…from the eternal necessity of what John of Argghhh! refers to in his post “Been here, done this - but only in peacetime.”

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…can be found in the inaugural Weblog Calvinball Play of the Week award at my “immoderate” weblog Radio Saigon.

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…is almost immediately ruined in the very next post by a description at Power Line of Texas State Prosecutor Ronnie Earle who gained the indictment for conspiracy against Senator Tom DeLay as “corrupt” while giving no supporting evidence whatsoever for the negative description of Prosecutor.

As a matter of fact, Prosecutor Earle is known for his pursuit of Democrats with equal vigor as Republicans. To wit (from the Los Angeles Times):

Two decades later, Earle is going after another powerful Texas politician, and the defense is no different. When he indicted U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Wednesday, the Texas Republican lashed out at Earle, calling him an “unabashed partisan zealot.”

Just one hitch: Earle may be a Democrat, but, he said, so were 12 of the 15 politicians he has indicted over the years, including Mattox. Even Mattox said Wednesday that Earle long had targeted people on both sides of the political aisle, roiling the halls of power in Austin — and now Washington — at every turn.

“He had a very negative impact on my life,” Mattox said. But in DeLay’s case, he added, “I think Earle is carrying out his responsibility.”

However, as soon Prosecutor Earle indicts a sacred cow of the right-wing, he is suddenly partisan and “corrupt” to use the word at Power Line.

Calvinball at its finest.

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Watch out, the apocalypse may be coming.

I actually agree with the substance (if not the details) of a post at Power Line.

If Senator Bill Frist was stupid enough to ask his blind trust to sell a stock based upon inside information, then he should be convicted and thrown out of office. Someone that stupid should NOT be in the Senate or any other position with a smidgen of responsibility.

However, even in the wake of the revelation of his idiocy with his “long distance diagnosis by video” of Terry Schiavo when the autopsy report showed him to be completely wrong, it is far too easy to invent a case of “insider trading” because of the random nature of the stock market. In addition, the explanation of the rationale behind the stock trade is not only plausible, but it shows a politician of his stripe striving to avoid even the appearance of conflict-of-interest, which is vital to anyone planning to run for President, as he so obviously is working towards.

If the Democrats choose to pursue this when there are so many clear, legitimate avenues of attack (let’s take the ballooning budget and the comment by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay that “there is no fat to cut” in the budget after the passage of the widely acknowledged pork-laden Highway Bill), then they show that collectively they are bigger idiots than Senator Frist was in the Schiavo matter.

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A while back, I wrote a couple of posts on carbon and carbon nanotubes. New developments associated with this intriguing molecule continue. I was made aware of one of the recently discovered uses of carbon nanotubes in the technical conference I attended a few weeks ago here in Grenoble.

This application of carbon was in association with what are termed bioreporters, which are living sensors such as bacteria that have been genetically modified to glow when exposed to certain chemicals (note - link opens to a PDF file). The glow is detected by an integrated circuit which then reports the detection of the chemical. For example, one of the key problems of life support in space travel is related not to removing carbon dioxide from the air and adding oxygen, it is the avoidance of buildup of undesirable or even harmful gases, such as certain organic compounds. While detection of these compounds using a completely electronic/micromachined system is possible, living organisms can be both much more compact and more sensitive with the bonus of being cheap to make.

One of the key problems in designing a system that contains both bioreporter organism and the integrated circuit is how to contain the bioreporter while providing it access to interact with the environment it is intended to monitor. Mentioned almost in passing at the technical presentation on this topic was that they discovered the bacteria they were using tended to stick to carbon nanotubes. Since it is well understood how to make carbon nanotubes that are anchored to a silicon surface, the adhesion of the bacteria to the carbon nanotubes may allow a relatively simple solution to the containment problem.

Carbon nanotubes also may be used to create strong but light materials such as cables and ribbons. A key test was recently completed aimed at using a carbon nanotube ribbon as part of a “space elevator”, which would allow orbital access by merely riding an elevator that climbs up a ribbon hanging down from a station in geosynchronous orbit. This could potentially reduce the cost of reaching orbit to that approaching conventional air travel today.

Think of that!

Not bad for an element that is also used as pencil lead.

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…on politics:

The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
   -Lord Acton

…and applicable to blogging:

There is nothing so annoying as to have two people talking when you’re busy interrupting.
   -Mark Twain

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