Democracy?

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The citizens of the District of Columbia, comprising 680,000 people, pay more Federal income tax than 22 other states.  Notwithstanding that, they have no voting member of Congress at all.   Eleanor Holmes Norton has been in Congress, representing the District, for many years,  but only as an observer.

What is the second- most priority of the new Rupublican majority in Congress ( after trying to suppress ethics investigations into their affairs)?  Why, confirming that Ms. Holmes Norton will continue to have no vote, and that an entity with a higher population than some Western states, will remain unrepresented.  A single vote, of course, is not going to decide anything very much, but that is not the point. Giving the District a single vote would have been a small act of reconciliation after a brutal election, an act of goodwill, costing nothing really and in no way threatening Republican control.

What this does confirm is the flimsy commitment of the Republican party to democracy.  “Embrace it when it suits you” does not seem to be in the spirit of “American exceptionalism”,  but it is part of the whole idea that you get away with what you can get away with.  Epicurus always warned us about politics.  I guess what goes around comes around.  Nothing is forever.

 

 

 

Reasons for hope

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 Amid the doom and gloom around us there is good reason to think that the lot ot mankind is actually improving.  Cheer youselves with the following good news:
– After about 200 years of pouring greenhouse gases into the air, resulting in the highest carbon dioxide levels since humans first walked the Earth, the rate of increase stalled in 2016 for the third year running, despite improved economic growth.  Nonetheless, we need to get emissions down by 80% , because the existing carbon is still up there, and every molecule of it survives at least 100 years)
– Africa is adopting smart phones at a huge rate, and the internet is spreading faster than anywhere else in the world.  By 2020 there will be 700 million of them, and they will account for 8% of GDP.
– latest figures  show that 64% of women are now using some form of contraception, up from 36% in 1970. Africa expects to have the highest growth over the next 15 years.  The projected 11 billion world population by 2100 may already be an exaggeration. At any rate there is a possibility that the developing world will be following the West’s trajectory towards two- child families.
–  Malaria is in retreat, except in sub- Saharan Africa; cancer deaths are falling , and AIDs treatments are expected to help 30 million by 2020.
– 50 million people worldwide are escaping poverty every year throughout the world, and increasing numbers are beginning to enjoy what we might call a middle- class life.  Aside from the turmoil in the Middle East, Sub- Saharan Africa is the toughest problem, accounting for 51% of the global poor.  Huge numbers of poor Africans are annually moving south, trying to get to South Africa. Even in that part of the world, countries like Namibia and Botswana are doing well, despite the high incidence of AIDS.

On drones

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The thought of terrorists using drones haunts security officials in Europe and elsewhere.  The Dutch are training  hunting birds like the eagle to help combat the security threats posed by the proliferation of off-the-shelf drones — unmanned aerial vehicles — of the type that can pose risks to aircraft. The fear is that these drones could be used to  drop contraband into jails, conduct surveillance or fly dangerously over public events.

Mark Wiebes, a detective chief superintendent in the Dutch police, described the tests, conducted at an abandoned Dutch airfield, as “very promising,” and said that, subject to a final assessment, birds of prey were likely to be deployed soon in the Netherlands, along with other measures to counter drones. The Metropolitan Police Service in London is also considering using trained birds to fight drones.

This has been described as a “a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem” but, on the contrary, what it highlights is the fact that in terms of maneuverability, the flying skills of an eagle (and most other flying creatures) are vastly superior to any form of technology.  In this, as in so many other instances, technology crudely imitates nature. (based on a New York Times article, May 2016 )

New technology is often developed because it can be developed, whether it benefits or complicates the lives of others or not.  We know about the CIA killer drones, and these alone provoke some moral and ethical questions about the killing the innocent bystanders.  But ordinary commercial drones are surely an accident waiting to happen, especially if they are used near airports.

Amazon is experimenting with deliveries by drone.  Drones cannot ring the front door bell to announce a parcel delivered (can they?).  Where I live parcels left by the front door get stolen (some of them), and you don’t need many thefts and replacements before the initial cheapness and speed of drone delivery is overwhelmed by the dead cost of replacement.  Do you suppose people think these problems through?  But it is use by terrorists that is the real threat.

 

 

Some good news, and then some not-so-good news, for 2017

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Genetic and stem cell technologies are on the cusp of letting us clone even infertile endangered animals when intact DNA is available. And some extinct species could be brought back by tweaking the genome of a living close relative. It should also be possible to engineer lost traits into a population. Some targeted animals are the northern white rhino, which is now down to three infertile individuals living in Kenya, the black-footed ferret, the heath hen (currently extinct), and the passenger pigeon. Woolly mammoths are a little further over the horizon. A project is under way to endow Asian elephant eggs with mammoth DNA. After the legwork is done over the next year, the first cloning attempts are scheduled for 2018. (Sandrine Ceurstemont, New Scientist, Dec 17, 2016)

On the other hand, a totally unrelated – and scary – problem:  warm ocean water is flowing under the Totten glacier in East Antarctica at a rate of 220,000 cu. m. per second . The latest climate forecasts threaten us with a whopping sea level rise of 11 feet if and when the the Totten glacier in East Antarctica were to totally melt from below.

The resurrection of the wooly mammoth recedes into irrelevance if humanity, its farmland and cities are to be drowned in melted ice, entirely the fault of a greedy minority of mankind.  Pray that Trump doesn’t hasten the process!  One realises how thin the veneer of education and general knowledge is in raw reality.  Epicurus might blame our inadequate education system and the gullibility it leaves as a waste product.

Who is going to have the final say about Brexit?

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I am no lawyer but I am flummoxed by the Article 50 legal hearing currently before the British Supreme Court. The issue is whether Parliament should have the final say in Brexit, if necessary over-ruling any agreement made with the EU.  The reason I am puzzled is the reported preoccupation with the phrase “from time to time”.    Section 2, sub-section 1, of the European Communities Act of 1972  (I won’t quote it verbatim – it will put you to sleep) says, in effect, that once the Act is passed you don’t need any further parliamentary Act when the EU hands down “from time to time”  various rules and regulations etc.  Seems sensible. The Government is now asking the Supreme Court to believe that the “from time to time” phrase gives the UK a mechanism for opting out of the EU without actually revoking the Act.   But Brexit isn’t just a normal piece of regulation – it is a totally irrevocable, huge and seismic event.

Brexit is in fact a repeal of the accession, which was agreed by the British parliament in 1972.  If they agreed it, they should repeal it.  Period.  It’s a sort of divorce, and divorce doesn’t occur “from time to time”.  Moreover, the words “from time to time” apply to the rights conferred by the EU, not to the treaties, which have been fixed by Parliament.  You can’t scrap the treaties without parliament having the final say.  Nor can the rights conferred by the treaties, such as freedom of movement , non-discrimination etc,  be simply  scrapped by Government edict.  There is a thing called the Bill of Rights which confers inalienable freedoms on the people.  I think I may be correct in stating that the new rights granted by the EU now come under the aegis of the Bill of Rights and can’t just be scrapped.   (Based upon an article by Andrew O’Hagan in the London Review of Books)

Even if Parliament does have  the final say there is some doubt as to whether the politicians will dare go against the will of the majority as expressed in the wretched referendum and possibly lose their seats as a result.  But meanwhile the Conservative government is making itself slightly ridiculous, while the Scots, and maybe the Welsh, are relishing the arguments which are stoking the flames of their own exits from the United Kingdom.  Make Britain Great again?