06.14.10
Posted in Phlogiston, Stumble and Fail at 3:08 pm by George Smith
One of the ways to tell we’re fresh out of ideas is to look at how Americans love catch phrases and their linkage to delusional thinking.
Take the use of the term “Manhattan Project.”
You can tell a nincompoop is in the room whenever you see or hear it.
Use of it is much like the usage of “If we can put a man on the Moon, we can [insert another most wished for miracle].”
“Manhattan Project” signals belief in a pretend world, one which ignores the unpleasant reality of a country presented with problems of its own devise, made insoluble by leaders and doers of its own devise.
From the Google News tab, a list of current “Manhattan Project” usages, calls for magic wand accomplishments well beyond present or imaginable future capacity.
“[A report everyone appropriately ignored, issued by a biodefense industry group masquerading as a government agency] warned that the American people needed a combination of big business and big government to protect them against the looming threat. It said the kind of close cooperation between industry and government to develop bio-war defenses had to be on a scale comparable to building aircraft carriers, putting men on the Moon or funding the Manhattan Project that created the atomic bomb.” — FOX News editorial
“A group of industry leaders, including Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and General Electric boss Jeff Immelt, stepped up calls for a Manhattan project [on energy].” — a business publication
If the guy who made Windows thinks a ‘Manhattan Project’ is needed, who can doubt such wisdom? Better not take too much time to think before you answer that.
It’s our responsibility to take alternative energy seriously. Developing wind, solar, biomass, nuclear and other solutions must become our focus — as concentrated in time and effort as for any major crisis we have faced. Such a series of projects will require a partnership between government and private enterprise — and serious federal outlays. The challenge is enormous and too important to leave to the whims of the market.
It would be a mistake to regard this new ‘Manhattan Project’ as nothing more than a cost. On the contrary, developing such remarkable new technologies will create new industries and millions of new jobs.” — an editorial by some local Democratic Party leader
“That means whatever dreams we had of dealing with global warming through an economically efficient carbon-pricing scheme are pretty much out the window.
“What’s left is the hope that somebody invents something really impressive, really quick. Environmentalists talk about this in terms of a “Manhattan project” for energy, which is probably the right way to talk about it. But I’ve been reading a bit about the Manhattan project …” — Ezra Klein, who tried to put his finger on why the usage is idiotic but fell somewhat short, anyway. But he’s one of the current news celebrities given the license to know everything.
“We need something like a 1940 Manhattan project where American scientists worked to produce a nuclear weapon. Gather the best brains in the country …” — an editorial on what to do about the BP oil spill
“The Smerconish Show from 6/9/10 talked about a Manhattan Project to get us off oil. Something along the lines of small businesses locating in Silicon Valley … “ — the Huffington Post, by someone proudly calling himself “Joe the Nerd”
“The U.S. government should take charge of this major national emergency as if it were a 9/11 event. It should assemble the best global advisors, mostly U.S., and treat this like a Manhattan Project in terms of necessity.” — another vox populi/social networking search for solutions, at the WSJ
“Today, a mini–Manhattan Project could find ways to recycle used nuclear fuel in a way that reduces its mass 97 percent and radioactive lifetime 98 percent…” — Newsweek
In fact, the Huffington Post is larded with wishers for Manhattan Projects. None of whom appear to read a bit of what their closest peers write in the blog over.
“After so much rhetoric from politicians of both parties, we must finally embark on the Manhattan Project of energy independence…” — the Huffington Post, by someone named Fernando.
“Create a big, inclusive Brain Trust Project that will leave the Manhattan Project in the dust.” — the Huffington Post, by someone named Sarah, an editor of something called Yes! Magazine.
“After a vicious fight across the Pacific, we needed to defeat Japan without an invasion of the home islands, and by then the Manhattan Project had produced a couple of deliverable atomic bombs.” — the Huffington Post, by someone arguing using the twisted metaphor that, like the bombing of Japan through the fruits of the Manhattan Project, green house gases will not have to be dealt with through curbs — but will be handled in due course through geoengineering and ‘hacking the planet.’
” ‘Getting it right’ instead means implementing a program of Manhattan Project proportions to reduce our use of oil and other fossil fuels …” a newspaper editorial by some professor near Myrtle Beach, SC.
“Many renowned and intelligent scientists expound seriously that large amounts of bovine gasses have a measurable influence upon the temperature rising worldwide. If truthful, I propose the immediate creation of a Manhattan Project for creation of large Beano capsules to be given to the cows in their feed to eliminate this dilemma.” — a tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor in southern Indiana.
The University of Gas, now more appropriate than ever. How to handle raffinose, for not much money and trouble at all.
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Posted in Rock 'n' Roll, Ted Nugent at 8:55 am by George Smith
Is not me. No, it’s himself.
However, DD is so impressed by Ted’s WaTimes columns, including this week’s in which he breaks his arm patting himself on the back, I’ve decided to turn over the entire blog to rechanneling the wisdom of Nugent.
Only kidding. Sort of. At least for this minute.
“The embarrassing disconnect of an increasingly spoiled nation of freedom abusers has created a serious anti-American mess here, and I just thought the old guitar player could shine the spotlight of common sense on some ridiculously simple basics for y’all,” writes Nugent, in what seems like a sign-off.
Nugent reveals he’s had double-knee surgery, if you cared, before delivering some pro forma praise of the jobbers in his backing band.
“I could be fat, soft and slow thanks to the new American sport of gluttony, but I am not,” he continues.
“My name is Ted Nugent, and I have no peers, thank you,” it reads. It comes off sounding a little desperate.
Nugent mentions his Trample the Weak/Hurdle the Dead tour — the one stopping at the Donna Corn Maze, Neumeier’s Rib Shack and a surf ballroom in landlocked Iowa — twice.
“There is only time to trample and hurdle,” Ted adds. Including the tour name mentions, that’s four uses of the phrase in the column.
The only thing actually left unsaid is what website to go to to purchase your own “Trample and Hurdle” T-shirt.
Ted Nugent is returning to the Valley with his “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead Tour” on Wednesday, Aug. 11, for an intimate show at the Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on Monday, June 7, and are priced at $35, $50 and $60.
Intimate Ted Nugent, threat or menace?
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06.10.10
Posted in Extremism, Rock 'n' Roll, Ted Nugent at 8:59 am by George Smith
This week’s WaTimes wisdom from mean old coot Ted Nugent:
The reason the Obama administration does not want to enforce our immigration laws is that they want to make Democratic slaves (voters) of these illegal immigrants …
The WaTimes should ask Ted to delve into the gray cells more deeply. He’s not giving them their money’s worth, as this has been so much a favorite of the GOP it qualifies as a golden oldie.
The next Tedly excerpt invites readers to play a game of anemic ‘logical’ constructions:
If we can put a man on the Moon, we can surely stop the invasion of illegal immigrants pouring across our porous border …
You can play along, too. DD will show you how with a few examples.
1. If we can put a man on the Moon, we can surely stop the Deep Horizon oil spill!
2. If we can put a man on the Moon, we can surely fix mass unemployment!
3. If we can put a man on the Moon, we can surely eliminate the growing need for food stamps in this country!
4. If Ted Nugent made “Cat Scratch Fever,” he can surely write another album that will put him back in the stadiums!
Ted’s WaTimes columns are so unintentionally hilarious, it’s clear he must spend virtually no time on them.
That’s because he’s busy — on tour in the heart of the nation this summer, playing places like the Donna Corn Maze, a surf ballroom in the middle of Iowa and Fort Smith, Arkansas.
“Ted Nugent will perform at 8 p.m. July 13 at Neumeier’s’ Rib
Room & Beer Garden, 817 Garrison Ave., and those attending will
hear great music and see what possibly could be an unscripted,
rock-and-roll experience,” reads the Fort Smith newspaper.
Venue owner Bill Neumeier told the newspaper:
Uncle Ted always gets wild on stage … Ted Nugent will be the biggest star to have ever played on the Rib Room’s stage … Now to have him on my stage, well, it’s a dream come true, and I hope it’s a dream come true for fans in Fort Smith.
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06.09.10
Posted in Rock 'n' Roll, Sludge in the Seventies at 11:46 am by George Smith
Good news, lads! Good news! This here’s one damn fine movie.
Over the Memorial Day weekend past, DD jammed with a friend. Inevitably, “Black Cat Moan” was performed.
And that jogged the memory that your host had a recording in the can, made after the release of the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle, Black Snake Moan.
The movie so delighted I made one of the posters for it into desktop wallpaper.
The song produced was the “Samuel L. Jackson Stomp,” based to a large degree on the old Beck, Bogert & Appice version of “Black Cat Moan.”
Anyway, here it is, a rhythm & blooz rock groove.
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06.03.10
Posted in Crazy Weapons, Extremism at 2:20 pm by George Smith
Common sense would seem to dictate that leaders of corporations ought not to be empowered by the US government to provide threat assessments which stand to directly enrich their interests.
But that’s how the US conducts business. From top to bottom, people read of agencies subverted by the businesses they are supposed to regulate.
And sometimes people then come to the conclusion that the US government is only a tool for the accelerated transfer of taxpayer dollars into the coffers of such mentioned businesses.
Which is a pity.
The latest example, a smaller one than the national Minerals Management Service, comes to you courtesty of the Department of Energy and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (or NERC).
Reads the New York Times, courtesy of Matthew Wald:
A report just issued by the Energy Department and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, known as Nerc, an industry group that polices the power grid, lists three categories of threats to the grid: coordinated cyber- and physical attacks, pandemic disease and electromagnetic damage.
What Wald does not mention, or perhaps has failed to notice, is the “report” has essentially been written by the small interests which make up the Cult of EMP Crazy, with government workers as their staff.
Three of the report’s authors are part of the bomb Iran/ballistic missile defense lobby. (Follow the link.)
These include John Kappenman — billed as being part of something called Storm Analysis for the report, William Radasky of Metatech and Michael Frankel of Roscoe Bartlett’s old EMP Commission.
For the past couple of years this group has been given short shrift. Under the wing of Roscoe Bartlett, members of the EMP Commission went before Congress repeatedly, only to be appropriately brushed off.
And the only hedge against its usual nonsense comes in the title of the
report: High Impact, Low Frequency Event Risk to the North American Bulk Power System. [Emphasis mine.]
Conspicuously, the “report” cites the “research” of one of its own steering members, Radasky of Metatech.
Metatech’s business is allegedly in defending against the threat of man-made electromagnetic pulse attacks on businesses and the nation.
So getting to help write a government report on the danger of electromagnetic attacks on the nation, and what ought to be done, is convenient.
On Metatech’s website some time is spent vaguely describing the threat of intentional electromagnetic attack. (See here.)
As another example, see this PowerPoint slide — from a presentation given to Poles in 2000 — of how criminals allegedly use malicious electromagnetism.
Notably, the DoE/NERC report contains a Metatech graphic of a notional attack by an electromagnetic pulse weapon.
It reads: “Of course [sic] other scenarios are possible including briefcase weapons taken inside by a visitor or disgruntled employee.”
Briefcases and suitcases of electromagnetic pulse were discussed here and here yesterday and today.
Wald’s blog at the New York Times is advertised as “about energy and the environment.”
A closer look by the Times might have shown that, in this — ahem — brief case, the real news is really not about either of those.
The NERC report is here.
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Posted in Crazy Weapons, Extremism at 10:30 am by George Smith
Overnight, tales of the electromagnetic pulsing suitcase begat the cure for everything on American borders.
This due to the well-known phenomenon in which journalists never have to see anything work or even consult the long and whack history of such claims to proclaim the future has arrived.
“[The stupidity and ignorance] of Americans has long been a topic of hilarity in Europe,” wrote Paul Fussell in BAD, DD’s book of the week.
It’s an explanation.
However, one thing Fussell closed his book with was one of the things that was not BAD in 1991. And apropos this post, today it’s just sad.
“Some things, indeed, range from good to VERY GOOD, like the American open borders when they’re not being compromised by follies … and the American assumption that its citizens are free, and indeed are practically invited, to travel the world,” he wrote.
Sadly, on the electromagnetic pulsing briefcase — which still has not been properly used to assail Wall Street — from the political blog known as The Hill:
Two Texas congressmen want the government to consider using new technology at the border that would allow law enforcement officials to remotely disable the engines of boats and vehicles they are pursuing.
Republican Michael McCaul and Democrat Henry Cuellar said in a statement Tuesday that the so-called electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device – which fits inside a suitcase – generates electric fields that can disable electronics …
“This is cutting-edge technology to meet the spectrum of 21st century threats facing our borders and ports of entry. Technology like this puts one more tool in the toolbox for our federal law enforcement at the borders. It’s empowering equipment to combat illegal activity.???
The device fits in a case developed by Applied Physical Electronics of Austin, Texas.
The Pentagon has been using electromagnetic pulsing briefcases and suitcases for a long time, even though the rest of us have somehow missed it.
“Similar prototypes from the firm have been used by the Pentagon during the last 12 years,” adds the Hill, without a hint of satire.
“The lawmakers, who sit on the House Homeland Security Committee, witnessed a demonstration in which the device was used to remotely disable a computer,” it added.
“It’s really hi-tech equipment … ”
DD wagers their must be some Randy “Duke” Cunningham or Jack Murtha-type thing going on to explain the hard sell on the junk.
Whey else would this, as written at Popular Science, appear on their website?
The EMP Suitcase Compact 2100 Series, developed by Austin-based Applied Physical Electronics, emits high-amplitude electronic fields powerful enough to disable various devices “without causing permanent physical damage or endangerment to individuals,” as Cuellar’s Web site says. Similar devices have been used by the Defense Department for the past 12 years.
“Advertising is the sine qua non of BAD, of course, for BAD depends upon and arises only out of it,” wrote Fussell in 1991. “To have a fraud, you have to have a large distance between the touted grand appearance and commonplace actuality …”
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06.02.10
Posted in Extremism, Rock 'n' Roll, Ted Nugent at 9:50 am by George Smith
As predicted here a couple weeks ago, crazy old coot Ted Nugent has written a WaTimes column on how all us stupid punks have the oil spill wrong.
If we didn’t have them, energy would be just too damn expensive. Plus, despising the likes of BP is bad and wrong:
With the possible exception of the tobacco industry, no industry is held in more contempt and scorn than big oil. This is strangely foolish … I’m convinced the energy business could make mining for energy virtually risk-free, thereby making the risk of an oil spill very low. Few if any coal miners would ever get hurt or killed again. However, if such a risk-free model were adopted, the cost of energy would skyrocket and kill the American economy. Seven dollars or more for a gallon of gas, anyone? BP and other energy companies are not evil enterprises that are out to rape the environment.
In conclusion:
Don’t be an American energy idiot.
Drill, baby, drill; demand state-of-the-art intelligent preparation and hold the ineffective, criminal decision-makers [of Fedzilla] accountable.
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Posted in Crazy Weapons, Extremism at 9:16 am by George Smith
Good news, lads! Good news! We can stop a computer a yard away with the electromagnetic pulse suitcase of death! Gulf Oil spill, though, not so much.
And DD can total a PC with a ballpeen hammer made in China for a couple bucks.
Anyway, the Cult of Electromagnetic Pulse Crazy has been populated with small businesses promising revolutionary weapons for as long as I can remember.
From today’s Austin-American Statesmen, the equivalent of an upper middle class entitlement workfare program implemented through small business contract:
Two members of Texas’ congressional delegation on Tuesday toured a technology company that is developing a system that could be used for border security.
U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo , and Michael McCaul, R-Austin , said the technology in development at Applied Physical Electronics could stop smugglers in their tracks by shutting down vehicles’ electrical systems. Some workers likened the device to an electronic weapon.
The equipment is being developed in several sizes. Engineers are working on a handheld device that would be used at a very close range. There are also more powerful versions that could be mounted trains plains automobiles on boats, automobiles and aircraft and be used from a hundred or more yards away.
The Department of Defense already has been testing the Spicewood company’s gear, which works by sending crippling electromagnetic pulses that disable electrical systems, the company said.
For the last fifteen years, electromagnetic pulse ray technology has always been cutting edge, always desired by the military, always promised soon, always a Swiss army knife full of security applications.
And then another years go by and the world is not transformed.
The illegals keep coming across the border, their feet not impressed by an electromagnetic suitcase or raygun said to be in the offing. High speed chases stay on the evening news in California. Wall Street, sadly, is not attacked by electromagnetic pulsing briefcases.
“[The Texas politicians lobbying directly for money] — both of whom serve on the Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism — said the system could be an effective tool for border agents to stop the boats, cars and other vehicles used by drug smugglers and human traffickers,” added the newspaper.
Plus, the electromagnetic pulse suitcase is a hedge against potential EMP suitcase gap.
“Located on a nondescript lot off Texas 71, Applied Physical Electronics was founded in 1998 and has 16 employees,” continues the news article. “Its annual revenue is about $3 million a year, the company said. In addition to developing security devices, the company also is working on countermeasures against similar electronic weapons that other countries are developing.”
News flash: The small company tinkerer isn’t going to change the world of weapons technology by any order of magnitude.
Years and years and years of electromagnetic pulse crazies and promises — from the archives.
One notes that if electromagnetic pulse crazy funding had to be justified by some actual test of usefulness to society, some people would just be plum s— outta luck.
Paul Fussell on BAD ideas, from the book – BAD: “Bad ideas are those that are palpably unsound, like constructing a building from the top down or like trying to run a car on water with a pill in it. Some people can always be persuaded to accept such notions but most would argue that except as material for jokes, they are a waste of time.”
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06.01.10
Posted in Phlogiston, Rock 'n' Roll at 6:55 am by George Smith
Being Ted Nugent’s copy editor at the Washington Times said to be a lonely and unappreciated assignment:
These brave American warriors and the warriors who have gone before them humble me to my core.
And there can be no Ted Nugent essay without at least one use of “punks.” It’s in the US legal code.
I’m no military tactician, but announcing when we are leaving the battlefield is analogous to putting an ad in your local newspaper to let all local punks and thugs know when you are going on vacation so they can plunder your home.
The Surf Ballroom & Museum [of Clear Lake, Iowa] has announced the addition of Ted Nugent to its summer calendar. The “Motor City Madman??? will return to the Surf on Friday, July 23.
Ted Nugent has been known for performing like a madman since his days with the Amboy Dukes. In the 30 years since departing from the Amboy Dukes, he has established himself as a solo artist.
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