Oh, great, now I have a mental image that is essentially a redneck version of a Monty Python sketch. I'm picturing Joe Bob running into Billy Ray after running past a wheeled Budweiser sign.

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Turning left for three hours? Yeah, there are better ways to use brain cells.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

On the History tonight there was a show called Cities of the Underworld, I have seen a bunch these most of the they go under a city to show ruins or secret catocombs or the like under various cities. But tonight they did Boston and Philiadelphia. The underlying theme of the show was the masons and all that most of the founding fathers were masons one problem so weren't alot of the british officers.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
Contact Carl Sagan

like i said before, there are layers, and if you don't get it, you don't get it.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

Layers? Of driving in circles?? There isn't even one layer.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Do they even still show Digging for the Truth?

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

Yes but they fired Josh and have some other guy doing it. I haven't seen any of the new ones yet so I don't know how good they are.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

After they fired Josh, whenever I asked if I could watch the show, she asked me if I had anything better to do. I think she was sweet on him.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

that's the top layer.. get "into" it, and there are lots of things involved- for the people involved, the "3 hours of driving in circles" is just the last part of a cycle that involved months of preparation and the hard work of dozens of people.
layers upon layers.
once they are done with the "driving in circles" part- and even while they are "driving in circles"- they are getting ready to drive in circles at another track the next weekend, and even preparing for the "driving in circles" they will be doing a few months down the road.
saying stock car racing (and i can hardly bring myself to call it that any more) is just driving in circles is like saying that a shuttle launch is just 7 people strapped in an airplane that's strapped to a couple of rockets.. the beginning of a race, just like the launch of a shuttle, is the first part of the last stage of a very complex process involving a lot of really smart people and sophisticated machines.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

...none of which is what the fans watch and spend money on and cheer for.

PLEASE tell me you did not write that with a straight face. You are actually comparing the Space Shuttle to a car race??

ADDED: That's such a wild theory it belongs in the ATM section.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
Illuminati's Razor-The most complicatedly evil answer is usually the most correct answer. - Fazor
"Every book is a children's book if the kid can read." - Mitch Hedberg
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

And which sounds even more mind-numbingly boring than 200 mph billboards, as if that's possible.

The majority of what goes on in the space program really isn't that interesting. It's important, but it'd be about as educational and fun to see as watching your taxes being done, or a painter do their entire painting from beginning to end. Hours and hours of debugging software, cleaning mirrors, checking voltages, ultrasound-checking metal for microscopic faults--sounds like engaging TV. Still better than watching trashy people metaphorically stab each other in the back on a tropical island though.

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If we don't play god, who will?-James Watson
I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.-Albert Einstein
The large print giveth and the small print taketh away.-Tom Waits

yup.. i made that comparison.
i don't have solid numbers to back it up, but i'd bet it costs as much to put on a NASCAR Sprint Cup race as it costs to launch the space shuttle.
figure how much the 43 teams that enter cars each week spend in preparation. then add in how much NASCAR and the track owners spend on promoting and getting everything ready. also add in how much the network covering it has tied up in setting up for it, and it becomes a not to very cheap Endeavor (pun kind of intended).. and they do it 35 times a year.
also, think about where the heart of NASCAR country is and overlay that with where the heart of NASA country is, and i'd bet there is a good chance that a lot of people that work for a NASCAR race team has a relative that works for NASA.
i didn't say a $150,000 race car is the same thing as a $1.5 billion (or whatever they cost) shuttle.. i said the preparation for a race is similar to the preparation for a shuttle launch.
if you don't like NASCAR, then slip in the words "Formula 1" and my point still stands- except for the "overlapping of countries" part.

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

And the driving in circles

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An emperor without enemies, a king without a kingdom, supported in life by the willing tribute of a free people.

Remember our standard 'cost' reply. That money isn't simply burned up in 42 barreled caburators. It's spent and helps the economy.

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You're a coward and a liar and a thOOF - Bart Sibrel

Ditto.

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

As a GE stockholder, I'm sorely tempted to attend the shareholders meeting and introduce a resolution to require the History channel to show actual History, and the Sci-Fi channel to show actual Sci-Fi. I'll bet it would pass.

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Do try not to take me too seriously.

<Mob chanting>
Do it! Do it! Do it!
<Mob chanting>

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Rovers forever! - ToSeek
"The only way to explore the universe is to go and look." - Brian Cox
Well, the best way to find out is to go there and, find out. - Raven's Cry
'Evolution and science are one thing, but you don’t mess with Yoko Ono. Everybody knows that. ' - 386sx

15-20 years ago when THC, TLC, A&E and Discovery were first being broadcast (you know, back when they were good), people were predicting that these niche channels would be the end of public broadcasting. Seems hilarious now.