Posts Made By: Russ Carroll

All three participants in the storied football pool had identical records this week:

7-7, 7-7, 7-7

I believe this may be no aberration but a message from some other dimension, or plane, or some other-world crap! I am formally requesting that Herb create an appropriate forum to investigate these types of phenomena and place Daniel Unger in charge of it.

The Commish.

Any chance you could go Ex Parte in front of a judge before this evening and seal this weeks football pool results??? It was a pretty brutal week for some of us.

if Obamacare is upheld as constitutional. A very troubling Op-Ed by George Will.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-there-no-limit-to-congresss-power/2011/11/17/gIQA1REtZN_story.html

He basically said that the appeals court totally copped out in their own words in that they couldn't find a mechanism for congress to force a service by a private company to its citizens, and that they were trouble by it. No kidding.

David Gergen analyzed the super committee failure on CNN and framed the two sides this way:

"Republicans complain that federal spending under President Obama has gone up dramatically and cuts should come there before any new taxes.
Democrats say that the rich have increased their wealth much more rapidly than the other 99% of Americans, while their taxes have gone down, so that the first order of business is to raise taxes on them. Both sides have valid points, worthy of debate."

He states that this super committee "would meet for 10 weeks this fall and forge a bipartisan agreement that would do far more to bring down the nation's deficits."

OWS started in mid-september, about the same time this committee started to meet. I think the Community Organizer In Chief and his minions are a lot more tied to this group than they admit, although they were not at all reluctant to support this group. Run these pinko, commie, bastards out of DC next November.

Any sane person who would take the trouble to graph out federal spending over the past 5 years will easily see where the problem is. Try it.

http://www.lifewithdogs.tv/2011/07/what-a-dog-does-when-its-cold/

From a AAS Alert:

"SUMMARY

Support planetary science by contacting Senator Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA), Chair of the Energy & Water Development Appropriations
Subcommittee and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Ranking Member, to
support the $10 million requested in the Energy & Water Appropriations
Bill for FY2012 to restart domestic production of plutonium-238.

DETAILS

The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover launched successfully on
November 26. The largest rover to yet explore the martian surface will
carry multiple scientific instruments powered by a radioisotope
thermoelectric generator converting the heat from the decay of 3.5
kilograms of plutonium-238 (Pu-238) into 2.5 kilowatts hours per day
-- four times the power of the Mars Exploration Rovers' 0.6 kilowatt
hours per day.

The Curiosity Rover is using a large portion of the limited supply of
Pu-238 left in the world. The United States stopped producing Pu-238
in 1988 and augmented the demand by purchasing the last remaining
stock from Russia. However, Russia has recently reneged on the
contract to supply the US.

Restart of Pu-238 is of critical importance to the development of
planetary science missions. It is a non-weapons grade material and
there is no viable alternative to fuel deep space missions. If Pu-238
production starts immediately, there will still be at least a
five-year delay to have enough Pu-238 for a spacecraft. Full scale
Pu-238 production is unlikely until 2018, which is too late to meet
all of NASA's needs. The delay will push back the proposed planetary
space missions that would require Pu-238. The delay may cause missions
to reach prohibitively high costs, diminish the United States
leadership role in planetary science, and prevent us from expanding
human knowledge of the universe.

The Vision and Voyages for Planetary Science Decadal Survey says that,
"The committee is alarmed at the status of plutonium-238 availability
for planetary exploration. Without a restart of plutonium-238
production, it will be impossible for the United States, or any other
country, to conduct certain important types of planetary missions
after this decade."

The total amount of Pu-238 production funding requested for FY2012 is
$20 million, to be split between NASA and Department of Energy (DOE).
The cost sharing is a result of the recommendation given from the
previous year Congressional budget report.

NASA has received its share of $10 million toward the restart of
Pu-238 in the Commerce, Science, and Justice Appropriations for
FY2012. Both Senator Feinstein and Senator Alexander voted in favor of
that legislation.

Now, we are asking Congress to fund the DOE share of $10 million in
the Energy & Water Appropriations Bill for FY2012. Typically,
astrophysical research is funded through the DOE Office of Science.
However, funding request of $10 million for Pu-238 is through the
Office of Nuclear Energy to enable facilities to restart production.

ACTION ITEM

The House and Senate will soon conference to finalize the Energy and
Water Development Appropriations bill, perhaps in concert with other
appropriations bills. Senator Feinstein and Alexander can include the
restart funding during the conference process that was taken out of
the Senate appropriations bill and is already included in the House
version.

Please contact Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chair of the Energy &
Water Appropriations subcommittee and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN),
Ranking Member, either by written letter or by phone. When calling the
office, ask to speak to the staffer who is responsible for the restart
of domestic production of plutonium-238 within the Department of
Energy.

Senator Dianne Feinstein
United States Senate
331 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Phone: (202) 224-3841
Fax: (202) 228-3954
TTY/TDD: (202) 224-2501

Senator Lamar Alexander
United States Senate
455 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4944
Fax: (202) 228-3398
TTY: (202) 224-1546

Sample Communication for either Senator Feinstein or Alexander:

Hello, my name is [your name]. I am from [location] and [EITHER a
constituent of the Senator] [OR a research scientist interested in the
the restart of production of plutionium 238]. I am contacting you to
express strong support for funding the $10 million requested for the
DOE Office of Nuclear Energy to restart domestic production of
plutonium-238 for planetary science missions in the Energy & Water
Development appropriations bill during the upcoming conference process
and to thank the Senator for their support of this effort by voting to
provide NASA $10M for this activity.

The Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover, schedule to launch on
November 25, is using a large portion of the worlds limited supply of
Pu-238. The funding will allow production to begin immediately. Once
domestic production is restarted, there will still be at least a
five-year delay to have enough Pu-238 for a spacecraft. Full scale
Pu-238 production is unlikely until 2018, which is too late to meet
all of NASA's needs. The delay will push back the proposed planetary
space missions that would require Pu-238. We cannot afford to delay
production any longer.

The current Visions and Voyages Planetary Science Decadal Survey says
that, "the committee is alarmed at the status of plutonium-238
availability for planetary exploration. Without a restart of
plutonium-238 production, it will be impossible for the United States,
or any other country, to conduct certain important types of planetary
missions after this decade."

Thank you for your support in maintaining the United States as the
world leader in planetary science and expanding human knowledge of the
universe.

I won last week, Herb won this week. Herb and I forgot to pick on Thursday (a gimme), so that even's up Eric missing game one of the season.

With 3 weeks left in the regular season, Herb leads the overall with 129 wins followed by Eric and I with 127 wins each.

You could cut the tension with a knife.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201

This is Christopher Hitchens final article, published Dec 7 of this year. He is an excellent writer and conveys to a degree possible the horror of dying of cancer. I felt very sad for him reading this article. Aside from the physical pain of his treatment and disease, there is a dark hopelessness that permeates this article in that the end for him was truly the end in his mind. This is not only a commentary on the lost IMO, but the problem of advancements in medical science that are basically torture and for little real purpose. Prolonging his life in the manner in which it was seems puzzling at best and maybe even inhumane at worst. Only Chris knows that for certain. He clearly was not a man at peace.

I've come close to death twice so far. Both times, I was truly excited to realize that it would not be long before I would be in the presence of the Lord. This did not always comfort me during times of great physical pain, but I do know that my joy permeated most of my communication at the time.

You have no idea what a comfort it was to know with confidence that one statement i told my wife before going into open-heart surgery was true "I do love you so, and I'm ready, either way. No matter what, I'll see you soon." Those same thoughts were expressed to God Himself shortly after that.

The Chargers woke up from their coma and embarrassed Baltimore, Detroit turned out to be nastier than Oakland, and Tom Brady beat God's team...seems the world somewhat returned to normal...of course, tell that the the Packers.

Anyway, I "Bolted" into first place overall with a winning 10-6 record. The doc and our leader tied for 2nd with 7-9 records.

Only two more weeks to go and the participants are separated by only a game or two. It will come down to the wire.

Russ 138
Herb 137
Eric 135

It's anybody's to win.

BTW, Jesus made an appearance last week on SNL with Tim Tebow and offered this to the Bronco's man on a mission:

"First of all, you're welcome. Yes, I Jesus Christ, am indeed the reason you've won your past six football games," he says. "Here's the thing: If we're going to keep doing this, you guys gotta meet me halfway out there. Let's face it: It's not a good week if every week, I have to come in, drop everything, and bail out the Denver Broncos in the fourth quarter. I'm a busy guy."

What European nation had the greatest decrease in income inequality between '85 and '08???? Why, Greece, of course:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-simplistic-view-of-income-inequality/2011/12/19/gIQAeVmR5O_story.html

BTW One of the greatest increases in "income inequality" in the US happened between the '70's and 2000. Income inequality has actually decreased since the recession started.

Capitalism works, comrade.