Capitol Hill's Nerd in Chief

The Honorable Rush Holt
Member of Congress for the great state of New Jersey
Washington, DC

Dear Congressman Holt,

The grease on the end of your nose is a pheromone, consisting of more than 700 chemicals with weird stereochemistry, one of which is unique in nature: sebaleic acid. Each one of us has a unique chemical signature. The pheromone, a human male skin surface lipid (there's a sexual dimorphism) cures delinquency, drug addiction, and can change people's sexual orientation from perverted to heterosexual. This is easily testable. I will cure anybody you want. I wrote an article for the British Journal of Dermatology about the pheromone years ago. Nicholson B., Does kissing aid human bonding by semiochemical addiction? Br J Dermatol. 1984 Nov;111(5):623-7.
I'm the world's greatest genius, I'm the original Good Will Hunting--even named the film. Would you help me run a little double-blind cross-over trial at the Bureau of Prisons, please? Those people are, well, disinterested! I'd try again for another grant from the NIH, but my Macintosh can't read the download file that NIH insists upon.
Surely, people contact you or your staff hoping for relief from criminal/drug addictive/runaway misbehaviors? I'd gladly handle it. One dose is curative, and the dose is absurdly small (150 mg p.o.). Pheromones are the most potent drug class known, often effective at the ultra-trace level!

B. Nicholson
Coined "Inclusive" and "Inclusive Democracy" concepts from math term.
Original creator of "Lights On! Tampa!" art display/contest.
Proposed "Floating Riverwalk" for Tampa
Proposed Lee Roy Selmon Expressway extension to St. Pete w/rail link.
Developed simple chewing gum cure for delinquency, criminal behavior
Proposed GA's HOPE Scholarship Program (precursor to Bright Futures)
Proposed Law & Rule Obeying Gays in the Military executive order & 1st thing timing
Proposed Tuskeegee Presidential Apologies and NIH Victim Restitution.
Presidential advisor to Presidents Bubba "Bill" Clinton and Hillary Clinton, 1972.
Presidential advisor to Presidents George W. & G. H. W. Bush, 1971
(George H.W. Bush led the plumbers in killing JFK & many others)
Wrote poems for Dead Poets Society (& sax solo)
lyrics "Light and Day" Spotless Mind
speeches for Braveheart, Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact Titanic, Good Will Hunting, Cast Away, LOR trilogy, Wag the Dog, V for Vendetta, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, 300, Night in the Museum, Borne trilogy, Austin Powers trilogy, National Treasure, Back to the Future trilogy, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, There Will Be Blood, Mystic River, many others

first of all, anyone who really did the things you purport won't take their time to tell off this guy, who is a major government jackoff by the way. He is an annoyance that should be ignored.

Secondly, if you really are the guy you say you are, don't you think that this quantum mechanics things is a workaround to solve problems that they couldn't solve using the basic model of protons, neutrons and electrons? I think Einstien got it it right and didn't focus on semantics, he focused on simplicity in design and it turned out he was proven right (when technology caught up and real world observation became possible). I think new science is trying to find a shortcut. I know he was thinking about quarks before he died but I believe the basics he worked off of were ignored when 'new wave' stuff came along.

There is still a lot of good work that may spread some light on the new discoveries that have come to pass. It was cut short, and everyone has got to remember he got farther going pros, eles and nuets than anyone has. We still don't understand everything about these basic building blocks, yet we rush forward to quarks. Something important will be missed!

Your thoughts?

Mike

Rep. Rush Holt is a Liberal Democrat. Why does PopSci affraid to mention Party affiliation? It explains his views.

...Ernie

You have a political figure and you don't state his party affiliation? This is what you call journalism at PopSci? This article was so lame...why didn't you ask his position on anthropogenic global warming? That would have been interesting - or was that topic made off limits by the congressman?

Does this Nerd in Chief ever read the news? He states missle defense systems won't work...has he not read that test after test has been successfully completed? While we couldn't hope to counter a full scale Russian or Chinese missle attack, it seems to me we could stop a rogue launch from one of these nations (which have came very close to happening in the past), or prevent an attack from a country such as Iran and I think stopping just one missle will be worth the price of the program (at least to the thousands to millions who are spared incineration). But that goes to the problem of politics and why this article sucks...liberals don't think there is really any threat out there that can't be fixed with nice talk.

Why didn't Gregory Mone have the balls to follow up on the Nerd in Chief's answer to a question that the government is not allowing certain topics to be studied? What topics? Who can't publish their results? Whose meetings have been banned. Now that would be a story! This guy is built up to be Congresses Man of Science and this article's author and the man himselft doesn't say much of anything. What a waste of type and paper.

A lousy article, even the NY Times could have done better. Please do make an effort next time. I expect more from your magazine.

John Min
Los Angeles

The US became the dominant power in the world by putting huge amounts of money into R&D and becoming more technologically advanced than the rest of the world. Recent administrations have cut those funds and allowed the rest of the world to catch up. In order to stay ahead and stay in power the US needs to continue to give those R&D programs the funds they need... and Holt is not saying to get rid of the missile defense system, he’s saying to pump money into R&D so that they can create a missile defense system that works.

Holt may not be saying get rid of the missle defense system, but he says it won't work. It is "scientifically" not possible in his opinion. Too complicated for us to pull off, he opines. If he believed that, why would he continue to fund the program as you (Maxpower) state? Faith based defense? I think not and it seems the Russians are agreeing with me. Perhaps he has been away from the "sciences" too long, cause we're shooting down ballistic missles. Skin to skin contact. Pow.

This article gets my vote for non-interview of the year - so much inane banter ("Politics...it affects lives" No. GTFOOH. Really?). I think most of Popsci's readers have had some higher education and would like some meat with our potatos and this is plain cold oatmeal. The second question and response is equally lame...congress doesn't know about economics (duh) and international affairs but draft legislation anyway - they know nothing of science and avoid the subject? Huh? They can't wait to pass legislation outlawing things like climate change. Does this scare the hell out of anyone but me? Congress is so overpaid and so unqualified. The way our school districts are being run, these beatings will surely continue.

I certainly agree with Holt with the missle defense system. It's simply not practical today or in the near future. As far as the so called "tests" being successful, they were tests under very contolled conditions and chances are would fail miserably in real world conditions. It would be much, much simpler to defeat such a system, say by launcing a decoy or two, then trying to build such a defense system. The best deterent is the fact that we have many more missles then they do. Nuff said.

Why do people get so hung up on party affiliation? What matters is whether or not you agree with what he's saying, not whether or not he's democrat, republican, or other. Party affiliation is really irrelevant, it's the issues that are important. Some people just need a label so they can go bash people with that label, regardless of what they might actually believe. Studies have shown that people will blindly follow leaders of their party regardless and say the others are wrong, even if there is no conflict on an issue. That's the real travesty.

I do agree there could be a little more substance to the interview, but that might be saved for the published version.

Dude, that was the published version.

Party affiliation is the basic starting point of an interview with a CONGRESSMAN - it isn't a hang up, but a protocol. This article is like introducing the woman next to you by name but failing to inform that she is also your wife. If this man were a lay person or "just" a scientist, political affiliation would be irrelevant as you state. Since he is a POLITICIAN, his party affiliation can have huge relevance. Everybody doesn't blindly follow the party line, so there may not be as much of a travesty being committed here as you think.

Point was the missile tests WERE successful - after all the libs and the lib scientists said it was impossible. THEY SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE! Why that side of congress has any credibility at all, I dunno. While these successful tests were conducted under controlled conditions, a ballistic missile interceptor still hit and destroyed another ballistic missile from hundreds of miles away. Seems like we have mastered the basics. What do you base your opinion on that these systems would likely fail in the real world? Do you think it is impossible for the technology to improve, keeping in mind the constant acceleration of technological capabilities? Your opinion is to purposefully leave the country vulnerable to ballistic missiles? As my grandad used to say, it is always better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it. Jus a basic truth in life.

Second point is that Mutally Assurred Destruction (MAD) is a meaningless doctrine when talking about militant Muslims bent on our and their own destruction (martyrdome).

Ciao.

"...computer scientists pointed out to Congress that these electronic voting machines can’t be audited because there’s no record of the voters’ intentions. There’s no way of checking the actual numerical electronic count against the voters’ intentions."

Shocking! Electronic voting machines can’t be audited! There’s no record of the voters’ intentions! How terrible! Congress has to do something (to make sure elections turn out the way they want?)

Pardon my sarcasm above but it was my understanding that we enjoyed a secret ballot in this country. The only legal audit of voter intentions is the total number of votes cast for or against a candidate or an issue.

As for checking the count, electronic voting actually makes it easier to verify that the total number of votes cast does not exceed the number of voters. Electronic voting also eliminates questions that arise when a voter changes his mind in the voting booth. The machine allows you to do this with no question of erasures not being complete or of "hanging chad".

Gregory Mone and Rush Holt are pushing here for government funding of research --- your tax dollars at work --- and imply that, without government funding, progress will not be made. ("Our economy is fueled by innovation, yet, Holt contends, we’re not laying the groundwork for future breakthroughs.")

Wouldn't a whole series of American inventors from Benjamin Franklin, George Washington Carver, Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, et al be surprised that they had made no breakthroughs? No government subsidies were needed to propel this nation to economic dominance of the world; only free enterprise without government shackling individual initiative.