Category Archives: politics

June 14 1789, First Bourbon whiskey

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June 4. On this day, in 1789, the US national version whiskey, Bourbon, was first distilled by Rev Elijah Craig of Kentucky. He named his product “Bourbon whiskey” as a reference to Bourbon County, where he lived. Rev. Craig’s innovation was to use maize (corn) instead of rye or malted barley. Up until this innovation, most US whiskey was made from rye, with some malted barley added as an enzymatic modifier. George Washington, the first US president, made whiskey from rye using very little malt, becoming the largest distiller in the US in the late 1700s.

Corn is cheaper than rye, and Bourbon whiskey has a milder flavor too. Perhaps because of this, US consumption of Bourbon whiskey has come to far surpass that of rye whiskey. Here, in a famous speech, Senator Mitch McConnell tells congress that Bourbon is the spirit of Kentucky, and the spirit of the US. Here, his speech is set to music with other news of the day, and a comment by President Obama saying he’d enjoy having a drink with Senator McConnell. What would that drink be? Straight Bourbon? or Bourbon and water, or perhaps a mint julep, the classic Kentucky concoction, made with Bourbon, sugar, and spearmint.

Related to this topic, I should mention that President Truman liked Bourbon straight, that the favorite drink of Lyndon B. Johnson, was “Bourbon and branch” (branch is water). And that Theodore Roosevelt served mint juleps at The White house (if you played tennis with him) using his own, White-house grown mint, but made with rye, not Bourbon.

GWKuhn outflow point. During a storm this outflow is filled to the roof.

GWKuhn outflow point. During a storm this outflow is filled to the roof.

June 14th is also flag day, though only celebrated as a holiday in Pennsylvania. It’s also the day of the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, and the day of the Marijuana act, 1937. Hawaii joined the union this day, and Paris fell in WWII. This is also the day I first got a tour of the George W. Kuhn sewage retention facility, the main sewage plant in our county. A few days before, I walked into the outflow pipe of the plant, see picture. It was some 60 feet wide by 22 feet tall. I was looking for convenient connection points i could use to separate the storm from the sanitary sewage flow through the facility, assuming I became water commissioner.

Robert Buxbaum, June 14, 2016. Some months ago, I suggested that Michigan might change its state bird to the wild turkey. It’s a common MI bird, and also a type of Bourbon.

Skilled labor isn’t cheap; cheap labor isn’t skilled

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Popular emblem for hard hats in the USA. The original quote is attributed to Sailor Jack, a famous tattoo artist.

Popular emblem for hard hats in the USA. The original quote is attributed to Sailor Jack, a famous tattoo artist.

The title for this post is a popular emblem on US hard-hats and was the motto of a famous, WWII era tattoo artist. It’s also at the heart of a divide between the skilled trade unions and the labor movement. Skilled laborers expect to be paid more than unskilled, while the labor movement tends to push for uniform pay, with distinctions based only on seniority or courses taken. Managers and customers prefer skilled work to not, and usually don’t mind paying the skilled worker more. It’s understand that, if the skilled workers are not rewarded, they’ll go elsewhere or quit. Management too tends to understand that the skilled laborer is effectively a manager, often more responsible for success than the manager himself/herself. In this environment, a skilled trade union is an advantage as they tend to keep out the incompetent, the addict, and the gold-brick, if only to raise the stature of the rest. They can also help by taking some burden of complaints. In the late 1800s, it was not uncommon for an owner to push for a trade union, like the Knights of Labor, or the AFL, but usually just for skilled trades for the reasons above.

An unskilled labor union, like the CIO is a different animal. The unskilled laborer would like the salary and respect of the skilled laborer without having to develop the hard-to-replace skills. Management objects to this, as do the skilled workers. A major problem with unions, as best I can tell, is a socialist bent that combines the skilled and unskilled worker to the disadvantage of the skilled trades.

Not all unionists harbor fondness for welfare or socialism.

Also popular. Few workers harbor a fondness for welfare or socialism. Mostly they want to keep their earnings.

Labor union management generally prefer a high minimum wage — and often favor high taxes too as a way of curing societal ills. This causes friction, both in wage-negotiation and in political party support. Skilled workers tend to want to be paid more than unskilled, and generally want to keep the majority of their earnings. As a result, skilled laborers tend to vote Republican. Unskilled workers tend to vote for Democrats. Generally, there are more unskilled workers than skilled, and the union management tends to favor Democrats. Many union leaders have gone further — to international socialism. They push for high welfare payments with no work requirement, and for aid the foreign socialist poor. The hard-hats themselves tend to be less than pleased with these socialist pushes.

During the hippie-60’s and 70’s the union split turned violent. It was not uncommon for unionized police and construction workers to hurl insults and bricks on the anti-war leftists and non-working students and welfare farmers. Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, supported Nixon, Vietnam, and the idea that his truckers should keep their high wages at the expense of unskilled. Rival teamster boss, Frank Fitzsimmons pushed for socialist unity with the non-working of the world, a split that broke the union and cost Hoffa his life in 1975. Eventually the split became moot. The war ended, US factories closed and jobs moved overseas, and even the unskilled labor and poor lost.

Skilled workers are, essentially managers, and like to be treated that way.

Skilled workers are, essentially managers, and like to be treated that way.

The Americans with Disability Act is another part of the union split. The act was designed to protect the sick, pregnant and older worker, but has come to protect the lazy, nasty, and slipshod, as well as the drug addict and thief. Any worker who’s censored for these unfortunate behaviors can claim a disability. If the claim is upheld the law requires that the company provide for them. The legal status of the union demands that the union support the worker in his or her claim of disability. In this, the union becomes obligated to the worker, and not to the employer, customer, or craft — something else that skilled workers tend to object to. Skilled workers do not like having their neighbors show them high-priced, badly made products from their assembly line. Citing the ADA doesn’t help, nor does it help to know that their union dues support Democrats, welfare, and legislation that takes money from the pocket of any one who takes pride in good work. We’ll have to hope this split in the union pans out better than in 1860.

Robert Buxbaum, June 5, 2016. I’m running for water commissioner. I’d like to see my skilled sewer workers rewarded for their work and skill. Currently experienced workers get only $18/hour and that’s too little for their expertise. If they took off, they’d be irreplaceable, and the city would likely fall to typhus or the plague.

Narcissism, a horrible disease except in presidents.

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Perhaps the worst sort of employee is a narcissist. A narcissist is in love with an image of himself that he sees, and that he has created. Though his behavior does not match the image — it can not –the narcissist can not, or will not accept the damage he’s caused by insubordination and undercutting. The typical narcissist is always right, and is confident of being right, even when seriously wrong. He can take some (little) advice because he sees himself as humble, but he will not take blame, and thus does not change. He can be charming in his love of you and your ideas. Still, you’ll notice his complete disdain for others and of ideas that (to you) look equally brilliant. And once he accepts your first idea as brilliant, he’s unlikely to change to accept your second, or modified version.

The Great Gatsby created an image of himself, and strove to live it. "He looked at you like the moon and the stars shone out of your eyes."

The Great Gatsby created an image of himself, and strove to live it. “He looked at you like the moon and the stars shone out of your eyes.”

The narcissist friend or boss is somewhat better. He creates a positive mental image of those around him, usually seeing them as kind, holy, or smart people. The Great Gatsby was a classic example of this. It’s nice to be in his presence, “seen as you’d wish to be seen, as if the moon and the stars shone in your eyes”. It’s an image the narcissist does his best maintain, both of you and of him, even if it kills you and him together. This is still a damaging, false image, but it has a tremendous up-side or two in a friend or boss. It’s nice to work with someone who sees you as God’s gift even if you know it’s false. Besides that, the narcissist usually has some general plan of action or knows how to get one (e.g. hire the best, consult the iChing, build a wall). The plan might not be great, but it’s usually better than having no-plan or waiting to consult the consultants at every turn. And unlike most folks, the narcissist knows he must stick to the plan or he looks like a loser. It also helps that he or she, by force of charisma, has the ability to make others stick to the plan. In times of trouble or confusion, that’s usually far better than hopeless paralysis. Also good is that narcissists tend to collect solid followers — a plus when leading a big organization where decisions are important. The leader can not hope to manage all the details of a big organization, and needs to be able to rely on loyal minions to follow general his orders and get the details right.

There are few bigger organizations than government. Government leadership has seen an uncommon concentration of narcissists, and these have done rather well, considering. In the US and elsewhere the best (and worst) leaders have been narcissists, mostly. Napoleon, FDR, Stalin, Churchill, Christ, Mohammed, Hitler, Bill Clinton, Gandhi, and Genghis Kahn; all narcissists as best I can tell. They all saw themselves as great, behaved accordingly, and got people to follow. They made grand plans and carried them out by convincing others to go along: the others providing the necessary blood, sweat, tears, and death. Their approach may appall when seen in quiet times, but it’s absolutely necessary in troubled times when the normal alternatives are confusion and despair. Jimmy Carter, a more-normal type, folded in times of trouble; he dithered in the face of the Ayatollah and of Idi Amin. Twice he started Iranian rescue operations, then called them off — in both cases at the worst possible moments. People died, friends lost hope. Carter was a normal person in a situation that required a narcissist. Meanwhile, the Ayatollah and Idi Amin did as narcissist do, for better or worse.

It’s been pointed out that Donald Trump is a narcissist (he is, congratulations). I strongly suspect that’s true of Cruz, and Sanders too. Trump’s narcissism is unusually blatant because his vision of himself is unusually brash. Cruz and Sanders, have quieter visions of themselves mixing feigned humility with their firm resolve. I don’t see these visions as better, just more normal-looking. Brash visions can be a negative, of course, both in a US president, and in a corporate president, but to have no vision is worse. Apple computer company seems to have no vision now that Steve Jobs is dead, and it’s floundering. Jeb! Bush, similarly seemed to have had no firm vision, and he ended his run as a washed-up flotsam. As for HRC, I don’t know. Fortunately, the US government has the power to rein in any (I think) narcissist, via the constitution’s balance of power. Congress and the supreme court, if they choose to use it, have the power to stop any excess of a narcissist president. The narcissist will fight, but will eventually will bend to them; the one thing the narcissist does not wish is to see himself as, is as a loser, and they have the power to portray him that way. The US will survive whoever gets elected.

Robert Buxbaum, April 10, 2016. I’m not a psychologist and might be dead wrong here, but how I see things at the moment is that Trump’s narcissism is manageable and perhaps advantageous. Besides, I’ve argued in favor of tariffs for some time, so we have some policy agreement. For April Fools day, last year, I described the duel of a famous narcissist president, Andrew Jackson, with his lawyer.

Comic Colonialism II: of Busbys and Bear Skins.

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The map below shows, in white, all the countries that England has not invaded.

The white spots on this map are the countries that England has not invaded.

The white spots on this map are the countries that England has not invaded.

England now controls virtually none of these countries. In most of these, English is the national language, or the language of business, and defeating the British is hailed as the central national experience. Still, many have opted to become part of the British Commonwealth, a loose organization of ex-British states. Generally this requires agreeing to the rule of the Queen, despite having nominally free states. Entering Canada, for example, one finds a picture of Elisabeth II, Queen of Canada, And there are royal colleges where inventions belong to her. The same with Australia and New Zealand. The question to ask, then, the question despots have asked, is how did the English manage it –or perhaps, how can I extend my despotism the same way. Part of the answer, it seems to me, is that England used tall, silly hats: Busbys and Bearskins.

The Queen of Canada reviews her troops. She's wearing a Busby; he's in a bearskin.

The Queen of Canada reviews her troops. She’s wearing a Busby; he’s in a bearskin.

The Bearskin hat is perhaps the silliest hat in worldwide military use, and certainly the largest. The bearskin is made of the complete skin of a black or a brown (grisly) bear dyed black, The skin is shaped over a wicker frame to stand 16″ tall (a black bear skin is used for enlisted men, and a grisly bear for officers). It is heavy, quite fuzzy, and completely non-aerodynamic and protects the head not at all. As best American military experts have found, it only makes the person wearing it a better target for being shot. And yet, Britons have striven to be given the honor of wearing this thing. There is also a slightly shorter, slightly fuzzier version of the Bearskin worn by officers. It’s called a Busby, and it’s made from beaver skin. Even in this day of social correctness, skins are found for this use, and “harvested”, mostly in Canada.

The front-line British soldiers in the American Revolution wore these hats when they marched in ranks to attack the colonials at Lexington and Concord, and again at Bunker Hill, and again, in the war of 1812 at New Orleans. It made them slow, impressive, and dead. Because of their weight, these hats are often worn with a leather collar to help support them. The collar makes it hard for soldiers to look down, a plus for soldiers on parade, but a minus when walking over uneven ground, e.g. when attacking Bunker Hill. You’d think the British would have given up on these weird hats long ago, but the British won in many conflicts and have come to dominate many countries. They seem to credit the hat, I’m beginning to think it deserves more attention than it’s gotten.

The hat they wore through the war of 1812, through the Crimean war and the Boer war; in the heat of the Indian revolts, in Africa, and to this day for show makes British soldiers look taller, and more elegant. It makes them stand straighter than most, and gives guards an other-worldly appearance. American soldiers uniformly reminisced how hard it was to shoot someone who marched so elegantly. The Queen likes them, and she, after all is nothing if not elegant. Perhaps the unworldly elegance of the bearskin give soldiers the courage to invade countries and die in the name of a sovereign who reigns by Devine right as expressed through the sword Excalibur ‘of pure Semite’, whatever that is. It’s a story that not one adult Britain believes, yet they die for (why?) Perhaps it’s the honor of mass craziness. Perhaps, because they see simple folks are impressed by soldiers wearing the tall funny hats (I guess thats why some US marching bands use them). And then again, it might be pure luck, superstition, and stupidity. The method of science would be to ask if other countries or team bands do better while wearing the silly hats. I suspect not, but it deserves statistical analysis.

Robert Buxbaum, March 30, 2016. Comic colonialism 1 dealt with the mistakes leading to the US capture of Guam. Catch also my essays, the greatest blunders of the US revolution, and mustaches and WWII: similar mustaches foreshadow stable alliances.

Follow the feces; how to stop the poisoning

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In Oakland county, we regularly poison our basements and our lake St Clair beaches with feces — and potentially our water supply too. We have a combined storm and sanitary sewer system that mixes feces-laden sanitary sewage with rainwater, and our pipes are too old and small to handle the amount of storm water from our larger rains. A group called “Save Lake St. Clair” is up in arms but the current commissioner claims the fault is not his. It’s global warming, he says, and the rains are bigger now. Maybe, or maybe the fault is wealth: more and more of the county is covered by asphalt, so less rain water can soak in the ground. Whatever the cause, the Commissioner should deal with it (I’m running for water commissioner, BTW). As the chart of toxic outfalls shows, we’ve had regular toxic sewage discharges into the Red Run basically every other week, with no exceptional rainfalls: only 0.9″ to 1.42″.

Toxic outfalls into lake St Clair, Feb 20 to Mar 20, 2016. There were also two outfalls into the Rouge in this period. These are too many to claim they are once in hundred-year events.

Toxic outfalls into lake St Clair, Feb 20 to Mar 20, 2016. There were also two outfalls into the Rouge in this period. These are too many to claim they are once in hundred-year events.

Because we have a combined system, the liquid level rises in our sewers whenever it rains. When the level is above the level of a basement floor drain, mixed sewage comes up into the basement. A mix of storm water comes up mixed with poop and anything else you and your neighbors flush down. Mixed sewage can come up even if the sewers were separate, but far less often. Currently most of the dry outfall from our old, combined sewers is sent to Detroit’s Waste Water Treatment plant near Zug Island. When there is a heavy rain, the pipe to Zug is overwhelmed. We avoid flooding your basement every other week by diverting as much as we can of the mixed storm water and septic sewage to lake St. Clair. This is poop, barely treated, and the fishermen and environmentalists hate it.

The beaches along Lake St Clair are closed every other week: whenever the pipes to Detroit start getting overwhelmed, whenever there is about 1″ or rain. Worse yet, the sewage is enters the lake just upstream of the water intake on Belle Isle, see map below. Overflow sewage follows the red lines entering the Clinton River through the GW Kuhn — Red Run Drain or through the North Branch off the River. From there it flows out into Lake St. Clair near Selfridge ANG, generally hugging the Michigan shore of the lake, following the light blue line to poison the metro beaches. it enters the water intake for the majority of Oakland County at the Belle Island water intakes, lower left.

Follow the feces to see why our beeches are polluted. It's just plain incompetence.

The storm water plus septic sewage mix is not dumped raw into lake St. Clair, but it’s nearly raw. The only treatment is to be spritzed with bleach in the Red Run Drain. The result is mats of black gunk with floating turds, toilet paper and tampons. This water is filtered before we drink it, and it’s sprayed with more chlorine, but that’s not OK. We can do much better than this. We don’t have to regularly dump poop into the river just upstream of our water intake. I favor a two-prong solution.

The first, quick solution is to have better pumps to send the sewage to Detroit. This is surprisingly expensive since we still have to treat the rain water. Also it doesn’t take care of the biggest rains; there is a limit to what our pipes will handle, but it stops some basement flooding, and it avoids some poisoning of our beaches and drinking water.

This is our combined sewer system showing a tunnel cistern (yuk) and the outflow into the Red Run. We can do better

A combined sewer system showing a tunnel cistern. Outflow goes into the Red Run. We can do better.

A second, longer term solution is to disentangle the septic from the storm sewers. My approach would be to do this in small steps, beginning by diverting some storm runoff into small wetlands or French drain retention. Separating the sewers this way is cheaper and more environmentally sound than trying to treat the mixed flow in Detroit, and the wetlands and drains would provide pleasant park spaces, but the project will take decades to complete. If done right, this would save quite a lot over sending so much liquid to Detroit, and it’s the real solution to worries about your floor drains back-flowing toxic sludge into your basement.

The incumbent, I fear, has little clue about drainage or bio-treatment. His solution is to build a $40MM tunnel cistern along Middlebelt road. This cistern only holds 3 MM gallons, less than 1/100 of the volume needed for even a moderate rain. Besides, at $13/gallon of storage, it is very costly solution compared to my preference — a French drain (costs about 25¢/gallon of storage). The incumbents cistern has closed off traffic for months between 12 and 13 mile, and is expected to continue for a year, until January, 2017. It doesn’t provide any bio-cleaning, unlike a French drain, and the cistern leaks. Currently groundwater is leaking in. This has caused the lowering of the water table and the closure of private wells. If the leak isn’t fixed , the cistern will leak septic sewage into the groundwater, potentially infecting people for miles around with typhus, cholera, and all sorts of 3rd world plagues.

There is also an explosion hazard to the incumbent’s approach. A tunnel cistern like this blew up near my undergraduate college sending manhole covers flying. This version has much bigger manhole covers: 15′ cement, not 2′ steel. If someone pours gasoline down the drain during a rainstorm and if a match went in later, the result could be deadly. The people building these projects are the same ones who fund the incumbent’s campaign, and I suspect they influenced him for this mis-chosen approach. They are the folks I fear he goes to for engineering advice. If you’d like to see a change for the better. Elect me, Elect an engineer.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum, March 26, 2016. Go here to volunteer or contribute.

Celebrating the Eids of March

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March 15, the eids of March. On this date in 44 BC (2060 years ago) 5 centuries of republican rule in Rome came to an end to be followed by chaos, civil war, and then Empire. Augustus, Claudius, Nero. That was not the aim of the senators and colleagues of Julius Caesar when they took to assassinate Julius Caesar, first citizen of Rome. They acted out of excessive republican purity, and excessive fear. Their aim was for a pure republicanism where there would be no first citizen, and their fear was that Julius might become the emperor – the emperor that Augustus, Claudius, and Nero became.

Brutus on the face side of an Eids March coin, with two daggers and the legend "Eid Mar" on the obverse. Clearly the conspirators were proud of their act

Brutus on the face side of this Roman coin and two daggers and the legend “Eid Mar” on the obverse. The conspirators were proud of their act.

Shakespeare considers Brutus to be the noblest Roman of them all, but Dante considers him among the worst of the worst. Dante’s Devine Comedy consigns Brutus to the very center of Hell along with Cassius and Judas. What do you think? BTW, why it’s this a comedy?

The difference between a republican government and a democracy is that a democracy can elect a dictator (as Germany did and Iran has) or can choose to execute a citizen for being annoying to the majority, as democratic Athens did to Socrates. In a republic, even the majority is bound by a set of constitutional limitation providing some-measure of inviolable rights, generally that life, liberty, and property can not be taken without due process or the violation of a more-or-less clear law. All other systems are, to a greater or less extent a rule of whim. When the founders of the US picked a model for government, they picked republican Rome, not democratic Athens nor a limited monarchy as existed in England. Their motivation was the observation that power corrupts, and that inequality under the law attracts the worst elements to the position of least check on their power.

Mark Anthony and his wife, Octavia, Octavius's sister.

Mark Anthony and his wife, Octavia, Octavius’s sister.

The death of Caesar set forces in motion that would install Octavius (Augustus) Caesar and Anthony to take over as co-emperors. Here is a coin showing Mark Anthony with his wife, Octavius’s sister. already, neither look as lean as Brutus or Julius Caesar. Shortly thereafter, Octavius would have Mark Anthony killed to cement his power and republican rule would be over until 1776.

Robert E. (beware), March 14, 2016. I suspect this same drive for purity and fear is driving the Republican party today. Don’t fear the Rino, just make sure there is a balance of power.

The Parker house waitstaff hates you

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There are many offensive Americans, but perhaps the most offensive must be those who eat at the famous Parker House restaurant, Boston; see photo taken by a friend of mine, historian Jim Wald. Parker House is the home of Parker House rolls and Boston Cream Pie. It’s also famous for its customers: e.g. the Saturday club of Emerson, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Dana, and Charles Dickens (Dickens lived in the Parker Hotel for two years). But more remarkable still is that a good number of the staff have so hated their customers that they went off and became revolutionary enemies of all things capitalist and American. And it only took a few months working at the Parker House.

The Parker House restaurant, Dec. 2015, photo by jim Wald, perhaps showing the next world leader.

Among Parker House employees we find Malcolm X, he worked as a busboy under his original, given name: Malcolm Little. We also find Ho Chi Minh, a pseudonym taken — it means, the enlightened one or the one who will enlighten (strangely enough, Genghis Kahn also means the enlightened one — in Mongol) was a pastry chef. he arrived in Boston as a ships cook, and worked in the hotel as Nguyen Cung. After Boston, he moved to Paris where he again made cakes and pies but changed his name to Nguyen O Phap (Nguyen who hates the French). Eventually, he and Malcolm X revolted against America and managed to turn the tables, as it were, on their customers.

Why do Parker House workers go off this way. Perhaps it’s because the hotel tries to hire hard-working, intelligent workers. You’ll notice, in the photo above that the waiters look at least as sharp as the customers and more physically fit. Beyond this, I suspect that the waitstaff are constantly exposed to socialist discussions from the customers. They are then sent off for coffee, or ignored, or perhaps insulted or groped, or not tipped. The Hotel seems to attract liberal libertarians — it was a favorite spot for John F. Kennedy.

My guess is that Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh became socialist revolutionaries because of what they experienced from the customers at Parker House. So what can you do if you eat at Parker House, or any fancy restaurant? I think it pays to tip. Don’t do it in a way that makes your server feel like a beggar. It would help to chat too, I think. It’s important if your waiter is homicidal — or if your waiter becomes famous some day, or writes a book, or becomes a world dictator. You’d like to get a positive mention in that book, or have a positive story to tell — “I gave Genghis his first $10 bill…” And tipping is important so he/she doesn’t hate you. I’m given to understand that one main reasons people hate Satan so much is you can serve him, but he never tips.

Robert Buxbaum, February 29, 2016, updated August 24, 2017. I run REB Research, and I’m running for drain commissioner. Vote for me.

Michigan, an emerging economy

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Between 2009 and 2014, Michigan’s per-capita GDP grew at 14% per year, an amazing growth rate similar to that of an emerging, tiger economies. According tot the Bureau of Economic analysis, the only US states that grew faster were Texas and North Dakota, and these oil states were hit badly in the current year 2015-16.
GDPGROWTH

 

Unfortunately, Michigan remains relatively poor despite it’s growth. Its per-capita GDP, $20,263 (2016), lags behind even perennial backwaters like Vermont, Oklahoma, and Missouri. The wealth gap in Michigan is growing, as in an emerging economy, and the cities, e.g. Detroit and Flint, are known for high murder rates, and a large-scale bankruptcy.

Michigan population change, Detroit Free Press

Michigan population change, Detroit Free Press

Then there’s pollution and flooding. Our beaches close for e-coli after every major rain, and we recently found that the drinking water in Flint was contaminated with lead; it seems other MI cities have lead problems too. Add to this, that we’ve  had major floods, a result of mismanagement, cronyism, and rampant growth, and Michigan keeps looking more and more like Vietnam, China, and India.

Everything here isn’t third world, though. We replaced our hapless, ex-governor Granholm with a relatively competent (in my opinion) nerd, Rick Snyder. We’ve jailed the of worst crooks, e.g. Detroit’s walking-crime-wave mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, and his father, “Pay-for-play”, and the corrupt city manager, Bobby Ferguson. Under the previous administration, the state population shrank. It is now growing slowly.

Flood of 2014; the view at 696 and Mound rd. It's just incompetence.

Flood of 2014; the view at 696 and Mound rd. It’s part incompetence and part growth.

 

We passed a needed roads bill. Taxes are high, but not as bad as Illinois, and even Detroit is beginning to look good, at least in the center city. Industry is coming back, and so is Michigan real-estate. Here are some of my ideas going forward: pay our teachers well, and don’t imprison for so long. Some ideas to keep us on the upswing.

Robert Buxbaum, February 23, 2016. I’m running to be the Oakland county water commissioner, by the way.

Ginsberg poem about Bernie Sanders

It’s 30 years to the day since Alan Ginsberg wrote “Burlington Snow” a poem inspired by Bernie Sanders, the socialist mayor of Burlington Vermont. It’s a snapshot of the wonder and contradiction of socialist government. And now Bernie is running for president.

Birlington Snows, April 24, 1996

Burlington Snow, February 21, 1996 by Alan Ginsburg.

“Socialist snow on the streets. Socialist talk in the Maverick Bookstore. Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops. Socialist poetry in socialist mouths — aren’t the birds frozen socialists? Aren’t the snow clouds blocking the airfield social bureaucratic apprentices? Isn’t the socialist sky owned by the socialist sun? Earth itself socialist, forests rivers, lakes, furry mountains, socialist salt in oceans? Isn’t this Poem socialist? It doesn’t belong to me anymore.”

Dr. Robert Buxbaum, February 21, 2016. If anyone would write a poem about me, or water commissioner (I’m running) or pollution or drinking water, or anything like that, I’d be awfully honored. It doesn’t have to be complimentary, or even particularly good.

Alcohol and gasoline don’t mix in the cold

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One of the worst ideas to come out of the Iowa caucuses, I thought, was Ted Cruz claiming he’d allow farmers to blend as much alcohol into their gasoline as they liked. While this may have sounded good in Iowa, and while it’s consistent with his non-regulation theme, it’s horribly bad engineering.

At low temperatures ethanol and gasoline are no longer quite miscible

Ethanol and gasoline are that miscible at temperatures below freezing, 0°C. The tendency is greater if the ethanol is wet or the gasoline contains benzenes

We add alcohol to gasoline, not to save money, mostly, but so that farmers will produce excess so we’ll have secure food for wartime or famine — or so I understand it. But the government only allows 10% alcohol in the blend because alcohol and gasoline don’t mix well when it’s cold. You may notice, even with the 10% mixture we use, that your car starts poorly on the coldest winter days. The engine turns over and almost catches, but dies. A major reason is that the alcohol separates from the rest of the gasoline. The concentrated alcohol layer screws up combustion because alcohol doesn’t burn all that well. With Cruz’s higher alcohol allowance, you’d get separation more often, at temperatures as high as 13°C (55°F) for a 65 mol percent mix, see chart at right. Things get worse yet if the gasoline gets wet, or contains benzene. Gasoline blending is complex stuff: something the average joe should not do.

Solubility of dry alcohol (ethanol) in gasoline. The solubility is worse at low temperature and if the gasoline is wet or aromatic.

Solubility of alcohol (ethanol) in gasoline; an extrapolation based on the data above.

To estimate the separation temperature of our normal, 10% alcohol-gasoline mix, I extended the data from the chart above using linear regression. From thermodynamics, I extrapolated ln-concentration vs 1/T, and found that a 10% by volume mix (5% mol fraction alcohol) will separate at about -40°F. Chances are, you won’t see that temperature this winter (and if you you do, try to find a gas mix that has no alcohol. Another thought, add hydrogen or other combustible gas to get the engine going.

Robert E. Buxbaum, February 10, 2016. Two more thoughts: 1) Thermodynamics is a beautiful subject to learn, and (2) Avoid people who stick to foolish consistency. Too much regulation is bad, as is too little: it’s a common pattern: The difference between a cure and a poison is often just the dose.