Headlines

Trump launches ambitious play to turn New Mexico red

The spike in oil prices will have to get a lot worse before it wrecks the economy

‘Iranian weapons used’ [in Saudi oil attack] ...

Beto O’Rourke confirms, ‘Yes, I want to tear down border walls’

Obama’s team lines up to defend Andrew McCabe in court

2020 Democrats cheer the auto workers strike as they look to top Trump in swing state Michigan

Teachers in Chicago inch closer to possible strike ...

Chicago weekend: 25+ shot, 7+ killed

Judiciary chairman throws cold water on Kavanaugh impeachment

Trump rages after NYT updates story to say alleged Kavanaugh victim ‘does not recall’ incident

RASMUSSEN: Trump approval back at 50% ...

‘Locked and loaded’: Trump tweet threat to Iran

Headlines

Republican National Committee raises $15.5 million in March

Explosion kills at least 138 in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday

FBI arrests leader of group stopping illegals in New Mexico

2020: Beto O’Rourke loses top aide and deputy

Pope during Easter vigil: Reject the ‘glitter of wealth’

Medicare for All is dragging down healthcare stocks and there could be more pain ahead

Experts sound alarm over human-monkey hybrid ...

Piro on Mueller: ‘Political whoremanship’

‘The risks are real’ for the vulnerabilities of AI

French protesters set fires in Paris as unrest grows after Notre Dame blaze

Washington state to legalize human composting ...

Brooks: POTUS threat to system of government we have

Headlines

The Democratic base is angry as hell’: Cory Booker’s message of love falls flat

Earnings and data could prove that slowdown fears were overblown

Reuter’s poll: Trump approval drops to 37% ...

Holder: Prosecutors could win obstruction case against Trump

Trump campaign punishes Don McGahn’s law firm

Lawmakers call for Zuckerberg to be held accountable for Facebook’s privacy fumbles

Chomsky: We may have handed Trump next election ...

Mitt Romney: ‘I’m sickened’ by Trump’s behavior in Mueller Report

State Republicans challenge Democrats with ‘born-alive’ bills

Elizabeth Warren calls for start of impeachment proceedings against Trump

Border Battle: Militia in New Mexico detains asylum seekers at gunpoint ...

Pete Buttigieg questions whether Trump will run in 2020

Headlines

Trump says Biden is ‘only a threat to himself’

First-quarter earnings are expected to be lousy, but the stock market might not care

Poll: Trump approval 51% ...

Fingerprint test reveals ‘child’ migrant actually 47

Ex-spy Valerie Plame eyes run for Congress in New Mexico

70% of Wall Street thinks Trump will be re-elected in 2020

President plotting post-White House tell-all memoir ...

AOC: Draft ‘all genders’ for the military

Appeals court narrows path for disclosure of grand jury info in Mueller report

US to designate elite Iranian force as a terrorist organization

He bought fencing coach’s house. Then his son got into Harvard ...

... surge of illegal immigration ‘undercutting’ Trump’s wage hikes

Space Shot

The London Sunday Times has a downer story on Richard Branson’s pie-in-the-sky space endeavor, Virgin Galactic.  This effort, started in 2006, was to transport regular citizens into space.  So far this Virgin enterprise president has collected $80 million in deposits (@ $250,000 a pop) from aspiring neophyte astronauts for the trip of a lifetime … see: The Sunday Times Article and Branson has spent a few hundred million himself. 

The only trouble is that some of these depositor’s lifetimes may run out before this spacecraft actually rockets them into space (apparently for only a few short minutes).  The initial launch date set was 2007 and this has been continually revised back … the last ETD being Christmas, 2013 … which didn’t happen.  The next target is August, 2014 for which NBC has promised extensive coverage … see: Next Big Future Piece.

Apparently the rocket that was used in the first VSS Enterprise (now version 2) was underpowered for passengers and had only been able to achieve two sub-orbital test-flights… for extensive details on this evolving process and newer developments see: Dailytech Story. 

I am not usually as skeptical as I am for this type of endeavor, but I have, in the past, expressed doubts about Richard Branson’s vision and New Mexico’s excessive spending on a spaceport … see: Beam Me Up Scotty.  Now that such flights may possibly (someday) happen, it just seems to this blogger that a few minutes in suborbital space is hardly worth $250,000 and being exposed to the many risks involved … let alone Branson turning it all into a commercial success.