Stephen Hawking steps down in failure

A little distraction from politics today. I read at MSNBC that the the vaunted pop cosmologist Stephen Hawking is leaving his post at Cambridge -- Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th century physicist Isaac Newton -- to move to a quieter phase of research.

Hawking, of course, is as well known for his wheelchair and computerized voice as his work, which to be frank, most of us couldn't understand if we tried. He could out-think us with 100 IQ points tied behind his back.

But for all he has overcome, I must say that I'll have to consider him a failure.

Yes, he's written a couple of best sellers, like "A brief history of time," which is basically quantummechanicalastrophysics for dummies. He's thought many big thoughts. Yet after so many years as the human race's leading expert on time and gravity...

not a single flying car or time machine.

Good thing he's an academic. In private industry, he'd have been out of work years ago. Experts like these may explain what the hell happened to the future.