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Political Pressure Pushes NASA Technical Reports Offline
Trepidity writes "The extensive NASA Technical Report Archive was just taken offline, following pressure from members of U.S. Congress, worried that Chinese researchers could be reading the reports. U.S. Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA) demanded that 'NASA should immediately take down all publicly available technical data sources until all documents that have not been subjected to export control review have received such a review,' and NASA appears to have complied. Although all reports are in the public domain, there doesn't appear to be a third-party mirror available (some university libraries do have subsets on microfiche)."
The Chinese, Russian, North Korean, whoever governments probably all have a complete copy. The only ones this is gonna hurt is ourselves.
To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.
To be fair, he tried to identify Communists in all walks of life and ran through Hollywood suppressing freedom of speech and using strong arm tactics to destroy the rights of non-state department citizens. Under Joseph McCarthy, Ayn Rand testified in front of congress against film makers to have them fined and jailed. How fucked up is that? He made it illegal to be a Communist no matter how nonviolent or extreme you were. It was the definition of witch hunt and suppressed freedom of speech in American media. It's fine to ferret them out of the State Department but why the private sectors?!
To be fair, McCarthy was right. There really were Communists in the State Department.
Even if that's true, it doesn't make McCarthy right. In this country, the government isn't allowed to prosecute people for their political beliefs. The problem with McCarthy wasn't just that there was a witch hunt in place. The problem was that if every single person he accused to be a communist was indeed a communist, the proper response is, "so what?"
The (Party-State) thing is pretty common for both parties, especially when talking about someone less known. If I were writing about Dick Cheney or Barack Obama or something, I wouldn't put it there, but if we're talking about regular Congresscritters, it seems like useful information to know their party affiliation and where they come from.
If you're seeing a pattern, perhaps rather than a conspiracy, it's simply that one party is attacking science more than the other one is, at least lately?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If they transfer valuable secrets, prosecute them for that, and if they didn't then leave their political beliefs out of it.
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
To be fair, I myself have seen the horrors and bloodshed of Capitalism up close and personal in the United States of Amerika.
On another note, I have been screwed a lot more by Big Business than by Big Government.
To be fair, Ayn Rand saw the horrors and bloodshed of Communism up close and personal in Russia.
Yes and she left for a better place where her speech would not be suppressed ... how sad that she eventually forgot such notions and then suppressed the speech of those who opposed her ... of course, she was all about hypocrisy as she didn't appear to be above utilizing social programs ...
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Once the oppressed now the oppressor
That wasn't Joseph McCarthy, that was the Democrats on the House UnAmerican Activities Committee, or don't they teach that part in school? When Ayn Rand testified before HUAC, Joseph McCarthy was in the Senate. The HUAC was controlled by Democrats when Joseph McCarthy was making a name for himself.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Ms. Rand would have had a better time of it in the USA if she hadn't insisted on writing children's books. Eventually her audience grew up. Oh wait, a few stayed back.
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.