So what's a cubit? What's a Sievert?

"What's a cubit" was Bill Cosby, playing Noah, asking God about ark construction. A Sievert is the new unit of radiation dose in which all the Japanese reactor stories are reporting. I finally googled on "Sievert" and I find 1 Sievert is the same as 100 REM. So, switching to new speak, 0.1 Sievert or 10 REM is the safe yearly dosage for nuclear plant workers. One whole Sievert means radiation sickness but it's curable. Four Sieverts kills a lot of victims. Eight Sieverts kills everybody.
By press reports the radiation in Japan is still in the safe yearly dosage range even on plant property.
There are also press reports of "trace" amounts of radioactivity on food in in ground water. No definition of "trace". Newsies don't understand numbers. Modern laboratory equipment can detect "trace" amounts of anything, damn near anywhere. So, lacking real numbers, it's quite possible that those "trace" amounts have been there all along. And that "trace" is so low that it doesn't matter.

Pedicaris alive or Rasouli dead

Good line from the movie "Wind and the Lion" (Sean Connery and Candice Bergen) The Libyan situation will go on and on until Quaddaffi is killed. One good man with a good rifle, a smart bomb thru his bedroom window, a Predator strike, an assassin paid in Yankee dollars, take your pick. All we need is good intel, if we know where he is, his ass is grass. And the war is over.

We much be doing something right.

USA Today published this map showing projected job growth by state. Notice that NH has a better job growth forecast than any of our neighboring states. Could this be 'cause of no income tax, no sales tax?

What a difference a day makes

Yesterday Quadaffi had the rebels on the run. His army was closing in on Benghazi the rebel capital. Then late last night the UN security council got its act together (small miracle that) and authorized a no-fly zone and other military action. Quadaffi declared a cease fire. Britain, France, Italy and other nations are promising air strikes ASAP.
Where is the US on all this? Who knows? Obama was on TV a few hours ago, making happy noises, but not saying what we would do. He called for Quadaffi to hang it up, but nothing more.
Somebody ought to fly a few planes low over Benghazi and put on an air show for the rebels. That would do wonderful things for rebel morale, so wonderful that the rebels might be able to keep fighting until they get some help from the Europeans. Sounds like a good mission for the RAF since the Americans are sitting this one out.

Obama is against file sharing

The Voloch Conspiracy has a post about the new Obama plan, making file sharing a felony.
No voters want this. In fact, younger hipper voters are outraged by it. Apparently Obama has the interests of MPAA and RIAA closer to his heart than the interests of every one else in the country.

White House to push Privacy Bill

Headline in the Wall St Journal today. The proposed bill would require that companies ask an individual's permission to use personal data for a purpose other than that for which it was collected. Plus some other equally toothless proposals.
Total waste of time. Your personal data, including which websites you visit, is recorded by spyware secretly loaded onto your computer. This is the fault of both web browsers and Windows. We ought to demand a web browser that will NEVER load and execute code off the internet. And make the same demand upon Microsoft. Windows must NEVER load and execute code off the internet. Do this and the problem is solved.
If Microsoft and the browser makers don't want to co-operate? Find a vendor who will. Linux is much less porous than Windows. There are about 6 browser makers now. One of them can gain industry dominance by offering an air tight browser.
This is not an issue that laws can deal with. We need decent software instead.

The family car is faster than High Speed Rail

Don't get me wrong, I love trains, I'm a train buff from way back. But, it's hard for any kind of train to compete with the car. Acela takes 4 hours on the Boston-New York run. I can drive it in that time. If I drive, I have the car at the far end, I don't have to rent one. Even with $4 a gallon gas, I can get my Mercury LE down and back for less than an Acela round trip ticket. If I have to pay Hertz or Avis as well as Amtrak, no contest.
And this is on the densely populated BosWash corridor, the one location in the US where high speed rail might be able to compete with cars. Once you talk about long trips (coast to coast) everybody is going to fly. You can fly Boston to LA and arrive LA by noon LA time. A one day trip. By train or car, it's a five day trip (one way). Nobody is going to mess around with trains, no matter how fast and how plush for coast to coast.
So why is Obama so into high speed rail? Does he really think it makes any kind of economic or ecological sense? Surely he isn't that dumb? Or is he?