Big NASA pay boost, who are you kidding? All the TV shows are talking about how this moon/mars dog and pony show are going to rob the other NASA programs of money. Its all a voter attention stunt.

Geoff

NASA is a dog, and pony show..

I think the 914 club should throw together a space program.

Privatize space.


M

Geoff,
That's my point. It's all about votes. Where is the space program.....Florida, Texas, California. Making the solar system safe for Halliburton, one planet at a time.

If it's not Haliburton, it's someone else.

We could start an uprising, right here... take it with you, everywhere... you just have to drop the party line.

Is that so hard to understand?

-shrug-

It sounds like most of you are upset because your team didn't win, I am pissed off because I don't like the game.


M

I hesitate to write this, but, for once I think I agree with miles

We can bitch and moan all we want. They are going to do it anyway.

Tracks, don't stir the pot, smoke it!!!!

Uhoh, seek professional help.

With some luck, you may be able to counter the effects of the blue pill, by taking 2 red pills, and repeating,"There's no place like the Matrix" three times, while banging your head on a curb.

Jesus, I must have been up all night unposting... -1956!


M

War is about fucking your enemies. Politics is about fucking your friends..

James Carville.

I've heard rumors that we have one......

Hence the Bush/Cheney 2004 banner on the U.S. flag in the first photo I doctored!

What's going to happen is we're going to allocate 1.5 billion dollars towards this... then run over budget by another 3 billion dollars and some future President is going to shitcan it and mothball everything. Then we will be no further along that we are now...

I like that.

I really, really like that.

http://www.planetaryinvestments.com/

Jen

NASA camera on Mars

Honestly I do not think about politics much (and do not really think this is the forum for political discussion, but Karl started it ). I am overall a huge supporter of space exploration and advanced aerospace research programs as there is no question that the technology does trickle down to the commercial world.

What I do worry about is that our government has developed this habit of essentially "living off credit cards" in the last couple of decades. Democrats and Republicans are both guilty of uncontrolled spending and of course Bush has continued the trend. We now have an approximately $7.5 trillion dollar debt which will hit $10-12T in the next decade if things do not change radically.

That is $7,500,000,000,000.00

In other words something like $50,000 for every working adult in the country. How in the F* are we going to pay that off? We are basically borrowing right now just to pay the interest every year (which we aren't really doing anyway). Social security is going to go "upside down" in about 8-10 years wherein there is not enough money left in the system to actually pay out the checks that are due. Guess who will make up the difference???

It is basically like borrowing from your Visa card to pay the minimum payment on your Mastercard. And then the next month you do the opposite. Meanwhile the interest is racking up every day. How long can you keep that up? It has to stop...I don't know the answers (duh) but this shit needs to end SOON before our kids and grandkids futures' are jeopardized.

OK...that's my rant, back to 914 content or some close facsimile....

FWIW If anyone is interested in reading some interesting statements with minimal "spin factor" from the guy (David Walker) who is basically in charge of accounting for our federal government for the next ten years, here you go --

Original speech (PDF; requires Acrobat reader)
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/npc917.pdf

Slides that go with speech (view w/ any browser)
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/npc917/npc.html

It is horrifying stuff. He basically admits that every child born in the US today immediately "inhereits" a $26,000 debt on behalf of Uncle Sam, that will have to be repaid someday, somehow.

Again I am not a very political person overall, but I would urge everyone to read this paper and perhaps some of the other info on the www.gao.gov site and keep thinking and talking about the problem. I know I was not aware of most of this until very recently...

Seems like 'Teener Boppers' (that's us) have a pulse. We don't have to be constant Politicos here, but it's nice to know most of us have considered the outcomes, it's the first step to recovery.

There is a much better way to do things.


M

a 700% to 1200% return on every dollar spent is absurd in my book. what's that? the kenneth lay buy and sell plan? with those kind of numbers and bean counting an increase in spending to the tune of $750 bil would wipe out the debt. ha, ha. trickle down sure work during big ron's admin. i'm 1/3 of the way through The Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind. we are fucked, our children are fucked, the grandkids too. men to mars, MEN TO MARS!!! from a permanent base on the MOON! ha ha ha ha. too funny, so sad.

kevin

Trickle down only works in private industry, the Govt. can't trickle down, they don't base their operations on profits.

If you think 'trickle down' doesn't work, imagine all the people without jobs, that used to have good ones.

No profits, no jobs. More profits, more jobs.. that is trickle down.... how many accountants can your company afford?

I should have started this with, "Yes, but.."

When I have no cash, the car sits, when I have cash, Dave Ellison gets some, and Otto gets some, and...


M

We started 2000 with a surplus, Gallager the comedian posed a great question, why can't we just refuse to pay the debt after all it's our debt.

Read this and find out how we get our pot...from our brewey's.
That's the Canadian way Brewery turned into Pot Growing Plant