[speedgibson] Speed Gibson: A new fundamental constant

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Posted by Speed Gibson:
A new fundamental constant
http://speedgibson.powerblogs.com/posts/1190861296.shtml


   The physical sciences share a number of fundamental constants, like pi
   (circumference/diameter), e (base of natural logarithms), c (speed of
   light), h (Plank's constant), even i (imaginary square root of minus
   one).
   We may need one for politics, the amount of time that passes before a
   politician, almost always a liberal, returns to form after a
   presumably unifying major event.
   I remember watching closely after the towers fell on September 11,
   waiting to see the first overt, self-serving political move. Actually,
   it took longer than I thought, about three weeks, but there was former
   Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle holding out for union make-work
   rules and job security over national security.
   Now we have our own catastrophic event, the collapse of the Interstate
   35-W bridge over the Mississippi river. And once again, the Democrats
   returned to form about three weeks later, moving to preserve all that
   light rail funding lest it now be spent on something worthwhile.
   Maybe I'll have to come up with a Greek letter for it, a symbol for
   about 500 hours.