Eli Is Getting Impatient

Those who deny climate change are very sensitive little snowflakes who dislike being reminded that they are deniers.  MT has a nice thread about denial being a denial of service attack, but, reacting with hurt when denial has been pointed out has always been part of the denial toolbox.  Recently Marc (C) Morano got into it with Mark (K) Boslough

oh. OK. So it's OK to use word 'denier' and smear link them to Holocaust as long as your specific enclave is not labeled the same.

— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) May 24, 2019

Now Eli is not one to avoid calling a climate change denier a denier but this time, the Bunny came up with a good defanger

Why are you stealing the sacrifice of those who died in the Holocaust?

— eli rabett (@EthonRaptor) May 24, 2019

 And, that being Twitter, Marc (C) came back for another round.  He should not have tho

You use the sacrifice of others to deflect criticism of your duplicity

— eli rabett (@EthonRaptor) May 24, 2019

So here are Eli's suggestions the next time some anti-Vaxxer, climate change denier or whatever starts bleating about being accused of denying the Holocaust and how mean you are for pointing it out

Why are you stealing the sacrifice of those who died in the Holocaust? 

You use the sacrifice of others to deflect criticism of your duplicity 

Another bunch who wants to steal the suffering of the Holocaust victims for themselves. 

Eli Rabett's Simple Impeachment Advice

Well, what the hell, the US is headed there are the House Democratic leadership (e.g. Nancy Pelosi) doesn't want to impeach Donald Trump

The House speaker also suggested Trump was disappointed that she has resisted calls from some members of her caucus to pursue impeachment. Pelosi appeared to endorse the theory that Trump is trying to trap House Democrats by goading them into bringing impeachment charges, expecting to be acquitted by the Republican-controlled Senate. This would allow him to claim vindication heading into his reelection.

“The House Democratic caucus is not on the path to impeachment,” Pelosi said. “That’s where he wants us to be.”

But Pelosi also made clear that Trump’s conduct could lead the House down that path, eventually.

“The president’s behavior in terms of his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s very clear — it’s in plain sight,” she said. “It cannot be denied. Ignoring subpoenas. Obstruction of justice. Yes, these could be impeachable offenses.”

She added: “We can walk and chew gum at the same time. I hope he can too.”

The problem is obvious.  Trump is richly deserving of impeachment and conviction but a) the Reprehensibles in the Senate will never convict and b) Trump will never hand over evidence to even the ongoing House inquiries.

Thus Eli Rabett's Simple Solution:  Impeachment by a thousand Benghazis.  As the bunnies may recall the Reprehensibles ran thousands of Benghazi hearings (seemed that way), always demanding more information from Hillary Clinton and the White House, screaming stonewalling all the time.  This had a very negative effect on Clinton's candidacy to say the least.

Turn about could be excellent.  The House should open an impeachment inquiry.  Tomorrow

Nothing says they have to bring it to a vote, well it might be fun to do so a month or less before the election.  It would tie the Senate into knots and there are LOTs of Republicans running in 2020.  They would have the interesting choice of doing a quick whitewash  (explaining that in the face of the mountain of evidence that is already there) and even then spending valuable time before the election, or putting it off (explaining why they did not do their job would be even more fun).

Having a long running impeachment inquiry kills any argument that the House has no right to ANY information about how Trump is doing his job, or his actions before hand.  Trump STILL won't give up any information, but the Dems just have to keep saying, gee, how can we end this inquiry without the needed information.

Even better, Mueller, Barr, McGahn and the crew can't refuse to testify to the impeachment inquiry.  EINAL but the argument about executive privilege would seem to be a lot less effective against an impeachment inquiry.

And, of course, as everybunny sees, even more dirty deeds come to light with passing time

Impeachment Inquiry Tomorrow (Vote in about 17 months). Eli Rabett's Simple Plan

Republishing "Don't feed the warhorses"

Republishing the post below from December 2016. TLDR version - old political warhorses like Biden do well in party primaries and less well in general elections. Doesn't mean he can't win though, just that it's harder. (And note the wrong idea I had that Biden couldn't possibly run in 2020.)

I don't think it applies to Sanders because except for the last few years, he didn't do much to help Democrats beat Republicans. Not sure that really works in his favor, though.

Biden does seem to have a demeanor that makes him "moderate" rather than "compromised" so that might help him, but we'll see what a primary and general campaign does to that image.

And while I'm saying this is how American politics work, I'm not saying I'm happy about it. It's crazy that Pete Buttigieg has a better chance now than 20 years from now when he's been forced to make hard decisions and compromises. But it's what we've got.


The old post from December 2016:

Don't feed the warhorses, and careful with the lightning rods

People may be sick of political introspection, but for those who can handle a little more, here's a list of old warhorse nominees:

H. Clinton
Gore
Dole
Bush Sr.
Mondale

Plausible additions, although not a perfect fit:
Romney
McCain

These are people that had been prominent for a long time and had done a lot of favors inside their party, so they had built alliances within the elites and started their campaigns with a fair amount of name recognition within their parties. They also didn't do very well in winning the Electoral College. Bush Sr is the only partial exception, going 1-for-2.

I suppose Reagan could be argued as a counter-example, but he wasn't very cozy with Republican elites in 1980, and that's also going back a ways in political history. Even if you did include him, the warhorse win-loss record is pretty bad.

Our political system, for worse rather than for better, values newness and "authenticity" over experience, compromises and baggage. I'm open to suggestions as to how that can change, but I'm not up for beating my head against the wall. The warhorses don't make good general election candidates, and Democrats shouldn't choose them in upcoming elections.

And good news, the only warhorses Ds have lying around these days are former nominees and Biden, none of them likely to run again. But the problem will return someday.

Second and related issue is prominent Democrats becoming lightning rods for Republican lies. Hillary was their target with the willing assistance of the New York Times and some other media. The result made her the second-most unpopular nominee in history.

Hillary wasn't the sole target of hate and lies - before her, it was Gore. While I hate to let the Republicans win their little game, maybe it's time for a little political judo - the Republicans are  spending all their lies on warhorses they see as future nominees, and those people aren't the best nominees anyway. So don't nominate the lightning rods that Republicans have been lying about, and use 2008 as a model. The Republicans had no coherent critique of Democrats, let alone a message of their own, and just had Hatred for Hillary. That let Obama define a completely different, hopeful, and moderately progressive alternative.

We'll see what the Republican game plan will be for 2020 - something tells me that it won't be a positive message based on a record of accomplishments. They also won't have 2008's McCain who tamped down on a new set of lies against Obama.

I'm not saying run from any candidate the Republicans start lying about, just to choose wisely instead.

Semi-review: Let It Shine - The 6,000 Year History of Solar Power

Short version of my review of Let It Shine: go read it, even if like me you're not interested in passive solar architecture. It's ironic that passive solar isn't that interesting to me, because it's about half of the book and until the last century it was about the only truly successful harnessing of the sun. Everything else, however, is still interesting enough to make this a good book about the history of solar power.

The history of solar water heating is fascinating - it got pretty far, particularly in Japan, before being killed off by cheap fossil fuels. In some alternate universe timeline, solar motors, solar water heaters, even solar electric modules developed in the late 1800s were never replaced by coal and fossil fuels.

Solar electric was particularly interesting to me. They have a picture of the first photovoltaic array in New York City, in 1884. PV energy seems like it could have taken off earlier than it did - the Eisenhower Administration purposefully rejected it compared to nuclear power and the mirage that atomic batteries would be commonplace.

The early space race, OTOH, was a godsend for PV as the only feasible long-term power source for the small satellites they used at the time (I'm not sure when radioisotopes became an alternate power source). The Gollum of 20th Century climate change even makes an appearance. A design for the first proposed American satellite from 1955 "shows that the satellite's designer, Dr. S Fred Singer, planned to use solar photovoltaics as its power source."

PV's cost hardly mattered for satellites but they helped pay for early technological development. Soon afterwards, remote locations on earth also became obvious use cases (irony again, offshore oil platforms started it). PV poked along for a while while subsidies for nuclear power and fossil fuels burgeoned forth, and PV received little R&D. The Atomic Energy Commission in 1973 proposed a 5-year research budget of $4 billion for nuclear and $36 million for solar. The Reagan Administration purposefully neglected solar. It took massive subsidies in Germany and piggy-backing on computer chip technology for PV to really begin its takeoff.

One interesting lesson from the book (mainly from discussion of solar motors and solar water heating) is how much of technological development is iterative development of prior work. The statement that science relies on standing on the shoulders of giants applies just as well to engineering.

Again I'd recommend the book. I'd also be interested in a history focusing exclusively on solar PV, and another on wind power. Suggestions welcomed!

A brief guide to denial arguments.

Back in 2012, I reviewed a book by James Lawrence Powell, The Inquisition of Climate Science (Columbia University Press,2011). Powell received his doctorate from MIT in geochemistry and taught at Oberlin College for two decades. My review, entitled "Petroleum and Propaganda: The Anatomy of the Global Warming Denial Industry"  appeared in the May 2012 issue of Monthly Review, and can be found online.

James Lawrence Powell has described the highly effective corporate-funded propaganda campaign  to alter the public perception of climate science.The global denial industry includes corporate funders, toxic think-tanks, and PR flacks. For example, the Heartland printed and distributed 150,000 free copies (in fifteen languages)  of The Skeptic's Handbook. The author is a pseudonym. Looking back at my 2012 article, little has changed in the essentials. The case for global warming science is even stronger now than it was a few years ago.