A “Lib Dem” minister just told Sky News he was approving new nuclear power stations to promote green jobs. If anybody ever votes for these lying bastards again I shall be disconsolate.
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Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
19 Mar, 2013 – 5:50 pm
“La vita è bella, life is good! (help Mary un-obsess)”
Habbabkuk it seems to me that it is thou that is obsessed (with Mary).
Mark Golding – Children of Conflict
19 Mar, 2013 – 6:34 pm
“I also recommend burning peat.”
Who is Pete?
Appalling shutting down of the individual and dissent occurring in the US. Worse now under Obama than under Bush I would think.
Glenn Greenwald writes:
Italics‘But the pending federal prosecution of 31-year-old Barrett Brown poses all new troubling risks. That’s because Brown – who has been imprisoned since September on a 17-count indictment that could result in many years in prison – is a serious journalist who has spent the last several years doggedly investigating the shadowy and highly secretive underworld of private intelligence and defense contractors, who work hand-in-hand with the agencies of the Surveillance and National Security State in all sorts of ways that remain completely unknown to the public. It is virtually impossible to conclude that the obscenely excessive prosecution he now faces is unrelated to that journalism and his related activism.
A brief understanding of Brown’s intrepid journalism is vital to understanding the travesty of his prosecution. I first heard of Brown when he wrote a great 2010 essay in Vanity Fair defending the journalist Michael Hastings from attacks from fellow journalists over Hastings’ profile of Gen. Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone, which ended the general’s career. Brown argued that establishment journalists hate Hastings because he has spent years challenging, rather than serving, political and military officials and the false conventional wisdom they spout.
In an excellent profile of Brown in the Guardian on Wednesday, Ryan Gallagher describes that “before he crossed paths with the FBI, Brown was a prolific writer who had contributed to publications including Vanity Fair, the Guardian, the Huffington Post and satirical news site the Onion.” He also “had a short stint in politics as the director of communications for an atheist group called Enlighten the Vote, and he co-authored a well-received book mocking creationism, Flock of Dodos.” ‘
The persecution of Barrett Brown – and how to fight it
The journalist and Anonymous activist is targeted as part of a broad effort to deter and punish internet freedom activism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/21/barrett-brown-persecution-anonymous
Richard
20 Mar, 2013 – 12:32 am
“Overall, nuclear is the safest form of energy generation the world has ever seen (and the statistics since 1950 bear this out). “
Richard why do you not supply the readers with those statistics and provide a link?
“Just to take one counter example, more deaths have occured in the UK due to Wind turbines than nuclear.”
Again you fail to provide any evidence for your assertion. Why not?
““Just to take one counter example, more deaths have occured in the UK due to Wind turbines than nuclear.””
I think the commentator was referring to bird-strikes… 🙂
Scottish referendum scheduled for Sept. 18, 2014.
What makes Obama so skeptical about the possibility that it was anti-government forces that launched the poison gas attack?
Shams
20 Mar, 2013 – 1:25 am
“Why can’t people just love each other? Please.”
It is sad that the world is governed by selfish power-mad people (mostly men) who, by the illusion of democracy or the brutality of dictatorship, control and ruin the lives of innocent, peace- loving people, for their own ideological or personal reasons.
It’s begun. Riots in Cyprus…..oh wait. That was 1956.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/10/newsid_4216000/4216931.stm
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
20 Mar, 2013 – 2:21 pm
@ Mary, who wrote :
“Resident Dissident. No I do not think Davey is Jewish and nor was I suggesting it nor care. Stop your slurs.”
OK, now we’be established that you’re not anti-Jewish could you please give us a concrete example or two of policies put forward by Ed Davey which could indicate that his loyalties lie with Israel rather with the UK as you suggested might be the case (cf. your post at 18h27 yesterday).
Thank you very much, Mary.
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
20 Mar, 2013 – 2:28 pm
@ Mary at 09h31, who opines :
“Obama arrives in Israel on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war to plan more war against Syria and Iran at the Zionists’ bidding.”
The bit about “to plan more war” has aroused my curiosity. What is the basis for that rather serious charge?
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!)
20 Mar, 2013 – 2:33 pm
Also at 09h31, Mary posts :
“PS Did you hear the German finance minister saying to the Cypriots ‘Your banks may never open again’! Coming to us and other European countries in the not too distant future??”
No, it is not coming to other European countries in any sort of future.
“You need to read up a little on the development of the modern Cyprus economy and on the structure and weight of its banking sector.”
Habbabkuk, you are a despicable creature as I am sure you know yourself. Why you are like this I don’t know but in my broad experience I have found that people like you get satisfaction from upsetting others or causing emotional or physical pain on your chosen victims.
Anonymity in chat rooms or on blogs is useful for people who want to contribute to a debate without fear of retribution. But anonymity also provides cover (and power) to people like you and your mate ResDis to abuse without accountability.
“Habbabkuk, you are a despicable creature”
He strikes me as the same type as the individual providing the commentary here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox7dEq7vI4Y&list=FLXt3Jtv6OH0Z5WtTTOMIqhg&index=93
As for ResDes, he comes across as Harry’s Place regular, trying to up his game by engaging in rational debate for a change, but failing everytime; maybe time for him to go back to where he is surely most appreciated.
“If Scotland take it’s independance where will the English buy their power from then, especially if all the bridges to coal / nuclear / Shale / onshore wind have been burned.”
I know of one person killed on a wind farm near me, he was working in the top when somebody let the brakes off, he was minced.
What a relief. The website is back.
Don’t take any notice of him/her/it Doug Scorgie. I don’t anymore. The links to Israel’s atrocities are obviously a trigger.
Collective punishment is now being enacted on the Palestinians in Gaza for the rockets. An important crossing has been closed and the fishing limit off the Gaza shore has been reduced from 6mls to 3mls. Quite illegal under international law.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=577589
The IDF have been roughing up children in Hebron and have been trying to arrest them, again illegally.
Arrest of Palestinian children in Hebronתיעוד וידאו של מעצר ילדים בחברון
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDaMlJVcMkA#
Had trouble connecting to Craig – database connection error?
Is the problem catholic?
“We need a balanced approach and we need it now.”
We aren’t getting one.
Wind can never be the complete answer without an efficient means of storage, you still need power when the wind isn’t blowing. They’re putting tidal into the Pentland Firth, power all of Scotland if it works, they tried before, it didn’t work. Still a long way to send the electricity to where it’s needed.
They should be building big wind farms where the conditions are right, instead they’re putting them everywhere, people jumping on the band wagon and sticking up two or three to grab the subsidies and sell off carbon credits. Wind mills are industrial, power stations, soon there will be no rural areas left.
2:27 post was reply to Ben’s 8:29 pm post.
Don’t know how that happened.
Photovoltaic panels and the generators used in wind turbines need rare earth metals for their construction. These have to be mined, and mining is dangerous. Then they have to be refined, and this leaves toxic residue, some of which is radioactive.
In the US, heavy rare earth metals are hardly extracted at all any more. These elements are usually found with thorium, which is classed as a nuclear hazard. There are no more available licenses for thorium disposal, so heavy rare earth production has moved to poorer countries. I think there are some nasty little wars in Africa over rare earth mineral extraction.
I’m not arguing against renewable energy here. These dangers need to be quantified and compared with the alternatives. Better regulation in poorer countries could be all that’s needed.
Whet I’m really arguing is that it’s very easy to think “nuclear is bad and dangerous. Wind and solar are natural, so they are completely harmless”. Like most things in life, the reality is more complicated.
Wind turbines are not a solution to an energy crisis as I see it Fred. Same as electric cars do not solve the problems of peak oil.
We have energy from the sun. The only problem is storing that energy efficiently.
We can store surplus heat in the ground and either use it directly or convert to electricity using dirt.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2239830/Cheap-material-DIRT-convert-heat-directly-electricity-New-discovery-revolutionise-power-generation.html
Al it takes is commitment and endeavor.
Listen to Prof Kern Alexander here. A voice like his is rarely heard on the BBC.
Re Cyprus on The World at One today, he spoke after a Cypriot MP.
His truthfulness was a breath of fresh air. He spoke of the Russians being demonised and said the amount of Russian money that has come into the UK dwarfs the offshore banking ‘haven’ that is Cyprus. Furthermore, it was accepted into the Euro bloc when its offshore function was well known ie it suited the bloc then.
He appears at 14mins 10secs in http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r9wcn
The Cyprus bank segment begins at 7mins 30secs in.
A link to Prof Alexander’s biography.
http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/research/associates/alexanderk.html
On topic because this one-of-the-world’s greatest quantum physicists Michio Kaku is talking about other nuclear nightmares.
Michio Kaku – Top Secret Military War Plans
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTxaGzm_v8Q
Btw, those new to Kaku, his books are a great read and videos eminently watchable.
Note how he starts off by calling the US a rogue state. (habakuk please post all your thick-headed questions here of things you didn’t get, and i shall arrange for answers for you.)
Villager, Clark, Mark—There are no easy solutions, when we have increasing power needs because more and more of the Billions on Earth are discovering the convenience of refrigeration, and the other basics of technology enjoyed by the 1st Worlders….Now if only they could scrape Las Vegas off the landscape, we could save millions of KWH.
We Earthlings have way too many numbers for cottage renewables of known sources.
We need a Quantum Leap in technology. Bohm, anyone?
“We can store surplus heat in the ground and either use it directly or convert to electricity using dirt.”
The Mail didn’t say how efficient they will be. My guess is they will just be a cheaper way of making Peltiers which aren’t very efficient at all. They need a steep temperature gradient, OK for reclaiming waste heat from a car engine but not an efficient means of storage. Heat engines are all limited by Carnot, the most promising research in my opinion is the thermo acoustic, in theory they could out perform anything but still not be an efficient means of storing electricity.
This is worth a watch. A bit of history.
Dr.Eugene Malllove,MIT
New energy sources.
Sadly he was killed a few years ago and his killer or killers were never brought to justice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l0jD4nuRyPE#!
per my 3:34
“I agreed. By this time the drink was beginning to cut the acid and my hallucinations were down to a tolerable level. The room service waiter had a vaguely reptilian cast to his features, but I was no longer seeing huge pterodactyls lumbering around the corridors in pools of fresh blood. The only problem now was a gigantic neon sign outside the window, blocking our view of the mountains — millions of colored balls running around a very complicated track, strange symbols & filigree, giving off a loud hum….
“Look outside,” I said.
“Why?”
“There’s a big … machine in the sky, … some kind of electric snake … coming straight at us.”
“Shoot it,” said my attorney.
“Not yet,” I said. “I want to study its habits.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I was worried about the Langeled pipeline failing and teh Bacton one failed instead.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-03-22/u-dot-k-dot-gas-surges-50-percent-to-seven-year-high-as-belgian-flows-halt
National Grid realtime data shows the pipeline has just restarted. Gas crisis even made the BBC 1pm tv news.
Then there’s the emergency shutdown at Sellafield.
Dave; ITER project (with US and UK funding, of late) is getting ready for building a working prototype, correct?
Why is it the funding for that has not been addressed? It appears the funders just wanted to be close to the concept in order to monitor it’s progress. Do you think they are genuine in their wish to see it become a reality, or something else?
@Ben― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
I found Acid very creative and productive in those times.
As for Bohm Mike who was his student at the time is still going strong.
Here is some of his work on his page.This is quantum physics.
http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/berry_mv/publications.html
What exactly is a ‘site incident’ at Sellafield or Windscale as I prefer to call it. We should be told.
Sellafield shutdown: Severe weather closes nuclear site
Sellafield Nuclear Plant The move was to allow staff to get home safely
The Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant has been shut down because of severe weather conditions.
A ‘site incident’ has been declared at the Cumbria base and plants moved to a “controlled, safe, shut-down state”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-21895654
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/22/uk-britain-gas-price-idUKBRE92L07J20130322
An excerpt from his review of Deutschs’ book ‘The Beginning of Infinity’ which seems to be very positive about the human capacity for innovation and transmutation, Dave.
http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/people/berry_mv/the_papers/Berry436.pdf
” To illustrate this, he reports that when colour television became popular in the 1970s, a friend argued that its dependence on the rare element europium for the red phosphor would lead to society splitting into those who could afford it and those who could not – a dangerous situation originating in a technology that nobody needed.
Now we see this argument as absurd and based on a failure to anticipate the development of other kinds of colour display, such as those used in our computer screens and based on liquid crystals. The story illustrates Deutsch’s distinction between prediction, rationally based on present knowledge, and prophecy, based on the inability to imagine future knowledge.
Why did the jump to univer- sality occur in our Western society and not elsewhere? Deutsch rejects the explanations of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Jared Diamond that the dominance of the West is a consequence of geography and climate, emphasising instead the distinction between open societies, where criticism and innovation flourish – Athens, for example – and closed societies such as Sparta where change is suppressed. In stressing the importance of learning through mistakes (“error correction is the beginning of infinity”), he is a follower and admirer of Karl Popper (“science as misconception”).”