Mysterious New 'Dark Flow' Discovered in Space

From Space.com (Sept. 2008):

As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered.

Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon "dark flow."

The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude. [read more]

I know this blog entry is old, but I only heard of this phenomena in October 2009 issue of Popular Science. No-one knows for sure why the phenomena is happening. One theory is that a parallel universe is causing the motion.

Order of Succession

If the Annointed One (Barack Obama) dies during his term in office this is the order of succession according to the Constitution:

1. Vice President: Joe Biden. Does not fill me with confidence, although he maybe less radical than Obama.

2. Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi. Yikes! 

3. President pro-temore of the Senate: Robert Byrd. This former KKK has his name plastered on almost every building in W. Virginia. Uh, no thanks. 

4. Secretary of State: Hillary Clinton. Hmmm. If Hillary could rig it so that Obama, Biden, Pelosi, and Byrd could be in a plane at the same time and have it go down somewhere over an ocean then she could be President. Did I just write a plot for a political novel?

5. Secretary of the Treasury: Timothy Geithner. Like this country needs is a "new world order" person. Not too mention he did not pay his taxes.

6. Secretary of Defense: Robert Gates. Of the whole bunch so far, he's good.

7. Attorney General: Eric Holder. He called America a "nation of cowards."

8. Secretary of the Interior: Ken Salazar. 

9. Secretary of Agriculture: Tom Vilsack. 

10. Secretary of Commerce: Gary Locke. 

11. Secretary of Labor: Hilda Solis. She's for amnesty and open borders. No thank you. 

Obamanopoly

Let's all play Obamanopoly! The following cards and spaces are from Glenn Beck's book Arguing with Idiots. The cards in blue are made-up by me.

Community Organizer cards:

• BANK ERROR IN THEIR FAVOR. PAY $500.
• CHRYSLER. From sale of stock you get nothing.
• You are "too big too fail." Keep this card for 5 turns.
• If you got a loan from the government and can't pay it back, the government now owns your business after buying up your common stock. You lose the game.

Change cards:

• Advance token to the nearest railroad and pay the government twice the amount to which it is otherwise entitled. Don't expect anything in return.
• Employee Free Choice Act cripples your business. Pay $200.
• You forgot to choose a health care plan for an employee of yours when the employee does not choose for himself. Pay $700.
• If you have a "too big too fail" card then you can get a $100,000 loan from the government.

READING RAILROAD. Price: n/a. This railroad was nationalized, and is not for sale.

INCOME TAX. Player with the most money pays 70% to player with the least.

ELECTRIC COMPANY. Price: $150 Plus $500 carbon tax.

BOARDWALK. Price: $400 (Free for low income families).

The Wind-it Generator

From PopSci.com (July 7):

Soon the hum of high-voltage electric towers will come from the electricity they produce, not just what they conduct. The Wind-it, a design by French architects Nicola Delon and Julien Choppin and engineer Raphael Menard, inserts a vertical turbine inside the towers. Large wind farms need lots of land; Wind-it could be installed anywhere along the 157,000 miles of high-voltage aboveground wires in the U.S. The turbines also plug right into the grid, saving the cost of stringing cable to remote areas. The inventors are currently looking for an industrial partner to turn their scale model into a 330-foot-tall tower, which their computer simulations suggest could generate up to a megawatt of electricity—enough to power 400 homes. “The Midwest needs new power lines,” Menard says, “and because the towers will cross high-wind fields, it could be perfect for Wind-it.”

Now, I am not a wind-energy zealot, but if you are going to harness wind-energy this is not a bad way to do it. It uses existing technology (those electric towers--you don't have to build those huge wind turbines) and because you don't have to build those turbines you don't need lots of land to place them. I applaud the cleverness by the engineer and architect. Although, they should have the turbines the same color of the towers so it isn't so obvious that the towers are using wind-energy. Just a suggestion.

Government Bureaucracy in Action

The following list below is from Glenn Beck's book Arguing with Idiots. Interesting book. His Adventures in Capitalism cartoons are funny.

• Up to 12 different agencies are responsible for administrating more than 35 food-safety laws.

• There are 541 clean air, water, and waste pgms spread out over 29 agencies.

• 40 different pgms aimed primarily at job training are administrated by at least seven different federal agencies.

• 50 different pgms to aid the homeless are administrated by at least eight different federal agencies.

• Nine different agencies operate 27 teen-pregnancy programs and 11 agencies administer at least 90 early-childhood pgms.

Now, doesn't this list above fill you with confidence that the gov't can run health care effectively and efficiently?

We can't account for the lack of warming at the moment

Below is excerpts from an email correspondence of October this year from one climatologist to another:

Kevin, But what you said was "we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment". Now you say "we are no where close to knowing where energy is going".

Tom.

Hi Tom > How come you do not agree with a statement that says we are no where > close to knowing where energy is going or whether clouds are changing to > make the planet brighter. We are not close to balancing the energy > budget. The fact that we can not account for what is happening in the > climate system makes any consideration of geoengineering quite hopeless > as we will never be able to tell if it is successful or not! It is a > travesty! > Kevin

>>> The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the >>> moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published >>> in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even >>> more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is >>> inadequate.

Kevin