LeftiOnTheNews points out that 9/11 conspiracy theorists must be in a dither today because of the tanker truck explosion in the S.F. Bay Area. The force of the explosion and the resulting heat softened the supporting steel, causing the overpass to collapse.

This is precisely what the conspiracy theorists say could not have happened during 9/11. But the tanker crash shows clearly that steel can be softened, and by a mere tanker crash (which has way less fuel than a passenger jet plane)

I’m posting a review tomorrow here of Mike Davis’ new book, Buda’s Wagon. A Short History of the Car Bomb. Among other things, he points out just how powerful car bombs can be - and an exploding gas tanker IS a car bomb.

The US left Lebanon in the 80’s after Hezbollah car bombs blew up US and French barracks. The French barracks was 9 stories. The bomb lifted it off the foundation and moved it 20 feet. That explosive power was unquestionably way less than that of the planes that hit the WTC on 9/11, which not only caused explosions but also massive fires.

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And this presidential candidate wants to increase defense spending and put more US troops everywhere.

Read it and weep, liberals. When it comes to foreign policy, Barack Obama appears little different from George Bush.

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So, after moving to Connecticut (where I grew up), a rash appeared on my legs and wouldn’t go away. Finally went to an MD who looked at it for about two seconds and said it was poison ivy. How can that be I said, it’s early Spring and it’s not even blooming yet. Dunno, he said, but I see it at least a couple of times a week now.

Ah well, there were a multitude of black widow spiders in our backyard in California. I will feel about as much compunction over spraying poison ivy with herbicide as I did for killing black widows on sight.

As for other beasties, there’s a few rattlers here, but nothing like southern California, as well as the occasional copperhead. You do need to look out for deer ticks, as they can carry Lyme disease (so named because it was first found in Lyme CT.) As for insects, rumors that the black fly is the state bird are frivolous…

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The Economist has an excellent backgrounder on the serious drought in Australia and what they’re doing to mitigate it.

Dave Riley, who lives in Australia, details the severity of the drought and how recycling kitchen water has led to an herb garden in his backyard.

Wikipedia on the drought

Prime Minister John Howard announced on 19 April 2007 that unless substantial rain occurs in the next six weeks no water will be allocated to irrigators in the Murray-Darling basin for the coming year. The result of this would be “catastrophic” for farmers and the economy and the price of food would significantly rise. Electricity shortages are also likely if the Snowy Mountains Scheme is forced to shut down its hydroelectric generators^.

The Australian government is being hugely proactive, doing whatever they can think of to help. A mega-drought is predicted for the American southwest, so it’s way past time for state and federal governments to get proactive here. A real good start would be to ban the building golf courses in deserts and to shut down existing courses.

As said here before, the only way to combat global warming is for governments to mandate the changes. Only they have the power to make it happen.

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Ocean Power Technologies “wave generation system uses a ’smart,’ ocean-going buoy to capture and convert wave energy into low-cost, clean electricity.”

A 10 MW power station would occupy 30 acres of ocean space, and is scalable to 100 MW.

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