Just One Thing
Gonna start this Friday blogcast with a cool (if slightly silly for a talk show) topic since it's been a fairly intense week: In case you haven’t yet read the current edition of the journal Cement and Concrete Composites, researchers have taken a material called chitin from discarded shells of shrimp and added them to cement paste. There were two main effects: One: it lengthened drying time which is actually desired in some applications, especially in hot weather, and probably more importantly it made the concrete up to 40% stronger. Not that I really care about this aspect, but it also theoretically lowers the carbon emissions of making concrete as you replace other stuff with the organic shrimp shell material. One more interesting data point: by volume, concrete is the second most consumed material on earth after water. But don't confuse the two when grabbing a glass at dinner or when laying the foundation for your home.
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Today's Guests
Joe O'Dea is the Republican candidate for US Senate in the 2022 elections in Colorado. We'll have a short talk with Joe about some policy issues and I'll also ask him a question I've never heard him answer publicly: Does Joe want Donald Trump to run for president in 2024? We'll see if he'll answer...I think a lot of GOP candidates would dodge that one.
(By way of full disclosure, I contributed to Joe's campaign before the primary election.)
Joe O'Dea for Colorado (joeodea.com)
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Michael Fabey's new book is called "Heavy Metal". It's a fascinating look at the birth of an aircraft carrier (including the politics of it) and the people who make them. We'll talk about that but also about a prescient book Michael wrote a few years ago called "Crashback", in which he discusses the tensions between the US and China in the South China Sea. Obviously this is a BIG question right now given China's live-fire war drills surrounding (and intentionally coming across as menacing to) Taiwan.
Other Stuff
This is intense and not uplifting, but a necessary read: EuroIntelligence: "When The Fair Weather is Gone"
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Jared Polis brazenly trying to take credit for TABOR-mandated tax refunds; Republicans are pushing back: TABOR CHECKS: Colorado GOP files campaign finance complaint against Gov. Polis | FOX31 Denver (kdvr.com)
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Home affordability in Colorado is MUCH lower than it used to be due to a combination of high prices and high interest rates (although rates are lower than they were a month ago.) On one hand, if something is too expensive for people to buy, typically the price will come down. On the other hand, there's still more demand than supply for housing in Colorado. Putting these together is why I believe prices will fall...but not very much.
Common Sense Institute: The Colorado Homebuyers' Misery Index: Colorado Housing Quarterly Update | Common Sense Institute (commonsenseinstituteco.org)
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You know this already but the Democrats' "Inflation Reduction Act" will reduce economic growth and job opportunities and income for workers, but not inflation (except to the extent that it contributes to a slowdown of the economy overall.) It's an unbelievably bad bill, with basically every provision being something that should be aggressively opposed. You can't make a bad idea into a good bill by mixing it with other bad ideas. Yet here were are with Democrats running the show because Donald Trump and his followers suggested to Georgia Republicans that they not vote in the runoff elections, thus handing control of the Senate to the Dems. (Yes, Trump eventually did say that they should vote but way too late and only after saying for a long time that there's no purpose in voting because Republican votes won't be counted.)
Economic Analysis of Budget Reconciliation Legislation (cbo.gov)
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Jury awards $4.1 million to parents in first defamation trial, but that's just the "punitive damages." Still waiting on "compensatory damages" award as of Thursday evening: Jury Finds Alex Jones Guilty of Defamation in Sandy Hook Shooting Case | National Review
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From the "better late than never" files: David Dwayne Anderson gets life sentence for murdering Sylvia Quayle in 1981 (denverpost.com)
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Tina Peters loses again. Can't she just go to jail already? After recount, Tina Peters loses again in GOP secretary of state primary (denverpost.com)
Love this quote (via Denver Post link above) from Colorado County Clerks Association Executive Director Matt Crane (a Republican and former Arapahoe County Clerk): “Unfortunately, there’s a group of people who have really, really tied themselves to the idea that the 2020 election was stolen, and there’s no amount of fact or data that you can show them to be able to change their mind. They really think Tina Peters is a hero and I’m here to tell you she’s not a hero. She has disgraced herself and her office. She violated her oath and probably the law.”
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If the feds can prove this case, those officers need to do some real jail time, not just a slap on the wrist. Their malfeasance resulted in an innocent person's utterly unnecessary death: 4 former and current Louisville police detectives federally charged in Breonna Taylor raid | WDRB Investigates | wdrb.com
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After a big win against his ex-wife, Johnny Depp's year gets a little worse: Johnny Depp and Jeff Beck accused of stealing incarcerated man’s poem for album | Music | The Guardian
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Today's Video
My dogs better not see this or they're going to demand the same treatment