[reverse osmosis] the words on everyone's lips today

The weekend's coming and that means it's time to explain Reverse Osmosis to those who still don't quite get it. Of course, this just draws on the excellent How Stuff Works article on the topic:



On the left is a beaker filled with water, and a tube has been half-submerged in the water. As you would expect, the water level in the tube is the same as the water level in the beaker.

In the middle figure, the end of the tube has been sealed with a "semipermeable membrane" and the tube has been half-filled with a salty solution and submerged.

Initially, the level of the salt solution and the water are equal, but over time, something unexpected happens -- the water in the tube actually rises. The rise is attributed to "osmotic pressure."

A semipermeable membrane is a membrane that will pass some atoms or molecules but not others. Saran wrap is a membrane, but it is impermeable to almost everything we commonly throw at it. The best common example of a semipermeable membrane would be the lining of your intestines, or a cell wall.

Gore-tex is another common semipermeable membrane. Gore-tex fabric contains an extremely thin plastic film into which billions of small pores have been cut. The pores are big enough to let water vapor through, but small enough to prevent liquid water from passing.

In the figure above, the membrane allows passage of water molecules but not salt molecules. One way to understand osmotic pressure would be to think of the water molecules on both sides of the membrane. They are in constant Brownian motion.

On the salty side, some of the pores get plugged with salt atoms, but on the pure-water side that does not happen. Therefore, more water passes from the pure-water side to the salty side, as there are more pores on the pure-water side for the water molecules to pass through. The water on the salty side rises until one of two things occurs:

* The salt concentration becomes the same on both sides of the membrane (which isn't going to happen in this case since there is pure water on one side and salty water on the other).

* The water pressure rises as the height of the column of salty water rises, until it is equal to the osmotic pressure. At that point, osmosis will stop.

Osmosis, by the way, is why drinking salty water (like ocean water) will kill you. When you put salty water in your stomach, osmotic pressure begins drawing water out of your body to try to dilute the salt in your stomach.

Eventually, you dehydrate and die. Isn't that nice?

In reverse osmosis, the idea is to use the membrane to act like an extremely fine filter to create drinkable water from salty (or otherwise contaminated) water. The salty water is put on one side of the membrane and pressure is applied to stop, and then reverse, the osmotic process. It generally takes a lot of pressure and is fairly slow, but it works.

[war games] the players are jockeying for position

The Madalene [whose link leads to a photo of Madame Lash and therefore undercuts his position] points to this, from Bloomberg:

Iran and Venezuela signed a memorandum of understanding to build a $1.5 billion oil refinery in Syria, the Regional Press Network reported in a story published on the Web site of Lebanon’s The Daily Star.

Venezuela would hold a 33 percent stake in the project, Iran would have 26 percent, Syria 26 percent and Malaysia 15 percent, the report said, citing Mohammed Ali Talebi, an official at Iran’s Petropars Ltd. The plant would have the capacity to process 140,000 barrels of oil a day.

Neither Iran nor Venezuela said when construction would start, according to the report.

It seems to me that the forces in the known world are aligning themselves, whether or not this refinery ever gets built. On one side are the communist leaders of China and North Korea, along with the Saudi princes, Gaddafi, the Iran nutter, Malaysia [which also has a dicey record] and so on - the pariahs of the sane world.

On the other are Obama, Brown and Sarkozy, Mandelson, the Bilderbergers et al. Russia is playing its own game but the top is aligned with the club.

Nothing whatever to do with us, the ordinary people. I'm no socialist and yet there is this niggling point that the battle is between two sectors of this ruling club who decide when it's time to stir up a war. The economic crisis is one thing, people out of work, people on benefits, loss of homes, pressure on available homes for rental and so on.

That's bad but much worse is the inevitable result of these things - war. This is the mentality which has come down through the past few centuries, the same dialectic, the same militaristic motif - finding the issue on which to wax rhetorical so that the MIC can be set into full swing.

They want war. That's all there is to it. I keep coming back to John Buchan MP who was kicked upstairs or put out to pasture, whichever term you care to employ, for speaking truths and even putting them in books. In The 39 Steps, he has his little agent say:

The first thing I learned was that it was no question of preventing a war. That was coming, as sure as Christmas: had been arranged, said Scudder, ever since February 1912. Karolides was going to be the occasion.

He was booked all right, and was to hand in his checks on June 14th, two weeks and four days from that May morning. I gathered from Scudder's notes that nothing on earth could prevent that. His talk of Epirote guards that would skin their own grandmothers was all billy-o.

The second thing was that this war was going to come as a mighty surprise to Britain. Karolides' death would set the Balkans by the ears, and then Vienna would chip in with an ultimatum.

That book was published in 1915 and was therefore written earlier, by a British MP who later wnet on to become Governor-General of Canada, as Lord Tweedsmuir. The work is fiction and yet the man had a closer knowledge than most of the goings on at the time.

These days, the doings are better concealed but around the turn of the century, in Buchan's day, things were far easier to glean. The Jeckyll Island meeting was observed, Colonel House's and Warburg's machinations seen for what they were and it wasn't such a big deal understanding how these things work.

Today, with the power of the net and with Google at hand, you'd think we would all be au fait but it seems we're still light years away from understanding, simply because we're accepting the pap we're fed by the MSM, we wish to have it that way in fact and it's an uphill battle getting people to join the dots.

Those who do join the dots see something we can't deal with - too organized, too interlocked. How did I get here from a Venezuelan/Iranian oil deal? Chavez, Mugabe and Hitler have shown how one man with a rampant ego and a desire to straddle the world like a Colossus can cause such enormous damage because everyone kowtows and similar megalomaniacs in the world recognize him and can play him at his own game.

It only takes one man, one forceful and yet insane person to achieve this mayhem. Have you ever wondered why this happens - this constant churning out of and pushing up of this type of person into positions of genuine power in their land and therefore on the world stage? He couldn't do it on his own. Clearly he is piggybacked by others seeing his potential for them.

The essential thing that anyone representing the interests of the majority of people desiring a comfortable life, free from the ravages of war and pestilence, must try to do is to find a way to break this stranglehold on world events. As for your humble correspondent, I don't particularly care to be swept along by the tide of events these nutters set in motion.

Web bots predict collapse

Good article in the Telegraph today. Of course the sceptics are right here - there are cogent reasons for these results. You don't need web bots to do simple research and equally, you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

[britblog roundup] hosted here this sunday, september 29th

Some of you may already know that Nourishing Obscurity will be hosting the:

Britblog Roundup

... this Sunday, September 27th and your humble blogger has every intention of having it posted by mid-afternoon. I shall be relieving Mr. Eugenides who is on holiday.

So, get your nominations in to:

britblog@gmail.com

... tout suite.

I say "every intention of having it posted" but the question is - where? This blog passes into history on Tuesday, September 29th and the new blog:

http://nourishingobscurity.com

... will carry on from where this one leaves off. The solution is clear - the Britblog Roundup will be posted both here and at the new site.

[yesterday's news is old news] see how you do

1. July 2008 - last month, the news broke that Gordon Brown was making phonecalls to unsuspecting members of the British public. Now, the News of The World has reported that The Queen had been thinking about setting up premium rate phone lines to allow the British public to call and get a message from the Royals - for what purpose?

2. September, 2008 - a "lady' burst on to the scene, calling Paris Hilton "a piece of sh-- who looks like a tramp". Then she impersonated a presidential hopeful. Who is she?

3. October, 2008 - there was a real stink when a prank resulted in one man having to depart but the other golden boy only got 12 weeks. A lady called Lesley also had to resign over the affair. Who was the prat who got 12 weeks?

4. November, 2008 - one which has died away of late but at the time, this sort of thing was said - it is better for Saudi Arabia and the company to pay out a few million in ransom and save the 995 million left over. What was the issue?

5. December, 2008 - someone significant connected with Watergate died. Who?

Answers

To help pay for the double glazing at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, Tina Fey, Jonathan Ross, piracy, Mark Felt

[late evening listening] songs we love to hate

[clearstream] a pandora's box for the ump

It's flowing strongly, the Clearstream biz, churning up mud along the way:

Les avocats de Dominique de Villepin ont jugé mercredi soir «scandaleux» les propos du président de la République au sujet des prévenus du procès Clearstream, propos qui selon eux violent les règles relatives à la présomption d'innocence.

To put the issue in perspective, the Grauniard called it:

A case of paranoia, slander and vengeance involving:

a) Dominique de Villepin, an ex-prime minister who dazzled the world on 14 February 2003 with a historic speech at the UN against the war in Iraq, a Gaullist with a taste for history and poetry and a penchant for Bonaparte;

b) Nicolas Sarkozy, former Chirac minister, today president of France, whose permanent agitation has transfixed his compatriots, and amused, irritated and awed the world in equal measure since his election on 5 May 2007;

c) the French intelligence services.

Naturally, the socialists are lapping it up, hardly abel to believe their good fortune, after their own infighting:

Le Monde concludes: “The involvement of the head of state unmistakably emerges from the testimony. Contrary to official statements it is very probable that Jacques Chirac issued ‘instructions’ in this affair... Irrespective of what the prime minister has said so far, the almost obsessive search for elements which could compromise the UMP president is unmistakably clear.”

The French love a good scandal but not of this sort, at this time and indications are that most French, for either reasons of boredom or reasons of fear for what it might do to UMP, vis-a-vis the next election, ushering in the truly loopy and perpetually infighting French Left, do not think it should have gone this far.

If UMP have plans to remain in power, they'd best get Sarkozy to close this thing off out of court. But that's not in the nature of Them, is it?

Let me wax religious for one moment. What the Clearstream affair revolves around is someone's knowledge that something was false and his willingness [however true or not is it of Villepin in this case] to remain silent on it and to allow things to come out which would damage the other.

That is no different to the exhortation, in Christianity that "blasphemy against the spirit can't be forgiven". Translated into Secular, it means exactly as stated - knowing something to be based on a false premise, namely the way the Pharisees and Saducees were going about things, they chose instead to bring down the accuser and rival with false testimony.

[thoughtful thursday] sign of the times

Those made up signs are not so funny but this seems genuine. The huts in the background seem Russian to me but the vehicles and language sure ain't.

[airbus] here we go again

There are references to Airbus problems:

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

Here

... and now here:

The EASA airworthiness directive concerns carriers that fly Airbus A330/A340 jetliners equipped with Goodrich pitot probes stamped with the part number 0851HL.

"Several reports have recently been received of loose pneumatic quick-disconnect unions" on the probes in question, the agency said, adding that the problem might lie at the "equipment manufacturing level."

The fault could result in an air leak that could in turn provide false airspeed indications, the statement said.

Ah yes - good luck with your Airbus flight if you have once scheduled.

[war games] meanwhile the empty rhetoric continues

Hezbollah

The parallels with Kennedy are eyebrow raising:

US President Barack Obama has said the world must tackle stark challenges, and the US cannot face them alone. In his first speech to the UN General Assembly, he said global problems included nuclear proliferation, war, climate change and economic crisis.

There's something of the murky way to power [JFK's daddy bought him Illinois, according to some, Obama concealed his Kenyan birth], something of the rhetoric which is based on nothing but catch phrases used by politicians since the Year Dot and now the critical question - is he starting to believe in the rhetoric the national "Tammany" Machine has written for him?

If he does see himself as the messiah, as Kennedy began to, doing this Great Work of Ages which was starting to be something quite different to that envisaged by the Machine, is he heading for a fall? He's playing with an impacable set of forces in the Washington lobby, in Israel and in the pathetic excuse for political life which Hamas and Saudi et al are pursuing with such quiet vigour.

Depends how aggressively he pursues the policy. Asia Times observes:

When President Barack Obama spiked plans for a missile shield in Europe, the international community was taken aback. Yet, Washington is leaving nothing to chance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently spoke of a "defense umbrella" in the Persian Gulf if Iran refuses to agree to nuclear inspections. Most likely, this "umbrella" will be a quick-striking military force overseen from US bases in Afghanistan.

Contrast that with his speech to the UN:

All nations bore responsibility for addressing these problems, he said. Mr Obama said "no world order which elevates one nation above others" could succeed in tackling the world's problems. "Those who used to chastise America for acting alone in the world cannot now stand by and wait for America to solve the world's problems alone," he said.

Really pushing this one, isn't he? And that talk of world order. Fashionable to seize on any talk of new world order as OTT and yet they keep mouthing about it, all globalists like Obama. And the Washington Club with members like Maurice Strong and Gore keep mouthing about shamballa and climate change as a religious phenomenon.

If you still feel that Obama supports the U.S.A. as a separate entity, then, with respect, you haven't been reading the material brought to this site by various students of the international situation or anywhere else on the web where think-tanks like American Thinker write:

Meanwhile our own president is proclaiming the end of Pax Americana, the most successful peace-keeping policy in human history. He publicly denies the plain and obvious lessons of history. The fascist regime in Tehran would not even exist were it not for the abject failures of another president in exactly the same mold, the blighted Jimmy Carter.

Carter had this "let's all love each other and just peanut farm" mindset, he had the leftist notion that if we all pull together [no comments], we can achieve miracles, which is true but not if we all pull together in the direction they mean. Brown mouthed this off in his own U.S. speech. It takes no account of realities - bloodythirsty guttersnipes, Churchill called them.

The left then says well that's the type of confontationalist rhetoric which got us into the mess.

No it isn't - what got us into the mess is:

1. the Machine which has determined American foreign policy for the past century, with its stranglehold on the three arms of government in the U.S. and international in complexion and the ripple effect on British polic;

2. using the natural patriotism of the American people, distorted and fuelled by the bought media, to support something quite un-American in nature but masquerading under the American flag, to the point that anyone who questions it, as many of the General Staff in the U.S. and in the UK have, is a dirty traitor and not supporting "our boys" over there and for tacitly supporting terrorism.

Look, the bottom line is that these globalists, by the very definition of their stance [how many quotes do you need from your hmble correspondent], are playing the same game, only with a newer generation which can't remember the last time on account of not having been born.

The end result is war.

Where does the natural need, which many heartily agree with, to defend the cause of freedom and free enterprise in the world, cross over into furthering the agenda of the globalists? Look at the pic of Hezbollah above and see if we're not playing the same crazed militarization of the peoples of the world, organized into rank and final and directed to destroying one another.

If this post seems to give out mixed messages - first defend the nation, then don't go to war, that's because the truth is in the middle. Yes we need to be strong but no we don't need to march off on a global financiers' war game which will make a killing of us and a killing for them.

[ladies and gentlemen] adjust your urls 2

Remember that the new url is:

http://nourishingobscurity.com

... and the date it goes active is September 29th. If you change your link to this site [that's if you ever did link and plan to continue, I mean], then the new link will also bring you here until the changeover date and then will automatically switch to the new site.

For those interested, I'm on Wordpress.org and am [almost] self-hosting. The themes have been the main problem - I must have been through about 1500 of them and the two left at the end [which I can't decide between] are:

1. a three column not unlike this site's [but I've made the sidebar's much wider so that the whole is now a three column magazine, featuring certain posts];

2. a true magazine/news layout which has layout problems with the blockquotes and images, the latter having been solved.

Both are quite configurable [a major factor for me] and now it's down to the cosmetics and widgets. I'll get both themes ready and decide which one later. I've even been thinking of running one of them for two days and then the other and seeing what you think of each.