Turns out that the Emperor did not want anyone to know what the possible health effects of climate change were going to be.
White House edits CDC climate testimony – Yahoo! News:
It was eviscerated,’ said a CDC official, familiar with both versions, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the review process.
The official said that while it is customary for testimony to be changed in a White House review, these changes were particularly ‘heavy-handed,’ with the document cut from its original 14 pages to four. It was six pages as presented to the Senate committee.
So, is there any point in blogging about this story about the Emperor and his politburo wielding the censor pen on yet another government report? No, because like million other stories like the one above, nothing comes of it. Nobody loses anything, the press does not understand that this behavior is unprecedented and more representative of 1960s USSR than the so called leader of the free world. The people who read about it could not care less. This is small fry compared to the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (call it torture), “private military contractors” (call them mercenaries), “extraordinary rendition” (state sanctioned kidnapping, disappearing, whatever you call it), etc. This country has apparently been outraged to boredom. Where does the “editing” (censoring) of a government report even register on this list of outrages?
Seriously, the Democratic party has been the most undistinguished of opposition parties. Yes, they supposedly control the Senate and Congress, but they don’t. In this weird undemocratic and archaic presidential system, you can only succeed if you have 60% of the Senate, 67% of the Congress or the president on your side. So, functionally, the Democrats are still the opposition party and do not seem to understand that as the opposition party, they need to oppose, manufacture outrage (in this case, no manufacturing necessary), and keep yelling continuously. Some shrillness is indicated here. Yes, they have some power that comes from the majorities, but the power needs to be used. They have to keep sending bills that the president will veto, they have to keep subpoenaing the politburo members so they can refuse to testify, and they have to keep repeating that they’re outraged, I tell you, outraged!!
Oh well, I come from the famously fractious politics of India, so none of my rants are going to make sense. If you want outrage, here you go… Mind you, this is the member of the coalition that rules India exerting pressure on it’s ally, not even the real opposition who only yesterday called for the PM to resign because “a resurgent nation like India should not be led by a helpless and sad leader” – Ouch, take that!! All this over a nuclear deal with the US where India gained all kinds of concessions for essentially building a nuclear arsenal on the sly and against the wishes of the international community.
The democrats needs a master class on opposition politics from the BJP.
Picture Courtesy Ristocrats
The main flaw in the whole scheme is the (wrong) assumption that in diesels (and also in gasoline engines) up to 20% of the fuel escapes to exhaust without burning. This is patently wrong. And it is the starting point in all scams related to the similar “fuel saving” devices. In modern diesel and gasoline engines, built within the last decade or so, 98-99% of the fuel is burned; only 1-2% of the fuel may survive combustion and end up in the exhaust. Applying a strong electric field to the fuel line may produce finer droplets, but it will not produce 20% more energy because the margin is already 1-2%, if any. A more technical criticism pointing the main flaws in Dr. Tao’s study has just been published by the same journal Energy and Fuels: “Gulder “Comments on Electrorheology Leads Efficient Combustion by Tao et al.” Energy and Fuel s, ASAP in press (doi:10.1021/ef800829v). Prof. Gulder’s Comment can be accessed at http://arrow.utias.utoronto.ca/~ogulder/Z_Energy&Fuels2009comb_eff.pdf