A GREEN RED, OR A RED GREEN? Confused leftie Philip Shropshire tackles the perennial "Should we go?" question -- "we" in this case referring to liberals.

His answer is yes, surprisingly, but unsurprisingly for the usual leftie reasons, anti-capitalism chief among them. However, he does touch on a broad-appeal reason for settling Mars: the ability to experiment with new social and political systems.

(And was that a dig on the Mars Society in there? I can't decide if he thinks the government-in-exile thing is a good idea or not -- nor am I aware that that is in fact a stated goal of the Society, rather than one among many member/chapter initiatives.)