Founders Quotes, 29-30 May 2025

Quotes on the budget and on that eternal bane of elected officials, bureaucracy, both courtesy of Thomas Jefferson....

Budget: A rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive. - letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, 1823

Bureaucracy: I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. - letter to William Ludlow, 1824

Both quotes are very prescient for today's times, given how hard Elon Musk and DOGE have worked to work just the $150bn or so thus far from the federal budget...and bureaucracies are, next to death and taxes, the absolute bane of humanity.

Happy Sabbath, 30 May 2025

May you and yours enjoy the blessings of the Sabbath day!

Did Trump Turn on the Federalist Society?

Most times I don't give the windbags over at Digby's Hullabaloo the time of the day but like broken clocks once in a while they come up with some gems....case in point, Trump putting the judiciary on blast because they won't do his bidding (and in the process putting Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society on blast as well).

Seriously, go read it.

Now, to be fair, the judiciary isn't "beholden" to one side or the other; Chief Justice Roberts got it right in his "there are no Trump judges or Obama judges" quote. However, the way a judge rules on cases (and by extension, issues) is - SCOTUS notwithstanding - generally dependent on who appointed them....so to hear Trump put his fellow conservatives on blast was a surprise.

Founders' Quotes, 27-28 May 2025

A pair of quotes from Thomas Jefferson on the subject of arms...

(1) One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. - letter to George Washington, 1796

(2) No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands]. - Draft Constitution for the State of Virginia — 1776

One of the things that makes America such a unique place is the freedom of individual to possess firearms (within certain historical limits) without the government's meddling or forbiddance. Heck, the first shots of the American Revolution were precisely because the British government wanted to seize the weapons and ammunition of the colonists in Lexington and Concord.

Charlton Heston had it right after all...."I'll give you my gun when you pry (or take) it from my cold, dead hands."

What Exactly Happened On SpaceX's NINTH Starship Test Flight!

Tuesday's Starship flight test (Integrated Flight Test 9) was a mix of successes and failures. On the one hand, they (a) proved directional kickback of the Super Heavy booster was possible, (b) achieved trans-atmospheric insertion of Starship, the first since Flight 6...and that was pretty much it.

On the other hand, (a) the Super Heavy demised at the point of the splashdown burn, (b) Starship failed to deploy the Starlink mass-simulator payload from the Ship's Pez dispenser payload bay and (c) suffered a propellant leak which ultimately doomed Starship.

Not the best of circumstances but there's a point here: this was, after all, a test flight and no test flight is ever 100%. Given Elon Musk's words last night, expect the next couple Starship Flight Tests' to be along similar lines as Flight 9 - he has already has at least three Starship Block 2's at Starbase in different stages of rollout and he has several Super Heavys' also ready to go including at least two from previous flights (most likely the boosters from Flights 5 and 8).

This is going to be an interesting summer for SpaceX and the American spaceflight community...

We Owe Them All...

(Patriot Post, 26 May 2025)

No truer words need be said.

Founders Quote, 26 May 2025

Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness. - James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

America is many many wonderful things but it is also an idea, an idea that says in essence that you can live your life as you see fit (w/in the bounds of the law, of course) without government or private busybodies meddling in your affairs. It is the spirit of the pioneer going forth to reach new worlds, new boundaries, of piercing the unknown. It is the soldier defending their country from threats near and far, of the farmer tending to the land, of the homesteader caring for and managing their lands, etc.

Most of all, America is an idea - that when you are born, your whole life is free to do with as you wish, without concern of class or gender or race. In most countries, when you are born, your life, depending on the country, is all-but-laid out for you; here? The only limits are the limits of one's imagination.

No Greater Sacrifice

Enough said.

Founder's Quote, 25 May 2025

It will not be doubted, that with reference either to individual, or National Welfare, Agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as Nations advance in population, and other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent; and renders the cultivation of the Soil more and more, an object of public patronage. - George Washington, Eighth Annual Message to Congress — 1796

Agriculture has long been a staple of America; from the farms of the Midwest to the vineyards of California and the yeoman farmers of Appalachia, farming and the products yielded from them not only feed America but the world.