Instead, we’re perpetually “a decade” from the Moon.  Returning to the Moon, not going there in the first place!  Our second Space Station is behind schedule– and when we do finish it, it’ll be a mere five years from the scrapheap!  (Next year, the last Shuttle lifts the last component, and retirement is looking like a 2016 timeframe.)  By the Nine Divines, we were supposed to have spinning wheels in orbit that would make von Braun envious from beyond the grave!

Instead, we have a billion-dollar showcar that’s cross-dressing as a truck, kills a high percentage of its passengers, and can’t live up to any of its original performance specs– turnaround time, cost per pound to orbit, man-hours of maintenance per flight…

Instead, the last NASA Director who knew his rectum from a mine shaft lies in a hospital because he was flying in an aircraft as old as he was.  Where’s “No Sparrow Shall Fall” when you need it?

Instead, our space agency has been told that their new focus is outreach to the Islamic world.

Help us private industry, you’re our only hope…

Comic book version of Road to Serfdom here.

(Both link one and link two H/T Instapundit)

Books have two main attributes: depth and readability.  Some books have tremendous depth, but are homeopathic cures for insomnia (*cough* Atlas Shrugged *cough*).  Some are great reads, but have all the depth of a puddle (fiction by Tom Clancy, Joe Buff, or Dale Brown).  Rarely, you get a book with both good information and a page turning plot.  Monster Hunter International is one of those books.

Allow me to emphasize a point here– there are exactly two fiction books I’ve read cover-to-cover more than once in a row.  Those books are Starship Troopers by Bob Heinlein, and MHI.

The books is a romp, from the first kill to the last.  Although I must admit that having a big geek throw his boss out the window did make me smile.  (Hey, I had been funemployed less than two weeks, and I’m pretty sure my former employer is a vampire… )

Plus, the guns.  Oh great googly moogly… the guns.  From custom 1911s to mortars, everything’s here, and the details are right.  There’s even Glock and H&K hate (be still my beating heart)… but that’s not surprising, seeing as Larry wrote this little essay.

There’s a love interest, two messed up families, and enough psycho co-workers to make this book feel real.  (A stripper, an accountant, and a school teacher walk into a bar…)  The best part is the humor.  The government gets mocked less than 50 pages in, and Tolkien only survives 150 or so.  The locations rock– the book is set mostly in the Southeast– and I actually purchased the book in a town mentioned in the novel.

All in all, very worth it.  Two thumbs up.

FTC disclaimer:  I have received no payment or merchandise for this post.

The best part is that the model on the front isn’t some ditzy airhead; she’s a zoology major. She knows her stuff, and she actually hunts.

I’m glad that the Evil Black Rifle AR platform is so common now that it has its own magazine. Maybe commonality will remove some of the stigma surrounding it. Either that, or “shoulder thing that goes up” jokes will become more common.

(H/T Uncle)

AdNix, anyone?

Curse that Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!  I mean, it’s not like this happened bef… okay, so it has.