Defense Contractor Signs Big Green Energy Contract with China

The Wall Street Journal reports that Lockheed Martin has signed a contract to build a 10-megawatt power plant for a luxury resort on the Chinese island of Hainan. The plant will use "ocean thermal energy conversion" technology, or OTEC:

The OTEC process uses warm tropical waters to power a steam-driven turbine. Cold water is pumped from the depths of the sea to condense the steam back into liquid.

Closed-system plants like the one Lockheed plans to build use a liquid such as ammonia that has a low boiling point to create the steam.

Warmer surface waters pass by a heat exchanger, causing the ammonia in the closed system to boil and create the steam that drives the turbine. Cold deep-sea water is pumped by another heat exchanger to condense the ammonia back to a liquid.

Similar technology is used in ground-source (also called geothermal) heat pumps for many large buildings and some homes in the United States. These systems use temperature differentials to transfer heat into the earth during the summer for air conditioning, and to transfer heat from the earth into buildings during the winter. Such temperature control systems are expensive to install, because they typically require sinking hundreds of feet of pipe into the ground, but because they are so efficient they're cheaper in the long run. They also produce less pollution compared to burning natural gas directly or by electric heating.

Republicans like John McCain have criticized the Defense Department for green initiatives, but since the US military is the largest consumer of oil in the entire world, defense planners have to be out in front on energy issues since it's vital to national security.

So it's good to see a company like Lockheed Martin, best known for aerospace and defense business, leading the way on technology that could reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It would be nice not to be forced to invade a Middle Eastern country every time some nutjob threatens to stop the flow of oil out of there.

A Suspect?

CNN is reporting that they have video of a dark skinned male placing a bag at the site of the second bombing. He is considered a suspect in the Boston Marathon Bombing.

On Their Way Out The Door

I've watched with amusement over the media's obsession with the word "terror" and how the president didn't use it right away. Fox News, in particular, saw their opening and started attacking the president for being "weak on terror" and proceeded to overuse the word throughout their broadcasts since the bombing in Boston on Monday.

Well, 'ol Sean Hannity was the leader of the pack. I can only stomach him for a couple of minutes but he used the word at least a dozen times in the span that I viewed. My advice to him is to be careful what he wishes for...he might get it. Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss speculated that this bombing seems like the work of a domestic agent. Rick DesLauriers, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office and head of this investigation, is asking for people who might have heard someone talking about April 15th (tax day) or if they heard someone practicing with bomb making materials. That also says home grown terrorist and we all know what kind that could be.

If it does turn out that this was an anti-government, right wing type, check out how fast Fox and the rest of the right wing media walk back the use of the word "terror" and play make believe that the bomber wasn't really a conservative. They'll be falling all over themselves on the way out the door.

Emerging Details

AP News is reporting that the bombs used yesterday in Boston were pressure cooker bombs similar to those used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, according to a July 2010 joint FBI and Homeland Security intelligence report. Also, one of the three devices used in the May 2010 Times Square attempted bombing was a pressure cooker, the intelligence report said. The group responsible for that attempted attack, the Pakistani Taliban, has denied responsibility for the bombing yesterday.

So, no real details on who was behind this yet but one thing is really starting to sink in: you have to be pretty dumb in this day and age to try to pull of something like this incognito. In addition to the traffic and security cameras, the number of people with recording devices is astronomical. Who needs Big Brother when you have people documenting everything themselves?

Good Words

I've been searching for the words after yesterday's bombing in Boston and just didn't seem to really have any. I still don't.

But these words from Patton Oswalt's Facebook page were very inspiring.

You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out.When you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

What is this Bitcoin Nonsense?

In the Internet age there's always something to buzz about. Bitcoin is the latest craze: the virtual currency has been dominating the news recently. It was trading as high as $266 and then fell to as low as $54 last Friday when Mt. Gox, the Japanese bitcoin exchange, was hit by a cyberattack and stopped trading. The Winklevoss twins (of Facebook fame) were calculated to have lost tens of millions of dollars on paper.

What is bitcoin? An artificial currency that is backed by no government and is not tied to any real-world commodity such as gold. Bitcoins are fabricated out of thin air, in pretty much the same fashion as "gold" is in online roleplaying games like World of  Warcraft. Instead of slaying electronic orcs or chipping away at virtual rock outcroppings, bitcoins are created by running computers through complex algorithms to "mine" bitcoins which can then be sold on exchanges.

But that play money doesn't come cheaply: it's estimated that the current production of bitcoins uses $147,000 of electricity a day (enough to power 31,000 homes) just to crank out 25 new bitcoins every 10 minutes. But don't worry, it won't go on forever; in the year 2140 the maximum number will be reached, a total of 21 million.

Supporters of bitcoin decry governments that just print fiat money, claiming this destroys the economy by causing massive inflation. But the bitcoin "miners" are doing exactly what they're accusing government of: making money out of thin air. Many libertarians are calling for a return to the gold standard, but with the recent crash in the price of gold to $1,400/oz (down almost 30%  since 2011) you have to wonder if it's such a stable commodity.

The fact is, the supply of gold is always going up, just like the supply of dollars -- it's just slower. In fact, once we develop the technology for asteroid mining, the price of any precious metal could drop through the basement if we snagged an asteroid with a particularly rich vein. The total amount of gold in the world is amazingly small: a mere 171,300 tons, which would make a cube 60 feet on a side, the size of two adjacent volleyball courts.

So why would anyone use bitcoins? Because it's theoretically untraceable. People like bitcoin because they can buy things over the Internet without any records. It's the perfect medium for paying for prostitutes, laundering drug money, buying illegal weapons, and so on.

That also means bitcoins are easily stolen: if anyone gets hold of yours, it's gone for good. Stories about hackers stealing bitcoins are rampant. That's why the Winklevoss twins supposedly have put their bitcoins on flash drives they've stored in safe deposit boxes in three different cities. All in all, it's not a very safe or useful currency.

The value of any currency depends solely on the trust society has in the institution that backs it. The US government backs the dollar. The EU backs the euro. Precious metals are backed by exchanges that buy and sell them, though gold and copper also have an intrinsic value because they are essential components of every piece technology we use today, and some people still feel gold has an intrinsic value as jewelry.

But the only backers of bitcoin are other bitcoin users. And if those users are primarily criminals, hackers and the Winklevii, how much trust can you possibly put in bitcoin?

The guy who invented bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, doesn't even exist.  He's just a pseudonym for one or more programmers of unknown nationality who posted on Internet forums. So there isn't even a "founder" who will back bitcoin.

Still, I bet the guy who paid 10,000 bitcoins for two pizzas is kicking himself now.

He Is Saying Things That Need To Said

There are so many things to love about Peter Brown Hoffmeister's recent piece that was banned from the Huffington Post that I don't even know where to start. He is saying things that need to be said and forcing us to confront a very deep fissure in our culture. In many ways, he speaks to the heart of the problem with young men in this country and how a few of them end up going on shooting sprees.

He should know. He was one of those young men and he made it out and became mentor and teacher himself. Correctly, he identifies the ingredients that get these young men to the point of shooting people and it's not just the guns.

Now I am not anti-video game crusader Jack Thompson. I’m not suggesting that everyone who plays a video game will act out that video game in reality. But I am saying that it is very dangerous to allow troubled, angry, teenage boys access to killing practice, even if that access is only virtual killing practice. The military uses video games to train soldiers to kill, yet we don’t consider “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3″ training for addicted teenage players? A high school boy who plays that game 30 hours per week isn’t training to kill somebody?

Now combine that with a mom who buys into the whole "live free or die" horse hockey and decides to allow their son access to a large quantity of weaponry and you have a disaster. Why is that the parents of these shooters never have their feet held to the fire? In the final analysis, it's primarily their responsibility. Nancy Lanza was a complete and total failure as a parent and her incompetence resulted in the deaths of 26 people.   There are thousands more like her out there and they truly, truly suck. They need to stop sucking. Yesterday.

Where are the parents in this situation or others like this one?

I was walking behind two teenage boys in the hall at my high school the other day and I heard one talking about slitting someone’s throat. He said, “I just came up behind him, pulled out my knife so quietly and cut his throat.” The other boy said, “Yeah, then I killed everyone else in less than, like, 10 seconds. Just slaughtered them.” 

I looked at these two boys: Tall and awkward. Unathletic. I knew that they weren’t tied-in socially, that they both struggled in classes and with peers. Yet they were capable of incredible and sudden violence on screen. Together, they could slit throats and shoot everyone. I asked one of them later, and he said that he played Call of Duty “an average of 40 hours per week, at least.” 

Is this what we want angry, adolescent boys to do? Do we want to give them this practice? Do we want them to glorify violent actions, to brag about violence in the school’s hallways? Or even worse, given the perfect equation of frustration + opportunity + practice, do we want them to do as Weise, Roberts, and Lanza did, and act out these fantasies in real life? Do we want them to yell, “I am the shooter” as they enter a crowded mall – as Roberts did? Or dress like video-game shooters – as Lanza and Roberts were – before heading into a murder spree?

When I was an awkward teenager, all I thought about was sex. All my friends were the same. We smoked pot, listened to music and were obsessed with progressing around the bases in terms of carnal escapades. That is definitely not the case today. Sex is very verboten subject with teenagers and they are much less sexual active than they were in my generation. There are drugs, of course, but they are viewed so negatively by our culture that the deviance takes on a truly ugly hue for the kids that do them...even marijuana. I can't help but think that if some of these kids just smoked some pot and made out with their girlfriends or boyfriends, they might be more at peace.

Hoffmeister closes the piece with a direct appeal to parents. I agree with it completely and I will close with it as well.

Get kids outside. Take them out and let them wander around in the woods. Let them canoe across a lake. Let them backpack through a mountain range. Give them a map and compass assignment. Give frustrated youth an opportunity to challenge themselves in the natural world. Have you ever heard of a school shooter who’s hobbies are kayaking, rock climbing, and fly-fishing? If that seems absurd – and it does seem absurd to me – we might be onto something. I don’t think that those hobbies can create a school shooter. There’s just something abut the natural world that defuses anger. I know this because the outdoors helped saved my life. An outdoor diversion program for troubled teens started the process when I was sixteen. Camping and hiking and climbing helped me mature further as a nineteen and twenty year old. And now, as the director of a high school outdoor program, one of my student leaders said recently that “the outdoor program saves lives.” That’s not me. That’s nature. Kids need the outdoors. Help the young people. Get them outside.

Amen.

Wow. Stacey Campfield is really a douche...

Giving Me Pause

It's Sunday and I find myself this morning not being a very good Christian. Repeated more than any other command in the Bible, we are supposed to love thy neighbor. After reading this, I have to admit I'm finding it very hard to love Karl Denninger, one of the chief founders of the Tea Party Movement. Here's what Mr. Denninger had to say about Francine Wheeler, the mother of Newtown shooting victim, Ben Wheeler

Listen up, you incompetent and defective sack of meat -- your son is dead because you are unfit to be parents. You sat silently by while your state and our nation erected signs telling people who are criminally insane where they can find the maximum number of defenseless people to murder. You are personally, jointly and severably responsible for the consequences. You are unfit to possess a uterus and your husband is unfit to possess testicles.

Every time I think the Right can't get any lower, they somehow manage to find a subbasement. I suppose I could rip into him for being so despicable but it's obvious that this man is terribly unhappy. As I have said previously, conservatives don't do well with children.

They also seem to have a significant problem with denial, specifically DARVO.

You, Mrs. Wheeler, having willingly and intentionally refused to take responsibility for your acts of omission and commission that led to your son being murdered by a madman now have the audacity to stand in front of the nation and demand that everyone else give up their children to murderous goons as well. Go to Hell Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler and take your state and its alleged laws with you.

That's right, Karl. It's not Adam Lanza's fault that he killed all those kids. Nor is it his mother's fault. It's the fault of the parents of the victims. So much for individual responsibility.

The ugly is really coming out with this issue and I've realized that it's the case with others as well. When confronted with unpleasant truths about these situations, the Right categorically refuses to reflect and, sadly, digs in deeper. With the gun issue, liars and gun grabbers are everywhere with civil war imminent. Useful idiots like me are foolish because we don't operate in a state of full panic mode about the federal government 24/7.

The insecurity of these folks is so monumental that we are likely to see even worse behavior than Mr. Denninger's latest mouth foam. The threat they perceive isn't there but it's so very real to them that it makes me wonder just how bad they will get. I'm still leaning towards them all being big, cowardly babies but this latest attack certainly gives me a great deal of pause.

Like Colonel Potter said about Colonel Flagg, "I think someone mixed some locoweed into his feed."

For The Children

Lately, it's become obvious that the Right doesn't do well with children. One would think that they would considering that they claim to want kids to become educated about civics and history. The problem, of course, is what they really want is for children is to be brainwashed with their horribly misguided and flawed ideology. And when children see the mistakes of this ideology (remember, they are smarter than we might think;)), they tend to move in a more sane direction.

Seeing those young eyes staring them in the face is a stark fucking reminder of just how much these issues affect the lives of children across the country. It completely torpedoes the Right's fact free zone and drives them insane. So, for example, when the Right sees frightened kids writing letters to the president asking about school safety after Sandy Hook and standing with him at a speech, they irrationally lash out, behaving like adolescent bullies. Accusations of children being used as "human shields" or "props" began to fly along with the customary bemoan about how it's all "for the children." Well, guess what?

It is. 

Since these policies will have a profound affect on their future as well, I think it' fantastic that kids are involved, even at a young age, and regardless of their political stripe. That's why it's always important to treat them respect and not berate them, or their parents, when they try to become involved. The fact that I have to remind certain people of this gives you an idea about the level of mentality we are dealing with here.

Case in point is Tennessee State Senator Stacey Campfield. Mr. Campfield thought it might be a good idea to tie welfare benefits to grades so he put together Tennessee Senate Bill 132. Shocking that a child, who would be directly affected by this, got involved. Take a look at what happened.

 

After this protest, the bill was thankfully withdrawn but this incident is an excellent example of why the Right doesn't like to leave their bubble very much. They know that their views are truly deplorable and quite unacceptable to ...well...humans. It makes complete sense that their "courage" to say these sorts of things doesn't extend much past the comments sections of blogs.

Nonetheless, I extend a challenge to all the Stacey Campfields of the world, many of whom are located in the right wing blogsphere. Come out of your safe, little worlds and say more things in public like this to children. You need a wider audience. The 2014 elections are just around the corner and we'd like to take back the House!

His Biggest Worry?

One would think that Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III would have his hands full with the likes of North Korea and Chinese computer attacks but his attention is on a far greater concern.

Locklear , in an interview at a Cambridge hotel Friday after he met with scholars at Harvard and Tufts universities, said significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’’ 

“People are surprised sometimes,” he added, describing the reaction to his assessment. “You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.

Well, you can add him to the list of American leaders who are trying to take away our freedom through a secret plot to control the world economy through renewable energy.

Wait...what?

Tea Party group boycotting Fox News for becoming ‘too liberal’

A Deal On Guns

Sens. Joe Manchin and Pat Toomey have released the details on a gun bill which I believe goes a long way to addressing the very serious problems we have with our nation's gun laws. It also addresses the concerns of the Right regarding universal registration.

The Manchin-Toomey proposal would require background checks for sales at gun shows and online, but it will exempt personal transfers from such checks.

That eliminates the problem of being able to tell whether or not to tell if someone did a background check when a family member sells his gun to another family member. This would also be true if someone sells their gun to a neighbor or a friend. In all of these cases, knowing the person you are selling the gun to makes it a littler easier to live without a background check. My hope is that responsible gun owners won't engage in personal transfers if they think that they buyer, even if known to them, is mentally unstable. If they do anyway, well, the responsibility lies with them.

It also calls for the creation of a “commission on mass violence” that will study the sources of, and ways to prevent, the mass shootings that have plagued the country over the last decade.

Definitely needed. The core of this should be our mental health as a nation. The first question at the first meeting should be why are we such a violent culture? Substantive answers on this question with thorough analysis leading to direct action could work to reduce the demand for guns and, thus, eliminate the need for bans and other regulation.

For those worried about a national registry...

When a sale occurs, the buyer and seller would meet at a federally licensed dealer, who would conduct the check. The dealer — not the government — would keep control of the sales record, as has been the process for the last four decades. 

So, the gun dealers keep the records and, if there is a crime committed, the police can inquire with them.

Schumer negotiated several changes to the initial Manchin-Toomey proposal, including striking language from the agreement allowing concealed permit holders to carry their weapons in other states, and limiting Internet sales to five guns per year. He also worked to make sure there is a 72-hour window for performing background checks except for gun-show sales, which will be cleared in 48 hours initially. 

These are all good things that needed to happen long ago.

So, all commercial sales of guns without a background check will be considered a felony. If this law passes, it's going to prevent gun violence and make it harder for criminals and unstable people to acquire guns.