Month: April 2011

Very nice map of the radiation plume from Japan. And you can pick your poison. I-131 or Cs-137. Plus you can make it go fast or slow and pick out individual frames. Frames 33 to 51 are quite interesting. “Loop” to get started. Tokyo will get smacked. As well as Osaka. Hot times. Note also…

Just saw the movie, loved it, exceeded my expectations. Theatre was about half-full on a Sunday afternoon, there was applause at the end. It looks like they’re still #3 in per-screen average. The production values weren’t 100% — you can tell this is a small-budget film. And if you haven’t read the book, it’s probably…

How about that hole? I think it is a case of more rubble, more trouble. Video #2 Video #3 OK. By now you have seen the nice hole – you did look didn’t you? So what about the 69 months? I’m afraid that is either a typo or a projection based on past performance. One…

While I don’t have much time for blogging today, as it’s tax time I wanted to make a brief observation about our president’s remark about the nature of government: Republicans plans to shrink the reach of government is “not a vision  that’s impelled by the numbers” but a “choice” to give a trillion  dollars in…

Well our friends the Japanese have screwed the pooch again. They forgot to turn on the water. “The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan emitted a new burst of radioactive material this week after a bungled cooling effort apparently affected spent atomic fuel in the site’s No. 4 reactor cooling pond, the Associated Press…

I was rereading my post Worms Autism and since I referenced one comment from here I thought I ought to read them all. Just in case I missed something interesting. And it looks like I did. Several somethings in fact. Let me start with a bit that interests me personally since I have a close…

What exactly do worms have to do with autism? Good question. As faithful readers know, in the first of my many previous lives I was occupied as a clinical psychologist (preparation for dealing with engineers [ain’t it the truth – and I’m an engineer – ed.] on a full time basis in my current life).…

If you will forgive the Socratic dialogue and the cheapshot classical allusion, I’ll give a hint. The answer is not Socrates! (You will just have to read on.) I live in a college town, and I have lived in one college town or another for most of my life. I don’t know how related it…

Reading that the woman who sent Rep. Peter King a pig’s foot (apparently as some sort of protest) was a Muslim fascinated me. So did an earlier incident in which she sent Georgia State Senator Greg Ball a “Curious George monkey with a label saying it was bound for Auschwitz” “I knew the Jews were…

“Perhaps we need to build nuclear power plants to keep the potheads happy.” Sounds like the sort of thing I might say if I wanted to give M. Simon a chuckle, but Clayton Cramer said it. Potheads (more accurately, marijuana growers) are apparently using more than their fair share of electricity to grow the stuff,…

Sounds pretty amazing to me. According to Carnot the efficiency of an ideal engine is 1 – Tc/Th. Where Tc is the exhaust temperature and Th is the burning temperature (this is somewhat simplified). The temperatures are absolute (i.e. Kelvin scale in the metric system). The Wave Engine according to some designs operates at a…

In the interests of preserving what is left of my mental health, I need to find some way to avoid the temptation to click on links to things that irritate me. Sure, it’s a minor irritation to see these Drudge headlines: UPDATE: PARENTS FURIOUS AFTER TSA FRISKS 6-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER… ‘Such pretty hair, you have’… VIDEO……

Commenter Jeremy at “Fukushima Update 14 April 2011” sent me via e-mail a link to the below map. And some supporting evidence. Links below for the source of the map and the supporting evidence. The source of the map. Why there is an exclusion zone around the other Fukushima plant. The situation now is such…

I keep GMT so it is already 14 April for me. == Arnie Gundersen: The Myths Of Three Mile Island (video). Dr. Steve Wing on the health effects of Three Mile Island (video). A reevaluation of cancer incidence near the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: the collision of evidence and assumptions. This is an NIH…

Dan Mitchell says the Obama plan for automatic tax increases when Congress overspends is a bad idea. At that rate the government will own us all before long. He has a counter proposal. There are more in the comments. I have one myself. There is a better way: decimation. If Congress and the President over…

I’m back from Radley Balko’s tour-de-force presentation about brutal SWAT Team raids (yes, they are inherently brutal), and the systematized militarization of police in America. This was a large crowd of twenty-somethingish law students, and Balko began with this horrific video showing the police shooting a dog whose only crime was being owned by a…

If you’re in Michigan, don’t miss this event. Especially if you’re an Ann Arbor Reasonoid like me. This Wednesday, April 13th, at 12:15 pm, Reason Senior Editor Radley Balko will speak about police militarization at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor. The speech will be at  625 S. State St. in room…

Earlier Drudge linked this story about feral hogs invading a Texas suburb.The citizens are apparently helpless, because they are not allowed to shoot the hogs, and the beasts have an uncanny ability to avoid traps and snares. Feral hogs are on a rampage in a Fort Worth neighborhood, leaving a path of destruction behind. Merely…

Here are some links to keep you up to speed on the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Interview With A Site Cleanup Worker – He talks about a worker only being able to turn three bolts before exceeding the allowable radiation dose. – Note you may have to use a browser other than Firefox to watch…