Thanks, Lamar, We Were Wondering How To Get Your Attention
Texas Congressimbecile Lamar Smith, who is in fact just as goofy as he looks, represents the Texas Hill Country in congress.
Lamar, who is known as a shade follower because he’s too lazy to get up and work, is head of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee of the United States of America congress. We don’t know how that happened. It appears to be just real bad luck.
After years of being a bump on a log, Lamar has found something a mission, a purpose, a rally flag. Asteroids! They are coming to kill you! Do something, dammit!
Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) today released the following statement after reports of an unforeseen meteor exploding in the sky above Russia early this morning, on the same day that a large asteroid is scheduled to pass relatively close to Earth.
Chairman Smith: “Today’s events are a stark reminder of the need to invest in space science. Asteroid 2012 DA14 passed just 17,000 miles from Earth, less than the distance of a round trip from New York to Sydney. And this morning, a much smaller meteorite hit near the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, damaging buildings and injuring hundreds.
Okay, now I am scared that my heart is skipping more beats than a drummer with hiccups. I’m looking to my congressman for a solution. Get me all scared about something that’s happened once in my lifetime and then save me from something that may never happen again, dammit. Save me!
I dunno about you, but Truman put his asteroid-safety hat on and hid under his blanket.
Which, I am here to tell you, is certainly more helpful than what Chairman Lamar Smith wants to do. He’s all fluffed up and got a pocket of courage and has decided to confront this menace to humanity straight forward. He’s going to hold a hearing on it.
Okay, we’ve got sick people, hungry people, uneducated people, bankers robbing the American people, and more gun shooting than the OK Corral. But, Chairman Smith wants to hold hearing on asteroids.
I know I feel safer.
Thanks to Kathleen for the heads up.
The flight distance from New York to Sydney is just under 10,000 miles. If you go the long way then maybe he’s right but I wonder how he is heading something based on science and distance and he uses such a poor example. I’m surprised he didn’t think that ‘asteroids’ are a painful condition that happens to space travelers.
I believe Wayne LaPierre’s answer to solving the asteroid problem is “More guns”.
1My solution is get busy now and work to elect a Democrat to Smith’s seat next time. I’m embarrassed to say he’s my Congresscritter and I’ve only seen him once in my life. I see the other Congressmen ever so often, but Lamar Smith, not so often.
2You think that Rep. Smith would pay any attention if we filled his office which yes, I have visited.
Truman is clearly brighter than a tinfoil hat. Either way you look at it. Smith? not so much.
3Yet another example of the sterling Congressional Delegation from Texas that was elected by (R)obots.
4Ditto, Ms Patti. My sentiments exactly.
5Borowitz hit it out of the park on Lamar Smith.
6http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/02/house-science-committee-questions-existence-of-meteors.html?mbid=nl_Borowitz%20%2883%29
Wait, he wants to “invest in space science?” I think I’m with him, depending of course on whether he and I agree on what constitutes space science.
7I doubt if poor ole Lamar knows the difference between a asteroid and a hemorrhoid but considering where his head is most of the time, he probably knows what the hemorrhoid looks like.
8The government can’t control the asteroids.
9O.M.G. We are all going to die.
Eventually.
Love Truman’s hat.
10Lynn, true, the government can’t control the asteroids, but they should at least admit that they are real and they can do a bit of harm if they hit in a place where there are real people, like a crowded superbowl would come to mind.
11Why is he even ON the Science, Space, and Technology committee – much less CHAIRING it? Are we being punished? Was it something we said? Or was this the place where he was least likely to hurt anyone?
12Well, let’s be fair about this. It’s a sad fact that most of the members of the science committee are the last people anyone sane would want on it; but the fact is, yes, we *could* get clobbered by an asteroid. Not that the odds are high, but given that it has happened a few times in earth’s history, it’s not impossible either.
More to the point, though, anything that gives the space program a boost is probably not a bad thing. We’re running short of a number of resources on this planet, due in large part to an ecological footprint that’s about five times the size of what we’ve got — kind of the equivalent of starting with a large bank balance, but spending way more than income every month. Sooner or later, we are going to have to look in other places for metals, among other things. And, ultimately, if we are looking at very-long-term-survival, we need to climb off the planet anyway.
And it’s not like it doesn’t benefit us in other ways. The space program in the past has given us huge advances in computing and medicine, among other things.
Yes, we have a huge number of immediate, on-earth problems that all need attention and money, too. But if we wait until we solve them before we go anywhere else, I hate to say it, but I think we’d still be here when the sun goes nova.
So overall, let’s not discourage the man while he’s doing something slightly more sensible than sponsoring Bible Study classes for NASA engineers.
….Of course, regarding the development of the space program, on the other hand: considering the size and age of the universe, it seems pretty likely that there is other life out there somewhere. Now if that other life ever developed intelligence, and if they ever developed space travel, and if they ever stumbled across us, then I figure they probably have guard stations parked out just past the edge of the solar system with the instructions “if those nutjobs ever stick their noses out, nuke ’em; we don’t need them in *our* neighborhood!” I mean, looking at the kind of things we shout out to the rest of the universe with our broadcasting, that’s what I’d do. ;¬P
13If this is what it takes to get Repubs thinking about science, I’m all for it. Too bad that it takes the threat of a giant rock landing on your head to get things moving.
14BTW, this was a big deal. The meteor in Russia exploded over a primary nuclear target of the USA arsenal. If it had actually hit ground, it would be initially difficult to differentiate it from a nuke going off in all the confusion. It could easily have escalated to a knee-jerk response by the Russians.
Oh, and VintageMomma:
People have not been paying enough attention to who is on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. Have a look at this Salon breakdown from last year:
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/08/least_scientific_members_of_the_house_science_committee/
…and now note how many of those names are still there.
http://science.house.gov/about/membership
In other news, Michele Bachmann has somehow, rather inexplicably retained her post on the House Intelligence Committee.
15Billy Bob, Bruce, and Clint to the rescue! I’m pretty sure that movie is where he got the notion that we could do something about asteroids.
On the scientific side, Neil deGrasse Tyson points out that the laws of Physics are optional in the film Armageddon and that he dialed up Deep Impact (in which a Black president inherits a bad situation) instead. If Neil supports Lamar’s notion, it may be worth a 2nd look.
16Considering that Lamar Smith is the author of the vile SOPA Act, it’s a good thing for him to be distracted by asteroids.
17Yeah! We’ll have hearings! That’ll show them asteroids who’s boss! (Now we just have to figure out how to subpoena an asteroid. Delegate that job to an intern …)
It’ll last until they learn that doing anything remotely useful will cost money.
18@Lynne B: I heard a hypothesis some time ago, that posited the idea that other planets generated intelligent life forms, but (assuming they developed like we have) they destroyed their own planets before they could develop the technology to travel to other planets. The closest we can get is to Mars and it won’t support our life forms on its own.
@Don A: I saw Dr. Tyson on some news show yesterday–about the meteorite which his Russia–and he said that it would probably take a nuclear weapon to break up an asteroid headed for us. The amount of money it would take to develop such a weapon is vast and unavailable.
It’s 5 pm somewhere, so I think I just go and fix myself a drink.
19A study a few years ago foun that Smith really live in Maine and sepnds about 6 days a year in San Antonio, his home of record. Not that I want him in SA more often, but isn’t ther a law? Or is it only for Ds?
20I thought republicans were against the space program.
Except for Newtie.
They do realize don’t they, that they then may have to admit the space is more then 10,000 years old right?
21Dang! I was hoping JJ would have something to say about your ‘beloved’ Texas Senator Cruise since NYTimes was so kind to put him under their ‘blue light special’ today.
Ted Cruz Runs Counter to the Senate’s Courtly Ways [ http://nyti.ms/150v8kv ]
Reader Recommended comments are great, too.
22Ooops… the Cruz comment was supposed to go in JJ’s post about James & this was to go here:
Unfortunately, that same science committee also has Georgia’s Rep. Paul Braun, who still calls himself a doctor although all that biology is just “lies from the pits of hell.” You remember him, don’t you?
23Not to change the subject too much, but isn’t Smith a member of that party that rails against big government continuously? I don’t think government gets much bigger than War on Asteroids. I mean, shouldn’t the private sector just sell us some heavy-duty umbrellas or something?
24Others beat me to the punch, but I figure Truman is a whole lot smarter than Lamar and the rest of that committee. Dear Lord! I’m sure that I and the rest of the clientele of the salon rest much easier knowing that Lamar is on the job. I have to tell you, JJ, if you can’t trust a Texas politician, who can you trust?!? (Sure as hell, not my congresslapdog, “Doc” Hastings.)
25I can’t help but wonder if this is Smith’s interpretation of strengthening the defense budget…just a defense focused on space, you know aerial attacks that take a nuke to fix.
I wonder if his ultimate aim isn’t somehow mixed up with the alien invasion type movies, figuring asteroid defense would also work for that and asteroids are less contriversial than UFOs.
26I’ve got to agree with several of you that this is the case of a blind nut finding himself a little less squirrely every now and then. There’s kind of a big ‘un headed this way called Apophis (google it to read my 2008 HuffPo article on it) that could ruin everyone’s whole entire day. Our future is Out There and if it takes a looney tune to get the Luddite GOP in line then, well, the Flying Spaghetti Monster do work in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.
27@Sam: if you can figure out the reason Michele Bachmann is on the Intelligence Committee, you may be close to your explanation for Rep Howdy Doody’s presence on the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.
28I like the “shade follower” thing. I’ve always said my idea of exercise is moving my lawn chair into the shade.
29