WHAT'S NEW, Friday, 7 April 1989 Washington, DC
1.
THIS MAY BE THE YEAR WE LEARN TO SPELL SEQUESTRATION.
Some
members of Congress are thinking about abandoning the effort to
develop a FY 90 budget and simply allow sequestration to occur.
With little more than a rough outline of a budget from the White
House, Congress feels it has been left to them to do all the
dirty work required to comply with the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings
Deficit Reduction Act. GRH provides for a completely mechanical
reduction in the budget to meet the established guidelines in
case Congress fails to reach an agreement. The expectation was
that Congress would find this prospect too awful to contemplate
and thus seek agreement. But the mindlessness of sequestration
can be appealing--no one's fingerprints show up on the axe. An
informal Office of Management and Budget estimate predicts a 9.7%
across-the-board cut of non-exempt, non-defense discretionary
spending. That, for example, would cost the NSF nearly $200M.
2
. COLD FUSION PAPERS WERE SCHEDULED FOR THE SPRING APS MEETING
in Baltimore, May 1-4, weeks before the University of Utah began
contacting financial publications. These include an invited paper
on Wednesday morning by Steve Jones of Brigham Young University,
titled "Cold Nuclear Fusion: Recent Results and Open Questions."
The paper is part of a symposium organized by the Topical Group
on Few-Body Systems and Multi-Particle Dynamics. This may lead
to speculation of pre-cognition by the organizers. A special
Monday evening session for presentation of new results on cold
fusion is also being arranged. It could be the denouement. A
quick survey of laboratories late today turned up no support for
either the Utah or Brigham Young claims. A report in the press
that Brookhaven scientists had evidence of fusion was incorrect.
3. THE FIRST COLD FUSION SHOOT OUT WILL TAKE PLACE AT HIGH NOON
in Dallas next week at the American Chemical Society Meeting.
Stanley Pons will be there in person at a special session on
Wednesday, but a news conference planned for Wednesday has been
cancelled. Two well-known electrochemists will speak in the
session along with Harold Furth, who heads the hot fusion effort
at Princeton. Meanwhile, copies of the paper submitted to the
Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry by Pons and Fleischmann
have been spewing out of FAX machines all over the country.
4. A BARBED WIRE CURTAIN HAS DESENDED OVER TEXAS.
Super collider
supporters in the Lone Star State are kicking up a ruckus over
foreign participation. Last week it was Rep. Bryant of Dallas.
"If this is worth $5 billion to us, then the innovative
technology that would flow from it should be used to benefit
Americans and not be given away to other countries," he said.
Today, Texas Governor Clements is meeting in Washington with
National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and Defense Secretary
Cheney to request an investigation of the national security
implications of foreign participation in the super collider!
|
