It appears that the US has had a particular “trip hazard” within it all along. Not an error of commission so much as an error of omission. We have been so busy heaping praise and devotion to our Constitution and antagonized by the doctrine of origionalism that the cold eyes of criticism have not held sway. To be sure, here criticism also means “analysis and judgment of the merits and faults of a literary or artistic work“. For crying out loud, even Einstein’s theory of relativity, which has been endlessly validated, is still subject to criticism yet it is physics and based on mathematics.
Can it be true that the Founders were able to construct a constitution so tight, internally consistent and prescient that the future could never evolve in a way that calls for revision. Seriously, is that possible?
The view from 30,000 ft shows that there are circumstances wherein safety rails meant to restraining a runaway President have failed. To date the US President is still subject to many restraints still in action, except for a part requiring Congress provide effective an counterweight to the executive. The current circumstance is where the Congress chooses not summon self-control enough to exert its constitutional responsibility declare war or not. To declare war is to draft and execute a policy directing the US to summon resources and direct military engagement with another state. This was done properly and for the last time by FDR in 1942 against axis-aligned Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania (Google).
Perhaps the Constitution does not disallow a wide-eyed march into chaos and ruin by majority rule. In other words, within the constraints of this founding document, there are pathways to self-destruction. It is conceivable that the founders hadn’t considered a self-immolation led by a madman in the future. Could they have anticipated that 1 or 2 of the 3 branches of government would choose not to execute its responsibility to provide effective checks and balances? After all, why would rational citizens allow the nation they love to celebrate fall into collapse?
Actually, the Republican majority party in Congress probably doesn’t believe that there is a failure of checks and balances on their part. Why would they challenge the president, their national party leader and lord of the MAGA movement? The Trump network is large and powerful and getting ‘primaried’ is a likely outcome for sheep who stray from the flock.
In effect, accusations of constitutional disobedience spread across all party members is less fearsome than near-term personal electoral defeat. MAGA Republicans fear that their careers hanging separately is more likely than hanging together. Safety in numbers.
Somewhere there is a coterie of planners who, having drafted Project 2025 and now underway, are busy plotting the transition to illiberal democracy. Who are these big-money usurpers, and how do we turn the rock over and expose them to the light of day?
This is just a short note to remind chemistry students to consider taking a class on polymer chemistry if it is available. While the endless collection of widgets made from synthetic polymers may seem to be tedious as hell, the chemistry and engineering of commodity polymers is really quite fascinating and maybe just a little artsy.
Polyolefin chemistry got very interesting with the development of metallocene catalysts in the 1990s and were later refined to non-metallocene constrained geometry catalysts. Do a keyword search of Catalysts for olefin polymerization in Google Patents and see for yourself. You’ll find that Group IV metals are heavily represented.
Before I went to college I spent 2 years as an apprentice electrician in both residential and commercial wiring. This, plus an early and continuous interest in electronics, I thought I had a good grasp of what electricity was. Only in the last few months in the autumn of my years do I learn that my understanding was just the Dr Seuss version taught in high school.
I sat fat and happy thinking electrical current flowed like water through a pipe. Well, it does not. Wires guide an electric field over the surface of the conductor, moving each electron a tiny distance. The field carries the energy.
A similar situation applies to an electron which, by the way, has no measurable size. There is only an electric field. An electron is a localized disturbance or perturbation in that field that can occupy atomic orbitals or propagate through space. But its “movement” is not like that of a ball sailing through space. It is a kind of pulse in the electric field that has charge and behaves with attributes that people can view and both wave-like and particle-like.
One of the annoying pedagogical tools we can’t get past is the description or illustration of wave motion as an undulation or a squiggle smeared over time. Wave behavior is reciprocating behavior. The view of a water wave as an undulation inferring flow is dead wrong. Water wave motion is vertical, like a fishing bobber. Water waves can be standing in place between barriers or on top of an underlying current. The all too common misunderstanding is in viewing an undulating line itself as the wave rather than the reciprocating movement from peak to trough.
But, if we had properly taught kids about wave motion in the past, would the Beach Boys have been able to sing about catching a wave. I. Just. Don’t. Know.
Unless Trump is physically removed from power, the current conflict in Iran will blossom into WW III as Iran bombs our bases in our allied countries. He will not relinquish the White House voluntarily even if lawfully removed from power, so the Congress must be prepared to drag him off-site. This will be the first step in the recovery of America. His little buddy, JD Vance, cant be trusted either but I don’t know how that can be dealt with.
Not that Iran will beat the US, but with the US distracted and bogged down with its foreign military projects and complete destruction of foreign relations, there is the likelihood of oil shortages throughout Asia. Our opponents will use this lull in US global hegemony to settle scores in other parts of the world. Does the invasion of Cuba really make sense now or ever?
How long will China and everyone else allow the US/Israel war to cripple their oil supplies by the blockade of the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz?
Russia and Iran understand asymmetric warfare. We do not. We strut around thumping our chests bragging about how great we are. Our weapons are indeed impressive as everyone has noticed. If only our grasp of international politics matched our facility with warfare.
N. Korea will use US distraction and it’s overextended military as well as lost international good will to invade S Korea. China may decide to invade Taiwan in a year or two. Do people honestly think that this all consuming American distraction in the Middle East will not be exploited by the bad actors of the world?
Trump is a madman who is leading our country into the graveyard of collapsed empires.
MAGAs are cognitively impaired enough to not see him for what he is and their elected representatives who have circled around him have everything invested in MAGA voters transfixed by him. MAGAs are cognitively impaired enough to not see him for what he is and their elected representatives have circled around him have everything invested in MAGA voters transfixed by him. By cognitively impaired I just mean that the the fear center in their brains can’t let go despite what they see and hear.
3 March, 2026, Poltroon University Medical Center, Guapo, Arizona. University President Arnold Ziffel has announced that for the first time a human appendix has been cloned and successfully implanted into a human cell donor. This long awaited achievement holds the promise of making whole the many traumatized patients who have had their appendices removed. The recipient, Guapo resident Maize McGuffin, is recovering from her procedure and is reportedly in good spirits.
The recipients themselves donate their own stem cells from which the new appendix clone is grown. The clone can be grown in a variety of shapes and sizes to suit the needs of any recipient.
A crucial obstacle was overcome early on when a technique was found to prevent hair growth on the appendix, which was widely viewed as undesirable.
Copied from a source whose name may be off-putting to MAGA Americans. The words of the UAE businessman should stand apart from sanctimonious misperceptions burrowed under the skin of MAGA supporters.
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“One of the UAE’s top businessmen, Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor, just lashed out at Trump over the Iran War.
His Excellency President Donald Trump,
A direct question: Who gave you the authority to drag our region into a war with #Iran? And on what basis did you make this dangerous decision?
Did you calculate the collateral damage before pulling the trigger? And did you consider that the first to suffer from this escalation will be the countries of the region itself!
The peoples of this region have the right to ask as well: Was this your decision alone? Or did it come as a result of pressures from #Netanyahu and his government?
You have placed the countries of the #GulfCooperationCouncil and the Arab countries at the heart of a danger they did not choose. Thank God, we are strong and capable of defending ourselves, and we have armies and defenses that protect our homelands, but the question remains: Who gave you permission to turn our region into a battlefield?
For before the ink has dried on the #BoardOfPeace initiative that you announced in the name of peace and stability, we find ourselves facing a military escalation that endangers the entire region. So where did those initiatives go? And what is the fate of the commitments made in the name of peace?
Most of the funding proposed in those initiatives came from the countries of the region themselves, and from Arab Gulf countries that contributed billions of dollars on the basis of supporting stability and development. And these countries have the right to ask today: Where did this money go? And are we funding peace initiatives or funding a war that exposes us to danger?
More dangerous than that, your decision does not threaten only the peoples of the region, but also reaches the American people whom you promised peace and prosperity. And here they are today, finding themselves in a war funded from their money and taxes, with costs ranging, according to the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), between 40-65 billion dollars for direct military operations, and could reach 210 billion dollars including economic impacts and indirect losses if it lasts four to five weeks, not to mention the sacrifice of Americans themselves in a war in which they have neither camel nor she-camel.
You have even broken your promises not to get involved in wars and to focus only on America and put it at the top of your priorities, as you ordered foreign military interventions during your second term that included seven countries: Somalia, Iraq, Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, and Venezuela, in addition to naval operations in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific Ocean. You directed more than 658 foreign airstrikes in your first year in office, which equals the total strikes in Biden’s entire term, for which you directed your arrows of criticism for involving the United States in foreign wars.
Your Excellency the President, these numbers have severely reflected on your approval ratings among Americans, which have declined since your inauguration for the second term, by about 9% in just 400 days.
These numbers say something clear: Even within #TheUnitedStates, there is growing concern about being dragged into a new war, and about exposing the lives of Americans, their economy, and their future to unnecessary risks.
True leadership is not measured by war decisions, but by wisdom, respect for others, and pushing toward achieving peace. And if these initiatives were launched in the name of peace, then we have the right today to demand full transparency and clear accountability.”
I ran into this image today from the online class I’m taking. I suspect Uncle Joe may have been reincarnated and his shadow darkens the Kremlin floors even today.
Question: How do you transition from a Stalinist dictatorship to something less terrible and maybe even faintly democratic? It’s still an open question.
Source: Movie poster of Stalin’s Funeral by Yevgeni Yevtushenko. I’d have been tempted to poke the body with a stick to make sure he was dead.
Nikita Krushchev led de-Stalinization after Stalin died but was soon replaced by Leonid Brezhnev. It is said that not much of interest happened during the Brezhnev years other than keeping up with the cold war.
Big changes finally began with Mikhail Gorbachev and his glasnost and perestroika, but the USSR imploded before he was finished. The Kremlin couldn’t make the centralized economy work as desired, so they shut off the lights and went home. Boris Yeltsin was the first popularly elected and reelected President of Russia from 1991 to 1999 but his tenure was checkered with successes and failures. His hand picked successor was Vladimir Putin who was later elected President. The merits of that choice is apparent in the news today.
An even better question: how does a country whose skids were greased with bribery, had zero history of democratic anything or a market economy and little if any market-related institutions make the transition? Yeah, it’s a hard problem. The Soviet security apparatus didn’t fully collapse and survives to this day, frightening as ever.
There was an old joke- the KGB headquarters in Moscow went up 7 floors and down all the way to Siberia. The gulags were substantially emptied of millions of laborers after Krushchev’s elevation, but many of the camps were retained.
I’m happy to speak highly of a retired petroleum geologist who produces excellent geology video content for YouTube. His name is Myron Cook, and he lives in Wyoming; he loves the geology of Earth. He is a very prolific videographer and is known as the “Bob Ross” of geology for the genteel narration of his field trips in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. His manner of speaking and folksy explanations are suitable for the general public, but he manages to avoid patronizing oversimplification of geology. What is nice is that all of the formations he explains can be visited.
Source: Cross sectional sketch of the stratographic geology the basement rock protruding upward through the layers of sediment pushed upwards by the Laramide Orogeny. This represents the formations adjacent to Boulder, CO. Excerpted from “Boulder, A Sight to Behold: Guidebook” (1976) by Donald D. Runnells, modified by Sheila Murphy
His videos are well-produced 20-40 minute intro-level geology seminars, combining his aerial photography, whiteboard talks, and field trip adventures into geologically interesting terrains on the Colorado Plateau and up into Yellowstone and the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming. He is particularly adept at explaining sedimentology, an area in which I previously held little interest, but for no good reason. That has since changed.
If you live along the Colorado Front Range like I do, you’ll recognize the Boulder Flatirons, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. These steeply dipping conglomerate formations sit at the juncture of the Great Plains and the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains. They are part of the Fountain Formation, which extends steeply downward and toward the east. The formation is named for the Fountain River, where the layer was identified.
Source: Wikipedia. Fountain Formation exposure at Roxborough State Park near Denver.
Myron Cook has an excellent YouTube introduction to the Fountain Formation of Colorado. The rocks of the Fountain Formation are thought to be 290 to 340 million years old.
Mr. Cook began a video by asking the question “Is the Fountain Formation composed of sediment from the Rocky Mountains?” Well, sort of, but first consider how the adjacent sediment layers are situated. Next to the Front Range, numerous layers of sedimentary rocks lie pancaked together and aligned substantially vertical. The rule of thumb in sedimentary geology is that the oldest sediments are at the bottom and they accumulate going upwards. There are scattered apparent exceptions, but they are few and do not negate the rule.
The Fountain Formation is an alluvial fan formation of coarse red feldspar-rich granitic arkose. All of the exposed sandstone and conglomerate layers lying a few miles eastward from the Fountain Formation are likewise tilted upwards. These sedimentary exposures are not limited to the Front Range but also appear on the western slope of Colorado.
Vocabulary Update
How is ‘alluvial’ different from ‘fluvial’?
Fluvial (The Process): Relates to the erosion, transport, and deposition by active river channels. Examples include river channels, canyons, and waterfalls.
Alluvial (The Deposit): Refers to the material laid down by water, often outside the main channel during floods. Examples include alluvial fans, floodplains, and sandbars.
Usage: “Fluvial” describes the system or environment, whereas “alluvial” describes the sediment type or landform.
Source: Google (search terms: ‘alluvial versus fluvial’)
There is nothing strange about arkosic alluvial fans, except that in this case, it dips so steeply that much of it sits directly in contact with the granitic/metamorphic basement rock which is at a depth of about 10,000-11,000 ft of sediment below eastern Denver. If the alluvial fans were recent, they wouldn’t rest on the basement rock. Instead, they sit roughly two miles below many sedimentary layers. In general, the lower the sediment layer, the older the formation. Exceptions exist, and for very interesting reasons. The Fountain Formation is very old.
Another plug
If you have not visited Utah, you’re really missing out on a vast landscape of stunningly beautiful red sandstone formations. Even if geology does not do it for you, the sheer beauty of the many red river canyons, cliffs, arches and oddly eroded features should rouse the coldest of souls. Let your spouse drive so you can take in the view, just don’t say that.
Back to it
The present Rocky Mountains are thought to have begun in a third mountain building episode roughly 55 to 80 million years ago (MYA) called the Laramide Orogeny. These earlier mountain ranges are called the ‘Ancestral’ Rocky Mountains. This orogeny was the result of tectonic activity lifting mountains in New Mexico, Colorado. into Wyoming and Utah. Going north along the Rockies are other named orogenies.
The occurrence of mountain building of the Rocky Mountains far from a coastal subduction zone is rather odd. One of the more popular explanations is that subduction of the Farallon plate is unusually shallow, creating compression and uplifting far inland from the coastal subduction zone. When you push a rug or tablecloth, you’ll note that the rug or cloth will cause ripples in the direction of motion. This is similar to mountain building. It could also cause repetitive mountain building. This NASA link describes the subduction of the Farallon plate.
The Fountain Formation is much older than the present Rockies. This formation is believed to have come from the erosion of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains. But which one? One source makes reference to two prior ancestral ranges. The earliest is referred to as the Precambrian mountains and not much is known about it. It predates the Western Interior Seaway.
A second iteration of the Rocky Mountains from the next Laramide orogeny rose ca 300 MYA in the Late Pennsylvanian and Early Permian geologic periods. It was eventually eroded flat and carried away as sediment by wind and water. Sediments, i.e., sand & mud, are layered in ways that are consistent with alluvial fan formation.
Finally, 55 to 80 MYA the current iteration of Rocky Mountains arose from the Laramide Orogeny. In numerous places in or near the Rockies fossilized clams and oysters can be found at the surface. This further supports the past presence of the Interior Western Seaway.
I just remembered that I’m not writing a book. Ciao!!
For decades a population of Americans citizens have been extremely vocal about the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution and their right to bear arms. A major element to their argument is to have protection from a tyrannical government. Legislation carrying even the faintest whiff of what they spit out as “gun control” is defeated. But, that is an issue for another day.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment codifies a natural right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. That right to self-defense extends to both private and public threats, including self-defense against agents of a tyrannical government. Source: Google.
Well, what if that tyrannical government is now materializing? Will they even recognize it? So far it doesn’t look like it. This population is heavily invested in Trump so could that possibly blind them to the situation? Or did they just shrug and sign up to work for ICE in large numbers?
Trump and his cronies are constantly presuming authority over many areas of government that were statutorily or constitutionally understood to be outside the grasp of the executive. These people are constantly flooding the zone with acts of overreach backed by a republican SCOTUS and congress and enjoy a corrupt DoJ, DHS and, increasingly, a politicized DoD.
What does the term “liberal democracy” really mean? From Wikipedia-
Anyone who made it through 9th grade civics should have a background sufficient to realize that liberal democratic America is in existential danger. Not by violent overthrow but by a slow, painless slouch to illiberal democracy. A slouch because not enough voters will engage with money, votes or the gumption to step out and take a public stand against what is happening. A majority still have utilities, access to health care and safe neighborhoods and roads. So far the changes are rather abstract and distant for most citizens and it is easy to conclude that nothing personally serious is happening.
The US Constitution appears inadequate to provide a clear and muscular remedy against an abusive and malevolent single party control of all three houses of government. The Dems have had such control in the past, but did not seek to form an oligarchy or some dictatorial power grab. Were they just too dumb and timid to even try or is there something else? Maybe they know better.
In this country the Republicans have most of the lawyers, guns and money. But we woke liberals also have the 2nd Amendment at our disposal as well.
The reliable American MAGA/GOP fear machine shifted into overdrive on the Bad Bunny halftime show during the recent Super Bowl. Against the blinding glare of Trump’s never-ending stream of foul blather stands the latest upsurge of Christian puritanical indignation and accusations of unspeakable depravities freely broadcast over the public airwaves. A group of “conservative warriers” have been orchestrating a war dance from the corridors of Congress out into the MAGA world. Their legislative blunderbuss tactics and shrill accusations and are aimed at Bad Bunny, NBC, and the NFL.
The NFL and NBC stand accused by red state dullards of broadcasting “openly glorified sodomy and countless other unspeakable depravities.” The MAGA populist movement is a jealous and cantankerous mob, intolerant of competing populist stirrings including pop music stars. Roger Goodell, National Football League (NFL) commissioner, enthusiastically backed the selection of Bad Bunny according to Time. This was not a trick foisted on the NFL.
Opposition began after the announcement of the half-time entertainment lineup in 2025. Much of the backlash focused on Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican identity and his status as a Spanish speaker, with Fox News and political commentators framing the choice as anti-American.
The truly unwholesome aspect here is the extent to which American politics promotes and elects such Christian nationalist puritans to high office. Though politicians play to their home districts, their nationalist puritanical claims are broadcast widely, banking authority and credibility into their castle keep. Their words are cheap and easy to speak, but practically impossible to correct or refute. With Bible in one hand and the other reaching skyward in supplication, the sobbing preacher-man reads a verse and proclaims fealty to the invisible almighty and the President. It is at once moving and ridiculous. They know precisely what they are doing.
The Christian nationalist cult is intent on moving the US into a position where the rule of law is based on Biblical law, whatever that may be. Whatever it is, it will certainly place preachers into high-ranking, high-power positions of influence. If you listen to the TV preachers, they call for ‘Gods people’ to save America. All that matters is accelerating the return of the Savior to earth to trigger the end of times and banishment of the unworthy to a lake of molten sulfur.
I wonder if Biblical law would continue with parking tickets or tax law? If you wanted to change the easement on your property, would that be New or Old Testament, and would pastor Bob approve it?
Lamentations on Chemistry 
