I'm not totally sold on the AR-15 to save the country line of reasoning either, but it's not entirely without merit.

flowers are beat by knives are beat by guns are beat by tanks are beat by airpower

Sure a population armed with AR-15s isn't going to prevent a guy like Bashar Al Assad who's willing to use helicopters to drop chemical weapons on you. At the same time, try resisting or overthrowing a guy like that WITHOUT AR-15s...

The black is probably chemicals for fire retardant and antifreeze, or silt. Systems have to be tested and flushed at least annually around here; I don't know if other locales don't care about upkeep.

In a way Scahill is like a less educated\refined version of Noam Chomsky. He does good investigative work, and dedicates enormous energy into exposing and spotlighting the bad things that America does. That has a place, but without a similarly harsh and critical light being cast on America's targets/enemies it becomes propaganda.

Jeremy says he wouldn't work with Charles Manson to oppose trump, fair enough. What about kind of working with Stalin to defeat Hitler? Say, at least agreeing not to attack Stalin while you both deal with Hitler?

The world is incredibly complicated and the singular and lone focus on American mistakes paints a deceptive picture. Pointing out the problems with America's war in Iraq, like torture and Quantanamo and declaring these as so immoral we needn't even look at Saddam's past is propaganda. Saddam waged two campaigns of genocide against his own people. When America saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib, they shut it down and attempted to punish those responsible. When Saddam's brother used chemical weapons to exterminate Kurdish civilians Saddam commended him for it. Guantanamo is bad, but it doesn't mean we should fail to acknowledge the concentration camps that Saddam operated during his genocide of the Kurds. It doesn't mean it's unfair to observe that conditions in Saddam's prisons across the country were far more cruel during his entire reign.

There's a nuanced place here that Scahill and Chomsky and pundits like them just fail to acknowledge and encourages inaction at times were the lesser evil may well be for America to do something, even if aborting Gadafi's genocide doesn't make Libya a paradise after.

So, you think rust isn't iron?

Yes, this is aluminum, just as ruby and sapphires are states of aluminum (technically corundum, the technical term for aluminum oxide) but because this is not naturally occurring they were smart to make the chemical composition it's name, AlON (aluminum, oxygen, nitrogen).
You make a new useful compound, you can name it whatever you like. ;-)

from link:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/year-one-list-81-major-trump-achievements-11-obama-legacy-items-repealed/article/2644159

Below are the 12 categories and 81 wins cited by the White House.

Jobs and the economy

Passage of the tax reform bill providing $5.5 billion in cuts and repealing the Obamacare mandate.
Increase of the GDP above 3 percent.
Creation of 1.7 million new jobs, cutting unemployment to 4.1 percent.
Saw the Dow Jones reach record highs.
A rebound in economic confidence to a 17-year high.
A new executive order to boost apprenticeships.
A move to boost computer sciences in Education Department programs.
Prioritizing women-owned businesses for some $500 million in SBA loans.
Killing job-stifling regulations

Signed an Executive Order demanding that two regulations be killed for every new one creates. He beat that big and cut 16 rules and regulations for every one created, saving $8.1 billion.
Signed 15 congressional regulatory cuts.
Withdrew from the Obama-era Paris Climate Agreement, ending the threat of environmental regulations.
Signed an Executive Order cutting the time for infrastructure permit approvals.
Eliminated an Obama rule on streams that Trump felt unfairly targeted the coal industry.
Fair trade

Made good on his campaign promise to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Opened up the North American Free Trade Agreement for talks to better the deal for the U.S.
Worked to bring companies back to the U.S., and companies like Toyota, Mazda, Broadcom Limited, and Foxconn announced plans to open U.S. plants.
Worked to promote the sale of U.S products abroad.
Made enforcement of U.S. trade laws, especially those that involve national security, a priority.
Ended Obama’s deal with Cuba.
Boosting U.S. energy dominance

The Department of Interior, which has led the way in cutting regulations, opened plans to lease 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.
Trump traveled the world to promote the sale and use of U.S. energy.
Expanded energy infrastructure projects like the Keystone XL Pipeline snubbed by Obama.
Ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to kill Obama’s Clean Power Plan.
EPA is reconsidering Obama rules on methane emissions.
Protecting the U.S. homeland

Laid out new principles for reforming immigration and announced plan to end "chain migration," which lets one legal immigrant to bring in dozens of family members.
Made progress to build the border wall with Mexico.
Ended the Obama-era “catch and release” of illegal immigrants.
Boosted the arrests of illegals inside the U.S.
Doubled the number of counties participating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement charged with deporting illegals.
Removed 36 percent more criminal gang members than in fiscal 2016.
Started the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program.
Ditto for other amnesty programs like Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.
Cracking down on some 300 sanctuary cities that defy ICE but still get federal dollars.
Added some 100 new immigration judges.
Protecting communities

Justice announced grants of $98 million to fund 802 new cops.
Justice worked with Central American nations to arrest and charge 4,000 MS-13 members.
Homeland rounded up nearly 800 MS-13 members, an 83 percent one-year increase.
Signed three executive orders aimed at cracking down on international criminal organizations.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions created new National Public Safety Partnership, a cooperative initiative with cities to reduce violent crimes.
Accountability

Trump has nominated 73 federal judges and won his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
Ordered ethical standards including a lobbying ban.
Called for a comprehensive plan to reorganize the executive branch.
Ordered an overhaul to modernize the digital government.
Called for a full audit of the Pentagon and its spending.
Combatting opioids

First, the president declared a Nationwide Public Health Emergency on opioids.
His Council of Economic Advisors played a role in determining that overdoses are underreported by as much as 24 percent.
The Department of Health and Human Services laid out a new five-point strategy to fight the crisis.
Justice announced it was scheduling fentanyl substances as a drug class under the Controlled Substances Act.
Justice started a fraud crackdown, arresting more than 400.
The administration added $500 million to fight the crisis.
On National Drug Take Back Day, the Drug Enforcement Agency collected 456 tons.

Helping veterans

Signed the Veterans Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act to allow senior officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs to fire failing employees and establish safeguards to protect whistleblowers.
Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act.
Signed the Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act, to provide support.
Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017 to authorize $2.1 billion in additional funds for the Veterans Choice Program.
Created a VA hotline.
Had the VA launch an online “Access and Quality Tool,” providing veterans with a way to access wait time and quality of care data.
With VA Secretary Dr. David Shulkin, announced three initiatives to expand access to healthcare for veterans using telehealth technology.
Promoting peace through strength

Directed the rebuilding of the military and ordered a new national strategy and nuclear posture review.
Worked to increase defense spending.
Empowered military leaders to “seize the initiative and win,” reducing the need for a White House sign off on every mission.
Directed the revival of the National Space Council to develop space war strategies.
Elevated U.S. Cyber Command into a major warfighting command.
Withdrew from the U.N. Global Compact on Migration, which Trump saw as a threat to borders.
Imposed a travel ban on nations that lack border and anti-terrorism security.
Saw ISIS lose virtually all of its territory.
Pushed for strong action against global outlaw North Korea and its development of nuclear weapons.
Announced a new Afghanistan strategy that strengthens support for U.S. forces at war with terrorism.
NATO increased support for the war in Afghanistan.
Approved a new Iran strategy plan focused on neutralizing the country’s influence in the region.
Ordered missile strikes against a Syrian airbase used in a chemical weapons attack.
Prevented subsequent chemical attacks by announcing a plan to detect them better and warned of future strikes if they were used.
Ordered new sanctions on the dictatorship in Venezuela.
Restoring confidence in and respect for America

Trump won the release of Americans held abroad, often using his personal relationships with world leaders.
Made good on a campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Conducted a historic 12-day trip through Asia, winning new cooperative deals. On the trip, he attended three regional summits to promote American interests.
He traveled to the Middle East and Europe to build new relationships with leaders.
Traveled to Poland and on to Germany for the G-20 meeting where he pushed again for funding of women entrepreneurs.


see link above for more complete

Another thing to keep in mind is that different forms of elements and chemicals have very different properties.

Pure elemental liquid mercury is pretty cool stuff. Lots of people (myself included) can remember playing with elemental mercury in their bare hands in chemistry classes, etc., and even that sort of cavalier use basically never resulted in cases of mercury poisoning.

In sheer statistical terms, I gather that it is relatively safe to have pure liquid mercury directly on your skin -- cupped in your hands, say -- for short to medium periods of time. Open wounds, even small ones, can make that significantly worse. Even ingesting elemental mercury generally doesn't result in too much absorption into the body, but it remains a terrible idea. Evaporation of elemental mercury even at room temperature can lead to inhalation of mercury vapor, which is drastically more dangerous. So, ventilation and environmental controls are quite important.

This organic mercury sounds like terribly nasty stuff, but fortunately people are very unlikely to be exposed to it outside of a lab or if you are a scientist who is intentionally synthesizing it.

I think it is kind of a shame that those high school chemistry type sessions of messing around with elemental mercury are pretty much gone today. On the other hand, even though the risks are lower with elemental mercury like that, the rewards aren't really all that high either. I have fun memories of messing around with the stuff, but it wasn't by any means necessary or important outside of pure academic curiosity. Better safe that sorry I guess, particularly when the extreme end of "sorry" results in horror stories like this.

I think her husband poisoned her

I worked at a place that used a chemical that could absorb through your skin and then react with the calcium in your bones; that's always been a disturbing thought for me

Hadn't heard of that, but I get the concept. Cool idea.

Off the top of my head, I'm concerned about pump and generator efficiency. You're going to use some amount more energy to pump a volume of water up to the high basin than you will get back by gravity feeding it through generators. To be fair, efficiency is a problem with using and recharging chemical batteries as well, but the limited amount that I remember from college engineering courses tells me that efficiency in the electrical / solid state world tends to be more easily obtained than in the mechanical world.

And as another "to be fair", efficiency is a bigger concern for things like fossil fuels, where burning one unit of fuel produces a set amount of energy and you have to improve efficiency to get the most value out of that energy. With things like solar and wind being "free" energy when active but requiring storage for when the source is inactive (night / calm winds), efficiency still certainly matters, but not as much as with a scarce / non-renewable source of energy.

Anyway, I'd like to see concrete numbers comparing the utility and efficiency (in various metrics) of your hydro storage vs battery storage.

Ok....they start with a few mistaken premises.
Most importantly, the premise that energy is best stored in a chemical battery. It sounds good, but it's simply wrong. The best way to store large amounts of energy is in a hydro/gravity storage system. This is a two basin system, with two basins at different heights with a pump/generator linking them. When you have excess power, you pump water uphill. When you need more power, you let it flow back down. It's ecologically friendly, cheap, and effectively never wears out like batteries all do, it can work on any scale, and unlike most hydro doesn't impact a living river system. It's proven technology that's head and shoulders above battery banks.

Vaping only heats the weed to a temperature that vaporises the active chemicals without turning it to carbon, so you put far less through your lungs. They make vaporizors that use a water pipe attachment, so even the vapor gets cooled.

The Pax has different temp settings so you can get just what you want. Lower temps produce far less vapor and might leave some less volatile chemicals in the weed, hotter vaporizes more and produces a thicker hit, but ends up toasting the weed and eventually burning it. The Pax isn't designed for hash and or oils, for that I suggest looking at ineedhemp.com . They have setups for oil and herb, and offer the water pipe attachment.

And now there's this: Sarin used in April Syria attack, chemical weapons watchdog confirms

So now we have two narratives that are mutually incompatible. Splendid, isn't it....

My own confirmation bias favours Hersh. Additionally, the OPCW openly admits they had had access to the site of the attack, and that all of their samples were gathered by third parties, primarily the White Helmets. That's about as tainted as evidence can be.

Either way, nobody has anything of substance in terms of proof, everything's circumstantial. Can't call it.

... and now this.

Add the moral hazard created by Dem hacks who insist that Trump needs to kill Russians to show that he's not in cahoots with Putin. The result: watch WW3 on Pay TV.

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

Keep in mind, thorium salt reactors have many disadvantages as well, including short lifespan, requiring an on site chemical plant to constantly maintain proper mixture levels, embrittlement and corrosion of containment vessels and pipes, etc., but the biggest hurdle is regulatory since they are 1) breeder reactors that enrich the fuel (which are nearly impossible to get approval for in today's climate) and 2) need fairly highly enriched fuels to operate, much higher levels than ordinary reactors (also causing major opposition).

None of those are insurmountable obstacles, but they are why we don't have them producing power today.

I was going to major and work in entomology when I was younger since I love living bugs like ants. I even hung out with a few local entomologists like Robert H. Crandoll (RIP since he passed away in 2006). He had a cool insect collection (dead and alive) in his house.

However, computer science took over since I love computers especially their digital bugs. I don't like the chemical odor/smell, traveling, low pay, etc. However, I am still fascinated with nature today as an old fart.