Category: Scientists and $$$

Two Books: “Unreliable” by Csaba Szabo, and “Unreadable” by Dr. Mark Bailey

The following is taken from Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address to the nation, the one in which he warned us of the “military-industrial complex” that has long since engulfed us. These words are about science.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

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IPCC: Just Bad at Science … or Engaged in Science Fraud?

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and climate alarmists in general don’t think the sun is terribly important in the matter of the climate of our planet. As absurd as that sounds, there is a reason: The UN’s political Agenda (established by Resolution A/RES/43/53 of the UN General Assembly in 1988) is to promote Anthropogenic Climate Change. That is the cart that precedes AGW and its so-called science horse. If the sun was shown to be a major player in global climate, it would short circuit the AGW movement. But that creates a problem, as the sun is indeed the major player behind our planet’s climate.

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RFK’s The Real Anthony Fauci: A progress report

I am on page 180 of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s book, The Real Anthony Fauci, and have been unfaithful to my pledge not to litter it with 3M Post-It flags, I have indeed done so. So far I used eight of them. Normally a book I like will look ready to take flight, so many do I use.

At Amazon the book has so far generated 21,365 comments, 89% favorable. I would never add to a mess like that, and could not even if I wanted to, as sometime in the not-too-distant past, I violated Amazon’s “community standards,” which seem to be this: Be as controversial as you want in commenting, but never stray from the mainstream lane.

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Internet is back! And stuff.

We get our Internet from Centurylink, one of the few Baby Bells left in form. Consequently, it comes to our house on a wire. There is a switch box a couple of miles down the road that serves our neighborhood, and we are at the end of the line. For that reason, whenever I check speed at 192.168.0.1, it reads that our line status is either “poor” or “moderate.”

Last February we traded out an older model modem (Centurylink does used modems, and not routers), and the service agent who came by the house said to be careful, we might be “overprovided.” Not too long after that our service started blinking out now and then, and modem reboots had to be done frequently. I called tech support about that, and ask them if we were indeed overprovided. They had no clue what I was talking about. I suggested we drop our service back to perhaps 10 mps but the agent said not to do that, and I allowed him to keep me at 17mps. The intermittent service continued. It finally got so bad that I was convinced that the new modem we got in February was defective. An agent agreed with me, and sent me a new modem.

Continue reading “Internet is back! And stuff.” →