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Robert Park | 10 Sep 2011 01:10
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What's New Robert L. Park 9 Sep 2011

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Friday, 2 Sep 11   Washington, DC

1. BACK TO WORK: SORRY, I'VE BEEN UNDERGOING REPAIRS.
Here's a little of what happened while I was away.

2. FIRST AMENDMENT:  TEXAS GOVERNOR CONVENES A CHRISTIAN REVIVAL.
Rick Perry led a prayer meeting of 30,000 evangelical Christians in a 
Houston football stadium last month, calling on Jesus to guide us out of 
our national travail.  It was billed as non-political.  I suppose that's 
possible; under the First Amendment God is not excluded from politics, but 
if Perry wants to be President he's got to be able to negotiate at every 
level.  The big question then is, how did God respond?  It didn't take long 
to get an answer.  The crowd had scarcely left the stadium when God set 
Texas on fire.  It’s still burning.  In fact, when God sent Tropical Storm 
Lee ashore he had it it dump record rains on the other Gulf states, while 
leaving Texas parched.  This is not a good sign.

3. EARTHQUACKS: IT'S TIME TO STOP BEHAVING LIKE ANIMALS.
At the urging of a 5.8-magnitude earthquake centered in Northern Virginia, 
thousands of books in the University of Maryland Library sought a lower 
energy configuration, moving from the bookshelves to the floor.   
Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, ABC, and NBC, high-strung 
inmates at the National Zoo like orangutans began to screech and scramble 
to higher perches "minutes before" seismographs sensed anything.  Like 
maybe they had some special sense that humans don't?  Or so the media 
reported. Were reporters already at the zoo waiting for a quake?  Zoos are 
always in turmoil.  Inmates chase each other, fornicate and have food 
fights, except the laid-back types like pandas that just sit on their ass 
through it all munching bamboo.
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Robert Park | 19 Sep 2011 00:46
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What's New Robert L. Park 16 Sep 2011

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Friday, 16 Sep 11   Washington, DC

1. WI-FI REFUGE:  UNITED STATES NATIONAL RADIO QUIET ZONE.
A 34,000 km2 rectangle of land straddling the border of Virginia and West 
Virginia surrounds The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, the world's 
largest fully steerable radio telescope.  The site was chosen partly 
because the Allegheny Mountains block the horizontal propagation of radio 
signals, but mostly because Robert C Byrd (D-WV) was one powerful US 
Senator.  Radio transmission in the zone is either limited or banned 
outright.  In addition to radio astronomers, the quiet zone has also 
attracted a colony of people who say they suffer from Electromagnetic 
Hypersensitivity (EHS).  They certainly suffer from something, but EHS is 
not medically recognized in the US.  In a BBC News interview last week I 
suggested that the appropriate treatment for a non-ailment such as EHS 
would be homeopathic medicine.  

2. DEEP SPACE:  ENERGY BILL LEAVES OUT PLUTONIUM-238.
In a move that could end deep space exploration, congressional budget 
cutters left off the $15 million needed to restart the production of Pu-
238.  Pu-238 is not bomb stuff; it's a non-fissile isotope used to supply 
heat for thermoelectric generators (RTGs).  With no moving parts, RTGs are 
one of the simplest and most reliable technologies ever devised.  They 
generate electrical power to operate long-duration space missions too 
distant from the Sun for solar panels. Let's see, that will cut a $300 
billion budget by 0.0005%. Well, it's a start. 

NOTICE: I HELD THIS ISSUE UNTIL 9/18/2011 SO I COULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING.

3. TAX WAR: OBAMA IS EXPECTED TO CALL FOR "THE BUFFET RULE."
The New York Times says that on Monday President Obama will call for a new
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Robert Park | 27 Sep 2011 02:52
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What's New Robert L. Park 23 Sep 2011

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Friday, 22 Sep 11   Washington, DC

1.VACCINE: THERE IS NO INOCULATION AGAINST IGNORANCE.
Here we go again.  Last week during a debate of Republican presidential 
candidates, Representative Michele Bachmann characterized human papilloma 
virus (HPV) vaccine as "a potentially dangerous drug," and linked its 
effect to "mental retardation."  There is no medical support for her wildly 
irresponsible remarks; the HPV vaccine prevents cervical cancer, and an 
editorial in Nature calls on Bachmann to retract her words, but I don't 
think she reads Nature.  The 1998 claim of British researcher Andrew 
Wakefield that the common MMR vaccine causes autism set off a revival of 
the anti-vaccination movement, and a corresponding rise in measles cases.  
In 2009, however, Wakefield was found to have altered patient’s records to 
support his claim  http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN11/wn010711.html .  
Barred from the practice medicine in the UK, Wakefield now operates an 
autism clinic in Austin, Texas.  He doesn't have a US medical license, but 
such formalities don't much matter in Texas.  Rick Perry, the Governor of 
Texas, differs with Bachmann on HPV, having attempted to mandate the use of 
the HPV vaccine for 11 and 12-year-old schoolgirls as the Center for 
Disease Control recommends, which may have something to do with the fact 
that Merck, the only maker of HPV vaccine, is a major contributor to 
Perry's campaign. 

2. WIRELESS: WHERE SHOULD I PUT MY CELL PHONE, DOCTOR?
The hot new place for young women to tuck their cell phones is inside their 
bra.  They set the ring on "vibrate," creating an erogenous tingle when a 
call comes in.  Devra Davis, author of "Disconnect," a book about the 
alleged dangers of cell-phone radiation, worries that the women are being 
set up for breast cancer.  Microwave radiation, Davis says, "seeps directly 
into the soft fatty tissue of the breast."  What does it do there?  As
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Robert Park | 1 Oct 2011 06:00
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What's New Robert L. Park 29 Sep 2011

WHAT'S NEW   Robert L Park   Friday, 30 Sep 11   Washington, DC

1. BE AFRAID: THE BUDGET CONTROL ACT OF 2011 AWAITS US.
Passed by Congress and signed into law by the President on 2 Aug 2011, the 
Budget Control Act brought conclusion to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis that 
threatened to lead the U.S. into sovereign default on 3 Aug 2011.  Like 
amputating a limb to stop an infection, it may have been necessary but it 
didn't end our suffering.  In a Science editorial last week that every 
scientist should read, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) predicts that science will 
bear more than its share of the $2.4 trillion in federal spending cuts 
required by the bill.  I have no doubt he's right.  The only remaining PhD 
physicist in Congress, Rush has served the 12th district of New Jersey 
since 1998.  Before that he was the Assistant Director of the Princeton 
Plasma Physics Laboratory.  "With the budget control act," he 
writes, "Congress appears to have said in effect, that federally sponsored 
science has no role to play in advancing the economy, that unemployment is 
a problem that only time will cure, and that the nation's best days are 
behind us.  How contrary to American tradition that would be!  It must not 
prevail." 

2. TEVATRON: ACCELERATORS ARE BUILT TO BE SHUT DOWN.
Located at Fermilab National Laboratory on the Illinois prairie about 50 
miles west of Chicago, the Tevatron  is no longer the world's most powerful 
accelerator.  Later today Pier Oddone, director of Fermilab, is preparing 
to issue the command to shut down the most successful particle accelerator 
ever built.  It should be the occasion for celebration.  The command 
to "shut down" is an announcement that Tevatron has completed the tasks for 
which it was intended. We should all be so lucky.   

3. EXECUTION: KEY AL QAEDA FIGURE IS TAKEN OUT BY DRONE.
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