(This is a reposting of posts from two and seven years ago. Unhappily, this post’s themes are more relevant than ever. The Internet seems to be changing human social relations, business, politics and civil society in significant ways not all of which are clear. Perhaps the nature of what is happening will be better understood with time.)

—-

Crazy, overconfident; the opposite of the judicious, scientific, skeptical temperament.

Extreme opinions.

Stubborn.

Bombastic.

The opposite of thoughtful.

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One of the life experiences that comes with being a three decade veteran of military procurement is you have been around long enough to know where all the important bodies are buried — case in point, the Boeing 737 MAX.  What we are seeing in the two recent 737 MAX crashes is the the 20 year accumulation of professional toxic waste and decay in Boeing management that came with the first Clinton Administration’s cancellation of MIL-STD-499A SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT.

737 MAX Jetliner in South West Airline Colors.

I was e-mailed a link today to this Daily Kos post on the 737 MAX :

Did Boeing ignore basic SW engineering principles?
Thursday March 21, 2019 · 8:34 AM CDT

and this passage just jumped out:

A few software engineering principles:

• Software engineering 101: validate your inputs.
• Software engineering 201: when something goes wrong, provide useful data to the human.
• Software engineering 301: for life-critical decisions, avoid single point of failure.

Until today, I had thought that aviation was *good* at software engineering. But my faith is shaken by the New York Times description today of what went wrong with the Boeing 737 MAX.

The above passes my professional “Bozo Test” of whether the poster knows what he is taking about regards software development.  He does.

This is where that “military procurement life experience” I mentioned comes in.  The timing of the development of the 737 MAX MCAS software was roughly 20 years after the Clinton Administration cancelled the majority of Mil-Specs in the mid-1990’s and in particular the one for system engineering management.

See:

MIL-STD-499A (NOTICE 1), MILITARY STANDARD: SYSTEM ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT (27 FEB 1995) [NO S/S DOCUMENT]., MIL-STD-499A (USAF), dated 1 May 1974, is hereby canceled without replacement.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sarah Hoyt:  The Totalitarian Train in Rolling Down the Tracks

If I could communicate just one thing, across the increasing divide of language and thought to the left it would be this: that warm and fuzzy feeling you get when you’re running someone down is not righteousness.  It’s just the feeling apes get when they run off another ape.

If you’re part of a band and all of you were piling on an outsider — or an insider who was just declared an outsider and run off — you’ll also feel very connected to your band, and a feeling of being loved and belonging.  It’s not real. It’s the result of a “reward” rush of endorphins, oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine that flood your body after stress and a perceived “victory.”  Oxytocin, particularly, promotes a feeling of bonding with those around you.

Just remember, as you’re high fiving each other and believing that something that feels so good has to be good and morally “just” you could be the victim tomorrow.  Because the feelings don’t last, and that rush of “righteousness and victory” is addictive. Those who are your comrades today will be looking for someone to kick in the face tomorrow. And it really could be you.

I’m reminded again of a passage in Goethe’s Faust. After finding that she is pregnant–which meant big trouble for a single woman in that time and place–Gretchen is talking with her awful friend Lieschen, who (still unaware of Gretchen’s situation) is licking her chops about the prospect of humiliating another girl (Barbara) who has also become pregnant outside of marriage. Here’s Gretchen, reflecting on her own past complicity in such viciousness:

How readily I used to blame
Some poor young soul that came to shame!
Never found sharp enough words like pins
To stick into other people’s sins
Black as it seemed, I tarred it to boot
And never black enough to suit
Would cross myself, exclaim and preen–
Now I myself am bared to sin!
Yet all of it that drove me here
God! ws so innocent, was so dear!

Doesn’t this describe a lot of today’s SJW behavior and other political behavior?  “Never found sharp enough words like pins To stick in other people’s sins…Would cross myself, exclaim, and preen”

Lots of exclaiming and preening going on these days..quite likely, even, in certain churches, some crossing of themselves by activists as part of the denunciation of the “others.”   The extent of the pleasure gained by many from group cruelty toward approved targets is pretty clear and is a major factor in today’s social and political toxicity.

I suggest that it is not wrong for this prime minister or any prime minister to criticize her predecessors, cabinet colleagues, back benchers, or fellow members of parliament—in private or in public. Going over the heads of members of parliament by calling a snap election or engaging in political speech is precisely what is meant by normal democratic politics. Seeking to constrain normal democratic politics by characterizing it as abnormal is precisely the sort of behaviour that made Brexit possible—if not an existential necessity to secure democratic rights for ordinary voters.
 
[. . .]
 
Professor AAA thinks an elected Prime Minister’s trying to pass a cabinet programme by directly speaking to her nation’s people is somehow a wrong—a threat. And that is why millions of people voted for Brexit, and—I might add—why millions of people voted for: Donald J. Trump.

Read Seth’s post.

Reagan made his case directly to the voters by giving speeches which the networks were forced to broadcast unfiltered. Trump does the same thing by using Twitter. Trump’s critics respond as did Reagan’s, by trying to discredit the speaker and distract attention from his message. Trump’s critics are unsuccessful in doing this, as were Reagan’s.

In our complete avoidance of what is being offered in the way of American-produced broadcast and cable TV series, the Daughter Unit and I are ransacking the various streaming services for serial diversion of an evening: series old and new, new to us, or perhaps something old, something that we vaguely recall watching a good while ago and thought that it was worth another round. Last week our choice hit on the 1979 series Danger UXB – which came out the year before my daughter was born and featured a practically teen-aged-appearing Anthony Andrews. (Although he was nearly thirty at the time and seemed to be almost ubiquitous in those British TV series which appeared on Masterpiece Theater in that era. The Daughter Unit loved the 1982 version of the Scarlet Pimpernel, where he co-starred with Jane Seymour. She practically wore my copy of that series on videotape to bits.) Read the rest of this entry »

Here is another question: What if President Trump and his wife should choose to go their separate ways? Can the President seek a divorce? Getting a divorce is not a de minimis benefit. Getting a divorce, especially with concomitant determinations about the division of marital property, calls for judicial discretion—so I guess, under Plaintiffs’ theory, the President must remain married as long as he is President. Tough luck Melania! Under Plaintiffs’ theory, the President cannot get a divorce in a federal court—as that would be an “emolument” from the federal government beyond his regular presidential compensation (and so purportedly precluded under the Domestic Emoluments Clause). He cannot get a divorce from a state court—as that would be an “emolument” from a state government (again, purportedly precluded under the Domestic Emoluments Clause). He cannot get a divorce from a foreign court—as that would be a foreign “emolument” (and so purportedly precluded under the Foreign Emoluments Clause). Trump just can’t catch a break!

Great stuff.

I’ve been having some fun poking around old posts on my own blog to see how some have held up ten years later.

Conspiracy theories seem to have held up well, and new ones keep popping up. Like Jeff Bezos trying to spin a conspiracy theory about how his penis pictures got to National Enquirer. No, it wasn’t Trump.

Now, the Wall Street Journal reports that Michael Sanchez, “a talent agent who has managed television pundits and reality-show judges” has also “long been a source for the Enquirer.” And, according to the paper, Michael Sanchez sold the Bezos texts to the Enquirer for $200,000.
Imagine that. Mogul sends deeply private texts to gossipy L.A. girlfriend who has gossipy, fame-hungry brother, and somehow it gets out! No Saudis required.

Hilarious.

This one of mine from 2010 has stood up pretty well.

The Democrats are committed to static analysis of tax effects. A tax cut loses revenue while a tax increase adds revenue. Now why are the Democrats, who have large majorities in both houses of Congress, unable to block this Republican effort to keep tax rates the same? It can’t be good economic policy because Steve Benen said so. What could they do to convince Republicans the Democrat position is the better choice ? Here are some theories.

You’re sending the message the richest of the rich actually control this country, and in order to get a few crumbs for the common man, the rich need to be paid off with borrowed money – money that the common man (and woman), and their children, will be obligated to pay back, with interest. That does not bode well for the future of America.

Posted by: delNorte

So the rich and the corporations control the country. That is probably the most widely accepted conspiracy theory in the country. It is accepted by the left and many independents.

I think it’s a confluence of reasons: 1) It’s a simple issue with little to no nuance. There is no good reason to extend the cuts to the rich (outside of politics). 2) OTOH, the bank bailout and the fin reg are/were very complex issues which did not satisfy anyone’s sense of justice for holding responsible those to blame for the mess we’re in.

Posted by: You Don’t Say

Now, there is another theory. There is no reason to keep the tax rates the same for those with incomes over $250,000 except politics. Here is a person who does not believe that small business creates jobs. I doubt he would be impressed by this video. That business owner makes $300,000 and employs about ten people. Raise his taxes and what happens ? Who cares ?

There is absolutely NO convincing case that extending tax breaks for the super-wealthy is good for the nation; quite the reverse — it signals that the unabated looting of America is now in full swing;

Not much has changed in 9 years. Emphasis, maybe.

This morning, the This Week program on ABC, in its new incarnation with Christiane Amanpour, spent the entire show on DADT. They said not a word about the economy. DADT will not be repealed so why spend an hour on it two days after the unemployment rate went up again to 9/8% ? The political left is bored by economics and the national economy. They are far more interested in social issues like DADT or gay marriage. I can understand this because so many of them are government employees, or academic institution employees or low level employees of private organizations who have nothing to do with managing the business. They don’t know how private business is managed, they have never signed the front of a paycheck, and have no idea how people make decisions about investing because, aside from 401ks, they have no contact with it.

Gay marriage has given way to transgender and global warming is still going strong,

I moved to California in 1956 to attend college. Los Angeles was a paradise. The weather was great. The traffic was no problem. I learned that the LAPD did not take bribes and was not amused at attempts to offer them. After growing up in Chicago, I had learned to put a ten dollar bill behind my driver’s license in case I was stopped. In Los Angeles, I did so and was lectured about the consequences of offering a bribe by a stern LAPD officer.

I lived in the fraternity house and one year slept on an outside second floor porch. I had four blankets on my bed but no problem, with flies or mosquitoes. I remember flying back to Los Angeles one New Year’s Eve from Christmas vacation in Chicago. The palm trees told me I was home. There was a brush fire in the hills but it was nice to be back. I would sometimes drive up to Sunset Boulevard just to see the city at night. The TV show, “77 Sunset Strip” showed just what it looked like. We would drive into Hollywood and sometimes eat at Villa Frescati. We had a lot of fun. Too much fun as I lost my scholarship.

The first sign of trouble was described in Victor Davis Hanson’s book, “Mexifornia.” There was trouble before that as the Watts Riot in 1965 began the endless pandering to the angry mobs.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the Fourth Circuit, 3 judges have D/R or R/D appointments (i.e., CJ Gregory, Traxler & Floyd). 8 of the 18 have R or R-only appointments. 7 of the 18 have D or D-only appointments. The chances of drawing a strictly R-only panel of judges are 8/18*7/17*6/16 = 7%.
Not that it matters.
7%
Did I tell you?: only 7%.

Seth runs the numbers. His post is worth reading in full, as usual.

The Year of the French, by Thomas Flanagan

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The admissions scandal reveals a lot about the characters of the parents, college officials, and others that were involved; more importantly, it points up some unpleasant truths about the state of American higher education today.

Heather MacDonald:

None of this could have happened if higher education had not itself become a corrupt institution, featuring low classroom demands, no core knowledge acquisition, low grading standards, fashionable (but society-destroying) left-wing activism, luxury-hotel amenities, endless partying, and huge expense. Students often learn virtually nothing during their college years…

Peggy Noonan, writing in the WSJ about the pressure on kids to become Success Robots:

I go to schools a lot, have taught at universities and seen a ton of great kids and professors who’ve really sacrificed themselves to teach. A few years ago I worked for a few months at an Ivy League school. I expected a lot of questions about politics, history and literature. But that is not what the students were really interested in. What they were interested in—it was almost my first question, and it never abated—was networking. They wanted to know how you network. At first I was surprised: “I don’t know, that wasn’t on my mind, I think it all comes down to the work.” Then I’d ask: “Why don’t you just make friends instead?” By the end I was saying, “It’s a mistake to see people as commodities, as things you can use! Concentrate on the work!” They’d get impatient. They knew there was a secret to getting ahead, that it was networking, and that I was cruelly withholding successful strategies.

In time I concluded they’d been trained to be shallow, encouraged to see others as commodities. They didn’t think great work would be rewarded, they thought great connections were. And it was what they’d implicitly been promised by the school: Get in here and you can network with the cream of the crop, you’ll rise to the top with them.’

Indeed, much of the promotion of Higher Ed in the US has been based not on the idea that you will acquire knowledge, which is in itself a worthwhile thing, nor on the idea that you will acquire specific conceptual skills needed for your career, but rather, on the point that you will acquire a Degree, a Credential, a piece of paper.  And where ‘elite’ colleges are concerned, a big part of the perceived value of that credential is its scarcity value, quite similar to the scarcity value of a limited-edition print, the plates of which are destroyed after the initial run in order to keep the prices up.

Fifty years ago, Peter Drucker asserted that one of the major advantages America has over Europe is the absence of a narrow educational funnel, in the form of a few ‘elite’ institutions, through which future high-level leaders must pass:

One thing it (modern society) cannot afford in education is the “elite institution” which has a monopoly on social standing, on prestige, and on the command positions in society and economy. Oxford and Cambridge are important reasons for the English brain drain. A main reason for the technology gap is the Grande Ecole such as the Ecole Polytechnique or the Ecole Normale. These elite institutions may do a magnificent job of education, but only their graduates normally get into the command positions. Only their faculties “matter.” This restricts and impoverishes the whole society…The Harvard Law School might like to be a Grande Ecole and to claim for its graduates a preferential position. But American society has never been willing to accept this claim…

We as a country are a lot closer to accepting Grande Ecole status for Harvard Law School and similar institutions than we were when Drucker wrote the above.

He continues:

It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the strength of American higher education lies in this absence of schools for leaders and schools for followers. It is almost impossible to explain to a European that the engineer with a degree from North Idaho A. and M. is an engineer and not a draftsman.

Parents who participated in the admissions scam seem to have had a view of American society similar to that which Drucker attributed to European society of 50 years ago.  And indeed, as I noted above, for some fields, this has even become somewhat true.

To a considerable extent, the real social function of the ‘elite’ college degree in America today is the erection and perpetuation of class barriers:  the limitation of social mobility.  See this piece by Glenn Reynolds.

If the colleges in question had truly rigorous programs, and one had to do well in these programs in order to get the coveted degree, then scams like the current one wouldn’t work very well. I could be wrong, but I don’t think that bribing your way into MIT would do you much good if you couldn’t do the work.  And bribing your way into a flight training program wouldn’t do you any good unless you developed the knowledge to pass the relevant written exam and the skills to convince an FAA Designated Examiner that you knew what you were doing.  Unfortunately, too many of America’s colleges seem to be more interested in establishing their admission processes as gateways to success than in demonstrating enough respect for what they profess to be teaching to ensure that their graduates have actually learned something about it when they get that magical certificate.

Drucker also wrote:

The central moral problem of the knowledge society will be the responsibility of the learned, the men of knowledge. Historically, the men of knowledge have not held power, at least not in the West. They were ornaments…But now knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement. Scientists and scholars are no longer merely “on tap,” they are “on top.”…

But power and wealth impose responsibility. The learned may have more knowledge than the rest of us, but learning rarely confers wisdom. It is, therefore, not surprising that the men of knowledge do not realize that they have to acquire responsibility fast. They are no different from any other group that ever before entered into power..They too believe that anyone who questions their motives must be either fool or villain, either “anti-intellectual” or “McCarthyite.” But the men of knowledge, too, will find out that power can be justified only through responsibility…

It is highly probable that the next great wave of popular criticism, indignation, and revolt in the United States will be provoked by the arrogance of the learned.

I’m not sure university administrators, for the most part, should really count as “the learned”, although they do play that role on TV.

So, as of this last week, as per the sparkly new members of the House, the Democrat Party line is now one of unapologetic and hard-line anti-Semitism. Not that this should surprise anyone with a grounding in history: in the 19th century, the Democrat Party was the party of slavery and secession, in the 20th, the party of segregation and Jim Crow. And now, in this faintly-tarnished 21st, they appear to have become the party of socialism, anti-Semitism, and the fanatical belief that OMG-The-Planet-Earth-Is-Gonna-Fry!
The Horrendous Climate Change thing is bad enough on its’ own. Look, I have been paying attention long enough to remember when Massive Global Cooling was all the Panic du jour, then followed by the Massive Global Warming – all this human and/or industrial caused. I am so not falling for the scam of the successor to this panic – that of Massive Global Climate Change!!Eleventy!! It was warm enough in Roman times to grow wine grapes in England, warm enough in Medieval times for subsistence farming in Greenland, cold enough in the 17th centuries that the Thames froze over at London, enabling midwinter jollities to be held on the ice. The monumental Cliff Dweller settlements in the American Southwest flowered and flourished until the thirteenth century, when widespread drought and subsequent unrest drove the Anasazi from their aeries among the cliffs. The volcanic explosion of Mt. Tambora in 1815 in the East Indies brought about the following “year with no summer” in the northern European continent and the eastern US – all this when industry was in infancy and automobiles a dream in the mind of whatever madman was doing science fiction at the time… so, not buying anthropogenic global warming or the Green New Deal for a hot second. Read the rest of this entry »

“it’s merely common courtesy, you moron”

(Actual quote from a FB discussion I read today.)

I do not know why Judge Messitte took this course of action. But if I had to guess this is what I would say. Judge Messitte denied the President his day in court, and when it looked like the President’s counsel was going to get his day in front of another court, Judge Messitte actively sought to frustrate those efforts. To put it another way, Judge Messitte, and all the parties, and all the amici, and all sophisticated observers know—we all know that this lawsuit was not brought by Plaintiffs in the hopes of prevailing on the merits. Plaintiffs would be happy with such a victory if it should come their way, but that is not why they brought this lawsuit. This lawsuit’s primary goal was and remains an effort by Plaintiffs to get discovery against Trump and his commercial entities—to see what (if anything) shakes out. The discovery in this lawsuit ordered by Judge Messitte was put on hold during the appeals process, and when Judge Messitte saw that his efforts to get discovery were being frustrated by the President’s counsel’s filing an appeal, Judge Messitte advised the Plaintiffs how (they might try) to lock the case out of the court of appeals and to put it back in his bailiwick where discovery could proceed, even where he refuses to rule promptly on threshold motions. Again, the President is not litigating against the Plaintiffs: they are little more than passive observers in this action. It appears to me that this litigation is, in reality, between Judge Messitte* and President Trump. Of course, that is all just guesswork on my part.

Read the entire post.

The plot gets curiouser:

Was Judge Messitte’s ordering the Plaintiffs to dragoon a second defendant into the case a breach of judicial ethics? I really do not know. But it is odd. Imagine one day finding yourself personally named as a defendant in some ongoing lawsuit, not because the plaintiff decided to drag you into the case in relation to some newly discovered evidence, but rather because the judge ordered the plaintiff to sue you before any discovery revealed any specific wrongdoing on your part. We don’t usually imagine that federal judges ought to chase down would-be plaintiffs, and then proceed to advise and urge (and order) them to sue people that the plaintiff had expressed no interest in suing. But that is basically what happened here.

Read the whole thing.

(Part III of this series of posts is here.)

Hundreds and thousands of actions go through the federal courts promptly—Judge Messitte and Judge Sullivan are dedicated judges who do not regularly let motions grow stale beyond the standard 6-month target deadline. So why cannot the President get his motions decided in a timely way just like any other litigant in the federal courts? It is all so difficult to understand.**

Seth helps us to understand.

Read the entire post.

(Parts I and II of this series of posts are here.)

This blog post on “The June 1944 Normandy Invasion and the Bane of Technologically Illiterate Officers in the Luftwaffe” marks the second in a series of posts departing from past history columns I’ve written for Chicagoboyz in that it is exploring a theme I refer to as “The Bane of Technologically Illiterate Military Leaders.”[1] .

The issue with ‘Technologically Illiterate Military Leaders‘ I’ll be exploring in this and future articles is that such leaders tend to make the same classes of mistakes over and over again.  And when those military leaders reach flag rank on the bones of theories and doctrines that fail the test of combat through their technological illiteracy.  They then bury the real reasons why those doctrines failed behind walls of jargon and classification to avoid accountability for those failures.

In this particular case, the mistake is how the otherwise technically competent Luftwaffe Funkaufklärungsdienst  (Roughly translated — Electronic Intelligence Early Warning Service)  managed to miss a completely unambiguous invasion warning for the Normandy  Invasion — D-Day, June 6th 1944 — the night before the invasion.

This happened because the German officers over the Luftwaffe technicians were technologically illiterate regards both the Allied identification friend or foe (IFF) and Allied radio navigation systems they were monitoring, as well as the radar techniques their own Luftnachrichten Dienat (Air Surveillance Service) were using to track RAF Bomber Command night bomber streams through chaff.

RAF 100 Group Electronic Warfare Techniques 1944-45, showing a combination of radar reflecting chaff and several forms of active jamming. The Funkaufklärungsdienst was created by the Luftwaffe in the spring of 1944 to deal with these techniques.  Source: Steve Blank’s “Hidden in Plain Sight:The Secret History of Silicon Valley,” http://steveblank.com/secret-history

.

Electronic warfare is much like mine sweeping/hunting at sea, or combat engineers breaching a minefield on land, in that it is a thankless job when it is done right and “hard” on military officers careers in exercises/planning.  Thus it tends to be avoided, even when it is central to recorded military history.  Case in point — When Stephen L. McFarland wrote “Conquering the Night: Army Air Forces Night Fighters at War” in the late 1990’s (pub date 1998) as a part of “AIR FORCE HISTORY AND MUSEUMS PROGRAM.”  He completely left out the fact that German bomber tail warning radars were picking up Allied night fighter IFF challenges.    This was a fact that Alfred Price had published fourteen years earlier in 1984!

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I am currently reading Andrew Roberts’ excellent biography of Churchill.

It does a better job with his early life than the other biographies I have read. I am 2/3 through it and have not yet reached Pearl Harbor so the emphasis is clear. I have reflected on a couple of items, not necessarily about Churchill but about his times.

Churchill was an observer in the Boer War but had some adventures, which included being captured and escaping from a POW camp.

For example, had Cecil Rhodes and the British gold miners not invaded the Transvaal would the Boer War have occurred and, if it had not occurred, would Germany have built its High Seas Fleet?

Now the Transvaal Republic might, like the Orange Free State, have simply remained as a small shut-in self-governing state without creating any disturbance. But the Transvaalers were the sons of the stalwarts who fifty years before had sought to escape from all British control. They looked upon South Africa as a Dutch not a British inheritance; they resented the limitations imposed on them by the British, and their experience had not taught them any respect for the British Empire. Their president, Paul Kruger, had himself gone on the great trek in his boyhood. It is not possible to doubt that President Kruger dreamed his own dreams of a United South Africa, but a South Africa under a Dutch flag, not under the Union Jack; though how far those dreams were shared by others is not equally clear. But whatever his ambitions outside the Transvaal, within the borders of the republic he intended to go his own way.

But then gold was discovered in Transvaal.

In 1885, however, the discovery was made of valuable goldfields within the territories of the republic; aliens, Uitlanders as they were called, for the most part British subjects, whatever their actual nationality might be, poured into the Transvaal to exploit the mines. The Boer government had no objection to the exploitation of the mines on its own terms, which did not include the concession of citizenship to the Uitlanders till after a very prolonged residence. All the burdens of citizenship were laid on the Uitlanders without its privileges. The Uitlanders began to feel that they had no security for justice, and to demand approximately the opportunities for acquiring citizenship in the Transvaal which were readily accorded to the Transvaaler who migrated into British territory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fedex local delivery robot.

I can think of some conditions that might be problematic for these things to deal with.

…In other words, in the District of Columbia action, Judge Sullivan’s standing-only ruling did not dispose of the DOJ’s motion to dismiss. The customary or target deadline for resolving such a motion is 6 months—i.e., the 6-month target to resolve the motion was December 7, 2018. December 7 has come and gone. We are now 3 months post-deadline. There has been no call by the court for further clarification, renewed briefing, or renewed oral argument. Yet the DOJ’s motion to dismiss remains unresolved.
 
Why?
Why the delay?
Where is the decision?
What is going on?

Read Seth’s entire post.
 
 
UPDATE: Part II: The Mystery of Senator Richard Blumenthal v. President Donald J Trump

It seems that Ruling Class lackey and unfunny comedian Bill Maher has unburdened himself of a particularly snide monologue this week just past, outlining what he sees as the difference between the residents of blue and red states – to the denigration of the red states, of course. This monologue was delivered to applause and laughter at every line – especially the one about the Blues (AKA – Our Kind, Darling!) having Wolfgang Puck and those lamentable, deplorable Reds only having Chef Boyardee, har, har, har! (We have Paula Deen, the Pioneer Woman, and Guy Fieri … and anyway, isn’t Wolfgang Puck so 80ies? He was a laugh line in Northern Exposure sub-plot involving Adam the anti-social master chef for pete’s sake.) There was also another laugh line, about how we all in flyover country were living in a state of frustrated envy, because the Blues are the British Royal Family, and the Red Staters are Meghan Markle’s dad. Read the rest of this entry »

There has been much concern about possible hacking of the power grid by Russia, China, and others.  Here we have a segment from Rachel Maddow, inspired by a threat analysis from the US Intelligence Community.  From the analysis:

China has the ability to launch cyber attacks that cause localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure–such as disruption of a natural gas pipeline for days to weeks–in the United States. Russia has the ability to execute cyber attacks in the United States that generate localized, temporary disruptive effects on critical infrastructure.

Maddow:  It’s like negative 50 degrees in the Dakotas right now. What would happen if Russia killed the power today?  What would happen if all the natural gas lines that service Sioux Falls just poof on the coldest day in recent memories?

What would happen?  Nothing good.  These are serious threats, and I doubt that Russia and China are or will continue to be the only entities able to conduct such cyberattacks.  And there is also plenty of risk for non-cyber attacks…physical-world sabotage…which could have similarly malign impact on energy infrastructure.

But we don’t need to wait for a foreign adversary or domestic terrorist organization to cripple our energy infrastructure.  We can quite effectively do it to ourselves.

In late January, it was very cold in Minnesota.  And there wasn’t a lot of wind.  Natural gas, also, was in short supply, as a result of pipeline capacity constraints.  Xcel Energy urged its gas customers to turn down thermostats and water heaters, and to use electric heaters as necessary.  The electricity was coming from primarily coal plants (40 GW) and natural gas plants (about 23 GW)–the gas plants, of course, are also dependent on pipeline capacity.

Also in Minnesota, here’s a large solar farm covered with snow.  Wonder if it’s melted or been swept off yet?  And here’s a cautionary story from Germany, where long, still, and dim winters do not mix well with wind and solar power generation.

Solar and wind in most parts of the US are now small enough in proportion to overall grid capacity that shortfalls can be made up by the other sources.  What happens if they come to represent the majority of the grid’s power capacity–not to mention the exclusive source of capacity, as demanded by some?

It may be feasible to store a few hours of electricity without driving costs out of sight…but what about the situation in which wind and solar are underperforming for several days in a row?  Interconnection of sources and demands over a wide area (geographical diversity) can help, but is by no means a comprehensive solution. So far, the gas, coal, and hydro plants have been there to kick in where necessary.

Almost every day, there are assertions that new solar is cheaper than its fossil-fuel equivalents.  This may be true in some areas if you ignore the need to match supply and demand on an instantaneous basis.  But if the fossil-fuel plants are there to handle only those periods when wind, solar, and limited battery storage aren’t sufficient to meet demand, then the total energy production against which their capital cost is charged will be much lower, and hence, the cost per unit will go up. (See the California Duck Must Die for a nice visual portrayal of how widespread solar adoption has changed the load curve for the other sources.)  In some states with net metering, a home or business owner can sell excess power to the grid when loads are low and buy it back at the same unit price when loads are at their maximum. This becomes especially problematic when “renewables” become a major part of the mix.  Unless incentives are intelligently crafted–unlikely, given politics–“renewable” sources will effectively be subsidized by conventional sources and potentially make the construction and maintenance of those conventional sources impossible.  See If Solar and Wind Are So Cheap, Why Do They Make Electricity So Expensive?

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Professor BBB wrote: “Not to mention the lies and manipulation of the Leave campaign, which just exacerbated the problem [for voters].” Notice how Professor BBB feels no need to explain what those lies were or how voters were manipulated or how significant the misinformation was. But just so there is no confusion—there were lots of people on hand to argue the other side. Look at the list. I wonder how is it that they were unable to make themselves understood in a publicly funded vote?
 
Who Supported Remain?
Her Majesty’s Government was for Remain.
The leading opposition parties were for Remain.
 
[. . .]
 
[long list]
 
[. . .]
 
The Bar and the legal profession were for Remain. But …. I repeat myself.
 
Now ask yourself: precisely, who was on the Leave side?
Just some voters—and what do they know?
 
But here at Conlawprof—we are all good democrats—honest & true.

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