It's Wednesday, sci-tech day, so I'll this week draw from the American Energy Society information they send me.  No big surprise that petroleum companies are getting richer because of the Iran War. But first a post-mortem of Ken Paxton's victory over John Cornyn in the Texas Republican primary.   I thought Paxton would win by 10%.  Turns out that the margin was 28 percentage point s, mostly because of President Donald Trump's endorsement. Time magazine had a particularly convictive article, starting with:   For more than a year, Republicans beseeched President Donald Trump’s advisers in the White House with a simple ask: if he couldn’t find his way to endorsing Sen. John Cornyn , could he at least keep his mouth shut?   Further: The point is that Cornyn would have beaten current Democratic Texas state representative James Talarico, who is 37 years old.  At minimal cost. Now, the speculation is that the national Republican Party will need to...

SORRY, THIS WAS FINISHED BUT NOT PUBLISHED.  SO HERE ISIS TODAY, THURSDAY.  The  American Energy Society's final publication  for the year featured the lighter side of energy. Darwin Energy Award. Given to a people who accidentally removed themselves from the gene pool by foolishly using energy or electricity. Winner:  Electrofishing, by Javier, to catch more fish faster.  Used an electrified metal fishing rod with a live electrical wire to stun fish in nearby waters.  I couldn't find out who Javier was or if this actually happened. Runner up:   A prisoner in Arizona was taken for an MRI. The technician told the guard he didn’t need to remove the prisoner’s shackles for the scan, nor did he need to remove his gun. Both the guard and the prisoner were immediately sucked up against the machine. To make matters worse, instead of hitting the big red emergency "off" button, the technician spent more than 15 minutes trying to call the supervisor to ask ...