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Scientific Research Encountering More Restrictions
vab writes "MSNBC is running an article
that details how the MIT AI Lab, the birth place of the free software movement, walked away from a $404K study because the government wanted to restrict participation by foreign students. The article talks about further restrictions the US Government is trying to impose in the name of homeland security and how other research institutions are reacting."
I'm glad the Govt is waking up. You folks who happen to think that every foreign student in our Universities can't possibly be a terrorist need to wake up and smell the coffee.
Nobody ever thought foreigneers taking flight school could be terrorists either. Look how that turned out.
Sure, it would be nice to be politically correct all the time and stick our head in the sand. Technology loves to be free, but when it can be turned around and used to harm you, you need to think about to whom it is being given freely.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
" ...pay attention to who's saying the government is wrong: Sheila Widnall. From 1993-1997, she was secretary of the Air Force, arguably the most technologically advanced of the four branches of the US military. For those not up on US government, the Secretary of the Air Force is the civilian head of the US Air Force. All the generals answered to her; she answered only to the Secretary of Defense, who answers to POTUS."
And the POTUS was who at that time? Clinton - a liberal, sniveling, groveling, lieing scumbag of a Democrat. You should also note that while Clinton was president the WTC was bombed and plans were being hatched (and training taking place) to hijack planes and fly them into buildings. While he was POTUS he and his administration passed up an oppurtunity to capture Osama bin Laden.
You might also have noticed that under him the morale of the military went to shit.
So I not only agree with the US Govt on this, but wish people would recognize that the previous US administration was completely inept and a complete disaster.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
is that this is illegal. not to mention complete bullshit.
Question
http://www.ironfroggy.com/
Exactly. American HS students have for generations ranked at the bottom of the top 20 Industrial nations in math and science test scores. Except for the rare, selftaught genius, those that make it to graduate school do so only in the 'humanities', where PC reigns amoke.
Even American students with top SAT and ACT scores demonstrated an inability to comprehend basic Physics, Calculus and Chemistry textbooks I used when teaching those courses.
A foreign exchange HS student from France tested out of ALL of the local HS science and math classes so the HS principle suggested it test at the college where I taught. The student tested into my Physics class and my Calc III class, where he proceeded to rise to the top of both classes. He even had a much better command of English than my American students. During the Christmas season I invited him to spend a few days at my home. During our converstaions I asked him what he was going to major in when he returned to France. He astounded me by replying that he wasn't going to 'university' because he wasn't good enough to get in, he was going to a vocational tech school to study metal forming.
Of course, not all foreign students are academically superior to Americans. Some are much worse. While those from India, Europe and Japan were generally outstanding, students from Saudia Arabia held the view that diplomas were 'negotiable' and all I had to do was quote a price. Foreign students from most other locations were unremarkable, but able to match American students.
Also, every since the establishment of the NIS and and NIH research in American Colleges and Universities have been controlled by those government bureaucracies. Most projects which don't promise results complient with the prevailing views never get funded. Peer review is synomynous with censorship. Funding of Replication projects occurs only for high profile or politically hot topics. The NIS and NIH have probably done more damage to American scientific research than any other single factor.
Someone commented about Soviet Science 'atrophying' under state control. Why should they have gone to all the time and expense of doing original research when they could buy it or steal it? There were enough greedy or disloyal American Turncoats in high places to bribe or extort. Clinton made that abundently clear to the Chinese with his quid quo pro exchange of US missle technology for campaign contributions to the DNC. Ditto with the Utah coal reserves fiasco. And, begun under Clinton and continuing with the current administration, a wholesale transer of constitutional rights to corporations is taking place, for the sake of 'their' so called 'Intellectual Property'. If those greedy robber barrons could find a way to meter sunlight or oxygen they would.