News Apr 15, 2010 at 9:00 am

Comments

1
Oh, yeah, and the Dow topped 11,000 yesterday. But jobless claims jumped to 484,000 just for last week. I think it's safe to call this the "recovery-less recovery."
2
Obama wants to privitize space exploration, yet people still call him a socialist. It boggles my fucking mind.

@1 The Dow is so fucking removed from reality that my mind has been reboggled. REBOGGLED!
3
Dominic, I think it's safe to say that NASA was going to be grounded for years regardless of the new plan by Obama and Bolden. Constellation and Ares were way, way behind schedule (or possibly just fictional smokescreens*) and the plan was always to ground the old Shuttle fleet soon.

*Buzz Aldrin wrote this piece last year about the much-vaunted Ares test launch being basically a big fake: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/buzz-aldri…
4
Please force Orin Hatch to fillibuster. Enough threats! Make him exhaust himself.
5
A friend of mine in Illinois saw the meteor and said it had a green glow... those videos on CNN of it are kind of insane.
6
Does this poll honestly say that 20% of the ENTIRE COUNTRY believes Barack Obama was born outside the US? Really? For reals?

Wow. Just, wow.
7
@6:
For reals!
8
@6: they replied to an opinion poll that Obama was born outside of the country - what they believe is bound to be rather different.

please always be skeptical of the interpretation of opinion polls.
9
Perhaps if 80% of his case load wasn't minor possession charges the prosecutor wouldn't be so hard pressed by budget cuts. The same is true for the Sheriff and the Courts. Screw a sales tax increase for the prosecutor.
10
@8: Fair enough, and I could have been more careful with my language.

But nonetheless, assuming the poll's sample was sufficiently random to be representative, a substantial number of people in this country might be willing to give a profoundly stupid response to this question.
11
So, for years Republicans have told us that the government can't do anything right, wastes money on a massive scale, and that private enterprise can do everything more efficiently. Then the President proposes cutting NASA, a massive government spending program that's always running over budget and schedule and moving a lot of their activities over to the much-vaunted private sector, and next thing I know I've got Kay Bayley Hutchinsons (R-Tx) all over the news saying this is a really bad idea. I guess when it's pork in your state, it's okay.
12
@10: i don't think that you were any less careful with your language that the presenters of the poll are; as well as all the subsequent news outlets covering it.

yes indeed - assuming that this, or any opinion poll, is conducted with due consideration of a random sampling is something that we all should constantly question. particularly the vast number of national polls that depend upon someone answering an unrecognized incoming call on a land-line. public policy decisions should never be based upon the results of private polling agencies. yet they so often are (consider that our current mayor paid for a polling result that surprise gave the result he wanted. would he have presented results that disagreed with his interests?)

as to a large chunk of the populace seeming to be "profoundly stupid" - has this ever been significantly less the case?
13
@11, the space program has been a complete clusterfuck for years now. I'm pretty much in agreement with Buzz Aldrin in thinking that we should say "fuck it" to being less-risky (which is still far too risky) and go for the gusto (much more risky, but a much higher payoff). As it is, we're just spending billions of dollars on a high-risk taxi service and getting very little in return.
14
It was an opinion poll in just a few states of people with landlines who would actually answer poll questions.

Which means it was a very unrepresentative sample.
15
BTW, I sent this in as a Slog Tip before the crack of dawn this morning, but The Powers That Be apparently didn't deem it worthy. Fuck it, I think it's cool. Check it out:
http://coolmaterial.com/roundup/mark-eva…
16
Did the private sector take America to the Moon? Did the private sector explore the solar system with unmanned probes? Did the private sector develop the space shuttle and the international space station? No, no, and no, because space travel is not a viable business model, and it won't be for a very long time.
17
@16 - nope, we're traveling to the International Space Station on Soviet-built communist rockets.
18
@6 doesurmindglow, They are the true American Idiots.

With the differences between the President and NASA heating up I hope the outcome leads to more cooperation (working closer together than ever before) between nations and companies for space travel to and from the moon/mars in the coming decades.

That fireball reminds me of the original War of the Worlds (1953).
19
item from your far flung reporter in the UK: Holy fuck! this volcanic ash is messing up flights over here. i'm supposed to return on the 24th and the media says this cloud could stick around like an uninvited guest for god knows how long. also, i'm going to rufus wainwright's opera 'prima donna' tonight.

Please wait...

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