Tag: Chemist

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 17JUL2023 – Vetting a Cabinet

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This illustrates my biggest issue with President Trump: He is very bad at picking people for the job. This is important because it is likely the most important thing a president does – Pick his cabinet and other heads of departments.
Trump gave us Jeff Sessions – who allowed the democrats to persecute Trump for the first 2 years of office.
He gave us Rex Tillerson who called Trump a fucking Moron.
He gave us Mad Dog Mattis who didn’t have a clue and publicly resigned.
I could go on with a dozen more, but why?
And Trumps biggest mistake: His son in law Jared Kushner who brought Kim Kardashian to the White House. If you like the criminals roaming around your state, thank Jared.
Trump is dazzled by athletes, Hollywood stars and medal wearing generals. There are dozens of generals who were working against him but Trump didn’t fire them.

To those of you who say that Trump has learned his lesson, I give you Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker. Those senate races should have gone GOP, but Trump anointed candidates who didn’t want to win.

You are very correct that the next GOP candidate needs to have a plan in place for stopping the steal. I don’t want to see another blue city in a red state truck in ballots and count until their candidate wins with zero repercussions.
We need a plan. We need lawyers on the ground with documents in hand and we need facts ready to go.

Make no mistake, if Trump is the candidate I will vote for him but I would really like to see some better decisions from him on who he surrounds himself with.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 21MAR2023 – Joey Got His Veto

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As everyone knew he would, Slow Joe vetoed H.R. 30, a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution that would nullify his new ESG rule.

Up until Biden, retirement investment fund managers were guided by fiduciary responsibility – the managers were legally bound to invest for the maximum safe return for their investors. They could not put their clients money into funds that would enrich themselves nor could they invest in companies to advance their political views. Return on investment was the only guide with massive fines and potential jail for the violators.

The Biden rule enables fund managers to weigh climate change and prioritize ESG initiatives when selecting retirement investments and exercising shareholder rights, such as proxy voting.

Like I said – this was no surprise, of course we was going to veto a bill that tried to curb his power.

But the way he spun it is really galling. From his Twitter:

I just vetoed my first bill. This bill would risk your retirement savings by making it illegal to consider risk factors MAGA House Republicans don’t like.

 

Got that? Its those evil Republicans who want to put your money at risk by maximizing your return not the virtuous democrats who want to use your money to advance their social programs.

I would suggest reaching out to your fund managers and ask if they intend to “weigh climate change and prioritize ESG initiatives when selecting investments and exercising shareholder rights”.

If the answer is yes – close your account. Move your money elsewhere.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 01MAR2023 – Further Comments on the Oscars

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I came to answer your question “What is wrong with the Oscars”?
(Although I agree with the rant about crappy movies.)
1) Too long. If you can’t get it done in 2 hours – don’t do it. People have lives, they need to get up in the morning.
2) Too woke. Stop awarding movies no one is ever going to watch just because they are woke.
3) Too much self preening. Take your award. Thank you mama, high school drama coach and your spouse – then get off the stage. We don’t want to hear about your current pet project. (Unless you are funny. Humor is welcome. Brevity or levity.)
4) Get rid of the damn politics. The country is just about evenly divided. No matter what you say, you will piss off half the country. Stop it!

This shouldn’t be news to anyone. And the fact that the Oscars (and every other award show) keeps on doing these things is just a giant middle finger to the audience.
We get it. You don’t care about us. Understood. Message received. Loud and clear.
So stop asking why we don’t watch your silly little award show. You know why.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 02NOV2022 – Affirmative Action

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In 2003, Sandra Day O’Conner (Herself, a beneficiary of affirmative action) cast the deciding vote in Grutter vs Bollinger and cemented racial discrimination as the law of the land.

In her ruling, she said “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”

That is a mind-blowing statement coming from a Supreme Court Justice. To paraphrase: “This thing is constitutional now but won’t be in the future.” Talk about your living documents! Are there any other rights that fade in and out like that?

 

Now there is another case before the SCOTUS regarding AA.

Some of the back and forth looks really interesting:

Justice Thomas asked Ryan Park to describe the actual benefit of a diverse classroom.

Park responded that in studies involving stock trading results, “racially diverse groups of people … perform at a higher level.”

“The mechanism there is that it reduces groupthink and that people have longer and more sustained disagreement, and that leads to a more efficient outcome,” Park said.

Thomas responded, “I guess I don’t put much stock in that because I’ve heard similar arguments in favor of segregation, too.”

Boom!

And then there was this exchange between Waxman and Roberts: (Waxman is the lawyer defending Harvard’s racial discrimination policies.)

  1. WAXMAN: No, I know. I’m –I’m attempting to answer your question.

There is no doubt that for –as the testimony showed, that for applicants who are essentially so strong on multiple dimensions, so extraordinarily strong on multiple dimensions that they are sort of on the bubble, that they might –they have a real candidate for admission, African American –being African American or being Hispanic or in some instances being Asian American can provide one of many, many tips that will put you in.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, people say that, yes, but you will have to concede, if it provides one of many, that in some cases it will be determinative.

  1. WAXMAN: I do. I do concede that.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Okay. So we’re talking about race as a determining factor in admission to Harvard.

Kaboom!

 

Waxman tried to recover and said that “Race, for some highly qualified applicants can be the determinative factor, just as being, you know, an oboe player in a year in which the Harvard-Radcliffe orchestra needs an oboe player will be the tip,”

“We did not fight a Civil War about oboe players,” Roberts replied. “We did fight a Civil War to eliminate racial discrimination, and that’s why it’s a matter of considerable concern.”

 Atomic Boom!

 

It would seem that the 25 years Justice O’Conner was speaking of was not until society matured past the need for affirmative action (That will never happen as long as one group benefits at the expense of another.) but that it would take 25 years before we got a conservative majority on the Supreme Court.

It looks like it will be 19 years and not Sandy’s full 25.

Trump can mean tweet all he wants in return for this Supreme Court.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – Impeachment

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Impeachment! Tie him up with impeachment trials. The democrats won’t vote to convict? Fine. Have another impeachment. Keep it going and bind his hands until he(Or is handlers) realize that this is all that will happen until he is replaced.
Things Slow Joe can be impeached for (Off the top of my head):

Not securing the border. This is a responsibility of the executive defined in the constitution. He is not doing his duty. It will be easy to prove and it will be fun watching the partisans voting no when the evidence is incontrovertible.

Influence peddling. Lets have fun with Hunter’s laptop. Let’s put it out there for everyone to see. Lets name and shame the people who sent money to Hunter so he can give 10% to “The big guy”.

Extortion. Joe admitted to forcing the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor who was investigating Hunter. Let’s put that on display and, while we are at it, show the truth of the Trump phone call to Ukraine.

That should keep us busy for the first year. I’m sure there is more.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 01MAR2022 – Texas Primary Election Day

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Today is primary day in Texas. (Or if you are a republican in my town, the only voting day that matters.)

While voting an older man and his elderly, wheelchair bound, father came in.

The older man was irate that he didn’t get an absentee ballot for his father like in years past.

“Last three years, the ballot comes in the mail. This year – nothing.”

The clerk replied that you now have to request the ballot.

The older man countered that “Dad doesn’t do computers. How is he supposed to request one?”

The clerk told him that he could call for one and the man said this was a pain.

 

I wanted to jump in and say:

“Yup. Another thing the democrats fucked up for everyone.

After the wholesale cheating in 2020 we had to change the laws which make it more difficult for everyone, so thank a Democrat!”

 

But I kept my mouth shut.

-Chemist

 

Guest Contributor – Chemist – America Loses Its Way

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Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville said, “America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great!”
What does it mean to be good?

In my mind it means we are governed by Judeo / Christian values and we stick to the rules. We have a government of laws, not men and no man is above the law.

America was the place to take a chance, build a business, a family, a life because it was governed by laws. There were rules and the rules were enforced. In other countries you might labor and sacrifice for decades to build up a business, only to see the government nationalize it “For the greater good”. But America wasn’t like that. There were laws to protect you and a written Constitution to back up those laws. The constitution limited the power of the government. It was unheard of!
America allowed people to take risks and prosper and the risk takers, the winners, the entrepreneurs came here. They built companies and, in so doing, created wealth and prosperity for millions of other people.

Recently, however, America has changed. It is no longer “good”. Certain people are now above the law. Congress exempts itself from the laws it forces the rest of us to live under. Federal and local law enforcement agencies “Seize” money and property and innocent people have to prove they deserve it to get it back. The wealthy and connected go free. While the nation’s premier law enforcement agency hides evidence allowing the innocent to go to jail. The Clintons, Kennedys, Duponts, actors and celebrities never pay for their crimes.
One class of people is permitted to riot, burn and murder and they go free. Another class of people engages in a few hours of peaceful protest and they spend months in solitary confinement without a trial.

It used to be that each branch of government knew its limitations and would not dare to try and do something that was not specifically written in the constitution. Now we have an executive who has the attitude of “What are you going to do about it?” They create powers that don’t exist (Vaccination mandates) and ignore duties spelled out in the constitution (Enforce the boarders).

Entire cities have decided to stop enforcing property laws and allow wholesale theft from retail businesses. Then the cities are surprised when the businesses – the makers of prosperity – leave. Worse yet, they hurl epithets at them as they leave calling them “Greedy capitalists”. Yet who could blame them? They tried to play by the rules. The rules said they paid taxes and the city protected them from thieves. Now the city says; “No protection, but you still have to pay taxes”.

Who would build a business in a country where it can all be destroyed or stolen tomorrow and there is no recourse? Who would invest when the government is talking about taking your investments in the name of “Fairness” or “Equity”? Right now there are elected politicians who want to take your pension, IRA and 401K because other people don’t have one. Just last month, the current administration talked about “Taxing unrealized capital gains”. That means: If you buy stock or a home or anything and the value increases, you owe taxes on the increase in value. Even if you have not sold a share of stock or your home. the feds want their cut.
All of these ideas, as stupid as they sound, create uncertainty and that kills investment.

America is no longer good. In a misguided attempt to try to atone for wrongs that may have been done hundreds of years ago, some Americans are destroying everything it ever stood for. (Others are doing it out of sheer greed.) Our constitution is one of the greatest documents ever written and is the blueprint for a prosperous nation – a nation of laws. John Adams observed that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” We are no longer moral. America is no longer good and unless we change it back, the future will not be pretty.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – Thoughts on Energy

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In Reply to Energy Equates to Wealth

You are more correct than you know. The green revolution is powered by oil. Oil to make diesel fuel for the giant tractors and combines that plant and harvest the crops. Oil to make energy to make the fertilizers that turn marginal soils into high yield soils.
Without petroleum we would be poorer, hungrier and there would be fewer of us. Millions would have starved to death over the last 100 years that, instead, thrived due to petroleum.

If you want carbon free energy you have to look at nuclear. The greens may not like it, but its the only real solution if carbon is the problem. The newly designed modular reactors are incredibly safe and the Thorium cycle reactors are not only safe but do not use nor do they produce material that can be weaponized.
Ah, but: Nuclear bad! (Insert image of Frankenstein’s monster near a torch.) Its dangerous right? Deadly even! More Americans were killed when Biden abandoned Afghanistan than have died due to Nuclear power accidents in the US since the first reactor. That’s a pretty damned good safety record.

Solar? Its a boondoggle. Here is something they don’t talk about a lot wrt solar panels: They only last about 20 years. And the output drops every year. So if you are getting 5KW your first year you are getting about half that a decade later.
Oh, and its damned near impossible to recycle a solar panel.
Its been a lot of years since I did the math (College undergrad research project) but the last time I ran the numbers, it took more energy to make a solar panel that it ever generated in it’s lifetime. It turns out that it takes a crap ton of energy to make, purify and melt silicon. Who knew?

Wind? Another boondoggle. Look into disposing of damaged or end of life turbine blades. There’s a nightmare for you. And the vibrations from the turbine destroy the land they are mounted on to the degree that you can never put another turbine there. If you love nature, don’t look at the number of birds and bats killed by these things.

Geothermal? Maybe. I don’t know how many locations are suitable for it though.

If we could get past the fear of nuclear power, we could build a golden age with cheap, plentiful power and yes, make long chain molecules from water and CO2.

Who is 20BooksTo50K?

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One of our readers here, Chemist, sent me this link in response to my link to Dave Freer’s post on sf short stories.  So I read it.

Turns out 20BooksTo50K is a a “community dedicated to helping authors with the business of writing.”  What could be wrong with that?  Well anyone who remembers the Puppy Wars over the Hugo nominations know that the scolds of science fiction would prefer to burn down their own awards rather than allow anyone who isn’t up on the current LGBTQ grovelling to get into the nominations.  so it surprises me not at all to hear that Puppy redux is happening at the Nebula awards over the nomination of several 20BooksTo50K authors.

Having been a strong supporter of the Puppy writers (in terms of buying their books), I’ll have to check the authors in 20BooksTo50K to see if any of them click with me.

So many books, so little lifetime left.

Thanks to Chemist for the heads up.