How many Robert Goddards do you think are being stifled today?

Robert Hutchings Goddard (October 5, 1882 – August 10, 1945) was an American engineer, professor, physicist, and inventor who is credited with creating and building the world's first liquid-fueled rocket, which was successfully launched on March 16, 1926. By 1915 his pioneering work had dramatically improved the efficiency of the solid-fueled rocket, signaling the era of the modern rocket and innovation. He and his team launched 34 rockets between 1926 and 1941, achieving altitudes as high as 2.6 km (1.6 mi) and speeds as fast as 885 km/h (550 mph).

Goddard's work as both theorist and engineer anticipated many of the developments that would make spaceflight possible. He has been called the man who ushered in the Space Age. Two of Goddard's 214 patented inventions, a multi-stage rocket (1914), and a liquid-fuel rocket (1914), were important milestones toward spaceflight. His 1919 monograph A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes is considered one of the classic texts of 20th-century rocket science. Goddard successfully pioneered modern methods such as two-axis control (gyroscopes and steerable thrust) to allow rockets to control their flight effectively.

Although his work in the field was revolutionary, Goddard received little public or financial support for his research and development work. He was a shy person, and rocket research was not considered a suitable pursuit for a physics professor. The press and other scientists ridiculed his theories of spaceflight. As a result, he became protective of his privacy and his work.

The New York Times editorial division thought Goddard's work was ridiculous and had this to put out about A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes:

Doublestandardgate - NYT's unacceptable coverage of Mamdani labeled "Pathetic. A scandal in itself"

On Thursday, the Times published a report citing hacked Columbia documents that revealed the New York Democratic mayoral nominee identified as "Black or African American" on his college application. Zohran Mamdani, who is of South Asian heritage, was born in Uganda, where his family had lived for approximately a century, according to the article.

The Tennessee Holler, a progressive news outlet, wrote on X, "So the @nytimes tried to slime Zohran using hacked materials given to them by an admitted race scientist/eugenicist who they kept anonymous even though he is publicly known — about races he checked on an application to a school he didn't get into? Pathetic. A scandal in itself."

During last year's presidential campaign, the Times, along with other publications, were given a leaked dossier on JD Vance, then-Republican vice presidential nominee, compiled by the Trump campaign. But the paper chose not to publish its contents. That decision stood in contrast to its approach in 2016, when the Times reported on hacked campaign emails from John Podesta, who was serving as Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman at the time.

https://www.newsweek.com/new-york-times-mamdani-article-healy-responds-2094926

I don't really care what box Zohran Mamdani checked on a college application, I think the NYT should be focusing on the scandal of politicians saying we have the greatest healthcare system in the world even though we lead in industrialized countries in women dying in childbirth.

The NYT wants us talking about the former so we're not talking about the latter.

And they would sell out their standards to make it happen.

So "regular people" don't talk about oligarchs, yet "oligarchy" is searched along "Olivia Rodrigo", "Olive Garden"

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) pushed back as MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle pressed him to criticize President Donald Trump’s relationship to billionaires like Elon Musk. In the extended version of their Tuesday MSNBC interview for The 11th Hour, Ruhle noted that Trump’s administration is the “wealthiest in modern history” and asked Fetterman if we are creating “American oligarchs.”

Fetterman suggested Musk and others aligning themselves like Trump are motivated by more than just simply making money. He also urged Democrats to begin using language that doesn’t involve words like “oligarch.” “I would just ask democrats to start talking like a regular person. Most people don’t know what an oligarch is,” the senator said.

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20134078

It's time for Fetterman to get out from under Elon Musk...

Put the first three letters in and see what you get. What are regular people searching for?

Bing:


DuckDuckGo:


I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Olivia Rodrigo is a pretty big deal. She is up there for a reason, and "Oligarchy" is up there as well because people are interested in the topic, and I think they want to know what our government is going to do about it.

Should we ignore them?

Immoral. Should be illegal. Stealing. Should not be like this. Why is it like this? Where is it going? UNACCEPTABLE.

Crisis in American Faith: Christianity is 43 percent of population as Conservative Christianity becomes own religion

"The most popular religion in the United States is Christianity, comprising the majority of the population (73.7% of adults in 2016)..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States

Seem to be about 30% of the population, so I think Christianity dropping from 73% to 43% is fair, give or take a little bit.

I mean, let's call it what it is...

* If you white-out Matthew 19:24 but highlight Romans 13

* If you want to call being GLBTQ a sin but ignore the commandment that is, you know, "Thou shalt not steal", something that is held sacred to adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I actually read that commandment, it does not read "Thou shalt not steal unless thou be rich and powerful". If you can call GLBTQ a sin, but you suddenly shut your trap when people are defrauded by the rich and powerful (Which is... anyone, anyone? ... STEALING), then don't call yourself a Christian, you can call yourself a Conservative Christian, but not a Christian. You outright reject a commandment held not just by Christianity but by other Abrahamic faiths as well, I mean come on.

* If, and going on healthcare, you actually say we have the world's greatest healthcare and we have a "Christian nation", but we pay the most for healthcare. Is it because of that, is it because we pay the most? Jesus healed people for free. You wanna rip the Christ out of your supposed Christianity any other ways while you're at it? Goodness.

* If you have a cargo cult of billionaires, prosperity theology, and Donald Trump.

* If you consider the teachings of Jesus to be "woke"

Then stop calling yourself a Christian, you're a Conservative Christian.

I'm not a super-believer in religion, I'm a critic of organized religion as a whole, but I do believe in something... maybe it's God, maybe it's oneness, I don't know. But I try to respect people who do believe and are respectful of others; Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahai, Hindu, etc., and those who do not believe as well and are respectful of others.

You can have money-makes-right, power-makes-right, stick it to the woke, it's not the sin of stealing when the rich do it, cargo cult belief system or you can have Christianity. But not both. So, it is because of this respect and belief for mutual respect that, in good conscience, I can no longer associate Christianity with the Conservative Christianity that has taken root in the American political landscape today.

Look! Right Reverend Mariann Budde criticized him to his face

We definitely need to get away from this whole stock market/the dow as a measure of the economy

I'm going to credit my friend and colleague, ashliy, with this idea. She does not post here, but there will be a link to something where she does at some point in the near future.

Paraphrasing her, we need to get away from using billionaires and the stock market as a way of seeing how the economy is doing.

Instead, let's ask formally and with gut checks...

How many bankruptcies are going on right now?
How many bankruptcies from medical bills are going on right now?
How lucrative is it to be a debt buyer or a debt collector right now?
How lucrative is it to be a repossession agent right now?
How many evictions are going on right now?
How many foreclosures are going on right now?
How many of us are afraid to call for an ambulance right now?
How many of us are putting off getting medical care or therapy not because of anxiety but because of cost right now?
How many people are getting their wages garnished right now?

Look at those questions above - What we need to do is realize that the more of these there are, the greater the answer to them... the worse the economy is.

We must come to see a "strong economy" or a "great economy" is simply not compatible with "record-high evictions" or "more people are being hounded by debt collectors over medical bills" at the same time.

You know... I think I understand why Democrats lost now

I have seen blaming this person, people throwing out detailed analyses, this group did X, that group did not enough of Y, etc.

But let me lay it out in simple terms I think everyone can grasp:

The political system is essentially one party is expected to have explosive diarrhea and have it EVERYWHERE and the other party is supposed to mop it up and the other party criticized is for not cleaning it up fast enough because party #1 is still having exploding diarrhea everywhere.

* This is murc's Law

* This is why Obama was supposed to resign for 11 people being treated for Ebola vs Trump and his disastrous handling of COVID.

* This is bailing out Republicans.

And what is 2026 going to be about? Cleaning up Republican diarrhea, right? You know I'm right.

And guess what? It's the "way it is". It's just the way things are. Somebody read the above and can't wait to reply with "Oh well, what can you do about it?" So let me just stop you right there.

We saw exactly what people were doing about it... people are getting disengaged. Disinterested.

Tuning out. Washing their hands clean of the diarrhea and walking away.

And I'll be honest... if I was less political, so would I.

There is a solution to this, and it's not left or center... but it is radical. We need to start going after the legitimacy, authority, human resources, skills, intangible factors, material resources, and sanctions of the Republican Party.

I'm done cleaning up Republican diarrhea though.

Is it time to retire phrases like "law and order" and "tough on crime" from the political lexicon?

I remember seeing that it was time to stop using *checks notes* as a thing...

No legitimate president will attack or invade a NATO country

NATO comes before "respect for the office of the president" in my book.

Let's start here: It should be official Democratic Party policy to support and defend any member of the military that refuses Trump's orders to attack or invade another member of NATO without provocation.