Sunday 28th of April 2024

newt's space odyssey...

man on the moon

Forget Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine – Newt Gingrich wants to colonise the moon.

"By the end of my second term [2020], we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American," the Republican US presidential hopeful told a cheering crowd in Cocoa, Florida, a town with links to the space industry.

A whopping budget deficit and cuts to the military do not seem to have dampened Gingrich’s astronomically expensive plans for a lunar colony with 13,000 residents.

"I want you to help me in Florida and across the country so you can someday say you were there the day it was announced that we’d have commercial space, moon colony and moving toward Mars," he said on Wednesday, comparing himself to John F Kennedy and the Wright Brothers [who invented airplanes].

“We clearly have a capacity that the Russians and the Chinese will never come anywhere close to matching."

Out of this world

Candidates clashed over the space programme, and Gingrich’s plans, during Thursday’s Republican debate.

"I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I’d say, ‘You’re fired,’" Mitt Romney, Republican front runner, told the audience in response to Gingrich’s plan.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012127154624640211.html

 

president of the moonies...

Oh, the news that was made in Florida this week. America’s manned space program is roaring back! We’re developing new kinds of rocket engines to get us to Mars in record time. We’re building airports from which five space missions can be launched every day — many of them carrying tourists. We’re going back to the moon, and not just to visit — to build a whole colony. Oh, and when that lunar colony has at least 13,000 permanent residents: Hello, 51st state!

The best part of all this? We don’t have to wait decades for the moon base to be built and the tourists to start packing. It’ll all happen by 2021 — which is otherwise known as the end of Newt Gingrich’s second term as President. According to Newt Gingrich.


Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/27/newt-for-president-of-the-moon/#ixzz1kkPfEzo3
Meanwhile:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is pulling away from his nearest rival Newt Gingrich, with a nine-point lead in Florida's opinion polls.

The candidates are campaigning in the key swing state ahead of its crucial primary election next week.

Mr Romney's ratings boost comes a day after he put Mr Gingrich on the defensive in a feisty TV debate.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-16767335

rambo newt...

US Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich faces a lawsuit over his use of Eye Of The Tiger, the theme song to Rocky III, court documents show.

The claim for copyright infringement, lodged by Rude Music Inc in an Illinois federal court, relates to Mr Gingrich's use of the song at his political rallies.

Rude Music Inc is owned by Frank Sullivan, who co-wrote the Grammy-award-winning song.

In addition to Mr Gingrich, the complaint names his campaign, Newt 2012 Inc, and the American Conservative Union, an advocacy organisation, as defendants.

The complaint states the violation it alleges is intentional since Mr Gingrich is "sophisticated and knowledgeable" concerning copyright laws.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-31/gingrich-sued-over-eye-of-the-tiger/3802786?WT.svl=news3