Imagine a world where Oil Men and Coal Magnates don't run the White House. I know I do:

Is small the future of nuclear power generation?
Distributed energy generation, hailed by most environmentalists as the future of sustainable electricity production, is about powering a country with hundreds, potentially thousands, of renewable and clean energy systems with some help from natural gas.

It's efficient because power is generated where it's used. It's flexible because projects can be built quickly when needed. It saves money in the long run because there's less need for expensive transmission lines that carry the power elsewhere. And if one generator fails, its relatively small size means it doesn't threaten the stability of the entire system...

...argues one start-up firm from Santa Fe, N.M., which has high hopes of expanding the definition of distributed generation to include nuclear power.

Hyperion Power Generation Inc. has developed a garden shed-sized nuclear reactor that can produce enough heat to generate 25 megawatts of electricity for up to 10 years.

That's enough energy to power 20,000 homes, but still tiny by current nuclear standards. An Advanced Candu Reactor, for example, is 48 times larger and a next-generation Areva reactor is 64 times larger.

Hyperion, which calls its reactor as a "nuclear battery," licensed the technology from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. It plans to sell the reactor for about $30 million (U.S.) and says there's potential to sell 4,000 of them around the world by 2025.

The company already claims more than $2 billion worth of orders in the pipeline and more than 100 "firm" orders...

Source: TheStar.com

...a new day abornin'...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 8:04 pm - permalink | comments[0]

The 6-hour BBC special The Story of India begins its run on PBS tonight. I have really been looking forward to this:

The Story of India

The world's largest democracy and a rising economic giant, India is now as well known across the globe for its mastery of computer technology as it is for its many-armed gods and its famous spiritual traditions. But India is also the world's most ancient surviving civilization, with unbroken continuity back into prehistory.

Like other great civilizations-Greece or Egypt, for example-over the millennia it has enjoyed not just one but several brilliant golden ages in art and culture. Its great thinkers and religious leaders have permanently changed the face of the globe. But while the glories of Rome, Egypt, and Greece, have all been the subject of TV portraits, as yet there has been no television story of India on our screens. This series sets out for the first time to do that: to show a world audience the wonders of India; the incredible richness and diversity of its peoples, cultures and landscapes; and the intense drama of its past, including some of the most momentous, exciting and moving events in world history.

India's history is a ten thousand year epic but for over two millennia, India has been at the center of world history...

Source: The Story of India

...fabulous...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 7:46 pm - permalink | comments[0]

I'm trying to think of any human on the planet who might be more transparently inauthentic and unbelievable than TV shill Billy Mays. Nope, drawing a blank:

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 5:21 pm - permalink | comments[2]

Oh, no, another sagging market. When can we expect this to bounce back?:

Demand For Breast Implants Going Down With Economy
We've already mentioned that the recession is hurting plastic surgeons and Botox purveyers as some women aren't electing to do such cosmetic surgery anymore. The latest sub-division of plastic surgery to be hit by the recession: breast implants.

NY Daily News: "The number of the bigger surgeries has gone down for sure," said Dr. David Shafer, a Manhattan plastic surgeon. Breast enlargement surgery can cost anywhere from $4,000 to more than $10,000.

"People are definitely thinking twice right now," said Dr. Sydney Coleman, another Manhattan surgeon. He said his colleagues in the lucrative field are starting to feel the pinch. "They're complaining about it," he said, "and they don't usually complain."...

Coleman said his practice saw an 18% plunge in October, when the financial panic reached a fever pitch, though business has improved somewhat since...

Source: Silicon Alley Insider Business Sheet

...badda-bing...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 4:18 pm - permalink | comments[0]

I've been consistently predicting since August of 2007 (that's 2007, not 2008) that our financial masters would dump all their investment losses onto the backs of Joe Sixpack. I feel so proud:

New York Fed Begins Purchases of Agency Mortgage Debt
Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Bank of New York started buying mortgage-backed securities today as part of a $500 billion program to support the U.S. housing market.

The New York Fed "began purchasing fixed-rate mortgage- backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae," the Fed bank said in a statement released by e- mail. "Selected private investment managers are acting as agents of the New York Fed in these purchases."

The central bank didn't disclose the amount of the purchases, saying such details will be available on the New York Fed's website beginning Thursday, Jan. 8, and will be updated each Thursday.

The Fed chose BlackRock Inc., Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Pacific Investment Management Co. and Wellington Management Co. to manage the $500 billion purchase of mortgage- backed securities it plans to complete by June.

The collapse of U.S. mortgage finance last year led to the worst credit crisis in seven decades and triggered writedowns and losses at financial institutions exceeding $1 trillion...

Source: Bloomberg

...this has nothing to do with saving homeowners. All of these banks and investment houses have been insolvent for the last 18 months. This is simply a means of offloading their worthless paper at full value. They win, the bonuses go on, and you lose.

This was no 'accident' or 'tragedy,' but rather a carefully designed scheme by the affluent to further enrich themselves. Yet they are asked to pay no price nor take any responsibility. You get the tab. Have a nice day.

Well, at least we're no longer pretending what this place is all about...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 9:52 am - permalink | comments[0]

Robot evolution at its finest. Camille Paglia may be right, our best creative artistic efforts may be in advertising:

...I don't know what that woman is saying but it's making me nervous...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 9:18 am - permalink | comments[0]

The end of an academic era approaches. The Dreamers are awakening:

The Nature-Nurture Debate, Redux
If sociologists ignore genes, will other academics - and the wider world - ignore sociology?

Some in the discipline are telling their peers just that. With study after study finding that all sorts of personal characteristics are heritable - along with behaviors shaped by those characteristics - a see-no-gene perspective is obsolete.

Nor, these scholars argue, is it reasonable to concede that genes play some role but then to loftily assert that geneticists and the media overstate that role and to go on conducting studies as if genes did not exist. How, exactly, do genes shape human lives, interact with environmental forces, or get overpowered by those forces? "We do ourselves a disservice if we don't engage in those arguments," says Jason Schnittker, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. "If we stay on the ropes, people from a different perspective, with a more extreme view, will be making them."...

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

...perhaps why none of our social programs have shown any success these last 50 years. "It ain't so much the things you don't know that get you in trouble. It's the things you know that just ain't so." - Artimus Ward (1834-1867)...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 8:46 am - permalink | comments[0]

Paul Krugman is giving me the willies this morning:

Fighting Off Depression
"If we don't act swiftly and boldly," declared President-elect Barack Obama in his latest weekly address, "we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment." If you ask me, he was understating the case.

The fact is that recent economic numbers have been terrifying, not just in the United States but around the world. Manufacturing, in particular, is plunging everywhere. Banks aren't lending; businesses and consumers aren't spending. Let's not mince words: This looks an awful lot like the beginning of a second Great Depression....

Source: Paul Krugman in the NY Times

...brrrr...

posted Mon 05 Jan 2009 8:34 am - permalink | comments[0]

Another corrupt pol? Why not?:

Richardson Withdraws Name as Commerce Secretary-Designee
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name from consideration as commerce secretary for President-elect Barack Obama, citing an ongoing investigation about business dealings in his state.

Richardson, 61, who competed unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination, was secretary of energy and U.N. ambassador during Bill Clinton's presidency, and also the first high-profile Latino named to Obama's Cabinet.

But a grand jury in New Mexico is currently looking into charges of "pay-to-play" in the awarding of a state contract to a company that contributed to Richardson.

The importance of the inquiry was apparently dismissed when Richardson was first nominated. But it may have taken on more weight in light of the "pay-to-play" allegations involving Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich...

Source: Washington Post

...we've gotten to the point in the Banana Republic of America that there's no reason to assume any of them are without sin...

posted Sun 04 Jan 2009 5:41 pm - permalink | comments[0]

Market politics for the Nation O' Whores:

A Donor's Gift Soon Followed Clinton's Help
WASHINGTON - An upstate New York developer donated $100,000 to former President Bill Clinton's foundation in November 2004, around the same time that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton helped secure millions of dollars in federal assistance for the businessman's mall project.

Mrs. Clinton helped enact legislation allowing the developer, Robert J. Congel, to use tax-exempt bonds to help finance the construction of the Destiny USA entertainment and shopping complex, an expansion of the Carousel Center in Syracuse.

Mrs. Clinton also helped secure a provision in a highway bill that set aside $5 million for Destiny USA roadway construction.

The bill with the tax-free bonds provision became law in October 2004, weeks before the donation, and the highway bill with the set-aside became law in August 2005, about nine months after the donation.

Mr. Congel and Philippe Reines, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, both said there was no connection between his donation and her legislative work on his project's behalf...

Source: NY Times

...we not only get what we deserve, we get what we demand...

posted Sun 04 Jan 2009 10:05 am - permalink | comments[0]