With Travis gone from the paper I thought I could write about Star Trek to ease the pain his fans might be experiencing. Amazingly, in this culture where government is God, William Shatner flew into space last year at 90 years of age without taxpayer funding.

I’ve been a Shatner fan for a long time. He had a brilliant TV show called Boston Legal that was the last show we watched before giving up TV. We got a set of DVDs of the show that we loaned out and I have no idea where they are. It was that good.

Anyway, with the spendaholics thoroughly in charge in Washington the lemmings anxiously await the latest proof of American exceptionalism, a moon shot. By 2025 NASA will have spent $93 billion on the Artemis lunar program. That’s not a typo, it’s not “loony program.”

I remember going to the Pork Expo in Des Moines and happened upon a speech by Alan Keyes, a black Republican running for president of the United States. He was telling a bunch of welfare farmers they had to get off the dole. These were civilized thieves so tarring and feathering wasn’t even brought up. I think I was the only one who clapped.

In case an explanation is necessary, raising hogs is welfare dependent because hogs eat corn and corn is subsidized by taxpayers. They might call it something different as the public finds out and the names change, but it’s welfare.

Anyway, I was an Alan Keyes fan starting that day. Farmers could survive just fine without the government.

There were two events we attended at NIACC (North Iowa Area Community College) a few years ago. One was Constitution Day (September 17 every year federal law says schools must stage something commemorating the Constitution on that date) where a teacher was trying to explain that the general welfare clause at the beginning of the Constitution negates all the limits on government spelled out in the rest of the document. At three o’clock exactly, with hands in the air all over the room, he packed up and left.

The other event was an appearance by Alan Keyes as part of his obviously futile campaign tour. He had me going. My checkbook was coming out like Bruce Jenner. Keyes seemed to know about Article 1, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment.

Then he took questions. Someone asked what he thought of the space program. He loved it. Oh well. Like a blemished televangelist, his sin way overcame his Constitutionalism.

American exceptionalism has come to indicate a lack of principle more than anything exceptional. Why is welfare for the space geeks more worthy than welfare for farmers? We can’t eat space.

The old saying from public TV, “If we didn’t do it, who would?” needs to be carefully considered. What is the reason for doing “it?” The reason for doing it turns out to be that somebody loves it but not enough to pay for it themselves. And that should be the bottom line.

NASA estimated the Artemis lunar program to cost $500 million in 2012, with the first rocket shooting off in 2017. Now we are (and I say “we” because it is ours) eight times over budget and five years late according to a NASA auditor.

Just think of the big dormitory and hog confinement facility we could build at Martha’s Vineyard for that kind of money. And we could eat the pork.

We Could Eat the Pork

With Travis gone from the paper I thought I could write about Star Trek to ease the pain his fans might be experiencing. Amazingly, in this culture where government is God, William Shatner flew into space last year at 90 years of age without taxpayer funding.

I’ve been a Shatner fan for a long time. He had a brilliant TV show called Boston Legal that was the last show we watched before giving up TV. We got a set of DVDs of the show that we loaned out and I have no idea where they are. It was that good.

Anyway, with the spendaholics thoroughly in charge in Washington the lemmings anxiously await the latest proof of American exceptionalism, a moon shot. By 2025 NASA will have spent $93 billion on the Artemis lunar program. That’s not a typo, it’s not “loony program.”

I remember going to the Pork Expo in Des Moines and happened upon a speech by Alan Keyes, a black Republican running for president of the United States. He was telling a bunch of welfare farmers they had to get off the dole. These were civilized thieves so tarring and feathering wasn’t even brought up. I think I was the only one who clapped.

In case an explanation is necessary, raising hogs is welfare dependent because hogs eat corn and corn is subsidized by taxpayers. They might call it something different as the public finds out and the names change, but it’s welfare.

Anyway, I was an Alan Keyes fan starting that day. Farmers could survive just fine without the government.

There were two events we attended at NIACC (North Iowa Area Community College) a few years ago. One was Constitution Day (September 17 every year federal law says schools must stage something commemorating the Constitution on that date) where a teacher was trying to explain that the general welfare clause at the beginning of the Constitution negates all the limits on government spelled out in the rest of the document. At three o’clock exactly, with hands in the air all over the room, he packed up and left.

The other event was an appearance by Alan Keyes as part of his obviously futile campaign tour. He had me going. My checkbook was coming out like Bruce Jenner. Keyes seemed to know about Article 1, Section 8, and the Tenth Amendment.

Then he took questions. Someone asked what he thought of the space program. He loved it. Oh well. Like a blemished televangelist, his sin way overcame his Constitutionalism.

American exceptionalism has come to indicate a lack of principle more than anything exceptional. Why is welfare for the space geeks more worthy than welfare for farmers? We can’t eat space.

The old saying from public TV, “If we didn’t do it, who would?” needs to be carefully considered. What is the reason for doing “it?” The reason for doing it turns out to be that somebody loves it but not enough to pay for it themselves. And that should be the bottom line.

NASA estimated the Artemis lunar program to cost $500 million in 2012, with the first rocket shooting off in 2017. Now we are (and I say “we” because it is ours) eight times over budget and five years late according to a NASA auditor.

Just think of the big dormitory and hog confinement facility we could build at Martha’s Vineyard for that kind of money. And we could eat the pork.