I heard more interviews with learned politicians informing me that “drilling for oil” will not affect anything, least of all the quantity of oil. We must apparently wait until 2015, when a magic engine that runs on unicorn flatulence is invented. I have to ask: why is anyone investing in unicorn flatulence today, when it won’t make any difference for several years? The answer’s simple: the engine will Appear at the chosen moment, borne from the clouds by starlings, but only if we have repented of our foul ways, and the last of the sinners has left the cul-de-sac to reside in a home located a sustainable distance from his or her place of employment. When the last suburban outlying development is empty, when the homes of whose size we disapprove has been abandoned, when the last citizen has been gathered unto the bosom of the urban center, where his profligate ways are sneered upon and the measure of his yard shall be no greater than the standard lot size decreed in 1902, then shall the magic engine appear. Until then, the wind and the sun will bear us onward.
Honestly, it’s like FDR coming into power promising “bold, persistent experimentation – except for any sort of government involvement in the economy. That’s off the table.”
No, in the Land of Inversion, we’ve decided to do things that run completely counter to human nature – at least to the nature we perceive in our domestic opponents. Don’t give an inch to your domestic foes; they’ll read it as weakness! To everyone else, though, it’s olive branches strewn like ticker-tape at an astronaut parade. In Israel, for example, this horrible prisoner swap – child-killer exchanged for murdered soldiers. The fellow is welcomed home as a hero by Hezbollah and Lebanon’s Prime Minister and President, because in the Land of Inversion, heads of state clear their calendar when child-killers breathe the sweet air of freedom again. It’s all relative, really. One man’s child-killer is another man’s freedom fighter, and if you point out that the “another man” is a Jew-hating idiot fanatic who’d be proud to blow up the Holocaust Museum in DC and take out a busload of Iowa tourists, you’re ignoring the significant impact this exchange had on the Climate of Trust that will lead to peace. I mean, it’s not like the entire cabinet turned out to meet the guy. In the delicate calculations of the region, that counts for something.
There are some tart words about the Archbishop of Canterbury as well.
Perhaps even more bizarrely, a few people in the comments are citing China as an example of how capitalism undermined democracy. Apparently I missed the section in history class where we covered the vibrant democracy that existed in China prior to pro-market reforms. Because in the history I learned, the openness and transparency required to support the market reforms have enabled what little movement towards liberalization China has had.
I think that a lot stronger case can be made that democracy undermines capitalism than the reverse. Once people get the ability to vote to take wealth from one and give to another, capitalism, which consists of voluntary exchange, is severely weakened and diminished.
Not to imply, of course, that either thesis is an argument against either democracy or capitalism.
As a staffer with the Academy in 1957, Mr. Cormier was in attendance at the International Geophysical Year proceedings when the Soviets surprised the world with the launch of Sputnik.
The event made a tremendous impression on him, his family said. He decided then to pursue better access to space through affordable, reusable space vehicles.
He was an early visionary. Others will have to pick up his torch now.
The National Coalition for CATS, working with leading figures across the space community, will collaborate over the next twelve weeks to develop a “National Declaration for Cheap and reliable Access to Space (CATS).” The CEOs of non-profit and for-profit companies will be invited to sign the Declaration, and will deliver this declaration to the next President of the U.S. after the November election.
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend NewSpace, which starts tomorrow in Washington, and where this will be announced, due to financial constraints. It will be the first conference I’ve missed in a while.
Obama is humorless, and full of himself. That would make him a great target for satire, except that his followers take the position that any mockery or criticism is racist. The prospect of four years of that sort of thing is the best reason I can think of not to vote for him.
I don’t think that the Obama worshipers have any sense of what a turn-off he is to the rest of us.
Obama is humorless, and full of himself. That would make him a great target for satire, except that his followers take the position that any mockery or criticism is racist. The prospect of four years of that sort of thing is the best reason I can think of not to vote for him.
I don’t think that the Obama worshipers have any sense of what a turn-off he is to the rest of us.
On July 16th, 1969, the largest rocket ever built thundered off the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, delivering three men and the equipment and supplies they would need to land two of them on the moon and return the three of them safely to earth, fulfilling the national goal declared eight years earlier. The anniversary of the landing is this coming Sunday.
I know what you’re saying — “who invited the fat chick to the Twister party?” Certainly, all of us (with the possible exception of Randy) wish she wasn’t here. But it’s important to remember that fat chicks are often an important source of party supplies, and we must take the good with the bad. In the same way, Fannie Mae supplies the critical financial weed and beer to keep our national economic party going.
The numbers are complex, but let me boil it down for the economic layperson. Fannie Mae is a government company type thing that has a large pile of money, which I will call “A”. The first thing it does is create $20 million bonuses for high performance executives like Franklin Raines, James Johnson and Jamie Gorelick, which I will call “B.” Next, it allocates an amount “C” to lobbyists to make sure important Congressmen always get a thoughtful holiday card from Fannie Mae. After subtracting B and C from A, they are left with D, which is lent to homebuyers. These homebuyers then pay back the amount E, which, when subtracted from D, leaves F, the amount Congress has to come up with. In order to keep this important financial system humming along at peak efficiency, it is necessary that you, the taxpayer, are F’ed.
Unfortunately, that’s not a choice realistically on offer. The best we’ll probably be able to do, absent some political earthquake, is a McCain in the White House, with Dems continuing to misrule the Hill. That’s not a good thing, but it’s better than the donkeys running the whole show (despite the fact that McCain isn’t much of a Republican, either).
On the other hand, a Democrat monopoly on power would have salutary effects on the elections in 2010. But I fear the SCOTUS replacements that would almost certainly ensue in the interim, which are much harder to undo. That’s really the bottom line to want to keep Obama out of the White House.
Can anyone at the agency go on the record (with PAO permission) and tell me why they think that sending ISS to the moon is a bad idea? I’m working on a piece (I think it’s a bad idea, myself, and have some better ones). Email me at the upper-left email.
Life is rough in Michelle Obama’s America, in which all six hundred bucks buys is a pair of ear rings. As for the fresh fruit, she can’t afford a refrigerator for the mansion?