Michael C. Goodwin's Blog, page 3

Total Eclipse of the Brain

I have begun to dislike those days when we experience natural phenomena such as a solar eclipse. There is always a bunch of morons who simply enjoy publishing certifiable stupidity just to get under the skin of those who would otherwise enjoy watching a wondrous free show put on by mother nature. Though, there is a small part of me, (a very small part of me), that is severely disappointed that the world did not actually end as predicted. It would have been nice to miss all of the massive electoral idiocy that we will now have to endure for the next seven months. Or even being annoyed that the Rapture did not elevate those other fools and leave the rest of us down here in peace. I am already surrounded by religious zealots who, without any provocation, will always insist on telling me that what I believe is so completely wrong that I will never ascend into heavenly bliss. I am so unhappy that this did not occur and that all of those self-righteous saints are still left down here with us happy sinners.

Of course, there was also an earthquake a few days ago, (hundreds every day someplace on the planet), that alone set off a wild feeding frenzy of end of times believers. Then there are the QAnon pizza parlors used to sex-traffic gay Republicans who will be sent to invade Ukraine for the Russians. Add in a conspiracy by Taylor Swift to infiltrate the NFL and also to overturn the presidential election and another to destroy all the bridges on the East coast by container ships, and of course the coming massive plague of locusts, (cicadas actually), then it is plain for those of us too stupid to see the signs and portents, that we are living on borrowed time. Oh yes, and your taxes are due next Monday.

It has to be that some really enjoy playing the fool, that they love to tell the rapidly declining majority of us regular people that we are way too stupid to understand the real nature of the universe. Perhaps the reason nothing happened to us and the world did not actually end is because that these events are not world ending in themselves, a very easy concept to grasp, if you are normal enough in the head. However throw an asteroid at the planet or keep putting CO2 in the atmosphere in massive amounts then perhaps we will see something actually occur to cause some real problems. And then maybe, all those squeaking, mewing idiots will actually be right for the first time in 65 million years.

(I am sure that I missed mentioning Big Foot, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster, oh well, next blog. There has to be some other world-ending event coming soon to a planet near you. Below, me attending to a telescope during the 2017 solar eclipse where it was only 92% of totality where we were. Thank goodness it wasn’t a 100%, I might have gotten sucked up into a vortex.)

Korean War Nukes

Just 5 years after the end of World War II, the Soviet-equipped military forces of North Korea invaded the Southern part of the Korean peninsula on June 25, 1950. The war was fought initially with the materials of the second world war, but as the fighting progressed, more and more modern weaponry found its way into the conflict. Initially, the B-29 Super Fortress, the mainstay of the strategic bombing forces of the U.S. against Japan in the Pacific war, were mobilized to attack the North Korean forces. The main concern at the start of the conflict was how to keep the war small and not to get the Soviets or Chinese overtly involved. Things took a turn for the worse by the summer, as North Korean forces drove back the armies of the Republic of Korea and U.N. forces, (mainly U.S.), to the southern part of the peninsula around Pusan. With the threat of annihilation of the U.N. forces, the nuclear option was openly discussed.

The first two U.S. nuclear weapons developed were used to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki and end the war in the Pacific in 1945 and I have often wondered why nuclear bombs were not used in the Korean War and what would have happened if they were used. The initial Plutonian bomb used against Nagasaki, (called Mark 3), was hand-built and difficult to use. Since the end of WWII, the U.S. had developed a process to mass-produce a new type of Plutonian bomb, (Mark 4), and had nearly 300 on hand at the start of the Korean War. At this time the Soviets were frantically developing their own nuclear weapons and the Chinese were still years away from a bomb of their own. The U.S. was the only nation able to deliver a nuclear weapon, even though the B-29s which would carry them were nearing their obsolesce. In actuality, all of the American nuclear bombs remained under the control of the Atomic Energy Commission and not the military and none had been deployed outside of the U.S. At the time it was thought that if nuclear weapons were used in Korea, the effect would not be decisive and would not deter further fighting.

In a game of nuclear bluff, (which was to be repeated by both sides for the entirely of the Cold War), President Truman ordered General Curtis LeMay, (head of the Strategic Air Command), to send 20 B-29s to England with fully assembled Mark 4 Plutonian bombs. These bombers were well within striking range of the Soviet Union. For the first time, nuclear weapons had been given to the military, except for one small thing, none of the bombs had their Plutonian cores. Events were getting a bit tense, then suddenly, it all changed. On September 15, A flank attack with an amphibious landing west of Seoul quickly cut the North Korean supply lines and drove their forces back up the peninsula. As the North Koreans faced defeat the Chinese got involved, and invading with an army of 200,000 men, drove the U.N. forces back. It was time to discuss the nuclear option again.

President Truman ordered nuclear capable bombers from Guam to a base in Okinawa near the Korean Peninsula. As fighting raged, practice bombing runs were made over the battlefields with dummy or conventional bombs to test out strike capabilities. By June 15, 1951, the fighting was winding down to a sort of trench warfare style conflict, (and would continue for two more years), the bombers were sent back to Guam. By attacking the Chinese, who were basically walking to combat through the mountainous landscapes of North Korea, it was not deemed a good use of the U.S. nuclear capabilities and definitely not what the bombs were made for. Actually, the only way to make an atomic bomb dangerous to others, was not to use it.

(Below, B-29s dropping conventional bombs over Korea. These World War II era bombers had to contend with the fast new Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters, the future of war was becoming a dangerous one.)

Happy Medicine

My morning routine includes watching the daily news. Along with all of the horrific and sobering stories of the day are the highly annoying commercials that advertise various medical cures. The people taking these drugs are unnaturally happy and are prone to break out in song and dance touting the virtues of their medicines. This is becoming quite annoying as I am a person who is taking one or two of these drugs and I normally do not feel the urge to jump up and dance around the room singing about my good health.

One of my ancient college degrees is in advertising design and I worked for a very short time in advertising, and found it to be completely unpleasant. I know well that music and song in advertisements can have quite an affect on whether or not a person will respond favorably to a certain product. I also know that a commercial must, by law, present a balance between the risks and benefits of said product. They are also not allowed to make unsupported claims for their products though this is often hidden under those layers of happiness. So how did this become so prevalent? In the mid-80s, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, (FDA) legalized drug advertising on TV, (and then everywhere else), as a way for drug companies to advertise to people, especially older ones who have a greater need of life-saving medications. Amazingly enough, New Zealand and the U.S. are the only countries in the world that allow prescription drugs to be directly advertised to consumers in almost every type of media available.

The one drug that has completely amazed me lately is the diabetes treatment drug, Ozempic. Why in God’s name would someone who does not have diabetes, take this drug simply to loose weight. Do they have any idea what this drug does to blood sugar levels and other internal functions of their body? And of course all of these drugs have the upbeat music of the seventies and eighties for people of a certain age group that are prone to certain medical issues. One of the singing and dancing drugs that I take for my diabetes is Jardiance. This drug lowers blood sugar levels and helps reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, which is very important to me as I suffered a clogged artery causing a heart attack last year. But you can dance and sing to the virtues of Jardiance with daily commercials. They really need to also explain to people how these drugs are very expensive and will stay that way so the pharmaceutical companies can continue to collect record profits. How about singing me up a good, cheaper, generic drug that I can afford in my retirement?

(Enough of the singing and dancing. Diabetes will eventually kill me as it did my grandmother and my father. But the drugs I take will keep me going for quite some time. And who knows, some of the cures for diabetes that I keep reading about may actually come to pass. Photo unapologetically posted by me courtesy of Jardiance.)

Nuclear Arms Race

Those words used to strike fear into my young mind growing up in the fifties and sixties. But after becoming an adult and taking up the task of marriage, children, work, house, cars and all the other intricacies of modern living, I sorta forgot there was a problem. Now those words have come back to haunt me in my old age. In all honesty, the nuclear arms race never ended, it is still there, nearly 80 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki and throughout the cold war up to the nineties and beyond. It has always promised to never go away. In fact there is now an expensive modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, particularly since the beginning of the Ukraine war and Russian and Chinese aggression. Other current conflicts such as the Palestinian/Israeli war and rising threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies have kept the nuclear pot boiling.

Last year alone, the U.S. government spent $51 billion in updating its nuclear weapons. The budget office estimates that the current nuclear modernization will cost $494 billion through FY 2028 and $1.7 trillion through FY 2046. Yes, 1.7 trillion dollars. The entire 40 year period, (1948 to 1989) of the Cold War cost 7 to 8 trillion dollars. In an age where a new aircraft carrier can cost $13.3 billion and a single new stealth bomber can run $750 million, such nuclear extravagance seems almost trivial. This enormous theft of our national treasure is a crippling strain on our country. A small part of the money we throw at defense spending could solve a myriad of other problems like child care, medical expenses, social security, education, environmental concerns, energy, and housing. All the enormous amounts of money spent on weapons that will be rendered obsolete in 10 to 20 years is forever gone.

Instead of spending vast amounts of money to upgrade our land based missiles, (The Sentinel program, all of those 400 underground missiles, ballooning up to $162 million each), why not simply upgrade the existing Minuteman III ICBMs. Land-based missiles, (as opposed to bomber and submarine-based missiles), are highly vulnerable in their fixed positions. In a conflict, they are likely to be used first to avoid their destruction and as such, are on extreme alert, and subject to possible error in their use.

We have not educated our modern population on what the use of nuclear weapons would do to civilization and most notably the environment already stressed by climate change. The utter insanity of even thinking about attacking or defending against attack is psychotic. Best estimates are that perhaps 1% of the world’s population of 8 billion might survive a full nuclear exchange. Despite all the movies and TV series to the contrary, it is a world that is in no way livable. Perhaps distant islands or remote lands might avoid deadly radiation and crippling climate adjustments, but it is not any kind of world that I would like. I enjoy hot showers every morning, reclining easy chairs and home-delivery pizza way too much.

(The utter glee in the development and testing of these weapons of mass destruction since World War II has astonished me from birth. At least we don’t test them openly as we did in the fifties and sixties.)

War by Any Other Name

Two years ago in Ukraine, Russia began a war to reconquer another of its former territories. Its aim was clear and unambiguous, it was war. The Ukrainians have put up a fantastic fight so far, but the conflict has settled down to a war of attrition, and with the much larger forces of Russia battering against the numerically smaller forces of Ukraine, the outcome may eventually turn against them. Even if the U.S. resumes its considerable aid in money and munitions, there could still come a point where Ukraine is simply worn down.

Ukraine is not the only war that Russia is currently waging. It also is conducting a massive campaign against the democratic countries of the world. The use of misinformation, fake news, social media manipulation, electoral interference, cyber attacks, economic threats against smaller countries, and the backing of terrorist groups, Hamas, Hezbollah and now Houthi rebels, in other words, the use of anything short of outright conflict that would bring a much larger response is in play. Smaller provocations using proxies such as Iran, North Korea, Belarus and China to push economic pressures means that Russia don’t actually need to have their forces on the ground fighting in order to destabilize or harm other countries.

Democracies are not as tightly bound as authoritarian states and are more easily threatened by internal disunity. Those who want to loosen the rule of law, cut taxes for the very wealthy, deregulate business, distrust science, allow for the repeal of environmental laws and increase discrimination of minorities and other gender based groups will cut out the heart of a democracy without a second thought. This is not a war with guns and bombs but one with ideological weapons. The defense of democracy is not a passive conflict and it requires each and everyone to actively work to support and keep it strong. Each citizen has the right to vote and participate in shaping what our country is and what it should become. To ignore this and let others decide for us is amount to giving everything up. Ukraine has not given up, and its citizens shed their blood daily in order to keep their democracy intact, can we do anything less? There may not be an active war here, but we must act as if there was one.

(The war in Ukraine has now continued for two years. How much longer will it take to realize that it is our war against Russia as much as it is theirs. Photo courtesy the Economic Times.)

The Water Year 2022-23

The water year in Utah runs from October 1 to September 30 in the following year. To quickly recap, North Ogden (where I reside), gets 20 inches of rain, average, per year. The US average is 38 inches per year. North Ogden gets some kind of precipitation, on average, 84 days per year. The U.S. gets 106 days of average precipitation. (Precipitation is rain, snow, sleet, or hail that falls to the ground. In order for precipitation to be counted you have to get at least .01 inches on the ground to measure.)

In the previous water year 2012-2022 we were distinctly lacking in all things wet. This water year just past was quite a bit more soggy. Last year we received 18.60 inches of precipitation, this year the number flowed up to 27.55 inches of precipitation. With just 82 days of some water last year, the number jumped to an amazing 122 days with precipitation, with 48 of those days being snow. In the first six months of the water year we received one and a half inches of precipitation above the entire yearly average for North Ogden. The second six months of the water year was almost disturbingly normal in temperature and in precipitation.

The heavy amount of precipitation in the winter months was a result of overflow from California and the astonishing number of atmospheric river storms that brought them copious amounts of rain and snow. After leaping over the Serra Nevada Mountains and then slamming up against the Wasatch Range here in Utah, the storms left us with record amounts of snow in our mountains. Last year 56% of Utah was in “extreme” drought. Today, because of those storms, Utah doesn’t have anywhere in the “severe” drought category, and just 8% is “moderately dry,” and 74% of the state isn’t experiencing any drought.

Alas, that kind of rain and snow doesn’t come every season. The last really big year of record rain and snow occurred in 1982-83, some 40 years ago. Now, with an El Nino warming up the Pacific Ocean, historically, it tends to increase precipitation in the Southwest and Utah. So perhaps we are in for a longer spell of wetter weather. I am hoping not, Last winter there were 48 days with some kind of snowfall and 26 days when it was so wet and heavy that it required some serious snow blowing, all backbreaking work. I am all for water in the desert state where I live, but mother nature could be a little kinder to an old guy like me.

(A view of the sidewalk and driveway of our house, this was the beginning of April, after 5 months of the same thing.)

The Five Stages of Climate Grief

Denial: And I’m not talking about that river in Egypt. Denial, well duh! How many morons does it take to change a light bulb, or obstruct the adults in the room from doing anything useful to help the planet from becoming overheated. Fine, if you want to keep spouting off about something you cannot possibly understand, at least crawl back in your hole and let the rest of us get on with some real work of trying to help make things better for the planet.

Anger: I’m not sure which anger we are talking about here. The anger of the people trying to stop us from doing anything about climate change or the anger of the people trying to keep the world from burning down. Canada is burning, Greece, (really), is burning and hundreds of other places are burning. A whole city on a tropical island burned down recently, but hey, that’s perfectly normal, no need to get angry about it. A hurricane in southern California, (not normal), a hurricane in Florida, (mostly normal), you don’t have to be angry about these things, it’s not your home. Maybe something needs to happen to the rest of us so we will get a little angrier about what is going on.

Bargaining: Not much bargaining going on here either, (See number one), Nothing to see here, situation normal, how are you? Look, just try a few things, burn less oil and coal, reduce a little CO2, don’t drive so much, if you reduce just a little carbon dioxide, it won’t get so hot so fast. It’s simple mathematics, less CO2 equals less warming. See, what a bargain. Less heat in the air, ground, oceans, and the effects of climate change will not be so bad. It won’t impact you all that much if you do a few positive things, carpool, get more efficient appliances, buy a higher milage car, better yet, get an electric one. There will almost certainly not be any gasoline cars in 25 years or so. We will have to give them up someday along with a great many other things as well. Start now, why wait for the rush?

Depression: This is the hardest part of it all, knowing that despite all the efforts of many people it is still going to get hotter along with all the effects that will come with it. The bad thing will be when the climate affects growing seasons and crop production more and more, and we have to start dealing with food shortages. How about when countries around the equator get too hot for people to live normally, they are going to have to go somewhere else, your backyard? Insurance for your house in a flood prone area or the forested lands where you live? Good luck with that. It is not going to be pleasant for us, who are not billionaires, we have to stay where we are instead of retreating to our luxury doomsday bunkers.

Acceptance: This is actually good, once you accept that climate change is happening, then you can get on with doing something to help. And, while we can all do a little something to help, it is really the big guys, the government, the corporations and businesses that need our encouragement to accept that there is a problem and we can all work together to help fix things. Is that too much to ask? We can go on ignoring the problem or we can quit wasting time and actually start to think about managing our future for the better.

(Did the paleo-indians living in southern Utah understand what was happening when a mega-drought burned the land of plants, water and animals? Did they leave messages on the rocks to warn us of the deadly changes that were happening to them?)

The Improbable True Story of the Standard Rail Gauge

I am something of an grumpy, older guy, as one or two of you may know. I have also spent a lot of time reading and studying history and how we got to be where we are now. So it takes quite a bit of something to really surprise me. But my mind was completely blown the other day when I came across a post on a bit of history that was not known to me. To back-track a little, I was researching some stuff for a book that I have been working on and off for a while about the historical building of the transcontinental railroad, which met up here in Northern Utah, less then an hours drive from my house. I wanted to know the width of the railroad tracks of that time, (and thereafter), which turns out to be 4 feet, 8 and a half inches. Okay, that is a pretty odd measure, why not 4 and half feet or an even 5 feet or more? I put it out of my mind until the other day.

It turns out, that the first railroads in the U.S. were designed by English engineers and as you may guess, that is the width of English railroads. The English railroads were based on the width on wagon tramways and on regular wagons and the original jigs that were used to build them. So why did wagons have that odd width? Wagon ruts. If they were wider or shorter they would not wear very well. So who built the old rutted roads? The Romans, who build networks of roads from Italy all the way up through Europe and England for their legions. Okay, the roads the Romans build for their military and chariots, made the initial ruts that everyone followed thereafter. So why that odd measurement for their chariots? Because, (deep breath), that is the width of two horse’s rear ends that pulled those chariots. Our railroad system was based on more then 2,000 years of horse’s behinds.

And now for the real strange twist in the story. Not more then 15 miles from where the transcontinental railroad met at the Golden Spike National Monument, is the company Thiokol, (now Cordant Technologies), and the factory where the solid rocket boosters, (our most advanced flight system at the time), that helped lift the space shuttles into space for 135 flights is located. The rocket booster engineers wanted to make them larger for better liftoff capabilities, but guess what? Trains, which transported the booster parts had to go through several tunnels to get to the launch facilities and the trains were only as wide as two horse’s rear ends. So the boosters had to be smaller then they originally wanted and the horses won out. The moral is, you don’t have to be a horse’s behind to make history, but occasionally it helps.

(The standard rail gauge bar in the center of the photo from the Golden Spike National Monument museum. A space shuttle booster, (dummy) on display at the old Thiokol plant. I couldn’t get any horses for comparison.)

Sunscreen

Okay, so it has been hot, and really hot in some parts of the country. So what’s the problem? Plant a few more trees, get more efficient air conditioners, adapt. But the danger of getting used to things is, that doesn’t help with the problem. Let’s face it, humans are going to continue to burn oil and coal for the foreseeable future, and continue to forget that it is getting hotter and just turn up the air conditioning. It will be up to scientists to figure out something to do, even though some of the children in the room think science is stupid, and they can show you the articles on their I-phones, (which scientists and technicians built for their tiny little brains).

Since humans are not going to do anything responsible, (like giving up their polluting and gas burning cars for one), some people are thinking that some climate geoengineering may be in order. One idea has been put up a sunshade in orbit over Earth and block a little of the solar radiation shining down on us in order to cool the planet. This shade could be placed in the Earth’s Lagrange Point, (a place in orbit where the Earth’s gravity, the sun’s gravity and solar radiation balance out). This shade could be anchored to a small asteroid so it wouldn’t wander off and would need to only block about 1.7 percent of the solar radiation reaching Earth to keep us from overheating too much. Other proposals include shooting an amount of moon dust into orbit from the moon itself in order to block some of the solar radiation with a large dust-spewing cannon.

Earth-based ideas may be easier and cheaper. Aerosols, (sulfur particles), sprayed into the upper atmosphere may help block solar radiation. Others are proposing ways to help refreeze the Arctic and the remaining glaciers and ice sheets with reflecting materials to keep them cooler. Finding better ways to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would certainly help, ships in the ocean to spray mist up in the air and dumping iron fertilizer in the ocean to increase algae growth which absorbs CO2 have also been proposed. The best way forward would be to stop burning coal, gas and oil. People have been slow to buy and use electric cars and building electric, non polluting aircraft and ships has not been very rapid. The adoption of wind, water and safer nuclear power production in still gearing up and somewhat expensive and geoengineering is an idea with many risks, but someday soon something will have to be done to lower the temperature of our planet. Buying a good sunscreen for our skin will be the least of our problems.

(Many of my paintings illustrate an enclosed, domed city which could control it’s own heating and air conditioning, protected from a hostile outside environment. I certainly hope it will not come to that in our planet’s future.)

The UFO Intelligent Life Thing

In my last blog, I was ragging on the Congressional hearings about UFOs, (or UAPs if you prefer). So, I have to disclose that I have written 3 complete novels and I am working on 2 more about humans coming in contact with aliens and what happens to them. So, it is a fact that I truly believe that there is intelligent life out there in the universe and there are probably aliens and spaceships out there as well. I just don’t believe that there is any intelligent life in the U.S. Congress. And in particular that we have alien bodies and crashed spacecraft in possession by the military or anyone else. There was testimony by 3 witnesses, all who were once associated or in the military that assured the committee that it was all true, but when asked for specifics, they all said that it was classified. Wait. What? Whistleblowers who won’t blow the whistle on the facts of the matter? This sounds like a comedy sketch on SNL, but the implausibility of it all was ignored and the committee members eagerly lapped up this latest serving of alien nonsense.

What are we missing here that these supposedly intelligent members of congress who are the elected representatives of the the people in their districts, are believing as truth? Let’s look at what is happening in Washington. Inflation is down, the recession hasn’t shown up yet, illegal immigration is down, unemployment is down, the stock market is up and economic growth is doing just fine. Time for the usual confusion and discord, let’s talk about aliens! And now, after shaking things up a little, let’s go on a six-week summer recess! Let people worry about those alien bodies in the freezer section of the local government warehouse and the saucer spare parts that they are desperately trying to figure out. Maybe perhaps they have something to enhance the intelligent of our elected officials. Now that would be useful, maybe, perhaps.

When all of these congressional people get back from vacation, let’s try to shut down the government by not funding any of it, oh yes! And try to impeach the president for not telling us anything about those body parts and pieces of spaceships. Never mind, that by bringing some real alien body parts or a spaceship cloaking device to the hearing, you could really cause chaos and doubt about the current administration. But those experts said it’s so, it really, really must be! And the current government better cough the stuff up or else! We are the only ones who know the truth of the matter so trust us! Oh yes, it is all classic misdirection, and actually, the truth is out there, as they used to say on TV, just don’t look for it in Congress.

(I have also painted numerous illustrations of alien vehicles, (and considerable numbers of Star Wars and Star Trek pieces). But that doesn’t mean that I have any information on real alien life or spaceships, but it does show that I have a pretty good imagination and am somewhat talented.)