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Category: Politics (Page 1 of 13)

Politics.

Masks After May 11th, 2023?


At the beginning of the Covid pandemic I remember the utterly surreal experience of walking into a bank wearing a mask. It was surreal because no one reacted, I was not immediately confronted by an armed guard, and no one called the police.

Why did it feel surreal to me? Some states and cities in the United States have had laws prohibiting the wearing of face coverings in public. It’s illegal. Some of these laws have been on the books for 150 years. In the U.S.A. I’ve always just assumed that face coverings, masks, burqhas, etc. are illegal unless I learn otherwise. Wearing a mask in a bank is just asking for trouble.

In New York, it’s been illegal since 1845 for a gathering of two or more people in public to wear face coverings. What about the Ku Klux Klan? The KKK arranges for a court to temporarily lift the ban for their demonstrations and then re-instate the ban. Halloween masks are, apparently, ignored. Face coverings have been illegal since 1949 in Alabama. California had stringent anti-mask laws going way back. These laws were struck down by the court after the State of California was sued by Iranian-Americans in 1979. DC prohibits masks in public after 10 PM. There are many other examples.

What’s going to happen when the Covid-19 Emergency Declaration ends on May 11th? We’re still losing 500 people a day to Covid.

Major Price Increase for Natural Gas


Most everyone who uses natural gas in the U.S.A. is probably noticing or about to notice a shocking increase in cost. The story is that reserves are low and gas producers haven’t been able to drill because of Wall Street profit-taking, so supplies are short.

Well, I don’t believe it and here’s a why. For the past 20 years, winter temperatures in the Northeastern U.S. have been steadily rising due to climate change. I’ve seen the data and recorded some of my own. I’m an engineer and it’s been my habit for decades to keep daily records on gas and electricity consumption.

Where we used to have 12 to 18 inches of snow on the ground at times during winters here in West Virginia, now there’s just a light dusting or none at all. The trend became very obvious about six years ago with almost no snow on the ground for the past six years. The near constant grinding of snowplows is replaced with silence. In 2018 I bought a nice new snowthrower. It’s never been used even once. It’s been sitting in the basement for the past four years.

For the past several years, natural gas consumption in my home has been half what it’s been in the past. From the middle of January to the middle of February, our daily gas consumption for heating was usually 1,000 to 1,400 cubic feet per day. Today it’s 600 or less.

There shouldn’t be a shortage when consumption is half what it used to be. I think the natural gas providers are not happy with their reduced sales due to climate change and have raised prices to maintain profits.

General Sherman’s Prophetic Letter


General William Tecumseh Sherman is an important name from the U.S. Civil War. He was a distinguished military man and master of military strategy. Sherman was also a successful author, teacher, and businessman. When General Grant became president in 1869, Sherman succeeded him as Commanding General of the U.S. Army.

Sherman was born and raised in Ohio, but had many friends in the Southern States and enjoyed being there. In fact, he was in Texas when South Carolina seceded from the United States. He was so upset by this event that he cried and wrote the following letter to his friend, Professor David F. Boyd in Virginia, who was strongly in favor of secession. The letter proved to be an accurate analysis of the situation and visionary forecast of the final outcome.

General William Tecumseh Sherman, U.S. National Archives

He wrote:

“You people of the South don’t know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization!

You people speak so lightly of war; you don’t know what you’re talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it.”

“Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.

You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.”

Drought Affects the Whole Country


When drought in the U.S. is mentioned, the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is the West, Southwest, and California in particular. There’s good reason for this. It’s been in the news every year. The rampant wildfires are terrible and spectacular. But the main threat of drought is to agriculture. California is the key to having nice things on our dinner tables. California produces 71 percent of the lettuce in the U.S, 90 percent of the strawberries, 99 percent of the garlic, 99 percent of the almonds, 99 percent of the grapes and world-class wines, and cantaloupes, watermelon, citrus, onions, celery, on and on. If we count the West Coast states, add apples, pears, cherries, and more.

Important as all that is to having nice things on the table, the meat and potatoes (literally), grains, and animal feed do not come from California. They come primarily from the middle of the country. The farmlands from Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, to Texas produce vast amounts of the staple foods we eat. In addition to feeding ourselves, the U.S. literally feeds the world.

How does all this stuff get where it’s going? Well, the United States was lucky. It came with a built-in railroad: the Mississippi River System.

Mississippi River System showing the Mississippi River and tributaries that are used for shipping purposes.

175 million (!) tons of freight a year is shipped on the Upper Mississippi system alone. For perspective, that’s 20,000 to 30,000 loaded freight trains. Not freight cars, freight trains.

Then we come to the Lower Mississippi and exports. The Port of South Louisiana handles 500 million tons of freight each year. Ninety-two percent of U.S. agricultural exports pass through the Port of South Louisiana. This is 78 percent of the world’s exports of feed, soybeans, livestock, and hogs. Sixty percent of the world’s exported grain passes down the Mississippi to the Port of South Louisiana. For perspective, that’s sitting by a railroad track and watching 25,000 loaded freight cars go by every single day. That’s not even possible on a single track.

So what does drought have to do with this? The Mississippi River System drains the central portion of the U.S.A. from Minnesota and Wisconsin to Texas, Montana, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and so on. Drought is affecting these places too and the first sign of this is the water levels up and down the Mississippi. The water levels got so low this year that the barges that carry freight up and down the river were getting stuck on the bottom and causing traffic jams.

The problem should now be obvious. If low water becomes more frequent, and because of climate change it almost certainly will, it’s a huge problem. One could easily prove the point that the lifeblood of the country flows up and down the Mississippi River System. It’s the main artery. Disruptions here will upset not just agricultural products but every industry that involves heavy river freight starting with fuel oil, crude oil, coal, coke, fertilizer, limestone, iron, cement, and a long list more. The economic effects of this are staggering, not just for the U.S.A. but the world.

Solutions? There aren’t any good ones. One could build rail lines that parallel the river and tributaries, but this is a big project and cannot be done quickly. The land easement problems alone would take decades to sort out in the courts. More dams and locks on the river? This is possible in some few places but is an enormous project that would take decades to implement.

The good news is that scientists have been thinking about this for a long time. In recent decades we have greatly reduced the amount of water we take out of the river and use for irrigation and other purposes that evaporates or otherwise isn’t returned to the river. Since the drainage area of the Mississippi is so large, climate scientists can’t be certain about what’s going to happen at every point along the river. There’s evidence that the change is slow and that this year was an extra dry glitch. We must hope that this is true.

In any case, the Mississippi River problem is one to watch out for in the coming years. It’s a big one.

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