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BPT-336
No, Not Jerry Brown.... but George W. Bush.

Bush to annouce mission to Mars

Did that Spirit probe find oil in thems there martian soil?? rolleyes.gif

Anyone But Bush '04. And take Rowland with ya!
Bill W
You'd have to say between this and the trumpeting of his proposed "inch" of reform in legalizing alien workers -- which probably will never pass anyway -- that the Usurper's misdirections this week are strategems worthy of his prime political model among recent presidents... Bill Clinton.
hockeyTom
This may sound strange coming from me, but I actually agree with Shrub on this, and this is about the only thing I agree with him on. I have always been for a strong US space program. Lets face it, the way we are ruining this planet, we may just need some kind of an alternative "home" in the future. biggrin.gif It is interesting also, from what I hear Shrub proposes to pay for these excursions by scrapping all the shuttles, and I understand building some kind of new spacecraft.
Skiguy
Puckman, a strong space program is one thing, but what Shrub is proposing is nonsensical.

See Gregg Easterbrook's voluminous commentary on this, starting with this post. Easterbrook's been following the space program for a long time. In 1981, he basically predicted the shuttle disasters long before they came to pass, in this prophetic Washington Monthly article.

A space station on the moon would be pointless and expensive. It would not even have the symbolic importance of the Apollo program because (1) it's long been proved that it can be done and (2) we don't have a geopolitical rival like we did back then (well, we do...Islamofascism, but they're not interested in a space race).

A manned mission to Mars isn't a bad idea, but as Easterbrook points out, it's years away and expensive beyond even Shrub's imagination.

[ January 09, 2004, 01:35 PM: Message edited by: Skiguy ]
Nascar007
QUOTE
puckman1:
This may sound strange coming from me, but I actually agree with Shrub on this, and this is about the only thing I agree with him on. I have always been for a strong US space program. Lets face it, the way we are ruining this planet, we may just need some kind of an alternative \"home\" in the future. biggrin.gif It is interesting also, from what I hear Shrub proposes to pay for these excursions by scrapping all the shuttles, and I understand building some kind of new spacecraft.
Puckman, I am all for a strong space program too. But now is not the time. America is in enough debt already, especially now that Shrub has had his little war with Iraq and turned the rest of the world against us. How is Shrub supposed to pay for these so called "space missions"? Haven't Uncle Sam nickle and dimed, and taxed us enough already???

[ January 09, 2004, 05:47 PM: Message edited by: Nascar007 ]
MIB
Why is it nonsensical, ski? SOMEone has to propose these things. One day, Man will venture beyond Earth and its Moon, and at that time, one will look back in retrospect and realize that a former president first talked about it.

I'm sure there were plenty of folks who blasted JFK when he so boldly said the U.S. would go to the Moon, and within the same decade he was speaking, to boot.
shawnq
QUOTE
MIB:
and at that time, one will look back in retrospect and realize that a former president first talked about it.
Except lets not get kid ourselves into thinking W. was the first to really talk about it. Here's a blurb from the LA Times on January 25th 1992.
QUOTE
\"Affirming his commitment to manned space exploration, President Bush said Friday that his new budget will significantly boost funding for Space Station Freedom and other programs intended to help send astronauts back to the moon and to Mars and beyond.\"
I hope we eventually get to Mars too, but the hundreds of billions of dollars to fund these projects will have to come from somewhere.
fantomas
Yep, the money for these plans (which I think are a way to pour more money into defense contractors' troughs) will have to come from somewhere. And since he's being visionary, perhaps W could also present some ecologically friendly proposals for our earth and our environment, especially given that a recent study has shown that global warming will lead to mass extinctions by 2050.

MSNBC: Report warns of warming's effects

[ January 10, 2004, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]
MIB
QUOTE
shawnq:
Except lets not get kid ourselves into thinking W. was the first to really talk about it.
If you read carefully, I made a point to state that we'd look back and realize the "a" president had said this and not GW Bush specifically.
MIB
QUOTE
fantomas:
Yep, they'll have to come form somewhere, and perhaps W could also present some ecologically friendly proposals for our earth and our environment, especially given that a recent study has shown that global warming will lead to mass extinctions by 2050.

MSNBC: Report warns of warming's effects
Not the mythical Global Warming nonsense again! rolleyes.gif

When will these Chicken Littles realize there has been NO consistent evidence of it? Record cold has been more prevalent over the last 10-20 years than ever before. Springs in Chicago don't exist. We've had miserably chilly springs that last through late May here. Gone are the days when it's consistently warm here in April/May.

Global warming my ass. It doesn't exist, and nothing anyone can say is going to convince me otherwise. Perhaps we should ignore those who scream about it, for they probably live in Phoenix and spend too much time in the Sun.
JC
QUOTE
Global warming my ass. It doesn't exist, and nothing anyone can say is going to convince me otherwise
Nothing anyone can say will ever convince you of anything, because you know more about everything than anybody else. FYI, I don't have numbers for 2003, but the mean annual temperature in Chicago was above its long-term average in four of the five years from 1998-2002, and less than 0.1 degrees below average in the odd year out (2000). Of course, if you really knew more about climatology than I do, you'd know that extrapolating global trends from a single site is ridiculous. I could counter that with the comment that where I grew up, I never experienced a green Christmas until 1981 (when I was 15), but we've had them frequently in subsequent years. But that's just as irrelevant.
Marc
What's this I hear about going "back" to the moon? Where's the proof that astronauts were ever there in the first place? The documentary linked below should be required viewing for anyone seriously interested in the space program. wink biggrin.gif

http://www.moonmovie.com/
MIB
QUOTE
JC:
Nothing anyone can say will ever convince you of anything, because you know more about everything than anybody else.
Well, at least you've finally accepted this. biggrin.gif

QUOTE

FYI, I don't have numbers for 2003, but the mean annual temperature in Chicago was above its long-term average in four of the five years from 1998-2002, and less than 0.1 degrees below average in the odd year out (2000). Of course, if you really knew more about climatology than I do, you'd know that extrapolating global trends from a single site is ridiculous. I could counter that with the comment that where I grew up, I never experienced a green Christmas until 1981 (when I was 15), but we've had them frequently in subsequent years. But that's just as irrelevant.
I'll just reiterate what Weather God Tom Skilling has said about Chicago's overall weather, that being, to paraphrase him, overall Chicago has been fairly consistent in its weather. Moreover, the country's weather seems to go in large cycles. Chicago itself during the 60's, 70's, and 80's was experiencing brutal winters with lots of snow. The 90's and 2000's so far have seen a shift the other way, while the decades preceding the cold 60's-80's showed mild winters and summers hotter than any we've ever experienced. Yet our springs have grown increasingly colder and wetter. The northeast and mid-Atlantic have also experienced colder springs, more accurately considered prolonged winters.

If anything, there have been fluctuations here and there, with the occasional extreme weather event as well. But to say that global warming exists is just a bunch of paranoid bullshit. To think Man has the ability to affect Earth's climate in any significant fashion is ridiculously vain. There is no consistent evidence to support so-called global warming.

[ January 10, 2004, 04:51 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]
Herr Tiggee
And as we all know, the weather in Chicago is the ultimate litmus test on whether or not there is global warming. If its cold in Chicago, there MUST not be such a thing as global warming. rolleyes.gif
JC
At the height of the last ice age, when Chicago was buried under a mile of ice, the Western Equatorial Pacific had much the same temperatures it does today. You cannot make a claim about global temperatures based on a local area. You might as well say the earth is flat because it looks flat from Chicago. Besides, cooler springs don't necessarily mean annual temperatures are lower. Interestingly enough, the southern U.S. may not have significantly colder winters during the last ice age, though summer temperatures were greatly reduced.

Globally, the 80's and 90's were the warmest decades of the 20th century, followed by the 30's (there was a slight cooling trend from the 40's to the late 70's). These are facts. It's warmer on the planet as a whole than it was before. No individual site will give the same exact pattern. Fairbanks, Alaska, for example, shows a fairly steady (and remarkably rapid) rise from the '50's on, totally missing the global cooling of the 60's and 70's. Proxy records from the medieval period suggest that northern Europe, at least, is warmer today than at any point in the historical past. Can we prove this is because of man's effects? No...but there are excellent reasons, other than vanity, to think they might be. And the only natural climatic fluctuation that we can actually predict should give us a cooling trend, not a warming trend at this time. We are due for an ice age, within the next 5-10,000 years.

Greenhouse gases are a major player in the earth's heat balance. Roughly 22% of atmospheric heating results from absorption of long wave radiation, chiefly by carbon dioxide. Since the 1950's, carbon dioxide has risen by about 30%. Unless there's some unknown natural process that is releasing old (lacking in radioactive carbon) carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at a rate higher than it is naturally absorbed, this is a result of man's activities. It's not vanity, but logic that suggests that human activities are increasing the temperature. The puzzle is why it hasn't increased more and what caused the mid-century cooling trend. There are possible explanations--sulphur dioxide blocking sunlight and partly cancelling the warming trend is one. Wally Broeker at Columbia(who's opinion impresses me more than a TV meteorologist) believes there may be a 40 to 50-year oscillation resulting from some oceanic changes that adds noise to the warming trend. If he's correct the global warming trend that was so prominent in the '80's and '90's should level off or reverse over the next twenty years, but we'll get another big warming spike after that.

Are there natural negative feedbacks that would tend to stabilize global climate? Perhaps, but the geologic record suggests otherwise. Small fluctuations (~3%) in summer solar insolation at high latitudes apparently are sufficient to cause ice ages. There have been times in the past when the earth was so cold there was ice in the tropics, and other times when temperatures were so warm there were hardwood forests in the arctic.
MIB
QUOTE
JC:
You might as well say the earth is flat because it looks flat from Chicago.
It looks flat from most of Illinois, and not just Chicago. This state doesn't have much topographical variety, so the rest of the Earth must be like it. biggrin.gif
Lksimcoe
Okay. Iraq was his administration's gift to the Oil Companies.

Is the Moon/Mars mission his gift to the Aerospace industry?
MIB
The irony is quite striking:

QUOTE
(AP)In what political watchers are calling possibly the biggest gaffe in years, former Vice President Al Gore is set to give a speech tomorrow on the perils of global warming -- on what is expected to be the coldest day in New England in nearly half a century.

Against the advice of senior advisers, Gore is planning to appear at the historic Beacon Theatre in Manhattan on Thursday to issue an indictment of the Bush administration's \"inaction on global warming.\"

Gore will make the warming case on a day forecasters are predicting the coldest temps in Boston since 1957, with wind chills in parts of New England plunging to 100 degrees below zero!
Well, at least we can continue to thank him for inventing the Internet, since without it, we wouldn't be here discussing this. smile.gif

[ January 14, 2004, 09:30 PM: Message edited by: MIB ]
shawnq
QUOTE
MIB:
   
QUOTE
(AP)In what political watchers are calling possibly the biggest gaffe in years, former Vice President Al Gore is set to give a speech tomorrow on the perils of global warming -- on what is expected to be the coldest day in New England in nearly half a century.

Well, at least we can continue to thank him for inventing the Internet, since without it, we wouldn't be here discussing this. smile.gif
It would be nice if the reporters who write this crap would actually contact a scientist to learn that a cold day in New England doesn't disprove the fact that global warming is happening.

Then again if reporters were actually doing their jobs we wouldn't have to keep hearing this lie about Al Gore claiming he invented the internet.

[ January 15, 2004, 12:36 AM: Message edited by: shawnq ]
BPT-336
From the Late Show with David Letterman:

Top Ten Reasons George W. Bush Wants To Put A Man On Mars
10. Dick Cheney needs a new undisclosed location

9. It's part of his "No Planet Left Behind" initiative

8. Great deal on the off-season airfare right now at Expedia.com

7. Maybe we'll find some weapons of mass destruction there

6. We've run out of places on Earth to drill for oil

5. Hoping to get Mork's autograph

4. We cannot back down until the people of Mars hold free elections

3. Dude, free Mars bars

2. Why not? It's not like we have an enormous debt or failing economy

1. Pete Rose bet him we wouldn't do it
MIB
QUOTE
shawnq:
It would be nice if the reporters who write this crap would actually contact a scientist to learn that a cold day in New England doesn't disprove the fact that global warming is happening.  
Record cold. Rampant brutal temps throughout the northeast. Record wind chills. Yeah, Global Warming is here. Not!

Our weather has undergone wild cycles, from overly hot to overly cold, but one thing has been constant: The inability to accurately say Global Warming exists. It doesn't. It's all just a bunch of paranoid theories spewed by people who are holed up in Phoenix in July when it's 115 degrees outside. Well, duh!

QUOTE

Then again if reporters were actually doing their jobs we wouldn't have to keep hearing this lie about Al Gore claiming he invented the internet.
It ain't a lie if the media reported it. (Oh, wait. That applies only if it's a Republican about whom the media is reporting such claims. rolleyes.gif )
Jim Allen
And here I thought that New Yorkers thought they were the center of the known universe. Nice to see it's actually Chicago.

I can't be arsed to trawl around for the links, but the Ruling Junta's proposal is a way to gut the NASA funding for climate studies and so on that so inconvenience their coporate masters. In fact, they're out to gut any scientific program that doesn't agree with their "the earth is only 5,500 years old and man was created by God" worldview.

Apologies to M1: IPB Image IPB Image

[ January 15, 2004, 08:09 PM: Message edited by: Jim Allen ]
twin58
Theory of Unintended Consequences

Bye, bye, science. "Science" is from the Latin "scientia," which translates as "knowledge."

QUOTE
NATION IN BRIEF

Saturday, January 17, 2004; Page A26

NASA to Halt Hubble Mission

In a teleconference with reporters last night, NASA confirmed that it is canceling a planned space shuttle mission in 2006 to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

The move, reported by the Washington Post on Thursday, \"was a really tough decision,\" said John Grunsfeld, NASA's chief scientist and an astronaut who has flown on two Hubble servicing missions. Two research instruments have already been built for the mission, and a number of astronomers had counted on it.

The cancellation flowed from President Bush's new space policy, announced Wednesday, which directs NASA to focus shuttle flights on completing the space station and then retire the reusable space planes by 2010, Grunsfeld said.

Scientists believe the telescope could continue to operate until as late as 2007 or 2008, depending on when its aging gyroscopes and batteries wear out. The Hubble team is working on software that could enable it to operate at a reduced capacity, but the scientific output would be affected as systems deteriorate, Grunsfeld said.
fantomas
QUOTE
MIB:
Not the mythical Global Warming nonsense again!    :rolleyes:  

When will these Chicken Littles realize there has been NO consistent evidence of it? Record cold has been more prevalent over the last 10-20 years than ever before. Springs in Chicago don't exist. We've had miserably chilly springs that last through late May here. Gone are the days when it's consistently warm here in April/May.

Global warming my ass. It doesn't exist
I know, I know, you've made it quite clear idea that earth and atmospheric sciences have no validity for you, but here's an explanation for the Big Freeze hitting New England and the mid-Atlantic and upper Midwestern states:

MIT Tech Talk: California casts the big chill
MIB
And the point is...?

I do not dispute earth and atmospheric sciences. Believe it or not, I almost went into meteorology, until I found out I had to take too many chemistry courses. Yeck!

I've been transfixed by the weather ever since I was a kid. Maybe that's why I simply do not believe in so-called global warming. There just isn't enough evidence to support its existence. As soon as there seems to be, along comes evidence to the contrary.

Call me when it consistently reaches 70 and 80 degrees in January in Chicago. Maybe then I'll believe this chicken little bullshit.
BPT-336
Oh I couldn't resist posting this link:

Bush announces strategy for Americanization of Cosmos
Jim Allen
QUOTE
MIT Tech Talk: California casts the big chill
Glad to be of service. The weather has been glorious here for the last month or so.

BPT, another winner from Whitehouse.org that you linked to. But buried in the PNAC documentation of how they plan to rule the universe is a section about the militarization of space. The Ruling Junta doesn't give a shit about exploring other planets except as it relates to soundbites in the election runup and as a way to extend American hegemony out in to the cosmos.
RazorbackTX
http://www.spacedaily.com/2004/04011816325...8.v6170upz.html

Looks like this idea is not going over very well.
Maybe before we put a human on Mars we should send a volunteer chimp, hopefully Bush will be available Jan. 2005.
twin58
QUOTE
twin58:
Theory of Unintended Consequences

Bye, bye, science. \"Science\" is from the Latin \"scientia,\" which translates as \"knowledge.\"

 
QUOTE
NATION IN BRIEF

Saturday, January 17, 2004; Page A26

NASA to Halt Hubble Mission

In a teleconference with reporters last night, NASA confirmed that it is canceling a planned space shuttle mission in 2006 to service and upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.
This time it's for real.

White House Cuts Hubble Servicing Mission from 2006 Budget Request

QUOTE
WASHINGTON – The White House has eliminated funding for a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope from its 2006 budget request and directed NASA to focus solely on de-orbiting the popular spacecraft at the end of its life, according to government and industry sources.
As has been said elsewhere, why study the origins of the universe when fundamentalists know it's only 6000 years old?
Erik G
QUOTE
MIB:
And the point is...?
I've been transfixed by the weather ever since I was a kid. Maybe that's why I simply do not believe in so-called global warming.
My point is...
"If you read my comments above, you'll find that I never said global warming per se hasn't occurred or isn't occurring."
These would be MIB's words from that other thread. Even if you try to put them in context, English is English and MIB still blatantly contradicts himself. So folks just what exactly is MIB talking about when he refers to "so-called" global warming? Catch a Moonbeam.
I could almost buy into the no man-made global warming "bullshit" as MIB calls it. But then, I actually liked chemistry.
Gotta figure out my taxes to see how much I can contribute to MIB's manned mission to mars biggrin.gif
MIB
G-ddammit! Someone tell Institute security Erik snuck out again.
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