Friday, 25 June 93 Washington, DC
1. PHYSICISTS FROM NUCLEAR POWERS OPPOSE NUCLEAR WEAPONS TESTING!
On July 1, 1993, President Clinton can order the resumption of
nuclear weapons tests. Sources in the Administration say he is
leaning toward a continued moratorium, but a final decision has
been delayed to give Livermore scientists one more chance to come
up with a good argument for further tests. Meanwhile, presidents
of the Russian, European and American physical societies, the
Indian and Overseas-Chinese physics associations and the British
Institute of Physics signed a statement urging their governments
to: "undertake all practical measures to halt the proliferation
of nuclear weapons; maintain the nuclear testing moratorium; and
initiate serious negotiations to ban testing of nuclear weapons
in all environments for all time." Donald Langenberg signed for
the APS, which delivered the statement to the White House today.
2. HOUSE VOTES TO KILL SUPER COLLIDER BY CRUSHING 280-150 MARGIN!
Even the staunchest supporters of the SSC expected to lose in the
House, but they hoped for a closer vote than last year, when it
lost by 232-181. An effort will again be made to restore funding
in the Senate, but the lop-sided House vote makes it much harder.
The vote was completely bi-partisan, which suggests the President
was not twisting arms on this one; he was preoccupied, of course,
with the close fight over his budget. Several other factors were
also working against the SSC, including the declining influence
of the Texas delegation and the draft of a devastating report by
the DOE Inspector General's Office alleging extravance and waste
on the project. The Senate vote on the SSC was expected in a few
weeks, but Senator Gramm (R-TX) now wants to delay it.
3. HOUSE APPROVES FREEDOM-LITE SPACE STATION BY ONE-VOTE MARGIN.
The Roemer Amendment to the NASA authorization bill, which sought
to kill the scaled-down space station, was defeated by a single
vote Wednesday. The debate sounded familiar--Columbus was invoked
twice, cancer and AIDS four times. I lost count of the number of
times Magnetic Resonance Imaging was cited as a spin-off. Spencer
Bachus (D-AL) showed more originality; he listed "athletic shoes"
among the spin-offs. The labyrinthine process of funding the
station has just begun--it's still a long way from here to there.
4. SUPERSTRING FIELD IS USED TO REDUCE CRIME IN NATION'S CAPITAL!
The Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy revealed
on Tuesday that a 2-month, $4M program to reduce crime has been
underway in Washington since 5 June. The Institute's director,
John Hagelin, a Harvard-trained field theorist, explained that a
coherent field generated by 1,000 trained experts meditating in
unison has been cutting crime and enhancing the effectiveness of
President Clinton by spreading tranquility throughout the city.
This "scientific demonstration" will provide proof of a "unified
superstring field," Hagelin said, but he acknowledged that the
Supercollider will be needed to provide independent confirmation.
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