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Rand Simberg’s witty, acerbic video series “Space Policy Explained” has a new chapter. Space Policy, Explained (Part 1)Space Policy, Explained (Part 2)Space Policy, Explained (Part 3)Space Policy, Explained (Part 4)Space Policy, Explained (Part 5)

For fear of being a political post, here are some ideas: 1: The debt ceiling will need to be raised temporarily. However the baseline budgeting process should be thrown out. Let the Federal Government budget just like any other company. (Actually these guys haven't even done a budget in 2 1/2 years). No automatic raises. Current budgeting process also encourages various governmental agencies and departments to spend more. If they don't, next year they get less money. Thus they are always hungry for more money to spend instead of finding ideas to save money. This system is all pervasive -...

Solution number two in the "seven breakthrough solutions" has been a point of contention between faculty and the board of regents as it is eerily similar to the Student Led Awards for Teaching Excellence commonly called SLATE. Though Chancellor McKinney initiated the program in 2008 designed to reward teachers for excellence in the classroom. Chancellor McKinney modeled the SLATE program off a similar one at The University of Oklahoma, which was lobbied for by the father of Jeff Sandefer, the writer of the "seven breakthrough solutions." Professor Jamie Grunlan, who gave an impassioned speech May 26 to the board of...

Last month, faculty members circulated an open letter to Richard Box, Chairman of the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, expressing concern over the seven solutions and garnering over 800 signatures of support. Finally, on May 26 Professor Jaime Grunlan gave an impassioned speech to the Board of Regents questioning the SLATE program, which grants professors cash rewards for the best student evaluations and was met with thunderous applause. With all the concern over these "Seven Breakthrough Solutions," we will spend the next several days looking at each solution. Breakthrough solution one is to "Measure Teaching Efficiency and Effectiveness...

General Motors CEO Dan Akerson said his company and his industry would be helped, not hurt, if consumers paid higher gas taxes. In an interview published in Tuesday's Detroit News, Akerson floated the idea of a $1 a gallon increase in the gas tax as a way to encourage buyers to purchase smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Greg Martin, spokesman for GM's Washington office, confirmed that the quotes reflect Akerson's and GM's view. Akerson said he would support a jump in the gas tax if it came instead of tighter fuel economy regulations that GM (GM, Fortune 500) and other...

In an interview with CNBC’s Jane Wells, rock n’ roll singer Gene Simmons slammed President Barack Obama on his proposal to weaken Israel in support of the Hamas-Fatah alliance. “How about you live there and try to defend an indefensible border?… He has no f**king idea what the world is like.”

Girl Killed by Abortion Drug Followed Old Planned Parenthood Policy Lisbon, Portugal -- A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/18/girl-killed-by-abortion-drug-followed-old-planned-parenthood-policy/

Girl Killed by Abortion Drug Followed Old Planned Parenthood Policy Lisbon, Portugal -- A teenage girl who was recently killed by a deadly infection following usage of the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug followed the same Planned Parenthood protocols for taking the drug that claimed the lives of women in the United States. http://www.lifenews.com/2011/05/18/girl-killed-by-abortion-drug-followed-old-planned-parenthood-policy/

Denmark was on a collision course with the European Union on Thursday as it defended a plan to unilaterally enforce stricter border controls, a policy which reflects growing resentment across Europe toward the EU “open-border” policy. "We see a rise in cross-border crime: drugs, east European gangs, human trafficking, money smuggling... And one of the efficient ways to fight this is border control," Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said Wednesday on Danish television, adding that the enforcement measures would “be put in place as soon as possible.” Danish authorities have planned to invest over €20 million in more customs...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama will lay out a vision for his policy toward the Middle East on Thursday, using Osama bin Laden's death as a chance to recast the U.S. response to political upheaval in the Arab world. Obama, who has enjoyed a boost in his standing at home and abroad with the death of the al Qaeda chief, will give his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech one day before White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president is expected to re-commit to seeking an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal but seen as unlikely to present major new...

Gas Cost: Is it just us, or do Obama's policies sound suspiciously like that "Annie" song: Don't worry about today's killer pump prices, a bright energy sun will come out tomorrow. When gasoline prices topped $4 a gallon in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama had a simple message for voters: There's nothing that can be done about it today. Certainly not offshore drilling. Obama trashed Sen. John McCain's call to open up vast tracts of offshore oil to exploration and drilling. It would not, he said in June 2008, "lower gas prices today. It would not lower gas prices this...

With fighting intensifying between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza, the Arab League on Sunday announced plans to ask the UN to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza. Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/305545#ixzz1JDWz1jI1

The budget stalemate between the right and the left comes down to a basic difference in economic views, the left feels that we need to tax more in order to consume more money, and the right believes that we need to consume less money in order to tax less. Whichever side of the argument you come down on, it's not hard to see which of these positions is fundamentally unsustainable. And it is amazing that the same people who can and do lecture for hours on environmental sustainability, seem to have no grasp of economic sustainability. If you tell them...

Every scheme and every so-called compromise King Obama signs off on has but one goal. Redistribute from the rest of the world to US states and US voters via Fed monetary policy. Am I correct?

AMID THE animated rodents, smushed test-babies, snack-food perversions, and crude humor of Sunday’s Super Bowl ads was a powerful, two-minute homage to Detroit, America’s most abject city. Over a pulsating soundtrack of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself,’’ viewers were treated to panning shots of some of Detroit’s lovingly restored landmarks from the days when the auto industry made it the richest city in the United States. Today it is the poorest, with a 36 percent poverty rate. Far from avoiding its grim, rust belt image, the ad — ostensibly to introduce a new Chrysler luxury sedan — celebrated the city’s guts-and-grit industrial...

...Top CIA official Stephanie O'Sullivan told senators Thursday that Obama was warned of instability in Egypt "at the end of last year." She spoke during a confirmation hearing to become the deputy director of national intelligence, the No. 2 official to Clapper... ...Of major concern to U.S. intelligence officials is the possibility that the political upheaval in Egypt could be "hijacked" by the Muslim Brotherhood, the banned but politically popular religious and political movement that provides social and charitable support for much of Egypt's poor... ...Scheuer said the CIA has devoted resources to Egypt for years, fostering such a close...

Standing with the dictator ally instead of freedom-seeking citizens was the wrong course for Obama. Fox News says Mubarak will not seek re-election, a huge victory for those protesting in the streets. We asked earlier if Obama was really in a Pickle, sort of a darned if he does, darned if he doesn't kind of situation. We argued he was not and that he should have supported protesters. We were right. Foxy Blondes News says Mubarak will not seek reelection. Protesters quickly turned on Americans when they learned President Obama was pulling an Iran on them and telling them to...

Barack Hussein Obama is conceivably the most anti-Israel president the United States has had since the State of Israel was formed, yet American Jews voted in large numbers for him. In a stunning, shameless act of naked hate and bigotry, Barack Hussein Obama will align with the Organization of the Islamic Conference at the UN to ethnically cleanse Israel of the Jewish people. This would be the first time a US President did not veto a critical resolution in what is now an interminable stream of Islamic anti-semitic resolutions introduced by an increasingly Islamicized United Nations. Anyone with even so...

'I made a mistake': Al Gore's U-turn on corn ethanol as he admits the food-vs-fuel competition is real By Daily Mail Reporter Last updated at 4:43 AM on 23rd November 2010 Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore said support for corn-based ethanol in the United States was 'not a good policy', weeks before tax credits are up for renewal. U.S. blending tax breaks for ethanol make it profitable for refiners to use the fuel even when it is more expensive than gasoline. The credits are up for renewal on December 31. Total U.S. ethanol subsidies reached $7.7billion last year according...

For help understanding the foreign policy headlines of the past week, let's return, briefly, to the spring of 1983, when Barack Obama was a student at Columbia University. What were the burning international issues of that time? Well, first was the "nuclear freeze" movement, which was prompting mass demonstrations around the world by people worried about the standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States. Obama published an article about it in a campus magazine in which he invoked the vision of "a nuclear free world." The Middle East, meanwhile, was still reeling from the 1982 Israeli invasion of...