A Review of the News for August 11, 2013
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The Man who Sold the Moon
It’s the title of a short story by the legendary SciFi author, Robert Heinlein. In the story, The Man Who Sold the Moon, D. D. Harriman is a man who not only has a dream of traveling to the moon, he has (almost) the financial means to do it. Harriman’s schemes to not only raise the necessary money but to ensure that he will retain control of the moon once he gets there are convoluted, devious, devastatingly logical – and almost the complete antithesis of the way NASA has actually gone about it. That was futuristic art.
However, selling lunar real estate has become a real money maker. And if you blog readers want to buy lunar real estate, the land is going fast but I can still sell you some plots with great views of Earth on the Sea of Tranquility.
It’s the title of a short story by the legendary SciFi author, Robert Heinlein. In the story, The Man Who Sold the Moon, D. D. Harriman is a man who not only has a dream of traveling to the moon, he has (almost) the financial means to do it. Harriman’s schemes to not only raise the necessary money but to ensure that he will retain control of the moon once he gets there are convoluted, devious, devastatingly logical – and almost the complete antithesis of the way NASA has actually gone about it. That was futuristic art.
However, selling lunar real estate has become a real money maker. And if you blog readers want to buy lunar real estate, the land is going fast but I can still sell you some plots with great views of Earth on the Sea of Tranquility.(Fox News) The moon may be a desolate ball of dirt that hasn’t seen human interaction in 40 years, but that hasn’t stopped some real estate moguls from making millions of dollars from it…
In one 24-hour period last week, Jackson said Luna Society inked 326 orders averaging about $50 each for total revenue of $16,715. Momentum has picked up from what Jackson refers to the “dark days” of the 2008 financial crisis, with visitors to its website averaging 1,640 a day and surpassing the 5-million mark last week.Rival real estate company The Lunar Embassy claims to be growing even faster at 1,500 acres a day, even offering 40-year financing in some cases, according to its website. It also offers chances to buy into exclusive land-related programs, including its Century Club that costs $1,000, as well as purchase deeds for as low as $20 and a “Lunar Explorer DVD” for $50.
Yes, P. T. Barnham was correct. There’s a sucker born every minute. Fifty some million of them voted for Obama in the last election cycle. Did he promise a piece of lunar real estate to everyone who voted for him (in addition to the now famous ObamaPhone)?
Obama — for the record
During the President’s major address to the National Defense University just three months ago he declared “this war, like all wars, must end.” The plaintive cry of a man hoping that saying so makes it so. Sadly for President Obama, the Islamic Nations who want us destroyed, haven’t heeded the call of their fellow Muslim.
In our ObamaNation, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano decided that terror attacks are “man-caused disasters.” The “global war on terror” was reduced an “overseas contingency operation.” Nidal Hasan proudly tells a military court that he, a soldier of Allah, killed 13 American soldiers in the name of jihad. But the massacre remains officially classified as an act not of terrorism but of “workplace violence.”
If you wrote a novel twenty years ago about the cowardly Muslim, communist, half-negro who ran the nation onto the rocks while the mainstream media cheered, and wanted the next president to be Bill Clinton’s cast-off first lady, everybody would have called it “absurd sci-fi”.
If you wrote of a massacre such as Ft. Hood, where the turn-coat jihadi murdered other fellow soldiers for Allah, and called it “workplace violence” you’d have been laughed from the pages of any publication.
If you wrote a novel in 1969, the year that man landed on the moon, and said that forty years later the president would make NASA’s mission – Muslim outreach, it would never have been published because it would be too weird to be credible.
Toilets
Not necessarily news you can use, but we all use them (hopefully)
Some offer more exotic options (above)
Some are more basic as this Chinese commode illustrates (below)
Some locations offer exotic signs to let you know where — to go.
Urinals in France can be flamboyant, and allow you to view the latest fashions while you leak.
And in Mexico, some signs are in English for the benefit of visiting tourists
Ref Fort Hood: I wonder if the words "workplace violence" had anything to do with the actual investigation. It seems to me that would have NO PART OF AN FBI INVESTIGATION, since it is a theory of motive. I wonder if there is any INTERNAL STRIFE in the FBI about the fact that the press reports make it look like that was the conclusion of the actual investigation. Just wondering.
Similarly, I wonder why the details of the Ibragim Todashev (pal of Boston Bombers) shooting have not been advertised, not just made public, but advertised!? I thought I read early reports (in the press) that indicated he was INVOLVED in the murder of the three Boston area men, and that he ATTACKED his FBI interviewer, who was sent to the hospital with injuries. Why is the FBI silent on this?
Ref Toilets: I'll go with 'normal' for now.
2 comments: 1 – Heinlein may well have been the best SF writer ever.
2. Re: Asian commode. I knew a Peace Corps guy in North Thailand who shit on his necktie. The memory always rings a smile.
The whole Boston Bomber cell issue has been interesting to me, but the details filtering to the public have been nonexistent. I had hoped that had to do with ongoing work that would lead to prosecutions. However there is a lot of politics involved with this matter. There was the early Saudi call for one of the cell members to be returned home to Mecca, and that disturbed me. The Saudis put a lot of money on the street in DC and usually get what they want. I suspect THAT may be why everything has been classified and locked down. It could be embarrassing.
In criminal matters, such as this one, I understand the need to keep things under wraps until the business is done, but I mistrust the system's good intentions these days.
With Ft. Hood, the matter was sensitive to Islamic people and calling it a terrorist/jihadi attack doesn't play well with the White House agenda. My sense is that was the Administration's spin to the press rather than a factual finding. In fact, the factual finding with the background — and suspect interviews — would show that it wasn't a random act of workplace violence, but rather an act of terror that is faith-based. It would also show that Hasan 'turned coat' and joined the enemy in the War on Terror, that was re-characterized as a foreign contingency operation. That did not keep with the Obama Administration's narrative.
1. Yes
2. I've used up more then one pair of socks in Asia when I found that I had no T/P in my pocket. But I can see a necktie being used if socks aren't enough.
Lunar real estate? Hey, at least one would be assured not to be buying swamp land.
Yes, there is that.
I think the Peace Corps guy had toilet paper, he just forgot her was wearing a tie. I believe he cut if off, rather that take it off the usual way. Phew!
Peace Corps…what do you expect?
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