I may not post tonight, as neighborhood construction and Bele Chere have combined to make parking and electricity a gamble. I didn’t post yesterday, because I was overdue to practice what I preach. That is, if liberty is so great, I thought I needed to partake of some of it for a change.

My former boss and some of his colleagues were back in town. I met with them after work. It is hard to find anybody willing to shoot the breeze about math or physics, but it has always been a great way to calm my nerves.

Among other things, we got into a heated debate over whether gravimeters sensitive enough to detect supernova explosions were in use. Today, I got online to try to prove my point, and one of the first things I Googled into was a claim that the president was going to declassify antigravity research. For a few minutes, I thought my computer was on LSD. [Excuse me. I’m at work (on break) and the phone’s ringing. Another robot wants to sell me a government grant. Now a sales call. I’ll be back.]

Back to the federal interest in antigravity, I will leave it to the reader to Snope this for himself. Several articles cover the story, but the bulk of them lead back to only two sources that don’t exactly look like White House releases. Besides, it’s a free country, and I don’t wish to waste brain cells on junk science.

One source cited a book which I reviewed early in my career. I submitted my critique, calling the book a heap of garbage, to my boss. He replied, “We don’t give negative reviews.” So, I returned to my desk, and when my temper calmed down, I compiled a list of left-handed compliments, which got published. Needless to say, the author uses my glowing “endorsement” to this day.

The source also cites the work of T. T. Brown. I happen to know just about everybody who worked on attempts to replicate his work c. 1990, and the ones with good lab technique are convinced the thrust is caused by ion wind, not antigravity. The tests are low-budget garage science, nothing requiring a military or NASA budget. Well, far be it from us to use scientific method to determine whether claims are valid. Such matters are better left unresolved as political sinkholes for taxpayer dollars.