> This is exactly what I mean, you've
decided that 'the media' is your enemy and
therefore any claims they make or report
can be attacked and demolished without
actually trying to understand what they're
actually saying.

No, you are wrong: Maybe the media is my
"enemy", but I'm setting that aside and
paying attention just to the media claims
that there is an ozone hole. Of course
there's an ozone hole -- so what? The
media has been claiming that there is a
threat from CFCs, but they didn't make
their case: The situation and the
standards and criteria for making a case
are simple and old: If the media wants to
claim that there is some threat, then they
need to follow at least common high school
standards for term papers -- e.g.,
references to primary sources.

> actually trying to understand what
they're actually saying.

What they are "actually saying" has low
credibility, e.g., is just not solidly
rational. Again, for a creditable case,
rational, scientific, detailed, they just
didn't make it or give references to such
a case.

I outlined what would be part of a
credible case -- from 1 kilogram of some
CFC, how many kilograms of ozone and how
many Watts of UV ....

> for a moment thought 'Huh, surely they
wouldn't have given a Nobel Prize in
Chemistry for something as basic as "CFCs
speed up this reaction," maybe there's
something to this atmospheric ozone thing'

Yes, maybe there is "something", in which
case the media claiming a threat needs to
make a case, give the "something", or at
least give some good primary references.

For

> surely they wouldn't have given a Nobel
Prize ...

That's not good evidence that CFCs cause a
significant problem. If there is good
evidence, then give it.

> Were you expecting me to be impressed?

No, not at all. My purpose and claim were
clearly stated right at the beginning of
the paragraph:

> I know something about writing credible
content:

For your

> I've also got a PhD in mathematics, and
in the years since I've met literally
hundreds of mathematicians with better
careers than this.

Irrelevant. Apparently you mean a
"better" "career" as an academic, research
mathematician.

Actually, I never once, not even for a
nanosecond, ever had any desire to have a
career in academics or in research
mathematics.

My main reason for going to graduate
school was simply the old idea that a
better education would lead to a better
job; academics was not such a candidate
job. Since this idea seemed to work for
my father, I tried it.

The Indiana University teaching was as a
graduate student. For the three courses
they had me taking, two of them were
beneath what I'd done in college, and the
third was by a prof who was ready to fail
me until I read my solution to him and he
saw that my solution was correct and one
step shorter than his. He was nasty to me
for no good reason. I never saw him
again.

There were some topics I wanted to study
in math and physics, but the best way was
just to get a job and study on evenings
and weekends.

Then I got strongly recruited for work in
math, physics, and computing for US
national security near DC and also did
well in much of the independent study I
had in mind. And I got into scientific
computing -- Assembler, Basic, Fortran,
Algol, PL/I, numerical analysis,
statistics, the fast Fourier transform,
digital filtering, phased arrays, lots of
algorithms, etc.

At Georgetown I was hired into the
computing center. I did too well and
scared the head of the center. Then the
university needed someone to teach
computer science so gave the job to me.

Then I helped start FedEx -- with some
computing and applied math, saved the
company twice. The promised stock was
late, and I was commuting from DC where
my wife was in her Ph.D. program. So, I
got a Ph.D. Just as a reading course,
in two weeks I did the work on the KTC.
Mathematical Programming wanted my Lemma
to be named a Theorem, and I didn't get
around to fixing that and publishing until
much later. While I've published some
papers, I am not now nor have I ever been
at all interested in publishing anything.

I took the job at Ohio State so that my
wife, who suffered in graduate school,
could be near her home and family farm.
I had 0.000 interest in the academics.

Now I'm doing what I always should have --
I'm an entrepreneur doing a startup. The
foundations are some math, computing, and,
now, the Internet.

Again, I don't want a career in math --
never did, still don't. At times, some
math did me some good in school: My math
SAT scores and the GRE math score were
good enough to damp down nasty politics,
get people out of my way, and open
doors. Some of the independent study I
did let me blow away the rest of the
students -- I was best in the department
on 4 of the 5 Ph.D. qualifying exams and
for the 5th had already written the first
draft of my Ph.D. dissertation. There was
a LOT of nasty politics. The thing I did
with the KTC beat down nearly all the bad
politics, eased my path through my Ph.D.
Somehow doing something independent and
publishable in a good journal in two weeks
was a magic wand. Silly.

Instead of publishing papers, I want to be
successful in business.

In my brother's side of my family, there
are three kids. I give them little
encouragements to know some math and
science but NO WAY would I encourage them
to try for an academic "career".

Again, once again, over again, yet again,
one more time, my background in math was
to support my claim

> I know something about writing credible
content:

in particular to critique the media claims
that CFCs are a threat. To me their
claims are not what I regard as "credible
content".