The White House has proposed significant budget cuts to NASA, including a nearly 50% reduction in the Science Mission Directorate, which would heavily impact the Goddard Space Flight Center. In addition to mission cancellations and the potential to close the Goddard Center, we would lose the science that explores our world. For example, this short video illustrates how currents move energy and heat across the planet through our oceans.
From Aeon, An Ocean in Motion
How did the Rust Belt get its Rust? Where did the jobs go?
“The Rust Belt’s manufacturing decline isn’t primarily about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about jobs going to Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee…”
It's all about economics and the Benjamins. From Marginal Revolution, Manufacturing Went South
It is difficult to communicate risk. Some favor numbers because they seem so precise, but they are not. Others use words because of an unwarranted assumption that “you know what I mean.”
“Kent suggested that the toughest intelligence challenge is the ‘difficult but not impossible estimate.’ Unfortunately, this was also the kind of judgment people tried hardest to avoid. As Kent put it: ‘What we consciously or subconsciously seek is an expression which conveys a definite meaning but at the same time either absolves us completely of the responsibility or makes the estimate at enough removes from ourselves as not to implicate us.’”
From Understanding the Unseen, Possibly a serious possibility
When we knew little about COVID besides the alarming rising death toll in nursing homes, the thought of a vaccine was a miracle. When the lockdowns began, everyone fought to be an essential worker or first responder. Still, the enthusiasm for mandatory vaccinations ended when the vaccines arrived, and a significant number of first responders, e.g., police and firefighters, wished to politely decline. While I think it was important for public health, an argument could and was made that vaccination maintained full operational strength for these first responders. But as with many things bureaucratic, when it came time to give exemptions, it was too difficult to pay attention.
“In the macho culture of the Fire Department of New York, showing too much concern over lingering smoke was a sure way to stand out. There’s a reason firefighters call themselves smoke eaters….The funny thing was that this is what he got grief for — trying to avoid wafting carcinogens. Of all his idiosyncrasies, and there were lots, this was among the most rational.
A small sampling of the others: He brought his own sheets and pillowcase for overnights at the firehouse. He wiped down everything with his own stash of bleach wipes — including the inside of the fire engine. In his back pocket, he had a second remote control for the fire station’s TV, so he wouldn’t need to touch the shared one.”
Here is a story of good policy and poor implementation. From the NY Times, The Firefighter With O.C.D. and the Vaccine He Believed Would Kill Him
Chuck Dinerstein, MD, MBA
Director of Medicine
Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS is Director of Medicine at the American Council on Science and Health. He has over 25 years of experience as a vascular surgeon.
