Jamey Johnson might just be saving country music.
Back when country was country – Johnny, Willie, George, Waylon, Merle – the good old boys.
Not any more of that garbage like Brad Paisley.
I don’t know much. But I know what good music sounds like. And so far this is it…..
There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who like Girl Scout Thin Mints, and those who don’t.
(They stink – mint is for toothpaste and gum, not food)
Dear Chris
We need some space. I feel smothered. I feel overwhelmed. I feel pressured. I feel like I need to express some individuality. I still have a purpose. I need to stand on my own two feet. You need to back off ! There is a time and place for you. What ever happened to the 12 days of Christmas ? When did it become the 3 months of Christmas? Halloween isn’t real happy with you either ? Honestly, what the heck ?
Sincerely,
Thanksgiving.
Christmas Creep – is there a vaccine ? I realize that with the down economy, annoying retailers can’t wait to get you Christmas shopping. You can already find Xmas sales, Xmas music and Xmas movies and WE ARE 3 WEEKS FROM THANKSGIVING !
I love Thanksgiving. But Christmas is killing it. Can’t we all agree not to ramp up Christmas until after thanksgiving. I mean, can we at least wait until it is time to throw out the last of the turkey leftovers before shopping for a fresh douglas fir ?
SPACE IS A WASTE….
Bring Space Policy Down to Earth: Soon, Barack Obama must make a decision on whether to continue funding NASA’s daffy plan to build a Motel 6 on the moon. The president will be put on the spot when the final report of a space commission (here is its preliminary report) is delivered. Rumor is that in keeping with the tradition of Washington commissions, the report will contain extremely vague language about sweeping reform; then cite every item on every wish list of every interest group with a finger in this pie; then recommend nothing specific, so as to offend no interest group; then close with a call for higher subsidies. NASA is not one of the core missions of government, and spends only one-half of 1 percent of the federal budget, so space waste is relatively minor in the scheme of things. But if public policy can’t get this right, what can it get right?
Right now NASA’s budget is $18 billion annually, and the quarter or so spent on science — planetary probes, telescopes that scan the far universe — is going very well. The rest of NASA is a mess. The agency has just thrown $100 billion of your money down the drain on the space station, which has no scientific achievement and no known purpose other than keeping checks in the mail to favored contractors and congressional districts. The station is such a white elephant the current plan is to “deorbit” the thing in 2016. “Deorbit” is polite for “make it burn up in the atmosphere.” So after spending $100 billion to build a space station, we’ll destroy it. Your tax dollars at play!
Since 2004, NASA has said its next goal is a manned outpost on the moon, as a stepping-stone to manned travel to Mars. There’s nothing a person could do on the airless, lifeless lunar surface that a tele-robot operated from a Houston office building could not do at a fraction of the price and risk. And the moon has nothing to do with Mars. Any Mars-bound mission will leave directly from low-Earth orbit to the Red Planet: stopping at the moon, then blasting off again, would consume the mission’s fuel to accomplish nothing. Though NASA has been studying moon-base and Mars-mission proposals for five years, the agency refuses to give a cost estimate — a sure sign the plans cannot pass a giggle test. Considering the space station price was $100 billion for a limited facility that was not accelerated to the speed necessary to reach the moon — speed means fuel which means higher price — even a Spartan moon base easily could cost several hundred billion dollars. For what? Why, for “economic expansion“! Today, no one is interested in economic expansion at Earth’s poles, which are far more amenable to life than the moon, have copious resources, and can be reached at one-ten thousandth the cost of reaching the moon.
What about Mars? That planet is fascinating, and people are sure to go there someday. But until there is a fundamental breakthrough in propulsion, Mars travel will be ultra-expensive and extremely impractical. Today’s chemical rockets are little different from those of the Apollo era, meaning the great cost of getting weight into orbit and then to escape velocity, coupled with long travel times, remains a high barrier to any Mars mission.
The fastest trajectory available with current propulsion is a 520-day Mars mission, and that only gets you 30 days on Mars — the rest is transit time. Now think about weight. The Apollo vehicle, which was 45 tons at departure from low-Earth orbit, carried three people on a maximum mission of 13 days. That’s 1.1 tons per person per day. A Mars-bound mission would require less fuel per day, but a lot more weight for supplies, interior volume, multiple redundant systems and radiation shielding that was not required for moon flight. Interior volume is essential. The crew was strapped into seats in the Apollo command module; they couldn’t even stand up. For a nearly two-year voyage, the crew will need to be able to get up and walk (or float) around to avoid going bonkers. The Russian and European space agencies recently locked volunteers into a spacecraft-like big chamber to see how long they could stand it; they were able to stand it for 105 days, a fifth of the length of the fastest possible Mars mission. (Hilariously, the agencies announced the volunteers “simulated a 105-day Mars mission full of experiments and realistic mission scenarios.” This scenario is “realistic” only using warp drive.)
Any Mars craft will need to provide at least some private space for each crew member, and a decent exercise facility, to stave off the muscle loss and bone decay that is triggered by zero-gee. At least one fully equipped surgical theater will be required. Loads of spare parts and loads of equipment to use on the Martian surface will be needed, versus Apollo, which carried no spare parts and no equipment beyond a small, short-range dune buggy. (Most likely a Mars mission would not be a single vehicle — unmanned cargo craft would go first, and people would not leave until supplies were in place — but the weight’s the same regardless of whether it’s a single vehicle or a collection of launches.) Considering these things, the 1.1 tons per person per day of Apollo may prove conservative for a Mars mission.
Anyway, suppose that number is right. Assume a Mars crew of six people — two astronauts, two scientists and two surgeons — on a 520-day Mars mission. (Two surgeons are needed in case one of them gets injured.) Based on the Apollo experience, our six-person Mars mission gone 520 days would weigh about 3,400 tons at departure from orbit. That’s approximately the displacement of an Oliver Hazard Perry class guided-missile frigate, and we are not launching a frigate to Mars anytime soon.
My weight estimate didn’t pop out of the sky. These numbers have been debated by specialists for decades, and have not changed much by recent tech developments — for example, electronics are a lot lighter now than in the Apollo era, but since electronics compromised less than 1 percent of Apollo’s weight, new miniature stuff does not do much for weight. Two-thirds to three-quarters of the mission weight will be fuel, and fuel weight hasn’t changed. In the 1950s, Apollo designer Werner von Braun projected that a Mars mission would weigh 3,700 tons. In the 1960s, von Braun supposed the mission could weigh 1,600 tons if nuclear propulsion was developed, but that hasn’t yet happened. Discovery One, the imaginary planetary spaceship in the 1968 movie “2001: A Space Odyssey,” was described as weighing 5,400 tons, which oddly sounds about right. In 2007, a NASA workshop supposed a Mars mission might weigh only 400 tons, an utterly unrealistic budgetary lowball number.
The true numbers are budget busters! Because it costs about $20 million to place a ton of anything into low-Earth orbit, the heavier the Mars craft, the higher the price. Merely placing into orbit the 3,400 tons of a conjectured mission would cost about $70 billion. That’s just the launch cost — construction of the spaceship is extra! If space station total costs are a basic guide, the full price of a 3,400-ton Mars mission would be $1 trillion. Converted to today’s dollars, the entire Apollo program — not one mission, the entire program — cost about $140 billion.
Now you see why NASA won’t estimate prices.
The shame is that while NASA toys with monumental waste of tax dollars on a moon base and speaks of a Mars mission it knows full well is inconceivable using current propulsion, the agency is not even considering two space initiatives that could return tangible benefits to taxpayers: protection against asteroids and space solar power. Sunlight collected in space where its energy value is far higher than on the ground, then beamed to Earth as microwaves, might provide a long-term fossil-free solution to the planet’s energy needs. No one knows if space solar power is practical. But NASA won’t as much as fund a demonstration project; all money must go to moon base subsidies and Mars plans.
Aware its current course makes no sense, NASA may soon roll out the reddest of red herrings — we’ve got to go back to the moon to beat the Chinese and the Indians. During the Cold War, no one questioned NASA spending because national prestige was involved. Why must we “beat” China and India to something we already did 40 years ago? If China or India beats us to space solar power — now, that would hurt.
I hope I am wrong.My heart wants me to be wrong.
But this is the weekend that the Kool-Aid turns sour. The Aggies will lose. The Aggies will lose big.
3 weeks of cupcakes and padded stats won’t do these young kids any good on Saturday night. They are too young, the stage is too big. They are playing the SEC, and SEC speed is just too much.
We don’t have enough experience, we just aren’t ready, Arkansas is desperate for a win – they have basically written off any hope in the SEC West, so their Bowl Game chances hinge on games like this.
A&M is moving in the right direction, next year might be a different story, but it is too much too soon.
I will be watching Saturday, hoping for a signature win for Coach Sherman and the young Aggies. But I fear a loss. A bad one. 49-21 Hog people.
I hope I am wrong.
Listening to an interview with Mike Gundy, head coach of the fighting Pickens before the big opener with Georgia this weekend. Apparently Crapperville (Stillwater Oklahoma) although anywhere in Oklahoma could be referred to as Crapperville, anyway back to topic…..
The 40 year old coach who doesn’t like to make fun of anyones weight issues (FAAAT !!), was recalling how the town is all a fluster because of the big weekend where apparently they are going to rededicate the stadium to their largest donor and TEXAS oil magnate Booner Pickens. Proving that whatever success the fighting Pickens have been able to muster this year, it was all built from Texas, from talent to the oil money that paid for their fancy new facilities, nevermind they are still hideous glow orange and in the middle of a red dirt cow pasture….
Coach also mentioned that he was in Wal Mart a couple of nights ago and could barely get down the aisles without some (buck tooth hillbilly) person saying “Good Luck Coach” or what not…….
What did you take away from that last sentence ?
Coach was at WAL MART ?
What was he doing there ?
I don’t know where it would rank, but in the TOP TEN LIST OF “SIGNS YOU WILL NEVER HAVE A DECENT FOOTBALL PROGRAM” – The coach being in Wal Mart (for any reason) has to be on the list.
You think Bob Stoops even knows where the Wal Mart in Norman is…………………..NO Chance !
Bob Stoops assistants don’t even shop at Wal Mart.
Oklahoma Football Athletic Department gave money BACK to the University this year.
Bob Stoops has neither the time, nor the inclination to shop at Wal Mart.
Mike Gundy shops at Wal Mart.
This basically means that once Zac (don’t call me Efron) and Dez leave OSU, so will any chance of ever winning again.
A&M, rebuilding ever so SLOWLY, looking up at the arse of everyone else in the Big 12 wouldn’t even stoop down to this level.
Coach Sherman doesn’t go to Wal Mart. We may have a losing record this year, but at least our coach has some DIGNITY…..
Trade Brandon Marshal ? Don’t trade Brandon Marshal ? What is best for the team ? I will tell you what is best for the team, 1.21 Gigwatts taking us back to January, when we don’t fire our respected 2 tme Super Bowl winning coach and replace him with a young, brash, cocky newbie coach who may or may not have a good offense but cannot evaluate talent at all.
1) McTurd thought that Matt Cassel was a better QB that Jay Cutler. A colossal error. It is the old, I am fat, you are ugly, I can lose weight conversation. Yes, Cassell might have known the offense, but he doesn’t have 10 percent of the talent and charisma that Cutler has. Rumor has it that Tyler Thigpen, Brodie Croyle and a baloney sandwich have been creeping in on Cassell’s position on the depth chart, meaning you are an idiot.
2) Who comes into a team with the 2nd ranked offense in the league and blows it up – honestly, IDIOT. How about we look at the 31st ranked defense in the league all day and all night and don’t mess with anyone on the offense….
3) Brandon Marshal has expectations, you know that balls won’t arrive on one hops, or that we he turns around on a dig he won’t have to look at Kyle Orton. Is he childish ? Yep, but I can understand his position. He is the highschool kid whose parents got transferred to another district and he is now the star on a sucko football team going nowwhere fast.
Trade him, don’t trade him. But even thinking 4th dimensionally won’t fix this one. McTurd – make like a tree and Get outta here. I won’t be watching.
I have had the good fortune or bad fortune depending on your perspective to have travled a bit. All across these United States. And you know what I have found…….a lot of sucko places to live. And one of them is Minnesota. I mean honestly, what kind of sane non-eskimo person could live there. Between the cabin fever, the 9 months of solid winter, and the annoying as hell locals with bad teeth and accents that sound like they have a sinus infection – “Welcome to Wiscaaaaaansin”, it is freakin terrible. Oh yeah, and the team that drafted you sucks.
I realize the people have an affinity for where they live, but everyone else that thinks where you live (Minnesota) is a terrible place, then we can all understand why Ricky Rubio would rather play basketball and relax on the Spanish Riviera for a couple more years than play for the Minnesota Timberwolves ! Duh.
Nobody seems to apply logic anymore. Why can’t ESPN say “Ricky Rubio decided that Minnesota sux, and would rather play in Spain. Anyone who has been to Minnesota can easily understand his point of view and we wish him luck in his future endeavors.”
Note: The reason that ESPN doesn’t say this – Connecticut isn’t much better. And for those of you who are thinking ahead. to sum up a fantastic quote from this week from a wise man…..”I can’t imagine what a man may want they he couldn’t find between the Brazos and Navasota Rivers”