Friday, 14 August 1992 Washington, DC
1. SDI PROPONENTS IN THE SENATE BLOCK DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION
BILL.
The entire $274B bill was dropped rather than allow a vote to be
taken on an amendment that would have sliced off a mere $1B. The
Sasser/Bumpers amendment would have taken the $1B from the $4.3B
the Armed Services Committee had recommended for SDI--already a
big cut from the $5.4B requested by the Administration. Late on
Friday, John Warner (R-VA), the ranking minority member of Armed
Services, confidently introduced a motion to table the amendment;
it failed 43-49. Shocked SDI proponents managed to delay a vote
on the amendment until Monday morning to give them time to twist
arms. On Monday they still did not have the votes; but with just
two days to go before the August break, Malcolm Wallop (R-WY)
made it clear he would lead a filibuster to block a vote on the
Sasser amendment. The Senate went on to other business, but the
authorization bill contains the Senate's plans for reshaping of
the military in the post Cold War era. Although he opposes the
Sasser amendment, Sam Nunn (D-GA), Chair of Armed Services, will
submit a cloture petition to force a vote when the Senate comes
back. He points out that the amendment's supporters would simply
attach it to the FY 93 defense appropriations bill anyway.
2. CONGRESS CUTS SCIENCE--BUT STILL FINDS A LITTLE MONEY FOR
PORK
The report language with the House VA/HUD/IA Appropriations Bill
for FY 93 cuts $75M from the Administration request for the Earth
Observing System, but earmarks a breathtaking $83M for something
called the Consortium for International Earth Science Information
Network in Saginaw, in the district of Bob Traxler (D-MI), chair
of the VA/HUD/IA Appropriations Subcommittee. Last year, the same
outfit got $28M. It is Traxler's parting gift; he is not running
for reelection. CIESIN is presumably intended to disseminate the
sort of information EOS would collect if CIESIN wasn't taking the
money to build EOS. Tiny Wheeling Jesuit College usually gets a
contribution from Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV)--$35M in the last
two years--but the Senate leadership agreed to go on a low pork
diet this year. So this time, it was up to Rep. Mollohan (D-WV),
in whose district Wheeling lies, to give the 1400 student school
a couple of million dollars from the House appropriations bill.
$13.5M was cut from SETI; $8M of that went to something called
the Delta College Learning Center. We can expect some additions
to the list when the House/Senate Conference completes its work.
3. THE "NUCLEON CLUSTER MODEL" EXPLAINS COLD FUSION
REACTIONS!
You probably thought cold fusion already had been explained by
"hydrons," a sort of pre-shrunk hydrogen atom (WN 26 Apr 91).
This week, however, Clustron Sciences Corporation in Vienna, VA,
revealed an amazing discovery: it is the "concealed antimatter
component of the proton" that produces the heat. The link between
hydron theory and the nucleon cluster model is Eugene Mallove, a
former science writer at MIT, who is Vice-president for Research
of Clustron Sciences. A year ago, Mallove was peddling hydrons.
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