Monthly Archives: February 2007

Cold Fusion Reaction Replicated

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

New Scientist, Table-top fusion, back with a pop:

Reports that the bubble had burst for a form of cheap, table-top nuclear fusion may have been premature. Rusi Taleyarkhan, the physicist at the centre of a furore surrounding so-called bubble fusion, was last week cleared of scientific misconduct.

In 2002, Taleyarkhan, then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and now at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, published a paper in Science claiming that bombarding a solvent with neutrons and sound waves produced tiny bubbles that triggered nuclear fusion reactions. Then in March 2006, Purdue began investigating allegations of misconduct against Taleyarkhan, amid accusations that the evidence of fusion he reported was actually caused by a radioactive isotope of californium.

However, on 7 February, Purdue absolved Taleyarkhan's group of any misconduct. The verdict follows independent verification of Taleyarkhan's results by Edward Forringer of LeTourneau University in Texas and his colleagues last November (Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, vol 95, p 736).

I want my “Mr. Fusion”!

Posted in Science/Medicine | 6 Comments

McCain’s Forked-Tongue Express Rolls On

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Jesus' General has the graphic that tells all:

Substantiation: compare McCain's statement that Roe v. Wade should be repealed yesterday with McCain's pro-Roe v. Wade remarks in 1999 when he was trying to run left of the field:

“But certainly in the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade, which would then force X number of women in America to [undergo] illegal and dangerous operations.”

A man with no principles, or merely very changeable ones?

Updates: (1) Changed his view on Ethanol subsidies too (a big issue in Iowa…), but at least here he has a plausible excuse — higher gas prices. (2) And maybe the pander / lie was in 1999, given his consistent voting record against reproductive freedom?

Posted in Politics: US: 2008 Elections | 1 Comment

Iraqi Oil Law?

Posted on February 19, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

A bunch of evening clicking around led to me to what purports to be an unofficial English translation of the latest draft text of a proposed Iraqi Oil Law. Apparently, this draft text has been a closely held secret.

According to this blog, if passed this draft would have some serious distributional consequences:

Please feel free to widely distribute this document. It's important to start a stronger debate and to try to educate Iraqis and Americans about this catastrophic law that will facilitate the further looting of Iraqi oil, and will achieve nothing other than increasing the levels of violence and anger in Iraq.

This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq's enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

Unfortunately, I can't vouch for the authenticity of the translation or the commentator as they are all complete strangers to me.

Nor am I so sure that dividing Iraq yet sharing oil revenue is necessarily such a terrible outcome, at least compared to the other imaginable outcomes. As for PSAs, I'd think the devil is in the details — Iraq is presumably short of capital for exploration and development (the capital having been destroyed, denuded. and of course stolen) so unlike its neighbors it may need these deals — if somehow they were concluded in an equitable fashion…which I admit is not all that likely in the current circumstances where the government has such a weak hand to play.

By raising these questions I don't want to sound like I'm claiming the blog quoted above is wrong. I simply don't have enough information to form a judgment either way. And, for what it's worth, the same bout of clicking did bring to me to Digby's quotation of this line by conservative she-guru Ann Coulter, “Liberals are always talking about why we shouldn't go to war for oil. But why not go to war for oil? We need oil.”

Posted in Iraq | 2 Comments

Rumpole on the Rampage

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

The Justice Building Blog, a gossipy yet serious attempt to talk about what happens in the local courts, is on a bit of a roll recently: I recommend both Diary of a Mad Jurist and Traffic.Parking (about how to improve conditions in traffic court). Having been through it recently, I especially like the idea of moving traffic ticket soundings (in which the magistrate offers most offenders a plea — usually, so many dollars, no points) online. But I wonder if the proposed rule about never allowing continuances isn't a bit harsh. Even the feds allow them for illness, for example.

On the other hand, I do think that last week's post about the TV exposé of local cops is a bit late (unless maybe the local station is doing reruns?). I wrote about it a year ago.

Posted in Blogs, Law: Practice, Miami | Comments Off on Rumpole on the Rampage

An Ethics Question

Posted on February 18, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Crooked Timber, You Can be The Ethicist:

Graduate Admissions Committee for the department in question is deciding whom to admit. For said discipline, as for several others, there is a website on which potential students gossip share information about the departments to which they are applying, and many do so anonymously. However, many such students say enough about themselves that if you are in possession of their file (as graduate admissions committee is) you can identify them with near, and in some cases absolute, certainty. One applicant to said department behaves on the website (under the supposed cloak of anonymity) like… well, very badly, saying malicious things about departments he has visited, raising doubts about whether he is honest and the kind of person it would be reasonable to want other students to deal with, and generally revealing himself to be utterly unpleasant.

Question: is it wrong for the GAC to take this information about the applicant into account when making a decision? Secondary question: does it make a difference to your answer that the department is in a private, not a public, university?

My knee-jerk reaction was that one better be pretty darn sure one has the right person before making a major decision about them based on something posted on a web site.

This reaction was reinforced by one of the many very interesting comments at Crooked Timber, which asks how the committee can be sure that this wasn't a joe-job. Indeed, if it became known that this sort of attack was possible, what a way to do down one's rivals and ex-inamoratas!

I can imagine a world in which a committee might ask for further information in light of something like this, but depending on what amounts to hearsay without some sort of confirmation is, I think, a dangerous road to tread. It might even be a denial of due process in a public process.

Here's a slightly different hypothetical that may serve to test my intuition: suppose instead of a web posting that seems to be by the applicant, the committee received an unsigned letter accusing the applicant of the same bad behavior. What result, and why?

Posted in Internet | 2 Comments

This Should Be Interesting

Posted on February 17, 2007 by Michael Froomkin

Judge Orders Padilla Jail Personnel to Testify:

Officials at the Navy brig where terrorism suspect Jose Padilla was held for 3 1/2 years as an enemy combatant were ordered Friday to testify at a hearing to determine his psychological competency, a ruling that allows the defense to press its claims that sensory deprivation and torture in confinement have rendered the alleged al-Qaeda operative unfit to stand trial.

The ruling marks one of the few times since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that officials responsible for the jail conditions and interrogations of terrorism suspects have been called to testify, and it is the first time in the Padilla case.

I gather the hearing is “next week” but don't know exactly when. Pity it is going to be such a busy week for me, for I'd like to go. [UPDATE: Why do I have to read the Guardian, based in London, to learn that the hearing will be on the 22nd.]

Meanwhile, Padilla's co-defendants are asking to have their trial severed from his on the grounds that the media attention given to Padilla's case will poison theirs. There's some irony there, given that at least on the face of the indictment, the tarnishment seems much more likely to work the other way around: the facts alleged against the other defendants are more damning and more detailed than the rather thin gruel served up about Padilla himself.

Posted in Padilla | Comments Off on This Should Be Interesting