Neil Armstrong Blasts Obama's Lack of Vision in Space

This is what real heroes do.

The first man to walk on the moon has made public a letter in which he rightfully berates president Obama's startling and embarassing lack of national vision in his decision to drastically scale back America's space program. He, along with fellow astronauts James Lovell and Eugene Cernan, signed this letter expressing their disapproval of Obama's weakening of our hard-earned lead in space.

The letter begins with a bit of history,

"The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years," the letter begins."Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration. ...

He then gets to the core of the problem,

"America’s only path to low Earth orbit and the International Space Station will now be subject to an agreement with Russia to purchase space on their Soyuz (at a price of over 50 million dollars per seat with significant increases expected in the near future) until we have the capacity to provide transportation for ourselves. The availability of a commercial transport to orbit as envisioned in the President’s proposal cannot be predicted with any certainty, but is likely to take substantially longer and be more expensive than we would hope."

Commander Armstrong isn't alone in his criticism of Obama. Even the Times of London thinks we should have a robust space program. And they're correct. We belong in space.

All of this criticism from former astronauts, not known to seek publicity, seems to have gotten Obama's attention. He's scheduled to speak here in Florida today to outline his new plans for America's space program. We'll see what he proposes, but in light of his overall anti-American sentiments, this blog doesn't expect much.

Perhaps someone will ask him why he thinks it alright to pay Russians to ferry American astronauts to the space Station but not Americans.

Bad Economic News Gets Worse Under Obama Regime

Here's a question for the 52% of voters who elected Barack Obama president: Is this economy what you voted for? And if you could go back in time and vote again, would you vote the same way?

Yes, I know that's a loaded question, but it should also be an easy one, if you've been paying attention.

Now here's another question: Do you think circumstances magically appear out of nowhere or is there a reason why things happen? In other words, do you believe in Cause and Effect?

I'd wager that you've seen Cause and Effect in action, probably more than once. You may have even seen an Effect become another Cause. If so, then welcome to the real world. I'll be your host for today's lesson in economics as practiced in Washington by the Obama administration and the Progressive Democrats in Congress.

One year into this disaster, our economy is in its' worst shape in generations. If you've been keeping up, and I know it's not easy, then you know that our current economic woes just happen to have begun with the Democrat retaking of Congress in 2006. They were installed in January 2007, just around the time our economy began its downward spiral. The election of a Democrat president in 2008 gave us rule by just one party and things have gone downhill for the country ever since. If you doubted Cause and Effect before, this one statistic should make you a believer.

In just the past few weeks we've been assaulted with one bad economic report followed by another bad report. From Robert Reich comes his assesement of a gloomy jobs forecast. USA Today reports of the dangers of our mounting debt, the Washington Times reminds those who are still lucky enough to be employed that their income has fallen during Obama's tenure, Breitbart informs us that business bankruptcies rose 52% in 2009.

None of this is unexpected, especially when you look at this chart of Obama administration Cabinet members with business experience. The graph is startling and should convince you of the Principle of Cause and Effect, if you didn't believe it before.

Each and every effort by this administration to engineer the economy has resulted in failure: TARP, the so-called Stimulus Package, Cash for Clunkers, all have resulted in higher numbers of unemployed and reduced tax revenue. Nothing that was promised in these massive government programs has materialized. If Obama were the CEO of a corporation with an outlook this dismal, he would've been fired. Unfortunately, we have to wait until 2012 to replace him. Congressonal elections come sooner and provide us with at least the hope of turning things around.

What is needed in Washington is a complete makeover. We need to find candidates who understand that our future depends on our capitalistic free market, with free being the operative word. Americans need good paying jobs and it's not protectionism or jingoism or any other kind of "ism" to want to achieve that goal. We had it once and gave it away. We need to drastically roll back government regulations and restrict the role of Washingtons' meddling in the market, such as what we have witnessed in the mortgage meltdown where a bad peice of legislation, the Community Redevelopment Act, forced banks to lend to people who couldn't previously qualify for a home loan. This insanity must stop and be reversed.

Our best bet comes this November when we can vote the economic illiterates out of Washington and begin to elect representatives who will promote American values and remove the damaging influence of corrupt progressive politics in the marketplace.

BOLO 4 Fake Tea Partiers

In yet another news item that the LSM won't cover, many Tea Parties are scheduled this week on or around Tax Day, April 15th. A whole bunch of overtaxed pariots will be turning out at these events to air their grievances against the Marxists and Statists who currently infest Washington. Should you plan to attend one of these soirees, there's a threat that you should be aware of: fake Tea Partiers.

These vermin will attempt to act as Tea Partiers on acid. Their stated goal is to discredit the movement with fake signs and outrageous behavior in the hopes that a compliant media will highlight them instead of the real patriots. And, since the LSM has loudly and proudly abandoned any semblance of balance in their coverage, you can count on at least a few of these efforts to succeed, or at least be attempted. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of some of the saboteurs here.

Which brings us to the logical question, how do we counter these rats? The answer may lie no farther away than your fingertips: technology. Specifically, small, hand-held video recorders, as recommended by none other than Glenn Reynolds over at Instapundit and here at DBKP. Pajamas Media also wants your first-person vids here. Even your phone could work. I have a Samsung Alias that takes passable videos, but a device dedicated to that function would be better. A few are available for less than $200. Don't leave home (to attend any kind of political function) without it.

This has been a public service announcement. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Paul Krugman Gets It Wrong, Again

He's a respected economist and a Nobel Prize winner. However, Paul Krugman's recent NYT article entitled "Building a Green Economy" is so full of false assumptions and bad economic theory that it can't go uncorrected. How this guy could have any credibility amongst those of us who've balanced a checkbook is yet another of life's mysteries, a mystery that I'm happy to help dispel.

One could accurately dismiss the entire article based on one simple principle. Computer programmers are well aware of it: GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out. It means that no matter how well written any computer code may be, if the information fed into it is false or innacurate, the results will also be false and inaccurate.

He begins his article by saying that we should be listening to discredited climate scientists. That alone should raise red flags for anyone who has followed the news lately. He thinks that the revelation of the emails of the East Anglia Climate Research Unit should be dismissed and that we should go full throttle into creating a "green economy". This, my friends, is the garbage that he'd like to enter into our economic computer program.

Going into a little more depth on the CRU emails, computer programming is just one of the methods that these climate scientists used to manipulate data. Several people who've had access to the code ran other figures through it and, curiously enough, got a manufactured spike towards the end, resulting in Al Gore's now-infamous "hockey stick graph". In fact, one of the programmers originally questioned the lack of a spike and was told to "fix" the program to "hide the decline" in real-world temperature data. For a much more detailed look at ClimateGate, click on over to James Watts' site here.

Krugman then proceeds to lay out his case for a "green economy" by positing an economic law that is just plain wrong. He begins innocently enough with this statement:

If there’s a single central insight in economics, it’s this: There are mutual gains from transactions between consenting adults.

And goes to this absurd conclusion:

Free markets are “efficient” — which, in economics-speak as opposed to plain English, means that nobody can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

It's here that his knowledge of economics jumps the rails and veers wildly off the tracks of logic. He has just told us that free market economics is a zero sum game. The inaccuracy of this statement would normally result in peals of laughter, but since it comes from someone with the proper credentials, it's treated as gospel, never to be questioned. The word "efficient" means that things are done at the lowest cost, Mr. K. Please enter that into your journal for future reference and stop misrepresenting the language.

If this were true, we would never see an economy that grows. Or shrinks.

Fortunately, this absurd statement comes early in a ten-page article, so you can dismiss the rest of it without hesitation as he continues to ignore real-world experience and basic economic laws, which, sadly, is becoming this man's trademark.

We've been held hostage by radical environmentalism for so long that most of us have lost sight of reality. The screetching of the "Chicken Littles" has drowned out the voice of realitsts who understand that this Earth is in a constant state of change. Only recently has there been a push to make you feel guilty for innocently living your life, as if you were doing irreparabe harm to the planet by brushing your teeth.  Feel guilty enough and you can be gently manipulated to go along with the most absurd and illogical arguments conceivable. The image of a jack-booted thugocracy has been replaced with the image of a tie-dyed, Birkenstock-wearing bureaucrat.

The result is the same.

We haven't built a new nuclear power plant in thirty years, despite a stellar safety record and a rising population. We unecessarily restrict the development of our own natural resources such as oil and natural gas and instead of creating wealth for America, we drain our country of money. See our imbalance of trade as proof.

With all of the intellectual and technical resources that this great country has gathered, if there were ways to efficiently harness other forms of energy, we'd see this technology in the market. The fact that a "green economy" is being pushed at all (and is driven not by the market, but by massive wasteful government programs) should tell us that the technology just doesn't exist, yet. I have hope that one day we'll find a new source of energy that's free of pollution, or nearly so, but that day has yet to arrive. We'll get there, but the very act of restricting our economy in the false hope of "saving the planet" ensures our inability to reach that lofty goal. It will take research money to accomplish, and radical environmentalism virtually assures we'll never have enough, given that one of its basic tenets is that consumption is evil.
 
Until then, we must use what we have, and what we have isn't bad at all. Ask any physicist how much energy is contained in a gallon of crude oil and you'll hear that it's more than any other liquid source on Earth. Its' responsible use is beneficial in so many ways as to be beyond the scope of this post to catalog them all, much like the number of errors in Mr. Krugman's piece.
 
We should consider oil a gift from God, like fire. Use it for the benefit of mankind whenever possible and you can't go wrong.
 

Friday Bits of Tid, Masters Edition

Friday.

The word rolls off the tongue, pregnant with the promise of leisure, time spent with family, sleeping in, yardwork (for those of us with yards) and this weekend, watching the Masters Tournament at what is widely considered the crown jewel of American golf: Augusta National. Even if Tiger hadn't made his comeback here, the competition would still be well worth the watch. Lush and majestic, this course oozes Southern charm and tradition. Bobby Jones would be proud.

And speaking of the Masters, what is your teenager doing this weekend? Assuming you have one, of course.

Here's some good news. Folks are finally figuring out that radical environmentalism isn't necessarily about the environment and favor economic growth over Draconian regulations. Remember the rule: if a candidate believes in "climate change", he or she is unfit for office and should be rejected. Chicken Littles make terrible decisions...

Y'all have a good weekend.

Flat, Not VAT

As the old saying goes, there are only two certainties in life: death and taxes. We need to add one more truism: Democrats will raise your taxes. That, my friends, is as sure as the sunrise.

Paul Volker officially floated this trial ballon yesterday. Charles Krauthammer has been warning us for months that this would be the natural result of the out-of-control spending binge by this Congress, populated as it is by corrupt progressives in both parties. It's an idea that should be shot down, burned, and its ashes spread over salted earth. Then nuked from orbit, just to be sure.

For a quick primer of a VAT, click here. (h/t Flopping Aces)

Noticeably absent in this discussion is the common-sense solution to our mounting deficit: spending reductions. If there were ever a time to reign in government spending, it would be now. Just as most households in America have had to drastically tighten their belts, Washington should be doing the same. Reduced government spending would go a long way towards freeing up much needed capital for the private sector, which would then be multiplied by private businesses as wealth is generated.

We need a flat tax of around ten percent and a mechanism in place that restricts government spending to no more than it takes in. Don't look for that to happen with this Congress, however. As we've seen, drunken sailors have nothing on them, as the deficit chart shows. As bad as the Bush era deficits were, the Obama deficits have the potential to inflict real harm on our country. At least during W's terms, we had a chance to reduce them with a growing economy and full employment. Now, with the economically destructive policies of the Obama administration, we find ourselves mired in a recession that is only getting worse.

Just remind yourself of this very simple rule: each time the price of a good or service goes up, you receive a cut in pay.

Thanks, Washington. Thanks a lot.

A Reminder of What Once Was, and Could Be Again

While over at Big Hollywood, I ran across this video from John Ratzenberger (or Cliff Claven from "Cheers", depending on your memory). It was originally part of a birthday wish for him, but the video says so much more about the way things once were, and could be again.

The manufacturing sector of our economy was once the engine of our national strength. It allowed many to work with their hands and make a good living for themselves and their familiy. I know, I was one of them.

The movement in Washington to convert our economy from a manufacturing base to a service base has been a monumental failure. We're seeing an exodus of American jobs offshore to countries with less burdensome regulations, taking with them the hopes and dreams of Americans whose only sin is wanting to own their own home and send their kids to college.

Note that the demand for products has not changed. We still need things like automobiles, computers and video games. There is no reason that these items should not be produced in country. No reason, that is, other than unecessary regulations that are reaching the point of counterproductivity: our government has become an impediment to the creation of jobs and wealth.

This situation can be reversed. We can start electing people who understand how our free market operates and will return manufacturing to America.

If we don't, we'll have no future.

Progressivism vs Americanism.

It's Monday and time for your reading assignment. On March 31, Representative Paul Ryan gave this speech to the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

In it, he outlines the many failures of the current administration and wonders if the path we choose in 2008 is the right one for the country. If we were to consider the accomplishments since that time, there's no other conclusion to reach: the Obama presidency, along with Reid and Pelosi's "leadership" in Congress, has been a grand disaster.

If America were a business, it would be bankrupt. Coincidentally, that is just one of the problems we face due to the profligate spending habits of an out-of-control Congress that happens to be populated with "progressives". I put that word in quotes because any sentient being can see the course that "progressives" are pursuing has nothing to do with progress at all. In fact, all indicators show we're moving backwards, not forwards. Normally, considering this blog's title, I'd be giddy. But when the fortunes of a country such as ours are being reversed on purpose, it's not cause for celebration.

Quite the opposite: it's time for us to declare idealogical war against "progressivism". The more we learn about them, the more we find out that their philosophy has more in common with the disease of post-modernism and nothing at all to do with Americanism.

For a quick lesson in po-mo politics as embodied by the Obama administration, here's an article by Victor Davis Hanson over at Pajamas Media.

If you've never heard of post-modernism, let me save you some time - don't waste yours reading any of it. Everything I've found is merely gobbledygook dreamed up by pseudo-intellectuals who want you to think they're smart. Postmodernism posits that there are no absolutes in life, no right, no wrong, no nothing. How such blatant bullshit ever became popular in certain circles, or even published at all, is a constant source of puzzlement. However, that doesn't prevent the tragically hip from believing in it, just as many belive in the tenets of "progressivism".

The two philosophies are intertwined. To "progressives", the skyrocketing federal deficit means nothing, record high unemployment numbers mean nothing, our engineered decline as a world power for good means nothing and the will of the people means nothing. Above all, political honesty, character and principle mean nothing. Those in Washington who profess themselves to be "progressives" have little in their heart except the lust for power and self-importance, and the overwhelming compulsion to control you.

Given that, how do we go about purging Washington of this desease? For starters, find anyone who believes in the myth of "man-made climate change" and vote them out of office. Ditto with anyone who voted for the government takeover of the healthcare industry. Educate yourself - read, read, read. Ponder within yourself the accuracy of all that you read, including this blog, then read some more. Listen to political talk radio. Discuss issues with your friends, politely, of course. If they disagree with you, all the better. Look upon it as an opportunity to learn and perhaps, to persuade.

Our country's future is at stake along with your personal future. It's vitally important that you become educated about issues and reject the efforts of "progressives" to damage the country.

Happy Easter to All

He is Risen!

Friday Bits of Tid, Good Friday Edition

This blog would like to wish everyone (meaning both of my readers) a very happy Good Friday and Easter Sunday. May your weekend be filled with His Love, Kindness and Forgiveness as we contemplate the victory over Earthly death that ocurred some 2000 years ago.

This is a good Friday for several reasons. The first one is this poll from CBS News that shows The Vapid One's approval numbers at a new low of 44%. What makes this poll significant is that it was conducted after the passage of the HealthCare Takover Law. And in what can only be described as somewhat ironic is the ratings results that show CBS and ABC news viewership numbers tanking. America's growing dissatisfaction with Obama and his tongue-bathers in the media is becoming too big to ignore. You can insult the country only so long...

Another Friday bit of goodness comes the admission from the climate scientist that created the Gaia meme that "Trying to save the planet is a lot of nonsense". More of this, please. It takes time for the average person to awaken to the dismal reality that there are folks out there who take great glee in misleading you for their own selfish reasons. Nowhere has this been more evident than in "climate science", one arm of radical environmentalism, and perhaps its most destructive. Whomever was responsible for the revelation of the CRU climate data information should be given a Nobel Prize for exposing the truth behind the AGW hoax.

Finally, for grins and giggles, check out this NRSC ad highlighting all the wonderfullness that is Obama. H/T  to that smart military blog, Ace of Spades Headquarters.

Happy Good Friday and a have a joyous Easter.