white night

I am a white male American.  But I am struggling to think of white Americans as good people.

The catastrophe of a Trump presidency was produced by a majority of white Americans voting for him.  Everyone else did not.  Many whites of course voted against him, though a definite minority.  More white Americans did not vote at all, enabling his win.

Millions of non-whites now tremble in fear across the nation.  Immigrant families feel under siege.  Black Americans feel even more targeted for police brutality and vigilantism.  Women feel sexual predation and sexual violence are now normalized.  Gays feel threatened.   Schools are filled with newly enabled bullies.  Swastikas springing up.  An energized KKK plans rallies.  Journalists under attack.  A hateful antisemitism is now ordinary.  Muslims or anyone who even looks Muslim are attacked, harassed, intimidated.

Our allies and trade partners stare at us, transfixed.  Aghast.  Billions across the globe are now gravely concerned about a crumbling defense order that protects them against aggression and even nuclear war.  Democracies across the planet worry that the pattern set now by Trump and America will take root in their nations, unraveling their societies.  Autocrats and dictators across the world gleefully make plans patterned on Trump's tactics.  All the gains made against global climate change are being rapidly rolled back, ensuring misery for billions, generation upon generation.

Who made this possible?  Who caused this?  We did.  Angry, heedless, vengeful white American voters.  Lazy, uncaring, disengaged white American non-voters.
Are we good?  Are we good people?  Right now, it is hard to believe that we are.

adobe and bricks

Do you remember California's extreme drought of 1977?  I remember walking to high school through my east Petaluma neighborhood, looking at the two-inch-wide cracks in the ground with amazement.  To a young and recent Midwestern transplant, the sight of the soil tiled up into polygons of the driest mud made me feel like I was living on Mars.  The cracks were so big you could easily trip on them if you didn't watch your step.

My family, trying to help, went along with the advice of the day.  We put a brick in our toilet to reduce the per-flush water use.  Also: "If it's yellow, let it mellow.  If it's brown, flush it down."

The 2013-14 California drought looks to be worse than 1977.  And different.  I don't remember the smell of wildfires during that winter.  But I smell wildfires every day now, whether I'm in Sacramento, San Diego or San Francisco.

We may be moving into a regional weather pattern not seen in modern times.   The behavior of the "ridiculously resilient ridge" of high barometric pressure suggests that this pattern could continue to endure on that time scale.   It's already lasted 13 months, when it normally lasts just a few months.  The RRR could persist for 13 more months...

Some climate change predictions suggest that this may be the new normal for the North American southwest.  What will 40 million people do if there is no new precipitation for a couple more years?  What if we built a corner of the country for 100 million people for which there is no water?

You can do something.   The hotter the world gets, the worse our drought troubles will be.  The more CO2 we put in the air, the hotter the world gets.  If putting CO2 in the air gets more expensive, we will learn to do less of it.  So, advocate for a carbon tax.

It doesn't have to hurt everyone.  It could be a Pigouvian tax, in which all the proceeds from taxing carbon get refunded to the populace on some basis.  Then, only energy hogs will pay more.  Those making good energy choices will earn more than they pay. Pricing carbon will incentivize the reduction of carbon emissions, without hurting the economy overall.

In the shorter term, you can support the few federal attempts to legislate carbon pricing in general.  Go to Voxpop.com and search for "climate".  With a few mouse clicks, you can generate a letter of support for climate legislation that gets sent to your representatives.  Presently there is a Senate bill sponsored by Bernie Sanders to impose a federal carbon tax.  Here, I'll do it for you.

Pushing for political change on climate is ultimately more effective than sticking a brick in your toilet.

Climate Change Quiz

population bomb bomb

This NYT opinion piece teaches us two things: (1) scientists can be ideologues; (2) just being a scientist doesn't mean that you know what you're talking about.

The main problem with Ellis' analysis is that the historical fact that we've remade the planet on some scales does not mean we can do it at all scales.  We've terraformed the Earth's land ecology for agriculture, changed the ocean by hunting whales to near-extinction, and industrialized and urbanized to regionally change much of the landscape. Those things are big, but they're not at the global and geologic time and space scales.  Ocean acidification, climate change, ozone depletion, are planetary scale changes. We are literally creating a different planet than the one we evolved to live in.  We cannot transform the Earth at this scale and still have a planet that we would want to live on.  

The other problem with this analysis is that the largest environmental challenges we face (indeed, the largest challenges we've ever faced) aren't things that we're doing on purpose. (Ellis lists as an example the revolution in agriculture.)  It's the fact that we're fundamentally changing Earth's atmosphere, oceans and climate in unintended ways that is the big problem.

And of course, both the scale and scope of these unintended environmental changes are correlated to world population growth.

Boo, Ellis.

McGovern story

I was really too young to know what was going on when George McGovern ran for president in the 1970's, though what I know now would have made me proud to vote for him, if I could have.

What I do remember from that time was the rage of a couple of elementary school mates when they discovered - purely by chance - that a school book I was reading was written by someone named McGovern.  I vividly remember them tearing it up in front of me.  I think the suburban Detroit town in grew up in was so reactionary that the anger of the local dads filtered down to the boys I went to school with.

Rest in peace, Senator McGovern.

10 suggested names for new super-PACs

Uniformed Citizens for a Gauzy Future
Losing Our Past
Mustachioed Little Rich Guys from the board game Monopoly for a Dickensian America
Crossroads Ayn Rand
New Centrists for Rolling Over and Taking It
Lemmings USA
Attack Admen for an Attackier America
Futuring Our Future
Troglodytes United
Whitewash NOW

Unions aren't people, my friend

So, the Supreme Court ruled today that (public sector) unions must first affirmatively get union members' permission to collect and spend money for political purposes. 

Meantime, thanks to the Speech Now D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision and Citizens United SCOTUS decision, corporations are free to take shareholder money and direct unlimited amounts of it towards lobbying without seeking any permission, before, during or after spending their money.

Corporations are people, I guess, with proliferating numbers and kinds of rights.  And unions, while definitely constructed to represent people, are having their rights steadily clipped. 

Stern warning on warming

The British government produced an authoritative review in 2010 of projected economic effects of varying levels of global warming.  It is referred to as the "Stern Report", after Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the Government Economic Service at the time.

Below is a figure summarizing the ecologic and economic projected effects.  It's from the executive summary of the report.

We're heading towards the higher end of this plot, as predicted by the rather amazing visualization tool developed by the NCAR based on IPCC-4 data.  The mean prediction for global temperature rise by 2100 is +3C, though more recent modeling has shown even higher deltas.

You can download the complete report from the British National Archives here.  It's meant to be readable by a lay audience.

the Krugginator

"Consider, if you will, the current state of our nation.  Despite hints of economic progress, we're still in the midst of an immense disaster, in which unemployment and underemployment are devastating millions of America lives.  And none of this need be happening!  There has been no plague of locusts; we have not lost our technological know-how.  Americans should be richer, not poorer, than they were five years ago.  Yet economic policy across the board has become almost passive, has essentially accepted this disaster instead of trying to end it."

--Paul Krugman, NYT, April 20, 2012

Gas-X

When prices go up Americans get crazy.  Some folks blame the President, some trade in conspiracy theories, though most of us simply feel misery every time we fill up.  When I'm at the pump, I feel like I'm in Vegas.  Flashing digits moving even more quickly than a electronic slot machine.  The pump itself selling me with video and audio.   And of course, the sinking feeling that comes with the knowledge that the house is winning and I'm losing.

Specific industries, like taxi cabs and truck drivers are surely hurt by rising gasoline prices.  But gas prices for me and other regular Joes and Janes don't actually matter nearly as much as we think they do.   A recent analysis by the AAA shows that the overall cost of car ownership has increased only slightly over the last year.  Just 1.9%.  That's less than the core inflation rate over the last year (for example, as measured by the Mar 2011 - Mar 2012 CPI rate of 2.7%).  And the cost of owning and operating your car is what really matters.  Not what you may be paying for gas in any particular month.  If you break down what your car insurance, car purchase price, financing, and servicing costs you over the life of your car, you'll see that gas is a relatively small fraction of the total life-cycle cost of driving (here's a typical calculator).

As James Surowiecki wrote in the New Yorker a year ago, increases in gas prices shouldn't matter as much as they do, when one looks at the numbers.  Surowiecki says that a (permanent) 85 cent increase would translate into a few hundred dollars a year for your average American household.  I come up with a similar figure of about $375 for a $1/gallon temporary increase.**  This ain't nothing, but it represents less than 1% of the median American household income. 

In any case, gasoline prices have been trending downwards in the US fairly strongly over the last month or two.  I guess all those folks who have been blaming the Obama administration for not doing enough about high gas prices will now publicly reverse themselves and praise the President for a job well done.

Or not.

**figured as follows:

       average driver estimated at 15,000 miles/year

       gas spike is estimated at $1/gal, and lasts 6 months

       average car estimated to get 20mpg

       ->>> [$1/gal increase]*[(7500miles)/(20mpg)] = $375

population. it's da bomb.

urination nation

Make those welfare cheats piss in a cup!

One of the many angry white guy bellowings out there.  I know they're just angry and not interested in analyzing their position.  But I am. 

Here's a recent NYT short piece on the growing support for requiring drug testing of welfare recipients.  In case the URL doesn't work, it says that conservatives and the GOP presidential candidates support such a requirement.  About half the states in the US are considering making laws to that effect.

Quoth the Romney: "People who are receiving welfare benefits, government benefits, we should make sure they're not using those benefits to pay for drugs".

Quoth the Gingrich: "...It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid — unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it."

OK, I'll name it.  The homeowner's mortgage deduction.  If you're a regular middle class Joe with a regular mortgage, you get a medium-sized reduction in your tax bill.  If you're rich or you have a large and expensive mortgage (like Mitt Romney), you get a big tax break.  Sounds like a government benefit to me.  And a large one.  How large? The estimates are that the federal budget outlays are roughly $100 billion/year.

Compare this to welfare expenditures.   Conservative mag Forbes estimates that even in the depths of our economic crisis, the US is spending $100B/year on the various programs loosely thought of as "welfare".  Food stamps comes in at $75B/year.

How could conservatives demand that the poor welfare recipients have to pee in a cup without also demanding that middle class and wealthy home owners taking the mortgage interest deduction on their 1040 tax returns also pee in a cup?  The size of the programs is similar, and the $$ comes from the taxpayer.  After all, as Governor Romney might say, how do we know that mortgage interest deduction recipients aren't using those benefits to pay for illegal drugs?

Unless conservatives come flat out and say that they're really just interested in picking on the poor, they should also demand drug testing for everyone receiving federal benefits.

Make those mortgage deduction cheats piss in a cup!

green cheese

Newt Gingrich promises that "...we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American." If I were his opponent, I would counter with "all your base are belong to us."  He also suggests that his moon base would not only be American, but that its citizens could petition for admission to the union as the 51st state.  

If so, would the Interstate Commerce clause of the US Constitution apply to space travel?  If so again, should the Healthcare Reform Act ("Obamacare") be found constitutional, lunar citizens might be subject to a federal mandate to purchase Earth-based health insurance.  If there were navigable waterways, they would also be subject to federal oversight.  Of course, there's not much chance of finding those.

Former Speaker Gingrich further promises that the lunar base would be finished by the end of his second term.  Since it would take decades to establish a lunar base with human inhabitants, the only way this could be true is if Gingrich's second presidential term occurred decades after his first term.  So, his age at the time his promise is kept is approximately 68 years + 4 years (term #1) + a couple of decades + 4 years (term #2) = 96 years.  Just barely possible, but... possible.

A can of possible worm-like aliens opens up when we consider gambling in the 51st state (Moon-braska? Lun-aho? Satell-ississippi?)  As in other US States, native America peoples will have the right to their ancestral lands.  And, as many aboriginal peoples have done in the first 50 states, native moon-Americans may want to open casinos.  Who would be eligible to make such a claim?  Well, obviously the ancestors of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and the other ten Apollo astronauts who briefly inhabited the land, lo, these many decades ago.  Maybe they would build something tasteful, with pai gow tables featuring moonrock pieces, and very slow-motion roulette tables, in which the bouncing balls would take several minutes to settle on the wheel.  I'd put it right in the middle of the Mare Traquillitatis, to honor the original tribe.

America, my little piece

If you wanted your faith in America restored, you could have come with me tonight. 

Into my little neighborhood public library - recently restored to its art deco glory - and down into the community room.  There, filling the meeting room, were my neighbors.  All sorts of people from Bernal Heights, San Francisco.  Plus earnest staffers from the San Francisco Dept. of Parks and Recreation.  We gathered to talk through plans to make small trail changes to the park on top of the hill.  People making their comments, suggestions, ideas.  The Parks and Rec people scribbling ideas on posterboard, rolling through their Powerpoints, listening.  Children in the next room, reading actual books and running around a little.  Dog walkers, cranky old timers, hipsters, lesbians, blacks, nerdy white guys*, immigrants, working people, retirees, dotcommers, gay couples.  Each taking their turn, raising their hands.  Lots of opposing views.  All aired carefully, respectfully, thoughfully.

If you were there, you'd have felt proud to be a citizen of the USA.



*me

Hue and cry

As former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gains ground, the language of racial resentment grows.  Charles Blow's Saturday piece highlights recent quotes from Gingrich.  It's getting harder to avoid the conclusion that a big part of the right's desire to defeat President Obama is located in racial animus.

Here are a few recent Gingrich racially-tinged quotes that aren't in the NYT piece:

“I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of foodstamps.”

“The Obama system is going to lead us down the path towards Detroit and destruction.”

"...(Obama is) the most successful food stamp president in American history..."

Occupy GOP?

Seems like a good sign for Democrats in 2012 that many Republican presidential candidates are attacking former Governor Romney for his career at private equity firm Bain Capital.   The political press is concentrating on the angle that the ads and rhetoric used by former Governor Perry and former Speaker Gingrich in particular could be used by Democrats and President Obama in the campaign.  What I take from it is the growing mood in the nation - event among social conservatives and Republican stalwarts - that the ills in our particular form of capitalism are a concern for everyone, left or right.  And that the defenders of the existing order on Wall Street may be due for punishment in November. 

ACA & SCOTUS

Today the US Supreme Court agreed to hear a/the challenge to the Affordable Care Act. I still haven't heard a satisfactory explanation of how the federal mandate - which is at the core of the court challenge - is any different in kind from how the tax code works to reward/punish homeownership through the mortgage interest tax deduction.

Both the HRA and the mortgage interest deduction work through the tax code.  If you don't purchase health insurance you pay a penalty - basically an additional tax.  If you don't purchase a mortgage and deduct the interest, you pay a differential tax relative to what you would pay if you had purchased (and deducted the interest from) a mortgage.

In neither case do are you actually forced to buy something.  In both cases, the tax system is used to punish those who don't purchase the privately-supplied product that the government is trying to get you to purchase.

So, what's the diff?

I made you a couple of Occupy Wall Street signs

Go ahead.  Download them.  You know you want to.

Death Panels are so yesterday

Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Beast blogs about Ron Paul's response to Wolf Blitzer's hypothetical question on whether care should be provided for someone who is deathly ill and has no insurance.  (Thanks, for the URL, Yvette!)

My commentary on top:

In addition to asking the Libertarian/Tea Party folks for consistency in repealing the emergency room care law on the books, if they don't like the health care mandate (Sullivan's suggestion in the blog link above), how about a pledge from Tea Party types that they won't use emergency rooms that they can't pay for?  Maybe they could wear MedicAlert style bracelets coded to refuse care for the wearer in public hospitals or in private hospitals that required insurance?  A kind of "do-not-resuscitate" toe tag to be worn by Libertarians and Tea Partiers who have a coherent and principled world view...

The Paucity of Hope

I just have one disagreement with Drew Weston's otherwise great piece on Obama in last Sunday's NYT.   And that's the title, "What Happened to Obama?"

I don't think anything happened to Barack Obama.  He is the man he always was.  In the swooning days of 2007 and 2008, some of us on the left distrusted the cult-like status of the man and his campaign.  His admirers (and detractors) weren't seeing him clearly.  Many people projected their desires and fears onto him.

With time, we can now see more clearly who he is.

And who is that?  Not a fighter.  Not a leftist.  Not a reformer.  A conciliator, pragmatist, centrist and technocrat.  Definitely not what these times call for.