Month: December 2008

I just came across a book Amateur Nuclear Fusion that is the tale of one guy’s efforts to make neutrons in his basement. Here is the blurb from the book: Here’s a look inside an amateur lab that does nuclear fusion. I outline the basic principle of the Farnsworth fusor, and describe my fusor in…

It looks like another Friend Of Obama (FOO) is having a little trouble with the law. Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — A federal grand jury is investigating how a company that advised Jefferson County, Alabama, on bond deals that threaten to cause the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history, did similar work in New Mexico after…

I have been trying to decide if the introduction to the next story should be the Mikado’s List Song or Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. So I’ve decided to do them both. Think of it as low culture and lower culture. Popular entertainments for the times. You will note the song from the Mikado…

There were about a dozen people in the church at the time. What is there about Palin that inspires such stupidity? Such hatred? Gateway Pundit has more plus links. Cross Posted at Power and Control

He was close to corrupt Daley. President-elect Barack Obama has never been close to Mr. Blagojevich. He has aligned with the Daley division of the fractured Democratic machine, while Mr. Blagojevich, chiefly through the sponsorship of his father-in-law, a powerful Chicago alderman, has been from that faction that has always resented the mayor’s good fortune…

So who owns the governor of Illinois? Earlier today, we reported on the developing pay-for-play scandal involving humiliated Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich which allegedly involved offer the SEIU the power to name Barack Obama’s replacement as Senator in return for a cushy job with the SEIU’s Change to Win coalition or a new SEIU-funded lobby…

On my chimney, the crab is always trying to catch the sun. What happens if it succeeds? (Any astrological meanings and interpretations are deliberately unintended, of course.)

Via a link from Chocolatier, I’m glad to see that traditional, wholesome Stalinist values are still alive! What a relief! I know it sounds paranoid, but sometimes I worry that the old-time traditional Stalinism we once venerated might be over, and that kids have been infected with strange new values that aren’t values at all,…

Mexico is hurting. The war on the northern border is devastating the country. Five thousand, three hundred, and seventy-six people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war so far this year, double the number from last year and more than all the US troops killed in Iraq. Is this what victory looks like? That’s the…

Ann Althouse observes that Barack Obama isn’t getting a honeymoon: Once, new Presidents got a “honeymoon” — even after they took office. But there’s no honeymoon for Obama, who’s been plagued all along by one bad friend after another. Of course, not having been inaugurated, he hasn’t even reached the honeymoon stage, yet he still…

Well you didn’t hear it here first. That would have been a June story at Politico. In a letter to the U.S. District judge who presided over his trial, Rezko, who was convicted this month of 16 corruption-related counts, including fraud and money laundering, called prosecutors “overzealous.” And he singled out what he said were…

It looks like Britain will be losing its electrical supply before too long. It was in July of this year that the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee – prop. Tim Yeo – told the government that it must set a deadline for coal-fired power stations to install technology massively to cut their emissions, or…

What happens when the government doesn’t bail out failed companies that make cars? Believe it or not, it has actually been done! A friend emailed me a link to this article about the ruins of the Packard plant, closed five decades ago. Titled “When the Cars Go Away,” the piece details the vastness of the…

I got hit with some malware a couple of days ago specifically the virtumonde infection. I have Webroot Spy Sweeper which is supposedly top rated and it did not clean it out. Part of that may be because I have not had the funds to renew my subscription. So I went looking for something within…

It looks like the Sun’s magnetic field may control climate (which is average weather)and can be used to predict rainfall. ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2008) — The sun’s magnetic field may have a significant impact on weather and climatic parameters in Australia and other countries in the northern and southern hemispheres. According to a study in…

When I read today’s admission by Glenn Reynolds that he was confused by an attack on his “hypermasculinity,” I became more confused than I was before. And that’s a lot, because few people are more confused than I am where it comes to masculinity, um, issues. Seriously, how’s this for confusion? …what I’m wondering right…

In this Google Tech Talk from about 28 February 2007 you can see Incoming Energy Secretary Steven Chu discussing what he knows about Bussard Fusion about 1 hour 1 minute and 10 seconds into the video. The rest of the talk is about alternative energy, power sources for the future, and how to run a…

So says veteran Clinton troubleshooter Lanny Davis about Governor Blagojevich’s Obama Senate Seat Deal. (Hmm… Is “Seatgate” taken or would that be confused with a hard drive company?) Obama said on Tuesday that he never spoke with the governor about the seat, and prosecutors said neither Obama nor his advisers have been implicated. At the…

A new energy czar has been picked by the incoming administration. Steven Chu, 60 years old, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will be nominated as secretary of energy, Democratic officials said Wednesday. The Smartest President Elect Ever™ appears intent on further hobbling the economy with more command and…