About the middle of 2010 the space shuttle is set to amble into history and none too soon for me.
I was twelve in 1981 when Crippen and Young piloted the Columbia into space for the first time. At this point in my life, I was still running home from school so I could get there in plenty of time to watch reruns of the original Star Trek (4 pm every weekday!) so I was suckered in by the space shuttle program like the rest of my generation. The space shuttle was and still is a remarkable piece of technology but in a not-at-all-stunning display of why government cannot and should not run things, NASA's bureaucracy took a step backward with one of the most incredible vehicles ever built.
Inside of a single decade the early space program went from barely achieving a stable orbit to a trip to the moon. We then repeated that miracle several more times and built a space station to boot - all before 1975 (about the time I started watching Martin Landau and crew living on Moonbase Alpha in Space:1999). By 1981 we had seen Star Wars and the first Star Trek movie. That initial launch of the space shuttle gave my entire generation (Gen X) hopes that ours would be the first to whom space would be open to ordinary people. Some of us still might be able to visit there thanks not to NASA but to 'evil capitalist' billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic project.
This year marked the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Forty years after the Wright brothers first flight, planes were dozens of times faster and ready to break the sound barrier. Forty years after Neil Armstrong became the most famous person on earth, we aren't sure NASA has retained the technology to get us back to the moon. Much of that is because of a change in NASA at about the same time the space shuttle got off the ground where it stopped being run by normal humans and and control was ceded to bureaucrats (the species Homo Bureactratis prove Darwin wrong as they are an evolutionary step backward from Homo Sapiens).
Thus even while we were cheering the new era of space travel, NASA's horizons shrank from the outer planets, Mars, and even the moon back to low orbit around the Earth. The tragedy of the Challenger turned them even more timid and the space shuttle fleet itself became little more than a delivery truck into orbit.
I feel pretty cheated. By this time in my life I expected to be able to look into the sky with good binoculars or a small telescope and see lights from humanity's first permanent base on another world. At the very least, we should have partially completed a space station along the lines of the one in they had in the dreadfully horrid 2001: A Space Odyssey. Good grief!!! I even had the plan. We could have launched a dozen or so regular rockets with building material to the moon over the course of a couple of years while the space shuttle was used to build a transport ship in orbit. It could have even been nuclear powered since the main vehicle would be a ferry between earth and lunar orbit (no risk of releasing radioactive material in a landing). Once enough stuff was landed on the moon a team of engineers would go put up the surface buildings and start digging since a base on the moon would be much safer if most of it was below ground. Over the course of two decades it might even have resembled Moonbase Alpha a little bit. But alas, the dunces in charge at NASA barely got a near-sighted telescope into space.
Like any other bureaucracy NASA now has billions of dollars swallowed up in graft, red tape, dead end projects, and corporate waste; billions that should have been tech labs, observatories, and living areas in the moon base. Billions that should have been constructing a ship on the moon ultimately destined to take the first humans to Mars. George W Bush tried to give a Kennedy-esque speech urging us on to Mars but it fell on deaf ears at NASA. The public may have cheered but NASA replied through its cadre of "Nattering Nabobs of Negativsim".
I don't expect us to get back to the moon anytime soon. My moon base exists in the same place that my flying cars do and wherever that is, it isn't any drawing board at NASA.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Quick Guide to Political Philosophy
Two political philosophers that impacted the creation of the United States, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, had very different views of government and I get the sense that their outlooks are competing against one another in the US again today as many of those who are supposed to be our servants now view themselves as our masters.
I'm hoping that most of you at least heard of these two men in your high school American Government class. Thomas Hobbes is probably best known to most of us for his statement that life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". This is the basis for his political treatise Leviathan. Leviathan is properly named considering that the paperback version I have is as thick as an average Tom Clancy novel but the type is about half the size. Hobbes argues that any government is better than being in the state of nature. Civil society should be placed under a sovereign authority that severely curtails many of the natural rights of the individual and any abuses of the heavily centralized power must be tolerated by the populace as the price of a better life than that found in his state of nature. If however the central authority crosses an egregious line of abuse then they should expect a rebellion even though he is strongly against them.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is John Locke. Locke's Second Treatise of Government argues much the opposite of Hobbes and is mercifully as brief as Hobbes is wordy. His claim is that man has certain natural rights bestowed upon him by God that predate the existence of government. As such, when we enter into the social contract of civil government, we should only cede minimal rights to the central authority for the sake of creating a civil society. Most of you might know Locke as the 'life, liberty, and property' guy. Not only does government have no right to interfere in certain of our political liberties BUT it has as an express duty the job of protecting those rights from interference by others. When a government fails to protect our rights or begins to take them from the people then the social contract is broken and as sovereign individuals we have a right and duty to rebel against that authority.
As you may have guessed from previous posts, I am most definitely in the Lockean camp as were many of the Founding Fathers. With some modification his rights to life, liberty, and property are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (the word property was replaced by pursuit of Happiness because Northern abolitionists balked at the implication of slaves in the word property). They are also embedded in the Bill of Rights with many of the rights specifically listed (free speech, press, religion, assembly, redress of grievances, arms, secure in your household) and those that are not listed covered in a catch all disclaimer in the Tenth Amendment (which bars the central government from interfering in rights not listed).
Unfortunately, too many people are not taught about our rights and into that vacuum which nature abhors step too many politicians and hucksters that see the world according to Hobbes. Our man-child president, the Kenyan bastard, is one of them. Of the one hundred Senators in Congress I would guess that about 75 of them lean toward the Hobbesian world view to some degree or another (thus making this not about party politics). I would venture to say that about 3/4 of the 435 Members of Congress are also in that camp. Some of them are there thinking that if they only had more power they could do great good but many of them - especially those who have spent more than a decade inside the Beltway - want power solely for the sake of that power. Then we are beset by a literal horde of unelected bureaucrats seething with the desire to get more control over other agencies, elected politicians, and average people like you and I. Add to that the other literal horde of those who will benefit from an expansive and corrupt government like Jeffrey Immelt CEO of GE (General Evil) which also means he is in charge of NBC (you may want to research the connection between NBC, Obama, and GE's 'smartgrid', and GE healthcare to see where that relationship is going to take us); George Soros, a crooked investor and speculator (convicted of insider trading in France) with deep pockets and a hand in the leftist Center for American Progress, ACORN, SEIU, and a host of other far left organizations; and so many other individuals/groups all vying for power over us.
I believe that we may quickly be approaching that dreadful and yet glorious day when it is necessary for us to revoke our consent to be governed by these people. All of my adult life - starting with the George Hebert Walker Bush administration - I have watched as sinister forces have been eroding our liberties. Some do it in the guise of helping the less fortunate through weakening our borders, protecting us from terrorists, 'giving' us health care, and bailing out failing businesses. Others do it through draconian bureaucracies like the IRS with its tangled web of regulations that no layman can understand or the EPA by declaring every species that sneezes as protected (or the subhuman wretches that forced wolf reintroduction in Idaho). We must not live in fear of that day or one another. That will be the one thing that stops a critical mass of us from standing up to be counted with the true Patriots. It is a daunting task but I know that I would rather die free and on my feet rather than live to an old age on my knees and die a slave to the people I've named above and their political descendants. As Patrick Henry said "If this be treason then let's make the most of it."
I'm hoping that most of you at least heard of these two men in your high school American Government class. Thomas Hobbes is probably best known to most of us for his statement that life in the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". This is the basis for his political treatise Leviathan. Leviathan is properly named considering that the paperback version I have is as thick as an average Tom Clancy novel but the type is about half the size. Hobbes argues that any government is better than being in the state of nature. Civil society should be placed under a sovereign authority that severely curtails many of the natural rights of the individual and any abuses of the heavily centralized power must be tolerated by the populace as the price of a better life than that found in his state of nature. If however the central authority crosses an egregious line of abuse then they should expect a rebellion even though he is strongly against them.
On the opposite end of that spectrum is John Locke. Locke's Second Treatise of Government argues much the opposite of Hobbes and is mercifully as brief as Hobbes is wordy. His claim is that man has certain natural rights bestowed upon him by God that predate the existence of government. As such, when we enter into the social contract of civil government, we should only cede minimal rights to the central authority for the sake of creating a civil society. Most of you might know Locke as the 'life, liberty, and property' guy. Not only does government have no right to interfere in certain of our political liberties BUT it has as an express duty the job of protecting those rights from interference by others. When a government fails to protect our rights or begins to take them from the people then the social contract is broken and as sovereign individuals we have a right and duty to rebel against that authority.
As you may have guessed from previous posts, I am most definitely in the Lockean camp as were many of the Founding Fathers. With some modification his rights to life, liberty, and property are enshrined in the Declaration of Independence (the word property was replaced by pursuit of Happiness because Northern abolitionists balked at the implication of slaves in the word property). They are also embedded in the Bill of Rights with many of the rights specifically listed (free speech, press, religion, assembly, redress of grievances, arms, secure in your household) and those that are not listed covered in a catch all disclaimer in the Tenth Amendment (which bars the central government from interfering in rights not listed).
Unfortunately, too many people are not taught about our rights and into that vacuum which nature abhors step too many politicians and hucksters that see the world according to Hobbes. Our man-child president, the Kenyan bastard, is one of them. Of the one hundred Senators in Congress I would guess that about 75 of them lean toward the Hobbesian world view to some degree or another (thus making this not about party politics). I would venture to say that about 3/4 of the 435 Members of Congress are also in that camp. Some of them are there thinking that if they only had more power they could do great good but many of them - especially those who have spent more than a decade inside the Beltway - want power solely for the sake of that power. Then we are beset by a literal horde of unelected bureaucrats seething with the desire to get more control over other agencies, elected politicians, and average people like you and I. Add to that the other literal horde of those who will benefit from an expansive and corrupt government like Jeffrey Immelt CEO of GE (General Evil) which also means he is in charge of NBC (you may want to research the connection between NBC, Obama, and GE's 'smartgrid', and GE healthcare to see where that relationship is going to take us); George Soros, a crooked investor and speculator (convicted of insider trading in France) with deep pockets and a hand in the leftist Center for American Progress, ACORN, SEIU, and a host of other far left organizations; and so many other individuals/groups all vying for power over us.
I believe that we may quickly be approaching that dreadful and yet glorious day when it is necessary for us to revoke our consent to be governed by these people. All of my adult life - starting with the George Hebert Walker Bush administration - I have watched as sinister forces have been eroding our liberties. Some do it in the guise of helping the less fortunate through weakening our borders, protecting us from terrorists, 'giving' us health care, and bailing out failing businesses. Others do it through draconian bureaucracies like the IRS with its tangled web of regulations that no layman can understand or the EPA by declaring every species that sneezes as protected (or the subhuman wretches that forced wolf reintroduction in Idaho). We must not live in fear of that day or one another. That will be the one thing that stops a critical mass of us from standing up to be counted with the true Patriots. It is a daunting task but I know that I would rather die free and on my feet rather than live to an old age on my knees and die a slave to the people I've named above and their political descendants. As Patrick Henry said "If this be treason then let's make the most of it."
Monday, December 7, 2009
Musings for Pearl Harbor Day
Today is the 68th anniversary of Pearl Harbor and I hope you will take a moment to remember what is now the second worst day in American history and the 2402 Americans who died there. Every year fewer and fewer of those who fought and survived World War II remain for us to thank. Both of my grandfathers and a number of great uncles fought in that war and all are now gone. Fortunately they told stories about their experiences that I will remember for years to come.
Pearl Harbor was one of the darkest days in American history. Just as many Americans awaited more and worse attacks in the dark days after 9/11/01, numerous Americans - especially those on the west coast and in Hawaii - lived in great fear of a Japanese invasion of America. Of course that invasion never came and in the microscope of history we know that Japan really didn't have the ability to launch a mass invasion of the US Mainland with the bulk of their ground forces sweeping through the Republic of China and Indochina.
A mere six months later the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942) drove off the spectre of invasion completely as the rejuvenated US Navy tore apart the Japanese armada and made them a third rate naval power in one blow. Though the battles in the Pacific would rage on above and below water for three more years Japan was always on the defensive from Midway on.
Less than four years later, Japan's emperor stood on the decks of the USS Missouri, in the bay of Tokyo Harbor signing a complete and utter surrender of his nation without terms while two of his most important cities still burned from the atomic blasts that devastated them. In the final analysis Pearl Harbor was a brilliant tactical moment and victory for Japan (in the west, we consider sneak attacks as a sign of cowardice and evil but in the east it is an acceptable tactic - something to consider when dealing with out Chinese 'friends') but it was a horrible strategic miscalculation. Without the ability to press the attack by following up with an invasion of Hawaii, which would have starved out islands like Midway and forced the US to operate from its own shores or from the Alaskan islands far to the north; all the attack on Pearl Harbor achieved for them was to gain an additional, intractable, and righteously angry enemy before they had chased the British out of the Pacific and hamstrung or crushed Australia as an allied base of operations.
I feel sorry for Amanda Knox. I can't imagine facing murder charges in America where the burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that you did it; but to have to face the charges in a nation without many of the guarantees the accused has here and in which the burden is on the defense to demonstrate that the accused did not commit the crime must have been overwhelming. Now I don't think she did it but I have to qualify my belief because as a man seeing an attractive young woman in distress, my protective instincts start firing up. Would I be as protective if she wasn't attractive? - that's hard to say. I don't believe that she killed her roommate but she could be hiding a Machiavellian evil inside her that we miss simply because she's attractive. In the American media we only get one side of the story and I think we lose sight of the first victim; Meredith Kercher - also a lovely young woman. I want justice for her but convicting someone of her murder wholly on circumstantial evidence is a crime in itself as it denies both Meredith and Amanda justice. There is a cautionary tale here as well. As much as you should take care with whom you associate here in America, all of us and moreso young Americans need to scrutinize their acquaintances and new friends if they are travelling, working, or schooling alone overseas.
I also feel sorry for Lindsay Lohan. Like many of you, I practically watched the spunky little freckle-faced red-head grow up in Disney movies never suspecting that pretty much everyone in her life was exploiting her. I think this happens to a number of child stars and thanks to 'reality' television it seems to be happening to a lot of other children as well. We may not be far from a day when Child Protective Services come busting through your door to wrestle away your children because you dared spank them but they ignore the real damage done to children by television shows like John and Kate Plus Eight (neither one seems a fit parent and all I've ever seen is what they show on The Soup); Wife Swap (two parents were so celebrity addicted they faked their son being in a runaway balloon for publicity early this fall); and by far the worst Toddlers and Tiaras which is nothing less than the sexualization of children (again other than seeing it appear on my on-screen guide as I search my 200+ channels for something decent to watch because Phineas and Ferb isn't on, I've only seen excerpts from it on The Soup which disgusts me enough).
Finally today, my un-Christian moment. I HATE Harry Reid and Barrack Obama. I hate Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer. These people deserve our ire and disdain. They are poised to force Cap and Trade on us in spite of the fact that man caused global warming has been discredited completely, are ready to finish forcing government run health care on us in spite of public opinion, and are finding ways to spend us into oblivion. At the risk of baiting the black helicopters and an FBI investigation, I wish for the crazed Japanese pilot in Tom Clancy that rammed a 747 into the Capitol Building. That little part of me that fights against my Christian upbringing makes a little smile curl on my lip when I imagine them all suffering eternal torment in Hell. Its hard to ignore. It whispers in my ear the hope that God does not have mercy on their souls. I know its not right but its there. It is about ultimate revenge and it embarrasses me to admit it because I know that I should love my enemy and make no mistake; these people ARE my enemy and YOURS.
Pearl Harbor was one of the darkest days in American history. Just as many Americans awaited more and worse attacks in the dark days after 9/11/01, numerous Americans - especially those on the west coast and in Hawaii - lived in great fear of a Japanese invasion of America. Of course that invasion never came and in the microscope of history we know that Japan really didn't have the ability to launch a mass invasion of the US Mainland with the bulk of their ground forces sweeping through the Republic of China and Indochina.
A mere six months later the Battle of Midway (June 4-7, 1942) drove off the spectre of invasion completely as the rejuvenated US Navy tore apart the Japanese armada and made them a third rate naval power in one blow. Though the battles in the Pacific would rage on above and below water for three more years Japan was always on the defensive from Midway on.
Less than four years later, Japan's emperor stood on the decks of the USS Missouri, in the bay of Tokyo Harbor signing a complete and utter surrender of his nation without terms while two of his most important cities still burned from the atomic blasts that devastated them. In the final analysis Pearl Harbor was a brilliant tactical moment and victory for Japan (in the west, we consider sneak attacks as a sign of cowardice and evil but in the east it is an acceptable tactic - something to consider when dealing with out Chinese 'friends') but it was a horrible strategic miscalculation. Without the ability to press the attack by following up with an invasion of Hawaii, which would have starved out islands like Midway and forced the US to operate from its own shores or from the Alaskan islands far to the north; all the attack on Pearl Harbor achieved for them was to gain an additional, intractable, and righteously angry enemy before they had chased the British out of the Pacific and hamstrung or crushed Australia as an allied base of operations.
I feel sorry for Amanda Knox. I can't imagine facing murder charges in America where the burden of proof is on the prosecution to demonstrate that you did it; but to have to face the charges in a nation without many of the guarantees the accused has here and in which the burden is on the defense to demonstrate that the accused did not commit the crime must have been overwhelming. Now I don't think she did it but I have to qualify my belief because as a man seeing an attractive young woman in distress, my protective instincts start firing up. Would I be as protective if she wasn't attractive? - that's hard to say. I don't believe that she killed her roommate but she could be hiding a Machiavellian evil inside her that we miss simply because she's attractive. In the American media we only get one side of the story and I think we lose sight of the first victim; Meredith Kercher - also a lovely young woman. I want justice for her but convicting someone of her murder wholly on circumstantial evidence is a crime in itself as it denies both Meredith and Amanda justice. There is a cautionary tale here as well. As much as you should take care with whom you associate here in America, all of us and moreso young Americans need to scrutinize their acquaintances and new friends if they are travelling, working, or schooling alone overseas.
I also feel sorry for Lindsay Lohan. Like many of you, I practically watched the spunky little freckle-faced red-head grow up in Disney movies never suspecting that pretty much everyone in her life was exploiting her. I think this happens to a number of child stars and thanks to 'reality' television it seems to be happening to a lot of other children as well. We may not be far from a day when Child Protective Services come busting through your door to wrestle away your children because you dared spank them but they ignore the real damage done to children by television shows like John and Kate Plus Eight (neither one seems a fit parent and all I've ever seen is what they show on The Soup); Wife Swap (two parents were so celebrity addicted they faked their son being in a runaway balloon for publicity early this fall); and by far the worst Toddlers and Tiaras which is nothing less than the sexualization of children (again other than seeing it appear on my on-screen guide as I search my 200+ channels for something decent to watch because Phineas and Ferb isn't on, I've only seen excerpts from it on The Soup which disgusts me enough).
Finally today, my un-Christian moment. I HATE Harry Reid and Barrack Obama. I hate Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer. These people deserve our ire and disdain. They are poised to force Cap and Trade on us in spite of the fact that man caused global warming has been discredited completely, are ready to finish forcing government run health care on us in spite of public opinion, and are finding ways to spend us into oblivion. At the risk of baiting the black helicopters and an FBI investigation, I wish for the crazed Japanese pilot in Tom Clancy that rammed a 747 into the Capitol Building. That little part of me that fights against my Christian upbringing makes a little smile curl on my lip when I imagine them all suffering eternal torment in Hell. Its hard to ignore. It whispers in my ear the hope that God does not have mercy on their souls. I know its not right but its there. It is about ultimate revenge and it embarrasses me to admit it because I know that I should love my enemy and make no mistake; these people ARE my enemy and YOURS.
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