Re: WHAT?S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 28 Dec 07 Washington, DC

Sam Wormley wrote:

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.
[snip]

Iraq Officially costs $5 billion/month. Halliburton's gotta eat too,
you know. Bush the Lesser's Muslim adventure real world costs about
four times that. Are we massively stealing oil from Iraq yet?

End of January: Christmas credit card bills arrive, NINJA mortgage
rates skyrocket, and China tells Fed Chairman Ben "Bull***" Bernanke
that interest rates will be rising or China stops buying Federal
paper. China, like Gordon Gekko, knows a leveraged opportunity when
it sees it.

<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8c/US_Historical_Inflation.svg/800px-US_Historical_Inflation.svg.png>
There's no inflation...
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/70/CPI1913-2006.svg/800px-CPI1913-2006.svg.png>
...except in the price of things. Food and fuel are not Federal
inflation indicators.

--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
.