Sunday Rant - 0217

PN:

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. – William Blake
Joe’s Comment – Knowing who you are and what you are about is a grand New Year’s resolution.

Joe’s Choice
The wonder, majesty, and accomplishment of the West is never more prevalent or obvious than in musical expression – the apex is symphony orchestra. Joe and I remember a time of wanting to learn the oboe. Another time or life perhaps….
Joe’s selection of music to hear while perusing the second Sunday Rant of 2017:

Diner For One
To mark the New Year arrival, the single most repeated TV program in history. This vignette was originally performed in 1920. It has been aired in Germany at 6:00 p.m. New Year’s Eve every year since 1962, and has a following all over the world:

May your 2017 be more than “the same procedure as every year”……

Joe’s Year (Condensed)

2017 will be busy for Joe and I, if last year was any precursor of “the same procedure as every year”. Long live the dirt people, and us too.
In 2016, nine vehicles left to better homes (or squishers). Alas, a dozen more came home to roost.
Book consumption was somewhat curtailed in the vicarious and learning categories (mostly Internet), but technical reading was more than ever.
The total Internet hours logged is a very very large number.
For posterity, here are the top 50 conservative oriented blogs of 2016, per Doug Ross. Joe and I frequent many of them regularly.
Here are 21 good reads recommended by the Heritage Foundation. Joe and I have read only two. Carry-over to this year.
Resolutions?
Ranging from incremental adjustments to maximum throttle across the spectrum as required. (That means play it by ear).

William Happer and RuBisCO
The idiot prince-ling of Kanada has unleashed a “Carbon Tax®” on the hapless easy-going citizens of the realm. The cost to prairie agriculture and energy businesses will be crippling. More to be reported about that subject later. The absolute insanity of “fighting” “carbon” (CO2) with crippling taxes is beyond credulity to an informed, sane mind.
A sane mind might say something like “Why would we want to reduce the footprint of life?” when referring to carbon. Thus spake Professor William Happer, the former director of Science at the Department of Energy in the George H. W. Bush administration.
William Happer was relieved of duty by the sycophantic followers of Al Gore. Mr. Happer would not follow the party line regarding the role of CO2 in “global warming” and consequently was asked to find a new occupation. He is a professor of physics at Princeton University. His is a truly scientific mind. Read an interview with him by thebestschools here.
Quotes from this must read article –
“Land plants get the carbon they need from the CO₂ in the air. Most plants draw other essential nutrients — water, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, etc. — from the soil. Just as plants grow better in fertilized, well-watered soils, they also grow better in air with CO₂ concentrations several times higher than present values.
The current low CO₂ levels have exposed a design flaw, made several billion years ago by Nature when she first evolved the enzyme, Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, or “RuBisCO” for short. RuBisCO is the most abundant protein in the world, and the foundation of all life. Using the energetic molecules, mainly adenosine triphosphate (ATP), produced with the aid of sunlight, RuBisCO, converts CO₂ to the simple carbohydrate molecule, 3-phosphoglyceraldehyde (3-PGA). The biochemical machinery of the plant subsequently reworks the 3-PGA molecules into sugar, starch, amino acids, and all the other chemicals of life. The letter “C” in the nickname RuBisCO stands for “carboxylase” in the full name, which reminds us of RuBisCO’s design target: CO₂.
Geological evidence suggests that RuBisCO began to play its key role in photosynthesis some three billion years ago, when there was lots of CO₂ and very little O₂ in the atmosphere. At current low levels of atmospheric CO₂, plants can use up much of the available CO₂ in full sunlight. This CO₂ depletion spells trouble for the plant. The letter “O” in the nickname RuBisCO stands for “oxygenase” in the full name, which reminds us that an alternate target of RuBisCO is the oxygen molecule: O₂. If RuBisCO, charged with chemical energy from ATP, does not quickly find a CO₂ molecule, it will settle for an O₂ molecule and produce toxic byproducts — for example, hydrogen peroxide — instead of useful carbohydrates. This “photo-oxydation” is a serious problem. At current low CO₂ levels and high O₂ levels, it leads to a reduction of photosynthetic efficiency by about 25 percent in C3 plants, which include major crops: wheat, rice, soybeans, cotton, and many others. Since 3-PGA, the first molecule synthesized from CO₂, has three carbons, such plants are said to have the “C3” photosynthetic pathway.

Fig. 16. Evolution designed RuBisCO to catalyze the incorporation of CO₂ and H₂O into organic carbohydrate molecules. But if CO₂ levels are low by the standards of geological history, as they are today, RuBisCO will occasionally use an O₂ molecule instead to make various toxic byproducts in the “photo-respiration” process.
[Source: rubiscofixeslife.blogspot]

The low CO2 levels of the past tens of millions of years have driven the development of C4 plants (corn and sugar cane, for example) that cope with oxygen by protecting RuBisCO inside of “bundle sheaths.” CO2 molecules are ferried into the bundle sheath by 4-carbon molecules, which give the C4 pathway its name. But O2 cannot get into the bundle sheath, so the RuBisCO need not waste efficiency by mistakenly working on abundant O2 molecules instead of scarce CO2 molecules. The more elaborate C4 pathway comes at a cost in biochemical energy, but one that is worth paying in times of unusually low CO2 concentrations, like those today. Thousands of experiments leave no doubt that all plants — both the great majority with the old-fashioned C3 path, but also those with the new-fangled C4 path — grow better with more CO2 in the atmosphere. (See: M.B. Kirkham, Elevated Carbon Dioxide: Impacts on Soil and Plant Water Relations [CRC Press, 2011].)

The farce of politics is once again (for the billionth time?) causing unnecessary hardship for no ethical or moral reason. Other than feel good taxation without logical foundation by shady politicians feeding at the public trough.
Joe and I would like to make the following presentation mandatory viewing for ALL POLITICIANS (along with the work of another dozen or more brave scientists). As professor Happer says, “by any objective standards, more CO2 is good for the world”:

Please visit the CO2 Coalition and RuBisCo for more FACTS.
FACTS will set you free.

Patrick Moore Refresher
William Happer (above) has been featured before in Joe’s rant. So has Patrick Moore. The following is his address to the Global Warming Policy Foundation from October, 2015 (previously featured in this rant). This is a companion piece to the Professor Happer interview above. Be cognizant of the reality of life on earth. Humans are part of the ecosystem. As Dr. Moore states, humans and human activity are a life saving force:

Trump and the Ruskies
Joe and I are perplexed at the painful twisting in the wind the Democratic minions and masters are inflicting upon themselves and anyone who listens. In a world where the “I’m alright, but I’m not sure about you” people of the Left abound, where there don’t seem to be any mirrors mirrors on the wall, to see who’s most screwed up of them all, we present a few points to summarize our thoughts on the subject.
First, the “popular vote” is NOT used to determine the President. The popular vote is coercion, unrepresentative, and was foreseen as dangerous and unethical by the Founding Fathers, who created the Electoral College as a safeguard –

Second, the Russians and that evil KGB killer Putin have made more sense the last eight years than the Americans and that evil killer-by-drone Jug Ears (Obambi) have, by an order of magnitude.

Out played, out classed, out done…..

Third, who(m) is spying and hacking who(m); who(m) is the kettle and who(m) the pot? One of them passes himself off as “black” (that’s a hint). What a farce. It is no wonder alcoholism and drug abuse are so rampant in America and Russia. Time for the dirt people to pay attention and reign these idiots back…..

Fourth, the Democrats continue to act as if it is all a high school popularity contest. No accountability. With Jug Ears, it is a prom queen melodrama.

Fifth, it is a hard, hungry, cruel, mean world outside the “perimeter” of Western influence. The dirt people mostly want to be left alone to pursue their own fates, and for the most part, tolerate the mincing impotent frivolity of the political elite. Every once in a while We the People make their will known; this time in a peaceful fashion. Woe be it to those who ignore the message.

Joe’s Garage
The project on the go is a two-fer one.
Recently we traveled to the Kootenays to retrieve a 2000 F150 4X4 that ran out of oil. Engines don’t perform well without oil. It was a fine day with fine company to take a field trip.

Other than a rusty front bumper and a rip in the driver seat, a straight and clean vehicle. With a dead engine.
The two into one happens here…..
Joe and I happen to have a 2001 Expedition that met an untimely end. The drive train is very good, but the body met an immovable object. As you can see from this picture of the chassis, the wheels aren’t all pointing in the same direction –

The engine is ready to install in the F150 –

Next week’s rant might feature a new (to us) F150 4X4 to tackle the nasty winter we are experiencing….
Mechanical work and shop provided by Mike’s Mechanical. Thanks Mike!

POLITICS, POLITICIANS, WACKJOBBERY, HUMOROUS, STUPID

SUNDAY SERMON

An appropriate sermon for the start of the year would be filled with promise and hope for increased prosperity, better health, good will among men (and women, too).
This interview of Victor Davis Hanson by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institution will supply some foundation for hope. With people like professor Hanson adding their perspective to the common weltanschauung, everyone will benefit: