Category Archives: Current Events

Chinese Militarization of the South China Sea

Posted on by

The Obama administration has been mostly silent on the Chinese efforts to build infrastructure and armaments in disputed territory. One article says the Chinese are building a “Great War of Sand” on reefs using dredges and bulldozers in areas where six Asian nations have territorial claims. Some of the new islands have helipads and anti-aircraft towers. One island that was once called “Fiery Cross Reef” can accommodate an airstrip.

The latest construction is the expansion of two islands Vietnam says it owns.  Satellite images show seven new “islets” in the South China Sea. The Philippines and Vietnam have both accused China of breaking a nonbinding code of conduct agreeing “…to refrain from provocative actions in the disputed region.” Chinese officials responded by saying that the islands “…are an inherent part of China,” and that they would be used for “…military defense and for a range of civilian purposes.”

I wonder whether President Obama discussed this with the Chinese during his recent visit. We do know that global warming was an important part of his agenda. He promised that the U.S. would cut emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. The Chinese responded with vague promises to use “…best efforts to peak emissions while boosting green energy use by 2030.” I can’t imagine what the Chinese said about Mr. Obama’s negotiating skills after he departed their country.

Nuclear Waste Leak Caused by a Typo

Posted on by

man-using-computer-mdThe title is a simplification. A drum of nuclear waste did leak after organic material was mixed with acidic waste because of a typo in a procedure. However, the fiasco began with pressure to meet a deadline related to renewal of a multi-billion dollar contract.

Los Alamos Laboratory was well on its way to meeting a mid-2014 deadline to ship radioactive waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico when workers came across a batch of waste that was “extraordinarily acidic” (pH 0) and therefore unsafe to ship. Guidelines called for a rigid set of reviews to determine how to properly treat the waste before proceeding. That time-consuming process apparently jeopardized the deadline. Instead, neutralizer and kitty litter were added, and the drum was shipped to WIPP. The documents accompanying the drum made no mention of the original acidity, neutralizer, or type of kitty litter.

The campaign to clear waste from Los Alamos was more than 90 percent complete when the contents of the drum reacted and the drum’s lid breached in the underground WIPP disposal area. The exothermic reaction of the contents threatened dozens of nearby drums. One source says 21 workers “…were contaminated with what federal officials have described as low levels of radiation.” A statement from LANL “…said scientific testing has eliminated the explosive nature of the waste as the cause of the radiation leak.”

As a retired worker from Rocky Flats’ plutonium area, at this point I was thoroughly puzzled.  Continue reading →

Nuclear Winter: The Evidence and the Risks

Posted on by

nuclear-winterThis book by Owen Greene, Ian Percival, and Irene Ridge reminded me of Carl Sagan’s public campaign to frighten people about nuclear weapons while I wondered why what happened after a nuclear holocaust would be more frightening than the holocaust itself. I thought I should educate myself about what frightened people more than the direct effects of a nuclear detonation. The book mentions that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences published a study in 1982 that the smoke from nuclear explosions could “…blot out nearly all the sunlight from half of Earth for weeks on end. The key factor that scientists had neglected for over thirty years was smoke!” The warning prompted five American scientists; Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, and Sagan (revered in Nuclear Winter circles as TTAPS) to calculate that “…summer could be turned into winter…” Nuclear explosions would ignite fires of everything combustible in and around cities. The smoke would combine with the ejected dust to create a long list of effects. Harvests would be reduced for two years or more, countless plants and animals would become extinct, there would be deaths from collapse of medical services, famine, and epidemics. “Human suffering would be world-wide and on a scale almost beyond comprehension.

The book presents a list of nuclear weapons stockpiles as of 1985 (predating India and China). The overall total was estimated at 49,600 with a total yield of approximately 15,000 megatons. For those who often question why there were so many weapons, there is a listing of “Targeting Categories” from the U.S. Department of Defense dated March, 1980. The listing which was said to be “only illustrative,” includes: Soviet Nuclear Forces (more than 2,000 targets), Military and Political Leadership (about 3,000), Conventional Military Forces (about 15,000),Economic and Industrial Targets (about 15,000)

Soviet priorities were said to “…be similar.” Continue reading →

Confusing Articles About Young Women

Posted on by

George Will wrote an editorial about an ominous rise in dog ownership because an increasing number of women “are adopting dogs for security and/or companionship partly because of the great education divide.” Many more women than men are going to college. It was estimated that in 2013 there were 4.9 million more women age 25 or older with college degrees than men in that age group. Apparently women prefer to marry men who have educations at least similar to theirs, which translates to a shortage of suitable male partners. That leads to the women having a dog for companionship, and few would dispute that dogs are more dependable than men.

But that isn’t the end of the story. Amina Elahi writes that women represented 30 to 37 percent of computer science undergraduates in the 1980s. That number dipped to about 18 percent by 2010-2011. There are 75 percent of girls are interested in STEM in middle school, but apparently they then become more interested in makeup and having “the right body type.” There also continues to be a “nerdy” stigma with technology. Watching young girls and boys tells me they are all interested in technology, or at least they’re interested in the technology that keeps them texting each other as they gather for lunch.

It’s all very confusing. Why are many more women attending college but there are fewer of them in technology classes? I would think a young woman could fuss over her makeup and still attend a computer class. And why would they care about body type if they are going to opt for a dog as a companion?

 

Biology is Undeniably Fascinating

Posted on by

UndeniableBill Nye recently participated in a controversial debate with young-Earth creationist Ken Ham. In his new book, Undeniable, Nye writes “For those readers who might be deeply religious, welcome… I did not disparage anyone’s religion.” He notes that “many people… see no conflict between their spiritual beliefs and their scientific understanding of evolution.” This fact always makes me wonder how individuals can be so sure they speak for God. When someone makes an assertion in science, scrutiny across the world and over time weeds out falsehoods. Similarly, in religions wisdom accumulates over time. Why some individuals cling to the past puzzles me.

Nye writes that “evolution is one of the most powerful and important ideas ever developed in the history of science,” with “essential practical applications.” He fears that if the “pseudoscience of creationism” makes inroads into education, it “is an assault not just on evolution but on the whole public understanding of science.”

Nye refutes creationism. For example, Ham claims that 7,000 kinds of animals were on Noah’s ark – there are 16 million species known today, so eleven new species would have come into existence every day under Ham’s vision of the Great Flood to reach today’s total. Surely someone would have noticed if that happened. Kangaroos would have had to climb down from snowcapped Mount Ararat and hop to Australia without leaving any sign they passed through. No recorded sightings, no bones in Tibet, and across a land bridge that left no trace of its existence. There’s loads of Internet information available on the debate, for example, here and Nye returns to Creationism at several places in the book. Continue reading →

Facing the Elephant in the Classroom

Posted on by

Tom Coyne had an excellent guest commentary article in the Denver Post about the status of education in Jefferson County, Colorado. The only complaint I have about the article is that it dances around defining the problem until page two. Taxpayers spend an enormous amount of money for education. In 2012-2013 Jeffco spent $10, 420 per student or over $260,000 per 25 student classroom. Denver metro expenditures on education were in the billions of dollars. All this spending is not resulting in decent educations for many of the students. “In 2014, only 46 percent of Jeffco students met the college and career ready… (requirements) in reading, only 47 percent in math, and only 45 percent in science.”  Sadly that means more than half the students were not adequately prepared to attend college or start any kind of career when they graduate from high school.

The school administrators and teachers union has a standard response to complaints students aren’t meeting standards. They first say they know what they are doing. They then will say something such as, “If you want better achievement results, you have to give us more money and trust us to use it wisely.” Does that mean the administrators and teachers are admitting they can work harder and smarter, but are holding back because they want more money. Everyone would always appreciate higher pay, but I think it would go over very poorly in a private business if a manager or employee said they will improve substandard performance only if they receive a raise Continue reading →