Think Intelligent Design’s ‘war’ on evolutionary science is wholly innocuous? Think again

Death threats against university science professors are not innocuous.

It’s despicable that at least one IDer, probably mentally supported by others, believes that since you can’t win this as an intellectual or legal battle, it’s time to actually make it a physical battle.

40-gig Internet speed

But, you won’t find it here, you have to go to Sweden:

Sigbritt will now be able to enjoy 1,500 high definition HDTV channels simultaneously. Or, if there is nothing worth watching there, she will be able to download a full high definition DVD in just two seconds.

Knowing the monopolistic tendencies of telecom/cable, we’ll get something like this in the U.S. in about, oh, 30 years, for about $99 a month in today’s prices.

November is the new September for Iraq surge analysis

MSNBC notes that November is now September for assessing the Iraq surge of additional troops:

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters after a Senate hearing Thursday that he would need beyond September to tell if improvements in Iraq represent long-term trends.

“In order to do a good assessment I need at least until November” said Odierno, a deputy to Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq.

Come November, January will be the next September, according to Odierno, Petraeus or Ryan Crocker, all singing from the Tom Friedman/Herbert Hoover hymnal that old neo-con standby, “Victory is Just Around the Corner.”

No, victory isn’t. But more bullshit is. So is more lying. More dysfunctionality. And more needless, senseless death. Remember, Petraeus has already made noise about a second surge next year.

More details on how KKR took Environmental Defense for a ride over its TXU purchase

Will ED fess up to being played like a cheap violin? It will if it wants any more of my green money for its green causes

The Dallas Morning News has an excellent three-part series documenting how TXU would have had the same cutback in building coal-fired power plants as KKR has proposed, how the bought-out TXU could be made the cornerstone of a national utility company, an area where thee is no federal regulation to speak of, plus potential to challenge existing state regulations; and will almost certainly lead to higher electric prices starting in 2009.
In short, any “green” intention of KKR was already in the works, for the sake of the green of higher profits, without an ED “greenwash.”

The bottom line comes from the first story, from a private report commissioned by the News:

Our conclusion is that the buyout of TXU provides no inherent benefits to the customer. All of the commitments being made by the buyers could be offered by TXU today — if it had the incentive to do so. …

The buyers are offering the customer what TXU may have been forced to offer by regulators due to concerns over market manipulation and global warming or compelled to offer by the business imperative of stemming customer attrition and repairing reputation. Therefore, there is no net gain for the customer as the deal is currently described. …

The buyer commitment to terminate eight of the 11 planned TXU coal-fired plants was the public relations angle used to launch the buyout. …

There is reason to believe that TXU's high retail customer electricity prices, alleged price manipulation, poor handling of its proposed coal projects, negative environmental positions, flagging reputation, retail customer attrition and apparent CEO excesses would have forced the company to offer most of the same 'concessions' as the buyers are touting.

The complete report is available here, by going to the “see the complete report” link under the DigitalEXTRA header, which will download it as a Word document. It goes on to fault Texas laws and the Texas Legislature:

With a legislature that seems to have stalled in creating the laws that would have tuned-up deregulation and provided further protection against global warming, against high rates and against market power abuses, Texas customers must now rely upon the good faith of the buyers, a belief in market forces, and the ability of the PUCT to monitor and enforce existing laws.

In the third story, on the rate issue, the report said to watch out for bait-and-switch tactics:

TXU has the opportunity in the near term to price low enough to win new customers or, at a minimum, stanch the bleeding of existing customers. Then, in December 2008, when TXU is no longer committed to keeping rates low, they can raise prices again.

And, if you live in North Texas and this deal goes through, you might have more power outages that take longer to be fixed:

Reliability might be affected by the new owner's reticence to make capital expenditures. Private equity funds' principal objectives of providing returns to their owners and investors can pose an inherent conflict with utilities' needs for long-term capital investment as well as innovation to ensure long term resource adequacy.

I have felt for some time that ED got snookered, and that perhaps deal-leader William Riley was trading a bit too much on his name and Bush 41 presidential connections. This confirms it.

Now, the $64,000 question: Will ED own up to being played for KKR’s PR, and repudiate its greenwashing of the deal? I’m not holding my breath, but I am holding future contributions to ED until it fesses up.

Bush tells Congress ‘shove it’ on any idea of contempt charges

Will House Judiciary move beyond contempt charges against Bush staff to actually start looking at impeachment?

The president has officially folded, spindled, and mutilated executive privilege.

Bush administration officials unveiled a bold new assertion of executive authority yesterday in the dispute over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, saying that the Justice Department will never be allowed to pursue contempt charges initiated by Congress against White House officials once the president has invoked executive privilege. ....

Mark J. Rozell, a professor of public policy at George Mason University who has written a book on executive-privilege issues, called the administration's stance "astonishing."

“That’s a breathtakingly broad view of the president's role in this system of separation of powers,” Rozell said. “What this statement is saying is the president's claim of executive privilege trumps all.”

Impeachment is the only ultimate answer to this. And, it’s got clearer grounds, even, than anything war-related.

Car CO2 emissions problem solved?

A trio of Welshmen claim they have invented a carbon dioxide capture box that, when attached to a car’s tailpipe would capture 85-95 percent of its CO2 emissions.

Now, right now, it’s about the size of a barstool, but they claim they can get it small enough to be realistically used on a car.

That said, how’s it work? It uses algae; the group stumbled upon the idea while experimenting with using CO2 to boost algae growth for fish farming. The CO2 is contained in the box, which replaces a muffler. At each gasoline fill-up, the gases are exhausted out into an algae tank. The algae are eventually crushed and distilled into biodiesel.

The inventors believe they can also capture nitrogen oxides; they also believe that their invention can eventually be used for power plants.

And, they have talked to GM and Toyota, they say.

Now, a couple of questions.

• How long does it take to vent out this green box? If it takes 10-15 minutes, people aren’t going to want to do that while they’re getting gas.
• What’s the cost, even when it’s scaled into commercial production?
• How long does a unit last?
• If it replaces a muffler, what about noise issues in urban areas? Can it be further engineered to instead combine with a catalytic converter? Or would that cause back-pressure problems?
• And, I have the first three questions in spades about trying to ramp this up to a coal-fired electric power plant.

I don’t mean to be pooh-poohing it; I am legitimately curious, especially if they can meet their claim that they can install it in power plants, and do so economically.

Here's a diagram of the process: