Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters 318
MarkWhittington writes "Mitt Romney has infamously suggested that the idea of lunar colonies is 'zany' and has ridiculed Newt Gingrich's idea of building a lunar base by 2020. However Romney has been endorsed by a group of aerospace heavyweights, including Apollo moonwalker Gene Cernan and former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, many of whom have previously supported the idea of lunar bases."
I feel bad for Mitt Romney (Score:4, Funny)
Then I remember he signed up for the circus.
Actually, he makes sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Building a Moon base/colony without a sustainable infrastructure to support it would be wildly expensive and wasteful. We need low cost transportation to space, and to learn how to "live off the land" (extract energy and materials in space).
The Moon is big and obvious in the night sky, but it is not the closest place in in terms of fuel to reach. Some near Earth objects have lower delta-V to get to, and all of that delta-V can use efficient electric thrusters instead of inefficient chemical ones for Lunar lander rockets. The first thing you want to extract from NEOs is fuel, but you can get 98% of everything you need to support yourself in space by mining and chemical extraction. The remaining 2% comes from Earth, but combined with launch costs that are not measured in their weight in precious metals, then you can afford a Lunar base, not before.
It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:3, Interesting)
This guy will literally say anything to get elected.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:5, Insightful)
it will not happen not because it is a wacky idea, but because there's too much money to be made on earth from terrestrial wars and bank-sanctioned Ponzi-schemes.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:5, Funny)
In Texas, a "Manned Moon Station" is 4 oz whole milk, 2 oz of Bourbon and a jigger of grain alcohol, served over shaved ice. With a tiny American flag.
The former President thought he was ordering an aperitif.
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A moon base may not be all that wacky an idea, but building it within 8 years is ridiculous. Ambitious schedules for the Constellation program would barely have had manned launches by then, and we've let that project rot for two years now. I don't think we could have a base finished by 2020 even if we were spending 5x NASA's current budget on the project. We'd have to be spending completely ridiculous sums to even have a chance at making it happen that fast.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA 2010 budget - $18,724,000,000 [wikipedia.org]
DoD 2010 spending - $680,000,000,000 [wikipedia.org]
There's room for a lot more spending on space if we change our priorities.
DoD spending was actually over budget in 2010.
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I don't see a republican president moving money from the bottom row to the top row. More likely it will be more money pumped into the military to fund gulf war v3.0.0
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um yeah maybe, I know what TANSTAFFL means but that was in 1970 and the world is a bit different now. If Iranian forces on the moon lobbed a rock at NYC the US would obliterate Tehran before the rock was half way here. The throwing rocks scenario worked because the lunar rebbels were outcasts with no relatives back home.
Additionally I reckon the US retains a military capability to operate on the lunar surface and in low lunar orbit, even if this capability does not add up to the ability to create a civilian presence there.
The lessons from Apollo were learned and the technology was relatively simple. I doubt enemy forces could dig themselves in fast enough to survive bomardment from Earth and retain the capability to fight back.
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Here's an idea to put paid to that. Golden Shower, anti satellite and launch system.
Take a liquid fueled single stage rocket (oxygen hydrogen), fore and aft fuel tanks and instead of making the tanks of insulated metal, make them from segmented titanium wire reinforced plastic. Incorporate minimum guidance, basically gyroscopic stabilisation and remote control, allow say 10% excess fuel load.
When the rockets reach the required speed and height, rotate to perpendicular, cut of the motors and use a high
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cleaning up that impossible account would mean a direct meaningful improvement on citizen's lives.
It would if debt got low enough.
Problem is that the cleanup of such a large debt would probably take quite a number of president's terms. And during each of those terms they would be able to spend far less than what the citizens are used to.
As individuals, most of us understand that in order to pay a large debt, you must first go through some pains (i.e. life according to a much lower standard) until the debt is paid of. As a group, this understanding is completely gone.
No president wants to go into history
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15 trillion is 2 trillion a year when spread over 8 years, so you could do it under one president. You'd have to eliminate all unessential government programs, and replace social security and medicare with government run lower cost options. For example you could offer free government housing, but make the housing all double occupancy studio apartments. And you could offer free health care, but only provide low cost proven procedures, have doctors do only work that can't be done by anyone else, and give out
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4)
If every person was an island, you'd have a point. As it is, we all live in countries, and we all depend on a whole host of other people being able to live their lives in a fashion enabling them to be depended on. It's almost as if you don't seem to realise that helping everyone helps everyone. If people get ill and can't get treatment without bankrupting themselves, then that's a problem not just for that person, but for that person's family, and all the people who rely on that person and their family to help provide the level of existence required for society to tick on. And it's actually more intertwined than that - we all depend on everyone else in various degrees - to refuse to pay membership for this club is short-sighted, selfish, and down-right illogical.
Use whatever words you want, just realise that you are not responsible for everything that happens in your life, good and bad. You seem to think you are some sort of sovereign entity operating in a vacuum.
And it might also help you to learn how many people use socially-funded aid and then return to being prosperous, functional, productive members of society. And learn about what happened in Greece, as your jarring analogy illuminated just how easy you let your hubris replace actual learning. If you got that wrong, what makes you (and anyone reading your post) assume you are correct about anything else? You clearly don't care for facts, just being correct.
There is no "them" and "us", just "us". Just be grateful you've never been poor.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Interesting)
No president wants to go into history as the guy that cut living standards by half only to have debt resolved a few decades later. And you'd need several presidents in a row in order to pull this off.
Interesting. Going with this mentality, either the US will slowly trickle down into lower and lower standards and more and more cutbacks are done, or it will simply default on repayments. While I do see that there are a LOT of defaults happening in the US, and that fifteen trillion debt is American personal debt, not how much the US owes other countries, I still can't really see how the US will be able to maintain the standard of living that it has - no matter what the presidents want to do. Bush was able to get away with the stupid levels of spending in a large part due to the fact that everyone still wanted to buy US bonds. That market isn't as open anymore, China is about full up on what it wants to buy, the European Union has likely learned its lesson already in the shit that it bought before the crash - and even if they hadn't, they have more than enough of their own problems to clean up to have surplus cash lying around.
Whatever the outcome, I think that this whole global economy is going to get a whole lot more interesting over the next five to ten years. While I live in a country that has terrible money management (mainly due to a slipperly slope that was started in the 80's [aph.gov.au], but we started running down it in the last ten years), at least I can be somewhat relieved that we are a massive exporter of minerals. I do seriusly wonder what will happen to economies like the US where the only things that they seem to export these days are intangible.
Government deficit and debt is a red herring (Score:5, Informative)
To anybody who reads the parent: yes, those debt numbers sound impressive. However, ultimately they are just the necessary counter-part to giving the private sector the monetary assets that it desires. This was understood a long time ago, see e.g. here [cnchost.com]. More recently, Modern Monetary Theory economists have been pushing the same point. If you haven't yet, I recommend you set aside some time to read introductory explanations e.g. here [pragcap.com] and here [blogspot.com] and here [moslereconomics.com].
The bottom line is this: targeting a specific size of the budget is bad policy. The budget will be whatever it has to be to match the behaviour of the private sector. Artificial austerity, as is being proposed these days, is coercion of the private sector to go against its natural behaviour, even when that natural behaviour is benign. In other words, austerity actually means an oppressive and draconian government. Deal with it. [wikipedia.org]
Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring (Score:5, Interesting)
I wish I had mod points today. The links you posted are excellent.
Paul Krugman has been writing some very good stuff about the debt lately. A country's debt is nothing like a household's debt. See here [nytimes.com] for one example of his writing.
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Reality has a liberal bias.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy committed the United States of America to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, by the end of the decade (1970). On July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins lifted off from Cape Kennedy. Four days later, Neil and Buzz landed the "Eagle" in the Sea of Tranquility. When Kennedy made that speech, the experts in the field were convinced he was out of his mind: the United States had not yet put a man in orbit. (John Glenn, Mercury-Atlas 6, 20 Feb 1962. Wikipedia has its uses sometimes.) It was at that time known that men COULD be put in orbit and recovered safely (Yuri Gagarin, 12 April 1961), but that was about it.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States Navy, at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. V-J day was August 15, 1945. (There was this small matter in Europe that had to be handled first.) Take a look sometime at the number of new airplanes that were developed, flown, and fielded in quantity during those four years. Take a look at the electronics development that took place.
Eight years is longer than you realize.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, the one who is the closest is O. The reason is that he is pushing private space for getting there. Newt is correct that we can be there within 2 terms if we push private space. The reason is that we have the base itself mostly done (bigelow and IDC Dover). Combine with that the work that has been done on the ISS.
So, what is missing? Heavy launch, transportation to/from lunar surface and a way to fund it. Yet, this is trivial.
Multiple companies are now working on VTVL. What is needed is a competition for these to lift 20 tonnes to 100Km or more and land it under power on earth. Then do this 5 x without a re-build.
Hold a COTS-SHLV for 2 vehicles that will take up 125 tonnes to LEO. Each vehicle will be given 5 billion for development, and must costs below
How much would this cost? A fraction of what SLS will costs to develop. Interestingly, once this is going, it is cheap to go. Why? Because it is private space. They sell trips to the moon for multiple nations, including America.
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In other words he is a politician?
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy will literally say anything to get elected.
Seeing as how the next primary is in Florida, it seems like being for a lunar base and other NASA projects would more likely be pandering.
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Newsflash... (Score:5, Insightful)
Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
they accept the idea that we (as a country) would be better off postponing something like that until we can afford it, despite how badly they would like to see it done.
Newt isn't saying we should have some giant expensive government funded plan to get a colony on the moon.
He is saying, outlay a small portion of government funds on X-Prize style contests that get the private industry heavily involved and motivated to go into space. Over time there would be a significant build up of people living on the moon
Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
No, this is what Newt said: "By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.".
I understand that to mean that he wants to have a permanent base on the moon within ~8 years, build by America.
There's nothing there about wanting to do R&D towards that goal.
He didn't say the purpose was to promote industry.
Perhaps he does, but the only thing he actually said is that he wants to achieve the goal itself.
Now I haven't followed any of the usual backtracking/reaffirming cycle that happens when an American president wannabe claims something, but that was his original statement.
Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, just to be clear on this: Small deficits don't matter. Working under a small deficit means more liquidity, a stronger economy, and therefore more growth, which means you'll be able to pay off more debt later, so you can afford a bigger deficit now, meaning more liquidity...
Once you start dealing with a deficit that's bigger than what you can reasonably expect to grow, you're in deep trouble. We've been operating with far too large a deficit for far too long, made worse by the recession.
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Insightful)
Balancing the budget most years really would be a good idea. Trying to maintain liquidity using fiscal policy doesn't really make sense; there are better ways to do that. It's true that balancing the budget every year is foolhardy, but we should probably be balanced or running a slight surplus something like five years of every seven (in harmony with the business cycle). The only deficit spending that really helps is what automatically happens in response to crises: more people come within the scope of government assistance programs and people pay less taxes because of lower income. The deficit spending that comes as a political reaction to crises is really too late to make much of a difference in the short term and is detrimental in the long run.
The basic problem is that Congresscritters have little incentive to think about what makes sense in the long run.
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...they had already ballooned the deficit by trillions of dollars.
No, that's not quite correct; they had not (yet) ballooned the deficit (I assume you mean debt) by "trillions" of dollars (defined as two trillion or more). He said that to Paul O'Neil in December 2002:
http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm [ontheissues.org]
In the last year of the Clinton administration (FY 2000) the debt was 5.6 trillion. At the end of the last fiscal year before that statement, (FY 2003, ending October 1, 2002) the debt was 6.7 trillion, which is an increase of just over a single
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Interesting)
hey, this is slashdot. no accounting is allowed (Score:2)
we all know those silly 'bean counters' contribute nothing to society. other than pointing out there were trillions of dollars hiding on some balance sheet that the government lied about. but hey. do accountants ever make cool apps for cellphones? dont think so.
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That's because for the first time since the Iraq war was started, it was put on the budget, and not in an "emergency supplement"...
Not really true. It may not have been part of discretionary budget, and it may have been allocated separate from the budget, but it was still part of federal spending, and still part of the deficit - the government has take in or borrow everything it spends, whether it's part of the budget or not. In fact, since 2009, congress hasn't passed a budget AT ALL, but they are still spending money, and still borrowing, and it's all part of the treasury department accounting.
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Do you know the difference between the debt and the deficit? One is cumulative, the other is one-year.
For the record, I voted for Bush Jr. but regretted it when he turned in the 500B deficit. I voted for Obama but regretted it when he started turning in his 1.5T deficits. I just can't win...
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Now, just to be clear on this: When Dick Cheney said that, they had already ballooned the deficit by trillions of dollars. He wasn't talking about "small deficits".
The deficit was never over $1 trillion until the 2009 budget.
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To clear things up for you, the President submits his budget proposal in February of a year, which takes effect in October of that year, and the name of the budget is for the next year (i.e. a propsal in Feb 2009 ta
Romney is a liar (Score:2, Insightful)
Funding (Score:5, Informative)
Will we be raising taxes to pay for all of this cool space stuff, or just putting it on the credit card as usual?
Re:Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're correct, we won't. Spending on a moonbsase would be an order of magnitude lower than funding Social Security.
Whether we build a moonbsase or not really has almost no bearing on the deficit. Yes, Social Security expenditures dwarf NASA spending by that much.
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No they'll just print or borrow it. No need to directly go after tax payers for funding when a more stealthy approach is available. Then they can blame the "greedy" companies for the rise in prices.
Re:Funding (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they can blame the "greedy" companies for the rise in prices.
It's like blaming high oil prices on oil companies. It is purely a coincidence that six of the top ten all time best profits recorded by a company in a year just happen to be Exxon. And it is entirely another coincidence that these six record busting years occurred in the last 6 years.
It's totally a coincidence that Corporate America have had 2 of their best years in history in the last couple of years. That they have more cash on hand than when... well ever. But yeah, the system is totally working. Power to the rich, they deserve it. I mean who cares if the economy goes in the shitter, as long as some people are getting richer then the system is working.
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I would love to see your definition of Corporate America.
Top 40 grossing US corporations? Their profits are higher than they were before the crash.
I despise Newt... (Score:2)
Not like Obama's "Sputnik Moment" where our goal was basically to stop buying Middle Eastern oil from last year's SOTU. A bit of a dud, that was.
Re:I despise Newt... (Score:4, Informative)
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NASA's most well known location is in Florida, but they're also in California (JPL, ARC), Alabama (MSFC), Australia (CDSCC), Virginia (LaRC), and Texas (JSC). Oh, and their headquarters is, of course, in Washington DC. You'd think it would come up in other places where NASA is huge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_facilities [wikipedia.org]
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True, but I think the issue came up in central Florida because the 'space coast' is primarily a final assembly and launch site. As such it saw far more job losses (both at the local contract corps. and KSC itself) than the other NASA locations that have large administrative, research or testing mandates. Not that those tasks aren't performed in Florida, they are simply on a much smaller scale than elsewhere.
Maybe this will come up again in Alabama, but MSFC has a much smaller per capita affected community t
He said it LONG ago (Score:3)
Newt floated similar ideas long ago, he even introduced a few bills that were supported in a bi-partisam manner.
He also wrote a WHOLE BOOK on space policy long ago that is damn good if you ever bothered to read anything except political news sites.
Newt knows more about space than any other politician in Washington, he has a lot of other issues but it is showing a high degree of ignorance to claim he brought this up for the first time in Florida.
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What we need to revive global interest in space is an Armageddon-like threat which motivates all nations on Earth to work together to save the planet from a large asteroid.
it would work wonders for bringing us together as a planet. But while I'm dreaming, I'd like a pony. One with a big, spotted cock.
*Cricket cricket* (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, Obama has done a bang up job and the Republican field is piss poor and is down to a bunch of former losers. The president's job is limited, and that was done on purpose to prevent any man from having too much power. For the most part, it doesn't matter what any candidates aspirations are, because if it goes against the other political bodies it will never happen.
My dad says "Anyone but Obama", but he can't ever seem to remember a good reason why. I can think of several reasons to not vote for both Republican front-runners although honestly the ones that stick out in my mind the most have less to do with their policies and plans and more to do with the kind of people they are.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:4, Insightful)
But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?
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Yeah he does his job and he has 4 years more experience doing it than these guys do. No sexual scandals. No kick-backs to friends he has in big business. He actually tries to improve things and I agree with him a lot of the time.
Romney's a villain in my eyes. He's a bad example; a person I'd be scared if children looked up to. First, he has a ton of kids. Imagine if we all did that, we'd be overpopulated like china in no time. There'd be so much competition that finding a decent job would be near impossible
Damn those Mormans! (Score:3)
Morman church
So you know so little about Romney's church that you can't even spell its common name right, but you know for certain it's evil? Where have I seen that kind of thinking before...
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As an individual who's never been a member of the Mormon church, yes, I'll admit it that in the 5 times in my life I had to spell it as opposed to just simply say it, I never realized I was spelling it wrong
I never said it was evil though. Bacteria in a petri dish are self destructive but I don't find them to be evil
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No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.
You obviously haven't been paying attention.
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> No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.
Except for Solyndra execs taking the fifth when asked about their ties to the White House.
Except for George Kaiser, a Democratic fundraiser and Solyndra investor.
Except for the Keystone pipeline being killed when it just "by accident" benefits Warren Buffett's holding in railroads that transport oil and coal in Canada and the midwest.
Except for the raid on Gibson Guitar for using Indian rosewood and ignoring Martin Guitar's use of same. Just a coincidence
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No kick-backs? Green industry mean anything? (Score:2, Informative)
Most of the Green companies Obama forced the government to invest in (Solyndra was known to be a huge risk and beyond saving at the time of investment) are collapsing now. All of them were huge donors to Obama.
The stimulus funds largely went to big Democratic donors. Obama is about systematically funneling government funds to Democratic groups. If you haven't been paying attention the deficit has ballooned in the last few years as the robbery accelerates to unprecedented levels (yes both parities do this
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama may have had no sex scandals, but neither did Bush if that's your criteria. As far as non-sex scandals go, there's Fast and Furious for a start. There's all the "green" energy companies defaulting on their federally guaranteed loans. I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that they're owned by Obama campaign bundlers [opensecrets.org] and supporters.
As far as Romney goes your complaints are:
1) He has too many children? Oh yes, how terrible that he has five children all of whom have bachelors degrees and four of which have post-graduate degrees. What a rotten place the world would be if everyone supported their children and instilled in them the necessary work ethic to finish college and graduate school and become doctors and entrepreneurs.
2) He doesn't pay an high enough percentage in taxes? He pays about 15%, which is higher than 80% [cnn.com] of the tax payers in the country. In 2009 (the last year that the IRS has stats up for) there were 58,603,938 tax returns filed without any taxable income. I'll take the guy paying 15% over the 58 million who are paying between -6% (yes, there are people with a negative effective tax rate, i.e. they receive a larger refund than they had withheld during the year) and 0%.
3) The average effective income tax rate for households earning over $200,000 is only 9.9%. Add in FICA and that tax rate will still just be topping 13%. If you pay higher than 15%, then either I congratulate you on your exceptionally high earning or seriously recommend that you find a financial adviser.
4) Charitable giving is opaque? Huh? If you want to know where your money is going, then charitable giving is your best bet as you have total control of who you give to and you can select recipients that have just as much transparency as you desire.
5) Only about 60% of Romney's declared charitable giving went to the LDS church. The other 40% went elsewhere. Regardless I find it amazing that you can complain about the LDS church. Sure they may be wealthy on a per capita basis, but why? It's not because they're penny pinchers as they do copious amounts of charitable works and disaster relief. Remember these are a group of people who walked out of the United States because multiple attempts to settle down and do their own thing ended up in their homes being burned, their leaders being murdered and their land and chattels stolen. They crossed half the continent and settled in the middle of the desert next to a lake full of water they couldn't drink. And still they are thriving. Why? Because they believe in family, hard work, education and self-reliance. And you don't want people to look up to that?
That's quite some villain.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:4, Informative)
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:4, Insightful)
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Romney's a "villain" because he's Mormon and has a large family? And this currently sits at +4 Interesting?
9/10. Well done.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah... although I'd prefer Ron Paul, I *can* think of reasons to vote Obama back in again:
Due in some degree to Obama himself: Medical care for 40 million or so people who otherwise wouldn't have it; gays being allowed to serve openly in the military; the pro-consumer pushback against the credit card companies; the end of the Iraq war; the limited engagement with Libya instead of spending our soldiers lives for no reason (again!); he signed the closure order for Guantanamo; and good odds that in his second term, when he doesn't have to concern himself with re-election, that he will turn his attention to some of his other campaign promises.
Due to other factors: Romney is an out-of-touch rich idiot; Newt is a scumbag; Paul isn't going to be supported by the republicans because they prefer an idiot or a scumbag to an actual conservative who would try to obey the constitution. Which, I guess, is why I'm seriously thinking about voting for Obama. Again. The republicans have done an *outstanding* job of shooting themselves in the foot this time around.
Is Obama perfect? Hell, no. Is he better than Romney or Gingrich? Yes, in fact, so much so that it's a slam dunk to vote for him, if those are the choices. On the other hand, on the (very) off chance that the republicans wake up and put Paul up against Obama, I'd vote for Paul simply because he says he'd bring our soldiers home and close all those foreign bases. And as president, he'd actually have the power to do it (and very little else on his agenda, so I don't worry about that other stuff much.) But let's face it: the repubs are going to put up one of the clowns, not Paul, and consequently, they're going to lose *really* badly.
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National deficits that have already put us into an impossible situation.
Gitmo still open.
Still in Afghanistan. Tried to keep us in Iraq.
Signed into law a bill that would allow for indefinite detention of American citizens.
Votes to lower funding for Social Security payroll taxes, making the system more insolvent than it was when he took office.
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Signed into law a bill that would allow for indefinite detention of American citizens.
Senate Vote [govtrack.us]
HR Vote [govtrack.us]
Although it doesn't look like it would have many any difference in the bill passing I wish he would have at least tried to veto it.
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Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing (Score:2)
Medical care for 40 million or so people who otherwise wouldn't have it
That is a lie and what about forcing people (sorry, people not Democratic donors) to pay for insurance they don't want?
Those 40 million were required already to be treated by emergency rooms. Instead Obama put impossible burdens on state budgets across the U.S. forcing them to support extra services. Obamacare was a GIANT kickback to the insurance and pharma industries. If you love big corporations, absolutely continue to vote for Oba
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I hold a mix of views on a wide variety of things, which I usually find sufficient to frustrate any democrat, republican, or libertarian. I don't hew to any platform; I simply support the ideas that I think are good ideas. For instance, I ge
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The Republican Party.
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The Republican Party.
Yeah, it's a sad day when the Republicans seem determined to put up a candidate who will make Obama look like the least worst choice.
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Dictatorship: Check
Collapse of US: Check
Slaves: Check
I am interested in your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter
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Killed Bin Laden is a good start.
And Al Awlaki, too. An American citizen. Never indicted, charged, or tried for any crime. But marked for death and killed by a drone in Yemen. Give Obama another 4 years and he'll probably be droning his enemies right here in the states.
Not that Newt Romney wouldn't do the same thing - but to vote for somebody because they can send drones to kill anybody they decide is dangerous seems like the very definition of voting against your own self-interest.
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Not if you take third parties seriously, no (and I still do; go Gary Johnson!). But unless Ron Paul wins his party's nomination (and he won't), it is likely that Obama will be way better than the Republican nominee.
That's true, since anybody other than Paul would continue most of Obama's policies anyway. But with Obama still in office, we can keep our numbers up in the opposition. If a Republican got in, too many people would stop paying attention and we might not have the numbers and the funding to keep the congress blocking all the power grabs. You'd have to explain to people WHY a policy or law change is bad and CONVINCE them to oppose it. So, yea, keep Obama in, that will make it easier: "Hey, Obama wants this
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As a Republican, I think Obama's been a terrific president.
- Kept Guantanamo open, with no sign it's closing.
- Has made nice noises about getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're really not completely leaving any time soon.
- Has set the stage nicely for war with Iran if we want it.
- Has bailed out banks and big businesses, saving them from insolvency and the consequences of their own bad decisions and cheerfully used TAXPAYER dollars to do it.
- Has pretty much laid the legal basis for the detention
This cricket has been detained by ICE (Score:3)
When it comes to voting for Republicans, though, I'd definitely vote for the incumbent black Republican to get a second term if my two choices were Obama vs Gingrich or Obama vs Romney.
Which is why I'll be 'throwing away' my vote on a third party again. Remember, it's only throwing away your vote until enough people do it.
Lunar base-- great idea. Gingrich's version- not. (Score:5, Funny)
Having a long term plan for an extraterrestrial base is a great idea. Trying to foist one on an American public tired of heavy deficit spending when our credit rating is already going south is not. Trying to build it in less than eight years when we have no plan and no existing budget is, well, loony.
You know, a one-way Moon shot would actually be inexpensive and quickly achievable. With that in mind: Newt Gingrich for President of the United States of the Moon (population: 1) 2016!!
/. - Please Don't Do This. (Score:5, Insightful)
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but people need to vent their anger to other completely uninformed individuals to have already come to the same conclusion.
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dammit, I meant:
but people need to vent their anger to other completely uninformed individuals who have already come to the same conclusion.
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So you're a one issue voter. You people really don't matter much in the big scheme of things, to either party. They will simply use your focus on one issue to get their way, and then ignore you, as you found out.
Not true. Issue voters have a LOT of influence, and the 2nd Amendment / Gun Control lobbyists prove that every year, when their bills are introduced and debated in congress and in state houses all over the country. Same goes for the Pro-life/Pro-choice voters. The only reason these things don't move very much is because there are so many passionate voices on both sides.
The LGBT voters are doing much better. A small minority, but with a major influence on public policy.
The ones that really DO NOT matte
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After they were voted into office Clinton's speech went something like this, "I don't care what you got voted in for, it's not going to happen."
So you are mad at the Republicans because a Democratic president prevented them from doing what they said they were going to do?
You just keep on not voting, that's just fine with me.
Jon Stewart Got It Right (Score:3)
Please fix the summary (Score:2)
The summary reads:
Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters
While what the article says is:
While laying out four principles that his space policy would follow, Romney declined to state what his space policy or goals would be. He reiterated his desire for a committee to experts from across NASA, the military, the commercial sector, and academic to determine what that policy might be. He did not reiterate his opposition to a moon colony, however.
So what about this summary instead:
Romney holds space plans for later; enjoys support from space heavyweights
Romney is the selected candidate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Romney has won a single primary. He isn't even in the lead of delegates, but the media keep trying to shove him down our throats as if no one else is in the race.
Disagree with their politics or not, Newt, Paul and Santorum are still in this race.
LK
Politics aside, I want a lunar base (Score:2)
I'm bored with the space station... de-orbit it for all I care. I want a lunar base. I don't even need people on it. You can have it fully staffed with robots for all I care. But make them capable of doing if only by remote control everything a human being could do on the moon.
NASA old guard wants Constellation back (Score:2)
Didn't those guys attack Obama's efforts to cancel Constellation that was started under George W. Bush? Didn't Romney just attack Obama for trying to cancel much of Constellation?
Newt Gingrich mentioned the need to do things very differently at NASA. Newt Gingrich mentioned the need to be able to launch 4 to 5 times per day. Newt Gingrich mentioned the lack of failure of the missile guys in his speech, and that DARPA was the only part of government that took risks. Newt Gingrich even mentioned the Atlas V r
I'm against a lunar base (Score:4, Funny)
Sure, they'll try to sell people on its scientific and exploratory merits; but it's all a sham meant to hide their real mission of storing spent nuclear waste on the far side of the moon. Then all it'd take is one catastrophic accident and - BAM! - the moon's sent out into deep space, and poor Barbara Bain and Martin Landau are never seen again.
Lets Get This Straight........ (Score:2)
Republicans who support Newt Gingrich don't want to pay taxes even to maintain their crumbling roads, but Gingrich wants to build colonies on the moon and make it into a 51st state?
Grape Kool Aid is nice I hear (Score:2)
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Nobody laughed at Kennedy when he stated the US would put a man on the moon in ten years (and the US had not yet sent a human into orbit). He was met with applause.
It's sad that "big" ideas like a moon base are now ridiculed.
Considering that most people had probably resigned themselves to a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, a ridiculously expensive, minimally valuable moon race probably sounded pretty damned good as an alternative way to beat the Russkies.
The moon isn't going anywhere. There's plenty of time for us to put things right at home before going back there, and in the meantime if there's really any great profit to be had there, private enterprise will be all too happy to go claim it. Times have changed; our biggest
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> Once someone has a foothold away from Earth, we'll have a new frontier to expand, on which existing governments will be largely powerless
Existing governments are already largely powerless, in that their decisions are being made by large multi-national corporate interests. Don't think for a second that those multinationals would have a bit of trouble dictating what happens on the Moon or anywhere else.
yeah there was this thing called the Cold War (Score:2)
the true effect of propaganda can be seen in the thousands of people on sites like slashdot who think that we entered the space race to fulfill some kind of technological utopian adventurous spirit of the human existential quandry alone in the universe.
we went to the moon to beat the soviet union, i.e., the commies. that was the only reason congress agreed to fund it. the only reason the soviets had a space program was because their leaders thought it was the only way to compete militarily with the US (stic
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Actually, while debt is cheap (low interest) and unemployment high (low inflation) is precisely when stupid big government projects are wise. When the economy is healthy and unemployment low is when the government should be paying down debt and reducing spending.
- no, this Keynesian type of thinking is exactly what turns a recession into a depression. This constant 'bail out' and destruction of currency prevents any savings, moves real capital out of the economy into other, better economies, better currencies, and the poverty spreads.
USSR could send the first man into space and have thousands of weapons etc., but the country couldn't feed its people, and it was 75 YEARS OF THIS "STIMULUS".
75 years for USSR, 40 years for USA. Exactly how long do you want to try?
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Between WWII and 1980, the growth in the median family income matched the growth in GDP almost perfectly
1. End of WWII allowed the depression to end, cutting gov't spending by 62% (from 95 to 36 billion USD/year) and taxes by 30%.
2. 1971 Nixon defaulted on dollar and the seventies was a period of stagflation until the interest rates were sharply raised to 21.5% in 1982, this stopped the bleeding of the economy but very soon the interest rates started going down again, and the bleeding restarted.
Using government numbers to measure GDP is completely useless, you should realise that with 11-15% per year inflatio