Said By Ike

 “Akin to, and largely responsible for, the sweeping changes in our industrial and military posture; has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution; research has become central; and it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted by, for, or at the direction of, the Federal government. The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money, is ever present and gravely to be regarded. In holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific and technological elite.”
 

-President Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address

NASA To Refocus On Space

Sean Duffy, head of the US Dept. of Transportation and acting NASA Administrator said on Aug. 14 that NASA will "move aside" from climate and earth science and concentrate solely on space exploration. 

If the change in emphasis makes sense it should be extended to NASA in its entirety. The 2024 budget of the agency is $24.875 billion. A work force of over 18,000 professionals push the boundaries of science and technology to, as NASA proudly states, "contribute to various projects that aim to explore outer space and further human understanding of our universe."

Yeah, OK. Thanks to the billions of dollars spent in the effort all that there is to show for it are a few moon rocks and some artists' renderings of far away stars. While the accomplishment of going to the moon is perhaps something to produce pride in the simple minded, it hasn't produced any practical benefits for the proles that have involuntarily financed it. Further understanding of our universe, at least further than it goes now, isn't necessary for further human progress. We'll be just fine if we don't know a thing about black holes and stars 700 million light years away. If enough people care about whatever knowledge might be available, let them voluntarily pay for it.

 

ar.inspiredpencil.com      A Moon Rock 

 

700 Million Light Years From Earth

That would be 214.7 parsecs or 4,123 trillion miles, the distance from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to an exploding supernova and an adjacent black hole somewhere in the depths of space described here. 

Nothing could possibly be more inconsequential or meaningless to the life of any human on earth, in the past, now, or in any version of the future. The idea that spending by national agencies based on tax receipts for space exploration without genuine democratic approval is wrong.  

 

Defense Dept. Eating Its Own Seed Corn

Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Air Force during several Democratic presidencies, is concerned that reductions in basic science funding to American universities will result in the US population speaking Mandarin in the near future, as he explains in an article for the Military Times.

Academic researchers apply for grants from federal agencies who then award them with funding. In some cases an agency might initiate research by an established program on a subject related to something that is already being studied.

What sort of basic research would be most effective in stemming the advance of the yellow horde waiting to spring their Red command economy on the innocent West? Supersonic aircraft, nuclear carriers and submarines, nuclear weapons, poisonous gases, mind control, robot soldiers,drones, communicable diseases, orbital weapons, Havana syndrome, etc. have already moved from the drawing board to reality. Can we even imagine weaponry of a more "advanced" dimension? In fact, since there are enough nuclear warheads and devices to carry them to targets in the possession of a number of countries, isn't a general war now believed to be national suicide?

It looks like there's a chance for diplomacy to settle some of the big arguments but the less civilized, especially in parts of Africa, are dedicated to the most primitive forms of violence. Is there a chance that enlightened and well-financed American academia could figure out a way to bring peace to a cruel world without blowing a lot of it up?  

 

  

Mermaid Problems

The Little Mermaid, a statue located in the harbor of Copenhagen, Denmark, has for over 100 years been a memorial to the Hans Christen Andersen fairy tale of the same name and the most seen tourist attraction of the city.

 

wikimediacommons The Little Mermaid

In 2006 a Danish restauranteur ordered his own carved larger granite version from a Chinese firm and installed it near the smaller original. After much criticism it was moved a few miles south to Drager Fort, a military installation in 2018, where the Big Mermaid, about 4 meters tall, continued to arouse negative reviews.

 

                The Big Mermaid 

Some critics regard the sculpture as pornographic and an insult to womanhood but that's a matter of opinion, odd in the free-thinking culture of Scandinavia. Does it really look so bad?   

MIT Astrophysicist Deplores Budget Cuts

In an interview with Spanish national on-line medium El Pais, MIT astrophysicist Claude Canizares criticizes the current attempts by the US administration to cut spending on scientific research. 

"[These cuts] will be devastating. First of all, in the workforce: the younger generations who are going to make scientific breakthroughs in the future are being denied the opportunity. And frankly, they’re losing their jobs. [Many young researchers] are going to leave [the U.S.].

[Our country] benefits tremendously from international participants who come to the U.S., get their graduate degrees and then stay on, becoming faculty members at our major universities. The number of [American] Nobel Prize winners who were born outside of the U.S. is very large. But now, [among our] postdoctoral scientists who are very promising, [many] are going back to Europe to pursue their careers because of the uncertainty."

In terms of astrophysics, international participants in that field are used to an American system that is basically a welfare program for stargazers. What they "discover" has no bearing on life on earth and contributes nothing to the average or even well-educated person now or in the foreseeable future.  Knowing, in the way that astrophysicists seem to know about things happening many thousands of light years away and eons into the past, can't possibly be configured into knowledge that will make things better at the present time or for future generations. 

If astrophysics graduate students leave the US for positions in Europe or the Orient, will there be a fountain of funding available for them? Will the Germans and Chinese gleefully ignore their own terrestrial problems in favor of concentrating on deep space? If the US decreases its contributions to space studies will other countries be willing or able to take up the slack?

It might be possible that if the search for meaning in the cosmos is really so important, the tech billionaires of the quantum age will engrave their names in history by financing the project. But their contribution to the post-digital world is gathering and using the money of others, not their own. 

In any event, space exploration and astrophysics isn't going to get any cheaper. The US has gone as far as it should in being the main financial force in the quixotic investigation of the universe. It's time to get back to earth.

Immigrant Legal Issues

 According to the AP in an article published on July 23:

 

 The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment says that all people born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to U.S. jurisdiction, are citizens.

Justice Department attorneys argue that the phrase “subject to United States jurisdiction” in the amendment means that citizenship isn’t automatically conferred to children based on their birth location alone.

The states — Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon — argue that ignores the plain language of the Citizenship Clause as well as a landmark birthright citizenship case in 1898 where the Supreme Court found a child born in San Francisco to Chinese parents was a citizen by virtue of his birth on American soil.

Trump’s order asserts that a child born in the U.S. is not a citizen if the mother does not have legal immigration status or is in the country legally but temporarily, and the father is not a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident. At least nine lawsuits challenging the order have been filed around the U.S.

________________________________________________

In all of the hullabaloo over immigration and citizenship, no one ever seems to mention the requirements of the US Selective Service.  Males in the US between 18 and 26 years of age are required to register with the Selective Service System, just in case the federal government needs some involuntary cannon fodder. This is true not only for US citizens, but also for immigrants, documented and undocumented, residing in the US and its territories. This means that any undocumented alien in the age group that has not registered for the draft is a felon, subject to a fine of up to $250,000 or 5 years imprisonment or both. The last person indicted for this felony was Terry Kuelper, on January 23, 1986. The charge was later withdrawn before trial. Nine individuals have actually spent time behind bars for failure to register, the longest being for 6 months. As of today it will be 29 years since anyone has been prosecuted for failing to register with the Selective Service System.

The Selective Service is still in business, tasked with maintaining an information base of young men who might be needed in an unspecified emergency and with a multi-million dollar budget, and the law is still on the books but is being completely ignored. If there isn't going to be any enforcement, it should be erased and the agency terminated. One can only speculate on the number of foreign felons wandering about the country with no draft card but statistically there must be many.