Friday, July 29, 2011
I have only one thing in common with these gentlemen: They are both 80
years old. Aside from a talent for making money, age may also be about
the
only thing they have in common with each other. The Center for American
Progress, heavily financed by Hungarian-American George Soros, demands to
know whether Australia Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. violated U.S. law in
obtaining phone records in the U.S. The Center, headed by John Podesta,
co-chairman of Obama's presidential transition team, has called attention
to the fact that News Corp. is a U.S.-based corporation, subject to the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which prosecutes for bribery of foreign
officials. Sens. Rockefeller and Boxer sent a letter to Attorney General
Eric Holder calling for an investigation into whether News Corp. may have
hacked the phones of 9/11 victims.
Detroit executives staged a march on Washington a few years ago to protest
higher fuel efficiency standards. Tougher standards, they claimed, would
cause the collapse of the United States auto industry. Well, under the
George W. Bush administration the auto industry did collapse -- not
because
fuel economy standards were too tough, but because they were too soft.
Today, as Bill Vlasic wrote in this morning's NY Times, the President is
scheduled to announce an unheard-of doubling of the standard, from 27
miles
per gallon to 54.5 by the year 2025. This time, the Detroit executives
support the change, but it's easy to argue that the new standards are
still
too soft. The Toyota Prius topped 54 mpg in
2001.
Peak energy of 7 TeV is scheduled for 2014, but theyve had their first
good look now at 3.5 TeV. It reminds me of NASA's initial look with the
Viking 2 Lander on Mars, 32 years ago. The Lander had just arrived; not
gently, but intact. We were about to see the first pictures of Mars,
close-
up. Carl Sagan was there, looking very nervous. The camera would rotate
360 giving a panoramic view. No one knew exactly what to expect; perhaps
some unexpected this life form? Everything, including the sky, was in
shades of pink. Any hope of seeing something totally unexpected was
dashed. The desolate, boulder-strewn landscape, littered with sharp-edged
boulders, was utterly desolate. I can never forget the devastated look on
Carl's face. Looking at LHC spectra this summer must have been like that
for high-energy physicists. Everything you knew you should expect to find
from the standard model was there, and nothing else.
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