Practical Anarchist

Day 66

2007-01-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

President Gerald Ford -My Perspective

The nation mourns the loss of an outstanding man, a loving husband, finefather, loyal patriot, superb athlete - a kind and decent man. GeraldFord was a dedicated public official who was shabbily treated by the media and what passed for wit in those days. Those who knew him well described him as a friendly man, modest and unassuming. In their membrances of President Ford the listener has the impression that the tales of his humanity are unforced.

Despite Anthony's oration in Julius Caesar it is the good we remember of the dead and that is well. For those who did not know him our memories are of Ford the President. He was dealt a hard hand: unelected, following the turmoil of Nixon and Watergate and afflicted with a Democratic Congress. Ford had greatness thrust upon him and he responded with openness and an effort to do what was best for the nation.

He was unlucky in the mini-French Revolution brewing in the Congress. During Ford's presidency the economy was a mess and only Jimmy "Esau" Carter could make it worse. Little noted in his eulogies Ford also pardoned the scum who fled the country rather than serve their country. Vietnam fell and the re-education camps opened. Cambodia fell and a horrible genocide begun. In Korea two Army officers were butchered by the North Koreans and Ford did nothing. Under his auspices the obnoxious Helsinki Accords were signed.

President Ford was a man to emulate, a man who should have been given respect for his outstanding qualities. In a better world he would have worked with a Congress that matched his decency and humanity. It was his misfortune and that of the nation that he never had that opportunity.

Day 66

2007-01-02T15:35:00.000-08:00

From IW Sustainable Manufacturing: Au Naturel

More evidence that Leftists are seizing control of the Evil Empire -although the news that green (environment) is green (dollars) in more ways than one is good for us all. I imagine the new processes "consume" more land than a traditional plant but getting rid of the pollutants could be a worthwhile trade.

When Alcoa's new smelter in Iceland becomes operational ... it will benefit from natural sustainable technologies previously employed at thecompany's smelting operations in Mount Holly, S.C. It's part of an initiative that Pittsburgh-based Alcoa Inc. developed six years ago and is known as the 2020 Strategic Framework for Sustainability....

Alcoa is using plants, soil and microbes -- rather than tanks, pumps andmechanical systems -- to reduce the volume of water it discharges aswell as to lower the level of pollutants in the discharged water.

Alcoa is working with Roux Associates Inc., an Islandia, N.Y.-based environmental management and consulting firm, on natural systems at three locations: Mount Holly, Iceland and Lafayette, Ind.

The natural approach at Mount Holly, which is still a work in progress, involves "greening" the smelter's production area with runoff-reducing plants, constructing treatment wetlands to remove contaminants from water and using spray irrigation on grass and a grove of polar trees in an application of phytoremediation technology. Phytoremediation is a passive technology that uses fast-growing trees and plants to deal with environmental contaminants, according to Roux Associates.

Even in its pilot stage, the natural approach at Mount Holly has cut process water discharges to the locally owned public water treatment works by 60% to 70%, at a cost "at least" 50% less than conventional technology, says Alcoa.

... at Alcoa's engineered-products plant in Lafayette ... commercially available mushroom compost is being used to remove low levels of PCBs(polychlorinated biphenyl), aluminum, suspended solids, and oil and grease from process and storm water. This natural media filtration system reduced PCB levels to less than 100 parts per trillion from one part per million during its pilot stage... Now the facility is achieving "non-detect levels" of PCBs as measured by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency methods, the company claims.

Alcoa figures when its natural approach at Lafayette is operating full scale, it will have saved $10 million in up-front capital costs compared with conventional engineered methods, and will save $800,000 to $1 million a year in operating and maintenance costs.

Also from IW Materials -- Shape-Shifting Plastics

Cool. I wonder what neat toys will come from this.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and theHelmholtz Association of German Research Centers ... have invented a new class of materials that can assume three different shapes depending on how much heat is applied.

"Triple-shape materials can switch from shape A, then to shape B, and onto shape C," explains polymer chemist Andreas Lendlein of the Helmholtz Institute, who developed the materials with MIT chemical engineer Robert Langer. "Using two, rather than just one, shape changes offers unique opportunities for applications such as 'intelligent' stents or 'smart' fastener systems." Intelligent stents, for example, could assume an oval shape for insertion, a round shape for use and a compressed shape for removal.

In previous collaborations, Langer and Lendlein invented a dual-shape class of materials used to create a 'smart' suture, and a plastic that changes shape with light.

More from IW U.S. Tort Costs Dip In 2005, Analysis Shows

No wonder 2005 was a good year. I wonder if we could find out what caused the decline and repeat it. I'll bet that we can answer Mr.Sutter's question about the Democratic Congress and tort lawyers.

It amazes me that a manufacturer of a legal product can be sued even if the product meets all government standards. A good reform to me would ban all such lawsuits. The only lawsuit against a legal product should be if the product is defective and then the suit should be for actual damages.

U.S. tort costs reached $261 billion in 2005, for a growth rate ofapproximately 0.5% and down significantly from the growth rate of 5.7%i n 2004 and 5.5% in 2003, according to the "2006 Update on U.S. Tort Cost Trends."

The study from the Tillinghast business of professional services firm Towers Perrin points out that the $1.1 billion increase over tort costs in 2004 is the smallest since 1997.

"It's difficult to say whether tort reform measures have impacted this slow down in tort costs growth," says Russ Sutter, Tillinghast principal."We have yet to see what, if any, impact the class-action reform legislation that was passed in February 2005 will have on futureclass-action claims -- as well as whether the newly elected DemocraticCongress will have an impact."

Insured asbestos losses expanded by $7 billion in 2005, lower than increases of $7.3 billion in 2004, $10.2 billion in 2003 and $12.4billion in 2002, the study says.

Looking ahead, the company forecasts growth rates in U.S. tort costs of3.5% in 2006 and 4.5% in the two years after that. "The findings have shown that the trend toward more moderate increases in tort costs appears to be holding in 2006; however, continued lawsuits in the pharmaceuticals industry and obesity-related litigation, as well as asbestos claims and the backdating of options in U.S. corporations have the potential to change things going forward."

MIT creates 3-D scaffold for growing stem cells

Wonderful news. I'm ready for my new body, something without the pot belly and more hair on the head, less in the ears. Why are we waiting?

Stem cells grew, multiplied and differentiated into brain cells on a new three-dimensional scaffold of tiny protein fragments designed to be more like a living body than any other cell culture system. An MIT engineer and Italian colleagues will report the invention-which may one day replace the ubiquitous Petri dish for growing cells-in the Dec. 27th issue of the PLoS ONE. Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering, is a pioneer in coaxing tiny fragments of amino acids called self-assembling peptides to organize themselves into useful structures.

Working with visiting graduate student Fabrizio Gelain from Milan, Zhang created a designer scaffold from a network of protein nanofibers, each 5,000 times thinner than a human hair and containing pores up to 20,000 times smaller than the eye of a needle. The researchers were able to grow a healthy colony of adult mouse stemcells on the three-dimensional scaffold without the drawbacks of two-dimensional systems.

In addition to helping researchers get a more accurate picture of how cells grow and behave in the body, the new synthetic structure can provide a more conducive microenvironment for tissue cell cultures and tissues used in regenerative medicine, such as skin grafts or neurons to replace brain cells lost to injury or disease.The scaffold itself can be transplanted directly into the body with no ill effects.....In the body, cells are attached to and supported by the cells, otherstructures and proteins around them. A cell's normal environment is a complex network of tiny fibers, gaps and pores through which oxygen,hormones and nutrients are delivered and waste products filtered away. Cells move within their natural environments in response to chemical signals or other stimuli.

Researchers are aware that cells on flat surfaces have skewed metabolisms, gene expression and growing patterns. But the only choices have been glass labware and a product called Matrigel, a gelatinousprotein mixture secreted by mouse tumor cells. While Matrigel does resemble a complex extracellular environment, it also contains growth factors and unknown proteins that limit its desirability for experiments requiring precise conditions. "Synthetic biopolymer microfiber scaffolds have been studied for more than 30 years to mimic a living 3D microenvironment, but concerns exist about their degradation products and chemicals," the authors wrote in the paper.Other synthetic polymer biomaterials are simply too big. Getting cells to grow on them is like forcing spiders to build webs on skyscraper girders. Zhang's nanofiber scaffold, around 1,000 times smaller than the existing systems, is much closer in size to the extracellular matrices that living cells manufacture themselves.With the addition of defined amino acid fragments called active motifs, the scaffold can be fashioned to coax stem cells to behave in certain desirable ways-such as differentiating into needed body tissues or migrating toward bone marrow and other natural destinations.

"What makes these designer scaffolds particularly interesting is that cells survive longer and differentiate better without additional soluble growth factors," Zhang said. "This suggests that extra cellular microenvironments may play a more important role for cell survival andfor carrying out cell functions than previously thought."The active motif method could be readily adapted to studying cell-to-cell interaction, cell migrations, tumor and cancer cell interaction with normal cells, cell-based drug testing and other diverse applications.

"I believe that in the next 20 years all cell cultures will be in 3D with the designer scaffolds, and most textbooks about cell biology will have to be revised when people obtain results from 3D cell culture studies," Zhang said.

The researchers are now testing the designer scaffold with a variety of cells, including tooth, bone, heart, liver, cartilage, skin, pancreas, blood cells and artery-forming cells.

Day 65

2007-01-01T06:56:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year and happy blogging.

May all of your entries be linked to InstaPundit.

Rams Won.

They certainly surprised me. I thought they would quit after the Giants won yesterday. Man, if they had played like that all year -. Still a classy game and who knows maybe a return to the playoffs next year.

Day 64

2006-12-26T06:40:00.000-08:00

Fish Tales

I have just finished with The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World and What We Eat by Charles Clover. I was surprised by two comments in the book which by the way was an interesting read on the problems of maintaining fish populations.

In the first Mr. Clover noted that the restaurants of the famous and wealthy often serve endangered species. He noted one food purveyor who uses :sustainable" fishes to produce its high quality product. The purveyor is McDonalds. For some reason McDonalds does not tout its green status and unfortunately Mr. Clover's review will not be as widely read as it should. I would think though in a world that admires complexity so much - Saddam wasn't all that bad and so on - that the good done by the evil McDonalds would merit some attention.

Mr. Clover also does an excellent job dissecting the lousy conservation practices of the EU. Another surprise nomination for good guy from this honest European - the US. Oh, he chastises President Bush for "reneging" on the Kyoto Treaty - Mr. Clover betrays an ignorance of how treaties become law possessed by the entire environmental movement - but acknowledges that as far as the fish go the US is ahead of the pack.

Christmas Annoyance

The young have their gifts and the elderly are trying to get the darn things to work. Amid the tears and anger of gifts that do not perform as advertised one that sets my teeth agrinding is a stupid monkey doll. The batteries for the blasted thing are installed in its anus. You pull back the hide unscrew a plastic covering and then when batteries are installed the bloody thing does nothing interesting.

I'm sure some pervert thought it would be funny: people fiddling with a monkey's rear end. But then I think it is funny to return the stupid thing.

Day 63

2006-12-08T15:56:00.000-08:00

Death of an American Hero

Jeane Kirkpatrick is gone. For those who admire fortitude, intellectual rigor and mastery of the English language this was the woman for you. The world is a lot better because she was here and because she fought on our side.

Wind Picksup
Materials needed to make wind turbines are limited and the industry fears it will fail to keep pace with growing demand for the clean energy source.

Benefiting from spiraling oil prices and the popularity of green energy sources, wind farms -- mostly on land but also offshore -- have in recent years become an increasingly common sight throughout Europe. Wind-generated power now accounts for 3% of Europe's electricity requirements, according to the European Wind Energy Agency (EWEA). In Denmark the figure is 20%, 8% in Germany and 7% in Spain.EWEA hopes 22% of European electricity requirements will be filled by wind power by 2030.

Wind power in the US has expanded by 36% in 2005 with the help of federal funding. The rush to wind power has proved a boon for the industry in the shape of lucrative contracts but it has also caused problems for companies as they struggle to meet multiplying deadlines. Turbines ordered today would not be delivered until 2008 or possibly 2009.

Carbon Taxes

The UK announced that taxes on airline passenger tickets will double to £10 ($19.80) for most flights from Feb. 1, with duties on long-haul business class tickets doubling to £80 per ticket, as part of an effort to reduce carbon emissions. Aviation accounts for a fifth of carbon emissions produced by transportation.

UK airlines roundly criticized the move, saying it would hurt carriers financially while producing little environmental benefit. Cleaner fuel, more efficient aircraft and ATC management, the industry suggests, are the best ways to address environmental concerns.

Solar poer

A concentrator solar cell produced by Boeing-Spectrolab has achieved a world-record conversion efficiency of 40.7 percent, establishing a new milestone in sunlight-to-electricity performance. This breakthrough may lead to systems with an installation cost of only $3 per watt, producing electricity at a cost of 8-10 cents per kilowatt/hour, making solar electricity a more cost-competitive. By using an optical concentrator, sunlight intensity can be increased, squeezing more electricity out of a single solar cell.

The cell uses a unique structure called a multi-junction solar cell. This type of cell achieves a higher efficiency by capturing more of the solar spectrum. In a multi-junction cell, individual cells are made of layers, where each layer captures part of the sunlight passing through the cell. For more information, visit the Solar America Initiative website at: http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/solar_america/.

From Russia but no love

A raid-like search (whatever that is) was reportedly been conducted at IBM 's Moscow offices early Wednesday morning with similar incursions at LANIT and R-Style, Russian partners of IBM, according to a news report from Russian news agency Regnum <http://www.regnum.ru/english/751020.html> .

Masked agents with machine guns from Russia's special police force OMON conducted the search.

Day 62

2006-12-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

Boomer Sooner.

Wow. A great game for the Big 12 ( I can not get used to saying that) Conference Championship with the right outcome.

Bio chips.

STMicroelectronics has demonstrated a prototype MEMS device capable of selectively collecting and manipulating biological molecules. The work may result in cost-effective automated sample preparation for medical and forensic diagnostics.

From the press release

The prototype chip contains a tiny channel, measuring about 1mm in length, 0.1mm in width and 50 microns in height which is filled with a solution containing the molecules of interest. On the bottom of the channel, an array of tiny platinum electrodes (25micron wide, separated by 25 microns) provides precise control over the pattern of the electric field in the channel and therefore the forces applied to the biological molecules.

ST says current biotechnological platforms such as its In-Check devices, work for the diagnosis of specific diseases or the monitoring of food and water for bacterial contaminants by allowing the rapid detection of particular genetic material in liquid biological samples. But the preparation of the samples is still a relatively time-consuming process performed with large samples in laboratories using techniques that require skilled technicians and are difficult and expensive to implement with smaller samples.

...the aim of its research program is to explore new methods to automate sample preparation, so that the biological molecules of interest could be rapidly extracted from "raw" specimens such as saliva, blood or biopsy tissues and used as the input to the lab-on-chip diagnostic stage.

The technique used by the ST researchers is based on dielectrophoresis, where an electric field is used to separate biological particles contained in a conductive solution. The careful setting of physical and electrical factors allows precise control of the movement of target particles and researchers demonstrated that this could be exploited for practical uses. Potential benefits include the ability to isolate cells that are present in low concentrations, to increase the concentration of cells in a solution and to extract DNA from the cell nucleus, as well as allowing sample preparation to be performed in the field by personnel with minimal training.

...the researchers also successfully showed that by precisely controlling the voltage applied to different electrodes, cells could be collected at one specific region and then moved to other regions in either direction.

Crazy world Part 1
I want to murder a guy, say a defector from Mother Russia, and instead of shooting him or knifing him or killing in a way that could point to half a billion folks I use a radioactive isotope? A radioactive isotope that can be traced back to Russia? Do I read too many James Bond novels or am I just nuts?

Crazy World Part 2
The local paper carried an article on the ease with which an illegal immigrant can obtain a subsidized home loan. Please do not try this I any country other than America. Here again I'm sure that I'm a lunatic. A guy enters the country illegally and I pay for him to get a home. The bank is so sure that this individual will not be deported that it grants him a loan. Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong?

Hydrogen storage

From the press release

Whilst hydrogen is thought to be an ideal fuel for vehicles, producing only water on combustion, its widespread use has been limited by the lack of a safe, efficient system for onboard storage.

Scientists have experimented with ways of storing hydrogen by locking the gas into metal lattices, but metal hydrides only work at temperatures above 300°C and metal organic framework materials only work at liquid nitrogen temperatures (-198°C). Scientists at the University of Bath have invented a material which stores and releases hydrogen at room temperature, at the flick of a switch.

Although its fuel to weight ratio is insufficient to make an entire hydrogen tank from it, the material could be used in combination with metal hydride sources to store and release energy instantaneously whilst the main tank reaches sufficient temperature, 300°C, to work.They hope to have the fully-working prototype ready within two to three years.

"The problem of how to store hydrogen has been a major bottleneck in the development of the hydrogen power technology," said Dr Andrew Weller from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Bath (UK)."Hydrogen has a low density and it only condenses into liquid form at -252°C so it is difficult to use conventional storage systems such as high-pressure gas containers which would need steel walls at least three inches thick, making them too heavy and too large for cars."

The US Department of the Energy has said that it wants six per cent of the weight of hydrogen storage systems to be hydrogen in order to give new hydrogen powered cars the same kind of mileage per tank of fuel as petrol-based systems.

Whilst metal hydrides and metal organic framework materials can achieve this kind of ratio, they only work at extremes of temperature which are difficult to engineer into an ordinary vehicle.

"Our new material works at room temperature and at atmospheric pressure at the flick of a switch. Because it is made from a heavy metal (Rhodium), its weight to fuel ratio is low, 0.1 per cent, but it could certainly fill the time lag between a driver putting their foot on the accelerator and a metal hydride fuel tank getting up to temperature."

The University of Bath researchers made the discovery whilst investigating the effect that hydrogen has on metals. Having constructed an organo-metallic compound containing six rhodium (a type of metal that is also currently found in catalytic converters in cars) atoms and 12 hydrogen atoms.

They soon realised that the material would absorb two molecules of hydrogen at room temperature and atmospheric pressure - and would release the molecules when a small electric current was applied to the material.This kind of take up and release at the atomic scale makes the material an ideal candidate for solving the hydrogen storage problem.The researchers are now looking at ways of printing the material onto sheets that could be stacked together and encased to form a storage tank.

Potentially this tank could sit alongside a metal hydride tank and would kick into action as soon as the driver put their foot on the accelerator, giving the metal hydride store the time to heat up to 300°C - the temperature that normal petrol-powered engines run at.

"The new material absorbs the hydrogen into its structure and literally bristles with molecules of the gas. At the flick of a switch it rejects the hydrogen, allowing us to turn the supply of the gas on and off as we wish."

Just in time for football

I wish they had had this when Peterson broke his foot.

Dr Gwynne Hannay has built a gadget to promote bone cell formation.Dr His device replicates the mechanical and electrical stimulants which occurred naturally in the body to repair fractured and broken bones.

Dr Hannay's research has advanced the understanding of how bone cells can be stimulated to heal factures and has for the first time combined the artificial reproduction of both mechanical and electrical stimulants.

Combining the two stimulants produces a synergistic effect. Normal fractures that would otherwise heal successfully could be accelerated with the use of these stimulants.

Day 61

2006-11-30T12:39:00.000-08:00

Lost Liberty

Britain may be getting closer to Big Brother than some of us realize. The British have begun study programs to determine if they can identify dangerous criminals before they commit crimes. The examples they chose to set up as examples the program would identify are child murders and serial rapists. The team is concentrating on reducing the risk of those with a history of domestic violence turning into murderers. About a quarter of murders in Britain are related to domestic violence. No one would object to stopping these evils before they take place.

However, the Devil is both in the criminals and how they are identified.Experts build psychological profiles of likely offenders. Former partners and mental health workers will provide their views which will be combined with police records. With more confidence than I could muster, a senior criminal psychologist noted that there are some pretty dangerous people out in the community but is confident that risk models based on the gossip will separate the, as she put it "wheat from the chaff."

I have a few problems with this "crime-fighting technique:

1. I've worked with risk models before. They attempt to subscribe objective values to subjective evaluations. How do you determine that one wife-beating equals four drunk arrests in terms of likelihood to commit murders?

2. What are the parameters used to predict future actions other than gossip and criminal records, neither as I understand are good predictors of criminal behavior?

3. How do you determine that these models work? Are there double-blind tests? This seems like a lose-lose situation. You lose if your tests don't demonstrate some correlation and you lose if your tests do show correlation and you "let" someone die.

4. The corrective actions are arrest or medical treatment. Arrest for something you haven't done is wrong. How do you determine when the medical treatment works particularly since even the psychiatrists testify their methods are often unsuccessful?

5. Increased surveillance is proposed as another method to prevent future crimes. How does that work? Since the criminal doesn't know when he will commit his next crime the surveillance must be constant. Does a small army of police follow the poor beggar everywhere he goes? Do we place electronic monitors on him day and night? That might be enough to drive him over the edge.

6. Crimes of passion and of the moment are not covered by this process. Is this a good investment of resources pursuing the outlier criminal?

7. Britain already uses one crime fighting technology: cameras watching for signs of aggression. With over 4 million cameras installed in the past twelve years, the murder rate remains about the same.

You will not find me on the donor's list for the ACLU. However, this idea is a stinker. It is unscientific, won't work and depends on the good graces of psychologists. I trust lawyers and judges and police officers far more than the social scientist to administer the laws.

Day 60

2006-11-27T16:21:00.000-08:00

Cornhusker language

I e-mailed a friend who has the minor flaw of rooting for the Cornhuskers. I suggested as a friednly be that he give me OU and 35 pints. My, my the language. I don't believe that I am biologically capable of doing the things he suggested.

So its $1 straight up on OU. I'm livin' on the edge now.

Stopping illegal drugs

In Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner a section is devoted to the interesting fact that most illegal drug dealers live at home with mother. Why?

The choice of dealing drugs as a living is more confusing when it is noted that: 1 in 4 drug dealers die (odds for a lumberjack - the most dangerous legal profession in the US - 1 in 2oo and on death row 1 in 20), the dealers make less than minimum wage about $3.30 an hour and probably will spend significant time in jail.

However, they have strong incentitives to continue with this line of work. There really are no other opportunities for black inner-city kids with little education and they might hit the jackpot - become one of the guys that run the gangs. These guys make the money, have the cars, the women, live the life the low rank employees can only dream about in mama's cold apartment in the slums.

Destroying the drug network would be simple - and hard.

First, unleash the hounds of the IRS on the "directors". These are the swells who make the real money and have no way to hide it. Instead of hounding some middle-class guys wipe out the hope that these criminals represent to the low rank drug dealers.

Second, bust the chops of the dealers. Don't arrest them - that only costs the system in lawyers, judges, courts and jails. The police should sweep through and pick up the hard drugs and destroy them and leave the dealers alone. If resources were devoted to removing illegal drugs and the associated profit rather than sending a few easily replaced dealers to jail then the push for making more junkies is lowered.

Those are the easy steps. Now come the hard parts.

Third, get the junkies off the crack and cocaine. This will cost money, a great deal of money. Some junkies may never be able to stay clean. These will have to be confined for their own good.

Fourth, the dealers must be helped. They must be given jobs - these do not have to be high paying jobs but they need work.

Reforming the dealers will be very, very difficult; it will be much easier to abandon them. We cannot. Bringing these children back into society will require much individual work, much back-sliding, trust and willingness to go the extra mile.

In the first step they can take jobs that the illegal imiigrants are currently siphoning off. The President is wrong. The illegals are taking jobs that Americans would do. These dealers could be reformed to take those jobs, menial and laborous if there is the hope for somethng better for themselves and their children and families. They have the same dreams as any immigrant - all they need are the right incentitives.

How to lose a battle

I have just finished Bill Fawcett's How to Lose A Battle. As a very ametuer historian I am familiar with many of the battles he describes although I have to admit he sprung a couple of surprises.

I was truly surprised when he included the battle of Okinawa in his list ogflost battles. Mr. Fawcett pointed out that the Americans conduct of the battle was terrible. Soldiers and marines were brave beyond words but the American high command failed.

The slightest description of the three lines of the Japanese defense in the south is enough to scare a man with any sense. To have actually gone up those hills and into those valleys with the hidden machine nests and the zeroed in artillery killing zones is something difficult to comprehend sixty years later. The Americans were tough and they followed orders. It stinks that their orders from officers who should have known better killed them in droves.

When the American generals and admirals saw those hills lined with bunkers and backed by cannon and mortars they should have pulled back the troops. They should have diverted those bombers turning Japanese cities into rubble and unleashed them on the Okinawa fortifications. Bombing the Japanese cities, burning them to ashes was doing little to win the war. Killing Japanese soldiers and marines would.

Remember the Japanese did not think they could beat the Americans. The idea was to bleed the US until she quit in exhaustion. The American high command played right into the Japanese game plan. Patton could have reminded them: "No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country; he won the war by making the other poor bastard die for his."

Day 59

2006-11-26T07:16:00.000-08:00

Sooner Magic.

Texas lost and OU beat OSU in another wild Bedlam matchup. The old sofa took a hit as OSU had a chance in the end zone with time running out. The OU defense stayed tough and the ball sailed off the receiver's fingertips.

OU and Nebraska for the Big 12 title. Should be anothe fun game. More fun will be had by razzing Cornhuskers. Go Sooners!!

Rams win?

I cannot believe the Rams won. Even with the game in St. Louis I just could not see this beraggled bunch of screw-ups beating a resurgent SF. Fortunately the team showed toughness and a will to win.

If only they had showed those traits earlier.

Getting rid of houshold chemicals?

Tersano Inc.,has developed a ozone-based water treatment system for residential use. The system could be used to eliminate chemicals from the household.

The patented Lotus Sanitizing System was named by Time magazine as one of the best inventions in 2006.

The Lotus system uses ozone to kill bacteria, mold and mildew and eliminate pesticides from fruits and vegetables. It also keeps produce fresh for a longer period than untreated produce. Ozone-treated water is a safer disinfectant than bleach or hydrogen peroxide since the ozone reverts to regular oxygen in about a quarter hour.

Lotus retails for $199.

More police invasions.

There have been more invasions of private homes by police acting on incorrect information. Added to the death of the 92 year old lady in Atlanta the observer cannot be faulted for believing the system is broken.

Relying on criminals for information and then not properly checking the information is a receipe for disaster. No one argues the need for police to use force against violent and dangerous criminals - at least folks not in the ACLU. But the force must be appropriate for the threat. Possession of an ounce of illegal drugs just does not pass the silliness test.

This is another of dozens of areas where the great mass of Americans can come together. Reasonable reforms can do a great deal to avert tragedies and still enforce the law.

Day 58

2006-11-24T07:08:00.000-08:00

Sooner Thanksgiving.

Here's hoping Texas loses today so OU has a shot at the Big 12 Conference.

OU will have to play its third string running back against OSU. Cheese, what a year.

Variable Star.

I finished the new "Heinlein" novel, a book completed by Spider Robinson using an outline Heinlein had written. The story feels like an updated version of Time for the Stars. Robinson maneuvers his characters into a situation where everything looks hopeless than in a host of deus ex machina moves brings the novel to a most unsatisfying end.

Warning. Plot Spoilers. !!!!

I hate stories which make some assumptions about the course of technology than spring magic to undo the problems. I especially hate it when the magic is poorly done.

Robinson's hero flees to the stars to avoid a mangled love affair. (He falls in love with a beautiful, rich woman who wants him. Bummer, dude, you have my sympathy.) The ship on which he journeys is afflicted by various problems which threaten its survival. For some unknown reason, a natural disaster or alien attack, the sun explodes killing 47 billion humans and threatening the survival of its colonies. To add the final blow the ship loses propulsion with no hope of recovery. They're all going to die.

But fear not. The husband of the hero's lost love has invented FTL and rushes to rescue the stricken ship after barely avoiding becoming ashes in the sun's violent demise. Along with the inventor comes the long lost love, her evil grandfather (he votes Republican) and a grown up female cousin last seen on Earth in the thralls of puppy love.

The evil grandfather has designs to rule the pale remnant of humanity. Worse he only agreed to pick up the hero so the cousin could breed further little villains. The villain wants to abandon everyone else on the ship to a slow miserable death.

His evil plot comes to light when the FTL inventor babbles on about the characteristics of his device. In the second deus ex machina gimmick the device operates in manner that is indifferent to the mass of the ship. The hero dodges some rather silly gunfire, bolts the drive to the ship and saves the day. In the meantime the poor reader is left with a host of questions.

Why are only the evil villain and our sax-playing hero the only ones to understand the implications of the drive's ability to move a mass of any size? Did the inventor have no co-workers? Is everybody stupid?

The FTL is used to push the wealthiest guy in the entire Solar System, members of his family and entourage around. This implies it is not a prototype and that there is a great deal of confidence in its operation. So where are the other versions? Wouldn't some of those be far enough out in space to flee the explosion?

Actually there should be a lot of survivors. The productive capability of the society of Variable Star should be immense. Why such a society should even have poor areas is another confusion. But leave that aside for a moment the manufacturing infrastructure should be able to turn out FTL drives like candy. That is the way to dominate a market, grab such a large share of the market the competition doesn't stand a chance. Yet our villain reflecting his stupid Republican values delays giving the chance for the secret to slip into the hands of his competition.

Why is the villain so willing to abandon the Sheffield? And when will science fiction writers get over the unclever idea of naming ships after other writers? But back to the Sheffield. It is the latest starship to leave the now late Solar System. It is big; it has technology; its crew can rip energy from the vacuum. There are precious genetic resources on board. If I were going to rule humanity I'd want this ship, its crew, and its cargo. Flinging a big ship such as the Sheffield around would be more impressive to any opposition than the silly ten-seater. I know the villain is Republican but this stupid?

Also an FTL drive could, in some theories, serve as a time machine. It would have been nice to give that aspect of the drive a look. Rather we are treated to a mystical indifference to mass which helps the hero avoid an interesting moral decision.

All in all, a book not worth the effort.

Day 57

2006-11-12T15:59:00.000-08:00

Was Homer A Woman?

Andrew Dalby in Rediscovering Homer: Inside the Origins of the Epic takes us back to the magical moment when the Iliad and the Odyssey moved from the oral tradition to the written word. Dalby brings us two "Homers" - the one who originally composed the works; perhaps the blind poet of Chios, and the ones who spoke the words of the epic to a scribe. The latter in Professor Dalby's interpretation is the only one we can ever know.

Dr. Dalby takes through the historical evidence that Troy or rather Troy IV existed around the 13th century BC, co-existent with the Hittite and Mycenaean kingdoms. Then he analyzes the mores and morals of the Mediterranean Bronze Age societies with a sure touch. It is in this latter discussion, however, where, in my opinion, Dr. Dalby's contention that our Homer was a woman is caught on the reefs.

Dr. Dalby spins an excellent mystery. The length of the Iliad, about twelve thousand lines of poetry, argues against a single night's performance of the work. Perhaps the versions we have were constructed for writing down. Its length would have required a considerable investment in time and resources to set into writing. Given the lack of printing presses, the follow-on copies would have been almost as expensive as the original. Unless the backers intended to produce only one copy, a dangerous plan given the number of accidents that could befall leather sheets the backers must have planned for additional copies.

Here I would have enjoyed Dr. Dalby's speculation on the motives of the backer, the individual who paid for the transformation of the epics into immortality. Indeed there may have been more than one backer as Dr. Dalby makes a strong case that the Odyssey was written considerably latter than the Iliad.

His analysis prompts a host of unanswerable thoughts. No fame followed the backers - a considerable difference between the financial wizards of today who must plaster their identification on any motionless object. We can be grateful for the Iliad and Odyssey but we have no idea who to thank.

We have little inkling into why these works as magnificent as they are were chosen. What prompted the backer to enable these works to writing when the Minoans just a few centuries before set down only mind-numbing bureaucratic trivia.Wouldn't it be wonderful to read the sagas of those sea-faring peoples? Their silence is almost as painful as the fire and neglect that has lost so much of the past.

Why weren't other works by Homer or those of Syagros or Arktinos selected? Those poems did not make the selection and are as dead to us anything in the past.

Dr. Dalby does make an interesting suggestion about the poet who helped make the transition of the epics to writing. He points out the strong tradition of women bards around the world and through time. Women poets are usually better in keeping cultures alive, partly because of their role in child-rearing. When the Ainu culture went into its final decline the woman became the last repositories of the culture and its oral history.

But this raises another question if our Homer, the one who related the epics to the scribe, was a woman how was she selected? In the misogynistic times she probably was not a performer, almost certainly not the primary performer. Perhaps the woman lived in the household of the backer and thus was familiar to the woman's talents. This would also avoid any problem with putting unrelated males and females into close proximity for a long time.

More likely I think the backer would reach toward the most popular singer he could reach. Just as works of art today draw larger crowds when performed by a renowned artist even one of lesser talents so in ancient times I think more attention would be made to the work if it was nosed about that a famous individual had participated. That would be a man.

One of the wonderful features of Dr. Dalby's work is his acknowledgement that we don't know and can never know the answer to Homer's identify. He has raised an interesting question, a question that like all good question raises more. Although he provides no final answers he has asked us to consider a time that we sometimes too blithely think we know.

God Bless Kansas State

Whooee. They knocked off Texas. Always love it when the Longhorns are whacked.

Of course it was excellent that the Sooners schoonered to victory.

Day 56

2006-11-10T14:52:00.000-08:00

Technology Developments.

There are a number of wonderful actvities underway that promise significant improvements in our futures.

New Sensor:

Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Rochester will build and test a new imaging sensor, which will function at wavelengths spanning from ultraviolet to mid-infrared, and will operate in the radiation environment of space. Hardware will decrease from the size of a crate weighing tens of pounds to a tiny thumb-sized chip. Images from ground telescopes using this new sensor will rival those from orbiting telescopes.

The chip integrates an ADC at each pixel. Previous on-pixel conversions required too many transistors, leaving too little area to collect light.

First tests on the chip indiocate a 50 times reduction in power than the current best.

In addition to astronomical applications, the detector could improve biomedical imaging devices.The technology watch the nation's borders - or,say, Afghanistan or Iraq and ICBMs.

Laser Comm Through the Atmosphere:

Laser light can carry large amounts of information, but cumulus clouds scatter the light and create echoes. Scattering is important because various parts of the beam reach the receiver at different times.

The goal of the research is to deliver 3 gigabytes per second over a distance of 6 to 8 miles through the atmosphere. This distance causes an overlap of arriving data. The researchers first process the signal to shorten the overlapping data to reduce the number of overlaps. Then the system processes the remaining signal, picking out parts of the signal to make a whole and eliminate the echoes.

This process must be continuous with overlap shortening and then filtering so that a high-quality, optical fiber caliber message arrives at the receiver. All this, while one or both of the sender and receiver are moving. The system uses COTS and proven DSP techniques. Because the approach provides high quality signals, it can extend high bandwidth systems to rural areas and may eventually expand the Internet into aircraft or space vehicles.

Control of Nerve Cells:

New implantable biomedical devices that act as artificial nerve cells, control severe pain, or allow otherwise paralyzed muscles to move might be possible. Nicholas Kotov of the University of Michigan, and colleagues used carbon nanotubes, to connect an IC to nerve cells. The new technology offers the possibility interfacing between biology and electronics.

Kotov and colleagues at Oklahoma State University and the University of Texas Medical Branch explored single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs) as biologically compatible components. The researchers built layers of SWNTs producing an electrically conducting film a few nanometers thick. They next grew neuron precursor cells on this film. The precursor cells successfully differentiated into highly branched neurons. A voltage is applied lateral to the SWNT film layer, and a "whole cell patch clamp" measured electrical effects on the nerve cells. When a lateral voltage is applied, a relatively large current is carried along the surface but only a very small current, in the region of billionths of an amp, is passed across the film to the nerve cells. The net effect is a reverse amplification of the applied voltage that stimulates the nerve cells without damaging them.

A great deal of work is needed before such medical applications can be realized.

Some Quantum Mechanics:

Tornado-like rotation motions have been transferred from light to atoms in a controlled way at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The new quantum physics technique can manipulate Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

As reported in the Oct. 27 issue of Physical Review Letters, the research team transferred orbital angular momentum from laser light to sodium atoms. The NIST experiment completes the scientific toolkit for complete control of the state of an atom, which now includes the internal
t ranslation and rotation states. Other researchers, as well as the NIST group, have transferred linear momentum and spin angular momentum (an internal magnetic state) from light to atoms.

The BEC was illuminated from opposite sides by two laser beams, one with a rotating doughnut shape. Each atom absorbed one photon from the doughnut laser beam and emitted one photon in the path of the other laser beam, picking up the difference in orbital angular momentum between the two photons. The interaction of the two opposing lasers created a corkscrew-like interference pattern, inducing the BEC to rotate. The researchers induced the cloud to simultaneously rotate and stand still, or to rotate simultaneously in opposite directions with varying amounts of momentum--superposition.

Air shower' set to cut water use by 30 per cent:

Scientists have developed a simple 'air shower' device which, when fitted into existing shower heads, fills the water droplets with a tiny air bubble. The shower feels just as wet and just as strong as before, but now uses much less water.

The researchers, from CSIRO Manufacturing Materials Technology in Melbourne, say the device increases the volume of the shower stream while reducing the amount of water used by about 30 per cent. Given the average Australian household uses about 200,000 liters of water a year, and showers account for nearly a third of this, the 'airshower' could help the average household save about 15,000-20,000 liters a year. If you extend this across the population, that is an annual saving of more than 45,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The Aerated Showerhead, developed by a team led by Dr Jie Wu, is a small nozzle that fits inside a standard showerhead. The nozzle uses a small Venturi tube - a tube for which the diameter varies, creating a difference in pressure and fluid speed. Air is sucked into the Venturit ube as a result of the partial vacuum created, causing air and water to mix, forming tiny bubbles within the water stream.The nozzle creates a vacuum that sucks in air and forces it into the stream. The water droplets in the stream are hollow and the bubbles expand the volume of the shower stream.

Small-scale experiments using the aeration device found that people detected no difference in water pressure, sensation, or overall perception of showering.The nozzle would cost less than $20 and could be installed byhouseholders.

Arsenic Well Posioning:

The discovery of magnetic interactions between ultrasmall specks of rust is leading scientists at Rice University's Center forBiological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN) to develop low-cost technology for cleaning arsenic from drinking water. The technology holds promise for millions of people in India, Bangladesh and other developing countries where thousands of cases of arsenic poisoning each year are linked to poisoned wells.The new technique is described in the Nov. 10 issue of Science.

Arsenic contamination in drinking water is a global problem, and while
there are ways to remove arsenic, they require extensive hardware and high-pressure pumps that run on electricity. This approach is simple and requires no electricity. While the nanoparticles used in the publication are expensive, new approaches to their production thatuse rust and olive oil, and require no more facilities than a kitchen with a gas cooktop are indevelopment.

Nanoparticles of magnetic particles were thought to only interact with a strong magnetic field. The experiments involved suspending pure samples of uniform-sized iron oxide particles in water. A magnetic field was used to pull the particles to out of solution, leaving only the purified water. As particle size is reduced the force on the particles does drop rapidly, and the old models were correct in predicting that very big magnetic fields would be needed to move these particles.

It turns out that the nanoparticles actually exert forces on each other. Once the hand-held magnets pulled on a few nanoparticles, the nanoparticles effectively workt ogether to pull themselves out of the water. Because iron is well known for its ability to bind arsenic, the researchers repeated the experiments in arsenic-contaminated water and found that the particles would reduce the amount of arsenic in contaminated water to levels well below the EPA's threshold for U.S.drinking water.

Generation of smooth muscle cells:

Smooth muscle cells (SMCs) are a crucial cellular component of many parts of the body, including blood vessels, the intestines, and the lungs. SMCs in the blood vessels are involved in several causes of heart disease and understanding how SMCs are generated is important for designing therapies. It is also knowledge that could be used to engineer tissues in the laboratory, for example new blood vessels for use in bypass surgery.

Catherine Verfaille and colleagues at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, show that SMCs can be generated from multipotent adult progenitor cells (MAPCs) isolated from the bone marrow of rats, mice, pigs, and humans. These cells only generated SMCs if exposed to the soluble factor TGF-beta or TGF-beta and another soluble factor PDGFB. SMC development from MAPCs occurred along the normal pathway of SMC development and the cells that were generated had all the functions of normal SMCs. This study identifies a model system for studying the effects of potential therapeutics on SMC development andSMCs. It also describes a potential source of SMCs for engineering tissues.

Radiation Protection:

Using tiny, transparent zebrafish embryos, researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Medical College are hoping to prove that a microscopic nanoparticle can be part of a "new class of radioprotective agents" that help protect normal tissue from radiation damage just as well as standard drugs.

From Radiation Protection:Reporting November 7, 2006 at the annual meeting of the American Societyf or Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology in Philadelphia. Nanoparticle, DF-1 - a soccer ball-shaped, hollow, carbon-based structure known as a fullerene - is as good as two other antioxidant drugs and the FDA-approved drug, Amifostine in fending off radiation damage from normal tissue. Scientists, led by Adam Dicker, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiation oncology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and at Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer Center, and Ulrich Rodeck,M.D., professor of dermatology at Jefferson Medical College, compared DF-1 to two superoxidase dismutase mimetics, which are antioxidant drugs.

They exposed zebrafish embryos to radiation with either DF-1 or asod or amifostine. Each of the three markedly reduced radiation damage and increased overall survival and was comparable to the protection provided by the Amifostine. One way that radiation frequently damages cells and tissues is by producing "reactive oxygen species" - oxygen radicals, peroxides and hydroxyls. Zebrafish embryos exposed to ionizing radiation had more than 50 percent reduction in the production of reactive oxygen speciescompared to untreated embryos. DF-1 acts like an "oxygen sink," bindingto dangerous oxygen radicals.

Zebrafish embryos are transparent for the first month of life and which allows scientists to closely observe organ damage produced by cancer treatments. Zebrafish have most of their organs formed by the third day after fertilization. While chemotherapy and radiotherapy are the standard treatments for cancer, they take a heavy toll on the body. Radiation can damage epithelial cells and lead to permanent hair loss, among other effects, and certain types of systemic chemotherapy can produce hearing loss and damage to a number of organs, including the heart and kidneys.Some other side effects include esophagitis, diarrhea, and mouth and intestinal ulcers.

Only Amifostine has been approved to date by the federal Food and Drug Administration, to help protect normal tissue from the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation, and researchers would like to develop new and improved agents.

Day 55

2006-11-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

Another Sooner Win.

17-16 over the Aggies. What a thriller! It reminded me somewhat of the old days - 256 yards by OU offense and 220 yards gained on the ground. Pass? What's a pass?

The Aggies didn't give up. I know it is hard to take pride in a loss but they were determined and played great ball.

Saddam Verdict.

I am reminded of the scene in Band of Brothers where one of the men announced that Huilter had just killed himself.

One of the officers with the tired, sad voice of a man who had seen too many deaths and too much destruction said: "If he had done it four years ago he would have saved us a lot of trouble."

Those words resonant in my thoughts: if only we had shot the bastard in '91 0r '92 or whenever what a lot of trouble we would have saved the world.

Upcoming Election.

Count me among those bitterly disappointed in the Republicans. So many tasks left undone; so many hopes unfilled.

Yet the Democratic Party and their media wing have so distorted the truth that I cannot tolerate anything from them. That is sad because I know many decent Democrats, many in my family, who take thoughtful opposition to the President and Congress. I have one co-worker who when I told her that I wasn't running for any political office thought well of the notion because she would have to vote against me - I'm so reactionary I think Ghengis Khan wore a tutu. My co-worker demonstrates excellent sense, in this matter, and others - and is a Democrat. She is an American, takes care of her family and takes care of business. The kind of Democrat we all know and respect.

But the lunatics run the party and throw away the chance to make our country even greater than it is today. Can something better come from the slimy mess the Democratic Party is today or will it sink even lower? From the sorrows of defeat will the Democratic Party grow stronger or dumber?

Centauri Dreams.

Can there be a better site than Centauri Dreams http://www.centauri-dreams.org/? For just sheer wonder and fun Centauri Dreams is second to none and if there are equals they are few and far between. I say this even though I read many, many sites there also are enlightening and entertaining.

But Centauri Dreams shows the wonder of a wonderful Universe. Many thanks.

Day 54

2006-11-01T16:11:00.000-08:00

Education Problem

From Industry Week Talent Availability Rather Than Labor Cost Seen Driving Offshoring Access by John S. McClenahen Oct. 31, 2006

"Low-cost labor is no longer the most important factor in decisions onmoving work offshore; access to qualified workers is, contends a DukeUniversity/Booz Allen Hamilton study released on Oct. 31. ... companies are increasingly moving product design, R&D, and other relatively sophisticated operations to China, India and other places offshore primarily because they can provide the highly skilled engineers and science workers who are in short supply in the U.S. and Europe. The study took a look at 530 companies in the U.S. and Europe. Nearly three-fourths of the companies establishing or expanding product development offshore said "access to qualified personnel" was the most important driver of their offshoring strategies. Almost 70% said site selection was based on the availability of qualified workers."

Another indictment of our education system at all levels. We don't teach our children to love learning, to work hard and to gather information. Then we are shocked when better educated students from other lands grab the brass ring.

We knew how to educate children but we got lost in the swamps of no elites, no difficult courses and certainly no bad grades for poor performance. Everything is the "Happy Song". Nothing involves sweat or logic and all answers are the same - you reactionary bigot.

If you love your kids, if you love America then you had better think of something that can save both from the drool of our education system.

I recommend vouchers for K-12 with standards set back to 1900. Awarding jobs on the basis of a college degree should be subject to antidiscrimination law. Higher education institutions should be subject to anti-trust laws and consumer protection regulations.

Day 53

2006-10-29T05:55:00.000-08:00

Sooners Win.

Yesterday the OU defense beat the Missouri Tigers. I can not gripe although my in-laws all major MU fans will. The Sooners take advantage of their opportunities; the Tigers did not.

I thought with OU depletion at quarterback and running back would make this the year of the Tiger. However the Sooner defense stood tall forcing fumbles and interceptions, giving the offense a short field.

The Tigers had been playing good ball, although not against ranked teams, but they certainly looked ready for the big time. Of course there is a world of difference between looking ready and being ready.

Boomer Sooner.

Sports lesson for today and from the World Series: do the routine tasks well and take advantage of opportunities. Good results will follow.

Stop Sex Infections

I suppose I am supposed to disapprove. After all I read the Bible - I don't understand why anyone would abandon the King James Version - and hold many views that conform to the Christian Right or Christists if you prefer. I oppose abortion and voted against Amendment 2 here in Missouri.

Yet I wish SxCheck a long, profitable future. Regina Lynn in Wired News reports this company believes routine tests for Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) and providing the results to potential sex partners would put a big dent in STIs.

I don't know but I hope Sx Check is right.

Negative test results are available online via digital certificate, while positive results -- and what you can do about them -- are communicated to[the individual] over the phone. When two - or more - individuals get together for the dirty they can check health status of the players. Negative results -the person is healthy - are available; positive results - STI has been detected- is not. No information because the person is infected or not recently tested leads to a choice.

SxXheck is trying to make the information available by mobile phone.

A third of Americans contract an STI by the age of 35, way, way too many. Chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea are too common, but they can be cured if caught early enough.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one out of five Americans have genital herpes, although the rate of infection has dropped in the past few years. You can't get rid of that one, but you can manage it and significantly reduce the chances of passing it on -- if you know you have it.

The results are confidential - unless you are in California. You can be sued for transmitting a STI there. This is one time where California should consider getting into alignment with the other states. Even ground breakers can break muck once in awhile. Anything that would preclude people understanding the health of their social contacts should be eliminated.

I do have a couple of concerns. How long is testing valid? It would seem you could be tested, have sexual contact, pick something up then infect another person still operating under a negative test result. You might have someone who is undergoing treatment but not yet cured. This person could infect another by acknowledging the treatment and stating that his negative results are not yet available. The latter could be defeated by education. I have no idea what to do about the first.

SxCheck seems to have uncovered a way to discretely cope with a terrible problem. Again people make mistakes. I don't think people should be maimed or die as a result. I certainly don't think that babies should be crippled because of those decisions.

At least as this Bible-thumper understands his orders we are set upon this Earth to help one another. SxCheck is doing God's work in this instance although they probably disagree with me on this. If successful - and again I hope they are - they can save people from a horrible fate, one made all the more terrible because we can prevent it.

The people of SxCheck will be in my prayers.

No Life on Mars.

Rats. I keep hoping that life is common in our Universe. The following report narrows the window. The closure could be more important if you believe that our type of solar system is common through space.

James Greenwood of Wesleyan University and Ruth Blake of Yale University believe chemical analysis of the Martian soil shows sulphates and phosphares were once dissolved in a planet-wide ocean. Sulphates and phosphates, which form in liquid water, has been detected by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

The ratio of phosphates to sulphates is approximately equal at both locations.

Phosphorus probably leached from rocks in the form of calcium phosphate. The presence of both minerals suggest the ocean must have been very acidic, because calcium phosphate only dissolves well in acidic water.

A phosphorus-rich ocean is a bad sign for ancient life on Mars. While phosphorus is an important element for life, its deposits in large quantities suggest life was not present to pull the mineral from the water.

Day 52

2006-10-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

World Series.

Dream Weaver came through last night. The Cardinals have 10 World Series now; this one could be the most fun of all. A team given up for dead, battered and bruised and not given a chance wins. La Russa is a genius. He gave all the credit to the players.

Leland and the Tigers are class guys. They didn't whine or bellyache. My heart goes out to them. They have wonderful talent and I expect to see them in contention again.

Best of all - only four more months until we start again.

C.S. Lewis Wisdom.

We all need to heed these words because we all know what is best for the other guy, don't we?

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies, The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Day 51

2006-10-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Rain, rain go away.

The World Series game was rained out last day. I hope they get the games in before the first snow.

While waiting for the game I saw some speculation on Castro's ultimate departure. What will happen when the Castro departs the scene? It is rumored that Raul doesn't want to face a firing squad when his brother goes to Hell and favors opening up the country to the world. Wouldn't a professional baseball team in Havana be wonderful? There are some awesome Cuban players who could raise the game to new heights. I'd bet the Cuban team would win a World Series faster than the Cubbies.

Red Letter Day for Electronics Engineers

Oct 25,1906: Lee de Forest patented the "Audion," a 3-diode amplification valve a pioneering development in radio and broadcasting.

More Gas:

The Biogas Energy Project will weekly convert into gas eight tons of leftovers (and later as much as eight tons daily) from premier restaurants in Oakland and San Francisco. The rubbish might power 10 average California homes for one day. More than 5 million tons of food scraps go into California landfills each year. (So if all food scraps could be processed about 40,000 homes could be powered. Nice but you still need nuclear power plants.)

The Biogas Energy Project is the first large-scale demonstration in theUnited States of a new technology developed by Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis professor of biological and agricultural engineering. The technology, called an "anaerobic phased solids digester," has been licensed from the university and adapted for commercial use by Onsite Power Systems Inc.

Onsite Power Systems is targeting food processors, farms and dairies, and municipal green-waste collection programs. The goal is to divert organic matter away from landfills and into the energy grid.The new design differs from other anaerobic digesters in three key ways:-- It processes a wider variety of solid and liquid wastes. -- It works faster, turning waste into energy in half the time of other digesters. -- It produces hydrogen and methane.

Zhang has proved in the laboratory on a small scale (10 gallons - 50,000 gallons) that in anaerobic conditions, naturally occurring bacteria can quickly convert food and green wastes into hydrogen and methane gases. Now the process must work with 50,000 to 300,000 gallons systems.

A Thought for the Season - Election Season that is.

"Be kind. It is natural for humans to make mistakes." The Nurse Hippolytes Euripides.

More from The Sons of Caesar by Philip Matyszak.

I immensely enjoyed this book. Dr. Matyszak has a knack for thought-provoking quotes. "Even those just starting out in politics do not rely on their personal qualities to do better than the nobility. They [too] use plots, subterfuge and open violence instead of more honorable routes to military and civil power. As if becoming praetor or consul was wonderful and magnificent in itself, when in reality these offices only deserve respect according to the worth of the people who hold the office." Sallust Jugurthine War.

I was particularly struck with his introduction where he discussed theJulio-Claudian subversion of the Roman Republic. He offers convincing arguments against my childhood explanation of the Republic's internal collapse. The arguments that Dr. Matyszak makes should worry those of us who love the American Republic. The factors that lead to our ancestors'f all can too readily be discerned in our current body politic.

Electron Bond Structure in Germanium, My Ass.

Too true, too true.http://www.cs.wisc.edu%7Ekovar/hall.html

From USA Today.

In part because there is no foolproof test, one in 50 heart attack victims are mistakenly sent home by emergency room doctors, researchers from New England Medical Center in Boston reported in the New England Journal of Medicine in April 2000. Other studies have documented higher rates of missed heart attack diagnosis.

Nobody knows exactly how many people die from missed heart attacks every year, but doctors say the number is high despite advances in diagnostics and refinement of medical protocols.

"It's tens of thousands of potential cases across the United States each year," says Joseph Ornato, professor and chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center in Richmond, who has researched the emergency care of heart attacks. "Even in the best of hands, you can easily miss cases. This is a very perilous area."

The monetary risks are huge for physicians. A missed heart attack diagnosis, research has shown, brings the highest malpractice payout of all conditions. The overwhelming majority of malpractice settlements for heart attacks come from errors in diagnosis, according to data from Jury Verdict Research, which tracks and analyzes nationwide trends in personal-injury litigation.

Over the past decade, the median jury verdict for heart attack malpractice lawsuits has been $941,000. The lowest was an Oklahoma judgment for $81,000 in 1996, and the highest, $9 million, came in an Illinois case in 1997.

Over the past six years, studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and other journals have found a heart attack diagnosis is missed in 2% of heart attack patients seeking help in the USA's emergency rooms, 3% in Canada and 6% in the United Kingdom.

"It is the horns of the dilemma. On one hand, there are limitations to the diagnostic tools, and they are very real limitations," Ornato says. "The electrocardiogram is the first screening tool, and it's only going to pick up, on a good day, 70% to 75% of heart attacks."

Day 50

2006-10-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Another Win!

Cards up 2-1 Carpenter was brilliant. Why did the Tigers commit suicide? Looking forward to Suppan's pitching tonight.

Too much expression.

Mel Gibson as quoted in The Human Voice:How this extraordinary instrument reveals essential clues about who we are by Anne Karpf: "I... tend to use the bottom register of the voice a lot... It's a security thing. You don't want to express yourself vocally too much to other people."

Amen to that brother Gibson although the best way to keep silence is not to speak especially after too many drinks.

In this day we are urged to bare our souls in the public square; I long for the days when the public square was a little quieter.

Speaking of the the good old days. From The Sons of Caesar: Imperial Rome's First Dynasty by Philip Matyszak. Emperor Tiberius speaking on taxes," I want my sheep shorn, not skinned."

Flitting back to drinking too much Tiberius was known to his troops as Biberius Caldius Mero -boozer flushed with strong wine.

This is an excellent work and I;ll talk about it a bit more latter.

Demand For Hybrid Electric Vehicles Will Double

The Freedonia Group predicts worldwide demand for hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs) will hit 4.3 million units by 2015 and double by 2020. Cost disparities between HEVs and conventional light vehicles are expected to decline. Currently HEVs cost $1,000-$3,000 more.

The HEV markets will be the U.S., Western Europe and Japan, with the Chinese market growing. Demand for HEVs in Western Europe, where overall light vehicle diesel demand is 50% of the market, is expected to be significantly lower than in America. U.S. demand will be reduced by erratic fuel costs.

Despite being less cost effective than standard vehicles, HEVs are touted as "carbon neutral".

Japan demand more HEVs, as taxes and other incentives stimulate demand. Elsewhere in the Asia/Pacific region, both China and South Korea are expected to be strong HEVmarkets, due to government interest in dealing with mobile emissions (China), and because local production is planned (both China and South Korea).

Happy Halloween.

I love the head line on the Industry Week article.The article is about a company that is doing all the right things, improving productivity and keeping costs under control. The healine proclaims: Staying Close To The Customer and the company is Batesville Casket Co. I'm sorry but in that business it would seem possible to be too close to the customer. And what do you do if he starts telling you how he likes his new accomodations?

Day49

2006-10-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Go Cardinals.

More Bad News on Kyoto.

The EU's emissions trading scheme may become "pointless." EU members are issuing more pollution permits than are needed. Commissioner Stavros Dimas fears that this overage will make it difficult to meet the Kyotot emission limits. Member states are notifying the European Commission how many emissions allowances they will hand out to industrial polluters from 2008-2012.

The allowances are the cornerstone of the quota trading system designed to help member states meet greenhouse gas emissions targets. The scheme is to encourage industrial polluters to reduce emissions. They sell unused quotas to companies that exceed allowed emissions.

Member states that have filed their plans had allocated more emissions permits than polluters would probably emit, based on real emissions from 2005.

Don't Count on Russia.

European Union will press Russia to revise its energy policy, including an open domestic market and more transparent accounting rules.Many of these conditions have been rejected by Russia. The Kremlin wants to protect the gas monopoly of Russian giant Gazprom and has sought to exclude foreign investors from its strategic energy sector.

Why Should I Be Mad About This?

Latin American immigrants are flooding into south Louisiana after Katrina and they are sending hundreds of millions of dollars home. It is estimated that immigrants will send $208 million from Louisana to Latin America countries this year, a fourfold increase since 2004.

An estimated 12 million Latin American immigrants in the United States will send $45 billion abroad this year. The average remittance has grown to $300 a month, a 50 percent increase in the past five years. With high unemployment rates and low-paying jobs in their home countries, millions of Latin Americans leave their families and come to the United States, often illegally, for work paying $10 or more an hour.

The influx of immigrants has put a strain on local Louisiana commnunities to provide social services and school systems racing to hire bilingual teachers. A housing shortage has forced many of the immigrants to seek shelter in local parks, under bridges or at truck stops. Rent runs about $800 a month, and they can put six people in there.

90 percent of the money that immigrants earn stays behind and is invested in local communities. Even the 10% that goes abroad must eventually wind its way back to America paying for exported goods and services.

Senator Clinton's Book Reviews.

Hillary Clinton's 506-page memoirs have come out and so did the reviews.

So much of her personality shines through, that in the end, you, too, will want to sleep with an intern." - Craig Kilborn

In Hillary Clinton's new book 'Living History,' Hillary details what it was like meeting Bill Clinton, falling in love with him, getting married, and living a passionate, wonderful life as husband and wife.Then on page two, the trouble starts." - Jay Leno

"In the book she says when Bill told her he was having an affair, she said 'I could hardly breathe, I was gulping for air.' No, I'm sorry,that's what Monica said." - David Letterman

"Hillary Clinton, our junior senator from New York, announced that she has no intentions of ever, ever running for office of the President of the United States. Her husband, Bill Clinton, is bitterly disappointed.He is crushed. There go his dreams of becoming a two-impeachment family." - David Letterman

"Last night, Senator Hillary Clinton hosted her first party in her new home in Washington . People said it was a lot like the parties she used to host at the White House. In fact, even the furniture was the same." - Jay Leno

"Senator Hillary Clinton is attacking President Bush for breaking his campaign promise to cut carbon dioxide emissions, saying a promise made, a promise broken. And then out of habit, she demanded that Bush spend the night on the couch." - Craig Kilborn

"CNN found that Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in America.Women admire her because she's strong and successful. Men admire her because she allows her husband to cheat and get away with It." - Jay Leno

"Hillary Clinton is the junior senator from the great state of New York.When they swore her in, she used the Clinton family Bible. . .the one with only seven commandments." -David Letterman

Day 48

2006-10-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Baseball First.

Saturday was a great game. Cardinals rookie pitcher retired 17 in a row. Wow. Great plays all around. St. Louis up by one.

Sunday. Blast the bats didn't work again. Weaver had a great game and should have won. But the Cards could only manage one run.

Here's hoping for three wins at home.

EADS Ownership.

Daimler Chrysler head Dieter Zetsche opposes Germany buying part of the auto giant's stake in European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS).

Daimler Chrysler holds 22.5% in EADS. But the German-U.S. company is considering reducing its stake to 15 %.

Germany is concerned that France, has a 30% stake through Sogeade and media group Lagardere, would have more control of the company.

Zetche suggested that the entry of the German state would not guarantee a successful turnaround of Airbus.

Global Warming by Changes in Earth's Orbit.

New evidence suggests that perhaps a tiny change in the orbit of the Earth can extinguish species. The Earth's orbit changes: its axis wobbles; its tilt changes; and the eccentricity varies. These changes, known as Milankovitch oscillations, can affect the Earth's climate by altering the amount of sunlight received by various regions.

Milankovich oscillations normally operate on a relatively short timescale of 20,000-400,000 years; the magnitude of these cycles varies with lower frequency, over millions of years. It is unclear whether these variations have affected life on Earth.

Jan van Dam of Utrecht University in the Netherlands and his colleagues believe that they have. They examined an extensive collection of 80,000 rodent teeth from central Spain. The fossils, collected over 40 years of sifting through soil along riverbanks and construction sites, range from 24.5 to 2.5 million years old.The team mapped out which species lived in which time periods. With this information, they found evidence for two different cycles of die-offs, each taking up to 30% of the species alive at the time. Every 2.4-2.5 million years there was a small extinction, and on top of this, every 1 million years came a die-off too. These frequencies match up to recently discovered variations in Milankovitch cycles.

One die-off occurred around 14 million years ago. This coincides with a time when Earth's orbit was much more circular than normal, reducing the contrast between seasons. This would have brought cooler summers to higher latitudes, reducing ice melt and leading to a cooler climate — apparently with negative effects for the rodents in Spain.

Donald Prothero, of Occidental College Los Angeles questions how applicable the results will be to species other than rodents. If highly detailed fossil records were available for larger mammalian species, van Dam believes the same patterns would emerge.

The effects may not be global: an Earth wobble that killed in Spain may have spared life in Utah.
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/061009/pf/061009-7_pf.html

Day 47

2006-10-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

Cardinals Go To World Series.

What a game, what a game! The wonderful pitching by the starters. The snowcone catch of Rolen's almost home run. Beautiful, beautiful. Molina who did not hit well this season unloads a two run homer. Suspense, thrills and chills. Then Wainwright's three pitches with the bases loaded; the final one a curve that seemed to defy space-time. A great game by both teams.

What a classy act the Mets are. They are a great team with several critical players hurt. But they didn't moan or weap. You could tell it hurt and they held their heads up. The Mets from the skipper through the entire roster are classy.

On to the Tigers. At least the Cardinals are in a familar place. Everyone predicts they'll lose.

Loss of Opportunity for Political Office.

One of my cousins informs me that we are descendants of the first English baby, Peregrine White, born 20 Nov 1620 aboard the Mayflower, Cape Cod Harbor. This would be a wonderful moment for us but, alas, I checked up on Peregrine as he grew older. Apparently he was "a dissolute youth and was sued for fornication before marriage."

Apparently this really old skelton, one might even think of it as dust, is likely enough to keep me out of political office. Oh well, probably best for both the country and me.

Day 46

2006-10-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Going Broke the Old Fashioned Way.

A new study, Automotive Competitive Challenges: Going Beyond Lean, by veteran consultants Harbour-Felax Group, found numerous structural, cultural, and philosophical barriers contribute to an average of $2,400 per vehicle profit disadvantage among the three American automakers, Ford Motor Corp., the Chrysler Group, and GeneralMotors Corp. as compared to the three Japanese automakers, Honda Motor, Nissan Motor, and Toyota Motor in North America in 2005.

More than 20 specific areas were investigated where General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler fall behind in competitive performance, three key areas were identified as having the most impact on profit per vehicle: revenue and pricing; design, product, and manufacturing engineering; and labor issues.

Revenue and pricing One of the major contributors to the difference in each automotive manufacturer's profit is revenue per vehicle. The average domestic automaker's revenue per vehicle is $21,597 or 11% below the average Japanese automaker number, $24,289. The primary reasons for thedisparity in revenue per vehicle are the steep discounts domestics offer in incentives and employee pricing and significant discounts for fleet and rental car sales, which average 25% of total domestic sales.

Design, product, and manufacturing engineeringT hrough commonization of platforms, body architectures, and commodity and non-commodity components, domestic manufacturers can achieve significant cost reductions that equal several billion dollars. Toyota has saved approximately $1,000 per vehicle over the last five years commonizing commodity components.In the coming years, Toyota plans to save more than 30% on the commonization of non-commodity components. Additionally, the study points out that commonization will positively impact several pivotal areas in vehicle development - investment, quality, and warranty costs. Investment costs for new programs will decrease, which is critical as the industry moves to more models from fewer platforms. Quality will improve as fewer unique parts are needed for each vehicle, and as quality improves, warranty costs will decrease.

For example, the study shows Toyota's warranty costs at $348 per vehicle versus GM at $512, Ford at $585, and the Chrysler Group at $595. In addition to the OEMs, suppliers stand to benefit from this change in engineering and manufacturing and can achieve significant savings by commonization of parts and processes. Suppliers that adapt commonality planning have a stronger chance of sustaining and growing in the future. Also, it allows them to better align themselves with the OEMs that have begun integrating commonality.

Labor issues The study found that labor issues, including the Jobs Bank, Supplement Unemployment Benefits, restrictive work rules, assembly line relief time, uncontrolled absenteeism, and the level of vacations and paid days off account for hundreds of dollars per vehicle in competitive disadvantage for the domestic manufacturers. For example, the domestics require more people to build the same number of vehicles as the Japanese automakers due to the differences ina bsenteeism, vacations/holidays, work rules, and relief time. The penalty for vacations and holidays to the domestics are as much as $138per vehicle, with uncontrolled absenteeism accounting for up to $70 per vehicle. The domestic automakers have three times as many worker classifications in their operations than comparable operations for theJapanese manufacturers. Additionally, the domestics have approximately $203 per vehicle in assembly line relief cost with an average of 46minutes, while the Japanese average 30 minutes or approximately $133 per vehicle.Health care also plays a significant role in the labor-cost gap. Detroit automakers pay a heavy penalty for health care benefits for both active and retired workers. The study sites Toyota's competitive advantage in this area ranges between $900 and $1,400 per vehicle.

The study shows in 2005 Toyota had a $2,985 profit per vehicle advantage over GM and $2,165 over Ford with $1,570 over Chrysler. However, each domestic automaker has implemented strategies to close that gap.In the first two quarters of 2006, GM's North American profit per vehicle gap has improved by $846 per vehicle or 72% over the first half of 2005. Much of this increase is due to the improvement in revenue per vehicle, which went from $19,977 for the calendar year 2005 to $23,604 for the first half of 2006. In comparison, Ford had a $599 shift in performance in the first half of 2006, losing $738 per vehicle in North America while revenue per vehicle was relatively constant.

Chinese spying.

MI5 British counterintelligence service is deeply concerned over an increase in spying by Chinese operatives. Intelligence experts believe the espionage is rampant and aserious consequence of the global economy.

MI5 suspects upwards of 15 foreign intelligence services are working within the UK and are a threat to the United Kingdom's interests, andt he primary focus of their counterespionage efforts are the Chinese and Russians.

In the United States, the FBI is suspicious of Russia, Iran, and North Korea but has focused mostly on the Chinese. The feds estimate that the are over 2,600 Chinese front companies in the US. The threat is increasingly asymmetrical insofar as it comes not only from traditional foreign intelligence services but also from nontraditional, non-state actors who operate from decentralized organizations. Intelligence collection is no longer limited to classified national defense information but now includes targeting of the elements of national power, including our national economic interests.

Moreover,foreign intelligence tradecraft is increasingly sophisticated and takes full advantage of advances in communications security and the general openness of US society.

In the fall of 2003, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program had investigations involving dozens of countries that focused on hundreds of known or suspected intelligence officers who were assigned to enter or travel within the United States. These investigations spanned all 56 field offices. In order to meet these challenges, the Foreign CounterintelligenceProgram is being redesigned to become more nationally focused and directed. Through a more centralized program, the FBI will ensure its ability to establish priorities, be more proactive, and better engage other intelligence community agencies so that cooperation in important cases is immediate and seamless.A centralized program will also ensure that infrastructure issues will be consistently addressed and coordinated in order to ensure workforceexpertise, that staffing matches the articulated foreign intelligence threat, and that a sufficiently broad and reliable intelligence base is developed. From this foundation, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program will be positioned to achieve its strategic objectives and ultimatelyreach its goal to prevent harm to the United States through foreign intelligence activity inimical to US interests.During the past year, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program has been invigorated by the introduction of a new and innovative National Strategy for Counterintelligence and a program plan, both of which are proactive in emphasis. At the same time, additional resources were introduced to the program. To enhance counterintelligence workforce expertise, a new four-week Counterintelligence Operations course was developed.All special agents assigned to the Counterintelligence Program are required to successfully complete this course. Computer-based distance learning courses are also available to all personnel on a variety ofcounter intelligence topics. A counterintelligence training course for midlevel and executive managers was also initiated, covering topics inboth the tactical and strategic areas of counterintelligence management.

The counterintelligence strategy involves centrally managed, proactive, and nationally directed initiatives, with prioritized and strategic objectives that support DCI imperatives,overseen by experienced headquarters managers.Success for the Foreign Counterintelligence Program will be reflected int he extent to which the FBI agents are able to: identify the objectives,the assets, and the operations of foreign intelligence services operating in the United States; disrupt the operations of those foreign intelligence services; and change the behavior of targeted institutions and individuals to minimize opportunities for exploitation.Government support of critical national research and development initiatives in a large number of agencies and involving thousands of government contractors must be protected. Compromise of these initiatives by those hostile to the United States would do irreparable harm.

Critical National Assets are any information, policies, plans,technologies, or industries that, if stolen, modified, or manipulated by an adversary would seriously threaten US national or economic security.The FBI has a major role in identifying threats to Critical NationalAssets and assessing their overall vulnerability, especially in the areas of economic espionage, academic research, and private sector research and development.

Day 45

2006-10-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

Corey Lidle Crash.

Jeff Wise writes about the airplane crash at http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4199536.html

He writes well and forcefully about the pilot's joy of flying. He is fearful that people will call for the closing of air routes through the beautiful landscapes of New York. Would his article have been changed if someone had dies in the apartment building?

From the Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry Organic wheat is more expensive than standard wheat, but it contains essentially the same profile of amino acids,sugars and other metabolic substances as wheat grown with conventional farming. Christian Zorb and colleagues performed a statistical analysis that showed the wheat from organic and standard farming did not differ in concentrations of 44 metabolites. This result indicated no impact or a small impact of the different farming systems. Zorb and colleagues said organic agriculture is at least an alternative to conventional agriculture, noting that it uses less fertilizer and no herbicides or pesticides, while providing the same nutritional quality.

"Metabolic Profiling of Wheat Grains (Triticum aestivum L.) from Organicand Conventional Agriculture"
DOWNLOAD PDF http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/asap/pdf/jf0615451.pdf
DOWNLOAD HTMLhttp://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/asap/html/jf0615451.html

CONTACT:Christian Zorb, Ph.D.Federal Research Center for Nutrition and FoodDetmold, GermanyPhone: 0049-5231-741442Fax: 0049-5231-741130Email: christian.zoerb@bfel.de

I have heard arguments that yields with organic wheat is comparable to that of standard wheat grown using fertilizers and pesticides. If that were so the organic wheat would be cheaper than standard wheat.

Lane Departure Warning Systems Four driver warning systems that may help those who fall asleep at the wheel were recently tested and evaluated by researchers at Ford. Lane Departure Warnings (LDW) systems help reduce car crashes by alerting drowsy driverst hat the vehicle has wandered out of the lane. National Highway Transportation Safety Administration data from 2002 indicate that about 1500 fatalities have occurred in recent years from in a sample of 100,000 crashes in which driver drowsiness was a factor.

Warning systems tested rely on the detection of the vehicle's position in relation to the road lane markings with the help of a smallc amera mounted on the vehicle. In the study, if a driver departed out ofa lane, one or a combination of the four warning systems would activate: steering wheel torque that communicated to the driver the appropriate steering wheel angle needed to return to the lane, a rumble strip sound recording, steering wheel vibration, or a row of flashing red LEDs on top of the instrument panel.All four warning systems cut drivers' reaction time almost in half.

The steering wheel vibration warning in combination with the steering wheel torque proved to be the most effective.

We could stamp out fatal automobile accidents if we wanted to do so.

Illegal Immgrantion of Nuclear Weapons

In a paper published in Risk Analysis: An International Journal, Dr. Lawrence Wein of the Standard University Graduate School of Business, along with his co-authors,discusses the costs and effectiveness of available technologies for detecting a nuclear device at a U.S. port or on a U.S.-destined ship at a foreign port.Over 95% of overseas U.S. imports and exports are shipped in standardized containers that enter the country through U.S. ports. These containers are a mechanism for the delivery of nuclear and radiological devices by foreign terrorists. The cost of a nuclear detonation at a U.S. port is estimated at about 1 trillion dollars. Terrorists may also attempt to detonate a smuggled device into a U.S. city center to maximize the loss of life.

Professor Wein and colleagues discuss an 11-layer security system to detect a smuggled device and use game theory to find the optimum combination of security measures. The authors estimate a low probability of detection with the current system of approximately 10% (before the SAFE Port Act is implemented). The authors suggest that achieving a detection rate of at least 90% would require an investment of about $2 billion for testing at domestic ports only with an additional $11 billion for testing done overseas.

One major limitation of the SAFE Port Act is that it only requires radiation detection. Because terrorists can shield their weapon with dense material, two-dimensional scans are needed to detect shielding. A second major limitation of the SAFE Port Act is that it does not require inspections at overseas ports for ships destined to the U.S., although it does provide training and loans for detection equipment for ports in other nations. Terrorists may be able to detonate a device upon arrival at a U.S. port before any attempts at detection occur. The only way to prevent this scenario is to inspect cargo at overseas ports.

Dr. Wein noted "the estimated $10 billion/year required to secure ports is comparable to the current annual investment for ballistic missile defense, making this a sound investment in light of the shift in the nature of the threat from adversarial nations to terrorists."

A copy of the full article "Preventing the Importation of Illicit Nuclear Materials in Shipping Containers" is available from the Managing Editor of Risk Analysis, Dr. Rick Reiss, at rreiss@exponent.com.

Day 44

2006-10-13T17:37:00.000-07:00

Baseball.

Well, the game last night wasn't any fun. Weaver pitched well but the Cardinal bats were deadwood.Suppan on the hill next and I'm hoping for better results.

Defense Industry Against War???

According to this article http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/101106_biz1.html the defense industry - contrary to most left-wing theories- oppose war, especially the Iraqi war. Written by Roxana Tiron <mailto:rtiron@thehill.com> the article points out that defense contractors, and here I assume that she means the traditional, big contractors, don't like the war because it diverts money away from normal, big ticket acquisitions such as missiles, ships and planes.

Ms. Tiron quotes an unnamed lobbyist:"A lot of the money is spent replenishing systems. War is not good for business. [My highlight] The industry wants to produce the new stuff rather than see the money go to the war."

The defense industry has acquired an interest, politically and financially, in Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.). According to Ms. Tiron: The defense industry contributed $371,700 to Murtha's campaign. In 2004, he ranked third only to presidential candidates Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and George Bush, but in 2002 he was No. 1. If Murtha becomes House Majority Leader or assumes the Chairmanship of the House Appropriations Committee he will be ideally suited to return the favors bestowed on him by the defense lobbyists. As an added benefit Murtha is a noted era-marker and supports this extra-legal means to put money in the hands of friends.

By the way I hope the title of the article is not an unfortunate reference to the big guy's weight.

Excellent Reading

If you have not read Cassandra's writings on the military: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2006/10/pillars_of_gove.htmlOr the splendid argument to revoke the 17th amendment http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2006/10/pillars_of_gove_1.htmlor her writings on the judicial branch: http://www.villainouscompany.com/vcblog/archives/2006/10/pillars_of_gove_2.htmlThey are simply wonderful.

Whether you agree or not they should get the old brain cells going. I think there are nuggets in there for support by all Americans.

Day 43

2006-10-12T16:33:00.000-07:00

Wins and Losses.

Well the Sooners lost to Texas but the Cards continue in the playoffs and the Rams won. Didn't get everything I wanted but got something. Just like life.

I hope the Cards mangle the Mets. Unfortunately the Tigers look unbeatable. Still how cool would a World Series be in the first year of the new stadium. Come on Red Birds.

The Rams have a depleted Seattle this week and could take a big step toward dominating a pretty weak Western Division.

ABBY

Well, the Yankees showed good sense and retained a very classy guy, Joe Torrey. I am schizophrenic; there are individual Yankees I like but I loathe the team. Call it the George Steinbrenner effect.

NY Airplane Accident.

I have been listening to the news about the small airplane crashing into an apartment building. I don't understand how the airplane in clear weather hit a fifty story building. Although the pilot, a NY Yankee pitcher and the instructor pilot were killed, it appears that no one on the ground was killed. I understood from one news report that the airplane was flying along a corridor which required a hard turn to make a dog leg to return to the path previously flown. Why don't we install sensors and computers in aircraft that keep airplanes away from buildings? A GPS suitably integrated into the aircraft could have prevented an accident.

Another Accident.

An aircraft skidded, overran the runway and caught fire at Stord Airport in southwestern Norway, killing three of 12 passengers and one of four crewmembers. The runway reportedly was wet. This is another avoidable accident.

Helios Airlines Accident 2005.

From Air Transport World

Air Accident Investigation and Aviation Safety Board (Greece) said that the August 2005 Helios Airlines 737-300 crash was caused primarily byt he pilots' "nonrecognition" that the cabin pressurization mode selector was switched to "manual" and their subsequent misreading of warning signs.The errors led to the flightcrew's incapacitation "due to hypoxia" when the aircraft failed to pressurize on ascent. It flew for more than 90 minutes on autopilot before its fuel was exhausted and its engines flamed out. The aircraft crashed approximately 33 km. northwest of Athens International Airport. All 121 passengers and crew were killed.

The flight was doomed by a variety of human errors. The pilots were at fault for not recognizing the cabin pressurization switch's incorrect setting before takeoff and "nonidentification" of warnings once the plane was airborne. Maintenance workers were at fault for failing to return the pressurization mode selector to the "auto" position after performing nonscheduled maintenance.The Cypriot airline, now called Ajet Airways, was plagued by"deficiencies in...quality management and safety culture." Regulators were guilty of "inadequate execution" of safety oversight. Boeing was called to task for "ineffectiveness of measures taken by themanufacturer in response to previous pressurization incidents in theparticular type of aircraft."

We can do better than this. Air accidents are usually a string of cascading errors. All we have to do is break the link.

Roboguard.

The South Koreans have developed a robotic sentry. Cool. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/Science-Fiction-News.asp?NewsNum=762

Stopping the Plagues.

I have just finished Viruses vs. Superbugs: A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis by Thomas Hausler. The problem with bacteria acquiring immunity from overuse of antibiotics is largely unaddressed. In the area around the Aral Sea, 300 out of 100,000 people suffer from TB. Some 2 billion people carry the tuberculosis bacterium. It is estimated that 2 million people die of TB every year. Along with those 3.5 million people die of respiratory diseases, and 2 million to diarrhoeal diseases.

In 2001 90,000 people in the US dies of an infection. Between 5 and 10%of all patients in a hospital contract infections there. This is an area where research could radically improve patient care while lowering costs.

Hausler thinks that bacteriophages, which look a little like LEMs, can replace antibiotics, the miracle cures that are failing because overuse is stiumlating the growth of immune bacteria. It would seem like we should pour a lot more money into this.

Well, they are honest-sometimes.

Lenin said that the Communist expansion policy was to "probe with the bayonet. If you encounter steel,withdraw. If you encounter flesh, continue." Sounds a lot like our terrorist adversaries.

Day 42

2006-10-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

School Protection.

In the wake of the terrible murders at the Amish school I have read some proposals to arm school teachers and administrators. I have also read some frankly silly arguments against the proposals. Many of the counter arguments smack more of a religious opposition to firearms rather than reasoned discussions.

It is worthwhile making two observations concerning the Israelis and how they protect their society. When I was in Israel I noticed some students walking from one place to another. In the front and at the back of the column were armed men. You see the terrorists had in previous years attacked and murdered Israeli schoolchildren.

Israelis may be accused of many sins as can all humans but they are a remarkable hard-headed, practical people. (So you can see why a practical anarchist would find Israelis so appealing.) They also have the advantage (?) of facing their enemies every day. This tends to keep the kirsch to a minimum.

How did the Israelis respond to barbaric attacks on the innocent? The Israelis put guards around their schools; they installed security devices; they practiced rescuing their people. The terrorists gave up on attacking schoolchildren.

Why should we listen to the Israelis? When terrorists began hijacking airliners the Israelis put air marshalls on the aircraft and locked the doors to the flight deck. The pilots were ordered not to surrender to the hijackers but to get the airplane on the ground.

If we had followed the Israeli procedures 9/11 would never had happened. The attackers could never have gained access to the controls. Think about that. Israeli security procedures that were in place and proven would have prevented the murder og 3,000 people and billions of dollars of damage.

Now I'll try to be fair - something I am not accused of doing often. The airline industry along with then vice-president Al Gore took a look at aiplane security back in 1996. I am not privy to the discussions but it might have gone something like this: if we stop hijackings, the terrorists will try to blow up airplanes. (Something we have seen since 9-11.) If they continue to hijack airplanes we will lose some people but we can save more. If an airplane is blown up then everybody dies. So the proposal to lock the flight deck doors was tabled -and 9/11 happened.

Nice logical thinking which as we realize now was not adopted by the terrorists.

The same could, I pray to God I am wrong, be true with our schoolchildren.

The terrorists are watching us, looking for weaknesses, hunting for ways to harm us. Why would they not see an operational advanatage in attacking our unprotected schools? They would claim that it is revenge for the mythical deaths of thousands of Moslem children at the hands of the West. Lord knows many in the West would agree.

Could not some billions be spared to put security devices around our schools, hire security guards, and, yes, train and arm teachers? It could our enemies from striking at our children.

More depressing news.

An honored school teacher, Ms. Sydney Green, was fired from her teaching post for taking 5th graders to an art museum. It appears that one of the children saw a naked torso. A parent complained. Despite receiving approval for the field trip from the principal and permission slips from the parents Ms. Green, a beloved teacher, was fired. Read the sad tale over at www.educationwonk.blogspot.com.

Have these people never been to a art museum? I visit the St. Louis Art Museum every chance I get. It is a wonderful institution and often sponsors exciting exhibits. I take my children, all under 10, and all see unclad human forms. So what? I want them to learn to enjoy art and understand it. I would object to Piss Christ and I would not allow my children to see it. I suppose this makes me some kind of mutant Puritan.

Sports.

The Twins are gone; congratulations to the A's. The Tigers are up 2-1 on the Yankees. Go ABBY!

Today is the third match between the Cardinals and Padres. I hope we see the good Suppan today. I also expect the Padres to walk Pujols even if the bases are loaded - just kidding.

The Padres are a fine team. They have made a few boneheaded plays -such as not covering second on a rundown. Still they have an excellent lineup and the one of the best relievers in baseball. But they have run into some fine pitching and he has stayed on the bench. Hope it continues today.

Today is also OU-Texas. Boomer Sooner!!! The heroes are four point underdogs but what else is new? I think the Sooners are on a mission to prove the Oregon loss was a fluke of lousy referees. OU 28 Texas 3.

I don't know if I will be in any shape to watch the Rams and the Packers go at it tomorrow. Still the Rams are surprising at 3-1. Almost everybody in town assumed that they would be 0 and 5 after the first four games. (It was meant to be funny). You can never, never underestimate the Packers. They are a proud, talented organization who will defeat you if you do not have your A game on - and even then it might still be a loss in your column.

A wonderful weekend will be Cardinals win today, OU destroys Texas and the Rams victorious. If I can get one of 3 I'll still dance.

Day 41

2006-10-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

It Didn't Have to Be

Today they buried fivre members of the Ohren family: Judy Ohren, 64, her son, Gary, 40, his wife, Lora, 39 and their children Emily, 8 and Kody, 12. They were in a minivan that was hit head on by a SUV. I don't know why the Chevrolet Tahoe crossed the center line but I believe it was preventable.

It would not be difficult to install a GPS system in cars that would accurately locate a car. We could could mount devices along the road to warn smart cars where the road turns and where the edge of a lane or road is. We can have cars talk to one another so that if one is drifting toward another corrective actions can be taken. We can put devices into cars so that vehicles would move safely to the side of the road if a driver falls aslepp or becomes incapicatated. We can put sensors in cars so that drunks cannot start them.

We could do all of these things and significantly reduce the number of vehicular fatalities in this country. Then Emily and Kody could celebrate another of their gransmother's brithdays.

Prolife Democrats.

I came across a Pro-life Democrat site. They claim that they can reduce abortions by 95%. I need to check them out some but I like my first look. They are saying all the right words: helping a woman who wants to carry her child to full term, and working to stop unintended pregnacies.

I realize their program includes contraception. I just do not see the problem with that. I would prefer that folks didn't make mistakes - like me - yet they will. Contraception seems a simple way to reduce abortions.

Eliminating the arguments over abortion will also have the joyous benefit of getting politics out of the topic. It won't return our politics to the no-place where all was sweetness and light. It will have the advantage of making politics less important to people.

Day 40

2006-10-05T17:17:00.000-07:00

The Cardinals are up 2!!! I got home in time to watch the last four innings. I missed Weaver who pitched like a hero. Welles was good but what can you say about Pujols.

The Cards caught a break with the Padres forgot to cover second on a run-down that failed. Still the good teams catch breaks; others drop them.

Next game Suppan vs. Young. Here's hoping the fun continues.

More joy the Yankees lost. C'mon Tigers!

Next time your company says its values its employees.

Professor Craig Rennie, University of Arkansas, studied 229 firms that laid off employees at least once between 1993-1999. In the year following the layoffs, the CEOs of these companies received 22.8% more in total pay than the CEOs that did not have layoffs.

Professor Rennie and his colleagues estimated that during this period, the typical layoff created a one-time labor-cost savings of at least $65 million.

Since most managers have no imagination and a faint aquaintance with whatever it is the company does, you can see why that are reduced to a one shot. alas after that they have no clue, the stock drops and they are left to cry on their satin pillows with a few millions looted from the damaged company.

China tries to blind US satellites. It was reported that China has secretly fired powerful laser weapons designed to disable American spy satellites by "blinding" their sensitive surveillance devices.

Sources told the military affairs publication Defense News that there had been a fierce internal battle within Washington over whether to make the attacks public. "After a contentious debate, the White House directed the Pentagon to limit its concern to one line," Defense News said.

The document said that China could blind American satellites with a ground-based laser firing a beam of light to prevent spy photography as they pass over China.

According to senior American officials: "China not only has the capability, but has exercised it." American satellites like the giant Keyhole craft have come under attack "several times" in recent years.
Although the Chinese tests do not aim to destroy American satellites, the laser attacks could make them useless over Chinese territory.

Satellites are vulnerable to attack because they have predetermined orbits, allowing an enemy to know where they will appear.

Why They Fight.

From The Punic Wars Nigel Bagnell quotes Sir Michael Howard:

" The causes of war are as diverse as those of human conflict itself, but one factor common to almost all wars has been on the one side, or both, a cultural predisposition for war, whether this has been confined to cultural elites or widespread throughout society. This is a factor which has been so often overlooked by the liberal-minded historians; the existence of cultures, almost universal in the past, far from extinct in our day, in which the settling of contenious issues by armed conflict is regarded as natural, inevitable and right."

Day 39

2006-10-04T14:56:00.000-07:00

Today is a rather long post but since no one reads it who cares?

The Cardinals win!!!

After so many predictions of doom and the heartaches of a difficult season, the Redbirds got their starters on the field against San Diego yesterday. Carpenter was wonderful again, Pujols was great ( why do you ever pitch to him?) and Ronnie Belliard make a brilliant defensive play. Thank you, Cleveland. Everybody played well and the two rookies in relief were excellent. Here's hoping the next game, Weaver against Wells, is as much fun -- for St. Louis.

ABBY!!!!! (Any Body but the Yankees)

Bruce Bukiet, PhD, associate professor in the department of mathematical sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) may want to check his math models. Professor Bukiet' has published a mathematical model that computes the probability of a team winning a game against another team with given hitters, bench, starting pitcher, relievers and home field advantage.

He started the Yankee vs. Tiger game right; he averred that New York Yankees have better than a 3 in 4 chance of defeating the Detroit Tigers in their best of 5 series. His other two choices got off to rocky starts. Buliet computed that Minnesota Twins have a 71 percent chance of defeating the Oakland A's in the first round. But the A's disagreed and won the first game.

Buliet gives the San Diego Padres have a 62 percent chance of defeating the St. Louis Cardinals. Here again the Cardinals disagreed (YAH!!!). He also noted that winning the first game changes the odds. Since the Cardinals won the first game, their chances of winning improve 38percent to 57 percent. (YAH some more).

Bukiet uses his model to determine whether it is worthwhile to wager on games during the baseball season. His picks (posted onwww.egrandslam.com) and http://m.njit.edu/~bukiet/playoffs.htm.) will feature daily updates on the chances of each team winning the Division Series, the Championship Series and the World Series. Such postings gave positive results for five of the past six years.

It keeps getting harder to be a terrorist.

Not only are they getting killed in the thousands by the Army and the CIA but their terror weapons are under constant attack from researchers. Clemson University chemist Ya-Ping Sun and his research team have developed such a countermeasure to weaponized anthrax, a biological agent used by a terrorist or terrorists that killed five Americans in 2001. For anthrax to be effective, it has to be made into a fine powder that can easily enter the lungs when inhaled. That is what makes it lethal. The Clemson researchers came up with an agent that clings to the anthrax spores making their inhalation into the lungs difficult.Anthrax spores are covered with carbohydrates, or simple sugars. The Clemson team used carbon nanotubes as a platform or scaffolding for displaying sugar molecules that would attract the anthrax spores. Carbon nanotubes are hollow tubes made of carbon atoms. Typically one-hundred thousandth the thickness of a single human hair, nanotubes are formed from intensely heated carbon. When sugar coated, the carbon nanotubes bind with the anthrax spores, creating clusters that are too large to be inhaled -- stopping their infection and destruction.

A similar approach using sugar-coated carbon nanotubes to stop the spread of E. coli bacteria was tested successfully in 2004. This new method allows first responders to contain anthrax in an office or mailroom setting using a water-based gel, foam or aerosol spray.

Sea buckthorn berry could conquer heart disease

I wonder if this tastes good - maybe if we deep-fry the berries?

Berries eaten since the time of Ghengis Khan could be next big thing in heart health. Sea buckthorn berries are used in Tibet, Mongolia, China and Russia for health drinks and various cosmetics. Juice extracted from the berries using current methods is of poor quality, but scientists in India have developed a highly efficient technique to extract large quantities of cholesterol-lowering compounds.

In research due to be published this week in SCI's Journal of theScience of Food and Agriculture (DOI 10.1002/jsfa2620) Dr C Arumyghan and his team at the Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum, report the implementation of a new process which retains more than 40% of polyphenols - the same beneficial chemicals found in red wine, 50% offlavonoids and 70% of vitamin C present in the pulp of the red berries. Antioxidants in the berries inhibit so-called 'bad' LDL cholesterol oxidization. When LDL cholesterol is oxidized, it sticks to the lining of blood vessels. Consuming the berries in food or drinks is expected to prevent the arteries from clogging up.

Another Democratic Book.

You can just feel the hate rolling off The Plan: Big Ideas for America by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed. Republicans under the evil leadership of Rove/Bush have plotted to overthrow democracy, focus national attention on terrorists, undo the wonderful work of Bill "I did not have sex with that woman" Clinton, prevent the second coming with Mrs. Senator Clinton, and bring back the Dark Ages.

To counter those diasters Messrs. Emanuel and Reed, former Clinton aides propose eight not entirely novel ideas. In general their belief in the sancity of the Democrqatic Party and its purity of purpose coupled with unfailing execution will overcome the nitpicking of those such as the Practical Anarchist. I will not let that stop the fun.Here are their ideas:

1. Universal Citizen Service. This proposes to give every American citizen between 18-25 three months of training in civil defense. Pundits have ridiculed this silly notion far beyond my feeble efforts. William F. Buckley presents a more mature, thoughtful idea of service in his wonderful book Gratitude - an infintely better work written with bitterness or hatred.

2. Universal College Access aptly entitled Toga Party. To be fair they do address the problem of high school drop-outs and the fact that colleges have a poor graduation rate. They don't talk about the Clinton era consent decree exempting colleges from anti-trust laws but thatw ould just mess up the story line. I am less than enthused with this notion: some folks are just not suited for college and, the Lord knows even if Democrats don't, that very little of what you learn in collegei s useful. Continuing education is key. We should make it easier for people to learn through their entire lifetime and we should open non-traditional learning methods - tele-education and better on-the-job training.

3.Universal Retirement Savings. It is interesting that after raginga bout Republican efforts to put Social Security savings in private hands, Messrs. Emanuel and Reed suggest 401(k)s be used to supplement the failings of Social Security. They suggest that workers take more out of their checks to invest in the 401(k)s, along with money for Social Security. Charles Murray, author of In Our Hands: A Plan To Replace The Welfare State, has a much better plan that is less burdensome on the wage-earner. Cut Federal spending by a third and give the money back to Americans above the age of eighteen. Dr. Murray's program is simplier and more effective than the proposals in The Plan.

4. Universal Children's Health Care. Messrs. Emanuel and Reed want to improve medical productivity - a good thing -but don't say how. Second they want to reward results which might reduce costs and might not. They want health plans to reward people who pursue healthy life styles but who defines the healthy life style and what happens to people who don't march to the latest government decree is left unmentioned. They want government to figure out the most effective treatments - this feat from a government that can't figure out how to get its books in order. Finally they advocate chronic care - making a drinker give up drinking or a perhaps a skier give up skiing - unless he is aDemocrat trying to prove his manliness. They note with approval State Children's Health Insurance Program which covers 5.8 million children. So what is the problem?

Apparently they could not find a suitable place for their suggestion of a National Cure Center so they dropped it into the Universal Children's Health Care program. They want a dangerous thing; they want the government to cure a preceived short-coming of private enterprise. In their world, not related to the real world, medical companies focus on treatments rather than cures because they can make money for longer periods on treatments rather than cures. So we need another highly effective government agency to duplicate the work of other agencies. Again Dr. Murray's proposal is most more sensible and would be more effective than the recommendations found in this book.

5. Fiscal Responsibility and an End to Corporate Welfare. I believe even the evil Republicans would support a commission similar to the Base Closing Commission that would recommend ways to reduce Federal spending. But let no one be fooled; the commission would be dogged with the same political howlings that the Base Closing Commission heard.

They have a childish faith in capital budgets. Capital budgets are subject to political manipulation. Clinton tried to declare money spent on education as "investments"; the "Bridge to Nowhere" as stupid as it is would truly be a capital investment. If you knew the politicans would follow accounting rules one might be tempted to support this.

It is wonderful to see Democrats complaining about one-party rule; one would have felt better about their support if they had similar problems when the Democrats ran Washington. Really all the Republcians need to do is elect the counterpart to Clinton, the man who managed to lose both houses, and salve his misery in his mistress' arms. Open districts not linked to geographical areas would solve this problem.

We've already reduced buraucracy by adopting Dr. Murray's suggestions far beyond the writers' puny recommendations and reducing government spending will reduce the plague of locusts evidenced by the lobbyists swirling around the Capitol.

6. Tax Reform to Help Those Who Aren't Wealthy Build Wealth.One reason I like Dr. Murray's plan is that it condenses several of Messrs. Emanuel and Reed's ideas into one. Keep it simple.

Then miracle of miracles they propose a flat tax although they screw it up by limiting to middle class folks. Here again a nasty ol' Republican,Steve Forbes is way ahead of them. In his book The Flat Tax Revolution,Mr. Forbes lays out a coherent and well-reasoned case for the flat tax. Messrs. Emanuel and Reed would be shocked to learn that Republicans are not plotting to steal from the most populous group of voters.

Agan demonstrating an astonishing misunderstanding of economics - until one remebers they are progressives - the authors recommend elimination of a middle-class capital gains tax. Wouldn't it be simplier and more rational in economic terms just to eliminate the tax altogether?

7. A New Strategy to Win the War on Terror More silly ugliness from hateful people fills this section. No wonder the Democrats have no credibility on fighting the war on terrorism. You may be surprised that the unratifiable Kyoto treaty posed a major defeat in the war. That is you would be surprised if you didn't know how silly these guys are.

As one funny example shows - they propose shutting down the Commanche program which was closed years ago- progressives or liberals don't pay much attention to military affairs.

Yes, we should add more divisions to the Army. Yes, we need a more effective Intelligence commuity. But don't look for anything other than harping in here.

8 Hybid Economy. The authors are enamored of the hybrid car - one which costs more than conventional cars and the energy savings from reduced fuel consumption does not cover the increased costs. But don't let economics stop us.Give a tax credit to anyone who buys one. Production, as with most progressives is a wicked term. Anything that increase the supply of energy is by definition evil.

The kindest thng to say about the recommendations in this book is that they were made by career politicans; therefore we expect them to be useless. Hatred and envy flowing from these pages should keep the average person from reading this screed which is okay. The useful ideas were better written and better analyzed in Republican books.

Duck!!!

Here we go again. More preventable deaths, five people died, caused by the catastrophic failure of part of the overpass<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5396456.stm> near Montreal,Canada. According to this article<http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Inquiry-into-Canadian-road-collapse/2006/10/02/1159641239413.html> from the Syndey Morning Herald, some had seen evidence of impending failure. One commuter noticed a definites inking of the roadway and called emergency dispatchers to report it. Earlier reports of concrete falling from the underside were investigated-an inspector sent to the site about half an hour before the overpass fell judged it safe and the roadway remained open. The Laval overpass passed its annual inspection - although I don't know what that entailed.

If failures are internal to a concrete structure, a visual inspection of the surface will reveal nothing. Non-destructive testing of older structures should be mandatory and internal sensors should be built into new ones. A number of research efforts are under way to enable real-time monitoring of structural health. The ITR Project<http://healthmonitoring.ucsd.edu/index.jsp> , a collaboration between academia and industry and funded by the US National Science Foundation, is developing (and testing) strategies to monitor the health of bridges and other civil infrastructure. The project uses a combination of deployed sensor arrays, data analysis, risk analysis, and other methods to try to identify damage based on the changing response of thestructure.

Five Wonderful Japanese toys.
At http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/top-5-strangest-japanese-toys you can see what good Japanese boys and girls will get this Christmas including: Rubber Band Machine Gun, Airblade Racer, Cat Bot Toy, World's Smallest Functional Grand Piano, and, my personal favorite, the "Land Walker". The Land Walker is a wearable robot suit that stands 3.4meters high and weighs a hefty 907kilogram (1-ton) - can walk forward, backward ors ideways at 1.5 kph by operating four pedals, and shoots sponge bullets from two air guns installed beside the cockpit. Available now in Japan,very reasonably priced at $313,985.

I want it, I want it, I want it!!!!

A Pewter Mug and a Hearty Handshake

John Fern shares with us his experiences when a corporation tries to actas a buddy. http://forums.industryweek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=410

Automating The Warehouse

Solving the imigration problem through technology and why our kids get an education. The back-breaking jobs, the work that demands physical labor is vanishing.

Robots roam a Staples Inc 500,000-square-foot facility and deliver inventory items to the order fulfillment operators. The operators stay at their workstations awaiting robotic delivery of individual shelving pods containing the needed product. The operator removes the part and the robot returns the inventory pod.The pods -- 3 feet square and 6 feet tall -- are designed to let the robots scoot underneath, lift and carry them as needed. With the shelving loaded with product, pods typically weigh up to 1,000 pounds.

The systems provided by Kiva Systems Inc., Woburn, Mass. can be installed in a day and immediate warehouse layout changes are possible.By measuring item demand, Kiva's software can even help identify what inventory pods should be relocated for most efficient availability of popular products. Optical navigation systems guide the robots by enabling them to recognize floor markers. The Kiva system wirelessly transmits retrieval instructions to each robot. Hundreds of the robots will be in simultaneous operation at the Staples warehouse.

Day 38

2006-10-02T17:18:00.000-07:00

Way Past time for Third Party

It is way past time for an effective third political party to emerge. The Democrats are brain-dead and the Republicans are corrupt. The major problem is where will the leadership come from?

Foley Is A Criminal.

But so were Mel Reynolds, Barney Franks, Gerry Studds and Jim McGreevey. The whole lot of them along with their heterosexual counterparts should be horse-whipped.

Remember When Reagan...

Remember when the gay "activists" used to curse Reagan and Bush because they didn't push as hard as the actvisits wished - for an HIV vaccine. If only the Presidents weren't so Christian or judgmental or evil we would have had the HIV vaccine within sixty days and the populace could get back to important matters such as the sexual circus they are entitled to. Alas 25 years after the first recorded case of AIDS we still do not have a vaccine. If only Bill Clinton had supported HIV research.

Still some interesting developments have been recorded. Microbicides incorporating antiretrovirals hold the promise for reducing HIV infections in women. Surprisingly male circumcision reduces the possibility of contracting HIV by 60%. These are marvelous results. Unfortunately, in the so-called age of science, ignorance is allowed to hinder the application of these techniques.

Some fools equate circumcision to female genitalia mutilation. It is not. Women who have been so multilated are 69% more likely to hemorrhage after child birth - a death sentence in primitive conditions - and 55% more likely to deliver a dead child. Circumision does not harm the male and holds the possibility of reducing the death toll from AIDS.

Opposition to cicumcision is another of those stylish fads so-beloved of the post World War II generation, a fad based on gibberish and myth. One could wish that the gay community so feverent in denouncing Reagan and Bush would find the time to condemn those who truly condemn others to needless suffering and death.

Act Not Together

The Goddard Space Center issued a bulletin patting itself on the back for demonstrating the correlation between chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and the Antarctic ozone hole. Goddard's Ozone Watch Web site is located at (http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/).

CFCs were used as air conditioner and refrigerator coolants, aerosol hairsprays, and cleaning solvents. SSCientists decided that CFCs were destroying the ozone in the upper atmosphere allowing UV radiation to pour down on the hapless life below.

The "ozone hole, " an area of reduced ozone concentrations, begins in mid-August. The lowest levels of ozone are recorded in late September or early October.

Goodard scientists predict he Antarctic ozone hole will reach sizes on the order of 8-10 million square miles nearly every year until about 2018. Between 2020 and 2025, the ozone hole will decrease in size and around 2070 ozone thickness should be "normal" -- unless its really cold.

Alas ESA had some slightly different results to report.

Ozone measurements made by ESA show an ozone loss of 40 million tonnes on 2 October 2006 exceeding the record set in 2000 ozone loss of about 39 million tonnes. The 2006 hole is 28 million square kilometers, nearly as large as the 2000 record ozone hole. The depth of the ozone hole is around 100 Dobson Units, rivalling the record low ozone values in 1998. (A Dobson unit is a unit of measurement that describes the thickness of the ozone layer in a column directly above the location being measured.)

Significant ozone loss requires very low temperatures in the stratosphere combined with lower amounts of sunlight. This year’s extreme loss of ozone can be explained by the temperatures above Antarctica reaching the lowest recorded in the area since 1979.

So how are the effects of the CFCs factored out of the equation? Why didn't ESA mention the lingering impact of CFCs?

Day 36

2006-09-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

From Senator Talent:

Thank you for contacting me regarding S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. I appreciate the time you have taken to share your views with me, and I welcome the opportunity to respond.

I am a co-sponsor of S. 2590 and am pleased to report that this bipartisan legislation was signed into law by President Bush on September 26, 2006, and became Public Law number 109-282. I am supportive of this legislation because I believe we need to have greater transparency in the federal grants and sub grants program to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively and responsibly. Currently, there is no simple system in place for releasing information on the billions of tax dollars spent each year on federal grants and sub grants, making wasteful spending easier to go unnoticed. I believe the creation of a single website with access to data on federal grants and sub grants will empower citizens to find waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal grants process.

I often hear from constituents who disapprove of excess spending in the federal budget, and, like you, my sentiments are with efforts to reform the process. Of course Congress should vote against wasteful spending, but I believe that crusades against individual spending items will never be enough. The budget process needs to be changed to create structural incentives to adhere to a strict budget.The best way to get waste out of the government budgets is the way most states do it - with the line item veto. The line item veto would allow Presidents to veto individual pork barrel projects from appropriations bills. Passing such a measure was a priority of mine when I served in the House in the 90s and has continued to be a priority in the Senate.

I am an original co-sponsor of the bipartisan Legislative Line Item Veto Act of 2006. This legislation gives the President the power to veto an earmark or spending provision he deems wasteful and then send it back to Congress for consideration. Congress is then required to hold a prompt up-or-down vote on whether to retain the targeted spending. Additionally, I introduced Senate Joint Resolution 25 which would create a constitutional amendment authorizing line item vetoes by the President. A constitutional amendment will be hard to pass, but if we can do it I am confident we can save billions of dollars.

You can be sure that I will continue to fight for fiscal responsibility in Congress. Again, thank you for contacting me. If I may be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to call or write.If you would like to contact me via e-mail, please visit http://talent.senate.gov/Contact/default.cfm
Sincerely, Senator Jim Talent

I am willing to give line item vetos a try. Heck, I'm willing to try most anything that will cut Federal spending.

Protection against STDs

Cathy Seipp talks about right and left wing knuckleheads that won't advise their children to get vaccinated against STD. She is absolutely right. Whenever possible we should not make a human mistake lethal. We all do things we shouldn't and sex with the wrong person can be a very bad mistake. But it shouldn't be something meriting the death sentence. We are supposed to protect our children - especially from the kinds of mistakes children - and yes, adults make.Just like teaching the children to drive. I don't want them exceeding the speed limit, but I know they will. They should die for that mistake.

I often wonder why people rail against God when I see our stupidity killing people and destroying beauty in this world. Ms. Sepp is kinder in her writing.
http://politicscentral.com/2006/09/27/witchdoctor_medicine.php

Ending Gerrymandering:
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-partisan-is-too-partisan-framing.html

Over at TigerHawk it was noted that gerrymandering contributed to the unhappy state of American politics. Gerrymandering allows politicians to carve out safe seats. They ensure that the pork lands in their districts. So long as the Representative doesn't do anything too extreme, the Representative can sit in his seat and make certain the gold flows. My response is below:

I agree that gerrymandering has contributed to the unsightly conduct of the political process. Gerrymandering IMHO should be at the top of your list; once it is gone I believe that politics will lose some of its shrillness simply because a seat in Congress will not be a career.

I have a simple idea on how to eliminate gerrymandering - simply make all US Representative seats open, do not link them to a geographical area. To keep things easy assume we have a population of 400,000 eligible voters and therefore authorized four US Representatives. The voting population would be divided into four groups and membership in each group would be random.

There are a number of advantages to this approach. First as Lanny Davis observed there is too much money in the Government. Part of this is a result of "bringing home the bacon" - the Representative's never ending quest that his district gets its portion of the Federal loot. Without a district there is no link between money spent on a local. Voters might be interested in a politician's stand on issues rather than his talent as a looter.

Losing the link to money will reduce the politician's desire to spend on useless projects designed to garner votes.

Race will become less of an issue. Without gerrymandering we will find politicians who appeal to us as Americans rather than ethnic groups.

Politicians will appeal to the middle voter rather than a collection of extreme views such as a college.

Without gerrymandering pundits will have to find more interesting topics to discuss.

I believe that individual states can elect to make their areas open. Wouldn't it be fun to whack off the political base of some of these Congressional fat cats?

Day 36

2006-09-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

Remains of a 10,000 year old liberal recently unearthed. Things really haven't changed that much at all... (source: National Geographic, August 2006)

Hospital Poka Yoke

From Jill Jusko, senior editor at Industry Week:

I read this weekend about the tragic deaths of three premature babies at an Indianapolis hospital, apparently a result of a pharmacy tech mistakenly stocking the wrong strength of heparin (a blood thinner) in a drawer compartment that should have held a lesser strength version of the drug. And nurses apparently didn't notice the mistake when they retrieved the drug for use with the preemies.

The entire story regarding the incident may not be out. But as published in my local paper it brought two thoughts to mind. One, of course, was simply the, "how terrible" that anyone would think after reading such a story. The second, which followed immediately, was "It sounds like that incident could have been avoided with some poke yoke techniques applied to the drug drawer to make it impossible to put anything but the correct drug in the drug compartment."

I visit manufacturing plants all the time that use all kinds of clever error-proofing techniques to assure that manufacturing processes will come to a halt if the correct item isn't placed in the correct location, or the correct nut isn't attached the correct bolt, et cetera. ...

Poka Yoke, depending upon your Japanese, means something like "idiot proofing". Poka yoke acknowledges that we all make mistakes and attempts to design procresses and procedures to take that into account.

I would design a smart cabinet with drawers that could read RFID tags attached to medicine tags. The drawer would not open unless someone presented the appropriate tag.

You can be sure there will be law suits concerning these tragic deaths. You can be sure that the lawyers will make lots of money. You can be sure that the problem will not go away.

We should 1) ensure that deaths such as these are investigated, 2) no lawyer makes one thin dime off of the investigation, and 3) that the investigation is conducted to gather information so that these mistakes do not occur again, not to affix blame.

This won't happen.

NASA Study Solves Ocean Plant Mystery

A NASA-sponsored study shows that by using a new technique, scientists can determine what limits the growth of ocean algae, or phytoplankton,and how this affects Earth's climate. Phytoplankton is a microscopic ocean plant and an important part of theocean food chain.

The study focused on phytoplankton in the tropical Pacific Ocean. It is an area of the ocean that plays a particularly important role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide and the world's climate. This area of the ocean is the largest natural source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

"We concluded that nitrogen is the primary element missing for algae growth and photosynthesis in the northern portion of the tropical Pacific, while it was iron that was most lacking everywhere else," said Michael J. Behrenfeld, an ocean plant ecologist from Oregon State University, Corvallis, Ore. Scientists determined when phytoplankton is stressed from lack of iron;it appears greener, or healthier than they really are. Normally, greener plants are growing faster than less green plants. When iron is lacking,enhanced greenness does not mean phytoplankton are growing better. They are actually under stress and unhealthy. These conclusions solved the mystery why healthy looking phytoplankton are actually not so healthy.

For the tropical Pacific, correction for this "iron-effect" decrease sscientists' estimates of how much carbon ocean plants photosynthesize for the region by roughly two billion tons. This figure represents a tremendous amount of carbon that remains in the atmosphere that
scientists previously thought were being removed. The results about the false health of phytoplankton allow scientists using computer models to re-create the movement of carbon around the world much more accurately.

Fluorescence occurs when plants absorb sunlight and some of that energy is given back off again as red light. Scientists looked at approximately 140,000 measurements of fluorescence made from 1994 to 2006 along 36,040 miles of ship tracks. They found that phytoplankton give off much more fluorescence when the plants do not have sufficient iron. It is this signal they used to fingerprint what parts of the ocean are iron-stressed and what parts are nitrogen-stressed.

Nutrients that make ocean plants thrive, such as nitrogen and phosphate,mostly come from the deep parts of the ocean, when water is mixed by the wind. Iron also can come from dust blowing in the air.Approximately half of the photosynthesis on Earth occurs in the oceans,and the remainder on land. Ocean and land plants share the same basicr equirements for photosynthesis and growth. These requirements includewater, light and nutrients. When these three are abundant, plants are abundant. When any one of them is missing, plants suffer.

Wasn't there a study in the 1990s that demonstrated iron was short in certain areas of the ocean?

I remember Arthur C. Clarke postulating that we could drop nuclear reactors - suitably protected - into the ocean and use the thermal upwellings to bring deep nutrients to the surface. His speculation could be as useful in pulling carbon from the atmosphere as his analysis of geosynchronous satellites is to global communications.

Day 35

2006-09-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

The Face

The Other End

Mars Moons Earth

In 1976 Viking captured the attached image of a "face" on Mars. Naturally this excited many space cadets, including me. There was even a remarkably bad movie made about going to Mars and discovering the "wonders" under the Face.

Alas scientists have further refined the Face. Now it appears to mimick the other end of the human body. Could we get as much excitement from the Butt on Mars?

Robert Heinlein Wisdom.

"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."

I believe Mr. Heinlien would have extended his observations to Congress. If our law makers had listened to Mr. Heinlein disasters such as Enron could have been avoided. If our law makers had listend to Mr. Heinlien billions of tax dollars wouldn't have been wasted on corporate welfare.

More Good News for Auto Safety.

Honda announced a $5 million investment in Canesta Inc.'s electronic
perception technology. Honda use the technology to develop automotive safety applications like collision avoidance.

Canesta's image sensors can be concealed in bodywork, trim or in a
vehicle dashboard. Canesta's sensors continuously sense distance to nearby objects. The distance to objects is calculated by measuring the round-trip time of radio waves traveling from a transmitting antenna to an object and back. Smart sensors calculate the duration it takes the pulse to reflect back to each pixel. The image and distance information are sent to an on-chip processor running Canesta's proprietary imaging software that further refines the 3-D representation.

The electronic perception technology has been in development for more
than six years and generated at least 17 patents .

RoHS Report Excludes Comparisons
Our society is making a number of expenisve, difficult changes to eliminate lead from our processes and products. One of the more complex changes is removing lead from solder used to attach electronic components to circuit boards. Are we making changes which are worthwhile? Did the regulators ignore evidence that the cure is worse than the disease?

The following was written by George A. Riley http://apk-media.com/lrd46_AAUTfQAAFnwB

A European Union (EU) Commission for Environment report on scientific and technical progress in implementing RoHS declined to consider a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study showing that some lead-free solders may damage the environment more than the tin-lead solders they replace. The July 28, 2006 final report concluded that comparisons of no-lead solders to tin-lead were outside the scope of this scientific review.1

The RoHS directive, issued in January 2003, bans lead from electronic equipment on the narrow grounds that leaching of lead from electronics equipment into ground water might be a significant health hazard. No comprehensive life-cycle environmental impact studies of lead or its substitutes were then available for consideration.The directive triggered major worldwide technical efforts to identify and select lead solder replacements. As lead-free solders became known, independent groups initiated life-cycle studies of their environmental impact. A life-cycle study estimates the total environmental impact of a product system over its entire life, from the production of the raw materials to the end-of-life disposal of the product.

In August 2005 the EPA issued a comprehensive lifetime impact study of both leaded and lead-free solders. This 472-page study assesses the lifetime environmental impact of four leading candidate lead-free solders, compared to tin-lead solder.2

...[I]n this study, the most popular lead-free solder, tin/silver/copper (SAC) has a higher environmental impact than tin/lead in 10 of the 16 categories, including energy use, global warming, ozone depletion, and public human health – cancer.

An earlier study, by the University of Stuttgart, Department of Life Cycle Engineering, performed life-cycle hazard testing covering fewer impact categories, but with a wider range of solders.3 The five potential impact categories were global warming, acidification, photochemical oxidants, ozone depletion, and human toxicity.

Nine possible lead-free solder replacements were compared with standard eutectic tin/lead solder. In this comparison, today's tin/lead solder shows the lowest or near-lowest adverse impact in every category. ...

Excluding the results of the EPA study and similar comparative evaluations from the implementation report does not slam the door on assessing lead versus lead-free risks. The EU Commission for Environment is continuing to support a wide range of studies on both the RoHS and the related WEEE environmental directives. The impacts, efficacy, and efficiency of the directives will be evaluated from an environmental, economic, and social perspective. The stated objective is a future impact appraisal for review of the directive.4

REFERENCES
1. "Adaptation to scientific and technical progress under Directive 2002/95/EC," a report by Öko-Institut and Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM, prepared for the European Commission, July 28, 2006.

2. "Solders in Electronics: A Life-Cycle Assessment Summary." United States Environmental Protection Agency Publication EPA-744-S-001, August 2005.

3. N. Warburg, IPC APEX 2003. Available at http:leadfree.ipc.org/files/RoHS_15.pdf.
4. EU Environmental Commission, //ec.europa.edu/environment/waste/weee_index.html.

Day 34

2006-09-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Nissan"Intelligent Transportation" System
Nissan will use 10,000 drivers in a 30-month experiment to develop an "intelligent transportation system" that sends wireless messages to passing cars. "Car approaching from left" and "School ahead. Watch your speed," are voice messages that drivers will receive through the system which uses information obtained from nearby vehicles and roadside optical beacons.

The experiment will test several functions including the "vehicle alert" which tells drivers that other vehicles are moving too fast at blind intersections. "Speed alert" warns drivers when they are speeding in a school zone. An image of a school zone sign appears on the driver's navigation screen along with a voice warning. The experiment will involve Nissan cars equipped with the company's own car navigation system.

The information is received by an onboard antenna on the vehicle to alert drivers to potential danger from approaching vehicles or inform them of traffic congestion ahead, Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. said in a statement.
The test will start on October 1 on public roads in Kanagawa, a prefecture just south of Tokyo. Nissan hopes to commercialize the system by 2010.

The system is seen feasible in Japan where more than 50% of cars are equipped with such navigational gadgets linked to the via-satellite Global Positioning System, compared with fewer than 10% in the U.S. and European countries.

Why you should worry about energy
China imported 95.8 million tons of crude oil in the first eight months of the year, up 15.3% from the same period last year. Imports of refined oil products rose by 25.7% year-on-year during the period to 25.75 million tons, Xinhua news agency reported. China's exports of crude oil were down by 15.9% year-on-year during the period. China consumed 317 million tons of oil in 2005, down slightly from the previous year with net imports for the year standing at 136 million tons.

Smart Steps to Energy Independence

Sen. George Allen (R. Va.) unveiled a “Strategic Plan for Energy Independence”. The Allen plan calls:

The strategic use of America’s global economic power and international relationships to reduce the oil-based leverage used by hostile states.
Establishing a permanent Energy Security Working Group within the administration,

Developing an inventory of worldwide strategic oil reserves.

Forming energy alliances with other oil-producing nations.

Accelerated exploration and development of American energy supplies.

Permitting the environmentally sound exploration of oil and natural gas on the North Slope of Alaska and in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the estimated daily production of oil in ANWR alone would be roughly the equivalent of the current daily oil imports from Saudi Arabia.

Increase the number of conventional and unconventional refineries by streamlining the burdensome permitting process, and provide needed incentives for the development of innovative clean-coal technologies.

Accelerate research, development, and deployment of every economically viable alternative and renewable source of energy.

Adopt a flexible and diverse portfolio of energy options (such as bio-fuels) and innovative ideas such as hybrids, solar power, and nanotech-enabled lithium ion batteries.

Grant 100 percent first-year expensing to businesses to help spur the development of domestic and alternative energy sources. From an energy-specific perspective, expensing is a high-performance tax reform of vital importance. According to economist Gary Robbins of Fiscal Associates, it would reduce capital costs in petroleum exploration by 2.3 percent, lower petroleum-refining sector costs by 4.4 percent, and cut capital costs in the oil and natural-gas transmission industry by 6.7 percent. The reduction in capital costs for electric-utility production and transmission would be in the area of 9.3 percent. First-year expensing also would be important to “green” technology, where it can help tip the balance between infeasible and feasible.

Many economists believe expensing is the cheapest, most bang-for-the-buck, most growth-oriented tax reform Congress could make. Replacing old-fashioned tax depreciation with immediate first-year expensing would add more than $200 billion dollars to GDP and deliver upwards of 750,000 new jobs.

The Methanol Alternative by Robert Zubrin
Any serious energy policy must deal with three critical issues. First, economic: The policy must provide an energy resource base sufficient to allow for continued worldwide economic growth for the foreseeable future. Second, environmental: The policy must be compatible with the long-term flourishing of life on Earth, including human life and civilization. And finally, strategic: The policy must ensure that control of the Earth’s energy resources, and thus its future, lies in the hands of free societies committed to human progress, and taken away from tyrannical and terrorism-promoting states.

George Olah, recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is one of the giants of twentieth-century science, and his coauthors are solid technical men. Together they have written a profoundly important book on energy policy, laying out the basis for a technically achievable approach to all three dimensions of the energy problem.
There is no shortage of energy experts with grand designs and proposals—from technophile dreams of an unworkable “hydrogen economy,” to Malthusian calls for enforced economic limits through conservation, to socialist schemes for creating massive government-subsidized synthetic-fuel industries, to the libertarian faith in the Invisible Hand. Compared to such misguided alternatives, the competence and rationality of The Methanol Economy is refreshing.

The authors begin by describing the dimensions of the worldwide energy problem: Even as our reserves of fossil fuels have grown in recent decades, the demand is growing faster, and as more of the world modernizes, a global energy “crunch” looms. From here, they turn their attention to renewable energy sources and nuclear power, and then they offer a thorough refutation of the technical feasibility of the “hydrogen economy.” This widely-touted panacea cannot work because it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it yields, because hydrogen is an excessively low-density medium for storing chemical energy, and because an entirely new multi-billion-dollar fuel distribution infrastructure would have to be created to support hydrogen vehicles before any could be sold.

The heart of the book outlines a proposed technical solution to the energy problem. The authors don’t propose new ways of generating energy, arguing that “all feasible alternative and renewable energy sources must be considered and used,” nuclear energy “above all.” Instead, they focus on “the challenges of how to store and best use energy.”

The authors dub their proposal the “methanol economy.” Methanol is commonly known as “wood alcohol” because it can be produced from wood; it can also be made from coal, natural gas, methane hydrates, any type of biomass, or urban waste. It can be used as fuel for internal-combustion engines, and eventually in fuel-cell vehicles. It can also be used as feedstock for producing dimethyl ether, an excellent fuel for non-polluting diesel engines. In short, it is a convenient medium for storing energy and is easily transported and dispensed as a fuel.

Integrating methanol into our energy system would have numerous benefits in the not-so-distant future. As the authors point out, it would make the transportation of liquid natural gas much safer by converting it to less-hazardous liquid methanol before shipping it. Methanol could also be used to produce plastics, synthetic fabrics, and many other non-fuel products currently made from petroleum.

Importantly, methanol can also be produced (in conjunction with an auxiliary electricity source, like nuclear power) by chemically recycling carbon dioxide, which can be found naturally in the air or readily captured from atmosphere-polluting industrial emissions. The methanol produced can, in turn, be used to produce synthetic hydrocarbons and other products now obtained from fossil fuels. If successfully tapped, methanol “has the ability to liberate mankind from its dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and hydrocarbon products,” while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.

Consider ethanol as a comparison. The commercial competitiveness of ethanol is somewhat confused by the complex influences of a variety of subsidies and tariffs. By contrast, methanol is currently selling—without any subsidy—for about $0.80/gallon. Given that methanol’s energy content is about half that of gasoline, that price is the equivalent, in energy terms, of gasoline for $1.60/gallon. In other words, we can produce a useful and economically viable vehicle fuel, using a huge domestic and Western hemispheric resource base, at prices lower than gasoline.

So if the economic and strategic questions can be answered, that leaves the matter of methanol and the environment. The authors deal with environmental concerns in a cool, thorough, and methodical fashion. Unlike ethanol, which is edible, methanol is toxic—but so is gasoline. However, unlike gasoline or petroleum, methanol is soluble in water and readily biodegradable by common bacteria, so spills of methanol, whether from defective pumping stations or shipwrecked tankers, would have no long-term environmental impact. Furthermore, as the authors demonstrate, the toxicity of methanol is commonly overstated. In point of fact, methanol is present naturally in fresh fruit, and so low doses of methanol have always been a normal part of the human diet. Unlike gasoline, methanol is not a carcinogen or a mutagen, and the pollutants and other emissions from methanol-powered internal combustion engines are far more benign than emissions from their gasoline-driven counterparts. (Automobile emissions could even be reduced to zero with methanol-based fuel cells.) And if methanol is produced from carbon dioxide or from biomass, its use in place of petroleum acts to counter man-made global warming as well. “Compared to gasoline or diesel fuel,” the authors conclude, “methanol is clearly environmentally much safer and less toxic.”

The book’s greatest shortcoming is in its policy recommendations. It has none. While describing the technological basis for a future world of progress, freedom, economic development, and an acceptable environment, the authors offer no plan for how to make it happen. Given the highly technical and scientific orientation of the authors, this is perhaps understandable, but it is unfortunate.

Indeed, by focusing on the best technical solution without regard to policy implications, the authors sail past essential matters without stopping to seize them. This is most evident on the subject of Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs), automobiles that can operate with gasoline and/or various mixtures of gasoline and alcohol. The most common FFVs in the United States are E85 or M85, meaning that they can function with up to 85 percent ethanol or methanol and 15 percent gasoline. On the subject of FFVs, Olah and his colleagues say:
Although the flexibility of the FFVs represent a powerful means to circumvent the fuel supply conundrum, and also a way to build up the demand for methanol, it must be borne in mind that this is only a compromise....

In the long term, the use of cars optimized to run only on methanol (M100) would be preferable, and would also greatly facilitate the transition to methanol-powered fuel cell vehicles.

Yet without the short term, there is no long term. The authors are correct that, in the abstract, “cars optimized to run only on methanol” would be preferable. But such cars would find no buyers today—because there are no pumps to fuel them, nor will there be, until millions of such cars are on the road. Thus the FFVs, which can run on a combination of gasoline, methanol, and/or ethanol, are not “only a compromise.” Rather, they are the key transitional technology that can make the methanol economy a reality.

Manufacturing a car as an FFV requires only the use of a corrosion-resistant fuel line and a change in the programming of the chip controlling the car’s electronic fuel injector. Thus FFVs can be produced—and currently are being produced in two dozen models, amounting to about 3 percent of total automobile sales in the United States—with essentially no price differential between them and comparable models that only use gasoline. As a result, there is no downside to making flex-fuel capability the standard. If it were required that all new cars sold in the United States had to be FFVs, there would be 50 million automobiles capable of burning methanol on the road in the U.S. within three years. Under such conditions, with methanol producible for a fraction of the cost of gasoline, the methanol pumps would appear soon enough, and the methanol economy envisioned by Olah and his collaborators would soon follow.

But one should not complain too much about the book’s omissions, since it maps out a viable technical approach for addressing our energy problems. They have shown us where to go; now it is time for policymakers to help get us there.

Day 33

2006-09-14T15:40:00.000-07:00

Cartoons Say It Better.

In the cartoon Pearls before Swine by Stephen Pastis, the Rat asks the blogging Goat "Are you a Yankess fan?"

The Goat responds "No. Why?"

The Rat says"Oh, it was just that you and your blog reminded me of Alex Rodriguez yesterday."

The Goat asks "How so?"

The Rat "Neither of you got any hits."

I LOVED IT. I only have three hits on this site and two of those were offerring to refinance my house. I wonder what they call a blogger who never gets any hits?

With Precedent.I am amazed at how much incompetent government costs us - not only in terms of money but wasted opportunities. The thought is brought on by reading Without Precedent by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton. The book describes the inner workings of a group charged with investigating the attacks on September 11.

After reading the book you understand why the 9/11 commission report will be largely ignored.

The director of the FBI concerned that the commission might recommend that his agency lose its anti-terrorism mission - and extra funding - fawns over the commission. Unsurprisingly the commission finds little fault with the FBI. CIA director George Tennant , a really nice guy, you know, whose organization was completely missing in action is given a pass. Sandy "Pants" Berger stuffs secret documents in his pants but, well, you know he's given a pass, dude. They interview President Clinon who talks about everything but what his administration didn't do (I'm sure his ideas on restructuring the Saudi government were cool but am not clear on its relevancy). Dick Clarke cries a little over his incompetent performance and is admired. Vice President Gore agreed with airline industry not to lock the doors to the cockpit, a small change which combined with not allowing access, would have completely de-railed the 9/11 attacks.

The commission achieved a consensus report. The concern I have is people rarely agree on the truth.

Drunk Driving.With Japan stepping up action against drunk driving, Nissan Motor is developing cars that will not start if the driver is intoxicated. Nissan said it is considering installing a straw-like tube on the driver's seat which the driver would have to blow into to start the car. The engine would not start if the machine shows the driver is intoxicated.

Nissan is also studying a device that requires drivers to enter personal identification numbers of many digits, which may be a difficult task if they are drunk.

The move comes amid a growing movement in Japan against drunk driving after an intoxicated driver killed three children in the southwestern city of Fukuoka. Many urban Japanese can avoid drunk driving as major cities have well-developed public transportation systems, on which intoxicated passengers are a common sight at night.

Diarrhoea Treatment University of Leicester scientists are heading a worldwide research project which could revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of diarrhoea in children in developing countries.The four-year project, the results of which are now being piloted in four hospitals in India, will offer a means of identifying the two most deadly forms of the disease quickly, cheaply and with little training necessary for practitioners.

The implications for improving children's health could be enormous. Diarrhoea is a major killer in developing countries. World Health Organisation statistics indicate that more than 2 million people die each year from the effects of diarrhoea, most of them children under five years old. Diarrhoea is caused by a range of bacterial, viral and parasitic organisms, and is usually spread by contaminated water and poor sanitation.

Two particular bacteria , enteropathogenic E.coli (EPEC), which causes a persistent infection lasting more than 14 days, and Shigella, the cause of dysentery - are the most deadly in terms of killing children. They cause only 20% of cases of diarrhoea but result in 60% of deaths. It is these two killers - EPEC and Shigella - that the Leicester-led project is targeting.

Peter Williams, Professor of Microbiology in the Department of Genetics, and Leicester colleagues Uta Praekelt and Marie Singer, are working with scientists at the Robert Koch Institute in Germany and Anna University in Chennai India, and with doctors at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, India, and at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.Their project, called the European-Asian Challenge to Childhood Diarrhoea, or EACh-ChilD currently receives funding of €1m from the European Union, but in its earlier stages it was supported by an Academic Links Scheme funded by the British Council and the Indian University Grants Commission.

Professor Williams commented: "All cases of diarrhoea look the same to start with, and children are usually given oral rehydration therapy, which is cheap and puts back fluids lost by diarrhoea. But disease caused by EPEC and Shigella does not usually respond to oral rehydration therapy. They are much more severe forms of the disease and even if they don't kill they can often inflict irreversible damage that interferes with the child's growth and development.

"Current practice in most Indian clinics is only to test for E. coli and Shigella if the child's symptoms have not responded to oral rehydration therapy by three days. The usual tests then take a further three days, by which time the disease may have progressed to a very serious stage. Our project has been to design a rapid method to identify these two types of the disease so that doctors can focus treatment immediately on those children who need it, before the damage is done."

It's often said that, if a medical intervention costs more than US$½ it's not going to be viable in developing countries. Our test is quick, robust and cheap. In the developing world it is not possible on cost grounds to give antibiotics to every child with diarrhoea, and in any case antibiotics would not work in every case.

The Leicester test includes the facility to determine antibiotic resistance profiles quickly so that the correct antibiotics can be used.With basic equipment donated by the EACh-ChilD project, the test is now being piloted in four hospitals in south India, one of which, the Government Children's Hospital in Chennai, is the biggest children's hospital in Asia.

Green chemicals. Biorefineries developed to produce ethanol from cellulose sources such as trees and fast-growing plants could get a significant economic boost from the sale of high-value chemicals – such as vanillin flavoring – that could be generated from the same feedstock. Revenue from these "side stream" chemicals could help make ethanol produced by biorefineries cost competitive with traditional fossil fuels.

A researcher from the Georgia Institute of Technology describe dgreen chemical processes that could produce chemicals worth up to $25 per pound from the same feedstock used to produce ethanol.

"It seems unlikely that fuel from a biorefinery – at least in the beginning – is going to be as cost-effective as fuel from traditional fossil sources," said Charles Eckert, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. "To make the biorefinery sustainable, we must therefore do everything we can to help the economics. If we can take a chemical stream worth only cents per pound and turn it into chemicals worth many dollars per pound, this could help make the biorefinery cost effective."

To help make that happen, Eckert and collaborators Charles Liotta, Arthur Ragauskas, Jason Hallett, Christopher Kitchens, Elizabeth Hill and Laura Draucker are exploring the use of three environmentally-friendly solvent and separation systems – gas-expanded liquids, supercritical fluids and near-critical water – to produce specialty chemicals, pharmaceutical precursors and flavorings from a small portion of the ethanol feedstock.

Using near-critical water and gas-expanded liquids, Eckert and his colleagues have already demonstrated the production of vanillin, syringol and syringaldehyde from a paper mill black liquor side stream. They have also proposed a process that would generate levulinic acid, glucaric acid and other chemicals from the pre-pulping of wood chips. That process would use an alcohol-carbon dioxide mixture, followed by depolymerization and dehydration in near-critical water.

"The feedstock would likely be different in different geographic locations, depending on what was readily available," Eckert noted. "In the Southeast, we have abundant forest resources. In the West, sources would include sawgrass, corn stovers and similar plant materials. In the United Kingdom, there is strong interest in producing fuels from municipal wastes."

Using tunable solvent systems in the biorefinery would avoid the generation of wastes associated with processes that depend on strong acids – which must be neutralized at the end of the reaction.
For instance, near-critical water – familiar H2O but at 250 to 300 degrees Celsius under pressure – separates into acid and base components that can be used to dissolve both organic and inorganic chemicals. When the pressure is removed, the water returns to its normal properties.

Gas-expanded liquids, such as carbon dioxide in methanol, provide a flexible solvent whose properties can be adjusted by changing the pressure. When the reaction is over, the pressure is released, allowing the carbon dioxide to separate from the methanol.

Supercritical fluids, such as carbon dioxide under high pressure, simplify separation processes. Separation of the carbon dioxide from chemicals dissolved in it requires only that the pressure be reduced, allowing the CO2 to return to its gaseous state.

"To make the biorefinery work will require a major effort that must be well coordinated among everybody working on it," he said. "The biorefinery is one of several answers that we need to pursue as part of a national energy strategy. Our future economic well-being requires us to deal with the energy issue."

day 32

2006-09-13T16:28:00.000-07:00

Afghan Opium.

Andrew Stuttaford from NRO advocates:

My starting point is that there is a worldwide shortage (the estimate comes from the Senlis Council ) of opiates for medical use of roughly 10,000 tonnes of opium equivalent a year. Those numbers have been challenged, but the gist of the objection to them is that the developed world relies too much on opiates for pain relief, itself a dubious assertion, and so I'll stick with the Senlis estimates. Afghanistan produces approximately 4,000 tonnes of opium each year, so if the Senlis numbers are even roughly correct, the entire Afghan crop (and more) could be used to meet the current shortage.

So here we have a desperately poor country that has a crop for which there is a proven "legitimate" demand and for which it actually has some sort of competitive advantage (opium harvesting is labor intensive, and thus relies on cheap labor), but which is not allowed to sell that crop. That seems absurd. What's more, if we're talking about the laws of supply and demand, it has to be remembered that an earlier attempt to destroy the crop seems to have been counter-productive. By squeezing supply, it increased prices and created an additional incentive to grow more the following year, while at the same time creating additional political support for the Taliban. As cunning plans go, that doesn't seem to be the best.Do I think there's a danger that the result of allowing Afghans to sell their opium to pharmaceutical companies will be to create an 'opium mountain' to rank with the produce mountains created by the EU's Common Agricultural Policy? I'd be very surprised, but even if it does, so what? Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, a little income support wouldn't hurt. In fact, it might well do some good.

As for legalization, you wisely dodge that endless controversy on the grounds that it's never going to happen. You are probably right, but it's still well worth remembering that the current approach effectively acts as a generous subsidy to the Taliiban, al Qaeda and, almost certainly, numerous other terrorist groups, but so long as everyone's O.K. with that...

I worry that the demand for the illegal crop will be undiminished. So the Afghans will sell on the legal market as well as the illegal.

Good Bye to Italy.

The Italian left wants its military brought home or sent sent to the Middle East, primarily Gaza, to protect the Palestinians from Israeli attacks That (Communist Refoundation Party’s senator Salvatore Cannavò). Also Elettra Deiana, vice-chairman of the Chamber’s Defense Committee, suggested that Italy withdraws its military from Afghanistan.

Absolutely No Sense At All:

British engineers have developed a simple water filter which could save thousands of lives in developing countries. Unlike the commercial water filters currently supplied by some charities, the unit designed by Dr Paul Sallis and colleagues at Newcastle University, UK, can easily be made by local craftsmen and women, using local materials.

The 'low tech' manufacturing process overcomes the problems of having to persuade and educate low-income families to use water filters and of having to order costly spare parts when a filter breaks down.

But after successful trials, the project has not been widely implemented because it does not qualify for support from the development agencies, falling into a 'no man's land' between research and commercial products.
Charities estimate that more than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water. In some parts of Africa, water-borne diseases such as cholera, dysentery and viral diarrhoea claim the lives of one in four children.

The United Nations has deemed such infant mortality rates as unacceptable. One of its eight Millennium Development Goals is to 'reduce by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under five'. This goal is one of the keynote topics at the 2006 World Water Congress in Beijing, today, Monday 11 September.

The Newcastle project began after a group of postgraduate civil engineering students visited Ghana, Kenya and Malaysia and recognised the huge benefits that sustainable water filtration could have on health. One of the students, Matt Simpson, decided to devote his doctoral research project to this topic.

Working in the laboratories at Newcastle University, he tested many techniques and eventually discovered that a mixture of clay and crop residues - such as rice husks or bran - created the ideal ceramic filter, when fired at 700 to 1,000C.

At these temperatures the crop residue decomposes, releasing carbon dioxide gas which forms microscopic pores in the ceramic material exactly the right size to trap bacteria and viruses but allow water to pass through.

Tests showed that the filter trapped 99.99 per cent of pathogens - equal to the efficiency of commercial filters which rely upon the addition of biocides, such as compounds of silver, to the clay before firing. This makes them more expensive and requires more advanced technology in the manufacturing process.

Low-income families in developing countries cannot afford to buy commercial water filters. Some charities distribute them free of charge but uptake is low and they tend to be discarded when new parts are needed.

The Newcastle filter, however, can be made by local potters using local materials - and even the most primitive open-air 'bonfire kiln', in which the pottery is fired in a rack surrounded by burning wood, can reach sufficiently high temperatures.

Mr Simpson has since spent a six months placement at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, training village potters to make the filters. The project proved how easily the technology could be adopted. The placement was funded by a £20,000 grant from HSBC Holdings PLC, which supports environmental research at Newcastle University as part of its commitment to 'green' technologies and sustainable development.

Newcastle University is one of the founding members of the HSBC-funded Partnership in Environmental Innovation (PEI), which has also seen the establishment of the first Chair of Environmental Technologies and Geothermal Energy at Newcastle, Professor Paul Younger.

Dr Sallis, a lecturer in the university's School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and a leading expert in water treatment technologies, said: 'Pottery manufacture is one of the world's oldest professions and most places have the basic materials and skills required to manufacture simple ceramics. It takes only two hours to teach a potter to make one of our filters from the resources already available in their village.'

Having proven the theory, the next step would be to launch a training and education programme, so that village potters start making the filters and local people recognise the benefits of using them.

However, the resources necessary to launch such a programme have so far proved impossible to obtain. Dr Sallis said development agencies are swamped with applications for support and tend to select projects with economic development potential, for example a product which local craftspeople can make and sell for a profit.

'It is very difficult for us to demonstrate that local people could make a profit from our water filters,' he said. 'To be sustainable, we need to spread knowledge and educate people. This would involve local potters showing each other how to make the filters, which is contrary to the commercial principle of keeping your methods secret from your competitors.'

In May 2006, the project reached the last 125 out of 2,500 applications for a grant award from the World Bank but in the end just failed to get funding .

Dr Sallis said: ''Funds are available for research and for the distribution of finished products but unfortunately we fall in a no-man's land between the two.'

'Ceramic water filters offer great potential for reducing the pathogen intake by people with low quality drinking water, and are therefore one of the most promising options to address United Nations Millennium Development Goal targets for reducing infant mortality.'

There should be some for this wonderful technology to be shared. I wonder if I can interest World Vision in this technology. Perhaps one of my Congressional representatives could be induced to look into some funding.

Nanobots to the Rescue.

The promise of regenerative medicine and nanotechnology are highlighted in two papers presented on Sept. 11, in San Francisco during the American Chemical Society's 232nd national meeting. The presentations occur on the second day of a three-day symposium, "Advances in Nanomedicine," Sept. 10-12.

Nanotubes help adult stem cells morph into neurons in brain-damaged rats - Carbon nanotubes - 80,000 times thinner than a human hair - enhance the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate into healthy neurons in stroke-damaged rat brains, according to American and South Korean researchers. Thomas Webster, Ph.D., of Brown University in Providence, R.I, and colleagues at Yonsei University in Seoul mixed nanotubes with adult rat stem cells and then implanted the mixture into brain-damaged areas of three rats that had suffered strokes. In six other rats that had strokes, they implanted either adult stem cells or nanotubes - but not both - into brain-damaged areas. After following the animals for up to eight weeks, the researchers concluded that neither nanotubes nor adult stem cells alone triggered regeneration or repair in the brain-damaged regions. In fact, when used alone, adult stem cells migrated to healthy areas of the brain. But when combined with nanotubes, adult stem cells not only remained in the brain-damaged regions, they began to differentiate into functioning neurons. The finding could have important implications for the treatment of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, Webster says.

Nanostructures promote formation of blood vessels, bolster cardiovascular function after heart attack - Injecting nanoparticles into the hearts of mice that suffered heart attacks helped restore cardiovascular function in these animals, according to Samuel Stupp, Ph.D., chemist and director of the Institute of Bionanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. The finding is an important research advance that one day could help rapidly restore cardiovascular function in people who have heart disease, Stupp says. The self-assembling nanoparticles - made from naturally occurring polysaccharides and molecules known as peptide amphiphiles - boost chemical signals to nearby cells that induce formation of new blood vessels and this may be the mechanism through which they restore cardiovascular function. One month later, the hearts of the treated mice were capable of contracting and pumping blood almost as well as healthy mice. In contrast, the hearts of untreated mice contracted about 50 percent less than normal. In other recent studies using a similar technique, Stupp and his colleagues found nanoparticles hastened wound healing in rabbits and, after islet transplantation, cured diabetes in mice. Nanoparticles with other chemical compositions accelerate bone repair in rats and promote the growth of neurons in mice and rats with spinal cord injuries, he says.

Day 31

2006-09-12T15:50:00.000-07:00

Another idea for raising incomes:

From Tom Worstall over at TCS Daily.

Abolish the Corporate Income Tax.

...corporations don't actually pay taxes. Only people pay taxes. This is an idea called "tax incidence". It means that people we think aren't being taxed are in fact coughing up the dough demanded by a specific impost.
Think of it this way. The money withheld from your paycheck for FICA and income taxes is in fact paid over to the IRS by the corporation that cuts your very paycheck, is it not? But no one thinks that it is the corporation actually paying those taxes, despite their name being on said check. Things become a little greyer with the corporations's own FICA payments for the joy and pleasure of employing you. Whether all of this comes from lower wages paid to you or whether at least some of it (but definitely not all of it) comes from the profits of the company depends on a few inelasticities which we'll not trouble ourselves to go into right now.

Yet we have established at least one point: whose name is on the check paying the taxes does not necessarily coincide with who is actually paying the taxes, yes? In the case of the corporate income tax we've also just been told who it is that really pays it and no, it isn't the company. Some of it is paid by the investors in the company, in the form of lower dividends or returns on their investment. But as a working paper from the Congressional Budget Office tells us:

"Burdens are measured in a numerical example by substituting factor shares and output shares that are reasonable for the U.S. economy. Given those values, domestic labor bears slightly more than 70 percent of the burden of the corporate income tax."

There are other very good reasons for abolishing the corporate income tax, as this piece from Jane Galt a few years ago reminds us. One of the best is that it is hugely expensive to actually collect:

"The Corporate Income Tax brought in $204.9 billion in 1998. My tax professor (a Democrat) estimated the cost of corporate compliance in that year to be $300 billion. That's just the direct cost -- what corporations paid tax lawyers and accountants.

This labor is unproductive. It adds no new wealth to the economy; we are paying people simply to transfer money from one place to another, a net economic loss."

There are many alternative ideas about how we should best tax investment returns but the idea of abolshing this specific tax in order to stick it to the tax lawyers and accountants has its features, does it not? Plus, of course, we would be lifting a burden from the backs of the working people, for as our CBO report tells us, they in fact pay 70% of the tax through their receipt of lower wages.

As Wikipedia tells us, the corporate income tax is expected to raise $220.3 billion in fiscal year 2006. Abolition would mean that some $154 billion, 70% of that sum, would feed back in higher wages to the very working stiffs we all claim to be fighting for. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Given that this one tax raises some 10.1% of the federal budget, we would, by making this cut, in fact be returning 7% or so of that budget to precisely the group that our Democratic friends wish to aid: the workers.

It's extraordinarily difficult to see any one other thing in either the expenditure or revenue accounts of the federal budget that would in fact have an impact of anywhere near this sort of magnitude. So no doubt we'll be able to get them all on board to aid in taking this simple and obvious step? What's that? I'm insanely optimistic? Yes, I suppose I am, expecting anyone to be thinking about economic facts just two months before an election.

One final thought, there will be those who wonder how I would fill the revenue gap. No, I'll not make claims about the Laffer Curve, or increased dynamism, nor identify specific programs that should be cut, for after all, it is only 10% of federal revenue.

As O'Rourke's Law of Circumcision points out, you can take 10% off the top of absolutely anything.

So if we believe the CBO we cut out the corporate tax and wages would rise 7%. We could even make it part of the elimination of the law that the corporation must pay out 70% of its reduced taxes in wages. Make it even more Democratic favorable limit the return to those making under $ 100,000.

Michale Yon on Afghanistan:

In Afghanistan, heroin has become the Devil's cocktail. "Smack" is already one of the most addictive and destructive drugs on Earth, and now numerous academic studies show addiction levels on the rise, particularly among younger children. In the place where 90 percent of the world's heroin supply originates, theTaliban, al Qaeda, and others harvest profits from opium poppy cultivation to buy weapons and equipment used to attack soldiers and civilians engaged in a mostly stalled reconstruction mission.A reverse symbiosis is at work: Those who benefit most from the opium/heroin trades also benefit most from a destabilized Afghanistan,because a stable country with functioning government systems, reliable security forces, and a framework of laws is a bad climate for the drug trade. Conversely, farmers growing crops such as cotton and beans benefit from a stable government climate, which affords the opportunityto think beyond the next crop cycle. In order to make agriculture a more successful business venture, farmers need a stable government as apartner. But since the interests of poppy farmers and narco-kings are in aggressive opposition to any plan to stabilize Afghanistan, this partnership is not even in the talking stages.

According to a GAO "Congressional Report on Afghanistan Reconstruction,"approximately half of Afghanistan's economy is based on opium, meaning roughly half the economy thrives in a chaos that also funds world-class terrorists.

2006 was a bumper year for the poppy crop - the largest harvest on record. In the 2006 World Drug Report, the U.N. estimated that there was only a 2-percent eradication of potential opium production in theprevious year. According to locals I interviewed about this "eradication," workers went out, slapped down a few fields with sticks, paid farmers for the poppy, and made photo ops. But at the same time,many workers left reconstruction jobs en masse to complete the poppy harvest; 98 percent of the crop survived, and it has begun to make its way to millions of addicts in Asia, Europe, and North America.

According to health studies, the heroin now landing on the streets in Europe and America is increasingly pure. Many users continue to inject the drug, but because of the increased purity, some children are sniffing or smoking heroin, relying on a dangerous rationalization that "real addicts" always inject. Kids also are mixing heroin with other drugs such as cocaine, causing a spike in emergency-room visits and explaining the rise in drug related injuries and deaths for middle-school students. With burgeoning heroin supplies, lower street prices lower the addiction threshold, resulting in more heroin addicts.

A three prong effort is needed: stop the demand , interdict the flow and cut off the source.

How much would it take to stop drug dealers from pushing their poison?

1. Death penalty for dealing drugs. Sentence commuted to life if you turn in bigger dealer.

2. No free zones where drug dealers can push their wares. Bonuses for taking stuff off the street.

3. Install chemical sniffers on every corner. Check every shipment coming into the US.

4. Get good intell and use it.

5. Drug dealers should be shunned. Use full force of tax laws against them. Sweat out their profits.

How much would it take to clean up the addicts?

1. Go into prisons. Clean up the addicts there.

2. Addicts are a priority in Federal funding. This is a national security issue, a health issue and a moral issue.

Interdict the flow.

1. More chemical sensors.

2. Big rewards for turning in shipments.

3. Death peanlty for mules.

Stop it at the source.

1. Destroy product as it leaves Afghanistan. Take the profit out of selling herion.

2. Substitute crops, substitute crops.

3. What pests like poppies? How do poppies propagate?

If its good enough for Iraqis: President George W. Bush said in June that the new Iraqi government should set up a trust fund to share the country's oil money with its people.

And we should do the same here in America.

From Thomas Sowell via Sister Toldjah: "It is amazing how much panic on ehonest man can cause among a multitude of hypocrites."

Day 30

2006-09-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

Latest Reading. I have just started reading The Big Ripoff: How Big Business and Big Government Steal Your Money by Timothy P. Carney. I love the quote from Dave Berry: "When government spends money it creates jobs; whereas when money is left in the hands of the taxpayer, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs."

It reminds me of Clinton's little noted response to returning money to taxpayers: "We know how to spend it better than they do."

Mr. Carney's book should be read by every American citizen. The book will dangerously raise your blood pressure but if you vote the rascals out, it will do your country great good.

Mr. Carney's book brought forth an idea that merges with the McCain-Feingold un-Constitutional abridgement of the First Amendment. Since Big Business is a source of corruption in our government why not ban political donations by corporations? Corporations are not American citizens; they can't vote, hold office, or exercise other rights of the citizens. If they can not give political contributions, their influence should be reduced to a degree.

Just to level the field, no organization should be allowed to give political donations to a candidate. That includes the ACLU, the NRA, labor unions, women's rights groups, men's rights groups, children's rights groups, animal rights groups, and ad infinium.

Individual contributions are still okay. I do not want in this age of oppression of an individual's rights to kick his representative in a soft area - I'm not referring to his head - to further lessen this noble right.

Decline in National Median Income. From the Stuart Buck blog.
http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2006/09/median-income_06.html

In 1999: $47,671. In 2005: $46,326. That's a 2.8% decrease.

Note that if we had our little bank accounts working and we were popping $2k into the accounts we wouldn't have had a decline.

Why does Carter get along so well with fascists? Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami spoke about the "dialogue of civilizations" at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Why was a government official from the State Department's number one sponsor of terrorism from 1997 to 2005 speaking in an American church? Why to defend Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the current Iranian president and lunatic extraordinarie, defend Iranian nuclear programs, and to let us know the real threat to regional peace is Israel, not Iran.

Harvard and the University of Virginia invited Khatami to speak even though his hero, Ahmadinejad, advocated the purge of "liberal and secular" academics from Iran's universities.

Who will also host Khatami but the current contestant for America's greatest fool but Jimmy Carter---who bungled the Iranian hostage crisis during his presidency and who touts himself as a defender of human rights.

Panel Urges Development Curbs in Flood-prone Regions The subject of future risks-and what to do about flood-prone regions from Louisiana to California-was debated at the 2006 annual meeting of the American Association forthe Advancement of Science. A panel of experts, including Gerald Galloway, Clark School professor of civil engineering and a former brigadier general in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, held little hope that the risks would be eased unless federal and local governments take a hard look at the standards for levee construction and change policies that encourage development in vulnerable areas.

Galloway said the federal government must reassess criteria for defining floodplains and levee construction. For example, he and the other panelists agreed that the extent of the so called 100-year flood plain-the land area expected to be covered by a flood that has a one percent chance of occurrence each year-significantly underestimates risk. Currently, the National Flood Insurance Program requires only those who live within the 100-year flood plain to have insurance. Galloway wants to extend insurance to the 500-year flood plain or that area that has a two percent chance of a flood occurrence. He believes those living behind levees in flood-prone areas should be required to carry some level of flood insurance.

Day 28

2006-09-07T15:50:00.000-07:00

More on the Kentucky Aircrash.

I have noted that a runway monitoring system would have prevented the crash in Kentucky that took 49 lives. One system is estimated to cost $18,000 per airplane.

The way the green eyeshade guys would calculate the total cost is to take the 7,836 commercial airplanes (number in 2005) and multiply by $18,000. The total cost $141 million and change would be divided by 49 and they would say each life costs close to $30 million. If each person on the aircraft lived another 30 years they would have to earn a million dollars a year for society to breakeven. This wouldn't include opportunity costs, places where we could have invested the money and achieved greater returns or interest on the money. These would further delay breakeven.

My argument would be that we will waste in the Federal budget over $20 billion this year on so-called earmarks. These moneys fund projects such as tomato growing in Ohio and corporate projects in company's that truly don't need the money.

For about 0.05% of that money we could have saved those people. Instead we through our Congress fritter the money away on aquariums and reception areas.

The airplane operating companies will claim they cannot afford to make the investment - the airline that operated the aircraft that crashed is bankrupt. So have the FAA mandate the use of the runway monitoring systems and permit the airlines a tax rebate up to $18,000 per airplane to install the system. We could fund the tax break by cutting out a microscopic piece of pork.

Airline travel would be safer and Congress would be a little healthier.

Sniffing Out Terrorists From Business Wire -The zNose chemical sensor has a proven capability to detect a liquid bomb called TATP and its related chemical components—in addition to detection of conventional explosives—says Dr. Teong C. Lim, President and CEO of Electronic Sensor Technology, Inc., zNose's manufacturer.

The recent global alert of the terrorists' planned attack on international passenger airlines in London indicated that the bomb ingredients they were using in the planned attacks was tri-cycloacetone peroxide (TATP). This crystalline material can be produced from common acetone, peroxide, and sulfuric acid, yet it has the explosive power of RDX. zNose has a long proven record of detecting these ingredients either in a finished TATP chemical form or its component, acetone, with a sensitivity of parts per billion (10 (-9)) in less than ten seconds. TATP is a relatively volatile explosive and readily produces vapors which can be detected by the zNose. The most publicized account of TATP usage was that of Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, but TATP is often used by Hamas "human" bombers in Israel. Further detail on the subject is available here.

Electronic Sensor Technology's product is currently distributed worldwide including Middle East, China and Europe for various applications such as security, environmental monitoring and petrochemical plant safety.

Cool. A Rolling Robot.

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a new type of mobile robot that balances on a ball instead of legs or wheels. "Ballbot" is a self-contained,battery-operated, omnidirectional robot that balances dynamically on a single urethane-coated metal sphere. It weighs 95 pounds and is the approximate height and width of a person. Because of its long, thin shape and ability to maneuver in tight spaces, it has the potential to function better than current robots can in environments with people. Ballbot's creator, Robotics Research Professor Ralph Hollis, says the robot represents a new paradigm in mobile robotics. What began as a concept in his home workshop has been funded for the last two years withgrants from the National Science Foundation.Hollis is working to prove that dynamically stable robots like Ballbotcan outperform their static counterparts. Traditional, statically stable mobile robots have three or more wheels for support, but their bases are generally too wide to move easily among people and furniture. They can also tip over if they move too fast or operate on a slope.

"We wanted to create a robot that can maneuver easily and is tall enough to look you in the eye," Hollis said. "Ballbot is tall and skinny, witha much higher center of gravity than traditional wheeled robots. Because it is omnidirectional, it can move easily in any direction without having to turn first."Ballbot has an onboard computer that reads balance information from its internal sensors, activating rollers that mobilize the ball on which itmoves - a system that is essentially an inverse mouse-ball drive. When Ballbot is not in operation, it stands in place on three retractable legs. Hollis noted that current legged robots, such as humanoids, are complex and expensive. He's looking for simple alternatives to better understand the issues of dynamic stability for mobile robots in human environments.He believes that the research may produce a robot that could have useful, meaningful interactions with people who are elderly, disabled or need assistance in an office environment. Hollis and his team - including Robotics Institute Project Scientist George Kantor and graduate students Tom Lauwers, Anish Mampetta and Eric Schearer - have demonstrated Ballbot moving on carpeted surfaces.

Day 27

2006-09-06T16:18:00.000-07:00

Politicians Using Tax Dollars to Buy an Election.

I have to admit that is not an unusal header. Still it describes politicians not only wasting money but also keeping old aircraft which could be dangerous for our servicemen in operation.

From How to Make War blog:

...politicians continue to come up with new ways to divert defense dollars for their own use. In the United States, this has basically come down to 'not losing jobs' (which will lose you votes in the next election). Try to close an unneeded military base, and there is a storm of political protest. Try to cancel a weapons program, and there's another uproar.

Realizing that air force bases tend to get closed once there are no longer any aircraft based on them,politicians have been passing laws that forbid the air force from retiring certain aircraft. These are aircraft that occupy air bases in states or Congressional districts, where those air force jobs make a large impact on the local economy. These are usually bases in rural, less affluent areas. Politicians in Congress get away with this because of the time honored custom of 'you scratch my back (vote for my pet project), and I'll scratch yours.'

The air force is particularly vulnerable to this political extortion, because it has long received the biggest portion of the defense budget.Thus for decades, the air force has, without much protest, built aircraft it didn't want (the C-130 being the most famous of these), and tried to keep unneeded bases open. But more politicians began shaking down the air force, especially with the 'you cannot retire this ancient aircraft' scam, and money got really tight. Now the air force, despite all the money it gets, is caught in a major cash crunch. It feels it cannot afford to spend over half a billion dollars a year to buy some politicians a few votes out in the economically depressed countryside.The air force has a list of C-130s, B-52s, F-117s and other aircraft it wants to get rid of, if it can just get these politicians off their backs, and out of their bank account.

Heat Stroke Prevention.

Biological engineering students at the University of Arkansas developed a wireless biosensor that can accurately record and monitor a football player's body temperature in real time while the player is active. The prototypemay lead to a commercial product that could prevent death due to heat stroke.

For their senior design project, Costello's students — Matt Graham, John Leach, and James McCarty — designed and built a system prototype that, with modifications, could provide potentially life-saving information to coaches and trainers. The system wirelessly gathers and monitors body temperature and communicates information on many players in real time. To the player practicing or participating in a game, the system would be transparent in that it would not compromise safety or affect comfort and performance.

The complete system includes a thermocouple temperature sensor, a transmitter, two amplifiers, and a base-station receiver connected to a laptop with user-interface software.

The students embedded the wireless system in a Schutt football helmet, which was loaned by the UA Men's Athletics Department. The sensor adheres to a dense pad, which touches the surface of the player's forehead and records the body's temperature from the temporal artery. The sensor sends an analog signal to the transmitter, which converts the signal into digital data. The amplifiers increase voltage from the sensor to enable it to provide linear, higher-resolution data, which allows the researchers to measure temperature within a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit, the medical industry standard.

The connected components communicate with a base-station receiver, which transfers data into a laptop computer. The system has a transmission distance of approximately 1,000 feet, which would work in the largest football stadiums.

Each year, heat stroke claims the life of at least one high school, collegiate, or professional football player. Formal practices hadn't even begun this year when a 15-year-old student in Rockdale County, GA, died as a result of heat stroke following a voluntary workout in preparation for the start of the football season. The problem is that coaches, trainers, and the players themselves do not know when the body's core temperature has reached a critical threshold, despite physiological signs such as dizziness and blurred vision.

Heat exhaustion can occur when internal body temperature increases to 100.4°; if it reaches 104.9°, a person may suffer a potentially fatal heat stroke. Football players are especially vulnerable to heat exhaustion and stroke for several reasons. Their bodies struggle to cool down because they are practicing in temperatures that are as hot as or hotter than the body's temperature. Protective gear, especially helmets — the human body releases 60% of its heat though the head — prevents the body from efficiently releasing heat so it can cool down.

Wonderful. The young students are to be congratulated. (I wonder what was the first prize winning design if this only placed second?). The system could be used to protect anyone from heat stroke such as old folks.

I Don't Believe This:

Michael Scheuer, was not shy about his disgust for Richard Clarke (former anti-terrorist official in Clinton and Buah administrations) in a November 2004 Weekly Standard article:

Scheuer thinks Clarke is a risk-averse poseur who didn’t do enough to fight bin Laden prior to September 11, 2001. At his breakfast with reporters, Scheuer said that on 10 separate occasions his unit, codename “Alec,” provided key policymakers with information that could’ve lead to the killing or capture of Osama bin Laden.

“In each of those 10 instances, the senior policymaker in charge, whether it was Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, or George Tenet,” resisted taking action, afraid it would result in collateral damage or a backlash on the Arab street. According to Scheuer, Clarke’s story has changed in the time since.

Pages 110 through 115 of the 9/11 Commission report in a section, subtitled “The CIA Develops a Capture Plan,” the commissioners chronicled a 1997 – 1998 strategy to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan:

A compound of about 80 concrete or mud-brick buildings surrounded by a 10-foot wall, Tarnak Farms was located in an isolated desert area on the outskirts of the Kandahar airport. CIA officers were able to map the entire site, identifying the houses that belonged to Bin Ladin’s wives and one where Bin Ladin himself was most likely to sleep. Working with the tribals, they drew up plans for the raid. They ran two complete rehearsals in the United States during the fall of 1997.

By early 1998, planners at the Counterterrorist Center were ready to come back to the White House to seek formal approval.

The Commission was unsure who had stopped the plan:

Impressions vary as to who actually decided not to proceed with the operation. Clarke told us that the CSG [Counterterrorist Security Group headed by Clarke] saw the plan as flawed. He was said to have described it to a colleague on the NSC staff as “half-assed” and predicted the principals would not approve it.

“Jeff” thought the decision had been made at the cabinet level.

Pavitt thought that it was Berger’s doing, though perhaps on Tenet’s advice.

Tenet told us that given the recommendation of his chief operations officers, he alone had decided to “turn off” the operation. He had simply informed Berger, who had not pushed back. Berger’s recollection was similar. He said the plan was never presented to the White House for a decision.

I have never heard of such incompetent behavior. The fewer of these guys in government the better for all of us - and the way to have fewer of them is to have less government.

Day 26

2006-09-05T15:20:00.000-07:00

Safety Features. From an advertisment for the 2007 Jeep Compass :

"The safety technologies available on the Jeep Compass include standard side-curtain air bags, optional front seat-mounted supplemental side air bags, standard driver and passenger front air bags, electronic stability program (ESP), brake traction control, brake assist, electronic roll mitigation, anti-lock brakes with rough-road detection, and a tire-pressure monitoring system. The Jeep Compass also offers a high level of security, including a Sentry Key engine immobilizer, a removable/rechargeable interior flashlight, an security alarm, and HomeLink Universal Home Security System Transceiver. "

There is very little in this list that would prevent an accident. A simple GPS system using surveyed in points ( a differential GPS) coupled with an inter-vehicular communications system would go a long way to preventing aoutomobile accidents. Awareness of what the other guy is doing and assistance in dealing with the situation would go a long, long way to keeping accidents from happening.

More Breathing on Immigration:

Repps Hudson of the Post Dispatch writes another puzzling defense of illegal immigration in the St. Louis Post Dispatch: Don't Be Too Hasty in Wishing Illegal Immigrants Are Gone. 3 September 2006 page E-2. The following is my response.

It is wearisome that every demand that US law be enforced is met with allegations of racism. The racism seems to be on the other side. Let's take a few breaths while illegal immigrants, after all they aren't Americans, are pummeled. Illegal immigrants are beaten and robbed - some are murdered and others raped when trying to cross the border. They pay huge amounts to smugglers who leave them to die miserable deaths in the desert or in sealed containers. I can surely understand why those who object to such treatment are considered racists.

Let us try to look at the problem realistically rather than through the skewed lens of the Pew Hispanic Center (Gee, wonder which side of the issue they are on.) Employers pay the lowest amount they can for labor; labor seeks the highest rate for their work. Illegal immigrant advocates claim a supply of cheap labor unable to demand higher wages does not affect the price of labor. This news of the repeal of the law of supply and demand should be transmitted to economists so a Nobel prize in economics can be awarded.

One can understand business yearning for illegal immigrants. It is a return to the nineteenth century labor laws. There are no penalties for employing illegal immigrants - the laws are not enforced. If an employee becomes a problem, turn him into the law. One would be surprised if all due taxes are paid when the illegal emigrant is employed. Certainly issues such as vacation, days off, overtime pay and benefits aren't a concern. Safety rules don't have to be followed as closely if non-Americans are used.

Will work be undone if every illegal immigrant departed? Highly unlikely. Business owners will have to raise the rates they offer in order to hire workers; prices will rise to accommodate the new costs. If prices are too high, automation will replace the labor component or substitutes will be found. Despite the Vermont governor's concerns the state's cattle will be milked either by legal immigrants or more highly paid American citizens.

Legal immigration, particularly of the educated and entrepreneurial, is important to the US economy. Only lunatics argue otherwise. To pretend that a legal immigrant trained as a physicist has equal economic value to an illegal immigrant picking tomatoes is ridiculous. Shallow analyses from think tanks or sociology professors are useless. Whether there are similar benefits to the nation in the importation of physical labor fromother lands should be debated.

Iranian Educational System. Just the sort of guy you want running your schools. (I mean that as a joke but maybe some in this country are envious of Ahmadinejad.)

From AP: Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Tuesday for a purge of liberal and secular teachers from the country's universities, urging students to return to 1980s-style radicalism

day 25

2006-09-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

More on the Kentucky crash from ATWOnLine:

"Investigators examining Sunday's fatal crash of a Comair CRJ200 inLexington, Ky., revealed yesterday that the lone air traffic controller on duty was operating on just 2 hr. of sleep and was completing the second of two 8-hr. shifts in a 24-hr. period."

"The aircraft took off from the wrong runway, which at 3,500 ft. was not long enough for it to get airborne, and 49 of 50 onboard were killed(ATWOnline, Aug. 28)<http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=6234> . US NationalTransportation Safety Board investigators are focusing their probe onwhy the two pilots and the controller failed to notice that the aircraftwas not on the main 7,000-ft. commercial runway.""NTSB Board Member Debbie Hersman said that only one controller, not thetwo required by FAA, was on duty at the time. The controller hadcompleted an 8-hr. shift Saturday afternoon and had just 9 hr. offbefore returning at 11:30 p.m. Saturday, she said. She added that heturned his back to tend to 'administrative duties' moments before theaccident.""The flight's copilot is the lone survivor and reportedly is on lifesupport and unable to communicate. Recorded communication between thepilots and the controller indicate that all three mistakenly believedthe plane was on the longer runway. Investigators are exploring whetherrecent taxiway repaving and darkened runway lights may have confused thepilots (ATWOnline, Aug. 29)<http://www.atwonline.com/news/story.html?storyID=6235> ."

"Bankrupt Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines, is girding for lawsuits likely to be filed by victims' families. It is offering $25,000 to each to cover immediate expenses, but noted that 'no monetary relief can overcome the grief of losing a loved one' and that acceptance of the money 'in no way' waives families' legal rights to sue."

So the focus of the investigation is on why three guys, one over-worked and two busy preparing a plane for take-off - erroneously believed the aircraft was on a runway long enough for a successful take-off. This is the wrong focus in my opinion.

There should be multiple levels of protection. We have the technology to monitor where aircraft are located on a runway; we do not have to rely upon over-worked, over-tired humans. Lights were not turned on which should be automatic. There could even be a laser projector drawing a big "Here Be Dragons" sign at the entrance to the wrong runway. Tones and audio cues would alert the aircrews and controller that something is wrong. The investigation should focus on why at this airport and others aroundt he country everything is being done to prevent a recurrence of this tragedy.

Service to the Country?

Two leading Democrats, Rahm Emanuel, chair of the DemocraticCongressional Campaign Committee<http://www.house.gov/emanuel/aboutrahm.shtml> , and Bruce Reed,President of the Democratic Leadership Council<http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-plan20.html> propose a new way to "serve" our country:

"A new social contract, or what you can do for your country and what your country can do for you.The economy of the twenty-first century demands new skills and will require all of us to live up to new responsibilities. We believet hat four mutual obligations that follow should represent the first terms of a new contract between the people and their country."

" If you forget everything else you read in these pages, please remember this: The Plan starts with you. If your leaders aren't challenging you to do your part, they aren't doing theirs. We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us bye stablishing, for the first time, an ethic of universal citizen service.. . .John Kennedy was right: A nation is defined not by what it does for its citizens but by what it asks of them. If your leaders aren't challenging you to do your part, they aren't doing theirs. We need a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us by establishing for the first time an ethic of universal citizen service. All Americans between the ages of 18 and 25 should be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic civil defenset raining and community service. This is not a draft, nor is it military. Young people will be trained not as soldiers, but simply as citizens who understand their responsibilities in the event of a natural disaster, an epidemic or a terrorist attack. Universal citizen service will bring Americans of every background together to make America safer and more united in common purpose."

I served in the US Army for four years when for the greater good of the country and the service I left. I believe serving in the military provides a common binding for the nation, a common set of experiences for our citizens. I also support William Buckley's thesis in Gratitude that one owes those who have gone before us and those who will come after as well as our compatriots a term of service which cannot repay our debts but can express our appreciation for what we have in this country. That said I intensely dislike this proposal:

1. Three months is far too short for anything meaningful. Anything learned from this short course in "civil defense" will beforgotten in a year.

2. Several have pointed out that the period is ideal for political indoctrination. Others remember how Clinton's community service projects turned into little more than adjuncts for his permanent political campaign.

3. Most citizens have a pretty good idea of their responsibilities in the event of a disaster. One of the untold stories of the Katrina episode is how people organized to handle the immediate problems. If I may steal a phrase, they formed an Army of Davids. Certainly a little more training would help; more supplies laid away would be useful. But there is no need for a three month course.

4. Three months and discharging responsibilities don't mesh.That is all you owe the country that has sheltered and nurtured you? That is all you owe the greatest nation on the face of the planet? Seems pretty cheap to me.

I don't advocate everyone join the military - not everyone is suited. Still Mr. Buckley's plan to devote a few years to caring for the aged or those without parents or teaching reading or the list goes on seems worthwhile. No draft, no mandate to enter service. There are a few benefits to enlisting in the service of the nation but if one is truly a rugged individual, one could do without.

Comparing Mr. Buckley's concept with those advocated by Reed and Emanuel is much like comparing Shakespeare to a child's joke book on impolite noises.

Day 24

2006-08-31T14:14:00.000-07:00

More interesting comments on the secret hold.
The following is not for the humorless.

In a newly-released statement, Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) office confirms Byrd had a hold on the S2590, the bill which would create a searchable database of spending legislation. The king of spending has released his hold

The entire statement follows:

"There was an effort to pass a bill (S. 2590) on an important subject without debate just before the Senate recess. Senators have an obligation to their constituents to know what they are voting on before signing off on any proposal. The American people ought to demand that bills receive scrutiny by Senators before those bills are approved. We have seen the consequences of rushing legislation through the Senate without any time for review or understanding."

"On August 2, the last day before a month-long Senate recess, a Senate committee gave its approval to a brand new piece of legislation, cosponsored by Senator Obama and Senator Coburn. That same day, there was an effort to rush the legislation through the Senate without any Senator having the chance to ask questions."

The good Senator's concern does not apply to apply to spending. He does not object to earmarks where billions in spending is added to the legislation without any consideration, much less awareness, of the law makers.

He got caught and he wants us to believe that he is on the side of angels. I don't know whether I should be madder that he put as hold on S2590 or that he thinks we are stupid enough to believe that used toilet paper.

On the reading shelf.

Another author produces a weak argument for his conclusions yet I strongly support his conclusions. In Kicking the Carbon Habit: Global Warming and the Case for Renewable and Nuclear Energy, William Sweet,senior news editor for IEEE Spectrum, touts the weak Kyoto argument as the justification for the US to embark on a program of wind power and nuclear energy. Rather than pick at something that just annoys folks he should stick to the stronger case for eliminating coal plants which cause significant air pollution.

I am astounded that leftist still harp on the Kyoto treaty. The two ideas that a treaty is not binding until the Senate approves it and that the Kyoto treaty was not getting through the Senate even if Al Gore was President just does not register with them. Kyoto, the treaty, was dead when it was signed by Clinton.

Mr. Sweet makes much of the US as a free rider on the treaty then cites environmentalists who said the treaty accomplishes nothing. He says that it is only fair that the US bear the burdens then notes that USparticipation when reduce emissions by 14% ,without US participation, 1%. Mr. Sweet also fails to note that none of the Kyoto participants are meeting their treaty obligations. I'm afraid, madam, that the child is ugly.

Perhaps Mr. Sweet felt a need to establish his environmentalist cred since his recommendations will not be met with loud hymns of praise from the self-styled ecological community. Wind power, his first recommendation, is opposed for its unsightly appearance by powerful politicians. His second recommendation, nuclear power, will inspire the vapors in the environmental community. Both recommendations are sound;both will help reduce air pollution. The problem Mr. Sweet's reasonable recommendations face is the unreasonableness of his opposition. Conservation is the mantra;production is evil - in the eyes of the environmental community. Until that silliness is addressed, the US will depend upon dirty coal and foreign oil.

It is with great sorrow that I learned of the death of Nigel Bagnall. Sir Bagnall served in the British Army, becoming the chief of the General Staff. Much like Thucydides, another general who wrote about the Peloponnesian War, Sir Bagnall brings a soldier's perspective to the conflict. His book, The Peloponnesian War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Greece, belongs on the shelf of any historian interested in the War. The old, familiar players are there: the magnificent Pericles, the chameleon Alcibiades, the irritating and mis-named Nicias, the mysterious Gylippus and the man who ended it all, Lysander, victor and loser as so many Greeks were. The twenty-eight year war in all of its triumphs, disasters, death, destruction and irrationality is explored with the style of a true historian, one who knows his subject and can explain it to us in familiar terms. Sir Bagnall excels in bringing new light onto corners that we thought we understood.

We chastise and rightly so those who would practice war without understanding the shape of war. The ancient Greeks stood at the very dawn of organized war. With little understanding of the risks or costs, the Athenians diverted half of their forces into an invasion of a distant land with an undefeated enemy in their rear. The Spartans invested precious lives and resources into a conflict which in the end garnered them nothing. Exhausted by the War the Greeks collapsed when the Macedonians advanced upon them. Sir Bagnall brings the lessons that the Greeks learned with such pain and misery into our understanding.

Sir Bagnall formulates the Greek problem in an interesting way, making the War relevant to us: the population demands something, anything be done to stop a perceived abomination, "add a politician seeking to be seen playing a major role... next subtract the Americans; and you have all the makings of a potential disaster." In this, and much more, he has left us with a work well-worth wide reading and much contemplation.

Ha Ha. Numbers never lie.

Doctors:
A) The number of doctors in the US is 700,000
B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year are 120,000
C) Accidental deaths per physician is 17.14%

Statistics courtesy of the US Dept. of Health &Human Services

Guns:
A) The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000
(yes that's 80 million!)
B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups is 1,500. C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.001875%

Statistics courtesy of the FBI

So statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. Remember, guns don't kill people, doctors do.

FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS A DOCTOR.

Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We should ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand! Out of concern for the public at large, I have withheld statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention.

Day 23

2006-08-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

Social Security Idea. Have you taken a look at the material the Social Security Administration (SSA) mails you about "your benefits"? If a private company had such a dismal prospectus you'd have to wonder about their management. But the management of the SSA is Congress and that should tell you all you need to know.

Remember how the Democrats were going to put all the Social Security taxes in a "locked box." It seems that the box should have a bigger lock. In eleven years Social Security will pay out more than it takes in. In 2042 when someone I know and love will be 89 and probably could use Social Security, it will be gone -broke. Another victim of the Congressional desire to shell out benefits, in this case payments growing faster than inflation, while failing to fund the mandates. After all in the long run it is someone else who has to solve the problem.

Never afraid to offer an idea: The problem is all those old geezers who retire at 65 or, horrors, earlier. Many have made the economic calculations and learned that it is no longer worthwhile to stumble into work five days a week. Off they go with the retirement cake to get back what they have given to the Feds. Naturally the Feds are hoping that the guy croaks soon, along with his wife and the kids are all grown so they can continue to fund the dumb SOBs who haven't had the grace to die.

Rather than sending out hit squads to eliminate those who live too long - and seeing how effective the Gov was with Castro don't expect much - why not try for one of those famous "win-win" situations.

Suppose that our intrepid worker stays on the job past 65. Why not? He is healthy, good at his job and needs something to keep him out of his wife's way. He doesn't draw Social Security but his income under our proposal is tax-free while he doesn't hit Social Security. Not only that he keeps his contribution to the Social Security tax and half of what his company would contribute. The company keeps the other half as a "thank-you" for keeping the old dude working.

Wait, you say. This is unfair. Depending on the old dude's tax bracket that could be almost a 40% increase in take home pay. Please remember that my philosophy holds that a dollar not spend the government is well-spent. Adjust the numbers as you will. However we need a massive financial incentitive to bribe folks not to use Social Security and we need to get lots of folks.

Then would be the time to free the younger folks who would normally ante into Social Security but would like to diversify their portfolios. Anyone below the age of 65 can take 50% of the Social Security contributions made in their behalf and invest it.

Children's Justice System.

Judging Children as Children: A Proposal for A Juvenile Justice System by Michael A. Corriero. Sometimes an author's arguments lead you to a different place than he intended. Judge Corriero aptly scores our present disfunctional system for handling children who grow up in the worse of circumstances. The numbers are horrifying: 5.5 million US children in danger of committing crimes that will result in prison. Only a small fraction of that group will ever be "salvaged". The rest will enter a cycle of jail and freedom for the rest of their lives.

Judge Carriero makes a compelling case that these children should be cared for, treated as children and brought up in stable environments. As I read his logic I wondered whatever happened to orphanages. Please don't tell me how awful orphanages were - I was raised in one. I was also fed, given discipline, responsibility, an education and a sense of right and wrong. Judge Carriero says we can predict given a handful of factors ( drug-dealer father, grandmother raising children, many different foster homes, and others) whether a child will find himself in trouble with the law. Excellent. Put the children who are in danger into a safe environment where they are cared for and, yes, disciplined, so that they can have the stable environment they need. This may mean taking them from an abusive parent or a parent who is little more than a child. The child should be the first concern. Well-run, well-managed orphanages served by professionals would provide the upbringing they need.

I could almost laugh at Americans and their profession of love for children. Take the case of runaways in southern California. These kids are dying from drugs, AIDS, abuse and no one lifts a finger. Children as young as eleven or twelve are left to fend for themselves. If the police pick them up you can bet some self-styled child advocate will make certain the kid is back on the street in time for his next trick.

Judge Carriero is more interested in when the youngsters arrive at his doorstep. Here he recommends a line of thoughtful judges and caring counselors to help guide the child - and often the parent - back to civilization. I would agree with the judge's medicine if I believed that all jurists were as wise as he and all doctors of the mind effective. On the other hand what he proposes is modest - help the child understand why he acts as a child and treat, as far as possible, the child as a child. His grand alliance of government and foundations who claim to care for the child is perhaps utopian yet worth the effort because of its promise.

Day 23

2006-08-26T06:35:00.000-07:00

While you enjoy $3 a gallon gasoline. Over at TCS Daily Kenneth Green wrote "Worth Investigating". He makes some very telling points:

1. He asks why does... Congress let a few state legislators prevent exploration and development of the oil reserves of the Outer Continental Shelf and federal lands that are the property of the entire American public? According to the U.S. Minerals Management Service, there are about 86 billion barrels of oil under the Outer Continental Shelf. And according to the Energy Information Administration, total US oil imports from OPEC total about 2 billion barrels per year. That means we are sitting on offshore deposits that could replace OPEC imports in their entirety for 43 years.Such could buffer us against oil price shifts in the Middle East for far longer, even as a partial displacement of OPEC supply.

I believe that the petroleum revenue from Federal lands should be equally shared among all citizens of the US. By sharing the money we would create an irrestible force to open the lands to production.

2. Mr. Green asks why ... did Congress allow so many agencies to get their hand in this particular pie? The approval process for offshore exploration now requires satisfying the regulatory requirements of the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all agencies operating under Congressional authorization.

Bureaucrats need bureacracy. If it wasn't complex and require much paperwork and wise heads to make wise decisions then the bureacracy won't have much to do and budgets will thin. Put one Department in charge and tell the rest to take a hike.

3. Mr. Green asks ... why [has Congress] restricted the development of known American oil and gas reserves, such as those in ANWR, while consumers endure price spikes and fluctuations that could have easily been averted? It's long been understood that developing such oil can be done without causing significant environmental damage. The Department of Interior recommended developing that oil way back in 1987. Those 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil (a mid-range estimate according to the U.S. Geologic Survey) would look pretty good coming down the pipe right about now.

Oooh, I think I know the answer to that one. We have given a veto to the environmental groups, a veto over all energy production in the US. All they have to do is weep about a dead fish someone and they, with the help of the courts, can stifle any effort at producing more energy. After all conservation will save us any day now.

3. Then he asks how [how Congress ] let the United States EPA and a handful of other states fragment gasoline markets across the country into a crazy-quilt of mini-markets with fragile supplies?

Mr. Green answers his own question with a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences -the Clean Air Act, and state requirements that equal or exceed the Clean Air Act requirements. These well-meaning laws have splintered the gasoline market producing economic inefficiencies Stalin could only dream of.

We all gonna die -someday.Overall Antarctic snowfall hasn't changed in 50 years. Large variations make establishing trends difficultFor an animated graphic of snowfall variability across Antarctica and over time and b-roll of the U.S. ITASE traverse on Betacam SP, contact Dena Headlee (dheadlee@nsf.gov) (703) 292-7739.

The most precise record of Antarctic snowfall ever generated shows therehas been no real increase in precipitation over the southernmost continent in the past half-century, even though most computer models assessing global climate change call for an increase in Antarctic precipitation as atmospheric temperatures rise.

"The year-to-year and decadal variability of the snowfall is so large that it makes it nearly impossible to distinguish trends that might be related to climate change from even a 50-year record," said Andrew Monaghan, a research associate with Ohio State University's Byrd Polar Research Center and lead author of an article on the topic published in the Aug. 10 edition of Science magazine.

"There were no statistically significant trends in snowfall accumulation over the past five decades, including recent years for which global mean temperatures have been warmest," Monaghan said. The findings also suggest thickening of Antarctica's massive ice sheets haven't reduced the slow-but-steady rise in global sea levels, as some climate-change critics have argued.

The study looked at both the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), a marine ice sheet with a base below sea level, and the much thicker East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) that sits atop dry land. In recent years, large volumes of ice along the WAIS coast have melted at a faster rate than previously seen. Some observers have blamed global warming for themelting and for the increased calving of icebergs along the continent's margin.The 16 researchers from nine institutions in seven countries wanted to assemble a half-century-long record of snowfall back to theInternational Geophysical Year, or IGY. Work during the IGY began the first real modern study of the Antarctic continent and substantive research has continued there ever since. That work will continue in 2007-2008 during the upcoming International Polar Year (IPY), including NSF-funded studies of ice-sheet dynamics.

Kentucky Plane Accident. Another case of didn't have to be. Sunday an CRJ-100 carrying fifty people crashed on takeoff. Apparently the pilot turned on the wrong runway after the airport crew turned on the wrong lights. Without enough runway for the airplane the pilot failed to gain enough airspeed to lift off. The subsequent accident killed everyone on-board except for one survivor.

The tragedy could have been avoided. Multiple defenses have to be in place to avoid accidents. The tower turned on the wrong lights. The pilot followed them to disaster; perhaps he should have known better but it was an early morning departure. His knowledge of the airport may have beeen limited.

A differential GPS could have located the aircraft within centimeters on the runway. An automatic system would have known that the aircraft was turning onto a runway that was too short for the intended launch. An automatic warning could have alerted the tower and the crew. The technology exists - it is off-the-shelf.

We have already noted that the FFA has perfected a system for safely stopping an airplane that has left the runway.

Why wasn't the money available for installing a system to prevent aircraft from wandering onto the wrong runways? Why wasn't the money available for installing the safety barriers around the airport, for protecting those forty nine lives? Probably it was being spent on more important items, items with more higher priorities, like the billions in earmarks.

Day 22

2006-08-25T14:57:00.000-07:00

What a Hoot.
June 7, 2006
The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes
309 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510

Dear Senator Sarbanes,

As a native Marylander and excellent customer of the InternalRevenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Immigration and Naturalization Service in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you. My reasons for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stem from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted.

If my understanding of this bill's provisions is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, what I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine.

Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005. Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative.

Thank you for your assistance.

Your Loyal Constituent,
Pete McGlaughlin

More Books. I was very fortunate to read two outstanding books on the disastrous state of American education: A Recipe for Failure: A Year of Reform and Chaos in the St. Louis Public Schools by Marilyn Ayres-Salamon and John Dewey & the Decline of American Education: How the Patron Saint of Schools Has Corrupted Teaching and Learning by Henry T. Edmondson III. I was certain that I would dislike the former and little understand the second. I was pleasantly disabused on both cases.

Ms. Ayres-Salamon spent a year in the abyss known as the St. Louis Public School system. Her tales of mismanagement, teacher burn out and parent misbehavior should arouse the anger of every American. Our children and their teachers should not endure the abuse of ani ndifferent system.Every impediment is placed in the path of students: insanely re-arranged schedules, missing texts, parents little removed from childish brats and a lack of discipline that put the children's lives in danger. An indifferent administration and wasted funds only added anvils to the back of a camel already slain.

Through all of this Ms. Ayres-Salamon tried to bring hope to children who are taught to believe they are not as good as the students in the suburbs. She is a hero if by hero you mean someone who strives to do right when everything and everyone is aligned against her. I doubt that Ms. Ayres-Salamon and I would agree on many inconsequential matters. She is probably a liberal and I am a caveman. Yet I would like my kids to be taught by someone like her.

Professor Edmondson states his little gem of a book took twenty years to write. Every facet of the 114 pages gleams with the light of careful erudition.His eye for the apt quote runs through the book. I particularly enjoy Woodrow Wilson's response to the question why he had resigned as president of Princeton University to run for the US presidency. Wilson responded "I couldn't stand the politics." Professor Edmondson takes usto the philosophical basis of education.It is amazing how many modern ideas, ideas notably for imbecility, were voiced by Dewey. A contempt for religion (Dewey, not Lenin, stated the equivalency between opium, the masses and religion), the disdain for history, the ignorance of discipline, the denial of excellence and the loathing of Western civilization all found root in Dewey's works.

Logically, relentlessly Professor Edmondson demolishes the structure andcontent of Dewey's thoughts.In the final chapter Professor Edmondson returns to the political arena.He has identified the beast and offers a practical plan, more than Flannery O'Connor's prayer and fasting, to eliminate "Educationism",Dewey's plan to sack education.

1. Eliminate experiments. We know how to teach children. Look at the high school curriculum of the nineteenth century and compare it to the pabulum of a recent course of study. Smell the remains of the "whole language" approach that denied a generation the ability to read.

2. Teachers should be left alone to teach. Ms. Ayres-Salamon warns us of what happens when bureaucrats reach into the classroom. Teaching is a noble profession and should be returned to its rightful place in respect and honor. Professor Edmondson recommends that administrators rotate back into the classroom for a year. I'd recommend that no administrator earn more than eighty percent of the highest paid teacher.

3. Parents must become involved in their children's education. I recommend that parents who abuse teachers serve jail time. Also Ms.Ayres-Salamon's parent so proud that her sixth grader knows "her times table all the way up to threes" should face child abuse charges. Parents who can not help their children should be taught how to teach their children.

4. Bring back the old moral character training. Morals should be those of Washington and Franklin, not Timothy Leary.

5. Reinstate civic education. The teaching of history is a disaster. The corrective should be simple; follow Barbara Tuchman's dictum: "Tell stories." Bring back geography (the Hollywood buffoon who thought the US has 47 states including the District of Columbia should be fined and sent back to the second grade), economics, and government.

6. Follow Thomas Jefferson advice: "Read good books" even if they are by dead white men.

7. Students should be taught that leisure time includes activities that improve the individual. Too many American children do not know what to do with their prodigious empty time. Destruction of property and lives often follow idle hands and empty heads.

8. Revamp educational courses; how we teach our teachers, must change.

The fight will be difficult. Power-holders do not easily give up their hold - read that old, dead white guy Machiavelli. Dewey's disciples believe their cause is just as the fanatics of old and of today. Failure is simply the result of not carrying their program to its utopian conclusion.

Thirteen years after the condemnation of our educational system and the political yelps of the ineffectual classes it is a shame that these books are still needed. It is up to the dedicated reformers, buoyed by experts such as Professor Edmondson and Ms. Ayres-Salamon, to bury the immortal head of Hydra under the rocks of its failures.

First Hydraulic Hybrid Diesel Urban Delivery Truck From Industry Week: Eaton Corporation and the U.S. EnvironmentalProtection Agency (EPA) showcased the first-ever hydraulic hybrid diesel urban delivery vehicle. Initial testing of the truck showed a 60-70% improvement in fuel economy (estimated at 1,000 gallons per year) and a 40% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

The vehicle was developed through a partnership between EPA, EatonCorp., UPS, International Truck and Engine Corporation and the U.S.Army. Eaton partnered with EPA through the agency's Green Suppliers Network (GSN) program. Eaton will share manufacturing techniques and environmental process improvements with its small-and medium-sizedsuppliers. Eaton plans to involve 20 suppliers from Ohio in the first phase of the program as GSN partners.

In the new hydraulic hybrid truck, a high-efficiency diesel engine is combined with a hydraulic propulsion system to replace the conventional drivetrain and transmission. The vehicle uses hydraulic pump motors and hydraulic storage tanks to recover and store energy, similar to what is done with electric motors and batteries in hybrid electric vehicles.Vehicle fuel economy is increased in three ways: braking energy that normally is wasted is recovered and reused; the engine is operated more efficiently; and the engine can be shut off when not needed, such as when stopped or decelerating.

My question: how quickly could this technology be brought into commercial production?

An excerpt from today's LA Times: Since 2000, Whittemore, his wife and the Coyote Springs company have given Reid's senatorial campaign and political action committees at least $45,000. That included $35,000 for Reid's leadership PAC, the Searchlight Leadership Fund, which helped him advance as a Senate leader. Most of that money was contributed in 2002 shortly after Reid introduced the Clark County land bill. In 2000, Whittemore gave an additional $20,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which Reid promoted as a party leader.Prior to 2000, the Whittemores had given Reid and his Senate campaign committee a total of $6,500, plus $5,000 for his leadership PAC. Whittemore also helped Reid's sons, all of whom at various times have worked for the law firm in which he is a senior partner, Lionel, Sawyer and Collins. Rory Reid is a partner in the firm. When he ran successfully for the Clark County Board of Commissioners, Whittemore contributed $5,000. He also gave Josh Reid $5,000 for an unsuccessful bid for a seat on the city council in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. Rory and Josh Reid have been active in Democratic politics.

My comment: Thank God or whoever, that Democrats are more honest than Republicans otherwise I'd worry that something unethical is going on here.

Day 21

2006-08-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

You Say You Want A Revolution Missouri politicians are proposing a 1 cent sales tax to fund construction on I-70 and I-44. The hook is "truck only" lanes so cars will be safer when the big trucks stay away from the little vehicles driven by amateurs. If all goes well for the politicians, not for the tax-payers, the new tax will go into effect in November 2008. The tax would be in effect for 10 years and raise $7.8 billion.

Lost in the discussion is the fact that Missouri pays over $700 million a year in Federal fuel taxes - about the amount the sales tax would raise. If the Federal fuel taxes stay in Missouri there would be no need for the sales tax.

If you wander over to Senator Kit Bond's web site you will see that the good senator is proud of the amount of money he brings to Missouri. Once Missouri only received $ 0.65 out of every fuel tax dollar sent to Washington DC. Through Senator Bond's heroic efforts that was raised to $0.85 then this year to $0.98. Next year, Senator Bond promises, for the first time in history Missouri will receive more than it shells out to Washington.

Good job, Senator Bond. However, doesn't that mean some states will lose out, just as Missouri did in the past? Won't Missouri lose its advantage when Senator Bond moves on and some greedy individual more concerned with how much money he sends to his state rather than highway needs takes Senator Bond's place? Wouldn't it be more efficient, more sensible to let the states keep the money?

When the petition for the sales tax starts I expect to raise the snake and stripes flag.

More Agriculture Stupidity The Washington Post reports that a Department of Agriculture program meant to compensate farmers for crop losses gave $1.3 billion since 2000 to people who don't farm. What a deal!

In 2005 farm pretax income was a near record $72 billion. Farm subsidies in that year were $25 billion, more than was spent on welfare.

When New Zealand cut its farming subsidies farm income tripled. Eliminating farm subsidies, good for the farmer, good for the consumer, good for the third world farmer and good for the environment.

Bad for corporate farmers and politicians beholding to the agribusiness corporations.

Finger Saver. Charles Murray "Forces That Halt Innovation" in Design News describes an invention that could stop the loss of 2,500 fingers and thumbs every year on table saws. The invention was developed by Stephen Gass, a patent attorney (!!) but also a Ph.D in physics (whew).

Dr. Gass uses a sensor to measure the electrical capacitance at the saw blade. Since the capacitance between wood and flesh are very difficult his system can determine what is about to be cut. The magic is in turning off the blade before damage is done. See the "hot dog" demo http://rbi.ims.ca/4930-503.

Naturally the adoption of the invention has not been smooth or quick, However, in June the Consumer Product Safety Commission has recommended that rule making begin that could result in making some sort of safety sensor mandatory.

http://rbi.ims.ca?4930-504.

Day 20

2006-08-21T18:21:00.000-07:00

Secret Hold. The secret hold has been around for over seventy years. It is used by Senators when they would to stop a piece of legislation without telling anyone. Apparently the security on who puts on a secret hold is even better than the security the CIA places on national secrets. Even the New York Times cannot find out or maybe they just don't think it is important enough to blab.

I waltzed through the web. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon took on the beast in 1995. Trent Lott, Senate Majority Leader and Tom Daschle, Senate Democratic Leader attacked in 1999. On April 20, 1999 Trent Lott and Tom Daschle released a letter saying secret holds would no longer be tolerated under Senate rules.

Ding, dong the witch is dead. Ah, wait a minute.

From the Washington Post. "Comes the nomination of Richard Holbrooke to be U.N. ambassador. Oops, there are holds on the nomination. One of them is by Grassley. But it gets even funnier. At least Grassley is out in the open on his hold. He wants the State Department to settle a dispute with a whistleblower."

"But there are at least two other secret holds on the nomination. But sources in the Senate outed the authors of the hold: Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Both of them want President Clinton to appoint a person to a vacant seat on the Federal Election Commission, which is supposed to police federal campaign practices. The White House is balking because the fellow the two solons want on the job doesn't believe in any restrictions on election practices and especially on campaign spending. "

But Senators Grassley and Wyden don't give up. In 2002 and again this year they again try to eliminate secret holds.

From Senator Wyden's floor speech. "Mr. President, I think Senator Lott, Senator Inhofe, and Senator Grassley have said it very well. This amendment is about a simple proposition; and that is, the Senate ought to do its most important business in public, where every Senator can be held accountable. We have offered this bipartisan amendment to eliminate secret holds on the lobbying reform legislation for the same reason Willy Sutton robbed banks: Banks are where the money is. And secret holds are where the power is."

"Secret holds are one of the most powerful weapons available to lobbyists. I expect that each of our offices has gotten at least one call asking if the office would put a secret hold on a bill or nominee in order to kill it without any public debate, and without a lobbyist's fingerprints anywhere. Getting a Senator to put a secret hold on a bill is like hitting the lobbyist jackpot. Not only is the Senator's identity protected, but so is the lobbyist's. A secret hold lets a lobbyist play both sides of the street and gives lobbyists a victory for their clients without alienating potential or future clients."

"In my view, secret holds are a stealth extension of the lobbying world. It would be particularly ironic if the Senate were to claim it was adopting lobbying reform legislation without doing away with what is one of the most powerful tools available to a lobbyist."

" This has been a bipartisan effort. It has gone on for literally a decade. Senator Lott, to his credit, tried a voluntary approach with Senator Daschle. We want to emphasize--for example, the Senator from Maine, Ms. Collins, was involved in this--that this in no way eliminates the right of a Senator to have a consult, to have the opportunity to look at legislation, to review it when it comes out of committee. A Senator can seek that. In my mind, a consult is similar to a yellow light that says proceed with caution. A hold, on the other hand, is similar to a red light, a stop light. It is when a Senator digs in and says they are going to do everything they possibly can to block a piece of legislation from going forward."

"I want to protect Senators' rights, but Senators' rights need to be accompanied by responsibilities. We are talking about legislation that can involve billions of dollars, millions of our citizens, and the public's business ought to be done in public. What this amendment does is ban a staff hold, the so-called rolling hold where the hold is passed secretly from Senator to Senator. And when a Senator exercises the power of a hold to deal with an issue that is important to them, in the future, they will be held publicly accountable. This is long overdue."

"Senator Dole, when he was majority leader, spoke out on this, more eloquently than perhaps any of us are doing today. Senator Grassley, myself, Senator Inhofe, Senator Lott believe that it is time to bring sunshine to the Senate and for the Senate to do the people's business in public. I can't think of a more appropriate place to do it than on the lobbying reform bill we are working on today. I urge my colleagues to pass the amendment and to bring some sunshine to the Senate."

The amendment passed 84-13.

YEAS--84 Akaka, Alexander, Allen, Baucus, Bayh, Bennett, Biden, Bingaman, Bond, Boxer, Brownback, Burns, Cantwell, Carper, Chafee, Chambliss, Clinton, Cochran, Coleman,Collins, Conrad, Cornyn, Craig Crapo, Dayton, DeWine, Dodd, Dole, Domenici, Dorgan, Durbin, Enzi Feingold, Feinstein, Grassley, Hagel, Harkin, Hatch, Hutchison, Inhofe, Inouye, Isakson, Jeffords, Johnson, Kennedy, Kerry, Kohl Landrieu, Lautenberg, Leahy, Levin, Lieberman, Lincoln, Lott, Lugar, Martinez, McCain, Menendez, Mikulski, Murkowski, Murray, Nelson (FL), Nelson (NE), Obama, Pryor, Reed, Reid, Roberts, Salazar, Santorum, Sarbanes, Schumer, Shelby, Smith, Snowe, Specter Stabenow, Stevens, Talent, Thomas,Vitter, Voinovich, Warner, Wyden

NAYS--13 Allard, Bunning, Burr, Coburn, DeMint, Ensign, Frist, Gregg, Kyl, McConnell, Sessions, Sununu, Thune

So if the Senate has voted twice to eliminate secret holds, why are they still in place? Why does the Senate leadership still allow Senators to impose secret holds? Were the votes aginst secret holds merely to impress the masses who would be too stupid to notice? Perhaps Comedy Central needs new material; I simply do not get it.

I will e-mail my Senators but expect nada from them.

Cool. I had asked about medical simulators since doctors with more experience lose fewer patients.

Troy, N.Y. " Combining the sense of touch with 3-D computer models of organs, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are developing a new approach to training surgeons, much as pilots learn to fly on flight simulators. With collaborators at Harvard Medical School, Albany Medical Center, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the team is developing a virtual simulator that will allow surgeons to touch, feel, and manipulate computer-generated organs with actual tool handles used in minimally invasive surgery (MIS).

MIS allows doctors to perform operations through small incisions with long, slender instruments and video cameras, which can result in minimal postoperative pain, less blood loss, lower risk of complications, and a shorter hospital stay. The number of MIS procedures has grown dramatically in recent years, but despite its many advantages, the technique deprives surgeons of the depth perception, dexterity, sense of touch, and hand-eye coordination that they are accustomed to in open surgeries.

The most important single factor that determines the success of a surgical procedure is the skill of the surgeon, said Suvranu De, assistant professor of mechanical, aerospace, and nuclear engineering and director of the Advanced Computational Research Lab at Rensselaer. It is therefore not surprising, he notes, that more people die each year from medical errors in hospitals than from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS, according to a 2000 report by the Institute of Medicine.
De and his colleagues at Rensselaer are seeking to improve surgical training by developing a new type of virtual simulator. Based on the science of haptics - the study of sensing through touch - the new simulator will provide an immersive environment for surgeons to touch, feel, and manipulate computer-generated 3-D tissues and organs with tool handles used in actual surgery. Such a simulator could standardize the assessment of surgical skills and avert the need for cadavers and animals currently used in training, according to De."

Day 19

2006-08-20T13:44:00.000-07:00

Dafur crisis. I become more and more unhappy with the Missouri delegation. In supporting legislation to help the people of Dafur resist the attacks of the Sudanese government the Missouri delegation received the following ratings from a humans rights group:

Senator Bond C (!!)
Senator Talen A ( way to go)

Representative Akin C (what gives?)
Representative Blunt D (disgusting)
Representative Emerson D (words fail)
Representative Carahan B (not impressive)
Representative Cleaver B (not impressive)
Representative Clay A ( hurrah!)
Representative Graves D (oh, sweet petunias)
Representative Hulshof D (another failing score)
Representative Skelton C (??)

All they had to do to get an "A" was co-sponsor or vote for legislation that would put international forces in to police the area. One of the pieces of legislation died because the Senate and House could not reconcile the language between their respective versions.But they had enough time to get their pork passed. People are dying while our representatives made certan their little projects for campaign donors were funded. Our latter day Solons must be proud.

The anti-1984 site "agoraphilia" calls the UN sponsored "gun control actions" by a more descripive name " victim disarmament." When the people of Dafur try to protect themselves their weapons are taken. Their women and children are attacked and raped by thugs armed by the Sudanese government. We can thank God though that our representatives have found the time to stop the genocide.

I wish I remembered who pointed out that there were tons of weapons in Iraq where they are not needed. The writer went on to observe that a few of those weapons along with Special forces operators to train the folks of Dafur would go a long way to solving the genocide problem.

Weapon Control. The UN has repeatedly tried to ban weapons tranfers to "non-state entities." In Wayne LaPierre's The Global War on Guns: Inside the UN Plan to Destroy the Bill of Rights Mr. LaPierre documents the UN's efforts to impose international law on the rights of individuals to own firearms.

I should not speak for the NRA which vigorously opposes gun control legislation whether in the US or abroad; I believe that a compromise could be reached.

Ban the sale of all weapons with a range of more than one mile, a caliber of more than say .5, or is only designed to kill humans to "non-state entities". Range in this case means that a trained operator could hit a two centimeter target nine out of ten times. I take the latter limitation to ban so-called suicide bombers.

From the Energy Front SPIE reports that nanocrystals generating >1 electron per photon may lead to increased solar cell efficiency Optimizing a recently discovered quantum dot effect that gets multiple electrons from photons could make a critical difference in photovoltaics.

In a conventional semiconductor PV solar cell, absorption of a photon boosts an electron from one of the non-conducting levels (called the valence band) to a conducting level within the so-called conduction band where the electron contributes to an electrical current. The ‘gap’ of unallowed energies between the valence and conduction bands is referred to as the bandgap, and the minimum energy required to elevate an electron across the gap is called the bandgap energy. For a photon to be absorbed by the semiconductor, its energy must equal or exceed the bandgap energy (the semiconductor is transparent to photons with energy below the bandgap energy).

Typically, when the absorbed photon energy exceeds the bandgap energy, the resulting energetic electron quickly collides with atoms in the semiconductor, converting some of the electronic energy into heat as it relaxes down toward the lowest energy conduction band state. To efficiently generate electricity, a PV cell should generate as little heat as possible; therefore, one central goal is to maximize electrical power and minimize heating.

Solar cells based on ‘bulk’ (i.e., relatively large) semiconductor crystals yield just one electron per absorbed photon. For very high photon energies, nearly absent from sunlight, another process can occur in which the highly energetic electron itself frees a second electron from the valence band. This process, known in bulk semiconductors as impact ionization, occurs with such low efficiency in conventional solar cells that the effect on conversion efficiency is inconsequential.

Contrast that with extremely small semiconductor crystals—generally less than 10 nanometers (nm) in diameter—called semiconductor nanocrystals (NCs) or quantum dots. With crystals of this size, a photon having more than twice the bandgap energy of the NC can produce two electrons within the conduction band. Photons with more than three times the bandgap energy can each produce three conduction electrons.3

In this case, some of the photoexcited electron's energy, which would normally end up as heat, instead generates one or more additional conduction electrons in a process analogous to impact ionization. (When an electron is photoexcited into the conduction band, the positively charged counterpart left behind in the valence band is called a hole; together, the pair consisting of the conduction band electron and the valence band hole is referred to as an exciton.)

Because the process occurs in NCs with such high efficiency, we call it multiple exciton generation (MEG). The MEG effect represents an opportunity to significantly enhance the conversion efficiency of solar cells.

As in bulk semiconductor crystals, each photon absorbed by an NC generates (in the absence of MEG) one exciton. Studies have shown that when two or more excitons are confined within a single NC, they interact strongly and undergo Auger recombination, in which one electron and one hole recombine and transfer the electronic energy (approximately equal to one bandgap energy) to the remaining exciton. Auger recombination dominates the charge carrier dynamics for NCs with an initial population of two or more excitons. This observed strong exciton-exciton interaction suggested the possibility that the reverse of the Auger recombination process might also be enhanced in NCs.

As mentioned above, in the inverse Auger process, an energetic electron generates a second electron-hole pair. When the MEG effect occurs in semiconductor NCs, it is detected by observation of the strong Auger recombination of multiple excitons produced following absorption of a high-energy photon.

Modeling done at the National Renewable Energy Lab shows that MEG can enhance the theoretically realizable conversion efficiency for a single-junction (single-layer) PV cell from about 32 to 45%, but that greater than 90% of the enhancement comes from generation of two excitons for each photon at or above twice the bandgap. Achieving higher-efficiency solar cells based on MEG will require optimizing the MEG process and efficiently collecting photocurrent from multiple excitons on a timescale faster than they naturally recombine via the Auger process. By learning more about the MEG process and ways to harvest the charge from multiple excitons, we hope to demonstrate the benefits of solar cells that utilize MEG, called MEG-active (MEGA) cells.

I am not a believer that solar power will solve all of our energy woes. This is, however, a major discovery. The question is how economical the system will be.

Lunar Landing "It means nothing to me. I have no opinion about it and I don't care." Pablo Picasso on the occasion of the first Lunar landing 21 July 1969.

Pretty much describes my opinion of his "art".

Day 18

2006-08-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Carter was among the worse presidents ever to hold the office. (Why were the two worse Presidents trained engineers? This damages my geek ego.) Reputedly an intelligent man everything he touched from the economy to Iran turned to cat droppings. Entering office mouthing about Americans' "inordinate fear of communism" his administration weak response to the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan only served to annoy us and gather contempt around the world. Carter's amazing feat of combing high unemployment and high interest rates has never been equaled.

Once his calamitous term, a strong argument for limiting Presidents to six month terms, was over Carter launched a cnew areer bad-mouthing the US, sucking up to tyrants and looking for the Nobel Peace Prize. Finally Jimmy's anti-American rants got him what he wanted. His actions remind one of Esau's selling his birthright for a mess of pottage.

Jimmy's interview with the German press should be given wide distribution. It reveals how small the man is.

Spiegel: Mr. Carter, in your new book you write that only the American people can ensure that the US government returns to the country's old moral principles. Are you suggesting that the current US administration of George W. Bush of acting immorally?

Carter: There's no doubt that this administration has made a radical and unpressured departure from the basic policies of all previous administrations including those of both Republican and Democratic presidents.

SPIEGEL: For example?

Carter: Under all of its predecessors there was a commitment to peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always had a policy of not going to war unless our own security was directly threatened and now we have a new policy of going to war on a preemptive basis.

Another very serious departure from past policies is the separation of church and state, which I describe in the book. This has been a policy since the time of Thomas Jefferson and my own religious beliefs are compatible with this.

The other principle that I described in the book is basic justice. We've never had an administration before that so overtly and clearly and consistently passed tax reform bills that were uniquely targeted to benefit the richest people in our country at the expense or the detriment of the working families of America.

SPIEGEL: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington's call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?

Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.

SPIEGEL: But wasn't Israel the first to get attacked?

Carter: I don't think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that's justified, no.

SPIEGEL: Do you think the United States is still an important factor in securing a peaceful solution to the Middle East crisis?

Carter: Yes, as a matter of fact as you know ever since Israel has been a nation the United States has provided the leadership. Every president down to the ages has done this in a fairly balanced way, including George Bush senior, Gerald Ford, and others including myself and Bill Clinton. This administration has not attempted at all in the last six years to negotiate or attempt to negotiate a settlement between Israel and any of its neighbors or the Palestinians.

SPIEGEL: What makes you personally so optimistic about the effectiveness of diplomacy? You are, so to speak, the father of Camp David negotiations.

Carter: When I became president we had had four terrible wars between the Arabs and Israelis (behind us). And I under great difficulty, particularly because Menachim Begin was elected, decided to try negotiation and it worked and we have a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt for 27 years that has never been violated. You never can be certain in advance that negotiations on difficult circumstances will be successful, but you can be certain in advance if you don't negotiate that your problem is going to continue and maybe even get worse.

SPIEGEL: But negotiations failed to prevent the burning of Beirut and bombardment of Haifa.

Carter: I'm distressed. But I think that the proposals that have been made in the last few days by the (Lebanese) Prime Minister (Fuoad) Siniora are quite reasonable. And I think they should declare an immediate cease-fire on both sides, Hezbollah said they would comply, I hope Israel will comply, and then do the long, slow, tedious negotiation that is necessary to stabilize the northern border of Israel completely. There has to be some exchange of prisoners. There have been successful exchanges of prisoners between Israel and the Palestinians in the past and that's something that can be done right now.

SPIEGEL: Should there be an international peacekeeping force along the Lebanese-Israeli border?

Carter: Yes.

SPIEGEL: And can you imagine Germans soldiers taking part?

Carter: Yes, I can imagine Germans taking part.

SPIEGEL: ... even with their history?

Carter: Yes. That would be certainly satisfactory to me personally, and I think most people believe that enough time has passed so that historical facts can be ignored.

SPIEGEL: One main points of your book is the rather strange coalition between Christian fundamentalists and the Republican Party. How can such a coalition of the pious lead to moral catastrophes like the Iraqi prison scandal in Abu Ghraib and torture in Guantanamo?

Carter: The fundamentalists believe they have a unique relationship with God, and that they and their ideas are God's ideas and God's premises on the particular issue. Therefore, by definition since they are speaking for God anyone who disagrees with them is inherently wrong. And the next step is: Those who disagree with them are inherently inferior, and in extreme cases -- as is the case with some fundamentalists around the world -- it makes your opponents sub-humans, so that their lives are not significant. Another thing is that a fundamentalist can't bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality. And so this administration, for instance, has a policy of just refusing to talk to someone who is in strong disagreement with them -- which is also a radical departure from past history. So these are the kinds of things that cause me concern. And, of course, fundamentalists don't believe they can make mistakes, so when we permit the torture of prisoners in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, it's just impossible for a fundamentalist to admit that a mistake was made.

SPIEGEL: So how does this proximity to Christian fundamentalism manifest itself politically?

Carter: Unfortunately, after Sept., there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous. For three years, I'd say, the major news media in our country were complicit in this subservience to the Bush administration out of fear that they would be accused of being disloyal. I think in the last six months or so some of the media have now begun to be critical. But it's a long time coming.

SPIEGEL: Take your fellow Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton. These days she is demanding the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But she, like many others, allowed President Bush to invade Iraq under a false pretext.

Carter: That's correct.

SPIEGEL: Was the whole country in danger of losing its core values?

Carter: For a while, yes. As you possibly know, historically, our country has had the capability of self-correcting our own mistakes. This applied to slavery in 1865, it applied to legal racial segregation a hundred years later or so. It applied to the Joe McCarthy era when anti-communism was in a fearsome phase in the country like terrorism now. So we have an ability to correct ourselves and I believe that nowadays there is a self-correction taking place. In my opinion the election results in Connecticut (Eds: The primary loss of war supporter Senator Joseph Lieberman) were an indication that Americans realized very clearly that we made a mistake in going into Iraq and staying there too long.

SPIEGEL: Now even President Bush appears to have learned something from the catastrophe in Iraq. During his second term he has taken a more multilateral approach and has seemed to return to international cooperation.

Carter: I think the administration learned a lesson, but I don't see any indication that the administration would ever admit that it did make a mistake and needed to learn a lesson. I haven't seen much indication, by the way, of your premise that this administration is now reconciling itself to other countries. I think that at this moment the United States and Israel probably stand more alone than our country has in generations.

SPIEGEL: You've written about your meeting with Fidel Castro. He appears seriously ill now and Cuban exiles are partying already in the streets of Miami. You are probably not in the mood to join them.

Carter: No, that's true. Just because someone is ill I don't think there should be a celebration of potential death. And my own belief is that Fidel Castro will recover. He is two years younger than I am, so he's not beyond hope.

SPIEGEL: You sought to normalize relations with Castro, but that never happened. Has anything been achieved through Cuba's isolation?

Carter: In my opinion, the embargo strengthens Castro and perpetuates communism in Cuba. A maximum degree of trade, tourism, commerce, visitation between our country and Cuba would bring an earlier end to Castro's regime.

SPIEGEL: You've been called the moral conscience of your country. How do you look at it yourself? Are you an outsider in American politics these days or do you represent a political demographic that could maybe elect the next US president?

Carter: I think I represent the vast majority of Democrats in this country. I think there is a substantial portion of American people that completely agree with me. I can't say a majority because we have fragmented portions in our country and divisions concerning gun control and the death penalty and abortion and gay marriage.

SPIEGEL: As president, your performance was often criticized. But the work you did after leaving office to promote human rights has been widely praised. Has life been unfair to you?

Carter: I've been lucky in my life. Everything that I've done has brought great pleasure and gratification to me and my wife. I had four years in the White House -- it was not a failure. For someone to serve as president of the United States you can't say it is a political failure. And we have had the best years of our lives since we left the White House. We've had a very full life.

SPIEGEL: Do you feel you achieved even more out of office than you did as president?

Carter: Well, I've used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I've still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

SPIEGEL: Does America need a regime change?

Carter: As I've said before, there is a self-corrective aspect to our country. And I think that the first step is going to be in the November election this year. This year, the Democrats have good chance of capturing one of the houses of Congress. I think the Senate is going to be a very close decision. My oldest son is running for the US Senate in the state of Nevada. And if just he and a few others can be successful then you have the US Senate in Democratic hands and that will make a profound and immediate difference.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Carter, thank you for the interview.

His inept administration gave us Judge Anna Diggs Taylor whose dubious rulings on NSA monitoring demonstrates why thee should be time limits on judges.

I did not realize his oldest boy is running for the Senate. Where do you sign up to support his opponent?

Day 17

2006-08-18T15:29:00.000-07:00

In the ever valuable Cato Institute web page Chris Edwards, Director of Tax Policy Studies presents How to Spend $2.8 Trillion: Cutting Spending in Four Easy Steps

Mr. Edwards noted four large areas of spending.

1. Transfers. Transfers are the largest and fastest growing spending segment.

2. Purchases. Federal procurement has resulted in too much waste and scandal. Contracts often go over budget, inventories are poorly managed, and funds disappear without proper accounting.

3. Aid to the States. About 800 federal programs provide subsidies to state and local governments. These range from the giant Medicaid programs to obscure programs such as boating safety, forestry assistance, and arts in education. Federal aid creates huge bureaucracies at all levels of government and imposes heavy regulation on what should be autonomous local activities. Recent scandals involving homeland security grants are typical of the widespread and deep-seated waste in these programs.

4. Compensation. Federal compensation has risen much faster than private-sector compensation in recent years. In 2005, average wages and benefits for federal civilian workers were $106,579, which was double the average for U.S. private-sector workers of $53,289.

Mr. Edwards is correct that such programs need pruning if not down right elimination. The problem is that the programs are enormously popular and therefore have strong political support. Merely listing the programs and providing logical reasons to eliminate them are not going to achieve the goal of reducing wasteful Federal spending.

Again the way I think it is done involves the creation of bank accounts for all US citizens. The proceeds of government savings, sales of assets and other measures to reduce the budget could go in the accounts. This gives voters and politicians an incentitive to reduce spending.

Take grants to states. Most states do not need the money; their budgets are in balance. If the state needs the money for the intended project let the state raise the taxes. Eliminating the middle man promotes efficiency and effectiveness. Just ask Walmart.

The 800 programs in state aid takes money from your pocket and splits it between Washington and someone else. It is interesting that Democrats rail about the "trickle down" effects of tax cuts but endorse the trickle down effects of spending.

In the first year let's cut out the layers and ship the money that would have gone into the aid programs into your tax free account. In 2006 that would be $427 billion shared among every adult citizen in the US. Assume 200 million eligible citizens that would put $2135 in your tax free account. You might be willing to vote for that, for the politicans who would make that transfer, rather than ones who gave the money to a fish aquarium in Toledo.

This would be a one time good deal. After the first transfer to the account, taxes would be cut the following years.

Why only one year? Because as John Paul Jones might have said if he lived in this era "We have not yet begun to cut spending." There will be more opportunities to stuff the bank accounts.

Why not apply the money to the deficit? If you wish to do so or give it to any other worthy cause please feel free to do so. The deficit will go down as the economy grows particularly with that nice $2,000 kick in every citizen's assets. The deficit will also decline because spending is reduced, less reason to borrow more money.

Day 16

2006-08-18T02:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the St. Louis Post Dispatch printed an editorial concerning an illegal immigrant family. Painting the family in soft tones, the editorial complained how unfair it was to impose the law on such a nice family. Touting false statistics about the economic benefits of illegal immigration, the editors accused the mayor of Valley Park of prejudice. They further recommended a "cease-fire" where enforcement of the law would be held in abeyance until the bright folks of the Federal Government untangle their feet. You know something strange is going on when the left-wing Post-Dispatch wants Bush to lead the way. Below is my letter to the editors.

If illegal immigration is too complicated for Valley Park Board of Aldermen to decide, a proper modesty would say it is far too complicated for journalism majors to legislate. At last reports illegal immigration is, well, illegal. The punishment, under law, is deportation.

The editors obviously have a problem with enforcing the law as passed by elected officials. While some might find an aristocracy of reporters to be the ideal government most Americans prefer the Constitution, balance of power, three branches of government and impediments to rule by a nobility of journalists.

The "law-abiding" family is in violation of at least two Federal statutes. In addition to the illegal crossing of our borders, the Social Security cards they hold were probably illegally obtained. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 made it unlawful for employers to knowingly hire or employ aliens not eligible to work. Employers must check the identity and work eligibility documents of all new employees. Without the phony Social Security cards they could not be employed.

The Post-Dispatch's cease-fire is surrender; its cry of prejudice, based on a slender reed of enforcing a law, is ignorant and bigoted. The editorial staff should apologize to the Valley Park Board of Alderman and the mayor.

Day 15

2006-08-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

One simple reform that the Congress needs to undertake is setting priorities on its spending. If spending involves the health and safety of US citizens that spending should have a priority over monies for items such as growing hydroponic tomatoes in Ohio.

From last year a story on runway overruns, situations where aircraft leave the runway. Runway overruns are dangerous. In June 1999, an American Airlines aircraft skidded off a Little Rock runway. Eleven died; and eighty-six were injured. In other instances guardian angels worked over time. A Southwest Airlines 737 overran a Burbank runway and almost ran into a gas station.

U.S. commercial airports numbering 284 do not have the one thousand foot margin at the end of the runway required by the federal government. Adjacent neighborhoods and terrain problems, such as water or steep terrain limit the ability to keep a thousand foot safety area around the runways.

The FAA came up with a solution. A light, crushable concrete will cause an airplane to decelerate quickly and safely. Planes that overrun a runway sink into the concrete, like a truck sinks into gravel on a runaway truck ramp on highways. The soft concrete bed, called EMAS for Engineered Material Arresting Systems, extends about 600 feet from the runway's end.

EMAS is effective. Three times it has stopped overruns three times at JFK. A recently passed federal law seeks to encourage more airports to build EMAS systems or extend their runway barriers by 2015. In other words some twenty years after it was learned how to avoid fatal overruns this danger will be mitigated. Eleven people have already died. How many more will while the slow paced fixes dawdle into being.

Why aren't the runways upgraded at a more rapid pace? Money is the shortfall; money which is going to fund corporations like Norfolk Southern which really do not need the money.

Lest we think the silliness is confined to the House of Representatives another story from last year points out that the goofiness is not confined to one house of the Congress. The Administration had asked for $30 million for construction work at the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. This would be over and above $240 million unspent monies. When the $30 million bill reached the floor it had ballooned to $224 million. If passed the CDC would have, pass the calculator, $464 billion for construction.

Even given the cost of medical facilities that's a lot of swag. Senator Tom Colburn of Oklahoma asked that $60 million, a little over 12% of the funds, be allocated to ADAP, one of those feel-good programs that Congress under funds. ADCP provides HIV medicines to folks who can not afford it. Senator Colburn asked for a slice of the funds to be spent on saving lives and easing pain.

Of course, the Senators leaped to support the noble idea. Just kidding. They rejected the motion 85-14. The righteous were:

Burr (R-NC)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Dayton (D-MN)
DeWine (R-OH)
Ensign (R-NV)
Feingold (D-WI)
Grassley (R-IA)
Luger (R-IN)
McCain (R-AZ)
Smith (R-OR)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Wyden (D-OR)

If your Senators are not on the list then I must say I don't understand why. (Darn, that Senator McCain. He gives me another reason to vote for him if he decides to run for President.)

Understand that I am the Practical Anarchist. I think Attila the Hun wore a skirt. My heart is flint and my conscience was surgically removed when I was ten. Furthermore I think you should afford unsafe sex practices and stay away from pleasures that involve sticking a needle into your body. I am sure to many I am a knuckle-dragging, hymn-singing, hypocrite of a bigot and possibly they are right.

Still I think that the fourteen were right and the others, jerks. Sixty million dollars to prevent suffering and to help people live longer, enjoying families, friends and, yes, even work is spending my tax dollars well.

Day 14

2006-08-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

J. Peter Pham and Michael I. Krauss at TCS Tech Central Station detail why Nasrallah, the Hezabollah leader can be indicted on war crimes. Their eight counts:

1. Acts of Terrorism, a violation of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions and of Additional Protocol II. Members of Hezbollah, assisted and encouraged by and/or acting under the direction of Nasrallah, committed acts of violence to terrorize the civilian populations of Israel and other states. Hezbollah's campaigns of violence -- which have earned it a place on the terrorism lists of the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Australia as well as Israel -- are a matter of public record. Limiting ourselves to major acts committed since Nasrallah took over Hezbollah leadership in 1992, the "acts of terrorism" imputable to him include the killing of four Kurdish activists in Berlin (1992); the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires (1992) which killed twenty-nine; and the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires (1996), which killed ninety-five.

2. Murder, a crime against humanity as well as a violation of Article 3. Each victim who dies as a result of one of Hezbollah's terrorist attacks constitutes, of course, another count of murder in the bill of indictment against Nasrallah. These murder victims are a diverse group, by the way. Even as it is battling Israeli forces, Hezbollah has not scaled back its program of killing Lebanese civilians whom it perceives insufficiently enthusiastic about its "resistance," including eighteen "spies" executed in Tyre last week according to one press account.

3. Genocide and/or Incitement to Genocide, a crime against humanity. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide makes clear not only that genocide itself ("acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group") is forbidden, but also that conspiracy to commit it and/or direct and public incitement to genocide are criminal. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has interpreted these provisions to extend to broadcast and print media. With its vicious anti-Semitism, Hezbollah's Al-Manar satellite television station is such a grievous offender in this regard that even the normally accommodating French have banned its broadcasts.

4. Deliberate Targeting of Civilians, a war crime. Each one of the nearly two-thousand rockets, missiles, and other projectiles that Hezbollah has launched into Israeli territory -- almost all shot at random rather than aimed at specific military targets -- constitutes a separate count of an indictment.

5. Outrages upon Personal Dignity, a violation of Article 3. Among other incidents, one can mention the grotesque incident in 1997 which involved the literal butchering by Hezbollah activist (now Lebanese cabinet member) Mohammed Fneish and holding hostage of the remains of Israeli commandos killed in action, whose body parts were parceled out for "safekeeping" until Israel to agreed to release a number of imprisoned terrorists.

6. Violence to life, health and physical or mental well-being of persons, a violation of article 3 as well as a crime against humanity. Under this indictment one could include the use of civilians -- especially women and children -- as human shields or, as has been reported by numerous sources, the prevention of their flight for this reason. Even UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Action Jan Egelund complained: "When I was in Lebanon, in the Hezbollah heartland, I said Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children." The Australian Sunday Herald Sun has published exclusive photographs of Shi'a Hezbollah fighters deliberately using densely-populated Christian Wadi Chahrour (east of Beirut) as a launch pad for rockets and artillery.

7. Conscription of minors into armed groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities, a violation of international humanitarian law. Nasrallah himself has declared that there is no specific age when a child becomes an adult. Hezbollah's Al-Mahdi Brigades specifically target the under-15 age group for recruitment. The website of Hezbollah-affiliated Islamic Resistance Support Association profiles several minors who carried out armed attacks.

8. Pillage, a violation of Article 3. Virtually unreported in Western media has been the campaign of systematic violence that Hezbollah has carried out within Lebanon against Christian, Druze, and other non-Shi'a communities. The current fighting has not stopped pillagers from their depredations as the Druze villagers of Mari, just opposite the Israeli frontier town of Kiryat Shmona, found out last Saturday when Hezbollah showed up.

LiberalGoodman in response makes the French defense, to wit, charge Olmert with war crimes because "it wouldn't do to charge one just party." Three problems with the French response. First the Israelis have committed no war crimes. They have the right to self-defense and have tried to avoid killing civilians. Second even if Olmert were guilty of war crimes, letting one criminal go because another got away is absurd. By theat logic we should free the murderers because we can not solve all homicides. Third, it makes Israel and Hezbollah moral equivalents. Only a fool or a bigot would take such a stance.

Charge Nasrallah with war crimes. He could go hide in Iran but Syria or Lebanon would turn him over the legal system. Maybe his replacement would think twice before launching another attack on a UN member.

ABC News reports that Federal investigators were about to indict Raul Castro for aiding drug smuggling in 1993. The Clinton Department of Justice crunched the charges. Why? Because it was too hard to do.

Charge Raul Castro.

Day 13

2006-08-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

Can you find the winning strategy in Hezbollah's actions? They attack Israel, drawing a "disproportionate response". Getting their rear ends crunched, they call on their allies in the media to wage an "information war" against the Israelis. Bloggers led by the invaluable Little Green Footballs have pointed out manipulation of images and context. The major media outlets look like fools.

Frankly when I saw the way Hezabollah lackeys treated the bodies I was sickened.Do you remember the haunting images of Michael Yon where the soldier carried the little Iraqi girl? Do you remember the tenderness of the fire fighter carrying the liitle boy from the Oklahoma City bombings? Even though the children were dead those heroes carried the bodies with respect and compassion.

Look at the pictures from Lebanon. The Hezabollah treat the dead as pieces of meat, holding the heads as if showing off trophies. The dead are props in a propaganda film. Contempt wells within anyone with a shred of humanity looking at those pictures. And, no, it is not a "cultural thing". Islam does not allow such disrespect for the dead.

Liquid explosvies. Strategy Page points out the danger in working with liquid explosives. They go off at the wrong time; if not handled properly they become inert. Large quantities are needed to cause an aircraft to break apart. The major appeal of liquid explosives is the ability to pass them through airport security.

However DefenseTech points out that the Japanese have developed and deployed a liquid explosive detection device. If it pans out this would be a wonderful second line of defense.

First Line of Defense. The first line of defense remains catching terrorists before they can implement their plans. Popular Science has an article called "Connecting the Dots" showing how data mining techniques can be used to map out terrorist organizations.

I remember when Popular Science was regarded as a silly magazine, not worth a hard technology guy's interest. Boy, is that view wrong today.

Wasn't Admiral Poindexter fired for advocating data mining? Isn't it great that other folks continued to push the ball down field regardless of the screams of Luddites?

Dumping Castro. While the demise of Castro is "a consummation devoutly to be wished for" the awful supposition is that the dictatorship might continue beyond his death. Alvaro Vargas Llosa proposes that Guantanamo Bay into a free trade zone. It would serve as an advertisement for freedom and a boon for the US economy.

Oh yuck.From the New Scientist:

"Veterinarians must mention the unmentionable, and confront the issue of people who sexually abuse animals. The call comes from Helen Munro of the Royal School of Veterinary Studies in Edinburgh, UK, in a commentary published in the September issue of The Veterinary Journal (vol 172, p 195)."

"The impression is that many continue to think of bestiality as a farmyard activity involving animals sufficiently large enough not to be injured, and therefore not much to worry about," she writes. "It seems that even in these modern times, the sexual abuse of animals is almost a last taboo, even to the veterinary profession."

“ Munro highlights a case report in the same journal of a man who used a bottle to cause horrendous, and fatal, vaginal and anal injuries to five calves. The perpetrator is undergoing psychiatric and psychological tests to decide whether he is punishable by law, researchers report (p 374)."

"Munro goes further and poses the broader question of whether animals 'trained' to passively accept human sexual contact are still harmed even if they show no signs of physical damage. She also cites evidence that people who abuse animals often also abuse children or elderly people." "

"The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, London, says it urges vets who 'suspect abuse to report it,' even if this may mean breaking client confidentiality".

I am not a vegan. I was raised on a farm. Animals to me serve as sources of milk, eggs, wool, leather and, yes, meat. People who mistreat animals like the slime detailed in that article should be punished to the maximum extent allowed by the law.

Day 12

2006-08-11T09:32:00.000-07:00

I am thankful that British Intelligence was able to stop the horrible attempt to kill innocents. I am thankful for the support that members of the Muslim community gave. I am thankful that the Pakinstani Government helped the US and England prevent the slaughter.

But I am truly thankful that the New York Times didn't find out about the investigation before the arrests could be made.

Why I don't watch 60 Minutes. I used to be a big fan of 60 Minutes. My wife and I would watch it during our Sunday evening meal. Then came more than a few stories that I knew were wrong. Mike Wallace gave his we aren't Americans, we're journalists speech and I felt nothing but disgust for the lot of them.

Sean Hannity is tougher than I am. Last night he interviewed Mr. Wallace with respect and courtesy, more than I could have mustered. In the discussion Mr. Wallace stated that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejead is not anti-semitic. The guy who wants to drop nuclear weapons on Israel which will be tough on the neighborhood such as Jordon, Syria and Lebanon, the guy who supports the murder of Israelis is not, you know, anti-semitic. He is thoughtful and educated and articulate and just has a lot on his mind.

Then Brian Williams, the NBC Nightly News host, on Chris Matthews' show stated that our special operations forces are like the suicide bombers.

Is there an incentitive clause in their contracts for idiotic remarks? Is someone weighing the comments of the major media figures and awarding points for the stupidest?

"None are so blind as they that will not see."

Day 11

2006-08-09T16:10:00.000-07:00

A reminder from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (by Ernie Suggs, Sonji Jacobs ) on why it is so difficult to reform spending.

" Connie Zellers, 55, of Stone Mountain, and her husband, Remus Zellers, are long time Cynthia McKinney supporters. 'She’s brought a lot of resources - money - to the 4th District,' said Connie Zellers, a businesswoman. 'She truly believes in representing the people and not special interests. That’s more important to me than anything else.'”

Cynthia McKinney was one of the more lunatic members ever to grace the halls of Congress and given some of the crazies that have dwelt there that is quite a mouthful. Who says bribing voters doesn't work?

More on earmarks. Congress does not require earmarks to be subjected to open, peer-reviews. In peer reviews, experts in a Federal agency or from outside, judge the merit of the proposal. With earmarks, a Representative or Senator with no scientific training makes the call. Without any basis for an informed decision the politician must use other criteria to make the selection.If it isn't scientific merit, what are the criteria?

$2 billion were earmarked in the 2003 fiscal year. Some examples are:

The University of Missouri at Columbia received $1.7-million for shiitake mushrooms farming research.

The University of Alaska at Fairbanks and the University of Hawaii-Manoa each received $250,000 to catalog historical records in preparation for their states' celebration, in 2009, of the 50th anniversary of statehood.

From the Jersualeum Post website:

"Hizbullah fighters were ... found to be using special thermal suits that retained their body heat and curtailed IDF attempts to discover them at night."

I wonder how that works? Does it impede movement?

Day 10

2006-08-08T15:22:00.000-07:00

Col. David Hunt, formerly US Army, is a passionate man. In his book,They Just Don't Get It: How Washington is still compromising your safety and what you can do about it, Col. Hunt lets you know he is angry about the incompetence in the war against terrorism. He believes that we are,in tennis terms, committing too many unforced errors. The problem he asserts is, well, stupid leadership, our best and brightest, like their Kennedy/Johnson counterparts, are not at the same level as the opposition. Some of Col. Hunt's recommendations and my comments follow in no particular order:

1) Get smarter leaders. This is a particularly difficult problem and not solely for democracies. What I am sure Col. Hunt wants is leaders who effectively and efficiently achieve the desired results. The trouble is you don't know how a leader turns out until you are too far down the road.

At the beginning of the Peloponnesian Wars, Athens was graced with Pericles, possibly one of the brightest individuals ever to lead a nation in time of war. Pericles picked the wrong strategy, the wrong tactics, the wrong allies and the wrong cause. Athens had many chances to win the war after his death but it never could quite recover from his first, false steps.

On the other hand some"leaders" could be easily pruned. Savor his story of the Seals who were to arrest murderers of the most foul sort in Bosnia but were to go unarmed because "somebody might get hurt." I would hope so! What they should do to the jerk that came up with that brainwave - I leave to the gentle reader.

2) Get smarter. Never a bad recommendation but follow-through is difficult. Too many folks fall into the conspiracy loony bin.

3) Get angry. If it works for you, go for it. Unfortunately too many people get angry at the wrong people. Col. Hunt is spot on with his targets. Can we limit our fury to the right people? Can we keep our anger from destroying us?

4) Form a Terrorist Killing Agency. I love it. Rescind Ford's idiotic executive order on assassination. Expect that the New York Times, the entire Democratic Party, except Joe Lieberman and Hollywood to oppose the new Agency. Personally I'd put it in the Department of Agriculture and call it the Branch for Statistical Adjustments.

5) Give the Army two more divisions. Lift the stupid restriction on the number of Marines. Now, you are talkin', Colonel. Of course you'd have to give up the "peace dividend" or take the $30 billion Col. Hunt believes two divisions would cost from the bumbling Department of Homeland Security. The cost might be cut if we halve the 25,000 loitering in the Pentagon and put them in the field. Defense would be improved; efficiency would be attained at lower cost. For those who would object see above.

6) Cut bureaucracy. A subject near and dear to my heart. Why is common sense so hard to implement? As Col. Hunt noted, prior to the attacks in 2001, forty-seven agencies, committees and commissions bickered, dammed up constructive work and issued meaningless reports.After 2001 when the nation saw its danger and leadership was poised to take drastic steps to defend America, there are fifty-seven bickering, damming up constructive work and issuing meaningless reports. Care to guess why?

7) Cut the flow of money to terrorists. Again the good advice but how do we implement? Drug money is an important element. Legalize heroin,cocaine and other substances, remove the profit motive and watch the money dry up. Then you have to find something for those DEA agents to do. Did we mention the new Army divisions?

I disagree with Col. Hunt on the need to destroy banks that engage in money laundering - too many innocent people would be hurt. On the other hand a fine of one year's salary on everyone from CEO and board of directors to the teller who handled the laundered money would dissuade many from engaging in laundering activities.

Cutting down on the "charity money" funding Hamas and Hezbollah would entail providing alternate funds not linked to murder and destruction. The budget for Hamas is between $30 and $90 million and for Hezbollah between $150 million and $200 million. We can assume that large fractions of the money is siphoned off to pay for overhead (bosses have to be paid) and to support the terrorist infrastructure. For chump change we could offer the Palestinians a better life and eliminate one of the terrorists' appeals.

If a Democrat wanted to win a national election he would be well-served by picking up Colonel Hunt's book and figuring out how to make its recommendations law. Of course our mythical Democrat would have to find a way to win a primary with Col. Hunt's common sense.

If a Republican wanted to checkmate the Democrats nothing could be better than getting a few policy-makers together and put the Colonel's recommendations into effect. Mayor Giuliani, are you listening?

From the constructive use of anger to the destructive side, there is a sad story about the irrational anger generated by the Democratic primary for Senator in Connecticut. Lenny Davis has finally become aware of Liberal hatred and its unseemly manifestations. Does anyone besides me think it is funny that Mr. Davis, one of Clinton's "destroy the enemy at all costs" bully boys has decided politics has gotten too hateful. I completely agree but thought the trashing of Monica Lewinsky was way, way over the line - which was eight years or so ago. How about the union attacks on elderly Republican volunteers? Still we must welcome conversions, no matter how late.His story is linked below.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008763

Day 9

2006-08-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

The more years that pass the more puzzled I become. Much has been made and rightly so of Mel Gibson's odious comments. As much as I've enjoyed his work as actor and director I am not likely to watch anything more that he contributes to. It is a sad day when you find that someone has such a terrible, evil flaw.

Then I learned of a remark that Senator John Dingell made. He says, "I don't take sides for or against Hezabollah." His revolting comment draws no comments. Apparently we expect the Senator to make an ass of himself.

Hezabollah has killed Americans and Israelis. It is an equal opportunity murderer, killing unarmed civilians, women and children, which perhaps commends it to the Senator. Its political arm is dedicated to the dissolution of Israel, a member of the UN. Hezabollah ignored UN resolution 1559 to disarm, a resolution that Israel complied with.

No one apparently asked the Senator what actions of Hezabollah commends it to his neutrality. I would be interested in what drives this moral equivalency between an organization dedicated to blood, terror and destruction, and a country that prefers its neighbors leave it alone.

Mr. Gibson's anti-Semitic remarks were the ravings of a drunk with no political power and were instantly regretted if we believe his apologies. The Senator's anti-Semitic comments were made in the full light of day while he was in full possession of his wits. Which was worse?

Day 8

2006-08-05T07:03:00.000-07:00

I become more and more confused the more I look into the opposition to Rep. Flake's amendments to eliminate a few puny earmarks. Four hundred thousand dollars is earmarked for the National Grape and Wine Initiative, an organization with the goal of tripling the $150 billion annual business in grapes and wine. A noble and worthwhile goal to be sure but one that you would think the grape industry could fund without Federal monies. If it were truly worthwhile that is.

Another is the Mystic Aquarium in New Haven, Connecticut which is to receive $1,000,000. The famed explorer Robert Ballard, discoverer of theTitanic and Bismarck remains, is associated with the institution so it must be a world-class operation. I am interested that its fee schedule includes a line telling the prospective donor how much he will be able to write off his taxes. But it seems that that largesse is too little for the aquarium.

As I am a devotee of the Four Reforms by William Buckley I looked at theUS per capita tables for 2005. Connecticut was number 1 with a per capita of $47,819. Missouri had a per capita of $31,899. Why are Missouri tax dollars sent to a state that can fund its own boondoggles?

Three answers leap to mind. The first came when I saw the District of Columbia per capita is $54,985, almost 20% higher than Connecticut's. If money does not flow to the Federal government to be benevolently distributed then there would not be a rake-off for the lords and ladies of the bureaucracies. A dollar that does not voyage to Washington does not become the $0.80 (or whatever the appropriate number is) that returns to the provinces.

The second is illustrated by Randy Cunningham, former US representative and current felon. Cunningham was an American hero; his fight against a Mig over North Vietnam is a story of bravery, innovation and stamina.Unfortunately Cunningham will not be remembered for his wonderful piloting - that will be buried with his bones. What will be remembered are the bribes he took. The sums involved in Rep. Flake's amendments are so small in comparison to the Federal budget or even the projects involved one wonders who is truly benefiting from these earmarks.

The third is one often ignored by the media and political scientists forreasons again I don't understand. Power is the aphrodisiac that permeates politics but like nuns in a whorehouse many avert their eyes. All politicians will tell you that they are motivated by a love for the populace and in many, many cases that is true. But even in those who love us,or at least the taxes we provide, the seductions of power, the aides darting madly to do your beckoning, the reporters looking for a story, the sycophants looking for a favor, can swell the head of the most modest boy.When the congress denizen is finally shoved out of his seat and has to get by on a million dollar salary and a few thousand dollar speaking engagements, he will find his days duller, less exciting when the scepter passes to other hands.

Politicians and media are correct that money corrupts politics. Of course they focus on the wrong target, money spent in the exercise offree speech, money that dares to criticize their actions. The money that pollutes our political speech is not the money spent on political campaigns rather it is the rivers of tax dollars flowing to the governments, local, state and Federal. Unaccounted monies, legislated without scrutiny, gifted to friends and family, spent without oversight,it is those monies corrupting our government. It is past time the corruption stopped.

Day 7

2006-08-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

I truly enjoy Stephanie vL Henkel's work (Today at Sensors). Her editorials are spot on. She understands that technology cannot solve all problems but can help with some. Why we don't it where necessary is a testament to human stupidity.

Take a look at this:"A program was set up in Bosnia by European administrators to collect and destroy firearms left floating around after the 1990s conflicts. Somehow, U.S., Swiss, and UK companies, including arms brokers and freight firms, got involved via the military attaché offices and offered to buy the weapons that were to be surrendered."

"The Pentagon's role in this mess consisted of plans to ship the U.S. share to Iraq as arms for the command force training the security forces there. The numbers are eyebrow-lifters: At least 200,000 Kalashnikov machine guns and tens of thousands of small arms. They never arrived. Lost in transit? More likely assigned other destinations by the intricate web of players. According to the Guardian story, "Arms traffickers are prime beneficiaries of government-to-government business as military industries are increasingly 'outsourced.'"

As Ms. Henkel observed: "Wal-Mart can keep track of every razor blade and teddy bear <http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=314056> it buys-and sells-I was pretty surprised to learn that the Pentagon can't trace thousands of weapons and other items. Looks like RFID chips are more likely to wind up in my driver's license <http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=323796> and my clothes <http://www.sensorsmag.com/sensors/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=324179> than monitoring shipments of Kalashnikovs."

How many of those weapons wound up in the hands of Hamas, al Qaeda or Hezbollah? How many of those weapons are killing Israeli or US soldiers? (my comment, PA)

In the cleverly titled The Stockroom Syndrome Ms. Henkel continues:"Sooner or later everyone buys a jar of mustard and then finds another already in the pantry. Unless you've spent your last couple of dollars on the duplication, no big deal. It gets a lot bigger, though, when you're talking about military equipment <http://www.sensiblepriorities.org> . How much bigger? Try $1.2 billion in Army supplies shipped to Iraq, 'tires, tank tracks, helicopter spare parts, radio batteries, and other basic items' and no way to follow their movement. Did all of it get there? Who knows? Moreover, there's some '$35 billion worth of excess supplies and equipment' that no one can seem to locate." " Wouldn't it make sense to RFID tag all this gear as it's being prepared for shipment? Our armed forces serving in Iraq (and elsewhere) shouldn't have to see a No Tires Today sign outside the supply depot. Wouldn't it also make sense to know what you have so you won't keep buying duplicates that could very well become outdated before you get around to using them? Maybe Wal-Mart should be running the Pentagon's inventory management program, such as it is."

Once upon a time I was in the US Army. I wasn't very good at it but I retain a love for the Army and an unbounded admiration for those who serve. This gross mismanagement only hurts both. (my comment, PA).

Day 6

2006-08-01T16:12:00.000-07:00

Another of the multitude of reasons we shouldn't give money to politicans. I did a little snooping on the web.Techutopia put a copy of the exchange between Rep Flake and Rep.Shuster. The latter is the sponsor of an earmark that would give$1,000,000 to the Juanitia Locomotive Demonstration.

Mr. FLAKE: Mr. Chairman, this is $1 million for the Juniata locomotive shop...it goes to a locomotive shop owned by Norfolk Southern. I can't know for sure, because there is no description of the earmark anywhere in the bill. ...Again, here is a situation where we know so little about this earmark, and this seems to be the only forum where we can find out about it ... Has this been authorized? What is the process of oversight? That is what we are here for.

Mr. HOBSON: Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. HOBSON: Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman fromPennsylvania (Mr. Shuster).

Mr. SHUSTER: Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to my colleague's amendment, which seeks to eliminate an important research and development program that would take place in the Juniata locomotive shop, which is in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Yes, that is my district. I am proud to stand up and take claim for this earmark. ...This new hybrid locomotive will reduce harmful emissions, increase fuel efficiency and take locomotive research and development in a new direction.

The freight rail industry consumed over 4 billion gallons of diesel fuel in 2005 and freight rail traffic has grown at unprecedented levels in the past 3 years. Finding new technologies to save fuel in the movement of freight will benefit everybody. Additionally, it is important to note that any technology gains fromt his project and research development will be open to the public. So this a 10 percent investment by the public, and everybody will benefit.General Electric will benefit. The other rail companies will benefit by this research and development.

Further, Mr. Chairman, this is about more than just reducing energy use.It is about improving our environment. I prefer working cooperatively with the private sector to reduce harmful emissions of nitrous oxide, hydrocarbons, and particulate matter. This program seeks to accomplish this as well. ...

Mr. Chairman, I would encourage my colleague from Arizona to withdraw the amendment, but, if not, I hope my colleagues will support me and vote down this amendment. This initiative, if enacted, it will, by 2008,will have hybrid locomotives as well as hybrid cars moving us into thef uture.

Mr. FLAKE:Mr. Chairman, let me just make the point that why would we assist only the locomotive sector? What about construction vehicles, highway vehicles? Again, we are picking and choosing, just based on our decisions. We are not the font of all knowledge. And if we decide that we are just going to direct every bit of spending and that we are not going to have oversight because we have directed it and therefore we need no oversight, and all we have in terms of oversight is this 5 minutes that we have really never exercised before to question an earmark when it comes to the House floor, Mr. Chairman, I would submit that we have a broken process here. It is simply wrong. We cannot be doing this.

A few points about Norfolk Southern

1. From a PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- With a nod to its 175- year history,Norfolk Southern Corporation (NYSE: NSC) salutes its most successfulyear ever in its 2005 Annual Report.

2. Norfolk Southern Corporation announced an increase in the quarterly dividend to 18 cents per share on its common stock, payable on Sept. 11t o stockholders of record on Aug. 4

3. For second quarter 2006 vs. second quarter 2005:
* Railway operating revenues increased 11 percent to a record $2.39 billion.
* Income from railway operations rose 14 percent to a record $677 million.
* Net income was $375 million, or $0.89 per diluted share.
* The railroad operating ratio improved to 71.7 percent.
* Carload shipments increased 4 percent to a record 2 million units

So why is the Federal government giving a million dollars to a company that doesn't need it? Even if Rep. Shuster's overblown rhetoric is true why wouldn't Norfolk Southern fund the research out of its own pocket?

Day 5

2006-07-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Once we have our passports, bank accounts, the next step should be to fill them. Two sources, the ever-valuable Cato Institute and Charles Murray, offer excellent strategies.Cato Institute, http://www.cato.org, has in its files a number of recommendations for "privatization", an ugly word for the removal to private industry those government functions which ought not to be in the public sector.

I like the term "recycling". It is such a fluffy term and everybody is for it, except a few old fuddies capable of higher mathematics such as long division. As an admirer of George Orwell I like the idea of stretching words to cover other meanings: hate is love, peace is war, recycling is privatization.

So let us rip out the dead wood of government bureaucracies and recycle the debris into the fresh scented loam of private enterprise's bountiful fields. If we assume three hundred million Americans and we eliminate 600 billion dollars of inventory from the Federal grasp we could drop into each account $2,000.

Some would say we should throw the money against the Federal deficit. Nonsense. Americans give to the Federal government 25% of their incomes. The Federal government has ample funds to reduce the deficit if that was a priority.

State governments should not be immune from the benefits of a reduced fat diet. Let us open the bank accounts to re-cycling. Any state funds returned to a US citizen of that state can be added to the account with the same tax-free benefits. I do not have an estimate of the amounts that could be added to the accounts but I assume that it would be substantial.

The nice feature of this exercise is we have not yet begun to cut into the government's hide. Our recycling project has more waste to process.

Topic change. From there is a God and He has a sense of humor file.http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=7206

Researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science announced they have transformed adult stem cells taken from human adipose-or fat-tissue into smooth muscle cells, which help the normal function of a multitude of organs, including the intestine, bladder and arteries. The study may help lead to the use of fat stem cells for smooth muscle tissue engineering and repair.

Smooth muscle cells are found within the human body in the walls of hollow organs like blood vessels, the bladder and the intestines; they contract and expand to help transport blood, urine and waste through the body's systems.

"Fat tissue may prove a reliable source of smooth muscle cells that we can use to regenerate and repair damaged organs," said Dr. Larissa V. Rodriguez, principal investigator and assistant professor in the department of urology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.Smooth muscle cells have also been produced from stem cells found in the brain and bone marrow, but acquiring stem cells from adipose tissue is much easier, and most patients have adipose tissue readily available, according to Rodriguez.

I will leave it to the enlightened reader to come up with a suitable remark.

Topic Change. A sweet answer to wounds.

"A household remedy millennia old is being reinstated: honey helps the treatment of some wounds better than the most modern antibiotics. For several years now medical experts from the University of Bonn have been clocking up largely positive experience with what is known as medihoney. Even chronic wounds infected with multi-resistant bacteria often healed within a few weeks."

"In conjunction with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Homburg and Berlin they now want to test the experience gained in a large-scale study, as objective data on the curative properties of honey are thin on the ground. The fact that honey can help wounds to heal is something that was known to the Ancient Egyptians several thousand years ago. And in the last two world wars poultices with honey were used to assist the healing process in soldiers' wounds. However, the rise of the new antibiotics replaced this household remedy."

" 'In hospitals today we are faced with germs which are resistant to almost all the current antibiotics,' Dr. Arne Simon explains. 'As a result, the medical use of honey is becoming attractive again for the treatment of wounds.'Dr. Simon works on the cancer ward of the Bonn University Children's Clinic. As far as the treatment of wounds is concerned, his young patients form part of a high-risk group: the medication used to treat cancer known as cytostatics not only slows down the reproduction of malignant cells, but also impairs the healing process of wounds."

" 'Normally a skin injury heals in a week, with our children it often takes a month or more,' he says. Moreover, children with leukaemia have a weakened immune system. If a germ enters their bloodstream via a wound, the result may be a fatal case of blood poisoning."

"For several years now Bonn paediatricians have been pioneering the use in Germany of medihoney in treating wounds. Medihoney bears the CE seal for medical products; its quality is regularly tested. The success is astonishing: 'Dead tissue is rejected faster, and the wounds heal more rapidly,' Kai Sofka, wound specialist at the University Children's Clinic, emphasizes. 'What is more, changing dressings is less painful, since the poultices are easier to remove without damaging the newly formed layers of skin.'"

" Some wounds often smell unpleasant - an enormous strain on the patient. Yet honey helps here too by reducing the smell. 'Even wounds which consistently refused to heal for years can, in our experience, be brought under control with medihoney - and this frequently happens within a few weeks,' Kai Sofka says."

"In the meantime two dozen hospitals in Germany are using honey in their treatment of wounds. Despite all the success there have hitherto been very few reliable clinical studies of its effectiveness. In conjunction with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Homburg and Berlin, the Bonn medical staff now want to remedy this. With the Woundpecker Data Bank, which they have developed themselves, they will be recording and evaluating over 100 courses of disease over the next few months. The next step planned is comparative studies with other therapeutic methods such as the very expensive cationic silver dressings. 'These too are an effective anti-bacterial method,' says Dr. Arne Simon. 'However, it is not yet clear whether the silver released from some dressings may lead to side-effects among children.'"

"It has already been proved that medihoney even puts paid to multi-resistant germs such as MRSA. In this respect medihoney is neck and neck in the race to beat the antibiotic mupirocin, currently the local MRSA antibiotic of choice. This is shown by a study recently published by researchers in Australia. In one point medihoney was even superior to its rival: the bacteria did not develop any resistance to the natural product during the course of treatment.It is also known today why honey has an antiseptic effect: when producing honey, bees add an enzyme called glucose-oxidase. This enzyme ensures that small amounts of hydrogen peroxide, an effective antiseptic, are constantly being formed from the sugar in the honey. The advantage over the hydrogen peroxide from the chemist's is that small concentrations are sufficient to kill the germs, as it is constantly being produced. As a rule much larger quantities of hydrogen peroxide would have to be used, as hydrogen peroxide loses its potency over time. However, in large concentrations it not only damages the bacteria, but also the skin cells."

"Furthermore, medihoney consists of two different types of honey: one which forms a comparatively large amount of hydrogen peroxide, and another known as 'lepto-spermum honey'. Leptospermum is a species of tree which occurs in New Zealand and Australia. Honey from these trees has a particularly strong anti-bacterial effect, even in a 10% dilution. 'It is not yet known exactly why this is,' Dr. Arne Simon says. 'Probably it is a mix of phenol-type substances which come from the plant and make life particularly difficult for the bacteria in the wound.'"

Day 4

2006-07-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

I visited the Club for Growth website. They have posted the voting results on Rep. Flake's nineteen bills to cut earmarks, an insidious form of pork where spending authorizations are entered into the budget usually without anyone knowing they were entered except the lawmaker who inserted the pork. I am not surprised that none of the cuts passed; I am horrified to see that all of the proposals gathered less than a hundred votes. Where are those cost-cutting Republicans? Apparently grazing with the unicorns and swimming with the mermaids. They certainly aren't in Congress.

The Missouri delegation didn't cover itself in glory. Only Rep. Akin voted for any of the proposals and he only voted for eleven of the nineteen. The other eight: Clay, Carahan, Skelton, Cleaver, Graves, Blunt, Emerson and Hulshof voted for NONE of the cuts. I plan to write an e-mail to each of the representatives to understand why the folks of Missouri should pay for an aquarium in Connecticut or science museum in Virginia.

I'll post responses if I get any.

The debacle stirred ancient memories. I am reminded of a proposal that William Buckley made in a great little book Four Reforms. I am operating from memory but as I recall Mr. Buckley recommended that states with per capita incomes above the national average could not receive federal funds while those below could. This was a corrective for Mississippi acting as a net transferor of funds to New York, a distribution that is retrograde as well as illogical and inefficient.

I am going to hunt down a copy of that book; I lost my copy over the past eons and moves from here to there. Mr. Buckley's call for reform is I believe even more necessary today than when he issued it.

Back to original topic. I am reading a book Pulse by Robert Frenay. It is a fascinating mix of wonderful ideas and inane comments. I will have to reread the book to figure out which is which.(Also the lack of links to the notes in back is puzzling. I saw one place where it looked like someone started to erase a cross reference - a peculiarity of a peculiar book.)

Mr. Frenay reminds us that Alaska used a passport similiar to the type proposed for reducing federal spending to distribute its oil revenues to its citizens. The system appeared to work quite well with Alaskans receiving about $2,000 per year at the height of the system.

Day 3

2006-07-28T15:42:00.000-07:00

The July 13 issue of Sensors Daily is a good one for making a citizen's blood boil. According to the Federal Highway Administration more than half of our nation's steel bridges are "functionally obsolete or structurally deficient." Yet our politicians have the gall to set aside a quarter of a billion dollars to fund a "bridge to nowhere". We give the money and instead of putting it where it is needed they've got to put it into pork.

Even when the politicians are given the money they screw things up like the Big Dig in Boston and the poorly built levee wall in New Orleans. Giving politicians money is rarely useful and often detrimental to the tax payer's health.

I don't know how to do it but the politicians must be restrained from their inept micro-managing. A lawyer or a campaign adviser feels qualified to make technical decisions simply because he got a majority of the votes (which is often a decided minority of the voters). He has the power and he must wield it or lose it.

There is more than enough money to fix the faulty bridges in a trillion dollar budget. The best solution I can come up with is a board of civil engineers, with no financial interests in any projects, recommending which construction works should be funded and selecting the firms to do the work. All meetings and minutes would be open to the public. The politicians write the check but otherwise keep their hands in their own pockets.

Topic Change. I am very grateful that futurepundit took the time to respond to a question I asked. My question was:

"I have noticed a new X-Foundation contest on automobiles. Do you think it is time for a contest on growing human organs? I see researchers making progress but it seems that nobody is putting it together to make an organ. I thought the liver might be a good starting place, not as complicated as heart. Many, many people suffer from liver diseases and I understand if you get liver cancer it is time to prepare your obit. It seems like a good place to start."

Futurepundit responded:

"Prizes and biomedical advances: One hard part about contests to making up the rules. You have to figure out what to reward in a way that accelerates advances. If you offer a reward that is for some problem that requires many other problems to first be solved then the people who build the road to that final step may not get rewarded while the group that takes the final step does get rewarded. Doesn't help get us through those intermediate steps.

To translate that into something useful for organ growth: Do we want to give a prize for growing a replacement human organ? Or first to a prize for growing animal organs? Also, it might be easier to grow organs in inbred mice strains since transplants pose less of an auto-immune problem. But rewarding that step might not contribute much toward the eventual growth of replacement organs for people. Then again, maybe it would help.

I agree that the liver is probably a better place to start than hearts because the 3-D structure of the heart is a tricky thing to reproduce. Also, yes, if you could replace a person's liver as soon as they got a diagnosis of liver cancer then that would save some lives from cancer since metastasis won't have occurred yet for many people at the time of initial diagnosis. In fact, I've argued that point in at least one post.Also, there are tissue engineering issues that are separate from the stem cell differentiation issues. Do we want awards for developing ways to grow cells and layer cells in 3-D in labs? Those are more tissue engineering advances. But we also need to learn better how to order stem cells to change cell types. There's some tissue engineering involved in that such as how to feed in chemicals and hormones and create a chemical environment that causes the cells to become more specialized. But there are also advances in how cell signalling and differentiation work.

I'm not sure how to structure a rewards program for growing organs. Another possibility: Do not reward for growing a particular organ. Reward for growing any of a list of organs. Then the scientists will go after whatever looks easiest to do first and we might get something useful sooner."

2006-07-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

The astute reader will observe that the ideas in this blog are largely the work of other folks. I apologize in advance if I miss giving appropriate acknowledgement for someone's work. Please let me know where I have erred so corrections can be made.

Several observers of the American political scene have noted that a majority of voters support reducing the size of government, preferably by eliminating "waste". While politicians kowtow to the idea they know that 1) they are elected by how much swag they bring home, and 2) they feel good because they are doing "good". Another sad observation:reducing government spending is often illusionary. Politicians trumpet how they save taxpayer money but the budgets bloat like a dead armadillo in the Texas summer. Snap the connection between votes and more spending and we could get somewhere.

The first borrowed idea comes from the Czechs and Charles Murray. Each American citizen will receive a passport - essentially a bank account.The bank account is opened is born in a Federal insured financial institution when a citizen is born. Only American citizens can own the account -foreigners, including illegal entrants into the country are not eligible for an account. The proceeds from any reduction in government spending, and only funds from that source, would be deposited into those accounts. Any funds put into the account or drawn from the account are tax free.The passport breaks the iron chain between the politician and unbridled spending. All citizens, whether tax-payer or not, will have a vested interest in reducing government spending.

Politicians can compete on how much money they stuff into the passports, rather than the amount of pork they bring home. Pork will be disadvantaged when compared to the benefits of reduced spending. The passports put money into everyone's pockets. Pork benefits the few who have some pull with politicians.

Passports should be a hit with the clean government wonks. Reduced spending will reduce the opportunities, and profit, in bribing officials.Reductions that go into the passports will be immune to the current accounting slight-of-hand. Rather than vanishing into another account hidden with the immense budgets, the savings are divided among the citizens.

The first step is authorizing the accounts, simply creating the accounts. There should be no funds initially be assigned to theaccounts. That should be the subject of latter legislation. Now let our representatives vote on setting up the mechanisms to reduce the size of the budget.

Change in topic. I saw Serenity again last night. I am perfectly willingto reinstate the military draft laws so Josh Weldon can be focused oncontinuing the Firefly series. As you can see I am capable ofcompromising my principles so long as I get what I want.

Change in topic. The article in the link below describes using information from outside a crisis area to improve the quality of responses to the disaster. Someone, I apologize but I forget who, oncepointed out 90% of the knowledge needed to solve a problem resides outside of the organization trying to solve the problem. In some groups I've seen the number should be 100%. Wouldn't it be great if during the next crisis smart folks came up with ways to tap outside databases and experts?http://istresults.cordis.europa.eu/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/82850

Change in topic. Cool suggestion for the day. Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego suggests injecting sulfur in the atmosphere to counter global warming. I know some folks in California and the Midwest who would vote for that right now.

http://www.springer-sbm.com/index.php?id=291&backPID=132&L=0&tx_tnc_news=2646

Getting Started

2006-07-25T14:58:00.000-07:00

I am starting this blog because of a comment made by Professor Glenn Reynolds; a comment he probably doesn't even remember it. As my failing memory recalls Professor Reynolds stated that he could detect little appetite for smaller government.

I cannot say why his comment stuck with me. Certainly others have made similar observations. Politicians make their livings following the dictum - preach small government, buy large. Every budget, state and federal, is larger than the pervious. Many have adopted the meteorlogical view of government spending. They'll talk about it but nothing can really be done to correct the situation.

I think something can. Increased spending is not a law of nature. Change the incentives and behavior will change, except for the most fanatical of fanatics. In subsequent posts I hope to talk about some steps that would alter the rewards for spending and, perhaps, change them so that an appetite for smaller government is generated.