poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (10/18/84)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA> Poli-Sci Digest Thu 18 Oct 84 Volume 4 Number 94 "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." --Henry Kissinger Contents: Fusion Politics ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 17 Oct 84 08:48:00 EDT From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA Subject: Private Enterprise Fusion The November issue of High Technology has a four page article on private attempts to build compact copper coil fusion reactors. The article describes Bussard's Riggatron (his company, INESCO, folded in August) and General Atomics' Ohmically Heated Toroidal Experiment (OHTE), a copper coil reverse field pinch machine. GA is owned by Chevron, so they have funding. They hope to reach ignition in 5 years and commericialization within another 5-8 years. Bussard's comment at the end of the article is interesting: "There's no doubt that Riggatrons will be built, though they'll be called something else. The fusion establishmentcan breathe a sigh of relief that we're gone, do a study to 'discover' that, lo and behold, the only sensible way to make fusion is in compact, high-field copper-magnet machines, and then build one at a university or national lab. Of course, the Russians will beat us -- they're going to ignite one of these things in 1986." ------------------------------ From: ASP%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: where your bread is buttered It seems that the principle thrust of your remarks is that: (1) Idealism is both silly and juvenile. (2) Self-interest will eventually convert Democrats to the ways of righteousness. (3) The Republican Party's unfriendly attitude to poor people is thus justified by the recantation of idealists. I find this an interesting extension of the cult of self-interest found in many conservatives, and a still more interesting reversal. Traditionally, those who've sold their souls for wealth are damned, not canonized. Darkness indeed walks our land ... (Before I get flamed, I'd like to point out that I don't believe in 50% tax rates. I also don't believe in starving bastards as public policy.) --Jim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Oct 1984 04:29 EDT From: ASP%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA Subject: 3 predictions (Are you better off now than you were 50 years ago? :-) ------------------------------ Date: Mon Oct 15 08:27:04 1984 From: mclure@sri-unix Subject: Re: 3 predictions Am I better off now than I was 50 years ago? That's hard to say since I'm not 50 yet. Suffice it to say that together FDR and Hoover destroyed this country. Reagan is the first president to try and repair the damage. Others will follow. Stuart ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 15 Oct 84 09:27:37 pdt From: Rick McGeer (on an aaa-60-s) <mcgeer%ucbkim@Berkeley> [mclure@sri-prism] The Republicans have been the only major party to say that taxing people at such rates is wrong. Make that the only *major* party...there are others that have proposed deeper cuts. Anyhow, the GOP's never claimed that it's wrong to tax people at above some level of income, merely that it's ineffective and counter-productive. Of course, those arguments really don't matter to the class-warfare whiners that dominate That Other Party. -- Rick. ------------------------------ Date: Mon 15 Oct 84 13:07:46-EDT From: Larry Kolodney <UC.LKK%MIT-EECS@MIT-MC.ARPA> Strange... Socialist ideas have been on the ascendency in this country for the past fifty years... the same period of time during which the USA reach its peak of power and influence. Why are you so anxious to get rid of a good thing? -larry p.s. are you really suffering? [A function peaks when its derivative is 0. Inasmuch as such concepts are applicable, the peak of a society's well-being (which is not synonymous with "power and influence") should be expected to come just when its moral fiber has disappeared, and the stage is set for a decline. --JoSH ps: as one on a government payroll, ie one of the thieves, no.] ------------------------------ Date: 17 Oct 84 11:55:34 PDT (Wednesday) Subject: None of the canidates are acceptable From: Jerry <Isdale.es@XEROX.ARPA> If given the choice "None of the canidates are acceptable" in the current presidential election, would you select it rather than vote for the least offensive canidate. Would it motivate you to vote instead sitting at home and claiming that your vote means nothing? I get the impression from many people that they dont like any of the canidates. A voting option like this would give us a way to tell the parties and the world that we really dont like what the govt. is doing. If a large number of people responded this way, it might motivate the politicians to reform. or it might be the begining of a revolution (to set up an electronic democracy?). ~ Jerry ------------------------------ End of POLI-SCI Digest - 30 - -------