More Links, More Reads

One of the things I hadn't considered in my earlier rejection of putting a counter on this blog was that counters give inbound tracking data. One result of having that data is the links you find going your way, and so I must say I'm pleased to note a sidebar link from Chiasm, which in turn has an good post summarizing a National Academy of Sciences study about the relative abilities of focused experts versus diverse groups of problem solvers to solve problems. The paper found that "when selecting a problem-solving team from a diverse population of intelligent agents, a team of randomly selected agents outperforms a team comprised of the best-performing agents." Results like this are one reason that the word "Optimist" appears in the title of this blog: though the crisis ahead is unparalleled in both scope and magnitude, at the same time, never have we been so diverse, nor have we had such opportunities for communication and interaction.

From Chiasm, I hunted down a bunch of good links:

• Prometheus, a science policy weblog. Prometheus has a couple good articles up on the home page alone, one about the possible falsification of data used to promote the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste facility, and another on the the coming debate on nuclear power.
• Next, I found the blog of the Nuclear Energy Institute, NEI Nuclear Notes, a group blog with many contributors. You can read their opening post, written just last February. It's aimed at nuclear industry insiders, but has good recent articles on fuel reuse, the blinkered environmentalism retarding nuclear's application, and a number of brief articles on current events turning nations toward nuclear power generation in Scotland, Holland, Italy, Slovakia, Turkey, Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand, and India, among many others. They are also pleased to note the Germans have rolled back their nuclear power ban.
• Next, LOCE Wind And Wave Energy Weblog. Written by Washington, D.C. lawyer Carolyn Elefant, this blog focuses on clearing the regulatory hurdles needed by ocean energy projects I was complaining about last week. Nearest and dearest to my heart is this recap of recent California wave energy developments.
• Finally, Monkeysign, which seems to be a good mix of current events, tech, and renewables.

All these were honored in their time, and will be up on the sidebar presently. A big shout-out to Chiasm for those great links.

Update: Well, of course no sooner than I say that than I unearth Winds of Change, who kindly dropped me a link back before I had a site counter. How can you miss with a blog whose slogan is "Liberty. Discovery. Humanity. Victory."? To kick things off, he passes on a link to a subject I've blogged about recently, namely the what stops China from invading Taiwan? In this analysis, author Bill Roggio says

The United States hold the true economic trump card: access to oil [it always comes back to oil…] China will become the world’s second largest importer of oil, and a large quantity is imported from the Middle East via sea routes. China does not possess a strategic oil reserve that it can fall back on in case of conflict and the ceasation of oil imports. The US Navy can easily strangle the supply of oil and instantly destroy China’s budding economy.