Dwain Northey (Gen X)

We are in an energy transition point and a lot of naysayers are not only on the fence about EVs and alternative energy sources they seem to be actively throwing rocks trying to discredit this move away from burning fossil fuels. I liken these cynics to the saddle makers of the late 19^th century that would never forgo their horses for the new-fangled horseless carriage. But the times are changing, and technology is advancing and as a ‘thinking’ species we are, well at least some of us are, realizing that burning carbon is irreconcilably altering the climate of the planet that we live on. Most of us are aware that we have no other place to go and unlike Elon Musk we do not have the resources to launch ourselves into space to try and find an alternate planet to live on.

EV’s are getting a bad name mostly because the technology is new. The main complaint I hear for the detractors is that charging the batteries requires the burning fossil fuel to create the energy and when the batteries are spent that the batteries themselves are not recyclable and more toxic to the environment that just burning gas. Again, I come to the point of reminding people that this technology is relatively new, think of how far the cell phone has come from the first clunky phones of the 90’s. leaps and bounds of the past 30+ years.

Let’s get back to the EV and battery issue that is the stumbling block for many detractors of EV’s. There is an emerging battery technology that is going to change everything we think about batteries and when it is perfected it is going to cost a lot of energy companies their monopolies in the market. Here is the solution by encapsulating radioactive material inside diamonds, we turn a long-term problem of nuclear waste into a nuclear-powered battery and a long-term supply of clean energy.” The team have demonstrated a prototype ‘diamond battery’ using Nickel-63 as the radiation source.

I am sure many of you just had a WFT moment. It is called a Radioactive Diamond Battery. Again, I can hear the “What Radioactive that can’t be safe.” Research has determined that the radiation level of diamond batteries will be lower and safer than the radiation level produced by the human body. Serving as a small nuclear generator, the power source for these batteries consists of high-level radioisotopes coated with multiple synthetic diamonds for safety. The next question is how do recharge this battery? The good news is you don’t by using nuclear waste as their main power source and diamonds as their heat conducting element, the nuclear Diamond battery can supposedly last up to 28,000 years, an unfathomably long time.

How would this affect EV’s? Well, I am glad you asked, according to NDB, the nano-diamond battery is self-renewing and advantageous for the environment. It could be used to power drones, electric cars, smartphones, and many other gadgets. In these batteries, the energy source is stored beneath a polycrystalline diamond covering. Now the question is, what about diamonds? We have lab grown diamonds; we don’t have to extract them for the earth. Most industrial applications of synthetic diamond have long been associated with their hardness; this property makes diamond the ideal material for machine tools and cutting tools. These same synthetic diamond are ideal for NDB (Nuclear Diamond Battery)s.

The disadvantage of these types of batteries is since radioisotope decay is sustained by the material itself, there is no need for refueling or recharging. The disadvantage of using these batteries is that their power density is lower than chemical batteries, and these have low conversion efficiencies.  

For all the science nerds that want to know how much power the batteries produce; It produced a power output of about 1 μW at for power density of 10 μW/cm³. At those values, its energy density would be approximately 3.3 Wh/g over its 100-year half-life, about 10 times that of conventional electrochemical batteries. I know for most non chemists that doesn’t mean anything let’s just leave it to say that this new battery technology sustains itself and will outlive the application that it will power.

Now that I have rambled on about science and advancements that most of us are or were unaware of, does anyone feel better about our energy future? I DO!

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

DRACONIAN

This is a word that I feel is overused and usually out of context. The literal meaning of Draconian is excessively harsh and severe, today the meaning has expanded to rigorous; unusually severe or cruel. It is a hard word, with hard connotations and as I said used often today and out of context.

I hear high school kids saying that their parents have draconian rules but when I ask what the rule is and consequences for breaking that rule are the adolescent does not articulate anything that could be construed as excessively severe.

Example: Rule- a curfew of 9pm during the week and 11pm on weekends.

                  Consequences for breaking rule- no going out or car for the next week.

Oh, my gawd that is the harshest punishment ever… at least to the teen. This is in no way DRACONIAN.

Now if the punishment for breaking curfew was No car, no going out, and 50 lashes with a cat of nine tails, that could be considered draconian.

I suppose I am a word snob, all I ask is if your going to try and sound smart don’t your big words out of context.

Dwain Northey (Gen X)

The Pros and Cons of the Electoral College

Updated on April 2, 2023

Written by Amelia Josephson

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When you go to the polls to vote for a president every four years, you’re participating in an indirect vote. Why is it indirect? Well, because of the electoral college. Some say the electoral college is key to maintaining what’s good about U.S. politics, while others want to abolish the institution in favor of a more direct system. Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the electoral college in the context of modern American politics.

Advantages of the Electoral College

The electoral college has a number of pros and cons, depending on where you fall on the political spectrum. While it prevents an easy-to-understand election that would draw from a popular vote, it was originally enacted to give every state its fair say in who gets elected to the highest office in the country. Here are the most relevant benefits:

1. It Keeps Smaller States Relevant in National Politics

Imagine a U.S. presidential election with no electoral college. If only the popular vote mattered, candidates might concentrate their energies on densely populated metro areas like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. Depending on your perspective, that might sound like a change for the worse. It would mean candidates would have little reason to consider, say, the state of farming in Iowa or the opiate crisis in New Hampshire.

One reason that some analysts support the electoral college is that it encourages candidates to pay attention to small states and not just get out the vote in big, populous states and cities. The electoral college gives small states more weight in the political process than their population would otherwise confer.

2. It Provides a Clean, Widely Accepted Ending to the Election (Most of the Time) 

The electoral college, proponents say, makes U.S. presidential elections less contentious by providing a clear ending. There’s no need for a national recount when you have an electoral college.

If one state has voting issues, you can just do a recount in that state rather than creating national upheaval. And to win, a candidate must garner the support of voters in a variety of regions. That means whoever wins the presidency must build a truly national coalition. This, in turn, helps promote national cohesion and the peaceful transfer of power between presidents and helps keep the nation’s political system stable.

3. It Makes it Easier for Candidates to Campaign 

If you’re a Democrat running for president, you don’t have to spend too much time or money wooing voters in left-leaning California. The same goes for Republican candidates and right-leaning Texas.

The fact that certain states and their electoral votes are safely in the column of one party or the other makes it easier and cheaper for candidates to campaign successfully. They can focus their energies on the battleground states. Some argue that getting rid of the electoral college could make American presidential elections even more expensive than they already are, exacerbating what some see as America’s campaign finance problem.

Disadvantages of the Electoral College

In politics, there are very few things that make everyone happy. The electoral college is no different as there are a few cons that need to be considered. Here are the most important cons to the electoral college.

1. It Can Make People Feel Like Their Votes Don’t Matter

In the electoral college, it’s true that not every vote matters. A Democrat in California who gets stuck in traffic and doesn’t make it to the polls probably shouldn’t beat themselves up. The same can’t be said for a voter in Florida, Ohio or another swing state.

U.S. voter participation rates are already quite low. Some argue that eliminating the electoral college would be an easy way to raise them and boost Americans’ engagement in the political process.

2. It Gives Too Much Power to Swing States

If you follow U.S. federal elections and you don’t live in a swing state, you might find yourself grumbling that some voters get all the attention. If you don’t live in a swing state like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and more, you probably won’t see as many ads, have as many canvassers come to your door or get polled as frequently. The electoral college means that swing states – which aren’t necessarily the most representative of the country as a whole – get most of the attention.

And even within swing states, certain counties are more competitive than others. That means voters in those counties are courted particularly hard. If that offends your sense of fairness and you think that candidates should fight for the votes of all Americans, you may oppose the electoral college. In fact, this result has ended up creating the same thing that the electoral college is supposed to prevent, which is candidates focusing on a few specific areas.

3. It Can Clash With the Popular Vote

Remember the 2000 election when Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the electoral college, and therefore the presidency? That was enough to turn some Americans off from the electoral college forever.

If the U.S. eliminates the electoral college, that scenario would never happen again. The potential for the electoral college to conflict with the result of the popular vote is one of the most commonly cited arguments against the electoral college.

4. There Remains the Possibility of “Rogue Electors”

Many states have no law requiring electors to vote the way their state has voted. Electors in these states are “unbound.” Therefore, the electoral college is based on a set of traditions that electors vote the way their state votes.

However, there’s always the possibility of “rogue” or “faithless” electors who could give a vote to a candidate who didn’t win the elector’s state. This also worries critics of the electoral college.

Pro or Con: It Keeps the Two-Party System Strong

This one is either a pro or a con, depending on your point of view. The electoral college helps keep the two-party system strong. It makes it very hard for a third party to break through at the national level and increases the risk that a third party could spoil a candidate’s chance of winning, which in turn discourages people from voting for third-party candidates.

Some analysts credit the two-party system with keeping American politics stable and driving candidates to the political center, while others would like to see a multi-party system takes hold in the U.S. So, depending on where you stand with regard to the two-party system, you’ll probably have corresponding feelings about the electoral college.

The Bottom Line

Will the U.S. decide to eliminate the electoral college? It’s hard to say. There’s a movement to encourage states to split their electors in proportion to the percentage of the state vote that each candidate gets. While that wouldn’t eliminate the electoral college, it would change the winner-take-all nature of our system and the way candidates think about state campaigns. Time will tell whether that reform – and others – come to pass.

Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

Not in Power still seemingly pulling the strings.

The puppet master seems to have some puppets internal to some key places in the government and he is pulling strings to have them do all kinds of things to interfere with the current administration. When they are discovered what will their fate be? Should it be dismissed, absolutely. Should it be tried for internal espionage, possibly. Should it be incarceration , by all means. Seems harsh, maybe it is one thing to have a job and not agree with the boss and another to do everything you can to cause grief for the boss. 

  Trump was supposedly taken to the Federal Detention Center in Miami along with someone else he was working with at home and some documents were taken as well. There seems to be information to name persons working inside the government that are loyal to Trump and have been trying to help him during all these legal hearings. Guess we will find out as to who has been sleeping with who.

  Monday begins with no news of Trump being locked up so we move on. His gag order has been put back in place not that it will do much good. His attitude is that he can do as he pleases anytime and anywhere he chooses to do anything. His life has been one of little responsibility and getting away with screwing over everyone that gets in his way. Hopefully this segment of his miserable existence will end with his head in the toilet and his feet in the air.

  It has been noted that he is a vulgar man and he is not alone in that even for someone that lived in the White House. LBJ was pretty impressed with his own equipment and was supposed to have been quite willing to show it off whenever the occasion arose. Don’t know what there is about someone in a power job that they seem to think everyone needs to be impressed either by what they have in their pants or with how they are sleeping with.

  Colorado is having a trial to determine if Trump is even allowed to run for office again according to the Constitution. He should not be and that should be the finding, in that state and every state as well as the entire United States. The stacked Supreme Court is of course very likely to see it differently. If they let him run and hopefully he loses then they should be tried for supporting an insurrectionist and removed from office. 

  The gag order has been reinstated and of course this is violating his 1st Amendment Rights. It is amazing that the people that have the least respect for the Constitution are the ones that try to use it to protect themselves from justice. They wish to destroy our way of life and yet they wrap themselves in our flag and use Constitutional law to attempt to  further their efforts.

  Why can’t they come up with a flag of their own, something appropriate say a big turd falling out of a Rhino’s ass. That sounds about right to me. Trump is such an expert at all things you would think he could come up with a way to send his venomous messages out telepathically and not have to worry about being censured. 

  If the lawsuit in Colorado and possibly other states to keep him off the ballot makes it to the Supreme Court and is upheld, as it should be, will we be able to go after all members of Congress that have supported this action? Making an example of these people would send a message to the world that we have not yet fallen and that we are still a strong viable nation.

Feel free to comment, disagree, agree, rebuff all commentary is welcome.