Sorting out the American System of government

 With the recent developments (Kamala the Dem's choce), it is virtually guaranteed that the Dems will win the election in Nov 2024 with a good solid majority in all three branches of government*. 

 

* Boy, did I get that one wrong.  What chance did the Dems have against the egregious vote fixing by the GOP and the computer expertise of the boffins working for the tech-bros.  The only hope is that it will be so so bad under tRUMP (remember his comment on ass kissing) that the vote in the mid terms will go so much against him that he will be neutralized and impeached.

The Democrats will then have at worse, 2 years to repair the American way of governance, possibly 4 years but at the very best 8 years.  With the oft demonstrated record of the American people to vote in a way which is diametrically against their own best interests, they should only count on 2 years.  If the Dems don't, sort out the American government during this window of opportunity  the forces of evil, authoritarianism and gross, ugly venality(I don't think I exaggerate) will rise up again and America will take a nose dive into anarchy.  Worse still, would-be-dictators in the rest of the free world will take heart and try it on for size themselves.  The world could sink into a dark age like we haven't experienced for a long time.

 

Note that in July and August, (election is in November) Trump was preaching to the faithful that they should get out and vote this time and they will never have to vote again. Then he came up with an even more traitorous comment.  He said don't bother voting.  I have all the votes I need.  Any idea what he meant by this??   Duhhhh.  To top it all off, on the Rachel Maddow show it was reveled that in some 70 counties, mainly in swing states, MAGA Republicans have been appointed to be the main polling officers and that they will not certify the election results, no matter who wins.  Some of them were already involved in the recent federal voting debacle.

 

It is most important that the government establish the following changes in  their system, in whatever way makes it hardest to reverse. (written into the constitution??)

 

Biden, in his swan song, said we have to perfect our union.  Just saving it would be a good start.

Following is a check list of what needs doing in America.  In no particular order:

1. Polling stations.

There should be massively more polling stations.  Use schools and public meeting halls.  They are everywhere.  No one should have to wait more than 10 minutes to vote and no one should have to travel more then 10 minutes to a polling station.  Best of all is if you can walk to your local polling station.  All  polling stations must have CTV cameras.  Some must be focused on the official who checks the ID of each voter and some outside where people are lining up.  The recordings from these cameras must be forwarded, well labeled, to Washington so if there are any complaints of being hassled during voting, the appropriate record can be checked to substantiate or deny the allegations.  Any interference in the voting system must be met with jail time and public shaming.

2.  Voter registration

A much simpler and effective system of voting registration must be put in place.  There must be a clear criteria of what is needed to register and this must be followed.  Attempts to interfere with the system must be met with jail time. Voter registration locations must be monitored by CTV cameras and if unlawful obstruction are being observed being put in the way of American citizens - jail time.

3. Voting denial

When someone comes to vote, the polling officer often subjects a voter who is believed to be about to vote for the other candidate than the polling officer would prefer, to delay after delay.    They are subjected to endless  questions while letting through people who they think will vote their way.  All polling stations should be covered by CTV cameras and the flash drives from these cameras delivered with the ballots to the central voting station.  Again jail time for obstructionism.

 

4 Time and conditions in line

This is as egregious as the rest of the American voting system.  People have to wait in long lines.  To add insult to injury some states have put in a ruling that no one can bring food or drink to those waiting in line.  What an absolute joke.  Do you have democracy or not. What a mickey mouse system. And there must be portable toilets in any location where toilets are not available.

5. Delegate system

The delegate system is so un-democratic that it boggles the mind that a country that calls itself not just democratic but a beacon of democracy to the world has not already scrapped it.  Real democracy is one-man one-vote and if you want to claim the title of a democracy, the vote of someone in one part of the country should have exactly the same weight as anyone else in the country.  Republicans are of course all for this totally undemocratic system.  It is the only way they win elections.  They haven't won the popular vote in ages.

6. Gerrymandering

This is a hard one to solve.  An objective system that neither party can muck with is needed.  As with all the other changes, it must be put into the strongest form of legislation possible so that it is very hard to break.  It's object should be, in so far as is possible, to give each voter equal influence on the outcome of elections.  It would take people far cleverer than me to work out such a system.  Good luck on this one

7. Money in politics

While sorting out Gerrymandering will be a technical nightmare, sorting out the influence of money in the American political system will be a political nightmare.  Politicians get funding for their election campaigns from donors, rich and not so rich, some politicians are  made rich while in office (certainly not from their salaries) and some politicians are given sweet jobs when they leave office.  Then you have the complete corruption of some of the judges of the Supreme Court by rich billionaires.  Trying to sell to the American public that any financing of a public official must come from the exchequer will demand a superb job of public education.  The public think they are getting some sort of benefit by someone else financing the elections of their politicians but they are loosing in so many ways.

 

8. Vote certification

Clearly there is a need to be able to address any form of corruption in an election.  Else why have an official who certifies the votes in each district. But certification must not be  held hostage by such an official.  Some set procedure must be put in place when the district voting officer doesn't want to certify the results of voting in his district.  It will be pretty complex to work out a fair, fool-proof system.  For instance, the officer could be compelled to fill out a standard form which clearly states his or her reasons for not certifying.  It must be filled out and sent by messenger to the supreme court chief  justice on the day after voting is closed.  The head supreme court judge must convene the same day, all the members of the court.  They must hand down a ruling the same day.  I'm sure it will be more complicated than the above but something must be done so that the results of voting are not delayed. 

 

9.  Proof of citizenship

The Democrats must promote citizens having a proof of citizenship plastic card, the same size as a credit card, with a picture of the person.  They must then pass a federal law that this card is sufficient proof of citizenship to allow the holder to vote in any election.  The card should be renewed, say, every 10 years in order to have an up-to-date photograph.  Responsible parents should make sure that their children have this card and there must be an easy rout to taking an original birth certificate and getting one of these cards.  A good option would be to use the location where you go to get and renew your driver's license.  They have the facilities to issue plastic drivers licenses and a wee tweak would allow them to issue birth certificate cards. 

I'm sure that people in the know will find other measures that must be taken to make the American system fair.  If it isn't done, at some time in the future, Trumpism under some other would be dictator will arise and there may not arise someone who can save America from going down the googler. 

The criminal Supreme Court

Taking bribes and making laws that reward the bribers is peanuts compared to what the Supreme Court is up to now.  The moves the SC is attempting now will destroy what little democracy still remains in the USA and it ain't much.  America has:

*the delegate system, 

*denial of voting registration, 

*denial of voting even when you are registered, 

*placement of polling stations to make it as difficult as possible for some folks to vote, 

*a lack of polling stations, 

*closing polling stations when there are people who have been waiting all day to vote,

*and a gerrymandering system that would embarrass an 18th century lord in a rotten English borough.

What little democracy remains in America is under threat by the Supreme court.

Anyone who is not part of the Trump cult realizes that to get him elected in November would put an end to the American way of life.  That is what the Supreme court is about to try and the fools don't realize that if successful they become   Trump's bitches.  One false move and he will come after them too. 

 

The decision by the supreme court to examine whether or not a president can be held criminally liable for 'Official acts'  carried out while in office, is equivalent to Trump paying off a porn star. Both are designed to hide information from the American public that could well affect the way they vote and that is the least of it.

 

 The members of the supreme court should be charged with exactly what Trump was charged with when he paid off Stormy to hide the fact that he consorted with a prostitute, and they should also be charged with  anti-democratic, anti-constitutional and anti-American activity.

The wording of the question that they are prepared to examine, the timing of when they are going to start deliberations, the verdict they will deliver and, most importantly, when they will deliver the verdict are all criminal activities.

The Question they are prepared to examine is whether or not a president can be held criminally liable for 'official acts' carried out while in office. It is a trite question and just kicks the can down the road. Of course a president can not be held criminally liable for 'official acts'. The question then becomes what are official
acts. Is falsifying business records, not paying his taxes, paying off a porn star, threatening witnesses, fraud, giving government secrets to a foreign country, fomenting insurrection and so forth - are they official acts. Of course not, so they are not affected by the question.

And it gets far worse. I will make a prediction. The Supreme court already knows exactly what they will find and when they will announce their verdict. That is why they phrased the question as they did. 

They will release their findings a short time before the coming election in November and they will, of course, find that a president can not be held criminally liable for "Official acts". They will phrase their finding in all sorts of confusing legalese gobbledygook.   But Trump supporters will crow from the roof tops "Trump Innocent" "Trump Exonerated" when the SC finding says nothing of the kind.  This will affect the way many people vote and especially amongst the large, politically ignorant portion of the American public that might not vote for a convicted felon.

The Supreme court is corrupt far beyond anything exposed to date. Destroying the little democracy that still remains in America is far more serious than them accepting bribes from rich donors and making laws to enrich them.

Besides being fiscally corrupt, the four Republican members of the Supreme Court are anti-democratic, anti-constitution and anti-American and should be treated as such.

Skylights

 Skylights really annoy me.  Not the having of them but the way they are integrated into a house.  It's an engineering abortion.  We are living in a house in which I built the sky lights. We are downsizing to a house that is being built for us.  And we have 4 sky lights, bought a great expense with silly engineering.

The bought sky lights stick up above the corrugated iron cladding so any rain that runs down the roof above the sky light wants to flow into the roof cavity.  To avoid this you need some sophisticated flashing and lots of sealant.  There is a far simpler and vastly cheaper option.

The thickness from the cladding of a roof to the ceiling is typically about 6 inche-sometimes more.  This is the width of the perlons (the horizontal boards which are laid on edge across the rafters).  There are lots of other configurations but generally there is lots of space between the ceiling and the cladding.  So what do we do.  

First build what is essentially a picture frame with dimensions to take a glass sandwich plus 5mm or so in both directions. This is built into the roof at the level of the ceiling.

The glass sandwich you can get made up by any glazier.  It consists of a lower sheet made of that safety glass which itself is a sandwich of plastic between two sheets of glass.  If you ever have some sort of a disaster, this glass will ensure that no shards fall and hurt someone.  

The upper layer I would recommend be some sort of diffusing glass.  Basically the sort of thing you would have in a bathroom window.  You don't want a sharp edged beam of light with deep shadows around it but rather light that is dispersed over the whole room. The two sheets of glass are separated by an aluminum  strip of around 5mm thickness.  If you really want to get sophisticated, you can get the hollow between the layers of glass, filled with Argon.

If you decide to seal this glass into the frame, make sure to use a thick layer of rubber or silicon sealer so the glass can expand and  contract as it heats and cools without cracking the glass.

So how about the rest of the sky light.  Under a corrugated iron roof, you usually put a layer of tar paper or similar membrane to take any condensation drips from the iron, down toward the eves.  At the location where you have the sky light, you use a layer of transparent polycarbonate instead.  Then we only have to clad the roof.  From the ridge down to the sky light (hang tough, I'll start from the eves).  From the eves up to the bottom of the sky light is regular corrugated iron.  This is overlapped by a sheet of corrugate transparent poly-carbonate over the glass, up to the top of the sky light and beyond a bit.  From the top of the sky light to the ridge is another piece of corrugated iron.  

No way is this going to leak, it is cheap and simplicity itself to construct.

How to destroy China

 It will take a little time but China should be gone as a major state in 50 to 100 years.  And it is simple.  Do you realize that, while Greece and Rome and many other empires rose and fell, China remained as an organized, prosperous country through it all.  Greece and Rome destroyed their soils and fell.  Rome ended up being dependent on countries in North Africa for her food.  It was so extreme that it was a capital offense to interfere in any way with the transport of food to Rome from Africa.    What we have to do to destroy China as a world power is to get them  to destroy their soils.  And it would be easy to do.  Simply mock them about their use of human manure on their fields.  Convince them that it is backward and yucky and the modern way is to use chemical fertilizers and to use flush toilets.  Much more aesthetic and look at the great harvests America gets. (steer the conversation away from the destruction of American soils by using chemical fertilizers)..

The reason that China has survived and prospered for some 5000 years is that they have always cycled every bit of organic material back into their soils.  Stover (the part of the plant that we don't utilize) animal manure, human manure, waste wood - in fact anything that will compost is put back into their soils.  And this has allowed them to maintain prosperity over such a long time.  Sure they had floods and droughts and this caused severe social dislocation but over all, they bounced back based on a working agriculture.

And if we get them to adopt flush toilets, it is a double (or triple) whammy.  If they can be convinced to do only primary treatment or even secondary treatment and to pour the used water into their rivers, they will kill off the life in the rivers.  In addition this added use of water for flushing, may tip them over the edge in some of the drier parts of China.  Then when the river pours out into the ocean, it will likely result in an anaerobic area which trashes the fish and other marine life in the area.  

Then, of course, they will have to mine more phosporous, fix more nitrogen and obtain all the other elements that makes for good crops.  All this will put more strain on their economy.  Oh and convince them that the use of the plow is the formula for better crops.  If they start using the plows extensively, for a short period, their crops will improve* while at the same time, destroying their soils.  By the time they have woken up to the harm the plow does, it will be too late.  With the very best of management it takes about three years to restore a soil to a passable level of production.

* Using the plow is like taking the capital from your bank account rater than just using the interest.  Over time you bank account falls to zero.  

And don't let them know about the sewage plants that turn sewage into valuable fertilizer.

Batteries for Static Applications

 To my way of thinking, we should try very hard to discontinue the use of batteries based on Li chemistry for static applications such as home batteries and grid storage.  One reason for this is that doing so would reduce the demand for Li and reduce its price.  This would bring down the price of Li batteries for mobile applications, reduce the price of EVs (Electric Vehicles) and hence widen the market for these cars and increase how fast we shift away from fossil fuels. 

 

Better still, some of the alternate chemistries produce batteries that are superior to Li batteries for static applications.  The reason we stick with Li for mobile applications is weight.  I'm not aware of any other battery that holds more power per kg(Kilogram) of battery than Li batteries.   Weight is of very little significance for batteries which are used for static applications.  So what other possibilities are there and how are they superior to Li batteries.

 

Liquid metal batteries

Conceptually one of my favorite types is the liquid metal battery.  These were developed by professor Sadoway and his team at MIT.  His favorite comment when he is talking about his battery is that if you want a battery that is dirt cheap, make it from dirt.  OK, it is not exactly dirt that is used but fairly close.  His batteries are based on Ca(Calcium), Sb(Antimony) and a calcium chloride salt.  They operate at about 500 degrees C(centigrade).  And, many experiments are ongoing to use different chemistries that need lower temperatures.

These batteries are kept molten by the electric current flowing through them during charging and discharging so there is some waste of power.  The effectiveness of the insulation is of primary importance.  When shipped the chemicals are simply dumped into the battery and the battery sealed.  When they arrive at their destination, the chemicals are heated up until they melt, separate into their layers and the battery is ready to go.  This sort of battery works well under heavy use but if left unused for some time, the components will eventually solidify and have to be melted again to regain function.  If left fully charged, when the components solidify, the battery is fully charged and ready to go when melted.  So what are the characteristics of these batteries.

They can be cycled between 0 and 100% charge with no damage.  This has a lot to do with their liquid nature.  Because all the components are liquid, they can't form spicules which in other batteries, grow and short out the plates.

They last far longer than Li batteries with no fade.  In fact I am not sure if they have even found a limit to the number of times they can be cycled from 0 to 100% and back again, before they show some fade.

They are completely safe to ship and so can be shipped by air, sea or land.  Ingredients are solid, mixed and you could short out the terminals with no effect.

They are made from elements which are readily available and cheap from multiple sources.  Antimony is mainly from the sulfide mineral known as stibnite.  It is not particularly expensive, ranging from US$2 to US$6 per pound at various times in the past.  Calcium metal is obtained from the electrolysis of a calcium salt such a Calcium cloride.

Liquid metal batteries operate under a wider range of external temperatures than Li batteries

ZnBr Batteries

There are two types of ZnBr batteries.  On is the flow/plating batteries.  It is essentially a Zn electroplating unit.   Zinc Bromide is dissolved in an aqueous solution and there are plastic horizontal 'shelves' in the battery dosed with C to make them conductive.  Under charging, the Zinc comes out of solution and electro-plates the plastic shelves.  The bromine which is heavier than the solution accumulates at the bottom of the battery.  Under discharge, the Zn and the Br recombine and zinc bromide dissolves into the solution.  It is not only possible but is recommended that the battery be discharged completely from time to time as this eliminates any build up of dendrites (spicules) that could short out the battery.  Thus it is useful to have your battery pack operate in multiple stacks.  One stack is completely discharged into the other pack on an established schedule.

The other type of ZnBr battery is the gel battery.  Instead of a solution, the electrolyte is in the form of a gel.  From the outside, these batteries look very much like a Lead-Acid battery and in fact the manufacturing process is very similar.  Apparently a Lead-Acid battery manufacturing plant can be converted to making ZnBr gel batteries with only modest modifications.  Gel batteries also need to be completely discharged from time to time.  To me they sound like a real winner since you simply stack them in series and parallel to get the voltage and capacity that you need. And there are no moving parts.  It remains to be seen what their cost per kWh stored will be and what their working life will be.

For their advantages, look back at the advantages of liquid metal batteries.  They are the same.

Redox Batteries

These batteries are based on elements with two or more valence states.  For instance Fe (iron) compounds exists in the Ferric (+3) state and the Ferrous (+2) state.  You have two tanks, one with an iron salt in the +3 state and one in the +2 state.  And you have a reactor through which these solutions flow separated by a membrane.  What is notable about such batteries is that if there is a small amount of leakage through the membrane, it is of little consequence.  It is still an Iron salt.  If you were using two different elements, you could quickly contaminate your solution.  If you want more capacity you simply need bigger tanks.  If you want more power you need more reactors.  I don't know how they get around the solubility problem.  The ferric state is far less soluble than the ferrous state*.

The other element used so far is V(Vanadium) which has multiple valence states.

*By the way, this is why there are huge deposits of iron in some parts of the world.  In the early years of the world there was no oxygen.  The oceans were anaerobic.  Iron was dissolved in the oceans in the soluble ferrous state.  Then stromatolites  developed.  These are sort of like reef building algae that take in Carbon dioxide and put out oxygen.  Apparently the oceans were full of ferrous iron.  As oxygen was produced, the ferrous iron used up the oxygen, converting it to ferric iron which precipitated.  Western Australia is a region where you can see this and in the shallow water there are still some living stromatolites.

Iron oxygen Batteries

These are also being worked on and apparently a very large one is about to be built.  As they discharge, iron is combined with oxygen producing rust.  When charging the rust is converted back into Iron and Oxygen.  An interesting aside here is that this is a way to produce iron from Iron ore which is essentially rust.  This would be a carbon free method of refining iron ore.  I have read speculation that you could put the oxides of other metals into the retort and produce alloys of iron such as stainless steel.

I'll add more batteries as they are shown and described.  So far it is hard to get reliable data on the longevity and other characteristics of these alternate batteries.