At Least Double The NASA Budget — Currently 1/2 Cent Per Dollar
By Daniel Miessler on April 10th, 2012: Tagged as Politics | Science
Currently, NASA’s budget barely surpasses 0.5 percent of the Federal budget, and has seen a steady decline in the proportions of its funding, now reaching all-time lows. The cultural mindset brought on by NASA has allowed us to reap the benefits of economic growth, creating an influx of people wanting to become scientists and engineers.There is no question that the government has money to fund NASA: $850 billion was spent on the bank bailout, several hundred billion dollars more than the 53 year running budget of NASA. If we want to invest in our future, we must fund NASA at higher levels.
Tomorrow is gone without NASA. Please at least double NASA’s annual budget, and continue to support the most inspirational program in the country.
Please follow this link, sign the petition, and share the message with friends.
Voting Republican
By Daniel Miessler on March 21st, 2012: Tagged as Politics

And yes, I do understand that this doesn’t apply to all conservatives, or all people who identify as Republican. But I would say that, based on my observations at least, it applies to most.
An essay by Christopher Hitchens called America the Banana Republic is the best encapsulation of this phenomenon that I’ve ever read.
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Phenomenal Speech by a War Veteran
By Daniel Miessler on March 16th, 2012: Tagged as Politics
I disagree with him on a few points–specifically with him painting everyone in government with the same brush–but I think the overall message is spot on.
Education for a Democracy | Patheos
By Daniel Miessler on March 16th, 2012: Tagged as Education | Politics
The founders believed that because people were ignorant by nature, and thus incapable of understanding what was best for the common good, education was absolutely essential to the survival of the American republic. This is why Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, the nation’s first public university. This is why George Washington, in his 1796 message to Congress, called for a national university that would teach the arts and sciences.
When the founders talked about education, they did not mean vocational training or apprenticeships. While this type of training was certainly important, they also wanted a citizenry trained in government, ethics (moral philosophy), history, rhetoric, science (natural philosophy), mathematics, logic, and classical languages, for these subjects made people informed and civil participants in a democratic society.
Sam Harris on the Joe Rogan Show
By Daniel Miessler on March 10th, 2012: Tagged as Philosophy | Politics
Dunning-Kruger and the End of Democracy
By Daniel Miessler on March 6th, 2012: Tagged as Politics
The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people’s ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.
As a result, no amount of information or facts about political candidates can override the inherent inability of many voters to accurately evaluate them. On top of that, “very smart ideas are going to be hard for people to adopt, because most people don’t have the sophistication to recognize how good an idea is,” Dunning told Life’s Little Mysteries.
He and colleague Justin Kruger, formerly of Cornell and now of New York University, have demonstrated again and again that people are self-delusional when it comes to their own intellectual skills. Whether the researchers are testing people’s ability to rate the funniness of jokes, the correctness of grammar, or even their own performance in a game of chess, the duo has found that people always assess their own performance as “above average” — even people who, when tested, actually perform at the very bottom of the pile.
I was just going to say, “This is just like the Dunning-Kruger effect…”, but then I saw that it was research led by Dunning and Kruger. So yeah, it’s just like that.
I Pray Every Night For an Obama vs. Santorum Presidential Race
By Daniel Miessler on February 21st, 2012: Tagged as Politics

Moderate Republicans in this country need to see how ridiculous Santorum looks when compared to someone who is both reasonable and compassionate. They need to be embarrassed. I want them to physically cringe every time Santorum opens his silly face to speak. I want them beaten into submission by Santorum’s idiocy. I want them to see how ugly of a human being they tried to replace Obama with.
By the end of the campaign Santorum and the GOP will be so beaten down that it will feel mean to make fun of them. This matchup, if it happens, will signify the end of the modern GOP. All talk of conservative politics afterward will be about a “restart”, or a “renewal”.
I simply cannot wait.
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Judge Napolitano Speaks Stunning/Obvious Political Truth
By Daniel Miessler on February 13th, 2012: Tagged as Politics
This is brilliant. But it shouldn’t be.
Terror Defense Based on Resilience Rather than Avoidance
By Daniel Miessler on January 31st, 2012: Tagged as Politics | Security

America is wide open and trusting. This shouldn’t change.
The idea of stopping terrorist attacks from occurring is simply asinine in this light, as it’s just too easy to walk into a mall and cause havoc.
The message to terrorists (also heard by the American people) should not be,
We’ll stop people from setting off bombs in malls.
…but rather,
It’s easy to set off a bomb in a mall. So what. If you do you’ll kill fewer people than died that day from car accidents — in a single large state. We’re not afraid. We’re American. We won’t panic and we’ll simply hunt you down and kill you.
Put things in perspective. Don’t overreact. Obesity and alcoholism make Bin Laden look silly by comparison.
Sure, we still stay vigilant. We still look for suspicious activity. We still report things that might be dangerous. And we build that defensive eye into our education system. But we don’t open our legs to fear by considering an attack to be proof that our security has failed.
Us being attacked isn’t a failure. A mall bomb or seven, or an airplane or two going down on the same day: we should consider these extremely annoying and grounds for an asswhoopin’ — not evidence of the weakness of our country.
We should plan on this happening. Expect it. And not flinch when it does.
This is how we increase our security — by collectively controlling our response to attack and putting an end to pretending it won’t ever happen.
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