DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Kramer on July 12, 2010, 06:10:38 PM
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-task-nasa/ (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-task-nasa/)
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that NASA Administrator Charles Bolden must have misspoken when he told Al Jazeera last month that one of his top priorities is to reach out to Muslim countries.
"That was not his task and that's not the task of NASA," Gibbs said.
Bolden, though, said last month in the interview that it was President Obama who gave him that task. He made a similar claim in February.
The White House also backed up Bolden last week when his remarks first stirred controversy. A White House spokesman last Tuesday said Obama wants NASA to engage with the world's best scientists and that to meet that challenge, NASA must "partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries."
NASA last week walked back Bolden's claim that Muslim outreach was the "perhaps foremost" plank of his mission, saying that Bolden was merely talking about his "outreach" responsibilities and that space exploration is still NASA's No. 1 job.
But Gibbs on Monday appeared to deny that Bolden was asked to focus on Muslim outreach at all.
Asked whether Bolden misspoke, Gibbs said: "I think so."
He said he wasn't aware of Obama speaking to Bolden about his comments.
The Muslim comments were met with a wall of criticism last week from conservatives and former NASA officials who said that while Muslim-nation outreach is laudable, it should not be a NASA priority.
Bolden said in the interview that Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science, expand international relationships and "perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering."
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<<Bolden said in the interview that Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science . . . >>
Any kid I know that's smart enough to know math and science is too smart to be "inspired" by some thug whose primary accomplishment in life is dropping napalm on Third World villages and roasting women and children alive.
They'd be inspired by black men who fight against Whitey, not who help him in his drive to dominate and massacre the non-whites of the world.
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<<Bolden said in the interview that Obama told him before he took the job that he wanted him to do three things: inspire children to learn math and science . . . >>
Any kid I know that's smart enough to know math and science is too smart to be "inspired" by some thug whose primary accomplishment in life is dropping napalm on Third World villages and roasting women and children alive.
They'd be inspired by black men who fight against Whitey, not who help him in his drive to dominate and massacre the non-whites of the world.
so your point is?
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My point is that Obama must be really out of touch with the math and science community if he thinks any of them could be "inspired" by the military. Esoteric knowledge and brute force do not go hand-in-hand.
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My point is that Obama must be really out of touch with the math and science community if he thinks any of them could be "inspired" by the military. Esoteric knowledge and brute force do not go hand-in-hand.
Meanwhile in China, the Soviet Union and even N. Korea the Math and Science community were assigned to work on weapons systems and space programs.
But somehow that is different.
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My point is that Obama must be really out of touch with the math and science community if he thinks any of them could be "inspired" by the military. Esoteric knowledge and brute force do not go hand-in-hand.
it should be clear to you that Obama is a C+ to B- student and he's in way over his head. And his only thing in life is related to blackness. 100% of what he does is to further the black race and punish white people.
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<<Meanwhile in China, the Soviet Union and even N. Korea the Math and Science community were assigned to work on weapons systems and space programs.
<<But somehow that is different. >>
One has nothing to do with the other. I knew a lot of kids in high school who were attracted to science and math. I was one of them myself. I don't know one that would have been "inspired" by anyone in uniform to pursue math or science. The kids I knew who were likely to be "inspired" by the military in terms of making their own life choices were without exception dumb-ass low-lifes, some of whom were even then developing into thuggish brutes, while others appeared to be affable enough but just plain dumb..
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In my high school, the kids that joined the military were the ones who sat in the study hall and read "Sergeant Slaughter Comics" instead of taking geometry and algebra, and could easily be classified into three groups: the fat boys, the small boys and the giants. The fat kids needed to reduce their blubber, and luckily the army was desperate at the time. One kid, named Wesley Wilson went through Marine basic training three times and broke his ankle once before he made it. The small kids like "Flea" Sarten were inspired by the idea of learning how to beat up the big kids in the military. The big kids tended to be farm boys like Walter Osgood who had been told not to pick on little kids by their God-fearing parents, and mostly headed for the watery services: the Navy and the Coast Guard.
The match and science geniuses ended up going to the University and all those I know ended teaching math & physics at various universities: not one soldier, sailor or marine among them.
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<<The big kids tended to be farm boys like Walter Osgood who had been told not to pick on little kids by their God-fearing parents, and mostly headed for the watery services: the Navy and the Coast Guard.>>
The attraction of the Navy for farm boys, especially from the Mid-West, was obvious: Join the Navy and See the World! I have to admit, I did feel a twinge of jealousy once when plane posted about the foreign ports that he visited.
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The match (sic) and science geniuses ended up going to the University and all those I know ended teaching math & physics at various universities: not one soldier, sailor or marine among them.
I have 4 people with advanced degrees in various engineering disciplines (which includes lots of math and science classes) in my family who are former or current military officers.
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My 50th class Reunion is this September. I am sort of looking for it, since, thanks to Facebook, all but two members have been located and most will be there. I missed the 30th and 40th.
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<<I have 4 people with advanced degrees in various engineering disciplines (which includes lots of math and science classes) in my family who are former or current military officers.>>
I don't doubt that at all. You are talking about career choices made by rational adults. Obama was talking about what inspires kids to go into math and science in the first place. Why don't you ask your relatives if any of them were inspired to study math and science as children by any military figures?
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I have 4 people with advanced degrees in various engineering disciplines (which includes lots of math and science classes) in my family who are former or current military officers.
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But aren't you Austrian?
I'd say the Austrian army should have been a pretty good career since the 1950's. Austria tends not to invade other countries, at least since WWII. Not even Slovenia or Leichtenstein have anything to fear from the Austrians of late.
Perhaps there is also some sort of affinity for math and science grads in Muslim countries and the military.
My HS was pretty typical of Midwestern suburbia, but this is a large and diverse country, so I do not know if my experience relates to the rest of the country.
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But aren't you Austrian?
Dual national, actually. Born in the US to Austrian parents, so I qualify for either passport.
I'd say the Austrian army should have been a pretty good career since the 1950's. Austria tends not to invade other countries, at least since WWII. Not even Slovenia or Leichtenstein have anything to fear from the Austrians of late.
I'm talking about the US military. One cousin (who became naturalized when he entered service) and the rest are relatives by marriage.
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Obama was talking about what inspires kids to go into math and science in the first place. Why don't you ask your relatives if any of them were inspired to study math and science as children by any military figures?
My cousin, at least, was inspired by the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds. Best way to become a pilot in the Air Force or the Navy is with an engineering degree.
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Most Officers have engineering degrees , tho a few of every sort of degree can be found.
The US military has a lot more enlisted with some colledge time or degree than other contries .
One outstanding example is general Omar Bradley who would work complex math for recreation.
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.
Omar N. Bradley
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/omar_n_bradley.html (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/o/omar_n_bradley.html)
Are wars stimulating to science?
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<<My cousin, at least, was inspired by the Blue Angels and the Thunderbirds. Best way to become a pilot in the Air Force or the Navy is with an engineering degree.>>
I think Obama was trying to find ways to inspire kids to become scientists and mathematicians, not to inspire them to study engineering so they could become pilots.
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I think Obama was trying to find ways to inspire kids to become scientists and mathematicians, not to inspire them to study engineering so they could become pilots.
Err, engineering *is* a science.
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I think they had more abstract sciences in mind. Engineering is a very practical, applied science.
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I think they had more abstract sciences in mind. Engineering is a very practical, applied science.
Engineering can be as elegant and artistic as any other study.
Why does it have a utilitarian reputation?
Just because engineers have got to have utility in their results elese they don't get paid?
Beatuty is where you see it , an elegant program , a highly streamlined vehicle, a tiny electrical device laid into a grid of millions of tiny transistors that store an encliclopedia in less volume than a grain of rice, an alloyed crystal casts an x-ray shadow of diffraction patterns , a jet engine on afterburner produces a plume of incandesant flame with a row of sharp mach diamonds, a lattice of struts defines a space of strength,etc, etc...
Aaah, yes it is a beautifull universe , and every bit we understand it better opens new beauty , every time we refine or invent a new sensor we see more of it and new beautys never before known are opened.
HOw is it forgotten that the old masters of painting had to be masters of the best chemestry of their day? That grand sculpture is possible only with good understanding of geometry and structural strength?
Whence comes this false division between the esoteric and the practical? one enables the other and the subtraction of one destroys the other.