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The Yellow Peril: The German Media has a New Hate Object
Looking for Amity/Enmity Complex data points? Look no further than the German mass media, where inspiring hatred of out-groups has acquired the status of an art form, then as now. It’s odd, given the...
View ArticleWhat is “Real Science?”
In our ideology drenched times, it’s the same thing as “good science:” anything that happens to agree with your ideological narrative. Powerline just served up a typical example relating to that...
View ArticleThe NIF: No News is Bad News
For those who don’t follow fusion technology, the National Ignition Facility, or NIF, is a giant, 192 beam laser facility located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. As its name would imply, it...
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Of Ingroups, Outgroups, and Global Climate Change
As I pointed out in my last post, “The outgroup have ye always with you.” Of all the very good reasons for mankind to give up the cobbling together of new moral systems once and for all, it’s probably...
View ArticleGermans Reconsidering Nuclear Power?
I don’t think so! Less than a century after H. L. Mencken wrote that the Uplift was a purely American phenomenon, there may now be even more of the pathologically pious in Germany per capita than in...
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The Theology of Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum threw the Left a meaty pitch right down the middle with his comments about “theology” to an audience in Columbus. Here’s what he said: It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of...
View ArticleNuclear Power, Thorium, and the Role of Government
Nuclear power is an attractive candidate for meeting our future energy needs. Nuclear plants do not release greenhouse gases. They release significantly less radiation into the environment than coal...
View ArticleJonathan Last and the Un-Problem of Shrinking Populations
In his latest book, What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, Jonathan Last warns us of the dire consequences of shrinking populations. He’s got it backwards. It’s the best thing that could happen to...
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German “Greens” and the Poisoning of Eastern Europe
A while back in an online discussion with a German “Green,” I pointed out that, if Germany shut down its nuclear plants, coal plants would have to remain in operation to take up the slack. He was...
View ArticleAcademic Left Update: Party Time at Swarthmore
Paul Gross and Norman Levitt published their now classic Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science almost two decades ago. The book described the flipping and flopping of...
View ArticleAnother Fusion Tease?
It has always seemed plausible to me that some clever scientist(s) might find a shortcut to fusion that would finally usher in the age of fusion energy, rendering the two “mainstream” approaches,...
View ArticleFusion Follies at Der Spiegel
Who says there’s no such thing as German humor? Take, for example, some of the comments left by Teutonic wags after an article about the recent fusion “breakthrough” reported by scientists at Lawrence...
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The Derb on Japan’s “Demographic Catastrophe”
John Derbyshire’s reaction to the BBC documentary, “No Sex Please, We’re Japanese,” about Japan’s “demographic catastrophe” is probably somewhat different from what the producers had in mind. In...
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The United States’ Nuclear Future
There are lots of great ideas out there for improving the way we do nuclear power. For instance, Transatomic Power recently proposed a novel type of molten salt reactor (MSR). The Next Generation...
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Kerry, the Democrats, and the Demagoguing of Global Warming
Secretary of State John Kerry appeared quite concerned about global warming during a recent visit to Indonesia, telling students, The bottom line is this: it is the same thing with climate change. In a...
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China Bets on Thorium Reactors
According to the South China Morning Post (hattip Next Big Future), The deadline to develop a new design of nuclear power plant has been brought forward by 15 years as the central government tries to...
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Of Smug Germans and Sinful Australians: Global Warming Update
No doubt the outcome of the Nazi unpleasantness resulted in attitude adjustment in Germany on a rather large scale. Clearly, however, it didn’t teach the Germans humility. At a time when a secular...
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The Regrettable Overreach of “Faith versus Fact”
The fact that the various gods that mankind has invented over the years, including the currently popular ones, don’t exist has been sufficiently obvious to any reasonably intelligent pre-adolescent who...
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Of Solar Energy and Amateurish Agitprop at Fox News
Reading the “news” can be a painful experience in our time. Most of it consists of a blend of sensationalism, human interest stories, accounts of the lives of various vapid celebrities, and attempts...
View ArticlePolyanna Pinker’s Power Profundities
Recently Steven Pinker, public intellectual and author of a “history” of the Blank Slate debacle that was largely a fairy tale but at least drew attention to the fact that it happened, has been...
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