| Friday, July
18, 2008 Psychic Nearly
Destroys Family
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080717-bad-psychics.html
"Consider the case of Colleen Leduc, a single mother
of an autistic eleven-year-old girl in Barrie, Ontario. On May 30, she left
her daughter Victoria at her elementary school. Leduc was soon called back
to the school urgently, and confronted by the principal, Victoria's teacher,
and a teacher's aide (educational assistant, or EA). Puzzled and alarmed,
Leduc asked what was going on. The group told her that they believed that
Victoria was being sexually abused. They had contacted the Children's Aid
Society, a case file had been opened, and her daughter might be taken from
her "for her own safety."
Leduc was shocked by the explanation: "The teacher
looked at me and said: 'We have to tell you that Victoria's EA went to see a
psychic and the psychic asked her if she works with a little girl with the
initial V. When the EA said yes, the psychic said, 'Well, you need to know
that this girl is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and
26.'" The EA reported it to the teacher, who then went to the principal, and
so on.
Because Victoria is autistic <http://www.livescience.com/health/080401-bad-vaccine.html>
, the child couldn't speak for herself about the alleged abuse. Leduc didn't
believe the psychic's allegations, and said they could not be true since her
daughter did not even come in contact with any men of those ages.
Furthermore, Leduc could prove it: Because of Victoria's disability, Leduc
had equipped her daughter with a GPS tracking system and a continuous audio
recorder. A review of the audio proved that at no point was Victoria
sexually abused in any way by anyone."
Hmm, spectral evidence, that sounds familiar for some
reason. Wasn't there some discussion about that on this side of the border?
Graves
Spectral Evidence. Psychics. But what we have to
worry about is allowing any alternative to Darwinism being taught in
schools. After all, spectral evidence is only "controversial"; there are
plenty of precedents. How many were hanged as witches on spectral evidence?
Plenty of precedent.
An EA went to a psychic. And that is to be taken
seriously by the police.
I had not intended to start today's mail with this,
but I find it very disturbing.
==========
Oil prices going down sharply but it's TOTALLY NOT
SPECULATION OK???
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080717/oil_prices.html
So oil prices are starting to go down, and apparently
they're going down faster than anyone expected.
So I guess this means that there are massive new
sources of supply reaching the market, right? Because we've got all those
smart people telling us that prices can't POSSIBLY be driven be speculation.
It's IMPOSSIBLE for there to be an energy bubble, because all those smart
people tell us that oil price is entirely a function of supply and demand.
And these smart people are very smart indeed, far smarter than you or me.
Just ask them.
-- Mike T. Powers
Speculators help even out wild price swings. The
best way to bring oil prices down right now is to reliably announce new
supply. It will work like magic. But of course our political leaders don't
seem to understand this or much of anything else. Certainly Gore doesn't.
Demand goes up; if supply isn't seen to be
following the prices will rise.
===========
: oil supply and demand.
Hi Jerry
Since we are talking about oil, I suspect that the
advent of THAI is hardly known as yet. They have had a very successful field
test on deeper tarsands near Fort McMurrey.
The real importance is that it can be used everywhere
difficult to recover reserves are available, although they quite rightly are
focusing on the easy stuff.
Simply put a directional production well is drilled
along the floor of an oil reservoir typical of horizontal drilling now
universal. A second vertical air injection well is drilled close to the
'toe' or end of pipe.
Thereupon air is injected under some pressure until
combustion is initiated. This develops a burn front that also absorbs the
combustion gases and all the heat. The combination of pressure, heat and
steam serves to induce a reforming of the feedstock into higher quality oil
which flows to the production pipe with a fifty percent water cut.
They are working with gravity 12 or less and
recovering gravity 15 or better. Far more important is that recoveries of in
excess of 70% is been reported.
This burn front is sustained for the years required to
retreat back to the heel of the production well. This methodology alone will
liberate most of the Canadian tar sands with very little environmental
issues.
It just does not end there. Every depleted field that
can be dried out is a prime prospect for this technology. A reservoir
retaining its fifty percent plus of unrecoverable oil can now be tackled.
The combination of reforming and the natural injection of hot CO2 into the
oil in place will bubble most of it out. and only a little is actually
burned.
What this all means is that we have now added several
trillion barrels of known oil to global reserves recoverable at under $20.00
per barrel.
It may take another couple of years for this shoe to
drop but we can all wait for it.
It sounds like you are on the mend.
arclein
I know nothing of any of this. If it's true surely
it will happen?
==
Alternative Energy
I've been reading the alternative energy discussion
with great interest, but I note that no one has mentioned a very simple
item: solar water heating. I live in South Florida, and my electric bills
dropped over $25 per month once I junked my electric water heater.
Would this not be a small, positive step for most
folks in the southern part of the country to take? I imagine that there
would be some benefit even to those who lie in the Great White North (to me,
anyone living north of Tallahassee).
I do understand that this is a very small step; but we
have to start somewhere!
Best wishes for a full recovery,
Linda Scheeren
Roof top pool and bath heating is very cost
effective in some regions.
============
Is This The Future of Book
Publishing?
Will Amazon eliminate both the agent and the
publisher? If so will this help or hurt authors?
www.forbes.com/technology/2008/
07/17/authors-amazon-iuniverse-tech
-ebiz-cx_sm_0718authors.html
Bob Fox
It is something to think about. Clearly she found
the right investment formula.
Spam book promotion will I think have diminishing
returns and rather rapidly at that. Of course if you have enough friends who
will not reject your mailing as spam...
==========
Even the greens ask, "Is Al Gore nuts?"
Jerry,
Al Gore’s call for a US commitment to a crash program
to convert all power generation to 100% renewable energy sources similar to
JFK’s call to “land a man on the moon” gives one man pause
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-
9994015-54.html?part=rss&subj=
news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5
Nuclear power always gets short shrift in these
articles, but I’m glad to see at least some acknowledgement that
transmission capacity and red tape are problems that need attention if we
are to keep up with increases in demand, let alone shift the entire energy
infrastructure of the nation.
Best wishes for your continued recovery,
Jim
Well, I can guess the answer to that question....
==========
Climate scientist changes his mind
Dear Jerry,
You may find this article from today’s ‘Australian’ of
interest:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
‘The evidence was not conclusive, but why wait until
we were certain when it appeared we needed to act quickly? Soon government
and the scientific community were working together and lots of science
research jobs were created. We scientists had political support, the ear of
government, big budgets, and we felt fairly important and useful (well, I
did anyway). It was great. We were working to save the planet.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the
case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007
the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and
was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously
said, "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"’
Best wishes for a speedy recovery from Queensland
Andrew Colin.
A well financed consensus is hard to retire.
==
More climate science
Jerry:
More on (bad) climate science. Well worth the read.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3249
<http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=3249>
Chris C
===========
The Declining Value of Your College Degree
Jerry,
More fuel for the fire regarding the discussions on
globalization and education:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12162
3686919059307.html?mod=yhoofront.
Here are a couple of excerpts:
----- College-educated workers are more plentiful,
more commoditized and more subject to the downsizings that used to be the
purview of blue-collar workers only. What employers want from workers
nowadays is more narrow, more abstract and less easily learned in college."
-----
A variety of economic forces are at work here.
Globalization and technology have altered the types of skills that earn
workers a premium wage; in many cases, those skills aren't learned in
college classrooms. And compared with previous generations, today's college
graduates are far more likely to be competing against educated immigrants
and educated workers employed overseas.
The issue isn't a lack of economic growth, which was
solid for most of the 2000s. Rather, it's that the fruits of growth are
flowing largely to "a relatively small group of people who have a particular
set of skills and assets that lots of other people don't," says Mr.
Bernstein. And that "doesn't necessarily have that much to do with your
education." In short, a college degree is often necessary, but not
sufficient, to get a paycheck that beats inflation.
Economists chiefly cite globalization and technology,
which have prompted employers to put the highest value on abstract skills
possessed by a relatively small group, for this state of affairs. Harvard
University economists Lawrence Katz and Claudia Goldin argue that in the
1990s, it became easier for firms to do overseas, or with computers at home,
the work once done by "lower-end college graduates in middle management and
certain professional positions." This depressed these workers' wages, but
made college graduates whose work was more abstract and creative more
productive, driving their salaries up.
------
CP, Connecticut.
Our bloated education system has a long response
time...
==========
Subject: Fred on AIPAC and Congress
Dr. P,
http://www.fredoneverything.net/FOE_Frame_Column.htm
http://www.fredoneverything.net/Israel.shtml
By far Fred's best work in a long time.
Matt Kirchner
=========
More Squid Ink From David Brooks
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?
q=ZmRkMmM5YTJmZGJhNDA0NjhiY
mI3YWJjNTUyMTkzNTA=
-- John
=========
Jerry:
Your remarks sometime ago concerning the conundrum of
a universe of rising entropy producing such entities as Carl Sagan and
Shakespeare reminded me of something I read long ago in Durant's "Story of
Philosophy." I found it just today (it's from the section on "Mind and
Brain", and is part of the discussion on consciousness, free will, and
materialism):
===
If the present moment contains no living and creative
choice, and is totally and mechanically the product of the matter and motion
of the moment before, then so was that moment the mechanical effect of the
moment that preceded it, and that again of the one before ... and so on,
until we arrive at the primeval nebula as the total cause of every later
event, of every line of Shakespeare's plays, and every suffering of his
soul; so that the somber rhetoric of Hamlet and Othello, of Macbeth and
Lear, in every clause and every phrase, was written far off there in the
distant skies and the distant aeons, by the structure and content of that
legendary cloud. What a draft upon credulity! What an exercise of faith such
a theory must demand in this unbelieving generation! What mystery or
miracle, of Old Testament or New, could be half so incredible as this
monstrous fatalistic myth, this nebula composing tragedies?
===
Be well,
-- rick grehan
Fairly close to my view. I just don't believe that
the primordial cloud was destine to perform Swan Lake...
==============
On Alcohol as fuel:
David Blume on Alcohol Production
Hi, Jerry - David Blume was on Coast last night,
making the case for alcohol fuels. It made for a decent show; Blume is a
compelling speaker, and seems to have a firm grasp on the topic.
He's right when he claims that alcohol is a cleaner
fuel than gasoline; it does burn far more completely, and releases virtually
nothing into the atmosphere. It has a lower energy content than gasoline;
this means that fuel tanks powering existing engines have to be about 15%
larger. However, it has a higher octane rating. Blume claims that engines
designed to take advantage of this fact (with higher compression ratios) can
realize a net gain in miles per gallon, when compared with gasoline engines.
There are a couple of problems with alcohol as a fuel.
First, the government heavily regulates distillation, with the result that
home distillation of alcohol is next to impossible to achieve legally. Blume
claims otherwise, and bears the scars; he's been arrested for illegal
alcohol production. Still, Blume claims that there are legal mechanisms that
can be used so as to allow the individual to distill alcohol for use as a
fuel. (In Canada, it seems even tougher; my limited research shows that
there are so many hoops to jump through, that it would take a team of
lawyers years to satisfy the demands. I suspect that was the intention.)
I would also point out that there are many people that
make equally strident claims that there is no legal reason to pay income
tax; and there are a lot of people behind bars, because they believed those
claims. Before you start distilling alcohol at home, I would suggest you
check with an attorney.
But the biggest problem is that alcohol as a fuel
doesn't scale well. Blume claims that he can make alcohol for about 30 cents
a gallon, using discarded donuts from the local bakery. All well and good,
and he probably can do it; but how many discarded donuts are there? Enough
for all of us? I rather doubt it.
Blume also claims that homeowners with acreages can
channel their raw sewage into what are essentially open cesspools, in order
to grow cattails which can be harvested for alcohol production. I suspect
that cattails will grow quite well in an open sewer. So will cholera, and a
few billion other nasty things. I cannot endorse this plan, given my current
understanding of his intentions.
Do the numbers scale well? Sadly, when we look at the
production figures for alcohol crops, we find that they do not. Blume claims
that a field of sugar beets can produce 1,000 to 1,200 gallons of alcohol
per acre. If so, it would take a new agricultural area roughly equal to the
state of Texas, in order to supply all the motor fuel we need. This ignores
the fact that not all of Texas is prime agricultural land; and that some of
it is actually already being used for other things. Dallas and Houston come
to mind.
The ValCent Vertigro system that I reported on earlier
can achieve the same thing, using only 2.5% of the area of Texas; it's
obviously a much more efficient system. The good news is that bacteria exist
that create alcohol as a byproduct; were the Vertigro technology to be
adapted to produce alcohol, we could probably create sufficient alcohol to
meet the fuel demands of the country. Failing that, a conventional
distillation process could probably also work.
I like the general philosophy and direction of Blume's
work; but it's important that we keep at least one foot grounded in reality.
We drastically need a new, potent, abundant and renewable source of energy
that is created entirely within the United States; and we need it now. To
this point, closed loop hydroponics as a mechanism of generating energy rich
plants, seems the best method of achieving the goal.
Such a method will provide abundant energy for all of
us; not just those few of us lucky to have the peculiar combination of
resources necessary to distill alcohol.
Best wishes, Charlie
I heard the broadcast. I was struck by the fact
that -- he reports, and I guess I believe it -- Brazil imports no oil, and
has a rapidly growing economy.
As to immediate technologies, we know how to build
nuclear power plants, although we might have to imprison some lawyers and
demonstrators. If France and Japan can do it, why can't we?
==========
Psychic evidence
> Spectral Evidence. Psychics. But what we have to
worry about is allowing > any alternative to Darwinism being taught in
schools. After all, spectral > evidence is only "controversial"; there
are plenty of precedents. How many > were hanged as witches on spectral
evidence? Plenty of precedent. > > An EA went to a psychic. And that is
to be taken seriously by the police.
You think there might be some connection there?
Scientists didn't burn witches. The church burned
witches and the civil authorities burned witches, based on what religion
taught them.
So now science is held in lower and lower repute every
year by average people. Probably not one non-scientist in a thousand can
define the Scientific Method, and you wonder how they can accept crap like
psychic evidence?
And you're not helping by defending the whackos who
are pushing intelligent design, or whatever they're calling it this month.
As you must know, there *is* no alternative to evolution, or perhaps I
should say that there is no scientific alternative. As you must know,
evolution is as well-established as any other scientific theory, and better
than most. And, as you must also know, a theory in the scientific sense is
the next closest thing to a fact.
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com
Amazing.
Spectral evidence was accepted in Massachusetts,
but a number of civil authorities rejected the whole notion. There's a lot
of literature on the subject -- and all of it irrelevant in the present
case.
You contend that suppression and censorship are a
better way to defend what you are calling the scientific method than
rational discussion.
Your theory, carried to its logical end, says that
what I think and what you think are irrelevant, because it's all determined,
just as the Big Bang Stuff would inevitably perform Swan Lake and generate
Carl Sagan; to which I can only say if you believe that you have the faith
that will move mountains.
What is usually put forth as the theory of
evolution is generally not well presented, and inconsistent. There may be
plenty of experts who really understand what they are saying, but I never
get to meet them. The people I meet eventually resort to censorship as their
best means of discussion.
Reductionism has been responsible for as many ills
as any faith, and for about the same reason. The unexamined life is not
worth living, and unexamined theories are not worth propagating. But that's
an old fashioned Thomistic view of the world, and quite lost to nearly
everyone.
The Church (Catholic Church) tried suppression and
censorship, not once but many times, with pretty bad results: bad for the
Church.
Censorship and suppression can work, for a while,
but it takes a totalitarian state, which is pretty hard to maintain in this
modern age.
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