NASA gets a verbal facelift

2002 - mid 2006: NASA's mission statement - "To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can."

2006: NASA's new mission statement - "To pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."

Why the change?

According to NASA spokesman David E. Steitz, "to square the statement with President Bush’s goal of pursuing human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars."

The original mission statement said, "to explore the universe" which apparently, to the President, means "except for human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars" because the moon and Mars are not part of the "universe" but rather just background objects of the universe we call "earth." Kind of our own little back yard or just another acre attached to the ranch in Texas.

NASA's new job is no longer to understand the planet, and many NASA scientists are not happy about the mission statement makeover. Many of those scientists say that "the 'understand and protect' phrase was not merely window dressing but actively influenced the shaping and execution of research priorities," adding that without the phrase, "there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions."

What have we learned here?

To the President, climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions is not as much fun as flying to the Moon or to Mars.

more info:
NASA’s Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet

Unfortunately, the article linked above did not go into any detail about the phrase "to explore the universe and search for life" in the old mission statement, but alas, in this huge universe, there could not be any other life except for earth....I mean, someone would have had to go to another galaxy to die for their sins, right?

The ACLU: What Bill O'Reilly never tells you......and more

"The ACLU: What Bill O'Reilly never tells you" is up at the Capital City Free Press.

See what you've been missing by only watching Fox News Channel, where "fair and balanced" really means "we'll give you our right-wing point of view and claim it's both sides of the story."

Click here for the article.

And also, if you didn't hear, Ken Lay died of a heart attack. A heart attack! Mr. Enron himself, a guy who was recently convicted of corporate crimes, a guy who bilked his employees out of their retirement funds, a guy who was finally brought to justice and was going to spend the rest of his life in jail....dies of a heart attack. Where is the justice in that? If only someone could have hooked him up on life support and let his body lie in San Quentin long enough for Tom Delay to come to his defense when they try take away the feeding tube....oh, justice.