Does He Even Know What ‘Nanotechnology’ Is?

It must be great to be governor and running for re-election. After all, you can dig into your bag of tricks and slush funds and twist arms and then run all across Texas dropping $15 million here and $30 million there acting all gubernatorial while you’re really trying not to look like you are buying the electorate in a fashion other than actually handing a stack of $20s out to a party boss.

Now, Rick Perry’s running around announcing a $30 million “public-private” investment for nanotechnology.

My question: Does the governor know what nanotechnology is? Could he give five examples and clearly define them? Probably not, but that’s another great thing about being governor: you don’t have to know what the hell is in the speech your speech writer wrote if you’ve got $30 million in cash to dangle around:

Gov. Rick Perry announced a $30 million public-private investment Wednesday to help lure a handful of top nanotechnology researchers to Texas.

Speaking at the nanoTX’06 nanotechnology conference in Dallas, Perry said the goal is to attract seven or eight of the world’s leading scientists and their research teams to work for the new Southwest Academy of Nanoelectronics.

Nanotechnology is the science involving the manufacture and manipulation of materials at the molecular or atomic level. At the nano scale, materials are measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter.

Conicidently, the nanometer is also used to measure Carole Strayhorn’s popularity.

So, if there’s a Star Treck Convention in El Paso next week, will Perry announce $100 million to study clingons?

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