Thursday, March 26, 2015
Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt
Old Picture of the Day: Teddy Roosevelt: This is another military portrait of Teddy Roosevelt from back in his Rough Rider days. Also, another of my favorite quotes from Teddy...
Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt
Old Picture of the Day: Colonel Roosevelt: Welcome to Teddy Roosevelt Week! We will be looking at pictures of one of my favorite presidents. Roosevelt was genuinely a larger tha...
Closing our eyes
A long time ago I write this essay here, which at one time was one of the most popular ones on this site:
I mention that now, as we've just had yet another example of a senseless mass killing of a type we've seen several of in recent years, but we don't seem to see much proposed in the way of doing something about it. That is, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the Alps this week turns out to be mass murderer.
This isn't the first time in recent years where a commercial pilot has chosen to kill himself and all of his passengers. It's totally inexcusable on every level. A question remains about this, that being, why is so much attention focused on controlling implements for which the legislative control of which will not have a demonstrative effect, while there hasn't been any outcry about whom is allowed to pilot hundreds in the sky?
Yes, I know there's commercial licenses, but even on the simple applicable standards level, it would appear that around the globe various pilots simply don't measure up to the American standard. They should, and there's no reason that a universal, very high, standard can't apply to all commercial air carrier pilots. But beyond that, perhaps the time has come to place these men and women through some sort of psychological battery every six months. It won't catch them all, but it might catch some who are getting dicey, or even just sloppy. And maybe the time has come for a third pilot to be in the cabin, just in case. These are big complicated planes and there's been a lot of accidents, which might be reason enough, and might help to keep something like this from reoccuring.
Lex Anteinternet: Peculiarized violence and American society. Looki...: Because of the horrific senseless tragedy in Newton Connecticut, every pundit and commentator in the US is writing on the topic of what cau...That essay came in the wake of a tragic mass killing and it looked at root causes, at a time during which a lot of public commentary was focused on proposed efforts that would not address them.
I mention that now, as we've just had yet another example of a senseless mass killing of a type we've seen several of in recent years, but we don't seem to see much proposed in the way of doing something about it. That is, the co-pilot of the Germanwings plane that crashed into the Alps this week turns out to be mass murderer.
This isn't the first time in recent years where a commercial pilot has chosen to kill himself and all of his passengers. It's totally inexcusable on every level. A question remains about this, that being, why is so much attention focused on controlling implements for which the legislative control of which will not have a demonstrative effect, while there hasn't been any outcry about whom is allowed to pilot hundreds in the sky?
Yes, I know there's commercial licenses, but even on the simple applicable standards level, it would appear that around the globe various pilots simply don't measure up to the American standard. They should, and there's no reason that a universal, very high, standard can't apply to all commercial air carrier pilots. But beyond that, perhaps the time has come to place these men and women through some sort of psychological battery every six months. It won't catch them all, but it might catch some who are getting dicey, or even just sloppy. And maybe the time has come for a third pilot to be in the cabin, just in case. These are big complicated planes and there's been a lot of accidents, which might be reason enough, and might help to keep something like this from reoccuring.
Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...
Almost a year ago I was writing about Thomas Piketty's disturbing thesis in this entry:
Will characterizes Tanny's book which I also haven't read, as boldy presentign a new thesis, but it what it apparently does is bodly defend an old one, that being that Adam Smith was right and we need not worry about jobs being exported overseas. The book apparently expertly cites numerous examples, with the basis nature of them being that when jobs like making Iphones go overseas, the price lowers so much that in real terms all of our incomes rise. The book isn't limited to that type of analysis, however, and also, apaprently, defends monopolies.
This is obviously quite the opposite of Piketty, whom I still haven't read, but it strikes me that in some odd ways they may both be correct and incorrect at the same time. Will's Tanny is correct, that buying at Wall Mart or from monopolies, and from companies that manufacture in the cheapest possible fashion, means less of our income goes into purchases, but it also can't be denied, as Piketty demonstrates, that the wealth that's generated gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, who are by extension more and more powerful.
The overarching thing, however, is that Will's cheerful defense ignores something, which Froma Harrop has been exploring in her recent articles. Nobody wants to be poor, but at some point an economy that serves only to produce wealth and do so efficiently is really soulless and concentrates people into jobs that they might not really like. In other words, what if some people, indeed a lot of people, are just flat out happier working as a machinist on the factory floor, rather than in some clerk job in the cubicle forest?
Lex Anteinternet: The Distrubing Thesis of Capital in the Twenty Fir...: I haven't read it yet, but I've been reading a lot about Thomas Piketty's new book, Capital In The Twenty First Century. The b...This morning, in reading my local newspaper, George F. Will reviews a new book with a counterveiling thesis, that being John Tanny's new "cheerful, mind-opening book, “Popular Economics: What the Rolling Stones, Downton Abbey, and LeBron James Can Teach You About Economics.". Will's article is boldy entitled "How income inequality benefits us all".
Will characterizes Tanny's book which I also haven't read, as boldy presentign a new thesis, but it what it apparently does is bodly defend an old one, that being that Adam Smith was right and we need not worry about jobs being exported overseas. The book apparently expertly cites numerous examples, with the basis nature of them being that when jobs like making Iphones go overseas, the price lowers so much that in real terms all of our incomes rise. The book isn't limited to that type of analysis, however, and also, apaprently, defends monopolies.
This is obviously quite the opposite of Piketty, whom I still haven't read, but it strikes me that in some odd ways they may both be correct and incorrect at the same time. Will's Tanny is correct, that buying at Wall Mart or from monopolies, and from companies that manufacture in the cheapest possible fashion, means less of our income goes into purchases, but it also can't be denied, as Piketty demonstrates, that the wealth that's generated gets concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, who are by extension more and more powerful.
The overarching thing, however, is that Will's cheerful defense ignores something, which Froma Harrop has been exploring in her recent articles. Nobody wants to be poor, but at some point an economy that serves only to produce wealth and do so efficiently is really soulless and concentrates people into jobs that they might not really like. In other words, what if some people, indeed a lot of people, are just flat out happier working as a machinist on the factory floor, rather than in some clerk job in the cubicle forest?
Friday. March 26, 1915. A view of Alsace.
The French took Hartmannswillerkopf giving them an observation post for Alsace.
The town of Miami Beach, Florida was established.
Last edition:
Thursday, March 25, 1915. Loss of the F-4.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Thursday, March 25, 1915. Loss of the F-4.
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The US submarine USS F-4 sank off of Hawaii with the loss of all 21 hands. It was the U.S. Navy's first submarine loss, discounting of course the CSS H. L. Hunley, the Confederate submarine.
The SS Tamar was sunk by the SMS Kronprinz off of Brazil.
Last edition:
Tuesday, March 23, 1915. Advances at Hartmannswillerkopf.
We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR
We're Not Taking Enough Lunch Breaks. Why That's Bad For Business : The Salt : NPR
I'm afraid I'm guilty as charged on this one.
I'm afraid I'm guilty as charged on this one.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.
And following on this:
Lex Anteinternet: And the pumps kept on.: Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high. This comes in the face of Saudi resistance ...
I read in the paper this morning that the solar panel industry now employers more people in the US than coal mining.
Indeed, an irony of this is that there's now an effort in some states to tax homeowners who install solar panels, using the logic that they use power on the grid when they cannot generate power on cloudy days. While that's generally true, the law has generally been, or at least was (I haven't kept up on it) that power companies actually had to buy power sent back down the line by domestic solar and wind electrical generation. This has likely been regarded as a minor inconvenience by power companies for a long time, but now they're becoming irritated in some areas, apparently.
Irrespective of that, solar has quietly come a long way in the past 40 years. 40% of German electrical output is now solar (and if they'd continued to allow nuclear power generation, they'd have darned near 100% non emitting power). There's no reason to believe that a high American output isn't similarly possible, and perhaps now even probable.
All of this is hugely important to the state of Wyoming, and of course other energy producing states. With an oil industry that dates back to the 1890s and a coal industry that started when the Union Pacific was first constructed, the state has acclimated itself to the extractive energy industry being the main economic engine of the state. Coal severance taxes, which were at first stoutly opposed by some, have been funding the state government here for over 40 years now. The schools are nearly entirely constructed using money generated from taxes on coal. Coal production has been declining now for several years, and the coal industry's backers have been quite vocal about what they feel should be done to aid the industry, and that it can generate "clean coal". But the long term trends seem hard to ignore at present. Coal is being supplemented in the U.S. as a fuel, in Europe its being supplanted. The trend line in the US seems headed in the same direction unless major technological developments can change the dynamics of the situation. The coal market right now seems to be mostly China, but Pacific coast states and provinces object to the loading of it, and transportation of coal by sea has its own costs and problems. So, in spite of hopes in that quarter, and in spite of efforts by Wyoming's politicians in that direction, the Chinese saving the market seems unlikely.
And, as explored here earlier, it seems difficult not to conclude at this point that the Saudi Arabians have made a similar conclusion about future of petroleum oil, and have decided to keep the price on the floor so that they dominate the market during what they have calculated will be the transition phase. Probably calculating that the beginning of a technological transition from petroleum has commenced and that the process will take about the same amount of time one way or another, by keeping the price low, they'll dominate it during that period of time. In other words, the money is going to go somewhere, and it might as well go to them. By keeping the production high, and selling what they'll have, they'll make the most money possible out of their resource and probably try to use that to transition to some other type of economy. Goodness, knows they need to, as their current culture and economy isn't viable continuing on with its current model.
But for states like Wyoming, which have relied on these industries, the trend line is a bad one for the traditional economy. Agriculture, Extractive industries, and Tourism have been the three legs of the stool of Wyoming's economy. There's a pretty good chance that one of those legs is now broken, and there's no really solid idea of what to do to replace it, if it needs to be.
As a final observation, folks who note things like this here are often branded as "antis". However, as a Wyoming native, and a former crewman on a workover rig, and as a person with a geology degree, I think I can stand on my bonafides. I'm not declaring this as part of a manifesto, but rather observing as a person given to that by training and inclination. We probably need to be pondering these topics here.
Monday, March 23, 2015
And the pumps kept on.
Saudi production has reached 10,000,000 bbl per day, near (or perhaps) an all time record high. This comes in the face of Saudi resistance to pressure to decrease production.
Accompanying, this Chinese economy, long seen as a potential major oil importer, has been slowing down over the past 11 months.
Neither of which is a good sign for American oil production. Hovering in the $50 to $60 bbl range for months now, a decrease in the Saudi price and a maintenance of Saudi production can't help but be noticed by the domestic industry's planners.
Accompanying, this Chinese economy, long seen as a potential major oil importer, has been slowing down over the past 11 months.
Neither of which is a good sign for American oil production. Hovering in the $50 to $60 bbl range for months now, a decrease in the Saudi price and a maintenance of Saudi production can't help but be noticed by the domestic industry's planners.
Tuesday, March 23, 1915. Advances at Hartmannswillerkopf.
Great Northern Pacific Steamship Co.'s terminals, Flavel, Or.
French attacks on Hartmannswillerkopf got them within 150 metres of the summit.
Last edition:
Monday, March 22, 1915. The Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl
Sunday, March 22, 2015
The Big Speech: War is sweet to the inexperienced
γλυκύ δ᾽ἀπείρῳ πόλεμος.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.
War is sweet to the inexperienced, but the experienced man trembles at its approach
Pindar.
πεπειραμένων δέ τις ταρβεῖ προσιόντα νιν καρδία περισσῶς.
War is sweet to the inexperienced, but the experienced man trembles at its approach
Pindar.
Monday, March 22, 1915. The Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl
Imperial Russian Army captured Przemyśl ending the longest siege of the Great War. They took over 117,000 Austro-Hungarian POWs which included nine generals, 93 senior staff officers, and 2,500 other officers.
Last edition:
Friday, March 19, 1915. The Defense of India Act.
Labels: 1910s, 1915, British Empire, India, It was because of World War One, law, Outer space, World War One
Saturday, March 21, 2015
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