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If you’ve read my quick summation of NASA and the latest bugaboo by Mr. Walker, you’ll be interested this op-ed piece at SpaceDaily by Philip K. Chapman (if you still don’t think NASA is a failure, read it).

A few prescient statements he makes:

– Despite cutbacks, NASA has spent a total of $450 billion since Apollo 11 (adjusted for inflation to 2003 dollars). That very large sum was more than enough to fund the developments that Wernher von Braun predicted for the end of the 20th Century, but we have not even started on any of them. [snip]

- In 1969, we landed on the Moon, but now we cannot leave low Earth orbit (LEO). NASA claimed that the shuttle would be fifteen times cheaper to fly (per pound of payload) than the Saturn vehicles used in Apollo, but it is actually three times more expensive.

The average cost of each flight is a staggering $760 million. After a mission, the time required to prepare a shuttle for the next flight was supposed to be less than two weeks, but in practice tens of thousands of technicians spend three to six months rebuilding each “reusable” shuttle after every flight. Worst of all, the shuttle is a needlessly complex, fragile and dangerous vehicle, which has killed fourteen astronauts so far. [snip]

- The life-cycle cost of the ISS, including development expenses and shuttle flights, amounts to at least $8 billion per year (2003 dollars). This is 60% more than the entire budget of the National Science Foundation, which supports thousands of earthbound scientists. [snip]

- Based on experience to date (two shuttles lost in 113 missions), the accident probability is a little less than 2% on each flight. Astronauts may accept this risk because there is no other way to fly in space, but they would of course prefer a safer system. As a matter of public policy, however, only a compelling national interest can justify so hazardous a venture. The ISS presents no such necessity.

With these odds, the probability of losing at least one more shuttle during the life of the ISS (i.e., in 65 flights) is nearly 70%. In other words, NASA is gambling its future, and the lives of astronauts, on a program that has less than one chance in three of avoiding disaster. This is like playing Russian roulette with a revolver in which four out of the six chambers are loaded. Only a suicidal lunatic would accept such a proposition. [snip]

- The worst mistake made by NASA managers was that they allowed disputes over who would be in charge to influence the direction of the program. Their preoccupation with intercenter turf wars obscured the writing on the wall. [snip]

- In the late ‘Nineties, several small companies, financed by investors, demonstrated substantial progress in developing cheap launch vehicles for human spaceflight. NASA responded by funding a comparable but much more expensive project at Lockheed Martin, called the X-33. Since investors were unwilling to compete with NASA, funding for the small companies evaporated overnight. In 2001, after wasting $912 million, NASA canceled the project. By that time, some of the small ventures were bankrupt. Whether motivated by malice or by stupidity, the net effect of the X-33 was to crush private enterprise.

For those unfamiliar with the X-Prize, it is a $10 million award for any individual or privately funded company that can create a vehicle that can take a pilot and two paying customers up into orbit (62.5 miles) and then repeat the endeavor within 2 weeks. There are about a dozen serious players in it (and another dozen not so serious) who have until the end of 2004 to do so.

I should also point out the X-15 from the 1960’s. It was a joint project from the Air Force and NASA that managed to reach a 67 mile altitude and could achieve Mach 6.7 — all of this prior to Apollo landing on the moon and with a much smaller budget. The way it worked, was that it was “dropped” like a bomb from a B-52 (from the wing) and then the single pilot within the small vehicle would activate it’s hypersonic engines and fly up into the horizons of space. Then after fighting the extraterrestrials in space and uploading a virus into their mothership would glide down to the smiling faces of Tom, Dick and Harry.

The Russian Cosmopolis is an X-Prize class vehicle that is supposed to do what the X-15 did, only at a fraction of the cost. Space Adventures has already signed up with the Cosmopolis team to offer the service to paying tourists. You might remember Space Adventures as the company that helped Dennis Tito and Mark Shuttleworth become the first 2 paying space tourists (Lance Bass was supposed to be the 3rd, but that fell through).

I think I’ll wait until someone builds the Millenium Falcon, outfitted with a Wookie and a hyperdrive that can outrun the Martian TIE Fighters.

Alright, 73% of the populace knows that 26% of all statistics are created out of thin air. But did you know that 39% of males between the ages of 18-40 like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? And 2 out of 3 doctors recommend eating at least one sandwich per day?

Okay, now for some more statistics. I bumped into a column by Paul Krugman (uhh, yea you can guess we usually don’t see eye to eye economically speaking), he pointed out a survey I found quite interesting, stating:

For the time being, the public doesn’t seem to care — or even want to know. A new poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes finds that 41 percent of Americans either believe that W.M.D.’s have been found, or aren’t sure. The program’s director suggests that “some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive dissonance.” And three-quarters of the public thinks that President Bush showed strong leadership on Iraq.

If you’ve seen Jay Leno’s Jay Walking then you can understand the lack of cognitive skills in some corners of the Los Angeles area. You can find the survey here, it is the pdf under the heading: Americans’ Review of Iraq War from May 28, 2003. It doesn’t appear that the survey was restricted to the LA area though, so the inability to use reason and accountability is apparently wide spread. I hope it’s not contagious, because then shrewd social engineers could implement all sorts of outlandish policies and enact all sorts of legislation…

For those of you that aren’t aware of it, the Chinese State has been building and developing an infrastructure for a full-fledged Space program (the whole schbang, including Mars).

This morning a post from Slashdot mentioned a column penned by former congressman and House Science chairman Robert S. Walker. In it he states two things I wanted to point out, the first is this:

Many Japanese space observers are convinced that China has a moon program and that, ultimately, Japan may be drawn into the competition. India already has created its own moon mission, in large part because they are monitoring Chinese space efforts.

Hehe, how does one get “drawn into the competition” – I mean, Collectrix hasn’t been drawn into the Moon competition, nor has TypePad or Apple or Dell or a slew of other companies. Is there some sort of weird kissing disease other than mono that somehow inhibits the ability to think logically: just because someone else is spending $X billion does not mean I have to either.

Now all I need to do is convince Mr. Greenspan to lend me a few million to build a X-Prize class vehicle… because John Carmack is and if he is, then I most certainly have to too.

Then Mr. Walker states,

Our response to the challenge should be aimed not at another moon program of our own, but the development of technologies that would give us the option of several different missions within a decade. Building new propulsion systems, such as nuclear plasma engines, would provide us with the ability to go back to the moon, but also to go to Mars in a mission taking weeks rather than months.

The Chinese moon program appears to be a go whether we get back in the game or not. Space dominance is a 21st-century challenge we dare not refuse. The aerospace commission concluded that stretching our technological reach with new power and propulsion options and developing the capacity to get to low Earth orbit regularly and less expensively would help us hold our space leadership position well into the future.

Does anyone have any idea just how much wealth/capital it took to finance and fund the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo programs? Billions — in 1960s money (~5x the value it is worth today).

And what great productive, wealth growing, capital saving discoveries were made by landing a man on the moon (six times)? Not a damn thing. Sure they picked up a bunch of rocks and brought them back and analyzed and crushed into little pieces and sometimes even sold. However, no kryptonite, no supernatural pixie dust and no magical Genie lamp was ever discovered within those rocks. All the billions of dollars in capital that was diverted from other productive parts of the economy were ever seen from again, nor did the “investments” in other technologies pan out well enough to justify the costs of the program (if the original capital had been “saved” or invested long-term, that is still a more efficient allocation of resources than blasting 3 men into orbit — it’s the same argument against building bombers or tanks, what wealth producing activities can they actually do, spray pesticides on a farm and till a crop?).

In honor of following George Santayana’s law: “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” I’ve dug up a fun little stab at ‘intrepidÂ’ individuals such as the Chinese, American and Japanese politicians. This scene from The Simpsons comes to mind:

Narrator: “The moon. For several years, she has fascinated many. But will man ever walk on her fertile surface? Democratic hopeful Adlai Stevenson says so.”

[cut to a shot of Adlai Stevenson at some sort of press conference]

Stevenson: “I have no objection to man walking on the moon.”

Narrator: “The moon belongs to America, and anxiously awaits the arrival of our astro-men. Will you be among them?”

Things keep looking up for me, thank the BBC:

Handsome men may have better semen, a study suggests.

Researchers in Spain have found that men who are regarded as attractive by women are also more fertile.

Their sperm move faster and are generally healthier.

The study is the latest to suggest that good looks can be a pointer to good health.

In April, researchers in Australia found that men with chiselled jaws and classic masculine features are in better physical health than their less manly peers.

These and similar findings have led scientists to conclude that women who seek attractive male partners are, in fact, searching for the healthiest men, most able to father and provide for their children.

That’s not the entire story, I snipped only the first half, be sure to read it all, especially the “symmetrical face” part (whatever that is). I wanted to point out the wording in the first part. Raise your hand if you did not laugh at all when they said “less manly peers.” Heh, I got a kick out of that, I’ll use that sometime, to boost my ego and self-esteem.

And I always thought that “good looks” were in the eye of the beholder. First I was wrong about inflation, then about taxation now I’m wrong about sexation. Damn my outdated Almanac, where is Dr. Emmett Brown around when you need him?

I wanted to see who this Funky Kenzo that keeps appearing in referreral log is. I was pleasantly surprised to find that MT 2.64 was released. The best part of all, I uploaded it all by myself without any major scre49wjfbrs.

Let me know if you notice anything mes7pn2vle.

OK?

I’m trying to break a record for the most non-gratuitous, substance-filled posts in a 24-hour period. If you’re into software, or rather, you know just how bad alot of software is (commercial or “open source“), then you’ll get a kick out of PerversionTracker. With a motto like theirs, what more can you ask for:

The highly trained PerversionTracker staff locates the very worst of Mac software. We search the web for 15 minutes a day — so you don’t have to

How about a Windows port of PerversionTracker (that just sounds weird)?

For a quick taste of their biting geekoidness, read the iCount 0.1.1 review — and don’t forget your number line. Yes, it’s like Somethingawful, only useful.

From the Independent:

“For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on,” Mr Wolfowitz tells the magazine.

The comments suggest that, even for the US administration, the logic that was presented for going to war may have been an empty shell. They come to light, moreover, just two days after Mr Wolfowitz’s immediate boss, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, conceded for the first time that the arms might never be found.

There are some rough looking Latinos down the street that might be thinking about possibly doing something that could be construed as un-friendly. After all, they don’t look like me, talk like me or wear the same clothes.

But then again, I’m looking through a Periscope of FUD. They are gaining popularity with several think tanks; you should get one of those, especially if you don’t like another group of individuals or you need some sort of excuse to bust your load.

Two weeks ago, spurred on by a report from Dr. Jenkins, I discussed the online world of plagiarism. Today, a friend sent me a news release discussing a wraith-like report that if factually correct, is quite damning.

Thanks to news.google.com I was able to reference several other news outlets that have reported along the same theme: the White House shelved a damaging $44 trillion budget deficit report. I found four different headlines; each of these stories has their own unique twist that adds a wrinkle to the overall story:

Two news outlets report the same story, The Arab Times Online and SunSpot Online, both quoting Agence France Presse (AFP): “Washington shelved report of 44-trillion-dollar deficit.”

The Hindustan Times ran: “US fiscal deficit is 44 trillion dollars: Study.” They supposedly quote from AFP, but after reviewing their copy and comparing it with the Arab Times and SunSpot version, it appears modified in several places.

The Reuters version was reprinted at AT&T Online, and states: “White House Denies Shelving Budget Deficit Warning.” This has some additional remarks that do not appear in any of the reports.

The Financial Times – US ‘faces future of chronic deficits’ – their version of the story had several details that were not reported in any of the previous editions, primarily because it is the paper that released the report that both AFP and Reuters quote from.

After analyzing each of the reports, the old philosophical question crept up:

How do you know when a politician is lying? Read on for that answer.

The Reuters report shows an example of this:

The White House on Thursday denied suppressing a report that projects the U.S. government faces a long-term budget deficit of more than $44 trillion.

White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels said the allegation was “probably the most absurd thing that I can imagine.”

And then:

Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols denied that, though. “This paper was not prepared at Treasury, by Treasury, or at the request of anyone at Treasury,” he said.

However, in testimony before a House of Representatives subcommittee in March, Smetters, with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “These estimates were made with a detailed model developed by Jagadeesh Gokhale and myself during our time in the Bush administration.”

The Hindustan Times AFP version starts off with:

The United States government’s true deficit — counting long-term pension and health care liabilities — is a whopping 44 trillion dollars, according to a study commissioned by the US Treasury but not publicly released.

The study by economists Jagadeesh Gokhale of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania, found that the fiscal imbalance includes seven trillion dollars for Social Security retirement costs and 38 trillion dollars for the Medicare health program for the elderly.

And continues,

According to the Financial Times, the two economists believed the report was for inclusion in official budget documents.

“When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear (in the budget). At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget,” Gokhale was quoted a saying in the front-page article.

The AFP story as carried by The Arab Times and SunSpot stated:

President George W. Bush’s administration chose to keep the findings — commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill — out of the 2004 annual budget report, published in February, London’s Financial Times reported.

And then continues,

Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury, were in charge of the analysis, the newspaper said.

“When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear (in the budget). At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget,” Gokhale was quoted a saying in the front-page article.

The Financial Times adds:

Mr Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: “When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren’t part of the prospective budget.”

Mr O’Neill, who was fired last December, refused to comment.

Okay, so one story is this: in 2002 then-Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O’Neill commissioned a report that economists Kent Smetters and Jagdessh Gokhale prepared. They found that there were ‘slight’ errors in previous calculations of both Social Security and Medicare financing that added up to $38 trillion (remember, the “official” debt is about $6.4 trillion as I have reported on twice now). That brought the total to about $44 trillion, an amount that seemed as if it was politically indefensible in February, when the report was reportedly shelved (you be the judge of that).

Back to the Reuters report, both White House Budget Director Mitch Daniels and Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols deny the validity of this story, despite the various additions other reports add that validate the information and analysis the deficit report contains.

How do you know when a politician is lying?

His lips are moving.

These guys are pimps, with a capital P. Oh thank heaven, for Landover Baptist:

The very terms “martial arts” and “self-defense” should tip off the Christian that something is wrong. Nowhere in the Bible are Christians told to resort to violence in defense of themselves.

When Christians take up the martial arts for self-defense, they are saying to God, “I don’t trust You to protect me.” Christians are to depend on God for protection.

The above statements reminded me of a rough draft I wrote moments ago: In the Book of Tim, chapter 2 verse 47: Thou shall payeth me, mucheth wealthith and loveth. Additionally-ith, defending oneself is left to me-ith. If I wishith that you live-ith, I will make sure-ith of it… ith. And they all sayeth: Amen.

I can get used to writing, I mean, divinating [sic] passages like that. I guess the only question remains, who wants me to be their god? I know I already have some worshipping me (or dreaming, dwelling, drooling, etc.), I just need a quick hand count of those that are willing to die to propagate the message of Tim and his everlasting wisdom, fables and all around good looks. By reading this statement you are hereby anointed to be my/his faithful and obedient servant.

First rule of Tim Club, do talk about Tim Club.

Not quite as good as the Briton stories of yore, but definitely chuckleacious:

Six Russian men suffered alcoholic poisoning after going on a week-long vodka binge to ward off Sars.

The men, from Blagoveschensk, thought the vodka would protect them from Chinese workers on a nearby building site.

Doctors who examined the men after they were admitted to hospital with alcohol poisoning said it would take a week for them to recover.

Russian scientists recently claimed that vodka could ward off the Sars virus.

In another incident, a woman who was drinking vodka to protect herself from Sars thought she had contracted the virus after getting drunk.

The 20-year-old, from the Russian city of Perm, went to doctors after what she claimed was “close contact with a Chinese man” at a local Chinese market, the Novy Region newspaper reported.

She complained of a pain in her throat after every shot of vodka, and that she was sweating and had a high temperature.

Doctors examined the woman and sent her home after discovering she was merely drunk.

On another note, have you ever watched drunk college kids try to play Halo on the Xbox?