The Weekend Mailbag

There’s not nearly as much “snark” fodder for the mailbag this week.  Most of the comments I received were very positive, including a certain amount of surprise that I would endorse the First Amendment so strongly. 

Free Speech

Nina writes: 

You go from anti-homosexual bigot and gun freak to defender of free speech?  What gives?

Normally, I wouldn’t continually feature one person week after week, but I felt that Nina deserved special attention.  First of all, Nina, welcome back.  Although I would not have been terribly heartbroken had you left in angst over my political views, I am happy to see that you are continuing to read the site.  However, I think that everyone should realize that I more closely align myself with a Libertarian style of government rather than a Conservative style.  On some things I even lean left-of-center.  Hopefully the horror is bearable.

Michael S. writes:

The first amendment should never be used as an excuse to allow perversion, racism, or sedition to flourish.  The FCC is doing their duty as the guardians of the public to impose a modicum of civility and decency on our television and our radio.

The problem with this point of view, Michael, is that you have to pick a group of people with a particular bias to decide what is “decent” for the bulk of the American public.  Since we are in a nation that ostensibly practices the separation of church and state, we have to consider decency on a purely secular basis.  This leads to a somewhat sticky problem of having a government agency defining decency.  You cannot guarantee that the people who are implementing such a definition share your viewpoint, because as I said, these people are appointed (not voted for by you and me) and given delegated legislative power.  So which definition of decency should we use?  Mine?  Yours?  Hugh Hefner’s?  I would prefer that this sort of decision to define decency be left where it belongs–in the hands of parents and individuals.  Let everyone choose what programming they watch and listen to and let our constitution work as intended.

You mention “sedition” as one of the things that shouldn’t be allowed.  I would invite you to amplify exactly what you mean by “sedition.”  Criticism of our government should always be allowed, no matter the circumstances of the nation.

Privateer – The Podcast/Writing Sample

Julie writes:

Nicely done.  Pete, you write as though you have been through the experiences you’re describing.  You have a nice emotional impact that rings very true in few words.  Keep up the good work!

Terry T. writes:

I looked up picture of Europa and your description of it is perfect.  I especially like how thoroughly researched the novella seems to be so far.  You mentioned in the writing sample posted today that Europa would experience high levels of radiation due to the magnetic field of Jupiter, but I had a question.  Would a human in a space suit really be able to work on the surface?  Is any kind of unmanned mission planned for the moon?

That’s really a good question, Terry.  I don’t think we really know for sure at this point.  I do know that a mission to Europa was not included in NASA’s 2007 budget.  It will be a long time before we see an actual landing craft set down on the surface, but we can keep our fingers crossed that there will be less political wrangling and more exploration out of NASA in the near future.  If not, we may be reading the results of Europa missions in Chinese.

Operation Opera

Gerry B. writes:

Warmongering!  You’re glorifying acts of violence.  If Iraq had gotten their peaceful reactor online, then maybe their people would have had enough of a tech base to actually rebel against Saddam Hussein and save us the trouble.  What happened to national self-determination, anyway? 

I think Iraqi government chose to bombed back to the stone age with acts of aggression against its own people, against Iran, against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and by supporting terrorism.  The Iraqi government determined to give the world the finger, so I have to applaud countries who aren’t afraid to show them how to behave on the global stage.

Harry Hairy writes:

We need to see more of this in the future.  Israel has the ability, but I think that we [The U.S., I presume? - Pete] hold them back too much.  I think you hit on a very important point, Pete.  If Israel had not done this, how bad would Desert Storm have been? 

I sense a plot-line forming.  That just might be mainstream enough to cross-over from sci-fi, don’t you think?

Space Shuttle Atlantis

Tabitha writes:

Sure…the space shuttle launch was five months too late.  I just heard that there is a gash in the heat shield on the bottom.  Let’s sacrifice more astronauts in the name of national hubris.

Tabitha is talking about a small piece of thermal blanket that is out of place.  The heat generated during re-entry is not expected to affect this portion of the shuttle significantly.  Keep in mind that we are working with 30 year old equipment.  If we could quit funding useless programs in our government, we could get back to our manifest destiny of exploring and colonizing space.

That’s all for this week.  Thanks to everyone who wrote in, and if you’re miffed that you didn’t make the mailbag, you can always use the comment button to be a contributor as well.