Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The Nominations Are Up

Each week, the members of the Watcher's Council nominate one of their own posts and a second from outside the Council for consideration by other council members in a contest for best post. The Watcher publishes the results each Friday morning.

If you would like to participate in the Council's activites, you have two options. There is an opening on the council at the moment, so if you would like to submit your blog for permanent membership, visit the Watcher's site and follow the instructions you can find linked on the right side bar. Similarly, if you would like to self-nominate one of your posts for competition in the Non-Council category, you will also find the instructions for that at the Watcher's site.

As always, this week's nominations present an eclectic mix of thought-provoking reading.

Do enjoy them all:

Council Submissions

Rhymes With Right – Obama #15? No Way!

The Colossus of Rhodey – And the Philly Inquirer wonders why it’s dying a slow death?

Right Truth - A World Without Islam – Review

Bookworm Room – New country discovered at the Marin County Fair

The Glittering Eye – Foundations of Sand

The Provocateur – Mark Clements and Chicago’s Culture of Torture

Snapped Shot – D is for Diss

Joshuapundit – A Partisan Divide On Israel?

Wolf Howling - Obama’s Lawsuit Against Arizona (Updated)

Non-Council Submissions

Patterico’s Pontifications - Feinstein on Judicial Inexperience, Then and Now submitted by Rhymes with Right

Common Sense Political Thought – Real, honest-to-God, spending cuts! submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey

AIE Center for Defense Studies blog - China Cashes In on Iraq’s Postwar Recovery by Philipp Tomio submitted by Right Truth

Caroline Glick – Standing down the hanging jury submitted by Bookworm Room

Zenpundit – Reality, Strategy and Afghanistan: Some Questions submitted by The Glittering Eye

Stuart Schneiderman – The Hotness Gap submitted by The Provocateur

Virginia Right! – Obama: Solar Panel $2 Billion Investment Payback in Only 50 Years submitted by Snapped Shot

Powerline – Had Enough “Hope and Change”? submitted by JoshuaPundit

The Counterterrorism Blog – Two Major Middle East Terrorist Figures Die in their Safe Havens submitted on behalf of Wolf Howling

Israel Matzav – Who is orchestrating a US rapprochement with Hezbullah and Hamas? submitted by The Watcher

1 comment:

OBloodyHell said...

>> Virginia Right! – Obama: Solar Panel $2 Billion Investment Payback in Only 50 Years

> Investing in Solar Technology is not a bad thing

Yes, it is. It is sheer lunacy, based on a total failure to know and/or understand Basic Physics that almost anyone is capable of grasping.

I wrote a summary of why it was wrong over a year ago, for No Oil For Pacifists:

Solar Power: Flat-Out Wrong For All Time

Earth-based, On-Land solar power CANNOT be anything other than a specialty power source suitable for remote locations and very atypical scenarios. Not "it needs work" -- it would require a violation of the known laws of physics for it to be even vaguely cost effective.

The fact is, that solar, like wind, contains a lot of energy but the energy DENSITY is far too low to be truly usable, and this is not something that simply "advancing tech" will solve -- it would require a completely unexpected and unpredictable breakthrough -- an "E=MC-Squared" moment of pure, unadulterated genius -- in our basic understanding of the universe to change that.

See the article for a better explanation of that -- it's not entirely short, but neither is it so technical that one should not be able to follow it if one has even a decent understanding of 9th grade Earth Science, much less high school physics.

There is only one really likely functioning form of solar power which does not require such a breakthrough, and that is Ocean Thermal ("OTEC"), which essentially uses the vast ocean surface as a solar collector. And even there, it does require a substantial development in technology... so of course there's no real money being put into THAT because that's not the real purpose of all this crap... the real purpose is to hamper the USA as an economic power by destroying its utility base.