CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Three NASA advisers who spoke out against budget cuts to the space agency’s science programs turned in their resignations this week, officials said Thursday.
Wesley Huntress, Charles Kennel and Eugene Levy each served on the NASA Advisory Council’s science committee. Kennel resigned by choice but Huntress and Levy were asked to leave by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin.
Levy, a professor of physics and astronomy who also is provost at Rice University in Houston, said their commitment to a broad science program at NASA “didn’t comport with the kind of advice that the administrator and the chairman of the committee were looking for.”
(BTW, the final rendering of the posted comments doesn’t always agree with the preview rendering. I included some <br> elements in the previous comment, which were correctly handled by the preview but were apparently stripped when the previous comment was posted.)
Oh, the wealth of material here! A public official with a sworn duty to act in the best interests of his country is sacked for relying on methods of judgment which any rational person would find silly.
What if Justice Floro (or his wife) had consulted an astrologer? Or, taking this but a small step further, what if Justice Floro had publicly admitted that he consulted with a supernatural being for healing or guidance, but that supernatural being was not a dwarf named Luis but instead a “God” called “The Lord”? Would we all agree that this public official was suffering from psychosis and should be removed?
Remember the 2000 “election”? Remember the debacle in Florida? I know we’re often told that it is old news and that we should forget the travesty that led to the last 6 years and move on. But do you remember who ran the whole show be…
Cosmic Variance is a group blog by people who, coincidentally or not, all happen to be physicists and astrophysicists:
Our day (and night) jobs notwithstanding, the blog is about whatever we find interesting — science, to be sure, but also arts, politics, culture, technology, academia, and miscellaneous trivia. We have similar outlooks on many things, widely disparate opinions about others, and will do our best to keep the discourse reasonably elevated.
August 18th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
3 mystical dwarves is nothing on 3 mystical planets, lol. or is it 4 mystical planets?
August 18th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Dear Sean,
Is the “Preposterous Universe”, also your blog? I know it has your name on it but just curious why two blogs.
August 18th, 2006 at 10:47 pm
Sean?
August 19th, 2006 at 12:04 am
I used to blog there, now I blog here. The only constant in life is change.
August 19th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Off topic, but worthy of some coverage on CV:
Outspoken NASA Advisers Quit PanelWashington Post (AP)Thursday, August 17, 2006
August 19th, 2006 at 1:15 pm
(BTW, the final rendering of the posted comments doesn’t always agree with the preview rendering. I included some <br> elements in the previous comment, which were correctly handled by the preview but were apparently stripped when the previous comment was posted.)
August 21st, 2006 at 10:48 am
Oh, the wealth of material here! A public official with a sworn duty to act in the best interests of his country is sacked for relying on methods of judgment which any rational person would find silly.
What if Justice Floro (or his wife) had consulted an astrologer? Or, taking this but a small step further, what if Justice Floro had publicly admitted that he consulted with a supernatural being for healing or guidance, but that supernatural being was not a dwarf named Luis but instead a “God” called “The Lord”? Would we all agree that this public official was suffering from psychosis and should be removed?
August 21st, 2006 at 11:03 am
Thinking of anywhere in particular Tom?
August 21st, 2006 at 6:31 pm
No, no. My analysis was confined strictly to the politics of the Philippines, and any scenarios put forward were 100% hypothetical.
August 21st, 2006 at 7:03 pm
Yeah, I drew a blank also.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:25 am
Works for me.
August 26th, 2006 at 7:01 am
Before the Mystic Dwarves Came Katherine Harris
Remember the 2000 “election”? Remember the debacle in Florida? I know we’re often told that it is old news and that we should forget the travesty that led to the last 6 years and move on. But do you remember who ran the whole show be…