Newt Gingrich is gunning to become our first nerd president, and obviously a nerd president’s first order of business is securing voting rights for the moon. (Maybe right after knighting George Lucas.) Gingrich wants to establish a “permanent base on the moon” by the end of his first term, and once it has 13,000 people he’d like to make it a state. He’ll probably even volunteer to help get the population numbers up by impregnating hot moon babes.
What’s funny about this is … well okay, everything is funny about it, but what’s ironic about it is that it’s a dim echo of the science-loving Gingrich of old. That Newt also loved Star Wars and space travel, but he also knew enough about science to recognize consensus on climate change and push to fix it. Now he’s had to turn his back on geeky pursuits like “empiricism” in order to fit in with the Republican candidate clique — he can’t even talk about moon bases without invoking states’ rights.
Old Newt had some interest in keeping the Earth habitable. New Newt just wants to get us off it before it all goes to hell.
