Robert Whitcomb: Electrifying Issues; Demagogue’s Delight; Did Cyberattacks Cause Collisions?
Sunday, August 27, 2017
“The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.’’
-- Karl Kraus
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The yelps of pain about National Grid’s big electricity-rate increase, based on the increased cost to generate it, ought to change into a stepped-up effort to diversify our energy sources so that we aren’t so dependent on one company or one fuel source, such as, increasingly, natural gas. And remember that National Grid is just passing along its higher costs to users in this rate increase and that the big increase follows a couple of years of decreases. The company won’t be making any higher profit as a result of the increase.
Also, New Englanders, probably the most NIMBYish people in America, had better accept the fact that their high electricity rates have something to do with the region’s inadequate generating capacity because of local opposition to virtually all new power plants -- fossil-fuel, renewable-energy or nuclear -- and even to replacing plants that have gone offline.
Meanwhile, if you have a roof with good exposure to sunlight, or a vacant lot, start thinking about putting solar panels on them. And push for many more wind turbines. Of course, that will take time.
Let’s also make a renewed effort to conserve. This would include replacing all incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent ones, or, much better, LED; whenever possible turning off computers and other devices that use power when you’re not operating them, and replacing old appliances with the most energy-efficient ones you can find.
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I went down to see some friends on very bucolic Shelter Island, at the East End of Long Island last Monday, Eclipse Day. As I arrived at their very eccentric and rambling Victorian house, I found my hosts looking at the eclipse through devices mostly made of cereal boxes. The old camera obscura method! There were lots of laughs and oohs and ahs. It was a jolly if slightly eerie break.
Parts of eastern Long Island look very much like New England. Puritans from southern New England colonized the area in the mid and late 17th Century. But you can feel the breath of the money culture just a few miles to the south, in the Hamptons.
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Can we assume that the Navy and other U.S. agencies are looking into whether sabotage by Russian, Chinese, North Korea and/or Iranian cyber warriors damaged the communications systems of Navy ships and/or of the ships they collided with? As unpleasant as this is, we most recognize that we’re under constant attack by these dictatorships. That may be particularly true for the U.S. Seventh Fleet, which must deal with threats by North Korea and its ally, China, which is relentlessly trying to take over the South China Sea.
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President Trump’s orgasmic demagogic rally in Phoenix last Tuesday was very amusing. Of course, virtually all of it was self-referential and the suckers in the hall ate it up. It’s difficult to predict when and if they’ll get tired of his narcissism, corruption and grotesque incompetence (except in demagoguery). Would a recession do the trick?
The fans seem to get a thrill out of getting together and singing in the amen chorus for their leader. Gives meaning to some sad lives.
I particular enjoyed The Leader’s proclamation of how all Americans should love each other – how we’re all in this together, swiftly followed by hate-infused, lie-and-ignorance-rich rants against the rather vague blob called “The Media’’ (which of course does not include Fox News -- the biggest cable “news’’ network, and Trump mouthpiece -- or the dozens of right-wing radio talk shows, etc., etc. ) and other perceived or real foes of the Trump regime. Some of the event sounded like a Nazi rally, minus the discipline and dignified clothes (except those of The Leader himself, who is always commendably neat). The rally was a full-frontal display of American decadence, knownothingism and wishful thinking.
Some viewers may have noticed a manic-looking African-American behind Trump during the 75-minute rally. Well, he’s quite a story. Hit this link.
Those readers who want to boycott enterprises connected with the sleazy Trump Organization (which has taken lots of cash from taxpayers since the Electoral College made the Crook-in-Chief president), are invited to consult:
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Building underwater parking garages might be a partial answer to the parking problems of coastal cities, such as Boston and Providence. An Aug. 22 Boston Globe story, “Could underwater garages solve Boston’s parking shortage?’’ noted that underwater parking garages “have been built, or are in the midst of being built, in at least three cities: Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Geneva.’’
The Globe went on: “In a city like Boston, where the most parking-starved areas are surrounded by water, the payoff could be significant: helping to reduce the pollution and traffic caused by drivers circling the block hunting for spots, making parking more affordable, and freeing up more street-level space for other uses.’’
Much of tight little downtown Providence is virtually at sea level and would seem a good candidate for such garages. It might seem an eccentric idea, but so did moving the rivers and Route 195 when those huge projects were first proposed.
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This comment from the Providence Rules Web site is well worth discussion:
“The City of Providence is giving away tens of millions of dollars in tax subsidies to real estate developers to do what they were going to do anyway. Booming demand for residential housing — particularly rental units for students and trainees in our educational and healthcare institutions — has made real estate development a profitable enterprise without any government subsidy. These real estate tax subsidies are not enhancing economic development in Providence. They are simply enriching a few individuals at the expense of the rest of us.’’
The taxes that others don’t pay because of these deals, the rest of us have to make up for. And the hype of the entry into a city of a big-name company obscures that, say, 10 smaller, little-known companies may be leaving. Of course, sometimes a big, famous company comes in and starts buying a lot of goods and services from local companies. Economic development is complicated.
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Americans should worry about the increasing efforts of Chinese interests to curb free speech about that nation at U.S. and other Western colleges and universities. This push for self-censorship includes financial incentives by big donors linked to these regimes and threats to curtail access to the huge Chinese market.
There was at least a modest victory against the march of the dictators when Cambridge University Press reversed itself and decided to republish hundreds of articles on its Chinese site that the university had previously supinely blocked at Beijing’s request.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Cambridge had “blocked more than 300 articles dealing with sensitive topics ranging from pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests to Tibet on its Chinese site.’’
In reinstating the articles after academics denounced the self-censorship, Cambridge University Press said: “Academic freedom is the overriding principle on which the University of Cambridge is based.’’ Good to hear, if belated!
Of course, severe Chinese government censorship of the Internet in that nation will continue, as will efforts by Chinese interests to silence criticism of the regime wherever they can around the world. Those who believe in liberty and free inquiry shouldn’t be encouraging these authoritarian aggressions.
John Pomfret, former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post, described the regime’s efforts in a Post essay headlined “China’s odious manipulation of history is infecting the West’’. Among his remarks:
“China’s move to demand self-censorship {by Cambridge} is not an isolated case. It’s just one of many the Communist government has taken in recent years to mold history and historians to serve the needs of the Chinese Communist Party. Party boss Xi Jinping has led a campaign against what he calls ‘historical nihilism,’ the party’s shorthand for attempts to write honestly about the past and mistakes committed by China’s Communist leaders. As part of that campaign, historians and writers have been silenced and jailed, books have been banned and party censors have launched a nationwide campaign to expunge any positive mention of Western political ideas from Chinese college textbooks.’’
To read the entire article whence this came, please hit this link.
To read Mr. Pomfret’s article on the effects of Chinese students flooding elite American universities, hit this link.
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The City of Providence will install 10 “giving meters’’ in the city where people can make donations to assist people who need housing and other help. The meters seem particularly aimed at trying to help get panhandlers off the streets via expanding social-service programs for them. A new agency called the PVD Gives Commission will oversee the distribution of the gifts.
I doubt if the program will raise much money or that we’ll see a sharp drop in panhandling. Most of the street beggars have mental-illness and/or alcohol and other drug problems and tend to be resistant to being helped. And some may even find panhandling to be more lucrative than other jobs. Still, just the existence of the meters may encourage people in the city to be kinder. Will these meters offer paper receipts that donors can use for tax deductions?
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The Boston Globe, after looking at tax data, has discovered that of the 19 colleges and universities in Boston that promised to give the city payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) to help cover the cost of municipal services, “14 paid less than what was requested in fiscal year 2017, which ended in June.’’
So how are we doing with nonprofits that have entered into PILOT agreements with the City of Providence?
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President Trump was quite right to demand more cooperation from Pakistan in fighting Islamic terrorists who use that country as a safe haven from which to stage attacks in Afghanistan.
Will he get it? Almost certainly not. Pakistan is a deeply corrupt country that offers sanctuary to terrorists in part to help keep India, which it sees as its greatest threat, off guard. It views the Taliban as an ally and is happy to help al-Qaida too, when convenient.
Pakistan is also an ally of China (which frequently stages attacks on Indian troops along their common border to try to steal Indian territory). Beijing likes anything that weakens the U.S. position in Afghanistan and elsewhere. I’d add that Pakistan, a nuclear power, has also been the biggest source of nuclear-weapons proliferation, including North Korea.
As for the rest of his speech on Afghanistan Monday night: There’s no way we can ever “win’’ in that terrible place. The best we can hope for is to reduce the number of opportunities for Islamic terrorists to use it as a base from which to attack us.
And he was quite right to say that the U.S. will not give a timetable on its exit from Afghanistan. To do that would just encourage the Taliban and other bad guys to just wait us out. Keep ‘em guessing! And Trump was correct to eschew nation-building in that violent, tribal place.
CIA and special-operations personnel may now have to play stepped-up roles, which is what happened in the early, successful days of our on-the-ground involvement in the country, soon after 9/11.
Given the lack of a military draft, Trump will probably not get much political blowback from the plan to expand the number of U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan by about 4,000, even though the casualties will be disproportionately among Trump’s Red State backers. I increasingly think that we should bring back the draft to help recreate a national sense of mutual obligation in a democracy.
It seems that Trump pretty much followed the advice of the generals on this one. He loves having generals around him; they make him feel stronger. Of course, Trump has done a 180-degree turn on Afghanistan policy, but given his inconstancy on all policy matters (and lack of reading about/knowledge of those matters), that’s no surprise.
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Every time there’s a very rare (and always much publicized) attack by a white shark on swimmers or surfers (or surfboards) off Cape Cod, there’s a new proposal to kill as many of these creatures as possible off the Cape’s beaches. Consider the proposal that surfaced last week to use drum line traps to kill the sharks. That’s a terrible idea. Sharks are part of the eco-system and wiping them out in certain waters will hurt other species, too. Everything in the sea is connected.
The best advice to swimmers and surfers in waters known to be occasionally visited by sharks is not to go out beyond the surf line. White sharks, the scariest ones, like deep water and usually attack prey from below. It’s good to remember how rare shark attacks on people are in New England, with no more than half a dozen in Massachusetts since 2000. (There’s some confusion about the exact number of documented attacks.) The last fatal attack in the state was off Mattapoisett, on Buzzards Bay, in 1936.
The seal population has swollen along the southeastern New England coast in recent years, attracting sharks. If you see seals, you might want to keep closer to the shore. At the same time, people are using the beaches more than ever. But that’s no excuse for humans to destroy yet another piece of the marine eco-system.
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Joe Biden is apparently thinking of running for president in 2020. He’s a popular and charming guy (I interviewed him a few times many years ago when I worked in Delaware, which he then served in Congress), knows policy issues well, is a good if too talkative speaker and represents the sort of policy positions (New Deal redux) that could be a winner in that year’s election against Trump (if he’s still in office, which I now doubt) or another Republican.
But Biden would be 77 then – too old! While you can be that elderly and still be in sound mental and physical health, the chances are much, much greater that your health will quickly fall apart (think stroke) than for, say, a 60-year-old. Or the decline could be more subtle, e.g. --Ronald Reagan was in his late seventies in his second term and displayed signs of cognitive decline. Luckily for the nation, Reagan had very good people around him to help.
We all need to know when to step back and let younger people make a mess of things.
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Texans, famous for denouncing the federal government, will cool their rhetoric as federal aid pours in to repair the damage from Hurricane Harvey. In a big disaster, it’s Washington that rides to the rescue.
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“Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations on the rear window of their automobiles.’’
-- Paul Fussell
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