Or maybe sharing the benefits of better weather forecasting by satellites, and other such things. Without necessarily letting your neighbour borrow your car.

To get back to the actual topic, the comic strip ends with a ” ” which is not a face (it could be a cookie), a stylised representation of a face (or of a couple of major features of a face). Then again, a photograph of a face isn’t a face. A painting of a face isn’t a face (but facepainting is a face, underneath). “Ceci n’est pas un face” – wait, that isn’t right. But in a photograph, there was a face, and in a painting, someone was thinking of a face, unless it’s one of those weird ones where you can’t tell. When it comes to modern art, Poe’s Law applies, but that isn’t the point I wanted to make, which is that at least there’s -meant- to be a face. Mostly.

Did we reach out to the USSR because NASA was directed to reach out to “Atheist” countries?
Did we reach out to Japan because NASA was directed to reach out to Shinto countries?
Did we reach out to India because NASA was directed to reach out to Hindu countries?

Also, did I say that we should exclude people because of their religion? Not at all. What I did say, is that we should not be using NASA to reach out to people of a particular faith. Much less one that if you mock, or question, you are opening yourself up to riots and threats of murder.

Soviet Union? Are they still around? Actually, with talk of spy trades in the news today one wonders. Just as long as we get Sydney and Jack Bristow back.

Whoops! That Russian cargo ship just flew past my office window.

We’ve already used NASA to reach out to Christian, Hebrew, Atheist, Shinto, Buddhist, and Hindu nations. We used NASA to build bridges with the Soviet Union (a government which had been numerically far more bloody than “modern Islam”) and foster cooperation with other countries around the world, this is another side of the same coin. As others have stated, the parts of the world that are largely Muslim have, both historically and currently, made non-trivial contributions to math, science, and technology. Does it makes sense to exclude their possible contributions in the arena of space, simply because some of their kin are homicidal maniacs?

Is there cause for concern? Certainly, we don’t want to “give” technology to a nation that would end up being used against us (though we seem to do that all the time with non-Muslims). But thoughtful caution is not the same as wholesale exclusion of an entire ethnic/religious group.

(BTW, “Who’s Bolden?” Really? You don’t know who Bolden is? You started this sidebar, and don’t even know who made the statements you’re all tizzied about? Wow. Just, wow.)

The brain is an amazing device. o_O

Anyway: FACE!

The walls have ears… and the roof has eyes.

And in countries that are ran based on that religion, either a blind eye is turned to acts of violence, or they are state sanctioned.

Last time I checked, it was in a muslim country where “religious police” forced girls to stay in a burning building. It was considered better that the girls died, lest they were seen in public without the proper clothing.

But I could be wrong.

That being said, so you are a-ok with one of NASA’s prime directives to be to reach out to a specific religion?

(QD, thanks for the “happychair” pics, I’d not heard of that site before.)

Then people started responding and talking to him about his post. It’s not just DS here; there’s a whole conversation going on.

He’s also not really throwing around anything mean, like I generally see trolls do. Even if he’s wrong, he hasn’t made any absolutely bizarre statements. So while definitely off topic, and might be better suited somewhere else, I wouldn’t call him a troll.

/meta-off-topic

I saw Cectic a year or two ago and read the entire thing. Then I staretd going back weekly. A week later, he stopped updating. :p I’m glad he’s decided to write more, now! I get sad when all my favorite webcomics fade away. (PBF, Truckbearingkibble, Simulated Comic Product.)

I’ve lost track of which religion we’re talking about here…

Who’s Bolden? Second, it’s not so much about a mission to Mars, but really? We have no ability to do anything but LEO now?

“- Why on earth shouldn’t President Obama reach out to the Muslim world when he SAID he was going to reach out to the Muslim world? Did you miss his speech in Cairo, or just forgotten? And there are nations in the middle east that actually do have some organizations that embrace science and research. Qartar, UAE, Oman, Bahrain, and Kuwait are ones whose science institutes I have personally visited, and they were a damn sight better than many that I have visited here in the US.”

Sigh. Obama can do whatever he wants to. But NASA is not a diplomatic organization. Nor should he be directing NASA to reach out to a specific religion. Would you be defending this as much if he said that NASA needed to reach out to Scientologists, or Jehovah’s Witnesses?

“- Why shouldn’t we? Or is it just that they are scary “ragheads” or whatever phobic paranoia you can spin into it that gets people’s panties in a bunch? Is the accident of being born in one region of the world an excuse to discount them as humans? Oh yeah, sorry, that’s a GOP plank, isn’t it… nevermind [/snark]”

So, if you don’t agree with it, you are a racist, a member of the GOP, and we all know that everyone who’s a Republican is Racist? If you don’t see the hypocrisy of such a statement, I don’t know how anyone can hold a conversation with you.

“- Would the blogosphere be in such a tizzy if he had said he was going to reach out to the Scandinavian world (I mean, come on, they are former raiders and pillagers, right?)?”

If by “Scandinavian”, you mean a world was a state ran by a religion, one who does not believe in the rights of women, frequently has people committing violent acts under the banner of their religion, standing behind death threats, and wanting the rest of the world to believe the same as they do, then yes, there would be.

Also…
“And sorry for being so opinionated on this. It just makes me angry to see people react so predictably and in such a provincial manner.”

Predictable? Yes, because when someone says something stupid, yes, they are going to be called out on it. Also, “provincial manner”, as per your above comments, you are as “provincial” (if not more so) then the people you are decrying.

Wil:
You may have heard some unsettling news about the economy and political reality. It’s true.

Subject at hand – Pareidolia
With the ease of image manipulation, it’s interesting that there are almost never cries of “Photoshopped” when one of these makes the ‘news’. “A man hears what he wants to hear…”

According to reports, Obama’s recent directive to NASA was fairly specific. He was ordering NASA to spend money and personnel to reach out to Muslims, to try to make them feel better about their historical contributions to science. Only now, after the public fury, is this being falsely and dishonestly spun to mean that the U.S. needs Muslims to help NASA explore space.

And exactly what does NASA need help with? Obama has already refused to extend the Shuttle program. He cancelled the moon-base program. He cancelled the Orion and Constellation programs. And he cancelled research programs for a Mars mission. Perhaps, with very few active space programs left to work on, Obama plans to keep NASA scientists and engineers busy keeping Muslims cheerful and feeling good about themselves, all over the world. I am just so glad we might be spending billions of scarce science dollars on that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

- Jack

And maybe your post wasn’t intended to be that way, but that’s how it came across to me. Sorry for jumping your chili on that. Peace.