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Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' Urges Letters To Obama To Restore NASA Budget Cuts

MarkWhittington writes "Bill Nye, once known as 'The Science Guy' for his 1990s PBS educational television show, has cut a YouTube video in his current capacity of CEO of the Planetary Society urging people to write to President Obama to restore cuts to planetary science. The budget cuts were enacted by the president last February, causing consternation in the scientific community. Nye writes, 'If that proposal continues the steep decline in funding to NASA's planetary program it will gravely endanger the unique capabilities and outstanding people that have delivered U.S. leadership in space. We will lose a capability that took decades to develop and may never be replaced.'"

159 of 259 comments (clear)

  1. Romney too. by xzvf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Write them both, either could be president in January, and maybe they'll bring up NASA funding around job creation during the election.

    1. Re:Romney too. by LostCluster2.0 · · Score: 5, Informative

      However, Romney has no credibility on budgets... he claimed that he left MA with a $20 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" when actually that was $20 Million in a debate just before the NH Primary that was televised by CNN.

      --
      I'm LostCluster but I lost my password to that user. Hey Slashdot, how about helping me get it back!
    2. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know, I'll harken you back to your own side's statement at the recent VP debate. Ryan waxed eloquently on how there was a difference between a person who only had criticism and somebody who had a solution, presenting himself as a solution provider.

      Yet like him, you have only offered criticism and attacks, empty ones that you probably don't even support. Seriously, Obama compromised with Republicans on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and you still attack him on it?

      Show some integrity.

      Not that any of your other attacks are necessarily valid, but that one is especially void.

      BTW, I prefer not letting a religion dictate to me what the laws are going to be. If you want to call making a decision on the laws based on objective principles and not the whims of a cranky old man in Rome to be a war on religion, that's on you.

    3. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Obama pulled the country out of a death spiral set in motion by 8 years of the exact same policy standards that Romney supports. If Romney managed to win and restored the failed Bush policies based in trickle down economics, the economy will crash again sometime around 2014, significantly worse than it did in 2008, and the Republicans can tell the masses it was Obama's fault to rally support for a full sweep of the house and senate.

      Luckily Romney has no chance to win thanks to his countless lies, willingness to say anything, and complete lack of conviction. He's George W. Bush 2.0.

    4. Re:Romney too. by ohnocitizen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Still Obama. You don't seem to understand credibility vs ability. Romney's budgets in MA, and his proposed budgets for the US are full of lies that don't add up. Obama's budget - and his inability to find funding for planetary science (and fight those in both parties who oppose such funding) is an issue of ability. He's not making up numbers.

    5. Re:Romney too. by jamstar7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As compared to President Obama and a democratic majority in the Senate who create no budgets and spend $1 Trillion in deficits each year, yet can't manage to fund planetary science. Who has credibility then?

      Except budgets are started in the House per Federal law, which has been packed with Teaparty & Teaparty wannabes the last 2 years. Also, the Senate has enough Repubs & Teapartiers to fillibuster a call to vote for lunch and the 'Democratic majority' doesn't have the votes to get them to shut the fuck up. Nice strawman. Try again.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    6. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, Ryan's tax plan isn't fit to wipe my ass with. The "6 studies" (blog posts and op-ed pieces != studies, BTW) are wrong... The math simply doesn't work. The plan bets everything on a future rise in GDP that is by no means certain and has yet to materialize. How is the GDP going to rise if people have no money to spend? What's left of the middle class is going to get fucked.

    7. Re:Romney too. by morcego · · Score: 2

      Write them both, either could be president in January, and maybe they'll bring up NASA funding around job creation during the election.

      I wish people would take your (great) advice and just do it, instead of discussing the flaws and merits of their pet politician.

      Wake up, guys. As Bill Nye said, write even if you don't like him (Obama or Romney). Afterwards we can discuss it. But don't waste time NOW.

      --
      morcego
    8. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 1

      Seriously, Obama compromised with Republicans on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, and you still attack him on it?

      I guess that depends on whether you think compromise is better than honoring your word. Politicians compromise all the time by taking money for votes and other bits of corruption. Don't you respect them more for that?

      Further, the world doesn't exist merely to give me what I want. So I expect that I'll be able to get some things and not others. I don't let other people decide what things I should get and not get. So how does keeping the Guantanamo Bay prison open, even if that is something I'd want, compensate for the things I don't want, such as destruction of freedom via Obamacare?

    9. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, they might actually try working with them instead of trying to get them to "shut the fuck up".

      Democrats seem to be all about compromise as long as it's the Republicans doing the compromising.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    10. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Still Obama. You don't seem to understand credibility vs ability. Romney's budgets in MA, and his proposed budgets for the US are full of lies that don't add up. Obama's budget - and his inability to find funding for planetary science (and fight those in both parties who oppose such funding) is an issue of ability. He's not making up numbers.

      Earth calling!

      Senate rejects Obama budget in 99-0 vote

      ...

      In a 99-0 vote, all of the senators present rejected the president’s blueprint.

      It’s the second year in a row the Senate has voted down Obama’s budget.

      Obama's 2012 budget failed 97 to 0 last May...

      Two years in a row, Obama hasn't been able to get even ONE Democrat Senator to vote for his budget.

      OMFG that's PATHETIC.

    11. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 2

      Obama pulled the country out of a death spiral set in motion by 8 years of the exact same policy standards that Romney supports.

      Then why is the country still death spiraling?

      If Romney managed to win and restored the failed Bush policies based in trickle down economics, the economy will crash again sometime around 2014, significantly worse than it did in 2008, and the Republicans can tell the masses it was Obama's fault to rally support for a full sweep of the house and senate.

      Oh, how the projection shines forth! We even have Obamacare to make that happen.

      Luckily Romney has no chance to win thanks to his countless lies, willingness to say anything, and complete lack of conviction.

      How glibly you speak when the other guy is Obama who has those problems in spades.

    12. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The republicans will not be "worked with" while there is a black man in the white house. They made this abundantly clear in 2009 and have been towing the party line.

    13. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Tthe Race Card...now why didn't I see that coming?

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    14. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes it is pathetic: the Republicans sponsored a bill that they called the president's budget when it of course was not, and it was unsurprisingly defeated 97-0. The 99-0 vote was a repeat of the same pathetic Republican political antics. You have to be stupid to believe that zero Democratic Senators would be willing to vote for an actual White House budget.

    15. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So...Republicans did NOT work with the Democrat Bill Clinton to pass the (now gutted by Executive Order) Welfare Reform which helped launch several years of balanced budgets (at least as balanced as they get in D.C.)

      No, you are playing the race card, plain and simple. Congratulations, you won the race to the bottom.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    16. Re:Romney too. by sumdumass · · Score: 2

      How is the GDP going to rise if people have no money to spend? What's left of the middle class is going to get fucked.

      lol.. and the alternative is to tax the people who can invest in jobs. Your right, the middle class is getting fucked, but they seem to have largely consented to it with promises

    17. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There have been tax cuts for the past 10 years. Where are the goddamn jobs at? Oh right, they're in India and China. How is giving the rich another tax break going to help the middle class? Face it, trickle down doesn't work and is one of the biggest lies foisted on the American people. It's not a cooincidence that the standard of living in this country started going to shit after Reagan.

    18. Re:Romney too. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well, they might actually try working with them instead of trying to get them to "shut the fuck up".

      Democrats seem to be all about compromise as long as it's the Republicans doing the compromising.

      Your statement is so completely opposed to reality that I have to wonder what color the sky is on your planet.

      The simple fact is that the Republicans in Congress have voted as a unified bloc, over and over, ever since Obama took office, while the Democrats have not. That's about as objective a measure of (un)willingness to compromise as you can find. The Democrats have compromised over and over again in a futile attempt to get the Republicans to agree to something--anything!--to help fix the mess the Republicans created, and which the Republicans are clearly determined to maintain. The Republican definition of compromise is "do everything I tell you, and I might hold off on calling you an America-hating socialist terrorist-lover for a day or so."

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    19. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 2

      One might say they same thing of the Senate. So I expect you would hold the exact same opinion of them? Didn't think so.

      Or, another way to look at t is that the Republican legislation actually makes enough sense that some Democrats feel they can tell Nancy to shove it and vote for it.

      The bottom line is that the House is actually doing their job and legislation is being voted on. The Senate may as well just leave and be done with it.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    20. Re:Romney too. by magarity · · Score: 1

      Meanwhile, Ryan's tax plan isn't fit to wipe my ass with. The "6 studies"

      The saying is that 10 economists will give you 11 firm opinions regarding any given economic analysis or plan. So putting quotes around studies and declaring it wrong might make you feel smug but it's far from a definitive response.

    21. Re:Romney too. by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      > Obama pulled the country out of a death spiral

      This must be some definition of "pulled the country out of a death spiral" with which I am not familiar.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    22. Re:Romney too. by Zagnar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Maybe it's feeding trolls here but this is correct. The budget wasn't the president's, it was put forth by an Alaskan senator. We're all civilized people here, perhaps we should check that our sources aren't from far left news sites next time. Here's a source from a local newspaper, not some dreadfully slanted news site. http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_20640869/senate-rejects-budget-passed-by-republicans-house

    23. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You utterly fail to understand how the government works in the United States.

      The president doesnt' create budgets or laws or anything like that.

      CONGRESS CREATES BUDGETS AND LAWS.

      Its no wonder we keep getting shafted by politicians, 99% of the country thinks the president can do the crap he claims when running for office.

    24. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 2

      In any case, if I want something, and somebody agrees to let me have it, I will consider it dishonest to criticize them for that compromise.

      I don't have that issue. I see the Guantanamo Bay thing as something Obama had to do which gets dressed up as a compromise.

    25. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Romney's "plan" is to cut spending to 20% of GDP. Given the items he has moved off the table, he has to cut domestic discretionary spending, of which NASA is part, by about 50% in order to hit his targets. Either he explodes the deficit, or all our R&D programs get annihilated.

      You get what you pay for, folks. We have the third lowest overall taxes in the OECD, and are talking about more cuts, not increasing revenues. Something has to give.

    26. Re:Romney too. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Every time the Democrats even try to work with the Republicans, it either ends in a stalemate or the Republican plan gets passed in barely altered form. You can't compromise with someone who would rather sink the ship than compromise.

    27. Re:Romney too. by MimeticLie · · Score: 1

      The same republicans who've repeatedly and explicitly stated that their number one goal is to make Obama a one term president? Yeah, I wonder why it's been hard to get them to meet in the middle.

    28. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 1

      They tried that with Regan. We all know what happened then.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    29. Re:Romney too. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Ah yes, the mysterious job givers again. Where are they by the way? Could someone find them and wake them up?

    30. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 1

      At least the House is functioning and legislation is getting passed. The Dems don't get much say now because they are in the MINORITY. Just like when the Dems were running the show and the Republicans were shut out.

      The Senate is a failed institution. Harry won't even release bills to committees.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    31. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      With Romney it will be 4 more years of neocon bs wars with color coded fear warnings, big oil writing energy policy, and religious zealots preparing for the next world appointed to cabinet positions, all part of a koch brothers fuck-the-world think tank script. Obama doesn't cater to insane.

    32. Re:Romney too. by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

      No doubt. It's the one where Bush had us losing jobs, and Obama turned it around and has us gaining jobs.

      You know. This one.

      It's the one where Romney would have let GM die; and Obama saved it, along with a huge number of jobs.

      It's the one where the (rich) credit card companies were taking advantage of credit card users right and left, particularly lower and middle class, screwing them on interest rates in specific, and the Obama admin saw to it that the means they used to do that were taken from them.

      That death spiral.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    33. Re:Romney too. by colin_faber · · Score: 1

      Nice graph, except it fails to show the reduction in over 3+ million jobs in the last ~4 years.

    34. Re:Romney too. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Sadly, even when in the majority, the Dems didn't properly understand that the Republicans would never compromise. They tried anyway for some reason and their failure is why they got voted out.

    35. Re:Romney too. by KalvinB · · Score: 1

      Yep, and since 2010 the Republicans have been passing budgets in the house. The Democrat controlled house never passed a budget for the Democrat controlled house to pass. The Democrats just keep spending money without bothering to pass a budget first and refuse to vote on the house passed budgets. It's easier for them to spend when they don't have any guidelines for it.

      If the Democrats can overspend by a trillion dollars every year, then they could include NASA in that budgetless spending if they wanted to. It's pretty absurd to blame the Republicans when they failed to block ObamaCare. Obviously, they weren't too much trouble for that.

      Also note, the Democrats have controlled congress since 2007. Bush signed off on their runaway spending and the result was the tea party cleaning house in 2010. A lot of incumbent Republicans lost their jobs.

      It's about time the Democrats cleaned house as well.

    36. Re:Romney too. by thrich81 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      More accurately, the American governmental structure has failed in this age of computer generated gerrymandering and microtargeted "news" networks and sites. The voters hear only what reinforces their exiting biases and elect representatives to resist the "evil" of the other side, not compromise. The House can pass fully partisan bills with no cooperation from the minority party so it appears to function, but since the legislation passed in the House can't be passed in the Senate then the House's efforts are only for show. If the House passed more bi-partisan bills, then they may have a chance in the Senate. The Senate has its problems from arcane rules, most glaringly that a minority (and sometimes a single Senator) can block any progress at all. This is all exacerbated by the "winner take all" type of elections the US has where a winner of an election by 50.1% can govern like he got a mandate -- the poster child for this was the first term of GW Bush, who won election with fewer total votes than the loser but governed like he had got 80% of the vote -- his VP famously said, "Elections have consequences". There is no incentive for any lawmaker to compromise any more. The federal system is totally broken. Interestingly, California may have found a way out of this disaster with their new primary system which rewards centrists, we'll see...

    37. Re:Romney too. by fyngyrz · · Score: 2

      That graph shows new job creation. When above the 0 line, that's a job gain. It's consistently been holding there all through Obama's term, once it was dug out of the republican mess it was in.

      Yes, we'd like it to be higher -- a truly healthy economy would have it at a gain of 400k/month or better, because there's a normal rate of loss that it needs to serve as a counterforce for. We sure as heck don't want it looking like it did under republican policies, though. We *surely* don't want the catastrophe the republicans foisted off upon us.

      The fact is, under the republicans, we had the normal job loss, the overseas-moved job loss, and the recession job loss, AND we had a negative number for jobs creation. Obama did better -- a LOT better.

      The rich are very rich right now, and corporate coffers are very cash heavy. The rich get a huge tax break on earnings from investments. Case in point, look at Romney, paying only about 13% because he's all-investment income at this juncture. I pay a great deal more than that, and I sure as heck don't earn what he does, and I see zero justification for the difference. I don't want his 13%; I can afford my taxes. I want him to pay at the same rate I do, though: earnings are earnings, I don't care how you came by them.

      The republicans claimed they got congress on a mandate about jobs. Over the time they've controlled the lower house, they've passed not even one jobs bill.

      What's going on here?

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    38. Re:Romney too. by ohnocitizen · · Score: 2

      1. Using the words "utterly fail" doesn't matter when you are wrong: White House Budget. Yes, Congress enacts the budget. The President has the ability to use his office to shape the budget debate - a more powerful president can do so to a significant degree. A large part of the power that comes with the executive branch is the gravitas and social power it can potentially wield.

      2. You are attempting to nitpick away from the point of my original post - that the parent post tried - and failed - to attack Obama's credibility and by extension offer cover to Romney's. Romney has worked hard at eroding any credibility he could have had on the budget through lies, obfuscation, and willful ignorance. Obama has, regardless of one's views of him as a politician and leader - maintained credibility. The only place he's arguably hurt his credibility is by buying into the conservative myth that austerity measures are either necessary or helpful (one need simply look at Europe to see what a catastrophic failure they have been). That is in an entirely different league from willfully and intentionally trying to hide the economic instability and class war engendering greed of the Romney/Ryan budget.

      3. We keep getting shafted by politicians because we do not have an adequate feedback loop to punish the corrupt, we need to elect politicians as package deals (taking bad positions with the good), and we have a twisted two party system driven by corporate influence. Not because "99%" of the country believes campaign promises.

    39. Re:Romney too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      With Romney it will be 4 more years of neocon bs wars with color coded fear warnings, big oil writing energy policy, and religious zealots preparing for the next world appointed to cabinet positions, all part of a koch brothers fuck-the-world think tank script.

      Yeah, all that came to a screeching halt with Obama!

    40. Re:Romney too. by similar_name · · Score: 1

      destruction of freedom via Obamacare?

      Personally I don't think the Federal Government should have the authority to mandate health insurance. In fact, they arguably have more authority to raise a tax and provide it. Not that I'm for that either. But destroying our freedom? It doesn't destroy freedom anymore than taxing and creating an interstate system destroys freedom.

      Now, both parties are systematically taking our freedoms away. You can almost always tell because the bills are largely bi-partisan. Things like the NDAA or the Patriot Act that pass with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle. The stuff they argue about is just there to distract you and it's unfortunately working.

    41. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 1

      But destroying our freedom? It doesn't destroy freedom anymore than taxing and creating an interstate system destroys freedom.

      Obamacare created a new means of control and did so in a way that violated the Constitution. For government power, the slippery slope is a real concern. What other things will they try now that they have the precedent of the individual mandate? My take is that they could have rewritten that aspect of Obamacare in a way that didn't violate the Constitution, by making a tax write off for having health care (beyond the already existing write offs on the business side). But that would have cost the government more money.

      So they decided to, as I put it before, create a new means to subvert the US's basis of law and destroy US citizens' freedom in order to save a few bucks.

    42. Re:Romney too. by RL78 · · Score: 1

      The article you linked to says house republicans put forth a budget based on Obama's February budget. It was Obama's ideas, or ideas he helped shape or agreed with in the budget. Do you disagree with that? Democrats had majorities in both houses for 2 years. There is no reason they couldn't have passed legislation for their entire agenda.

    43. Re:Romney too. by RL78 · · Score: 1

      The house republicans sponsored a budget based on Obama's budget. They did this for a reason. To get senate democrats to go on record as to how they would vote on a potential budget that raised taxes because democrats would not offer up a budget proposal themselves to vote on. Democrats had majorities in both houses for the first two years of Obama's presidency. They could have passed any budget they chose to.

    44. Re:Romney too. by Rockoon · · Score: 2

      However, Romney has no credibility on budgets... he claimed that he left MA with a $20 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" when actually that was $20 Million in a debate just before the NH Primary that was televised by CNN.

      ..and Obama has claimed to have campaigned in 57 States, with one left to go!

      If this is the game you want to play, then we can go all day.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    45. Re:Romney too. by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So...Republicans did NOT work with the Democrat Bill Clinton to pass the (now gutted by Executive Order) Welfare Reform

      To be quite fair, the Republicans forced Clinton into a balanced budget by shutting down the government and threatening to shut it down again. The Democrats have been saying that Clinton was responsible for the balanced budget for so long now, that even people such as yourself that contradict that belief still give him some credit.

      It all started with a document called Contract With America, and while we may no longer like Newt because of his womanizing and corruption, he still got real beneficial stuff done while Speaker of the House. Very smart man, with certainly questionable ethics. Nobody is perfect, but we benefited.

      All-in-all tho, the most credit for the balanced budget should go to the tech bubble, not to Newt, the Republicans, and certainly not to Clinton.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    46. Re:Romney too. by Rockoon · · Score: 4, Informative

      The simple fact is that the Republicans in Congress have voted as a unified bloc, over and over, ever since Obama took office, while the Democrats have not.

      The actual voting record says that BOTH parties have behaved as a unified block on the exact same issues.

      These are the very last 10 House votes, no cherry picking of any kind.. I just picked the last 10.

      Roll Call 603 Republicans 214-13, Democrats 19-162
      Roll Call 602 Republicans 0-227, Democrats 173-6
      Roll Call 601 Republicans 215-10, Democrats 11-171
      Roll Call 600 Republicans 218-11, Democrats 10-172
      Roll Call 599 Republicans 7-222, Democrats 161-21
      Roll Call 598 Republicans 3-225, Democrats 157-25
      Roll Call 597 Republicans 224-4, Democrats 23-159
      Roll Call 596 Republicans 2-227, Democrats 162-20
      Roll Call 595 Republicans 0-228, Democrats 164-18
      Roll Call 594 Republicans 222-6, Democrats 20-162

      These are the actual numbers, not just some pundit bullshit. Notice that the largest deviation from "uniform block" on the Democrat side was only 1 out of 7.28. Sure, the Republicans are a bit more partisan, but the Democrat voting record hardly paints the picture that you are trying to paint.

      It almost seems like you just believe whatever Democrat pundits will tell you. I check up on claims like these because I know for a fact that the media will not, while you just repeat whatever bullshit your party tells you to repeat. What does that tell you about the difference between people like me and people like you, and will this demonstration that should be wholly embarrassing for you effect your future critical thinking when listening to Democrat pundits? Will you just repeat a lie next time when you arent sure what the facts actually are? I wonder.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    47. Re:Romney too. by flyneye · · Score: 1

      Delusion, my friend. "This mess", was created by Repubmocrats over the last century. Continuing to vote for Repubmocrats like Obama or Romney and expecting different results is sheer stupid madness. Vote for someone outside the "one party system" if you ever want science funding again.
      I swear election time just MAKES The Whos " Won't Get Fooled Again" stand out as prophesy. "Meet the new boss, the same as the old boss" with the exception that "a parting on the left is now a parting on the right" and the DEBT has grown bigger overnight.
      If you want anything to change QUIT VOTING FOR REPUBMOCRATS and choose from one of the several other choices available. A couple of them are even on the ballots in all or most states.A vote for a Repubmocrat is absolutely a vote thrown away. A vote for an actual second party may not produce a different president, but it will begin to change things. Maybe get other parties back in the spotlight and maybe in an actual debate with the Repubmocrat cowards. Remember when Perot raised so much Hell and botched the Repubmocrats plans for a smooth election. Remember when there were going to be multi- party debates until the Repubmocrats Chickened out like the cowards that they ARE. The other candidates held their own televised debate, but lacking any Repubmocrats to kick around, it lacked the needed impact.Kind of like badmouthing someone who isn't around, it just makes you look cheap.
      No, Romney and Ryan will only continue to contribute to the mess as Obama and his clown have. Just like their Repubmocrat predecessors for the last century.
      WAKE UP! COFFEE'S ON!

      --
      *Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
    48. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 1

      I agree. But you have to feed these people the truth slooowly or they on it

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    49. Re:Romney too. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Informative

      Aaaand now you've demonstrated the complete Republican departure from reality. Did you actually look at the numbers you posted? It is absolutely clear from that list that far more Democrats are willing to vote against the majority of their fellow party members than Republicans are. Let's look at the numbers in terms of percentage of members breaking from the party line:

      603: Republicans 6% / Democrats 10%
      602: Republicans 0% / Democrats 3%
      601: Republicans 4% / Democrats 6%
      600: Republicans 5% / Democrats 5%
      599: Republicans 3% / Democrats 12%
      598: Republicans 1% / Democrats 14%
      597: Republicans 2% / Democrats 13%
      596: Republicans 1% / Democrats 11%
      595: Republicans 0% / Democrats 10%
      594: Republicans 3% / Democrats 11%

      On average, again just going from your own numbers, Democrats are willing to vote against their party line 10% of the time, Republicans 2%, a fivefold difference, and more than enough to make the difference in a close vote. If even 8% of Republicans were as willing to compromise as their Democratic colleagues are, the country wouldn't be in the mess it's in right now.

      Oh yeah, here's the R code in case you want to accuse me of playing games:

      # index
      rollcall = 603:594

      # 1 indicates members voting with party majority, 2 indicates members voting against
      r1 = c(215, 227, 215, 218, 222, 225, 224, 227, 228, 222)
      r2 = c(13, 0, 10, 11, 7, 3, 4, 2, 0, 6)
      d1 = c(162, 173, 171, 172, 161, 157, 159, 162, 164, 162)
      d2 = c(19, 6, 11, 10, 21, 25, 23, 20, 18, 20)

      # capital letters indicate ratios of members voting against party majority to total part members voting, expressed as percentages
      R = 100 * r2 / (r1 + r2)
      D = 100 * d2 / (d1 + d2)

      # package it up
      report = data.frame(rollcall, R, D)
      print(round(report))

      # mean percentages
      print(round(colMeans(report[c("R", "D")])))

      That should be enough to get you started for running some significance tests if you like.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    50. Re:Romney too. by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      The logical extension to this thought process is that the government gets to choose what is best for us on an individual level. The idea that our safety requires the loss of due process (aka Patriot Act) makes me believe the next decision will be which of us need to die in order for the body politic to thrive. It's happened before over and over.

    51. Re:Romney too. by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      However, Romney has no credibility on budgets... he claimed that he left MA with a $20 Billion "Rainy Day Fund" when actually that was $20 Million in a debate just before the NH Primary that was televised by CNN.

      =================
      I received a recent "attack ad" in which the mayors and legislators in Mass, indicated that Romney was oblivious to the ongoings of the state. He had a blue ribbon across his doorway, and he had no part in the design or implementation of the Mass Healthcare plan -- a plan that appears quite successful and which, via Obamacare, would be implemented federally, allowing for portability as people relocate from one state to another.

      Obamacare will allow the USA to catch up with the rest of the world, where UNIVERSAL medicare has been the norm since WorldWar 2 or before.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    52. Re:Romney too. by blackraven14250 · · Score: 1

      They also didn't outright claim that they were going to do everything possible to prevent the president from being elected, but you know, details like that don't matter.

    53. Re:Romney too. by sycodon · · Score: 1

      Blah Blah Blah...

      Obama makes Bill Clinton look like Barry Goldwater.

      Face it. Obama is a disaster. The Dems in the Senate are everything you would accuse the Republicans in the House of being, but 10 times worse.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    54. Re:Romney too. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Make sure Romney gets it during a day he's in favor of government spending.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    55. Re:Romney too. by similar_name · · Score: 1

      I have to pay taxes that I wouldn't have to pay if I had a mortgage. Is that infringing on my freedom? That slippery slope started a long time ago if that's your argument. Now being detained without trial, search and seizure of property without a warrant those seem more of a threat to freedom in my opinion.

    56. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 1

      I have to pay taxes that I wouldn't have to pay if I had a mortgage.

      Are you forced by law to have a mortgage? Do you have to pay a punitive tax, if you don't have a mortgage?

      Now being detained without trial, search and seizure of property without a warrant those seem more of a threat to freedom in my opinion.

      Well, these things come in packs, as I see it. I'm not going to ignore a serious threat to my freedom just because the same instigators have come with other threats to my freedom.

    57. Re:Romney too. by Bartles · · Score: 1

      With Barack Obama. Bush never signed a trillion dollar deficit. Nancy Pelosi is the only speaker to ever pass a budget with a trillion dollar deficit. The last Republican budget passed into law had had about 165 billion in deficits.

    58. Re:Romney too. by Rockoon · · Score: 1

      On average, again just going from your own numbers, Democrats are willing to vote against their party line 10% of the time

      Yes, the average amount of descent in the Democrat party is only 10%, but no it does not mean that "Democrats are willing to vote against their party 10% of the time" -- another possibility is that its always the same 10% of the party voting against the party line, people your party vilified in the media several years ago during the health-care debates. These people are the "Blue-Dog Democrats" and there are exactly 26 members of the "Blue Dog Coalition." But thats another thing that you didn't know.

      Now, you sit there with your bullshit crap about 10% being higher than 2%, while ignoring the fact that 10% aint shit, because in your eyes 10% isnt evidence that they arent willing to negotiate. I see now exactly what reaction you have taken to having been proved wrong. Instead of re-evaluating your initial assumptions, you have just dived in further into irrationality in an attempt to save the assumption.

      --
      "His name was James Damore."
    59. Re:Romney too. by colin_faber · · Score: 1

      Right, because 150K people entering the work force monthly is easily handled by 110k - 140k new jobs?

      You're demagoguing this issue though. The fact is your job creation graph doesn't give the whole story.

      http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000/

      Sorry but in the world I live in you cannot create 'new jobs' until you've replaced the ones you've lost already. This logic is based on the fact that our popular continues to grow, and new workers continue to require jobs.

    60. Re:Romney too. by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Sorry but in the world I live in you cannot create 'new jobs' until you've replaced the ones you've lost already.

      That's what we call a "fantasy world."

      Larry is not in the job market. Fred is unemployed. Joe works alone in tiny Chinese restaurant. Jane works alone at tiny post office. Chinese restaurant closes, Joe loses job. Donut shop opens. Fred is hired by donut shop. One new job. One lost job. One job with continuity across these events. Specific, unique personal consequences in all three cases. Larry isn't playing. That's reality. It's how reality rolls. Note how the donut shop opening consists of a completely independent event from the chinese restaurant closing; that's why job creation is measured independently. Because it is independent.

      Jobseekers, industries and jobs come and go; that's the nature of any economy. No industry is guaranteed that its methodology, sufficient today, will be sufficient tomorrow; or that its product, in demand now, will be in demand tomorrow. Again, that's just how things roll. But the government can step in, and, if it deems it worthwhile, it can backstop temporary issues (as with GM or the banks) that in its estimation will result in a better economic outcome.

      Or, as Romney wanted to do, it could just let them fail and lose all those jobs. Luckily, we had Obama making that choice, so those jobs are still in our economy.

      The fact is your job creation graph doesn't give the whole story.

      Agreed. It tells a part of the jobs story where the administration can actually have an effect. It doesn't for instance, very well describe how republican policies nearly destroyed our economy, or involved us in a set of completely pointless, wrongheaded, un-financed pair of wars, or violated the constitution on citizen's issue after issue. It doesn't describe the insanity of Bush's "God told me to do it" claim, or the deception about the tubes manufactured in Africa. It doesn't describe how republican policies encouraged companies to move jobs offshore; it doesn't describe how "trickle-down" never materialized. It doesn't describe how more and more people were growing in need of medical care. It doesn't describe the losses to the oil companies in the form of completely unjustified giveaways and subsidies. It doesn't describe the republican whoring out to Halliburton, et al. It doesn't describe how the republicans have completely failed to pass any bill with a reasonable expectation of generating jobs. Yes, there's a whole bunch that graph doesn't describe.

      But what it does describe is that job creation was negative and going further negative at a very high rate under republican policy, and that was reversed under Obama. This is independent of other factors. Which addresses the issue at hand.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    61. Re:Romney too. by similar_name · · Score: 1

      I have to pay a punitive tax to buy cigarettes or beer. It's only a matter of semantics whether you reduce taxes for buying something or increase taxes for not buying it. I can disagree with Federal healthcare for a number of reasons, I just don't find infringing on my freedom as one of them. I don't see it as anywhere near the same level as locking me up without due process or search and seizure without a warrant. If you see federal healthcare on the same or near the same level that's fine. We don't have to agree.

    62. Re:Romney too. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      Just keep on digging that hole you're in, kid.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    63. Re:Romney too. by khallow · · Score: 1

      I have to pay a punitive tax to buy cigarettes or beer.

      Yes, that is a problem, but that's a legal problem. Excise taxes are legally one of the taxes that the federal government has been allowed to levy from the very beginning.

      It's only a matter of semantics whether you reduce taxes for buying something or increase taxes for not buying it.

      Not at all! The federal government is limited in how it can levy taxes. For example, it is still illegal to levy taxes on property or other assets. To tax income, they had to get an amendment passed.

      But going to your example, it is voluntary to claim an exemption for the tax reduction. It is not voluntary to pay more for not buying something or performing a particular activity. That alone makes it more than semantics.

    64. Re:Romney too. by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      Wait... So private jobs are going up in response to Bush era tax cuts that Obama left in effect because he had (nor has) a working jobs program. Obviously, the thing Obama left in effect from the Bush era that works, that's the thing you fucking crazy people want to eliminate. Sure.

    65. Re:Romney too. by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Original Article Souce: Associated Press...the fact your paper is local is beside the fact.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    66. Re:Romney too. by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Funny I dont recall only the rich getting tax cuts in the last ten years. In fact I recall more cuts being across the board or focused on low and middle incomes, and more hikes being focused on the "above 250000/1000000/pickyournumber" crowds.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    67. Re:Romney too. by dywolf · · Score: 1

      Your post is calssic textbook example of the "Biased credit" Law of Politics:

      Your guy gets all the credit and none of the blame, regardless of facts.
      The other guy gets none of the credit and all the blame, regardless of facts.

      The recession technically ended is 2009 yes, though the economy is still not "great".
      Obama had little to do with either part of that statement. But according to the Law of Biased Credit, if you hate him, he gets all the blame for it still sucking...if you like him, he gets credit for "ending the recession". The fact is, he gets neither credit nor blame. The economy pulled itself out, in that its various actors performed in ways that collectively caused a recovery, regardless of anything the Prez did or didnt do. And likewise the economy continues to suck, even after the technical ending of the recession, by and large regardless of anything the Prez did or didnt do. Barring truly extraodrinary events (megaomnibus super bill 3000!!) the economy is bigger than one man, even when that man is the POTUS.

      And when people talk of "failed bush policies" and "failed trickle down" they dont know what they are talking about. Again, the economy crash had little to do with Bush and his policies, and everything to do with certain huge Wall Street players taking big (and unethical and almostbutnotquiteillegal) risks, and losing.

      as for trickle down....its not the policies or tax cuts or anything else. Its the fact its still simply cheaper to ship jobs overseas. The policies and taxes have very little to do with that; it has everything to do with the fact some faceless chinese worker is willing to do with $1/hr something that would cost $10+/hr over here. You can change all the policies you want, raise or lower all the taxes you want...it wont matter as long as such disparities exist.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    68. Re:Romney too. by dywolf · · Score: 1

      When people talk of "failed bush policies" and "failed trickle down" they dont know what they are talking about. The policies and taxes have very little to do with that; it has everything to do with the fact some faceless chinese worker is willing to do with $1/hr something that would cost $10+/hr over here. You can change all the policies you want, raise or lower all the taxes you want...it wont matter as long as there is no minimum wage in China.

      And the proposed solution of requiring US companies to adhere to a minimum wage worldwide will simply force companies that can to flee the US entirely, and companies that cant to raise prices enormously, further damaging our own economy.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    69. Re:Romney too. by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Sign.. Tax cuts in and of themselves do not create or destroy anything involving a job. Econ 101 should have told you that in order for a company to be in business, they have to take in more then they spend to do business. When regulatory, material, energy, and other costs are high, lowering taxes can alleviate this and bring on a growth spurt or maintain a status quo. Prices are pretty much already fixed with imports and the ability of the market's to provide. Lowering taxes is a crutch until other things can be fixed and when the right or close to the right costs verses profit is found large scale, they can be increased again.

      When taxes are low, the barrier for entry is lower because investment income can be used for lower yielding returns. If 30% of your return is going to be taxed, and you expect $100 return for every $1000 invested, you have to make sure you will get $140 so you still have the $100 after taxes. But because this $100 is already taxed at on the investment before being paid, the company has to pay thier income taxes at 28% then you with the 28%. This means that for every $1000 invested, you will need to see a complete return of something closer to $160. When taxes are at 15%, you are looking at the company you are investing in having to make a significant less amount for the same return. So when taxes are low more investment happens if it is enough to compensate for the increased costs in other areas. Unfortunately with our war on energy, we will not have a Clinton like Boom no matter what we do because energy is sky high. This forces jobs over seas looking for lowered costs like you mentioned.

      Lowering taxes might not be a panacea for jobs, but raising them will definitely hurt them. Especially since we are largely a service economy in most areas which means not only will the businesses pay more, the people who contract services to them will and the investors will. As those costs raise, it becomes one more nail in the coffin of that business looking elsewhere to save money. Raising taxes will hurt a slow or damaged economy even if lowering them does not help.

    70. Re:Romney too. by innerweb · · Score: 1

      I think you should amend that to read Reagan or Cheney. 8)

      --
      Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
    71. Re:Romney too. by sjames · · Score: 1

      The problem you're having is you think politics has a single right answer like arithmetic. Too bad that's false.

    72. Re:Romney too. by sjames · · Score: 1

      No, those aren't the guys who get their taxes raised, they're not in a high enough tax bracket.

  2. or... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    You could wait until January.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:or... by sycodon · · Score: 2

      There is no budget...give me a break.

      Whatever passes in the house will be round filed by Harry and he'll just write a continuing resolution.

      The Senate has ceased to act as a deliberative legislative body and is just a place for rich Senators to hang out.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re:or... by roc97007 · · Score: 1

      There is no budget...give me a break.

      Whatever passes in the house will be round filed by Harry and he'll just write a continuing resolution.

      The Senate has ceased to act as a deliberative legislative body and is just a place for rich Senators to hang out.

      Agreed. Except I'd say "old rich senators". And it'll remain that way until we get sufficient new blood in there.

      --
      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  3. Read the Constitution... by CajunArson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The House is the body responsible for spending authorizations. If you want an increase in NASA's budget, write to your local congressman/woman first. The nice thing about the House is that with 435 members, it's theoretically possible that you might get some sort of response if there is enough constituent interest on the issue.

    --
    AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
    1. Re:Read the Constitution... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      You should check out the FAQ about this: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/casey-dreier/20121011-write-the-president-for-planetary-exploration.html#faq

      The point is that Congress is not working on a budget right now, and won't be until 2013. They put some money back into this area within NASA, but since they never passed the budget, NASA has to assume that the President's proposed budget is all they have to work with.

      The Office of Management and Budget is the agency that allocates money and long-term spending within federal agencies. The President has control over the OMB. By ordering the OMB to release (or reallocate) funding to the planetary exploration division, the budget can be restored without special action from Congress.

    2. Re:Read the Constitution... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A litte more clarity. The HOUSE has passed a budget for at least the last two years. The SENATE refuses to even bring one up for a vote. Blaming Congress in total for failing to pass a budget is a bit dishonest, its only 1 person in Congress that is refusing to allow a budget to be passed and his name is Harry Reid (D-NV).

    3. Re:Read the Constitution... by Nutria · · Score: 1

      We're spending trillions on legally mandatory spending (aka "entitlement" programs), Defense and bailouts, all the while borrowing many hundreds of billions from China/Japan/etc.

      Eliminate some (or a lot) of that mandatory spending, and *then* increase NASA spending.

      Why not raise taxes? "Eventually you run out of other people's money."

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    4. Re:Read the Constitution... by sycodon · · Score: 1

      Mod this man (or woman) up.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    5. Re:Read the Constitution... by sycodon · · Score: 1

      How much do all those Obama Phones cost?

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    6. Re:Read the Constitution... by Score+Whore · · Score: 2

      The Office of Management and Budget is the agency that allocates money and long-term spending within federal agencies.

      No they aren't. OMB is part of the executive branch. The executive branch is constrained by Congress, they cannot spend money on anything they want nor can they shuffle money around willy-nilly. Yes, the President submits a proposal to Congress and that proposal is developed at the OMB. But if Congress doesn't adopt that proposal then the President's budget is meaningless.

    7. Re:Read the Constitution... by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

      Simple. Because unless you include a check, they won't read your letter.

      --
      I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    8. Re:Read the Constitution... by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

      Nothing except to other phone users, and as phone users benefit from network effects, arguably it's a "cost of doing business" rather than a subsidy. The so-called Obamaphones are funded from the USF (a portion of telecommunications profits), which has been around for decades, and which started funding cellphones as well as regular landlines during the Bush administration (Why? Competition. Why should your landline company be the only company that gets to spend the money on universal service?)

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    9. Re:Read the Constitution... by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      Apparently you missed the meme. Obama got me this phone. Fuck Mitt Romney!

  4. Didn't you guys get the memo? by krisamico · · Score: 2

    It has been decided that we will be staying here. We will pray to our Gods for nice weather and the forbearance of asteroids.

  5. Re:Bill Nye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    From wikipedia:

    William Sanford Nye was born in Washington, D.C., to Jacqueline (née Jenkins; 1921–2000), a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (1917–1997), also a World War II veteran, whose experience in a Japanese prisoner of war camp led him to become a sundial enthusiast.[4][5][6] Nye is a fourth-generation Washington resident through his father's side of the family. After attending Lafayette Elementary and Alice Deal Junior High in the city, he was accepted to the private Sidwell Friends School on a partial scholarship and graduated in 1973.[7][8] He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University (where one of his professors was Carl Sagan[9]) and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 1977.

  6. Nickname predates PBS by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    He was "Bill Nye the Science Guy" back when he was a role player on "Almost Live!", which was a Seattle-area comic sketch show in the 80s and 90s.

    Most of the time he was just a stock player, but occasionally he'd do a science-comedy mashup; and for each year's New Year's special episode he'd rig up some Rube Goldberg sciency contraption that'd be used to count down to the new year.

    Although I think I liked him best as Speed Walker, who fought crime while adhering to the conventions of the International Speed Walking Association.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Nickname predates PBS by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Correct - he's not a scientist, he has played one on TV.

      (And I miss "Almost Live!'.)

    2. Re:Nickname predates PBS by edelbrp · · Score: 1

      While, true, he is best known as an entertainer of sorts, he's an engineer that's worked in a number of fields (I won't bother posting links to various bios; you can google for those.)

      I grew up watching Almost Live! Loved that show. I loved the Billy Quan segments... "Be Like Billy!" It was a sort of extreme spoof of fake looking staged martial arts fighting movies taken to the extreme.

    3. Re:Nickname predates PBS by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

      "Remember, kids - be like Billy! Behave yourself!"

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  7. Re:NASA bro, they help science. by SB9876 · · Score: 1

    Dude, I think you forgot your tinfoil hat this morning.

  8. Re:Mr. Obama prefers Big Bird by Mabhatter · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because Big Bird only needs Millions in support.... NASA's projects require BILLIONS over multiple years.

    Big Bird helps little kids... NASA helps rich defense contractors.... They usually vote Republican.

  9. How about this... by Voogru · · Score: 1

    Here's a better idea.

    How about NASA setup a portal where citizens can donate money directly to NASA, in exchange for priority access varying on how much they contribute every month. Then NASA is no longer subject to the whims of congress, but by how much people value NASA.

    If people want NASA, they'll be willing to pay for it directly, instead of indirectly through taxation.

  10. Re:Bill Nye by Riceballsan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Umm... Bill Nye actually has a job as executive director of the planetary society, has a degree in mechanical engineering and he's worked as an engineer at boeing. The man knows his physics, just because his acting is why he is well known, does not effect his actual qualifications.

  11. Today's Air force is yeterday's NASA by lilfields · · Score: 1

    Though the Air force is used for military means rather than exploratory means, it's pretty clear that most of the prototypes in the AF pipeline are space and air...not just air. So many of the advances of shuttles etc that NASA has been pushing toward are being propagated into the Air force portfolio, NASA should just become a sub-arm of the Air force...basically. Then it can get military money (which we know is massive and won't be cut.) It just makes sense. NASA can deal with the interplanetary means of the air force and piggy back off of their funding AND their new air craft hybrids of space and air vehicles.

    1. Re:Today's Air force is yeterday's NASA by danbuter · · Score: 1

      Problem with that is the Air Force likes to classify everything, so we'd never see most of their scientific advances.

  12. Wait, what? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bill Nye 'the Science Guy' Urges Letters To Obama To Restore NASA Budget Cuts

    "Restoring cuts" sounds like NASA getting less money.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:Wait, what? by greenreaper · · Score: 1

      I approve of these cuts. It's good to know that Bill Nye is behind them as well.

  13. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by couchslug · · Score: 1

    Prove your Deity exists and end all argument.

    Do it now. The burden of proof is on those who contend that a thing is fact.

    Religion is not based on evidence, therefore it's nonsense and its proponents delusional or liars. Prove your Sky Fairie is real and I'll recant then kiss his/her/its Noodly Appendage. Otherwise, fuck off.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  14. NASA broke even and even made money by danbuter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unlike just about every other branch of government, NASA routinely either broke even or even made money, thanks to all of the stuff they invented. Heck, if they had patented all of it, the government would have a huge cash cow in NASA.

    1. Re:NASA broke even and even made money by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

      Apologize for not having mods points. Excellent commentary. If NASA would simply fund a mining expedition to the asteroid belt instead of this life on Mars shit we'd have the economic incentives in place to continue real manned exploration of the solar system.

  15. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Anyone who truly understands science is inherently anti-religion. Sciences looks for answers for things that religion would rather you just shut-up and believe (and give money and power).

  16. Ultimatley this shouldn't be Obama's choice by Karmashock · · Score: 2

    Which departments are funded and how much funding they get is up to congress and not the president.

    The president is not king or emperor and people need to stop treating the position this way. It is very dangerous because if we do this for too long the president will become emperor.

    The majority of power must always reside in the legislature. They make the laws, they set policy, they debate the issues, they cut the deals. The president just runs the show after he's been given the rules.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    1. Re:Ultimatley this shouldn't be Obama's choice by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      You might read the US Constitution, and read up on the principle of separation of powers. Not only do you not understand how the current system works, you don't seem to understand that what you propose requires significant amendments to the Constitution.

    2. Re:Ultimatley this shouldn't be Obama's choice by Karmashock · · Score: 1

      Right because the US Constitution, in protection of our liberties, was set up to make one man god king of everyone.

      Or you're wrong.

      Pick one... I'm too tired to correct everyone on the internet.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  17. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Believing that writing to Obama to change things will do any good requires a higher level of ignoring all available evidence than does belief in any given diety.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  18. Why not wait? by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Wait until you see who wins the election. Then write that person. No need to write the loser as he is packing his bags.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
    1. Re:Why not wait? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The FY2014 budget is being devised RIGHT NOW. To have an effect on this budget, it's important to make this impression immediately, even if Romney wins.

  19. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You obviously do not know what science is. Science is not religion and does not say anything to religion because religion is full of supernatural claims that Science cannot prove or disprove.

    Anyone who truly knows what science is would be indifferent about religion. They simply wouldn't care about it as it does not effect science at all.

  20. Somebody can't stand the truth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The 'climate' thing is a major irritant to the Republicans. http://www.eenews.net/public/climatewire/2011/02/14/2

    IMHO, some Republicans are willing to totally bork NASA just to get rid of Hansen.

    Moderating the parent to -1 is an example of someone, who doesn't like the message, shooting the messanger.

  21. Re:Lose what exactly? by c0lo · · Score: 2

    NASA was impressive, when it was committed to human exploration. They already lost that legacy. They replaced it with the shuttle, and then started doing an endless stream of space research.

    Sometimes you have to shoot the scientists and turn it over to the engineers.

    You sure wasn't exactly the engineers that cut the manned human space exploration? After all, it's a sensible idea when it comes to pragmatic solutions.

    Besides, the "Lose exactly what?" is a good question. Except that the alternatives are not "manned/unmanned space exploration" but the choices are: the "leadership in space" or the "capability"?
    Because... you know?... other solutions may exists for maintaining the capability (e.g. collaboration./contracts with other space agencies, be them national or private), but if it's the "leadership in space" then yes, you have to pay for it.

    As an engineer, I'd say: pick what you want first (picking also a why would be even better) then assess the solutions from this perspective... in this case, if picking "capability" maybe the "defunding" is a good enough solution?

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  22. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That's not how burden of proof works. You are suggesting that the older idea is presumptively correct in the absence of proof. In reality, religion has had thousands of years to prove anything at all, and failed utterly to do so, whereas science has routinely either proven its claims, discarded them, or built more capable equipment for gathering evidence.

  23. Re:Science and Economics/Politics... by danbuter · · Score: 1

    If they government takes all of the money currently marked for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt (outside any payments for our own stuff, I'm just talking the free money they give away) and gave it to NASA, the organization would likely triple in size.

  24. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Seumas · · Score: 1

    Keep quiet about science or the religious people who are already undermining science in favor of magic-sky-mannery will get upset and undermine science!

  25. Re:Mr. Obama prefers Big Bird by c0lo · · Score: 1

    Name a single thing that have in your home, in your pocket, on your desk, or in your car that came directly from whatever the fuck the MIC has been spending $4 Trilion on over the last few years. You can't. Precisely because none of us are getting anything useful out of it. Period.

    Funny thing with the logic... if you don't see something happening, it simply does not mean it can not happen!
    (a subtle way of Godwining the thread) my car brand started because of a group of people with megalomaniac aggressive mindset wanted it... No, it's not a Humvee... it goes 74.8 MPG and you wouldn't like the people that pushed it into existence.

    My point: yes, funding NASA have better chances of progress than waging wars... however, the results of belligerency may not be all bad (e.g. why larger human agglomerations called cities happened? Easier to defend between walls at that time. Why they ditched the walls with the result they could grow unrestricted? Mobile artillery made city walls obsolete).

    --
    Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
  26. Re:Mr. Obama prefers Big Bird by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Informative

    The last time we funded NASA, it resulted in three decades of Earth shattering scientific advances, an increase in desire for higher education and an explosion of growth in employment in technology fields. Let's be sure not to make that mistake again.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  27. NASA has almost never been funded very much. by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except for the couple of years immediately after the president insisted we needed to go to the moon, where NASA consumed more than 4% of the national budget (but still wasn't very much), it has almost never accounted for a significant part of the budget in any way. For the entire life of the agency, the average budget (in 2007's dollars) has been something like $17,000,000,000/yr.

    Hell, since 9/11, we have spent TWICE as much conducting war in the middle east as NASA has spent in its entire fifty-five year live time, in which it developed rocket technology. Developed shuttle technology. Helped improve countless other technologies (including those for the military). Helped generate entire new private industries. Shot a man into space. Shot around the moon. Landed men on the moon several times. Built space-suit-jets for men in space. Conducted space walks. Built a space car. Built and deployed a telescope to see to the beginning of time. Built and manned a space station. Built one (wait, two?) little RC cars that we landed on the surface of Mars. Then built an SUV that we landed on Mars. Not to mention the satellites above our heads. The satellites far out in space, exploring the universe for decades, now. . .

    All of that is in *today's* dollars.

    So, let's not fool ourselves into believing NASA has ever had a "ton of funding". But, just think what we could accomplish if we blew up a few less brown people or facilitated a few fewer corporate (Haliburtin, KDR, etc) contracts in Afghanistan or Iraq with government resources and just funneled that little bit of money to NASA. Maybe push 5% of that "searchin' for WMDs" money over to NASA. Who knows what fucking amazing shit we could do?

    Yeah, yeah, yeah. Private industry yadda yadda. That'd be fine, if we apply that consistently. But if we're going to be debating what's worth funding, how the fuck is pursuing one of the most primitive needs of mankind not near the top of the list?

    Instead, we have to bank the whole of our space exploration on the guy who ships books and kindles to your doorstep, the guy behind Doom and Rage, and the guy behind PayPal. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but . . .

  28. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by neo8750 · · Score: 2

    "Tell people there’s an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure." - George Carlin

  29. More shakeycam! by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 1

    Apparently they couldn't afford a tripod to film this. That, or they were trying to go for a in-the-action style film to liven up a boring speech.

    --
    -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
  30. Re:AND no one will have health care then as well by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    Right right right... I've heard Mitt is going to outlaw Tampons also. It'll be just horrible.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  31. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    ...Except for when theories become a belief system...

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  32. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Atriqus · · Score: 2

    No True Scottsman notwithstanding, I would disagree.

    It's not a matter of what science has taught us. It's a matter of methodology. Science is about modeling the observed, proving the model, and proving a better model. Religion boils down to trusting an unobservable and unprovable model to be fact. Attempting to apply scientific rigor to a religion inevitably leads to an outright dismissal. To suggest the concepts are indifferent or not at odds seems only plausible through some sort of cognitive dissonance.

    --
    Hey, look! It's Bono's brother.
  33. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by clarkkent09 · · Score: 1

    Anyone who truly understands science is inherently anti-religion.
     
    Absolutely false, and incredibly naive. I fully understand science and I am not the slightest bit "anti-religion". I don't believe that a God exist but that does not make me anti-religion. Your mistake is to think of beliefs as being about the truth, rather than about what works. The fact that every single society in the history of human race was based on religion should make a science guy like you at least consider a possibility that it has a strong evolutionary advantages and that it shouldn't be dismissed so callously, not least because the evidence is that as soon as you kill one religion another one (potentially a lot worse than what we have now) will spring up. Once you understand the pitifully small role that reason (as compared to memes) plays in 'thinking' of humans, yes, including you, and the complexity of a society then you will understand that trying to base it on reason (rather than on fixed commands from 'above') is naive and dangerous.

    --
    Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
  34. Sadly I think more cuts are coming. by raal · · Score: 1

    With us spending more than what we bring in there are 1 of 2 options. Raise taxes which no one wants or make cuts in the budget which no one wants either. Reality is that we need to balance the budget its going to be a hard several years to get it all fixed. We didn't get here over night and we won't be able to fix it over night either. But we DO need to get there.

    I can't keep borrowing with no chance of repaying and our govt shouldn't either.

  35. Preach it! by incripshin · · Score: 1

    Save the budget cuts! NASA is a dead corporation, so why are we wasting money on them? I am partially kidding.

  36. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by khallow · · Score: 1

    Perhaps you could explain the mechanism then. You seem to be claiming that there's some sort of observational bias happening in religious people. I think that's unfound though there is a subgroup of religious people who clearly aren't operating empirically and make strange claims about the real world which don't have a scientific basis.

  37. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sjames · · Score: 1

    Anyone who REALLY understands science inherently believes it has nothing to say on the topic of religion and vice versa.

  38. There is a need by fyngyrz · · Score: 1

    Thanks to asteroid impacts, comet impacts, super volcanos, solar outbursts, major biological insults, ice ages and other rare, but dependable catastrophic events, there is every need to find other planets to colonize.

    Thanks to huge resources that become almost freely available to us once we definitively get out of the earth's gravity well, the financial case is, if long term, still quite clear.

    Thanks to the lack of atmosphere and the availability of incomprehensibly long baselines, astronomy alone will benefit hugely from an actual presence in space, once / if we can pull it off.

    The first sign of a complete failure to understand the world we live in is any urge to cut back on our ability to get to, stay in, do science in, and work in, space.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
  39. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sumdumass · · Score: 2

    Actually, they are closer then you think. Religion is about a set of people saying a God told them something and passing it down the ages to others. You cannot do half the science out there, so you are trusting and believing what someone else is telling you.

    But you are also wrong. This is because science and religion are separate things. You do not need to apply the scientific method to it or any other thing and religion doesn't require you to ignore the scientific method to anything. So saying someone who truly understand science, would imply that they would also truly understand that religion is not science therefore their scientific understanding would be indifferent to religion in much the same way as it would be indifferent to the Saturday morning cartoons or love or poetry.

  40. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Examples of "supernatural" (a.k.a. bullshit) claims that science can help answer:
    * Does prayer work to cure the sick? Sciences indicates no.
    * Was the world formed in six days? Science indicates no.
    * Did Noah get every species onto a boat? Science indicates no.
    * Are we reincarnated? Sciences indicates no.

    These can all be proved negative to my satisfaction.

    I didn't say science has anything to say about religion. Science is merely the act of trying to find answers with reason, and proving it with evidence. It's not a religion - it doesn't say a thing.

    I said "Anyone who truly understands science is..." not "Science is...".

    People who understand science see people being swindled by religion all the time - people are hurt by religion. Think about the babies raped in Africa to "cure HIV" - this is an extreme example of a false belief that is widely shared - basically a disorganised religion. If these people thought scientifically, they wouldn't do that. Same with faith healers, fortune telling, cold reading, greedy evangelists, stoned women etc.

  41. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 1

    Yep, but that's not science.

    A theory becoming a religion isn't science becoming a religion. Science is a process, not a belief.

    Ideological belief in a doctrine while ignoring evidence to the contrary is religion, not science.

  42. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by roc97007 · · Score: 1

    Agreed. And what separates the intellectually honest from the converts is the ability to look at evidence that disputes their theories.

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  43. restore cuts? ... or restore funding? by swell · · Score: 2

    I'm very confused as to why it is desirable to restore cuts.
    Or even possible.
    If cuts exist, how can they be restored?
    Perhaps he wants to increase cuts?

    Or perhaps everyone at /. failed English as well as Logic.
    I'm pretty sure that most of you want FUNDING restored, not CUTS.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
  44. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    You are making a false equivalency, all too common from republicans these days, and unfortunate, for it intentionally keeps reality out-of-sight-out-of-mind for far too many folks. Did NASA land the rover Curiosity on mars based on faith in the unprovable? No, they did it based on mathematical models describing known and proven laws of physics. Zealots see it all as the devil's trickery. Keep zealots out of true power or we're all screwed.
    Forget about NASA's sciences budget (especially earth sciences) if Romney gets elected. ADD indeed.

  45. Bill Nye Farts, film at 11 by roninmagus · · Score: 1

    A worth cause, but it's getting to be that whenever Bill Nye passes gas it's a story.

  46. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Insightful

    And of course the absurdity of it all is this fallacious argument you seem to hold that is saying because a group of people organized into a religion believes the teachings and eye witness stories from 2000 to 6000 or more years ago to be fundamentally true that they have to ignore science, math, or anything else in their present day tasks.

    No one, let me repeat this, No one, thinks that because of their beliefs that something will automagically happen. Even the people who think God will provide what they need, do not sit around waiting or wishing, they actually attempt to accomplish something using the best tools available to them at the time and pray that it was enough. You bring up NASA and yes, there are people working for NASA, even on the mars rover and the Cassini project that are religious.

    You and everyone else who thinks so is living in a delusional world that has no connection to reality. The people who achieve things with science do so because they do not confuse science and religion. If you can look at science and claim it mandates a rejection of religion, you have no clue about science or religion at all and are more likely using science as your religion.

  47. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sumdumass · · Score: 2

    Your things that science can answer is not very strong. First, does prayer work, yes it does, about as well as a placebo. But that doesn't mean it hasn't worked either. Second, created in 6 days, well, despite the word used to day is also used to era or time span, the fact that it was created means it can appear to be anything the creator wanted. So if science indicates no, that could be specifically a result of the creation. That is why science and religion are separate things. I think you get the drift, or should be able to get it.

    These can all be proved negative to my satisfaction.

    That's fine. Just don't force your opinion on others and we should be getting along just fine.

    I didn't say science has anything to say about religion. Science is merely the act of trying to find answers with reason, and proving it with evidence. It's not a religion - it doesn't say a thing.

    You said "Anyone who truly understands science is inherently anti-religion". This indicates to me that you are saying in order to truly understand science, you must evaluate and reject religion. I said that is false, science and religion are separate and you do not need to think anything about one or the other.

    People who understand science see people being swindled by religion all the time - people are hurt by religion. Think about the babies raped in Africa to "cure HIV" - this is an extreme example of a false belief that is widely shared - basically a disorganised religion. If these people thought scientifically, they wouldn't do that. Same with faith healers, fortune telling, cold reading, greedy evangelists, stoned women etc.

    You are really screwed up in the head of you think someone convincing idiots in Africa to rape babies in order to get rid of AIDS is a religious value. Of course I see what you are doing, everything you do not see a support consensus for in science must be a religion right. Just like Eugenics right, just like electromagnetism and all the scientific advancements it brought about with the crazies. Lets cure society with lobotomies by shoving wire rods up someone's knows and turning their frontal cortex into a scrambles egg. oh wait, science kicked that to the curb, it must have all been a religion right?

    Get a fucking grip on yourself. You describes fraud and eugenics and claimed it was a religion. (yes, telling HIV and AIDS infected people to rape those too young was little more then a ploy to wipe an entire tribe out of existence just like the forced sterilizations and even the chemical sterilizations that went on in south africa..)

  48. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sjames · · Score: 1

    There are likely many things within the bounds of reality that we simply do not know about yet. If we know nothing of it, we cannot theorize about it and so cannot test our theories. Until that changes, it is real but not in the realm of science.

    Quantum physics has always existed, for example, but the ancient Greeks had no way of knowing about it. Had they by some coincidence come up with a quantum theory then, it would have been in the realm of religion.

    If we ever learn to detect God and gain the ability to test theories about God, then God will be in the realm of science. Unless or until that happens, science has nothing to say about God other than 'we haven't seen one'.

  49. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 1

    To stop belief in the irrational, you can teach people new ways of thinking about things. And what is religion but a shared set of irrational beliefs (with some rational ones thrown in to entice people)?

    There are "recognised" religions (Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism etc) and then there are de facto religions such as the cargo cults, hippie communes, and vague spiritualism. You're right, I am applying the same broad brush to all of these - they're all the same phenomenon: faith without questioning.

    And BTW, if "God tell"s people to pray to Him as a placebo, then what type of pathetic god is he?!

    As for six days, there are a number of Christians who take this literally. What makes them wrong and you right?
    Instead of saying "6 days represents 6 eras", why not just say "the whole thing is a load of shit invented by some Jewish guy thousands of years ago"? I mean "6x = exact age of the universe (for a certain value of x)" is a bit of a cop out!

    Fraud, eugenics, lobotomies, stoning, terrorism, Christian rock, baby rape to cure HIV... These are things that result from irrational thinking. They may not fit into a narrow definition of religion, but it's the same process.

  50. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 1

    I guess the differences are:
    1. That there is some sort of plausible process that makes this belief conceivable. (Mail gets read by secretary, passed to the big man himself, he thinks great idea, proposes it to congress, and change happens.)
    2. It is testable. If we got a rational person to test it (perhaps getting them to write 1000 unique letters to the President and observing change in laws), they'd probably change their mind.

    But you're correct in many cases. I think many people had irrational and poorly considered views on what would happen when Barrack won the election.

  51. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by tbird81 · · Score: 1

    I guess my choice of language was ambiguous at the best. (I was using "anti-religion" because that's what the parent said.)

    By anti-religion I don't mean church-burning, Mormon-punching, Nativity-banning psychopathy. I meant "anti-" in the same way as used in "antifreeze" or "anticlockwise".

    I meant that when approached by someone who tells you that "God will heal that sunburn, and if you believe in Him you'll live forever in eternity. Join now for an obligation free meeting." that you'd have the sense to evaluate what they're saying and reject it as falsehood.

  52. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Bensam123 · · Score: 1

    Science only indicates that which it can measure. Any time something falls outside that measure science can't justify it's existence. Like science nowdays would be seen as miracles, when it's clearly not. In the same way prayer could be some supernatural form of science that involves 'willing' things better. Not understood and seems completely like hog wash to the scientific community, yet somehow could still be possible. Perhaps even more so because we don't fully understand how prayer works.

  53. Decrease funds for NASA more by Sqreater · · Score: 1

    Space is a vast desert like no desert on the face of the Earth. It is an unlimited sink for tax dollars and human effort best expended on the Earth. I applaud the Obama administration for opposing the mindless spending called for by "science-ism-ists". Just because it is science doesn't mean it deserves funding. When spending vital public dollars it is essential to hold the reasons to ones that are practical or promise short term payoffs for the investor, not pie-in-the-sky, sometime-in-the-distant-future-maybe payoffs that merely "provide jobs" for scienceismists. And don't use the argument that the spending is a small part of the budget. The hundred in my pocket is a small part of my expenditures, but that doesn't justify spending it on bubblegum.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
    1. Re:Decrease funds for NASA more by qbel · · Score: 1

      Space is a vast desert? I can see your point of view, but I think it is too easy to point to somewhere we've never been and say, "Yeah, there's nothing we need/want over there". Think about what world we would be living in if we closed down Bell Labs for practical or promised short term payoffs for the investor. I can't really speak for you, but I like what our technological advancements have done for us.. sure there has been bad, but there has also been a lot of really, really good. Healthcare. Faster, safer airplanes. More reliable, faster cars. The internet. Telephones. I would have had 2 less years with my mom if it weren't for all those advances. I think we need to look beyond the tools we have at our disposal and keep allowing ourselves to dream and discover. Money is, and hopefully will remain, a tool, not an end in life.

  54. Principle of Explosion by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2

    Do tell me the difference between considering the unprovable to be false and considering it to be null.

    You might call that the difference between skepticism and empiricism. Religion violates the principle of parsimony, is untestable, and provides nothing in the way of explanatory power. You're arguing about whether or not science should treat religion as being wrong, or not even wrong.

    --
    Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  55. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Shempster · · Score: 1

    Republicans have become science-suppressors, not the democrats. To equate the two parties in this manner is a false equivalency. Romney made it clear: he and the neocons don't give a shit about concerns coming from earth sciences. I have a problem with appointing industry lobbyists with religious nutballs that actually think Earth is a temporary testing ground for some binary test. This effectively grants permission for offending corporations to go nuts with reckless destructive processes unimpeded by responsible, rational planning.

    Government was designed to protect its citizens from enemies, both foreign and domestic. When big corporations have their way with our federally protected lands, sea & air, a government agency, the dept. of the interior (in this case) was designed to ensure any management & distribution of these scarce and precious resources be done in a responsible way or not at all. But when you have an administration that cynically appoints big-oil, lumber, cattle, & coal lobbyists along with religious wackos into top positions, including #1 & #2, then things fall apart and you get reckless wild-west mentality that benefits a very narrow bunch of companies at the expense of everyone else, including future generations. Then what do you do? You blame government. That's the Koch Brothers way. Its how you wind up with people voting against their own interests with a passion. But its destructive both near-term and long-term for this country, for this world's finely tuned biosphere, and its immediate future. This world with its comfortable evolved biosphere is all there is for humanity. And humanity cannot duplicate it any meaningful way, any time soon.

  56. Poorly worded by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    Restore budget cuts? That makes it sound like the budget cuts were cancelled and Bill Nye wants them to go ahead. "Restore cut budgets" makes more sense.

  57. Not relevant... by BobandMax · · Score: 1

    ...to the redress of past crimes against and grievances by third world victims of U.S. imperialism. These funds will be transferred to the United Nations and what remains in NASA's budget will be used for Muslim outreach. If we need satellites launched, we can always do what the EU does and have the Russians launch them.

    --

    "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers."
    -- Pablo Picasso
  58. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by sumdumass · · Score: 1

    Wow, what a jackass political response to a non political issue. What exactly has Romney said that supports your belief. I'm betting you do not know, or you will bring some contrived scenario up that only makes sense in your mind.

  59. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Masterwolf3 · · Score: 1

    Examples of "supernatural" (a.k.a. bullshit) claims that science can help answer:

    * Does prayer work to cure the sick? Sciences indicates no. - As pointed out this actually has been shown to work. Sure it is a placebo effect but it worked.

    * Was the world formed in six days? Science indicates no. - Who is defining the days?

    * Did Noah get every species onto a boat? Science indicates no. - Actually scientists think he did get all of the species in his region. But remember at that time the world was what was close to you. It never said he got all the animals on the planet. Just in his world.

    * Are we reincarnated? Sciences indicates no. Now we are jumping into hinduism? Although I will agree reincarnations does seem to be impossible based on our current scientific knowledge.

    These can all be proved negative to my satisfaction.

    Then you need to improve your level of deductive reasoning and realize there is so much we still need to learn about the universe.

    I didn't say science has anything to say about religion. Science is merely the act of trying to find answers with reason, and proving it with evidence. It's not a religion - it doesn't say a thing.

    You are correct it doesn't, yet you seem to be using it as your religion.

    I said "Anyone who truly understands science is..." not "Science is...". People who understand science see people being swindled by religion all the time - people are hurt by religion. Think about the babies raped in Africa to "cure HIV" - this is an extreme example of a false belief that is widely shared - basically a disorganised religion. If these people thought scientifically, they wouldn't do that. Same with faith healers, fortune telling, cold reading, greedy evangelists, stoned women etc.

    You are making a fatal error here. Religion =/= Organized religion. You have a beef with organized religion. A bastion that uses real religion to accomplish non religious goals. Remember it was the Catholic church (an organization) that was the main oppressor of scientific advance. Not the religion of christianity. Rail against the extreme right and their misguided policies that are not based on their religion but on their "church" all you want and I will support that. But do not state that religion and science cannot co-exist.

  60. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    Granted. But being a complete doucebag shouldn't be the goal of atheists, as a social group. Obviously, reflecting your input, YMMV.

  61. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    But yet when Obama hires Jeff Zients, nothing from you on that hypocrisy. I bet you want us all in huts while you dictate literally everything else. Go back to your comedy short films, Satan!

  62. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Masterwolf3 · · Score: 1

    And wikipedia is a bastion of truth right?

    Once again religion =/= organized religion. Yes the catholic church is responsible for a multitude of atrocities. Hell pick me a church and I am sure we can find atrocities attributed to them. That is the church(an organization) not the religion. Think of it like statistics. Anyone can take religion and bend it to their point of view. Much like statistics, it does not render the underlying numbers invalid. It just skews the results.

  63. Re:Republicans: Evolution is lies from pit of hell by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible to be literally true.

    Citation please?

    ... also, if you're the one that gets to define whaqt a fundamentalist Christian is then your point is mote.

  64. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Masterwolf3 · · Score: 1

    And wikipedia is a source of truth right? Hell even the article you linked to has a disclaimer saying it has weasel words and is unverifiable.

  65. Re:Who are we talking about here? by Sarius64 · · Score: 1

    Says the scientist/engineer/entertainer/ethicist? rich.

  66. Re:Not sure I care what Bill Nye thinks by Masterwolf3 · · Score: 1

    Or even more so how the brain works.