Bill Foster, a physicist formerly at the Fermi National Accelerator Lab and a businessman in the Aurora, IL area, won the House seat formerly held by Dennis Hastert. Since Hastert left last fall, that seat has been left empty and Fermilab politically unprotected. Let’s all cross our fingers and hope […]
Recently, a new show has appeared on “The Discovery Channel” called “Smash Lab”. The premise of the show is simple: four smart people – an engineer, an “ideas guy”, a scientist, and a designer – get together and try to approach real-world problems with innovative technology. For instance, using carbon-fiber […]
Well, we went from the summer of nuts, to the winter of insane, to the fast-paced late-winter of WTF. I’ve been cutting non-essential things out of my life as a result, including this blog. Oh well – last to the table, first out the door. Today, however, I’ve been forcing […]
In the wake of the omnibus bill, a lot of us have been working our asses off to squeeze the science out of the remaining time on our experiments. Many of us are getting ready to go to Washington D.C., to hold the Congress to the commitment it made to […]
Tonight, NPR’s “All Things Considered” interviewed Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts governor and presidential candidate. During the interview, Romney spent about a minute on the topic of increasing the federal basic research funding profile. He was specifically talking about energy and energy independence, but at least that topic nominally includes ITER. […]
With the first state’s primary over with, and Obama and Huckabee out in front in the press, it’s perhaps interesting to revisit the issue of the candidates and science. Given the recent call for a debate by the candidates about science issues, one might now begin to wonder about the […]
Bob Park is normally funny to read every Friday, either because you agree with him rabidly or because you don’t agree with him but you find his grouchiness lovable . This week, he’s just plain on target. Here are his opening paragraphs, verbatim: 1. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: SANK IN “THE GATHERING […]
I thought that this past summer was nuts, but now I realize it was just the packet of sunflower seeds to this winter’s vacuum-packed can of fancy cashews. With the omnibus bill a living threat to the U.S. science program, the consequences have started to land on the table. Remember […]
This morning I had a short chat with a student at SLAC. During the chat, it was mentioned that certain Presidential candidates didn’t event vote on the omnibus bill. This got me thinking about who did and who did not vote for it, and about who voted for and agaist. […]
One day ago, the unthinkable happened: Congress abandoned all signs of reason and passed an omnibus spending bill that gutted science in this nation. Much is clear, and much is not. What’s clear are the facts. The Office of Science was appropriated $4.05 billion, and then asked to apply a […]
Since the Congress was unable to complete, or get the President to sign, appropriations bills by October 1, the U.S. has been living under what is called a “continuing resolution”. That means that every now and then, the Congress votes to fund the government at last year’s levels while they […]
This Sunday, “Meet the Press” spent the whole hour with Mitt Romney. The opening question was about his statement during his speech on religion and government. He was asked about his assertion that “Freedom requires Religion, and Religion requires Freedom.” I certainly agree with the latter sentiment. As is clearly […]