NASA In Colbert Conundrum Over Space Station 398
After Stephen Colbert won the vote in NASA's contest to name a new module on the International Space Station, NASA found itself in a tough spot. According to Reuters, "Contest rules stipulate that the agency retains the right to basically do whatever it wants," but it may not be all that easy. At first NASA floated the idea of naming the new module's toilet "Colbert." But Last Thursday Congressman Chaka Fattah, D-Pa., urged the agency to respect the people's wishes. And Colbert turned up the heat on yesterday's weekly show: "So NASA, I urge you to heed Congressman Fattah's call for democracy in orbit. Either name that node after me, or I too will reject democracy and seize power as space's evil tyrant overlord. Ball's in your court."
Something similar happened in The Netherlands (Score:5, Informative)
Something similar happened in The Netherlands, although on a smaller scale. Some company ran a contest to name a new type of potato chips (en-uk crisps) and internetters voted en masse for the name "WithoutStyle", after the similarly named blog [geenstijl.nl]. In the end, the company bended to the pressure, although for a short time only.
Re:Fuck Colbert, tell him to get his own Station (Score:5, Informative)
Colbert saved the African elephant from extinction. He did this by virtue of his theory that whatever happens to be on wikipedia represents the truth. He urged his viewers to vandalize the wiki entry for elephants to say that the elephant population had tripled over the last 6 month, so that once it was vandalized it would now be the truth and the elephants would be saved. Here is park of the history of the page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Elephant&offset=20060801170519&limit=500&action=history [wikipedia.org]
Actually, he didn't get it named after him. Some country (Hungary, I think) had a contest to name a bridge. Colbert urged viewers to spam the contest with his name, and he won. However, they said they would only use his name if:
1) he could demonstrate he was fluent in Hungarian, and
2) he was dead.
Re:Fuck Colbert, tell him to get his own Station (Score:3, Informative)
Colbert was disqualified because he's not dead.
The bridge is called Megyeri Bridge.
Re:NASA should be grateful. (Score:1, Informative)
They're lucky the winner was Colbert.
Imagine what it could have been named if the 'b-tards' over at 4-chan got involved.
The b-tards DID get involved. Why do you think the second most common write-in was "Xenu"?
NASA who? (Score:2, Informative)
Before Colbert, I forgot NASA still existed.
Your history is just wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
The civil war was about slavery and Lincoln's election, as an abolitionist Republican, arguably precipitated it even before he was sworn in, just like Obama's reputation as a liberal took the market for a nosedive.
For proof:
a) the confederate constitution is a copy of the us constitution, but, with a clause adding that slavery is a natural right and the government cannot ban slavery.
b) the most contentious issue between north and the south, was, in fact slavery. It existed with the infamous compromise in the original constitutional convention, with a series of incidents running all along the 1800's leading up to the civil war - bleeding kansas, dredd scott, the compromises.
c) abolition was the animating social issues of the day.
It's true that there were other issues. The south, being agrarian, favored free trade so they could buy cheaper British manufactured goods. The north was protectionist, and the south saw this as a sort of blackmail. As it is, the north became an economic powerhouse and won the war BECAUSE of its protectionism. This debate continues to this day. Right now the southern and agrarian ideas of free trade carry the day but the thing is, any study of history shows that free trade and a lack of workers rights makes you lose wars. Just ask the south.
But really, the civil war was about slavery.
Re:Fuck Colbert, tell him to get his own Station (Score:2, Informative)
In comparison, nobody outside America knows who this Colbert guy is
That smacks of truthiness. I can't speak for continental Europe, but I know for a fact that the Colbert Report is broadcast in the UK and has a decent following.
Re:Why give it away? Should have sold sponsorship! (Score:5, Informative)
Might have something to do with that being against the law.
Not that it would have done any good either way, as any funds raised that way go into a general fund and are doled back out by Congress. (Which is a feature, not a bug. It's designed to prevent federal agencies from circumventing the budget or selling off federal resources for personal or agency gain.)
Re:Fuck Colbert, tell him to get his own Station (Score:2, Informative)
I think you are talking about that bridge in Hungary... I dont think NASA has any policy against naming things after living people.
NASA named a crater on the moon after Buzz Aldrin after all and last I checked he's still alive.
Re:Except that it kills Republican votes. (Score:3, Informative)
Rotational spin is great, but so is the fact that it has no land to the east of it, which means we have fewer risks of dropping disposable/reusable rocket bits on populated areas (since we launch in an eastward direction, normally).
Re:Fun has been had, now move along.. (Score:3, Informative)
Wow. Talk about -whoosh-.
He's doing this stuff to make a point. His entire character on the show exists facetiously to prove a point. I'm not going to explain it to you because you should be smart enough to figure it out for yourself. If you're not, then you don't deserve to understand the knowledge he's trying to impart. (See, this is kind of his point...I'm not going to tell you, you have to think for yourself.)
Re:Fuck Colbert, tell him to get his own Station (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the Hungarian ambassador came on his show, and gave him a plaque, or something, certifying that he had won the contest, and then specified that for them to actually name the bridge after him, Colbert had to speak Hungarian. Colbert demonstrated his fluency by knowing the "hid" was Hungarian for "bridge." The ambassador accepted that as meeting the first requirement, then told him that the second requirement was that he be dead, at which point Colbert acceded, and agreed to let them name the bridge after some Hungarian national hero.
Re:South lost do to lack of early coordination on (Score:3, Informative)
An intriguing idea. But wrong. In the USA, we had a very tiny "long service professional" army before WW2. We didn't go the Officer Corps with conscript troops technique so common in Europe at the time.
And the South did NOT start the war with more soldiers. More officers, perhaps, but not more infantrymen.
The USA didn't maintain large Federal arsenals. Which is one reason that in First Manassas, some Confederate soldiers went into battle without weapons (and with instructions to pick up a rifle from the guy in front of them when he was killed). Or with flintlocks, or smoothbore percussion muskets (both obsolete for decades, but common as hunting weapons). Or even with shotguns.
Umm, no. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia fought the Army of the Potomac for years. But most of the fighting was actually going on further west, between Grant/Sherman and various Southern generals. Keep in mind that the "Glorious Fourth of July" was as much about the surrender of Vicksburg to Grant as it was about the retreat of Lee from Gettysburg.
If Lee had had every soldier in Confederate service under his command, he'd have sat outside the siege lines at Washington while Grant and Sherman destroyed the Confederacy behind him. Contrary to popular rumour, the war wasn't just between the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia. It wasn't even mostly about them - those two Armies fought over an area that wouldn't make three good counties in west Texas, while the rest of the war went on elsewhere.
Note also that Lee wasn't the military wizard he's usually portrayed as being (and I'm a Southerner saying this). If you want the real military wizard, look carefully at General Jackson, who, unfortunately, was killed early in the fighting. Or General Forrest, perhaps, who was an unmitigated scoundrel, but a hell of a cavalry officer.