That is exactly why Al Gore lost in 2000 to a man who has a hard time tying his freaking shoes. Nobody ever trusts a person who tells them that they know what’s best for everybody.

Didn’t mean for this to turn into a rant against the government or Isreal or Islam or any of that. Just would like to see what the folks at NASA could do with that kind of funding, considering what they have been able to accomplish with what they have for a budget.

[[Announce an end to all religious exemptions on national laws eg. taxation ie.all relig. organisations would pay tax, religious practices such as sexual discrimination, genital mutilation of both genders, refusal to allow blood transfusions, etc .. would be illegal and no longer tolerated.]]

So if an adult Jehovah’s Witness refused a blood transfusion, you’d give him one anyway? For his own good? And I see you want to ban circumcision, which, I guess, would pretty much ban Judaism and Islam in this country. I can see your wanting to ban Judaism, given your raving anti-semitism, but I thought the muslims were your buddies. Live and learn, I guess.

[[If Israel refused to let their Palestinean peoples and lands go then I’d tax every synagogue and Jewish organisation cripplingly until they did - & it’d soon be done and everyone better off!) ]]

Better yet, have some guys in brown uniforms smash the windows of the synagogues. And maybe you could round the Jews up to separate them from the Aryans — concentrate them in one, or a few places, so to speak. “Concentration camps,” you might say.

BTW, it’s “Palestinian.”

The war criminal deserving of execution (just like the Japanese war-leaders post-WWII & for much the same reasons) that I was referring to is, of course, Rumsfeld not you!

Knew there’d be &%^%&*%! typos!

Not sure whats going on with 8 becominganemoticon either ..

does 8 ) end up like the same way ; – ) ends up as ?

Lets see now …

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hey, if *I* were America’s Presi-King I’d :

1) End the so-called “war on Terror” and occupations of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine at once.

(Yeah, I know, Israel’s nominally responsible for that last one -so how do I end that? Well all their US funding and arming would stop in instant and I’d immediately recognise Palestine on its pre-1967 borders. If Israel refused to let their Palestinean peoples and lands go then I’d tax every synagogue and Jewish organisation cripplingly until they did – & it’d soon be done and everyone better off!)

2) Add a clause to the US Constitution specifically restricting America – like post WWII Japan – to strictly defensive wars only – no invasions or occupations of other nations allowed, no “pre-emptive attacks”, no military bullying of other countries and only a small self-defence force permitted.

3) The money saved by that would be spent on science (eg. funding NASA), education, health, infrastructure, and real urgent action to prevent gobal warming and protect the environment.

4) I’d give 9 / 10ths of the US nuclear arsenal to the UN and strive to reform and empower that body into a real badly-needed international federal government and try and make the USA a good global citizen. (Don’t worry with over 1000,00000,000000 or so nukes you’ll still have enough in America to vaporise the world .. Oh, at least about three times over . If not more. )

5) Change the US voting system to a preferential voting system as used in Australia -which is actually a lot more democratic. Simply put you could list your candidates in the order you prefer ‘em eg. Obama 1, Hillary -2, Kucinch-3, etc .. once theone with tehleast votes has been eliminated their votes get added to the second preference person, etc .. Hence voters could say, vote Nader 1, Gore 2, Shrubya last and you’d have had a respect-worthy president years ago… instead of the current pathetic evil clown you’ve got now.

6) Break the power of the big multinational corporations and make them accountable for the damage they do and limit their power and influence to mitigate the potential & actual harm and malign influence they exert. Steps to this incl. legal limits on market share insisting on breaking up monoplies or near-monopolies, put all stocks into various listings taking account of the real damage and effects of big corporations on tehenvironment and society & shifting all fines into %=ages of income ratehr than set amounts so that things are more equal (eg. the rich can’t ignore fines that cripple the poor as happens now.) plus make a set small %-age of each fine a commission to the enforcement and detector ensuring poeple have both an incentive to keep the richer folk honest and a means of encouring vigilance and oversight and honesty.

7) Announce an end to all religious exemptions on national laws eg. taxation ie.all relig. organisations would pay tax, religious practices such as sexual discrimination, genital mutilation of both genders, refusal to allow blood transfusions, etc .. would be illegal and no longer tolerated.
Speed up & reform the legal system : cut down legalese and insist all court cases be carried out in english that any reasonable person can understand, allow just one appeal per crime, add a “get a life!” test barring frivilous or absurd legal cases & a “take responsibility for your own stuff-ups” clause to eliminate other stupid ones (eg. when the scalded coffee lady sued & won and now requires coffee cups to warn “coffee may be hot!” D’uh!) Allow and encourage capital punishment to be carried out (& never mind whether its done humanely or not!) on serial killers, rapists, pedophiles and war criminals (eg. & incl. “Dubya”, Runsfeld & co) once their guilt is conclusively proved. Define crime properly to eliminate all ‘non-crime’ crimes such as drug possesion, prostitution, sodomy, euthanasia, etc… (There’s a better term than ‘non-crime crimes’ but I can’t recall it .. Essentially people should have freedom to control and run their own lives up to the point where they impinge on other people’s freedom to do the same.) In a nutshell – less laws & less silly cases but real punishments for those that do break ‘em.

9) Ban anyone so lacking in imagination or so bloated in ego as to name their kid with their own name (eg. George Bush I & II) from ever running for President or other high office. (Ban applying to the kid too, since there’s obviously faulty genes and enviro. at work – example : the Bush klan Q.E.D.)

10) Announce an immediate fully-funded space program to land a woman on Mars before this decade is out and to have at least one Lunar colony and space settlement constructed and permanently inhabited by then too. Plus keep Hubble goingand add other space telescopes too, esp. working for discovering exoplanets and SETI.

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Hmnn.. Is it too late for me to nominate for your elections now and do you take e-mailed foreign entries by any chance?

Or the money being thrown away just to prop up the theocratic military colonial outpost of Israel within the Muslim world?

Put _*that*_ money to proper use in funding NASA and you could do everything wellscientifically for astronomy taht’s proposed and then some …

… and even be far safer than you are now.

——

Newsflash folks :

1) Osama bin Laden is long dead.

2) The supposed threat of terrorism is vastly exaggerated and over-exploited. Your own govt and Christain fundamentalists areamuch greater menace to your way of life and freedoms than Iraq’s (now non)govt and Islamic zealots ever could be ..

&

3) Money spent on understanding – this includes science, technology and diplomacy – is a far wiser _investment_ than money spent killing and injuring people around the globe.

The best way to stop terror is through knowledge.

psyberdave says:
“I would greatly increase scholarships for students studying in the sciences and engineering, especially in physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering in all of those disciplines.”

We already train more scientists than exist jobs for them over the long term. If you increase the number of

Personnel costs $110.8 billion, family housing an additional $4.1 billion out of a total def. budget of $439.3 billion (all 2007 budget figures).

Programs like the V22 Osprey VTOL fighter aircraft, which has been in development for over 20 years (and which VP Cheney tried to axe) and which has had massive cost overruns (making NASA program overruns look like spare change) has finally been completed and is being sent to air units overseas. Had this program been halted until the technology caught up to the concept, there would have been billions not spent – for this particular beast.
The Reagan-era Star Wars or Missile Defense System is another program which, zombie-like, continues to resurrect itself in one guise or another and which could conceivably “save” some money.

But the problem is that defense (and its budget) is a strategically placed item in the hearts and minds of congressfolk, lobbyists, a good part of the public, and would be very hard to chop any fat from, especially since most all military folk directly concerned think there isn’t any fat to trim. Getting a handle on the waste/fraud/abuse within the budget would surely glean a ton of extra money which could be used for the domestic budget. The problem is how to do it, since OBM and other watchdog programs within and without government have been unable to do so for decades. Plugging this hole in the dike will take much more effort than the occasional lip service given the latest congressperson or presidential hopeful.

No, but it’s the most important part.

And what did people use for inspiration before the first astronaut ever flew? They were inspired by the vision of astronomers at their telescopes. Since nearly all astronomers must work each day on Earth, rather than off it, I ask what the problem is? Is it not enough to put the instruments alone above the blanket of air?

If I was king, scientists and engineers would dictate NASA budgetary and science policy. Maybe there should be another space agency that is a private non-profit agency that raises a few billion dollars a year from donations. Then they could be accountable to scientists alone, without meddling from politicians.

Sorry.

Nothing likely, because all those armed, unpaid soldiers would probably revolt.

Oh, PUH-lease! Do you really think those salaries are even a significant part of the DoDW budget?

I’d be curious to hear more about this story, and find out what is actually going on.

Well … ‘never suspect malice where incompetence might suffice’ as the saying goes. Still – I wouldn’t put it past them to give NASA just enough string to hang itself. This way when everything falls apart Congress gets to point the finger.

Now. Since we’re you’re going to the moon (not that I know why, save it be to mine 3He), how’d one go about building a telescope there? There’d be some advantages since it’d be on the ground and ‘easy’ to access. Would it be possible to get IKEA to design (and sponsor …) a ‘some assembly needed’ telescope and then haul it up there?

Nothing likely, because all those armed, unpaid soldiers would probably revolt.

Where the US needs to cut back is money sunk into the War on Drugs. At least with the military budget, debatable though this may be, they’re getting rid of dictators and supposedly improving things.

The War on Drugs has really served only to fill up prisons and cost money with no real effect on much else.

So roll a fatty and pass the WoD money to NASA!

I know they’ll over-engineer the thing and provide some sort of redundancy, but still..

Eric