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Hey, he'll never be as well-known as the miserable failure who's destroying the Republican Party. What, did you think that pissing on the constitution, fighting losing wars of attrition and deepening our debt were Republican values?

Ooh, you're such a rebel! Look at you, modded down (boo hoo!) for daring to speak the truth. I bet Rush will just swoop down and share his oxy with you, to numb the pain of rejection. How patriotic of you to take a nasty nasty downmod for Team America!

"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."

Ooh, you're such a rebel! Look at you, modded down (boo hoo!) for daring to speak the truth. I bet Rush will just swoop down and share his oxy with you, to numb the pain of rejection. How patriotic of you to take a nasty nasty downmod for Team America!

"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."

Ooh, you're such a rebel! Look at you, modded down (boo hoo!) for daring to speak the truth. I bet Rush will just swoop down and share his oxy with you, to numb the pain of rejection. How patriotic of you to take a nasty nasty downmod for Team America!

"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."

Ooh, you're such a rebel! Look at you, modded down (boo hoo!) for daring to speak the truth. I bet Rush will just swoop down and share his oxy with you, to numb the pain of rejection. How patriotic of you to take a nasty nasty downmod for Team America!

"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."

Ooh, you're such a rebel! Look at you, modded down (boo hoo!) for daring to speak the truth. I bet Rush will just swoop down and share his oxy with you, to numb the pain of rejection. How patriotic of you to take a nasty nasty downmod for Team America!

"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."
"I'm a miserable failure, and I approved this message."

Such an effort is doomed to be a miserable failure.

In many ways.

For several years, whoever happens to be President of the US at the time has made an annual Presidential Determination to prevent "disclosure to unauthorized persons of classified information concerning that operating location." Here is Bush's Determination from last year :

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20 030916-4.html

President Bush gave the area an exemption from EPA regulations on waste disposal in 2002:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20 020918-9.html

Don't forget .gov. People who mix up whitehouse.gov with whitehouse.com are in for quite a surprise.

Yeah, one prints made-up stories, the other is a... Jesus Christ! I thought you said whitehouse.org! Oh my eyes! My pure Christian Eyes!

Or should we just play it safe due to the likelyhood of potential legal wranglings with large commercial interests and start calling it The Symantec Web before the boys in charge decide to open up a keg on your hippy ass!!! I'm sure El Capitan would be none too pleased, but hey! You certainly can't please everybody! These are the times we're living in!

Amazing how easy it is to feell like a gray haired grumpy old man at 35 when it comes to the web! eeehhh...when I was a kid, we had 4 KAAAAY of CORE MEMORY...1 MHz and NO SHOES! and we LIKED IT!!!

Don't forget .gov. People who mix up whitehouse.gov with whitehouse.com are in for quite a surprise.

I beg to differ...

You are not telling the story in hope that people follow the link.
Here it goes, short version: they tried, they tried hard, to make a cell phone ignite gasoline vapours... and it was a miserable failure. They put the stuff in a closed environment, tested many concentrations of gas vapour, nothing worked.
The only way this happens is static electicity near the fuel entrance

Note... I don't have an agenda other then to point out inaccuracies in or the issues behind sufficiently vague statements, I will leave my politics out of it.

----

You do realize that a lot of the surplus came from the taxes generated by the false economy that was the .com bubble, both during the bubble and as it collapsed (massive capital gain tax income at the peak and initial slide of the markets). Additionally large personal and business income tax proceed directly results from the false employment that took place during the .com bubble.

If you look at the federal outlays as a percentage of GDP (which is a good way (but not the only way) to relate numbers from differing years and decades) you see the following and it doesn't support your unqualified quadrupled statement. If fact it points out that the government outlays are still smaller in relationship to GDP then during the Reagan years (or Carter / Bush Sr. and half of the Clinton years).

Carter: 20.7 (1977), 20.7, 20.1, and 21.7 (1980)
Reagan: 22.2 (1981), 23.1, 23.5, 22.1, 22.8, 22.5, 21.6, and 21.2 (1988).
Bush Sr.: 21.2 (1989), 21.8, 22.3, and 22.1 (1992)
Clinton: 21.4 (1993), 21.0, 20.7, 20.3, 19.6, 19.2, 18.6, 18.4 (2001)
Bush Jr.: 18.6 (2001), 19.4, 19.9, and 20.2 (est.)

Also generating more debt then previous 200+ years is an interesting but inaccurate statement from what I can see (without some clarification on your part). Looking at the budget numbers I don't see how you came up with that, since for example at the start of Bush Jr's term (2001) the nation debt was 5,769,881 (millions of dollars) and as of 2003 it is 6,760,014 and 6,760,014-5,769,881 = 990,133 and 990,133 is less then 5,769,881 that he start with (which existed before he got into office). As a percentage the debit has grown by 17% or on average 5.7% per year under Bush Jr.

Anyway note that the 5,769,881 was built up in the "200+ years" before him.

As a comparison lets look at Clinton's term which started with 4,351,044 (1993), 5,181,465 (1996) and 5,628,700 (2000). If you take the whole term... 5,628,700-4,351,044=1,277,656 and as a percentage... 29.4% increase or 3.7% per year under Clinton.

Note that Clinton had a stable and then booming economy for a large part of his term (large gains in GDP) and relatively small, generally decreasing spending on national defense and related items. Bush Jr. started with a rapidly sliding economy (reduced tax income) and an attack on the US soil, not seen sense WWII. As a result national defense (in this case FBI, police, fire, health, military, etc.) spending increased as well as a couple of large military actions, wars.

Of course you should likely look at the numbers in the terms of GDP as well but I didn't bother but if curious: 32.5% in 1981, 53.1% in 1989, 66.1% in 1993, 57.5% in 2001, 62.4% in 2004 and 67.5% (estimated) in 2005.

For the fun of it look at around the WWII time period... 52.4% in 1940, 97.6% in 1944, 121.7% in 1946, 98.2% in 1948, etc.

Anyway look at the real numbers in this budget history document (PDF) and draw your own conlusions. Just remember to also factor in what was taking place during the various time periods.

(I hope I didn't copy any wrong numbers out of this document when doing the above... also the term dates I used should likely be move on year later since the next president cannot greatly affect things until the second term of his presidency... also note that the budget/spend is controlled by congress more so then just by the president).

An error of this magnitude is inconceivable. It really makes me think the figure must be $565 million, in which case this is pretty small potatoes for a big organization that's been around for a long time. (Lose track of $28 million a year - 0.2% of your budget - for 20 years and there's your number.) It certainly reflects inefficiency at NASA, but is there anyone, anywhere, who would be surprised by inefficiency at NASA?

WTF? That is so old technology. I've had a working invisible suit for such a long time. Check this pic out, I'm standing right beside Bush giving him the bunny ears. And everyone is clapping too! You should the other places I get into!!

1. No U.N. does not equal unilateral.

A token coalition whose members A) are extremely dependent on US policy, and B) whose leaders actively ignored the sentiments of their constituants in order to join the battle, may meet some technical definition of "multilateral". However, it does not have the strategic, diplomatic, or moral advantages that the term implies.

2. WMD was not the only reason given for the attack on Iraq (read the actual transcript of the State of the Union address instead of your DNC talking points).

You mean this one? I count 14 paragraphs about WMDs, 1 about how Hussein defines evil, 1 telling the Iraquis they'll be liberated (as an effect -- not a justification), and maybe another 2 about how this is one way of seeking peace. I'm not sure what you were trying to point out here. WMDs were quite clearly the reason given, with some beneficial side effects given and a context in an overall goal (peace!) added on.

3. Iraq is a battle in the war. The war is on terror.

What are the political objectives of this war? What's the endgame -- how does it look when it's over? Which strategic objectives did this "battle" in Iraq meet?

4. Anyone who still doesn't think AL Qaeda and Iraq have links after the beheading of a kidnapped American and the Jordanian bomb plot is self-delusional.

Everyone knows there are terrorists in Iraq now. The question is, which ones were there before? Are there more or less than there were?

5. The patriotism Mill describes is the degraded patriotism of the man who cries out that it is the patriotic duty not to fight, no matter the cause.

I don't see how that has anything to do with patriotism. There's a lot of aspects to loving and supporting one's country other than fighting for it. Hell, Gandhi helped win independence for India by expressing exactly the sentiment Mill is talking about. But as long as you're bringing it up, I don't see anyone saying we should never fight, no matter the cause. I think there's plenty of situations where it's right to defend your country. But a lot of patriots agree that Iraq wasn't one of those.

6. It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. -Winston Churchill

Ooooh! Snap! Looks like someone's got a quote dictionary, and he's not afraid of whipping it out. Well I guess John Stuart Mill can spout fascist crap and Winston Churchill can make nursery school insults as well as the rest of 'em.

I really hope we never get to that point in our society. Do you vote democrat? Let's get Kerry in office and make sure our leaders respect the constitution. Also, email the president, and the vice president to let them know where you stand on the issue. Politicians follow votes, and although I think Bush's religious leanings may make it unlikely he'll listen to democrats about a lot of things, I think enough polite emails could help temper him.

I really hope we never get to that point in our society. Do you vote democrat? Let's get Kerry in office and make sure our leaders respect the constitution. Also, email the president, and the vice president to let them know where you stand on the issue. Politicians follow votes, and although I think Bush's religious leanings may make it unlikely he'll listen to democrats about a lot of things, I think enough polite emails could help temper him.

All 20 Bushes are recognized correctly. The only anomaly is a repeated recognition of one face; the system sees two faces at the same location. But on the other hand, only one chimpanzee face of 20 is recognized in full and one by its eyes. In 15 of the 19 chimpanzees, the system sees no face at all. The remaining two chimpanzees show a false positive.

Pffl. Do you honestly think the percentage of GDP that is government spending has changed significantly in three years?

Yes. Do they not have newspapers where you live or something? One would hope you at least heard about Sept. 11th?

link
link
link
link
link
link

How about google bombing? can us slashdotters spread the word and link to: nigritude ultramarine, nigritude ultramarine, nigritude ultramarine or is there something even funnier that I can't think of?

The EAC didn't start up until January 2004. There was a long delay because the 4 commissioners were not nominated until October 2003 or confirmed by the US Senate until December 2003.

I've been hearing this kind of bullshit for the past 30 years, yet in the meantime Europe keeps getting richer and poverty keeps steadily increasing in the US.

I disagree. The US on the whole is fabulously wealthy. The level of poverty isn't a constant that can be directly compared between countries; our governments define the poverty line. Almost 70 per cent of US residents own homes, and most of us have our own private transportation. Perhaps you're thinking of the pay gap between blue collar workers and senior management, which has been increasing (and will continue as long as regulations of wages, benefits, etc. continues to make hiring riskier for small companies, and as long as the majority of our manufacturing infrastructure remains at a technology level somwhere between the 1930s and the 1960s). It also doesn't help that our welfare system has (or had) the tendency to keep generations of families on the dole, instead of helping them become self-sufficient. Considering that the basic system pays according to the number of dependants, you can see how that creates a growing class of people way below the poverty line.

Europe has lower crime, longer lifespans, lower infant mortality, you name it they've got it. Go back to reading "USA Today" and keep dreaming that you live in utopia.

I don't know if it's a lower crime rate, or the fact that we arrest people at the drop of a hat. Having lots of disposable income and harsh drug law enforcement doesn't help (in urban areas), either. I have no mortality statistics for westernized European countries, so I can't compare the mortality rates, but the average lifespan in the US is about 77 years. I don't contend that the USA is the ultimate utopia, but then again the definition of "utopia" appears to be subjective. What some others suggest would be my definition of Hell. This is not to say that the way it is now is my ideal; I do complain, but on the whole I've had a pretty comfortable life.

p.s. USA Today is junk rag as far as I'm concerned.

Um, the president signed the PATRIOT Act, and is pushing for its renewal, so I think it's pretty fair to count the act against him (as well as against those members of Congress that voted for it).

"He signed you bill, now you're a law!!!"
-- Schoolhouse Rock!

...than our current overlords.

As opposed to the conservative regime in another country with its henchmen?

We have the Democrats to thank for that one.

No, you have the Republicans to thank, since they are the ones who allowed the "under God" reference to be added in 1954. Congress passed it, but Eisenhower should have vetoed it. Since try, thank you for trolling.

the official whitehouse transcription of the speech in question

There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again.

Actually, spamming of blogs/message boards is successfully used by spammers. The goal however is not that the spam will be seen by people reading the blog, but rather that the spammer's website will get a high ranking on google.

It works on the same principle as googlebombing (like the miserable failure thing), except you post stuff like video poker (so that, in this example, google searches for "video poker" lead to the spammer's website). It works because many bloggers use default settings for everything, which makes it easy to write a spamming script. All you need is a list of URLs of blog sites running the same blogging software.

As for the comment spam being deleted, the spammers easily fly under the radar by focusing on older stories that no one (except Google's spiders) is looking at.

One last thing, just to be clear -- the for-profit spammers aren't using the GNAA scripts. Those scripts focus on posting thousands of comments, all to the same weblog. Such a crapflood would be ignored by PageRank and therefore be useless. The for-profit spam scripts focus on posting one comment each to as many different weblogs as possible.

I have here a list of the names of 207 jews
Rumsfeld
Wolfowitz

I have here a list of the names of 207 negroes
Colin Powell
Condi Rice

I have here a list of the names of 207 scumericans
Bush
US Constitution

I have here a list of the names of 207 scumerican opinions
support for nazi-style invasion

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
versus
Censorship
more Censorship

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
versus
Murder
Gangster justice

Maybe the Iraqis are merely exercising their "Right to bear Arms" in their own country against a foreign invader.

I have here a list of the names of 207 jews
Rumsfeld
Wolfowitz

I have here a list of the names of 207 negroes
Colin Powell
Condi Rice

I have here a list of the names of 207 scumericans
Bush
US Constitution

I have here a list of the names of 207 scumerican opinions
support for nazi-style invasion

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
versus
Censorship
more Censorship

Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
versus
Murder
Gangster justice

Maybe the Iraqis are merely exercising their "Right to bear Arms" in their own country against a foreign invader.

Hoover is the only OTHER president besides Bush to have a net job loss during his presidency. Think you're right about the engineers.

Easter 2004

The Lord is risen indeed... Luke 24

I send greetings to Christians around the world as they gather to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus' life and teachings continue to speak to every generation, and Christians believe his miraculous Resurrection provides hope for the future and offers us the promise of new life.

Through His ministry and sacrifice, Jesus demonstrated God's unconditional love for us. He taught us the importance of helping others and loving our neighbors. His selfless devotion and mercy provide a remarkable example for all of us.

As families and friends gather to enjoy this Easter season, we celebrate God's gift of freedom and His love that conquers death. For those who observe Easter, our faith brings confidence that good will overcome evil and that joy is everlasting. Today, we give thanks for God's many blessings and pray for His peace in the affairs of men.

Laura joins me in sending our best wishes for a happy Easter.

GEORGE W. BUSH

As an enlightened, modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. My children have never failed to make me proud, and I can say without the slightest embellishment that I have the finest family in the USA.

Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children's education would not be complete without some grounding in modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter, Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: "Peter is a computer hacker!"

As you can imagine, I was amazed. A computer hacker in my own house! I began to monitor my son's habits, to make certain that Cindy wasn't just telling stories, as she is prone to doing at times.

After a few days of investigation, and some research into computer hacking, I confronted Peter with the evidence. I'm afraid to say, this was the only time I have ever been truly disappointed in one of my children. We raised them to be honest and to have integrity, and Peter betrayed the principles we tried to encourage in him, when he refused point blank to admit to his activities. His denials continued for hours, and in the end, I was left with no choice but to ban him from using the computer until he is old enough to be responsible for his actions.

After going through this ordeal with my own family, I was left pondering how I could best help others in similar situations. I'd gained a lot of knowledge over those few days regarding hackers. It's only right that I provide that information to other parents, in the hope t

As an enlightened, modern parent, I try to be as involved as possible in the lives of my six children. I encourage them to join team sports. I attend their teen parties with them to ensure no drinking or alcohol is on the premises. I keep a fatherly eye on the CDs they listen to and the shows they watch, the company they keep and the books they read. You could say I'm a model parent. My children have never failed to make me proud, and I can say without the slightest embellishment that I have the finest family in the USA.

Two years ago, my wife Carol and I decided that our children's education would not be complete without some grounding in modern computers. To this end, we bought our children a brand new Compaq to learn with. The kids had a lot of fun using the handful of application programs we'd bought, such as Adobe's Photoshop and Microsoft's Word, and my wife and I were pleased that our gift was received so well. Our son Peter was most entranced by the device, and became quite a pro at surfing the net. When Peter began to spend whole days on the machine, I became concerned, but Carol advised me to calm down, and that it was only a passing phase. I was content to bow to her experience as a mother, until our youngest daughter, Cindy, charged into the living room one night to blurt out: "Peter is a computer hacker!"

As you can imagine, I was amazed. A computer hacker in my own house! I began to monitor my son's habits, to make certain that Cindy wasn't just telling stories, as she is prone to doing at times.

After a few days of investigation, and some research into computer hacking, I confronted Peter with the evidence. I'm afraid to say, this was the only time I have ever been truly disappointed in one of my children. We raised them to be honest and to have integrity, and Peter betrayed the principles we tried to encourage in him, when he refused point blank to admit to his activities. His denials continued for hours, and in the end, I was left with no choice but to ban him from using the computer until he is old enough to be responsible for his actions.

After going through this ordeal with my own family, I was left pondering how I could best help others in similar situations. I'd gained a lot of knowledge over those few days regarding hackers. It's only right that I provide that information to other parents, in the hope t

First of all, if you get mugged, would you rather have a gun or a cell phone? Choose carefully; one will help, one will not.

Let's see... if I have a gun, at 5'2" and female, it won't probably stay in my hand very long, especially if I'm surprised... so it's a lot more likely to kill me than I am to kill my assailant with it. If I have a cell phone, it can't kill me, and might summon aid fast enough to catch the guy. Certainly it can help me cancel my credit cards so fast that they do him no good.

Secondly, it does not follow that since government has for the most part, replaced volunteer fire departments with state employees, that the VFD's didn't do at least as good a job.

It doesn't follow that they did or didn't. One needs a whole lot more information about the subject to know why it was done.

However, any public good is likely to be under-provided without a coercive method like taxation to force compliance. A volunteer FD is in many cases only going to provide sufficient firefighters if people are in essence "required" to serve, which then eliminates the volunteer nature. Also, communities' firefighting forces will be drastically different based on a number of socioeconomic characteristics, whereas government-funded and provided FDs can be distributed more equally among different regions.

Thirdly, when it comes to accountability for government spending, who exactly are you trying to kid?

Apparently, you're still kidding yourself.

The information is all public record, and most of it is online. Check out the OMB's website sometime. Now try getting that much information about the spending of any given company you own stock in.

Just because people don't use the information doesn't mean it's not there. Usually, it means they want a scapegoat for their own laziness and lack of responsibility. The government we have is the government we want, ultimately. If you personally want something different, you've either been outvoted or you're part of the apathetic majority who would rather complain than actually write your congresscritter or participate in a campaign.

Did you purposefully misquote this in an attempt to mislead, or was it accidental?

Accidental this was. The quote came directly from a "Presidential Mis-Speak" calendar.

I found the transcript the quote was taken from and you are correct. I thank you for calling me on this. My sig has been updated to a more in-context quote from that same transcript until I find a better one.

National Disgrace

Really, honestly, get over it. He's been out of power for nearly four years. There has to be psychologically something wrong with someone that obsessed with an out-of-office President, still more with one whose only apparent problem was lying about an affair he should never have been asked about in the first place.

Please. It's 2004. Live for today.

Well on the plus side they found this out before they started making a ton of products that use it.

Oh, don't worry, right wing economists, right wing governments and bough-and-paid-for "scientists" will smugly declare that this is the usual bleating from the Church of Environmentalism, that More Study Is Needed, and that any attempt to ban it or learn more about possible ill effects is an affront to Free Trade and a crime against mankind.

• proposing laws to strip American suspects of their citizenship,
• imprisoning American citizens arrested on American soil as "enemy combatants" without recourse to civilian courts or legal counsel despite the contrary dictates of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, and
• sending non-citizens arrested in the U.S. to be tortured in third countries at the whim of U.S. authorities.

• hasn't bothered to reform an FBI that in the days before September 11th intentionally destroyed translated intercepted terrorist conversations, in order to get the FBI budget increased,
• apparently preferred to invade Iraq rather than deal with the more immediate threat of Osama bin Laden after September 11th,
• and now in the ultimate on ironies, while ignoring the Sixth amendment (and the Fourth) is telling us that a top priority should be, not Iraq, not Osama, but passing a Constitutional Amendment to marginalize gays!

Note: Some of these may be off, but not by much.

Actually, in FY 2004 (the one that is ending soon), the Military got 380 billion (source:whitehouse.gov). Expanded to 415 i think due to Iraq. (Can anyone be more precise?)

This is less than the social programs we have. Social Security is 513 billion and Medicar/Medicade (Department of Health and Human Services) is 471 billion. (Anyone want a $1 Trillion surpluss? Cut these. [Says the 22 year old US citizen]). The treasury got 392 billion

Out of a total 2448 billion, that comes to 16.9% (the 415 figure, not the 380) to the Military who employ many, many people. As oppsed to welfare, which gives people money for doing nothing. (Main reason I am opposed to that is a] forced charity, and b] I know of some drug dealers on it, that use it as a cover and I can't do anything about it)

Besides, i think the Military would help NASA if they were allowed. Both for the technology, the improved rockets and the ability to have more access to Satelites. The first NASA satelite went up (successfully, as opposed to a ball of flame) on a Military rocket, from what I understand. Actually, Increase NASA's funding to 50 billion a year, get some retired Generals in on it (and let the Military help as well), and see what happens and how fast the results roll in.

$100bn is still a shitload. If I recall correctly, the military budget is about $400bn. 25% of that is a sizable amount and more than I'm even willing to spend on NASA and I'm a space nut.

I suggest everyone check out Mars Direct. It's a plan estimated by its creator to cost around $20bn to start up and $2bn per mission. Even NASA's version is only $60bn when they ran their numbers.

One last thing. The 90-day report figure of $400 bn back in the early ninties was based on the Werner Von-Bruan plan of Mars exploration. It was impractacle and is now widely accepted to be the wrong way to do it.

Richard Hoagland's claims about life on Mars remind me of the mob's claims about poor Connie Booth being a witch in this movie .

His self-aggrandizing con-artistry is (intentionally) mind-numbing and the way he draws ridiculous conclusions on the presense of non-existant artifacts from sketchy evidence is hideous and repulsive.

Remind you of anyone?

I fail to understand why so many people believe that these guys give a crap about their country's shrinking level of freedom, when they have clearly demonstrated that they have no intention of stopping it, but rather, ensuring that it continues to shrink.

Some people are even using 'em to record themselves performing illegal acts. I'm against further invasion of privacy, but if we continue in this declared war without a visible end we'll see more and more of this. At no time in the US does the Executive Branch of government have more time than when the country is at war- hence the "war on drugs" and "war on terror" which cause people to let their common sense blow away on the winds of excessive brain-dead so-called patriotism.

Blech. Ok- now for the backlash!

Turn on those webcams! Stream video of everyone's life into the public domain! Record EVERYTHING YOU SEE and do! The information glut we could generate would overwhelm any monitoring system that could come out, I'm thinking. :) With the increased visibility of conduct and day-by-day infractions, maybe we could effect some reforms. Kind of hard to complain about the splinter in someones eye when you can see the timber in your own on HDTV.

An interesting novel, "Light of Other Days" by Arthur C Clarke and Stephen Baxter, explores the ramifications of such a system- most painful, but generally positive.

Makes ya think, which is almost never a bad thing. :)

You people are all freaking out because you think Bush wants man on Mars by the end of the decade. Go read his speech again (which can be found here), and tell me, where in it did he say such a thing?

The focus of the speech was on expanding our exploration of space, and eventually sending humans to Mars and the other planets. But no time frame was stated. And the immediate goal is to establish a permanent base on the moon.

For me, though, the most important part of the speech was the closing paragraph:

"Mankind is drawn to the heavens for the same reason we were once drawn into unknown lands and across the open sea. We choose to explore space because doing so improves our lives, and lifts our national spirit. So let us continue the journey."

I think he's right. I think we need to explore other planets because it's our nature to do so. And I think we should start as soon as possible, and not let petty politics get in the way of a noble endeavor.

miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure miserable failure war criminal