Month: April 2009

Fusion Hope, or Fusion Hype?

I’ve seen this cycle in the past – new breakthroughs ballyhooed, lots of articles, and then… nothing. It always occurs when it looks likely that someone actually might start building a new nuclear fission energy plant

Fusion Hope or Fusion Hype?

Glen Reynolds has covered a couple of new fusion developments at Instapundit, and they are definitely interesting, but those hoping for fusion sometime soon might be disillusioned.

I’ve seen this cycle in the past – new breakthroughs ballyhooed, lots of articles, and then… nothing. It always occurs when it looks likely that someone actually might start building a new nuclear fission energy plant, and several of these are on the skids for consideration now. So while I’m hoping for a game changing breakthrough, I’m not counting on one.

Rod Adams, who like I has a bias for off-the-shelf Fission, covers this from a different angle.

If you are hoping for fusion sometime this decade or next, you shouldn’t start holding your breath yet. We do need to keep researching Fusion for energy needs of the latter half of this century, we need to up our Kardashev rating quickly to cope with the coming 9 billion human souls and their needs.

Sherriff Joe on PBS

This is egregiously wrong, since I can’t recall any illegal immigrants burnt in ovens. Bottom line: if you have to dig out Hitler and make comparisons in a discussion you are definitely on the weaker end of it, and you should always be called on it because it really diminishes the true horror of the Holocaust through trivialization.

Sherriff Joe on PBS

In this segment from a PBS documentary Maria Hinojosa tries to pin Sherriff Joe Arpaio’s ears back on local immigration law enforcement. They have a couple papers in Joe’s area that are gunning for him because he does work with ICE on local immigration reinforcement. The reporter in this segment flounders a bit, and ends up by going “Godwinian”, comparing what Sherriff Joe is doing to what Nazi Germany did.

This is egregiously wrong especially since I can’t recall any illegal immigrants burnt in ovens. Bottom line: if you have to dig out Hitler and make comparisons in a discussion you are definitely on the weaker end of it, and you should always be called on it because it really diminishes the true horror of the Holocaust through trivialization.

You can see the rest of the documentary here, where they actually bring up valid points about the Sherriff’s propensity for populist grandstanding at election times, and the possible effects on response times.

It’s a thorny issue for both sides and the extremes of both parties tend to go overboard on immigration issues – with Janet Napolitano in charge, look for a different approach to the problem. It will be interesting to see in these economic times whether the Democrats downplay the problem or grandstand upon it to distract Republicans from efforts on the economy.

To me it’s wisest at this point for both parties to put this issue aside for now- on the Dem side of the debate the face of the issue has become surly La Raza Reconquistas carrying Mexican flags and wearing Che shirts, on the Republican extreme end the face has become equally surly militia members with ties to the Neo-Confederacy, and never the twain shall meet. This issue harms both parties at this point when it becomes nationalized.