As I read this piece by Jim Murawski at RealClearInvestigations:

The national movement to eradicate what activists call systemic racism and white privilege from medicine and health care has few public critics in the medical profession. A possible reason: Skeptics who have questioned these efforts have been subject to harsh Twitter campaigns, professional demotions and other blowback.

I could only think what would “equity” in healthcare be? If they mean outcomes, I can only suggest that advocates of equity might want to be careful about what they wish for. IMO different outcomes among different racial groups are multi-factorial with factors including genetics, behavior, cookbook medicine, and, I am sorry to say, racism. I cannot assign relative importances to those factors but I am skeptical that racism as such is the most important factor. I have long thought there were too few black physicians but changing that would require a revolution in medical education.

Some of the earliest posts I wrote here were about medical education. I won’t dredge them up but suffice it to say that “better fewer doctors” has been the mantra of medical education for more than a century and most of that is accomplished by limiting admissions. One of the effects of that has been to limit the number of black physicians. I don’t have facts and figures to back this opinion of mine up but I think that physicians should be prepared to serve the community they plan to serve and there are both advantages and disadvantages to being black and serving black patients.

Ultimately, I’ll leave it to my readers: what would “equity” in healthcare be?

While I’m glad that Abrahm Lustgarten is highlighting the issues regarding the depletion of the Colorado River in his post at Pro Publica:

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Reclamation released lesser-noticed projections for water levels, and they are sobering. The figures include an estimate for what the bureau calls “minimum probable in flow” — or the low end of expectations. Water levels in Lake Mead could drop by another 40 vertical feet by the middle 2023, ultimately reaching just 1,026 feet above sea level — an elevation that further threatens Lake Mead’s hydroelectric power generation for about 1.3 million people in Arizona, California and Nevada. At 895 feet, the reservoir would become what’s called a “dead pool”; water would no longer be able to flow downstream.

The bureau’s projections mean we are close to uncharted territory. The current shortage agreement, negotiated between the states in 2007, only addresses shortages down to a lake elevation of 1,025 feet. After that, the rules become murky, and there is greater potential for fraught legal conflicts. Northern states in the region, for example, are likely to ask why the vast evaporation losses from Lake Mead, which stores water for the southern states, have never been counted as a part of the water those southern states use. Fantastical and expensive solutions that have previously been dismissed by the federal government — like the desalinization of seawater, towing icebergs from the Arctic or pumping water from the Mississippi River through a pipeline — are likely to be seriously considered. None of this, however, will be enough to solve the problem unless it’s accompanied by serious efforts to lower carbon dioxide emissions, which are ultimately responsible for driving changes to the climate.

Meanwhile, population growth in Arizona and elsewhere in the basin is likely to continue, at least for now, because short-term fixes so far have obscured the seriousness of the risks to the region. Water is still cheap, thanks to the federal subsidies for all those dams and canals that make it seem plentiful. The myth persists that technology can always outrun nature, that the American West holds endless possibility. It may be the region’s undoing. As the author Wallace Stegner once wrote: “One cannot be pessimistic about the West. This is the native home of hope.”

I’m sorry that the post is as superficial as it is. It does have some interesting tidbits of information. For example:

Like the record-breaking heat waves and the ceaseless mega-fires, the decline of the Colorado River has been faster than expected. This year, even though rainfall and snowpack high up in the Rocky Mountains were at near-normal levels, the parched soils and plants stricken by intense heat absorbed much of the water, and inflows to Lake Powell were around one-fourth of their usual amount. The Colorado’s flow has already declined by nearly 20%, on average, from its flow throughout the 1900s, and if the current rate of warming continues, the loss could well be 50% by the end of this century.

and this:

Since about 70% of water delivered from the Colorado River goes to growing crops, not to people in cities, the next step will likely be to demand large-scale reductions for farmers and ranchers across millions of acres of land, forcing wrenching choices about which crops to grow and for whom — an omen that many of America’s food-generating regions might ultimately have to shift someplace else as the climate warms.

and this:

A breathtaking amount of the water from the Colorado — about 10% of the river’s recent total flow — simply evaporates off the sprawling surfaces of large reservoirs as they bake in the sun. Last year, evaporative losses from Lake Mead and Lake Powell alone added up to almost a million acre feet of water — or nearly twice what Arizona will be forced to give up now as a result of this month’s shortage declaration.

How superficial? For one thing as far as I can tell the 40 million people they cite as being dependent on the Colorado only includes people in the U. S. Since many people in Mexico also depend on the Colorado for water, it suggests that the 40 million is a grave understatement.

Additionally, California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado are all more dependent on real estate sales as a percentage of GDP than the other states in the U. S. Said another way an increasing population is “baked into” the economic projections for those states. Paradoxically, California is also more dependent on agriculture for its economy than most other states. If you see a conflict there, you’re not mistaken.

Also conspicuously missing is the conflict between increasing dependence on hydroelectric power in California in particular and the decreasing ability of the Colorado to support hydroelectric power generation.

Finally, there are three ways to address the problem being called out by the article: fewer people, more efficient resource utilization, and increasing the amount of water carried by the river. Of those the last two are those emphasized. There is little attention paid to the relative costs of each strategy. A little cost-benefit analysis would be informative.

In 2002 John Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote a book called The Emerging Democratic Majority, the thesis of which was that the increasing percentage of the population of the U. S. of various minorities, who tended to vote Democratic, would result in a permanent majority of voters for Democrats. The book is well worth reading but I’ve been critical of that thesis on the grounds that I think Mssrs. Judis and Teixeira are mistaken about voter behavior.

Based on Mr. Judis’s Wall Street Journal op-ed, I gather that he agrees with me:

The most common reaction to the release of the 2020 census was summed up in the headline “Census Data show the number of white people fell.” The data show the number of whites declining by 8.6%. This observation was often coupled with a political projection: that while gerrymandering could benefit Republicans in 2022, the political future belongs to the Democratic Party, which commands large majorities among minorities.

But these conclusions about race and politics rely on misleading census results. Contrary to Democratic hopes and right-wing anxieties, America’s white population didn’t shrink much between 2010 and 2020 and might actually have grown.

“Races” are defined not by biology but by cultural convention. As late as the early 20th century, many Anglo-Americans didn’t identify Southern or Eastern Europeans as “white.” In 1918, 33-year-old Harry S. Truman, while visiting New York City, wrote his cousin: “This town has 8,000,000 people. 7,500,000 of ’em are of Israelish extraction. (400,000 wops and the rest are white people.)” After World War II, Jews and Italians became identified as “white.”

Something similar seems to be happening to many Americans of Hispanic and Asian origin. About 3 in 10 Hispanics and Asians intermarry, usually to a white spouse. According to a 2016 study by economists Brian Duncan and Stephen J. Trejo, 35% of third-generation Hispanics of mixed parentage no longer identify as Hispanic; and 55% of third-generation Asian-Americans of mixed parentage no longer identify as Asian. A 2017 Pew report found that among Americans of Hispanic origin who don’t identify themselves as Hispanic, 59% said that they were seen by others as white.

The racial identity of Hispanics is especially confusing because the census asks about “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin” separately from race. In the 2010 census, 53% of those who said they were of Hispanic origin checked off only “white,” a 58% increase in numbers from 2000. That rise in white Hispanics helped account for the increase in the number of whites from the prior census. But in the 2020 census, a mere 20.3% of Hispanics checked off only “white,” contributing to the 8.6% decline in the total number of people identifying only as white.

That dramatic change probably stemmed not from a shift in social consciousness or demographics, but from a subtle change in the 2020 question about race. In 2010 the census asked respondents to check off whether they were white, black or African-American, American Indian or Alaska Native, various varieties of Asian or Pacific Islander, and “some other race.” They may check off as many race boxes as are applicable.

You should be able to read the whole thing via the link I have provided but it is likely to be short-lived.

I think his conclusion is particularly telling:

That sorry fact is obscured by the census’s diversity indexes and by the use of terms like “people of color” or “nonwhite,” which suggest a commonality between African-Americans living in poverty in Chicago’s South Side and the Indian-American CEOs of Microsoft and Alphabet. The census may help with reapportionment and redistricting, but it doesn’t paint an accurate picture of America and its politics.

I have long found the term “people of color” noxious on the grounds that it is reification—making a thing of something that is not in fact a thing. I find it a political statement that does not reflect the reality.

The reality is that the Democratic Party has increasingly become the party of the rich and educated while the Republican Party has increasingly become the party of working people. There are still some affiliational aspects of party membership which explain, for example, why such a large percentage of blacks continue to vote Democratic.

Here in Chicago the percentage of blacks has dropped. I believe the census figures actually overstate the number of blacks in Chicago—COVID-19 and crime have driven an increasing number out of the city just in the last year. The political infighting over redrawing ward boundaries, who will win, and who will lose has already begun. Per the 2020 decennial census the plurality are white, the second largest number Hispanics, while blacks make up the third largest cohort. I don’t believe that Hispanic and Asian voters will make common cause with blacks to reduce the number of wards with white majorities. I think it will be the other way around and that when the dust has settled there will be fewer blacks in the Chicago City Council than there were.

I didn’t want to conclude this post without mentioning that I’m beginning to think that the French are right. In France as long as you speak French and adopt French culture you are French. And they think that France is for the French. The government doesn’t keep statistics on the country’s racial breakdown. It’s actually illegal to do so. That doesn’t mean that France is a parousia—far from it. But it does prevent the government from getting into muddles of the sort the Census Bureau has been fomenting for the last several decades.

After a litany of bad choices that threatened U. S. credibility Dennis Ross in his New York Times op-ed declaims that the U. S. will recover:

Each of these examples damaged American credibility worldwide, although not necessarily to the same extent. But countries continued to ask for — and offer — support.

Despite the messy exit from Kabul and the devastating bombings at the Kabul Airport, Afghanistan will be no different. Partners and allies will publicly decry American decisions for some time, as they continue to rely on the U.S. economy and military. The reality will remain: America is the most powerful country in the world, and its allies will need its help to combat direct threats and an array of new, growing national security dangers, including cyberwar and climate change.

That does not mean that the United States can dismiss the costs of its mistakes in Afghanistan. But it does show that America can recover.

He proposes several steps that might be taken:

• Complete the evacuation of Afghanistan successfully.
• Formulate a long-term plan for the greater Middle East in collaboration with European allies and regional stakeholders.
• “Third, the administration must respond to enemy attacks or challenges to international norms with strength and conviction.”

I have a rather divergent view. I think that U. S. credibility on the world stage is based entirely on economic strength. The most important thing the U. S. can do to maintain its credibility is to start producing a lot more of what we consume. If we do that the rest will take care of itself. If we fail to do that, we will become irrelevant.

I would also use U. S. military strength more reservedly than we have over the last 30 years and when we do employ our military do so decisively and unambiguously.

If you’re not aware of it today is the first day of school for Chicago Public Schools. The mayor has decreed that all CPS staff must be vaccinated and that various safety measures will be in place including universal masking and social distancing. ABC 7 Chicago reports that has had some unforeseen effects. There has been a mass resignation by CPS bus drivers:

Mostly selective enrollment and magnet school students are affected, officials said.

CPS said the bus companies have informed them that approximately 10% of their bus drivers have resigned, with at least 73 drivers resigning on Friday alone.

A statement from the district said, “According to the bus companies, the rush of resignations was likely driven by the vaccination requirements. As a result, the district went from being able to provide all eligible students a bus route, to being unable to accommodate transportation for approximately 2,100 students within a matter of days.”

Somehow I doubt that many CPS bus drivers are sporting MAGA hats. Thinking of vaccination reluctance as a partisan issue is simplistic. It’s an issue of trust and risk assessment and those are not limited to one political party or the other.

This does illustrate one of my gripes about politicians though. Somehow they imagine that actions don’t have consequences. In this case the consequence of the mayor’s decree was no school busses for some kids and extra expense for the CPS:

CPS has offered those families a $1,000 stipend for the first two weeks, with $500 per month after.

No word on where that money will come from. Presumably, the CPS has a roomful of money somewhere. $500 a week for bussing sounds like a lot to me.

Do you remember that cloud computing initiative from the Department of Defense? After it was awarded the loser complained that it had lost for political reasons. Thenb the courts got involved. Then the entire contract was cancelled. At National Defense Meredith Roaten explains the latest developments:

The lucrative Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, didn’t make sense from a business perspective, said Alex Rossino, an advisory research analyst at Deltek. “It didn’t make sense on any level, honestly.”

The Pentagon awarded an eye-popping $10 billion contract to Microsoft in 2019, a decision that was swiftly protested by competitor Amazon Web Services and led to prolonged legal wrangling until the contract’s cancelation this summer.

The entire affair would be comic if it weren’t so tragic. It illustrates so many of the things that are wrong not just with the DoD but with our politics and information technology itself. Here’s the upshot:

Now, the military is shifting gears as it pursues a new cloud construct that will be the backbone of its joint all-domain command and control concept, which is meant to quickly connect sensors and shooters. The new program — known as the Joint Warfighter Cloud Capability, or JWCC — will be a multi-vendor, indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contract effort.

While the Defense Department has lost time and resources pursuing JEDI, experts say the recent change of direction will not excessively delay the military’s information-sharing goals as envisioned with JADC2.

as remarkable an instance of making lemonade as I can recall. If you get into trouble for picking a vendor, concoct a scheme that won’t require you to pick vendors and call it a win. It also points out something I have been complaining about for as long as this blog has existed: the mismatch between the federal government and information technology. Agencies like the Department of Defense are such behemoths and so bound by their own processes that by the time they can actually negotiate and award a contract, it’s obsolete.

I’d like to go on the record as predicting that they’re underestimating the complexities of the multi-vendor scheme on which they’re now embarked. Cloud computing tends to tie you in to your vendor. It’s not like buying a box of laundry detergent where if you have a problem with Tide you just switch over to All.

At the website of the American Foreign Service Association Ronald E. Neumann discusses why we have so stubbornly refused to learn from our experience with military interventions. The problems have persisted for longer than you might think—170 years, since the Mexican-American War. Here’s his thesis statement:

Iraq and Afghanistan were the latest in a 170-year history of American and State Department failure to figure out how to staff and run State’s part of military interventions. For the curious, I date State’s failure from 1848, when the department could not fill the U.S. Army’s request to send diplomats to help the Army manage civil affairs in conquered Mexican territory. Providing diplomatic personnel remained a problem in the latter half of the 20th century when every administration since President Harry Truman’s had foreign interventions that required diplomatic assistance. Nadia Schadlow has told much of this story in her book, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory (Georgetown University Press, 2017).

The staffing problem is an example of the persistent unwillingness to learn from our own past. I have lived some of the latest chapters of this story while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. The difficulties in staffing interventions are many, but the underlying issue is that every intervention has been treated as a unique occurrence, often better forgotten than studied. Yet with more than 70 years of repeated military interventions requiring close civil-military operations in the field since the close of World War II, it is plainly unreasonable to assume that “never again” is a sufficient response.

He proposes four reasons:

• Tour lengths that are too short undermine effectiveness
• Confusing policy with implementation
• Intellectual arrogance
• Lack of a mechanism to “surge” staff

For more detail I suggest you go over and read the whole thing—it’s fairly terse. All I can add is that it comports well with my own experience of dealing with the internal workings of government agencies at all levels. I could propose solutions but they would all be pretty unpalatable. The most urgent need is civil service reform.

IMO problems are particularly acute within the foreign service. Their status just isn’t what it used to be. Most large businesses have been making their own foreign policies for decades and that has extended to much smaller businesses. It is not unusual for me to have a meeting that includes people from five timezones and as many countries. Like it or not that is conducting foreign policy.

In the past I’ve pointed out that, while electric vehicles are a fine idea for Southern California, they’re less fine for Minnesota. An article at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory by Nathan Collins documents that as well as explaining why it is the case:

Lithium ion batteries are a bit famous for their poor cold-weather performance, and that has consequences for some of their most important applications – everything from starting an electric car in a Wisconsin winter to flying a drone on Mars.

Now, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have identified an overlooked aspect of the problem: Storing lithium-ion batteries at below-freezing temperatures can crack some parts of the battery and separate them from surrounding materials, reducing their electric storage capacity.

SLAC scientist Yijin Liu and postdoctoral fellow Jizhou Li made the discovery while looking at the cold-weather performance of the cathode, the part of the battery electrons flow into when it’s in use. Initial studies found that storing cathodes at temperatures below zero degrees Celsius led batteries to lose up to 5% more of their capacity after 100 charges than batteries stored at warmer temperatures.

The explanation provided is that below-freezing temperatures result in differential cracking within the cathodes of the batteries. While it’s possible that problem can be solved, solving it in a way that makes economic sense may be a different matter.

To put the finding in perspective below freezing is an expected temperature in unheated garages in winter in locations north of the Mason-Dixon line which is to say most of the country. I wouldn’t construe the finding as demonstrating that EVs are useless but that, as I have also suggested, that they are niche products. It also suggests that the economy of EVs may be less.

Something seems very different in the global economy right now. Export volumes are up but global supply chains are still a mess. From the Financial Times Alphaville:

After slumping in dramatic fashion during the second quarter of 2020, export volumes have since soared to the extent that, by September, they were above levels seen before pandemic began to impact the global economy and are now at an all-time high.

Yet how can this be the case when at the same time we read daily of global supply chain snafus from shuttered Chinese ports and seemingly chronic shortages of semiconductor chips?

On the face of it, it seems perplexing that we’re heralding an export boom at the same time as economists in manufacturing powerhouses such as Germany are warning the problems with sourcing parts are weighing on the GDP numbers.

[…]

According to the OECD, Australia’s exports increased 10 per cent between the first and second quarter. Brazilian exports shot up by 29.4 per cent. Russian exports grew by a whopping 30.7 per cent.

What do those countries have in common? They are all major commodities exporters benefitting from a triple whammy of “increasing prices, limited global supply and strong demand.”

Growth in exports from manufacturing powerhouses, meanwhile, has been more staid. Germany, for instance, only saw export growth of 1.3 per cent, while in China volumes shrank by 2.5 per cent.

It seems paradoxical to me. Are finished goods exports a lagging indicator? What’s going on?