Quote of the Day
What is said over the dead lion's body could not be said to him alive.
Zairean proverb
China Bashing, Trump Edition
When Donald Trump wants to "punish" China by adding a 25% tariff to imported goods, like those $70 Trump signature collection shirts made in the USA China, this is just a reminder that the tariff gets passed along to you, the consumer. PS. Perhaps the Donald meant that you shouldn't buy the merchandise he has made in China, but the other items in the collection are manufactured in Mexico or Bangladesh. (It's the Trump program for spreading the jobs around.)
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Courtesy of Salon |
Trump's Press Conference:
Predictable Nonsense on the Birther Issue
I recall one time that privacy restrictions were counterproductive. When I busted a group of Asian students for plagiarizing on a graduate systems analysis project at UWM, I had traced almost all of the material back to source materials except one source, which I did not have access to and which I knew would contain the remaining content. I was facing a procedural deadline; the library had only one copy--and of course it was checked out (in fact, had just renewed by the student). I wanted the book recalled on an expedited basis; that request was rejected. There was no time to secure a second copy via interlibrary loan. The library furthermore refused to identify the student's identification, the salient issue in this case. In essence, the library's procedures on privacy acted against enforcement of academic dishonesty policies. (It turned out that I didn't need it as two of the students immediately confessed when I called in the group; I've written about the defiant holdout in previous posts, whom dismissed this idea about plagiarism as "an American cultural phenomenon" and went on to subsequently plagiarize under at least two other colleagues, which I myself diagnosed at their request.)
There were other issues I encountered in academia of a similar nature; other edicts came from administrators, e.g., we could no longer post grades via social security numbers (typically, the student id), because they weren't regarded as sufficiently private. (Don't you just love how companies, under the guise of protecting one's privacy, expect you to memorize their idiosyncratic 16-digit account or credit card numbers?) We can certainly mention other examples from, say, television dramas (an adopted child unable to identify his or her natural parent).
Now, most of us have birth certificate/short-form copies we use for whatever official purposes (in my case, those included things like joining the Navy, getting an initial driver's license and/or obtaining my passport). In the case of Hawaii, they normally don't even release copies of the long form to the person listed on the birth certificate. (President Obama had to be granted a waiver of existing state policy.) I don't know what the precise issue for birthers was: on multiple occasions, state officials verified the long form was on file. There were birth announcements in local newspapers on file. The question is why anyone would put credence in an unlikely conspiracy theory; what would motivate Trump to resurrect what I have always regarded as a fake issue? In my view, Trump needs to explain why, with a $14.3T debt, a massive government bureaucracy, over $50T in unfunded entitlement liabilities, and millions unemployed since the recession started in late 2007, he's looking at Obama's birth as an issue? The people aren't interested in partisanship and bickering; they are looking for leadership, judgment, experience and character.
I didn't see why Obama released it at this time (except possibly skepticism was growing, in large part due to Donald Trump's obsession with the issue and the teaser that he had uncovered something); if I was playing Obama's hand, I would have bided my time until Trump was the nominee and brought it up at a debate, making the perfect setup to damage Trump's credibility.
But Trump's reaction was predictable; if a reader had asked me yesterday what Trump's reaction would have been, I would have predicted exactly what he in fact did: claim credit for getting Obama to do something he had refused to do for 3 years; caution people until he had a chance to scrutinize the long form document (because, well you know, Obama's buddy is the governor of Hawaii: keep hope alive for the conspiracy theorists); say FINALLY we can move on to the next issue (the $14.3T debt? No... Obama's grades). Of course, nobody else thought with the debt ceiling coming up, the nature of Medicare reform, military involvement with 3 different countries, etc.--we had to put everything on hold until Trump was satisfied about Obama's birth. But thanks for giving us permission, Mr. Trump, to move on...
The next "real issue" for Trump? Oil prices. OH, PLEASE. Is there any conservative on earth that believes Trump is a true conservative on this (or any other) issue? Have we heard Trump attack Obama for the fact that Cuba has offshore properties for oil exploration closer to Florida than any domestic explorer is allowed to drill off Florida's cost? No--Trump is attacking Obama not on the fact we hold vast amounts of oil and gas in shale properties and offshore, hobbled by Obama's policies (including environmental ones), so we have to buy someone else's oil and/or gas (paying for their costs, including their own workers). No, Trump thinks the issue is we don't have shrewder wheeler-dealers in place jawboning OPEC into pumping more oil. There's a problem because the world demand for oil is increasing more rapidly than any spare capacity of supplies can come online.
Trump sees himself as the ultimate wheeler-dealer; I see him as a crony capitalist. The last thing I want to see is a Presidential debate where Obama and Trump fight over whom could negotiate the best deal on prescription drugs for Medicare. The best approach to competitive pricing is improved pricing information and streamlined procedures for alternative drug approval.
Beck Show Correction
On Beck's show today, he reviewed some examples of bad behavior--including ironically a clear reference to the Baltimore area McDonald's incident I wrote about yesterday. Beck implied this was a dispute over a boyfriend that exploded out of control. In fact, the victim was a transgender young woman, whom the teenage girl attackers accused of being a perverted male in the ladies room.
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
Atomic Power Review notes:
- Wednesday morning: They are upping the injection flow to the reactor 1 reactor pressurized vessel. TEPCO is estimating there is at least some minor structural damage to spent fuel pool 4 because they are having to add more water than can be accounted for by evaporation.
- revised core damage estimates: TEPCO has lowered the fuel damage estimate for reactor 1 from 70% to 55% (because the relevant radiation readings aren't consistent with the suspected damage estimate) while rounding up the damage to the final two reactors by another 5% up, to 35% and 30% respectively.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger, in passing noting across-the-board improving conditions at Fukushima Daiichi (airborne, seawater, RPV temperature/pressure, etc.), mostly focused on this week's 25th anniversary of Chernobyl noting a disingenuous attempt of Russian President Medvedev implying that Japan is just as tainted from lack of public disclosure with Fukushima Daiichi as Chernobyl; he also reviews conceptually flawed comparisons between Chernobyl and the Hiroshima nuclear attack.
Political Humor
"It was just revealed that Donald Trump hasn’t voted in primary elections in over 20 years. Or in simpler terms, Trump hasn’t voted in primary elections in over three wives." - Jimmy Fallon
[Trump doesn't believe in foreplay; he wants to go straight to the main event...]
"Donald Trump is now attacking President Obama’s grades, suggesting that he was a poor student. First it was the birth certificate, and now the grades. Trump won’t be happy until he proves that Obama doesn’t exist." - Jimmy Kimmel
[First, Trump needed proof that Obama was born. Next, he wants proof that Obama graduated. You know where he's heading next: checking Obama's job history and references. I can predict that he's going to have some problems with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers...]
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ABBA, "One of Us"
