The first week of November promises to be a political bellwether. The gubernatorial election in Virginia and maybe the one in New Jersey will give us some idea of the public’s reaction to the continued failures of the Biden Administration. Either Congress will vote this week on the President’s program or postpone forever. Vaccine mandates in significant areas will go into effect. Will it make our labor shortage even worse? How about safety?

While waiting for results, a couple of interesting things came up worth mentioning. The current narrow partisan focus of our media lets some critical news or ideas go largely unnoticed.

 The Wall Street Journal featured an article by an associate professor of chemical bioprocess engineering, Jacob R. Borden. The article reminded me of a piece I read probably in National Geographic many years ago. It revealed picturesque and strange Yellowstone is a massive volcanic area. One, if it erupted, could pretty much do in the U.S. and Canada. It was in my thoughts when we visited the Park. 

Prof. Borden points to a 1917 NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab(JPL) evaluation. It isn’t if, but when Yellowstone erupts, and it may be due. JPL has a potential solution, siphoning off excess energy. With the development of horizontal drilling, we can do it without disturbing the Park.