Life in a Vacuum

Is there life in space? (And no, that's not a rhetorical question about Democrats...)

Fans of extraterrestrial life may have been disappointed when internet-fed rumors of Martian life ended in a NASA press conference on soil composition.

But they can take solace in a newly popular theory that suggests the rest of space may teem with microbes.

This once-controversial notion holds that the universe is filled with the ingredients of microbial life, and that earthly life first came from the skies as comet dust or meteorites salted with hardy bacteria.

"Studies have shown that microbes can survive the shock levels of being launched into space," said Charles Cockell, a microbiologist at the Open University. "And as more and more organisms are discovered under extreme conditions, it's become more plausible that things could survive in space for the time it takes to go from one planet to another."

Not long ago, Cockell's claims would have been greeted with scientific derision. But as scientists learn more about Earth and space, the theory, which goes by the grandiose name of "galactic panspermia," seems less far-fetched.

It sounds like something that makes little sense, when you consider that all of us learned in school that life cannot survive in a vacuum. But let's face it, think about the living organisms that we have found here on earth. So called extremophiles that survive or thrive in conditions that may include extremely high or low temperatures, extremely high pressures, etc. Obviously, the existence of extremophiles here on earth would lead astrobiologists to consider the idea that if life can exist in extreme environments on earth, what is to say that such organisms cannot live or thrive off of earth as well?

Obviously, the science of all of this is still in its formative stages, and nothing can be proved or disproved. But clearly there are a lot of questions that remain in regards to the origins of life on Earth, and perhaps the further study of galactic panspermia will really provide us with scientific data on the origin of life.

Good News: We (probably) aren't going to die

At least, not from the Large Hadron Collider:

Europe's CERN particle-physics lab has issued its long-awaited report on safety issues surrounding the Large Hadron Collider, the world's biggest and most expensive atom-smasher. Some have feared that when the collider reaches full power, sometime next year, it might create microscopic black holes or other exotic phenomena that could endanger Earth. The new report, like earlier safety studies, rules out the possibility of global danger.

Critics of the collider are pursuing a federal lawsuit challenging the safety claims - and they're likely to continue the doomsday debate even in the wake of this report.

The report's argument follows the basic line used in past reports: Even the most energetic collisions planned for the LHC are far less powerful than cosmic-ray collisions that have been going on for billions of years.

Well, that makes me a feel a little better, how about you?

This will keep you up at night

If you ever watch the CBS show Numb3rs, you'll know that one of their tag lines is "We use math everyday." Well, one physicist takes it a step further by the theory is made up of math (H/T Instapundit).

What does it include? Multiple different versions of our universe across a few dimensions of time and space, and includes a theory self-aware mathematics making up the basis of String Theory.

Heady, but fascinating stuff.......

O'Malleynomics Strike Back

Low and behold, look which failed economic platform reared its ugly head again:

Gov. Martin O'Malley unveiled yesterday a proposal to invest $1.1 billion over the next decade to cement Maryland's status as a pre-eminent hub for biotechnology research, including stem-cell studies aimed at finding breakthrough medical advances.

The funding, which would build on existing tax credits and grant programs, would be used to create a biotechnology center, finance capital projects and make equity investments in start-up companies. O'Malley, a Democrat, said the money could transform Maryland - where the human genome was mapped in 2001 - into a global leader in personalized medicine or the use of genetics to tailor treatments.

That's right boys and girls, O'Malleynomics are back. Once again, Governor O'Malley is going to stick the state's nose where it doesn't belong, in the private sector, and reallocate taxpayer dollars in order to fund unnecessary state priorities.

Don't get me wrong, I am very much in favor of science, and I am comfortable with the idea of tax credits to encourage further business growth in the state. But will O'Malley and state Democrats ever learn their lessons when it comes to government investment in private businesses? What role should government have in financing capital projects for private businesses? Why should the state gamble taxpayer dollars as part of venture capital schemes?

What's even further damning about O'Malley's plan is that it comes on the heels of higher taxes and reckless spending during the previous General Assembly session. The most important tax raised by the Democrats during that session was the "Millionaire's Tax" that disproportionately impacted Montgomery County, the very area most likely to benefit from O'Malley's largesse. The irony, of course is that it is likely that the necessity of these proposed state investments in biotechnology probably could have been avoided had O'Malley and company not created incentives for companies and entrepreneurs to relocate to Virginia due to Maryland's profligate tax and spend nature and the impact of the O'Malley Recession.

Time and time again, instead of encouraging private development of economic resources, instead of allowing the market to create a sustainable environment for economic growth, Governor O'Malley has returned to the failed policies of O'Malleynomics to try and earn political capital and to prop up industries that he favors. Time and time again, we have seen the impact of O'Malleynomics produces higher taxes and lower disposable income for middle and working class Marylanders, and the benefit, if any, from O'Malley's plan to throw money at this project is going to be infinitesimal, if such benefit exists at all.

If you missed the policies of economic failure, they are back with a vengeance...

Growth Potential

Read it for yourself:

How? Well that's the truly remarkable part. It wasn't a transplant. Mr Spievak re-grew his finger tip. He used a powder - or pixie dust as he sometimes refers to it while telling his story.

Mr Speivak's brother Alan - who was working in the field of regenerative medicine - sent him the powder.

For ten days Mr Spievak put a little on his finger.

"The second time I put it on I already could see growth. Each day it was up further. Finally it closed up and was a finger.

"It took about four weeks before it was sealed."

Now he says he has "complete feeling, complete movement."

The "pixie dust" comes from the University of Pittsburgh, though in the lab Dr Stephen Badylak prefers to call it extra cellular matrix.

Yikes....though I guess we have finally figured out a way for Maryland Democrats to get a clue.

Still Bad News

I still don't like where stuff like this is going:

US scientists have taken a major step toward creating the first ever artificial life form by synthetically reproducing the DNA of a bacteria, according to a study published Thursday.

The move, which comes after five years of research, is seen as the penultimate stage in the endeavour to create an artificial life form based entirely on a man-made DNA genome -- something which has tantalised scientists and sci-fi writers for years.

"Through dedicated teamwork we have shown that building large genomes is now feasible and scalable so that important applications such as biofuels can be developed," said Hamilton Smith, from the J. Craig Venter Institute, in the study published in Science.

As I noted back in August, we as a society and we as humans are not ready for the questions that need to be answered before this genie leaves its bottle...

Ice vs the Volcano

Looks like there is an actually, you know, plausible reason for Antarctic ice sheets to melt (h/t Instapundit):

Another factor might be contributing to the thinning of some of the Antarctica's glaciers: volcanoes.

In an article published Sunday on the Web site of the journal Nature Geoscience, Hugh Corr and David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey report the identification of a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards frozen within an ice sheet in western Antarctica.

"This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet" in Antarctica, Vaughan said.

Volcanic heat could still be melting ice to water and contributing to thinning and speeding up of the Pine Island glacier, which passes nearby, but Vaughan said he doubted that it could be affecting other glaciers in western Antarctica, which have also thinned in recent years. Most glaciologists, including Vaughan, say that warmer ocean water is the primary cause of thinning.

Volcanically, Antarctica is a fairly quiet place. But sometime around 325 B.C., the researchers said, a hidden and still active volcano erupted, puncturing several hundred yards of ice above it. Ash and shards from the volcano carried through the air and settled onto the surrounding landscape. That layer is now out of sight, hidden beneath the snows that fell during the next 2,300 years.

Of course, if you would only listen to those with political skin in the game, volcanism could not possibly have anything to do with active volcanoes, instead being 100% the fault of 1) greenhouse gases, or 2) George W. Bush.

But given the preponderance of volcanoes across our planet, and the seismic history of Antarctica, it was bound to be determined that some of the ice cap melting on our southern continent had to do with volcanic activity. And quite frankly, a large volcanic eruption in Antarctica melting away a significant piece of the ice cap seems like a more plausible outcome and eventual cause for global warming that the current "consensus" scientific opinion has turned out so far.

Of course, you can't raise money by blaming it on a volcano...

Truth on An Inconvenient Truth

Every so often somebody will moan about there being no scientists who are saying that what Al Gore is doing is wrong. Well, piling on to the court decision outlining Gore's lies is this:

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."...

...But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.

However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said....

..."It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

I'll think I'll put my faith in a guy with a long, respected history of academic scholarship in the field of meteorology than I will a politician from Washington, DC Tennessee.

Unsurprisingly, no domestic news outlets have picked up on this despite the fact the Dr. Gray's speech occurred in North Carolina. They have to protect the agenda at all costs, you know...

Yikes...

You think the marriage debate is rocky now? Try this (H/T Instapundit):

The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.

David Levy, a British researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.

I'm not going there. The jokes will come to you....

Killing the Environment to Save the Environment

I take a lot of heat for being a skeptic on man-made global warming. Well, a lot of my skepticism comes from reading stories like this one:

Primate scientist Jane Goodall said on Wednesday the race to grow crops for vehicle fuels is damaging rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America and adding to the emissions blamed for global warming.

"We're cutting down forests now to grow sugarcane and palm oil for biofuels and our forests are being hacked into by so many interests that it makes them more and more important to save now," Goodall said on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative, former U.S. President Bill Clinton's annual philanthropic meeting.

As new oil supplies become harder to find, many countries such as Brazil and Indonesia are racing to grow domestic sources of vehicle fuels, such as ethanol from sugarcane and biodiesel from palm nuts.

The United Nations' climate program considers the fuels to be low in carbon because growing the crops takes in heat-trapping gas carbon dioxide.

But critics say demand for the fuels has led companies to cut down and burn forests in order to grow the crops, adding to heat-trapping emissions and leading to erosion and stress on ecosystems.

So basically, in order to save the environment from global warming we are condoning the undertaking of methods that cause additional global warming. And that's doubly so considering the additional smoke from burning and the additional loss of rain forest acreage. Combine that with the environmental damage caused by the manufacturing of biofuels, you have a triple play of environmental degradation in the name of saving the environment.

I have never been one to say that we should do nothing for the environment, because obvious it is in the best interest of us individually and as a species to keep the environment as clean as possible. But in order to avoid doing more damage we have to go out of our way to make sure we are taking an appropriate course of action. We have to make sure not to switch fuels and cause additional environmental damage. We should not rush to abide by useless, biased international treaties, or follow the environmental suggestions of ambitious politicians. And we certainly should not follow the example of environmental hypocrites who condemn the proletariat for their abuse of the environment from their luxurious private jets.

Appropriate environmental action calls for reason, not overreaction. That is what causes the problems Dr. Goodall notes....

50 Years

It has been nearly 50 years since the launching of Sputnik, and even today it's hard to imagine the enormity of the event:

Fifty years ago, before most people living today were born, the beep-beep-beep of Sputnik was heard round the world. It was the sound of wonder and foreboding. Nothing would ever be quite the same again — in geopolitics, in science and technology, in everyday life and the capacity of the human species.

The Soviet Union had launched the first artificial satellite, a new moon, on Oct. 4, 1957. Climbing out of the terrestrial gravity well, rising above the atmosphere and into orbit, Sputnik crossed the threshold into a new dimension of human experience. People could now see their kind as spacefarers. Their enhanced mobility might someday prove as liberating as the first upright steps of hominid ancestors long ago.

The immediate reaction, though, reflected the dark concerns of a world in the grip of the cold war, a time of fear and division in which the two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, stared each other down with the menace of mass destruction. Sputnik altered the nature and scope of the cold war....

...The Russians clearly intended Sputnik as a ringing statement of their technological prowess and its military implications. But even they, it seems, had not foreseen the frenzied response their success provoked.

Read the whole fascinating thing. Compare the reactions from 1957 it to the ho-hum reaction to the Chinese launching their first astronaut into orbit a few years back. Can you imagine what the reaction would be today to an event of such magnitude, say a surprise Chinese expedition to Mars? Would the be such wonder?, Would there be such fear? Would the administration launch and immediate plan to put a man on Mars in a hurry (and would protesters complain about Bush's demonic plan to conquer a sovereign planet?)

It is amazing to think that a government run program actually went from ideas on a blackboard of launching an inanimate object into space to landing a man on the Moon in 12 years. But given NASA's current propensity for mismanagement and cost overruns, the future of meaningful space travel will likely fall with private industry. But that does not mean that the lessons from Sputnik are not worth reliving, sharing, and considering as we move forward with the next fifty years of space exploration.

Weight loses weight

Well, this is both baffling and problematic:

The 118-year-old cylinder that is the international prototype for the metric mass, kept tightly under lock and key outside Paris, is mysteriously losing weight — if ever so slightly. Physicist Richard Davis of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sevres, southwest of Paris, says the reference kilo appears to have lost 50 micrograms compared with the average of dozens of copies.

"The mystery is that they were all made of the same material, and many were made at the same time and kept under the same conditions, and yet the masses among them are slowly drifting apart," he said. "We don't really have a good hypothesis for it."

The kilogram's uncertainty could affect even countries that don't use the metric system — it is the ultimate weight standard for the U.S. customary system, where it equals 2.2 pounds. For scientists, the inconstant metric constant is a nuisance, threatening calculation of things like electricity generation.

"They depend on a mass measurement and it's inconvenient for them to have a definition of the kilogram which is based on some artifact," said Davis, who is American.

This is what the weight in question looks like. And it is amazing to think that we are using a weight created during Benjamin Harrison's administration as a standard weight...

Scientists find Democratic Platform

Or, at least something similar:

Astronomers have stumbled upon a tremendous hole in the universe. That's got them scratching their heads about what's just not there. The cosmic blank spot has no stray stars, no galaxies, no sucking black holes, not even mysterious dark matter. It is 1 billion light years across of nothing. That's an expanse of nearly 6 billion trillion miles of emptiness, a University of Minnesota team announced Thursday.

Sarcasm aside, a neat story. More proof we know little about the cosmos, particularly when we look at a section of space 8 billion years older than our own corner of the joint...

This is when the walls come tumbling down...

This is just seems like bad news all the way around:

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.

Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life."

"It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in pretty fundamental ways — in fact, in ways that are impossible to predict."

That first cell of synthetic life — made from the basic chemicals in DNA — may not seem like much to non-scientists. For one thing, you'll have to look in a microscope to see it.

"Creating protocells has the potential to shed new light on our place in the universe," Bedau said. "This will remove one of the few fundamental mysteries about creation in the universe and our role."

And several scientists believe man-made life forms will one day offer the potential for solving a variety of problems, from fighting diseases to locking up greenhouse gases to eating toxic waste.

You know, it's one thing to discuss things like therapeutic cloning, and stem cell research, and things that have an obvious application for scientists and doctors who are looking to cure sick patients. Creating life out of thin air? Well, that seems to be a whole another ballgame, and not one that either our scientists or our ethicists are probably fully prepared to handle at the present time...

Messing with the Laws of Physics

Scientists solve levitation?

Levitation has been elevated from being pure science fiction to science fact, according to a study reported today by physicists....

...Professor Ulf Leonhardt and Dr Thomas Philbin, from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, have worked out a way of reversing this pheneomenon, known as the Casimir force, so that it repels instead of attracts.

Their discovery could ultimately lead to frictionless micro-machines with moving parts that levitate But they say that, in principle at least, the same effect could be used to levitate bigger objects too, even a person.

Germans break the Ultimate Speed Limit?

Dr Gunter Nimtz and Dr Alfons Stahlhofen, of the University of Koblenz in Germany, claim to have broken the speed of light. They have conducted an experiment in which microwave photons traveled "instantaneously" between a pair of prisms that had been moved up to 3ft apart, which would be faster than the 186,000 MPH that Albert Einstein once said would take an infinite amount of energy to power.

All of this the same 365-day span that Pluto gets decommissioned and Voyager 1 finds a different part of space.

The more we think we know, the more we find out we don't know...

CTRL-ALT-DEL

This will mess with your mind. Are we all really living in something resembling The Matrix? (H/T Instapundit):

Until I talked to Nick Bostrom, a philosopher at Oxford University, it never occurred to me that our universe might be somebody else's hobby. I hadn't imagined that the omniscient, omnipotent creator of the heavens and earth could be an advanced version of a guy who spends his weekends building model railroads or overseeing video-game worlds like the Sims.

But now it seems quite possible. In fact, if you accept a pretty reasonable assumption of Dr. Bostrom's, it is almost a mathematical certainty that we are living in someone else's computer simulation.

This simulation would be similar to the one in "The Matrix," in which most humans don't realize that their lives and their world are just illusions created in their brains while their bodies are suspended in vats of liquid. But in Dr. Bostrom's notion of reality, you wouldn't even have a body made of flesh. Your brain would exist only as a network of computer circuits.

Well, that is certainly an interesting thought. Read the whole fascinating thing. But think about this:

Dr. Bostrom doesn't pretend to know which of these hypotheses is more likely, but he thinks none of them can be ruled out. "My gut feeling, and it's nothing more than that," he says, "is that there's a 20 percent chance we're living in a computer simulation."

Wow. That's kind of mind-numbing, isn't it? And they are having a discussion on computer simulation survival tactics here.....no joking.

An Article with everything

Space travel? Colonizing Mars (apparently we only have 46 years left to colonize Mars or humanity is doomed)? Evolution? Copernican theory? Human civilization has 5,100 years to live? It's all in today's article by John Tierney from the New York Times.

Read the whole thing....

When "Consensus" is Wrong

Some people refuse to believe that any environmental science lacks consensus. Well, tell that to some British scientists about organic farming (H/T: Instapundit):

Organic food may be no better for the environment than conventional produce and in some cases is contributing more to global warming than intensive agriculture, according to a government report.

The first comprehensive study of the environmental impact of food production found there was "insufficient evidence" to say organic produce has fewer ecological side-effects than other farming methods....

David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, drew a furious response from growers last month when he suggested organic food was a "lifestyle choice" with no conclusive evidence it was nutritionally superior.

Sir David King, the Government's chief scientist, also told The Independent he agreed that organic food was no safer than chemically-treated food.

The report for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs found "many" organic products had lower ecological impacts than conventional methods using fertilisers and pesticides. But academics at the Manchester Business School (MBS), who conducted the study, said that was counterbalanced by other organic foods - such as milk, tomatoes and chicken - which are significantly less energy efficient and can be more polluting than intensively-farmed equivalents.

Ken Green, professor of environmental management at MBS, who co-wrote the report, said: "You cannot say that all organic food is better for the environment than all food grown conventionally. If you look carefully at the amount of energy required to produce these foods you get a complicated picture. In some cases, the carbon footprint for organics is larger."

The irony of this is the fact that many people specifically eat organic foods because they think they are healthier or are doing their part to help the environment. But as usual science may tell us a different story. You can't be like some people and stick your head in the sand and only refuse to believe what you want to believe. Even something as mainstream as recycling has its detractors who say it may hurt the environment.

If people want to buy organic foods and conduct organic farming because it makes them feel better, go right ahead. But the people who claim that organic farming is a panacea may have another thing coming...

Consensus This

Remember all that hoopla about a consensus on Global Warming? Mother Nature has other ideas (H/T Instapundit):

Greenland isn’t melting as fast as we feared.

It was big news when the rate of melting suddenly doubled in 2004 as ice sheets began moving more quickly into the sea. That inspired predictions of the imminent demise of Greenland’s ice — and a catastrophic rise in sea level. But a paper published online this afternoon by Science reports that two of the largest glaciers have suddenly slowed, bringing the rate of melting last year down to near the previous rate. At one glacier, Kangerdlugssuaq, “average thinning over the glacier during the summer of 2006 declined to near zero, with some apparent thickening in areas on the main trunk.”

The whole crux of this is that Greenland was warmer sixty years ago than it is now. And back then, things turned out OK. I'm sure some will say that the New York Times is just a political arm of Big Oil for allowing such things to be printed.

Incidentally, you have to love the following from the profile on Tierney's blog.

With your help, he's using TierneyLab to check out new research and rethink conventional wisdom about science and society. The Lab's work is guided by two founding principles:

1. Just because an idea appeals to a lot of people doesn't mean it's wrong.
2. But that's a good working theory.

Green Politics and Greenback Politics

Again I ask the question: Why Elect a Democratic County Executive when you can have John Leopold instead?

Leopold is trumpeting the fact that he has signed up Anne Arundel County to be part of the Sierra Club Cool Cities Program by signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement spearheaded by the City of Seattle, the full text of which is available here.

The main crux of all of this is to get city and municipal governments to adhere to the tenets of the Kyoto Protocol, which as you know was defeated in the U.S. Senate by a 95-0 vote in 1997 through passage of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution.

And the reasoning he gives for his decision: Al Gore;

Mr. Leopold said he was inspired to take action on global warming after seeing former vice president Al Gore's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth."

"I saw the movie, 'An Inconvenient Truth,' and was impressed with the adverse impact in the world of the greenhouse gases and carbon dioxide in the air, etc.," Mr. Leopold said. "That movie was inspiring."

That kind of reasoning is appalling. Especially given the fact that Gore's film is politically motivated drivel...

Now despite the fact that there is no consensus that global warming is caused by man, and despite what people from some corners of the universe seem to believe, I am not opposed to doing things to improve our environment. We only have one environment and we as responsible citizens and responsible consumers need to do what we can in order to ensure that we have clean air and clear water. Conserving our resources is a good thing.

But there are responsible ways to do this. One responsible way is to not overreact every time the temperature breaks above 50 degrees in January, because that is not proof of Global Warming. As I have said, there is no consensus on Global Warming. But just because there is no consensus does not give us no excuse to do things to try and protect the environment as consumers. We do not get carte blanche on cleaning the environment because the science is questionable. If I could go out and by a hybrid car (or preferably, a Tesla Roadster) I'd do it.

All of that being said, this Agreement and the Sierra Club program are kind of strange. Sure, we all can get behind things like protecting open space, using energy efficient street lighting, and ensuring the government purchases energy efficient appliances and equipment. Those are things that are economically viable in the long-term. But these plans also include trying to implement Kyoto's agreements on "trading" emissions credits, more government intervention in promoting the development of cleaner burning fuels, creating "walkable" communities, etc.

And now this gets back to the environment, economics, and the county budget. John Leopold has stated repeatedly about the need to find "efficiencies" in government to save money and cut government spending. However, signing up for these agreements seems contrary to everything Leopold has said about efficiencies in government. Leopold campaigned on a platform of not raising taxes and reducing county spending. I'm not sure he can keep his promises while adhering to these compacts. By signing this document, Leopold has committed to Anne Arundel County government to:

• Provide incentives for car pooling and using public transit;
• Support the use of "waste to energy technology";
• Invest in "Green Tags " (the buying and selling of emission credits, commonly known as a carbon credit);
• Improving building codes for energy efficiency;
• Renovating county buildings;
• Practice and promote "sustainable building";
• Recover wastewater treatment methane for energy production;
• Help educate the public, schools, other jurisdictions, professional associations, business and industry about reducing global warming pollution.
  

All of which may benefit the environment, but at what cost to the taxpayer? How efficiently is government going to be able to provide this? And where is the money going to come from? And will any of this stuff achieve the intended consequences or, worse yet, have any unintended consequences that will negatively impact our county?

As I stated, some of these things are clearly workable and have a clear net positive for the county and for taxpayers. More open space means more parkland and less ground level pollution. Using energy efficient lighting and appliances save money on electricity costs. But what about building renovation? From whom are we buying "Green Tags?" Yeah, Plasma arc technology sounds cool on paper, but are it and other "waste to energy" technologies efficient or economically viable?

We all have a stake in protecting the environment, an environment that has been constantly improving since the Nixon Administration. However, we need to take proactive steps, much like the U.S. Senate in 1997, to ensure that protecting the environment does not come at the cost of wrecking our economy. We can have it both ways; there are ways to be environmentally sustainable in an economically sustainable manner.

But I am concerned that the agreement to which Leopold has ascribed Anne Arundel County leads us too far down the way toward too much government intervention in the economy and potential tax and budget hikes down the road. This agreement is the antithesis of what John Leopold campaigned on during the 2006 election. This is not where we need to go, especially given that his whole reason for signing this accord is "inspiration" from Al Gore.

I shudder to think what comes next...

This is Cool

A Space Transporter for the Marines:

As any battlefield commander will tell you, getting troops to the fight can be as difficult as winning it. And for modern-day soldiers, the sites of conflict are so far-flung, and the political considerations of even flying over another country so complicated, that rapid entry has become nearly impossible. If a group of Marine Corps visionaries have their way, however, 30 years from now, Marines could touch down anywhere on the globe in less than two hours, without needing to negotiate passage through foreign airspace. The breathtaking efficiency of such a delivery system could change forever the way the U.S. does battle.

The proposal, part of the Corps's push toward greater speed and flexibility, is called Small Unit Space Transport and Insertion, or Sustain. Using a suborbital transport—that is, a vehicle that flies into space to achieve high travel speeds but doesn't actually enter orbit—the Corps will be able, in effect, to instantaneously deliver Marine squads anywhere on Earth. The effort is led by Roosevelt Lafontant, a former Marine lieutenant colonel now employed by the Schafer Corporation, a military-technology consulting firm working with the Marines. Insertion from space, Lafontant explains, makes it possible for the Marines—typically the first military branch called on for emergency missions—to avoid all the usual complications that can delay or end key missions. No waiting for permission from an allied nation, no dangerous rendezvous in the desert, no slow helicopter flights over mountainous terrain. Instead, Marines could someday have an unmatched element of surprise, allowing them to do everything from reinforce Special Forces to rescue hostages thousands of miles away.

I have a hunch that Congress will find a reason to make sure such a potentially useful tool never sees the light of day anytime soon...

Slowly Getting There

Apparently the New Horizons probe has spotted the former planet Pluto, where its due to arrive in eight-and-a-half years. It's here in this image.

I think I'll have to take the scientists word on this one; to the layman it looks like a bunch of dots.