17.11.14
Say; Hello Spaceman: Wild, Wild Planet (1965)
Say; Hello Spaceman: Wild, Wild Planet (1965): Wild, Wild Planet aka; I Criminali della Galassia (Criminals of the Galaxy) is an Italian film made in 1965. It was directed by Antonio...
25.9.08
Next Shuttle Mission
The next shuttle mission is slated to launch Oct. 14 and capture the Hubble Space Telescope and service NASA's most famous "eye on the sky."
The mission is scheduled for liftoff on Oct. 14 at 8:19 p.m.
The mission is scheduled for liftoff on Oct. 14 at 8:19 p.m.
21.1.07
War is hellishly expensive
There was a small news item Thursday in The Wall Street Journal which showed how much the war in Iraq (not terror nor does it include numbers for Afghanistan just Iraq) actually costs per month.
$8.4 billion a month. That's about twice as much as previously estimated. I thought it was a pile of dog shit at half that price. Now I really think it's a waste.
Do the math and $8.4 billion comes down to about $280 million a day, and pardon my pessimism and all the claims of media this and media that and the bullshit about good news coming out of the war zone, but that's $280 million a day for a losing proposition.
Even venture capitalists in the late 1990s who were throwing millions at b-plans that included e-Toasters that could e-mail you when your toast was ready in the morning would blanch at those figures.
By no means am I anti-war, or a peacenik. And I don't really care how many Iraqis die over there (it's reportedly about 35,000 vs. our 3,000 for the number crunchers out there) but what I am is a realist.
We need to win or leave. Leaving really isn't a smooth option. The region will decay even further, and all the blood feuds we've started over there will only come via jetplane to our own shores. To me that's out.
Whatever form victory takes then let's get on with it.
Merciless force is generally the quick way to win wars, according to guys like George Patton, Bull Halsey, Chester Nimitz, Lord Nelson, Doug MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, George Washington and even Julius Caesar. Dogpile the bastards over there with unrestricted warfare. Then they'll be gone. A few eggs will be broken for sure, people will complain, but in 18-24 months the thing will be over.
Half measures only invites defeat and more enemies.
But back to my taxdollars: $8.4 billion a month is about 7 times the $1.3 billion the Food and Drug Administration gets yearly to make sure our meat and Tylenol isn't poisoned.
The Department of Defense gets about $540 billion a year to pay for their planes, trains, automobiles, tanks, ships and cool submarines.
The Environmental Protection Agency has a yearly outlay of $7 billion (still $1.4 billion short of the war costs a month to match) to make sure we breathe clean air and drink clean water.
The Housing and Urban Development agency gets around $36 billion a year to do cool things like try and help people buy homes so they can be productive members of society and be proud of their lives (yes it is riddled with corruption and other problems and what bank or mortgage company isn't)
It takes $17 billion to run NASA a year and they show pretty pictures of the solar system and give us neat things like computers, advanced medicines and Teflon.
If these seem like the wimpy parts of government, I've chosen them in part because they piss off the useless frat boys in our society but also because they actually give back to America. Who wants to die when they pop a coupe of Advil or wants to drink shit filled water or wants their bacon sticking to their pans in the morning? Not I.
What in hell is Iraq going to put on my table? Is the war in Iraq going to help put my son through college, without the prospect of him losing a leg?
I don't see anything of value there, and I've been to that part of the world. We should never have gotten wrapped up in this invasion, but now that we are there, we need to get on with winning it and finding a way to exploit that part of the world for America's (and my) betterment.
$8.4 billion a month. That's about twice as much as previously estimated. I thought it was a pile of dog shit at half that price. Now I really think it's a waste.
Do the math and $8.4 billion comes down to about $280 million a day, and pardon my pessimism and all the claims of media this and media that and the bullshit about good news coming out of the war zone, but that's $280 million a day for a losing proposition.
Even venture capitalists in the late 1990s who were throwing millions at b-plans that included e-Toasters that could e-mail you when your toast was ready in the morning would blanch at those figures.
By no means am I anti-war, or a peacenik. And I don't really care how many Iraqis die over there (it's reportedly about 35,000 vs. our 3,000 for the number crunchers out there) but what I am is a realist.
We need to win or leave. Leaving really isn't a smooth option. The region will decay even further, and all the blood feuds we've started over there will only come via jetplane to our own shores. To me that's out.
Whatever form victory takes then let's get on with it.
Merciless force is generally the quick way to win wars, according to guys like George Patton, Bull Halsey, Chester Nimitz, Lord Nelson, Doug MacArthur, Dwight Eisenhower, Colin Powell, George Washington and even Julius Caesar. Dogpile the bastards over there with unrestricted warfare. Then they'll be gone. A few eggs will be broken for sure, people will complain, but in 18-24 months the thing will be over.
Half measures only invites defeat and more enemies.
But back to my taxdollars: $8.4 billion a month is about 7 times the $1.3 billion the Food and Drug Administration gets yearly to make sure our meat and Tylenol isn't poisoned.
The Department of Defense gets about $540 billion a year to pay for their planes, trains, automobiles, tanks, ships and cool submarines.
The Environmental Protection Agency has a yearly outlay of $7 billion (still $1.4 billion short of the war costs a month to match) to make sure we breathe clean air and drink clean water.
The Housing and Urban Development agency gets around $36 billion a year to do cool things like try and help people buy homes so they can be productive members of society and be proud of their lives (yes it is riddled with corruption and other problems and what bank or mortgage company isn't)
It takes $17 billion to run NASA a year and they show pretty pictures of the solar system and give us neat things like computers, advanced medicines and Teflon.
If these seem like the wimpy parts of government, I've chosen them in part because they piss off the useless frat boys in our society but also because they actually give back to America. Who wants to die when they pop a coupe of Advil or wants to drink shit filled water or wants their bacon sticking to their pans in the morning? Not I.
What in hell is Iraq going to put on my table? Is the war in Iraq going to help put my son through college, without the prospect of him losing a leg?
I don't see anything of value there, and I've been to that part of the world. We should never have gotten wrapped up in this invasion, but now that we are there, we need to get on with winning it and finding a way to exploit that part of the world for America's (and my) betterment.
4.1.07
FDA, HUD, EPA, et al
There was a time, not all that long ago, when general print newspapers and TV news actually reported on the doings of various U.S. government agencies and departments like the Food and Drug Administration, Housing and Urban Development (and its predecessor HEW, or Health, Education and Welfare), the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Interior. All, which seemingly on the outside, may appear boring to some, but do have billions of our tax dollars tied up in projects good, bad and ugly.
Reported on no longer these days.
To be fair, readership and viewing numbers have shrunk in the last 15 or so years, but what came first the chicken or the egg with this one. Did the news business bore people to death with dry stories on federal housing scandals or did it run readers and viewers to death with the legal machinations of celebrities? Or maybe we are a "Prozac Nation" with a society of ill-educated dolts who can't wait to pop the next pill and numb themselves from reality.
Either way, people ought to consider that if there is a housing shortage for people who live below the poverty income line, then where is the $35 billion in federal money for HUD going in 2007? That's its budget.
Take into consideration the Food and Drug Administration, which in theory protects us from bad food and bad doctors will get about $1.3 billion in 2007 (when Congress manages to pass a federal budget they are about four months late now) . That money has to protect us from things like the next e-coli scare or the next super drug that actually hurts people instead of heal them.
EPA has more than 17,000 people who work for it, and a budget of more than $7 billion. Seems like a big slice of the almost $3 trillion the USG's planning to spend this year. Then why is pollution on the rise?
The irony of this is, that these were facts reporters once had to "dig" for, or at least go down to the public library. Today, it took me five minutes on my laptop computer. If I wanted to "dig" deeper, then I would just dial up the public information office from these various agencies, spend a few minutes navigating the voice mail options and maybe get a person to tell me some more things or line up an interview. Who knows what dark parking garages a face-to-face interview with a government employee might lead?
Clearly the poor will always be with us. People will continue to lie, cheat and steal and we will have dirty water. But at least there was a time when people were informed about it and could try and DO something to stop it.
Today, there's a clamor for more news on Britney Spears' underwear, Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell's clap trap of mouth and car chases through Houston (which I reckon people in Houston probably don't care that much about).
Me, I'm holding out for that big rocket to be built and whisk me off to another planet just before the asteroid nobody believes in strikes this one.
Reported on no longer these days.
To be fair, readership and viewing numbers have shrunk in the last 15 or so years, but what came first the chicken or the egg with this one. Did the news business bore people to death with dry stories on federal housing scandals or did it run readers and viewers to death with the legal machinations of celebrities? Or maybe we are a "Prozac Nation" with a society of ill-educated dolts who can't wait to pop the next pill and numb themselves from reality.
Either way, people ought to consider that if there is a housing shortage for people who live below the poverty income line, then where is the $35 billion in federal money for HUD going in 2007? That's its budget.
Take into consideration the Food and Drug Administration, which in theory protects us from bad food and bad doctors will get about $1.3 billion in 2007 (when Congress manages to pass a federal budget they are about four months late now) . That money has to protect us from things like the next e-coli scare or the next super drug that actually hurts people instead of heal them.
EPA has more than 17,000 people who work for it, and a budget of more than $7 billion. Seems like a big slice of the almost $3 trillion the USG's planning to spend this year. Then why is pollution on the rise?
The irony of this is, that these were facts reporters once had to "dig" for, or at least go down to the public library. Today, it took me five minutes on my laptop computer. If I wanted to "dig" deeper, then I would just dial up the public information office from these various agencies, spend a few minutes navigating the voice mail options and maybe get a person to tell me some more things or line up an interview. Who knows what dark parking garages a face-to-face interview with a government employee might lead?
Clearly the poor will always be with us. People will continue to lie, cheat and steal and we will have dirty water. But at least there was a time when people were informed about it and could try and DO something to stop it.
Today, there's a clamor for more news on Britney Spears' underwear, Donald Trump and Rosie O'Donnell's clap trap of mouth and car chases through Houston (which I reckon people in Houston probably don't care that much about).
Me, I'm holding out for that big rocket to be built and whisk me off to another planet just before the asteroid nobody believes in strikes this one.
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