Friday, November 29, 2002
1. MISSILE DEFENSE: THE SEARCH FOR STAR
WARS II GOES ON.
In a 2001 May Day speech at the National Defense University, President
Bush called for Star Wars II. The 1972 ABM treaty was swept aside to make
room for the new "layered defense" that was to be in place by 2004 (WN
4 May 01). Although tests of a ground-based missile defense have not
gone well (WN 14 Jun 02), we only knew for
certain that the plan was in trouble earlier this year when the Pentagon
urged anyone with a "new and innovative concept" to write in. According
to a story in the Washington Post, the Advanced Concepts Office at the
Missile Defense Agency is now going through 194 proposals. If the ideas
violate no more than two laws of physics, the director of the ACO jokingly
told the Post, they make the first cut. His example of a suggestion that
violated too many laws of physics was to put X-ray lasers in orbit. That,
of course, was the idea that inspired Ronald Reagan's Star Wars I. So
far, the United States has spent more than $120B in the search for a ballistic
missile defense.
2. ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE: INSIGHTS FROM
THE HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL.
The cover story in the Dec 2 issue of Newsweek is The Science of Alternative
Medicine. That's an oxymoron. If these alternatives had a basis in science,
they would just be medicine. Newsweek calls it "The New Science." Only
the new science turns out to be the old medicine thousands of years old
in some cases, long before it was known that blood circulates or germs
cause disease. The alternatives can be put on a scale that ranges from
plausible to preposterous. The treatments discussed in Newsweek tend to
be at the plausible end of the spectrum. They include such things as music
therapy, as though anything that makes us feel better is now medicine.
There is no mention of such absurd and fraudulent treatments as magnet
therapy, homeopathy and touch therapy, which are among the most widely
used alternatives. The report also talks about herbs and vitamins. Vitamins
are alternative? The discovery of these essential molecules was a major
advance in scientific medicine. Vitamins become alternative only when
taken in wild excess. The report has boxes on alternative treatments for
cancer, osteoarthritis, cardiac disease, back pain, etc. To give it credibility,
each box is prominently labeled "Insights from Harvard Medical School."
Is that where this stuff comes from? This insight comes from the Maryland
Physics Department.
3. PRIVACY: JUST WHAT WE NEED, DOMESTIC
DIRTY TRICKS.
Why can't the FBI be more like the CIA? The FBI may be OK at catching
criminals, we're told, but we need a homeland intelligence agency that
can figure out who's going to commit a crime before they do it. So the
CIA is expanding its domestic presence. Meanwhile, a federal appeals panel
said the expanded wiretap guidelines, sought by Attorney General Ashcroft
under the Patriot Act, do not violate the Constitution.
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