A Nuclear Reactor In Every Hummer

¿Did you know there is a nuclear reactor under the building you're in?
It's called the earth.

We are sitting on top of the worlds largest nuclear reactor. Stop being afraid. Sixty particles from space pierce your body every second. Your smoke detector produces about 1 million particles per second. Your chair is slightly radioactive. When we talk about radiation we are talking about a huge range of numbers that our monkey brains can't understand. Stop being afraid.

Back in the 50s the energy secretary of the United States said we would soon have energy too cheep to meter. It was called a breeder reactor and it had the property of producing more fuel then it consumed. In other words some of the energy that was being made from converting mater into energy was being used to create more fissionable material. The principles are simple enough that a boy scout made a breeder reactor in his parents garage right under their noses.

We are killing people for oil. People are being uprooted, pauperized and killed because we need to secure oil from their country. You probably know someone who died or knew someone who knew someone who died for oil. You yourself are slowly being killed by the effects on this earth of burning oil and coal. We are fucked either way.

So lets do a cost benefit analysis. If the benefits outweigh the risks then it makes sense to do, if not then of course you don't do it. ¿Would the risks involved with creating energy too cheep to meter from nuclear breeder reactors out way the risks? Could nuclear be safer then oil.

If you had limitless energy from breeder reactors you could:

We could manufacture products that are energy intensive for far lower cost. Practically all the cost of aluminum is the energy it takes to refine it from common clay, bauxite. Titanium is the same way. In fact titanium is the ninth most abundant element in the earths crust. Why everything isn't made of titanium is only because titanium is basically a form of energy and energy is expensive when it has to be produced with oil or coal. The same is true for a hole host of chemicals. The soap you are using is not actually soap. Unless you buy natural soap you are using chemical waist to wash yourself. Modern soap is actually detergent that is cheep because it is a waist product. It's not the best soap but it's cheaper because they are basically selling something they were going to through away.

We could manufacture food using chemical processes that would produce food cheaper and of higher purity then can be done by growing food? We could feed a population a thousand times the size of the current population with ease. We could turn the entire planet's surface into one big city. ¿If we wanted to?

We can take chemicals that would be too energy intensive to destroy and destroy them or make them into chemicals that we can use. The chemistry is there, it's just too expensive to do with energy costs as high as they are.

¿Do you know what you do with nuclear waist?
You refine it and make another reactor out of it.

Refining nuclear waist is energy intensive, that is why we don't do it now, but we could. But even if we decide to bury it we would still not be doing such a horrible thing.

You can not live in a cave indefinitely. The cave walls are radioactive enough that it is dangerous to spend too live in caves. You can dig an awfully deep hole if you are willing to put the energy into it. With limitless energy we could dig miles deep for low cost. So far deep that the walls of the cave would be more radioactive then some of the items we consider radioactive waist. Don't forget, the earth is a nuclear reactor. The deeper you go the more radioactive it gets.

Again we are talking about large numbers here. E=mc^2 means that there is a lot of energy in mater. c^2 is 90,000,000,000,000,000 m^2/s^2. Thats a mighty big number to multiply by. It means that if the mater contained in your brain were to be converted into energy it could produce 50,000,000,000 KWH or 50 terawatt hours. Your brain could supply the entire world's energy needs (electric and travel), that's the energy needs of 6.6 billion people, for about three hours. What a way to go.

¿Do you know why the U.S and the U.S.S.R never went to war with each other?
Because with nuclear bombs on both sides it would have been suicide to do so.

The bomb changed warfare forever. A nuclear power can not be conquered militarily. Once a country gets the bomb it's invincible. In an odd way the bomb is a stabilizing device. The generals know that the only way to win a nuclear war is not to start one in the first place. The only countries that are in jeopardy are the ones who don't have the bomb.

Now that the Americans and the Russians have had a chance to mingle it really seams comical the situation we were in. It seams that no one was really as hostel as the other had thought they were. It's a truth about people that they are basically kind. Charles Manson doesn't even think he himself is evil. No one does. That's cause we're not. We just make mistakes every so often and we get forced into doing things at times, but given the chance anyone would be kind to us and we could be kind to anyone.

It's written into the laws of mathematics. We are living a non-zero-sum game. We don't have to play as it there has to be a looser. We can all be winners. The cost of having losers in the game of life is to high. We need to play this game carefully with the intention of not leaving people behind. The benefits of cooperation are too grate to ignore. An investment in kindness will pay off in the long run far more then any short term bargain.

An adult is a person who has left their childhood fears behind and replaced them with wisdom. Being an adult is not something you become just by getting old.

If we love all those who hate
and fear only fear itself
we will fear nothing, hate nobody
and finely love even love itself.

This world is being horribly mismanaged. Mostly what we have to do is trust people to be good if we give them the opportunity to let their natural kindness shine. We know how to make the world into heaven. We must not be afraid to do so.

I wonder if the invitation got lost in the mail

Today I crashed the debate between Cindy Sheehan and John Sununu at the Temple Adath Yeshurun in Manchester. It was fate I tell you. I crashed on the floor at Jamie Grady's Apartment just a few blocks from the temple that night. My life is truly charmed and strange.

I got there just as the Sheehan's people were setting up. I did some magic tricks and juggling for the supporters and gave my shtick about running for senate and told everyone to cross out the fine print on the ballot, write my name in, and also vote for whoever they were supporting. Down with the two party system. It felt fabulous.

When the debate began I stood in the back with my panted face and listened to each of those two fools give their opening statements. When the clapping subsided I shouted "You bleed the people. I'm Michael Lidman and I'm running for senate. Shut down Guantanamo bay. Stop torturing people in our names."

Eye shadow, 5$. Lipstick, 4$. The cow eyed vacant look on Sununu's face as Manchester's newest and most fabulous queen running for senate was escorted off the property, priceless.

Modern Life is Rubbish

Modern life is foolish and devoid of respect for life. The common man apparently cares more deeply about having five hundred channels and high-def sporting events then with life which burns into his retinas from every direction only to be ignored for the phosphorescent glow of illusions of predatory minds. This Christian nation has done more then then Satin every would do to destroy the souls of men. If such an being could exist, it would have nothing more to do then to sit back and let the priests and profits of this world send their pawns against each other. Nobody respects life who gives it so cheaply as the truly religious do.

I'm not talking about your Sunday driver going to a church for a sense of community. That it what is beautiful about them, they let the words of the poets who write this trip drift through their mind with little interaction with the true life's blood of their spirituality. The man who lives without fervent regard for his or her religion is not the subject of this discussion beyond the sins of neglect and words not said against the true problem child of religion, the fundamentalist.

The fundamentalist is something that is not understood by the Sunday driver. A person who actual believes every word that they are told is part of their religion has many land minds to contend with. All the western religions, except for most Jewish traditions, tells it's followers that this life is not where it's at. That life is just a temporary hardship that will one day be lifted or in certain cases of misconduct be magnified beyond all earthly description. This cheapens life.

There is no good reason to believe in a life after this. Furthermore there is good reason to believe that even if it should seem a near certitude that there is something beyond this life that we should not take the leap of faith and act on that assumption. The moment we find ourselves living is sacred beyond all other moments. Here and now is all we ever have. The past and the future do not exist.

Living outside the moment is a mistake we all make more then we need to. It always seems to lead to our receiving less out of life then what we could archive from worshiping the present tense. To constantly live in the future is to miss the point; which is remember to live.

I leave you with this good Christian theologians.

"Without God there is still All(ah). All there is is All, ah. God, if he exists, is part of All. I am not God. You are not God. But I am part of All; We are part of All; And All is more then God."

Allah Akbar might best be translated with an assumed being verb. "There is no God but All is (exists)". There is reason that Islam is a more advanced religion: more defensible then Christianity that is. It's newer and so has not gotten past it's love of martyrdom like Christianity has to some degree and like Buddhism has to a much larger degree (kamikaze anyone).

On The Social Safety Net

Life is like climbing a ladder. To clime a latter you need a place to stand, a foot to step up, and a helping hand. Without a place to stand you need to step up, but you will need the helping hand to steady you. Without a foot to step up you must stay in place, but you will still need the helping hand to keep from falling. However without a helping hand you can not climb safely and moreover you would be useless if you ever got to the top.

Each of us was given a place in this world that we did not earn. Each of us was given various amounts of talent and various amounts of help developing that talent. Some of us have been given the talent and the help for us to develop on our own. But none of us can truly claim to be self made.

It is my belief that we all have the potential for something greater then we are and that that potential is squandered on this planet at a staggering rate. In the pursuit for the highest rung on the later we have left many behind who are still in need of a helping hand. We have put our vessels up on stilts when what we are in most need to get on our way a rising tide: A rising tide to lift all ships.

Some of the most creative minds are labeled retarded or mentally ill. And I should not see a smile on the faces of the wealthy before every last child on this planet is fed, yet alone educated. The human mind is faster then the fastest super computer built to this date. To allow one brain to go undernourished and uneducated is to waste a resource grater then any handy work of man.

Senate Campain Kicks Off

I'm pleased to announce my candidacy for US Senate here in New Hampshire. I started with an email to the election board of New Hampshire. Here is the text of that email.

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Elections@sos.state.nh.us

I noticed something wrong with the November sample ballot I downloaded from the Town of Merrimack web site (I am a resident of Merrimack). Here is the URL

http://www.merrimacknh.gov/sites/merrimacknh.gov/files/2008%20November%20_Ballot_Sample.pdf

Printed all over the ballot are the words "Vote for not more then 1".

Why should voting for one candidate disqualify a person from voting for another candidate? It's perfectly obvious what the intention of the voter is: they are approving of each candidate selected. It's perfectly obvious how to count such a ballot; one vote for X candidate and one vote for Y candidate. There is no way this would unfairly bias the count as you still can't vote for one candidate more then once.

I am going to select more then one candidate on my ballot and I am telling everyone I meet to do the same. I've even decided to run for US Senate as a write in candidate in order to make this issue more public.

How do you intend to count such ballots?

This is not a trivial matter. In every country that votes as we do has (with two exceptions) a two party system. There is nothing sacred about the two party system. While most people have a preference between the top two candidates, there is higher disapproval of the top two presidential candidates then I've ever seen. Your system of voting leads people to make strategic votes for one of the top two candidates instead of voting for the candidate who best represents them if that candidate be from a third party. Allowing a voter to only select one candidate from the lot unfairly benefits the Republican and Democratic party candidates. Allowing a voter to vote for all candidates who they approve of rectifies this problem.

I intend to get these votes counted if I have to get the court to decide the matter. The court said back in 2000 that if you can ascertain the will of the voter then the vote must be counted.

Very Truly Yours,
Michael Lidman