'Fires of Siberia' is an old-fashioned bodice ripper romance inspired by the life of Tea Party leader and Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Presidential candidate Danielle Powers, full of firebrand pluck and red state sex appeal, has the country in a tizzy. But on an international tour to beef up her foreign policy experience, disaster ensues—her plane explodes over Siberia. Miraculously, Danielle survives, along with one other passenger—a mysterious stranger named Steadman Bass. Trapped in a wilderness of snow and ice, the two begin a journey that pushes Danielle to the brink. There she must confront her deepest self and choose between civilization and a wild, primitive ecstasy. All the while, Steadman harbors a terrible secret that threatens to destroy them both.

The Axiflux® AMFA (pictured) has been in development since 2008 from Melbourne, Australia. The patent pending technology combines a number of significant and disruptive improvements to electrical motor/generator (machine) technology with a wide-ranging suite of applications. Prototype motors are currently being trialled in applications where this technology improvement is most needed.


The development of the AMFA began with the recognition that the electrical machine is the cornerstone of modern life and the facilitator of nearly everything in 21st century society. From generating electrical energy at our power stations to starting our cars in the morning, the humble electric motor/generator has changed relatively little over the past 100 years. The electrical machine generates over 90% of the world’s electricity and uses over 45% of it.

Traditional electric motors are efficient at particular speeds
and power requirements. As the speed or power is varied, the efficiency of the electric motor drops. To ensure that the device keeps operating at high efficiency, most are either run at particular speeds even when less will suffice (wasting energy), or are coupled to heavy and expensive gear boxes to help run the device at its peak efficiency. 90% of installed industrial motors run continuously at full speed and use mechanical systems to regulate (retard) output.

The key difference between the Axiflux® machine and its traditional counterpart is that the AMFA’s multiple coils can be controlled independently and intelligently by computer software that is able to use real-time optimization, artificial intelligence and neural network processing in order to respond to operating conditions. Depending on the operational requirements, a motor may be optimized for efficiency or power, at any time and for any speed. This compares to the traditional electric motor where the efficiency optimization was performed by engineers for a particular speed and built into the control system at the time of manufacture.

Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.



It's disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it - you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie. You can gaze out the window while you're crying and think "This is so sad. I can't even believe how sad this whole situation is. I bet even a reenactment of my sadness could bring an entire theater audience to tears."

But my sadness didn't have a purpose. Listening to sad music and imagining that my life was a movie just made me feel kind of weird because I couldn't really get behind the idea of a movie where the character is sad for no reason.



Essentially, I was being robbed of my right to feel self pity, which is the only redeeming part of sadness.

Some people have a legitimate reason to feel depressed, but not me. I just woke up one day feeling sad and helpless for absolutely no reason.



It's disappointing to feel sad for no reason. Sadness can be almost pleasantly indulgent when you have a way to justify it - you can listen to sad music and imagine yourself as the protagonist in a dramatic movie. You can gaze out the window while you're crying and think "This is so sad. I can't even believe how sad this whole situation is. I bet even a reenactment of my sadness could bring an entire theater audience to tears."

But my sadness didn't have a purpose. Listening to sad music and imagining that my life was a movie just made me feel kind of weird because I couldn't really get behind the idea of a movie where the character is sad for no reason.



Essentially, I was being robbed of my right to feel self pity, which is the only redeeming part of sadness.

The fools who paid for the Atlas Shrugged movie are making jewelry, just in time for Mothers’ Day. (via). This grotesque artifact is made of anodized aluminum, the stuff dreams are made of, if you dream on the cheap, though it’s called “Rearden Metal”, which I thought was only reserved for cock rings in the Randian world.

I’ve just seen clips of the Shrugfest films, but they all look like they were produced by Stalin’s favorite pornographer. This bracelet in particular looks like something Trotsky would have sent home to his babushka to memorialize the sacrifice of the noble workers in the Siberian bauxite mines.

I’d call the Hollywood Galtians’ aesthetic “fascist”, but that would be an insult to Hitler and Mussolini, who actually had a bit of flair and style. If Leni Riefenstahl were alive today, she’d spit on the floor as she walked out of these movies.

The West, Texas fertilizer plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance, reports AP:

Tyler lawyer Randy C. Roberts said he and other attorneys who have filed lawsuits against West Fertilizer’s owners were told Thursday that the plant carried only $1 million in liability insurance. Brook Laskey, an attorney hired by the plant’s insurer to represent West Fertilizer Co., confirmed the amount Saturday in an email to The Associated Press, after the Dallas Morning News first reported it.

“The bottom line is, this lack of insurance coverage is just consistent with the overall lack of responsibility we’ve seen from the fertilizer plant, starting from the fact that from day one they have yet to acknowledge responsibility,” Roberts said.

Roberts said he expects the plant’s owner to ask a judge to divide the $1 million in insurance money among the plaintiffs, several of whom he represents, and then file for bankruptcy.

He said he wasn’t surprised that the plant was carrying such a small policy.

“It’s rare for Texas to require insurance for any kind of hazardous activity,” he said. “We have very little oversight of hazardous activities and even less regulation.”

A $1 million policy is not gonna do squat for West, Texas or the 14 families who lost a loved one, or those 200 injured people. But I guess the glorious free hand of the market will be there for them, right? That and federal disaster aid, of course!

By the way, maybe in addition to all of the prayers and moments of silence, the Texas House and Senate might want to pass a few regulations to help ensure something like this doesn’t happen again. After all, taxpayers all around the country are going to be footing the bill for the negligence of a Texas business — and the failure of Texas legislators to adequately regulate their dangerous industries. So yes, Gov. Rick Perry, as long as we all have to pay for it, you can take your “states rights” and shove it, you arrogant phony cowboy.

And since we’re talking about this, Texas is starting to look an awful lot Bangladesh and China. Except in those places, the evil business owners are arrested.

I’ve had a touch of scotch while watching the Pens, so I don’t want to elaborate too much on the rampant douchebaggery of Clive Crook, but can I just say I am tired of rich mother fuckers wanking about why Kthug and the other people who have BEEN FUCKING RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING. For fuck’s sake, I have no idea why there has not been an insurrection in Greece and elsewhere and a move to make Atrios (who has been right about this shit for years) monarch and leader of the states that Merkel and the krauts have castrated for the last five years?

Hey- Clive Crook- how has austerity hurt you? Wait? What? Your Roth and 401 and other investments are doing fine because the market is through the roof? While worker’s wages are crashing and the rest of the population is now basically reduced to slave labor? And while your dickhead Republican friends are looking at those people making minimum wage or less, and deciding the real place for budget cuts is to food stamps and welfare while we talk about fucking medicare patients, slash medicaid, and now the scumbags who put us in this mess are gunning for Pete Peterson’s social security slashing. Remember when we had a social security surplus, and C+ Augustus gave it away to the Koch brothers and Richie Rich while expanding a give out to pharm companies, excuse me, I mean expanding Medicare but not allowing for competitive bids.

Nothing is going to change until Clive Crook and his asshole friends are gutted in the streets like something you see in the movies. Fuck them. Fuck them all. In case I was not clear- FUCK THEM ALL.

I fucking hate them all. I eagerly await turning 60 and watching all my investments get gutted in the ineviable market crash and I am forced to live on what I can grow, because, you know, the market just tanked and hoocoodanode and hey- you should have had more money and a more diversified portfolio that was immune to Republican perfidy and malfeasance!

I honestly think we are not too far from food riots and the blood of douchebags running in the street. The only solace is that I know how to grow food and that Matt Welch and the Fonzi of Freedom will be the first fucking scumbags to have their heads put on pikes.

*** Update ***

I’ve been paying into SS and Medicare since I was 16 and had my first job on the books. That means I have 26 years of payments into these programs. But for some reason, I don’t deserve the benefits of them, but my parents, who started paying into it much later in their lives, get the full benefits? The only reason is because rich pricks want more tax cuts. It’s insane.