Consider the fact that more than 100 people have already plunked down $200,000 apiece for a seat on a Virgin Galactic spaceflight and thousands more have already placed a total of $11 million in deposits for a chance at manned spaceflight.
“Intergalactic Space Virgins“, Dominic Basulto, Tech Central Station
I traced the $11 million number to a Tai quote in space.com “We
The latest, year-end Carnival of Tomorrow is up, and has a number of very interesting links (of which mine is undoubtedly the least interesting). Hard to believe that we’re already almost four years into the new century, and millennium, and while we don’t yet have flying cars, in many other ways, we’re living in the science-fiction future of our childhoods, at least for those baby boomers among us.
Here’s a good Internet equivalent of a “man-(and woman)-in-the-street interview”–a compendium of Freeper responses to the article in the Toledo Blade about Ray Kurzweil and life extension.
The interesting thing to me will be the responses when (as one commenter put it) “a mouse lives ten years.”
I’m here, but don’t have much time to blog, between getting truculent wireless connections working, family visiting, and working on a proposal with deadlines next week and telecons every day. I do want to note that there’s been a lot of discussion in this post on NSA “spying,” and while I don’t agree with commenter Jane Bernstein, I’m gratified to see that the level of discussion is informed, rational, and civil. May all my comments sections be that way.
We’re heading off to Missouri to visit Patricia’s family for a few days. I’ll probably check in from there, but not until tomorrow, if then. We’ll be back on Saturday, so I’ll save my New Years’ wishes for my return.
…from Mark Levin, for all those Democrats and journalists (and both) who are hypocritically hyperventilating about presidential power and eavesdropping.
I’m getting spammed by poker sites from Blogspot, so I’m going to shut down all blogspot URLs in comments until further notice.
Get a real URL, folks. They don’t cost that much.
I know you’ll be shocked to hear this, but the UN has been wasting tsunami relief funds.
Glenn has more.
This seems like good news:
…some Iraqis are warming to a stronger relationship with Israel, in part because they are frightened of Iran’s influence.
“They are afraid of Iran’s extremist political system. If Iran were a democracy, they wouldn’t be afraid,” Alusi said. “We don’t have border problems with Israel. We don’t have historical problems with Israel,” just Iran.
At last a glimmer of common sense on the issue. Of course, it’s important to not let this grow into a civil war, with Israel and the Sunni Iraqis on one side, and the Shia and Iranians on the other.
I haven’t said much about the NSA spying “scandal,” or the whining about monitoring mosques for radiation, but Jay Manifold has useful posts on both. As he points out, much of the discussion in the press on both these subjects (related mostly by the fact that they’re both largely symptoms of Bush Derangement Syndrome) has been appallingly illiterate and innumerate, from a technical standpoint.
On the mosque thing, I’m having trouble working up much sympathy here. I suppose that the complaint is the usual one–that we’re “discriminating” and “profiling” by not looking for evidence of nuclear materials in churches, synagogues and covens. This is a charge to which I heartily plead guilty.
The word “discrimination” has gotten a bad rap, but in fact, people who don’t or won’t discriminate, won’t last long in this world. Of course, irrational discrimination is a bad thing, but when we have limited investigatory resources, and there’s a long history (and recent and current one, in Iraq and Israel and the territories) of mosques being used as weapons depots, it makes all the sense in the world to keep a close eye on them. When it comes to nuclear materials, it’s pretty hard to justify a “right to privacy.”
[Update at noon eastern]
Michael Barone has some common sense (something that seems to be in short supply in the MSM and, as he points out, the New York Times) on the wiretap issue:
Let’s put the issue very simply. The president has the power as commander in chief under the Constitution to intercept and monitor the communications of America’s enemies. Indeed, it would be a very weird interpretation of the Constitution to say that the commander in chief could order U.S. forces to kill America’s enemies but not to wiretap — or, more likely these days, electronically intercept — their communications. Presidents have asserted and exercised this power repeatedly and consistently over the last quarter-century.