“… radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists …”

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I’m running out of words to describe the deplorable ex-president #45. Just when you think he can’t add to his steaming heap of manure called a legacy, he shovels on more. It seems like there is no limit to the falsehoods he is willing to declare in public and no limit to what his supporters are willing to accept.

In regard to his indictments, he was recorded as saying something to the effect of “They’re not after me, they’re after you … I’m just standing in their way!” He is turning his indictments into the image of him sacrificing himself on the cross for the millions of Americans. A blood sacrifice for his beloved followers. If you supposed that this vaudevillian stunt was transparently phony to everyone, you’d be wrong.

#45 has been referring to “… radical-left Democrats, Marxist, communists and fascists …” in his gimmie-all-yer-lovin’ rallies. How absurd. Leftists aren’t fascists- they are antifascists. And by the way, what is wrong with being against fascism? #45 is using his usual mirror tactic of taking accusations against him and aiming it back at his critics. He knows very well that he isn’t being held accountable for truthfulness by the people he counts on. He tells big lies and repeats them over and over. It works for him. The very boldness of his lies somehow validates them in the minds of his followers.

Marxism and socialism have been in the scrapyard of history for a decades. The Soviet experiment with using socialism to get to communism was an abject failure. Stalin’s USSR was a brutal, murderous dictatorship tarted up to appear as a people’s paradise for those outside the iron curtain.

China today is a single party communist dictatorship that practices centralized control and nationalistic state capitalism. Previously, however, under the command of Chairman Mao Zedong, it is estimated that 40 to 80 million people died as a result of starvation, persecution, prison labor and execution in order to achieve his personal dream of a communist paradise.

It is difficult to find a communist state where people have the liberties that we in the US take for granted. It seems that to compel people to hand over their belongings to the state, a good bit of muscle is needed. Stalin found this out when he tried to collectivize Ukraine in the early 1930s. He ended up causing mass starvation and sending people to the gulags. The notion that the US is under threat from communist influence is without credibility. The odd communist may pop up now and then but they are little more than a curiosity not worthy of concern.

It is hard to know what Republicans regard as radical about Democrat ideals. Could it be that anyone who disagrees with today’s GOP is a “leftist radical”? If there are actual living, breathing Marxists among liberals in the US, they are likely to be lonely. There is Richard D Wolff at UMass, Amherst. Wolff is against capitalism and makes some fair points, but the momentum of history won’t be going his way any time soon. People still remember the Soviet experiment with Marxism-Leninism which was a disaster.

So·cial·ism: noun; a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Source: Google

Will citizens of the US ever acquiesce to turning over private property to a socialist government? Clearly, there is not a chance. The accusation that US liberals harbor socialistic desires is a Republican fever dream. The same with communism. The current population of US citizens would never embrace communism. Too many past instances of communist or socialist dictatorships in the world, and besides, Americans love their private property and would defend it with the umpteen hundred million guns under their pillows.

It is a Republican fantasy that only they are the true patriots in the US. This gives them license to posture as the only “real” Americans worthy of the title. This froze out as axiomatic for them many years ago, especially since the years of Mr. “trickle-down economics” Reagan.

Having social services is not the same as having socialism. A capitalist economy that provides a social safety net through taxation is not socialism. The capitalists still own their means of production, distribution and exchange.

Ordinary citizens in the US pay taxes to support the Army, Air Force, Space Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard. We also pay taxes and fees for upkeep on state and national infrastructure like roads, bridges, air traffic control and many other things. All of this goes to support our capitalist means of production, distribution and exchange.

Citizens pay exorbitant tuition to educate themselves to a level where they can contribute to operating our capitalistic enterprises. Payment for the common good isn’t borne exclusively by business. Both citizens and our capitalist enterprises benefit from this arrangement.

The business side should recall that citizens contribute to their corporate existence by funding their government contracts and by purchasing products that they off-shored to China to the detriment of US workers and security.

Late Night Thoughts on Twisters, Replay.

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Now that we are well into tornado season in North America, I thought I’d dredge this old 2007 post up out of the cobwebs in the dungeon. As Uncle Al pointed out in the comments, Middle Easterners did have dust devils so a vortex of wind was not unknown there. These, however, are no match for a full-blown F4 tornado.

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One has to wonder what the original inhabitants of North America thought of the tornado (how do you say “WTF” in Lakota?). Without a doubt, Native Americans were visited by tornadoes. The experience must have certainly left an impression. It would be interesting to hear any stories that may be out there.  This topic has been the subject of scholarly study.

Little record of native American lore remains regarding their experiences with the tornado.

“The Cheyenne language has several words for tornadoes and their related storms: hevovetaso (tornado), ma’xehevovetaso (big whirlwind), ehohaatamano’e (threatening weather). For the Cheyenne, the tornado is not some kind of evil predatory force or a random assault from a blind and dumb atmospheric soup with no concern for human life. A tornado has a job, Yellowman told me, and that is to restore balance to the environment. The tornado speaks to the native people, in their respective tribal languages, in a voice that sounds like fire. Before it reaches the tribal land, the tornado tells the elders how big it’s going to be, not in the technical language of the EF scale but in colloquial terms: small, medium, big, huge.“

From the Tapistry Institite and links within.

North America is geographically privileged in that there is the possibility that overland southerly flows of cold dry air from the north can readily contact flows of warm moist air from the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic.   Vertical mixing of unstable humid air results in convection cells that are further driven by the latent heat of condensation.  These humid flows are spun up by the Coriolis effect and wind shear to afford monster anvil storm cells that can tower to 50,000 ft or higher.

Diagram of an anvil cloud. Source: NOAA

Like many places, here in Colorado we often see isolated storm cells in the early evenings of summer, red in color at low altitude changing to a billowy yellow-white at altitude near sunset. Very often you can see mammatocumulous features signifying violent mixing activity. It’s no place for an airplane.

Mammata formation on a storm cell. Source: https://cloudatlas.wmo.int/en/clouds-supplementary-features-mamma.html

A murus, or wall cloud forms at the bottom interface where cold, water-saturated downdraft air is pulled into the adjacent column of rising air. The moisture condenses quickly and at low altitude to form the wall cloud. On occasion a tornado will drop out of a wall cloud.

Wall cloud with a funnel. Source: https://opensky.ucar.edu/islandora/object/imagegallery%3A2389

It is interesting to speculate as to how our modern mythologies and iconographies might have been different if the tornado phenomenon had been common in the Mediterranean and the middle east.  Would Charleton Heston have summoned a tornado to smite Yule Brynner’s Egyptians rather than parting the Red Sea and drowning the buggers?  Perhaps the Pharaohs might have built great stone helices rather than obelisks.  Aristotle might have written a treatise on the handedness of helical flows or whether the air flowed radially into or out of a tornado.

If the tornado had been a common phenomenon in the middle east during the iron age would the “Big Three” Abrahamic religions today feature tornadic themes in their texts and monuments? If so, perhaps the great cathedrals of Europe might today have relief sculptures or stained glass windows portraying the Israelites or Philistines being driven hither and thither by the swirling wrath of the Almighty’s cyclone. 

Well, that’s enough of that.

MIRV Talk

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Some vocabulary from bad old days of the Cold War has come back to haunt us. Russia has announced that it has deployed its RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in Belarus. The 112 ft long, 211 ton missile is said to carry 15 Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs). As new and scary as this sounds, the US first conceived of the MIRV in the early 1960’s and deployed its first MIRV’d ICBM (Minuteman III) in 1970 and the first MIRV’d SLBM (Poseiden Sea Launched Ballistic Missile) in 1971. The USSR followed suit in 1975 and 1978, respectively.

In the early 1960’s it was believed in the US that it was behind the USSR in what was called the “Missile Gap”. It turns out this was incorrect and that, in fact, the US had a large advantage in the number of ICBM strategic delivery vehicles. For a long while we in NATO thought the Soviets were 10 feet tall and that turned out to be an exaggeration. From their performance in conventional battle, they have diminished in stature just a bit. However, their nuclear triad is to be respected.

3-MIRVs. Source: https://blenderartists.org/t/mirv-hard-surface-modeling/1198468

The initial purpose of the MIRV concept was to compensate for inaccurate delivery. It has evolved to include decoys and multiple target delivery. There is a good deal of non-classified information on MIRV systems on the interwebs.

Putin’s threat of a new MIRV’d missile is just more nuclear bluster to frighten NATO citizens. For the present time his nuclear weapons are more valuable in storage as they have been all along with the Mutual Assured Destruction policy. That said, they have a policy of using nukes if the security of the state itself is under threat. I would guess that Putin sees himself as the state.

I wonder if it has dawned on the Russians that nobody in their right mind would actually make a preemptive attack on Russia or its former Soviet satellites. Who actually wants the place? What benefit is there in trying to subdue 140 million angry Russians and their huge frozen taiga? That’s nuts.

Standing up for what you believe

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I’ve long had difficulty with the validity of advice that says “always stand up for what you believe.” Superficially, it is inspirational to those working in a difficult and discouraging situation. It is meant to convey encouragement that a person should strive not to give up on a difficult goal. Keep chipping away at the problem. You can eat an elephant, but only by one bite at a time. There are many aphorisms that tie into this sentiment. A crisp analysis of this is not like a problem in algebra, you know, a problem with a unique solution. If you share the person’s subjectivity, then perhaps there is no problem.

Standing up for what you believe is often used to proclaim a refusal to give up some action or view. It can telegraph moral clarity and devotion to an ideal.

What are we to think when a leader stands up and proclaims that they intend to stand firm on their convictions? Irrespective of whether or not you agree with them, doesn’t their proclamation to stand fast say something about flexibility in the face of contrary evidence or logic? If new thinking comes along, wouldn’t we want a leader who can turn the boat around to a better heading?

We don’t want wishy-washy or indecisive leaders- don’t we really want action based on the best thinking? In a democracy it is our job to put the best thinkers in the important slots.

The weakness of this advice comes into view when you consider whether any given goal is “worthy” or not. Is there objective information or reason supporting going after a goal or maintaining a belief? Even if a belief or goal is objectively valid, is it something worth committing your life to? Will it really lead to the desired end? On the personal level, someone may be convinced that a goal is indeed worthy and is backed with good intentions, tight reasoning or what appears to be justifying evidence.

A person may be genuinely convinced that their goal or belief is worthy irrespective of objective fact or analysis. They would be making a subjective decision to stay on the path for reasons of comfort or aesthetics. As long as your path is not harmful to those around you, why not?

People possessed of divine certitude in their politics or religion, for example, will often claim that a particular hill really is worth dying on. They are willing to defend their beliefs to their last breath, a few in the literal sense but most metaphorically speaking. Righteous though they may seem, are we obliged to stand by and let the firmly held but baseless or insane beliefs of others swerve our democracy into an autocratic swamp of fringe beliefs and looney political theories?

The societal problems are supposed to be addressed by voting based on rational thought and conveyed through freedom of speech. Today in the US, large and well-funded forces are focused on eliminating time-tested elements of democracy based on firmly held beliefs.

The practical difficulty in the US is that monied interests have the cash to buy media time to persuade the masses. Repetition of untruthful assertions and fearmongering are highly effective. Recruiting and inciting people into the dark side of politics is all too easy as the GOP has shown for decades. And yes, I’m taking sides.

This is my theory: From the view at 30,000 feet we can broadly divide thinking into two manifolds- analytical thinking and devotional thinking. Analytical thinking is that in which conclusions or practices are based on consideration of established secular principles, measurable evidence and the science behind cause and effect.

Devotional thinking is rationale based on adherence to doctrine- be it religious or political. A particular doctrine guides a person’s beliefs, emotions and actions or conclusions, maybe even in the face of contrary evidence.

Analytical thinking is my preference but it can go awry. Conclusions may be drawn from faulty evidence or previous thinking that is factually incorrect or poorly conceived. Worse, human thinking is subject to stranding in the cul-de-sac of confirmation bias. Many of us get stuck in this appealing comfort zone indefinitely. Beliefs or opinions are often cherished and difficult to release.

So, what do you say to a person who adheres to a belief that can be objectively contradicted with arguments based on data or rational analysis? How far along are we obliged to indulge a person in a faulty belief? Should we be supportive and encourage them to “stand up for what you believe” knowing full well that they are on a fool’s errand or their belief leads to actions troublesome for others?

This is where politics comes in as useful. In principle, poor thinking can be outvoted. A majority of poor thinkers with bad ideas is a problem as history shows. Assuring the survival of liberal democracy takes continual monitoring. Oh yes, the continuance of liberal democracy is axiomatic in my view.

No doubt this ground has been plowed by philosophers for centuries. But, I don’t call myself a philosopher.

Is it really our place to correct a person’s belief? Who am I to reset an adult’s thinking? If someone is operating on the basis of incorrect information, like a definition or a piece of data, it could be argued that correcting them would be an act of kindness. If someone is just full of harmless baloney, then perhaps they should be left to wander through life as is.

This situation has been part of the human condition forever. Everyone has the right to be an idiot now and then. But what happens when their idiocy becomes a problem for others or too self-destructive to stand by and watch in civil society?

Speaking for myself only, I’m inclined to ignore those who espouse ignorant or magical beliefs. I’ll steer clear of the flat-earthers or Baptists, for instance, as not worth the effort to engage. With homeopathy believers, in a moment of weakness I might engage with some words about basic chemical principles relating to dose/response relationships. With the anti-vaccine crowd … this a tough one. All too frequently I go non-linear and become scornful of those harboring misplaced fear or anger towards vaccination. I’ll start gibbering and sputtering if I don’t quit thinking about it.

Speaking of goofy beliefs, I’ve had a longstanding issue with most religions, the big 3 in particular. To me, standing up for something that derives from magical thinking and no evidence seems foolish. Writings of dubious origin and translated or edited over the millennia could be as source of fiction or a mixture of truth and fiction. Followers of religion operate under the belief that their religious doctrines are set in stone and are the basis for all moral behavior.

Religion finally boils down to being a theory of the universe. The big 3 religions have always struck me as transparently anthropomorphic rationalizations of the universe using iron age thinking. I used to engage with others on this for fun but it’s nothing but aggravation now.

Does science give us the ultimate view of the universe? We only get pieces of it directly. The universe most of us know is substantially based on our what our brains perceive via stimulation of the nervous system. What we can see is limited to a very narrow slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, maybe one octave wide. Light waves exist many octaves distant on either side of the visible range. On the high energy side, there is the gamma ray universe shining brightly from nuclear reactions in stars and other objects. On the low energy side is the radio universe shining away by larger scale mechanisms. Adjacent to the visible spectrum is the x-ray and ultraviolet spectrum. On the opposite side are infrared and microwaves. All can reveal insights based on how they interact with matter. We exploit imaging, spectroscopy and mathematics to understand the universe outside of the solar system.

But maybe the reality we experience is just a type of baseline hallucination that we think of as our “normal” consciousness.

Science is unable to help with the desire to know the supernatural. Science requires observation, quantification, measurement and analysis. I suppose that if you could start classifying and counting miracles per square kilometer, you could begin to understand the effects of location and type of miracle. Anyway …

Gosh. It seems that I’ve painted myself into a corner.

Chinese Espionage From Cuba

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This caught me by surprise. I have long suspected that Putin would establish a base in Cuba. Instead, the Chinese are working on it. According to the Financial Times, the Biden administration has disclosed that China has been conducting electronic espionage from Cuba since 2019. (This was reported by the Wall Street Journal 6/8/23, but the article is behind a paywall).

China’s spy balloon overflight of the US recently, if actually planned, was quite bold. They retort that US spy planes frequently fly along their borders. Setting up a spy base in Cuba has invaded what we have normally thought of as our back yard. What if China decides to conduct military training in the Gulf of Mexico? US territorial waters extend 12 nautical miles from shore. How should we react? The US supports Taiwan and has conducted military exercises in the waters between China and Taiwan. What would we have to stand on when we object?

Territorial waters. Credit: https://iilss.net/what-is-the-meaning-of-coast-in-law-of-the-sea-losc-and-customary-international-law/
Territorial and economic zone boundaries in the Gulf of Mexico. Credit: NOAA, https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/maps/gulf-data-atlas/atlas.htm?plate=Marine%20Jurisdictions

China has been cooperating with Cuba in terms of increasing trade including telecom and biotech. They are reportedly spending big money in the Port of Mariel.

China continues to aggressively spread its influence across the world while it continues to plead for “mutual trust and regional peace, stability and development.”

Plainly, China is aiming for economic and military hegemony around the world. Putin’s Ukrainian invasion blunder will take many years for Russia to recover from. What a post-Putin Russia looks like isn’t clear. Given the widespread intimidation and apathy of the population, the hope for a non-authoritarian Russia seems remote.

Meanwhile, as America dithers in its toxic pool of domestic politics and fratricide, China is moving to make the 21st century as China’s century. China must believe that we Americans are a bunch of f*ckin’ idiots. Maybe they’re right. Political conflict in the US has become too intoxicating and financially lucrative for rational governance.

Ball Sports. Pfft!

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It turns out that I have no aptitude at all for ball sports or dancing. My long suffering spouse has been forced to dance without me. My natural athletic abilities are concentrated on my uncanny ability to jump out of the way or just standing back. This proclivity is rich in survival benefits. For instance, I’ve never torn a ligament sliding into first base or cracked my head on the dance floor. Nor have I ever taken an elbow to the eye in basketball. No abrasions or grass stains from flag football either.

I do rather like to watch rugby though. I admire the pre-game Māori Haka demonstration for its drama and its sincere invitation to rumble. Hockey is another one I can watch at the game. The puck is always in motion. Unlike baseball, with hockey or rugby something is always happening. Even if a rugby player is injured, they continue to play around the body. I admire that.

Baseball games are just too damned long, even with the new rules. Ninety minutes should do it. They just stretch it out for concession sales. Some folks like to guzzle $9 utility beers and gnaw on $14 slices of pizza to the sound of old timey organ music. I can go maybe once a season, but more? Nope.

Watching golf is a colossal snooze fest. I do enjoy watching chess matches though- even that is more exciting than golf. And the muted voices of the announcers as if they have to keep their voices low. Gimme a break. Golf is for idlers. It is a meaningless difficult task. I understand that golf is hard. I just don’t care. My conception of hell involves watching golf in church.

Basketball? If you can dunk the ball, the hoop is just too low. For crying out loud. Enough said.

NFL football? Good gravy. I just watch the last 5 minutes. The manufactured gladiator drama pitting millionaires against each other is just nauseating. And the guys delivering the play-by-play color in the background yammering on about failed strategy as if randomness had no part in it. With all of the rules, it is nearly a technology, not a game.

Soccer? Good grief. Need I say it?

Ok, time to come clean. It isn’t the sports so much as it is the immense crowds at these live events. I truly despise being in a crowd. In fairness, the crowd probably despises me back.

Hydrogen and its Spin

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Atomic hydrogen (the major isotope protium) is the simplest, lightest and most abundant neutral atom in the universe. Molecular hydrogen, H2, is the simplest neutral molecule in the universe. Seems very simple. Well, hold on. Turns out that molecular hydrogen has two distinct forms and it relates to the business of nuclear spin.

Quantum mechanics (QM) is a basket of wavy weirdness. It is a model of the universe at the atomic and nuclear levels that is wildly different from the larger scale Newtonian universe of colliding billiard balls we humans casually observe. The QM model of the microscopic universe dates back to the early 1900’s and has been endlessly supported by experimental data, and it continues to surprise to this day. One of the fundamental QM quantities is ‘spin.’

Fundamental particles like electrons and protons have something referred to as spin angular momentum. In the larger scale Newtonian universe spinning is something that we equate with an object that is rotating about an axis. Protons have a measurable diameter- it is a finite sized object with mass, charge and spin. Electrons have mass, charge and spin also. However, electrons do not have a measurable size. They appear to be a point charge. So, how does an electron with no measurable size actually spin? What is it that spins? A point of clarification: Quantum spin has nothing to do with a rotating internal mass. It is a quantized wave property expressed in units the same as classical angular momentum (N·m·s, J·s, or kg·m2·s−1). So, what the hell is quantum spin?

Spin angular momentum was inferred experimentally by the Stern-Gerlach experiment, which was first conducted in 1922. In this experiment, silver atoms were passed through a magnetic field gradient towards a photographic plate. Particles with no magnetic moment** would pass straight through unaffected. Particles with non-zero magnetic moment would be deflected by the magnetic field. In the experiment, the photographic plate revealed two distinct beams rather than a continuous distribution. The results indicate that the magnetic moment was quantized into two states. The magnetic moment at the time was thought to be due to the literal spinning of an electrically charged particle. They deduced that there were two spin configurations- i.e., they were quantized.

Schematic of the Stern-Gerlach experiment. Credit: https://www.youklab.org/teaching/mites_2010/mites2010_quantumSlides.pdf

If you want to go deeper down the QM rabbit hole, be my guest. We’ll go forward with the notion of spin up and spin down. You’ll see how it works.

Atomic Hydrogen- Things Get Sciency

First, let’s look at a neutral hydrogen atom made of a proton and an orbiting electron. Both particles have spin and each can be in one of two states relative to the other- parallel and antiparallel or simply spin up and spin down for the sake of illustration. The spin combinations are up-up and down-up as shown in the figure below. Think of the arrows as bar magnets, so up-up would be two magnets with the north poles in parallel and the down-up would be bar magnets with magnetic poles facing opposite directions, or antiparallel. The arrangement where the magnets are aligned with identical poles in the same direction is less energetically favorable than when they are antiparallel. Since it is energetically down-hill, the up-up will want to flip to down-up or antiparallel lower energy state. The energy difference is lost as radio frequency radiation in the microwave band.

A spin flip to lower energy level results in the emission of a 1420 MHz (21 cm wavelength) radio frequency emission. This can be detected by a radio telescope though with some difficulty due to poor signal to background noise. Credit: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/h21.html

The spin transition energy is 9.411708152678(13)×10−25 Joules. Regions of space with more intense 21 cm radiation are thought to be regions of greater hydrogen atom abundance. These regions can be examined for redshifting to give clues about relative motion in space. The spiral structure of the Milky Way galaxy was discovered with 21 cm radio observations.

Molecular Hydrogen, H2

Molecular hydrogen consists of two hydrogen atoms that share a pair of electrons which provide the bonding force. The two electrons spend a finite amount of time between the protons canceling the repulsive force between them. It’s called a sigma bond. So far, so good. The bond is springy so the molecule can/does vibrate.

An unfortunate reality of chemistry– Like most topics, the more background you have on a chemistry principle, the more unifying and elegant it becomes. This means that sharing the beauty of the molecular world is a little more difficult that many would like. I regret this most sincerely. Most freshman chemistry involves balancing equations and PV=nRT math. Necessary but not always captivating. Freshman chemistry is much like the Hobbit in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It’s a necessary prelude.

First, a Dive Down the QM Rabbit Hole

Ok. I couldn’t ignore the QM rabbit hole. The two electrons of an H-H bond must have opposite spins in order to form a covalent bond. An orbital represents a specific occupancy space for one or two electrons around an atom or molecule. They are places, not physical objects. The atomic orbital model is a mathematical construct based on spherical harmonics to define the shapes of space that electrons will occupy around the nucleus, depending on their energy and quantum numbers. The likelihood of finding an electron is wavelike within a region of space.

Two electrons can occupy one orbital if they have opposite spins. It’s referred to as spin pairing. (Note: I posted on the orbital stuff a few posts back.) This hard and fast rule of antiparallel spins occupying the same orbital is formalized by the Pauli Exclusion Principle. The Pauli Principle says specifically that “no two fermions with half-integral spins can occupy the same quantum state within the same quantum system“. Electrons are fermions and the upshot is that only 2 electrons of antiparallel spin can occupy a single orbital. If two or more orbitals of equal energy level are available, the electrons will occupy separate orbitals with the same spin. The manner of the filling of orbitals with electrons is covered by Hund’s Rule.

Finally, QM gives a number to an electron’s spin- the spin quantum number. According to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, two electrons in a single orbital must have different half-integral quantum spin numbers: +/- 1/2, or antiparallel- to occupy the same orbital space.

Credit: Wikipedia.

Because the two H-H electrons are spin paired, there is no net spin from them. However, the protons are a different matter. Their spins can be parallel (up-up or down-down) or anti-parallel (up-down). The anti-parallel spins cancel to give no net proton spin to the H-H. But, in the case of spin parallel, the H-H molecule definitely has net spin.

Spin Isomers of H-H. Credit: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spin_isomers_of_hydrogen

The spin parallel H-H molecules are called orthohydrogen and spin antiparallel H-H molecules are called parahydrogen. They are referred to as spin isomers or allotropes and are each distinct substances. There can be interconversion from orthohydrogen to parahydrogen molecules. The transition does not emit radiation, but it is exothermic. The parahydrogen is more stable by 1.455 kiloJoules (kJ/mol) per mole. Heating hydrogen will bring the composition to a maximum of 25 % ortho to 75 % para. When hydrogen is liquified, there is a slow conversion of ortho to para. It is worth noting that the enthalpy of evaporation of normal hydrogen (1:3 ortho to para) is 0.904 kJ/mol which is smaller than the 1.091 kJ/mole for 1:3 ortho to para conversion enthalpy for “normal” hydrogen. The conversion of orthohydrogen to parahydrogen in liquid form is exothermic and can result in hydrogen boil-off, leading to hydrogen loss and possibly causing a hazardous pressure rise. Those who regularly handle liquid hydrogen must be aware of this phenomenon. Orthohydrogen can also be catalytically converted to parahydrogen by contact with certain substances like ferric oxide, chromic oxide as well as several materials.

** Magnetic moment (from Wikipedia): magnetic moment is the magnetic strength and orientation of a magnet or other object that produces a magnetic field.

Global oil demand growth to flatten in 2028

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The International Energy Agency (IEA) is predicting that growth in annual demand for crude oil will shrink from 2.8 million barrels per day to 0.4 million barrels per day by 2028. This is interpreted to be the result of the global shift to cleaner energy alternatives as well as high prices and security of supply issues. By 2028 IEA says that peak oil demand may be in sight.

IEA also predicts that the use of oil for transport fuels will go into decline by 2026. Many more insights into the global oil market are to be found in the link.

Note that this report is about oil, not natural gas.

Expelling Women from Pastoral Duty

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Latest news from the Baptists. At the 2023 Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in New Orleans a move is underway to expel almost 2000 women from pastoral functions in its churches. A general vote will take place this week.

Apparently, the right wing of the SBC wants to crack down on what it sees as a liberal shift in its membership. Ultraconservatives believe that women pastors are just the beginning of future acceptance of homosexuality and sexual immorality. The ultraconservative fraction of American evangelism has been melding with Republican politics for decades since President Reagan and Jerry Falwell.

Pastor Mike Law from Arlington Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia, wrote a letter suggesting an amendment to the SBC constitution stating that a church could only be regarded as Southern Baptist if it “does not affirm, appoint or employ a woman as a pastor of any kind.” The 111 page letter co-signed by 2000 male pastors and professors. Law cites 1 Tim. 3:1–7; Titus 1:5–9 in the Bible as backing up his assertion of the role of women in the church.

The language of these verses do not explicitly declare women as ineligible as an “overseer”, but they state that the overseer must be a “husband of only one wife“. The rest of the language goes on to list a number of personal qualities that an overseer must have.

I’m obviously not a Biblical scholar nor a believer in magic. Furthermore, this is a private matter among Baptists. Actually, it amuses me to watch them agonizing over how to polish the big brass knob on the doorway to their hoped for afterlife.

What I do care about is that this is a major setback for women in the 13 million member SBC organization. It imposes an inherent subordination on females based on the assertions of males who have appointed themselves in charge based on their literalist interpretations.

The text that they cite was written in a time when women were mere chattel who were deemed lesser than men. People get so wrapped up trying to do biblical things in biblical ways that they forget the core humane purpose of the church.

Worse than the unreasonable restraints on SBC women is how it will validate the woefully misguided instincts of the ultraorthodox Baptists as they spread into the greater population through politics. They want a theocratic state where people like themselves will rule under “biblical law”. They’re going to be disappointed.

Ivory Coast Cocoa and Cashews

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A report from Reuters reveals that due to heavy rains in the Ivory Coast, cocoa production is under threat of flooding, insect damage and disease from heavy rain this rainy season. Ivory Coast is the world’s largest producer of cocoa.

Credit: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_production_in_Ivory_Coast

The Ivory Coast cashew industry is on the verge of collapse following the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in farm overproduction and slumping demand. Industrial buyers of cashews have stalled in their purchasing of cashews from farmers due to low demand globally. Farmers are stuck with unsold produce from the last 2 seasons due to the lack of industrial demand.

Credit: Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cashew

Ivory Coast is the leading producer of cashew nuts in the world with 792,678 metric tons of output in 2019. This is closely followed by India with 743,000 metric tons of output the same year. These two countries have a solid lead over the next largest producers in Burundi, Viet Nam and Philippines with 2019 productions of 283,328, 283,328, and 242,329 metric tons respectively.