SeniorJunior

I Say It Again... BURY THEM! OK, I said it before.  But here a very nice piece noting that in Connecticut, every big storm that cuts the power for long, expensive, uncomfortable periods of time reflects prior identical problems.  Check it out here Point is, we could end this madness of 19th Century power distribution.  Huge savings in money and inconvenience. Put the returning vets on the case! Please..... .  Feb 2  (what? 2008? Bury Them! UnderGrounding So how much did that Kentucky ice storm cost? Millions of people without power, plus of course, their factories, shops, offices, banks, government installations, plus the call-up of the whole Kentucky National Guard... on and on, the costs skyrocketed. Main problem? Power lines. Wires on top of poles, the way we have distributed electricity since the first days of the telegraph set the standard. Power line wires run by and th...

EVERYTHING Is Explained by Evolution ...At least everything human.  And I actually think pretty much everything that's alive, including plants, "germs," bugs and irresistible puppies are all fully explainable by evolution. I've bought into the idea that if a human trait - even a weird one - is around today, it was survival-positive at some point in our evolution, thus became part of what the human race is.  For instance  schizophrenia , not a trait you might consider all that valuable these days.  But back there in deep pre-history, the schizos probably were very effective shamans, and a tribe with a really wild shaman had survival advantages.  You can write the scenario as well as I can.   Could'a Been Us In one of my fav magazines NewScientist writer  Kate Ravilious   put together a fine piece ( 07 November 2011)  expanding on current thinking on this " EVERYTHING Is Explained by Evolution" bit.  She summarizes (and ad...

No More Floods; No More Droughts (Future) Historical fiction (Revisited) As our Congress messes around doing absolutely nothing about improving America's infrastructure, I can't resist pulling up my RBI (Really Big Idea) from 2003.  Put on your "government could really work" rose-colored glasses and read this. May 2020     The Mississippi River is approaching flood stage in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.  The Corps of Engineers monitors the levees and dikes with the giant web of depth gauges and flow meters.  The U.S. Weather Bureau is predicting major rainstorms in several of the watersheds.  Supercomputers are crunching trillions of numbers and putting options in clear graphical displays in front of Corps decision makers.   The top Corps engineer picks up the Red Phone and calls the White House.  Connections are made and the Secretary of the Interior, the Vice President and The Woman Herself come online and listen to ...