Coal

Now that I am back from vacation, I am bursting with things that I would like to write about. Unfortunately there is no way that I can write about all these things at once, so I will just have to do them one at a time. I was very happy to see that a new process was discovered to convert coal into diesel fuel because that is one thing the U.S. has plenty of. I remember about ten years ago the experts were predicting that we had enough coal to last over 200 years. In the same vein, the governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, a former cowboy and first time elected office holder, wants to gasify Montana's coal reserves turning them into diesel fuel. This idea has been advocated by me on this site for years now. After all, the Germans did it in World War II so why couldn't we do it now. The only thing that was holding us back was economics, but I understand that when gasoline reached somewhere around $1.39 per gallon it became economically feasible to make gasoline and diesel from coal. This diesel is not your ordinary diesel fuel, it is much cleaner because a process is used that purifies it much more. The plan is to take the carbon out of the coal and sell it to the oil companies who, in turn, use the carbon in a process to get more oil out of the wells. Let's hope this plan is allowed to reach fruition and not stymied by legislators who are on the dole of the big oil companies. By the way, we will still not be self sufficient in oil even with this process in Montana but if some of the other states join in, who knows?

I see that China is right on schedule for putting a man on the moon. China is lucky, they have the advantage of all the info on previous flights by other countries. An example of what I am talking about is their purchase of a Russian docking system for their space craft. Who knows what other hardware they have purchased? I am not saying that there is anything wrong with what they are doing, only that it gives them a great advantage. If the Wright Brothers could have purchased plane parts rather than have to figure them out and build them, they would have had a much easier time of it. They have scheduled the moon landing for 2008. Space has always interested me and it annoys me to see how cheaply these other countries are able to operate their space programs and the enormous cost of our program. We waste so much money every year that we could probably fund a small country with it. Most of NASA's budget doesn't even go for anything useful anymore. It is sucked up by the space shuttle and international space station, both of which I consider to be useless projects. The shuttle was built to make launches cheaper than a rocket could because it was reusable. This didn't happen and launches became more expensive using the shuttle. The international space station was only grudgingly joined by other nations and don't let anyone fool you, we provided the lion's share of the funds. It is useless, even the experiments conducted there could have been done in the shuttle.

War

The Iraq occupation just doesn't seem to be working out. The baloney we were told about how the people were going to welcome us with open arms was just so much hot air. Anyone who is a student of history knows that Yugoslavia was a country of many races that really didn't get together very well and were only held together by the strongman Tito. When he died the country went to hell. We had the same situation in Iraq, the different tribes and religions hated each other and were only held together by their leader. I am not saying that Saddam Hussein was a good person, no indeed, he was a killer but he did hold the country together. Actually Iraq had a second problem that Yugoslavia didn't have and that was the fact that it was perfect for the terrorists to use against us. All this should have been known by our intelligence but if it was, it was totally ignored. It almost seems that this was a personal matter between world leaders. Oh well, I don't want to get into that. Pravda, a Russian newspaper, ran a story stating that Saddam was actually captured ten days before we said he was. Another report stated that Saddam was captured in a house, not a hole, and he was firing on the soldiers with a riftle. This report was made by a soldier who stated that he was one of the men who captured Saddam.

Global Warming

Global warming has been in the news a lot lately, only now it has a new twist. Some scientists are saying that it is too late to stop the trend no matter what we do, because too much Co2 is in the atmosphere. Could this be true or is it a way of avoiding having to take drastic measures to reduce emissions? I guess this is all a matter of opinion. I don't know the answe,r but I am very skeptical when I am told things like this. There has been so much misrepresentation with things lately that I don't believe anything that I am told until I look into it myself. Unfortunately, there is really no way of knowing in this case, because scientists were never faced with a situation like this before. They also don't know enough about the atmosphere and how it rejuvenates itself. If they knew more, they might be able to dump "good chemicals" into the atmosphere to counter the bad ones. There is no doubt that the ice in the North Pole is melting and now scientists are saying that the ice in the South Pole is beginning to melt and the temperature at that pole has risen over 2 degrees centigrade in the last eight years. Is this a natural event or is it one created by man? Over time, warming and freezing have occurred naturally, this may be a natural event.

Computer Chips

We have been hearing a lot lately about implanting microchips into humans. In the beginning the talk was that a chip would allow paralyzed people with certain injuries to walk again. It was said that the blind might be able to get some vision back with the correct chip implant. I even heard that scientists were thinking of inserting a memory chip that would contain everything that would be learned up to and including graduate school thus eliminating the need for education. Hey what would our kids do for the first 25 years or so of their lives? Now a couple has taken the chip implantation idea into their own hands, literally. They have implanted chips in their hands that allow for many different functions. With the wave of a hand, the hand with the chip in it, doors open automatically. The same hand allows for signing on the internet when they use their home computer. It seems the couple have chips in both hands and can access all the same things as each other. There may be no privacy, but if they separate, the chips can easily be removed. If this ever becomes popular, your chips could be used against you. The chips would make it very easy to track all your movements.

The news has been rampant with tales of war, new autos, political intrigue and the ballooning national debt. In other words, same old, same old, as they say.