How NASA seeks to travel the galaxy in 80 days

It’s fall and that means it’s time for the latest thing in NASA thinking: Warp drive. For the general informed reader, you know that warp drive is mostly magic. It is a Star Trek technology that allows Federation ships to cross the galaxy relatively quickly and allows the show to tell a story that would be different from one that hewed to science fact.

However for the more well-read reader, two words make up NASA’s more recent thinking on the subject: Alcubierre drive.

Senate Republicans tell veterans ‘fight for a job on your own’

Jobless veterans suffer some more as Senate Republicans offer a blatantly political election-year snub to President Obama. While five GOP senators sided with the Democrats on the bill, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who was a captain in the 1970s in the U.S. Army reserves, was key to blocking the vote. Sen. Tom ‘Dr. No’ Coburn, of Oklahoma, stayed true to his nickname, preferring to talk about the abstract idea of bringing down the debt rather than address the plight of jobless in the here and now.

Middle East violence requires a middle road approach

A story in the Washington Post does a fine job of explaining what the recent spate of Middle East violence against the West is really all about. It is a historical struggle within Islam to come to terms with its wounded pride in the face of modernity. It is about the struggle between the younger generation that sees what the West has to offer and wants it on their terms vs. the older generation that wants none of it.

In the face of all of this is the question that America in general and the American President in particular always faces: what should we do? The real question often is: what can we reasonably expect to accomplish even if we do nothing?

Ryan accepts Romney's offer of a bucket of warm piss

In Norfolk, Va., with the decommissioned battleship USS Wisconsin as his backdrop, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney introduced America to the new president of the United States, Paul Ryan. It would seem that Ryan has some foreign policy positions, ones that may be less embarrassing than those of Romney (a foreign policy lightweight) who has both just finished an awful trip abroad but also succeeded in honking of the Japanese. Blunt force seems to be Ryan’s instrument of choice which is readily apparent in his budget. Ryan's budget also makes him a deeply polarizing figure: adorable to the base, repugnant to the left.

Romney's hope is likely that this will change the election season debate and take the heat off of his unreleased tax returns. It is also probably Romney's hope that he can shore up his campaign by picking a Midwesterner. With rare exception, the vice-presidency has never really amounted to much more than a chance at an election campaign photo op. Unless you were Ford, LBJ or Cheney, the post has rarely risen above John Nance Garner's famous observation that the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm piss."

STOCK Act’s one little loophole

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While a measure that was designed to stop insider trading among Congresscritters drew bipartisan support and was signed into law by President Obama, it passed with a tiny, glaring flaw: it doesn’t apply to the congressional family members. The problem stems from a misinterpretation between the House and Senate.