Oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico - Nuke the leak now

We should really consider using a nuclear explosion to crush and vitrify the hole causing the oil leak in the golf of Mexico.  The impact on the environment would be negligible compared to what we have now.  This could have been done a few weeks after the leak started.  The goal would be to dig a hole near the leak, insert the bomb and explode it.  This would crush the hole and vitrify the surroundings, thus stopping the leak.



Here's are some video on the subject






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb2u4_QSblo

Climate Change Endoheretics Scientists

• Heresy comes from the Greek hairetikos "able to choose".
• Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs.
• Isaac Asimov called Endoheretics appropriately credentialed scientists.
• The leader of a heretical movement is called a Heresiarch, thus the heresiarch title goes to Al Gore.
• The Heretics are the followers of the belief system surrounding climate change, thus the IPCC falls in this category

A new “study” has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) which has examined the credentials and publication records of climate scientists who are global warming skeptics versus those who accept the “tenets of anthropogenic climate change”.

For decades governments have thrown hundreds of millions of dollars at Endoheretics climate scientists who sought to find links between human behaviors and global warming. Those inevitably publish their results. Now, we have a paper miraculously announcing that the weight of publications are in favor of those who support this hypothesis that sought to find the said conclusion?

Do you see the fallacy of this circular logic, where the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in one of the premises.

Read more here

"YOU DARE CHALLENGE GLOBAL WARMING WITH SCIENTIFIC DEBATE?"

More studies on the deficiencies of wind energy

I came across this very detail editorial on the "Economics and Performance – The Primary Deficiencies of Wind Power" by Jerry Graf.

Here's the content. See the original for very insightful comments.

When I read this, I wonder why Ontario invested so much in wind energy, did any body made any calculation.

See also my other post on wind energy:

• Real capacity factor of wind farms compared to vendor advertisements
• Wind farms, subsidized to put in place, paid to shut down when wind not blowing?
• Five myths about green energy
• Comparing Energy Costs of Nuclear, Coal, Gas, Wind and Solar
• Wind farm capacity factor 25% is very good !

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There are many arguments to be made against government subsidization of industrial wind power, some objective and others subjective. We hear about noise, shadow flicker, disruption of wildlife, lack of consistent energy output (intermittency), questionable performance with respect to pollution reduction, and undesirable aesthetic appearance.
It occurs to me, however, with regard to subsidies for energy ventures and technology, three things must be kept in mind:

(1) any good investment must be made in worthwhile ventures that can show a reasonable return;
(2) arbitrarily subsidizing some ventures may cause inadvertent (or advertent) exclusion of others; and
(3) jobs cannot be created by subsidizing ventures that do not provide a viable return. We must keep our eye on the economic ball, and structure our primary arguments against government subsidies for wind power generation around the primary deficiencies of wind turbine technology: performance and return on investment (ROI).

It is obvious that any good investment must be made in worthwhile ventures that can show a reasonable return; and I believe it is fairly apparent that placement of wind turbine power generation technology in my home state of Ohio, vast areas of the eastern or mid-western United States, and indeed in most places in the continental United States, is not worthwhile.

Given the average annual wind speed limitations in most areas, and the relative inefficiency of wind turbines to transform wind into useful electrical power, the wind turbine technology we are subsidizing cannot produce enough electricity to be competitive with other more viable forms of generation, even when a generous allowance for future inflation of electricity costs is considered. The investment is being wasted; with no hope of a reasonable return, and without large subsidies from government entities to offset the investment losses and artificial increases in the cost of electricity, a viable business case for implementation of wind turbine power generation cannot be made.

To illustrate the economic shortcomings, I can point to specific high profile wind development projects I have analyzed in the past several months, including the Great Lakes Wind Energy Pilot Project in Ohio, the Highland Wind Farm expansion in Pennsylvania, and the Glacier Hills Wind Farm in Wisconsin.
The pertinent pieces of information required for the analyses are the power curves for the specific wind turbines, information regarding annual wind speed at the approximate elevations at the sites, and estimates of uptime and operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. This information seems simple enough, but is often difficult to gather because reports are often incomplete and conflicting with regard to economic details (begging the question, “Why?”).

Also, to apply a value to the electricity produced, I have characteristically used an approximation of the average wholesale price of electricity, which has been around $50/MWh for 2009-2010, and has been fairly consistent on an annual weighted average basis throughout the continental United States. It may be noted that the wholesale price of electricity varies widely on a daily basis depending on supply and demand, and also that certain forms of production are inherently more costly.

For example, Open Cycle Gas Turbine (OCGT) production is specifically designed to be fast reacting to peaks in demand and electricity generated in this manner can be sold for greater than $100/MWh when in demand. It makes sense to me, however, to use the average everyday wholesale price when analyzing the business case for a production system that is being touted as able to produce average everyday energy needs and to displace conventional average everyday production sources.  It would not make sense to evaluate wind turbines based on a cost comparison to a fast reacting OCGT system which is designed to be responsive to peaks in demand; wind turbines could never serve in this capacity.

Once the basic simple information is obtained, the analyses for these projects are fairly straight forward, and the details are presented in the attached charts and figures in the Technical Appendix. In all three cases, it is quite apparent that the wind turbines cannot produce enough electricity to return the investment and pay the annual operating and maintenance costs.

Considerations Not Included
Other points that should be made to further the arguments are [not included are the costs of required additional transmission facilities]:

• These economic analyses do not account for the cost that will be incurred to maintain and operate a traditional back-up system for generating power when the wind is not blowing adequately, and for the added cost and inefficiency of cycling this back-up system on and off to balance the supply load against the variability of the wind generated power.
• These analyses are presented for a 20 year period, although it is becoming evident that the useful life of many wind turbines is more like 10 to 15 years (see here and here). This can be contrasted to conventional power generation facilities which will remain productive for 40 to 60 years.
• Any supposed reductions in dependency on conventional power generation, and any reductions in associated levels of pollution, attributed to use of wind power generation are highly suspect; because of the need to maintain and operate the back-up systems in an inefficient manner (see here and here).
• The lowest wind conditions and the lowest power output will occur in the summer, when the electricity demand is highest.
• Given the considerations above and the available theoretical power densities at the sites, the turbines will only convert a small fraction of the theoretically available energy passing by their blades. Assuming that as yet unknown and quite miraculous technology improvements implemented in the future are somehow able to double the turbine efficiencies, wondrously without increasing investment or O&M costs; these projects still do not present a truly acceptable business case or ROI.
• Despite their supposed presentation as power sources for average everyday power needs, the wind turbine projects are often granted special Power Purchasing Agreements (PPAs) which allow prices for their electricity that are many times higher than average wholesale price. It is disconcerting that a large portion of the feasibility studies and the on-going discussion are often devoted to proposals to make the projects appear viable with public spending and it is evident that, to make these projects work, massive government subsidies and large increases in the cost paid for electricity will be required to offset the investment losses and attract investors.

Cape Wind Project
As another example of poor economic performance, the largest loser I have reviewed to-date is the massive Cape Wind Project in Massachusetts. The pertinent information regarding the specific wind turbines to be employed is difficult to come by (again the question, “Why?”) and my analysis is not as detailed; however, from published information the Cape Wind Project is supposed to produce three-quarters of the 230 MW power demand of the Cape and islands, which means a real average output of 172.5 MW, or about 41% of the rated 420 MW capacity.

Applying a generous assumption of 85% uptime means the turbines will operate 7446 hours per year; giving us 172.5 MW x 7446 hours = 1284 GWh/year. This estimate is actually more-or-less confirmed, within about 11%, on the Cape Wind website itself; which currently offers an updating display indicating that about 11,588,000 MWh of energy could have been produced since wind monitoring commenced. This seems like an impressive number until you divide it by the 8+ years of monitoring, and you get 1449 GWh/year.
Considering the annual average wholesale value of electricity in Massachusetts is also about $50/MWh per the DOE EIA, the annual energy generated by Cape Wind will be worth about $70 million per year; and subtracting annual operating and maintenance costs may leave about $50 million per year of this revenue. Again, this sounds impressive, until it is compared to the $2 billion that the project is expected to cost.
Even if a generous inflation rate is applied to the cost of electricity, the cash flow will not even come close to a return of this investment in the life of the wind turbines; unless someone deliberately raises the cost we pay for electricity. Unfortunately, this is already happening because a New England based utility company, National Grid, has already agreed to pay $207/MWh (4 times the current wholesale price) beginning in 2013 for half the power produced by Cape Wind.  National Grid is doing this to comply with a state law forcing them to purchase a certain amount of power from “renewable energy” sources, and the deal is considered critical to attract investors.

Exclusion of Other Ventures
Other than the harm to the national economy of the waste itself, the real problem with expending resources subsidizing non-viable wind turbine projects is that this inadvertently (or advertently) diverts resources from other efforts to improve our energy production strategy.

Because of recent events, we are hearing quite a few emotional comments regarding the need to reduce U.S. dependence on oil; and the recent tragic spill in the Gulf of Mexico is being used to justify investment in wind energy projects. However, it is reasonable to point out that oil is used to generate about 1% of the total electricity used in the USA, and one can effectively say that oil has nothing to do with the generation of electricity. Unfortunately, by increasing the cost of electricity, it is likely that we will make it more difficult to transition away from oil given that this fossil fuel is used for home heating and gasoline powered automobiles.
Also, in the rush to promote wind generation, development and improvement of other more viable means of energy generation are being ignored.  Instead of diverting resources to prop up wind projects we could be improving natural gas, nuclear, and coal generation.  We could also be improving the distribution system (grid) to reduce losses and improve reliability. Further, by subsidizing and offsetting the current deficiencies of wind generation, we take away the incentive to make the necessary improvements that might make it viable in some cases in the future.

Job Creation: The Green Myth
Tying back to point (3) regarding job creation and going beyond the specific arguments regarding the performance of the wind turbines themselves, I will point out that proponents for subsidized implementation of wind turbine power generation believe that this activity will create “green jobs.” I contend, however, that creation of jobs by subsidizing ventures that do not provide a viable return cannot work, and job creation cannot be a justifiable end unto itself.
This is simply an extension of the points I have made in the preceding paragraphs, and I will use an old tried-and-true analogy to make my point. If we wanted to simply create jobs, we could employ people to dig holes in the ground for no particular reason, and then employ other people to fill those holes in. By purchasing large earthmoving equipment, we could dig really big holes really fast, and stimulate employment at the manufacturing companies that make the earthmoving equipment and their steel and component suppliers.
Now, if we dig holes in both Ohio and Wisconsin, we could transport the dirt from Ohio to fill in the holes in Wisconsin, and conversely transport the dirt from Wisconsin to fill in the holes in Ohio. This would stimulate employment in the transportation industry for truck drivers and for truck manufacturers. The wear and tear on the roadways would also stimulate the need for road maintenance workers and all their equipment.
The analogy is facetious and I apologize for digressing into the absurd; however, I believe it illustrates my point that making jobs by subsidizing non-viable ventures cannot be an effective strategy.

Back to Economics
Keeping in mind the three principles that good investments must be made in viable worthwhile technologies, that we will be risking detrimental effects on ventures that are not being subsidized, and that job creation cannot be an end unto itself; it seems we need to coordinate the arguments against subsidies for wind power generation about the economic analysis. These are the easiest arguments to understand, and I believe these arguments will hit home for the majority of people. Other more in-depth technical analysis and subjective arguments will always be valuable and must be developed and presented as well; however, by keeping our eye on the economic ball, and clearly educating the investors and the public about the primary economic and performance deficiencies of wind power generation, we may be able to succeed in correcting the course of public opinion on this issue.

The basic economic analysis of the aforementioned Great Lakes Wind Energy Pilot Project in Ohio, Highland Wind Farm expansion in Pennsylvania, and Glacier Hills Wind Farm in Wisconsin are provided in detail in the next section. As previously indicated, with revenues based on realistic wholesale electricity costs, the cash flow analyses demonstrate that these projects will not break even within the projected 20 year period.

Technical Appendix: Details of the Economic Analysis
 

Carbon Nanotubes Could Be Secret to Greater EV Range

A device using the nanotube electrode as the positive electrode and lithium titanium oxide as a negative electrode had a gravimetric energy ~5 times higher than conventional electrochemical capacitors and power delivery ~10 times higher than conventional lithium-ion batteries.

Scientists at MIT have developed a positive electrode made of carbon nanotubes that significantly boosts lithium ion battery performance and could lead to much greater range in electric vehicles and longer battery lives for gadgets.

The carbon nanotube electrodes enable lithium ion batteries to deliver ten times more power than a conventional battery and store five times more energy than a conventional ultracapacitor.  The nanotubes accomplish this because they have a very high surface area for storing and reacting with lithium, which increases the battery's storage capacity and the speed at which it can charge and discharge.

The MIT scientists have already licensed the technology to a battery company (as yet, unnamed) and are perfecting quick methods of making the electrodes, like spraying the nanotubes on a substrate, to facilitate mass production.

Source1

Source2

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

The aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH) is an alternative explanation of human evolution which theorizes that the common ancestors of modern humans spent a period of time adapting to life in a partially-aquatic environment. The theory is based on differences between humans and great apes, and apparent similarities between humans and some aquatic mammals. First proposed in 1942 and expanded in 1960, its greatest proponent has been the writer Elaine Morgan, who has spent more than forty years discussing the AAH.
While it is uncontroversial that both H. neanderthalensis and early H. sapiens were better suited to aquatic environments than other great apes,^[1][2] and there have been theories suggesting protohumans underwent some adaptations due to interaction with water^[3] the sort of radical specialization posited by the AAH has not been accepted within the scientific community as a valid explanation for human divergence from related primates. It has been criticized for possessing a variety of theoretical problems, for lacking evidentiary support, and due to alternative explanations for many of the observations suggested to support the theory. Morgan and others have also suggested that her status as an academic outsider has hindered acceptance of the theory.

Wind farms, subsidized to put in place, paid to shut down when wind not blowing?

This is nuts.  When will we wake up to the fact that wind farms are not a solution.  Receiving large subsidy to be put in place because otherwise not profitable, selling their electricity at higher price than other forms of energy like nuclear and now, being paid to stop producing electricity when the wind is blowing!!!

Those low density energy sources are bad for the environment and the overall economy.


Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing Photo: ALAMY

Energy firms will receive thousands of pounds a day per wind farm to turn off their turbines because the National Grid cannot use the power they are producing.

Critics of wind farms have seized on the revelation as evidence of the unsuitability of turbines to meet the UK's energy needs in the future. They claim that the 'intermittent' nature of wind makes such farms unreliable providers of electricity.

The National Grid fears that on breezy summer nights, wind farms could actually cause a surge in the electricity supply which is not met by demand from businesses and households.
The electricity cannot be stored, so one solution – known as the 'balancing mechanism' – is to switch off or reduce the power supplied.

The system is already used to reduce supply from coal and gas-fired power stations when there is low demand. But shutting down wind farms is likely to cost the National grid – and ultimately consumers – far more. When wind turbines are turned off, owners are being deprived not only of money for the electricity they would have generated but also lucrative 'green' subsidies for that electricity.

The first successful test shut down of wind farms took place three weeks ago. Scottish Power received £13,000 for closing down two farms for a little over an hour on 30 May at about five in the morning.
Whereas coal and gas power stations often pay the National Grid £15 to £20 per megawatt hour they do not supply, Scottish Power was paid £180 per megawatt hour during the test to switch off its turbines.
It raises the prospect of hugely profitable electricity suppliers receiving large sums of money from the National Grid just for switching off wind turbines.

Dr Lee Moroney, planning director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, a think tank opposed to the widespread introduction of wind farms, said: "As more and more wind farms come on stream this will become more and more of an issue. Wind power is not controllable and does not provide a solid supply to keep the national grid manageable. Paying multinational companies large sums of money not to supply electricity seems wrong."

Earlier this year, The Sunday Telegraph revealed that electricity customers are paying more than £1 billion a year to subsidise wind farms and other forms of renewable energy.
The proceeds of the levy, known as the Renewables Obligation (RO), are divided between the main renewable energy sources, with wind receiving 40 per cent, landfill gas 25 per cent, biomass 20 per cent, hydroelectric 12 per cent and sewage gas 3 per cent.

Professor Michael Laughton, emeritus professor of electrical engineering at the University of London, said: "People will find it very hard to understand that an electricity company is getting paid the market rate plus a subsidy for doing nothing. It is essentially a waste of consumers' money."

A National Grid spokesman said: "The trial demonstrates that wind can help balance supply and demand just like other generation types: this is potentially useful to us on warm but windy summer days when generation outstrips the low demand – and a higher proportion of generation is made up of wind and inflexible nuclear."
The spokesman added: "The trial is something supporters of wind energy should welcome, as it gives evidence to their case that wind generation does not bring insurmountable problems to balancing supply and demand."
A spokesman for RenewableUK, the trade body which represents the renewable energy industry, said all suppliers to the National Grid periodically were asked to reduce output to control the balancing mechanism. He said it was simply evidence of the growing part wind energy had to play in Britain's supply needs that turbines would occasionally be taken off the National Grid. He added: "REF exists to misrepresent any piece of information and turn it into a scandal or crisis. The reality is the National Grid's job is to ensure we have adequate capacity to meet demand at any one time."

Our dependence on oil, not a new topic

Quite a good review of 8 past U.S. presidents, promising the end of our dependence on oil. Energy independence?

We need purpose, not jobs!

Obama Uses Oil Spill to Push Failed Energy Policies

Interesting article that tells everything about all that is wrong in the management of the oil spill.  Source


What I would like people to ask is:

• How do we get out of oil when +85% of our energy needs come from it?

Couple of pointers:

• Build more, new nuclear power station
• Recycle nuclear waste
• Build high speed railroad, maglev system that provide faster than cars and trucs transportation
• Switch off all wind farms, fossil fulled power station, coal power station and replace them by nuclear power now.
• Invest massively in the R&D of the electric cars, ultra-capacitor carbon nanotube battery.

Oh and why don't they nuke the oil spill?  Russian has done it 5 times with 80% success rate.

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In his speech last night, President Obama used the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to push his failed energy policies, such as a “green jobs” program that has replaced American jobs with foreign “green” jobs, and a climate-change bill that includes ecologically-devastating ethanol subsidies.  Meanwhile, Louisiana residents rated Obama’s inept response to the oil spill as worse than Bush’s much-criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, in a public opinion poll–perhaps because Obama delayed the clean-up of the oil spill by blocking assistance from many foreign experts.

Obama used the oil spill to push for more so-called “green jobs” programs, deceptively boasting that “over the last year and a half,” the government has subsidized the so-called “clean energy industry.”  This was a reference to the February 2009 stimulus package, which contained so-called “green jobs” funding, 79 percent of which went to foreign firms, replacing American jobs with foreign green jobs.  (The administration never bothered to define what a “green job” is, and some so-called “green jobs” turn out to be harmful to the environment.)  The stimulus package also contained regulations that destroyed jobs in America’s export sector.

In his speech, Obama also used the spill to push the so-called “comprehensive energy and climate bill” passed by the “House of Representatives” late “last year.”  That bill expands ethanol subsidies, which cause famine, starvation, and food riots in poor countries by shrinking the food supply.  Ethanol makes gasoline costlier and dirtier, increases ozone pollution, and increases the death toll from smog and air pollution.   Ethanol production also results in deforestation, soil erosion, and water pollution. Subsidies for biofuels like ethanol are a big source of corporate welfare: “BP has lobbied for and profited from subsidies for biofuels . . . that cannot break even without government support.”

Obama said nothing about waiving the Jones Act, a law that bans foreign ships from working in the U.S. waters unless the President waives the ban.  Past presidents have waived the ban after hurricanes to allow foreign experts to assist the U.S., and speed shipping of relief to hurricane victims.  But Obama refused to do so after the spill, report Voice of America News, the Washington Examiner, and Canadian, Australian, and European newspapers, even though it would make obvious sense to accept help from oil-producing, maritime countries like Norway that have big fleets and expertise in handling oil-drilling and oil-spill issues.   As a result, the Obama administration rejected various offers of assistance from Norwegian, Belgian, Dutch, and Mexican firms.
(The Obama administration has belatedly accepted some foreign equipment for use in fighting the spill, although it continued to block ships with foreign crews, delaying the foreign equipment’s use.  As Voice of America notes, although ”the Netherlands offered help in April,” such as providing ”sophisticated” oil “skimmers and dredging devices,” the Obama administration blocked their crews from working in U.S. waters, and as a result, this crucial ”operation was delayed until U.S. crews could be trained” in June.  “The Dutch also offered assistance with building sand berms (barriers) along the coast of Louisiana to protect sensitive marshlands, but that offer was also rejected, even though Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had been requesting such protective barriers.”)

In April 2009, the Obama administration granted BP, a supporter of Obama, a waiver of environmental regulations.  But after the oil spill, it blocked Louisiana from protecting its coastline against the oil spill by delaying rather than expediting regulatory approval of essential protective measures.  It has also chosen not to use what has been described as “the most effective method“ of fighting the spill, a method successfully used in other oil spills.  Democratic strategist James Carville called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical“ and “unbelievable“ in its “stupidity.”

Real capacity factor of wind farms compared to vendor advertisements

From this web page, the following table, actually only the first 3 lines are showed.  I added some rows and calculated:

• Annual MWh at 100%
• This would be produced if the wind turbine would work as advertised 100% of the time
• Capacity factor advertised
• This is the capacity factor, see wikipedia for a good explanation
• Real capacity factor
• This is one real number from 2008 on a wind farm in India, where they got a "good" year.
• Real MWh produced
• So with a capacity factor of 25% in the real world, you only produce 3614 MWh annually from an advertised (named plate) capacity of 14454 MWh

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	1981	1985	1990	1996	1999	2000
Rotor (meters)	10	17	27	40	50	71
Rating (KW)	25	100	225	550	750	1650
Annual MWh advertised	45	220	550	1480	2200	5600
Annual MWh at 100%	219	876	1971	4818	6570	14454
Capacity factor advertised	21%	25%	28%	31%	33%	39%
Real capacity factor						25%
Real MWh produced						3614

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This means that 75% of the energy will come from another source of energy (Coal, Natural gas) to compensate for the intermittent nature of wind farms.

So claiming that a wind farm does not produce any form of pollution is not really telling the whole story.

Quelques comédies pour rire de nos malheurs

BP Spills Coffee



Government – Bank Symbiosis

I know, Arnold, I know.

Et finalement..

Violent Video Games May Increase Aggression in Some but Not Others

As we often see in the reports, there are some good games and some bad games.  The questions that comes to mind are.

Why do we need as a society to show those images to our kids?

Why do we need to create games that immerse our kids in extreme violence that train their brain in saying that it is "OK" to "kill" others, that put the life of others with no more importance than some bug we crush with our feet walking in the forest?

Source

ScienceDaily (June 8, 2010) — Playing violent video games can make some adolescents more hostile, particularly those who are less agreeable, less conscientious and easily angered. But for others, it may offer opportunities to learn new skills and improve social networking.

In a special issue of the journal Review of General Psychology, published in June by the American Psychological Association, researchers looked at several studies that examined the potential uses of video games as a way to improve visual/spatial skills, as a health aid to help manage diabetes or pain and as a tool to complement psychotherapy. One study examined the negative effects of violent video games on some people.

"Much of the attention to video game research has been negative, focusing on potential harm related to addiction, aggression and lowered school performance," said Christopher J. Ferguson, PhD, of Texas A&M International University and guest editor of the issue. "Recent research has shown that as video games have become more popular, children in the United States and Europe are having fewer behavior problems, are less violent and score better on standardized tests. Violent video games have not created the generation of problem youth so often feared."

In contrast, one study in the special issue shows that video game violence can increase aggression in some individuals, depending on their personalities.

In his research, Patrick Markey, PhD, determined that a certain combination of personality traits can help predict which young people will be more adversely affected by violent video games. "Previous research has shown us that personality traits like psychoticism and aggressiveness intensify the negative effects of violent video games and we wanted to find out why," said Markey.

Markey used the most popular psychological model of personality traits, called the Five-Factor Model, to examine these effects. The model scientifically classifies five personality traits: neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
Analysis of the model showed a "perfect storm" of traits for children who are most likely to become hostile after playing violent video games, according to Markey. Those traits are: high neuroticism (e.g., easily upset, angry, depressed, emotional, etc.), low agreeableness (e.g., little concern for others, indifferent to others feelings, cold, etc.) and low conscientiousness (e.g., break rules, don't keep promises, act without thinking, etc.).
Markey then created his own model, focusing on these three traits, and used it to help predict the effects of violent video games in a sample of 118 teenagers. Each participant played a violent or a non-violent video game and had his or her hostility levels assessed. The teenagers who were highly neurotic, less agreeable and less conscientious tended to be most adversely affected by violent video games, whereas participants who did not possess these personality characteristics were either unaffected or only slightly negatively affected by violent video games.

"These results suggest that it is the simultaneous combination of these personality traits which yield a more powerful predictor of violent video games," said Markey. "Those who are negatively affected have pre-existing dispositions, which make them susceptible to such violent media."

"Violent video games are like peanut butter," said Ferguson. "They are harmless for the vast majority of kids but are harmful to a small minority with pre-existing personality or mental health problems."
The special issue also features articles on the positives of video game play, including as a learning tool. For example:

• Video games serve a wide range of emotional, social and intellectual needs, according to a survey of 1,254 seventh and eighth graders. The study's author, Cheryl Olson, PhD, also offers tips to parents on how to minimize potential harm from video games (i.e., supervised play, asking kids why they play certain games, playing video games with their children).
• Commercial video games have been shown to help engage and treat patients, especially children, in healthcare settings, according to a research review by Pamela Kato, PhD. For example, some specially tailored video games can help patients with pain management, diabetes treatment and prevention of asthma attacks.
• Video games in mental health care settings may help young patients become more cooperative and enthusiastic about psychotherapy. T. Atilla Ceranoglu, M.D., found in his research review that video games can complement the psychological assessment of youth by evaluating cognitive skills and help clarify conflicts during the therapy process.

Obama Uses BP Oil Spill to Push Corporate-Welfare-Filled Global Warming Bill That BP Once Lobbied For

A good article by Hans Bader
Source

Talk about chutzpah.  President Obama, the biggest recipient of campaign cash from BP, is using BP’s oil spill to push for a global warming bill that is chock full of corporate welfare and environment-destroying ethanol subsidies.  And the bill is one crafted by lobbyists for big companies like BP: “For years, BP has lobbied for climate change legislation, until recently running around with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.”

The Obama Administration has done little about the oil spill, even though “BP’s oil gusher is in federal waters, on seabed leased from the federal government,” giving the government the moral responsibility to do something to stop the spill.  Instead, it is adding insult to injury for suffering Gulf Coast residents by imposing a ban on oil drilling that will wipe out at least 20,000 jobs in the Gulf, and perhaps more, according to Louisiana’s governor.

The ban doesn’t apply just to BP, a company with an unusually bad safety record which has been described as a “serial environmental criminal.” 

Instead, it applies to the oil industry generally, including the vast majority of oil companies that make safety a priority in drilling (and whose oil wells did not spill even during hurricanes).
Democratic strategist James Carville, who was raised in Louisiana, called Obama’s handling of the oil spill “lackadaisical“ and “unbelievable“ in its “stupidity.”

Until recently, the Obama administration ignored the pleas of Louisiana’s governor to allow Louisiana to build barrier islands to contain the damage from the oil spill, citing bureaucratic procedures.  Yet the Obama administration granted BP a waiver from environmental regulations in April 2009. ABC News reports that the “top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.”

The global warming legislation backed by President Obama would also drive jobs overseas, since it would impose a costly cap-and-trade carbon rationing scheme on American industry, while leaving foreign plants operated by multinational corporations unregulated.  Companies with plants overseas are lobbying for the global-warming legislation, which would give them an advantage over American competitors.  The legislation Obama backs may perversely increase pollution driving industry overseas to places with fewer environmental regulations.

Different points of view of the Israel Gaza humanitarian aid convoy

There are always different points of view on any conflict.

Here I list 3 points of view that I stumble upon.

First you have the point of view of pro-Israel and terrorist plot.

Al Qaeda on Board? Who Was on the Flotilla the Israelis Raided?

Second you have the humanitarian point of view, I would say not pro-Israel view of Democracy now.

Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and retired US Col. Ann Wright were on the flotilla when it was attacked. They join us to describe the assault and their subsequent detention in Israeli prison. We also speak to Sawsan Zaher, a staff attorney at Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, who interviewed many of the activists in detention.


Source 

Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Carmon, speaks to Democracy Now! and defends the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla that killed at least nine people in international waters. "Israel enforced a maritime blockade, which is a measure that is totally legal in international law, to enforce a blockade when there is a possibility of a danger emanating from some source. And this was exactly the case."


Source

Third, you have the common sense point of view of Dan Carlin on the subject.
Everything discussed in this show is likely to get a lot of people angry.  From Israeli naval raids to U.N. control of U.S. foreign policy, Dan probably won't be able to avoid making you mad. Sorry.


Any opinions?