Monthly Archives: December 2015

Wondering about building tall with wood?  Lloyd Alter @ Treehugger.com has some answers as readers at The Guardian have negative reactions to a news story:

You can’t replace trees as fast as they are being cut down, so the argument that they will grow back is not an acceptable excuse for cutting down the forest. Do your research before you spout off about things you don’t know. Deforestation is one of THE leading contributors to climate change. PERIOD! We need MORE trees on the planet, not fewer!

The harvesting of trees in the Pacific Northwest and in Canada is not the deforestation that is contributing to climate change; that is the tropical deforestation where forests are cleared for farmland and palm oil plantations. In fact, thanks to the mountain pine beetle infestation that is killing so many trees, cutting them while still alive and turning them into CLT would be a very good thing for the climate; we should be harvesting more, not less. The wood is sustainably harvested and trees are replanted which have a net positive effect on sequestering carbon, and leads to more trees, not fewer.

We’ve been hearing about El Niño, the band of warm Pacific water that can affect weather patterns – but what of the sibling, La Niña?  NewScientist (paywall) relays a warning for Australia:

Queensland could face devastating floods rivalling those seen in 2010-11 in just a year’s time, as the effects of climate change and an impending La Niña weather event combine.

La Niña brings warm water to the ocean around Queensland, and with it comes rain. Fresh research now shows that the effects of climate change made the flood-causing rains three times more likely that year. …

Queensland might not have to wait to get a taste of this future. The world is in the grip of one of the strongest El Niños on record. And extreme El Niños usually flip within a year to become their opposites, La Niñas – which are then often extreme themselves.

“I would predict an extreme La Niña developing by next year this time,” says [Wenju] Cai [of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Canberra, Australia]. “It is highly likely that January 2017 could see floods similar to those in 2011.”

[Caroline] Ummenhofer [of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts] says that predicting La Niña is difficult, but agrees it’s a worrying possibility that one might happen next year and bring a repeat of the devastating floods.

La Niña is, according to the Wikipedia article,

During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 3–5 °C.

According to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology, rainfall was a little slow in 2014:

Queensland experienced its equal-third-warmest year on record in 2014, with below-average rainfall recorded across the southeast, southwest and parts of the northern interior of the State.

Downpours are rarely usful, however. Just for fun, here’s a map Australian rainfall:

Following a good meal at the Mediterranean Cruise Cafe, my Arts Editor and I attended a performance of Turn of the Screw, a play by Jeffrey Hatcher based on a story by Henry James, as performed by The Chameleon Theatre Circle at the Ames Center in Burnsville, MN.  This is an excellent production featuring, as specified in the script, two performers and a minimal stage, although one might argue that the lighting designer might be due a performing credit because of how well lighting enhances the performance of the actors.

The story concerns a governess, in 1870s England, hired to manage two children, the niece and nephew of the governess’ employer.  Who is he?  Why does he wish to have no interactions?  What happened to previous employees?

And why are madhouses reputed to be populated by … governesses?

The gentleman actor, Mark L. Mattison, plays the mysterious employer, his nephew, and the cook with equal facility, allowing our imaginations out of their pens; but this is not to belittle the efforts of the lady,Laura Hoover,  who while only playing the single role of the governess, has a presence equal to that of Mr. Mattison.  They play off each other through the medley of relationships with a fine fettle, more or less successfully diverting our attention, like any fine magician, from the inevitable plot holes and questionable omissions that exist in every … ghost story.

And how do I know it was fine?  Because I began to make up one of my own …

Once again, Republican pollster Frank Luntz is investigating the Trump phenomenon:

Over three hours Wednesday in Alexandria, Luntz lobbed dozens of Trump-seeking missiles. All 29 in the group had voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. All either supported Trump or had supported him earlier in the year. To Luntz’s amazement, hearing negative information about the candidate made the voters, only a few of whom gave their full names to the press, hug the candidate tighter.

“Normally, if I did this for a campaign, I’d have destroyed the candidate by this point,” Luntz told a group of reporters when the session ended. “After three hours of showing that stuff?”

With only two exceptions, the three hours of messaging, venting and friendly arguments revealed the roots of Trump’s support. Participants derided the mainstream media, accusing reporters of covering snippets of Trump quotes when the full context would have validated him. They cited news sources they trusted — Breitbart News was one example — to refute what they were being told.

“You know what Trump does?” said Teresa Collier, a 65-year-old retiree. “He says something completely crazy, and I’m like, ‘Oh, my God!’ Then he dials back and starts explaining it and saying how he’d do it, and it makes sense.”

And Trump continues to lead:

Beating back the competition using an array of supporters who prefer to believe in their preconceptions to the point of disbelieving standard sources of information.  He appears to have a hard core of supporters who are best described as fringe occupants.

But, unlike Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, his lead is only relatively commanding against his melange of challengers.  The current polling numbers in Iowa are a somewhat different story, as a Monmouth University poll reveals likely GOP voters in Iowa favor Cruz, 24% to 19% for Trump.

So we’ve watched as the Republican rivals, with two exceptions, have remained in the race despite highly disappointing numbers.  Steve Benen, commenting on the Luntz story, may have stumbled across the reason why they’ve stuck around despite the hurdles they’ve yet to traverse:

Collect enough voters who’ve lost their favorite, and you catch up with Trump.  The successful strategy will, of course, involve money, along with the preservation of capital until a sizable number of your rivals have dropped out and then you try to collect them.  In the meantime, you must be their second or third choice, emphasizing your qualifications, while you hold your breath and suck up to your sponsors donors.  Communication skills will be critical, in some cases to clarify your achievements, and in others to obscure your lack of qualifications.  In the former camp might be governors Bush and Christie, while in the latter camp might be Cruz and Rubio, neither of which have achievements, merely ideology.  It is my personal belief that ideology is not the same as achievements or competency.  Whether that’s true for GOP voters is unclear.

In other news, both Trump and Carson have insinuated that they may leave the GOP if any ‘dirty tricks’ keep them from winning the nomination.  Does the GOP risk losing perhaps 30% of their base as they realize the leadership will do what’s necessary to save the party from a bad nominee?  Is the GOP in a no-win position?  They may be better served by letting the nomination process go its natural route and endorsing the winner – and thus their candidates for other offices will stand a good chance of winning.  But if 30% of their base stays home out of despair at the treason of the leadership, it could lead to quite the trouncing of the Republicans.

Last weekend we watched ZOOLANDER (2001), a movie reminiscent of the cult favorite THIS IS SPINAL TAP (1984), which spoofed rock and roll with a rock group which existed only to be be a rock group.  In Zoolander, Ben Stiller and his proud papa, as well as a number of other famous comedians and members of the fashion industry bring to the screen the life of Derek Zoolander, he of the perfect facial structure and amazing walk, not to mention a level of narcissism not seen since, well, since Metamorphoses .  He and Owen Wilson bring their spoofs to near perfection even as they try to understand the motivations of a mysterious designer and why Derek doesn’t remember his week at the man’s spa.

It is incredibly trite, and that is part of the charm.  You don’t watch this movie to learn how to navigate the ways of celebrity, or fashion, or for that matter how to be a father to the perfect boy.  You simply watch it to see how Ben & Co will next ridicule an industry which, quite likely, was ripe for ridicule in any case.  They saw the grapes, and sensed they were good; out came the scythe, and the harvesting, all so important, began.  It’s worth a gander, especially if you’re inclined towards pairing a fine wine with your movies.  This might be worthy of a Reisling: bright and sunny, with many fruity flavors.  A darker red might bring too much gravitas to a movie too flighty and ridiculous to credibly sustain it.

Being an American.  It’s more than simply existing at a location, or a set of parents, a collection of advantages, or even hatreds for received insults.  It’s a concept, an experiment, and a revulsion at the old ways of governing and conducting the entire business of running a society.  It’s a responsibility for understanding, honoring, and implementing our underlying principles.

The most important of those principles is mutual respect for diversity of religion.  We may have strong opinions on matters concerning the divine, but we should remember that which led to the formation of this Nation, the incredibly strong emotions evidenced in France, in Spain, and, most importantly for this nation, in England¹, in the matters of which version of Christianity should be followed.  We need to remember the mistrust, the terrible hatreds, the killings, the burnings – all between nominally Christian people.

When our forefathers came together to design the new government and society, one of their gravest concerns was to avoid such abhorrent disturbances in civil society, and to that end they designed a government which insensitive to the delicate matters of religion: a secular government, not permitted to favor or despise any particular sect.

It was a new path to follow, and it has served us well – when we’ve honored it.  But as a principle, it’s also a test of us – are we good Americans?  Do we understand the hows and whys of this wonderful principle?

Tonight, in the wake of the grim tragedy in San Bernardino, CA, I will name three people who are alike in their abject failure to pass this test, their lack of understanding of the importance of this principle in our success – and how this has created failure at the most fundamental parts of their lives.  Two have cemented their failure, their unworthiness, beyond all redemption, by committing final atrocities against their fellows: Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik.  They, like white supremacists, slavers, and various others who hate their fellow man for trivial reasons, condemn themselves.  Little more need to be said for these criminals.

But such accusations need not be leveled at out and out criminals, and in that vein, I believe Donald Trump also fails this most basic tests of being an American.  He calls for suspicion of Americans, born and naturalized, of a certain flavor of religiosity, his words inflame the opinions of those who listen him to unjust, intemperate actions, and then he tries to defend himself with mere implications, not facts. For a citizen who wishes to lay claim to the lead position in the Nation, he needs to be an embodiment of the principles we enshrine and follow in hopes of a peaceful, successful society; his abandonment of this principle, thrust aside as if it were some superfluous undershirt, unnecessary as he digs that ditch, very much clarifies his unworthiness to assume the Presidency.

This American test.  It’s a hard one.  Thrusting away the distrust, the fear, it’s quite against fundamental nature to hug that neighbor from across the street, across the cultural divide, across the divine abyss.  Yet, that’s what Americans, at their best, do.  And it’s something Mr. Trump has yet to learn to do.

¹See In God We Trust vs. E Pluribus Unum.

Steve Benen @ MaddowBlog steps up to explain that the ACA is not costing 2 million jobs – it’s just enabling worker mobility:

Nearly two years ago, the CBO initially found that, thanks to the Affordable Care Act, in the coming years, many Americans will be able to leave their full-time jobs – by choice – because of the available benefits.

Much of the media interpreted this as evidence of the ACA hurting job creation and causing mass layoffs, but that isn’t what the findings said at all. In fact, this was good news for the reform law, not bad – we’re talking about a feature, not a bug.

One of the purposes of “Obamacare” is to help end something called “job lock.” The phrase describes a dynamic in which many Americans would like to leave their current jobs – to retire, to start a new business, whatever – but can’t because they and their families need the health benefits tied to their current job.

He notes that the GOP lawmakers are using this as evidence of the vast disruption ACA is causing the economy.  Well, in a sense, they’re right – when a worker leaves a job, that means the employer has to hire and, possibly, train a new worker.  The company is disrupted.

But, in the end, it’s a good thing as this also enables some folks to retire early – thus opening up jobs for those on the hunt.  It just all depends on who you are – an employer, an employee – or a government worker tasked with getting that pesky unemployment rate down.

Steve’s source is The Hill, which I take to be deliberately misrepresenting the truth.  Here’s the relevant outtake:

ObamaCare will force a reduction in American work hours — the equivalent of 2 million jobs over the next decade, Congress’s nonpartisan scorekeeper said Monday.

The total workforce will shrink by just under 1 percent as a result of changes in worker participation because of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to a 22-page report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The first paragraph explicitly claims ACA will enforce a reduction in work hours, while the second, while sounding like an elucidation, is actually quite different – it cleverly tries to make voluntary, desirable activities enabled by ACA seem like an inevitable, awful consequence.  As Steve notes, workers will retire earlier, with more stability and confidence in their future, or they will change jobs, following such urges as fewer hours, more risk, or whatever else will motivate them – and thus making room for other workers in the ranks.  One paragraph references total work hours, while the other references the size of the work force.

It’s a semantic shell game designed to suck in the uncareful reader.

Finland is reportedly considering taking a step towards UBI.  From CNN/Money:

The Finnish government, elected earlier this year, is planning to introduce a tax-free monthly payment of 800 euros ($865) to all adult Finns, regardless of income, wealth or employment status. The payment would replace most other state benefits.

The government thinks that the move will actually save money. Finland’s welfare system is very complex and expensive to run, and the government hopes that simplifying it could reduce costly bureaucracy.

It also argues that the change may encourage more people to look for work. About 9.5% of Finns are currently out of work — the highest rate in more than a decade — and the government believes some people are deterred from working because they’re better off on unemployment benefit than accepting a minimum wage job.

Tim Worstall at Forbes.com approves:

From the right it gets rid of the thing we worry most about welfare: the immense tax and benefit withdrawal rate that makes poor people not desire (because they are rational in the face of 60 and 70% tax rates) to increase their incomes. And from the left it actually increases workers’ bargaining power without, of course, needing those potentially self-interested unions standing in the middle. If you can live, just, without working, then the boss’ power over you is vastly reduced. Another way of putting this is that reservation wages rise–the amount you have to be offered to go to work rises.

This will, of course, reduce inequality. The big problem has always been that while in theory it works no one has ever really tried it. Now someone is: the Finns. So, we all get to see whether it really is the deus ex machina that theory states it is.

My best guess is that it is and that we should all be adopting it. But given that someone else is doing it, perhaps not just yet. Let’s actually be scientists about this, observe what happens and only if it works, as I’m sure it will, do we adopt it.

Abolish the entire welfare system in its totality and just give every citizen just enough to scrape by each month. Why not? We’re a rich country, we can do this. After someone else has proven that it works of course.

Dylan Matthews @ vox.com may have a more comprehensive look:

Ideally, Kangas told me, he’d like to take several different kinds of samples. In the scientifically ideal research setting, there would be a national lottery so he gets a representative random sample of Finns across the country who’ll receive a basic income. But he also wants to do regional lotteries that are regionally representative, and then lotteries confined to large towns. He also wants there to be some smaller municipalities that have a large portion of their populations (30 percent, say) get checks. In the PowerPoint, he suggests that in a couple of districts 100 percent of households could get checks.

The idea is to see what happens to a community under a basic income, rather than just to individual people. Having a whole town get benefits could have cascading effects as households escape poverty, as some people use the income guarantee as insurance so they can take risks and form companies, as universities see increased enrollment from people better able to afford supplies, etc. “If people in a smaller area are getting the benefits, their behavior vis-a-vis other people will change, employers and employees will change their behavior, encounters between clients and their street-level bureaucrats (social workers, employment offices, etc.) will change, and the interplay between different bureaucracies will change,” Kangas says.

There is a basic tension between the American tradition of everyone taking care of themselves, and the older societal imperative of sticking together and taking care of all the members, sick and healthy, young and old.  It’ll be interesting to see how the basic American suspicion that everyone is on the take plays out if Finland’s trial is considered a success and they decide go all in.

While listening to a Minnesota Public Radio discussion today on anti-bacterial drugs (no link available, but it was the Kerri Miller show) (the bad news: new antibiotics are not under development) (the badder news: antibiotics of last resort are becoming ineffective against drug-resistant bugs), it occurred to me that the invasion of private sector practices into the health sector has somewhat twisted the purpose of the health sector.

To an extent, it’s inevitable, because the health sector has a dependency on two elements: process, the procedures used by medical personnel to diagnose and treat patients; and things, such as drugs, surgical tools, and the like.  The latter class could be supplied by entities entirely within the health sector, but they are not.  This is a mixed bag: entities not subject to market forces are not forced to develop efficient procedures with respect, and for those talented individuals motivated by wealth might not choose to provide their talents to such an entity, to the communal loss of the patients.  But the impingement and, perhaps more accurately, dominance of private sector practices with respect to the development and delivery of medicine has its well known deleterious effects: the sudden hiking of the price for Daraprim, and the lack of interest in developing new antibiotics are two of the most obvious problems; less salient, yet perhaps more important, is the perception of a sizable portion of non-medical personnel that the medical community really only exists to parasitize the citizenry while the citizens are blind to a cornucopia of simple cures for all sorts of problems, from carrot juice to acupuncture.  This latter point induces ill persons to waste critical time on homeopathy and other failed approaches, all the while convinced the people most able to help them really only wish to relieve them of their cash.  Such is the bane of a culture dominated by the superstition and ignorance.

But there is worse news descending from this dilution of the medical sector’s operationalities: the marketing of drugs to the general citizenry, the suggestion that drugs are necessary even for minor ailments, is exerting an evolutionary pressure on the pathogens, and they are responding by becoming immune to the drugs of the day – and, as noted, because it’s not profitable to develop antibiotics, we do not have a new generation in the pipeline.

Because we are a social species (or so I’m told), communicable illness doesn’t affect just the guy across town, or the kid in Altoona – but all of us, potentially.  We’re not islands, nor can we control the communications medium of pathogens all that easily in many cases – and even those we think we have under control can prove slippery.  But the activities of the private sector ignore or even contradict these realities of the medical sector – each person’s individuality is sought out, their separateness from others, and their capacity to spend the fruits of their labors on the things produced by the private sector.

In contexts where these assumptions are true, the private sector does an admirable job of fulfilling its function.  But when it dominates an area where these assumptions are not true, then we see tension.  Pollution control is a common example; the examples from the medical sector are not as familiar, to which we may need to adjust – perhaps by rescinding the FDA decision permitting direct to consumer advertising (DTCA)¹ by drug companies.  No doubt more compromises and/or approaches will be necessary, as we explore how to make these two sectors work together to efficiently treat the citizens’ health.

Because, without recognizing these differences, we will continue to see the supply of drugs become uneven and, possibly, dangerous to our very health.  Private sector advocates will claim the demand for these drugs will result in their supply, yet the reality contradicts them; nor are they simply widgets to be built, but the results of research (which reminds me of yet another tension, wherein business people want reliable schedules, while folks who are actively researching, whether it be biomedical or, in my case, just developing new software, can find it difficult to hit a schedule while maintaining quality).  Yet, this is not to advocate that the medical industry take over development of drugs and devices on some sort of non-profit basis.  It’s not clear to me how to crack this nut.

¹ See this publication from Milbank Quarterly for a scholarly look at the issue.  The suggestion of a difference between patients and consumers highlight the problems of using a sector’s terminology in another sector, as it brings expectations that are not necessarily appropriate.  A similar discussion of the difference between students and consumers has been on my mind of late.

Lloyd Alter @ Treehugger.com writes approvingly of an out of date idea – the window tax:

Writing in the Financial Times, Tim Harford, AKA “the Undercover Economist” describes the English tax, introduced in 1696 and lasting until 1851, that was charged on the number of windows in a home, unlike the property taxes of today that are based on value of the property.

The details of the tax varied across the centuries but with the broad theme that the more windows your house had, the more tax you had to pay. At first glance, the tax seems clever, even brilliant. Rich people had larger houses, and so paid more tax. Windows are easy to count from outside the premises, so the tax was easy to assess. Poor people didn’t own large houses, so they weren’t affected by the tax. And the number of windows in a house doesn’t change, so the tax was impossible to avoid.

And it is brilliant. Dare I say that like the windows, it is totally transparent- everyone can see it, if you have a window (which is a big energy hole in the wall) you pay the tax. But Harford says it was “wrong, wrong, wrong” because people adapted their houses accordingly reducing their tax.

There are a couple of problems here:

1. Humans are not nocturnal – we need sunlight in order to be healthy, and while it may be convenient to suggest we should all be outside as much as possible, that’s not going to cut it in the real world.  Those of us with SAD are in particular trouble, and using special UV lighting when a window could bring in the same light without the associated electric bill seems … ungreen.
2. Using the taxation system for social engineering has a long history of going awry and engendering resentment in the populace.
3. The taxation system exists to provide funding to the government sector, and a predictable fund flow is important for planning purposes.  As Harford notes, folks adapted – and the flow of funds dried up.
4. Such a blunt taxation instrument ignores, and even discourages, innovation that could render windows much less of an energy drain.  For example, this solar advance [add link] might prove to render the energy cost of windows trivial, or even negative.

As a historical note, it’s in the same class as taxing closets – an interesting look into the minds of folks from centuries ago.  But I find the argument to return it to be unconvincing.

So tonight, as we drove home, we passed the frontage of our home and admired my Art Editor’s efforts:

I then, of course, had to disrupt her critique by suggesting the tree was “unsupported”, by which I meant, but failed to elucidate, that further house adornments might be in order to further enhance her efforts.  But she, puzzled, asked why she should lash the tree to the house, for wasn’t its current support system adequate to the effort?

Ah, to lash, to hold tight, to steer yon ship into the teeth of the hurricane by dint of lashing the old wooden wheel into place and not allow the ship to heel over in the grip of the wild wind; worse yet, there are darker nuances of meaning to be found and measured, and those are what really came to mind: the vengeful Captain Ahab of the Pequod, notorious for lashing his crew onward in their relentless harvest of whale-kind as he pursued his private war against the greatest of the leviathans, in the end finds himself lashed to the white devil itself as it readies itself to become the vessel of his doom in a great depth-sounding dive in the last pages of Moby Dick….

So, ah, does anyone know where to find blow up effigies of white whales, suitable for positioning in the garden below our Christmas Tree, ready to take its revenge on this cousin to the wood composing the Pequod?

The Importance of Categorization

Of course, if you’re not accustomed to categorizing entities, you may question it’s worth.  Let me try to address this important question in the context of society (with an American bias) and how it compels certain conclusions.

In general, the process of categorization consists of the identification of certain characteristics of entities that are considered critical to understanding the behavior of those entities.  The differentiation of those entities on those characteristics will dictate final differences or similarities, depending on their selection.  When classifying living organisms, scientists use the similarity of differences on certain characteristics, such as being warm blooded, to infer common ancestors on the evolutionary tree, which in turn will have consequences for important biological and behavioral differences – such as sluggishness, or not, in cold weather.  Or possible vulnerability to certain poisons.

In the context of human society, it’s common to talk about sectors such as health, education, business, government, and others, and we can categorize activities according to the context in which they primarily occur.  Each sector has a purpose, which serves as the primary (and perhaps only) differentiation point for each sector: health for improving the individual and collective health of society, education for improving the knowledge base and thinking capabilities of individuals, etc.

Now, how is this useful?  Once we understand that activities are primarily part of one category by virtue of their use in the operationality of that sector, we can also clearly understand this very important point: activities are naturally oriented in purpose and operationality to support the purpose of their category or sector.  If they were not, then their efficiency in contributing to the accomplishment of the overall purpose would be compromised; in fact, we often see activities “optimized” in order to improve their usefulness in just such a pursuit.

From the point that sector’s do not share immediate purposes, since that’s their point of differentiation, we may draw the conclusion that activities optimized for one sector’s purposes are not necesssarily optimized for another’s.  Furthermore, it’s just as reasonable to assume the members of one sector, regardless of their success, are not to be regarded as equally qualified in another sector without proof; indeed, they most probably are not.

A contemporary example would be to refuse to attribute such competencies to Donald Trump; his business sector success has little predictive power to his competencies in the government sector, nor to his proposed policies in same.   Which is not to suggest that it cannot occur.  George Romney, CEO of American Motors Corp, was also a popular governor of Michigan in the 1960s, if one may take popularity as a fair proxy for success in the governmental realm.

But the real point is that the individual must prove themselves in a transition from one sector to another, and both candidates and the voting citizenry must be aware the processes of one sector may not be appropriate to the purposes of another sector.  Thus, the ongoing proposals for the privatization of certain governmental functions, such as prisons (discussion starting here, ending here), should be viewed with the great suspicion and with the application of the points above.

It appears business continues to take climate change more and more seriously.  Bloomberg Business, a publication, has opened a fascinating site covering the problem.  Simply by scrolling down the page, information ranging from real-time (estimated) to historical is presented to you, illustrating the problem.  All you have to do is trust that a horde of scientists are measuring carbon levels in the atmosphere properly, and trust that experiments that show carbon dioxide and methane contribute to the heating of the atmosphere, repeatable for those who know science, to realize that there is a problem.

And, for business folks, this is important.  Most business folks are narrow focus on the creation, marketing, and selling of products of various sorts.  The product is typically, if not always, a tangible thing they can touch, smell, and see.  This is in contrast to the by-products of the manufacture, which if not always invisible, can always be herded off and disposed of into the vastness of Nature.

Or so was the historical narrative; today, there is little vastness left as we continue to breed and improve medicine.

(Source: Wikipedia)

But this is not consonant with the historical narrative, so unless the business’ owners and manager have some serious moral/ethical chops (often seen from left-leaning business people), they tend to be ignorant, ignore, or even deny the damage done to Nature – and, distant in time, but certain to happen, to themselves and their successors.  Progeny, if you like.  But the social costs of externalities such as pollution go up as a function of population density of the affected area.  At some point, these external costs outweigh the worth of the product; this represents a business failure, and hence the frantic denials by some entities such as the Western Energy Alliance.

In this vein, Sami Grover @ Treehugger.com reports that Unilever, the third largest consumer goods company in the world, is making significant positive moves in this arena:

Take Unilever, for instance, which has just pledged to achieve 100% renewable energy (not just electricity!) across all its operations by 2030 and become “carbon positive” by the same date—meaning the company is responsible for more emissions cuts/sequestration than it is emissions. Significantly, that pledge also includes nearer term goals like phasing out coal and buying all grid-sourced electricity from 100% renewable sources by 2020.

This level of commitment is significant on several levels. Firstly, Unilever is leveraging its own emissions cuts to demand more ambitious political action too. And rightly or wrongly, when corporations talk, governments tend to listen. (Unilever is by no means the only corporate giants demanding a strong Paris deal.) Secondly, the sheer size of Unilever (2013 revenue was €49.797 billion) means that any commitment to phase out coal and buy only renewable energy will send an important signal to utilities, to financial markets, and to regional governments too. If you want to do business with Unilever, you’d better be planning on creating a clean energy future. Lastly, Unilever is couching its efforts in terms of immediate and medium-term change—not some far off goal that can be easily discounted once the current crop of executives retire.

(h/t Michael Graham Richard @ Treehugger.com for the new Bloomberg site)

I’ve been meaning to get back to the subject of societal categorization (starts here, previous here), but time constraints, etc.  An article by Zachary Slayback, published on LinkedIn, caught my attention, however, with a title which rather summarizes the problem from my point of view: “It’s Time To Admit College Is Driven By Speculation — Not Investment.”

The unspoken assumption is not that the private sector (as defined here) has primacy, but that it has become the only viewpoint from which activity is to be evaluated.  Right from the get-go:

One of the most popular tropes among career advisors, guidance counselors, school officials, and college recruiters today is that going to college is an investment. As more and more options for work experience and education outside of the higher education cartel crop up, those pushing the college option on young people are forced to fall back on telling the young that, though it may look costly now, it will pay off in the future. Like their Housing Crisis predecessors, they urge young people to take on the seemingly-unimaginable cost with some statistics and graphics showing that, in the recent past, a college degree pays for itself over a lifetime.

Sounds like he’s on the right track, doesn’t it?

It’s time that we admit that this isn’t the case.

The “it’s an investment!” strategy of sending young people to universities is one of the last options available to those urging people to take on this stodgy, quickly-outdated, and inefficient way to build the life that they want. If anything, this idea that it will pay off in the long run is mere speculation, not investment.

By retaining the language and thought patterns of the private sector, he cedes the entirety of society to the private sector, even though much of society is ill-suited to the operations of the private sector.  Education should be desirable and celebrated because of how it improves society in so many ways – not just because it may make you more money.

(Says the guy who went into Computer Science because he didn’t want to live under an overpass.)

Many students attend college to get a good job without asking why they are going in the first place, what kind of job they want to have, what kind of life they want to live, and what they want to make of themselves. They think in general terms. This applies to their spending and saving habits once they get out of college. Why should they save now? The money has always been there for them, they can get loans to go to college, buy a house, get a car, etc.

This leads people to speculate not only with their educations but with their careers, too. Speculating with your career leads to speculating with your family life, your hobbies, your friends, and generally leads to an indefinite, unstable future.

I can’t help but note that most college students are what we like to call “young adults”, only beginning to learn how to think.  Part of the college experience is learning how to think, how to recognize your interests and how to pursue them in a environment constructed to facilitate learning – and to learn things that maybe don’t seem interesting, or pertinent.

This article is fixated on the individual to an extent that I find somewhat unsettling.  There’s, of course, much more to it, but I found it rather boring because he’s approaching the educational sector using the lens of the private sector, rather than understanding that the goal of the educational sector is different from the goal of the private sector – and so of course there’ll be some disappointment if your life is constructed around that paradigm.

PeerJ publishes an academic study on how to reduce the litter of bags:

Littering constitutes a major societal problem, and any simple intervention that reduces its prevalence would be widely beneficial. In previous research, we have found that displaying images of watching eyes in the environment makes people less likely to litter. Here, we investigate whether the watching eyes images can be transferred onto the potential items of litter themselves. In two field experiments on a university campus, we created an opportunity to litter by attaching leaflets that either did or did not feature an image of watching eyes to parked bicycles. In both experiments, the watching eyes leaflets were substantially less likely to be littered than control leaflets (odds ratios 0.22–0.32). We also found that people were less likely to litter when there other people in the immediate vicinity than when there were not (odds ratios 0.04–0.25) and, in one experiment but not the other, that eye leaflets only reduced littering when there no other people in the immediate vicinity. We suggest that designing cues of observation into packaging could be a simple but fruitful strategy for reducing littering.

Melissa Breyer @ Treehugger.com likes it:

The work of the experiment is based on the idea of “nudge psychology,” a theory that people behave better when the best option, in whatever situation, is presented to them, but they still have a choice of other options as well. By removing the idea of being forced into something, the theory goes, people will often choose to do the “right” thing. The researchers note that this could be a boon in fighting fast-food litter.

“In the fight against anti-social littering, this study could be a real help. Fast food retailers might want to think about using it on packaging to discourage people discarding the wrappers,” says Bateson. “The flip side is, for those handing out leaflets, it could help people take in the messages are they are less likely to throw away a flyer with eyes on.”

Fighting litter, one pair of printed eyes at a time.

I’m left wondering about the durability of the effect (if it’s not just an artifact of some variable).  That is, once this effect becomes known in popular culture, it may disappear as people learn to ignore it, or demonize, or turn it into a collectible, or any of a dozen other behaviors.

Another interesting study would be to repeat it in Shanghai, Moscow, and Jakarta.  Same results?  Different?

A reader comments about private justice:

Seems to me since I can’t sign away my right to say freedom (sell myself into slavery) I shouldn’t be able to sign that right away. Simple law to remove mandatory arbitration. It can be a better option and keep court costs down, but it is abusively used right now.

Seems to me, too, but evidently not to SCOTUS.  The Arent Fox website has some convenient summaries of two of the relevant decisions from 2013:

… on June 20, 2013, the Court decided American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, holding that class action waivers in dispute resolution clauses are applicable to federal statutory claims. Specifically, the Court held that a waiver of class arbitration cannot be defeated under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) on the basis that the individual arbitration of claims is too expensive for any individual claimant in light of the small size of the individual claims (known as the “effective vindication” theory). The Court extended its reasoning from its earlier decision in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, which allowed for class action waivers in arbitration agreements at the state level.

… on June 10, 2013, the Court decided Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter, which addressed the questions of whether — and if so, how — courts may review an arbitrator’s determination that the parties intended to authorize the use of class proceedings, even where the arbitration agreement does not expressly address class arbitration. Here, the Court upheld the lower court’s decision to maintain the arbitrator’s ruling, determining that the overarching test for Section 10(a)(4) challenges is not whether the arbitrator’s decision was correct or erroneous, but whether the arbitrator was “arguably construing” the contract.

A libertarian would argue that restricting access to arbitration is an unreasonable intrusion into private contracts, I suspect.  My response is that today’s reality is that no one reads all the various contracts to which they are party, and many of them are not within the competency or time constraints of the average citizen (I’ve noted that libertarians and self-sufficiency nuts don’t seem to have a sense of time, but, being ideological nuts, they assume everyone is like them and fixated on the subject of their fascination).  A reasonable compromise might be to permit arbitration when both parties indicate in the initial contract that they are explicitly aware of the provision by initialing the provision, and that neither party may deny a contract based on the removal of such a provision.

Would it ever happen?  Nyah.

Tonight’s treat was TIGHT SPOT (1955), starring Ginger Rogers, the venerable Edward G. Robinson (he of the marvelously lived-in face), and Brian Keith.  Initially, I couldn’t stand Ginger’s character, a cracking wise ditz on vacation from her home in the state penitentiary, nor did she really rise above her initial station in the life of the movie; yet, she rather grew on me, despite her wretched choice in hair styles, as the screenwriter gifted her with some excellent lines; her sallies at Mr. Keith’s romantic defenses were both charming and believable.

Mr. Keith also did well, starting from a somewhat stereotypical cop portrayal to copping to a few spritely lines of his own, not to mention the obligatory dashes to save the distressed damsel from a horrible end at the machinations of a mobster, played by Lorne Greene, who does not relish a return to his homeland.  Alas, Greene was merely in a supporting role and did not have the opportunity to inflict an entire barrage of brooding evil upon his unsuspecting audience; we merely caught glimpses of a sordid underworld.

And Robinson.  What more need to be said, than he brings gravitas not only to his roles, but to his jowls?  He should be a lesson that an actor need not be exceedingly pretty to be on the screen.  (Random thought process: can you imagine Edward G. Robinson in the title role of Disney’s recent flop, JOHN CARTER?  Granted, he’d be too short – or would he?  I’m reminded of a lecture I once attended concerning the play Cyrano de Bergerac, and how the lecturer once saw a version featuring a shorter, somewhat plump actor – and thought it was most memorable.  In any event, I know I wouldn’t have grit my teeth every time he was on the screen.  And smooching with Dejah … !)

As to the movie itself, we had planned to sample it only, and found ourselves watching the entire production instead.  Now, in all verity, we did have cats planted firmly in our laps, so to some extent we were merely playing to their vanities; but, indeed, we enjoyed the movie, the death of Willoughby, the gradual learning process of Rogers, the heroism of Keith, and the irascibility of Robinson; such was the chemistry that we found them believable – and worth watching.

This lidar-derived digital elevation model of the Willamette River displays a 50-foot elevation range, from low elevations (displayed in white) fading to higher elevations (displayed in dark blue). This visually replaces the relatively flat landscape of the valley floor with vivid historical channels, showing the dynamic movements the river has made in recent millennia. This segment of the Willamette River flows past Albany near the bottom of the image northward to the communities of Monmouth and Independence at the top. Near the center, the Luckiamute River flows into the Willamette from the left, and the Santiam River flows in from the right. Lidar imagery by Daniel E. Coe.

Or just damn beautiful.

From Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.

(h/t Kimberly Mok @ Treehugger.com)

A couple weeks ago Don midwest @ The Daily Kos penned a piece (it’s a little confusing as it references a 5th cousin related piece on plea bargains) on the loss of access to courts as enforced through the fine print of contracts that no one reads, as documented by The New York Times:

By inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies like American Express devised a way to circumvent the courts and bar people from joining together in class-action lawsuits, realistically the only tool citizens have to fight illegal or deceitful business practices.

Examples:

Patricia Rowe of Greenville, S.C., learned this firsthand when she initiated a class action against AT&T. Ms. Rowe, who was challenging a $600 fee for canceling her phone service, was among more than 900 AT&T customers in three states who complained about excessive charges, state records show. When the case was thrown out last year, she was forced to give up and pay the $600. Fighting AT&T on her own in arbitration, she said, would have cost far more.

By banning class actions, companies have essentially disabled consumer challenges to practices like predatory lending, wage theft and discrimination, court records show.

I had noticed these arbitration notices from time to time, but had not paid attention: no more.

I think there are a few options to follow up:

1. Change state and/or federal law to disallow the use of arbitration, or to expressly permit class action suits despite arbitration clauses.
2. For those companies that are public, become shareholders in the more egregious offenders and raise a ruckus!  Any shareholder may submit a shareholder proposal to be voted on at annual company meetings.  A rough draft of the text might be,

Whereas the American legal system applies to everyone with a legal grievance, and the right to profit in the free market system is secondary to the right to legal redress, this proposal asks the board of XYZ corporation to ban the use of arbitration clauses in all contracts made with consumers.

• A more difficult option is to take the GoFundMe approach to consumers who face problems typical of the one in the example.  The central problem seems to be resources to fight what is, individually, an unjust but non-crippling action by the corporation.  By provision of resources, the consumer can continue the fight; conversely, a corporation that expects almost all arbitration cases to be abandoned could be in for a shock when most of the cases are retained and fought.  This will require extra resources from the company.I do regard this approach as problematic.
• Question the neutrality of the arbitration.  If that can be broken, then where be the contract?  Consider this recent example:
  

  Even some N.F.L. cheerleaders have had to agree to [arbitration clauses]. When a group of cheerleaders sued the Oakland Raiders over working conditions, they discovered that Roger Goodell, the N.F.L. commissioner, would preside over the arbitration. The Raiders later agreed to use someone else.

  The importance of the legal system as a neutral arbitrator, under the law, of disputes cannot be exaggerated; private systems of justice are too prone to corruption to be trusted, as history shows.

Spread the word.  The Supreme Court is not a friend to the consumer:

One of the players behind the scenes, The Times found, was John G. Roberts Jr., who as a private lawyer representing Discover Bank unsuccessfully petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a case involving class-action bans. By the time the Supreme Court handed down its favorable decisions, he was the chief justice.

This will have to be resolved legislatively.

My apologies for the formatting of the above, the software is not cooperating in my efforts.  The two dotted items are really 3 & 4, respectively.