Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm not so sure that NASA will be dissolved, per se. Public interest is too high for the government to be able to get away with that yet. It's more likely that they're just going to continue cutting funds, especially if the neocons retain power after Bush leaves office. Assuming he doesn't unilaterally override the two term limit with some sort of bs logic like he used during the last election. "In times of war, a nation should not change leaders." If that leader is the one who started the war in the first place, then yes, leadership change is essential scream *twitch* Major peeve of mine. Nevermind the rant.

Aye. I've run across a few times the sentiment, "Is anyone else embarrassed when he opens his mouth to speak?" I've only ever encountered one person who actually supports him, and that person was here on gaia. I sent off a pm asking why they would support Bush and that I wasn't asking so I could tear down but rather because I wanted to try to understand why, since such a position is so logically absurd (not that I said that). I never got a response stare

Not that bad? eek He's the worst president the US has ever had. If he and his cronies keep on with what they're doing, the US will tumble into bankruptcy in short order. What happens when the richest, most powerful country in the world collapses? Nevermind all the Nazi Germany and assorted other fascism comparisons. If it weren't so depressingly true, it would be unbelievable that one president and his cabal have so entirely gutted what the US stands for in a short five years scream evil

Not that this has really has much to do with science neutral

If they got along a little more reasonably, anyway. But yeh. China and India is where the power is tilting. South America with Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales is coming out strong, too. The European axis of dominant power appears to finally be tapering off, although given the track record of China and it's human rights violations (not that the US is any better lately), I'm really not sure that's such a good thing domokun

Of course, the US collapsing is going to take a good chunk of the world economy with it, and that's not terribly encouraging just in itself.

What's more depressing is that only three of the people I know who're willing to talk/debate politics with me are actually Americans. All the rest are not gonk The apathy in this country towards the actions of the government is just... it hurts. That's the only way I can think to describe it.

There was an article last week talking about how the supreme court ruled that government employees have no free speech protections against things like employer retaliation (being fired) if they talk publicly about their jobs, even if they're outing corruption and such. Translation: Criticize the government, you lose your job, your reputation, and your career. This is a brain freeze, and locks down the ability to affect change.

I've heard only noises on the fringes about this and none from the people. More has been made about Bush granting the NSA effectively unlimited spying power. Granted, it's more pernicious, but the supreme court ruling effectively makes correcting the problem impossible.

There was another article a few weeks ago about how a private company was hired (I think it was a subsidiary of Halliburton or some other company heavily tied to Bush and his cronies) to build a high security prison facility for the 'temporary' 'housing' of illegal immigrants. Translation: concentration camp. This story was quickly disappeared. I haven't been able to find it again.

And of course there's the never-ending propaganda, most notably that which glorifies the military. Then there's the destruction of the Bill of Rights, which hit full swing with passage of the galling PATRIOT Act after the 9/11 attacks. Then there's Bush and his signing statements, effectively giving himself dictatorial power, with sanction of the rest of the government, even though the president, by fiat of the Constitution, does not write or interpret laws, a power which belongs solely to the judiciary. Nevermind all the other violations of the separation of powers ideals that were written into the Constitution, like the power to declare war belonging solely to congress, or the separation of church and state, or the blatant and egregious violations of many, many international treaties of which the US is a party, most namely the Geneva conventions and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

All we need are the SS squads and we've got Nazi Germany, American style *whimper*

Basically, the US has tipped into fascism, and that scares me cry More so because there is no concerted opposition, and there won't be until things reach critical mass and everything just blows up. I think we're likely seeing the opening moves of WW3, with the destruction and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. The whole situation is disturbingly like that leading up to WW2 gonk

evil >.< evil I'm pretty sure I could continue ranting, but my brain's slowing down, and all that was probably more than necessary. But seeing as how you and I seem to be the only two who do anything with this thread...

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public."
- Theodore Roosevelt

"A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
- John F. Kennedy


Yeh xp It won't hit full stride until the US invades Iran, though. The US may be the only super-power left, but it won't stand long against a concerted effort by most of the rest of the world to take it down militarily. If that happens, I imagine we're going to see about the same reaction from the American people as we did from the Germans after WW2: "We didn't know this was going on." And people find that hard to believe, because it's such a major thing to keep hidden, but when you realize that the media was nothing but a propaganda machine in Nazi Germany and largely only ran stories that reflected well on the government, it becomes a lot easier to believe. The same thing's happening here in the US evil

It's about damn time rofl It'll be nice to finally see an end to the debate over whether Pluto's an actual planet or just a planetoid.


I was thinking the same thing blaugh Ranting about the idiocy and hypocrisy of the US government only holds my attention for so long before it starts wearing me out neutral

Wednesday June 13th 2006

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says humans must spread out in space to survive

LINK TO THE ARTICLE

"The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy the Earth, world-renowned scientist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday."

Here's an interesting article. Perhaps this could spark a debate. I think I'll make a new thread about this here.

eek Wow. I never knew all those failures were because of LM's not doing things right. Which makes me wonder why haven't they found someone new to do it? Or clamped down on LM? Why are they letting them continue to make those mistakes. stare