Lamentations on Chemistry

18 July, 2008. The Hague, Netherlands.  Discussions are underway concerning a new proposal to ban carbonated beverages because of their contribution to the global greenhouse gas inventory. The startling new proposal submitted by Olivier Lawrentz, the President of Tudaloo, an island-state in the French Wayward Islands.  The document was submitted to the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) just prior to fridays deadline for the 2009 conference in the Slobovian capital of Nyeznok.

President Lawrentz stated in his address that the carbonated beverage ban proposal is meant to address the cumulative atmospheric effects of efforvescence in all manner of beverages- beer, champagne, sparkling water, and soft drinks.  “It is a simple matter of math, no? How much CO2 are we putting into the air because we demand a fizzy drink with our frittes?” asked Lawrentz, president of an island with an average elevation of 1 foot.

The reaction around the world was swift and highly critical. Arlene Kelpwalker, CEO of Cola International, a softdrink trade group, stated that her member companies were shocked and disappointed at the news. “Flat sodas are not going to go down well with the public, if you’ll pardon the pun,” Kelpwalker joked.

Most telling was a press release by the Belgian beverage giant OnBev, who would only disclose that they were in discussions with the American security firm Darkwater. When pressed for more information, a spokesman for OnBev said cryptically that their response to this move by Tudaloo would be soon be apparent.

San Francisco, California. 11 July, 2008. In a landmark decision, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of decriminalizing the psychedelic drug LSD.  The divided court ruled 4 to 3 in favor of striking down as unconstitutional the 48 year old statute banning recreational use of the substance.

Supporters and opponents alike held a contentious vigil outside the Earl Warren Building in San Francisco friday afternoon. The long anticipated Ergotte-v-State of California case has been a lightning rod for criticism and praise around the nation.

Dr. Besnik Keukomber, Chiquita Professor of Economics and Olfactory Studies at Pultroon College in Guapo, AZ, stated in an interview with CNN reporter Robert Stiphey that “This change is welcome in some large market sectors. LSD prices have been distorted by the unfortunate statutory freeze rendering the product illegal. The action of the court has put the supply of this product back on a rational economic basis. We are concerned, however, on the negative effect it will have on sellers of the LSD once the price drops.”

Pilsner Pharma Group stocks rose 5 % today on news that the pharmaceutical giant would start construction on a lysergamide processing facility in Quasimont, California. “We have been anticipating this for quite some time” stated CEO Hedrick van Preener.

Harriott Hotel Group announced that they will offer Psychedelic Suites in flagship hotels in selected California cities. Guests will have the opportunity to relax in the safety and comfort of a plushly padded suite and experience the pleasure of a supervised psychedelic experience. For the safety of the guests, psychedelic suite balconies have been replaced with a computer animated view courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic.  The initial floor of Psychedelic Suites will open at the Marquis in Los Angeles in Late 2010.

Not all are pleased, however.  Ephraim “Scarface” Erdstein, a South Bend, IN, drug kingpin operating out of a laundromat storefront said through his attorney that he plans on waging an appeal to the US Supreme Court in an effort to support prices by halting this unfortunate trend toward legalization. 

Roland Basbo, spokesman for “Tatoo Nation”, the national Tatoo Parlor trade association, expressed concern for declining business. Basbo said “We believe that as the demographics of LSD users moves upscale, the demand for body art will see a modest decline. We’ve noticed that boomers are freaked out by skin art in the middle of an acid trip”.

It is surely a sign of the End Times. Just as sure as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and cats sleeping with dogs. A Belgian company buys Anheuser-Busch.  Wow.  Just the thought of it is too much for me to get my arms around. Michelob now has a kissin’ cousin named Stella Artois. 

What was that old brain teaser an Austrian colleague once asked-

Can you name 10 famous Belgians? 

I agree. It is a bit outrageous. I’m sure there are as many as 20 famous Belgians.

Who knows? This may be the European connection NASCAR has been looking for.  Watery beer, fast cars, and drunken hooligans. It’s universal.

5 July, 2008. Boulder, Colorado. The climbing community mourns today as the recovery of six bodies continues from the 2008 Mt Kraznydang expedition.  A makeshift morgue was set up in the capital city of Bleeny, in the Zapore Islands off the Kamchatkan coast near Gnoyniechok, Siberia. The international climbing team was lead by Gon Anandachopbalmanchoda, well known Thai explorer, climbing apparel designer, and raconteur.

Mt Kraznydang is the tallest mountain in the Podguznik range in the volcanic Zapore island chain. Also known as Stalin’s Carbuncle, 33,459 ft Mt Kraznydang has resisted several attempts at its summit since its height was revised in 2005 by satellite radar, making it the second tallest peak on earth.

The Anandachopbalmanchoda team was reportedly near the summit when an earthquake loosened a bank of snow, bringing the team careening down to the 9000 ft level in the avalanche. The last radio transmission was from an unidentified climber who exclaimed ” … Oh, for Petes sake!! … Son of a(garbled) … refund! (static)….”.

Bleeny is the Sister City of Boulder, Colorado. Services will be held at the Podguznik Mountaineering Center on the Pearl Street mall. Donations are appreciated.

Lewis Black has a new book out called “Me of Little Faith“.  He has some video exerpts on his website that are fairly amusing. 

There is an old saying in aviation that “with enough horsepower, you can make a barn door fly”.  A friend recently gave me a copy of Principles of Flying, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1943, published under the authority of the Bureau of Aeronautics, US Navy. I couldn’t resist posting this graphic from p. 88.  [I hope this comes under fair use doctrine of Title 17 Section 107.]

The older aviation training manuals were often written in an avuncular voice that would appeal to farmboys. This Navy manual on flying takes the reader through the basics of Naval aircraft construction as well as aerodynamics. Floatplane construction and controls are particularly well illustrated.

My first airplane ride occured when I was 6. We went to a pancake flight breakfast in an airport hangar in Boone, Iowa. There, somebody was giving airplane rides for a penny-a-pound. This was a bargain price even then. I recall that the event was connected with the Flying Farmers.

My father had a pilots license and as did my cousin up the road. Cousin Verlyn had a Cessna 170 tail dragger that he flew from a pasture on his farm. One day on the rollout after landing he rolled into a pool of standing water, flipping it over and bending the main spar. It never flew again. 

Though my mother worked on her license, somehow she didn’t take the flight test. This was in the early 60’s and manned space flight was all over the news. Americans were going places and to see my father riding with a friend in his Stearman doing aerobatics over our cornfield could only mean to a small boy that somehow we could be a part of the big adventure.

According to the Novosti News Agency, the Zheleznovodsk spa center recently unveiled a statue celebrating its emphasis in hydraulics.

Photo Credit- AP

“As gastroenterology is the main treatment area at the Zheleznovodsk spa center, it was decided to create such a unique monument, which is both funny and vital,” said Alexander Kharchenko, the director of the center.

“There is no kitsch or obscenity, it is a successful work of art,” Alexander Kharchenko told The Associated Press. “An enema is almost a symbol of our region.”

Lordy. I thought some town in Tejas owned the rights to that symbol!

In case you’re sketchy about the location, it’s just off the M-29 north of Pyatigorsk. Looks like there is an airport in nearby Mineral’nye Vody. It’d be a good reason to burn up those Aeroflot frequent flyer miles.

The juxtaposition of children, balloons, and shapely nurses in a celebration of the enema bulb seems most peculiar and is a major source of conflict for my brain at many levels.

I finally cracked the secret of getting ChemDraw structures into a post without having to buy anything. It’s not perfect, but it is a start.

Paste a structure into Microsoft Paint which is found in Accessories in the Start Menu. Save as a jpeg. Then, re-open in Microsoft Photo Editor, crop, and save again. Finally, import to wordpress as a jpeg. Whew!

Be nice. I’m a little slow sometimes.

June 22, 2008, Santa Monica, California. Comedian and satirist George Carlin died sunday evening after checking into a Santa Monica hospital complaining of chest pains. He was 71.

Carlin was a brilliant social satirist and comic. He had the ability to look at ordinary things from a different angle and see the obvious obsurdity in things most of us accept as simple background noise. This is one of the key attributes of a successful satirist and comedian.

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. 

The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, “You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, “Where’s the self-help section?” She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

There’s no present. There’s only the immediate future and the recent past.

Not only do I not know what’s going on, I wouldn’t know what to do about it if I did.

-George Carlin

Carlin was a serial quipster who pushed the boundaries of social norms. His Seven Dirty Words ended up as the center of a 1978 Supreme Court ruling that affirmed the right of the state to bar ”indecent” of speech on the public airwaves.

While it is common for contemporary comedians to exploit “indecent” speech for shock value today, few seem to have the facility with language that Carlin had. He was able to reduce to a few short humorous sentences the dark uncertainties that many of us have with common subjects.  Carlin’s observations on taboo subjects put him well ahead of his time.

Last night I found myself sitting at a restaurant with astronomers for the occasion of viewing a meteorite. Customarily, a few observatory folk have dinner with the speaker and then we go to the observatory for a public star night. While waiting for our entrees we passed the object carefully amongst ourselves, cherishing a few moments of close contact with this rare object.

Astronomers seem to be prone to public displays of humility. I would estimate that the humility quotient was near 0.8 (8 out of 10 Sagans- the Sagan is the international unit of humility). It is generally agreed that the Buddha achieved a Sagan quotient of unity. Okay, I’m kidding.

The curious 936 gram achondrite is from the recent Berthoud, Colorado, fall.  Meteor enthusiasts refer to the arrival of a meteorite as a “fall”.  This is one of only 5 witnessed falls in Colorado. A section of the meteor has been cut off and has been the subject of investigation at the University of Arizona.

Based on the composition of the object (olivine, plagioclase, ilmenite, chromite) and based on the reflectance spectra of various asteroids, the Berthoud meteorite is thought to be a fragment of the asteroid Vesta. Imagery of Vesta suggests that a portion of this object may have been shattered by an impact in the past.

The family whose property the stone landed on are somewhat bewildered by the event. They have been the subject of much unwanted attention, so the object is kept secure at an unknown location. In October of 2004, in the early afternoon several family members were standing outside their home when they heard a whistling sound and thump. Following the direction of the sound, they found the impact site less than 100 feet from where they were standing and in a spot where one member had just walked through. Only a small part of the object protruded upward through the disturbed topsoil.

Reportedly, it was cool to the touch immediately after arrival. This is counter-intuitive given the fiery appearance of most meteors. However, the object was quite cold prior to entry into the atmosphere and the rapid transit through the air didn’t allow for heat saturation. And, ablation carries away much of the friction energy.

The low iron object has a dark fusion crust over a grey, mottled composition. Other than the crust, it is not that unusual in its appearance.