Category: Blogging

Nuclear power in layman’s terms

There’s a great article on energy, energy sources, and why we should build more nuclear energy plants in the US over at Kuro5hin, check it out.

You’ll also hear people moan about a fuel shortage with nuclear: except that there is none. The Indians use thorium successfully in their nuclear design, and there is a lot of that around. Additionally, all of the uranium stores are not sitting in countries where you would fund Wahhabi Islam by mining it. The U.S.A., for one, could become largely self-sufficient energy wise. Now how’s that for an energy national security policy?

At the end it wraps up by repeating the theme you can find here in Energy Part III, originally published at American Thinker.

Truth, Lies, and WMD

If you are from the left and think these weapons are degraded and not dangerous, then answer this question honestly: Can we lock you and your family in a room with one and open it up? (5K Iraqi’s died to just three of these shells.)

Let’s take the politics and the passion out of the debate for a short moment. WMD have undeniably been found. Whether these are “the weapons of mass destruction we went to war for” or not doesn’t matter. The politics don’t matter, what matters is that 500 highly dangerous weapons have been taken out of the hands of lunatics.

Continue reading “Truth, Lies, and WMD”

Plutos moons — Nyx Nixxed

Pluto’s recently discovered moons have been named. The orginal intent was to name them Nyx and Hydra, befitting for Pluto, and matching the pantheon that includes the first moon, Charon. However a near-earth object is named Nyx already…

nix and hydra.jpg Pluto’s recently discovered moons have been named. The orginal intent was to name them Nyx and Hydra, befitting for Pluto, and matching the pantheon that includes the first moon, Charon. However a near-earth object is named Nyx already…

The moons can be seen faintly to the right as small dots, with Pluto the predominant feature from the Hubble Space Telescope photo.

Continue reading “Plutos moons — Nyx Nixxed”

Democratic Strategy Underwhelmingly Embarrassing

So it’s quite telling that the Democratic Leadership dropped their election strategy for ’06 late on a Friday afternoon at the beginning of silly season.

We are about to start into silly season — in traditional news days, this was the season when there wasn’t much going on. This is because across America folks are out of school, on vacation, bar-b-queing, and planning weddings. Americans aren’t paying much attention to the news, and shortly there isn’t going to be a lot of news to report – Congress will be out of session, and politicos will be on vacation as well. 

 In times now gone forever, the hot, lazy days of summer were for stories on UFO investigations, top reporters interviewing psychics, and the yellow press resorting to headlines like this:

“Boy Trapped in Freezer Eats Own Foot to Survive!”

 Another news tradition of the beltway crowd is to dump bad or embarrassing news late on a Friday afternoon, in the hopes that something will overwhelm it before Monday. Besides that, American’s don’t much watch the news on weekends – it’s a way of downplaying bad things.

Continue reading “Democratic Strategy Underwhelmingly Embarrassing”

Newt takes on Greenpeace and Global Warming

Newt Gingrich exposes Greenpeace anti-nuclear energy demagogery in this soundbite. Next he takes on global warming here.

winning the future.jpgNewt Gingrich exposes Greenpeace anti-nuclear energy demagogery in this soundbite. In the sidebar at Newt’s site are more audio commentaries, try the one on global warming as well. From the Greenpeace memo:

 “Fill in alarmist and armageddonist factoid here”

Pirate Face

Reminder: when someone’s taking your picture, every third shot is an opportunity for your PIRATE FACE….as my brother demonstrates to the left.

pirateface.gifReminder: when someone’s taking your picture, every third shot is an opportunity for your PIRATE FACE….as my brother demonstrates to the left.

Tips for Pirate Face newbies:

  • It’s not a pirate face if you aren’t growling “ARRRRRRRRGHH!”
  • You don’t need a patch, peg leg, or hook
  • One eye squinched closed, the other wide open
  • Practice your sneer in the mirror until you perfect it
  • When taking group pirate face photos, the photographer should yell “PIRATE FACE!” two seconds before the shot.
  • if it doesn’t scare small children, it’s not a pirate face

EU in shambles

Meanwhile, one fifth of the poultry in the EU is determined to have salmonella, and the against this backdrop Europeans are flocking (pun intended) to organic food. Please, if salmonella and bird flu are rampant, give me the chicken that has the anti-biotic upbringing and preservatives added.

News from the EU summit paints a picture of dissolution and strife. They now have an action plan to revisit the constitution that failed to pass in two years, perhaps hoping for a better reception with voters at that point. Meanwhile they are beset with voter dissatisfaction over corruption at Airbus, and meet with silence the voters concern with the second home for the EU at Strasborg.

Continue reading “EU in shambles”

US Led Mountain Thrust continues to roll up Taliban

Continuing their offensive operations in the South East of Afghanistan, Operation Moutain Thrust continues to crush the Taliban

afghanistan_mountain_thrust.jpgContinuing their offensive operations in the South East of Afghanistan, Operation Moutain Thrust continues to crush the Taliban as forty five more terrorists allied with al-qaida were killed. Details at Yahoo news. As an update to an earlier post please note that VOA had an article up regarding the capture of a high profile Al-Quaida operative active in the shia south. The VOA article appears to have now dropped reference to this incident, and a search on “sheik akeel” turns up some interesting links. I did find the original text of the article here.

To the south, in Karbala, local officials say U.S. troops have arrested the sheikh Akeel al-Zubaidi who heads Karbala’s provincial council, a mainly Shi’ite group. There has been no report on the incident by U.S. military officials.

In a further update to a previous post where I speculated on use of Alexander the Great’s strategy for Afghanistan, Bill Roggio reports of a major Taliban defection, it appears that things are moving in a very positive direction in the Southeast of Afghanistan.

Continue reading “US Led Mountain Thrust continues to roll up Taliban”

Nepal Update — Promising news

In a development bright with promise the CPN/Maoists and Seven Party Alliance in Nepal have reached historic agreement. The outcome is the 8 point agreement, under which the two old governments will be dissolved and a new democratic government formed.

In a development bright with promise the CPN/Maoists and Seven Party Alliance in Nepal have reached historic agreement. The outcome is the 8 point agreement, under which the two old governments will be dissolved and a new democratic government formed. Prachandra appears to be cooperating and sincerely seeking peace and prosperity for the country.

Continue reading “Nepal Update — Promising news”

Today’s Quotes

“The principle feature of contemporary American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things — War and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things.

“The methods of the liberals were aptly and graphically hit off by the Trudikov Sedelnikov at a meeting on May 9th in the Pannina Palace. When a liberal is abused, he says “Thank God they didn’t beat me.” When he is beaten, he thanks God they didn’t kill him. When he is killed he will thank God that his immortal soul has been delivered from it’s mortal clay.”

— Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov

 

 Before Ann Coulter there was PJ O’Rourke:

“The principle feature of contemporary American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad things – War and hunger and date rape — liberals testify to their own terrific goodness. More important, they promote themselves to membership in a self-selecting elite of those who care deeply about such things. People who care a lot are naturally superior to we who don’t care any more than we have to. By virtue of this superiority the caring have a moral right to lead the nation. It’s kind of a natural aristocracy, and the wonderful thing about this aristocracy is that you don’t have to be brave, smart, strong, or even lucky to join it, you just have to be liberal. Kidnapping the moral high ground also serves to inflate liberal ranks. People who are, in fact, just kindhearted are told that because they care, they must be liberals too.”  

— PJ O’Rourke, from the introduction of “Give War a Chance.” 

Â