Here’s another fashionable article about green energy. It appeared yesterday on the Bloomberg web site, in the “Green” section. Bloomberg.com, as you may know, is the corporate and media aspect of billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s empire. It pretty much reflects Mr. Bloomberg’s world view, which is very pro-business and pro-wealth, but mixed with a tincture of liberal concern and even a bit of corporate “wokiness” of late. So of course there is a “Green” division of Bloomberg Media, which reports on climate change and how business is adapting to modern environmental concerns. And why not, given that there is money to be made by somebody!
Given all of that, I wasn’t too surprised to learn from the title of this article that “Replacing Coal Plants With Renewables Is Cheaper 80% of the Time”. And as if that wasn’t enough, the subtitle goes on to tell us “A new report shows that the economics may not even support running U.S. coal plants, let alone building them.” Wow, sounds like the revolution is under way! If the economics now line up so powerfully in favor of green energy, then who needs AOC (Congresswoman Andrea Ocassio-Cortez) and Bernie (Vermont Senator) and their “Green New Deal”? It’s all over but the shouting (and maybe a few billion dollars of financing deals and construction projects) . . .
In a nutshell, this article reports on the results of a recent report from a non-partisan climate and energy research group called Energy Innovation. The first few paragraphs of the article make it sound like the end is nigh for fossil fuels. » continue reading …
NY Times columnist Tom Friedman just had a very good article on whether a war with China is inevitable, as retired Admiral James Stavridis and former Marine and intelligence officer Elliot Ackerman forecast in their new best-seller “2034: A Novel of the Next World War“.
From the title, it’s obvious that Stavridis and Ackerman are positing a war with China occurring in 13 years. But why not now, given all of the sabre-rattling military exercises that the Chinese have been holding near Taiwan? Some US naval experts predict that China will start the invasion (and presumably a big war with the US) before 2034; earlier this year, US Admiral Philip Davidson, former commander of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, stated that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) could attack Taiwan within six years – by 2027. Shortly thereafter, his replacement, Admiral John Aquilino, testified before Congress that China might attack even sooner than that — “closer than most think“.
Friedman gives a good reason why it may take over a decade for China to make its move. They aren’t likely to start a fight with us until they are confident about winning. In recent years, they have invested a lot into their military, and many believe that they are reaching parity with the US in terms of military capability. But Friedman makes the point that they still have one area of deficiency; their industrial economy » continue reading …
What will be the long-term effects of COVID on the nations of the world? Aside from the price in lives and suffering, it will obviously sap a lot of economic wealth from most of the nations of the world. How will that change the course of history in coming years?
Europe, USA — big hit, big deficits
Russia — probably also got pulled down, will lose economic and hopefully military power
Third world — set back by many years
Asian nations — not as bad as the west, but still many costs
China — unfortunately, they got out quickest and recovered the soonest. SO, it appears possible that China’s strength and position in the world will be strengthened relative to the US, Europe and fellow Asian nations; it will gain more military strength and be even more dangerous and domineering.
I haven’t said much about the current nationwide discussion on race that arose in the wake of the George Floyd killing. I did post a recent blog on Robin DiAngelo’s critique of white fragility, given that her book has taken on an enlarged role in this discussion of late. So I am now going to say a few more things — but mainly about Professor John McWhorter’s reaction to DiAngelo. To me, McWhorter maps out a road to reason, something quite welcome in these not-very-well-reasoned times.
I first became interested in American racial issues as a senior in high school, 2 years after the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I have written on the matter of racial relations a fair amount in this blog. I can’t say that I’ve devoted my life to social justice, but I did get involved with a handful of related organizations and causes over the past 40 years. Yes, you can find various traces of white fragility and privilege and implicit bias in me. I’m not perfect, I don’t pretend to be. But I can say that I am concerned, and have been for a long time.
To be honest, I haven’t been all that interested in writings and literature by white authors about “the white problem” regarding race. I have listened a bit to voices like TaNeshi Coates and more recently, Ibram X. Kendi; but as to Robin DiAngelo, I scarcely knew who she was until just a few weeks ago. And that was only because I was reading a reaction to her writings by a black author — the indomitable John McWhorter. » continue reading …
I’m glad to see that Joe Biden won the election and will be the next President, come late January. I’m not so sure that there weren’t any significant voter irregularities or fraud in this election, given all of the mail-in ballots and new rules and procedures that were quickly implemented in the wake of the COVID pandemic. But I doubt if they will make a difference, despite all of Mr. Trump’s efforts in court (and I agree that Trump and the GOP should get its day in court). It’s a good sign so far that Trump doesn’t appear to be stirring up white nationalist groups in preparation for a violent putch. And it doesn’t look as if GOP state legislators have the appetite for violating long tradition and sending a pro-Trump delegation to the Electoral College in states where Biden won, however narrowly. The GOP may not yet be done with Donald Trump (unfortunately), but for now Trump is a sinking ship; even if most of the rats on board are sitting tight for now, none of the shore-side rats are jumping on.
But still, the Democrats didn’t do very well overall on Election Day. There have been many articles about this over the past few weeks (here’s a good one), citing disappointing Senate race results, loss of seats in the House, GOP gains with minority voters, and unfavorable net results on the state legislature and state governor levels.
My one contribution to this is a quick and dirty summary of how the Electoral College map changed for both parties as a result of the 2016 and 2020 elections. Here is my summation: » continue reading …
OK, this is about racism; but as with Robin DiAngelo, I am going to be talking to my fellow white Euro-heritage Americans. However, contra Robin, I am going to focus mainly on the “woke”, including Ms. DiAngelo herself. And less-so on the elite-but-not-yet-woke and the not-so-elite anti-woke, i.e. those who Robin DiAngelo would lecture to.
IMHO, it’s time for progressive-minded whites who worry about privilege and “fragility” (as per DiAngelo’s book) to stop the fashionable accusations and the hairshirt exercises, and get serious about the brass tacks of a public policy response to the historic injustices that have been done to African Americans on American soil since 1619. (But no, I’m not buying into the NY Times 1619 Project and its contention the primary inspiration for the British colonization of North America and the following independence of the United States was the preservation and expansion of African slavery – although slavery no doubt had some part in the thoughts and actions of the founding fathers. Even if 1619 is not what America is all about, which I believe, it certainly is the year when African slaves were first brought to American soil by the British – and isn’t that bad enough, in and of itself? Yes, it is bad — but that doesn’t mean that America is irreparably bad and beyond future improvement).
I’m tired of reading CNN articles or hearing progressive white scholars say “Liberal cities such as Minneapolis, and the liberals living within them, » continue reading …
Back in November, Scientific American ran an article about a computer model that a research team at Tufts University used to simulate and research the economic processes that drive the inequalities in income and wealth of individuals, families and households in modern industrialized nations having capitalist market economies. The article was written by Prof. Bruce Boghosian, one of the leaders of this team.
By studying the results from this model after running it with a variety of hypothetical and historical data inputs, the researchers found that concentration of wealth is mostly inevitable in modern market-oriented nations. However, wealth redistribution mechanisms can mitigate the severity of concentration and prevent extreme oligarchy. A “redistribution mechanism” is something like Robin Hood; it takes from the rich and gives to the poor (or intends to, but is often misused by those who aren’t poor).
An example would be the progressive tax system, whereby the rich are subject to higher taxes on income, while the poor pay less (or nothing). The poor also benefit more than the rich from government spending on subsidized housing, subsidized health care (e.g. Medicaid), low-income tax credit cash refunds, etc. Some nations have more generous redistribution mechanisms while others have more stingy ones (redistribution is usually the province of the government, although voluntary charity and philanthropy can also have a redistribution effect). Obviously, American’s “social safety net” has been getting more and more stingy in recent decades. » continue reading …
While looking through my stamp collection recently, I thought to myself “this arrangement looks pretty nice”. So I got out my camera and snapped a few shots, and have attached more of them below. I started collecting stamps when I was in grammar school, maybe around 1963. My mother had occasionally saved “plate blocks” of commemorative stamps since the late 50s; being a young space geek, I got interested myself when the 4 cent commemorative for Project Mercury came out. My mother thus let me walk down the street to the local post office with a quarter or two in my pocket.
Once I got thru the door and up to the counter (ah, I still remember the cool and slightly musty air and the grim seriousness of the décor), I would ask Mr. Stanton, the regularly assigned postal clerk, if he had any new commemoratives. Sometimes he did, and I » continue reading …
My office recently started bringing people back on a regular basis, although for now most are alternating between a week from home and a week in the office. Most of us were ordered in mid-March to work from home until further notice; I lasted to March 20 before I was told to go home. But now the place is coming back to life, even if it won’t be at full speed anytime soon. Even though I occasionally stopped by my office for an hour or two over the past 3 months, the place mostly seemed like a “dead ship”.
Now I will be there for full days, even if not 5 days a week. So on Monday it was time to get my office calendar updated. When I arrived, I noticed that I hadn’t changed the calendar page since April. It’s as if time stood still. I took down the pages for April, May and June, and then wondered — where did the time go? It’s like COVID just sucked them up and made them disappear. Before I threw out these sheets, I took a pic, as a tribute to the “lost months” of 2020.