He really is a piece of work:
In a speech pandering to Florida’s aerospace community ahead of the state’s primary, GOP contender Newt Gingrich made a bold pledge to establish a permanent U.S. base on the moon “by the end of my second term.” He further promised that if he becomes president, America will get a man to Mars “in a remarkably short time.”
As I joked on twitter, liberals should seek a compromise and agree to permanently station Newt Gingrich on the moon.
Linkmeister
All due respect, John, but don’t you think the moon is a little too close? Mars might be more beneficial to the rest of us.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Newt’s already vulnerable to criticism that he spends too much time at the Lunar White House.
cmorenc
It’s easy and surprisingly cheap to send a man to Mars. What’s vastly more expensive is a mission sending a man to Mars and successfully getting him back alive. But if you don’t care about that caveat, it’s surprisingly cheap to do.
Baud
If Newt becomes President, the Earth will be uninhabitable, so all things considered, I support this idea.
Benjamin Franklin
John Cole is fired up. What is this, five threads?
“A remarkably short time” to Gingorich must be the length of one marriage.
John O
I love me some Cole binges.
Wag
Does onyone else remember the old sci-fi movie “Journey to the far side of the sun”? There was a mirror image of the earth there,except everything good was bad, and vice versa. I would like to send Bad Newt there, and they could send Good Newt here. That way he goes very far away, and we might get some fun bombast from a good guy.
Unless our Newt is already the Good Newt….
kdaug
Wow – New buttons now? ABC Checkmark and something that looks like a resize? Will investigate.
ETA: Ah, a giant spellchecker and an even giant-er comment window.
Still, well done and appreciated.
cathyx
I can’t wait to see what he promises us when he comes to Oregon.
ImJohnGalt
OT, but did anyone else wonder if JC posting his mug on the site would suddenly summon Darrell?
I know, I’m dating myself here.
BGinCHI
Any chance Newt just wants a monopoly on lunar cheese?
I’m assuming most of what he knows about astronomy comes from cartoons.
Linda Featheringill
I would like to see a permanent, populated base on the moon. It probably would work better if it were international.
And then from the base at the moon, we could go to . . . .
gnomedad
Why no Underwater Olympics yet? New high jump records! I blame Obama.
The Ancient Randonneur
I can only imagine what he would promise the residents of Utah.
El Cid
I think first it should be stipulated that Newt would fly on Free Market rockets with no big government regulations on either the craft or the structure on the Moon. And if he wants to bring along additional consorts, he has to pay for their transport and at least enough food of some sort to survive a year or so.
jacy
I thought Obama already had a time-travel base on Mars, so as to better facilitate the changing of his birth certificate. Or am I misremembering?
Brachiator
Sheer lunacy.
And what balls. Notice how Newt throws in some shit about his “second term.”
Violet
Newt Gingrich is an incredibly entertaining candidate to watch. Crazy, evil motherfucker, but entertaining.
Don’t forget, there’s another CNN debate tomorrow night! Let’s hope it comes complete with full audience participation!
Maude
Who is going to pay for these adventures in space? Private funding?
Bush was going to put a man on Mars. We have found the candidate for that mission.
He is truly crazy.
scav
He’s down to reusing old GWB retreads, isn’t he? To the MOON! To MARS! Although I guess the Tourism tie-in is his own personal spin.
JoyceH
He heard that “the moon is a harsh mistress” and thought that sounded interestingly kinky.
Yevgraf
The question that comes to my mind is simple.
Why do it?
It would never be self sustaining. It would be expensive, pointless, would yield pretty much nothing in the way of new science, and would endanger the sort of chin jutting “manly man” USAF types who would be stupid enough to volunteer for the glory.
Roger Moore
Life support optional.
MikeJ
Newt for “B” Ark captain!
AnotherBruce
Moon bitchez!
feebog
This is the laugher:
In his own mind he not only has the nomination and election sewn up for 2012, he is a sure bet for re-election in 2016. By that time of course, he will have magically balanced the budget by cutting all millionaires taxes to zero percent, and everyone will have a pony, whether they want one or not.
Scott
@JoyceH: Well, the book did have a lot of polygamy and polyandry!
kdaug
@ImJohnGalt:
It’s his other brother Darrell.
Warren Terra
I realize that the citizens of Florida hear about Manned Spaceflight and think: good-paying jobs in Florida but honestly I’d almost rather they create good-paying jobs literally burning money, instead of metaphorically. I love space science, but it’s got damn-all to do with the Tinned Monkey Project. Manned spaceflight hasn’t accomplished anything of note in forty years now – i.e. not since they returned samples from the moon, a mission that we could now do better with robots in any case. Manned spaceflight also hasn’t really become better or easier in those forty years. A serious effort towards the colonization of space would take place entirely here on the earth, researching lift technologies, biosphere generation, and automated resource extraction. Meat On The Moon is utterly pointless unless we can give the colonists some hope of sustaining themselves and/or something to do while they’re up there, and we’re not even close.
BGinCHI
@AnotherBruce: Great Chappelle skit where he’s the President and just decides we’re going to Mars, for no reason.
Mars, Bitches!
j
Powered by Newt’s hot air, no doubt.
And it will all be free
JPL
@scav: I made phone calls for Kerry and I discovered that Bush’s Mars comments were pretty powerful. We were going to create millions and millions of jobs and we’d live happily ever after. Although I think there is a saying about fool me once, ah, never mind..Bush said that also, too.
freelancer
@JoyceH:
Win.
Bago
Evangelion played many instances of that song in the closing credits.
Quicksand
Yeah, it sounds good until a giant nuclear waste explosion knocks the moon out of its orbit, setting it adrift in outer space with all the permanent base inhabitants still on board. Like what happened 13 years ago.
Mike in NC
@Yevgraf:
Kind of like invading Iraq, isn’t it? But Newt’s a Big Thinker and a Very Serious Person, and it would be rude to interrupt him.
JPL
OT..Is block quote gone or just in hiding?
Bago
@MikeJ: Does that mean we have to see him topless?
jnfr
I actually joined Twitter first to follow the Mars Rovers. I don’t want to send Gingrich to Mars. Those little rover fellows are too sweet to subject to that kind of poop.
Warren Terra
@Scott:
Yup. Gingrich is notable for his contributions to bad Science Fiction (I say this as an enthusiastic fan of good science fiction, and as someone who cheerfully reads plenty of mediocre science fiction), and I’d fully expect that he is conversant with Heinlein’s works – especially The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, in which (as I recall from reading it twenty years ago) a moon colony is effortlessly not merely viable but enormously productive, plural marriages are common, eminent men enjoy the favors of nubile young women (this may be more a feature of other, still later Heinlein – where it includes incest), and a technology-enabled free-market libertarian revolution on the moon easily succeeds in overthrowing the small-minded authoritarian government bureaucrats.
Warren Terra
Hmph. Made a comment about the Heinlein-Newt connection, and apparently the word “ince$t” gets your comment Moderated. Surely people don’t advertise using that word?
Tim C.
I swear by the Flying Spaghetti Monster I am just so effing tired of Republicans trying to grab a JFK moment when everything Warren Terra said is self-evidently true. Yes, we need a crash R&D program, but we need it in renewable energy, in carbon capture, in birth control, in a dozen other places where we can do some real good in the world. An aggressive remote probe program would be the best way to do the science.
On the other hand, I dreamed of being an astronaut when I was a kid, a dream that millions of Americans share. So I can understand the temptation on this one.
Also too, remember when Bush said we were going back to to the moon and put off all the hard choices and big costs till 2009?
Villago Delenda Est
@Wag:
Is this sort of like Flexo of Futurama, who is the version of Bender who wears the goatee (ala “Mirror, Mirror”) but is the good one?
Roger Moore
@Warren Terra:
Rule 34, dude. You don’t want to know what kind of sick stuff people look for on the internet, and that draws advertisers who want to attract them.
Chris
@Linkmeister:
What did the Martians ever do to you?
trollhattan
Thus, is born the Gingrich as Chuck Norris meme.
On his first day in office, Preznit Newt will count to infinity. Twice.
Chris
@Maude:
Funny, isn’t it? The first people to put a man in space were the Marxist-Leninist Government of the USSR. Second were the then-Keynesian Government of the United States. The vaunted private sector didn’t get around to it until forty years later.
Martin
@Tim C.: Wait, crash R&D program in birth control? WTF, dude! Where on earth will we get our aborted fetus food additives if that happens!?
Ella in New Mexico
“first
Lunalympics”Loonalympics. There, fixed.Yevgraf
@Quicksand:
Sweet 1999 reference.
I always wondered how they kept their low-grav lunar flyers aloft after all those Space Brits got carried away.
Villago Delenda Est
@trollhattan:
Heads up in The Barrens! Preznit Newt is coming to the Crossroads!
/geek out the gazoo
Roger Moore
@Tim C.:
We don’t need a crash program in birth control R&D. Yes, a male version of the pill would be great, and more options would never hurt, but the ones available now are good enough. In many countries where birth control is widely available and socially acceptable, the birth rate has dropped to below replacement level. What we need more than anything else an advertising and distribution campaign to expand the areas where it’s available and acceptable to the whole planet.
The Dangerman
I may be mistaken, but getting a person to Mars isn’t the trick; getting them back, however, could be a lot of fun.
Unless they are going to stay, in which case, send Newt and all his concubines (assuming there’s room for them … on Mars).
Spellcheck? Hot diggety dog; Newt’s a fucking asshole (awsome, SC only fired on diggety).
Edit: SHIT! #3 beat me to my point; I was more interested in playing with Spellcheck than reading comments.
schlmizel
Why won’t one of the media assclowns ask where the money for this would come from? Perhaps throwing more old folks off Medicare and social security?
I love the space program but until these butchers agree we can tax the 1% to pay for it they are lying.
Warren Terra
@Martin:
Abortion is technically a form of birth control. The inability to make distinctions within “birth control” may be part of why Santorum doesn’t feel embarrassed about opposing birth control.
Roger Moore
Cool new features. Now testing to see if the damn spam filter is still fucked up: socialist, specialist, shoes.
ETA: Nope, still borked.
dmsilev
@Chris:
Well, there was that abortive invasion of England back in the late 19th century. And they’ve shot down quite a few of our
retaliatory strikesrobotic probes since then. So, let’s just call this an escalation. If they don’t surrender after we send them Newt, I propose sending Dick Cheney next.Linda Featheringill
@Quicksand:
Don’t worry about the base personnel. If we lose the moon, the earth will become uninhabitable anyway and we’ll all die.
Tim C.
@Martin:
Now that I’ve thrown up in my mouth a little…
Ahem… I was talking about ways to make it easier for not just women in developed nations to be selective about how many children they have but also women in the developing world to do so.
Seriously…. that TPM article is real?
Bubblegum Tate
@ImJohnGalt:
I’d prefer that it summon Stormy70.
Villago Delenda Est
@dmsilev:
Why should we even take the chance? Send both now!
Calouste
@schlmizel:
Cutting the defense budget by 10% should do the trick.
Chris
@dmsilev:
You mean the aborted invasion that spawned a documentary starring Tom Cruise?
Yeah, I’ve changed my mind. Kill them all.
David Koch
pandering to NASA’s employees (or has Chuck Todd would say, “the space community”).
Old Dan and Little Ann
Forget Mars, Newt. Go build a base on Uranus.
Someone had to do it.
cmorenc
@Tim C.:
Actually, Newt’s already got the problem solved about how to have all the sex you want with all the women you want without either having to worry about getting the women pregnant, and it doesn’t require any birth control by either men or women. Women give men blowjobs. Worked for Newt!
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
newt gingrich could be writing the prequel to “the adventures of pluto nash”. in it we find out that rex crater was once newt gingrich. it all makes sense now.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
As much as I want both of those things, there is no Republican alive today that would even try to make that happen.
wasabi gasp
Ralph Kramden 2012
Tim C.
@cmorenc:
And again….. Newt and Oral sex….. Throwing up for real now.
harlana
@cmorenc: i think it was Marianne or one of his other gfs he was cheating with said Newt liked bj’s also so he could say (technically) “I did not have sex with that woman” – ironic, ain’t it?
Martin
@Tim C.: Of course that article is real – and we’re finally able to piece together the OK legislation to understand the existential threat Oklahomans face. Apparently, after the lesbians there are done recruiting in the girls bathrooms in the high schools, they have sex, have a Sharia Law abortion, and then use the fetus to make tacos.
You can’t tackle this problem from just one direction, you have to attack it on all fronts.
lol
@efgoldman:
Not the Onion but Weekly World News of Batboy fame.
jheartney
@cmorenc: It’s even cheaper if you don’t worry about them arriving at Mars alive. Then you can just skip all the radiation shielding. Anyway, if we’re sending Newt and/or Cheney, both have ample body shielding already.
BTW, I thought Dubya already started some sort of men-on-Mars project. Shouldn’t it have made some progress by now?
Satanicpanic
Newt is just proposing this so he can hand off a wildly expensive and pointless program to the Democrat unlucky enough to follow him as Preznit. Then House Republicans and Fox can whine about what a waste of money it is.
Origuy
It would help if the celibate leader of one of the world’s largest religions would STFU about birth control.
quannlace
Wow, Like all his fans say,,,,Newt really is a man of big ideas. Big DUMB ideas.
Didn’t Dubya promise a mission to Mars in one of his State of the U speeches?
Cassidy
That’s a policy position I could get behind.
harlana
Jan Brewer is a skank
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
It would help if religious nuts of all stripes would STFU about birth control. Actually, it would help if religious nuts of all stripes would STFU in general. Mammon worshipers more than anyone else.
Tony J
Newt wants a manned base on the Moon within a decade and a Mars mission soon afterwards? Sweet.
All it would take is the diversion of 50% of GDP to a crash program dusting off and realising all the funky plans Space Tech engineers have been working on for decades to get the personnel boosted to Luna and supplied with the revolutionary materials and equipment they’d need to survive while they build the launch-site for the Mars mission, followed by 15% to 20% of GDP for a generation or two aimed at producing enough highly specialised engineers to keep the logistical ends of both missions functioning.
Oh, and a lot of the nuclear material currently used for bombs would have to be diverted to powering the fast transport required to get all of that up and running.
Sounds great. I wish him luck.
Tony J
Bizarre. Not a single mention of Lust Drugs or Gambling and I’m in moderation?
FYWP. You’re letting Cole down.
harlana
oh yikes, Mitch Daniel looks/sounds awful!
Villago Delenda Est
@Tony J:
You forgot the obligatory FYWP. 2 demerits.
Baud
@harlana: Are you watching Ed? That was my reaction also. That Steve Jobs reference gave me the creeps.
redshirt
Fuck da moon. Asteroids is where it’s at.
Tony J
@Villago Delenda Est:
No, dude, it’s there. What screed of frustration here would be complete without it?
Don’t even get me started on the random long-scrolling text problem. That really grinds my gears, and WP can FI for that too.
Scamp Dog
@scav: I may be the only person on the planet to remember this, but GHWB also proposed sending a manned mission to Mars. The results were remarkably similar to those achieved by his son, except they were successfully shoved down the memory hole.
Tim C.
@Scamp Dog:
I remember, the design was nicknamed “Battlestar Galactica” by the NASA folks who worked on it and they didn’t mean that in the nice way. It was just going to be a gigantic craft constructed in orbit and was basically a non-starter.
jonas
How come Newt’s suddenly in favor of huge, bloated government programs to spend tons and tons of money on a fundamentally pointless project? We all know government spending creates no jobs, and never has. Republicans on my tee-vee have told me so.
I just don’t get conservatives.
virginia
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Newt.”
Such a horse’s ass is he. Let one black hole suck up another.
His posturing and cynicism leave me giddy.
Didn’t some tv pundit or pundita mention just this gambit a few days ago? As something that Romney might attempt? I swear I heard it on tv — the unemployed NASA folks along a certain corridor being ready to lap this up, poor things.
Mike S.
About as far fetched as Obama’s recent claim that DoJ is now going seriously investigate mortgage lending/servicing fraud… after 3 years of sitting on their hands.
Prior to coming to DoJ, both Holder and his #2 both worked for the law firm that wrote the legal justification for MERS. In reality, MERS is a black-hole that was used to destroy property rights: across the country, meaningful records of land ownership no longer exist.
This blog sits around dissing those on the other side of the aisle (and rightly so), yet it cannot look in the mirror. Sad.
Tonal Crow
What’s the probability that Newt will twit about terraforming Mars within a week of twitting about anthropogenic climate change being a “hoax”? I say P ~= 0.5. You?
General Stuck
@Mike S.:
FDL is thataway, grasshopper.
Lyrebird
@Martin: Lots of awesome comments here, but I think yours takes the, ummmm, cake? Ew.
@Tim C.: Energy *transport* should be in there w/renewable energy *generation*, imnsho. Birth control? At least some of the reports I’ve seen from East and South Asia suggest that what really boosts the effectiveness of any/all of the forms is providing women w/the means to earn and keep some control of cash income. (e.g. “egg money”, raising a few pigs/geese, etc)
Bill White
On the Moon, three marriages weigh the same as one on Earth.
Bruce S
Please don’t make me be the first up with a Uranus joke…
Sunny D
Newt: “Lunar chicks are hot”
Sunny D
@Bill White: Wish I thought of that one.
Tim C.
@Lyrebird:
Honestly, I was shooting from the hip there a little and mixing metaphors. But yeah, the issue isn’t forms per se, but the distribution and cultural changes to required to improve conditions.
And yes! Transport and energy storage are a big huge honkin deal.
Ferris Valyln
@Yevgraf:
Actually, it could be entirely self-sustaining, done properly.
As for why do it – space development will help the earth
chowkster
How does one explain Politico’s crush on Drudge?
Jamie
Problems with Living in Space flight
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4026/contents.html
bjacques
Newt heard about the Amazon Women on the Moon and wants to keep his options open.
Paul in KY
I think the Calistabot would look right at home on Mars or the Moon. She could wear one of those ‘fascinator’ hats that had cute little antennas.
Paul in KY
@Chris: Maybe Newt could be the first man on the sun? I’d be all for that.
Paul in KY
@Origuy: Every abortion deprives the world of a potential donor to the Catholic collection plate.
artem1s
@cathyx:
I want a world series ring for the Indians, a Super Bowl appearance for the Browns, and Rocky Colavito back.
And no, I don’t want King James back…one King in the state is enough and we’re currently trying to get rid of him.
anyone want to trade a half competent relief legislator for a know-nothing sourpuss, a used Zamboni, and a player to be named later?
AA+ Bonds
Liberals making fun of space exploration is a dumb and shitty thing for liberals to do
stop fucking doing it
AA+ Bonds
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon and do these other things . . . not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” –President John F. Kennedy
AA+ Bonds
“Manned space flight is hard and expensive, I’m a big whiny baby when it helps out the Democrats” –Ted Kennedy, a few years before he fucking died
That’s the arc of liberalism in the U.S.
Paul in KY
@AA+ Bonds: We’re making fun of Newt, because he’s just talking shit when he says this. He knows he has no intention of doing that.
Lighten up a bit, please.