Some people think that this is such an Important Story that it’s worth making fools of themselves and threadjacking to point it out. I agree with this commenter’s take:
Congress: We demand that you say 2+2 = 5. Oh, and in metric — no, English – no, wait Metric — tonnes.
NASA: Uh… What?
Congress: Well, we just passed a law that says you must say that 2+2=5 metric-English tonnes. You have one month to get back to us.
One month later…
NASA: 2+2=4.
Congress: Stop lying! You have another six months to think this over and come to the correct answer.
Six months later…
NASA: Well, we found that “2+2…+1 = 5 metric-English tonnes.” But, we’re having another guy look at it, to be sure.
Congress: Stop lying! Subpoena!
NASA: ….
I imagine that the teddy bears (or dogs, or whatever they are) will have something to say about this soon.
Truth hurts, doesn’t it.
Apparently not Joe. You seem impervious to it.
Which “truth” would that be? I’m feeling no pain, myself.
The truth that Congress is more interested in funneling money to the “right” states and contractors than having a space program that does something?
Rand Simberg Says: July 28th, 2011 at 4:30 pm
“Which “truth” would that be? I’m feeling no pain, myself.”
Really then why would you devote a post to my supposed transgression and end with:
“I imagine that the teddy bears (or dogs, or whatever they are) will have something to say about this soon.”
Which can only be interpreted (by anyone not in the cult) as speaking in tongues.
“I imagine that the teddy bears (or dogs, or whatever they are) will have something to say about this soon.”
Which can only be interpreted (by anyone not in the cult) as speaking in tongues.
No need to be in a “cult.” You just have to be a regular reader.
Rand Simberg Says: July 28th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
“No need to be in a “cult.” You just have to be a regular reader.”
Great really bad cartoons (no wouldn’t need to be in a cult to know about that), that makes it a lot better.
I think Chuck Jone’s reputation is safe.
The problem with trolls is that they don’t look like trolls when they look at themselves in the mirror…
Joe channels Demi Moore, “I strenuously object!”
Oh, cool! I wrote the quoted post over on Space Politics. Glad you liked it, Rand.
I originally meant to post it on NASASpaceFlight.com, but I didn’t want to be labeled a suppresive personality by that site’s Politburo.
John B Says: July 28th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
“The problem with trolls is that they don’t look like trolls when they look at themselves in the mirror…”
The problem with cult members is they can never recognize they are in a cult.
Yes – by all means please bring back Rand’s award-winning neo-right libertarian talking teddy bears.
Space Policy Teddy Bears: more cogent than trolls, more entertaining than Hollywood feature films. What’s not to like?
The problem is that I have no idea what Joe is getting at. I come here for the political banter, and don’t really follow the space issues closely, so I don’t have the first clue what Joe is implying. I assume that departments within the executive get supeoneda
The problem is that I have no idea what Joe is getting at. I come here for the political banter, and don’t really follow the space issues closely, so I don’t have the first clue what Joe is implying. I assume that departments within the executive get subpoened all the time by the legislature, and so I fail to see the point.
Teddy Bear Space Policy Trolls! Wait- that’s redundant.
Hal Duston Says:
July 29th, 2011 at 8:35 am
The problem is that I have no idea what Joe is getting at. I come here for the political banter, and don’t really follow the space issues closely, so I don’t have the first clue what Joe is implying.
I’m not sure he does either.
Imagine you go to a sporting event, and you’re sitting in a section with two different sets of fans screaming at each other. After the game is over, and everyone is going home, some freak from that section, who’s had waaaay too many beers, follows you home. You try to go to sleep, but he keeps screaming up at your bedroom window, while he’s standing in front of your house.
That’s Joe.
You try to go to sleep, but he keeps screaming up at your bedroom window, while he’s standing in front of your house.
You forgot the part where he’s not even screaming about anything that happened during the game, he’s screaming about completely unrelated things.
And then, when you ask him to clarify his point, he calls you unreasonable and claims you’re ducking his questions.
Yup, a drunken idiot on the front lawn, screaming incoherently into the night. Pretty much sums it up. 🙂
My, My; so many personal insults thrown at someone for the crime of noting an indisputable fact (that is the subpoena, in case you lost track amidst all the personal invective).
If you did not know better, you could almost get the impression that the cult has been rattled by outside facts.
Joe, all I see is you calling people cultists which incidentally is a personal insult in my book. Why don’t you come right out and say what you mean? I frankly have no idea what in the hell you’re talking about. Be specific, man.
Larry J Says: July 29th, 2011 at 11:15 am
Specific is very easy (and it has already been said). NASA HQ is withholding information/documentation from Congress (which has every right to the data) regarding the implementation of the law passed by Congress and signed/approved by the President.
Congress has been forced to issue a subpoena to get the required information.
Sorry, I just do not see what is so hard to understand.
“A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject”.
-Winston Churchill
NASA HQ is withholding information/documentation from Congress (which has every right to the data) regarding the implementation of the law passed by Congress and signed/approved by the President.
And if NASA comes back and says, “Yeah, you passed a law but it can’t be done”, then what? It’s a lot easier to pass a law (even a dumb one like SLS) than to actually make it happen.
Or, put another way, maybe they’re trying to find a polite way to tell the senators that their SLS is a dumb idea short of saying, Kay you ignorant slut..
Larry J Says:
July 29th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
“And if NASA comes back and says, “Yeah, you passed a law but it can’t be done”, then what? It’s a lot easier to pass a law (even a dumb one like SLS) than to actually make it happen.”
If that is the case then why don’t they release the information and tell it to the President (who signed the laws as well)?
Why force the Congress to issue a subpoena to get the information?
No one is forcing Congress to do anything. All of their errors are completely unforced. Consider the possibility that the fools on the Hill are asking for something that doesn’t exist.
Larry J Says:
July 29th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
“Kay you ignorant slut..”
So we are now down to calling United States Senators “sluts”.
No, there is no reason to compare this acticity to a cult.
Rand Simberg Says:
July 29th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
“Consider the possibility that the fools on the Hill are asking for something that doesn’t exist.”
Yes I am sure all the pertinent data has been accidentally erased.
Or never existed. They’re asking for the equivalent of data to how to reduce gravity by a factor of two, or make pi equal to three.
“regarding the implementation of the law passed by Congress and signed/approved by the President.”
Joe, that much is true. The problem was *always* the content of that law, which all of Washington D.C. allowed to say something that required 2+2=5. Did both Congress and the President agree to it? Yes.
Does that make 2+2=5?
No!
The problem comes now in that the Congress is demanding that NASA confirm D.C.’s insanity with a report telling them what Congress wants their constituents to hear. That way, when it fails to come true, the Congress can once again declare its hands are clean. It will divert blame to the very people who have been trying to reform a declining agency focused 50 years in the past to an agency able to help *the*rest*of*the*Republic* get into Space. They, and their reforms, will be indicted for them having said what is patently not true in 2011, no matter that the law requires it of them.
Yes. It was a trap!
The result of NASA agreeing with Congress that 2+2=5 this year will be that any further attempts to change NASA’s direction away from “pork uber alles” can be crushed in coming years by referring to the future indictment of that lie, and the pork will be protected till NASA is finally extinguished as an Agency-to-Nowhere, pretending to build rockets-to-nowhere, sometime after Senator Shelby retires.
That is the real drama being played out here. The reformers in NASA are struggling to not produce a document that will either indict their reforms in the future, or break the law passed and signed in 2010. It doesn’t matter that the Administration misjudged their ability to buy enough senators and congressmen to keep from being subpoenaed. After all, that’s how Chicago works, and that is the WH experience base. The reforms of the WH allies in, and appointed to, NASA are still real and still needed for its long-term survival. Yes, the WH is corrupt, but the NASA/Congressional Complex is far more corrupt in their fantasizing for the sake of their voters’ votes.
What you have here is 40 years of corruption having built a political network that is more adroit politically than a WH, allied with the group of people in NASA and appointed to it, that are actively trying to reform the Agency. Of course, if one maintains the fantasy that there is no corrupt level of practice from the last 40 years of the NASA/Congressional Complex operations, one can say no reform is necessary. That level of willful blindness simply waltzes NASA ever closer to its final demise.
So we are now down to calling United States Senators “sluts”.
Just because you don’t understand obvious pop culture references such as “Jane, you ignorant slut,” doesn’t mean that anyone is calling a Senator a slut.
If this is such an outrage to you, and nobody else here seems to care, then why not post it on your own blog and share your outrage with a wider audience, instead of acting like a lunatic in someone else’s sandbox?
Joe Says:
July 29th, 2011 at 11:23 am
We’re all trying to figure out:
A: Why you apparently have a bug up your ass that Rand didn’t mention the subpoena until now?
and
B: Why do think Rand has some sort of stake in seeing it buried?
Tom Billings Says: July 29th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
– that required 2+2=5.
– Does that make 2+2=5?
– agreeing with Congress that 2+2=5
An interesting chant. Are there hand signs that go along with it?
John B Says: July 29th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
“Just because you don’t understand obvious pop culture references”
I understand the “pop culture references” and that does not change the intent of the statement.
I’ve never been happier since I’ve joined Rand’s cult. I get to eat meat on friday’s and I network sweet deals on tie dye shirts for all the hippy space cultists that play pan flute to appease the private space gods.
Josh Reiter Says: July 29th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
“I’ve never been happier since I’ve joined Rand’s cult. I get to eat meat on friday’s and I network sweet deals on tie dye shirts for all the hippy space cultists that play pan flute to appease the private space gods.”
Are the drugs good also?
@John B:
Well I, for one, am deeply upset that Dan Akroyd called Jane Curtin an ignorant slut. She is a broadcast professional, an impeccable news anchor, and a wonderful mother who raised wonderful Conehead children.
If this is such an outrage to you, and nobody else here seems to care, then why not post it on your own blog and share your outrage with a wider audience, instead of acting like a lunatic in someone else’s sandbox?
Because he CARES, damnit! That means everyone else must CARE, also. And if we don’t, then obviously we too stupid to see HOW IMPORTANT it is that HE CARES.
larry j Says: July 29th, 2011 at 3:38 pm
“Because he CARES, damnit! That means everyone else must CARE, also. And if we don’t, then obviously we too stupid to see HOW IMPORTANT it is that HE CARES.”
Wow, lots of all caps (which I never use) and everything. All I did was note the indisputable fact that the Senate has issued a subpoena. Maybe you could point me to the post where I said I cared (even without all caps).
All I did was note the indisputable fact that the Senate has issued a subpoena.
No, that’s not “all you did.” You thought that it was such an important “fact” that you thought that you must hijack a thread having nothing to do with the topic about it, and still are unable to articulate why it was important enough to do that. Plus, you exercised your famous powers of extrasensory perception (not) to accuse me and others of being “afraid” of it, because it wasn’t what we were talking about.
Rand, you really aught to be charging tuition.
As I see it, the difference between subpoena and something worth subpoenaing is similar to the difference between authorization and appropriation bills. The presence of the former doesn’t imply existence of the latter.