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I have taken long to write, much less post anything here. A fascination of the body politic and social media has taken hold, and wide open forums among "friends" and my enduring adoption of new technological trends has, alas, taken its toll on my time and mind and my writing, all three have suffered! Writing has become snippets, links and response among others who also post snippets and links. I note the pace of blogging in the blogosphere has fallen a bit and many want to be writers learned quickly how much work it took to be a pundit and pontificating 200 words minimum per day.

Regardless, through social media, so much of our selves then become part of the internet ether. Is this a good thing? The jury is out. On the downside is the potential for invasion of privacy and the limits of free speech. On the plus side, it allows us to transcend time and space to remain close to folks who are physically and geographically distant.

I'm all for being connected. But there's always big brother (who may or may not be malevolent) and hackers (most of which, it can be assumed, ARE malevolent) and all sorts of vile, evil and/or just plain wrong stuff out there on the internet.

Somewhere in human history I am sure libraries were thought to be dangerous too.

Don't even get me started on the "new" media's content and reliability, much less the reliability of the "old" media. All journalism has become sloppy and parochial and much of the new media is to blame. With a big sigh, I think most clear headed folks see right through the entire BS and almost everyone is tired of it.

Those that don't are, as they say, "drinking the kool-aid", both red and blue versions.

Politics – The body politic has started its quadrennial journey to a general election highlighted by a contest for President. Let the bloodletting begin and it shapes up to be brutal. It boils down to a few simple questions really.

1. Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?
2. It's the economy (stupid).

Then it comes down to which candidate do you believe in and trust. It's not sour grapes or some tea party junk when I say this; all politicians break their promises. It is the nature of politics to compromise on issues which often means in order to come to agreement both sides must break their promises to some lesser or greater degree. It's only logical.

At present however we have an ever growing polarity in the country, and there is a bunch of demographic slicing and dicing going on. What is dangerous is the degree of separation, hardness and uncompromising stances and resultant gridlock on almost every issue. Right-Left, Black-White, Man-Woman, Straight-LGBT, Faithful-Atheist.....we are FRACTURING!

If it seems to you that there are forces trying to divide us them I am in agreement with you. But what forces? To what purpose? You can be sure the age old strategy of Sun-Tzu and the Roman empire is at work though, that is divide and conquer.

The tea party is being vilified by the media and the left and so much courting and co-opting is happening to them from the right, but forget the organization such that it is and the money of Koch. TEA is the acronym for "Taxed Enough Already" which is a plank of the movement's philosophy. I think most Americans, no matter how much or how little they pay in taxes, which are everywhere and pervasive, feel that they are taxed enough already.

Then there are the twin issues of public debt and responsible, honorable and honest representation by those we elect. Yes, let them have some perks and benefits as befits the rulers of our great nation. But if they lie, especially under oath (I'm not talking broken campaign promises in the name of political compromise or expediency), steal or otherwise break the law we can and must vote them out if they escape prosecution, which they often do. We also vote them out if they don't spend time at home talking to us, the ones they represent. We also vote them out when they don't bring home the bacon, that is, bring some of our tax dollars back to be spent in their districts. If you vote and participate in the political process (as every citizen is required to do) then you believe in this principle too. You vote them in and you vote them out.

Bacon, yum.........So now I turn to pork. The unbridled enthusiasm for pork, patronage and overall spending means the public debt has risen to alarming levels by any measure. I am not going to argue that Keynesian stimulus does not work, in fact it can and does work. But at what point does it limit out, reach is maximum effectiveness? How effective is it in a modern, trans-global economy? How much public debt is too much? You can see what the public debt is right now at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np. As I write this it stands at 15.6 Trillion dollars. With US population at 313 Million (at http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html ) that equals almost $50,000 for each and every American alive. I think everyone could probably agree that number is too much.

Since almost everyone can agree on those three things and I repeat, forget the organization such that it is and the money of Koch, then as much as you might hate it you are a "TEA" party proponent. To make a clean break from all the "bad TEA party" BS out there I propose a new political movement. Let's simply call it "common ground".

As for the economy, it's been bad since 2006 and I really don't see signs of anything getting better soon. Unemployment is officially over 8% and that is bad for the incumbent given our recent history in elections. The reality is that it is much worse. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports the number of people out of work ("not in labor force" as opposed to the official "unemployment figure") is approaching 88 MILLION! (http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS15000000). My math is stupid but here it goes, 88 divided by 313 (see the census figure) times 100 equals 28%. So I'm sloppy, I didn't deduct the retired and elderly, the disabled, all students, the non-working housewives, the institutionalized, and etc who don't work anyhow. Note the deduction must be taken from both the denominator and numerator. Let's call that number 40 million. Here's the new math; 48 divided by 273 times 100 equals 17%. Neither number is even close to 8%!

All our political leaders need watching and in this, an election year, you must each carefully decide what issues are important, learn all the candidate's stand regarding those issues and decide who you trust enough to be responsible, honorable and honest in their representation of you and your interests.

It's the economy stupid, and everyone acts in their own selfish self-interest, at least according to economists.

Somehow, this all has to stop. So vote. In your own selfish self-interest.

God Bless the USA.

GWOT – I will repeat; The Global War on Terror, "the long war" as the Pentagon has named it, will not be won or lost on the battlefield with guns and other weapons. While gun battles will be fought it is the intolerant teachings of some Muslim clerics and the radical, violent minority that has hijacked the faith and seeks to dominate the world by the destruction of western Christendom, and indeed, even Eastern civilization and their faith systems like Hinduism and Buddhism. It is the teachings of the radical clerics and the violent jihadists that are the real enemy.

Such views are incompatible with the western value of religious tolerance, yet it is this value that allows the Muslim intolerance to thrive. They exploit our freedoms and religious tolerance by preaching intolerance in our midst.

So we must become intolerant of intolerance and inflict violence upon such intolerance.

The long-term solution is for the Muslim faith to embrace religious tolerance and accept other faith systems while rejecting violence against other faiths. Then it will be possible to end the war. Only then can the Muslim world join the world community as a full, reliable and peace-loving partner. Until then we'll have to continue killing those who are intent on killing common, non-combatant citizens.

I continue to pray for our brave warriors and our leaders. This problem is a difficult one and our liberty and freedom are at stake in so many ways, both internal and external.

Space Exploration – UPDATE 04/17/2012 - The shuttle Discovery has arrived at Dulles Airport in Washington DC to take it's rightful place in the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy center. Thank you NASA , Discovery and the Smithsonian for preserving this artifact of the American manned spaceflight program.

Separately, the SpaceX Dragon capsule is cleared for a tentative launch date later this month. While not yet man-rated, the Dragon capsule launch of up-cargo, and it's recovery with down-cargo at the conclusion of its flight is an important step in restoring redundant, manned lift capability.

The ISS is working and is fully staffed as I write and is functioning more or less as intended. It should be a source of pride for all its international partners. But manned access as I write is limited to a single platform for men to go into space.

For all the grieving our President gets from the right he in fact has probably gotten this one right, in the long haul. What I mean is he has turned a federally subsidized program over to the private market. It's unfortunate that this is the only memorable place where our current President has gone conservative-right wing economically. He has turned over domestic manned space access over to the private sector! In the short-term there is still only one way to get men into space. Big developments here in the next few years though, and once redundant manned access to space is restored I'm sure the gap will be forgotten.

NASA's budget is dwarfed in comparison to other government agencies (NASA consumes only about 0.5% of the federal budget at this time) but I would argue that NASA's mission to serve as a national aeronautical research organization is important enough to fully fund. But uniquely and particularly, space exploration fires up the imaginations of all of humanity in the quest for what is "out there"? Future robotic missions for exploration in the solar system have been cancelled or are simply not being budgeted or planned. There is no payoff for the private sector to do this kind of fundamental astrophysical research, so it is up to NASA and government funding for this kind of exploration to continue. I am troubled by the access gap and NASA budget cuts. Let's hope this changes soon.

Statistically speaking, even accounting only for our own galaxy, it hardly seems possible that we are alone. But what is the implication regarding the existence of God if we are? For some of you perhaps none. But for those on the fence? And to believers?

And what is the implication regarding the existence of God if other life in the universe does exist? Surely, all are God's creatures, aren't they?

This is as Muslims, Christians, Jews and every other faith in a deity believe.

On that philosophical and theological note, I bid you adieu.

Now that you have finished my rant and rave check out the rest of the site and find something you can use. Remember, the quickest way to improve profit is saving money on raw materials.