Posted by daniels. on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 19:37 | #

A link to the Romney quote might be good.

I take it that you are suggesting that he was boasting of its discovery in proud naivete.

As President, he may have the necessary individual power and be persuaded. He might have some motives that could be worked on….personal economic, perhaps some Mormon ethnocentrism and more..

Posted by martin on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 19:53 | #

Although in this particular case the Mormon university BYU’s scientist, Steven Jones, played a significant role in helping the scientific establishment suppress cold fusion

How did Steven Jones help suppress cold fusion? I thought he was working on it as well. Also, Steven Jones is a scientific 9/11 “truther”. Is there any connection to that?

Posted by martin on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:03 | #

Here’s the transcript to the interview wherein he mentions cold fusion:

http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/992671

CARNEY: What role should government have in promoting certain industries or economic activities such as homeownership, or manufacturing, renewable energy or fossil fuel energy, exports, or just advanced technology? What sort of subsidies and incentives do you favor? You had some of these in Massachusetts, I know.

ROMNEY: Very limited—my answer to your first question. I’m not an advocate of industrial policy being formed by a government. I do believe in the power of free markets, and when the government removes the extraordinary burdens that it puts on markets, why I think markets are more effective at guiding a prosperous economy than is the government.

So for instance, I would not be investing massive dollars in electric car companies in California. I think Tesla and Fisker are delightful-looking vehicles, but I somehow imagine that Toyota, Nissan, and even General Motors will produce a more cost-effective electric car than either Tesla or Fisker. I think it is bad policy for us to be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in specific companies and specific technologies, and developing those technologies.

I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with—with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.

But basic science, in my view, is a way that research can encourage our entire economy. And so, for instance, in Michigan, some years ago—I think it was in 2007—I spoke there and said, you know, I think we ought to embark upon an effort to do analysis on energy research, transportation research, materials research. But again, basic research which could then be either purchased by or licensed by companies foreign and domestic.

Posted by martin on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 20:08 | #

Moreover, being a Mormon, he is far from biased against a major discovery coming out of Utah.

The way Romney remarks that “It was the University of Utah that solved that” suggests that he is not just unbiased but proud of something like this coming from Utah.

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 22:53 | #

Martin,

Steve Jones actually coined the phrase “cold fusion” originally in an article he wrote the Scientific American and which it published before the announcement of the P&F phenomenon.  The actual discovery of the P&F phenomenon dates to mid 1984 when a cell they were working on went nonlinear and virtually destroyed their lab due to the energy release.  This discovery was before Jones started his work on his version of “cold fusion”, which he later retracted.  Thus, Jones was probably aware of rumors surrounding the 1984 event and that is probably the reason he was motivated to pursue his theory.  However Jones did not cite P&F in his SciAm paper and therefore appears to be guilty of a certain amount of plagiarism.

With that as backdrop, we can see why the U of UT lawyers pressured P&F into their public announcement—as ill advised as that turns out to have been for other reasons.

In that March 1989 press conference P&F clearly stated that, given the power levels produced, the neutron flux was a factor of a billion too small to be accounted for by fusion as plasma physicists know it: inertial collision of light atomic nuclei.  The physics establishment proceeded to ignore this very clear statement in the original press release by P&F, so that they could imply P&F were, in the immortal words of Steven Koonin supported by his colleague at Caltech, Jew Nathan Lewis, subjecting the world to: “suffering from the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann.”—a statement that came within 5 weeks of the P&F press release and was met, after a short pause, by thunderous applause by the American Physical Society’s meeting in Baltimore.  (At the time, no one but P&F had the actual experimental protocol they followed and, as it turned out, it required more than 5 weeks to replicate the phenomenon even if the protocol was followed.)

This utter blackout of what P&F said about neutrons was exacerbated by an error in the neutron detection techniques used by P&F—they being experts in calorimetry and electrochemistry rather than nuclear physics—an error that was blown way out of proportion by the scientific establishment so that they ignore the impeccable measurement of anomalous heat.

Enter Steven Jones with his own “contribution” to the controversy.  Jones, demonstrating great piety in the eyes of the scientific establishment, refused to examine anomalous heat from P&F’s cell and measured only neutron flux.  He found none, and he went beyond that to weigh in with the opinion that cold fusion was an illusion.  Jones did this at a time and from a position that couldn’t have been more damaging.

Posted by martin on Tue, 06 Nov 2012 23:53 | #

The physics establishment proceeded to ignore this very clear statement in the original press release by P&F, so that they could imply P&F were, in the immortal words of Steven Koonin supported by his colleague at Caltech, Jew Nathan Lewis subjecting the world to: “suffering from the incompetence and delusion of Pons and Fleischmann.”—a statement that came within 5 weeks of the P&F press release and was met, after a short pause, by thunderous applause by the American Physical Society’s meeting in Baltimore.

I recall the Jewish writer Gary Taubes wrote some scathing articles and a book attacking cold fusion. The book was titled “Bad Science” or something along those lines. Taubes is famous today for his book on diet and nutrition.

I have heard that the Israelis have been working on cold fusion. So perhaps there will be fewer attacks against it as the Israelis may have been working on it long enough where they will be able to take some credit for some advances.

Posted by Leon Haller on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:21 | #

Martin@6

Gary Taubes may be a Jew, but he is a writer of crystalline clarity, and his book on diet (Good Calories, Bad Calories, a work more of scholarship than “diet”) is, I believe, basically correct. He is not a scientist, but a brilliant science journalist. I don’t care whether he’s a Jew. There are many excellent Jewish scholars and writers and scientists, as increasingly with Asians. The white man may have pretty much invented the very concepts of scholarship, science, and so forth, and our ancestors may have laid the foundations for the modern disciplines, but expect there to be more real contributions from other races over time. Whites as a whole may be superior (except cognitively wrt Jewry), but that hardly means every nonwhite is inferior.

Posted by Leon Haller on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:41 | #

Is part of the OP here missing? What was Romney’s comment? And what exactly is it significance?

I confess I made some comments before actually reading the OP.

Posted by Classic Sparkle on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 03:20 | #

FREE ENERGY = REALLY BIG, ESSENTIALLY FREE BOMBS AND DELIVERY SYSTEMS

THIS COULD EQUALIZE THE PLAYING FIELD… WN’S COULD TERRORIZE THEIR ENEMIES INTO SUBMISSION WITH A HOME DEPOT CREDIT CARD!!!

Or maybe just defend Leon’s White Zion with the promise of mutually assured destruction… Or maybe we can’t build bombs with it?! I don’t understand the technology.

I’ve still got time to cast a ballot James so I’m heading out the door.

Posted by martin on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:35 | #

Regarding technology and government, what about Elon Musk and Obama? Apparently Musk has a close relationship with the Obama admin and has received lots of financial and political support for his activities. The kind of support Romney would appear to be against. Musk has been attacked by some for being a “welfare case” space pioneer as a result:

http://rbo2.com/2012/05/28/lying-liars-elon-musk-obamas-welfare-case-space-pioneer/

Musk appears to have been making significant progress and looks like he will come out with a reusable rocket pretty soon.

Posted by martin on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:42 | #

Here is an article on the “Elon Musk/Barack Obama Commercial Space Alliance”:

http://news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-barack-obama-commercial-space-alliance-191200166.html

President Barack Obama is headed for California in search of campaign cash for 2012. One of the events he will be attending is an exclusive $38,500 a plate dinner that will have as a guest, among other luminaries, SpaceX’s Elon Musk.

Musk has every reason to be appreciative of President Obama, as SpaceX has recently been the recipient of $75 million under a program by NASA that is designed to encourage the development of commercial space craft.

The Elon Musk/Barack Obama alliance has been one of the most interesting business/political relationships of this century. Up until the 2008 campaign cycle, Musk had given roughly equal amounts of campaign contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates and campaign committees. But during the recent 2010 cycle, Musk gave the vast majority of his campaign cash to Democrats.

Musk had been the recipient of government largess during the Bush administration. The Commercial Orbital Transportation Systems program, which awarded SpaceX money to develop its commercial space craft, is a George W. Bush-era project. But the Obama administration has doubled down on commercial space, eliminating the Constellation program that would have created a public option in the form of the Ares 1 launcher, and going all in for companies like SpaceX. SpaceX has a $1.6 billion contract to deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station with his Dragon space craft to be launched on a Falcon 9 once the system becomes operational.

When President Obama traveled to the Kennedy Space Center on April 15, 2010, to deliver his space policy speech, he met with Musk and viewed the Falcon 9 then on the launch pad. Obama went on to praise commercial space companies like Musk’s and to disdain the Constellation program to return astronauts to the moon.

Thus it can be said that the Musk/Obama partnership has been a very profitable one for both parties. Obama has funneled tens of millions of dollars, with much more promised, to Musk’s companies. Musk has given tens of thousands to Democrats and Democratic causes, with more to follow.

Posted by martin on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 04:50 | #

I don’t know what Musk’s view of cold fusion is. I don’t believe he’s ever mentioned it in public. He has mentioned hot fusion though, and said that he thinks he would be able to build a successful hot fusion device.

Posted by daniels on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 05:33 | #

Posted by Leon Haller on November 06, 2012, 08:21 PM | #

Gary Taubes may be a Jew, but he is a writer of crystalline clarity, and his book on diet (Good Calories, Bad Calories, a work more of scholarship than “diet”) is, I believe, basically correct. He is not a scientist, but a brilliant science journalist. I don’t care whether he’s a Jew. There are many excellent Jewish scholars and writers and scientists, as increasingly with Asians. The white man may have pretty much invented the very concepts of scholarship, science, and so forth, and our ancestors may have laid the foundations for the modern disciplines, but expect there to be more real contributions from other races over time. Whites as a whole may be superior (except cognitively wrt Jewry), but that hardly means every nonwhite is inferior.

Leon, why don’t you care that Tuabes is a Jew? Are they really so objective, merely sharing “their” contributions with humanity? Don’t you see motives and self interest in these people? Don’t you suppose that Jews could be disposed to deny White discovery - even appropriate their ideas and go to work on them for themselves? I have seen this pattern of dishonesty among them in many instances of academic and intellectual publication. It could hardly be more obvious that they are competing against us as a group, not merely shedding light on us.

Posted by Leon Haller on November 06, 2012, 08:41 PM | #

I confess I made some comments before actually reading the OP.

From Martin’s post #3 above:

ROMNEY: “I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with—with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that. We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it.”

Posted by Heart of America on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 05:36 | #

Vote for the N****r.  It’s Important.

Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 06:11 | #

Martin, the background on SpaceX, NASA and Obama is that ever since LBJ turned NASA into a southern middle class welfare system and Nixon’s “southern strategy” succeeded in shifting the southern white vote Republican, NASA has existed in a political limbo.  When the Challenger blew up in 1986, and Lauri Garver took over the National Space Society, she and I came to loggerheads over the privatization of launch services.  Her ally in this, Glenn Reynolds (now “Instapundit”) was tasked with taking credit, on behalf of the NSS, for my organization’s (The Coalition for Science and Commerce) spade work on privatizing launch services but only after the NSS had fought our grassroots efforts every step of the way and found we were going to win anyway thereby embarrassing them.  The sponsor of the legislation, however, introduced my testimony before Congress—as I sat next to Reynolds—by giving me credit and not mentioning Reynolds, Garver or the NSS.  This was embarrassing to Garver, Reynolds, et al.  Even though Bush, then Clinton then Bush refused to enforce the provisions of the legislation, as the DotCon billionaires started moving enmasse toward private launch services and the Shuttle was becoming a failure even to the mongoloid idiots in Congress, Garver knew the jig was up and when Obama appointed her deputy administrator of NASA under its first black administrator, she had learned her lesson.

Since NASA had long been seen as middle class redneck welfare anyway, it was a trivial decision for Obama to, with Garver’s guidance, try to coopt SpaceX’s increasingly inevitable victory over the Nixon southern strategy.

Posted by James Bowery on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 06:17 | #

Now that Romney’s suicidal treatment of the Ron Paul Republicans has born its bitter fruit, there is still an outside chance that Romney’s monied supporters will see cold fusion investment as a way of getting revenge on Obama.  The sociopolitical cover provided by a Presidential candidate endorsing the technology—however ignorantly and clumsily—does offer an opportunity for someone to become incredibly rich at the same time that they score a political coup for the Republicans.

I’m not holding my breath, you understand, but it _is_ true that the Neocons* might now turn their extraordinary reality distortion field to fight the scientific establishment’s reality distortion field—in which case the scientific establishment loses without so much as a fight.

*The University of Missouri is now openly pursuing cold fusion in association with an Israeli firm and a grant from a prominent American Jew.

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