1
U.S.
Legislature Prepares to Take on Water Projects
Texas water-supply projects totaling $53 billion are seeking money. The questions now are about how much the state is going to pay and how the details will and should work.
2
World
A Conversation With: Suman Nalwa, head of Delhi Police's Unit for Women
A top female cop on how the force is trying to train officers to deal with sexual violence and handle women's complaint's appropriately.
3
Science
Outside the Box: Eight No-Wrap Gift Ideas
A growing number of companies are making it easier to give the gift of local experiences rather than things.
4
Times Topics
Gay Mom Struggles With In-Laws’ Favoritism
When grandparents favor the child delivered by their own daughter over that of the daughter’s wife, a frank discussion is needed, Steven Petrow writes.
5
World
Jordan Talks of Reform, but Old System Holds Sway
Scores of demonstrators have been placed in legal limbo, facing a bewildering array of laws and procedures that allow the state to keep them in indefinite detention.
6
U.S.
A Reminder of What Midwest Winters Are About
Snow, absent for so long in much of the Midwest that people seemed to have forgotten all about it, returned with a fury on Thursday.
7
Business Day
Voestalpine Plans to Invest in North America
The Austrian steel and components maker said it would invest in a plant somewhere in the United States, apparently prompted by low American energy prices.
8
Business Day
Power Company Loses Some of Its Appetite for Coal
The owners of Big Sandy, a coal-fired facility in eastern Kentucky, said it was too expensive to retrofit the plant to conform to new environmental rules.
9
Science
Caribou and Oil Companies to Share Alaska Petroleum Reserve
Nearly half of the reserve will go toward potential oil and gas exploitation, but environmentalists cheer the equal protection for conservation and recreation.
10
11
Opinion
A Tax Credit Worth Preserving
Lawmakers must protect the low-income housing tax credit, which is especially useful after disasters, like hurricanes.
12
World
Bus Company Involved in Recent Rape Banned From Delhi's Roads
All of the licenses for 'Yadav Travels' 11 buses have been revoked, but problems plague Delhi's bus system.
13
Business Day
Medicare Spending Isn't Out of Control
Compared with spending by private health insurers, Medicare looks efficient and prudent, an economist writes.
14
U.S.
City in Colorado Is Sued Over a Drilling Ban
A group representing oil and gas companies says that the city of Longmont, Colo. had no right to ban hydraulic fracturing.
15
U.S.
Frank Beardsley, 97, Storied Father of 20
Mr. Beardsley, a retired Navy chief warrant officer, married Helen North in 1961, and their merger of two large families inspired a book and two movies, both titled “Yours, Mine and Ours.”
16
U.S.
How to Sell a U.S. Tax Increase Back Home: Make Sure to Cut Spending, Too
Many voters oppose higher taxes as a fix-all to the government’s problems but say they could stomach a deal that had fair tax increases if it included spending cuts.
17
Opinion
The N.R.A.'s Blockade on Science
There is no scientific consensus on the best approach to limiting gun violence, and the N.R.A. is blocking work that might lead to one.
18
Education
A Policy Shift in Programs for the Gifted Is Abandoned
A plan in New York City to discontinue a sibling-preference policy for gifted and talented programs has been abandoned until it can be analyzed more deeply, education officials said.
19
World
A Frenzy in Italy Over Teaching Jobs
Stiff competition in a state exam to select teachers shines a light on the state of the Italian economy and education system.
20
Business Day
3rd-Quarter Growth Is Revised Up to 3.1%, With Help From Exports
Disruptions from Hurricane Sandy and uncertainty caused by the budget negotiations in Washington are likely to restrain growth in the fourth quarter.The agonist:
"Another Curveball – Wonky Addendum
One of the criteria I use for judging whether a reporter knows what he’s talking about is the way he uses words. In science, words are used very precisely, some of them the same words that are used in everyday conversation. I recognize that reporters may try to simplify complex concepts for their readers; but they need to understand what they are simplifying. I also look for problems of logic and sequencing: has the reporter thought out how an activity must happen?
Here are two of those problems in David Ignatius’s article on Syrian chemical weapons.
Ignatius says “combine and activate the chemicals” at least twice. This is not something that someone who understands much about chemistry is likely to say. It’s a common mistake: not understanding chemical reaction. There is a difference between mixing and reaction. When you spoon sugar into your coffee and then stir, the sugar disappears as a solid, although you can taste it. It is mixed into the coffee, but it doesn’t react, it remains a separate chemical compound. When you are making a cake, you mix the ingredients. Some of the leavening ingredients start reacting right away, making the batter frothy with carbon dioxide, but most of the reactions take place during baking to make the liquidy batter into a solid with lots of porosity.
Some reactions take place quickly. You can mix vinegar and baking soda and watch the carbon dioxide froth out. But sugar in coffee is a mixture without reaction. When substances react, their chemical bonds rearrange to make something new. That’s how you get safe, edible salt (sodium chloride) from a soft, reactive metal (sodium) and a poisonous green gas (chlorine).
For a binary nerve agent, two precursors are manufactured that, when mixed, react to form the agent. Ignatius’s formulation, “combine and activate the chemicals,” doesn’t make sense. Combining the precursors activates them. Or, more accurately, produces the nerve agent. To a chemist, “combine” could mean mixing OR reaction, and, if it’s reaction, it doesn’t describe this kind of reaction. Mixing the precursors activates them. There’s no need to add red mercury or say magic words over them, or whatever “activate” means to Ignatius.
And that’s why nobody who knows chemistry would say it that way.
The more I think about these reports that Syria has binary precursors to chemical agents, the less credible they seem to me. Binary precursors require manufacturing two components, rather than just one. The two components require separate storage. Mixing them to form the agent and loading shells would require about the same equipment that a unitary agent would require. The capital requirements and number of steps are more than for a unitary agent.
Shells that mix binary precursors in flight are difficult to design and manufacture.
It’s difficult to see why a not-so-rich country would go to all this trouble. Not impossible, of course, but Occam’s Razor suggests that the stories of binary precursors being mixed before loading into shells are nonsense."
Cheryl Rofer is probably right about the report.
She has some chemistry.
Binary nerve gas is intended to be delivered in separate munitions.
the gasses mix and react after delivery to the target.
The shells or bombs can be filled with relative safety. They can also be stored in separate facilities as a safety measure. Leaks can and do occur.
Disposal is also much easier if the chemicals are less toxic.
@20:10
1
Times Topics
Gay Mom Struggles With In-Laws’ Favoritism
When grandparents favor the child delivered by their own daughter over that of the daughter’s wife, a frank discussion is needed, Steven Petrow writes.
2
World
Jordan Talks of Reform, but Old System Holds Sway
Scores of demonstrators have been placed in legal limbo, facing a bewildering array of laws and procedures that allow the state to keep them in indefinite detention.
3
Business Day
Voestalpine Plans to Invest in North America
The Austrian steel and components maker said it would invest in a plant somewhere in the United States, apparently prompted by low American energy prices.
4
Health
The Ex-Wives Club
One wife caring for another - another example of how the new old age is spawning unusual and creative alliances.
5
Business Day
Power Company Loses Some of Its Appetite for Coal
The owners of Big Sandy, a coal-fired facility in eastern Kentucky, said it was too expensive to retrofit the plant to conform to new environmental rules.
6
Science
Caribou and Oil Companies to Share Alaska Petroleum Reserve
Nearly half of the reserve will go toward potential oil and gas exploitation, but environmentalists cheer the equal protection for conservation and recreation.
7
8
Opinion
A Tax Credit Worth Preserving
Lawmakers must protect the low-income housing tax credit, which is especially useful after disasters, like hurricanes.
9
Science
The Latest Turns Along the Colorado River
Three separate actions involving the Colorado River reflect how much thought the Interior Department has been putting into the troubled waterway's future.
10
11
U.S.
City in Colorado Is Sued Over a Drilling Ban
A group representing oil and gas companies says that the city of Longmont, Colo. had no right to ban hydraulic fracturing.
12
Science
A Biodiversity Map, Version 2.0
More than a century after Alfred Russel Wallace published the first map of global biodiversity distributions, a long-overdue update has arrived.
13
Science
In a Lime Plaster Job, a Leonardo Moment
Forgoing cement in favor of a sustainable process that creates a silky smooth, vibrantly textured wall with a subtle microcrack pattern like that of porcelain.
14
U.S.
Frank Beardsley, 97, Storied Father of 20
Mr. Beardsley, a retired Navy chief warrant officer, married Helen North in 1961, and their merger of two large families inspired a book and two movies, both titled “Yours, Mine and Ours.”
15
U.S.
How to Sell a U.S. Tax Increase Back Home: Make Sure to Cut Spending, Too
Many voters oppose higher taxes as a fix-all to the government’s problems but say they could stomach a deal that had fair tax increases if it included spending cuts.
16
Education
A Policy Shift in Programs for the Gifted Is Abandoned
A plan in New York City to discontinue a sibling-preference policy for gifted and talented programs has been abandoned until it can be analyzed more deeply, education officials said.
17
Business Day
Medicare Spending Isn't Out of Control
Compared with spending by private health insurers, Medicare looks efficient and prudent, an economist writes.
18
World
A Frenzy in Italy Over Teaching Jobs
Stiff competition in a state exam to select teachers shines a light on the state of the Italian economy and education system.
19
Business Day
3rd-Quarter Growth Is Revised Up to 3.1%, With Help From Exports
Disruptions from Hurricane Sandy and uncertainty caused by the budget negotiations in Washington are likely to restrain growth in the fourth quarter.
20
Opinion
Guns N' Poses
I grew up in Wales, as a farmer's son, with a gun in the house for every member of the family. But I cannot comprehend America's failure to control gun possession.I keep remembering that the Marine Corps assault weapon of choice was the Remington 12gage pump action shot gun. Use of it in war was banned by the Geneva Convention.
Car bombs are very effective. They do not have to kill their operators. Active guidance makes them work better. Hydrogen sulphide is easy and deadly. Rambo did not use it.
Mass murder is an action of the insane.
No individual can defeat an army in direct confrontation.
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