"It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," Charles Bolden said.
Yeah, that just makes me want to hurl. Almost as much as when they had that Jew on the Shuttle.
and third, 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," Bolden said in the interview.
It's all good. They're all Muslims, and the only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. Onward Christian SoldiersThree decades of wars, massacres and sectarian killings have left Iraq with as many as a million widows, by Iraqi government count.
Hameeda Ayed is one of them. At 45, with three children aged 10, 12 and 15, she is part of a vast sisterhood in a tortured land, and for the more than 100,000 who lost their husbands in the U.S.-led invasion and violent aftermath, the struggling postwar government is of little help.
She makes ends meet by selling snacks and sodas from her home in a Shiite enclave of southern Baghdad where she moved from a Sunni area after her husband died in the tit-for-tat killings of 2007.
"Our life has been turned into misery and desperation," she said. "This is what we got from occupation and the dreams of democracy: orphans, widows, homeless, displaced and fugitives."
Besides the invasion, this nation of 27 million has gone through the 1980-88 war with Iran, the 1991 Gulf war, and Saddam Hussein's brutal campaigns against the Shiites and Kurds in the 1980s and 1990s.
The widows gather in dusty cemeteries. They squat on the dirt by their husbands' graves, sobbing and murmuring remembrances under a merciless sun. Children sit in their shadows, clinging to their mothers' flowing black robes.
In the video below, Charles Bolden, head of NASA, tells Al Jazeera that the "foremost" task President Obama has given him is "to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math, and engineering." Thus, NASA's primary mission is no longer to enhance American science and engineering or to explore space, but to boost the self-esteem of "predominantly Muslim nations." Exploring space didn't even make the top three things Obama wants Bolden to accomplish. The other two are "re-inspire children to want to get into science and math" and "expand our international relationships,"
This is more evidence, if any were needed, of Obama's lack of interest in American achievement or, indeed, American greatness. He seems to believe we've achieved enough (or perhaps too much) and that the trick now is to make nations that have achieved little for centuries feel like we couldn't have done it without them (in the video, Bolden goes on to talk about how much NASA owes the Russians and the Japanese).
Behind the bravado of the Muslim world there may well lie an inferiority complex. If so, Obama is a fool if he believes we can help Muslims overcome that complex by having the head of the agency that symbolizes our technical superiority make patronizing statements about ancient Muslim contributions to science.
This is a new of fatuousness. NASA was established to get America into space and to keep us there. This idea of ‘feel good about your past’ scientific achievements is the worst kind of group therapy, psycho-babble, imperial condescension and adolescent diplomacy. If I didn’t know that Obama had told him this, I’d demand the firing of Charles Bolden.”
In a far-reaching restatement of goals for the nation’s space agency, NASA administrator Charles Bolden says President Obama has ordered him to pursue three new objectives: to “re-inspire children” to study science and math, to “expand our international relationships,” and to “reach out to the Muslim world.” Of those three goals, Bolden said in a recent interview with al-Jazeera, the mission to reach out to Muslims is “perhaps foremost,” because it will help Islamic nations “feel good” about their scientific accomplishments.
In the same interview, Bolden also said the United States, which first sent men to the moon in 1969, is no longer capable of reaching beyond low earth orbit without help from other nations
Why is it that when someone disagrees with you, you immediately take a personal shot at them?Obviously your shell has shrunk from the heat and is pressing on your brain.
This has nothing to do with my not thinking properly or the inability to see the big picture. It's the big picture that I'm looking at, actually, rather than looking at it solely from the point of view of an American Christian who thinks that the intentions of "our" religion of peace is more better and more right than "their" religion of peace, and that "our" atrocities are somehow less worse than "their" atrocities.Come out of there and do more studying, this time focus on the big picture, world wide, and what the intentions of this "religion of peace" really are.
The former head of NASA on Tuesday described as "deeply flawed" the idea that the space exploration agency's priority should be outreach to Muslim countries, after current Administrator Charles Bolden made that assertion in an interview last month.
"NASA ... represents the best of America. Its purpose is not to inspire Muslims or any other cultural entity," Michael Griffin, who served as NASA administrator during the latter half of the Bush administration, told FoxNews.com.
Bolden created a firestorm after telling Al Jazeera last month that President 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."
Officials from the White House and NASA on Tuesday stood by Bolden's statement that part of his mission is to improve relations with Muslim countries --though NASA backed off the claim that such international diplomacy is Bolden's "foremost" responsibility. *lol can you say..CYA
Griffin said Tuesday that collaboration with other countries, including Muslim nations, is welcome and should be encouraged -- but that it would be a mistake to prioritize that over NASA's "fundamental mission" of space exploration.
"If by doing great things, people are inspired, well then that's wonderful," Griffin said. "If you get it in the wrong order ... it becomes an empty shell."
Griffin added: "That is exactly what is in danger of happening."
He also said that while welcome, Muslim-nation cooperation is not vital for U.S. advancements in space exploration.
"There is no technology they have that we need," Griffin said.
The former administrator stressed that any criticism should be directed at Obama, not Bolden, since NASA merely carries out policy.
The White House stood by Bolden on Tuesday. Spokesman Nick Shapiro said in a written statement to FoxNews.com that Obama "wants NASA to engage with the world's best scientists and engineers as we work together to push the boundaries of exploration.
"Meeting that mandate requires NASA to partner with countries around the world like Russia and Japan, as well as collaboration with Israel and with many Muslim-majority countries. The space race began as a global competition, but, today, it is a global collaboration," he said.
Bob Jacobs, NASA's assistant administrator for public affairs, echoed that point. However, he said that Bolden was speaking of priorities when it came to "outreach" and not about NASA's primary missions of "science, aeronautics and space exploration." He said the "core mission" is exploration and that it was unfortunate Bolden's comments are now being viewed through a "partisan prism."
Though the Al Jazeera interview drew widespread attention, it wasn't the first time Bolden made the assertion.
A Feb. 16 blog in the Orlando Sentinel reported that Bolden discussed the outreach during a lecture to engineering students. As he did in the interview with Al Jazeera last month, Bolden was quoted then saying Obama told him to "find ways to reach out to dominantly Muslim countries."
He reportedly talked about the importance of helping countries establish space programs and pointed to the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, as a possible partner.
"We really like Indonesia because the State Department, the Department of Education (and) other agencies in the U.S. are reaching out to Indonesia as the largest Muslim nation in the world," he said.
Bolden did not describe such outreach as his prime mission at the time.
The NASA administrator was in the Middle East last month marking the one-year anniversary since Obama delivered an address to Muslim nations in Cairo. Bolden spoke in June at the American University in Cairo, and in the interview with Al Jazeera he described space travel as an international collaboration of which Muslim nations must be a part.
"It is a matter of trying to reach out and get the best of all worlds, if you will, and there is much to be gained by drawing in the contributions that are possible from the Muslim (nations)," he said.
He held up the International Space Station as a model, praising the contributions there from the Russians and the Chinese.
However, Bolden denied the suggestion that he was on a diplomatic mission. "Not at all. It's not a diplomatic anything," he said.
He also said the United States is not going to travel beyond low-Earth orbit on its own and that no country is going to make it to Mars without international help.
Griffin disputed this point. He said the U.S. can still make those strides without international aid if it wishes, and that, "To the extent that we wish to go to Mars, we can go to Mars."
Griffin said the U.S. should in fact seek international cooperation for those missions, but that it would be "clearly false" to suggest the U.S. needs that cooperation.
Bolden has faced criticism this year for overseeing the cancellation of the agency's Constellation program, which was building new rockets and spaceships capable of returning astronauts to the moon. Stressing the importance of international cooperation in future missions, Bolden told Al Jazeera that the moon, Mars and asteroids are still planned destinations for NASA.
Naive pretty much nails it. Liberals are all about the Utopian, and think that if they believe it, really, really hard, then others will all get along. But just like most other feel-good things, they don't bother to consider the consequences, the ramifications, both the inevitable and the unintended. He's trying to get along with non-extremist Muslims, while ignoring (and/or fighting) the extremists, but as much as the regular Muslims don't like the extremists, they won't ignore them because they're Muslims, too. He's walking a very line line that can't be walked.If this is how the Obama administration truly views muslim participation on the world stage - space programs and otherwise - they are more dangerously naive than anyone ever imagined.
Well, the "as long as they get everything they want" really only applies to Muslim extremists, which most Muslims are not. But the problem with Obama is that he really doesn't even know that.The muslims will get along with everyone else just fine so long as they get everything they want; but Barack Hussein Obama knows that already.
Why is it that when someone disagrees with you, you immediately take a personal shot at them?
Not at all. I've got a hеlluva sense of humor. But when you take a shot like that and then immediately follow it up by telling me that I need to do more studying (implicit that I'm ignorant on the subject at hand) and that I need to look at the world-wide bigger picture (implicit that I'm closed minded with no critical thinking skills), it doesn't come off as being humor. It comes off as sardonic marginalizing. That's probably the least most effective way to participate in any debate. It certainly isn't the best way to win friends and influence people to your mode of thinking.Lost our sense of humor, have we??
Not at all. I've got a hеlluva sense of humor. But when you take a shot like that and then immediately follow it up by telling me that I need to do more studying (implicit that I'm ignorant on the subject at hand) and that I need to look at the world-wide bigger picture (implicit that I'm closed minded with no critical thinking skills), it doesn't come off as being humor. It comes off as sardonic marginalizing. That's probably the least most effective way to participate in any debate. It certainly isn't the best way to win friends and influence people to your mode of thinking.
My original rhetorical question stands. When someone disagrees with you, instead of sticking with the issues and arguing them on their merits, if one doesn't fully understand the issues and is instead basing their argument on emotions (in your case here, the emotion of an admitted prejudice), then the only argument in an emotional one, usually some type of personal attack.
The BEST illustration of that is your response right here, where you completely dismissed as irrelevant my response to the issues of not looking at the big picture, and why I am, in fact, looking at it world wide (and you are not), and focused solely on me and my alleged sense of humor lost. This isn't about me, it's about the issues, and the emotional pseudo-importance that some people place on them. If you can argue that from an intellectual rather than an emotional perspective without taking personal shots at those who don't agree with you, great, I'm all for it. Otherwise, not interested.
It's not bull crap. If you think it is, let's here why. Especially since it wasn't directed towards you. That Churchill quote could have been said word for word by a Muslim Imam. They think they're right, we think we're right, and because we are we, we think we're the most right. And both are dead wrong. Also, when you replied is irrelevant, you still avoided the actual issues.Wow and my response was AFTER you went through your "onward Christian soldier" bull crap that I didn't refer to.
Yes I am.BTW, aren't you glad you live in a country where you can still hold Christians up for ridicule.....too bad it's not politically correct to criticize other groups.
Don't worry, I don't feel obligated to reply to any post, yours included. Some chains are just really easy to yank, so sometimes I can't help myself.If you're so "not interested", please don't feel obligated to reply to any of my posts.
No, but I do get to comment on it.You don't get to decide what is posted from an intellectual or emotional perspective, sorry.
Are you kidding me? You're the one who brought me into this! You take a personal shot at me, can't intelligently stick to the issues, and then tell me to get over myself?! That's just hilariously awesome. Whatcha gonna do next, stick your tongue out at me?GET OVER YOURSELF ALREADY......
Are you kidding me? You're the one who brought me into this! You take a personal shot at me, can't intelligently stick to the issues, and then tell me to get over myself?! That's just hilariously awesome. Whatcha gonna do next, stick your tongue out at me?