Alternative Energy in the Age of Donald Trump

To my Leftists friends (of whom I have a few), may I say:  I feel your pain.  And with Trump recently choosing Scott Pruitt for EPA chief, you are feeling especially anguished.  In this respect, at least, I think I can help.  Please don't feel bad about what Trump may do with respect to alternative energy.  It will be OK, and let me explain why.

The world is bigger than the U.S. and bigger, therefore, than Donald Trump.  While the U.S. has a lot of the clever scientists and engineers needed to develop alternative energies, the U.S. does not have a monopoly on them.  In other words, there are other clever scientists and engineers out there.  The Europeans have plenty of them.  The Japanese, Chinese, and Indians have a lot of them.  Even tiny Israel has made its mark in the world of science and engineering.

Second, many other countries have much greater incentives, than the U.S., to find and develop alternative energies.  The Europeans have a greater ideological commitment to alternative energy.  The Asians have vastly greater economic incentive to finding alternatives to fossil fuels.  And Israel has an existential interest in moving away from fossil fuels.

As long as we are on the subject, let me point out that purely by the fact that nobody is yet running an economy, larger than a pig farm, on corn oil or wind energy, should tell you something.  It tells me there remain serious obstacles to alternative energy.  Those obstacles have to be some combination of chemistry and economics.

In other words, if it could be done, somebody would be doing it, already.  That it is not being done is not the fault of Donald Trump or the Republican Party.  It is the fault of Nature, and you will have take up this matter with the Big Guy upstairs.  Or, get your own degree in chemical engineering and get to work on the problem, yourself.  Either way, please stop blaming Donald Trump.  (And while we're at it, could you pleeese dial down the whining at least a little bit?  For pity's sake?)

What Was Russia Up To?

The WaPo article, "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" is plainly a cover-up of Barack's fickleness.

First, it is impossible to take the article at face value.  Not only does the WaPo give no plausible reason why Russia should favor Trump over Clinton, recent history suggests otherwise.  Recall the open-mic whisper of Obama's, in March 2012, in which he assured then Russian president Medvedev "After my election I will have more flexibility".  To what end, one wonders?  And previously there was the famous "Reset Button" affair between Hillary and then Russian foreign minister, Lavrov.

And it was under Obama/Clinton that Russia returned to the world stage in a really big way.  Absorbing Crimea, starting a fight in Ukraine, and becoming hegemon in Syria.  What's not to love?  If you are a Russian.

So, it has been under Obama/Clinton that Russia has been able to advance its interests prodigiously, most especially undermining the EU, which the Russians hate and against which the Americans have done exactly...oh, let me see now, hmmm... nothing.  If there is a reason to suppose anything would be different in a Clinton administration, I have not heard it.

Second, suppose the Russians were trying to influence the 2016 elections.  What did they do?  In point of fact, all the Russians did was to reveal to us the real Hillary Clinton.  Absolutely, positively nobody has claimed the Hillary emails are false, that the leaks are a disinformation campaign.  To the contrary, the depressing fact is that the Wikileaked emails really are from Hillary and her creature, John Podesta.   How depressing is that?  So the Russians have done us a huge favor and we owe them a debt of gratitude.

Now, that I think about it, I am reminded of the Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia, around 1978-79.  Let me remind you, first, that by the late 1970's, the Vietnamese were really tough motherfuckers.  They had been in a state of constant war from 1946 until 1975, first kicking French butt, then kicking American butt.  They had endured real hardhsip, witnessed real carnage, for a generation and they were not to be trifled with.

Now, in 1975 Pol Pot, as leader of the Kmer Rouge, took over Cambodia.  Although Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed vastly more people, in absolute numbers, pound-for-pound Pol Pot (always "Pol Pot", never "Mr. Pot", for some reason) was the worst human being who had ever lived, if he was a human being, at all. Through sheer brutality, oppression, degradation, and insensate violence, Pol Pot murdered fully 1/4 of the entire Cambodian population, as documented in the famous movie, "The Killing Fields", based on the reportage of NY Times correspondent Sidney Schanberg (from when the NY Times still practiced journalism).

The Khmer Rouge were so awful that even the battle-hardened Vietnamese could not stomach them.  The Vietnamese were compelled, by human decency and nothing else, to march into Cambodia and put an end to the Khmer Rouge, finally.  G-d bless them.

As with Vietnam in Cambodia, so with Russia in the American elections of 2016.  The Russians are no pussycats.  They are as corrupt and as venal as they come.  And yet, even they could not stand the blatant deceit, mendacity, and corruption of the Clinton Crime Family---even as that corruption served their own interests.

Compelled by sheer human decency and nothing else, or so it seems to me, the Russians drew back the heavy curtains and let sterilizing rays of daylight shine onto the undead Hillary Clinton, who then burst into flames.

Only towards the very end do we get a true sense of what this story may really be about.

The reluctance of the Obama White House to respond to the alleged Russian intrusions before Election Day upset Democrats on the Hill as well as members of the Clinton campaign.
...
“The lack of an administration response on the Russian hacking cannot be attributed to Congress,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was at the September meeting. “The administration has all the tools it needs to respond. They have the ability to impose sanctions. They have the ability to take clandestine means. The administration has decided not to utilize them in a way that would deter the Russians, and I think that’s a problem.”

And so, Barack Obama, a man incapable of action, failed to act.  Yet again.

What Do They Have Against You?

Jewish jokes are funny.  In some cases, you don't really understand their profundity until world events instruct you.  Over and over, the reaction of the Left to Donald Trump brings the following joke to mind, which I write from memory since I cannot find it on the internet.
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A young Jewish man was drafted into the army because the Tsar was going to fight the Turks, again.  As the boy was getting ready to leave, his tearful mother was offering him some parting advice.

"Dear boy," she says, "don't strain yourself.  Shoot a Turk, then rest a little.  Shoot another Turk, then eat a snack.  Shoot a Turk, then take a cup of tea..."

"But, mummy," interjected the boy, "what if the Turks shoot back at me?"

"God forbid!"  Exclaimed the woman in horror.  "What on earth do the Turks have against you?"

Just Say "No" To the Free Rider Voter

What a fascinating argument does the NY Times publish.  To argue his case "Why Blue States Are the Real ‘Tea Party’", Steven Johnson writes,

"The urban states are subsidizing the rural states, and yet somehow in return, the rural states get more power at the voting booth."

Clearly, Johnson Implies, justice demands that states which pay more into the public fisc should have a bigger say in public affairs.  I think he, and the NY Times, should follow their logic to its natural conclusion:  I think that an individual who pays more into the public fisc should have more of a say in public affairs.  Let me spell this out in detail.

I believe that all the rules governing the franchise, as they now exist, should apply (and be enforced).  In addition:

1. The person must be active duty military or honorably discharge, OR
2. The person must be a net contributor to the public fisc in at least three of the four years prior to the election.

There are some obvious immediate results.  Of course, people whose sustenance comes mainly from public assistance will not be able to vote (as long as they remain on public assistance).  Far more importantly, all public servants will be disenfranchised, including teachers.

This disenfranchisement is purely voluntary.  If you like the pay and job security of the civil service, you are welcome to it, but you cannot vote.  Is the vote that important to you?  No problem, just get a job in the private sector (and not as a government contractor).

I wonder if Steve Johnson would agree with me?  Nah!  He's just fucking with us.  Johnson is saying these things only to undermine the legitimacy of Donald Trump as POTUS.  Had Barack Obama won the electoral college with a minority of the popular vote, Steven Johnson would have uttered nary a peep.

On the other hand, I really mean it.

Why Science Needs Donald Trump

I read articles like this so you don't have to, "Are the best students really that advanced?" about the latest results from TIMSS.

TIMSS is the "Trends In International Math And Science Study".  It compares achievement in math and science of students in about 40 countries, including the U.S.  This particular version of the study hails from 1995 but is merely a variant of the kind of international comparison done since about 1965.  It used to be done every ten years, now every four or five years.

Students used to be compared at approximately the 4th grade, 8th grade, and 12th grade levels.  Then, 12 graders were not included for a while.  Now, it seems they are being included, again, at least for some countries.  I will touch on the reason for this, shortly.

The international comparisons are restricted to math and science, for obvious reasons.  Testing in Chinese language and literature would be meaningless since Americans, for example, do not study the subject.  And yet, there are structural difficulties, even with math and science.  For example, the U.S. is one of the few countries that seriously tries to offer the same education to every student.  In fact, for complicated reasons that would require their own essay, we are reluctant to let any student off the college-prep track.

Many other countries, like the high achieving East Asians, perform a rather aggressive educational "triage".  Typically around the 8th grade, sometimes as early as the 6th grade, students are sorted into vocational and academic tracks.  The academic track, itself, is often bifurcated into the parallel tracks of Arts and Sciences.  Prospective scientists and engineers are being specially groomed since about age 13 years.

You have to know there is a world of difference between the kind of math and science you can teach to a select group of highly motivated, high achieving, college-bound, science-intending students, and a heterogeneous group of students, many of whom may not even be college material, and whose chief common characteristic is indifference to mathematics, if not outright aversion to it.  TIMSS reflects this difference, spectacularly, and the Americans hate it.

Over the years, the TIMSS has been vised and revised for one primary reason:  the Americans don't like the results.  And yet, for all the revisions, this one result about American students remains stubbornly robust over some 50 years:

• by the end of 4th grade, they score in the top quartile;
• by the end of 8th grade, they are at the median; and 
• by the end of high school, they are at the bottom.

In other words, American students do reasonably well at 4th grade, decline to mediocrity by 8th grade, then a sheer drop to the bottom in high school. This result has been so consistent for so long that some years ago (circa 2000?) the "Economist Newspaper" was moved to comment that 

"American schools are bad for American children. The longer they are in school the worse they do."

This view was corroborated in 2009 by an NYU study of foreign-born children in NYC schools, "Age of entry and the high school performance of immigrant youth".  Stiefel, Schwartz, and Conger compared American-born children of immigrant parents to foreign-born immigrant children.  They hypothesized that children who had spent more time in NYC schools would perform better than children, educated elsewhere, who then entered NYC schools in mid-stream.

Much to the surprise of the authors---but not to anyone familiar with TIMSS---the results were just the reverse.  And, by the way, this is why 12^th grade was excluded from TIMSS for several testing cycles;  the Americans did not like it.  If you restrict TIMSS to 4^th and 8^th grades, the American “Education Mafia” can defensibly assert that, “Well, OK, maybe American education is not all it should be, but it’s no disaster neither.”

Yes, it is a disaster.  Of the 40 industrial countries (and a couple of others) in TIMSS, American public education decidedly provides the worst “Bang for the buck.”  It is the most expensive of all public school systems (with the possible exception of Switzerland) and it gets the worst possible results (with the possible exceptions of Turkey and Cyprus).  The worst Bang for the buck, no doubt.

Friends, you have to meditate on these two facts:  (1) American schools are bad for American children, and (2) this fact has been well known---Well Known---for 50 years.  Naturally, profound change in American public education is in the offing, right?

Wrong.

For reasons that are poorly understood---through no fault of the Education Mafia, who publish their theories widely in books, academic papers, popular journals, Op-eds in local and national newspapers, and in Congressional testimonies---the Education Mafia will only double down on their current theories of education.  Nobody wants the schools we have except the Education Mafia, and there is no way around them.

The U.S. does not have a ministry of education, like France, e.g., where all children use the same textbooks and on this day at this time everyone is, literally, on the same page.  Indeed, it was famously, and humorously, observed that during the height of French colonialism, little African children in Chad and Gabon, reading from the same books as the children of their French masters, would begin their history lesson with “Our ancestors the Gauls.” (Those little children are not reading about their ancestors the Gauls, or anything else, anymore.  The French are gone and the children are too busy foraging for food and dodging bullets.  Post-colonialism has been a catastrophe for them.)

And yet, it is a mistake to suppose that American public schools are not centrally directed.  Oh, there might be a bit of wiggle room, here and there, but you are only deluding yourself if you do not see the uniformity of policy and practice across the country.  There is a de facto, if not de jure, syndicate of education schools (primus inter pares, Columbia Teachers College), teachers unions, and multifarious professional organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, National Association of State Boards of Education, The Council of Chief State School Officers, and at least a dozen like these, that constitute what I call the “Education Mafia”.  These people talk to each other, they compare notes, they testify on each other’s behalfs, and they plan the future of your children, whether you like it or not.

The Education Mafia is the single most fearsome political lobby in the country.  They have some five million members (probably more), a lot of their own money, they control the education budget to the tune of some $650 BBBillion per year, and they are organized at every level of government, local, state, and federal.  They are truly massive, their social and political roots run deep, and they are unreformable.

That is, the Education Mafia are unreformable under the current political regime.  So long as the Democratic Party belongs to Donna Brazile and the Clinton Crime Family, so long as the Republican Party belongs to Karl Rove and the Bush Family, there is no hope for reform.  None.  Zero.  Zip.

The only hope for education reform is to reduce the existing political parties into “smoking pile[s] of rubble”, and to break the back of the Education Mafia.  My only hope for the 2016 elections was to see the Rove/Bush wing of the Republican Party defeated.  In fact, Donald Trump has reduced both parties to smoking piles of rubble, and I am eternally grateful to him for that, alone.  We live in exciting times.

It remains to be seen what President Trump will do with public education.  His nomination of Betsy DeVos to Education Secretary is sadly uninspiring.  Charters and vouchers will not be our salvation.  But, the man has time so let’s give him a chance (and some encouragement).  If Donald Trump breaks the back of the Education Mafia, it will be a new dawn in science education, and a new start for a whole lot of other things, to boot.