Posted on 01/14/2004 6:17:30 AM PST by presidio9
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:45:28 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Let us imagine the discussion: "Boys, the nation's in massive reeling record-breaking debt and morale's at an all-time low and disposable American soldiers are dying brutal horrific deaths every day over nothing at all except our greed and flagrant cronyism and corporate petrochemical profiteering.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
But she only just got back from a two week long "vacation."
There's been way too many stories out of San Francisco lately, all of them like this. I think the moderators should look at it, and look at all the liberal interlopers we seem to have lately. A purge (not necessarily bloodless) might be in order.
We need a new "new world" to get away from these creeps.
Why do we need to spend billions of dollars sending people to Mars? It sounds like Mr. Montford is already there.
Technically "opinion." Here's what they're calling "news" today.
There would be no men on earth in 2020 if the Party of Mediocrity had its way. The reason that Democrats align themselves with the Arab world is that both share a regressive view of the world and a violent agressiveness to the progress of man. Successful rocketry to these dim-wits is not a man to Mars, but a ground-to-air missle launcher.
Muleteam1
NFP
The Lefties just can't stay on message anymore. It was guys like Tom Brokaw, Bill Clinton, et al, who dubbed the WWII folks (who were the parents during the horrible, racist space race days) "the greatest generation". Now, it's true that the reason that generation was proclaimed "greatest" by former flower children Brokaw and Clinton (who probably had a more Morford-like view of them back in the day) was to enhance the image of generational entitlement to things like Medicare and prescription drugs, but Morford should stick to the script.
In fact, it was the Great Leftie demigod and Clinton protype, John F____ing Kennedy who challenged America to go to the moon in the first place. It was only after His Holiness was martyred, and replaced by vile racist war-mongers like LBJ and Tricky Dick that people started asking the "why are we going to the moon when we have (poverty/racism/disease/black and white TV: pick one) here on earth"?
The SEI was ongoing and was cancelled by Clinton as his first priority--oops, second priority. The first priority was gays in the military.
--Boris
Sometimes I wonder in disgust at myself, why I bother to click on any article having Ms. Morford's name attached to it.
Perhaps it is the same perverse and gawking curiousity I display when driving past that horrendous traffic pileup that has blood, oil and broken people all over the road?
We have a winner!
No wonder Ms Morford is queer. His childhood must have been a riot.
Also, I'm amazed he made it through a whole article without using the word "penis". Perhaps his psych counseling is beginning to take hold.
A: Because all they want to look at is Uranus.
Are you kidding? I look forward to Morford. I have to stop myself from checking her column before looking at more serious stuff on real news sites. Her screwball philosophies remind me why I am a conservative.
Oh right like this is exactly what we need.
Actually, yes. We do need a goal. A mission. Something to drive the intellect and ambition of our country.
Let us imagine the discussion: "Boys, the nation's in massive reeling record-breaking debt and morale's at an all-time low and disposable American soldiers are dying brutal horrific deaths every day over nothing at all except our greed and flagrant cronyism and corporate petrochemical profiteering.
American soldiers are dying brutal and horrific deaths every day? Hmmm. I guess CNNABCNBCCBS missed those extras in their attempt to slam Bush.
"Our cities are gasping and health care is a joke and we've mauled Medicare beyond recognition, and we're plundering the living hell out of Social Security, the last remaining stable and sound fund left, to try and shore up our rapacious and gluttonous spending.
This junk is beyond the need to refute. Anyone who thinks SS is stable is delusional and in serious needs of medication.
"There are no WMDs and our former allies openly resent us and the poll ratings are slipping and the big glops of warmongering lies are drying like blood stains into a carpet. And it's an election year. Damn.
Our former allies who betrayed us to the world to protect their billions in investments in breaking the U.N. blockade. The poll ratings that still have Bush higher than 50% (I believe 65% was the last number I saw, but I may be wrong), and not one single Democrat other than Zell Miller running more than 48% approval.
"What's to be done? What could rally a wary country during its time of humiliated need and force-fed ignorance? What could turn this troubled nation around in the face of oily corporate war and fiscal gluttony and environmental savagery?
The only force-fed ignorance is the ignorance forced upon our students because the teachers are now more interested in protecting their unions than the unions protecting the teachers.
"Why, neato space stations on the moon, and sending men to Mars, that's what!"
O.K. So, one sane sentance in his commentary. I may find at least 5-6 more words, but I don't think another whole sentance in this whole screed.
Yes indeed. Leave it to BushCo to try and slap an astronomically expensive, useless balm on the nation's gaping wounds by vainly attempting to recapture some of that droning faux-'50s and -'60s nostalgia no one really asked for.
Who said anything about 50's and 60's nostalgia. It's about a goal. A drive. A direction for our country. And we don't have "gaping wounds" as he says. We have issues, and he's one of them.
Remember that time? The "greatest generation"? A time when white-bread repressed often unhappily married segregationist America gathered 'round the ol' black-and-white to gaze in passionate wonder at the images beamed back from the Apollo landings?
So, he just lumped all of America into some racist group. My parents and millions of other parents, despite your own sexual deviancy Morfart, were not "repressed" but instead understood that loving this country is an important thing. God, Family, Country. But you and yours couldn't handle the first two, so why should you understand how to handle the third?
What a time it was. Don't you want some of that sense of desperate hopefulness back? Of course you do. Got $500 billion to pay for it? Hey, that was the cost estimate for a similar man-on-Mars scheme when Dubya Sr. proposed it in 1989, just before he was promptly laughed off the fiscal stage.
I must admit, I don't remember whether George H.W. Bush proposed a Mars mission or not. But, since it would spark revitalization of our country, why not?
Of course, like every obscene BushCo proposal, there was never a mention of how NASA could ever possibly pay for such a venture, and no mention of how BushCo could rape the Treasury that much further to fund random exercises in ridiculous excess. Oh well.
Hmmm. Maybe extra receipts from tax payments from our overly taxed society being relieved of the burden and untighenting the purse strings some. How about the idea of eliminating fraud in welfare payments? How about, we will hear his solutions for that in a week or so at the State of the Union speech?
Look at it this way. Dubya will, by every account, go down as the worst environmental president in American history. He will also be remembered as the most blindly warmongering president and the least articulate president and the most corporate-shilling president and the most flagrantly fraudulent and borderline treasonous president.
Least articulate? Worst environmental? Blindly warmongering? Most corporate-shilling? Flagrantly fraudulent? Borderline treasonous? No. On ALL counts. Nothing treasonous about anything Bush has done. Show me ONE thing. Just one. Flagrantly fraudulent? No, that goes to his predecessor. Billy-boy. Corporate-shilling? Hmmmm. Billy boy might have come in to call, but I'd actually have to say at the turn of the century or just before, in the 1890's-1910's when the monopoly laws came into play because the president coddled big business and allowed them to run things. Warmongering? Hmmm. A president going to war over a series of violations of a cease-fire agreement, or a president going to war because of a vivid newspaper article? A president going to war over a country sponsoring terrorism, or a president who decided to massacre and murder Native Americans because of a report of men dressed as Indians attacking a single convoy? War-mongering, I don't think so. Worst environmental? Because he didn't sign Kyoto? Because he didn't give in to the hype and pass dangerous legislation that would hurt our country's economic standings and do nothing to actually clean up the environment at all? Sounds like sour grapes here Morfart.
And, hence, you can bet your big snakeskin Texas cowboy boots he wants this "big ol' Mars thingy" to be some sort of, you know, legacy. He wants his name in the history books as the one who decided to meet the little green men. He wants to stick a flag in the rusty planet and claim it in the name of, you kow, Ronald Reagan.
He's not the one going around worrying about his legacy. Whether he wants it or not, he's got a legacy already. 9/11. And how he handled the situation. There's no better legacy. Clinton was going around day after day doing more and more dangerous things all in the effort of his legacy. Sheesh.
This from a man who never cared a whit for space exploration in his entire spoon-fed career, a man who never even once visited the famed Johnson Space Center in Houston while serving as Texas governor. And just know half the impulse for this inane new idea is so Shrub can get himself flown to the space-shuttle launch pad and have his picture taken in a shiny spacesuit. How cute.
You blithering idiot. He wore the flight suit for two reasons. One, it's a requirement for that particular plane. Two, he ACTUALLY wore one during his service, instead of running away to England claiming that he couldn't stand the military.
It's got that reek. It's got that reek of typical macho Republican election-year BS, the sort of hollow grandiose chest thumping that stains so many BushCo PR stunts, all war and guns and rockets and oil and big slabs of chemically blasted hormone injected semirancid Texas beef (hey, it's what's for dinner).
Beef. Mmmmm. It's not semirancid, that's just the liberal slant that clogs your nose. With a valid estimate of 230-250,000 new jobs being created through this process, I'd have a hard time calling it a reek, unless you consider Bush trouncing the Democrats a "reek".
Look. NASA is wonderful. Space exploration is magnificent and essential and we learn enormous amounts about ourselves in the process. The Spirit rover on Mars right now? Breathtaking.
Wow. A WHOLE PARAGRAPH that's right. It may be a first for him.
Astounding new technologies are developed during major NASA missions, ideas that trickle down into the cultural mainstream and make life, if not easier, then at least more interesting, or lighter, or thinner, or edible at temperatures down to minus 450 degrees with a battery pack that lasts 127 hours and a new infrared extrasensory ink that can be read by blind comatose monkeys. Space is good.
O.K. One sentance. Space is good. How about pacemakers, microwaves and at least 100 new cancer treating medicines that would not have been made if not for space exploration? Or the hundreds or thousands that will be done when we get to Mars. To go to Mars, we'll need to have food. We'll need to grow food. Imagine if we get hydroponic food systems that work tremendously well? We could find a country or two in Africa that aren't so brutal and sell them, for some of their natural resources, new hydroponic systems that are renewable and their people could actually feed themselves. Moon base? Maybe we might find that people who have Arthritis have less pain and suffering when on the moon? Who knows what we're going to find? That's why we go.
But look again. Our schools are desperate. The Wal-Mart/SUV mentality is a national cancer. Basic services nationwide are being starved and shut down as cities scramble for fiscal scraps. John Ashcroft still has a job.
Wal-Mart/SUV mentality? In other words, successful businesses and safer vehicles aren't acceptable to you, so they're a cancer? Hmmmm. John Ashcroft having a job is not a national crisis. Some may not agree with him, but for the most part, he's not been too bad. Schools are desperate? Let's see, didn't Kennedy get passed and Bush approved some $800 BILLION for education goals? That's dozens of billions per state. Where did the money go? If it's a disaster, then it's got to be fraud or waste or both.
The national treasury has been looted and plundered like never before in American history, toppling from a record surplus to a record deficit in a little over three years, with 3.1 million newly unemployed Americans as a bitter kicker. That tiny blip of an economic "recovery" you keep reading about? Tell that to your unemployed neighbors.
Ummmm, I hate to point this out, but you're deviating from the script. The script says 2.4 million jobs. In reality, new surveys are showing actually a net gain of 552,000, but never let a thing like the truth get in your way Morfart. Unemployment is actually lower at 5.7% than it was at Clinton's low of 5.8%. So, we're recovering quite nicely without your help.
And it's just shy of appalling that BushCo is suddenly all atwitter over a massive, impossible, ridiculously expensive scheme to send a manned mission to Mars, when any 5-year-old could come up with roughly 2,323 more vital and needful areas where such huge sums of money could be spent. Can you think of five, just off the top of your head, as you step around that homeless person? Damn right you can.
Ummmm, 2,323 more vital and needful areas? How about we CUT the bloat out of the government and get to a point where we have one or two projects, such as this one, that are beyond the scope of the Constitution, instead of hundreds of thousands of them?
Do we need to recall that sucker-punch $87 bil BushCo reamed through Congress to help pay for our continued occupation of Iraq, a nation that doesn't want us and was never a threat to us and that is now equaling Vietnam in costs, both fiscal and humanitarian? Does Mars mean we get to bring our troops home and save those budget-gutting billions and redirect them toward something progressive? One guess.
$87 billion was a drop in the bucket compared to the massive prescription drug benefit they pushed through nearly at the same time. That mostrosity was bloat at it's worst and will cost us on a good year only 400 BILLION. We are occupying Iraq in their own defense at this point until they can defend themselves. They are building a country that has been ravaged by decades of abuse. The fiscal costs of Iraq will be reaped by having a stable democracy there. As far as the humanitarian costs, you don't even want to try to put them on par. You try, you've already failed. The people, for the most part in Iraq, despite CNNABCCBSNBC are welcoming us and appear glad we are there. There are a handful of rabble rousers, and since Saddam has been captured, they're actually either surrendering or being turned in. It's becoming less likely that we're being attacked. We had a vicious helicopter attack the other day, and our reduction in violence went from 40% to 22% since Saddam was captured. So, it's not a mess. Nothing like Vientnam.
Maybe we should just shrug it off. Just dismiss it as yet another a silly exercise in political ego and bogus machismo. After all, it's all about big dumb gesture, all about trying to cover up appalling atrocities and insulting policy in an election year -- much like suddenly pretending to care about immigrants, or health care, or gay rights, when your party defines itself as the world headquarters of homophobic pro-corporate isolationism.
The only atrocities committed from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave in the last few years were committed by the bent one, his wife, and their staff. The Bush administration has bent over backwards to accomodate minorities, and yet, you attack the administration for having the temerity to act on some non-popular actions. Sheesh. If they weren't about to be cut off, I'd swear you had some B@lls!!!
This is what it boils down to, really: a big joke. There will be no men on Mars in 2020. There will be no massive, super-keen space station on the moon anytime soon. Even BushCo's own financial advisers openly cringe when the Mumbly One tosses up such an obvious and impossibly costly PR stunt, one so clearly designed to instill a false sense of hope and "America rules!" faux patriotism in a country heavily drugged on fear and false righteousness.
Wrong. Wrong. Just wrong. We'll go. We'll get there. We'll leave a presence on the Moon. And when we have the materials up in space, I wouldn't be suprised to see the concept of having a base off between the Earth and Mars for the intermediate journey. And then, we get there, and well, let's just put a base there too.
All well and good, right? All just silly politics as usual, really, just so much election-year flatulence from the administration that brought you the New Vietnam.
Wrong. Just wrong.
That is, until you realize who the joke is on.
It's on hacks like you who think that Bush is a cross hybrid between Satan and Hitler.
Miss Morford is, as usual, about a year behind the times (than God he isn't behind me) concerning the economy and six months at least with respect to Iraq. It must be difficult living in a more congenial past when enough Americans were dying to please him, but times change, alas, and one must keep up with them or end up on the Sale table with all the earth-tones and tacky shoes.
He'd change his tune if someone were to tell him that kinky sex with tracked construction equipment were legal on Mars.
OK, but was the public reaming from you really necessary?
Absolutely correct.
Mark Morford is yet another member of the MBA (Mandatory Barf Alert) club. :-)
If the International cooperation programs, the Spacelabs, the ISS had been conducted on the moon instead of LEO it would have cost the same, yet we would be 30 years ahead of where we are now. Just shifting the focus from LEO to lunar surface will have the desired effect even with no additional money and no new goal aside from change of venue.
Studid clod. He writes about this when millions of illegals have been invited to come into America, changing our lives and culture forever.
Idiot new media, even Fox News, Hanity and Rush are talking about Dean, Dean, Dean! That little squirt isn't a threat to the Republicans at all.
Exactly how have our lives and culture been changed?
Tell the elderly voters in my city that their lives haven't been changed financially since they have had to build five new schools and enlarge two hospitals with higher and higher property taxes. because of the massive illegal invasion.
Tell the families of people who have been murdered in traffic accidents by drunken illegals their lives haven't been changed by the murdering drivers who run back to Mexico and never have to face trials. Tell the US citizens that border control is working fine, which is a lie, because it allows these same murderers to slip back into America.
All this is courtesy of George Bush, our elected president who swore to uphold the laws of the land. Tell us that the the 'America' we knew a few years ago is still the same America. Our own president has become our enemy. He hates American citizens and won't stop until we are a rag tag third nation governed by Mexicans. I'd say that is quite a change, don't you?
We owe Mexico nothing. It is their own failed government and cut throat officials who have failed. Why do Americans have to pay the price for this?
JSC was a Federal facility, Bush did,however, visit McDonald Obsevatory in 1997 which is a State facility. Obviously Ms. Morford isn't concerned with stating the full context of things and simply propogates standard illegitimate dem talking points.
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