Category Archives: Science/Engineering

Biggest shale oil field in U.S.

permian-basin

The Permian Basin of West Texas has long been a rich “play” for crude oil and natural gas. Now it’s also the best in the country for shale oil deposits. And the discovery couldn’t come at a better time. President-elect Trump wants to make us energy independent and likely will back extensive use of the Permian. Hagzilla likely would have followed Barry Hussein’s pretend attack on carbon and thumbed her nose at shale while wasting more money on phony (i.e. intermittent power)  windmills and low-efficiency solar cells.

Mars in 70 days

“The results of NASA’s tests on the ‘impossible’ EM Drive have been leaked, and they reveal that the controversial propulsion system really does work, and is capable of generating impressive thrust in a vacuum, even after error measurements have been accounted for.”

This is propulsion without fuel. Mars in 70 days instead of 18 months. No bulky fuel tanks marring the design of your space vehicle. Moreover, no explosive fuel to worry about. Leaving the problem of shielding from cosmic rays to be resolved, but with considerable new incentive to do so.

Via Instapundit.

The Hottest Year Evah Nonsense

The television meteorologists and the newspaper scribblers reissue these government handouts every year as if they were gospel instead of political bullshit so fundamentally flawed they don’t deserve to be called science.

“Surface temperature datasets are so flawed (Urban Heat Island effect; poor siting issues; large areas of the world where there is no coverage) as to be untrustworthy,” writes James Delingpole. “Satellite data don’t show nearly the same extreme warming trend: this year’s high temperatures, the result of a strong El Nino, are roughly the same of those as of the (similarly strong) El Nino of 1998.”

“[Where] there is little or no data coverage for most of the world,” writes climate blogger Paul Homewood, “temperature trends are simply made up for large areas, particularly the supposedly fast warming regions like the Arctic.”

Made up? Yes, made up. Extrapolated, as they say in professional-speak, those none-too-scientific scientists, getting fat and living high on the climate-change gravy train powered by your tax money. Championed by such luminaries as the dictator’s club (aka the UN) and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Titanic risk of Arctic cruises

Scheduling an Arctic pleasure cruise? Better think again.

“Tero Vauraste, boss of Finnish shipping firm Arctia, warned there would be little authorities could do if a ship got into distress there, due to the lack of infrastructure. ‘The Northwest Passage is thousands and thousands of nautical miles with absolutely nothing,’ he said.”

Moreover, technology is self-limiting in that region, according to Vauraste:

“Navigation in icy waters is made more difficult by poor satellite imagery. An ice field might move at a speed of 4-5 knots, but a ship will receive a satellite picture of it that is 10-20 hours old.”

Via FoxNews.

Bye, Bye Internet

Yes, it still seems to be working. Far as I can tell. Not that I’ve ever had that many visitors to Ye Olde Abode. But I don’t expect to be affected much.

It’s the future that could be scary. Just ask Mark Grabowski, an internet law prof at Adelphi U. on Long Island, NY. He’s not confident it will turn out well at all.

“There is currently nothing prohibiting ICANN, post-transition, from eliminating or transferring what are essentially the Web addresses for U.S. government and military websites. A company owned by or located in Russia or China could end up managing whitehouse.gov, fbi.gov or army.mil. Losing control of these web domains would put our nation’s security at risk.

“Another concern is transparency. Publicly available databases, which show who owns what domain name and how to contact them, could disappear. Companies and law enforcement rely on these to resolve infringement and cybersecurity issues, and eliminating access would have a severe effect on businesses’ ability to protect themselves.”

Most of bye, bye Internet pieces are sanguine about it. No biggie. Grabowski’s is not.

Via InsideSources

Hillary’s companion neurologist

“Hillary Clinton is in such poor health that she needs a neurologist by her side at all times. What about her health is she really trying to hide from America?”

Parkinson’s probably, though neurologist Oladotun Okunola‘s specialty is epilepsy.

Hurrah for the Internet. While the Lamestream Media plays suckup to Democrats, Internet news outfits like USAPoliticsNow do real journalism.

Of course the suckups are fighting back. Snopes, which used to be politically neutral but lately has become another arm of progressives claims Okunola can’t be the guy (who they say is actually Secret Service) because his young picture doesn’t match his current one. They may be correct, but I doubt it.

A parasite named for Obama

“B. obamai is described in the August issue of the Journal of Parasitology as having a long, thread-like body. So far, it’s shown up in two freshwater turtles, the black marsh turtle (Siebenrockiella crassicollis) and southeast Asian box turtle (Cuora amboinensis).”

How appropriate. It’s now official.

Via PopSci