Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters

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."

Comments

I feel bad for Mitt Romney

[Haven]

Then I remember he signed up for the circus.

Re:I feel bad for Mitt Romney

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they all clowns? What roles do you think each of them would take?

It's just more Romney pandering.

[mosb1000]

This guy will literally say anything to get elected.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Ethanol-fueled]

It's not a new idea. George W. Bush of all people was probably the first president to suggest with a straight face a manned moon station.

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.

[Gerzel]

In other words he is a politician?

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[PopeRatzo]

George W. Bush of all people was probably the first president to suggest with a straight face a manned moon station.

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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[jensend]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA 2010 budget - $18,724,000,000
DoD 2010 spending - $680,000,000,000

There's room for a lot more spending on space if we change our priorities.
DoD spending was actually over budget in 2010.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets not forget that other "priorities" are measured in TRILLIONS.

At any rate if we were to go to the Moon again it would have to be quick or risk being canned by the next group of assholes that make it into office. It only takes about a week after elections for the big wigs to bring up the valid point that there are no MP3s or DVDs on the moon.

We'd all be better off if we just gave up on the US government and just went there without them. Ass Clowns.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[onefriedrice]

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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[MichaelSmith]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

HHS 2010 Spending - $828,292,000,000

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[mosb1000]

Right. Previously Romney has called a moon base ridiculous (I don't know if those where his exact words). More recently he's said that space research would be an important priority if he were elected, and now he's accepting an endorsement from a group of engineers who are promoting a moon base.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA 2010 budget - $18,724,000,000
DoD 2010 spending - $680,000,000,000

There's room for a lot more spending on space if we change our priorities.

American debt - $15,245,575,631,856.14
and you think

There's room for a lot more spending...

?
I get that you're saying too much is spent on war and not enough on science, but the bigger picture would seem to indicate that America's overspent on everything, cleaning up that impossible account would mean a direct meaningful improvement on citizen's lives.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[mwvdlee]

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 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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Nos9]

Ah but you miss the point, with a manned moon base we'd always have the high ground in any conflict...
    Lob a "small" rock from the moon back at the earth and you have a bomb that is nuclear level effective, but will not render the area unihabitable by humans. The lower number could be used to pay for said base (and likely it would be manned by military personel anyway)

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Gavagai80]

There's nothing inconsistent about that. I also think space research is an important priority, a moon base is ridiculous, and would welcome endorsements from people in the space industry. A manned moon base is not the most effective way to do space research, it's only good for headlines.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[mosb1000]

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 only generic medications. Hell, you could even throw in free food, as long as it's all long shelf-life products that are completely healthy. Do you see what I'm doing? I'm making sure the stuff I'm giving away isn't as good as the stuff people could buy for themselves. That keeps costs down and eliminates the need for costly bureaucracy to police the system for abuses.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Fluffeh]

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, 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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Fluffeh]

Right. Previously Romney has called a moon base ridiculous (I don't know if those where his exact words). More recently he's said that space research would be an important priority if he were elected, and now he's accepting an endorsement from a group of engineers who are promoting a moon base.

Heh, American politics. You poor sods really don't get much of what would be considered "the best of the lot". The more I pay attention, the more it seems like you are scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[hitmark]

I wonder if they are trying to channel JFK when making such bold statements.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[AK Marc]

Taxes are low, spending is high, there is room for lots of spending and still cut the debt. If I thought anyone would listen to me, I'd run for president on the "half your taxes and double your services" platform. But I may have been born in Texas, but not to a multi-millionaire, so I have no chance of winning. And when people heard my spending and tax plans, I'd be locked up by the powers before the election (I'm sure they'd find drugs on me in a random traffic stop, not that they'd be mine). But cutting taxes and spending isn't popular. The big parties can't cut spending, so they bicker about taxes, but never touch spending, so as to not piss off corporate sponsors.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[FatLittleMonkey]

Except Gingrich is being consistent to things he's talked about since the '80s. (I recall picking up his "Window of Opportunity" in the mid-Eighties. (Second hand, $2.) It was fully of stuff like that.)

The guys backing Romney, like Mike Griffin, are lobbyists for the current major aerospace players, like ATK, who don't want change. They have lobbied ruthlessly against any changes to improve NASA, or build a more competitive low-cost commercial launch industry. It's no wonder they are backing Romney. He will do what he's told.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

They all will say anything to get elected.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[ks*nut]

Well it costs a lot of money to promote peace and democracy with the barrel of a gun.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[realityimpaired]

The guys backing Romney, like Mike Griffin, are lobbyists for the current major aerospace players, like ATK, who don't want change. They have lobbied ruthlessly against any changes to improve NASA, or build a more competitive low-cost commercial launch industry. It's no wonder they are backing Romney. He will do what he's told.

I'm pretty sure that companies like Lockheed Martin and McDonnell-Douglas would *love* to have gobs and gobs of cash being spent on the Aerospace industry. They'd make off like bandits. By your logic, wouldn't it make more sense to back somebody like Gingrich who wants to build a permanent manned presence on the moon by 2020? You do realize how much money that would entail for the aerospace industry? So why are they backing a candidate who says that this would be a waste of money, and that we should focus our research efforts elsewhere at the moment?

Don't get me wrong... Romney scares me the least of the current candidates the GOP has on the block, but he still scares the hell out of me. I watch American politics the way that most of the international community watches them: with a mix of dread, horror, and pure fascination. We watch, because we get screwed if we don't watch... the US is too influential internationally right now to ignore. But seriously, even your uber-left-wing-pinko-communist Democrat president is conservative by the standards of the rest of the world (seriously, why is public health care even on the political landscape in your country? it was done decades ago everywhere else in the world). It really is rather frightening what passes for conservatism in the US.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[rtb61]

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 speed pump and return valve to mix the remaining fuel in the two tanks and 'Kaboom'.

Quite simply piss on American space superiority by denying everyone access to space. Now there are far more countries capable of doing this than can create nuclear weapons. About 10 of these should be enough to shut down access to space for a decade minimum.

A lot of American military superiority is based upon satellite technology, want to see how quickly that can disappear keep going down the stupid, 'moon as the 51st US state' path.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[WindBourne]

Actually, no. Many presidents suggested it. And like W, none of them funded it.

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 .5B to launch. In addition, these companies will be awarded 2 launches a year for 5 years. However, the lower bid will get to launch 3 launches a year (at the same cost / launch).

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.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[__aaltlg1547]

That's an awfully high price to pay for that capability, besides the fact that you can get a nuke there faster and orders of magnitude cheaper and pollution of enemy territory is generally the least of your concerns when wiping cities off the map.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[SteveFoerster]

Yeah, if only we got awesome visionaries like Cameron, Sarkozy, and Berlusconi....

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[FatLittleMonkey]

I'm pretty sure that companies like Lockheed Martin and McDonnell-Douglas would *love* to have gobs and gobs of cash being spent on the Aerospace industry. They'd make off like bandits. By your logic, wouldn't it make more sense to back somebody like Gingrich who wants to build a permanent manned presence on the moon by 2020? You do realize how much money that would entail for the aerospace industry? So why are they backing a candidate who says that this would be a waste of money, and that we should focus our research efforts elsewhere at the moment?

Romney will do what he's told, and that means that NASA's budget goes to the current "Primes", and so-called "Commercial" space will be de-funded (COTS/CCDev). Gingrich wants to change the system, and as President he might succeed. And that change may benefit someone other than the existing Primes. In the long term, I think Boeing would do brilliantly under a more competitive industry, LM/MD might not but they need the shake up. But they aren't thinking long term, they want to preserve what they have, and that means a tame candidate like Romney being influenced by a jackass like Mike Griffin.

(Example: Gingrich wants "Prizes" for the big risky stuff like Moon and Mars. All the risk is on the company, and some young innovative company might slip in and snatch it by doing something clever. The Primes want conventional cost-plus contracts. All the risk is on the government and no young clever company has any chance of scoring a major contract. Gingrich also wants to streamline NASA, which probably means closing under-utilised centres (NASA and its contractors are ridiculously spread over the US), which reduces the influence of the Primes over NASA policy.)

It really is rather frightening what passes for conservatism in the US.

Yeah, you want to say how radical the conservatives are, but...

seriously, why is public health care even on the political landscape in your country? it was done decades ago everywhere else in the world

There's a kind of wilful ignorance in the US, which I guess comes from the US's former greatness. Americans just don't realise how bad they have it, which makes them vulnerable to lies. (For example, Veterans hospitals are the most efficient medical providers in the US, and one of the most efficient systems in the world. It should be the model for all health reform. Yet it's a mantra amongst Republican candidates that "VA could be made more efficient by switching to a voucher system" (although they are increasingly using other words as codes for "voucher"), and they did introduce a voluntary voucher system for Medicare which turned out to be hideously inefficient.)

And it's fanned by the propaganda wing of the US Right, such as Fox News, WSJ, etc, which constantly wage war against anyone who knows anything. Where "expert" is a swearword. Where people who want policies that benefit the country, but not themselves, are denounced as "Hypocrites".

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

It worked for Nixon, who announced the Shuttle program just as Apollo was being wound down.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[arisvega]

idea of building a lunar base by 2020

Sure, why not: I hope the opening happens during an evening of 2020, so I can watch it in my 3DTV right after I return from work with my fusion-powered flying car, all in good time before China invades the US.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[rubycodez]

nope, that's a plot device in science fiction not backed by the physics. Heinlein, for example, miscalculated yield of multi-ton payloads lobbed to earth, they are not of nuclear weapon magnitude. and there would be no way to correct course during reentry, the sensors would be blind but the trajectory uncertainly becomes too large to be useful, system not able to hit a specific target. the concept is waste of money and energy.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Oh yeah, it's just that easy. You've got the whole problem solved in one paragraph!

You'd have to eliminate all unessential government programs, and replace social security and medicare with government run lower cost options.

Have fun getting anyone to agree on what an "unessential" government program is. Replace Social Security? Tried that. The Democrats screamed "you want old people to die, don't you?" and shot it down. Replace Medicare with a government-run option? Welcome to Obamacare, which nobody likes and has doctors and nurses running for the exits, straining an already understaffed healthcare system.

For example you could offer free government housing, but make the housing all double occupancy studio apartments.

First, let's get past this "free" thing you speak of. Nothing is "free" in this world. If you're getting something without paying for it, it means someone *else* paid for it. Those people are known as "taxpayers" and they're damned sick of providing "free" food, clothing, housing, and medical care for people who seem to enjoy living off the backs of others who actually work for a living.

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 only generic medications.

Won't work. "Low cost proven procedures" don't include the latest, most-expensive, life-saving medical procedures, therefore somebody who could have been saved by them will eventually die on this "budget plan" you're advocating. The relatives of this person will be paraded in front of Congress as an example of a heartless system that lets poor people die, Congress will allocate more and more money to The System, and we'll have a system that's every bit as expensive as we have now only with government ineptness, bureaucracy, and inefficiency as an added bonus.

Hell, you could even throw in free food, as long as it's all long shelf-life products that are completely healthy.

Sure, because we all know that "long shelf-life products" never contain tons of additives and preservatives which *allow* them to be long shelf-life in the first place, right? Healthy stuff indeed. Flavored with unicorn tears, I hear.

Do you see what I'm doing? I'm making sure the stuff I'm giving away isn't as good as the stuff people could buy for themselves.

Which leads to the "poor" people on your program to bitch and whine and moan that the rich are getting all the good stuff while they're left with the dregs. And these "poor" people vote. Which guarantees some whore of a politician will come along and promise to "spread the wealth around" in the name of fairness and give these whiners more...and more...and more...until you end up with Greece.

Look, I know you mean well. Idealists always do. The problem is the real world bears absolutely no resemblance to what you'd like it to be. Give people free shit and they complain that it's not *enough* free shit. Give them nicer shit and they *still* complain that other people have nicer shit than them. And if you *give* it to them, they have no concept of earning it, no idea of the value of work. They just feel entitled. And they tend to riot if you don't keep feeding their addiction despite the fact that it will eventually destroy the economy, the country, and everything around them.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[rubycodez]

a one or ten rock lobbed from moon would be a nuisance, nothing more. would not have yield of nuclear weapon. Iran doesn't even have long range missile, much less anything like Saturn V launch system to get to moon. Stop worrying about Iran, quit swallowing the psychopath murderers propaganda, several hundred thousand Iraqi civilians worth of body count is enough genocide for the USA's 21st century.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[iggymanz]

other than the computers, there is nothing simple about the Saturn V system. We don't have such a vehicle now (and even it's payload is far too small to make any kind of moon presence beyond a few days), so no we can't operate from the moon at present. And Iran can't even launch a suborbital lob halfway across the earth, and very illogical to talk of Iran launching system to moon to launch rock back? Unless fuel or energy source mined from moon, that's just nonsense from energy budget point of view. And any launchable rock would *not* have nuclear type yield, and could not in any case be guided with sufficient accuracy.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Medicare unfunded liabilities - $79 Trillion
SS unfunded liabilities - $15 Trillion

http://usadebtclock.com/

Just thought it would be fair to mention the 800 lb gorilla in the spending since you think DOD spending is high. I personally think DOD spending is peanuts compared to entitlement spending.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[john.r.strohm]

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.

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll be sorry in 50 years when China installs its death ray in crater Zhang Yuzhe.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[dave420]

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.

[midtowng]

I'm all for exploring the universe. I figure that eventually we are going to f*ck up this planet to the point that we'll need to leave it. However, we aren't going to the Moon. There's nothing there but bare rock and dust.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[AliasMarlowe]

I know what TANSTAFFL means

Did you mean TANSTAAFL? If not, please enlighten us.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

America will always have shit to export. Food and water. We have the Great Plains and the Great Lakes.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

you are just a lousy defeatist who does not want to learn science. go americans, go! I will laugh my ass off as you blow yourselves to the moon.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Teancum]

Of course George W. Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" was hijacked by many of the same people being quoted here as supporters of Romney... including Dr. Griffin in particular. The very lean and innovative approach to expanding into the rest of the solar system was destroyed by a government designed and built heavy space launcher that boldly went and did what hundreds of people have done countless times before in terms of building another big rocket that went billions of dollars over budget and never did anything other than a silly sub-orbital flight which proved nothing other than how to move rockets around on equipment at Kennedy Space Center... as if that was something which needed to even be studied. Oh, I guess a launch pad and tower were built for this now canceled rocket with people scratching their heads trying to figure out what to do with it.

Perhaps that was one of the "bank-sanctioned Ponzi-schemes" as well?

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Teancum]

The reason why the Obama administration is pushing for private space enterprises is two fold:

First, he doesn't have to spend more money on the military-industrial complex, so he can look good, "cut government waste", and screw the Republican states like Utah, Mississippi, and Texas all at the same time. I'd call that a win for him by itself.

Second, by actually trying to encourage private enterprise into going into space, he is doing something the George W. Bush administration didn't do, because as everybody knows if Bush did something, Obama must do the exact opposite. Because in regards to spaceflight the Bush administration demanded a central design bureau to construct an elaborate series of rockets, spaceships under a ten year plan, the Obama administration can do the opposite and actually encourage free market capitalism instead, particularly because it is "not Bush".

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Teancum]

Yeah... the Moon is nothing but a bunch of raw elements like Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, and other similar stuff. We are obviously too stupid to know how to rearrange those elements into something that might prove to be useful nor do we know how to obtain elements that might be in a local deficiency and how to engage in "trade" to obtain those other elements from other locations either.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Teancum]

A Shuttle program that was developed under the previous administration I might add. True, the actual work didn't begin until the Nixon administration, but the planning started under the Johnson administration.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? The whole point here is that Romney got the endorsement despite being explicitly opposed to a moon base. That's the opposite of pandering.

- Morty [posting AC because I spent mod points. Sigh.]

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Anonymous Coward]

The GP has a point. A moon base with a mass driver gives you the equivalent of a nuclear arsenal in the Mutual Assured Destruction game. It doesn't stop anyone else from wiping out you, but a bunch of rocks from the moon will do about the same thing as a bunch of ICBMs.

The ICBMs are a lot cheaper, but this is the only thing they're good for. A moon base has peaceful uses, too.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[mosb1000]

I'm actually an anarchist, and I'm not in favor of the government doing any of that stuff. I'd like to think we could come together and to that on our own if our circumstances were different, but I'm not entirely sure how to there get from a place where a few people own everything and seem inclined to let our infrastructure sit idle and rust away rather than put it to use.

That said, the creeping, deteriorating effect of welfare takes time to set in. Longer than 8 years (it took about 30 the last time), so you could conceivably have eliminated the debt by then. The only reason I am proposing to replace these programs at all is it's politically impossible to eliminate them if there's not a replacement ready to go, and balancing the budget is not possible with them in place. Cutting social security will eliminate about $4 trillion in debt immediately. Perhaps later on you could include a mechanism for private citizens to take over care for the people caught in the system. That way, people hopefully wouldn't have long enough to develop such a sense of entitlement that they'd start to demand more.

I don't think I have it all figured out. But I do know it's possible to pay off the debt under a single president. The only reason it doesn't happen is people aren't really committed to it.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[jensend]

No, it's not longer than I realize, it's just that you're ignoring budget issues. For the duration of Apollo, NASA budgets averaged almost 4% of the federal budget. Recent NASA budgets have been about 0.6% i.e. less than a sixth of that. WWII federal government spending was more than 50% of GDP; even with ballooning spending and a recession, the federal budget has been less than 20% of GDP, so if Moon project spending was like WWII spending it'd be about 200% of the current federal budget, i.e. 333x current NASA budgets.

To make a moon base happen twice as fast as a longer-term plan proposes, you have to spend a heck of a lot more than twice as much per year. Nobody would go along with a plan that puts a base on the moon but has us facing Greek-style budget failures, defaults, austerity programs, etc by the time we're through.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Thing 1]

Watch the documentary "Thrive". It explains rather concisely the reason that debt can never be repaid. That reason? Fractional reserve lending. Lot more good in the movie as well as some far-out stuff.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[silentcoder]

>You'd have to eliminate all unessential government programs, and replace social security and medicare with government run lower cost options.

No you won't. Afghanistan alone cost 4 Trillion so far. So if you cut your target just a bit, you could cover the entire debt with two presidents (16 years) by simply NOT killing anybody for a while.

Yeah right, like Americans will EVER go for THAT.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[silentcoder]

What a lovely rant. So I take it all those scientific studies that found that the vast majority of welfare recipients consider their welfare a short-term hand-up to get back on their feet and treat it this way, as a means to simply survive while searching for a new job. Well I guess all those scientists are just idiot academics who never had to make a living in the real world (that's how republicrats shoot down ANY science that proves their bullshit theories wrong right).

The good news is - most people DO think that citizens have a responsibility toward other citizens in jeopardy and that the government is meant to act as a facilitator toward fullfilling that responsibility. That is to say - most people think that the portion of their tax money that goes to feed a hungry person and save somebody from starvation is the just about the only part of it that was well-spent.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[silentcoder]

>That way, people hopefully wouldn't have long enough to develop such a sense of entitlement that they'd start to demand more.

"entitlement", n, what capitalists call "other people's rights"

Newsflash...

[hal2814]

Newsflash! Many people don't base their endorsements on a single issue! News at 11! Despite Romney opposing lunar bases, these folks think the space policy will be better under Romney. I don't know if I agree, but I certainly don't think it's ideologically inconsistent for a group to support a candidate despite disagreeing on one thing.

Re:Newsflash...

[FatLittleMonkey]

Many people don't base their endorsements on a single issue!

There is one issue. That they work for him. They were hired by his campaign. And, shock horror, they endorse him.

Deficits deficits deficits

[Beelzebud]

Funny how "Deficits don't matter" (Dick Cheney) once the Republicans want to do something.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Sarten-X]

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

[Beelzebud]

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".

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Sarten-X]

True, but the last several comments I've seen bring up deficits have all been followed by various rants about balancing the budget perfectly, and how all debt is terrible, and China's going to own us, et cetera. I'm hoping to help avoid the same misinformation.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[cdecoro]

...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

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 trillion. By the end of FY 2004, it was 7.3 trillion, which is closer to "trillions" increased from the beginning of the Bush administration, but not quite there (an increase of 1.7 trillion).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

If you did mean deficit, then the statement is even less true. The largest deficit under the Bush administration was for FY 2008 (because of the bailouts) at about 1.1 trillion.

However, from FY 2008 through the present (that is, the increase under Obama), the debt has gone up ~5.2 trillion dollars. That counts as "trillions." It also counts as almost a trillion dollars more than the increase in debt for the entire Bush presidency.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Beelzebud]

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"...

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[jensend]

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.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[MyLongNickName]

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...

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Anonymous Coward]

Now, just to be clear on this trois: When Dick Cheney said that he was helping to spend the money, drive the country into deeper debt, and by no means was an Economist or an Optimist. FTFYFT

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Curunir_wolf]

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.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Curunir_wolf]

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.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast , and it is working, sadly
Q.E.D.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[cold fjord]

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"...

Technically I don't think you can say there is a Federal budget. The US Senate hasn't passed a budget in 1,000 days.

More here.

And everyone should be clear - the spending on the wars in Iraq (the US is out on the schedule Bush set) and Afghanistan are a small percentage compared to total Federal spending. It is a fraction of Defense spending, and Defense spending is dwarfed by social welfare programs.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[toadlife]

Obama inherited those 1.5T deficit (the largest deficit was actually Bush's last budget, FY2009), and the deficit has gone down every year Obama has been in office.

Maybe you just shouldn't vote.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Nicolai Haehnle]

Once you start dealing with a deficit that's bigger than what you can reasonably expect to grow, you're in deep trouble.

You're taking the wrong metric here. When it comes down to it, the deficit is simply equal to the net imports plus the saving of the private sector. That is not a theory, by the way, it is a simple consequence of proper book keeping. So whether a government deficit is big or not really needs to be seen in relation to the desires of the private sector and the behaviour of the rest of the world.

What you are seeing in the US is simply that the crazily low savings rate of the private sector is returning back to normal now. Where before, consumption has been financed by easy credit, this access to credit has now dried up and everybody is scrambling to get their balance sheet in order - a balance sheet recession. This increase in private saving needs to be supported by a government deficit. If the government withholds the assets that the private sector needs, this will result in less spending, i.e. a lower path of GDP, and a lot of pain for private individuals especially via higher unemployment.

All that has been known for a long time, see e.g. here. Modern Monetary Theory also explains the connections quite well, and can perhaps help you calm down in general.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[LynnwoodRooster]

The first "trillion dollar deficit" was under President Obama.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[LynnwoodRooster]

FY2009? Check who wrote it, when it was passed in Congress, and which President signed it. You'll find there wasn't a (R) around it...

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you on crack? We've spent over a trillion dollars on those wars and continue to spend at nearly $100b/yr on new, permanent deployments. You also neglected that most of the entitlement spending is taken care of by FICA taxes and under honest account SS is not a budget problem. DoD dominates discretionary budget. Cut the fucking weasel words, "small fraction" bullshit. You know the numbers: 20% of the budget is directly DoD, about another 9% is indirectly DoD (homeland security, bulk of the DoE budget is nuclear arms, new state dept crap in the gulf, foreign assistance), and nearly 4% is just the interest is prior war spending. $9-10 trillion of the total federal debt is due to increased defense spending, and poorly planned mandates, and ideologically driven, yet catastrophically stupid tax cuts, and recent bailouts. Fuck you ideologically programmed intellectually dishonest asshole.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have voted for Ron Paul instead of trying to game the election and falling for bandwagon appeal.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Prune]

Large ones don't really matter either; see the links in http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2643673&cid=38856331 for details. Government is not revenue (taxes) constrained. Most of it's debt is debt is not with the public or foreign entities but just a number existing as an accounting fiction between treasury and Fed. It doesn't need to be repaid. Macroecnomic "debt" is nothing like the usual concept of debt--this is a good example of the fallacy of composition. As to public and foreign-held debt, for the US that is not much of a concern either as it is enumerated in a currency of which the US is the monopoly issuer. As for inflation, how the deficit-creating government spending is directed can avoid it (google "full employment").

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Prune]

Everything you wrote completely flies in the face of the information in the links of this post http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2643673&cid=38858909

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Prune]

Oops wrong link. I meant http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2643673&cid=38856331

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[drawfour]

You are incorrect. Obama came into office on January 20, 2009. By the first Monday in February, the President must submit his budget request (Congressional Budget Act of 1974). That budget takes effect starting October 1. So FY2009 was already well in effect. The FY2009 Budget was proposed to Congress by George W. Bush on Feb 4, 2008.

According to the Treasury Department, the debt ending Sept 30, 2008 was just over $10T. The debt ending Sept 30, 2009 was just over $11.9T. So the last budget from George W. Bush was almost $1.9T deficit, an increase of over $800B from the previous year. Obama's first budget (FY2010) ending on Sept 30, 2010, gave us an overall debt of just over $13.5T. That means the deficit from his budget was just over $1.65T, which is LESS than the almost $1.9T from Bush. In fact, it was a net reduction in deficit of $233B.

So yes, the GP post was correct that Obama inherited the largest deficit in history, and the deficit has decreased each year since Obama came into office. In fact, someone was nice enough to go through all the data from the Treasury Department website and show a breakdown of the numbers to make it easy to see how the budgets/deficits have changed over time.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[drawfour]

Wrong. You can get the numbers from my previous post, but FY2008 (Bush) was just barely over $1T deficit, and FY2009 (again, Bush) was almost $1.9T. Obama's first deficit (FY2010) was around $1.65T. You are highly misinformed, please attempt to do some actual research before posting numbers.

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 taking effect in Oct 2009 is the FY2010 budget). Since Obama took office in Feb 2009, his first budget was the FY2010 budget. He got stuck with the worst budget in history and has reduced it every year since he took office.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Anonymous Coward]

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"...

Beelz., the budget that you are talking about is a spending plan. Debt is the amount of money that is owed. If some spending (or revenue) is not included in the budget plan, it will nevertheless add to (or subtract from) the debt.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[jensend]

That's because the links that person has collected all fly in the face of everything we have learned about macroeconomics in the last fifty years.

Vickrey won the Nobel for his work in microeconomics and had no expertise or merit in macro. He and other reactionaries argued against Friedman's macroeconomics when his ideas were new and Keynes was the received wisdom, and the overwhelming evidence in favor of the monetarists' theories and against the Old Keynesians swept those arguments away back in the 70s. The rest of the links are modern fringe thinkers whose position within economics is just as tenuous as the position of global warming "deniers" in climatology.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[LynnwoodRooster]

Who signed FY2009? Thank you.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[cold fjord]

I neither stole, nor am I smoking, your crack.

So, how did you get a trillion dollars of spending for Iraq and Afghanistan wars? By adding up all the spending for each year, right? Well, if you are figuring out the percentage you still have to do the same thing wth total spending. Guess what? When you do that, the percentage doesn't change. And you don't get to pretend that we wouldn't have an army or navy if we weren't fighting those wars so the cost for their existence doesn't really change. Bottom line, spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was and is a fraction of defense spending, and defense spending is less than half of total federal spending.

You are full of nonsense about Social Security as well. The trustees issued a report saying it needs to be fixed. You also left out Medicare and Medicaid. The total cost of these programs is causing a serious problem for the US and it needs to be fixed.

You don't know what you are talking about.

I neither stole, nor am I smoking, your crack.

So, how did you get a trillion dollars of spending for Iraq and Afghanistan wars? By adding up all the spending for each year, right? Well, if you are figuring out the percentage you still have to do the same thing wth total spending. Guess what? When you do that, the percentage doesn't change. And you don't get to pretend that we wouldn't have an army or navy if we weren't fighting those wars so the cost for their existence doesn't really change. Bottom line, spending for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was and is a fraction of defense spending, and defense spending is less than half of total federal spending.

You are full of nonsense about Social Security as well. The trustees issued a report [ssab.gov] saying it needs to be fixed. You also left out Medicare and Medicaid. The total cost of these programs is causing a serious problem for the US and it needs to be fixed.

You don't know what you are talking about.

Fuck you ideologically programmed intellectually dishonest asshole.

I'll leave you and your crack pipe in peace.

 

Romney is a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

His biggest challenge right now is Newt Gingrich. And so he ridicules Newt as a way to take whatever votes he can. Newt has been thinking about space and technology for decades, whereas Mitt only knows talking points. It is a common tactic in politics to attack your opponent on his weakness and his strengths. Mitts attacks have nothing to do with the merits of lunar colonies, only beating Newt and winning Florida. Romney is a liar who says whatever is necessary to win.

Re:Romney is a liar

[Machtyn]

Well, what *are* the merits of a lunar colony that will be the 51st state in the US by the "end of the 2nd Gingrich term?" There really aren't any merits to it. There is massive debt incurring R&D and actual implementation. Not too bad if we weren't already $15 trillion in debt and everyone from all parties are yelling to stop the spending.

Funding

[Jeremi]

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

[Beelzebud]

Oh that's easy, we just won't fund Medicare or fulfill our obligations to the Social Security system.

Re:Funding

[The Analog Kid]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Funding

[JWW]

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.

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll pay for it from revenues paid to the US from the prison companies that lock up then kill people that "are busted" with more than 100 doses of drugs...prescription or not:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Marijuana/comments/osvsv/no_joke_newt_gingrich_supports_the_death_penalty/

and: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/12/12/former-marijuana-user-newt-gingrich-proposed-the-death-penalty-for-trafficking-marijuana-in-1996

Not exactly Wikepedia quality...but this is /.

Start Newt
      If drugs found on a particular persons >= 100 doses
                    DEATH PENALTY
      Else Life in Prison.
End Newt

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to see your definition of Corporate America.

Re:Funding

[cold fjord]

Nonsense. The Democrats blocked the last major attempt at reform. I doubt either the Republicans or Democrats would support cuts to those programs to pay for a moon base. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will run into trouble on their own. Things that can't continue, won't. The US is doomed to a massive problem unless they fix those programs. Unless the Democrats move their thinking past the 1930s, they won't allow it, thus ensuring their ultimate failure.

Social Security: Why Action Should Be Taken Soon

Re:Funding

[AK Marc]

Social Security took in about $200,000,000,000 more than it spent last year. But, of course, turning in a $200 Billion profit indicates it's about to go under and people talking about eliminating SS never mention covering the lost revenue. SS is still smaller than Defense (so long as all defense is added together, and discretionary and "emergency" defense isn't separated, as it often is on paper). SS pulls its own weight. I won't enter into the discussion of whether it's worth it, but the question of whether it's self funding is an easy one to answer, and so comparing it to a loss-only department, like the Military is silly. Cut SS to $0 and eliminate SS taxes and you'll worsen the deficit. Cut NASA, and you actually save real money. And why pick on SS when the military is larger and not self-finding?

Re:Funding

[Anonymous Coward]

Would help if the Republicans would move their thinking past the 1790's

Re:Funding

[FatLittleMonkey]

"And why pick on SS when the military is larger and not self-[funding]?"

Hmmm... so you're saying we should make the military self-funding? Interesting idea. There'll be implementation issues, but... no no, you're right, it's definitely the way ahead. In fact I think we should forever name this policy after you - "The Marc Doctrine"... Now now, don't be modest...

Re:Funding

[FatLittleMonkey]

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.

Re:Funding

[LynnwoodRooster]

What obligations to SS? There are no legal rights for anyone to get SS benefits. It's largesse at the behest and whim of the Government only.

Re:Funding

[Prune]

Inflation can be avoided when using government spending to boost the economy as long as there is significant unemployment and the spending is directed properly. Google "full employment" and read the references in this post http://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2643673&cid=38856331

Re:Funding

[AK Marc]

It was pioneered with what, the Spanish-American War? And yes, if people really did pay 40% of their tax to the real Death Panels, there'd be more complaints. SS at least pays out and, on paper, turns a profit providing services to the needy. But an explicit separate tax about half of all income tax just for wars would be a great thing. Nothing would reign in the military industrial complex faster than people seeing how much it takes to run it and having it come out of their check in a visible manner.

Re:Funding

[FatLittleMonkey]

But an explicit separate tax about half of all income tax just for wars would be a great thing. Nothing would reign in the military industrial complex faster than people seeing how much it takes to run it and having it come out of their check in a visible manner.

Not the "self-funding" I meant. But okay, seriously, I've heard people suggest that. Personally, I'd separate corporate income tax, along with cap gains, deferred interest and the other 15% tax dodges, into a stand-alone budget paying for the Defense, Homeland Security, and so on. With a decadal average balanced-budget rule (ie, a floating ten year average must be balanced, it allows for economic cycles, but doesn't allow for offsetting back to the "civilian" budget via debt.).

Given that most recruits are from lower down the income scale, they already have "skin in the game". So this draws a clear link between those who financially benefit from military/law-enforcement spending and the cost.

Re:Funding

[AK Marc]

What did you have in mind when you suggested self funding military? Plundering and e-bay? "now for sale for the first time ever, royal palace, hardly used, strategically placed skylights."

Personally, I'd separate corporate income tax, along with cap gains, deferred interest and the other 15% tax dodges, into a stand-alone budget paying for the Defense, Homeland Security, and so on.

Given my stance that only artificial entities and the very rich see any benefit from military action, that would make sense.

Re:Funding

[FatLittleMonkey]

What did you have in mind when you suggested self funding military?

A joke. The old gag of misunderstanding what someone is saying and, to their horror, "crediting" them with the exact opposite of what they want.

Plundering and e-bay?

Well, the US was accused of invading Iraq only to "steal its oil". By denying it, you only looked like liars as well as thieves. So perhaps in a weird kind of way, there's a greater integrity to simply conduct it as an openly profit making venture. It would have given a clear time-line for withdrawal, cost+profit. Everyone's on the same page. Resistance adds cost to the published total. Cooperation pays it down faster.

Re:Funding

[AK Marc]

Sort of like a pre-emptive reparations system. Don't fight them and bill them later, as was done in the old days, but fight them and loot them to the amount you think they should pay back if reparations were awarded (and the reparations caused enough wars a generation later that they aren't used anymore, but bringing them back would make military actions self-finding, as they had been in the past.

I despise Newt...

[kytreb]

...on pretty much every point: professionally, politically, personally. But I got to say, I liked the lunar base idea. It not any zanier than what JFK set out to do in the 60's. At least it would give this country a tangible goal to aspire to. It would put a new generation of kids into science programs.

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...

[Beelzebud]

A lunar base would be great, but don't kid yourself into thinking Newt thought of it. Notice he only said this in Florida, where NASA is located...

Re:I despise Newt...

[SJHillman]

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

Re:I despise Newt...

[Ethanol-fueled]

We actually had competition in space back then. The only reason why we collaborate with Russia now is because they're cheaper.

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.

Re:I despise Newt...

[swonkdog]

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 than Florida and the remaining sites still seem to be fairly busy with basic and applied research, satellite and rover operations, ISS ops, etc.

Re:I despise Newt...

[Anonymous Coward]

One of these is not like the others.

Re:I despise Newt...

[FatLittleMonkey]

Australia has a population of 21 million, which would make it the third largest state in the US, if we joined. Personally, I think it would do wonders for the US to have us.

Re:I despise Newt...

[C0R1D4N]

It would do wonders for the US (and the world) if we simply dissolved into our respective states.

Re:I despise Newt...

[nicholasjay]

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is in Maryland, and Glenn Research Center (GRC) is in Ohio. There is also GISS (which is technically part of GSFC) in New York.

*Cricket cricket*

[JimboFBX]

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*

[Anonymous Coward]

But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Beelzebud]

Killed Bin Laden is a good start.

After having a president that said this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMVdh8vdJfs

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[JimboFBX]

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 and quality of life would plummit. Next, he's super rich but pays less taxes than I do (% wise). Ok fine, that's the fault of the system, but what does he do with all that extra money? He donates it. Ok fine, I'm not a fan of donations because I like to see where my money is going, but where does it go? Mostly to the Morman church. The richest church in the United States by capita. So thats like donating to rich uncle pennybags in other words, because they're just going to use that money to build more churches and buy more land to bribe people to join their religion. I'll pretend Mormanism stands equal to all other religions in terms of legitimacy...

Gingrich... bleh

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[fyngyrz]

But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?

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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[Anonymous Coward]

But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?

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.

Think about how absurd it was that anyone voted for Bush in 2004. Yet a majority of people had no even-nearly-as-good choice. The Republicans simply aren't going to have a serious nominee for president in the 2012 election, just like the Democrats in 2004. They're not even trying to win. I'll believe otherwise, if the delegates go to Paul. But that is not going to happen. That party has already given up.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The Welfare Nation will vote for him, regardless how many lies he says. The unsourced quote:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."

The US is on the precipice of this collapse and we're already seeing this dictatorship when Obama signed theNDAAinto law on New Year's Eve. Happy New Year fellow American slaves!

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[Nimey]

The Republican Party.

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[Beelzebud]

Welfare: Check
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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[MyLongNickName]

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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[argStyopa]

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 of any US citizen without warrant, trial, or lawyer.
- Far from being transparent, he's conducted repeated secret strategy meetings and closed off giant chunks of the government to public scrutiny
- He's packed Washington with more lobbyists than ever, and in fact I believe he actually might have a representative from Goldman Sachs actually sleeping in bed with him and Michelle.
- He's made all sorts of platitudes toward the eco-nuts, but has prevented anything actually happening in terms of Green policies, including failing to hold anyone responsible for the massive BP disaster.

That's pretty much all the important stuff for us Republicans. I'm not sure why you Democrats think he's working for you, hell, he's great for us.

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[0123456]

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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[Anonymous Coward]

Nice troll very subtle.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I think you meant zine.

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[hal2814]

Medical insurance is NOT medical care. If you think it is, try going to the pharmacy and picking up your medication without paying the co-pay.

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[IdolizingStewie]

The payroll tax reduction was fancy math. The total funding for Social Security was not affected, as the missing 2% was reimbursed by the general budget. You can argue that gov't IOUs don't mean much, but if you're doing that, then we're so screwed already the 2% didn't affect anything anyway.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And if we had been under Republican leadership for the past for years, all of the above PLUS SOME would still have happened, and none of the positives in the grandparent post would have come to pass.

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[larry bagina]

You forgot the part about arbitrarily executing American Citizens with no judicial oversight.

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[similar_name]

Signed into law a bill that would allow for indefinite detention of American citizens.

Senate Vote

HR Vote

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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[geoffrobinson]

Giulianni:9/11 Obama:killing bin Laden

Ok, we get it. He was the guy sitting at the desk when he got the info and gave the order. Good for him. I would assume every most Presidents except for Ron Paul would have made a similar decision.

So instead of bin Laden watching dirty videos he is dead. Let's base 4 years of a Presidency based on that?

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[Ethanol-fueled]

Killed Bin Laden is a good start.

Uh, killing? Bin Laden was on our side once, and what you are parroting is fake, unlike Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand. I wonder why its to hard to find the hi-res versions of that pic which were prevalent only a few years ago.

Where's the original photo? Timothy's membership of the JIDF serves to hide it.JIDF

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[Curunir_wolf]

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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[Curunir_wolf]

No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.

You obviously haven't been paying attention.

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[jmichaelg]

> 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 that Gibson is owned by a Republican and Martin is owned by a Democrat.
Except for the peculiar way the Feds rammed General Motors through the pseudo-bankruptcy that stiffed the bond holders and the share holders but kept the contracts intact to the benefit of the unions.
Except for the fact that the "green jobs" stimulus funds went to companies owned by Democrats.

I could go on but the fact is Obama, a politician out of Chicago, is crooked. Quelle Surprise!

P.s. Don't forget that Eric Holder's Justice Department broke numerous statutes when they ran the Fast And Furious program that resulted in 1000's of firearms going into Mexico and some later returned to kill American Border Guards.

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[Curunir_wolf]

It was actually the Obama administration that insisted the indefinite detention provision apply to US Citizen be included in the bill in the first place.

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[Curunir_wolf]

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 - Call your congressman and senator to tell them to oppose it!!"

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[Score Whore]

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 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% 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.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I grew up in the Bible Belt, and my parents are evangelical, and I think that there is a showdown coming if Romney gets the nomination. Most citizens are not that aware of what the Mormon Church stands for and what their belief system includes.

Like I said, there's a showdown on the way.

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[Z34107]

Romney's a "villain" because he's Mormon and has a large family? And this currently sits at +4 Interesting?

9/10. Well done.

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[Anonymous Coward]

No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.

Yeah, I guess Solyndra and its dozen friends aren't big enough to qualify as 'big business' after all.

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[cold fjord]

I am interested in your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter

I've been wondering where you get your . . . ideas.

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[dbIII]

Due in some degree to Obama himself: Medical care for 40 million or so people who otherwise wouldn't have it

A bit over half a century ago the UK government took a look at the condition of the men that were signing up for the war and committed to health care because even though they couldn't afford it in the short term it made sense for the long term. Strong lobbying by insurance companies to the point of outright corruption is one reason why the USA is half a century behind.

gays being allowed to serve openly in the military

That's only an issue of any consequence at all because they were getting thrown out previously for being gay. On the job it shouldn't matter at all. I know people have very strong opinions but I think it comes so far down the list of importance that it's none of the recruiters business. Putting the right blood type on the form is astronomicly more important. The big deal about gays is typically so that revolting cowards in politics can have some "other" to demonise, and women or people with dark skin are offlimits these days.

The way to decide whether Ron Paul is of value in a position of responsibility is to think of what would happen if you were a kid just out of school going to work for him with no laws in place to make sure he pays you or just takes the rich kid that works "for the experience". What are his policies? Would he be a good master?
I know "Libertarian" covers anybody that wraps themselves up in the flag to hide what they really are, but what sort of person is under his flag? Could you work for a living and feed your family under his policies? I actually don't know since he gets dumped into the same bucket as Koch by the press even though some views may be the exact opposite of Koch.

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[KublaKhan1797]

But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?

I'll give you two reasons: Romney and Gingrich

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[JimboFBX]

Yo dawg, you fo real?

These are terrible examples. How did this get rated to a 5?

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[cold fjord]

Yeah... although I'd prefer Ron Paul, I *can* think of reasons to vote Obama back in again:

; . . . 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. . . .

So you really are borderline between the libertarian, mini-Federal government, personal liberty, no Federal healthcare mandate, uber-Constitutionalist Dr. Paul or the liberal, make big government bigger, bureaucrats know best, grow the mandates, President Obama? Really?

What part of this do you think the small goverment libertarian leaning Dr. Paul would approve of?

Fourteen months into his presidency, in March 2010, Obama succeeded in muscling through Congress a partial government takeover of the national health-care system. That legislative accomplishment followed Obama’s decision a year earlier, without congressional approval, to nationalize two of the country’s Big Three automobile companies. In the intervening months, he had also imposed specific wage ceilings on employees at banks that had taken federal bailout money—the first such federal wage controls since an ill-fated experiment by Richard Nixon in 1971. Obama also made the federal government the direct provider of student loans, and did so by putting that significant change in American policy inside the larger health-care bill. In a September 2009 press conference, Obama suggested that a publicly funded health-care system might help “avoid. . .some of the overhead that gets eaten up at private companies by profits and excessive administrative costs”—thus mistaking the act of making money, the foundational cornerstone of capitalism itself, with the generation of unnecessary expenses.

In lieu of Ron Paul, do you truly believe that any Republican now running would move the country that far to the left?

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.

At first I wasn't sure what to think about you. Are you bipolar? A troll? Simply unreflective? Now it looks like a Democrat playing a game.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone who declares a preference for Ron Paul could vote for Obama - their ideas tend to be opposite. It's like a vegetarian going out for a big steak dinner... every Friday and Saturday night.

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[RajivSLK]

Your tax reasoning is flawed and so is CNNs. 80% of ALL Americans paid 13.3% in FICA taxes alone (yes the employer portion is a tax too -- hiding it on the employer side doesn't make it zero). Why do you guys never count FICA? It's a tax that the working poor pay. I continually hear reports like "50% of americans pay no income taxes at all!". As a Canadian I think "How can this be?" and then I realize that you guys are just bad at accounting / math.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Except for the fact that the "green jobs" stimulus funds went to companies owned by Democrats.

There are Republican-owned companies in the green industry?

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[JimboFBX]

1) 5 + 4 = 9 kids. Thats quite beyond unsustainable growth

2) FEDERAL TAXES. Social Security taxes aren't counted in that amount and that 80% number is dead wrong unless you count children and the unemployed. After social security I'm paying close to 30% before one-time deductions (maybe more... I haven't done my tax return yet). Social security taxes are capped at $106k and are 4%. Anyways I never said it was his fault, I don't expect him to pony up a donation to the government.

3) Citation needed

4) no comment

5) Ehhh I'm not going to get in a religious argument because my issue transcends their ability to earn income. Really, its the large family sizes that bother me so damn much. We should be shrinking our population to account the for the decrease in demand for labor that technology has brought us, but everytime I see a large family, regardless of religion, I see selfish parents, no matter how their kids are raised. We can't all be like that. Period.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Completely off-topic, I know, but still:

5) Only about 60% of Romney's declared charitable giving went to the LDS church.

I so read that as "LSD church" :) :)

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[Anonymous Coward]

5) Ehhh I'm not going to get in a religious argument because my issue transcends their ability to earn income. Really, its the large family sizes that bother me so damn much. We should be shrinking our population to account the for the decrease in demand for labor that technology has brought us, but everytime I see a large family, regardless of religion, I see selfish parents, no matter how their kids are raised. We can't all be like that. Period.

But soon Technology will be able to do more and more, requiring less and less people, this logic is absurd. Technology was invented so we could support people and help more people be alive. The point where Mr. Romney's family becomes unsustainable is where he cannot feed them, or where the technology to support them does irreversible damage to the ecology of the planet. Neither of which are happening.

In Conclusion, your argument is invalid (not a supporter of Romney, btw).

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[UpnAtom]

Because Obama isn't a freak spawn of corporatism and Christian fundamentalism?

I'm British and a non-partisan centrist liberal. The world outside the US is very disappointed with Obama, mostly with his authoritarianism and blocking of a Palestinian state.

But the world is still a trying to recover from 8 years of Bush. And these Republican candidates, when they're not looking like cartoon characters, make Bush not seem so bad.

I exclude Ron Paul from the above description. Like him I believe in small government. I believe the state has no responsibility to adults unless they're ill beyond their control.

But you'd have to be insane to let someone who is anti-choice be President.

Medical science tells us there's no reason to believe that a young foetus is alive or human in any meaningful sense. Even if it was, if a woman chose to nurture a frail adult through bloodletting etc, we would support her right to terminate that arrangement. We would not say she is responsible for killing the frail adult.

Now Ron Paul ignores the science. And as a so-called protector of human rights passes the buck on the basic human right to self-determination knowing full well that this right will be breached. Such major flaws of logic disqualify him to be President as far as I'm concerned.

Note that I'm not saying abortion is consequence free. Medical science has its limits and cannot prove the foetus isn't worthy of protection. Certainly the Bible is no help, no matter what the religious Right say. So this is a matter of conscience.

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[AK Marc]

yes the employer portion is a tax too -- hiding it on the employer side doesn't make it zero

I hate you liars. I didn't pay the employer portion of taxes, unless I was self employed. It is zero when the employee doesn't pay it.

I continually hear reports like "50% of americans pay no income taxes at all!". As a Canadian I think "How can this be?" and then I realize that you guys are just bad at accounting / math.

No, we discuss "federal income tax." There are so many other taxes, variable by location, that Americans know nobody pays zero taxes. There's a sales tax or property tax (or car registration tax) that will catch everyone, so why play with the probability of the impossible that someone actually did avoid all taxes?

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[Trepidity]

Based on what his post actually said, my read was that his main interest in Paul is Paul's commitment to ending the foreign wars, reducing military spending, rolling back the TSA, and reducing discrimination against gays. On those issues, a Democrat is probably better than a non-Paul Republican as a second choice.

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[Anonymous Coward]

How did this get rated to a 5?

Multiple sock puppet accounts set up and maintained by some right wing 'think tank' in a AstroTurf campaign. Duh

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[qwak23]

I want a candidate (party doesn't matter) whose only campaign promise, and in fact entire campaign platform is this:

"I will not put up with any BS from those assholes in congress." (Hopefully, the candidate is also sincere about this)

My next major project, is determining what I want out of my congressional campaigns/representatives.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing the low tax rate for the wealthy is due to them largely having a stock and bond based income and paying only long term capital gains tax (15%). Add in a long list of deductions and you get potentially a single digit tax rate. Other forms of income are subject to the usual progressive tax structure which is much higher.

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[fyngyrz]

Medical insurance is NOT medical care. If you think it is, try going to the pharmacy and picking up your medication without paying the co-pay.

It is still very much better than having to pay full price. Don't throw out the good in search of the perfect, which is often unattainable.

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[equex]

Please provide proofs that Bin Laden was killed by the Obama administration. They are 'not public' due to 'respectfulness to the Muslims' or something along those lines. In fact, it seems more likely that Bin Laden was accidentally killed when Bush originally invaded Afghanistan. Nobody has been able to confirm his identity in audio and video recordings supposedly by him after that.

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[WindBourne]

1. Solyndra is mostly a republican project. You will find that the top execs there were republicans, which is part of why they pleaded the 5th. But the real problem is that we subsidized China's dumping on our markets. That makes it impossible for American businesses to compete. Again, that was backed by the republicans
2. Keystone is not dead. Far from it. Instead, Obama tabled it for a time. He knows that it would be used by either side right in front of the election. He was bright enough to let it go. For now. In light of his SOTU, it should be obvious that he WILL build it. He is going all out on making us not depend on the middle east.
3. Per the laws in India/Madagascar, the wood must be processed there. Martin does that. Gibson does not. Personally, I do not agree with it, HOWEVER, this is about laws of various nations and respecting them. And I doubt that O had any knowledge about the situation prior to faux and the republicans making an issue of this
4. Interesting comment about the union. I can not speak about it. However, so far, the rest of your comments were 0 for 0.
5. Solyndra is a good example of republican company. However, many of the high tech companies ARE dem. Republicans tend to come into the companies after they are established

You COULD go on, but much of what you said, was pure bunk. As such, I suspect that anything else that you come up with would be the same. You republicans come up with all sorts of garbage while missing the real stuff (siga, though I expect that the republicans will bring it up in about 6 months).

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Do some research on Citizens United and their Supreme Court victory, overturning a (weak) attempt to limit corporate donations in elections. Find out how your Dad feels about SuperPACs and the lobbyist-driven corruption of politics. For example, does he believe the core parts of the Citizens United decision? That corporations are people, and that money is the same as speech? Does he believe that things have gotten worse since that decision? Don't be partisan, yet, it's okay if he blames Democrats, or believes "both sides are as bad". You just want to get him thinking about it, angry about it.

Then, a week or so later, "just discover" that the Supreme Court decision was 5/4 along party lines. Ie, the 5 Republican appointees voted for Citizens United, including the two Bush appointees. The 4 Democrat appointees voted against it, including Obama's appointee. Then point out that there'll likely be at least one more retirement in the next four years, possibly two. So whoever the next President is, his appointments will set the tone of the court for at least a decade.

Then research some more 5/4 decisions. Bring them up whenever it seems appropriate, over the next few months. Make the same point about retirements in the next four years.

Nothing Obama does is more important. Without the Supreme Court, trying to reform anything in Congress will be overturned by the Court. You need to win the Court first.

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[fyngyrz]

So you really are borderline between the libertarian, mini-Federal government, personal liberty, no Federal healthcare mandate, uber-Constitutionalist Dr. Paul or the liberal, make big government bigger, bureaucrats know best, grow the mandates, President Obama? Really?

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 generally support the idea that we should follow the constitution as written. Having said that, there are some areas I think the constitution is in need of change, and consequently should be amended per article 5. I'd generally prefer it if we could get those needed changes done instead of acting extra-constitutionally. But I recognize that in reality, we presently pay very little attention to the constitution unless it is to the government's benefit these days, and so what we're actually dealing with is a marketplace of ideas. One that is, unfortunately, mostly controlled by lobbyists. So while I feel strongly about the constitution, I still tend to look at reality and actually react to that, rather than an idealized view of how things should work.

My interest in Paul is (a) he can get done, as commander in chief, something I think is important to do: pull our troops and bases out of everywhere but here. I do not think that we have a valid role as the world's policeman, nor do I think we can afford it, validity of the role aside. He is pro-trade, but anti-military intervention. I think that's a workable stance. (b) Most everything else Paul wants to do, he has to convince congress of, and I don't think he can do that, so those things become effectively irrelevant. (c) I think the constitutionality of things should be important, and I'd like to get back to that, and I think Paul would cause a national conversation about the constitution to rise above the level of the background noise. Perhaps we can actually decide, as a people, if we want to follow the constitution, or if we want more of this "absolute rule by the 545." Taken together, this is why I would vote for Paul. Nothing else.

Obama: I think Obama has done some very good things to date. I think he's very intelligent (like Paul and unlike anyone else in the republican field.) I rather suspect that some of the other things he promised to try to do in his original campaign have been put off because if done, they might unacceptably compromise his second term chances in the view of his political strategists. If he has a second term, where he doesn't have to be concerned about being re-elected, we'll get to see if that's so.

In lieu of Ron Paul, do you truly believe that any Republican now running would move the country that far to the left?

I don't think presidents "move the country" left or right. I think they set foreign policy and cause it to be executed, while congress and the judiciary move the country left or right. Consequently, it's not a consideration for me when I vote for president. If you listen to the rhetoric of a presidential campaign, then think about presidential powers, you'll realize that most of it is simply posturing. It is my opinion that when you vote for president, you should vote with foreign policy first and foremost in your mind -- because that's an essentially unchecked presidential power.

At first I wasn't sure what to think about you. Are you bipolar? A troll? Simply unreflective? Now it looks like a Democrat playing a game.

Frankly, I don't see how anyone who declares a preference for Ron Paul could vote for Obama - their ideas tend to be opposite. It's like a vegetarian going out for a big steak dinner... every Friday and Saturday night.

Clearly, I don't fit into your preconceived box. Why that is, I leave as an exercise for you.

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[misexistentialist]

Seal Team Six for President! Best part is they can't blow their cover by giving idiotic speeches or taking part in pathetic debates. And when they veto a bill it's with perfect head-shots on the Floor.

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[C0R1D4N]

Is Bin Laden in danger of rising from his ocean grave to terrorize once again?

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[Nimey]

True, but in instance TSA won't happen - Obama's got no interest in shuttering or hamstringing that monstrosity, just as he didn't object to illegal warrantless wiretapping.

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[Nimey]

Thing is, though, with the Republicans doubling and tripling down on obstructionism, we can count on none of Obama's nominees getting past the Senate.

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[misexistentialist]

Can't really blame rich people with large families. Naturally redistributes the wealth and creates a high-quality next generation. One child for a single-mother is already too much, while Romney should really be allowed at least 6 more wives to produce another 50 children.

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[C0R1D4N]

you think you aren't paying the employer side? Your employer may suck but I know mine would increase our wages if that tax didn't exist or was paid on the employee side.

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[FatLittleMonkey]

Vote for the other side and you guarantee more of the same. So what other choice do you have?

(And hey, Obama got Kagan in, smart liberal jew. And apparently he's been getting better at playing Congress as time goes on.)

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[timeOday]

Solyndra is an embarrassment to Obama's Presidency. There's no real scandal since there's no real tie between the administration and the company, but it was a rushed and hyped and turned out bad. But let's keep this in perspective; nobody died, and it cost less than 1/4000 of the Iraq war. In other words, if Obama did a new Solyndra every day for two terms as president, it would still be a less costly than Iraq. And that's counting only US govt. outlays, to stay on topic. (Obviously the true cost of the Iraq war was many times greater if you consider the human cost, around 150,000 dead, the costs of tens of thousands of destroyed homes, buildings, and infrastructure, and lost oil production). I shudder to hear how most of the Republican field talk about Iran to score applause.

The rest of the examples, come on. You think Obama has a vendetta against Gibson guitars? You think the government hasn't bent over far enough to shield investors?

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Score Whore]

If you are going to assign corporate liabilities to the employee then it would be proper to assign the corporate income tax paid to the shareholders who own that corporation. In which case those who are paying long term capital gains taxes are paying much more than 15%.

There are several reasons that I see FICA as different. First, is because FICA strictly funds two programs (social security and medicare) and people will be receiving all of that money and then some back when they reach retirement age and begin receiving social security and participating in medicare. Second, all government accounting keeps it separate from income taxes, due to the aforementioned targeted purpose. Third, really just the other side of the coin from the second reason, the federal government is funded by the income tax (and debt -- which is paid off with income tax revenue.) And that's the concern: a smaller and smaller portion of the country is paying for everything.

It's not a matter of being bad at accounting or math. It's just reality.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[hal2814]

Usually not. Insurance only works if most people's premiums are less than the amount insurance companies pay out in claims. I'll gladly throw out using the government to compel people to buy a product they'll likely end up losing money on.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

And don't forget Al Awlaki's 16 year old son a couple of weeks later. Also an American citizen. Probably never done anything worse than post a youtube video.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[LynnwoodRooster]

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.

Sure, no kickbacks to heavy donors or special favors to his constituency, not President Obama!

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Score Whore]

Mitt & Ann have five sons. No idea where your plus four comes from.

I believe that the 80% is of federal income tax returns filed. If you are going to be comparing tax rates then you need to include your deductions. But assuming that you are including FICA and not including your employer's portion (and if this webpage is to be trusted), that you are single with no dependents and no additional deductions, then to achieve a 30% effective tax rate (4.2% of the first $106,000 and 1.45% for medicare plus an average tax rate of 25%) you must be making over $220,000/year and well into the top 5% of earners in the U.S. And in those circumstances you really should get in touch with an adviser because there's no reason for you to be paying such high tax rates. (I am assuming that you are aware of the difference between your top marginal tax rate and your effective, or average, tax rate.)

All that is moot given that you ended your second paragraph with "I never said it was his fault" then I'm curious as to why you are holding his tax rate against him? It's completely irrational.

The 9.9% number comes from the same CNN article I linked to and is clearly after deductions and deferrals.

My fifth point had nothing to do with the size of a family and everything to do with responding to your implication that there is something unsavory about the LDS church's wealth.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[similar_name]

Well it's nice to see Congress working to give the President, especially with such bi-partisan support.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Curunir_wolf]

Well, yes, aristocrats have to stick together. Bi-partisanship, as usual, is easy when it increases their power and keeps the "little people" in their place.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Anonymous Coward]

Truth 100%

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[cold fjord]

And Al Awlaki, too. An American citizen. Never indicted, charged, or tried for any crime.

The men represented in this video, who were shot down en mass by the Federal government without benefit of indictment or trial, and Al-Awlaki, share a common trait. Do you know what it is?

Al-Awlaki, like the Confederates, took up arms against the United States and made himself the enemy during wartime. He aided those trying to kill Americans. Killing Al-Awlaki was a completely legitimate act of war that did not require charges, indictment, trial, or sentencing. It isn't a question of criminal law, but war. And yes, the Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force is the legal equivalent of a declaration of war - that is settled law. If he actually wanted to be judged in a court of law, he could have surrendered.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[AK Marc]

They'd all say that, knowing it's never going to happen.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Curunir_wolf]

Some people can't tell the difference between war and tyranny. Not that Lincoln wasn't a tyrant, but at least he declared war, and the Confederates declared war, they raised an army, they wore uniforms.

Al-Awlaki may have done what you claim, but I haven't seen the evidence of it. There wasn't a battle at Fort Sumter (or anywhere else). We never declared war on Yemen, either. But it was in Yemen where Al-Awlaki was driving his pick-up truck down the road when the unmanned US drone fired on him and killed him. They killed his son in a similar fashion, the kid was only 16 years old. He wasn't a threat that I know of, but he was a "loose end" for the forces orchestrating the unrest in the Middle East.

So according to you, the US government is now at war with ... its citizens. I can't argue that it's not the case, but I can tell you that it should not be this way. It's not okay for the government (one man, even) to be able to declare any person at any time an "enemy belligerent" (they used to use "enemy combatant", but that was problematic in that it implied a person that actually committed a violent act), and send drones to kill them on a whim. I don't know what authorization says that you can not only kill whoever you declare is an enemy, but also his entire family, but apparently it's all okay dokey with you. Claiming all this is "legal" because you can call it "war" and every person in American is a "potential enemy" whether they know it or not is just a legal fiction, designed to get you to go along with allowing the president the power of life and death over every citizen.

Just hope nobody sees you talking to the wrong person and decides to put you on "the list".

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[fyngyrz]

You've made a cognitive error here. In order for that kind of economic thinking to work, you have to *know* who is going to get sick and experience costs they cannot meet. But we can't know that.

Consequently, pooling a relatively small amount of money (as compared to actual healthcare costs) in such a way as to address the randomly distributed risk is an excellent choice both economically and practically.

You can sit there all smug because you saved a few hundred a month one moment, and then realize you're now facing, unassisted, a six-figure bill for some healthcare event that caught you unaware. Now *that* is just stupid.

The new health care insurance provisions, while certainly not optimum (insurance companies are a very inefficient way to pool risk), will serve to bring up the level of wellness in the country; that in turn will bring up productivity and make the public spaces safer. It's as needed, and for very similar reasons, as are educational standards and mechanisms that are available to all.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Machtyn]

But, also don't forget that the Capital Gains taxes are a second tax on the money being taxed. That money was taxed on the Corporate side before getting to the person, then taxed again. So that 15% is more likely around 30-45% depending on that amount.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[jmichaelg]

>You will find that the top execs there were republicans, which is part of why they pleaded the 5th.
Citation needed. Open Secrets doesn't know anything about Brian Harrison and Bill Stover, the execs who pled the 5th.

Yeah I could go on but I'll let Biden tell us how their first choice for financial advice was Jon Corzine.

n.b. Jon Corzine recently admitted he didn't know where over a billion dollars of his customer's money had disappeared to.

The show

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show the disconnect between politicians and their endorsers. Demonstrates what all slashdotters know -- that it's all just a bullshit show with money and favors switching hands.

When you're rich and connected, the "issues" don't matter. Just part of the show for the common man.

I was actually looking at the moon through my scope the other evening. I didn't see a moon base, but I did see what appeared to be a disk, a black flap, and a scorpion.

Apollo

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Apollo

[Beelzebud]

Kennedy didn't make that speech during a Democratic primary either. He was the President, and announced it during a joint session of congress.

Re:Apollo

[The Man]

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 problems today are internal and of our own making, not some external enemies. A mad dash from nothing to a useless lunar base makes very little sense right now, even if it were technically feasible.

Put another way, if you feel so strongly about it, go finance your own expedition. In all seriousness, I'm looking forward to seeing stuff like this happen. Once someone has a foothold away from Earth, we'll have a new frontier to expand, on which existing governments will be largely powerless. It will be a wonderful new opportunity for those of us who are highly dissatisfied with the way this planet is being governed to set out and try something different. Most human generations have had that opportunity; only in the last century or so has the entire planet been claimed by effective governments. Forget the 1960s and think instead about what might make sense in the future.

Re:Apollo

[hoggoth]

> 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.

Re:Apollo

[Jimbookis]

The moon isn't going anywhere.

Oh yeah? It might beg to differ as it's receding from the Earth at a rate of 22mm per year.

Re:Apollo

[MichaelSmith]

Kennedy had a huge cold war defence budget to spend, and was genuinely afraid of a soviet foothold on the moon. That won't happen again unless Iran changes course and develops a manned space program.

Re:Apollo

[dbIII]

From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Space_Agency)

On March 15, 2011, the ISA launched the Kavoshgar-4 (Explorer-4) rocket carrying the capsule designed to carry a live monkey but there were no living creatures on board

I didn't know that much about it either. I don't think it's really going to scare people in the USA much if at all.

Re:Apollo

[TheRaven64]

When Kennedy made his speech, the situation was very different:

• The USSR was a superpower that was openly hostile to the USA.
• The USSR had put a satellite in space before the USA.
• The USSR had put a man in space before the USA.
• Space was seen as an important strategic location in the Cold War (spy satellites and orbital weapons were expected to play a major part in any nuclear conflict).

Going to the moon was a bit of pointless dick waving. The real objective was control of LEO for deploying enough observation satellites to spot a Soviet launch, and ideally enough warheads to have both first and second strike capabilities that were impossible for the Russians to knock out. If the USSR got there first (as it looked as if they might) then they would have the ability to destroy all major population centres in the USA in a first strike and have a significant amount of advanced warning of any surviving second strike capability.

A President couldn't get up on the podium and say 'My fellow Americans, the USSR is currently handing us our asses and we're probably all going to die unless we spend a load of money on developing a space warfare capability'. It would be political suicide. Getting a man on the Moon, however, was something that people could understand and get behind and most of the related technology would be useful in a space-based conflict. More importantly, perhaps, it gave the USA a stronger negotiating position and meant that both sides could agree to ban the weaponisation of space without it looking as if they were handing the other a massive advantage.

Now, fast forward to the present. The other superpower is China, but they're not really interested in a nuclear war - they'd lose as much as you. A space-based deterrent is of little value, and if it were to become useful then the USAF can already deploy one quite easily. So the only reason for a manned space program would be the benefits coming from it directly. A base on the Moon? Well, the Moon is a good source of several isotopes that are good for fission, but there are two major problems with that: The first is the lack of a working fusion reactor. The second is that sea water is a cheaper source of these isotopes (they're less concentrated, but purifying a few thousand gallons of sea water is a lot easier than building a Moon base...). Aside from that? It's probably a good place to build telescopes, but not much better than Earth orbit, and there's no reason why a telescope needs to be manned. Other than flag waving, what is the point of a moon base?

Lunar base-- great idea. Gingrich's version- not.

[jensend]

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.

[cosm]

The election is still MANY MONTHS away. Don't play the election cycle game.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[axlr8or]

Don't worry bout me. I haven't voted since Clinton proved that caring doesn't matter. I was a firearms advocate. When the democrats made the tentative assault weapons ban I went straight to the polls to vote in republicans to have it repealed. 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, after that, I hated democrats AND republicans. Since then it has expounded to recognized any politician as a liar. Period. no more investing my time in the political process again. If the people speak their voice and it doesn't happen, its out of control. They sell lies, and anyone who votes is buyin.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[JimboFBX]

but people need to vent their anger to other completely uninformed individuals to have already come to the same conclusion.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[Beelzebud]

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.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[JimboFBX]

dammit, I meant:

but people need to vent their anger to other completely uninformed individuals who have already come to the same conclusion.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[Baloroth]

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.

Re:/. - Please Don't Do This.

[Curunir_wolf]

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 matter are the partisan voters, that go with party even if it hurts their cause. Want a good example of that? Remember the "Moral Majority", the bunch of social authoritarians led by Jerry Falwell? Yea, they made a really big splash for a couple of elections, and then the Republicans figured out that those guys never voted for Democrats or third parties. So they ignored them. Truly good example of why voting for the "least objectionable" is never a good idea, it just lets both parties get away with being evil, as long as they can convince you they're not as evil as the other guy.

Jon Stewart Got It Right

[Greyfox]

"After doing the global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi, Newt realized the earth was sick and decided to leave it for a younger planet."

Please fix the summary

[hrimhari]

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

Damn those Mormans!

[RobinEggs]

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...

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[JimboFBX]

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

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[VortexCortex]

As someone who's very familiar with it, and other such institutions I'd say the word following "Mormon" quantifies it as evil.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[portforward]

So, you say the word "more man" as opposed to "more mun"? The "mon" has the same sound the beginning of the the day "Monday".

You would be scared if your kids looked up to him? He got accepted into Stanford, got a student job to earn more money, served a 30 month mission without pay, learned a foreign language, graduated valedictorian at BYU, got an MBA and Law Degree from Harvard, served probably thousands of unpaid hours counseling, teaching, comforting, visiting, and helping the poor. In his business he probably he to lay off thousands, but also hired tens of thousands of people. He is still married to the girl he fell in love with as a teen. You don't want your children to admire that?

Five is a "ton" of kids? Are my parents villains because they had seven? Should I be put to death because I was number six? Among my siblings we have four bachelors degrees, one masters degree, four or five languages, and (to my knowledge) not one of us have spent a night in jail. We pay our taxes, serve in our community and church, and try to be kind, compassionate, honest and respectful.

"never said it was evil" Um, yeah, you did. "villain" "uncle moneybags" "bribe" - you were using synonyms. You do realize that over 99% of the positions in the LDS church are voluntary? We don't get paid. We certainly don't "bribe" people to become members. The church's money goes to building churches, temples, domestic and foreign poverty relief, education, books, and missionary work. As a member of the LDS church and having held a position where I was responsible for the financial records of the local church (called "Ward Clerk") I saw where the money came in and how it was spent. We paid for a lot of people's rent, electricity bills, water bills, medication, and other stuff like that. People lacking food could go to the "Bishop's Storehouse" and get fruit, vegetables, bread, cans of chili, peanut butter, flour, beans, rice, brooms, soap, razors. . . The church also runs a second hand store called "Deseret Industries" where people can become employed, or get very lost cost donated clothing, furniture, appliances etc.

The church is very careful on how money is spent, as we feel it is the Lord's, and represents sacrifice by members. Most of the time travelling General Authorities stay at members homes when giving talks. Two apostles stayed two nights with my older sister's familiy when she lived in Asia. I heard one sister at a local meeting talk about how the Prophet Gordon B. Hinkley stayed in her teen aged son's room and how embarrassed she was because it was a mess. One friend had a question for one of the apostles after a meeting and walked with him and two others after the meeting to their car, a Ford Taurus. So the apostles (one a retired cardiologist, one a former state supreme court justice, another former mayor of Palm Springs) carpooled in a Ford Taurus. Money is not misspent because it is intended to further God's plan and relieve the poor.

By the way, if you don't think that Obama didn't financially reward his supporters, then you did not fully understand the Auto bailouts. He circumvented what is supposed to happen when a company goes into bankruptcy. Basically he took what was supposed to be the bondholder's resources and gave it to the union. Same thing with the "stimulus" and the "shovel ready jobs".

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, don't take too much offense. The only reason your religion appears crazier than the others is that much of its crazy prophetic story-line occurred a short while ago. Give it a thousand years and I'm sure you'll dominate the globe. But yeah, having 6 kids is socially irresponsible. I wouldn't call out LDS for being anymore evil or corrupt compared to other group (maybe less so). Certainly I enjoy the company of honest Mormon people, even if you are kind of whacked out. Mitt Romney is a fine guy to run a business, but hes a slut of a politician and I honesty I'm ok with that too because he's so shallow about his snake-like (I'll do anything I need for power) attitude. You should be however somewhat dismayed that he probably doesn't actually hate on the gays and the baby killers. In fact, he is a smart guy, which probably means, he actually thinks your religion and social beliefs are as foolish and non-nonsensical as I do. Of course, he's also smart enough to play you idiots for all your worth. Mitt Romney would be a corrupt crony capitalist as is Obama, Newt, Bush, Clinton, etc. That is the system we have. Your understanding of the auto bailouts is pretty convenient and ideologically slanted. I'll admit your version has a good narrative, but let me be honest, you are already quite subject to swallow pretty much any ideologically convenient narrative having swallowed Joe Smith's story. Perhaps you are intelligent enough to question some of this foolish story, but I doubt you vent those concerns with the chruch. Therefore, you can not a very reliable citizen, more more of an ideologically religious soldier for an institution that should have zero power and influence over the lives of non-members.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[smellotron]

So, you say the word "more man" as opposed to "more mun"?

I've always heard the second vowel pronounced as a schwa, which would be fitting of most anything but an i. Morman. Mormen. Mormun. Mormon. Regardless of pronunciation, I would rather see him paying a higher proportion of taxes like the rest of us plebes. We all payed our "fair share" to Federally-sponsored programs with which we disagree, but he gets to funnel the extra income to his own religious organization? Boo, I say.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[portforward]

don't take too much offense. . .whacked out . . . idiots

Interesting, an anonymous coward who says that I should not take offense, and then follows up by calling both members of my faith and me an idiot.

I believe that God lives and that He speaks to men and women today. I don't believe that a 19 year old with a third grade education whose main employment was plowing fields could write a 270,000 word book with no training in semitic languages.

In fact, he is a smart guy, which probably means, he actually thinks your religion and social beliefs are as foolish and non-nonsensical as I do.

Clearly, because only smart people think like you, and foolish people don't think like you.

Your understanding of the auto bailouts is pretty convenient and ideologically slanted.

It is also the truth. Please tell me how my statement is wrong, or slanted. In a bankruptcy, the group with the first dibs on the assets are the Bondholders. The word "Bond" means that you enter in an agreement to borrow money, and your bond to pay it back is some asset. Money, equipment, factories, intellectual property, some asset is supposed to go to the bondholder, as is the legal agreement called a contract. That is the way it has always been. Obama short circuited that process by giving those assets that should have belonged to the bondholders to the unions. The unions donated to his campaign and engaged in get out the vote activities. If that isn't quid pro quo, I don't know what is. Please let me know if left out any inconvenient facts.

Perhaps you are intelligent enough to question some of this foolish story,

I have. Many more times than you would ever think. In fact for a time I probably was an atheist. That is why I don't denigrate the beliefs regarding spirituality that others might have. Probably because I see how they could arrive at that conclusion, because I almost came to that same conclusion. Why I stayed a Mormon though has to do with prayer. Being a Mormon is hard. People like you make all sorts of insults (whacked out, idiot, socially irresponsible, not a reliable citizen), and you miss out on some social things, and lots is asked of you. I really stuck out on my mission in South America, and at times it was dangerous. But I know that God answers prayers.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe that a 19 year old with a third grade education whose main employment was plowing fields could write a 270,000 word book with no training in semitic languages.

Well, you might reconsider the claim that he did, and the motives of those who first made the claim, then...

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[clarkn0va]

Here in Canada we are free to donate to any charity of our choosing, and that money is tax deductible. I don't know how it is in the States, but I thought the rules were similar. Funnel your extra cash into the church of the flying spaghetti monster if you like. As long as it's a registered charity then you too can enjoy this tax deduction, and all the ire that follows it when you decide to run for public office.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[smellotron]

Here in Canada we are free to donate to any charity of our choosing, and that money is tax deductible.

This is the same in the states. "Tax deductible" means that funneling money into a charity will always decrease my take-home, just by a lesser amount. However, my argument in Romney's case (or anyone else's whose income is primarily long-term capital gains) is that charitable contributions above the LTCG tax rate are still free relative to the marginal income tax rate. Yet they get spun as "knight in shining armor" benevolence.

Re:Damn those Mormans!

[n7ytd]

hes a slut of a politician

You repeat yourself...

Romney is the selected candidate.

[Lord Kano]

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

Re:Romney is the selected candidate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Like it or not, they're not. The media decides the winners. It was the same thing in the Democratic primaries with Obama, after a point, even though polling and voting still didn't have him ahead.

Re:Romney is the selected candidate.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you inform us non-Americans how Ralph Nader's Green Party is doing, because he's not on the radar here in Europe.
And what are his opinions about representative voting?

Re:Romney is the selected candidate.

[Lord Kano]

Could you inform us non-Americans how Ralph Nader's Green Party is doing, because he's not on the radar here in Europe.

And what are his opinions about representative voting?

I am unaware of any activity on the part of the Green party. My politics don't coincide with theirs, so I don't really pay attention to what they're doing.

I suspect that the Greens are laying low because this may well be a close election and a strong Green candidate will only benefit the Republicans.

LK

Re:Romney is the selected candidate.

[Lord Kano]

Like it or not, they're not. The media decides the winners. It was the same thing in the Democratic primaries with Obama, after a point, even though polling and voting still didn't have him ahead.

As I remember it, Bill Clinton snatched defeat from the jaws of victory for Hillary. He was so used to being the golden boy of the media that when they found a new guy, he decompensated in front of the whole world.

LK

Re:Romney is the selected candidate.

[Machtyn]

Actually, the media is NOT trying to shove Romney down your throat. Try to pay attention. Rush Limbaugh has a thing for Newt. Fox News - Anti-Romney (for Newt right now, They were big on Rick Perry for a long time, essentially killing Bachmann's Iowa straw poll momentum).

Study: TV News Bashes Romney, Boosts Horse Race The TLDR; version is: In the broadcast networks, evaluative comments of Romney were 78% negative vs. only 22% positive. By contrast, on-air judgments of Ron Paul were 73% positive vs. 27% negative, evaluations of Jon Huntsman were 71% positive vs. 29% negative, Rick Santorum’s evaluations were 56% positive vs. 44% negative, and comments about Newt Gingrich were 52% positive vs. 48% negative. Other candidates received too few evaluations to be statistically meaningful.

The major topics of the coverage, measured as the number of stories about each, were as follows:

1. Campaign horse race - 105
2. Policy issues - 16
3. Voters - 11
4. Candidates’ professional backgrounds - 8
5. Candidates’ personal backgrounds - 7
6. Campaign conduct - 7
7. Debates - 5

In other words.

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent poster is 100% correct, and you don't have the balls to admit it.

Oh Lord, what have thou become? (X_X)

[Kikuchi]

Hey, here's a Slashdot Poll idea:
What got this story on slashdot? The word:
* Rommney, Gingrich
* Lunar base
* 2020
* NASA
* aerospace heavyweights
* Moonwalker

This cricket has been detained by ICE

[RobinEggs]

Obama's been an awesome failure as a Democratic president, that's for sure. In recent months I've heard his presidency described as George W. Bush's third term, and I can't disagree.

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. Then we can be free.

Re:This cricket has been detained by ICE

[MichaelSmith]

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. Then we can be free.

You should be pushing hard for preferential voting.

This isn't hypocracy

[atari2600a]

They simply KNOW what's a reasonable timescale & what's not! I don't know if anyone remembers, but remember the shuttle program? They were actually SHUTTLES; vehicles designed to SHUTTLE people en-masse to the giant space stations we were supposed to have by now before funding was cut, & simply to build them took OVER A DECADE to get from idea to reality, & by the time they finished they had no giant space stations to shuttle people to so they gutted the seats & called it a cargo hold. So, let's review: we take over 10 years for a project that WASN'T EVEN CLOSE TO A LUNER BASE, & in the end instead of a shuttle we get a freight train that kept breaking down. To top it off, the funding came through because of the space race / national security more than anything else.

Re:This isn't hypocracy

[Anonymous Coward]

They were actually SHUTTLES; vehicles designed to SHUTTLE people en-masse to the giant space stations we were supposed to have by now before funding was cut, & simply to build them took OVER A DECADE to get from idea to reality, & by the time they finished they had no giant space stations to shuttle people to so they gutted the seats & called it a cargo hold.

This is so full of wrong, I don't know where to begin. The shuttle was never conceived as a passenger vehicle - it was always a truck. The earliest plans included a 60-by-15-foot cargo bay:

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4221/ch5.htm

There were no plans to build a "giant space station" or a moon base, and consequently no need to ferry people "en-masse" to space. They didn't come up with a design for a passenger module until 1979, after shuttles had already been built.

Oh, one more thing - it's spelled "hypocrisy."

Re:This isn't hypocracy

[atari2600a]

You're thinking too far into the future of the program-- I'm talking about conception, where we are NOW with this "lunar base". Before Apollo VIII we DID have plans for a giant fucking space station & frequent transport. I can shart out links too, you know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program#Purpose_of_the_system

Re:This isn't hypocracy

[Anonymous Coward]

You're thinking too far into the future of the program

The Air Force spec in the link I provided is from 1970 or so.

Before Apollo VIII we DID have plans for a giant fucking space station & frequent transport.

Bullshit. There may have been some pie-in-the-sky dreaming, but no plans.

From your Wiki article: "The 'Space Transportation System' (NASA's formal name for the overall Shuttle program) was created to transport crewmembers and payloads into low Earth orbits."

That's "crewmembers and payloads," not "passengers."

At no point was the Shuttle intended to take scads of people into space like a passenger jet, you're just plain wrong.

Re:This isn't hypocracy

[FatLittleMonkey]

You're thinking too far into the future of the program-- I'm talking about conception,

No, you're thinking about something that only ever existed in your head. The STS was never intended to be a passenger-only vehicle. They never "gutted the seats & called it a cargo hold."

I can shart out links too, you know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program#Purpose_of_the_system

And there's nothing in that link that backs up anything you said. The shuttle was always intended to be a low cost space truck. Nixon even used that term in meetings.

So just to be perfectly clear

[Anonymous Coward]

So just to be perfectly clear: the US intends to claim the moon as its sovereign territory now? Have you told the Russians? How about the Indians? They had probes flying over it very recently. If the Chinese knew, they might try and target the moon with some of their long march rockets. They might also cut off the "SinoATM(tm)". That might destabilize the US economy especially if other people start using the Yuan. Then printing more money won't do squat, and all that 'lunar bases' money will disappear like green cheese.

Re:So just to be perfectly clear

[Anonymous Coward]

"The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men! Will you be among them?"

Politics aside, I want a lunar base

[Karmashock]

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.

Re:Newsflashac...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe... 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. It's like deciding between saving/investing your money and going out drinking. One makes you happy now and the other makes you happy later.

NASA old guard wants Constellation back

[Anonymous Coward]

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 rocket.

So basically...
Obama - Augustine report recommendations
Romney - Constellation is back!
Gingrich - Pay SpaceX, Bigelow, etc. a lot of money to build a moon base. Maybe Elon can talk Gingrich into financing his retirement on Mars.
Ron Paul - death to the manned space program

Geeez.....

[jmd]

My guess is China will draw a line in the sand and say *No more money for you until you pay back what you already owe.*

Is it just me or do I see a pattern of serious mental illness developing amongst politicians??

Re:Geeez.....

[FatLittleMonkey]

My guess is China will draw a line in the sand and say *No more money for you until you pay back what you already owe.*

China owns about 8% of US Federal debt. (Over 70% is owned by US citizens, companies and funds.) And it's entirely in fixed-term Treasury bonds. They get paid when the bond expires, with interest at the rate it says on the bond. And bonds are only paid in US dollars. The only way to "call in" the debt is to sell the bonds on the open market to other buyers, which would flood the market and massively decrease their value (to China). At which point the Treasury would buy them up at fire-sale prices. (Which the Treasury is doing. Effectively converting existing higher-interest bonds into low-interest bonds. Saving money in the long term.)

All China can do is stop buying. Which they have. (Well, they are still buying some, but they aren't full replacing the bonds that mature). And yet the interest on bonds is about as low as it gets, which means there's loads of others buying, which means no one is concerned that China isn't buying US debt.

The low interest rate on bonds means the US is flush with would-be debt buyers. Honestly, the best thing the US could do right now is borrow as much as possible while the price is so incredibly low. (And unemployment so high. Which means spending on massive infrastructure programs (via debt) wouldn't be inflationary.)

Oh, and the Treasury registers every bond owner, and can decide who buys or sells US bonds, even on the open market. It can therefore selectively cancel bonds. Normally it wouldn't, but if China tried to do something publicly obnoxious, like trying to use debt to blackmail the US, the Treasury could selectively cancel Chinese owned bonds without spooking the bond market because international traders would know that China walked into it. China, not being stupid, would not set themselves up like that.

The whole "China owns us" meme is retarded.

I'm against a lunar base

[93 Escort Wagon]

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........

[assertation]

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?

Re:Lets Get This Straight........

[bkmoore]

Republicans.... make it into a 51st state?

They are all for it if the population reliably votes Republican. Forget about Puerto Rico ever becoming a state. But how do we find 15,000 reliable Republican voters with time on their hands to relocate to the moon? I heard that American whalers trend to vote Republican and haven't had much to do in the past 60 years. They're good at operating for long periods of time far away from home. Maybe we should set up a Republican whaling base on the Moon. Putin would probably go high and right when he hears about this.

hey, this is slashdot. no accounting is allowed

[decora]

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.

yeah there was this thing called the Cold War

[decora]

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 (stick nukes on rockets).

the entire space program was based around theoretical war with an enemy state.

now, communism is no longer the enemy - its our special friend that produces shiny gadgets we write code for, in huge factories we'd rather not think about, unless we work at Goldman Sachs and our job is to think about how much money they are making.

Grape Kool Aid is nice I hear

[TheGoodNamesWereGone]

The fix is in. Romney is the "desired" candidate of the elites in the GOP and especially the media and the Democrats. But, they'll eat him for frickin' lunch in November. All the media love being shown to him to him? That's a trap. You can bet your sweet bippy that come election time, they'll turn on him and endorse Democrats. About the space program? "Oh, please, Mr Putin!! Can we ride one of your rockets into space? Our president SHUT DOWN OUR MANNED SPACE PROGRAM, so we need a ride. Won't you please help a poor third-world nation out?" Yeah, Newt's a cad that's been married seventy times. I was married twice myself. Your point, while you cite Bill Clinton as being a good president? I wish the liberal culture of Slashdot could separate their hatred for any conservative candidate with the real issues. The USA DOESN'T HAVE A MANNED SPACE PROGRAM ANY MORE. It *needs* to be resurrected. I'd vote for him on that basis alone, never mind mind he left two harpy bitch gold digger wives. Good riddance. There goes my stellar Slashdot positive karma rating. You people you should be more intellectually consistent... the whole point of this site is about technology and science. Well, here's a guy who wants to promote that. And you oppose him. Bye bye karma. Oh, well...

Needs to be a law...

[Anonymous Coward]

They need to make a law that jails or at least bankrupts any elected official who goes against a campaign promise.. for too many years they promise the world depending who they are in front of, then when elected do whatever the hell they want anyway. Like right now, that the GOP is working in Florida they are toning down the anti-immigration they use in other states... 'The People' are so stupid...

Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[SuperKendall]

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 for commercial purposes, and when there were enough he would welcome an application to become a state. Is that so crazy?

Regardless of other ideas, this is the best way to leverage government funds to get a desired result. Rather than spend a ton of money on well connected green energy programs (for example), it would be far better to outlay a prize for some level of target efficiency in solar panels. Then companies that can ACTUALLY PRODUCE RESULTS instead of writing applications get the money. That is a far better outcome, and it would work really well to fire up R&D across the nation with different similar proposals.

Newt has a lot of issues in other regards but at least he has vision. Romney and Obama are just politicians through and through, just a shell of promises.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's in-fucking-sane. You are living in a fantasy world. People work hard because they expect to be rewarded. Such a prize would need to cover all the costs involved plus a handsome reward for the assumed risk of failure and liability (oops! we killed another astronaut). Those costs are not a small portion of government funds.

Moreover, your logic on the whole solar panel industry is flawed at its most base assumption: that solar panel makers don't care about efficiency. They do. I know this because I know the answer to the question "If I were in the market for solar panels, which one would I choose?" The answer is the one that will net me the cheapest energy over the lifetime of the panel. You can do this in two ways: one, make the solar panel cheaper (which means using less energy to produce it) or two, you can make it better at turning sunlight into electricity. Either way, it's win-win for you (the sucker that buys the solar panel).

You see, the price of an object is a pretty good indication of the amount of energy that went into producing it (not exactly, but pretty good). A very efficient solar panel that takes more energy make than it produces is useless. But why should you care? Because at a time of economic crises, things that have little to no chance of paying themselves off in the long term (like moon bases) are monuments to idiocy.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[mwvdlee]

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.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

> Such a prize would need to cover all the costs involved plus a handsome reward for the assumed risk of failure and liability

a) X-price has already been done in another areas and it worked.
b) You don't have to make a goal about building a base into a moon, you can do it in small steps, e.g. "invent a material that is best suited for moon buildings", "create a robot that can harvest stuff on the moon", "create a robot that can build stuff from harvested stuff", "invent a way to deliver materials cheaply to moon", "food ecosystem on moon", etc. Once we have solutions for all the small parts, we just combine them and do it.

> "If I were in the market for solar panels, which one would I choose?"

If you are selling solar panels, you don't want invest on research. You want to minimise your risks by buying cheap stuff and sell it with as high price as possible assuming that people will still pay it. There are also stories about new inventions in the solar electricity research where big oil companies have bought the company that was funding the research, just to cut off the research. The goal of the companies is to make money, not to improve human life.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[silentcoder]

>Over time there would be a significant build up of people living on the moon for commercial purposes, and when there were enough he would welcome an application to become a state. Is that so crazy?

Yes, it is. The US is a signatory to the UN space treaty which specifically prevents any nation on earth from laying claim to the moon. So, basically - he would have to renege on a U.N. treaty to accept that request for state-hood. Bush just went ahead without waiting for the U.N. or lying to them but actually reneging on a treaty in an organization where the US holds a veto right? Can you begin to imagine the consequences for the USA ? For the world as a whole ? If the USA reneges on a U.N. treaty that will completely devalue all such treaties.
Everyone of those campaign-funding corporate sponsors would shit himself in time's square on national TV before allowing that to happen.

In short, no-way does a career politician like Gingrich have that kind of balls. But it's the kind of thing that might get you votes if you say it in Florida.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[Machtyn]

He clarified in that speech (before the quoted sentence) that we need a goal to inspire kids to achieve greatness. He wants something similar as what happened in the 50's that spurred kids to become educated in STEMs.

The big problem I have is that he wants the first Lunar colony to have 13,000 US citizens and become the 51st state. I think we can all agree that the moon should be anti-national, similar to Antarctica.

Disclosure: I am a US citizen, identify with Republicans, Conservative and early TEA Party ideals. And Gingrich certainly has grandiose ideas - not necessarily good ideas.

Funny how you have no clue

[SuperKendall]

Why do deficits not matter? Newt's idea is not that government pays to build a colony, rather that the government would strongly encourage private space exploration and then if there were enough people living somewhere (the moon is the most likely place to gather a large number of people at first) the U.S. would welcome an application to become a state or colony.

No kick-backs? Green industry mean anything?

[SuperKendall]

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 but remember the Democrats had full control over the nozzle for two years).

Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing

[SuperKendall]

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 Obama so he can bail out more giant banks and continue to send government funds to a corrupt health care industry.

If you like SOPA and things like it, by all means continue to vote for Democrats because they will bring it on strong and hard after November (what, you bought that he was actually against it? How cute!)

Re:Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing

[guises]

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was the first step in very much needed healthcare reform. Reform which will both improve quality of live for a very large number of Americans who have previously only had access to emergency rooms, but save us money in the long run ($143 billion over ten years according to the Congressional Budget Office):

http://cboblog.cbo.gov/?p=546

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, if you search for "Obamacare saves money", using the derisive name for the act coined by the neo-cons, you get editorial after editorial from conservative sources using anecdotal evidence to try a refute the CBO's finding. "I know a doctor who now prescribes Aspirin! Aspirin people!" Naturally, none of them have actually done any research on the subject. They're just haters, and they gonna hate.

Re:Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing

[Trepidity]

Emergency rooms are required to treat people, but not to do it for free. If you end up in the emergency room, you'll have a $10,000-$100,000 bill waiting for you when you get home, which will quickly turn your life into an interesting motley crew of collection agencies, wage garnishment, and perhaps eventually a bankruptcy filing.

Re:Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man, somebody from across the internet called my views cute, I feel so embarrassed.

Re:Obama far more the scumbag in this pairing

[Anonymous Coward]

Treated only for the most extreme emergencies, often already too late. The uninsured people had NO preventative care which is MUCH cheaper than later emergency room visits. We should be taking the insurance companies out of medical care altogether and providing it as a basic right for free. It would be substantially cheaper than the cluster fuck we have now.

People die because they don't have insurance and the rest of us pay for it anyway, might as well make the system accommodate that in the first place.

Different approaches to science

[Ukab the Great]

Romney's a down-to-earth kinda guy and Gingrich is a space-cadet.

Re:Different approaches to science

[Anonymous Coward]

I betcha $10000 Romney isn't down-to-earth

Private Industry

[SuperKendall]

Newts proposial is that private industry can be encouraged to explore space further - that's already happening but can be accelerated even further with tax breaks for the industry align with small X-Prize style awards for specific goals (for instance one could imagine a 100 million prize for a lunar colony that lasted a month).

Newt is not about taxes paying for that, but to encourage private R&D to accomplish goals in space.

He said it LONG ago

[SuperKendall]

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.

Bahahahahaa

[Anonymous Coward]

The space mental illness is halrious to watch!

Manned space is progress? I do not think so.

[bussdriver]

I oppose wasting money on manned space programs other than getting the most research out of the space station.

Man is inferior to robots. No, this isn't a sci-fi fan gone crazy or somebody trying to suck up to our terminator overlords; it is a fact of TODAY. In the domain of space exploration robots have surpassed man already. Tomorrow, or just even by 2020 the robot will have advanced further than they did in the last 10 years-- while the humans... won't. (insert wisecrack here)

I would prefer we lead the world into a future of advanced robotics in space as well as on earth.
We can leave the moon's razor sharp dust to the disposable robots.
HAL can give us a ride to Mars for cheap after we jump start the core of Mars and create an atmosphere which does not turn to liquid in winter...
NASA can work on planetary science (and related climate science) instead of being diverted to less immediate... "coincidental" projects.

Re:Manned space is progress? I do not think so.

[Anonymous Coward]

But robots can't write books about how the joys of zero gravity sexual intercourse can be a powerful saving force for today's failing institution of marriage. Think about the kids man!

everything for war and nothing for survival

[roman_mir]

A Lunar base is a fine goal, when the economy is not in a shitter, and it's a fine goal when the country talking about it is not fighting multiple wars to steal resources and kill as many people as possible while not producing nothing of value for the people.

Even USSR didn't fight this many wars while running the space propaganda.

Re:everything for war and nothing for survival

[FatLittleMonkey]

A Lunar base is a fine goal, when the economy is not in a shitter

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.

It's called counter-cycling. 'Tis even in the bible. Save in the fat years for the lean years.

The problem is that Republican Presidents (particularly Reagan and Dubya) tend to borrow and spend like crazy, even in the good years, especially in the good years. (Bush Sr is the exception, he tried to curtail spending, Clinton (with Gingrich in Congress) almost succeeded. There even was concern amongst the money-men in the late 1990's that the US would pay off its debt entirely by 2012. Then Bush Jr got elected.)

Re:everything for war and nothing for survival

[roman_mir]

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?

Re:everything for war and nothing for survival

[FatLittleMonkey]

Between WWII and 1980, the growth in the median family income matched the growth in GDP almost perfectly. Ie, double the size of the GDP, double the median family income. What was good for America was good for Americans.

Between 1980 and 2000, after the switch to "supply-side" economics, there was a disconnect between GDP and most of the population. Ie, double the size of the GDP, only 20% rise in median family income and most of that near the beginning. Only the wealthiest 10%, then only the wealthiest 1%, fully gained from the rise in GDP.

Between 2000 and the crash, the benefit contracted even further. Only the top 0.1% saw income growth. Even those between 99 and 99.9% had flat incomes (in constant dollar terms), along with everyone else below them. (Since the recovery, I suspect it has contracted even further.) The "Occupy" movement is at least a decade out of date, We Are The 99.9%, and possibly the 99.99%

At the same time, and probably because of that very economic disconnect, intergeneration wealth fluidity has fallen off a cliff. That is, if you look at people in any income bracket, they are less and less likely to be born to parents who weren't already in that income bracket. It's harder for the bright and hard working to rise in society, and it's easier for the dull and lazy to retain their station. The American Dream (that anyone with an ounce of talent and a bucket of moxie can make it) has ended. And I suspect that the failure to capitalise on a generation of talent in the lower ranks is the reason for America's decline.

So I would say that supply-side economics has resoundingly failed to deliver what it promised. Over 30 years of slavishly giving the Chicago-school-of-economics boys everything they wanted, the US is in the toilet. (Remember the whole point of Reagan's "deficits don't matter" was that supply-side economics would perpetually increase revenues to more than compensate for the tax cuts. Didn't happen.)

this Keynesian type of thinking is exactly what turns a recession into a depression.

Average length of recessions/depressions pre-WWI was 22 months. Between WWI and WWII they averaged 18 months. After WWII, they averaged 11 months. Thus the average duration of recessions was cut in half because of counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy.

Average length of growth phases between recessions pre-WWI was 27 months. Between WWI and WWII they averaged 35 months. And after WWII, they averaged 50 months. The average length of the growth phase was nearly doubled because of counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy.

I'm not sure why this stuff is so hard to grasp. Counter-cycling made things better. Supply-side made things worse. QED.

Re:everything for war and nothing for survival

[roman_mir]

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 inflation for the past 20 years, the real GDP has been shrinking, not growing, the US economy is definitely not better today than for example 3 years ago, fewer people are working today than 3 years ago, yet GDP is reportedly higher. Don't tell me that US workers are much more productive today than they were 3 years ago.

The real GDP must be reduced by the deflator, and when inflation is calculated incorrectly on purpose with all the substitutions and hedonics, you cannot rely on those numbers at all. They use even a smaller deflater by the way, than the CPI, and CPI was reported about 3-4% last year by the government, and real inflation was closer to 15%.

US had high employment after war since it had a near monopoly on manufacturing, while gov't was cut by 62% and taxes by 30%, which allowed quick recovery. US workers could afford out of pocket medical care, health insurance, retirement plans, they owned houses and cars and even second property without debt, they went to vacations, saved for kid's education and all of this was done on one man's salary, the wives stayed home if they wanted to and they mostly did.

Enter the age of big government and big business coming to a criminal understanding and using the crowd as is described here to get the socialist agenda moving, with terrible mistakes being allowed: SS (started a couple of decades earlier, but it really was very tiny percentage wise for the first 20 years), Medicare, all the wars and finally Nixon crashed the dollar, defaulted on the promise to pay gold and the printing really started, which pushed prices up and then came the price fixing.

Fixing prices on everything, from food to wages, setting gov't controlled minimum wage (1938) but raising it during Nixon, setting price of money (interest rates) at record low levels for the time.

Nixon introduced wage and price controls when official inflation number hit 4%.

FOUR PERCENT lead to wage and price controls at the time. Today the real interest rate is 3-4 times as great and official interest rate is 3-4% and everybody says: oh, it's not a problem.

Not a problem my ass, the results are catastrophic, that's what created the Internet bubble and the housing bubble and now the bond and USD bubble.

Between 1980 and 2000, after the switch to "supply-side" economics

- I bet you think that 'supply-side' was actually practised in USA.

Supply side economics is the only real economics, and it worked just fine but the suppliers were not located IN USA and thus USA became a CONSUMER, not a supplier, and consumer only gets consumables from that kind of a fake trade, but the suppliers are growing their manufacturing capacity and are actually driving the economy and increasing their own standard of living, that's why China can actually AFFORD the infrastructure it's building and USA can only pay lip service to it while only exporting counterfeit currency.

Between 2000 and the crash, the benefit contracted even further. Only the top 0.1% saw income growth.

- of-course.

OF-COURSE.

You can't have a non-productive population actually increasing their purchasing power. OF-COURSE the productive part of the population saw large increases, because they moved their savings and

Romney's OWN Lunar Plans . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Reporter: "Mr. Romney, when will we again send a man to the Moon?"

Romney: "As soon as Newt Gingrich has packed his bags. Preferably, before the next primary."

Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Nicolai Haehnle]

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. 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 and here and here.

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.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Eponymous Coward]

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 for one example of his writing.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

And I bet when Bush was in office Krugman was writing articles that debt is the worst thing possible for a nation to have. He is a bad economist, and blatently partsian. He is also one of the guys who blasted Palin for using the term "death panels" and then in an interview a year later said that "death panels is the only possible way to pay for Obamacare".

Don't believe anything he says.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Prune]

It's worth noting here that Krugman and the MMTers have significant points of disagreement, and Krugman doesn't fully grasp MMT.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Anonymous Coward]

Might work if your massive central bank and central government wasn't prone to vast corruption. Might work if you didn't have to trade with other nations. Given the current state of things, it's utterly delusional. We're in a period of asset deflation and commodity inflation. This doesn't end well.

If you need a lesson in reality, go check out what's happening in Europe.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Eponymous Coward]

Reality has a liberal bias.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[davidbofinger]

see e.g. here

Vickrey seems to be saying that the then-newly-elected Clinton administration is getting it all wrong, that it is failing to provide enough stimulus and the economy will suffer unless it changes its policies. But historically the Clinton years were very good ones economically. So did Clinton do what Vickrey said, or was Vickrey wrong?

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Nicolai Haehnle]

Vickrey seems to be saying that the then-newly-elected Clinton administration is getting it all wrong, that it is failing to provide enough stimulus and the economy will suffer unless it changes its policies. But historically the Clinton years were very good ones economically. So did Clinton do what Vickrey said, or was Vickrey wrong?

That's a good point. I would say it is a bit of both. The Clinton years were good ones for the US economy, and there was a surplus under Clinton for some years, but this was never sustainable. In some sense, the real question is: What is the relationship between the surplus and the economy?

The sane answer, I think, is that the Clinton surpluses were only possible because of the economic good times. A well running economy implies high tax revenues and low social spending, and therefore pushes the budget deficit towards surplus automatically, even when politicians do nothing.

But the more worrying part, and this is where Vickrey got it right, is the question of how those good economic times were possible in the first place? The answer to that is that the Clinton administration was also a time when private credit really took off. Economic growth was largely fuelled by consumers going into debt to finance their consumption. As should be clear to everybody by now, that wasn't such a good idea after all, because unlike government debt, consumer debt is not sustainable.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Nicolai Haehnle]

As an addendum: Vickrey got it wrong in the short term because he did not foresee the expansion of private credit. In the long term he got it right because this expansion of private credit was not sustainable.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[MobyDisk]

I bookmarked this discussion yesterday to come back to it. I haven't read it all, but the NYTimes article is soundly reasoned but seems to ignore it's own points and come to a different conclusion. I post this in the hopes of getting some well-reasoned replies.

First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base.

Totally fine. So what does that mean when the tax base is shrinking? It A The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.

But this isn't post WW2. We didn't just win a war. If we want to try to compare the situations, it is more like we are losing one. But this is an economic war. After WW2 the US was a technological superpower, the victor, and mostly unscathed. The rest of the world needed to be rebuilt. There will be no magical stimulus from rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan.

The line of reasoning that the economy will just grow forever is exactly the thinking that got us into our current crisis. Banks gave out subprime mortgages under the economic theory that housing prices never go down. Ooops! Now we are fooling ourselves into thinking that economies never shrink, so debts are irrelevant. Oops!

And that’s why nations with stable, responsible governments — that is, governments that are willing to impose modestly higher taxes when the situation warrants it — have historically been able to live with much higher levels of debt.

Raising taxes doesn't work well when you have a shrinking tax base and high unemployment.

Britain, in particular, has had debt exceeding 100 percent of G.D.P. for 81 of the last 170 years

I found a graph of this recently. The biggest debt-to-GDP ratios were before the industrial revolution, and during the wars. So it isn't a valid comparison.

Most of the article is good, and clarifies a lot of points. But don't read it and conclude that debts don't matter. Tell that to Europe.

Re:No kick-backs? Green industry mean anything?

[AK Marc]

So every Republican since Eisenhower has done that, but it's to be expected so nobody even mentions it, but heaven forbid a Democrat take a play from the Republican playbook.

Re:Newsflashac...

[FatLittleMonkey]

Or maybe... 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. It's like deciding between saving/investing your money and going out drinking. One makes you happy now and the other makes you happy later.

And yet Mike Griffin, as NASA Administrator, chose to go out drinking. He proposed a giant Saturn V style rocket that NASA didn't have the funding or experience to build. When Obama tried to cancel it, he lobbied ruthlessly for his employer to save it (as SLS), again even though NASA can't afford it, and even though that it has excluded any funding for actual missions/payloads for the SLS. Their petty dickery has gotten to the point where the House Republicans tried to zero funding for the Commercial-Crew Development program, because they see it as a potential low-cost rival to their emplo... I mean donors.

Griffin, and the OMG Big Fucking Rocket faction, have precisely chosen what makes employers happy now, over what will grow the industry in the long term.

A Solid Foundation

[ks*nut]

They're attempting to build a space program in reverse order. There needs to be a stable base of science and technology in place before attempting a more ambitious program such as a moon base. The American space agency (NASA) squandered its expertise on the shuttle program and would need to make huge changes in its engineering and managerial structure to support what would amount to a new program. Perhaps the best approach would be placing an spacecraft assembly station in LEO and assemble components for a moon program outside of Earth's gravity. We've got our heads stuck in 20th century technology - we don't need a monstrous rocket to take us directly to the Moon. And the current ISS is so encumbered with short-sighted ideas that it would be laughable if it weren't so sad; it was the last excuse to continue the STS program.

This is about how much money NASA gets

[chris-chittleborough]

Gingrich says he'll use big monetary prizes to get private enterprises (Bigelow, SpaceX, Armadillo, etc) to build the infrastructure. (He carefully left that detail out while campaigning in Florida.) Mike Griffin and other long-time NASA people would prefer the existing approach: giving NASA lots of money to spend in the sponsoring politicians electorates. (Why was Mission Control in Houston, of all places? LBJ put it there to boost the local economy.)

Yup, you are right

[WindBourne]

This is cheap to do. Basically, get private industry to do this. The problem is that the neo-cons are pushing to waste money on the SLS, rather than allowing private space to do the job. The good news is that O is likely going to be the president next term and I fully expect (hope?) that he will kill off SLS and get CCdev going fully.

Not the ER canard again

[fyngyrz]

Those 40 million were required already to be treated by emergency rooms.

Let me explain something to you. ER treatment is very costly to the patient. But quite aside from cost, ER care doesn't address problems like cancer, diabetes, etc. What the ER is obligated to do is stabilize you. Not cure you, or develop a course of care for you, or really much of anything else. You go there, they'll treat the obvious -- broken bones, bullet holes -- you'll get one dose of a drug that will stabilize you in the opinion of the ER doc if in fact that is needed, an expensive prescription that you probably can't afford to fill anyway, and then you're out the door. It is a huge error to think that ER care is the equivalent of responsible medical treatment.

If, for instance, you have bad knees, or poor vision, or bad teeth, or an allergy to something, or a hernia that isn't strangulated at the moment, or diabetes that hasn't yet caused your eyes to rot or your feet to fall off... the ER will do you absolutely no good whatsoever. Other than gifting yourself with a whopping bill for walking in there. Get it? ER care is NOT a viable replacement for adequate medical care for a huge range of issues. And then let's go back to cost: ER care is far more expensive than proper preventive care, particularly for many disease processes caught early and treated early; if that is done, much less money is spent than allowing the disease to get chronic, and then trying to treat it. No matter where you treat it.

One last thing: You DO pay for ER care, ineffective and small-spectrum as it is. The hospital has to pay for the care, but since the patient doesn't, that cost either goes to the government under some program or other -- meaning, you pay for it -- or else it goes into increased prices for services at the hospital -- which means you pay for it -- and if you're insured, the insurance company gets larger bills, which translates into more costs for the insurance company -- which means you're going to pay for it. So what you should want, if your wish is for the least money to be taken from you, is care that is most cost-effective, which is NOT, I guarantee you, ER care. You want early preventive treatment; you want people to be healthy so they can work and pay taxes and so reduce your legitimate tax burden; you want them not to be walking around, sick, untreated with communicable diseases running rampant in their systems so you and yours can catch them --- instead, you want them recuperating at home, not concerned that they are going to go bankrupt if they miss one paycheck.

It seems obvious to me that a healthy country is as much in everyone's selfish self-interest as an educated one is.

We're already working on the problem.

[FatLittleMonkey]

Tidal forces from the moon are slowing the Earth's rotation. In a few billion years, the Earth will become tidally locked. At that point the moon will stop creeping away (and start creeping inwards, much more slowly, due to the loss of energy via gravitational waves).

Decisionmaking

[fyngyrz]

The way to decide...

That's a terrible way to decide. What you just said was "imagine a situation that doesn't apply, and then make your decision based on that." I can hardly think of a less reality-based methodology.

You want to make a rational decision, then first, see what the prospective candidate's powers will be if elected to the proposed position; then see what their views are WRT those powers; then make your decision based on that. Not on some imaginary situation that doesn't even remotely apply. Good grief.

It's called putting y'self in other people's shoes

[dbIII]

It's a good way - it's called considering how somebody's policy would apply to the millions in your country that don't have the resources to be their own boss. I was trying to put it in a way that people could see themselves in and actually think about without the "ethical treatment - that's Commie talk from puppy killing unions" backlash that comes up when talking about US employment policies directly.
So is Ron Paul somebody that would pay you under the minimum wage if he could get away with it? If not, and he can't be trusted that far to ethically run any group larger than a single individual do you really think he could be trusted to run a country? I know some other Libertarians would go for outright slavery if they could (and imply that all Libertarians think that way) but from over here I just see a wide ranging bunch of Anarchists and don't know where in that spectrum Ron Paul stands.
Grammar Nazis should just ignore the apostrophe in the heading, it's due to the character limit.

Re:It's called putting y'self in other people's sh

[C0R1D4N]

I live in NJ where our minimum wage of 7.50/hr is much higher than the rest of the nation (so is our cost of living and 7.50/hr would be pretty rough to live on) but even our fast food jobs start at 8/hr. They have to to attract employees they want because even 16 year olds want a decent wage.

Funny how that works

Re:No kick-backs? Green industry mean anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

The stimulus funds largely went to big Democratic donors. Obama is about systematically funneling government funds to Democratic groups.

Hmm... not quite. Solyndra wasn't just Democrat-supporter cash, it was also Republican-supporter cash. He was systematically funneling government funds to the 1%.

Kopff Maunder Fringe base

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the Kopff Maunder Fringe base?

Re:Lunar base-- great idea. Gingrich's version- no

[Anonymous Coward]

Launch another couple of lunar explorers like Mars, maybe even drop down a LunarCam to view Earth from the moon by live video for sponsorship.

Actually, he makes sense...

[DanielRavenNest]

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.

Re:Actually, he makes sense...

[Teancum]

I agree... we need low cost transportation and infrastructure.

So what is current American space policy to get that accomplished? What is the ultimate goal that should be set to make that something other than a mission in an of itself into something which could benefit America economically rather than simply go and bankrupt a bunch of Aerospace firms, as the cost of building rockets is no longer a money making business?

I won't even go into why the Moon is a good place to go, but rather point out that I do agree a genuine infrastructure consisting of fuel depots in space, genuine spaceships that don't need to actually land on planetary bodies (or even on asteroids for that matter), and space stations or habitats that can be consumers of resources in space as well as factories for doing other things or even becoming a destination in and of themselves. Sure, some "near-earth objects" might have lower delta-v, but going to a geosynchronous orbit is even cheaper, and the Earht-Moon LaGrangian points are pretty good too... all of which are better than going to the Moon.... but the Moon certainly can be one of those destinations. This wikipedia article does a very good job of explaining not just how much delta-v is needed to get around the solar system, but even how much from one general location to another including a very intuitive graph that helps you calculate almost any delta v for common destination in the Solar System with nothing more than a simple calculator and 3rd grade math skills.

All of this is presuming that going into the Solar System in some significant manner, which would include bases on the Moon, Mars, asteroids, and other locations. If that is the goal, then the reason for building cheap transporations systems to get there is axiomatic. If you don't care to go into space and build this kind of infrastructure to begin seriously exploiting the resources of space and instead want to continue the current status quo where multi-billion dollar communications and spy satellites that only need to be lofted up into the sky about once a decade or so and only a couple of launches per year in total, then we don't need cheap transportation into space. Define the goal, then the rest can be explained much more easily and more easily justified.

It also takes a change in mentality here, where you can't presume that a government bureaucracy is going to be the only customer, and that some central planning bureau is going to be making all of the decisions. If we are going to return to the Moon, it can't be with a Soviet-style ten year plan with the whole thing built at government expense. If that is the plan, I would also agree it would be wildly expensive and wasteful. I argue that it doesn't have to be so nearly expensive and could even be largely self-supporting.... but that would require opening up space for private individuals and organizations to get into the act as well in a meaningful way and not merely as contractors for the big government enterprise.

Every 4 years the same circus

[bfandreas]

Every 4 years news gets polluted by the same talking heads and somehow excited news anchors try to sell it off as exciting. At least the Dems are not at it at the moment so it's only half bad, I s'ppose.

What on earth is going on with you guys? Does even more than half of you care? I refuse to think that this represents any meaningful portion of you guys. Somebody who doesn't hold any office whatsoever says something he didn't say before. Ho-hum.

Onward, I say! Sod the lot of them!

TANSTAFFL

[Anonymous Coward]

"There Ain't No Such Thing As Fucking Free Lunches"

I know where to put the first base

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's put our first lunar base in Salt Lake City.

Flogging dead donkeys.

[Colin Smith]

Have at it.

You could also try burying bottles of money in coal mines & filling them up with trash. The entrepreneurs will go and dig it all back out.

Maybe Romney will change his mind

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not out of the realm of possibility that Mitt Romney could change his mind and eventually support a lunar base. See http://www.mittvmitt.com/

No space enthusiast wil support Newt.

[sciencewatcher]

When Kennedy launched the moon program he multiplied the space budget by a substantial number. Newt does not propose to increase the budget. This moon base thing has little science value compared to projects like the ATLAS space telescope. Such projects will be the first to be axed to make room for this low value show off that his moon base program is.

Re:It's called putting y'self in other people's sh

[fyngyrz]

it's called considering how somebody's [minimum wage] policy would apply

No. It's not. Because the president can't set that policy, so it's completely irrelevant. Consider what the president actually CAN do (which is basically foreign policy), then decide if the way the candidate wants to do it aligns with what you WANT done. Then vote accordingly.

Romney's Right!

[AlanBDee]

First, Romney didn't say it was a wacky idea. He said that the idea of doing it in the next 8 years was wacky. And for good reason, cost. Do you think it was popular for him in Florida to say, "sorry folks. I know you'd love to boost your economy with more funding to NASA but it'll just cost too much!"

I want a president who IS willing to be realistic and NOT tell me what I want to hear!

Second, it wasn't just Romney said it was a bad idea. All the GOP candidates, except Gingrich, also said similar things. So why single out Romney? I believe they were all asked in the debate.

Instead of the moon, why not Africa?

[rocket rancher]

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

...and there is always Africa. The pirate problem in Somalia could be a useful pretext for more US adventurism. There are other resources than oil that the US badly needs, and Africa is chock full of them. And there will be nearly zero public outcry if a few rogue African warlords are replaced with US-approved warlords. If Romney is smart (and he is) as president he will steer the US and their economic and political dependence on war and high tech towards Africa and away from the Middle East. Creating a permanent, politically reliable, economically stable Africa is just as exciting and just as technically challenging as establishing a permanent human presence off-planet. The difference is that Africa doesn't require *any* delta-V to get to...

Ok, putting yourself under their control

[dbIII]

I think you are missing a very major point about morality and ethics in the treatment of others here. Of course some think such a thing doesn't belong in a discussion on employment but if they do that should raise some very large bright red flags about ethics and morality elsewhere.
So to put it bluntly, if you can't trust somebody to treat those in their power fairly you'd have to be either very short on choices or an idiot to put yourself under their power.
Now some libertarians have a very bad reputation for backsliding to as close to slavery as they can get away with. From the noise they make and the distance I'm looking from I can't tell if Ron Paul has similar views or is just surrounded by such slime. So I'm asking you. since he's running for President of your country and you can see beyond the extremes that dominate the international news - is he above such slime or part of it? All I get from over here is highlights of a circus so not a lot about Ron Paul.