Thursday, June 24, 2010

I Don't Want the Ted Kaczynski Award, Thank You

In 2009, Doug and I were at a conference in which we heard one of the first public presentations of a study that showed that Spain's "green jobs" program was a disaster. The study has gone on to receive international attention. According to this report, one of the authors, Dr. Gabriel Calzado, received a package from a solar energy company that was a dismantled bomb. I hope that this is some kind of joke or hoax. Sadly, we heard first hand at the conference of the pressure the authors received to change their results, so I'm not surprised at the other reports of less-violent intimidation.

I checked and a solar energy company with the same name and a Spanish-language website does exist. Of course, that doesn't prove that they sent the bomb, but it should make it a lot easier to determine whether this is a hoax against the corporation, the actions of a rogue employee, or a serious threat against a College Professor who dared to speak out against big-government orthodoxy. My gut instinct is that for a serious representative of such a company to mail a bomb threat to Prof. Calzado seems to be beyond stupid, but then the Clash didn't perform this song for nothing.

We take it for granted that in the United States that if we criticize a government program, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, in our class or on this blog that no one is going to send us a dismantled bomb as a threat.

(Thanks to Instapundit for the link).

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