by wj
These musings about the American approach to security are not actually motivated by this week’s activities around Trump’s fantasy wall and its supporters. Although there are some obvious implications. Rather, they stem from the trip I took last week to Brussels. Specifically, about my observations concerning airport security in Europe, as opposed to at US airports.
One obvious difference is at security check points. At US airports, chances are you will get to empty everything out of your pockets, take off your shoes, and go thru the nudiescope. In Europe, nobody thinks you need to take off your shoes, and the metal detectors are set relaxed enough that you don’t even need to take off your watch.
But the other big difference, and one which particularly struck me, was that every airport that I went thru had pairs of soldiers, with semiautomatic weapons (and in jungle camo for some reason), patrolling. In US airports, I have seen lots of military personnel in uniform – but only because they were traveling. Not a weapon, let alone any serious weapons, among them.
The difference, I suspect, is that Europeans are serious about security. Whereas Americans seem mostly interested in the appearance of security – “security theater” if you will. So European governments mainly do things which will increase actual security. Whereas the American government does things that will serve as constant reminders to the traveling public that they have “done something” – whether it actually serves any useful security function or not. One has to wonder why that is. (And no, I don’t have an answer on that.)
Of course, the same focus on symbolism over actual usefulness is reflected in the Trumpists’ obsession over Trump’s wall. Even if the problems that Trump (falsely) alleges were real, the wall would be of minimal use in addressing them. But as a symbol, it is apparently quite potent. At least for some.
(Also an Open Thread. Because we are somewhat overdue for one.)
I would say that neither the US model of reactively rolling out safeguards against what the terrorists did last time, and the Euro model of military guys walking around with guns, are optimal.
The people who have airport security dialed in are the Israelis.
I would say that neither the US model of reactively rolling out safeguards against what the terrorists did last time, and the Euro model of military guys walking around with guns, are optimal.
The people who have airport security dialed in are the Israelis.
The Israelis have the advantage of only having to guard a small number of flights. No way to duplicate that in the US, IMHO.
We could probably do w/o taking our shoes off in the US, as I’ve been on many flights from Europe to the US w/o ever having to do that, even tho the original shoe bomber was on a flight from Europe (I mean, WTF?).
That said, I don’t think soldiers with weapons provide any additional security – unless we’re talking about some kind of coordinated assault against an airport with small arms.
My 2 cents.
Fortified cockpits and the passengers’ reaction on flight 93 has probably done more for security than the billions spent security theater.
What has made a difference:
Otherwise, as Charles says, just billions wasted on theater.
unless we’re talking about some kind of coordinated assault against an airport with small arms.
It is more than likely that – Europe has experienced several such attacks, and airports with their massed queues are tempting targets.
I still have to empty my pockets and take off my shoes* and belt at the airport (wrist-watch and glasses optional). My last flights were in November last year (Berlin-Malta and back). Still, it’s far less paranoid than after 9/11.
My impression is that it is done mainly to skip the hands-on search for everyone when the gate does not beep. Thus doing the partial striptease actually speeds things up.
*In my case there is an actual reason because there is metal in them but that does not apply to other people who still have to take them off.
The Israelis (used to, and probably still) have two armed undercover marshals on every El Al flight, but I don’t know about other airlines in and out of Israel, probably not.
I heard a programme on BBC Radio a year or two ago about the preponderance of women in coding in the past, although it concentrated more on the situation in the UK. So I was very glad to see this in today’s New York Times, particularly in the aftermath of the Google/Damore case, although understandably it concentrates more on the same phenomenon in the States.
3/8 of the programmers on my team are women.
one is Indian, one is SE_Asian and the other is Hispanic.
Looking back over the decades, it seems to me that at least in my technical field, there was a point where computing went from something that was done in support of engineering to being part of the engineering itself (eg, real-time control software). At that point, the engineering fraternity basically kicked the women out.
I confess to being somewhat baffled by the obsession on the far right with ACO.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/16/conservatives-cant-stop-obsessing-over-ocasio-cortez-their-latest-target-her-boyfriend/
Sure, she’s more liberal than they are. But so are pretty much all Democrats.
I can at least see some rationale behind demonizing Pelosi; but what does ACO actually threaten? She’s a freshman Congressman, for heaven’s sake.
She makes rookie mistakes, which pretty much everyone does. (Fewer, for those who were previously state legislators. But still.) I would number among her rookie mistakes the Green New Deal as written. Not because we don’t need to address climate change, because we do. (Although I may disagree with some of the details on that.) But because larding it up with a lot of unrelated wishes is a political error. It makes it far harder to pass than just laying out a half dozen focused bills.
But why the hysteria?
It’s not hysteria, an unacceptable sexist term in the first place,its opportunity taken. She is a perfect foil to point to the leftward race of the party as a whole.
C’mon, wj. She’s cheeky. She’s joyful. She’s young and unafraid of making the mistakes of the young. She’s doesn’t cower. She gives as good as she gets in spaces like Twitter.
She’s by god having a great time.
The sour pinheads getting hysterical over it can’t stand any of that. How dare people live out loud and refuse to cower before them?
I’d suggest that her utter refusal to play their game feels (and probably is) more dangerous to them than any policy disagreement you could name.
It’s like the emperor’s new clothes, with dancing.
It makes it far harder to pass than just laying out a half dozen focused bills.
Yes, all other considerations would seem to be excluded if the world really was going to end in twelve years.
And here’s another young politician, Mayor Pete of South Bend, refusing to play the game as it has been laid it out for him. Completely different style from AOC, but my lord it’s so much fun to hear someone who can talk in complete sentences to express complex thought trains in understandable ways.
Joe Scarborough tries insistently to make Buttigeig talk in kindergarten-level terms about “left/right” politics, no nuance, gotcha questions, and Pete ain’t playing. Another talking head has a go late in the clip, and he doesn’t get his way either.
I hope Pete goes far, though I don’t see how exactly that’s going to happen.
Disclaimer: I saw this clip because my younger-generation Pete-fan friends sent it. It’s probably a deficit in my ongoing education, but I can’t stand to watch “TV,” and there’s more than enough — several lifetimes’ worth of enough — to read. So for the most part I stick with that.
Buttigeig just landed a Daily Show interview. that’s gotta help.
But because larding it up with a lot of unrelated wishes is a political error.
My reaction after I read through the resolution went like this. The US national labs have a ton of talented people who have been studying low- and no-carbon energy plans in (sometimes painful) detail for decades. They’ve published it all. The resolution reads like the authors didn’t talk to a single one of them. I am fearful that the politicians are going to approach this like a couple of projects I was unfortunate to be caught up in over my career: “We don’t talk to the engineers, they just tell us that we can’t have ponies.”
And I’m saying that as someone who believes we’re at a crisis point and need to radically overhaul our energy production and consumption.
we should keep in mind that the GND is a non-binding resolution that doesn’t even need the President’s signature. it’s not a proposed law. it’s not a bill about implementation. at best it’s a statement of priorities.
What clerk said.
Mayor Pete is indeed impressive.
I can at least see some rationale behind demonizing Pelosi; but what does ACO actually threaten?
Someone’s Twitter supremacy ?
I’m curious to see where the whole “OMG IT’S SOCIALISM” thing goes.
My Trumpie niece put something on FB about the closing of the last Panera Cares “pay what you want” restaurant. That demonstrates, the post said, why socialism doesn’t work.
People are really unclear about what this stuff actually means. Or how the world works, for that matter.
I keep waiting for folks to wake the f up. Lotta folks won’t, I suppose.
The Green New Deal looks like a lot of stuff that’s been kicking around for a while. Even the phrase is not that new. It’s great that some of these ideas are getting some endorsement by legislators, I wish them well with it.
AOC’s representing the Bronx, where the dozens is an art form. I welcome the attempts of her (R) detractors to get the better of her.
I’m curious to see where the whole “OMG IT’S SOCIALISM” thing goes.
Our generation tends to be pretty vague about what socialism actually entails. But they know they’re against it. (Not that those our age who say they’re in favor, e.g. Sanders, seem much better informed about what the term means.)
The younger (i.e. under 40 or so) generation is similarly vague about what it entails. But they don’t have any particular negative reaction to the word. Although the Trumpies ranting about it is probably inclining them to consider it favorably.
My opinion, which is mine, and not particularly well-informed, is that AOC causes such an unhinged reaction because:
(a) she’s an unapologetic smart lefty, and
(b) she’s incredibly CUTE.
Desire+hate = cognitive dissonance.
I don’t think Israel is a very good example of how to deal with security, e.g.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/world/israeli-airport-detention-of-prominent-us-jew-prompts-uproar.html
An insightful analysis of the Green New Deal, from our friends at Fox.
It’s like a Weekly Reader for angry frightened white people.
If we can’t do better than this were f’d.
russell, The question is which of those points is inaccurate. The underlying economic assumptions are based on bobbyp’s ridiculous MMT, if for no other reason that makes it untenable.
We do need to get to the point we dont call out every group in the country except for white males as beneficiaries of government largesse, which this does, or lots of white males are going to object. I dont understand why that’s hard to understand. It’s not paranoia when they put it in writing.
We do need to get to the point we dont call out every group in the country except for white males as beneficiaries of government largesse, which this does, or lots of white males are going to object
This is especially funny, Marty. (although it’s gotten a bit better now): From an article published in 2014:
I don’t recall reading your complaints about that situation.
The problem with those stats is they include an incredibly small percentage of white men. There has been a political class made up of primarily white men, less so all the time. Same is true with corporate CEOs, also a very small number.
But we are now going to spend trillions on fundamentally changing everything about our society and white males dont even get a seat at the table. Who could object?
I think the most effective response to OMG SOCIALISM! is “Baloney Let’s make our mixed economy work for everyone, not just the rich.” Its to hard to explain what socialism is and isn’t.
Why does AOC get under conservative skins? They are scared of her.
WHite people , especially red state white people, are the primary beneficiaries of government largesse. They just don’t think of it that way because they feel entitled to it. Largesse, a term that implies over-generosity or waste–is how they view government expenditures for people other than themselves.
Entitlement is the primary conservative value. All of their actions beliefs and other values come from that belief in their inherent superiority to all other Americans.
That includes the attitude toward the wall. They are entitled to get a wall because they voted for Trump to get one therefore it is an emergency if they are not getting their way.
As for the green new deal, it will benefit whites just as much as anyone else. Heck it will save white asses just as much as anyone else’s. It is true that the economy will change and probably change the most in red states and that change will have short term negative affects on people many of them white, and there should be a plan for how to help those folks transition. And given that those folks are over represented in government, I am sure that will happen. After a l they have been getting government largesse for decades already so why would it stop?
Russell, that opinion piece (I can’t see characterizing it as an “analysis”) is an illustration of why life is hard these days for writers for the Onion. How do you parody something like that?
As for the green new deal, it will benefit whites just as much as anyone else. Heck it will save white asses just as much as anyone else’s.
I’m not sure I’d subscribe to the idea that college should be totally free.* I think there’s something to be said for a nominal charge — even if mostly covered by scholarships. But there’s no real question that a substantial majority of those saddled with enormous education loans these days are white.
The economic questions about paying for this (and the rest of the GND) are real, and do need to be addressed. But I note that we managed, not that long ago, to provide higher education to much of the population at a nominal cost — “nominal” meaning that it was entirely possible to work your way thru college. While undertaking a variety of rather expensive projects, from the space program to the Vietnam War. Without financing it all via massive inflation. And the economy did just fine.
The question, to my mind, is are we willing to admit that stuff costs money, which has to come from somewhere? And are we willing to pay for it? Not (just) the rich, for all that they are undertaxed currently**, but all of us.
* As noted earlier, I don’t think the issue belongs in a “Green New Deal”. But that’s a different discussion.
** If anyone doubts that the current tax system needs a serious overhaul, consider this.
http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/amazon-doesnt-pay-federal-taxes-2019/
A tax rate of -1%. That’s minus one percent. On $11 billion in profits. Heartbreaking.
Compared to many European countries, the US already has a very progressive taxing structure. In those countries, everyone pays high taxes regardless of their economic status.
The groups named as deserving a seat at the table in the GND stuff:
I think there are some white men in there.
The question, to my mind, is are we willing to admit that stuff costs money, which has to come from somewhere? And are we willing to pay for it?
no and no
wj: The economic questions about paying for this (and the rest of the GND) are real, and do need to be addressed.
The economic questions about paying for fighting Japan (and the rest of the Axis) were real, and they were addressed.
And BTW, the US had still not completely recovered from the Great Depression at the time.
Money is a renewable resource, unlike the atmosphere’s dumping capacity for CO2, or the Earth’s supply of fossil fuels. The view of “money” as a commodity (like pork bellies or frozen concentrated orange juice) which can be used up somehow, is a lingering vestige of the gold fetish.
–TP
The economic questions about paying for fighting Japan (and the rest of the Axis) were real, and they were addressed.
True. But that was then and this is now. The question isn’t Can they be addressed? It’s are we willing to do so in anything resembling a realistic manner?
no and no
I basically agree, because I’m old and jaded and people have been talking about this stuff for over half my lifetime and nobody’s stepping to it. And because there’s too much money on the table pointing the other way, and the folks whosee money it is don’t give a flying fuck if the rest of the world burns down as long as they got theirs. And because Americans are in thrall to the idea that we all sink or swim based on our own personal virtue, so if you’re at the bottom of the food chain that’s probably exactly where you belong. And because Americans believe that they are entitled to and richly deserve every advantage and convenience that our history and good fortune have made available to us, and in general we don’t much care what that means for everyone else on the planet.
IGMFU. it’s a way of life.
The issues raised by the GND are not likely to be tractable by any means other than the kind of widespread common purpose public effort that it calls for. We’ve pulled stuff like that off once or twice in our history, but I don’t see it happening now.
I wish AOC and Markey all the best with it. That level of imagination and enthusiasm is kind of beyond me at this point, I’m glad somebody is out there trying to make it happen.
May the wind fill their sails.
The US national labs have a ton of talented people who have been studying low- and no-carbon energy plans in (sometimes painful) detail for decades. They’ve published it all. The resolution reads like the authors didn’t talk to a single one of them
my guess is that this is exactly right.
And all of those down in the weeds engineers now have two members of Congress who appear to at least share their goals, if not their expertise.
So, an opportunity.
wj: … are we willing to do so in anything resembling a realistic manner?
“Realistic” is an interesting concept. I think we can agree that “realistic” is less well defined than “real”.
Does “realistic” mean what my aged mother means by “Fix it, but don’t change anything”?
The Pearl Harbor attack was real, not “realistic”. Hurricanes, droughts, coastal flooding — these are real, not “realistic”. Reality has a way of changing people’s minds about what’s “realistic”. Even when it comes to tax policy, infrastructure policy, or Free Market worship.
Is it “realistic” to expect that the Dow Jones Industrials Average will be higher 30 or 40 years from now if we do NOT adopt something like the Green New Deal than if we DO? If yes, then how about in 100 years? Not that I personally care very much about the Dow in 2119, but those who (pretend to) care about it in 2019 might feel strongly enough to answer the question.
The fundamental danger to humanity is not “climate change” or “wealth inequality”. It is the mulish stupidity of a certain segment of the American electorate. In particular, that segment of the American electorate which looks at the list of “groups named as deserving a seat at the table” that russell quoted from the Fox piece, and sees no “white men” there.
That article was of course designed to fool the Martys of the world, not the russells. Read carefully, the list seems to amount to “everybody deserves a seat at the table except billionaires” — who admittedly tend to be older white men. I think, myself, that older white billionaires are god’s creatures too, and deserve “a seat at the table”. But in proportion to their number, not their wealth.
–TP
Great comment @ 2:56, TP.
This is so good I want to repeat it: It is the mulish stupidity of a certain segment of the American electorate. In particular, that segment of the American electorate which looks at the list of “groups named as deserving a seat at the table” that russell quoted from the Fox piece, and sees no “white men” there….Read carefully, the list seems to amount to “everybody deserves a seat at the table except billionaires” — who admittedly tend to be older white men. I think, myself, that older white billionaires are god’s creatures too, and deserve “a seat at the table”. But in proportion to their number, not their wealth.
I interpret the list as emphasizing groups of people who do *not* have a seat at the table right now, or not proportionately so. The list is inclusive, not exclusive: add more seats around the table. It’s kind of like what I used to say about the quest for so-called gay rights and gay marrige: I’m not saying “It’s my world.” I’m saying “It’s my world too.”
Mulish stupidity coupled with sneering begrudgery: a planet-killing, life-destroying poison.
I note that we managed, not that long ago, to provide higher education to much of the population at a nominal cost — “nominal” meaning that it was entirely possible to work your way thru college. While undertaking a variety of rather expensive projects, from the space program to the Vietnam War. Without financing it all via massive inflation. And the economy did just fine.
I was a freshman at Vanderbilt in 1963. Tuition was $1000/year, increasing to $1200 the next year. At the time the minimum wage was $1.25/hour, so 800, later 960, hours of minimum wage work would pay for tuition.
Today tuition is $48,600, with a minimum wage of $7.25. That’s over 6700 hours. Even if the percentage of financial aid has gone up dramatically, which it probably has, the disparity is huge. The University claims 60% of undergraduates get financial aid. Even if that covers half of tuition, on average across all students, you’re still at 3350 hours. And of course there was financial aid in 1963 also.
And, from a broader perspective, state schools in those days really did have only nominal costs. In 1963 it cost $312/year to attend UMass. A student could earn about twice that in a summer minimum wage job .
And, from a broader perspective, state schools in those days really did have only nominal costs. In 1963 it cost $312/year to attend UMass. A student could earn about twice that in a summer minimum wage job.
When I worked on my state’s legislative budget staff, I had to do a variety of special projects in the summer that involved digging through the history of our own state budget as well as some other states’. The conclusions I came to had four parts in a typical state. (1) There’s a political limit on state/local tax revenues in the range of 9-12% of state GDP, higher in rich states and lower in poor ones. (2) Starting in 1965, Medicaid has grown from zero to about 25% of state government general fund spending. (3) Starting a few years later, a large shift in K-12 education funding from local to state sources started, initially to equalize poor districts but ultimately affecting all districts, and accounts for about 40% of GF spending. (3) Baumol’s cost disease is a real thing, and a primary reason that Medicaid and K-12 will continue to grow faster than revenues now that the limit in (1) is binding. (4) Higher ed and transportation are being squeezed out.
I got no answers, just depressing questions and projections.
But there’s no real question that a substantial majority of those saddled with enormous education loans these days are white.
I can’t find the quote, perhaps by George Wallace, but maybe Theodore Bilbo or one of a parade of white supremacist politicians from the deep South, but it was something about it didn’t really matter how low poor whites were as long as they had someone else to look down on. So saddled with enormous debt ain’t a problem as long as they can retain their sense of self-worth that there are other people out there lower than them.
And, from a broader perspective, state schools in those days really did have only nominal costs. In 1963 it cost $312/year to attend UMass. A student could earn about twice that in a summer minimum wage job.
Similarly, the University of California in the late 1960s was $98/quarter (i.e. under $300 per year). Tuition inflation has massively outpaced inflation overall. Of course, today we have lower taxes. (And more lavish facilities for the football teams. /snark)
wj:
…and UC has massively increased the percentage of administrators on the payroll.
Went past 50% a couple of decades back, and still growing.
You mean 50% above what it was, or 50% of total university staffing?
I can’t find the quote, perhaps by George Wallace, but maybe Theodore Bilbo or one of a parade of white supremacist politicians from the deep South, but it was something about it didn’t really matter how low poor whites were as long as they had someone else to look down on
“I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
— Attributed to LBJ by Bill Moyers
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
–Attributed to internet commentator Davis X. Machina
Gracias!
Heh. I saw that Davis X. Machina quote cited somewhere else recently, probably BJ, and it irritated me because that’s not the way I remember it. The version I remember was pithier, and posted right here at Obsidian Wings. Maybe DXM scattered versions of it all around the internet, which is fine, but I like ours better:
Just now, I happened across a YouTube video titled Chris Wallace calls Rush Limbaugh a hypocrite. It’s a copy of this morning’s Fox News Sunday interview of Limbaugh. I found it fascinating, because the portion of it between 4:43 and 6:20 could accurately be titled “Rush Limbaugh says Mike Pence is either a liar or a dupe”. I mention it because I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with El Rushbo before.
–TP
The question isn’t Can they be addressed? It’s are we willing to do so
in anything resembling a realistic manner?Pardon the edit, wj, but TonyP raised a valid point. “Realistic” may well be in the eye of the beholder, and taking on an existential crisis is a matter of resources and political will, not “finding money” (as russell pointed out).
Doing what it may well take to effectively mitigate global warming is a political question, not an economic one. Furthermore, we may be beyond the point of simple implementation of “market” incentives, and in fact, those who put all their plans and hopes into such mechanisms may well be the folks who are indulging in pure fantasy, not those who are being “unrealistic”.
The challenge of man-made climate change is the mother of all collective action problems. Similar to the challenge of 20th century fascism, standard “free market” solutions are wholly inadequate.
I may be mistaken, but I would opine human extinction is a serious matter.
TonyP raised a valid point. “Realistic” may well be in the eye of the beholder, and taking on an existential crisis is a matter of resources and political will.
I really, really need to work on my clarity.
By “realistic” I meant “will actually work in the real world.” And fix the problem — in this case global climate change. Political realism never actually crossed my (narrow) mind.
It’s difficult to take people seriously when they assert that the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is creating an existential climate crisis. And then they assert that one of the most effective ways of reducing CO2, nuclear power, can’t be used.
Regarding college costs: when I went to college, about 40 years ago, the states funded about 70% of the cost, with students needing to come up with the other 30% (which could include grants, loans, scholarships, etc.)
Ever since Reagan kicked the legs out from under states and cities by ending the Federal Aid to Cities programs, states have had to scramble to make up the difference.
Among the ways state legislatures came up with was to reduce the amount they budgeted for higher education. Ever year the state share of the cost has decreased and the student share of the cost has increased.
Now it’s the mirror image of what it was: states fund maybe 30% of higher education costs, and students need to come up with the other 70%. And a lot of grants no longer exist or have been greatly reduced.
I’d like to comment on “jungle camo”. That is not really “jungle” camouflage per sé. Europe is in the temperate zone, and our forests and fields are usually a mixture of green and brown. And if you look carefully, the camo colours of different European nations actually reflect this.
For example, Finland and Sweden don’t use light brown, because that colour is relatively rare in the coniferous forests. (The Finnish “cold weather” camouflage substitutes the light green colour with light grey because there is no light grey in the Finnish nature during the cold months, while light grey helps to blend in wintery landscape, even if there is no snow. And if there is snow, you wear snow camouflage, or at least snow camouflage trousers, if there is no snow in the trees.)
For Americans, this greenish camouflage is usually thought of as “jungle” because it works also very well in tropical forests, but for Europeans, it is the “homeland” pattern. Usually, there is also a separate desert pattern for deployments to Middle East and Northern Africa.
On the other hand, the military uniforms nowadays are made mainly either for ceremonial and office use or for field service. The office clothing is not very suitable for carrying combat equipment or even for active moving, because it is tailored for attractiveness, not for sporting. And any clothing for field service is in camouflage colours.
And in fact, the use of forest camouflage in urban environments is also a political message. It signifies that these combat troops are in place temporarily. They are not wearing a specifically-designed urban pattern, which would imply the permanency of the patrolling. (Such urban patterns were really popular in Balkan wars of 1990’s, and are used by Russian paramilitary forces. They are often identified with war crimes and repression, so that is another reason to avoid them.) Truth to be told, the number of military personnel on European streets and airports seems to be diminishing, based on my personal observations. At least in Brussels, most locations where there were soldiers deployed even before Paris attacks are now empty.
By “realistic” I meant “will actually work in the real world.”
You’re not helping your cause. Just what do you mean by this?
speaking of camo…
this video on the ways different countries handle face camo is pretty interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpzUr3twW4Q
John: >50% of the total.
As the state support of higher-ed has cratered, so has public higher-ed been behaving more like private higher-ed: tuition increases are limited only by ‘what you can get away with’. It’s supply/demand, and there’s still a strong demand that will drive up the cost until it consumes the very last extra dollar earned from having that education.
Yustabee, state subsidized schools had a board (with many political appointees) to set tuition rates, and a mandate of ‘make higher ed affordable for kids in this state, plus improve this state economically’. It recognized that an educated workforce was a public good, and provided a ‘public option’ to compete with private higher-ed.
No longer. They’re off the leash, and tuition was following the same inflationary trajectory as health-care costs pre-Obamacare. For the same reason: market prices for a good with limited competition and large demand.
The resolution reads like the authors didn’t talk to a single one of them
I would say you are missing the point. Then again, I am curious about these studies you hint at, but you leave us hanging without a citation.
Thanks.
A quote from Bill McKibben, from bobbyp’s cite:
The reason there has not been forward motion on climate change is not primarily technological. The engineering problems involved are not trivial, neither are they insurmountable.
Resistance to change is likewise not the biggest obstacle. People resist change, then they change, then they forget they ever did things any other way. When’s the last time you wrote a letter? Or traveled on horseback?
The greatest impediment is the book value of all of the stuff we need to leave in the ground, if we’re not going to continue to pump CO2 into the air.
Leaving it in the ground means writing off a big slice of the world’s equity markets. It means cutting a significant source of sovereign revenue for countries like Russia, and Nigeria, and Venezuela, and Iran, and most of the Arab middle east. It means taking a big bite out of the portfolios of institutional investors and individual 401ks.
It means leaving a great big pile of money on the table. Money in quantities that nations go to war over.
It’s also worth noting that most if not all of the world’s national defense infrastructure currently depends on oil.
It’s fabulous that somebody is laying out bold goals for taking this on, and I applaud AOC and Markey.
But we also need plans for managing (a) a very serious financial haircut – by ‘serious’ I mean ‘ruinous’ for some significant actors – and (b) the geopolitical fallout of leaving all of that stuff in the ground.
We’re junkies. Withdrawal ain’t pretty. We had the option of weaning ourselves off fossil, now it looks like we’ve left it too late and something more like cold turkey is needed.
If we take it on, it’s gonna be a very difficult process. If we don’t take it on, and what the models say is more or less right, even more so.
Making this kind of change intentionally requires the kind of vision, trust, and common effort that is hard to find and even harder to sustain. I’m skeptical. I don’t think we’re utterly fucked, but I think we may be in for generations of turmoil. Like, world-historical. I don’t know what the world will look like in 100 or 200 years.
It’s going to be a really, really bumpy ride, with a lot of damage. No matter what. This kind of thing is not something humans handle gracefully.
Selfishly, I’m glad I’m old.
More on this theme.
And in fact, the use of forest camouflage in urban environments is also a political message.
A message that many US police departments are unintentionally/intentionally sending.
It’s going to be a really, really bumpy ride, with a lot of damage. No matter what. This kind of thing is not something humans handle gracefully.
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” —Shakespere
Adding to the picture in Snarki’s comment — a lot of the ever-rising “whatever tuition you can get away with” is now paid with student loans. It’s a sweet interlocking system. Lenders make their profits; for-profit colleges make their profits; colleges in general get vast amounts of cash that they can use to hire yet more highly paid administrators.
Meanwhile, students are in debt slavery for a lot of their adult lives (often without having gotten much in return from the crappy colleges that game this system; not that quality colleges don’t also game it).
And the federal loan guarantees are underwritten, of course, by us, the taxpayers. Now, I’m a well-known raging socialist, and I’m more than happy to pay taxes that fund collective goods like the sort of direct support of higher education that made state universities in the old days not only affordable but in some cases of very high quality: the UC system, the Michigans, Wisconsin….
This system? Not so much.
And then they assert that one of the most effective ways of reducing CO2, nuclear power, can’t be used.
The resolution was written — had to be written — to play well in the regions from which the Democrats draw their strength. As I’ve pointed out before, look at the 13-state West, the 12-state NE urban corridor, and the 25-state Rest. In 2016 those regions’ EC votes for Clinton were 98, 104, and 30 respectively. In 2018 Dem gains in the US Senate were 2, 0, and -4 seats respectively. For large majorities in the West and the NE urban corridor, “nuclear” is a four-letter word.
bobbyp: By “realistic” I meant “will actually work in the real world.”
You’re not helping your cause. Just what do you mean by this?
Just to take the most obvious flight of unreality:
To pick off some other obvious low-hanging fruit:
Does all that give you an idea of what I mean by realistic and unrealistic goals?
You set the goals at what they should be and then when you don’t meet them, you have postponed the inevitable ecological catastrophe. People keep talking about this like it was just another political issue. It’s not. You don’t get consolation prizes for being politically pragmatic. We should have been doing the incremental things decades back and now we are screwed.
Free tuition is, I agree, silly in this context, but guaranteed jobs or incomes (not the same) are not. There is going to be immense disruption from any serious attempt at dealing with global warming and if you don’t ensure that the losers will be taken care of in some way it’s not going to work. You really do need it to be both Green and New Dealish. I think political pragmatism as it is usually defined is going to get us all killed, frankly.
Then again, I am curious about these studies you hint at, but you leave us hanging without a citation.
As starting points, here’s a link to the home page for the renewable energy futures work at NREL:
https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/re-futures.html
Here’s a link (PDF) to the documentation for NREL’s ReEDS model, which gives some idea of the depth of details the national labs’ work covers:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy17osti/67067.pdf
Here’s a link to the energy page at Sandia, who do lots of work on the details of grid integration:
https://energy.sandia.gov/energy/ssrei/gridmod/renewable-energy-integration/
A link to the page at the Idaho National Labs announcing a new series of reports on integrating nuclear and renewable:
https://inl.gov/article/nuclear-renewable-hybrid-energy-systems-can-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-industry-and-support-the-power-system/
INL is almost exclusively a nuclear lab. Idaho has mixed feelings about them. The state has reached a legal settlement that precludes INL from bringing in additional nuclear wastes, or creating new wastes on site, until the existing mess is cleaned up. Most recent estimates on the cleanup time are >30 years.
When you start digging through the references for the the documents like the renewable energy futures and the ReEDS model, you find a bunch of contributions from other national labs as well.
Janie: Now, I’m a well-known raging socialist, and I’m more than happy to pay taxes that fund collective goods like the sort of direct support of higher education that made state universities in the old days not only affordable but in some cases of very high quality: the UC system, the Michigans, Wisconsin….
Hey, you can be pretty darn conservative and still support government spending which is an investment. Which education certainly is, every bit as much as highways are. (There’s a reason why Silicon Valley is where it is. You need a well-educated workforce. Which is what cheep higher education gets you.)
Which is what cheep higher education gets you.
Did a little bird tell you this?
You set the goals at what they should be and then when you don’t meet them, you have postponed the inevitable ecological catastrophe.
Yep.
Arguing about whether the GND proposals are feasible in a pragmatic sense kind of misses the point. Put the issue on the table, set and *commit to* ambitious goals, and then figure out how to get there.
My current place of work has a goal to make the performance of our core system 50% faster in fiscal 2019. That is nucking futz on its face, because we don’t even have a way to measure how fast it is now, or even a sufficiently crisp definition of what “fast” means.
Is our director of development out of his freaking mind? No. The point is to light a fire under everybody’s @ss.
AOC and Markey are trying to light a fire under everybody’s @ss. It’s a good thing to do.
Did a little bird tell you this?
Autocorrect is definitely for the birds.
For that matter, I don’t see the manufacturing infrastructure to build electric vehicles for all in the time frame given. It’s not that it’s political impossible; it’s physically impossible.
It’s not physically impossible; just very difficult.
Bulk electric car manufacturing is evidently a great deal easier to scale up than that for the old ICE models, as the example of a company completely ignorant of bulk car manufacturing before it started demonstrates.
And it would happen a great deal closer to 2030 if the federal government legislated accordingly.
It’s not physically impossible; just very difficult.
Bulk electric car manufacturing is evidently a great deal easier to scale up than that for the old ICE models, as the example of a company completely ignorant of bulk car manufacturing before it started demonstrates.
You might want to look at global manufacturing capacity for electric car batteries. And what it would take to scale up to what would be required.
And it would happen a great deal closer to 2030 if the federal government legislated accordingly.
Passing laws doesn’t guarantee when or even if something will happen. After all, California passed a law in 1970 that all internal combustion engines would be banned in five years. 🙂
Just here noting that state tax subsidies actually cover less than 10% of the actual operating costs of most R1 public universities in the US. And the growth of the administrative university is in large part a response to this abdication of public support. Universities turned to business school types to find more money and those new administrators remade the university in their own corporate image, chasing prestige and reputation by building their brands to compete with the collegiate equivalent of the 1%.
Meanwhile, we adjuncts keep the lights on while the money goes to capital projects rather than to educational goals.
FWIW, the resolution.
And a pony.
But, seriously,as a sense of the House it is great, I dont even object to the most egregious parts, where the government guarantees every person a job with living wage for example, being a sense of the House.
In fact, I dont know many people who would object to many of the goals.
I dont know anyone who believes that most of that can be accomplished by our government.
I guess if everyone is guaranteed a job, health care and adequate housing the concept of a safety net changes.
My feeling is “isnt that special”, Now let’s go back to actually trying to govern
Passing laws doesn’t guarantee when or even if something will happen.
Of course not – but it can substantially change the environment for investment.
As for practicality, Amazon seems down with the program already…
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/430474-amazon-aims-to-halve-carbon-footprint-by-2030
You might want to look at global manufacturing capacity for electric car batteries. And what it would take to scale up to what would be required.
I have a bit.
As have, rather more importantly, the manufacturers themselves. Here’s some Chinese projections, for example:
https://www.bcg.com/en-gb/publications/2018/future-battery-production-electric-vehicles.aspx
100% is not impossible even on current technology (which will, of course, improve*). It just requires the political imperative.
(*Cf Tesla’s recent acquisition of Maxwell Technologies – their new cathode alone will increase battery cost-efficiency by around 20%)
everybody likes a pony
Nigel, I may be misreading the article. But it appears to me that they are talking about having plenty of capacity based on the assumption that EVs are close to competing on price and have up-take accordingly.
Supplying the entire US domestic market, including replacing all existing internal combustion vehicles, would be a whole different situation.
The executive summary from the first of Michael Cain’s links:
Brought to you by… the government. Your tax dollars at work.
Seriously, let’s just get our asses in gear and get going on this.
I don’t care if the govenment does it, or if somebody else does it, or if 17 different actors do it in various combinations of private industry, federal state and local government, and non-profit. Most likely, that’s what it would look like, because that’s what it looks like now.
I can tell you that, absent some public initiative, it ain’t gonna happen, because the financial payback on doing stuff like this is too long term for private actors to take it on. Nobody’s going to bet private money on stuff that has 20 and 30 and 50 year payback timelines. It’s amazing if folks make 10 year bets. The end of the century might as well be the freaking eschaton.
So some level of government involvement is necessary.
But the idea that it’s going to be possible to address stuff like this *while everything else about how we live stays exactly the same* is a non-starter. The idea that we can ignore stuff like this, and have everything about how we live stay exactly the same, is also a non-starter.
We can’t live the way we live in perpetuity. Or, apparently, for even more than another 20 or 30 or 50 years.
So either we make deliberate choices about the changes we want, or we have our decisions made for us.
Up to us.
Michael Cain @ 11:32…many thanks. I shall do some reading. I’d recommend that ChasWT look into it as well. I have nothing against mixing nuclear and renewables as a way out. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
But the idea that it’s going to be possible to address stuff like this *while everything else about how we live stays exactly the same* is a non-starter. The idea that we can ignore stuff like this, and have everything about how we live stay exactly the same, is also a non-starter.
This has been another chapter in WRS.
More from LGM here.
Does all that give you an idea of what I mean by realistic and unrealistic goals?
Well, yes. But I am totally unimpressed. Our current GNP is nearly $20Trillion/year. Just for a guess, if we threw $10Trillion a year at this effort we could maybe achieve such goals….who knows? Where would these resources (notice I did not say that word “money”) come from? Well, WWII offers a bit of an example: Rationing; price controls, government takeover of some industries….etc. If you had told somebody in 1938 that we could churn out that huge pile of military hardware that we did in merely 4-5 years they most like would have thought you utterly mad.
You gotta’ do what you gotta’ do.
I would reply that YOU are the one who is being “unrealistic”, not me.
You gotta’ do what you gotta’ do.
Again:
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” —Shakespere
Otherwise, the proposals being made will be tied up in the courts for many decades to come.
Bobbyp linked to a post at LGM which was discussing David Wallace-Well’s book and piece.
You can get a firsthand excerpt here–
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/16/opinion/sunday/fear-panic-climate-change-warming.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
All of us are going to have to give up something and stop treating climate change as something we need to get serious about in another thirty years or so. What I see from conservatives, of course, is still just straight denialism, but even some liberals (not all, of course) still seem stuck back in the 1980’s when we first starting seeing stories about this on TV. I remember them. Hell, as a child I was reading about how fossil fuel use might lead to the melting of the icecaps in, I think, Isaac Asimov science essays written in the 60’s or 70’s.
We have wasted decade after decade and now time is up. We can’t be slow and incremental about it anymore. That is the point of the AOC-Murphy Green New Deal proposal and not whether this or that proposal will upset conservatives or centrists or even liberals. If there is a good case to be made for nuclear power as an important part of the solution, then make it.
Will go look for the David Roberts piece at Vox a week or two ago, which was a reasoned look at the GND.
No problem killing all the lawyers. Desperate times call for popular measures. I kid.
Here is the Vox piece I meant–
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/2/7/18211709/green-new-deal-resolution-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-markey
Also it was AOC and Markey, not Murphy.
Actually this is another chapter in the Democrats standard”a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. Let’s pretend that there is no solution to climate change unless we do everything to society, organizationally and economically, that we’ve been wanting to do for 50 years.
It’s ok as a sense of the house, but it’s not true. The part russell quotes above makes it clear that we have made huge progress in both generation and storage that allows us to upgrade the grid. No guaranteed jobs required.
I’m not sure the part I quoted above refers to stuff that is already in place. So, work to do.
Quite a lot of CO2 generation comes from transportation, not electricity generation. So, work to do.
As far as (D) bad faith, I don’t see (R)’s doing fuck-all about warming. The last suggestion I heard from them was “drill baby drill”. Same goes for every other issue raised in the GND stuff.
Cut taxes, deregulate, and privatize. That is the (R) program. For everything. That is not going to fix any of the issues raised in the GND. So, advantage (D)’s.
Time for people to quit bitching about the government, cause nobody else is going to get this stuff done.
Desperate times call for popular measures.
Of course. You can justify any means necessary if you can frame the ends as avoiding an existential threat.
Of course. You can justify any means necessary if you can frame the ends as avoiding an existential threat.
Pretty much SOP for just about any past or present society you can name. What’s your point?
CharlesWT, upthread: It’s difficult to take people seriously when they assert that the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere is creating an existential climate crisis. And then they assert that one of the most effective ways of reducing CO2, nuclear power, can’t be used.
CharlesWT,
If you want to be taken seriously, please explain what level of CO2 would cause an “existential climate crisis”. Feel free to clarify what “existential” means while you’re at it.
Let me give you some parameters on that last bit. Nobody is claiming the Earth will cease to exist; the planet will continue to spin merrily along just like it did over the 4 billion years before humans showed up. Nobody is claiming that humans will cease to exist; if our small rat-like mammal ancestors managed to survive whatever killed off the dinosaurs, surely some fraction of the human race will eke out a living despite any change in climate. Maybe civilization itself would survive a drastic change in climate, after all the fuss and bother of large-scale migrations and the consequent wars and riots.
So it’s a question of how much fuss and bother we (Libertarians included) are willing to undergo before we agree to call it an existential crisis.
But I’m actually more interested in your scientific theory. Do you claim that CO2 concentration is NOT related to global temperature, or that global temperature is NOT related to climate change, or what? Believe it or not, the Nobel Prize committees — let alone Exxon and the Kochs — would shower you with honors if you could demonstrate that climate science has been wrong for a century or so.
As for nuclear power: think of your cable company with waste disposal problems and the risk of catastrophic accidents thrown in. I say that because nuclear plants are so big and expensive that they can never be mom-and-pop “small businesses” competing in a Free Market to offer lower cost to The Consumer. Nuclear generation and monopoly go together like silicon and software.
BTW, spare us from claims about novel reactors small enough to fit in your back yard. If these were already engineered and ready to deploy, you’d think the Free Market would be advertising them by now. If you think they need a lot more development, maybe you’d accept support for it from The Government? Or not?
I had this discussion with Brett Bellmore long ago, for there is nothing new under the Libertarian sun. Nuclear plants built on behalf of The Government (aka us) and operated as a public service (aka not-for-profit) are certainly worth considering. But would Libertarians tolerate that?
–TP
“Desperate times call for popular measures.”
I was riffing off your lawyer joke.
Actually, much of a GND clearly won’t be popular. Different parts would be unpopular with different people. I think lefties should be open to nuclear power as part of a possible solution, for example.
But sure, if the entire problem can be solved without much of a political fuss, great. I doubt it will happen. Truthfully, I think we will screw around until much of the world looks like Syria circa 2016 in terms of refugee flows. And then we will probably react in the ugliest possible ways— people freak out about immigrants when the problem is comparatively trivial. Wait until hundreds of millions start to move because parts of the world become uninhabitable and some of them blame us for their plight.
Anyway, supposing we do try to do something, the New Deal part seems necessary. The coal industry needs to die. The petroleum industry needs to die. People in those industries will need jobs.
Seriously, let’s just get our asses in gear and get going on this.
Quietly, California is doing/has done an impressive number of things on the electricity front. Mandate solar panels on most new residential construction aimed at large demand reduction. Expanding their imbalance market to include other states so that more existing renewable power can be dispatched. Prioritizing renewable power on their 500-mile HVDC line from Utah. All-renewable by 2045 mandate.
Based on their size, they’re probably going to drag the states in the Western Interconnect along with them, willingly or not.
Good to see that Michael. The real rub will come if the developing world does not show really drastic carbon reducing effort(s) or the developing world will have no incentive (crap….there’s that word) to do the same….well, unless they, too, can internalize the existential need for “do or die” effort.
But good for California. It’s a start.*
Really? Mandates? Have all the libertarians fled the state?
If you want to be taken seriously, please explain what level of CO2 would cause an “existential climate crisis”.
I have no idea what level of CO2 would create an existential crisis. In isolation, the impact of CO2 tapers off with increasing levels. But, in the real world, there can be knock-on effects, tipping points, positive feedbacks and who knows what else.
But it’s easy for some of us to get the impression that people are taking the most extreme, least likely scenarios and framing them as inevitable.
Feel free to clarify what “existential” means while you’re at it.
I haven’t characterized the threat of climate change as existential.
But I’m actually more interested in your scientific theory.
I have no scientific theory.
As for nuclear power: think of your cable company with waste disposal problems and the risk of catastrophic accidents thrown in.
So far nuclear power has been very safe causing far fewer deaths than other sources of energy. New designs, if they prove out, will be even safer. But nuclear power isn’t a slam dunk. Even France, with smaller, repeatable designs, has had its problems.
There are still libertarians in CA, but legalization has put a big dent in both their motivation and their recruitment efforts.
But it’s easy for some of us to get the impression that people are taking the most extreme, least likely scenarios and framing them as inevitable.
Of perhaps just worth insuring against?
In any case, I’d say the most extreme scenarios have a higher probability of proving accurate than the claims of the denialists.
But good for California. It’s a start.*
Really? Mandates? Have all the libertarians fled the state?
Libertarians had clout when what really mattered was cutting, or at least restricting, property taxes. But since the culture wars took off, they haven’t got much in the way of allies.
The British government has been keen for the last decade or so on new nuclear power stations, and has offered very generous financial terms to any company willing to build one. But currently there’s only one live project, Hinkley Point C. Despite the extraordinary subsidies, the EDF finance director resigned over the project.
So far, climate change in the US appears to have been a net positive.
“Interestingly, a 2016 article in Nature concluded that climate change so far has actually improved the weather for most people in the United States. ‘We find that 80% of Americans live in counties that are experiencing more pleasant weather than they did four decades ago,’ reported the researchers. ‘Virtually all Americans are now experiencing the much milder winters that they typically prefer, and these mild winters have not been offset by markedly more uncomfortable summers or other negative changes.'”
What Happened at the House Science Committee Hearing on the State of the Climate, and Why It Matters: Extreme weather events around the globe have tripled since the 1980s, but what’s happening in the U.S.?
As the world grows wealthier, the less impact weather and climate have on people’s lives. In spite of the growth in world population, there has been about a 90% decline in the number of people dying due to weather and climate than did so a hundred years ago.
Well, yes. But I am totally unimpressed. Our current GNP is nearly $20Trillion/year. Just for a guess, if we threw $10Trillion a year at this effort we could maybe achieve such goals.
I’m trying (without, I confess, much success) to imagine the administrative infrastructure required to redirect 50% of the GDP. To anything.
Not to mention the need to redirect manpower, including relocating it. At least in WW II we had a basic military structure to build on. And could have guys living in tents. Well, at least the infrastructure for the draft is still in place. Although I’d expect it to need serious tweaks — for example to include all adults under 70, not just young men. Still, it’s more of a start than we’ve got for other stuff.
I’m not trying to minimize the problem here. And no question we should have started a couple of decades ago. But at this point, I suspect we need to put at least half our efforts into dealing with the consequences that it is no longer possible to avoid.
I am not a geochemist, so I mostly rely on people who are.
So anyway, scroll on through t the last concluding lines—
https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/22-4_kump.pdf
.
Another piece on the gamble we are taking even if we limit warming to 2 degrees C.
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252#sec-9
There are still libertarians in CA, but legalization has put a big dent in both their motivation and their recruitment efforts.
WTF? You mean to tell me libertarians are legal in California? Unbelievable.
I’m trying (without, I confess, much success) to imagine the administrative infrastructure required to redirect 50% of the GDP
You are not trying very hard:
“Before joining World War II US government spending in 1941 represented 30% of GDP, or about $408 billion. In 1944 at the peak of World War II, government spending had risen to over $1.6 trillion about 79% of the GDP. During this three-year period the total GDP represented by government spending rose 394%.[30]”
from the wikki
Extreme weather events around the globe have tripled since the 1980s, but what’s happening in the U.S.?
The US has its own private climate. The US is god’s little green acre, so it’s not affected by anything that happens in other places. As long as things are peachy for Americans, the rest of the world can go fuck itself.
“Your end of the life boat is leaking”
–TP
But it’s easy for some of us to get the impression that people are taking the most extreme, least likely scenarios and framing them as inevitable
By ‘people’, you mean the large majority of the world’s climate scientists ?
The effect of climate change has not been a net positive. The forests are dying from bug infestations. Fires are devastating whole regions. The large hurricanes and associated flooding destroyed homes of people who cannot afford to rebuild and have lost the only asset they had either to fund their old age to leave to their children. The economic dislocations have begun–Nunes is an example since he no longer farms in CA but is now part owner of a farm in Iowa. Comparing weather deaths of back in the day to now is not the right measure to use.
Nigel, I may be misreading the article. But it appears to me that they are talking about having plenty of capacity based on the assumption that EVs are close to competing on price and have up-take accordingly…
Yes. It’s an interesting article produced by China’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer, and contains market and technology estimates which look quite conservative to me (for example, the 20% drop in cost of production the cite will be readily achievable by Tesla within about three years, simply by adopting a dry cathode design).
Their market forecast appears to be based on carrying on as we are – ie no dramatic government intervention – and has around 50% of the transport market being electric by 2030. Under that scenario, they see a production glut.
Again, using current technologies, and current market financing, a Tesla gigafactory can be built and fully productive (4-500,000 vehicle per annum) in four to five years. To get to 100% EV production will mean building a lot of them. that in of itself is not a massive problem – left to the market it would probably take until somewhere around 2040/2050.
Government intervention to shorten that timeframe to 2030 might be costly, but likely not all that costly, as its merely accelerating a process which is market driven (as an example, new lithium mines’ development by existing market producers would be accelerated dramatically if they had certainty the market for their product would be guaranteed by federal legislation).
Of course getting to 100% EV production and replacing all existing cars on the road are two different things – and bringing forward the latter by decades much more expensive than the former, as the total number of cars on the road is around 13 times current annual production.
Apologies – it’s produced by Boston Consulting Group (duh).
Which doesn’t invalidate the assumptions.
On a different topic, this is somewhat sobering for scientists…
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/future-perfect/2019/2/15/18226493/deepmind-alphafold-artificial-intelligence-protein-folding
A somewhat trivial application of generative adversarial networks. Each time you refresh the link, you get an image of a person that doesn’t exist.
This Person Does Not Exist
as Drum says:
The Drum piece amounts to saying that somebody somewhere should persuade people to do things on the scale needed and in the meantime do smaller things which won’t be nearly enough.
We’ve been following the Drum plan for decades. It’s that persuasion thing where we have fallen short.
I now expect people to spend a few decades having meta arguments about persuasion. That started too, some years back, with papers and articles about the backfire effect.
One should think of persuading some people as a task similar to arguing with a creationist. If the issue matters, what do you do?
The Drum piece amounts to saying that somebody somewhere should persuade people to do things on the scale needed
That would be the Democratic nominee…
so, let’s demand the impossible, then complain that it’s impossible.
The greatest impediment is the book value of all of the stuff we need to leave in the ground, if we’re not going to continue to pump CO2 into the air.
It’s possible to think long-term about this. It’s not necessary to leave the stuff in the ground forever – the Rolling Stone article talks about how much we can afford to burn “by mid-century”. And the energy value of fossil fuels is the same whenever you burn them, so their present book value should be much the same also.
What if global warming didn’t exist? Most resources are renewable – ultimately whatever materials we use remain on earth and can eventually be recycled. The exceptions are fossil fuels and helium. A responsible, dare one say conservative, policy would be to use these resources as gradually as possible, so that future generations get a share also.
The argument for current (especially Republican) energy policy is that we deserve to be as rich as we possibly can, even if it makes future generations poorer. I profoundly disagree with that.
Pro Bono: The argument for current (especially Republican) energy policy is that we deserve to be as rich as we possibly can, even if it makes future generations poorer. I profoundly disagree with that.
I do too. But it doesn’t cover the venal destructiveness of current/Republican energy/everything policy, which is that not just some nebulous “we” denoting “everyone alive now,” but any given individual alive now “deserves” to be as rich as s/he possibly can, even if it makes everyone else currently alive poorer. Every time I think of Howard Schultz, with his $3.5 billion and change, saying “we can’t afford it,” I want…well, never mind what I want. I’m sure you can fill in the blank.
The greatest impediment is the book value of all of the stuff we need to leave in the ground, if we’re not going to continue to pump CO2 into the air.
Note, however, that there are lots of valuable uses for hydrocarbons which don’t involve generating CO2 by burning them. Just for one, as feedstock for creating various organic chemicals and plastics. (Yes, there are problems with plastics too. But they aren’t global warming problems.) So not as much of a foregone value issue as you might think.
Someone mentioned persuasion. Here’s the editor of a newspaper in Alabama — a sample of someone who’s not “persuadable” (among other things that he’s not):
Homo “sapiens.” Good luck to us.
This socialist-communist ideology sounds good to the ignorant, the uneducated, and the simple-minded people.
I see projection of one’s own shortcomings onto others is alive and well.
Really? Mandates? Have all the libertarians fled the state?
Perhaps more interesting than mandates… Last summer in Colorado, Xcel Energy — the largest utility in the state — asked the PUC for permission to shut two coal-burners down early and replace them with renewables plus storage because it’s cheaper. Xcel says that 55% of the electricity they deliver to their customers in Colorado will be carbon-free by 2026, and 100% by 2050 (note their use of carbon-free rather than renewable).
They have a number of advantages in Colorado over many other parts of the country. They already have a 1.2 GWh pumped hydro storage facility in the mountains (300 MW max output for four hours if the upper reservoir is full). The wind downflow off the Rockies is more reliable than most locations in terms of how much of the time it’s producing power. Colorado is isolated enough that they get to run their own dispatching rules — renewables first even if it means backing off their own coal- and natural gas-fired generation.
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” —Shakespere
It’s worth noting that the character who says this is an evil jackass.
It’s worth noting that the character who says this is an evil jackass.
And Jack Cade seems to be the progressive pretender to the throne.
Of course getting to 100% EV production and replacing all existing cars on the road are two different things
Here in Japan, there is a mandatory ‘shaken’, a combination of an inspection and required auto insurance, and with each iteration, the price becomes higher, which results in a much larger number of newer cars on the road.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor-vehicle_inspection_(Japan)
However, as the link notes, this means that used Japanese autos are exported overseas and the kind of resistance to such a scheme in a place like the US would be huge.
FWIW and in the interests of accuracy, I just saw in hilzoy’s feed that the NYT article I linked upthread about women in IT quoted a debunked study for one of their stats. Their factcheckers seem to be getting a bit sloppy….
They have a number of advantages in Colorado…
I for one welcome our mountain west energy overlords.
Please feel free to lead the way. We’re still trying to get the folks in Nantucket to let us have offshore wind. 🙁
CharlesWT: “California passed a law in 1970 that all internal combustion engines would be banned in five years. :)”
Please provide a citation to this law. All I could find in a quick search for it was that the (national) Clean Air Act of 1970 allowed California to set its own standards, which could be tougher than the national standards (and were). But no reference to actual banning cars then. What have I missed?
IMHO the questions we are dealing with here are tough enough without the problem of fake news.
I thought, perhaps, the reporter I was listening to confused California’s current intent to phase out ICEs with Senator Gaylord Nelson’s proposed amendment to the 1970 Clean Air Act.
“To enforce his suggestion, the Wisconsin Democrat introduced an amendment to the Clean Air Act that would prohibit the sale of any automobile with an internal combustion engine after Jan. 1, 1975.”
Nelson Asks Ban on Gas Engines By 1975 as Air Pollution Curb
But, then, I found this.
“In 1969 California State Senator Nicholas Petris, a Democrat from Oakland, proposed a bill that would have banned the sale of any vehicle with a gasoline or diesel-powered internal combustion engine by 1975. Needless to say, that bill went nowhere quickly. But if such legislation had been taken seriously, what would have replaced the internal combustion engine? Well, in the 1970s California state legislators thought they had found the answer in cars that run on steam. Yes, steam.”
Steam-Powered Cars: California’s 1970s Smog Solution: Steam-powered cars may sound like a shout-out to the early 1900s, but in 1970s California the idea was building up a real head of, umm, steam.
In neither case was a law actually passed.
Thanks for the clarification, CWT.
Not really surprising, considering the US has a president whose real estate businesses seem to specialise in providing investment opportunities for dodgy overseas cash…
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/430487-the-real-green-deal-is-money-laundering-and-its-an-emergency
I for one welcome our mountain west energy overlords.
More likely what one of my friends says: “The Mountain West is going to be somebody’s energy colony. California will probably offer the best deal.”
LOL, Michael. California has been trying to steal our (state of Washington) hydro power for decades. The latest from the Trump administration:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/us/columbia-river-privatization.html
Yeah, there have been proposals to privatize all or part of the BPA since at least the Reagan administration. And Southern California already buys a bunch of the Columbia River electricity at certain times of the year (that’s what Path 65 is for, after all). Lots of Oregon’s surplus wind power, as well. Sometime in the next few years the TransWest Express HVDC line will be built and California will start buying large amounts of Wyoming wind power.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. Turning the Western Interconnect’s geographically diverse intermittent renewable power sources into a reliable system requires the ability to shuffle large amounts of power around the region. One of the two viable region-wide HVDC layouts is a hub-and-spoke arrangement with the hub somewhere in Southern California or southern Nevada.
California will probably offer the best deal
We’ll see their avocado and raise them a cod!
🙂
On the money laundering front: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/how-kleptocracy-came-to-america/580471/
Over time, the gap between the noble intentions of the patriot Act and the dirty reality of the property market became too wide to ignore. In 2016, Barack Obama’s administration tested a program to bring the real-estate industry in line with the banks, compelling brokers to report foreign buyers, too. The ongoing program, piloted in Miami and Manhattan, could have become the scaffolding for a truly robust enforcement regime. But then the American presidency turned over, and a landlord came to power. Obama’s successor liked selling condos to anonymous foreign buyers—and may have grown dependent on their cash.
We’ll see their avocado and raise them a cod!
The comments section needs up-rating buttons :^)
Give a man an avocado, and by noon he wants a fish.
Teach a man to fish and he’ll wonder why the water in his favorite fishing hole is watering avocado orchards in another state.
Sometimes, even with Washington tribalism in evidence everywhere, things turn out right.
In a 9-0 ruling, the Supreme Court just reined in massive asset forfeiture by states and local governments.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-constitutional-protection-against-excessive-fines-applies-to-state-actions/2019/02/20/204ce0d4-3522-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html
And not before time.
Isn’t that the case where one of the justices asked at the oral arguments, “After all these years and cases, why are you talking like incorporation is an open issue?”
For those who haven’t been keeping track of the real (as opposed to fantasy) voter fraud example in North Carolina, we have this.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/candidates-son-warned-father-of-nc-political-operatives-tactics/2019/02/20/a1fbfecc-3521-11e9-a400-e481bf264fdc_story.html
The “winning” candidate, Mark Harris, has been maintaining that, whatever dirty tricks and fraud happened, he had no knowledge of them at the time. But now, someone (his son in point of fact) has come forward to say that he was warned explicitly during the campaign. Of yes, and said son is, by day, an assistant U.S. Attorney. In other words, not just a random guy off the street. Awkward!
For our British friends:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaBQfSAVt0s
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/how-many-other-mass-murders-by-white.html
If liberals in the Democratic Party had the organizational moxie, discipline, and ruthlessness of the American subhuman pconservative movement, they would begin chanting in unison across the land for eternity the following:
This fascist white supremacist republican conservative terrorist murderer planned his violence with the full knowledge and support of the p White House and the Republican Congress, in fact, the plot was hatched in the new pizza parlor established in the basement of the White House in between bouts of republican conservative FOX News personalities, men and women, anally raping the thousands of Central American and Mexican children kidnapped from their families by the republican ICE perverts and whom the p Administration claims cannot be located and even if located, are being so carnally enjoyed by their so-called Christian foster families that we can’t risk returning them to their rightful parents.
But we haven’t the guts to lower ourselves to their level. I guess we were raised right, unlike the majority of the conservative political and media wurlitzer.
I’m getting my bile out now before this anti-American jackass filth get and his fascist wife take the rest of my First Amendment rights away:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/us/politics/clarence-thomas-first-amendment-libel.html
I’m getting my bile out now before this anti-American jackass filth get and his fascist wife take the rest of my First Amendment rights away.
Well obviously the 2nd Amendment is more important than the 1st. After all, 2 is greater than 1. Q.E.D.
….are based on bobbyp’s ridiculous MMT
LOL. You can’t be serious!
This, from bobby’s cite:
It strongly puts me in mind of fluid dynamics, back when I was in college. The Navier-Stokes equation, which describes fluid flows, is not mathematically solvable.** So Fluid Mechanics consisted of making various simplifying assumptions, to reduce it to something that could be solved. Ideal (frictionless) Fluid Flow. Boundary Layer Theory. Etc. Among other things, if you ever flew in a plane designed before to mid to late 70s (maybe later), it was designed using those simplified models. Yet, they flew.
As a result, I am underwhelmed by criticisms like this. Not to say that the simplifications might not be the wrong ones, or applied incorrectly or inappropriately. But the mere fact of being simplifications is not, to my mind, a valid criticism. The “simplified world” can actually tell us a great deal about the far more complex real world.
** Of course, computers can do close approximations. Once you have powerful enough computers. I actually wrote one of the very first computer programs to model fluid flows. Back in the late 60s. Very, very much an initial baby step. But it was a start.
Dirty tricks ?
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/20/2020-candidates-social-media-attack-1176018
The cyber propaganda — which frequently picks at the rawest, most sensitive issues in public discourse — is being pushed across a variety of platforms and with a more insidious approach than in the 2016 presidential election, when online attacks designed to polarize and mislead voters first surfaced on a massive scale.
Recent posts that have received widespread dissemination include racially inflammatory memes and messaging involving Harris, O’Rourke and Warren. In Warren’s case, a false narrative surfaced alleging that a blackface doll appeared on a kitchen cabinet in the background of the senator’s New Year’s Eve Instagram livestream.
Not all of the activity is organized. Much of it appears to be organic, a reflection of the politically polarizing nature of some of the candidates. But there are clear signs of a coordinated effort of undetermined size that shares similar characteristics with the computational propaganda attacks launched by online trolls at Russia’s Internet Research Agency in the 2016 presidential campaign, which special counsel Robert Mueller accused of aiming to undermine the political process and elevate Donald Trump….
Thanks bobbyp, I got a laugh out of that article also.
For several years now MMT folks basic premise was there was no limit to the money that can be printed. Suddenly inflation is s limiting factor, so there is a limit. Making the rest of it an academic discussion of Fed policy versus fiscal policy, which is what we have now.
Guaranteed jobs is an interesting twist. We.should review places where that’s been implemented across a diverse workforce of over 180m people.
OT and should probably get its own thread, but here goes anyway.
Since the Mueller thing appears to be winding down, I’m curious to know folks’ thoughts about whether:
* Congress will ever see the report, in whole or significant part
* The public will ever see the report, in whole or significant part
* Anything will come of it beyond the indictments already handed down
I’m calling it a worthwhile exercise no matter where it lands (it’s even a profit center for the feds!) but I have to admit my personal answers to the above are:
* Yes
* No
* Probably not, with the possible exception of Roger Stone going to jail.
What can I say, I’m jaded.
@russell: IMO it goes far beyond “jaded” to expect a “no” on bullet point two.
H/t to Adam Silverman at BJ for this, the summary of which is:
If he is who he says he is (and I trust Silverman on this), and if we come out with russell’s “no” on russell’s point two (about which I’m making no prediction, jaded or otherwise :-), then…
It’s over. Putin and McConnell and the worldwide cabal of oligarch/fascists that put a vicious criminal buffoon in the White House will have overthrown the US as we once knew it (well, they’ve already done that), and all those D candidates might as well simply name themselves officers of the Resistance, because there won’t be any presidential election in 2020.
The Washington Post (Jacqueline Alemany) has a goodrundown, including a reminder that it isn’t just Roger Stone, but:
So that’s a little bit comforting.
But I think that Mueller will end up being subpoenaed, because I don’t trust Barr at all. His son-in-law just got a job as Trump’s legal advisor. Working against him from within, or bought and sold? I think probably the latter.
I’m still hoping that Mueller has referred most things out, or has indicted people and the documents are still under seal, or took other steps to make sure any potential criminal cases go forward. I think it’s been a worthwhile effort, but my optimism is muted.
Somehow the link to the Post article got lost. Trying again.
I’m curious to know folks’ thoughts about whether:
* Congress will ever see the report, in whole or significant part
* The public will ever see the report, in whole or significant part
* Anything will come of it beyond the indictments already handed down
1) Yes. But to get the whole thing they will have to formally issue a subpoena. And probably have to get a Supreme Court ruling as well. (Although there’s a chance Barr will notice the precedent of the Watergate tapes and just hand it over without going to court.)
2) In part, at least. Probably the whole thing. Leaking in Washington has reached the point that, once it leaves Mueller’s hands, somebody will leak it. Even if Congress doesn’t officially make it public.
3) Yes. First, I expect there will be more indictments. No way Mueller doesn’t have enough to nail at least a couple of Trump’s kids. Because of current Justice Dept. policy, I expect Trump himself to be merely an unindicted co-conspirator. But definitely named.
Second, I expect a political firestorm. Impeachment? Yes. Removal? Kind of depends on a) how Republicans in the Senate feel about the reaction to those voting to quash the declaration of national emergency over the wall, and b) just how bad the full report looks.
Removal or not, I expect several senators who thought they were in safe seats in dark red states to learn otherwise. See what’s happened with the Kansas state government.
IMO it goes far beyond “jaded” to expect a “no” on bullet point two.
It’s entirely possible that I am beyond jaded. I’ll be happy to be wrong about this.
Re: russell’s 8:41, off-the-cuff, ‘cuz that’s how I do…
1. My sense of it is that I have no sense of what goes on in DC. First blush is that the pertinent committees will see it. I dunno if that will satisfy Congress at large or if there will be enough widespread clamoring that everyone gets to see it. I always thought that the powers that be got a lot of info through back-office scuttlebutt, but maybe they really are in the dark. Anything leaked will be swimming upstream against the currents of fake news and hidden agendas and deep-state whatevers.
My last hope is that Mueller has some kind of deadman’s switch that will somehow outmaneuver any squelching attempt by Barr, et al, and that Pelosi would see to it that the Mueller team got its day in open testimony at the very least.
2. I think the public will get to see something. I doubt that it will contain anything earth-shattering as all of the salient (or salacious) bits will be redacted. It’s for our own good, you know.
3. I don’t know where the bar is set anymore. Trump and his circle infest the gutter between the illegal and the repugnant. Demonstrable financial crimes will result in indictments for those far enough down the food chain to be susceptible to such prosecutions. Censure and other official tsk-tsking may ensue and it will have exactly zero impact. The GOP is so all-in with Trump at this point, I don’t know what it would take to move enough of them to act in any meaningful way.
Show of hands for all those who aren’t jaded?
*Show of hands for all those who aren’t jaded.
Not sure why that got cut off, but it looks like an open tag in there somewhere. Apologies. Please edit as necessary.
Ed: fixed. 🙂
Thanks!
For several years now MMT folks basic premise was there was no limit to the money that can be printed.
There isn’t. The question is under what conditions it will lead to problematic levels of inflation. What real resources are becoming scarce enough that the government should stop trying to acquire them? It’s not so much about money as human effort and stuff.
That’s the real point, rather than simply how big the deficit is without respect to the relevant context.
JanieM pointed to Adam Silverman’s mention of Neal Katyal, who has written an oped for the NYT.
We.should review places where that’s been implemented across a diverse workforce of over 180m people.
I refer you to the voluminous literature on the skills shortage in the labor market for corporate CEO’s.
With all of the exciting news about Republicans’ latest crimes, some things are falling under the radar. Via Now This: “The EPA has approved dumping bee-killing pesticides across 16 million acres of land.”
Global warming is a huge monster facing us, but Trump’s people are trashing the earth in so many other ways. We need to get rid of these people, and never again fall for their lies.
I’m sticking with my prediction that our political situation vis a vis the Mueller investigation and whatever ensues will end with armed confrontation in the hallways and elevator shafts of Mar-a-Lago and in the surrounding streets.
This is NOT Watergate. There will be no Presidential crying, only corrupt ruthlessness, applied with force.
There is no rule of law in p’s single-celled reptilian brain stem.
His faithful want apocalypse.
There are going to get it.
From snopes on bees and sulfoxalor https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/02/19/epa-emergency-pesticide-harmful-to-bees/
“While the cited information was accurate, the suggestion that such an exemption was a new maneuver employed only by the Trump administration was misleading. In 2012, for example, President Barack Obama’s EPA issued specific exemptions for sulfoxaflor on cotton crops in four states. And in 2014, Obama’s EPA authorized the use of sulfoxaflor on sorghum crops in eight states. Again in 2015, Obama’s EPA authorized the use of sulfoxaflor on sorghum in 13 states. And during a period between 2016 and 2017 that saw the transition between the Obama and the Trump administrations, the EPA authorized the use of sulfoxaflor for both cotton and sorghum crops in 19 states.”
From the same article:
The EPA originally registered sulfoxaflor in May 2013, but this action was vacated by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after pollinator advocates petitioned for a new review of the registration. “In September 2015, the court found that the registration was not supported by evidence to demonstrate that it would not harm bees and vacated the registration,”
The “Obama did it too” incidents in 2012 and 2014 occurred before sulfoxaflor was de-registered. Quite possibly the 2015 incident as well.
I am not in the camp that says everything Obama did was virtuous. But this doesn’t appear to be a particularly good example of “both sides dude!”.
Nice try, though.
Long story short, Trump sucks on anything to do with the environment. Among other things, but definitely including that one.
That’s a ridiculously bad rebuttal. Every instance was an emergency usage, the Obams EPA clearly knew there was a problem, they were defending a court case. It isnt both sides are bad, it’s that there isnt an alternative, then or now.
It’s a ridiculous stretch.
it’s that there isnt an alternative
Undeniably, the Obama EPA used emergency exemptions to allow the use of harmful pesticides for routine pest control.
It’s not that there’s no alternative, it’s that there’s no alternative which wouldn’t reduce agricultural profits. And farmers have votes, bees don’t.
It’s not as if people in the US want to eat much sorghum. It’s grown because the government subsidises it. Which is madness.
You’ve never had my sorghum lasagna, Pro Bono.
That’s a ridiculously bad rebuttal.
What can I say, I do my best. I’ll try harder next time. Although if you really wanted to stick it to me, you might go with “Why did Obama’s EPA register it in the first place?”
To which my reply would be, “good question!”.
Personally, I’d recognize a distinction between (a) allowing limited use of a registered chemical vs (b) allowing limited use of an unregistered chemical. But that’s just me.
Long story short, Trump sucks on the environment. As on oh so many things. So did lots of Presidents, Trump is just worse than most. As on oh so many things.
It’s nice that he has you to leap to his defense, though.
And, FWIW, there are always alternatives.
You’ve never had my sorghum lasagna, Pro Bono.
Recipes or it didn’t happen!
🙂
Sorghum Lasagna Bow: Kid-Friendly
thank you CWT!
It’s nice that he has you to leap to his defense, though.
That’s just gravy on top of the even more fundamental agenda, which is to come here and sneer condescendingly at the lefties.
I read tons of things here, russell, that warrant no defense. This struck me because it was clearly one if those things meant to go viral, crappy video, background music, etc. that I assume are probably not true. And it was bs.
It was the left equivalent of all the right wing bs websites. If we want to call it one we need to not then defend the other.
Regarding the initial registration of sulfoxaflor, there was some hope that it would be a less toxic substitute for neonicotinoids. It’s my understanding that the toxicity to bees of both of these pesticides wasn’t fully understood when they first came out because their toxicity is cumulative, and the testing didn’t account for that.
And, yes, there are always alternatives. Less is more.
thank you CWT!
For what? Ruining my joke? ;^)
And it was bs.
The thing is, that stuff really does kill bees. And that really is not a good thing to do.
American agriculture is increasingly based on killing every fncking thing within a fairly large patch of ground that isn’t the thing you want to monetize. Consequences be damned.
Trump, Obama, whoever. It’s not a good way to grow food, or anything else.
For what? Ruining my joke?
dude, that was a joke…? you had my hopes up, man!
Just thought I’d toss this in…
http://dish.allrecipes.com/reasons-you-need-more-sorghum-on-your-plate/
LOL. Carry on.
I’m concerned that I haven’t received my official National Emergency announcement text from the President of the United States on my cellphone, as promised months ago.
Maybe the White House, ICE, and Homeland Security are waiting for all of the little kids they have kidnapped at the border to be successfully sex- trafficked to sketchy families throughout the land before setting us on edge.
Maybe the White House, ICE, and Homeland Security are waiting for all of the little kids they have kidnapped at the border to be successfully sex- trafficked to sketchy families throughout the land before setting us on edge.
Let’s think about this. Putting out the kind of universal notification you envision is going to require a bit of software. At least, if it’s really going to be universal.
And the gang of clowns in charge hasn’t the competence to create something like that. So (unless they outsource it to the Russians) their best bet is probably to wait until those kids are old enough to do the coding for them.
If bees, each of them, were owned as private property, preferably by corporate entities who could fully monetize them instead of consigning them to the tragedy of the commons, you can bet we wouldn’t be treating them so.
Until bees send out a dividend check to each and every one of their shareholders, of what practical use are they, I ask you.
One of my brothers, for example, is one bee sting away from breathing failure at any time.
It’s like them elephants. Unless I can use some them for my own porpoises, shooting them, skinning them, sawing off their tusks, requisitioning their glands for various sexual concoctions, and rendering the rest down to essential oils and lubricants, why should I give a shit about having ANY of them around.
Here’s what we do: you, you, and youse are now pets to be admired and left alone by poaching humans. In exchange, the rest of yas are slaughtered byproduct for my needs. Otherwise, no more of yous at all. Capiche?
Just so with bee species. When they start obeying me, and not their queen, and delivering honey directly to me, then maybe, I’m not guaranteeing anything, but maybe, I’ll be incented to give a little.
Give a little, get it all … is my motto.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/if-you-want-to-save-the-elephants-privatize-them
charleswt bait, I admit.
I am not a lawyer, but I have to confess I found this blow by blow of Judge Amy Berman Jackson nailing Roger Stone and his attorney to the floor quite fascinating:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/02/22/how-amy-berman-jackson-got-roger-stone-to-step-in-it-and-then-step-in-it-again/
I’m concerned that I haven’t received my official National Emergency announcement text from the President of the United States on my cellphone, as promised months ago.
Where the hell you been, bro? The alert came through loud and clear on October 3. I happened to be on a day trip to the western mountains of Maine, on what turned out to be the most beautiful peak season day of this past autumn. By coincidence, I had stopped in a Dunkin’ Donuts in Norridgewock to get some coffee when the alert came through. The whole store came to a halt when everyone’s phones screeched at once. Most of the people in the place didn’t have a clue what it was all about, so the ones who did explained it to the others. Lots of head-shaking, then back to the coffee and donuts.
charleswt bait, I admit.
I approve the link.
Oh, I received the initial blast on my cellphone announcing that I would be kept up-to-date on p’s emergencies.
But I haven’t received one specific to the Border Crisis National Crisis declared days ago.
I hold out slim hope too that he will alert me via cellphone minutes before I’m arrested by his capos.
In Denver, I spot Hispanic mothers pushing baby carriages full of ostensible infant terrorists daily, but I need a declaration from Mein Fuhrer to really panic.
Meanwhile FOX News, see the embedded video below of Joe Digenova threatening violence against liberals, issues national emergency alerts daily for martial law to be imposed. Apparently, Coast Guard members muster to the call:
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/its-going-to-be-total-war-and-as-i-say.html
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/02/21/frequent-fox-news-guest-tells-laura-ingraham-we-are-civil-war-suggests-everyone-buy-guns-prepare/222940
Digenova, that vermin, won’t live to see sunset on the first day of the Civil War he and his provoke.
More calls for genocide from subhuman republican conservative filth:
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2019/02/22/former-white-house-adviser-sebastian-gorka-fantasizes-about-aftermath-civil-war-i-am-not-worried/222956
I’ll be siccing my bees on Gorka’s ass.
My wife needed the house for a meeting tonught, so I met a couple of friends for dinner and a couple of beers.
One of the topics: is the POTUS mobbed up?
The circumstantial evidence was worth discussing.
What a fncked up national moment we are living through. I don’t hold any particularly great personal animus toward folks who voted for Trump, but I do hold them responsible for subjecting us all to this bullshit.
People like Gorka should really stop talking about all the liberals they’re gonna kill. He’s a pissant, but at some point we’re likely to take him seriously.
Guns aren’t that hard to get, or to use, asshole.
Well of course Gorka’s not worried about who would win. The odds are substantial, perhaps even enormous, that he would be among those not around to see it. So he’s free to fantasize about the outcome any way he likes.
wj, I can’t help being interested in exactly why you think he wouldn’t be around to see it. Is it:
a) because he is clearly a pantomime villain and cowardy custard of the first order, and would have fled long before?
or
b) because he would have been one of the first up against the wall when the shooting started?
or neither of the above, but hopefully something even more insulting?
Trump steps up to the climate issue.
I know I’m just shooting fish in a barrel here, and I’m sure it seems like maybe I’m trolling Marty with this stuff.
But seriously, what the hell? Trump is like some kind of cleek’s law golem. Who poops in a gold toilet.
To follow up on the Gorkas of the world, it took, conservatively, 1,000 years of people – not strangers, neighbors, fellow-countrymen and women – hacking each other to bits to settle political differences before we slowly and painfully developed the annoying, cumbersome, bureaucratic, nanny-state institutions that provide a practical alternative to violence.
I’ve spent the last almost-20 years now listening to punks like Gorka fantasize about killing people they disagree with. It’s time for creeps like that to crawl back under whatever rock they were hiding under before the advent of W’s excellent adventures and MAGA gave them a place in the public discourse.
If they really, really, really want a war, I’m sure one can be provided. I don’t want one. They probably don’t either, they just like to engage in mental masturbation about it. It’s childish and stupid and harmful.
Gorka, specifically, is welcome to go back to Hungary any time he likes. His point of view is quite popular there these days, maybe that creep Orban will give him a job.
Just get that crap out of my country.
Carbon Dioxide is being demonized just like the poor Jews during the Holocaust, says the guy, an Emeritus Professor of Physics at Princeton (finally, tenure benefits the shithead conservative coalition; OK then, get rid of tenure) permitted access to the Oval Office in America’s White House and promoted to head up a fake news committee.
I wonder how he feels about carbon monoxide, especially in its concentrated form enclosed in mobile vans full of unsuspecting Jews?
I’ve said some bad things about that gas in my time.
Perhaps Injustice Thomas will sue me, please, for libeling an innocent gas, that cuck.
What is the professor’s hierarchy of demonized gases, one wonders.
Who comes out on top: Kurds or chlorine gas?
Hanh?
Arsenic in its gaseous state must have some positive attributes in this universe.
This musty little man I suspect sniffs his own farts and expects those in his vicinity to be convinced of their virtue among the unfairly maligned gases.
I wonder if charles wt will post a link to an article citing the health benefits of fart inhalation by innocent bystanders. 😉
After all, farts are privatized, so what’s the issue?
“Hydrogen sulfide, the gas that gives flatulence its repulsive smell, can help reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke, cancer and help stave off dementia, research suggests.”
Sniffing your partners’ farts could help ward off disease
Pass the laughing gas, hyanh, heh, ha, haengh …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsqN83TxsAE
Have at it, Charles.
I knew you’d come through.
You beat the response time of even Gary Farber. It’s amazing!
Are you married?
Do people avoid sitting close to you in church?
I kid.
Excerpt of DiGenova quote from the link what’s-his-name ;^) provided:
“…The press is all Democrat, all liberal, all progressive, all left – they hate Republicans, they hate Trump. So the suggestion that there’s ever going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future in this country is over. It’s not going to be. It’s going to be total war….”
I’m taking “the press” to be the equivalent of “the media” here. I wonder how people make these statements through outlets accessible to the public at large without realizing (or caring?) there’s an inherent contradiction. Or maybe what’s inherent is the implication that they’re only referring to that part of mass media that they consider to be liberal and with which they naturally disagree, making the statement tautological. Either way, it’s just stupid.
What also strikes me is that “civil discourse” must mean something along the lines of not being critical of Republicans and Rump. (How uncivil of me to leave out the “T”!) Forget that calls for violence from the so-called liberal media are few and far between enough that they fall well short of anything that could be considered the norm.
It’s as though calling for, say, an investigation by law enforcement into something suspicious is the equivalent of calling for assassination. Even unfair characterizations of Rump’s mental state are very different from suggestions that people should go out and shoot each other.
I guess it’s uncivil of me to say DiGenova is a f**king poisonous douche bag (you know, hypothetically), but it’s not nearly as uncivil as saying he should be shot.
What’s that quote about accusing the opposition of doing the very things you’re doing?
Do people avoid sitting close to you in church?
“Remember when you were a kid one time maybe with short pants on sitting in church on a wooden bench?”
George Carlin – Farts (YouTube)
I wonder how people make these statements through outlets accessible to the public at large without realizing (or caring?) there’s an inherent contradiction.
it’s all about keeping their flock from giving credence to anyone who might say bad things about the cult.
The new Chairman of the National Security Council’s Panel on American Flatulence and its Benefits to the World … breaks wind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvJF0j-RLxk
An EPA study of the comparative downwind effects of the “fizz, the fuzz, the fizzyfuzz, the ripshitz, and the deadly silent martin at dinner parties was quietly defunded by the White House Budget Office today.
Mick Mulvaney offered no verbal response to media questions about his reasoning, but his spokesman .. his ass … lifted one cheek in the direction of the White House Press Corps.
I expect to soon see advertisements sporting claims like “My farts cure cancer” on right wing radio, or perhaps “Man passes gas in local hospital; all patients, even the legless and comatose ones, check themselves out in a stampede.”
Either way, it’s just stupid.
they all know their careers depend on keeping the flock from giving creedence to anyone who might say anything bad about the cult.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCtiQTQQ7QA&index=2&list=RDt1wZQiZxjCo
wj, I can’t help being interested in exactly why you think he wouldn’t be around to see it.
Suppose it comes down to a real civil war; not just occasional individuals or small groups running amok, but something like a real war. The rational course, for those being attacked, is to strike first at those who demonized them, and called for violence against them. That is, those like Gorka.
Yup, that makes sense. Those who’ve been around these parts for a while know my opinion of Gorka, but I feel like re-affirming it: only in this insane looking glass world we currently inhabit could any significant number of people believe a buffoon like Gorka to be a highly educated foreign affairs specialist, or (the same subset of people) Trump to be a brilliant billionaire deal maker. I keep expecting that one day we’ll revert to reality, then wondering if so much damage will have been done that a sane reality will be irrecoverable. Jaded is not the word.
I wish we had Brett Bellmore back with us. I’d like to hear which side he, personally, would take in Civil War Two.
Failing that, I’d settle for the views of the wishy-washy right-wingers we still have among us. The Gorkas and the Bannons and the Digenovas would surely like to know also.
–TP
Brett was on record as catching the first flight outta here if and when things got hot.
I’d settle for the views of the wishy-washy right-wingers we still have among us. The Gorkas and the Bannons and the Digenovas would surely like to know also.
Assuming I’m one of the “wishy-washy right-wingers”…. 🤔
No way I’m on, or anywhere near, a side with Gorka and/or Bannon on it. Less familiar with DiGenova, but he too sounds like someone whose absence (from the polity, and probably the genome) would be a plus.
wj,
Rest assured: in my vocabulary, “conservative” is not the same as “right-winger”, wishy-washy or otherwise.
“Right-wingers” are the people who, in a US presidential election between Bernie Sanders and Vladimir Putin, would vote for Putin. “Wishy-washy right-wingers” would abstain. “Conservatives” would not.
–TP
Just a note that a couple of comments (from cleek et al.) were in the Spam file. They have now been published.