I'm not a CTO, but now I'm a farmer (aka, small business owner).
I have two children. My feelings about taxes are no different than before I got married. They are just there. I *did* have to pay for childcare. Again, no different than paying for gasoline for my cars, really. I can't get rid of the kids, so no sense complaining about it or putting food into their mouths and clothes on their backs.
Since I've never received any financial dividends from someone passing a part of their estate to me, all I can say is, at the end of the day, it's income. I have to pay income tax on everything else that flows into my checking account, so why not on inheritances (a one-time tax)?
Instead, I live in a state that gutted its property tax system, and has had to kick kids out of school weeks before the end of the school year because it doesn't have the $$$. OK, part of the problem is the schools and teachers not preparing for the situation. But how much more can be cut back? We're robbing peter to pay ourselves.
While not being assessed for street repairs, I have lived in areas where on the ballot is whether to raise taxes to pay for 24 hr police and fire coverage (hey, guess what? it'll raise home insurance rates if you vote against it). I've had to deal with police agencies that want to deal with a nasty white trash problem in the neighborhood, and knows about the problem, but can't actually do anything until something bad happens (but what else is new?).
As far as someone hitting retirement penniless, well, I have to be a callous toughnut and say, so what? No, I do not count on getting anything out of Soc. Security in 30 (will it be 40 eventually?) years.
I do not hear about any of the porkbarrel spending that the Salvation Army is doing.
Yes, but you do occaisionally hear about how "evil" the Salvation Army is because it ties its works with its religious background.
But maybe that is what makes the Salvation Army good, is because it is non-denominational. Yes, it's christian, but it's not Morman. It's not Catholic. It's not Falwell. It's not Southern Baptist.
And God forbid [sic] if the city or state were to help pave the way for a new Salvation Army facility or activity, certainly not financially, but in helping the org through bureaucracy.
If you thought meaningless blather about taxes was bad where you live, you should be in Oregon.
...and I bet your world was shattered when you finally got that $.25/hr raise at 7-11, and it added up to a whopping $5.67 (net) on your paycheck, right?
Or recognized how simple and cheezy the one-time tax "rebate" was a couple of years ago?
And that the politician who decries the "tax-and-spend" liberal is doing more to ensure that whoever follows him in office, this year or in 5 years, will have to do exactly that?
Why is the US Government bumping into its $7.6 TRILLION debt limit (and we worry about NASA's $15 billion budget)? It's not from the "tax-and-spend" liberals or president!
One can probably look at "The Daily Show", Bill Mahre's show, etc. as "differential news". You have the spin from the day, and you point out what the truth and lies behind the spin are.
CNN Headline News this morning was trying to tie the flu vaccine shortage into a political statement by Kerry. The fact is, the flu vaccine shortage had NOTHING TO DO with Kerry's plans, OR Pres. Bush. But now people will remember this for awhile, and either hate Kerry or Bush more for it.
Oh well. I suppose if Dick Cheney (or someone else in the Pres cabinet or Bush family) had been on the board at some point of Chiron, the vaccine probably would have been brought into the US anyways, just like the anthrax vaccine was brought past the FDA by a former Reagan appointee being on that small company's board, and it had basically been put out of business because it could not safely manufacture the vaccine.
Well, the GOP in Illinois is still in a shambles. It really blew up with George Ryan. Then add Jim Ryan (the guy who still keeps insisting on someone whom later evidence revealed was not responsible for the crime he was convicted of doing was in fact still responsible for it and deserved the sentence), and now, Jerry (7of9) Ryan's ex-husband.
What is it about the Illinois GOP and people with Ryan for a surname?
Of course, Peter Fitzgerald (R) made a mockery of how NOT to fight a political battle against Mayor Dailey, as well as himself, while senator.
The media DOES have a bias, but it isn't liberal OR conservative. It is to rattle the bars on the cage, to stir up the inmates (us), so it can sell more eyeballs to advertisers. Nothing more, nothing less. A few people in the biz still hold onto the old ideals, but they're going to be retiring in a couple of years. Who, what, will replace them?
The current journalism model is more like in the heydays of the Hearst era. It not only needs controversy and discontent, but it helps to create it. Remember, we went to war in Cuba because the Hearst papers basically called for it, and painted the US into the corner. "Remember the Maine!" Well, now it's "Remember 9/11!", except now it has so quickly gotten off track, it's amazing. "9/11" became an excuse for some unfinished family business in Iraq to get finished, and all the reasons and justifications have been deflated now.
Do we not know what happened when France stepped in to Vietnam to protect Michelin's rubber plantations there from Ho Chi Minh? They got their asses handed to them at Dien Bien Phu. There are rumors that the US even gave some level of encouragement to HCM, but in the end, decided to help bail out the French. And we never really left then, and it finally blew up until the US got its ass handed to it in 1973.
And here we are again, except there is no one who will help the US back out from Iraq. Oh, the French, German and Russians are waiting, waiting to get back into business in Iraq like they were before last year.
What a fucked up situation. Look at Russia. They battle separatists/terrorists/whatever in Chechnya, and a couple of their companies supply some of the better weapons those people have against the US (RPG-7). And Russia is an ally? Didn't Russia, errr, Russian companies, try to supply GPS-jamming equipment to the Serbs in Yugoslavia?
As far as CBS's withdrawls from the Bush memos, well, do you not think that this is pretty much the ultimate slam on CBS' news division? I do. Not much more needs to be done with that. We will always now take whatever CBS and Dan Rather might have to say with a huge grain of salt.
Or are you still bitter about "Dateline"'s contrived stories about the exploding gas tanks on GM pickup trucks, maybe, because you had one of those trucks? or maybe you had a Ford Explorer with Firestone tires that you kept inflated at 26, 28 psi, and hadn't had any problems, and were pissed off about a few unlucky people causing a bunch of problems for thousands of unaffected people to have to go get new tires and deflating the value of your Ford stock?
But this is not about Jon's show. It's about the political process in the US. I personally wish we could limit it like it is in Canada, and put some silly rule in that politicians have to have a "home" district (borough, county, district, state) for the office they're running for, with the expectation (not quite a legal requirement) that they need to win on their home turf, limit the duration of the obvious election process to maybe 3 months for the federal level offices, 2 months for state-level offices and measures and one month for city/county level offices.
But, of course, that would "limit free speech". Somehow, I can't help feeling that the sanctity (definitely, for lack of a better term) of the voting process is slightly above "free speech".
Right now, the US Presidency elections take about 4 years. The winner of the Presidency has about 6 months to "be the president", and the rest of the time gradually becomes oriented to getting re-elected or promoting his desired successor, rather than being the president. And it all grinds to a halt the last year or so for the Prez, because he doesn't want to do something that is detrimental to his campaign or fodder for his oppenent's campaign. Where does serving the population come into that?
Oh well. Does anyone else see the similarities in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, with George C. Scott's character in "Dr. Strangelove"?
e power companies are too cheap, or stupid to start installing power lines that contain fiber optic strands. These are non conductors so they can share space with the electric
Well, such hybrid powerlines won't help anyone when they get cut by a tree, ice, whatever. Just what the entire community needs is for the extra time required to resplice the optical fiber.
Well, this is contrary to the article in this month's SciAm, which goes into some detail about the cells of the eye lens being somewhat special in that they are nucleated when you are young, but eventually the nucleons die, but the cell itself doesn't. As the cells age, the goo inside the cell changes and gets cloudy and more rigid. But there is not new cell growth or replacement in the eye lens.
Medicare will pay a good chunk for a "prescribed mobility device", if the ads on TV are to be believed. Besides, most of those people still get into the car to drive their mobility device to and from the mall anyways.
Oh, I don't know. Some scooter chair and wheelchair operators are downright cranky, and have no problem "bumping" into people. Maybe they've just given up on trying to be nice, whatever. At least I haven't been poked in the gut with a cane-wielding scooter chair operator.
As usual, a few asshats make an entire community look bad.
It's only going to get worse for the next 20-40 years...
IF my car needed to be maintained like Windows (or if shops could do the equivalent of replace the entire ABS brake system in 10 minutes, instead of a week, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad), I would move much closer to work and ride a bike, as would 99% of the people out there.
When Windows can get to the equivalent of a simple oil change every 3-5K miles/3 months, then maybe you have a point.
But it's not there. Windows will always be the sum of a repeating fraction (1/2+1/3+1/4+...) series. Approaching 1, but never quite reaching it...
...is whether Mayor Dailey will make a bunch of noise to get one of these stationed in the Chicago area. After all, if New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles are important enough, think about America's Heartland, and the Vienna Sausage company! He would probably put it right in the middle of Miegs Field's runway, as well, just to add insult to injury for what was one of the coolest little airports in the US.
The obvious terrorist target would be the ground facilities or the tether itself. Bet the balloon won't have any solar cells on it, besides, they probably wouldn't provide enough power for the radar.
No, what the Japanese were doing presaged the DotCom bubble. Instead of VCs throwing money at just about every business plan floated their way that had "internet" in it, the zaibatsus were doing it to themselves, with their own form of the same thing: taking $$$ from potentially profitable subsidiaries, and throwing it at technologies and production lines that had no current profitable market. Kind of a high-stakes game.
Imagine if WordPerfect or Lotus been able to scare around $50 billion US in VC. Microsoft and WordPerfect (or Lotus) would then be doing the same things to each other: pumping $$$ into technologies (Taligent, anyone?) just because the other competitors were, all the while claiming positive cash flow from other areas as "sales" (can you say, booked revenue?), and thus appearing to be "profitable".
Microsoft is doing it with the XBox, did it with Windows, etc. I still feel like the ultimate goal for the XBox is to replace desktop PCs, if MS can finally load them with the Digital Restriction Management stuff, and throw a keyboard and mouse on them, and sell them at Wal-Mart for $99, thus undercutting Dell and anyone else who dares to compete with them (so Dell would, of course, license the platform from Microsoft to try and stay in business), because of course they would come installed with Windows XP and Office 2003, and it would be very difficult to install non-MS-blessed software on them, which of course, Open source would not ever really be blessed (the price point would be too high, and would probably include a per-license royalty as well, to deter a Paul Allen or someone like that from just eating a one-timer fee).
I'm even paranoid enough to think that the BIOS would have some way to operate independently on whatever operating system was installed to tattle back to Microsoft on the state of the machine.
But, just like Enron, things started to fall apart, and quickly too.
What can happen to an investor who leverages equities to make other purchases, when they get a margin call, can also happen to a multi-billion zaibatsu or corporation as well.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you're eventually gonna have to pay Mary, with interest...
Well, when in Nevada, you may be standing on a flat dry lake bed, and then you realize that the mountains off in the distance are probably 50-80 miles away (and a look at the map confirms it). You're not looking at the base of the mountains, remember, but the upper portions.
The next 5 years will determine NASA's future. If they can get back on track, set big goals (like the '60s) that interest the public and push science and technology, and most of all, work with the private industry, they will continue to be relevant, and I dare say, could easily accomplish feats that rival those of the early '60s. If, on the other hand, they continue to drift along, dabbling in various projects, but never commiting to anything large, as they have done for the past 20 years, NASA will fade into obscurity, and private enterprise will take over.
Well, "private enterprise", if you argue that Boeing and Lockheed are still private enterprise, ARE a huge portion of NASA's budget for operating the IIS and Space Shuttle.
The problem is Congress, really. Where are NASA's shops set up? Bay Area. Norfolk, VA. Alabama. Florida. Someone in Congress needed some good high-paying, big infrastructure jobs, and NASA fit the bill.
Much is made over NASA's $10-15 billion budget every year, but how much is it in proportion to other federal budgetary units? We already spend more $$$ on Social Security and Medicare.
We think that an additional $10-15 billion doled out instead to those two programs will have a significant change? Nope.
NASA is kind of the commercial/civilian aerospace's DARPA. NASA still does lots of oddball aeronautical research ideas (scissor wing, anyone?), some of which are now essential to modern civilian aviation: fly-by-wire, supercritical wing designs, etc. NASA did fly-by-wire research for the military, yes, but it's an essential element in modern commercial airliners. NASA has also developed some of the modern supercritical wing designs used today. There is much more that NASA does for the civilian side (as well as the military side).
'm sure that if someone saw profit in building and maintaining a private copy of STS, it would happen and NASA would be out of the shuttle business.
How much would it cost to buy one of the Buran shuttles from Russia, and figure out how to air-launch it from an AN-225? OK, yes, I know, the Mryia was used to move the Buran from place to place, but still... At least with the Buran, you didn't exactly need a crew to fly it.
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No, Jon Stewart and Chris Rock.
The funny thing is that O'Reilley was probably just like Stewart was when he was first on TV, but now he's just another Rush Limbaugh.
I'm not a CTO, but now I'm a farmer (aka, small business owner).
I have two children. My feelings about taxes are no different than before I got married. They are just there. I *did* have to pay for childcare. Again, no different than paying for gasoline for my cars, really. I can't get rid of the kids, so no sense complaining about it or putting food into their mouths and clothes on their backs.
Since I've never received any financial dividends from someone passing a part of their estate to me, all I can say is, at the end of the day, it's income. I have to pay income tax on everything else that flows into my checking account, so why not on inheritances (a one-time tax)?
Instead, I live in a state that gutted its property tax system, and has had to kick kids out of school weeks before the end of the school year because it doesn't have the $$$. OK, part of the problem is the schools and teachers not preparing for the situation. But how much more can be cut back? We're robbing peter to pay ourselves.
While not being assessed for street repairs, I have lived in areas where on the ballot is whether to raise taxes to pay for 24 hr police and fire coverage (hey, guess what? it'll raise home insurance rates if you vote against it). I've had to deal with police agencies that want to deal with a nasty white trash problem in the neighborhood, and knows about the problem, but can't actually do anything until something bad happens (but what else is new?).
As far as someone hitting retirement penniless, well, I have to be a callous toughnut and say, so what? No, I do not count on getting anything out of Soc. Security in 30 (will it be 40 eventually?) years.
I do not hear about any of the porkbarrel spending that the Salvation Army is doing.
Yes, but you do occaisionally hear about how "evil" the Salvation Army is because it ties its works with its religious background.
But maybe that is what makes the Salvation Army good, is because it is non-denominational. Yes, it's christian, but it's not Morman. It's not Catholic. It's not Falwell. It's not Southern Baptist.
And God forbid [sic] if the city or state were to help pave the way for a new Salvation Army facility or activity, certainly not financially, but in helping the org through bureaucracy.
If you thought meaningless blather about taxes was bad where you live, you should be in Oregon.
...and I bet your world was shattered when you finally got that $.25/hr raise at 7-11, and it added up to a whopping $5.67 (net) on your paycheck, right?
Or recognized how simple and cheezy the one-time tax "rebate" was a couple of years ago?
And that the politician who decries the "tax-and-spend" liberal is doing more to ensure that whoever follows him in office, this year or in 5 years, will have to do exactly that?
Why is the US Government bumping into its $7.6 TRILLION debt limit (and we worry about NASA's $15 billion budget)? It's not from the "tax-and-spend" liberals or president!
One can probably look at "The Daily Show", Bill Mahre's show, etc. as "differential news". You have the spin from the day, and you point out what the truth and lies behind the spin are.
CNN Headline News this morning was trying to tie the flu vaccine shortage into a political statement by Kerry. The fact is, the flu vaccine shortage had NOTHING TO DO with Kerry's plans, OR Pres. Bush. But now people will remember this for awhile, and either hate Kerry or Bush more for it.
Oh well. I suppose if Dick Cheney (or someone else in the Pres cabinet or Bush family) had been on the board at some point of Chiron, the vaccine probably would have been brought into the US anyways, just like the anthrax vaccine was brought past the FDA by a former Reagan appointee being on that small company's board, and it had basically been put out of business because it could not safely manufacture the vaccine.
I wish that Chris Rock would also do a show.
Well, the GOP in Illinois is still in a shambles. It really blew up with George Ryan. Then add Jim Ryan (the guy who still keeps insisting on someone whom later evidence revealed was not responsible for the crime he was convicted of doing was in fact still responsible for it and deserved the sentence), and now, Jerry (7of9) Ryan's ex-husband.
What is it about the Illinois GOP and people with Ryan for a surname?
Of course, Peter Fitzgerald (R) made a mockery of how NOT to fight a political battle against Mayor Dailey, as well as himself, while senator.
Oh well.
The media DOES have a bias, but it isn't liberal OR conservative. It is to rattle the bars on the cage, to stir up the inmates (us), so it can sell more eyeballs to advertisers. Nothing more, nothing less. A few people in the biz still hold onto the old ideals, but they're going to be retiring in a couple of years. Who, what, will replace them?
The current journalism model is more like in the heydays of the Hearst era. It not only needs controversy and discontent, but it helps to create it. Remember, we went to war in Cuba because the Hearst papers basically called for it, and painted the US into the corner. "Remember the Maine!" Well, now it's "Remember 9/11!", except now it has so quickly gotten off track, it's amazing. "9/11" became an excuse for some unfinished family business in Iraq to get finished, and all the reasons and justifications have been deflated now.
Do we not know what happened when France stepped in to Vietnam to protect Michelin's rubber plantations there from Ho Chi Minh? They got their asses handed to them at Dien Bien Phu. There are rumors that the US even gave some level of encouragement to HCM, but in the end, decided to help bail out the French. And we never really left then, and it finally blew up until the US got its ass handed to it in 1973.
And here we are again, except there is no one who will help the US back out from Iraq. Oh, the French, German and Russians are waiting, waiting to get back into business in Iraq like they were before last year.
What a fucked up situation. Look at Russia. They battle separatists/terrorists/whatever in Chechnya, and a couple of their companies supply some of the better weapons those people have against the US (RPG-7). And Russia is an ally? Didn't Russia, errr, Russian companies, try to supply GPS-jamming equipment to the Serbs in Yugoslavia?
As far as CBS's withdrawls from the Bush memos, well, do you not think that this is pretty much the ultimate slam on CBS' news division? I do. Not much more needs to be done with that. We will always now take whatever CBS and Dan Rather might have to say with a huge grain of salt.
Or are you still bitter about "Dateline"'s contrived stories about the exploding gas tanks on GM pickup trucks, maybe, because you had one of those trucks? or maybe you had a Ford Explorer with Firestone tires that you kept inflated at 26, 28 psi, and hadn't had any problems, and were pissed off about a few unlucky people causing a bunch of problems for thousands of unaffected people to have to go get new tires and deflating the value of your Ford stock?
But this is not about Jon's show. It's about the political process in the US. I personally wish we could limit it like it is in Canada, and put some silly rule in that politicians have to have a "home" district (borough, county, district, state) for the office they're running for, with the expectation (not quite a legal requirement) that they need to win on their home turf, limit the duration of the obvious election process to maybe 3 months for the federal level offices, 2 months for state-level offices and measures and one month for city/county level offices.
But, of course, that would "limit free speech". Somehow, I can't help feeling that the sanctity (definitely, for lack of a better term) of the voting process is slightly above "free speech".
Right now, the US Presidency elections take about 4 years. The winner of the Presidency has about 6 months to "be the president", and the rest of the time gradually becomes oriented to getting re-elected or promoting his desired successor, rather than being the president. And it all grinds to a halt the last year or so for the Prez, because he doesn't want to do something that is detrimental to his campaign or fodder for his oppenent's campaign. Where does serving the population come into that?
Oh well. Does anyone else see the similarities in George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, with George C. Scott's character in "Dr. Strangelove"?
e power companies are too cheap, or stupid to start installing power lines that contain fiber optic strands. These are non conductors so they can share space with the electric
Well, such hybrid powerlines won't help anyone when they get cut by a tree, ice, whatever. Just what the entire community needs is for the extra time required to resplice the optical fiber.
Michael Powell isn't really in control of the FCC board any more. He was usurped in authority, but not position. He's just a hand-puppet now.
Well, this is contrary to the article in this month's SciAm, which goes into some detail about the cells of the eye lens being somewhat special in that they are nucleated when you are young, but eventually the nucleons die, but the cell itself doesn't. As the cells age, the goo inside the cell changes and gets cloudy and more rigid. But there is not new cell growth or replacement in the eye lens.
Medicare will pay a good chunk for a "prescribed mobility device", if the ads on TV are to be believed. Besides, most of those people still get into the car to drive their mobility device to and from the mall anyways.
Oh, I don't know. Some scooter chair and wheelchair operators are downright cranky, and have no problem "bumping" into people. Maybe they've just given up on trying to be nice, whatever. At least I haven't been poked in the gut with a cane-wielding scooter chair operator.
As usual, a few asshats make an entire community look bad.
It's only going to get worse for the next 20-40 years...
IF my car needed to be maintained like Windows (or if shops could do the equivalent of replace the entire ABS brake system in 10 minutes, instead of a week, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad), I would move much closer to work and ride a bike, as would 99% of the people out there.
When Windows can get to the equivalent of a simple oil change every 3-5K miles/3 months, then maybe you have a point.
But it's not there. Windows will always be the sum of a repeating fraction (1/2+1/3+1/4+...) series. Approaching 1, but never quite reaching it...
They licensed Central Point Anti-Virus, back in the Win3.x/DOS days. It kind of sucked.
Sort of like Windows XP had a semi-brain-dead version of Roxio's SW on it.
...is whether Mayor Dailey will make a bunch of noise to get one of these stationed in the Chicago area. After all, if New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles are important enough, think about America's Heartland, and the Vienna Sausage company! He would probably put it right in the middle of Miegs Field's runway, as well, just to add insult to injury for what was one of the coolest little airports in the US.
SA-2 missiles were not exactly small, neither were the various Nike missiles used by the US.
But the tether is vulnerable, as is the tether base.
The obvious terrorist target would be the ground facilities or the tether itself. Bet the balloon won't have any solar cells on it, besides, they probably wouldn't provide enough power for the radar.
So...
I think Rob would probably "spot him a 'J'", to which Darl would reply, "I knew that..."
An Iranian brand of clothing detergent is named "BARF". Let's hope they made it smell...better.
No, what the Japanese were doing presaged the DotCom bubble. Instead of VCs throwing money at just about every business plan floated their way that had "internet" in it, the zaibatsus were doing it to themselves, with their own form of the same thing: taking $$$ from potentially profitable subsidiaries, and throwing it at technologies and production lines that had no current profitable market. Kind of a high-stakes game.
Imagine if WordPerfect or Lotus been able to scare around $50 billion US in VC. Microsoft and WordPerfect (or Lotus) would then be doing the same things to each other: pumping $$$ into technologies (Taligent, anyone?) just because the other competitors were, all the while claiming positive cash flow from other areas as "sales" (can you say, booked revenue?), and thus appearing to be "profitable".
Microsoft is doing it with the XBox, did it with Windows, etc. I still feel like the ultimate goal for the XBox is to replace desktop PCs, if MS can finally load them with the Digital Restriction Management stuff, and throw a keyboard and mouse on them, and sell them at Wal-Mart for $99, thus undercutting Dell and anyone else who dares to compete with them (so Dell would, of course, license the platform from Microsoft to try and stay in business), because of course they would come installed with Windows XP and Office 2003, and it would be very difficult to install non-MS-blessed software on them, which of course, Open source would not ever really be blessed (the price point would be too high, and would probably include a per-license royalty as well, to deter a Paul Allen or someone like that from just eating a one-timer fee).
I'm even paranoid enough to think that the BIOS would have some way to operate independently on whatever operating system was installed to tattle back to Microsoft on the state of the machine.
But, just like Enron, things started to fall apart, and quickly too.
What can happen to an investor who leverages equities to make other purchases, when they get a margin call, can also happen to a multi-billion zaibatsu or corporation as well.
If you rob Peter to pay Paul, you're eventually gonna have to pay Mary, with interest...
Well, when in Nevada, you may be standing on a flat dry lake bed, and then you realize that the mountains off in the distance are probably 50-80 miles away (and a look at the map confirms it). You're not looking at the base of the mountains, remember, but the upper portions.
The next 5 years will determine NASA's future. If they can get back on track, set big goals (like the '60s) that interest the public and push science and technology, and most of all, work with the private industry, they will continue to be relevant, and I dare say, could easily accomplish feats that rival those of the early '60s. If, on the other hand, they continue to drift along, dabbling in various projects, but never commiting to anything large, as they have done for the past 20 years, NASA will fade into obscurity, and private enterprise will take over.
Well, "private enterprise", if you argue that Boeing and Lockheed are still private enterprise, ARE a huge portion of NASA's budget for operating the IIS and Space Shuttle.
The problem is Congress, really. Where are NASA's shops set up? Bay Area. Norfolk, VA. Alabama. Florida. Someone in Congress needed some good high-paying, big infrastructure jobs, and NASA fit the bill.
Much is made over NASA's $10-15 billion budget every year, but how much is it in proportion to other federal budgetary units? We already spend more $$$ on Social Security and Medicare.
We think that an additional $10-15 billion doled out instead to those two programs will have a significant change? Nope.
NASA is kind of the commercial/civilian aerospace's DARPA. NASA still does lots of oddball aeronautical research ideas (scissor wing, anyone?), some of which are now essential to modern civilian aviation: fly-by-wire, supercritical wing designs, etc. NASA did fly-by-wire research for the military, yes, but it's an essential element in modern commercial airliners. NASA has also developed some of the modern supercritical wing designs used today. There is much more that NASA does for the civilian side (as well as the military side).
'm sure that if someone saw profit in building and maintaining a private copy of STS, it would happen and NASA would be out of the shuttle business.
How much would it cost to buy one of the Buran shuttles from Russia, and figure out how to air-launch it from an AN-225? OK, yes, I know, the Mryia was used to move the Buran from place to place, but still... At least with the Buran, you didn't exactly need a crew to fly it.