Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 22:12 - Category: Unfiled Tags: nanosilver, nanotech;
Maybe. Nanosilver is already being used commercially, and it “can damage both human cells and wild ecosystems.” Are there other such substances? No one really knows for sure.
Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 18:51 - Category: Renewable energy Tags: biofuel;
The Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii can be tapped (ala maple syrup) for a natural diesel fuel that requires only simple filtering before being poured into a truck. The catch? The diesel only has a shelf-life of about 3 months.
Ranches and farms in areas where the tree grows might well be able to provide most of their diesel fuel. The article says one acre of trees can output 25 barrels per year, which is roughly 1050 gallons. If they can tap it like maple syrup is done now, with long lines of hoses flowing to a central location rather than individual buckets on a tree, then it should be cost-effective too.
This would be similar to what sugar cane plantations in Hawaii are doing, using the leftovers from cane processing to create biofuel to run their tractors and trucks.
Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 14:41 - Category: Credit crisis ;
Adam Curry mentioned on a recent podcast he’d seen humorous lyrics circulating to the tune of “Bohemian Rhapsody” about the current financial market maladies. He sent them to a friend, Geoff Smith, who put it to song. Option Monster now has a video of it.
Enjoy.
Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 10:45 - Category: Election 2008 Tags: Obama;
Doug Henwood, economist and editor of Left Business Observer, on Obama.
Big capital would have no problem with an Obama presidency. Top hedge fund honcho Paul Tudor Jones threw a fundraiser for him at his Greenwich house last spring, “The whole of Greenwich [CT] is backing Obama,” one source said of the posh headquarters of the hedge fund industry. They like him because they’re socially liberal, up to a point, and probably eager for a little less war, and think he’s the man to do their work. They’re also confident he wouldn’t undertake any renovations to the distribution of wealth.
I’ve long thought Obama had serious support from somewhere deep within the power elite. This illuminates at least one major section of such support, and among the Greenwich hedge fund players exist many billionaires. That they think we need less war is a good thing, that they expect Obama to be docile on financial matters is not so good.
Enough critique; the dialectic demands something constructive to induce some forward motion. There’s no doubt that Obamalust does embody some phantasmic longing for a better world—more peaceful, egalitarian, and humane. He’ll deliver little of that—but there’s evidence of some admirable popular desires behind the crush. And they will inevitably be disappointed.
As this newsletter has argued for years, there’s great political potential in popular disillusionment with Democrats. The phenomenon was first diagnosed by Garry Wills in Nixon Agonistes. As Wills explained it, throughout the 1950s, left-liberals intellectuals thought that the national malaise was the fault of Eisenhower, and a Democrat would cure it. Well, they got JFK and everything still pretty much sucked, which is what gave rise to the rebellions of the 1960s (and all that excess that Obama wants to junk any remnant of). You could argue that the movements of the 1990s that culminated in Seattle were a minor rerun of this. The sense of malaise and alienation is probably stronger now than it was 50 years ago, and includes a lot more of the working class, whom Stanley Greenberg’s focus groups find to be really pissed off about the cost of living and the way the rich are lording it over the rest of us.
Never did the possibility of disappointment offer so much hope. That’s not what the candidate means by that word, but history can be a great ironist.
Which, if you think about it, is a good reason to be for Obama. Were McCain or Clinton to get elected, no one would expect much change. But if Obama becomes president - and I think he will - the inevitable letdown from hoped-for change to what he actually delivers will be significant. But the progressive forces set into motion by his election won’t easily be put back in the bottle. And that could lead to real change.
Having said that, Obama seems to be to be the least warlike of the candidates, and that’s a good thing too.
Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 07:09 - Category: Unfiled ;
At least not compared to China, where the Shanghai market is down 45% in six months.
Hordes of housewife and businessmen stock traders have gotten wiped out. Some invested all of their life savings in the market while others made things even worse by being margined.
The US dot com implosion was mild compared to this. It occurs to me that in both of these bubbles then implosions, these little stock traders were only going long. Had they been shorting the market, they’d still be in the game.
Bob Morris @ Apr 2nd 2008 01:23 - Category: Unfiled Tags: cats;
Mrs Moms came to us about six weeks ago very pregnant from a rescue shelter. She gave birth to them here and they will all go back when the kittens are old enough to adopt. She is the calmest cat I’ve ever seen and makes friends with people and other cats instantly.
We noticed she was breathing heavily, took her to be checked, and she is now fighting for her life with what turned out to be an extremely serious case of pneumonia. We’ll know tomorrow how the treatments are going. The rescue shelter has a no-kill policy and they are doing everything they can.
The kittens are 4 weeks old, starting to eat food, and we are bottle feeding them with KMR (Kitten Meal Replacement.) They’ll be fine. Let’s hope Mrs Moms will be too.
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