Write your Congressman - Laugh & Be Frustrated

You often hear from activists that you should write/call your Congressman. I write when there is a topic on which I would like to express my position or if I would simply like to get the position of my representation. The response has never - not ONCE - lived up to my expectations. I will say up front that I understand interns and the underpaid staff are tasked with writing these responses. But the same folks are the people who are supposed to help the member form their policy position on issues and legislation.

In the latest round I asked my Congressman & both Senators what their position was on SOPA/PIPA and explained that I understood the bills had already been tabled and would not be voted on right now. I specifically requested a discussion about their position on the legislation with respect to the rights granted under the applicable portions of the constitution. I used the online form submission method, saving 3 stamps, weeks of time, and the cost incurred due to marking the replies to me. Below are some examples of what I received. My congressman appears to have at least sent me a well-written form letter. My junior Senator pasted in the paragraph in italics onto the body of a form letter. So at least I got a human response of a single paragraph. I've seen nothing from my senior Senator. Awesome... glad to see they're earning their $1/4-million salary and perks. Names omitted to protect the useless.

Congressman's Response

Dear Dillon:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding H.R. 3261, the “Stop Online Piracy Act.”

I appreciate you sharing how this change will have a direct impact on you. Hearing from constituents like you helps to shape the future direction of our nation.

This legislation has been introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar Smith of Texas and referred to the House Judiciary Committee. This committee recently held a markup to vote on this proposal and adjourned after considering 25 amendments. Because of recent concerns expressed by internet users and websites, Rep. Lamar Smith has expressed interest in revising H.R. 3261 in such a way to alleviate those concerns. It is uncertain when or if this legislation will make it to the House floor for a vote.

As I continue to learn how this legislation would impact the Third Congressional District and Mississippi, I will take your thoughts and concerns into consideration. Again, I appreciate you sharing your views with me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can ever be of assistance.

Sincerely,
Gregg H.
Member of Congress

Junior Senator's Response

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act. I am glad to have the benefit of your views on this issue.

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced S. 968 in the Senate on May 12, 2011. This bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice to seek a preliminary court order against web sites that it determines are peddling copyrighted material and counterfeit goods.

The intellectual property rights of Americans should be protected online, and I believe we can find a way to do that without hindering the public's free access to the internet. I am glad Senate Leadership has decided to delay a vote on this legislation so we can find a balanced approach on this important issue.

Be assured I will keep your views in mind as Congress considers legislation affecting online copyright infringement and the protection of intellectual property. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can ever assist you.

With best wishes, I am Sincerely yours,
Roger W.
U.S. Senate

Senior Senator's Response

crickets... I think may get a "written"/sealed/marked response

I'm fired up about not getting a response from one of my members. But I am steamed that the ones who did respond sent me such blatantly robo-generated drivel with a little "real" sprinkled in.

Projects - Guide to Astronomy or Constitution?

I have 2 projects in mind to post here as a series. I can't decide which one to do first or whether to alternate and do both at the same time. The two subjects are the US Constitution and backyard astronomy.

I would like to take the constitution article by article and amendment by amendment and dissect it a bit, give a little history behind the article, enlighten those who just don't know what the various parts say, and discuss how we are or are not using it today. For example, the 4th amendment discussion will be a VERY long post given all of the things our government has done to weaken it over the last couple of decades.

I would also like to do a quick & dirty guide to the night sky. Put astronomy in terms that anyone can understand and provide a little of the side story behind the planets, stars, and constellations we all but ignore these days. A starry sky - even a light polluted one - holds many interesting features that, if nothing else, help you realize how small we are on Earth.

I don't receive comments on this blog often, but please leave one if you feel one way or the other and let me know in which topic you would be more interested.

AP1000s at VOGTLE APPROVED!

Vogtle will soon be a 4-unit site!

As a young guy in the nuclear industry who has repeatedly been told by the older generation that this nuclear renaissance thing is not gonna happen, I fight an uphill battle convincing folks that I think it will. I've already been involved with the commissioning of 8 reactor plant in my career and want to make that number a lot higher before I'm done. Based on the news today, I have one word... NYAHHH!! I know they haven't completed the site yet, but they have done a ton of non-safety work on the twin-units 3 & 4, which are AP1000 pressurized water reactors built by a consortium of Shaw/Westinghouse, and they can now pour the basemat and begin welding major structures, systems, & components. So those of us who will still be around in this industry in 20-30 years can have some hope that we can put some more on the ground, too.

A few news sources:
• First Nuclear Reactors OK'd in 30 Years - CNN
  
• Vogtle approved - Atlanta Journal Constitution
  
• NRC approves Voglte - Newsday
  
• Plant Vogtle - Southern Company

UPDATE: I was pretty excited when this new came out. I was able to keep a handle on my engineering skils but lost the bubble on my English. So I had to make a few fixes to the sentence structure. My apologies.

Syria: Prayers & Source for Info

My prayers include a special mention and meditation for the people of Syria. They are going through a situation that is unimaginable to the latte-drinking crowd to which most of us belong. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. The mainstream media is barely talking about Syria, with an occasional mention on "the bottom line". However, Andy Carvin of NPR is on the ground and tweeting up a storm. He is sending out some pretty wild original stuff. But he is retweeting things for which you should take a moment to prepare yourself. But this stuff is happening... so we should ALL look. Don't ignore what's going on and then take some action based on what you see and hear. I leave it up to you to decide what to do and even how to feel about what you see. But take some time to find out about some of the horrible things going on in our world right now. It will put in perspective the "bad day" you think you had today. Here is a link to Andy's twitter profile @acarvin.

Whatever your beliefs, keep these people in your prayers. Or keep the people in Egypt, Sudan, or anywhere else where atrocities are happening in them.

Smart Voter Are you one? Find others.

Check out TheSmartVoter.com to help form the basis for your votes on election day. A guy I went to high school with has taken the last year to develop a site that encourages discussion about the people who will end up in office before they get there, as well as discourse between people who care about the issues that are confronting our country. Here are links to the various ways to engage in the site:

• TheSmartVoter.com
  
• The Smart Voter on Facebook
  
• @TheSmartVoter on Twitter

Here's why I'm there. I hope you will find your reason and join me. This country needs all of the SMART voters we can get. I have been interested in politics since I was in high school. To my stepmom's chagrin during a fund raiser in 1995, I told Trent Lott that I was going to take his [US Senate] seat one day. I spent election night '95 watching the results roll in while hanging out with the MS Speaker of the House followed by the parties. I loved the idea of being able to effect change on my state, my country, and our world. The years have added a bit of salt to my taste for politics, but as a voter I still stay on top of the issues that I think both matter and can be affected by a given position (i.e., the immigration position of a Secretary of State in MS is irrelevant, but not for a Presidential candidate). I believe that, unfortunately, the masses in our country vote based on the sophomoric ads put forth by the monied politicians who keep aerosol hair spray producers in business. Those guys will say just about anything to get in the game and then say AND do anything to stay in it. It makes me sick, so I really try hard to know who I'm voting for or whether I need to simply abstain totally because I can't vote for either clown on a ballot.

Financial Bogeyman

I am starting to get nervous about markets like I was in 2008. I held on a little too long then and wish I had moved to cash a month earlier than I did... it would have saved me almost 10% of my investments. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel like one of many financial bogeymen are hiding in the closets just waiting for us to open a door.

The major things going on out there that worry me are:

• European debt crisis - News from The Guardian and Wall Street Journal

Everybody knows there is a crisis here and lots of nations are doing things in the background and more overtly to fend this one off for a while, but it still makes the market do stupid stuff. I think the impact of this one could potentially be smaller on me us if we are smart about how we react. I also think that there may be some long-term good investments to be had as European companies that are solid get hit at the ticker but less elsewhere. (See also the US market in late 2008)

• Domestic municipal debt "crisis in the making" - News from The Guardian in the UK, Reuters, and CNBC

The Brits are saying we might be in trouble, while CNBC is trying to maintain that there's nothing to see, move along. If you sign up with your brokerage to be on the "New Offerings" list, your email will be pelted with multiple listings every day for things like $134M from the NY Dormitory Authority or $282M from the Omaha Public Power District, etc. I could see how you spend almost $300M in a power district. They could be building a new power station and/or upgrading their infrastructure - I know they're dabbling in wind generation, too. But a dormitory project >$100M is ASTOUNDING. You can build a WHOLE LOT of dormitories for that kind of money. Cities around the country are having to cut services to meet their debt obligations, moreso where they are prevented by state law from filing for bankruptcy (see Harrisburg, PA). Yet they continue to drink the spiked kool-aid out of the cooler and party like it's 1999. Eventually, these cities are going to need a bailout from the state or their (formerly apparently rock solid) munis will tank. The states don't have the dough (try figuring out the California budget) and will have to borrow it or be bailed out by Uncle Sam. Now Uncle Sam can do a few things to fix the problem... raise revenue, cut expenses (they don't have the fortitude to do that) borrow more or just have the Fed print more money to give to the states to funnel to the cities. Borrowing more is just kicking the can again. I don't have full faith that our credit can hasn't been kicked all it can stand. Printing more is gradually devaluing the dollars (so they don't have to do it all at once Zimbabwe style). Both of those options pretty much just suck. I don't have a more cogent, mixed company appropriate, professional term.

So what do we do about it? I'm still working that out myself. But I am certainly looking for opportunities to move things to cash where it makes sense and the risk probably isn't worth the reward (European sovereign debt off the top of my head). I'm also trying to position myself to make the really good buys that I believe will be there when things eventually do get bad. I think the market could experience one more super jubilant rally over the next few years, but protecting capital is my primary goal right now and I am beginning to feel like one of the sober people standing around the frat party at 3 in the morning. It's been fun, but there are going to be some serious hangovers.

Dr. Hansen Eats Cocoa Puffs

The video in this post over at Watts Up With That demonstrates once again that Dr. James Hansen with Nasa clearly eats Cocoa Puffs. He's said that "the ocean's will begin to boil..." Under any reasonable scenario that I'm aware of, predicted temperatures (EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE THAT WE'RE DOING IT) change only a couple of degrees. So either Columbia University teaches a different kind of thermodynamics than I learned, or he is pretty much cuckoo...



I would LOVE to see the energy balance calculations showing how the oceans boil.

Opportunity for Hypocricy: Winegate

On the following issue, I intend to be almost 100% hypocritical. Dr. Dipak Das, a UCONN researcher apparently falsified data that showed health benefits of red wine. In discussions on scientific endeavors, I insist that the data be legitimate and the conclusions made from them are based on reasonable assumptions. Aside from no obvious physical evidence confronting me each day, that is the primary reason that I don't buy into all of the global warming (aka global climate change, global weirding, other aliases that fit this year's data). The basic underlying data isn't even easily available and we depend on a couple of clearly motivated (regardless of HOW/WHY they are motivated) nerds that think they are too smart to need to explain themselves to the rest of the world. When their methods of hiding things and making adjustments to UNDERLYING DATA to make it "fit" were exposed, that did it for me. Those guys were doing something for which a 6th grade science teacher would flunk a kid.

Back to the point... Dr. Das MAY, ALLEGEDLY, POTENTIALLY have messed with the data. However, as a true believer and practician of the "Glass of Red Wine a Day" religion (when I can), I refuse to believe that one of he apostles hadn't been preaching the truth. Unfortunately, there appear to be sufficient sources to prove the legitimacy of this damaging peice of information that I will now resume ignoring. Wine-gate Information Sources:

• Winegate: Red wine health researcher falsified data - Watts Up With That
  
• University Suspects Fraud by a Researcher Who Studied Red Wine - New York Times
  
• Red-Wine Researcher Charged With 'Photoshop' Fraud - Medscape News Today
  
• Red wine researcher said to falsify data - CNN
  
• Red Wine’s Health Benefits May Have Resulted from Falsified Research Data - DietsInReview.com
  

Cheers!

Climategate 2.0 - The Crooks Skated Again

{EAV:86cf06edf9ab240e}
How is it that anyone who may have valid questions about scientific data has a tough time getting more than a couple of words in edgewise in a discussion about global warming/climate change/weirding/whatever's next with some political science/history major flunkie who speaks the party line and thinks they understand statistics, but many thousands of emails between the guys who started this whole mess doesn't fully discredit them? Maybe we should have gotten some of the AGW proponents like Michael Mann or Phil Jones to comment on some of their employees height in relation to the height of their wife. Apparently that's all it takes to discredit you from a more important goal of something like running the country (see Herman Cain hackjob at Politico).

Regardless of whether their wives are a similar height to any of their coworkers, it drives be absolutely batty that we let people get away with bunk like the original climategate emails, which at least put a moment of hesitation into major policy makers and the public. But the wonks on the left who are using this as a wedge issue can't let go EVEN WHEN THE PERPS DO IT AGAIN, as evidenced by the utter lack of stories on this in the media and the continued mention of global warming (or appropriate, up-to-the-minute-fits-the-data-now alias):

• Climategate 2.0 - New Emails Rock the Global Warming Debate Forbes.com
  
• Climategate 2.0 Emails .torrent file - You’ll need a bit torrent client
  
• Original Climategate Emails .torrent file - You’ll need a bit torrent client
  

I believe, based on some data I have seen, that there are in fact strange things happening in the climate. However I don't believe that there are that many catastrophic changes going on at this point. Based on the climate's behavior in the past when concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) & hydrocarbons like methane (CH4) were higher, I do not believe that the carbon dioxide that has been put into the atmosphere by burning fuel over the last couple of hundred years has had any statistically significant measurable affect on the climate (Univ of East Anglia, Penn State, & the IPCC statistics show you can prove anything). That does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that I don't think we should do everything we can to smartly decrease the amount of pollution we spread around the world as well as limit the amount of damage to natural resources. Sustainability is an entirely different focus than climate science, though the two often get commingled. For resources that are finite, we should decrease their usage to extend the quality of life that we have attained. As the lifeblood of all the plant life on the planet, I do not think that CO2 qualifies as pollution. Whatever EPA wonk came up with that one... I can definitively say that they are an idiot. Updated to correct torrent link for Climategate 2.0 as well as add the original emails so they are all in one place.

Debate? Nah... It's Over Already, MmmK?

While I despise listening to politicians blather on with party line after party line, the potential debate between Inhofe and Markey discussed at Junk Science could be interesting. Both of the fellas are pretty staunchly in there corners, so I do not expec them to listen to each other. But if the moderator could keep them in check, they could get some interesting points on the table.

OR WHAT, EH?

Sometimes a nation bends to pressures from NGOs or even state actors, but others they don't. Often when they don't they couch their reason with well-spoken diplomacy crafted to allow them to later do whatever they deem necessary and remain consistent with previous statements. However, sometimes they just tell the NGO what amounts to the 7 year old child's reponse: OR WHAT?

In the case of Canada and their interaction with the UN, maybe it's time to bow up 7-year old Canadian style with a big old OR WHAT, EH?

Thoughts on nuclear ships

Given the testimony of some senior people in the Navy, the Navy seems opposed to the idea of nuclear power on a cruiser. So why don't they do a little exercise? How did the Navy estimate fuel costs in the last carrier AoA? Did actual fuel prices in the last 10 years validate those assumptions? If not, how different would the answer be if they had a crystal ball and could have assumed the actual price of fuel today? Why aren't they using the same relative change in fuel price to look at what's going to happen between now and when they build this next generation cruiser they're talking about? The answer might be a little more blaringly obvious if they did.