You Know Someone Has Way too Much Free Time....

...when they produce a website like this:

LNSEMSF

I'll soon be launching the Get-a-Life Foundation to help these poor wretched souls.

Suicide by Pseudoscience

The Union of Concerned Scientists in a February report pointed out something the science press has known for years: The Bush administration has no respect for science. Ideologues prefer to make up the laws of nature as they go.

Presidential science adviser John Marburger complained that the UCS's account sounded like a "conspiracy theory report." That's because it is one. As the report amply documents, the Bush administration has systematically manipulated scientific inquiry into climate change, forest management, lead and mercury contamination, and a host of other issues. Even as Marburger addressed his critics, the administration purged two advocates of stem-cell research from the President's Council on Bioethics.

When politicians dictate science, government becomes entangled in its own deceptions, and eventually the social order decays in a compost of lies. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious affliction known as Lysenkoism.

Trofim Lysenko was Joseph Stalin's top stooge in Soviet agricultural science, a field that was mercilessly politicized by fanatics.

Before long, the damage will spread beyond our borders. International scientific bodies will treat American scientists as pariahs. This process has already begun in bioethics, meteorology, agriculture, nuclear science, and medicine, but doubts will spread to "American science" generally.

Meanwhile, gaps will open between research establishments in the US and other countries, much like the one that now yawns between American and Korean stem-cell producers. US science will come to have a stodgy, old-fashioned, commissar-style inability to think and act freely. Yankee initiative and ingenuity will bow to bulging pie-in-the-sky superprojects like unproven antimissile systems, hot-air broadband initiatives, and swashbuckling moon shots.

Wherever moral panic, hasty judgment, arrogance, fear, brutal partisan ignorance, slovenly standards of research, overcentralization of authority, conspiratorial policymaking, jingoism and xenophobia, and spin-centric travesties of disinformation can flourish, Lysenko's spirit will never die.

Complete article by Bruce Sterling

And the Reaper visits again...

Entertainer Ray Charles died today.

Condolences

Ronald Reagan meant a lot to many people throughout the world. You can
write a note that will be shared with Mrs. Reagan and family.

RIP, Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was a great man who became President.

History will judge the quality of his Presidency, but nothing will change my mind about the Man himself.

Stay tuned for a Ronnie and Me story - the night RR bought me dinner.

Faux News

In a recent Wall Street Journal OpEd piece, FOX News chairman Roger Ailes said Los Angeles Times editor John S. Carroll should apologize to the FOX network, saying that Carroll's statements in a recent speech disparaged FOX News.

Ailes said that "Mr. Carroll essentially announced that the reason FOX News Channel is the No. 1 cable news network is because the American people are stupid and gullible."

Carroll refused to back down, but did apologize "for publicly revealing FOX's trade secrets."
-- Chuck Bonner
Copyright 2004 by Chris White

The Top 8 Uses for a Retired Nuclear Plant

The Top 8 Uses for a Retired Nuclear Plant

8. Add a few more blinking lights to the control room, then charge Star Trek nerds by the hour to use your "USS Enterprise Bridge Simulator."
7. Paintball!
6. It can tell those sissy little gas-fired plants what things were like back in the good old days.
5. Decoy for terrorists hijacking airplanes.
4. Charge comic book nerds in homemade spandex costumes a fortune to sit inside waiting for their superhero powers to develop. And since it was my idea I should get a discount.
3. "Survivor: Chernobyl."
2. Paint the containment dome pink with a red tip. Voila! The new Hooters Headquarters Building.

and the Number 1 Use for a Retired Nuclear Plant...

1. Storeroom for all that other "retired" stuff you thought would be so useful.
Copyright 2004 by Chris White.

Reality Check

OK, so gasoline is 2.30 per gallon now. According to the news, that's a record high price (in the USA). It was $1.20 in 1980, In 1980 dollars, today's gas would cost $1.01. In other words, today's gasoline prices are NOT record-high. $2.73 would match the 1980 cost.

Huh?

This Cost-of-Living Calculator can help you compare prices from the good old days to prices in any other good old days (between 1913 and now).

This might help:
Something that costs $1 in 2004 would have cost $ .10 in 1945.
2000 .92
1995 .82
1990 .70
1985 .58
1980 .44
1975 .29
1970 .21
1965 .17
1960 .16
1955 .14
1950 .13
1945 .10

How's Your Credit?

Credit Report: "Having a current credit report can save you much grief and heartache. The trick is to get the credit report before you set out to make that major purchase. Whether you're in the market for a home, car, boat, or motorcycle--you should look into getting a credit report to ensure that everything's in order prior to signing on the dotted line. When you're proactive about things, you'll be one step ahead of the lender. And if you know you have a good credit score, you'll be in good shape to get the loan you need at the best possible terms."