Abort gay babies?

News item:

"Experiments that claim to ‘cure’ homosexual rams spark anger": http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2524408_1,00.html

This article discusses a series of experiments done on the 10% of rams that are more prone to attempt to mount other rams than ewes. The goal is to increase their desire to mount ewes. Results show that hormonal levels can be monitored and changed to increase mounting of ewes and therefor increase lamb production. A ram that tries to mate with other rams is useless to the farmer. This has been interpreted as a possible medical cure for homosexuality.

But buried in the story is a discussion of how this could lead to pre-natal testing to determine the probability that an unborn child will grow up "gay". If the mother should decide that she doesn't want a "gay" child, should be allowed to abort it? Should she even be allowed to test for that? What if she wants a "gay" child? Should she be allowed to abort any unborn babies that do not test positive for "gay"?

It hurts to kill

News Item:
OCALA, Fla. (AP) - Gov. Jeb Bush suspended all executions in Florida after a medical examiner said Friday that prison officials botched the insertion of the needles when a convicted killer was put to death earlier this week.

Here in California, thankfully, capital punishment has also been suspended. Yes, I know that the murderous criminals who deserve death are now not going to die, but deserving death and actually being killed by the state are two different things. We do not improve the murderer by murdering him or her ourselves. We participate in a culture of violence. We remove any chance for redemption.

But the reason they give for not executing murderers is absurd: It might hurt! Do you think dismembering a baby doesn't hurt? The same government that is too kind hearted to stick a needle into a convicted murderer thinks nothing of tearing the arms and legs off, one piece at a time, of an unborn baby.

Hypocrites.

What will Iran do with a bomb?

The picture to the left is the "Little Boy Bomb" that was dropped on Hiroshima.

The previous post described this as a uranium bomb. What that means is that it contains two pieces of the uranium isotope with a mass number of 235 that are shot together to make an explosive nuclear reaction.

Uranium is an atom with 92 protons in its nucleus, but with different numbers of neutrons. The mass number is the sum of the protons and neutrons. Uranium-235 makes up less than 1% of the atoms of naturally occurring uranium. So to make a bomb, you need to separate the U-235 from the rest of the uranium, which is mostly heavier U-238, assemble two smaller pieces in a way so that when they are rapidly brought together, they explode. This is not difficult for a country like Iran, which has a huge oil revenues to fund this work.

Separating the uranium is the difficult part of this work, since chemical separations don't work. There are two ways to separate the isotopes. One is to make charged atoms called ions, and send them at a high speed through a strong magnetic field. The magnetic field will cause the flight path of the ions to curve, with heavier ions going in a less curved path. Once the ions hit the a device called a "collector", which is placed at different distances along the flight paths in the vessel, they lose their charge and are converted back to atoms. The collector will accumulate U-235 atoms. When the U-235 concentration in uranium becomes higher than the normal concentration, the uranium is called "Enriched Uranium". When the U-235 concentration is lower than natural uranium, it is called "Depleted Uranium."

The instrument used to enrich uranium using magnetic fields is called a "Calutron". This is an expensive, but not technologically difficult method to produce bomb grade enriched uranium, and was the technique used to make the U-235 that went into the Little Boy Bomb.

Another way to enrich uranium is to react the uranium with fluorine to create uranium hexaflouride, which is a gas at elevated temperatures. This can be spun in a high speed gas centrifuge and gradually enriched, as the lighter U-235 will migrate to the top of the centrifuge tube and the heavier U-238 will migrate th the bottom. This process is repeated many times and requires many expensive centrifuges. This is the technique Iran is using to make bomb grade uranium.

The view that Iran is making enriched uranium for "peaceful purposes" is incredible. There is plenty of lightly enriched uranium available for nuclear power applications, and Iran has only a single nuclear power reactor. They are producing highly enriched uranium for only one possible purpose: to make a bomb. Yesterday, November 20, Iran stated that they were in the process of building 60,000 centrifuges for its nuclear "fuel" needs.

The production of uncontrolled highly enriched uranium with centrifuges is not consistent with nuclear power fuel needs. But it is consistent with making an atomic bomb. A simple atomic bomb will take about 25 kg of highly enriched uranium. Once Iran has this quantity (or any other country that wants to make a bomb), assembling a weapon requires only existing military technology, and is much simpler than making a plutonium bomb.

Iran will build a bomb as soon as they have enough highly enriched uranium. What will they do with it?

Why Iran is scarier than North Korea

The picture is of the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. This explosion was made with a plutonium based fusion bomb, the same type North Korea tried to explode a few weeks ago, but failed. Even though radioactivity was detected, that was more from the dispersion of the partially fissioned and unfissioned plutonium than from a successful fission bomb, such as the one shown to the right.

In other words, the North Korean bomb was a dud. The reason it failed is that plutonium bombs are hard to make. Plutonium fissions so quickly that conventional explosives have a hard time compressing the plutonium into a small lump for a long enough time to allow a significant amount of the plutonium to split and release all its energy. An improperly built plutonium bomb blows itself apart too soon.

Creating a plutonium bomb requires complicated machining and advanced detonator technology. But plutonium is created in a nuclear reactor, so it was readily available to the North Koreans because they have a reactor, and can use it to convert uranium to plutonium.

In the World War II the U.S. exploded three fission bombs. The first was a test of a plutonium bomb to be sure it would work. The second was the uranium bomb exploded over Hiroshima, and the third was the plutonium bomb over Nagasaki. The uranium bomb was never tested prior to use in combat. Uranium bombs are much easier to manufacture, once you have enough highly enriched uranium. In the case of the Hiroshima bomb, it was just assembled, and tested in combat. The problem is that the highly enriched uranium (HEU) needed to make the bomb is very difficult and expensive to make. It requires special devices such as a calutron, which can only make a small amount at a time, or very high speed centrifuges, which are a complex technology and difficult to keep clandestine. Still, it is what the Iranians are working on. Once they have enough HEU, the rest of the assembly of the bomb is not difficult.

Also, North Korea is surrounded by countries who are highly motivated to keep them from producing a bomb, especially China, who have significant influence on North Korea. Iran has enough oil revenue to be free of influence of its neighbors if its neighbors do not act in a very aggressive manner to keep the bomb out of the hands of the Tehran regime.

North Korea, even with plutonium in hand, is not as great a threat as Iran who are actively enriching uranium.

Thank you Barbara Boxer!

You will rarely see me agree with Barbara Boxer, but today I will bless her in my prayers of thanksgiving. She voted against the flag desecration amendment.

The amendment would have given the flag, a man made thing, special protection as a sacred object. This is repugnant case of too much government. I do not support flag burning. I have never burned one, I have never seen one burned. The thought of burning a flag is offensive. But even more evil is the thought of the U.S. Government raising a man made object to the level higher than religious symbols. Last time I checked, it was not a crime to burn a cross, stomp on a Magen David, put a statue of Buddha in a toilet, or draw an offensive cartoon of Mohammed. In fact, I am more offended by a cross burning than a flag burning, but it is not the government's job to protect me from being offended!

God bless Barbara Boxer.

No death penalty?

Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced Thursday to life in prison. It makes sense. I hope he lives a long time an will have an opportunity to repent and be redeemed. I understand the anger and the desire for revenge and punishment. But if he were sentenced to death, we would continue to hear about it for a long time to come. Now he quietly disappears from humanity and will spend enough time, I hope, to understand how wrong he is.

The life in prison penalty made me feel proud to be an American.

Where Rush is Wrong

Rush Limbaugh is a kick to listen to. He has two views that are wrong, however.

One is his irrational dislike of hybrid automobiles. There are lots of arguements against hybrids, but they are mostly irrational and emotional. The facts are that hybrids get good gas mileage, and most owners enjoy owning them. If Rush hates them because they are driven mostly be liberals, that is an unfair guilt by association. Actually, Conservationists, like me, are usually conservative politically in many other ways, but we don't like to waste gas!

The other thing Rush doesn't understand is the effects humans can have on climate change. His logic seems to go like this:

"Can we make it rain?...Well if we can't make it rain it is arrogance to assume we have anything to do with climate change!"

This is confusing climate with weather. It is quite possible for human activity to change climate, and most evidence shows the effect of human activities is an increase in average temperatures worldwide.

Other than that, have at it, Rush!