Category Archives: Popular Culture
Save The Pubic Lice!
Apparently all the dehairification down there is making crabs an endangered species. Is the EPA and PETA going to get on the case? I mean, if they can declare a mud puddle on a farmer’s road a wetland and prevent him from filling it, why can’t they force all those college students to grow their hair back and create habitat?
What Was Old, Is New Again
I’d need an extra large. No brag, just fact.
OK, actually, just kidding.
Except when, you know…interested. For now I think I’ll just stick with a little loose.
Developing Laser Weapons
Snow-Melting Satellites
Patrick Collins, a PhD economist who lives in Japan, has been a long-time promoter of space tourism, but he has also been interested in solar-power satellites. Many have promoted them as a means to mitigate greenhouse gases, but three years ago, he presented a paper in Nagoya on their use in preventing the next glacial advance, which would be much more catastrophic than any of the climate frights conjured up by the warm mongers. He writes:
The webmaster of spacefuture.com [presumably, Peter Wainwright] refuses(!) to put this paper into the Space Future library which we founded together! Living and working in NYC seems to have made him “politically correct” (i.e. unscientific) – and also “warmist”! This despite the fact that any arguments that once existed for the theory that human emissions of CO2 could lead to catastrophic “global warming” (now morphed into “climate change”) have been totally destroyed by ever-growing scientific evidence – including notable work by Burt Rutan.
This evidence has grown by leaps and bounds in the three years since this paper was written. For a taste of the power of private citizens dedicated to scientific truth, and armed with the Internet and Freedom of Information laws, wattsupwiththat.com is hard to beat.
When we wrote this paper, neither of us had read Fallen Angels
, in which Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle and Michael Flynn – back in 1991 – prefigured both the key ideas: that the coming of the next Ice Age is a far greater threat than any possible warming, and that solar-generated microwave beams from orbiting satellites offer a unique means of combatting the spread of glaciers. NB it will require a massive “crash program” to ramp production up to a scale that could save western civilisation – a cool 1 million square kilometres of solar panels in various orbits! Sadly they were also prophetic about the degeneration of the US government. Perhaps holding back the glaciers could become the trigger to wake people up and develop space at last? Their book receives honourable mention in the follow-up paper being published soon.
I’ve uploaded the paper to my own site, for anyone interested, despite Peter’s truculence in that regard.
Mars One
They’ve announced their selection criteria for Barsoomanaughts.
I think that this is a more realistic plan than any proposed government missions.
“A Wilderness Of Dragons”
Thoughts on Peter Jackson’s latest movie, from Wretchard.
I haven’t read the Hobbit since I was a teenager. I’ve read so many mixed reviews that I haven’t decided whether or not to see it in the theater yet, though I am tempted just by the thought of the high-speed high-res film.
Who To Believe?
Charlie Sheen says that Tony Villar is lying. I mean, they’re both so intrinsically credible.
Elizabeth Wurtzel’s Nonlack Of Regrets
…and the sugar content of Trix. An eclectic Bleat today.
I have no recollection of the Bugs/Trix interaction. But it’s amazing in retrospect how much sugar I ate in cereal as a kid, and didn’t get fat. Though I think we were more active than a lot of kids today.
The Rose Parade
We’re sitting in the grandstand at Colorado and Orange Grove, across from the Norton Simon museum. It’s the beginning of the route. I may tweet pics @Rand_Simberg.