The cooling ponds not necessarily leaking, but evaporating. They're being refilled with water cannons and helicopters (not much, but it may help). Once power is restored to the site presumably they can just pump water in.
This seems to be the world consensus...which is amazingly ignorant. Imagine your house was subjected to 1) a 9.0 earthquake, 2) a flood that reached to the eaves, 3) an explosion of gas from within that leveled the walls and then 4) a fire. Then the power company inspector comes by and tells you that you turn your furnace and water heater on as soon as they reconnect the wires. It's unlikely that much of anything electrical will work correctly at Fukishima when the power comes back on but...if it did...the piping systems are likely to be heavily damaged and will not be fixed quickly by welders working in a radiological hot zone wearing protective gear. People think this problem will be fixed quickly and that is not the way that radiological materials work. Nature will not heal this problem. This will take a lot of money and dangerous hard work and personal sacrifice over a long period of time to fix it...just as it did at Chernobyl. Finally, the belief seems to be that the 'worst is over' because they are getting power reconnected and the mega release of radiation has not occurred yet. Nothing could be more wrong. The danger of the mega-release is growing every day...not declining...and will continue to grow until ALL of the fuel rods from four reactors, or what is left of them, are once again within proper storage and containment. That will likely take many months.
Five years ago, this would have been a hot topic with flames about Linux, OS/2, Bill Gates, DOS, etc. Now, no one cares what the OS is as long as they can accomplish what they want to do with the device.
Cell phones were shown many years ago to affect long-term memory in a classic study
at the University of Washington. It might make sense to try and
apply the magnetic fields selectively to accomplish some sort of
positive learing result. Hopefully, this won't turn out to
another one of those enthusiastically-received procedures like lobotomies or electroshock
that end up hurting more than helping.
"full greenhouse effect" is obtained on Venus. With a nearly pure CO2 atmosphere. It would appear to be hotter there. Much more so than its closer distance to the Sun would suggest.
There is certainly a 'full greenhouse effect' on Venus whose atmosphere is 96 percent CO2. The idea of a 'full greenhouse effect' is that more CO2 will not increase the effect, nor will less necessarily decrease it. For example, if the atmosphere of Venus were to suddenly change to 50 percent CO2 and 46 percent N2, the magnitude of the greenhouse effect CAUSED BY THE CO2 would stay the same. The Earth's climate is also affected by the greenhouse effect of greenhouse gases, the most important of which are H2O and CO2. At the current conditions of earth's atmosphere, more H2O or more CO2 will not significantly increase the greenhouse effect attributable to them. If the atmospheric conditions were to suddenly change to a much higher density (and therefore pressure) and/or if some new gas (such as the sulfuric acid on Venus) were to be added, the dynamics of the earth's atmosphere would be in play and the amount of CO2 and/or H2O which would provide that 'full greenhouse effect' would change. At present, however, there is already more than sufficient CO2 in the earth's atmosphere to absorb ALL of the radiation at the narrow wavelengths that CO2 absorbs at...within the first 1000 meters of atmosphere above the earth's surface.
A friend asked me to help get their new Christmas MacBook Pro to print photos with a 8-yr-old Canon printer. First, I go to the Canon website looking for drivers. Canon doesn't have them for download for that model anymore, though, not even for Windows. Googling finds the 'download-driver' websites offering drivers...but they are for older OS versions and won't download without the obligatory 'signing up' etc. Frustrated, I plug the printer usb cable into the macbook and expect to see a pop-up screen about finding new hardware and where should it look for a new driver but...nothing. Click through to 'printers' and...it says the printer is not only recognized but ready to print. Yeah, sure. Click on the iPhoto app and select 4x6 borderless print and...in a few seconds out pops a beautiful print. I'd been so conditioned by the Windows way of doing things that I expected it not to work with OS X 10.5. What does this have to do with the TFA? Only that Apple has got it going on right now. Someone else might beat them but it won't be because Apple wasn't offering good products...the someone else will have to be offering much better products and that is going to be very, very difficult to do.
This is like saying the Earth is the biggest driver of the Earth's climate. It's an essentially meaningless statement.
No, it is not. The drivers ('forcing functions') are a matter of extensive debate. AGW true believers insist that atmospheric CO2 concentration is far more significant than changes in solar activity...and will shout down any hint that solar activity might have a serious effect on long-term climate.
A 'full' greenhouse effect would mean that 100% of heat is retained. That's impossible, but you can look at worlds where heat retention is in the 99% range, such as Venus.
Your '99% heat retention'statement is ridiculous. Atmospheric CO2 can absorb only in a very narrow wavelength related to its molecular vibrational modes. Radiation outside of those wavelengths will not be absorbed but will just pass right through a gas composed of CO2, whatever its density. Of course, the venusian atmosphere also has 'clouds' of sulfuric acid which would act to block radiation both incoming and outgoing, just as our clouds of water do on earth.
Even if it was true, climate is not weather...Climate change is measured across decades, not years
Interesting that you point to March 2010 and April 2010 temperatures to 'refute' the idea that our climate has begun cooling after decades of warming. Your period of time is even shorter than the 4-yr 2007-2010 period of time. Obviously, we will have to wait another few decades to see if the long-term cooling trend continues...but as TFA points out...the signs are beginning to be obvious.
This is irrelevant to historical analysis, which shows a clear warming trend across decades. But unlike yourself, scientists do endeavor to be honest, and refine their model as new data is available. Most excess heat is getting dumped into the oceans.
The computer models are not used to perform 'historical analysis' but to predict the effects of changes in the earth's atmosphere on our planet's climate...so the quality of the computer modeling is critical to the accuracy of the predictions. Finally, your statement about 'excess heat' (whatever that is) being 'dumped' into the oceans is more nonsense. The heresy is to suggest that the computer modeling predictions might not be right.
why does Venus (with a massive atmosphere made mostly of CO2) have a far higher (~400 Celsius) surface temperature, even though it actually gets less heat from the Sun?
Why does Mars (with an atmosphere composed of 95% CO2) have a far lower mean temperature (-85C)? The venusian climate is affected by a lot more than CO2...as is the martian climate.
Here are the ideas that are considered heretical by the true believers in global warming:
1) The sun is the biggest driver of the Earth's Climate 2) There is already more than enough CO2 for a 'full' greenhouse effect so more will not make it 'worse.' 3) The Earth has been cooling since 2007. 4) Current computer models of the Earth's long-term climate are not necessarily correct.
There are others, of course, but you get the idea. Never say any of the above in the presence of believers.
It is technically possible to launch a one-way trip to Mars...costly for certain...but not technically difficult. What would be impossible would be for humans to sustain life on Mars for more than perhaps a few months. The problems are that the atmosphere on Mars is too thin to be useful for life and, more importantly, contains no oxygen. There is also no source of food on Mars, nor source of energy, although some sort of nuclear fission device could generate a limited amount of power which could be used to generate oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (the martian atmosphere is 95% CO2) but a source of hydrogen would be needed to produce water needed to sustain life...and there is none to be found on Mars. Given these severe limitations, a 'colony' on Mars which could sustain life independent of support from Earth would not be possible and any mars-nauts sent there would be sacrificing their lives for the opportunity to spend a short amount time 'living' on the martian surface. That would not be 'colonization' but 'suicide scientific exploration' and the question to ask is 'would the scientific gains expected from such a mission justify the sacrifice of the lives involved?'
The big bang doesn't talk about the creation event. It discusses the expansion following soon after that event...
The 'big bang' theory is that the universe began as the appearance of a 'singularity' approximately 13.7 billion years ago that then rapidly expanded into the universe that we see today. According to the theory, neither 'mass' nor 'space' nor 'time' existed prior to the singularity.
Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548.
The title is misleading. The LHC did not create a mini 'big bang'
but created a miniature of the conditions that might have existed shortly AFTER
the big bang. The 'big
bang' was the event that created all mass, space, and time in the
entire universe in a single instant approximately 13.7 billion years
ago. The LHC collision of lead ions did not create any mass,
space, or time but did create a "hot dense soup of quarks and gluons
known as a quark-gluon plasma" that might have existed after the 'big
bang' event.
It's great that someone is finally recognizing this sort of stuff. Think of the millions of kwh wasted all over the world every day running flash on laptops and desktops...not to mention the security issues involved with the 'active' content that the flash player brings to the system. All of this comes from an unlovely company that does not seem to shoulder any responsibility for the software that it looses upon the user community. Okay Adobe, mod this troll, but you can't stop everyone from eventually seeing the light.
'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive.
Give me a f**king break! You're alive because you're a well-nourished 62 y/o man who has not (yet) contracted a fatal disease and has avoided fatal traumatic injury in spite of frequent intoxication. Most men in the UK and the US are still alive at 62 yrs.
Obviously Clinton had decided he would never push the button and didn't much care about the button's whereabouts. If Russia had decided to launch 500 nuclear warheads at the U.S., there wouldn't have been much point in pushing the button anyway, other than, perhaps, for some sort of twisted revenge. Nuclear weapons are the kind of weapon that gives Iran's Ahmadinejad an Islamic hard-on...just thinking about nuking Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and...perhaps New York and Los Angeles...and...even better...thinking about the massive amount of fear that the the intended victims will experience in the time leading up to the actual nuking. Fear...it's all about fear. Clinton was not someone who wanted anyone to be afraid anywhere...more of an anti-fear President.
It may have been 40 years ago but it was a major event in US History that still reverberates today so it's wonderful when the truth of what happened is finally, finally revealed. The protesters wanted to believe that the guardsmen opened fire for no reason. The guardsmen wanted to believe that the protesters were trying to shoot them. In the end, the shootings were provoked by Norman who should be tracked down and prosecuted to the extent possible. Maybe, someday, the truth will also come out about the other major shootings from that era: JFK (1963), RFK (1968), and ML King (1968).
This is a good example of why Microsoft's future looks so gloomy. Instead of coming out with new ways of doing things, better, more efficient ways, things that delight users, they think of ways they can screw other companies like Apple and Google that ARE doing those things.
This isn't 'bypassing' the law. Many incandescent bulbs are used as inexpensive low-power heating devices for small outdoor enclosures where a small amount of heat is required to control interior humidity. Try buying a 50-watt electric heater for a few dollars. The light produced in the process is just a fringe benefit.
Why not? The mine is owned by Molycorp which was a subsidiary of Unocal Corp and then of Chevron after Chevron's acquisition of Unocal in 2005. China attempted to purchase Unocal in 2005 but was overruled by the Bush Adminisration. Molycorp is now a privately-owned spinoff of Chevron and began processing stockpiled rare earth ore last year. As they work down their inventory of ore, they will obtain more from their mine. The mine obtained a new 30-year operating permit in 2004. Unless you're planning on sabotage or military strikes, there seems to be no reason why Molycorp will not remove more ore from the mine beginning in 2011. Do you have any information to the contrary or are you just giving voice to vague worries and fears?
Politics is much more important to the Chinese than your business. That is the takeaway here. The Chinese governemnt is willing to plunge most of the industrial west into chaos over fishing rights to a patch of ocean around uninhabitated islands that the Japanese have controlled since at least 1895. The rare earth issue is a blessing in disguise. Until 1984, the United States was by far the biggest producer of rare earths from it Mountain Pass Mine in California. After the mine was closed, the field was left to China and this is the result...they have become a political tool to compel obedience to Beijing. The Mountain Pass mine will be reopened in 2011 and US production will eventually restore balance to the world economic production...but the memory of what the Chinese will do as your trading partner should never be forgotten.
In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.
The 'global economic system' of supply and demand is precisely what PREVENTS economic collapse whenever there is a shortage of a commodity, be it oil...copper or coffee or titanium or whatever. A diminished supply leads to higher commodity prices which both reduces consumption and allocates the diminished supplies to those willing and able to pay the highest price while others search for acceptable alternatives. This global economic system of supply and demand has worked successfully many times in the past for oil as well as for hundreds of other commodities ranging from apples to vanilla. Besides, reduced oil production will make everyone's carbon footprint smaller which is a good thing for global warming, so Al Gore should be celebrating.
This year we are going to see a new record low for arctic sea ice --- surpassing even the dramatic 2007 decline.
No one can say with certainty what 'might' happen...but it can be said what has already happened with arctic sea ice extent...and you are wrong. Arctic sea ice extent this year is greater than it was on the same date in 2007 AND 2008.
In Catholic tradition, it's not as common to think of the bible as the literal word of God, so it's less of an issue.
Catholics ALWAYS think of the bible as the Word of God. From the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church' No. 81: "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."
Getting back to the TFA however, it is possible that the radioactive decay rate is influenced by solar magnetic activity, just as it also seems possible that the solar magnetic field contributes to the source of heat at the center of the Earth. We know very little at the moment about the source of solar magnetism, its strength, and its effects.
Disagree that secure and popular are mutually exclusive. I would much prefer some security built into the software. For example, malware transmission vectors tend to be either executing a hostile executable or unknowingly having hostile active content (scripting agents) execute in the background. Either way, the malware writes stuff to the drive, writes to the registry, modifies files, and then hides itself. This stuff can happen because those are the same things that 'friendly' software from Adobe or Microsoft does. Microsoft's approach to security is to try to prevent hostile software from executing on the system through one of a million holes (a few of which Microsoft plugs every week) and to give certain people 'admin' priveleges who are necessary for 'administrator priveleges.' But why shouldn't ALL software be compelled to identify itself thoroughly when being installed by telling you 1) it's origin, 2) where it will write files, 3) what registry keys it will write too, 4) what files it will write, etc. Microsoft sees nothing wrong with flashing a 24-page EULA up on the screen that you have to read and agree to before you can install but it shows you less than nothing about what that new software is about to do to your system. Where are the priorities there?
Okay, wild, but stay with me here. Aspartame is a known neurotoxin (i.e. mildly toxic to brain tissue) and previous studies have shown that damage to certain areas of the brain reduces empathy. Personal experience with two friends who became addicted to diet pop and suffered significant personality changes including a major loss of empathy first suggested this. Okay, this is anecdotal but what's a better theory?
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The cooling ponds not necessarily leaking, but evaporating. They're being refilled with water cannons and helicopters (not much, but it may help). Once power is restored to the site presumably they can just pump water in.
This seems to be the world consensus...which is amazingly ignorant. Imagine your house was subjected to 1) a 9.0 earthquake, 2) a flood that reached to the eaves, 3) an explosion of gas from within that leveled the walls and then 4) a fire. Then the power company inspector comes by and tells you that you turn your furnace and water heater on as soon as they reconnect the wires. It's unlikely that much of anything electrical will work correctly at Fukishima when the power comes back on but...if it did...the piping systems are likely to be heavily damaged and will not be fixed quickly by welders working in a radiological hot zone wearing protective gear. People think this problem will be fixed quickly and that is not the way that radiological materials work. Nature will not heal this problem. This will take a lot of money and dangerous hard work and personal sacrifice over a long period of time to fix it...just as it did at Chernobyl. Finally, the belief seems to be that the 'worst is over' because they are getting power reconnected and the mega release of radiation has not occurred yet. Nothing could be more wrong. The danger of the mega-release is growing every day...not declining...and will continue to grow until ALL of the fuel rods from four reactors, or what is left of them, are once again within proper storage and containment. That will likely take many months.
Five years ago, this would have been a hot topic with flames about Linux, OS/2, Bill Gates, DOS, etc. Now, no one cares what the OS is as long as they can accomplish what they want to do with the device.
Cell phones were shown many years ago to affect long-term memory in a classic study at the University of Washington. It might make sense to try and apply the magnetic fields selectively to accomplish some sort of positive learing result. Hopefully, this won't turn out to another one of those enthusiastically-received procedures like lobotomies or electroshock that end up hurting more than helping.
"full greenhouse effect" is obtained on Venus. With a nearly pure CO2 atmosphere. It would appear to be hotter there. Much more so than its closer distance to the Sun would suggest.
There is certainly a 'full greenhouse effect' on Venus whose atmosphere is 96 percent CO2. The idea of a 'full greenhouse effect' is that more CO2 will not increase the effect, nor will less necessarily decrease it. For example, if the atmosphere of Venus were to suddenly change to 50 percent CO2 and 46 percent N2, the magnitude of the greenhouse effect CAUSED BY THE CO2 would stay the same. The Earth's climate is also affected by the greenhouse effect of greenhouse gases, the most important of which are H2O and CO2. At the current conditions of earth's atmosphere, more H2O or more CO2 will not significantly increase the greenhouse effect attributable to them. If the atmospheric conditions were to suddenly change to a much higher density (and therefore pressure) and/or if some new gas (such as the sulfuric acid on Venus) were to be added, the dynamics of the earth's atmosphere would be in play and the amount of CO2 and/or H2O which would provide that 'full greenhouse effect' would change. At present, however, there is already more than sufficient CO2 in the earth's atmosphere to absorb ALL of the radiation at the narrow wavelengths that CO2 absorbs at...within the first 1000 meters of atmosphere above the earth's surface.
A friend asked me to help get their new Christmas MacBook Pro to print photos with a 8-yr-old Canon printer. First, I go to the Canon website looking for drivers. Canon doesn't have them for download for that model anymore, though, not even for Windows. Googling finds the 'download-driver' websites offering drivers...but they are for older OS versions and won't download without the obligatory 'signing up' etc. Frustrated, I plug the printer usb cable into the macbook and expect to see a pop-up screen about finding new hardware and where should it look for a new driver but...nothing. Click through to 'printers' and...it says the printer is not only recognized but ready to print. Yeah, sure. Click on the iPhoto app and select 4x6 borderless print and...in a few seconds out pops a beautiful print. I'd been so conditioned by the Windows way of doing things that I expected it not to work with OS X 10.5. What does this have to do with the TFA? Only that Apple has got it going on right now. Someone else might beat them but it won't be because Apple wasn't offering good products...the someone else will have to be offering much better products and that is going to be very, very difficult to do.
Your response is typical...'it's all lies!!!!'
This is like saying the Earth is the biggest driver of the Earth's climate. It's an essentially meaningless statement.
No, it is not. The drivers ('forcing functions') are a matter of extensive debate. AGW true believers insist that atmospheric CO2 concentration is far more significant than changes in solar activity...and will shout down any hint that solar activity might have a serious effect on long-term climate.
A 'full' greenhouse effect would mean that 100% of heat is retained. That's impossible, but you can look at worlds where heat retention is in the 99% range, such as Venus.
Your '99% heat retention'statement is ridiculous. Atmospheric CO2 can absorb only in a very narrow wavelength related to its molecular vibrational modes. Radiation outside of those wavelengths will not be absorbed but will just pass right through a gas composed of CO2, whatever its density. Of course, the venusian atmosphere also has 'clouds' of sulfuric acid which would act to block radiation both incoming and outgoing, just as our clouds of water do on earth.
Even if it was true, climate is not weather...Climate change is measured across decades, not years
Interesting that you point to March 2010 and April 2010 temperatures to 'refute' the idea that our climate has begun cooling after decades of warming. Your period of time is even shorter than the 4-yr 2007-2010 period of time. Obviously, we will have to wait another few decades to see if the long-term cooling trend continues...but as TFA points out...the signs are beginning to be obvious.
This is irrelevant to historical analysis, which shows a clear warming trend across decades. But unlike yourself, scientists do endeavor to be honest, and refine their model as new data is available. Most excess heat is getting dumped into the oceans.
The computer models are not used to perform 'historical analysis' but to predict the effects of changes in the earth's atmosphere on our planet's climate...so the quality of the computer modeling is critical to the accuracy of the predictions. Finally, your statement about 'excess heat' (whatever that is) being 'dumped' into the oceans is more nonsense. The heresy is to suggest that the computer modeling predictions might not be right.
why does Venus (with a massive atmosphere made mostly of CO2) have a far higher (~400 Celsius) surface temperature, even though it actually gets less heat from the Sun?
Why does Mars (with an atmosphere composed of 95% CO2) have a far lower mean temperature (-85C)? The venusian climate is affected by a lot more than CO2...as is the martian climate.
Here are the ideas that are considered heretical by the true believers in global warming:
1) The sun is the biggest driver of the Earth's Climate
2) There is already more than enough CO2 for a 'full' greenhouse effect so more will not make it 'worse.'
3) The Earth has been cooling since 2007.
4) Current computer models of the Earth's long-term climate are not necessarily correct.
There are others, of course, but you get the idea. Never say any of the above in the presence of believers.
It is technically possible to launch a one-way trip to Mars...costly for certain...but not technically difficult. What would be impossible would be for humans to sustain life on Mars for more than perhaps a few months. The problems are that the atmosphere on Mars is too thin to be useful for life and, more importantly, contains no oxygen. There is also no source of food on Mars, nor source of energy, although some sort of nuclear fission device could generate a limited amount of power which could be used to generate oxygen from the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (the martian atmosphere is 95% CO2) but a source of hydrogen would be needed to produce water needed to sustain life...and there is none to be found on Mars. Given these severe limitations, a 'colony' on Mars which could sustain life independent of support from Earth would not be possible and any mars-nauts sent there would be sacrificing their lives for the opportunity to spend a short amount time 'living' on the martian surface. That would not be 'colonization' but 'suicide scientific exploration' and the question to ask is 'would the scientific gains expected from such a mission justify the sacrifice of the lives involved?'
The big bang doesn't talk about the creation event. It discusses the expansion following soon after that event...
The 'big bang' theory is that the universe began as the appearance of a 'singularity' approximately 13.7 billion years ago that then rapidly expanded into the universe that we see today. According to the theory, neither 'mass' nor 'space' nor 'time' existed prior to the singularity.
Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548.
The title is misleading. The LHC did not create a mini 'big bang' but created a miniature of the conditions that might have existed shortly AFTER the big bang. The 'big bang' was the event that created all mass, space, and time in the entire universe in a single instant approximately 13.7 billion years ago. The LHC collision of lead ions did not create any mass, space, or time but did create a "hot dense soup of quarks and gluons known as a quark-gluon plasma" that might have existed after the 'big bang' event.
It's great that someone is finally recognizing this sort of stuff. Think of the millions of kwh wasted all over the world every day running flash on laptops and desktops...not to mention the security issues involved with the 'active' content that the flash player brings to the system. All of this comes from an unlovely company that does not seem to shoulder any responsibility for the software that it looses upon the user community. Okay Adobe, mod this troll, but you can't stop everyone from eventually seeing the light.
'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive.
Give me a f**king break! You're alive because you're a well-nourished 62 y/o man who has not (yet) contracted a fatal disease and has avoided fatal traumatic injury in spite of frequent intoxication. Most men in the UK and the US are still alive at 62 yrs.
Obviously Clinton had decided he would never push the button and didn't much care about the button's whereabouts. If Russia had decided to launch 500 nuclear warheads at the U.S., there wouldn't have been much point in pushing the button anyway, other than, perhaps, for some sort of twisted revenge. Nuclear weapons are the kind of weapon that gives Iran's Ahmadinejad an Islamic hard-on...just thinking about nuking Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and...perhaps New York and Los Angeles...and...even better...thinking about the massive amount of fear that the the intended victims will experience in the time leading up to the actual nuking. Fear...it's all about fear. Clinton was not someone who wanted anyone to be afraid anywhere...more of an anti-fear President.
It may have been 40 years ago but it was a major event in US History that still reverberates today so it's wonderful when the truth of what happened is finally, finally revealed. The protesters wanted to believe that the guardsmen opened fire for no reason. The guardsmen wanted to believe that the protesters were trying to shoot them. In the end, the shootings were provoked by Norman who should be tracked down and prosecuted to the extent possible. Maybe, someday, the truth will also come out about the other major shootings from that era: JFK (1963), RFK (1968), and ML King (1968).
This is a good example of why Microsoft's future looks so gloomy. Instead of coming out with new ways of doing things, better, more efficient ways, things that delight users, they think of ways they can screw other companies like Apple and Google that ARE doing those things.
This isn't 'bypassing' the law. Many incandescent bulbs are used as inexpensive low-power heating devices for small outdoor enclosures where a small amount of heat is required to control interior humidity. Try buying a 50-watt electric heater for a few dollars. The light produced in the process is just a fringe benefit.
I wouldn't be too sure of that mine reopening.
Why not? The mine is owned by Molycorp which was a subsidiary of Unocal Corp and then of Chevron after Chevron's acquisition of Unocal in 2005. China attempted to purchase Unocal in 2005 but was overruled by the Bush Adminisration. Molycorp is now a privately-owned spinoff of Chevron and began processing stockpiled rare earth ore last year. As they work down their inventory of ore, they will obtain more from their mine. The mine obtained a new 30-year operating permit in 2004. Unless you're planning on sabotage or military strikes, there seems to be no reason why Molycorp will not remove more ore from the mine beginning in 2011. Do you have any information to the contrary or are you just giving voice to vague worries and fears?
Politics is much more important to the Chinese than your business. That is the takeaway here. The Chinese governemnt is willing to plunge most of the industrial west into chaos over fishing rights to a patch of ocean around uninhabitated islands that the Japanese have controlled since at least 1895. The rare earth issue is a blessing in disguise. Until 1984, the United States was by far the biggest producer of rare earths from it Mountain Pass Mine in California. After the mine was closed, the field was left to China and this is the result...they have become a political tool to compel obedience to Beijing. The Mountain Pass mine will be reopened in 2011 and US production will eventually restore balance to the world economic production...but the memory of what the Chinese will do as your trading partner should never be forgotten.
some Senators came close to banning the dial telephone
Maybe they did ban them cuz there are no more dial telephones.
In the medium term the global economic system and every market-oriented national economy would collapse.
The 'global economic system' of supply and demand is precisely what PREVENTS economic collapse whenever there is a shortage of a commodity, be it oil...copper or coffee or titanium or whatever. A diminished supply leads to higher commodity prices which both reduces consumption and allocates the diminished supplies to those willing and able to pay the highest price while others search for acceptable alternatives. This global economic system of supply and demand has worked successfully many times in the past for oil as well as for hundreds of other commodities ranging from apples to vanilla. Besides, reduced oil production will make everyone's carbon footprint smaller which is a good thing for global warming, so Al Gore should be celebrating.
This year we are going to see a new record low for arctic sea ice --- surpassing even the dramatic 2007 decline.
No one can say with certainty what 'might' happen...but it can be said
what has already happened with arctic sea ice extent...and you are
wrong. Arctic sea ice extent this year is greater
than it was on the same date in 2007 AND 2008.
In Catholic tradition, it's not as common to think of the bible as the literal word of God, so it's less of an issue.
Catholics ALWAYS think of the bible as the Word of God. From the 'Catechism of the Catholic Church' No. 81: "Sacred Scripture is the speech of God as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit."
Getting back to the TFA however, it is possible that the radioactive decay rate is influenced by solar magnetic activity, just as it also seems possible that the solar magnetic field contributes to the source of heat at the center of the Earth. We know very little at the moment about the source of solar magnetism, its strength, and its effects.
Disagree that secure and popular are mutually exclusive. I would much prefer some security built into the software. For example, malware transmission vectors tend to be either executing a hostile executable or unknowingly having hostile active content (scripting agents) execute in the background. Either way, the malware writes stuff to the drive, writes to the registry, modifies files, and then hides itself. This stuff can happen because those are the same things that 'friendly' software from Adobe or Microsoft does. Microsoft's approach to security is to try to prevent hostile software from executing on the system through one of a million holes (a few of which Microsoft plugs every week) and to give certain people 'admin' priveleges who are necessary for 'administrator priveleges.' But why shouldn't ALL software be compelled to identify itself thoroughly when being installed by telling you 1) it's origin, 2) where it will write files, 3) what registry keys it will write too, 4) what files it will write, etc. Microsoft sees nothing wrong with flashing a 24-page EULA up on the screen that you have to read and agree to before you can install but it shows you less than nothing about what that new software is about to do to your system. Where are the priorities there?
Okay, wild, but stay with me here. Aspartame is a known
neurotoxin (i.e. mildly toxic to brain tissue) and previous studies
have shown that damage
to certain areas of the brain reduces empathy. Personal
experience with two friends who became addicted to diet pop and
suffered significant personality changes including a major loss of
empathy first suggested this. Okay, this is anecdotal
but what's a better theory?