Rants

Having said that, it’s *still* less than couth to claim that someone has “Rants in their pants.”

The Taliban and al-Quaida networks scouring the remote parts of the country for recruits and stirring up trouble.

Hmmm. The guys on the Outs still have better web sites, though.

Imported Stouts

The President drinks domestic light beer. I wonder — does he take sides during the ”Less Filling!”/”Tastes Great!” shouting matches across the table at Cabinet Meetings? We think he takes both sides on that one — or at least acts as conductor.

Pajamas and Slippers at the Shopping Mall

Baby, why do you want the world to see what you look like first thing in the morning? It’s one thing if you’ve dragged yourself to the drugstore with a cold, but another to peruse Victoria’s Secret or Nordstroms in flannel and Hello Kitty slippers. We at the 10thcircle don’t have much, but we enjoy the delusion of dignity.

Cars with Bluetooth

Smooth clutch takeup is hawt, and perfectly executed heel-toe downshifts will make members of the opposite sex swoon. At least, that’s what we keep telling ourselves.

Vin Diesel

Not so fast, Mr Furious.

Hooking up

“Baby, let’s get naked till breakfast. Or Tuesday.,” sounds a lot better to us than “My car or yours?”

Self-serving memoirs

We’re not thinking of anyone in particular here. Not Rove. Not Cheney. Nope.  

Regurgitation

Shooting Guns

Pool is less expensive, and think about all the beer cans we’ll be saving.

Asian/Fusion Resturants

Italian and Greek are great, aren’t they? Though we still have a weakness for tapas and dim sum. And Citronelle and Volt.

Any communctions that require more than one minute’s attention. Voice mail, email, Blogging, newspapers, books (comic- or otherwise), magazines, television, films, anything. Except for those having to do with teenage vampires.

Boating

It’s way cooler to have reservations for Virgin Galactic or a Russian Soyuz launch to the International Space Station than a charter fishing day trip or a Disney Cruise with a Character Breakfast.

Trolls

Career politician on a national level

Lou Dobbs. Sarah Palin. Need we say more? (Please don’t say Glenn Beck. Al Franken might be an exception, but then again, he might not.)

Lists

On a final note, we’re not going to get into Ins and Outs for sports or music (no arguments about Wolfmother, Gaslight Anthem, Kings of Leon, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or Family Force 5. Though we have to say that Cobra Starship is currently warping Out) or literature or anything on the Internet, which changes faster than we can type.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I was looking at some of the American Astronomical Society papers for the 2009 Conference in Long Beach, CA, when I stumbled across this open Request for Information issued by the National Academy of Science’s Space Studies Board for ideas for “detecting, characterizing, or mitigating NEOs” [Near-Earth Objects]. These NEOs are asteroids and comets that are in eccentric orbits around the Sun and happen to wander close enough to Earth to pose a risk for a Significant Co-Spatial Event. In other words, the NAS’s scientists are asking for ideas to help figure out how to find and deal with rocks or comets that might clout the Earth right out of human habitability, much less existence. Or possibly worse, into a Significant Economic Downturn — but I digress.

The Washington Post’s Joel Achenbach recently wrote about theories and evidence that a large cometary object penetrated Earth’s atmosphere and exploded in a Tunguska-like event 12,000 years ago, wiping out the Clovis people living in North America and rendering many large animal species extinct.

So between that and the Cretaceous–Tertiary (KT) extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs and almost all life (such as it was) on Earth 65 million years ago, theoretically due to a comet or meteor strike on the Earth at the Yucatan Peninsula [Note: what’s bad for the dinosaurs and the planet in general may be good for Mexican tourism, Exxon/Mobil and OPEC], it’s fair to say that People Who Should Know are somewhat nervous about what could happen to all life on Earth and Angelina Jolie in particular if Our Mother gets her bell rung by Lucifer’s Hammer, astronomically speaking.

Interestingly, the RFI also asks for cost estimates for any suggested solutions to the NEO problem. This thought gave me pause: are we - the Human Race - *worth* saving? Also interestingly, Jason G. Matheny recently wrote a paper, “Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction” which provides some thought, discussion and analysis regarding the value of the human race over time and cost effectiveness of preserving it from possible extinction (the answer: it depends).

For the sake of argument, I’m just going to assume that the cost/benefit analysis of the Future of Humanity comes out in Mankind’s favor, otherwise I’ll never get that $40 I won from a bar bet on how many Maraschino cherries my friend Dave could stuff up his nose (he swears 19 went in, but only 16 came out; I didn’t check his ears, though.) or be able to read George W. Bush’s forthcoming Big Pop-Up Book of Presidential Memoirs with Smell-O-Rama Scratch n’ Sniff pictures. (I’ll be careful not to drop it into the toilet while I’m sitting down to experience it in my own G. W. Bush Presidential Library.).

Buying into Matheny’s arguments that under certain conditions the Human Race *might* be worth saving (from a financial perspective, anyway), I looked at the RFI with renewed motivation:

I can sink my teeth into this RFI - a Big Problem, requiring Big Thinking, and possibly Big Solutions. And with levels of resourcefulness and cleverness - not to mention a credit card limit - normally associated with Wile E. Coyote.

These NEOs - the ones that we’re worried about - are all good-sized chunks of rock or ice rolling around the billiard table of the Inner Solar System in a complex dance right out of Ike Newton’s Principia Mathematica. Some of these NEOs are more or less mountain-sized and move at a pretty good clip relative to the Earth. Conventional thinking suggests that the prudent thing to do to would be to give them a little nudge from the stroke of a cosmic cue (a cue, like, say, megaton-yield nuclear weapons as in the cosmically forgettable movies Armageddon or Meteor.) and impart just enough english to their orbits - when compounded over billions of miles of travel - to miss sinking Earth in the corner pocket. Perhaps not even a cue, but just a finger tap to move brazilians of tons of rock in its orbit by just a hair. The finger of God at hand, as it were.

But we can’t tap too hard, because we don’t want to risk shattering a deflectable cueball into Dick Cheney-class spread of astronomical bird shot…

In order to address this in an orderly fashion, I made some lists.

The first was to consider what Expendable or Otherwise Useless Resources humanity has to throw at the problem, and after consulting with my crack staff, came up with these:

Rocks, used Cars and SUVs, water, the detritus of the G W Bush Administration, the Moon, people, Axl Rose, Regis Philbin, Microsoft Windows Vista Install Disks, Securities and other financial instruments traded on Wall Street, styrofoam packing peanuts, Global Warming/Greenhouse Gasses, pleated men’s pants, all of the foreclosed or abandoned McMansions in the US, print news organizations, VCRs and CD players, roughly 20,000 pieces of space junk in orbit, the assets of Linens & Things, all of the Chrysler Crossfires sitting on dealer’s lots, paparazzi, Circuit City and millions of 401k accounts across the country, and Oprah (the Doomsday Defensive Weapon of Absolutely Last Resort and almost-Senator from Illinois).

Next was a list of Tools and other Not-Necessarily Expendable Resources humanity can bring to bear on the problem:

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), Rockets, new Cars and SUVs other than Chrysler Crossfires, Wikipedia and Google, Nuclear Weapons, rubber bands, Warren Buffett, three used NASA-spec Space Shuttles in running condition (can be registered with Historic License plates), duct tape, twist ties, 6.75 Billion people *and* Angelina Jolie, paper clips, sportscaster Jim Nantz, the Chinese, Russian, European, Japanese, and Indian space programs, the complete inventory of the Home Despot hardware store chain, cardboard toilet paper tubes, Ginsu knives, Al Gore, Apple Computing Products (including iPhones), FedEx, incandescent light bulbs, YouTube, LostInThought’s closetful of FMPs (Sorry, LiT, the Earth is in the Balance here. Besides, when they’re gone, you get a free pass to go *shooe* shopping.) and Jack Bauer.

The third list was the first pass of Ideas. For some reason, we seem to be more focused on mitigation than detection or characterization — probably because I’m a guy, and guys usually wait until problems find *us,* rather than going around looking for them:

1. Mitigation - Make the Earth look like a giant “8″ ball - this might not prevent a strike, but everyone knows that you have to sink the 8 ball last, so this should buy us some time. Resources required: All the black towels and black Sharpies and Laundry markers Linens & Things has on hand, and a bunch of white towels to make the “8,” Tools: duct tape to secure all of it to the Earth (Note: Clearly, this is *not* a Magic 8 Ball.]
2. Mitigation - Have everyone on Earth move to one hemisphere and lean *hard*, tipping the whole planet up and out of the way, like they did with that bus in the movie “Speed.” Resources: people. Tools: All the planes, trains, and automobiles that can be mustered to move 3.4 Billion People from one side of the Earth to the other (This includes those semi-useless Chrysler Crossfires).
3. Mitigation - Melt comets at a distance. This could be accomplished by using the Earth’s natural and unnatural Greenhouse gasses in a focused stream of methane and CO2, directed at the comet like a giant smelly hairdryer. [We call it the FartGun.] Resources: Greenhouse gasses right out of the atmosphere and all of the industrial vacuum cleaners in Home Despot’s inventory to suck all the gasses up and store them until they’re needed. Tools: All of the Toilet Paper tubes in the world to provide raw materials for a giant million-barreled FartGun, ditto duct tape, rubber bands, twist ties, paper clips, and Al Gore to manage the whole enterprise (and possibly provide the first blast of hot air into the FartGun barrels, like priming the flue on a wood stove.)
4. Mitigation - Melt comets at a distance by building a large mirror to reflect and focus sun- and other light at it. Resources: All of those unused Windows Vista Install discs (for the mirror itself), toilet paper tubes (for the structure), duct tape, twisty ties, rubber bands, paparazzi. Tools: Space Shuttles and the various Space Programs, Angelina Jolie to provide inspiration to the mirror, as there hasn’t been one yet that didn’t like her. Additionally, if there’s an Orbital Oscar to be had, rolling out the red carpet at the Giant Space Compact Mirror may cause Ms. Jolie to walk down it in a terrific gown and LiT-class shooes *in view of the whole world,* causing every paparazzi on the planet to take flash photos of her, thus providing the first blast of light into the beam system, like priming the flue on a wood stove. [LiT suggests bringing along one of RD Padouk’s Redheads such as Amy Adams, to provide an initial flaming-hot pulse to the system and an overwhelming thermal inertia. I’m checking with the EPA and friends at the DOT and NRC about filing Environmental Impact Statements and Waivers for the transport and presence of weapons-grade fissionable materials so close together, and reviewing the annual EPA statements filed by the Producers of the Academy Awards shows.]
5. Mitigation - Assuming that most NEOs are traveling relatively close to the plane of the ecliptic, consider installing a big Red Emergency Handle somewhere [e.g. ‘Break Glass in Case of Emergency’] to activate greenhouse gas-powered rocket engines or nuclear/nuclear bomb-powered reaction-mass single-use Global Elevator thrusters at the Earth’s North and South poles to shove the Earth clear of planet-buster-class NEO co-spatial events. [Obviously, you’d want to figure out which direction the threat was coming from and only activate the devices at the pole that’d get the Earth out of the way in the quickest, most efficient manner possible. We understand that actually employing any of these in an emergency is likely to wreak havoc with china cabinets the world over, unfortunately.] Resources: Greenhouse gasses, nuclear weapons. Tools: Warren Buffet to decide when to execute the maneuver (his record of deciding when to buy and sell is pretty good), Jim Nantz to act as the flight attendant and deliver the pre-flight emergency instructions (what to do when the masks drop, seatbelt and floatation cushion usage protocols, etc.).
6. Mitigation - Camouflage the Earth (Paint it Black?), so comets and meteors can’t find it (a variant of #1). Resources & Tools: same as #1, except for the white towels.
7. Mitigation - Install giant greenhouse gas- or nuclear bomb-powered airbags to bounce comets and asteroids away. Expendable Resources: greenhouse gasses and/or nuclear weapons, Linens & Things sheets (to construct the airbags themselves), newspapers (to act as wadding for the bombs in order to prevent the igniting gasses from burning the airbags.)
8. Mitigation - Nuclear bombs/nuclear waste installed in critical-mass densities at various locations on the Moon, and rigged to detonate in a controlled fashion so as to steer the Moon into the path of a dangerous NEO and let the Moon take the impact. Look at the Moon for a minute - will anyone notice a few extra craters? [Though we may miss moonlit nights, and there’s likely to be havoc when Personal Cycles go haywire in the event the Moon gets reduced to a ring of shrapnel, or is whacked out of orbit and cha-chas right out of the Solar System entirely (see Space: 1999). Or worse, swings out a few hundred million miles and comes back towards Earth…] Resources: Axl Rose to serve as Ballistic Pilot for the Moon, Tools: Space Shuttles and the space programs to ferry everything up to the moon. And oh, yeah, [bc, slapping his head] every nuclear weapon we can muster.
9. Mitigation - Send Oprah up to an NEO that happens to be heading towards the Earth, and have her scold it into submission on a live prime-time TV broadcast of the “Oprah Winfrey Show.” Resources: Oprah. Coffee. And several dozen boxes of Dunkin’ Donuts. Tools: Space Shuttles and various space programs.
10. Mitigation - Launch the entire closetful of LostInThought’s stiletto-heeled FMPs and all of the world’s Ginsu knives to an intercept course with a threatening NEO, and deploy them in a shotgun blast of flechette footwear and cookware, slicing it to ribbons with sharp style. Tools: Ginsu knives, Space Shuttles and the various Space Programs, LiT’s FMPs, and Wile E. Coyote’s credit card (so LiT can get started on the FMP replacement program).
11. Mitigation - Construct a Border Fence between Outer Space and the Earth (like the one under construction between the US and Mexico) out of orbital Space Junk and all of the SUVs sitting on New Car lots across the US. It’ll take a few trips for the various Space Programs to throw all that stuff together into a nice shiny ring of Orbital Chain Link, and as more junk collects out there during the course of construction, we might even consider building complete shields or Space Parasols which could have a secondary use of being positioned between the Earth and the Sun to mitigate Global Warming and/or the occasional Coronal Mass Ejection event. [Note: Who gets to set up the Border Crossings to check Little Green Cards for Alien Workers, and, most importantly, collect tolls and fees for doing so? Could this pay for itself over time?] Resources: Space Junk, and Home Despot instructions for putting up fencing (translated into the English), Tools: the various Space Programs, and a few home contractors with the Right Stuff. 
12. Detection - Here in the United States, the unemployment rate is creeping up towards 8%, meaning that nearly 12 million smart, capable Americans are available for work. Why not put as many of them as possible into a Government work program to look for NEOs? I think the Obama Administration can use their vaunted Internet savvy to locate, organize, schedule, and arrange to pay Americans for these jobs and make sure they each have a set of good binoculars while they’re at it (perhaps they can also send kaleidoscopes to older folks who want to feel useful). For those that are interested, why not put motivated but underemployed people with the right skills to work on improving the view for the NEO Lookout Team? How about an Orbital Home Improvement project to add a nice Observation Deck on the International Space Station, or even maybe get started building a cabin (with a nice porch) on the Moon? These places would make far better vantage points for NEO lookout duty than light-polluted cities like Chicago (ya might see a little more, ya know?). Granted, you’d have to manage this in close coordination with #7 above, including busses to get off the Moon in case of emergency and maybe take them someplace safe (you thought I was going to suggest the Astrodome, perhaps?). Tools: Space Shuttles and space programs, duct tape, toilet paper tubes, rubber bands, twist ties, water, Fed Ex, people and Regis Philbin. Also, carpentry tools, 2″ x 4″s and nails. Lots and lots of 2″ x 4″s and nails. We’ll want to be able to call in Jack Bauer for Lunar Evacuations, too.

Still, for all we know the Asteroid with Our Name on it is already on its way, and by the time we notice it, it’ll already be too late. And that brings another thought — what if an NEO were mysteriously but obviously intentionally directed towards the Earth? Could it be aliens wanting to play catch with us  - “Hey, kid – think quick!” - or a tryout for Interplanetary Little League (how big of a baseball bat or glove do we need to construct?), or simply an errant ball that went into the neighbor’s yard? Speaking of errant balls [and ignoring the obvious John Edwards joke], perhaps someone’s playing the third hole on the Solar golf course - I remember someone playing the 5th hole at Jupiter some years back - and we’re on the wrong wavelength to hear anyone calling, “Fore!” Maybe the Cosmic Carnival started today and we’re first in the dunk tank, or we happen to be living on one of the water balloons - and here comes the first dart (you know, the heavily weighted darts that need to be thrown in a large parabola)! [I’d be very curious to see the stuffed animal Something’s going to win for popping the Earth. Probably an old “Alf.”] Whee, we’re having Big Time fun! 

Science Fiction writers would suggest that it’s some sort of cosmic intelligence test; obviously a pass/fail exam. If we stop it, we’re allowed to join some Galactic Defense-Mensa Federation Society (GD-MFerS) of civilizations, a United Nations of the Milky Way, as it were?

Or perhaps, as in a twist on the classic film “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” an asteroid were directed at Earth as a means of dealing with the problem of Karl Rove and Dick Cheney at liberty in the Galaxy. These aliens may have decided that it’s worth writing off the nice real estate of Earth (and then there’s the regrettable matter of 6.75 billion civilian losses), but that it’s worth it in order to rid the Galaxy of Rove and Cheney and the Weapons of Mass Distraction that the Grey House Administration believes they’re hiding somewhere on this planet. [I wonder — would the Grey House try to cover it up by referring to the incident as a “NEOCon hunting accident” of some sort?

On the other hand, an incoming asteroid might simply be thown by aliens who are sick of “I Love Lucy” and “The Jack Benny Show” and just want us to shut up already; a stellar shoe thrown at a noisy cat.

In any case, we as a species need to figure out how to deal with this problem of detecting and mitigating the threat of NEOs to our civilization.

What we really need and don’t know if we have, is time (Someone said, ”Time is meaningless, yet it’s all that exists.” Clearly this person understands waiting in line at the Motor Vehicle Administration for a Driver’s License Renewal.) And maybe we’d need that Supernatural Digit, after all.

But perhaps He’s already given us the Finger, just not in the way we wanted.

bc

Thanks, as always, to the Editor.

P.S. Please feel free to post *your* ideas for “detecting, characterizing or mitigating” NEOs, and remember - nothing is *ever* too stupid or crazy for this blog.

I live near Washington, DC and people ask me if I’m going down to the Mall or to the parade route to catch a glimpse of President Obama. And I tell them, no, I’m a DC-area native, and over the course of time, I’ll probably get to see plenty of him, just like his predecessors. I’ve been caught in enough rolling road closings as the Presidential Motorcade goes through and seen Marine One and the other PresiChoppers overhead more times than I can count. [Note: I live along the flight path between DC and Camp David, and believed that I could tell which of the three choppers had President GW Bush in it. It was the one with the window down and the arm sticking out, doing the ‘airplane wing’ up and down with his hand as they sped along up I-270.]

This is different, they say - this is historic. But aren’t they all historic? After all, there have only been 44 Presidents in the entire history of our Country. Perhaps a better word is unprecedented?

At this point I prefer to treat Obama as I would any other President who’s intentionally walking into the Worst Job Evar. I say, leave the guy alone - he’s got a million things to do, a million things to think about today. He’s a new commute to learn (and, like most guys, to devise the quickest, most efficient route – a second saved is a second earned, and every erg he saves is one that does not add to Global Warming), and when he gets to his desk, aren’t there a million forms waiting there for him to sign? Doesn’t he have to sign for his access badge, his Gov’t issued computer, fill out the requests for his user ID and password from the Info Security folks and get his email account squared away? He has to fill out the HR forms for his selections for Health Care benefits and Life Insurance (Has he even decided which options he’s taking yet? Never mind, I bet Michelle’s already got that figured out.), how much he’s putting into his 401k, whether he’s going to purchase extra vacation (George W Bush *always* purchased the maximum), and if he should go with the High Option Dental plan and pre-tax Health Savings account in case his oldest daughter is going to get braces this year. [Something tells me that they’re not going to make him fill the little cup on his first day - he *is* the President, after all]

He’ll need to find out where the Men’s bathrooms and the coffee maker/break room is, and where the network printers, copier, fax machine, and shredder are, too.

Leave President Obama to his work, I say. He’s got a lot to do, a Mitigation and Cleanup of Epic Proportions - he’s going to turn the lights all the way up at the White House, assess the mess left over from the Previous Occupant and his Party, roll up his sleeves and start working on what Needs to Happen Next.

So, some would say, the long National Nightmare is over.

But probably no more so than for George W. Bush, private citizen. I wonder if history will look at him as a guy who brought a Party back to his Parents’ House after they left, and it may have gotten away from him *just* a little bit. I mean, just look at the state of the Constitution they left here - pages stuck together (from I-don’t-know-what-and-I-don’t-want-to-know), cigarette burns, whole sections crossed out, little yellow Post-it notes with arrows saying “Sez you!” and “Ha,” little cartoons in the margins, rings on the pages from YooHoo and Tequila, and someone spilled Jack Daniels all over it. The place is a mess.

But that’ll all get cleaned up soon, I hope.

And Hope is what it’s all about now, isn’t it?

bc

PS Thanks to The Editor for some quick but very effective help.

Volcker, 81, was Fed Chair under Presidents Carter and Reagan and is now charged with bringing fresh thinking and “vigorous oversight” to the Obama Administration’s efforts to end the Recession (hopefully by not bringing on a full-on Depression).

Obama said in announcing the nomination, “The walls of the echo chamber can sometimes keep out fresh voices and new ways of thinking–and those who serve in Washington don’t always have a ground-level sense of which programs and policies are working for people, and which aren’t.”

If octogenarian Volcker is a “fresh voice” with a “ground-level” grasp of regular folks’ money problems, who else will serve on the ERAB?

Our sources on the Hill suggest that Obama and Volcker are pulling out all of the stops and not limiting their choices for ERAB members by age or corporeal status.

We understand that a remarkable variety of negotiations are ongoing with the following persons:

Pygmalion of Tyre, founding King of Carthage. Established international trade in the Mediterranean.

Pioneering Silk Road International trade negotiator Zhang Qian. Experienced in the Far and Middle East.

Islamic Economist, Advisor and Writer Abu_Yusuf. Very experienced in the Middle East - in fact, you could say he wrote the book.

Really really Smart Guy, Albert_Einstein. Hey, if you’re going to save the world by thinking, wouldn’t you want Einstein on the Team? [Sorry, Hawking fans.]

Former Warden of the Royal Mint, Sir Isaac Newton. [Sorry, Leibnitz fans.]

Former French leader, Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna von Habsburg-Lothringen.

Dutch mathematician and astronomer, Willem De Sitter. De Sitter reconciled Einstein’s theories of Relativity with Edwin Hubble’s observations of an ever-expanding universe, which should come in handy for figuring out how to pay for a Global Bailout.

Economist Karl Marx. Hey, he was an economist, and if Hillary Clinton can be Secretary of State, and Robert Gates Secretary of Defense, why not?

And all-around Shaqtastically Big Thinker, basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. Hey, we’re thinking Big here.

Documenting all of the results and recommendations will be the Three ERAB Secretaries, mathematician and writer Charles Dodgson, with writers Theodor Giesel and Mary Shelley.

On the Do Not Call List: Alan Greenspan and Christopher Hitchens.

We were surprised to see no mention of President Franklin Roosevelt either way…

Some are also calling for Scrooge McDuck, but rumors suggest that Volcker believes he’s too animated to fit into the Team.

Finally, rumor has it that Team ERAB is negotiating sponsorship deals with Nike, Pepsid-AC, Viagra, and Preparation H to help defray costs to the American taxpayers.

This is nice, but no matter what Team ERAB does, we’re paying for it.

bc

© Copyright by the author 2008, all rights reserved.

“Standing between the urine and the consumable end product are muscular apparatus that distill, filter, heat and chemically transmogrify the liquid. The instruments include a catalytic reactor, a gas separator, multi-filtration beds, a particulate filter, a reactor health sensor, a microbial check valve, a fluids control and pump assembly, and a pressure control and purge assembly. This removes almost all the organic molecules from the liquid.” 

Love the use of the word “transmogrify.” And ”almost.” 

On a related topic, I’ve been reading a paper by Jason Matheny, “Reducing the Risk of Human Extinction” which, aside from being highly humorous in spots (for those of us with a dark sense of it), is an analysis of the cost-effectiveness of preventing human extinction. In other words, “How much is it worth to save humanity?”

Naturally, one of the options discussed is avoiding total human extinction by isolating or sheltering some people from the risk of earth-based catastrophic events such as asteroid impacts, pandemics (natural or man-made), nuclear war, Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) from nearby stars, and drastic climate change. Means of achieving this could be in the form of Earth-based sheltered communities, or space-based colonies in Earth orbit, or on the Moon, Mars, etc. In any of these cases, such recycling technology as Joel describes would be required for self-sustaining communities with few outside resources available, particularly water.

Matheny’s paper is a little dated in spots (it was published a year ago):
“For instance, if we invest our money now in a stock market with an average 5% real annual return, in a century we will have 130 times more money to spend on extinction countermeasures (assuming we survive the century). This reasoning could be extended indefinitely (as long as we survive). This could be an argument for investing in stocks rather than extinction countermeasures if: the rate of return on capital is exogenous to the rate of social savings, the average rate of return on capital is higher than the rate of technological change in extinction countermeasures, and the marginal cost effectiveness of extinction countermeasures does not decrease at a rate equal to or greater than the return on capital.”

As if the state of my 401K isn’t enough to make me want to jump off of a building?

It seems that NASA is shooting for the stars with these state-of-the (ahem) art recycling toilets, and perhaps we will need something like them if we decide that we’re worth insuring over the long term. To that end, I’ve counseled my children to reconsider their plans for law school in favor of a future in plumbing after getting a Bachelor’s in Information Technology, of course. [This could position them well for an early career for data waste management in Government IT shops before blasting off into the Wild Blue Yonder of solid and liquid waste management for NASA.] 

Something that NASA nor Joel mention, though would be much on my mind — recycling human waste in a closed environment would be one thing, and even turning the solid waste into some sort of compost or fertilizer to grow fresh foods would be acceptable, but somebody needs to figure out how to develop an add-on to this Galactic Standard Techno-Throne system for recycling toilet paper, pronto.

Well, and there do not appear to be any special instructions for jiggling the high-tech handle, either. I would think this would be very important in orbit, where the nearest plumber is 200 miles away and falling behind at 17,000 miles an hour.

I’ll leave you with a thought from Matheny’s paper:

“Farthest out in time are astronomical risks. In one billion years, the sun will begin its red giant stage, increasing terrestrial temperatures above 1,000 degrees, boiling off our atmosphere, and eventually forming a planetary nebula, making Earth inhospitable to life (Sackmann, Boothroyd, & Kraemer, 1993; Ward & Brownlee, 2002). If we colonize other solar systems, we could survive longer than our sun, perhaps another 100 trillion years, when all stars begin burning out (Adams & Laughlin, 1997). We might survive even longer if we exploit nonstellar energy sources. But it is hard to imagine how humanity will survive beyond the decay of nuclear matter expected in 10 [to the] 32[nd] to 10 [to the] 41[st] years (Adams & Laughlin, 1997).3 Physics seems to support Kafka’s remark that ‘[t]here is infinite hope, but not for us.’”

An infinite future for humanity without toilet paper sounds hopeless to me, too. If there’s no cost-effective way to save humanity with TP, then perhaps we deserve to be wiped out.

bc

Instead of weathering the Perfect Political S**tStorm of 2008 on the National Campaign Trail, it looks like everyone of import has disembarked from the Conestoga Wagons of the Straight Talk Express into roadside diners, as Republican candidates, staff, and media engage in a most basic form of self-preservation.

In some respects, it appears to be a free-for-all feeding frenzy that even wolves would probably have no stomach for (we’re thinking that the last seven days of this campaign has been Shark Week) - Sarah Palin’s campaign appears to be learning quickly and is taking a few choice bites out of others after losing a few pounds of flesh early on.

If Republican representatives trying to keep House and Senate seats could not be trying harder to excuse themselves from the Bush Administration’s table, now they must be looking at the snipping and backbiting in the McCain/Palin campaign (Is that the Kid’s Table?) and wondering what to do next. In this case, some are bringing carving tools and flatware.

As it turns out, even during this most lean year for the Republicans, there’s always some Red Meat around… and even Ted Stevens’ tough old hide – but don’t call it Stevens Jerky - can help some GOP candidates survive if they don’t have anything else to feed on.

We thought it would be interesting to consider the GOP General Election Campaign timeline and see how it lines up with selections from the Donner Party timeline as on Wikipedia to see if we can draw any parallels

April - George Donner and his Party set out for the California Trail, hungry for the Promised Land.  They believe that if they stick to the recipe that’s served so well for so long, they’ll end up fat and happy.

Republican Presidential nominee John McCain and his Party set out on the Campaign Trail, hungry for the Promised Land. They believe that if they stick to the recipe that’s served so well for so long, they can continue being fat and happy.

Neither knows for sure what’s going to be dished out along the way, or what they’ll end up having to do to survive. Or what the smell of cooking pork will make them think of.

May-July- Quiet months for the Parties as they pick their way over the heartland. Donner and McCain find that they’ve lost their Keyes; Sarah from the Donner and Alan from the Republican. Despite that, many people consider them a lock. In reality, they’re far from pie-safe, and falling behind their timers.

From the kitchen, rumblings of a Meal Going Bad can be heard — people are suffering from severe gas pains, and starting to call for their sous chefs, which is never a good thing.

August – Final preparations for the Parties are being made. The heat is turned up on Donner and McCain as they decide to take shortcuts –- and there’s no short cut to short cake, as they say. Donner strays from the California roll he’s on, and makes a decision to take the Hastings pass despite being warned against it. McCain considers running mates for his ticket, and strays from the recipe of making a safe choice and vetting it well. The Parties are hungry, and need sustenance for November. Cakes and candies may taste good for a short time, but they’re no substitute for a well-balanced meal.

McCain and other Republican Party candidates have been taking bites out of Astonishingly Unpopular Top Ironic Chef George W. Bush, and are emboldened by his unresponsiveness, though they aren’t surprised.

September – After searching hither and yon for his final ingredient for the GOP main course at the Party Convention, McCain impulsively chooses an item not on the menu, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Initially seen as a tangy dessert item for the Far Right to balance McCain’s Maverick-spiced meat and potatoes, it turns out Palin is actually familiar with hunting, field-dressing and preparing wild game. In retrospect, this may be an indicator of things to come — particularly with the Georgetown Cocktail Party and Rubber Chicken Circuit crowds.

Not long after the convention, problems that have been simmering for a long time boil over. The great big pot of American economy starts burning, and the Republicans try to save the concoction by throwing everything but the kitchen sink at it. Unfortunately, everyone at the Party rushes in to try to save it – some trying to stir, some trying to change the recipe on the fly, others fiddling with the heat - and the whole thing becomes a burnt unappealing inedible mess. The Party is ruined — there’s nothing to eat and still a lot of hungry people. And the Democrats’ buffet, once serving only George W. Bush, Cheney and Rove, is now openly serving all Republicans.

In September, Donner realized that everything was going wrong, that the Party was heading for trouble – out of food, out of water, and a rising mania stemming from fear and hunger - and that maybe he should have listened to James Clyman when he advised against the Hastings Cutoff, after all.

In that same month, years later, McCain realizes that everything is going wrong, and that the Party is heading for trouble – they are short on money, falling behind in the polls as the economy fell like a soufflé’ gone wrong, and fickle ladyfingers of blame are being pointed within the GOP rather than at the Democrats. Fear is the most effective utensil for keeping what’s left of the Party going. He suspects that Fred Thompson knew exactly what he was doing, after all.

October – There’s no substantive sustenance for the Faithful, and cannibalistic chaos breaks out within the Party: whippings, stabbings, denunciations and endorsements on the Sunday talk shows, fistfights, revelations in the press, guilty verdicts, findings indicating abuses of office, and support withdrawn like a formal dinner chair pulled out from under Curly Howard. Ron Paul’s name is mentioned without so much as a snicker-doodle.

It’s every man and woman for themselves, as they scramble to survive the approaching November weather. Prominent Republicans who are not running for office and the Right Wing media are taking huge bites out of the GOP in general, and of McCain and Palin in particular. There are whispers that Palin is keeping herself alive for 2012 by taking small bites out of McCain, and when Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is convicted of lying to hide illegal gifts, she takes a big shank for herself. [Is she covetous of Stevens’ seat, now that she’s developed a taste for National Politics? If she could, would she name herself to that seat?] Several Republicans are sneaking forkfuls of Palin for Troopergate, for overdressing for dinner, even for the way she speaks on- and off-camera.

Grand Old Partygoers at every level are lining up right next to Democrats in feeding off of the Republican leadership in order to stay alive. Though the Dems are enjoying their pieces a great deal, flavored with the satisfying spice of Karma.

McCain refuses to take big chunks of Bush and/or other Republicans, and has found himself as the Guest of Honor in the GOP piranha tank. Halloween could not come at a more appropriate time for the Republican Party.

The Donner Party only had 48 survivors, but it only takes 41 to prevent a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, as the GOP leadership well knows. They may have left McCain’s Campaign for dead, but it is probably too late. The Relief Parties will undertake an accounting next year, but in the meantime, a more basic rule is employed — Do What’s Needed to Survive in the House and Senate and at the state and county levels. Just like in the Donner Pass.

Republican Politicians – they’re what’s for dinner.

Even for Republican Politicians.

Please Note that we didn’t refer to them as “the other other white meat.”

bc

Rumors suggest that President Bush personally authorized and directed what was known as “Operation Tin Woodsman” for the VPTTC’s use of Double Secret ‘Shrinkage’ equipment to restore the Vice President to normal working order. The procedure was performed in Karl Rove’s former laboratory in the basement of the White House, by which a submersible craft and crew were reduced to microscopic size and injected into Cheney’s blood stream in order to make a cardiac service call.

The craft, reportedly piloted by President Bush himself - using the call sign “Scarecrow” - successfully navigated through Cheney’s circulatory system, managed to locate the Vice President’s tiny wayward heart (which had been upgraded last year), and, using techniques developed for repairing the Hubble Space Telescope and for interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, was able to repair, relocate and restart it.

After the President and his Cabinet were reduced in stature by what VPTTC scientists referred to as an “augmentation and magnification of processes already underway towards the end of the Bush Presidency” to be able to complete their objectives, they regained their normal height once they were transported off of the White House grounds to an undisclosed location.

President Bush, relaxing on vacation at said undisclosed location, was reported to have enjoyed his short time of success saying,” If you can’t use your time in the White House to help your friends, then what are you doing there? For me that was some fantastical little voyage.”

© Copyright by the author 2008, all rights reserved.

According to Paulsen, the US Treasury, Federal Reserve, OMB, and GAO performed an analysis of the Federal Deficit and the Government’s financial soundness and ability to raise capital to meet its debts and obligations, and found it to be in default of United States Code Title 31, Subtitle III, Chapter 31, Subchapter 1, Section 3101 - Public Debt Limit. To put it simply, the analysts declared the US Government irrecoverably bankrupt. They pointed to the additional financial risks the Government has assumed to salvage the US Economy by bailing out the financial sector as a deciding factor. As Paulsen and Fed Chief Ben Bernanke accepted the findings, they decided it was time to take action.

Paulsen further announced that he would be taking on an additional role as Secretary and Chief Operating Officer of the US Government, and that the Chief Justice, Speakers of the House and Senate, and the President would be reporting to he and new Vice Chairman of the US Government, Ben Bernanke. Paulsen and Bernanke’s nascent positions would comprise a new executive Office of Monetary and Financial Governance (OMFG) that will manage the overall US Government going forward.

“But only on a temporary basis,” he said. “We want to take our time and decide what the right things to do with the heads of the existing Branches are, and to execute them in a deliberate, controlled manner.”

He further stated that until the decisions on the future of the Legislative, Judicial and Executive Branches were made and plans put in place, General Elections would be suspended indefinitely.

“I don’t like the Electoral College process for determining the election of the President. I find it very overly complex and confusing, and don’t really understand it,” he stated. “It’s way more confusing than derivative debt issuances, for example.”

While details are still unavailable, it is believed that the US Government would be funded through a bold and radical scheme by which taxpayer money would be used to pay for Government operations.

Additionally, it is expected that OMFG would assign the US Government an 80% stake in itself by taking that percentage of all outstanding Government Bonds and Treasury securities (e.g. T-Bills), and calling them in for cash. Experts hint that the percentage might be higher, essentially wiping out holders of these instruments.

Sources say that whatever extra funds would be required to pay for the Government and its operations would come from financial instruments secured by repackaging Government assets and debts for sale to overseas investors in Europe and the Far East, as well as by spinning off and selling the Government-owned corporation US Postal Service and independent Agencies with market value, such as the CIA and NASA. No word yet on the FDIC, though many suspect that it will be retained due to its potential as a profitable business after it has been reorganized and given a new charter.

When it was pointed out during the press conference that Paulsen and Bernanke had actually engineered the deals that drastically exacerbated the Government’s financial exposure and triggered the Treasury and Fed’s decision to put OMFG in charge, Paulsen angrily refuted the statement, “That’s a conspiracy theory that I’m not going to dignify with an answer.”

Secretary and COO Paulsen concluded by announcing that OMFG, the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve had concerns about the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN facility near Geneva, Switzerland and the Global Economy, leading speculators to consider the idea that they were planning another takeover in order to convert the LHC to a time machine and send the entire Global Economy back to 1998 and forward to 2028 as well. And if the entire Global Economy can’t be sent back or forward in time, they would just send the US Economy through and develop loan packages for securitization and sale with guaranteed returns.

“Some are suggesting we’re going to mortgage our past *and* future,” Paulsen said. “We’re simply going to manage market conditions as means of speeding up paying ourselves back over time. The fact that we’re considering a 30-year fixed-rate loan is purely a coincidence based on conventional instruments.”

“But you know, that’s for another weekend,” he said. “Now that things are where they need to be, I think I’m giving myself, the Treasury and the Fed next weekend off.”

We can only hope. But don’t bet the house on it.

© Copyright by the author 2008, all rights reserved.

Or so I thought.

I’m reminded of both Bob and Error every day, from Bob’s framed 1933 Monaco Grand Prix poster that used to hang in his kitchen and now hangs just outside of mine, to Error’s influence on the tone and nature of the Boodle.

References to things Error Flynn boodled about, such as Groundhog wars, Formula One auto racing and kitschy old TV shows and movies are obvious, as are calls for “Error in’ 08.” But it goes further than that.

Error Flynn was smart and funny — at times deftly brutal, at others, brutally honest. He never hesitated to challenge ideas or opinions when he thought it necessary, and he relished a lively debate. When Error’s sense of ethics dictated it, he would swing into action, passionately defending or skewering as necessary. Typically on the side of the little guy, he confronted what he considered inflexible or dogmatic thinking with his considerable intellect and humor.

One of the things that endeared Error to so many Boodlers was the fact that he wore his emotions on his virtual sleeve. Whether he was feeling silly or thoughtful, proud or angry, it came through in his posts. Sometimes I could see his emotions change from upset and furious to ironic and reflective in a single post, leaving me with the image of him hunched over a scorched keyboard with steam pouring out of his ears, then, his catharsis almost complete, chuckling wryly to himself. I suggested to Bob that Error was a virtual Incredible Hulk, mild-mannered much of the time, but able to summon awesome powers when provoked, becoming the Incredible Error and dispensing justice as he saw it, then changing back into his normal moderate self as his anger subsided. Bob laughed at the idea, but I could tell that it bothered him. As much as Error espoused the need for rational change and fought for what he thought was right, Bob was a very sympathetic and empathetic man who knew that sometimes the Hulk inadvertently hurt people.

Error Flynn raised the level of intensity and passion in the Boodle, and helped make it possible for people of differing backgrounds to consider it a level playing field for all. When I see Boodlers engaged in vigorous, honest, thoughtful debates, when I see their words challenging the status quo, when I see people courageously voice unpopular opinions and their rationale for holding them, I see Error.

The last year of Bob’s life, there was a thread about Error Flynn mounting a campaign for President in the 2008 elections. There was wide enthusiasm for his powers and gifts to facilitate change for the better.

Error would have relished the current Presidential campaigns, as the candidates travel about the country touting change. He would have railed against hypocrisies and inconsistencies, any bending of the truth or naked pandering, manipulation of facts, empty promises, or candidates announcing changes in thought or position for the sake of change.

When I see Boodlers do these same things, I see Error.

There have been uncountable changes in this country and the world over the past year: some good, some bad, and time will tell for the rest of them. One thing that hasn’t changed: for me, it is still Error in ‘08. His active participation may be gone, but his influence is still felt in the Boodle. I suspect that at some point we’ll start talking about “Error in ‘12,”possibly as early as 11PM EST on November 4th. When we meet in Washington a month before, you’ll see more evidence that Error is not really gone.

Error has become ethereal.

I think Bob would be very satisfied with that.

In particular, there have been concerns that as the LHC’s scientists smash beams of particles together at fantastic energy levels (like, 7 Trillion electron volts, which is comparable to the electricty created by an unimaginable number of people stroking an equal number of cats), those collisions may inadvertently create subatomic mini-black holes that could swallow the Earth, or unleash some other large-scale disaster which could be blamed on France, like mayonnaise on French Fries, or the continued popularity of Jerry Lewis movies.

The LHC was built in order to create exotic short-lived yet massive subatomic particles that may have existed at the time of the Big Bang [The participants (which may or may not include some character called “Higgs”) wisely decided against making any video recordings of the timeless encounter (unlike Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee), though the shockwaves from it are still resonating through all Creation in the Universe’s background radiation. Astronomers are still trying to transcribe the dialog, though they believe that they’ve that the words “Oh, God,” and “Now!” were used. And something about a towel.]. Measuring the characteristics of these particles’ creation and decay should prove or disprove theories about the nature of mass and matter, and subsequently theories of the natures of space and time as they pertain to the universe we experience. You know, Everything.

CERN is scheduled to start up and run the LHC through operational tests for the first time on Wednesday, September 10, 2008, with the first particle beam collisions to take place in late October (around the time the Oakland Raiders will be mathematically eliminated from the NFL playoffs).

Getting to the bottom of the the Big Bang is going to take a while; a timeless moment deserves all the attention we can give it and is best left to proceed at it’s own pace.

I’ll attempt to address some questions I received on this topic:

bc, is there any truth to the rumor that the LHC project fell behind schedule and that Darth Vader flew in and oversaw final construction of this fully operational battle station? And can they build another here in the USA? - Richard, Location not disclosed

We have not been able to get in touch with Grand Moff Tarkin to confirm or deny the motivation level of the team that completed the LHC. But we note that the circular tunnel for the particle acceleration is 17 miles around, so you’d need a lot of room in a remote area that no one really cares about, like Texas or Alaska. Thanks for the reminder to get in touch with my Realtor to put my beach house on Alderaan on the market, or at least up my homeowner’s insurance. And thanks for the question.

What preparations are the CERN scientists and LHC operational teams making in case there are problems when they try to start the LHC? - Ralph N. Washington, DC

Well, there are those uncomfirmed reports that there was a mad scramble the other day at CERN to locate the spare starter crank handle in case the Primary LHC pull cord rope breaks. Also, we’re told that they have ether on hand to spray down into the carburetor in case it does not fire up immediately, and if it does not operate properly once started, a scientist has been elected to go in and jiggle the handle. All staff have been instructed on the location of the CERN kitchen fire extinguisher and have been issued Rosaries and head-sized brown paper bags in case of serious problems.  

Are you afraid of the operations of the LHC, and the possible End of the World through a cataclysmic mistake? And do you expect it to happen before a certain new movie, “Angels & Demons” opens on May 19, 2009? I sure hope not. - D. Brown, Somewhere in New England

If the world were to end suddenly, I’d expect it to be due to a mistake, oversight, or some other ”oops” moment - a human Error - rather than petty malice or soulless machines rising up and taking over the world.

The End, not with a bang or a whimper, but with slapping ourselves on the forehead.  

That suits us, I think.

Also lets us file a nice accident claim on the insurance policy - er, we did pay the premium for the LHC’s road insurance, didn’t we?

bc

© Copyright by the author 2008, all rights reserved.

PS Thank you, thank you, thank you.

For more information on the LHC, see Joel Achenbach’s article from the March 2008 National Geographic (it has great illustrations and photography, too).