"Gale-force winds snap wind turbine propellers"

Strong winds in the Iwate prefecture, Japan, snapped the blades of three large wind turbines yesterday. One was in the city of Tono and two in the town of Otsuchi. In nearby Morioka the wind reached 31.7 meters/second (71 mph). The turbines automatically lock down when the wind speed exceeds 25 m/s (56 mph), and the blades are supposed to withstand winds up to 60 m/s (134 mph). The power company suspects that lightning strikes (at the bases of each of the blades of each of the three turbines!) had already caused cracks. The picture with the Mainichi Daily News report (click the title of this post), however, shows a completely withered, not snapped off, blade.

"Shocking the Donkey ... Again"

"It's time to abandon our delusions, once and for all. And I am more than happy to abandon the delusion that somehow the Democratic Party can be refashioned into a reliable progressive force. I have no intention of getting fooled again. Instead, my energy now goes to building a true party of the people -- a Labor Party by that name in particular."

-- Chris Townsend

"No German Flowers for Bush"

The title of this post links to an article describing the excessive security measures required by our president's heroic paranoia:

'But Bush and his backers, American and German, want to play it very safe, and this has become a nightmare for the people of Mainz. All air traffic to the nearby Frankfurt airport is being suspended for part of the day (today, Wednesday). Boat traffic on the Rhine will be suspended despite all economic losses involved. The autobahns surrounding the city and connecting it with the airport will all be closed to traffic.

'That is still just not safe enough for this popular statesman and his giant entourage. Every manhole lid along the route has been soldered down tight. No terrorist rats will be tolerated this time. All mail boxes along the route have been carted away. Cars must not only be removed from along the route but also from garages of people living along the route. Windows must be shut and no one is allowed to stand on the balcony to wave. There won’t be much waving anyway, it seems, and the police have issued severe warnings: Anti-Bush banners or slogans must not be visible anywhere along the route, and no "insulting" banners will be allowed anywhere. There’s a law to take care of that matter. All traffic, vehicles or pedestrians, will be restricted in the areas George Bush is planning to visit.'

Even the New York Times today ran an article about the empty stage set that Mainz was made into for Bush's transit. There was supposed to be a "town meeting" with a carefully vetted group of Germans (it would have been too obvious if he only met with the U.S. troops in the base there, as Laura Bush had done), but it was cancelled. Too likely one or more of those Germans would not keep to the script.

Even so, and although Bush himself would never see them, and probably never be told of their existence (just as he was never troubled -- and neither were the media -- by nonsupporters during his self-regarding campaign for a second term), 10,000 or so Germans gathered the day for a lively demonstration of disgust.

U.K., Inc.

The British government, just as it aggressively promotes its "neutral" support of the wind-power industry against local opposition, is now beginning a propaganda campaign for mad scientists torturing animals. In the interest of "informed" debate, they will argue the side of the animal abusers.

They have also made all protest of corporate and academic activities, even letters and leaflets, essentially illegal. A police state in thrall to business interests -- that's fascism, folks. Fascism is bad.

"Raising children as vegans 'unethical', says professor"

After studying impoverished children in Kenya, and finding that supplementing their very poor diet with meat or milk made the children healthier, this dope concludes that vegetarianism is evil.

I dare say she would have seen the same (or better) improvement had she provided the children with seitan and soy milk and a wide range of greens, for instance, along with vitamin B12 supplements (which most vegans know they need). It is obviously more difficult to maintain a comparable diet without changing the economic desperation of the people she studied, but that underscores the relative ease with which we in the "developed" world can avoid resorting to eating dead animals.

Besides B12 (available as a cheap supplement), calcium and iron are noted as concerns. Many greens have calcium, and many products, such as rice and soy milks and even orange juice, are fortified with it. Significantly, the metabolism of animal protein leaches calcium out of the body, which is why government nutritionists recommend so much. Vegans require quite a bit less to maintain their calcium. Iron (and other minerals) is available in many greens and other vegetables. Cooking in iron pots is an easy way to add it as well.

To characterize vegetarians as unethical implies that it is ethical to kill animals for food (let alone for "sport") when we no longer have to. Yet vegetarians are well documented as a much healthier group in general than animal-eaters. Not only for the sake of our fellow creatures but also for our own health, vegetarianism is without doubt the ethical choice at every stage of life.

Even if you have no problem eating dead animals, to call vegetarianism unethical is the sign of a troubled psyche.

[Click here for more information.]

categories:  animal rights, vegetarianism

Another annual time vs. output curve

Here is a variation from Denmark on the infeed curves shown earlier this month from Ireland and Germany.


It shows the number of hours during which total infeed from Denmark's 2,374 MW of installed wind-generating capacity in 2003 was within each indicated range. The note (by Mike Hall, as presented at the Views of Scotland conference, January 15, 2005) adds the first three columns (3,250 + 1,750 + 1,000 = 6,000 hours, or 68% of the year) to state that for this amount of time (i.e., two-thirds of the year) the total infeed was not more than 600 MW, about one-fourth of the capacity.

Denmark's average wind-generation output in 2003 was 19% of capacity, or 451 MW. Drawing a curve over the graph allows us to guess that total output was 401-451 MW for 1,200 hours. Adding that to the first two columns shows that for 71%, more than two-thirds, of the time output was below the annual average. Again, that is exactly what the infeed graph from Germany shows: Wind plants produce power at or above their annual average only one-third of the time.

Bush's Willing Sycophants

Paul Craig Roberts, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration and former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review, writes:

"The Republican House of Representatives saw fit to impeach President Clinton for lying about sex. The same Republicans defend to the hilt Bush's lies that launched America into an unjustified war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands of Iraqis and Americans, cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, ruined America's reputation, and lost forever the hearts and minds of Muslims.

"... The function of a journalist is to speak truth to power and to hold accountable those with power. Abandoning this role, the conservative media cheerleads for war, incompetent leaders, and a police state."