Dr. Klaus L.E. Kaiser

High Noon – at the Cross Roads

Movie star Gary Cooper (1901-1961) might find it difficult to decide what to aim for in the up-and-coming contest. There’ll soon be more than ONE villain on the road …

High Noon has changed.

The typical villains of yore have morphed and updated their methods of travel. Actually, it’s now a fight between robots for technological superiority. And driving your car may not be the same much longer too! You are in a fight with autonomous cars with invisible drivers and passengers.

Trust in Thrust -- Another "Perpetual Motion Machine" Concept

Modern science has produced some miraculous advances in several fields. None of the ideas proposed or "invented" have ever seen any device that actually could produce energy out of nothing. Of course, that idea, commonly referred to as a "Perpetual Motion machine" (PMM) and also known as a "Perpetuum mobile," cannot exist. The idea has been around for a thousand years or longer by now, but all attempts to build one have failed.

"Fridays-for-Hubraum" – a new Friday Movement

Fridays are rapidly getting new meanings. From the common abbreviation TGIF, to the recent “Fridays-for-Future” (FFF) demonstrations, right now, yet another Friday-meaning appears to be getting a large crowd of followers – and fast. Actually much faster than the FFF movement; it’s called the “Fridays-for-Hubraum” movement (FFH). Let’s begin with an explanation.

The New Moose Express

For my Dear Readers who may not have heard of the Moose Express, it's the northern equivalent of the famous Pony Express, a top-speed transcontinental delivery service of news between the continent's east and west coast communities. It had its heyday in the early 1860s before it got overtaken by the much faster (and cheaper) transcontinental telegraph system, as pioneered by Samuel Morse (1791-1872).

Why Canada needs a CARBON BENEFIT--not a "CARBON TAX" for fossil energy resource use!

Yes, you read that right, Canadians (and others) should be encouraged (tax-wise) to consume carbon-type fuel and NOT be (carbon-)taxed for that! Furthermore, this ought to be a CARBON-BENEFIT, not a CARBON-CREDIT! WHY? The reasons are easy to explain:

The Fluorine Conundrum

The element fluorine (with the chemical notation ‚"F") is in the crosshairs of many do-gooders these days. That isn't new but appears to have recently gained momentum. For example, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC), has recently called for a scientific meeting on the ‚"Environmental Risk Assessment of PFAS," to take place at Durham, NC, on Aug. 12-15, 2019. The EPA's current PFAS Research list (as of July 2019) comprises 165 of such chemicals. Of course, that's only a small fraction of natural and synthetic organic chemicals, i.e. substances that contain carbon-to-fluorine bonds. My own list, based on TerraTox^TM databases covers more than 8,000 of such compounds.

Samuel de Champlain and the Coureur des bois

Some folks are keen on re-writing or re-interpreting history. A while ago, in the U.S., century-old statues erected in memory and reverence of past explorers, politicians, and soldiers, all widely renowned in the communities at their time, were "de-erected" and sent to local history-resting pounds. Now, this craze has found "another enemy" with the name Samuel de Champlain. As Terry Pedwell writes on July 7, 2019, for The Canadian Press , "Samuel de Champlain monument: Hurtful or educational?" The specific bronze of controversy is a statue of the man, erected nearly a century ago, in the town of Orillia, Ontario.

16-Psyche--the Motherlode

As reported by WalesOnline, there is a large mineral-laden rock, dubbed 16-Psyche, orbiting the sun, ready to be captured, mined, and anything else you might want to do with it. Even without any mineable resources, its size alone, 140 miles across, could make some folks real estate billionaires. And to prove the point, the rock has also caught the attention of NASA and space mining companies, which hope--eventually--to harvest the asteroid's presumed rich reserves of gold, etc. 16-Psyche is one of those thousands of asteroids, objects in the universe that travel the interplanetary space. What sets it apart from other rocks of the kind is the (unproven) claim that it is a new kind of "Eldorado."

Trashing Trash-Bags

According to recent reports, "Ottawa, the center of political power in Canada, is going to "trash single use plastic bags "by 2021 or so. The article on CBC News further states "A full list of banned items isn't set in stone, but a government source told CBC News that the list also could include items like cotton swabs, drink stirrers, plates and balloon sticks. Fast-food containers and cups made of expanded polystyrene, which is similar to white Styrofoam, will also be banned."

Bromate and Bromide -- Fire and Brimstone?

The Herts County Council in Great Britain is having a problem with “bromate” and “bromide” ions in the groundwater there. They could pollute the local drinking water resource. As it turns out, this is nothing new there. In fact, the situation was first recognized two or more decades ago and remedial actions have been ongoing for about ten years now and are still continuing to this date. The bromate/bromide source was a chemical factory, in operation between 1955 and 1980 that manufactured or used “bromate” and “bromide” in their works.

The Moonatory

As you may know, there is a great push by man to settle the Moon. As reported, NASA just awarded a $78 million contract "for Intuitive Machines [a private U.S. company] to develop, launch and land its Nova-C spacecraft on the lunar surface with a payload of NASA and private experiments."

Us Super-Mutants

Are you ready to evolve? As Fox News reports, once man (and woman, I presume) have become settled on Mars, evolution to super-mutant Marslings (or similar) is inevitable.

Historical Floods--from Philatelic Records

Not very long ago, written communications were in the form of postal mail, like letters to your love, postcards to everyone else, and so on. The Universal Postal Union, established by the Treaty of Bern of 1874, agreed to and ratified by nearly all countries in the world, is an expeditious system of moving the mountains of mail coming and going, across the entire globe. One vital principle of that system was (and still is) proper postage. Initially, the postage stamps just depicted renditions of the ruler of the day, in different colors for the different postage rates. But, after a while, the postal services discovered that the little stamps could be made more meaningful by having pictures that were more relevant to the day.

A Yew for You

Yew bushes are quite common in gardens as ornamental shrubs and hedges. They are liked for being hardy, and soil and moisture tolerant evergreens. In addition, the have nice red berries in the fall. Please note: the orange/red juicy fruits are quite palatable but have poisonous seeds in the center. Their poison was already known two millennia ago (Taxus baccata) and appeared to be the choice of soldiers to die when not wanting to fall alive into the hands of the enemy.

Glyphosate--the End of Aspirin?

Dear Readers, Relax, this is not going to be a heavy-duty chemical lecture! As you may have read in the news, the herbicide Roundup™ inventing company Monsanto had been bought by the company that invented the medicinal compound Aspirin™ , i.e. the Bayer AG, back in 2018. Roundup is said to be the world's most widely used herbicide.

The Age of Anomalies

Have you noticed, "Anomalies" are the new grand evil culprits, of everything gone wrong, anywhere? Dictionaries describe the term like "something that deviates from what is standard, normal, or expected." I guess that could mean anything, like (not) arriving on time at your destination, or having a bout of hiccups.

The Dandelion Windfall

For as long as I can remember, dandelion plants were THE enemy of the city neighbors all around. Any sign of their yellow flowers in the lawn or garden needed to be eradicated by all means, as soon as possible. Of course, your little children or grandchildren enjoy picking the seeds with their small feathery parachute-like umbrellas and with a small puff make them rise and travel in the slightest breeze to the lawn next door.

Ocean Power Generating Systems--Going Nowhere Fast

The number of companies that hoped in vain (some still do) to harness ocean power for "free energy" is steadily increasing. One of the latest outfits not doing so well is Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (OPT) of Monroe Township, NJ, USA. According to its website ( [url=https://oceanpowertechnologies.gcs-web.com/]https://oceanpowertechnologies.gcs-web.com/[/url] ), it "is a pioneer in renewable wave-energy technology that converts ocean wave energy into electricity" and they have several patents to prove it.

The new “Landfill Site”

It’s nothing new. Landfill sites are filling up, faster than ever, with all kinds of debris. Just about everywhere. How did it come to that? Blame the “Greens” and the “Authorities.” Why, you ask? The answer lies in the decomposition times for various items in your garbage-to-be-deposed-of. As they vary from a few years to millions of years, known as eons, the landfill sites keep filling up.

Dowse the Fire!

Firefighting used to be simple. In the olden days, water was all that was needed and (hopefully) available as required. Once structures came with charged electrical wires, water was no longer the material of choice. You might extinguish a small fire and electrocute yourself in the process.