Neil Armstrong
Not that I have anything against 90 inch HD flat screens. It’s just that it was so cool to watch the old tube as Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface (or the Arizona desert, if you’re so inclined) and then to go outside and look at the moon and comprehend that he was really there. The technology that put a man on the moon now seems kind of primitive, yet no one has been back in 30 years.
Wikipedia has a chart (sourced to OMB) that shows NASA’s budget, as a percentage of federal spending, peaked at 4.41% in 1966 while 2011 spending was down to .53%
Before The Fall
The president is threatening that there’s more where the auto bail-out came from.
Meanwhile a Congressional Budget Office report says a walk off the fiscal cliff will plunge the economy back into recession.
Big Wind
Todd Aiken is the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate seat from Missouri who said that in cases of “legitimate rape” women have special powers to avoid pregnancy. Needless to say, Dems like Barbara Boxer pounced on Aiken’s nutty idea to whip up the winds of “the war on women”.
Democrats and pundits also tried to pin Aiken’s rape notions on Republicans like Paul Ryan who oppose abortion because they consider it killing a human life.
The bigger problem problem for Republicans is the Missouri senate seat. The incumbent Democrat, Claire McCaskill, was considered a weak candidate – until Aiken defined himself. One additional Republican seat in the senate would have been enough to block passage of Obama Care, which Republicans hope to overturn.
Open Book
During his surprise press conference Monday, the president defended his campaign tactics by again calling for Romney to release his tax returns. He said, “if you want to be president… your life’s an open book when it comes to things like your finances”.
He also accused Romney of “just making stuff up” in an ad that accuses Obama is gutting welfare reform.
Afghanistan
American troops presented a weapon to an Afghan police recruit, who promptly used it to kill two of them.
