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Lance McLain | 1 Oct 2005 15:26

Freezing gas prices

Freezing gas prices
May 25, 2005, 11:11 AM

http://www.kfor.com/Global/story.asp?s=3390503

Americans guzzle 65 billion gallons of fuel a year and lately we have been
paying a pretty penny at the pump. NewsChannel 4 has done reports in the
past on how to get the most out of your gas. Now we introduce you to a new
way to save on those gasoline dollars.

There is a man who fills up his tank once every two months. One tank of gas,
literally, lasts him two months. He is freezing the price of gas by freezing
something else.

People complain about the price of gas and we are all spending dearly to
stay on the road these days. The money we spend on gas seems to burn up
faster than the fuel.

While there may be little rhyme or reason to why the prices are on a
perpetual roller-coaster, there is one man who has found a way to freeze
them in their tracks, literally.

David Hutchison is a Cryogenics expert. He built this Cryo-Process himself.
He runs a business out of his garage where he cryogenically tempers all
kinds of metals. He submerges them in a frozen tank of nitrogen vapor that
is 300 degrees below zero.

David says, "During that time, at minus 300 degrees, the molecules slow
down. Then they reorganize themselves. That's when the actual chemical
change happens."
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Johne (Phy) Cook | 1 Oct 2005 17:34
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Johne's _Serenity_ review

Short review:  WOW.  Just... WOW.

Longer review: There is a very male word that means something along the
lines of "brash, reckless confidence".

Joss Whedon, writer and director of _Serenity_, has big, brass... 
confidence.

Perhaps you know the story behind the story.  Joss Whedon,
script-doctor extraordinaire, manic genius behind Buffy, the
Vampire-Slayer (the series, not the film dumbed-down from his vision),
shopped around this idea of a horse opera in space -- you know, a space
opera -- where the good guys and the bad guys aren't just as clear cut
as all that.  In _Star Wars_, you know who the good guys are and who
the bad guys are by the music.  In _Serenity_, "good" and "bad" are
relative terms, but "manipulation" and "truth" are immutable, and thus
is the foundation laid for the smartest, most frenetic sci-fi picture
since _Aliens_.

The difference is that this picture is following on its own heels.

Joss wrote and directed a short-lived series named "Firefly," which got
it all right and then was handled all wrong.  The two-hour pilot was
filmed but not shown until much later, other episodes were shown out of
order, three episodes were finished but never aired, and still the
series picked up critical mindshare and a diehard audience.  The show
was a success.

Obviously, Fox canceled it.
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Bruce Geerdes | 1 Oct 2005 17:50
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More Than Ever, the U.S. Spends and the Foreigners Lend

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/business/01charts.html

More Than Ever, the U.S. Spends and the Foreigners Lend
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: October 1, 2005

WHO will end up paying for Hurricane Katrina? Or for the war in Iraq?
Or for any other spending that Congress chooses to authorize?

To an extent not seen in previous periods of rising federal deficits,
the answer is that it will not be Americans who put up the cash, but
foreigners.

Since the end of 2000, as George W. Bush was preparing to take office,
federal debt is up by $1.1 trillion. American investors, as a group,
have lent not one penny of that. They have, instead, been net sellers
of Treasury securities.

The latest numbers on just who buys and owns Treasury debt, released
in late September, showed that foreign investors and central banks
have increased their holdings of Treasuries by $1 trillion since Mr.
Bush took office. Another $213 billion was bought by the Federal
Reserve.

That record stands in stark contrast to the deficit-spending president
to whom Mr. Bush is often compared - Ronald Reagan. Reagan still holds
the record for largest dollar increase in federal debt, $1.4 trillion.
But it took him eight years to accomplish that, in contrast with Mr.
Bush's four-and-a-half years.
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MartyB | 1 Oct 2005 23:14
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RE: More Than Ever, the U.S. Spends and the Foreigners Lend

>> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/01/business/01charts.html

More Than Ever, the U.S. Spends and the Foreigners Lend
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: October 1, 2005

WHO will end up paying for Hurricane Katrina? Or for the war in Iraq?
Or for any other spending that Congress chooses to authorize?

To an extent not seen in previous periods of rising federal deficits,
the answer is that it will not be Americans who put up the cash, but
foreigners.

Since the end of 2000, as George W. Bush was preparing to take office,
federal debt is up by $1.1 trillion. American investors, as a group,
have lent not one penny of that. They have, instead, been net sellers
of Treasury securities.<<

I notice that nowhere does the article mention "debt as a percentage of GDP"
which is a much more inportant measuer than total debt. Someone making $10K
a year and borrowing $10K a year is in a much worse situation than someone
making $100K a year and borrowing $10K.

I think those statistics may show a rise in total debt, but at a much slower
pace than raw dollar amounts.

As a contrast, check out the chart on this page, which if I understand it
correctly, seems to show that foreign borrowing as a percent of GDP is has
actually been dropping since 2000.
(Continue reading)

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Peter T. Chattaway | 2 Oct 2005 04:29
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Re: Johne's _Serenity_ review

On Sat, 1 Oct 2005, Johne (Phy) Cook wrote:
> Short review:  WOW.  Just... WOW.

I liked the film in places, but can't say I had *that* reaction.  :)

> . . . Shepherd Book has found a flock where he is able to use the
> talents he can talk about rather than the ones he can't.

Brilliantly put!

> It is a major achievement and forever challenges those lesser directors
> who caved into the fans who clamored to bring back Spock (Star Trek
> III) and Han Solo (Star Wars IV).

Eh?  Did you mean Star Wars VI?

--- Peter T. Chattaway ------------- http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/ ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
   claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee

--

-- 
DADL-OT home: http://lists.tesserae.org/listinfo.cgi/dadl-ot-tesserae.org 
Archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot
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Thurman Allen II | 2 Oct 2005 04:47
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Re: Johne's _Serenity_ review

johne -

thanks.  you said a lot of what i felt.  it's not a
perfect movie, and i don't think it will do what i
wanted it to do (get the series back on tv), but i
definitely enjoyed it.  though i must say, i prefer
curvy kaylee to waify kaylee.  but that's just me.

thanks again.
Æ

--- "Johne (Phy) Cook" <johne.cook@...> wrote:

> Short review:  WOW.  Just... WOW.
> 
> Longer review: There is a very male word that means
> something along the lines of "brash, reckless 
> confidence".
> 
> Joss Whedon, writer and director of _Serenity_, has
> big, brass... confidence.

<snip>

***************************************
Aptenodytes quidem artem amatoriam invenerunt.
***************************************
--

-- 
DADL-OT home: http://lists.tesserae.org/listinfo.cgi/dadl-ot-tesserae.org 
Archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot
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Peter T. Chattaway | 2 Oct 2005 04:54
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Re: Johne's _Serenity_ review

On Sat, 1 Oct 2005, Thurman Allen II wrote:
> though i must say, i prefer curvy kaylee to waify kaylee.  but that's
> just me.

Trust me, it ain't just you.

--- Peter T. Chattaway ------------- http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/ ---
Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments; only afterwards do they
   claim remembrance, on account of their scars. -- Chris Marker, La Jetee

--

-- 
DADL-OT home: http://lists.tesserae.org/listinfo.cgi/dadl-ot-tesserae.org 
Archive: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.music.dadl.ot
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Lucas John | 2 Oct 2005 09:13
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An Intelligent Design for Education

An Intelligent Design for Education 

Atheists and believers inadvertently make the case for
separating school and state

Jacob Sullum 

http://www.reason.com/sullum/093005.shtml

In a trial that began this week, a federal judge in
Harrisburg has been called upon to decide whether
intelligent design is a legitimate scientific theory.
Once he has settled that controversy, perhaps he can
tell us what killed the dinosaurs and whether there
are civilizations on other planets.

The courts have to deal with some scientific issues,
such as the reliability of DNA evidence and the side
effects of arthritis drugs. But the origin of life, a
subject that arouses strong emotions and implicates
deeply held beliefs, has no obvious relevance to the
guilt of murder suspects or the liability of
pharmaceutical companies.

It has become a legal issue in Pennsylvania only
because the parents of Dover are divided on the
question of how public schools should address it. Some
say children should be informed about the weaknesses
of Darwinian theory, while others object to what they
see as religious indoctrination in the guise of
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Peter T. Chattaway | 2 Oct 2005 17:18
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Creationists hoist on own petard of 'intelligent design'

FWIW, I wonder to what degree McKnight confuses things by referring to
"pantheism" when, perhaps, "panentheism" might be a better word.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism

- - -

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=b4914ce2-709b-4825-b987-37812f84f393

Peter McKnight
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, October 01, 2005

The creationists are at it again, and this time they've taken the battle
from Kansas and the American Deep South to the otherwise enlightened state
of Pennsylvania.

Shortly after the decidedly unenlightened Dover, Penn., school district
decided to include "intelligent design" in Grade 9 biology classes, 11
parents launched an action against the district, essentially arguing that
the school board is trying to do an end run around the 1987 United States
Supreme Court decision outlawing the teaching of creationism in schools.

The creationists retort that intelligent design (ID) isn't creationism,
and should occupy its rightful place in biology courses since it's a
scientific theory, not a religious one. And they have that eminent
scientist George W. Bush on their side, as Bush recently opined that
schools ought to teach both evolution and natural selection, just to be
fair.
(Continue reading)

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Peter T. Chattaway | 2 Oct 2005 17:27
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Media deserve blame for New Orleans debacle

http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn02.html

October 2, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Dan Rather was on "Larry King Live" the other night and was asked about
the Katrina coverage. Now, say what you like about Dan, but he knows his
meteorological phenomena. I've always thought there was something
quintessentially American about Dan's hurricane editions of the CBS news
-- not the part of the show where he's reporting on the actual hurricane,
but the bit where he says "And today's other headlines," as if it's the
most normal thing in the world to be reading "The Dow closed 19 points
down today" while wrapped around a lamppost in your sou'wester with a
rusting doublewide flying over your shoulder.

Yet Hurricane Dan professed himself delighted with his successors. "They
took us there to the hurricane," he told Larry. "They put the facts in
front of us and, very important, they sucked up their guts and talked
truth to power."

Er, no. The facts they put in front of us were wrong, and they didn't talk
truth to power. They talked to goofs in power, like New Orleans' Mayor
Nagin and Police Chief Compass, and uncritically fell for every nutso yarn
they were peddled. The media swallowed more bilge than if they'd been
lying down with their mouths open as the levee collapsed. Ten thousand
dead! Widespread rape and murder! A 7-year-old gang-raped and then
throat-slashed! It was great stuff -- and none of it happened. No
gang-raped 7-year-olds. None.

Most of the media are still in Dan mode, sucking up their guts and
(Continue reading)

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