort to the support of your fellowmen, and to be secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of your toil.”

So what went wrong? According to Sandefur, the blame falls largely on the Progressives of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who believed that government action should be the primary agent of all social change. To that end, the Progressives enacted a mountain of new legislation that touched on every aspect of human life, from workplace regulations and antitrust statutes to alcohol prohibition, racial segregation, and eugenics.

How “progressive.” Maybe we need a new amendment.

It seems to have become my full-time job to correct this kind of thing. As for the notion that the new space policy “ends human spaceflight,” I feel like I’ve been playing whack-a-mole with that nonsense since February.

…that caused the economic disaster:

This does not strike me as a story about how income inequality caused the financial crisis. Rather, this is a story about how policies intended to reduce inequality had the unintended consequence of precipitating America’s worst economic slump since the Depression. It’s very important that we’re straight on what the story is, since different stories may have very different implications for policy. If the story is that the level of inequality itself—and not our ideas about or political reactions to it—indirectly caused the crisis, then we may think that narrowing the gap is a matter of urgent necessity. But if the story is that an ill-conceived political attempt to reduce inequality—and not the fact of inequality itself—led to apocalyptic economic devastation, then we may well conclude that it is better to refrain from equalising initiatives unless we are quite certain they will not backfire.

Darn those pesky unintended consequences.

Men like to look at beautiful women.

We like sunsets and mountain views, too, but for some reason, it doesn’t arouse so much…emotion…in our partners and life mates, when we indulge in it.

Hey, the beauty of nature is the beauty of nature…

I could write a lot more, but I’ll let the comments fray commence, it being late on a Friday night.

What will it look like?

Oh, joy. With a bonus history of Chile.