Free Republic

Futures were up earlier; off since Fox called for House to go D

... heated fight for a seat on Louisiana's Public Service Commission (PSC) is still going strong. December runoff between PSC chairman Eric Skrmetta and alternative energy advocate Forest Bradley-Wright.

The three Republican candidates looking to challenge Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in November are set to face each other tonight on NY1. Congressman Bob Turner, George Maragos, and Wendy Long will debate on a special weekend edition of "Inside City Hall" [at 7P Eastern, Sunday, 17Jun12]

Gregory Jaczko has resigned his chairmanship of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

Spent a few hours at the home of Saul and Stephen Rich. I was able to have quite a bit of face-time with Congressman Robert Turner (Brooklyn/Queens, NY; NY-9).

In roughly six months, owners and operators of nuclear generating facilities will have a new regulation to address. After a hiatus of more than four years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will issue a new version of the 316(b) Phase II rule, which regulates impingement and entrainment at cooling water intakes. The proposed rule published in the Federal Register on April 20, 2011, applies to existing power plants and industrial and manufacturing facilities that withdraw at least 2 million gallons per day (MGD) of cooling water and use at least 25 percent of that water exclusively for cooling pur-poses....

Boehner appears to be balking at the debt ceiling deal that ... Reid of Nevada has signed. Mr. Boehner is concerned about provisions in the deal that could lead to sharp cuts in military spending, say people familiar with the situation. House aides have warned that just because Reid has signed off on the deal doesn’t mean the deal is done.

Among those unlikely to be persuaded are the longtime Democrat fundraising powerhouse husband and wife team of Steven L. Rattner and Maureen White. Rattner is a founder of the Quadrangle Group and served as Obama’s Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury and White is the former finance chair for the Democratic National Committee. One former Democratic donor, who spoke to the New York Times under terms of anonymity, “said it was ironic that the same president who once criticized bankers as ‘fat cats’ would now invite them to dine at Daniel, where the six-course tasting menu runs to $195...

Although the unfavorable financial trends of the past decade have worsened considerably under the Obama-Reid-Pelosi leadership, tea partiers and other fiscal conservatives no longer see Republican control of Congress as a primary objective. It is arguably more important at this time because there is a Democrat in the White House who, along with Congress, has yanked the nation, kicking and screaming, far to the left. But candidates like Mike Castle, fan of cap and tax, can't be counted on to change the direction of the country. It would be better to let Democrats retain ownership of the Senate and House...

This morning I voted in Precinct 92 for Lorgio in the Conservative Party Primary. It took 30 minutes because the ballot for the scanner was 3/8" too wide. The folks working there were unprepared to give me an affadavit ballot -- there were none for any of the political parties -- so they improvised by using the form intended for the scanner.

From Canal to Worth -- sidewalks full of people, traffic on Centre is stopped. Largest crowd at Centre and Worth.

Today's Daily Kos Research 2000 tracking poll has Obama up over McCain 52-40, no change from yesterday. All trackers are data from three days prior to posting, with the R2K numbers from today (yesterday's numbers in parentheses) and the other trackers from yesterday (previous day's data). LV=likely voter, RV=registered voter. Obama McCain MoE +/- RV/LV Today Research 2000: 52 (52) 40 (40) 3 LV Rasmussen: 51 (51) 44 (45) 2 LV Yesterday Diageo/Hotline: 48 (48) 41 (42) 3.2 LV (as of yesterday, LV now reported) Gallup: 50 (49) 42 (42) 2 RV On successive days in the R2K poll, Obama...

Twelve nuclear power reactors could be ordered at once by struggling South African generator Eskom. Today [31Jan08] Areva and Westinghouse both submitted one proposal each for two or three reactors, and another for 12 or 17.

Why Our Gas Is Great for Hybrid Vehicles Aquygen™ Gas is capable of storing tremendous amounts of energy that can be released under certain specific conditions. Under these conditions, Aquygen™ Gas will release an estimated 3.1 times the energy levels released by pure Hydrogen or traditional Hydrogen & Oxygen mixtures. Denny Klein and his prototype car The Hybrid Hydrogen Oxygen System ("HHOS") can generate sufficient Aquygen™ Gas to enrich a vehicle's traditional fuel supply (gasoline or diesel) so that a net power increase in engine horsepower ("HP") occurs. In the prototype vehicle, it has been estimated that the heavy-duty alternator...

YEREVAN, May 3 (Itar-Tass) -- Armenia will build a new nuclear power plant with the capacity of 1,000 megawatt, Finance and Economy Minister Vartan Khachatrian said on Tuesday, after the 12th meeting of the Armenian-U.S. economic cooperation group. He said the new power plant will replace the old one with the capacity of 440 megawatt. The United States objects to building a new nuclear power plant in Armenia for safety reasons, as the country is located in a seismically active zone, U.S. coordinator for Europe and Eurasia Thomas Adams said. Not a single American company will agree to build a...

Alito sided with the majority in a 6-3 vote that rejected a last minute request to allow Missouri to carry out the execution of Michael Taylor, 39, by lethal injection at midnight, a court spokesman said on Thursday. He has challenged his death sentence on the grounds that the three-drug cocktail of lethal chemicals used in executions carry the risk of undue suffering, violating the U.S. Constitution's protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

WASHINGTON - Soil tests indicate that a soft, spongy layer of swamp peat underneath the 17th Street canal floodwall was the weak point that caused soil to move and the wall to breach during Hurricane Katrina, an engineer who has studied the data says. "The thing that is remarkable here is the very low strength of the soils around the bottom of the sheet pile" base of the floodwall, said Robert Bea, a geotechnical engineer at the University of California, Berkeley, who examined the test results. Bea is a member of the National Science Foundation team that is studying the...

China is asking where all the girls have gone. And the sobering answer is that this vast nation, now the world's fastest-growing economy, is confronting a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as "gendercide" -- the phenomenom caused by millions of families resorting to abortion and infanticide to make sure their one child was a boy. The age-old bias for boys, combined with China's draconian one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced what Gu Baochang, a leading Chinese expert on family planning, described as "the largest, the highest, and the longest" gender imbalance in the world. Ancient practice For...

Help make sure that a well educated viewership sees nuclear power in a positive light.

Your typical city dweller doesn’t know just how much coal and uranium he burns each year. On Lake Shore Drive in Chicago—where the numbers are fairly representative of urban America as a whole—the answer is (roughly): four tons and a few ounces. In round numbers, tons of coal generate about half of the typical city’s electric power; ounces of uranium, about 17 percent; natural gas and hydro take care of the rest. New York is a bit different: an apartment dweller on the Upper West Side substitutes two tons of oil (or the equivalent in natural gas) for Chicago’s four...