Random Access Memories

Off to head up north for the weekend in hopes of better temperatures.

Gotta break in the new (used) station wagon.

It’s really nice that the US congress can take up really important issues at this critical time, such as deciding if people should be allowed to kill horses for consumption.

Yes, I mean terrorism, immigration, the economy and healthcare reform should all totally take a backseat to deciding if it’s legal for a horses owner to do what they want with their property.

So, on NPR this morning I hear a story about Israelis having to deal with the trauma of rocket attacks. The gentleman they talked to was taking multiple anti-depressants to deal with the stress. All their medical paid for by the government of Israel, which in turn gets paid by the US government.
It would be nice if my government used my tax money to help it’s own citizens with healthcare before it offers it up to Israel.

So, I got to thinking about the hunt for Bin Laden. And I started realizing that:

#1, Bush has not mentioned him much at all.

#2, Bush has not seemed to put much effort into finding him either.

My thought is that Bush needs him alive as an antagonist. If we captured or killed Bin Laden then Bush’s “Global War on Terrorism” would lose it’s steam rather quickly.

Voters would shift from thinking about security and start asking about other issues. This would mean the Republican juggernaut would lose most of it’s steam.

Of course it’s losing power just based on public opinion, but what other explaination can really account for the fact that he is still at large?

I was curious the other day about how many people in Secondlife make a profit off their work in that virtual world.

This is the best data I could come up with based on the # of Linden Dollars that LL says are left on the market after sinks, and a rough guess that 20,000 users actually interact with the economy.

I also had no basis for distribution of wealth, so I used the list of transactions by value. (If anyone has any better data i’m listening)

# of users - USD Yearly Net (After sinks)
7509 - 296.68
3495 - 637.20
3314 - 672.43
2460 - 905.61
1647 - 1,351.40
718 -- 3,095.93
692 -- 3,214.08
129 -- 17,160.62
32 --- 68,979.92
4 ---- 567,489.68
1 ---- 1,564,767.87

(No, that 1 making 1.5 mil is not Anshe, it’s just how the formula came out)

So, Lockheed Martin landed the Orion contract. (For those of you not aware Orion is the human launch vehicle that will replace the shuttle)

It’s said to be the “return to the moon” capsule. But I have huge doubts we will be returning to the moon in the next 50 years. It’s simply not cost effective, there is no financial incentive to go.

And without that the program will eventually be nixed by the feds.

We’ll go back to tossing people into earth orbit and running the ISS, with pisspoor returns.

Space travel will only go places with privite investment at this point.