Time was, I joked about needing to go back to work on Monday to get some rest. Hollow laugh!
1. Facts Are Stubborn Things.
Back at Eternity Road, I posted a long piece about energy density and its relationship to the waste produced by various sources of energy:
A dense energy source is one that uses a small amount of fuel to produce a lot of capturable energy. Of course, there's no ultimately dense energy source -- i.e., infinite energy from no fuel -- so we must speak of denser and less dense sources:Very low density:
Exothermic human activity (exercise).
Mechanical friction.Low density:
Burning wood or alcohols.
Solar energy.
Wind and tidal power.Moderately dense:
Geothermal power.
Hydroelectric power.
Burning petroleum distillates or natural gas.Very Dense:
Fission power.
Fusion power (theoretical).The less dense sources are all characterized by the requirement for a great deal of fuel, land, or material, and usually the tolerance of large quantities of waste, to get relatively little done. The more dense sources use small quantities of fuel and land, produce small amounts of waste, and release a great deal of usable power. Both our needs for energy and our desire to keep the world clean militate toward the denser sources. Since dense sources are also highly portable, they allow people to spread out more widely than the less dense sources. Finally, abundant clean energy correlates with high prosperity, which also correlates with the convergence on Zero Population Growth -- a long-term solution to overcrowding and the destruction of non-human habitats.
ER wasn’t a terribly influential site, and that article didn’t get a lot of readership. However, its core thesis is beginning to be noticed:
Solar panels create 300 times more toxic waste per unit of electricity generated than nuclear power plants, according to a Thursday report from the pro-nuclear group Environmental Progress (EP).The report found that solar panels use heavy metals, including lead, chromium and cadmium, which can harm the environment. The hazards of nuclear waste are well known and can be planned for, but very little has been done to mitigate solar waste issues.
Please read the whole thing. (Turn off your speakers first; there’s a “stealth video” that can get past most script and popup blockers.)
Dense energy sources produce less waste per kilowatt-hour generated. They also consume less space, fewer physical resources, and less human energy. It’s as simple as that.
2. For Those Obsessed With “Fairness To Immigrants.”
The esteemed CM Blake has unearthed the 1952 McCarran-Walters Act:
It’s still on the books, Gentle Reader – and it has direct and unambiguous relevance to Islam and Muslims:
Since, by that wonderful(?) “separation of church and state” clause, First Amendment if you will, says that the government cannot force a specific religion on WTP, and since the Muslims have such a “the government is ruled by the Quran” attitude, basically Muslims cannot become citizens unless they renounce Islam.That being said, IMHO, anyone who is an immigrant, or any citizen who ascribes to said madness, cannot be a legal voting citizen nor officer of the government. If you join Islam, you renounce your citizenship, and thus cannot elect anyone to any office. If you ascribe to Islam, you are not a citizen, and cannot HOLD any such office.
Another please-read-it-all piece (and do, please, follow the embedded links).
3. A Priceless Voice For Educational Sanity.
Yes, he’s a Canadian – but they need him as badly as we do, if not more so:
Jordan Peterson is that rarest of rara avis: a brave, candid intellectual who has endured the belly of the beast and emerged from it morally and intellectually whole. Parents of minor and college-age children: Take his advice.
4. You Thought I Was Kidding, Ladies?
A number of my fairer-sex readers took considerable issue with this piece. Mostly it was the usual “you’re being mean / exploiting your superior education / intellect / power / privilege / external genitals” pseudo-egalitarian horseshit. A few suggested that I must be “having us on.” Oh, not at all:
Masayuki Ozaki bounced back when the spark went out of his marriage — by starting a new romance with a rubber sex doll he swears is the love of his life.The ultra-realistic silicone dummy, called Mayu, shares his bed under the same roof as his wife and teenage daughter in Tokyo, an unusual arrangement that triggered angry arguments before the family declared a delicate truce.
Ozaki, 45, said: “After my wife gave birth, we stopped having sex and I felt a deep sense of loneliness.”
“But the moment I saw Mayu in the showroom, it was love at first sight.”
“My wife was furious when I first brought Mayu home. These days she puts up with it, reluctantly.”
Yes, it’s about Japan, which is in the bowels of a population implosion owing to the loss of interest in sex, romance, and reproduction by both sexes. But the warning shot across Western women’s bosoms bows comes at the end:
...Masayuki’s long-suffering wife, Riho, tries hard to ignore the rubber temptress silently taunting her from her husband’s bedroom.She said: “I just get on with the housework.”
“I make the dinner, I clean, I do the washing. I choose sleep over sex.”
“Long-suffering,” you say? Suffering from what? Masayuki was suffering from acute deprivation of sex and spousal affection. A sex doll, however bizarre that might seem to men who prefer actual flesh, was his remedy, not his preference. And ladies of the pampered West should take especial note that his “long-suffering” wife Riho does housework, and apparently all of it. How much of that do you do?
That’s all for the moment, Gentle Reader. I’ll be back after I’ve restored a little feeling in my extremities. Until then.
1 comment:
``I make the dinner, I clean, I do the washing. I choose sleep over sex.'' Said the fridgid wife.
Before he married, he did all that himself. The one thing he really needed a wife for - the one thing that really takes two - is the one thing she won't do. She's more useless than long-suffering.
Post a Comment