Stuff going on in the blogosphere:
- Darksyde writes about Rep. Brad Miller‘s attempt to provide protection for scientific whistleblowers employed by the government. Since pressuring scientists to make their results conform to politically-desireable outcomes is standard operating procedure for the current administration, such protection is especially valuable and timely.
- Phil Plait reports that the National Academy of Sciences has released their advice to Congress concerning NASA. Guess what? Not nearly enough money is being allocated to accomplish what the agency is being asked to do. Since science is one of the first things to go when the budgets fall short, let’s hope Congress actually listens.
- ScienceBlogs, you may have noticed, has expanded. Among CV favorites that have found a new home within the Borg collective are Dynamics of Cats, The Loom, and Mixing Memory; Bora Zivkovic of Science and Politics has a new blog at A Blog Around the Clock. While we’re at it, John Horgan has started a new blog at The Scientific Curmudgeon.
- I can’t decide whether my favorite blog is The Sartorialist or How to Write Screenplays. Badly. Between them they cover more or less everything you need to know.
- Except that pre-marital sex turns women into cold, inhuman shrews. I didn’t know that.
- All other need-to-know items are covered succinctly by Steinn. A handy list of reminders for when things become hazy.
Update: Phil has more on the Miller amendment, which was voted down along party lines. And DarkSyde has his own report on the science events at YearlyKos, including a link to a transcript of Wesley Clark’s speech.
No takers yet Sean?
The government could invest in NASA ad infinitum, who or what is stopping them.
You invest in missiles, you have to empty old stock on Afghanistan & Iraq, to keep the production line and arms industry in business.
Switch the funding to NASA. If you achieve nothing else, better to dump old shuttles on Iraq than more firepower than was used in the whole of world war II. Incidentally was that a fact or a ‘metaphor’?
Never mind Star Wars go for Star Trek, you certainly need no weapons, the only aliens I’ve seen were humans wearing masks in hollywood movies, or ironically star trek conventions. lol!
And I am pleased to read Martin Rees has exactly the same take on this matter in his lecture
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rees06/rees06_index.html
Ye all have a nice day!
Off-topic?
Dave Burstein at dslprime.com
Editorial: Research, nurture and grow
Condemning Asian growth solves nothing
I buy shirts made in China, and AT&T buys Alcatel DSLAMs from China as well. Although I care about the future of my country, it would be total hypocrisy for me to advocate “buy American” or advocate protection for Lucent. It’s a tragedy for the U.S. to lose our once great telecom industry, especially for my neighbors in New Jersey. Bell Labs is the symbol of American engineering, a source of pride in decline for two decades and soon mostly a shell.
Condemning the Chinese and Koreans is no answer however. They are just hardworking people doing their best to win economic battles and make a living. Huawei’s government helps some, especially with easy credit, but Western companies receive government favors as well.
The only way for countries like the U.S. and Germany to maintain a high standard of living is efficiently produce better goods. We can’t do that in telecom when research and development has been cut 60% in the last four years. There’s an incumbent subsidy of $10-15B buried in “USF,” “ICC” and other programs beyond the actual cost of universal service and connecting schools to the Internet. Switching even a quarter of that to restoring the U.S. to excellence would be a smart move. Some of the best engineers in America, some with 20 years of experience, haven’t been able to find a job amidst the cutbacks.
Companies that only think of the next quarter ultimately suffer. So do countries who don’t build for the future.
I just visited “How to write Screeenplays Badly” The dialog between the exec and author on the “Rapebear” screenplay was one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time. Go check it out for a good laugh.