Thorium

Read the whole post here.

The element known as Th. According to a news release this past week Professor Egil Lillestol has been trying to convince Norway that a nuclear reactor based on thorium would be a viable solution to the worlds growing energy demands without the environmental impact of coal, or the hazards of traditional nuclear energy. Is he onto something? Read on to see the gory details.
From the article:
•There is no danger of a melt-down like the Chernobyl reactor
•It produces minimal radioactive waste
•It can burn Plutonium waste from traditional nuclear reactors with additional energy output
•It is not suitable for the production of weapon grade materials
•The energy contained in one kilogram of Thorium equals that of four thousand tons of coal
•The global Thorium reserves could cover the world’s energy needs for thousands of years
•Norway has an estimated 180 000 tons of Thorium which based on the current price of oil is equivalent to 250 thousand billion US$, or 1000 times the Norwegian oil fund.


Posted in: _Sciences, _PeakOil

W's 50 Dumbest Quotes

Have fun and read through the list, here.

My favorites:
44. "I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president."
42. "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself."
37. "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."
29. "I don't know why you're talking about Sweden. They're the neutral one. They don't have an army."
28. "You forgot Poland." (ndlr: funny if you saw the debate!)
27. "I'm the master of low expectations."
24. "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates."
21. "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway."
20. "My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire."
18. "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction."
15. "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001
14. "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." —Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002
13. "But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." —summing up his first year in office, three months after the 9/11 attacks, Washington, D.C., Dec. 20, 2001
9. "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job."
7. “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." —Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003
6. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" —President George W. Bush, as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004
5. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
3. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
2. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
1. "My answer is bring them on." —on Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003


Posted in: _Bushisms , _Fun

Iranian Censorship

Post on a blog (here) showing the way pictures in magazines are censored.
Impressive!

But who has time to add all these black stripes and other white stickers?
Or is it added before print?


Posted in: _Society

QOTD

"What luck for rulers that men do not think."

- Adolf Hitler

Bush and the Grand Canyon

And just when you thought they had said all the stupid things that could be said...

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. They want you to believe it was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces.

Read the whole article (here)


Posted in: _Bushisms

Polonium-210

For those of you who heard about the death of Alexander Litvinenko and are curious about what Polunium really is and how it kills, have a look here.

And for the even more curious, here is an article about the whole affair and who is involved, here.


Posted in: _Sciences , _Geopolitics

Muslims and the Holocaust

I got this interesting article (here) from a friend of mine (thanks Nimo!)

It explains how the Holocaust and the Jews in particular are treated and talked about in Muslims societies.
Basically nobody informs the population about the Holocaust and Jews are supposed to be mean and the root of all evil on Earth.


Posted in: _Society

Iran strikes at the USD

Et Voila, it is now official, here and here!

Iran started replacing dollars with euros for all foreign transactions and is transforming the state's dollar-denominated assets held abroad into euros.
It seems that Iran is not the only country trying to be less dependant on the USD.

What will this move really mean is to be seen...


Posted in: _Economy , _Geopolitics

QOTD

"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting."

- Tom Stoppard

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."

- Voltaire

Fair trade, bio-food and the environment

The Economist is telling us that voting with one's trolley can be a very misguided endeavor, here.

Buying Fair Trade, organic or locally produced food can indeed produce the opposite results one would expect. The article makes some good points which are not necessarily on everyone's mind.

But no matter how we twist it, the only way to be environmentally friendly (i.e. as little pollution as possible) is to be less. Because with today's population, either we use pesticides to achieve high yield for a given crop per hectare, or we farm organically and then we need several times the amount of land (and then bye bye rain forest). In any case we are not in harmony with Mother Nature.

And this will be true until we are less beings on this planet or when Science will have given us a pollution free, renewable, plentiful source of energy together with genetically modified plants able to produce more with less (of which, coincidently, The Economist has more info in the same issue, here).


Posted in: _Sciences , _Society , _Economy

Funny Stuff

Click on the picture to enlarge.


Posted in: _Fun

Quit smoking

Reading my dear weekly issue of The Economist, I found the obituary of Allen Carr, here.

It seems to me that any of you guys who really want to give a try to stop smoking should have a look at his work. According to the article, 25 million people stopped thanks to him!

Here are some links:
- His main page, here.
- His book, Easy Way to Stop Smoking, here.
- His free book, Scandal, here.

If any of you do try, please let me know how it goes!! :)

Update, 10Jan2007: letter from a reader saying that the method is more efficient than nicotine patches, here.


Posted in: _Sciences