[Vision2020] Our Political Black Hole

[Art Deco]

  [image: The New York Times] <http://www.nytimes.com/>

<http://www.nytimes.com/adx/bin/adx_click.html?type=goto&opzn&page=www.nytimes.com/printer-friendly&pos=Position1&sn2=336c557e/4f3dd5d2&sn1=84e9b341/ba42e34f&camp=FSL2012_ArticleTools_120x60_1787509c_nyt5&ad=BOSW_120x60_June13_NoText&goto=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Efoxsearchlight%2Ecom%2Fbeastsofthesouthernwild>

------------------------------
July 6, 2012
Our Political Black Hole By GAIL
COLLINS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/gailcollins/index.html>

Scientists in Geneva announced this week that they had found a new
subatomic particle that they were 99.999999 percent sure was the elusive
Higgs boson, nicknamed the “God particle.” Even though we had no earthly
idea what that meant, we were definitely excited.

It’s given us so much to think about: how existence began, the structure of
the universe, the difference between bosons and fermions. And, of course,
what it will mean to the presidential race.

The first thing all patriotic Americans are going to want to know is why
something this important happened elsewhere. The Large Hadron Collider,
where the physicists did the work, was built by the European Organization
for Nuclear Research. We were building a Superconducting Super Collider of
our own, in Waxahachie, Tex., but Congress stopped the financing for it in
1993.

“It’s disheartening that a large number of fairly intelligent people could
do such a thing,” said Leon Lederman, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, when
the budget-cutting House of Representatives ended the program. This was, of
course, a long time ago, back when Americans still undertook expensive,
daring construction projects and believed the House of Representatives had
a large number of fairly intelligent people.

But about the Higgs boson. As Dennis Overbye explained in The Times, it is
“the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that
permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass.” And we have so
many questions. Does it provide evidence of the existence of parallel
worlds? If so, is it possible to move to one that doesn’t have Michele
Bachmann?

Most of all, however, we want to know who this helps in the election:

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney today denounced Barack Obama for allowing
Europe to beat the United States at particle physics research. Under his
administration, Romney vowed, “All particles that bind the earth together
will be discovered in America, by Americans and for Americans.”

Under questioning from reporters, Romney said that his favorite kind of
subatomic particle is the fermion.

SOMEWHERE ON A BUS — Speaking to a crowd of blue-collar workers in Ohio,
President Barack Obama hailed the scientific news from Geneva as “a great
moment in history, not unlike my rescue of the auto industry.” The
physicists who made the discovery, Obama noted, all had health insurance.

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie today called for the privatization of the
Higgs boson. “Binding the earth together is something that could be handled
much more efficiently by the for-profit sector,” the Republican governor
and deeply available vice-presidential prospect said. “Auctioning off the
rights to the Higgs boson will create American jobs and balance American
budgets.”

When a reporter noted that the boson was discovered in Switzerland,
Christie called him “stupid” and “off-topic.”

CEDAR FALLS, IOWA — Rick Santorum today denounced the European Organization
for Nuclear Research for discovering something that is nicknamed the God
particle. “If God had wanted there to be a particle, he’d have given it to
Adam and Eve,” said Santorum, who is traveling through the Hawkeye State
this week because, really, he doesn’t have much else to do.

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Aides to Mitt Romney said the former governor’s favorite
kind of subatomic particle is actually the boson.

SOMEWHERE ELSE ON A BUS — President Barack Obama told a crowd of
blue-collar workers that there have been more Higgs bosons discovered
during his administration than during those of both George Bushes combined.

WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Mitt Romney said today that when he called for an
American effort to beat the Europeans in particle physics research, he did
not actually mean spending money to build a supercollider, but merely “the
need for our physicists to think harder.” The Republican presidential
contender said he believed this could be accomplished by “the elimination
of onerous, physics-research-killing regulations.”

JUST OUTSIDE OF WOLFEBORO, N.H. — Protesters today passed out cartoons of
Mitt Romney with a large, cuddly looking Higgs boson strapped to a crate on
the front of his jet ski.

WASHINGTON — Surrogates for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney sparred over the
meaning of the potential discovery of the Higgs boson. On “Meet the Press,”
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana called it “a questionable throw of the dice
by the same folks who gave us the euro.”

On “Face the Nation,” David Axelrod, the Obama campaign communications
director, said that if the Large Hadron Collider had been acquired by Bain
Capital it would have been “burdened with debt and sold for scrap metal”
and that Romney would be “the most anti-physics president since Franklin
Pierce.”

NEW YORK — Donald Trump told reporters that “my people in Hong Kong” have
uncovered evidence that America’s failure to take the lead in subatomic
particle research was because of a conspiracy between the Obama
administration and unnamed Chinese industrialists. He also said that he had
invited the Higgs boson to be a contender on “All-Star Celebrity
Apprentice.”


-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20120707/662deba7/attachment.html>