1942 VERSUS 2023

My father, born in 1901, was too young to be in WWI and too old to be in WWII. Living on the Atlantic coast during WWII he was involved in coastal watch efforts, but as far as I know that was the extent of his participation. In the late 40s and early 50s I don’t recall my father talking much about the war, with the exception of one comment that I retained. That was his observation that we didn’t out fight the enemy in WWII as much as we out produced them. In retrospect this was almost an understatement.

The war materials production effort in the U.S. during WWII was literally incredible. In addition to a large manufacturing base that was totally re-purposed for the war effort, we enjoyed the fact that the enemy could not get to us because of the two oceans that separated us from the two theaters of war. We bombed the enemy’s production facilities into oblivion but ours remained untouched. Our enemies were never able to establish bases from which they could attack us.

The difference between the situation in the U.S. in 1942 and the U.S. in 2023 is night and day. In 1942 our economy was slowly recovering from the depression of the 30s, but our industrial base was sound, we were not dependent on others to any real extent, and our citizens were patriotic. Today we are on the verge of either a government default on its debts or a currency collapse due to runaway inflation; a large percentage of our industrial base has been moved to other countries, mostly because of stupid tax laws; we are dangerously dependent on others including those that should be considered enemies; and our citizenry have been turned against the country to an extent that may in fact be fatal. To make the situation much worse, modern weapons can reach us from anywhere in the world, so we're a lot more vulnerable to attack on our soil.

The point of all this is that the U.S. is in no condition to fight any wars or even fund and support others in wars that we have no direct interest, and certainly would not be the untouchable powerhouse that it was in WWII. The stupidity and greed of too many Americans that has permitted the political Left to destroy our country from within may be irreversible, but identifying and correcting the problems that have brought us to this state of affairs is our only hope. Continuing to concentrate the National focus on the Woke insanity, the Green Energy stupidity, the fiscal debacle of the Welfare State, maintaining a world wide military presence when we can't afford it, trying to export democracy which doesn’t even work at home and a myriad of other distractions will guarantee an early and complete collapse of the U.S. nation.

Many in the chattering classes like to refer to the United States as an ‘experiment in democracy’. Although the founders never envisioned the Republic they created as a democracy, the more democratic it has become the faster it has headed toward complete failure. The ‘experiment’ has been run, and the unvarnished reality is that it has failed. Democracy is basically allowing the inmates to run the asylum, and is just not a workable concept.

 

GENDER STUPIDITIES

Finally! A lady on the Fox News program Special Report, presumably speaking on behalf of a national sorority that had been forced to accept a 'trans' male as a sister, noted that there is little to no ambiguity in determining one's sex: every cell in your body knows the answer. If your 23rd chromosome pair of your DNA has two X chromosomes then you are a female. If you have one X and one Y then you are a male. Period.

However, to give some credence to the claims of many individuals that they 'feel' like they are in the wrong body, it is true that in the development of the person from a fertilized egg to an adult human, many things can go wrong. As the initial fertilized egg splits again and again cells in various parts of the body begin taking on specific characteristics to form the many parts of the finished body. This process is known as differentiation, and depends on the chemical signals from adjacent cells. In a contaminated environment errors in development may result from interference in the signaling from cell to cell. This seems to be particularly critical in the later development of the brain, where external influence from the wrong sex hormone, estrogen or testosterone, can affect the wiring of instinctive behavior for the sex of the individual. It is interesting to note that the brain cells that may be improperly wired still have or don't have the Y-DNA that fundamentally determines the sex.

Given the realities of the last paragraph and any other errors in development that might occur, it is more than reasonable to cut some slack for the affected persons. This can easily be overdone, and certainly does not give those persons the right to demand that society as a whole conform to their peculiarities. Accommodation must be limited to restraint from harassment and persecution. As long as such individuals lead their lives in a manner that does not negatively affect others in the society in an unreasonable way they should not run afoul of the law.

Legally, it is obvious that rather than a criteria such as 'sex assigned at birth' determining compliance with privileges and constraints in a society, it would make much more sense in the modern world to use DNA to answer once and for all what is a man or a woman. This is especially true now that such a test can be made with something as unobtrusive as giving a sample of saliva. Surely the Legislative bodies of a society can use something as simple as that to write meaningful laws on the subject.

Lastly, it is obviously insane to think that one can 'transition' from one sex to another by cutting and pasting body parts or intentionally interfering with proper development of a child with chemicals. The degree to which this stupidity has permeated our society does not provide much hope for the survival of America. As Mark Stein observed, "[America has become] too stupid to survive".

 

GREEN ENERGY ON THE CHEAP

 

Back about 1981 one of my fellow engineers and I got the urge to try to get a little 'free' energy from the sun. He found a source of glass panes at a good price, so together we purchased about 2 1/2 tons of glass panes. At the time I owned a brick Cape Cod in Maryland. It faced a little west of south with minimal shading on the front side, so I built a removable set of large glass panels that basically covered the front of the house. I could remove them in the summer months and enjoy some free solar energy in the winter. I learned later that my abode became known locally as the 'glass house'.

When the sun was shining in the winter the panels gave me a 'low tech' solar collector of about 250 square feet, with the brick walls acting as the absorber. The temperature behind the panels would climb into the 70s even for outside temps in the 20s, which meant that about 30% of my exterior walls thought it was summer. In fact, if I was home I would open the windows behind the panels and enjoy the warm air heating the front rooms.

Of course, even though I got an encouraging return on my fairly low cost investment, I only gained when the sun was shining. To be useful as a primary source of heat, it would be necessary to store the energy for retrieval during nights and cloudy days. So before expanding my system, I did a little research on energy storage systems.

My crude low cost system used the low tech approach of storing the energy in the thermal mass of the masonry walls of the house. If the sun was not shining some of the energy from a sunny day was still warming the front wall, but most was lost. To make such a system a primary heat source it is necessary to transfer the energy during sunshine to a large thermal mass such as a basement full of rocks or a large water tank. This is usually not too practical an approach because of the amount of material needed as the thermal mass.

The next better idea is to use a material that has a phase change (solid to liquid, usually) to store a much higher amount of energy for the same mass. Water has a great latent heat of the water to ice phase change, but it occurs at much too low a temperature. Fortunately some salts have a solid to liquid phase change at temps of about 70 degrees, so a basement full of salt would work better than a basement full of rocks. But you still have to get the energy in and out. When melted salt solidifies in the basement, the heat would warm the house from below, but transferring the energy from the solar panels to melt the salt is a challenge.

The best way to store energy (short of nuclear processes) is in chemical bonds. This is why fossil fuels are such a great source of energy. So I wondered what would be a good way to store the solar energy in chemical bonds to be retrieved later. It dawned on me that the simplest way to do that is to grow trees. You don't even have to build solar panels. Just cut down the trees and burn them in a stove.

At this point I lost interest in the whole affair. I realized that I had re-invented the wood stove.

Although growing trees for low cost - low tech solar energy collection may be a more reasonable alternative to high cost - high tech solar collection, there are other reasons why tree farms are to be preferred over large areas of solar panels. Trees not only efficiently harvest sunshine, but also absorb the dreaded carbon dioxide gas that climate change doomsayers fear will destroy the planet. In addition, in the process of cleaning the atmosphere of carbon dioxide, trees produce the oxygen that we air-breathing critters need to function. Cheap fuel, carbon dioxide removal and oxygen to breath - what's not to like about that. And growing trees is minimal effort farming - just plant seedlings and forget about them for a few decades.

There is at least one more important reason to grow more trees. Whether forests are clear cut for roads, parking lots, or other building development including solar panel farms, the solar energy falling on such cleared areas is absorbed during the day and heats the atmosphere before finally being radiated to space. If you fly a small plane over West Virginia where I live, the fact that the majority of the area of the state is wooded means that there are few thermal updrafts and your flight is smooth. Over urban areas, desert areas, and even to a lesser degree agricultural land, there are significant thermals in sunny weather and a low level flight gets very bumpy. Furthermore, such thermal atmospheric activity creates violent storms such as thunderstorms and tornadoes. The relatively tree-barren midwest is a hot bed of tornado activity, but they rarely maintain their organization into West Virginia. The fact that West Virginia is so wooded is the main reason why tornadoes and t-storms tend to dissipate over the state. The trees absorb almost all the solar energy and there is little left to fuel the storms.

Forbidden Planet Syndrome

 

In 1956 we were between two milestones that the human species had fantasized over, probably for most of its existence as an abstract thinking animal. We were about a decade past the mastery of physics that had culminated in exploiting potentially unlimited nuclear energy, although unfortunately initially as a destructive device. We were also less than a decade away from man's initial leap into space (a year from Sputnik) and less than one and a half decades from actually venturing to another world, although one near home.

1956 was also the year of one of the best science fiction movies to that date. Forbidden Planet not only had some great special effects for that time, it had a plot that was centered around the two physics subjects mentioned above. Cast a couple of centuries in the future, the remains of an advanced civilization had been discovered on a distant planet. The aliens of the planet, the Krell, had engineered an infrastructure that provided virtually unlimited energy (nuclear, obviously). They had also developed the ability to control all that energy by just thinking about it. The plot twist was that their subconscious also had access to the energy, and they unwittingly destroyed each other in an apparent orgy of subconscious rage.

Now any intelligent species anywhere in the universe would have to have evolved to the level of intellectual sophistication that permits the development of nuclear energy, including the human species here on Earth. But on the way up, so to speak, the species must survive through a continuum of ancestors that had to fight and defend their existence in a harsh and unforgiving world. The primitive emotions that allowed that survival are still resident in the brainstem of the human species, and can be reactivated any time there is a threat or other such stimulus to an otherwise civilized being.

With more and more nations on Earth having an arsenal of nuclear weapons, it would not take subconscious control of them to submit the human population to an extinction event. All it takes is the reactivation of the brainstem emotions of one or more hotheads with access to the launch buttons. The fate of the Krell is now within the reach of humanity and may indeed be unavoidable because of the role of the brainstem in evolution.

The relevant question of the day is whether mankind has in fact reached the point in evolution that cannot be passed by any species in the universe. The kill or be killed past in such evolution will still be lurking in the brains of any such advanced species. It may be inevitable that we succumb to the ultimate self-extinction that nuclear energy provides. In fact, maybe the lack of concrete evidence of alien UFOs visiting the Earth is because no species can make it past the Forbidden Planet Syndrome.

Term Limits for Elected Offices

This essay was written in 2012, and is even more relevant today.  The Presidential Election referred to is the 2008 election of Obama/Biden vs. McCain/Palin.

There has recently been increased interest in Term Limits for elected offices. It has become blatantly obvious to even the rank and file citizenry that career politicians are a large (if not the largest) part of the problem in all levels of government. However, there are several problems with getting from here to ANY semblance of term limits, and in addition there is of course considerable disagreement as to what such limits should be.

At the Federal level, the first problem - how to get there - is a very high hurdle. To begin with, it is virtually inconceivable that any Legislative body is going to cut its own head off by passing term limit legislation. No one is likely to vote himself or herself out of a job, especially one as lucrative and cushy as political office. Since such a vote would have the same effect as firing them, threatening to throw them out has no real clout. Furthermore, at the Federal level, there is no such thing as a referendum that would allow the citizenry to pass term limit legislation, and even if there were, the next bunch of crooks in office would just repeal it. Worse yet, at the Federal level, passing a Constitutional Amendment (which is what is ultimately needed) requires either two thirds of Congress (not gonna happen) or two thirds of the Legislatures of the States (also very unlikely) to propose such an Amendment. And then three fourths of the States must ratify it. Prospects are dim.

Even though hope of such a Constitutional Amendment is vanishingly small, let's take a minute to look at what such Term Limits might be. Most suggestions are for two or three terms, somewhat akin to the two-term limit that was passed for the Presidency. (Note that this Amendment probably was successful only because most of Congress and the State Legislatures had little hope of winning the Presidency.) Some suggestions at the Federal level have been for a fixed time limit, with 12 years (6 terms of the House or 2 terms of the Senate) being the favorite.

Unfortunately, the problem with the career politician is that he (or she) is always running for the next election. The minute that the current election is won, the campaign for the next election is the primary focus for not only most of his time, but for what his vote is going to be for or against any bills that come up. To me, this is the root of the problem. With this in mind, it seems obvious that the proper term limit is ONE.

Even passing a Term Limit Amendment limiting all terms of elected office to one term still leaves a gaping hole. This was blatantly illustrated in the last Presidential election. ALL of the contenders were currently holding office at the time, and most spent the better part of two years campaigning rather than addressing the task they had been elected for. Ironically, since the winner had only just been elected to the Senate in the previous election cycle, he basically reneged on his obligations to his constituents to campaign for a better job. As a blurb that circulated on email suggested, try that on YOUR job.

My proposal for a Constitutional Amendment, albeit probably unattainable, is the following. Since the problem is not only that the career politician sucks off the public teat all his life, but also the fact that he is also constantly campaigning for the next election, there is only one way to end the farce. To wit:

No person shall be eligible to be a candidate for any elected public office while currently holding any elected public office. This restriction shall be in addition to any other qualifications for the particular office.

That oughta 'git 'er done'!

PACKING THE COURT

    To continue with the theme of my most recent post, the 2020 election has highlighted several of the 'glaring faults' of the Constitution. In particular, the current threat of a Biden/Harris / Harris/Biden administration together with the Democrat Party retaking the Senate of adding extra Justices to the Supreme Court is sufficiently likely that they won't even discuss the possibility. Such an action would render the Court an even less useful body than currently exists.

    The Constitution leaves the numerical makeup of the Supreme Court up to Congress. This in itself is not necessarily bad, but safeguards should have been in place to prevent modifications (packing the Court) from being a political tool. It would seem that at the very least, restricting any changes from taking place should be deferred until every seated member of Congress has been subjected to an election and possible replacement. That, together with allowing for such proposed changes to be rescinded in the interim 4 to 6 years would go a long way to frustrating the kind of mischief currently contemplated by the Democrats.

    The phrase in Article III granting Justices tenure during 'good behavior' seems a little lax in that a lifetime appointment too often in modern times means possibly extending into infirmity. Since most Justices are confirmed during middle age, a cap on maximum duration of a couple of decades would seem to be better than waiting for the grim reaper to trigger replacement. Some nonagenarians maintain their wits in spite of their longevity, but all too often some degree of senility sets in. Subjecting the integrity of the Supreme Court to the risk of such possibilities seems unwise.

    The fact is that any system design, subjected to the rigors of implementation and use, inevitably shows signs of faults and omissions that a second attempt might try to correct. However, referring again to Fred Brooks' 1975 book The Mythical Man Month, the risk of such attempts becoming bloated and worse than the original (The Second System Effect) is somewhat evident in the fact that the Constitutional Amendments too often sully the elegance and simplicity of the original document. The author's opinion is that we're running about 50-50 which is probably not bad for almost 250 years.

THE 2020 ELECTION AND THE CONSTITUTION

With all the hoopla surrounding the coming elections (2020), it is interesting to look at what the Constitution had to say about the subject - both the original document (including Amendments 1 to 10), and the remaining Amendments.

It is fairly obvious that the Founders were against creating a Democracy, and in the original document gave the people only a direct vote on their Representatives in the Congressional House. Even then, they kicked the can down the road on the subject of qualification to vote, essentially leaving it up to the States to decide individually. This is just one of several glaring faults in the Constitution. The requirements for qualifying to vote should have been spelled out explicitly and should have been uniform across the country for the Federal election.

The 17th Amendment (one of two in 1913 that set the stage for the downfall of the U.S.) added the Senators to those directly elected by the populace, effectively creating two Houses of Representatives, but with different rules. Again, instead of rectifying the omission in the original with respect to qualifications, they kicked the can down the road once more.

However, with respect to the choosing of the President, the people were not only deprived of direct election by the Electoral College mechanism, but were even denied direct election of the Electoral College Electors. The original document specifies that "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress". Nothing in the remainder of the original document nor in any of the Amendments changes the right of the State Legislatures to appoint the Electors for the Electoral College, although if a State chooses to use a popular election to decide who to appoint, several Amendments have a lot to say as to who may or may not vote in such an election.

Since the Constitution states that "Each State SHALL appoint..." their electors, convene them for their votes, and forward the results to the Senate, one might reasonably assume that such action should be taken in a timely manner. Nothing in the original document or the Amendments suggests that such required actions might be justifiably delayed by an optional popular election at the State level. Thus it is hard to justify the concern that the actual determination of the winner of the Electoral College might not occur at the normal time.

At the same time, there seems to be no real deterrence to any State Legislature appointing their Electors based on any whim they might take, regardless of the results or lack thereof of any popular election, or for that matter, any overreaching dictum from any court. Thus schemes to eliminate the Electoral College and choose the President by the national popular vote are unnecessary - the same result can be achieved within the current Constitution by getting sufficient State Legislatures to agree to appoint their Electors based on that criteria.

This, of course, is just another of the several glaring faults in the Constitution as mentioned above. The Founders apparently hoped that such faults might be corrected by the Amendment procedure provided for, but most Amendments have tended to create more faults rather than correct the original ones (author's opinion). The result seems to lack the 'conceptual integrity' described by Fred Brooks in his classic 'The Mythical Man Month'.