Weird Ecological Science

The Daily Mail (U.K.) reports results of a study showing most oceanic plastic pollution comes from 10 rivers, eight of which are in Asia, the other two in Africa. Hat tip to Instapundit for the link.

Up to 95 per cent of plastic polluting the world's oceans pours in from just ten rivers, according to new research. The top 10 rivers - eight of which are in Asia - accounted for so much plastic because of the mismanagement of waste. About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim.

The 10 top-ranked rivers transport 88-95 per cent of the global load into the sea. 

We heard a lot about microplastic in the ocean on the cruise just ended. Those ten rivers are, in order of pollution dumped, are the Yangtze, Indus, Yellow, Hai He, Nile, Ganges, Pearl, Amur, Niger, and Mekong.

Given the squalor and poverty of the places in which these rivers arise, we have exactly zero chance of clearing them of plastic. Those concerned with the health of the oceans won't be best pleased with these research findings.

Poor Bolivia

We haven't heard a lot lately from Bolivia. I suppose assuming things were okay there was a conceptual bridge too far.

Would-be President-for-life Evo Morales keeps trying to toss out constitutional limits on multiple consecutive terms in office. The New York Times reports on his latest effort:

In 2016, he called a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would have eased term limits in the country’s Constitution and allowed him to run for a fourth time.

After 51 percent of the voters rejected the amendment, President Morales came up with a new plan. In September, his supporters in Congress brought a lawsuit in the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal seeking to revoke the Constitution’s term limit.

Mr. Morales’s supporters claim that the term limit discriminates against the president and undermines his political rights under regional human rights standards. They rely on a provision in the American Convention on Human Rights, the main human rights treaty in the Americas, which says that political rights can “only” be limited under very specific circumstances.

Morales is another banana republic dictator with dreams of glory, whose role model is Fidel Castro.

Merkel Update

The Daily Express reports the head of the Green Party in Germany - Hans-Christian Ströbele - doesn't see a way forward for Angela Merkel as chancellor. He said:

The end of the chancellorship of Angela Merkel has already been announced by the outcome of the general election. Now Merkel's political end can indeed come very quickly. In my opinion, Mrs Merkel will not be able to stay at the top of the government for much longer.

It somewhat depends on the decision of Germany's (mostly) figurehead President who can either call a new election or ask her to form a minority government. Current betting is against that latter choice.

Later ... writing for the Carnegie Europe think tank, fellow Judy Dempsey concudes:

What happens over the next few hours or days is anyone’s guess. One thing is certain: Europe is weaker and Germany has become unpredictable.

Travel Blogging XXII

At sea off the east coast of New South Wales, approaching Sydney Harbor: Our 55 day cruise ends tomorrow morning with disembarkation. We'll collect our luggage, catch a cab, and head for our hotel which is supposedly "near the airport." Tomorrow we fly back to the States, arriving several hours before we take off after spending something like 13-14 hours in the air.

I've used up the last of the 1000 minutes of WiFi we purchased almost two months ago leaving San Diego, and they cost $0.25 each. The other DrC and I shared the roughly 20 minutes a day that provided, it's likely I used more of it than she did.

The coping mechanism is to write things offline in Notes and then, once online, copy them to the blogger, editing all the while. This is quite useful for travel blogging, less so for commenting on the day's news. Thus these last two months have seen many more of the former than of the latter. I will post this piece tomorrow at the hotel where, I anticipate, the WiFi will be unlimited and faster.

One thing I've missed is playing Word With Friends, which can only be done online. Another unscratched itch is the ability, to which one is accustomed, of looking up answers to questions, be they biographical, geographical or merely whimsical.

Later ashore ... the hotel is in fact near the airport as advertised, one of the Mercure chain and not bad. The WiFi is good, the room not tiny.

We're both still trying to get over the "ship cold" that made the rounds on the MS Maasdam after we came to Sydney the first time some 30 days ago. A 'generous' soul brought it aboard there and shared it widely. By contrast, the prior crossing from San Diego was a very healthy voyage, hardly a sniffle heard.

Merkel's Future in Doubt

The New York Times reports the four way talks aimed at building a ruling coalition for Germany have failed. This happened when the business-friendly Free Democrats pulled out of the negotiations, claiming accurately that the differences among the four parties are too great to be bridged by meaningful compromise on key issues.

At a time when the EU looks to its most successful member - Germany - for leadership in the Brexit talks, Merkel is shown to be playing a very weak hand. Her future as Germany's chancellor is very much in doubt. History will conclude that she shot herself in the foot with her widely unpopular open borders policy.

Both Sides Now

Matt Drudge has a headline suggesting Saudi Arabia might go to war with Iran, or lead an Arab war against the Persians. Talk about a war where you'd sincerely hope both sides clobbered each other into bloody rubble, that would take the prize.

A Values-Alignment Strategy

The New York Times has an article about various firms being boycotted by one side or the other in our highly polarized political atmosphere. They were perceived to have taken sides when that was not at all their intent.

Examples given include Jim Beam whiskey, Papa John's pizza, and Keurig coffee. And a key quote from an observer of this phenomenon:

"What I think is constantly surprising is how polarized and divisive, certainly, the U.S. has become,” said Ken Kraemer, the chief executive of the agency Deep Focus. Brands are shifting from a world where they avoided politics at all costs, he said, to one where younger consumers want to know that their “values are aligned.” 

I can imagine a future in which companies will have a Janus-like approach to the market with two seemingly different brands, logos, ad campaigns, and spokesfolk. One brand aligned to progressive values and the other brand to conservative beliefs. I'd judge they will try to disguise the blatant pandering inherent in such an approach, though I'm uncertain how they'd do that.

Unintended Consequences, cont.

We've on occasion made the point that affirmative action has done as much harm as good for people of color. I begin to suspect a similar unintended consequence arising from the wave of accusations of sexual harassment following the revelations about Harvey Weinstein.

I would expect more men, including those not in the public eye, will begin observing the Mike Pence rule of not being alone with a woman other than their wife or mother. It is a way of armoring oneself against accusations of harassment, avoiding "he said-she said" situations.

If this behavior change takes place, it will have the effect of reducing harassment as such behavior is less likely when witnesses are present. However, it will also reduce women's career opportunities if men avoid working with them.

Travel Blogging XXI

At sea en route to Tasmania: We've been "at sea" since late September and yesterday, for the first time, we "blew off" a port call. We were scheduled to put ashore in Burnie, Tasmania, today but couldn't do so as there was "too much wind." As the sea was relatively calm, that seemed hard to credit.

What makes this peculiar is that Burnie is a regular port, not a tender port. That is, a port where we would tie up to a dock instead of one where we drop anchor off shore and go ashore in the ship's boats (aka "tenders").

Deciding conditions are too rough for tendering isn't especially uncommon. In all the cruising we've done I can only remember one other instance of skipping a dockside mooring.

We've spent the day cruising aimlessly, killing time as our next scheduled port call is tomorrow in Hobart. A ship can't show up early as slips are reserved like hotel rooms and the ship pays "rent" on the mooring.

Both DrsC are trying to get over colds with coughs, our cabin sounds like a TB ward. Amazingly, codeine cough syrup isn't a prescription med in Oz; it is definitely the med of choice if restful sleep is sought.

With More Education, Climate Views Diverge

The New York Times reports an analysis of opinion research done by Gallup looking at issues where having more education causes opinions of liberals and conservatives to either converge or diverge. In the case of climate change, the answer is "diverge."

The Times' explanation for this phenomenon seems, to this educated conservative observer, somewhat lame as it is a liberal's explanation. Let me attempt an educated conservative's explanation.

Being more educated includes knowing more about the earth's naturally variable climatic history (warming periods, ice ages) and the relative impacts of human endeavor vs. solar variation and vulcanism. Such knowledge leads educated conservatives to see human activity as a relatively puny force for climate change, unlikely to be determinative.

Liberal appeals to "scientific consensus" cause us to recall the decades when plate tectonics was universally considered geological crackpot lunacy. It is now received wisdom; clearly scientific consensus is no guarantee of accurate knowledge.

Travel Blogging XX

Random impressions, en route to Adelaide: Crossing the Pacific from San Diego and again across the top of Oz we had maybe 10 days which lasted 25 hours.

Sailing west these are days when we set our clocks back an hour before going to bed. Subjectively, these days felt lazy and unhurried.

Recently we "turned the southwest corner" of Oz and headed back east. So we've had a couple of 23 hour days, days when we put the clocks ahead before going to bed. As you might imagine, these are the reverse, somewhat hurried and sleep-deprived.

There will be more of these before we reach Sydney again, likely two more. Then we fly home across the dateline and arrive home the same day we leave - the magic of jet travel.

Once home there will be some serious jetlag to get over. Taking per the other DrC's dictum, up to a day for every time zone crossed.

Travel Blogging XIX

Fremantle, Western Australia: Fremantle is the oceanside port for the largest city in WA - Perth. We just headed over to the cruise terminal to use the free WiFi there, and I struck out.

The other DrC could get her iPad online just fine, I could not. After considerable fiddling, we determined that my problem was that we hadn't downloaded the 64 bit software to my pad, I'm still operating in the older 32 bit mode.

The terminal is sending out a 64 bit signal which my machine cannot read. Hers can, so she's over there surfing up a storm and I'm back on the ship bummed out.

The other DrC says we won't download the 64 bit software until we get home to a fast, secure connection. That makes sense but leaves me out in the cold, so to speak.

Snark City

Power Line's Steven Hayward characterizes the Hillary Rodham Clinton administration-that-could-have-been as:

Rodham and Gomorrah

'Nuff said ... bullet dodged.

Trump Reshaping Judiciary

The New York Times leads with a story about how President Trump is reshaping the ideological balance of the Federal courts. As we noted some months ago, this could well turn out to be his most important lasting impact on national culture and life. A key quote:

When Democrats regain power, if they follow the same playbook and systematically appoint outspoken liberal judges, the appeals courts will end up as ideologically split as Congress is today.

The Times observes Federal Appeals courts hear some 60,000 cases a year whereas only about 80 of those are subsequently accepted for final review by the Supreme Court. In other words, much of importance is finally decided at the appeals level.

The Times fails to add that some of these courts already are known for ideological bias. Especially the West Coast's Ninth Circuit which is both notably liberal and often overturned by the Supremes.

Travel Blogging XVIII

Exmouth, Western Australia: Whew! Exmouth is a very desolate place. We're told the locals say "ex-mouth" instead of the "ex-muth" we expected.

Think of Exmouth as the northwest corner of the Nullabor. There are no naturally occurring trees and the termite mounds are waist high. Wild emus wander around and we saw a large lizard, maybe the size of a dog.

Much of the reason Exmouth exists is courtesy of the U.S. Navy, which came here to install a low frequency long range radio station with which to communicate to submerged submarines in the Indian Ocean. The base and associated antenna farm are outside what passes for "town," one of the towers is 1000' tall.

We thought we heard the base was given to the RANavy, not certain about that. This would have been a barren, bleak place to be posted, lots of clean, uncrowded beach but not much else.

We did, however, see an RV park, with some minor occupancy - this isn't "the season." Southwestern Australians must come here in winter to warm up.

We did a glass-bottomed boat tour of a nice coral reef south of town, enjoyed it too. Turns out this reef isn't suffering from the problems plaguing the Great Barrier Reef. The so-called "crown of thorns" starfish is here but not a plague as at GBR, different conditions = different outcomes.

Now we head on south to Fremantle, the port of Perth where we'll overnight. I think we're there day after tomorrow.

Bad News for Democrats

Number cruncher Philip Bump writes politics for The Washington Post. Democrats aren't going to like his latest column, reprinted at msn.com. He writes:

The Washington Post-ABC News poll asked respondents how they'd vote in a redo of the 2016 election, and, if anything, Clinton seems to have lost more ground than Trump. Among those who voted, 46 percent say they picked Clinton last year and 43 percent picked Trump — a slightly more favorable sample than the 2016 election, in which Clinton won the popular vote by two percentage points. But in a head-to-head rematch, Clinton's support drops even more than Trump's does, and they wind up in a 40-40 tie. Given that Trump overperformed in key, blue-leaning swing states, that means he'd probably have won again.

If anything, Clinton's numbers appear to have gotten even worse in the year since her election loss; a poll last week showed that she is viewed even more unfavorably than Trump is. 

Anybody wanna bet the very dim Dems will nominate someone more popular in 2020? I know, how about Nancy Pelosi?

A Targeted Tax Plan

David Brooks writes a column for The New York Times. I once liked his work but rarely do so now. In spite of the fact that I disagree with Brook's conclusions, today's column is a useful exception.

Brooks writes about the changes to the tax code proposed by the Republicans. He doesn't like the Republican plan. If it is as he describes, I like it a lot.

Republicans think the whole country would be better off if we take money away from the Democrats’ rich people and give it to their own (more productive) rich people.

First, it caps the mortgage interest deduction at loan principal of $500,000 instead of $1 million. (snip) Only about 2.5 percent of Americans are paying off mortgages on homes valued over $500,000. These are mostly in places like California, New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.

Second, the Republican plan cuts the deduction for state and local taxes. In 2014, according to The Economist, nearly 90 percent of the benefit from this deduction flowed to those making more than $100,000 a year. Once again, this tax hike hits mostly those in high-tax blue states.

Third, the bill taxes investment income earned by private universities with at least 500 students and assets not directly tied to educational objectives of more than $100,000 per student. It imposes a 20 percent excise tax on nonprofit executives who make more than $1 million.

The Republican vision is that the corporate sector is more important to a healthy America than the professional and nonprofit sector. The Republican vision is that companies that thrive in the red states, like manufacturing and agriculture, are more important for the country than the industries that thrive in blue states, like finance, media, the academy and the movies.

COTTonLINE's not seeing much in the plan with which to disagree. It afflicts comfortable coastal liberals and comforts the afflicted in flyover country. Plus, it rewards residents of states with low tax rates and penalizes those in high tax states.

Travel Blogging XVII

At sea, bound for Exmouth, Australia: All our remaining port calls will be in Australia, we are headed nearly due south from Bali. In addition to today we have at least one more sea day before reaching port.

Exmouth is on Australia's very much less developed northwestern coast. Like the much bigger Perth/Fremantle complex to the south, it looks west across the Indian Ocean. The last time we sailed this ocean we were en route from Singapore to Rome via coastal India and the Suez Canal.

I've largely exhausted the guy-type pop novel collection of this ship's library, books by Clancy, Evanovich, Cussler, Griffith, etc. Now I will look at biographies and other exotica. I was supposed to load up my Kindle before we left the States, and never got around to doing so ... my bad. If we can get a fast, free WiFi connection in Exmouth perhaps I'll do so there.

Travel Blogging XVI

Bali, Indonesia: As I write this we're sailing into the harbor at Bali, the one non-Muslim-majority island of any consequence in Indonesia. We wrote about how this came about earlier in the voyage.

There is considerable flat land in Bali, unlike many of the islands hereabouts. And, as you'd imagine, it has developed a lot in the nearly 30 years since we were here last. I'm not going ashore as my hip is still sore, making walking difficult.

We were scheduled to arrive at 7-8 a.m. but had to postpone arrival because of a low tide at that time. It is now 9:30 and we're entering verrrrry slowly, the captain has said there is a risk of grounding which we're obviously being oh-so-careful not to do.

Australians go to Bali (which they call 'barley') like people on the east coast of the U.S. go to the Caribbean. When Muslim extremists (Indonesia has a few) wanted to murder westerners a few years back, they brought their bombs to Bali. It was where large numbers of "crusaders" (their term, not mine) could be found and targeted. Most of the dead were from Oz, which hasn't kept Australians from coming.

Interesting factoid: Many of our "hotel" crew are Indonesian, and within that group people from Bali are over-represented. Whether this is because of the Balinese' increased familiarity with westerners or some other factor is unclear.

We understand the families of quite a number of our crew will be onboard today as visitors. Some will have traveled here from another island to see a husband or father who has been at sea for months.

As is true in the Philippines, remittances by someone working on a ship likely support an extended family at home. It is a useful way to get first world beds made and meals served while enabling third world persons to earn their family out of poverty and into the home country's middle class. It's a win-win solution that builds a work ethic where handouts destroy it.

Travel Blogging XV

Komodo Island, Indonesia: Yep, this is the home of the famous Komodo Dragons. The island is an Indonesian National Park, which the other DrC is checking out as I write this.

She has pictures to share and you can find them on her blog which lives at cruztalkingtwo.blogspot.com. I planned to go with her but developed a sore hip which makes walking difficult - not sure how or why - and had to stay aboard.

Later ... She's back with good pix of Komodo's carnivorous land lizards. They're less armored than crocs and gators, but taller and nearly as long. They both hiss and growl.

I am surprised the hillsides here are relatively barren, not at all the tropical jungle I expected. That's twice I've been caught off-guard by less-than-lush greenery in these swampy climes. Again, as on New Caledonia, we hear there's been a drought.

This was a tender port, meaning pax had to go ashore in the ship's boats. We anchored in protected waters amid a cluster of islands, I could see 8-10 from my chair topside.

Indonesia has the entire gamut of island sizes, from very large (Borneo, Java) to tiny, they number in the thousands. Next stop, Bali.

Later still ... Komodo was a half-day stop. We've cruised all afternoon alongside an unending string of islands, several in sight at all times. Such a large collection of islands makes for a very water-borne culture, many distinctive interisland watercraft that you wouldn't take into the wide open seas.