“Libertarians, Free-marketers, anti-tax advocates and Tea Partiers…” Too broad a net. Here’s the main problem: “free market” is too broad a term in this context as it mainly has been used to distinguish between something like whether you have a right say to sell your own home, or in contrast say a system where it [...]

Once lost, civil liberties can be reclaimed….at great effort. You are correct in the sense that they are lost in the short term, in many cities/areas. We are a large nation, and that helps because we have reserves of strength that can help us recover. It’s more an open question than anything. One thing to [...]

“Of course this is going to chap the Republicans hide something chronic.” heh heh…not at all! Typically, most (as in 99%) will never see such a graph as this, or this kind of information. And why isn’t even duplicity, it’s more like belief-system, echo chamber stuff. Their information is filtered to be reinforcing of their [...]

Unless ya’ll all think there is a massive, massive conspiracy involving hundreds of university professors…., then if the EPA is lying, is Berkeley NUC also lying? Really? If you think it’s one massive conspiracy of dozens of institutions and hundreds of professors, then….well, I suggest read Hofstadter — “The paranoid style…” But if you would [...]

“And also don’t believe the eight day half-life of I-131, as the effective half-life in the body is longer.” um, you seem to be asserting entirely new physics. The widely known physics says i-131 has a certain half life, and it does not matter whether it is inside a body, the half-life is the same. [...]

hmmm….Obama’s speech will have a good effect. And his previous speech in Cairo…had…a good effect, didn’t it? There is a confusion here about ideals vs. history of actions. Every nation tends to commit all sorts of injustices, crimes, murders, etc., on and on. Just part of what nations do. The *only* way a nation gets [...]

and a lot of information and a lot of history of accidents. Just interesting stuff.

Altogether, non-engineers (and non-industry engineers) will find it quite interesting to listen to the Fresh Air (NPR radio) interview with Wald, the NYTimes reporter. It contains a lot of information about how we got here — to this kind of nuclear power, our current industry.
Let’s see….here:

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/31/134982512/the-future-of-nuclear-energy-in-the-u-s

Wald had a great interview on Terry Gross’s Fresh Air (NPR). Worth a listen even if you’ve read all of the NYTimes stuff on this.

It’s been believed there was significant damage to fuel rods in pool #4 since March, and I’ve certainly noticed that TEPCO hasn’t said much on the conditions of the worst rods. While it’s not a 100% certainty that the damage to building 4 was from a hydrogen explosion within building 4 (and therefore from pool [...]

That’s a possible scenario, for a non-plane fly through. But not necessarily the most likely scenario, right? It brings up that interesting question to my mind: how likely is such a pass through to matter? Very unlikely, likely? It’s not hard to imagine passing through the solar system and being more distant from any planet [...]

I was quite surprised a few months back to read about how the solar system could (low probability except on *very* large time scales) eventually eject Mercury. I’d have guessed maybe Pluto, but not Mercury. Then the fun part, simulations showing the effect of near-flyby with another planet, like Mars. You’d be surprised to see [...]

It’s kinda big that Obama came out, in a big public way here, in support of the 1967 borders. It will have the effect of opening closed ears in the middle east, and they will then pay attention to the rest of what was said, which included….powerful ideas. Result: another potent shove in a good [...]

I’ve followed the Dai-ichi situation closely since the beginning and blogged on it extensively also. I have some engineering physics background from an undergraduate degree, and so I was able to read in the very technical discussion forums among nuclear engineers along the way without pausing or looking anything up. I think you are doing [...]