Gongol.com Archives: 2018 Third-Quarter Archives
July 1, 2018
The Supreme Court isn't the only guarantor of rights
If you don't trust most of the people most of the time with most of the things they do, you don't have a political problem -- you have a people problem.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador wins Mexican presidential race
A leftist takes over south of the border
A lamentation for Google Reader
Gone five years and never suitably replaced, Google Reader was the catalyst that made RSS feeds work.
July 2, 2018
"National security" isn't a blank check to do stupid things
Tom Nichols: "This is not a serious appeal to national security, but an attempt to use a magical incantation to shut off debate and dissent."
"There is no failsafe...There is, in fact, only us."
The people who think there's nothing to lose by putting a wrecking ball to the world order, to the function of the Federal government, or to the classic notions of civility that make the country function? They are sorely misguided. As Eisenhower put it, "[W]e view our Nation's strength and security as a trust upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere."
Unless you type slower than 20 words per minute...
...there's really no excuse for non-standard abbreviations.
Protectionism, no matter what?
The Commerce Secretary says the President isn't going to alter course on his trade war against the world, no matter what the stock-market reaction. Putting aside for a moment that the stock market isn't the economy and the economy isn't the stock market, the real worry here is that, as the economic consequences of bad trade policies mount, the President will not only "not be deterred"...he'll double down. Because that's what he does when backed into a corner: He always doubles down. As even Canada retaliates against our nonsensical policies, one doesn't need to begrudge those who wanted to believe the President when he promised that trade wars would be easy to win. He's a masterful self-promoter, and people have been buying what he's been selling. But it's time to tell the emperor that he's naked: Trump's trade wars are stupid.
July 3, 2018
Senate Intelligence Committee concludes that Russia really did try to influence the 2016 election
There's no (reasonably) denying Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election. There's no (reasonably) denying they're trying the same in 2018. And 2020. And 2022. There's no (reasonably) denying that other states and non-state actors are trying, too.
Boring politics are good politics
The three key attributes of a good political leader: Curiosity, competence, and humility. (It's that third one that keeps things the right degree of boring.)
Syrian government wants 5.6 million refugees to come back
To go back would take an act of extraordinary faith in a government that hasn't earned it
Why are people torching their credibility?
Commentators like Brit Hume are seeking to argue that certain principled conservatives who stood against the election of Donald Trump are now "standing on a shrinking sliver of ground". After Charlottesville, family separations, and a nascent trade war with Canada...if you still think that people like Tim Miller are the problem, then you're the one missing the point.
A heart-wrenching attack in Idaho
A refugee child was killed at her own birthday party. As one resident put it, "I felt how defenseless those kids were, and how their parents felt they couldn't protect them in those moments."
China is trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe
The Chinese government is making opportunistic use of President Trump's indefensible trade aggression to try to wedge the US away from historic allies in Europe. It's an opportunistic tactic in service of a very long-term strategy. As Dwight Eisenhower put it: "So we are persuaded by necessity and by belief that the strength of all free peoples lies in unity; their danger, in discord."
Technology is only as good as the people using it
Nebraska State Patrol uses FLIR technology to find and rescue a man who got lost and disoriented in a corn field
Most photos of fireworks are overrated, but not this one
A spectacular shot of downtown Des Moines
July 4, 2018
America is neither doomed nor perfect
America is, and always has been, a work in progress. We have work to do today, and more to do tomorrow.
Thomas Jefferson was 33 years old on July 4, 1776
Wisdom doesn't always wait for age. Benjamin Franklin was 70 years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence, an act that truly put everything on the line for his country. Age is no excuse to stop being a patriotic servant of what is good and right.
China's debt-based diplomacy is no trivial matter
The country's "Belt and Road" initiative may be creating a lot of tangible infrastructure projects all over the world, but those projects aren't being done for charity, and they're not all necessary. China's bankrolling them in the expectation of making money off the construction work itself, as well as off the financing. And the government is so touchy about it that it has gotten aggressive with Australian journalists who asked questions about it.
Meet the people defending trade
It needs a robust defense in this era
Fastball's catchy song "The Way" is about a real-life tragedy
Which certainly tempers the story a bit
Not, as some on Twitter have mistyped, "Independance" Day. Though it might be fun to see whether anyone could do justice to the Declaration of Independence in the form of interpretive dance.
July 5, 2018
Are you a practicing American?
Being an American takes practice and belief. Some of us just happen to have been lucky enough to have been born here.
The torment caused by family separations
In the words of Stuart Stevens, "There's not a community in America that wouldn't move heaven and earth to help when an Amber Alert is announced. And yet we have a massive Amber Alert of missing children on the border and it's our government to blame."
Russian nerve agent poisons two more in UK
And those two people aren't thought to have been targeted -- they may just be collateral damage from the original attack
US resettles far fewer refugees in 2017 than in prior years
Having taken in three-quarters of the world's refugees since 1980, the US has closed its doors in a substantial way. That's to our detriment; refugees aren't freeloaders looking for a free lunch -- they're people trying to escape detrimental circumstances at home and make new lives for themselves in a safer place. If we aren't confident enough to be that safer place, then we need to take a long look in the mirror.
Tariffs and counter-tariffs are scheduled to become no longer threats but reality. And that's just stupid. The President is threatening to escalate from taxing $34 billion in imports to $500 billion. It's hard to stop the bleeding from a self-inflicted wound.
July 6, 2018
An aggregation of coverage from the June 30th flash floods
Rainfall totals of 9" in a short period of time, centered right on top of Iowa's biggest urban center
Budget deficits and billowing debt as intergenerational warfare
America's wildly imbalanced budget priorities will spend vastly more on entitlements for the old (and interest on the debt) than it ever will on programs that benefit children. In the words of Margaret Thatcher: "We have first to put our finances in order. We must live within our means. The Government must do so. And we must do so as a country."
July 7, 2018
Case study in a disaster-in-waiting that could be stopped right now
But will it? Or will the normalization of deviance win out?
Something about exuberant dancing Germans is hilarious
Good for a light laugh
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - July 7, 2018
Live on WHO Radio from 2:00 pm until 4:00 pm Central
July 8, 2018
The President refuses to read the briefing book prepared for him, so "ahead of important meetings, aides have made something of a deal with the president: If we put it in a red folder, please read it." If a 2nd-year TSA screener or CIA field agent refused to read assigned briefing materials, he or she would deserve prompt termination.
Building "tiny homes" for Hawaii volcano evacuees
Good to see novel solutions being applied to important problems. Finding ways to house people displaced by natural disasters is a persistent problem.
July 9, 2018
Forget chasing Amazon's HQ2: Cities should focus on their startups
"[E]conomic big bangs can happen anywhere, not just on the coasts." An argument against trying to lure existing hot businesses from elsewhere and for investing in organic, endogenous growth.
Brexit brings about UK cabinet resignations
Interesting to think what would happen if the US had a similar system, whereby a Cabinet resignation could trigger the downfall of a government. A less far-out version of this would occur if we had a national Presidential recall mechanism, in the style of states like California or Wisconsin. (In fact, more than half of the states have some kind of recall.)
An exceptional tribute to the departed Governor Robert Ray. Doing the right thing -- like taking in refugees -- may or may not have political payoffs in the short run. But in the long term, character truly does count.
It's hard to describe the excitement of covering true breaking news. It's an intellectual challenge, a social activity, and an adrenaline rush all at once -- a pop quiz, a senior recital, and being down one run in the bottom of the 9th, all wrapped into one.
A nominee to the Supreme Court
On one hand, it is right to believe in the co-equality of the branches of government, so the SCOTUS pick ought to be a big deal. On the other hand, we place way too much emphasis on the chief executive and should rather see the Imperial Presidency dialed down than see the other two amplified. We should vigorously support a rebalancing of power among the three branches, in the spirit of Federalist Papers-era Madison. As Calvin Coolidge put it, "I would like it if the country could think as little as possible about the Government and give their time and attention more undividedly about the conduct of the private business of the country."
Tomorrow: 25 years since the Floods of 1993 hit Des Moines
An event of staggering proportions. We're a much more resilient community in many ways today, but we can't ever let down our guard. There's always more we can do to prepare.
July 10, 2018
Is Facebook trying to watch you in retail stores?
Seems like the kind of issue on which we ought to have a vigorous national debate.
Elon Musk delivers a prototype miniature submarine to Thailand
He can come across in all kinds of bad ways, but Musk has a bias towards action that really is an outlier worthy of some attention (and probably some study).
Striking oil workers in Norway could push prices higher
Low oil prices have been a de facto economic subsidy for so long, a whole lot of people have probably forgotten that things could be any other way.
A wonderful tribute to Gov. Robert Ray
A great story, told well, about refugees as a success story in Iowa -- thanks to his leadership as governor
Futurist Ian Pearson wants to do some things you probably haven't thought about yet
US government misses deadline to reunite children separated from their families
To what degree the family-separation madness is the result of incompetence and to what degree malice, it's becoming hard to give anyone administratively involved the benefit of doubt.
July 11, 2018
Why did the Thai boys in a cave get so much attention?
Especially when there are so many other problems in the world -- including other children in grave distress? People seem to be more interested when a problem seems well-defined than when it is abstract -- or so large that it becomes abstract in our minds. Not every problem lends itself to that kind of granularity, but even when we're talking about big, abstract problems, we may need to think of ways to make the steps in the process seem more concrete (if we want public support, that is).
Your opponents aren't going away
And they're probably not evil, either. As Margaret Thatcher put it: "I think some of the bitterness of political strife is reduced when we remind ourselves that many of the people who share our deepest convictions about life are on the other side in political controversy." When prominent voices say that "Even CONSIDERING this [Supreme Court] nomination will cement the first American dictatorship", it's a colossal problem: Vladimir Putin and bad actors like him want the maximum division among Americans against one another. The more people conflate "things I don't like" with "things that are undemocratic", the harder it's going to be to resist the actual threats to democratic processes. And those are real.
Could someone please explain what happened from the mid-20th Century onward that made people board up windows everywhere in otherwise perfectly functional buildings? What did people find so objectionable about natural light? There's certainly a profound counterexample in certain modernist buildings with walls of glass, but there's a reason people find houses and buildings like that to be truly stunning.
The world is better with friends
Let us toast to our friends: May they be strong and plentiful
July 12, 2018
"Americans and their Congress still believe in the transatlantic alliance"
Necessary words from Sen. John McCain, as the President engages in a pattern of behavior that (at best) confuses and frustrates our NATO allies. If this profoundly transactionalist behavior confuses you, that's good: It's bizarre to think relationships are like an Etch-A-Sketch that gets erased every day. As Sam Zell has said, "You succeed or you fail based on who your partners are." That's advice applicable not only in real estate, where Zell made his fortune, but in the world at large.
A 5-month-old baby was left buried face-down in the Montana woods for nine hours until he was rescued by a search team. He survived and has been released from the hospital. If there is but one thing civilization should stand for, it should be that innocent children ought never to be subjected to malicious cruelty or endangerment.
Is a corporate recession just around the corner?
The more fiddling around with accounting statements, the more people should worry that something is rotten in Denmark.
Interest payments on the Federal debt: 1.6% of GDP today -- 7% later
2030 used to seem like a long time away. But if you have a kid born this year, he or she will barely be in middle school by that time. That isn't the long term...it's now the medium-to-short run.
Replacing plastic bags with banana-based packaging
A fantastic example why the old moniker of "developing" countries is really misleading. The global middle class is growing fast -- and innovating -- and that's a very good development. More people capable of living lives with a little bit of room for comfort means not only a direct improvement to the human condition (which we should cheer!), but also spillover effects for the rest of the world. The United States was massively innovative at a time when it was still in many ways a "developing" country. Innovations have a way of finding their way to the rest of the world speedily, so the more people who have the capacity to experiment and try out new ideas, the better for everyone.
The move towards LED streetlights (as opposed to yellow sodium lights) is a welcome upgrade
Corporatism is just another form of socialism
Don't fall for any of the ugly cousins in this family
Move to Australia, then move out of it
A new story about the "micronation" boom in Australia teases the claims some people make to having their own states-within-a-state. It's silly, and it's definitely not the wave of the future -- but we should take seriously the more realistic prospects for city-states to re-emerge in the 21st Century.
We welcome our robot (mower) overlords
But what if the first people to get them are also the ones who had the best suburban diagonals? We'll miss it when it's gone.
July 13, 2018
"We've said all along we know Russia meddled in our elections"
The Speaker of the House acknowledges the gravity of the indictments issued against 12 members of the Russian military intelligence service thanks to the Special Counsel's investigation. It's a very serious set of counts, and there are probably more to come. People are understandably anxious for the full truth to come out. The indictments have been hailed as "a powerful show of strength by federal law enforcement".
Markets in everything, including naps
Mattress company Casper is offering a "napping store" in Lower Manhattan, where 45-minute nap sessions come with a bed and a pair of pajamas. Open most days from 11am to 8pm. Of course, a proper nap lasts 12 minutes and no longer, so the 45-minute session is probably too long.
Trump-Putin summit to be held at Finnish presidential palace
How many Americans know that Finland only won its independence from Russia a hair over 100 years ago, in December 1917?
The states under attack in this trade war
Bloomberg BusinessWeek: "The bulk of punitive tariffs from around the globe falls heavily on Farm Belt and Rust Belt states", and that's no exaggeration. And for the Farm Belt, it happens at a time when total net farm income is at a 12-year low. It's a self-inflicted wound at a time of serious chronic pain.
July 14, 2018
"[T]he hunt needs to continue, because the witches are very real."
This analysis from David French is lucid, alarming, and important. It takes less time to read than a commercial break on television. It is worth your time.
Some busybodies want a government-run alternative to Google
There's no end to the dumb ideas people are willing to try when they think they can have someone else subsidize their failures.
What could have thwarted the Russian spearphishing attacks
Two-factor authentication: Live it, love it, don't ever forget it. (It's the least you can do for your own security.)
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - July 14, 2018
Should you be mad about the crimes depicted in the indictments issued by Robert Mueller's team yesterday? Not just mad: You should be outraged.
July 15, 2018
Senator Ben Sasse's message for the President to deliver to Vladimir Putin. There's no point to being the world's superpower if we're not prepared to stand up for ourselves. Either we defend ourselves (and a just world order) against criminal malice, or we should prepare for chaos and darkness to fill the void. And we need to be aware that the problem is continuing and probably expanding: Whatever we've seen out of our adversaries thus far is likely just the beginning. This isn't ambiguous: Per the indictments issued on Friday, Russian military intelligence targeted US civilians, organizations, and state governments. This isn't over.
President Trump names EU as a "foe"
The European Union isn't our foe, and it is self-evidently stupid to say so.
China wants to censor the trade war
The South China Morning Post reports: "Four separate sources working for Chinese media, who were briefed on these internal instructions, told the South China Morning Post that they were told not to 'over-report' the trade war with US".
French company wants to build trains with wings
Airplanes that could detach their passenger compartments for quick ground transportation on rails. A bit far-out, but maybe it makes sense in the highly population-dense European market.
Domestic terrorist thwarted by alert witnesses and attentive police
A person planning to blow up a building because he wanted to make a point about the people inside is, by definition, a terrorist
July 16, 2018
Stand for something, lest you fall for anything
The President, insistent on his own instincts, chooses the denials of Vladimir Putin over the evidence (and the advice of everyone who matters) that Russia actively attacked American electoral processes. His press conference beside Putin was profoundly embarrassing: An apology tour, a plea of submission, and a declaration of surrender all rolled into one 60-second clip. It is almost certainly the most cowardly declaration ever issued by someone who has taken the Constitutional oath of office. Today illustrates why we need to work -- fast -- to develop the kind of vocabulary and mental framework for understanding cyberwar that we already have for kinetic war. We have been attacked and remain under attack, and that's not a "both sides are to blame" thing. If the President can't or won't grapple with the complexity and gravity of cyberattack, he should make way for someone who will.
The United States doesn't need to question the Russians who, as a state activity, conducted a cyber-campaign against the United States in 2016. The indictments make it quite clear that we have them on the evidence. And to imagine that there is some kind of parity with those who have challenged Putin's autocratic ways and sought refuge here is to be as gullible as a child. When the President whines about the state of US-Russia relations, it's an abomination. If he were merely ignorant of history, that would be shameful. But he chooses to be ignorant of the present, which is inexcusable.
Cutting down an evergreen tree
It can give a person Cub Scout flashbacks
July 17, 2018
It was insulting when Bill Clinton tried to split hairs over the definition of the word "is". It is insulting now that Donald Trump thinks he can revise history to change "would" to "wouldn't". The President was humiliated in front of a global audience, particularly by his public dismissal of US intelligence services and the US Department of Justice in favor of his naive embrace of the empty words of a known adversary. That is behavior beneath contempt.
Russian state malfeasance undermines the future of a normal Russia-US relationship
Russia's tactical success at assaulting US elections may end up as a strategic catastrophe -- because what near-term future President has any incentive to treat the Russian government with goodwill?
Tariff madness is already backfiring
The persistent costs of tariff madness are going to hang around a whole lot longer than the sugar-rush stimulus of the tax cut.
July 18, 2018
EU official announces non-trivial penalty against Google
It's an antitrust-type action. But will it actually achieve the intended effects?
When pop-culture icons of the past redeem themselves with sly critiques of the present. What the President tried to erase by claiming he meant to say "wouldn't" instead of "would" is not undone by the record of what else he said.
This ought to represent an inviolable red line to anyone in Congress. Or the Cabinet. There is no acceptable answer to this request -- which also included Putin critic Bill Browder -- other than "absolutely not" (unless one chooses a more colorful and forceful way to say it).
Court tosses California trifurcation vote from the November ballot
Good -- this is not the time for arbitrary and highly divisive internal questions. Whatever the merits of smaller administrative units may or may not be, this is not the time nor the civic environment to argue them.
A pledge against building killer AI is only noble on the surface
Strategic theorist Kori Schake asks, "[I]s anybody exploring the asymmetric vulnerabilities this will create if our adversaries don't likewise constrain themselves?" Nobody wants to build killer robots...but if you have an adversary who might, then you probably shouldn't take all your options off the table. At the very least, we need to actively grapple with the technology, the rules, and the ethics.
How can the President misunderstand so much about NATO?
In suggesting that Montenegro is composed of "very aggressive people" who might trigger "World War III", he lays plain that he doesn't get the point of a common security commitment. In the Civil War era, people formed Union Leagues to promote the cause -- is it time for us to start organizing local NATO Leagues?
Getting a little close to severe weather
Very strong thunderstorms -- including a large rotating band in contact with the ground -- up close and personal, around Kearney, Nebraska.
Looking forward to the day when Twitter has an advanced search that permits a search for "rabbi with a Confucian streak and a sarcastic sense of humor". (In part because that day ought to come after they've found a way to nuke the trolls and mal-bots.)
The only true chemtrails are the ones that come out of a crop duster
And, boy, are those crop dusters a lot of fun to watch
July 19, 2018
Video shows large tornado going right through center of Marshalltown, Iowa
The local newspaper uses "devastated" to describe conditions in Marshalltown after the tornado. For it to have damaged downtown, the hospital, and the JBS plant means it must have been reasonably wide: perhaps 1/2 mile in diameter. And that looks about the size in the video taken from near the Hy-Vee, looking at the courthouse. Tornadoes also hit Bondurant and Pella. Pella's local newspaper indicates that the Vermeer plant was hit hard but that employees had taken shelter -- which was good, because cars were tossed around the parking lot.
Marshalltown newspaper decamps to nearby town to get the paper out
The news editor is from Marshalltown and just started the job ten days ago. Local news is indispensable to a community, and an event like the tornado in Marshalltown is why.
What the new satellites saw of the day's storms
New satellite capabilities might end up being very useful in augmenting severe weather forecasting and detection.
"The press needs to be anti-partisan"
A perspective from Mike Masnick, editor of TechDirt. An interesting perspective, but it probably doesn't need to be quite so complicated. Good news reporting always comes back to good questions. So if news reporting is unsatisfactory, then the first place to look is the questions: Are good ones being asked? "News" is anything that materially changes our understanding of the status quo. Everything else is either "events" or "information". While there are plenty of events to document and informational items to share, those aren't really news. When news (properly defined) is being reported, it ought to illuminate something important that somehow changes whatever was "known" before. It's hard to do that if one starts with a conclusion or a mission in mind. Questions like "Don't you think..." or "Wouldn't you say..." aren't authentic news questions. Nor are questions that rely upon restating someone's untruths or disinformation. Nor are questions that permit the subject to spread a falsehood unchallenged. When the status quo includes disinformation, lies, or falsehoods, then we don't need reporters on a mission to be "anti-partisan", per se -- but we need them to ask questions that change what we know about that status quo.
The President was told about Russian attacks on the election process in January 2017
Would his responses -- which have been a cavalcade of denials and deflections -- be different if the person issuing the orders had been Xi Jinping? Or Hassan Rouhani?
A strong case for re-funding the Office of Technology Assessment. Oftentimes the best money government can spend is on appropriate oversight and qualified professional advice. We also need more elected officials who themselves come from technical backgrounds -- engineers, programmers, scientists, and so on.
Maybe it's out of necessity (hard surfaces, power outlets, and available water), but it still seems wrong for hotels to place coffee makers inside their toilet rooms.
July 20, 2018
The President has learned nothing about economics
He tweets: "[Monetary] Tightening now hurts all that we have done. The U.S. should be allowed to recapture what was lost due to illegal currency manipulation and BAD Trade Deals. Debt coming due & we are raising rates - Really?" His policies (like intervening in specific industries and with specific companies, pulling out of multilateral trade agreements, and imposing import taxes) are not working as imagined because they are bad policies, but instead of acknowledging that they are bad, he's doubling down and demanding more. And the further steps he might take -- like trying to pressure the Federal Reserve using the power of his office, or threatening to default on the Federal debt -- are things that would be unimaginable under any sensible President with a basic grasp of economics. But those basic assumptions are completely in error with President Trump. And he is at a most basic level incapable of admitting error, so he'll likely make many more bad decisions before he is through. He is obsessed with bilateral agreements and thinks that we somehow need to be in trade balance (or surplus) with each individual country around the world. That's nonsense, and his refusal to learn is an ongoing threat to the economy. In Federalist 53, they anticipated the damage that could be done by government powers that didn't understand what they tried to control: "How can foreign trade be properly regulated by uniform laws, without some acquaintance with the commerce, the ports, the usages, and the regulations of the different States?"
Unpredictability, inconsistency, and reckless communication have conspired to potentially create a worst-case scenario of perverse incentives: Trade war leading to a kinetic arms race. Chinese leaders are wondering if the President would take them more seriously on trade issues if they had an arsenal of weapons more like the one possessed by Russia.
Cars are not safe places in a tornado
Photographic evidence, should anyone have needed it
Dwight Eisenhower: "The doctrine of opportunism, so often applicable in tactics, is a dangerous one to pursue in strategy." In other words: Take advantage of every lucky break you get, but never count on getting them.
Staff gets Marshalltown newspaper published even after a tornado
Three cheers for dedicated local journalists, documenting the damage and the cleanup even when their own resources are depleted
July 21, 2018
The obvious choices: Lincoln and Washington. Other very good names: Eisenhower, Coolidge, and T Roosevelt. Those who should be lauded for the totality of their contribution to the public good (even if they weren't necessarily great Presidents): Hoover, Grant, Madison, Jefferson, and J Adams. All compare favorably with the one who merely thinks he's the "favorite President".
Garbage in, (inexplicable quasi-religious) garbage out
If you put a bunch of nonsense into Google Translate, it might just spit out something that looks like it came from the Book of Revelation
The first test-tube baby is 40
How's that for a cultural touchstone?
Antibiotic resistance is growing and research is in the decline
If antibiotics have moved into "public goods" territory, we might have to start subsidizing them in the public interest.
A warning to motorists in Iowa for the next week
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - July 21, 2018
Broadcast and streaming live from 2pm to 4pm Central
July 22, 2018
Diplomacy shouldn't be conducted via late-night angry tweet
What's going on doesn't make sense
July 23, 2018
Buckle up; it's going to be a bumpy ride
Strategist Molly McKew warns: "Putin's appetite for risk is greater than our own, and his mindset antithetical. He will find a way to show that [NATO] Article 5 is hollow by attacking the seams and the gray areas". We urgently need a whole new language to discuss what's happening right in front of us. Lacking a mainstream lexicon to discuss cyberwarfare, proxy wars, and influence campaigns, people get a false sense of confidence: "We're not shooting, so we're not engaged in confrontation".
A superficial approach to savings with a colossal embedded flaw
In what is surely a naked attempt at clickbait, a columnist has argued that public libraries should be done away with and that Amazon should somehow "take their place". Certain investments are not strictly economic. Some are important to promoting a civic republic. And that's where libertarianism must take a back seat to classical liberalism: There are some circumstances under which the individual's demand to be left alone (and be free from paying for certain public goods) must yield to the need to make some community choices (and investments) so that we can live together in some sort of productive peace. Are public libraries strictly necessary? Not in the sense that a military might be. But ever since Benjamin Franklin made the emphatic case for public lending libraries as an indispensable tool of self-improvement, the American idea of a public library has been founded on assumptions that it is a broad net positive for communities to offer free resources for individuals who are willing to seek out intellectual self-improvement. Escaping a dead-end path shouldn't be excruciating. There is a great deal of social cost to despair, and reasonable investments in preventing people from succumbing to that despair should not be dismissed just because they are imperfect (or incompletely libertarian).
"Strong leader" as an abomination
Resolved: The phrase "strong leader" should be purged from American politics, starting with opinion polls. "Strong" is an invitation to empty peacockery. What we need is curiosity, foresight, and level-headedness. Curiosity, competence, and humility are far more valuable than over-confidence and shallow displays of dominance.
The world is getting measurably better
But that doesn't force public opinion to recognize the improvement. Historical illiteracy and innumeracy are in a two-way contest to destroy everything good and right in the world. Technological illiteracy and fundamental economic ignorance are not far behind.
July 24, 2018
"What the Kremlin wants is chaos"
Adversaries using tools like social media can be expected to deploy their malfeasance wherever they think it will have the most leverage. That may be on behalf of candidates and causes from the left, or from the right. A reasonable center continues to exist in America. Don't let the agents of chaos and the hyperpartisan freaks convince you otherwise.
The Department of Homeland Security apparently believes that Russian hackers managed to infiltrate "air-gapped" computer networks to gain access to computer networks belonging to US electrical utilities.
No, tariffs are not "the greatest"
The President's grotesque misunderstanding of economics is astonishing. In a single tweet, he manages to misinterpret trade flows, misrepresent negotiating strategy, and miss the point entirely of what takes place when money is exchanged for goods and services. It's hard to be that wrong about that many things and still manage to stay under Twitter's character limit.
The mental spirit to beating cancer
Chicago Cubs star Anthony Rizzo, a survivor of cancer, has it 100% right -- and his advice should be read not only by anyone who has ever battled cancer, but also by anyone who knows anyone who has. (That means you.) It is both physiological and psychological, and a person needs a support system to make it through.
Devotion to principles, not a person
There's nothing conservative about a cult of personality
Things that keep one up at night: "The exit strategy from stagflation is an uncertain one unless one reverses the original triggers for its occurrence, in this case removes the new tariffs." The self-inflicted wounds have got to stop.
San Francisco politicians want to ban new workplace cafeterias so that "People will have to go out and each lunch with the rest of us". Seems like a rather dumb priority to think worthy of legislation.
July 25, 2018
When the military is such a good hammer, too many things look like nails
The quality of today's professional military makes it an attractive target not only for use in places where it may not be appropriate, but also as a political cudgel to use where there should be a healthy gap between politics and arms. It's a very serious problem if people come to think of the military as the only part of government that produces honest, competent leaders. The public needs to see prominent examples of capable service everywhere from the State Department to state forestry departments. There are troublesome incentive structures at work, including a very unhealthy fetishization of military hardware and even style. Moreover, there is a political hazard at work, undermining the non-military work of government: The hard left never acknowledges that some government programs are administered better than others, and the hard right never admits that some government programs actually work. Absolutism chokes accountability.
Contrary to the claims of those on the left who want to see every issue nationalized (and their counterparts on some parts of the right), some of us are advocates for more true Federalism -- placing decisions as close as possible to the people affected by them, with the maximum allowable room for local/regional customization possible without infringing on the personal liberties of individuals. This is especially valid thinking, considering that most states today are at or near the same population as the entire USA in 1790 (4 million). Not everything needs to be a national issue, and in many cases, many things ought not to be. Time, effort, and psychological commitment expended in pursuit of national agendas (that don't need to be national) sap the country of the motivation and accountability to grapple with the big issues that truly do require Washington's attention. Thus we find ourselves polarized by stupid things and ignoring important ones -- like having a true cybersecurity policy or putting appropriate resources into trade and technology adjustment assistance where entire regions are struggling economically. Local conditions vary widely: The current average sale price for residential real estate in San Francisco is $1,057 per square foot , which is more than the $989 monthly rent on a decent 950-square-foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom, apartment in suburban Des Moines. That's not an apples-to-apples comparison, of course, but when buying 12 square feet in one place would rent an entire apartment for a year in another place, maybe the same policies need not apply uniformly everywhere. It might be bad for cable TV punditry, but it would be very healthy for the country if we advanced a model that insisted on maximal localism (and accountability), reserving the Federal for truly national needs and for those instances where personal liberties were under threat from negligent, malicious, or hostile state and local governments.
Venezuela will knock five digits off its currency next month
1,000,000% annual inflation makes it pretty hard for numerals to keep up. It's an entirely man-made disaster, and it's the result of a stupid, thoughtless revolution whose failure was easy to see coming. It was obvious in 2013 that a command economy was a stupid choice. It was obviously a bad move in 2007, when Hugo Chavez was whipping up a siege mentality to consolidate power. And it was obvious in 2005, when it was clear the United States was already making a mistake by ignoring Latin America (and its rising socialist troubles). That's the thing about man-made disasters: They are a choice. And they require choices to escape.
Without water, Iraq's breadbasket is collapsing
Nature is to blame, but so are terrible human causes. The world needs surplus food production because problems like droughts happen. And if there's going to be surplus food production, there needs to be trade -- so markets can specialize and farmers can turn a profit. From a systemic perspective, trade wars can cause hunger.
Should you swear at your Roomba?
If you're a broadcaster, yes. The last broadcaster who didn't know how to wilt the flowers and peel the paint off the walls with a solid blue streak was Fred Rogers.
Omaha man uses pipe bomb to extract vengeance on tree
It dripped sap onto his car. He's 50 years old. His 74-year-old dad is trying to kick him out of the house.
Bathroom hand dryers are the worst
Sure, they save paper. But they're utterly useless if you need to blow your nose, open a door without touching a filthy handle, or clean up a toddler's mess. Other than that, they're just great.
Google Street View prowls Des Moines
Time to mow the lawn and wash the car
Complexity among 1.3 billion people
Why it's not such a good idea to pigeonhole "China" into a caricature of itself
"It will be a useful lesson for all of us, but not a pleasant one."
Columnist Steve Chapman savages the utter stupidity of the Trump trade war. Trade-war behavior and protectionism rackets are just another form of corporatist socialism. There are so many bad executive-branch policies in place -- abandoned multilateral trade agreements, fake "national security" tariffs, and bilateral friction -- that one ought to look forward to the day when people remember which branch of government occupies the Capitol building, and when the occupants thereof rein in the branch that is making a mess of things by overextending its reach.
Individual segments and the whole episode from the July 21st episode of the "Brian Gongol Show"
A light-hearted laugh at the expense of wildlife
Being ready, willing, and able
An Iowan with the right training tried to save lives in the disaster at the Lake of the Ozarks. All the good intentions in the world don't amount to much if you don't have the skills necessary to do something to help.
CNN gets tapes from Trump-Cohen meetings
What kind of bizarre relationship did the lawyer and his client have that recordings would have seemed necessary? Sounds toxic.
July 26, 2018
Members of the Senate see fit to reassert their authority over bad diplomatic behavior by the President, with Senators McCain, Kaine, Gardner, and Reed joining in a bipartisan bill to "explicitly prohibit the President of the United States from withdrawing from NATO without Senate approval". Article II, Section 2 is unambiguous ("by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur"), but even that clarity may deserve a backstop in these peculiar times.
Mapping the vote: Intriguing but usually misleading
We really should get used to using cartograms (specifically with hex tiles) when depicting anything that has to do with population or voting. If people can understand subway maps, they can understand cartographic depictions of population, too.
"Enterprises to subvert it..."
Federalist 59 has some words applicable to America today
In the airport, always go for the pretzel
It is metaphysically impossible to screw up a pretzel order, and that means the dunce in front of you, no matter how stupid, will still be out of your way in no more than 90 seconds.
Facebook's $120 billion bad day
Imagine vaporizing the market valuation of about half the farmland in Iowa
The Attorney General should be ashamed
The nation's chief law-enforcement officer shouldn't be taking part in "Lock her up" chants. It's not just untoward, it's perverse.
"Booing the press in general is an unhealthy trend"
Sen. Ben Sasse with a worthy endorsement of the VFW's statement disclaiming the boos directed at the press when the President made ill use of an opportunity to address the organization's national convention. It is a cowardly act to direct mob anger at the press.
The candy-heart and candy-wafer company had been troubled for a while, but it sounds like the shutdown was a sudden shock
They've caused dozens of casualties
Was there anything really new in the US-EU trade agreement?
It may not really have been worth a hill of beans, to shamelessly abuse a pun.
July 27, 2018
Rent controls plus subsidies equals disaster
Bad policymaking isn't excused by good intentions
Lots of kids remain separated from their parents by US policy
Hundreds were left behind as their parents were deported
"Fear, by itself, does not exonerate the defendant"
A compelling case for prosecuting the careless use of force -- in uniform or out of it
Silicon Valley as a "den of spies"
"[F]oreign spies have been showing up uninvited to San Francisco and Silicon Valley for a very long time"
The case for a national "political warfare" center
Some things aren't quite war...but they aren't exactly diplomacy, either. That they lack a clear conventional definition shouldn't be the reason they fall through the cracks.
August 7, 2018
Social media services need to treat bad behavior consistently
As Benjamin Franklin put it, "Pardoning the bad, is injuring the good." It's hard not to imagine that there's an appeal for a big tech-platform firm to get regulated as a public utility -- common carrier rules could apply, and someone else (the government) would be responsible for the hard choices. But, of course, the sweet smothering embrace of quasi-monopoly status tends to make the monopolist fat, sloppy, and lazy...and thus highly susceptible to massive disruption later on. There is a left-wing push for government regulation that fails to recognize the unintended consequences. And the trouble flows in other directions, too: With Google rumored to be seeking a way to provide a censored search engine in China, one must pause to reflect on whether classical-liberal values are strong enough to emerge spontaneously, anywhere, when given enough time (which they would) -- but what service does it do those values (or the people who hold them) to participate in their repression?
Elon Musk openly muses that he wants to take Tesla private
As Charles Koch has put it: "I'd counsel any entrepreneur to do everything possible to keep her company private, no matter how big it grows."
Florida may be exporting "voracious, omnivorous predatory lizards" to neighboring states
And yet still people have the temerity to ask why we put up with Iowa winters. The frost line is our Maginot Line, people!
August 9, 2018
If you don't love America regardless of skin color, you don't love America
Laura Ingraham's idiotic protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, America is about a belief system -- particularly one about the way things are to be done and how people are to be treated. If she thinks that is threatened by the origins of new entrants to the country, she doesn't understand the nature of the country itself.
A President who cannot defend his actions isn't a strong person
Unlikely because of its location: Inside the Omaha Correctional Center. But it's part of a 12-week course offered to some of the inmates. The sooner we train ourselves to ask whether people have productive alternatives to idle time and bad behavior, the sooner we'll make progress against crime. It's best to keep people out of the correctional system to begin with, but when they land there, rehabilitation should be a priority for as many eligible people as possible.
Ireland's housing shortage in the spotlight
Stories emerge of homeless families taking shelter at police stations
August 10, 2018
Administration claims it wants a "space force" by 2020
Yet introducing an entirely new branch of the armed forces is not the responsibility of the Executive Branch. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution unequivocally gives that authority to the Congress alone. Also, there's the weighty matter of long-standing international agreements prohibiting the militarization of space. And also the question of whether an entire military branch is necessary for such things. These things are matters for serious study and deliberation, not promotional campaign emails selling merchandise.
NATO needs cyber-cooperation, says former Estonian president
He's in a position to have an informed opinion on the matter: Estonia is a past satellite state subjected to Russian aggression and occupation, a forward-leaning and tech-friendly society, and an eager member of the NATO alliance (since 2004).
Retaliatory tariffs slash US auto exports to China
What good is sacrificing the automotive industry for the sake of trying to profit a raw-materials sector (in steel and aluminum) that can't possibly keep up with real demand? The US should pursue cooperative, multilateral approaches to constraining China's bad behavior (like intellectual property theft) -- but that requires a constructive and rules-based approach. Tariffs aren't it.
On the anniversary of the awful events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, some of the same bad actors are planning to gather in Washington, DC, for another white-supremacist rally. And there will most certainly be counter-protests.
West Virginia tests Internet voting
The company providing the technology is adamant that it can secure the votes via blockchain. But it's the human element that should make people apprehensive about any experiment like this. Some Iowa voters got bad information from text messages intended as reminders on primary-election day in June. There is something authoritative and certain about physically appearing at a polling place on election day (or in returning a properly completed absentee ballot) that is simply not replicable in a world of apps and websites. The risk to Internet voting is far less a matter of communications security than one of social engineering.
Super-creep breaks into home demanding to see new baby
It happened in British Columbia, where the adult victim found herself fighting off a neighbor with a pair of gloves and a butcher knife
August 11, 2018
A dire and sad warning to China's exiles
A Western journalist with a long history of reporting on China warns Uighurs outside the country: "Don't go back under any circumstances. The very act of having been abroad is enough to condemn you. They will threaten your family and friends, but your going back will not save them." Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that a UN panel member reported on credible evidence that at least a million Uighurs are being held in political indoctrination camps in western China.
Airplane joyride ends in crash
A 29-year-old airline employee apparently took a small commuter airplane from Sea-Tac and crashed it with no one else aboard.
Why national leaders should start as local leaders first
A compelling argument from a think-tank consultant who has found his thoughts on national policy strongly influenced by his work on a state committee. People forget that Federalism made sense in the 1790s, when the entire country was less than 4 million people. It makes even more sense today, when 4 million is the population of just a mid-size state. This country isn't uniform, and we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking it is. We're better off with lots of experiments and adaptations suited to local conditions, with a national government mainly suited to defense and protecting individual rights.
Iowa City Public Library shares "books we hated"
This is a great idea. Some books are better and some are worse than others, and it's healthy to acknowledge that. As Sen. Ben Sasse so well put it: "We must be able to grapple with ideas we don't like, and internalize the distinction between a bad book and a wrong book." There's nothing wrong if a librarian admits to hating "The Great Gatsby" or "Ulysses" or "The Fountainhead". Isn't it healthy for libraries to encourage debate about both writing and ideas? Doesn't that start with honesty? For instance, James Joyce's "Ulysses" is a huge struggle to read. But talking about it (and whether the reader liked it) opens the door to telling someone why they really must read Joyce's spectacular "Dubliners", and maybe sample some of "Finnegans Wake".
For those times when stopping to refuel is asking too much from life
Lightning strike takes KGAN off the air
The lightning blew up a transmission line to the tower, which happens to be one of five transmission towers in Iowa that reach to 2,000 feet -- placing them tied at #8 for the tallest structures in the world.
Show notes - Brian Gongol Show on WHO Radio - August 11, 2018
Live from the Iowa State Fair from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm Central Time. Streamed live at WHORadio.com on the iHeartRadio app.
August 13, 2018
America needs two sane parties, and this isn't the way to get there
Gallup reports that 47% of Democrats now view capitalism positively, versus 57% who view socialism positively. That's a recipe for disaster -- a ten-point drop in capitalism's "favorables" in just two years. "Small business" has incredible favorables among the population at large (92%), but that too often translates only into lip service instead of truly responsive policy-making.
Is China's place in the Pacific truly ascendant?
And is China's rise irreversible? In a very interesting piece, Hal Brands argues: "[I]t would also be dangerous for U.S. and allied leaders to accept the thesis that China is destined to dominate the region and simply give up on countering Beijing’s ambitions."
Fugitive strips while on the lam -- in an Iowa cornfield
Running through corn fields in Iowa in August without clothing: Not recommended.
Tom Skilling: 40 years in the same job
If you're going to do television weather in one of the nation's largest markets, Chicago has to be the most interesting pick
August 14, 2018
Virginia had 747,610 people in 1790 Census
Today, the average Congressional district contains almost exactly the same number of people. Considering that Virginia at that time was home to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe -- the Virginia dynasty -- then perhaps we should consider just how much talent ought to be found in the average CD today.
What if, instead of a $1 trillion deficit, we were running a $1 trillion Federal budget surplus? What if it were designated specifically to be a "rainy day" fund, for use in smoothing out a downturn? In a truly rational world, the Federal government would run a balanced budget, but would "save" 1% or 2% of GDP in a rainy-day fund. That fund would then be used to buy additional goods and services of various types during a recession. The net result of a Federal "rainy day" fund might then be to allow the government to make certain discretionary purchases at discounted prices during an economic downturn, while providing a defined and predictable quantity of economic stimulus -- fully paid, and about as intergenerationally fair as can be (as opposed, say, to making children born in 2030 pay the interest on debt taken out to provide "stimulus" to the economy in 2008).
China may be holding a million people or more in concentration camps
The Uighur people are the targets
A full accounting of the July 19th tornado outbreak
High-quality satellite imagery reveals that even more had touched down than radar or spotters had seen
Consumers: Prepare for price inflation
You have the President's trade wars to blame
Electrician sees the piece of wood he signed 41 years ago
Notable because he signed and dated the piece -- which was mounted inside the steeple above the Marshall County courthouse that was later knocked down by a tornado -- precisely 41 years to the day before it came down
"Lincoln officer injured while trying to subdue a naked man"
Someone buy this arresting officer a beer: "[T]he 18-year-old had stripped in the lot, slapped the security guard and urinated on a security vehicle [...] The man then charged toward the officer, police said, and a Taser had no effect on the man"
Saluting the Navajo code-talkers
What they did, in service to a country that didn't always pay them adequate respect, is quite the story.
Lolo Jones puts on her pants two legs at a time
(Video) The most impressive way to put on a pair of pants is also the most labor-intensive.
August 15, 2018
Foreign Policy: "[T]he real number of CIA assets and those in their orbit executed by China during the two-year period was around 30". And it's because the Chinese government cracked the CIA's system for communicating with its sources in China. It's hard to make Internet-based communications tools that can go unidentified behind China's "Great Firewall".
A really useful visualization of the remainder of a person's life. In the words of Ben Sasse: "Life needs to be lived and prioritized with the understanding that it is limited. An awareness of one's mortality makes life richer because the important can be emphasized and the trivial marginalized."
Attacking an election doesn't require changing votes
Noting the problems that resulted from bad data on the voter rolls in a couple of states, a Pew analysis notes that "To sow confusion in the fall, Russia could hack voter registration systems, altering names, addresses or party affiliations". And that's enough to undermine faith in democratic processes and institutions.
The child who inspired the movement died 60 years ago
10-year-old helps deliver surprise baby cousin
She has better presence of mind than many adults
Measles outbreak in more than 20 states
Per a news report: "The majority of people who got measles were unvaccinated." Voluntarily going unvaccinated recklessly endangers others, especially kids and those with compromised immune systems. Herd immunity matters. It especially matters to those for whom vaccination may not be an option (like the very young, or those undergoing chemotherapy for leukemia), and to leave them defenseless (by choosing to exempt one's self from getting a vaccination without medical need) is a moral failure.
A portmanteau to describe "academics who are engaged with practical policy issues"
August 16, 2018
Sen. Ben Sasse pushes cyber into the NDAA
Per War on the Rocks: "The relevant section in the NDAA calls for a 13-member bipartisan commission that includes members of Congress, senior executive branch officials, and private citizens...to evaluate 'deterrence, norms-based regimes, and cyber persistence'". We must treat cyberwarfare like the substantial battleground of not just the future, but the present.
The President doesn't know the history of tariffs
To claim that the country was "built on tariffs" is to misunderstand the very nature of taxation. There is nothing "great" about import taxation: It had certain administrative advantages to the young republic because the government found it easier to collect taxes at ports than to staff a bureaucracy for inland revenue. Federalist Paper No. 35 specifically counters the President's ignorant assertion that high tariffs are a "great" thing for America. Protective tariffs have been widely used over time, by a wide variety of countries, but the "protection" they offer is illusory and fleeting at best. Just ask South Korea, which is today paying a heavy price for the consequences of government favoritism paid to particular businesses and industries in the name of economic development.
"Stand your ground" turns to manslaughter
Americans need to know the overwhelming importance of restraining ourselves to what is a proportional response
Iowa City mayor issues letter opposing I-380 widening
The Interstate self-evidently needs to be six lanes between Iowa City and Cedar Rapids. This opposition is based upon pie-in-the-sky opposition to personal vehicles generally, not a reasonable grasp of the situation.
A really engaging interview with someone who self-evidently puts a lot of thought into the matter of thinking
FiveThirtyEight is out with some odds on who will win where. But whatever you think of the forecast, three cheers for their use of data visualization. Tilegrams are absolutely the right way to represent House districts when you're trying to illustrate control of Congress.
Retaliatory tariffs imposed by China are hurting US automakers
The reality of trade wars: The "wins" are imaginary, and the losses are quite real.
Send it if you must. But at least try to be original or funny or thought-provoking. Dull hate mail is just odious. Everyone in the public eye has to assume that 10% of the people are going to hate your guts, no matter what you do...but when that hate isn't made somehow entertaining, it's just tedious.
August 17, 2018
Google employees leak internal discussion of China search project
A New York Times reporter reveals that an "all-hands" meeting included high-level acknowledgements of a project to deliver search results in China -- where there would be no way to avoid government censorship.
Notwithstanding the likely huge legal obstacles that could scuttle whatever Elon Musk has in mind, if he is to heed the advice of many enormously wealthy people, he might just do whatever he can to take the company out of public markets. But which partners will he have to take on to make that happen?
What would make Warren Buffett buy an airline?
Not unrelated to the question of Tesla going private is the example of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. Berkshire may be a public company, but Buffett's management style is that of a private owner (with a very long time horizon). His voting control over the company makes it possible, and his temperament makes it the law of the land. Thus, while he's been burned by airlines before, there's no certainty that he wouldn't reverse himself and capture the whole of an airline (like, possibly, Southwest) if he determines that the fundamental economics of the business have changed from his prior experiences.
"Water cribs" in Lake Michigan provide one important source of supply
Amsterdam is using surplus of open water to make room for artificial islands
And those islands are being used to create affordable housing. How interesting. One thing is for certain: Due to the constraints imposed on them by nature, the Dutch seem willing to think well outside the conventional box when it comes to things like engineering and urban policy. Worth watching what they experiment with doing.
Retired Admiral William McRaven launches a terse and powerful broadside against the President's behavior: "Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation." Security clearances shouldn't become the objects of political tug-of-war -- they should be utilized only for the security of the country. It is the President's choice to make them into something they should not be that has invited the backlash. The McRaven opinion piece is important because it tells people like him that they are not alone, and as Susan Hennessey writes, "courage is contagious". We humans are social animals, and we respond to the cues of others we see as members of our own packs. It's up to those who are less impressionable -- less susceptible to being cowed or bullied or misdirected -- to put on clear demonstrations (of courage, character, stamina, guts, honesty) for those who are more impressionable.
When far-right nuts mistake themselves for architecture critics
There's probably no reasoning with rabid traditionalists who oppose anything new or urban, but there's nothing anti-conservative about architectural design. Architecture is an honorable expression of human knowledge and an act of value creation. Those are values that are widely celebrated within the tradition of classical liberalism (the main root of modern conservative thought). Reactionary traditionalists aren't really conservatives, so they probably don't get the point.
More wildfire smoke is heading Iowa's way
The haze in the skies is coming from Canada
When prominent people utterly -- and maybe willfully -- misinterpret history
Contrary to what Jerry Falwell, Jr. claims to believe, there is no inherent good to a President who chooses to be vulgar in every sense of the word. That interpretation is an utter perversion of the entire point of representative democracy. The Founders were obsessed with the nature and character of the people who would be chosen to lead the country. To think they weren't is pure ignorance -- and to be so open about being so wrong is utter hubris.
On the problem of calling modern soldiers "warriors"
It turns out, there's a much deeper set of historical roots involved than might immediately meet the eye. An article that is worthwhile not only for what it says sociologically and about our political/military relationship -- but also because it's a pretty terrific speedy survey of war history. Talking appropriately about the military -- with neither disrespect nor undue deference -- is critical to protecting self-government against the low-probability, high-impact chance that we might take the wrong path. Maintaining the proper lanes is really important.
August 18, 2018
Consider the challenges some kids face just in attending school
Students in Comoros, for instance, almost certainly don't have potable water, electricity, or adequate toilets where they attend classes.
Teachers and professors all over confess to finishing their class syllabi at the last minute. In the modern world -- quickly shaping up as the teach-yourself economy -- it's hard to think of anything more important to a student than a thorough and well-structured syllabus that seeks to comprehensively document what a person should read to understand a subject.
Iowa alone produces 17.9% of the nation's corn. That's more than any other state, though Illinois and Nebraska both make it into double digits.
September 12, 2018
Compulsory military service may create perverse incentives
A set of classmates in South Korea got themselves too fat to serve
Why Russia's policy of messing with its neighbors yields results
One of the most compelling articles on true political economy that's been on the scene in some time: "[F]ractured regions fuel instabilities and armed conflict by empowering authoritarian governments. This is likely to strengthen Russia’s increasingly institutionalized, and often divisive, presence in the contested areas".
The cruel negligence of leaving a child in the path of a hurricane
If you're an adult and make a willing and informed choice to expose yourself and only yourself to harm, so be it. But to put a kid in the path of a calamity BY CHOICE is reckless endangerment.
A map that really tells you something
A new cartogram of the world depicts where the global population lives and puts those populations to scale, rather than the land masses they occupy. It's quite revelatory. Cartograms are powerful tools for fixing the often erroneous models we naturally carry in our heads.
September 13, 2018
Your neighbor probably values democracy, but...
12% of Americans, though, would say that living under democratic rule is a "5" or less on a ten-point scale.
The buck stops with the President
President Trump took to Twitter with a cowardly, weak, and uncomprehending reaction to a calamity that occurred on his watch, claiming that revised estimates of the death toll from the 2017 hurricanes in Puerto Rico were not just exaggerated, but exaggerated specifically by his political opponents to score points. Neither caring about nor understanding the facts, he only wants "wins" with quick attribution -- which makes it a very real possibility that he might wake up one morning and threaten to default on the Federal debt. The threat alone would be devastating, but he's already shared his ludicrous opinion that the debt can be inflated away. "Print money to lower the national debt" is not the point of view of an economic genius. It is not even the point of view of a student who has paid attention through the first two weeks in an introductory macroeconomics course.
Bone marrow donation is easier than in the past
A drive in Central Iowa -- looking especially for people with varied ethnic backgrounds -- highlights that many donors can give without any surgery at all
What to expect from Hurricane Florence
Some places could end up with four times as much rain as what fell on Central Iowa back on June 30th and July 1st.
Goldilocks and the three generals
A case for flag officers who are neither too optimistic nor too pessimistic. In the words of Dwight Eisenhower: "And it is well to remember that caution and timidity are not synonymous, just as boldness and rashness are not!"
A phenomenal use of television
(Video) Illustrating the power of storm surge with immersive virtual reality is a great idea. Every medium has something special it can do that the others can't.
Stupid policies are yielding predictably bad outcomes
Prices for PCs spiked in August. In related news, the President's indefensible trade-war approach to doing business with China has resulted in new tariffs.
To criminalize the victim? Abhorrent.
Local news reports on a few grams of marijuana found in the home of Botham Jean, a man killed in his own apartment by a reckless neighbor who happened to be an armed police officer. If the piece of trivia -- that he may have possessed a tiny quantity of marijuana -- causes you even a scintilla of doubt that this man should be alive and safe in his own home, then you ought to forfeit your citizenship immediately.
September 14, 2018
China's building a lot of ships, but the US Navy is still the biggest
Most of this analysis is good and reassuring, but there's one intangible factor that deserves careful scrutiny: Who is learning fastest? China's project to build aircraft carriers is less about the ships themselves and more about figuring out how to scale up really big tasks.
Bill Daley is running for his brother's (and father's) old job: Mayor of Chicago
The Federal budget deficit is on track to exceed $3,000 per person this fiscal year. That's not total Federal spending, it's just the amount being over-spent. That's crazy, and if you think people are living in precarious fiscal circumstances today, the consequences of these deficits are going to be painful.
Twitter should add a "dunce cap" button
Some people will get followers, likes, and retweets, no matter how stupid their comments. The least the service could do is offer a counter-vote option for sane people to flag the idiots with a penalty.
When the fastest overnight carrier isn't Fed Ex
A story (from May) about a rush delivery of a specialty medication from Omaha to Denver -- mostly via state patrol cars
The Times of London is reporting that it's a real plan
September 18, 2018
There are plenty of people who find their occupations disrupted by new technologies, but you have to feel pretty bad for the aerial photographer who spent $250,000 on a Cessna and 35mm film cameras only to be nudged out by any ol' kid with a $250 drone.
And wind instruments
September 19, 2018
Iowa dropped straight-ticket voting last year
Only eight states still offer it.
They're just kids. Where they were born isn't their choice.
Per the Voice of America: "Save the Children said a million more children in Yemen now risked falling into famine, taking the total number to 5.2 million." That is, for perspective, about the same as the combined populations of Iowa and Nebraska. Innocent children who have no choice in the matter.
"They don't know whose boat that is...Maybe it becomes theirs"
When below-average intelligence and a total absence of empathy collide.
Shining a light on the corruption of the Belt and Road
China's 120,000-person China Communications Construction Co. is taking some heat as people start to pay attention to the corruption that's inevitable from combining practically unlimited (debt) funding with an urgent need to "do something".
The greenhouse as an actual home for living
A cool concept in theory that most people would never tolerate in actual practice.
September 20, 2018
Local tragedies shouldn't become national clickbait
The practice of sharing awful crime stories from the national wire as though they're local stories is an abhorrent one. At the very least, audiences deserve a simple dateline identification within any summary or social-media post. There are terrible things happening all the time -- like a 16-month-old toddler being shot in Chicago's South Loop -- but people deserve to know whether their local news outlets are truly relaying local stories.
What's chasing people out of Latin America?
Per the Wall Street Journal: "The strongest factor in predicting whether someone emigrates from Honduras and El Salvador isn’t age, gender or economic situation, but whether they had been victimized by crime multiple times in the past year." It's hard to imagine that this is ordinary life for so many people -- but one has to hope that if more Americans could understand what these people are trying to flee, then maybe we could think of our own border situation in humanitarian terms.
"Would the quality of, say, Harvard's education go down if it became a for-profit?"
A rather good question. We haven't gotten very good yet at brokering an answer to the problem of bringing adult education into the 21st Century. In the United States, higher education is dominated by public-sector and non-profit institutions. There are for-profit schools, of course, but they tend to occupy certain niches and have really never become dominant in the industry in the way that one would normally expect from the example of other industries. A major experiment related to this question is underway as Purdue University absorbs and re-brands the for-profit Kaplan University system. Ultimately, as a matter of economic necessity, America needs to take some strong medicine and begin delivering a lot more high-quality continuing education to adults. This will probably be driven at the state scale, but it needs to happen nationwide. Whether the incumbents are going to be capable of the necessary adaptation (scaling up, improving quality, and mastering distribution) is a great question.
With Paul Krugman protesting that he doesn't "spend a lot of time with wealthy and/or powerful people", one has to wonder: Everyone thinks they're above-average in (a) driving, (b) looks, and (c) intelligence, so why are people so quick to insist that they're in the 3rd or 4th quintile for income?
One solution to the San Francisco housing crunch
Why isn't anyone converting old cruise ships into apartment-style housing and anchoring just a bit offshore from San Francisco? Does the Coast Guard or some Federal regulation prohibit this? It has been noted by some that houseboats are competitive with the city's wildly unaffordable residential housing market.
Wells Fargo to reduce workforce by up to 10%
It's one of the most substantial employers in Central Iowa. Whether the cuts will be felt mostly in the retail banking outlets around the country or more heavily in the back office will determine just how significant the news is to Iowa.
Firefighters joined by Marines in race into burning building
A senior residence in DC caught fire, and Marines who happened to be stationed nearby came (literally) running to the rescue to evacuate the residents
When a cool breeze shows up on radar
Should the 31-year-old recording artist have a 14-year-old texting buddy?
Stories of the friendship between Drake and young actress Millie Bobby Brown carry a clear undertone of disapproval. And yet: Everyone should have inter-generational friendships as a normal and healthy part of human existence. The main thing about that is, simply, don't be creepy about it. If the two of them don't cross any reasonable lines that draw normal boundaries for age and intent, then it's really not fair to cast aspersions on the existence of the friendship itself.
September 21, 2018
A final reunion of B-47 pilots
One of the mainstays of the Strategic Air Command was an airframe that was notoriously dangerous to its crews. Those veterans have assembled for a final reunion in Omaha.
Teachers, check your test questions once in a while
Teachers in the social sciences especially might take heed to occasionally check their tests for wildly outdated ideas that represent expired versions of the received wisdom. For instance: A test question on a Canadian exam that sought a multiple-choice answer to naming a positive effect of Canada's "aggressive assimilation" of First Nations children in boarding schools.
Either Florida is a magnet for weirdos or local news outlets there have an uncanny knack for picking up and reporting on the most bizarre behavior imaginable. No other cause seems to adequately explain why we see so many stories like the one about a man who does all of his outdoor work in the nude.
Texas faces some novel questions
Can a place be a "brothel" if its services are rendered by robots? Does such a place substitute for activity that may have taken place in the shadows before, or does it stimulate interest in taboos? What kinds of regulations should apply: Is it more like an arcade than a house of ill repute?
The use of the rotten phrase "fake news" to describe coverage one doesn't like (rather than actual fake coverage) has a corrosive effect on the culture, even if it's being used tongue-in-cheek. Soon enough, what was once hyperbole becomes ordinary.
September 25, 2018
NTSB puts blame on pilots for near-disaster in San Francisco last year
It could have been a giant disaster and was only averted by a last-minute decision to abort the landing -- which would have occurred on a crowded taxiway instead of an active runway. The NTSB model isn't used nearly enough for investigating other causes of preventable harm. It's absolutely worth investigating thoroughly after an incident what happened and why. The NTSB model is quite specific, per its own website: "The National Transportation Safety Board was established in 1967 to conduct independent investigations of all civil aviation accidents in the United States and major accidents in the other modes of transportation. It is not part of the Department of Transportation, nor organizationally affiliated with any of DOT's modal agencies, including the Federal Aviation Administration. The Safety Board has no regulatory or enforcement powers. To ensure that Safety Board investigations focus only on improving transportation safety, the Board's analysis of factual information and its determination of probable cause cannot be entered as evidence in a court of law." We really ought to apply the same scrutiny to all kinds of incidents, with the same objective of finding the root causes of what hurts or kills us.
Puerto Rico shouldn't be held hostage to one man's attitude
The AP caught the President declaring his opposition to statehood for Puerto Rico "with people like that" in charge. "Like that" refers to the mayor of San Juan, who has been vocally critical of him and of the response to Hurricane Maria. The question of statehood has to be taken far more seriously than this. The citizens of that island, Americans all, deserve an honest hearing untethered to petty jealousy.
BBC Africa delivers powerful report using "open-source intelligence"
Matching features from an online video to real-world information available from sources like Google Maps, the BBC was able to establish the identities of a group of murderers in Cameroon who were filmed in the act of killing women and children. It is a powerful act of reporting about a devastating case of human depravity.
On what you say in your high school yearbook
Aren't most high-school seniors who leave behind yearbook quotes at least halfway cognizant that they're depositing a sort of time capsule that will be opened someday?
Not every innovation is an improvement
The Independent is trying to make the peanut-butter-and-mayonnaise sandwich "a thing". It is not, nor should it be.
September 26, 2018
Charlie Munger once advised that "Your competitors will keep learning, so you have to go to bed smarter than you woke up." Seeing America (and the ideas upon which it is founded) in the context of global competition -- for the obvious things, like military power and economic strength, but more importantly for the ultimate objective, which is the predominance of the idea of ordered liberty in the world -- a question is in order: Is America going to bed tonight smarter than it woke up?
We have a leading contender for "Stupidest Person of 2018", and it's a musician who not only went to the ER after overdosing on snack foods, he went on to tell the world about it on social media. This medical oddity deserves further study, because surely anyone this stupid lacks a functioning cerebral cortex.
CDC says flu killed 80,000 Americans last winter
That's an extremely high number -- the worst in 40 years, and likely twice as many as the number of Americans killed in car crashes (40,100 in 2017). Infectious diseases are still very much a threat to us all, and fighting them requires a spectrum of public-health responses that face a lot more resistance than they should. Social media in particular encourages people to share really stupid opinions -- particularly on the anti-vaccination front -- and those bad opinions, paradoxically, spread virally. Real leadership would ask the public-health sector "What resources do you need to drive this number of preventable deaths as close to zero as possible?", and would then seek to marshal public opinion behind making that happen.
A question for the Show-Me State
Why does Missouri have a river named the "One Hundred and Two"?
September 27, 2018
When a Supreme Court nomination process borders on farce
People have mounting reason for grievance on both sides of the conventional political aisle. This is, unfortunately, what happens when the undercurrent of anti-federalism becomes so pervasive that altogether too many people think that everything must be decided at the national level. If it can't be decided via legislation, they demand it be decided by executive order. And if it can't be decided by executive order, they demand it be taken to a Supreme Court case. Nationalizing every debate polarizes everyone...nationally. It's not good for the civic health of the country.
Ireland is out to elect a president
Americans ought to be open to the idea of an elected, and mostly ceremonial, head of state, who is allowed to take all the "Executive Time" they might want. Then give us a capable and accountable Chief Executive to run the Presidency.
Norway and Finland coordinate closer military cooperation
It's pretty easy to forget that Norway has a land border with Russia, which means that both countries have land borders with the same two countries (which surely is an unusual circumstance). Their invigorated spirit of military cooperation most certainly isn't because of plucky lil' Sweden.
When trans fats are outlawed, only outlaws will have trans fats
A potato-chip maker from Burlington, Iowa, has been struggling mightily to reformulate their recipe after the FDA effectively banned the cooking oils they had long used, because the oils contained trans fats. Good intentions abound, but government regulations can be a pretty blunt instrument.
Iowa could have frost before October
After an abysmally short spring, now we're headed straight for the cold season without a reasonable stretch of fall. A September 29th frost in Des Moines is supposed to be a 10% probability, according to the historical statistics.
Pumpkin-spicing everything is a crime
Nobody needs Pumpkin Spice Frosted Flakes
Baseball fandom as litmus test
An appreciation for baseball/softball is a pretty reliable precondition of good character, right? At least necessary, if not sufficient.
September 28, 2018
Real lives of real value face real crisis
The World Food Program reports that 47,000 people in South Sudan are suffering from a catastrophic famine, with another 1.7 million in a state of "food emergency", plus another 4.3 million in a "food crisis". This is a devastating chart documenting an awful catastrophe that is destroying real lives, all of which are just as worthy of value and care as any of ours.
A nation of (economic) illiterates
A Pew study finds that self-identified Republicans and Democrats have -- in very large numbers -- changed their opinions on the security of the American economy since 2015, and whether it is in better shape than it was before 2008. This reflects a problem of knee-jerk partisanship, to be sure. But it also reflects the fact that Americans broadly know little to nothing about the real underpinnings of the economy -- taking cues from the condition of the stock market, or from the words babbled from a White House podium. That's not healthy when a Democrat is in charge, and it's not healthy when a Republican is in charge. And in no case should people substitute their understanding of the economy for a blind faith in any leader to "manage" or "grow" said economy. Politicians can make things marginally worse or marginally better through their policies, but most of the job consists in avoiding doing harm. Presidents don't create jobs.