Newt’s Lunacy

The libertarian viewpoint is that it’s every man for himself.  The liberal viewpoint is that we’re all in the same boat.  Put that way, I am squarely in the liberal camp.  Although Ron Paul says a lot of things I like – legalize marijuana, normalize relations with Cuba, end U.S. imperialism and bring

You know why there's no good restaurants around here? No atmosphere.

the troops home – I can’t see myself ever becoming a supporter.

Amazingly, though, it was Newt Gingrich who said something recently that I agreed with, and he’s drawing a lot of ridicule over it.  He said we should have a permanently  manned moon base.  Mind you, Newt deserves the ridicule.  He wants the moon base for the wrong (military) reasons, he hasn’t outlined how he plans to pay for it or explained how this is consistent with shrinking the government and cutting government expenditures (because it’s not) and, basically, he’s just spouting bullshit because he’s Newt Gingrich and has no intention of ever increasing the size of the  space program.

Granted, my  reasons for wanting a moon base are also not that substantial.  Mostly, I just think it would be cool.  If we are talking about scientific value, robots can probably  do anything we want on the moon and there are several space projects which should take priority, e.g. a space elevator, space stations used for industry and tourism, space based solar panels beaming cheap energy back to earth and next-generation space telescopes because Hubbell has been amazing but, come on, it’s been up there since 1990.  Remember 1990?  Cameras were cameras and phones were phones.

But also, I think that the solutions to the problems we have on this earth will not be political, because democracy is only as good as the demos, and unfortunately we’re not all that great, as a whole.   When the solutions to all  the world’s problems are found, they will be technological.

So, I like the idea of a permanently manned moon base.  But Newt Gingrich is still a putrid old windbag.