CBS News wants to sensationalize Protect Your Money!
That very same day, NASA also posted an online notice few people saw - seeking four-star hotel bids for its December awards, CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.[Emphasis in stupid original.] First off, even the byline is written like it's in a tabloid (I think Sharyl Attkisson may actually be Rita Skeeter). Second off, "shrimp wrapped with bacon"? "5-6 desserts"? "Assorted marinated vegetables"? Mon dieu! Where's Henry Waxman and his oversight committee when you need him?
The awards are to honor workers who've contributed to flight safety. But it's not just a low-key dinner for a handful of the best and brightest.
Try five days and four nights at a luxury Florida hotel for 300 honorees and their guest. Fancy receptions and front-row tickets to the most exciting show in the space business, the shuttle launch.
All paid for by your tax dollars. ...
There's a reception to feed 750, with a "carving station with beef and turkey," coconut fried shrimp, spring rolls, shrimp wrapped with bacon, 5-6 desserts, antipasto plates to include assorted meats, cheeses, grilled vegetables and assorted marinated vegetables, breads.
I don't have the energy to really pick apart the stupidity of this story (except to say that the article reads an awful lot more like something you'd see coming out of a small-town affiliate than out of the network itself), so I'll toss it to this great Slashdot commenter (a NASA employee who has actually won the award in question), who does a pretty effective job of explaining why CBS is wrong:
They also made it out like some extravagant party - it really isn't. They pay for the flight (you have to cover your spouse, though), get you a hotel at the Day's Inn Cocoa Beach (or similar) for a few days, they drive you around on a tour, and feed you a few nice meals and let you meet some astronauts and agency officials.Couldn't agree more.
While you may have some negative opinions about how well NASA is doing as an agency, we've got a lot of really outstanding line employees who do great work, and in any enterprise you need to reward that. When I got my SFA, I was 28 years old and had spent a year of 60+ hour weeks getting an avionics package on the Space Station working. I didn't get paid overtime for that...the SFA was a nice token from my management. Another guy on the trip won his for finding a problem that saved the government $12 million dollars. As a percentage of the overall workforce, very few people ever win this award (where I work, maybe 1 out of 50 has gotten this in the last 10 years, you have to do something exceptional). It's definitely worth the tax dollars that are spent on it - and I hope other federal agencies are using my tax dollars in similar ways.
As a bonus, here's a list of words in the CBS article that piss me off:
To quote another Slashdot commenter, this is not about fiscal responsibility; this is about "look at those guys that have a great big party and you don't! They used your money for it!"
Also, here's a quick hit from the end of the article that doesn't make much sense:
What is the cost? Counting the reception ($64,000), dinner ($35,000), awards ($28,000), ground transportation (tour: $7,700; launch: $20,200), airfare ($105,000), hotel and food ($135,000 together), you’re talking $400,000 to $500,000.For the record, I don't think "that's pricey." And I would be fine with spending $4 million a year to honor "all those people" (which accounts for something like one or two percent of the tens of thousands of people who work on the Shuttle program). But $500,000, three times a year, does not equal $4 million. I'm sure of it.
If you think that's pricey, consider this: the NASA holds its big awards every time there's a shuttle launch. December's extravaganza will be the third one in 2007. Honoring all those people is costing you about $4 million a year.
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