Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
This week, we’ve got Powerline’s Steve Hayward sitting in for Rob Long (who’s busy being lionized) as we bid a sad so long to Conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh. Then, Ayaan Hirsi Ali stops by to discuss her new book Prey: Immigration, Islam, and the Erosion of Women’s Rights. Also, be sure to visit her new website and subscribe to her new podcast. Also, Ted Cruz defies The Wall and goes to Mexico, a break down of the latest McConnell v. Trump cage match, and one of our hosts is very excited about Perseverance landing safely on Mars and one of them responded with a big “meh.” Care to guess which is which?
Music from this week’s show: My City Was Gone by The Pretenders
Subscribe to The Ricochet Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Boll & Branch
Use Code: RICOCHET
The right sheets can take your sleep and your style to the next level. With Boll and Branch, that upgrade has never been more affordable. Go to BollandBranch.com and use promo code RICOCHET to get $50 off your first set of sheets plus free shipping in the U.S.
Would you have been okay with the Soviets getting all the technological – and military – advancements from THEIR space program, but we didn’t get any from OURS?
It’s the same thing now with China, of course. If they were allowed to take over space, and hence essentially take over Earth too, while you sit there being Libertarian, well, it won’t turn out great for any of us.
Great podcast series, Bill Whittle’s “Apollo 11: What We Saw”, delves into this topic nicely, with important context. Also available through the Daily wire. His follow-up series, “The Cold War: What We Saw”, is excellent also.
Listen to “Apollo 11: What We Saw” on iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/we-choose-to-go-to-the-moon-part-1/id1471188269?i=1000444360842
Cold War: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cold-war-what-we-saw/id1471188269
I don’t have an issue with that, obviously. It’s just all of his BS about Tang and Space Food Sticks blah blah blah. I would like to believe in the concept of government funding basic science, but it supposedly doesn’t work out.
Actually, I think a lot of what went into space research was really basic science/research to find new things. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they found something other than what they were looking for, but it turned out to solve other problems, etc.
Well, no kidding. All I’m saying is some people smarter than you and me think that basic science is a joke.
A lot of people “smarter” than you and me are only “smart” in very limited ways. They don’t see a “big picture” in ways that are often invisible to specialists.
And that kind of thing happens a lot, in many areas. The primary medication I take for my IBD, in fact – sulfasalazine – was originally thought to be a treatment for arthritis. But it wasn’t. In a way, what happened was that in testing, the people who had arthritis weren’t helped at all. But the people who had IBD were like “Hey this stuff is great!”
I would love to see you argue with somebody that an informed opinion that it’s a notorious waste of money.
If you want to keep doing this all night I’m OK for a couple hours.
I think I’ve adequately made my point. Theoretical arguments are fine, especially for a starting point, but we don’t live in a theoretical world. Largely due to human nature. Which is probably the main reason why both theoretical communism and theoretical libertarianism don’t work.
Thanks for playing the Pretenders song and going out with Rush soundbites, @blueyeti and/or @ejhill. I wonder how long it will be before I can listen to that song and not shed a tear.
Love Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She always makes such perfect sense. Loved what she had to say about the benefits of colonialism.
And this showed up in my feed today. Such a thing could never happen in this day and age.
this interview was funny
He tells a story working for KC Royals
can you elaborate on theoretical libertarianism?
Sort of. Rick Perry set the goal of 1/4 of the grid being wind powered. Since we haven’t had a state wide Democrat elected since 1994, every official who owns this is a Republican. I plan on holding my local legislator’s feet to the fire. I’m not sure I’ll even see a weather event like this again in my lifetime, but there is no excuse for ERCOT’s poor performance.
This latest Mars mission cost about $2.7 billion ($2,700,000,000), So let’s say about $10 per adult citizen if they actually want to pay for it, rather than simply add it to the national debt. Obviously that is way out of reach for 21st century venture capitalists with so many more important demands on their capital.
They should have been smarter, yes, like I said. That much reliance on wind power was foolish, but it was made attractive – TOO attractive – by lefty federal subsidies. Those subsidies make it possible for wind power to cost LESS THAN NOTHING to the utilities, while the “producers” still get a lot of federal money.
If we want to study space fine, let’s have that discussion. If we have to go into space for security issues, fine. My main issue is the claim that it has all of these multipliers and side benefits like spending on basic science is supposed to have. At the very least, Congress is too stupid and corrupt to figure this out.
That’s why they should just shut up and fund it, rather than micromanage and insist it be “directed” in particular ways such as “muslim outreach.”
I have no idea why you think that’s dependable versus what I’m actually saying. If you fund it for the ostensibly intelligent reasons I stated, that’s fine just don’t lie about the actual output beyond that.
This is what you need to know. Anytime the government does anything beyond actual “public goods” it reduces output. Sometimes things get really screwed up, like health insurance, and you have to deal with it with central planning but that is not the bulk of the problems right now.
I have about eight more hours to do this off and on. lol
I think you’d have a very difficult time convincing venture capitalists to put up $2.7 billion (and it would be a lot more if there weren’t already existing launch facilities etc) just to poke around on Mars. If venture capitalists could raise that much to start with, of actual money. Seems like a lot of what they do involves stock manipulation etc, not direct money.
In my youth, we shattered Bonomo Turkish Taffy not with a sledgehammer, but by smashing it – still in its wrapper – on the sidewalk. As I recall, there were television commercials that tutored us in the practice.