Lloyd J

Nuclear power has the best hope of reducing green house gases in the future. Can you point me to any of the AGW authors who have spoken out to save San Onofre? This is a multi-billion dollar public investment that is being tossed on the ash heap.

I was surprised to learn that Dubai does not have a sewer system. How could they build a large city with skyscrapers and no sewer system?

How is that consistent with overall global warming?

The GDP is around 15 trillion and growing at approx 1% or .15 trillion per year. Yet the government is spending 1.5 trillion more than it takes in, which is a debt driven growth rate of 10%. Doesn't that really mean the economy is losing ground at 9% per year and is just being artificially pumped up with fiat money? Isn't this a downward spiral?

Just curious. Is this the same problem Sony had in their laptops?

I am just curious what percentage of current flu victims had the flu shot. Does the CDC or AMA collect and publish this kind of data?

In a normal classical recession both prices and wages go down. But when you print fiat currency and hand it out via all kinds of government programs, this drives up prices and wages. So we may actually be in a really serious recession that is being artificially pumped up to make it look like steady prices and wages. Isn't this an insideous and criminal practice that will lead to a horrible end?

During the last go-round on "comprehensive" immigration reform, the two sides nearly agreed to making these poor people pay $5000 as a fine for breaking the law in order to stay and become legal. I thought that was pretty heartless, as these people are barely making it now. I would propose an alternate penalty for those who want to turn themselves in and become legal. The penalty would be very much like immigration used to be before 1970. You had to agree not to use any poverty program of any kind for 10 years and you would just have a green card for ten years. At the end of 10 years you could apply for citizenship. How is that for an alternate penalty? Let me know.

Sometimes the best way to understand a complex subject is by analogy. I know I was helped by this many times in my education.

The economy can be likened to a small puppy. When the puppy is eating well and healthy he grows and gets stronger.

The government is like two dozen ticks that are consuming some of the energy of the puppy. So long as the ticks are kept small, they don't hurt the puppy too much and he can still grow.

The ticks can be seen to represent fat public employee pension plans, local politicians making huge salaries and benefits, congressmen and senators with huge staffs of highly paid bureaucrats, executive branch staffs of thousands and thousands, etc etc.

Right now government spending at all levels are taking so much of the energy from the puppy that he is failing to thrive. He is not gaining weight as he should.

The democrat solution to this problem is to raise taxes and take even more energy from the puppy, which will likely make the puppy lose weight and become ill.

The republican solution when the puppy is failing to thrive is to lower taxes, so the puppy has a chance to become healthy again.

Some democrats are pointing out that parts of the puppy are really doing very well. They point to the heart of the puppy and the brain of the puppy. They want to pull energy from the heart of the puppy and the brain of the puppy since those parts of the puppy are doing very well.

Are you a democrat or a republican?

Why don't they praise diversity of incomes among men? We all have a range of skills and intelligence and work ethic, why is it not a good thing for men to have a wide diversity of incomes? It is certainly a natural thing, why is it bad?

So now we are handing out patents for the program code that is launched when the user double clicks or double taps the screen. Apple won a law suit where they claim the rights to the idea that double tapping launches the zoom code function. Isn't this just a bit idiotic? How is that an invention?

I did a straight statistical analysis of the chances of a rape yielding a pregnancy and came up with 1.5 per thousand or .015%. Yet the CDC and other medical sources indicate it is more like 5%. Does anyone know how to account for this 33 to one discrepancy? I have heard that rapists have some magical radar that leads them to women that are extremely fertile. I have heard that the excitement in the rapist mind must trigger some kind of amazing semen that in turn triggers a women to ovulate. These all sound so irrational. Any ideas?

the free market and US engineering innovation? US engineers developed new methods of extracting natural gas, which has dropped the price of natural gas far below coal. So energy producers in pursuit of that evil profit have switched from coal to gas. Gas produces about 1/2 of the CO2 compared to coal. This change is the single reason CO2 production in the US has dropped to levels targeted by the Kyoto accords. California's AB32 has not gone into effect and the goals of AB32 are already achieved. Does that bother greenies and alarmists, or are they happy?

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/ddoniger/the_cur...

It appears that the bureaucratic system the UN setup to curb CO2 emissions has backfired in their face. It has effectively increased carbon emission worldwide, while funneling millions of dollars into companies that are ripping off those who believe in the value of the system. When will the marxist tyrants give up on these rampantly corrupt methods of getting what they want.

to find potentially dangerous people? Like the two boys in Colorado who shot up their school and the Neuro PHD student who just shot up people in a theater. Possibly we could encourage people to report to the psych community when they see key symptoms in their friends.

Quote from source." In debating science-related policy matters, we tend to assume that scientists are not influenced by their own political views. Yet in a recent study co-authored by one of us (Scheufele), we find that even after controlling for their scientific judgments, scientists’ political ideologies significantly influence their preferences for potential regulatory policies."

http://the-scientist.com/2012/07/23/opinion-scient...

The scientific data is one thing, what I find disappointing is how quickly so many scientists give up on any freedom/voluntary based solutions and immediately assume only top down tyranny will suffice.

If a privately held firm buys back the stock of one of its investors, can they buy it back with working capital like an expense or do they have to buy it back with money that has been taxed as profits?

In the battle for the minds of men concerning religion, atheists take an arrogant tack and insist that christianity is the source of all wars blah blah blah. Can atheists point to any time in history where atheism created massive civilizations and lead to all the modern scientific discoveries? If we all converted to atheism today, would man move forward from here or would we stagnate and die on the vine? Christianity is the calming force in history that has brought us to this point, would it really be wise to discard it for atheism?

I have heard many times that global warming is causing the ocean to acidify and this is killing the coral reefs. It only took a few minutes of research to find that the ocean is actually alkaline and it is moving very slowly toward neutral. Since neutral would be the optimum environment for sea creatures to grow, how can this be such a bad thing? I realize that many ocean creatures have adapted to the alkaline environment and if they fail to adapt to a more neutral environment, they will die off. But evolution tells us that species will adapt and evolve to the new conditions. If anything a more neutral ocean will allow for a wider variety of ocean animals to flourish. So why do greenies and alarmist try to convince people that the ocean is turning into an acid bath by using this language? It severely damages their credibility to anyone who does a small amount of research into the issue.

Do any engineers here know the relative efficiency of using fuel oil to heat water to steam and then drive a steam turbine to generate electricity vs. using kerosene/jet fuel to fire a gas turbine and generate electricity. The gas turbine system is a lot simpler, but I am sure there are several reasons why the steam turbine method might be more efficient in terms of dollars per megawatt hour. I am just curious, only serious answers welcome.