Memorial Day

 

IN MEMORIUM  We honor those who gave their lives to defend our country; who swore to defend the Constitution.  Not that we ever will have a perfect or even a good country.  When Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar”, He meant not just paying taxes.  For God raises up governments to guard against anarchy.  Even when government consists of ding dongs we have the responsibility to pay taxes, obey the laws, and serve in the military if called by such duty.  In a republic, we must take seriously our duty to vote, pray for the nation, stay abreast of the politics so that we choose wise leaders, speak out against injustice and defend God-given rights. So in some way we all have a part to play in Memorial Day.

 

ANTI-DESANTIS AD

 

AN ANTI-DESANTIS AD CLAIMS HE SUPPORTED 23% SALES TAX. The truth is that DeSantis supported the Fair Tax several years ago.  I did too.  It would replace the entire income tax with a 23% tax on retail sales, but every person is sent a government check each month for 23% of about $40,000 (1.3 times the poverty rate).  Add these two and the result is people who are low income then pay no net tax while those who are upper incomes pay nearly 23% tax on things purchased.  Very low income people get a bigger check than the amount spent on the sales tax—hence a benefit.  Meanwhile the rich would gladly accept a 23% tax rate. No tax forms to fill out--businesses who already fill out state sales taxes would find it only a minor burden to fill out another for federal. Frugal seniors who don’t buy much, pay far less tax. Everybody wins with a Fair Tax. But the lying asses who made the ad against DeSantis don’t tell the whole story, claiming that he only wanted to raise sales taxes to 23%.

   In 2019 I and a few others successfully introduced a plank in the State Republican Platform to replace state income tax with Fair Tax.  To cover the amount raised by state income tax it would require about 2.5% increase of sales tax.  The people who really hate a Fair Tax are the people who have a fabulous exemption and pay little or no state income tax—big shots for whom the legislature has written narrowly targeted exemptions in the past. It’s a corrupted system. Oklahoma has by far the most tax exemptions of any state. Those of us who pay state income tax, are just suckers, I guess.

Why bring this up? When I was young I concluded that when I retired there likely wouldn’t be any social security for me.  I was wrong—but not by much. And unlike other young people in the anti-war era, I had a lot of sympathy for seniors—people who had worked very hard and if they had savings, inflation reduced it constantly. Worse, in order to cash out their savings they have to pay Uncle Sugar high taxes. Didn’t seem fair.  Nor is it fair to make tax arguments that are simpleton and wrong. Here’s facts about seniors.

     Most recent census, nearly half (43%) of seniors have no savings.  Some have pensions, but about 1 out of 4 have nothing but Social Security.  Seniors spend avg. $4000 per month but avg. SS is $1800 per month. Next time you are in a room of gray heads, just count, 1,2,3, 4^th one has nothing but SS to live on. 11% over age 75 are still working. Avg. future long term care costs are $120,900.  Now you can say, “People didn’t save like you did, Dave!”  True but financial planners say you need 10 X annual salary saved to maintain that lifestyle.  That’s about $700,000 per typical household. But median retirement account for retirees is $104,000, down from 134K since Biden.

    It will take years or a rough recession to flush inflation out of our system. I guess we’ll have to live with this and defeat Biden and socialist Dems.  But I wish the Republicans will remember the serious lessons of inflating long after that, instead of making circular firing squad, jib-jab campaign cartoons.

How people will could circumvent govt EV mandates

 

THE GOV’T CAN’T MAKE YOU BUY AN EV, but the EPA is doing so indirectly by setting CO2 emission standards so low for a carmaker’s fleet average that they will have to make lots of EVs. If they can’t sell ‘em? Then they’ll have to buy ‘compliance credits’. Bribin’ Biden wants 2/3 of all light vehicles to be EV by 2032.  But even with IRA subsidies, the Energy Dept. says only 19% of sales will be EV by 2050. This amounts to Chinese-style central planning where the auto makers answer first to the political overlords rather than consumers.  Here’s what I think will happen. 1. It could be politically overthrown by the voters—but remember half are lib nuts.  2. People in rural areas will do what they did to tractors.  When tractor companies said all new tractors had proprietary software, so could only be repaired in dealer shops (which often were 60-90 miles away) farmers took revenge.  There were kits available to outfit an old tractor with GPS planting guidance and the like.  So farmers bid up prices on low-hours older tractors.  Then the local mechanic could work on them.  Tractor companies saw sales plummet and most have now capitulated, removing their requirement.  So too, rural people who can’t use EVs (poor range, long charge time, extra power infrastructure, high price) will outfit used cars to hybridize or just drive as-is with super maintenance. 3. Exempt larger vehicles, like 1 ½ ton trucks, will be increasingly bought for town use. And if the govt drives the price of fuel way up, I intend to de-compress a diesel to use fuel oil.  Some might create a truck that runs on wood chips (has been done) or coal w/ steam.  This could all be good clean fun.  That way rich urbanites can feel themselves morally superior at saving the planet. Everybody out here, by God's grace, just lives on the planet.

King Charles et al

 

STUDYING ROYALS, FOR A FORMER SCIENTIST IT, IS INTERESTING. All kinds of baloney is written in media.  What can be proven true? T.

     First, there is a Royal Donneybrook going between Harry and Willie.  Proof is that they hardly will speak.  Further proof that King Charles agreees with Will is from the fact that Harry had to sit 3 rows back, not wear his military uniform (one of the few royals with distinguished combat career), and couldn’t appear on the balcony with Chuck and Cam.  Harry alleges racism by Willie’s staff, but who knows?  What is quickly apparent is that the royals are snobs and the staff has a strong say in what goes.  The royal snobbery--in the 1960s, Elizabeth was  persuaded to do a documentary on the family, showing them doing everyday things like eating meals and going to the beach.  The British people loved it! They saw the royals as “one of us” and it had an enormous viewership on the Telly.  The royal family hated it, showing their aura missing.  Since Elizabeth II owned the copyright, she tragically locked the film away and it was never seen again.

     From Victoria to Elizabeth, there was much political controversy about whether the monarchy was even needed.  Brits/Scots spend half a billion on royals each year—but from that they must maintain castles, estates and various other things.  UK derives $6 billion in tourism making this better than any baseball or football team in USA.  Hence many speak glowingly about things like a coronation or jubilee. My what pageantry!  That’s why the huge staff, not only servants, but also PR advisors defending Need for the Monarchy. Staff also gives rise to an industry of “leaks” about who’s doing what and wearing what, and our guy is Cool but his brother or cousin is a turd. 

    Introvert Charles III learned to do small talk but never saw many girls except Camilla, his true love.  Diana had all the charm that Chuck lacked but she wasn’t too smart.  The mistress phenomenon among royals goes back 1000 years, with most having several and numerous bastard children. In Middle and Dark Ages this gave rise to huge bloodletting over succession.  William the Conqueror was such a bastard, fighting for the throne.  Often kids were eager to assume the throne.  That is why, in the coronation ceremony William kneels before the king to pledge fidelity.  Charles also exhibits odd behavior.  Supposedly Charles is trying to make peace with Harry. But Harry and Meghan wanted a small cameo of little Archie’s birthday party.  It was refused.  Meg stayed in USA. You have to ask what kind of asshole Grandpa refuses a little grandson’s birthday party. Charles also dabbled with Islam, but has recently returned to the Christian Faith. Until 2 years ago he wanted to be crowned “Defender of the Faiths.  But Faith was singlular in the final decision.  I guess what I dream is an Edward the Confessor, a king who really believes. An apostle who spreads the faith, and practices by using his huge wealth for orphanages, schools, drug rehab centers, etc. A guy who quotes a bit of his favorite scripture and reads stories to kids.  Maybe it will happen but not now.  The Brits would be gobsmacked!   

China and rare earth metals

 

RARE EARTH METALS.  I am not an astrophysicist but they rubs elbows with us nuclear physicsts.  And the nuclear reactions of stars tells why we get rare earths and why they are rare and where found. 

            In most normal type-M stars like the sun, hydrogen nuclei (only a proton) undergoes fusion into the element helium (2 protons, 2 neutrons).  Think of the process as the nucleons (protons and neutrons) sticking together and organizing themselves into a more stable configuration.  A proton can change itself into a neutron by spinning off a positron and a weird little particle that doesn’t react with hardly anything called a neutrino. The new neutron is lighter than the proton.  You still can’t account for all  the loss of mass by the positron and neutrino.  The excess loss is energy by mass conversion, E=mc². Forming Helium is the next  and even more stable step.  The result of a 3 part reaction  of 6 total protons in stages then yields a Helium nucleus (2 protons, 2 neutrons) and releases 2 free protons and a huge amount of energy in the way of gamma rays.  The rays smack around a lot of gas ions on the way out of the sun and so emerge as mostly visible light plus a few gammas and X-rays plus infrared and radio waves—all different wavelengths and energies of light.  The helium of the sun is like a bunch of ash left from this process.  The present sun is 20% helium and the rest mostly hydrogen. 

            So what happens when the hydrogen protons are all burned into helium nuclei? The helium-4’s all start smacking into each other and the star becomes a red giant.  Forming carbon-12, 3 Helium’s can become more stable and more energy is shot off.  Then Carbon undergoes a process that makes Oxygen-16. A further process takes O-16 nucleii into Ne-20.  Another takes Ne-20 into MG-24. Then another process takes Mg-24 into Fe-56.  Notice how all the numbers of nucleons is divisible by 4?  It’s like a periodic chart for nuclei where every 4 nucleons forms a more stable group.  Each successive  reaction gives off more gamma ray energy.  But when a star transforms totally into iron, it has arrived at the most stable kind of nucleus.  There are no further reactions.  But the star then condenses rapidly by gravity until the high pressure and density is unstable and it explodes into a supernova.  That ultra high-energy event causes a couple more reactions to take place jumping and jamming more nuclei together, but in less stable groups.  These are the heavy elements above iron in the periodic table and most are rare earth metals. The time for these formative reactions is minuscule as the star collapses to the max.  That’s why there are so few rare earths or the radioactive trans-bismuth elements (like uranium).  Once the explosion blasts out to about the size of the Sun,  temperatures fall to 4 X 10⁹ degrees Kelvin, and all this heavy element formation quickly stops.  The explosion sends the debris of iron and all the heavies out to the heavens and become raw material for new stars.

            When stars form, they start as a ball of gases under gravitational attraction, much of it hydrogen but also a bit of heavier elements,like iron left from supernovae. Mostly iron in fact.  Inner planets form as they capture of hydrogen, oxygen and this heavy stuff.  But the heat of their environment and the new star’s solar wind drive off a lot of the light gases, leaving a rocky planet.  Out farther, there are colder planets forming and the gases remain-- Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.  Gravity and radioactivity made earth hot and molten in the early days, and heavy elements sank towards the center core due to weight. Earth had the rare event of a Mars-sized planet that smacked into it very early when both planets were hot and molten.  The collision spewed out a molten blast of lighter, earth-crust elements (Si, Ca, Al), but the earth left over was heavy with excess iron as its core. (and surface of early earth was super iron-rich too)The moon collected from the explosive debris of lighter molten crust rocks.  Moon rocks look stunningly like very very old greenstone rocks of the Canadian Shield and thus show their common origin with earth. But Moon, has had no magnetic field from early on—no big iron core.  Earth got all the core iron. With circulation of molten iron, this yields a strong magnetic field which repels asteroids and other interplanetary debris.  Hence earth is protected from many collisions, but Moon is not, and has lots of craters to show for it. 

            Now how do we get rare earths out of the core?  Volcanoes often spew circulating molten magma that is 35 miles down from the crust. This cools and hardens in old volcanic dikes and tunnels which finally get exposed by erosion.  This is all the fun stuff like gold and silver and lead. So where would you go to find most of these deposits?  Himalayas. That’s the biggest upheaval mountain range. Hence China has most of the rare earth mines.  Africa is also a source, especially the ancient volcanics of South Africa.  But there are other places. That’s the dilemma of finding and using rare earths for making batteries—you have to deal with China who have made themselves the smelter/refiner of rare earths.  And it takes years to develop this industry. The mining waste is toxic and pollutes.  Lithium, on the other hand, is a light element but found almost exclusively in the Atacoma desert (s. America) which is extraordinarily dry.  Lithium reacts violently with water, so in a wet place it quickly reacts and dissipates into the earth.

        Much of the research into battery technology has gone into trying exotic materials, rare earths.  Batteries are needed for EVs.  Big batteries. If the world begins to use massive numbers of EVs it means the price of rare earths will skyrocket, perhaps as much as 20 X higher.  That would make an EV a rich man's toy and would make the price of all those gadgets and home tools which use batteries prohibitively expensive.  China has gone all over the world with their Belt and Road foreign aid which in turn demands a share of that country's production of any rare earths found.  It's the foreign policy equivalent of "cornering the market" in the commodities business. Of course, some third world country who is so taken advantage of will still be behind, using gasoline and diesel.  It also explains why, if you are a liberal who wants green energy vehicles, you are in bed with China they way the Biden syndicate is.  

Why Gen Z is depressed

 

GEN Z IS DEPRESSED AND ANXIOUS say numerous studies.  They first noticed this in a count of depression in 2014.  There was a big jump from 2012. And it’s been going up rapidly every year. Why? Further breakdown showed that older generations didn’t increase, just Gen Z.  Some psychologists speculate that just after 2012 was when people began to do selfies and post them on social media.  Then you find your perfect life is less perfect than others. The historic graph is a startling hockey stick shape.  

But it is further noted that it is the progressives that are depressed and anxious and in English speaking countries, not China or Algeria.  Why? Because many in the older generations have religious faith.  The Christian, once they have seen grace grab hold of them and understand it deeply, that God is with you and in you, and nobody can take that away from you—that instills an assurance, a confident hope that things will turn out all right.  This life may slam you around and is full of misery, but God will use it and in the end take you home. That tragically, is what many progressive leftists miss.  Hence 26% of Gen Z is depressed or neurotic.  It’s worse in girls which are over 30% affected, but boys of previous generations have gone from 9 to 13% depression. So the progressives fearful of not being in control seek to demand everybody be woke, and entirely in agreement.  The misery of their politics trumps all else.

Suppose you want to raise an entrepreneur.  What quality would you look for? It is dogged confidence.  People who are close friends of successful entrepreneurs say, "the poor devil never knew when he was beat.." She just keeps on going.  If life deals a lemon, they make lemonade and then figures out a daquri. But this is opposite a depressed personality.