WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

"Sam Wormley" wrote in message
news:M7edj.9112$Ux2.1411@attbi_s22...
WHAT’S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

1. HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS: SANK IN "THE GATHERING STORM."
Science-policy reps were patting each other on the back in August when
President Bush signed the bipartisan America COMPETES Act in response to
the NAS report Rising Above the Gathering Storm. It was meant to keep
America competitive by boosting basic science, including a doubling of
funding for NSF and the DOE Office of Science. Six months later, the most
basic of all the sciences, high-energy physics, is in a death spiral.
Fermilab faces major layoffs, the neutrino oscillation experiment, NOvA,
which was expected to be the lab’s principle activity after the Tevatron
shuts down, is terminated. Three quarters of the funding for the
International Linear Collider is cut. The US again stiffed ITER on our
share of the fusion program. The NSF increase was pared down to 1
percent. Meanwhile, in a letter to the research community, House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said her "commitment to the innovation agenda remains
strong and steadfast." Try spending that.

2. IT’S FUNDAMENTAL: DO WE NEED HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS?
Why would fragile, self-replicating collections of atoms, trapped on a
tiny planet for a few dozen orbits about an undistinguished star among
countless other stars in one of billions of galaxies, spend their orbits
trying to understand how it happened? Others claim to know all the
answers, but the only way to know is to experiment - and they haven’t done
it.

3. LOW-ENERGY PHYSICS: FUNDING IS UP FOR "CLEAN COAL."
The spending bill did increase funding for "clean coal." Sound like an
oxymoron? Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) generators were
supposed to be all over the place by now. They turn coal into gases and
filter out the CO2 before the gases are burned. Clean coal plants cost
more to build but are cheaper in the long run - or at least they would be
if they captured and sequestered the carbon dioxide like they’re supposed
to. The technology, however, is not there yet, and some planned clean-
coal plants are being cancelled. That’s a relief to some people in West
Virginia, where coal companies want to scrape the tops off the mountains
to get the coal, filling the valleys with the rubble.

4. IT’S A DAM SHAME: WHAT ARE WE WILLING TO LET GO?
The rules have changed. China, according to a story in today’s Wall
Street Journal, has become the dam builder for the world. Chinese
companies are now involved in deals to construct at least 47 major dams in
27 countries, not all of which have nice leaders. Construction of large
dams involves the forced relocation of people - in the case of the
gigantic Three Gorges Dam in China 1.4 million people had to be
relocated. Fifty years ago the Pacific Northwest was the envy of the rest
of the nation for its cheap hydroelectric power - the sun does all the
work. Then the public mood began to shift away from fish ladders and back
toward wild rivers. With global warming as a new term in the equation,
pressure for new dam projects is certain to increase. Although dams alter
the environment, the changes are not necessarily bad.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
---

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down World Utopia's
iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide open)? NO!!! Then the
resources of the Earth will be there in enormous abundance but you will
starve to death for resources. Why?! World-class entropy-like physics.

Over the last two million years Man has increased in numbers one million
fold. That is the small potatoes base. Over the base, over the last two
million years, Man has increased in its energy, infrastructure, complexity,
powers, reach and complications two million fold average per every man,
woman and child living.

When an infant is first conceived in the womb, the womb is an infinite
world infinite in its sustaining resources and wealth. But as time goes by
the infant evolves organs (space age infrastructure) and limbs (space age
tools). It develops needs and wants, complexity and powers, beyond the womb
world. It develops dimensionality beyond the dimensionality of the womb, any
womb, every womb (any planet, every planet). There is no staying. There is
no going back. There is no increasing "energy efficiency" to stay in the
womb and not expand and grow from it.

It is surprising that SCIENTISTS (particularly including 'professional
phyicists') who went before Congress to hawk the needlessness of Man's
expansion into Space (including just "at this time") will be discovered to
have been the most stupid humans the world has ever produced.

GLB

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

Jim Davis wrote:

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

We have to take what we can get, Jim.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

On Dec 28, 9:09 pm, kT wrote:
Jim Davis wrote:
G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

We have to take what we can get, Jim.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

But your actions imposed upon others is what seems to fully support
this administration and of most all the ones before.

- Brad Guth

On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 11:09:57PM -0600, kT wrote:
Jim Davis wrote:

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

We have to take what we can get, Jim.

You betcha.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

That's because violent ideologues are unable to discuss issues rationally
when the real world is seen to make incursions in to the airspace presently
occupied by their great Victorian sky-castles and all the rest. Need
examples? Well, we have the study of linguistics and neurology (among
other hard science subjects) encroaching on the domain of religious
"freedom", which is pretty much about having the freedom to control,
enslave, or destroy those who are the subject of whatever dogma is at
issue. Then we have people like the notorious Tim May whose motives are
not rooted in dogmatism as in the way of the religionist, but who
nevertheless use junk science and political maneuvering to accomplish the
same goals as the dogmatic religionist, perhaps by way of USING
the religionists.

In this environment I suppose it is no surprise we have thousands of brad
guths posting, spewing drivel all over Usenet and the Web. Someone is
underwriting their efforts, yet the frame of discussion remains too narrow
to accomodate the system that spawns their activities and the
infrastructure that supports it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the work being done on space access and
exploration is pretty much the exclusive domain of military assets. And
those assets are controlled by whom?

Sheep, that's who.


Regards,

Steve

--
Resolve to gather your shiny pebbles and move on to better things in the
happy new year.

Steve Thompson wrote:
On Fri, Dec 28, 2007 at 11:09:57PM -0600, kT wrote:
Jim Davis wrote:

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!
Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.
We have to take what we can get, Jim.

You betcha.

I'm actually surprised there are any space enthusiasts left at all.

The whole process has been corrupted by lobbyists, politicians and loyal
party hacks, just like everything else this administration has touched.

That's because violent ideologues are unable to discuss issues rationally
when the real world is seen to make incursions in to the airspace presently
occupied by their great Victorian sky-castles and all the rest. Need
examples? Well, we have the study of linguistics and neurology (among
other hard science subjects) encroaching on the domain of religious
"freedom", which is pretty much about having the freedom to control,
enslave, or destroy those who are the subject of whatever dogma is at
issue. Then we have people like the notorious Tim May whose motives are
not rooted in dogmatism as in the way of the religionist, but who
nevertheless use junk science and political maneuvering to accomplish the
same goals as the dogmatic religionist, perhaps by way of USING
the religionists.

In this environment I suppose it is no surprise we have thousands of brad
guths posting, spewing drivel all over Usenet and the Web. Someone is
underwriting their efforts, yet the frame of discussion remains too narrow
to accomodate the system that spawns their activities and the
infrastructure that supports it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the work being done on space access and
exploration is pretty much the exclusive domain of military assets. And
those assets are controlled by whom?

Sheep, that's who.

So you're say the next frontier will be opened up by atheists fleeing
Earth because of religious persecution? I almost have to agree with you.

On Sun, Dec 30, 2007 at 06:21:56PM -0600, kT wrote:
Steve Thompson wrote:
Sheep, that's who.

So you're say the next frontier will be opened up by atheists fleeing
Earth because of religious persecution? I almost have to agree with you.

I do not recall making any predictions concerning any 'next frontier' and/
or escaping atheists. In fact, I work under the assumption that religious
mania in the West (no matter whether it is real or contrived) will result
in continued marginalization of non-religious persons in the context of
commonplace economic activity, let alone access to space.

Religion continues to be the Old Boys Club of preference among the mentally
retarded.


Regards,

Steve

--
I submit you should have invested in real-estate as opposed to picturesque
yet impractical castles in the sky.

"Jim Davis" wrote in message
. 3.70...
G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will not do
over time, but a world placed behind an iron curtain inside a world-class
concentration camp, a totalitarian state paradise, becomes immediately
predictable, so predictable it would be laughable if it weren't so
[implosively tragic] ("....competition becomes more severe as the
destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states." -- Will
Durant (All the kinds of "states" whether artificial or natural. All
"states." There being no compensating opening up of system for a closing of
system; no compensating growing expansion out there for a continuing
contraction and constriction of world, freedom, choice, peace, room to
maneuver, margins for error...., in here)).

GLB

On Dec 29, 2:09 am, "G. L. Bradford" wrote:
"Jim Davis" wrote in message

. 3.70...

G. L. Bradford wrote:

Have we colonized the space frontier yet (have we torn down
World Utopia's iron curtain yet and opened up the system wide
open)? NO!!!

Brad, don't you think it's about time you stopped talking about
colonization and started doing some of it? No one's going to do it
for you.

Jim Davis

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will not do
over time, but a world placed behind an iron curtain inside a world-class
concentration camp, a totalitarian state paradise, becomes immediately
predictable, so predictable it would be laughable if it weren't so
[implosively tragic] ("....competition becomes more severe as the
destruction of distance intensifies the confrontation of states." -- Will
Durant (All the kinds of "states" whether artificial or natural. All
"states." There being no compensating opening up of system for a closing of
system; no compensating growing expansion out there for a continuing
contraction and constriction of world, freedom, choice, peace, room to
maneuver, margins for error...., in here)).

GLB

As you say, it's the actions and not the words of others that'll
become important, and right now those actions of others are taking
humanity back into the dark ages of witch and book burnings that's
getting similar to WWIII, if not worse.

- Brad Guth

G. L. Bradford wrote:

I couldn't begin to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time,

But it's fairly easy to predict what you [individually] will or will
not do over time.

but a world placed behind an iron curtain
inside a world-class concentration camp, a totalitarian state
paradise, becomes immediately predictable,...

You're going to wait for that totalitarian state to do your heavy
lifting for you.

Brad, if you think space is such a great place to live, go live
there. Stop complaining that everyone else has as little interest in
doing so as you do.

Jim Davis