Tr**p is DANGEROUS

When someone tells you who they are, over and over, in words and actions, BELIEVE THEM! DJT is an abomination who openly talks about how he will dismantle our democracy, violate the Constitution, and take vengeance on his perceived enemies using the apparatus of a government filled with cronies he installs.  See:

Jamelle Bouie in the NYT : “And Donald Trump is telling us, loud and clear, that he wants to end American democracy as we know it.”

Eric Foner in the NYT: “President Trump announced that he plans to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship, the principle that everyone born in the United States, with a handful of exceptions, is automatically a citizen of the United States.“It was always told to me,” the president declared, “that you needed a constitutional amendment. Guess what? You don’t.””

Catherine Rampell, WashPo, quoting DJT: “If I happen to be president, and I see somebody who’s doing well and beating me very badly, I say, ‘Go down and indict them,’” he said. “They’d be out of business. They’d be out of the election.”

Heather Cox Richardson in her Letters From an American, also quoting the weirdly bronzed one: “In honor of our great Veterans on Veteran’s Day [sic] we pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, Racists, and Radical Left Thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our Country, lie, steal, and cheat on Elections, and will do anything possible, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America, and the American Dream”

David Graham, writing in the Atlantic: “In fact, much of what Trump is discussing is un-American, not merely in the sense of being antithetical to some imagined national set of mores, but in that his ideas contravene basic principles of the Constitution or other bedrock bases of American government. They are the sorts of ideas that would have been shocking to hear from any mainstream politician just a decade ago.”

2023-11-14T20:28:06-05:00November 14th, 2023|Home, Musings|

Small Reactors

A reasonable summary of the state of the small nuclear reactor industry by Brad Plumer and Ivan Penn appears here in the NYT .  I support development of this industry as an adjunct to other carbon neutral sources, since wind and solar’s intermittent availability, combined with the inevitably increasing demands of electrification (as well as the inefficiencies and inadequacy of out transmission grid), make achieving net zero otherwise nearly impossible.

2023-11-13T10:17:28-05:00November 13th, 2023|Home, Musings|

Kristof: We Are Overpaying the Price for a Sin We Didn’t Commit

• I think Nicholas Kristof’s commentary on the Israeli-Hamas conflict in the NY Times is worth reading: We Are Overpaying the Price for a Sin We Didn’t Commit.  An excerpt:

“Israel faces an agonizing challenge: A neighboring territory is ruled by well-armed terrorists who have committed unimaginable atrocities, aim to commit more and now shelter in tunnels beneath a population of more than two million people. It’s a nightmare. But the sober question must be: What policies will reduce the risk, not inflame it, while honoring the intrinsic value of Palestinian life as well as Israeli life?”

 

2023-10-29T15:46:01-05:00October 29th, 2023|HomeRecommended|

Florida veers off into fantasy land

Katelyn Jetelina responds to the nutso declarations of Florida’s (politically appointed) “Surgeon General” Joseph Ladapo, who when appearing on Fox News said “With the questions about negative efficacy, the persistence of spike protein, and then the stuff we’ve seen related to thromboembolic events like strokes and cardiac injury, I don’t feel comfortable … recommending [the vaccine] to any living being on this planet.”  Say what?

Jetliner goes through his arguments one by one and concludes, rightfully, that:

“Health policy decisions need to be grounded in an accumulation of evidence that provides a comprehensive picture of reality. He [Ladapo] combines legitimate points with profoundly foolish ones, which muddles the picture, creates a sense of false equivalency, and makes it difficult for the general public to discern the truth.”

In a related article, see differences in mortality data from 3 adjacent counties in 3 different states, each with different approaches to health care and public heath in a well-done Washington Post article by Lauren Weber, Dan Diamond and Dan Keating.

2023-10-08T15:55:42-05:00October 8th, 2023|HomeRecommended|

Heather Cox Richardson on why we’re divided

• Heather Cox Richardson discourses nicely on another reason why the U.S. is so divided (and why Congress is so dysfunctional) – the republican Operation REDMAP.  An excerpt”

“This Operation REDMAP, which stood for Redistricting Majority Project, was a plan to take control of state houses across the country so that Republicans would control the redistricting maps put in place after the 2010 census. 

It worked. After the 2010 election, Republicans controlled the legislatures in the key states of Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Ohio, and Michigan, as well as other, smaller states, and they redrew congressional maps using precise computer models. In the 2012 election, Democrats won the White House decisively, the Senate easily, and a majority of 1.4 million votes for House candidates. And yet Republicans came away with a thirty-three-seat majority in the House of Representatives.”

2023-09-27T18:32:59-05:00September 27th, 2023|HomeRecommended|

Masks, yes they work for individuals

Katelyn Jetelina talks about the evidence showing that masks do work – especially for individuals who wear a high quality mask (N95 or KN95) correctly.  She summarizes the pros and cons well in her Substack post.

Odds Ratios and 95% confidence intervals of a subset of eligible included studies comparing masked versus unmasked.
Source

2023-09-27T18:27:47-05:00September 27th, 2023|Home, Musings|
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