Senator Grassley thinks that private tax preparers aren’t up to the job:
“It
Standing Up To The Bullies
Michael Totten does:
Let me give you some personal advice, Hussein. Maybe we can be on the same page for a change. Get out of the
Space Tourism=Space Settlement
We start with the richest among us only able to afford a few minute or a few days in space. As we get richer and space gets cheaper, we can have space studios, then space apartments, space mansions, space palaces and space shopping malls. People live where they are. The spectrum from tourism to settlement is just a measure of time. Where does space tourism leave off and space settlement begin? Two-week time shares are probably tourism. One-way tickets, definitely settlement. What’s the down payment on a one-year lease?
Tweaking The Drake Equation
Planet formation may be much more common than previously thought:
Scientists say the latest finding should shed light on how planetary systems form.
“It shows that planet formation is really ubiquitous in the universe. It’s a very robust process and can happen in all sorts of unexpected environments,” said lead researcher Deepto Chakrabarty, an astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Tell Us Something We Don’t Know
Not all’s well in terrorist paradise. Osama bin Laden apparently has a big mouth.
Mohammed, held in American custody at an unknown location since his capture in Pakistan three years ago, portrays himself as a brilliant terrorist manager.
Throughout the discussion, he is almost contemptuous of the wealthy bin Laden, who held the purse strings.
According to Mohammed, bin Laden lacked inspiration and vision. The Saudi failed to understand the basic security requirements of terrorist plots, such as keeping silent about impending attacks. Mohammed cites bin Laden’s decision to inform a group of visitors to his Afghan headquarters that he was about to launch a major attack on American interests.
Then he told trainee terrorists at the al-Farooq training camp “to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20 martyrs”.
Mohammed and a fellow terrorist manager, Mohammed Atef, who was later killed in an American air attack, were so concerned that they asked bin Laden to shut up.
I guess he never heard the phrase, “loose lips sink ships.”
Tell Us Something We Don’t Know
Not all’s well in terrorist paradise. Osama bin Laden apparently has a big mouth.
Mohammed, held in American custody at an unknown location since his capture in Pakistan three years ago, portrays himself as a brilliant terrorist manager.
Throughout the discussion, he is almost contemptuous of the wealthy bin Laden, who held the purse strings.
According to Mohammed, bin Laden lacked inspiration and vision. The Saudi failed to understand the basic security requirements of terrorist plots, such as keeping silent about impending attacks. Mohammed cites bin Laden’s decision to inform a group of visitors to his Afghan headquarters that he was about to launch a major attack on American interests.
Then he told trainee terrorists at the al-Farooq training camp “to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20 martyrs”.
Mohammed and a fellow terrorist manager, Mohammed Atef, who was later killed in an American air attack, were so concerned that they asked bin Laden to shut up.
I guess he never heard the phrase, “loose lips sink ships.”
Tell Us Something We Don’t Know
Not all’s well in terrorist paradise. Osama bin Laden apparently has a big mouth.
Mohammed, held in American custody at an unknown location since his capture in Pakistan three years ago, portrays himself as a brilliant terrorist manager.
Throughout the discussion, he is almost contemptuous of the wealthy bin Laden, who held the purse strings.
According to Mohammed, bin Laden lacked inspiration and vision. The Saudi failed to understand the basic security requirements of terrorist plots, such as keeping silent about impending attacks. Mohammed cites bin Laden’s decision to inform a group of visitors to his Afghan headquarters that he was about to launch a major attack on American interests.
Then he told trainee terrorists at the al-Farooq training camp “to pray for the success of a major operation involving 20 martyrs”.
Mohammed and a fellow terrorist manager, Mohammed Atef, who was later killed in an American air attack, were so concerned that they asked bin Laden to shut up.
I guess he never heard the phrase, “loose lips sink ships.”
A Canary In The Coal Mine?
Well, actually a swan in the wild. It was found dead of avian flu, in Scotland.
A spokesman for the Scottish Executive said that if H5N1 was confirmed, ministers would have to make an immediate decision on whether all farm birds across the United Kingdom would be brought indoors.
A decision would also be made on whether restrictions would be imposed on the movement of goods from poultry to eggs.
Not good news for the UK, or the world.
What Is Wealth?
Dennis Wingo makes a curious statement in a comment to my April Fools post.
Space tourism is a wealth depleter, not a wealth maker.
Is there something unique about space tourism that makes it a “wealth depleter,” or is it true of tourism in general? If so, I suspect that the region around Orlando, Florida would find it a surprising statement. As would Hawaii, or much of the Caribbean. Or France.
I’ve had this argument before, once on the NASP program, with a second lieutenant who didn’t believe that something had value unless you could drop it on your toe (in defiance of the market, in which people part with their money every day for non-material items).
I often complain about politicians who are focused on creating jobs, rather than creating wealth, which is why we have a very expensive, and not very productive space program. But what is wealth? I don’t know what Dennis means by his statement, but I’m quite confident that he’s very, very wrong. Which society is wealthier–one in which no one travels anywhere, or one in which many do?
There is value in tourism–if there weren’t, people wouldn’t pay money for it (and travel and tourism are among the top three industries on the planet, measured in the trillions of dollars). A world in which people can afford to go into space, and indulge themselves in their desires to do so, is a world that is wealthier than a world in which they cannot. Moreover, the space passenger market is just the kind of market needed to drive launch costs down, and reliability up, which is a necessary condition for many other space activities that Dennis presumably would consider “creating,” rather than “depleting” wealth.
Truly, I find this statement utterly baffling.
Well, That Sucks
A woman who forgot to put on her seat belt, or close her sun roof during a tornado, was sucked out of her car and deposited three hundred feet away.
Only three hundred feet? Sorry, that’s far short of the new recently set record.