Without warning I burst into tears. Like right now.
I shove my glasses up, rub at my left eye and face. “Fuck”, I say. “God dammit.”
After a moment or two, I force myself to breathe. Once, twice, often a third time. And wipe the sneaky tear from my right eye as well.
“Bastard.”
I close my eyes and breathe.
I hold on...
...and am slammed back a year ago.
That last month, we knew what was likely. We spent it preparing everyone for the inevitable. We prayed for a miracle, even those of us who don't believe. But we knew.
People fall back on cliché when they're unable to be with life as it is. Many people told me, “At least Steve was blogging until he went into the hospital. He died having done what he loved to do.” Gods do I hate that cliché. People die. Steve died because he was in poor health, had long-term medical problems, was over-weight, and he failed to take his medical problems with the seriousness they needed.
He got decent care at the hospital, but yes, institutional racism played a role in his death -- and I'm not talking only about his medical care, but how everyone involved interacted with the system. That conversation isn't one I (or anyone on the inside) is going to talk about the details of now. (Ask me again in a decade.)
Racism is a fact of life, as real as dog-shit on the sidewalk. It just is. Sometimes you step in it. You might not even know you've got dog-shit on your shoe till you smell it. You look back and there's shit tracked all across the carpet. It was like that. The shit was everywhere. You can't blame the dog. Dog's shit; it's what they do. You shouldn't blame the people much; maybe they turned away for a moment and the dog did its business. It happens. And your attention was elsewhere as you walked and, well, it's a mess.
It was a mess for Gilly, and I don't blame anyone. Steve fought as hard as anyone could, but in the end too many systems were too messed up, and he died.
We're left, a year later with the fact of his death. Sometimes I know he'd be proud of all of us, and sometimes it's more than I can bear and I cry. Often both at once.
I am proud of our community. Of our bloggers, Hubris Sonic, Lower Manhattanite, Sara Robinson and myself, and The Littlest Gator and Evan Robinson. Of Jen, Steve's co-publisher and the heart of our community. And our readers, the few who comment frequently (regulars), the many who comment sometimes (lurkers), and the vast majority (in the tens of thousands) who simply read (*hi Mom*.) Among those who read us are the major blogs, political campaigns, national newspapers, networks and magazines, political parties, politicians and staff, and people in over 140 countries around the world.
As a part of his NYU thesis Fred Benenson has built this new activist tool, Cause Caller.
create a cause, and enter the names you want to contact. Now you can click to call immediately. Send everyone the URL, and they can start calling too. All calls are free and completed over the Internet.
Cause Caller is a VoIP application combined with a wiki of causes and contacts. The more causes you and others create, the easier it is for everyone to get involved in participatory democracy
This is great. He needs help filling out the wiki with state level politicians. Help out if you can.
There's more...
In the ten months (!) since we've hung this cyber-shingle out, so many words, thoughts and ideas have passed from our fingers (our, being us the principal writers) and out into the electron-sparked internet ether that it's hard to keep track.
With that hodgepodge of things, there is one constant.
That constant is YOU, the readers, and specifically the commenters.
What gets put up here for perusal is in many ways an unfinished product. It's a skeleton on which the comments you share hangs muscle, sinew and flesh. You animate the work.
There are countless instances where the comment threads so enhance the original works themselves that in the end, the idea of separating the two would be damn near blasphemous.
Like Reneé's “Dorothy Boyd” to Tom's “Jerry Maguire”, well...you complete us.
It's not just about yelling “Frist!” or all the funny and slick blog-isms we chuckle at every day. It's about the give and take—the feedback—and the learning that feedback inspires.
Not long ago, I wrote a post about the generational issues underlying this year's presidential campaign. The piece itself was decent enough, but what happened in comments was where the real action was. Within the thread there ensued a spirited and detail-rich discussion of a secondary element about clear and lucid behavior at the government's executive level—going back to Reagan, and then further, back to Nixon and the back-channel goings on in Washington during that time when the possibility of things going totally off the rails wasn't all doom and gloom-speak, but a possible reality with real potential of coming to pass. There was a helluva discussion on geopolitics in that thread that I just sat back and saw play out. I literally said to myself, “Wow!” and that discussion led me to do some reading up on the subject—which only made me that much more knowledgeable on the topic.
In my attempt to inform, I found myself informed. By you.
That wasn't the only instance of that occuring. You folks do that every day, for every one of us who contribute. In the thread based on the relative mundaneness of my agony of tooth pain, aside from all the wonderful wishes of good health, there emerged a little sub-narrative that struck me as being what this place is all about.
I turned the post towards a brief discussion about the need for decent health care for all, and you guys picked up the ball and ran with it alá Barry Sanders on a speedy turf. The gold-plating of access to emergency dental care in America—a life and death issue for more than a few people is one of those issues you don't think about. Until it's you suffering through a Friday night, agonizing through a Saturday, counting every painful hour of a Sunday, and if you're lucky like me, finally getting to see someone on a Monday morning. If you're un-lucky, you inflame and fever up until something much worse than a sore mouth lays you flat on your back in a hospital bed. And beyond that, there is the issue of there being pretty much no such a thing as ER dental care—even if you really require it. A longtime reader, but infrequent commenter “Fuzzy” chimes in with this tale:
“It still blows my mind that you can't really get anything done with your teeth in the E.R. or the minor emergency room. I was with the misses after she had a bike accident and lost a quarter of a tooth when we went to the minor followed by e.r. to find they had a dentist's chair, tools, everything there but a dentist. We were told to find a dentist somewhere and schedule an appt. She was given pain killers and antibiotics to last the weekend. When I asked why they didn't have a dentist since there are cases where a problem with your teeth could be lethal or life threatening, the doctor on duty frowned and said they would be doing crowns and cavity fills for every poor person in the city and probably bankrupt the hospital. His statement there shocked me and I to this day can't understand why dentistry isn't considered as important as any other medical procedure. We as a country need national health care of some sort, and dentistry needs to be included and in hospitals. It really is ridiculous.”
It IS ridiculous, and is a subject you just never really hear discussed. But Fuzzy's anecdote just makes you think that much more about how one horribly neglected aspect of health care can impact you, and from there highlights how health care in general in this country so desperately needs to be fixed—for all. It's a simple story. One rarely articulated and rarer yet as clearly. It made me stop and think about the ludicrousness and flat-out danger of a situation like that existing in a country we like to call forward-thinking. That simple thing typed into a haloscan box (yeah...it's a kludge sometimes, but hey) adds so much to the discussion I began on access to health care that it's kind of stunning. Fuzzy's a longtime reader—a “lurker” he says. But that one missive of his has spurred me on to think about this situation with an increased intensity and you can bet—will move me to post more on health care issues and how they affect us as a whole. And how we can affect said health care as involved citizens. One comment. Driving the point home. Completing the circle. Sparking the mind to move foreward in figuring out solutions to these problems—big and small. You have no idea how good it makes us feel when that happens.
So I don't think I'm engaging in hyperbole when I say that you guys and gals (outside of our little troll-y hit-and-run friends) are among the most literate, most knowledgeable, and well-rounded co-contributors I read on these here internets every day. I think we learn and get as much from you as you get from us.
And for that, I—no...we cannot thank you enough.
For your knowledge, your humor, your willingness to push the discussion along, and yes, your odd ability to inspire us to do certain things based on the creativity of your responses —again, we thank you.
Now, I know life hasn't all been a crystal stair. There are scraps. Boundaries are nudged and crossed. Feelings get bruised. Words are said sometimes in haste, which engenders some waste. Sensitivities are not always considered as much they should and maybe, yeah—we piss each other off. In the end though, we dialogue. And just as life is an every day learning process, it's that for us in putting this thing out here and it's the same for you in your reacting to it. We're actually working on this thing together and maturing as we go. Post. Read. Comment. Reply. We think. You think. Thousands of people's brain cells a' firing. That's a helluva thing. We thank you for indulging us in your reading and truly appreciate what you give back in your sharing via comments.
It's something you don't hear often enough in these venues. But I mean it. We mean it when we say it. You're valued. Simple as that.
Through whatever disagreements there are—whether between poster and commenter, or commenter and commenter, the fact that you as commenters for the large part choose to come here respectfully (even when in disagreement) time and again and share—and in turn enhance what we try to do here is a wonderful thing. Back in the day, Steve himself would from time to time publicly let folks know that their readership was appreciated, and I still have several e-mails he sent me that personally thanked me for what little input I contributed to the comments.
Those still kind of get to me. Especially since whatever I do here these days is directly attributable to where I got my start (like the stratospherically talented Driftglass)—talking with folks on these here intertubes—as a commenter. I remember how nice it was when someone would even notice a comment I'd make, and maybe pick up from it and continue the conversation in-thread. And what was most rewarding of all was when a little blast within a thread would spur or be attached to a greater conversation “above the fold”. You'd be amazed at just how much you folks do that for me...and we.
So thank you again, for your readership, and beyond that—your feedback in comments. It means a lot, and makes what we do here more worthwhile, and in the long run, that much better.
When the GOP picked its logo for the '08 Convention in Minneapolis late last year, I wrote the following:
“As I work in graphic design, I'm highly sensitized to...oh, how do you say...gaffes of the graphic sort. I was on vacation once, and wasn't able to supervise a promotional brochure my company was sending out. It was a book promotion featuring the Judy Blume series of “Fudge” books. (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, Fudge-a-Mania, and Double Fudge—all about a kid named Peter Hatcher whose little brother was nicknamed “Fudge”) It was bad enough that the marketing division had myopically given my department copy—that no one caught—calling the asssortment of books a “Fudge Pack”, but then, the designer for the ad depicted the books on a brown “splash” field with the words “Fudge Pack” on what appeared to be a dark hole. Ostensibly done to pop the letters out, but you can imagine what it looked like.”
I've worked in advertising and graphic design for close to thirty years, and in TV and radio for twenty. Been in the office when a goof came back from the printers—been on set when things got shot and we looked at them later on air and said “Oh my God...how did we miss that?” There is an amazing level of planning that goes into producing content, and simultaneously a lot of by-the-seat-of-your-pants flying.
There's the contrived, shoe horned-in, subtle “message”.
There's the “What the fuck were we thinking?” myopic miss of a gaffe.
And lastly, there's the “Um...have you been hitting the Goddamn rubbing alcohol again, dude? You are fucking seeing things!” delusional moment of making something out of absolutely nothing.
Our exclusive video today is a response to one such recent example of the barking mad latter.
I wanted to think this was a joke, but it wasn't. Evidently, everyone's favorite lunatic midwestern law professor (who's unfortunately doing a semester here in New York at Brooklyn College) took the time to watch Senator Hillary Clinton's latest ad, the controversial “3.a.m. Phone Call” spot meant to promote her readiness in the event of late-night craziness on the part of foreign threats. Call it what you will—a play to fear, a call to “security moms”, “Goldwater's Revenge”—in the end, it's a hardball ad that tries to burnish her national security image. Whether it passes or fails at that is purely subjective.
Law Professor Ann Althouse however sees something in the ad so sinister, and so destructive that she found it necessary to blogospherically ride through the streets alá a buck-nekkid, keening Paul Revere and call our attention to...
“Gasp!”...a subliminal racist dig in the ad on campaign Clinton's part at Barack Obama through...I'll give you a moment to swallow any liquids you're drinking now so you don't ruin your computer screens...
...The shocking appearance of the letters “N-I-G” on the sleeping child's in the ad's pajamas.
Mind you, the pajamas read with the words “Good Night” repeated all over them everywhere (and part of the word night is those three letters), but...somehow, only the eagle (and bloodshot) -eyed Professor Althouse has sussed out the deep, mean-spirited racist code-ology of the artful cropping of the frame so that the word—or word-let “N-I-G” (actually reading “N-I-C” as part of the “G” is obscured)—is left there, all out-in-the-open to inflame...
...what exactly in the flying fuck?
I swear I thought this was a joke. A piece of parody on the oversensitivity of this campaign season that was rejected by the fine folks at “Sadly No!” because it was too off the wall to even get a laugh—instead, just a head-cocked “Ehhhhhh?” But no, Althouse is deadly serious with this—down to posting screen grabs and digital enhancements that would get laughed out of an “I Shot My Own UFO Pics” convention as being “Uh..pretty fucking dubious, man.” I mean...this is straight-up hate-fueled hallucination—all wrapped up with a bugfuck concern-troll bow garnishing the top. Wingnut projection-slash-race baiting--slash-delusions--slash-hide all the sharp stuff when you see this kook coming near—please!
I can't...I won't link to it—because I just have a personal policy of not doing direct linky-love with batshit stuff. Kind of how I vowed in my early twenties to not sleep with people I knew were certifiable. Instead, I leave it to Kevin Drum to say his piece...
BAD DAY TO STOP SNIFFING GLUE... This is one of the most harebrained posts I've ever read. I guess that means it's bound to get a link from Instapundit, right? Chris Matthews might want to investigate too.
I mean...I know it's the so-called “Silly Season” politically, where a cartful of hay can be made from a stray fluff of kitten down, but sweet Jesus—this is simply one of the most batshit, glass-chewing lunatic blurts of hot, blogospheric air I've ever had the chuckling pleasure / deep, pitying regret to come across.
And it's NOT the first time for the professor—thus rendering the “Silly Season” moniker inoperative for her. This kind of crazy is year-round' for her. It's fucking evergreen.
She's the onewho spazzed out over the “Bill Clinton meets the bloggers” photo-op a year and a half ago—freaking out about one attendee's breasts in the picture and basically...crazily accusing the woman (who she didn't know from Adam or Eve) of posing to entice President Clinton”. All in the guise of “I'm here to call bullshit on feminism”, when her dim, retrograde ass was bent on raw, unfettered Clinton hatred—of Bill and Hillary. And then when called on that hatred proceeded to simply wig the fuck out—and have it captured on internet video for-ever.
I let those examples of mad-cow brain-nibbled raving slide—as well as a few others, but this one...The crafty subterfuge of the “N-I-G” pajamas” is just too fucking much. It is...a desperate cry for help...followed by a nose-stinging burp, and then a projectile spewing of the deep purple contents of an entire box of wine. For the sake of those poor law students under her tutelage—who could learn more about jurisprudence from a tryptophan-hazed half viewing of a TBS-chopped showing of “My Cousin Vinny”...I am forced to act.
Thus, with apologies to the Ray Bryant Combo (doing one of my all-time favorite oldies), filmmaker John Waters, and all you old-school tail feather-shakers out there, I give you this toe-tappin' rebuttal to all things utterly insane from the mind and keyboard of our dear, “Nutty Professor”...
When I heard this story...it just kind of summed the ridiculousness of this so-called “Silly Season” up...
It's Clinton, Not Obama. No, It's Obama!
Pa. Authorities Say A Man Stabbed His Brother-In-Law In Argument Over Clinton And Obama
NORRISTOWN, Pa., Feb. 27, 2008 (AP) Montgomery County authorities say a man stabbed his brother-in-law during an argument over who should get the Democratic nomination for president. What's more, Jose Ortiz, 28, who's charged with felony assault, is a registered Republican.
District Attorney Risa Ferman said Ortiz supports Hillary Clinton and Sean Shurelds supports Barack Obama. She told reporters Monday that the two got into an argument in a Collegeville home Thursday night and Shurelds tried to choke Ortiz. She says Ortiz then stabbed Shurelds in the abdomen.
Shurelds was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but is expected to recover.
Initially, I laughed at the tale, thinking just how stupid and over-the-top it was—and then something kind of hit home about it.
You've got family—people actually linked through marriage and relation literally knifing the hell out of one another over a presidential primary choice. Words and whupass. Blades and blood.
I could conceivably see that level of emotion in terms of a General Election, where I think we can agree that the polarizing battle between the opposing sides is more pitched and the stakes even greater. A continuation of the policies of the last eight hellish years versus a choice that would effectively end most of that. A punch-out or two I could see over the heated emotions, policy differences and stakes involved.
But THIS is a Democratic primary battle we're talking about here—and we've got a dude laying in a hospital bed in Pennsylvania over it, and his assailant—his Brother-In-Law in jail maybe years over a difference in candidates.
Just...the dumbest Goddamned situation I could imagine.
And we're—meaning those of us on the left side of things—“progressives”— doing a rhetorical version of the same dumb-ass thing those two relatives did. We're cutting each other, and in effect—the party to bloody pieces over this primary season. Going way beyond mere hard talk and policy debate, but rather, devolving into the sort of partisan bloodlust that reminds me of the worst elements of European soccer hooliganism. It's not just happening here. If you're something beyond the casual blog-checker you can see the ugliness in places you hold near and dear. Old haunts you now think hard about clicking over the threshold to because of the infighting and nasty tone that's seemingly ramped up as this season's gone along.
On the whole, I understand it. This is without a doubt the LONGEST primary season in my memory—and I go back as far as 1968 with these, as well as the most-covered. No mere three TV networks and a clutch of radio chains reporting. Throw in cable news, the internet—fact-checking and reporting on those—as well as the work of the thousands upon thousands of folks in the blogosphere, and you have more opinion and analysis out there than anyone could have imagined even a mere ten years ago. There's so damned much to chew over and obsess over, and over-obsess over, and more time to do it that I really can understand how people might have even more invested in things than ever before. We're to put it bluntly—bombarded with it all. And thus, an increased level of the temperature of the feedback from us—and you, the target of it all is to be expected.
But the level of invective—going back to the knives again for example, and the way we treat each other—people ostensibly on the same side of the battle has been at best, fierce and at worst, downright venomous. To the point where friendships have been damaged and in some cases ended, where spite and ill-feelings have balkanized people into “gotcha” camps where we wait for any moment available to not just point out issues and inconsistencies, but pounce, pillory, purge and piss on, yes...family.
I'm not talkin' 'bout everybody standing around “Kum-ba-ya/We Are The World” style and singing the same pithy lyrics that in the end don't mean shit. Disagreement is some bomb-ass shit. If disagreement wasn't allowed, 99% of all blogs would shut down, leaving only those devoted to cat fanciers—and then they'd go to war over the merits of the tabby versus the calico and chew each other's heads off accordingly. Disagreement is part of the process—we write, we agree or disagree, you comment, and you agree or disagree. It's the “Wild West”. Everybody's got a gun.
In the movies at least, you didn't shoot another man in the back, or blow away the unarmed. We may all disgustingly spit in that nasty spittoon in the corner, but you don't spit on another man's boots.
Emotions get hot. Especially around “Primary Days”. The 72 hours before and after one of these countless “make or break/brawl for it all” days of intra-party reckoning wind people up in a major way. Sensitivities get ramped way the hell up. Small slights are conflated into fighting points. People gloat, people mope. Emotions are rubbed raw and others ride high on 'em. With all that “heat and smoke” we sometimes don't see as clearly as we should and our senses betray us. Mistakes get made. And that goes for all of us.
No one is immune to the fuck-up.
But too many of 'em can wreck a community—any community. Long-standing ones and the relatively new. And we, progressives need as many spaces and communities as we can possibly have to blunt the right wing's edge in talk radio and broadcast media.
Thus, I think a little bit of sensitivity would go a long way for us. Here on the internets, we—you the readers and us the content creators tend to be uncannily tuned into things, down to what we call ‘meta” levels. And in being so tuned in, we know the ebb and flow of things—the emotional undercurrents and when they spike and lull. We know the buzz-words—the nice ones and the fucked up ones. But most of all, I think we know—I think we know—that in then end, we're on the side of good. In knowing that, think about those two brothers cited at the top of this post, scrappin' and stabbin'.
We don't need to be stabbing each other.
Take a moment to discern. When you read, when you post, and when you comment. Roll it over in your head. Look at what you're writing—what you're saying before you hit “publish”. Say it aloud. Re-read what you're replying to or what you're putting out there as your opinion or reportage. Nothin' wrong with being tough. Drippin' a little venom. Bring the snark! But remember—for the most part (beyond the obvious trolls), you're dealing with friends and fellow travelers.
Leave the knives for the enemy. Gut him—not your “brother”.
Tough as this time is, the over-the-top personal attacks and casting of aspersions I see in places I no longer frequent because the community got fucked, makes me want to spit acid like the “Mother” Alien in the movies. Let's extend ourselves a little and give a wee bit more benefit of the doubt to each other—poster, commenter, and community, all. Weigh a person's words not just against the heat of the moment, but against their history and track record as a whole. Step back. Take a breath. Disagree. Be fiery as all holy hell. But I think of it this way—this is practice, and it's the middle of the week. We can go up against each other in drills and knock heads and trash talk. Work hard. Offense against the defense. But you don't go berserk in practice ripping up the knees and concussing your fellow teammates.
Save that crazy for Sunday, against the real fucking enemy. We don't help the team wiping each other out.
As I said about the actual stabbing incident, it was just...the dumbest Goddamned situation I could imagine. The participants ended up in two of the three potential places you can end up while bugging out like that. The hospital. Jail. Or the morgue.
The virtual stabbing going on about us? Equally Goddamned dumb.
Enough of that. Seriously. As no one wants to go to the blogospheric equivalent of those three shitty places. Word.
And with that, back to drills, Gatorade™, and looking for choice bulletin-board material from the other side to stoke the fires with—so we can get to work against our real enemy, John McCain. The video clip below is the kind of whup-ass we need to see. The mighty stiff arm of “The Tyler Rose”—Texas' immortal Earl Campbell wiping out an opponent. Earl's wearing #20 in the tan jersey, moving from right to left from the middle-right to the top left (how appropriate) of the screen.
The lovely, legendary Rochelle Fleming of First Choice (Dr. Love, Smarty Pants, The Player)—the original disco diva says it all...it's a LOVE thang!
It's been a verrrrry busy last 72 hours for me what with a lot of work on a project I'm toiling on, and I've been a touch out of the loop. In so being, I missed out on “Blogroll Amnesty Day”.
I've never been quite certain about the whole idea of blogroll amnesty per sé, and the gnashing and carping that seemed to blow up around the premise just sort of made me a little bit sick inside. Some folks appeared to abuse it for personal gain and self aggrandizement.
But...as a small blog, I can understand the sentiment of helping out our “blogren”™ in getting out their messages, or just simply giving props to those who you maybe don''t see enough of, and who many of us take for granted.
With that, on Super Bowl Sunday as I sit here in my Lawrence Taylor #56 jersey and peek at a game I'm going to be watching piss-poor little of because of the deadlines I have to hit, here goeth the listing of a few places I feel you should check out when you get the chance.
One of the BEST resources for info on the (hopefully soon to end) WGA strike is the fabulous Mark Evanier at News From Me. This is the first blog I ever visited and I still check it out every day. I've been lousy on linking to it and will do so more often. He's a comic-book/animation/writing professional whose blog is always entertaining AND informative. Rich in rare video and great entertainment industry anecdotes. Thank you Mark, for being a gateway.
Then there's my main man tony pierce at steady-chuggin' Busblog—the second blog I ever checked out via a link from the above mentioned Mark. Tony's a wonderful writer and a singular stylist. He's a contrarian, but the man is fair, funny and is so damned imaginative style-wise that it's scary. I consider him a blogfather of mine and he's actually a heckuva nice fella in person too.
Jo Fish at Democratic Veteran is a guilty pleasure and God damn it, I wish he'd post more, but by all means go read what this progressive member of the military says—and let him know who sentcha. And you tell him to fire that reactor in him up!
Give some love to The hydra-headed blog-monster over at Corrente They rail proud and boldly shrill from their side-by-side wing chairs of keepin' it real. Click. Read. Learn. And click some more.
I urge you to check in at the blogspaces of these two lovely ladies—Maha at Mahablog, and the feisty, magnetic Zuzu at Kindly Pog Mo Thoin (and also throws down at Feministe) You share a car with people for a couple of hours on what should be a sad occasion and hear them talk and you feel better about things. They share, they comfort and you learn a lot about them. These two are smart, funny, dedicated and most importantly, fighting for the side of right—in addition to simply being lovely individuals to be with. Be with them cyberspace-wise and read their work.
Just the name “Brilliant at Breakfast” should be enough to steer you to this great place, but once you're there you'll realize that what they're serving up is just as amazing as their fabulous blog name. Do check in!
And what the living hell is my problem with not giving more props to the dynamite Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend and Pandagon. Just one of the most astute political scribes out there, who sprinkles in just enough pop-culture goodies to keep you jonesing for more. She's an addiction I just can't quit. Much like coffee. :)
By all means, go visit these blogs, comment and give 'em some love.
Back to work for me and whippin' up some filet mignon and baked sweet potatoes for the wife.
It does seem like the company is well on its way to commercializing the design.
Toshiba's Micro Nuclear reactors are designed to power a single apartment building or city block, and measure a mere 20-feet by 6-feet. The 200 kilowatt reactor is fully automatic and fail-safe, and is completely self-sustaining. It uses special liquid lithium-6 reservoirs instead of traditional control rods, and can last up to 40 years, making energy for about 5 cents per kilowatt hour.
One of these with their ability to power just -- as Engadget points out -- an apartment building or a city block, would be perfect for a small data center, a call center, or a few of them for communities off the grid.
The key is regulatory approval.
Let me give you that again...
The key is regulatory approval AND dealing with NIMBY -- Not In My Back Yard.
I know this isn't the great progressive position to take, but I'm not reactionary about these things. I'd want to see the science, before rejecting it out of hand. Energy is the issue these days, and I'm interested in any solution which doesn't include a one-third to two-thirds die-off of the human race back to our normal pre-petroleum planet-wide carrying capacity. If nuclear is part of that solution, even for a hundred years, well, so be it.
Or shall we line up your family and have you watch one or two out of three die of starvation or worse as you sit there while we run out of oil? In the next fifteen to thirty years? Okay then. Moving on... (And yes, of course I'm open to rebuttals in comments. Please be polite, provide evidence to support your positions, and use a name, even if it's pseudonymous.)
I did a bunch of digging around and I think -- key word think -- that what they're talking about is a kind of Liquid Metal cooled Fast Reactor called the Rapid-L. This is not the 4S design (also talked about below.)
Fast neutron reactors have no moderator, a higher neutron flux and are normally cooled by liquid metal such as sodium, lead, or lead-bismuth, with high conductivity and boiling point. They operate at or near atmospheric pressure and have passive safety features (most have convection circulating the primary coolant). Automatic load following is achieved due to the reactivity feedback—constrained coolant flow leads to higher core temperature which slows the reaction. Primary coolant flow is by convection. They typically use boron carbide control rods.
A small-scale design developed by Toshiba Corporation in cooperation with Japan's Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) and funded by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) is the 5 MWt, 200 kWe Rapid-L, using lithium-6 (a liquid neutron poison) as a control medium. It would have 2700 fuel pins of 40-50% enriched uranium nitride with 2600°C melting point integrated into a disposable cartridge. The reactivity control system is passive, using lithium expansion modules (LEM) which give burnup compensation, partial load operation as well as negative reactivity feedback. As the reactor temperature rises, the lithium expands into the core, displacing an inert gas. Other kinds of lithium modules, also integrated into the fuel cartridge, shut down and start up the nuclear reactor. Cooling is by molten sodium, and with the LEM control system, reactor power is proportional to primary coolant flow rate. Refuelling would be every 10 years in an inert gas environment. Operation would require no skill, due to the inherent safety design features. The whole plant would be about 6.5 meters high and 2 meters in diameter.
The Super-Safe, Small & Simple (4S) 'nuclear battery' system is being developed by Toshiba and CRIEPI in Japan in collaboration with STAR work in USA. It uses sodium as coolant (with electromagnetic pumps) and has passive safety features, notably negative temperature and void reactivity. The whole unit would be factory-built, transported to site, installed below ground level, and would drive a steam cycle. It is capable of three decades of continuous operation without refuelling. Metallic fuel (169 pins 10mm in diameter) is uranium-zirconium or uranium-plutonium-zirconium alloy enriched to less than 20%. Steady power output over the core lifetime is achieved by progressively moving upwards an annular reflector around the slender core (0.68m diameter, 2m high). After 14 years, a neutron absorber at the center of the core is removed and the reflector repeats its slow movement up the core for 16 more years. In the event of power loss, the reflector falls to the bottom of the reactor vessel, slowing the reaction, and external air circulation gives decay heat removal.
Both 10 MWe and 50 MWe versions of 4S are designed to automatically maintain an outlet coolant temperature of 510°C—suitable for power generation with high temperature electrolytic hydrogen production. Plant cost is projected at US$2500/kW and power cost 5-7 cents/kWh for the small unit—very competitive with diesel in many locations. The design has gained considerable support in Alaska and toward the end of 2004 the town of Galena granted initial approval for Toshiba to build a 4S reactor in the remote location. A pre-application review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is being sought with a view to a demonstration unit operating by 2012. Its design is sufficiently similar to PRISM—GE's modular 150 MWe liquid metal-cooled inherently-safe reactor that went part-way through US NRC approval process, giving it favorable prospects for licensing.
At least do yourself the favor of listening to the short version, as Senator Dodd lays the smack down on damn near everyone.
Then ask yourself, why in the hell was he the only presidential candidate who came back to the Senate today to filibuster? Clinton, Obama, Biden, they supported Dodd in spirit. But none of them pulled their ass off the campaign trail back to D.C. where they could make an actual difference. (Edwards isn't a Senator any longer, so he doesn't have that option.)
Chris Dodd did something amazing today. He stood down the Bush Administration. Along with our own Democratic Leadership, which was prepared to roll over and suck off George Bush and Dick Cheney one more time.
If one determined U.S. Senator can stop the cover-up of an illegal program dead in its tracks, what do you think 10 or 20 U.S. Senators could do?
Holy Fucking Shit, this is what a people powered democracy is all about. The pressure from you guys, the progressives, the left wing blogisphere and Senator Dodd really made a difference. Honestly, this blanket immunity may not seem like a big deal to people but its about showing up. Its about stopping the corporate democrats. There was huge pressure to pass this thing and we stopped it.
When it became clear to Reid that many, many people were paying attention and his bullshit about being a victim of senate procedure was a no-sale to everybody. He knew it was going to be hard, but not impossible, to let this crap pass. And then one man, Chris Dodd, stood up in the senate and stopped this bill cold. Once Dodd made the stand more and more other senators felt comfortable in stating their objections to giving immunity to corporations for spying on the American people. Matt Stoller and Tim Tigaris are owed no little thanks in this too. Hell, there are a bunch of people who a debt of thanks.
Today really was a great day.
and not for nothing there is a contribute button on this pagechrisdodd.com
And the truth has a nasty way of sneaking up on you, you know. It'll blackjack you 'round the ear, and send cascades of squishy stars and spirals fluttering down your stun-slammed eyelids. It can sucker-punch you in the kidney, doubling you over as every nerve in your gut turns to just-salted razor wire.
But sometimes...sometimes the truth will just walk up to you out of the blue...opens its arms and says “Hey baby, don't you know me?”
And you step back, maybe blink a couple of times...and then you recognize it, and you step forward and embrace it—all the while going “Wow! It's you!”
I'd like you, the readers to step back and blink those two times to register a truth standing before you as real.
That truth is, that you are beginning to make a difference and that you MATTER.
As participants/co-conspirators in this thing called “blogging”.
You probably wonder why I say this, today. Why I say this now—what with the frustrations of Mukasey, and the war funding bills, and S-CHIP legislation and so on. Well...I say it because it is your support and follow-up action on the things that the multitude of us write that has pushed the debate about those issues to the point where the opposition actually has to work hard and still look bad in their narrow-margin “victories”. And when I say “the opposition”, I include those ostensibly in our own party/supposed ideological bent who whine for a rough-handed GOP reach-around while getting us all fucked.
There is tangible proof that we—you—are beginning to leaden their steps and labor their breathing after having drawn a little blood from their noses beginning late last year.
That proof lay in an old bromide that I just hate...it's so overused. I really hate to toss it out here, except for the fact that it is so true in this instance that it hurts. It was the famous line from Mahatma Gandhi about the pattern of victory over one's opposition:
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”
Now, take a look at this succession of reports over the last ten days or so, and tell me what stands out.
The incredibly-shrinking president told the Heritage Foundation today about the new target of his ire.
“When it comes to funding our troops, some in Washington should spend more time responding to the warnings of terrorists like Osama bin Laden and the requests of our commanders on the ground, and less time responding to the demands of MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters.”
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Picking a fight with “MoveOn.org bloggers and Code Pink protesters” seems like an unusually petty task for a president of the United States.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) accused “left-wing blogs” of making up “conspiracy theories” about the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, which passed the Senate last month. It designated part of the Iranian army a terrorist organization. Lieberman called opponents of the amendment “politically paranoid” and “hyper partisan.”
The curmudgeon within apparently got the better of Rove yesterday when he spoke at Yahoo's “Rise Of Citizen 2.0” event. One of his messages to users was that “Blogs give angry people an undeserved voice.” Michael Bassick wrote a full report at techPresident:
“People on the fringe are no longer voiceless,” noted Rove. Blogs have the unintended effect of giving “angry kooks” an “inexpensive soapbox” and a sense of “pseudo-anonymity” that “brings forth the worst angels of our nature.” He trashed Daily Kos and the liberal blogosphere for using more “dirty words” than conservative blogs like Townhall and RedState.
“The netroots, he said, “argue from anger rather than reason.” Many, he believes, blog for “personal release” and not “political persuasion.” He argued that the netroots have been largely ineffective and said MoveOn.org’s inability to end the war proves his point.
Hmmmmmm. Interesting. Comments, Madame Speaker? Matt Stoller wanted a couple on November 5th:
“I just got back from a fancy NYC fundraiser headlined by Nancy Pelosi for Kirsten Gillibrand to which I snagged a ticket. I wanted to ask Pelosi about Al Wynn, and I managed to get a response, though not a nice one.
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I went up to Pelosi after her odd speech to ask her in person about her support for Al Wynn. I said 'I helped organize a fundraiser for Donna Edwards', and I was about to talk about retroactive immunity and ask her to take this as a sign of frustration, as well as to tell her how proud she makes me as the first female Speaker of the House. But the moment I mentioned Al Wynn, Pelosi's whole face abruptly changed, her smile melted away, and she got hostile and said in an icy voice 'I know about that.' She then turned away to talk to someone else. That's happened to me only one other time in politics, when I said to Jerry McNerney that I was a blogger.
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Many of the Democrats in Congress, Pelosi for instance, are insider frustrated. They know something is vaguely wrong somewhere, they know their activists supporters are unhappy, they are still raising lots of money, they know they are in power and feted at fancy breakfasts, and they are unwilling to consider new strategies that actually challenge the constraints they see as permanent.
And when someone else does, they get mean, their face turns cold, and they walk away.
These four instances are not mere coincidence—especially the perfectly sync-ed Bush/Rove/Lieberman bleats. There is a tart, sweat-smell of desperation in their coordinated attacks on this end of the blogosphere, where I write, and you the readers energize. Somebody's getting under somebody else's skin...like a double-barbed fishhook, and hurting the living fuck out of them. Even with the relative legislative ineffectiveness this Congressional cycle, due to a non-super majority—the tea leaves for next November read badly for our polar opposites, and are brewing up nearly Hemlock toxic. It's you and your patronizing places like this one, and Kos, and TPM, FDL, Drifty and TBogg and S,N!, Maha and Atrios and Pandagon and the whole blogroll here and everyplace else on this side of the street. And it's the action you take after reading and communicating. The calls you make, the e-mails you send—the money you use to reward, and to slap down.
We are past the ignore and ridicule phases of Gandhi's progression. It is now the fight section. Claw, spit, kick, slap, eye-gouge and yes, cock-punch time is upon us.
And that's a good thing.
They're calling you out by name, now. No more faceless “Left”. They are being direct in their venom now...because they are desperate. Why else would there be such an odd coordination of attack via shotgun-blast of talking points?
If you didn't matter...“why all the hub-bub, bub?”
And as for Ms. Pelosi, giving Matt the old dry-ice shoulder pad was damned telling. The netroots' backing of Edwards pissed her off to the point where her trademark smiling veneer while dealing with the “loyal opposition” burned away like coastal Cali's “marine layer” under a blazing sun's assault. If the Edwards fundraising wasn't in any way effective, she could have laughed that shit off, pish-posh...
But she couldn't do that, could she? Because again...you, the people on the ground went right around her and dealt directly with who you wanted to. A well-coutured gatekeeper a brick wall is not.
The main thing is, as far as those who have recently done the obligatory rip n' read from the blast-faxes from right-wing headquarters are concerned, you haven't merely annoyed the beast—you snuck in, you took his lunch, peed on his den wall, and then...slapped his cubs around and made them cry. With that, he's now running through the jungle roaring at everything—rocks and tree stumps, but mainly now...at you. At us.
You've got Republicans in droves opting not to run again, flat-out retiring, and some once-safe, now feeling the hot breath of trouble on their crimson necks.
And those who remain in power can only use the numbers games of parliamentary procedure, and the allegiance of the feckless few who rode the progressive waves of last year on barely-visible neo-con water-wings to continue their obstructionism. That too, is a tenous thing.
Thus, the anger. The un-ironic invective (do winners do imvective?) about coarse language on our end from a man who boldly declared, “We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!” of a political opponent.
We were a monolithic “other” to be mocked not so long ago...but now the barbs are more targeted as the right's...a little shaky on their feet. They say “bloggers”, but they mean something more. They mean the entirety of the medium's participants.
Yeah...folks like me, but more importantly, you too.
The so-called “battle” isn't won, though. Dirty tricks abound. Roadblocks and punji-traps like the Net Neutrality battle and the FISA negotiations loom ahead. And still, with that...we're past the condescension of ignore, and ridicule.
It's a good 'ol fight now—and they don't like it. Your feedback, your activism, you did that.
Got 'em callin' us out. Name-checkin' and-and sellin' wolf tickets and what not. You think those three molotovs tossed our—your way in a week's time was a Goddamn coincidence? Shit like that doesn't happen by accident with these people. The truth is in your face, sayin' “Hey baby, don't you know me?”
The truth is that they're bringin' the hate direct, now. Focusing it. Gone is the yawn—It's now, “bring it on!”
“...then they fight you, then you win.”
Bad bloggers! Mean commenters! Angry communities!
Sheeeeeee-it! I'm a let Sister Jill Scott sum it up, ya'll...
It is a lesson as old as time. Taught to us as snot-nosed kids when we took to the playground. And damned if it doesn't still hold true in our adulthood, in the workplace, and in policy/issue debates.
Cue John Cole—who might wanna start taking down the license numbers of odd cars driving by his home, piloted of course, by snarling, cheerleader-skirted nutjobs:
“But like all schoolyard bullies, when punched in the mouth, they back down. Given the chance to debate the policy she clearly feels so strongly about, Michelle wimped out. She turned her tails and fled. One could say she gave the French response.”
What's John talking about? Well, you may recall reading here about Malkin's “1019th Nervous Breakdown” last week, as she spazzed out over a 12-year-old kid's making her beloved Bush look bad, via a trenchant rebuttal of the Presiden't craven vetoing of the S-CHIP children's insurance plan. The kid, 12-year-old Graeme Frost spoke during the Democratic response to Bush's Weekly Radio Address, and so infuriated the dinosaur-riding 27%—led by Malkin, that...well, they went there. No, folks...they literallywent THERE.
”Driving around, casing the house of a 12-year-old kid who told the truth and made the president look bad. She tells you, and her mouth-breathing readers/lynch mob what neighborhood the house is in. What kind of car's in front. Even what's on the front-fucking door.
__________________________
And of course, nary a word from her about her buddies at Free Republic posting the kids' address publicly—just rants about “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”
The stalker-azi play blew up in her pop-eyed, rictus-contorted face—big time. Especially after her and her co-horts' cheap-fuck, Scooby-Doo grade detective work on the Frosts and their assets was proven as wrong as a NY Post VP prediction headline.
She fumed. She hissed. She jumped around and got stray pom-pom bits all over everybody. And then? Well, mild-mannered Ezra Klein made an offer. A simple one, that could have cleared away much of the crazy, and given Madame Kookyskirts a chance to come back to earth:
“I will debate Michelle Malkin anytime, anywhere, in any forum (save HotAir TV, which she controls), on the particulars of S-CHIP. We can set the debate at a think tank, on BloggingHeads, over IM. Hell, we can set up the podiums in the shrubbery outside my house, since that seems to be the sort of venue she naturally seeks out. And then if Malkin wants an argument, she can have one. We'll talk S-CHIP and nothing but -- nothing of the Frosts, or Congress, or her blog.
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...Let's debate health care. Prove to the world that you really want "a good-faith argument." We can talk crowd-out, and cross-subsidization, and whether lower-middle class entrepreneurs are able to procure health care on the individual market. If this is a policy argument you care so deeply about as to travel to the Frost family's house to see if they really deserved S-CHIP benefits, surely you'll want to set up a web cam and talk through the issue.”
And of course, she demurred—which is a nice way of saying “ran like explosive diarrhea”. Realizing as EVERYONE DID, that:
A.) She didn't have the intellectual chops to discuss the issue with someone who actually KNOWS about it.
B.) She couldn't pull off a quickie S-CHIP cram-session that would convince anyone that she was even conversant were she to have accepted his offer.
C.) All she has is rage, spit, and venom—and taking up Klein's challenge would only expose further why she's relegated to her crumb-tossed Fox News guest shots after years of attempts to be break out as a big-time, even semi-respected pundit.
“Respectable Liberal Blogger Ezra Klein and his Pavlovian (Yet Respectable) boosters are treating my 2004 post as proof-positive of my utterly flabbergasting HYPOCRISY! Look! The wingnut complained about the health insurance market! Ergo, she is a HYYYPPPOCRITE. And stupid! And a Nazi bitch!
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As I’ve said before, you can’t win with these people. “Debate” Ezra Klein? What a perverse distraction and a laughable waste of time that would be. And that’s what they really want, isn’t it? To distract and waste time so they can foist their agenda on the country unimpeded.
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Good faith, eh? What would Ezra Klein know about it? Now, run along and thump your chest over your “victory” at BloggingHeadsTV or something. I have to get back to work. You know, “stalking.” “Assault.” “Savagings.” “Howling. “Braying.” “Hateful orgies.”
That stuff.
That...sounds distinctly like someone who popped a lot of dumb shit on someone who didn't deserve it, was told to back it up—then got called out on it to her face—“BRING IT!”...
...and then realized she had nothin'. So she backed down, while trying to not look like she was backing down. And while explaining why she wasn't backing down as it became apparent that she was, got angrier, and angrier, and angrier about being unable to duck the double-rubber wetsuit of cowardice she'd encased herself in.
But...you knew it would go down like that, didn't you? It was evident. And pre-ordained:
“When you challenge these clowns' awful policies in ways that their talking points cannot just shoot down—i.e., presenting a person to whom the public can easily and directly relate the situation to and have some empathy for...they. Can. Not. Fucking. Handle. It.
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...It is NOT about debate with these people.
It's all about fear. Peddling it as a basis for their policies, and then when boldly called on it, nakedly exhibiting it as they run like chickens from a loud noise..
Hey wingnuts!
Boo!
Now pick up your feathers—if you can find 'em in that fresh pile of scat.
There's more...
...Every day they show you they're actually worse.
The way you know you've really, really knee-capped the holy hell out of a right-winger and his or her talking points is when they go to the “civility” card—or duplicitously, as hinted at in Jesse's “sockpuppet” post, trot out the tongue-clucking “concern troll” routine—under their own names and others. And then? Then, if you've really wounded them in ways that put them verrrry much on the defensive, they absolutely lose their minds and go for broke—hissing, snarling, leaping and shitting, like rats backed into a spike-studded corner.
Well, we've seen gobs of that Grade-A lunacy in the last three weeks or so, with the hysterical, pearl-clutching ravings over General David Petraeus' easily bruised sensibilities after MoveOn correctly and pointedly asked whether he was acting as a truth-telling general, or as a shill, a mouthpiece for a failed policy, and betrayer of the trust of the American people for knowingly lying about things that are getting our soldiers killed.
So what happened next? Out came the concern trolls, mewling like stuck cats about tone and tenor—discourse and “coarsening of dialogue”. And then, as the hypocrisy of that meme fell to shreds in the face of their own behaviors...you guessed it—it was off the rails, and down the embankment to Batshitville as Rush Limbaugh desperately saw fit to impugn returning troops who served in Iraq and who dared publicly disagree with the Petraus-dent's opinion of the war by calling them “Phony Soldiers”, comparing them to brainwashed suicide bombers and dumb, wind-up bots (this from a man whose fans proudly call themselves “dittoheads”). This is the same “man” who thought it would be funny (Allan Funt he ain't) to jerk about in his custom-built, fat-fuck chair (nearly bursting a couple of pilonidal ass-cysts, I'm sure) and mock the tics and spasms of Parkinson's victims last year after Michael J. Fox's damning, pro stem-cell research ad near election time. Land a decent punch, not even a knockout—but a stunner on these bastards—and it's “Katy bar the door!” freakout time. You'd think somebody tied 'em down, tortured 'em, and left 'em to die somewhere.
But hey, this acid tab they've been popping since “The Math” went bad last November is a strong one, dude. 'Cause maaaaaaaaan...the freakout like, not only continues, dude?—But like...seems to be actually intensifying! Whooooa! Flash forward a week and a half, post Bush's veto of the SCHIP children's health insurance program, and it is there you will find the lowest of the right wing's low (nut-high to a gnat with a hernia)—led by the hateful, style-and-humor challenged, she-troglodyte Michelle Malkin, going after the family of the 12-year-old who deftly, and embarrassingly responded to Bush's veto via the Democratic response to the President's Weekly Word Salad, Verbal Pig-Fuck, Rhetorical Ass-Hattery Radio Address.
Well guess what this no-life-having she-clown decided to go and do? Yeah...you guessed it. Cue Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction—minus the girlish charm. Via Crooks and Liars:
The wingnuts have been in full force attack against the family of Graeme Frost, the twelve year old boy that gave the Democratic radio address a couple of weeks ago. In their typical ignorance of the facts, Malkin and the rest on the right side of the blogosphere are trying to paint this family as phonies.Think Progress has noted the important facts the attack monsters are forgetting. So what would you do if you saw that face snooping around your house? That might be a good question for the Frosts:
Update 2:50pm Eastern: I (Malkin) just returned from a visit to Frost’s commercial property near Patterson Park in Baltimore. It’s a modest place. Talked to one of the tenants, Mike Reilly, who is a talented welder. He said he had known the Frosts for 10 years. Business is good, he told me, though he characterized Frost as “struggling.” Reilly was an outspoken advocate for socialized health care without any means-testing whatsoever and an insistent critic of the Iraq war. Despite all that, he did agree with me that going without health insurance is often a matter of choice and a matter of priorities. Or maybe we were speaking two different languages.
I also passed by the Frosts’ rowhouse. There was an “01 - 20 -09″ bumper sticker plastered on the door and a newer model GMC Suburban parked directly in front of the house. I’ve seen guesstimates of the house’s worth in the $400,000-plus range. Those are high. But Mark Tapscott’s point remains: “[P]eople make choices and it’s clear the Frosts have made choice to invest in property and a business, but not in private health insurance. The Maryland-administered version of the federal SCHIP program, by the way, does not impose an asset test on applicants.”
(Back to C&L commentary here:) —LM
Now isn’t this the same Malkin who has complained about hate mail and threats? Ironically she did this on the same day that Free Republic decided to post the Frost’s’ home address. Of course this is also the same Malkin who tries to act like she is concerned about children. Well we see how much she really “cares” now.
Ohhhhhh, yes! She quite literally “went there”. I won't link to her foam-mouthed madness on the subject, or that of her Geico-Cavemen faced, aide-de-evil Mark Steyn. (I leave the takedown of that hackery to the estimable, and obviously cast-iron souled TBogg). But do you understand what this batshit fucking child was doing?!
Driving around, casing the house of a 12-year-old kid who told the truth and made the president look bad. She tells you, and her mouth-breathing readers/lynch mob what neighborhood the house is in. What kind of car's in front. Even what's on the front-fucking door. I am not one to wish ill will (publicly) on prominent figures...but I wouldn't have shed a single, solitary, fucking tear if she'd been set upon by a pack of guard dobermans patrolling the property, or been heatedly confronted by an armed citizen noticing her creepy stalking of their neighborhood and home. And of course, nary a word from her about her buddies at Free Republic posting the kids' address publicly—just rants about “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”
I'm gonna break this shit down for the Malkinites and other short bus-riding, class behind the boiler room rejects who don't or won't get it.
The SCHIP program affects kids. Got it? Kids like Graeme Frost—who was gravely injured and rendered comatose for a time due to a car accident. The SCHIP program helped his family—a family of taxpayers I might add—afford the care that got him healthy again. As he was directly affected by the program, his being one to comment on it, and rebut Bush's waffle-ey reasoning for ending it is not just fair, but common-fucking-sense if one wants to hammer the point home.
