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HAARP Ionospheric Research Program Set To Continue

Posted by samzenpus on from the tin-foil-hats dept.

cylonlover writes "Reports that the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) had been shut down permanently were apparently a bit premature. According to HAARP program manager James Keeney, the facility is only temporarily off the air while operating contractors are changed. So why does anyone care? Despite being associated with various natural disasters over the past two decades by the conspiracy fringe, HAARP is in reality a facility for studying the ionosphere. Gizmag takes a look at the goings on at HAARP – past, present, and future."

71 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. At last an actual paper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to the paper in TFA they're actually doing some pretty neat experiments while they zap the ionosphere. They've got satellites up there that measure electromagnetic radiation from various events like earthquakes and they're using HAARP to essentially provide a control for those.

    1. Re:At last an actual paper by Dunbal · · Score: 1, Insightful

      What HAARP really doing is absorbing money in the hopes of producing some actually useful science, which they have failed to do so far. Ahh but government thinks that failure must be rewarded by throwing even more money at it, be it a bank or "scientific" research.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:At last an actual paper by Pseudonym+Authority · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not research if you can look it up on Wikipedia. It may fail to produce groundbreaking discoveries, but the data is still being collected, and even negative results will one day find a use, even if to prevent others from chasing the same failed path. Believe it or not, scientist usually want to work on things that are worth while, not chase dead ends. Can you not understand that your free market absolutist crap doesn't apply to everything? Science doesn't (read: basically nothing) agree with your delusional, anti-intellectual position where if it's not immediately productive then the universe has spoken and it will never be. If people like you ran scientific institutions we'd be stuck with a pneumatic tube internet because you'd yank funding at the first sign of a failed experiment.

    3. Re:At last an actual paper by cheesybagel · · Score: 2

      It sounds great to me. MWs of beamed energy. They only need to make a collector site with reasonable efficiency and they will have a neat power transmission system.

    4. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Scientists when they're faced with limited resources, pick and choose what research they do. One doesn't have to be a free market capitalist to be interested in doing activities that not only yield more benefit (in however you decide benefit is defined) than they cost, but also more benefit than alternate uses for the money.

      All this pointless yacking about the strawman of immediate monetary return on investment ignores that funding of scientific research is just another economic problem subject to the same rules and constraints as any other human endeavor. To be so profoundly ignorant of economics IMHO makes you the delusional, anti-intellectual.

    5. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      $250 million over 20 years.

      It's interesting how casual people are about squandering vast sums of money. Sure, eliminating one program like this isn't going to do much. But there's a lot more than just one program like this.

    6. Re:At last an actual paper by auric_dude · · Score: 2

      OK, He Didn’t Cause Hurricane Katrina. But He Is Guilty of Fraud. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/haarp-fraud/

    7. Re:At last an actual paper by oobayly · · Score: 1

      Well, it's akin to me complaining that I'm broke so I'll have to stop buying my weekly lottery ticket, but keep up my $1,500 dollar a day habit.

      Mind the pennies does indeed make sense, to a point, but when you're comparing a project that costs $12,500,000 per year to $175,000,000 per day, the analogy goes out the window.

      Indeed, you only need to cancel 5110 HAARP programs to cover the Afghanistan costs.

    8. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      You haven't completed the chain of logic. Sure, researchers narrow their projects when funding is tight, but do those narrowed projects ultimately have the same ROI or do we just end up with a few inexpensive projects that provide low returns while missing out on the big win from left field?

      If you pick projects based on your estimate of their return, you necessarily pick projects where we already know a lot since you can't estimate the return on an unknown.

      So we get pills that grow peach fuzz on your head but no blockbuster antibiotics for example.

      That is an example of the saying "an accountant is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".

    9. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      Sure, researchers narrow their projects when funding is tight, but do those narrowed projects ultimately have the same ROI or do we just end up with a few inexpensive projects that provide low returns while missing out on the big win from left field?

      My take is that they have a better ROI than when they enough funding that they don't narrow the scope of their projects.

      If you pick projects based on your estimate of their return, you necessarily pick projects where we already know a lot since you can't estimate the return on an unknown.

      Well, that's how we do all human endeavors. And I see no evidence that this approach is at all suboptimal. After all, you're just as likely to hit that unknown benefit with a conservative course of action as well as a more adventurous one.

      So we get pills that grow peach fuzz on your head but no blockbuster antibiotics for example.

      Experience has shown that the peach fuzz is harder than the blockbuster antibotics.

      That is an example of the saying "an accountant is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".

      Except that we're speaking of scientists and knowledgeable laymen who do happen to know the value of a lot of relevant things.

    10. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      Indeed, you only need to cancel 5110 HAARP programs to cover the Afghanistan costs.

      That's not many HAARP programs I see. I bet there's a lot more than that out in number and funding. They might not be scientifically themed, but they all have most of the same excuses. And most of those thousands of programs like HAARP have the consequence of protecting a lot of funding. It secures votes for the status quo. It creates a dependency on government funding.

    11. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      So what was the apparent ROI of the Crookes tube before the X-ray was discovered? Or all that goofing around with radium? All those loons who thought they could build a flying machine? I doubt very much that Volta could have suggested a likely ROI on his piles nor Ørsted for his research.

      If every research endeavor had to be measured against an expected ROI, we'd still be grunting in a cave.

      That's not to say that some research isn't throwing way too much money at nothing, but we want to be careful not to get too stingy unless we want to be seen as a dark age by future generations.

    12. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      So what was the apparent ROI of the Crookes tube before the X-ray was discovered?

      A light source. The neon tube is derived from this angle on the research.

      Or all that goofing around with radium?

      Discovery of new elements often leads to a variety of new alloys with new properties. And once radium was discovered, it's luminescence turned out to be of considerable practical value, being used for instruments used in darkness such as watches, dials on submarines, etc.

      All those loons who thought they could build a flying machine?

      Easiest of the lot. Getting from point A to point B faster has considerable economic value. Flying also has game-changing military value for reconnaissance.

      I doubt very much that Volta could have suggested a likely ROI on his piles nor Ãrsted for his research.

      Did we ask for an accurate ROI estimate for this research or a payoff next quarter? NO. Volta discovered ways to store energy, which are useful in their own right and the discovery of simple mathematical rules for capacitors which saved considerable effort in determining the use of such devices. Saving physicists' time is near future value.

      Orsted's work was notable in that it tied electricity and magnetism. The latter had applications such as navigation (the magnetic compass) and some ability to move physical objects (this eventually would become the electric engine which was developed during the latter part of Orsted's life).

      If every research endeavor had to be measured against an expected ROI, we'd still be grunting in a cave.

      They were and we are. Modern buildings are just the latest high tech cave.

      I think people forget how valuable scientific research has always been. They didn't do this research for entertainment or a vague sense of accomplishment, but because it changed the world in their time - both their understanding of it and their capabilities in that world.

      That's not to say that some research isn't throwing way too much money at nothing, but we want to be careful not to get too stingy unless we want to be seen as a dark age by future generations.

      I trust that future generations and their goofy opinions can take care of themselves. My view is that like any other human endeavor, when you separate the funding of research from any feedback on the success of that research (such as evaluating the near future ROI of that research), then you will end up with mostly useless research. I think big science projects already suffer from that effect, such as the Internation Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor or the International Space Station, whose funding is way out of line with what they're trying to do.

    13. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      You are applying your hindsight. Look at the examples I mentioned again forgetting what they lead to or what came after that made them of obvious value.

      For example, the Crookes tube gave off a tiny bit of greenish light. The neon light and fluorescent lighting were discovered LATER as a result of experimenting with the Crookes tube. At the time, nobody was sure what it might be good for if anything. Volta's pile was a primary battery and a handy source of DC current...if there had been any technology at the time that used electricity that might have been really cool.

    14. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      You are applying your hindsight.

      No, I'm applying what they knew at the time. Computers or the electric grid infrastructure are after all much stronger arguments for researching electromagnetism than glowing glass containers. But they didn't know about those things.

      For example, the Crookes tube gave off a tiny bit of greenish light.

      And? You're trying to tell me that they wouldn't be interested in a much brighter light source along those lines? There was already a great deal of research into electricity-based lighting by this point.

      Volta's pile was a primary battery and a handy source of DC current...if there had been any technology at the time that used electricity that might have been really cool.

      Handy source of DC current for ongoing experiments? Why that's useful!

    15. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      And? You're trying to tell me that they wouldn't be interested in a much brighter light source along those lines?

      And that's it. Neon hadn't been isolated yet. Several years later, the Moore tube was used for lighting (based on the Geissler tube, not the Crookes tube) but was quickly beaten in the market by tungsten incandescents.

      It wasn't until several years later that Röntgen, with little expectation of a payoff, happened to notice a Crookes tube was emitting something that could cause a slight fluorescence in a barium platinocyanide screen.

      It was all the sort of idle curiosity that would likely get the axe in favor of working on more practical probklems like boosting the output of a steam engine.

      As for the pile, An experiment that produced something that can be used for more experiments? Where's the ROI in that?

      Sure, a flying machine would be great, but a lot of people tried that and it inevitably failed miserably and occasionally fatally. Surely the Wrights should have been working on something that stood a chance of success?

      There's a long history of idle experimentation for experimentation's sake. Sure we get stuff like 'n-rays' sometimes but we also get x-rays that way.

    16. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      And that's it. Neon hadn't been isolated yet.

      What's "it"? They couldn't be researching lighting because they hadn't discovered neon yet?

      It was all the sort of idle curiosity that would likely get the axe in favor of working on more practical probklems like boosting the output of a steam engine.

      I see no "idle" curiosity here. And the steam engine led directly to thermodynamics. Practical problems have always led to less mundane stuff.

      As for the pile, An experiment that produced something that can be used for more experiments? Where's the ROI in that?

      Significant resources go into these experiments. Enabling new experiments or making current experiments more effective is a return.

      Surely the Wrights should have been working on something that stood a chance of success?/quote> And they did work on something that stood a chance of success, especially since it did succeed. It's worth noting that they applied the research technologies of the day, such as building a wind tunnel to reduce the cost of their experimentation.

      There's a long history of idle experimentation for experimentation's sake.

      All I see is a history of certain people mischaracterizing hard work and effort as "idle experimentation". And that mischaracterization seems to be solely intended to justify poorly thought out and dreadfully wasteful public funding of scientific research today.

    17. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      The fact is, nobody considered the Crookes tube as a light source. I don't consider the types of experimentation I discussed as not a lot of work, but they are exactly the sorts of things that would get the axe in today's penny wise and pound foolish management style.

      Today's boss would tell Einstein to quit daydreaming and get to rubber stamping that pile of patents NOW.

      There is a such thing as over optimizing a system. A common result is that it becomes brittle and loses the opportunity to make a leap forward.

    18. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      The fact is, nobody considered the Crookes tube as a light source. I don't consider the types of experimentation I discussed as not a lot of work, but they are exactly the sorts of things that would get the axe in today's penny wise and pound foolish management style.

      I wouldn't characterize that as a fact, but rather as an opinion.

      As to today's "foolish management style", why do you think that even gets traction? If there really is as big a payoff for R&D as supporters claim, then why don't business succeed more often at it? As you and others have mentioned, the myth is that research somehow doesn't have much of a payoff to the business world, something which was shown false in the industrial revolution. But since that isn't actually true, what can causing business to abandon R&D and embrace a short term management?

      I think the answer is simple. Public funding of R&D has turned it into a public good which anyone, no matter how lazy or short sighted can use. Further, there's not much point to a business, or individual researchers and engineers trying to do their own R&D unless they can somehow do better than the relatively well funded public R&D can do. Similarly, private donations to R&D usually go to stuff that isn't publicly funded for whatever reasons. Most people want such donations to make a difference, not disappear into obscurity eclipsed by far more well funding public efforts.

      Developed world society has worked fairly hard to remove future risks to businesses and individuals. This has resulted in a typical moral hazard - short term thinking is now rewarded much more than it used to be. And I think a key part of that risk cocoon is public funding of R&D.

      My take is that if you want businesses to think about the future again (which I think more important than the alleged value of publicly funded R&D), then elimination of most public funding of R&D is one of the steps you'll need to take.

    19. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      The reason short term management has gained so much traction is simply because that is what creates the most profit for the CEO and his in group now and they don't really give a damn about the people whose retirement is in hedge funds anyway so long as they get theirs. That's why we have seen so many large and apparently stable for decades corporations flame out.

      The corporate world has never been particularly good at basic research of the type that eventually pays off in huge ways. It's always been mostly individuals (occasionally with funding from universities or other patrons) that has done that. Bell labs is sort-of an exception. but it was founded on an award from the French government and AT&T had a special situation with their granted monopoly on telephone service. Note how quickly Lucent went down the tubes once it got spun off. If we want to get advancements and long term thinking back on track, we should phase out corporate charters all together and implement the basic income.

    20. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      The reason short term management has gained so much traction is simply because that is what creates the most profit for the CEO and his in group now and they don't really give a damn about the people whose retirement is in hedge funds anyway so long as they get theirs. That's why we have seen so many large and apparently stable for decades corporations flame out.

      Why did large and apparently stable corporations start flaming out? Why is short term management so profitable now when it wasn't when those large and apparently stable corporations were created? Well, I think I got the reason why - moral hazard from society's mitigation of future risk.

      The corporate world has never been particularly good at basic research of the type that eventually pays off in huge ways.

      Compared to who? And all I can say is that when one actually looks at the history of research, business-side research has been very productive. And it's also funded some very productive non profit research as well.

      Bell labs is sort-of an exception

      I can think of several companies off the top of my head that ran comparable research institutions: Xerox, Lockheed, Du Pont, IBM, General Electric, and Hewlett Packard.

      It's always been mostly individuals (occasionally with funding from universities or other patrons) that has done that.

      It's not like there's any non-individuals in science (unless we develop some sort of gesalt mind or the like). So it's always been individuals, maybe a lot of individuals working cooperatively.

      Also, I have nothing against private funding of science basic or otherwise. That is a big way that businesses can fund science and it works pretty well.

      If we want to get advancements and long term thinking back on track, we should phase out corporate charters all together and implement the basic income.

      There's no benefit to phasing out corporations. They fill an important niche - people who want to invest in a business, but don't have the time or skills to own and run a business. And I don't see the connection between ending corporations and somehow regaining long term thinking. It doesn't follow.

      As to the "basic income", it reduces future risk and hence introduces some degree of short term thinking as a moral hazard. There may be plenty of good reasons for doing so. But implementing such a thing for the purpose of encouraging long term thinking is counterproductive.

      I have an alternative here. Drop most public funding of research (aside from the usual areas of national need). Maybe compensate for the near future turmoil with tax subsidies on research either in a business or as a donation to an appropriate non profit. Any business which does productive research gets a bigger edge than they'd have today.

    21. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      If risk is where it's at, we should just hold a lottery. Loser gets stoned to death, Huzzah!

      Corporations are all about limiting risk and liability. They allow the people in charge to make high value short term moves secure in the knowledge that they can deploy their golden parachute before it all comes crashing down. The old stable corporations started crashing when day trading became more interesting than long term holding and the rise or the corporate raider.

      Give the CEO and the board some actual liability and make holding stock more risky so that investors want to see a steady course and these problems will start to clear up. Those corporations that actually used to make discoveries were run by long term investors and owned by long term investors. Not a bunch of day traders running about like chickens looking to eat the seed corn.

      The basic income allows people to actually make a long term plan rather than sweating next month's rent or will they get a pink slip for Christmas. It gives curious minds an opportunity to experiment and discover, much like Volta or Röntgen. There is a such thing as too much risk.

    22. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      Corporations are all about limiting risk and liability. They allow the people in charge to make high value short term moves secure in the knowledge that they can deploy their golden parachute before it all comes crashing down. The old stable corporations started crashing when day trading became more interesting than long term holding and the rise or the corporate raider.

      You don't have correlation here, much less cause and effect. As to day trading and corporate raiders, they have value. Corporate raiders help break down businesses that have become stagnant and are worth more in pieces than they are whole. Day traders merely are small scale market makers, adding liquidity to markets.

      Give the CEO and the board some actual liability and make holding stock more risky so that investors want to see a steady course and these problems will start to clear up.

      CEO and the board do have actual liability so there's no point in complaining about its absence. And holding stock is risky. You're last in line for bankruptcies. Here, what I think is going on is that a huge portion of the stock of publicly traded corporations is held by institutions acting as proxies for the actual shareholders. As a result, the control of the corporation has become divorced from the ownership (and risk) of the corporation (since the interests of those institutions is at best weakly connected to the interests of the individual shareholders).

      And that dynamic has been driven by a vast flood of capital from pensioners (and in the US IRA and 401k holders). Societal attempts to reduce future risk have backfired to some degre.

      The basic income allows people to actually make a long term plan rather than sweating next month's rent or will they get a pink slip for Christmas. It gives curious minds an opportunity to experiment and discover, much like Volta or RÃntgen. There is a such thing as too much risk.

      You do have a valid point. But I have to say that I don't see evidence that in the developed world scientists would be making so little that they would have to be that concerned about survival. When R&D is done well and in a valuable area, it's a valuable thing that people are willing to pay a lot for. It seems to me that there's more issues with access to capital, but again that's something that the private world is better at than government.

    23. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      You have a funny view of risk. Name a CEO that ended up in poverty (Actual poverty, not forced early retirement into an upper middle class lifestyle where they still don't have to give a damn what a gallon of milk costs) after running a corporation into the ground. Having to defer that second yacht is not liability. When Wall Street crashed the economy the banks used their bailout money to pay their CEOs a performance bonus. Even criminal liability is quite limited in the corporate world. If you think they have anything like the liability of a common worker you're out of your mind. Seriously, the assertion that they have sufficient liability fails the laugh test.

      As for the corporate raiders, mostly they pocketed the gains for themselves and left the stock holders (at least the ones who didn't get out before the music stopped) and the employees holding the bag. Remember the Wall street adoration of Chainsaw Al? Turns out he was a crook.

      As for stock holding, the liquidity of the market is all about limiting the risk. If a company starts to go south due to failure to plan for survival beyond the quarterly report, you can dump it in a flash. Make it take days to unload a major position and make it expensive and you'll see investors become intensely interested in a company's long term prospects and planning.

      If you're going to call for more risk, apply it where it's needed.

      Meanwhile, most of the respected scientists we learn about in school were financially independent enough that they had ample free time to fill somehow. They were not for the most part lower or middle class. They had no need to worry about the rent or where the food would come from next month (or year) and so they had time for intellectual pursuits. If you want to expand discovery, expand the pool of people who have time to pursue their intellectual curiosity and can afford a deferred payoff.

    24. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      You have a funny view of risk. Name a CEO that ended up in poverty (Actual poverty, not forced early retirement into an upper middle class lifestyle where they still don't have to give a damn what a gallon of milk costs) after running a corporation into the ground.

      Why would they be risking poverty after running a business into the ground? You mentioned earlier that doing so was actually profitable for the CEO in question. So why would a successful businessperson end up in poverty? I wasn't claiming that running a business into the ground was risky, but rather that society had created a bunch of incentives to ignore future risk.

      As for the corporate raiders, mostly they pocketed the gains for themselves and left the stock holders (at least the ones who didn't get out before the music stopped) and the employees holding the bag. Remember the Wall street adoration of Chainsaw Al? Turns out he was a crook.

      Chainsaw Al wasn't a corporate raider. He was brought in by the businesses to downsize them and aggressively cut the unprofitable parts of the operation. A corporate raider might do similar things, but generally in opposition to current leadership at the business.

      As for stock holding, the liquidity of the market is all about limiting the risk. If a company starts to go south due to failure to plan for survival beyond the quarterly report, you can dump it in a flash. Make it take days to unload a major position and make it expensive and you'll see investors become intensely interested in a company's long term prospects and planning.

      These sorts of traders are the main prey of high frequency traders. Anyone who dumps a huge stake in a company "in a flash" is going to lose a lot of money.

      Meanwhile, most of the respected scientists we learn about in school were financially independent enough that they had ample free time to fill somehow. They were not for the most part lower or middle class. They had no need to worry about the rent or where the food would come from next month (or year) and so they had time for intellectual pursuits. If you want to expand discovery, expand the pool of people who have time to pursue their intellectual curiosity and can afford a deferred payoff.

      There's plenty of that opportunity in today's societies as it is. I don't see the need for a basic income.

    25. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      Why would they be risking poverty after running a business into the ground? You mentioned earlier that doing so was actually profitable for the CEO in question. So why would a successful businessperson end up in poverty? I wasn't claiming that running a business into the ground was risky, but rather that society had created a bunch of incentives to ignore future risk.

      YOU argued that CEOs faced plenty of liability and so, risk. Now you argue the opposite. I argue they SHOULD face that level of risk/liability. You can't have it both ways. As for why, you yourself claimed that it's the risk that makes them behave in a responsible manner.

      You're going to have to pick an argument and stick with it if there is to be discussion.

    26. Re:At last an actual paper by khallow · · Score: 1

      YOU argued that CEOs faced plenty of liability and so, risk. Now you argue the opposite.

      The two statements require some explanation, but they're not contradictory. For example, tax evasion, sexual harassment, and Sabanes-Oxley compliance are all significant risks for a CEO. Running a company into the ground can be, if the CEO owns a significant piece of the company or committed illegal acts/violations of regulatory law, but it otherwise isn't.

      A huge part of the problem here is CEOs who have incentives greatly disengaged from the long term future of the business. That in turn is driven by institutional holders who don't have an interest in the long term future of the business either.

      To summarize, my point here has been that the incentives (mostly in the form of "moral hazard" and "tragedy of the commons") in today's developed world societies are all wrong, if you want to reward foresight and long term planning. Further, a lot of proposed solutions just make the problems worse. They might be justifiable on other grounds, but not on the basis that they help with the future planning issue. For example, it seems counterproductive to me to appoint the notably ignorant US Congress to fund scientific projects because US businesses and other private groups can't be bothered under the current conditions to fund such things to the degree one would like.

      I also will briefly mention that I still think economics applies to R&D. After all the goal is to discover and create things and ideas of value, even if they should happen to have a hypothetical value centuries down the road. If you want to do more of that and do it more effectively, you need to treat the problem economically. That means among other things actually evaluating the likely value of scientific endeavors rather than just writing a check for them because they're "science". As I originally noted, even the scientists in question pick and choose what to study when they don't have unlimited resources at their disposal.

      Finally, I'll just talk a little about why I came to have these views. I have a strong interest in space development including related activities like space science. Frequently, when I discussed some of the economic choices that were available (for example, replacing expensive Shuttle launches with less expensive Delta IV Heavy launches or launching multiple probes at a time instead of one or two), I ran across a certain kind of argument. Namely, that there was no object to money spent on science. They didn't seem to care that space science was being done in very costly ways.

      My rebuttal has always been the same. Would you still support space science, if all that money had to run through my fingers first? I only charge a 90% fee for my premium services so you're getting about as good a deal as if you were to use normal public funding routes (an order of magnitude rise in cost is typical for US publicly funded research over the private version).

    27. Re:At last an actual paper by sjames · · Score: 1

      For example, tax evasion, sexual harassment, and Sabanes-Oxley compliance are all significant risks for a CEO.

      So, can't cheat on the taxes, bang the secretary OR cook the books? How terrible for them! It's almost like they have to obey the same law the commoners do or something.

      To summarize, my point here has been that the incentives (mostly in the form of "moral hazard" and "tragedy of the commons") in today's developed world societies are all wrong, if you want to reward foresight and long term planning.

      And THAT is why the CEO should be risking poverty if he runs the corporation into the ground. If not actual poverty, he should need unemployment benefits to get by and find his retirement in jeopardy like the employees of the company find.

      It's why it should be unprofitable to hold stock for a short term. If you need to hold a stock for a period of years to get a good pay-off, institutional investors will become interested in the company's long term prospects. As long as it remains profitable to hold stock for less than a year, they will continue to reward CEOs who fluff up the stock for a quarter or so at the cost of a crash and burn later.

      That out of the way, let's look at actual research (not just R&D). First, the space shuttle is a bad example since it was as much or more a DOD boondoggle and pork festival as it was a research project. NASA didn't want the design they ended up with, it was foisted upon them. If anything, it suggests we need to chop defense spending. Nevertheless, it did teach us a lot about materials science and rocket engines. It also showed us a number of things that don't work in practice no matter how nice they look on paper. At the end of the day, the Space shuttle was a tool, not research. It might be used to do research in the same sense as FedEx is by virtue of delivering materials and apparatus to the site of the experiment.

      I'm going to need a citation for that order of magnitude figure, particularly when it comes to basic research rather than how to make a better penis pill.

  2. Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Dude, conspirical contraversies aside...I SERIOUSLY hope nobody is responsible for global worming. Things are bad enough.

  3. Good by NIK282000 · · Score: 1, Redundant

    America can't be trusted to think for itself. Bring on the mind control rays!

    --
    Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
  4. Mighty conspiracy theories from tiny facts by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

    It is amazing that people think this is such a big deal of a conspiracy.

    From the article -

    How big is the actual power density in HAARP's ionospheric spot? The total irradiance of the Sun's electromagnetic radiation (everything from x-rays to extremely low frequency (ELF) radio signals) is 1,360 W/sq m, measured by satellite outside the bulk of the Earth's atmosphere. HAARP's power density is about 0.001 percent of the Sun's irradiance – a nearly negligible quantity. Further, while local heating of the ionosphere is caused by HAARP (indeed, that is HAARP's purpose), the overall effect is rather like focusing the Sun's light using a magnifying glass – impressive if one is an ant, but not very significant on larger size scales.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
    1. Re:Mighty conspiracy theories from tiny facts by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2

      Given that, if there were to be some sort of vast, malevolent, conspiracy; Joe Average would fill a role somewhere between 'ant' and 'human resource, to be harvested at leisure', I suspect that's exactly the sort of thing that conspiracy theorists wouldn't find comforting...

      Rather like trying to convince somebody who thinks you are trying to poison them that, really, cyanide is statistically indistinguishable from the millions of tons of carbon/nitrogen mixtures in the food supply.

  5. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by OhANameWhatName · · Score: 1

    Coincidence?

    There are no coincidences.

  6. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by Dputiger · · Score: 1

    California weather isn't actually good for Alaska.

  7. Ahem... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    HAARP is in reality a facility for studying the ionosphere

    HAARP is in reality a nuclear-powered facility that alters the ionosphere.

    FTFY! :p

  8. Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT! by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    I SERIOUSLY hope nobody is responsible for global worming. Things are bad enough.

    My dog had worms so I took him to the vet. Is my vet responsible for global worming? But I'd say quite the opposite would be true if I didn't get rid of the worms.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  9. Re:This sounds like a job for... by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    The one movie wonder I love it! Probably the only movie that will be made, literally on the Statue of Liberty though. Fred Ward is getting up there in age so I don't think he's up for a Remo II unless he plays like the Wilfred Brimley part.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  10. Re:Repeat by Dunbal · · Score: 1

    You must be new here.

    --
    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  11. Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT! by mrmeval · · Score: 1

    Worming is a word in the dictionary.

    Exterminationist is not but should be.

    --
    I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
  12. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by INowRegretThesePosts · · Score: 2

    Some skepticism is healthy.
    Conspiracy theories only serve to alienate you from reality and, in particular, to make you indifferent to the actual injustices of the world.

  13. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 3, Funny

    Coincidence?

    There are no coincidences.

  14. Re:More Disinformation by I+don't+want+to+spen · · Score: 1

    Psunamis? Is that some form of wave power generation?

    --
    Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
  15. Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT! by dadelbunts · · Score: 2

    Have you seen the documentary Tremors?

  16. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

    Glenn Beck would never support something that reveals his past, especially not his anus stretching past.

  17. Re:The real deal with HAARP by lennier · · Score: 2

    It's really a cover for the US Navy to engage in ELF communications with their submarines by stimulating the Alfven Resonance.

    Flippin' elves.This sort of reckless research wouldn't happen if we had a good solid dwarf in the White House.

    Tra-la-la-lolly, indeed.

    --
    You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
  18. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by cusco · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sorry to burst your bubble, but some things really ARE conspiracies. Iran/Contra. Project Mockingbird. Gladio. MK/Ultra. Phoenix. Our governments have done some horrible things, and if they were to happen today we would never know about them.

    --
    "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  19. Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage system by Tyr07 · · Score: 4, Funny

    We're actually in contact with alien species and they're assisting us avoid detection from more hostile species that consume resources of habitable words like us.
    The changes HAARP initiates in the ionosphere, although not affecting us on the planet or anything overall in the near distance, planetary detection systems that have the ability to detect atmospheres to a limited degree are thrown off, making the assumption that this is not a water world with a perfect (life sustaining) temperature.

    Naturally you can still tell by nearby areas like our solar system etc, but once you get a few thousand light years out we don't look so welcoming.

    I'd insert comment about a specific alien overlord at this time but I don't want his followers..or...people who are against him or whatever "targeting" me but uh, yea, we're nice and safe from that dude now!

  20. Re:This sounds like a job for... by Chas · · Score: 1

    Yeah, but if he gets to close, Grove Industries just blows it up surreptitiously and then collects massive InsuranceBucks!

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
  21. Re:Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage sys by Zynder · · Score: 1

    WHAT?

  22. Re:More Disinformation by black3d · · Score: 1

    "Its not difficult to research"

    This much was correct. The rest wasn't. You can learn more through your aforementioned research.

    --
    "The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
  23. It has to continue by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    The ionospheric sounding has to continue, since the data is used for military short wave radio planning. As the ionosphere is always changing, the sounding work can never stop.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  24. Re:Maybe that's why by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    So? It snows on the equator too. Kilimanjaro for example.

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  25. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 1

    Actually I saw an opening for a quick and dirty Funny. Or, barring that, an Informative or Insightful that would be even funnier. Or actually funny...karma, eh. Up, down, whatever.

  26. Re:Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage sys by Raenex · · Score: 1

    You could sell this story to Infowars, but you'll probably need to put an evil spin on it and work in references to Prison Planet.

  27. Re:Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage sys by Tyr07 · · Score: 1

    Okay.

    W'e're in contact from evil aliens and letting them hide here. We use our cloaking / camouflage planet system to hide them from aliens who are good, against corruption and greed. They would free us and bring us to a utopian era, but the evil "The man" trying to keep us down with their fortress of HAARP will do
    their best from liberating us.

    HAARP prevents us from seeing what's really on the moon since it modifies the sky above us, so we can't see it properly. The moon is used as a place for interrogation, as it's too risky for certain individuals to have the remote chance to escape and tell the public.So we basically turned the moon into an orbiting prison.

  28. Re: Those conspiracy wackos by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    Tell you wife its ok to go and do what Bill did every week for $30.

    Im sure in her eyes, its equal to having sex.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
  29. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by INowRegretThesePosts · · Score: 1

    Just because the government does some things in secrecy, it does not mean I should start believing bizarre fantasies with no evidence or reason.

    Also, there are conspiracy theories to fit every worldview. There are conspiracy theories for leftists (for example, "Bush demolished the WTC), for right-wingers (for example, "global warming is a leftist hoax"), for Christians, for Muslims, for atheists. There is huge pool of conspiracy theories, each one contradicting the others, and each conspiracy-minded individual simply picks the ones the reinforce his own biases.

  30. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by INowRegretThesePosts · · Score: 1

    Just because the government does some things in secrecy, it does not mean I should start believing bizarre fantasies with no evidence or reason.

    Also, there are conspiracy theories to fit every worldview. There are conspiracy theories for leftists (for example, "Bush demolished the WTC"), for right-wingers (for example, "global warming is a leftist hoax"), for Christians, for Muslims, for atheists. There is a huge pool of conspiracy theories, each one contradicting the others, and each conspiracy-minded individual simply picks the ones that reinforce his own biases, while ignoring the others.
    [posting again to fix errors]

  31. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by Phase+Shifter · · Score: 1

    Coincidence?

    There are no coincidences.

    They stopped sending men to the moon about the time I learned to talk. You should pay more attention to my posts.

  32. Re: Those conspiracy wackos by Phase+Shifter · · Score: 1

    Clinton was impeached because HE LIED UNDER OATH. It had absolutely nothing to do with having sex, as much as you liberals hate when one of your heroes is criticized.

    And Al Capone was jailed for tax evasion. It had absolutely nothing to do with involvement in organized crime.

    Rather missing the point.

    The right-wingers weren't trying to smear Clinton by painting him as some kind of sex fiend, they were trying to paint him as a perjurer so they could reopen the Whitewater investigation.

    They had a legitimate point, but it became a major case of "not seeing the forest for the trees", and they spent entirely too much of the public's time and money trying to pin down inconsequential details.

  33. Conspiracy Fail by omnichad · · Score: 1

    The changes HAARP initiates in the ionosphere, although not affecting us on the planet or anything overall in the near distance, planetary detection systems that have the ability to detect atmospheres to a limited degree are thrown off, making the assumption that this is not a water world with a perfect (life sustaining) temperature.

    It also makes you wonder what they're putting in our water supply:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3qFdbUEq5s

    1. Re:Conspiracy Fail by Tyr07 · · Score: 1

      Liquid metal? Who /DOESN'T/ want to become a t-1000?

  34. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by Phase+Shifter · · Score: 1

    Well, there are UFOs. They're probably not aliens though, just some advanced planes that are still classified, the way the SR-71 and F-117 were a few decades ago. And also, the NSA IS spying on all Americans. Snowden's being hung out to dry because he gave confirmation for that fact.

    I've got no evidence to back it up, so you can take this as a conspiracy theory if you like:

    My pet theory about the sudden popularity of UFOs from the middle of the 20th century onwards is that we actually had some foreign incursions into our airspace during the cold war. The cover-ups were real, but the whole "extraterrestrials are coming to earth" bit was just a second level of obfuscation--If you don't want people investigating how enemies slipped past our defenses, convince the general public that only crackpots are looking past the surface level explanation for sightings.

    That said, there are UFO-like sightings dating back for centuries, and some people are highly susceptible to suggestion, so the second level of deception was wildly successful. In fact, a bit too successful, since it spawned another controversy that has persisted decades after the usefulness of the cover-up expired.

  35. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by evilviper · · Score: 1

    The most horrible things our government has done have been out in the open, public knowledge, NOT illegal conspiracies.

    And there are far more leaks from the US government today than ever before, so we'd definitely hear about it...

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  36. Re:in korea, its taken to the local cafe by Virtucon · · Score: 1

    Yeah but like ourselves, the cow is biodegradable and I'd argue that we all contribute enough to Methane emissions ourselves. At least I do after a couple of Taco Bell burritos so leave the poor cow out of it.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  37. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by cusco · · Score: 1

    This belief in the honesty of bureaucrats and their willingness to destroy their lives and careers for the greater good always puzzles me. Why do people believe such nonsense? It's so rare that when it happens that it's headline news worldwide.

    Just look at one example. One would think that a Pentagon plan to commit terrorist attacks against US citizens on American soil in a false flag operation to justify the invasion of another country would be regarded by almost everyone as unadulterated evil, right? Instead the planning went through the whole Pentagon bureaucracy and was unanimously approved by the Joint Chiefs, a procedure that would have involved dozens if not hundreds of people. It took the President of the United States to stop that project. No one leaked, no one mentioned a word of it to the press for over four decades, until Operation Northwoods was discovered quite by accident in a FOI request by a researcher looking for something entirely different.

    --
    "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
  38. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by evilviper · · Score: 1

    This belief in the honesty of bureaucrats and their willingness to destroy their lives and careers for the greater good always puzzles me.

    There's no "belief" involved. It's a fact that there have been more classified information leaks under our current president than ever before. Look it up.

    One would think that a Pentagon plan to commit terrorist attacks against US citizens on American soil in a false flag operation to justify the invasion of another country

    Conspiracy nuts dance lightly around this case, trying NOT to accidentally admit to the actual FACTS, which declaw this story dramatically. Operation Northwoods was specifically NOT supposed to result in any US civilian deaths. They were to be "staged" and "simulated" terrorist attacks.

    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  39. Re: Maybe this time they'll get it RIGHT! by whitroth · · Score: 1

    Are you sure? I thought it was Dalek.

                    mark "exterminate!"

  40. Re:Those conspiracy wackos by kermidge · · Score: 1

    a correction, if you will, from

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods [I have excerpted the following from two paragraphs]

    "The document was presented by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on 13 March 1962 as a preliminary submission for planning purposes. The Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended that both the covert and overt aspects of any such operation be assigned to them.

    The previously secret document was originally made public on 18 November 1997, by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board,[4] a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy's assassination.[5][6]"

    Please note the first release was 35 years (more of a quibble and still a remarkably long time) and it was done by people working at a federal agency, not by an outside party using FOIA. Please also note that the memorandum outlined over a dozen covert actions and among them were several domestic terrorist acts. Most if not all were designed to be bloodless, from my reading. Had they happened it's anyone's guess as to unforeseen consequences, of course.

    http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/northwoods.html
    source: From BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following.
      Scanned and edited by NY Transfer News.
    From my reading, the material here taken from the book is not consistent with documents that were already in the public record. While I've read Bamford from "The Puzzle Palace" on, the number of errors here show me his account of Northwood is to be taken with a bit of salt. See caveat below.

    http://911review.com/precedent/century/northwoods.html
    The first half of the web page presents from what I can figure a pretty good account with a timeline for the release of documents. It iterates the account at Wikipedia and for all I know uses the same sources if not just lifting it.

    http://www.net4truthusa.com/operationnorthwoods.htm has photocopies of pages from the memorandum as do others. Also, check out their "music jukebox time machine."

    So, the first release comes from a federal agency in 1997. Several sites have photocopies of the memorandum. I used "operation northwoods" as search term in duckduckgo for all of this.

    All accounts are a retelling from that point, some better than others. As for Bamford's book, I'd have to start with looking at his footnotes and sources, particularly where he seems to be rather free with quotations from conversations. If he had good additional sources, on or off the record, it would help to more easily accept his version.

  41. Re:HAARP offline == summer weather good? by OhANameWhatName · · Score: 1

    I wondered why they did that, thanks for clarifying.

  42. Re:Long distance planetary cloaking/camouflage sys by Tyr07 · · Score: 1

    Sci-fi fail.

    You're automatically assuming they use light to detect the atmosphere of our planet.
    Also if at five minute-years away, the light is the same, then 1000 light years would as well, with the normal affects from physics and other celestial objects.
    Therefore, for it to work, it would have to work on something that has nothing to do with light or our cloaking system would have to diffuse light at a further distance.

    So clearly, you have to have some sort of non-light atmosphere sensor (Since light might be a poor detector anyway for it) which HAARP protects us from!