July 23, 2023

Needs to be done. Ugly history needs visibility or else it repeats

Ugly history is not exposed and taught to shame anybody living, most especially if main participants are dead.

Ugly history is given visibility so that it is recognized as mistakes that should not be repeated.

If anybody is in the act of, or in the process of, repeating ugly history, then they should be first taught, so that they know and then shamed. If it is obvious that they should know (elected person, post-secondary education, leadership role, etc.) then they should be shamed right off. But not by grade school teachers, for example.

We (progressives of all colours) get it that (especially) white people feel sometimes (some of them feel it oftentimes), feel sometimes that they are being blamed for the actions of dead people, especially when reparations are discussed and when grade school curricula are being discussed. Reparations are a thorny issue but grade school curricula is not inherently thorny. Only when adult perceptions and grievances are layered over facts does it get contentious.

Adult feelings do not trump facts.

July 21, 2023

He needs to be alive to be convicted so that other wanna-be despots don't try the same thing

tRump skated all his life and thought he could slide through this one too.

If he dies before he is convicted, magats will gain followers by saying he was murdered before he could prove his innocence.

July 15, 2023

It would be election interference to delay it. Voters have a right to information, especially trial

Trial info is the best, because it is under penalty of perjury, and is cross-examined.

July 15, 2023

Adrenochrome is synthesized. Nobody killing children; big magat handler need to manufacture outrage

Artificially produced since 1952 (synthesis) or 1965 (manufacture):

Schayer, Richard W. (1952). "Synthesis of dl-Adrenalin-?-C14 and dl-Adrenochrome-?-C14". Journal of the American Chemical Society. ACS Publications. 74 (9): 2441. doi:10.1021/ja01129a531. Archived from the original on 25 October 2022. Retrieved 25 October 2022.

"Method of synthesizing adrenochrome monoaminoguanidine". Google Patents. 1965. Archived from the original on 16 October 2021. Retrieved 25 October 2022.

July 11, 2023

It might be, might be, good if tRump is GOP nominee at convention and convicted a week later

At some point, tRump will be

A) Indicted nominee.

or
B) Convicted nominee.

or
C) Shut out of GOP and running a MAGAt party third-party campaign.

None of those scenarios is good for GOP. Their best hope is that he is convicted before the convention so that they can shut him out.

If he is convicted between the convention and the Nov 2024 election, while their nominee, that would probably be the worst for the GOP. They would not be able to dump him and shove in a different nominee without tortuous convulsions.

There is a significant possibility that the Grumpy Old People party might become a dead-man-walking party after 2024.

July 8, 2023

No, being wasteful is a shitty thing to do. More shit trucked around is more warming

(This whole post is written about nobody in particular and millions of people in general.)

Being wasteful like that on a dozen things a day adds up to a lot of shit trucked to the stores and waste trucked to landfills. Repeat that day in day out is a bunch of fuel that didn't have to get converted to CO2.

The amount of avoidable waste involved in hair spray cans, half-eaten food, discarded clothing that is ten minutes out of fashion, kitchen appliances that got a little stain, and so many examples average people indulge is mountainous.

Just because a person can afford to be wasteful doesn't make it moral. It is immoral. Wanting to flaunt conspicuous consumption as a status symbol is immoral.

If a person thinks they can't finish a muffin, then break it apart first and give half to someone who can finish it or needs it. Share!

If people think "oh, don't have a fit, it is just a half muffin", yeah all those muffins and half empty plastic bottles and half eaten takeout food piles up day after day and is multiplied by the millions of people who do that.

If you are out and about and can't eat all of a purchased item, wait until you are hungry enough to eat it all. The kind of self-indulgence that is wasteful is ultimately destructive.

Go look at a landfill or municipal composting facility or recycling facility and realize that the flow into them gets reduced one item at a time. Do the right thing with each item you purchase and you'll do your part.

Don't make oligarchs ultra-rich when you purchase stuff you don't need or use fully.

(speaking about people generally)

July 7, 2023

Should not be. It's miniscule, lost in the noise. 8320 global warming vs 44.4 heat

I'll grant you it's easier to hand-wave than to calculate.

Fuel type MJ/litre MJ/kg
87 Octane Gasoline 32.0 44.4[4]

Carbon dioxide (CO2) 417 ppm (up 50% from 280) 1130 TW increase

The atmosphere has a mass of about 5.15×10^18 kg. That's 5,150 followed by 15 zeroes.

CO2 is 0.042% of atmosphere, and that is up 50% from about 0.028%. About half of CO2 is ultimately absorbed or converted, so there needs to be a factor of 2. We multiply the difference in percent by 2.

417-280 = 137. Multiply by 2 = 274 parts per million injected into the atmosphere.

So 5.15 x 10^18 x 274 / 1,000,000 = 1.41 * 10^15 kg of CO2 caused 1130 TWatt increase in warming.

1130 * 10^12 W / 1.41 * 10^15 kg = 8 W per kg C02.

1 kg of gasoline produces 3.30 kg of CO2. That is 26.4 Watts of global warming from the emissions.

Watts measure power. Power exerted over a period of time is energy. 1 watt for one hour = 0.0036 Mega Joules of energy of heat retained by the CO2.

26.4 W for one hour = 26.4 watt-hours = 0.0950 MJoules.

The CO2 sits in the air, warming it hour by hour (averaged over night and day) at 0.0950 MJ per hour. Run this for 10 years:

0.0950 x 24 hrs x 365 days x 10 years = 8320 MJ of global warming per kg of gasoline. Compare that to 44.4 MJ of heat per kg of gasoline. Miniscule by comparison.

July 5, 2023

Either tRump is on GOP ticket amid serious trials/convictions or leads 3rd party

tRump is splitting the GOP. If he is the ticket, then the rational half will stay home or not vote for Prez.

If he is not on the ticket, his base will stay home "to teach the go**amn RINOs a lesson!".

If the GOP block him (due to indictments / convictions) he may run as a third party candidate. His base have threatened to write him in anyway.


I don't think there is any good path for the GOP, except to axe tRump from the party now and get on with rebuilding the party from the ground up and sacrificing their 2024 prospects for future return. They won't.

This may be a golden opportunity for Democrats. If they win a trifecta (Prez, House, Senate) they may be able to push through lots of democratic measures, like:
* tight integrity requirements for federal justices, especially on the Supreme Court.
* voting rights, such as asserting people are free to give water to people in line, for a simple start
* personal freedoms for LGBTQ2S+ are freedoms for all
* preserving interstate abortion rights
* increase in rational gun control

... and so much more that could be done.

USA and progressive nations are so close to breaking through to a much more progressive future and blocking authoritarianism for a long time.

July 1, 2023

I think it's more like: smart PROS have turned up the WEIRD factor via social media primarily

... for disruption.

tRump is a disrupter, but a chaotic one, unlike say Bezos, who was a creative disrupter of retail commerce.

Putin used social media to destabilize and polarize the US, via Prigozhin's web brigades in St Petersburg.

Rich people have incentives to disrupt and polarize the electorate because they think they can get CONs in by gerrymandering, denying water bottles in voting lines, and other tricks. To some extent their tricks have succeeded. Certainly they have magats in a perpetual state of outrage.

June 29, 2023

I think froggy Lukashenko has a Prigozhin scorpion on his back now

This was billed as, and Lukashenko is spinning it as, a diplomatic triumph by him. But now I'm thinking Putin foisted Prigozhin off onto Luka like he foisted tactical nukes onto him.

Putin is hoping Wagner in Belarus will tie up some Ukranian troops, just in case Prigozhin goes haywire in their direction.

But I do not think the whole coup attempt (capture the generals attempt) was a rigged kabuki show between Prigozhin and Putin, and especially not to simply get some Wagners stationed near Kiev. I think Putin did not kill Prigo, out of fondness. On the other hand, he is glad to have him out of his hair and Wagner broken into smaller pieces.