Author Archives: Hue White

CNN is reporting Tom Price has resigned as Secretary of HHS:

Tom Price, the embattled health and human services secretary, resigned Friday in the midst of a scandal over his use of private planes, a storm that enraged President Donald Trump and undercut his promise to bring accountability to Washington.

Price’s departure came as he’s being investigated by the department’s inspector general for using private jets for multiple government business trips, even to fly distances often as short as from Washington to Philadelphia. The cost for the trips ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And so he joins that exclusive club of The Fallen Mighty, Legislative Version. This Congress’s only prior member is Senator Luther Strange, now soon to be former as noted earlier.

Teetering on the edge? Interior Secretary Zinke, who is also entering into travel scandal territory.

I gotta wonder if the extreme right is feeling uneasy as its leading exemplars are proving to be rather incompetent in the very mechanics of their jobs. I’m afraid the government has a higher bar of ethical behavior than does the private sector, boys.

On Lawfare Daniel Byman provides a primer on the fissures in global jihad. Will we be seeing more caliphates in the future?

Questions of tatarrus or the precise line where apostasy begins and ends mean little to most foot soldiers. Data from captured Islamic State records showed that 70 percent of recruits claimed they had only a basic knowledge of Islam. But some of these questions have a tremendous impact on the appeal of different groups. The revival of the caliphate, for example, proved compelling to many recruits and, regardless of its perceived legitimacy among purists, the temptation to play this popular card will be there in the future.

It’s always tempting to urge the United States to try to play up these divisions, and I’ve done so myself at times. The U.S. track record of influencing the jihadist dialogue, however, ranges from poor to nonexistent, and deliberately trying to generate ever more extreme factions isn’t wise. But these internal fissures do hamper U.S. enemies and do some of the work for us. At the very least, they expend precious time and energy trying to one-up rival groups in their propaganda. At most, the differences lead to actual shots fired or recruits and donors being turned off by infighting.

These endless differences between the various sects of Islam that Daniel notes in the article has always indicated to me that there is always a necessary vigilance concerning the extremists with grievances, real or imagined, against the West, but there’s little to fear in terms of a united Islam crusading against the West. Between the usual burdens of the religious in general and the general loathing they have for each other, a united command appears to be out of the picture.

For that reason there’s little point in allowing ourselves to be distracted from other, more potent opponents, such as Russia, even in its current bedraggled state, North Korea, and what appears to be a highly rational China.

Steve Benen’s post concerning the tendency of the GOP to deny reality is dispiriting:

Up until recently, this analysis was publicly available through the Treasury. As the Wall Street Journal reported overnight, that analysis has now vanished – because it “contradicts Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s argument that workers would benefit the most from a corporate income tax cut.”

The paper was available on the Treasury website during the summer, and it wasn’t clear when it was removed or whether Treasury intended to publish a new analysis. Other technical papers from 2008 through 2016 remain on its site, along with working papers dating back to 1974.

For Mnuchin, it’s critical that people believe that a corporate tax break would benefit workers, which makes all of the evidence to the contrary quite inconvenient.

But that’s just today. What about yesteryear?

If this sounds vaguely familiar, it’s probably because the Bush/Cheney administration developed a reputation for pulling a similar trick.

In 2005, for example, after a government report showed an increase in terrorism around the world, the administration stopped publishing annual data on international terrorism. When the Bush administration was discouraged by data about factory closings, the administration announced (on Christmas Eve) it would stop publishing information about factory closings. When Bush’s Department of Education found that charter schools were underperforming, the administration sharply cut back on the information it collected about charter schools.

The small blob on the left is Ganymede. In case you’re wondering, yes, Ganymede whirls around Jupiter, like our Moon whirls around the Earth.
Image Credit & Copyright: Damian Peach/SEN

Maybe it’s just the engineer in me, but this unwillingness to face up to reality, in fact to disregard reality, is really disturbing to me. How can they expect to achieve what they promise if they refuse to take reality into account? It’s like trying to account for the motions of Ganymede without taking into account the enormous gravity of Jupiter!

So long as the GOP persists in believing its own ideology rather than the reality dug up by the experts, its attempts to accomplish its promises will fail – and unlike in the past, where they might be excused with ‘good try’ and all that – although that didn’t happen in 2008 after the start of the Great Recession – this time around their contempt for experts, so glowingly displayed by Trump and the Congressional GOP, should be remembered and held against them.

The Great Faker, I expect, will be done in by Fake News, both that of the real news organizations, as well as his own lies.

A reader remarks about that tree in the voting booth:

Sure, it’s crazy. But only slightly less crazy than personhood for corporations. Corporations are property, not persons. My garage does not get to vote, lobby, etc.

At the risk of being nit-picky, I do see a difference between a garage and a corporation – the former is a tangible object incapable of self-directed activities. The latter is an intangible social construct which can be said to be capable of self-directed activities.

Besides the obvious fact that people are tangible objects capable of self-directed activities, I’d argue that corporations fail this personhood test because their aggregate nature practically guarantees difference of opinion on many important issues. To suggest that they are eligible to contribute money to political causes despite those differences in opinion is fallacious; in reality, only those in control of the corporation will have their opinions implemented, effectively amplifying their opinions well beyond the reach of the common citizen.

This makes the position of Chairman of the Board or CEO that much more desirable.

I was going to write a bad poem to fit this space, as the picture is rather misleading: the leaf-fall would indicate a cool fall evening. But, in truth, the temperature was near 90°F and the humidity was high.

And it occurred to me that while we have photos for recording the visual features of reality, or in a more disinterested manner of speaking, a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, in other sensory matters we have not yet achieved a recording process of similar immediacy.

So when you look at these photos, you may think you can deduce other features from the visuals, yet you’d be wrong. And I lack the ability to really bring that odd juxtaposition of fallen, dead leaves, nutrients withdrawn from them, in the midst of temperate weather in which you’d expect them to luxuriate, smack dab into your living room.

So you’ll just have to take my drab word for it. Imagine hard.

In view of the recent report on the drop in nutrients in crops, this report from Science Magazine doesn’t seem like such a good idea:

The world’s first commercial plant for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air opened yesterday, refueling a debate about whether the technology can truly play a significant role in removing greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere.

The Climeworks AG facility near Zurich becomes the first ever to capture CO2 at industrial scale from air and sell it directly to a buyer.

Developers say the plant will capture about 900 tons of CO2 annually — or the approximate level released from 200 cars — and pipe the gas to help grow vegetables.

Unless the veggies are fixing the CO₂ in the ground rather than incorporating it into the plants themselves, as indicated in the initial post on this thread, this strikes me as little more than running in place. Of course, maybe they envisage burying the plants after growing them … sorry, no. They will think they can sell them and turn a profit while doing good.

Looks like fixing the environment will be harder than that. This sort of shallow thinking just isn’t going to cut it:

[Christoph Gebald, co-founder and managing director of Climeworks] and Climeworks co-founder Jan Wurzbacher said the CO2 could have a variety of other uses, such as carbonating beverages.

Kimberly Mok on Treehugger.com provides this video.

But the cameraman’s lurid fantasies of stardom were rebuffed again.

A sleepy little horror movie may be the most accurate description of The Black Sleep (1956). In 1872 a medical doctor, falsely accused and convicted of murder, is rescued from the impending gallows by another doctor who possesses the Black Sleep, a drug that causes a user to appear to be dead. When he awakens, having been spirited away by a voluble gypsy, he is recruited into helping his savior perform research on corpses.

He thinks.

We’re treated to the instructive horrors that occur when the rules of society are broken, as one man pursues a cure for that which is destroying what he loves the most, regardless of the cost in broken lives.

And when these lives are broken, they are quite dramatic, eventually redounding to evil consequence upon the progenitor of their foreshortened lives. Thus do we know that such laws of society are not mere arbitrary rules, but the bulwarks against disaster for us and our fellows.

And, for all that, it’s a bit boring.

Perhaps it’s a little early to note, but associating with Trump is rather like Chutes and Ladders. Consider the fate of Alabama Senator Luther Strange:

1. AG (Attorney General) for the State of Alabama.
2. Temporarily appointed to the Senate seat held by Jeff Sessions (more about anon).
3. And just last Tuesday, the loser of the GOP primary race for the permanent replacement of Sessions.

In a couple of months he’ll be out of work.

Or consider his predecessor, Jeff Sessions:

1. The distinguished Senator from Alabama, if holder of retrograde views on marijuana.
2. Nominated and confirmed as AG of the Nation, surely a high achievement.
3. Then: Hated and Despised by Trump after recusing himself from the Russian investigation.
4. Soon to be fired?

I’ve had a theory that Trump is so angry at him that he has NOT fired the man, simply so he couldn’t turn around and run for his old Senate seat again. Now that the primary is over, would Sessions run as an independent? Could he be elected even against a Democrat at this point?

And then there’s Dr. Tom Price, current HHS Secretary:

1. 12 years as Representative for Georgia’s 6th.
2. Selection as HHS Secretary.
3. Now caught up in a misuse of public funds scandal. His only hope is that his former colleagues continue to find ethics scandals to be invisible.

Will he have gone from Representative to Unemployed soon?

And an up and coming entrant might be Interior Secretary Zinke:

1. One term as the lone Montana Congressional representative.
2. Nominated and confirmed as Interior Secretary.
3. Has provoked outrage since taking over at Interior, which is not surprising since the League of Conservation Voters gave him a score of 4% during his tenure as Representative.

If he were tipped out of the Cabinet, he could run against current Montana Rep Gianforte – but he’d have to risk getting punched out, a sad ending to his short and undistinguished political career. “Bounced by Gianforte” is not a good political epitaph.

All in all, it’s beginning to look like associating with Trump is equivalent to getting the Black Death.

Apparently I’m completely out of the loop when it comes to shame. In this article from The Guardian concerning the importance of sleep, author Matthew Walker sets me straight on how I should feel about sleep if I’m going to be part of Brit culture:

But Walker believes, too, that in the developed world sleep is strongly associated with weakness, even shame. “We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness. We want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep we’re getting. It’s a badge of honour. When I give lectures, people will wait behind until there is no one around and then tell me quietly: ‘I seem to be one of those people who need eight or nine hours’ sleep.’ It’s embarrassing to say it in public. They would rather wait 45 minutes for the confessional. They’re convinced that they’re abnormal, and why wouldn’t they be? We chastise people for sleeping what are, after all, only sufficient amounts. We think of them as slothful. No one would look at an infant baby asleep, and say ‘What a lazy baby!’ We know sleeping is non-negotiable for a baby. But that notion is quickly abandoned [as we grow up]. Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason.” In case you’re wondering, the number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without any impairment, expressed as a percent of the population and rounded to a whole number, is zero.

I try to get 8 a night and I make no bones about it. Maybe this “sleep isn’t for the rough and tough” isn’t an American thing? But then, a substantial portion of the American population works more than 50 hours a week, and many keep their cellphones near their beds just in case some work-related item comes in at 3am.

Since I’m talking about it, what are the estimated costs of not getting your 8 hours a night?

“No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation,” he says. “It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you ever see an NHS poster urging sleep on people? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritised, even incentivised. Sleep loss costs the UK economy over £30bn a year in lost revenue, or 2% of GDP. I could double the NHS budget if only they would institute policies to mandate or powerfully encourage sleep.”

2% of American GDP? The World Bank estimates American GDP at $18.57 trillion, so 2% of that is … $.371 trillion. Or $371 billion?

Seems a bit amazing. Maybe I did my math wrong.

Any American readers think sleep is a sign of weakness?

Steve Benen’s post seeking to affix blame to Trump for the failure of the healthcare bill – much to Steve’s relief – is neglectful of one of the key players to fail in this little drama.

Speaker of the House Ryan.

I think it’s important to remember that Speaker Ryan’s primary achievement in this debacle was to deliver a terribly flawed bill that was built in an unprofessional manner, so awful that Ryan had to promise dubious Representatives that the Senate would improve it into something they would not feel shame over.

Well, I don’t know how the GOP representatives are feeling, but if I were one of them I’d be toting up my current losses vs my potential losses and giving a sigh of relief that all of the bastard children of infamy in the Senate failed by the grace of a few GOP Senators who know how the chamber should be run – and isn’t.

The undeliberate way the most deliberative body in the world has operated since the GOP took over the White House isn’t just a scandal, but indicative of the deep rot that seems to lie at the heart of the GOP. I shan’t indulge my proclivities towards speculation on that topic, because I want to bring a focus back on Speaker Ryan, whose style of passing the initial healthcare legislation seemed to be more in the way of childishly pleasing some unnamed master than deliberate and sober governing.

It is, in fact, his responsibility to pass legislation that is as good as it can be. Not dumb slop that hurts families across America, because governing, once again, is not a game. It’s one of the highest responsibilities a citizen can assume, and Speaker Ryan is not building a distinguished record, but rather a record of how not to behave.

McConnell, much like Ryan in that he seems to be trying to please some unnamed master, and Trump certainly have their own severe blots, but the Senate’s preeminence in the recent news should not be permitted to let Ryan escape blame and responsibility. In my view, his constituents should be letting him know right now that his performance, both in terms of what he wants to pass, as well as how he’s proceeding, has been absolutely terrible and unworthy of the office.

When will the Speaker begin to take his position seriously? When he’s face down in the gutter, wondering what just happened to him on Election night?

When you’re a citizen of a nation that has been a legitimate leader, and humanity’s faced with one of our greatest challenges ever, reading this does hurt.

Most of this investment has been domestic, but China is now looking to sell its green tech to the rest of the world. In doing so, the nation steps into the climate leadership void left by the US under President Donald Trump. As Trump pursues an “America First” strategy and sings the praises of “beautiful, clean coal”, China is looking for ways to collaborate with other countries on tackling climate change. [ “Why China’s green ambitions will make it the next world leader,” Alice Klein, NewScientist (16 September 2017, paywall)]

Later:

Tim Buckley at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in Sydney, Australia, agrees. “China wants to dominate industries of the future while the governments of the US and Australia want to dominate industries of the past.”

Look, when you were one of the early ones to get a personal computer – to actually buy it in kit form and assemble it, an Heathkit H-89 – a certain mindset comes with that, a mindset that tries to see what’s coming next. Not necessarily to benefit from it, although that can be part of it through investment, but to understand how the future is going to be shaped, how the nearly undetectable trend of today will be the tsunami of tomorrow.

Mr. Buckley’s quote is very dispiriting. It suggests our leaders are not up to the challenge of tomorrow. They may have mastered yesterday, but the cessation of the Obama Administration appears to have announced the beginning of being a second-banana country, as our amateur President, all prickle and Hollywood, incurious and one of the most shallow people around, can only think of profit and military might.

Unfortunately for him, that’s the glitter, not the bones of greatness. We appear to be burdened with a great many people who’ve learned how to sell themselves to the masses, but don’t understand the necessity of wise and far-sighted governance.

And, unless we can shake off this frantic inward-turning, the desperation for stasis and past glories, we will, indeed, become one with the past, another member of the has-beens and also-rans.

Even liberal democracy might go that route. If the Chinese can offer hope, can “rescue the world”, as the article mentions, perhaps their governmental system will win out over ours. And then we can shit-can ours, move on to being a third-rate theocracy, and start killing each other over imagined supernatural peculiarities.

Again.

Antediluvian:

The Antediluvian (alternatively Pre-Diluvian or Pre-Flood, or even Tertiary) period (meaning “before the deluge”) is the time period referred to in the Bible between the fall of humans and the Noachian Deluge (the Genesis Flood) in the biblical cosmology. The narrative takes up chapters 1–6 (excluding the flood narrative) of the Book of Genesis. The term found its way into early geology and lingered in science until the late Victorian era. Colloquially, the term is used to refer to any ancient and murky period. [Wikipedia]

Used in this 9 Chickweed Lane comic.

I’ve been pondering how to translate my gut feeling about the NFL players kneeling during the anthem.  I’ve talked about it before (here and here), and then I ran across David Frum’s take on it in The Atlantic:

In the Civil War anthem, “Marching Through Georgia,” the stars and stripes is described as “the flag that makes you free”—but for most of the previous three-quarters of a century, it was anything but. It was the flag that flew over slave ships until 1808, the flag under which federal marshals enforced this country’s fugitive slave acts before the Civil War. Only the Civil War changed that flag’s character. Indeed, as Adam Goodheart observes in his remarkable history, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, it was not until the Civil War that the habit spread of flying the flag over private as well as federal buildings. It exacted hideous quantities of blood, from black and white soldiers alike, to wash that flag clean of its former meanings.

Maybe the washing has never been completed, and possibly it never will be. But that’s no reason to resign the flag and the anthem to the president. Colin Kaepernick has better right to that flag and anthem than Donald Trump. Why concede that right? Assert it.

Don’t take the knee. Stand for the flag; hand on heart for the anthem—and then put your signature to the demand that this least American of administrations be investigated down to its bottomest murk and filth.

Which isn’t quite what I was thinking, but is certainly an honorable shot at it. I’d say this to the outraged patriot:

You are outraged that the flag is so dishonored, and in your eyes it no doubt it is, as to you the flag stands for freedom from oppression, governmental and religious.

But I say to you, my friend, that you haven’t walked in the others’ shoes, and if you were to do so, you wouldn’t see the freedom you love and fought for waving on that field of stars, with those Revolutionary bars, but the hard faces of the police, pulling your car over because it’s above your station, and shooting you in the back as that fear nesting in your guts busts your self-control, and your flying heels are finally stilled by the cops’ flying lead. You’d see the empty refrigerator, the hungry infant, and the hopeless brothers, still defiant, like those Americans of yore, in the face of hopeless power.

This is the flag, do you see?

From the time when their ancestors were dragged screaming into the holds of the slavers, there to learn the ways of the whip, that was the flag for them, waving over that beautiful masted ship in the African harbor, soon to fly over the sea to the auctioneers’ cruel podium.

Then on to cruel masters, and the scent of revolution in the air.  Not that of Washington and Jefferson, no, nor that of Davis, but a revolt of those very cattle the masters thought to use for their own pecuniary advantages.  They were stripped of that so-vaunted Liberty that this flag stood for.  The masters of the flag, fearful of uprising, until those slaves were stripped and whipped and killed, simply as an example.

This is the flag, do you see?

Then that symbol was waved in their faces for brief, luscious moments, and heroes arose; Carver, Tubman, and Douglass, iron spines they had, and minds to match. But the doors clashed shut, and despite their desperate efforts to find a place, to lend a hand, to serve next to you, rare was that accepted.  Their fighting for Pershing met with the jeers of provincials, afraid of the competition. Along came yet another war, and still the restraints held, although the wisest of the wise cried out for the escorts of the 99th Fighter Squadron.

But then, even our children said they could not stand to be in the same classroom as those little black kids.  It was all so terrible, having to share.  And so they were shut away and fed inferior education, because, well, maybe the different are dangerous and unworthy. And they had to endure the random fury of the white madmen, killing them for no reason, falling from the trees, it’s a circus, isn’t it, to watch your relatives jerk and shout at the end of that baleful rope.

This is the flag, do you see?

And along came Vietnam, and who served the most? Not those of privileged houses, scions of war-like families? No, you have the means to avoid active duty.  But the black man had little choice but to serve in this war of collective madness and paranoia, so many flags waving in parades and planes and shells and napalm, covering up the cripples and dead civilians and the hatred engendered by the invading blessed country. So many lost to enemy and gang, the collective bleed is an outrage to see.

This is your flag, can’t you see? Are you so proud of it now, as it flies in the lee?  Is their outrage such a mystery? Do you feel the blood between your toes, their borrowed shoes brimming with the leavings of those wrapped in the flag?

And yet, can you see, even today, their desire is the same as yours – a just flag – a flag to honor and love – and a symbol of all those ideals which can make us great?

This is our flag, but it must stand for the same things. Are you willing to work for that vision? Or will you, yes, you, dishonor it by spitting and disrespecting those who’ve paid so much more than you, and look with sad, tired eyes to a future without gleam?

Back at the start of this blog I opened a casual contest dependent on some visual humor, but no one came up with an answer.

So here’s another one. No prizes, but I’ll publish any winning entries, along with the more amusing mistaken guesses. Use the email link on the right; posting to Facebook will give the game away.  So, what phrase does this picture describe?

I’ll try to get to this on Sunday evening, although that promises to be a busy night for other reasons.

For those desiring more information on former Alabama Judge and GOP nominee to replace Jeff Session’s Alabama Senatorial Roy Moore, The Week has a short profile. The salient feature for me?

Moore has repeatedly made clear his belief that if the Bible conflicts with the laws of the United States, “God’s laws are always superior to man’s laws.”

Old readers of this blog will understand why I say this puts shivers down my spine; new readers should read this, particularly the history section. That quote is emblematic of a man who falls into the category of believing his judgment is better than that of the collected judgments of his fellows, and has to fall back on the authority of a supernatural creature to be convincing, since he lacks the intellectual firepower to back up his position in any rational manner.

It’s also the attitude of a man who would be King – ruthless to those who differ from him in arbitrary theological positions, as well as those who diverge wholly from his self-sanctified views. I suspect, merely on general grounds, that he would admire Lord Cromwell, infamous religious bigot.

In short, someone who would cheerfully burn at the stake anyone he dislikes.

In the wake of Trump’s announcement of his plan to visit Puerto Rico, all I can think is how this will delay and perturb the disaster recovery operations.

I’ll give you a pass on going, Mr. Trump. Your time is better spent arranging to send useful resources to that battered island.

And perhaps consider making them a State. Now wouldn’t that be an accomplishment? Although it’s not entirely clear that a substantial majority of Puerto Ricans actually want the territory to be a State.

In any case, stay away. I shan’t make fun of you for not going.

On Lawfare former White House Counsel Bob Bauer discusses the implications of Trump’s consistent denials of Russian interference in the Presidential election which brought him to power:

In the past week, the president restated his view that assertions of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election are a “hoax.” He has said this before. In repeating himself on the topic, including at a political rally on Saturday in Alabama, he is doing more than ignoring the evidence that has emerged over the months of Justice Department and congressional investigations, in investigative reporting, and in Facebook’s recent disclosures about Russian-financed campaign advertising. He is denying the evidence. He is saying that beliefs about Russia electioneering are untrue. And he is making a still broader claim: that any claim to the contrary is a hoax—a deliberate deception or fraud.

This is a serious move, not one to be dismissed as mere political positioning. It matters that a president charged with faithfully executing the laws deliberately and continuously misrepresents to the public the grounds for an ongoing criminal investigation. And it is not a course he can pursue without consequences for his personal exposure in the investigation or in an impeachment proceeding.

In other words, denying known truths is a hazardous route to take in our Constitutional system. But I wonder if Bauer is giving Trump too much credit here:

The lawyers around the president, including both personal and government lawyers, cannot conceivably imagine that the president can engage free of risk in this attempted deception. It is reasonable to assume, or to hope, that they counseled to him to stop. He won’t, and one is left to speculate about the reasons. It may be that the president is keeping the foundation laid for firing Robert Mueller, whom he might decide to charge with the leading role in the “hoax.” While at the moment the president’s lawyers profess a commitment to cooperate with the probe, they have also reportedly examined grounds on which Mueller might be terminated. So they may be content to let their client assail the “hoax” and continue feeding doubt about the special counsel’s integrity and mission.

I think it’s become clear that President Trump does little planning, preferring to take actions “off the cuff”, as they say; cleanup is left to subordinates. Given the number of lawsuits he’s faced over the years, it’s not clear that his personal style has worked particularly well in the private sector; in the public sector, if Congress had competent GOP members, it could well be a disaster. Given the behavior of Congress in regards to the President, however, I’m not sure Trump needs to worry until after the mid-terms.

A while back I mentioned there was development proceeding on electric jets. Now an airline has decided to get involved, as reported by CNN:

Major European carrier EasyJet announced Wednesday that it is teaming up with U.S. startup Wright Electric to build an all-electric airliner.

The aircraft they have in mind would handle short routes of 335 miles or less — think New York to Boston or London to Paris.

EasyJet, a budget airline that specializes in shorter flights, said the new aircraft would cover 20% of its passenger journeys.

The airline said it has been working closely with Wright Electric this year and it hopes to have an electric commercial aircraft flying in the next decade.

Less pollution, especially at altitude, where there is a unique set of vulnerabilities. But will the new jets be comparable in terms of safety?

Sami Grover on Treehugger.com is less than enthusiastic:

That said, it’s important to note a fairly major caveat: The routes they are currently talking about are London to Paris, or Edinburgh to Bristol, both of which have regular, direct rail services that—when electrified and run efficiently—would have significantly lower emissions than launching a heavy metal tube full of people into the atmosphere at high speed.

Still, I don’t see airplanes going away anytime soon. So I suspect we should welcome this ambitious move. I just hope it doesn’t blunt the momentum from planes to trains that the UK has seen in recent years.

Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore won the GOP primary leading to the seat formerly held by current Federal AG Jeff Sessions last night, and did so handily, according to NBC News:

Moore’s victory over Strange was a landslide — 54.6 percent (262,204 votes) to 45.4 percent (218,066 votes), with 100 percent of the vote counted — despite Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell having taken extraordinary measures and spending millions of dollars trying to knock back the twice-removed former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

So what are the motivations of the primary voters. Does Moore’s strong religious predilections suggest the Alabama GOP wants to replace American government with a Christian theocracy?

Or is this more properly a rejection of President Trump’s selection of Strange, indicating a waning of Trump’s influence? Despite Trump backing Strange, Moore indicated he is loyal to Trump, so this scenario may be somewhat problematic. NBC News reports on this topic:

Cygnal, a GOP consulting firm based in Alabama, commissioned a poll and found that “Trump’s endorsement does not appear to have impacted the race,” the firm’s Matt Hubbard wrote in a memo shared with NBC News.

Most voters polled said they were not influenced by Trump, and those that did were equally likely to say it pushed them toward Moore — perhaps because of Trump off-hand comment at the Huntsville rally last Friday to back Strange that he “might have made a mistake” in supporting him.

Still, comments like that let Trump hedge his bets considerably and convinced Moore supporters that he only backed Strange under duress from McConnell.

Or a dislike of the manner in which Strange acquired the job in the first place, in which as Alabama AG he was investigating the then-Alabama governor, who then appointed him to the post? In this scenario, we’d have to accept that twice being ejected from the Supreme Court for ethics violations is better than accepting the bribe of the Senatorial seat – the latter an unproven charge.

Or was it merely another incident of an intensely interested faction overwhelming the general good sense of the electorate because the latter couldn’t be bothered to actually vote?

But in an election in which fewer than three in 20 voters were expected to turn out, according to the secretary of state, the anti-establishment mood and Moore’s enthusiastic base, including the evangelical community, trumped Trump’s endorsement.

“Roy Moore, at least to a very large minority of the Alabama population, is an absolute folk hero,” said Quin Hillyer, a conservative commentator and former Alabama congressional candidate.

In the end, that may be the most accurate evaluation. Moore will now have to campaign for the entire electorate, not just the GOP voters, and the substance of his campaign should be quite interesting. Will he continue to exhibit the attitude that his religious beliefs trump Federal law? If so, then the result of the election campaign against Democrat Doug Jones, a former U.S. attorney, may signal how Alabama’s feeling about being part of a secular union – if significant numbers of voters turn out. But, since this will be a special election, I suspect the numbers will be low.

I expect Moore to defeat Jones as those who think we need Yet More Religion in government will turn out en masse, and too many of the voters in Alabama who do not share this fascination with the deeply religious will find something better to do that day.

Tawdry:

cheap and gaudy in appearance or quality; also :ignoble

• tawdry attempt to smear his opponent

[Merriam-Webster]

Just for fun, since I used it in this post.

Think buying in bulk is a good thing? Think again, says Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com:

The whole system is designed for and biased toward people who live in suburbs.

They are big boxes surrounded by a sea of parking and if you don’t have a car you are really out of luck. But out there, the bigger the SUV, the luckier you are; you can fill it with bargains.
…

It’s grossly unfair to poor people.

They often don’t have cars, and they often live day to day, so they can’t plan on buying a year’s worth of toilet paper. So they go to the bodega and pay ridiculous prices. Sure, it costs more to run a small store downtown than a big box, but the difference in price per unit that people pay shopping for small packages in the bodega compared to the big package in the big box is shocking.

A lot of it is wasted, a lot of it is second rate, and doesn’t save you any money at all.

We have this jug of dishwashing detergent from Costco that my daughter bought last year and it smells so toxic we won’t use it and I am taking it to the dump. This isn’t saving money. Katherine made suggestions for buying in bulk but, over time, some of them deteriorate; beans get stale, pasta gets bugs, and olive oil is better fresh.

If you don’t already have it, you can’t get it, in some ways.

A friend sent this to me:

And the text at this heretofore unknown web site for Minnesota?

The Land of 10,000 Lakes is consistently included in the list of least tax-friendly states for retirees. The state even taxes social security benefits. Even other retirement income like military, government, and private pensions are taxable. While the average household income for individuals 65 and older, which is at 13.7% below the U.S. average, is beneath the thresholds for highest tax bracket, the cost of living in Minnesota is way above average. Even lifetime health care and median home value for people 65 and older are higher than the national average.

To which I think the best reply is TANSTAAFL –There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. In other words, if all you do is focus on your money and how much taxes are in various places, you might as well go live in a sod hut in East Bumphuck, North Dakota, where the night’s entertainment consists of shooting at the pocket gophers. You can keep all your money and you might as well sleep in it, too, because that’s all it gets you.

Or you can live here in Minnesota, where there are farms, fair-sized cities, cinemas, theatre, and all sorts of things to do – and you don’t end up dealing with hurricanes and earthquakes.

At least, not yet.

Peevish, I am, about the constant worship of money, and the bulging eyes about taxes like these guys. No sense of proportion.

If you haven’t heard about the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, it’s a way to get around the requirement to amend the Constitution in order to abolish the Electoral College. Instead, once the winner of the national popular vote is known, states that are part of this Compact will automatically allocate all of their electoral votes to the winner.

Once enough states have joined the compact to constitute 270+ electoral votes, game over for the Electoral College. I assume there’s something in the compact about “faithless electors”.

Minnesota is not part of the compact.

More here.