Why Men Think of the Roman Empire...

 

I have seen the Meme's involving "The Roman Empire" that have been floating around farcebook and other social media sites,    I do think of the Roman Empire and I do believe that there are a lot of parallels between them and us.  

   One of the books I have in my library I have in my Bonus room.   I see the strength and the decadence, and I wonder if we will survive or will the barbarians from the East will win with the internal rot I am seeing in our society.   

    

      I shamelessly clipped this from "Townhall.com"   It explained the phenomenon better.

    The Pics are compliments of "Bing" except of the one of my book, I took that one...

Unless you’ve been under a rock the last couple of weeks, you’ve likely heard about the Roman Empire trend on TikTok, in which women are shocked to learn that their husbands and boyfriends spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking about, well, the Roman Empire.

One of the more popular videos has over five million views and the trend has inspired countless other women to ask the men in their lives how often they ponder the greatness of Rome.

I personally have been asked no fewer than ten times, by various people, how often I think about it, and my answer is always the same: daily. It doesn’t hurt that my various text threads and Twitter group chats frequently share Roman-themed jokes and memes. As long as my phone is in my hand, Rome is on my mind.

And I think I know why.

There is much to admire about the ancient world, and so much to despise about the modern world, and it is at these intersections that Rome’s resurgent popularity lies.

Men crave greatness

We demand it from our football teams, our politicians (yes, we are often stupid) and our children.

Greatness can mean many things, of course, but it generally refers to achievement or dominance of a particular arena, both of which are derided these days as products of misogyny.

We desire competition and often go to great lengths to discover “what we are made of,” yet the society in which we currently find ourselves considers such masculine instincts to be “toxic.”

So who can blame us if our minds naturally harken back to a time when men were at their most? Be it marching in legions to conquer exotic lands, outmaneuvering your enemies in the Senate or battling to the death in an arena to the roar of bloodthirsty spectators, Ancient Rome has plenty to offer in terms of personal greatness.

And in an era where achievement is demonized, men long for an era when it was prized.

Men seek brotherhood

Such bonding, however, is becoming more difficult in an increasingly virtual world.

I’ve yet to analyze the demographics, but in my own (admittedly anecdotal) experience the men fawning over Rome’s glory days fall into two camps: they are either older millennials or members of the Greatest Generation. And by that I mean Gen X, of course. This makes sense when you consider that, although the virtual world isn’t exactly foreign to us, in too many ways it rings hollow. We grew up playing video games, sure, if it was pouring rain out or too late at night (at least until we discovered girls). 

But our fondest memories were not made in front of a screen. Rather, they were largely forged by bruising our bodies alongside our best friends. Be it backyard football games or questionable bicycle ramps, there’s an irreplaceable bond that comes with shared physical pain.

Which is why the growing disdain for personal interaction brought about by COVID, social media and the Metaverse is alienating to so many of us. It’s not that we are Luddites, but rather that we prefer the real over the artificial.

A natural reaction to false progress is a pivot toward tradition, and few eras evoke the longing to RETVRN like Ancient Rome does.

As Jeremy Armstrong notes in the Journal of Ancient History, “Family bonds, and particularly fraternal relationships, play key roles in many of the narratives relating to Rome’s Regal and early Republican periods. In particular, the literary sources for these periods are full of references to brothers standing side by side, fighting for, and in many ways embodying (sometimes quite literally), the various social and political entities which were struggling for supremacy in archaic Latium.”

Some things, it seems, never change, and if you’re seeking shining examples of fraternity, it’s hard to beat the greatest empire the world has ever known.

Men must dream

For a long time America fulfilled our need to dream, as the cultural explosion at the beginning of the twentieth century produced no shortage of heroes and myths with which to identify.

But those days seem a distant memory. What works of real value has Hollywood, or the arts in this country in general, produced recently? Hardly anything as far as I can tell. Rather, we are subjected to countless comic book adaptations and endless reboots of exhausted franchises, creating a cultural vacuum longing to be filled.

Few eras offer a more viable substitute than do Rome’s glory days. While the Empire is in many ways infamous for its debauchery and excesses, those were largely relegated to societal elites (sound familiar?). The culture Rome produced, however, is unrivaled and lives on to this day, from art to architecture to language to law. How can we be faulted for admiring the West’s foundations, even as the West itself crumbles?

As the modern world fails to inspire devotion to our own civilization, it’s only natural that we seek those feelings out elsewhere. And what could possibly compete with Rome, the genesis of the cultural greatness currently being tossed aside like trash by a West that has lost its way.

I submit that if anything, we think about Rome too little in this post-Hollywood era.

Simply put, as guys like myself see our own nation, largely modeled after Rome herself, decline into depravity, it’s difficult to resist looking back and dreaming about what our ideals can achieve when unencumbered by modernity’s psychoses.

And if that strikes some women as strange, just know the feeling is mutual. We think yoga is weird and pumpkin spice is gross as hell.

The Signers of the Declaration of Independence

Something to think about, people take things for granted and the people in question were educated and "comfortable".  They pledged their sacred honor for this and some lost everything on a matter or principle.

What happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence?

This is the Price They Paid: 

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.
They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.
Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

There are 2 paths, the destiny of our country will be decided

I was cruising my blogroll as I do everyday and saw this on Macbourne's Musing

       This video shows the choices that we as a citizen have this election, to decide the course of this country.  If we will keep our freedom that has been passed down from generation to generation or if we will go the way of Europe drowning in debt and kissing the asses of the bureaucrats and politicians that believe that they know better than we do on how to live our lives.

Obama is bowing again.......dammit

The American president is supposed to be ramrod tall and proud to walk and be an American,  he represents the best of us especially overseas.  We are Americans we bow to no one.  We have done more for the world than anyone.  We are the beacon of freedom in the world we show what people can do when they believe in themselves.   Now we elected this hack who started his presidency on the great American apology tour...Really?   He wants to reset the relations with the  Soviets Russians, we have seen how that works....Russia will not abandon an ally, Syria despite having their internal problems.  Well we under Obungler threw Egypt under the bus,abandoned a staunch ally now Israel and the United Stated will have to deal with the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is in control of Egypt.  Israel is basically alone because of the Obungler effect I am sure that they have doubts about the support of their most staunch ally the United States.  Something the Taiwanese are figuring out also.  This is what happens when you elect amateurs to the white house.

  this from weasel zippers

       Mexican President Felipe Calderon(R) welcomes US President Barack Obama prior to the opening of the G20 Leaders Summit in Los Cabos, Baja California, Mexico on June 18, 2012. World leaders struggled Monday to inject confidence into the global economy at a G20 summit in Mexico dominated by a spiraling European debt crisis that is spooking markets and paralysing growth. (AFP PHOTO / PAUL J. RICHARDS)

Unmanned Airforce plane returns earth after 15 months in space.

I am glad to know that we do have a capability to launch something if we need it since the shuttle is "retired".  Having to depend on the Russians to launch anything if we need it is asking for trouble.

• FILE - This undated file image …
• FILE - This Feb. 8, 2011 file image …

LOS ANGELES (AP) — An unmanned Air Force space plane steered itself to a landing early Saturday at a California military base, capping a 15-month clandestine mission.

The spacecraft, which was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida in March 2011, conducted in-orbit experiments during the mission, officials said. It was the second such autonomous landing at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles. In 2010, an identical unmanned spacecraft returned to Earth after seven months and 91 million miles in orbit.
The latest homecoming was set in motion when the stubby-winged robotic X-37B fired its engine to slip out of orbit, then pierced through the atmosphere and glided down the runway like an airplane.
"With the retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development," said Lt. Col. Tom McIntyre, the X-37B's program manager. "The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs. We're proud of the entire team's successful efforts to bring this mission to an outstanding conclusion."
With the second X-37B on the ground, the Air Force planned to launch the first one again in the fall. An exact date has not been set.
The twin X-37B vehicles are part of a military program testing robotically controlled reusable spacecraft technologies. Though the Air Force has emphasized the goal is to test the space plane itself, there's a classified payload on board — a detail that has led to much speculation about the mission's ultimate purpose.
Some amateur trackers think the craft carried an experimental spy satellite sensor judging by its low orbit and inclination, suggesting reconnaissance or intelligence gathering rather than communications.
Harvard astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell, who runs Jonathan's Space Report, which tracks the world's space launches and satellites, said it's possible it was testing some form of new imaging.
The latest X-37B was boosted into orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket. It was designed to stay aloft for nine months, but the Air Force wanted to test its endurance. After determining the space plane was performing well, the military decided in December to extend the mission.
Little has been said publicly about the second X-37B flight and operations. At a budget hearing before the Senate Armed Services subcommittee in March, William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, made a passing mention.
That the second X-37B has stayed longer in space than the first shows "the flexibility of this unique system," he told lawmakers.
Defense analysts are divided over its usefulness.
Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College, said such a craft could give the U.S. "eyes" over conflict regions faster than a satellite.
"Having a vehicle with a broad range of capabilities that can get into space quickly is a very good thing," she said.
Yousaf Butt, a nuclear physicist and scientific consultant for the Federation of American Scientists, thinks the capabilities of the X-37B could be done more cheaply with a disposable spacecraft.
"I believe one of the reasons that the mission is still around is institutional inertia," he said.
The arc of the X-37 program spans back to 1999 and has changed hands several times. Originally a NASA project, the space agency in 2004 transferred it to the Pentagon's research and development arm, DARPA, and then to the secretive Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into development, but the current total spent remains a secret.
Built by Boeing Government Space Systems, a unit of the company's satellite manufacturing area, the 11,000-pound space plane stands 9 1/2 feet tall and is just over 29 feet long, with a wingspan of less than 15 feet. It possesses two angled tail fins rather than a single vertical stabilizer. Once in orbit, it has solar panels that unfurl to charge batteries for electrical power.
McDowell of the Jonathan's Space Report sees a downside. He noted it'll be tough for the Air Force to send up such planes on short notice if it has to rely on the Atlas V rocket, which requires lengthy preparations.
"The requirement to go on Atlas V is a problem; they may need to look at a new launch vehicle that would be ready to go more quickly," he said

I saw this here

     I had already harped on this on an earlier post.  I saw this article and remembered the story of little red hen.  This story along with the Ant and the Grasshopper were stories that were told to instill a work ethic for the kids.  Basically you didn't get anything unless the you worked and got it.  kids would cut grass, wash cars and do what is necessary to get the comic book money or candy that they wanted.  This gave the kids a sense of self worth that they CAN do it and succeed.  This work value would stay with the kid until adulthood.  Now we have kids with an over developed sense of entitlement and that to get along you must " share".  if you try to be an individual, you are ostracized by your peers and the teachers because you don't get with the program.  Now we have to "share" and help each other...the from each according to his ability to each according to their need.  It is liberal utopia where everybody sings kumbaya and holds hands while the unicorns prance around and the world heals and the oceans recede.   All this misguided crap does is take away the individuality that America is known for and make us  just like every shithole in the world rather than be the beacon of freedom and light that this country was known for.

Welfare Killed The Little Red Hen

March 28, 2012 by John Myers

PHOTOS.COM

The industrious Little Red Hen wouldn't share her cake with her lazy friends.

The yoke that is the welfare state has thoroughly infected America. If voters re-elect President Barack Obama, he will brainwash all Americans into thinking they are entitled to government handouts. Most Americans don’t understand that independent people are losing their way as the President crusades to build his Nanny Nation — a country so transformed that even the oral traditions that were taught for generations have been eradicated.
To be fair, it is not all Obama’s fault. In my lifetime, the United States has been moving away from its ideals of hard work, self-sacrifice and personal responsibility.
Bedtime Stories Our Children Never Hear
Some of you may remember “The Little Red Hen,” the bedtime story of an industrious chicken that lived with an indolent cat, a lazy dog and a mouse that behaved like a sloth.
I can still remember the story from half a century ago. My dad always had a glimmer in his eye, sitting at the head of the dinner table and telling us kids the fable of the cat that slept, the dog that napped and the mouse that snoozed. They only survived, said my dad, because the Little Red Hen worked so very hard.
One day, while busy in the garden, the Little Red Hen found some seeds of wheat. The hen asked her friends the following:
“Who will plant this wheat?”
“Who will cut this wheat?”
“Who will grind this wheat into flour?”
“Who will make a cake from the fine flour?”
To each question, her friends replied: “Not I.”
Finally, the Little Red Hen asked, “Who will help me eat this cake?” The cat, the dog and the mouse all shouted: “I will.”
“No, you won’t,” replied the Little Red Hen, “for I alone did all the work, so I alone will eat the cake.”
When I was a child, The Little Red Hen was a big hit at our house. But when I told the fable to my own children, they just didn’t seem to get it.
“Why wouldn’t the hen share, Daddy?” asked my little girl.
“Because she did all the work,” I replied.
“But my teacher tells us we are supposed to share,” she said.
“Sharing is good,” I told her, “but you can’t be lazy. You have to share in the work too.”
A puzzled look spread over her face. I remember being a bit exasperated, and I asked: “Don’t you read stories like ‘The Little Red Hen’ at school?”
“Not really,” she said. “Most of the stories we read are about helping each other.”
I realized that the values held sacred by my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents were not even contemplated by my children or most of their generation.
Obama is accelerating America’s welfare revolution. He is finishing what President Franklin Delano Roosevelt started when he introduced the New Deal 80 years ago. Three generations later, there are fewer Little Red Hens and far too many cats, dogs and mice.
I fear that the welfare creed has become so ingrained in our culture that America will probably never extricate itself from its growing socialist grip. That may have been FDR’s intention from the start.
Roosevelt bragged: “… no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program.”
But FDR only engineered the welfare state. Its grand developer was President Lyndon B. Johnson. His “War On Poverty” and his plan for a Great Society have built a welfare system second to none.
An American Thinker article addressed the issue:

As it stands now, Obama appears headed toward an economic legacy that may very well surpass Jimmy Carter in its level of failure.
We have seen under this president an expanding number of citizens who are partially or wholly dependent on the government for their very livelihood, as the data show that the U.S. has become an ever-growing welfare state under Obama.

As the graph below shows, government welfare payments have soared over the past 42 years, from a few billion dollars to $800 billion. If the trend continues, payments will exceed $1 trillion dollars per year. Add in defense and national security spending and immediately the Federal government is spending almost $2 trillion each year. This cannot continue, yet it seems almost impossible to stop until people believe that they need to be industrious, that they should not depend on government to help them make their way.

My dad told me other stories when I was growing up: hard-luck stories about what he and his generation faced during the Great Depression. He graduated from college with a degree in geology in 1930. Yet it took him 12 years to do anything but menial jobs. He worked selling vacuum cleaners and he sold life insurance door to door. He even worked in a slaughter house. The government didn’t help him. Quite frankly, if the help had been offered, I doubt he would have taken it. He didn’t have much time for government, either in getting things from it or paying toward it.
The grandchildren of those who went through the Great Depression don’t think this way. Liberals, from those in the education system to those in the entertainment industry, have convinced most young people that government should do more to make society better. They want to reward the cat, the dog and the mouse while making the Little Red Hen pay for it.
The problem is the Little Red Hens are getting tired of carrying the load for everyone else. Until we wake up to this fact, we will be faced with continued social and economic crises, and the standard of living will fall for all of us.
Yours in good times and bad,
–John Myers
Editor, Myers’ Energy & Gold Report

50 years ago, America's first flight into space.

I liked John Glenn, he came along when we needed heroes.Climbing into a unreliable booster and strapping on a tincan took faith and a huge helping of guts.  He has been a sterling character since..although I wonder if he sold his vote to go on the shuttle during Clintons impeachment hearing.

• Enlarge PhotoJohn Glenn, First American Astronaut to Orbit the Earth in Mercury Friendship 7: …

The world was such a scary place in 1962 that there were actually Americans who volunteered to leave it.

The Cold War was at its most chilling. The United States had been embarrassed by the first Soviet satellite and the first Soviet cosmonaut. President John F. Kennedy asked his aides if there was something -- anything -- America could do to beat the Russians in space. NASA tried, but the Atlantic floor off Cape Canaveral was littered with the wreckage of failed rockets.

America did not just need better boosters, it needed bigger heroes. It found seven, the original Mercury astronauts. And the one with whom it most fell in love was John Glenn.

Fifty years ago, on Feb. 20, 1962, Glenn squeezed into his Friendship 7 capsule, circled the earth three times in five hours and became a national hero.

"Zero-G and I feel fine," he said from his spacecraft. "Man, that view is tremendous."

Historians' descriptions of the time describe a mood that seems almost alien now: a nation of people fearful of Soviet attack (the Cuban missile crisis would happen eight months later), glued to their black-and-white TV sets, watching a man in a silver spacesuit climb into a tiny capsule and disappear into the sky.

It was likened to single combat. The Soviets were Goliath. Glenn was David.
"We hadn't really thought that any nation could even touch us technically," Glenn said in a 1998 interview with ABC News. "And all at once, here was this bunch of Soviets over there, for heaven's sake, outdoing the United States of America in technical and scientific things."
After the flight of the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in May 1961, Kennedy had committed the United States to landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Glenn later said he wondered at the time how NASA would pull it off.

The Atlas rocket that would launch his Mercury capsule was famously unreliable; it had blown up on several test flights. The astronauts had volunteered to leave Earth, but they also planned to return.

Glenn named his spacecraft Friendship 7, honoring his fellow astronauts. He would make three orbits of the earth. His launch was scheduled and scrubbed no fewer than 10 times in four months.

The Flight of Friendship 7

And then it was launch day -- Feb. 20, 1962. Glenn woke early, had breakfast, put on his pressure suit and climbed into Friendship 7 before dawn. The countdown moved toward zero. In the control center, Glenn's backup pilot, Scott Carpenter, keyed a microphone and said, "Godspeed, John Glenn."

Glenn did not hear him; Carpenter was not on his radio link. Instead, he felt a jolt as the rocket left the launch pad. "Roger, liftoff, and the clock is running. We're under way."

John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth.

The Atlas did not fail. Five minutes later, he was in orbit.

The nation hung on every moment of his flight, one man, alone in the void, in a capsule so small (6 feet in diameter at the base) that he could not stretch out his arms. He reported that weightlessness was pleasant. He marveled at the "fireflies" -- later determined to be flecks of frost -- that drifted away from Friendship 7 when he rapped on the hull of the spacecraft.

John Glenn's Friendship 7 Spaceflight, 50 Years Later

Glenn was having a wonderful time. But then, trouble. As he began his second orbit, Mission Control received a signal suggesting that the heat shield, designed to prevent the capsule from burning up during reentry, had come loose. Worried controllers feared they might lose Glenn. They ordered him not to jettison the capsule's retro rockets, strapped on over the heat shield, after he fired them to descend from orbit.

The outside of the capsule heated to 3,000 degrees as the atmosphere slowed it. Glenn watched as chunks of debris flew past the window and wondered whether it was the retro pack breaking up, or the heat shield.

It held. He splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. America had probably seen nothing so daring since the transatlantic flight of Charles Lindbergh.

Crowds mobbed him at a ticker-tape parade in New York. Kennedy, who saw Glenn's star power, welcomed him at the White House. He returned to work at NASA and lobbied for another flight, but the Kennedy administration had quietly let his bosses know he was too much of a national icon to risk in space again.

The Americans would gradually overtake the Soviets in space. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon in 1969. But we no longer live in the space age. Glenn has complained publicly that since the space shuttles were retired last year, America has not had a way to launch its own astronauts into orbit. And Glenn's mantle as hero has only taken him so far; a run for president in 1984 left him in debt for years.

John Glenn is 90 now, dividing his time between Washington and Ohio after a long career in the U.S. Senate. He and his wife Annie have been married for 69 years, slowed only by the inevitable maladies of age.

Glenn did, after years of lobbying, get to fly on a space shuttle mission in 1998. He was 77 by then, arguing that the effects of weightlessness -- bone and muscle loss -- are similar to the effects of aging. While he was in orbit he said he was having such a good time that he might like another flight after that, but Annie, visibly angry, put a quick stop to that.

"One thing I promised Annie the day we were married," he once said, "is I would do everything I could to keep life from being boring.

Don't waste the sacrifice

I shamelessly clipped the art  off "old NFO"

    If you havn't already bookmarked his site, do so it is worth a read or three.  This Gentleman is also a class act.

    the World War II generation are the ones that survived the Great Depression,   It was a hard time to be around with 25% unemployment and whole sections of the country moving from one area to another searching for a job and a better life.  The WWII generations are the ones that firmly established us as a superpower by their belief in this country and that we are the beacon of light in the world.  We were the standard of goodness in the world and the word "American" meant something to the rest of the world.  Our citizens were held in awe by what we represented.  Now we have the new generation that is squandering the birthright that is to be an American.  We are running up a debt that our kids and grand kids will have to pay because we as a society are more concerned about " what is in it for me" rather than what is best for the country.  We will be Greece in a few years unless we get our selves back in control.  We are Americans and I don't want to believe that the best days of us are behind us and my son will inherit a lesser America than what I inherited from my Dad's Generation.  We need to get our national destiny back, the belief in our exceptionalism.  That belief is what separated us from the rest of the world.  We as Americans have done more for the world than any other peoples.  But the new generation are being taught that we are not special, just average...like everybody else.  I refuse to accept that for we are Americans and we are the guiding light for freedom in the rest of the world.  We just have to realize that and embrace it like we used to.  I want the light that is America to be a beacon for the world like we used to be.

New Stratoplane will take people into space.

The Stratolaunch will soon take tourists into space

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is teaming up with aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan to build a giant machine that is part airplane and part spaceship. The new vehicle will be able to transport people and cargo into Earth's orbit and is scheduled to be commercially available by 2016. Unlike traditional rockets, the Stratolaunch will not require a launch pad for liftoff. Instead, the plane will ascend to a heightened elevation--and then the rocket portion of the craft will release and blast the ship into space.
You can watch a computer simulation of a Stratolaunch mission here

Powered by six 747 engines, the new craft should also be far more fuel efficient than traditional shuttle launches, since it will bypass the standard supply of expensive rocket fuel needed to propel a shuttle up from the ground.
The craft will also be enormous, with a wingspan of 385 feet, (making it larger than a football field) while weighing 1.2 million pounds.

And the Stratolaunch will not be restrained by the factors that normally dictate when a shuttle can launch into space from the ground.
Allen and Rutan are competing with other private companies in a race to deliver people and goods to the International Space Station, now that NASA has cancelled its space shuttle program.
The pair are teaming up with another Internet mogul, Elon Musk, founder of PayPal and Tesla, who is providing funds for the spaceship and booster components.
Allen is no stranger to space exploration, having already won the Ansari X Prize in 2004, for his sponsorship of a craft that went into space but not into orbit. If all goes to plan, the Stratolaunch program will be involved in satellite transport--while also promoting space tourism.


I am glad to see  the American Entrepreneurship still existing in America.  With Obungler pulling NASA out of the space program and we have to pay the Russians to get our people to the space station.  The fees that the Russians are charging have gone from 51 million per seat to 62 million per seat.  Nothing like having no competition and we are giving money to our potential adversaries.  I hope this works, I'd rather have Americans fly Americans to the station rather than paying Russians.  It is part of our national pride.
       I got this article from Yahoo News

"You old white people...it is your duty to die"

 

 I got this e-mail from my Dad, again I figured that it is pertinent to what is going on.

THIS IS PART OF OUR CURRENT AFFAIRS THAT IS PRESENTLY GOING ON.  I JUST PASS THIS STUFF ON, SO, PLEASE DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER!

"You old white people. It is your duty to die."  HISPANIC LEADERS SPEAK OUT Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets; "Go back to Boston ! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired.. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to die. Through love of having children, we are going to take over." Richard Alatorre, Los Angeles City Council. "They're afraid we're going to take over the governmental institutions and other institutions. They're right. We will take them over . . . We are here to stay." Excelsior, the national newspaper of Mexico , "The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." Professor Jose Angel Gutierrez, University of Texas ; "We have an aging white America . They are not making babies. They are dying. The explosion is in our population . . . I love it. They are shitting in their pants with fear. I love it." Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party, "Remember 187--proposition to deny taxpayer funds for services to non-citizens--was the last gasp of white America in California ." Gloria Molina, Los Angeles County Supervisor, "We are politicizing every single one of these new citizens that are becoming citizens of this country . . ... I gotta tell you that a lot of people are saying, "I'm going to go out there and vote because I want to pay them back." Mario Obledo, California Coalition of Hispanic Organizations and California State Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare under Governor Jerry Brown, also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton, " California is going to be a Hispanic state. Anyone who doesn't like it should leave." Jose Pescador Osuna, Mexican Consul General, "We are practicing 'La Reconquista' in California ..." Professor Fernando Guerra, Loyola Marymount University ; "We need to avoid a white backlash by using codes understood by Latinos . . . " WHEN I WAS YOUNG: When I was young, I remember hearing about the immigrants that came through Ellis Island .. They wanted to learn English. They wanted to breathe free. They wanted to become Americans. Now too many immigrants come here with demands. They demand to be taught in their own language. They demand special privileges--affirmative action. They demand ethnic studies that glorify their culture. HOW CAN YOU HELP?: Send copies of this letter to at least two other people, 100 would be even better. Help us get the word out. Remember when you vote next year that we need someone in the White House who will control illegal immigration. If we make all illegals, legal, then we have lost our country forever. Our country is heading in the wrong direction and we are doing it to ourselves without serious protest.     =

Better than them

 I saw this here

 

 

We are better than them. When all the other arguments for why we can't fight back have been exhausted this is the one that remains in the background presenting our moral exceptionalism as the reason we shouldn't fight to protect ourselves.

"Fight back? But then we'd be no better than them?" If we waterboard then we are no better than the headchoppers and mutilators. If we profile then we are no better than the genocidal jihadists. If we treat our friendly Pakistani and Saudi visitors the way they would have been treated a century ago-- then we would be guilty of being un-American.

But is that really the difference between us, that we treat everyone equally even when they are cutting our throats, and the moment we deviate from the standards of the Trial Lawyers Association then we're no better than the Taliban or Al-Qaeda? Does our exceptionalism derive from our laws, in which case if we compromise our laws then we given up the only worthwhile thing about us and there is nothing more to fight for-- or are our laws the means by which we protect our individual and national exceptionalism?

We are better than they are, is the argument put forward so often by those who do not truly believe that we are, and even when they do they don't understand why we are.  The Bill of Rights did not spring full-grown out of a barbaric culture, nor did any of the same judicial rulings and quotes so often used by advocates of the 10 percent defense plan.

We are not better than they are because we guarantee civil rights to our enemies-- we are better than they are because of Michelangelo, the microchip and universal education. We are better than they are because of Shakespeare, the space shuttle and the World Trade Center. We are better for all the reasons around us, the accomplishments, the achievements, the knowledge we have gained and the society we have built.

Our laws were crafted to protect these achievements, the exceptionalism of the individual from the government, and that of the nation from internal and external enemies. The laws have no individual life apart from the culture of the nation that created them and maintains them. It would be possible to transpose the United States Constitution to Indonesia, Libya or Pakistan and it wouldn’t last a single day there. No mere document can safeguard rights and freedoms that a culture does not value, and no culture that does not value them is deserving of their protection if such protection has the cumulative effect of destroying those same rights and freedoms.

A Conservative quote.....

"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." – William Boetcker

Obungler mindset

Monday, October 10, 2011

Obama's Delusions of Grandeur

By Alan Caruba

Did Obama really think that a 2,000-page takeover of the nation’s healthcare system, passed late on the night before Christmas 2009 in the Senate was going to go unnoticed or unprotested?

Indeed, it was protested when a million Americans showed up in Washington, D.C. in September 2009 to demand its defeat.

The obscenely misnamed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed because all the Democrats in the Senate voted for it, but in the House 34 Democrats in addition to all the Republican members voted against it on March 21, 2010. The President signed it into law on March 23, 2010.

By November 2010, political power in the House passed from the Democrats to the Republicans and in almost every election before and since Republicans have been the people’s choice. The House voted to repeal Obamacare and that bill sits idle in the Senate that is still controlled by Democrats.

The Supreme Court is expected to take up the case brought against Obamacare by 26 state attorneys general and various amicus curiae. It would be justice, indeed, if it were declared unconstitutional before the November 2012 elections. A new Congress controlled by Republicans would finish it off no matter how the Supreme Court decides, but Obamacare has had a dangerously disruptive affect on the economy.

I have been saying that Obama is a moron since well before it became fashionable to doubt his alleged intelligence. I saw little evidence of it and now, like many others, I am seeing evidence of a man under intense pressure and—to be generous—not handling it well.

We expect our presidents to be able to take the heat. It is the job description.

We learned belatedly that President Nixon was a raving paranoid, convinced that everyone was plotting against him when, in fact, he was plotting against them. He even kept an “enemies list”. The result was the Watergate scandal and it took impeachment proceedings in Congress to finally get him to resign. His successor, Jerry Ford, granted him a pardon and promptly lost the next election. Unfortunately for America, it was won by Jimmy Carter.

I was therefore not surprised when New York Post columnist, Michael Goodwin, made the same connection, writing “While there is no indication Obama is walking the halls of the White House late at night, talking to the portraits of former presidents, as Richard Nixon did during Watergate, the reports explain his odd public remarks.”

In a similar fashion, a recent column by David Limbaugh titled “Obama’s Behavior is Getting Worse” spells out the reasons to doubt his intelligence and judgment, while focusing on his personality and the price we all pay for his failures. Elections have real consequences.

What we know about Obama at this point is that he is a hardcore narcissist who will not take the blame for anything. This is an unpleasant trait in children, but we know, too, Obama is extremely immature.

We know that he spends taxpayer’s money on all manner of foolish things such as loan guarantees to Solyndra and countless other “Green” enterprises that yield either bankruptcy or slim returns. He threw billions at the nation’s unemployment problem without success and, incredibly, is insisting that Congress authorize more of the same.

We know that his “answer” or “fix” for any problem is to give another speech either before a joint session of Congress (usually reserved for a State of the Union speech or the declaration of war). on the campaign trail, or in a hasty press conference where any serious questions evoke the rather tiresome blaming syndrome.

Lately everything is the Republican’s fault even though Democrats controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years he held office and still control the Senate. The President’s own party is dragging its feet on his latest “jobs” bill.

For a President of all the people, he makes no secret of the fact that he has no love for people who use corporate jets, for businesses of any size, for bankers, for Wall Street, for physicians and their patients, and people who don’t want to join a union.

Most certainly, he has been actively engaged in bankrupting the nation, achieving in two and a half years (with the authorization of a Democrat-controlled Congress) a national debt that exceeds the total achieved by every prior President from George Washington to George H.W. Bush.

This reflects his penchant for self-indulgence which has been seen in his vacation choices, the lavish lifestyle he maintains in the White House, and his frequent visits to the golf course. His wife seems to think she is the National Nanny, forever hectoring everyone about what and how much they should eat. The administration tried to pass her off as someone who shops at Target!

The worst aspect of all of this is the contempt other nation's leaders feel for him and, in particular, his judgment which impacts events worldwide. He is a great embarrassment for his inept handling of foreign relations. Ironically, after decrying George W. Bush’s conduct of the war on terror, he has adopted every single aspect of it.

His energy policies have favored no energy as his administration attacks coal, oil, and natural gas extraction and use. Unleashing the energy industries would generate thousands of jobs and billions in tax revenue. Lacking adequate energy, America will begin to resemble a Third World nation.

In so many ways, his election has proven disastrous whether it is for the 14 million Americans who cannot find work or those whose homes have been foreclosed. It is a national shame that so many are on food stamps and other government handouts.

We have witnessed a mainstream news media that debased itself, first by ignoring his thin resume and then by ignoring to whatever extent is possible the damage he has done and continues to do.

All Americans must now wait out the election process until November 6, 2012. The good news is that his party will suffer greatly at the polls and America will be rid of Barack Hussein Obama on January 20, 2013.

The nation has taken wrong turns in the past and reversed course. It will do so again.

© Alan Caruba, 2011