Rodomontade:
Rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-muhn-TAHD\ is a mass noun meaning boastful talk or behavior. The term is a reference to Rodomonte, a character in Italian Renaissance epic poems Orlando innamorato and its sequel Orlando furioso. [Wikipedia]
Observed in Jack Vance’s The Killing Machine:
Six volumes of rhodomontade [sic] and piffle.
… Academia, London, Earth.
In Canadian news, the Lethbridge Herald is reporting a move against neonicotinoids, thought to be a factor is Colony Collapse Disorder:
Health Canada has announced a 90-day public consultation period on imidacloprid, which is used on everything from cereals, grains, pulses and oilseeds to forestry woodlots and flea infestations on pets.
Neonicotinoids as a class of pesticides have come under heavy scrutiny in recent years for their potential impact on bee populations.
A study by Health Canada found that measurments of imidacloprid in surface water have been found as high as 11.9 parts per billion, while levels above 0.041 parts per billion are a considered to be of scientific concern.
The government is proposing to phase out all agricultural usage and most other outdoor uses of imidacloprid over a period of three to five years.
Ontario’s provincial government moved to restrict the use of imidacloprid last year, as have some European countries.
“Based on currently available information, the continued high volume use of imidacloprid in agricultural areas is not sustainable,” Health Canada said Wednesday.
The Health Canada study of imidacloprid has also prompted the federal department to begin “special reviews” of two other common neonicotinoids, clothianidin and thiamethoxam.
“Health Canada is taking the findings of the re-evaluation of this pesticide seriously, and is taking action to further protect the environment,” Health Minister Jane Philpott said in a release.
(From Tree Frog News.)
Speaking of bees, ever wonder if bees are restricted to pollen and honey for their diet? It turns out the answer is no – targets of sweet opportunity are more than welcome. NewScientist (12 November 2016) reports:
Sugar-rich honeydew is secreted by sap-sucking scale insects, and may tide hungry bees over until spring flowers bloom.
How wild solitary bees survive before the blooms was largely a mystery, says Joan Meiners at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Unlike colony-building honeybees, solitary bees don’t stockpile honey. “There’s really not much that’s known about what bees do when there aren’t flowers,” says Meiners.
Observation and experiments indicates solitary bees will eat the honeydew while awaiting the return of flower blooms.
Cross-cultural references.
Now that the election has come and gone, Saudi Arabia’s government is trying to decide whether or not it should be applauding – or vomiting into its collective mouth. Bruce Riedel reports for AL Monitor:
But Trump was a surprise. The royals’ longtime connections to America’s two family dynasties, the Bushes and the Clintons, were on the wrong side of history. Some Saudi America watchers have argued that Trump’s rhetoric on Muslims was crucial to his victory, a source of deep concern for a country that prides itself as the Custodian of the two Holy Cities. The Saudis are nervous about what they see as rising Islamophobia in America.
But the Saudis are pleased with the strong talk from Trump and his appointees on Iran. Articles by key future decision-makers such as retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Kansas congressman Mike Pompeo‘s articulating the need for tougher American responses to Iran subversion and terrorism have been well-received in Riyadh.
But this wouldn’t be good:
The Arab-Israeli conflict has receded on Saudi priorities for the last two years, but if Trump follows through on promises to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, the kingdom will react harshly. [Saudi King] Salman is a strong defender of the Islamic identity of Jerusalem. He has been involved in fundraising for supporting the Palestinian cause in Jerusalem since 1967, when then-King Faisal made him responsible for the effort.
Someone else’s chocolate bar always has a few unpleasant nuts in it. The question becomes, are you allergic?
Regardless of whether Jill Stein’s call for a recount in Wisconsin, probably followed by some other close states, is justified or not, the Trump camp is displaying its immaturity WRT the democratic process in its response:
Former Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted on Thanksgiving that their opponents were being sore losers.
“Look who ‘can’t accept the election results’ Hillary Clinton Supporters Call for Vote Recount in Battleground States,” Conway wrote.
They should be applauding and encouraging the effort in the name of the people. A citizenry uncertain that its voice is being properly heard is a citizenry that may be so dissatisfied that it’ll rise up and take out those in power. It’s happened before, after all.
A word to the wise: that would be Trump and the GOP.
It’s been bad special effects night here as we viewed, with considerable nausea, Godzilla vs. Mothra (1992, aka Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth); in fact, I remarked during the credits that special effects had exactly one name, while Doctor Strange had something like 500 names in the special effects credits.
Just to confuse an already odd plot, a new kaiju, named Battra, makes an appearance, first in one form, apparently larval, and then, in the blink of an eye, into a flying kaiju; similarly, though with far more drama, Mothra transforms from larva to a spectacularly colored moth.
The first battle chases larval Mothra from his or her egg and out of the field of honor, as Godzilla and Battra (larval) have a go at it, and end up sinking together into a trench which begins leaking magma. Mothra then makes for Nagoya, where her singing caretakers are being held, and rescues them while flattening large portions of the city. This is followed by curling up on top of “the Capitol” (a Randian reference?) and transforming into the moth.
Meanwhile, Mt. Fuji begins to blow, and out of it hops Godzilla, who apparently swam through the magma, under the ocean floor, and to the sacred mountain; and then Battra comes swimming in and transforms into a sort of a flying … or perhaps it’s just a monstrous fly. First, it’s an everyone for themselves cage match, all the monsters exhibiting distance weapons guaranteed to turn the US Air Force green with envy. Battra starts by shooting up Mothra something fierce, but then Battra and Mothra join forces against Godzilla, eventually carrying him out to sea. Battra is expended in the effort (he or she is apparently filled to the brim with dijon mustard) and joins Godzilla in a watery grave.
MEANWHILE, the singing twins of Mothra reveal there’s a monster meteor headed for Earth. Battra was going to save the Earth, but now Mothra will do so. Why are we being told this? Oh, that’s right, a meteor started this entire mess by hitting the Earth and awakening Godzilla.
There’s nothing particularly good here. Best to watch this one if you have a severe headache and a requirement to see every single Godzilla movie ever made.
Doctor Strange (2016) is a Marvel Universe movie, and is fairly light – there are themes, of course, of narcissism and patience and, oh, something else should go here, maybe something about maturity is more than chronological age, but there’s nothing new or insightful.
No, the point is the light show. A rare movie that really benefits from the 3-D treatment, Doctor Strange brings a visual touch to every scene of drama, from fighting the bad guys with flowing cities to a simple car crash. If you’re a visually oriented person who found Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004) a fascinating junket, then you may find Doctor Strange another fascinating excursion – although they do not share the same artistic genre, as Doctor Strange is quite a modern piece, while Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow is undeniably an art deco-influenced visual delight.
The audio is mostly good, although I missed a couple of words in the climactic battle as they were badly slurred by the entity in question; there’s a sense of humor to the piece, an absolute necessity in superhero movies, as humor is one of the main supports of the suspension bridge of disbelief, and the audience laughed several times; and the dialog is adequate, if not sparkling.
Looking for something light and entertaining? You won’t be thinking about this an hour after you leave – but you may have fun while you’re in the cinema.
Bloomberg Law reports that SCOTUS has changed its mind and won’t hear a case that it had agreed to hear (granted certiorari in legalese):
The U.S. Supreme Court sent a clear signal on Nov. 17: No more bait-and-switch tactics.
The court “dismissed as improvidently granted” — or “DIG”ged — an antitrust case involving billions of dollars and household names like Visa, MasterCard, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase, Visa Inc. v. Osborn, U.S., No. 15-961, dismissed 11/17/16.
The court infrequently DIGs cases, and even more infrequently explains why.
But there was no mistake why the court tossed the the Visa case.
After having persuaded the court to grant certiorari on one issue, the “petitioner ‘chose to rely on a different argument’ in their merits briefing,” the court said. “The Court, therefore, orders that the writ in this case be dismissed as improvidently granted.”
The explanation suggests that the court is trying to “deter and shape” future practice in the high court, Michael Solimine of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Cincinnati, told Bloomberg BNA.
Or, as the late-Justice Antonin Scalia put it in a 2015 case, the court was trying “to deter future snookering.”
Billions of dollars possibly lost because those executing the appeal engaged in a dubious legal practice. I’ll bet that doesn’t go down well at the office, unless this was considered a very long shot. Big, big business doesn’t litigate with regard to the conceptst of justice, only with regard to the amount of money involved. When billions are involved, what’s a few million to lawyers who think this’ll work?
A pity entities with little concept of justice are still granted partial rights as persons. I still await Apple’s accession to a seat on SCOTUS. Say, maybe I should write a letter to President-elect Trump suggesting same …
From a reader:
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Julp53JWGrU
Nothing false but the speed!
[Edit – Sadly, the video seems to have been removed.]
Neoteny:
The retention by adults of traits previously seen only in the young is a subject studied in the field of developmental biology, occurring in two ways. In neoteny (/niːˈɒtᵻni/ /niːˈɒtni/[1][2][3] or /niːˈɒtəni/,[4] also called juvenilization),[5] the physiological (or somatic) development of an organism (typically an animal) is slowed or delayed. Neoteny is found in modern humans. [Wikipedia]
Seen in Discover.
The Schiaparelli probe was an ESA Mars probe which crashed 19 October 2016 while attempting to land. The ESA is working on understanding what went wrong:
Source: ESA
Good progress has been made in investigating the ExoMars Schiaparelli anomaly of 19 October. A large volume of data recovered from the Mars lander shows that the atmospheric entry and associated braking occurred exactly as expected.
The parachute deployed normally at an altitude of 12 km and a speed of 1730 km/h. The vehicle’s heatshield, having served its purpose, was released at an altitude of 7.8 km.
As Schiaparelli descended under its parachute, its radar Doppler altimeter functioned correctly and the measurements were included in the guidance, navigation and control system. However, saturation – maximum measurement – of the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) had occurred shortly after the parachute deployment. The IMU measures the rotation rates of the vehicle. Its output was generally as predicted except for this event, which persisted for about one second – longer than would be expected.
When merged into the navigation system, the erroneous information generated an estimated altitude that was negative – that is, below ground level. This in turn successively triggered a premature release of the parachute and the backshell, a brief firing of the braking thrusters and finally activation of the on-ground systems as if Schiaparelli had already landed. In reality, the vehicle was still at an altitude of around 3.7 km.
I wonder how they program these beasts – is this the result of engineers just writing code to handle envisionable scenarios, or are they built using neural networks and machine learning? They mention a computer simulation – I would have to think that one could cover most scenarios by varying the inputs to the simulator across entire ranges, evaluating the responses of the probe’s programs and modifying accordingly. At least that’s how I would have done it. This may lead to tens of thousands of scenarios, but computer cycles are generally cheap. And while atmospheric simulations are complex – even the thin Martian atmosphere is, no doubt, a bit of a challenge – actual orbital mechanics are mostly relatively simple math. (Beyond me, of course. Don’t ask me to solve the three body problem!)
Unless, of course, you inadvertently mix your measurement units. RIP1, Mars Climate Orbiter.
1That would be Rest In Pieces, of course.
Cognomen:
The term “cognomen” (sometimes pluralized “cognomens”) has come into use as an English noun used outside the context of Ancient Rome. According to the 2012 edition of the Random House Dictionary, cognomen can mean a “surname” or “any name, especially a nickname.”[4] So the basic sense in English is ‘how one is well known.’
Catalan cognom and Italian cognome, derived from the Latin cognomen, mean “family name.”
The term “cognomen” can also be applied to cultures with a clan structure and naming conventions comparable to those of Ancient Rome; thus, hereditary “cognomina” have been described as in use among the Xhosa (Iziduko), the Yoruba (Oriki), or the Zulu (Isibongo). [Wikipedia]
Used in Jack Vance’s The Killing Machine:
First: the Demon Princes are typified by grandeur. Consider the manner in which Kokor Hekkus gained his cognomen ‘The Killing Machine,’ …
Yep, I like Vance.
The Last Hurrah (1958) is a sprawling, dense movie, every moment packed with thought as an aging mayor (Spencer Tracy) handles the many duties in his New England city: constituent service, projects, funerals of leading citizens – and a re-election campaign which pits him against an inexperienced fool backed by sinister local powers who still see him as an outsider Irishman. We hear his pearls of wisdom, his insights into the duties of the mayor and the future of campaigning, his occasional strong-arm tactics, through the eyes of his nephew, a young man working as a journalist and currently employed by one of the mayor’s greatest enemies – a man quite irrational with the concept of privilege.
Perhaps the greatest lesson here is that a Mayor must understand what is best for the cities trailing citizens, not leading citizens – and to get the leaders to see what the downtrodden need and to prod them into doing it. The great failing of of the private sector is to focus on one’s own needs, and not see what others may need. The mayor, as a public servant, finds he needs to exert himself to better the city, even as the election comes close.
This is not an action thriller. There are no assassinations, bomb threats, or indeed anything beyond a snarl from men losing their privilege. But there is political intrigue, old-fashioned arm-twisting which still engenders resentment, even as it gets things done, and that’s where the interest in the film lies.
Even as ever-hostile fate closes in on him.
There’s little to criticize here, as the acting, story, and dialog are all very good. It is, definitely, a movie from another era – and, if you wish to sample such movies, this is a good place to start.
I’ve been mulling over a piece of mail I received a few days ago regarding Brandon Marshall:
Colin Kaepernick may have started the kneeling in protest of America’s national anthem, but Stephen Martin, owner of Prime Time Sports in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has started a patriotic rising unlike anything that’s ever been done before.
Martin first took a stand when NFL player Brandon Marshall refused to stand for the anthem. Immediately, Martin cancelled Marshall’s scheduled autograph signing event in his store. But he wasn’t done. He replaced the star’s event with something entirely different in his store, and in one week, it has grown to epic proportions that he can hardly even keep up with now.
He put out a post on Facebook, respectfully disagreeing with the disrespect of the nation’s flag and anthem, then proceeded to explain just what the flag means to him, and the sacrifice of all the men and women who have fought for it. Martin invited people to send photos of their loved ones who are veterans, in active service, or who have been injured or given their lives in the line of duty.
The photos started pouring in from all across the country, and as fast as they were emailed, Martin printed them off and taped them to his store front window. Americans are sharing their photos and stories on his Facebook page, as well as sending to him through email, and each day he has posted photos of the progress.
Getting past the obvious (and annoying) hyperbole, I cannot help but think that no one is really communicating here. Clearly, Mr. Marshall was attempting to communicate his disgust with the behaviors of too many members of one of the official organs of the American state: police.
Mr. Martin wrote a Facebook post (now inaccessible, according to one site I checked) explaining his position on the flag, which he’s apparently associating with the anthem, but since I can’t read it, it’s hard to evaluate. From the mail, I have chosen to conclude that the anthem & flag are inviolable in Mr. Martin’s mind, a position which hinders communication, as every action taken to disrespect the flag & anthem are now lumped into a single category, best labeled State blasphemy!, since men & women have died defending it. By being offended at any show of disrespect for an important symbol, there is little chance to communicate important observations and ideas; the attempts are ignored because, well, one’s feelings for the flag are far more important than anything else.
Today, I ran across this CNN report on recent activities at Hampshire College:
Hampshire College, a liberal arts institution of about 1,400 students, has taken some heat after deciding not to fly the US flag. A day after the presidential election, the Massachusetts college sided with students who lowered the flag to half-staff. The administration wanted to build student rapport and facilitate discussion on what the flag represents. That angered some people in the Amherst community, where the college is located. And when someone lit the campus’ US flag on fire November 10, many more pushed back after the college decided to do away with flying the American flag, at least temporarily.
But here’s what really caught my attention:
“Our goal is to give voice to the range of viewpoints on campus across cultures, and hopefully find common ground,” [school spokesman John] Courtmanche said in a statement. “We’ve heard from members of our community that, for them and for many in our country, the flag is a powerful symbol of fear they’ve felt all their lives because they grew up as people of color, never feeling safe. For others, it’s a symbol of their highest aspirations for the country.”
Emphasis mine. A simple school statement comes out so direct and elegant, doesn’t it? I don’t think Mr. Marshall disrespected the anthem & flag for the sake of being disrespectful, but because, for him and others of color, the symbol is a negative. I think Mr. Martin missed a wonderful opportunity to engage in a public discussion of why the flag can enrapture some, while fill others with fear. Instead, and discarding this opportunity to engage in hyperbole, Mr. Martin retreated to defending a quasi-absolute which, honestly, has no need for defense. I fear, in fact, that by retreating to a position of defending the flag, he and those who support him have disregarded the message, important as it is, while they hasten to print and tape up photographs of honorable servicemen. Indeed, it occurs to me that this might be best described as cheap victimization, a focus on anything other than the message.
I rather dislike the phrase “call for change” and its ilk, because change has no direction to it, so I’m going to impute to Mr. Marshall this: I think he was calling for improvement. The flag should stand for an America that is eternally improving, aspiring to be that shining city on a hill, and by disrespecting it, he is suggesting that America has obvious areas urgently requiring improvement. Mr. Martin missed his opportunity in order to engage in some meaningless patriotism.
Hampshire College did not miss that opportunity. When it comes to the highest ideals of college life, they did not fail. And, by their action, America will improve.
And here’s our dogwoods….
Lara Bazelon discusses in Slate the possible future behaviors of Chief Justice John Roberts of SCOTUS with regard to Roe v. Wade (abortion) and Obergefell (gay marriage), and pins her hopes on two points – stare decisis and his sense of legacy:
And yet. Roberts is not simply one justice out of nine; he is the leader of a court that will bear his name throughout his tenure. As chief justice, he has a unique responsibility to safeguard the integrity of the third branch of government. If the Supreme Court devolves into an ideological mouthpiece, as overtly political as Congress and the White House, Robert’s decade-long advocacy for judicial restraint and respect for precedent will be read as cant. Roberts himself will be seen as a hypocrite who put his personal preferences above the rule of law. History will view him as a failure.
And John Roberts does not intend to fail. He is keenly aware of his institutional role and he cares deeply about legacy—the court’s and his own. In 2007, when Jeffrey Rosen of the Atlantic asked Roberts to comment on the men who occupied this most rarified of roles before him, he replied, “It’s sobering to think of the seventeen chief justices; certainly a solid majority have been failures.” He went on to explain that these predecessors failed because they were overtly ideological; their members fractious, their opinions splintered and doctrinally unsound. He told Rosen, “I think it’s bad, long-term, if people identify the rule of law with how individual justices vote.”
I think this is a fair point. The SCOTUS has a certain reputation for impartiality that was left in tatters by Bush v. Gore, as Lara points out, and I think he may consider it a mission to restore the reputation of a court that has begun to feel like a microcosm of our societal struggles; after all, how many 5-4 decisions really make sense? Is the law that vague? Or so unjust? Letting it become a sock puppet blowing in the wind certainly runs the risk of it losing yet more prestige. On her second point:
During Roberts’ confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, he famously stated, “My job is to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.” The role, Roberts said, was important but also limited by stare decisis—a Latin phrase meaning “to stand by things decided.” He explained, “Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges.”
As Roberts later told Rosen, if he began every conference with his colleagues with an “agenda” about how to decide a case, they would dismiss him, and rightly so. Instead, he said, he had worked hard to earn the trust of the other members of the court by not being an ideologue.
Overturning years of precedent without an inarguable reason seems unlikely – but could happen. But hopefully not. It would be very good to see the inevitable test case get slapped down very hard.
The Guardian is reporting that, under a Trump Administration, NASA should never look back, only forward to outer space. That is, no more climate monitoring for NASA:
Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser [Bob Walker] on issues relating to the space agency has said.
Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century.This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2bn next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.
Some sort of bureaucratic reshuffling to satisfy someone’s lust for orderliness? Nope:
Walker, however, claimed that doubt over the role of human activity in climate change “is a view shared by half the climatologists in the world. We need good science to tell us what the reality is and science could do that if politicians didn’t interfere with it.”
However, research published on Skeptical Inquirer has indicated that it’s somewhere in the realm of 97% concur, 3% do not. I expect Planetary Report is not going to be happy about this, although their Casey Dreier has been bracing for it.
For those of us who enjoy extreme long shots, New York Magazine is reporting that …
Hillary Clinton is being urged by a group of prominent computer scientists and election lawyers to call for a recount in three swing states won by Donald Trump, New York has learned. The group, which includes voting-rights attorney John Bonifaz and J. Alex Halderman, the director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society, believes they’ve found persuasive evidence that results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been manipulated or hacked. The group is so far not speaking on the record about their findings and is focused on lobbying the Clinton team in private.
Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Marc Elias to make their case, according to a source briefed on the call. The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000. While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation, they are arguing to the campaign that the suspicious pattern merits an independent review — especially in light of the fact that the Obama White House has accused the Russian government of hacking the Democratic National Committee.
I checked on the blog of Beth Clarkson, a statistician I’ve quoted before, but no activity on her blog, and nothing apparent in the news. I’ve discussed my dismay at voting machines several times before in this thread.
My favorite extreme long shot would be the Electoral College voting for Clinton. Normally, I wouldn’t give this a chance in Hell, but this campaign season, it’d be the cherry on top of the whipped cream.
The L. A. Times is reporting a theory that the day President Kennedy died, he wasn’t the target – the target was Governor Connally, who was riding up front and was, in fact, hit as well. This is based partially on the repeated testimony of Oswald’s wife, and a page from a book found in Oswald’s apartment.
In the hours after the Kennedy assassination, after Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit and was identified as the president’s assassin, a Secret Service officer named Mike Howard was dispatched to Oswald’s apartment. Howard found a little green address book, and on its 17th page under the heading “I WILL KILL” Oswald listed four men: an FBI agent named James Hosty; a right-wing general, Edwin Walker; and Vice President Richard Nixon. At the top of the list was the governor of Texas, John Connally. Through Connally’s name, Oswald had drawn a dagger, with blood drops dripping downward.
It’s interesting stuff, but I am having trouble, as LBJ was Vice President at the time, and had been elected to the position in 1961; JFK died in latest 1963. My guess is that the conspiracy theorists will either ignore it or dispute the new theory vociferously, and perhaps use this oddity – perhaps the list was merely fairly old. Governor Connally assumed his position in 1963, but the list could have been assembled piecemeal. And this article is a secondary source, as it doesn’t reprint the page for examination – because it’s gone missing. Does it say Governor?
In the tradition of the best conspiracy situations, a key piece of evidence has gone missing. Interesting. Maybe Castro didn’t order the assassination after all.
Mark Sumner on The Daily Kos points out that the coal industry faces more than government regulations – it faces effective competition:
About 33 percent of all the electric power in the United States comes from burning coal. Which sounds like a lot, and it is. But here’s the thing—less than a decade ago, it was 50 percent. What happened in the interval wasn’t Obama starting up a war on coal. It was fracking for natural gas.
And coal jobs? They are well and truly fracked. Forever.
In that decade, fracking made natural gas cheap and abundant. It also made earthquakes common in some of the most previously stable regions of the nation, polluted aquifers, and had a marginal effect on climate change … but put that aside.
In the summer of 2008, natural gas cost over $12 per million Btu. That was about three times as much as the equivalent energy from coal. At the time coal was 50 percent of the nation’s electrical production. Natural gas, about 20 percent.
Gas has many advantages over coal. In particular, a gas-powered power plant can be built much more cheaply, at a smaller scale, and added to incrementally. Coal also has to be stockpiled on site, and the ash it produces has to be stored after it’s burned. Coal is simply a mess to deal with.
Plus, to be cost effective, a coal plant needs to be massive, and to operate for decades. The investment is in the billions. A gas plant can start off a thousand times smaller, grow slowly over time, and can potentially recoup its investment much more quickly. The investment is in the millions.
The American coal miners should think about getting out of the business, like the Aussies are working on.
On Lawfare, Susan Landau finds herself advocating for securing communications now that Donald Trump is the President-elect, and to objections that this will cripple national security, she has an answer:
Protecting the privacy of speech is crucial for preserving our democracy. We live at a time when tracking an individual—a journalist, a member of the political opposition, a citizen engaged in peaceful protest—or listening to their communications is far easier than at any time in human history. Political leaders on both sides now have a responsibility to work for securing communications and devices. This means supporting not only the laws protecting free speech and the accompanying communications, but also the technologies to do so: end-to-end encryption and secured devices; it also means soundly rejecting all proposals for front-door exceptional access. Prior to the election there were strong, sound security arguments for rejecting such proposals. The privacy arguments have now, suddenly, become critically important as well. Threatened authoritarianism means that we need technological protections for our private communications every bit as much as we need the legal ones we presently have.
Enabling encryption without exceptional access will not prevent law enforcement from doing its job. When the world went encrypted twenty years ago, the NSA claimed it was “going deaf.” But then the agency found other ways to collect intelligence (“NSA has better SIGINT than at any time in history,” according to its former director Mike McConnell). As many have observed, law enforcement will be able to find other ways to conduct investigations even without exceptional access.
Protecting our ability to communicate in private is vital. Congress must respond accordingly. Anything less threatens the very foundations of our republic.
Reminiscent of the libertarians claim that we’ll always find a way to get something done while lowering the cost, if only given the freedom to try. But it does become another piece of technology subject to failure and subversion, without the least little peep – at least for the non-specialist. It’ll be up to the specialists to make secure communications work with little or no notice by the users.
Sami Grover on Treehugger.com has news on the coal front:
Just as much of the world languishes in uncertainty over the future of a low carbon transition, the Globe and Mail reports that Canada steps up and announces an almost complete phase out of coal for electricity by 2030 at the latest. And this comes just a week after the UK confirmed its coal phase out plans, and France does too.
The France report catches me by surprise, so I checked it out. The Inertia‘s Alexander Haro provides some information:
François Hollande, the French President, stood in front of delegate at the UN’s annual climate change meeting and promised that France will have no coal-powered power plants by 2023.
Which makes sense – France is nuclear power rich, which is carbon-neutral once the plants are actually built. Until maintenance begins …
We have a couple of scandals today. First, CNN/Politics is reporting that Hillary won’t be locked up:
During the presidential campaign, President-elect Donald Trump pledged to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton, would join crowds of his supporters in chants of “lock her up!” and said to her face during a debate that if he were president, “you’d be in jail.”
But now that he actually will be president, Trump says he won’t recommend prosecution of Clinton, who he told New York Times reporters has “suffered greatly.”
What’s more, he said the idea of prosecuting Clinton is “just not something I feel very strongly about.” …
He said the issues have been investigated “ad nauseum” and he added, according to Haberman, that people could argue the Clinton Foundation has done “good work.”
Sort of a reverse scandal, which may cause a little disturbance in his more zealous followers.
And just now I see CNN/Politics reporting that Trump may be reversing his stand on climate change, which would be a great relief.
President-elect Donald Trump conceded Tuesday there is “some connectivity” between human activity and climate change and wavered on whether he would pull the United States out of international accords aimed at combating the phenomenon, which scientists overwhelmingly agree is caused by human activity.
The statements could mark a softening in Trump’s position on US involvement in efforts to fight climate change, although he did not commit to specific action in any direction. During the campaign, he vowed to “cancel” the US’s participation in the Paris climate agreement, stop all US payments to UN programs aimed at fighting climate change and continued to cast serious doubt on the role man-made carbon dioxide emissions played in the planet’s warming and associated impacts.
The report goes on to note that a noted climate change denier is involved in the transition efforts with regard to the EPA. This may be his way of changing his position from all out denial to something a lot softer. Given his propensity for lying, we may find out he lied to his own base even on strict ideological positions.
I must admit to a certain horrid fascination concerning his SCOTUS pick (aka the IJ). What if his pick were … reasonable? We might have to name him President Zagzig.
The other scandal has to do with Trump Foundation, as David Farenthold is reporting in WaPo:
President-elect Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has admitted to the IRS that it violated a legal prohibition against “self-dealing,” which bars nonprofit leaders from using their charity’s money to help themselves, their businesses or their families.
The admission was contained in the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s IRS tax filings for 2015, which were recently posted online at the nonprofit-tracking site GuideStar. A GuideStar spokesman said the forms were uploaded by the Trump Foundation’s law firm, Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.
The Washington Post could not immediately confirm if the same forms had actually been sent to the IRS.
In one section of the form, the IRS asked if the Trump Foundation had transferred “income or assets to a disqualified person.” A disqualified person, in this context, might be Trump — the foundation’s president — or a member of his family or a Trump-owned business.
The foundation checked “yes.”
My goodness. And the chant was “Crooked Hillary”, eh?
Recently, my Arts Editor and I spoke with an emigre from India, who told us about India’s decision to be rid of certain denominations of currency as those denominations are used to implement various corrupt practices. They are known as black money. Now LinkedIn publishes a column by Subodh Mathur, an economics professor, who suggests this particular choice may turn nasty for India:
In the meantime, there is a serious risk that demonetization will lead to a decline in the GDP. While we could analyze this policy intervention from a theoretical perspective, it is simpler to look at it from a common sense perspective.
The starting point is that many people will simply not declare the full amount of the black money that they have. Such a declaration would run the risk of further investigations by the Government about how the money was acquired in the first place. As a result, they will have less money to spend.
A considerable part of the black money is used to pay for luxury-type goods and services, such as weddings, vacations, eating out, jewelry, and expensive clothes. Consider the lavish expenditures on weddings – specially important because the wedding season is just ahead. Much of the expenditures on food, saris, jewelry, invitation cards, decorations, cars, etc. is paid for by black money.
And the ripples continue.
It’s an interesting commentary on the perceived size of the illicit markets – not illegal products, but untaxed. So, assuming this does happen, what’s driving this? A few years ago I read a fascinating book named Being Indian, by Pavan Varma, a former diplomat who had spent a lot of time outside the country, and as a result gained an interesting viewpoint on his own society. I don’t have it handy, but I do recall noting that the myths of India do not encourage following the rules. I’m still a little astounded at the size of the black economy implied.
