You throw stuff at our Green Cheese Centrifuges. Ha-Ha go 500 Mclicks deeper. You want our water? Fine! We want plenty of your Earth-Stuff kept on Earth. Negotiate or War???

How out we parachute Moon-Mice on your Cheddar and Brie factories?? Ha-Ha. Ha-Ha.

Want talk? Show sign of good faith. Shut down fukin TV broadcast!!!!!!

MoonDog

THANK YOU, dripgrind. I read Ms. Derrick’s ignorant rant on Friday and — as a longtime subscriber to Firedoglake — realized that this really isn’t the forum for me. I unsubscribed and, after posting this note today, I don’t ever intend to visit here again. Life’s too short to waste on blowhards — whether Bill O’Reilly or people on the left who spew the same kind of Bush-ite disdain for science.

I shared the outrage of many on the left during the Bush years as they slashed and burned science budgets and the entire scientific process — indeed, the whole “reality-based” community. But I find unhinged, irrational lefty outrage just as offensive as I do from the right.

LCROSS was one of many missions that astronomers, physicists and space scientists perform every month, every year in low earth orbit, near earth orbit, on the moon, in the solar system, etc. Some with NASA funding, some not. LCROSS didn’t make a big “boom” when it hit the lunar surface, and that was a surprise. But in science, surprise can often be a good thing — leads to new ideas, new theories, new experiments. All in the service of better understanding — in this case — the solar system in which we live.

The findings are still coming in. Some good science bloggers are covering this. Here, here and here for starters.

I don’t know enough about LCROSS’s science mission to write an article, but I do know enough to recognize in an article when — as scientists often conclude — more research is clearly needed.

And the choices as to whether or not to help that homeless person, and by how much, have to be made and are made by the legislature long before NASA gets even a slice of the budget.

Tell that to someone who lived through Katrina in New Orleans…they’re still waiting for their “slice of the pie”…

But even NASA’s entire 16 billion dollar budget wouldn’t solve the causes of the homeless crisis

Nice strawman argument. Because we couldn’t solve “all” the U.S.’s problems, we shouldn’t take what money we do have to ease the situation a bit?

But what’s worse is that NASA can’t even function as it’s expected to because NASA has been badly broken.

Surprised? It was dysfunctional for years and then the Bushies got into the works and royally fucked things up, as is their wont

No, I’m not surprised. I studied Communications in college, and one of the things we studied was the communications breakdown at NASA that led to the Challenger disaster. The scientists were raising the red flag about the problem with “O” rings, but they were ignored by the powers that be. Next thing you know, we’re seeing that horrible sight on TV (yes, I was watching it as it happened). And ole Saint Ronny uttered his line of “Touching the Face of God” (courtesy of Peggy Noonan).

But between the leftover Bushies in-house and the corporations that believe that they are in charge of our space agency and its budget… what are the chances of our dear corporatist Obama actually doing the right things that need to be done?

You know, this may come as a shock to you, but I don’t necessarily want to see the space program come to an end. BUT I cannot in good conscience support it now that this country is swirling down the drain. Too many folks are hurting.

… and I will ignore most of the bait and the ill-informed jiffy-science because the following tautology is apparently their zinger-du-jour…

For me, I could not look a homeless person in the eye and tell them that space exploration is more important than giving them shelter and food. Ditto for war expenditures. But that’s just me.

Yeah, it’s just you.

People who actually work with the system know that the money to feed and shelter that homeless person isn’t “going into space.”

(But you whip that base good, y’hear?)

We, as a people, have choices as to how we spend our wealth.

(Well, actually, the corporations work triple overtime to override that as much as possible and to divert our wealth directly to themselves, but that’s another topic…)

And we choose how to spend that wealth.

We choose how much of our wealth goes to the government agencies that handle the military and defense and policing and social programs and disease control and regulation and housing and etc, and etc, and always last in line, space.

(Yes, NASA actually performs national functions that we need and functions that we desire… or is supposed to, anyway.)

And the choices as to whether or not to help that homeless person, and by how much, have to be made and are made by the legislature long before NASA gets even a slice of the budget.

NASA’s budget is very large by the standards of the other national space agencies of the world but NASA does a lot more than they do… and is actually expected to be doing even more than it is.

But even NASA’s entire 16 billion dollar budget wouldn’t solve the causes of the homeless crisis.

But what’s worse is that NASA can’t even function as it’s expected to because NASA has been badly broken.

Surprised? It was dysfunctional for years and then the Bushies got into the works and royally fucked things up, as is their wont.

That the various science mission directorates can do even as much as they’ve done by reusing spent rocket stages etc etc has been a string of miracles of ingenuity.

NASA doesn’t need its budget gutted. NASA needs a thorough housecleaning and a clear set of mission priorities assigned… and funded.

But between the leftover Bushies in-house and the corporations that believe that they are in charge of our space agency and its budget… what are the chances of our dear corporatist Obama actually doing the right things that need to be done?

I now leave you to this ill-thought-out resurgence of the culture wars with one last thought:

The left/liberal/progressive movement has only made as much progress as it has because it represented a reality-based view as opposed to the unchecked fantasies of the wingnuts.

So if the l/l/p follows the lead of anarchist surrealists like this then it would seem to be the surest way to set themselves up for a truly colossal fall.