Tag Archives: NASA

Taxes – The Price We Pay For Civilization

“Taxes are the price we pay for civilization.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon

Your Tax Dollars At Work, Courtesy NASA

Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet Taxes fund Medicare and Medicaid so the poor and the elderly can see a physician and get treatment when they are sick. Taxes fund education for our children and our neighbors children so they can grow up to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, architects,  accountants, teachers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, builders, actors, etc., so we can buy things that work properly, travel safely, enjoy life, so we can, in a word, thrive.  Taxes fund police, fire-fighting, defense, judicial and other services so we can be secure in our homes and our persons, so the innocent do not go to prison, so the guilty pay their debts to society, and so we, when we do foolish things, can compensate those we accidentally harm. Continue reading →

Earth Day For the Future

Earth from Space, Courtesy NASA

In 100 years our descendants will not be burning coal, oil, natural gas or using nuclear fission.  They might be using terrestrial nuclear fusion.  They will be using solar, wind, geothermal, marine current hydro, tidal energy systems – clean, renewable, sustainable energy systems. No fuel: No Waste. No mines, mills, wells, spills. No arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, thorium – no fly ash to be contained or to leak.

We have started.  California and New Jersey lead the U. S. Germany and Spain lead Europe. Boeing and Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic want to build aircraft that run on biodiesel.  We need to move forward in a big way – to 100% clean energy in 10 years, to retrain coal miners and oil rig operators to build and run solar arrays and wind turbines, and dig deep geothermal systems.

Copenhagen, India, China, the US, and GAIA

I’m beginning to think that Copenhagen was what it had to be, what it could only be. It fulfilled its Buddha-nature. Thus, I don’t consider it a failure. Nor do I consider it a success. It was what it was, what it could have been, what it had to be:

A gathering of emissaries from the 64 corners of the earth.

Courtesy of NASA

Earth From Space, Copyright NASA

Isaac Asimov observed in Foundation (ISBN: 978-0553293357) that “diplomacy, is the art of speaking for a long time without saying anything.” Most of the diplomats in Copenhagen had multiple agendas. Unfortunately for billions of the world’s poorest, the public agendas of sustainability and the abstract “Gaia Hypothesis” were distant fourth and fifth behind the private agendas of power, money, and influence.

The inconvenient truth is that much of Bangla Desh, California, Louisiana, Southern Florida will disappear, submerged, like the mythical Atlantis. China will continue to build 2 coal plants per week. And people will die.

But disregarding this notion, a Chinese diplomat Continue reading →

Inhabitat: NASA announces chemical-sniffing phone

Via Inhabitat: NASA Unveils Chemical-Sniffing Device for the iPhone:

Chemical-sniffing ipod - image via Inhabitat

Chemical-sniffing ipod - image via Inhabitat

NASA’s cheap, low-power device senses chemicals with help from a “sample jet” and a silicon-based sensing chip that has 16 nanosensors. Once detection data is confirmed, the phone can send it on to any other device — or the government — via Wi-Fi.

There are a number of uses for the chemical sensor: it could provide early information on a chemical attack, confirm suspicions of methane emissions from local factories, or just give  users information about the chemicals present in their everyday environments.

The chemical sniffer isn’t NASA’s first foray into iPhone apps. The agency recently debuted an app that aggregates and sends recent information, pictures, and video from NASA to the user’s phone. Here’s hoping NASA continues to deliver educational and useful apps to our cell phones!

+ NASA

Via Popular Science