Wired (UK): Cold fusion: smoke and mirrors, or raising a head of steam?

via PESN

• Andrea Rossi, who claims to have a working commercial cold fusion reactor, finally released a report with seemingly independent scientific confirmation of the reaction in his device. This was quickly followed by news of a major investor dropping out because of a failed test.
• Perhaps the most notable contribution was Francesco Celani's live demonstration of an apparently working cold fusion device. Unlike Rossi, Celani does not claim to have a secret catalyst
• Another paper presented at ICCF-17 was from a Japanese group with sponsorship from Toyota; this confirmed previous work indicating that transmutation was taking place during LENR reactions, showing that a nuclear reaction is taking place.
• Meanwhile another company at ICCF-17, Brillouin Energy Corporation, has claimed positive results for its LENR device, the Brillouin Boiler.
• Steven Krivit of New Energy Times achieved another coup with a leaked study from Boeing and Nasa, which considered the possibility of an LENR-powered aircraft among oyher future options.
• In the words of the Boeing/Nasa report: "LENR technology is potentially game-changing to not just aviation, but the worldwide energy mix as well. This technology should be followed to determine feasibility and potential performance."

"Show me the money."

The answer to this woman's question is: vandalism

The spray can artist said that she was an Egyptian American, but if she doesn't know any better than what she just did, she shouldn't be here.

In response to this, the Egyptian got her way.  The ad won't be approved in the future.




Update: The woman ( Pamela Hall ) with the camera took this video below:



It looks like there's an injunction against enforcement of the prohibition against such ads. In other words, the spray can artist may lose this battle after all.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part VI

A short series here.  It isn't even a challenge.  The Solar Thermal Rocket concept could work.  It may even be installed fairly easily.  The Canadarm was on the Shuttle and will be on the Nautilus--- if it ever gets built.

This arm can deploy the mirrors on booms, or deploy booms with pre-installed mirrors on booms.  The booms can be assembled like a Lego kit, I imagine.  The entire boom assembly fully completed shouldn't weigh all that much.  Comparable in size and mass to the existing PV panels on the ISS.  It should be more capable, though.

Speculation alert---- I'm not well versed in physics, so there could be an error in here.

The calculations for thrust seem impressive as well.  Hopefully, this is correct, so here goes:

1 Joule equals 2.78×10−7 kW·h, or 1 Kwh equals 2.78  ×10 ^7 Joules.

A Newton Meter is 1 Joule.  So that should figure.  Dividing by 3600 seconds in an hour gives the thrust number that gets quoted so often.  This gives result of 0.77  ×10 ^4, or 7700 Newton Meter per Kilowatt second capacity.  At 250 kw installed on the ISS, that gives 

          1, 925,000  Newton meters of thrust available.  If that's correct.  It seems a bit high.  If correct, that would give 19.25 Meters per second of acceleration for a mass of 100k kg in wet mass.  That's nearly 60 feet of delta V per second.  You would not have to fire the rockets for long in order to get a respectable amount of velocity going.  After 8 minutes of firing, you would get 9240 meters per second delta V.  That's firing as long as the shuttle main engines fired in order to get to near orbital velocity.  Nearly 20k mph.  That's added to the 17k for orbital velocity giving nearly 35k mph of total velocity.  After escaping Earth, we'd be heading to Mars at about 10k velocity, if I am not mistaken.

If the ISP is near the ISP of a nuclear thermal rocket (850) the amount of reaction mass needed to achieve this velocity is calculated.  The rocket equation shows 32k kg of dry mass, with 68k kg of fuel.  That surprises me.  I wouldn't have thought it to be that high.  The 32k dry mass includes everything, including the now empty propellant tank.  Also living quarters and supplies for a long journey.

Even with this, assuming it is correct, you will need a bigger ship and more propellant.  But this isn't out of the question.  You will need a lot of fuel, and a lot of launches to build the ship and supply it.

Just for kicks, it looks like about 3/4 million kg  in wet mass, assuming 120 kg for dry mass, will get you there in 150 days.  That's assuming a 100 million mile trip.  If you can make it shorter than that, it would help.

Note: the lunar and command modules together weighed only about 45k kg.  It went to the moon and back.

Fighting Words: NYC Bans All Speech Which Might Insult The Prophet of Islam

hotair via Ace

Pop quiz: Where does the boldfaced language in the excerpt below come from? Con law junkies will know, but anyone who’s been reading this site for the past two weeks should have a hunch.

The heckler's veto.  You freedom of speech ends if you offend someone.  That is perverse and not the way it is intended.  In fact, being offensive is exactly what the First Amendment was supposed to protect.  If everybody agrees with it, what kind of freedom is that?

Political correctness is way out of hand here.  Hopefully, it is not the case for the majority in this country.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part V: Nautilus -X The Movie

Uploaded by SpaceRefOnOrbit on Mar 24, 2011

- Long-duration space journey vehicle for crew of 6 for periods of 1 -24 months
- CIS-lunar would be initial Operations Zone [shakedown phase]
- Exo-atmospheric, Space-only vehicle
- Integrated Centrifuge for Crew Health
- Life Support in deployed Large Volume with shirt-sleeve servicing
- Truss & Stringer thrust-load distribution concept (non-orthogird)
- Capable of utilizing variety of Mission-Specific
- Propulsion Units [integrated in LEO, semi-autonomously
- Utilizes Inflatable & Deployed structures
- Incorporates Industrial Airlock for construction/maintenance
- Integrated RMS
- Supports Crewed Celestial-body Descent/Return Exploration vehicle(s)
- Utilizes Orion/Commercial vehicles for crew rotation & Earth return from LEO

More information at http://www.onorbit.com/node/2970




I would replace the PV panels with heliostats as I indicated in previous posts. This would create a more robust design. I can't believe those small tanks and engines are going to do the job.

More details on Nautilus here. Michael says powered by solar panels? No. Nuclear powered? Maybe.

America's going backward?

Ed Driscoll fears that we may be doing just that:

In 2010, British academic Bruce Charlton posited, “I suspect that human capability reached its peak or plateau around 1965-75 – at the time of the Apollo moon landings – and has been declining ever since:”

Yes, it is kinda like the thinking I observed on the Whitey on the Moon post. Our culture has degraded to the point where success is a thing to be despised.  Not all of our culture, though.

Bill Whittle observes all this too, but leaves with a vow to not let it continue.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part IV

This is a bit of a clarifying post from the last one.

For instance, what's wrong with using solar dishes?  The reason is that the concentration of light isn't at a place that's convenient for generating thrust.  It gets in the way of the sunlight and requires that the hot gases be re-routed away from the heat exchanger.  Much more convenient and simple to reflect the light toward a spot where it is convenient.  Losses of energy are kept to a minimum.

The "power tower" concept works the same way as on the ground.  It is set away from the where the light originally lands and is concentrated in a different location in order to do work.  As on the ground, the power tower is at a 90 degree angle with the sunlight.  Secondly, the concentration point needs to be as close to the rocket nozzle as possible. This is where the gas is the hottest and has the most energy.  I think this is a good solution for the problem posed by the solar dish engine concept.

The main risk as I see it is the ability to keep the light focused on a single spot.  An error here can be a catastrophe.  Fortunately, the only moving parts are the heliostats which must track the sun, and then reflect the light to the "tower".  In relation to the sun, there shouldn't be much movement even if you are flying pretty fast.  That is because of the vast distances of outer space.  The sun always appears to be in the same spot even when you are moving.

The one time that may present a problem would be in changing directions of thrust.  That would entail the necessity of a great deal of movement somewhere- either in the booms or the "rocket".

A simple solution for that is to rotate the entire spacecraft assembly 180 degrees. Then you would be facing the opposite direction of travel,  thus the thrust from the rocket engines would slow you down.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series

This is becoming a rather interesting topic. So interesting that I'll make a series out of it. The preliminary posts have been done already, so I'll list the links to them below for anybody who is interested enough to follow the links and to see what the devil I'm talking about:

• First post:  This gave me the inspiration.   It is a video demonstrating concentrated solar power.  This wasn't new to me, though.  I've seen this in many places.  But something clicked in my mind.  It reminded me of the NERVA rocket in the Apollo program.  The NERVA was a nuclear thermal rocket.  The nuclear reactor heated a core, in which a reaction mass was passed through it.  The heated reaction mass provided the thrust for a rocket that could power a crew to Mars.
• Second post: More videos demonstrating concentrated solar power.  But these were mainly solar dish engines which generated electricity.  My idea doesn't require the generation of electricity.  The NERVA didn't.  It is an unnecessary step which only complicates the matter and increases inefficiencies.  Consider this post as a bit of brainstorming in order to weed out bad ideas which would leave us with a sound approach.  Solar dishes may not be workable in this concept.  But concentrated solar is on the right track.

Which brings me to this third post.  Now the series gets a name all its own.  It will also get a label of "history of the blog" which means that I consider this an important post.  Important enough to want to link to it in some future time.

The next thing that I want to explore is the use of mirrors to reflect sunlight toward a point, such as an array of heliostats in space.  These would focus the sunlight on to a small area which would become very hot.  Hot enough to melt anything on Earth.  Or maybe not quite that hot.  You want to be able to keep the heat exchanger from melting, so dial it down a little.  The heat exchanger would heat hydrogen up to the same temperature that the NERVA could, which would mean an ISP comparable to that of a nuclear thermal rocket.

How to get these into space?  I was thinking of using booms as it is done on the ISS.  Instead of photovoltaic panels on the boom, there would be heliostats.  The heliostats would reflect the sunlight to the heat exchanger as described.  The heat exchanger - rocket nozzle - hydrogen tank apparatus would look like a conventional rocket on the launch pad.  A risk to be avoided would be reflected the light onto the wrong place.  While avoiding this, the conventional-looking rocket would be attached to the space habitat, which would be propelled through space to a desired destination within the inner planets.  Mars would be as far out as you could go.

The ISS gets about a quarter megawatt of electricity out of their panels.  I'm thinking that a similar sized boom which would have heliostats would generate perhaps as much as twice the power.  Let's say four booms of this size could generate a megawatt of power.

I can't do the calculations for the thrust generated by this, but I suspect that with an ISP close to nuclear thermal, that it could provide sufficient acceleration to get a crew to Mars and back in a year.  Let's call a speculation alert on that, to be accurate.

Stirling Energy Systems, Dish-Engine Solar Maker, Files for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy

This isn't news, as it is over a year old.  The article doesn't say why the firm failed.  Never mind that.  The reason for posting this is because of my recent brainstorm for using concentrated solar power for thrust in a spacecraft.

Here's a video of the company in better days:



The idea I had didn't involve Stirling engines nor the production of electricity.  Instead, the concentrated solar power would heat up a reaction mass, which would in turn be expelled out a nozzle as thrust.

These dishes produced 25 kw of electrical power from a dish about 10 meters in diameter.  In order to get a megawatt, you would need 40 of these.

Now Chang-Diaz claims that his VASIMR would not need a whole lot more than that in order to go to Mars.  I would think that this gizmo would be more efficient than VASIMR.

Getting a lot of mirrors up in space may seem daunting, but remember that there's no gravity and no atmosphere.  Therefore, the apparatus can be much lighter, as it doesn't have to support weight nor withstand wind and storms.

Getting this thing in space is a big challenge, but it may be doable.  I was thinking of stacking them and unstacking them once in orbit.  The mirrors need to be pointed to a focal point which is where the reaction mass would be heated.


Here's Dan Rojas demonstrating the power of one of these parabolic mirrors.


Infinia may still be in business producing a much smaller solar dish engine. Theirs is a 3 kw dish engine. Pretty small, but imagine a continuous source of power from the sun being put to work heating a reaction mass which would be continually applied as thrust. Even a small amount of thrust over a long period of time can generate an impressive amount of acceleration.



I'm thinking a small dish attached to a Nautilus spacecraft. Assuming all masses can be held down to a minimum, even a small dish power source may be able to get an impressive amount of acceleration over the long trip to Mars.

Ann Coulter Causes Mass Hysteria on 'The View,' Whoopi Bleeped...

Fox News

The reason I put this up is that Barbara Walters said the following (from the transcript):

SHEPARD: Here's a question, because I was reading the book..

WALTERS: And you may be the only one that says it.

What is Walters so afraid of?  I don't agree with Krugman and other liberals, but I do read their stuff.  Walters is afraid of something.  I think she is afraid of the truth.   Or being persuaded.

Watch More News Videos at ABC | 2012 Presidential Election | Entertainment & Celebrity News

Laws of nature and of war

As I've written many time before, Imperial Japanese officials were asked why they attacked the US at Pearl Harbor--- with the answer being that they thought we wouldn't fight.  I think this affirms a principle of war which also affirms a principle of nature.  That principle is to not attack strong points, but weak points instead.

You see that principle in martial arts.  Vital regions are points for attack.  It would make little sense to attack an area that will yield little effect.  It will lead to expense of energy and increase the will of the opponent to fight.

In nature, if a large prey is attacked, it is by a pack of predators.  A single predator cannot succeed against a bigger and stronger animal.  Also, the young and weak are targeted.

Obama is at war with what he pretends is his own country.  Make no mistake about that.  But he is not a clever general.  He is depending too much on the stupidity of his opponent while making attacks against strong points.  He is only increasing the will to fight while achieving little effect.

But he does have a couple hole cards--- foreign and domestic.  Among those are America's enemies.  He needs allies overseas and he is actively seeking them all the time.  He won't defend the country while the enemy gathers its strength.  At home, his attacks are against the young and the weak minded--- the attacks are on the mind and spirit of those who have the least capability to resist.

But these are not what rules in this country, rather it is the exception.  In addition, weakness can be firmed up. Ignorance isn't a terminal illness.    The young will grow up.   The media can be beaten.

If he succeeds, it will be his own country.  That's the point.  Politics is simply war by another name.

First Amendment trashed, but for what?

In order to appease Muslims and to attempt to impose sharia upon America while nobody's looking or allowed to look, the Obama Administration slogs on---

• As I predicted, the Administration has arrested the alleged maker of the video "Innocence of Muslims"
• In addition, the Administration is in cover-up mode, the media assists
•  What about the pigs and monkeys insult to Jews and Christians in Muslim countries- why can't Obama address that? 
• Is Obama pro-Muslim?  There have been claims to that in various locations, but others deny it.

In the aftermath of 9/11, there was a caller on a radio talk show who mentioned that he was told by Muslims that we don't defend our culture.  In addition, there were al Qaeda members who said that America culture is hollow.  The point is if they think we are weak, they will attack us.  It doesn't help when this President insists on "standing with Muslims" while they attack us in our own country.  The President seems to think we are all intent upon persecuting those he sympathizes with--- is that another case of projection?  For it appears that he sympathizes all too often with those who really don't like us at all.

Jem Melts Rock Using Sunshine

This gave me an idea.  I don't know if it is very good, but it is an idea.

Concentrated sunlight can make things very hot, very fast.  Okay, let's concentrate sunlight onto a heat exchanger and use the hot gas as a reaction mass in a rocket.  That is, to use the sun as an energy source instead of carrying one on-board a spacecraft.

The heat generated in this video is enough to make a respectable amount of thrust, if I am not mistaken.  I understand that the amount of power isn't much in terms of its size.  At any rate, it may be an interesting thing to contemplate.



Update:

This became an 18 part series, if you can believe that.

Here's the links in order with each number as a link: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8,  9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.

Looks like 11 is missing.  Oops!  So, that makes it a 17 part series instead.

Bolden says let's go back to the moon, but this video says "Whitey On the Moon"

Whitey hasn't been on the moon for 40 years. Things haven't gotten better in that time, have they? That is, it hasn't gotten any better according to the left.  Maybe they may feel better if a brother is on the moon, hmm?  Like a brother in the White House?  Still can't pay those doctor bills with a brother in the White House?

Obama's Freudian Slip

Obama says he wants to export jobs.  He misspoke and corrects himself and says he's channeling his opponent.  The crowd laughs.  What does this say?

After all, it was Obama's error, not Romney's.  I think it says a lot of hostility.  Blame everybody but yourself, even when you make a mistake.  As for the "exporting jobs" reference, what has Obama done to actually create jobs?  Answer: he really doesn't want to, but he needs to say something in order to appear concerned.

Philip Zimbardo

How well known is this guy?  He ought to be better known if he isn't.  For the thing that ails us is ignorance of a few key behavioral patterns that lead us to make bad decisions.  A little bit about Zimbardo here from American Scientist :

Throughout, Zimbardo argues with passion and acumen that the general public and our political and cultural leaders must learn to overcome the knee-jerk psychological reactions that lead us to make the same errors over and over again. He assigns blame where it is due (including to himself, for having crossed ethical lines in the Stanford Prison Experiment) and takes strong political stances. [ emphasis added]

Another one of Zimbardo's books, in which the title eludes me at the present, explored these knee-jerk reactions.  There were six of them, as I recall.  One of those knee-jerk reactions a deference to authority.  This is what I think needs to be challenged more.  We have a first amendment right to criticize the leadership, but once the left gets into power, this seems to become forbidden for some strange reason.  It is almost as if a great number of us have decided to lose their tongues.

What do you do about these knee-jerk reactions?  It wouldn't be knee-jerk if people stopped reacting to events and started thinking about them.  How do you get people to think?  Thinking is hard work and the last thing people want to do is to do something that is so hard and unpleasant.  For the truth can be unpleasant.

It is much more comforting to believe the leadership really cares about us.  But what if they don't?  The thought that we could be at great risk due to the folly of our leadership is a thought that is just too unpleasant for so many people to contemplate.

Here's a thought experiment for you:  Ask yourself how would you feel if this President Obama really doesn't care about the country he is leading, and actually prefers some harm to come to it?

I think most people would reject that out of hand.  Most, if not all people would just rather not believe this and I think this is true due to the knee-jerk reaction of deference to authority.

It would be very difficult to change these unthinking knee-jerk reactions, but that may be the task in front of us if we are to survive.

Geert Wilders on the Spread of Islam in Europe

freerepublic

Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician, a member of the House of Representatives and the chairman of the Netherlands' Party for Freedom (currently the third largest party in the Dutch parliament). Mr. Wilders is well known in his home country for his strong criticism of Islam, having stated at various times that "Islamic ideology has to be defeated" and "there is no such thing as "moderate Islam'," and advocating that the Netherlands ban the Quran, Islamic dress, and the further immigration of Muslims to that country. This speech was delivered by Mr. Wilders at the Four Seasons in New York, during a luncheon sponsored by the Hudson Institute in 2008. Geert Wilders was on trial in the Netherlands, charged with five counts of inciting racial hatred over his anti-Islamic public statements. He was acquitted in June 2011.

Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means 'submission'. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.

Comment:

Western Civilization is committing suicide.  There is an enemy within who is promoting this outcome, I suspect.  The Muslims aren't necessarily the disease, but a symptom.  The disease is leftism.

 

Why do they hate us?

You see liberals agonizing over this question, especially after 9/11.

As with this post, it is a matter of manhood, or what is conceived as manhood.  Taking the prison rape thinking as an example, the rapist believes he is more a man than his victim.  He thinks of the submissive one, or the one taken by force, as less a man, or even a woman.  It is in his mind, but that has little to do with objective reality.

With these Islamic terrorists like Osama bin Laden, they think that the West is inferior.  If you please, do recall the strong-horse v. weak-horse argument that he made.  Thus, men here in the West are said to be less manly than their own men.  So they attack us, believing that the results of their attacks will be successful and we will cringe in front of their supposed superiority.  This could happen this way if the West collectively accepts that judgment, and refuses to fight when attacked.  If the West doesn't submit, it will provoke feelings of hostility and resentment.  For, by that way of thinking, they are the lesser men.

Walter Williams said something to this effect when he was on the Rush Limbaugh show. They attack us because they think we are sissies, or something to that effect.

Romney does not equal Obama

Frankly, I'd prefer that there would be more daylight between these two.  I've been critical of Romney.  But to equate the two, as Ann Barnhardt's latest does, is inaccurate.

Even if Romney was a closet liberal, he can't keep up his support if he comes out.  So, I hope the Republican majority will see to it that he stays on the straight and narrow.  That's better than throwing in the towel and claiming all hope is lost.

Barnhardt claims that the American Republic is dead.  Not so fast.  But it may as well be dead if Obama wins re-election.  There's some hope, even though it doesn't look as good as it should at the moment.

Another thing about the Barnhardt piece--- she seems to be getting accused of being gay.  Funny how the left, who preach tolerance, are the first ones to make an accusation like that.  Even if she was, so what?  That is, if you go by what they say.

Frankly, I don't give a shit what she does on her own time.  That's between her and her own conscience.  What I wonder about is why they do when they claim they don't.

People, you are missing the point

The more I read about this on the internet, the more it seems that there's this 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody seems to be able to see.  Or, if they can see it, nobody must say anything about it.  That 800 pound gorilla is morality.  What is it, anyway?

Evidently, the protesters against the video  have gotten everyone to believe that Western morality is decadent and Islam is the answer.  Right.  That's the point.  But what so many people aren't seeing is the contradiction in stated morality in Saudi Arabia and actual practice.  Western morality with respect to sexual practices, is probably not as bad as Saudi Arabia by the Saudis own standards.

If you segregate the sexes, homosexual behavior will increase.  That's what happens in prisons.  It is inevitable that it will happen anywhere where access to women is blocked.  This is fact.  I studied this several years ago when I looked into the phenomenon of prison rape.  The behavior gets rationalized this way:  the dominant male isn't gay, it is the submissive one who is.  This is rationalization that allows the perpetrator to feel that he is not doing anything wrong or unnatural.  When such men get out of prison, they go back to women.

Naturally, when you segregate the sexes the way the Saudis do, homosexuality will run rampant.  All the while, they will believe that they aren't doing anything wrong as long as you aren't on the receiving end!  But it is unlikely that they can live up to their own moral code.  They fail, then they rationalize.  The big point here is that they are the biggest hypocrites on the Earth.

How do I know this?  All I know is what I read about on the internet-- to turn a phrase.  It makes sense.

A quote seems appropriate --- "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue".  Yep.

Why vote for Romney

If the last post doesn't convince people, then this is not only a non-Christian nation anymore, but not a sane one either.

It doesn't have to be a pro-Romney vote, but an anti-Obama vote.  Anybody would be better than that asshat.

To put it candidly, we could use a lot better candidate than Romney, but at least the SOB is competent.  At least he is on his own country's side.  sheesh

Obama: "The Future Must Not Belong To Those Who Slander Islam"

Ace of Spades

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied. Let us condemn incitement against Sufi Muslims, and Shia pilgrims. It is time to heed the words of Gandhi: “Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.” Together, we must work towards a world where we are strengthened by our differences, and not defined by them. That is what America embodies. That’s the vision we will support.

What a mouthful of mindless drivel.  I'll bet that liberals love the shit out of this Postmodern crap.  Someone asked him or an administration official to condemn "Piss Christ", which is actually paid for out of taxpayers' pockets.  No comment!  They'll defend Piss Christ as art that must be supported by the taxpayers, but if a private individual says anything that Moose limbs don't like, it is all of a sudden a big problem.  I suppose mutual condemnation isn't okay until an ambassador is killed and the President can then respond with this morally equivalent bilge.  Moreover, the left is now claiming that the First Amendment is overvalued.  Yep.  It is only overvalued when it is inconvenient for them.  They love it when it is convenient and hate it when it isn't.  By the way, Obama said that America isn't a Christian nation anymore.  Not a statement of fact, but intention.

The enemy of an enemy is a friend

That's what this looks like ( link h/t Instapundit  ).  The left wants you to shut up and so do the radical Islamists.

In short, under the false flag of better governance, the activists are working hard to impose standards and codes that would make it impossible for American business—and individuals—to support any but the most politically correct causes. For all the lofty words about accountability, did the drafters of our public-disclosure laws really intend them to be used by activist groups to get people fired for holding unfashionable views?

Welcome to the new intolerance. Chick-fil-A is only the beginning.

Censorship is proceeding apace.  Look who are in agreement and who opposes them.

Censorship

Does anyone get the feeling that there is a de facto censorship when it comes to certain subjects?  That's what I am reminded of when I read the State Department Meltdown post ( h/t Instapundit) on the Powerline blog.  It seems that there was this request from the State Department that there be no more questions on the Consulate attack in Libya.  Can you imagine what the reaction would have been if the Nixon administration had made a similar request with respect to the Watergate break-in?  Let's look at this post a little closer:

Which prompted this remarkably unprofessional response from the Secretary of State’s official spokesman:

I now understand why the official investigation by the Department of the Defense as reported by The Army Times The Washington Post concluded beyond a doubt that you’re an unmitigated asshole.

How’s that for a non-bullshit response?

Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, have a good day.

And by good day, I mean Fuck Off

The State Department spokesman said that.  Again, if someone in the Nixon Administration said anything like this, what would the reaction had been?  The Watergate Scandal resulted in the resignation of President Nixon, and it was due to aggressive reporting.  If the media isn't following this aggressively, could you say that they are covering for this administration?

If anyone bothers to recall, Romney got a lot of grief from the media for a little mild criticism of the events there.  Now it turns out to be a full scandal, but where's the outrage?  This should be consuming the media.  Like Watergate.  Though nobody died from the Watergate affair.

Kingdom in the closet?

Published on May 2, 2012 by patcondell

This is amusing.  It can be said without reservation that this guy doesn't have a high opinion of Saudi Arabia.

By the way, there are a few things here that I don't agree with.  Western culture seems to regard homosexuality as an identity.  I don't agree.  I think that it is a behavior.

For example, can you be a former alcoholic?

There are some who think in a similar way that alcoholism is an identity.  Once an alcoholic, always an  alcoholic according to that way of thinking.  But if you really don't do it anymore, what does alcohol have it do with your identity anymore?  Frankly, I don't get that way of thinking.  If you don't do it, you aren't that type of person anymore.

Another example?  What is the point of rehabilitation for criminal behavior is the behavior is hard wired and can't be changed?  Evidently, it is considered that people can be changed, and therefore the behavior is the problem, not the identity.  If it were the identity, then  it would be like having a dog meow, or a cat bark.

My opinion is that you are what you do.  If you don't do the behavior, then you aren't that type of person.

'2016: Obama's America' Filmmakers Claim Organized Disinformation Campaign

hollywoodreporter

UPDATED: The movie showed up on YouTube over the weekend as rumors spread it would also be shown free on the Fox News Channel.

The filmmakers behind 2016: Obama’s America are claiming a coordinated attack engineered by supporters of Barack Obama to suppress the box-office results of the movie, which is a critical look at the president.

If it were Michael Moore, the media would be talking it up.  The article puts it into doubt as to whether of not this is actually happening, but with the media ignoring the film, it wouldn't seem so far-fetched for them to try to suppress the film any way they can.

More countries restrict Internet to stifle critics: report

ca.news.yahoo.com

Governments have passed new restrictive laws in 19 states. In Iran, censors have improved software for filtering content and hacked digital certificates. In Pakistan, virtual private networks are banned. And in 14 countries the governments have followed China's lead in hiring armies of commentators to manipulate online discussions, the authors said.

Creepy stuff.  The things governments do to control people.  If you people here in America who think the media is unbiased, you are naive as hell.  It may not be as aggressive as in other countries, but it does happen.  There's no way that people who have the opportunity to control other people are going to be able to resist the impulse.

Song Sung Blue in the Style of "Neil Diamond" with lyrics (with lead

Published on Jan 24, 2012 by TheKARAOKEChannel

This was a hit song when I was still in school.  For some reason, I associate the song with the time I took a Driver's Ed course.

It kinda sounded old fogeyish even back then.  Even more so today, I imagine.  But I'm an old fogey now, so it doesn't matter.  I like it anyway.

Pew Research calls it a ‘hollowing out of the middle class,’ but 150 Americans moved up for every 100 who moved down between 1971 and 2011

aei-ideas.org

Comment:

What I see in these numbers is that America is getting poorer.  The number of middle to high income earners has gone down, while the number of low income earners has gone up.  Not only that, it is a steady trend that was in effect before the Reagan years.  It explains rising debt, massive trade and budget deficits, in my opinion.

For example, the combined number of middle to high income earners was 74.8% in 1971.  It shrank to 70.7% in 2011.  Low income earners grew from 25% to 29%.

The left will focus in on the fact that the number of rich has gone up and so has the poor.  They will also say that the middle class is shrinking.  Their proposed policy solution to this will be income redistribution.

While I agree that the rich are getting richer, I don't agree that making everybody poor is a good policy response.

The left has a problem with getting rich.  They are vigorously opposed to it.  The trouble is that if you aren't getting richer, you just might be getting poorer.

I don't think this is the right way to approach the problem.  If America is getting poorer, as I think it is, the answer is to grow the pie, not redistribute a shrinking pie.

Democrat partisans claim rigged system

You gotta love this stuff:

What we receive from the media is something else entirely. Obama is not the incumbent in their eyes. He is the challenger. He is running against what Elizabeth Warren called a “rigged” system—the same system over which he has presided for almost four years. He is running against the Wall Street fat cats whose money he is happy to take when it suits his purposes.

If this system is rigged, it is rigged in their favor.  Projection.

h/t Transterrestrial Musings

Pastors pledge to defy IRS, preach politics from pulpit ahead of election

FoxNews.com via Behind the Black blog

“We’re hoping the IRS will respond by doing what they have threatened,” he said. “We have to wait for it to be applied to a particular church or pastor so that we can challenge it in court. We don’t think it’s going to take long for a judge to strike this down as unconstitutional.”

Yep, that old free speech bugaboo strikes again.  Funny how the government is on the wrong side of this issue recently.  For instance, take the forced funding of contraception which goes against Catholic beliefs.  Or the most recent criticism of a anti Muslim video that the administration is using for political cover for a failed security at the Libyan consulate.  The policy enforcement has an uncanny tendency to favor Democrats:

the IRS has always enforced this oppressive regulation very selectively. Black churches for example have been allowed to preach Democratic Party politics for decades, without any threats from the IRS.  ( behind the black blog)

Blog: The 'hidden' unemployed

americanthinker blog

Economists, analyzing government data, estimate about 4 million fewer people are in the labor force than in December 2007, primarily due to a lack of jobs rather than the normal aging of America's population. The size of the shift underscores the severity of the jobs crisis.[ emphasis added]

Yet, some people seem to think that the economic news isn't bad.  It is a bubble mentality which is enabled by a media that is protecting Obama.

Partisan Trends - Rasmussen Reports™

Number of Republicans in America Reaches Record High

During August, 37.6% of Americans considered themselves Republicans.

Has to make you even more skeptical of polls that have this number down in the twenties.

David Axelrod: Romney Manipulated Tax Return to Look Good to Voters

Free Republic Dick Morris has said that the only thing Romney has to do is to show himself to be a viable alternative. These petty attacks show better than anything else that Obama and his crew know that.

I agree

Glenn Reynolds says the Democrats don't want economic growth.

Dinesh D'Souza: The Author & Filmmaker the White House Can No Longer Ignore

Published on Sep 21, 2012 by Pajamasmedia The film is mostly Obama in his own words.

What good are polls?

Opinion

There have been a number of complaints on conservative websites about the polls.  A perusal of the polls leads me to the thought that things may be getting a bit wacky out there.  I wrote before that I thought people should stop watching the polls too much.  Here's a reason why--- they can't be very useful because too many factors can alter the results so as to render the outcome of the polls meaningless.

One example was in the presidential election  in 2000.  Bush led by a margin greater than the margin of error, but a last minute disclosure supposedly changed enough opinions so as to make the outcome very close.  The polls in that case were meaningless for predicting that outcome.

This leads me to the next point.  How accurate can they be?  Can they really predict within 5% of the actual results?  Even if they could, this would still be meaningless.  To a politician, 5% may be close enough to try an October Surprise, but as far as predicting a victory or defeat, it is meaningless.  For 5% in a presidential election means millions of votes.  How can you sway that many people that quickly?  It may be possible, but it isn't necessarily a given.  The last minute disclosure of a DUI against Bush may not have been a reason it is was so close.  There may have been other reasons completely unrelated to this.

The methodology of the polling differs as well.  You can have some polls that sample more of one group than another.  You can have polls of adults, registered voters, and likely voters.  Each of those groups can yield differing results.  The demographic makeup of a poll can vary from one poll to the next.  How can anyone be sure that a poll reasonably and fairly reflects all these factors?  It may not be possible to get all these correct, so that the statistical margin of error is only an estimate and it may not even be a good estimate.

My opinion is that polls are only useful for entertainment for those who watch them closely.  For others, such a politicians, they may have some limited value in determining how to run their campaigns.  Aside from that, they probably have little predictive value.