Cost Prohibitive — The last reactor at Three Mile Island is shutting down
Plant owner Exelon said the reactor would shut down by September 30. from Ars Technica by Megan Geuss, 05/09/2019.
Politics
Leona Helmsley, who, like Trump …
From a column By Daniel Hemel in the Washington Post: Trump just gave the House a very good reason to look at his tax returns Of course, anyone who has been following Trump-related tax news over the past several years should know by now that the president’s attitude toward tax compliance is cavalier, if not … [Read more…]
Goldilock’s Range – from The Uninhabitable Earth
The Uninhabitable Earth, Life After Warming by David Wallace-Wells: Page 42: This (environmental warmth) is among the things cosmologists mean when they talk about the utter improbability of anything as advanced as human intelligence evolving anywhere in a universe as inhospitable to life as this one; every uninhabitable planet out there is a reminder of … [Read more…]
Qian Xuesen
(From Wikipedia) Qian Xuesen, (11 December 1911 – 31 October 2009), was a prominent Chinese aerodynamicist, cyberneticist and politician who contributed to rocket science and established engineering cybernetics. Recruited from MIT, he joined Theodore von Karman’s group at Caltech.[1] Later, he returned to China and made important contributions to China’s missile and space program. During … [Read more…]
USDA orders scientists to say published research is ‘preliminary’
USDA orders scientists to say published research is ‘preliminary’ – From the Washington Post, April 19, 2019. Researchers at the Agriculture Department laughed in disbelief last summer when they received a memo about a new requirement: Their finalized, peer-reviewed scientific publications must be labeled “preliminary.” The July 2018 memo from Chavonda Jacobs-Young, the acting USDA … [Read more…]
Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse
George Monbiot hits all the right words in his article in todays Guardian: rebellion, ecological and apocalypse. He is as usual, dramatic but what he says is right. It makes me think and that is good. As the author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent essay, it is almost certainly too late to save … [Read more…]
How We Can Fix Our Immigration Courts
An enlightening essay in the WAPO on what the immigration court system does, how it is administered, and contains some ideas on how to fix it: I’m an immigration judge. Here’s how we can fix our courts.
How Murdoch’s Empire Influences the World
From the April 4, 2019 New York Times: Part 1: Imperial Reach Part 2: Internal Divisions Part 3: The New Fox Weapon
The Fake-News Fallacy
In the September 14, 2017 New Yorker, Adrian Chen wrote an essay on fake news. They use the byline ” Old fights about radio have lessons for new fights about the Internet”. Naturally, this containing some radio history, I was interested in the points made. “The greatest organizers of mass hysterias and the mass delusions … [Read more…]
US and Saudi Arabia blocking regulation of geoengineering
Again, from the Guardian: US and Saudi Arabia blocking regulation of geoengineering Delegates at UN environment assembly say the oil producers are protecting their industries The United States and Saudi Arabia have hamstrung global efforts to scrutinise climate geoengineering in order to benefit their fossil fuel industries, according to multiple sources at the United Nations … [Read more…]