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How can you in good intellect have to ask that question?

"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'

"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'

"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." -- Matthew 25:41-46, NIV

Wind power is the only actual mitigation of increases in greenhouse gasses.

Why are they spending time arguing about whether the 90s were the hottest or not? The data are clear.

518,739, the figure from late 2004, is 89%.

Compare that slope to Basrah's birth defect incidence graph from the table in this report.

What exactly is your source on this?

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry ... Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, "... Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems." The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam....

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans," said Berklau.

> Are those figures right? From what I can find in Medline, I was
> expecting something like 35,000 on permanent disability, based
> on mortality rates, which are reported to be quite low. If these
> people are getting sick nine times more than Viet Nam vets, but
> are only dying 1.2 times as often, that's just hard for me to
> believe.

Yes, the figures are right, but their connection to DU is incorrect. This covers all injuries--broken leg, hurt back, as well as Gulf War illnesses.

29% is a big number, but 29% != 89% last time I checked.

Also, there are many other explanations other than uranium dust, like chemical weapons in theatre.

Having said that, it is very hard to explain how the contamination of Basrah occured, because almost all the time during and after the 1991 battles when uranium was being released, the prevailing winds would have been blowing them away from the city. Some people have suggested some kind of food-chain contamination, relating to either goats or birds.

But I don't think facts probably matter very much to you.

What exactly is your source on this?

Writing in Preventive Psychiatry ... Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, stated, "... Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of 'Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems." The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam....

"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that 'Gulf Era Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739 Veterans," said Berklau.

> Are those figures right? From what I can find in Medline, I was
> expecting something like 35,000 on permanent disability, based
> on mortality rates, which are reported to be quite low. If these
> people are getting sick nine times more than Viet Nam vets, but
> are only dying 1.2 times as often, that's just hard for me to
> believe.

Yes, the figures are right, but their connection to DU is incorrect. This covers all injuries--broken leg, hurt back, as well as Gulf War illnesses.

29% is a big number, but 29% != 89% last time I checked.

Also, there are many other explanations other than uranium dust, like chemical weapons in theatre.

Having said that, it is very hard to explain how the contamination of Basrah occured, because almost all the time during and after the 1991 battles when uranium was being released, the prevailing winds would have been blowing them away from the city. Some people have suggested some kind of food-chain contamination, relating to either goats or birds.

But I don't think facts probably matter very much to you.

Having said that, there is no way to explain how the contamination of Basrah occured, because almost all the time during and after the battles when uranium aerosols were being released, the prevailing winds would have been blowing them away from the city. Some people have suggested some kind of food-chain contamination, relating to either goats or birds.

There is a collection of peer-reviewed medical research on the subject here.

Having said that, there is no way to explain how the contamination of Basrah occured, because almost all the time during and after the battles when uranium aerosols were being released, the prevailing winds would have been blowing them away from the city. Some people have suggested some kind of food-chain contamination, relating to either goats or birds.

There is a collection of peer-reviewed medical research on the subject here.

The negative of the logical negative is not the same as the logical positive....

On the contrary, !!a == a.

What part of atmospheric heat forcing by greenhouse emissions do you not understand?

We already have been next: see my sig and my most recent JE.

The August 14, 2003 blackout on the U.S. East coast was due to a heat wave that caused the electrical system to be overloaded by too many air conditioners.

On the contrary, the official explanation (p. 17) is:

The Ohio phase of the August 14, 2003, blackout was caused by deficiencies in specific practices, equipment, and human decisions by various organizations that affected conditions and outcomes that afternoon--for example, insufficient reactive power was an issue in the blackout, but it was not a cause in itself. Rather, deficiencies in corporate policies, lack of adherence to industry policies, and inadequate management of reactive power and voltage caused the blackout, rather than the lack of reactive power. There are four groups of causes for the blackout:

1: FirstEnergy (FE) and ECAR failed to assess and understand the inadequacies of FE's system, particularly with respect to voltage instability and the vulnerability of the Cleveland-Akron area, and FE did not operate its system with appropriate voltage criteria.

2: Inadequate situational awareness at FirstEnergy. FE did not recognize or understand the deteriorating condition of its system.

3: FE failed to manage adequately tree growth in its transmission rights-of-way.

4: Failure of the interconnected grid's reliability organizations to provide effective real-time diagnostic support.

There is more info here.

Also, hydrocarbons come more from transportation than electrical generation, these days.

Not only that, but his plan to "privatize" social security is founded on the same principles.

In short, he wants to phase in a system where part of your social security taxes go into a private account that you can choose how to invest, and the rest go to the general public fund.

So, what is going to happen is that the amount of money currently moving into the social security fund will drop, the money moving out will continue to rise with the number of people retiring and living longer. Things won't really even out until those who are 16 when the program is implemented retire. The only way to fix this gap is to raise taxes or cut spending elsewhere. Of course, Bush won't raise taxes or cut spending, so when finally get a president with the guts to do that, he'll be portrayed as a horrible person who wants to stick his hands in our pockets and rob us. When the real thief is the person that created the deficit in the first place.

I find it amazing that while telling us that "privatizing" social security is putting our money in our control, what it is really doing is the government is not only forcing me to pay for everyone else's well-being, they're forcing me to invest some of my own money.

I wonder if the government will only allow me to invest in funds they approve of and don't violate their morals.

A few interesting links related to political parties and economics

Federal Deficit by Political Party
Jobs by President and Party
Economic policies of Bush administration result in more abortions

Misinformation: Again, I don't believe that all Bush supporters were misinformed or ignorant.

That was not claimed. However, studies have shown that a large percentage of Bush's supporters were misinformed about important issues. That's where the "embarrassingly ignorant" comment came from. The numbers show that many people who voted for Bush simply haven't been paying attention.

As far the crappy economy, ... have difficulty believing that it is Bush's fault.

I doubt it's entirely his fault, but he still has the second-worst record in the past hundred years, one rank below his father. That means the two Bush presidents presided over the two worst economies since the Great Depression. That indicates to me that maybe the Bush way of doing things is not in the country's best interests, and that almost anyone would do a better job.

BTW, it may be worth mentioning that, before Dubya got elected, he spent most of the previous 20 years running companies into the ground. So, killing the economy wasn't really a big surprise; it's what he's always done when given money and power.

The only thing I blame on him in that regard is making exagerated growth claims at the beginning of his last term and for not doing enough ass-kicking to get people into gear (either thinking of ways to increase employment, etc). I'm thinking if he put his inner circle on it and told them that the one that came up with the best solution wouldn't be fired, their'd be some solutions forthcoming.

So, if I understand... you blame him for misleading people (and/or simply lacking the skill of foresight, an important skill for world leaders), and for not trying hard enough to do his job? If that's the case, I think we're in agreement here. I think he should have done everything in his power to fix the economy, instead of making a new record for vacation time spent while in office.

So, what were your other reasons for supporting Bush? If you think they'll stand up to scrutiny, I'd like to hear them.

I did a journal entry on this topic yesterday. Please see also the updated page from my sig.

The U.S. government is FAR more corrupt than people want to believe.

Here is a list of 3 movies and 35 books that say that the Bush administration is corrupt: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

Table of U.S. Parties and Economics

Government data shows Democrat and Republican spending patterns.

Reagan and the Bushes borrowed money while they were president. Clinton paid it back. It's that simple.

Table of U.S. Parties and Economics

My understanding is that Reagan ran up a big bill by asking for the "600 ship Navy". Reagan also spent a lot on the Star Wars Missile Defense, which was entirely government fraud, because it could not work with present technology.

My understanding is that Reagan did this to embezzle money for his friends in the weapons industry. Both of these programs were entirely government corruption.

Note that the last few presidents have come from alcohol-influenced families: Reagan was an ACOA. George H.W. Bush is an ACOA. Clinton is an ACOA. (Adult Child of Alcoholics) George W. Bush is an alcoholic.

It amazes me how little people know about the activities of their government. Here are facts that are important now:

Table of U.S. Parties and Economics

Government data shows Democrat and Republican spending patterns.

Responding to your sig: The worst Democrat is better at jobs and growth than the best Republican.

Here's another possible sig: Government data shows Republicans are corrupt.

I've done some research and provided links to reviews of 3 movies and 35 books saying that the Bush administration is corrupt: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

On Monday on the Charlie Rose show, author Graydon Carter was talking about his book, What We've Lost. He said something like, "I thought I knew a tenth of extent of the corruption of the Bush administration, but I found that I knew a thousandth." That's my experience, too. I believe that I have a reasonable overview of the corruption, and I discover a new pocket of detail that shows that it is much worse than I thought.

The most shocking thing I've learned in trying to tell people about my research is that perhaps one U.S. citizen in twenty has any idea of the extent of the corruption.

My Slashdot journal contains many additional details, including a recent letter from 160+ business professionals and academics.

The facts are clear: Democrats get a four percent GDP bonus. Therefore Kerry is more likely to be able to balance the budget than either of them, even if they were saying the exact same things.

...is still on the upslope of a big sigmoid curve.

If you think it says that, you didn't read it very carefully. The only Carter/Reagan comparison made has to do with jobs alone.

If you think it says that, you didn't read it very carefully. The only Carter/Reagan comparison made has to do with jobs alone.

Yikes - got all emotional and forgot how to think.

Think about this then: U.S. Parties and Economics

(Shouldn't the less/greater-than signs be converted to HTML entities rather than just deleted ?)

Kay also decries what he sees as a fundamental failing of the web--it is primarily an environment for displaying information, not for authoring it. "You can read a document in Microsoft Word, and write a document in Microsoft Word. But the people who did web browsers I think were too lazy to do the authoring part."

Tell me about it.

H20 vapor is ALSO a greenhouse gas

Corporate profits are taxed at a higher rate, then taxed again when distributed to shareholders.

Not since this last Congress, they aren't!

duh!

the cosmic "weather" in our region may have changed

The tropospheric weather sure has.

We know exactly how much of the sun's heat those increased CO2 levels trap, and the prediction fits the observation. Cosmic rays are not generally thermal, in that most of their output is scintillation which back-scatters out of the atmosphere.

Shaviv and Veizer's theory is unconvincing.

Anyone care to take a guess at how much heat we would need to pump out in order to significantly impact global temperatures directly?

If everyone on the planet converted from fossil fuel to wind powered electricity in 30 years, it would take another 300 years to undo the excess heat trapped in the troposphere over the past 300 years

You have to wonder about a politician who doesn't tell voters about his drunk driving conviction, because, he said, he didn't want to set a bad example for his children and then doesn't tell the Secret Service to keep them out of bars underage. Maybe he thought it went without saying. I guess you've got to be very precise when you've got pardoning powers.

Neither precision nor accuracy are Bush's strong suits.

Corporate income is taxed by the federal government, and then dividends paid by corporations to shareholders are taxed again. How does double taxation of that sort support your argument?

Funny you should ask.

What is Sweden's secret? Progressive taxation. Average production workers in Sweden pay no income tax to their central government because the bottom bracket starts about a tenth above the average production worker's salary. The Swedish tax rate is typically about 57% of income earned above that base. Sweden only has two central government tax brackets: 0% and 25%, so their "federal" taxes are actually closer to the "flat tax" than ours are in the U.S. The additional 32% or so varies by local jurisdiction, as does the income bracket at which it takes effect.

The problem in the U.S. is that top-bracket income earners (including corporations, medium-sized businesses, and most of the top 1% rich, excluding some of the prominent top rich in the media spotlight) pay a huge amount of money in order to help elect government officials who will keep the top tax brackets low. This effectivly "saves" them an even larger amount of money, except for the externalities like crime rate, debt, and property values. We used to have regulations providing equal air time for federal candidates, but Reagan's FCC did away with those, so most candidates today, even most nationally prominent Democrats, sure know which side of their bread is buttered on. There are some notable exceptions, however.

humming sounds keep people awake at night

Modern wind turbines are very quiet. Perhaps you have heard the 1970s models on Altamont pass, which are noisy.

It is easy to defrost turbine blades, in populated areas. But you only need 14,000 acres of turbine footprint to convert the entire current U.S. electricity usage to wind power. Thats about twice the area of the Stanford U. campus, or about as much Oak forest as is lost in California each year. Cats kill more than two decimal orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines do.

If the entire planet converted to wind electricity in thirty years, it would take another 300 years to extract the same amount of energy from the atmosphere as fossil fuel consumption has thusfar forced into the troposphere. Equitorial alignments are safe.

If the entire planet converted to wind power in 30 years, it would take another 300 years to remove the extra heat from the last 300 years of fossil fuel use. Until we get control of it, we won't be able to pick an optimal CO2 concentration value for the planet.

Compare [renewables] to the health and environmental effects of coal, oil, and natural gas....

Excellent point. The problem is, unsubsidized coal could cost less than unsubsidized wind for the next several years unless the environmental externalities are properly amortized (and we all know what happens to U.S. Treasury Secretaries who those kinds of "fuzzy math" commonly accepted practices!)

We have a 400-year supply of coal. It needs to last us for the next 400,000 years. The OMB can't even see far enough ahead to factor in the baby boomers.

Birds avoid big spinning things. They can even hear the new, quiet, turbines in the dark. See Peter Asmus's book, Reaping the Wind for more information about birds.

Have you considered what drawing that kind of energy out of the wind might do to the weather?

Yes, it will mitigate about one hundredth of the solar heat we have recently been forcing to stay in the troposphere which has been causing stronger storms and mean windspeeds over the past decade.

taking that much energy out of the atmosphere might have some undesirable side effect

Considering how much solar heat we've recently been forcing to stay trapped in the troposphere, the needs of the entire U.S. power grid is less than one hundredth of that.

In fact, storms have been becomming noticably stronger over the past couple decades, along with mean windspeeds, so think of it simply as mitigation of global warming.

what is a "health salt"?

Potassium is a common dietary supplement in areas where people have to do hard physical labor under the heat of the sun, and potassium sources such as bananas are difficult to come by.

Calcium and Magnesium are more complicated, but much more important.

explosive growth post 1980 -- when the BRUNT of the industrail growth was PRE-1980 ... just sounds fishy to me

It's true.

Do you really think that a turbine could extract more kinetic energy from wind than 2344 times its land area of forest extracts with friction? Remember, modern turbines have three rather thin blades, whereas forests are by definition filled with foiliage. In terms of surface area against the wind, a single tree within the same area that a turbine takes would have thousands if not millions of times the area. Also, trees aren't very rigid against moderate windspeeds, converting wind into waste heat much more than solid objects do.

Plus, the amount of heat that atmospheric carbon dioxide causes to be forced into the atmosphere will more than make up for 16,000 TWh of turbine extraction. (0.3 watts per square meter yeilds more than 150,000 TWh over the earth's illuminated surface area.)

According to Accu-Weather, the world's leading commercial forecaster, "Global air temperatures as measured by land-based weather stations show an increase of about 0.45 degrees Celsius over the past century. This may be no more than normal climatic variation...

Accu-weather, a commercial concern controlled by commercial interests, knows which side of their bread is buttered. Instead, you might consider the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which directly attributes the observed tmeperature increase to radiative forcing of greenhouse gasses.

Satellite data indicate a slight cooling in the climate in the last 18 years. These satellites use advanced technology and are not subject to the "heat island" effect around major cities that alters ground-based thermometers.

This is the misinformation that pisses me off the most. I have been in direct telephone contact with the pair of so-called scientists from Huntsville, Alabama who published this crap. Their measurements of cooling above the troposphere are completely consistent with global warming in the troposphere, where radiative forcing keeps heat trapped at the surface of the Earth. Guess where the Huntsville team gets their funding? NASA. Guess what agency pumps carbon dioxide equivalent to driving a SUV two million miles into the atmosphere every time a shuttle launches? NASA.

Projections of future climate changes are uncertain.

Take another look at the r^2 value on the curve fit graph of atmospheric CO2. That value means that all but about 1% of the variation of that curve can be explained by those four numeric parameters of that logistic sigmoid curve. One thing that isn't uncertain is that if we don't start wholesale conversion to wind power pretty damn soon, there will be twice as much atmospheric CO2 in 2060 as their was in 1500. Did you know that less than 150,000 modern wind turbines could supply the entire U.S. power grid demand?

98% of total global greenhouse gas emissions are natural (mostly water vapor); only 2% are from man-made sources.

Oh, PLEASE! Water vapor, unlike CO2, becomes reflective (clouds are white) when it condenses from vapor to aerosol, which it does under temperature increase conditions (greater transpiration at greater temperatures raising humidity.) This tends to nullify water's heat trapping over time.

By most accounts, man-made emissions have had no more than a minuscule impact on the climate. Although the climate has warmed slightly in the last 100 years, 70% percent of that warming occurred prior to 1940, before the upsurge in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes. (Dr. Robert C. Balling, Arizona State University)

Both halfs of that statement are a baldface lie. The "prior to 1940" statement directly contradicts the observed data, and anyone who thinks greenhouse gas emissions "upsurged" after 1940 needs to take another look at the graph and/or read up on the history of coal mining.

Pathetic.

According to Accu-Weather, the world's leading commercial forecaster, "Global air temperatures as measured by land-based weather stations show an increase of about 0.45 degrees Celsius over the past century. This may be no more than normal climatic variation...

Accu-weather, a commercial concern controlled by commercial interests, knows which side of their bread is buttered. Instead, you might consider the 2001 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which directly attributes the observed tmeperature increase to radiative forcing of greenhouse gasses.

Satellite data indicate a slight cooling in the climate in the last 18 years. These satellites use advanced technology and are not subject to the "heat island" effect around major cities that alters ground-based thermometers.

This is the misinformation that pisses me off the most. I have been in direct telephone contact with the pair of so-called scientists from Huntsville, Alabama who published this crap. Their measurements of cooling above the troposphere are completely consistent with global warming in the troposphere, where radiative forcing keeps heat trapped at the surface of the Earth. Guess where the Huntsville team gets their funding? NASA. Guess what agency pumps carbon dioxide equivalent to driving a SUV two million miles into the atmosphere every time a shuttle launches? NASA.

Projections of future climate changes are uncertain.

Take another look at the r^2 value on the curve fit graph of atmospheric CO2. That value means that all but about 1% of the variation of that curve can be explained by those four numeric parameters of that logistic sigmoid curve. One thing that isn't uncertain is that if we don't start wholesale conversion to wind power pretty damn soon, there will be twice as much atmospheric CO2 in 2060 as their was in 1500. Did you know that less than 150,000 modern wind turbines could supply the entire U.S. power grid demand?

98% of total global greenhouse gas emissions are natural (mostly water vapor); only 2% are from man-made sources.

Oh, PLEASE! Water vapor, unlike CO2, becomes reflective (clouds are white) when it condenses from vapor to aerosol, which it does under temperature increase conditions (greater transpiration at greater temperatures raising humidity.) This tends to nullify water's heat trapping over time.

By most accounts, man-made emissions have had no more than a minuscule impact on the climate. Although the climate has warmed slightly in the last 100 years, 70% percent of that warming occurred prior to 1940, before the upsurge in greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes. (Dr. Robert C. Balling, Arizona State University)

Both halfs of that statement are a baldface lie. The "prior to 1940" statement directly contradicts the observed data, and anyone who thinks greenhouse gas emissions "upsurged" after 1940 needs to take another look at the graph and/or read up on the history of coal mining.

Pathetic.

We should just stop focusing on global warming as the primary reason to limiting oil production.

On the contrary, global fossil fuel consumption has always been the primary cause of global warming. It's effects on forcing heat to remain in the atmosphere are easy to quantify, and a hell of a lot more than 0.05% per decade.

Bush and Cheney are using gas "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue but does not form the basis of a sound energy policy" on their own people!

I'm still believing it's the cow farts.

It is not, primarily, the cow farts, although they alone probably cause more global warming than any 0.00005/year change in solar output. Carbon dioxide, from whatever source, forces heat that would normally be radiated into space to remain in the atmosphere. The extent is very easy to quantify, and it's a hell of a lot more than 0.05% per decade.

This article is just more fossil fuel apologist crap. It makes SUV drivers feel a little bit better about sending all that cash to Saudi Arabia when they fill up their huge gas tanks.

Bush and Cheney have been using gas "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but is not a sound basis for energy policy" on their own people!

we don't know enough about our ecosystem and it's interaction with the universe around us to automatically assume that it's all our fault.

On the contrary, we understand very well how carbon dioxide forces heat that would normally be radiated into space to remain in the atmosphere. The extent is very easy to quantify, and it's a hell of a lot more than 0.05% per decade.

This is just more fossil fuel apologist crap. It makes SUV drivers feel a little bit better about sending all that cash to Saudi Arabia when they fill up their huge gas tanks.

Bush and Cheney have been using gas "conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but is not a sound basis for energy policy" on their own people!

To nature, man's output of CO2 appears as a slight increase in volcanic activity.

Wrong!

GRAPH: the atmospheric concentration of CO2 fits a logistic sigmoid curve. Logistic sigmoid curves are typical for most nonrenewable resource consumption.

GRAPH: They don't just have trouble with what kind of fuel it is, but the headline writer has a wierd idea of "friendly" too.

GRAPH: Insistance is futile. CO2 is not being net assimilated.

GRAPH: It's not like we don't have enough CO2 already.

Electrolysis is good to play with in the physics labs at school, but when it comes to produce very large quantities of Hydrogen for mass consumption it's worth practically zero.

Nonsense. Electrolysis is already in commercial use. As catylitic electrolysis (fuel-cell-in-reverse) methods are discovered, the process will become even less expensive. At least, we won't know until we try, and electrochemistry is a vastly under-explored field. Fluidized bed electrodes of various organic catylists are numerous, but only a fraction have yet been tried. I need to check the patent literature on the latest electrolysis efficiencies. They have gotten much better than "physics labs at school."

Plus, H-gen equipment can be used to store energy in case of power outage, as many hospitals and some cities do. This means that wind power will quickly become dominant, one way or another.