The Irony of "Progress"

A hundred years ago, Americans could use typewriters, the telegraph and primitive telephones. Today, Americans have computers, the Internet, cell phones, satellite television and radio, DVDs, iPods, email and instant messaging.
A hundred years ago, Americans could have personal vehicles powered by internal combustion engines running on gasoline. Today, Americans can have personal vehicles powered by internal combustion engines running on gasoline.

You see the problem?

Clifford May actually understates the irony of the situation consumers face.



One-hundred years ago America motorists had the choice of gasoline, electric or steam-powered cars; each with their own advantages and drawbacks. In 1906, it was far from clear that gasoline-powered cars were the solution.
Many ladies had battery-powered landelets who's short-range offset their practicality and comvenience for around-town driving. A chauffeur was not required to prime and crank the balky gasoline-engine, nor spend 20-40 minutes firing-up a gasoline or kerosene-burning steamer. A lady could drive herself and her friends, and with out the noxious fumes, noise or vibrations of a gasoline car...all at a moments-notice.
For sheer-power, steam-cars had the advantage; it was a proven technology and was considered by many as more-reliable than gasoline, and was much quieter and smoother-running. And steam-cars were generally faster and had more hill-climbing power than most cars. Ask Jay Leno, he has the unofficial record for "oldest car"-speeding ticket; 76-mph on the LA freeway in his 1906 Stanley Steamer roadster. The Taft White House preferred White steam-powered touring cars over gasoline ones for Presidential-use.
It was not until Kettering's development of the battery-powered electric starter for Cadillac that gasoline-power finally overshadowed the other options at the time. It's not that the choices haven't changed in 100-years, it's that they have narrowed

$1,000,000 of LCR-Natl. Fertilizer Wasted....

Regardless of “where” the money came from, it makes me ill over how much grassroots organizational development could have been accomplished with “that” million-dollars. There are still a number of states that STILL do not have LCR Chapters up-and-running. And a considerable number of metropolitan regions with large-enough gay populations for LCR Chapters in their own right that still don't have functioning Chapters. Contrary to the fantasies of the both the Left and the Right, there are gay Republicans in every state town and county in this Nation. In an era of one-billion-dollar Presidential races…think I’m exaggerating, look at St. Hillarybeast’s potential 2008 war-chest…a million-dollars doesn’t go very far in “buying friends” on the Hill anymore. But that same million-dollars could have been the fertilizer that brought budding gay Republicans out of their “political closets”.

If the LCR is to be more than a rationale for Patrick’s being invited to posh black-tie Beltway parties, the LCR should be concentrating on it’s grassroots…rather than anxiously-being a fellow-traveler with the Democratic Party’s zombie-Gay Rights/Abortion Rights thralls; the HCR, the Victory Fund, and the NGLTF. Personally I fervently believe that a partisan G/L political organizations shoud be supportive the the politically-minded partisan G/L members of the community, and not the “gay issues”. A “gay Republican” organizations shoudl be seeking-out and supporting “gay Republicans”, not gay issues. There are plenty of effectual and ineffectual “issue-oriented” gay organizations out-there already.

Flight 93 Memorial ...or Necropolis?

Kitty Hawk Visitors Center

$60 milllion and 1200-acres for a plane-crash memorial?? That nearly a 1/4th the acreage of the entire Gettysburg Battlefield site's 5600-acres. The Kitty Hawk National Site has 200-acres, and a nice educational-center and gift shop that cost maybe 2-million-dollars. I fail to see ANY REASON that Flight 93 needs anything even that elaborate. In-fact, anything more than the approx. 40-acres of the actual crash-site from the woods to the road, with a nice 15-ft granite plinth and a graveled walkway, is magalomania and narcissism.

In Intriguing Clarification

“Wilsonians believe America must make the world safe for liberty. Hamiltonians believe America must make the world safe for commerce. Jeffersonians fear that both of these crusades threaten liberty at home. And Jacksonians believe in destroying America's enemies and defending America 's sovereignty, no matter what the rest of the world thinks.”

--Peter Beinart in the New Republic

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/exploration/mmb/antimatter_spaceship.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/antimatter.htm

Ebb Tide for the GOP

If you liked Clinton-I, you’ll love Clinton-II. …All hail St. Hillarybeast!!

The “popular” sentiment amongst the Republicans out here in East Coast “Blue-land” is a combination of resignation and disgust at the current congressional AND White House-Pentagon leadership. Older centrists like my own parents…who still think the Democrats are “idealess” and “gutless”…feel so betrayed by the GOP that they’re now saying “throw the bums out at any-cost”. The current GOP leadership inside the Beltway has squandered the Victory of ‘94, and the Reagan Legacy;

- Out of control pork-fest have ballooned the Federal Budget.
- Afghanistan is not improving.
- Iraq has been downhill ever-since the wide-spread looting, and the casualty-rates are still “high”.
- Katrina was a fundemental cock-up on all-sides.
- Bush, Cheney, Rummey and Condi have lost their personal credibility after WMDs, Iraq and Iran.

Even the persciption drug boondoggle hasn’t delivered any price relief, just serial comparisons when people gather about how they’re getting “screwed”. And every trip to the gas station delivers a real-time message about “how well” the war is going…$2.85 for regular, $2.95 for premium.

Worse, many out-here are viewing the entire “immigration reform” non-debate as a political side-show ineffectually-staged to distract public attention from Rummey, Iraq and Iran. A number of the moderate “republican-voting” people I know…as compared to the GOP-deadenders…are willing to this-year hold their noses and vote for the Democrats; knowing full-well that they’ll get bait-n-switcher like Gov. Corzine and Sen. Menendez of NJ. They are just tired of the GOP and it’s “promises” that they see as just not squaring with political and historical reality. And they know what St. Hilllarybeast is, but they’ll vote for her anyway as a reaction against whomever the GOP nominates…especially if counter-balanced by someone like Bill Richardson. They might prefer it be “Richardson for President”, but they’ll vote for St. Hillarybeast anywa; …long before they vote for Romney-the-Mormon.

Let's be Practical, not Politically-Correct

As a Teddy Roosevelt-Progressive Republican, I believe that the assimulated immigrant makes us stronger, not weaker. To felonize their “undocumented” status or to impose crushing fines is ridiculous, it would merely drive them deeper underground. If security is the rationale, then we need every illegal alien to be encourage, not discouraged, to register and regularize their status as guest worker or as potential citizen. It is reasonable that they should be required over a number of years to settle their current and back-taxes as part of their obligation as residents, but I woud oppose “extra” punitive penalties such as surcharges or a one-time fine.

It’s also impractical and onerous to require them to return to their “country-of-origin” to start their naturalization…they are already here…and more to the point their families and minor US-citizen children are here. Let the penalty be they have to wait 7 or 11 years, rather than the current 5 years for naturalization; but issue them green or blue-cards to they can properly be documented, be issued drivers’ licences (and insurance). And once they are documented, then guarantee that they can return home to visit, or reside back-home if a guest-worker without suddenly finding the door slammed behind them.

It is only by regularizing their status that we as-a-nation can avoid the trap of multi-culturalism that traps both Europe and Canada. The influx of economic immigrants from Mexica and Central America is a hydralic-inevitability….it is not a test of Sovereignty. If we want to insure that the official entre-ports are used, then it must be beneficial to use them. If you could get a guest-worker blue-card at a computer kiosk at any border-town bus terminal or airport where in a moment your retenal-scan and fingerprints are recorded, and you recieved a bio-metric ID with RFID chip; would you cross time-efficiently at US Customs or walk across the desert?

As for the US vs. Mexican and Central American flag-wavers; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/10/AR2006041001798.html

To those who say build a wall; our government can barely manage to levee New Orleans, and you want a frontier barrier from Tijuana to El Paso to Brownsville? There’s 900 miles of river-frontier from El Paso to Brownsville, and 700 miles of mountains and desert the otherway to Tijuana. Summon the damned-shade of Erich Honeker, and ask him about barrier-walls and how to train the guards to shoot women and children.

Deport the 12-20 million undocumented? Order the barbed-wire and cattle cars for the camps; I’m sure there’s a few “good Germans” who remember how. “Patriots” to knock on the door in the middle of the night; to take children from their mothers and fathers; to search home-by-home and business-by-business.

Damn you who would make “Ihre Ausweis, Bitte!” an American virtue.