TCS Daily - Gore Dodges Repeated Calls to Debate Global Warming

TCS Daily - Gore Dodges Repeated Calls to Debate Global Warming:

Klaus reserved his unkindest cut of all for the movement that has joined forces with Gore is spreading fear about global warming:

"As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning."

Gore's refusal to take on the likes of Klaus, Avery and Lord Monckton is no isolated incident of the former vice president's lacking the courage of his convictions. In June, Professor Scott Armstrong of the University of Pennsylvania urged Gore to put his global warming money where his mouth is. Armstrong, one of the world's leading experts on forecasting, has studied the forecasts made by Gore and such organizations as the UN's Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) and found their methodology wanting.

Convinced that Gore and the IPCC are overstating how much temperatures will rise in the years to come, Armstrong has challenged Gore to the following wager: Each man bets $10,000 on how much temperatures will go up in the next ten years. The money will stay in escrow until 2017. The one whose forecast come closer to the actual change in temperature will be declared the winner and be allowed to donate the $20,000 plus accumulated interest to the charity of his choice. But despite being flush with cash from his movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and from lucrative speaking engagements around the world, Gore has not taken Armstrong up on the bet.

The Nuclear Renaissance Begins

Interesting article on Nuclear Power in the U.S. The Clinton White House had planned for nearly all the existing Nuclear plants to be eliminated by now. But that hasn't happened, and in fact these plants are now very profitable. Buried in the story is one of the reasons -- nuclear Navy veterans have taken over and made the plants much more efficient and safe.

Sadly the U.S.,which invented nuclear power, no longer has the skills to build new plants. We will have to sub-contract that to the Japanese.

Read the whole article, it is pretty interesting and will give you something to do while we wait for our abysmal politicians to come up with an energy policy.

The American Spectator

last Tuesday, September 25, was a milestone. For the first time since 1973, a new application for building a reactor was placed before the federal government.

The proposal submitted Tuesday is to build two new reactors with a total capacity of 2,700 megawatts at the South Texas Project site in Matagorda County, where two nuclear units have already operated for 25 years. The size of the reactors is unprecedented -- the biggest American plants generally produce about 1,200 MW.

...Soon these new owners -- heavily staffed with veterans from the nuclear Navy -- were revitalizing the industry.

The results have been stunning. Whereas power plants traditionally ran at a "capacity factor" of 60 percent -- meaning they are up and running 60 percent of the time -- the nation's 104 reactors now run at a previously unimaginable capacity of 90 percent. (In South Korea, where nuclear provides half the electricity, the figure is 95 percent.) The average nuclear plant now runs uninterrupted for nearly two years before shutting down for refueling. Safety improvements have been spectacular. While there were 26 shutdowns of more than a year for safety reasons from 1987 to 1997 and 21 in the decade before, there has only been one over the past decade.

25 Skills Every Man Should Know

25 Skills Every Man Should Know: The List, Ready for Your Debate - Popular Mechanics

Hey, not bad. I've done 24/25. I guess I need to go looking for a bolt-action rifle now.

1. Patch a radiator hose
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who as capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
6. Back up a trailer
7. Build a campfire
8. Fix a dead outlet
9. Navigate with a map and compass
10. Use a torque wrench
11. Sharpen a knife
12. Perform CPR
13. Fillet a fish
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle
20. Change oil and filter
21. Hook up an HDTV
22. Bleed brakes
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
25. Extend your wireless network

What Happens When You Lend Money to Poor People

Bloomberg.com: Opinion

Don't get me wrong: I have nothing personally against the poor. To my knowledge, I have nothing personally to do with the poor at all. It's not personal when a guy cuts your grass: that's business. He does what you say, you pay him. But you don't pay him in advance: That would be finance. And finance is one thing you should never engage in with the poor.

Poor people don't respect other people's money in the way money deserves to be respected.

Teaser rates weren't a scandal. Teaser rates were a sign of misplaced trust: I trusted these people to get their teams of lawyers to vet anything before they signed it. Turns out, if you're poor, you don't need to pay lawyers. You don't like the deal you just wave your hands in the air and moan about how poor you are. Then you default.

People complain about the rich getting richer and the poor being left behind. Is it any wonder? Look at them! Did it ever occur to even one of them that they might pay me back by WORKING HARDER? I don't think so.

Our society is really, really hostile to success. At the same time it's shockingly indulgent of poor people.

Lending money to poor countries was a bad idea: Does it make any more sense to lend money to poor people? They don't even have mineral rights!