To speak to the issue of why we mourn the loss of the space shuttle astronauts more so than others, I find myself agreeing in part with the piece Mike Royko wrote back after the Challenger disaster.
The reason being (and this dates from back in the Sixties when all astronauts were male) is that who better understands, emotionally, what the widow is going through than the wife of another astronaut? The wives found this more reassuring than having some stiff military officer show up at their door to tell them that there was a problem.
I wasn’t blaming anyone in my post here, but Nixon can only be blamed for the origins. He’s been out of office since August 1974; that was 28.5 years ago.
But if I have to blame someone or something, my lead candidate is still our money-driven political system, which gave the contractors the political clout to keep the prototypes flying for decades, heading off any potential replacements, which they wanted to do because repairing the shuttles after each mission was such an incredible gravy train.
BTW, Tuckerfan the petition in your sig is some crackpot thing about requiring local cable companies to carry the NASA channel. Thought I’d let you know, so you could fix the link.
Yeah, God forbid the airwaves are forced to supply folks with information and possibly educate them. I mean, if the NASA channel was commonly available, we wouldn’t be able to poke fun at CNN for claiming that Columbia was travelling at 18 times the speed of light. Better delete that link. Not.
The funny thing, Tuckerfan, is that I agree that the airwaves ought to be required to serve the public interest, in a clearer sense than working overtime to entertain all the 15-24 year olds in the world. But getting that specific, that far down the priority list, is getting so far into government-mandate territory that it makes me run for cover.
Not to mention, cable TV systems aren’t “the airwaves”, and the same requirements don’t apply to them.
The cable systems are required to carry C-Span, so it’s not like there isn’t a precedent for it. Besides, while the “less government is better” philosophy has merit to it, the simple fact is that we’re not going to see a significant reduction in the size of the US government until someone manages to pull off a successful revolution (which would be a bad thing). Spaceflight, IMHO, is too important a matter to abandon until private industry decides to pick up the ball. Whomever controls the “High Frontier” controls the future.
What if:
I have a farm and I don’t want no Revenuers on my property.
I stop them there G-Men from trespassin’ on my land 'cause I don’t believe in flying saucers.
Is a search warrant justified? For what crime?
What if:
I have a farm and Feds enter from a neighbors farm in a gereral search for debris and they find my marywanna plants.
Is it admissible in court?
What if both of the above happened?
AcidKid, if you tried stop the Federales from setting foot on your property, you’d be arrested for interfering with a Federal investigation. As for if they found your crop, well, that all depends. If you were helpful and kind to the officers, they might simply take your plants, ignore them, or arrest you. If you try to stop them from coming on your property, and they find the plants, you can bet they’ll add possession of a controlled substance to your charges (and they’ll no doubt be real inclined to find anything and everything they can to see that you stay in jail for a long time).
Tuckerfan, you’re wrong. At least partly. The Feds can’t come onto the property without a search warrant or permission. And they can’t get a warrant without specific evidence (an eyewitness, a radar track, or something) that there is wreckage on the property.
They have no right to search EVERYBODY’s property that happens to lie along the debris trail.
No, that’s not true, Boyo Jim.
Any Feds coming on the land initially would not be taking an action implicated by the Fourth Amendment, because they would not be engaging in criminal investigation.
In the same way, police may enter a private home or apartment without consent or a warrant if they suspect a medical emergency, for example, or a gas leak.
- Rick
The feds, police, and what have you don’t need a search warrant, a space shuttle, or anything else to inspect your fields. SCOTUS has said you don’t have a legitimate expectation of privacy in an open field, even one with fences and “no tresspassing” signs. The Fourth Amendment only protects the area immediately around and associated with your home. Your fields are fair game for any law enforcement type who wants to come take a look at them.