Outside Is Open Again, No Masks Required (if you have had your shots)

The CDC has decided apparentlty that the way to get people to get their shots is to announce that people who have been vaccinated are free to do a lot more than people who haven't had them. According to the LA Times, they no longer need masks to have extended outdoor family reunions or eat outside. With a mask they can go to crowded concerts, sporting events, watch movies in a real theater, take exercise classes and eat and drink indoors. Non-vaccinated people, says the CDC, shouldn't do any of those things. According to a UCSF epidemiologist it is 5000 times safer to do things outdoors than inside. In other news, according to the CDC, our current vaccines seem to be effective against the UK Variant, the one most common here.

The Affirmative Action Oscars

 As I read the CNBC story on the Oscars tonight, I knew I was in trouble when I encountered "made history" in the first sentence, followed shortly thereafter by "diversity," "notable firsts," "all-Black," "Asian descent," and "spirit of inclusion."

It would seem that, from here on out, when it comes to Oscar winners the first thing the media is going to gush about is not so much the film's merit but rather how much the project showed diversity and inclusion.

Even so, I am glad Nomadland won best picture. Frances McDormand was so goofily great in Fargo I can't imagine another actor doing it better. As for Nomadland, I haven't seen the movie but I did read Nomadland as an ebook from the LA Public Library and thought the concept was well-reported and the story nicely written. 

Clueless For Communism

In his show yesterday, Bill Maher ridiculed clueless Millennials for supporting communism (36% of people under 35, he said, want to give it a try). But when he tries to tell them that communism is a bad idea, he says, they tell him he is old and just doesn't get it. "No, I get it," he said. "The problem isn’t that I don’t get what you’re saying or that I’m old, the problem is your ideas are stupid.”

And Maher is right, I suspect, in thinking that many Millennials don't have any inkling what happens when communists take power. Jordan Peterson says that almost none of the students in his University of Toronto psychology classes have ever heard that 60-to-100 million people in Russia, China, and Cambodia lost their lives in disastrous communist attempts to change nature, reality and common sense. But that doesn't matter to social justice warriors, says Peterson. They are unfazed by the mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. They say if they were in charge, this time they'd do it right. "Yes," says Peterson. "And there would be someone standing behind you ready to shoot you the first time you tried to do something good."

I know that my younger relatives and friends already know these things. For Millennials whose high school or college teachers ignored such matters, or never knew of them themselves, here is a graph showing the world population growth rate over the last 60 years. Notice the startling 45% drop in the growth rate between 1958 and 1961. That was caused by China's Great Leap Forward in which 30 million people died. 

What a Difference Six Months Makes

When California Governor Gavin Newsom was first elected, environmental activists demanded that he ban fracking. At first, he demurred, telling them last September he didn't have the authority to take such a step but he would try to get such a bill passed by the California legislature. When that failed in the state senate due to opposition from unions and the oil industry, Newsom suddenly decided, Gee Whiz, I guess I have the authority after all. Beginning in 2024, his office announced yesterday, the state will stop issuing fracking permits and ban oil extraction entirely by 2045.

This isn't Newsom's first attempt to change California's energy mix. Previous efforts by him to shift from fossil fuels to non-renewables resulted in rolling blackouts all over the state last summer when California was hit by an intense heatwave. Newsom subsequently apologized for the blackouts, conceding that his administration hadn't adequately considered the consequences of moving away so fast from fossil fuels.

Self-Righteousness Is Not As Big A Virtue As Some People Think

Yesterday was Derek Chauvin Day at the LA Times. By my count, the paper ran nine stories about the case, including one in the sports pages. Several of them, I regretted to see, carried express or implied threats to burn the country down if the jury got the verdict wrong.

That wasn't likely. Derek Chauvin was a cruel and callous guy who killed a terrified and helpless man by kneeling on his neck. If he spends the rest of his life in jail that won't be too long. But I also don't much care for threats to burn down America if the jury didn't vote right. Our modern legal system generally does the best that it can. Certainly, none of Chauvin's defense witnesses deserved to have their front doors smeared in pig's blood for testifying on his behalf.

Ideologues and politicians are going to wreck the planet

 According to a UCLA bioclimatologist quoted by a story in today's LA Times, California is currently in the middle of a 22-year-old "megadrought" as bad as any of the last millennium. I don't doubt it and neither do, I suspect, anyone else who watched forest fires burn down half the state last summer.  What bugs me though is that, when reporters and public officials discuss what they regard as the real problem (the burning of fossil fuels and the carbon emissions that accompany it), they never mention the two best solutions. 

One is safe, 4th generation, carbon-free, low-radioactive-by-product nuclear power and the other is population reduction. This country (and the world along with it) could implement these fixes right now, but decades-old myths and prejudices hold us back.

The only thing some people know about nuclear power these days is Jane Fonda and The China Syndrome. They don't seem to realize that Three-Mile Island was 40 years ago. Their former fears no longer apply. Some of these proposed nuclear power plants are so small you can build them en masse in factories and haul them around to where they might be needed on the backs of trailer trucks. Other new designs use low-pressure molten salts, which can't explode and thus don't need containment vessels. If they ever start to overheat, a passive salt plug melts and the radioactive material drains into an underground cooling pond, thus ending the possibility of a meltdown.

As for the contribution of a grossly out-of-control population driving carbon emissions, public officials are too terrified even to think about the subject alone in their study at 3 am, let alone talk about the subject in public. Forget Michael Mann's near-vertical CO2 hockey-stick graph, the real vertical graph is world population growth. But reporters, academics and public officials dare not mention this for fear someone will thereby conclude they are anti-immigration and thus racist. 

It's a lose-lose situation. When it comes to nuclear energy and over-population our leaders need to be less critical of newer, safer technologies and less fearful of mentioning our out-of-control population. As Greta Thunberg might say, "How dare you! You weak-kneed politicians and activists, you have stolen our future!"

 

A law professor wants to tax Elon Musk for money he hasn't earned yet.

The LA Times carried an opinion piece on its editorial page today by a University of Indiana law professor who was complaining that billionaires like Elon Musk aren't paying their "fair share" of taxes. Musk is super rich but, since he only draws a comparatively small salary and keeps most of his wealth in Tesla stock, he doesn't pay that much in taxes. The professor's solution? Don't just tax his regular income. Tax what he would earn if he sold his Tessla stock.

This, I think, is a stunningly bad idea. The professor isn't mad about Musk's leading the extravagant lifestyle of the super-rich, because Musk is too busy working 80 hour weeks to lead the kind of lifestyle his great wealth might warrant. The good professor is mad because Musk could lead an extravagant lifestyle if he wanted to cash in his chips.

The professor and I part company here. I think Elon Musk is one of the few examples of what is right in America today. A few years ago when it wasn't yet clear that Tesla would make it, Musk was living in his Fremont plant, getting four hours sleep on the floor at night trying to iron out the bugs in the automated production line. We should be cheering that, not dreaming up new ways to tax money he hasn't even earned yet.

What Will Happen After the Chauvin Verdict?

When the verdict in Derek Chauvin trial comes in, most likely this week, it could go three ways. I am making an off-the-top-of-my-head estimate that the likelihood of a murder or manslaughter conviction at 75%, a mistrial at 15%, and a not-guilty verdict at 10%.  But what are the chances of a "mostly peaceful" riot irrespective of the verdict? Those, I think, have gotta be around 90%.

U.S. To Finally Leave Afghanistan

There is no denying that Biden's people are masters of public relations. I am sure this photo will touch the heart of millions of Americans, as will an LA Times story that ran alongside the photo giving Biden credit for finally ending the longest of our "Forever Wars." What is overlooked is that Trump proposed to pull our troops from Afghanistan by May of this year. Biden, in contrast, won't start till September.

 

When Snowflakes Fly

 At least they didn't sue because the coffee was cold and the air conditioning was hot.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/2-passengers-sue-united-airlines-over-engine-explosion/ar-BB1fJrwH

"Do With Me What You Will"

 I had trouble falling asleep last night so I watched the 1945 Rogers & Hammerstein musical "Carousel" on my cellphone at 5 am. The lyrics are a little more spicy than I remembered. Here is a young woman discussing her upcoming marriage to a herring fisherman, her beloved Mr. Snow:

    He'll carry me cross the threshold

    And I'll be as meek as a lamb.

    Then he'll set me on my feet,
    And I'll say kinda sweet,
    "Well, Mister Snow, here I am."

Basically, she is saying, "Do with me what you will." Echoes of "Fifty Shades of Gray."  This is more risque than I would have guessed for 1945.

Victimology Gone Nuts

Collision with asteroid to destroy all life on Earth. "Women and minorities hardest hit."

Florida's ban on Covid passports

 I see that Florida governor Ron DeSantis just issued an executive order banning Covid vaccine passports for people attending football games, eating out, or going to the movies. He says without such a ban Florida will end up with "two classes of citizens." He's right, the civic-minded and the willfully obtuse.

Teslas are incredibly cheap to drive in some part of the country. Los Angeles unfortunately isn't one of them.

 I was talking to an old friend from high school recently and he happened to mention in passing that the cost of electricity where I grew up in western Pennsylvania was currently 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. "Wow!" I thought. Here in Los Angeles, the cost is 21.9 cents.

This in turn got me thinking about the cost of driving an electric car versus a fuel-efficient car both in western Pennsylvania and LA. 

If you drive a fuel-efficient, gasoline-powered car here in Los Angeles where regular unleaded runs $3.92/gallon, you can drive 35 miles on one gallon for a cost of 11 cents per mile. In Pennsylvania, where gas is only $2.70 per gallon, you can drive 35 miles for 7.7 cents per mile.

If you buy a Tessla with the 100 kwh long-range variant battery, here in Los Angeles you can drive 412 miles for $25.76 (this assumes a charging rate efficiency of 85%). This translates into a cost per mile of 6.2 cents. In Pennsylvania,  it will only cost you $7.17 to recharge your Tesla. So the electrical cost per mile there is 1.7 cents per mile.

Conclusion: if all you look at are gas or electricity costs, the cheapest way to get around by far is in an electric car in Western Pennsylvania.  And the most expensive way (6.5 times more expensive by the way) is in a gasoline car in Los Angeles.