Potpourri LXXIX

Cirque du Soleil's founder is looking forward to his trip to the International Space Station. It would be interesting to see if, after returning from his trip, he decides to create a space-themed show.

From Lin:

• The pernicious effects of "instant wealth" through history.
• Farmers in India are reviving an old fertility custom to increase the chances for rain.
• A new word, which I love: "presstitutes," i.e. members of the media willing to sell themselves in support of the Obama Administration.
• Additional links regarding healthcare:
  http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=7164033&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/huckabee/index.html
  http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/07/24/uninsured-a-look-at-the-fifty-million/
  http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=7164074&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/huckabee/index.html
  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=16755&R=162641932E
• Also, an editorial on progressive taxation. This offers food for thought: it might make sense in the short term to "tax the heck out of the rich" to pay for government programs now, but what if you tax these folks so much that they no longer ARE rich? Where do you get the money then? There's a certain magical thinking involved with progressive taxation, and it amounts to the belief that the rich will always be there to soak and that they'll always continue to do the things that make them rich. However, if you keep taxing them, they won't be as rich, or they might leave the country, or they might cease to work as hard because the effort isn't worth the payoff anymore. Food for thought as we continue to mortgage our future. I highly recommend Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics, which I'm a little bit more than halfway through--it teaches the reader a lot about the repercussions of using political "solutions" to fix economic problems.
• Michio Kaku talked on FoxNews about Mars missions.

From Cliff, a music video on Glenn Beck's show featuring some clips of political figures.

From the Down Under Defense Expert (DUDE):

• Government and climate change.
• White Knight Two to fly at the Oshkosh Air Venture.

From my NASA PAO feed, a story about an Earth science program being run out of Edwards AFB.

Buzz Aldrin stated that there's a monolith on Phobos. Saaaaayyyyy what?

Keith Cowing is playing nice with the new NASA Administrator...so far. All it will take is for Gen. Bolden to make one decision Keith doesn't like, and the seal clubbing will begin.

New from Hu: Fans of Starship Troopers will appreciate this. Special Forces troops are getting "Land Warrior" high-tech battle gear.

This editorial irritated me because the writer presumes to take the voice of reason on the space program, but she gets several things wrongs and mischaracterizes other aspects of space. Frustrating.

From Rich: a great speech about asking the right questions, about religion and its role in democracy and capitalism, and about scouting. Yes, all of these things are related.

And lastly, from Dan the PAO Man, some thoughts by T. S. Eliot...written before the Internet:

Opening Stanza from Choruses from "The Rock"

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.

O perpetual revolution of configured stars,

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying

The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and nearer to the Dust.

Some Evening Thoughts on Government

This video deserves a little attention, if only to provide a useful lesson about the difference between democracy and a republic: http://www.flixxy.com/political-systems.htm

However, the producer of this 10.5-minute lecture is wrong about the cycles of history, especially if you read Greek theories about the cycles of history or C. Northcote Parkinson's Evolution of Political Thought. When republics--which really can be seen as political aristocracies because a smaller cadre of citizens acts as a brake on mob rule--begin to break down, they don't become oligarchies, but democracies. People come to resent the inequalities of a republic and start voting for representatives who will, with 50-percent-plus-one votes, to vote more and more people citizenship and more and more people largesse from the public treasury so as to enforce equality. This brings about true democracy, where "the people" simultaneously demand less and less power of individual senators or representatives but more and more power of a demagogic executive to distribute the goods of society in accordance with "justice," however defined. Mob rule ensues, creating a demand for a dictator, who will settle down the mob and its fickle passions. The dictator then has to face the problem of a legitimate successor, whereupon the people might choose to make him king/emperor (Caesar, Napoleon), and the dictator's offspring thereby become future monarchs. The monarchy fades to aristocracy or oligarchy, when more and more royal relatives demand a share in royal power, and the cycle returns. History matters. One hopes we continue to teach it.

Democracy, Polls, and the Progress of Space Exploration

These came to me from my AIAA daily news feed, in this order.

Study finds U.S. losing space dominance.
India's ANI (4/20) reported, "A new study has determined that India and China, along with Russia, Japan and Europe are all set to reduce the dominance that U.S. has over space activities." The study was based on the Authoritative Guide to Global Space Activity by the Space Foundation and the 2008 Space Competitiveness Index by the Futron Corporation. According to the trends, "the commercial space sector will continue to grow in comparison to government space exploration and operations potentially becoming the most important driver of overall space activities." Futron's Index especially "points out that advantages the United States has historically enjoyed in all three major dimensions of space competitiveness -- government, human capital, and industry -- are being narrowed by a an emerging India and China, a robust Europe, a resurgent Russia, and a steady Japan."

Space exploration ranks low on tech poll.
Space Politics (4/18) reported, "The Fairfax County (Virginia) Economic Development Authority released a poll ranking the top priorities for 'technological breakthroughs' as perceived by the American public." Space exploration "made the list, but only barely: just three percent ranked it as their highest technological priority." A similar result was seen in the U.K. poll.

Democracy has its pitfalls. There was a time when this nation actually behaved like a representative republic, and the congress sometimes passed things for the good of the whole rather than following what polls were telling them. Alas.

***

Oh, and then there's this bit...

Richard Branson wants to conduct a marriage ceremony in space http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=560792&in_page_id=1773

Apparently Sir Richard is a notary public, in addition to all his other talents.

Think of the possibilities, though. Instead of going to Vegas for a quick marriage or Reno for a quick divorce, people could go to LEO or L5! There would be entirely new law practices set up to address the implications of zero-gravity legal transactions. Say one of the partners is afraid of heights--would that constitute coercion? Temporary insanity? The possibilities are endless!

What do you mean, nobody asked?