Is he trying to stop time in the picture?

/they say nothing is obscure on Fark, let's put that to the test

A Nobel Prize winning physicist? For the Department of Energy? That'll never work.

What's the lawyer for the National Show Horse Registry doing?

Waiting for the "but he's got no experience in government" argument as the knee jerk opposition to the choice...

I've heard of this guy, I think. Is he from Chatanooga?

Chu Chu

Heh. I expected this to be about the Obama family choosing some strange breed of dog I've never heard of.

another intellectual elitist who thinks he knows more about science than you and me.

oldebayer: I've heard of this guy, I think. Is he from Chatanooga?

Yes, yes!

Isotope: Chu Chu

Heh. I expected this to be about the Obama family choosing some strange breed of dog I've never heard of.

Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

Chu got eet, mang!

FTFA: President-elect Barack Obama is likely to name Steven Chu, a physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his energy secretary, three Democratic officials close to the transition said.

Sheesh, another government insider. Where's the change?

A scientist in a position intimately involved with science?

Now that's change intelligent people can believe in.

oldebayer: I've heard of this guy, I think. Is he from Chatanooga?

No idea, but he went to Cal for grad school, worked at Bell labs, was a professor at Stanford, and then was hired to run Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and has been driving the lab towards the development of renewable energy sources. Oh, and somewhere along the way picked up some Stockholm bling.

No idea why Obama thinks he's qualified.

hubiestubert: Waiting for the "but he's got no experience in government" argument as the knee jerk opposition to the choice...

Wait no longer! FTFA: "But some Democrats have privately expressed concern that Chu has no political experience as he takes on the monumental task of passing a landmark energy reform bill early next year."

You know how hard Obama brought down Blago? From pushing through the legislation that proved to be his undoing, right down to tipping off FBI on how to catch him? And he's not even President yet? Yet he was lampooned in the primaries for his Bambi-like naivete.

biatches don't know what coming. Obama will manhandle those oil execs so badly there won't be water hot enough to wash off the shame they'll feel. Chu will be free to focus on formulating sound policy.

burndtdan: another intellectual elitist who thinks he knows more about science than you and me.

Everything I need to know about science I've learned from the Bible.

/Electricity is the harnessing of God's smiting.

cot: oldebayer: I've heard of this guy, I think. Is he from Chatanooga?

No idea, but he went to Cal for grad school, worked at Bell labs, was a professor at Stanford, and then was hired to run Lawrence Berkeley Labs, and has been driving the lab towards the development of renewable energy sources. Oh, and somewhere along the way picked up some Stockholm bling.

No idea why Obama thinks he's qualified.

But does he believe in 'intelligent design'?

oldebayer: I've heard of this guy, I think. Is he from Chatanooga?

HA! That was farking awesome.

hubiestubert: Waiting for the "but he's got no experience in government" argument as the knee jerk opposition to the choice...

Unfortunately I think this is coming. This guy's technical knowledge is unimpeachable though.

I haven't heard much about how well he has done as director of LBL though. I assume he has done at least reasonably well or he wouldn't get the nomination. It seems like a reasonable test of how well he handles a position that undoubtedly requires some political maneuvering.

Steve Chu was my instructor for two terms of graduate quantum mechanics at Stanford. He was absolutely the worst teacher I have ever had for any class of any kind in my entire life.

He's a good pick for Secretary of Energy, though. :)

Etchy333: Is he trying to stop time in the picture?

/they say nothing is obscure on Fark, let's put that to the test

I loved "My Secret Identity" when I was growing up. I only learned a couple of years ago that that was Jerry O'Connell.

cot: No idea why Obama thinks he's qualified.

Seriously...jesus, what's with this guy? It's...it's almost like he's not going to let his chief political adviser run the entire executive branch.

/can he do that?

Of all the people to elect, they chose this pink rodent?



Damn it...

/hot

Dude, how is this guy going to get anything done? He has zero experience in Washington? This is a terrible pick. I mean, new energy legislation is imperative and Obama picks this guy? Way to surround inexperience with more inexperience.

charity: Etchy333: Is he trying to stop time in the picture?

/they say nothing is obscure on Fark, let's put that to the test

I loved "My Secret Identity" when I was growing up. I only learned a couple of years ago that that was Jerry O'Connell.

Oh shiat. I just realized it wasn't My Secret Identity. It was that other show about the girl who was half-alien and she talked to her Dad through a geometric, prismy cube-thing. I think it was called "Out Of This World."

MacEnvy: Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

"Simpsons" and "relatively obscure" do not compute.

I was so about to be disappointed without the Xenogears pictures, but TheBlackrose came through.

IlGreven: MacEnvy: Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

"Simpsons" and "relatively obscure" do not compute.

Obscure relative to the subject matter is what he meant, I assume. Nothing in the Simpsons is really obscure, but as far as the Simpsons go there are some things which are more obscure than others. I don't know that this is one of them, but meh.

bulldg4life: Dude, how is this guy going to get anything done? He has zero experience in Washington? This is a terrible pick. I mean, new energy legislation is imperative and Obama picks this guy? Way to surround inexperience with more inexperience.

Scientists have plenty of experience with bureaucracy.

IlGreven: MacEnvy: Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

"Simpsons" and "relatively obscure" do not compute.

give him a break. that was a perfectly cromulent post.

You know what's going to be weird. Going from having an entire cabinet on loan from the oil industry to having none or almost none in there. WTF did Condi ever accomplish Rumsfeld just hung around long enough to make a good profit off of Gilead and Bird Flu. I guess the better connection amongst this cabinet's members are the ones who learned their crimes from the best (Paulson worked for the guy who ran Nixon's watergate spy ring, Cheney/Rumsfeld/etc were from Reagan, Dept of Justice came from a phony religious law school that supported repbulicans, etc)

FTA: President-elect Barack Obama is likely to name Steven Chu, a physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, as his energy secretary.




"Ah, but did they go to high school together? If they didn't go to high school together, then how can Barack HUSSEIN Obama trust him? This is just more of that elitist corrupt Chicago politics that Obama's going to bring to the White House again unless you all vote for me for president in 2012."

quizzical: bulldg4life: Dude, how is this guy going to get anything done? He has zero experience in Washington? This is a terrible pick. I mean, new energy legislation is imperative and Obama picks this guy? Way to surround inexperience with more inexperience.

Scientists have plenty of experience with bureaucracy.

The guy isn't just a random scientist, he RAN a large government lab, which is part of... the Department of Energy.

cot: The guy isn't just a random scientist, he RAN a large government lab, which is part of... the Department of Energy.

Yeah, but what if he gets lost driving around Dupont Circle? Huh? Huh?

He has NO experience. That's ridiculous.

Change we can believe in? What kinda change is appointing completely new people...they're going to spend the first 3 years just getting up to speed.

These jobs aren't for on the job training. Christ.

What no Amory Lovins??!!

Wait, wait, wait, wait... a PHYSICIST for energy secretary? Are you kidding me?

Wow. I must say, I really really like that. Like... a LOT. And this:

But some Democrats have privately expressed concern that Chu has no political experience as he takes on the monumental task of passing a landmark energy reform bill early next year.

Is complete bullshiat. A cabinet member will have staff/assistants to help them navigate the political/legal shiat. I think those "some Democrats" are shiatting their pants as they watch their power get gobbled up by the new guy.

I supported McCain all through the election, I voted Republican on Nov. 4th - but I said two things after Obama won: 1. I'd reserve judgement on his presidency until after the inauguration and 2. I'd evaluate the job he's doing in a FAIR manner.

If he actually taps this guy for energy secretary though I'll break number 1 a teency little bit in Obama's favor. I'll start his tally at +1 right off the bat on inauguration day. That's some good shiat.

another intellectual who thinks they can plan an economy better than the market.

Tsubabababa!

TheBlackrose: Of all the people to elect, they chose this pink rodent?

Damn it...

/hot

G'dammit, I hated that thing. Only advantage was the totally broken ability to cast heal spells on gears.

Fei / Bart / Elly or Fei / Billy / Citan FTW.

I don't know about Lawrence Berkley personally, but Los Alamos is severely underfunded so I'm going to presume Chu is prepared both with experience in government bureaucracy, and with politics local to a lab or department.

from article in today's Guardian

its scientists, like scientists throughout the government, told not to discuss climate science or the impacts of climate change. Instead of appointing an energy secretary who valued the department's role within the federal government and wanted to use it for good, Bush selected former Michigan senator Spencer Abraham, a federalist society member who, just two years earlier, had cosponsored legislation - along with John Kyl of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas - to abolish the DOE altogether, transferring some of its functions to other agencies and eliminating others entirely.

Under Abraham's leadership, the DOE withheld from environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defence Council many thousands of pages of documents pertaining to the White House's controversial energy task force, headed by vice-president Dick Cheney.

In Bush's second term, Abraham gave way to the current secretary, Samuel Bodman, who'd served the administration in both the commerce and treasury departments, but who nonetheless constituted an improvement over his predecessor. That didn't mean the bad times were over, though. Just over two months ago, the president nominated a Cheney aide named F Chase Hutto to serve as assistant secretary of energy for international affairs and domestic policy.

Hutto had worked for years under the cover of Cheney's expansive cloak to gut clean air and water regulations on behalf of the administration's friends in industry. Though unconfirmed, he's raised the ire of environmental activists and green-friendly politicians everywhere. In a letter to the president dated September 15, 2008, senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Robert Menendez of New Jersey objected to Hutto on the grounds that he'd "acted as a voice for oil industry representatives (including those from the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil) during internal White House deliberations in arguing against action following the Massachusetts v EPA decision." In that case, the US supreme court held that the EPA was obligated to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants.

I would normally highlight the pertinent parts, but the whole thing is pretty damning

holiday_inn_in_cambodia: IlGreven: MacEnvy: Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

"Simpsons" and "relatively obscure" do not compute.

give him a break. that was a perfectly cromulent post.

Chu: This perpetual motion device will solve all our energy problems...

Obama: In this country we obey the laws... OF THERMODYNAMICS!

IlGreven: MacEnvy: Ah, a relatively obscure Simpsons reference. Good form.

"Simpsons" and "relatively obscure" do not compute.

You should look up the definition of "relatively". What I meant was that it was obscure relative to most Simpsons references we see around these parts.

There are only so many times you can use the phrase "sacrilicious".

bulldg4life: cot: The guy isn't just a random scientist, he RAN a large government lab, which is part of... the Department of Energy.

Yeah, but what if he gets lost driving around Dupont Circle? Huh? Huh?

He has NO experience. That's ridiculous.

Change we can believe in? What kinda change is appointing completely new people...they're going to spend the first 3 years just getting up to speed.

These jobs aren't for on the job training. Christ.

Obama's just either picking people with no experience and people with experience. Obviously the only way he's going to prove that he's a real man of CHANGE is to pick people from the OTHER category. You know, the one that only exists in Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

bulldg4life: cot: The guy isn't just a random scientist, he RAN a large government lab, which is part of... the Department of Energy.

Yeah, but what if he gets lost driving around Dupont Circle? Huh? Huh?

He has NO experience. That's ridiculous.

Change we can believe in? What kinda change is appointing completely new people...they're going to spend the first 3 years just getting up to speed.

These jobs aren't for on the job training. Christ.

lol, ok, ok, I bit...

Biological Ali:
Chu: This perpetual motion device will solve all our energy problems...

Obama: In this country we obey the laws... OF THERMODYNAMICS!


yeah and his perpetual motion machine is just a JOKE! it keeps going faster and faster!

destitute college kid: Obama's just either picking people with no experience and people with experience. Obviously the only way he's going to prove that he's a real man of CHANGE is to pick people from the OTHER category. You know, the one that only exists in Godel's Incompleteness Theorem.

Schrodinger would not be proud.
.
.
.
.
.
Well, maybe he would be proud. I'm not sure. We probably wouldn't know unless we asked him.

cot: lol, ok, ok, I bit...

This isn't a laughing matter, fool.

bulldg4life: cot: The guy isn't just a random scientist, he RAN a large government lab, which is part of... the Department of Energy.

Yeah, but what if he gets lost driving around Dupont Circle? Huh? Huh?

He has NO experience. That's ridiculous.

Change we can believe in? What kinda change is appointing completely new people...they're going to spend the first 3 years just getting up to speed.

These jobs aren't for on the job training. Christ.

What are you doing posting on the internet again? You have absolutely no experience! This is an outrage! When was the last time you wrote a book, or even had an original thought?

The internet is serious business and isn't for on the job training. Christ.

bulldg4life: We probably wouldn't know unless we asked him.

But that would collapse the waveform, man!

bulldg4life:

This isn't a laughing matter, fool.

Reposting just for your benefit
Bush selected former Michigan senator Spencer Abraham, a federalist society member who, just two years earlier, had cosponsored legislation - along with John Kyl of Arizona and Sam Brownback of Kansas - to abolish the DOE altogether, transferring some of its functions to other agencies and eliminating others entirely.


Just over two months ago, the president nominated a Cheney aide named F Chase Hutto to serve as assistant secretary of energy for international affairs and domestic policy.

In a letter to the president dated September 15, 2008, senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Robert Menendez of New Jersey objected to Hutto on the grounds that he'd "acted as a voice for oil industry representatives (including those from the American Petroleum Institute and ExxonMobil) during internal White House deliberations in arguing against action following the Massachusetts v EPA decision." In that case, the US supreme court held that the EPA was obligated to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants.

Don't forget the censoring of scientists on the topic of climate change too, or the rewriting of scientific reports by political aides on the same subject.

You're correct. This appointment isn't a joke, unlike the past 8 farking years were.

Biological Ali: But that would collapse the waveform, man!

HEY! I bet Chu would know how to normalize that shiat.

TwistedFark: What are you doing posting on the internet again? You have absolutely no experience! This is an outrage! When was the last time you wrote a book, or even had an original thought?

I definitely had an original thought a few minutes ago.

Then I farted.

Thought gone. I was sad.