It’s no secret that I complain a lot about government policies.   Well, not long ago I was complaining about government policies (as I so often do) when my friend Hal Bidlack made a suggestion.  He thought that it was pretty easy to make these suggestions and complaints but that if I really cared and I really didn’t like the current candidates I should put up or shut up and actually run for office.   Well, it’s a bit hard to argue with that, especially because Hal himself ran for Congress.

I thought about it and the more I did the more I realized he had a point.  I’m not an experienced politician by any means and running might be a long shot, but the more I think about how I feel about the US and how it’s being run the more I realize I should at least make an effort to do something about it.  Worst case scenario is I can always say I tried.

So call me a fool, but at this point I’m seriously considering it.  In fact, I plan on making a formal decision by the end of the month.  Right now that makes me a “prospective candidate” or a “possible candidate.”

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The following article ran on the front page of the New York Times just a few days ago. I’m hoping very much that this might actually start to get people questioning the wisdom of spending huge amounts of money on energy sources that can’t and won’t deliver. This is especially true in the current economic climate. The US government can’t afford to waste money and as many suffer without jobs, the issue of “corporate welfare” and handouts that benefit the rich while doing little for society as a whole has become a major issue.

Yet these subsidies and mandates are exactly the kind that create the worst social inequalities. Those rich enough to invest in the government-backed and subsidized businesses are given a golden opportunity to make more money with less risk than could ever be had in a fair market. At the same time, the general public pays for it through higher electric rates and taxes. Despite the claims that these programs exist to create jobs, the higher cost of energy that results hurts industry and ultimately can cost jobs. The enterprises that take advantage of these subsidies are incapable of ever being self-sustaining and could not survive without these direct and very expensive incentives by the government.

Via the New York Times:

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In 1946, Hermann Muller won the Nobel Prize for demonstrating the ability to x-rays (and therefore other forms of ionizing radiation) to cause mutations in living cells. There is no doubt that Muller’s discovery was profound and vital to understanding radiation’s effects on living things and to establishing the field of health physics and radiation protection. The fact that radiation could cause mutations also had important implications to the understanding of cell biology and genetics.

Muller was also an early proponent in the establishment of the linear non-threshold hypothesis for radiation exposure. Despite a lack of conclusive supporting evidence, LNT has become the mainstay for radiation policy and is accepted as fact by many government agencies. The simplistic model basically states that radiation always causes damage with the potential for cancer and that the increase in risk is directly proportional to the exposure level. Thus, there is no “safe” level and all radiation should be avoided when possible, though the danger is small if the exposure is small.

Despite the fact that, even by LNT predictions, the level of exposure from living near a nuclear power plant presents a miniscule increase in risk (less than living next to a coal burner), the model has been used very effectively to argue that nuclear energy is always unacceptable, because the tiny amounts of radiation involved still present a risk. (Don’t ask me how they can make the case that nuclear is worse than coal or gas, or for that matter, having a granite counter top which involve more exposure. I still can’t figure that out.) The model has also resulted in extreme fear of medical radiation, resulting in calls for limiting of potentially life saving imaging and cancer treatment procedures.

While it has always been known that Muller did not have conclusive evidence to prove his claims of an LNT dose-risk relationship, evidence now indicates he may have had evidence that actually refuted it.

Via UMass Amherst News and Information:

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As most here probably know, Dr. Jack Kevorkian died this year at age 83.   Dr. Kevorkian become famous for his championing of doctor assisted suicide in the United States, where doing so is illegal in most jurisdictions.  Kevorkian is known to have assisted in the suicide of at least 130 persons.   His advocacy for doctor-assisted suicide began in the early 1980’s and the first suicide which he publicly acknowledged participating in was in 1990.

Kevorkian was most prolific in his activities between 1991 and 1998.  During that time he traveled around the United States aiding individuals in taking their own lives.   Kevorkian designed the equipment used, which included an IV drug machine and a carbon monoxide respirator.   He attached patients to the machines but did not take the final step of pushing the plunger or opening the valve.  That was done by the patients, and to some extent, insulated him from being easily prosecuted.   Still, he was in and out of court many times during the 1990’s.   He lost his license to practice medicine and was repeatedly ordered to stop his activities.

Kevorkian loved the attention that the controversy generated.   His court dates became media circuses and he never passed up an interview.  Kevorkian would always say that he was fighting for the right of a person to control their own destiny, die with dignity and relieve their own suffering.   However, many of his antics were not exactly dignified.

In 1998, Kevorkian appeared on the news program 60 Minutes and showed a videotape of the assisted suicide of Thomas Youk, a 52 year old ALS sufferer.   Youk expressed his desire to die and gave his full consent to the procedure to end his life.   In this video Kevorkian did something he had never publicly admitted to before, he pushed the plunger that delivered the lethal drugs himself.   Kevorkian also directly dared authorities to convict him of murder for his actions.   This time he bluffed a bit too hard.  They did and he was sentenced to ten to twenty five years in prison.  Kevorkian was finally paroled in 2007.   Since then he spent a bit less time in the media spotlight.   As a condition of his parole he agreed to no longer preform any kind of suicide service or provide any advice on the matter.

With the recent death of Kevorkian, there has been a lot of talk about his life and accomplishments.   A large number of individuals who identify with atheism, humanism, libertarianism and other related movements have been quick to praise Kevorkian.  Those who believe that a person should have the right to die often cast him as a hero, fighting for a basic human liberty and for the merciful release from pain and suffering.   This is not new.  During his life, Kevorkian was portrayed as a hero by a number of groups and activists.  In 2010, Al Pacino portrayed Kevorkian in the television movie “You Don’t Know Jack,” which showed Kevorkian as a compassionate activist fighting to legalize dying by choice.   Kurt Vonnegut’s collection of short stories published under the title “God Bless You Dr. Kevorkian,” was more of a spoof than a tribute, but Kevorkian seems to have enjoyed the attention anyway.

Sorry, but I can’t agree. I find the man despicable.

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(Browsers that cannot view embedded content, click here for the original Youtube video.)

You may notice that there’s something a bit off here.   Claims that vaccines are a dangerous conspiracy purported by horrible pharmaceutical companies are usually associated more with the Loony Left of the political spectrum, while Bachman is decidedly on the Loony Right side of the isle.  It’s interesting to note that different ridiculous beliefs tend to come from different sides of the isle.   Vaccine conspiracy theories tend to center on mistrust of corporations and capitalism in general and are often part and parcel of theories of how the military and big corporations are killing us with fluoride, chemtrails and depleted uranium, which means we all need to embrace the “natural way” and move back to mud huts where we can practice free love and drop acid.

You’ll notice, however, that Backmann is not opposed to vaccinations in general, but is singling out one vaccine which apparently has a nearly magical power to steal the innocence of sweet lovely little twelve year old and make them retarded.   The reason that conservatives are so opposed to the HPV vaccine is that it’s seen as somehow encouraging sex or that requiring it is somehow offering a government endorsement of premarital sex.   It’s an extremely warped view when one considers that they’re effectively saying that they are so opposed to what they consider to be offensive forms of sex that it’s worth avoiding a vaccine that could wipe out most cervical cancer.

Her sentiment seems to have been touched off in part by the state of Texas adding the HPV vaccine to the required immunizations for school admission for girls.   This was done by another Republican presidential candidate, Rick Perry.   Some have accused Perry of taking pharmaceutical money for this policy, it really does not change the fact that it’s a good idea to have girls vaccinated.   If he did do so because he was paid off, then all he can be accused of is doing the right thing for the wrong reason.
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Much to do has been made of the fact that the majority of nuclear plants in the United States are scheduled to operate beyond the initial operating period that was estimated when they were first constructed. This all seems to have started when the Associated Press “broke” the story, despite the fact that it had never actually been a secret at all. None the less, many followed reporting how plants were being stretched far beyond the expectations of what their designers had intended, exposing the public to untold risks as they rust and fall apart.

Of course, this is not really the case. The plants have undergone numerous upgrades and refits over the years and continue to be upgraded and inspected to maintain high levels of safety. New procedures and new systems retrofitted to older reactors have improved their efficiency and safety beyond what it was originally. Of course, even with improvements, the older Generation II reactors still are not as good as new Generation III+ designs, but none the less, they are perfectly safe and reliable sources of power.

The primary reason why the designs have outlasted what was assumed to be their design life comes down to economics. While it has become cheaper and easier to extend the life of reactors, it has also become much more difficult to build new ones. The original designers might have presumed that after twenty or thirty years, their designs would have been so far surpassed that new power plants would have made them obsolete and redundant.

Unfortunately, they had not counted on just how difficult it has become to build a new reactor.  Just getting the permits to build a new nuclear reactor can take upwards of a decade, and a combination of political lobbying, lawsuits and other tactics by special interest groups meets a potential reactor operator at every step of the way, possibly even derailing plans completely before construction is completed but after billions have been spent.   There exists no other facility whose construction will be opposed by so many with so much effort at so many levels.   Paperwork costs alone can top the hundreds of millions, and final costs for construction have skyrocketed since the 1970’s.

Thus we have what we have and their life is extended to the maximum possible since replacements remain so difficult and expensive to built.

This does not mean that they are unsafe.  In fact, there are many examples of technology lasting far longer than its designers had anticipated.

Reasons why something may outlast its original design life:

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It seems every time there is any development in nuclear technology, the media immediately starts equating it with weapons and assumes that it will be used for such. Not only that, but it also seems that the prevailing belief is that the only way to keep the world safe is to assure the United States does not engage in the new technology, because, if we don’t, well then obviously nobody else will, right?

Via the New York Times:

Scientists have long sought easier ways to make the costly material known as enriched uranium — the fuel of nuclear reactors and bombs, now produced only in giant industrial plants.

One idea, a half-century old, has been to do it with nothing more substantial than lasers and their rays of concentrated light. This futuristic approach has always proved too expensive and difficult for anything but laboratory experimentation.

Until now.

In a little-known effort, General Electric has successfully tested laser enrichment for two years and is seeking federal permission to build a $1 billion plant that would make reactor fuel by the ton.

That might be good news for the nuclear industry. But critics fear that if the work succeeds and the secret gets out, rogue states and terrorists could make bomb fuel in much smaller plants that are difficult to detect.

Iran has already succeeded with laser enrichment in the lab, and nuclear experts worry that G.E.’s accomplishment might inspire Tehran to build a plant easily hidden from the world’s eyes.

Backers of the laser plan call those fears unwarranted and praise the technology as a windfall for a world increasingly leery of fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases.

But critics want a detailed risk assessment. Recently, they petitioned Washington for a formal evaluation of whether the laser initiative could backfire and speed the global spread of nuclear arms.

“We’re on the verge of a new route to the bomb,” said Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist who advised President Bill Clinton and now teaches at Princeton. “We should have learned enough by now to do an assessment before we let this kind of thing out.”

New varieties of enrichment are considered potentially dangerous because they can simplify the hardest part of building a bomb — obtaining the fuel.

General Electric, an atomic pioneer and one of the world’s largest companies, says its initial success began in July 2009 at a facility just north of Wilmington, N.C., that is jointly owned with Hitachi. It is impossible to independently verify that claim because the federal government has classified the laser technology as top secret. But G.E. officials say that the achievement is genuine and that they are accelerating plans for a larger complex at the Wilmington site.

“We are currently optimizing the design,” Christopher J. Monetta, president of Global Laser Enrichment, a subsidiary of G.E. and Hitachi, said in an interview.

The company foresees “substantial demand for nuclear fuel,” he added, while conceding that global jitters from the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi plant in Japan “do create some uncertainty.” G.E. made those reactors.

Donald M. Kerr, a former director of the Los Alamos weapons lab who was recently briefed on G.E.’s advance, said in an interview that it looked like a breakthrough after decades of exaggerated claims.

Laser enrichment, he said, has gone from “an oversold, overpromised set of technologies” to what “appears to be close to a real industrial process.”

…

The plan was to exploit the extraordinary purity of laser light to selectively excite uranium’s rare form. In theory, the resulting agitation would ease identification of the precious isotope and aid its extraction.

At least 20 countries and many companies raced to investigate the idea. Scientists built hundreds of lasers.

Ray E. Kidder, a laser pioneer at the Livermore nuclear arms lab, estimated that the overall number of scientists involved globally ran to several thousand.

“It was a big deal,” he said in an interview. “If you could enrich with lasers, you could cut the cost by a factor of 10.”

The fervor cooled by the 1990s as laser separation turned out to be extremely hard to make economically feasible.

Not everyone gave up. Twenty miles southwest of Sydney, in a wooded region, Horst Struve and Michael Goldsworthy kept tinkering with the idea at a government institute. Finally, around 1994, the two men judged that they had a major advance.

The inventors called their idea Silex, for separation of isotopes by laser excitation. “Our approach is completely different,” Dr. Goldsworthy, a physicist, told a Parliamentary hearing.

….

In May 2006, G.E. bought the rights to Silex. Andrew C. White, the president of the company’s nuclear business, hailed the technology as “game-changing.”

Mr. Monetta of Global Laser Enrichment, the G.E.-Hitachi subsidiary, said the envisioned plant would enrich enough uranium annually to fuel up to 60 large reactors. In theory, that could power more than 42 million homes — about a third of all housing units in the United States.

The laser advance, he added, will promote energy security “since it is a domestic source.”

In late 2009, as G.E. experimented with its trial laser, supporters of arms control wrote Congress and the regulatory commission. The technology, they warned, posed a danger of quickening the spread of nuclear weapons because of the likely difficulty of detecting clandestine plants.

Experts called for a federal review of the risks. In early 2010, the commission resisted.

Late last year, the American Physical Society — the nation’s largest group of physicists, with headquarters in Washington — submitted a formal petition to the commission for a rule change that would compel such risk assessments as a condition of licensing.

“The issue is too big” to leave to the federal status quo, Francis Slakey, a physicist at Georgetown University and the society official who drafted the petition, said in an interview. He added that Mr. Obama or Congress might eventually have to get involved.

This year, thousands of citizens, supporters of arms control, nuclear experts and members of Congress wrote the commission to back the society’s effort. Many of them cited well-known failures in safeguarding secrets and detecting atomic plants.

But the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group in Washington, objected. It said new precautions were unnecessary because of voluntary plans for “additional measures” to safeguard secrets.

A commission spokesman said the petition would be considered next year. In theory, the risk-assessment plan, if adopted, could slow or stop the granting of a commercial license for the proposed laser plant or could result in design improvements.

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Every once in a while (and more often recently) it’s announced that the US government will have to delay or suspend a program or payment because the necessary funds were not allocated to continue its operation or pay for necessary supplies.   This is often the result of partisan bickering and the inability of politicians to agree on necessary appropriations legislation.   In other cases, it’s caused by a clerical error.

The government tends to follow very rigid rules for how funds are allocated, so such budgeting problems can force program suspensions.   Simply having the money is not good always good enough.   A program must also have the approval to spend it and, in some cases, there must be contracts or procedures or suppliers to spend it on.

Of course, it does not just happen in the US; it happens elsewhere too.

A rather amusing story of this type recently came from India.

Via the IndianExpress:

Delay in tendering leads to shortage of homeopathy medicines
Despite having funds for buying medicines for hospitals, the state’s homeopathy department is still to finalise the procedure for drug purchase. While the department is struggling to prepare the rate contracts for drugs, the hospitals are facing constant drug shortage, with no purchase done since April.

A budget of Rs 2.5 crore was approved by the state government for the purchase of homeopathic drugs in the year 2011-12 and the fund of Rs 2.65 crore was granted by the Central government for the same, right in the beginning of the financial year.

However, the tender process for purchase of these drugs is still to be completed. In fact, the directorate of homeopathic medicine has cancelled one tender after opening the technical as well as financial bids, while the retendering process is still on.

The first tender this year was advertised in May. However, due to certain technical flaws, the entire bidding process was cancelled, said V Prasad, Director, Homeopathic Medicine.

However, claims the director, the procedure of retendering is almost complete. “Once the first tenders were cancelled, we immediately went for retendering. Both the technical and financial bids for the second tender were also opened last week,” said Prasad.

Maintaining that the department is doing its best to finalise the process of preparation of rate contract, the director said that within a week, the list of selected bidders will be sent to the government for approval. The approval is done by the High Purchase Committee, which is expected to meet in this month, said Prasad. After the tenders are finalised, the rate contract will be prepared and orders for purchase of the required drugs will be placed.

A shortage of homeopathic medicine? Can’t they just dilute what they have to make more? Oh right, it would cause the medicine to become more potent and could result in an overdose. (sarcasm)

At least it makes me feel a little better knowing that the US government is not the only one with idiotic spending habits. Apparently India has a whole damn department tasked with purchasing magical water from quacks. The statement “Rs 2.5 crore” is an Indian idiom meaning 25 million rupees. It seems that this news story applies to the purchasing of homeopathic preparations within the state of Utter Pradesh. Thus, the budget for such purchases is 25 million rupees from the national government plus an additional 26.5 million rupees from the state government for a grand total of 51.5 rupees for this one state of India. That is just over one million US dollars or about .8 Euro. Still quite a bit considering the this is only one state in India containing less than 1/5 of the national population and the national budget for all healthcare is only about 4.35 billion US dollars a year.

It’s also quite amusing to see that this is actually being taken seriously, as if the shortage of empty pills and overpriced water were some kind of emergency. The press is even reporting it with an apparent straight face.

I do not mean to trash India in this respect, of course. India does have many legitimate, intelligent, honest medical professionals. For those who do practice real medicine and are trying to make a difference in the lives of those in need, this kind of idiocy is enormously frustrating. (I know, I’ve talked to a few of them.) There are indigenous efforts within India to bring a measure of healthy skepticism to medical care, but they face an uphill battle. Homeopathy has become deeply entrenched, and the government of India recognizes it officially as a form of medical care.

Homeopathy isn’t actually Indian in origin, of course. Despite having taken hold in India to a greater degree than just about anywhere else in the world, the lunacy of homeopathy was established in India by of the Victorian-Era British colonists.   It is both ironic and tragic that the quackery of homeopathy would continue to thrive in India and undermine good healthcare even long after the country gained its independence.

I find it absolutely stunning that there are groups today who use violence and blatant disregard for the law in an attempt to stop technological advancements.   It’s an almost religious fury that labels certain fields of science and technology as evil and so dangerous that they must be stopped by any means necessary.  It’s as if they are cursed or embodied with black magic and for those who are so fearful, no action to stop them is too extreme.

It ranges from weedwackering the genetically engineered crops they fear so deeply to sending bombs to terrorize, injure  or kill.

Via the Miami Herald:

Mexico: Anti-technology group sent college bomb

MEXICO CITY — An anti-technology group calling itself “Individuals Tending to Savagery” was responsible for a package bomb that injured two university professors just outside Mexico City, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The explosion at the Monterrey Technological Institute’s campus in the State of Mexico on the outskirts of the capital Monday injured two professors, one of whom was involved in robotics research. Neither suffered life-threatening injuries.

Mexico State Attorney General Alfredo Castillo said at a news conference that the group’s involvement was identified from a partially destroyed note found at the scene.

Castillo said the group opposes experiments with nanotechnology and has staged attacks on academics before.

“The ITS is a movement that, in accordance with its ideals, opposes any development of neo- or nanotechnology anywhere in the world, and they are linked to attacks in several different countries of Europe, including Spain and France,” Castillo said.

He confirmed that the package had been disguised with labels from a well-known express package service, but did not say which one.

A manifesto signed by the group and posted on a radical website said: “We have no remorse, our aim was precisely for the guards to deliver the package to the intended professor,” who it identified as Oscar Camacho.

…

The ITS statement said Camacho’s “police impluses” to inspect the package triggered the detonator, adding that “there is no doubt that curiosity killed the human.”

The statement said nanotechnology and other technologies damage nature and native species and contribute to natural disasters.

It appears that the group in question is a kind of anti-industrialization movement with similar beliefs to the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. Essentially, such groups believe that mankind is best left in a primitive tribal state, living off the land in a hunter-gatherer or subsistence lifestyle. While such societies do tend to result in very low life expectancy and high infant, maternal and childhood mentality, this is not necessarily seen as being negative by members of such movements, as humanity is usually seen as being a problem in and of itself, one which is best kept in check through such attrition. The philosophy also takes a page from Amory Lovins, seeing low technology and primitive, tribal lifestyles as somehow being more honorable or honest than modern technological societies.

Of course, this philosophy does have a major problem: given the choice, humans will generally tend to prefer a safer, easier lifestyle and given the option for leisure or comfort will take it. Not only this, but humans tend to be inventive and will develop new ways of doing things, including tools and technologies and refine and improve those technologies. Even if you took all technology away from human kind, we’d start to invent it again. Hence, the use of violence and intimidation to try to stop this from happening.

Such groups tend to be especially fearful and intolerant of any technology that they see as especially unnatural or which ignorance has bread fear over.

Sound familiar?

Nanotechnology is an especially exciting area of science which also has a number of anti-technology and green groups scared. It combines aspects of chemistry, materials sciences and computer and mechanical engineering. It may also include aspects of biology and atomic physics.

Basically, nanotechnology is the use of atoms and molecules to construct nanoscopic structures capable of acting as machines or of presenting useful physical properties by virtue of their structure. The push to nano-scale structures came in part from the desire of computer chip designers to push technology to creating the smallest possible functional electrical circuits. It also grew out of the availability of technologies like the scanning-tunneling electron microscope.

Of course, such concepts are not entirely new either. Chemists and materials scientists have long understood the importance of molecular structure in determining the properties of a material. Nanoscopic “machines” already exist in nature in the form of proteins and enzymes. The semiconductor industry has also long used molecule-level engineering to produce special materials for use in electronics.

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You may have read a couple of weeks ago about Greenpeace attempting to halt research by CSIRO on genetically modified wheat, which had been engineered to produce end products with a lower glycaemic index.    They did this by writing a letter which they then sent out to be signed by a number of “prominent” scientists, who weren’t all that prominent and not all of whom were really scientists.  They didn’t actually mention that Greenpeace was behind the letter but it ended up coming out anyway.

Not surprisingly, the letter didn’t end up stopping the research nor did subsequent attempts to seed the press with fear-mongering reports of dangers of genetic engineering.

It should be noted that the project they were trying to stop was pure research and not actually aimed at producing products for human consumption, at least not in the near term.   The wheat had been grown experimentally for a few years and is currently undergoing study in laboratory animals.   This is expected to eventually lead to human trails, but that’s not something that CSIRO has immediate plans for.

The wheat was being grown in relatively small and isolated patches on test fields that are some distance away from other wheat crops and in fields that are partially enclosed by a plastic barrier.   Some anti-GMO activists have claimed that the very existence of such crops endangers the world food supply, since rogue genes could be carried away as pollen to fertilize other crops.    CSIRO does take precautions against this, despite the fact that it’s not a very realistic fear.  Most wheat is grown from new seed, not from seed produced by the previous seasons crop, so even if it had been fertilized by pollen from the test fields, it would not actually result in the genes being brought into new crops.    Also, considering the general distribution and distances, it’s just not a very likely thing to happen.  Nor would it really make much difference even if it did.

Most Australians seemed to understand that CSIRO was proceeding with an abundance of caution and that the wheat was being grown as part of a scientific study with the aim being to better understand the potential of genetic engineering of this type with the potential that it could be applied to future food crops – assuming it is safe, which all current research would indicate it is.    After all, who could possibly oppose scientific research on such an important area of study?

With the public and politicians unwilling to buy into Greenpeace’s fear-mongering, they went to plan B:  weedwacker the whole damn crop.

Yes, that’s exactly what they did.

And if that’s not bad enough, in complete defiance of what they apparently stand for, they used a two-stroke gasoline powered weedwacker.   They could have used one powered by electricity and charged by solar cells or a wind turbine.   They could have dispensed with the weed wacker and used a human-driven sickle.   But no, they used one that runs on gasoline and produces smog.   Who woulda thunk???

In broad daylight and with no attempt to hide their destruction, Greenpeace proclaimed they were standing up against the evil scientists and doing the right thing for humanity and mother nature.   They broke into the research compound, destroyed the entire crop and then had the audacity to post pictures of it on their blog.   Apparently they felt their crimes were so noble and justified that nobody would dare call them on it and actually prosecute the organization for these acts of vandalism.

They were wrong.

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