Passed!

I passed Electricity on Monday with a 77%, and General Subjects on Thursday with an 87%!

Now I really am an inch away from graduating...!

Break

Well I'm taking a break from posting and maintaning my blog until I retake the Electricity and General Subjects Coast Guard exams during this coming week, I apologize to my "loyal fans" out there and I will be back.

CND - Hypocrites

Initially discovered through Wizbang!
The Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament is a very hypocritical organization. From their website:

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
CND campaigns non-violently to rid the world of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and to create genuine security for future generations.

So that means they are opposed to every country who either has nuclear weaponry, or countries who are obviously developing nuclear weaponry. Of course protesting America having nuclear weapons is one thing, but when you protest a campaign by a nation with high moral standards against a fledgling nation who is in the process of nuclear armament

19 March: No More Bush Wars - End the Occupation of IraqAs pressure builds up
against Iran, now is the time to say No to further pre-emptive wars in which
nuclear weapons may be used. National demonstration 19 March 2005, 12 noon
Speakers Corner Hyde Park, London.

Oh, the fact that we haven't physically attacked Iran to date doesn't mean anything, the fact that Bush's administration has stated it will not attack Iran doesn't mean anything. But their hypocrisy doesn't stop there. One of their campaigns apparently has attacked the America v Iraq war (which was won successfully). The stabilization period is currently under way and so far seems to be working. Not only that, but on the same page, they want a body count (the sick bastards).

Count the casualties campaign

We urge you to email Jack Straw to ask the
government to commission a comprehensive, independent inquiry to determine how
many Iraqis have died or been injured since the 2003 invasion. You can do so by
going to: http://www.countthecasualties.org.uk/

I am still not sure why they aren't protesting Iran's possible nuclear armament strategy instead of protesting Bush's information campaign. After all, according to their own website:

CND supports the establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone in the Middle East,
as called for in UN Security Council Resolution 687. The presence of nuclear
weapons in this region undermines the Palestine-Israel peace process, and
Israel’s secretive possession of nuclear weapons provides a convenient excuse
for other countries in the region to pursue the bomb. Until Israel signs and
complies with the NPT, it will be difficult to fairly enforce the treaty upon
other countries in the region.

Further reading:
Money? Meet Mouth (sortapundit)
Protests (Wizbang!)
Protests, Pictures, Commentary And "Finger Woman"! (Digger's Realm)

My Beef With Bush

While working on my Energy Systems Design Research paper on Scramjets (Supersonic Combustion Ramjets), I discovered that recently (as of November of 2004!) NASA shattered all sorts of speed barriers by launching the research vehicle X-43A at literally undreamed of speeds of Mach 9.8 (7,000 mph!). The next two vehicles in the Hyper-X project have been cancelled due to changes in NASA's strategic goals, the X-43B and the X-43C (a little amount of research found the cancellation article on the X-43C, I couldn't find one for the X-43B so it could still be on the table?). Well what brought about a change in those goals?

(click on link to view videos, video opens in new window, links extracted from NASA website Javascript)
Windows Media High
Windows Media Low
Quicktime
Download 15.2MB Winzip (right click and select save as)

To be sure, he outlines a lofty plan and some lofty goals, and that isn't a bad thing. But when those lofty goals cut short funding for proven successful projects, such as the Hyper-X project, he destroys a good thing. Further research into scramjets could even help the space industry move along! Imagine a space delivery system that needs less than half the fuel it does now.

You've seen pictures of the space shuttles and the huge tanks attached? Well those are rockets, and rockets are powered by a fuel, and an oxidizer. That oxidizer weighs a LOT. The Liquid Oxygen weighs at least 3 times as much as the shuttle itself! Scramjets, on the other hand, only need fuel. The oxygen is provided for by the oxygen in the atmosphere itself! Oh sure, rocket fuel with oxidizer will be needed once the vehicle exits the atmosphere, and the oxygen level is too low to sustain combustion, but during ascent, turbojets (or air-assisted rockets, such as the X-43B would use)could be used to launch the vehicle into the air, and then the scramjet could take over at about Mach 6, launching the vehicle until it exits the atmosphere, at which point the thrusters and rockets will take over.

Further Reading:
[PDF] 1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS OF ISTAR HYDROCARBON FUELED COMBUSTOR ...
[PDF] Air-Breathing Hypersonics Research at Boeing Phantom Works
Aerospace Technology - NASA X-43 (Hyper-X) Hypersonic Aircraft
Dryden Education - Potential Collaboration Research
X-43 - Hyper-X
NASA Developing Hypersonic Technologies; Flight Vehicles Only ...
[PDF] Microsoft PowerPoint - Symposium Briefing May 17 2002.ppt
Boeing X-43 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Same ol Same ol

(Hello Digger's Realm readers!)

Via Google News
From Reuters (who else?)

LONDON (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of protesters against the war on Iraq marched through European capitals on Saturday, but President Bush said the invasion just two years ago had shielded the world from "grave danger."

"George Bush ... Uncle Sam. Iraq will be your Vietnam," chanted 45,000 protesters winding through central London as they put down a black cardboard coffin with the slogan "100,000 dead" scrawled on the lid outside the U.S. embassy.

I thought we've been through this already. Now the Europeans are jumping on the hippie bandwagon, two years down the road? I thought we understood that the 100,000 dead figure was a dartboard. Are they claiming that every person that was killed (that wasn't an American) an upstanding citizen of lovely Iraq?

Apparently these Europeans don't like the idea of Iraq having elections. They also would prefer Saddam Hussein to Iraqis governing themselves. After all, Arabs sure as hell can't govern themselves, they need an "elite" figure who knows how.

The organizers of the London protest, the Stop the War Coalition, said they had tried but failed to deliver a letter to the U.S. embassy insisting that Bush and Blair pull their forces out of Iraq.

"We demand that you set an early date for the swift withdrawal of our troops from occupied Iraq, as the Italian government has been forced to do, and restore full and unconditional sovereignty to the Iraqi people," the letter said.

I thought that was the point of our going into Iraq in the first place. The actual Iraqi people NEVER had sovereignty before we went in there. Saddam Hussein and his ilk sure as hell kept the Iraqi people from ousting him. Some days you just wonder what the heck news Europeans have been watching. CNN?

Update: Kevin at Wizbang has the story on other recent protests.

Update 2: Carnival of the Trackbacks 3 (a term that I coined ;-) )

Something cool

Let's forget politics and such for a little while, and just applaud people for their ingenuity!
By Clown Staples via Albino Black Sheep

Update: Bonfire of the Vanities - Week 90

GRAIN protest

To those of you not in the know (like me), GRAIN - GrassRoots Anti-Imperialist Network - held a protest at York University in Canada recently.

I only found out about it by one gentleman's attempt at photojournalism at the following event, and he posted it at AlbinoBlackSheep. It was a rather interesting photo essay, I especially thought this one was VERY interesting:

Crazy kids. Wearing their school bags upside down.

This bag has a patch of Che Guevara, the most brutal and murderous communist revolutionist of the Americas. Beside this patch is a button that says "War is Murder". He doesn't know his hero and this button are related, and both are upside down.

Pretty much shows the hypocrisy eh?

Evita

I saw the musical Evita at the Golden Gate Theatre in Frisco last night, it was pretty good. I just barely caught on that the narrator was Che Guevara (in the play that is). I think both sides of the fence, the Perons and "el Che" were wrong in their approach to helping people. Eva Peron was about the spur of the moment little bits of "wealth" that lasted like a week, and Che was...well we all know what Che was. The Perons were never about helping people anyway, they were fanatical about their own power, quite fascist even.

The movie was portrayed perfectly by madonna, a woman who slept her way to the top.

End of the world

An interesting take on the end of the world.

Bookmark the Day!

PETA, otherwise known as People Eating Tasty animals has long been known for its controversial tactics. Meryl Yourish came up with clever controversial way to deal with PETA. It's third annual eat-a-tasty-animal-for-PETA day!

(via Wizbang!)

Doonesbury move over!

Finally something to rival Doonesbury. I've seen the DaybyDay comics before, but nothing really made me sit and notice until when Chris Muir, the gentleman who runs DaybyDay (and draws) commented on my blog. I find his comic strip witty and wonderful. Move over Doonesbury, the right has its own comic strip!

*I enjoy the strip so much I added it to my blog above (in case you didn't notice)

Power of Spam

This is what unsolicited spam will do to your computer...be warned!