Musings

Today is the 17th straight day of sub-zero temperatures where I live, and I have been dosing myself with gallons of coffee to ward off the chill. But, it’s scary when you start making the same noises as your coffee maker. A lot of strange things happen to your body when you get older, and I reflected on the profound truth my older cousin, who is a member of MENSA, passed on to me the other day:

“Good health is merely the slowest rate at which one can die.”

In our conversation, he also suggested that we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of everything. Now this struck me as ludicrous in the extreme.

I responded, “ What is your reasoning?”

He smugly replied, “ Well, the DOA knows exactly where one cow with mad-cow disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America, and where one strain of E-coli got into the spinach, but the rest of the government hasn't a clue as to how to apprehend thousands of known criminals, including serial killers, pedophiles, Internet predators, identity thieves, would- be and actual terrorists, foreign students whose visas have expired, illegal aliens, suspect members of Congress, crooked CEO's and CFO's etc.”

Makes sense to me. I suggested that he send a letter to Speaker of the House Pelosi, as the Democrats, who recently wrested control of the Congress from those scheming Republicans, need something tangible to offer for improving government in America.

Now, on the scientific front, I read the other day that Intel and IBM have made a breakthrough that will allow the fabrication of extremely dense integrated circuits by using transistors with a 40 nanometer footprint. This is an order of magnitude smaller than existing transistors, and is made possible by the use of hafnium metal (used as an insulator) layered over a silicon substrate that is only 8-10 microns thick.

Sensing an investment opportunity in this announcement, I did a little research and discovered that zircon is the primary source of all hafnium, and the principal economic source of zirconium is the zirconium silicate mineral, zircon (ZrSiO4 ). Now, over 70% of the world market in this mineral is controlled by a single mining operation in Brazil. Screw the OPEC countries, I think we should bomb the crap out of the Amazon jungle, and take over the region. I want a cellphone that can fit inside of my ear.

More importantly, it will keep the stuff out of the hands of terrorists.

Now you may ask, “Why is this important?”

Well, the fact is, the government and the scientific community have been struggling for years to create the ‘Hafnium Bomb’. To give you a little background on this crash program, the concept revolves around building a nuclear-type weapon based on charged-up nuclei called nuclear isomers. According to Global Security

“Nuclear isomers include excited states of nuclei that electromagnetically decay slowly enough for energy storage. However, the emitted gamma rays of the isomer decay come in a burst. Controlled triggering of the isomer decay allows stored energy to be released on demand, and nuclear isomers represent a potential stand-alone energy source. Barriers to developing a practical energy source are triggering and production.
The so-called nuclear isomer materials, which have the theoretical potential for 100 to 1,000 times the energy density of conventional energetic chemical compounds. These materials are of two varieties: shape isomers and spin isomers. In both types, energy is released in the form of gamma rays when the nuclei of the material transition from a higher energy state to a lower. Nuclear isomers, such as Os187, Yt186, Ta180, and Zn66 have been discussed as possibilities. Nuclear isomers, such as hafnium 178m2, store in the nucleus 10,000 times as much energy per gram as TNT.”

This means the Atomic Hand Grenade is just around the corner. The only problem is the technology has much in common with the search for cold fusion. We need to throw billions of dollars into the project to make sure we get the bomb before the Brazilians or the terrorists do.

Now, I’ll close this diatribe with a strange photo, taken off of the islands of the Azores (home to my Opera Friend wickedlizard/):

This is photographic proof that critters can adapt to global warming.