102 thoughts on “Let’s Go To Mars”

  1. “A robot has built…”

    they’re here and they’re the future.  jamie pointed out how “they” not nafta caused the massive job losses. now, solar, “they” are after your building industry.  next “they” will take over my computer, the trail (if not already… did poohbah really write this thread?), run for office, *vote with those infernal automated voting machines for themselves, become a prez and critterville combined.

    *citizens united gave incorporeal corps freedom of speech so robots aren’t far behind in being given the vote.

    assimilate, folks, resistance is futile.

  2. Hidden in the business section of WashPo is an article about a new mill in Georgia to make towels.  It covers labor costs in China, high tech “labor” (it is a computer control environment), poverty, and politics.  Pretty good for a piece about “Made In The USA” labels.  The understory is that clearing out the old mills made way for the new mills, it took time, and a lot of economic pain to do this.

    Is this a return to the U.S. of jobs sent overseas?  It will take time to see.  I would like to see a toaster manufacturer make toasters here.  I am tired of Chinese toasters which have a dial to control the cooking of the bread, but in reality are there to tease you.  Burn or raw?  Turning the dial has little to do with the output.  Currently mine is on burn, last week it was warm.  I grew up with a wonderful toaster which was as reliable as sunrise.  Then I left home to make my way through the world and to buy my own toasters.  Sigh.

    Congress – give American toaster makers a nice tax break so we can enjoy a perfect slice of toast with our egg.

  4. Republican Elite’s Reign of Disdain
    Paul Krugman

    “Stripped down to its essence, the G.O.P. elite view is that working-class America faces a crisis, not of opportunity, but of values. That is, for some mysterious reason many of our citizens have, as Mr. Ryan puts it, lost “their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.” And this crisis of values, they suggest, has been aided and abetted by social programs that make life too easy on slackers.
    The problems with this diagnosis should be obvious. Tens of millions of people don’t suffer a collapse in values for no reason. Remember, several decades ago the sociologist William Julius Wilson argued that the social ills of America’s black community didn’t come out of thin air, but were the result of disappearing economic opportunity. If he was right, you would have expected declining opportunity to have the same effect on whites, and sure enough, that’s exactly what we’re seeing.”
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/opinion/republican-elites-reign-of-disdain.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&module=Trending&version=Full&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article

  5. No, Not Trump, Not Ever
    David Brooks
    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/18/opinion/no-not-trump-not-ever.html?src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Trending&pgtype=article

    “As the founders would have understood, he is a threat to the long and glorious experiment of American self-government. He is precisely the kind of scapegoating, promise-making, fear-driving and deceiving demagogue they feared.”

    Trump’s supporters deserve respect. They are left out of this economy. But Trump himself? No, not Trump, not ever.”
    Poor David, he along with other sane members of the Republican Party are cracking up, don’t blame them, ah but they created the Trump monster with all their hate. It’s never easy but they need to find “Love and Kindness” Hillary speaks about. It’s the only way of vanquishing the monster.

  7. “I grew up with a wonderful toaster which was as reliable as sunrise.”

    bb, still have the sunbeam I grew up with, still works.  only been refurbished once (bad wire).  beautiful design, beautiful toast…  only draw back: won’t do big bagels.

     

  10. Let the bracket busting begin.  2 12-5  and one 11-6 upsets yesterday. Yale, AK-Little Rock and Wichita State had a lot of folks crying in their green beer.

  12. So is this Mars robot landing pad builder one of those chicken/egg things?  It can build the landing pad, but needs a landing pad to land on to build it?

    OK, so on to politics.

    Glenn Kessler says “When it comes to trade, Donald Trump is stuck in a time warp” and gives him a whooping  4 Pinocchios for his misunderstanding, misstatements and outdated views on trade.  Yep, we’re going to be so tired of winning…

  13. here’s to yalies and their very 1st ncaa march madness win. bull dog bull dog bow wow wow

    The Yale Bands is celebrating the centennial of the Cole Porter (BA ’13) fight songs!

  15. new york times: As Hillary Clinton Sweeps States, One Group Resists: White Men
    While Mrs. Clinton swept the five major primaries on Tuesday, she lost white men in all of them, and by double-digit margins in Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, exit polls showed — a sharp turnabout from 2008, when she won double-digit victories among white male voters in all three states.
    [….]
    “She’s talking to minorities now, not really to white people, and that’s a mistake,” said Dennis Bertko, 66, a construction project manager in Youngstown, Ohio, as he sipped a draft beer at the Golden Dawn Restaurant in a downtrodden part of town. “She could have a broader message. We would have listened.”
    “Instead, she’s talking a lot about continuing Obama’s policies,” he said. “I just don’t necessarily agree with all of the liberal ideas of Obama.”
    Mr. Bertko said that he rarely crossed party lines but that he voted for Donald J. Trump, who is making a strong pitch to disaffected white men by assailing free-trade agreements that Mrs. Clinton once supported. “I know a lot of guys who are open to Trump,” he said.

  17. re mars mission:

    “I’d like to have a few more years [to get to Mars],” he said. “A very attractive time for a president to make a commitment is on the 50th anniversary of America first landing on the Moon, and that’s 2019; if you look at two decades from there, you come up with about 2039, so I round that up to 2040.”

    By 2040, Aldrin explained, astronauts could have visited Mars’ moon Phobos, which could serve as a sort of stepping stone to Mars. “From there, people can make the final assembly and check out of all the habitation and final supplies and all the life support systems,” Aldrin said. “If they are successful doing that, they can go down and land [on Mars].”

    The second man on the moon has already conceptualized the “Aldrin Mars Cycler,” a system whereby spacecraft cycle between Earth and Mars. The Cycler aims to reduce the amount of fuel needed for the epic journey, as well as limiting the health risks posed to astronauts by long-term spaceflight.

    “That’s my method for getting people to Mars,” he told FoxNews.com. “There would be more people coming in just behind [the first astronauts to land].”

  20. patd, should be a barn burner.  I watched Kentucky last night and have watched them a few times this year. They aren’t what they once were, but they ain’t bad.  ESPN (actually, 538) gives them the edge at 68 to 32% chance of winning against Indiana.

  21. suspicious letter sent to son of drumpf

    A suspicious piece of mail containing white powder was sent to Eric Trump’s New York City apartment Thursday, a Trump Organization source told ABC News.

    A preliminary field test indicated the substance did not appear hazardous, according to the source, who was briefed on the matter.

    hmmm, suspiciously smells like the d’s favorite talc to me.  must admit he is good at getting free media coverage. this kind of story takes the spotlight off the negative news starting to bubble up about him and the inevitable boredom with the primaries right now.

  22. pogo, depends on whether ulis and murray can stay the whole 40 minutes.

    btw, now that myrtle, grassly  and hatch have advised and consented to not talking to garland what about Obama making a recess appointment during spring recess?  citing emergency: less than full banc on scotus.

  27. this driverless car stuff spooks me, but maybe they’ll be safer than humans:

    The autonomous vehicles use GPS to match their position with customized Google maps. This allows the cars to select a starting point and an end point, as well as to choose the best routes to take. Radars in the front and back of the cars keep track of other vehicles on the road. The LIDAR sensor rotates 360 degrees and detects the distance between the autonomous vehicles and surrounding objects. A video camera behind the front windshield is able to read road signs and traffic lights.

  30. BlueB…  I hear ya on that toaster…

    I say… did someone say Mars…    just think…  Nicholson = Obama…  Martians = Republicans….

  32. Craig,

    Just pretend you are wealthy and casually sitting in the limo reading while your Chauffeur takes you to your destination.  ?

     

  33. Have to wonder what alternative universe conservatives are living in when it comes to Trump?

    The plan now is to deny Trump the nomination at the convention and then put forward some sort of unity ticket. simple as that right? They engage in all this discussion and various scenarios without ever once considering the possibility that were it to come to pass, Trump and his supporters would run on their own. The possibility never even seems to occur to them. My only conclusion is that conservatives have been getting their drinking water from Flint Michigan.

  35. there go the delivery jobs

    WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Fast food giant Domino’s is to trial pizza delivery robots in New Zealand, it said Friday, describing the hi-tech, driverless units as a world first.

    In a move enthusiastically backed by the New Zealand government, Domino’s said it was working with authorities on plans to roll out its DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit).

    https://youtu.be/WePG7Eh1yzM
    Published on Mar 18, 2016

    Domino’s is bringing robotic pizza delivery to New Zealand. The pizza chain today announced that it will trial a battery-powered delivery robot in the capital city of Wellington, describing the bot as “the world’s first autonomous pizza delivery vehicle.”

    Known as DRU (Domino’s Robotic Unit), the four-wheel robot was developed in Australia and is capable of completing deliveries within a 20-mile radius on a single charge. DRU stands at just under three-feet tall, and uses an array of sensors to avoid obstacles. Up to ten pizzas can be stored in the bot’s heated compartment, which can be unlocked with a code that customers are given when they order.

    DRU is the latest in a series of tech-centric campaigns from Domino’s. In 2014, the company created a Siri-like virtual assistant that customers can use to order pizza, and last year it began accepting text message orders with pizza emoji. Other companies have looked to develop robots for delivery as well, including Starship Technologies, which announced its own (very similar) autonomous bot at Mobile World Congress this year.

    A start date for the Domino’s trial has not been announced, but New Zealand’s government is already very excited about it. “This is an exciting opportunity for New Zealand… over the last 12 months I’ve been actively and aggressively promoting New Zealand as a test bed for new transport technology trials,” Transport Minister Simon Bridges tells the AFP.

  36. from cnn
    For months, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has been warning the nation about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But on Thursday, Graham told CNN that not only is he supporting Cruz, he’s fundraising for him. Graham pointed to Donald Trump’s rise as the reason, explaining that Cruz might be the only one to stop him.

    “I think he’s the best alternative to beat Donald Trump,” Graham told CNN. “I’m going to help Ted in any way I can.”

    wonder if this is a sly scheme to rid the senate of ted at the same time doing drumpf in

  37. Pat,

    I already have a gig in Mars and the surrounding universe: Im always looking for a biz opportunities: No building, I have the first of a kind, travel thru the universe tour company……this is what teach (bethy boo) and i decided to do………she hardly ever shows up tho….must be real busy with those nephews of hers…….here, take my hand…..not to worry, we will be back before the next thread comes along…..ever do the tango in outer space?……a little bit different….have to be real light on your feet….but just as fun……ready or not…….

  38. Click on tha pic above and see how i rigged some special effects that are “FAR OUT”…..spidey gal, ever have floating pop-corn?…..u want some? later off to the gym to get ready for blast off….

  39. Jace…  I’d bet good money that the GOP elite know there’s a possibility of Trump running as an independent if they deny him the nomination.  However, everything I’m reading says they think a Trump nomination would mean the end of their party.  They hate Hillary…  but if electing her as president means the survival of their party…  that might be a bitter pill some are willing to swallow.

    Hey….  how about some butter on your popcorn.

  40. Poobah – a day driving in this area and you’l be begging for driverless cars to take over.  You’d believe that half the cars here are driverless cars that have been infected with viruses.

    Radars in the front and back of the cars keep track of other vehicles on the road. The LIDAR sensor rotates 360 degrees and detects the distance between the autonomous vehicles and surrounding objects. A video camera behind the front windshield is able to read road signs and traffic lights.

    See, nobody around here bothers with all that.

  42. The boy wonder Marco, was one dejected little dude yesterday. Going to work hard (LOL) and finish his term in the Senate and then return to private life.

    I guess we won’t have Marco Rubio to “kick around anymore.”

  43. RR,

    You may be right. Obviously the republican party needs a cleansing, and the country needs two viable political parties. For the republicans to throw an election in an attempt to build a new party would require a lot of hardliners to put the good of the country ahead of narrow political interests. Their history of that over the past seven plus years is not all that encouraging.

  45. Pat,

    You ought to drive in AZ. Cars there come equipped with only an accelerator pedal a horn and a very prominent middle finger. Everything else is optional.

  48. from chicago trib

    Several additional Republican senators said Thursday that they would grant Garland a courtesy meeting when the Senate returns after a two-week recess that begins Friday. In every case, however, they insisted that such a meeting would not change their position on hearings for Garland.

    I suspect that their promise to meet with him after the recess is a way to insure no presidential recess appointment during those 2 weeks.

  49. The move towards automated safety packages on vehicles is a seriously positive move in my eyes. Right now I’d be willing to pay $10K for a fully integrated retrofit package for Rosie; safety for all is that important.

  52. pogo,  cbs sports going ape over the game

    On Saturday, after a four-year absence that has robbed us of one of college basketball’s best and most bloodthirsty rivalries, the Kentucky Wildcats and Indiana Hoosiers will square up for the right to move on to the Sweet 16.

    This is the college basketball version of Star Wars finally hitting theaters. Of Kanye dropping Life of Pablo if first he had sworn off music. Of that glass of lemonade Lawrence of Arabia demanded.

    This is big.
    [….]
    In a game that only happened because the selection committee had the right mix of a sense of humor and a sense of what the rest of us deserve.

    So get ready. The last time these teams played it was Kentucky knocking Indiana out of this very tournament on the way to a national title. Before that it was an Indiana win over a No. 1-ranked Wildcats team in 2011 on a buzzer-beater that was as fine a basketball game as you can hope to see.

  53. The roads in the Midlands of SC are appallingly bad. Our governor, the celebrated Ms Haley, has clutched the State’s purse so tightly that the cost of repairs, in total, are now dramatically higher than they would have been had she allowed responsible maintenance programs. And, it’s not as if we are cash poor.

  54. Tonight we go down to cheer the #1 seed Gamecocks Women’s team against #16-seed Jax State. It will be on ESPN2 at 1930-EDT. It’s the first round.

  55. Flatus,

    Sounds like the good folks in South Carolina have voted for less of everything, and Governor Haley is doing her best to grant their wishes. Not unlike AZ. When you vote republican, bad roads and underfunded public education are sure to follow, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

  57. See, Poobah, Sturg knows bad driving when he sees it.  Hard to believe WV didn’t make the list in the top 3.

  59. I started driving when I was seven and regularly drove on private property until I got a street license at 15.  At 72 I can say I’ve never had an accident or a moving violation (lead foot Lucy wasn’t caught).  After all these years of fearless driving, people out there are starting to scare me.  If computers will keep them out of cars, it’s fine with me even if I would really miss driving.

     

  60. Possible GOP Unity tickets.

    Kasich/Graham: Two white guys, spouting personal responsibility and the virtue of trickle down economics. Sounds like real winning platform to me.

    Bush/Rubio: What the Hell, at least they have lots of practice losing.

    Ben Carson/Herman Caine: Republican outreach.

    Scott Walker/Sam Brownback: Oh Baby! You folks thought the economy was bad under W. Just wait!

    Christie/Christie: I’m big enough to fill both positions, and I can work the cones for the inauguration.

    Surely there must be many more! This is the party that has (had) a very deep bench.

  61. If you want to terrorize yourself just for the fun of it all, drive Highway 49 through the gold rush towns.  It’s fairly easy climbing from Placerville to Angels Camp to Coloma, but then you start the trek down towards Coarsegold.  Constant switch backs where you can’t see around the edge of the mountain so you have to keep your eyes on the two lane road coming up to see what might be heading in your direction.  Then there are very few railings and down a thousand feet or so below you is the National Forest just waiting for you and the car to arrive suddenly.

    Unless you just can’t live without finding out why covered wagons, mule trains, and horses made this trip, give up in Coloma and head back to Placerville and add an extra three hours to the trip by heading back to Sacramento and then on to Fresno and taking a nice four lane freeway 41 to the same place on your way to Bass Lake and Yosemite.

    To heck with the 49ers.  Most of them died broke anyway. Go visit the touristy frog country of Angels camp and the more authentic mining town of Coloma

    Angels Camp

    Coloma

     

  62. There’s a road runs from around Evergreen  Color-raydo up to I-70 called “Oh My God Road”.  If you’re ever in the aries give it a whirl. But don’t tow your 18′ Prowler when you do. And don’t even think about turning around.

  65. Between 3 pm and 6 pm, the majority of drivers appear not to know how to drive, at least in Santa Rosa, California

    I read somewhere that on Sunday evening 9 out of 10 drivers are impaired.

    No personal cars on Mars

     

  66. Michigan’s governor was a typical republican ass hat yesterday. Everybody was to blame in Flint it was a collective failure. No it wasn’t, it was a republican failure and more particularly his failure. Typical republican mindset; privatize the successes and collectivize the failures. His performance in the hearing was almost as abysmal as his performance on the job. The only place in Michigan that required an emergency manager was the governors office.

  68.  from new york times article Donald Trump’s Rise Reverberates Around the World:
    Der Spiegel, the German newspaper, has also been dumbfounded by Mr. Trump’s rise. In an essay this week, Holger Stark, its Washington bureau chief, called out America’s press as culpable for the momentum behind his candidacy.
    “Many newsrooms didn’t fulfill their democratic duty to monitor Trump, and to perform checks and balances, letting him get away with insults, lies and far-fetched promises,” Mr. Stark wrote in an essay. “When it comes to Trump, the critical public sphere has shown itself to be dysfunctional far too often in the last few months.”

  70. Jamie,

    Thanks.

    Flint is a tragedy and probably not an isolated one. The arrogance and incompetence of Snyder and the rest of his low tax,no service cronies is nothing short of breath taking.

  71. If Cruz gets into the WH, we may need to start the fish camp on Mars.  Great (and scary) article in Salon about Ted’s foreign policy team.  Squad goals. Not.

  72. patd

    Every time I see anything anywhere about Donald Trump, my immediate reaction is “You have got to be kidding!” and then I realize there are people voting for him and I want to sob.

  73. No, Flint is not alone. The did a piece about Hattiesburg, MS (I think) a few weeks ago.

    We also have a small area of Dallas with water/sewer problems, or a lack of them.

    Parts of our country are third-worldly.

    Having grown up with only cold water inside (and an outhouse) until I was 17, my family were among the last to join in the luxury of a hot bath.  However, living so close to farmland (an irrigation ditch separated town and country) there was a lot of pesticide run-off in the water.  But, we were breathing it in as the crop dusters canvased the area.

    Ah, the good, old days?

  74. In Flint, however, it was directly caused by cost cutting without a full understanding of the consequences.

    And then a colossal disregard for the people of Flint.

     

  75. Please, don’t be offended by what this old grandfather must ask of Trayvon. Please, child, move forward just a little bit so that we can squeeze in the babies from Flint. Let us make certain sure that Governor Snyder knows that Black Lives Matter.

  76. I’ve seen Boston traffice and Arizona traffic neither one out of the ordinary

    But now Miami………

    That is the only place that I’ve seen some one dart from the left hand lane across 4 lanes of traffic to just make the exit ramp. No signale no warning and just missing the bumpers of cars as they went across. And it wasn’t just once it happened 3 times in less than an ho

    As to making any of the expensive tech manditory????

    As a young man I would have figured out a way to disable it, no fun.

    when I get too elderly to drive safely it would be nice to get in the car and go where I want with no worries. Freedom.

    Jack

  77. “. . . without a full understanding of the consequences.”  

    Are you absolutely sure, Ms Cracker ? Or was it without caring about the consequences ?

     

  78. I think the events of Hattiesburg and Flint fall under the rubric of Crimes Against Humanity.

    Back in the cowboy days that repubs yearn for, well poisoning was an offense punishable by lynching.

    While we must keep the rules of law and due process, to prevent America’s descent into barbarism, gov snyder certainly deserves to be hung by the neck from a Flint lamp post and used for target practice.

  84. earth hour tomorrow

    Let’s keep the momentum going. On March 19 join the world in a historic lights-out display by turning off all non-essential lights at 8:30 p.m. your local time and recommit to the fight against climate change. Together, we can tackle climate change and create a future where people and nature thrive.

    See the complete list of participant cities, landmarks, businesses and universities who are keeping the momentum going.

    thank god the game will be over by then… I hope.

  86. With every passing Trump ragefest, it gets harder and harder to treat his supporters like actual adults—but Samantha gives it a shot.

  91. Ha! Mittens says he’ll vote for Cruz, not because he wants him to be the nominee, but to force an open convention so the party machine can insert its own candidate.

    They are playing some dangerous games.  Turd won’t be so easy to scrape offa their shoes.

  93. Willard will vote for Cruz, but he won’t endorse him.  Whaaaa kinda  ridiculousness!  I guess Teddy isn’t good enough to marry.

    As for the shock folks seem to have when Trump gets votes…look at the competition, which offers nothing but more of the same garbage…or whatever different kinda garbage Cruz is selling.

     

  95. Dear Mitt,

    Not to burst your bubble, but ’47 percent’ of the people hate Ted Cruz. The other 53 percent merely detest him.

    Sincerely

     

    jace

  99. Erick Erickson is playing a prominent role in the anti-Trump movement.

    Small wonder that the movement is having limited success.

  100. Aren’t repubs opposed to a Mars shot ? I would think they’d hate socialist NASA. Wouldn’t they want to keep heaven free-market, and unsullied by socialist enterprise ?
    Enquiring peeps wanna know.

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