Category Archives: CounterCurrent

Bizarre Food Offerings on Amazon

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I just can’t resist passing this along. Amazon is offering some odd food products, like pickled pigs lips and earthworm jerky. The worm jerky producer also offers the Edible Insects Bag of Mixed Edible Bugs. Grasshoppers, Crickets, Silk Worms and Sago Worms as well as Zebra Tarantulas.

Am I being a silly American provincial with uppity, narrow-minded opinions on food? In this case, absolutely! I have a long-standing policy against bugs and internal organs. There is one exception to the bug rule- I do enjoy snow crab legs. These benthic bugs are a delight slathered in melted butter.

Putin’s War of Conquest

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The US needs many things, but now in particular we need a government that will strongly support Ukraine’s efforts to defeat Putin. Containment of Russia’s latest brutal dictator is a must for continued liberal democracy in the west. The US/NATO partnership is the necessary bulwark from the world’s two giant, grasping autocracies- China and Russia. Both will continue to be a challenge to the very existence of liberal democracies around the world for many decades to come.

Both China and Russia are weary of US hegemony in the world and seek to knock the US down and replace it with their own hegemony. The widespread use of English as the “lingua franca” of the world, US popular culture as well as the preeminence of the US dollar in world trade grates on their national pride. To coexist with US hegemony is to give consent. Both nations want to be masters of the realm. Simple human nature.

Perhaps Russia will emerge on the world stage one day as a guiding influence for decent civilization. But, that event will happen only after Russian citizens steer away from their long tolerance of autocratic and brutal leadership. It is up to the Russian citizenry to fix the Putin problem. Putin will not peacefully die in retirement. He’ll die in power like most of the former leaders of the Soviet Union from Lenin onwards did. Gorbachev had the grace to step down peaceably after he dissolved the Soviet Union. Somehow the pillars of support Putin has constructed over the years will have to crumble away. However, there is no guarantee that his successor will be much different.

The US had to be shaken from its isolationist trance to join in with WWI and WWII. Today, president #45 and others were showing a definite trend towards isolationism in the years prior to the onslaught of Putin’s savage war in Ukraine. #45’s tolerance and admiration of Putin was peculiar and very suspicious looking. Treating Putin like buddy is the wrong tack. George W. Bush said he peered into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. Bush later said he regretted having said that.

It is not in the interest of the US or Europe to stand back as Putin goes on a land grab along the Russian frontier. So far Putin’s war has not devolved into a WWIII. The NATO countries have wisely avoided actions that would trigger a direct shooting war with Russia while at the same time sending resources to Ukraine. Yes, it is a proxy war. This support is expensive but it must continue.

With China showing interest in supporting Putin, we may find ourselves in a proxy war with them as well. However, China has much to lose in as much as the US is one of it’s biggest customers. Whatever the case, we’re on the way with Cold War II.

Henry Kissinger (HK) made waves at the Davos Conference in May of 2022 when he suggested that Ukraine and Russia return to the status quo ante. In a July 2, 2022 interview with HK in The Spectator, interviewer Andrew Roberts reports-

“If Russia stays where it is now, it will have conquered 20 per cent of Ukraine and most of the Donbas, the industrial and agricultural main area, and a strip of land along the Black Sea. If it stays there, it will be a victory, despite all the setbacks they suffered in the beginning. And the role of NATO will not have been as decisive as earlier thought.

The other outcome is an attempt made to drive Russia out of the territory it acquired before this war, including Crimea, and then the issue of a war with Russia itself will arise if the war continues.

The third outcome, which I sketched in Davos, and which, in my impression, Zelensky has now accepted, is if the Free People can keep Russia from achieving any military conquests and if the battleline returns to the position where the war started, then the current aggression will have been visibly defeated. Ukraine will be reconstituted in the shape it was when the war started: the post-2014 battleline. It will be rearmed and closely connected to NATO, if not part of it. The remaining issues could be left to a negotiation. It would be a situation which is frozen for a while. But as we’ve seen in the reunification of Europe, over a period of time, they can be achieved.”

HK supports the “equilibrium” of status of quo ante to the pre-February 24, 2022, borders rather than an attempt to defeat Russia. I think Ukraine would only agree to this if things were looking bad for them. As Putin has demonstrated, he lies all of the time. He is in no way dependable in a peace agreement.

Whatever it is that Putin responds to, we have to assume that overwhelming and superior firepower are high on the list. The US and NATO must present an iron fist in reply to Russian aggression. Putin has established himself as one of the major bad actors in modern times. The man’s ambition and swaggering macho is and will remain a threat to democratic states.

Modern Russian leadership has a pattern of oppression and intelligence gathering along with institutions to apply it everywhere they can. They are masters of propaganda and the psychology of intimidation. America is outclassed in the propaganda field.

American notions of social order were influenced by the British. The oppression of monarchy on the American colonies served as a negative example of how to govern. But, the British have the Magna Carta of 1215 in their history which was an agreement between a group of barons and King John of England providing protection of certain rights. The original charter was quickly annulled but was reissued in 1216. Over the years the charter became a part of political life in England.

The point of this history lesson is to suggest that Russian history has no similar example of democratic leanings. What did happen in 1861 in Russia was the Emancipation Proclamation by Emperor Alexander II abolishing serfdom. This edict was one of many liberal reforms during his reign (1855 to 1881) and gave 23 million serfs their liberty. While not democratic, it was a positive step change in Russian society. Another step change for Russia came with the Bolshevik revolution if 1917. Unfortunately, this gave rise to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and all of the subsequent Stalinist and cold war turmoil that followed. Russia needs another step change to shake loose the dictatorship/kleptocracy model that Putin has put in place. Whatever it is that serves the needs of a peaceful Russia, it needs to arrive soon.

A vote against ‘Karen’

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It’s become popular to refer to women who go on an angry tirade in public as a ‘Karen’ but men have no analogous name. This has always struck me as a bit misogynistic. We should retire this word in our day-to-day name calling. I would offer that a gender neutral slander like ‘jerk’, ‘sh*t head’ or ‘a**hole’ is more appropriate.

Of course, the age-old word ‘bitch’ has always seemed misogynistic as well. I vote we retire this also in favor of the above replacements. Just a thought. For fun, pick your own words for non-sexist slander.

Whoopee!

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Folks have been applauding the appearance of two black quarterbacks facing off in this year’s Super Bowl. I agree, it’s a good thing, finally. But why did it take so long? Is this a trend or just a minor blip in the baseline? Only the Mandarins who control the mighty NFL can know for sure. If it bumps up the bottom line they’ll see to it. It’s not about fair, it’s about margins. Cynical? Ah, yep.

Oh yeah, I managed to go through the whole season without watching even a minute of NFL football. It was grand. I prefer to watch rugby. Unlike NFL football, something is always happening in rugby. If somebody goes down, they just play around the body. Isn’t that kind of savage? Hell yes. If somebody goes down in NFL football, there is a national day of mourning. Pansies.

Meta Making Progress Towards a Science Fiction-Like Dystopia

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A piece in the Washington Post by Prashnu Verma appeared reporting progress with Meta’s Cicero artificial intelligence (AI) system. The thrust of the report is that Cicero can play a game called Diplomacy better than humans. The article is worth reading- I know nothing about AI so all I can do is link readers to the article.

Quoting from the Post article-

“Researchers at Meta, Facebook’s parent company, have unveiled an artificial intelligence model, named Cicero after the Roman statesman, that demonstrates skills of negotiation, trickery and forethought. More frequently than not, it wins at Diplomacy, a complex, ruthless strategy game where players forge alliances, craft battle plans and negotiate to conquer a stylized version of Europe.”

Further down …

“It’s a great example of just how much we can fool other human beings,” said Kentaro Toyama, a professor and artificial intelligence expert at the University of Michigan, who read Meta’s paper. “These things are super scary … [and] could be used for evil.”

The nations of the world have civil and criminal laws to discourage and punish people who use their natural intelligence to commit crimes and misdeeds. What about those who use- or unleash- AI to achieve ends that would otherwise be ruled as unethical or even illegal? Pet owners can be held liable for the damage their pets do. Why shouldn’t AI owners have at least the same liability? Could a court order the alteration of an AI’s algorithms in a way that would shut down objectionable or unlawful “behavior”.

If the work product in the application of any intelligence includes action, then where does that leave an AI that can make decisions independently? When could we let it loose to do things that may affect people in novel circumstances? And what kind of ethical responsibility do programmers have in anticipating negative outcomes and acting to arrest them? Lots of questions.

One of the consequences of technological advance has always been the elimination of jobs. That is, getting the same or better results with a lower headcount. It represents cost savings and added margins for an organization. AI will be a valuable tool in the eternal drive for faster-better-cheaper.

AI will almost certainly change many experiences in life. AI systems will manage and replace people in the workplace. It is likely to improve multitasking in many job descriptions, boosting productivity over human counterparts. AI will produce a more effective sales force because the art of persuasion will become much more highly refined. Just what we need- craftier salespersons humping our legs for a sale.

On the positive side, AI has the potential for executing better judgement in many situations. For example, law enforcement could be polished to a point where many errors in judgement can be avoided. This applies across the board in all activities.

AI will also enable criminal intent. The ability to execute crimes will be improved with better judgement, knowledge and fewer mistakes.

Soon, if not already, wars will be guided and fought between AI systems. Cold war type activity could be refined to produce better intelligence and undercover schemes to outwit the other side. Leaders could put AI to use in the darker side of governance. It could be used to keep better track of individuals and information related to them. It could also be used to apply punishment to people without the messy issue of personal morals.

Any dark human activity you can imagine can be made more effective with the application of AI. If it can be tried, it will be tried.

Gas Coalification Pilot Plant Startup 2Q2024

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Engineers at the Gas Coalification Institute at Poltroon University in Guapo, AZ, have produced a breakthrough in the coalification of natural gas (CNG). Professor Horst Graben, Director of the GCI, announced a breakthrough in the carbonization of desulfurized natural gas. Graben said that using existing rail infrastructure to transport bulk carbonized natural gas would be more economically feasible than building gas pipelines to remaining coal fired power plants. He went on to say that plants burning this new fuel would not generate water vapor, eliminating a source of corrosion. The conversion from coal to CNG would require minimal modification of equipment.

Graben also disclosed a new process for the capture of CO2 and its direct incorporation into beer and soft drinks. Graben said that CO2-capture breweries and soft drink bottling plants could be built alongside the CNG power plants. The plans call for power plant exhaust to be piped across the fence to the beverage plants for immediate CO2 capture, eliminating the need for storage. Major bottling companies have already expressed interest.

The GCI plans to start up a pilot-scale plant in Confounded, Montana, in the second quarter of 2024. A 100 million metric ton per year plant is currently in the design phase.

The Dirty Bomb Threat

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Russia sent a letter to the United Nations accusing Ukraine of preparing to use a ‘dirty bomb’ in their battle with Russia. Western countries have claimed that this is nothing but a transparent attempt by Russia to provide a pretext for their own use of a dirty bomb or some other offensive action.

This issue resembles the matter of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) that the Bush administration in the US contrived as a pretext for taking down Saddam Hussein. A great many innocent people died and we damaged our moral authority in the world by that and other wars. It was an obvious lie to a great many Americans and allies yet the Bush administration went forward with the invasion. No WMDs were found.

According to Wikipedia, a dirty bomb is a conventional explosive packed with radioactive material that, on detonation, disperses the dangerous material in the target area. Such a thing could be made portable or assembled on site. It is not to be confused with a nuclear bomb. A dirty bomb blast would be a radiological calamity wherever it is set off as well as downwind of the explosion. Being non-nuclear, dispersion by a conventional explosive would be extremely limited in range in terms of blast effects, but intensely radioactive. As with any sudden generation of dust and smoke, there would be a plume of radioactive material (RAM) extending downwind from the release. Water soluble radioactive materials would pollute the watershed and possibly groundwater. Contaminated soil would exclude the area from farming for many decades if not longer. Great harm would befall the biosphere.

Construction of a dirty bomb could be quite problematic for its builders. Assuming the builders of the bomb are not suicidal, collecting RAM, assembling and delivering the bomb could be tricky. On one end of the scale, spent nuclear fuel could be used as the source of RAM. Assembly could be as simple as packing explosives around a container of RAM. To prevent serious exposure to the workers, there would have to be some kind of shielding present during the handling of the RAM. On the lower end, a small RAM source from a medical device could be used. Whatever the case, the containment must be fragile enough to rupture in the explosion but dense enough to provide some level of shielding for the handlers.

The harmful effects of a dirty bomb would be both radiological and psychological. On the psychological end, it is sure to cause dread fear in the general population and sway public sentiment toward one side or the other. Importantly, its use would be releasing the nuclear weapons genie from its bottle. It would lower the threshold and allow war planners everywhere to reconsider their own use of nuclear strategy and tactics because a precedent has been set. Once the genie is out, there is no putting it back, or so the saying goes.

In all of the war gaming and planning NATO has done over the decades, I wonder how much attention has been given to responding to nuclear conflict between non-NATO states? What should the NATO countries do if other actors engage in nuclear conflict? As always, it depends on the circumstances.

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I have chosen to avoid using the term “explosive device” because I feel it has a certain sanitizing effect. A thing that is meant to cause death and destruction by the explosive release of energy is just a f*cking bomb with all of the meaning and negative connotation associated with the word. Even grudging admiration for someone’s cleverness should not be awarded for putting together a “device.”

Gaussling’s (n+1)th Epistle to the Bohemians: Biden’s Student Loan Assistance

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Wow. There is a whole lot of pissin’ and moanin’ out there about Biden’s student loan payment program. A lot of it is bubbling to the surface like rotten egg gas in the mud pots of Facebook and Twitter. That wriggling libertarian tapeworm is deeply and firmly attached to the innards of a great many people.

I’m not going to waste precious heart beats trying to explain why a civilization should aid and encourage higher education. It should be obvious.

In an earlier chapter of American history, I graduated with a BA in chemistry owing $265 back in 1984. The whole time I had at least 2 jobs simultaneously and in two cities for part of that time. It is what I had to do to graduate without accumulating a lot of student loan debt. Later, in grad school, I received tuition remission and a stipend to study for a PhD. This is/was common for chemistry graduate students. The only cost for the ordeal was time, a divorce and my sanity.

Since that time tuition, student housing/rent, fees and other expenses have grown astronomically while wages and grants have not. State funding of colleges and universities has shifted from grants in favor of guaranteed student loans. The reprobates in congress have also passed laws that make escape from student loan payments through bankruptcy impossible.

As it has turned out, my generation of Baby Boomers has benefitted immensely from lower tuition in our time. Today, the picture for students is quite different. Student loan debts are drowning a great many people. We lived in a time that funded student aid with grants and scholarships that are either not available now or they didn’t grow with tuition increases. Today’s students are unable to save for house down payments or otherwise spend on other goods and services. It might even affect who you marry. Why marry into enormous long-term debt?

For many students, not signing the loan papers was equivalent to giving up on their dream of a better life. There are indeed plenty of jobs not requiring a college degree that can lead to a comfortable life. Starting your own business is not for everyone. We can’t all be a Bill Gates because ground fertile enough for a paradigm shift is fairly scarce.

Now, there is a chorus of indignant voices hissing that “I paid my debts- why shouldn’t you? Why should I pay for your debt?” I can’t argue with that except to say that canceling some fraction of student loan debt is reimbursement of what should have been tuition assistance in the first place. The situation shouldn’t have arisen to trigger people. The sum of $10,000 amounts to $2500 per year for 4 years. This is a reimbursement for a modest yearly tuition grant.

Simple PFAS Destruction Process Disclosed

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An article titled Low-temperature mineralization of perfluorocarboxylic acids, Dichtel and Houk, et al., Science, 18 August 2022, Vol 377, Issue 6608, pp. 839-845, DOI: 10.1126/science.abm8868, came out yesterday with a method for defluorination and chain scission of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Blessedly, the article is available without charge.

The article describes the mineralization of reactive perfluorocarboxylic anions with NaOH in water and dimethylsulfoxide, DMSO, at 80 to 120 C and ambient pressure.

Ok. If the prefixes “per” and “poly” are unknown to you, read below, otherwise skip ahead.

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First, some clarification of the name “PFAS” for you non-chemists out there. The “P” in PFAS stands for either prefix “poly” or “per”. Both prefixes appear in common use. The prefix “per” is used to abbreviate the name when some atom or fragment is attached at every possible alkyl (see below) carbon connection point in a molecule or specified fragment of the molecule. The much lengthier proper name would have a number of the position of each separate fluorine atom on the molecule. “Per” and “poly” saves everyone from having to trip over a great many tongue-twisting syllables.

Hydrocarbons consist of only hydrogen atoms on a carbon skeleton. Hydrocarbon carbon atoms can have 0 to 3 hydrogen atoms attached to each skeleton atom. The exception would be methane, CH4, which has 4 hydrogen atoms attached. “Alkyl” refers to a subclass of hydrocarbon fragments or molecules that are absent multiple bonds between atoms of a carbon skeleton. A molecule with a carbon skeleton having no multiple bonds between carbon atoms and linked to hydrogen atoms only is called an “alkane”. An alkane fragment that is connected to something else is called an “alkyl” group.

Gasp! So, a perfluoroalkyl molecule or fragment would have 2 or more of its hydrogen atoms replaced with 2 or more fluorine atoms on a given carbon atom (see definition below).

From Wikipedia “According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): “PFASs are defined as fluorinated substances that contain at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom (without any H/Cl/Br/I atom attached to it), i.e. with a few noted exceptions, any chemical with at least a perfluorinated methyl group (–CF3) or a perfluorinated methylene group (–CF2–) is a PFAS.“

The prefix “poly” is much simpler. It is meant to indicate that the word it is attached to has many units of something, as in polyfluoroalkyl, which means many fluorine atoms attached to alkyl carbon atoms. Or it could refer to a string of repeating units as in a polymer.

Outside of the narrow PFAS world, the prefix per in “perfluoroalkyl” would indicate in common usage that the alkyl fragment is completely saturated with fluorine atoms.

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If we were at the bar during happy hour slamming well drinks after a long day of shaking separatory funnels, washing glassware and trying to vacuum distill something useful out of tar, someone might have groused that the PFAS destruction process is simply a process where you heat the piss out of a DMSO/water mixture of NaOH and PFAS to destruction. Ok, the word they used is “mineralization” rather than the more chaotic sounding words “destruction” or “digestion”. Everyone has thermally decomposed a reaction mixture in the past. We would pause for a moment, shrug our shoulders and say “well, of course that works”. DMSO is a highly polar, high-boiling solvent which supports the formation of ionic decomposition products at elevated temperature. Kendall Houk even did some snazzy DFT calculations on decomposition mechanisms. Now, that is how to develop a new approach to decomposition! Get out the big stick of quantum mechanical computing power and swing it around! The rascals Dichtel and Houk worked it out first so we’d raise our glasses and drink in their honor. Here’s to you, boys and girls!

As we stagger out to the Uber for the ride home, somebody mutters “I wonder how far along the patent application is and who will be the assignee?”

Whoa there Texas, simmer down big fella

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So, it turns out that I did time in Texas- 22 months to be exact. As a postdoc in a large central Texas city with the initials S.A. The natives were friendly, if not a little obsessed with the daily level of the Edwards Aquafer. If you absolutely have to live in Texas, SA is a decent choice. I do have to fault them on their choice of US Rep. Louie Gomert. An actual gibbering dunce if there ever was one. Imagine what kind of people were passed over in making that choice? But I digress.

On to the point. The Texas State Board of Educators recently made the news regarding their decision NOT to replace the word “slavery” with “involuntary relocation”. Evidently this antiseptic language was floated by a curriculum study group. The board, to their credit, unanimously directed the work group to revisit the language. Astute choice, folks.

According to the article in the San Antonio Current, GOP lawmakers (are there any other kind in Tejas?) are trying to shield students from discomfort in the classroom as with the mercurial issue of Critical Race Theory. Previously, in 2015, headlines were made when it was discovered that enslaved Africans brought to the US by the slave trade were described as “workers” in a social studies textbook. Sanitizing language on slavery is the first step to eliminating its tragic history altogether.