What I'm really not clear on is what seems to be a apples-and-oranges comparison going on in the strategic community regarding the potential threat posed by China.
China - as it is - is not a military threat. Sure, it poses an economic threat, but this is largely of our own making, both in terms of debt burden (self-inflicted, and in extremis something that offers them leverage only as long as we accept it), currency (again, self-inflicted by world monetary authorities who refuse to hold China to 1st-world currency standards), etc.
But while China is clearly a dominant power, one might even say a regional superpower, they utterly lack any ability to project this power outside their immediate region short of lobbing ICBMs. THIS is the defining point of a global superpower (and we discovered the limits of such all-or-nothing leverage from about 1950-1980). Granted, they have a billion-man army. They may even be 'unassailable' in conventional terms, and may able to impose their will militarily on any regional actor like Korea or Japan - that doesn't mean they're a threat to the US.
In short, people seem to be comparing China's 'turtled' strengths with the US's (over?)extended might, and concluding that logical extrapolation of the former means the two will be equivalent in a couple of decades.
Hardly. The threat of China as a 'global superpower' that can contend with the US worldwide, posited for 2035, 2050, 2025 depending on who you're talking to and what his agenda is, would HAVE to include projection capability...which itself introduces orders of magnitude of vulnerability and exposure. To suggest that the US has anything to actually fear from Chinese force-projection on THAT playground assumes an almost fanciful level of Chinese buildup (akin to late-1930's Germany) along with American inattention for a double-handful of decades at least.
No, we have to understand the Chinese buildup for what it is today: an expansion of capabilities certainly, an increased lethality in the neighboring seas which has the bargain double-purpose utility to China of both being useful against other regional entities as well as useful in denying US its (soon-to-be-former) ability to operate with impunity on the water, wherever it chose to. Did we really believe that was an eternal franchise anyway? Maintaining it (if even possible) would require colossal and nonsensical budgetary investments. But their denial of our ability to rummage through their front-pockets at will is hardly a threat to anyone outside of their arms' reach.
Certainly, our commitments to our regional partners require that we expend some effort to maintain our ability to operate in their behalf - to passively accept that certain seas are no-go zones would be foolish. But let's not confuse interests-at-one-remove with any actual denigration of our ability to defend ourselves, even if it seems convenient in an era of shrinking budgets to paint it so.
Ultimately, China won't be the only regional power whose capabilities circumscribe our operational capabilities near their shores, merely the first. We need a robust strategy to face these actors over the next century, and it cannot be by simply building more ships, planes, and subs - that's a dead-end strategy and vulnerable to technological breakthroughs that obsolete our massive investments in bulk (ala the cell-phone networks in the 3rd world vs. hardline phone systems in the 1st). I personally believe that the answer to this is going to be found in orbital capabilities, taking away the 'flatland' operational assumptions that inform a boundary-defining strategy anyway. But that's another subject, for another time.
Finally, the US Navy's assertions that we need to desperately fear the untested, nearly operationally useless* anti-ship ballistic systems despite their lack of actual testing is more likely to be a politically- or budgetarily-relevant assessment; it's hardly credible as a military one.
*the utility of a ballistic-missile-based antiship system is simply nil. Short of global thermonuclear war (where all gloves are off), the idea of a system with the relatively puny goal of sinking a single ship (even a really important one) appearing to all expected sensor systems as a potential ICBM is crazy. That would be as useful as making people think your switchblade is an assault rifle - simply bringing it out will immediately & grossly overescalate a confrontation to the point that your actual ability to inflict damage is made meaningless by the response you've inspired. It's politically useless. Thus the environment in which it could be deployed would already presuppose a complete all-out nuclear war in which case it would probably be more useful to actually HAVE a MiRV'd nuke warhead on that missile, rather than a single shipkiller ANYWAY. It just doesn't make sense, and the fact of China's pushing ahead with it suggests that either its a Potemkin challenge (unlikely they could pull that off for long) or a desperate dice-roll of a strategy being ironically validated by the US naval defense community's overreaction.
28 December, 2010
Enough already about "the cops are bad"
For the people whinging about the 'culture of corruption' and brutality of the police, I have a couple of points:
1) so far I have only seen utterly unsupported assertions - anecdotal evidence quoted as "a trend" or some stoner complaining that "all the cops are" (whatever). Further, any statistics that are shown tend to prove the opposite, that increasing allegations against police are NOT leading to more substantiated cases, are claimed to be "proof" that the cops "control" the system and protect their own from prosecution. Kind of like Global Warming, it's convenient when you posit something that all evidence can be twisted to support.
2) *nobody* making these claims can possibly know anything about the history of police departments and police work, particularly in urban areas. Compare
a) police departments and systems of ombudsmen and recourse for - not to mention media and public sympathy for - people (particularly minorities, immigrants, etc.) who believe they've been mistreated today to say, the 1970s? The 1950s? The 1920s? The 1890s? Read about the police system in New York 1895-1897 when Teddy Roosevelt was NYC Police Commissioner.
b) levels of procedure, both in terms of breadth and depth, applicable to police actions in dealing with the public today vs. the same dates. These procedures are almost universally meant to protect officers AND THE PUBLIC.
c) oversight and supervision of the 'beat cop' (or 'patrol officer' today) vs. the same dates.
d) the general level of violence used against suspects vs. the same dates. PARTICULARLY in terms of (admittedly subjective) the likelihood of lethal force being used against cops vs. the use of lethal force BY police, same timeframes.
e) corruption in law enforcement, same timeframes.
You might assert that today's police have attitude issues, are domineering, brutal, resort too quickly to brutal force and are just generally a-holes. I'd assert that a certain personality type has ALWAYS been drawn to police work, and that while police officers exhibit generally the SAME bell-curve of saints/sinners as any general population I'd concede that there probably is a little 'bubble' of personalities in the domineering/controlling area. HOWEVER, I'd simultaneously assert that this has absolutely not changed over time, while the systems emplaced over the last hundred years (and particularly in the last 20-30 years) *greatly* increase the ability of police departments to 'weed out' the outliers, psychotics, and general bad apples far better than they used to. (In fact, one could argue that for a long time, early police departments didn't really want to weed these guys out, except for the real crazies.)
In short, I think anyone who believes that police officers/departments are worse than before is either arguing from a position of complete ignorance of what "before" was like, and/or simply someone bearing a grudge against police for some slight or injustice (perceived or real, cops are of course not perfect) done to them.
This entirely disregards that I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that police officers jobs have gotten less stressful and less dangerous over time. This is a whole other issue that would sound too much like a defensive justification, so I haven't even gone into it here.
1) so far I have only seen utterly unsupported assertions - anecdotal evidence quoted as "a trend" or some stoner complaining that "all the cops are" (whatever). Further, any statistics that are shown tend to prove the opposite, that increasing allegations against police are NOT leading to more substantiated cases, are claimed to be "proof" that the cops "control" the system and protect their own from prosecution. Kind of like Global Warming, it's convenient when you posit something that all evidence can be twisted to support.
2) *nobody* making these claims can possibly know anything about the history of police departments and police work, particularly in urban areas. Compare
a) police departments and systems of ombudsmen and recourse for - not to mention media and public sympathy for - people (particularly minorities, immigrants, etc.) who believe they've been mistreated today to say, the 1970s? The 1950s? The 1920s? The 1890s? Read about the police system in New York 1895-1897 when Teddy Roosevelt was NYC Police Commissioner.
b) levels of procedure, both in terms of breadth and depth, applicable to police actions in dealing with the public today vs. the same dates. These procedures are almost universally meant to protect officers AND THE PUBLIC.
c) oversight and supervision of the 'beat cop' (or 'patrol officer' today) vs. the same dates.
d) the general level of violence used against suspects vs. the same dates. PARTICULARLY in terms of (admittedly subjective) the likelihood of lethal force being used against cops vs. the use of lethal force BY police, same timeframes.
e) corruption in law enforcement, same timeframes.
You might assert that today's police have attitude issues, are domineering, brutal, resort too quickly to brutal force and are just generally a-holes. I'd assert that a certain personality type has ALWAYS been drawn to police work, and that while police officers exhibit generally the SAME bell-curve of saints/sinners as any general population I'd concede that there probably is a little 'bubble' of personalities in the domineering/controlling area. HOWEVER, I'd simultaneously assert that this has absolutely not changed over time, while the systems emplaced over the last hundred years (and particularly in the last 20-30 years) *greatly* increase the ability of police departments to 'weed out' the outliers, psychotics, and general bad apples far better than they used to. (In fact, one could argue that for a long time, early police departments didn't really want to weed these guys out, except for the real crazies.)
In short, I think anyone who believes that police officers/departments are worse than before is either arguing from a position of complete ignorance of what "before" was like, and/or simply someone bearing a grudge against police for some slight or injustice (perceived or real, cops are of course not perfect) done to them.
This entirely disregards that I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that police officers jobs have gotten less stressful and less dangerous over time. This is a whole other issue that would sound too much like a defensive justification, so I haven't even gone into it here.
14 December, 2010
The new attack on Obama: LOL
OK, I'm not fond of Obama, but this latest one is hilarious.
http://www.truth-out.org/sai-v-obama-et-al-hawaiis-legal-case-against-united-states65850
In short, Hawaii's not actually part of the US.
Seriously?
It may shock some people (particularly the Left), but ultimately, there's NOTHING behind the existence of (as far as I'm willing to spend the time thinking about exceptions) any modern state except consensus. There's no document that says "hey, here's the borders Germany's entitled to", or "here's the limits of China" - except insofar as such boundaries were IMPOSED by outside actors strong enough to enforce their limits, and conformed to by the state itself out of a broader sense of what's in its interests.
Look, country A conquers country B. Or, in the case of Hawaii, country B has an "indigneous" (hahahahaha) group 'seize power' and then cede themselves to country A. There's no title, no property document that says "A owns country B" now. If there is, there's ALWAYS some way to impugn it.
There is no such thing as international law. None. What we call international LAW are simply norms of behavior where states have agreed to cooperate in ways that MIMIC the actions of law across borders, but the simple fact is that there is no supra-national organization that has the ability to enforce anything - it's all voluntary.
Everything in the relationships of states - whether they are currently sovereign, independent states, or subject formerly sovereign states such as Hawaii, Scotland, the Navaho, or Bavaria - has to do with POWER. In many cases, the initial absorption of the subject state is a simple question of military force. Ultimately the absorbed state can either stay rebellious, or reconciles itself with its subject status. Eventually (2 generations? 3?) control becomes the norm, and no longer needs to be actively mandated.
Note that in such cases, absorption is not always resisted nor even always negative. States too follow enlightened self-interest. Often the subject can or does rationalize the advantages of being a smaller part of a larger state as a more secure, economically advantageous situation. Independence as a theory is nice, but in practical terms geopolitics is a world red in tooth and claw, and the small or young are often the first preyed upon.
My point is, what happened, happened. Queen Liliuokalani's protests and American concessions notwithstanding, if the US took down the Hawaiian flag and raised their own flag, the fact that it stands uncontested in practical terms makes it reality. Objecting to the legal formalities (the Congressional act of annexation can't have been legal, according to Dr. Sai, because US laws don't apply internationally) doesn't make the ownership of Hawaii any less real. That just makes it arguably an act of conquest instead of legality. Big deal.
The Grotian view of international norms, and legal bases for actions, has been demonstrably false for CENTURIES. Countries conform to norms that they agree with, and ignore ones that they don't, and won't agree unless compelled. Thus any sort of legal basis for the annexation of territory will ALWAYS be contestable later by some hedge-lawyer because SOMEONE will always object, and always have some rationalized basis for their objections...and unless & until that person has an army available to change the current reality, they will remain as irrelevant as ever.
The second point is that as a scholar, Dr. Sai's intellectual credibility is doubtful:
1) he contends that he "...step(s) aside from politics and power and look at Hawaii not through an ethnic or cultural lens, but through the rule of law..." - bull****. Dr. Sai is Hawaiian. To suggest that he's not taking his stance for ethnic (& political) reasons is complete nonsense. Whether his primary motivation is Hawaiian independence, or against Obama, and one goal simply dovetails conveniently with the other, his denial is disingenuous. This isn't to say that his point is de facto wrong, but to obviously perjure himself immediately doesn't add to the value of his conclusions.
2) anyone that is trying to make an academic or legal point and then likens himself to Morpheus in The Matrix isn't really doing anything to incline the rest of us take him seriously.
http://www.truth-out.org/sai-v-obama-et-al-hawaiis-legal-case-against-united-states65850
In short, Hawaii's not actually part of the US.
Seriously?
It may shock some people (particularly the Left), but ultimately, there's NOTHING behind the existence of (as far as I'm willing to spend the time thinking about exceptions) any modern state except consensus. There's no document that says "hey, here's the borders Germany's entitled to", or "here's the limits of China" - except insofar as such boundaries were IMPOSED by outside actors strong enough to enforce their limits, and conformed to by the state itself out of a broader sense of what's in its interests.
Look, country A conquers country B. Or, in the case of Hawaii, country B has an "indigneous" (hahahahaha) group 'seize power' and then cede themselves to country A. There's no title, no property document that says "A owns country B" now. If there is, there's ALWAYS some way to impugn it.
There is no such thing as international law. None. What we call international LAW are simply norms of behavior where states have agreed to cooperate in ways that MIMIC the actions of law across borders, but the simple fact is that there is no supra-national organization that has the ability to enforce anything - it's all voluntary.
Everything in the relationships of states - whether they are currently sovereign, independent states, or subject formerly sovereign states such as Hawaii, Scotland, the Navaho, or Bavaria - has to do with POWER. In many cases, the initial absorption of the subject state is a simple question of military force. Ultimately the absorbed state can either stay rebellious, or reconciles itself with its subject status. Eventually (2 generations? 3?) control becomes the norm, and no longer needs to be actively mandated.
Note that in such cases, absorption is not always resisted nor even always negative. States too follow enlightened self-interest. Often the subject can or does rationalize the advantages of being a smaller part of a larger state as a more secure, economically advantageous situation. Independence as a theory is nice, but in practical terms geopolitics is a world red in tooth and claw, and the small or young are often the first preyed upon.
My point is, what happened, happened. Queen Liliuokalani's protests and American concessions notwithstanding, if the US took down the Hawaiian flag and raised their own flag, the fact that it stands uncontested in practical terms makes it reality. Objecting to the legal formalities (the Congressional act of annexation can't have been legal, according to Dr. Sai, because US laws don't apply internationally) doesn't make the ownership of Hawaii any less real. That just makes it arguably an act of conquest instead of legality. Big deal.
The Grotian view of international norms, and legal bases for actions, has been demonstrably false for CENTURIES. Countries conform to norms that they agree with, and ignore ones that they don't, and won't agree unless compelled. Thus any sort of legal basis for the annexation of territory will ALWAYS be contestable later by some hedge-lawyer because SOMEONE will always object, and always have some rationalized basis for their objections...and unless & until that person has an army available to change the current reality, they will remain as irrelevant as ever.
The second point is that as a scholar, Dr. Sai's intellectual credibility is doubtful:
1) he contends that he "...step(s) aside from politics and power and look at Hawaii not through an ethnic or cultural lens, but through the rule of law..." - bull****. Dr. Sai is Hawaiian. To suggest that he's not taking his stance for ethnic (& political) reasons is complete nonsense. Whether his primary motivation is Hawaiian independence, or against Obama, and one goal simply dovetails conveniently with the other, his denial is disingenuous. This isn't to say that his point is de facto wrong, but to obviously perjure himself immediately doesn't add to the value of his conclusions.
2) anyone that is trying to make an academic or legal point and then likens himself to Morpheus in The Matrix isn't really doing anything to incline the rest of us take him seriously.
11 December, 2010
MN GOP are stupid.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/eve...cle/id/185541/
"The Minnesota GOP is punishing two former governors and a former U.S. senator for backing the Independence Party candidate in the governor’s race, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
MPR reports that delegates to the party’s state central committee meeting voted 59-55 Saturday to bar 18 Republicans from party activities for two years, including the 2012 Republican National Convention."
I hate my state. The majority of the people in MN are either card-carrying communists, bleeding hearts, or white-guilt limousine liberals. The Republicans have gone from a centrist party to a cabal of right-wing zealots whose entire political platform starts and ends with abortion.
I can understand the party's anger with Carlson. I thought he was a decent governor who was a little too socially liberal for me but a great administrator and conciliator, particularly when faced with MN's traditional Democratic perma-lock on the house and senate. Unfortunately, he seems to have some sort of personal baggage over Pawlenty, and (seemingly and mistakenly) blamed him for the rightward swing of the GOP.
Because of this personal issue with Pawlenty, Carlson has let himself be used by the Left in this state starting with MPR as their 'cat's paw' Republican, trotting him out to publicly criticize just about everything Pawlenty has done. That's sad, but the humiliation of playing such an obvious role is its own punishment.
But Quie? Really? I met the guy right after his governorship and he always seemed to be a warm, likable person as well as centrist politically. In MN to win the governorship you COULDN'T be far-right wing. This is a blue state, sorry, but that's a fact.
The GOP nationally has always been a minority party, and thus has always been a little better at marching together even if we disagree on minor issues...we've simply had to, to be successful at all. This repudiation of a couple of Republican icons in the state is just stupid, and shows how disconnected the MN GOP is.
I've regretted my vote for Ventura for years, and I'm generally a "party" voter, but this act by the GOP has made me accept that I need to seriously consider the next IP candidate regardless of winnability. Nice job, morons.
"The Minnesota GOP is punishing two former governors and a former U.S. senator for backing the Independence Party candidate in the governor’s race, according to Minnesota Public Radio.
MPR reports that delegates to the party’s state central committee meeting voted 59-55 Saturday to bar 18 Republicans from party activities for two years, including the 2012 Republican National Convention."
I hate my state. The majority of the people in MN are either card-carrying communists, bleeding hearts, or white-guilt limousine liberals. The Republicans have gone from a centrist party to a cabal of right-wing zealots whose entire political platform starts and ends with abortion.
I can understand the party's anger with Carlson. I thought he was a decent governor who was a little too socially liberal for me but a great administrator and conciliator, particularly when faced with MN's traditional Democratic perma-lock on the house and senate. Unfortunately, he seems to have some sort of personal baggage over Pawlenty, and (seemingly and mistakenly) blamed him for the rightward swing of the GOP.
Because of this personal issue with Pawlenty, Carlson has let himself be used by the Left in this state starting with MPR as their 'cat's paw' Republican, trotting him out to publicly criticize just about everything Pawlenty has done. That's sad, but the humiliation of playing such an obvious role is its own punishment.
But Quie? Really? I met the guy right after his governorship and he always seemed to be a warm, likable person as well as centrist politically. In MN to win the governorship you COULDN'T be far-right wing. This is a blue state, sorry, but that's a fact.
The GOP nationally has always been a minority party, and thus has always been a little better at marching together even if we disagree on minor issues...we've simply had to, to be successful at all. This repudiation of a couple of Republican icons in the state is just stupid, and shows how disconnected the MN GOP is.
I've regretted my vote for Ventura for years, and I'm generally a "party" voter, but this act by the GOP has made me accept that I need to seriously consider the next IP candidate regardless of winnability. Nice job, morons.
14 May, 2010
There Will Be Blood - a review
160 minutes of overacting, overdirecting, set appropriately to a distracting overbearing score. Reviewed here in an appropriately wordy style.
Part of it is that I guess I’m simply not a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis; I first enjoyed his portrayal of Natty Bumpo immensely. Since then I’ve watched him in Gangs of New York, My Left Foot, Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Age of Innocence…and in every one I’ve practically winced through his performance. There are some great actors who play roles effortlessly, slipping into roles without us ‘noticing’ that they’re an actor. DDL is precisely the opposite – he is clearly working so terrifically hard to ‘be’ whoever he’s playing, and it seems that we’re meant to notice. It’s the acting equivalent to deliberately coloring outside the lines so we can see what neat crayons he’s using. Perhaps it’s a self-conscious theatricality that plays better on a stage & footlights, but somehow he’s managed to overact even larger-than-life, bombastic roles like The Butcher in GoNY, or this character Daniel Plainview in TWBB.
In TWBB the first problem is that it’s derived from an Upton Sinclair story, Oil!, so we expect that we’re going to see a sermon on the evils of capitalism. Ironically, this turns out to be one of the lesser ills, as the director used only the basic setting and (according to IMDB) about 150 pages of the novel as source material – the rest is made from whole cloth. I’ll therefore actually reserve judgment on Sinclair’s contribution to this until I actually read the story myself.
The film starts very promising; roughly the first 10 minutes of the movie are entirely without dialogue, and tell a solid, interesting prologue over the span of a decade before the first words flow. Unfortunately, the first words are jarring: despite the character’s origins in Fon-du-Lac, WI, DDL allegedly chose the director John Huston as his vocal model. Odd, as Huston was from Nevada and his cadences were utterly non-Midwestern. More importantly, he had a characteristic method of speaking that was both pretentious and artificial; it was precise, over enunciated, and almost as if he was always reading a script for transcription. If you’ve never heard it, you might instead remember Bugs Bunny’s line from Space Jam “I’m a Shakespearean Actor!” – pretty much the same delivery. It could be that DDL was going precisely for this, some sort of grand huckster-showman delivery with a fourth-wall wink to the audience that everyone else in the movie seems to be “buying it”, something that simply doesn’t work on film.
At first I thought this was an actual biography; characters drift in and out, growing or losing importance based on seeming externalities to the story that are never explained. It may be an effort at realism. Unfortunately what can be forgiven in a portrayal of reality (which necessarily must be somewhere bounded to fit into a retelling) ends up just being chaos on the screen. Who are these people? Is he important? Wait, where did he come from? Certainly we care nothing for this parade of shadows that voice a few lines and then depart. His adoptive son, HW, is potentially a meaningful character – Plainview adopts him after one of his early workers is killed, leaving the boy an orphan. In the book, he’s apparently adopted for his usefulness - dragged along much as a showpiece, a hood-ornament displaying Plainview’s “family” nature. This isn’t successfully brought into the film; he’s shadowing behind Lewis, trailing along mostly ignored but then occasionally the object of real (apparent) affection. Why? Does he really love the boy? Like Plainview’s occasional bursts of violence and temper, these are seemingly inserted randomly, apparently meant to give the characters some “depth”. Unfortunately, complexity without consistency – allowing the audience to build a semblance of logic behind it – just comes off as incoherence.
The actor (Paul Dano) who had apparently already been shot in early scenes as Paul Sunday (whose revelation to Plainview about oil on his family’s property really is the initial dramatic incident of the film), was allowed to also play the “other brother” Eli Sunday, the director rationalizing that they happened to be identical twins. Ironically, this spins the audience a hint of subtle dramatic promise – when Plainview, having bought the information after a tense negotiation with Paul, goes surreptitiously to inspect the property under the guise of quail hunting, he meets Eli. To all appearances, it’s the same young man that sold him the information, yet Eli acts as if he’s never met Plainview before? Was Paul a false name? Is Paul/Eli playing some sort of double game against his father, the property owner? Regrettably, we eventually figure out that it’s not drama; it’s confusion and director laziness. No, Eli the religiously-obsessed stay-at-home son who is takes the role of the community antithesis to Plainview (never quite so clearly delineated as such, either) just HAPPENS to be the identical twin to the opportunistic and canny Paul, who never shows up again in the film.
Part of it is the character of Daniel Plainview – Sinclair is writing very much as an anti-Rand (aynti-Rand?) highlighting the deliberate isolation and loneliness of the wealth- and power-obsessed. Unfortunately, while showing how Plainview travels alone through life the director is too successful –he’s cut off from the audience too. We simply don’t care what happens to him. He neither kicks the dog to make a proper villain, nor demonstrates any character development that might make him an anti-hero. Like John Galt he starts out as a 2d caricature of obsession, stays a 2d character of obsession, and ends a 2d character of obsession.
Finally, not least – I had to make some mention of the horrible scoring. The best movie scores enhance the picture, building drama at dramatic scenes, suspense at suspenseful scenes, etc. Bad scores make you notice the emotional manipulation by ham-handed and overloud themes that blatantly attempt to coerce you into feeling a way that the film fails to. The worst score, I discovered with TWBB, would be one that is so repeatedly ham-handed and overloud that not only are you not moved, but they blare into oversaturation and annoyance. I can’t recall another movie in recent memory that caused me to reach for the ½ mute button for minutes on end, to wait until some apparently dialogue made it worth bringing up the sound again.
I rarely do this, but I confess I stopped watching after an hour and a half, with more than an hour left in the picture. I freely admit that I may have missed some great last-reel payoff that caused the entire film to dramatically coalesce into some great work of art that justified the entire experience. I submit that I doubt it – I disbelieve that a director could make the bulk of a movie so painful and boring without hinting at some signs of brilliance that would suggest a smooth resolution. If they were there, I certainly missed them. Boy, did I miss them.
10 May, 2010
I wish the future was closer...
I feel like a bit of a Pollyanna posting this, but...it's something I keep coming back to:
No president recently (Obama, Bush, Clinton) nor either party in Congress has really been willing to put their money where their mouths are as far as space exploration.
I'd contend that in terms of benefit to humanity in general, it's a far better use of resources than just about any other giant-government project, particularly wasting our time, money, and lives trying to drag some archaic tribes* into the 21st century, or saving people from medical consequences of their life choices.
* a goodly chunk of the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the bulk of Africa)
An intensive focus on materials-science IMO would get us over the hump in terms of the industrial-scale production of tensile-strength material suitable for a space elevator. We're GOOD at solving big engineering questions.
The construction of a station in high orbit (let the stupid, worthless ISS burn to cinders) would be a steppingstone to
a) orbital mining operations that could essentially end any need to lift resources into orbit, and even radically change the availability of raw materials on earth - I'd personally reject any plan to bring an asteroid anywhere toward earth...a one-in-a-billion chance of error would still be several orders of magnitude too risky.
b) nearly perfect security for tech-capable nationstates. The ability to quickly field "brilliant pebbles" that would be in practical terms immune to neutralization in a first strike would ensure that any state with the capability would effectively have a permanent second-strike ability to annihilate any opponent, regardless of what happens on earth. People may hate MAD as a policy, but the fact is, it worked as well as it needed to.
c) exploration and exploitation of the rest of the solar system becomes simple and cheap enough to become the province of business, not just government: nearly inexhaustible energy supplies around the Jovian planets, abundant hydrocarbons, the resources to sustain ourselves once we're out there, are out there.
Ultimately, the dispersal and distribution of humanity across the solar system would provide significant redundancy and survivability of the species in the case of catastrophe on earth. Pick your poison: economic catastrophe, political conflict, geological disaster, heck, a goof with the LHC or even extraterrestrials sick of our 'noise' in the neighborhood pitching a relativistic boulder at earth from light-years away - there's no end to the list of potential world-enders. And as we become more technologically capable, our ability to fsck up our entire planet is growing.
The first step is a BIG one, but once we get up there, I'm pretty sure humanity's natural urges would make the spread automatic.
No president recently (Obama, Bush, Clinton) nor either party in Congress has really been willing to put their money where their mouths are as far as space exploration.
I'd contend that in terms of benefit to humanity in general, it's a far better use of resources than just about any other giant-government project, particularly wasting our time, money, and lives trying to drag some archaic tribes* into the 21st century, or saving people from medical consequences of their life choices.
* a goodly chunk of the south Asian subcontinent, as well as the bulk of Africa)
An intensive focus on materials-science IMO would get us over the hump in terms of the industrial-scale production of tensile-strength material suitable for a space elevator. We're GOOD at solving big engineering questions.
The construction of a station in high orbit (let the stupid, worthless ISS burn to cinders) would be a steppingstone to
a) orbital mining operations that could essentially end any need to lift resources into orbit, and even radically change the availability of raw materials on earth - I'd personally reject any plan to bring an asteroid anywhere toward earth...a one-in-a-billion chance of error would still be several orders of magnitude too risky.
b) nearly perfect security for tech-capable nationstates. The ability to quickly field "brilliant pebbles" that would be in practical terms immune to neutralization in a first strike would ensure that any state with the capability would effectively have a permanent second-strike ability to annihilate any opponent, regardless of what happens on earth. People may hate MAD as a policy, but the fact is, it worked as well as it needed to.
c) exploration and exploitation of the rest of the solar system becomes simple and cheap enough to become the province of business, not just government: nearly inexhaustible energy supplies around the Jovian planets, abundant hydrocarbons, the resources to sustain ourselves once we're out there, are out there.
Ultimately, the dispersal and distribution of humanity across the solar system would provide significant redundancy and survivability of the species in the case of catastrophe on earth. Pick your poison: economic catastrophe, political conflict, geological disaster, heck, a goof with the LHC or even extraterrestrials sick of our 'noise' in the neighborhood pitching a relativistic boulder at earth from light-years away - there's no end to the list of potential world-enders. And as we become more technologically capable, our ability to fsck up our entire planet is growing.
The first step is a BIG one, but once we get up there, I'm pretty sure humanity's natural urges would make the spread automatic.
26 April, 2010
It seems relevant for the last 50 years....
Americans need to understand that not every country holds the same values. We have to come to some sort of philosophical comprehension of this, and try to set aside the natural native ego involved. (We have trouble with this.)
(American values) != (everyone else)
in the same sense that
(Western humanism) != (everyone else)
in the same sense that
(Western humanism) != (everyone else)
This doesn't mean that American values are BETTER either. (Or WORSE either, Democrats.)
Different.
Different.
How does a liberal society cope with other societies that aren't as liberal? We believe that women are equal to men in capability and opportunity. Certain societies don't believe this. Does this mean that the women there are 'oppressed' and should be 'rescued'? Would they even agree? Should we aggressively evangelize our beliefs, because we're 'certain' they're better in an absolute sense? Aside from the fact that other cultures may be JUST as certain of their superiority, how does this jibe with the (current) Western opinion frowning on the actions of 16-19th century colonialist missionaries, who were JUST as certain at the time that they needed to do what they were doing to SAVE the souls of the 'poor little ignorant fuzzy-wuzzies'?
My personal answer to this makes people uncomfortable. What's yours?
Why we should quit searching for alien civilizations.
Hypothesis:
The universe is roughly 15 billion years old.
As I understand it, our solar system is approximately 5 billion years old, and was generated from a molecular cloud that would itself have been created by a previous star exploding, which would have had a lifespan (to be nova-likely) of something under 1 billion years. So VERY roughly speaking, our entire existence cycle is roughly 6 billion years or so.
Even granting that the universe didn't really settle into its current state for the first 5 billion years, that would give the first civilizations - if there are any, and to me it's likely - as much as a 5 billion year head-start on us.
So extant civilizations in the universe would be anywhere from 0 (just reached sentience) to 5 billion years old. Given that on such a scale, we're just on the verge of reaching starflight ourselves, we don't really have to worry about encountering any races YOUNGER than us...they won't be starfaring.
Which means that anyone we meet is going to be anywhere from 0 to 5 BILLION years more advanced.
Look at Earth, and ask yourself what chance a civilization would have against a group only 1000 years more advanced. And then consider the increasing PACE of development - the next 1000 years' tech will be a MUCH greater step than, for example 0 AD to 1000 AD, or 1000 AD-2000 AD.
And then figure out how 'troubling' we'd be to someone 100,000, a million, or a billion years more advanced?
By their scale, really, we'd be insects (minus perhaps the ability to actually annoy). If they want something we have, they'd just take it and probably not even notice our objections.
So no, I'd like to HOPE that they are also ethically advanced, but I wouldn't stake humanity on it. I'd much prefer that they didn't even know we were here (aside from the chance of accidental obliteration due to construction of a hyperspace bypass...), and that we have absolutely nothing they want.
Further, my thought experiment would also suggest that yes, if they DID care to observe us out of some curiosity, we'd have absolutely no clue, even if they were right here. A billion years more advanced? Do ants notice you watching them? I doubt it. Hell, events that we take to be logically-explainable processes like volcanoes could just be the equivalent of the finger of a bored supersentient adolescent.
02 April, 2010
Bread and Circuses
Bread and Healthcare^H^H^H Circuses:
After Benjamin Franklin signed the Constitution, he was reportedly asked: "Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" To which he replied: "A republic, if you can keep it."
Franklin is also reputed to have said at some other time, "when the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
Alexander Tyler (1787) re the fall of the Athenian republic
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
Robert A Heinlein:
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. ... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so..." They'll vote themselves bread and circuses every time "until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader [such as] the barbarians enter Rome."
thanks to jimmysmith.blogspot.com
After Benjamin Franklin signed the Constitution, he was reportedly asked: "Well, doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" To which he replied: "A republic, if you can keep it."
Franklin is also reputed to have said at some other time, "when the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic."
Alexander Tyler (1787) re the fall of the Athenian republic
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."
Robert A Heinlein:
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. ... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so..." They'll vote themselves bread and circuses every time "until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader [such as] the barbarians enter Rome."
thanks to jimmysmith.blogspot.com
17 March, 2010
Civil War: States' Rights or Slavery?
I was asked the other day if I thought the Civil War was about Slavery, and if it was inevitable.
In any case, they punted on trying to solve it, in favor of cobbling together what union they COULD at the time. It was one of their greatest failures, both politically and it must be said, morally - when you make a statement such as "all men are created equal" and then fail to recognize the dichotomy between that and the 18th century attitudes towards women and people of color, that's pretty egregious even granting them a pass on the morals of the time.
In a sense, it was the logical extension of the Federalist arguments from the Constitutional conventions: as the Union grew, more and more states were added who weren't party to, nor convinced by, the necessity of a strong Fed. Without the pressures of revolution, and subsequently the War of 1812, the Jeffersonian ideal of a collection of freely-associated but independent states seemed, on the surface, to be a viable idea.
On the other hand, realities of taxes and administration of a continent-wide country seemed to make the need for a firmer hand in Washington even more apparent to others. Couple this chronologically to a growing recognition that the US was fast becoming the only remaining country with a commerce in slaves, and the human rights issues of slavery, the two issues became inevitably coupled.
The split between the two opposing views of how the country should go on was brewing and intensifying, there was a weak effort at mitigation called the Missouri Compromise in 1820 - it solved nothing, and heightened the political balance implications between slave and free states in Congress. So the two issues were intertwined for more than 60 years before the Civil War.
It's naive to say that the Civil War was purely about slavery or about states' rights - it was about both. I'd say it was mainly states rights, as executed and displayed over the issue of slavery, which quickly dominated the public consciousness.
Continuing Discussion:
As a philosophical debate, it touches on critical issues of states' right and centralization that to this day remain if not unresolved, then not-comfortably resolved. Witness the main objection to the Obama administration's effort to nationalize healthcare: there are dozens of arguments, but the core one is "Is this an issue that the Federal Government is ENTITLED to control?"
Personally - and my view should be clear from the beginning - I actually sympathize with the South in the terms of states' rights. As mentioned by someone else, I think the seceding states WERE entitled (by the articles of confederation and the Founders' principles of discussion during the Constitutional Conventions) to depart the union. Absolutely. I also agree with Lincoln's assessment that the Union would not survive secession - we would have quickly fragmented into regional 'countries' with more homogenized values: New England, MidAtlantic, Great Lakes, Great Plains, Texas, etc. As mentioned above, I believe slavery as an institution would probably have died off economically, but probably would have remained as an abhorrent "cultural" practice and a burr to later relations forever until resolved.
I can appreciate Lincoln's actions as nakedly illegal, but necessary, if that makes sense.
So to answer your questions from that POV and my seat as a die-hard Northerner:
Is there still a conflict between state/country that expresses itself in Civil War terms? From this far north? Not really. It's over and done, although there pervades a view around here that the south is generally more racist (I doubt that's true, actually, not because the South is less racist than believed, but because I well know that once you get outside of the liberal, metro core of my own state, people are really, really quite racist - less in younger generations, but still quite so). I think the South, having suffered more intimately the brutality of the end of the war, still holds a grudge in many places, understandably. I'd also say that the South tends to dismiss the Northern communities' sacrifices during the war, too; witness the 1st MN regiment at Gettysburg...all volunteers, suffering 83% casualties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Min...nteer_Infantry. I will say that their actions still choke me up reading about it, and point out that the MN Historical society to this day holds (but doesn't display) the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Regiment captured that afternoon...Virginia even threated a lawsuit about it recently, and the MN Attorney general basically said "Go ahead and try it."
I know there is always talk of secession by Texas, who lets face it would rank pretty highly compared to a lot of european countries (by GDP) as a stand alone country. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the lies.
I don't really see TX as a 'typical' Southern state in the context of the Civil War - to me that would be the core Southern states of Georgia, S.Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and possibly Virginia. Texas joined the south (IMO) almost as a 'friend of the cause' - not that they were particularly pro-Slave, but really on the states' rights issue, and have always wanted to choose their own path. As far as a 'prototypical' Southern state, I'd have to say Georgia - sedate, agricultural, very flat growth. For the north, probably New York - industrial, immigrant, growing rapidly, wealthy, populous.
My gut response, and my pat response for years is that it was of course NOT about slavery, it was really about States' Rights.
But in writing a reply to this person (someone from outside the US), I've come to the more reasoned conclusion that you really can't separate the two issues:
The cause was states' rights.
The issue was slavery.
The issue was slavery.
It *was* inevitable, because the Founders had never really resolved the tension between the power of the states and the fed; I think that they'd felt a certain amount of tension was both inevitable and necessary, but probably irresolvable UNTIL at least several generations had passed and a working proforma system was in-place.
In fact, I'd guess that by the end of the constitutional conventions, there were some of the more far-sighted ones that maybe even predicted that this would eventually be the rock on which the union might founder.
In fact, I'd guess that by the end of the constitutional conventions, there were some of the more far-sighted ones that maybe even predicted that this would eventually be the rock on which the union might founder.
In any case, they punted on trying to solve it, in favor of cobbling together what union they COULD at the time. It was one of their greatest failures, both politically and it must be said, morally - when you make a statement such as "all men are created equal" and then fail to recognize the dichotomy between that and the 18th century attitudes towards women and people of color, that's pretty egregious even granting them a pass on the morals of the time.
In a sense, it was the logical extension of the Federalist arguments from the Constitutional conventions: as the Union grew, more and more states were added who weren't party to, nor convinced by, the necessity of a strong Fed. Without the pressures of revolution, and subsequently the War of 1812, the Jeffersonian ideal of a collection of freely-associated but independent states seemed, on the surface, to be a viable idea.
On the other hand, realities of taxes and administration of a continent-wide country seemed to make the need for a firmer hand in Washington even more apparent to others. Couple this chronologically to a growing recognition that the US was fast becoming the only remaining country with a commerce in slaves, and the human rights issues of slavery, the two issues became inevitably coupled.
The split between the two opposing views of how the country should go on was brewing and intensifying, there was a weak effort at mitigation called the Missouri Compromise in 1820 - it solved nothing, and heightened the political balance implications between slave and free states in Congress. So the two issues were intertwined for more than 60 years before the Civil War.
It's naive to say that the Civil War was purely about slavery or about states' rights - it was about both. I'd say it was mainly states rights, as executed and displayed over the issue of slavery, which quickly dominated the public consciousness.
Continuing Discussion:
As a philosophical debate, it touches on critical issues of states' right and centralization that to this day remain if not unresolved, then not-comfortably resolved. Witness the main objection to the Obama administration's effort to nationalize healthcare: there are dozens of arguments, but the core one is "Is this an issue that the Federal Government is ENTITLED to control?"
Personally - and my view should be clear from the beginning - I actually sympathize with the South in the terms of states' rights. As mentioned by someone else, I think the seceding states WERE entitled (by the articles of confederation and the Founders' principles of discussion during the Constitutional Conventions) to depart the union. Absolutely. I also agree with Lincoln's assessment that the Union would not survive secession - we would have quickly fragmented into regional 'countries' with more homogenized values: New England, MidAtlantic, Great Lakes, Great Plains, Texas, etc. As mentioned above, I believe slavery as an institution would probably have died off economically, but probably would have remained as an abhorrent "cultural" practice and a burr to later relations forever until resolved.
I can appreciate Lincoln's actions as nakedly illegal, but necessary, if that makes sense.
So to answer your questions from that POV and my seat as a die-hard Northerner:
Is there still a conflict between state/country that expresses itself in Civil War terms? From this far north? Not really. It's over and done, although there pervades a view around here that the south is generally more racist (I doubt that's true, actually, not because the South is less racist than believed, but because I well know that once you get outside of the liberal, metro core of my own state, people are really, really quite racist - less in younger generations, but still quite so). I think the South, having suffered more intimately the brutality of the end of the war, still holds a grudge in many places, understandably. I'd also say that the South tends to dismiss the Northern communities' sacrifices during the war, too; witness the 1st MN regiment at Gettysburg...all volunteers, suffering 83% casualties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Min...nteer_Infantry. I will say that their actions still choke me up reading about it, and point out that the MN Historical society to this day holds (but doesn't display) the battle flag of the 28th Virginia Regiment captured that afternoon...Virginia even threated a lawsuit about it recently, and the MN Attorney general basically said "Go ahead and try it."
I know there is always talk of secession by Texas, who lets face it would rank pretty highly compared to a lot of european countries (by GDP) as a stand alone country. Everything is bigger in Texas, including the lies.
I don't really see TX as a 'typical' Southern state in the context of the Civil War - to me that would be the core Southern states of Georgia, S.Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and possibly Virginia. Texas joined the south (IMO) almost as a 'friend of the cause' - not that they were particularly pro-Slave, but really on the states' rights issue, and have always wanted to choose their own path. As far as a 'prototypical' Southern state, I'd have to say Georgia - sedate, agricultural, very flat growth. For the north, probably New York - industrial, immigrant, growing rapidly, wealthy, populous.05 March, 2010
How Many Chelseas?
How many times will sex offenders re-commit crimes before we understand that they cannot be 'cured'? Each "chance" you gives them means someone else probably dies.
In this case, for example, a beautiful, intelligent, innocent 17 year old is now dead, having spent the last moments of her too-short life in misery, terror, and anguish. All because she had the AUDACITY to believe that she could go for a run.
Generally, I give liberals a pass. They mean well, but are subfunctionally naive to the point of incompetence. But I'm getting tired of it.
Seriously, quit sympathizing with criminals, and trying to understand their crimes. Just PUNISH them. And if their crime is serious enough, they no longer rate the consideration given to a human, and put them down like a rabid animal that poses a threat to the public at large.
How many times will sex offenders re-commit crimes before we understand that they cannot be 'cured'? Each "chance" you gives them means someone else probably dies.
In this case, for example, a beautiful, intelligent, innocent 17 year old is now dead, having spent the last moments of her too-short life in misery, terror, and anguish. All because she had the AUDACITY to believe that she could go for a run.
Generally, I give liberals a pass. They mean well, but are subfunctionally naive to the point of incompetence. But I'm getting tired of it.
Seriously, quit sympathizing with criminals, and trying to understand their crimes. Just PUNISH them. And if their crime is serious enough, they no longer rate the consideration given to a human, and put them down like a rabid animal that poses a threat to the public at large.
26 February, 2010
Healthcare, Schmelthcare. They can't get out of their own way.
I found it ironic this morning that during the 'summit' on Healthcare the soundclips were
a) Republicans saying 'this plan is too expensive'
b) Democrats saying 'this is the plan you have for your staffers'
...as if b contradicts a.
The logical conclusion is obvious to anyone NOT one of the elected narcissists in that room: get rid of the luxury plan available to federal employees (including those farkers in congress), and let federal departments compete and buy healthcare plans like ANY OTHER BUSINESS, and allocate for it in their budgets. But oh no, that's inconceivable.
I actually don't mind Germany's healthcare system, but we have to understand that any system that mandates a certain level of care for all will necessarily reduce the incentives to develop the PEAK quality care that is available here in the US (albeit unaffordable to anyone not a Saudi sheik or Canadian PM). If this is acceptable, then let's move that direction.
Unfortunately, I'm more and more convinced that our politicians of all sides are so base and self-obsessed that it's nearly functionally impossible that they actually could accomplish something beneficial to our country; I tend to be obstructionist on structural issues mainly because I can't believe that they won't f*ck it up as they (R or D) try to sell us down the river for their lobbyists.
a) Republicans saying 'this plan is too expensive'
b) Democrats saying 'this is the plan you have for your staffers'
...as if b contradicts a.
The logical conclusion is obvious to anyone NOT one of the elected narcissists in that room: get rid of the luxury plan available to federal employees (including those farkers in congress), and let federal departments compete and buy healthcare plans like ANY OTHER BUSINESS, and allocate for it in their budgets. But oh no, that's inconceivable.
I actually don't mind Germany's healthcare system, but we have to understand that any system that mandates a certain level of care for all will necessarily reduce the incentives to develop the PEAK quality care that is available here in the US (albeit unaffordable to anyone not a Saudi sheik or Canadian PM). If this is acceptable, then let's move that direction.
Unfortunately, I'm more and more convinced that our politicians of all sides are so base and self-obsessed that it's nearly functionally impossible that they actually could accomplish something beneficial to our country; I tend to be obstructionist on structural issues mainly because I can't believe that they won't f*ck it up as they (R or D) try to sell us down the river for their lobbyists.
03 February, 2010
Welcome to the start...
We'll see how this goes.
I tend to blather on about random subjects far longer than anyone is willing to listen. So here's a place where I can do just that.
First, let me explain the name. Rithmomachia is a chess-like game that rivalled Chess in popularity through the Renaissance, and then was almost completely forgotten until rediscovered by historians. I think that's kind of neat, it's fun to play, and quite frankly, it's a clever name that wasn't already taken. :\
Wiki link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rithmomachia
java applet that plays it here: http://symbolaris.com/applet/Rhythmomachia.html
Second, my first general post, regarding the US Space program.
Is the US space program in remission? Yep.
Is NASA floundering? Yes, it's overbureacratized but occasionally puts out some astonishingly good science and engineering - witness the Martian rovers, Cassini - so I suspect the talent is there, hiding under an increasing crust of politicized nonsense.
The space shuttle was a horrible design, made by committee.
The ISS is a stupid setpiece project - too low, too small, & too incremental to really advance the concepts of long-term space habitation or construction.
Face it, we have an ever-increasing population here in the US that is less and less technologically oriented in real terms - sure, there are LOTS of 12 yr olds that can run Facebook or whip through the hardest PS3 game without breaking a sweat, but fewer engineers and astronomers. These people are electing representatives that choose to continue to spend a massive % of the Federal purse on:
- medical care for elderly and poor
- taking care of the seniors that didn't save enough for themselves (far longer than the originally-planned what, 6-8 years that were originally envisaged?)
- caring for the unemployed/able
If you were to look at the economics of it rationally, are ANY of those things (representing about 52% of the FY2009 spend) really ever going to benefit the country in general in the longest term?
Basically, having an aggressive space program takes leadership with balls, people willing to accept that astronauts die in a terrifically dangerous job, people willing to accept the guns vs. butter choices economically that will hurt in the short term for a benefit in the longest terms. We tend not to elect them because they aren't willing to pander to US.
Is NASA floundering? Yes, it's overbureacratized but occasionally puts out some astonishingly good science and engineering - witness the Martian rovers, Cassini - so I suspect the talent is there, hiding under an increasing crust of politicized nonsense.
The space shuttle was a horrible design, made by committee.
The ISS is a stupid setpiece project - too low, too small, & too incremental to really advance the concepts of long-term space habitation or construction.
Face it, we have an ever-increasing population here in the US that is less and less technologically oriented in real terms - sure, there are LOTS of 12 yr olds that can run Facebook or whip through the hardest PS3 game without breaking a sweat, but fewer engineers and astronomers. These people are electing representatives that choose to continue to spend a massive % of the Federal purse on:
- medical care for elderly and poor
- taking care of the seniors that didn't save enough for themselves (far longer than the originally-planned what, 6-8 years that were originally envisaged?)
- caring for the unemployed/able
If you were to look at the economics of it rationally, are ANY of those things (representing about 52% of the FY2009 spend) really ever going to benefit the country in general in the longest term?
Basically, having an aggressive space program takes leadership with balls, people willing to accept that astronauts die in a terrifically dangerous job, people willing to accept the guns vs. butter choices economically that will hurt in the short term for a benefit in the longest terms. We tend not to elect them because they aren't willing to pander to US.
__________________
(and maybe this makes me a bit of a Nancy, but I dedicate this place to my mom. She'd always encouraged me to think critically, speak boldly, and suggested many times that I do just this - start a blog where perhaps amongst the volume of chaff, someone might occasionally find a grain of value. I miss you mom.)
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