Two Lumps addresses the "logic" of The Lord of the Rings: [link]

This is cool - nuclear weapons make it easier to detect wine fraud.

How atom bomb tests could help detect wine fraud

A trace of Bikini atoll could join hints of black cherry and complex citrus notes in the sommelier's lexicon for describing fine wines, research has suggested.

Harmless amounts of radioactive carbon have been found in wines made from grapes harvested since the last atmospheric atomic bomb tests were carried out in the 1960s.

But the "bomb pulse" of radioactive carbon lingering in the alcohol of wines produced since could be a good thing for wine dealers and collectors.

Scientists have been able to pinpoint a wine's vintage to within a year by analysing the levels of radioactive carbon in the wine, a technique they say could help detect fraudulent attempts to repackage cheap plonk as a high-end tipple.

Last month, a group of French wine dealers were charged with conning leading US winery E&J Gallo into buying 18m bottles of plonk repackaged as pinot noir.

Some experts claim that around 5% of fine wines currently being sold are faked, either by being diluted with cheaper wines or sold under false labels.

as of Friday I will only have a balance on one credit card!

For ita et al:

Steve McQueen Never-Before-Seen & Nearly Nude PHOTOS

Pretty much worksafe.

Mmmmmmm.

Oh thank goodness. I just had a really good call about a really interesting job that would potentially pay enough. Now I'll have to backtrack and make it through HR (I had an in with the hiring manager.) Fingers crossed!!

fingers crossed here too!

It must be awesome to be a Tea Party person - none of those pesky "facts" to get in the way.

What David Frum Found at the Tea Party Rally

Making energy policy is hard. It's even harder when a loud fraction of the electorate doesn't seem to be conversant with basic facts.

FrumForum is a conservative blog run by David Frum, an author, commentator, and former speechwriter for George W. Bush who is interested in holding intelligent debates about the great issues of our day. Accordingly, he has a low regard for the Tea Party brigades.

...

The Tea Partiers were asked how much oil lies beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, in terms equivalent to annual domestic oil consumption. The average response was 70 years. One person estimated 1,000 years worth.

The right answer - if you accept the highest number in a U.S. Geological Survey estimate - is about 2 years and 3 months, based on the present consumption rate. That works out to around 16 billion barrels.

If it were 70 years, as the Tea Partiers' average response indicated, the refuge would contain nearly 500 billion barrels of oil - equivalent to 40 percent of all the petroleum that the world has consumed since Edwin Drake struck oil in Pennsylvania back in 1859.

Saudi Arabia's supergiant Ghawar field, the world's largest, would be a tiddler by comparison, with a mere 140 billion barrels of initial reserves.

If the Tea Partiers were right, we could join OPEC. Hell, we could run the joint.

Of course, they're not right. Frum's primary conclusion is not so much that the Tea Partiers got their facts so crazily wrong, but that their misinformation comes from inhabiting an echo chamber where the gruel spoon-fed by the daily circus acts on talk radio and out on the blogs is taken as gospel.

Drill, baby, drill!

Damn, nice pics. Thanks, tommy.

Good luck, Jesse.

None of my brilliant ideas are working for the pain abatement. I'm wondering about going out of pocket on the heavier duty pain meds, but I just filled my last script last week.

Dag, ita. This procedure is still worthwhile in the long term? That just sounds terrible.