Cristopher Cross ~ Ride Like The Wind

On the road last night, this song was playing on the radio. I wanted to put it up here, but forgot about it until just now. I was riding like the wind last night trying to get home from a long way away. The song fit my mood. Right now, I just feel tired.

Ace: Why That 7.8% Unemployment Figure Is Raising Eyebrows

Ace of Spades

You don't even have to think Obama cooked the books (though Jay Cost reminds that that does happen) to look at the number with suspicion.

The economy simply did not add 873,000 jobs last month. It simply did not. The payroll survey says it added a mere 114,000.

There is absolutely no confirmatory data suggesting that the 873,000 number is right and the 114,000 number is wrong. As one guy asked on Twitter -- did payroll taxes jump up past month?

Cooking the books?  Maybe.

1MW Solar Powered Laser Made in Uzbekistan

vadaenergy via Wikipedia  (filed in Solar Power on Mar.25, 2009)

Seems to correlate with the Coaster series, so here goes...

• Uzbek researchers want to make a 40-meter tower, tapped with 62 electronically controllable mirrors, arranged in a concave form that focus the Sun’s power onto a solar furnace. The mirrors almost have half the size of a football field, and the whole system is able to focus 1MW of energy into the furnace.
• The accomplishment of the project “Development of optimal technology of conversion of solar energy into laser emission” is coordinated by the youngest Research Center of the country - the Institute of Materials Science SPU “Physics-Sun” of the Uzbek Academy of Science. 
• The solar furnace will be able to bear temperatures of up to 3000 degrees Celsius.
• The biggest problem for the laser system developers became the prevention of its overheating.
• A computer controls the cooling of the multi-crystal shanks of the laser with distilled water. 

More here.  An updated article (9/2011 or a year ago) on Science Daily- Parabolic mirrors concentrate sunlight to power lasers

A pdf file of Japanese researchers who want to beam power from space to the ground.  If Kirk Sorensen is right, this is a mistake.  Why beam power to the ground?  Use the power to beam power to stuff already in space, like a spacecraft.

Coaster No. 11

Part 11 of the series.

Have decided to reconsider the idea of using curved mirrors- this leaves the question: how to reflect the light to a convenient place?  Let's study the following pic:

Infinia Prototype CSP dish, page 11 pdf doc

The idea here is to put a mirror in place of the Stirling Engine.  The question that arises is this: can the mirror survive the concentrated solar light and not melt?  If that question can't be answered affirmatively, then we are sunk with this idea.  If it can, that means the light can be redirected to where we want it.   Happy days.

I would prefer to reflect the light along the support structure.  It would move vertically like the light does in a periscope in a submarine.

Update:

The answer to the question was not directly answerable in the web, but I did ask the following question

Can a laser ever be powerful enough to burn a hole in a reflecting mirror?

with the answer being that if the laser is powerful enough, then yes.  I am going to guess that concentrated solar will not be as intense as a laser, but that may be wrong.

Update:

The last update just above linked to the possibility of generating a laser directly from concentrated solar light. If this is feasible, the it would be an exciting prospect for this application, in my opinion. For if you could convert concentrated solar into a laser, then you could put the laser where you want it. Then it would become a trivial exercise to make the heat exchanger work like it is envisioned here. Moreover, it may be possible to get higher ISP's as well. Higher than 850.

Songified debate

These guys are good.  I was just thinking about them this past week.  The first song of theirs I remember seeing was the The Backing Up Song.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Note:  this is what my impression was before looking at the Household numbers.

Obama claimed yesterday that the unemployment numbers showed that his economic plans are working.

I suspect that this is wrong because the trend has been different over the course of this "recovery".

All that the unemployment rate measures is the number of people who are looking for jobs and can't find one.  To show how absurd Obama's claim is, consider this hypothetical--- if nobody has a job and nobody is looking for one, the unemployment rate would be zero.

But the hypothetical isn't quite as hypothetical as that--- because that is what is happening to a lesser extent.  For example, if more people enter the workforce than the number who find jobs, it has to mean that nobody is looking for a job.  That's just about what happened---only 100k jobs were created, but over 3 times that number entered the workforce.

If the economy was truly growing and created lots of new jobs, that number should be reversed.  That is more jobs would be created than the number of people available.

The real indicator of the poor state of economic health is the soaring debt numbers and the falling incomes.  But Obama won't cite those numbers.  He has to cite a statistical fluke in order to claim success.

Now that I've covered my initial impression, let's look at what I usually look at when I discuss the employment situation--- the Household data.

873,000 more working last month!  This is a great number, but is probably a fluke, not a trend.

If you were to get this kind of numbers for several months running, it would be great news.  Bring out the champagne and pop the corks time.  But, hold the champagne.  Happy days are not here again.  The other numbers aren't so rosy. Those numbers aren't evident here, but in the main report.

For example, incomes aren't rising much, hours worked aren't rising much.

Coaster series: Experimenting with mirrors--- reflecting light

Part 9 of series:  Concentrated Solar Thermal Rocket

Some pics I took yesterday while experimenting with a small hand held mirror.

Sunrise

A picture of a light before sunrise

There's a reflected light from the side mirror to the hand held mirror.  The light divides the shadow at the bottom of the door.  Can you see it?

Experimenting with reflection of light showed me a little about what needs to be done in placing the mirrors.

All of these little "experiments" made me remember the time I went to a barbershop where there were mirrors facing each other.  The mirrors reflecting themselves into an infinity of copies of reflections.  Light will bounce back and forth infinitely if the mirrors face each other like that.

Anyway, I figure the mirrors should be placed along the path taken and then angled down a little to the target.

I begin to think about the size of the mirrors and the numbers needed.  I wonder how much  light can fresnel lens handle if you have 1000 mirrors?   If 10 mirrors per fresnel lens, you would need 100 lenses.

Also, what if you hit with light several locations on ring?  How many rocket motors will you need?  And so forth.

Update:

Oops!  This is part 10, not part 9.

Debate Football Analogy

What you get with a debate is a one on one match-up.  That corresponds with what happens sometimes in American Football.  Coaches try to set up plays in which one player will match up with another in a way that is an advantage for the team.  The result of a favorable one on one match-up could be a big play that can determine the outcome of a game.

An election is a game, as I noted before.

I'm beginning to think the Romney-Obama match-up favors Romney.  It's all in the style of each that contributes to the poor match-up prospects for Obama.  Obama is said to be thin-skinned.  This doesn't match up very well with Romney's aggressiveness.

If I am right, the next debate will be even worse for Obama.

Now I've heard everything

A cheese powered dragster!

Oh, I see.  It isn't exactly cheese.  It is biodiesel which is made of cheese.


h/t Behind the Black

Next Big Future: Skylon Spaceplane Project Troy Mars Mission

Next Big Future: Skylon Spaceplane Project Troy Mars Mission: Alan Bond from Reaction Engines presents a talk about the latest developments about Skylon and Project Troy. This was one of a series of tal...

Next Big Future: Zpinch Nuclear Fusion Pulse Space Propulsion Research

Next Big Future: Zpinch Nuclear Fusion Pulse Space Propulsion Research: A team of scientists and researchers from UAHuntsville’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Boeing and Marshall Space Fligh...

Interesting comments.  One talked of an ongoing project that is close to break even.  That would be revolutionary to say the least.

"Z-pinch" could be close to the concept that was discussed here on numerous occasions.  Fusion energy would enable exploration of the solar system.

CNN Poll: Most watchers say Romney debate winner

For what it is worth.

Denver, Colorado (CNN) – Two-thirds of people who watched the first presidential debate think that Republican nominee Mitt Romney won the showdown, according to a nationwide poll conducted Wednesday night.

I watched a few minutes of it.  One thing I noticed is that Romney addressed Obama a lot.  Also, Romney worked in a few jabs, like Biden's gaffe about the middle class getting the worst of it the last four years.  General impression is that Romney was well-prepared.  Obama worked in a tax cut attack that Romney denied.

( Concentrated ) Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part IX: Miscellaneous design notes

Going into a bit more detail all the time.  Is this getting serious?  Well, if I did do something about making this thing, it would take gazillions of dollars, which I don't have.  At the moment, I may make a few models to flesh it out a bit more.  Plus conduct a few experiments that may something like a proof of sorts.

Let's give it a shorter name because the title is getting too long.  Lets call it by an alphabet name.  Therefore, it will be CoaSTeR for Concentrated Solar Thermal Rocket.  Yay!  Yeah, it is a coaster all right.  It will "coast" from coast to coast like a sailing ship in the solar system!  Uh, not really.  From Earth to the Moon and Mars and back might do.

I like the sailing ship analogy.  Explorers crossed the oceans without internal combustion engines, or burning anything.  This ship will burn little or nothing.  It will be a truly green machine.

Design of heat exchanger:

• Find a way to deposit carbon on top of tungsten- don't like that tungsten is lustrous.  That means light will be reflected off of it.  That's not desirable, so this may be a solution for that problem. 
•  Put the ring close to the nozzle.  The heat exchangers would run back from the ring toward the hydrogen tank.  This would make sense as it would be the coldest part of the heat exchanger which would meet the cold, cryogenic hydrogen to be heated up.  It would heat up and get to the ring where it would be the hottest.  Hopefully, it can be really, really hot at the nozzle.  Like 2600 deg. Centigrade type of of hot.
•  The diameter of the hydrogen fuel line would be 1/8 inch- comparable to auto running all out.  Don't know how much in diameter the ring should be or the nozzle.  Compare the nozzle size to the exhaust pipe of an auto, but that seems too small.  The auto reference is because this "engine" will be about as powerful as a sport car engine. 

Design of mirror system

• Idea: put arm that positions mirrors on fuel tank- arm would have wide range of motion- as would individual mirrors
  Note that planets revolve around the equatorial plane of the sun, approximately.
• Note also that engine thrust would be somewhat parallel to the path of the orbits of planets.  The would put the sun to the "right" or "left" side.
• Concepts of three dimensional space need to be reviewed.  Mirrors have to be positioned correctly in order to track the sun.

Update:

This is where the series gets a little more organized with a name: "Coaster", and a number tag.  This is number 9 in the series, which continues to 18.

The first post that starts it all off is here.   It did get a name at the beginning: Solar Thermal Rocket series, so excuuuuuuuse me.

Debate

Obviously, I didn't watch it.  It doesn't interest me.  This is the sort of thing that grabs people's attention, but my attention has been there all along.  This was for all of the other people who don't pay attention.  If it serves any purpose, it could work for people who can size up the two candidates in an adversarial type matchup.

Seems like the reports are in and that Romney won handily.  Yawn.

There... Are... Four... Lights!

We have a metaphor here.  The tormentor of Picard was trying to get him to say something false in order to demonstrate his power, control, and victory over Picard's spirit.  It is a perfect metaphor for liberalism's way of tormenting the people the with their lies in order to get the people to accept as truth the utter falsity of their ideas.

No matter what the lying liberal media says, or what the lying liberal politicians say, or what they lying mindless sycophants say, just remember this video as inspiration.

There are four lights!

Barak Obama is the biggest phony ever

A few observations on that as I peruse the web this early morning:

• The video with Obama sounding distinctly black.  Well, is he black or is he white?  He can't be both, but that is the way he sounds in front of different audiences.
• Libyans say few questions being asked about attack--- Yeah, all comments about the terrorist's attack are being held pending an investigation which isn't taking place.
• Blacks are abandoning the Democratic Party--- Quote: "Americans of African descent are more pro-life and pro-family than the average white voter and as conservative on social issues as any white evangelical."--- Comment: Could it be that the phoniness goes just so far?  You can't look black, but govern lilly-white liberal, and not be noticed.  God is not mocked.
• Joe Biden says middle class 'has been buried' past 4 years. Oops.  Comment:  Who has been President and Vice President these last 4 years?  A Freudian slip, perhaps?

Does the truth matter?  We shall see.

By the way, what does the Doors' song "The End" mean, which I posted here yesterday?  It means death.  Physical, mental, and spiritual death.  I must have been wondering if this country has a death wish.  We shall see.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part VIII

My latest thoughts on a solar thermal rocket.  Part 8 of an ongoing series.

When I left off last time, I started discussion of how the heat exchanger might work.  This post will refine some of the ideas.

I was thinking of using a fresnel lens to focus the concentrated light on a small point.  The thought occurred to me that this would not heat as evenly and as thoroughly as I would like, so I'm thinking of how to deal with that.  A new idea:  a ring of tungsten will rotate on top of molten aluminum.  An electric motor will turn the ring.  Gears will be on the side of the ring and the small motor that will turn it.  The ring will have the concentrated light energy focused on it while it rotates.  This is to give a more even heating, I hope.

The ring turning on the molten aluminum is to keep the heat exchanger still while conducting heat from the concentrated solar energy through the tungsten, then the aluminum, and into the heat exchanger.

Now, hook up a hydrogen feed line into the heat exchanger and a nozzle out the other end.

Now the question is this:  how big can we make this thing?  And how much energy do we need to focus upon the ring in order to transmit enough energy so as to heat the hydrogen to comparable temperatures in a nuclear thermal rocket?

My goal is to reach that temperature or one close to nuclear so as to have an ISP comparable to it, plus to use solar energy as opposed to chemical or nuclear energy.

Update:

Perhaps this is hard to express how it could work.  I'm thinking it could work like a wheel on a car.  In a car, the wheel rotates around a fixed spindle.  Adapting this concept as an analogue, the "spindle" would be a heat exchanger rotating around it.  It would not support weight as in an automobile.  After all, it is intended to work in a weightless environment.  What is supposed to do is to allow heat transfer between the ring and the heat exchanger while allowing rotation.

By the way, you don't have to use molten aluminum as a "lubricant".  Something else could work better.  I just don't know what that might be.

Update:

I wrote in the above update:  " heat exchanger rotating around it".  Sorry, a goof.  The "spindle" is the heat exchanger, the "wheel" is heat source.  The "wheel" is heated up while rotating- with the heat being transferred through the "bearings" and into the "spindle".  Hope that clarifies things.

Apocalypse Now Intro (The Doors - The End)

Uploaded by yhprumx on Apr 26, 2009

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes...again
Can you picture what will be
So limitless and free
Desperately in need...of some...stranger's hand
In a...desperate land
Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah




Comment:

A friend in high school loved this song. He died young, or relatively young. For some reason, this song is playing in my mind. I hope it doesn't mean anything of ominous portent.

Solar Thermal Rocket Series Part VII

Liquid aluminum circulated amongst tungsten tubes, that's what I've come up with this time.  The reason for it is because aluminum has low melting point, but high boiling point--- is a good conductor.

Want to use something to transfer heat and is liquid, don't want to use hydrogen for that.  Use the hydrogen when it is time to heat it up for exhaust out the nozzle.

The aluminum is intended to level out the heating so that it is uniform throughout the heat exchanger.

Basic design would be two plates connected together with carbonized substance that doesn't conduct heat.  The bottom plate is where the tungsten tube is connected and anchored.  The hydrogen is pumped through the tube where it expands the hydrogen into exhaust which is directed out the nozzle as thrust.

Have to keep the aluminum pretty hot in order that it stays melted.  If it freezes, has to be re-melted.  This may be a problem--- not sure.  The sun always shines in space, until you it is blocked by a planet.  Like Earth, Moon, or Mars.

The goal of this thing is to emulate a nuclear thermal rocket with concentrated solar power:  heat the thing up to 2700 degrees C.  That is well above the melting point of aluminum, but still below the boiling point.  The melting point of tungsten is much higher still.  If this temperature can be maintained even with the cold hydrogen injected into it, we may have a winner.  I don't see why not.  You can focus as many mirrors on a spot as is necessary.

I got the idea to use tungsten from listening to space show as one of his guests on a show not that long ago proposed using it in a nuclear thermal rocket.

What I see today--- the media is useless

Yes, I have written it before.  It should be clear that to listen or to watch the media is a huge waste of time.  There's no information there, it is all noise.

This story about Lockheed Martin wouldn't matter if the media was reporting the news, which they don't.

Why should it matter if you already know what is going on?  Lockheed Martin won't mention layoffs until after the election.  Yeah, like that changes anything.  If you are paying attention, this wouldn't be news.  Most people aren't paying attention, or they are paying attention to the wrong things... like polls.

Even outfits like Free Republic are contaminated with this useless poll watching.

If you don't read Ann Barnhardt...

then you are probably making a mistake.  You may not agree with her on everything, but if you have money in an account somewhere, it may be a good idea to keep posted and read her blog.  She has some stuff up this morning that you should be reading.

If we actually had a real news media that actually reported the news, this would be a major scandal.  But even this is just one of many that go unreported.

It may be well advised to revisit this speech...

Obama: Recovery? I don't need no stinking recovery!

You've got to see this chart on Ace.  If employment was measured by labor participation rate, the Obama years pale in comparison with the Bush years.  Some may try to claim that the aging of the labor force has something to do with this, but I think not.

Update:


Here's the chart

blogs for mitt.com

You have to give Glenn Reynolds credit

He comes up with a lot of material.  I don't know how he does it.  Anyway, he came up with this, which is quite interesting if I was still in school and about 35 years younger.

I just might have qualified for the job, but I may be the wrong skin color and sex.

LOXLEO revisited

The most recent post in the series here.

Now that I've figured out a way not to have to use oxygen in order to generate thrust, then why not use nitrogen instead?  Nitrogen is plentiful in the atmosphere, nearly 80%.  A gas harvester in low earth orbit can gather this stuff up easily, I would imagine.  The tough part is to keep the ship from being overwhelmed by drag.  How to do that was covered in that series.  For a quick review, there may have been a proposal to do this with beamed energy which would have been affordable if it were built.

Keep in mind that the cost of space travel is directly related to mass.  Most of the mass needed is fuel.  These two ideas minimize the amount of fuel needed and gather it up without having to launch from the ground.  This should make exploration from low Earth orbit much cheaper.

Now, for the problem of getting to LEO ( low Earth orbit) itself.  There are a lot of people working on that one.

As for the government effort, there was a promising SSTO project (X-33 or VentureStar) that got canceled early in the Bush administration.  This would have been a re-usable spaceplane, but the critics called it a flying gas can.  That's right.  All rockets are flying gas cans.  Just aren't any flying gas cans that are re-usable with a fast turnaround.  That's what Elon Musk called the "holy grail" of spacecraft design--- re-usability with fast turnaround.  It would make space travel affordable.

You need to get people up there and this spaceplane could have done it.

It could have been part of a space infrastructure.  Here's how: High value bulky stuff could use conventional rockets.  For example, it makes sense to lift a billion dollar piece of equipment with a billion dollar rocket.  But it doesn't make sense to launch a million dollars worth of food and supplies this way.  Besides, a VentureStar could launch people and supplies.  Finally, you could harvest gases from the atmosphere in order to avoid launching from the ground.  This would be a blueprint for getting us into space on an economically sustainable pathway.

From the WTF file: CA Shuts Down Fifty-Year-Old Burger Joint For Having Counters Too Tall

h/t Instapundit

By the way, the post that wasn't a post is now the all time most popular post that I've written on this here blog.

Maybe I'll start a WTF file in honor of the occasion.

Update

video removed because it plays automatically

Sarah Palin WTF Moments - 'Spudnut'

Watch this video and marvel at the people who produced this anti-Palin video.  They are so obsessed with finding fault with Palin that they can't even hear what she's saying.

Palin was right.  WTF indeed.

But the entire video is about a lot of trivial criticisms of Palin.  "Rome is burning" but these guys are worried that Palin said something that can be deemed to be naughty.

I think the word that best describes this is called projection.  The stupidity of these people is monumental, yet they love to dump on Palin for being stupid.

Riiiight.

Nightmare on Pennsylvania Avenue

I guess these posts may get some attention if I use provocative posts.  But the provocative posts do not make them any less true.

There is a nightmare going on in our government.  It may as well be Freddy Kruger running the show, because the darned thing won't go away.  It just seems to get worse and worse the more you fight it.

Read this story.  I got the link from Instapundit here.  The government's response to a case of mismanagement was to refer the complaint back to the very people who were causing the problem.  Oh, yeah.  That's like referring a complaint against police brutality back to the police officer who did it.  Makes a lot of sense to me! /sarc

Rothman's saga may seem hard to believe - until you consider the lengths to which Chinese officials go to silence dissidents and others who threaten to discredit them. In fact, China experts agree that the government routinely flouts its own laws, and one of its favorite tactics is killing its opponents while trying to make the death seem like a suicide, accident or natural death.

Our government in action!  You know, if these people were actually working for the people, this would have gotten a meaningful response.  What the hell are these people doing to earn their keep?  Also, the chief of state, meaning the POTUS, is in charge of all the Federal government's bureaucracy.  It would seem to me that he bears some responsibility for this.  Yet, if anything, this government and its enablers in the media, are trying to emulate China.

Rothman, 68, said he had earlier confided to the legal aide that he was vulnerable to having a stroke, and he believes he was given a drug, hoping that would induce one. Then he was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, a common practice in China these days.

China is in full control of the Communists, so it should be a chilling reminder of what could happen here if we allow a corrupt one party state to emerge in this country.

Liberals hate the American people

Yeah, that might get a rise out of some people.  But I'm not just writing it for effect.  I want to produce an argument in favor of it.

The argument boils down to the altogether obvious fact that the Liberals refuse to defend the people in this country.  It doesn't matter what the defense entails, if it is a defense, the Liberals are against any meaningful defense of this country and its people.  I don't know how else to describe it except as hatred.

I will cite one example and let the argument end there, even though it can be continued with other examples.

Let's take the "Star Wars" missile defense as the example.  The Liberal line is that there's no defense against ICBMs.  Sorry, but that is wrong.  I've given it some thought and it's wrong.  ICBMs can be defended against.  It's just that the Liberals don't want to do it.

There are several layers of defense against missiles.  These are deployed defense systems now in operation.  Rather than go into these in depth, let me just mention those that I know about-

1. The Airborne Laser, which can shoot down missiles in their boost phase
2. The THAAD system--- these are intended for regional defense as far as I can tell
3. The Patriot missile defense system--- mostly battlefield and close in defense
4. The anti ballistic missile missiles deployed in Alaska and those that were planned for Poland v ICBMs
5. The Phalanx systems adapted from defense of ships into the Israeli Iron Dome missile defense

If there's anything I would do differently on just these systems is to deploy them aggressively.  In addition, an aggressive civil defense system in which people could find shelter quickly if an attack is imminent.

Airborne lasers could work against short range missiles lobbed in from submarines.  A fleet of these could discourage an close approach to American shores for a sneak attack.  Submarines could track enemy subs before they get this far.  Satellites can detect when they leave home port.

There's no reason for any vulnerability to this kind of attack.  The only exception to this would be from a superpower.  But even that could be defended against if the will to do it existed.  Why?

I think a terminal defense system could be deployed to defend against the final approach of a warhead and to destroy it as an effective weapon.  In other words, a fail safe system that would render an attack totally ineffective.

Nuclear weapons are not the same as conventional explosives in more ways than the obvious one.  If you smash an object hard enough against it, it could render it harmless.  That's because a nuclear weapon must have a condition inside the warhead that is favorable for a nuclear explosion.  If anything damages the integrity of those conditions, it can't explode.

If the Liberals would only deploy these defenses aggressively, I would change my mind about them.  But they won't.  Playing around with these defense systems isn't going to cut it.  They have to deployed aggressively.

It isn't just this example, but a general pattern of refusal to defend the country.  How else can it be but that they hate their own country?

God is not mocked

Ok, this title is not intended to be a religious statement.  But everybody believes in something, even the atheists.  One thing that I believe in is the truth.  If there is a God, he cannot lie.  The truth will be known.

With that in mind, I turn to this prediction that Obama will lose in a landslide.  The author cites several very good reasons why Obama cannot win.  Yet the polls indicate otherwise.  So, who is right and who is wrong?

I've already written that I don't trust the polls.  There are several good reasons why they can't be trusted. These reasons cannot be ignored, even though they will be anyway.   But what about the pollsters that have been reliable over the past years?  It appears to me that even these are suspect.  When everything seems to be pointing the wrong way, what and who can you trust to tell you the truth?  In the end, one has to rely upon one's own judgment and do what is indicated.  The re-election of Obama is not indicated despite everything that may be getting reported that says otherwise.

For God is not mocked.  In order to re-elect Obama, people will have to ignore the evidence of the own senses.  They would have to give up their own judgment and succumb to a steady drumbeat of propaganda.  For the truth is not the friend of Obama.  How can people ignore the fact that fewer people are working, incomes are dropping, Iran is seeking an atomic bomb, the administration has covered up a terrorist attack in Benghazi, the Democrats have passed an unpopular ObamaCare bill, the Middle East appears to be turning radical and hostile, Russia is acting like the Soviet Union of old, and despite all this and much more- vote to re-elect Obama even though he is on the wrong side of every one of these facts?

The only way Obama wins is by default or by fraud.   There can be no other possibility.  If Obama wins, it will be obvious why and that truth too shall be known.  For God is not mocked.

Mainstream media is threatening our country's future

By Patrick Caddell / Published September 29, 2012 / FoxNews.com

Editor's note: The following text is from a speech delivered by Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor Patrick Caddell on September 21. ...Patrick Caddell is a Democratic pollster and Fox News contributor. He served as pollster for President Jimmy Carter, Gary Hart, Joe Biden and others. He is a Fox News political analyst and co-host of "Campaign Insiders" Sundays on Fox News Channel and Mondays at 10:30 am ET on "FoxNews.com Live."

excerpts:

• Most recently, what I call the nepotism that exists, where people get jobs—they’re married to people who are in the administration, or in politics, whatever. 
• What I pointed out was, that it was appalling that Valerie Jarrett had a Secret Service detail. A staff member in the White House who is a senior aide and has a full Secret Service detail, even while on vacation, and nobody in the press had asked why.
• Axelrod going back to Chicago for the campaign—and just after it was announced that he was coming, an Iranian front group in Nigeria gave him $100,000 to give two speeches in Nigeria.
• He was on with George Stephanopoulos, on ABC... former advisor to Bill Clinton
• then there’s of course [National Security Advisor] Tom Donilon, who I know very well from years back, who I caused a little bit of a stir over a few months ago when I said he was the “leaker-in-chief.” —you know, I talk often about the “Corrupt Party” and the “Stupid Party,” but the Stupid Party couldn’t be stupider when it comes to things like this. They could have called Tom Donilon and other people down to the Congress, put them under oath, and asked them if they had leaked. 
• Instead you have Eric Holder, who runs the most political Justice Department since John Mitchell

and so on...

Corruption should be a big issue in this campaign, but it isn't.  It wouldn't take much of an effort to win on that issue alone.  Caddell points out something that others like Barnhardt ( and me ) that the Republicans may not be all that interested in winning.

Whack-a-Doodle environmentalist policies harm America

CBO: Electric vehicles a loser that allow for more pollution h/t Instapundit

• Late last week, the CBO analyzed the outcomes of the green-tech subsidy programs aimed at promoting EVs like the Volt, and concluded that they’re not exactly successful. 
• the outcome is the same as Cash for Clunkers and the gimmicky homebuyer tax credits in the first two years of the Obama administration. They aren’t driving demand; they are subsidizing purchases that would have taken place anyway.
• But at least the sales reduce pollution. Or do they? [ comment: rhetorical question, they don't]
• core economic problems with EVs and even hybrids:

1.  Sustained value [ comment :  NONE, no trade in value because of expensive batteries]
2. Energy [ comment: not any cleaner, and is actually dirtier]
3. Environment [ comment: makes a point about rare earths, but rare earths aren't rare in USA.  The mining of them is BEING BLOCKED]

• These are among the reasons that Toyota has all but abandoned plans to push an EV for wide distribution

Some of these issues may be mitigated with better ideas.  But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this administration to come up with any.

The attitude cultivated in America under one term of President Obama

legal insurrection

In a video taken outside a Romney rally, one Obama supporter shares why he won’t vote for Romney.

Glittering jewel of colossal ignorance. Meet your typical Obama voter.

Kickstarter update: Gordon McDowell's project

He's producing a video and here is some more raw video which will go into the final production.

Perfection as the enemy of the good

When it comes to nuclear energy and space travel, which are the two things that would help the world the most right now, there is this irrational quest for perfection.

With space travel, perfection means that nobody ever gets hurt.  It is irrational because without some risk taking, progress can come to a halt.  Without progress, more people can actually suffer and die because of the irrational demand that nobody can ever be allowed to take risks.

Environmentalism is the same way in that a way to rise to the next level in energy production is feasible, but the opposition is intensely afraid of radiation.  What I'm referring to here is molten salt reactors.  These reactors are not radiation free, but they are a substantial improvement over current designs.  However, they won't be adopted because of the irrational demand that they be perfect, and free from any radiation whatsoever.  Such a demand, if it succeeds, will stunt progress and lead to more suffering in the world than would be the case if they were allowed to proceed.

Rand Simberg, who has a blog, is writing a paper on this subject.  I helped fund this project through Kickstarter, and here is something in an update just emailed to supporters:

I've got a pretty good first draft of the piece written. It's being reviewed by some experts, so it's not final, but it is substantially complete.

As I feared, it's turned into a small book -- it's currently at about 26,000 words, and 41 pages of a Word document in 12 point Times. Current title: Futile Obsession: Our Irrational Quest For Absolute Safety In Spaceflight.  [italics added]

We are also seeing that phenomenon of an irrational quest for no risk in general.  I saw that in a Cold Fusion update that I posted about yesterday.  Ruby Carat asked a question of a (minor) presidential candidate and she mentioned that cold fusion is free of radiation in her question.  As if this mattered nearly as much as she seems to believe.

Don't get me wrong, cold fusion would be a great thing.  But it also may not be the panacea that is being touted even if it is successful.  Once that facts seeps in, will those products come into disrepute?  Well, they shouldn't.  Instead, it should be decided on its merits--- among these would be the likelihood of an improvement in conditions.  If it isn't perfect, so what?  Cold fusion should be sold on its merits, if they exist.  Not on being radiation free, even if that is the case.