Sunday, April 09, 2006

Today's news - the obvious and the absurd First, the obvious.  This article lays out the deception by the Bush administration over Iraq's WMD claims.  Nothing surprising here, except for the fact that this article was not on the front page, or even really in the front section.  It was on an inner page of the "Nation and World" section, which is technically part of "section A" but the stuff that's not news or opinion, but just background.  Yeah, I know, that might be where it technically belongs, for those of us that have been paying attention for the past 5 years.  But this article should have been right up front, to educate the idiots that still think the Iraq war was justified.  Anyway, here's the link.  Cheney drove leak strategy, special counsel says Now, the absurdity of this one is apparent from the headline. Bush makes his pitch to be a pro-science president Yeah, good luck with that one! 12:00:53 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Saturday, April 08, 2006

Marriage of ideas - nuclear waste and space elevators New Scientist, March 4.  An article about nuclear waste disposal.  It gives a pretty detailed description of the new site being developed in Sweden.  Still under construction, it has become one of the town's top tourist attractions.  School kids take field trips there.  It sounds pretty cool.  And people in Sweden are not saying, "Not In My BackYard."  Which is nice.  Owning up to their disposal responsibilities, unlike some other countries that just keep procrastinating. A sidebar to this article starts with, "Gone are the days when people entertained the idea of blasting nuclear waste into space.  The consequences of a launch failure don't even bear thinking about."  Which does make a lot of sense.  Still, "space" does seem to me like it might be a much safer place for the stuff.  And I'm wondering, has anyone considered using a space elevator for this?  This is essentially a REEEAAAALLLYYY long structure of some sort that is traversed by a vehicle of some sort, like an elevator car on its cable.  One of these structures, originally portrayed in science fiction, is already being developed in Arizona, due to the wondrous discovery and development of carbon nanotubes.  Assuming there's some sort of safety parachute concept, using a space elevator should be no less safe than trucking these fuel rods across the country to Yucca Mountain.  Once in space, a very low-energy, low speed thruster-type system can drive these fuel rods off somewhere, where they are safely away from us.  Maybe even the moon.  In any case, it'd probably be pretty safe there from terrorists, and unable to enter the water supply or get ruptured during an earthquake.  Anyone that knows someone in NASA or the US (or any other country's) Department of Energy, feel free to pass this idea along.  Or maybe that private company in Arizona would like to get some government funds for further research and development. 8:47:35 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Friday, April 07, 2006

Women that are smarter than Lawrence Summers (Second in a new, occasional series.) I decided to start this new feature where I will be highlighting stories from my science magazines where the women achieved successes that the men had not, or where the addition of a woman to a team helped the team achieve success where previous, all-male teams had not.  This is not in any way meant to imply that men are stupid or that they aren't as smart as women.  However, the best way to show that something is at least equal to X is to show that it can be more than X.  People that want to yell and scream at me for this... that's what that little comment link down there is for.  Go for it.  Meanwhile, on with the show.  Various researchers have been trying to prove - via experimentation - that E really does equal mc2. They were having problems at Cornell with "magnetic noise" problems in the Penning trap they were using to measure the mass of an ion.  They worked for at least 3 years on this problem without success.  But then in 1999, when Debbie Fygenson joined them, the team finally solved the problem by trapping two different ions at the same time, which proceeded to move in a syncopated fashion.  Researchers were then able to weigh the two ions against each other in order to cancel out the effect of the noise. Alas, the researchers did not move to this "revolutionary" discovery immediately.  They wasted four more years using the old one-ion method, before giving up in 2003.  Using the new method they were finally able to measure the mass of an ion to within 5 parts in a trillion. Thanks, Debbie Fygenson, for your contributions to the team, to the research, and to advancing the exposure of women in science! 9:20:34 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Frog Walk Update! Gee, who'd've guessed that the actual authorization for the leaking of information about Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame came from the esteemed (in his own mind) "President" Bush?  I guess this is just proof that he can't find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight.  Back in what, 2003? he forcefully and in no uncertain terms said that whoever was responsible for those leaks would be fired.  Well, "sir", that appears to have been .... YOU!  Now pack your bags and get the hell out!  Frog walk!  Double time!  And take Cheney and Rove with you while you're at it! Remember that time, some amount of time later, when Rove was being fingered as the leaker ahead of Libby being indicted, Bush suddenly started saying that IF the information was leaked INTENTIONALLY, that person would be "let go"?  Now this makes sense too, and it's not because Bush was worried about losing Rove.  Even then, he was setting up his defense.  This may have been unintentional, after all.  Remember what I said above, about his ass and a flashlight?  He ain't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, is he?  He was so excited to discredit Wilson that he probably didn't even consider the wisdom of leaking information about a whole undercover operation.  It also explains why he and Cheney both would not agree to meet with special investigators under oath and on the record.  Gee, can that be because they both lied said asses off?  Too "honorable" to lie on the record, but not honorable enough to save taxpayer money by 'fessing up on camera three years ago. This story better be plastered across tomorrow's newspaper, in large, bright letters.  And that story had better include a long word that starts with "impeach" and ends with "ment".  Or "trea" and "son".  Or "high crimes" and "misdemeanors".  Or, he and Cheney both can just do the honorable thing and "re" "sign". Hey Feingold!  Maybe you'll get a lot more takers now on your censure proposal, too.  Let's throw in a big ol' ass-kicking, too. If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention! 9:11:12 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Saturday, April 01, 2006

Christian rock concert to save our kids, or just another marketing ploy? So I'm reading the paper this week, and I see that there's this huge Christian rock concert planned for San Francisco.  ""Battle Cry for a Generation" is led by a 44-year-old Concord [CA] native, Ron Luce, who wants "God's instruction book" to guide young people away from the corrupting influence of popular culture. Luce, whose Teen Mania organization is based in Texas, kicked off a three-city "reverse rebellion" tour Friday night intended to counter a popular culture that he says glamorizes violence and sex." So far so good, right? The villains, Luce said, range from the promiscuity and "sexualization" of young people on MTV and the popular online meeting hub MySpace.com to a corporate culture that spends millions trying to woo the under-21 crowd." Um, MySpace is a villain?  Excuse me?  MySpace?  And then I knew what this was all about.  Sure enough, the next paragraph spelled it out. "Battle Cry will try to bring them back to God through two days of religious rockers, speakers and the debut of what Luce called a Christian alternative to My Space.com. " And of course, the next day's paper  talked about the unveiling of the new site, which I decline to name, which Luce says is "My Space with God in the middle." Yup, nothing like evil corporate culture trying to woo that under-21 crowd, eh? 6:49:41 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Friday, March 31, 2006

A letter to my senators "To: Sen. Barbara Boxer, Sen. Dianne Feinstein Consider the law of supply and demand.  The war on drugs concentrates not on the users, but on the distributors.  So should the "war" on illegal immigration.  But in the issue of immigration, the "supply" is not the illegal immigrant workers - they have essentially no power.  The "supply" that is feeding this system is JOBS, not the workers to perform those jobs.  The companies that illegally employ these workers are the ones fuelling this system. How many young Americans would take jobs as fruit pickers if the jobs paid twice or three times what illegal workers will accept?  Well, how many went into computers when that became a big thing?  And law school?  How many moved from the south to the big northern cities with the promise of factory jobs at living wages? Any "immigration reform" that provides fines and penalties for illegal workers must also provide fines and penalties for the companies that hire them.  Offer these companies the same sort of "amnesty"- identify yourself, pay a fine, be on probation, and in X years your good name will be clear - and then we may truly get workable immigration reform.  Without it, we'll have this same problem 20 years from now, if not sooner. PS, helping the Mexican economy wouldn't hurt, either." Some yahoo (Mark Kirkorian of The Center for Immigration Studies, a guest on Monday's Talk of the Nation) disagreed with a caller to NPR that said the problem was the poverty and joblessness in Mexico.  Kirkorian said something about how it wasn't that these people didn't have jobs in Mexico.  Many of them did.  But they came here for better jobs.  Gee, why do you think they would do such a thing, Mark - risk death in the desert to sneak into a foreign country, hundreds of miles from home, in order to work illegally here?  For the weather?  Do you think they're laughing all the way to the bank with those wages?  Do you think their families are living in the lap of luxury back in Mexico?  Are they themselves taking extravagant ski vacations to Lake Tahoe on their unpaid vacation days?  Get a life!  Why, in your opinion, are we not having this discussion about illegal Canadian immigrants?  Could it be because Canada, like the US, has a social welfare program that takes care of its poor citizens (at the expense of everyone else), so they have no need to come here?  Or is it just that we wouldn't have a problem if it was white Canadians instead of Hispanic Mexicans? Or do you think the Canadians just don't envy our weather as much as the Mexicans do? 9:41:58 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Praise for GM I read somewhere last year that the "average line worker" at an automobile plant in this country (U.S.) is 48 years old.  It's no wonder American car companies are so conservative about the cars they make.  With the labor costs for a 48-year-old workforce (most of whom have almost certainly been working there for 20-30 years), the company cannot really afford a failure, such as building hybrids that they're not sure people are going to buy.  So I'd like to applaud GM for their recent buyout offer.  The offer applies to 113,000 of the hourly workers at its plants.  It covers regular buyouts and early retirement offers.  It allows the company to achieve cost reductions quickly, and to cut production capacity as well, considering that the buyers just aren't there. Hopefully this will allow the remaining workforce to hunker down and do something bold and innovative.  I like the fact that they're also promoting the E85 concept, too.  When I think about it, I realize that that could have a much bigger impact on weaning us off fossil fuels for driving.  And it will be a home run if they can develop the biodiesel to maybe work with waste instead of with corn grown specifically for the purpose.  Now, if they could make an E85 hybrid..... 6:57:01 PM    Here's what I have to say about THAT! []