Oh dear, what can the anti-matter be?
Enough about Bob Greene already! What's really important? Researchers at CERN -- the Swiss physics lab that birthed the World Wide Web a dozen years ago -- have "made 50,000 atoms of anti-hydrogen, the antimatter counterpart of normal hydrogen." Read more here. (Link courtesy David Harris.) This "blob" is apparently enough anti-matter for scientists to test the entire basis of modern physics: "If antihydrogen does not behave as they expect, the model will need to be replaced, and our notions of the structure of the Universe overhauled." What do we root for? Do we keep our fingers crossed that the standard model holds? Or do we root for the world to be turned upside down? NYTimes coverage is here. [Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment]

I'm no physicist (Hel, I have trouble with basic biology and chemistry), but I've always been confused about a few things with regards to antimatter - and, sadly, none of the information in the linked articles does anything to settle the questions. 

Here's the thing: Whenever antimatter runs into regular matter both are destroyed, right?  Well, since essentially the whole known world is made of regular matter, how can we find something in which to make and hold antimatter?  I mean, if antimatter is created, it has to be created someplace, right? but unless its created in a vacuum, there will already be some kind of matter there - and if it is created in a vacuum, there has to be a container that the vacuum itself exists in, right?  So if the antimatter is made in a vacuum, which, logically, has to exist in some kind of defined space (and that space would be defined by matter), then inevitably, it will run into those boundaries and be destroyed.  And you can't make a container out of antimatter because the outer part of it will still come in contact with matter.

So - if we are finding ways to make antimatter, how are we going to keep it from being destroyed long enough to study it, and how would we ever some kind of practical use for it?

Ah well... I'm not sure what side to root for on this one.  part of me would love to see the world of physics turned upside down, just because it'd be interesting to watch them all scramble.  :)  But keeping the status quo has its advantages too.  Really, I just want to know what we're going to keep the antimatter in....

Barriers To 9/11 Inquiry Decried
Congress May Push Commission

By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 19, 2002; Page A14

Lawmakers from both parties yesterday protested the Bush administration's lack of cooperation in the congressional inquiry into Sept. 11 intelligence failures and threatened to renew efforts to establish an independent commission.

[...]

All I can say is that it's about time.

Of course, the Bush administration doesn't believe in cooperating with any kind of investigation, especially one that might happen to touch on it in any way. For an administration that promised to bring honour and integrety back to the White House, they sure aren't very willing to let anyone verify that they have.

It seems that for the most part, the Bush administration just doesn't want truth to be known. 

• They fought a recount a Florida on the chance that they might lose.  Ironically, some of the newspaper investigations have shown that it is likely Bush might have won (even though some also indicated that he would have lost - there are too many variables in that whole mess to really ever know one way or the other, I suspect), but Bush didn't want anyone to actually try and find out for sure. 
  
  
• He has taken steps to prevent the release of Presidential papers going back to the Reagan/Bush era and turned his gubernatorial papers over to his father's Presidential Library in Texas, where it's harder for people to gain access to them (even though they're supposed to be considered property of the state and available to citizens of the state) rather than putting them in one of the state's University libraries where they would be as accessible as any other governor's. 
  
  
• He and Dick Cheney have refused time and again to allow anyone to know who took part in the advistory meetings regarding the development of the country's energy policy.
  
  
• Bush and John Ashcroft have begun holding people - including American citizens - in secrecy, not allowing the courts to oversee that they are being treated fairly, and with no charges filed, no contact with their attorneys and no hope of release in site.
  
  
• They'd refused to cooperate with investigations into what happened on 9/11 as well as who knew how much and when that might have helped prevent it.  They even went so far as to urge Congress to not investigate the tragedy

These are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head.  I have no doubt that there are many more out there.

I have no confidence, whatsoever, that Congress can get to the bottom of the questions about 9/11, simply because the White House holds too much sway over the individual Congressmen.  An independent investigation is exactly what is needed. Run by people who are not beholden to campaign contributors or who need the President's coattails to ride on, an independent investigation can ask the difficult questions, talke to the difficult people and release the difficult truth.

Once they're done with that, I'd also love to see them try to investigate the Enron mess among other things.