>> ^NordlichReiter:

And Democrats aren't corrupt? Someone needs to come down from that tower.

I didn't say that, but there's a matter of degrees. Republican corruption usually involves outright devastation to people's lives for profit (let's "privatize" social security, let's start a war to get oil rights, let's pretend the environment is indestructible), whereas Democratic corruption usually presents itself as siding with Republicans on whatever horrific scheme they're looking to implement, plus they get involved in some of the "traditional" corruption -- funneling public money into private hands in return for campaign contributions -- though they seem to do this to much smaller degrees than Republicans do.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
Netrunner, I can think of one thing. The 1913 Federal Reserve act. Woodrow Wilson member of the Democratic Party.
I did add the qualifier "In my lifetime" for a reason. That said, the Federal Reserve Act was a good thing. Only crazy people are against the idea of having a central bank at this point. I may want more firm oversight to ensure it's not being mismanaged, but that's wholly different from declaring the very idea evil.

Plus, while I'm not going to try to defend Woodrow Wilson against nonspecific charges, I should point out that it's not as if his name evokes the same effect as Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, or even Herbert Hoover in people.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
How about the repealing of the Glass Steagall Act, President Bill Clinton?

...and Majority Leader Trent Lott and House Speaker Newt Gingrich. So Clinton's failing was that he didn't fight the Republicans like the left of his party wanted him to. Still fits my description.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
How about the current president and Habeus Corpus for Bagram Airforce base detainees?

You mean the rights denied them by a 5-4 decision (5 Conservative vs. 4 Liberals) of the Roberts Supreme Court?

>> ^NordlichReiter:
Preservation of extraordinary rendition? Escalation of Afghanistan? Violations of Pakistani sovereignty?

The Afghanistan war was started by Bush, as were the violations of Pakistani sovereignty (though it seems unlikely that we are really operating without Pakistan's approval). Again, the worst you can say here is that Democrat Obama has been insufficiently anti-Republican in his stance, something I would agree with as a general criticism of Obama. He isn't as left as I wish he was.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
You know what don't answer those questions. I don't want to see any more rationalizations for the two parties today. Freedom of choice be damned.


Ahh, so I am to let your eminently answerable questions stand as if I had no answer for them? Talk about limiting freedom of choice...

What's limiting your choice isn't what the two parties are doing, it's your view that there's nothing you can do to a) change how the Democratic or Republican parties do things, or b) form your own party around a platform that would appeal to an untapped coalition of voters.

>> ^ButterflyKisses:

First off, I'm not part of any specific party. I don't see much difference between dems and repubs in regards to issues like this. NAFTA was started during the Clinton administration and this measure was approved during the Bush administration.
Secondly, I do see a problem paying a use tax to Spain if I wish to drive on a major thoroughfare in the US. I highly doubt the founding fathers would ever approve of such a thing.
Thirdly, what the hell is all this talk about invasion from Canada, Spain or Mexico from you guys? That's just absurd and shouldn't be a point of discussion in regards to this. You're just accusing ridiculous points that were never brought up by those that oppose it.
Fourthly, there is always a terrorist threat these days and putting security in the hands of a completely separate sovereign nation with points of entry sounds ludicrous to me.
If the US owned and operated this series of highways then I wouldn't have a problem with it. The taxes would go back into our economy, not another country's. Yes, Eminent Domain occurs regularly in America. Eminent Domain for another country doesn't.
I'm not happy about this and I'm pissed at the Dems and Repubs for allowing this to happen and even more pissed that they both try to act like it's some crazy conspiracy theory up until the toll booths are in use.


Firstly - I didn't mention a party, I said conservative, which is where your arguments seem to be coming from. No shame in that.

Secondly - Your link doesn't work and wiki doesn't mention Spain, so I'd be curious to learn more about your claims. Not attacking you, defending Spain, appeasing terrorists or anything else, I've just not heard about the Spain thing. Just trying to figure out if this a legitimate concern, false information or out of context political boogeymanism.

Thirdly - The invasion stuff is just for yucks. Figured that was obvious. Didn't mean to offend. Humor can be fun.

Fifthly (I'm limiting my lys to prime numbers) - Again, the Spain thing, linky linky? Hopefully from some semi-respectable source?

(>"<) xoxo

First off, I'm not part of any specific party. I don't see much difference between dems and repubs in regards to issues like this. NAFTA was started during the Clinton administration and this measure was approved during the Bush administration.

Secondly, I do see a problem paying a use tax to Spain if I wish to drive on a major thoroughfare in the US. I highly doubt the founding fathers would ever approve of such a thing.

Thirdly, what the hell is all this talk about invasion from Canada, Spain or Mexico from you guys? That's just absurd and shouldn't be a point of discussion in regards to this. You're just accusing ridiculous points that were never brought up by those that oppose it.

Fourthly, there is always a terrorist threat these days and putting security in the hands of a completely separate sovereign nation with points of entry sounds ludicrous to me.

If the US owned and operated this series of highways then I wouldn't have a problem with it. The taxes would go back into our economy, not another country's. Yes, Eminent Domain occurs regularly in America. Eminent Domain for another country doesn't.

I'm not happy about this and I'm pissed at the Dems and Repubs for allowing this to happen and even more pissed that they both try to act like it's some crazy conspiracy theory up until the toll booths are in use.

What would be the worst-case scenario if the NAFTA superhighway were built and controlled by Spain (or any other nation, for that matter)?

1. People would lose there property through eminent domain. However they wouldn't be screwed, because they would all be compensated for their property, as required by law. This happens every day in the U.S. anyway, for a vast number of public works projects. So there is nothing new here.

2. A major thoroughfare would easily connect Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. This would boost economic activity between these three nations, benefiting them all. I don't see a downside. Well, I suppose Canadian and Mexican tanks could more easily invade the U.S. Umm, yeah.

3. Spain (or whoever) might charge exorbitant tolls for its use. First of all, there are other major highways already in existence that could be used as alternative routes, most notably Interstate 35. So it would have competition from day one if it were built. Secondly, if Spain (or whoever) started being major dicks about tolls or access to it, we could simply nationalize it. And what could Spain do about it? Blow it all up, and declare war on us?

This is a non-issue. Red meat for the tea party crowd, that's all.

>> ^ButterflyKisses:

I wonder what the people in Texas that have had their land taken from them via eminent domain for this mythical project feel about this. After all, Spain is our ally and we should be thankful that they are going to control a major set of thoroughfares in the US. I know this has been brought up in Congress and the House a few times. It's interesting to see some people call the NAFTA Superhighway project a crazy conspiracy theory when in actual reality it's right there in front of us.


I don't get the opposition to this freeway. Aren't there always eminent domain issues with new or widened highways/roads? Also, is Spain really going to completely own this road? What would be the point of Spain controlling a highway on American soil? What advantage would that give them? What ill could they inflict upon us if this were true? Potholes? A big toll? Staging point for a Spanish invasion? Is this just more conservative xenophobia?

Just curious - I've not really studied the arguments against this project.

I wonder what the people in Texas that have had their land taken from them via eminent domain for this mythical project feel about this. After all, Spain is our ally and we should be thankful that they are going to control a major set of thoroughfares in the US. I know this has been brought up in Congress and the House a few times. It's interesting to see some people call the NAFTA Superhighway project a crazy conspiracy theory when in actual reality it's right there in front of us.

The Amero however, is not on the table for our country but.. if our dollar fails then we'll have some sort of different currency now won't we? Unsure of what that might be, but I doubt it would be something real such as silver/gold-backed currency. It's more profitable and controllable for bankers to institute FIAT based currency, so I'm sure it would be just another form of that.

So he's a douche and somehow deserves the blatant abuse of power being wrought against him by the eminently unqualified border guards?

Well...this is a side of reason.tv I hadn't seen before.

I'll admit that there are certain legitimate uses for eminent domain: sewer/water lines, roads and bridges (in some cases), and other pure infrastructure projects. Eminent domain is appropriate for projects that benefit the population as a whole, when there is some serious restriction as to where they can be built. For example, there may be a limited number of locations at which to place a bridge to relieve traffic congestion. That might lead to a legitimate use of eminent domain to acquire the land on which to build it.

Building sports stadiums is not something that government should be involved in at all, much less taking private property for such a purpose. For one thing, there's no actual evidence that sports stadiums are money-making propositions for cities...they tend to end up breaking even at best, and more often lose money (although they make plenty for the rich team owners). Which certainly means it doesn't benefit the population as a whole.

"The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation (e.g., Amtrak), but as noted above is legally defined as an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States," (39 U.S.C. § 201) as it is wholly owned by the government and controlled by the Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General. As a quasi-governmental agency, it has many special privileges, including sovereign immunity, eminent domain powers, powers to negotiate postal treaties with foreign nations, and an exclusive legal right to deliver first-class and third-class mail. "

-Wiki

No doubt there are loans from the fed and stuff going on to support this "non-tax" dollar muti-billion dollar losses quarter after quarter.

Ask yourself this question...who are the share holds of USPS? Who are reaping the profits or feeling the losses? The people at the top are mostly government officials. No doubt the trail of money leads back to the government somewhere. I am going to use my google powers to find out more.

Upvote for anything with Peter Singer in it.

I think his overall approach to ethics is fundamentally wrong-headed, but his tremendous willingness to ethical theory into action and to raise awareness of the usually overlooked ethical aspects of of day-to-day life are eminently respectable.

Chapter 1 courtesy of the http://richarddawkins.net/article,4217,Extract-from-Chapter-One-of-The-Greatest-Show-on-Earth,Richard-Dawkins---Times-Online

Imagine that you are a teacher of Roman history and the Latin language, anxious to impart your enthusiasm for the ancient world — for the elegiacs of Ovid and the odes of Horace, the sinewy economy of Latin grammar as exhibited in the oratory of Cicero, the strategic niceties of the Punic Wars, the generalship of Julius Caesar and the voluptuous excesses of the later emperors. That’s a big undertaking and it takes time, concentration, dedication. Yet you find your precious time continually preyed upon, and your class’s attention distracted, by a baying pack of ignoramuses (as a Latin scholar you would know better than to say ignorami) who, with strong political and especially financial support, scurry about tirelessly attempting to persuade your unfortunate pupils that the Romans never existed. There never was a Roman Empire. The entire world came into existence only just beyond living memory. Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan, Occitan, Romansh: all these languages and their constituent dialects sprang spontaneously and separately into being, and owe nothing to any predecessor such as Latin.

Instead of devoting your full attention to the noble vocation of classical scholar and teacher, you are forced to divert your time and energy to a rearguard defence of the proposition that the Romans existed at all: a defence against an exhibition of ignorant prejudice that would make you weep if you weren’t too busy fighting it.

If my fantasy of the Latin teacher seems too wayward, here’s a more realistic example. Imagine you are a teacher of more recent history, and your lessons on 20th-century Europe are boycotted, heckled or otherwise disrupted by well-organised, well-financed and politically muscular groups of Holocaust-deniers. Unlike my hypothetical Rome-deniers, Holocaustdeniers really exist. They are vocal, superficially plausible and adept at seeming learned. They are supported by the president of at least one currently powerful state, and they include at least one bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Imagine that, as a teacher of European history, you are continually faced with belligerent demands to “teach the controversy”, and to give “equal time” to the “alternative theory” that the Holocaust never happened but was invented by a bunch of Zionist fabricators.

Fashionably relativist intellectuals chime in to insist that there is no absolute truth: whether the Holocaust happened is a matter of personal belief; all points of view are equally valid and should be equally “respected”.

The plight of many science teachers today is not less dire. When they attempt to expound the central and guiding principle of biology; when they honestly place the living world in its historical context — which means evolution; when they explore and explain the very nature of life itself, they are harried and stymied, hassled and bullied, even threatened with loss of their jobs. At the very least their time is wasted at every turn. They are likely to receive menacing letters from parents and have to endure the sarcastic smirks and close-folded arms of brainwashed children. They are supplied with state-approved textbooks that have had the word “evolution” systematically expunged, or bowdlerized into “change over time”. Once, we were tempted to laugh this kind of thing off as a peculiarly American phenomenon. Teachers in Britain and Europe now face the same problems, partly because of American influence, but more significantly because of the growing Islamic presence in the classroom — abetted by the official commitment to “multiculturalism” and the terror of being thought racist.

It is frequently, and rightly, said that senior clergy and theologians have no problem with evolution and, in many cases, actively support scientists in this respect. This is often true, as I know from the agreeable experience of collaborating with the Bishop of Oxford, now Lord Harries, on two separate occasions. In 2004 we wrote a joint article in The Sunday Times whose concluding words were: “Nowadays there is nothing to debate. Evolution is a fact and, from a Christian perspective, one of the greatest of God’s works.” The last sentence was written by Richard Harries, but we agreed about all the rest of our article. Two years previously, Bishop Harries and I had organised a joint letter to the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

[In the letter, eminent scientists and churchmen, including seven bishops, expressed concern over the teaching of evolution and their alarm at it being posed as a “faith position”at the Emmanuel City Technology College in Gateshead.] Bishop Harries and I organised this letter in a hurry. As far as I remember, the signatories to the letter constituted 100 per cent of those we approached. There was no disagreement either from scientists or from bishops.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has no problem with evolution, nor does the Pope (give or take the odd wobble over the precise palaeontological juncture when the human soul was injected), nor do educated priests and professors of theology. The Greatest Show on Earth is a book about the positive evidence that evolution is a fact. It is not intended as an antireligious book. I’ve done that, it’s another T-shirt, this is not the place to wear it again. Bishops and theologians who have attended to the evidence for evolution have given up the struggle against it. Some may do so reluctantly, some, like Richard Harries, enthusiastically, but all except the woefully uninformed are forced to accept the fact of evolution.

They may think God had a hand in starting the process off, and perhaps didn’t stay his hand in guiding its future progress. They probably think God cranked the Universe up in the first place, and solemnised its birth with a harmonious set of laws and physical constants calculated to fulfil some inscrutable purpose in which we were eventually to play a role.

But, grudgingly in some cases, happily in others, thoughtful and rational churchmen and women accept the evidence for evolution.

What we must not do is complacently assume that, because bishops and educated clergy accept evolution, so do their congregations. Alas there is ample evidence to the contrary from opinion polls. More than 40 per cent of Americans deny that humans evolved from other animals, and think that we — and by implication all of life — were created by God within the last 10,000 years. The figure is not quite so high in Britain, but it is still worryingly large. And it should be as worrying to the churches as it is to scientists. This book is necessary. I shall be using the name “historydeniers” for those people who deny evolution: who believe the world’s age is measured in thousands of years rather than thousands of millions of years, and who believe humans walked with dinosaurs.

To repeat, they constitute more than 40 per cent of the American population. The equivalent figure is higher in some countries, lower in others, but 40 per cent is a good average and I shall from time to time refer to the history-deniers as the “40percenters”.

To return to the enlightened bishops and theologians, it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into combating the anti-scientific nonsense that they deplore. All too many preachers, while agreeing that evolution is true and Adam and Eve never existed, will then blithely go into the pulpit and make some moral or theological point about Adam and Eve in their sermons without once mentioning that, of course, Adam and Eve never actually existed! If challenged, they will protest that they intended a purely “symbolic” meaning, perhaps something to do with “original sin”, or the virtues of innocence. They may add witheringly that, obviously, nobody would be so foolish as to take their words literally. But do their congregations know that? How is the person in the pew, or on the prayer-mat, supposed to know which bits of scripture to take literally, which symbolically? Is it really so easy for an uneducated churchgoer to guess? In all too many cases the answer is clearly no, and anybody could be forgiven for feeling confused.

Think about it, Bishop. Be careful, Vicar. You are playing with dynamite, fooling around with a misunderstanding that’s waiting to happen — one might even say almost bound to happen if not forestalled. Shouldn’t you take greater care, when speaking in public, to let your yea be yea and your nay be nay? Lest ye fall into condemnation, shouldn’t you be going out of your way to counter that already extremely widespread popular misunderstanding and lend active and enthusiastic support to scientists and science teachers? The history-deniers themselves are among those who I am trying to reach. But, perhaps more importantly, I aspire to arm those who are not history-deniers but know some — perhaps members of their own family or church — and find themselves inadequately prepared to argue the case.

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact. The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust. It is the plain truth that we are cousins of chimpanzees, somewhat more distant cousins of monkeys, more distant cousins still of aardvarks and manatees, yet more distant cousins of bananas and turnips . . . continue the list as long as desired. That didn’t have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even educated people, thought it wasn’t. It didn’t have to be true, but it is. We know this because a rising flood of evidence supports it. Evolution is a fact, and [my] book will demonstrate it. No reputable scientist disputes it, and no unbiased reader will close the book doubting it.

Why, then, do we speak of “Darwin’s theory of evolution”, thereby, it seems, giving spurious comfort to those of a creationist persuasion — the history-deniers, the 40-percenters — who think the word “theory” is a concession, handing them some kind of gift or victory? Evolution is a theory in the same sense as the heliocentric theory. In neither case should the word “only” be used, as in “only a theory”. As for the claim that evolution has never been “proved”, proof is a notion that scientists have been intimidated into mistrusting.

Influential philosophers tell us we can’t prove anything in science.

Mathematicians can prove things — according to one strict view, they are the only people who can — but the best that scientists can do is fail to disprove things while pointing to how hard they tried. Even the undisputed theory that the Moon is smaller than the Sun cannot, to the satisfaction of a certain kind of philosopher, be proved in the way that, for example, the Pythagorean Theorem can be proved. But massive accretions of evidence support it so strongly that to deny it the status of “fact” seems ridiculous to all but pedants. The same is true of evolution. Evolution is a fact in the same sense as it is a fact that Paris is in the northern hemisphere. Though logic-choppers rule the town,* some theories are beyond sensible doubt, and we call them facts. The more energetically and thoroughly you try to disprove a theory, if it survives the assault, the more closely it approaches what common sense happily calls a fact.

We are like detectives who come on the scene after a crime has been committed. The murderer’s actions have vanished into the past.

The detective has no hope of witnessing the actual crime with his own eyes. What the detective does have is traces that remain, and there is a great deal to trust there. There are footprints, fingerprints (and nowadays DNA fingerprints too), bloodstains, letters, diaries. The world is the way the world should be if this and this history, but not that and that history, led up to the present.

Evolution is an inescapable fact, and we should celebrate its astonishing power, simplicity and beauty. Evolution is within us, around us, between us, and its workings are embedded in the rocks of aeons past. Given that, in most cases, we don’t live long enough to watch evolution happening before our eyes, we shall revisit the metaphor of the detective coming upon the scene of a crime after the event and making inferences. The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eyewitness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century, to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time.

*Not my favourite Yeats line, but apt in this case.

© Richard Dawkins 2009

Quantummushroom,
“The point is that there are thousands of religions in the world, contradicting each other, and solely on the basis of the mutual contradictions most of them have to be wrong.”
You’re conclusion is indeed correct!

If all the religions have their origin from the Creator, [proof for a Creator, see my blog: bloganders.blogspot.com (left menu)) it implies that the contradictions betweens the religions reflect a self-contradicting Creator.

No eminent scientist represents that our perfectly-orderly universe can be explained ex nihilo without a Prime Cause.

Being logically consistent (orderly), the universe must mirror its Prime Cause / Singularity-Creator—Who must be Perfectly Orderly; i.e. Perfect. Therefore, no intelligent person can ignore that our purpose and challenge in life is learning how we, as imperfect humans, may successfully relate to a Perfect Singularity-Creatorwithout our co-mingling, which transcends the timespace of this dimensional physical universe, becoming an imperfection to the Perfect Singularity-Creator
An orderly Creator necessarily had an Intelligent Purpose in creating this universe and us within it and, being Just and Orderly, necessarily placed an explanation, a "Life's Instruction Manual," within the reach of His subjects—humankind.

It defies the orderliness (logic / mathematics) of both the universe and Perfection of its Creator to assert that humanity was (contrary to His Tor•âh′ , see below) without any means of rapproachment until millennia after the first couple in recorded history as well as millennia after Abraham, Moses and the prophets. Therefore, theCreator's "Life's Instruction Manual" has been available to man at least since the beginning of recorded history. The only enduring document of this kind is the Tor•âh′ —which, interestingly, translates to "Instruction" (not "law" as popularly alleged). [Source and more extensive reasoning: www.netzarim.co.il]

Religions that contradict with Torah cannot therefore describe a religion from the Creator.

Anders Branderud

Yup thats where i was. I couldn't remember, but yes.
I probably saw your stupid house. I should have peed on it.
Had i known about the sift this time last year and what a dick you were, we would have had to get beers and insult each other. We stayed in Mission Bay, and I liked it there pretty well. Also In-N-Out burger sucks.

Don't pretend like you don't want to hang out with me.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
I know exactly where you were...that's belmont park (with a rollercoaster, no?). That gyro place is bomb. And that wave machine is RIGHT next to thewavehouse where on Sundays they do a house party in the afternoon til about 10. If it wasn't for the eminent hangover on mondays I'd be there every sunday. I live about 3 miles away from there, wow that's really close for sifters to be to one another without tearing a hole in the sift-space continuum.

I'd say next time you're over here to hit me up, but you're probably not coming back and we probably don't want you...:P

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
some place where they had surf boards and a wave for people to surf on. It was obnoxious and also some sort of terrible radio station was there blasting shit hole music. It wasn't house music though. It was like new rock shit that I hate. It was right on the beach and right across from the best gyros ever.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
The Wave or the wavehouse? I like the wave house...

(house music + sunsets)*drugs = awesome

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
i came for the gyros.
oh and the pizza

but not for that place called "The Wave". That place can suck my ass.

Fort Worth is the same way so I can't give you the golden shower that you probably deserve

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Yea SD does suck post anal sex discharge, but...but...well I can't defend this fucking place.

I can't apologize for the people here because they piss me off too...and I probably piss them off. Next thing you know we're all pissing each other off and here comes a tourist like yourself that walks right into the middle of this angry piss-fest and starts crying about getting pissed on...well fuck you, who fucking invited you anyway?!

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
well Rottenseed, i was in San Diego this time last year.... water was pretty.. people were dicks.

stopped at a place by the ocean to drink a beer.... full of pricks.

So.. basically San Diego can suck my cooter. (spell check is flagging cooter and suggesting cuter.. .oh spell check you don't know how right you are...)

I did enjoy the tiny Photography Museum though.

I know exactly where you were...that's belmont park (with a rollercoaster, no?). That gyro place is bomb. And that wave machine is RIGHT next to thewavehouse where on Sundays they do a house party in the afternoon til about 10. If it wasn't for the eminent hangover on mondays I'd be there every sunday. I live about 3 miles away from there, wow that's really close for sifters to be to one another without tearing a hole in the sift-space continuum.

I'd say next time you're over here to hit me up, but you're probably not coming back and we probably don't want you...:P

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
some place where they had surf boards and a wave for people to surf on. It was obnoxious and also some sort of terrible radio station was there blasting shit hole music. It wasn't house music though. It was like new rock shit that I hate. It was right on the beach and right across from the best gyros ever.

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
The Wave or the wavehouse? I like the wave house...

(house music + sunsets)*drugs = awesome

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
i came for the gyros.
oh and the pizza

but not for that place called "The Wave". That place can suck my ass.

Fort Worth is the same way so I can't give you the golden shower that you probably deserve

In reply to this comment by rottenseed:
Yea SD does suck post anal sex discharge, but...but...well I can't defend this fucking place.

I can't apologize for the people here because they piss me off too...and I probably piss them off. Next thing you know we're all pissing each other off and here comes a tourist like yourself that walks right into the middle of this angry piss-fest and starts crying about getting pissed on...well fuck you, who fucking invited you anyway?!

In reply to this comment by inflatablevagina:
well Rottenseed, i was in San Diego this time last year.... water was pretty.. people were dicks.

stopped at a place by the ocean to drink a beer.... full of pricks.

So.. basically San Diego can suck my cooter. (spell check is flagging cooter and suggesting cuter.. .oh spell check you don't know how right you are...)

I did enjoy the tiny Photography Museum though.

From: http://er.jsc.nasa.gov/seh/ricetalk.htm

Transcript:

President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen:

I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.

I am delighted to be here, and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.

We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a State noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.

Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation¹s own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.

No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man¹s recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.

Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.

This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.

So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this State of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.

William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.

If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in the race for space.

Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolutions, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.

Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.

We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say the we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.

In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where the F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.

Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were "made in the United States of America" and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.

The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the the 40-yard lines.

Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.

We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.

To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.

The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.

And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this State, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your City of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this Center in this City.

To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year¹s space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United Stated, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us.

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.

I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]

However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the term of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.

I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.

Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."

Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

Thank you.