US Losing its Scientific Dominance

ScaredSilly writes "The New York Times is reporting that the US is losing its dominance in the sciences. They cite lowering research budgets, increased military spending and 'reverse brain-drain': fewer techies staying in the US after school. I personally think that our comparatively crappy K-12 educational system, and an increased dominance of military research over core scientific research plays a big role. (It's easy to get DARPA, DoD and DoE funding, but difficult to get NSF funding). What do you folks think?"

Comments

And Outsourcing Doesn't Help

[beforewisdom]

Students will not major in fields they read about being outsourced every day.

The US Constitution guarantees the Right to Freedom Of Speach, yet it is illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded theater unless there is a real threat.

However, there is no right in the constitution for coporations to make the maximum amount of profit they can .... irregardless of the consequnces to the nation.

So we have a situation where there *IS* a right given to people which is curtailed for the general welfare.

Yet, there is also the situation where there is *NO* right given to corporations and the idea that this non-right should be curtailed for the welfare of an entrie nation is not accepted.

Hmmmmm.

It's a social breakdown.

[Futurepower(R)]

"What do you folks think?"

I think that the U.S. is experiencing a wholesale social breakdown, not just isolated problems. I could give many, many examples of people who are having a very difficult time in life, but, if they are people you don't know, the examples might not interest you. So, I will use Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Dick Cheney and their families as examples. The voters in the U.S. picked them as the best people to lead the country. If they are the best, consider the problems of the average person. The social breakdown is the reason for the self-destruction of U.S. companies and for the unprecedented government corruption in the United States.

Both U.S. President George W. Bush and U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney are alcoholics. Dick Cheney has two DUIs and George W. Bush one:

George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest
George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest

Dick Cheney DUI, 1st DUI arrest record
Dick Cheney DUI, 2nd DUI arrest record

DUI means "Driving Under the Influence" of alcohol. A DUI is a conviction for a very, very serious crime, a crime that endangers everyone on the road, a crime that often kills people. A DUI conviction means that the driver was so needing to pursue alcoholic behavior that he or she was willing to take a chance of murder.

According to Laura Bush and George W. Bush himself, she threatened to leave him because of his drinking.

Most people have little experience with alcoholics. If you know one, ask him or her about the information presented here. Alcoholics say that it usually requires "4 to 6 years" of driving drunk before they get a DUI. (If you want to investigate alcoholism, it's easy to find alcoholics and recovered alcoholics in the United States. Anyone can go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the small city of Portland, Oregon, USA, there are 27 AA meetings each week, three each day.)

You may have heard the saying "Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic." This does NOT mean, "Once an alcoholic, always a problem drinker." It means that those who have become alcoholics typically have many, many characteristics of an alcoholic personality, and that those characteristics don't go away when the person stops drinking.

For example, alcoholics are often very socially engaging and likable.

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was not an alcoholic, but his parents were violent alcoholics. You can read the book. Bill Clinton's misuse of sexuality is typical of the children of alcoholism-influenced families.

Here are some typical characteristics of an alcoholic personality. You can decide for yourself if they apply to George W. Bush. I have, however, supplied a few links to articles that support this view, and the books listed at the bottom support it also. Note that I've just pulled this information together by quick Googling as a very part-time effort. There is a huge amount of information available, too much to mention here:

• Absence of deep or analytical thinking (If anyone has any information about George W. Bush showing evidence of analytical or sophisticated thinking, please write to me.)
• Polarized thinking. Mr. Bush's statement, "you are either with us or against us" is an example. Another example is his statement, "Look my job isn't to try to nuance. I think moral clarity is important... this is evil versus good."
• Rigid thinking. A praising April 2, 2003 article about Bush in USA Today newspaper says, "He has a special epithet fo

Re:Argh...

[stephentyrone]

Possessives usually have an apostrophe, so the possessive form of "it" would be "it's", were it not for the fact that that spelling is already taken by the contraction of "it is". To avoid any possibility of confusion*, we (weirdly) spell the possessive form "its". To summarize: its = belonging to it it's = it is *the actually possibilities for confusion seem to be extremely, extremely limited. I'm hard-pressed to think of a case that can't easily be disambiguated by context.