Yesterday NBC news tweeted about some remarkable space exploration news: NASA releases sharpest images of Pluto ever taken; captured via spacecraft’s flyby in 2015. Shortly after the NBC report Greta Van Susteren of Fox News tweeted the following:
Wasted salaries and tax dollars? NASA didn’t wait until NOW, it took until NOW! Pluto at its closest to Earth is 2.66 billion miles away and at the farthest 4.67 billion miles. It took eleven years for the New Horizons probe just to reach Pluto. And at that distance -eight hours for a single communication session- it is a slow and complicated process to transmit data.
In fairness it should probably be noted Greta Van Susteren isn’t a Fox news science reporter (and speaking of salaries Van Susteren is paid 1.3 million per year). But most people, even those not science-oriented, do know space is big; some even know it is very, very big; and anyone could take the time to Google it- like I did.
Van Susteren’s info-free tweet illustrates that Fox News tracks in a shallow orbit, some odd little planet made of gases — perhaps unstable. As Political Animal blogger Nancy La Tourneau points out [Van Susteren]has adopted a frame of reference about government programs and then jumps on any bandwagon that promotes it without checking her own ignorance on the topic.
Maybe Fox News should call for a Congressional probe into why Pluto is named after a Disney character.Very puzzling isn’t it ?
Speaking of the Google, I got a big kick out of Van Susteren’s wikipedia page, from which I learned:
1) that her father was a campaign strategist for close family friend, Senator Joseph McCarthy.
2) Her husband is a self-identified ‘ambulance chaser’ known as “Bhopal Coale for his solicitation of clients among victims of the Bhopal disaster.”
3) Said husband was also an advisor(!) to Sarah Palin.
4) The couple are members of the Church of Scientology.
Small wonder she ended up spreading cluelessness on Fox News.
That Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Van_Susteren
Father’s name: Urban Van Susteren
Husband’s name: John P. Coale
Just another example of the lie-bral press piling on.
And just what’s wrong with Joe McCarthy, or Sarah (SaranWrap) Palin, or Scientology, or even Bhopal!
Anyhoos, as Pres. Trump will say “They can stick their heads up my huge fat ass.”