Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Nuclear Proliferation

The US never had a monopoly on the knowledge of how to make nuclear bombs. At least two of the people who worked on the Manhattan project thought that it was too important for not only one nation to have this knowledge. They found ways to communicate it to Russia, which was an ally at the time. When FDR told Stalin that we had nuclear bombs Stalin did not ask any questions. I think that was because he was afraid he reveal that he already knew as much as FDR. Non-proliferation efforts were doomed even before the first test. Then with Ike's"Atoms for Peace" program and France's entry into the nuclear "club" the race was on. FDR's decision to not share the results from the Manhattan project with Russia or even England was a mistake that undermined the trust we could have had internationally. I agree that nuclear weapons, themselves, are not the problem. The attitudes of regimes are the problem. We need to face the fact that we are part of the problem. Now, how to fix this?
Richard Feynman on the 2-slit experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJfjRoxCbk

Monday, December 2, 2013

Monday, August 19, 2013

Freedom and Responsibilty

Photo: The Libertarian Party supports freedom. To learn more, visit www.facebook.com/libertarians/info

Helium shortages

As with any natural resource, as the difficulty of extracting it goes up, so does the price. The market is far from perfect, of course, but it is the best way to apportion scarce resources. As the price rises, producers will use more expensive methods, consumers will explore alternative materials and methods. --  Helium is unique because it so light it escapes from earth altogether at the top of the atmosphere. But it is also produced in nuclear reactors as alpha particle radiation that picks up a couple electrons. I don't know how those rates compare, but I bet we need a lot more nuclear reactors.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Quote from t h e C o n s e n t C h r o n i c l e


STRATEGIC COMMENTARY
How do we reverse the creeping statism happening to our nation?
If you want change, first you must seek it. You must have a plan...
Change will come when enough people share your views, and enough of those are willing to act on what they believe.
What matters MOST, then, is...
...winning the battleground of your neighbor's mind, the district of their heart, and the precinct of their conscience.
You start this process by denying consent. Denying Consent is the solitary moral objection you bring to the attention of others — a point of concern, with the hope of correction. Others then may follow your example. But your example must come first.
As these Deny Consent moments multiply, you may reach a point where the problem seems deeper — more systemic and foundational. You, and those you influence, may come to feel that tinkering reforms will be insufficient. You may conclude that the system has a cancer, or is cancer itself.
Withdrawing Allegiance is the now the appropriate level of response. It's part of a boundary-setting process.
Relate this process to everyday circumstances with an analogy (while admitting that all analogies are imperfect comparisons)...
  1. Denying Consent is like telling your spouse that you're hurt or offended by a particular behavior
  2. Withdrawing Allegiance is like telling them you're no longer willing to devote yourself to the marriage unless they seek professional help
  3. Next, you may consider drawing others into an Intervention to correct the inappropriate behaviors
  4. It's possible there might be further steps, in stages, each at the appropriate time
  5. Eventually, you may seek an actual divorce
Looked at this way "withdrawing allegiance" is an intensification of the moral act of denying consent. It is not the final divorce, but merely a step in that direction. This distinction is important because ...
The State has the brutal power to initiate force against you, backed by your neighbor's assumption that such a power is justified. This requires us to be cautious and savvy.
One cannot simply terminate a relationship with The State without tremendous personal consequences.
There's no reason we should lead individuals to the sacrificial altar. That won't change anything. As I'll explain in a future installment...
There's a time for everything, but not everything is for this time.
Timing-wise, we believe the first steps are, in order, Denying Consent and Withdrawing Allegiance.
In the next stage, Intervention, we’ll share those moral objections with our neighbors. In this third stage, we'll learn to speak to their conscience, instead of their partisan minds.
This will be effective, because most people use partisan talking points and competing policy studies when they talk about politics. Both lead to reactionary debates, NOT reflective thought.
We can achieve the reflection we desire by invoking the Golden Rule and the Zero Aggression Principle. This creates a completely different conversation. These moral concepts...
  • Focus on the greatest strength of our message, while
  • Targeting the greatest weakness in the statist viewpoint
For full impact, you must use clear, unequivocal language. You must call things what they are. The statists, of course, recognize this, which is why they routinely create euphemisms and Orwellian Newspeak.
This will seem difficult at first. But you’ll be amazed how well it works, if you stick with it. Especially if you develop the habit of using words precisely. Precise language is so important that a large part of the pending Zero Aggression Project homepage will be devoted to language and definitions.
The moral approach is the great, untried persuasion method that will rock the world of the statists.
In the next installment, I'll show you why simply Denying Consent, using social morality as the key, is so very important. You'll discover a case, from just last week, where conscience resulted in heroic action. You'll see that listening to your conscience can make a difference.
In the meantime, please keep those letters of support coming. They are encouraging to us.
And, please give us any financial support you can spare. What we're doing here is, we believe, revolutionary. This dialogue must be started, and it's made possible by your support.
Thank you,

Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

Pew Study of Gun Crimes

Infographic on Gun Crime and Gun Sales
I found this on facebook page of

"Critically Thinking Canadian".




Despite the name, critical thinking seems to be rather scarce in that post. The hundreds of tons of water are not really relevant. How much radioactive material is carried by that water? How much and what type of radiation does that material emit? How much above background levels is that? Would it be better to have that material where it was or out in the ocean? How much time will pass before the levels of radiation in the Fukishima area fall to acceptable levels? What is an acceptable level? Outside of the actual plant, how many people were killed by the radiation? How many were injured? Should you include in that count those that were killed or injured in the evacuation by other causes? I could go on and on with lists of questions that critical thinking should ask and answer.  Most of these questions are factually addressed by Richard Hargraves in his fairly new and inexpensive book "Thorium: Energy cheaper than coal". If he is wrong, please show me where.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

The grid is a huge AC battery.

The electric power grid acts like a large storage device. If there are enough users, the load tends to average out. Am I right about that? Anyway, I have photovoltaic panels on my roof, connected to a big inverter which is connected to the grid. It is called a grid-tie system. The power company changed out my meter when the system was installed. This meter reads NET usage. So, when the sun shines but I am not using all the power my panels are producing the power is pushed out onto the grid where someone else will use it, or maybe the power company's generator is dialed down a bit. The beautiful part for me is that the meter runs backwards in that case. The power company is buying my solar panel produced power at full retail. Then I buy some or all of it back at the same price when the sun isn't shining here. From my point of view, the grid is acting like a huge 100% efficient battery. You probably already know all about this stuff, but I think it is cool.

Friday, May 31, 2013


GOOD NEWS: (Today is Friday) and Tesla Motors Inc (TSLA) has announced the company will triple its Supercharger network of chargers that power its flagship Model S sedan electric cars in the United States and Canada by the end of 2013. The model S is a fully electric vehicle with 0% carbon emission, Tesla is diligently working behind the scenes to make this world a better, more sustainable place (and reducing our dependence on foreign oil even though its stock is one of the most shorted stocks on wall street because big oil doesn't like what they are doing).

Q: Why is mainstream news always so negative?
from facebook 
 
       Sometimes they are right, if only by accident like a broken analog clock. The 0% carbon (dioxide) emission claim is only technically correct if you only consider what is emitted while going down the road. It wants you to forget about all of the coal, natural gas, etc. used to produce the electricity that was used to charge the batteries. The only 0% carbon (dioxide) emission free ways to produce electricity are solar hydro and nuclear. But even for those the fossil fuels used for energy and materials to produce the equipment need to produce the electricity is far from negligible.  This is all clarified and solutions proposed in the book "Thorium: energy cheaper than coal". If Hargrave made an error in his book, please explain it to me.

Monday, May 27, 2013

What is the meaning of life?
I don't understand the question. Which meaning of "purpose" do you mean? And which meaning of the word "life" do you have in mind? To pick a specific pair of meanings: My goal for my life is to survive as long as I can, learn to understand as much as I can, prepare to help my family, friends, neighbors, ... carbon based life forms, and other sentient beings to survive, understand and flourish no matter what the future brings.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

 Tax code as social engineering.
"Off-budget expenditure" would better describe the granting of tax-exempt status. The honest way to achieve the honest objectives of the granting of tax-exempt status would be to appropriate it like any other expenditure.

Rajan Loknathan
The spread of languages is complex, of course. Although it is not a specific example discussed in this book, "Games of Life: Explorations in Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour" by Karl Sigmund, You will see the parallels.