Posts Made By: Andreas Saldivar

I know some thought has been put into making a fuel cell hybrid vehicle. The fuel cell would be the primary power and the battery system would be the backup. The batteries charge just like hybrids do today. This doesn't answer your question of what to do if you run out of power but if someone manages to run out of hydrogen and then also run down the battery backup before refueling, then they probably deserve to be stranded.

Andreas

Here's a politician who doesn't like freedom of speech or a free press. If he goes to jail this will be the second governor in a row for Illinois.

Andreas

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081209/ap_on_re_us/blagojevich_corruption_probe

I read an article in the December issue of Physics Today about the effects on the climate of a nuclear war. To bottom line it a Pakistan/India nuclear exchange would put enough soot in the air to lower global temperatures by about 2 degrees C (little ice age). A large-scale exchange between Russia, China, USA, and Europe would drop the temp by 8 to 9 degrees C (full blown ice age). Reading the article made me think of the temperature vs. CO2 chart for the last 120 years. The CO2 and temperature correlate most of the time except for 1940 to 1970 or so. During that time the temperature decreases slightly while the CO2 increases. It got me wondering if above ground nuclear testing during this time frame had anything to do with this. Has any research been done about the nuclear testing age and the climate? Did the soot put in the upper atmosphere from above ground testing lower global temperature?

Any thoughts?

Andreas

http://zfacts.com/p/226.html

While not related to current warming it is an interesting article about begining of the younger dryas. About a month or so ago the history channel a show about the Clovis people. It also spoke of this relatively new theory.

Andreas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/01/AR2009010101490.html?referrer=emailarticle

For many years I have had home weather stations. I moved to my current location 9 years ago and have 8 years worth of continual data. That's the longest stretch I have from one place. This is a summary of last year's data and a few charts from the last 8 years. If I stay here 22 more years I'll have enough data to determine and trends.

2008 was the wettest year I've record. The most extreme weather for the year was on June 4. We had a F0/1 tornado go right through my neighborhood that damaged almost all the houses on my street. I missed my house and the other 3 houses on the cul-de-sac by about 50 feet. The attached picture contains some charts.

High 100.4 6/19
Low 7.2 2/11
Annual rain 61.39" (10 inches higher than any other year I've recorded.)
Annual Snow 5.35" (lowest amount for a year I've recorded.)
Wettest month May 14.61" (more than four inches higher than any other month I've recored)
Wettest Day 5.95" 5/12
Highest sustained wind 39.0 mph 12/31
Highest Barometric pressure 1045.8 mbar 1/21
Lowest Barometric pressure 993.9 mbar 9/6

My wife has a small (5 acre) farm a few miles down the road. The one useful thing my data has given us is when it's safe to plant and how long the growing season is. This year's growing season was 183 days.

Andreas

While tax payers can file for extensions they still have to pay an estimated amount by tax day. In California the state doesn't have to do that. Check this out.

Andreas

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-tax-refunds7-2008jan07,0,7471181.story

President Obama's recovery plan has some redistribution of wealth in. As promised he is taking money from tax payers and giving it to non tax payers.

This is from an article on MSNBC

The plan being considered Thursday by the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee also would provide a temporary $2,500 tax credit to help pay for college. It would boost the earned income tax credit for low-income workers and permit them to receive the entire $1,000 per child tax credit as a refund in 2009-10 if they make as little as $8,500 a year and wouldn’t otherwise qualify.

Here's the link to the entire article.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28796708/

Andreas

A friend of mine emailed me this youtube clip. I've never much cared for Robert Reich as he always struck me as an elitist that never had a get your hands dirty job. I'm probably wrong about that but this clip only makes me dislike him more.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=opxuUj6vFa4

Andreas

Get a load of this idiot/racist. He doesn't even understand what he's doing is wrong. He's in Greenwich Village too. I have a feeling he'll be out of business soon.

Andreas

http://gothamist.com/2009/01/23/greenwich_village_bakery_selling_dr.php

Yeah, there were a bunch of idiotic Bush haters, still are, but my dad used to say that old cliché to me "If Vincent jumps of a cliff are you going to follow him." Vincent was a friend of mine who was always doing something stupid. The same follows for the new President. Just because the Bush haters said a lot of stupid things doesn't mean people who disagree with the new president's policies need to do the same thing.

FYI The Bush haters I'm talking about are not the people who disagreed with his policies, that I can respect. I'm talking about the morons who wanted him dead, or wanted harm to come to him. Also those idiots I saw burn and hang Bush effigies at protests. If someone goes down that road regarding Obama they're no better than the Bush haters.

Andreas