The Taming of Smeagol

So, let's start out with my semi-political aspect part of this blog. I was watching c-span last night (part of the fun of basic cable is when that's the most exciting thing on). Anywho, there was this thing by opendebates.org. Don't know much about them other than they think that the "commission on presidential debates" keeps people out of the debates and prevents issues from being raised. Thus turning debates into a giant love fest of "here's where I stand just slightly left to the middle where my opponent stands just slightly right." The problem, no real debate. An interesting, but accurate view. Well, since the world has given me this space to say whatever the heck I want, I'm taking it to bring up a couple of issues that are important to me.

The environment - Okay, we're the country that gave the world the fastest most efficient way to annihilate ourselves and we can't figure out something better than fossil fuels? I keep reading about all these technologies that are 'just around the corner' but they aren't here yet. Anyone mind explaining why? I understand that there is no infrastructure or other problems like that, but remember there was no infrastructure for the highway system and it got built. You'd think if we turned our greatest minds to these problems things could get done.

Space - So God's gift to America, the Space Shuttle, isn't so great. Surprise, it's 30 years old with no replacement in sight. Honestly, el Presidente's speech on the space program failed to inspire me to boldly go. Kinda like the environment, all these technologies are just around the corner but mysteriously don't get funding to get finished (see:scramjet). We managed to break the sound barrier and that's the best our technology can do? I used to think that I'd see warp drive (or its equivalent) in my lifetime. Now I have a hunch that it will be someone other than America who makes that happen.

Education - In my typical blogging shoutout to Justin, ask him about tuition sometime. Seriously, though it seems to me that every year since I left ISU the regents have raised tuition to scare me from coming back. Trickle-down economics at work. Big tax cut -> Less money for federal government to spend more with -> Less money for states (who actually have budget constraints) -> Let's cut schools, no one will notice! Load of crap.

Simple solution. Encourage people to be smart. Then, give them jobs developing renewable resources and parts for the space program. Bam, world peace. Maybe not that simple, but its a start.