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What's Wrong With the Manhattan Project National Park
Lasrick writes Dawn Stover describes the radioactive dirt behind the creation of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park, from its inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act (the park legislation wouldn't pass otherwise) and lack of funding for national parks in general to the lack of funding for cleanup at Superfund nuclear sites like Hanford. And then there is how the Parks Service is presenting exhibits: at least some of them are described in the past tense, as if nuclear weapons were a thing of the past. Here's the description of the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site in South Dakota: "Nuclear war loomed as an apocalyptic shadow that could possibly have brought human history to an end." Can the National Park Service be ignorant of the fact that missiles remain on station, nuclear weapons are still being stockpiled, and saber rattling did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall?"
Can the National Park Service be ignorant of the fact that missiles remain on station, nuclear weapons are still being stockpiled, and saber rattling did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall?
This shows a disturbing lack of understanding of how the world was then, vs. how it is now... we are vastly less likely to face a large scale nuclear assault than we were during the cold war. Even if a city or two is eventually hit by a terrorist nuclear weapon (likely), it's NOTHING like was was being nearly expected at the time.
Heck, Russia con indiscriminately shoot down passenger jets now without repercussion, it's not like nuclear weapons are going to go flying over just abut anything.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's going to be a blast.
It's hard to believe the National Park Service isn't a historical society of some sort when conservation and preservation of historic sites is their remit.
16 USC 1: "The service thus established shall promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified, except such as are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Army, as provided by law, by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purpose of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
Seriously ? I read the rant and it sounded like a caricature of the old point counterpoint skits on saturday night live. I really expected him to end with we should have "vegetarian native americans running the country".
I mean look at this
Preserving a history that dates back thousands of years is apparently of less value to the United States than preserving the mid-20th century apparatus of war.
When he talks of the less important history, he means land that might have historical sites and will be surveyed before it is put to other uses. The " Mid 20th century apparatus of war" is from WWII and the Cold War, two of the most significant events in human history and arguably shaped the world we live in now.
which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein
That is not a mandate to educate people on the current geopolitical situation, which the poster is ranting on about:
Can the National Park Service be ignorant of the fact that missiles remain on station, nuclear weapons are still being stockpiled, and saber rattling did not end with the fall of the Berlin Wall?"
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
The sky is falling.
I just checked and it already hit the ground...
There it is, just laying on the dirt. It's still pretty thick though...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
"It's fine to trash Reagan, but don't you dare insult the Free Market!"
What's it going to do, start to exist or something?
Maybe because the original poster can't seem to parse simple tenses...
"Nuclear war loomed as an apocalyptic shadow that could possibly have brought human history to an end."
is perfectly fine. The situation today is nowhere near what we had during the cold war, firmly placing the cold war in the past. It may come to pass that the situation will change again, but that is in the future and not completely determined so has no bearing on the sign that is there today.
Russia / NK can saber rattle all they want, they won't actually DO anything though. Both try to influence world politics through threats that they will never carry out since they know they would lose just as much as anyone they attacked, if not more.
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
everything I know about Reagan is shit my dad said.
Perhaps your dad knows what he is talking about?
You might close the mouth and open the ears, you might learn something...
Reagan wasn't perfect, he was human like anyone else, but he did stare down the USSR with one hand and held out an olive branch with the other, giving Gorbachev something to take hold of.
The USSR was going bankrupt, Reagan unveiled program after program, from Star Wars (not real) to the Stealth Bomber (very real) and it made the Russians take note that they could not keep up and win a military solution, so perhaps peace was worth a try.
Yes, Reagan ran up a large debt doing it, but what would war have cost? It was cheap by comparison, and the really bad debts didn't come until Bush Jr and Obama anyway, we were fine up until Clinton's term ended.
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It would also be worth a read of WWI and WWII history, as well as what really lead to those wars, which requires a study of history going back a few hundred years... and it is a shame that I find most people have no idea whatsoever about the history of humanity, then are surprised when we keep doing the same stuff.
The US, post-Soviet Russia and post-Communist China are all following the same path to rule by oligarchy. The differences in how control is concentrated are not important to the continuing concentration of power in each system. In Russia, the economic oligarchs are only allowed to slavishly support Putan, or they are jailed or exiled and their wealth stripped. In China the oligarchs are either Party members themselves or the families of Party members. The rest of the rich know that they must participate in the endemic corruption. They were only allowed to succeed because they embraced corruption from the beginning.
In the US the oligarchs have, for the most part, taken over the government and the country is run for their benefit. Examples are too numerous to mention, but I'll highlight a few.
The 2008 market crash. The reason it was so horrific in the first place was that the Bush administration effectively suspended all regulation of Wall Street and Alan Greenspan got to fulfill his Libertarian fantasy. The result, unsurprisingly, was an epic failure. Lack of effective oversight is the wet dream of every oligarch. That's why they love secret unlimited secret campaign contributions, another gift to oligarchs the from the politicians and judges they own.
The bailout from the crash was another astonishing transfer of wealth to the ultra rich. Instead of calling Wall Street to task and making those responsible pay up, the oligarchs were rewarded instead. Many of them are have far more now then they did before 2008, and everyone else is worse off. The new stock market highs are the proof of that. Meanwhile, the job recovery is still lagging, and the jobs that are being generated pay significantly lower then before the crash. This is a mass transfer of assets from the general population to the rich. Again there is no other rational explanation.
An earlier example is Medicare Part D, brought to your pocketbook by Big Pharma and Billy Tauzin,
I'll even make a prediction: when the FCC announces what they will call "Net Neutrality" rules, it will be the end of the internet as an open platform. It will become just as closed, structured and overpriced as the current cable industry. Just like Wall Street and Big
Why is Snark Required?
Yes, I can document NASA's task change.
Under the auspices of the White House OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy), the NTSC (National Science and Technology Council) created CENRS (Committee on Environment, Natural Resources, and Sustainability) as a response to a presidential mandate in 1989 (in case you were wondering, this was under president George H.W. Bush).
The CENRS created as part of itself the SGCR (Subcommittee on Global Change Research), which is the steering committee for the USGCRP (U.S. Global Change Research Program), which consists of 13 organizations:
- Department of Health and Human Services
- U.S. Agency for International Development
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense (Acting)
- Smithsonian Institution
- Department of Agriculture
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration http://www.globalchange.gov/ab...
From their web site.
As part of this, as a result of a presidential budgetary mandate by President Obama that an additional $1.8B (for a total of $2.4B) be earmarked for the Earth Observation Satellites (effectively canceling the asteroid capture mission - this i a redirection of existing budget, not an increase of funds):
http://www.nasa.gov/about/obam...
Obama's April 15th 2010 speech at Kennedy:
"We will increase Earth-based observation to improve our understanding of our climate and our world -- science that will garner tangible benefits, helping us to protect our environment for future generations."
http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
"NASA’s about to lend a heavier hand in the fight against climate change. The news that President Obama would be rearranging NASA’s budget to focus more on what can be done to stop global warming was met with some opposition, but we’re elated that he’s bringing some of that cash down to Earth."
See also:
http://inhabitat.com/obama-giv...
http://spectator.org/blog/5978...
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-...
http://inhabitat.com/new-nasa-...
Meanwhile, actual NASA budgets have remained flat, so these monies have come from actual space and aeronautics programs, rather than new budget:
http://www.behindmyback.org/20...
"NASA’s investment in the 13-AGENCY CCSP is 58% of the total amount of the President’s 2009 Budget Request for CCSP."
= most of the money is coming from NASA.
See also this report, which indicates that 37% of the 2014 NASA budget went to the Earth science program, supporting climate change research - and NOT space or aeronautics research:
http://www.law.umaryland.edu/m...
But you know... feel free to argue with the congressional record, newspapers, NASA itself, and President Obama's speech at Kennedy.
The Soviet Union fell peacefully and dissolved into new, mostly stable and democratic governments. Well, stableish, democraticish. About the best the world could hope for, really.
No, it was horrible and should never have happened...
But no one wants to hear it...
What SHOULD have happened was at the end of WWII we should have rearmed and reequipped the Germans and turned on Russia and removed Stalin, who was just as bad, if not worse than Hitler.
Look at Germany today? Imagine if Russia today was just like Germany?
Now THAT would be better... and we had the chance to do it, we had the nuclear bomb, Russia did not, and we blew it.
We could have skipped the entire cold war, and a lot of nasty stuff that happened since, so before you say "oh but more people would have died", my reply is that those deaths would have prevented many others along with a lot of suffering in the past 70 years.
The world would be a very different place. Consider that if we had gone into Russia, China's civil war might have ended differently, with the communists losing...
Patton was right. He was maybe a little crazy, not very diplomatic, but he was right...
And you think the US overextended itself in Vietnam and Iraq...
Big deal. Would you dredge up and dispose of the USS Arizona? Would you sell off Gettysburg to real estate developers? The point is that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. The Manhattan Project has tremendous historical significance and peaceniks need to pull their heads out of the sand and remember why we went to such lengths.