Hindsight being 20/20, one wonders if local residents in Lake Isabella are kicking themselves for their lack of vision and planning for the future.

20-25 years ago, a bond measure to finish the reconstruction of Hwy 178, thereby alleviating these exact problems was voted down by the citizens of the Kern River Valley as "not affordable." If it had passed back then (prior to today's budgetary constraints), what would exist now would be an improved and safer four-lane highway via a bypass north of its current location through the canyon, thereby reducing one-way commute times by 20-30 minutes.

The myopic, self-centered attitude of those few who desperately cling to a 19th Century country way of thinking has given new meaning to the saying, "Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it."

Go to the 15:51 min mark in this story covered by a real reporter with good street credibility:

www . youtube .com/watch?v=ZSXeQY7KhuI

If there's any doubt as to what the new real space policy is about, one can easily find it here:

www . thespacereview . com/article/1660/1

Go to the 15:52 mark in this report by a real reporter with street creds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSXeQY7KhuI

The only thing Gen. Bolden is guilty of is making the mistake of leaving out the word "outreach" in a sentence, in the middle of a conversational segment that was about outreach.

This should have been obvious to any real reporter the first time they read the interview, which was later confirmed by a NASA spokesman. It takes a lot of practice to speak in public while editing every sentence for how it would sound as a stand-alone sound bite. If you don't think so, try it sometime for yourself.

Of course, some people don't think the U.S. should be doing outreach of any kind to Muslim countries, but that's their problem, not NASA's.