I’m posting a photograph of a burned gasoline pump. I don’t see how there could be any socially redeeming value to this post. It is just something to gawk at and ponder. This is a pump I have used for years. It’s like an old friend has perished.
I’ve found that when things look wildly complex, stepping back and rebuilding from basic principles sometimes helps. We live in a noisy and troubled time. Electronic media has amplified everyone’s voice and connectivity. People are naturally attracted to negativity and many are happy to stir the pot for the wrong reasons.
At present it is popular in conservative circles to publicly accuse liberals of being “woke”. The public figures who hurl this “accusation” do so with the vote-seeking intent of demeaning individuals and groups by highlighting a contrast. Wokeness is conflated with excessive permissiveness, moral fragility, feeble mindedness, wasted money and ill-informed generosity with those who are purportedly undeserving. It is a rhetorical device that paints a picture of “us vs them”. Woke is taken to be counter to the longstanding ideal of meritocracy.
The definition and background of “woke” can be found in Wikipedia. Broadly speaking it refers to being aware of social inequalities. Lately it has been transmogrified into an epithet. But is it really a recent phenomenon? I would say “no”. It is in part a recent variant of long-standing conservative doctrine. That would be the libertarian notion that government should not commit resources to the poor and disadvantaged. To take resources from people already outraged by federal governance and taxation and then redistribute it to the needy is regarded as theft and a violation of our freedom and liberty and is, ultimately, un-American.
To be woke is to be aware of social inequity- past, present and future. Reading, talking to people, empathizing and thinking can and will make a person woke. The study of history reveals, among other things, the human brutality that was common in the past. The history of mankind reveals repeated episodes of conquest, persecution, slavery and mass slaughter. We humans have devised a wide variety of brutal and hideous ways of killing each other- from stabbing, hanging, shooting, clubbing, drowning, electrocuting, poisoning and starving. Our clever species is good at inventing and using weaponry to help fulfill the urge to dominate.
Others may view history and current affairs differently. They may see social Darwinism at work where the unfit are destined to fall to the wayside and die out. Holding a predilection to dominate may be seen as simply survival of the fittest. It is only natural they’ll say. And that is true, it is natural. But there is an avoidable dark side. The current example is in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He wants to Russify the former Soviet states. His public rationale is to recover what he believes was once a “Great” Russian empire. In exchange for the government staying out of their lives, Russian citizens have agreed to stay out of politics. Look at what’s happened. Putin has constructed a power base and is building an empire the old-fashioned way- by a scorched earth invasion. This is a kind of social Darwinism at play, but at a terrible cost. Social equity is not in the equation.
To be against social equity is quite easy. Simple ignorance of facts or the shape of one’s belief structure is all it takes. But the lack of civility and compassion in people is far more than a simple shortage of facts. It is one thing to be merely ignorant of facts. It is quite another thing to remain ignorant in the presence of fact. The idea of social equity stands on the merits of being kind to fellow beings.
I’m not able to come up with a mathematically concise rationale on the merits of being kind based on just the laws of physics. The inanimate universe has no empathy or consciousness. Numerous religions present kindness as an expression of the divine. But religion can venture into the idea that we should be kind because the Deity says so. Being kind to one’s fellow man because the Deity says so and backs it with the threat of eternal punishment rings of insincerity and action under duress. It more resembles the Deity in the image of man by way of a theological Stockholm Syndrome. What underpinnings are there for the existence of a secular kindness for its own sake without the threat of supernatural punishment?
This is a topic for another day. Today I do not have an answer for a secular basis for kindness. I’m sure someone has already cracked this nut. That said, good ideas are where you find them and for that we can look to the past.
Pleas for kindness have been made early on, notably in religious writings such as in the Book of Matthew, 5:3-12. These are the Beatitudes-
3Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the Earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be satisfied.
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called the Sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Whether you believe in a Deity or not, aligning with the gentleness suggested by the Beatitudes is at the center of what wokeness means. What in the hell is wrong with this?? Even if you are a secular bugger like me, there is tremendous sensibility here. If this is woke, then I’m woke.
If you have the chance sometime, ask a fan of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis or Lauren Boebert what precisely is wrong with the kindness inherent in being woke? What sort of hold do these public figures have on us that leads us to be against something as humane as wokeness? Are we such a simpletons that these people can lead us around by the nose by cynically rousing anger and hatred in us.
It is true that wokeness can have extreme elements that may be difficult or impossible to attain. Progressives have been known to have a utopian bent just like libertarians have had, only in the opposite direction. We should realize that wokeness is a direction, not a place. It’s a big challenge for some folks. Just remember, it is possible to eat an elephant, but with one bite at a time. Let’s start lunch with basic kindness and build from there.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) is a primary source of data relating to global petroleum and distillate use. It follows production, transport and prices. In addition to supplying data, they provide some interpretation of the global picture. There is so much BS circulating about fuel costs that a credible source of information is welcome.
Oil tankers come in two varieties- clean and dirty. A clean tanker hauls low-sulfur distillates. A dirty tanker hauls crude oil. Since the invasion of Ukraine, tanker shipments from Russia to the west have fallen off and longer voyage shipments have increased. This has increased the cost of transport and floating storage of petroleum and distillates. In the time between February 2022 and November 2022, Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) rates from the Middle East to the US Gulf Coast (USGC) have more than tripled. The rates from USGC to Rotterdam have increased from $8.00 to more than $27.00 per metric ton. Rates of shipments on Suezmax ships have also tripled. Dirty tanker rates from Russian ports in the Baltic and Black Sea have gone up due to increased insurance rates. Also, add to all of this the increased cost of bunker fuel for longer voyages.
Shipments of LPG (propane) have been delayed by long waiting times for passage through the Panama Canal. Congestion at the Neopanamax locks has led to increased scarcity of Very Large Gas Carriers (VLGC). Propane is both a fuel and an industrial feedstock. Propane is dehydrogenated to propylene and used for the production of polypropylene. Propane is also a fuel whose demand is highly seasonal with greatest demand in the winter months. VLGCs in the Middle East are drawn out of the area by better rates in the US, creating scarcity there.
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.
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.
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.
It was announced that a US company will be supplying critical components for Electric Vehicle (EV) batteries to Panasonic. Redwood Materials, Inc., is set to supply EV battery cathode components from its facility in Kansas City. Redwood Materials was founded to close the battery recycle loop by JB Straubel. Straubel was a co-founder and former CTO of Tesla.
A lithium-ion battery doesn’t just rely on lithium. Other substances work together with lithium and the whole composition will vary between manufacturers. The Wikipedia entry for lithium-ion batteries lists the Panasonic cathode material as LiNiCoAlO2. Panasonic works in cooperation with Tesla to supply batteries using Lithium Nickel Cobalt Aluminum Oxide cathode batteries. As alluded to above, Redwood will be supplying cathodes made of recycled battery materials.
The lithium battery electrolyte is almost always contains a lithium salt such as LiPF6, lithium hexafluorophosphate, in a non-aqueous organic carbonate electrolyte like ethylene or propylene carbonate. These two carbonates function as high boiling, polar aprotic dispersants. The substances are cyclic carbonate ester compounds and have a high dielectric constant. The high dielectric constant means that the molecules are polar enough to coordinate Li+ ions to aid in electrolyte mobilization of the Li salt. The electrolyte may also contain a solvent like diethyl carbonate to decrease viscosity and lower the melting point. The PF6 anion is a large, charge diffuse, weakly coordinating anion that helps keep the lithium cation mobilized and loosely bound in the polar aprotic carbonate solution. This anion is inert enough and lends solubility in organic solvents making it useful for many applications. Ammonium salts with PF6 anion are often used as ionic liquids. Weakly coordinating anions are used to allow the corresponding cation to be partially unsolvated and therefore more available for reaction chemistry.
Both in producing power and in recharge, when electrons are being passed around between chemical species and changing oxidation states, it means that chemical changes are occurring. When chemical changes (reactions) are happening, it means that heat is being absorbed or evolved. In the emission of heat, the amount of heat energy per second (power) produced can be large or small. It is critical that the temperature of the battery not exceed the boiling point of the lowest boiling component which may be the carbonate dispersant, as in ethylene carbonate (bp 243 C) or viscosity modifier like diethyl carbonate (bp 126 C). A liquid phase internal to the battery flashing to vapor can overpressure the casing and rupture the battery. A liquid changing into a vapor phase wants to increase its volume by from ~650 to 900 times or beyond. To make matters worse, a chemical reaction generally doubles its rate with every 10 degrees C of temperature rise. Runaway reactions generate runaway heat production.
Lithium batteries have flammable components such as ethylene carbonate (flash point 150 C) and diethyl carbonate (flash point 33 C) that could be discharged and ignited if the battery bursts open, possibly leading to ignition of the surroundings, be it in your pants pocket or in the cargo hold of a passenger aircraft.
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.
Forward
This article amounts to a plea to analytical chemists, supervisors, and organizations who use perchloric acid to make the effort to understand its reaction chemistry, as an acid or salt, and the peculiarities of the numerous mixtures used in analytical sample digestion. If your organization uses standard methods of digestion via one of the many acid mixtures and temperatures, it behooves your organization to have at least one individual on site who understands a bit more than just the procedure. If there is an incident of some kind involving perchloric acid, be it a spill, splash, or worse, having a grasp of the real hazard presented before you is useful. It is possible to underreact or overreact to any given incident scenario.
I am not an analyst. My interest is to understand reactive chemical hazards and devise means for preventing the transition from hazard to danger. Whether someone uses perchloric acid or not makes no difference to me. I have no investment in perchloric acid. However, I’m greatly interested in users being informed.
Comments on Safety Training
Safety training is commonly executed as a result of company policy where documentation of satisfactory completion is collected and filed. For lab chemists this includes training sessions on chemical storage, fire safety, fire extinguisher training, hazardous waste practices and regulations, storm water regulations, company safety and health SOP training, building evacuation, general lab safety, and perhaps basic first aid.
Often safety training sessions are canned professional video presentations or a corporate home brew of PowerPoint slide shows followed by some Q&A and a quiz. It is what I refer to as infotainment. Attendees may watch a video with dramatized incidents while the voiceover describes what should have happened. This approach is not without merit or some success, but this passive approach may not be of lasting value. Furthermore, it is a very sketchy assumption that such passive training will result in proper decision making in an off-normal circumstance where hazard may transition to danger.
The military has solved this problem long ago by mastering the art of the drill. They realize that if you need people to respond in a particular way rapidly, they have to be trained and drilled. In times of peace, the military has the opportunity to train and drill to maintain operational readiness. This is one way to address the difficult problem of low probability, high consequence scenarios. Industry as a whole, however, may not inclined to offer a lot of free time to dedicate to training. Man-hours in drills subtract from productivity. In my opinion, much of industrial management suffers from a lack of imagination in this matter. Safety training and drills are cost overhead. But, what you lack in training hours may be made up for by effective mentoring.
We live in the age of OSHA regulations. Of importance to the process industry is Process Safety Management or PSM. The mission of OSHA is copied and pasted below.
With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.
The Wikipedia link below gives an excellent summary of OSHA regulations relating to the chemical process industry. PSM in 29 CFR §1910.119 titled Process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals, is a regulatory framework covering all aspects of safety management and threshold quantities (Appendix A) of highly hazardous materials. Whether your facility is operating at the PSM scale of operation or not, employers have a duty to assure a safe operating environment for their employees. In my view, PSM regulations frame a safety mindset and diligence that is useful outside of PSM reach. Given that a debilitating injury, fatality, explosion or major fire will bring the unblinking eye of regulators and possible litigation, sensible practices found in 29 CFR §1910.119 that are woven into your chemical safety SOPs are in the direction of goodness. Again, this is my view and should not be construed as legal advice. Your chemical safety plan is your responsibility alone.
Finally, a word to lab managers and supervisors. I cannot point to a ancient stone or a law of nature that commands that leaders be effective instructors and mentors. But I can throw an idea on the table which is that as a senior employee in a supervisory role, you have a moral obligation to your charges to make sure that they practice their art with diligence and in a safe manner. The best way I know of is to train staff thoroughly in lab operations and have high expectations of your staff. Management by wandering around can be very effective in maintaining discipline and keeping tabs on your shop. Besides, you should be walking around and asking questions anyway.
HClO4 – The Meat and Potatoes
There is much to know about the chemistry of perchloric acid digestion beyond it’s renowned acidity and explosive potential. Appreciating the corrosivity and close adherence to standard laboratory techniques are necessary but not always enough. One such circumstance begging for informed action is method development. In researching this topic I was a little surprised to find that many important details are buried in the primary literature. Worse, a few key references are downright difficult to obtain. By important details, I mean whatever information might help define the safe operating window for a given digestion, or, better put, under what circumstances might a digestion procedure transition from hazardous to dangerous.
The major supplier of perchloric acid and perchlorate salts in the USA is GFS Chemicals in Powell, OH. The founder of this company, G. Frederick Smith was, and remains posthumously through his writings, a top authority on the properties of this acid and numerous perchlorate salts as the result of his many decades of research. Laboratory quantities of perchloric acid can be had from GFS and the usual group of research chemical suppliers.
It is easy to find MSDS data and exemplar laboratory safety guides on your browser detailing sensible storage and use policy. Several found in google-space stand out in my opinion as comprehensive perchloric acid safety documents and SOP’s; UC Berkeley; Boston University; MIT; Harvard; British Columbia Code for Mines to name a few. Again, this is my opinion- form your own. If your perchloric acid “policy” is limited to an MSDS document and perhaps a few safety statements found in a procedure, then I would urge someone in your organization to take it upon themselves to dig in a little deeper. Generate SOPs for all aspects of the perchloric acid life cycle in your facility.
There are many accounts of incidents with perchloric acid that should convince even the most refractory skeptic of the potential for a violent release of energy. There is a perchloric acid incident that stands out as an example of the dangers of a chemical ignorance. It happened February 20, 1947, when a large and violent explosion killed 17 people and led the city of Los Angeles to specifically bar the use of perchloric acid (1) through numerous sections of it’s zoning code.
The most common laboratory use of perchloric acid is in the analytical digestion of samples containing a matrix of organic matter, sludge, tissue, biomass or organic chemicals. There are a great many lab procedures to be found by an internet search including Chemical Abstracts (CAS), the AOAC Official Methods of Analysis manual, and ASTM relating to HClO4. Numerous policy and prudent practices documents can be downloaded from well established institutions that outline some very sensible policies regarding the storage, use, and disposal of HClO4. One particularly good source for sample digestion methods across the periodic table is from Inorganic Ventures. Kudos to Dr. Paul Gaines and this company for the quality of their products and their willingness to share their expertise in trace element analysis.
A search of Chemical Abstracts will turn up many research papers giving digestion procedures in the experimental section. However, it is not often made clear how the workers came upon their particular digestion conditions other than from a reference in an earlier procedure. This is because these papers are about the use and not about the chemistry of digestion. Most of the procedure writers will have done their diligence and provide warning about hazards. What may be omitted within papers that use the HClO4 procedure are the boundaries of safe operation and how the reactivity may vary with concentration and temperature.
For greater detail one must look elsewhere and well back into the 20th century. Much useful information on HClO4 and its salts is to be found in papers from the 1930’s thru the 1970’s. Because of their energetic properties, the propellant and explosives folks usually expand on energetic materials including perchlorates, and yes, they go into some great and admirable detail (2). However these sources tend to be thermochemical in nature and perhaps not a lot of immediate help to a bench chemist.
Unlike many other reagents in the laboratory, perchloric acid can have a downside with immediate negative safety consequences. In particular, if one is aiming to develop a digestion procedure for a new type of sample, say, something with a mixed organic/inorganic matrix or certain heteroatoms compounds with nitrogen or sulfur, it behooves the chemist to take a serious interest in rooting out information about the safe operating boundaries of perchloric acid and what kinds of materials may be problematic. A perchloric acid MSDS will inform you of potential safety hazards, hazard classifications, etc., but a well researched and validated procedure can go far towards keeping you out of trouble. I would recommend that at least one person at your organization be more thoroughly educated in the chemistry of perchloric acid digestion, or wet ashing as it is called. Unlike some other strong acids, contact with organics may have immediate explosive consequences. And by explosive I mean violent, deafening, shrapnel-blasting detonations. Hazardous contact can include contact of hot concentrated acid on paper, on sample material, or even contact of perchloric acid vapor on a gloved hand passing through fumes.
There are some particularly comprehensive and broadly informative publications covering perchloric acid chemistry. A more recent work by John Long (3) of GFS is particularly insightful in regard to drawing a line between perchlorate salts and perchloric acid. The 1960 publication Perchlorates: Their properties, manufacture, and uses by J.C. Schumacher (4) contains an informative chapter (Ch 11) on perchloric acid safety. Perhaps the most useful reference is a book available from GFS (5) or Amazon titled Perchloric Acid and Perchlorates, by A.A. Schilt. The 2nd edition in particular contains a great many useful references.
On heating at ambient pressure, aqueous perchloric acid will concentrate by distillation to a constant boiling azeotrope of 72.5 % HClO4 and water. At this composition its number of waters of hydration is slightly greater than two. In the climb from ca 160 °C to a bp of 203 °C at 1 atm, the 72.5 % acid will transition from being “just” a hot super acid to a super acid and a potent oxidizer.
In the gas phase, this acid can decompose via a radical pathway leading to the evolution of Cl2, O2, H2O either abruptly or after an time interval (6). Note that when something quite hot abruptly decomposes to a greater number of moles of gaseous products, there can be plenty of potential for destructive pressure effects.
For the uninitiated, HClO4 is a “super” mineral acid capable of complete dissociation in aqueous concentrations up to about 4 molar (7). The dissociated form in water is H3O+ ClO4-, or oxonium perchlorate. This is normal Brønsted acid behavior in water, but three things set this acid apart from others, even nitric acid: i) due to the extremely weak coordinating ability of the perchlorate anion, the acid proton is extraordinarily mobile and reactive; ii) at room temperature the anhydrous acid will at some point spontaneously explode; and iii) in concentrated aqueous form at elevated temperatures, say > 160 ºC, the acid becomes an increasingly potent oxidizer with temperature.
The perchlorate anion has a central chlorine atom, formally +7, that sits in a tetrahedral array of four O2- anions to make it anionic. On average the negative charge is spread over the surface of the symmetric anion making the negative charge diffuse with the enthalpy of formation unfavorable to close ion pairing. The perchlorate anion is only weakly attracted to a given cation like H3O+ or oligomers and as such, allows the H3O+ (or larger clusters) to reside in a solvent shell unencumbered by tight ion pairing, depending on the nature of the solvent. Perchlorate salts can have very high water solubility and, in the case of magnesium perchlorate, serve as an excellent desiccant. One exception to the high solubility of perchlorates is potassium perchlorate at only 1.5 g per 100 mL H2O at 25 °C.
Ok, I’ll just come out with it and say that I’m a big fan of YouTube. Amidst the large population of silly or stupid videos is a wealth of quite well-done amateur presentations on science and technology. Some favorites are Itchy Boots, Periodic Videos, Sabine Hossenfelder, Mount Baker Mining and Metals (MBMM), UATV, and many more.
In this post I’ll feature a particularly well-done group of videos on precious metals prospecting, milling and smelting. The producer of this content is Jason Gaber at Mount Baker Mining and Metals, MBMM. The website says that Jason is a geophysicist. His company manufactures small-scale industrial grade equipment for the processing of ore. He produces videos that show how things are done in prospecting, mining, and even smelting. His videos give long, lingering views of the milling and smelting processes in operation. I was interested in particular in the process of cupellation, which has always been a bit of a mystery.
Gold ore is dropped into a crusher then pulverized to millimeter-size with a hammer mill. The finely divided ore is then fed onto a shaker table for separation by density with flowing water. The shaker table is a mechanical separation method that allows the isolation of metal fines without chemical processing methods. No cyanide or mercury here. The only waste materials are the pulverized ore tailings.
Editorial comment: To be sure, there is nothing innocent about ore tailings. The large surface area along with the presence of sulfides and water allow air to oxidize the sulfur to strong mineral acid and accelerate the leaching of hazardous metals into streams over the long term. It is very damaging to wildlife and municipalities that draw water from the stream and rivers. Water pollution is a problem all around the American West. Metals are forever.
The smelting videos are interesting for a chemist to watch. Jason uses his knowledge of pyrometallurgy to extract the values and partition impurities away from the target metal. Of course, chemists will recognize this as high temperature inorganic chemistry. Before watching this, I had a poor understanding of the importance of fluxes and slag. Jason quantitatively formulates custom fluxes to fit the problem as he sees it. He uses iron bars for redox processes to change the chemical composition of the melt and give a better partitioning of components.
The goal in smelting is to get a clean separation of the metal value from the ore by partitioning between liquid phases. Lead is often used as a “collector” metal to accumulate reduced metal species as a separate liquid phase on the bottom of the melt. The upper slag phase is a complex mixture of the ore matrix material and contains silicates, aluminates, and a dog’s lunch of other undesirable substances. And. not all metals are miscible or highly soluble in the collector phase, so there is some art in this.
Jason also discusses matte and how to deal with it. Matte is frequently discussed in 19th century works on gold smelting, but this was before atomic theory or sophisticated analytical chemistry. Matte was something to place in a reverberatory furnace and calcine. Sulfides in the matte were converted to oxides and gold residues.
Cupellation is a technique that he uses in the final isolation of gold, silver or PGMs from the collector metal. At the scale of material handling Jason works with, a small cupel and a muffle furnace is all that is necessary for this step. Cupellation for gold isolation was described by Agricola in the 16th century. The lead collector mass selectively oxidizes to the PbO, or litharge, and diffuses into the cupel leaving behind the precious metal. Cupels were formerly made of bone ash or other materials that will not combine with the molten PbO to produce a viscous layer that would prevent seeping of the PbO into the container. This is also how gold was isolated in the old days by the assay office to determine the gold content of ore samples. Today several methods are available to assayers, including x-ray fluorescence.
Lamentations on Chemistry 