Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson said Monday that Virgin Galactic is on track to offer commercial space travel within 18 months, and that space hotels are next on the drawing board.

The project’s SpaceshipTwo, an aircraft built by aviation engineer Burt Rutan and designed to carry paying customers into suborbital space, had its maiden flight in the California desert in March.

“We just finished building SpaceShipTwo. We are 18 months away from taking people into space,” Branson told a business conference in Kuala Lumpur, adding that the fare will start at 200,000 dollars.

Virgin Galactic, which aims to become the world’s first commercial company to promote space tourism, has already collected 45 million dollars in deposits from more than 330 people who have reserved seats aboard the six-person craft.

Perhaps afraid to lose too much ground to their enemies in the free market, the United Nations has decided to name an ambassador to space aliens:

Just when you thought the United Nations could not possibly become any more inane, out comes a story in London’s Sunday Times that the UN is about to appoint a special envoy for alien life forms. The idea, apparently, is that if aliens contact or land on earth, demanding “Take me to your leader,” the UN will have a designated official ready to step in as chief mouthpiece for the human race.

My first guess is that this close encounter of a UN kind would end swiftly, and not well. Imagine, for a moment, that you are an alien arriving on earth, curious about the ways of homo sapiens — and your first real sitdown is with a member of the UN bureaucracy. Either you’d speed back into space, howling: “The horror! The horror!” Or, if you’re an alien of strong stomach and advanced weaponry, you’d listen just long enough to conclude that earthlings have arrived at some endpoint of blithering and irredeemable decay, and zap them wholesale off the planet. Either way, there’s really no need for a UN-alien interface. The question we ought to be asking is how many U.S. tax dollars the UN plans to lavish on this new arrangement.

Congrats to Rutan and Branson.

With regards to the United Nations, it seems presumptuous to me that space aliens would even be interested in speaking with the UN, or any government entity for that matter.

If so, don’t read this article if you’ve been drinking whiskey, have a heart condition or a family history of strokes – as the story is certain to enrage you. For those of you in good enough condition to read this commie HuffPo piece, here’s a teaser from Ben Tripp’s manifesto:

We can call it libertarianism, patriotism, conservatism, or anything we want, but the truth is this: an ideology of selfishness has gripped the nation.

People who have spent their lives supporting politicians hell-bent on destroying the government now complain that “government doesn’t work.” Of course it doesn’t work. You wanted it that way, so you could keep your little handful of tax dollars from being spent on undesirables. This selfishness has gotten so far out of control that people are even willing to destroy themselves, rather than make any contribution to the greater good. They attack medical and social spending intended to keep them out of poverty and illness in their old age.

This me-me-me trait is dressed up as pragmatism by politicians, libertarianism by pundits, and self-reliance by citizens. Our corporate masters would call it capitalism and leave it at that. But we are in serious trouble as a nation unless we remember, and fast, how to start making concerted sacrifices for the common good.

One wonders how the author would feel if a sizable chunk of his paycheck was taken from him against his will and “donated” to the Cato Institute. After all, it would be selfish to refuse such a “contribution to the greater good.”

The big-government Republicans who controlled D.C. throughout the Bush years didn’t have the cajones to accomplish this. Obama and the Democrats certainly aren’t going to cut government. But guess who has more small-government cred than either major party in America?

From the AP:

Cuba announced Monday it will cast off at least half a million state workers by early next year and reduce restrictions on private enterprise to help them find new jobs — the most dramatic step yet in President Raul Castro’s push to radically remake employment on the communist-run island.

Castro suggested during a nationally televised address on Easter Sunday that as many as 1 million Cuban workers — about one in five — may be redundant. But the government had not previously laid out specific plans to slash its work force, and the speed and scope of the coming cutbacks were astounding.

Cuba’s official work force is 5.1 million — meaning nearly 10 percent of all employees could soon be out of a government job.

The general plan is to pink slip the least productive of Cuba’s roughly 5 million “public” workers by telling habitual no-shows and those who don’t do all that much work when they are on the job to go raise rabbits.

Since Obama is rapidly growing government while Castro is rapidly shrinking it, perhaps the Cubans should impose a trade embargo against the socialist Americans.

While this would truly suck, it could be much worse: They could be threatening to demolish your house, instead. And if you live in some of the impoverished areas of Montgomery, Alabama, this is not some hypothetical nightmare, but a very real violation of civil rights in the same neighborhood Rosa Parks once called home.

The Institute for Justice’s Christina Walsh describes the mechanics of these property rights violations in The Daily Caller:

The city decides it doesn’t like your property for one reason or another, so it declares it a “public nuisance.” It mails you a notice that you have 45 days to demolish your property, at your expense, or the city will do it for you (and, of course, bill you).

Your tab with the city will constitute a lien on your property, and if you don’t pay it within 30 days (or pay your installments on time; if you owe over $10,000, you can work out a deal to pay back the city for destroying your home over a period of time, with interest), the city can sell your now-vacant land to the highest bidder.

Alabama law empowers municipalities to do just this. Officials can demolish structures that they determine, “due to poor design, obsolescence, or neglect, have become unsafe to the extent of becoming public nuisances…and [are] causing or may cause a blight or blighting influence on the city and the neighborhoods in which [they are] located.” Keep in mind, so-called standards like “obsolescence” are so vague they can mean anything, so even a well-maintained home that government officials don’t like the look of can be fed to the bulldozers.

“The city is intimidating people,” community activist Karen Jones told ABC News. “They don’t try to give people due process of setting up fines or even putting up a fluorescent poster in the front yard saying, ‘We’re going to demolish your house.’”

It comes as no surprise that the local media hasn’t been all over this issue, leaving national media like The Daily Caller, Fox News, Reason Magazine and ABC News to pick up the story. (I did notify a reporter from the dominant local newspaper tonight, so we will see if they pick it up). Fox has some great photos of the area, BTW. The sort-of-local Birmingham Fox television station ran a pretty good two-minute segment on the topic, as you can see in the YouTube below:

“Property rights are a bulwark of a free society and it saddens me that these rights are often ignored or even threatened by the very government that was created to protect them,” said my friend Shana Kluck while I was assisting with this issue last year. “Considering this is the state where the Civil Rights movement began, it’s time for Alabama to eradicate one of the last bastions of racial inequality and at the same time ensure the protection of property rights for all Alabamians.”

While Alabama has some of the toughest eminent domain laws on the books, this latest twist is far worse than in pre-Kelo days. With eminent domain, at least one receives some compensation for his or her property. With Montgomery’s blight ordinances, low-income property owners get stuck with the bill. It’s almost like lynching people and then sending their families invoices for the cost of the rope.

Because of Libertarian presidential campaigns I’ve worked and my current work at the LP office, it’s a rare day indeed that I don’t hear Stephen VanDyke’s “Libertarians need to…” or comments like this one:

LP headquarters, are you awake? [snip]
Geez! I am getting soooo tired of LP inaction!

(It’s somewhat ironic that the person who left this comment did so on an LP blog posting bringing attention to this particular issue.)

Pundits are repeatedly suggesting that if the GOP maintains control of either the House or the Senate, it will be because of VoterVault, their database application which assists local Get-Out-The-Vote efforts for the Republican Party. Despite having considerably fewer financial resources than the Republicans and the Democrats, the LP is not being inactive. As a matter of fact, I just drove from Houston to D.C. so I can stay awake day and night for the next few days to help with our GOTV efforts around the country.

Libertarian National Committee chair Bill Redpath was just on C-Span (no video link available yet). One of the things he discussed was the Libertarian Party’s BallotBase operation. It provides an easy way for people across the country to make telephone calls to help support Libertarian campaigns immediately before Election Day.

That’s right, if you have Internet access and a telephone (or cell or Vonage or Skype or whatever), you can help LP candidates greatly increase their vote totals. We’ve already proven that BallotBase helps in test cases. In our first test case in California CD-50, we tripled the vote of Libertarian Paul King in the special election there. In the Vermont primaries, one of the races for which we used BallotBase won by one vote! BallotBase does work, but it can’t work without you.

Depending upon your time zone and the exact time you read this posting, we’ve got around 72 hours to place absolutely as many phone calls as we can in support of Libertarian candidates. You’ll get your choice of race (in some cases even specialized target lists) which you can assist. Here’s some of the races (different campaigns have different rules and start and stop at various times thoughout the day) which could use your help:

Hardy Machia: Hardy is another of those Vermont Libertarians who has a great shot at a State House race. He served the Islands on the Grand Isle Selectboard in 1999 and 2000–as its Chair during the second of those years. He has also served as Justice of the Peace and as Grand Isle’s Town Representative to the Northwest Regional Planning Commission. Recently, Hardy helped spearhead a community coalition to expand broadband access to the islands.

He’s been busy personally contacting voters about key issues for his campaign: controlling spending, protecting their lake, reducing healthcare costs and improving education. This is certainly a case where any single phone call could be the one which makes the difference between loss and another Libertarian Party victory.

Bob Smither: Smither is one of two candidates on the ballot in Tom DeLay’s old district. In addition to Smither and the Democrat, there are several Republican write-ins, one of whom the GOP has been spending millions to convince voters that a write-in candidate can win. Despite heavy NRCC advertising, polling numbers are all over the place — and there is no real way to poll for a wierd write-in campaign like this. Most polling shows the Democrat with his consistent base of around 40 percent of the vote. Smither has been between 4 and 25 percent and the write-in Republican has been between 8 and 35 percent of the vote. Even at this late minute, around one quarter of the voters are still undecided.

We can be sure that the write-in will get less votes than polled because of her cumbersome name, the fact that electronic voting equipment will be used, a demoralized Republican base and that she won’t get any votes from people who press the party line button. It’s imperative that we provide voters a conservative choice in this traditionally 65 percent Republican district.

Bob Smither (Part Two): There are two sets of telephone calls going out for Bob Smither. Residents of Houston remember the long search for Bob Smither’s daughter Laura when she disappeared and her body was later found in 1997. Since then, Smither has founded the Laura Recovery Center for missing children in Friendswood, TX and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Houston Regional Amber Plan.

While the other candidates campaign on helping the children, Smither has been doing it in real life — not just for TV. His Democratic opponent reportedly had to be kicked off the search grounds for political grandstanding while the search for Laura Smither was ongoing. According to locals, Lampson was posing for the cameras and getting in the way of workers instead of getting his boots dirty. It’s important that the voters in the district contrast who makes loud noises about helping children and who actually does it.

Rex Bell: Rex is running for Indiana State House District 54. He’s the chairman of his county Libertarian Party affiliate and has been married for thirty years to the only elected Libertarian judge in Indiana.

He ran for county council in 2002, a district race where he received 30 percent of the vote. In 2004, he ran for county commissioner, a county wide race in which he received 25 percent of the vote. He was appointed to the Hagerstown Plan Commission and the Board of Zoning Appeals in 2003.

Recent polling data shows him at 33 percent, with the Republican at 35 percent and the Democrat at 31 percent of the vote. No rocket science is required to see why assisting this campaign is important.

Phil Maymin: He’s been all over the debates and all over the news. In case you missed it, you can catch both his latest television commercial and an interview with MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson here. Like other Libertarian candidates, Maymin is drawing the distinction between himself and his Democratic opponent by being clearly and unapoligeticly opposed to our military presence in Iraq. If this is your hot-button issue, then Maymin is clearly your man.

This is just a highlight; there are additional campaigns you can support and others may be going online before Election Day. Unlike voting, you can call early and often with BallotBase.

BallotBase is important and it works — but it can’t work without you. Libertarians (myself included) spend a lot of time criticizing others for not actually getting anything accomplished. I’ve been one of those Libertarians screaming “the Libertarian Party needs to…”

The Libertarian Party just did it’s part and now it’s up to all of us to do ours. We’ve got the opportunity now to put our mouths where, well, our mouths have been. As soon as I hit the “Publish” button, I’m logging in to make a few calls. I’m asking the same of you.

If you’ve already signed up, please login at BallotBase.org and start calling. If you’ve not registered, please do so here. We’ve got people standing by in the national office to immediately validate your registration. We’ve added a chat room for support, calling ideas and just plain old fun. If you require additional assistance, please feel free to give us a call at (202) 333-0008 from approximately 10AM to 10PM ET.

The choice is simple and the choice is yours. You can either sit on the sidelines and complain that the coach won’t let you play, or you can run out on the field and be a vital part of making Libertarian Party history.

_{Disclaimer: Stephen Gordon is the Communications Director for the Libertarian Party.}

It was a dark, dank night in Washington D.C., when the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was ferreted into law on the back of a Port Security Bill. The bill sponsored by House by Reps. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and backed in the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn, rejoiced with religious fervor, as it was touted the most important family values legislation EVER considered by lawmakers.

This video covers the topic so well, I don’t know what could reasonably be added. If you ever wanted to know who paid what to whom in order to represent which special interests in order to outlaw online gambling, here’s your answer.

_{Disclaimer: I’ve never gambled online, knitted sweaters or rooted for the NY Yankees. I do, however, support the right of people to do what they want as long as it isn’t hurting someone else.}

This is the “Director’s Final Cut” authorized version of Aaron … Russo’s documentary, America: Freedom To Fascism (AFTF). It is being uploaded to Google Video for the first time during the evening of October 19-20th, 2006. Aaron has listened to everyone’s feedback – volunteers, students, lovers of freedom & liberty, young and old alike – and, true to his word, he is putting this up “for free” on Google Video knowing that the hour has come for Americans to either be awakened to restore the Republic or be swept aside by the dark global forces of fascism that seeks to enslave mankind.

Update: For some reason, the embedded version does not seem to be playing at the moment. However, the version on the Google link is working well on my computer.

Update by Mike Nelson: A message from Aaron Russo:

The time has arrived we are now offering the DVD for sale at the website for 19.95 or you can watch it on pay per view for $5 with the highest quality resolution on the internet or you can watch it for free on google video in a lower resolution. All of this can be done by going to the Freedom to Fascism.com website and clicking on your choice of how you want to view the film. The objective is to see the movie and wake up America! Have house parties and spread the message of freedom to fascism across the world. You may also sign up to become an affiliate. The ball is now in your court!

Blessings to all,
Aaron Russo

I usually don’t post entire articles, but this one comes from a registration required site and I’ve tried to register several times with different names, on different browsers, etc. and it just isn’t working. Since I do have an e-mail version of the article, I’ll cut and paste it until I’m able to log onto the JuneauEmpire site. Here it is:

After several days of uncertainty, District 2 candidate Sara Chambers won more absentee- and questioned-ballot votes from Tuesday’s city election than Jean Christian to earn a seat on the Juneau Assembly.

Chambers had a 67-vote lead before the counting of the 1,420 ballots on Friday afternoon by the Ballot Review Board at City Hall. As votes were tabulated, Chambers’ lead slowly grew for an unofficial victory of 3,587 to 3,356. The results become official after the Canvass Review Board certifies the election on Tuesday.

Chambers said it is a relief to have an answer to the race after waiting several days for the absentee and questioned ballots to be verified and counted. “I’m prepared to get going – to roll up my sleeves and do what I said I was going to do,” Chambers said.

Christian said she feels a little disappointed she didn’t win but is glad she had the opportunity to be a part of the election.

“It was a great race,” she said. “I’ve learned so much. It was exciting. It was a very, very good experience for me.”

It also was a memorable experience, Christian said.

“It was really great talking with people – talking with people about the issues, getting to know people, hearing what they think, hearing what they have to say,” she said. “I really enjoyed that a lot.”

Chambers said she is glad to have the contest portion out of the way so she can focus on constituents’ needs.

“I feel confident in my ability to stay on message with the things that the people of Juneau say are important to them,” she said. Finding solutions for the affordable housing crisis, lowering taxes and making sure the city is spending tax dollars wisely are what she ran on and what she will deliver, Chambers said.

Although nervous about the outcome, Chambers said she was confident the absentee ballots would go her way. After Tuesday’s election Chambers said she suspected there was a slice of the population that support her and voted absentee because of work and family obligations.

“I knew on Tuesday that the Mendenhall Valley districts overwhelmingly voted in support of me as their representative and that’s really what ultimately mattered to me because those will be the people that I’ve been selected to represent,” Chambers said.

The outcome of the other races remained the same after the counting of the absentee and questioned ballots on Friday.

Incumbent Mayor Bruce Botelho increased his margin of victory with 4,612 votes to challenger Brad Fluetsch’s 2,922.

Incumbent David Stone unofficially beat Mark Stopha 4,063 votes to 2,878 to hold on to the District 1 Assembly seat.

For the three School Board seats, incumbent Andi Story ended up with 4,651 votes, Mark Choate with 4,110 votes, and incumbent President Phyllis Carlson with 3,631 votes. Chris Thomas, who did not win a School Board seat, received 3,297 votes.

Proposition 1 to extend the 3 percent sales tax passed 4,840 to 2,808. Proposition 2 to reword the city’s Charter to redirect bond earning was approved 4,131 to 3,272.

BTW, Chambers was candidate number 5 on Candidate Tracker and the first candidate tracker candidate to be voted on before the typical November 7 election date. Congratulations to both the Chambers and the citizens of Juneau, Alaska.

“I’ve also recently deployed our communications director, Stephen Gordon, to help with the top campaign in our Candidate Tracker.”

I’ll try to keep ya’ll up-to-date on what’s happening on the ground here and I hope to spend time with quite a few Texas candidates while in the Lone Star State.

More people have offered to buy me beer than I can accept for the time I’ll be here, so please don’t be too offended if I miss out on a round from time to time; I’ve got some serious work to do and it’s getting close to Election Day. I’ll be blogging (hopefully starting tomorrow) about what I see and hear down here over at the LP blog. Please be sure to stop by often over the next ten days or so.

The short view of what happened today was that it was an incredibly productive day from a campaign viewpoint. My initial perception is that Bob Smither and Kevin Tunstall (his campaign manager) have a great idea of what they need to do at ground zero. What they don’t have are the resources the Dems and Repubs are plugging into this race from a national level. They also require some of the vendor, technical and other contacts required to make the difference in a race suddenly turned high profile.

We primarily focused on fundraising today. Fortunately, I’ve got contacts with national lists the campaign will be able to utilize. They fully closed one deal, verbally closed another and we are working on a third. For those of you who have worked national campaigns, you know the dance required with these negotations. To have done this in a matter of hours is incredible.

They’ve got a lot of good stuff going on the ground. They’ve got a very organized ground crew knocking on doors most days. They may be paying a bit too much for yard signs, but I know more competitive vendors they may be able to use. They’ve got good voter lists and have used them to place over 60,000 phone calls, so far. The candidate has a public event almost every day. Tomorrow, he’ll face Lampson and the key write-in Republican in a forum at a local country club. They plan to continue these sorts of efforts until Election Day.

While we were busy on these sorts of details, the Republican WRITE-IN candidate with the difficult to spell name (I generally refer to her as the “Hyphen-Lady”, but am hoping one of you has a better suggestion) held a fundraiser. She brought in the ever-so-popular Dick Cheney, accompanied by the ever-so-ethical Tom DeLay, to raise what Kristen Mack reported to be around $200K.

Ms. Houston Smoking Ban might have done better and thrown some higher cards down on the table. Perhaps in addition to DeLay and Cheney, she should have played the Mark Foley, Tom Reynolds and Dennis Hastert cards. Unfortunately for her, there are but two jokers in a standard deck.

At this moment, all I can do is laugh. $200K is chump change compared to what ya’ll have provided campaigns with which I’ve been involved in the past. One can tell how badly the GOP is blowing up when Libertarians have the ability to outperform Republicans.

_{Disclaimer: While Stephen Gordon has not received any compensation from any current Texas political campaign, he is a paid employee of the Libertarian National Committee.}

I’m getting damned sick of these damned collusive rules that are aimed to keep Libertarians and other third parties off the public’s radar screen.

Mr. Guthrie, if KING-TV keeps you out of the debate, I strongly suggest you buy hundreds of chicken suits and pass them out to some paid supporters for them to just dance around in front of media stations and your opponents’s offices until election day.

If we can’t get fair media coverage running fair and issues-based campaigns, then maybe it’s really time to start acting like revolutionaries and take to the streets in mass protest of this nonsense.

He missed one key point. According to the article he quoted, KING-TV and The Seattle Times are the co-sponsors of the debate. It’s no wonder the Times did a slash-and-trash job on the Libertarian candidate; they are co-conspirators in the project.

As some commenters on VanDyke’s posting have suggested, a lawsuit is within the realm of possibility. They are trying a similar one in Texas right now. From The Brownsville Herald:

The Libertarian candidate for Texas governor plans to sue Belo Corp. for excluding him from its televised debate scheduled for Friday, he said on Tuesday.

James Werner said the exclusion amounts to an illegal campaign contribution under the Texas Election Code since Belo is donating free airtime to four of the five candidates on the ballot.

“If Belo goes ahead with this, it is essentially making a huge campaign contribution to my opponents,” he said.

Werner must wait until after the debate happens to file a lawsuit accusing Belo of breaking the law, he said.

Werner and Libertarian Party attorneys sent a letter on Friday to Belo threatening to sue for $4.6 million in damages. On Tuesday, he said the actual lawsuit may ask for more, depending on how much airtime each candidate gets during the debate.

I don’t know Texas election code, but if it is structured similar to federal code, this case could be interesting indeed.

In the meantime, Libertarians aren’t afraid of chicken suits, either. If I ran a competitive media outlet in Washington state (hint hint), I’d be dressing the Times and KING-TV in chicken suits in my headlines tomorrow.

While I’ve not tracked this campaign (I don’t even know who is/was leading in the polls), I can’t imagine that anything will trump this ad as the most impactful thing the Vernon Robinson campaign does this election cycle.

I know a lot of people complain about negative campaigning, but voters clearly need to know about information such as what’s presented in the video. Good op research combined with clever presentation can unseat even an entrenched incumbent.

Ah, American politics at its best…

The Libertarian Party now has a new membership card. Made of shiny 30mm PVC (a bit thicker than most of my credit cards), this handsome card is one I’m proud to carry in my wallet. To put it simply, as cards go, it’s a cool one. Here’s the scoop from the LP site:

Responding to the high demand for Libertarian Party membership cards, we’re pleased to now offer a great looking, personalized membership card to our new and renewing members.

If you are new to the LP and are considering becoming a member, please join today as a Sustaining Member while these cards are still available.

With your membership, you’ll get a New Member Pack which includes your member card along with a few other helpful items such as our signature brochure, New Vision for America, along with a few handy LP stickers.

Also with your Sustaining Membership, you’ll receive a one-year subscription to our monthly publication, LP News.

This offer is good for new Sustaining Members, as well as those who are renewing their membership.

If you are currently at least a Sustaining Member ($25 to $99), we can still rush your card to you with your renewal (along with the complimentary LP stickers).

If your membership is not due to expire for some time, we will extend your current membership by 12 months if you choose to renew early (note that this is a limited time offer and we can only do this while our new cards stay in stock).

Take the time to renew today as a Sustaining Member. To truly help the Party, upgrade your membership to become a Supporting Member, Sponsor, Patron, or Life Member. Also, as a new monthly feature, we’ll be sure to recognize your renewal in the next edition of LP News!

The new stickers are pretty cool, too. As a matter of fact, I’ve been seeing increasing amounts of the euro-style oval “LP” decal on vehicles being driven by people who I know aren’t active members of a local party affiliate.

Because I’m currently laying out the next edition of LP News, I can verify that there are indeed a lot of names to be recognized. My only question is whether I should use a smaller font or increase the size of the recognition section to more than two full pages. I’m wondering how many HoT readers will be included on the list of people we are honoring with our thanks.

New members can sign up here; renewals go here. Thanks!

UPDATE for Pledgers: New pledgers and those increasing their pledged amount will be receiving the new membership card. Because the new cards cost around a dollar a piece to assemble and mail (the card itself is 44 cents) combined with the fact that we budget pledge dollars (one of the great advantages of pledge gifts), we’re asking current pledgers who wish a card to make a small donation to cover our cost. Simply write “Membership Card” in the comments section so we’ll know to send you one. It will cost us almost $2,000 to send cards to each of our curent pledgers unless we get enough contributions to defray the cost — and we simply don’t have that kind of cash just laying around the office. Of course, if someone wishes to throw in a couple grand for this cause, he or she would earn the respect of a a lot of pledgers.

_{Disclaimer: Stephen Gordon is a paid employee of the Libertarian National Committee.}