That’s how we deal with things.

This particular thread started with Tom specifically calling ER on the carpet. Tom brought the ruckus to Flame. We got to put in our 2cents. The boards worked perfectly.

Fun isn’t it…..

ER has stated his objective. Therefore the ball is our court…how we deal with it is our responsibility.

We seem all seem to be able to work things out…in the end.

Tom’s political commentary was germane to the thread and added substance to it in my opinion.

You on the other hand made a comment which I’ve admitted to misunderstanding. I screwed up.

Are you ever going to let me off the hook?

When I first came to the Zone…my thoughts were that TB, ER and Art were the ones I had to figure out how to get along with the most.
No one can get past you three without a secret password.

In other words…

This too shall pass.

I don’t think Tom was critical of the unexpected success of the MERs. I look at it as an opportunity to get the equivalent of 48 rover missions (3 months * 8 years * 2 rovers) for just the cost of operating the ground support infrastructure here. That’s 46 spacecraft and boosters they didn’t have to build and launch. Sounds like one of the more epic bargains of the space age.

Here on Earth is where NASA is unquestionably a political beast. A horse designed by dozens of congressional committees over the decades. With the DNA of a cash cow mixed in to sweeten the deal for industry and congressional home districts.

I think we’re all in agreement on that.

In the good sense: I’m paying attention.

I see it as a new variation on an old theme: The distinction between speech/expression on the one hand, and behavior on the other.

Long ago, when the Zone was new, we had to work out how sometimes words amount to behavior in an online world. We’re constructing this world out of nothing more than words, and so words have to have a certain mass and gravity here.

I don’t think ER would complain that he’s not given full scope to express all that’s in his head. It was when the words formed the configurations “stalker” and “harrassment” that they became behavior.

Flame is not a good venue to talk seriously about policy. For one thing it’s public, where Community is private. And of course it’s Flame, and we’re technically offtopic when we’re not fighting.

I’ll take the topic seriously until you’re satisfied. Let’s shift it to Community if you want to keep going.

I think you were a little hard on ER.