“BAN DIHYDROGEN MONOXIDE - THE INVISIBLE KILLER!
Dihydrogen monoxide is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and kills uncounted thousands of people every year.
What are the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide?
Most of these deaths are caused by accidental inhalation of DHMO, but the dangers of dihydrogen monoxide do not end there. Prolonged exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage. Symptoms of DHMO ingestion can include excessive sweating and urination, and possibly a bloated feeling, nausea, vomiting and body electrolyte imbalance. For those who have become dependent, DHMO withdrawal means certain death.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Facts
Dihydrogen monoxide:

* is also known as hydric acid, and is the major component of acid rain.
* contributes to the Greenhouse Effect.
* may cause severe burns.
* contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
* accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
* may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
* has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.

Dihydrogen Monoxide Alerts
Contamination is reaching epidemic proportions!

Quantities of dihydrogen monoxide have been found in almost every stream, lake, and reservoir in America today. But the pollution is global, and the contaminant has even been found in Antarctic ice. In the midwest alone DHMO has caused millions of dollars of property damage.
Dihydrogen Monoxide Uses
Despite the danger, dihydrogen monoxide is often used:

* as an industrial solvent and coolant.
* in nuclear power plants.
* in the production of styrofoam.
* as a fire retardant.
* in many forms of cruel animal research.
* in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
* as an additive in certain junk-foods and other food products.

Stop the horror - Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide
Companies dump waste DHMO into rivers and the ocean, and nothing can be done to stop them because this practice is still legal. The impact on wildlife is extreme, and we cannot afford to ignore it any longer!

THE HORROR MUST BE STOPPED!

The American government has refused to ban the production, distribution, or use of this damaging chemical due to its importance to the economic health of this nation. In fact, the navy and other military organizations are conducting experiments with DHMO, and designing multi-billion dollar devices to control and utilize it during warfare situations. Hundreds of military research facilities receive tons of it through a highly sophisticated underground distribution network. Many store large quantities for later use.

IT’S NOT TOO LATE!

Act NOW to prevent further contamination. Find out more about this dangerous chemical. What you don’t know CAN hurt you and others throughout the world.” –http://www.dhmo.org

Stanley Kubrick’s classic, Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, is a suspenseful cold war comedy that is also spiked with a realistic representation of the danger of anyone having control of too much potentially devastating power, and a representation of the possibly very grim outcome from adherence to the theory of mutually assured destruction. In Dr. Strangelove, a high-ranked U.S. military official–who is annoyed with the longevity of the cold war without any actual fighting and who is impatient with Washington–decides to take matters into his own hands by instructing bombers to nuke the Soviet Union in a way that they cannot be called back and stopped. Ironically, the military official’s plan to stage a preemptive strike to save the U.S. actually destroys the world, as the Soviet Union had recently completed building an unstoppable, automatic retaliatory device (the “Doomsday Machine”) with the hopes of thwarting such an attack, and his attack preempted their warning to the U.S. of its completion.

This film is definitely a must-see for everyone. But, did you know that at the very same time that Kubrick was working on this film, a device very similar to the “Doomsday Machine” was in the works? The diabolical development of a retaliatory device was not the brainchild of Moscow, but was actually being researched in the United States. This weapon, known as the Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, once reaching its predetermined destination, would drop small nuclear bombs on predetermined targets while venting radiation and killing life all along its path.

From Wikipedia (Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile):

“The Supersonic Low Altitude Missile or SLAM (not to be confused with the U.S. Navy’s current Standoff Land Attack Missile) was a cancelled U.S. Air Force project conceived around 1955; the height of the cold war. Although it never proceeded beyond the initial design and testing phase before being declared obsolete, it represented several radical innovations in tactical aircraft, some of which are now considered at the cutting edge of military technology. It was nicknamed The Flying Crowbar for its conceptual simplicity and structural strength.

The SLAM was designed to complement the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, and as a possible replacement for or augment to the Strategic Air Command system. In the event of nuclear war it was intended to fly below the cover of enemy radar at supersonic speeds, and deliver thermonuclear warheads to roughly 26 targets.

The primary innovation was the engine of the aircraft, which was developed under the aegis of a separate project code-named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. It was a ramjet that used nuclear fission to superheat incoming air instead of chemical fuel. Project Pluto produced two working prototypes of this engine, the Tory-IIA and the Tory-IIC, which were successfully tested in the Nevada desert. Special ceramics had to be developed to meet the stringent weight and tremendous heat tolerances demanded of the SLAM’s reactor. These were developed by the Coors company, which was then in the business of fabricating porcelain. The reactor itself was designed at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory.

The use of a nuclear engine in the airframe gave the missile an unprecedented range, estimated to be roughly one hundred and thirteen thousand miles (almost 182000 km or over four and a half times the equatorial circumference of the earth). It also acted as a secondary weapon for the missile: the stream of fallout left in its wake would poison enemy territory, and when its fuel was spent it would severely contaminate its strategically-selected crash site. In addition, the sonic waves given off by its passage would damage ground installations.”

An interesting piece of trivia about the SLAM is that its development ended in the same year that Kubrick’s movie was released. Did Dr. Strangelove help shape policy? Not really. The development project for the SLAM was ended before any were fully produced because they were deemed too expensive, to difficult to test safely (and without extensive testing would not be trustworthy), and obsolete with the advancement of ICBMs.

From Wikipedia (Supersonic_Low_Altitude_Missile):

“The SLAM program was scrapped on July 1, 1964. By this time serious questions about its safety had been raised (how does one test a device that spews radioactive fumes from its totally unshielded reactor core as it flies and turns its landing area into a radioactive contamination zone?), as well as its efficacy and cost. ICBMs promised swifter delivery to targets, and because of their speed (the Thor traveled at roughly Mach 12) and trajectory were considered virtually unstoppable. The SLAM was also being outpaced by advances in defensive ground radar, which threatened to render its stratagem of low-altitude evasion ineffective.”

Is the man with the biggest guns the one who always wins, or simply the one who can keep fighting the longest?

As my grandfather always used to say…

Grandfather: “Remember, the man with the biggest guns is always the last man standing!”

Grandfather: “A little alcohol never hurt anybody… unless it was rubbing alcohol!”

Grandfather: “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’… although there is laughter in manslaughter!”

Grandfather: “May your whites be bright and merry, and may all your days be Christmas!”

Of course, it is understandable to try to limit energy consumption in this day and age, but I have a feeling people aren’t going to appreciate that very much.

Kenya’s recent presidential election on December 27, 2007 sparked a very large uprising. Kenya’s President Kibaki from the Party of National Unity was running for re-election against Raila Odinga from the main opposition party, the Orange Democratic Movement, when a split occurred in the Orange Democratic Movement party. The split resulted in a crucial 8% of votes being lost by the Orange Democratic Movement and gained by the newly-formed Orange Democratic Movement-Kenya and its candidate Kalonzo Musyoka. Then, the race tightened between Kibaki and Odinga.

As vote results started coming in, Odinga grew from having a slight to a substantial lead; as Kenya’s electoral commission continued to count votes, however, Kibaki overtook his opponent substantially. Odinga then declared himself the “people’s president” and called for a recount of the votes and for the resignation of President Kibaki. The results of the election led to many violent protests, leaving 486 people dead, 250,000 people finding refuge in neighboring Uganda, one former Olympic athlete dead during a protest, and one politician hacked to death. The single largest and one of the worst acts of violence during the protests occurred at a church, where people in the church (mainly members of Kibaki’s clan) seeking shelter from the violence were trapped inside as the church was set on fire, resulting in 35 of the 200 people who were in the church burning to death.

As of January 7, 2007, Odinga has called off the planned protests and a mediator from the U.S. is aiding negotiations, but tension still remains and the situation is still very critical in Kenya. Attacking people who are hiding from violence is an act of hatred, not simply a disagreement, and the scale of the violence and civil unrest indicates Kenya’s people are in trouble and have been trouble for quite some time. Please pray for Kenya and keep the people of Kenya in your thoughts.

Please additionally pray for the United States, as our current events are indifferent from some of Kenya’s, and civil unrest easily gives birth to hatred. Please take great care to not hate those who disagree with you or even those who hate you, because it is hatred that can threaten the very freedoms that make up the fabric of our nation; instead, try to welcome the discussion of differences of opinion, or simply avoid things that offend you too much. This is especially important during the election season and these politically charged times.

Sources:

• Wikipedia: Kenya
• Wikipedia: Civil unrest in Kenya (2007-2008)

To celebrate, I have made a clock to count-up to the old year: http://blinkenlichten.org/countup/

This count-up clock page is dedicated to all my favorite HTML tags that the bullies over at the W3C (a.k.a. Hell) exterminated from the land of teh intarwebs. I really miss those little guys. ;-(

Note: If you are using a primitive browser that is picky over having unambiguous tag agreement, you might experience difficulty because this page will not validate according to any of the W3C standards. You might wish to try a more advanced browser, like IE3.

Grandfather: “Always fight for what is right… unless Chuck Norris is involved, then I’d suggest choosing your fights wisely.”

On Friday, Krista and I celebrated our sixth month anniversary. I’ve loved before, but it was never anything like this. I’m learning that true love is more than being happy/content with the one you’re with, but instead is being transformed so that you can’t be happy apart from the one you’re with. I’m learning that finding true love is finding who makes all your previous passions and dreams fall short of the happiness that knowing that person brings. I’m learning that I’ve found my true love, thanks to God and all His glory.