Re: Space funding (was Re: Hillary needs to quit)

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 21:38:28 -0400, "Dano" <janeanddano@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>>> John Schilling <schillin@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>>>>> And you'd be right. Obama discussed delaying the Constellation
>>>>> project for five years, not shutting down NASA. *

>>>> What did he say NASA was going to be doing during those five years
>>>> instead of Constellation?

>>> (groups trimmed, subject refocused)

><more trimming...back to the over-riding issue>

>"When more than 1 million students a year drop out of high school, it's
more 
>than a problem, it's a catastrophe." - Colin Powell, founding chairman of

>America's Promise Alliance, which issued a re****t last Tuesday that says
17 
>of the 50 largest cities have high school graduation rates below 50
percent. 
>(from the Boston Globe, April 5th - Quotes of Note)

>We can't afford to educate the next generation of NASA employees.  We
better 
>figure out how to do that first.  It's about spending priorities. 


A: We certainly can afford to educate the next generation of NASA 
employees, and we are doing so.  They'll come from the ten to twenty
million high school students who *don't* drop out of school each year.

B: The bit about a million high school students dropping out of school
every year, and especially the bit with the 50% percent dropout rates
in major urban areas, may be bogus - the authors of the study seem to
have neglected to distinguish between "dropped out of school", and,
"enrolled in a different school".  Which, given the mobility of urban
populations, is a big oopsie.

C: Anybody who ever thinks, "we better figure out how to do X first"
is a good idea, for *any* value of X, may not have dropped out of high
school but probably didn't pay too much attention in their college
Econ 101 course.  It's about dimini****ng marginal return.


More generally, anyone who intrudes on a discussion of Subject Y with,
"but X is much more im****tant than Y; how dare you bother with that
piddly unim****tant Y stuff when we've got X to deal with!", needs to
get over themselves.   


-- 
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