My letter to Parker Griffith:

Under no circumstances are you to allow the Democratic majority to pass the “Slaughter Solution” which would let the House declare a bill passed without your having voted on it. It goes against every principle that representative democracy is founded upon. In fact, it would signal the end of representative democracy within the halls of Congress.

I’m not just asking you to vote against it. Put a stop to it. Be a politician. Persuade people. Make everyone understand that the Republicans will use the same tactic to cram through the bills most offensive to the Democrats when they regain the majority, if that’s what it takes.

Even if I were an ardent supporter of ObamaCare, I would still oppose this attempted coup. The principle is more important than any policy issue.

I can’t promise I will vote for you if you manage to block the Slaughter solution, but if you agree to abandon the legislative process, I can promise that you, and as many of your colleagues as electorially possible, will be out of a job come November. Assuming you don’t “deem” a Constitutional amendment extending your terms indefinitely.

The pharmacy gave me lispro insulin instead of my usual 75/25, and I didn’t realize until after I took my shot. So I’ve got about 4 times as much insulin as usual trying to counteract my supper. I’m not sure I have enough sugar in my larder for this circumstance.

If I don’t post an update to this by about noon tomorrow, I’d appreciate it if someone would call 911.

12:52 AM:  So far, so good.  One crisis passed.  Stay tuned.  Rest assured Wal-Mart will hear of this.  I’m kind of afraid to go to sleep.

UPDATE:  The alert is hereby canceled.  I feel like crap, but I’m good.  Thank you for your participation in this really inappropriate use of internet resources.

UPDATE:  And… I am appeased.  The lesson for today, kids, is this: always talk to the manager.  The rank and file have neither the authority nor the inclination to keep you happy.  Also, make sure your doctor writes down the same drugs he actually wants you to take.  Also also, trust no one who cares less than you do.  Or who cares as much as you do about something different.

That last one isn’t really relevant, but I think it’s good advice anyway.

I just finished building a working by-God Van de Graaff generator. It produced sparks I could feel, and in darkness see.

Granted, the range of those sparks was maybe 1/32 of an inch, and I only got a half dozen of them before a flaw in my dielectric belt caused the whole thing to freeze up.

But that’s beside the point. I did it. I solved the major design problems and was able to put together a machine that achieved its purpose. And that’s awesome.

Now I need to come up with a way to keep polyester ribbon from fraying itself to oblivion under stress….

UPDATE:  By changing to a latex rubber belt, I managed to correct the self-destructing belt problem.  Woo!  Unfortunately, the belt now has a strong tendency to crawl to the end of the upper roller, up the little flange on the end, and hang out there.  Surprisingly, it still works, with an arc length of maybe 1/4 inch, but not as well as it could.  I need to put either a hump or a divot in the middle of the roller.  A hump would do better at keeping the belt flat, I think.

UPDATE 2:  The hump on the roller worked.  The power is now mine to command.  Mwa ha ha and so forth.

That is the entirety of NASA’s 2009 budget. The return-to-the-moon budget was between 1 and 3 billion. By canceling the lunar return program, the feckless fucktard occupying the White House has saved the American taxpayer precisely jack shit.

$3,000,000,000 / 300,000,000 people = $10 / person. 2.7 cents per day, over the course of one year. Or, we could go to the God damned moon.

It turns out I’m very clever.

A few years ago I had an idea for a new way to apply established aerodynamic principles to produce a new sort of flying machine. The problem was that, while the math worked out, I didn’t have the facilities to produce a physical test item. Plus, this is my idea; I didn’t want to give it to my employer despite the fact that they kinda do this sort of testing all the dang time. Throw in the fact that I’m like a schizophrenic with ADD on meth when it comes to projects, and you begin to understand why I hadn’t made much progress.

Anyway, years pass. I learn new skills. I dream up construction and manufacturing techniques. I discover technologies and materials of which I had been unaware.

Long story shortish: a couple night ago, I attached my foam-core compressor to my salvaged fan motor and successfully applied lift to an object weighing 25 grams.

Okay, that doesn’t sound like much. But it proves that the principle is sound. Given how little optimization I did on the design, the fact that I got any success at all is, frankly, monumental.

I mean, even the Wright brothers’ first flight was only 12 seconds, in a plane made out of toothpicks.

Now that I know it works, I can proceed out of the balsa wood and styrofoam phase and into something I can wow people with. And then, I WILL RULE THE WORLD!!!!

Ahem, sorry.

They’re usually in the form of a wand vibrating back and forth or a thing spinning in a circle with a line of LEDs on the end. I saw one of the spinning ones yesterday, and it gave me an idea.

Instead of having just one vertical line at the end of a spinning arm, make an entire array from the center out to the edge, both sides, plus the top and the outside edge. Using the same persistence of vision/fast-blinking light method, you can draw a 3D image without a lot more effort than the current 2D system.

It would be heavier, and require more power to spin it, but it’s still just a 2D display. No actual new technology would be required. You could do animation and everything. And the intriguing possibility of seeing the outside and inside of the projected object at the same time.

It wouldn’t be freestanding in open space, but still pretty awesome.

The Japanese have probably invented it already.

We all know a black hole is point in space where gravity is so intense that not even light can escape its pull. Well, sort of. Close enough, anyway.

We also know that, of the four known fundamental forces of the universe, gravity is the weakest. I think the order is Strong force, weak force, electromagnetism, gravity, but I might have the second and third switched. Electromagnetism is the only other one that has influence at a distance greater than atomic radii.

The weird idea I had arises from these two facts. It is this: is it possible for an electromagnetic equivalent of a black hole to exist? An electromagnetic field so strong that no charged particle or wave bundle could escape its pull.

As far as we know, electromagnetic phenomena only occur in the form of dipoles. That is, with a north and south pole and an orientation. Charged particles are attracted to one of the two poles, and move along the lines of force to get there. (I know, it’s more complex than that, electrical charges in magnetic fields, right hand rule and all that. It’s 1 AM; leave me alone.) Gravity, by contrast, is monopolar. Everything gets pulled directly toward the center regardless of relative position. So, a collapsed EM field generator might be self-extinguishing.

But if they can exist, do they? Because EM force is stronger than gravity, it should be possible to achieve EM collapse before gravity collapse. Light wouldn’t be able to escape either one, but a sufficiently fast-moving neutral particle could escape an EM hole, or even pass through unaffected.

Anyway, just a random notion I thought I’d share.

…didn’t the Lockerbie bomber’s chartered plane mysteriously explode in Libyan airspace?

Seriously. If some rich liberal wants to cut me a big check, I will go to town hall meetings and try to sway senators and Congressmen in favor of nationalized health care. I doesn’t even have to be my representatives. I’m happy to travel, if all expenses are paid. Give me a check with enough zeroes on it, and I’ll lay more astroturf than a football stadium.

I’m college-educated, fit the conservative stereotypes (white, male, from the south), and do not fear public speaking. And I’ve got diabetes, so the health care system affects me directly every single day. I’ve got credibility out the wazoo.

DNC, Soros, ACORN, I don’t care who signs the check. In this economy, I need some supplemental income. If somebody’s giving it away, I’ll take it. I’ll carry signs. I’ll wear silly outfits. I once won an award for chanting. I won’t beat anybody up, but I’d be happy to menace. People tell me I can be menacing.

Come on, left-wing money men! Let me be your protest whore.

I wonder, as total human population increases, will it still require six degrees of separation for everyone to be connected to everyone else? Will it drop to five or increase to seven? If so, when/at what population?