OT-Junk science targeted

The problem there is in the primaries. Before we had them, the delegates at the conventions picked the candidates, and they are relatively well-informed people who made much better choices.

The primaries decide if we have a good or poor president. The general election only decides if we have a Republican or a Democrat.

Yeah, I wanted a Mr. Fusion the microsecond I first laid eyes on one, too.

-- Invest in America: Buy a CONgresscritter today!

Time travel is one of my very favorite SF topics, right up there with nanites! I just hope the first basic assemblers don't become unionized.

OR liberalized. Either is deadly for mankind.

-- Invest in America: Buy a CONgresscritter today!

You are sitting in front of the most sophisticated machine science has ever devised - whining like a spoiled child.

Reply: Where did the government invent the integrated circuit? Was Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments. Let private industry have a lot more of their money and cut government spending, and you will get a whole lot more research and products. How much money and how many years did the government spend trying to decode DNA. PEBios did it in less than a year.

Or the great unwashed masses - voting for President?

And for GOD'S sake...don't paint them ANY color!

(Slight problem with my Bikini-Waxing Parlor...it seems that it is subject to a "Bush Cut Tax"!)

Or get them wet or feed them after midnight?

Some librul prolly sold you on that one. Waxing is removal, not cutting, so it is not subject to taxes, just enjoyment (after the initial gawdawful pain.)

No Newt Taxes!

-- That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. -- Doris Lessing

I find this very disturbing. One real problem is that the average person does not think that basic research is useful. Which it isn't... at the time it's done. Basic research helps us to understand how matter/life/the universe works. And basic research almost always pays off...in the long run.

A side effect of such a review: scientists writing proposals will find ways to describe their research that border on fraud. They will attempt to make the research sound like more than it really is.

There's a similar situation in almost every area of metalworking. Guy Lautard referred to one such in one of his books. A person brings in a big chunk of CRS and asks to have it planed down to make a straightedge. The person does not understand the first thing about what cold working does to steel. When the piece is unbolted from the planer, it twists up like a pretzel because of released stresses. Only then does the person realize that the machinist KNEW WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT.

If average citizens are going to make decisions about the utility of a scientific project, those citizens must demonstrate the ability to read and understand the refereed scientific literature. Otherwise we're inserting a serious problem into the process.

-- Best -- Terry PS: My personal view---worth what you paid for it---is that we should go to the area(s) where the most money is being spent, to find wasteful spending. It is most likely that cuts in that spending will be most fruitful. But that's just my opinion.

What about Geckos?

Don't tax them, either.

-- That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way. -- Doris Lessing

Ban the annoying little jerks from TV!

Careful there Larry, with that kind of language and your last name you will be getting labeled a "Frog". :-) ...lew...

No worries, mate. I've been called that for years and years, especially by people who tend to put that blasted "c" in my last name...

-- Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly. -- Plutarch

Now THERE's a laugh from the guy who killfiles anyone who dares to disagree with him. Oh, the irony of it all...