Blatantly Contrarian
When stopping the bad is a bad idea
on 02/08/2009 at 02:43 AM
So support the stimulus package and socialism, so we’ll really learn just how crappy they both are, and why.
1. I already know both. Granted there are many who need to learn it, but why not learn from history?
2. Okay, we’ve enacted the porkulous package. We’ve learned. How do we get out from there? What is the ‘exit strategy’?
Meanwhile, we’ve become a Third World banana republic, if we’re lucky to not drop to Third World dictatorship.
Is there anything more annoying than some criminal idiot telling you what you need, what you should worship, how you should think, how you should live, when they themselves couldn’t survive for 5 minutes outside their limo in a normal life setting?
Stimulus my aching dying ass. The entire U.S. government has become a giant ponzi scheme to benefit a bunch of already rich pukes who in turn share the wealth with our enemies and the dreggs of our own crippled society. Ok. I’m probably not making sense. I’m so pissed off. I need anger management, or perhaps some chi, or maybe some aroma therapy....
Obama save me Obama! I have always worked for a living! Teach me the error or my ways!!!
I’ll give you a real WORST case ... what if Americans make it work?
We are the Do Anything people. Man on the Moon, Hoover Damn, Empire State building on time and under budget ... the list is endless.
If socialism is made to work in the USA, then the rest of the world is screwed forever. I hope it’s a failure, total. Of course, that means I have to live through the mess in the meantime, and it will take generations to recover from.
But Mythusmage is right ... “we” refuse to learn from the past. Hell, “we” refuse to learn from the present. School system a mess? Don’t change the policies that are already proven to be failures. Just throw another ton of money at it, then cry how education is underfunded. Cry how Evil Bush made No Child Left Behind, and then DIDN’T fund it. Even though he did fund it somewhat, even though there is absolutely nothing in the Constitution that even allows a Department of Education. It shouldn’t even exist, much less be in control of billions.
Uhh, Drew, Americans haven’t made it work. Man on the Moon is a classic example.
Oh sure, JFK galvanized national support for putting a man on the moon by the end of ‘the decade’. That goal was achieved. Wonderful!
And so what? So we could boast that we beat the USSR?
Okay, granted that such ‘bragging rights’ may have assisted in the fall of Communism under Pres. Ronald Reagan, especially in the area of a ‘Star Wars’ missile defense, but seriously, did it really help the ‘common man’ and the economy? Wouldn’t some private enterprise have shot for the Moon, made it, and be exploiting it even now?
In Robert A. Heinlein’s books, the Harriman Trust did just that. Harriman is the Bill Gates of Heinlein’s novels. The Harriman Trust is a private for-profit enterprise. I guarantee that the US would have been to the Moon, if not first, at least first in a meaningful, profitable, way.
Drew, how can anyone make socialism work? it is allready failing, water will not flow uphill. Also can anyone think of an african leader who is a success (by western standards)
Posted by Chris Edwards
02/08/2009 at 10:12 PM
Did the space race help the ‘common man’?
Like, seriously, you betcha it did. You probably have at least 100 items in your home that are spinoffs from technology originally developed by NASA. Sure, eventually they might have made it to your house, but they got there 20 years earlier because of it.
Let’s see ... your smoke detector, your cordless drill, Oh - can’t forget your satellite TV, that’s a biggy, the cold steam humidifier in your kid’s room, all sorts of electronic stuff, that pen that writes upside down ... it’s a pretty big list. Your digital wristwatch. Wear glasses with scratch resistant lenses? That one too. Hey, that memory foam mattress stuff. The resins used to make bicycle helmets and modern bowling balls. Whatever you buy has a bar code on the price tag these days. Guess where that came from? Those nice shock absorbing sneakers you wear, the new box of extended range golf balls you bought ... event the rubber compound in your latest set of long life tires is from NASA. What makes today’s radials good for 80,000 miles is the same stuff they invented to make the parachute for the Viking Lander. Those car brakes I finally had to replace after 127,000 miles? Guess who invented the pad material. And I’m not even going to mention Carnation Instant Breakfasts or Tang, or any of the long life food packaging we use today that is mylar film based. Pretty sure Nomex came out of NASA too. You have one of those tinfoil “survival blankets” in your backpack? Heck that one is even called a Space Blanket™ and has been on the market for 40 years. NASA made great strides in other kinds of insulation, as well as perfecting the circuit for that electric ice chest you might have in your SUV. Even if the only thing NASA ever invented was Velcro™ it would have been worth it.
Now, if you want to go outside the home ... oh boy, now we’re talking. From aircraft deicer fluid to infrared saunas to the whole battery revolution to pacemakers to the patient monitoring system in the ICU. Those graphite lube disks truckers use on the trailer peg - they’ve been around for ages, but the concept is straight off of gear developed for the Gemini program. An amazing number of new materials came out of there, from special metals to plastics and beyond. Lubricants, adhesives, electronics, sensors, batteries, solar power ... it just goes on and on an on.
Last time I checked there were something like 30,000 spinoffs from technology and materials science that all came directly from the space program. And that’s just the physical stuff. I’d say the value of the national pride was priceless, as was the competitive spirit the Space Race enabled. Funny how the “Me Generation” and the “gimmee decade” started just after the big part of the space program ended. Like we stopped striving as a nation or something.
You can find a lot of this online. NASA took the best geeks the nation could produce, and gave them the ultimate task: build us a whole new world from the ground up. And they pretty much did. And then gave the tech away for free.
Chris Edwards - I haven’t the slightest idea. It’s a corrupt and empty idea. I just wanted to raise the red flag (hur hur hur) that if anybody could do it, we could. But first ... we’d have to WANT to, and that’s the sticking point. Nobody wants to. Ok, not true. Everybody on the getting end of the goody train wants to make it work. Everybody else, who is either driving the train, building the tracks, or buying shares in the train company, wants nothing to do with it.
Improved Baby Formula! I didn’t know that one. Kewl!
Guess you’ve opened a can of worms there Chris. I have tremendous pride in NASA and what they have done. Not just because they came up with so much great stuff, but because they did what they did because they wanted it. Not for profit, not to kill people with, but to push back the horizons.
Ask a Unix geek about the system clock on his computer, and why January 1, 1970 is when real time began. Thanks NASA for that too, not some greedy - and risk avoidant - capitalist.
Heinlein aside, I am 100% positive no corporation on earth would have EVER invested the time, effort, and budget to go beyond the atmosphere, much less to the moon. But, oh, now that it’s been done and the government gives the tech and tools away for free, why, gosh, we could do it too and make money at it. Pppfffftt! Where were you in ‘62 Mr. Suit?The fact the the gov’t got one thing right (and frankly, I do think private enterprise would have done it) doesn’t mean they did it fast or well.
For instance, I submit that the PC would have happened at least ten years earlier if the Federal gov’t hadn’t been involved.
Why do I say this? Simple. The Fed was invested in old tech. When I was a reactor operator for the Navy back in the 80s, I can’t tell how often I was forced to use 30 yr old transistors because of a 30 or 40 yr Gov’t contract.
Next entry: Our national pigeon problem
Previous entry: That's why it's called a "collection"