Byron York, The Washington Examiner:
The Post Office is supposed to pay for itself, but in recent years has been covering its losses by borrowing from the Treasury. But now, GAO notes, the Post Office “is nearing its $15 billion borrowing limit with the U.S. Treasury and has unfunded pension and retiree health obligations and other liabilities of about $90 billion.”
Labor costs are killing the Post Office. Wages and benefits make up 80 percent of its expenses. About 85 percent of its employees are covered by union contracts, and many receive benefits beyond those of other federal workers. Union agreements force the Post Office to maintain more full-time employees than it needs; deny managers flexibility in assigning tasks, like having a retail clerk deliver mail; forbid the Post Office from outsourcing any city delivery routes; give about 500,000 employees total protection from layoffs; and “require [the Post Office] to pay a more generous share of employees’ health and life insurance premiums than most other agencies,” according to GAO.
The Post Office operates under restrictions that do not burden private businesses. It has a legal monopoly on some types of letter mail, but it’s also required by law to deliver mail to every address in the United States. Over the years Congress has authorized the construction of too many post offices and the hiring of too many postal employees, and those are hard numbers to bring down. Altogether, it is a shining example of what happens when the government tries to operate like a business, only not really.
If it stands, the new health care law will establish government offices and agencies to create and run health care exchanges, to closely regulate insurance companies, to establish standards of care, to determine what are appropriate levels of coverage, to ensure compliance with the law — it goes on and on. It is, well, a huge expansion of government involvement in the health system. And there is little doubt that many of its backers in Congress want to expand it further in coming years. Some envision a day when the government, which already runs Medicare and Medicaid, runs health care entirely.
What could go wrong?
As many of us noted in the run up to the health care “debate,” passage of the bill would not only prove fiscally irresponsible and bureaucratically unruly, but the ancillary issues are where we’re likely to suffer the greatest damage — with a whole new sector of unionized employees, including those in any business that hopes to work with a U.S. government-run health care system, from equipment suppliers to companies who handle laundry delivery and pick up. And of course there will be the preferential contracts awarded to minority contractors.
All of these things will have two natural effects: first, they will raise the cost of health care, either on the front end or down the line, by adding to already unsustainable government deficits; and second, they will create a host of new Democrat voters — people who will be coerced into “voting their economic interests” such that their support will naturally flow toward those who champion union jobs and benefits.
It is all part and parcel of the new client state model the progressives are hoping to build — with power entrenched as more and more voters are dependent on the ever-expanding federal government for employment, and with crises aplenty to be “managed” down the road by social and economic engineers whose manipulations and regulatory micro-managing are the proximate cause of the very crises they will then task themselves with taming.
It’s the perfect power circle — and it represents the end game of progressivism: you are a permanent ward of the state, and the progressive leadership, as your betters, will use you as the movable pieces in their living SIMs game.
Embrace your inner Eloi.
This is from the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/us/politics/13health.html?partner=rss&emc=rss):
“In a new report, the Congressional Research Service says the [health care reform] law may have significant unintended consequences for the ‘personal health insurance coverage’ of senators, representatives and their staff members. For example, it says, the law may ‘remove members of Congress and Congressional staff’ from their current coverage, in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, before any alternatives are available.”
The very same people who passed the law are just now figuring out that there are provisions that will affect them and their staffs, and they didn’t know about it. They might lose their current insurance before an alternative is available. So when Pelosi said “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it ” (http://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/pressreleases?id=1576) she probably meant to say “so WE can find out what’s in it.” It would be funnier if it weren’t so tragic.
Yes. This is a good example of why health care reform is game over.
So what’s the plan?
The implosion of PO feasibility under collectivist theory should be one of the more telling indictments of progressivism – it’s been their shining example.
It should be one of the more telling indictments of progressivism.
I can’t speak for you, but I’m hoping to parse some more genius comments from Nishi. While I wait for the end.
ok you need a plan
here is the plan for right now:
it will never be like it was before
lawl….but we are going to be the new Eloi……just with morloc brains.
Designer babies will all be the gorgeous cafe au lait color of Halle Berry with transhumanist IQ engineering.
We will build a big wall around the southern heartland and call it jesusland and let the New Confederacy do w/e the fuck they want down there…..lynch gays and blacks, outlaw birthcontrol, teach christianism and creationism in their schools and maintain their pure median-IQ pasty white skin germlines free from transhumanist genetic enhancements.
And eventually we will lift off planet to colonize the galaxy and let them poison their environment by denying science and wait on teh Rapture to save them.
Only we will have already left.
Whos the Leftbehinders now?
hahahahaha!
Wow. Why am I so positive that the griefer wears one of these?
I’m just saying that Team R has much to do if it is to learn to navigate this strange new dirty socialist world.
This wasn’t an accident. The dirty socialists did the math. They spended the monies to where America can’t ever go back.
And they’re not even hardly done.
I don’t think Team R has its head around the Disaster.
It’s Miltonian, the fall.
Well, you didn’t have to wait long:
Whos the Leftbehinders now?
I don’t know, Islamists?
Not gonna happen, Nishi. Your lord and savior Obama cancelled the Constellation program, setting back manned space exploration by decades.
lawls. ;)
Wow, nishi is sooooo soooouper smart she resorted to stereotypes. Oh wait, no, that’s intellectually lazy.
You know what is means ‘boys and girls’ carousel, honestly why does this administration want to make all 70s sci fi, except for Star Wars, a reality. Logans Run, THX-138, the morose talking bomb from DarkStar
An intergalactic China run by smug know-nothings who think they know all. What could go wrong?
SIGN ME UP, STARSHIP TROOPER NISHI!
Dummies….the Constellation program was Fail….bad design.
We are developing new scientific approaches, which of course you bible-thumping racist creationist twodigits have zero capacity to understand.
We will just leave you good ol’ Earth when we are ready and you can rape the environment all you want……swim around in the melting glaciers while you wait for the Rapture.
lawl.
SIGN ME UP, STARSHIP TROOPER NISHI!
More like the Queng Ho. Do you read Vernor Vinge, Jeff?
Ideas!
We are developing new scientific approaches
Rocket scientist!
Well….sry baxtrice, that is what you all say want.
Your own country….where Obama is not YOUR president and the progressive welfare state doesnt get in your bidness….go for it.
secede already….it worked out so well for you last time.
We will build a big wall
Wall builder!
We are developing new scientific approaches, which of course you bible-thumping racist creationist twodigits have zero capacity to understand.
The solution remains in development…please stand by…your species is very important to us…
Jeff, is that you parodying nishi, or is that really nishi?
It’s impossible to tell. She’s become so completely laughable that it’s hard to outdo her, I think.
Vampire theorist!
twodigits
Sure, hexadecimal. But who isn’t?
It is somewhat endearing that nishi, known griefer, thinks she would have a ticket on one of the starship.
Poor underachieving griefer. Waving at the pretty rocket while the zombie brain-thumpers slowly surround her.
secede already….it worked out so well for you last time.
You have serious denial-boner for the ol’ Confederacy, Honky.
Time to embrace it. Bling out a St. Andrew’s cross. Cut some holes in your bedsheets. No obligations, no pressure, just try it.
Make sure you put good tinder under the cross.
I mean…Darleen the Pedobear Hag is screaming at the top of her lungs that Obama is not HER president…….can’t you hear her?
365 to 173 ec college votes…..doesnt that make him constitutionally our president?
But i relly think you should have your have own.
Beck would be perfect.
Jesusland FTW!
As long as I’m still allowed threesomes with college girls gone wild in Jesusland, I’m in.
No actually Darleen says Obama is her president.
She fussed at me for screaming at the top of my lungs that Obama is not MY president.
Cause he’s not.
He’s a dirty socialist Chicago street trash piece of shit and I’m not having it.
But Darleen’s views are decidedly more temperate.
Oh yeah, the griefer’s rantings offer an opportune time to recommend JG Ballard’s High Rise.
So is nishi Team Edward or Team Jacob? Let’s stick to the important topics here… ;)
“We will just leave you good ol’ Earth when we are ready”
Faster Pussycat!
you can rape the environment all you want
Illegal use of metaphor! Where was my trigger alert?
0x88
Nishi≡∅
“As long as I’m still allowed threesomes with college girls gone wild in Jesusland, I’m in.”
lawl, there arent any colleges in Jesusland…..only seminaries.
“But Darleen’s views are decidedly more temperate.”
Jeff’s professor didnt think so.
Intetionalism, ‘feets, intentionalism.
.only seminaries.
Like Harvard?
OK.
Johnny Storm sez: Trollhammer ON!!
Comment by Nishi the Kingslayer on 4/13 @ 10:10 am
Since this is PW and Jeff stresses meaning and intentionalism, I’m just going to dismantle a few misconceptions:
Who is “you all”? Are you lumping me (as an individual) into a collective? What is it what we “want”? Can you really articulate it or are you just parroting what a biased media tell you we “want”?
First, I’ve never said Obama isn’t my president. I’ve never said Bush wasn’t my president, I’ve never said that Clinton wasn’t my president..etc.. That is to say that I’ve disagreed with many of my leaders but never flatly said “not mine”. That’s just childish.
Secondly, is there something wrong with not wanting the State in my business? I don’t understand why all of a sudden asking the Fed Gov to get out of my life is so wrong. I’m not in the military (have a health condition to keep me out), don’t work for any federal agency, don’t break any laws – why would the government want to be in my “bidness” as you put it. I’m a productive citizen. We have rights as stated in our Constitution, and the Government should never overstep that.
About that, I’m only 30. I never seceded. You don’t even know my position on that, but you somehow assume things about me without ever talking to me. Btw, the Civil War was over 130+ years ago. I had no role or position in that. Stop trying to make that my fault.
Stop assuming. Stop making caricatures of people. Stop being intellectually lazy and stop using stereotypes.
Jesusland seminaries.
nuggie fail.
The canary is doing just fine, and that bloody parrot never died either.
My favorite part about fucking in Jesusland is how they yell “Oh GOD!” all the time. I don’t even care who they’re talking to. All’s I know is, it strokes me ego good and plenty.
Living off planet.
nuggie fail still.
To be fair, Jeff, Southern Baptists never have sex standing up. People might think they were dancing.
/rimshot
I read 13, didn’t see how the scenario really comes to light, I mean if we aren’t drilling in Arizona, you’re not going to be drilling on Mars, why is he cutting space research, except navelgazing Earth science
I’m thinking that by the time nuggie’s ninth gen unchildren finally go off planet, nuggie’s Jesuslanders will have completed the trajectory dudes like Galileo started. I’m thinking nuggie never considered this minor inconvenience.
transhumans will be able to fold space. with their minds.
with or without melange?
yes
I suspect that when the time comes, they’ll rethink the whole “leaving the Jesuslanders behind” thing.
After all, somebody’s going to have to cook, clean, and landscape the pretty Martian backyards.
More like queen ho and lickspittle.
I think the Dune cycle is next on my list of treasured favorites to revisit. Frank Herbert is quite the good read.
did you ever read the ones the kid wrote?
I think I amazoned them but they never came.
Jesuslanders take notice: Collectivize at the appropriate time and ride to the stars on the transhumanist dime.
“After all, somebody’s going to have to cook, clean, and landscape the pretty Martian backyards.”
Not to mention deal with the Posleen….
Nuggie assumes that the aliens love for her will be other than culinary.
Don’t think the apple fell very close to the tree, though. His kid’s work leaveth much to be desired.
“I mean…Darleen the Pedobear Hag is screaming at the top of her lungs that Obama is not HER president…….can’t you hear her?”
Oddly, I can’t. Are you sure that’s what you’re hearing? Are you sure it’s not a dog telling you to kill all the pretty girls?
The ones the kid wrote based on Daddy’s notes do indeed leave much to be desired. I did get and read almost all of the Kid Herbert “Dune” books, but couldn’t finish the series I was so disgusted. I’d have spent my time better reading Star Trek #423: Spock’s Withered Green Pecker.
So I will be stopping after Chapterhouse: Dune. Have to wait until the Afterlife to read the novel Frank would have written.
I got as far as House Harkonnen and went no farther. Like the Star Wars Prequels, I pretend they didn’t happen.
Unless the Vogons get her first, with the hyperspace bypass
very few things are truly epic anymore
Harry Potter tried to be epic but that was just Degrassi with wizards.
Not the same.
Dan Simmons’s Hyperion Cantos is great science fiction.
Degrassi with wizards.
That’s excellent, feets. I salute you.
My new slogan comes from Mal Reynolds, “I aim to misbehave.”
Henceforth, when you say Post Office, think of the word post as an adjective instead of a noun. I mean, who wants an office job anyway?
Oh, and I can’t wait for President Obama to bail out the post office by using tax dollars to cover their shortfall and fund their pensions, allow them to retain their monopoly on first class postage, and distribute ownership of the new improved Post Office to their union.
“We have rights as stated in our Constitution,”
yup, and so do blacks and women and gays.
your fist leaves off where the other citizen’s nose begins.
im fine wid the feds astayin’ out ur bidness if you stay out of theirs.
that means civil rights for blacks, women, and gays, including sexual and reproductive choice and rejecting chattel slavery of women and children.
You are only the party of freedom for WECs….the freedom to impose your stupid religious doctrines on unwilling fellow citizens.
Ina return to the federalist model, baxtrice, every town south of the mason dixon line would either be jesusland, yearning for zion, or some combination of both.
Tell me what kind of lightbulbs I need to use again? Also, I’m a little concerned with the vintage of my toilet. Will there be fines for overflushing a particularly stubborn turd?
Ain’t that cute? The griefer thinks she’s blasting into space on Moonraker with Keid A to found a new world with their progeny. Too bad he’s the big dork with steel teeth, and she’s the runt with pigtails.
also too, baxtrice, you parody yourselves.
no one else needs to.
Here feets……new Flobots.
White Flag Warrior.
is there anything more symbolic of the divide between conservatives and liberals than Fight-with-Tools and the Flobots?
youth vs age, multiculti vs uniculti, cooltown vs crazytown, compassion vs hatred
Jeff….you’re on the wrong side.
and you know it.
I don’t know, maybe designing and building bridges vs. dreams of shooting into space transhumanist style to form a progressive Utopia on Mars while dressed as your favorite anime character?
Being on the side of liberty and individual freedom is never wrong.
That kind of shit may work on happy, but me? I’ve already seen plenty of tits. The promise of two more doesn’t sway me.
I went to the fight with tools web site. Everyone on the front page is white, so I guess that means they are RAAAAACISTS!
Nishi’s idea of the future is utopian, how surprising.
You realize Nishi with health care reform sucking all the funding out of the medical development of nanotechnology applications when pain pills are so much cheaper, your precious transhumanist future might as well be up in smoke?
Perhaps this is a more pragmatic view of the future, but if transhumans ever come about, I picture them as playing Galt with their discovery. They’ll take those who they feel aren’t a lost cause and sit back and wait for civilization’s inevitable (at the present time, anyways. The future isn’t set in stone like in Nishi’s Jesusland delusions) collapse. Beyond that point? I couldn’t say what would happen. I suppose it depends on how much they love or hate humanity.
Nishi’s idea of abandoning everyone who doesn’t worship at her altar seems to suggest a lot of hatred for humanity in her psyche.
Nishi is Skynet’s useful idiot.
Holy shit nishi, did you just accuse me of holding down peoples? Because I’m like poor and shit, I ain’t holding anyone down. Also, I’m not conservative, I’m libertarian. Ya know, like classical liberal?
duuuuuuude
See that’s what assumptions get ya. Also, I live in TX. For all the stereotypes about Texans, I know more progs than I do cons. Of couse most of those progs are public school educated propaganda fed bots, but hey they’re like for PROGRESS an shit.
Though I will say the genius idea of colonized sci-fi geeks dressed in anime outfits gets me so freakin’ hard I can barely keep myself zipped in.
“We have rights as stated in our Constitution,”
yup, and so do blacks and women and gays
Why does Nishit the Genocidal Eugenecist and Cunt Extraordinaire say this like it is in dispute by the people here?
You are a so far beyond parody that I do not even pity you anymore. Step away from the ‘shrooms and acid. They are not your friends.
Comment by JD on 4/13 @ 12:29 pm
Thanks JD, I was wondering where nishi was getting that.
baxtrice – Like everything else, the lying twat just pulls shit out of her ass. Apparently she enjoys it, but it bears no resemblance to reality. None.
Odd thing is, nishi is arguing with nobody here at all, with this kind of crap.
Really, we expect better from an anime superhero with a brain the size of a planet.
i added the flobots to my lala thank you
Is this a space colonization thread or a Post Office thread, because I think in space maybe they might use email.
Only without the fiber optics, probably.
oh. It’s got that Rise Against guy in it.
He’s sort of a douche but I will still listen.
“I know more progs than I do cons”
baxtrice, we aren’t progs, we are liberals.
:)
im in this video, in the crowd scene.
if you are a con, baxtrice, you support con ideology…..otherwise you’re going to get gulagged.
here’s my litmus….do you support SSM? legal abortion?
lawl.
…scattered over an asteroid-belt-sized region of space, judging from recent snatches of conversation.
Severely mangled input handling region, I’m guessing.
Comment by JD on 4/13 @ 12:36 pm
I wonder how much Axelrod & Co pay her to be so dishonest, oh wells I’m going to eat my taco.
this video, in the crowd scenes.
kinda says it all.
“oh wells I’m going to eat my taco.”
coward.
:)
There is nothing liberal about you, nishit. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zifr.
Though I will say the genius idea of colonized TRANSHUMANIST sci-fi geeks dressed in anime outfits gets me so freakin’ hard I can barely keep myself zipped in.
yup, me an the upper right tail are going to leave you here with Leon “human dignity” Kass, Sarah “dimbo” Palin, and Focus on the Family.
baxtrice – Nishit is just jealous that you are not going to eat her taco.
So you’re going to gulag us Nishi?
Very tolerant of you. Very ‘liberal’.
WTF #3,765 brought to you by Taco Bell.
“Ina return to the federalist model, baxtrice, every town south of the mason dixon line would either be jesusland, yearning for zion, or some combination of both.”
Honkies always know what the Other is up to. And they fears it, they do…
haha, you guyz know im right……if baxtrice comes out for reproductive rights for the XX, SSM, or is anti-Palin, you’re going to slap her in the stocks until she reconsiders.
Nishi, you have your right confused with your left. Again.
Keid, if you’ve watched Babylon 5, you know the Post Office survives even in the 23rd century. Because you can’t send pepperoni through e-mail.
nope im trying to show you what has gone wrong with WFB’s conservativism, which is, incidentally my grandfathers conservatism.
failure to evolve.
and Jeff still writes beautifully….if if the content is pure crazipants.
look how you treat feets.
QED
Comment by JD on 4/13 @ 12:47 pm
I could totally go the “this one time in college..” route..but that’s waaay to easy. ;)
SDN you’re right. Pepperoni is worth keeping the post office alive I think.
No, baxtrice, don’t be afraid of easy….
Is there a reason she’s allowed to still post here? I’m having trouble getting past her calling Darleen “the pedobear hag.”
Nishit the Lying Cunt advocates for eugenics, genocide, and violence against political opponents, all while being a racist. Her words. Deal.
not-lulz
“nope im trying to show you what has gone wrong with WFB’s conservativism, which is, incidentally my grandfathers conservatism.
failure to evolve.”
So what’s wrong with it is it’s determination not to become its opposite?
Awesome.
we just want feets to stop being so screechy, nitwit.
so…hatey
happyfeet, have I wronged you? Say, tell, let me know — the agita’s gonna kill me.
PURITY!
Slart – Nishit pretty much has the market cornered on unbridled hate, and racism. And lying. And being a cunt. And general anti-social psychotic behavior.
But hf wants to make little Klingon babies with her anyway.
reproductive rights
The right to reproduce? Already have it. It’s the getting out that’s the problem. Some people have decided that a person isn’t a person until they say a person is a person, so until they say a person is a person the non-person can be killed, unless someone kills the person the non-person is inside of, then the non-person is a person, and the person who killed the non-person and the person really killed two people, even if the person who the non-person is inside of was on their way to have the non-person killed because the non-person was making the person uncomfortable. Plus, sex is really important, and all barriers, even natural ones, to having a really good sex life (or the equivalent fantasy) should be removed. Unless you are a man, in which case you can only really have sex with other men. And you can’t kill anyone, even non-persons.
Still working the bugs out of that time travel machine, I see. This is the year 2010 for calibration purposes.
You might should visit the south in this century and dimension, nishi. It is apparently quite different from the one on your world.
And…well, so fucking tedious.
Really, an anime superhero with a brain the size of a planet (even if it’s severely damaged and dispersed over trillions of cubic kilometers of space) ought to be able to avoid being tedious, even if happyfeets can’t seem to.
But: no.
I don’t “support” abortion, I simply recognize that the need for it has, does, and will always exist…. which doesn’t mean that it’s a positive good.
As for SSM, I don’t care…. as long as my church doesn’t have to perform the ceremony, and I can refuse to photograph it… neither of which Nishit is prepared to grant.
I thought about turning greasemonkey off, just to see the entirety of its rantings, but thanks to baxtrice I don’t have to. If that’s the gist of it, then nothing more need be known.
Progressives accuse classical liberals of doing what they do, or want to do to us.
There is plenty of room in the classical liberal camp for people who are pro choice. I also don’t care who likes Palin or any other politician. In any case I would prefer that for now we stick to worrying about decreasing government spending and decreasing the size and scope of the federal government, since those are winning issues that also speak to the majority of Americans.
And all the runners of Gulags and camps have come from Nishit’s side of the aisle in this century.
Here’s the deal, really. I will not force my principles on others, and I expect them to show the same restraint. Progressives want to run my life because they think they can do it better, which is quite insane since they couldn’t possibly care about me as much as I care about me.
Simple.
nishit – care to enlighten us on how BarckyCare will not be like the Post Office?
cranky-d – well said. Well said, indeed.
I say, crankster, it’s a bit more poetic than “Get the fuck off my lawn, and I’ll stay the fuck off yours!”
Unfortunately, the left can’t stay off anyone’s lawn.
According to the left, it isn’t really your lawn, it’s the government’s lawn, and the government is just letting you use it. For now. You still have to pay for the upkeep, of course. But don’t use too much water because we’re running out of water, you know.
Very true. That’s why I say a daily “fuck you” to the man by not separating my garbage. It’s the little acts of civil disobedience what must give us pleasure in our little country these days.
Don’t worry Nishi, when your leftist overlords finally allow you to build the actual city of Rapture I’m sure it will be far, far better than the dystopian imaginings of it. Best of all, your demand that Jesus wait outside the city limits will just about require that none of your browner brothers and sisters move there.
Yup.
Why does Nishit the Genocidal Eugenecist and Cunt Extraordinaire say this like it is in dispute by the people here?
If it makes you angry, then she has achieved her purpose. In that she is like a child who is forever testing the boundaries of her parents rules. Also, she’s a bit mean I think.
You said–
“The Constitution is intended specifically to prevent a tyranny of the majority. ”
But you were fine when the majority was white christian peoples oppressing other citizens rights.
I said the constitution is WAI.
We live in a democratic meritocracy, and that is why white anglosaxon protestants (who were once a majority, and had their democratic way) will now be the democratic minority.
The Constitution is WAI.
I guess we agree then.
But why all the rageraver shit that you give front-page face to about Obama raping liberty and shredding the constitution?
“But you were fine when the majority was white christian peoples oppressing other citizens rights.”
He was?
Jeff, you been bogarting the time machine?
Cool Pablo, my favorite mil-video
W. T. F?
My WTF meter is getting pegged on a frequent basis, these days.
See? You dress up like Colonel Sanders one time and you’re labeled for life…
“white christian peoples oppressing other citizens rights.”
in 2008 non-hispanic whites made up 70% of the electorate.
Jeff was alive in 2008 i think.
It’d be nice if you’d explain yourself just a little bit more.
But I don’t get my hopes up.
we are talking about the future, when non-hispanic white becomes a minority.
correct me if I’m wrong….but undoing DOMA would be then unconstitutional, since that would represent a tyranny of a non-white majority?
Purple the flour, and the bolts are divisible by sputum.
No, because black and hispanics are even less predisposed than whites are to that, and we don’t even want to go into folks from the islands. The problem is it wa never intended for the Constitution to be ammended
by the courts, rather than by statute, or that cumbersome process
Just what the fuck does that have to do with Jeff, or anyone that comments here?
Really. Your mystical identity doesn’t require you to speak in riddles. Just come right out and make your point, for once. An actual, entire point. That’s all I ask.
I’m sure I ask in vain, but you know, arguments aren’t self-assembling. Quit being lazy.
Wait, don’t we need to see how that race war you’re cheering for works out first?
I’m heartened to hear that you accepted Jesus as your personal savior Jeff, but you are going to have to work on that whole oppressing of the non whites thing. Was it Depeche Mode that made you see the light, or perhaps Johnny Cash? Jesus do love a good beat.
Somebody tweet me if she ever manages to find the neighborhood my point lives in. Only then am I going to bother firing up the grill or bringing out extra folding chairs.
Nishit is really under the delusion that Team D is Team Proggie isn’t she? I suppose it’s understandable given the amount of dark people I see shopping when I’m at Whole Foods.
Anyone, tell me that bitch isn’t full on loon. I dare you.
Somebody tweet me if she ever manages to find the neighborhood my point lives in. Only then am I going to bother firing up the grill or bringing out extra folding chairs.
I’m pretty sure you were at the forefront of the movement that kept non-Christians from practicing their faith, and kept non-whites from living outside of ghettos or getting decent jobs or educations. If only you’d been successful at your sterilization program, we privileged few wouldn’t have to worry about the hordes of ignorant brown people screwing like rabbits ’til they supplant us.
We should have listened to the eugenicist and killed them all before it was too late. Why didn’t we listen to the wisdom of the genocidal genius? Whyyyyyyyyy?!
I don’t know, maybe designing and building bridges vs. dreams of shooting into space transhumanist style to form a progressive Utopia on Mars while dressed as your favorite anime character?
Nishi OBVIOUSLY hasn’t seen the “Utopia” episode of Doctor Who (Martha season), where at the end of time and space people take the last rocket somewhere promising as the stars in the known universe blink out.
But it doesn’t work out as planned. The sky isn’t made of diamonds. Instead, they become hideous little homunculi in flying bladey metal orbs that the Master brings through a tear in space-time to invade Earth and turn it into a giant weapons factory so that he can Take Over The Universe.
And then Martha and the Doctor reverse the entire year using the TARDIS and the whole thing never happened.
See what happens when you don’t take the long view?
lawl…..i kno where u live Jeff and it ain’t five points.
i sent u a south american armadillo, membah?
dicentra, that is scientifically impossible because of closedform timecurves.
See where your rejection of Science gets you?
:)
Oh, more WTFuckage.
lawl…..i kno where u live Jeff and it ain’t five points.
i sent u a south american armadillo, membah?
lulz. Wrong “neighborhood” beaker grrl.
Nishi drools: “we are talking about the future, when non-hispanic white becomes a minority.
correct me if I’m wrong….but undoing DOMA would be then unconstitutional, since that would represent a tyranny of a non-white majority?”
Nishi, you ignorant slut!
You obviously don’t understand the difference between the Constitution and a mere law. Revoking a mere law is not “unconstitutional,” insofar as no Congress is bound by the actions of a prior Congress. Just as the philosophical pipul about God making a rock so big he can’t lift it, no Congress can pass a mere law that a subsequent Congress cannot reverse.
Now, I do have to point out a painfully obvious flaw in your, well, I can’t really call it “logic” or “thinking,” but in what you have presented. In Hispanics and African Americans are so “progressive,” how in the name of Algore the Sanctified Ecological Fraud did an amendment to the state constitution of Kahleeforneeya barring gay marriage get passed? (Hint: it didn’t pass just on the cracker vote).
About 70% of African Americans voted in favor of Prop. 8. IIRC, Hispanics votes in favor at a slightly lower, but still significant rate ~60%, again, irrc.
Your ham-handed neo-lib Utopianism needs a little work, I think.
dicentra, that is scientifically impossible because of closedform timecurves.
See where your rejection of Science gets you?
See where your rejection of the AWESOMENESS of The Doctor gets you?
He’s got Time and Space DOWN, yo. He laughs at your puny concepts of science.
Funny, all this talk of future and space and Dr Who makes me want to pull out my Signals album by Rush. 3 songs in particular seem to stand out; Digital Man, New World Man and The Analog Kid.
I heartz me some Rush.
Blake’s Seven is my favorite Classic Brit-TV SciFi
._
/ _
_/ 70s sci-fi was
/ _/ all about hexagons.
_/
There’s a place called “Five Points” in Alabama but that’s not it. And there’s “Little Five Points*” in Atlanta.
That’s like, what, Four-and-a-Half Points? Five Points After Taxes? Five Points Celsius?
It got you deadended on Earth, nuggie. Jump!
We were over in Seven Corners on Friday. Does that count?
In Arlington, Va. Squid?
heh
About 70% of African Americans voted in favor of Prop. 8. IIRC, Hispanics votes in favor at a slightly lower,
wut i say…..a lot of african americans are social conservatives…..but they will NEVAH vote republican.
wat were the election returns?
blacks 97% for Obama
hispanics 68% for Obama
and may i add?
youth 70% against prop 8
70% for Obama
college-educated 68% for Obama
nah nah hey hey
it dont matter what they say
as long as they dont vote that way.
burma shave
that doesn’t scan needs more nah and maybe a little more hey
In other words, they vote for their goodies but not for the gay goodies. That’s a sustainable coalition.
“…the Constellation program was Fail…”
OK Nishi, you’re going to have to defend that one. Just exactly how was it “fail”? And how is us paying the Russians to cart us into orbit, or to visit the
international Russian/Japanese space staion FTW?Why don’t you tell this humble rocket scientist just what we should have been doing instead…
Because, you know, I can easily defend it; without even uttering the name Booooooooooosh!
Sorry for the HTML-FU fail. I’m a rocket scientist, not a computer scientist :)
“…the Constellation program was Fail…”
OK Nishi, you’re going to have to defend that one. Just exactly how was it “fail”? And how is us paying the Russians to cart us into orbit, or to visit the
internationalRussian/Japanese space staion FTW?Why don’t you tell this humble rocket scientist just what we should have been doing instead…
Because, you know, I can easily defend it; without even uttering the name Booooooooooosh!
The Constellation program was hardly “fail”. In fact, it’s what NASA should have been doing since the 1970s instead of pouring money into the wasteful shuttle program, which wasn’t being used as originally intended anyway.
youth 70% against prop 8
70% for Obama
college-educated 68% for Obama
See, the trouble with stats like this is that people grow up, become more mature, get to understand how the world really works. Their votes change accordingly.
Except for nishi, the thirtysomething teenager.
Seriously, why do any of you engage with Nishi? She’s (He’s? It’s?) a griefer. You aren’t going to change her mind. She isn’t going to change your’s. Nothing useful that I can discern is coming from the, ahem, dialectic. The banter isn’t humorous or revealing, it’s just gainsaying whatever anyone else says with a sad, pathetic attempt to appear clever and above it all with a little name- and meme-dropping. Ooo, how transcendent.
Life’s too short for this nonsense.
mike, dude, so lamesauce, so retro.
we need coldsleep, avatars, or full-silicon AI to get anywhere relevent.
That “people growing up” thing worked out in the past, but the demographic timer is going to fuck that pendulum up for you this time.
sowwy.
Apparently because in the future, all these majority-minorities will Never Grow Up!
PETER PANIST!!
charles, I have advocated ignoring the Typing Telephone Poles clogging up the site since Phoenician In A Time Of Romans and alphie … Jeff had made it clear that he really didn’t want Kate to post here, but he has managed to ju-jitsu the vapidity, poor communication skills and bigotry into a nice set of illustrations. I should have figured he would be able to do that – all that catch wrestling and balance stuff, dontchaknow.
Just a head’s up here; we’re going to start taxing food given to trolls next year. Soooo …
I’ll try Bob Reed.
If the Apollo program had continued and not been cancelled, then Constellation would have been a great followup. But when they decided, no way they would spend that much on space again, then Constellation is pretty much non-viable financially too.
Obama’s decision to switch launching to private sector and continue NASA on other stuff is probably the best option in a very restricted funding environment I’m sad to say. If the private sector makes it work, it could be the best decision ever.
After the GFC broke out, it was pretty obvious Constellation and maybe a lot else besides, that I would love to see, will not last. I awaited the decision with dread, knowing what it would be.
I wonder if this may be a better future for “manned space” going forward. Say, virtual headset and bodysuit, remote-operated avatar-robots, until Artificial General Intelligence can be perfected. You could build all sorts of stuff in Earth orbit or the Moon, with reasonable roundtrip communication delay (~3 sec to the Moon).
You forget, Nishi, that, once upon a time, it was conventional wisdom that no black man would vote for a Democrat.
Your thinking is far too linear and makes assumptions that the facts do not support.
For starters, assuming Obambi is a man of his word and pushes for amnesty in the near future, at a time of 9-10% unemployment overall, with far higher unemployment in the African American community, things could get a little… interesting.
Meanwhile, Keid A is playing with flights of fantasy and dubious ones at that… such a rig would be of limited utility, just for starters — anyplace interesting to explore would require an ansible, if you want to do it from here, or the means to get the user out to the location, nevermind the million little issues that come with even interplanetary travel.
As for the rest, you want that delivered by a winged unicorn, while you’re at it?
Dread Cthulhu
No it’s what I said if it has modest built in reflexes I think we can make it work as far as the Moon say with a ~3 second round trip communication delay. People can be trained to cope with it.
The advantage is it leverages the human resources. You save on all the life support, recharge it in situ from solar panels or nuclear. It is relatively immune to cosmic radiation damage. I think of it in relation to space industrialization in Earth-Moon system not interplanetary exploration.
Also it doesn’t need resources for a return trip. All robot missions are one way trips. Very big saving here alone.
Why did we start NASA? Do we still need it?
The griefer mentioned avatars.
Drink!
Don’t be an idiot bh how am I a griefer. Is everyone you don’t agree with a griefer?
Why did we start NASA? Do we still need it?
Not for me to say. USA must decide.
Keid — its a pipe-dream.
Let us start with little things, like the interface… band-width issues… the idiots in NASA have been known to confuse feet and meters to spectacular results.
Your wish list is just that, a wish list — artificial intelligence? Pipe dream at the present. Full body suit and robot avatars? Bad science fiction.
One way trips to the moon, unless you’re building something, are a waste of time. Been there, done that, got the moon rocks.
See, Keid A, this is how I have a feeling you can’t predict the future. You can’t even tell when I’m talking about nishi, known griefer.
Try control-F “avatars”.
bh. I mentioned avatar too. My apolo.
Perhaps you’ve heard of a game where people drink when someone else says a specific word? I mean, maybe you haven’t but you could always ignore it or ask for clarification if you weren’t sure.
For the record, the only person I’ve ever referred to as a griefer on this blog is Nishi. So, yeah, that’s another mistake.
See, you took a light moment where we could all share a laugh about the griefer’s love of space smurfs and you killed it.
Don’t be a light moment killer, Keid A.
But now I’m far too harsh with you, Keid A.
Let us now all enjoy life and laugh at nishi, known griefer.
DC,
the interface… band-width issues… the idiots in NASA have been known to confuse feet and meters to spectacular results.
sry, I only know meters.
Bandwidth: Far IR laserbeam two 20cm telescopes, earth to moon. Multiple sites on earth for 24/7
Artificial General Intelligence theory is more advanced than you think. Google recent conferences. Many anticipate a decade or two, perhaps optimistic. Good intro video here.
You know what we really need? We really need to be able to cross over to another ficton, where what nishi wishes for constitutes reality. Or, better yet: we can launch her over there, and we’ll all be happier.
Or, perhaps, she just needs to form a better grip on this reality, where certain things have been developed, and certain other things might never be, no matter how hard she wishes.
Sometimes, shit just does not pan out. That’s technology!
Bosh. Nearly 3-second loop delay makes for horrible control system open-loop bandwidth. Fraction of a hertz. Useless to control things, where there are other significant forces acting on it, and too slow in any event. Remote to LEO would probably be doable; geosynch would be a quarter-second delay, which is catastrophically slow.
Robots could build things, but human-guided remote manipulators, not so much. The loop delay is going to be your limiting factor. You’d need at least semi-autonomous ‘bots, with occasional instructions from Earth, if any.
People that like to portray themselves as smart but speak in text-ese are rather annoying? apolo? Are you talking about the Rocky movies? sry? I guess actual English is to passe for these intellectuals.
The key word, Keid, is “theory.” Wake me when you achieve science fact from science fiction.
You still have no working interface — a full-body suit is a pipe-dream and might not even be the best way to get the job done — the dichotomy of terrain alone would be problematic.
A three second delay, given the terrain of the moon, very well could be unworkable — as a minimum, it would discourage exploration of the deeper crater and steeper slopes. Likewise, anything complicated or delicate goes out the window, esp if what you’re doing involved, y’know, a moving object.
As for the lost probe and feet vs. meters…
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/space/9909/30/mars.metric.02/
One way trips to the moon, unless you’re building something, are a waste of time. Been there, done that, got the moon rocks.
I’m thinking factories, underground habitats, Maglev Launching ramps for rocketless launch. Send information – use local resources.
Ultimately building powersats, O’Neil space habitats, Big Wheels in orbit. Large nuclear spacecraft to Mars.
I disagree Keid,
Constellation, in addition to refining US booster technology, would have served as a proving ground for systems to use on Mars missions to come. It’s a no brainer to realize that systems designed to operate within the saftey and performance parameters required by NASA on the moon would easily perform on Mars where the environment is far less harsh. In addition, the heavy lift boost capacity would have served us well later in putting larger, more funtional and in a more practical orbit plane, space stations above the Earth.
That’s the short answer, but there would have been a great deal of automated support vehicles, such as trans-orbital supply vehicles, on planet transport and housing, as well as on-surface infrastructure that would have been proven in an environment where recovery would be a scant few days away in the event of emergency as opposed to months-at best.
There was nothing wrong with the shuttle program; practically as well as far as proving technologies that had long been dreamed of and will be applicable for some time to come. But by far the biggest waste was the ISS, originally slated to cost 15 billion and balooning to more than 3 time that much, a wasteful project done as much in the name of trans-national globalism as in the name of science. To begin with, it’s in a crappy orbit-unless of course you are launching from Baikinor or Japan. And, because of cost considerations, and in the interest of allowing the Russians to build some of the modules for us, it didn’t have any rotating assembly where anything close to Earths gravity, or even partial g, could be achieved. And in light of that limitation, the science derived from it is nothing that couldn’t have been achieved by subsequent skylab or mir sized units. It was a colossal waste of time effort and money.
And in the interest of brevity, I’ll just say that as far as virtual or robotic exploration goes, NASA has philisophically chosen to engage in manned space exploration because of the flexibility of an actual human there. While this may change over time as AI develops, I’m pretty sure they’ll want someone nearby to react in case something unknown happens.
The commercialization of space has been a subject of contention in the industry for some time. Correctly, it gas been compared to the dawn of aviation, which really began developing quickly once private industry and the profit motive got behind the progress of development. That said, there are important differences: 1) there are far fewer private customers to avail themselves of space launch and orbital services than for aviation-even in the early 20th century 2) A large portion of sales were to the governments themselves for military purposes; another area of sales that will not be guaranteed under the current plan. And considering the trickle-down technology realized through such cutting edge research, development, and exploration-technology that provides us the medium by which we are interacting now, this is not an area of leadership and expertise I’d like to give up.
I’d much rather spend money on an enhanced NASA budget than on redistributive wealth programs or entitlement programs. Even if it meant merging NASA with DOD, an option that would outrage many I’m sure, I think that it is vital to retaining our technological and developmental edge in the world.
I could say much more, but it’s not the subject of this thread.
Slati,
You’d need at least semi-autonomous ‘bots
OK that does not sound impossible to me in a decade or two. Higher level control from Earth. We have cars that can drive themselves.
Bob Reed,
I am more interested in Space Colonization like Gerard K O’Neil, so I am less interested in Mars. (Unless robots find life). But I understand and appreciate your response.
Pie in the sky, Keid, at least with the current direction of politics.
The first things that will be built on the moon would be mass-drivers, assuming someone doesn’t go for the more prosaic missile silo.
But, then, it won’t be NASA’s doing — Baracky has neutered them and made them his AGW eunuchs.
Yes DC,
I too suspect it will be a larger nation than USA that will do it for real.
That too is humanity though, so I am still content.
Sure you will… right up until the rocks thrown by the mass drivers are used for less than friendly purposes.
I kind of like the “flinger” concept. It’s simple; doesn’t rely on anything new. I’ll have to look that one up.
Sometimes good stuff does come out of scifi, but usually it’s the real physicists that are the most grounded. As opposed to, for instance, James Cameron, or the scifi author he swiped that whole concept from. Poul Anderson? I’ve got the short story somewhere around here: Call Me Joe.
There is no wonder why Keid and nishit get along so well. They have only a tenuous hold on actual reality.
Well then you should be especially interested in a return to the moon Keid. Since in High Frontier O’Neil spoke of using material from the moon as well as asteroids to construct large space stations at the LaGrange points adjacent and inbetween the earth and moon…
It’s a shame that we can’t budhet money for NASA instead of nationalizing GM, Chrysler, Healthcare, and several large banks.
Yes Bob Reed, the Moon is central to my thinking. If it were me I would go back to funding levels of Apollo days. Make me president of USA and I promise it will happen. LOL. Yes, I know it’s against constitution. ;)
more spaceships please
we should get a blue one
I am still interested in nishi or Keid explaining to us cudlips how BarckyCare will not turn out like the Post Office.
In my country we have public/private option. Basic healthcare guaranteed by government. Ok for serious conditions, long waiting lists for minor problems.
Optional Private insurance, private hospitals, prompt service.
doctor visits are heavily subsidised.
Pharmaceuticals capped price.
Funded by taxes, healthcare levy on income.
Levy rises fast for higher income to force high income people to take out private insurance.
Keid answered A question, just not the one posed.
Sorry JD. I am not competent to comment on your country’s system. That is how my country has tried to find a solution that meets multiple conflicting goals.
I am going to quit being mean to this one, as it exhibited honesty, a trait sorely lacking today.