Face
Original post by Scytle
Federal Judge Rules On FEMA Blundering
Today a federal judge ruled that FEMA will have to immediately begin paying back rent to thousands of hurricane Rita and Katrina survivors.
Judge Richard J. Leon of federal district court in the District of Columbia, wrote that FEMA must also improve its appeals process. Evacuees have long complained of mountains of red tape, that make it almost impossible to get help.
from here
“It is unfortunate, if not incredible, that FEMA and its counsel could not devise a sufficient notice system to spare these beleaguered evacuees the added burden of federal litigation to vindicate their constitutional rights,” the judge wrote.
Read 
Read the rest of Federal Judge Rules On FEMA Blundering
Supreme Court To Hold Hearings On Carbon Dioxide
Today the supreme court tackles the issue of global warming, specifically if the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide. 12 states, three cities, 13 environmental groups and a ski resort want the EPA to cap the gas in an effort to help slow global warming. However the Bush administrations EPA says they don’t have the authority to regulate the co2 and even if they did the science isn’t “good enough” to know what to do about it.
At issue is a part of the clean air act that states..
2) In determining priorities for promulgating standards for categories of major stationary sources for the purpose of paragraph (1), the Administrator shall consider -
(A) the quantity of air pollutant emissions which each such category will emit, or will be designed to emit;
(B) the extent to which each such pollutant may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare; and
(C) the mobility and competitive nature of each such category of sources and the consequent need for nationally applicable new source standards of performance.
Section B leads many to assume that co2 is in fact a pollutant and does in fact need to be managed.
Read Read the rest of Supreme Court To Hold Hearings On Carbon Dioxide
Masses
Original post by Scytle
American Involvement In Iraq Longer Than In World War Two
As of today, America has been involved in the war in Iraq longer than we were in world war two. As of yesterday American forces will have been in Iraq for 3 years and 8 months. A comparison to other wars:
- The Revolutionary War lasted for 8 years and 2 months.
- The American Civil War lasted 4 years, ending on April 9, 1865.
- The Spanish-American War began on February 15, 1898, and ended in the same year, on July 17.
- World War I lasted 4 years and just under 5 months.
- The U.S. role in World War II started in December of 1941; it ended with the Japanese surrender in 1945.
- The U.S. involvement in Vietnam lasted well over a decade, until Saigon fell to North Vietnam on April 30, 1975.
Read Read the rest of American Involvement In Iraq Longer Than In World War Two
Fest
Original post by Scytle
Monday Confessional
First off what I did today:
When stuff starts to rot it can do several things. If the thing rotting is decomposing in a nice oxygen filled environment then it will attract some nice little aerobic bacteria. If however there is not any oxygen around (or very very little oxygen) you get these little beasties called Anaerobic bacteria eating the rotting stuff. These little guys are pretty good at breaking down organic matter that has say, become lodged under a bed of oysters, or become trapped in muck at the bottom of the ocean.
One of the amazingly pleasant side effects of these little monsters is that as they munch along they produce a lot of sulfur compounds. And as we all know sulfur compounds smell like rotten eggs. So imagine, if you will, the furious joy one could have if they were to cover themselves in this sulfurous muck!
That’s what I did today. We spent the day removing oysters (who themselves have a lovely smell) from bags (covered in rotting algae), and then spreading them out onto trays (that are covered in rotting muck and the aforementioned sulfur bacteria shit) and then moving them out into the ocean (to further expose yourself to goo).
We were helping with an ongoing project to remove nitrogen from this particular waterway. The oysters filter out the nitrogen from the water and store it in their shells. This combined with several other factors helps to address the problem of Eutrophication, or in plain English, algae blooms.
Too much nitrogen = too much algae = rotting muck = not enough oxygen = dead fish.
Oysters help to stop all this.
This may sound horrible, but we had a wonderful stinky time. The mood stayed high, we got really dirty (always good) and the weather was fantastic for this time of year. Last night I used almost an entire tube of leak aqua-seal on my waders and wonder of wonders they didn’t leak at all! Nothing ruins a good time in the muck like a soggy bottom. Lucky for me my bottom remains dry.
Ohh and there was a nice kitty, we called him minx.
Now for thanksgiving:
Thanksgiving was amazing!! Tess’ family cooks the best veggy food ever. I also hiked a mountain, and ran in a 4 mile race. I will give you a second to let that all soak in. A MOUNTAIN and a 4 MILE race. That’s right I am like an iron man and some stuff. As it is every time I am with Tess it was not long enough. She is great but I can never seem to spend enough time with her. That’s OK because she is coming to visit for the holidays.
I really like NH and her family is always so nice to me. The whole weekend was great but my favorite part was eating stuffing sandwiches at the top of our mountain. (that’s right its ours, we licked our fingers and put our spit on it) Last year when we hiked OUR mountain it was all snowy. This year it was nice and sunny and good. That also meant that a lot of little scoundrels were climbing on our mountain. But we let them hang out cause it would be mean to hog the whole mountain.
Tess is very smart, and in Law (capital L) school. This means that she has lots of work to do. This sucks because she has to spend all her time on her work. But I get to help check her papers for spelling mistakes (which is hilarious because I can not spell). But it makes me feel good to know that I help in some way.
To put it simply I love her…a lot.
New Skin V3
Once again I have update the main site with a new look. Finally after almost a year both the blog and the main site have the same layout and theme. Also I have incorporated a lot more php and css into the main site.
The Sietch was my very first attempt at web design, and as such it was not that good. It has grown over the last couple of years and gotten better as I have gotten better.
What do you think of the new look?
Us
Original post by Scytle
The Stuff People Send Me
So I write a lot about renewable energy. Part of the thing that excites me about the field is that recent innovations have really moved the industry forward. For instance new turbine designs in the last couple of years have made the wind industry the fastest growing energy industry in the world. New solar cells are also making leaps and bounds in efficiency and cost effectiveness. Even recent advances in bio-fuels are making my day more interesting.
This however does not mean that I am going to fall for every batshit insane silly thing that people send me. If you have a new design that “breaks the laws of physics” or “produces more energy than you put in” I am not the person to come to first.
The Sietch is not at all interested in “zero point” energy or “joe cells” or any other perpetual motion machines. I accept the laws of physics, specifically the second law of thermo dynamics. If you wake up one day and have managed to overturn one of the laws of physics, I suggest you use your new found power for something more interesting, perhapsworld domination. Do not waste my time with poorly thought out money making schemes.
In that vein I got this rather interesting letter today in the email.
Here are a couple of highlights.
After my initial tests I formed a hypothesis for a machine that defies the laws of physics.
The prototype that I am working on now will create 1/3 or more electrical power than it needs to run.
This is a historic achievement. It will be the first machine to be able to power itself in human history.
My machine will literally fix the atmosphere in a decade by ending global warming. When 10 million of them are in use around America, the number of air that is conditioned will be extremely large. Large cities will no longer have Smog due to the machine cleaning the air at ground level. Because of abundant amount of electricity created by all those machines, our need to burn fossil fuels to create electricity will be Greatly reduced, thus allowing the outer atmosphere to repair itself.
and the best part…
I am contacting you and your company to offer you the opportunity to help with getting my Machine to market. I will only be selling up to 35% to generate the funds I need to file Patents in 10 countries.
Read the rest Read the rest of The Stuff People Send Me
RSS XML Feed
