Posts in ‘Energy’

The Nord Stream Whodunit

Destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines was an “Act of War”, but who did it? The US/Norwegian Navy or a Ukrainian Danny Ocean? Do we have a free press?

  • Posted: March 14, 2023

Science is Freezing Texas

Science is real. But then sometimes its not. Texas froze. That was real. Maybe its time to actually get real.

  • Posted: March 16, 2021

California’s Burning – PG&E, Gill Ranch and Me

My heart goes out to the good men and women of PG&E delivering service to their customers. Like their customers, they have been betrayed. Some thoughts on their Generals.

  • Posted: November 11, 2019

In Search of Moonbeams and Unicorn Breath

It is getting increasingly difficult to separate reality from make believe. We have been seduced, not that we put up much of a fight. But the sweet nothings our lover whispers into our ear get increasingly hard to believe.

  • Posted: August 22, 2018

Science & the First Energy Crisis

The United States is about free enterprise until it isn’t. But the free market works anyway.

  • Posted: January 18, 2018

Hunting Unicorns

Building pipelines isn’t just splashing through mud holes on the right of way in your jeep. You get to hunt unicorns too.

  • Posted: February 23, 2017

The Standing Rock Follies

Many things are on display at Standing Rock.

  • Posted: January 10, 2017

Starshot

Martin Luther started the Reformation with his 95 Theses. Could Starshot begin the reformation of Science?

  • Posted: May 3, 2016

Doggerland – Underwater Adventure

Scuba divers swimming over an ancient forest. My ancestors

  • Posted: November 16, 2015

Saving the World, One Rooftop at a Time

It has been said that “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” California is saving the world, one roof at a time.

  • Posted: April 27, 2015
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  • What I’m Reading

    What I’m Reading

    The Twelfth Department
    By William Ryan

    What happens when we forget, or never bothered to learn, what we believe in and why we believe? What happens when the emotional whirls of Facebook and Twitter are the depths of our understanding? Evil, great evil, is regularly found lurking in the unexamined depths of good intentions. Mathew Arnold put our present political climate in memorable words years ago:

    And we are here as on a darkling plain
    Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
    Where ignorant armies clash by night

    Novels, good stories, provide a lens to see life, including our beliefs, without camouflage. As an example, JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the finest Bible commentaries ever written. Progressive political ideals may lack in recent electoral success, but have undisputed possession of today’s moral high ground. And while death and taxes may be the only sure bets, the eventual victory of those holding the high ground have very good odds in any battle.
    And so fiction provides a look at eventual victories. There is no question that the outlines of today’s progressive agenda can be clearly seen in other times and places. William Ryan takes us to a time and place fondly imagined, idealized at the time, by the forefather’s of todays progressive leadership. In The Twelfth Department, we see a police captain in 1930’s Moscow. Captain Alexei Korolev is just a man trying to be a good father, a good citizen, a good police officer. In many ways Alexei is a fortunate man, with a good reputation and many more material advantages than the average citizen. But a high profile murder brings him into ambiguous circumstances. The tone of the book is respectful of life in Moscow, with no axes to grind. It is just a portrait of a man trying to do his job, bringing a gruesome killer to justice, among ordinary human beings seeking only to live normal lives in a progressive paradise.

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