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September 23, 2022

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Usually those living near the middle of a time zone have the least problem with a unitary time. It's those on the edges (in particular where it is for geographical reasons extended beyond the 'natural' borde that suffer from a difference between true (local solar) and artificial (discrete zone) time, They get shifted into the night (or out of it, if there is a switch between summer and winter time).
The military went the radical step to simply drop local time in favor of global (GMT or one centered on the capital city like Moscow in the Soviet Union).

In that regard, China, which sprawls across what would be several time zones, uses all one time.

Make Universal Time universal!

AKA, "One Time to Rule them All"

But what meridian to use for that? What city would be privilged by that making others jealous?
Why not go for a 23 (or 25) hour cycle, so it moves round the world every 24 days. Every place on Earth would witness true noon at 12am at least once a month.

Hartmut's and Snarki's comments, and my own example of China all point indirectly to what makes all the advocacy on this subject seem so odd to me.

What the clock says doesn't mean a damned thing on its own. What matters is how we schedule our activities in relation to daylight and nighttime.

"Nine to five" is such a classic work day that they named a movie after it. And yet the state of Maine's bureaucracy, back when I worked for it, had an eight to four schedule. In general, you would be hard put these days to find very much consistency in relation to open hours for businesses, medical offices, etc.

There has been news over the years about how very early school starting times aren't healthy for kids. This is especially relevant for teenagers, who need more sleep than younger kids and yet whose school starting times are often earlier than those of the younger crowd.

But try to shift school hours later and a resistance movement springs up based on the following (at least):

1) it makes it harder for parents who work;

2) it pushes after-school sports into darkness in a lot of places for a lot of the year (and heaven forbid ANYTHING AT ALL should interfere with kids' sports); and

3) kids who have after-school jobs don't have as much after-school time available for work.

Seems like maybe all these important- and expert-sounding groups advocating one permanent time or the other are ignoring the reality that

1) humans are capable of scheduling their activities in any way we collectively decide makes sense; and

2) there is already no consistency to when offices, businesses, factories, and schools start and end their days.

So why ARE all these groups weighing in on one side or the other? Are there hidden agendas based on specific interest groups whose lives would be easier (or more profitable) with one system or the other? Do all these groups (i.e. people) not have enough imagination to realize that it isn't which system we use, but how we schedule our activities, that matters in a practical sense?

I can see an argument being made, and advocacy happening, based on the question of whether we should change the clocks twice a year or not. (Accident stats, etc....) But as to whether permament standard time or permanent DST is better........hmmmmm.

As a lifelong night person, I know which system I'd prefer.... As long as the rest of the world operates the way it does at the moment, i'd rather have permanent DST, because I'm never up early enough for morning darkness anyhow, and i like it when the daylight last longer into the evening BY THE CLOCK (i.e. in relation to the way activities are scheduled in general).

(I fully expect "my whole argument" to be shredded by the rest of you. I just thought it was an interesting debate that surely must have some hidden agendas involved somewhere.)

The clock should shift gradually to ensure a 7:15 AM sunrise throughout the year at some agreed-upon location within a given time zone. Fight me.

Okay, so adding to Hartmut's suggestion:
MARS STANDARD TIME

24h 37m 22.7s or fight!

Wow, this old chestnut.
Bizarrely, they’re discussing it over here too, on the day of the (quite likely sub optimal) “not a budget”.

This is a chestnut?!?

Congress has apparently passed a law that "if enacted" would put us on permanent DST. I can't on a quick search find out what the "if enacted" is about, and I don't care enough to search more thoroughly.

it pushes after-school sports into darkness in a lot of places for a lot of the year (and heaven forbid ANYTHING AT ALL should interfere with kids' sports)

More accurately, heaven forbid anything should interfere with fanatical parents' intrusion on kids' sports. The kids generally seem fine (or more than fine) with an absence of parental involvement.

So, is it tyranny to force people to change their clocks twice a year or suddenly forcing them to stop it? Have the talking points already been distributed on that? Can it still be made into a campaign issue in time for the midterms? ;-)

This is a chestnut?!?

Whether or not to change the British time system has been an regular part of political discussion as long as I can remember.
Most people don’t care all that much, but a few get very worked up about it.

I meant no disrespect to your header. :-)

Checking in with the Congress.gov database on bill status...

Passed by the Senate, held at the desk in the House. That is, the Speaker has not yet assigned the bill to any committees for review. The rest of September will be consumed by trying to pass a spending authorization bill for the next fiscal year. From October 1 through the week of election day the House is in recess for campaigning. If the Democrats lose the House in November, Daylight Saving Time is probably not what they want to spend the last weeks of their Congressional control on. If they win, there's no rush to do anything. So it's probably dead.

The phrase at the beginning of the bill is "Be it enacted" which is code for "Change the existing statutes in the ways described below".

In my life experience, moving a long distance north or south is much more disruptive than Daylight Saving Time, but people don't do that very often. When I flew 900 miles north from Austin, TX to my parents at Christmas my first year in graduate school, it felt like the sun just never really got up.

Thanks for the legislative details, Michael.

I haven't noticed the effect much on my rare visits south (relatives in Florida, one week in Baja California once) --- but I *have* noticed in England, Ireland, and especiallly an Alaska trip in made in February.

But I do travel regularly between the eastern end of my own time zone (Maine) and the western (my home town in Ohio). There's a 45 minute or so difference on the clock between the two locations in relation to when the sun sets -- and in fact, I have never quite gotten used to it setting "earlier" in Maine.

Nigel--I knew you weren't casting aspersions. I was just bemused by the framing. :-)

Which also reminds me -- there's a faction in maine that raises the issue now and then in the form of "let's join Atlantic time" -- we're close buds with Atlantic Canada, after all. Then there have been other proposals (and I think in fact something that passed both houses of the Maine leg) saying we'd go on permanent DST but only if all the other NE states would do it too.

Let each community and town decide individually.
And add the question, whether one should drive on the right or left side of the road. It seems to have worked in pre-Anschluß Austria*, so no excuse for not restoring that freedom to Murica.

*which was already properly fascist before that guy with the toothbrush moustache came back home, took over and put his evil Nazi spin on it. And forced his unitarian traffic rules on the country.

"every town having its own time" was the way things were in the US, before the railroads came though and said "we don't care what the clock on your city hall says, the next train leaves at xx:xx by OUR clock"

...and standardization was the result. Congress only got into the act later.

And then there was the huge event, over just a few days, in which (nearly) all US rail converted gauge to 4 ft 8.5 in.

Railfans are obsessive about these things and they have a chokehold on Wikipedia.

The merits of "railroad time" would seem to have diminished with passenger rail being now of minimal impact. And rail freight no longer stops at every wide spot in the (crossing) road -- it's more about rail/truck depot to rail/truck depot.

Zoom, and international conference calls, may doom us all to familiarity with UTC for scheduling. But I'm too old fashioned to be enthused about it.

And then there was the huge event, over just a few days, in which (nearly) all US rail converted gauge to 4 ft 8.5 in.

Pedantic, but Dad worked on a railroad for some years when he was very young. Much of the US was already using 4 ft 8.5 in. The big change was in the South, which had largely standardized on 5 ft.

Railroad gauge is why getting a deal to allow grain exports from Ukrainian ports has been such a big deal. Ukraine still uses the Soviet 5 ft gauge, so moving the grain to EU ports would require transferring it from one set of rail cars to a different set at the border -- slow, tedious, and expensive.

Slightly easier, but important for similar reasons, in Feb/March this year during the run-up to the war, Ukraine finished disconnecting their power grid from the Russian grid and synchronized with the EU power grid instead. As Ukrainian power plants go up and down (eg, due to Russian artillery attacks), some of the lost power can be replaced by imports from the EU. Seldom mentioned is the extra effort the EU had to put in to get the conversion done that soon.

Pardon my ignorance, but isn't the purpose of freight containers to allow shifting freight between very different types of vehicles. Seems like those shouldn't care what rail gauge was being used. Or was that the shifting you were referring to?

I think containerizing buck cargos is a relatively new development. They may not have the containers or infrastructure to handle them.

They may not have the containers or infrastructure to handle them.

Ukraine has added a lot of bulk grain-handling terminals at their ports in the last 10-12 years. All the publicity pictures are very conventional: barges, grain cars, massive silos, huge overhead conveyors for bulk freighters, etc.

The destinations for a lot of their exports are smallish MENA ports, on old ships, using old offloading capabilities.

"every town having its own time" was the way things were in the US, before the railroads came though and said "we don't care what the clock on your city hall says, the next train leaves at xx:xx by OUR clock"

Same in Europe. In German it was/is Eisenbahnzeit and initially was a hot button issue.
But so was switching from sun-dials to 'unnatural' mechanical clocks at an earlier point in time.

The merits of "railroad time" would seem to have diminished with passenger rail being now of minimal impact.

Maybe true in the US but definitely not in Europe.
High speed rail is now a massive rival to air travel. Airports move out of town to reduce noise pollution in densely populated areas and (even more so after 9/11) one has to show up hours in advance of departure. Trains go from city core to city core and one can show up at the last minute. So within at least 1000 km air travel does not actually save time where high speed rail is available. Airlines had to massively drop prices and reduce service to stay competitive while the train companies advertise with convenience and relative luxury while maintaining a relatively high price level. At least in my experience air travel within Central Europe is now often the cheapskate option. At the moment Germany is discussing and experimenting with national monthly tickets at a reduced price to shift even more people off the road and onto the railways. Train companies are alreadsy complaining that they can't keep up. The main dampener has been Covid but that hit every kind of transport and was by no means rail-specific.

I'm beginning to suspect that NASA knows something about the SLS moon rocket that's sitting on the pad that they're not telling us. They seem to be very, very, very much opposed to hauling it back to the Vehicle Assembly Building. They brought some higher up from Washington down to Florida to do a press conference where he said things like, "Well, in Washington we don't try to predict the weather five days in advance" and "We think the rocket will be fine on the pad as long as the winds don't exceed 75 knots." If it goes back they have to partially disassemble it to recertify the self-destruct system. What else do they think they're going to find?

Over at Ars Technica one of the commenters wrote, jokingly, back in about March, that he thought NASA was hoping something would go terribly wrong so they could just cancel the SLS program. Some of the other commenters have borrowed his 'nym and coined the term "a Wickwick event" to mean an event that is nominally outside NASA's control but would destroy enough of the rocket to justify cancelling the program. One of them asked yesterday, "Does leaving the rocket out in a hurricane and having it blow over count?"

Hartmut's 2:05 reminds me of the calculation I make every time I drive out to Ohio to see family. There are no sensible rail or bus options these days, so it's either fly or drive. It's about 750 miles, and it could be 99% interstate highway, except I like "back" roads better than risking snarls of traffic in Albany and Buffalo. So I usually take two days and meander through northern New England, NYS farm country, etc.

But as I get older, it becomes ever more questionable whether I should be making the trip alone. I haven't had to answer the question for three years because of covid, but one day I will want to go again.

So, flying? There are no direct flights from Portland, which is 1:15 away from me by car; or else a bus from Augusta. So for that option there's either a parking fee or bus fare, plus getting to and from the airport and leaving time to get through security etc. Plus a layover and the risk of not making the second flight, and double the risk of a flight being late or canceled.

Boston is a 3-hour bus ride one way, plus all the extra time needed to make sure I get there on time, get through security, etc.

On the other end, my brother would have to drive an hour and a half each way through heavy Cleveland traffic to pick me up, and again to drop me off. I could rent a car, but that's another expense added to the ledger, and it still takes an hour and a half to get to my home town.

So every time I think: why am I driving, wouldn't it be quicker to fly? I go back through that calculation and get the same answer. It's not quicker to fly if you add in all the extra time (mine and my brother's). Not to mention the $ trade-off, which is pretty favorable to driving even given a night in a hotel.

California, now that's a different story.

California, now that's a different story.

Sometimes, depending on the end points. But even then, things can get . . . odd.

For example, next month I'm off to a conference being held at a conference hotel in (no, really!) Hollywood. I could readily fly from Oakland to Burbank. Hassles at each end, but nothing like what Janie describes. (For that, I'd have to be daft enough to fly into LAX.)

But most likely, I'll opt to drive. It's pretty much a straight (if not particularly interesting) shot down I-5. By the time you figure time and trouble getting thru airport security, etc., it's not actually that much more time. And vastly more schedule flexibility. Not to mention the option to decide on a more scenic route home. Maybe something like El Camino Real. (In California, anybody who righteously insists on English only basically cannot speak of geography.)

But for other parts of the state, say the north coast near Eureka to the southeast desert near Death Valley, the nominally available flights take substantially longer, not to mention requiring drives of hundreds of mikes on each end. Well, unless you have the resources to charter a plane.

And vastly more schedule flexibility.

I forgot to mention this. :-)

I love the flexibility of driving perhaps the most of all.

And by California being a different story, what I meant was the tradeoffs of my going there. I went in April and the hassles esp. on the Boston end were enormous. Living in the boonies and visiting someone who lives in the boonies on the other side of the continent is not a minor undertaking. More than once I've said, "I wish I could just get in the car and start driving..."

I have made three round trips driving between east and west coasts in my lifetime (all with friends; i.e. I wasn't the only driver) -- all in the 1970s. Then I had kids and that was the end of that. Not that people don't do it, but it's a major undertaking.

One time in 1969 I arrived at LAX and about ten minutes later I was on a plane lifting off.

One time in 1969 I arrived at LAX and about ten minutes later I was on a plane lifting off.

In the 1960s, I could catch a bus to the Oakland airport, walk across the tarmac and up the stairs into the plane. (Paying cash at the foot of the stairs.) Fly anywhere in California for under 200 inflation-adjusted dollars. No reservations, no security, just walk on like it was another bus.

The world has definitely changed. Sometimes for the better (I can remember other kids getting trashed by "childhood diseases"); sometimes for the worse.

A former Internet buddy was a flight attendant on those planes about that time.

He said on one flight a beehive in cargo broke open and the bees inundated the cabin.

After the revolution, time shall be seen for what it is……an oppressive bourgeois artifact.

:)

Some here might want to check out
Peter Galison's Empires of Time, a historical survey of Einstein and Poincare

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/sep/06/featuresreviews.guardianreview9

I was aware that both the US and Britain slow-timed taking action regarding the Holocaust during WWII, but the detail in this story came as news to me.
Very interesting long read.

The God-Damnedest Thing’: The Antisemitic Plot to Thwart U.S. Aid to Europe’s Jews and the Man Who Exposed It
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/09/23/henry-morgenthau-roosevelt-government-europes-jews-00058206

That is interesting, Nigel, thanks.

Haven't read the article yet, so my apology if the below is accounted for in it.

There are claims that allied strategists noted how many German trains were occupied by transporting people to and between camps to the detriment of military transports and that this was a reason not to bomb tracks leading to camps (despite demands from Jewish groups) because that would free those trains for more useful purposes. And this diverting of trains for the holocaust is said to have increased during the war increasing the appeal not to do anything.

It appears that Hurricane Ian will smash into Florida. Exactly where remains to be seen, but somewhere in Florida seems to be certain.

One wonders what sort of performance art Gov DeSantis will deploy in lieu of actually disaster response.

"One wonders what sort of performance art Gov DeSantis will deploy in lieu of actually disaster response"

I urge DeSantis to chain himself to a piling on the gulf coast near the center of Hurricane Ian's path, to PROVE that this whole "global warming/sea level rise" is just a big hoax.

He won't. He's a wimp. So he'll probably ride out the storm ass-kissing rich donors.

He will somwhow blame it on Biden, the Dems and the environementalists*. And the conspiracists will possibly claim that all those wind turbines in offshore windparks created all the wind.

*Like Abbott did in Texas when unregulated and thus unisolated gas tubes caused the catastrophic blackouts when winter paid an unexpected visit.

Sabotage is very much ruled in...
https://twitter.com/OAlexanderDK/status/1574740690877177858

Talking of environmental matters, I must say I like the cut of this Katie Porter's jib:

https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1574507530650361856

Been there, done that. When Nixon was president during the first oil embargo, the US went to DST year-round. Several of my classmates were killed crossing the street to school in a large West Coast City because it was dark at 8 a.m. Year-round standard time would be my preference.

The alternative halfway-in-between is rarely discussed. It's always full hours.

The EU Parliament voted for permanent standard time in 2019, but the EU Council has yet to do anything about implementing it.

A change would be awkward for the UK. England would be fine using UTC+1, but some of Scotland is a fair way North and (less obviously) West of London, and hates the idea.

But if the UK retains Summer Time, then Northern Ireland wouldn't be able to keep the same time as both Eire and the rest of the UK.

While I'm on the subject, I'll have a moan at the absurd US Energy Policy Act of 2005, which pointlessly changed US summer time dates to be different from the EU's, and also greatly increased biofuel requirements, about which it suffices to say that Trump is a big suppporter and the EPA is not.

So he'll probably ride out the storm ass-kissing rich donors.

Perhaps he will channel his inner Ted Cruz and just leave the state until it's over....

Katie Porter lives a couple blocks from us and I see her walking in the neighborhood in the mornings when she's here on recess.

We're trying hard to keep her.

In other news:
DART: Impact on Asteroid Dimorphos

I have to wonder how much difference it makes whether the target has coalesced into a single body, or is still something of a rubble pile. But still, good to know we can hit that small a target at that range.

Speaking of DART, I was pleased by the tweet which said:

THAT'S FOR THE DINOSAURS!

Ah yes, Giorgia Meloni. I had no idea that she was such a favourite on the US right, but should have had. Photogenic fascist? Certo!

“When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression,” the old saying goes, and it certainly applies broadly in the context Meloni seeks to invoke.

But what Meloni does is something different, at least to this American’s ears. Normally, complaints focused on being “woke” are criticized on their own merits, as purported constraints on those not included among the supplicating groups. Here, though, Meloni seems to suggest that all of this is an attempt to sell stuff. It’s semi-Trumpian in the sense that it attempts to intertwine cultural insecurity with economic dissatisfaction, but does so clumsily.

There have long been complaints on the right about how corporations try to leverage calls for diversity as marketing or employee retention ploys. (There have been similar complaints on the left, in fact!) But Meloni reverses this, suggesting that corporations and financial speculators — somehow not winking while she uses that term — are promoting “wokeism” to somehow make money. That she is now “Citizen X” is a transition left unexplained, as is the path from that anonymization to profit.

It’s inscrutable — unless, perhaps, you assume that there is a powerful global financial elite that controls everything and that must necessarily therefore be orchestrating “wokeism.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/27/meloni-italy-united-states-far-right/

But still, good to know we can hit that small a target at that range.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get an actual significant amount of mass far enough out, and accelerate it to a meaningful velocity, in order to move an asteroid big enough to be a risk.

Or put rockets and fuel on the asteroid to divert its trajectory. Slamming mass into it may risk turning a bullet into a shotgun blast.

ion-electric rockets or solar sails for gently nudging asteroids over the course of years is the way to go...which means that one has to have lots of advance warning, because 0.001g takes time to work.

IMO, asteroids should get 'tagged' with radar transponders so that their orbits can be precisely tracked.

Now all we have to do is figure out how to get an actual significant amount of mass far enough out, and accelerate it to a meaningful velocity, in order to move an asteroid big enough to be a risk.

I believe the idea is that, if you hit it far enough out, you don't have to deflect its course all that much in order to generate a miss. (Especially since it is most likely not going to be coming in dead center on the globe in the first place.)

IMO, asteroids should get 'tagged' with radar transponders so that their orbits can be precisely tracked.

Which is fine for NEOs. But suppose we have something coming in from further out. The way most comets do.

Slamming mass into it may risk turning a bullet into a shotgun blast.

Which might not be that big a drawback. Break it up into small enough pieces and they would burn up before impact.

The pieces would have to become very small indeed.
It may just turn from world-ending to just devastating over a very large area. Millions of even just fist size rocks raining down at cosmic speed could still wipe out whole countries.

Or put rockets and fuel on the asteroid to divert its trajectory.

Similar mass problem, plus an actual orbit-matching problem instead of "just run into it". Just for fun, assume 100M tons of reaction mass. (Side note: guesses about the mass of the dino-killer are around 1,000,000M tons, so we're probably talking about shoving something considerably smaller than that.) The SLS system NASA is futzing with -- and I'm constantly harping about -- will, if/when it gets to the Block 2 upper stage, be able to push 42 tons to escape velocity. Discount that by 10% (SWAG) to account for the delta-v for orbit matching, so 38 tons. On the order of three million launches. If I'm off by a factor of 10 too high on the reaction mass, 300,000 launches.

So, obviously need to think outside chemical rockets and launching from Earth. Assuming the raw materials are available on the moon, we can borrow from Heinlein and build high temp fission reactors shooting some sort of reaction mass out the back, launched using an electromagnetic catapult. Reaction mass that can ideally also be mined from the asteroid so it doesn't have to all be hauled out there. That might actually be feasible given enough notice and a huge industrial capability on the moon.

Even better, probably, would be to send a smaller number of factories to the asteroid (from the moon) and build everything there. Building autonomous versions of this stuff is a non-trivial problem. In case no one else has noticed, the first two Bezos BE-4 flight-rated engines were delivered to ULA in Texas for acceptance testing. One of them was sent back to Washington State because of some problem.

One of the unfortunate lessons from systems analysis is that scale is its own sort of problem.

Which might not be that big a drawback. Break it up into small enough pieces and they would burn up before impact.

Probably insignificant changes to the kinetic energy delivered: very little of the mass has gone away. It's still umpteen million/billion tons of rock at around 17,000 miles per hour. Might be some changes in effect. Maybe two-thirds of the atmosphere gets blow off instead of a 200 mile wide crater. OTOH, under those conditions, air isn't very compressible. Most of the energy may still be delivered almost straight down.

Potential sanity check: no one builds 50 megaton nuclear warheads because it's grossly inefficient. 50 one megaton bombs spread over a larger area is much more destructive.

Break it up into small enough pieces and they would burn up before impact.

Depends, in large part, on whether we're dealing with a single object or a rubble pile. Deflection needs a single object. Breaking up into little pieces works best with something already inclined that way.

Iirc there are/were a handful of 25 megaton nuclear warheads aimed at the deeply buried enemy command centers during the Cold War. To turn Mt.Cheyenne into lake/crater Cheyenne for example.
Otherwise mid-100kt warheads seem to be the favored option for the standard city removal.

A lot of discussion on the wikipedia page.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_impact_avoidance

If it's large enough, and the warning time is short enough, then the only realistic options are nuclear.
Various different strategies are discussed - including fusion weapons in the gigatonne range for the really big, really immediate threats.

Fragmentation could work for some objects - a subsurface nuclear detonation could be very efficient at throwing most of the resulting fragments outside of the Earth collision trajectory.

If it's a comet which might hit us next time around, then the required deflection would be very small indeed. But you'd need systems already deployed, as the available window for intervention would be of very short duration.

The killer will come in right out of the sun like a fighter pilot. "Sun scraper" comets are prime candidates.

In other news, the wheels of justice have been halted on account of weather.

I appreciate the potential (if not likely) severity of the storm and its impact, but is that a good reason for postponing the hearing? I mean, I know they want eyeballs, but it was already scheduled for 1PM on a Wednesday, and it's not like the networks haven't re-aired them in their entirety. Or that they aren't available to stream. I get the sensitivity aspect, but this seems like a bad precedent.

I get the sensitivity aspect, but this seems like a bad precedent.

I'm not so sure it's a bad precedent.

First, natural disasters of this magnitude aren't exactly an everyday event.

Second, there's something to be said for acknowledging that, important as the hearings are, they aren't absolutely the most important thing on earth. Being seen as that detached from the average citizen's reality wouldn't be good.

Third, especially if there are relatively reluctant witnesses scheduled to appear, why give them a plausible excuse to fail to show up? These things are pretty carefully orchestrated, and missing a witness out of the middle isn't good for the story line.

Best to make sure TFG is glued to the TV for the hearing, so that the bugs planted by the FBI in Mar-A-Dumbo pick up some good incriminating material.

An expert look at Hurricane Ian
https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/09/as-a-meteorologist-hurricane-ian-is-the-nightmare-storm-i-worry-about-most/

One interesting bit:

The large wind field associated with Ian will destroy structures along the Western Florida coast and likely knock electricity offline to one-half or possibly two-thirds of the state.
...
It is the kind of storm that destroys a community forever, knocks the power out for weeks or, in some locations, months. Beaches are erased. Populations leave and never come back.
I take this to mean that administering the election in November may present some unanticipated challenges. Think about trying to count ballots manually, and only during daylight hours, because you have no power.

Refusing to let vote those who have temporarily left may be a problem, too. But since mail-in ballots are so suspect, what else can they do? Hope that nobody will notice if they do a quice 180?

In short, DeSantis et al. may have problems above and beyond the physical damage wrought.

They'll find a way to accept mail ballots from 'citizens of good standing' while rejecting others.

"It is the kind of storm that destroys a community forever, knocks the power out for weeks or, in some locations, months. Beaches are erased. Populations leave and never come back."

So, like Puerto Rico.

First, natural disasters of this magnitude aren't exactly an everyday event.

Not everday, true. But increasingly common.

Being seen as that detached from the average citizen's reality wouldn't be good.

I agree with this, however. And also with the following point about not giving witnesses an excuse to stay away.

I take this to mean that administering the election in November may present some unanticipated challenges. Think about trying to count ballots manually, and only during daylight hours, because you have no power.

Florida courthouses, where hurricanes are a regular event, don't have big propane/diesel tanks and a generator?

Emergency preparedness for the state government here includes "the IT fortress." Each department has a backup of their primary system there. It's tornado proof, the batteries are good for three hours, with twin MW generators out back each with 50,000 gallons of diesel. One generator can run the building, either can draw on either of the fuel tanks. I got to tour it when I was on the legislature's budget staff. I was used to the backup power arrangements the telephone company kept back in the days of landlines, and I was still impressed.

Florida courthouses, where hurricanes are a regular event, don't have big propane/diesel tanks and a generator?

Even if they do (and it seems reasonable), after 6-7 weeks, how much fuel will be left? I'd guess at least some counties would fail to save fuel to get them thru the election.

After a disaster, the inclination is to get seriously short term -- get thru today, if possible, and let tomorrow (let alone next month) take care of itself. The lucky ones will get power restored, or new fuel shipments, in time. But I'd bet a lot won't.

Even if they do (and it seems reasonable), after 6-7 weeks, how much fuel will be left? I'd guess at least some counties would fail to save fuel to get them thru the election.

If the Florida National Guard can't be making daily diesel deliveries to the courthouses by this time next week, there's a few Guard generals who need to be retired and replaced.

@wj,

Yeah, you’re right, of course. And some (most) of my ranting is id/better(?) demons. But would we be postponing it if it was hammering PR, with minor threat to FL? I kinda doubt it. And also, while it’s the politicians I despise, no small part of me would like to see a “this is what you voted for” come home to roost for the people who vote for this. Maybe Im still salty about Sandy, but Paul, Cruz, etc… they all need help when shit happens and/but f*ck everyone else. Who’s gonna get credit for rebuilding Florida? Biden & federal emergency aid? Or DeSantis?

On a different note, I’ve now heard “18’” storm surge & pictures of Tampa Bay looked like the ominous signs of tsunami. That’s probably worst-case & the media will play it up, but I hope this isn’t as bad as it looks.

After a disaster, the inclination is to get seriously short term -- get thru today, if possible, and let tomorrow (let alone next month) take care of itself.

Well, yeah, that’s how idiots like me think. The way this is supposed to work is: people like me shouldn’t be in govt, & those who are develop infrastructure & contingency plans.

Then again, who here in the IT crowd has ever gotten a blank stare after mentioning “disaster recovery”?

“Disaster recovery? I don’t see how we can monetize that?”

Who’s gonna get credit for rebuilding Florida? Biden & federal emergency aid? Or DeSantis?

In my dreams (even this optimist won't bet on it, however), DeSantis makes enough of a mess of the recovery that he loses. Although, to be fair, a month isn't much time to get a serious recovery done, even by a competent executive -- not that voters seem to recognize such things. (And if Rubio went down with him, it wouldn't break my heart.)

On a different note, I’ve now heard “18’” storm surge & pictures of Tampa Bay looked like the ominous signs of tsunami.

The problem is a combination of storm surge, high wind, and heavy rain. The author of the article I referenced above says even bad hurricanes generally only feature two of the three. This one looks like it will have the whole enchilada. (And note that the last report I saw said it looked like the center of the storm would hit a ways south of Tampa Bay.)

The problem is a combination of storm surge, high wind, and heavy rain

And what have DeSantis, Scott, Rubio…. done about it?

I’m gonna assume that hurricane preparedness should only be taken into account in instances of rape, incest, or insurance companies that have to make good.

In a historic act of Patriotism, Gov DeSantis has flown the entire *legal* populace of Florida to Martha’s Vineyard.

*yeah. “a” historic. I write like it sez in my head. All y’all that wanna say different, prolly refer to my mom’s sister as “awnt”.

I’m gonna assume that hurricane preparedness should only be taken into account in instances of rape, incest, or insurance companies that have to make good.

Only the third. And then only if they are reliable (and large) campaign donors.

In a historic act of Patriotism, Gov DeSantis has flown the entire *legal* populace of Florida to Martha’s Vineyard.

All things considered, does DeSantis consider TFG to be a legal Florida resident?
/snark

You make a valid point, assuming Mar-a-Lago is not its own principality. But, if a former President -even if he just thinks it - it is a thing.

Ah, but does thinking it create an airplane that will fly? Sometimes reality can stand up to even the most enthusiastically held fantasy. You can blame anyone and everyone you like for that, but it still won't get your ride in the air.

It is telling that I dunno if that’s serious or satire.

It is telling that I dunno if that’s serious or satire.

It do be seriously difficult to do satire on that guy. You keep finding out that it was reality, and you just didn't realize/believe it.

Meanwhile in Florida, the number of people known to be without power is fast approaching 3 million. And floodwaters rose waist-high near Orlando, which is way far inland. Messy.

Have just been speaking to a friend holed up in an hotel in Orlando. She says they dodged a bullet, they have power and their house (currently housing their family members) seems to have got off undamaged too, although there are "pieces of trees" (her words, don't ask me) in the yard. Phew. But now, I agree, it's going to be interesting to see a) how DeSantis performs and b) whether there is any effect on the elections. I could not discuss this with her, since unfortunately she is a diehard Republican with whom I no longer discuss politics. But we have been friends since were eleven, so whatcha gonna do?

President Biden has said the federal government will foot the entire bill for clearing and repairing public buildings after the hurricane. Is he letting the insurance companies off the hook? Will the next hurricane victims get the same deal? The next earthquake?

President Biden has said the federal government will foot the entire bill for clearing and repairing public buildings after the hurricane. Is he letting the insurance companies off the hook? [Emphasis added]

Not sure public buildings are actually insured. Rather than "self-insured".

Judge rules Trump lawyers don’t have to clarify Mar-a-Lago document claims

Judge Aileen M. Cannon told Donald Trump’s lawyers Thursday that they did not need to comply with an order from special master Raymond J. Dearie and state in a court filing whether they believe FBI agents lied about documents seized from the former president’s Florida residence.
It becomes increasingly clear why the ABA said she was "not qualified" when she was up for nomination to the bench.

Not sure public buildings are actually insured. Rather than "self-insured".

Biden named schools in particular. Florida's a high-growth state, so it's very likely their school districts have been borrowing like crazy. Trust me, whoever underwrote those bonds required insurance.

Ah, I was thinking more of stuff like city hall or a county court house. Stuff which has been there for decades.

Taxpayers that don't live in Flordia have already paid for subsidized insurance. Now they have to pay for actual damages too?

Any bets on Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, citing Cannon as stare decisis on Cannon v DoJ?

Any bets on Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, citing Cannon as stare decisis on Cannon v DoJ?

I'm thinking that Thomas is smart enough to find a less obviously incompetent judge to cite as precedent. Equally bogus, less blatantly stupid. Alito, on the other hand,....

Any bets on Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, citing Cannon as stare decisis on Cannon v DoJ?

I mean, IANAL but is there any precedent in the history of the world for SCOTUS citing the case it's ruling on as the reason for deciding the case it's ruling on one way or another? It makes no sense.

Oh, okay, I see.

As a lighthearted sidetrack in an open thread, my two last (for now) Mendocino picture posts at BJ:

https://balloon-juice.com/2022/09/29/on-the-road-janiem-mendocino-4-of-5/

https://balloon-juice.com/2022/09/29/on-the-road-janiem-mendocino-4-of-5/

Beautiful! It's funny how evocative those photos are to me of the feeling of spring, but the feeling of spring in New Jersey, three thousand or so miles away. Is it a deciduous-forest thing?

Also, too, almost exactly the same latitude as where I live, fwiw.

Oh, okay, I see.

Now yer gettin’ it. ;-)

Such beautiful photos, Janie! I love: the bench, the dogwoods, and actually all of them. Thank you for such an uplifting few moments, in what is a generally torrid time (UK politics, Ukraine war escalation, Florida floods etc etc).

ps Were both links supposed to be the same?? Or did I miss something?

No, both links weren't supposed to be the same. I'm babysitting today and thus even more distracted than usual. Here's the other:

https://balloon-juice.com/2022/09/30/on-the-road-janiem-mendocino-5-of-5/

Thanks for the heads up.

You do come by your distraction honestly, as we say. But on part 5 of 5, as I've mentioned before, you certainly have a way with trees and wood. And I also loved the village and the sea, in conversation. More Maine next, I hope.

God, talking about getting older (as Janie does in her Mendocino posts), I am just watching David Tennant on a chatshow talking about the play he's about to appear in, in the West End, called Good. I saw it when it was written and first played in the early 80s, starring the great Alan Howard, and it was an unforgettable exposition of how a good man, a professor of literature in Germany in the 30s, by tiny increments (and without ever meaning to), slides slowly down the slippery slope and becomes, in the end, an SS officer.

http://www.alanhoward.org.uk/good.htm

Well, I'm used to seeing Tom Stoppard plays etc that I saw in their first run being revived (Travesties, The Real Thing, Arcadia and more), but Good (as far as I know) has never had a serious revival. You can see why they're reviving it now, however.

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