Month: April 2021

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions

Please enjoy the latest edition of Short Circuit, a weekly feature from the Institute for Justice.

In Hamen v. Hamlin County, the South Dakota Supreme Court recently grappled with the question of whether an innocent property owner should get a remedy, in the form of just compensation or damages, for a SWAT raid that destroyed parts of a mobile home and cost the property owner $20k to repair. (Turns out the suspect wasn’t in the home). It’s a question that IJ is litigating right now in a separate case. And it’s also a question that has divided federal and state courts, writes IJ Attorney Anya Bidwell over at the Federalist Society’s State Court Docket Watch.

  • Boston’s School Committee revises admissions procedures for the city’s three most elite public schools, switching from a primarily GPA-based procedure to a procedure that also incorporates student income and zip code. A coalition of parents and students sue, alleging that the changes discriminate against white and Asian students. After losing a request for a preliminary injunction, the coalition seeks an injunction pending appeal. First Circuit: Which we deny. The policy may result in reduced white/Asian admission, but it is based on race-neutral criteria and was not a pure proxy for race.
  • Harvard Law grad with a variety of learning disabilities is denied testing accommodations for the New York bar exam, fails twice, losing a prestigious law firm job as a result. After passing the exam on a third attempt (this time with accommodations), the young lawyer sues, alleging violations of the federal Rehabilitation Act. Second Circuit: But the suit is barred by 11th Amendment immunity. An exception for state agencies that receive federal funds covers only the state’s Courts of Original Jurisdiction, which receive funds but do not supervise the bar.
  • In 2012, state and federal authorities in Maryland begin investigating a chain of pharmacies for Medicaid fraud. Search warrants are executed. Pharmacies are shuttered. Owner is indicted. Owner is convicted. Government demands 12 years’ imprisonment followed by deportation. After which Owner is . . . granted a new trial? After it turns out the inventory calculations the prosecutors used were fundamentally flawed? And then it turns out the government destroyed three boxes of key documents as “part of a general cleanup of boxes of paper”? Which leads to the criminal court’s dismissing all charges? And NPR’s using the phrase “colossal screw-up” in a headline about the case? Yikes! Fourth Circuit: Yikes it may be. But the pharmacy owner can’t bring Bivens claims against any federal officials because (all together now) “these claims would extend the Bivens remedy into a new context.” Also, the state prosecutor who was seconded to the federal case is entitled to absolute immunity for allegedly fabricating evidence and spring-cleaning other evidence out of existence.
  • Pretrial detainee in Bell County, Tex. jail is initially deemed a suicide risk, but the jail’s mental-health contractor takes him off suicide watch and places him in gen pop. He hangs himself two days later. His mother sues the mental-health professional, alleging deliberate indifference to her son’s serious medical needs. District court: Qualified immunity. Fifth Circuit: Wait. The mental-health professional was an employee of a private contractor, not the gov’t. So no qualified immunity. And there’s at least a fact question about whether the professional violated the detainee’s rights. To trial the case must go.
  • Early in the pandemic, some sellers on Amazon reportedly began charging outrageous prices for N95 masks and other essential goods. In Kentucky, the state’s attorney general launches investigations into Kentucky-based sellers for violating the state’s price-gouging laws. The Online Merchants Guide sues the AG, invoking the extraterritoriality strand of the dormant commerce clause. Yes, you heard that right. Extraterritoriality! Buckle your seatbelts, gang. (In all seriousness, the extraterritoriality doctrine is endlessly fascinating.) District court: That seems like a winning theory; preliminary injunction. Sixth Circuit: We disagree. Any effect on out-of-state commerce is not the result of Kentucky’s law, but of Amazon’s pricing structures. Preliminary injunction vacated.
  • Pursuing a suspect, St. Louis police officer says that he’s “going to kill this m***f***, don’t you know it”—which he does. The officer is acquitted of murder; protests and riots erupt. Police order people to disperse, deploy mace, and arrest scores of people. The trial court enters a preliminary injunction that has now been in effect for more than three years. Eighth Circuit: Too long. The case needs to be resolved on the merits, so the preliminary injunction must be dissolved or replaced with a permanent injunction within six months. We’re also super dubious of the merits of the claims.
  • The Speedy Trial Act, which was enacted to effectuate the guarantees of the Sixth Amendment, sets time limits for steps in the criminal adjudication process and enumerates delays that may toll those limits. One delay covers when the “ends of justice” outweigh the interest in a speedy trial—and it’s been flexed a lot during the pandemic. The Ninth Circuit brings us a pair of cases interpreting this language. In the first, the court holds that a pretrial detainee who has been held since August 2019 can continue to be held for a little longer under the Speedy Trial Act, but not much longer under the Due Process Clause. And in the second, the court reverses the dismissal of an indictment of a defendant who had been granted bond and had obtained eight trial continuances before jury trials were suspended.
  • Everyone agrees Art Tobias did not kill Alex Castaneda. But that consensus was reached only after Los Angeles police interrogated the then-13-year-old, ignored his request for a lawyer, and convicted him on the basis of his false confession. Ninth Circuit: Qualified immunity can’t save you here. When a suspect says, “could I have an attorney,” you have to let him see an attorney. And at least one officer employed unconstitutionally coercive interrogation techniques as well.
  • In 2020, the Department of State removed 3D-printed guns from its “Munitions List”—a de-listing that would ease various regulatory restrictions on said firearms. Twenty-two states plus D.C. sued, and a district court enjoined the change. Ninth Circuit: Congress has provided that decisions to add firearms to the Munitions List “shall not be subject to judicial review,” and that necessarily covers decisions to remove firearms from the list as well. Dissent: Jurisdiction-stripping provisions should be narrowly construed, not extended beyond their plain language. (Also dissent: On the merits, the Department’s rulemaking procedure violated the APA because the agency deliberately hid the fact that its proposed rule would encompass 3D-printed guns until after the comment period had closed.)
  • Two California men are charged with murder based on the testimony of a confidential informant. Although the informant testifies at a preliminary hearing, during trial he invokes the Fifth Amendment and refuses to answer any questions. The court admits the man’s testimony from the preliminary hearing; the two defendants are convicted and sentenced to life. They seek habeas review, alleging a violation of the Confrontation Clause. Ninth Circuit: The Defendants’ lawyer got to question the witness at the preliminary hearing, even if the trial judge cut off some of that questioning. It wasn’t unreasonable for the state courts to find no Confrontation Clause violation.
  • Nonprofits petition the EPA in 2007 to ban foods containing an insecticide, chlorpyrifos. EPA takes 10 years looking into it, finds evidence that the chemical is indeed bad, but doesn’t issue a rule, just delays everything. The Ninth Circuit says this was “a total abdication” of its statutory duties and orders it to you-know-what or get off the pot within 60 days. Dissent: Yeah, EPA took way too long, but wasn’t arbitrary and capricious in this very technical case.
  • And in en banc news, the D.C. Circuit will reconsider its decision that neither the “procedural” nor the “substantive” aspects of the Due Process Clause apply to a Yemeni citizen who has been held at Gitmo without trial for more than 16 years.

This week, a federal judge in Tampa ruled that a $30k fine for too-tall grass is not an unconstitutional excessive fine, nor does it violate due process to decline to notify a property owner that he was racking up $500-per-day fines. It all started in in 2018, when Jim Ficken was out of town handling his late mother’s estate. He’d hired a friend to mow the lawn at his house in Dunedin, Fla., but the friend passed away unexpectedly. Jim mowed the grass as soon as he realized what was going on, but city officials refused to reduce the fine and even voted to authorize foreclosure of his home when he, a retiree on a fixed income, didn’t pay. Jim will appeal the district court’s decision. Read more here.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3u3N8f4
via IFTTT

Biden Bans Travel From India Amid COVID Crisis As Vaccine Supplies Run Dry

Biden Bans Travel From India Amid COVID Crisis As Vaccine Supplies Run Dry

The COVID-19 situation in India has continued to worsen late this week as the country reported another daily record of nearly 400K (386.6K) newly confirmed COVID-19 cases on Friday, while more than 3K new deaths were recorded.

And while multiple Indian states close vaccination sites due to shortages of supplies, Reuters reports that President Joe Biden is expected to impose new travel restrictions on India starting Tuesday that will bar most non-US citizens from entering the US, according to White House sources.

The new restrictions are being imposed on the advice of the CDC “in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 case loads and multiple variants circulating in India,” the official said. A formal announcement is expected on Friday and the policy will take effect on Tuesday, May 4.

The policy means most non-US citizens who have been in one of those countries – and now India – within the last 14 days are not eligible to travel to the US China and Iran are also both covered by the policy.

Biden in January issued a similar ban on most non-US citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa. He has also reimposed an entry ban on nearly all non-US travelers who have been in Brazil, the UK, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe that allow travel across open borders.

Meanwhile, India – the country that has more vaccine-producing capacity than any other in the world – has reportedly run out of vaccines, leaving residents who signed up for a jab unable to get one.

The shortage is undermining a plan to ramp up and widen inoculation from Saturday. Mumbai’s government announced that 94 vaccination centers in the city would be closed from Friday through Sunday due to “non-availability of vaccine stock.” Shortages cropped up in other places, including New Delhi and other states.

Only about 9% of its 1.4 billion people have had a dose. India has struggled to increase capacity beyond 80 million doses a month due to lack of raw materials and a fire at the Serum Institute, which makes the AstraZeneca vaccine.

Of course, while Indian states have run out of vaccines, many states in the US are watching unused jabs pile up.

Total deaths have surpassed 200K this week and cases are nearing 19MM, nearly 8MM new cases since February alone as mutant strains and a number of “super spreader” events – political rallies and Hindu religious celebrations – are believed to have triggered the latest run-up in cases. Medical experts say real numbers may be five to 10 times higher than the official tally. Patients have been begging for spaces in hospitals while oxygen tanks are scarce and prized.

Other countries have imposed similar travel restrictions on India, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Singapore, while Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand have suspended all commercial travel with India.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 15:15

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3u7CX9p Tyler Durden

The $3 Trillion Hidden Exposure Behind The Archegos Blowup

The $3 Trillion Hidden Exposure Behind The Archegos Blowup

Authored by Nick Dunbar of Risky Finance

When the family office Archegos Capital abruptly imploded in late March, prompting $50 billion in block trades and $10 billion in losses at Credit Suisse, Nomura, UBS and Morgan Stanley, many bank analysts were taken by surprise. Last week, many of these analysts sounded frustrated listening to Credit Suisse’s earnings call in which senior management skirted round without giving any real detail about the disaster.

“Do you think it’s possible that this could produce a very fundamental reset in how your IRB credit risk models work?” wondered Stefan Stalmann of Autonomous Research. “I mean you have only CHF20 billion to CHF25 billion of counterparty credit risk-weighted assets on literally hundreds of billions of equity swaps and repos”.

Risky Finance shares Stalmann’s bewilderment. Expressed as a capital requirement, Credit Suisse was able to satisfy regulators with just $2 billion of capital for counterparty credit losses – the lowest among the G-SIFI banks tracked by Risky Finance. Months later it reported a loss of $4.7 billion.

It should serve as a warning. 14 years ago, obscure corners of banking businesses became hotbeds of regulatory arbitrage, speculation and leverage. The contagion of US subprime brought the financial system to its knees. Now, after years of low or negative interest rates, equity finance may have become a similar hotbed.

The business is much larger than published estimates – Risky Finance believes there are more than $3 trillion of exposures. And the pressure to grow equity finance is leading banks to exploit loopholes in Basel rules. As in 2007, this is masked by the complexity of the models that Credit Suisse and other banks used to allocate capital to their prime brokerage business.

In following articles we will try to unpick the way Archegos was so damaging, and we will give a broad brush picture of how the risk models are supposed to work. And we will showcase some new data that reveals why this business is bigger and riskier than many imagined. Lastly we will identify a list of fixes for regulators to work on.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 15:00

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3xvK11A Tyler Durden

Hailstorms Bombard Texas, Oklahoma, Causing Billions Of Dollars In Damage 

Hailstorms Bombard Texas, Oklahoma, Causing Billions Of Dollars In Damage 

Residents in Texas and Oklahoma are recovering Friday after major hailstorms battered portions of the states late Wednesday, destroying homes and businesses and automobiles. 

AccuWeather forecasters estimate the damage could be more than $3 billion because the devastating storms unleashed large amounts of hail in metro areas, such as Norman, Oklahoma, and San Antonio, and Fort Worth, Texas. 

AccuWeather Senior Vice President and Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter estimates “total damage and economic loss caused by Wednesday night’s hailstorms are predicted to be about $3.5 billion.” 

“To put the economic toll of these storms into context,” Porter continued, “AccuWeather’s estimate for Hurricane Isaias, a Category 1 storm that struck the Caribbean and moved up the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. in July and August of 2020, was $3 billion to $5 billion. It is yet another in a series of $1 billion-plus weather disasters.”

In Hondo, Texas, located west of San Antonio, grapefruit-sized hailstones, measuring up to 4 inches in diameter, decimated everything in sight. In Norman, the diameter of hail was equivalent to baseballs and golf balls. 

Readers may recall we quoted the Storm Prediction Center, who warned hailstones up to 4 inches in diameter were headed Texas and Oklahoma. 

The hail hit with such force that one grapefruit-sized hailstone penetrated the roof of a house in Sabinal, Texas. 

Tennis ball-sized hail rained down in North Fort Worth, creating widespread destruction. 

Anything left outside was damaged. 

In Norman, cars were severely damaged. 

Hail damage at a car dealership in Norman. 

Damage in Norman alone could be upwards of $500 million. 

AccuWeather outlines the storm’s path of destruction. 

This would be the second billion-dollar disaster this year in Texas, following the polar vortex split in February that paralyzed the state for more than a week. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 14:48

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3ud7RNC Tyler Durden

Which Lifeboat Will You Choose?

Which Lifeboat Will You Choose?

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

I’m sure it’s no surprise that the next five years will be risky and challenging; to the degree that we will be reliant on those closest to us, we are sharing a virtual lifeboat.

Consider a scenario in which we’re on a ship that’s sinking, and the lifeboats have been launched. Being some of the last still on board the doomed vessel, we can scan who’s in each lifeboat and choose which one we’ll clamber into.

It’s a consequential decision because the currents and weather are already separating the lifeboats, and so each lifeboat will be on its own. The seas are increasingly treacherous, and the nearby islands are surrounded by reefs which could shred the lifeboat’s hulls in seconds.

While we don’t know everyone on board, we’ve met many of the other passengers and crew and made the acquaintance of a fair number of our fellow castaways.

So who do we choose to join? Our knowledge is imperfect: we only have first impressions and intuitions about the people who will potentially impact our life in a very direct and consequential way.

Do we choose to go in the lifeboat with a friend? This is certainly more appealing than a boat full of strangers.

Do we choose a boat with an experienced sailor whose skills in the open ocean would improve our chances of surviving the ordeal ahead?

Or do we choose a boat which is already under the control of a natural leader? If we understand that dithering and unresolvable conflicts can lead to disaster by default, then having someone in charge might be worth the risk that their leadership will lead to a catastrophically bad decision.

If we feel we have the experience to take charge and bring a lifeboat to safety, then perhaps we look for the disorganized, leaderless boat.

Alternatively, we can weed out those boats we’ll avoid as potentially dangerous because of the presence of domineering individuals with traits that have poor survival outcomes.

When The Little Prince hopscotches to various planets on his way to Earth, he encounters the King who desires a subject, a conceited man, a tippler (addict), a businessman who claims all the stars as his possessions and a lamplighter busy lighting and extinguishing the lamp every minute. These are parodies of human types, of course; The Little Prince found some modest favor in the lamplighter because he was the only one who was not self-obsessed / self-absorbed.

The boats I would avoid are those with wealthy, powerful people who confuse their position and wealth with competence, when actually there is no connection to competence beyond whatever specialized niche they used to acquire wealth and power. Their assumption (a form of privilege beneath the surface) that their specialized competence grants them universal competence is disastrously wrong-headed.

These are the types who will steer the lifeboat onto a reef despite the warnings of the less wealthy/powerful because their confidence in their judgment exceeds their grasp of risk/reality and their general life competence. They fail to understand the extreme narrowness of their experience and competence and have an overly high opinion of themselves due to their success in a narrow niche.

I would also avoid boats with individuals who triggered my BS detector, our intuitive animal assessment of the trustworthiness and self-absorption of individuals. For those who don’t automatically filter out their negative assessments as “bad” and therefore “not allowed,” this assessment is remarkably rapid and remarkably accurate.

Boats filled with self-important, self-absorbed people I would avoid as death traps. I would also avoid boats with do-gooders / would-be saints whose motivation (above self-preservation, until it’s too late) is to defend the rights of the weak as the most important principle, even in life-and-death circumstances. These types are especially dangerous because their life experience is that Somebody Will Rescue Us. They thus conclude we can devote asymmetric resources to the weakest because Somebody Will Rescue Us.

They are incapable of recognizing the difference between making the vulnerable/dependent as comfortable as possible given the resources available and devoting the primary effort to saving everyone but if this can’t be done, then saving as many people as possible. They are unable to recognize the need for difficult decisions that may well have asymmetric outcomes for the individuals on the boat. In demanding equal outcomes, they will lose everyone’s lives–an outcome that is certainly equal but foolish.

Choosing a boat with an experienced open-ocean sailor is an obvious choice, as the sailor has experiential skills that apply specifically to the challenge at hand. But let’s say that obvious choice means that boat is already filled to capacity.

So if the obvious best choice is not available, then what boat do we cast our lot with?

I would look for a boat with low-key individuals with high situational awareness and experience in responding to crises and danger. Combat veterans come to mind, but there are many others with training and experience (or natural abilities) that aids their situational awareness, risk assessment and responses to rapidly evolving threats. The OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act) is an example of this process.

I would also look for a boat with the increasingly rare individuals who do what they say they’re going to do, and do it without self-obsessed drama/trauma or childish excuses. These individuals have a healthy awareness of their own limits and the limits of human nature. They don’t overpromise to make themselves larger than they really are and they won’t burden the rest of the boat with their self-absorbed histrionics or adolescent excuses.

Since I’m not qualified to lead as a sailor, and the only boat with an open-ocean sailor is full, I would look for a boat with a balance between hierarchy and self-expression / advocacy. The ideal situation is a boat in which every individual’s advocacy of a particular action or strategy is carefully considered but the consensus reaches a decision and grants leadership to those with the best qualifications and most persuasive argument for their decision.

Once the decision of a strategy has been made, then the boat unites behind pursuing this strategy.

It’s instructive to consider the greatest open-ocean, open-boat voyages that have been recorded. Some had existing military hierarchies (for example, Captain Bligh’s epic 4,000 mile voyage in a severely overloaded open launch) while others were castaways lacking a strict hierarchy.

Whether the united effort of cooperation is imposed or agreed upon, this cooperation is key, as is a strategy based on the realities and risks.

Going it alone is a high-risk strategy. So is becoming dependent on self-important, self-absorbed people who are incapable of viewing reality as anything other than It’s All About Me.

I’m sure it’s no surprise that the next five years will be risky and challenging; to the degree that we will be reliant on those closest to us, we are sharing a virtual lifeboat.

Choose your boatmates carefully.

*  *  *

This essay was first published as a weekly Musings Report sent exclusively to subscribers and patrons at the $5/month ($54/year) and higher level. Thank you, patrons and subscribers, for supporting my work and free website. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com. My recent books:

A Hacker’s Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Pathfinding our Destiny: Preventing the Final Fall of Our Democratic Republic ($5 (Kindle), $10 (print), ( audiobook): Read the first section for free (PDF).

The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake $1.29 (Kindle), $8.95 (print); read the first chapters for free (PDF)

Money and Work Unchained $6.95 (Kindle), $15 (print) Read the first section for free (PDF).

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 14:30

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2RhC2o7 Tyler Durden

“Serious Matter” – Underground Nuclear Waste Tank Leaks In Washington State

“Serious Matter” – Underground Nuclear Waste Tank Leaks In Washington State

An underground nuclear waste storage tank in southeast Washington state is leaking radioactive waste into the ground, according to a Washington state Department of Ecology press release.

The 75-year-old tank, called B-109, at Hanford Nuclear Reservation is estimated to be leaking 3.5 gallons per day, or approximately 1,300 gallons per year of radioactive material. The tank holds around 123,000 gallons of radioactive waste dating back to when atomic bombs were being built throughout the Manhattan Project. 

The Hanford Nuclear Reservation is a decommissioned nuclear production facility operated by the federal government on the Columbia River in Benton County. The facility is about a four-hour drive east of Portland. 

“It’s a serious matter whenever a Hanford tank leaks its radioactive and dangerous chemical waste,” Ecology Director Laura Watson said. 

The B-109 tank is leaking into an area where 200,000 gallons of waste have already entered the ground. The site is miles away from the Columbia River, and the tank is only 210-240 feet above the local water table. 

Dangers Of Nuclear Fuel Leaking Into Columbia River

“This leak is adding to the estimated one million gallons of tank waste already in the soil across the Hanford site,” Watson said. “This highlights the critical need for resources to address Hanford’s aging tanks, which will continue to fail and leak over time.”

Despite the leak, Watson said:

“Based on the information we have right now, the leak poses no immediate increased risk to workers or the public, but it adds to the ongoing environmental threat at Hanford.”

This new leak puts added pressure on lawmakers on Capitol Hill to include increased funding for nuclear cleanup. 

Since the Atomic Age of the 1940s-1960s, nuclear waste, a byproduct from atomic weapons and or more current, nuclear waste from nuclear reactors, fuel processing plants, hospitals, and research facilities, has to be stored in underground facilities once the fuel is spent. A reoccurring theme of storage issues appears to be developing that structures built decades ago to hold waste breakdown over time, allowing waste to pour into the local ecosystem. 

The atomic age has scarred the ecosystem with microscopic particles of radioactive material still detected in honey.  

With billionaire Bill Gates attempting to push a new atomic age as a source of “green energy,” – it’s likely the increase of waste will just continue to be buried in underground tanks for future generations to deal with. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 14:10

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3nyiVT2 Tyler Durden

At The New York Times, Intent Does Not Matter When Someone Uses ‘the N-Word,’ Except When It Does


mcwhorter

When The New York Times parted ways with veteran reporter Donald McNeil Jr. in February, the decision was based on the premise that using the word nigger, no matter the context, was a firing offense. “We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn said in a memo to staffers. As Reason‘s Matt Welch noted at the time, “the Grey Lady’s management, under public pressure from more than 150 employees, decided that when it comes to speaking certain radioactive words, not only does intent not matter,” but “any utterance is potentially a one-strike offense.”

Today the Times published an essay by Columbia University linguist (and Reason contributor) John McWhorter, titled “How the N-Word Became Unsayable,” that traces the evolution in attitudes underlying the policy that ended McNeil’s 45-year career at the paper. McWhorter uses the word 34 times. As Opinion Editor Kathleen Kingsbury and Opinion Politics Editor Ezekiel Kweku explain, the decision to publish the slur repeatedly and in full made perfect sense given McWhorter’s subject. In other words, intent matters after all.

McNeil’s offense was saying nigger during a 2019 trip to Peru, part of a program for high school students. According to his account, he “was asked at dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur.” To clarify the context, McNeil said, “I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.” Just as McNeil thought context mattered in assessing the 12-year-old girl’s offense, he imagined that “the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended.”

McNeil eventually realized the error of his ways, but it was too late. He had inadvertently violated a taboo that was absolute and unforgiving despite its recency. Less than two decades ago, Pantheon published Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy’s book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. As McWhorter notes, it is impossible to imagine a major publishing house allowing such a title nowadays.

Just a year later, a University of Virginia medical school employee provoked outrage with this comment: “I can’t believe in this day and age that there’s a sports team in our nation’s capital named the Redskins. That is as derogatory to Indians as having a team called Niggers would be to blacks.” Despite the anti-racist import of that observation, Julian Bond, who taught history at the university and was then the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, demanded that the employee make a public apology and undergo sensitivity training. Bond said “his gut instinct was that the person deserved to simply be fired,” McWhorter notes.

The impulse behind the nigger taboo is understandable. What began as a neutral term derived from the Latin niger (“black”) and the Spanish negro became freighted with dehumanizing racism. The most striking example that McWhorter mentions is the juvenile doggerel that begins, “Eeny meeny miny moe…” The word nigger in the original was eventually replaced with tigger (or, as I learned it, tiger) as Americans became less tolerant of blatant bigotry. The rhyme, McWhorter says, is “a window into how brutally casual the usage of ‘nigger’ once was, happily trilled even by children at play.”

Given that history, the expectation that people should avoid gratuitous use of the word is perfectly reasonable. But as Bond’s response to the man who was troubled by the racist name of a football team illustrates, the demand that the word should never be uttered or written is completely irrational. And although Kennedy and McWhorter are both black, while McNeil is white, what matters is the intent of the speaker or writer, not the color of his skin.

Kingsbury and Kweku do not claim that only black people get a pass. McWhorter, whose essay is adapted from his new book Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter—Then, Now, and Forever, “traces the history of this particular word from its inception to its current place in our culture,” they say. “He argues that the evolution of the use of this slur not only mirrors ‘a gradual prohibition on avowed racism and the slurring of groups’ but also demonstrates a cultural shift in the concerns of the words our culture considers truly profane: from the sexual and scatological referents of the classic four-letter words to the sociological referents of slurs. While the taboo against using most four-letter words has gradually faded, the taboo against slurs has intensified. We wanted to present our readers with this argument in the clearest and most respectful way.”

That explanation is utterly unobjectionable, but the perceived need for it shows how absurd this issue has become. Kingsbury (who is white) not only thought her decision required a six-paragraph defense; she felt compelled to warn readers at the top of McWhorter’s essay that “this article contains obscenities and racial slurs, fully spelled out” and refer them to the official justification for allowing a linguist to use the words he was writing about.

Other recent contexts in which the Times thought printing nigger was acceptable include movie dialogue (March 2021), a Frederick Douglass quotation (February 2021), an essay about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (December 2020), a David Dinkins obituary (November 2020), a review of Barack Obama’s book A Promised Land (November 2020), a news analysis comparing Trump to George Wallace (July 2020), and an essay on police reform (June 2020). Yet the paper’s executive editor, in explaining why McNeil had to go, claimed “we do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” If there is any sensible or even consistent standard at work here, it is pretty hard to discern.

Reason‘s Nick Gillespie interviewed McWhorter in 2019.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3eNcQOs
via IFTTT

12 Years to Disaster? How Climate Activists Distort the Evidence


8114225_16x9

Many officials and climate activists claim we have only 12 years to act on global warming. Where does this figure come from? A 2018 Special Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The second sentence of that document reads, “Global warming is likely to reach 1.5 degrees C between 2030 and 2052 if it continues to increase at the current rate.” The 12-year figure comes from subtracting the year of the report, 2018, from the earliest possible date of 1.5 degrees C warming, 2030. 

The problem is that this was a statement about the past, dressed up to suggest that it’s about the future. It’s not about what will happen; it’s extrapolating from what has already happened. Actual temperatures in 2030 will depend on whether warming speeds up or slows down, and also on whether the year is warmer or colder than the long-term trend.

Why the 22-year range? The authors of the IPCC report defined the current rate using data from 1960 to 2017. Using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) land-ocean temperature series that underpins most popular reporting about warming, global excess temperatures were 0 in January 1960 and 0.94 degrees C in December 2017. So the Earth has to warm another 0.56 degrees C to reach 1.5 degrees C. Some fifth-grade math tells us that should happen in 34.55 years if warming continues at the same rate. We’d hit 1.5 degrees C on July 21, 2051. Different measurements might give a couple of years either way, but not 22 years.

The range of 2030 to 2052 is not about how warm the earth is but who’s responsible for the change in temperature. The figures reflect “anthropogenic warming,” or warming rooted in human activity. By citing a range of 2030 to 2052, the authors are indicating a high level of uncertainty. They’re not sure how much of the 0.17 degrees C per decade warming is “anthropogenic,” or rooted in human activity. They think it’s possible that humans are warming the Earth 0.3 degrees C and some unknown factor is actually cooling the Earth 0.13 degrees C. (The IPCC declined to make any of the report’s authors available for an interview).

If you think the problem with global warming is hotter temperatures (melting ice, rising sea levels, and other physical effects), then you should care about the year 2052, not 2030. But if you think the problem with global warming is that humans are tampering with something pristine—and you only consider the worst possible scenario—then 2030 is your date. Focusing on anthropogenic warming suggests that what’s happening in the real world matters less than who’s at fault.

Not all environmental change is bad. We hear about possible species extinctions, but not about the species that will thrive and diversify on a warmer planet (for example, insects and sea life may be increasing in numbers and variety due to warming to date, although this is controversial). In any event, no one knows the optimal rate of speciation and extinction. We like majestic old-growth forests and exquisite biologic specializations where the climate is stable, as well as the vibrant adaptations and innovations in fast-changing environments.

Furthermore, far more of the Earth’s surface is too cold for humans than too warm at the moment. Historically, warm periods are more prosperous than cold ones, and more people die in cold months than warm ones. In addition, destructive weather events are not concentrated in the warmest months or the warmest places, so there’s no direct reason to expect more of them in a warmer world. Carbon dioxide is good for plants, and plants are good for both people and the environment.

Granted, there is reason to prefer less change to more, because more change could tip off catastrophic cascades. We know we can live with current temperatures; we can’t be sure we’ll be happy if things get significantly warmer. And even if a warmer world is better in some ways, the benefits could be overwhelmed by the transition costs. But these are arguments to reduce the overall human environment footprint rather than to reduce the temperature by any means necessary.

This is where the 12-years-until-disaster alarmism becomes toxic. Lowering 2030 temperatures significantly requires wide-scale geoengineering—for example, scattering glass beads on arctic ice or injecting sulfur into the stratosphere to reduce the temperature immediately (the IPCC report emphasizes carbon sequestration, a possibly less risky form of geoengineering, but also says that sequestration and emission reductions are not enough). Crude, dramatic rules like banning coal or outlawing airplanes could slash emissions quickly, but the effects would not be fully felt in temperatures for up to a decade. Moreover, those approaches increase the human impact on the environment and introduce more uncertainty into future climate. They may bring down global temperatures by 2030, but at the cost of introducing greater long-term uncertainty and possibly tripping more catastrophic cascades.

Policies like a carbon tax or building nuclear power plants take years to implement, and only begin to reduce the rate of CO2 emissions. These work for planning horizons like 2 degrees C by 2050. But they have environmental benefits beyond temperature, their effects are more predictable than panic rules, and they’re more likely to be maintained as political winds change.

Even better would be long-term, sustainable, global agreements to leave fossil fuels in the ground permanently. These agreements could take decades to nurture and make sense if we focus on 2100. They could serve to address global issues, including many environmental ones, and to support world peace and prosperity. They won’t cool the Earth by 2030, possibly not even by 2050, but they could deliver a better world to our grandchildren. Alarmist panic interferes with such rational consensus building.

Which brings us back to the IPCC special report. It contains two contradictory threads, likely as a result of being written by a committee. The 2030 date relies on huge uncertainty about how much global warming has been caused by humans—a factor of three between 0.1 degrees C per decade to 0.3 degrees C. But later the report cites studies that conclude, “human-induced warming trends over the period 1905–2005” are “indistinguishable from the corresponding total observed warming.” If the latter claim is true, then we know the rate of anthropogenic warming, and it will hit 1.5 degrees C if the rate remains the same in more like 30 years than 12 years.

If we don’t understand climate to the point that we have a 3:1 uncertainty band about anthropogenic contributions to warming, it’s foolhardy to rush in with radical changes. When you don’t understand a complex system, but you do know there are powerful offsetting forces at work, you should be cautious about fooling with it. So, on one hand, if we understand climate well enough to know the amount of anthropogenic warming, the rate is not high enough to cause a crisis by 2030 if it does not accelerate. On the other hand, if we don’t understand the climate well enough to be confident of the anthropogenic contribution, we should avoid massive, rushed experiments.

Even if everything the alarmists say is true, 2030 is not a feasible planning horizon. It admits only panic solutions that increase long-term uncertainty. You don’t plan for the horizon you want to control, you plan for the horizon you can control. The climate in 2030 is already baked in—we should worry about dealing with it, not changing it. The climate in 2050 is in play, with many attractive policy choices to be implemented with sense, prudence, trial, and error.

Video credits:

Produced and edited by Justin Monticello. Written by Monticello and Aaron Brown. Camera by Zach Weissmueller. Graphics by Isaac Reese. Audio production by Ian Keyser.

Music: Aerial Cliff by Michele Nobler, Land of the Lion by C.K. Martin, Thoughts by ANBR, Flight of the Inner Bird by Sivan Talmor and Yehezkel Raz, and Run by Tristan Barton.

Photos: Alterphotos/Abaca/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA Press/Newscom; (EyePress Newswire/FL Wong)/Newscom; Hermann Bredehorst/Polaris/Newscom; BENOIT DOPPAGNE/BELGA/Newscom; Alterphotos/Abaca/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Kay Nietfeld/dpa/picture-alliance/Newscom; WixtrÖM Peter/Aftonbladet/Tt/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Andrea Ronchini/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Beata Zawrzel/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Gina M Randazzo/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Yichuan Cao/Sipa USA/Newscom; Roberto Almeida Aveledo/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sachelle Babbar/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Ben Birchall/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Sadak SouiciLe Pictorium/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Gina M Randazzo/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Andrea Ronchini/ZUMA Press/Newscom; Hermann Bredehorst/Polaris/Newscom; WixtrÖM Peter/Aftonbladet/Tt/ZUMA Press/Newscom; SUSANA VERA/REUTERS/Newscom; UNclimatechange from Bonn, Germany, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3u9GWlF
via IFTTT

At The New York Times, Intent Does Not Matter When Someone Uses ‘the N-Word,’ Except When It Does


mcwhorter

When The New York Times parted ways with veteran reporter Donald McNeil Jr. in February, the decision was based on the premise that using the word nigger, no matter the context, was a firing offense. “We do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent,” Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn said in a memo to staffers. As Reason‘s Matt Welch noted at the time, “the Grey Lady’s management, under public pressure from more than 150 employees, decided that when it comes to speaking certain radioactive words, not only does intent not matter,” but “any utterance is potentially a one-strike offense.”

Today the Times published an essay by Columbia University linguist (and Reason contributor) John McWhorter, titled “How the N-Word Became Unsayable,” that traces the evolution in attitudes underlying the policy that ended McNeil’s 45-year career at the paper. McWhorter uses the word 34 times. As Opinion Editor Kathleen Kingsbury and Opinion Politics Editor Ezekiel Kweku explain, the decision to publish the slur repeatedly and in full made perfect sense given McWhorter’s subject. In other words, intent matters after all.

McNeil’s offense was saying nigger during a 2019 trip to Peru, part of a program for high school students. According to his account, he “was asked at dinner by a student whether I thought a classmate of hers should have been suspended for a video she had made as a 12-year-old in which she used a racial slur.” To clarify the context, McNeil said, “I asked if she had called someone else the slur or whether she was rapping or quoting a book title. In asking the question, I used the slur itself.” Just as McNeil thought context mattered in assessing the 12-year-old girl’s offense, he imagined that “the context in which I used this ugly word could be defended.”

McNeil eventually realized the error of his ways, but it was too late. He had inadvertently violated a taboo that was absolute and unforgiving despite its recency. Less than two decades ago, Pantheon published Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy’s book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. As McWhorter notes, it is impossible to imagine a major publishing house allowing such a title nowadays.

Just a year later, a University of Virginia medical school employee provoked outrage with this comment: “I can’t believe in this day and age that there’s a sports team in our nation’s capital named the Redskins. That is as derogatory to Indians as having a team called Niggers would be to blacks.” Despite the anti-racist import of that observation, Julian Bond, who taught history at the university and was then the chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, demanded that the employee make a public apology and undergo sensitivity training. Bond said “his gut instinct was that the person deserved to simply be fired,” McWhorter notes.

The impulse behind the nigger taboo is understandable. What began as a neutral term derived from the Latin niger (“black”) and the Spanish negro became freighted with dehumanizing racism. The most striking example that McWhorter mentions is the juvenile doggerel that begins, “Eeny meeny miny moe…” The word nigger in the original was eventually replaced with tigger (or, as I learned it, tiger) as Americans became less tolerant of blatant bigotry. The rhyme, McWhorter says, is “a window into how brutally casual the usage of ‘nigger’ once was, happily trilled even by children at play.”

Given that history, the expectation that people should avoid gratuitous use of the word is perfectly reasonable. But as Bond’s response to the man who was troubled by the racist name of a football team illustrates, the demand that the word should never be uttered or written is completely irrational. And although Kennedy and McWhorter are both black, while McNeil is white, what matters is the intent of the speaker or writer, not the color of his skin.

Kingsbury and Kweku do not claim that only black people get a pass. McWhorter, whose essay is adapted from his new book Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter—Then, Now, and Forever, “traces the history of this particular word from its inception to its current place in our culture,” they say. “He argues that the evolution of the use of this slur not only mirrors ‘a gradual prohibition on avowed racism and the slurring of groups’ but also demonstrates a cultural shift in the concerns of the words our culture considers truly profane: from the sexual and scatological referents of the classic four-letter words to the sociological referents of slurs. While the taboo against using most four-letter words has gradually faded, the taboo against slurs has intensified. We wanted to present our readers with this argument in the clearest and most respectful way.”

That explanation is utterly unobjectionable, but the perceived need for it shows how absurd this issue has become. Kingsbury (who is white) not only thought her decision required a six-paragraph defense; she felt compelled to warn readers at the top of McWhorter’s essay that “this article contains obscenities and racial slurs, fully spelled out” and refer them to the official justification for allowing a linguist to use the words he was writing about.

Other recent contexts in which the Times thought printing nigger was acceptable include movie dialogue (March 2021), a Frederick Douglass quotation (February 2021), an essay about the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre (December 2020), a David Dinkins obituary (November 2020), a review of Barack Obama’s book A Promised Land (November 2020), a news analysis comparing Trump to George Wallace (July 2020), and an essay on police reform (June 2020). Yet the paper’s executive editor, in explaining why McNeil had to go, claimed “we do not tolerate racist language regardless of intent.” If there is any sensible or even consistent standard at work here, it is pretty hard to discern.

Reason‘s Nick Gillespie interviewed McWhorter in 2019.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/3eNcQOs
via IFTTT

Dr. Copper Is Talking; Are You Listening?

Dr. Copper Is Talking; Are You Listening?

Authored by MN Gordon via EconomicPrism.com,

Dr. Fauci still believes there are precarious levels of COVID-19 cases.  But he’s the only one.

By now, even the most fearful amongst us have come to a very obvious conclusion.  Fauci isn’t a real doctor.  He’s a quack.  An imposter.  A fraud.

Most people of sound mind and honest intentions are ready to move on.  Here in the ‘land of fruits and nuts’ things are even opening back up.  Governor Newsom, compelled by a recall election, is now granting some slack to the plebs.  He has to…or he’ll lose his job.

The reopening of an economy following a great plague – or even a moderate virus – is a remarkable time to be alive.  The impossible becomes possible.  DOW 36,000 is now within reach – only 22 years late.

Indeed, it feels great.  The stars have never burned brighter.  Water has never tasted sweeter.  And the first hues of sunrise have never been more colorful.

Yesterday the Commerce Department reported that Q1 GDP increased at an annualized rate of 6.4 percent.  This marks the second highest rate of quarterly growth since 2003 – exceeded only by the epic bounce in third quarter 2020.

But, alas, it did not live up to expectations.  Egghead economists surveyed by Bloomberg predicted Q1 GDP growth at an annualized rate of 6.7 percent.

Somehow $2 trillion in stimulus couldn’t nudge GDP growth above expectations.  But we’re certain the Commerce Department will make up for the 0.3 percent miss in their two scheduled forthcoming revisions to Q1 GDP growth.

Regardless, at this point who really cares.  GDP is backward looking.  What can we expect going forward?  Where are things headed next?

Dr. Copper

To answer this question, we’ll consult with a real doctor – not a quack doctor like Fauci.  Specifically, we turn to Dr. Copper for an honest answer…

Dr. Copper – the metal with a PhD in economics – is always the first to know which way the economy will go.  Copper’s broad use in industry and many different sectors of the economy, ranging from infrastructure to housing and consumer electronics, makes it a good early indicator of economic activity.

When copper prices rise, economic activity soon often follows.  When copper prices fall, the economy often then stagnates.  Over the last year, the price of copper has risen over 90 percent.

Copper is now at a 10 year high of $4.50 per pound, and just a scratch below its all-time high of $4.6255 per pound.  What’s more, the price of copper could go much higher.

Certainly, some of copper’s price rise may be attributed to rising demand for semiconductors, cellular towers, and other electronics.  But at least some of the most recent price rise is due to supply disruption.

The President of Chile, Sebastian Piner, recently had the gall to tell his country’s workers they could not make a third round of early withdrawals from their pension funds.  Piner, a Class A fuddy-duddy, still holds the antiquated belief that one must be retired to spend their pension fund.  And now this is contributing to a global copper supply crunch.

For example, this week port workers in Chile went on strike in protest of Piner’s blockage of additional early withdrawals from pension funds.  The strike threatens to disrupt copper shipments.

The reason this matters is because Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and is responsible for a quarter of the world’s copper mine production.

[Editor’s note: Paid up subscribers to the Wealth Prism Letter are sitting on 235 percent gains on shares of copper miner Freeport-McMoRan, which was recommended in February 2020.  The May edition of the Wealth Prism Letter will be published this coming Monday Morning, May 3.  Subscribe today to get first notice of our new recommendation; one with very promising prospects.]

What to make of it…

Dr. Copper is Talking, Are You Listening?

Copper’s price has been rising for much longer than port workers have been striking in Chile.  We believe it will continue to rise long after workers return to the docks.

Perhaps Dr. Copper is telling us the economy is on the up and up.  That a new building boom has commenced.  That we’re entering a post-COVID-19 period of renewed prosperity. 

Yet if you close your eyes and put your ear to the ground you’ll hear Dr. Copper telling something much, much more.

Specifically, you’ll hear Dr. Copper telling you that money supply inflation leads to asset price inflation, and commodity price inflation, and consumer price inflation, and, ultimately, complete societal breakdown.

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has doubled over the last 18-months.  Similarly, the price of copper is up over 90 percent over the last 12 months.  What’s next?

Are you ready for your grocery bill to double over the next year?

You should be.  Crop prices are now at an 8 year high.

Without question, rising consumer prices will amp up to a fever pitch over the hot summer months.  That’s when it will become apparent that the post-pandemic economic rebound was nothing more than an inflation surge.  Copper is telegraphing this.  Agriculture prices are too.

Gold and silver, confounded by enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies, have been left behind.  All the reason to add more to your stash…while you still can.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/30/2021 – 13:51

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3nyfX0Q Tyler Durden