MA Governor Wants More New Tech

turnitover writes "Cryptically stating that Asia wants the U.S. to become 'the France of the 21st century,' Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney made a public call for more innovation in technology, reports eWEEK.com. He urged more investment and development and, yes, a move to OpenDocument, as reported previously on Slashdot." From the article: "Underlining the challenge, Romney said leaders of one technology firm in Massachusetts anticipated that 90 percent of its skilled labor would be in Asia in 10 years. He also pointed to statistics that show the United States graduating only 4,400 mathematics and science PhDs each year compared with 24,900 math and science PhDs for greater Asia."

Comments

Quality not quantity

[bjorniac]

Yes, the US graduates fewer PhDs in math and physics. I'm trying to be one of them. But the quality of the US PhD programs are what brought me here (I'm not USian). You can graduate a million PhDs from a degree farm somewhere but if they haven't had the same level of education they aren't going to be as influential. I'm not saying that asian universities are bad, just that there needs to be a deeper insight into this than just raw numbers.

England of the 21st Century

[bombadillo]

"Cryptically stating that Asia wants the U.S. to become 'the France of the 21st century,"

Wouldn't a better analogy be, "the England of the 21st century". After all we do have troops in the same cities around the world (Baghdad, Kabul) as Britain at the turn of the 20th century. We did take the position of world power from the British. Much of our common law is based from British law. But hey, the sun never sets on the British Empire....

What did you expect?

[willow]

Science, math, and engineering education and professions are disrespected by the educational system (we'd rather fund our sports teams), the government (your scientific results don't support our politics), businesses (your work is critical to us but we can't pay you more than your overseas competition), and media (entertainers are cool, geeks drool).

I doubt this will change until it's too late.

Please ignore Romney...

[SuperBanana]

I live in MA, and Romney has been one colossal pain in the ass.

• Countless "initiatives" and campaign platforms of his have barely seen the light of day. He immediately took a "tough guy" stance with the legislature, assuring he's been a "lame duck governor" since before he was sworn in. He claimed his business experience (he headed Bain Capital, an aquisition firm which oppertunistically bought up companies, "trimmed the fat" by firing huge numbers of employees, etc. He was infamous for his my-way-or-the-highway attitude; very much a stereotypical rich white power broker asshole.) About the only good thing to come of Romney's "tough guy" stance was that Thomas Finneran (former speaker of the house) is gone.
• He has fought relentlessly against public opinion and the court system to ban gay marriage. Loves to talk about the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, but doesn't like to mention in the same discussion that he's a Mormon- a religion which used to promote treating women like cattle and marrying as many as you like.
• He claims the US Olympics as one of his greatest victories, "turning them around"- except the only reason it worked was because of massive bailouts by the federal government. He doesn't like to talk about the stories of him going into screaming rages at teenage Olympic volunteers- in public.
• Has spent virtually all of his time in office sucking up to conservative Republicans on a national level, clearly desperate to run for President. He's always taking trips internationally and around the country, pretty clearly trying to make himself a national/international player. Keeps dropping hints about "aspirations" but then denying them categorically. Uses his wife's chronic illnesses as an excuse for why he hasn't decided if he's running or not. More likely, he's trying to decide if the Republican party has even the slimmest chance of putting anybody in office higher than "senator", and if he should settle for that instead of trying to secure a presidential nomination.

The man is a calculating, cold, arrogant, mean, power-brokering son of a bitch.