Steinn offers an excellent suggestion, after noticing that CNN is soliciting debate questions from random people on the Internet:
Keith over at NASAwatch suggested his reader swamp it with NASA policy questions to try to get one into the actual debate. Scienceblog readers could do the same - send in a lot of good, coherent, concise question on science policy and closely related issues. Lots of questions.
Just do it. Don't talk about it, don't dither.
Pick a question that you think is important and interesting, on science, for this debate, and send it in.
They can still ignore the science questions, but maybe someone will sit up and take notice, and maybe even ask a question or two.
This may very well be futile-- they can still sift through the questions and pick out inane ones about clothes or haircuts-- but if enough smart people send smart questions, we might be able to make them have to work to be stupid. And if it's enough work to be stupid, something halfway intelligent might make it into the debate just by accident.
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NASA? The folks who replaced Saturn boosters with a PR obscenity boasting 1/3 the net payload at almost 4X the overall cost/gram boosted?
The Space Scuttle in theory has 30 tonnes net payload (closer to 20 tonnes real world with "safety" considerations). A Saturn MLV-V-3 booster ringed with eight Space Scuttle SSBs would boost 700 tonnes. The entire Space Scuttle program summed to date could be lofted by one Saturn launch. It would be remarkably cheap and effective in comparison, and who wants that?
It's *always* easier to be stupid than smart.
I think that this is a great idea. I'm on it.
This didn't work for ED in '08, and issue based campaign to make education a priority in the 2008 presidential election. There were more education questions askedfor the first round of CNN * YouTube debates than on any other category... CNN even stated as much on a number of news casts.
Unfortunately, when the debates aired, CNN focused the questions they asked the candidates on what CNN perceived to be the most important issues in the campaign.
i did that. i posted a question about NASA funding on barack obama's
website asking that he address the issue in the debate , and put the same question to the panel on msnbc's website. didn't hear boo about it. (there were probably not many NASA questions though)....the media guys determined the questions, so their priorities mattered most. media coverage is having a big effect on the elections and will continue to have a big effect throughout, unfortunately.
and a lot of the voters are also pissed off at the polling people and so the voting is all over the place. i already have heartburn!