July 19, 2010 by Dick.

A friend posted a news clip on Facebook, to wit:

Recently, a News 5 investigation collected samples from multiple beaches in and around the Gulf region. Samples were taken in areas where kids were playing and swimming. The results were absolutely terrifying.

Good thing she didn’t test for arsenic. Also a good thing she didn’t read any actual scientific papers, I replied.

It sure would be refreshing to find a local news anchor who had even the remotest clue about science.

Another Facebook buddy commented on the link.

“@Dick: Did you actually watch the clip? If you had, you would know that the comment about the sample came from an analytical chemist (a “he”), and you’d also know that the sample was being tested for oil concentration, and underwent a surprisingly violent reaction that destroyed its Erlenmeyer flask because it contained an unknown component (dispersant? methane? they didn’t know).”

Pfui. He was trolling, right? Surely he must have been trolling. If he has heard the word Erlenmeyer flask somewhere, then he has enough technical knowledge to understand that (a) the reporter had no idea what she was talking about, (b) the report was full of scare stuff and devoid of much science stuff, and © Erlenmeyer flasks have flat bottoms. Jessica Taloney (the “she” I referenced) was the reporter. I don’t know if she has a flat bottom.

Robert Naman, the chemist “she” interviewed, told us that sea water typically has about 5 ppm of oil. The reporter scared us by saying “from 16 ppm to 221 ppm, our results are concerning.” Why? She didn’t tell us if 221 gallons of oil in a million gallons of sea water is fatal to humans or if it is only a problem when she needs ratings. She didn’t tell us if the oil in the marina (the highest concentration she measured) was from Deepwater Horizon or from a leak on the boat she used to dip the water. Marinas usually have higher concentration of oil in the water than beaches. SHE DIDN’T TELL US BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.

But the comment about the sample came from an analytical chemist.

Woo hoo. I Googled. Didn’t find anything about Robert Naman in the ACS rolls. The exploded flask did “contain an unknown component” so they speculated on how bad it was but SHE DIDN’T TELL US WHAT BLEW UP BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.

“News 5 will test that water for chemicals, specifically chemicals linked to the dispersant being used in the Gulf, Corexit,” Ms. Taloney reported alarmingly.

Well, isn’t that special. Mr. Naman doesn’t know what caused the explosion but Ms. Taloney will make sure they hang it on a chemical she knows nothing about.

I’m not a chemist nor do I play one on TV. I have no idea, based on the “WKRG News” report, whether the amount of oil they found is a reasonable average for the areas they sampled, is toxic in the concentrations they did find, or even if it came from Deepwater Horizon. I have no idea because the reporter did such a lousy job. SHE DIDN’T TELL US BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.

Unfortunately, my Facebook buddy (and WKRG “News”) want to make it into something that keeps us scared.

Gulf. Seawater. Explodes. And that, dear reader, is how the media deceives us.

Posted in Newspaper "Science", Stupidity, Media, Random Access | 1 Comment »

June 7, 2010 by Dick.

“I missed fucking Asbestos Dust?” Rufus said. He was amazed. The rest of us about died.

For those just whooshed, Asbestos Dust is the nom-de-Net of a writer from Texas or Arkansas or maybe Alaska. I met him at a party in Pennsylvania to which Rufus was invited but did not attend.

Word choice makes a difference. Even word position makes a difference. “I fucking missed Asbestos Dust?” has a very different meaning than what Rufus actually said.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be,” Mark Twain wrote. Regular readers will realize that I use little profanity in real life and even less in my writings. I will not use any of the other seven dirty words here today; younger readers need not tune to a different channel.

On the other hand, I will take issue with how the anti-science crowd uses its words.

NPR’s Science Friday focused on new nuclear technologies in the episode broadcast March 5, 2010 . Guests included Earth Policy Institute founder Lester Brown, Scott Burnell, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission public affairs officer, John Deal, CEO of Hyperion Power Generation, and Professor Richard Lester who heads the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department at MIT.

“What is the future of nuclear power,” Mr. Brown asked himself. “It’s cost cost cost.”

Waste could kill nuclear power, he said. “Imagine if the billion dollar price tag [the per plant cost of the Yucca Mountain project] had been on the table when they were being considered, most of them would never have gotten off the ground.”

A billion dollar “extra” cost per plant sounds excessive, doesn’t it? It is exceptionally expensive if all you know is that one partial factoid.

“The volume of waste produced is very, very small,” Professor Lester said. A nuclear plant produces a couple of ounces of waste per person per year; a coal plant produces about 10 tons of waste per person per year. “We can afford to spend a lot of money on safely storing this material. The impact on the cost of nuclear electricity is actually very small.”

“Our cost … is just under 10 cents per KW-hour,” Mr. Deal said later. That includes the waste.

“What we have in this country, and that’s not going to help with the image of nuclear power, is the discovery that there are now 27 older plants with underground pipes that are leaking tritium, and tritium is a carcinogen,” Mr. Brown said. “In Vermont, as I recall, with the most recent instance occurring at Vermont Yankee.”

Tritium leaks sound pretty dangerous, don’t they? They are excruciatingly dangerous if all you know is one partial factoid.

The hydrogen isotope tritium is a by-product of modern nuclear reactor operations. It combines easily with oxygen to form “tritiated water” which can be ingested by drinking or eating organic foods. It is a radiation hazard when inhaled, ingested via food, water, or absorbed through the skin but, since tritium is not much of a beta emitter, it is not dangerous when simply nearby. It has a 7 to 14 day half life in the human body. That means a single-incident ingestion is not usually dangerous and it precludes accumulating tritium from the environment in your body long-term.

“There have been 27 instances … [but] they are not all ongoing,” Mr. Burnell said. “In the case of Vermont Yankee … the contamination is not reaching any drinking water sources; it’s not reaching the nearby Connecticut River. So it is not presenting any public health issue and we, at the NRC, are closely watching how Vermont Yankee is evaluating the situation to discover where the leak is coming from. We will make sure that they do identify it properly, that they fix it properly, and that in every instance they are doing what is necessary to operate the plant safely and in accordance with our regulations.”

“I’m not a geologist or an engineer,” Mr. Brown said as he evaluated the complex dance of creating and running a nuclear power plant. Ya think?

Word choice — what we actually say — makes a difference in what listeners understand. Mr. Brown certainly knows that. This is a real example of choosing words to propagandize rather than choosing to disclose the facts.

So, did we fucking miss A.D. or did we miss fucking him?

“It’s been too long since I had a taste of the Dust,” Rufus said.

There is no hope.

Posted in Newspaper "Science", Writing, Science (not-so-real), Science (real), Politics & News, Random Access | 2 Comments »

April 19, 2010 by Dick.

Not a wedding announcement.

Our Voices Exposed, a group of Enosburg Falls, Vermont, High School students met with the village Board of Trustees there a couple of weeks ago to ramp up the board about the negative impact of second hand smoke. On Tuesday night, the board passed an ordinance that bans smoking outside in the village’s two parks. The ban goes into effect on June 12, right after the Vermont Dairy Festival.

It would be bad politics — not to mention a financial disaster — to undermine Dairy Days in this state.

That vote comes on the heels of Burlington’s outdoor smoking ban enacted late last month. Burlington’s ordinance comes with hefty fines for those caught lighting up in city parks and on beaches: $50 to $200 per offense. Burlington also bans idling cars or trucks in the city.

Nannies.

My friend Rufus called them “ninnies. Imposing their stupidity on us.”

I can make all the cases against smoking. I started as a kid, filching Pall Malls from the long drawer atop my dad’s bureau. King size. Unfiltered. When I started buying my own, I switched to the smooth, mild Chesterfield. Ronald Reagan sent cartons of Chesterfields as Christmas gifts for “all my friends” in the ads he made. It is the smoke of True Romance. It wasn’t enough, though, so I eventually switched to the stronger, manlier Between the Acts. Now that little cigar was great for my cough and the smoke could clear a room faster than a dog fart.

I quit in 1976. See, I’m cheaper than I was cool and the carton price was about to hit $5. It was time.

Still, I understand why people smoke and why they want to. And I understand the dangers of second hand smoke. I don’t see much science behind a danger that says three parts per billion of tobacco tar in the atmosphere will cause global warming. Or hiccups in rats. Or something.

That’s political science.

I suspect that this Generation of Don’t wants to carry the nation to a total ban of smoking. They can’t get that passed, so they are nibbling away at it park by park. Starting with Vermont.

Maybe Rufus ain’t wrong after all.

Posted in Newspaper "Science", Society, Politics & News, PC, Random Access | 1 Comment »

April 16, 2010 by Dick.

REYKJAVIK (Reuters-United Press-FNN) — Iceland volcano Eyjafjallajökull continued to erupt today. Its enormous ash plume is visible from space. That ash has caused airlines to cancel thousands of flights and the World Health Organization to issue a warning to Europeans to stay indoors. Scientists say the chemical makeup and shape of the ash cloud’s dust particles will raise the planet temperature exponentially.

“Eyja” is the Icelandic word for island. “Fjalla” means mountain. “Jokull” is glacier.

Nobel Laureate, chairman of the Alliance for Climate Protection, and former United States Vice President Al Gore visited the Atlantic coast region of Iceland about 75 miles southeast of capital Reykjavik today where he met with volcanologist Hjálmar Hjálmarsson.

“I have seen and I have learned today,” Mr. Gore said.

“This plume is a case study about how eruptions impact this Earth,” Mr. Gore added. “We’re learning more and more about anthropogenic climate change and have determined that it is time for a major change.

“This is not the only eruption. Beneath the Caribbean Sea right now, the world’s deepest volcano spews super-heated mineral-rich liquids from chimney structures deep in the Cayman Trough onto the ocean floor. This eruption will eventually move north to melt more polar ice.

“And speaking of ice, the Eyjafjallajökull volcano has melted an entire glacier and is sending it straight to the sea.

“As we have learned in our studies of the deadly chemical carbon dioxide, the average temperature on Earth is increasing daily from the pleasant 59 degrees,” Mr. Gore said. “The average temperature on Venus is 867 degrees. That has nothing to do with the fact that Venus is closer to the Sun than we are. The fault is not in our star. The fault is the carbon dioxide and the volcanic eruptions. If we allow volcanic eruptions to continue here, the average temperature on Earth could begin to look more like the average temperature on Venus.

“Depending on the continuation of this eruption a third of the human race could die in the next three years, and the survivors could be living lives of struggle and hunger and hardship that nearly doomed the world in the Dark Ages.”

With about 130 volcanic mountains, Iceland has more active volcanoes than any other land. Eleven U.S. states have volcanoes. Arizona and New Mexico have eight each, California has nine, and Oregon tops the list with 21. Hawaii’s Kilauea is the subject of a Volcano Watch Orange. A few U.S. volcanoes have produced some of the largest and most dangerous eruptions in this century including Mount St. Helens, the active stratovolcano in Skamania County, Washington.

“Once again, Americans must come together and direct our government to take on a global challenge, Mr. Gore said. “American leadership is a precondition for success.

“I have issued a challenge to the United States Congress today to pass new legislation making the dispensing of illegal in the United States. With this one action we can take the first step to making the planet cleaner and safer for our children and grandchildren.”

Posted in Newspaper "Science", Funny, Random Access | 2 Comments »

December 28, 2009 by Dick.

The ups and downs of the decade. We made a bunch of great closeout deals but this column has room for only a few. Here are the top nine of 2009:

The downside: We may not have changed many of the Old Guard of pols but we surely did change how they do business inside the Beltway. They no longer throw billions of We the OverTaxedPeople’s dollars at problems.
The upside: Now they throw trillions.

Hoo wee. That’s change we can believe in!

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The downside: President Obama (praise be his name) stole General Motors from its rightful owners (that would be small stockholders like thee and me) and put Ed “I Came from the Phone Company So I Don’t Know Anything about Cars” Whitacre in charge.
The upside: Thanks to the soybean lobby, your new Chevy Condescension will be the first model to come with tofubags instead of the dangerous and expensive airbags as well as the new OnStar-by-AT&T. Rumors that OnStar service will also be available on your iPhone have not proven out.

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The downside: Democrats were appalled when President Obama nominated Senator Judd Gregg, R-NH, as his Secretary of Commerce. The U.S. Department of Commerce fosters, promotes, and develops business and industry. Democrats called Senator Gregg “too pro-business.”
The upside: Caroline Cartwright of Great Britain was arrested for noise levels that ranged between 30 and 40 decibels, with some squeaks “being 47 decibels” during sex. Bird calls are generally 44 dB.

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The downside: Congress passed without reading a $787 billion “stimulus package” that, instead of stimulating We the OverTaxedPeople who provided the money, all went for swine flu shots to bankers. Vermont had a looming two hundred million dollar budget deficit so the Democratically controlled legislature there decided to spend three hundred million dollars of its portion of that G.R.A.F.T. Act windfall to “stabilize” its budget. Since that wasn’t enough, the Democratically controlled legislature also raised taxes by $24 million dollars in order to make up for the revenue shortfall.
The upside: The Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize posthumously to Michael Jackson.

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The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency ruled that political science trumps actual science as a danger to human health and to the environment.
The upside: Millions of people flocked to Al Gore’s house in the Belle Meade neighborhood of Nashville where his Christmas decorationsand the upturned smiling faces were photographed from the International Space Station.

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The downside: Just two years ago, world leaders of 193 countries pledged to reverse the course of climate change in Denmark this year. When the hot air cleared in Copenhagen this month, there were two inches of snow on the ground, two pounds of faked “global warming” emails, and $200 billion dollars in a Global Relief fund. Guess who they want to pick up the tab?
The upside: Each world leader flew to Denmark in one or more private airliners thus reducing the worldwide surplus of Jet A and Jet A-1 petroleum-based fuels.

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The downside: In a strange coincidence, the International Olympic Committee also meeting in Copenhagen voted not to award the 2016 Summer Olympics to Chicago for fear that a fire in former Governor Rod Blagojevich’s hair might undermine the new “pay to play” Olympic game category.
The upside: The one billion dollar Cash for Clunkers program which cost three billion dollars left an estimated 643,000 1974 Ford Pintos on Illinois and Michigan highways as entry level vehicles for migrant farmers and high school students.

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The downside: The Environmental Protection Agency said it will increase the percentage of ethanol in gasoline to 15% by next June. Ethanol producers and most newspapers say the higher blends will increase fuel economy, create more jobs in the industry, and increase government payments to ethanol producers by $787 billion.
The upside: The Social Security Administration announced that since Congress will lock fuel prices at $4.599 per gallon through 2012, the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) can remain fixed at 0% for the same period.

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The downside: The U.S. economy has shed 15.4 million or more jobs including those once held by Rufus, Biff, and my wife, Anne.
The upside: The $787 billion “stimulus package” has created an estimated 643,000 brand new jobs (roughly identical to the number of saved 1974 Ford Pintos). All the new employees are dedicated to maintaining the White House website that tracks new jobs.

We have, as a nation, spent the entire decade unwilling to learn from our mistakes. Change We Can Believe In! certainly changed all of that and we are this >||< close to ObamaCare to prove it.

You can’t make this stuff up. Happy New Decade, everyone!

Posted in Government Motors, What? Are They Nuts?, ObamaCare, History, Global Warming, Newspaper "Science", Banking, Science (not-so-real), Politics & News, Society, Business, Cars, Random Access | 3 Comments »