Mars by 2044?

Can you guess why this was done? Alabama is having budget difficulties and one solution is to close 45 of 49 driver's license bureaus. Yup, by March of next year there will only be four places in the state to get a driver's license – Huntsville, Montgomery, Mobile, and Birmingham. The other half of the story: Alabama has a voter ID law that requires a driver's license or state ID (and we know where one must go for those). The poor get a double hit. They usually can't afford to take a day off work and don't have the money to travel halfway across the state for an ID. They can't vote and they can't drive a car to a job, confining them to jobs accessible by public transportation.

Commenters suggest a few gov't officials will lose the next election over this mess. The poor may not be able to vote, but even the middle class folks won't want to be so inconvenienced.



Back in 1986 Ron Jones put some serious thought into how humans could become a spacefaring race. He created the Integrated Space Plan, showing the various interlocking milestones required to create a base on the moon and a full scale colony on Mars before 2100. The plan has been updated and is much easier to understand. It also takes into account billionaires who have their own space programs. Hmm, humans on Mars around 2044. I just might live to see that.



Earlier this month the Supreme Court of Mexico ruled that a state law that bans same-sex couples from adopting is unconstitutional.



Over the last six years the GOP has been declaring Obama's policies will end in disaster. But recently the GOP hasn't been saying that very loudly. The reason, as Paul Krugman puts it, Obama is failing to fail. Those disasters just aren't appearing.