Scientists & Engineers for America

It's a measure of the times... A new organization launched this past week: Scientists and Engineers for America.

The principal role of the science and technology community is to advance human understanding. But there are times when this is not enough. Scientists and engineers have a right, indeed an obligation, to enter the political debate when the nation’s leaders systematically ignore scientific evidence and analysis, put ideological interests ahead of scientific truths, suppress valid scientific evidence and harass and threaten scientists for speaking honestly about their research.

The organization is non-profit, but it is specifically not a tax exempt 501(c)3 organization, like Physicians for Social Responsibility or Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. The new SEFORA is specifically organized to lobby and campaign for candidates who support the agenda embodied in their Bill of Rights for Scientists and Engineers.

They've kept their platform pretty basic, to garner wide support. Check out their mission statement.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 11:37 AM | TrackBack

Rotten Mooncakes

Sometimes a bit of prose just leaps out at you. This is from XinHua - China View...

The mooncake certificate signing (CS) has been promoted in Shenzhen for more than a decade as representing high quality, and is accepted by more and more consumers.

But Jingbao reporters found out recently that the issuance of mooncake CS is not standardized. As long as it gets paid, the Shenzhen Consumer Goods Quality Promotion Association will issue the CS signs to anyone. Its behaviour has greatly damaged CS's public credibility.

I wonder what will happen when Verisign gets into the mooncake certificate business? It sounds like the current Certificate Authority is not doing too well.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 08:42 AM

Benjamin Franklin Quote

Fellow Moab hiker Bruce Ames pointed me to this excerpt from a 1780 letter by Benjamin Franklin.

In 1780 Benjamin Franklin wrote to Joseph Priestley, the chemist, biologist, and minister: "I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born too soon. It is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter. We may, perhaps, deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity, for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labor and double its produce: all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, (not excepting even that of old age,) and our lives lengthened at pleasure, even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement, that men would cease to be wolves to one another, and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity."

Posted by BradRubenstein at 09:06 PM | TrackBack

On the Passing of Great Women

I came across this post by Oriana Fallaci, who died yesterday. It is from the 7/18/05 issue of Corriere Della Sera, translated by dennisw.

Now, I ask myself: "What do you say, what do you have to say, about what happened in London?" They ask me face-to-face, via fax and email; often scolding me because up until now I have remained silent. Almost as if my silence were a betrayal. And each time I shake my head and murmur to myself: what else should I say?!? I've been saying it for four years--that I fight against the Monster that has decided to eliminate us physically and, along with our bodies, to destroy our principles and values. Our civilization. For four years I've been talking about Islamic Nazism; about the war against the West; about the death cult; about European suicide. About a Europe that is no longer Europe, but Eurabia, and that with its feebleness, its inertia, its blindness, its servitude to the enemy is digging its own grave. For four years, like another Cassandra, I've been shouting until I'm hoarse "Troy is burning! Troy is burning!" and I despair of the Danaids for whom, like Virgil in the Aeneid I weep for a city entombed in its torpor. [A city] that, through its wide-open doors receives fresh troops and joins complicit parties [inside]. For four years I've been repeating to the wind the truth about the Monster and its accomplices; that is, the accomplices of the Monster who, in good or bad faith, open wide the doors--who, like [those] in the Apocalypse of John the Evangelist, throw themselves at his feet and allow themselves to be stamped with the mark of shame.

I am feeling like all the strong women, my iconic feminists, are leaving. They were uncompromising, passionate, smart women. Even when I don't agree with them, I admire they way they make me think. Like Anne Richards, who passed away on September 13.

In a voice that rang with the sounds of Waco, her hometown, she ribbed the incumbent vice president, George H. W. Bush. "Poor George," she drawled. "He can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

These recent deaths cause me to think back on the others who have gone. Some recently, like Susan Sontag and Betty Friedan. Some, not so recently, like Bella Abzug. I even find myself remembering the death of Audre Lorde...

Posted by BradRubenstein at 08:22 PM | TrackBack

Running here, running there

One day last week I'm running in Moab, and the next day I'm running along the Thames. What a week.

Posted by BradRubenstein at 05:35 PM | TrackBack