Two Academic Papers April 22, 2013 “NEVER MIND” – PART III I won’t let this go, because, really, it seems kind of important: . . . Bottom line: The foundation of the entire global push for austerity and debt reduction in the last several years has been based on a screwup in a [single academic paper] . . . What’s needed is not Republican austerity. What’s needed is Democratic investment in our future. There’s so much that needs doing; so many able and eager to do it; so much cheap money available to fund their doing it. All that stands in the way are the Republicans who control the House and who — by their unprecedented use of the filibuster — paralyze the Senate. It’s madness — and it was based on a single economic paper that now proves simply to have been bogus. (Sound familiar? Our invasion of Iraq was based on intelligence from a single source we never directly interviewed code-named Curveball.) Is there any chance the Republicans, confronted with this new information, will change course? The fact that you and I both doubt it does not bode well. AND YET THERE’S SO MUCH THAT DOES! For example, this report from Stanford: A Stanford team has designed an entirely new form of cooling panel that works even when the sun is shining. Such a panel could vastly improve the daylight cooling of buildings, cars and other structures by radiating sunlight back into the chilly vacuum of space. . . . [and that] may be able to supply air conditioning without using electricity to poor and off-the-grid areas. . . . Homes and buildings chilled without air conditioners. Car interiors that don’t heat up in the summer sun. Tapping the frigid expanses of outer space to cool the planet. Science fiction, you say? Well, maybe not any more. . . . Their paper describing the device was published March 5 in Nano Letters. . . . Granted, this is based on “science,” which Rush Limbaugh brands one of the “four pillars of deceit” (the others: academia, the media, and government). Really, you should trust only Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Joe the Plumber, not physics, Harvard, the New York Times, or the President. Still, I find it pretty thrilling. . . . Radiative cooling has profound advantages over other cooling equipment, such as air conditioners. It is a passive technology. It requires no energy. It has no moving parts. It is easy to maintain. You put it on the roof or the sides of buildings and it starts working immediately. Beyond the commercial implications, Fan and his collaborators foresee a broad potential social impact. Much of the human population on Earth lives in sun-drenched regions huddled around the equator. . . . Too cool for school.