The Economist waxes lyrical over Bowhunting

This is the Christmas edition of the Economist, extra thick with lots of punditry.  They had a three page article on the joys of  bowhunting  in America.  They quoted Teddy Roosevelt, they talked about a hunting trip in Wisconsin, about legalizing cross bows.  Hunting is good for the ecology, helps cull excess deer, all sorts of good stuff. 
   But only if done with a bow.  Using a gun is unsportsmanly, crass, and bad for the environment.  Only the archer is a pure hunter.   I suppose this represents the anti gun opinions of the Economist. 

Fossil Fuels make the world greener

Click here to watch the original lecture on U Tube.    And if the link doesn't work you can just go here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-nsU_DaIZE

Mr. Ridley's talk  outlines satellite observations of the whole earth showing the world is showing more green and less brown to the satellite cameras.  The increase in atmospheric CO2 is stimulating plant growth world wide.  And advances in agriculture are reducing the amount of land farmed, with  abandoned farms going back to woodland.  It's an interesting talk, showing things getting better and better, as opposed to the greenie legend of planetary desertification.  

Mars is hot

Radioactive that is.  Actually it's not uranium or thorium in the red sands of Mars, its cosmic radiation from deep space.  On Earth the magnetic field and the atmosphere shields us from it.  Out in interplanetary space it's more intense.  Mars has no magnetic field, so cosmic radiation on the surface of Mars is as bad as it is in space. 
  NASA using data from the Curiosity rover, found that astronauts on a 500 day round trip to Mars, would absorb a dose of one whole Sievert of radiation.  That's a lot.  A Sievert is a Euro unit invented in the 1980's and it's big.  One Sievert is 100 REM, the more usual US unit of radiation.  
   US safety standards call for not more than 5 REM per year for civilian workers.  NASA is more daring and permits the Shuttle astronauts to absorb 25 REM  in one shuttle trip.
   If memory serves, 300-400 REM is the 50% lethal dose, half the people exposed to that level of radiation die within weeks.  100 REM for a trip to Mars is scarily close.  NASA estimates that such a dose would increase the risk of cancer over a lifetime by 5%.  That sounds optimistic to me.
   However, I expect no shortage of volunteers to fly to Mars regardless of risk.  
   Shielding a space craft with lead probably does not work, the required shielding would weigh so much the space craft couldn't get off the ground.  An ingenious design might put the crew compartment in the middle, surrounded by the fuel tanks.  This might work on the way out, but on the way back with empty tanks, not so good.   Or the space craft might shield itself with a powerful magnetic field, created by neodymium super magnets, or a super conducting coil of wire.  The Earth's magnetic field isn't all that strong at the surface, but it is very deep.  My electromagnetic field theory is no longer strong enough to calculate  just how strong a magnet would be needed to give the same shielding effect as the Earth's field, but the number is computable.
      

NYPD, a force in international relations

Two years ago, NYPD arrested Dominique Strauss Kahn, a frenchman serving as chief of IMF, and a potential candidate for president of France.  The charges were later dropped, but that was the end of Strauss Kahn.  He resigned his IMF post and never ran for president of France.  In fact nobody has heard anything from him since.  Scratch one Frog.
  Yesterday they arrested a female Indian diplomat, and strip searched her.  Charges are obscure, by have something to do with her relationship, or wages or visa for a servant.  So much for diplomatic immunity.  All of India is hopping mad, threatening to storm the American embassy, break diplomatic relations, join the Russians, anything.  Scratch one promising international relationship. 
   NYPD is becoming a real international mover and shaker. 
   And every foreign tourist must be thinking about NOT visiting NYC.

New Technology makes it to the store

So I was in Walmart's today, looking around while they filled my prescriptions.  Wandered over the the television display.  They are all flat screen, and this year, is the year of no bezel.  The fronts of the TV's are all screen, no ring of plastic around the edge (the bezel).  And they are bigger.  55 inch for $800.  And the labels all say LED (light emitting diode) rather than LCD (liquid crystal display).  This is a forward step technology wise.  The LED screens are a little brighter and a little more vivid than my LCD Sony (state of the art a few years ago).  LED's emit light by them selves, and are very efficient, say 80% of the juice in comes out as light.  An LCD doesn't make it's own light, it acts as a shutter, blocking or passing a light source behind it, (the backlight).  I'm not sure just how backlights worked, but I expect LED's to use less juice than the backlight uses. 
   The surprise to me, was this major technological step forward got all the way to retail shelves before I heard of it.  No mention of this appeared in any websites, trade rags, or blogs that I read.  Or if it did I missed it.

FDA declares war on anti microbial soap

Just what the manufacturers need, an FDA order to run a bunch of expensive tests to prove that the anti microbial chemicals are safe in hand soap.  Fairer would be to require the FDA to run some tests proving the stuff is harmful.  The soaps have been on the market for 30 years or more and in all that time nobody has been hurt enough to sue. 
   I'm neutral on this one, I figure no germ can stand up to plain old soap or detergent and hot water.  So I don't buy anti microbial things.  I'm not deep enough into chemistry to really know one way or the other.  But I have noticed the tendency to label ordinary things hazardous material.  Even solid brass castings.  So I'm a little suspicious of the new born discovery of hazards lurking in something that's been on the market for years and years. 

The Volcker Rule

Paul Volcker, former head of Federal Reserve bank, widely admired financial expert.  He ran the Fed for many years or more with steady economic growth and no depressions. 
 
    Few newsies actually understand what the Volcker Rule is, but they are all in favor of it.  Volcker wants to restrict bank trading in stocks.  He wants to forbid banks from trading stocks "on their own account".  If a bank customer orders the bank to "get me 400 shares of XYZ corp", that's trading on the customer's account, and that's OK.  But for the bank to guess that XYZ stock is gonna take a dive, and dump it, or even worse, sell it short, that's verboten.  There are some other tricky exceptions, but Volcker clearly desires to keep banks from playing the market.
   Why you ask?  First off, banks have enough money to move a stock's value.  Buy up all the shares in sight, and the price of those shares goes up.  Dump a bunch of shares on the market and the price tanks.  Corporations hate this.
   Second, investing in the stock market is riskier than doing home mortgages.  A low speed, dumb guy bank can loose it's shirt in the market, and fail.  Fail means the depositors loose their deposits.  Everybody hates that.
   Back after Great Depression I, Congress decided that banks playing the market had caused the depression.  They passed the Glass Steagall act which forbid banks from buying or selling stocks at all.  That was 1933.  Glass Steagall was in effect right up until Willy Clinton was president.  The banks hated Glass Steagall and  they lobbied hard for its repeal and ten presidents after FDR turned a deaf ear.  Finally we came to Clinton, he listened to the pleas of the banks and got a repeal of Glass Steagall thru Congress sometime in the 1990's.
    Then we had Great Depression 2.0 in 2007.   The Fed people didn't want to actually reverse themselves and call for re instituting Glass Steagall.  But they did call for the Volcker Rule, which is Glass Steagall in more complicated language.  Welfare for lawyers. 
     Me, I think we oughta bring back Glass Steagall.  Any outfit, no matter what it calls itself, that has FDIC insured anything, may NOT play the stock market in any way shape or form.  You wanna trade stocks, you go to a stock broker.  Uncle Sam does NOT insure brokers or stock accounts, no way, no how.