On the contrary, I would argue that the problem with nuclear power is that, as is becoming increasingly clear, people's fears about it are *justified*. The current installed base of nuclear tech represents an enormous and unsolved long-term problem to produce what are, on a historical scale, very short-lived benefits. We should not be creating any additional problems for our posterity to deal with.

Thank God I never cited him. Whew! Close call.

Gwynne Dyer has written a book that is an excellent starting point for this issue: Climate Wars. He is a journalist and military historian who spent a year or two interviewing military planners who see exactly this issue on the horizon. Check out his website for a three-part radio series based on the book, for those who might not want to invest the time to read the entire book.

Downtown cores suck because they're designed that way, by people who hate them because they've never experienced anything better. Older, highly dense city cores in Europe, on the other hand, don't suck -- because thought was put into their design. Read James Howard Kunstler to find out more.

That's not the worst thing science has ever done to a mouse:

http://www.milk.com/wall-o-shame/polytron.html

"2012 will be a rich year for equity capitalizations, giving energy entrepreneurs the capital they need to build infrastructure." Sounds great, but it's wrong. The financial system is sick and corrupt and the capital he's talking about is largely an illusion. The major financial institutions (Citibank, JPMorgan, etc.) only present a facade of solvency because mark-to-market rules have been suspended, so they have been allowed to hold toxic assets on their books at the values their models predict (the models that were proved devastatingly wrong in the collapse of 2008) instead of what they could actually fetch in the market. If it were ever brought in contact with reality, the world financial system would die instantly. Instead it's basically being strung along by the U.S. federal government (i.e., taxpayers) in the hope that this was a one-time thing and at some point, something like solvency will return.

The fact is we are in a deflation right now, with debt-based capital disappearing from the system at a prodigious rate, while the U.S. Federal Reserve is using quantitative easing (i.e. manufacturing more debt on its own balance sheet) to hold the process back and try to restore growth. The financial system is sick just when we desperately need capital to start rebuilding our energy infrastructure. I would refer anyone to The Automatic Earth if they want to learn more about the energy and finance predicament that we're in.

Boo, you got there first! If I couldn't post first about DD, I wish I had some moderator points so I could upvote. Just hearing the name Danny Dunn makes me feel like I'm ten years old again, curled up at Riverside Library. Ah, memories...

Yes, but the U.S. is the first country in the history of balance-of-power politics to think that the failure of its main enemy (the USSR) entitles it to something like control of the entire world, forever. That was the goal of the Project for a New American Century that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice tried to enact for eight years, at a price that may yet cost the U.S. its pre-eminent position. And yet neoconservatives like William Kristol continue to promote this as though it were a good idea and facts recognized by the 'reality-based community' simply don't matter.
 

Link #1: http://kanewj.com/wbc/

"Phelps does not believe what he is doing. This is a scam." If you believe this guy (and he makes some telling observations), Phelps is in the business of pushing people's buttons so he can sue them for violating his rights. That's his and his family's living.

Link #2: http://www.robertslevinson.com/gaylesissues/features/collect/phelps/bl_phelpscourt.htm

Addicted to Hate: The Fred Phelps Story is an exposé written by Jon Bell for the Topeka Capital-Journal that was suppressed by the paper because they were too chickenshit to take on Phelps. Bell sued the paper to either publish it or, if they refused, let him have the rights to his work, but he got neither. Instead, the full text was entered in the court record so it is now a public document that anyone can read whether Phelps likes it or not. So it's kinda long, but if you want a portrait of what a twisted gruesome mofo Phelps really is, here's your chance. I pity his children -- they never really had a chance.

"-- for tomorrow, you sail for the kingdom... of Daggerfall." Many, many enjoyable hours I spent playing this game when I could (should) have been working on my thesis. Chief complaint: The repetitive dungeons, stitched together seemingly near-randomly from prefabbed bits and pieces that were repeated endlessly. Still, a great game.