Saturday, September 17, 2011

Coyote Blog: In Honor of Today’s Gore-Fest, My Climate Video

Excellent video. Refutes glow bull warming theory, if you have the courage to face the truth.

Catastrophe Denied: The Science of the Skeptics Position (studio version) from Warren Meyer on Vimeo.

Is Romney more electable?

Someone at the Boston Globe thinks so: Romney offers the electability argument


Isn't it funny?  Four years ago, everybody wants to jump on the bandwagon of "change".  Now that the change has produced some unpopular results, the idea now is to inspire fear of a change.  With Romney, you get Romneycare instead of Obamacare.   So, what's the point in voting for the same thing you already have?

Whatever happened to "a choice, not an echo"?

Morning Jay

Does Obama Really Believe He's Still Popular? | The Weekly Standard


Jay Cost says up to 25% of his support is gone.   If that holds up at election time, he cannot possibly win.  So, is that the case?  

I'm not so sure.   It may well be that he has lost 25% approval, but does that translate into 25% swing at the polls?   Probably not.  

People that do not approve of Obama may vote for him anyway.   Perhaps not with great enthusiasm, but as the lesser of two evils.   In fact, that is the way he seems to be running things- he runs against the evil that he has claimed to have indentified, but not as a positive force in his own right.

Obama ran against Bush in 2008, now he will run against Congress

Congressional Job Approval

Bush was on the way out in 2008.  It wasn't relevant.  Congress is divided into districts, therefore, it isn't a national body, per se.  It does legislate with respect to the Federal Government, but is not responsible to all of the people, but only those in their own districts.  Therefore, such a poll is meaningless.  And to run against it is also meaningless.

It may work politically, but it is dangerous.  For the only solution is to nationalize our politics, which is just exactly the wrong direction.  The government is too powerful already.  To nationalize any further would endanger our Federal form of government.

Should we want this?  I should think that the answer would be "no".  This could lead to dictatorship if it isn't checked.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Yep, they are better than us, cuz they say so

Here we go again with those on the left claiming the moral high ground that they don't deserve.

Incidentally, it is Paul Krugman who decided to weigh in on this one.  The link is from one of his ardent followers.  At least it appears that he is not going to go so far as to totally mis-characterize what happened, as though this follower has no such qualms.  Somehow, I am not persuaded by such claims of high moral superiority from this individual.

On the other hand, he did mis-characterize something.  He said that Ron Paul tried to evade the question.  No, actually, he didn't.  As a matter of fact, he probably should not have attempted an answer to a hypothetical question.  Instead, he should have demanded real life examples, instead of a hypothetical.

In addition, there are few on the right who would do away with all of the social safety net.  This is also a mis -characterization.  The left gets plenty of political advantage out of stirring up fears of such hyped up threats. What is really happening is that the left wants the power more than they want to help anybody.  So, if there is even a hint of trying to rein in the outlandish spending, the left shrieks in horror at the evil of it all.  We saw that with the recent budget battle.  The left do protest too much. The real threat is to their own power, not to anybody else.

If the left wants a fight over morality, bring it on.

Get this show on the road

Commercial Crew or Direct? I say why not "both"?

Video: The Story Behind Rick Perry’s Gardasil Mandate

Watch the interview with Burcham’s friends, and decide for yourself if anything that Michele Bachmann has said about Perry, crony capitalism and Gardasil makes any sense.



A real story. A real human being, not just some hypothetical question.

White House works to quell Dem dissent on Jobs Plan

TheHill.com


To those Democrats who have problems with Obama's bill that he wants passed "right now":  You have to burn something into your brain. Without economic growth, there can be no more new jobs. Obama is not about economic growth. He is about "spreading the wealth". Those are two concepts that are not at all synonymous.

There they go again

Anyone remember what I wrote recently about the cheering of the death of a hypothetical man?  It is going to be used for accusing the Tea Party for being savage beasts, and now, here it is.
For the death of another human being through no fault of his own, the Tea Party crowd cheered.
Well, this author is not examining what was being said very closely.  Nor does he seem to fully grasp the meaning of personal responsibility if he says the hypothetical death was "no fault of his own".  Also, as I pointed out, the "crowd" didn't cheer, a few people shouted out their approval of the hypothetical man's death.  A distinction worth making.  He did link to the video, which shows that the crowd wasn't cheering, but only a few shouted out.




It is also worth repeating that Ron Paul said also that, when he was a doctor before Medicare became law, nobody was turned away. This is not only a hypothetical man, but the evidence that anything like this has happened is not even being discussed.

The left will reach for anything, and this is proof of it.

It is also worth pointing out again, that this hypothetical man was not poor.  He had a good job, but refused to get his own health insurance.  There is a term that describes the pitfall of bailing people out of their own mistakes: it's called moral hazard.   We've had lots of bailouts recently.  A society full of people who forget to take responsibility for themselves will fall into chaos.

Islamic Sexuality: A Survey of Evil (Parts 1-4)

http://www.barnhardt.biz/

You may want to give this a look.  Be prepared, though.  This is not gentle.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

5 Myths Behind Obama's Infrastructure Spending Push

Investors.com

The money spent on the first spendulus didn't create more jobs.  Actually, construction employment went down.

It's hype here, hype there, hype everywhere all the time with this crew.

House Dems introduce bill to eliminate debt ceiling

The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

This bill has chutzpa written all over it.

excerpts:
  • The lawmakers say that the recent debate to raise the ceiling and avoid default had a "disastrous" effect on the U.S economy [ comment: Blaming the S&P downgrade on the budget fight, but the truth is that it was  going to happen regardless.  If people buy this Democrat line, they are hopelessly gullible.]
  •  But the bill is unlikely to gain traction, especially in the Republican-controlled House. [ comment: The Dems are going to follow this strategy of introducing bills that won't pass so that they can blame the lack of passage on the Republicans.  Politics Schmolitics!]
  • Republicans in Congress have shown they are willing to hold the fate of our economy hostage by using the debt ceiling as a political weapon. [ comment:  This could only be true if the radical Keynesian ultra deficit spending was actually necessary in order to support the economy.  It isn't.  In fact, it is hurting the economy.  Regardless of whether their claims are true or not, the use of the word "hostage" is designed to produce an emotional effect.  It only generates heat, not light.  Besides, it has nothing to do with the facts.  More Politics Schmoltics!] 
As General McAuliffe said at the Battle of the Bulge when the Nazis demanded that he surrender:  "NUTS!"

Achieving $2 Gas

Robert Zubrin - National Review Online


Now you're talking. This strategy alone could bring the economy back.

What Is The SLS?

Aero-Analysis: You May Or May Not Know The Details About The Shuttle’s Replacement Launch Vehicle On October 11, 2010 President Obama signed The NASA Authoriz

This looks like the DIRECT project I wrote about last November.  

Houston, We Have a Solution - Mario Loyola - National Review Online

Houston, We Have a Solution - Mario Loyola - National Review Online

Rossi v Krivit- fundamental differences

Krivit is a LENR guy. He put together a video outlining his differences with the "cold fusion" theorists.  Could this explain some of the differences between Rossi and Krivit which led to Krivit's negative review of Rossi's work this summer?

It does appear that Krivit sympathizes with the "pathological science" charge against cold fusioneers

NOT FUSION, says Krivit

But that applies to everyone, not just cold fusioneers.

 But here in Krivit's June 2011 interview, Rossi says that it is fusion.  He also says that he doesn't like the term "cold fusion", but it is low energy nuclear fusions.
http://youtu.be/9FiQelxMdVE
I'm not a believer in either theory- I believe in what works.  If the thing works, you can figure out why it works at your leisure.  Give us something that works.  I don't believe LENR gives a working device that can produce useful amounts of energy via the nickel hydrogen system.  Cold fusion, or whatever you want to call it, can.

The Daily Ticker: We're Headed For A Crash

Interview with Gerald Celente

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

DPF Fusion Propulsion

Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) Fusion Systems for Space Propulsion


This was a Next Big Future post last year. I don't think I've seen it before. This idea seem intuitive to me from observing the diagrams and illustrations of how the DPF works. It seems like a natural for space propulsion. The post here seems rather more involved than I anticipated for the device.

Surprising to me that work proceeds on this as of the time this post was written. If it continues to this day, it is hard to imagine why anyone would want to build chemical rockets. This would make chemical rockets obsolete. ( Unless I am missing something important)

I brought up that last bit of info because NASA announces its new SLS that won't fly any earlier than 2017. By 2017, the tech could very well be obsolete. Not only with respect to this possible breakthrough, but consider what others (SpaceX and Xcor) are doing as well.

Yahoo's Headline Implies GOP Debate Audience Wanted Uninsured to Die

NewsBusters.org

This is with respect to a hypothetical question of a man who was making plenty enough money to insure himself and refused.  Subsequently, he needed care, but he had no insurance.  Ron Paul answered the question reasonably well and received cheers from the audience.  But then Wolf Blitzer persisted and asked if the man should be allowed to die.

That headline needs to be qualified.  Unfortunately, some people approved that the man should be allowed to die, but this was not the entire audience, nor even a substantial minority of the audience.


What should also be pointed out is that Ron Paul said that he was a doctor before there was Medicare, and that they never turned away anyone.  The premise of the question is false on it face anyhow.  Unfortunately, some people fell into this trap, and now they don't look too classy because of it.  But that should not reflect on the others, or conservatives in general. It would appear that the Tea Partiers are being impugned as blood thirsty savages.  They were cheering individual responsibility, not the man's death.




Listen for yourself below:

Rebuking Obama and Schumer

Betsy's Page: Well it looks like the GOP picked up the two special election seats in New York , where the Republican has a substantial lead and in Nevada ...

Environmental lunacy

Stratospheric Geoengineering test


These people believe in their hobgoblins so much that they are actually considering do something as crazy as this.

Michelle Bachmann could be wrong about vaccine controversy

Michelle Bachmann’s vaccine lunacy--Robert Goldberg - NYPOST.com


Also, Rush Limbaugh was critical on his show yesterday. "Jumped the shark", he said.



Authors of Social Security Believed It Was Unconstitutional

Even the authors thought it was unconstitutional, according to this post.  Is there any way to have a discussion about social security if people can not tell the truth about it for fear of punishment?

Free Republic "Ping" List for Cold Fusion

Looks like the E-cat  is well represented.

Durden: Blast From Paul Krugman's Past

"Social Security Is A Ponzi Scheme And Will Soon Be Over"

Social Security is structured from the point of view of the recipients as if it were an ordinary retirement plan: what you get out depends on what you put in. So it does not look like a redistributionist scheme. In practice it has turned out to be strongly redistributionist, but only because of its Ponzi game aspect, in which each generation takes more out than it put in. Well, the Ponzi game will soon be over, thanks to changing demographics, so that the typical recipient henceforth will get only about as much as he or she put in (and today's young may well get less than they put in). 

Lets see.  Now we have two liberal economists who called it a Ponzi scheme.  Seems like it isn't a controversial statement, then.  A Ponzi scheme, it is.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

BECNF and the E-cat

For a reaction sequence, this looks a whole lot better than Widom Larsen. The sequence goes straight to copper 63. In the case of Widom Larsen, you could go down a few complicated pathways.

In addition, the beta decays occur faster with BECNF. Notice that the slowest reaction is 3.333 hours, as opposed to months or years with some of the beta minus decays in the Widom Larsen scenario.

It could turn out that Rossi Focardi's E-cat is truly a cold fusion device.  If so, it is actually a surprise to me.  I wrote before that I didn't think there was any such thing as cold fusion.  Not to say that this convinces me of the reality of cold fusion, but Widom Larsen left me somewhat disappointed.  This sequence makes it plausible ( to me) as an energy producing possibility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isotopes_of_copper

They wuz lucky

White House Already Spinning Feared New York Loss - Marc Ambinder - NationalJournal.com

RIGHT SPEAK: 2012 GOP Presidential Tea Party Debate (FULL VIDEO...

RIGHT SPEAK: 2012 GOP Presidential Tea Party Debate (FULL VIDEO...: CNN and the Tea Party Express will team up today to present a first-of-its-kind debate from the site of the 2012 Republican National Convent...


Full coverage of last night's debate

One more thing about Krugman

I think this needs a response, so here goes:
  • Bush had a sky-high approval rating
  • political exploitation and intimidation
  • when people who made speeches, then feathered their own political or financial nests
  • culminating in the deliberate misleading of the nation into the invasion of Iraq
To me, it does not follow that Bush needed to exploit 911 for political gain in order to feather his political or financial nest.   The "sky high approval rating" happened in direct consequence of 911, not because of Iraq.  In fact, Iraq had a significant downside political risk attached to it.  If Bush wanted to exploit his sky high approval ratings, he could not have done a worse thing than going into Iraq.  It was Iraq that led to his downfall politically- and with it, the fortunes of the Republican party.  If anyone was ( or is ) exploiting anything, it wasn't ( or isn't ) Bush.

The liberals cannot or will not afford Bush any common courtesy or decency whatsoever.  The reason is that it makes it much harder to oppose him politically.  Bush has to be demonized and dehumanized, and his motives impugned in order for Krugman and his ilk to continue to exist.  In general, there can be forgiveness for mistakes, but true evil is much harder to forgive.  As Krugman as said, he cannot forgive Bush for Iraq.  Therefore, in Krugman's warped political universe, Bush is evil incarnate, and must always be considered so.

I wrote a lot about Iraq back in 2008.  The far left wanted to lynch Bush.  Funny how they didn't want to lynch, nor punish, any of the bad guys though, and Krugman feels really "proud" about that.  If you think that "lynch" is too strong a word, then you weren't paying close enough attention.

If Bush wasn't lynched, it is only because he is more useful alive than dead to Krugman and his ilk.

Krugman is using 911, you see.  That which he accused Bush of doing, he is doing himself.  This is why he needs a clarification.  He has to separate 911 from Bush and take it for himself, and his liberal buddies, so that they can feather their own nests.  After all, that what being a big government liberal is all about.

Althouse: Live-blogging the Republican Debate.

Althouse: Live-blogging the Republican Debate.: Come! Hang out here. My son John is live-blogging too. He's great at this, so check him out. 7:04 — Somehow, CNN is incorporating the Tea...

Monday, September 12, 2011

Driscoll: The Lost Weekend

You mean, the lost quadrinneal

Gee, you'd think he'd follow his own advice:

Put up, or shut up

Sorry that I can't post more about the E-cat.  But I'm not in the business of being a cheerleader.  Nor do I care for all the drama.  Give me results, I say.  Let's see the goods.  "Show me the money."  Capiche?

Update:
Like it has been said so many times before, a picture is worth a thousand words

Limits to Growth?

Galactic-Scale Energy


There's a problem with projecting too far out into the future. Just 10 years ago, there was talk about paying off the debt. Now debt is running away from us. Times change. You can't project too far. As an intellectual exercise, it does show some limitations, yet the limitations don't mean anything, because the premise is absurd. Economic growth must end, but so must all things. It therefore, tells you little.



E tu, Brute?

Of Poor Little Darlings, and Brutes


As usual, there is someone too kind to the likes of Krugman, and his ilk. But it is a good essay, well worth reading.

Krugman, and those like him, just love to poke a finger in your eye and blame you for your outrage at their having done so.  They are a plague upon anyone who has to suffer them.  It would be much much better for us all if that was not the case.

What I mean to say is that there are too, too many who listen to him and think he has anything useful to say about anything.  What Krugman deigns to presume as conscience is nothing more than a flying fickle finger of fate directed your way.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

October 1987 crash didn't cause a depression

So why did market volatility in 2008 have to result in a serious recession?  This current administration wants to keep blaming the financial system troubles in 2008 for the conditions today, but a worse decline happened before and there wasn't anything like what we have had.  My point is that it is quite possible that the policy makers are making things worse, not better.  If there's another Great Depression, it will be because bad policies from this current administration, not the previous one.

Kudlow on Stimulus II

Tiny, Targeted and Temporary


Let's see:
$200 billion in new spending on infrastructure, unemployment benefits, and direct aid to state and local governments.

Very little of the money could go for actual spending on infrastructure.  Most of it could go for unemployment benefits and bailouts for states like California, which can't balance their own budgets because they are forced to pay exorbitant benefits to their unionized public sector employees.  This looks like a stimulus bill that only helps his own constituents.  Thanks a lot.

He's glad

I’m glad Krugman gave voice to it on this day


Just one more thing about this: I think that the liberals, deep down in their heart, knew that they had to keep their pie holes shut for at least awhile. It didn't take too long though and they were back to their old tricks, as you can see here.

Total Employment Stats During Last Decade

Clearly Obama inherited a bad situation.  But there was job growth in the Bush Administration.  The recession did not roll back the all the gains made during Bush's two terms.  However, Obama's Administration has not presided over any meaningful job growth.  We are stuck at about the point, in terms of total employment, that we were in at the end of the first Bush term.

You would expect some job growth by now.  Bush inherited a weakening economy.  By the end of his first term, there was substantial job growth.  So, the question is: why can't Obama do the same?

This question is what can drive a debate.  The Obama Administration has opted for another round of stimulus, but the stimulus thus far has not generated new jobs.  To add to the dilemma, the debt is now seen as out of control, which limits how much new stimulus can be added.  Why ask for more?  Shouldn't he be trying something new?  What will be the true nature of any debate about the employment situation?

In my opinion, the new stimulus proposals are political, not economic.  Obama wants to continue to blame Republicans for his current difficulties.  He demands that which he knows he won't get.  That refusal will be used as grist for the political mill.  That will be a political strategy for the election, not an economic one for the unemployed.  Politics doesn't explain why there had not been any economic growth prior to the Republicans taking over in 2011.  Democrats had all the political levers for the first two years of the Obama Administration.

Obama is not seeking to answer why there hasn't been any job growth.  He is seeking a political answer, not an economic one.  The political answer is blame his opponents.  In order to get new economic policy, Obama will have to be defeated.  He can't or won't suggest new strategies.  If Obama remains, it will be more spending, more debt, higher taxes and more stringent regulations.  The record shows that this has not generated new jobs.  But Obama's political strategy may allow him to keep his job, but how does that help anybody else with theirs?


Last employment report during Clinton Administration, Bush Admin begins on Jan. 20, 2001

Looks like 4 million new jobs during Bush's first term

Add almost another 4 million by the end of the Bush Administration.   At the peak, 11 million jobs were created.    Looks like a loss of 3 million from the peak.   Recession had begun and in progress for a year at this point.

At the trough of the recession, 7 million jobs lost.  Four more million added to the 3 million lost while Bush was still President.  By the election of 2010, job losses stopped, but job growth had not begun.

And jobs still are not being created.  From the trough in the recession, perhaps a million jobs have been created.  Now there's talk of a double dip recession.