http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/24/1135928/-More-Mitt-Romney-science-He-believes-University-of-Utah-solved-cold-fusion
The Jed Report by Jed Lewison <http://www.dailykos.com/user/Jed%20Lewison> [image: Mad Scientist]<http://s3.amazonaws.com/dk-production/images/6966/lightbox/dreamstime_s_18494371.jpg?1348518054> Captain Seamus in December 2011<http://washingtonexaminer.com/transcript-of-our-interview-with-mitt-romney/article/992671#.UGC6TLQ1exE>(audio clip below the fold), rolling down the window on what he believes to be true about cold fusion: I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I believe in analysis of new sources of energy. *I believe in laboratories, looking at ways to conduct electricity with -- with cold fusion, if we can come up with it. It was the University of Utah that solved that.* We somehow can’t figure out how to duplicate it. Um. I'll be gentle here. Other than to point out<http://partners.nytimes.com/library/national/science/050399sci-cold-fusion.html>this *New York Times* article, published on May 3, 1989—more than 22 years earlier—completely debunking Mitt Romney's cold fusion claim. *Physicists Debunk Claim Of a New Kind of Fusion* By MALCOLM W. BROWNE, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES BALTIMORE—Hopes that a new kind of nuclear fusion might give the world an unlimited source of cheap energy appear to have been dealt a devastating blow by scientific evidence presented here. In two days of meetings lasting until midnight, members of the American Physical Society heard fresh experimental evidence from many researchers that nuclear fusion in a jar of water does not exist. Physicists seemed generally persuaded as the sessions ended that assertions of "cold fusion" were based on nothing more than experimental errors by scientists in Utah. So the reason they couldn't duplicate their experiment is that there was nothing to duplicate. I know Mitt loves Utah, but the University of Utah most definitely didn't solve that. And more than two decades later, not only has Mitt Romney failed to figure that out, he's still confused<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/24/1135824/-Mitt-Romney-wants-airplane-windows-to-roll-down-in-case-of-fire-so-people-can-breathe-more-easily>about why you can't roll down the windows on jet airplanes. To be fair to Mitt, however, there is something of a double standard at work here. I mean, can you imagine the ridicule if Sarah Palin had said these things? *1:42 PM PT*<http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/24/1135928/-More-Mitt-Romney-science-He-believes-University-of-Utah-solved-cold-fusion#20120924134238> : Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. He doesn't even have a clue<http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1135928/47663778#c21>about what the discovery of cold fusion was supposed to mean. It had nothing to do with conducting electricity. It was about generating power. On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 3:06 PM, James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 6, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>wrote: > >> James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >>> Mitt Romney has made a comment, about as ignorant is you can get, about >>> cold fusion that is, despite its ignorance, a positive comment. >> >> >> ...This is entirely up to the physics establishment. >> > > Even if the physics establishment maintains its death-grip on funding, > Romney's faux pas -- ignorant as it was -- is the kind of excuse private > funding sources -- particularly those friendly to Romney and looking for a > way to discredit Obama -- can use to shield them from the "fringe kookery" > smears that do, indeed, frighten many private financiers. Of course, if > you're talking about investors that are friendly to Obama's politics, they > will be even less likely to invest in cold fusion. > > I did go out of my way to talk about _private_ funding sources in my > original post. > > > >> I think Romney had cold fusion mixed up with HTSC. >> > > I did say twice in the original post, and reiterated in this one, that > Romney's comment was "ignorance". I even called it "abject". > > The point is there is an enormous universe of terms he could have confused > with HTSC and the one he chose was not only a technology that many private > funding sources are looking for an excuse to invest in, but it is one that > bears directly on the credibility of Romney's primary weakness within the > Republican Party's very influential evangelical base: Mormon "kookery". > >
