Monthly Archives: June 2016

The reason Hillary Clinton has cinched the nomination

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This is an excellent moment to revel in the complexity of life, and argument, and to appreciate the value of the honest conversation.

A candidate is the presumed nominee when she or he obtains the required number of pledged delegates to be at 50% plus a fraction in the total pledged delegate count. This is because a candidate must have a true majority to win the nomination when the delegates are all counted up at the convention, and the pledged delegates are required to cast their lot with the candidate they are pledged to, assuming that candidate exists at the time of the convention.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have not reached that bar. Therefore, neither is the presumed nominee for their party.

But then there are the unpledged delegates. Unpledged delegates can vote for whomever they like at the convention, and therefore, anything can happen. However, it is the practice among unpledged delegates to “endorse” or otherwise show support for a particular candidate. News agencies may use that statement of support to place that unpledged delegate in the column for a particular candidate.

Using this form of math, Trump did not reach a true majority of delegates a couple of weeks ago for two reasons. First, the Republicans have very few truly unpledged delegates. (The Republican and Democratic systems are not parallel or comparable, but the Republicans do have a certain number of delegates who can do what they want when the convention rolls around.) But then, one day, a bunch of unpledged delegates from one of the Dakotas made a statement. They said that they would definitely cast their ballot for Trump in the Convention. This was just enough to put Trump over the top, by adding together the pledged delegates that were pledged to him, and this small number of “unpledged” but now “pledged-ish” delegates.

That is still not clenching the nomination, because even though those Dakota delegates went beyond support or endorsement, to the level of actually promising to vote for Trump, they really still don’t have to vote for him.

But, the press took this as an event, and decided to go with it, and Trump became the actual nominee.

That may seem like a digression in a post about the Democratic primary, but it is relevant because the press has this thing they do where they balance or equalize. Therefore, even though the systems are not truly comparable or parallel, and the event in the Dakotas was actually meaningless, the press did in fact go with the “Trump is the presumed nominee” thing, and therefore, one should expect, even in the absence of a logical underpinning to the argument, the press to do the same in the Democratic party. That is only a small part of the story, but it is part of the story.

I should reiterate that unpledged delegates (in the Democratic party, unofficially called “Super Delegates”) are unpledged even when they pledge. That is a simple fact. But, there are nuances. For example, I know one Super Delegate that on principle will not declare for a candidate until the convention. But I also know that this individual liked Bernie Sanders. I suspect that this means that under some conditions, this delegate would vote for Sanders, but maybe not. I know another Super Delegate who has endorsed Clinton, and another who has endorsed Sanders, publicly. However, I do not assume that either one of them will absolutely vote for that candidate. An endorsement is not a pledge. If Bernie Sanders is found sitting in a hot tub full of fruit jello with the leader of North Korea on a yacht owned by the Koch Brothers, making a deal to trade nuclear warheads, that the delegate that endorsed Sanders will not cast a ballot for Sanders at the convention. But the pledged delegates from the same state will be forced to by the rules. (This is why we have Super Delegates. This is also why we can expect the Republicans to add a higher percentage of unpledged delegates when they rewrite the rules for the next primary season.)

The Dakota delegates, however, did something different. They did not endorse, or show support, but they pledged. However, their pledged is, in fact, legally irrelevant.

And now, we come to 2008. It could be said not too inaccurately that a point in time came during the 2008 nomination battle between now President Obama and Hillary Clinton, when it became apparent that Obama was going to win, the press said so, and Clinton took two days or so off and came back into the ring no longer fighting Obama, but now as part of his tag team.

And, it could be said not too inaccurately that this same moment came in the present election about now. Staring a few days ago, various members of the press began to note that this moment was upon us, and to imply that it would be unfair to Hillary to have given this moment to Obama in 2008, but not give it to Clinton now. I think the belief 48 hours ago might have been that this moment would definitely be on us by the end of the voting process in today’s primaries, but then another thing about the press came into play. The press has to treat everybody and every event like they are all identical blue Smurfs but they also have to do things first, to beat out their rivals, to scoop. In fact, this “moment of clinch” could have been after the Puerto Rico primary, or even earlier. And it was absolutely going to happen after Tuesday. So, AP jumped out of the gate and made it happen Monday, and this is now the True Reality.

So, let us review.

Hillary Clinton is the presumed nominee because she has almost enough pledged delegates plus a gazillion unpledged delegates.

However, part of the impetus for declaring this is that Trump got that courtesy two weeks ago.

But, Trump was the only person running in that race, and Clinton still has an opponent.

Still, numerically, Clinton can’t not get the nomination because she has many hundreds of Super Delegates and Sanders has only a few dozen.

On the other hand, Super Delegates are unpledged. UNpledged. We argue all along that they should not be counted. Then suddenly we count them. Is that fair?

One could say, however, that it is fair. At some point it becomes fair because the numbers become so tilted. If the hundreds of Super Delegates that have endorsed Hillary decided to randomize their preference using a coin biased in favor of Sanders, there would still be more than enough to put Clinton over the top.

It is only fair to Clinton that she gets the same treatment as Obama.

It is only fair to Sanders that she not.

And on and on it goes.

So, is there a good reason that Hillary Clinton is now regarded as the Democratic Party nominee for the office of the President?

Yes.

And no.

A good part of the reason that both answers are valid is because the press has painted themselves into a corner located between a rock and a hard spot and have only a Hobbson’s choice. That is a bad reason. Another reason is fairness. That is a good but not overwhelmingly good reason. There is no reason that the process one year needs to be the same as other years, since presidential election years are so different in so many ways. Another reason is math. While we wish to keep the Super Delegate count separate and let the pledged delegates do their job, at some point the Super Delegates should probably be considered as a factor, if not counted precisely. (See this, “Fixing The Super Delegate Problem,” for an alternative way of doing this whole thing.) That is probably reasonable and fair. If the numbers are big enough. But there is no objective criterion for when the numbers are big enough. So maybe not so fair.

So here is where the honest conversation part comes in. There really is no considered, informed, honest position on this that ignores the complexity and dismisses other opinions out of hand.

I hope you read this post on Tuesday, June 7th, because starting the next day it is not going to matter too much.

Hurricane Agatha? Nope.

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Monday, June 6, 9:00 PM CT

Nope. For the second time in a row, what might have been a named Eastern Pacific tropical storm will probably never amount to more than a depression and a big wet spot in Mexico.

Monday, June 6, 2:00 PM CT

The first named tropical storm in the Eastern Pacific would be called “Agatha.” Rather suddenly, a disturbance in the region near Mexico has gotten itself organized, and the National Weather Service is saying that there is a 100% chance of this blob of weather turning into a named storm by the end of the day Wednesday.

We were all a bit shell shocked by Hurricane Patricia, which formed very quickly and ended up being one of the most powerful hurricanes in the region by some measures, last year. Patricia was very small, yet very strong, and it hit land. But, Patricia hit a relatively less populated region and ended up not being much of a problem.

I am not saying that this new disturbance, which may become Tropical Storm Agatha, is going to become a hurricane, or that it will be an interesting hurricane. But, it is an interesting blob of weather. You don’t see blobs of weather being designated as 100% likely to become a named storm so quickly very often.

Here’s the info from the NWS:

Updated: Recent satellite data indicate that the low pressure system
located about 250 miles southeast of Acapulco, Mexico has become a
tropical depression. Advisories will be initiated on this system
this afternoon, and tropical storm watches or warnings could be
required for a portion of the coast of southern Mexico.
* Formation chance through 48 hours…high…near 100 percent
* Formation chance through 5 days…high…near 100 percent

A different disturbance has been developing farther west, which could have become the first Eastern Pacific storm, but it never amounted to much.

Eastern Pacific Tropical Storm Agatha …

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… may or may not form over the next several days.

There is a disturbance that has a 60% chance of forming into a tropical storm some time between now and the middle of next week. This will head out to the wet and not menace the US mainland, as is typical (but not inevitable) for Eastern Pacific storms.

The main reason we watch Eastern Pacific storms is not that they are going to hit us (usually) but because they often do something interesting. And, they occasionally do hit something (remember Patricia?).

Here is the list of names for Eastern Pacific storm names for 2016:

Agatha
Blas
Celia
Darby
Estelle
Frank
Georgette
Howard
Ivette
Javier
Kay
Lester
Madeline
Newton
Orlene
Paine
Roslyn
Seymour
Tina
Virgil
Winifred
Xavier
Yolanda
Zeke

Atlantic Tropical Cyclone Colin

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Update Monday June 6 AM: TropicalStorm Colin is heading for Florida.

115236W5_NL_sm

The disturbance first noted a few days ago east of the Yucatan has moved across the mainland, into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and with the relatively warm sea surfaces there as a source of inspiration, turned into Colin, a tropical storm.

Colin is not expected to become a hurricane, but it will make landfall somewhere on the Florida coast between, roughly, between Tallahassee and Tampa, tonight (Monday). The center of the current forecast is somewhere near Fish Creek and Steinhatchee, but that may change and this will be a large, wide, wet and windy blob.

The storm will cross the base of the florida peninsula and come out to the Atlantic late Tuesday or Tuesday night, somewhere near the Georgia/Florida state line, where it will affect coastal regions in the Atlantic. The storm will then head north up the Atlantic and dissipate.

It is possible the storm will actually be its strongest after it has crossed land and is over the warm near coastal Atlantic waters, where sustained winds may be about 60 mph.

It is very rare to have three named storms by the end of the first week of the hurricane season, but note that the first named storm actually occurred nearer to the end of the 2015 season but was tacked on to this year’s season for some reason.

But, it is also interesting to note that having two named storms by the end of the first week of the hurricane season is still fairly rare. So, perhaps this is going to be an interesting hurricane season after all!

Original:

It is way to early to be sure, but there is a better than even chance that a tropical disturbance in the Atlantic near the Yucatan will develop over the weekend and subsequent days into something namable, and if so, it will be named Colin.

This weather system will likely cross the Yucatan over the next couple of days, and then, when in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, gain some strength and turn into something.

Even if the system does not become a tropical storm of some sort, it will make parts of Mexico, Cuba and Florida wet.

Mark Steyn’s Latest Trick

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UPSATE. The motion has been denied. Rather hilariously, bt the way.

Professor Michael Mann vs. Shock Jock Mark Steyn

You all know about the libel suit filed by Professor Michael Mann against Canadian right wing radio shock jock Mark Steyn. Steyn made apparently libelous comments linking Mann, who is widely regarded as the worlds top non-retired climate scientist, to the Jerry Sandusky scandal. (I don’t know what Steyn was implying but the only link is that both work(ed) at Penn State University!) There are other aspects of the libel suit as well, beyond the scope of this post.

The suit was filed in October 2012. I’m told this sort of law suit can drag on for years, and in this case, Steyn and the other defendants have taken action to delay what seems likely to be a decision against them, so this one might take a bit longer.

ADDED: It has come to my attention that some are arguing that Steyn has been trying to push this suit along while the other defendants are those responsible for the delay. You need to be aware of the fact that early on in the process, Steyn separated himself from the other defendants, and some observers have noted that he has been conducting his side of the process in such a way that has left legal scholars wondering if he has a competent lawyer. I have no personal comment on this. But it remains true that there is no way to separate the discovery part of this process among the parties. In other words, as the different parties in the defense take separate action, they are capable of playing something of a “good cop – bad cop” scenario, and that looks like what they are doing. In any event, Steyn has taken specific delaying action by filing a counter-suit.

Then, on June 1st, yesterday, Steyn’s lawyer requested that the DC Court of Appeals expedite the case.

Why is Steyn suddenly in a hurry to see this court case finished, when until now he has been more interested in delay?

I’m pretty sure the reason is a microcosm of how things are developing in the larger world of fossil fuel industry supported science denial, as well as the larger world of right wing vs. progressive politics.

Mann’s suit is not about arguing about science. He is perfectly capable of going head to head with anybody, even bought and paid for deniers, as he recounts in his book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines.

The suit serves, rather, as a part of a larger effort to combat the ongoing systematic attacks on well meaning and hard working scientists who are just doing their jobs. These attacks, in large part funded by energy industry front groups or “think” tanks such as the Heartland Institute, threaten to cast a chilling pall over over the scientific endeavor itself. Young people going into science careers, especially in certain areas, potentially face future denigrating attacks on their personal lives and character, and potentially career ending frivolous investigations by science deniers in Congress or in other positions of power.

A few months ago we saw shock jock Steyn called by anti-science Senator, failed presidential candidate, and widely detested Ted Cruz, in what can only be described as a three-ring circus of climate science denial. Steyn used his time before congress to argue his case in the Mann law suit, and to blow a racist dog whistle or two denigrating two of the DC Appeals court judges, Judges Natalia Combs Greene and Vanessa Ruiz. I only mention this because it gives background on Steyn and the overall anti-science movement. See Mark Steyn, The DC Appeals Court, and Congress for a detailed discussion of that).

Ask not for whom the bell tolls, science denier.

A couple of years ago, in Minnesota, a Republican House and Senate passed a bill to create a constitutional amendment making same sex marriage illegal. Why an amendment and not a law? It was generally thought at the time that the Republicans assumed that if Democrats took power (which they did right after that), that the law would be toast. A constitutional change is harder to undo. But there was another strategic reason to go for the change to the State’s Constitution, a reason that is directly parallel to Mark Steyn’s current strategy vis-a-vis the Mann law suit.

The Republicans legislators voted close to 100% in favor of banning same sex marriage in Minnesota, the Democrats voted close to 100% against it. The amendment then became a ballot issue, which was fought over for months in the public forum, and then, resoundingly defeated by the people of Minnesota. That was one of the first and key moments in the Great Domino Knockover ending legislation and constitutional restriction against same sex marriage.

So what?

Here’s what. During the public fight over the ballot amendment, I went to a fund raiser hosted by a colleague. At that fund raiser, a member of the Minnesota House told a story.

Every year, pages are brought to the legislature to work the legislative session. These are high school seniors representing every single district in the state, so they are geographically evenly distributed across liberal and conservative enclaves and regions. Urban Minneapolis is very liberal. One of the Urban members of the US Congress, Keith Ellison, is an African American Muslim Bernie Sanders Supporter. One of the non-urban members of the US Congress, for several years, was Tea Party co-Founder Michele Bachmann. So, you get the picture.

When the pages are first brought in, there are orientation activities of various sorts. One of the orientation activities is to poll the pages on various political questions. The pages, from Michele Bachmann’s district, Keith Ellison’s district, and everywhere else, were polled that year on their position on the Same Sex Marriage Banning Amendment. How did that shake out?

Every single page was opposed to the amendment. Every. Single. One. They were all about 18 years old.

The Republican strategy to make same sex marriage unconstitutional, instead of merely illegal, was motivated by a correct reading of the state’s demography. The next generation of Minnesotans was not going to have this sort of discrimination. Every year the state’s population would be increasingly in favor of marriage freedom and opposed to repression of LGBT people. The conservatives in the State Legislature had to act quickly to codify their systematic hatred before everyone else grew up.

Grumpy Old Men

Grumpy Old Men isn’t just a movie set in Minnesota. It is a key part of the demographic base for science denial.

At about the same time that the marriage amendment was being proposed and eventually put down in Minnesota, John Cook, Dana Nuccitelli, Jim Powell and their colleagues were turning out the Climate Consensus Project. This project paralleled and replicated earlier research, but using a different approach. The upshot of that collective research was to show that nearly, but not exactly, 100% of climate scientists and the peer reviewed papers that address climate change, all agree: Climate change is real, and human caused.

The actual studies are more complex and nuanced than that, but for now there is one conclusion that I want you to focus on. Something less than three percent of the people who’s opinion matter in the scientific world, those who are verified experts in this area, continued to question the legitimacy of human caused climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence.

Who are these people?

We know from work by John Mashey, that science deniers with actual scientific credentials are like conservative Minnesota legislators.

Mashey examined the characteristics of individuals who opposed, from within, the American Physical Society’s position on the reality of human caused climate change. The opposition took the form of a petition signed by less than a half percent of the 47,000 member of the society. That subset of APS members tended to be in subfields that did not focus on climate science. But most interesting here is the demography of that group.

Mashey showed that the signers of the anti-science petition were, as a group, older and more likely to be retired than the APS members in general.

Of the 119 signers, 102 (86%) were born before 1950, compared to about 40% for overall APS. This is a strong effect, and cannot be due to “retired scientists are finally free to tell the real truth”, given that only one plausible climate scientist is a signer, and he is not retired.

In addition, there is evidence that as this non-representative sample of APS members was recruited to sign on, efforts were made by the petition organizers to find older or retired individuals, dust them off, and get them on board.

Like the situation with same sex marriage in Minnesota, the demographics are changing. That few percent that the Consensus Project and similar research identifies as not being on board with climate science probably represents the grumpy old men who are disappearing at the usual rate, like they do. The scientists who understand climate science and make up the bulk of the consensus are not only more involved in actual climate science, but also, are of the current generation of active scientists.

They are old. And, therefore, becoming less numerous with every passing day, with every tolling of the bell.

Who is Steyn’s dead guy?

A key reason given by Steyn and his lawyer for expediting the Mann lawsuit is that key witnesses that would support Steyn’s case may die off before the case comes to court.

According to the “request for expedited hearing” filed by Steyn’s lawyer,

Steyn’s expert witnesses are older than Mann’s; time affects them more. Many of Steyn’s expert witnesses are emeritus professors and comparatively advanced in years, being of an age and eminence that enables them to stand against the bullying and intimidation that prevails in climate science. Therefore, the passage of time is not an unimportant thing. Indeed, one of Steyn’s proposed witnesses has, in fact, died while this interlocutory appeal has been with the appellate court.

The brief does not mention which witness died. Any guesses?

Apparently, Steyn and his lawyer had a “holy crap” moment, realizing that if this law suit does not come to court sooner than later, there would be precious few individuals prepared to serve as witnesses in favor of an idea that about to get pulled off life support.

Time is running out for Steyn. Over time, those who question the validity of well established science are likely to change their minds once they get the proper information, realize that their position is laughable and walk away from denialism simply because it is embarrassing, or, apparently, die.

But it is more important that time is running out for the planet, and for the up and coming generation that is being handed a ruined environment.

Even as I write these words a news alert comes across my desk: “Europe floods: 10 dead amid fears of fresh heavy rainfall,” referring to flooding in France and Germany. Flooding in Texas over the last few days, and continuing, has taken at least a half dozen lives. To someone like Steyn, and his out of touch geriatric witnesses, this is small change. A half a dozen people here, a half a dozen people there. And that is exactly the problem and exactly why Mann’s lawsuit is important and valid. Climate denialism is, as a movement, effectively sociopathic. And, as individuals in that movement realize that, they tend to wander off.

The Atlantic Hurricane Season started yesterday and there are already two named storms. Major fires in the Canadian Rockies, the decline of iconic species such as the North American Moose, coral bleaching, the spread of very nasty diseases out of the tropics, record high temperatures, the Syrian refugee crisis, are all linked to climate change to some degree, often very directly, sometimes more tenuously. (See this for a current accounting of climate disasters ongoing.)

Extreme variability in precipitation patterns, including both short and long term droughts and major rain or snow fall events, has been linked pretty directly to anthropogenic global warming. Heat waves and sea level rise due to melting glaciers, and changes in ocean chemistry, are direct measures of increasing surface heat. Weather and climate are two faces of the same coin, different in scale with weather being in one spot and on one day, and climate being weather long term and everywhere. If we change climate, which we have, we change weather, and thus we affect day to day live, the food supply, the global economy, and global health.