NASA Chief: Next Frontier Better Relations With Muslim World

[Pop Sickle]

These dolts finally got something right.

Muslim Outreach Not the Job of NASA, White House Says

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.

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."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/12/white-house-muslim-outreach-task-nasa/

 

[cstfx]

Quote from Pop Sickle:


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."

Actually, this is a rather commendable feat if they could pull it off.

1. - US education has been lagging behind the world for a few decades in the math and sciences and we've been outsourcing those engineering duties to other nations/nationals

2. - international cooperation helps cut costs of the program

3. - reminding the Muslim world of their contributions to the space program just might bring that culture a little closer into the 20th century (yes, I said 20th century - baby steps) and further away from the 12th century rhetoric they seem to be stuck in.

 

[Scataphagos]

This "Obama-directed, Muslim outreach" via NASA... may reveal something other which Obama has LIED about. (Is he really a Muslim? Does he have specific "Muslim sympathies"? I don't know whether I really care that he is a Muslim or not... I do know I care whether he obfuscates and LIES about ANYTHING as President.)

You recall, he referred to the USA as having "57 states" (Freudian slip?). The MUSLIM world has 57 states.

Perhaps yet ANOTHER fact as to his being a POSER AND FRAUD... AND LIAR OF THE HIGHEST ORDER, OF COURSE...

 

[misterno]

Quote from TGregg:

Man, it doesn't get any more telling than that. You'll notice that nobody runs around trying to make the white guys "feel good" about all the cool stuff we've done. Nobody gives speeches trying to make US citizens "feel good" about all the great stuff the USA has done.

That's cuz nobody needs to. Nobody needs to because white guys kick ass.

Nobody needs to tell the asians how smart they are, either. Nobody needs to tell the taiwans how good they are at making stuff other folks have designed, nobody needs to tell the italians how good their food is, nobody needs to tell the germans how good their engineering is, nobody needs to tell the french how rude they are or the australians how good their wine is. Nobody needs to say these things because this stuff is obvious. If it had to be pointed out, that would be because it was not true. And by pointing it out, you are reminding all that it isn't true.

It's a lot like black history month. Blacks have contributed so little to the advance of civilization that we have to make a special time to include them. We make the same list of the same dozen inventions like a gas mask and parade that around, then turn to the blacks and say "There now, don't you feel better? We've worked hard to find something, anything that your people have done. Lord knows it wasn't easy."

If the establishment was that condescending about my ancestors, I'd be seriously POed. Guess how my "culture" is celebrated? I'm more Irish than anything else, and it's party time, parades and music. Everybody gets in on the act and pretends they are Irish. And not just for a day any more but all week long. But for blacks, we get all solemn and put on a big act about how important they are. "Don't worry, we all think you are important." When somebody has to tell you that you are important. . . well then you know you are not. Geez, what an insult. But it's not my idea, so don't blame me.

Still, you gotta feel sorry for a culture lost in the 6th century, especially in this modern, connected world where the failures of islamic culture are glaringly obvious.

The muslims should get their own awards, the islamic version of the nobel prizes. It'd be like a special olympics for towelheads. You could have specialized prizes - most unique IED ever made, improved safety practices for bomb factories, best method of loading pipes with explosives, etc. They could even reach into the world of art with prizes for best video denouncing the USA and Israel, best torture video, most spittle generated during a "speech", etc.

you are an idiot

Most accomplishments you described above are done by Americans with mixed descendants. In today's america it is almost impossible to conclude someone is pure white including Thomas Jefferson if you know what I mean.

Just visit the closest university's science department and you will be amazed with the ratio of non white students in the labs. And then visit a homeless shelter nearby. You are a blind moron.

 

[Pop Sickle]

Quote from cstfx:

Actually, this is a rather commendable feat if they could pull it off.


3. - reminding the Muslim world of their contributions to the space program just might bring that culture a little closer into the 20th century (yes, I said 20th century - baby steps) and further away from the 12th century rhetoric they seem to be stuck in.

That may be the role of the State department; but, that is not the roll of NASA.