* 20 entries including: US Constitution (series), repairing the welfare state (series), China's Belt & Road Initiative (series), finding new RNA viruses, dark energy changes & blazars versus star formation, history of string and rope, AI-generated fake faces, wi-fi 6 now being introduced, timing the era of the Deccan Traps, Chinese counterfeits persist, and converting old cars to electric vehicles.
* NEWS COMMENTARY FOR MARCH 2019: As discussed by an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The New Scramble For Africa", 7 March 2017), in the 19th European colonialists carved up Africa, reducing African peoples to subservience and exploitation. The colonial era faded after World War 2, only to be replaced by a Cold War competition between East and West that did nobody -- least of all the Africans -- very much good. Now a third race for Africa is under way. This time around, Africans will benefit, if they play their cards right.
In the modern era, outsiders were inclined to see Africa as a basket case, nothing but trouble for anyone who chose to get involved. Today, the outsiders see the continent as important, and believe it is becoming more so. Governments and businesses from over the world are busily strengthening their ties to the continent. From 2010 to 2016, more than 320 embassies were opened in Africa, possibly the biggest embassy-building boom in history.
Military ties to Africa, which faded to a degree with the end of the Cold War, are growing stronger again. America and France are lending muscle and weapons to the struggle against jihadism in the Sahel. China is now the biggest arms seller to sub-Saharan Africa, with defense-technology ties with 45 countries. Russia has signed 19 military deals with African states since 2014, while oil-rich Arab states are building bases on the Horn of Africa and hiring African mercenaries.
In 2006, Africa's three biggest trading partners were America, China and France, in that order. In 2018, the pecking order was China, India, and America, with France running a distant seventh. Over the same period Africa's trade has more than tripled with Turkey and Indonesia, more than quadrupled with Russia; trade with the European Union has grown by a more modest 41%. The biggest sources of foreign direct investment are still firms from America, Britain, and France -- but Chinese ones, including state-backed companies, are catching up, while investors from India and Singapore are getting into the contest as well.
The stereotype of foreigners in Africa is that they are exploiting the land and its people, happy to hand out bribes to corrupt leaders. Sometimes the stereotype is true. There are still plenty of crooked African leaders, while the actions of companies from countries that don't believe in transparency -- meaning Russia and China -- can be murky. Three Russian journalists were murdered in 2018 while investigating a Kremlin-linked mercenary outfit that reportedly protects the president of the war-torn Central African Republic, and enables diamond-mining there. Nothing has been proven, but it looks rotten.
Nonetheless, engagement with the outside world has mostly been a plus for Africans. Foreigners build ports, sell insurance, and set up mobile-phone networks; Chinese factories turn out goods in Ethiopia and Rwanda; Turkish Airlines connects to more than 50 African cities. A more agreeable attitude to trade and investment is one reason why GDP per head south of the Sahara is 40% higher than it was in 2000; more professional political leadership and fewer wars helped, too. Africans make money when outsiders buy African textiles, holidays, and digital services.
There could be improvements. First, more government transparency. It is encouraging that South Africa is digging into the murky affairs of ex-President Jacob Zuma -- but not so encouraging that the even murkier governance of the misleadingly-named Democratic Republic of the Congo remain unprobed, and that the terms of Chinese loans to African governments that are bad credit risks also remain hidden. Journalists, such as the Kenyans who exposed scandals over a Chinese railway project, have a big role to play -- but they're going to have to be brave people, since sometimes they pay for their investigations with their lives.
Second, Africa's leaders need to think more strategically. Africa is as nearly as populous as China, but it consists of 54 countries, not one. That means more unity among African leadership. To be sure, there's no way that Africa could be as integrated as, say, Europe -- but the alternative is to let China have the upper hand in dealings with individual African countries. The power imbalance between, say, China and Uganda is huge. It could be reduced somewhat with a free-trade area, or if African regional blocs clubbed together. Why not? The benefits of infrastructure projects spill across borders.
Third, African leaders do not have to choose sides, as they did during the Cold War. They can do business with Western democracies; with China and Russia; with anyone else who treats them fairly. With more choices, Africans can drive harder bargains. Outsiders should not see this as a zero-sum contest -- as the Trump administration, when it pays attention to Africa, apparently does. If China builds a bridge in Ghana, an American car can drive over it. If a British firm invests in a mobile-data network in Kenya, a Kenyan entrepreneur can use it to set up a cross-border startup.
Last, Africans should take what some of their new friends tell them with a bit of salt. China argues that democracy is a Western idea, and that development requires a firm hand. African strongmen like this message, but it is nonsense. A study by Takaaki Masaki of the World Bank and Nicolas van de Walle of Cornell University found that African countries grow faster if they are more democratic.
The good news is that, as education improves and Africans move rapidly to the cities, they are becoming more critical of their rulers, and less frightened to say so. Voters are acquiring more clout; given transparency, they will be able to insist on a form of globalization that works for Africans and outsiders alike.
* Britain's Brexit fiasco continued to stumble on through March -- but things are, if not exactly looking up, looking sideways. After voted down Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit plan twice, with brutal pluralities, Parliament then moved to take charge of the Brexit process. There were suggestions that this was all part of May's devious plan, to force Parliament to take ownership. The less paranoid would have to think in reply that she was probably wondering: "What took them so long?"
Whatever the way the cats were herded, they ended up in a herd. In a positive effort, Parliament then voted against a NO-DEAL Brexit, if not by a resounding majority. In reality, a NO-DEAL Brexit was completely out of the question to anyone with sense: if Britain unilaterally revoked all her treaty obligations to Europe, or at least a big subset of them, the UK would then effectively become a rogue state, loosely in a league with North Korea. OK, not that bad, but still bad.
However, Parliament then voted on a series of alternatives to May's Brexit deal, and shot all of them down. Now what? One hopes that sensibility will prevail. Possibly that may be too optimistic, but the time is drawing short to allow further dithering, and Britain's predicament demands an out. When May spoke recently of "sending a message to the whole world about the sort of country the United Kingdom will be", THE ECONOMIST replied: "She is not wrong; it is a laughing-stock. An unflappable place supposedly built on compromise and a stiff upper lip is consumed with accusations of treachery and betrayal."
CNN's Fareed Zakariah suggested that Britain had descended to the status of a banana republic. A reassertion of British sensibility and pragmatism is well overdue. Neither has been demonstrated by the voices demanding total Brexit at any cost; Britain now has to demonstrate they are not in control.
* As discussed by an article from THEVERGE.com ("Europe's Controversial Overhaul Of Online Copyright Receives Final Approval" by James Vincent, 26 March 2019), it is truly said that when one opens up a can of worms, the only way to get them back in is to find a bigger can. As a case in point, to deal with the can of worms that the internet has opened up, in late March the European Parliament approved the Copyright Directive -- legislation intended to update copyright law for the internet age. The vote was 348 for, 274 against. The directive was then passed on to EU member states, who have two years to convert it into national laws.
The Copyright Directive has been in discussion for more than two years, and has been the subject of fierce lobbying from tech giants, copyright holders, and digital rights activists. Andrus Ansip, vice president of the European Commission and one of the major advocate for the directive, said it was a "big step ahead" that would unify Europe's digital market while protecting "online creativity." Julia Reda, a Minister of the European Parliament (MEP) from the German Pirate Party, wasn't so happy with it, calling it a "dark day for internet freedom."
Advocates of the directive say it will level the playing field between US tech giants and European content creators, giving copyright holders more power over how big internet platforms distribute their content. Critics reply the law is vague, poorly thought-out, and restrictive. The two primary points of contention are:
Article 11, the "link tax", is primarily focused on services like Google Search and Google News, which display snippets of news articles to flag them as links. Google has said the link tax will simply force the company to strip down content displayed in a search, and kill off Google News. Advocates of the law say Google is bluffing -- but they're not, it's a no-brainer. Earlier attempts to introduce similar fees in Germany and Spain proved over-reaching, and both failed.
Critics of article 13 say that it will push YouTube and comparable websites to implement "upload filters" to screen uploads, with the filters being error-prone and easily gamed. The critics also suggest the cost of deploying the filters may actually tilt the playing field towards the big US companies.
There have been public protests and petitions against the legislation, while websites like Reddit and Wikipedia have protested as well. Google said in a statement that the directive will "lead to legal uncertainty and will hurt Europe's creative and digital economies." Not too surprisingly, industry groups in music, publishing, and film have been enthusiastic backers. Xavier Bouckaert, president of the European Magazine Media Association, commented: "This is a vote against content theft." In the end, the vote may not go his way.
BACK_TO_TOP* WINGS & WEAPONS: It's well-known that military aircraft training is often done in flight simulators -- but not so well-known that the military has simulators for military vehicles that don't fly. As discussed by an article from JANES.com ("Lockheed Martin To Modernise US Army's Close Combat Tactical Trainer" by Giles Ebbutt, 10 October 2018) says the US Army has now awarded Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (LMRMS) a contract worth up to $356 million USD to upgrade nearly 500 tactical vehicle simulators for the "Close Combat Tactical Trainer (CCTT) Manned Module Modernization (M3)" program.
The CCTT was introduced in 1992, and has been upgraded since that time. The CCTT includes a number of combat vehicle simulators, including those for the Abrams main battle tank and the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle. The simulators provide a highly-authentic experience; they can be networked to provide tactical training from the platoon to battalion task force level. Workstations augment the simulations by representing a range of supporting arms and command elements.
The CCTT also includes the "Reconfigurable Vehicle Tactical Trainer (RVTT)", which involves "reconfigurable vehicle simulators (RVS)" -- for variants of the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV), or the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), placed in an immersive simulation environment. The RVS can include armaments, and crews can dismount the vehicles to engage threats.
Each fixed-site CCTT includes 30 to 40 armored fighting vehicle (AFV) simulators, plus four RVS. There are seven fixed sites, plus a number of mobile systems. The upgrade program will involve updates to the simulator subsystems across the board.
* As discussed by an article from JANES.com ("Northrop Grumman Readies Hatchet For All-Up Testing" by Robin Hughes, 17 October 2018), Northrop Grumman is moving forward on its "Hatchet" small smart bomb, which the company originally unveiled in 2012. Hatchet is an unpowered munition with pop-out wings and tail surfaces, being about 30 centimeters (a foot) long, 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) in diameter, and with a weight of about 2.7 kilograms (6 pounds). It has GPS-INS guidance, with options for semi-active laser, electro-optic / infrared imaging, or other terminal seekers. Half the munition's weight is a warhead, with programmable detonation modes to ensure maximum pain on a target.
Hatchet was originally intended for use with small drones, but it is now being developed with an eye to other strike platforms, including fixed or rotary-wing air vehicles. Tests since 2016 led to all-up trials in 2018. Northrop Grumman is working on a stores adapter for 12 Hatchets, the assembly being in the 55-kilogram (125-pound) range, and a rotary dispenser for 54 Hatchets, in the 225-kilogram (500-pound) range.
* As discussed by an article from JANES.com ("AFRL Assigns X-60A Designation To GOLauncher1 Hypersonic Test Vehicle" by Richard Scott, 12 October 2018, the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has now assigned the experimental X-series designation "X-60A" to the "GOLauncher1 (GO1)" hypersonic flight research vehicle, under development by Generation Orbit Launch Services under contract to the AFRL.
The X-60A is an air-launched vehicle, intended as a hypersonic trials testbed. It is powered by an Ursa Major Technologies "Hadley" liquid rocket engine, using liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. The launch platform is a NASA C-20A (Gulfstream III) executive jet, with the X-60A carried on a centerline pylon. The AFRL handed Generation Orbit an initial contract in 2014, with initial air carriage tests in late 2017, and first flight test to be in late 2019.
Generation Orbit is also working on the "Golauncher2", which is a two-stage vehicle, intended for launching suborbital payloads, or placing smallsats of up to about 45 kilograms (100 pounds) in low Earth orbit. "Watch this space."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* DISCOVERING RNA VIRUSES: As discussed by an article from NATURE.com ("Huge Trove Of Unknown Viruses Found In Fish, Frogs, & Reptiles" by Giorgia Guglielmi, 4 April 2018), researchers have uncovered 200 previously unknown viruses related to those that cause illnesses such as influenza and haemorrhagic fevers. The work also traced the origins of these RNA viruses back hundreds of millions of years.
RNA viruses cause a wide range of diseases in people and livestock, and so researchers have mostly studied the ones that infect mammals and birds -- influenza being a particularly significant case. In an effort to learn more about the evolution of RNA viruses, researchers have started to investigate other vertebrate classes, including fishes, amphibians and reptiles.
According to Edward Holmes -- an evolutionary virologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, and one of the authors of the study -- it is becoming clear that RNA viruses are much more abundant and widespread than previously thought. The large number of such viruses gives many more opportunities for "species jumps", in which humans are targeted by viruses that were not, to that time, any problem.
Earlier studies have RNA viruses in newts and salamanders, but scientists didn't know much about the ones that infected other amphibians, reptiles, and fish. So Holmes and his colleagues looked at nearly 190 creatures in other vertebrate classes -- from jawless fish such as lampreys, which seem to have changed little from their evolutionary ancestors, to reptiles such as turtles. By analyzing RNA extracted from the animals' guts, livers, lungs, or gills, the team discovered 214 RNA viruses never described before.
Most belong to virus families known to infect birds and mammals. For example, some fish may carry viruses related to the deadly Ebola virus. Holmes found that surprising, but says that these fish viruses are very unlikely to be any threat to humans. Viruses tend to be tailored by evolution to particular hosts, and fish are so unlike humans as to make a viral "species jump" unlikely.
The study traced the evolution of the viruses, with the researchers putting together evolutionary trees of the new-found viruses, and of their hosts. Not surprisingly, the two histories tracked each other. The team concluded that viruses followed diverging paths as vertebrates moved from sea to land: RNA viruses that infect people today, by extrapolation, presumably evolved from viruses that infected our vertebrate ancestors 500 million years ago.
Researchers had already suspected RNA viruses were ancient, since they are found infecting single-celled organisms such as amoebas, as well as invertebrates such as insects and worms. The new study underlines the way the viruses track host evolution.
Zhang Yong-Zhen -- a virologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing who participated in the study -- says the research just scratches the surface of the sheer number and variety of the world's viruses. Zhang's team collected samples mainly from China, searching for new RNA viruses by comparing the genetic sequences they found with those of known viruses. As Zhang points out, viruses with RNA sequences dissimilar to any known virus won't show up using this approach; he adds that vertebrates from other parts of the world might well host other RNA viruses not yet known to science.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* SHIFTING DARK ENERGY? Observations show the expansion of the Universe is accelerating in a way that can't be accounted for the known laws of physics, and so cosmologists have invoked a "mystery factor" known as "dark energy" to account for it. Dark energy doesn't really explain anything in itself; it simply provides a goalpost to work towards to determine if we have some basic misunderstanding of physics or observations -- or if there really is some previously unknown principle of physics at work.
The only way to resolve the question is with more observations. As discussed by a NASA press release ("New Results Show Dark Energy May Vary Over Time", 29 January 2019), a NASA study has provided a clue by suggesting that dark energy varies over time.
The study was based on observations in the x-ray and ultraviolet (UV) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, obtained by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton satellite. It leveraged off a new method of determining distances of about 1,598 quasars, which allowed the researchers to measure dark energy's effects from the early Universe through to the present day.
In quasars, a disk of matter around the supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy produces UV light. Some of the UV photons collide with electrons in a cloud of hot gas above and below the disk, with these collisions boosting the energy of the UV light up to X-ray energies. The UV and x-ray emissions are unsurprisingly correlated, the correlation varying with the luminosity of the quasar. With this technique, the quasars could be used as "standard candles": if the absolute luminosity of the quasars is known, the distance to a quasar can be determined by its observed brightness.
The researchers compiled UV data for 1,598 quasars to map the correspondence of UX / X-ray flux, and the distances to the quasars. From that data, they determined the expansion rate of the universe back towards its origins in the Big Bang, and found evidence that influence of dark energy is growing with time. To validate their work, they showed their results were consistent with those using supernovas as standard candles to probe back nine billion years. They were also careful in their selection of quasars, to avoid systematic / statistical errors that build up over distance.
* BLAZARS & STAR FORMATION: In related science news, as discussed by an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Blazing Quasars Reveal The Universe Hit 'Peak Star Birth' 3 Billion To 4 Billion Years After The Big Bang" by Sid Perkins, 29 November 2018), there was a time in the early Universe when the stars began to light up. Astronomers have now determined, from the light of distant quasars, that the peak rate of star formation was about 3 to 4 billion years after the Big Bang.
"Blazars" -- for "blazing quasars" -- are galaxies that produce intense brightness, up into the gamma-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum, generated mostly by gas, dust, and stars being sucked into the supermassive black holes that lie at their centers. As the material spirals in along the plane of the galaxy's disk, powerful beams of radiation blast out along the galaxy's rotational axis. When one of these beams is pointed in the direction of Earth, the blazar appears particularly bright.
In a recent, researchers looked at the radiation beamed toward Earth by more than 700 blazars scattered across the sky. Analyzing the blazars' gamma ray emissions, they found that some were damped more effectively than others. That's significant because when photons from the gamma rays travel through space, they can interact with the low-energy photons from stars to create subatomic particles, such as electrons and protons. The more gamma ray emissions are blocked, the thicker the fog of photons in that part of intergalactic space, and the greater the number of stars needed to make them.
The "foggier" the blazar, the greater the rate of star formation. Blazars have been found from 200 million to 11.6 billion light-years from the Earth. The maximum rate of star formation, the researchers found, occurred between 9.7 billion and 10.7 billion years ago.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* REPAIRING THE WELFARE STATE (1): As discussed by an article from ECONOMIST.com ("Repairing The Safety Net", 12 July 1941), in December 1942 -- when the war against the Axis powers was at its height and not going well for the Allies -- a British civil servant named William Beveridge released what was, considering the grim circumstances, a plan for a reformed society that seemed wildly in contrast to circumstances. In response to the "Five Giants" that afflicted society -- disease, idleness, ignorance, squalor, and want -- he proposed new benefits for the retired, disabled, and unemployed; a universal allowance for children; and a nationwide health service. It was a blueprint for the modern "welfare state".
It was exactly because of the grimness of the times that Beveridge's report received an overwhelmingly positive public reception, from all classes of British society. It was translated into 22 languages, with summaries air-dropped on Allied troops, and even behind Axis lines. Two heavily-annotated copies of the summary were found in Hitler's bunker.
Today, there is no such widespread enthusiasm. The Right denounces the welfare state as subverting capitalism and trapping the poor in dependency -- though the Right's instinctive anger at any talk of "redistribution" suggests their real concern is not with the poor, but with being taxed. In any case, support for the welfare state has been declining. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the USA most Republicans agreed with the idea that government should ensure citizens have enough to eat, and a place to sleep. Today, many denounce the concept as immoral. The Left sees the welfare state as vulnerable, under growing threat, and for good reason.
The term "welfare state" may be part of the problem. The Swedes call it "Folkhemmet (People's Home)", while the Germans call it "Sozialstaat (Social State)" -- but in the English-speaking world, no alternative label to "welfare state" has stuck. Beveridge hated the phrase, since it implied a "Santa Claus" state, when what he wanted was a system that was, at root, about personal responsibility. The term "welfare" tends to imply doles to the poor -- but that's only a small part of what the welfare state is about.
As originally conceived, the welfare state was a creation of centrist liberals on both sides of the political spectrum -- in a forgotten era when the Right still had its liberals, and liberalism was not a synonym for Leftism. Liberals such as Beveridge believed that people should take more responsibility for their own lives, and that the government should help them do it. They saw it not as mass charity, but as a necessary support to free-market capitalism.
The welfare state was nothing new: ancient Rome handed out grain to the hungry, while in Renaissance Europe towns such as Ypres collected alms to pay for ways of putting paupers to work. During the Industrial Revolution, England built workhouses where the impoverished broke stones and untangled rope in return for food and a bed. By the middle of the 19th century, however, such small-scale efforts were no longer adequate, industrialization and mass urbanization having overwhelmed them.
Pressure for change came from the Left -- but conservatives responded as well. Otto von Bismarck introduced the first social-insurance schemes in the 1880s. Worried about the fitness of "degenerate" masses to fight wars, European leaders backed improvements in public health and education. The welfare state that emerged was seen as the state maintaining the people as a military and economic resource.
However -- as pointed out by Chris Renwick, an historian at York University, in his book BREAD FOR ALL -- the early welfare state "owes most to liberalism". "New liberals", such as John Stuart Mill and Leonard Hobhouse, argued that freedom meant ensuring that people had the health, education and security to lead good lives. Some of these ideas underpinned early state-pension schemes and unemployment insurance in New Zealand, Australia and, in the first decade of the 20th century, Britain. [TO BE CONTINUED]
NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION (51): The fight against the Confederacy would end up being the biggest military struggle in American history to that time, with the Lincoln Administration attempting to mobilize Northern resources as quickly as possible. There was a perception on both sides that the other would be quickly defeated -- but Lincoln didn't make that assumption. After discussions with his lieutenants, the president established a long-term strategy, in which Confederate ports would be bottled up under blockade, while Union forces drove down the Mississippi, the goal being to cut the Confederacy in half.
Offensive operations against Confederate holdings in the East and West were also part of the plan, one of the initial Union efforts being against Confederate forces in the hill country of western Virginia. A Union force under Major General George Brinton McClellan quickly routed weak Confederate forces in the region -- with the Federal troops warmly greeted by the locals, the hill people having little sympathy with slavery.
The liberated region soon moved to set itself up as a state. The legal basis for doing so was, of course, not at all obvious. The Constitution made no provision for the secession of a state, and so the idea of part of that state seceding in turn was, to put it mildly, confusing. The flexibility of the Constitution sorted it out.
Article IV specified that no new state could be specified within the boundaries of an existing state -- except with the approval of the state government and Congress. Article IV also specified that the Federal government had to guarantee each state a Republican form of government; the secessionist Virginia state government, having unilaterally repudiated the Federal government, obviously was no longer regarded as legitimate by the Federal government. It was then straightforward, if a bit comical, to recognize the state government set up by the people of the liberated region as the proper "Republican" government of Virginia.
That done, the Unionist Virginia state government and Congress approved the formation of a new state out of the liberated region, with the state of West Virginia formally admitted to the Union on 20 June 1863, becoming the 35th state. It wasn't the only state admitted to the Union during the Civil War, Nevada joining in 1864, as the 36th state.
After West Virginia became a state, the Unionist Virginia state government stayed in existence, to in principle govern the parts of Virginia under Union occupation. After the fighting was over, two counties of West Virginia attempted to return to Virginia, but SCOTUS rejected the exercise in 1866. There was a later dispute over money owed by West Virginia to Virginia, with SCOTUS eventually siding with Virginia and ordering West Virginia to pay up $12 million.
* Events in what would become West Virginia were a sideshow to the real conflict. The war had been caused by slavery; slavery was, and would continue to be, an underlying element of the struggle. From early on, it became increasingly apparent that the institution of slavery was falling apart. At the outset of the conflict, the official policy of the Federal government was that the breakaway states would be brought back into the Union, with the status quo, including slavery, maintained. The problem was that, from the start of the conflict, runaway slaves crossed into Union-controlled territory to escape their masters. General Benjamin Butler -- a devious and unscrupulous Massachusetts politician, playing military officer under state commission -- ingeniously termed the escaped slaves "contraband of war", with the Union proclaiming the right to seize property, in this case slaves, of Southerners in rebellion against the Federal government.
On 6 August 1861, Congress passed a "First Confiscation Act" to endorse the scheme, with the "contrabands" effectively declared freemen. Lincoln felt the act went too far and was reluctant to sign, but he was persuaded by antislavery members of Congress to do so. In any case, slaves started coming over Union lines in increasing numbers. The Union set up "contraband camps" to care for them, hired them on as laborers, and eventually started to recruit them as soldiers.
The war was beginning to erode slavery, and in doing so eroded the idea that the states in rebellion could be brought back into the Union on the basis of the "status quo ante bellum". All the Confederate states were slave states, indeed, the Confederate constitution denied the right of a state to ban slavery; subtract slavery, and the fundamental basis of Southern society would cease to exist.
Lincoln thought that slavery had to go eventually, but he didn't want to get rid of it in a revolutionary fashion, instead working towards compensated emancipation. On 6 March 1862, President Lincoln sent a special message to Congress, that read in part:
BEGIN QUOTE:
Resolved, that the United States ought to co-operate with any state which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such state pecuniary aid, to be used by such state in its discretion to compensate for the inconveniences public and private produced by such change of system.
END QUOTE
The resolution was duly passed through both houses of Congress on 10 April. On 16 April, the Federal government then followed up the resolution by abolishing slavery in Washington DC, buying up the roughly 3,100 slaves in the city, paying up to $300 each. It was a minor exercise, but it had major significance: the Federal government had demonstrated both the will and the ability to free slaves in territory under its control.
Nonetheless, compensated emancipation would prove a non-starter. The leadership of the slave border states that had stayed with the Union regarded the idea with contempt, to the extent that they gave it any thought at all. The "Radical Republicans" in Congress, fiercely opposed to slavery and determined to make hard war on the South, were contemptuous. Congressman Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania -- among the hardest of the hard-liners -- called the measure "the most diluted, milk and water, gruel proposition that was ever given to the American nation." [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* Space launches for February included:
[05 FEB 19] IR SMN / SAFIR / DOUSTI (FAILURE) -- An Iranian Safir rocket attempted to put the Dousti remote sensing satellite into orbit. It was said to have a launch mass of 52 kilograms (114 pounds). Intelligence analysis showed it did not make orbit.
[05 FEB 19] EU KR / ARIANE 5 ECA / HELLAS-SAT 4 AKA SGS 1, GSAT 31 An Ariane 5 ECA booster was launched from Kourou in French Guiana at 2101 UTC (local time + 3) to put the "HellasSat 4 AKA SaudiGeoSat 1 (SGS 1)" and "GSAT 31" geostationary comsats into orbit.
Hellas-Sat 4 / SGS 1 was flown for King Abdulaziz City for Science & Technology (KACST), a government research institute in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Hellas-Sat, a subsidiary of Arabsat headquartered in Cyprus. The comsat was built by Lockheed Martin; it had a launch mass of 6,495 kilograms (14,320 pounds), a payload of Ka / Ku-band transponders, and a design lifetime of 15 years. It was placed in the geostationary slot at 39 degrees east longitude. It was intended to provide Ka-band broadband internet connectivity and other telecom services across Saudi Arabia and neighboring countries -- including secure military communications for nations in the Gulf Cooperative Council, a group composed of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates. The satellite's Ku-band payload was to be used by Hellas-Sat to beam direct-to-home television programming to parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
GSAT 31 was built and owned by the Indian Space Research Organization, to provide communications coverage over India, replacing the aging Insat 4CR spacecraft. It had a launch mass of 2,535 kilograms (5,590 pounds), a payload of Ku-band transponders, and a design life of 15 years. It was placed in the geostationary slot at 48 degrees east longitude to provide communications services -- including communications networks, broadcast television programming, and cellular back-haul connectivity -- to India, as well as neighboring islands and oceans.
-- 21 FEB 19 / EGYPTSAT A -- A Soyuz 2-1b booster was launched from Baikonur at 1647 UTC (local time + 6) to put the "EgyptSat A" Earth observation satellite into Sun-synchronous orbit for Egypt's National Authority for Remote Sensing & Space Science.
EgyptSat A was built by RSC Energia. It was the third Egyptian Earth observation satellite built in Russia, following the EgyptSat 1 spacecraft launched in 2007, and EgyptSat 2 launched in 2014. EgyptSat A replaced the EgyptSat 2 Earth-imaging satellite, which failed in orbit in 2015. EgyptSat A satellite was manufactured with money from an insurance payout from the loss of EgyptSat 2. EgyptSat A weighed more than a tonne fully fueled, and carried an imager with resolution of a meter. EgyptSat A featured several improvements over the EgyptSat 2 design, including an improved power system, and a high-speed radio link with ground stations.
-- 22 FEB 19 / NUSANTARA SATU, BERESHEET, S5 -- A SpaceX Falcon booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0145 UTC (next day local time + 3), carrying the Indonesian "Nusantara Satu" AKA "PSN 6" geostationary comsat, the Israeli "SpaceIL Lunar Lander" or "Beresheet", and the Pentagon's "S5" smallsat into space.
Nusantara Satu, the primary payload in the launch, was built by Space Systems Loral, and based on the SSL-1300 platform. It had a launch mass of 4,100 kilograms (9,040 pounds); a design life of 15 years; and a payload of 26 C-band / 12 extended C-band transponders / 8 Ku-band transponders, with spot beams, the satellite having a total bandwidth of 15 gigabits per second. Along with a liquid-fuel thruster system, it had an electric propulsion system that it used to raise itself from its geostationary transfer orbit to geostationary orbit. It was placed in the geostationary slot at 146 degrees east longitude to provide voice and data communications, broadband Internet, and video distribution throughout the Indonesian archipelago.
Beresheet was the first Israeli space probe, and was to be the first privately-operated mission, to land on the Moon. SpaceIL is a non-profit organization that was formed to compete for the Google Lunar X-Prize. The Lunar X-Prize proved unrealistic and was canceled, but SpaceIL and a few other competitors kept on working. The name "Beresheet" means "Genesis", in reference to the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning ..."
The lander was built by Israel Aerospace Industries. It had a launch mass of 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds), about 75% of that being propellant, consisting of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide. Its main propulsion system had a thrust of 445 N (45 kgp / 100 lbf); it also had eight control thrusters. Beresheet was placed in a high elliptical transfer orbit, gradually using its propulsion system to increase altitude until probe was captured by the Moon, to enter Moon orbit on 4 April 2019, and land a week later. However, the landing was a failure.
Its payload suite included a magnetometer, cameras, and a laser retroreflector. It also carried a time capsule with the Israeli flag, and digital copies of the Israeli national anthem, the Bible, and other national and cultural artifacts. The lander was battery-operated, and only functioned for two days.
S5 was described as a "space situational awareness" mission. The satellite was built by Blue Canyon Technologies, with a payload from Applied Defense Systems, and had a launch mass of about 60 kilograms (132 pounds). It was intended to monitor traffic in geostationary orbit, Blue Canyon stating that: "The objective of the S5 mission is to measure the feasibility and affordability of developing low-cost constellations for routine and frequent updates to the geostationary space catalog."
The Falcon first stage performed a soft landing on the SpaceX recovery barge. The payload fairing was not recovered.
-- 27 FEB 19 / ONEWEB PILOT -- A Soyuz ST-B booster was launched from Kourou in French Guiana at 2137 UTC (local time + 3) to put six satellites into orbit for OneWeb -- a company that plans to fly a constellation of hundreds of comsats into near-polar low Earth orbit, at an altitude of about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles).
Each satellite had a launch mass of 148 kilograms (325 pounds), and carried a Ku-band broadband payload. The launch was intended to establish OneWeb's use of the Ku-band to keep the International Telecommunications Union happy. The satellites were carried on a dispenser made by Ruag of Sweden. Further launches of OneWeb satellites will carry 32 to 36 satellites each. OneWeb plans an initial constellation of 648 satellites. OneWeb's investors include Airbus, Coca-Cola, Virgin Group, Qualcomm SoftBank, and Intelsat.
* OTHER SPACE NEWS: As discussed by an article from CNN.com ("NASA's Newest Mission Will Study The Origins Of The Universe" by Ashley Strickland, 13 February 2019), NASA has now committed to a new mission to investigate cosmic origins, with the "Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx)" to be launched in 2023.
SPHEREx will leverage off technology developed for other satellites and Mars probes. It will perform observations in 96 optical and near-infrared bands to conduct sky surveys lasting six months each, collecting data on more than 100 million stars in our Galaxy, as well as 300 million galaxies.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AGE OF STRING: As discussed by an article from HAKAIMAGAZINE.com ("The Long, Knotty, World-Spanning Story of String" by Ferris Jabr, 6 March 2018), from 2004 to 2011 Kathryn Bard -- an archaeologist from Boston University -- and her research team spent their time digging into a site on the Egyptian coast. There were recesses in the sand dunes that looked like they might be entrances to caves, and they turned out to be so. Seven caves were investigated; it appeared they had been used as shelters and workshops during about 2000 to 1750 BCE.
A range of artifacts was uncovered, but it was the fifth cave to be opened that had the most striking discovery: more than 20 thick papyrus ropes, neatly coiled and intact. She says: "It was a scene frozen in time. They hadn't been disturbed for close to 4,000 years."
In his 1956 book THE MARLINSPIKE SAILOR, marine illustrator Hervey Garrett Smith suggested that rope is "probably the most remarkable product known to mankind." Sometime before the beginnings of written history, somebody invented string; it was then only a simple step to braid strings together to make rope. In any case, it was one of the most significant inventions in history.
A string can choke, trip, connect, and reel. String makes it possible to sew, to shoot an arrow, to strum a chord. It is hard to think of any classical technology that did not, in some way or another, use string. How could we have harnessed oxen and horses without it? Certainly it made the age of sail possible. According to Saskia Wolsak, an ethnobotanist at the University of British Columbia: "Everybody knows about fire and the wheel, but string is one of the most powerful tools and really the most overlooked. It's relatively invisible, until you start looking for it. Then you see it everywhere."
Our distant ancestors no doubt made use of vines early on; to then realize take fibers from the hair and tissues of animals, as well as from the husks, leaves, and innards of certain sinewy, pulpy, or pliant plants, such as agave, cannabis, coconut, cotton, and jute. By twisting these natural fibers around one another again and again, they ended up with string. Not too surprisingly, archaeologists rarely find strings in their digs, though one site did yield flax strings from about 30,000 years ago. Shell and bone beads, suggesting string, go back hundreds of thousands of years. A tool made of mammoth ivory with four holes, found in Germany and dating back about 40,000 years, was probably used to weave reeds, bark, and roots into a thick cord.
It was the invention of the sail that gave humans their first long-range transport technology, and the sail was useless without rope. Indeed, the fabric sail is just a matrix of strings. It's not known exactly when the sail was invented, but five thousand years ago, the Austronesians began charting and populating the many scattered islands of the Pacific, taking to the ocean in double-hulled canoes laden with chickens, fruit, tubers, and firewood. By 2600 BCE, the ancient Egyptians were sending sailing ships to Lebanon to gather cedar. Around 1000 CE, Viking explorer Leif Ericsson reached the shores of North America. In 1405, Chinese admiral Zheng He guided an armada of 317 ships to Southeast Asia and India in pursuit of exotic spices. In the following centuries, after all this precedent, Europe began to span the world numbers of carracks, caravels, frigates, and galleons.
It is characteristic of a mature technology that it may endure for centuries with no fundamental change. A sailing ship of the 18th century would have been essentially familiar to a sailor of the 16th century. It is also characteristic of a mature technology that it evolves into baroque forms: some of the later sailing ships were so elaborate that they looked more like parade floats than instruments of trade and war.
By the end of the 18th century, inventors were tinkering with steamships; by the end of the 19th century, the age of sail was over. Sailing vessels persist, but primarily as sport. However, that hardly meant that ships stopped needing string. Terry Schafer -- a navy shipyard rigger in Victoria, British Columbia -- got into cordage in the 1980s. He says: "When I finished my apprenticeship, I worried I had chosen a dying craft. But there is still a lot of demand for a skilled rigger today."
Schafer and his colleagues manufacture all the cordage the navy requires: tow ropes; hoist cables for cranes, winches, and dumbwaiters; woven fenders that cloak the lips of tugboats; ropes to tie the ships at harbor; ropes that fly the navy's flags; and artfully knotted ropes to ring the bells that help sailors stand watches. Schafer mostly works with synthetic materials including various plastics and metal wire, but he occasionally uses plant fibers as well: cotton, flax, manila hemp (from a species of banana), sisal (from agave), and coir (from the waterproof buoyant husks of coconuts).
And of course, with string, there's knots. There are dozens of different knots in common use; thousands are known. Anyone who's ever tinkered with knots knows how elaborate and ingenious they can be. Anyone who wants to be a handyperson has good use for a book on knots. To tie down cable bundles on the Mars rover Curiosity, NASA engineers relied on variations of the clove hitch and reef knot, two traditional knots that have been used for thousands of years.
In any case, a handyperson also keeps a stockpile of strings and rope around the house: who knows when it will come in handy? We can easily find it at home, at the store, at the workplace, at the doctor's office -- if, dread the fact, we have to get stitches. Indeed, string is heavily woven into our language: we learn the ropes, spin a yarn, hang by a thread ... and, when we join up to form a household, we tie the knot.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* FAKE FACES: As discussed by an article from CNN.com ("These People Do Not Exist" by Rachel Metz, 28 February 2019) Updated 9:21 AM ET, Thu February 28, 2019), anyone who goes to the website:
-- gets nothing but the photo of face of a person. Refresh the web page, it's a different person. Keep doing it, and there's never the same person.
None of these people actually exist. They were generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) system called a "generative adversarial network (GAN)". The web page was set up by software engineer Phillip Wang, previously at Uber, more or less for fun. It makes use of a new AI system named "StyleGAN", developed by researchers at chip-maker Nvidia.
Other GAN-based websites have popped up to turn out images of people, manga characters, vacation homes, and cats -- Wang himself having set up a second website named "thiscatdoesnotexist.com". Wang is fascinated by the potential of the technology, while also being worried about the potential harm. Much the same technology has been used to create "deepfakes", which are convincing -- but fabricated -- video and audio files. Many in the industry worry about deepfakes, and their obvious potential for misuse.
Wang sees his websites as educating people not to necessarily believe what they see on the internet: "I think those who are unaware of the technology are most vulnerable. It's kind of like phishing -- if you don't know about it, you may fall for it."
Wang put up his websites in early 2019, not long after Nvidia released StyleGAN. He soon had millions of visits: "I think for a lot of people out there, they look at this and go, 'Wow, THE MATRIX! Is this a simulation? Are people really in the computer?'"
The website doesn't really generate a new face on demand; it makes a new face every two seconds, and all who check the website simultaneously see the same face. Wang says: "You can think of it as the AI is dreaming up a new face every two seconds on the server and displaying that to the world."
The faces are never quite the same, with different face shapes, skin tones, eye colors, hair colors. Sometimes male faces have facial hair; some of the faces have make-up; some have sport glasses. They may smile or pout or look serious. Telltales can be seen, for example crooked teeth, ghastly skin blemishes, and clothing that looks bizarre.
As discussed here in 2018, the GAN was invented in 2014 by Google research scientist Ian Goodfellow. It was a slick idea, and it has taken the AI world by storm. A GAN consists of two neural networks. In the case of Wang's face-generating engine, after being trained on an initial batch of face images, one of the neural networks generates face images that vary in a random way, while the other judges whether the face is convincing.
Generating faces can have business applications. For example, a startup named Tangent is using GANs to modify faces of real-life models so online retailers can easily tweak catalog images for shoppers in different countries, instead of using different models or Photoshop. A video game company could use GANs to come up with new characters.
Christopher Schmidt, a software engineer at Google, was inspired by Wang's website to use StyleGAN to generate images of bedrooms, using Airbnb images to seed the system, the result being "thisrentaldoesnotexist.com". The result is not quite as convincing as Wang's efforts, sometimes resulting in surreal furniture or gibberish text. GANs work pretty well at faces; not so well at neatly-structured artifacts, since they don't tolerate random variations as well. Schmidt, however, doesn't see that as a bad thing, in that it educates visitors not to be too trusting: "Maybe we should all just think an extra couple of seconds before assuming something is real."
ED: There's been a lot of fussing about AI-generated fakery lately. As other commenters have pointed out, it's overblown. We already have a big fakery industry, and it's hard to think that adding more to its toolkit is going to make so much of a difference. People who eat up fakery are often completely indifferent to the fact that it's obvious; while the skeptical are not inclined to take dubious things at face value.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE (4): There's really never been a neat dividing line between setting up trade corridors and imperialism. The term "Silk Road", a popular buzzphrase for Chinese leaders, was invented in 1877 by a German geographer named Ferdinand von Richthofen -- uncle of the "Red Baron" -- to describe a set of ancient trading routes that had been established on the basis of blended commerce, diplomacy, and hard power. Chinese silks were available in Rome at the time of Julius Caesar, having been passed by intermediaries all the way from China. In some places, the Silk Road was protected by Chinese garrisons.
Chinese leaders have explicitly linked national security and BRI infrastructure projects -- with the BRI also playing a part in developing China's west, including the restive region of Xinjiang, where millions of Muslims from the Uighur minority endure harsh repression. Chinese leadership believes that economic development should help tame Uighur terrorism.
In short, as could be expected, the BRI serves several objectives, and they don't all seem sinister. However, the lack of transparency in the effort generates suspicions. European diplomats in Beijing note that China calls the BRI an open, multilateral "platform", but it was built via bilateral memorandums of understanding on 60 or 70 countries -- though the diplomats say that Beijing isn't pushing such documents any longer, several Western European countries having irritably refused. The countries that did sign are praised as members of the BRI initiative -- with a European diplomat wondering: "But members of what? There is no founding charter, there are no declarations of principles; everything is defined in Beijing."
The EU has pressed China to establish rules for transparency, labor standards, debt sustainability, open procurement processes, and environmental protection as the heart of the BRI. Sometimes the EU has become more outspoken in its suspicions: in April 2018, a German newspaper reported that 27 out of 28 EU ambassadors in Beijing had signed a report calling the BRI a challenge to free-trade rules, and a giveaway to subsidized Chinese companies. Rightist Hungary balked.
Some paranoid European politicians see Chinese efforts to court certain EU member states with the BRI scheme as a plot to divide the EU. Greece, which sold a majority stake in its main port of Piraeus to COSCO, a Chinese shipping giant, for 281 million euros ($312.5 million USD) in 2016, has blocked the EU from taking unified positions on Chinese garrison-building in the South China Sea, and on tougher screening of Chinese investments. It doesn't appear that China is trying to subvert the EU -- merely to establish relationships agreeable to China. If that works against EU interests, that is only Beijing's problem to the extent that the EU makes it one.
There are also concerns about China's efforts to challenge the West's near-monopoly in setting standards -- the common technical rules for high-speed trains, mobile communications, or financial payment systems. China will increasingly write such standards. It will also write trading rules that suit its state-led economy, though initially supplementing instead of replacing those of the World Trade Organization. As long as international bodies like the WTO provide international standards, China will find attempting to impose a new order an uphill struggle. Better to work to bend the WTO to its will; which is business as usual, for China and other countries.
Another sign of the growing ambitions of China is the arbitration courts China being set up to handle cross-border BRI disputes -- while UnionPay, a Chinese rival to Visa and MasterCard, is using the BRI to help its push into the African payment and debit-card market. Other African infrastructure works have been rebranded as BRI schemes, though they were first planned years ago.
No foreign government is suggesting that China should remain a rule-taker forever. China was once a world power, is a world power again, and is acting accordingly. The BRI is not, at least yet, a threat to the existing US-dominated rules-based international order; it is instead a challenge to it. Sooner or later, the BRI will need non-Chinese money, providing outsiders with bargaining power. Western governments can work within the BRI to make it more benign. Or the West can compete, selling the merits of the Western way. The international system retains its power; in the best of worlds, the BRI will become a useful element of the system, enhancing it instead of working against it.
China has a game plan, and the rest of the world will have to play with it. When it's a zero-sum game, that means confrontation; but the game may also have plenty of opportunities for cooperation. That's life on the global chessboard. [END OF SERIES]
START | PREV | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION (50): Despite Lincoln's stated intent to hold Federal installations in the seceding states, nearly all of them had been taken over by secessionists without a fight. Two forts in the Florida Keys still remained in Federal hands, being too remote and isolated to be affected by the trouble, as well as Fort Pickens, outside the harbor of Pensacola, Florida. These three installations were at little risk.
The real issue was Fort Sumter, in the mouth of the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. Its position meant it could block all traffic in or out of a busy harbor, and also that it could be put under fire from both sides of the mouth of the harbor. The Confederates built up batteries facing the fort, and had driven off a vessel attempting to relieve the isolated fort.
There was some inclination among Lincoln's cabinet of simply giving up Fort Sumter -- but after evaluating options, the president decided to stand firm. Some of the plans for resupplying Fort Sumter involved quietly slipping a civilian transport into Charleston harbor at night so that it might reach Fort Sumter without being fired on. Lincoln, drawing on his lawyer's cleverness, decided that Fort Sumter would be resupplied -- and then informed the South Carolina authorities of this decision on 6 April. He made it clear that he had no intention of sending in more troops or initiating violence.
Lincoln had properly understood the logic of the situation; he had changed the question from what the Union would do, to what the Confederacy was going to do. The South had unilaterally decided to reject Federal authority, but that was in itself a mere expression of principle. It ceased to be a mere expression of principle if the South then resorted to force to interfere with the workings of the Federal government. After all, if a citizen proclaimed he wasn't going to obey the laws, that was one thing; if he then took shots at police officers carrying out their duties to drive them off, that was very much another. If the Confederates let the resupply effort pass, they would be conceding to Union authority; if they fired on it, that would be treason.
In hindsight, had the Confederacy adopted a program of passive resistance to Federal authority, it would have demanded extreme patience to carry out, but -- as President Lincoln broadly realized -- it would have placed the government in Washington in a very difficult position. If the citizens of a state had collectively refused to cooperate with the Federal government, the government would have had to militarily occupy the state indefinitely. Use of force to compel obedience in the face of widespread and persistent nonviolent resistance would have discredited Lincoln's government. It would have been entirely impractical to arrest all the disobedient if they steadfastly refused to submit; and to the extent that people were arrested, the trials would have also discredited the government, with court proceedings providing a high-profile stage for secessionist theatrics.
The South might have let the supplies go through to Fort Sumter, stalled for time, and gradually wearied the crisis to death. However, few if any Southerners were in favor of a program of nonviolent resistance -- indeed, it's hard to find any mention of it; Jefferson Davis certainly was not considering that option. On instructions from Richmond, Confederate batteries began to hammer Fort Sumter on the morning of 12 April 1861. The fort capitulated at mid-day on 13 April. Nobody had been killed in the bombardment, but one Union man died during the surrender ceremony, when powder was set off by accident.
A conflict had been set in motion whose destructiveness could not then be imagined. The North would now take on the Confederacy and bring immense force to bear on it. Southerners would later brand this pure aggression, and a case can be made that it was, but Lincoln had played his cards well: there would never be any way to deny that, in the face of a confrontation on the edge of explosion, the Confederacy had shot first.
It is difficult to believe that there wouldn't have been war eventually. In states such as Kentucky and Missouri, where the populations were divided in their sympathies, secession was likely to lead to clashes, and clashes were likely to lead to confrontations between the Union and the Confederacy. The Confederacy also had ambitions for territorial expansion to the West, which would have also led to a fight with the Union. The creation of the Confederacy meant, as far the Federal government was concerned, the establishment of a rival foreign power on American soil, with ambitions antagonistic to Union interests. The house divided against itself implied confrontation.
However, history is not a controlled experiment, there's no way to know what would have really happened had events gone differently. The fact is that the shooting started with the bombardment of Fort Sumter. It is hard to believe that those who gave the order to fire weren't intelligent enough to realize that it meant war. The only explanation for why they did is that they thought, in defiance of all measures of material strength, that they would prevail.
Southerners would long blame the North for its war against the South; but though they would be damned if they'd admit it, as much or more blame might be placed on Southern leadership for taking their people over the precipice in a fit of hysteria. Yes, the Union response was drastic, but was secession was a drastic measure itself -- more drastic and reckless than can be easily appreciated, when it is beyond living memory -- and it left the Union with no alternatives except to cave in, or fight to win with as much savagery as needed to do so.
* On Monday, 15 April 1861, Lincoln issued a proclamation requesting 75,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days to deal with "combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings." That was about as close to a declaration of war as would have taken place: a war was a conflict between two nations, and the Federal government did not, would never, recognize the Confederacy as an independent nation. What Lincoln had on his hands was widespread rebellion.
The calling up of volunteers was met with widespread public enthusiasm in the North. However, states that had been holding off on joining the Confederacy threw their lot into the rebellion, with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas leaving the Union. Maryland was on the edge of secession -- which posed a major threat to Washington DC. On 27 April, Lincoln told Army leadership that the writ of habeas corpus was in suspension, and they could arrest anyone they pleased.
A man named John Merryman was in Baltimore at the time, enlisting recruits for the Confederacy; he was arrested and thrown behind bars. Chief Justice Taney issued a writ of habeas corpus, and sent a US marshal to serve it. The marshal was sent packing. Taney protested, but as the president replied a few weeks later in a speech: "Are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one go unexecuted?"
Since Lincoln had the soldiers -- and most of the members of Congress who would have had any sympathy for secessionist troublemakers had left -- the chief justice was powerless to do anything about the President's defiance. The Constitution allowed the suspension of habeas corpus in the case of a revolution in the first place. To be sure, that was a right of Congress, but Lincoln assumed the right with every expectation that Congress would approve, and of course Congress did. There were Republicans in Congress who would have approved of having them hanged.
The Northern public also generally approved. The Federal government moved decisively against suspected subversives, locking up those who seemed inclined to aid the Confederacy. Nonetheless, such actions were often restrained -- the government arresting citizens who appeared disloyal, then releasing them once they took a loyalty oath. That was letting them know they were on a leash, and that they would regret breaking the loyalty oath. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As reported by a BBC news video, the push to wean the world off of fossil fuels is taking place along many different routes in different places. Consider Amsterdam, laced with canals, with canal boats cruising leisurely along their waters. They're picturesque -- but they have a problem, in that they're powered by dirty diesel engines. As a consequence, all of Amsterdam's canal boats are legally obligated to go electric by 2025.
A few electric canal boats are already in service in the city, these boats being made by the Dutch "E-Ship" company. They don't appear to be anything all that innovative -- at least some diesel canal boats already have wi-fi and other modern amenities -- being just existing canal boats fitted with an electric drive and a battery pack. This is not cheap, however, running to about 2,500 euros ($2,875 USD) and taking the boat out of service for three months. It takes about ten hours to charge a boat, but it can then run for two days.
* The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was, as always, a chance for manufacturers to show off their latest gadgets. As discussed by an article from THEVERGE.com ("Kohler's Smart Toilet Promises A Fully-Immersive Experience" by James Vincent, 6 January 2019), the Kohler plumbing company -- now going on 150 years old -- used CES to introduce an "intelligent toilet" built-in surround sound speakers, ambient mood lighting, and Amazon Alexa voice controls.
As the author commented: "Truly, we live in an age of wonders", and found the "Numi 2.0" toilet an exercise that was difficult to distinguish from parody. Kohler literate called it a "fully-immersive experience", with Alexa allowing the user to cue up music and set lighting, while a heater add-on allows them to sit in comfort.
It's not completely new, as the "2.0" revcode suggests, the company having introduced its "Kohler Connect" scheme at the 2018 CES, showing off a smart shower, smart mirror, and smart tub. There's been some tweaks since then, but it's much the same: lights, music, and the ability to set bathtub temperature and depth with a voice command. None of it's cheap: a basic smart mirror is about $1,250 USD, the smart bathtub about $4,850 USD, and the intelligent toilet going for $7,000 USD -- more for black. Certainly an interesting idea, but only for people who see money as no objection.
* Mitsubishi Electric of Japan has now unveiled a prototype of a new lighting technology that looks like a window showing blue sky -- but it's not a window, it's a flat illuminating panel, driven by LEDs along the edges. The diffusing panel mimics the sky's "Rayleigh scattering effect", which passes shorter (blue) wavelengths of light and scatters longer (red) wavelengths of light. The color of the LEDs can be automatically varied to simulate sunrise and sunset.
The panel is about 10 centimeters (4 inches) thick, and can easily replace traditional overhead light fixtures. The new lighting scheme is likely to be no more expensive than traditional lighting systems, at least in maturity, with the LEDs being energy-efficient as well. Tech correspondents inspecting the prototypes find them very convincing. No word on product release date yet.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* WI-FI 6 ON THE PAD: As discussed by an article from THEVERGE.com ("Wi-Fi 6: Is It Really That Much Faster?" by Jacob Kastrenakes, 21 February 2019), old-timers who play with computers can remember the era when hooking up computers was a nightmarish exercise in cabling and configuration. Now we've got wireless routers that hook up all our gadgets over wi-fi -- and we take intercommunications for granted.
Wi-fi is now being upgraded, with "Wi-Fi 6" -- "WF6" for short -- which is now being rolled out. WF6 is much faster than the current "WF5", which was introduced in 2013, but it's more than just a speed boost; WF6 has rethought wi-fi to make sure it can adapt to the future.
Until recently, wi-fi revisions were designated with an arcane naming scheme, with users having to sort through specifications such as "802.11n", "802.11ac" and "802.11af". The Wi-Fi Alliance that controls the spec decided to relent and come up with simple revision codes, with the current generation -- 802.11ac -- becoming WF5. This new generation, originally 802.11ax, became WF6.
In any case, the speed boost of the new wi-fi is significant, with WF6 maxing out at a data transfer rate of 9.6 gigabits per second (GBPS), as compared to the 3.5 GBPS rate of WF5. On the face of it, the improvement is pointless. Even a zippy 100 megabit per second (MBPS) internet link is still two orders of magnitude slower than WF6. Anybody who's running a wi-fi link to a router hooked up to that 100 MBPS link isn't going to see a real difference between WF5 and WF6.
The trick is that 9.6 GBPS data rate applies to the collective of all devices hooked up over wi-fi to that wireless router. It doesn't really mean any one device runs faster; it means that more devices can run at high speed at the same time. When WF5 came out, the average US household had about five wi-fi devices in it. Now the average is nine, and the number is expected to grow significantly.
A WF6 router not only has more bandwidth, it's smarter in handling that bandwidth, making sure that all the wi-fi devices in a home are operating at high speed. That's due to two key technologies, "MU-MIMO" and "OFDMA":
Another plus with WF6 is that devices designed for low-power operation can plan out their communications with the router in a smarter fashion, reducing power drain. This is due to a feature named "Target Wake Time", which lets routers schedule check-in times with devices. WF6 also supports improved wireless link security via the "WPA3" protocol. That's not new, WF5 supports WPA3 as well, but it's optional. For WF6, it's standard.
Devices with WF6 are now starting to be delivered. In a few years, it will be the default; buy a gadget with wi-fi, it will be WF6-compatible. It will still work with WF5 routers, of course. It's not likely that anyone will notice much difference at first; eventually, users will need to spring for a WF6 router to make sure they get the benefit.
ED: I like to watch anime in bed on my smartphone, and sometimes the video hangs up while downloading. I was wondering where the bottleneck was, and thought it was wi-fi to my smartphone. On writing up this article, I decided to get onto Android Store, and downloaded the "Speedcheck Simple" app.
On running it, I had download speeds of over 8 MBPS, and standard-resolution video runs at no more than 4 MBPS. No sense in downloading HD video: the smartphone can't make use of it, and anime doesn't look any better in HD anyway. My internet hookup is about 12 MBPS -- so unless that's bogged down by traffic, the hangup appears to be on the video provider's end. Nothing I can do but wait for the hangups to be fixed.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ERA OF THE DECCAN TRAPS: As discussed by an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Did Volcanic Eruptions Help Kill Off The Dinosaurs?" by Paul Voosen, 21 September 2019), in the 1980s the theory arose that an asteroid impact 66 million years ago on what is now the Yucatan Peninsula killed off the dinosaurs. Ever since that theory was published, there's been an argument over whether the impact actually caused the mass extinction of the great reptiles -- some paleontologists saying the fossil record shows the dinosaurs were in decline well before the impact. The impact was just the final blow that killed them off for good.
The asteroid-impact hypothesis has remained predominant, in large part because it's so straightforward, but the alternatives haven't gone away. It is known that roughly in parallel with the impact, there was a massive series of volcanic eruptions in what is now India, covering an area the size of Texas in lava floods. In the course of a million years of eruptions, the greenhouse gases released could have raised global temperatures and poisoned the oceans -- with the dinosaurs suffering accordingly.
However, the exact timing of these "Deccan Trap" eruptions is uncertain, and not everyone is convinced they were the real culprit. Princeton University's Gerta Keller has raised very strong objections that they had so much to with wiping out 60% of all the animal and plant species on Earth, including most of the dinosaurs. In reply, two new studies give the most precise dates for the eruptions obtained to this time, and provide more ammunition for the case that the Deccan Traps may have played some role in the dinosaurs' extinction.
It has long been known that the Earth's climate was in flux before the Yucatan impact. About 400,000 years before the event, the planet gradually warmed by about 5 degrees Celsius, to then plunge in temperature just before the asteroid fell to Earth. There have been suggestions that the Deccan Traps might be responsible for the warming, with 80% of the lava deposited before the impact.
The new studies do not exactly confirm that scenario. For one of the studies, Courtney Sprain -- a geochronologist at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom -- and colleagues took three trips to India's Western Ghats, home to some of the thickest lava deposits from the Deccan Traps. They sampled various basaltic rocks formed by the event, and used argon-argon radioactive dating to determine when the eruptions that produced them occurred.
They concluded the eruptions began 400,000 years before the impact, then went into high gear afterward, releasing 75% of their total volume in the 600,000 years after the event. If the Deccan Traps caused the global warming, their CO2 emissions had to have been concentrated before the eruptions really got rolling. Sprain says that's not implausible, since modern volcanoes leak volumes of CO2 even when they're not erupting. It is possible that the impact itself switched the eruptions into overdrive. Why not? It's not like we have any experience to tell us what could happen.
The second study used a different method to date the eruptions. A team including Gerta Keller and led by Blair Schoene, a geochronologist at Princeton, inspected zircon crystals trapped between layers of basalt. These zircons can be precisely dated using the decay of uranium to lead, providing time stamps for the layers bracketing the eruptions. They sampled 140 sites; since zircons are rare, it took several years of full-time work to sift them out of the samples.
Analysis of the zircons suggests that the Deccan Traps erupted in four intense pulses, not continuously, as Sprain suggests. One pulse occurred right before the asteroid strike, meaning it doesn't seem the impact set off the eruptions, and the Deccan Traps might have caused the warming after all. Schoene cautions there's never been a clear idea of how exactly these eruptions could directly cause such extinctions.
The differences between the two studies are less significant than their similarities, Schoene saying: "If you plot the data sets over each other, there's almost perfect agreement." Previous attempts to date the Deccan Traps didn't line up, but refined techniques and calibration have finally got them to converge.
The extinction of the dinosaurs has a particular relevance in an era of climate change, since understanding how and why the climate changed then can provide data on the changes it's going through now. Sprain says: "This is the most recent mass extinction we have."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE (3): Countries that have been involved in China's BRI have learned to be cautious, in particular being leery of debt trap. It is hard to have an exact count of the sums involved in the BRI, but there's no doubt they're huge. It's not a question of China dominating infrastructure investment, since many countries in Asia are pumping vast amounts of money into it on their own. The problem is Chinese investment in the weak players. For example, a China-Laos railway, begun in 2016, could cost the equivalent of almost half Laos's GDP.
The loans to support these efforts are not, as a rule, all that soft. The AidData project at the College of William & Mary, in Virginia, tracked $354 billion USD in Chinese overseas lending in 2000:2014, to find that about three-quarters of the loans were at commercial interest rates. Some American officials characterize the Chinese loans as "predatory"; the Trump Administration is not a source of impartial data on China, but even Christine Lagarde, the head of the IMF, expressed worries during a speech in Beijing that Chinese lending could be problematic; and that not all Chinese-backed projects were necessarily appropriate to the target countries.
Indeed, some countries have said: "No thanks". Fears of debt burden and dodgy financial arrangements -- corruption being an element in that; big money tends to promote it -- have led to Chinese-funded projects being canceled, suspended, or referred to anti-corruption watchdogs for review in Nepal, Myanmar and, as discussed earlier, most dramatically in Malaysia. Pakistan, a close friend to China and home to the biggest single BRI project, the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), projects have been curtailed, as officials consider their options. In Sri Lanka, disputes about China's influence in domestic politics helped topple a government.
Of course, and to no surprise, BRI projects benefit Chinese firms. Since BRI projects aren't always labeled as such, it's hard to nail them down, but an analysis of data on all known Chinese-funded transport projects in 69 Eurasian countries by the Reconnecting Asia project at CSIS found a noticeable difference between projects funded by Chinese policy banks and state-run funds -- and those financed by multilateral development banks. CSIS discovered that when the projects were Chinese-funded, 89% of contractors were Chinese companies -- but when projects were funded by multilateral organizations, four in ten contractors were local, less than a third were Chinese, and the rest came from third countries.
China is not unique in providing aid with strings attached, but the strings contradict Chinese rhetoric about "community and shared destiny" -- while projects carried out by Chinese workers, paid by host-government debt, causes annoyance.
Chinese leadership know the BRI has an image problem. In meetings with Western leaders, Chinese leaders have as of late been downplaying their ambitions for global expansion. In 2014, China invited foreign governments to join a new Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) -- a multilateral lender based in Beijing that won praise for following international norms on everything from public tendering to environmental standards. Alas for China, the management of the AIIB keeps their distance from the BRI, which did nothing to reduce suspicions of the BRI. However, the FINANCIAL TIMES has that the China Development Bank, a big BRI player, is "actively co-operating" with Western institutions on joint-lending subject to international rules.
David Dollar, who served as the American Treasury's chief envoy to China in 2009-13, sees Chinese lending as by no means completely unreasonable: "A lot of countries are running trade surpluses with China because they are selling [the Chinese] natural resources. So borrowing from China makes sense."
If the BRI is about building infrastructure and exporting surplus capacity, China will grow more cautious about lending to bad risks. On the other hand, as Dollar suggests, if the Chinese have broader geostrategic interests in mind, risk won't mean so much to them. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AMERICA'S CONSTITUTION (49): Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as POTUS 16 on 4 March 1861. In his inaugural address, Lincoln firmly rejected the constitutional legitimacy of secession:
BEGIN QUOTE:
I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination ...
It follows from these views that no State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that Resolves and Ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
END QUOTE
As far as he was concerned, with all justification in the text of the Constitution, the Union was "unbroken", and he would continue to "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts." He continued to identify the source of the troubles between the South and the North:
BEGIN QUOTE:
One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute.
END QUOTE
He rejected the idea that it was a state's own business if it wished to withdraw from the Union; it was, on the establishment of the Constitution, the business of the entire Union. He saw it as much like members of a household trying to wall off their part of the house against the wishes of the other members. The rest of the household had every proper reason to object: "Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them." He ended with a plea:
BEGIN QUOTE:
My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it.
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
I am loathe to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
END QUOTE
It is said that, on that day, James Buchanan told Abraham Lincoln: "If you are as happy entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to [my home], you are a happy man indeed." [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed by an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Here's How Your City's Climate Will Change By 2080" by Sid Perkins, 12 February 2019), everyone's used to weather reports, and more or less depends on them. Now a set of researchers has created a climate report website at:
https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/
-- to tell people living in 540 US and Canadian cities what their climate will be like in 2080.
The researchers made use of 27 different climate models to examine 12 different aspects of climate -- such as maximum and minimum temperatures, precipitation, and the variation of those factors with the seasons -- for each of the locations, under two scenarios:
They then contrasted the current climate for each city against the climate forecasted for it. In the lower-emissions scenario, about 70% of the cities have a "future climate sister city," but it's typically hundreds of kilometers away to the south. However, in the high-emission scenario, only 17% of locations will have sister cities; the rest will have temperatures and precipitation unlike anything seen in the Western Hemisphere north of the equator in the present day.
* Parasitic organism are sometimes called "degenerate" -- which from an evolutionary point of view is misleading, since they may be very highly adapted to their roles in life. However, since they are dependent on their hosts, parasites may be missing bio-machinery redundant with that provided by a host.
As a case in point, an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Mistletoe Is Missing The Machinery To Make Energy" by Roni Dengler, 3 May 2018) discussed how the European mistletoe, a parasitic plant, has dysfunctional mitochondria -- the mitochondrion being a cellular organelle that acts as a cell's energy plant. A mitochondrion uses electron transport chains to convert electrons to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell's energy currency.
Two independent research groups, investigating mistletoe, found something that didn't seem to add up. Mitochondria are descendants of free-living prokaryotes and have their own little genomes; sequencing of the plant's mitochondrial genomes showed the mitochondria were lacking in genes for coding the protein subunits that make up the electron transport chain's first station, named "complex I". This has not been observed in other multicellular organisms. Had the genes simply relocated to the cellular nucleus? That seemed unlikely, since so many of the genes had vanished.
To determine how much of the assembly line machinery had disappeared, researchers extracted proteins from mitochondria in the mistletoe's leaves, then compared them to those of a small flowering weed of the mustard family known as Arabidopsis thaliana, a popular "lab rat". While they found evidence for the machinery of other stations in the mistletoe transport chain, they found no trace of complex. In addition, the other transport chain stations -- complexes II to V -- had significantly less protein than Arabidopsis, suggesting that mistletoe is unable to produce all the energy it needs using this system.
So how does mistletoe get by? It appears, being a parasite, the mistletoe plant can make ATP by breaking down sugar stolen from their hosts. Free-riding on a host, mistletoe doesn't need to do all of the job itself.
* As discussed by an article from NATURE.com ("CRISPR 'Barcodes' Map Mammalian Development In Exquisite Detail" by Matthew Warren, 09 August 2018), researchers have now used the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing scheme to trace a mammal's development from a single egg into an embryo with millions of cells.
Biologists had previously used a variety of methods to trace the cellular development of organisms, such as using dyes as cellular labels. However, such schemes couldn't trace development through very many divisions, giving them limited reach. CRISPR-Cas9 has now emerged as a far more powerful tool for tracing development.
In zebrafish, for example, researchers have spliced genetic sequences into the genome that act like recording tape. CRISPR leaves its mark on these sequences by adding or deleting DNA, giving each cell a unique genetic barcode. These edits accumulate as the cells divide. By reading off the barcodes, scientists can reconstruct the cellular family tree.
Mammals such as mice have far more cells than do zebrafish. To track their development using CRISPR, a research team led by Reza Kalhor, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, bred a line of mice that contained 60 of these "barcoding" sites scattered throughout their genomes. By defining the presence of a site as "1" and its absence as "0", that gave a to give a unique tag to each of an adult mouse's 10 billion cells.
The researchers then inspected the pattern of changes that accumulated in the barcodes of 12-day-old mouse embryos -- which allowed them to trace the histories of cells in each embryo's primitive heart and limbs, as well as its placenta.
The team also showed how barcoding can help to answer questions about a mammal's development. By examining brain tissue from embryos, they found that the barcode patterns were more similar between equivalent regions of the left and right side of the brain -- meaning they had had formed from recent cell divisions -- than between cells from different regions of the same side. That suggests the axis that runs from front to back of the brain is formed before the one that runs from left to right. This pattern has not proven obvious with existing tools.
Currently, the scheme has the limitation that the barcodes are being read out of clusters of cells, but Kahlor says the researchers are seeking methods to tackle the job of reading out barcodes from individual cells -- which would help figure out how the cells physically fit into the system. Along with investigating development, the barcode scheme could be used to trace the histories of cancerous cells.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CHINESE FAKES PERSIST: China has had a bad reputation as a source of counterfeit goods -- though, as reported here in 2012, the Chinese government has cracked down on their manufacturers. As discussed by an article from BLOOMBERG.com ("How Chinese Sellers of Fake Dior Are Evading a Crackdown Online", 16 January 2019), counterfeiting is still alive and well in China. The global trade in counterfeits -- including luxury goods, consumer products, pharmaceuticals, and other categories -- is expected to grow to almost a trillion USD in 2022, compared to less than half that a decade earlier. China and Hong Kong are the biggest sources of exported counterfeits.
The Chinese government's effort to suppress counterfeiting is clearly serious. Chinese counterfeiting has been a long-standing complaint of China's trading partners, and as Chinese companies become brand names themselves, they become victims too. Bazaars dedicated to peddling fake watches, shoes, and bags, having become an embarrassment, have been shut down and demolished. At the beginning of 2019, a law went into effect that threatens online retailers selling counterfeits with fines of up to to 2 million yuan (almost $300,000). The counterfeiters have adapted, selling their products through social messaging networks like Tencent WeChat, or Instagram, with buyers then order and pay through private messaging apps. Such transactions dodge the law by operating on a "friend-to-friend" basis, and not as e-commerce transaction.
At present, a counterfeit black Dior saddle bag can be obtained for about $255 USD on a Chinese social media network. That's less than a twelfth of the $3,250 USD price-tag on the real thing, though still more expensive than the average high-street bag. The counterfeit is of good quality, and is hard to tell from the Dior product. It even comes in spiffy Dior packaging, of course with a certificate of authenticity.
There's plenty of demand in China for high-end luxury goods. Chinese consumers account for a third of the $1 trillion USD in global luxury demand. Most Chinese can't afford to buy the real thing, so they are happy with a cheaper facsimile. Fan Yang -- an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, who's written a book on Chinese counterfeits -- comments: "The income disparity across China's diverse population -- coastal versus inland, urban elites versus migrant workers -- means that lower-priced goods, including those accused of being fake, will unlikely lose their market in China any time soon."
Counterfeiters selling goods on Instagram typically put up a picture of a bag or other product they are selling, without saying if it is fake or real. They list contact details for Chinese or international messaging services that buyers can use to make the purchase. The counterfeiters like to use hashtags associated with real brands, like #Dior or #Birkin. An Instagram spokesman says the company has a sophisticated spam detection / blocking system to deal with counterfeiting. The system is being continually improved, with more resources allocated to it from 2018.
Chinese internet platforms like Alibaba have had a bad reputation for supporting counterfeiters. In 2015, Kering SA -- which owns Gucci and Saint Laurent -- sued Alibaba over sales of counterfeit products. However, Chinese internet firms have got the message, both because of international and government pressure. Kering dropped the suit in 2017, the two companies having set up a joint task force to fight fakes. That same year, Alibaba launched an "Intellectual Property Protection" platform where brands can file complaints and get a response within 24 hours. Alibaba has also developed systems to identify listings for fakes, so they can be removed.
Counterfeiters have tried to dodge the system by listing unbranded bags, and asking customers to inquire for details. Such stealthy listings are common in Alibaba's Xianyu service, comparable to eBay. The Chinese government is continuing to increase the pressure on e-commerce firms, and they are motivated to increase their own efforts in pace. Nonetheless, crooks are ingenious, and are likely to find new loopholes through the system.
ED: I bought a cheap little made-in-China GameBoy clone that was packed with over 150 old games from Amazon.com. It was a fun buy for the money and thought of getting something better -- but on checking Amazon a few times, the models available changed all the time, with the new models sometimes being re-listings of old ones under a different name. I finally suspected that the vendors were getting hit with complaints from Nintendo over ripping off their old games -- and so were changing company and product names on a regular basis to present a moving target.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ELECTRIC ZIP: As discussed by an article from BLOOMBERG.com ("The New Hot Rods Are Souped-Up Vintage Cars With Electric Motors", By Jason Clenfield & Watanabe Chisake, 9 January 2019), a visit to Furukawa Osamu's garage in the Tokyo area reveals classic cars in mint condition: a yellow 1977 Volkswagen Beetle, a rare three-wheeled cherry-red Messerschmitt from the 1950s. They're not just restorations, however: they run on electric motors, driven by batteries. Furukawa says: "This is about how fun a car can be."
There are currently about a dozen garages around the world that specialize in electric-vehicle (EV) conversions of classic cars. They cater to a wealthy clientele that likes classic cars, but want something that's also up-to-date, with more power, reliability, and fuel efficiency than the originals.
EV conversions have been around since the 1960s, when hippies and engineering geeks started to fit cars with electric powertrains, using generators salvaged from aircraft as motors, driven by stacks of golf-cart batteries. During the oil crisis of 1979, Michael Brown founded Michael Brown founded Electro Automotive near Santa Cruz CA, with his wife and business partner, Shari Prange; they went to sell thousands of do-it-yourself conversion kits.
The main motivation in those days was environmental. That's still important for people buying EV conversions these days, but now style and speed are issues as well. Richard Morgan, owner of Electric Classic Cars in Newtown, Wales, comments: "Every single conversion that we do ends up having more power than the original. These aren't slow milk floats that are boring." -- referring to the electric vehicles that used to deliver milk across the UK. "These things kick ass."
Since he was a teenager in the 1980s, Morgan loved classic cars -- but keeping them in running condition was a pain. The solution was to replace their piston engine with electric motors, which are much simpler and more reliable. The resulting vehicles are also, as a rule, much more powerful. Morgan claims that a 1973 VW Beetle he converted got a power boost of a factor of ten. In addition, there's no noticeable lag between flooring the accelerator and a burst of power, with the driver immediately pinned to the seat. Skeptics who get behind the wheel of an EV conversion tend to become believers right away.
Morgan's only been in business for about three years, having advertised on Instagram and Facebook. Now he's got as much business as he can handle, from all over the world. Other people are getting into the business. Not so far away, in 2017 Matthew Quitter opened up a garage named London Electric Cars, specializing in EV conversions of the Morris Minor, a boxy and stodgy car well-known in the UK in the 1960s. Quitter didn't really start out as a gearhead; he was a composer who taught himself about EVs watching YouTube videos and surfing the internet. He's doing a good business with his electric Morris Minors: "Lots of people grew up with their parents having these cars. There's a real nostalgia for them."
Michael Bream -- proprietor of EV West, a garage near San Diego -- aims somewhat higher, with clients including tech executives and Hollywood types. In 2018, helped put together the world's first electric Ferrari, a 1978 308 GTS that sold at auction for $80,000 USD. Other vehicles in his shop include a 1985 DeLorean, 1996 BMW M3, and a 1968 Porsche 911.
According to Bream, there's a lot of activity in taking Tesla drivetrains and putting them into lovely, smaller older cars. That means serious speed: "I have a motor where you can be going 100 miles an hour down the freeway, but you blip the throttle and it will still smoke the tires." He adds that there's a lively secondary market for Tesla batteries, as well as those from LG Chem, which makes the electric motors used in the Chevy Volt and Hyundai Kona.
One of the more interesting of Bream's projects was an EV conversion for Chris Sakanai, a software jockey for the CALL OF DUTY video game franchise. Sakanai first thought of buying a Tesla, but opted for something more out of the box. He bought a red 1951 Chevy pickup for $20,000 USD; it had a beautifully restored body, but the drivetrain was shot. No problem; working with Bream, six months and $40,000 USD later, he had an electric pickup with 48 kilowatt-hours' worth of Tesla batteries under its rear bed, and a 240-kilometer (150 mile) range.
It also has zip that no 1951 Chevy pickup had when it was rolled off the production line. Sakanai says: "I get tons of reactions. People are expecting this big, rumbling V-8 that you hear from a mile away, but when I start it up, and it's completely quiet. They're like: 'Whoa, hold up. What's going on under the hood?'"
* In a related article from THEVERGE.com ("Aston Martin Will Make Old Cars Electric So They Don't Get Banned From Cities" by Sean O'Kane, 6 December 2018), car manufacturers themselves are getting into the EV conversion act. British car-maker Aston Martin is now starting up a "Heritage EV" program where owners of classic Aston Martins can turn their cars into electrics.
Aston Martin has a somewhat different agenda in the EV conversion program than do people like Morgan and Bream. Cities around the world, particularly in Europe, have begun to clamp down on internal combustion engines, primarily to improve air quality. That poses the threat to owners of classic cars, who won't be able to drive them anywhere any longer.
Aston Martin officials the technology for the EV conversions are based on those developed for the "Rapide E", a limited-edition sports car, only 155 to be built, to be introduced soon. Aston Martin will build "cassettes" using Rapide E technology that can essentially slide in where the original engine and gearbox used to be, even being attached to the same mountings. There's little other change to the car, and it could be converted back to internal combustion power if desired. The company hasn't talked prices yet.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* BELT & ROAD INITIATIVE (2): On close inspection, China's Belt & Road Initiative doesn't look all that menacing. After lacing China with high-speed rail lines, roads, and electricity grids, the country's firms, many state-owned, have expertise they can export. China has plenty of capital, a need to develop its relatively poor West through connections to Eurasia, and a desire for closer ties with the 14 countries on its land borders.
However, there's still much to the BRI that is unsettling. It is secretive, with no document available to the public that nails it down in specifics -- which suggests fuzziness, hidden agendas, or both. The scheme has expanded far beyond its original core of Eurasia and the Middle East, now ranging from New Zealand to the Arctic, Africa to Latin America, and even outer space. Estimates of the BRI's total intended investment range from $1 trillion to $8 trillion USD. Jonathan Hillman of the Reconnecting Asia Project -- a database of transport and energy projects at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC -- comments drily: "Hardly a rounding error."
China does not systematically report on its lending overseas. Western intelligence has obtained Chinese documents going back to the previous decade that indicate the People's Liberation Army a "string of pearls" of military bases far from its shores. Some of pearls are far-flung. A new Chinese wharf in the Pacific island of Vanuatu lies in Australia's South Pacific backyard, 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles) from Brisbane. The terms of Vanuatu's contract with China are not reassuring, the effort being funded by a 15-year loan at 2.5% interest with the government-owned China ExIm Bank that can be called in, in full, in the event of non-payment.
Nadege Rolland, author of CHINA'S EURASIAN CENTURY? -- a book on the BRI -- suggests that statements of Xi and other senior Chinese leaders reveal a plan for "a risen China sitting at the heart of a Sinocentric regional order". Xiang Lanxin, director of the Centre of One Belt One Road & Eurasian Security, a Shanghai-based think-tank, does agree that the BRI embodies Chinese strategic goals; but says those goals are both clear and respectable. Xiange sees the BRI as a scheme to counterbalance the influence of America and its allies by deepening ties with Eurasia. He admits that clumsy BRI propaganda has alarmed neighbors unnecessarily. When Chinese officials "say there is no geopolitics involved ... that's not quite convincing, because it does involve geopolitics. Everybody realizes that."
The BRI is also a soft-power scheme. Foreign officials are selected for an 11-month course in Xiamen at Huaqiao University's new Maritime Silk Road Institute to study China's approach to globalization, with China paying their way. Some leave impressed, particularly those from countries not on good terms with the West, such as Myanmar. That points to the reality that China isn't as fussy about who it courts as the West, being calculating in picking friends. As neatly catalogued by Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund, a think-tank, China's friends include:
Xu Peiyuan, an economist and the institute's executive vice-president, can deliver a smooth sales job on the BRI. He cites Xi about China building a global "community of shared destiny and interest". Xu also says China wants to treat all political systems as equal -- that is, turning a blind eye to how dirty a country is -- while remaining distant from "color revolutions" -- Chinese buzzspeak for pro-democracy movements like those that rocked Iran and Ukraine.
Students at the institute like the BRI and the message of Chinese governance style they are receiving, one saying: "It will introduce a new model to the world. And we are ready to accept that." There is, of course, nothing new about "realpolitik" as exercised by an authoritarian state -- and not surprising that there are those on the other side of the arrangement who find it convenient. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* ANOTHER MONTH: As discussed by an article from Associated Press ("Lightsaber Dueling Is Now Recognized As a Competitive Sport in France", by John Leicester, 18 February 2019), the STAR WARS franchise has global reach -- as shown by the fact that lightsaber duels are now a competitive sport in France.
Of course, this is a fantasy sport, there being not much lethal about the plastic, LED-illuminated lightsaber replicas used in the bouts. Some of the higher-end lightsabers also generate a menacing electric rumble, but they're no more dangerous. Nonetheless, the three-minute bouts require a lot of training and involve a lot of exertion, and so the French Fencing Federation has accepted the lightsaber.
Federation officials believe that embracing the Force will help them reach young people in need of exercise. Serge Aubailly, the federation secretary general, says:
BEGIN QUOTE:
With young people today, it's a real public health issue. They don't do any sport and only exercise with their thumbs. It's becoming difficult to (persuade them to) do a sport that has no connection with getting out of the sofa and playing with one's thumbs. That is why we are trying to create a bond between our discipline and modern technologies, so participating in a sport feels natural.
END QUOTE
Promoting fencing is all for the good, too -- but there's some dash in lightsaber duels, and the French have long been big on dash. Aubailly says: "Cape and sword movies have always had a big impact on our federation and its growth. Lightsaber films have the same impact. Young people want to give it a try."
Police officer Philippe Bondi, 49, is an experienced fencer who has taken up the lightsaber. He wears his fencing wire-mesh mask, and has acquired protective body armor. He uses a luminous green lightsaber "because it's the Jedi colors, and Yoda is my master ... I had to be on the good side, given that my job is upholding the law." One trusts he says that with a grin on his face.
Matches are played in a darkened space, allowing the glowing lightsabers to stand out. Cosplayers are evident in the audience. The matches are carefully regulated:
There's no jabbing with lightsabers; the sweep of the lightsaber has to start from behind the fighter. That gives a theatrical style, very much in the style of the lightsaber duels in the movies. There are only a few hundred active lightsaber duelists in France, and it's unlikely there will be a lightsaber event in the Paris Olympics in 2024. The sport is nonetheless on a growth path. As Yoda would put it: "Dust off my French, I must."
* The Real Fake News for February effectively started on the 5th of the month, when President Donald Trump gave his State of the Union address to Congress. There was thought he might declare a state of emergency to allow him -- in principle, if not necessarily in practice -- to begin work on his border wall, but the White House said that wasn't going to happen then, and it didn't.
As mentioned here last month, there was also the possibility that the congressional session would be rowdy, but that didn't happen either. However, it wasn't really for lack of provocation, since Trump's speech was nothing all that unfamiliar. Yes, there were moments of graciousness -- though they included calls for an end to partisan divisiveness, which even many Republicans had to think was rich, coming from Trump -- and even a call for a program to get rid of HIV in the USA, which was by all appearances sincere, and regarded as practical. However it gets done, it needs to be done. On the other side of that same coin, he also claimed he was defending access to healthcare for all Americans, when the Trump Administration has been doing all they can to destroy ObamaCare.
Trump produced various justifications of the Trump Administration's policies -- OK, all State of the Union addresses do so, but Trump's claim that he had prevented war with North Korea was preposterous -- and he also came out for an effort to ban late-term abortions -- without understanding, or for that matter caring, that late-term abortions are rare, and effectively never performed except out of medical necessity. He strongly pushed his border wall, continue to overblow the menace of illegal immigration, and also complained about the continued investigations swirling around him.
Like complaining would do him any good? All it did was make him sound guiltier, and in any case, the Democrats in the House of Representatives just ramped up their probes in response. In other words: "OK, you had your address, now back to business as usual."
Continued discussions on border security led up to a bipartisan bill that provided $1.375 billion USD for the job, including substantial stretches of fencing. Trump, under pressure from Right-wing talking heads, signed the bill -- but also declared a state of emergency to allow him to build the border wall through his executive power. Reactions from Congressional Democrats were, as could easily be expected, strongly negative, saying the action was unconstitutional. The Democrats crafted a bill to nullify the declaration, and got it through the House.
In reality, Trump's case for declaring a national emergency was vaporous, the exercise was sure to be challenged in court, and the courts were sure to strike it down. The Democrats knew that, and no doubt privately gloated that Trump done something so foolish -- but they couldn't say that in public. Republican leadership publicly approved, but they knew it was a nonstarter, too. There was no chance of the congressional bill becoming law, since Trump was sure to veto it; it was just establishing a position, and putting pressure on Republicans who are uneasy about supporting Trump. After the declaration, the matter went into a state of effective suspension, as it worked its way through the courts.
* In the meantime, the Justice Department hinted that Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election -- and by implication, into Trump's handling of the campaign -- was close to being wrapped up. That led to a great deal of tense speculation in the media. It is not expected, at least by the well-informed, that the report will implicate Donald Trump directly in collusion with the Russians. That might be hard to prove, and so the investigation has focused on things that could stand up better in court.
That's how the FBI does things -- to make a case that will stick, and let the court then take into consideration the wider context of malfeasance. Charges against Trump cronies like Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort included campaign finance violations, money laundering, and tax evasion. Those weren't trivial charges, either; Manafort had the bad judgement to lie to investigators, with Mueller recommending that he get a sentence of at least 19 years.
Cohen has more wisely cooperated, indeed he's been singing like a canary. There was also speculation in the media about why Manafort felt the need to lie when the penalties for doing so were painful -- "What was he so determined to hide?" -- but he may have simply been foolish enough to think he was smarter than the investigators, and could easily trick them. If so, he thought wrong.
Along the same lines Roger Stone, another Trump crony, who was busted and is facing the court, raised a great fuss about the charges against him, denouncing the investigation and the court, and went so far as to release a photo of the judge in the case with crosshairs marked on her. The judge was not amused, and Stone quickly backtracked. The judge decided not to have him locked up, but slapped a gag order on him, or in other words: "Do some silly stunt like that again, you're in jail."
It is recognized that nobody has anything specific on Donald Trump right now, but CNN's Chris Cillizza suggested, on reviewing the legal difficulties of Trump's people, that if all there was on Trump so far was smoke, there was a lot of smoke. Nobody's expecting the Mueller report to exonerate him. Trump is a very, and literally, careless person, and carelessness doesn't work well for the presidency. However, it is an open question as to whether the report will list any putative charges against Trump. The Justice Department cannot indict a sitting president, and that makes producing anything that looks like an indictment tricky.
Congressional Democrats are making it very clear they expect to see the Mueller report in full detail. Even if all they get is a NO COMMENT out of it, however, that still not good news for Trump -- since the issue will hang fire for the rest of his presidency, and generate nothing but trouble for him. Worse, once Trump leaves office, the report will then come to the surface, and be actionable.
What makes that very bad for Trump is that he won't then be able to swing a deal, resigning in exchange for a pardon from President Pence. Trump may well tough it out to the next election, on the assumption he will win -- good luck with that -- and be past statutes of limitations when he leaves the presidency in 2024. Of course, if he loses -- as is a good bet -- then he will be very frantic in his lame-duck period, but he wouldn't be able to cut a deal. Mike Pence would commit political suicide for no real reward to make a deal that could be seen as obstruction of justice, merely to be a lame-duck president.
* At the end of the month, on 27 February, Michael Cohen testified to Congress. Cohen started out with: "I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is. He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat."
There was a bit of a groan at that statement, since it was merely underlining what everyone who isn't infatuated with Trump already knew. However, it seems to have been calculated, both to set a tone, and to hook the audience into what he had to say next. Chris Cillizza listed the highlights:
Cohen cut a sympathetic figure, seeming entirely contrite, and not denying his 100% complicity in Trump's actions. The Republicans made much of the fact that he was a demonstrable liar -- but witnesses who bring down Mob bosses are usually not upstanding citizens either, and the authorities know better than to take them at their word. If told where the bodies are buried, the bodies are dug up. Cohen topped the GOP who were attacking him by warning them they would, in the end, regret covering for Trump, just as he did.
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