The United States is good at two things. Being rich, and being rebellious.

The first is the product of two geographic accidents and one extremely intelligent decision.

We were close enough to Europe to provide an exciting, temperate, and vast destination for the bored and downtrodden of the 19th century, and yet far enough away to keep us from taking much more then a few bruises when the place collapsed on itself in the 20th.

The extremely intelligent decision was to keep the church out of government affairs. Thomas Jefferson accurately predicted that our southern, "priest ridden," neighbors would succumb to corrupt ineptitude for centuries.

We peaked about 1955. The space program, adjusted for inflation, made our present fiscally unilateral adventures in the middle east look like a minor expense.

We're still quite accustomed to being the richest people on the planet and few seem to be aware that we're in decline. If our military expenditures don't suck us dry the coming implosion of Social Security and Medicare certainly will.

In 40 years we're not going to be the richest anymore.

Neither cost should be underestimated. The domestic concern is now quite well documented. On the other hand, Islamic fundamentalism is an ancient, intractable hate that flourishes because it gives meaning to lives that have none.

Can we really replace that meaning with economic purpose? We can't even create economic purpose here at home.

The other thing, besides being rich, that Americans are good at is rebellion. Our culture is the space that exists between the dress codes of protestant piety and the cloud of pot smoke emanating from the local motorcycle bar. You are taught how to be, and they you are taught not to be it.

Our heros aren't the ones who worked together to solve the problem. They're the ones who stepped outside and succeeded. We don't care about the team. Only the star quarterback matters to us.

Americans are good at going off in a garage somewhere and doing something innovative on one's own. Rebellion is at the heart of that. Thats why the hacker scene was so edgy.

Thats the one hope we have that we can really build a future on once our geographic blessings are spent and everyone else gets an education.

And we're killing it. Between the outsourcing, and the attack on options, and the skittish contraction of meaningful technology investment, we're eliminating the dream that you can go out and work on the edges and be successful.

Sure, Steven Levy found people doing innovative things in Silicon Valley after the crash. There are those among us who don't care about taking risks because they could loose almost all of their net worth without having to change their lifestyles. They are bored and have nothing better to do then tinker. Are we really hanging the future of our economy on a few guys who are rich enough to create their own space programs for fun?

One in one hundred are successful and the more we scale this back the more good opportunities will slip through our fingers.

Today technology innovation consists of screwing up the DNS system. And its not just there. We've even forgotten how to make good music. Our endless co-option of the rebels has been too efficient. The rebels don't have anything more to say.

Taxes and Terrorism. Thats all I can see for years to come. And I'm sick of it already. We heading into a Japanese style socio-economic malaise.

Malaise

] The Census Bureau reported Thursday that four of the 10
] fastest-growing counties in America are in Atlanta's
] suburbs, where sprawl has created some of the worst
] traffic congestion in the country.

No shit Sherlock - some of us have known about this problem for the last decade or longer. -LB

Census: Atlanta suburbs exploding

] They are out there, ready to smack into the Earth and
] wipe out human civilization, but astronomers said on
] Wednesday they are well on their way to finding every
] asteroid that poses a threat.
]
] The next task will be to look for smaller objects that
] might just destroy, say, a city, the experts told the
] U.S. Senate's Subcommittee on Science, Technology and
] Space.
]
] In an update on the Near Earth Object Observation
] Program, experts told the Senate subcommittee that they
] are on schedule to finding everything bigger than 1
] kilometer in diameter that might approach the planet.
]
] "The survey officially started in 1998 and to date more
] than 700 objects of an estimated population of about
] 1,100 have been discovered, so the effort is now believed
] to be over 70 percent complete and well on the way to
] meeting its objective by 2008," NASA's Lindley Johnson
] told the hearing.

Good news. Nothing like the impact of a mile-wide wide rock from outer space to ruin your day. -LB

Dangerous space rocks under watch.

] First, the Passion of the Christ. Now, the torment of the
] Easter Bunny?
]
] It may not have been as gruesome as Mel Gibson's movie,
] but many parents and children got upset when a church
] trying to teach about Jesus' crucifixion performed an
] Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and
] breaking eggs.

Oh those crazy christians! I'd love to see video of this! -LB

Church's Easter show shocks crowd with bunny whipping

] The government announced Wednesday that it has issued the
] first license for a manned suborbital rocket, a step
] toward opening space flight to private individuals for
] the first time.
]
] The Federal Aviation Administration gave a one-year
] license to Scaled Composites of Mojave, Calif., headed by
] Burt Rutan. He is best known for designing the Voyager
] airplane that made the first nonstop, unrefueled flight
] around the world in 1986.
]
] "This is a big step," FAA spokesman Henry Price said.
]
] The Scaled Composites craft consists of a rocket plane,
] dubbed SpaceShipOne, and the White Knight, an exotic jet
] designed to carry it aloft for a high-altitude launch.
] SpaceShipOne, made of graphite and epoxy, has short wings
] and twin vertical tails. It reached 68,000 feet in a
] trial flight.

Awesome! -LB

Government licenses first privately built, manned rocket

And they say that space telescopes will be capable of observing these planets and investigating them to see if they support life in about 15 years' time.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Fifty planets' could have life

] All those years on the couch playing Nintendo and
] PlayStation appear to be paying off for surgeons.
]
] Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three
] hours a week playing video games made about 37% less
] mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task
] 27% faster than their counterparts who did not play video
] games.
]
] "I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games
] as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49,
] who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth
] Israel Medical Center.

I told you so, mom! -LB

Research shows video games lead to fewer mistakes on the operating table

] Dealing with criticism that national security adviser
] Condoleezza Rice wouldn't testify in public before the
] 10-member commission investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist
] attacks, White House spokesman Scott McClellan complained
] last month that when she testified in private, "only five
] members showed up" to hear what she had to say.
]
] What McClellan didn't tell reporters was that on Nov. 21
] %u2014 long before Rice met with the five commissioners
] in February %u2014 the White House counsel's office had
] sent the commission a letter saying no more than three
] commissioners could attend meetings with White House
] aides of Rice's rank.

Gotta love the shell game the whitehouse plays. Goes to show you should not trust ANYTHING the Bush administration says. -LB

USATODAY.com - White House criticism disputed

] Bored Boy Behind President Gets Nationwide Attention

awesome.

Bored Boy Behind President Gets Nationwide Attention

inignoct wrote:
] Upset that the maverick run of Republican Presidential
] candidate (and incumbent President) George W. Bush could lead
] to a victory by John Kerry, Ralph Nader called upon Bush to
] cease splitting the anti-Kerry vote and drop out of the
] race.
]
] I like Nader.
]
] [ Me too. Just not enough to vote for him again. Not more
] than I dislike Bush. I'm not naive enough anymore to believe
] that principle is the only thing i should use to guide my
] choices. Voting for the best (most like me in principle), and
] ending up with the worst (Bush) is *not* better than voting
] for second best and getting it. No one will ever successfully
] use the "The lesser of two evil's is still evil," argument on
] me again -- it may be true, but it's a poor way to choose a
] president. "Less evil" wins over "Not evil but not really a
] competitor" from now on.

Well said. Never in a trillion years did I EVER think I'd vote for Al Gore as president. His over-zealous wife Tipper with the whole PMRC censorship thing in the 80's scared the CRAP out of me.

THEN I woke up and realized a man TRULY unfit to be president in every way was gonna give Al a run for his money in November of 2000, and suddenly "President Gore" didn't have such a bad ring to it any more. So I crossed my libertarian party lines "its not a vote for Gore, its a vote AGAINST Bush". I sure do wish I could have convinced some of my hard-headed friends the same thing. And believe me - I tried.

And they, like you, are also sorry for their short-sightedness to see the forest for the trees four years ago.

Live and learn. -LB

RE: Plastic: Nader Calls Upon Bush To Leave Presidential Race