Naming of a special prosecutor

Here's another political post. It seems that I cannot get away from it. Indeed, we all may find that we simply cannot get away from this out of control government.

The announcement took me by surprise. Well, it shouldn't have. This is the kind of stunt that the opposition, to this new tyrannical regime, should have been warning us all about. Well, I will oppose them. So this is my bad, but supposedly there are others who oppose the new tyrants. Where were THEY?

The pretext for it is the document war between Trump and the National Archives. Also, the J6th riot, (aka insurrection). It is a pretext because it is poltical. The new tyrants spent the last two years with their phony insurrection narrative, and failed with it. Also, the raid on Trump's home came up empty handed. Despite all of this, these new tyrants have set up a special prosecutor to look for a way to work their will via Lawfare. Two events where they failed to establish anything, are the pretexts. Like the COVID "emergency" that never ends, it is just a pretext for an abuse of power.

Got that? There was no crime, but they have to go on yet another fishing expedition. This has been the pattern all along from our valiant "defenders of democracy and the rule of law". ( spit, spit)

By the way, why do they need a special prosecutor? I never heard of special prosecutors until the Watergate Era. It was deemed necessary then because an administration could not investigate itself. Such is not the case here. It is not Brandon that they're investigating. It is the opposition party. It would be like Nixon setting up a special prosecutor to investigate the people who were accusing him of a crime.

Brandon has the machinery of the DOJ already. Why does he need more? Maybe it is to keep his own hands from getting dirty? If this was the Brandon Administration investigating its critics, people might get alarmed. Maybe. Who knows these days... People should have been alarmed at his Dark Brandon speech. But no....

The government is getting more and more out of control. We've lost maybe our last chance to reign it back in. It is clear that Brandon is not liking the opponents to actually oppose him. He will sick the big bad government on anybody that does. Be forewarned. He is putting us all on notice.

Are small government conservatives just spitting into the wind?

There is a something of a gag order on this blog right now, self-imposed. With respect to political situation, that is. The recent election was a major disappointment for me, and I'd rather not engage in too much discussion at this point. But political philosophy? Yes, that is a possible area of comment.

There was a reminder of something on the webs, with respect to financial matters. Here's a premise for you: that the presence of financial leverage leads invariably to the regulatory state; and also leads invariably to the welfare state; which also invariably leads to either socialism or communism.

For if you're going to have financial leverage, then you are going to have to regulate it. The necessity of regulation is quite clear. Any type of leverage, whether in finance or in physics, will lead to outsized effects. Some of these outsized effects can be quite unpleasant. Hence, the Great Depression. The Great Depression caused a domino effect due to the use of financial leverage. For example, if one enterprise goes bankrupt, it can bring down an entire series of failures due to the first--just like a domino effect. In consequence to this phenomenon, the modern regulatory state was born. Up to until that time, there was very limited regulation of private enterprise. The Great Depression shook that belief that private enterprise could regulate itself. Man being the fallen creature that he is, cannot be trusted to resist the temptation to abuse power. Financial leverage is power, and it is going to be abused.

Once you got the regulatory state, you also got the rest of the baggage of the welfare state. The welfare state has become self-serving. It acts in its own interest, and in so doing, only leads to an increasing involvement of government into the lives of the people. Before you know it, the government has its hands in EVERYTHING. So it has happened. The trend has been towards larger and larger government. The conservative fight against it has been futile. The leviathan state continues to grow, and it is like a snowball. That snowball will get bigger and bigger until the government owns or controls everything. Once that happens, freedom has gone from the land. That pretty much describes the predicament that we are in now.

All of this can be traced back to the use of leverage. Without it, the need for regulation goes away, and the need for overpowering government goes away.

I've argued against leverage before on this blog. Is all leverage bad? Well, it all depends upon one thing. Do you want to surrender your freedom to some far away entity, or do you want to keep it? All I'm saying here is that small government conservatism is probably incompatible with the modern regulatory state. That this is tied into the need to regulate LEVERAGE. You cannot do this without a large permanent bureaucracy. This invariably leads to more and more bureaucracy until it consumes everything.

Trying to maintain freedom in such an environment is like spitting into the wind. You are fighting against something that cannot be resisted. It is doomed to failure.

The ftx collapse summed up in 99 secs

The ftx collapse summed up in 99 secs

Comment:

Seems like a pretty big deal, but to the powers-that-be, and to the media, it isn't.

That would indicate SOMETHING, I would think. But let's blame it all on Trump, and put him in jail.

Another accusation against Trump bites the dust

Another accusation against Trump bites the dust

Remember the raid at Mar-a-Lago? There was supposed to be nuclear secrets stashed there, but WaPo (aka American Pravda) admits the FBI ( aka American Stasi) found NOTHING.

I suppose they'll still indict Trump for saying mean things on Twitter.

I'll still support Trump. Thus has been their pattern. To put it succinctly, they are attempting to keep power by keeping the people's choice off the ballot. This is a political move, not a legal one. Indeed, it is the very definition of tyranny.

If the democracy is at risk, it is from the people who claim to be protecting it. If rule of law is at risk, it is these same people. Why dump Trump when he hasn't done anything wrong? It is allowing the powers-that-be decide who you can vote for. As long as I am able to vote for Trump, I will do so for no other reason than THIS.

Trump announces he is in

 

Trump says he is running. If so, I'll stick with him.

Still think all these people trying to get him to quit need to Shut Up. If he gets the nomination, then I don't expect them to support him, though. There are those saying already that they won't.

They shouldn't talk like that.

I'll see who the nominee is. Then I'll decide. There's no more guarantees.

Back of envelope calculations for hydrogen production through gallium catalyst

Update:

Perhaps that analysis was too critical. The analysis assumed was not theoretical maximum efficiency. The news claim was that some "new" catalyst was developed that gets closer to maximum efficiency in the reaction. The reaction involved is 2Al + 3H20 => 3H2 + Al203. Sorry about the illegibility of this. The equation says two moles of aluminum + three moles of water will yield 3 moles of hydrogen gas and a mole of alumina waste compound. Therefore, the maximum yield possible from the equation is: 2 moles of aluminum, with the atomic weight of 27, which gives 54 grams per mole as aluminum input-- and 3 moles of hydrogen gas ( having two atoms of hydrogen in each molecule), which yields 6 grams of hydrogen output. The ratio is then 54/6= 9 grams aluminum per gram of hydrogen. That's the best you can possibly do.

Multiply it by a thousand to get the kilograms. Since it takes 13 kwh to produce 1 kg of aluminum; then it would take 13 kilowatt/hrs times 9 kg per kg hydrogen produced to reconstitute the aluminum from waste. That's too much energy, since it probably would take less energy to just electrolyze water.

Basically, it just doesn't make sense to do this. Even with the best possible yields, it still does not make sense. That's why it will probably be attempted anyway. That's the way society rolls these days. Sadly.

 

There has been some mention of the possibility of using gallium to extract hydrogen from water. As an energy source, this looks like it could be interesting. So I decided to run some numbers to figure if the thing was feasible or not.

According to one source, it takes a 3 to 1 ratio of gallium to aluminum to make the best composite. The composite will be mixed with water, which produces the hydrogen. It almost seems like magic. The gallium is not consumed, and can be used again and again. Basically, you just have to come up with the aluminum. Ah, there's the catch. Also, what do you do with the alumina mixture? Do you reuse it?

If you were to try to make a "closed loop" of making hydrogen, then reconstituting the aluminum, to be used again, then you won't have an economical set up. That's because of the high energy cost of producing aluminum. Currently, (no pun intended) it uses electrolysis to extract the aluminum from alumina; and it takes 13.2 kwh/kg for the aluminum to be produced. How much hydrogen can thus be produced? The ratio is rather high to extract 1 kg of hydrogen using the gallium/aluminum catalyst.

For each gram of composite used, it makes 130 milliters of hydrogen. But there's 1000 milliters in one liter. What is the ratio in mass? One "mole" of hydrogen masses at 1 gram. Also, 1 mole of hydrogen is 22.4 liters at standard temperature and pressure. Therefore, 130 ml of hydrogen isn't much. The math is 130/22400 grams, where 130 is the amount produced, and 22400 milliters in one mole. One mole of hydrogen masses at 1 gram as mentioned, so this would be .0058 grams. Not much. You would need 1000 / .0058 in order to obtain 1 kg of hydrogen using this process. That would be 172 kg of composite to produce one kg of hydrogen. Divide by three gives the amount of aluminium required--57.3 kg.

The problem is all that energy to get back to pure aluminum. 57.3 times 13.2 kwh/kg for each kg of aluminum by the electroysis process mentioned above. It makes no sense to go this way unless you use scrap aluminum, and you have no intention to recycle the alumina produced to make the hydrogen. It makes much more sense to reuse the aluminum that already exists.

Come to think of it, I may have done all this before. Seems like there was a post on this subject way back when.

Yes, I found that analysis, but it didn't involve gallium. This analysis is no more encouraging that one was. It may make more sense to electrolyze water than to do it this way.