Category Archives: Web Article Review

where are the tigers?

Wild tiger populations are critically low, but have actually ticked up a bit. Here are the numbers: There are 12 countries thought to have wild tigers, with a global estimate of 3,890. There were 13 until Cambodia recently announced that theirs were gone. India has by far the most, with an estimated 2,226. The next largest populations are only 433, in Russia, and 371, in Indonesia. The rest generally have around a hundred or less.

antibacterial soap

The tide may be finally turning against anti-bacterial soap. Not only does it not improve health, it becomes lodged in your nose and allows antibiotic-resistant germs to breed there.

In the meantime, however, researchers seem to be digging up more and more dirt on the chemicals, particularly triclosan. This antimicrobial is widely used in not just hand soaps, but body washes, shampoos, toothpastes, cosmetics, household cleaners, medical equipment, and more. And it’s just as pervasive in people as it is in homes and clinics. Triclosan easily enters bodies by ingestion (think toothpaste) or skin absorption. It’s commonly found in people’s urine, blood, breast milk, and even their snot.

A 2014 study led by microbiologist Blaise Boles of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor tested 90 adults and found that 41 percent (37 people) had triclosan-laced boogers. Antimicrobial-snot paradoxically doubles your odds of having the potentially-infectious Staphylococcus aureus bacteria up your nose.

In rats exposed to triclosan, Dr. Boles and his colleagues found that triclosan exposure made it more difficult, not less, for the rodents to fend off Staph invasions. Triclosan seems to make the bacteria “stickier”—better able to adhere to proteins and surfaces. That stickiness could be why Staph is so good at hunkering down in the schnoz, setting the stage for future infections.

The article goes on to say they are having an adverse effect on wastewater treatment processes, and possibly on aquatic ecosystems downstream although that doesn’t seem conclusive.

The way I think of clean chemistry, we can break substances into three categories: (1) those we know are useful, non-toxic and safe (basic soap, for example), (2) those that are useful but we know or suspect they may not be safe (laundry and dishwasher detergents for example), and (3) those that are useless and we do not know if they are safe (antibacterial soap is a perfect example!). Saying no to category 3 should be the easy part! They should be banned, and leaders of companies that push these products should be held accountable. The hard part is finding substitutes from category 1 that are just as effective and cost-effective as the ones in category 2. We put up with category 2 because the functions are important enough to us that we are willing to put up with the risks. But consumers are not good judges of that risk, and companies not only are willing to sell them dangerous products, they are willing to use cynical marketing campaigns to boost demand for them.

Robert Paxton on Trump

Back on the “Trump is a fascist” topic, I think I recently took an article by Robert Paxton, an expert on who is a fascist, and used it to try to make the case that Trump is a fascist. Well, from an interview in Slate here is Paxton himself on the topic:

First of all, there are the kinds of themes Trump uses. The use of ethnic stereotypes and exploitation of fear of foreigners is directly out of a fascist’s recipe book. “Making the country great again” sounds exactly like the fascist movements. Concern about national decline, that was one of the most prominent emotional states evoked in fascist discourse, and Trump is using that full-blast, quite illegitimately, because the country isn’t in serious decline, but he’s able to persuade them that it is. That is a fascist stroke. An aggressive foreign policy to arrest the supposed decline. That’s another one. Then, there’s a second level, which is a level of style and technique. He even looks like Mussolini in the way he sticks his lower jaw out, and also the bluster, the skill at sensing the mood of the crowd, the skillful use of media…

I think there are some powerful differences. To start with, in the area of programs, the fascists offer themselves as a remedy for aggressive individualism, which they believed was the source of the defeat of Germany in World War I, and the decline of Italy, the failure of Italy. World War I, the perceived national decline, they blamed on individualism and their solution was to subject the individual to the interests of the community. Trump, and the Republicans generally, and indeed a great swath of American society have celebrated individualism to the absolute total extreme. Trump’s idea and the Republican plan is to lift the burden of regulation from businesses…

The other differences are the circumstances in which we live. Germany had been defeated catastrophically in war. Following which was the depression, which was almost as bad in Germany as it was here. Italy was on the brink of civil war in 1919. There were massive occupations of land by frustrated peasants. The actual problems those countries addressed have no parallel to today. We have serious problems, but there’s no objective conditions that come anywhere near the seriousness of what those countries were facing. There was a groundswell of reaction against the existing constitutions and existing regimes.

So the original fascism was openly anti-democratic, about subordinating individuality to the state, and it seems unlikely for any American politician to openly campaign on these ideas. Does that matter? It was also about going back to perceived glory days when the state was much stronger and people were more united. In that sense, it makes sense that in the U.S. a fascism would be based on our national myth of rugged individualism and the equal opportunity to “pursue” happiness, which maybe implies that if you have the natural talent and/or make the effort you deserve to succeed, while those who lack those things do not.

And anyway, the original Italian brand of fascism was not really based on ideology – it was more style over substance as described here by Umberto Eco:

If we still think of the totalitarian governments that ruled Europe before the Second World War we can easily say that it would be difficult for them to reappear in the same form in different historical circumstances. If Mussolini’s fascism was based upon the idea of a charismatic ruler, on corporatism, on the utopia of the Imperial Fate of Rome, on an imperialistic will to conquer new territories, on an exacerbated nationalism, on the ideal of an entire nation regimented in black shirts, on the rejection of parliamentary democracy, on anti-Semitism, then I have no difficulty in acknowledging that today the Italian Alleanza Nazionale, born from the postwar Fascist Party, MSI, and certainly a right-wing party, has by now very little to do with the old fascism. In the same vein, even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement…

Nevertheless, even though political regimes can be overthrown, and ideologies can be criticized and disowned, behind a regime and its ideology there is always a way of
thinking and feeling, a group of cultural habits, of obscure instincts and unfathomable drives. Is there still another ghost stalking Europe (not to speak of other parts of the world)? …

Italian fascism was certainly a dictatorship, but it was not totally totalitarian, not because of its mildness but rather because of the philosophical weakness of its ideology. Contrary to common opinion, fascism in Italy had no special philosophy. The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini. Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and later signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited the name of God in his speeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.

Speaking of style over substance, I’ll link to one more article that I found fascinating, describing a theory that Donald Trump honed his skills at firing up a crowd through his involvement in U.S.-style professional wrestling. Now, I do want to say that I find it slightly offensive to imply, as I think this article does, that fans of certain low-brow entertainments and sporting events tend to be stupid and impressionable, with fascist tendencies. I think most rational, tolerant adults can compartmentalize reality and entertainment in two parts of their brains, and choose to enjoy entertainment and sporting events with no effect on our politics or civil lives. It’s relaxing. You get the joke, the same as if you chose to be entertained by a night of standup comedy where completely outrageous things are being said. But with Trump, you get the idea that not everyone gets the joke.

Here’s one last link I want to provide, just for my own later reference. This is a Fresh Air interview with the author of a new book on Franco’s Spain, which is a part of the pre-World War II European fascist story and a major gap in my personal education.

Roombot

This is a great solution to a problem everyone who has worked in an office has had. As a Generation Xer, I am not yet senior enough to intimidate those younger employees who have actually reserved the conference room I am illegally occupying. At the same time I still have a grudging respect for my own elders, so I can’t march in and tell the CEO to get the hell out of the conference room I have reserved, like a truly fearless Millennial would do.

free trade

I just thought I would counter yesterday’s discussion of “blowback economics” with a typical pro-trade argument from a mainstream economist, in this case Kenneth Rogoff at Harvard:

The rise of anti-trade populism in the 2016 US election campaign portends a dangerous retreat from the United States’ role in world affairs. In the name of reducing US inequality, presidential candidates in both parties would stymie the aspirations of hundreds of millions of desperately poor people in the developing world to join the middle class. If the political appeal of anti-trade policies proves durable, it will mark a historic turning point in global economic affairs, one that bodes ill for the future of American leadership…

The right remedy to reduce inequality within the US is not to walk away from free trade, but to introduce a better tax system, one that is simpler and more progressive. Ideally, there would be a shift from income taxation to a progressive consumption tax (the simplest example being a flat tax with a very high exemption). The US also desperately needs deep structural reform of its education system, clearing obstacles to introducing technology and competition.

Indeed, new technologies offer the prospect of making it far easier to retrain and retool workers of all ages. Those who advocate redistribution by running larger government budget deficits are being short sighted. Given adverse demographics in the advanced world, slowing productivity, and rising pension obligations, it is very hard to know what the endgame of soaring debt would be.

Like I said, I am still thinking these things through. I find the mainstream economic arguments very elegant and appealing, but clearly they haven’t led to the promised gains for everyone in either the developed or developing countries. I am suspicious of the trickle down claims, although I have spent time in so-called “middle income” countries in Asia and I can’t deny that even the relatively poor have made huge gains in areas in health, nutrition, and life span, even if monetary incomes are lagging. The fact that things are better than they used to be doesn’t mean they are as good as they could be. I would like to hear more details about these training technologies and education reforms that are going to make everyone competitive in the global economy – when are they going to be rolled out, how and by whom? Or if there is not a plan yet, who exactly is working on one?

Obama vs. Drought

Obama is worried enough about drought that he stopped whatever else he was doing and issued a presidential memorandum called Building National Capabilities for Long-Term Drought Resilience. It’s pretty vague but basically orders federal agencies to work together on resilience and support for new technologies.

Also, according the Wikipedia, the difference between an executive order and a presidential memorandum is…there is no difference. There are different kinds though. I like that there is one called a “memorandum of disapproval”. I can think of a few people I may send those to tomorrow.

Donald Trump and Blowback

I still won’t dignify Trump’s (or any politician’s) appeals to bigotry or science denial for a second, but I found myself pausing to consider some of the foreign policy ideas he mentioned in his recent New York Times article. No, not his support for nuclear proliferation in Japan or South Korea, of course. That is insanity. If the world has to have nuclear weapons (which I don’t accept, other than in the very short term), it makes much more sense for a very small number of responsible (?) parties to keep them under lock and key and agree to protect others. In fact, one of the diabolical things about nuclear weapons is that relative to their destructive and strategic power they are incredibly cheap compared to conventional weapons and boots on the ground. It is the enormous number of boots on the ground in places like Japan and South Korea that it may be time to reconsider, and mainstream politicians are generally not willing to stand up to the military-industrial establishment and bring that up for discussion.

I have recently been reading Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire by Chalmers Johnson. A key point he makes is that the United States propped up dictators and conservative governments around the world during the Cold War, often subverting popular democratic movements, and this led to a lot of resentment. Japan and South Korea are two of his examples. He says that the United States controls a huge area of the island of Okinawa, entirely rent free (and contrary to Trump’s claim that other countries don’t pay anything, another example of his not bothering to check his facts assuming that his supporters won’t bother either), and that this leads to a lot of resentment among the Japanese population to this day. In Korea, he claims that the CIA actively subverted democratic movements in favor of military dictators that proved to reliable Cold War allies. An even more surprising claim I had never heard before was that the South Korean military regime was actively pursuing nuclear weapons early on, and that the North Korean nuclear program was initially a response to this. Later South Korea agreed to give up its program, while North Korea obviously has not. Anyway, the focus of Johnson’s book is actually the 1990s, the period between the end of the Cold War and the book’s publication in 2000, when the U.S. had a chance to dial back its military footprint around the world, tone down the resentment, and chose not to.

So the U.S. probably could pull back its boots-on-the-ground military commitments in Japan and South Korea, stay engaged with these countries through trade and diplomatic channels (another area I was surprised to find myself nodding my head slightly while reading Trump’s interview). These countries are rich and powerful enough to take care of themselves to a large extent. The U.S. Navy, Air Force, and nuclear umbrella could still get there pretty quick to support them if needed.

If we did that, what are the odds of a country like Japan taking a militaristic expansionist turn again? That doesn’t seem too likely in Japan’s case. But the rest of the world could monitor and stay engaged through trade, diplomacy, and organizations like the United Nations Security Council. At the end of the Cold War, the Security Council seemed to be the body that was going to defend national borders. Rather than complicated, entangled groups of allies that could become ensnared in world wars, the simple story was that if one powerful country took aggressive action against a neighbor, all the other powerful countries in the world would suddenly become an alliance against it. Aggressive war would be futile. This would justify each country having a capable military, but no country has to devote an enormous chunk of its economic and social energy to weapons and the capability to commit violence as the United States has over the past 70 years or so. It’s a simple and naive story I’m sure, but not as naive as a purely pacifist approach, and an ideal to work towards.

the path to water innovation

Brookings has a new paper called The Path to Water Innovation. Here’s an excerpt:

The primary barriers to innovation are related to the way that the many layers of governmental agencies and water entities manage the nation’s water sector. Among the main management and policy barriers are (1) unrealistically low water pricing rates; (2) unnecessary regulatory restrictions; (3) the absence of regulatory incentives; (4) lack of access to capital and funding; (5) concerns about public health and possible risks associated with adopting new technologies with limited records; (6) the geographical and functional fragmentation of the industry; and (7) the long life expectancy, size, and complexity of most water systems. Although the last three factors are inherent to the water sector and hard to change, substantial policy reforms are feasible that could alter pricing, regulation, and finance in the water sector—all in ways that would encourage innovation.

We focus on several recommendations: (1) pricing policies that would both better align with the full economic cost of supplying water and decouple revenues from the volume of water supplied; (2) regulatory frameworks to create an open and flexible governance environment that is innovation friendly and encourages valuable new technologies; and (3) financing and funding mechanisms, such as a public benefit charge on water, that can help raise sufficient funds to implement innovative solutions. As has been demonstrated in the clean energy sector, implementation of these policy reforms would facilitate greater innovation in the water sector. In addition, we recommend the creation of a state-level water innovation vision that would identify state-specific innovation opportunities and policies, along with state innovation offices to help implement the vision across the many varied agencies and firms relevant to the sector. While we expect these state water innovation offices would become common, a small group of states with the greatest water challenges—such as California, Florida, and Texas, or a consortium of like-challenged states in a region such as the West—would begin the process. Based on the lessons learned, other states could follow.

Oculus Rift

Here’s an interview with the creator of the Oculus Rift, Palmer Luckey:

Luckey argues that virtual reality is a bigger turning point in technology than Apple II, Netscape or Google. VR, he says, is the final major computing platform that’s not a transitional step to the next big thing.

“If you have perfect virtual reality eventually, where you’re be able to simulate everything that a human can experience or imagine experiencing, it’s hard to imagine where you go from there,” Luckey tells NPR’s Kelly McEvers. “If you have perfect virtual reality, what else are you supposed to perfect?” …

Things like email, and Twitter, and Facebook, and text messaging — they all work reasonably well. But we use them because they’re convenient, and cheap, and easy, not because they’re the best way to communicate with somebody. Today, the best way to communicate with someone is still face-to-face. Virtual reality has the potential to change that, to make it where VR communication is as good or better than face-to-face communications, because not only do you get all the same human cues of face-to-face communication, you can basically suspend the laws of physics, you can do whatever you want, you can be wherever you want.