The Rod Martin Report: December 11, 2015
You can read about the world anywhere. You read The Rod Martin Report to understand it.
by Rod D. Martin
December 11, 2015
If Paris pushed Barack Obama into a corner (and the Establishment GOP candidates under water), San Bernardino might as well have been a nuclear attack. The visceral distrust of America's leaders won't be remedied by the sort of pablum Obama offered in his Oval Office address, especially as -- ten full days later -- he refuses to visit the scene of the most deadly U.S. terror attack since 9/11, an attack his spokesman referred to just yesterday as an incident of "gun violence."
The Establishment in both parties no longer looks merely out of touch and frustrating. It looks dangerous, as though fiddling while Rome burns.
This has reshaped the race considerably. Hillary continues to lose ground to her GOP opponents, while Trump and Cruz surge. A lot can happen between now and Iowa, but the two look well on track to dominate that caucus. Meanwhile key EU members (including France, where Obama gave a fatuous speech claiming that mass shootings only happen in America) face electoral revolutions, and Finland just indicted two "refugees" for the terror-murders of 11 innocents.
But we'll be back with more on that soon. In the meantime, below are a few of the most significant things you need to know about right now; and there's always a great deal more at RodMartin.org.
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I have said for years that the only secure election is one with paper ballots, photo IDs, and (ideally) indelibly inked thumbs such as we required in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now there's proof that it is astonishingly easy to hack the voting machines we rely on to preserve the integrity of our elections process... Read more…
Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, his predecessor and the Honduran Congress have supported the creation of free zones within Honduras as demonstration projects to show the benefits of free markets and the rule of law in creating well-paying jobs and economic growth.
There are many recent examples of countries — and relatively free economic enclaves around the world — achieving very high economic growth rates for a sustained period of time. There is no reason why Honduras cannot make the necessary changes to become a high-growth country.
The Concorde maybe gone, but hypersonic travel is just warming up.
Meet SABRE, which stands for Synergetic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine. The air-breathing engine will enable aircraft to operate easily at speeds of up to five times the speed of sound and even fly into Earth orbit. It's coming soon, but by mid-century, it will look slow.Â
There is perhaps no more world-changing development on Earth than this.
For space travel, development and colonization to become economically viable, the key hurdle is reducing the cost per pound to orbit. Elon Musk has reduced it by an order of magnitude in the last ten years, but he's not alone in his efforts.
Rockets launch all the time, but Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket was special: the rocket landed successfully as well. Reusable rockets will dramatically reduce the cost to launch people and things into Earth orbit, and in so doing, enable a whole lot more of us to go.