President Obama, in response to the din calling for reducing the cost and size of government, decided this past week to eliminate the Supreme Court. It's not just the cost of the court itself, but the huge expense of legal actions progressing through the courts to the Supreme Court. The President simply proclaimed the "Defense of Marriage" law enacted by the legislative branch (Congress), "unconstitutional", and directed the Justice Department not to defend the law. See, that was easy..no need for legal action...no need to change the law...the President can just proclaim which laws he judges to be "constitutional" and which ones he decides are "unconstitutional". Come to think of it, we don't have to spend all that money on the legislative branch either. Authoritarian government is so much more efficient.
The Old Man
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 6, 2011
O'Reilly Morph
I just saw Bill O'Reilly interview President Obama. The interview was boring and bordered on irrelevant (although his minions will play to his ego and tell him how "hard hitting it was) with piercing questions like "do you think you've changed" and "do you think you've moved toward the middle?". But the amazing part was watching O'Reilly morph into Larry King!
The Old Man
The Old Man
Feb 5, 2011
NASA "Hanging by a Thread" according to U.S. Army Assistant Secretary
U.S. Army Assistant Secretary Malcolm R. O'Neill gave graduate science students some frank career advice last week, warning that federal budget constraints have NASA "hanging on by a thread". The comments took place during a discussion after a lecture O'Neill delivered to the physics department. O'Neill, who earned his PhD in physics from Rice University and was assigned as the head of the (in)famous "Star Wars" program, talked at length about military-related research, as well as the war in Afghanistan. The Afghan war costs taxpayers $10 billion per year, he said.
According to the space agency's published budget, the NASA budget is expected to be $20 billion per year. In addition to the shuttle program, NASA funds a wide range of basic and applied research, which takes up half of its budget. Examples of projects supported by NASA funding include Earth-observing satellites whose data are made freely-available to researchers, new water-purification systems, and of course, grants and training for the next generation of scientists.
The day after O'Neill's lecture, Dmitri Denisov of Fermi National Laboratory discussed the termination of the Tevatron experiment, due to federal budget constraints. During the discussion, faculty and students -- including those working on the Large Hadron Collider, the main competition of the Tevatron -- expressed audible signs of consternation and disappointment.
The enormous Tevatron collider in Illinois was responsible for the discovery of the top quark, among other achievements, and was the most powerful high-energy physics experiment on the planet until the Large Hadron Collider became operational in 2009. But the machinery and the labor of 1,200 physicists came at a price of $35 million per year. Now that the curtains have fallen on the Tevatron, it is likely the much sought-after Higgs boson (if it exists), as well as any surprises Nature may have in store for the Standard Model, will be discovered at the LHC, with European funding.
According to the space agency's published budget, the NASA budget is expected to be $20 billion per year. In addition to the shuttle program, NASA funds a wide range of basic and applied research, which takes up half of its budget. Examples of projects supported by NASA funding include Earth-observing satellites whose data are made freely-available to researchers, new water-purification systems, and of course, grants and training for the next generation of scientists.
The day after O'Neill's lecture, Dmitri Denisov of Fermi National Laboratory discussed the termination of the Tevatron experiment, due to federal budget constraints. During the discussion, faculty and students -- including those working on the Large Hadron Collider, the main competition of the Tevatron -- expressed audible signs of consternation and disappointment.
The enormous Tevatron collider in Illinois was responsible for the discovery of the top quark, among other achievements, and was the most powerful high-energy physics experiment on the planet until the Large Hadron Collider became operational in 2009. But the machinery and the labor of 1,200 physicists came at a price of $35 million per year. Now that the curtains have fallen on the Tevatron, it is likely the much sought-after Higgs boson (if it exists), as well as any surprises Nature may have in store for the Standard Model, will be discovered at the LHC, with European funding.
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