Rules of engagement, Nuclear Power, Thousand barrels, Tigers

Rules of engagement
Sunday afternoon, noise from my kitchen, I discover a very small mouse in my garbage bucket, too small to jump out easily. He is frantically bounding into the air & not quite making it. Under our rules of engagement, I cant kill him there, so I drop a piece of cardboard in as a ladder. He must realise I set the trap that killed his mother, so I'm not thrilled to hear him nightly exploring around my mattress on the floor.

. . Meanwhile USA rushes 100 one ton bombs to the ZE, who appear to have no rules. Assuming that Uranium is used in these bombs, since USA bombs usually do, it would be preferable for most of the ZE's nuclear bombs would detonate now, if their military would then be permanently smashed so they cant continue to dust us all with radiation. So Iran might as well hit TelAviv now. In 500 million years the sun will evaporate the Earth's oceans. Our descendants will still be purging Zionist Uranium from their bloodstreams.

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Books perused
"Nuclear Power is Not the Answer" by Helen Caldicott
I foolishly missed her book launch on 10Jul06 at Gleebooks.
A flip through her book indicated she has some solid research. Amazingly, one Nuke Industry guy said that most (all?) nuclear reactors can be put into irreversible meltdown by turning a few switches. So we are all at the mercy of a couple of thousand operators - we have to assume they never have a bad day, never get depressed, and couldnt possibly be infiltrated by murderous fanatics.
HC also nails "inherently safe" reactors - it is practically impossible to prevent all leaks of radioactive Helium coolant. And merely letting air onto the hot "tennis balls" could ignite the graphite. No Thanks!
Our streets will be patrolled by armed militia to protect the Plutonium waste-trucks. These militia can brook no protests for, say 10 half lives, around 270,000 years. Then we may regain civil liberties, if humans still exist and still remember such luxuries.

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"a Thousand barrels a Second" by Peter Tertzakian.
yapob yet another peak oil book. A quick flick shows some well designed charts. An early chapter reminds us of the extent to which the world was once lit solely by Sperm Whales.
. . I am former slide-rule user, and one who in 1973 spent many hours playing with the HP-35, the first 'scientific' electronic calculator. I am convinced that everyone should be educated in magnitudes, chiefly in powers of 10, or "E" for exponent.
An example
I know, and can easily re-calculate in my head, that a year has around
3E7 seconds (3 * 10⁷)
1 hour = 3600 seconds, 1 day = 24 ca 100/4 hours 1 year = ca 1000/3 days
so 1 year = (3.6E3 * E2 * E3)/4 * 3 = 3.6/12 E8 = 3E7 seconds /year
1000bbl/sec = 3E10bbl/year 30 billion) PT is an "energy industry investment analyst" so this is an insiders book, maybe worth a look
ps. Duwayne Anderson An Amazon reviewer has: Tertzakian describes mass transit as "prohibitively expensive"
and
Tertzakian is disingenuous with his frequent accolades for George W. Bush (which are undeserved, given President Bush's irresponsible approach to energy policy), and his relative silence regarding Carter's vision of an energy-independent America.
so caveat emptor on the road to empty

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To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.

In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted.

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nytimes
an estimated 36,000 to 48,000 people, remained without power.
Consolidated Edison customers in northwest Queens
..residents faced a seventh day without electricity today and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said that he could not estimate when the power would be restored.
COn Ed arent sure how many nor how long. Trust them to run a Nuke in your neighbourhood?

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selvesandothers

But what happens when those streets aren’t busy...like, say, during the worst blackout in U.S. history? We may have eyes only for those we know, but what about when it’s too shadowy to tell the difference? With our vision impaired enough to create the illusion of intimacy and our vaunted technology no longer at our overworked fingertips, we get a taste of a potentially different culture. Sure, things returned to "normal" by the next day, but the experience left some of us wondering just was "normal" means.

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civillibertarian
Thomas Paine’s Corner
Betrayal of the Empire or Fealty to Humanity?
Thursday 20 July 2006, by Jason Miller
Confessions and Reflections
implausible as it may sound, I am thankful for the affliction with which I have been bestowed. It has opened my eyes, mind, and spirit to so much. Were it not for bipolar disorder, I would probably be living the American Dream. Living in a 10,000 square foot trophy home in a gated community. Watching Fox News on plasma television.

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21 July 2006..
Tiger habitats have shrunk by 40% worldwide in the past decade..
tiger population .. 7,500.
..7% of their historic range.

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Rules of engagement Nuclear Power Thousand barrels Tigers