Yahoo Breakout: Bipartisan Budget Talks Breakdown

Breakout and Yahoo Politics: A Summit Meeting

1. Game of chicken, who is going to break down first?
2. Wrestlemania scenario, deadline real?
3. Adults will win out, there will be a deal, but enormous pressure from Tea Party
4. Clinton statement about default jumped on, cleaned up
5. What gets paid first, and who?
6. Worse to do bad deal than deal
7. Trillion in cuts so far, another trillion?
8. Taxes going up?
9. Constituency opposed to cuts- not even minor changes 
10. Bond market not concerned, bondholders paid first, but political disaster
11. Obama failing miserably, not leading
12. His party wants more aggressive stand, he's not doing that
13.  Want higher taxes, can't get it

Applying The Weiner Test To The WI Sup Ct Scuffle

There are many young adults who probably don't remember this because they are too young. The term that I'm thinking of is culture war. The culture war is on, and it's main front is out there in Wisconsin.

What's the culture war? Actually, it is a Pat Buchanan phrase which he brought into the public square back during the 1992 Presidential primaries. He was running against the elder Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush, and that appears to have weakened Bush enough to cause him to lose to Clinton later that year.

Social Conservatives seem to be losing that war, as gay marriage passed in New York this past week. Yes, that is what culture war is, the great cultural rift between the social conservatives and the social liberals.

In Wisconsin, it doesn't appear to be social issues, but economic ones. But they are comparable due to the respective factions that support each side. It is political, as the left sees its power base challenged and is fighting back. It would seem that they can't vote out Prosser, now they will try to scandalize him out. They can't get rid of Walker yet, but they will try as soon as it becomes possible. Recall efforts are underway, and will continue. For the left, we are not broke. But, who are "we"? It is a wide gulf between capitalism and socialism, and the idea that property is communal is the one chasm that cannot be bridged. If it cannot be bridged, the only other way is conflict of one kind or another.

If the left is successful, they will get increasingly aggressive towards property. If "we" are not broke, it must follow that they will begin seizing private property. They will begin taking property, because "we" means there is no distinction between anyone's property, it is held in common by all. What property might that be? Just about any kind that you can imagine, but the one that I hear about from time to time is private pensions. If it looks like they will make a grab at that, look out below for these types of investments. There will be a mad dash to get out of them before the government starts grabbing them.

Once that fails, they will get increasingly desperate. There is no way out, but to just stop spending what you don't have. This hasn't sunk in for the left yet, but it will eventually. It must because they won't stop until "we" really are broke. In such as case as that, say goodbye to wealth and prosperity. The left doesn't know how to create it, but they sure know how to redistribute it.

Change in plans

I'm not up to going out today, so I'll be blogging instead.

Morning Summary, 6/27

I'll be reading  John Brandenburg's book about Mars today.   It should be fairly busy, so I don't know how much time I'll have to post.  If I can get in a few, I will.

Evening Wrap, 6/26

Today was a day to get caught up on the Space Show.  Didn't listen to them all, but I did listen to five of them.  I figure that the "cold fusion" folks can team up with the space enthusiasts.   The thing that they have in common is that they are not favored currently by those in power.  Perhaps in the future, these brilliant leaders of ours may find a use for these.

Storing Hydrogen Safely

Metal hydrides could potentially play a leading role in a hydrogen economy. By Virginia Heffernan

I got the idea to do this from an earlier post about the ratio between hydrogen and nickel. That is, if the ratio is 1 to 1 in terms of atoms, then it would be effectively much higher pressure per volume of the solid nickel ( according to the Ideal Gas Law). So, I find this article, and it gives a number, but it is not entirely clear what it means.

Many alloys form hydrides with up to 9% hydrogen but will release the gas only at extreme temperatures.

Does that mean by weight or what?  At 9% by weight, it would be greater than 1 to 1 because hydrogen is only about 1/30th the mass per mole ( and even that takes into account the fact that hydrogen bonds with itself, so the true ratio would be 1/60th).  That could mean multiple atoms of hydrogen per nickel atom.

As Spock would say on Star Trek:  "fascinating".  This means the equivalent of very high pressures, I would think.  It would mean up to six moles of hydrogen per mole of nickel, with the nickel occupying only a tiny fraction of the volume that would have been the case with hydrogen alone.  This gives a very high theoretical pressure per volume, per the Ideal Gas Law.

You may recall the equation for the gas law:  pv=nrt.   As temperature increases, so must pressure.  If it approaches a billion degrees kelvin and is still inside the nickel, the pressure would be very high indeed.  Each side of the equation would have to rise proportionally, you see.  A billion degrees is 10^9th.

So, Huizenga doesn't think this can cause fusion?  It almost seems comically false to me.  He's gotta be pulling somebody's leg. 

Space Show, 6/3

John Brandenburg was on, and he talked about life on Mars. He says some amazing things, like there was abundant life on Mars, even before multicellular life existed on Earth.

He says stuff that may not be popularly accepted by modern science. But, isn't that conventional wisdom?

Some other things that got said confirmed a suspicion that I have expressed here that the powers that be don't want you to know such things. This information may have been suppressed to some extent. Does that sound familiar?

I am going to buy Brandenburg's book through the One Giant Leap Foundation. They will make a contribution to the Space Show.