Streetwise Professor

Twenty years ago, California experienced its Electricity Crisis. Or, given current events (which will be the subject of what follows), may be known as the First Electricity Crisis. The problem in 2000-2001 was, in the main, a problem of insufficient generation, caused by a variety of factors. The ramifications of the supply shortage and resulting high prices for California utilities, ratepayers, and state finances were greatly exacerbated by a dysfunctional market design implemented only a few years before, in the mid-1990s. (When I gave talks about the subject, I used to quip: “California wanted to deregulate its power markets in the worst way. And it succeeded!”)

The lore of the crisis is that it was caused by Enron and other Houston bandits and their manipulative schemes. These schemes were not the cause of the crisis: they were the effect, and the effect of the dysfunctional market design, which created massive arbitrage opportunities which will always be exploited.

California is experiencing another crisis. It cannot yet rival the first, which went on week after week, whereas the current one has lasted about a week. But for the first time since Crisis I, the state is experiencing rolling blackouts due to a shortage in generating capacity.

The proximate cause of the problem is a massive heatwave which is causing high demand. A contributing proximate cause is low hydroelectric supply driven by a lower than average snowpack. But the underlying cause–and the cause that should get the attention of most Americans, including those who experience schadenfreude at the Insufferable State’s misery–is the Green Mania that has taken root in California which has made it impossible for the state to respond to demand spikes in the way power systems have done around the world for nigh onto a century.

In particular, California has adopted policies intended to increase substantially the share of power generated by renewables. This has indeed resulted in massive investments in renewables, especially solar power, which alone now accounts for around 12,338 MW.

But this capacity number is deceiving, because unlike a nuclear or coal or combined cycle natural gas plant, this is not available 24/7. It’s available, wouldn’t you know, when the sun shines. Thus, during the mid-morning to late afternoon hours, this capacity is heavily utilized, but during the evening, night, and early morning contributes nothing to generation. At those times, California draws upon the old reliables.

But that creates two problems, a short term one (which California is experiencing now) and a long term one (which contributed to the current situation and will make recurrences a near certainty).

The short term problem is that during hot weather, demand does not set with the sun. Indeed, as this chart from the California Independent System Operator shows, today (as on prior days) demand has continued to grow while solar generation ebbs. This figure illustrates “net demand” which is total demand net of renewables generation. Notice the large and steady increase in net demand during the late afternoon hours. This reflects a rise in consumption and not matched by a rise in solar generation before 1400, and a fall thereafter.

Go figure, right? Who knew that the hottest time of day wasn’t when the sun is at its height, or that people tend to come home (and crank up the AC) when the sun is going down?

Here’s the plot of renewables generation:

Note the plateau from around 1000-1400, and the decline from 1400 onwards–during which time load increased by about 10,000 MW.

So gas, nuclear, and (heaven forfend!) coal have to fill the growing gap between load and non-dispatchable renewable generation. They have to supply the net demand. Which brings us to the longer term problem.

The growth in solar generation means that conventional and nuclear plants aren’t generating much power, and prices are low, during the hours when solar generation is large. Thus, these plants earn relatively little revenue (and may even operate at negative margins) during these hours. This deterioration in the economics of operating conventional plants, combined with regulatory and political disdain for nuclear and coal has led to the exit of substantial capacity in California. A large nuke plant shut down in 2015, all 10 coal plants in the state have shut down (though three have converted to the environmental disaster that is biomass), as have many gas plants. In 2018 alone, there was a net loss of around 1500 MW of gas capacity, and from 2013 the net loss is about 5000 MW–over 10 percent of the 2013 level. (NB: the shortfall in capacity the last few days has been around 5000MW. Just sayin’.)

And note–demand has been rising over this period.

Notionally, the loss in nuclear and conventional capacity has been roughly matched by the increase in solar capacity. But again–that solar capacity is not available under conditions like the state has experienced over recent days, with hot weather contributing to high and rising demand in the late afternoon when solar output is declining. That is, these forms of capacity are very imperfect substitutes. They are most imperfect in the afternoons on very hot days. Like the last week.

In a nutshell, at the same time it massively incentivized investment in renewables, California has not incentivized the necessary investment in (or retention of capacity in) conventional generation. That mismatch in incentives, and the behavior that results from those incentives, means that from time to time California will have inadequate generation. That is, California has not incentivized the proper mix of generation.

So how do you incentivize the retention of/investment in conventional capacity that will remain idle or highly underutilized most of the time, in order to accommodate the desire to increase renewables generation? There are basically two ways.

The first way is to have really, really high prices during times like this. Generators will make little money (or lose money) most of the time, and pay for themselves by making YUGE amounts of money during a few days or hours. This is the theory behind “energy only” markets (like ERCOT).

The problem is that it is not credible for regulators to commit to allowing stratospheric prices occur. There will be screams of price gouging, monopoly, etc., and massive political pressures to claw back the high revenues. This happened after Crisis I, as more than a decade of litigation, and the payment of billions by generators, shows. Once burned, twice shy: generators will be leery indeed about relying on government promises. (A David Allan Coe song comes to mind, but I’ll leave that to your imagination, memory, or Googling skills.)

Relatedly, who pays the high prices? Having retail customers see the actual price creates some operational problems, but the main problem is again political. So the high prices have to be recovered through regulated retail pricing mechanisms that give rise to the credible commitment problem: how can generators be sure that regulators will actually permit them to reap the high prices during tight times that are necessary to make it worthwhile to maintain the capacity?

That is, for a variety of reasons energy only pricing faces a time consistency problem, and as a result there will be underinvestment in generation, especially when renewables are heavily supported/subsidized, thereby reducing the number of hours that generators can pay for themselves.

The other way is the Klassic Kludge: Kapacity markets. Regulators attempt to forecast into the future how much capacity will be needed, and mandate investment in that amount of capacity. Those with load serving obligations must pay to buy the capacity, usually through an auction mechanism. The idea being that the market clearing price in this market will incentivize investment in the capacity level mandated by the regulators.

A Kalifornia Kapacity Kludge was proposed a few years back, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shot it down.

All meaning that California leapt headlong into the Brave New Green World without the market mechanisms (either relatively pure, like an energy only market with unfettered prices, or a kludge like a capacity market) necessary to bridge the gap between demand and renewables supply.

So what happens? This happens:

California’s political dysfunction makes it a near certainty that it will not implement reasonable market solutions that will provide the right incentives, even conditional on its support for renewables. Indeed, it is almost certain that it will do something that will make things worse.

Milton Friedman once said that inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. Given that the major power crises in recent years–in California, in Australia, and a near miss in Texas last year–have involved renewables in one way or another, I have an analog to Friedman’s statement: in the future, always and everywhere power crises will be a renewables phenomenon.

And this is why Americans should pay heed. Whatever ventriloquist has his hand up the back of Biden’s shirt has him promising a massive transition towards renewable electricity generation, beyond the already swollen levels (swollen by years and billions of subsidies). A vision, which realized, would result in California’ s problems being all of our problem.

So look at California like Scrooge did the Ghost of Christmas Future. And be afraid. Be very afraid.

After Trump’s suggestion that he would give his nomination acceptance speech at the White House triggered potential legal objections, his campaign mooted the possibility of giving the speech at the Gettysburg battlefield. This triggered paroxysms of insanity that are remarkable even against the background of repeated paroxysms of insanity that have been playing on a loop for almost 4 years now.

Leading the Stupid Parade was CNN’s Jerry Diamond: “This is a President who has consistently positions himself as a defender of Confederate symbols and monuments to Confederate generals.” He was soon joined by assorted leftists, notably Meathead himself, Rob Reiner, who repeated the theme that going to Gettysburg was a dog whistle to racists and Neo-Confederates.

The clownery here is just too much. Anyone making these statements has no clue about Gettysburg, the history of the battlefield, or the monuments there. No. Clue. Whatsoever.

To start with, Gettysburg was the turning point in the war against slavery. Recognizing this, in November 1863 President Lincoln gave a speech at the dedication of the National Cemetery on the battlefield. This speech just happens to be the most famous oration in American political history, and arguably in the entire English language. For those who have forgotten, or never knew (which, alarmingly, is a very real possibility):

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

“Dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” A paean to Slavocracy if I ever heard one! “A new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” The authoritarian’s creed, right?

That is what Gettysburg means. That is what those who speak there pay homage to. That is what politicians who speak there want to be associated with.

Like FDR, in 1938, at the dedication of the Peace Memorial, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Third Day of the battle.

Speaking of the National Cemetery, it is the resting place of over 3,500 Union dead. Sure, there are seven Confederates buried there. By accident–they were mistakenly identified as Federals. Except for the remains of Confederate dead undiscovered in the years after the war–whose bones still rest in those lost graves–the bodies of the Johnnies were removed to the South, to places like Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

So honoring the dead there means honoring the Union dead.

As for monuments, according to the National Park Service, there are 1,328 monuments at Gettysburg. Over 1,100 are to Union units.

Anyone who is remotely familiar with the history of the battlefield (which certainly excludes Meathead and other meatheads who bloviate on the subject), the moving political force behind the creation of the park (and other parks at Chickamauga, Shiloh, and Antietam) were Union veterans. Gettysburg in a particular was intended to be a shrine to the Union cause. The most important single figure in this movement was the notorious Dan Sickels, wounded on July 2, 1863.

Many Union veterans were deeply hostile to any recognition of Confederates on the battlefield. This was a monument to their achievement, in the name of Union, and for some the end of slavery.

Virtually every Union regiment and battery that fought at Gettysburg is memorialized there in granite and bronze. The veterans, and sometimes the states their regiments were recruited in, paid to create these sentinels in stone.

Monuments to any Confederates, or any Confederate figures, were placed in the park much later. The 11 states that contributed soldiers to the Army of Northern Virginia have placed monuments there. Some–like Virginia’s and North Carolina’s–are large and impressive. Some–like Texas’–are more modest.

The larger memorials (notably Virginia’s) do have Lost Cause resonance. But for the most part they recognize the bloody toll that the citizens of these states paid on three days in July, 1863.

Interestingly, one of the most recent additions to the monuments at Gettysburg is a statue of James Longstreet. After the war, Longstreet became a Republican. He defended the Reconstruction government in Louisiana, and attempted to defend blacks against the depredations of white supremacists opposed to said government, and to the civil rights of blacks.

For which he was vilified in the South.

I have been to Gettysburg over two dozen times, the first time when I was 9 years old. I have walked every foot of that field from Benner’s Hill to Big Round Top, and probably seen well over one thousand of these monuments, and read the text on most of them. Based on that, I can state definitively that anyone who believes it is Stone Mountain in Pennsylvania is beyond delusional.

Yes, there are monuments there that might warm the cockles of a Lost Causer’s heart, but overwhelmingly it is a massive memorial to the Union cause and Union sacrifice. Indeed, Gettysburg was arguably the singlemost important milestone in making the Cause a Lost one.

Most importantly, it is the site of the Gettysburg Address, which is the seminal speech that framed the cause for which the Union fought, and set the course for the post-war order. A course (according to the Emancipation Proclamation issued six months before the battle and then months before the speech) that included the end of slavery.

But the left (particularly in the media) is totally obsessed with playing Six Degrees From Slavery. In their twisted, fevered brains, if Trump does anything that is at all associated with the Confederacy, he is doing it because it is associated with the Confederacy. But a sensible person, and one who knows the battlefield, the history of the battle, and the history of the battlefield-as I do, and have since I was a boy-knows that the greatest associations are with the fight for freedom and democracy, and the fight against slavery.

The covid hysteria continues. There’s really no other word for it. Responses to it have slipped the bonds of reason, and reasoned debate.

There are many manifestations of the hysteria. I will focus on two–hydroxychloroquine and lockdowns.

Hydroxychloroquine has been a hot button issue ever since Trump gave an equivocal endorsement of it months ago. The most recent demonstration of how radioactive it has become was a rally of sorts by practicing physicians in DC whose endorsement of a therapy regimen including hydroxychloroquine, antibiotics, and zinc unleashed a frenzy of criticism, retribution, and censorship.

The most ebullient endorsement of the therapy regimen came from a Houston physician, Stella Immanuel. Now normally Dr. Immanuel would check important boxes in Progland–she’s an African American (literally, born in Ghana) female. But her praise for hydroxychloroquine unleashed a fury of abuse on her. In addition to being a physician, Dr. Immanuel is a devout Christian who believes in demons, and who focuses on spiritual as well as physical health. These views became the focus of criticism, in the style of ad hominem attacks that have become the staple of what now passes for public discourse. The substance of what she said, and her empirical claims–that her treatment using hydroxychloroquine had impressive clinical results–were ignored altogether.

Well, that’s not quite right. Her views were not ignored, exactly. They were actively censored by the only authorities that currently matter–Facebook, Google/YouTube, and Twitter–who consigned the video of her impassioned presentation (which had received around 14 million views) to the Memory Hole. This blatant censorship was accompanied with the by now familiar paternalistic tut-tutting from our tech overlords that Dr. Immanuel’s views were not consonant with the pronouncements of government authorities (e.g., the CDC) and the WHO. (Bodies, it must be emphasized, which have covered themselves in ignominy in the past months, but why should that matter, right?)

If Facebook, Google/YouTube, Twitter have arrogated for themselves the role as enforcement agents for government ukasis, shouldn’t they be subject to the First Amendment, namely its prohibition of infringement on free speech?

I further note that if conservatives had unleashed such a stream of invective against a leftist African American woman the screams of racism and sexism from the very leftists currently imprecating Dr. Immanuel would shake the heavens. But if the left didn’t have double standards, it would have no standards at all.

But Dr. Immanuel should consider herself lucky. She’s still employed One of her fellow physicians on the Supreme Court steps, Dr. Simone Gold, was fired for her temerity in speaking out by her employer of 25 years.

This further illustrates the double standards issue. For months “front line” medical personnel, doctors and nurses, have been lionized, and cloaked with moral and intellectual authority because of their experience, and the risks they ran. It has not been as maudlin in the US as in the UK, with its clap for the NHS nonsense, but the near beatification of health care professionals has been a thing here. But now we have “front line” medical professionals with experience–by now far more experience than those lionized in March or April–speaking against the Party Line, and they are no longer sanctified–they are demonized. (Maybe Dr. Immanuel was onto something.) Block anti-lockdown protests in your scrubs–Hero! Express views on a treatment that contradicts the authorities while dressed in your white coat–charlatan who must be silenced!

The fact is that the evidence on hydroxychloroquine is on balance favorable, and at worst equivocal. Especially if given in the early stages of symptomatic covid, and crucially if given in conjunction with other medications, notably zinc, it does appear to reduce the risk of death. Further, as a drug that has been dispensed billions of times over decades for a variety of conditions its risks are known, and relatively benign.

So what’s the downside of employing the therapy? It offers some prospect of beneficial clinical results. There is not a readily available alternative that has proven superior. The downsides are modest.

One could get the idea that some people don’t want a treatment.

One of the critics of the studies of hydroxychloroquine is the insufferable, and insufferably arrogant, Dr. Anthony “Where’s the Camera?” Fauci. He caviled a study (described at the above link) at the Henry Ford Hospitals, claiming that it was flawed because it was not a controlled random experiment, but an observational study. Well, a controlled random experiment would be preferable, but observational studies can provide valuable information if done properly, as it appears the Henry Ford study was. Further, most of the anti-hydroxychloroquine studies, including the notorious, fraudulent Lancet study, were observational. Further further, Dr. Fauci’s main claim to fame was a study done in the 1980s that happened to be . . . an observational study.

The Insufferable Fauci provides a segue into the next subject of hysteria–lockdowns. Fauci claimed that the US record in combatting covid is inferior to that of Europe because this country did not lockdown as thoroughly.

Bullshit.

This man who claims to be all about the data and evidence can make such statements only by ignoring the data and evidence. There have been numerous studies of how cross-jurisdiction variations in various metrics (deaths, cases, etc.) of the severity of covid outbreaks vary with the timing and severity of lockdowns. (One example is here, but there are many more.) The basic answer is: likely not at all, but at most, hardly at all.

At best the evidence supports the view expressed early in the outbreak (but curiously discarded) that restrictions on social interactions could affect the timing of the progression of the disease, but not its ultimate toll. That is these policies can affect the shape of the curve, but not the integral under the curve.

Why? Because virus gonna virus. A point that I made early on, and many bona fide experts did as well.

But we are seeing continued calls for a resumption of–indeed, and intensification of–lockdowns. One example is the state of Victoria in Australia (where Melbourne is located). The state has gone into a severe lockdown–with little effect on the spread of the virus. In the United States, Fauci insinuates that more intense lockdowns should be considered, and other figures go beyond insinuation. Minneapolis Fed president Neil Kashkari (like Fauci, a long-time apparatchik who has risen to a position of prominence and power despite little demonstrable record of actual achievement) has called for a “really hard” six-week lockdown. You know, to “save the economy.”

We’ve already seen the economic cost of less than really hard lockdowns. In the US, economic output contracted by 9.5 percent, and unemployment skyrocketed. And we’re the lucky ones. In Europe, the contraction was ~12.5 percent. Please spare us any more rescues.

And again, despite variations in the timing, design, and severity of the lockdowns that wreaked this economic devastation, the progress of the illness was remarkably similar. Sweden did worse than Denmark, but better than France and other European countries–and it suffered only an 8.5 percent hit to GDP.

I could go on and recount other manifestations of hysteria. Masks, for instance. But this post is already long enough.

The ultimate question is why the hysteria? This is a subject deserving of books (plural) not blog posts. In the US, the answer is largely political. As Thomas Sowell noted in Conflict of Visions, views on a wide variety of issues are highly correlated, and this is demonstrated in spades by covid. The left is virulently (pun intended) anti-hydroxychloroquine and pro-lockdown (and mask). The right the reverse. This divide is only aggravated by the pro- and anti-Trump divide.

Related to this is the interest of the governing class. The Faucis and Kashkaris and Democratic governors and mayors and county executives of the US (and their foreign equivalents) quite like the vast powers that they have arrogated in the name of public health. They have achieved unchecked authorities that they could only have dreamed of in January. Why should they want to stop now? And why should they want to tamp down hysteria, when it has worked out oh-so-well for them? Of course they don’t–hell, they have every incentive to stoke it, and by all evidence they are doing so with a hearty assist from the hopeless media.

The cost of this hysteria has been high, economically, and in terms of the collateral damage (including health and mortality) of economic collapse. The benefit is imperceptible. And that is almost certainly why our tech overlords are hell-bent on suppressing those who dissent.

Although Edmund Burke was initially favorably disposed to the French Revolution, the seizure of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette by a crowd of Parisian women (a wall of moms?) in October, 1789 turned him into an ardent foe. After reading a pamphlet by an English divine, Richard Price, which compared the events in France to the English “Glorious Revolution” of 1688–an event that Burke revered–Burke was spurred to action, and in 1790 penned Reflections on the Revolution in France.

The book was a sensation, and effectively defined, intellectually anyways, the divide between contending view of the Revolution. Burke’s book resulted in immediate retorts, notably by Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine.

In some ways, Burke and his opponents were in complete agreement. Both believed that the Revolution was freeing France from the shackles of the past. The difference was that Burke viewed this with horror, whereas the Wollstonecrafts and Paines (and even some of Burke’s Whig colleagues, like Edward Fox) greeted it with enthusiasm, rapture even.

At the time, Burke’s interpretation was attacked as exaggeration, but events proved that he had a better, and far more realistic, understanding of the revolutionary dynamic, and the consequences of shattering the shackles. Insofar as exaggeration is concerned, yes, Louis and Marie were knocked about a bit, and humiliated, and the scenes between Versailles and Paris were chaotic and shocking to someone of Burke’s sensibilities. But they remained royalty, and remained alive.

But Burke saw that the forces of anarchy and what we now call nihilism (the word was not coined until the mid-19th century, and then in Russia) had been unleashed. He saw that there was no limiting principle in the revolutionary rhetoric. He took seriously the vaulting ambitions of some to revolutionize society root and branch. He had a tragic view of humanity: he referred to “the causes of evil which are permanent,” and believed that the complete dissolution of the institutions that kept these evils in check (perhaps with their own attendant evils) would result in disaster.

Within a few years, events would vindicate him. The execution of Louis and Marie. The Terror. And ultimately, something that Burke had predicted–the emergence of a military strongman who would restore order.

Burke, in other words, was a Cassandra. A seer who accurately foretold doom, but was dismissed and abused by those who were doomed.

Burke was not a reactionary. He had supported the American Revolution, and as I noted already, revered the Glorious Revolution. He was also famous for his prosecution of Warren Hastings for corruption in India and–critics of colonialism take note–accused the East India Company of doing untold damage in India.

But he believed that society required institutions, rules, and morals to restrain ugly human impulses. And he believed that attempts to revolutionize society root and branch would result in chaos and mass human misery.

Burke came to mind in watching the events in Portland–and copycat anarchy in other cities like Seattle and Oakland. The rioters there–I will not dignify them with the moniker “protestors”–avowedly desire the complete eradication of the United States and its institutions. Like the most radical of the French revolutionaries of 1789-1796, they believe that the entire system has to be overturned and replaced by an entirely new, utopian one.

Don’t believe me? Just ask them.

Like Burke’s critics, you might dismiss my attention to the radicals. They are just a fringe, you might say. Hell, if you are of the mind of Jerry Nadler (if so, you have my pity), you will dismiss the above as a “myth” deserving of no attention whatsoever: indeed, you will attribute my attention to partisan malice.

But what Burke perceived is that the radicals, the hard men–and today, hard women–have a decided advantage. Indeed, their hardness is their advantage. In war and politics, will matters. Those of iron will exert influence and power far beyond their numbers.

No major revolutionary movement–not just in France, but in Russia in 1917, or in China in the 1940s, or in Cuba in the 1950s-60s, or in Cambodia in the 1970, and on and on–has been remotely in the majority. Indeed, the defining idea of Leninism is that a small, dedicated elite cadre, not a mass of the people, is the driving force in revolution.

We are already seeing that the ruling class in the United States is largely deferential to the radicals. The Democratic Party defends them: as I write, the spittle-spewing morons on the House Judiciary Committee are hectoring AG William Barr for daring to defend federal property against the New Jacobins.

Fools. Do they not realize that they would be sent to the guillotine if the black-clad “scrawny, pasty white booger-eating communist shitheads” prevail?

Societies that have self-confidence crush such anti-social, radical, extremist thugs. Societies that don’t crumble before them, and pay the price in blood and treasure.

In the US today, many of the elite believe that standing up to anti-social, radical, extremist thugs is supposedly authoritarian. If those voices prevail, the rest of us will reap what the elite have sown.

This isn’t about George Floyd, or any particular episode of injustice. Those on the streets in Portland and elsewhere believe this is about the fundamental, irredeemable injustice–and evil–of America. An original sin for which there is no salvation, and which can be redeemed only by destruction. George Floyd is just a pretext (a concept that Burke explored in detail in Reflections).

Burke said other things that resonate today, in particular the assault on history, and the assessment of guilt on the descendants of alleged sinners of generations past:

They find themselves obliged to rake into the histories of former ages (which they have ransacked with a malignant and profligate industry) for every instance of oppression and persecution which has been made by that body or in its favour, in order to justify, upon very iniquitous, because very illogical principles of retaliation, their own persecutions, and their own cruelties.

And

It is not very just to chastise men for the offences of their natural ancestors; but to take the fiction of ancestry in a corporate succession, as a ground for punishing men who have no relation to guilty acts, except in names and general descriptions, is a sort of refinement in injustice belonging to the philosophy of this enlightened age.

It’s almost as if Burke foretold not just The Terror, but White Privilege and the Six Degrees From Slavery frenzy.

Those things, like many other things he wrote in Reflections, rhyme in America despite the passage of 230 years and the distance of thousands of miles.

So go ahead, and dismiss Portland (and its echoes in other cities) if you will–just as the “enlightened” of 1790 dismissed Burke. But before doing so, read Burke in the light of what happened almost immediately afterwards.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan seems hell-bent on making enemies. Indeed, other than Qatar, it’s hard to point to any nation that is allied with Turkey. Turkey doesn’t even seem to have frenemies, only real enemies.

The FT had a long piece detailing how Erdoğan is using force and threats of force to prevent other nations, notably Cyprus, from drilling for gas in the eastern Mediterranean. He has also entered into a deal for what passes for a government in Libya to develop its offshore gas, and to build pipelines that deny that Crete is part of Greece. (Hey, it was Ottoman once, right?)

Speaking of Libya, Erdo has intervened in the conflict there. Turkey has supplied advisors, drones (including armed UAVs), anti-air defenses, and electronic warfare systems to support the “government.” Further, Turkey haas shipped in thousands of Syrian jihadi-types to provide the ground forces to fight against the force led by warlord Khalifa Haftar, who is trying to overthrow the UN-recognized government.

This has led to a confrontation between French and Turkish ships off the Libyan coast. Turkey has demanded an apology, and Macron trumpeted a call with Trump during which Libya was discussed–a clear indication to Turkey that the US was leaning towards France and against Turkey.

To make things even more complicated, Egypt supports Haftar and is threatening to intervene with its ground forces to combat the Turkish-supported troops. Turkey has made stern warnings to Egypt to stay on its side of the border.

To make things even more complicated, Russia is Haftar’s biggest backer. Russian mercenaries operate there. So in Libya Erdoğan is risking conflict with Russia, France (and hence the rest of the EU–yeah, I know), and Egypt.

The correlation of forces here is definitely not in Turkey’s favor, especially if Egypt intervenes on the ground. Egypt shares a border with Libya, and as the Desert Campaigns of 1940-41 showed, an armored force can race across Libya and achieve operational dominance. Egypt’s logistics would also be relatively simple, and it would be operating well within range of its air forces. Turkey, on the other hand, has no direct land route to Libya, and would have to reinforce and supply by sea. If shit gets real, it is highly doubtful that such a supply line would be sustainable. It would certainly be highly vulnerable to attack from air and sea.

Turkey has some submarines, some frigates (including some old US Perry Class ships) and corvettes, and some small landing craft. Egypt’s forces are comparable, with the big difference being the French-built (originally for Russia) Mistral assault ship, for which Turkey has no counterpart.

So Turkey would be in a very weak position if it indeed attempted to challenge an Egyptian incursion.

Libya is not the only country where Turkey and Russia are at loggerheads. They are also on opposite sides in Syria, and Russian-supported forces have killed well over 100 Turks. There is an uneasy coexistence between Russian and Turkey in Syria, nothing more.

But there’s more! The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan (which has been going on since 1988 or thereabouts) is heating up again. Armenia is close to Russia, but Erdo is rallying behind Azerbaijan.

It’s not surprising, then, that Russian helicopters flew along the Turkish border soon after the initial Armenian-Azeri clash in mid-June, and Turkey’s condemnation of Armenia for that fighting.

Erdoğan also has a very strained, and strange, relationship with the US generally, and Donald Trump in particular. Given Trump’s mercurial nature, Erdoğan would be a fool to expect Trump to pull his irons out of the fire in a Turkish dust up with Russia. Or France. Or Greece. Or Egypt.

The Turkish economy is also in a parlous state, meaning that the country is extremely vulnerable to economic pressure. The lira has depreciated badly in recent years, is near all time lows against the dollar, and could easily tip–or be tipped-off a cliff. Turks of a certain age remember the extreme privations that followed US sanctions imposed in the aftermath of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974. Younger generations don’t have that experience, and have (at least in the big cities) attained a degree of affluence that could be gone in a trice. It is an open question whether they would, in a fit of nationalist pride, forgive Erdoğan for that.

Erdoğan also outraged much of the Christian world with his conversion (on extremely dubious legal grounds) of the venerated Aya Sophia/Hagia Sofia from a museum (established by Ataturk) back to a mosque.

Erdoğan’s political situation is shaky–which may be why he is engaged in so much adventurism. He lost the big cities–Istanbul and Ankara notably–to the opposition CHP. He still has very strong support in the Anatolian heartland, especially among devout Muslims there (and in the cities as well). But the country is divided and Erdoğan has a lot of domestic enemies, and is making more by the day.

In sum, Erdoğan has picked a fight with pretty much everyone with a stake in the eastern Mediterranean. Why he’s doing so is not completely clear. In part, it’s delusions of grandeur: he envisions himself as the emerging dominant power in that region. But he can be so only at the sufferance of the US and Russia in particular. He is appealing to a highly chauvinistic populace–Turks are arguably the most chauvinistic nation in the world–in order to bolster his political situation.

But strategically his actions appear to be incredibly foolhardy and shortsighted. It is hard to see the upside, especially in Syria and Libya. The downsides are huge. He must be counting that the big boys in the neighborhood are willing to put up with his bumptiousness. But if he’s wrong, Turkey will be in a world of hurt.

He needs to be most careful about the Russians. After Turkey shot down a Russian jet over Syria, the furious Russian reaction forced Erdoğan to back down. Now he is risking confrontation with them not only in Syria, but in Libya and Armenia/Azerbaijan. With Putin too perhaps needing a wag the dog moment again (given the uninspiring results of his constitutional referendum, growing discontent as illustrated by open protests in the east, and chronic economic difficulties), Erdoğan could be made to order.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Erdoğan is rushing in where angels avoid, and doing so very likely because he is a fool.

As summer marches inexorably towards fall, the latest battle in the Covid Wars is being fought over the reopening of primary and secondary schools. Democratic politicians, and teachers unions, are leading the charge to forestall face-to-face instruction. The battle cry among teachers appears to be “I don’t wanna die.”

Er, you’re not gonna die. Nor are the children.

One of the few pieces of almost uncontested evidence about Covid-19 is that children are at very low risk of contracting the illness, let alone dying from it. Nor do they pose major threats to passing the virus on to adults.

In the back-and-forth over “is Covid-19 worse than a bad flu,” when it comes to school-age children, the answer is that flu is worse than Covid-19, not the other way around. Yet schools have remained open, flu season after flu season.

Recognizing this, many nations have reopened schools, with no reports of resurgences tied to schools.

But in the US, the education establishment, and Democratic politicians, are largely united in opposing reopening. Some school districts (e.g., in Houston) have postponed resumption of normal instruction until November. (Right when the flu season kicks in. Smart!) Others are suggesting that school’s out, if not forever, for 2020-21.

Given the hectoring and lecturing about SCIENCE! from these very same people, the utter disregard for the evidence is striking.

There is only one rational justification for this refusal to run such a slight risk (and again, a risk that is likely less than during normal winters): traditional instruction provides virtually no value! Revealed preference at work, boys and girls.

Are the education establishment and Democratic politicians willing to stipulate to that? If so, we can save a helluva lot of money paying for teachers and brick-and-mortar schools. For the distance learning model is essentially home schooling plus (and not plus very much). Given the histrionics over home schooling emanating from the education establishment, this haste to adopt the home schooling plus model to avoid an immaterial risk is rather amusing.

In fact, although home schooling does work for some (I know several examples, including a home school family that produced a Harvard physics PhD, a Princeton BA and MA, and another Princeton grad who was a world-known ornithologist at age 13), for most Americans it is impractical because parents are employed, and even for families with a stay-at-home parent, less effective than in-person instruction for myriad reasons.

Meaning that the education establishment is willing to sacrifice the educations and futures of millions of American kids, to avoid . . . pretty much nothing.

In other words there is a huge disconnect between the rhetoric regarding the importance of public education that we are usually bombarded with, and the unseemly eagerness of the public education establishment and its political handmaidens to dispense with the core functions of public education. The disconnect is all the more glaring because the justification offered by the supposed followers of the SCIENCE! is flatly contradicted by the actual science.

So what is to explain this disconnect? I have two hypotheses.

1. This is all about the 2020 election. The Democrats believe that preventing a return to a semblance of normalcy (and you can stick “the new normal” up a warm, moist, orifice) will boost the odds of defeating Trump. Relatedly, they also believe that keeping the panic alive by stoking fears enhances their electoral prospects.
2. Teachers really like getting paid their full salaries while getting to stay home, assigning some YouTube videos, and calling it teaching.

These hypotheses are of course not mutually exclusive.

Regardless of the explanation, a failure to reopen schools will damage the educations of millions of American children, stunt their social and emotional development, and in some cases inflict serious psychological harm. Moreover, it will inflict substantial stress, distress, and economic harm on adults trying to earn a living now forced to divert time and effort to monitoring their children, and trying to teach them.

It is utterly cynical, and frankly, quite vile. Objectively the case for reopening schools is solid. Certainly far more solid than the cases for various Covid-19 measures, including masks (FFS) or social distancing or lockdowns that have been imposed over the last 4 months. Yet those forcing these latter measures adamantly oppose opening schools.

Like I said. Cynical. And vile.

I regret to have forgotten an episode during Lincoln’s visit to Richmond in the immediate aftermath of the Confederate capital’s fall in April, 1865. It provides the backstory for the Emancipation Memorial which points out yet again that those who call for the Memorial’s destruction or removal are ignorant fools unfit to render judgment on the Memorial, the towering historical figure it depicts, or the events that it memorializes.

Specifically, on 4 April, 1865, a group of freed slaves, shouting “Glory Hallelujah!” mobbed Lincoln when he disembarked from the USS Malvern and strode the streets of the captured capital, still smoking from the fires set by the retreating Confederates the day before. Several of them knelt before him, some trying to kiss his feet, or the cuff of his pants. Lincoln replied:

“Don’t kneel to me.  You must kneel to God only and thank Him for your liberty.”*

That is is the scene depicted in the Memorial. A slave rising at Lincoln’s injunction not to kneel before him, or any man.

Thus, the Memorial does not symbolize subjugation of black people before the benevolent white father, as the iconoclasts claim. It depicts the exact opposite.

The Memorial therefore does what good public art should do–dramatize an historical event or personage (or, in this case, both) to make a powerful statement about time and place. And in this case, the statement is about liberation and the ending of a great historical “scourge,” which continued “until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.”

It is an event that black artists of an earlier generation thought worthy of commemoration. In 1963, at the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the State of Illinois commissioned black artist Gus Nall to create a commemorative painting. What did he paint? Not anything related directly to the Proclamation itself: he painted the meeting between the freed slaves and Lincoln on the streets of Richmond, 98 years before, not 100. This was not a moment of humiliation. It was a moment at which a promise was realized, and at which the promisor disclaimed fealty, rather than demanded it.

About these events, and the direct connection between them and the statue in Washington, the iconoclasts are both ignorant and apathetic–they don’t know, and they don’t care. Yet they are swollen with self-righteous belief in their unerring and forever unchallengeable judgment. In their relentless narcissistic presentism they denigrate not just Lincoln, but newly freed people of color. They think they know everything, and can judge everything and everyone, but they know nothing and are fit to judge nothing and no one.

Lincoln’s words, “with malice towards none, with charity towards all” fall on uncomprehending ears today. What we witness today is people seething with malice towards people and events for whom and about which they not have the slightest understanding, nor the smallest speck of human charity. They deserve no respect, and their demands deserve only scorn and rebuke. The nation should not kneel before this mob. I for one will not.

*The NYT described this event on its sesquicentennial in its “Disunion” series that recounted the events of the Civil War day by day. Will they ever do so in an uncritical (let alone laudatory) way in the future? I seriously doubt it.

“As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly” — Proverbs 26:11 

This Proverb applies to the American news media and the US “Intelligence” Community, with a variation. The variation being the media returns to the “Intelligence” Community’s vomit, rather than its own per se.

For about four years the news media lapped up whatever lies the “I”C barfed up about “Russian collusion.” And it was all lies. 100 percent.

Honest people can be fooled. Yet, once they are fooled, they distrust who fooled them. Dishonest people lap up lies over and over again. Because they want to.

The latest iteration of this is the recent hysteria over the allegations that the Russians (namely, its military intelligence service, the GRU) paid bounties to the Taliban to kill Americans, that Trump had been briefed about it, and did nothing. These allegations were “credited” to “anonymous intelligence sources.”

The dogs at the New York Times ran to the vomit like they hadn’t eaten in months. Which may be true, since the demise of the impeachment fiasco, and the dominance of the Covid-19 story. But rather than treating another “I”C leak with skepticism, if not disdain, they wolfed it down. Because they wanted to.

In the event–I’m sure you will find this shocking–the “intelligence” was of dubious provenance, and because of that Trump had not been briefed about it. So the story was 100 percent unadulterated puke.

A word to the wise. If you claim to put any credence in any story based on “anonymous sources in the intelligence community,” you are either a fool (because you actually believe it despite the repeated evidence of their untrustworthiness) or a knave (because you know it is likely untrue but choose to treat it as gospel regardless because it is politically useful).

Arguendo, suppose the story is true. What is Trump supposed to do about it? Nuke Russia? Add more sanctions? What’s left to be sanctioned, pray tell?

Those who are flogging this story, and those like it, want a new Cold War with Russia. But apparently they expect only one side to fight it: the Russians, evidently, should be pacifists in this Cold War II. But if the Russians are pacifists, why fight a war against them?

So let’s get real. If there is a Cold War II, then one can expect both sides to utilize the tactics of Cold War I. During which, you might remember, the Soviets supplied massive military supplies to, inter alia, North Vietnam and North Korea which were used to kill Americans.

And during which the United States “Intelligence” Community supplied weapons to Afghan Islamist foes of the USSR that were used to kill thousands of Soviet soldiers.

Memories run long, and payback is a bitch.

Meaning that if you fight Cold War II with the Russians, as day follows night, Russians will try to kill Americans–while attempting not to leave fingerprints. That’s the way Cold Wars are fought.

So be very careful what you ask for: and if you ask for a New Cold War, expect the consequences. And if those consequences include the deaths of American soldiers, you need to accept that the responsibility is largely yours.

It is particularly perverse to blame Trump for the deaths of Americans in Afghanistan. He has been laboring to extract the US from that cesspool, precisely because he believes that it is pointless for American troops to die there, for . . . well, for nothing.

And the establishment–notably the “Intelligence” Community and the Pentagon–have fought him tooth and nail. Apparently forgetting the adage “never reinforce failure,” they have reinforced it for going on 20 years now. And they will not admit failure, and have fought Trump more viciously in his attempts to withdraw than they have fought the Taliban in the Hindu Kush.

In other words, Trump has been trying to save American lives, and the Pentagon and the “Intelligence” Community have been willing to expend them. To what purpose, they cannot explain.

In that respect, the “Russian bounty” story is even more twisted than the run of the mill Russian collusion story. For it represents the most malign elements of the Deep State and their vomit mongers in the media and the Democratic Party crying crocodile tears over dead Americans in Afghanistan, and blaming the man who is trying to prevent more Americans from dying there, all to perpetuate their insane war that will kill Americans as long as it lasts.

It is hard for normal people to imagine a more damning commentary on the American establishment than that. But that likely reflects the limits of my imagination. I am sure that these malign, evil creatures that dwell in the bowels of Langley and the Pentagon will conjure up even more sick actions in the future.

Reported Covid-19 daily deaths (likely exaggerated for reasons I posted on months ago) have been declining inexorably since their peak, and are now about 10 percent of the maximum. Even that is overstated because of backdating in states like Delaware and New Jersey that resulted in large single day death reports that summed deaths that had occurred over periods of weeks or months.

We can’t have that, can we? How are we going to sustain the panic, as politically useful as it is, if we report good news?

No problem–just switch the metric! Whereas for weeks we were told the Grim Death Toll narrative, that has disappeared down the Memory Hole, to be replaced by the Skyrocketing Cases narrative, especially in Red States such as Texas, Florida, and Arizona.

I have been calling bullshit on the case numbers as a meaningful metric since March. It’s even more bullshit now.

A major reason case numbers (i.e., the number of positive tests) are BS is that testing is not a random process, but is endogenous. Moreover–and this is crucial now–the process driving who is tested is changing. Whereas before tests were focused on the symptomatic or the particularly vulnerable, testing is now more widespread. Some companies are requiring employees to be tested in order to return to work, or to remain at work if they have the sniffles.

As a result, more people are testing positive. Moreover, the average age of those testing positive has declined dramatically (because they were censored from the test population before). Most of those people are symptomatic, and those who are experience mild symptoms. Those under 60 exhibit little risk of death, or serious illness (especially if they do not have other serious health conditions). Those who are sick enough to require hospitalization are less likely to require ICU care, and those who do tend to recover at high rates (without ventilation), and have relatively short stays.

As a result, there has been a striking divergence between rising case numbers, and deaths.

But that doesn’t fit certain political needs. So we hear virtually nothing about deaths, but only shrieking about case numbers. This exploits the earlier misconception–misinformation, actually–that the death rate from the virus is high. Indeed, as positive tests accumulate, and serological studies accumulate, it is clear that the infection death rate is in the range of .1-.25 percent, far smaller than the earlier estimates that remain embedded in the memories of most.

The shrieking is particularly intense in–and at–Texas. Yes, Houston has seen a large increase in positive cases. But the deaths in Texas (and Houston) have never been large (up until now 2020 has seen fewer pneumonia-related deaths than in the typical year), and are not trending up . Not that you’d know from reading the media.

So there has been a reprise of the overwhelming the health care system narrative.

The worst sinner at this is my local POS newspaper, the Chronical. This article in particular, which insinuated that Governor Abbott (and no, I’m not a fan) had coerced Houston hospitals into covering up impending doom.

The article starts out with a lie, claiming that Houston ICU utilization had hit 100 percent. Actual data show this did not happen, and that Houston ICU utilization has been fairly constant over since April. Even throwing around scare numbers about 90 plus percent utilization is misleading. Of course hospital facilities are sized so that they do not have persistent unutilized capacity. That is wasteful, and inflates costs. As the data in the link show, moreover, hospitals–rationally–have the ability to expand capacity.

As I said in a very early post, capacity is not a destiny–it is a choice.

Yes, there as an increasing number of Covid patients in ICU. But this is clearly another manifestation of changing testing protocols, and most importantly, of the same problem that makes even the death data meaningless: lumping people in the hospital with Covid together with those who are hospitalized because of Covid. If the increased Covid numbers were there because of Covid, you would see ICU usage go up overall. You don’t. It’s oscillating around normal levels.

It should also be noted that there are reasons to believe that people who should have gone to ICUs, or to hospitals, did not because of Covid. This suppressed numbers and makes it dubious to attribute any increase in utilization to Covid.

As for the supposed coverup, the hospital systems did not stop reporting hospitalization/ICU data, but the projections of future usage.

The outrage! Yeah, because Covid-related predictions have always been spot on, right?

In fact, the only competition between projections is which is the most absurd.

The POS Chronical’s political agenda and utter hypocrisy is on full display:

Then, after reporting numerous charts and graphs almost daily for three months, the organization posted no updates until around 9 p.m. Saturday, sowing confusion about the hospitals’ ability to withstand a massive spike in cases that has followed Gov. Greg Abbott’s May decisions to lift restrictions intended to slow the virus.

Gee. What else happened around the same time. Let me think? Protests ring a bell?

But of course, the protests (and the massive George Floyd funeral) are sacrosanct, and out of respect the virus took a holiday and didn’t exploit the conditions (large crowds) that are supposedly the main source of contagion. (EG., MLB will be restarting–but without fans, because otherwise Minute Maid and other parks would be Covid Central.

The hysteria over case numbers reminds me of a phrase from the Climategate emails: “Hide the decline!” Just as in Climategate, there was a divergence between a number that mattered (actual temperature) and a bogus number (proxy data-based temperatures): actual temps were flat/declining when the proxy number was going up inexorably.

So the battlecry became: Hide the decline!

We are seeing the same thing now. Hide the decline in deaths by hyping irrelevant case numbers, misinterpreting those numbers, and making dire forecasts at odds with the actual data.

If you will recall, the entire justification for lockdowns was to “flatten the curve” to protect the healthcare system. The underlying rationale was that the virus’s spread was inevitable, but we need to control the rate. That is, suppression/elimination was an impossibility until herd immunity was achieved.

Based on that rationale, the surge in cases with low and arguably declining numbers of deaths and no data demonstrating an overwhelmed healthcare system is actually a good thing. It measures progress to herd immunity. Moreover, it’s better to have the spread now, in the summer, rather than when the flu season kicks in, and creates its inevitable increase in demand for healthcare resources–including ICU beds.

But the media and many politicians are completely invested in panic, for malign and dishonest reasons. So it is essential to hide the decline, and hype the spike.

The most recent monument to face desecration and destruction is The Emancipation Memorial in Washington, DC. This was the site of a confrontation between raving lunatics dressed in black and a group of elderly black gentlemen who had assembled to protect the monument:

At yesterday’s protest the man with the sign argued not to destroy the emancipation statue, b/c it was paid for by freed slaves. Antifa/BLM used black block tactics to swarm and silence him. He took a stand, bravely, for America and against mob rule. pic.twitter.com/rofLeVb0py

— Mike (@Doranimated) June 27, 2020

The ostensible objection to the Memorial is that portrays a black man in a demeaning, submissive pose at Abraham Lincoln’s feet. This was indeed true of the original design, but due to the objections of African Americans who had seen the design, it was changed to portray the subject rising, with head raised.

If you were a consistent leftist (I crack myself up sometimes) you would actually endorse this portrayal–after all, the incessant drumbeat we hear about slavery as the nation’s original sin and the root of all current evils is based on the very premise that blacks were beaten down, humiliated, and suppressed. In bondage, they were on their knees–literally and figuratively: and the statue portrays that. Emancipation–and remember, this is a monument to Emancipation–gave them the opportunity to rise up and stand like full human beings. But it was just the beginning. That is, the statue conveys powerfully that slavery subjugated black people, and that Emancipation was only the first step in a painful process of rising up to the status of full citizen and full person.

What about that does anyone–including a leftist–believe is untrue?

The monument was paid for by African Americans grateful to Abraham Lincoln, without whom, they realized, they would still be in bondage, and whom they recognized was martyred for his role in freeing them. The model for the rising black man was a former slave–is the modern left insinuating that he was an ignorant Uncle Tom for collaborating in a demeaning portrayal? The oration at the Memorial’s dedication was delivered by Frederick Douglas, who movingly and realistically described Lincoln’s not-John-Brown-like racial views, but who in the end celebrated Lincoln’s greatness, and expressed his gratitude–and impliedly the gratitude of other African Americans–for what Lincoln achieved despite his imperfections (which were largely the inheritance of his time and place). Was Frederick Douglas also a fool advancing the cause of white supremacy?

Note in the video in the tweet that one of the gentlemen that this mentally imbalanced woman is haranguing is clearly doing an historical impression of Frederick Douglas. I am sure that harridan has no clue.

Let’s be clear. This baying mob is not fit even to grovel at the feet of a moral and intellectual giant like Frederick Douglas, let alone assault those doing him homage, or attempting to destroy a monument to which Douglas paid homage on that very spot.

These attacks on the monument are, at best, narcissistic presentism run amok. And presentism is a malign form of bigotry, and in this case ironically deprives mid-19th century African Americans of agency and dignity.

But let’s cut the bullshit. The attack on the Emancipation Memorial has fuck all to do with aesthetics, symbolism, or iconography. Those are just the rhetorical camouflage.

To reprise the theme of several past posts, tearing down this monument is just another act of a movement to tear down the entire nation, extirpate its history root and branch, and replace it with a Marxist paradise.

But don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the person who targeted the monument for destruction, one Glenn Foster:

Apropos my earlier post on our Schumpeter Moment, note that Foster attended Harvard. That’s what they “learn” there.

There are other examples–too many–of the fundamental nature of the movement. Here’s one:

Law enforcement officials had to respond to a large group of Black Lives Matters activists late on Friday night that stormed a Beverly Hills residential neighborhood chanting “Eat the rich!” and “Abolish capitalism now!”

I could go on. And on. And on.

At root, this is not about racial injustice, really. That issue is merely a wedge. Or better, an opiate being given to the masses to cloud their faculties and dull the pain of the radical surgery that these radicals have planned for them.