Word: congression
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...moon as a stepping stone to Mars, seemed good on the surface. Its ambition rivals the Apollo program, and its announcement came on the heels of China’s first manned rocket launch, suggesting a new space race was underway. Constellation also seems to have the support of Congress, which this year proposed increasing funding for the program (at the expense of NASA’s science budget) in order to return to the moon...
...program as a threat, there is hardly enough political will necessary to fund such an ambitious proposal on a rapid timescale. The Orion capsules that will replace the space shuttle have already been delayed to 2015. It’s only a matter of time before waning interest spurs Congress to push the timeline back even further. Although President Obama has voiced support for the moon mission as of now, he already proposed delaying Constellation to pay for science education during his campaign...
...government action to help us do what we would really want if we were rational agents. Unfortunately, the qualities that have crippled Washington in recent years - inertia, denial, allergy to complexity, preference for short-term gratification over long-term planning - are our own flaws writ large. Members of Congress are people too; they're likely to embrace change only when it's easy, popular and rewarding. Do we really want them trying to change...
Americans took some lessons from Columbine, though not always the right ones. Colorado tightened restrictions on gun sales at gun shows ... but national legislation died in Congress. An epidemic of profiling swept U.S. high schools, but it was based largely on the erroneous idea that the killers were bullied outcasts. Armed-standoff tactics changed too. SWAT teams are now more likely to rush into a building and take down shooters immediately rather than establishing a perimeter and waiting for more information. That strategy may have saved lives at Virginia Tech, where in 2007, Cho Seung-Hui killed 32. (See pictures...
...irrationality of our drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy. (See pictures of stoner cinema...