Year: 2018

Not a Surprise

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We know that correlation does not imply causation, but lack of correlation does imply a lack of causation, and it appears that stop and frisk falls firmly into the latter category:

If you grew up in New York City in the 1970s, the number can be hard to get your head around: 291. If you were a reporter in New York City in the early 1990s, the number can almost make your head explode: 291 murders in 2017, the lowest total since the 1950s.

But the number is perhaps most striking when set not against the numbers of murders in other years, but against this figure: the roughly 10,000 police stops conducted in 2017.

The longstanding rationale for the New York Police Department’s widespread use of what came to be known as stop-and-frisk — encounters between officers and people they suspected of suspicious behavior — had been that it was an essential crime-fighting tool. Such stops got guns off the street, the theory went, and low-level enforcement helped sweep up criminals destined to commit more serious crimes.

………

Ultimately, a federal judge, Shira Scheindlin, found the NYPD’s enforcement of stop-and-frisk racially unfair and unconstitutional. A new mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the judge’s orders for reform, prompted a radical scaling back of stop-and-frisk. Critics predicted a disastrous return to, depending on one’s age and experience, the 1970s or the 1990s.

The disaster never happened. Instead, what many scholars and police officials thought nearly unthinkable — further reductions in crime after two decades of plummeting numbers — did.

Holding murders under 300 was just the headline of 2017 statistics that saw considerable reductions in almost every category of major crime.

Stop and frisk was never a tactic to reduce crime, though the naive might have believed that, it was a way to keep people of color down.  (With a bit of law-enforcement theater thrown in.)

This is Impressive

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The costs of renewable energy installations, including storage, has fallen precipitously:

Proposals for renewable electricity generation in Colorado are coming in cheap, like, $21/MWh-cheap for wind and battery storage. Though there are a few caveats to those numbers, federal incentives and quickly falling costs are combining to make once-quirky renewable projects into major contenders in an industry where fossil fuels have comfortably dominated since the 19th century. 

 Early last year, Colorado energy provider Xcel Energy requested proposals for new electricity generation. Specifically, the company needed 450 megawatts of additional generation to meet future demand. In a separate request called the Colorado Energy Plan, Xcel said (PDF) it would consider replacing two coal plants providing 660MW of capacity with “hundreds of megawatts of new wind and solar as well as some natural gas-fired resources” if new resources could be found cheaper than what those coal plants cost to operate (including costs to shut down the plants early).

By late November, energy companies had submitted their best offers. Although exact details of the offers aren’t available yet, Xcel Colorado was required to make public a summary of the proposals (PDF) in the month after the bids were submitted.

………

Still, the prices quoted were encouragingly competitive. Although Xcel’s report doesn’t have a lot of details, this is what we know:

  • Out of 152 standalone solar bids, the median bid price was $29.50/MWh.

  • Standalone wind received the second-most bids from potential developers (that is, 96), and the median bid price was an astonishingly low $18.10/MWh. That’s on the same level as a record-low $17.70/MWh bid put forward in Mexico in November.
  • 87 bids were placed to develop solar-plus-storage installations, with a median bid of $36/MWh. Still, we don’t know what kind of storage was proposed or how much of it was proposed. If you have a giant solar field sending electricity to the grid as it gets made, and a small battery installation to manage frequency regulation or serve a local community for an hour of downtime, that’s not terribly exciting. This median price is down from a previous competitive price of below $45/MWh signed by Tucson Electric.
  • 11 bids were placed to build wind-with-storage at a median bid of $21/MWh. The same problem with evaluating Xcel’s solar-and-storage bids is present in the reported wind-and-storage bids: without more detail, it’s hard to evaluate how much storage comes with that.
  • Seven bids suggested a combination wind, solar, and battery storage installation, with a median price of $30.60/MWh.
  • Five bids suggested combining solar and wind for around $19.90/MWh.


A few more traditional, dispatchable technologies were proposed as well, but Xcel asked bidders to price these out in terms of dollars per kilowatt-month ($/kW-mo). That unit of measurement is considered capacity pricing, or pricing for electricity that’s generated when demand exceeds a certain point, so it’s not quite comparable to the $/MWh seen above.

Among those resources, combustion turbines came in at $4.80/kW-mo, and combustion turbines with battery storage came in at $6.20/kW-mo. For context, in a 2010 paper (PDF), New England’s grid saw a $4.50/kW-mo bid for more traditional fossil fuel generators.

Renewables are still more expensive to install, but the differential is falling quickly.

A Good Surprise

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The staff of the Los Angeles Times has overwhelmingly voted to unionized:

The Los Angeles Times’ editorial staff voted to unionize in a rebuke to owner Tronc Inc. that marks a new era in the newspaper’s 136-year history.

The employees’ union, NewsGuild, won the vote by a margin of more than 5-to-1, organizer Nastaran Mohit said Friday. The guild is an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America union, which has been organizing at the Times since late 2016.

Perhaps the fact that overpaid senior executives in the organization are being investigated for misconduct, while the news room has been gutted, has something to do with the lopsided vote:

The company also said Friday that Ross Levinsohn, the L.A. Times’ publisher, is taking a voluntary unpaid leave while the company looks into allegations of misconduct.

The vote heralds the beginning of a bargaining process that’s sure to prove contentious. Like the rest of the industry, the L.A. Times has been in almost constant turmoil in recent years, amid dwindling readership, falling advertising revenue, editorial shakeups and, most recently, the allegations against its publisher. Meanwhile, the company that eventually became Tronc has lurched from bankruptcy to a spinoff to a change in ownership and, finally, a new name in under a decade.

………

“There was a time, way back when, when a guild couldn’t make headway in the newsroom, because the people were treated very well,” Paul Pringle, an investigative reporter who helped spearhead the drive, said in an interview before the vote. “Those days are over.”

Increasingly, newspapers are run by people who do not believe in newspapers, and because of this, their business model is to extract as much money as possible by making its employees lives a living hell.

Unionization is a logical response to this.

This was Intentional

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The NSA, despite being ordered by a judge to preserve records because of a lawsuit, deleted all of the records:

The National Security Agency destroyed surveillance data it pledged to preserve in connection with pending lawsuits and apparently never took some of the steps it told a federal court it had taken to make sure the information wasn’t destroyed, according to recent court filings.

Word of the NSA’s foul-up is emerging just as Congress has extended for six years the legal authority the agency uses for much of its surveillance work conducted through U.S. internet providers and tech firms. President Donald Trump signed that measure into law Friday.

Since 2007, the NSA has been under court orders to preserve data about certain of its surveillance efforts that came under legal attack following disclosures that President George W. Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping of international communications after the 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. In addition, the agency has made a series of representations in court over the years about how it is complying with its duties.

However, the NSA told U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey White in a filing on Thursday night and another little-noticed submission last year that the agency did not preserve the content of internet communications intercepted between 2001 and 2007 under the program Bush ordered. To make matters worse, backup tapes that might have mitigated the failure were erased in 2009, 2011 and 2016, the NSA said.

This is a repeated behavior, and it was repeated over and over again, from an organization that throws away nothing, ever.

This was a deliberate action that was conducted to cover up misconduct by the organization. 

The only question is how high in the chain of command that it went.

Nope, No Attempt to Destroy the CFPB Here

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The new head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney, has requested no money at all for its budget in the upcoming year:

The Trump-appointed acting director of the federal government’s consumer watchdog agency requested zero dollars of funding for its second-quarter budget, saying he intends to first spend down the agency’s rainy day fund.

In a letter to the Federal Reserve, which directly funds the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Mick Mulvaney said the bureau does not need any new funds to operate during its second quarter. The bureau has on deposit $177.1 million to cover emergencies and contingencies, which Mulvaney says is too large. He said he intends to spend that down by roughly $145 million.

Since he’s been there he has also killed regulation of payday lenders, invited Wall Street into its regulation process, and dropped a lawsuit against predatory lenders.

The CFPB is a dead man walking.

About that Shutdown

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Yes, a government shutdown started at midnight.

This should be basically invisible until Monday, so right now we are getting political theater, with Trump demanding his wall, and the Dems demanding an extension to DACA.

I would be very surprised if we this isn’t resolved by Wednesday or so.

The only wild card is the White House, where the incompetence of Trump, and the incoherent and conflicting agendas of both him and his staff.

Still, that is one f%$# of a wild card.

Is This the Proper use of the use of the Term Ironic?

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Pat Meehan (R-PA) who has been a major figure on the House Judiciary Committee’s work on sexual harassment, has been removed from the committee for sexually harassing an aide:

Representative Patrick Meehan, a Pennsylvania Republican who has taken a leading role in fighting sexual harassment in Congress, used thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to settle his own misconduct complaint after a former aide accused him last year of making unwanted romantic overtures to her, according to several people familiar with the settlement.

A married father of three, Mr. Meehan, 62, had long expressed interest in the personal life of the aide, who was decades younger and had regarded the congressman as a father figure, according to three people who worked with the office and four others with whom she discussed her tenure there.

But after the woman became involved in a serious relationship with someone outside the office last year, Mr. Meehan professed his romantic desires for her — first in person, and then in a handwritten letter — and he grew hostile when she did not reciprocate, the people familiar with her time in the office said.

Life in the office became untenable, so she initiated the complaint process, started working from home and ultimately left the job. She later reached a confidential agreement with Mr. Meehan’s office that included a settlement for an undisclosed amount to be paid from Mr. Meehan’s congressional office fund.

 Yeah, this is getting to be regular thing.

Linkage

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How do Cats Use Their Whiskers? Slow-Motion – Cats Uncovered – BBC:

Stooges, Definitely, Russian? I Don’t Know.

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At least, there is symmetry.
                  

It now appears that everyone’s favorite group of jack-booted thugs, the National Rifle Association, is being investigated by the FBI for acting as a pass through Russian money to support the Trump campaign.

It’s not clear from the story as to whether this is Russian government money, or just money from rich Russians, and separating the two is generally problematic, but here we have a real crime, money laundering, which is a felony:

The FBI is investigating whether a top Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the National Rifle Association to help Donald Trump win the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter have told McClatchy.

 FBI counterintelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia’s central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA, the sources said.

 It is illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections.

 It’s unclear how long the Torshin inquiry has been ongoing, but the news comes as Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s sweeping investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including whether the Kremlin colluded with Trump’s campaign, has been heating up.

 All of the sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Mueller’s investigation is confidential and mostly involves classified information.
………

 The extent to which the FBI has evidence of money flowing from Torshin to the NRA, or of the NRA’s participation in the transfer of funds, could not be learned.

 However, the NRA reported spending a record $55 million on the 2016 elections, including $30 million to support Trump – triple what the group devoted to backing Republican Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race. Most of that was money was spent by an arm of the NRA that is not required to disclose its donors.

Even a lower level prosecution might put the NRA’s tax exemption at risk, but getting Wayne LaPierre convicted of a felony, which would require him to give up all of his guns, would make my f%$#ing day, big time.

End Stage of Empire

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Deaths of mothers in child birth in the US are skyrocketing:

The rate of Texas women who died from complications related to pregnancy doubled from 2010 to 2014, a new study has found, for an estimated maternal mortality rate that is unmatched in any other state and the rest of the developed world.

The finding comes from a report, appearing in the September issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, that the maternal mortality rate in the United States increased between 2000 and 2014, even while the rest of the world succeeded in reducing its rate. Excluding California, where maternal mortality declined, and Texas, where it surged, the estimated number of maternal deaths per 100,000 births rose to 23.8 in 2014 from 18.8 in 2000 – or about 27%.

But the report singled out Texas for special concern, saying the doubling of mortality rates in a two-year period was hard to explain “in the absence of war, natural disaster, or severe economic upheaval”.

From 2000 to the end of 2010, Texas’s estimated maternal mortality rate hovered between 17.7 and 18.6 per 100,000 births. But after 2010, that rate had leaped to 33 deaths per 100,000, and in 2014 it was 35.8. Between 2010 and 2014, more than 600 women died for reasons related to their pregnancies.

No other state saw a comparable increase.

In the wake of the report, reproductive health advocates are blaming the increase on Republican-led budget cuts that decimated the ranks of Texas’s reproductive healthcare clinics. In 2011, just as the spike began, the Texas state legislature cut $73.6m from the state’s family planning budget of $111.5m. The two-thirds cut forced more than 80 family planning clinics to shut down across the state. The remaining clinics managed to provide services – such as low-cost or free birth control, cancer screenings and well-woman exams – to only half as many women as before.

Part of the Texas spike seems to be a statistical and data collection artifact, but a 27% increase nationally is nothing short of catastrophic.

It is symptomatic of a some very serious and deep rooted problems that taken root in our society.

More of This………

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US Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez have endorsed fellow Congressman Dan Lipinski’s primary opponent, Marie Newman, in the upcoming primary.

This is really unprecedented:

In a rare break from the usual tradition of House incumbents either backing each other or staying neutral in a primary, Illinois Democratic Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Luis Gutierrez on Wednesday endorsed challenger Marie Newman over Rep. Dan Lipinski.

“It’s not easy to endorse a challenger over a colleague in the House of Representatives,” Gutierrez said at a press conference on Capitol Hill with Newman and Schakowsky.

“Especially when that colleague is a member of your party. But I think this is a very special and at the same time a very dangerous time,” he said.

Said Schakowsky, “this is not personal,” with the split, she said, “based on issues.”

Lipinski told me when we talked after the press conference that working-class issues — not gay rights and abortion — are what the Democratic voters in his district care the most about.

The March 20 Illinois primary is one of the earliest in the nation and this intra-Democratic fight for the third congressional district seat will be a real time test of voter mood in this Trump era.

Lipinski is a right wing nut job who is where he is because his dad bequeathed him his seat.

Turf his ass out.

Newman’s Act Blue fund raising page is here.

Yeah, Pretty Much

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Protesters are demanding that Barack Obama sign a community benefits agreement before building his Presidential library, because they do not trust him to keep his word to benefit the (largely minority) residents of the neighborhood.

I wouldn’t trust him either:

Black aldermen attempting to congratulate African-American contractors that won the right to help build the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park were drowned out Wednesday by protesters demanding that former President Barack Obama put it in writing.

………

Protesters chanting, “C.B.A.” and “Shame,” had other ideas. They were determined to drown out the aldermen and make their voices heard.

The raucous demonstration was led by Jitu Brown, who used similar, in-your-face tactics during the drive that forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked school board to save Dyett High School.

“We cannot take the president’s word on the fact that they’re not gonna push African-Americans out with the Obama Presidential Center. There is no history that says their word is worth anything,” Brown said.

“What we need is an in-writing community benefits agreement that says that people who live in those communities will benefit — not in a profiteering way, but jobs, investment in neighborhood elementary schools, transportation infrastructure. That is not a lot to ask. In the case of the Staples Center in Los Angeles, it kept people in their communities.”

Brown was asked why he is so convinced that promises made by the nation’s first African-American president won’t be kept.

“The situation will not be different because our African-American president endorsed school privatization — the closing of schools all across the United States. Our African-American aldermen have sat by while 50 schools closed in the city of Chicago. And it had a harmful effect on Chicago’s children,” Brown said.

(emphasis mine)

Yeah, pretty much.

Barack Obama protected the banks while presiding over the largest destruction of black wealth in history.

Trusting him is a sucker bet.

Linkage

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I’ve not seen Game of Thrones, but even I get this:

This is Insane

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It appears that the Pentagon is planning for nuclear retaliation in response to cyber attacks:

A newly drafted United States nuclear strategy that has been sent to President Trump for approval would permit the use of nuclear weapons to respond to a wide range of devastating but non-nuclear attacks on American infrastructure, including what current and former government officials described as the most crippling kind of cyberattacks.

For decades, American presidents have threatened “first use” of nuclear weapons against enemies in only very narrow and limited circumstances, such as in response to the use of biological weapons against the United States. But the new document is the first to expand that to include attempts to destroy wide-reaching infrastructure, like a country’s power grid or communications, that would be most vulnerable to cyberweapons.

The draft document, called the Nuclear Posture Review, was written at the Pentagon and is being reviewed by the White House. Its final release is expected in the coming weeks and represents a new look at the United States’ nuclear strategy. The draft was first published last week by HuffPost.

It called the strategic picture facing the United States quite bleak, citing not only Russian and Chinese nuclear advances but advances made by North Korea and, potentially, Iran.

“We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” the draft document said. The Trump administration’s new initiative, it continued, “realigns our nuclear policy with a realistic assessment of the threats we face today and the uncertainties regarding the future security environment.”
Continue reading the main story

The Pentagon declined to comment on the draft assessment because Mr. Trump has not yet approved it. The White House also declined to comment.

This is full, “Protecting our purity of essence,” (Dr. Strangelove) nsane.

The Crapification of Google Search

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Google appears to dropping older web pages from its searches:

I think Google has stopped in­dex­ing the old­er parts of the We­b. I think I can prove it. Google’s com­pe­ti­tion is do­ing bet­ter.

 Ev­i­dence · This isn’t just a proof, it’s a rock-n-roll proof. Back in 2006, I pub­lished a re­view of Lou Reed’s Rock n Roll An­i­mal al­bum. Back in 2008, Brent Sim­mons pub­lished That New Sound, about The Clash’s Lon­don Calling. Here’s a chal­lenge: Can you find ei­ther of these with Google? Even if you read them first and can care­ful­ly con­jure up exact-match strings, and then use the “site:” pre­fix? I can’t.

 [Up­date: Now you can, be­cause this piece went a lit­tle vi­ral. But you sure couldn’t ear­li­er in the day.]

 ………

 Com­pe­ti­tion · Bing can find it! Duck­Duck­Go can too! Both of them can find Brent’s Lon­don Calling piece, too

This is not surprising.

They buried the date range search in 2014, and their dominance in advertising has meant that they really don’t have to compete on search around the edges.

They know that there is no meaningful alternative for getting eyeballs and ad revenue.

Boys Want Their Toys

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It appears that the wants its nuclear tipped Tomahawk missiles again, because ……… I dunno ……… generals don’t think that Viagra is enough for them?

The Trump administration will embark on a “big-league” revival of the U.S. nuclear complex after decades of decline by reviving production of plutonium cores for new warheads and reintroducing a sea-launched cruise missile, among other plans.

 A leaked draft of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review confirms what has been foreshadowed by U.S. military leaders over the past year: America will respond to the growing might of the nuclear forces of China and Russia, as well as emerging threats from North Korea, by broadly modernizing its outdated nuclear arsenal of Cold War-era bombers, submarines, missiles and nuclear-certified tactical fighters.

………

To counter Russia’s “significant advantage” in nonstrategic nuclear weaponry and expand the range of military options against China and North Korea in the Pacific theater, the Defense Department will also retrofit “a small number” of submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) with a low-yield nuclear-strike option and invest in a modern sea-launched cruise missile. This fills a void left by the Obama administration’s retirement of the nuclear-armed Raytheon Tomahawk Land Attack Missile.

“Significant advantage,”  are you sh%$#ting me?

This is just dick waving, it’s likely to encourage more nations to examine their nuclear options.