I realized this past week that I don’t yet have an entry in my “rant” category. Here, dear readers, is my first one. I don’t know when you’ll see this. Why? Because my domain name registrar, “vhosting.com”:http://www.vhosting.com, cashed my check (deducted $15 from my credit card) on May 16th and […]
Rant
37 posts
For twenty years, the United States has invested less and less in basic research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP. The U.S. spends about $8-$8.5 billion per year on basic research in the physical sciences (that represents the combined DOE science, NSF, and NIST budgets). Today, “it […]
Science is a tough business. Experiments rise and fall based on their scientific merit, judged through a peer review process that is meant to weed the well-planned projects from the rest. Last week, that time-honored system of peer review was apparently thrown to the side of the road as the […]
For many years, there has been a raging argument between engineers, scientists and the general public. This debate doesn’t center over whether humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. The brouhaha has nothing to do with whether God kicked the universe off in a big bang, or even whether God […]
According to the New York Times, “in a poll released yesterday 42% of Americans believe that all life has existed unchanged since the beginning of time, while 60% believe that either a creationist or intelligent design doctrine is the way to go”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/31/national/31religion.html?ex=1283140800&en=39489e715718912f&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss. Dr. Eugenie Scott, and outspoken supporter of teaching […]
August is a “dead month” for my collaboration, on a variety of levels. This is the standard European vacation season, so ~half of my collaboration is winking in and out of existence. This happens to be a month I **don’t** like to vacate, mostly because it’s quiet and I can […]
Please just go and read “The Onion article on ‘intelligent falling'”:http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4133&n=2.
*Sigh*. I decided to see if the “NCSE”:http://www.ncseweb.org had any info on the statements made by Bush on teaching the hypothesis of “intelliget design” in the science classroom. Oh, they had plenty. First and foremost, a link to the “most recent issue of Time dealing centrally with the ongoing debate […]
This week was a very exciting week, both for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (“SLAC”:http://www.slac.stanford.edu), where I do my research, and for me personally. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman, a member of the U.S. Cabinet and head of the U.S. Department of Energy, visited SLAC to learn more about the […]
Inspired by this insane buzz in my head (which, in turn, was inspired by “the lawsuit a Russian astrologer is bringing against NASA over it’s mission to comet Tempel-1”:http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hs4321766jun27,0,6528169.story?coll=ny-health-headlines), I think it’s time we take this whole issue of “probing the universe with bombs” more seriously. No, seriously. I’ve previously […]
I am concerned by this recurring “story about 100M dollars going missing in the Iraq reconstruction effort”:http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050505/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_money;_ylt=At9K0nB3DggPB8jukqks16ZG2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl. The AP news story on http://news.yahoo.com leads with “U.S. government mismanagement of assets in Iraq, from the lack of proper documentation on nearly $100 million in cash to millions of dollars worth of […]
Of this whole private matter of the Schiavos and the Schindlers, I’ll only say this: I wish that the legislators who tried to meddle in private affairs, that the President in his pajamas with so much determination, that these enthusiastic and sometimes agressive protestors in Florida, would take all the […]