China Turns To Nuclear Power

It’s not just Gordon Brown. China just signed the biggest nuclear power contract ever. And it’s just a start:

In 2007, China has an installed nuclear capacity of 9 GWe with 11 nuclear power plants in operation, generating 2% of China’s electricity production. Nuclear power stations are located in the south and south-east of the country where there is most economic growth and no coal or dams. China has selected a range of different technologies for its nuclear program, some of which have been developed by Chinese companies, while others are being imported from France, Canada, and Russia.

In May 2007, the government and the National Development and Reform Commission planned to increase nuclear capacity to 40 GWe by 2020, and to 120-160 GWe by 2030.

An Edgy Calm

Fallujah

Michael Totten reports from Anbar:

Nobody was shot last night in Fallujah. No American has been shot anywhere in Fallujah since the 3rd Battalion 5th Marine Regiment rotated into the city two months ago. There have been no rocket, or mortar attacks since the summer. Not a single of the 3/5 Marines has even been wounded.

"The only shots we’ve fired since we got here are warning shots," said Lieutenant J.C. Davis. Another officer didn’t agree. "We haven’t even fired warning shots," he said. "It’s too dangerous."

It’s dangerous because anti-American sentiment still exists in the city, even though it is mostly passive right now. It isn’t entirely passive, however. Someone has been taking pot shots at Americans. A few days ago somebody threw a hand grenade at Marines. Two weeks ago an insurgent was caught by Iraqi Police officers while planting an IED near the main station. He freaked out, accidentally connected the wires, and blew himself up. "That’s what he gets," Private Gauniel said.

Hit his tip-jar.

Quote For The Day

"I think the fact of the matter is that Senator Clinton is claiming basically the entire eight years of the Clinton presidency as her own, except for the stuff that didn’t work out, in which case she says she has nothing to do with it. What she can’t be is selective, in terms of, you know, cherry-picking and making determinations that she’s now suddenly the face of foreign policy, that she shaped economic policy, except the stuff that didn’t work out, in which case that was somebody else’s problem or somebody else’s fault," – Barack Obama, telling it like it is.

I wonder if he disliked her this much before the campaign? It’s only when you are constantly exposed to the shiftiness, double standards and having-it-every-which-way style of the Clintons that you grow to distrust them as deeply as some of us do.

Ross On Gerson

All the more devastating for being mildly supportive of the general project. Loved this line about Bush’s alleged transformation of conservatism:

Gerson has the air of a horse trader talking as fast as possible in the hopes the audience won’t notice that the animal he’s selling has already expired.

It’s just pining for left-liberalism’s fjords.

Race and IQ Update

Ezra Klein splutters in his inimitable fashion:

So what’s the point of all this? What’re the implications? So far as I can tell, there are none. We don’t deal with people in aggregate groups. We deal with them as individuals. If "individual IQ can’t be predicted from race," then none of this actually matters. One could argue that improving group IQ should be a societal goal and thus we need this data, but since Saletan is arguing for an immutable, racial, component to IQ, that obviously isn’t an option. If the various races were moving in opposite directions on IQ scales, we could get really worried about that, but instead, we’re seeing convergence, and everyone expects more as cultural/economic/educational disparities improve. So, again, what’s the implication here?

There is none.

Two words: affirmative action. That policy asserts as an irrefutable fact that any racial discrepancies in college selection are a function of either college-imposed or societal racism. Once the left put the blank slate on the table, and actively supported racial discrimination as public policy as a consequence, they begged the question of whether they had the empirical data to back up their social engineering. Over to Will. Abolish affirmative action and these questions can and will become less salient. How about it?

Spray-On Condoms

When the regular size won’t fit. This doesn’t strike me as an aphrodisiac, however:

The system works a bit like a car wash. The man put his penis in a chamber and presses a button to start the jets of liquid latex, sucked from a detachable cartridge. The rubber dries in seconds and is later rolled off and discarded like a conventional condom.

The aim is for the process to take just 10 seconds but at present the latex drying time is around 20 to 25 seconds. "We’re working to shorten that time," said Krause.

Clinton In Iowa

This has got to hurt:

The electability question continued to trouble even some committed Clinton supporters. Among them here on Sunday was Colleen Clopton, the Clinton chairwoman for Greene County, who said she worries about what Republicans will do to Clinton if she is the nominee.

As a result, Clopton said she is still debating whether to vote for Biden, who as a white male without the Clinton baggage might be a safer choice, she said.

"I’m so afraid of the Republicans against her," Clopton said.

Could they be as brutal as Edwards?

Quote For The Day

"In recognition of the significant contributions to our country by our proud and independent Spanish-speaking citizens, we have developed a comprehensive program to help achieve equal opportunity… To provide the same learning opportunities enjoyed by other American children, we have increased bilingual education programs almost six-fold since 1969. We initiated a 16-point employment program to help Spanish-speaking workers, created the National Economic Development Association to promote Spanish-speaking business development and expanded economic development opportunities in Spanish-speaking communities.

We will work for the use of bilingual staffs in localities where this language capability is desirable for effective health care," – the Republican Party platform in 1972.