View 502 January 21 - 27, 2008 (original) (raw)

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Not a great night, largely due to a cold. Nasal springy strips helped some, as did Vick's and Sudafed, but I still find myself a mouth breather, and that's no fun. Presumably I'll get over all that. I do hope it's gone by the time they schedule me for more visits to those scanning tubes. The worst of it is that this morning getting up and becoming vertical hasn't helped much.

If we are intelligently designed, I would like to submit a design modification involving the sinus and nasal passage system. The mouth by-pass works, but it's sure an uncomfortable expedient. If those easily stopped up passages are the result of Darwinian selection and survival of the fittest, I am eternally grateful that it worked as well as it did.

One of the arguments that drove Voltaire crazy was the notion that this is the best of all possible worlds: everything is connected to everything else, and if there were fundamental changes in the design of the world, what look like improvements would cause unforeseen problems; the sum total would be worse, not better. The result of Voltaire's disgust with this argument was Candide, and Dr. Pangloss.

I'm not sure if this set of musings leads anywhere. Mostly it's inspired by an uncomfortably stuffy head.

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From another conference:

This one hurts.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_eccentric_reads_entire_book

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11:30 AM Mr. Hertz, our family lawyer, is over to confer.

I am scheduled for a full body CAT scan Monday afternoon, and a bone marrow examination next Wednesday morning, at which time they will either know what's going on, or find they can't figure it out without boring holes in my skull. Since if they can find out from the periphery I am not sure I want that outcome, but looking forward to a biopsy isn't all that cheering either.

I am certainly learning more about modern medical science than I really wanted to know.

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A new policy for America

The Global Warming Hoax continues. Not that warming itself is a hoax; the Earth probably is warming. There may even be a contribution from CO2. The hoax is (1) that the CO2 is the major factor responsible for the warming, and (2) the best course is some kind of crash course in carbon elimination. And with the hoax is a scam: that you can pay money to Al Gore or someone else who will do something to balance your carbon emission and thus give you expiation.

It's clear enough that the best energy policy for the United States is (1) massive investment in nuclear power, (2) development of many of our domestic oil resources including construction of new oil refineries, (3) investment in development of commercial space access leading to solar power satellites, and (4) investment in development of new forms of energy storage to allow electricity to take over a much larger share of transportation energy supply.

Now this will in fact have the effect of (1) reducing CO2 emissions, (2) reducing dependence on foreign oil, (3) lowering the price of oil, (4) depriving the trust fund oil states of most of their discretionary income thereby leaving them less to invest in spreading revolutionary jihad, and (5) doing a pretty good job of reviving the US economy.

Couple that energy policy with a 10% tariff on all imports.

Nuclear power: 100 fission plants, each producing 1,000 megawatts of power. Cost? At a guess, an average cost of no more than 2billioneach(thefirstonemightcost2 billion each (the first one might cost 2billioneach(thefirstonemightcost50 billion, but the last one would be down around 1billionasnearasIcanmodelthelearningcurve;andmuchofthecostsareregulatory,nottechnical).Andoncethemarginalcostofanuclearplantisunder1 billion as near as I can model the learning curve; and much of the costs are regulatory, not technical). And once the marginal cost of a nuclear plant is under 1billionasnearasIcanmodelthelearningcurve;andmuchofthecostsareregulatory,nottechnical).Andoncethemarginalcostofanuclearplantisunder1 billion we can allow the market to take care of the rest while we gear up to produce power in space and get the polluting industries off the earth entirely.

And finally, the simplest way to invest in the needed technologies is to establish massive prizes for achievement of stated goals. For the American owned company that first flies the same ship to orbit 12 times in one year, 4billion.FortheAmericanownedcompanythatfirstputs31AmericancitizensontheMoonandkeepsthemtherealiveandwellfor3yearsandaday,4 billion. For the American owned company that first puts 31 American citizens on the Moon and keeps them there alive and well for 3 years and a day, 4billion.FortheAmericanownedcompanythatfirstputs31AmericancitizensontheMoonandkeepsthemtherealiveandwellfor3yearsandaday,10 billion. For the American owned company that first beams down to a receiver in the United States 10 megawatts of power per day for 320 days in a single year, $10 billion.

We do all understand that a couple of hundred square kilometers of solar panels in space would relieve energy supply problems? And that while space solar panels are big, they're light in weight, and if you want big structures, space is the place to put them: no wind loading, no snow, no rain, no dust storms...

Now of course I made up those numbers, but I think they are enough to do the job, and if we can afford a trillion dollars for foreign wars, we can certainly afford relatively small amounts like the above. Does anyone think this plan has no chance of working? I'd put the odds at well about 5:1; and note that the only big costs are nuclear power plants. Prizes cost nothing unless someone wins.

And seeprevious comments made years ago.