Author: VD

Bombs before GDP

Karl Denninger considers the problem of energy production in a world of increasingly expensive oil and coal:

We experimented with Thorium as a nuclear fuel in the 1950s
and 1960s.  Carried in a molten salt there are a number of significant
advantages to this fuel cycle.  Chief among them is that the reactors
operate at atmospheric pressure, have a strongly-negative temperature
coefficient (that is, reactivity drops as temperature increases) and
because they operate with their fuel dispersed in the coolant and rely
on a fixed moderator in the reaction vessel shutting them down is
simply a matter of draining the working fuel into a tank with sufficient
surface area to dissipate decay heat.  This can be accomplished
passively; active cooling of a freeze plug in the bottom of the reactor
vessel can be employed during normal operation and if for any reason
that cooling is lost the plug melts, the coolant and working fluid
drains to tanks and the reactor shuts down.  In addition thorium is about as abundant in the environment as is lead, making its supply effectively infinite.

Finally, these reactors operate at a much
higher temperature; the units we have run (yes, we’ve built them
experimentally in the 1950s – 1970s!) run in the neighborhood of 650C. 
This allows closed-cycle turbine systems that are more efficient than
the conventional turbines in existing designs, making practical the
location of reactors in places that don’t have large amounts of water
available.  That in turn means that the risk of geological and other
similar accidents (e.g. tsunamis!) is greatly reduced or eliminated. 
Finally, the fuel cycle is mostly-closed internally;
that is, rather than requiring both fast-breeder reactors and external
large-scale reprocessing plants to be practical, along with a way to
store a lot of high-level waste these units burn up most of their
high-level waste internally and produce their own fuel internally as
well as an inherent part of their operation.

So why didn’t we pursue this path for nuclear power?

That’s simple: It is entirely-unsuitable for production of nuclear bombs as it produces negligible amounts of plutonium.

A decision that might have made sense in the middle of the 1950s arms
race doesn’t make sense more than 60 years later.  So, why aren’t we
utilizing thorium-based nuclear power plants?

Gay marriage eliminates motherhood

Time exposes yet another lie from the pro-homogamy crowd:

France is set to ban the words “mother” and “father” from all official documents under controversial plans to legalise gay marriage.  The move, which has outraged Catholics, means only the word “parents”
would be used in identical marriage ceremonies for all heterosexual and
same-sex couples. The draft law states that “marriage is a union of two people, of
different or the same gender”. It says all references to “mothers and fathers” in the civil code –
which enshrines French law – will be swapped for simply “parents”. 

The homogamy advocates often like to ask how government-approved “gay marriage” could possibly affect normal heterosexual marriages.  Here is the answer: by eliminating both maternal and paternal status in law.  Nor is France the only place this legal assault on the traditional concepts of motherhood and fatherhood are taking place; the California Senate has sent up a trial balloon in its bill 777 which appears to be an attempt to remove the traditional concepts from the state educational system.

The interesting thing will be how this end to the legal statuses of “mother” and “father” will affect divorce law.  After all, it won’t be possible to assume that child custody will be given to the mother, once that position is legally abolished.  One wonders if the pro-homogamy members of the more progressive sex will rethink their support for the fake institution if they realize it may eventually result in their losing a substantial portion of their family court advantage.

Not so fast, Mr. Krugman

Paul Krugman tries to slip one past his readers:

Some readers have asked whether there isn’t an inconsistency between my view that the Fed can promote economic recovery by changing expectations about future policy, and my ridicule of austerity proponents who invoke “confidence” as a reason to believe that austerity will actually be expansionary. But there isn’t really any inconsistency; it’s an orders of magnitude thing.

I don’t find this a convincing explanation without any attempt to demonstrate the precise difference between those orders of magnitude, but we’ll let it slide for now.  The reason we can do so is that there is a much more profound and glaring inconsistency between his  “ridicule of austerity proponents who invoke “confidence” as a reason to believe that austerity will actually be expansionary” and the “animal spirits” upon which macroeconomic growth depends according to the General Theory of John Maynard Keynes to which Mr. Krugman neo-subscribes.

Christians and the Law

The responsibility of Christians to obey the Law of Moses is a subject
that comes up from time to time, which always surprises me because the
Bible is perfectly clear on the matter.  While it is understandable,
though not excusable, that atheists regularly confuse Christianity with
Judaism when attempting to criticize the former, it is absolutely
bizarre that some Christians are still under the impression that they
have an obligation to abide by Jewish Law.

Christians are not Jews.  Christians are not obligated to follow Mosaic
Law.  Ask any Jew, he should be able to confirm it.  As will the Bible, in Acts 15:

The Council at Jerusalem

Certain people came down from Judea to
Antioch and were teaching the believers: “Unless you are circumcised,
according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved.”  This
brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So
Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go
up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question. The
church sent them on their way, and as they traveled through Phoenicia
and Samaria, they told how the Gentiles had been converted. This news
made all the believers very glad.  When
they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the
apostles and elders, to whom they reported everything God had done
through them.Then
some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood
up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the
law of Moses.” 
The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After
much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know
that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might
hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe. God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith. Now
then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a
yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”
The whole assembly
became silent as they listened to Barnabas and Paul telling about the
signs and wonders God had done among the Gentiles through them. When they finished, James spoke up. “Brothers,” he said, “listen to me. Simon has described to us how God first intervened to choose a people for his name from the Gentiles. The words of the prophets are in agreement with this, as it is written:

‘After this I will return and rebuild David’s fallen tent.
Its ruins I will rebuild, and I will restore it,
That the rest of mankind may seek the Lord,
Even all the Gentiles who bear my name,
Says the Lord, who does these things,
Things known from long ago.

“It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead
we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by
idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and
from blood. For the law of Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath.”

The Council’s Letter to Gentile Believers

Then the apostles and elders, with the
whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to
Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and
Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.
We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You
are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat
of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to
avoid these things.
Farewell.
So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers. After
spending some time there, they were sent off by the believers with the
blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them. But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.

The fact that Jesus Christ did not abolish the Law says nothing about
its continued inapplicability to those who are not Jews.  In fact, to
claim it now applies to non-Jews when it did not before on the basis of
Matthew 5:17-20 is clearly self-contradictory, for the obvious reason
that making it applicable to people to whom it did not previously apply
would be changing the letter of it.  Note particularly how Jesus states
even those who “sets
aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others
accordingly” will still nevertheless be part of the kingdom of heaven.

Iran vs Israel

One has to give credit where it is due.  For all of his observable anti-Americanism, Obama nevertheless appears to be doing a better job of giving priority to American interests on the foreign affairs front than George W. Bush, John McCain, or Mitt Romney:

As debkafile
reported after that Obama snub, the wrangling with Washington has
reduced Netanyahu’s options to start standing alone and making his own
decisions. Obama’s latest words underline this. The prime minister can no longer
avoid his most fateful decision and one that is critical to Israel’s
survival: to attack Iran and disrupt its nuclear program or live with an
anti-Semitic nuclear Iran dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish
state and a threat to world stability.

For two weeks, the Israeli prime minister has dodged and ducked around
the White House message. Instead, he has kept on bombarding Washington
with high-powered messengers. They all came back with the same tidings:
the US President is not only fed up with Israeli pressure but more
determined than evade any military engagement with Iran.

The hostilities between Iran and Israel certainly have the potential to be dangerous, but neither country are a direct national security interest of the United States.  Neither is a military ally and both countries could perish in a mutual nuclear conflagration and it wouldn’t effect the USA in the slightest.  If Israel decides to attack Iran, or if Iran decides to attack Israel, the only concern of the USA should be to prevent the war from going regional by keeping the Sunni Arab nations out of the conflict.  Given the fact that Israel has no serious allies and most of Iran’s neighbors are varying degrees of hostile towards both Israel and the Shi’ite Persians of Iran, there is little reason to believe that a war between them is likely to draw in a substantial number of third parties.

Nor should anyone take the hysterical posturing by American Jews about the potential for a second Holocaust if the USA does not intervene seriously.  Ehud Barak, the Israeli Minister of Defense, has estimated that a war with Iran would last one month and cost Israel around 500 dead.  In a worst case scenario.

WND column

Foreigners First

Paul had been filibustering the Senate for days, delaying action
by requiring the maximum amount of time be spent on each vote until he
got a vote on his own bill, which failed, 10-81.  Numerous Republican
senators stood up in opposition to Paul’s bill, calling it dangerous and
irresponsible, especially to Israel.
 

Keep in mind that this vote took place 11 days after the U.S.
ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, was murdered along with
three other U.S. diplomats in Libya. The federal government is sending
money that it doesn’t have to declared and undeclared enemies alike, to
countries that Barack Obama has openly declared are not U.S. allies,
while simultaneously refusing to re-enact the Bush tax cuts because the
country supposedly cannot afford them.

VPFL 2012 Week Two

84 Bailout Banksters   (1-1)
47 Luna City Gamma Rays   (1-1)

83 Greenfield Grizzlies  (1-1)
77 Moundsview Meerkats   (1-1)

76 ’63Mercury Marauders (2-0)
36 D.C. Hangmen (0-2)

74 Fromundah Cheezheads (2-0)
43 RR Redbeards (0-2)

60 Bane Sidhe (2-0)
58 Suburban Churchians (0-2)

The Piranha of the Serengeti got off to a good start last week, but the injury to Aaron Hernandez and a disappointing underperformance by Aaron Rodgers sunk them.  I’m benching Rodgers this week, as I have less confidence in him against a pretty solid Seahawks defense than in Alex Smith against yet another sketchy Vikings secondary.

This is your weekly NFL thread.  As far as the NFL goes, it is increasingly apparent that the CJ vs AD question has been settled in favor of the latter.  It’s not the Seahawks, but the Cardinals who have proved to be surprisingly good, and it will be interesting to determine which NFC Central team is worse, the Bears or the Vikings.  As for the Vikings, all we’ve learned is that Frazier is as overly conservative as Childress ever was.  Running the Woody Hayes offense for the first 50 minutes, then taking the training wheels off Christian Ponder for the last ten minutes is not the path to the playoffs.

That may have worked well if AD was 100 percent and running behind the offensive line of four years ago.  But he’s not and he isn’t.

Mailvox: the big questions

LA queries:

I had a question–do you have an opinion on the movie Airplane!?
 The
humor on this movie has always escaped me.  I’ve always found many
comedy movies to be fairly stupid but I can always suspend disbelief,
put aside logical problems in a decent sci fi or comedy movie, and find
some way to enjoy the humor even if it isn’t my normal cup of tea.
 But this movie has always been the one film I cannot stand.
 Anyway,
a friend that reads Vox Popoli and I were having a spat about it and it
made me curious if you enjoyed it or if you ever saw it, and whether
you care one way or another.

I thought Airplane had its amusing moments, but would not put it in my personal top 25 movies or even top 20 comedies.  I can stand it, but only in short doses; I’ve never been able to watch it all the way through.  Its humor is mostly of the sort that I consider to be too broad-based and obvious to be more than moderately funny even when done right.  I think an element of surprise, or at least unpredictability, is necessary to make something genuinely hilarious, and most of Airplane’s humor is entirely predictable, being based on stupid and unlikely misunderstandings.

As a writer once said that if the plot of your novel is dependent upon your characters being stupid, you don’t have an actual book.  In like manner, I don’t find humor that depends upon the characters being borderline retarded to be amusing.  And if a “humorous” pratfall is somehow involved, I am left colder than cold.  I simply don’t find people falling down, particularly in a theatrical manner, to be be funny at all.  When I see an adult laugh at someone slapping their forehead and falling down, or pretending to faint, I seriously wonder what is wrong with them.

But Airplane! does have its moments.  The “I speak jive” line is funny, although the actual execution of the jivespeak borders on the painful.  The surely/Shirley bit is almost Wodehousean and is done well in a deadpan manner that probably wouldn’t have worked nearly as well for anyone not named Leslie Nielsen.  And the short exchanges between Joey and the Captain are downright quoteworthy.  That being said, I looked at the list of what are supposedly the greatest quotes from the movie and noted that less than a quarter of them actually struck me as funny.

To me, easily the funniest movie ever made is Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  Other movies that I found to be funnier than Airplane! include Heathers, Weird Science, The Hangover, The Gods Must Be Crazy, The Big Lebowski, Old School, A Fish Called Wanda, Dodgeball, Grosse Pointe Blank, Notting Hill, the first two American Pie films, Stripes, The Pink Panther, and Being There.

Trends and the media polls

Gallup Election Polls

09/5-11/2012
Obama 50%
Romney 43%

09/14-20/2012
Obama 47%
Romney 47%

I’m still trying to figure out how folks like Karl Denninger are interpreting a 7-point swing towards Romney as proof that Obama has the election all but sewn up. Especially when Rasmussen shows a similar 46%-46% result.
I understand the Electoral College and why some prefer the state-by-state analyses. But the fact remains that Rasmussen nailed the 2008 popular vote while Nate Silver asserted “Obama’s Convention Bounce May Not Be Receding” on the very day that Gallup reported this seven-point move away from him.
Either way, it is useful to recall that in polls as in stocks, past performance does not guarantee future results.

Keynesian dreams dashed again

Paul Krugman on the idea that the iPhone 5 will save the US economy:

So is the new phone as insanely great as Apple says? Hey, I’ll leave stuff like that to David Pogue. What I’m interested in, instead, are
suggestions that the unveiling of the iPhone 5 might provide a
significant boost to the U.S. economy, adding measurably to economic
growth over the next quarter or two. Do you find this plausible? If so, I have news for you: you are, whether
you know it or not, a Keynesian — and you have implicitly accepted the
case that the government should spend more, not less, in a depressed
economy. 
I’m clearly not a Keynesian, then.   Given all of the screen and software problems that are being reported, it’s obvious that the latest iPhone is just another iPhone, less innovative and ultimately perhaps even less successful than its predecessors.  Considering that the first iPhone was released in 2007, I think it is perfectly safe to conclude that regardless of how insanely great the iPhone 5 may be, it will not save the US economy in 2013 any more than iPhone 1 saved it in 2008.
However, I want everyone to note the massive logical flaw in Krugman’s piece.  Even if mass purchases of iPhones did lead to measurable economic growth – and that is impossible even if Apple sold every single phone it manufactured,  considering that the total 15 million unit order from Apple only amounts to $3 billion in a $15.6 trillion economy – that would not indicate implicit acceptance of the idea that the government should spend more in a depressed economy.
Suppose, for example, if instead of private consumers spending $3 billion on iPhones, the government spent $3 billion on purchasing and distributing pink plastic fake children’s phones.  Would that lead to the same economic growth?  According to Krugman and the Neo-Keynesians, it would have exactly the same effect.  Those who actually understand the difference between an iPhone 5 and an unusable hunk of plastic know otherwise.