"Astronomers and historians of science alike say they cannot remember any other time in modern scientific history when the world's most powerful telescope was simply abandoned, without a better one ready to replace it. 'Usually other instruments are there and taking over,' says Owen Gingerich, emeritus historian of science at Harvard University who specializes in astronomy. 'You don't have this interim gap where you throw away an instrument that is producing heavily in anticipation of something else.'"
The Bush administration is deliberately trashing the single-most illuminating scientific instrument in the history of our species. Some insiders suspect this is to help fund a militarized presence in space, which is what W.'s Moon-Mars initiative is essentially all about.
But there might be another factor involved: Bush is a Christian Fundamentalist who, apparently, believes the universe is 10,000 years old. The Hubble, which routinely photographs phenomena billions of years old, just might be too unsettling for him -- and I think it's a given that Ashcroft assumes the Hubble is the work of the Satan himself. Speaking of whom . . .
Church rules chess is not the work of the devil
"Archbishop Wikenti from Yekaterinburg told the Itar-Tass news agency: 'Chess is a quiet, intelligent game that encourages people to think. It's not a sin.'"
Archbishop Wikenti obviously hasn't heard me play chess. I'm prone to all sorts of sinful epithets and muttered curses. Not to mention incessant trash-talking.
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