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Ted Cruz To Oversee NASA and US Science Programs
romanval sends word that U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) will become the new chairman of the subcommittee that oversees NASA and government scientific research. Cruz has both spoken in favor of NASA and attempted to cut its budget, but he's most notable for his opposition to the science supporting climate change. From the article:
His vociferous opposition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and his support of extreme budget cuts could spell trouble for NASA's less prominent programs, such as its own climate research and sophisticated supercomputers. His role on the front lines of the 2013 government shutdown, which critics say had lasting negative effects on public safety, NASA research and EPA scientists' ability to visit contaminated sites, also suggests at best a narrow focus on NASA's largest projects and at worst a disregard for agencies that require science funding.
NASA also has a hand in a variety of satellite projects which, while pretty uncontroversially 'space', mean that NASA data, if not necessarily scientists they directly employ, end up in terrestrial research fairly frequently. Lots of neat stuff you can efficiently keep tabs on from orbit, especially if you have coverage in a suitably broad assortment of wavelengths.
Problem is the alternative is Corporate money. Corporate money ALWAYS comes with strings attached, doesn't matter which political party they happen to be calling the shots for.
> Corporatocracy (tm).
We _already_ have a word; plutocracy, and/or oligarchy
There is no need to coin a new word -- although yours isn't bad.
The lowest voter turnout in 72 years chose the Republican Party to be in charge of the Senate. The last time the Republcians had the large majority in the House was before the 1929 stock market crash. Something to think about.
Talk is cheap and even the summary pointed out that Ted Cruz has voted to cut NASA's budget in the past. Follow the actions of politicians instead of their words because they have a reputation for speaking out of both sides of their ass.
As befitting their history, the digits (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9) are also known as Hindu numerals or "Hindu-Arabic numerals". The reason that they are more commonly known as "Arabic numerals" in Europe and the Americas is that they were introduced to Europe in the 10th century by Arabs of North Africa, who were then using the digits from Libya to Morocco. Europeans did not know about the numerals' origins in ancient India, so they named them "Arabic numerals".[4] Arabs, on the other hand, call the system "Hindu numerals",[5][6] referring to their origin in India. This is not to be confused with what the Arabs call the "Hindi numerals", namely the Eastern Arabic numerals used in the Middle East, or any of the numerals currently used in Indian languages.[7]
Plutocracy is the better term. Oligarchy simply refers to few ruling many and can include any structure where a small number of people rule the masses. The USA is a plutocracy, which is rule by the wealthy elite (and, by definition, one form of oligarchy).
well, since he's such a "small plane enthusiast" maybe he'll have some accident like so many other Oklahoma small plane pilots. Some kind of freak weather accident, that is climate-change related would be the best. He's so old...we Oklahoman s who understand the science despise him; he's anti-intellectual and only anti-climate since all his major donors are oil companies and the Koch Brothers. Either way, he has the "old person fuck the environment cause I'll be dead" attitude that almost everyone over 60-65 has.
Q: Who took that quote out of context ?
A. Random idiot on line
B. Fox News
C. Right wing politicians
D. All of the above.
Gerrymandering doesn't affect the Senate, idiot.
Learn to spell "you're" and maybe people will take you seriously.
Well, seeing as 50% of all people are below average, that sounds about right...
Actually, Dems received nearly 20,000,000 more votes national than the GOP, which goes to show just how badly the GOP has gerrymandered the Congress.
Your number is way off. In the House the GOP got 4.4 million more votes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections,_2014) Haven't found the senate numbers yet.
Actually, Obama has executed fewer executive orders than any modern president, but now that bearing false witness no longer a sin in GOP circles please proceed.
That number is very misleading: http://www.realclearpolitics.c...
NASA won't get shut down. Rather we will just see peer reviewed science squeezed out to fund more pork-barrel spending of the type created by Roger Wicker, who forced NASA to complete the construction of a tower-vacuum chamber at the Stennis Space Center for $350,000,000 that was then mothballed the day it was completed. The modern GOP have become what Lysenko was to Soviet Biology, where ideology becomes paramount to actual fact and science.
Surveys show that the vast majority of people think that NASA and foreign aid take up large portions of the Federal budget, a large percentage think that the two aspects take up almost half the budget. Only a small percentage are aware that the Pentagon sucks up over half of Federal spending.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Decline and fall of the United States will be from causes within.
mfwright@batnet.com
Overall though, the Senate is grossly disproportionate in a lot of ways.
This is intentional and deliberate. The Senate was never supposed to be even an elected body in the first place as it was supposed to be essentially a counterpoint to the UN General Assembly. In other words, it was supposed to be a body made up of representatives of the various state governments and definitely not supposed to be remotely representative of ordinary citizens.
You might be advocating an elimination of the Senate in the fashion that the House of Lords has sort of faded into obscurity in the British Parliament, but there is definitely no reason for it to become even more of just a horrible copy of the House of Representatives, something that was never the original intention in the first place. The disparity is that for better or for worse, the U.S. Senate seems to have grown even more with regards to political power, where individual senators sort of think of themselves individually as vice-presidents ready to step into the "top job" at any time and definitely command their staff as if they will be the next president. The ego needed to become a senator is definitely something right now that basically is a waypoint for many who have presidential ambitions.
Complaining about the disproportionate nature of the Senate is just downright silly and ignoring its purpose in the first place.
Dishonest decontextualization, as usual. The complete quote: