London, 24 May 2011
Speaking in London this morning, US President Barack Obama pledged to sink an unprecedented sum in research in the basic and applied sciences.
“Our nation has overcome the most daunting technological questions and made advances the envy of the whole world. Before me, American presidents have seen problems and setbacks and resolved to apply the best minds and ideas to the resolution of those problems.
Jack Kennedy had America put a man on the moon. Jimmy Carter saw third world homelessness and saw how to harness a solution.
And so I pledge, before this decade is out, to safely send an armoured limousine into the US Embassy in Dublin and back home. We do these things not because we want to, go fulfil our human hubris. We do them because frankly we don’t need the most technologically advanced armoured vehicle on Earth stuck in the Embassy car park.”
