• From the “Baksheesh” Department – A new study reports that the decade long war in Iraq was expensive and wasteful.  Apparently $60 billion in payments for reconstruction and reform in Iraq might as well have been set on fire for all we got out of it.  The causes range from overpayments and graft on the part of military and contractor personnel to the bribes it takes to get just about anyone in Iraq to lift a finger.  I have to say, I’m not surprised.  You cannot create an ethical, law-abiding, democratic government in a country that has never had that and, to be brutally honest, isn’t interested in it.  Iraq is a quasi-democracy, and I hope it gets better, but like most of the world, corruption is going to be a real drag to its progress.  I eagerly await the cost for our efforts in Afghanistan/Pakistan, a region that drank the coffers of the Russian and British empires pretty much dry a century ago.
• From the “Some Pigs Are More Equal” Department – It appears that the worker’s paradise of the People’s Republic of China has a rather well-heeled elite class of its own.  A lot of them seem to have attended elite American universities, which just so happen to also have been where the elite of this country get their degrees.  Wow, what a coincidence.  Anyway, it appears that the possibility of a peasant child rising to the highest offices of Red China, while still feasible, is becoming more and more mythical.  This is the third generation of leadership since the 1947 revolution, and a similar phenomenon happened in Russia,  so my guess is that within 20 years the Communists in China will have either morphed into something closer to the old pre-revolution order, or will be going the way of their Soviet brethren.  Of course, we weren’t in hock up to our eyeballs to the Soviet Union, nor did we import a huge percentage of our manufactured goods from them, so this might not be as beneficial to us as 1991 was.
• From the “Make It Illegaler” Department – The brother of a taxi driver in Las Vegas is calling for more stringent gun control in the United States after his brother and a passenger were killed during a gun fight between two thugs.  I’m sad for this man and angry that innocent lives were lost because two bluntskulls had to turn their normal prick waving into a running gun battle.  The man is calling for laws that keep guns out of the hands of those with a criminal record, which I must point out is how the laws are written right now.  At the same time, the Nevada legislature is changing the definition of what weapons can be carried by a concealed carry license holder.  Currently, a licensee can carry “a loaded or unloaded pistol, revolver or other firearm”, while the new law would restrict them to carrying a ‘handgun’.  The new law is supposed to keep people from cutting down shotguns and rifles and concealing them about their person.  I must point out that someone who is going to go through the trouble of getting a concealed carry license is not going to be the kind of person to cut down their Joe Biden Memorial Edition coach gun so that they can wear it under their sweatshirt, and it’s already illegal to make a short-barreled shotgun or rifle without having the proper federal firearms license.  So, in both cases, all that is wanted is to make something more illegal than it already is, which we all know is the most effective way to stop people who break the law as a matter of their daily business straighten up and fly right.
• From the “Immortality” Department – A new study out of Germany seems to show that those of us who view the world and our future through a dark lens may tend to live longer.  If this holds out, I am doomed to live to be over 100.  Seriously, if the pessimists are going to inherit the world, I will be king.  I look forward to working with my fellow doom-and-gloomers in making the world a grayer place.
• From the “Naughty Nanny” Department – Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City and noted busybody, has launched his latest campaign to perfect the paragon of human society that is New York:  He is going to start a campaign to stop young people from listening to loud music on their headphones.  I cannot imagine the utopia that Manhattan must be if the mayor of New York has the time and funds necessary to continue his crusade to get people to stop doing things he doesn’t like.  The streets must be clean and shiny.  The walls must all be coated in a fresh coat of paint in festive colors.  The schools have to be the envy of the world.  Mayor Bloomberg is truly ushering in a new renaissance with his work to perfect the human beings who have entrusted him with the power to tell them what to drink, what to smoke, what to eat, and now, how to listen to your music in your ears using devices you paid for.  Forward!

A group of enterprising visionaries is looking for volunteers to be the first people to orbit the planet Mars.   They are considering having a small team of people spend over 500 days locked into a space roughly the size of a living room during the trip, and reports are that they consider a middle-aged married couple to be a one of the more optimal team configurations.

Let me be the first to say this:  Aw hell no!

Y’all, I love my wife.  I would gladly give my own life or take someone else’s in order to protect her.   She is the best thing that has ever happened to me, and there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank my maker that she lowered her standards far enough to consider me  for the job of life-mate.  But I’m not going to spend almost two years locked into a tin can with her. 

And if I love her that much, and want to spend the rest of my life with her, you can imagine what I think about spending all that time cooped up with someone else, in whatever combination they come up with.  Heck, I have a hard time some days working an office with other people, and I can at least step outside and have a breath of fresh air.

Seriously, you eventually run out of stuff to do and just need to get away.  Those of you who’ve been in the military, please think back to some field problem or deployment.  After a few weeks, you get tired of saying and hearing the same stories.  You get to the point where you can tell who has the queen in hearts and who cheats at poker.  The books all get passed around at least once, and the movies get watched often enough that you’re reciting lines back to the screen.

Now imagine the longest field problem you’ve ever imagined, without even the option of “Hey, I think I’ll go for a jog around the latrine for an hour or so.” 

I guess the closest thing we have to this is the Antarctic stations, or maybe missile subs that spend weeks at a time under the ocean.  But in these situations, you have a job other than to be cargo.  A couple of people on a space craft like this would be there to fix things that break, react to emergencies, and be props in the publicity stunt that the mission really is.  At best, you’d be a lab animal so that they could figure out what the radiation and lack of gravity are doing to your body and mind.   Boredom would be even worse when you realize that you have nothing meaningful to do that day, or tomorrow, or the day after that. 

So, I’m regretfully going to have to pass on this one, and I can’t imagine how strong a marriage or friendship you would have to have in order to do it and not have something horrible happen amongst the crew during the trip.  I’ll just stay here, safely able to step out of the house when Irish Woman and I aren’t getting along, and wish whomever they get to do this the best of luck.

What say you all?  Could you spend two years locked up in a small space with your spouse or a few of your best friends?