Category Archives: Politics

Achievements of #45

1 Reply

I’m brain-dead already today from some stultifying regulatory activities. I ran across this over lunch and thought I should post it. MAGA people probably won’t enjoy this and would be well advised to just shuffle along.

The source of this content said to cut, paste and pass along. I remember many of these entries from when they happened so I don’t feel too bad about passing it along. Whoever compiled this list deserves lots of credit. Here it is- the achievements of President #45.

1. he incited an insurrection against the government,

2. mismanaged a pandemic that killed a million Americans,

3. separated children from their families, lost those children in the bureaucracy,

4. tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could hold a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church,

5. tried to block all Muslims from entering the country,

6. got impeached,

7. got impeached again,

8. had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history,

9. pressured Ukraine to dig dirt on Joe Biden,

10. fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia,

11. bragged about firing the FBI director on TV,

12. took Vladimir Putin’s word over the US intelligence community,

13. diverted military funding to build his wall,

14. caused the longest government shutdown in US history,

15. called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,”

16. lied nearly 30,000 times,

17. banned transgender people from serving in the military,

18. ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions,

19. vetoed the defense funding bill because it renamed military bases named for Confederate soldiers,

20. refused to release his tax returns,

21. increased the national debt by nearly $8 TRILLION,

22. had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history,

23. called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers,

24. coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismembering of a US-based journalist,

25. refused to concede the 2020 election,

26. hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House,

27. walked out of an interview with Lesley Stahl,

28. called neo-Nazis “very fine people,”

29. suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight COVID,

30. abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey,

31. pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans,

32. incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic,

33. withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords,

34. withdrew the US from the Iranian nuclear deal,

35. withdrew the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances,

36. insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter,

37. pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op,

38. failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies,

39. called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries,

40. called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation,”

41. claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere,

42. forced his Cabinet members to praise him publicly like some cult leader,

43. believed he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,

44. berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General when he recused himself from the Russia probe,

45. suggested the US should buy Greenland,

46. colluded with Mitch McConnell to push through federal judges and two Supreme Court justices after supporting efforts to prevent his predecessor from appointing judges,

47. repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people,”

48. claimed that if we tested fewer people for COVID we’d have fewer cases,

49. violated the emoluments clause,

50. thought that Nambia was a country,

51. told Bob Woodward in private that the coronavirus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public,

52. called his exceedingly faithful vice president a “p—y” for following the Constitution,

53. nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet,

54. nominated a corrupt head of the EPA,

55. nominated a corrupt head of HHS,

56. nominated a corrupt head of the Interior Department,

57. nominated a corrupt head of the USDA,

58. praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies,

59. refused to allow the presidential transition to begin,

60. insulted war hero John McCain – even after his death,

61. spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president,

62. falsely claimed that he won the 2016 popular vote,

63. called the Muslim mayor of London a “stone cold loser,”

64. falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year,

65. considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions,

66. mocked wearing face masks to guard against transmitting COVID,

67. locked Congress out of its constitutional duty to confirm Cabinet officials by hiring acting ones,

68. used a racist dog whistle by calling COVID the “China virus,”

69. hired and associated with numerous shady figures that were eventually convicted of federal offenses including his campaign manager and national security adviser,

70. pardoned several of his shady associates,

71. gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to two congressmen who amplified his batshit crazy conspiracy theories,

72. got into telephone fight with the leader of Australia(!),

73. had a Secretary of State who called him a moron,

74. forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history,

75. botched the COVID vaccine rollout,

76. tweeted so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him,

77. charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates at his properties,

78. constantly interrupted Joe Biden in their first presidential debate,

79. claimed that COVID would “magically” disappear,

80. called a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas,”

81. used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise,

82. opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling,

83. got into a losing tariff war with China that forced US taxpayers to bail out farmers,

84. claimed that his losing tariff war was a win for the US,

85. ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings,

86. blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining,

87. redesigned Air Force One to look like the Trump Shuttle,

88. got played by Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,”

89. threatened to go after social media companies in clear violation of the Constitution,

90. botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico,

91. threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them,

92. pressured the governor and secretary of state of Georgia to “find” him votes,

93. thought that the Virgin islands had a President,

94. drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate tweet that Alabama was threatened by a hurricane,

95. allowed White House staff to use personal email accounts for official businesses after blasting Hillary Clinton for doing the same thing,

96. rolled back regulations that protected the public from mercury and asbestos,

97. pushed regulators to waste time studying snake-oil remedies for COVID,

98. rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping waste into rivers,

99. held blatant campaign rallies at the White House,

100. tried to take away millions of Americans’ health insurance because the law was named for a Black man,

101. refused to attend his successors’ inauguration,

102. nominated the worst Education Secretary in history,

103. threatened judges who didn’t do what he wanted,

104. attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci,

105. promised that Mexico would pay for the wall (it didn’t),

106. allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues,

107. struggled navigating a ramp after claiming his opponent was feeble,

108. called an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ,”

109. threatened to withhold federal aid from states and cities with Democratic leaders,

110. went ahead with rallies filled with maskless supporters in the middle of a pandemic,

111. claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts,”

112. seemed to demonstrate a belief that there were airports during the American Revolution,

113. demanded “total loyalty” from the FBI director,

114. praised a conspiracy theory that Democrats are Satanic pedophiles,

115. completely gutted the Voice of America,

116. placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service,

117. claimed without evidence that the Obama administration bugged Trump Tower,

118. suggested that the US should allow more people from places like Norway into the country,

119. suggested that COVID wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public,

120. overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported,

121. reduced the number of refugees the US accepts,

122. insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames,

123. gave Rush Limbaugh a Presidential medal of Freedom at the State of the Union address,

124. named as head of federal personnel a 29-year old who’d previously been fired from the White House for allegations of financial improprieties,

125. eliminated the White House office of pandemic response,

126. used soldiers as campaign props,

127. fired any advisor who made the mistake of disagreeing with him,

128. demanded the Pentagon throw him a Soviet-style military parade,

129. hired a shit ton of white nationalists,

130. politicized the civil service,

131. did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government,

132. falsely said the Boy Scouts called him to say his bizarre Jamboree speech was the best speech ever given to the Scouts,

133. claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won,

134. insulted reporters of color,

135. insulted women reporters,

136. insulted women reporters of color,

137. suggested he was fine with China’s oppression of the Uighurs,

138. attacked the Supreme Court when it ruled against him,

139. summoned Pennsylvania state legislative leaders to the White House to pressure them to overturn the election,

140. spent countless hours every day watching Fox News,

141. refused to allow his administration to comply with Congressional subpoenas,

142. hired Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer,

143. tried to punish Amazon because the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post wrote negative stories about him,

144. acted as if the Attorney General of the United States was his personal attorney,

145. attempted to get the federal government to defend him in a libel lawsuit from a prominent lady who accused him of sexual assault,

146. held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present,

147. didn’t disclose his private meetings with Vladimir Putin so that the US had to find out via Russian media,

148. stopped holding press briefings for months at a time,

149. “ordered” US companies to leave China even though he has no such power,

150. led a political party that couldn’t even be bothered to draft a policy platform,

151. claimed preposterously that Article II of the Constitution gave him absolute powers,

152. tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course,

153. suggested that the government nuke hurricanes,

154. suggested that wind turbines cause cancer,

155. said that he had a special aptitude for science,

156. fired the head of election cyber security after he said that the 2020 election was secure,

157. blurted out classified information to Russian officials,

158. tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his failing golf resort in Florida,

159. fired the acting attorney general when she refused to go along with his unconstitutional Muslim travel ban,

160. hired notorious racist Stephen Miller,

161. openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear them,

162. interfered with plans to relocate the FBI because a new development there might compete with his hotel,

163. abandoned Iraqi refugees who’d helped the U.S. during the war,

164. tried to get Russia back into the G7,

165. held a COVID super spreader event in the Rose Garden,

166. seemed to believe that Frederick Douglass is still alive,

167. lost 60 election fraud cases in court including before judges he had nominated,

168. falsely claimed that factories were reopening when they weren’t,

169. shamelessly exploited terror attacks in Europe to justify his anti-immigrant policies,

170. still hasn’t come up with a healthcare plan,

171. still hasn’t come up with an infrastructure plan despite repeated “Infrastructure Weeks,”

172. forced Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed while contagious with COVID,

173. told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,”

174. fucked up the Census,

175. withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of a pandemic,

176. did so few of his duties that his press staff were forced to state on his daily schedule “President Trump will work from early in the morning until late in the evening. He will make many calls and have many meetings,”

177. allowed his staff to repeatedly violate the Hatch Act,

178. seemed not to know that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican,

179. stood before sacred CIA wall of heroes and bragged about his election win,

180. constantly claimed he was treated worse than any president which presumably includes four that were assassinated and his predecessor whose legitimacy and birthplace were challenged by a racist reality TV show star named Donald Trump,

181. claimed Andrew Jackson could’ve stopped the Civil War even though he died 16 years before it happened,

182. said that any opinion poll showing him behind was fake,

183. claimed that other countries laughed at us before he became president when several world leaders were literally laughing at him,

184. claimed that the military was out of ammunition before he became President,

185. created a commission to whitewash American history,

186. retweeted anti-Islam videos from one of the most racist people in Britain,

187. claimed ludicrously that the Pulse nightclub shooting wouldn’t have happened if someone there had a gun even though there was an armed security guard there,

188. hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent Bowling Green Massacre as a reason to ban Muslims,

189. had a press secretary who claimed that Nazi Germany never used chemical weapons even though every sane human being knows they used gas to kill millions of Jews and others,

190. bilked the Secret Service for higher than market rates when they had to stay at Trump properties,

191. apparently sold pardons on his way out of the White House,

192. stripped protective status from 59,000 Haitians,

193. falsely claimed Biden wanted to defund the police,

194. said that the head of the CDC didn’t know what he was talking about,

195. tried to rescind protection from DREAMers,

196. gave himself an A+ for his handling of the pandemic,

197. tried to start a boycott of Goodyear tires due to an Internet hoax,

198. said U.S. rates of COVID would be lower if you didn’t count blue states,

199. deported U.S. veterans who served their country but were undocumented,

200. claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln,

201. touted a “super-duper” secret “hydrosonic” missile which may or may not be a new “hypersonic” missile or may not exist at all,

202. retweeted a gif calling Biden a pedophile,

203. forced through security clearances for his family,

204. suggested that police officers should rough up suspects,

205. suggested that Biden was on performance-enhancing drugs,

206. tried to stop transgender students from being able to use school bathrooms in line with their gender,

207. suggested the US not accept COVID patients from a cruise ship because it would make US numbers look higher,

208. nominated a climate change sceptic to chair the committee advising the White House on environmental policy,

209. retweeted a video doctored to look like Biden

210. had played a song called “Fuck tha Police” at a campaign event,

211. hugged a disturbingly large number of U.S. flags,

212. accused Democrats of “treason” for not applauding his State of the Union address,

213. claimed that the FBI failed to capture the Parkland school shooter because they were “spending too much time” on Russia,

214. mocked the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford when she accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault,

215. obsessed over low-flow toilets,

216. ordered the rerelease of more COVID vaccines when there weren’t any to release,

217. called for the construction of a bizarre garden of heroes with statutes of famous dead Americans as well as at least one Canadian (Alex Trebek),

218. hijacked Washington’s July 4th celebrations to give a partisan speech,

219. took advice from the MyPillow guy,

220. claimed that migrants seeking a better life in the US were dangerous caravans of drug dealers and rapists,

221. said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure,

222. never seemed to heed the advice of his wife’s “Be Best” campaign,

223. falsely claimed that mail-in voting is fraudulent,

224. announced a precipitous withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest,

225. insulted the leader of Canada,

226. insulted the leader of France,

227. insulted the leader of Britain,

228. insulted the leader of Germany,

229. insulted the leader of Sweden (Sweden!!),

230. falsely claimed credit for getting NATO members to increase their share of dues,

231. blew off two Asia summits even though they were held virtually,

232. continued lying about spending lots of time at Ground Zero with 9/11 responders,

233. said that the Japanese would sit back and watch their “Sony televisions” if the US were ever attacked,

234. left a NATO summit early in a huff,

235. stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of 5 knows not to do that,

236. called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary,

237. refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and kept his promise.

238. Don’t forget that he took many classified & top secret documents with him when he left the White House, many of which have not been recovered & may have been compromised.

He Just Keeps Talking

Leave a reply

WARNING. Political content follows.

While whining about how the 2020 election should be redone due to alleged fraud and how Twitter was trying to limit posts on Hunter Biden, #45 let this gem slip out-

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,”

The response by politicos to this assertion has fallen along party lines, with the Republicans remaining largely quiet on the matter. One republican who did comment on “This Week” with George Stephanopolous was Ohio Rep. (R) Dave Joyce. When asked if he would support #45 in 2024, he said he would support whomever the Republican nominee is.

From the interview-

“That’s a remarkable statement,” Stephanopoulos said. “You just said you’d support a candidate who’s come out for suspending the Constitution.

“Well, you know, he says a lot of things,” Joyce said, adding, “I can’t be really chasing every one of these crazy statements that come from any of these candidates.”

“You can’t come out against someone who’s for suspending the Constitution?” Stephanopoulos pushed back once again.

“He says a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen. So you got to [separate] fact from fantasy — and fantasy is that we’re going to suspend the Constitution and go backwards. We’re moving forward,” Joyce said.

Joyce is chair of the Republican Governance Group which is a centrist group in the House of Representatives.

The words of Joyce seem refreshingly frank and vaguely dismissive of #45’s chances in 2024. While many of his Republican colleagues may actually find #45 repugnant on a personal level and a danger to democracy, all of them are attracted to #45’s voters like moths to a flame. He may be a jerk, but he’s OUR jerk.

It’s amazing that #45 seemingly hasn’t realized that the more he talks the more disgusting he appears. If he would simply shut his yap he’d be much better off. However, if he did that, he wouldn’t get the free media exposure- good and bad- like he got in 2016.

An Apology from Colorado

Leave a reply

From my self-appointed, presumptuous and totally bogus position as temporary apologist for the State of Colorado, I wish to convey our deepest regrets for the reelection of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) to the US House of Representatives. She very nearly lost. You may be asking yourself how it is that this newly blue state produced such a mouthy, unwholesome pistol-packin’ troll. My answer would be that it is impossible to account for the stupid voting decisions some people make.

So, here we go again. We will be treated to another term of the despicable duo of Reps Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boebert skipping their merry way down the MAGA trail.

This is where I would have liked to paste a funny cartoon. I can’t because they’re all copywritten.

So, what’s the deal with Colorado politics? It used to be pretty darned conservative. That’s easy to answer. There is now a large liberal to centrist urban population. Comparing us to California, though, is fightin’ words. No Coloradoan tolerates such a put-down. And then there is Texas …

And now some geopolitical scribblings. Going west from the Kansas border to the east and across to the western border with Utah, the north/south running Rocky Mountains abruptly jut skyward in the middle of the state, sharply marking the western edge of the Great Plains of the United States. Along this westward direction from Kansas, you’ll drive through the eastern plains and halfway across the state until you encounter the mountains. The eastern plains are sparsely populated and comprised of semi-arid land. There is dryland farming and a good bit of center-pivot irrigation, but it is in no way the richest farmland around.

The rural parts of the state are reliably Republican to a large extent. The several counties making up suburban Denver generally dominate the politics of the state, which is presently Democratic. Colorado Springs, though, could be called the buckle of the state bible belt. It is the center of Christian nationalism around these parts.

Coloradoans generalize regions of the state in terms of the eastern slope and the western slope. This refers to which side of the continental divide you are talking about. There are certain real differences between the two. But, both sides do favor the ridiculous Wal-Mart Broncos. The southern part of the state is largely forgotten about. New Mexico could pull a land grab and invade southern Colorado but no one would notice for at least a week.

Continuing westward from the eastern plains, we encounter the Front Range Urban Corridor where a large fraction of the state’s population is found. This region sits along the eastern slope foothills and reaches from Fort Collins in the north to Pueblo in the south along Interstate 25. The political distribution ranges from centrist/liberal from Denver northward and conservative in Colorado Springs. I just don’t know what the hell happens in Pueblo.

I think it is fair to say that the rural parts of the state, which is most of the state in land area, trends to Republican sentiment. Despite the geographical advantage of land area, most of the population lives in the urban corridor which trends from centrist to more liberal politics.

From about the continental divide westward is the western slope. This part of the state is reliably Republican for the most part. The Republican trend includes the southern part of the state as well. Boebert’s District 3 covers the L-shaped west and south 1/4th of the state. It is approximately half of the land area of the state. Given the conservative nature of the district, it is surprising that her race was so close. But, you know, maybe folks have actually been payin’ attention to her terrible behavior. Will it temper this behavior? Seems doubtful.

Post script.

I am shocked but not surprised by the mass killing at the LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs the other day. Th’ Springs is a hub of prickly white nationalist evangelical Christians whose bizarre eschatology parks them always near the end of times. What a weird way to live.

In the News

1 Reply

Reuters: Tesla announced that they will begin mass producing the Cybertruck, their ugly monstrosity of a pickup, by the end of 2023. Oh joy. Maybe with any luck it will go the way of the Edsel. I condemn the vehicle solely on the basis of styling. It looks like something from a 1970’s low budget made for TV SciFi movie.

DW News: That fetid little pouch mouse leader of North Korea fired more than a dozen missiles across the Northern Limit Line in a single day as well as 100 rounds of artillery shells, rattling the nerves of South Korea and Japan. There is speculation that the scurvy little pustule intends to test another nuclear weapon soon. The guy seems anxious for a fight. One day he’ll get it.

Reuters: I just don’t understand Israeli politics. Netanyahu is close to winning a majority of seats in the Knesset in Israel’s 5th election in 4 years. I thought he was shown to be corrupt and thrown out of power.

Reuters: In the trial of the January 6 incident, the Oath Keepers defendant said “I felt it was like a Bastille time in history,” referring to the raid on the Bastille in Paris that led to the French revolution. I don’t think that these guys understand just what “tyrannical” really means. Thinking of the milquetoast Biden as a tyrannical leader seems, well, stupid.

Tsar Putin and the Bomb

1 Reply

Vlad Putin has been ominously reminding us that he will not rule out the use of nuclear weapons if the Russian state is under existential threat, whatever that means. Maybe now is a good time to review just a few basics of nuclear weapons and what they do.

There are a large number of internet sites that go into great detail about the dark art and history of nuclear weapons. No need to duplicate that here. I’ll just give my take on a few points.

Remember the Morse curve from freshman chemistry? It describes the potential energy versus distance of two atoms at the scale of chemical bonds. The left side of the blue curve shows how steeply the repulsive energy potential rises (exponentially) with diminishing internuclear distance. By contrast, the attractive potential on the right of the blue curve flattens out with increasing interatomic distances. Keep this in mind.

From Wikipedia

When a fissile uranium-235 nucleus absorbs a neutron, the nucleus momentarily becomes unstable uranium-236. A stable nucleus has repulsive Coulomb forces between nucleons that are balanced at close proximity by the attractive strong nuclear force. The liquid drop model is useful for visualizing a nucleus as it fissions. On absorption of a neutron the uranium nucleus will distort to an elongated dumbbell shape leading to an imbalance of attractive and repulsive forces between nucleons. This can take the nucleus past the distance where the strong nuclear force attraction can hold it together. The strong nuclear force holding together nuclear particles (nucleons) falls off much faster with distance than does the Coulombic repulsion of protons. At the instant the nucleus separates into adjacent fragments, the two highly positively charged nuclei find themselves in very close proximity and are now only subject to net repulsive force. From the left side of the Morse Curve we can see that the repulsive force is exceedingly high in this moment. The highly repulsive potential energy is converted to kinetic energy at the moment the nucleus splits. The nuclear fragments fly apart at high velocity along with neutrons and dump thermal energy into the surrounding bulk material. But the kinetic energy of the fragments is not the only source of energy output.

Nuclear fission fragments are released in a highly excited state. Apart from their kinetic energy, nuclei have different energy levels with differing stabilities. A nucleus can undergo energy transitions from one state to another. These higher energy levels are called nuclear isomers and their stability can be expressed in terms of half-life. As fission fragments are formed they shed energy in the form of alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron emissions. Neutrinos are left out of this discussion for simplicity. As nuclei decay, they get closer to a stable ground state. Unstable nuclear fission products will decay in their characteristic ways, contributing to the overall energy release.

One challenge to weapons designers is to cause as many nuclei as possible to fission before the weapon undergoes “hydrodynamic disassembly” over the first 1 microsecond or less. After ignition the rapidly expanding plasma of the bomb core increases in volume and the probability of neutron collisions with nuclei diminishes rapidly. When a uranium or plutonium nucleus fissions, 2 or 3 neutrons are emitted which go on to strike other nuclei and induce fission in them. The cascading generations result in an avalanche of fissions. One of the ways to ensure that enough generations of fissions occur with enough neutrons flying about inside the supercritical assembly is to surround the core with neutron reflecting material. Ways of doing this can be found elsewhere.

One more thing about the strong nuclear force. This quote is from the Wikipedia entry for the strong interaction–

“The residual strong force is thus a minor residuum of the strong force that binds quarks together into protons and neutrons. This same force is much weaker between neutrons and protons, because it is mostly neutralized within them, in the same way that electromagnetic forces between neutral atoms (van der Waals forces) are much weaker than the electromagnetic forces that hold electrons in association with the nucleus, forming the atoms.“

A nuclear weapon produces a near instantaneous point source of energy release. These bombs can be detonated at or below ground or water level, or they can be set off in the atmosphere or space. The choice of where to do it depends on the intended effects. Subsurface bursts consume much of the explosive energy in moving soil or water which provides some radiation shielding to the surrounding area. Furthermore, bursts in contact with soil or water, especially when the fireball contacts the soil, tend to produce more fallout than air bursts. Air bursts deliver EMP, radiation and blast effects to a wider area, where “radiation” refers to neutrons, gamma and longer wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. Thermal and blast effects produce considerable prompt destruction in the area surrounding the blast. As an approximate point source of energy, the intensity of the radiant energy falls off as some inverse square law. On an encouraging note, this means that radiation exposure falls off rapidly with distance. Distance is your friend.

There are numerous variations on the nuclear weapons theme. In the early cold war days, so called A-Bombs and H-Bombs were in the news. H-Bombs are also referred to as “hydrogen bombs or thermonuclear weapons.” An A-bomb, A for Atomic, was a basic implosion-type fission explosive and it was the typically the least powerful of the two. The H-Bomb was a nuclear fusion explosive that was triggered by a fission “primary.” That is, a fission trigger would be used to generate x-rays that would be “focused” onto fusion fuel, the “secondary,” which would initiate a runaway nuclear fusion explosion. The explosive yield of these bombs is much higher and can deliver a devastating blast to a larger area. Over time, the efficiency and compactness of these bombs has been greatly optimized.

The fusion explosive element was lithium-6 deuteride. The lithium atom would absorb a neutron, become unstable and decay into a helium-4 nucleus and a tritium (helium-3) nucleus. On a side note, in grad school I attended a seminar by Dieter Seebach from ETH, Zurich, who was talking about mechanistic work they’d done with lithium enolate complexes. He mentioned in passing that at that time, the mid-80’s, they had to be careful with stoichiometry because the commercial lithium that was available was often depleted of lithium-6 which was accumulated by the government for diversion to weapons. It was an unexpected brush with the cold war.

The main deleterious effect of radiation on human tissue lies in the formation of ions and radical pairs along the path of the penetrating radiation. The molecules of life are dissociated into ion pairs or radicals which may or may not collapse back to the original molecules. Given the amount of energy transferred into molecular dissociation along with random diffusion, the molecular destruction cannot be reversed. Heavy radiation particles like alpha particles produce a great many ions per centimeter of tissue penetrated. Penetrating, energetic photons like gamma rays produce relatively few.

There are 6 forms of hazardous radiation commonly considered- alpha, beta, gamma, x-ray, ultraviolet and neutrons. Of these 6, alpha, beta, gamma and neutrons are of nuclear origin. X-ray and ultraviolet are “electronic” in origin, that is they arise from electron transitions outside of the nucleus. The matter of the origin of x-rays is often confused in the literature with some authors implying that x-rays are from the nucleus. I prefer to define x-rays as resulting from electron transitions at the atomic level.

Of the 4 nuclear radiation types mentioned above, alpha, beta, and neutrons are particles. Gamma rays are photons. The atomic nucleus is comprised of so-called nucleons which are protons and neutrons. Nucleons are composite particles comprised of quarks and can bind by the strong nuclear force. Alpha particles are helium-4 nuclei and neutrons are neutral particles with approximately the same mass as a proton or about 1 atomic mass unit. Neutrons are not stable outside of the nucleus and have a half-life of about 15 minutes. Free neutrons will undergo radioactive decay into a proton, an electron, and an electron antineutrino.

Like gamma rays, neutrons are neutral in charge and have great penetrating ability. However, neutrons are effectively scattered by collisions with the hydrogen atoms of biomolecules and water. As a result neutrons can be very destructive to living tissue. As a side note, paraffin wax and water are effective shielding materials for neutrons due to the high concentration of hydrogen atoms. The collisions with hydrogen atoms in living tissues is a means of dumping neutron kinetic energy into the bulk matter, resulting in dissociation of biomolecules.

The so-called “neutron bomb” was an explosive that was designed to produce an abundance of neutrons at the expense of explosive yield. During the early Reagan years in the US there was much public handwringing about these bombs and their ability to kill people but leave buildings standing. People seemed indignant that somehow this reduced the value of human life below that of material things in the grand calculation of destruction.

The characteristic mushroom shape rising to the sky after a nuclear air burst is just the result of a rapid release of energy and bomb debris in the air, but close enough to the ground to suck up soil. The “cap” of the mushroom results from the convectively rising point-source expansion of incandescent, debris-filled air from the point of energy release. The “stem” of the mushroom is a column of air that has rushed in to replace the rapidly rising fireball, picking up soil as it does so. There is nothing intrinsically nuclear about a mushroom cloud. Chemical explosives can do this as well.

Initially the fireball produces a strong pulse of thermal radiation. As this fireball develops, there is a momentary drop in radiant thermal energy due to the increasing opacity of the fireball. With further expansion the opacity of the fireball decreases and the thermal output increases. The shock wave and out-rush of air is obviously destructive, but the radiant thermal effects are not to be underestimated.

Another major effect of a nuclear blast is nuclear fallout. A nuclear blast unavoidably produces radioactive substances from the fission process and from neutron activation. A low altitude air burst is particularly troublesome because ground debris is sucked up into the air and contaminated with radionuclides. This material does what all suspended solids do, namely it is carried by the wind and falls back to earth gradually, contaminating a wide swath of ground. The finest particles remain suspended and are transported long distances, eventually falling out with rain or snow.

Finally, there are psychological effects associated with “the bomb.” It inevitably produces dread fear in people. This fear buttresses the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD.

Now that we are in a nuclear state of mind, let’s turn to what Putin intends to do with his nuclear arsenal. The Russians are not suicidal. Putin is neither crazy nor stupid. Russians have long understood where a nuclear confrontation with the West can go. They know escalation of nuclear war to full-scale would lead to mutual destruction of Russia and the West. The Russians know that the West has a policy of no first use with nuclear weapons and that we are extremely reluctant to use them. For the West, there is a firebreak between conventional and nuclear weapons. For the Russians, it is more of a continuum. They know that sabre rattling with their nuclear arsenal creates a good deal of anxiety in the rest of the world and Putin has been pushing this threat envelope to new levels and will keep doing so. Once a KGB guy, always a KGB guy. Putin obviously understands the pragmatics of coercion and the influential value of torture.

What nobody knows for sure is what happens when a Russian nuclear war shot is released. What does the West do? Respond in kind quickly or play the long game and see what happens next. How much planning has gone into nuclear conflict between two states outside of NATO? When would NATO step in? NATO is presently taking the side of Ukraine in terms of supplying money and arms but is studiously avoiding direct conflict with Russia. On the positive side, at least right now we aren’t bogged down with an endless middle east whack-a-mole exercise.

The best use of nuclear arms has always been and remains the threat of their use. Russia has been using this threat aggressively, even going so far as to blame Ukraine for planning a false flag operation with a “dirty bomb.”

Putin wants to see the alliance of the US and Europe disintegrate. He wants to see the American hegemony in place since WW II collapse. He wants to see the dominance of US culture, military reach, the influential dollar and prevalence of the default English language peel away. He wants to see Novorossiya rise from the ashes of the fallen USSR. But his vision requires the conquest of territory and cultural domination. The armed extinction project for Ukraine in process now will be followed by rebuilding the captured land with Russian infrastructure, political leaders and culture.

Russia, in its constant state of paranoia, wrings its hands about the “threat” of NATO at its border. The cruel irony is that it is hard to imagine that the West would find the conquest Russia possible or even desirable. The US-lead coalition was unable to get the medieval opium poppy kingdom of Afganistan under control with conventional weapons. How is it possible that we could even consider a preemptive invasion of Russia? Russia’s historical paranoia seems entirely self-serving for its authoritarian leaders.

One way to tear apart western alliances is to help them along with the demise of liberal democracy. Quietly support the internal cultural rot of individual nations by encouraging radical nationalism, white supremacy and political disharmony. It is happening all around us and especially here in the US. As badly as I’d love to entirely blame #45, I have to admit that he has only prodded a sleeping dragon. The MAGA and QAnon crowds were already out there. #45 has rallied them and validated their seething anger and indignation.

Today we have many people of great influence like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Sean Hannity, nationalistic religious broadcasters, a stable of fringe political figures, and a mass of MAGA foot soldiers winning down-ticket elections moving their nationalistic and religious conservative agenda forward. Post-war baby boomers are being replaced with crowds and leaders who reject America’s present liberal democratic culture and leadership role in the world. There is growing open admiration for strongman authoritarian leadership. America’s experiment with fascism has already begun. Surprisingly, many Americans have expressed support for Putin.

Putin’s vicious attack on Ukraine, the rise of Trumpism with American fascism and a viral pandemic have overlapped within a narrow window of time- any one of which is a big problem by itself. It seems doubtful that MAGA right-wing crowds will have a change of heart in their vision for America. They will live out their lives within the same closed ideological space they are in presently. A political depolarization of America seems unlikely in the near term.

In this depressing global political climate it is more important than ever for the US to maintain its role as a thriving democratic culture and defender of those seeking democracy. Our leadership role in NATO must not waver against Russian aggression and expansionism. Russian expansionism will not end with Ukraine.

What will Putin do if he sees his internal political power structure collapsing? Will he ramp up the war to distract his opponents and rally the country? The present situation in Russia seems to suggest that rallying the population is more difficult than he anticipated.

It is hard to believe that Putin and his inner circle will change their ways in their lifetimes. They’ve painted themselves into a corner with their aggression and, like a trapped animal, will fight to the death. The cruel and murderous Joseph Stalin died in power. There is no reason to believe that Putin will be any different.

And, so it was

Leave a reply

The President of South Korea, Yoon Suk-Yeol, was heard to utter into a hot mike that the US Congress were a bunch of idiots. To quote, he said “What an embarrassment for Biden, if these idiots refuse to grant it in Congress”. This occurred after a New York visit with President Biden after a discussion on US electric-vehicle subsidies. It is making headlines all over the internet. My schadenfreude detectors couldn’t resist this.

How defensive of the red, white and blue should you be if the guy is right? In theory the election process should select the best and brightest in the land. Instead, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Witness #45’s embrace of QAnon. If this was a story arc in a movie script, it would be rejected as too silly. Political parties and elections are supposed to exclude exemplars of bad judgement. I guess that nut jobs elect nut jobs.

And speaking of nut jobs, #45 was heard to say that presidents can declassify things “by thinking about it.” Even if this is true, it shouldn’t be as the present example illustrates. If this idiot learned to simply shut his damned mouth he’d have avoided half of his legal troubles automatically. He has his t*t in a wringer where it should be.

On the Russian Occupation of the Zaporizhia Power Plant

1 Reply

In an escalation of his bloody war, the mass murderer Vladimir Putin allowed his troops to occupy the large Zaporizhia 6-reactor nuclear power plant along the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine in March of 2022. In doing so he brought the front line to a uniquely dangerous location. The world has expressed its concern and outrage, but characteristically, Putin is unmoved.

According to one source, El Pais, “On July 20, the Ukrainians launched a kamikaze drone against Russian units positioned near the nuclear power plant. The DiXi Group, a Kyiv think tank focused on the Ukrainian energy sector, confirmed the “precision [drone] attack.” According to Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that still manages the Zaporizhzhia plant, the Russians countered by storing “14 pieces of heavy weaponry, ammunition, and explosives,” inside the turbine room of one of the reactors.”

By way of background, the nuclear reactors at Zaporizhia are of the VVER variety and are water-cooled, water-moderated pressurized water reactors. They are not of the same design as the Chernobyl reactors. Chernobyl had RMBK-1000 graphite moderated reactors.

On Thursday, 8/25/22, a fire at a nearby non-nuclear plant shut down external power to Zaporizhia plant. Previously, three other power lines had been shut down. It may seem odd, but a nuclear power plant needs an outside feed of electrical power to assure that the coolant pumps to remain in operation. As a last layer of protection, the cooling pumps can be powered by diesel generators on site while the outside power is restored. The nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 is an example of what happens when a nuclear power plant loses it’s cooling pumps.

Reportedly, power was restored to the plant later that day. Whether or not the fire and the power trip was war-related or not is unclear.

There should be no mistake in realizing that the terroristic Putin knows precisely what he is doing and will wring out from the occupation of the plant his greatest advantage. He advances his pawns by relying on international dread fear of a large scale radiation release- a truly frightening prospect.

In Update 88, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, listed the pillars of indispensable nuclear safety and security-

  • Pillar 1 (Physical integrity): Any military activity – such as shelling – within, or in the vicinity of, a nuclear facility has the potential to cause an Unacceptable Radiological Consequence.
  • Pillar 2 (All safety and security systems and equipment must be functional at all times): As a result of the shelling, emergency protection was activated at one of the  units, diesel generators were set in operation, and the nitrogen-oxygen station and an auxiliary building were damaged.
  • Pillar 3 (Operating Staff): This recent activity further increases the stress of the operational team.
  • Pillar 4 (Power supply): This has been compromised as a result of damage to the external power supply system.
  • Pillar 6 (Radiation monitoring and Emergency Preparedness and Response arrangements): In the current status of the site, this recent shelling further jeopardizes the already compromised EPR arrangements and capabilities to respond. However, the radiation monitoring system is still operational.

At some point in the future, the Putin war will be over. How it ends will largely be up to Putin or whoever surfaces after him. Eventually the Russian people, absent the malignant and unredeemable Putin, will have to be invited back as friends and neighbors onto the international stage as citizens of the civilized world. I hope that the strategic planners everywhere are thinking about this.

Twittered

Leave a reply

So, after a long period of abstinence I recently added the Twitter to my daily feed from the interwebs. In a moment of weakness my resistance to Twitter folded like a lawn chair. Almost immediately I began to notice that my background level of social/political anxiety had increased.

On the plus side, I was pleasantly surprised to see all of the interesting chemistry-related content that appeared from day one. How did Twitter know that I really dig organic/organometallic chemistry having never experienced my internet shadow directly darkening their servers? I guess because I told them so. My shadow did darken their floors. In signing up, I did select a number of interests and this accounts for my connection to chemistry feed.

What is startling though is that they already had a good inkling of my philosophical and political leanings from day one. I do not recall disclosing this. While it is indeed an echo chamber, there are many tweets that articulate notions and ideas that I’ve had trouble putting into words myself. Clearer thinking is always a plus.

The side effect of hearing all of the “agreeable” echo chamber content is that my world view is more broadly negative and my general level of peaceful equilibrium has diminished. There is a constant rattling noise of cogent observations about negatives. While thankfully I do not receive tweets from Margorie Taylor Greene or her ilk, I do get many tweets with excoriating comments on her latest outrageous utterings and pathetic stunts. This just keeps me front and center with this malignant political movement #45 is leading.

There are certainly many negatives to be found in American history and culture. People from all quarters are plainly aware of this. What is less frequently shouted across the interwebs are the positives from our technologically advanced democratic republic. Okay, technology has indeed produced net negatives like nuclear weapons and anthropogenic climate change. But there is a vast wealth of good that has come from our culture as well. We dare not lose sight of this for fear of perishing from the ever-growing circular firing squad that we find ourselves in. Returning to fundamental principles is often a good exercise.

The positives we have produced are too numerous to count. But, how about this- why don’t we each strive to be grateful about some particular benefit every week? Yes, it seems pollyannish. I get that. But let’s train our minds to seek gratitude. This week I’m going to be grateful for our electrical distribution system. We’ve all grown quite accustomed to it and it continues to provide elevation in our quality of life.

Cracker Barrel vs Cry Babies

4 Replies

I have nothing constructive to add here, but it’s just too funny to leave alone. A scandal has hit the news. Cracker Barrel has announced they are offering a new plant-based sausage on their menu. It has resulted in an flood of outrage on the interwebs. Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, indignant customers are venting their outrage over an optional menu item as a menacing sign of what is to come.

The US Navy may be adding it to their menu, sparking righteous indignation from our very own pistol packin’ Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO). It was proposed for the 2023 defense budget. Boebert cried out that it is “liberal woke garbage”. It’s a new food choice for our sailors, Lauren. You are crying wolf again.

According to a source that I don’t trust and never quote, the New York Post, Tejas Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) voted against it in 2021. In a Twitter thread, he exclaimed

“A woke military that drafts our daughters, wastes resources on Green New Deal garbage, holds no one accountable for Afghanistan disaster, and prioritizes playing leftist politics over destroying our enemies,” he wrote in the thread. “Rep. Roy voted no.”

Oh! The horror of it! A vegan meat substitute is an example of wokeness, they rage. To be woke is to be aware of social injustice and to tolerate the choices of other people. But to the lunatic fringe, it is a crime against MAGA land.

It will be interesting to see what the restaurant does about this, if anything. It is an amusing tempest in a teapot.

Whoa there Texas, simmer down big fella

Leave a reply

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.