[lit-ideas] Re: The sky is falling. No, really, the sky is falling.

  • From: Andy <min.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:22:43 -0800 (PST)

The reason we shot it down is because we didn't want the Chinese to get our 
sensitive equipment.  Coincidentally, here's a discussion on the state of our 
military spending in the U.S. today:
   
  http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/02/20080225_a_main.asp
   
  We could carve up the moon, but only if the Chinese would agree to pay for 
it.  More probably, if the Chinese wanted to destroy us, all they'd have to do 
is trade in our dollars for euros.  They wouldn't have to fire a shot.  I only 
had time to get through half the discussion, so I don't know if they mention it 
or not, but I read elsewhere that the Chinese have been setting us up basically 
for financial disaster.  We are so in hock to them at the same time that we 
built their economy, while we tore ours down building our weapons with money we 
borrow from them.  
   
  For Paul, I had heard about Everest.  It's a veritable landfill.  The 
fatality rate for climbing Everest is something like 1 in 5 chance of not 
coming back.  And if you come back, you will have lost a huge amount of muscle 
mass and/or cracked some cartilage in your ribs trying to breath between coughs 
or some other thing.   Even with all of that, it's so cool to want to climb Mt. 
Everest.  If you don't climb, you have to at least go out and buy crampons to 
tell your friends about.  It used to be something like $50,000 to get someone 
to take you to the top.  Now I'm sure it's more.  I have to wonder if the 
faltering economy will take the edge off of this nonsense.  Except that given 
that oil is the highest it's ever been, $100 a barrel, and driving is 6% higher 
this year than the same time last year I suspect not.   
   
  Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer talks about the storm that unexpectedly caught 
a bunch of hikers in 1996.  It was quite a tragedy.  In an interview I heard 
with Krakauer about the book, he was on the expedition, a mountain climber 
himself, he says that climbing Mt. Everest is like being the sickest you've 
ever been in your life where you can't even get out bed to call in to work, yet 
you still have to climb this mountain with air so thin it won't support a 
helicopter and hurricane force winds.  And they clamber to do it.  
   
  Also, there's an IMAX on Everest.  I saw it in a theater but it's available 
on Netflix.  If nothing else, they position the camera directly into the ice 
fall.  Talking about it is one thing, but when you actually see what it looks 
like, it really makes you wonder why in the world anyone would do it.
   

Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
  From the article Andy cited: Last week, the United States courted an 
international row after shooting down a disabled spy satellite, saying 
its fuel could cause serious damage if it crashed to Earth. Russia, 
however, claimed that the operation was a US cover-up to test its 
anti-satellite weapons.


Hah-ha-ha!

This kind of stuff really tickles me. A couple years ago, the Chinese 
blasted a satellite out of orbit to show their space muscles. The 
Chinese *actually* tested an anti-satellite missile. We hardly said a 
word. You can Google it.

Now we accomplish a much more difficult technical task -- and more 
importantly, for an object below orbit, falling at 70,000 mph. And we 
are said to court "an international row."

Hypocrisy!

The USA should use nuclear missiles to carve a smiling face on the moon 
-- just to show our contempt for this bullsquat. It might be a great 
incentive for trade and disarmament negotiations if, during same, we 
were carving a face on the moon during the negotiations.

Big 10-megaton bombs for the eyes, little 175-kiloton missiles for the 
eyebrows, smaller nukes to shade the side of the nose ... perhaps 
something in the style of Joshua Reynolds.

That way, we could really court "an international row."

I can imagine the headlines:

Yanks Carve Moon! World Outraged!
Why Reynolds? asks ArtNews
Why Not Me? asks Trump
US Resolves Man? Woman? Rabbit? Controversy Forever!

and so on.....


Pierrot

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