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court, I was told that a claim needed to be filed in
California. So I took it up with an attorney in Los Angeles, recommended by a
mutual friend who described him as specializing in computer-related issues,
but after a lengthy exchange of e-mails and phone calls, it became obvious
that he was all talk and would never get around to actually doing anything.
Fortunately, I had pinned him down to agreeing to a contingency basis with no
retainer up front, which at least meant I wasn't sending more good money after
bad and perhaps explains the lack of luster. On the last occasion that I
talked to him he brought us back full circle by suggesting that I should take
it up through the courts in Florida. I'm told that Los Angeles has more
lawyers than the whole of Japan. (Q.
How many lawyers does it take to roof a house? A. It depends how thin you
slice them.)
Alex moved on to college in Orlando, from there went to work in Boston for a
year, and then moved back to Orlando again as a 3-D graphics programmer. With
a demanding work schedule, a girlfriend, and things like apartment matters to
contend with as part of those commitments that impose themselves in
the course of getting a life of one's own, it became evident that expecting
him to take on in addition the further plans that we had talked about over the
years wouldn't be realistic. Nevertheless, by the time this gets to print, it
might be that the full databased Web site along with its ordering system might
have become a reality. As further enhancements, we'll be introducing a
discussion-thread capability, which a number of readers have asked for, and a
comprehensive search-and-index facility, which should make everything on the
site more accessible. When we met yesterday for a review meeting in
McGarrigle's Pub in Sligo center, things were looking promising. Dare I say
it? We might see the final product up and running in a matter of weeks now.
Meanwhile, a few selected items that have appeared on www.jamesphogan.com over
the years are included through this book to give an idea of the kinds of thing
that get posted there. Maybe a sampling will induce some who haven't tried it
yet to visit the site itself. And who knows? If they stop by the
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ManyWorlds bookstore while they're at it, we might even recover a little of
what's gone into finally making it all happen.
Impossible Rhymes
From the Web Site
A couple of pieces from the early days.
Posted in the "Humor & Diversions" section of the Bulletin Board, August 16,
1998
(http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/081698.shtml)
WITH A LITTLE INGENUITY
I got a note from somebody claiming that no word in the English language
rhymes with "month,"
"orange," "silver," or "purple." Well, a challenge is not something to be
passed over lightly by an Irishman, and for somebody of my profession,
certainly not one with a literary connotation. So, after retreating
pen-in-teeth into a period of some solitary meditation on the matter, I emerge
to present the following modest offerings:
The animalth rathed three timeth latht month, The hare won twithe and the
tortoithe oneth.
An Irishman Green, Can take the potheen.
But an Irishman Orange
Ends up on the flooranj'
Ust doesn't seem able, To stay at the table.
When you're choking, Turning purple, A hearty slap and one good burp'll
Usually fix it.
Gold and silver presents willvir
Ginity tend to
Put an end to.
Frog Fantasies
Posted in the "Environmentalism" section of the Bulletin Board, March 12, 1998
(http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/031298-2.shtml)
MORE EFFECTS OF THE UV INCREASE
THAT NEVER WAS
The early part of this century witnessed the "N-ray" fiasco, in which
scientific true believers solemnly observed and recorded the behavior of a
supposed new form of radiation shown subsequently to exist only within their
own imaginations. These days, it's revealing to see how far politically funded
and approved science will go to find politically pleasing results of causes
that have never been shown to exist.
In the March 1998 issue of
The Energy Advocate
(http://www.jamesphogan.com/bb/content/032697.shtml), Howard Hayden reports on
a big flap that has been going on for some years over a certain species of
frog that lives high in the Sierra Nevada mountains, whose population appears
to have been declining. Investigators have jumped to attribute this to
increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion although without presenting any
actual data of a UV
increase, which is assumed unquestioningly to have occurred because the
prevailing dogma says so.
Yet after all the arguing over CFC breakdown, chemical reaction pathways,
Antarctic "holes," skin cancer, and so on, the one single fact that would
follow if any of the scare stories had any merit, and before any effects could
be experienced a real, measured increase of ultraviolet at the Earth's
surface has never been observed. In 1988, Joseph Scotto of the National Cancer
Institute published data from eight U.S. ground stations showing that UV-B
(the wavelength band affected by ozone)
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decreased by amounts ranging from 2 to 7 percent during the period 1974 1985.
A similar politically wrong trend was recorded over fifteen years by the
Fraunhofer Institute of Atmospheric Sciences in
Bavaria, Germany. The response? Scotto's study was ignored by the
international news media. He was denied funding to attend international
conferences to present his findings, and the ground stations were closed down.
The costs of accepting the depletion theory as true will run into billions of
dollars, but apparently we can't afford a few thousand to collect the data
most fundamental to testing it. In
Washington, scientists who objected were attacked by environmentalist pressure
groups, and former
Princeton physics professor William Happer, who wanted to set up an extended
instrumentation network, was dismissed from his post as research director at
the Department of Energy. The retiring head of the German program was replaced
by a depletionist who refused to publish the institute's
accumulated data and terminated further measurements, apparently on the
grounds that future policy would be to rely on computer models instead. (So
much for a reality check, which used to be known as observational science.)
The whole doomsday case boils down to claiming that if something isn't done to
curb CFCs, ultraviolet radiation will increase by 10 percent over the next
twenty years. But from the poles to the equator it increases naturally by a
whopping factor of fifty, or 5000 percent, anyway! equivalent to 1 percent for
every six miles. Or to put it another way, a family moving house from New York [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]