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Friday Roundup
Every week, I round up some interesting stories from across the web that our readers and members may have missed. Please include your thoughts in the comments if you think there’s a story worth reading!
Back in July, I wrote about how child labor is fueling the battery industry of some of our favorite products (phones, cars, etc). This week the Wall Street Journal covered the situation,
Apple Inc., Volkswagen AG and about 20 other global manufacturers found themselves on the defense when Amnesty International reported two years ago that the cobalt in some of their batteries was dug up by Congolese miners and children under inhumane conditions. Many of the companies said they would audit their suppliers and send teams to Congo to fix the problem.
Their efforts haven’t kept hand-dug cobalt out of the industry supply chain.
At a cobalt mine named Mutoshi in Kolwezi, freelance Congolese workers known as creuseurs—French for miners—could be seen in May descending underground without helmets, shoes or safety equipment. The mine’s owner is part of the global cobalt supply chain for companies including Apple and VW.
Miners there were using picks, shovels and bare hands to unearth rocks rich with the metal. Water sometimes rushes into holes and drowns miners, and an earth mover buried one alive last year, said local creuseurs and mine officials.
Several airlines are raising bag fees before the holidays. Here’s my humble suggestion: Instead of charging to check a bag, charge to bring one on board. Everyone bringing suitcases onto a plane makes the boarding process longer and more obnoxious.
Just in time for the holidays – which airlines are raising baggage fees?. @mattjmcclure gives us the update. #MorningsOn1 pic.twitter.com/QJw1eY6Q33
— Spectrum News NY1 (@NY1) September 21, 2018
Over at HotAir, Allah Pundit writes on a ridiculous new ad from MoveOn about believing Kavanaugh’s accuser, with this amazing tidbit,
A fun fact about MoveOn, the creators of this spot: The group got its name from its efforts to get the country to move on from Republican efforts to impeach a credibly accused left-wing sexual predator. That’s the sort of feminist bona fides I always prize in woke attack ads involving rape. I try to resist Whataboutism, particularly when the matter at hand involves something as grave as what Ford’s alleging, but whenever the left starts sermonizing at Republicans about treating victims of sexual assault properly a variety of leering Democratic ogres waddles out onstage in the right-wing imagination. It’s led by the Kennedys, grinning broadly, drinks in hand, pants around their ankles, but not limited to them. Which is not at all to imply that Kavanaugh should get a pass because Ted Kennedy got one for 50 years: If he’s guilty, he should be borked with gusto and impeachment proceedings begun to remove him from the federal bench.
Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Ed Whalen made a monstrous mistake yesterday, naming a random classmate of Brett Kavanaugh’s as a potential assailant with basically no proof. The thread received notice on Fox and Friends this morning, and immediately after, Whalen apologized soon after the Fox & Friends segment,
I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh's Georgetown Prep classmate. I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake.
— Ed Whelan (@EdWhelanEPPC) September 21, 2018
Following Yom Kippur especially, I’d be interested in hearing thoughts on forgiveness for a mistake as egregious as this, one that took 12 hours and a great deal of outrage to correct.
In an opinion piece in the New York Post, one writer posits that we’re not seeing more and stronger hurricanes because of global warming, but instead seeing more damage because more Americans live in their path.
For the United States, the trend of all land-falling hurricanes has been falling since 1900, as has that of major hurricanes. In the 51 years from 1915, Florida and the Atlantic coast were hit by 19 major hurricanes. In the 51 years to 2016, just seven. In the last 11 years, only two hurricanes greater than category 3 hit the continental USA — a record low since 1900. From 1915 to 1926, 12 hit.
We’re not seeing an increase of hurricanes. Yes, hurricane costs keep escalating. But this is not due to climate change. Rather, more people with more wealth live in harm’s way.
The US population rose four-fold over the past century, but climbed 50-fold in coastal areas. The area hurricane Florence was predicted to hit held fewer than 800,000 homes in 1940; it’s now 11.3 million — a 1,325 percent jump. Homes are bigger and hold many more expensive possessions. Adjusted for population and wealth, US hurricane damage has not increased since 1900. Global weather damage as a percent of global GDP actually fell from 1990 to 2017.
Looking ahead, it is likely that hurricanes will become somewhat stronger, but less frequent. This should not cause panic. A major study in Nature put worldwide hurricane-damage costs around 0.04 percent of GDP. Accounting for an increase in prosperity (which means more resilience), by 2100 this would drop to 0.01 percent. The effect of global warming making storms fewer but stronger will see damage end up around 0.02 percent of GDP. Global warming will increase harm, but prosperity will still decrease the overall impact.
I’m sure there were plenty of stories I missed this week, what else is going on in the world?
Published in Journalism
I just booked a flight on United last week. It was $50 more to get “extra leg room” and use the overhead bin. If you didn’t pay the $50 you got less leg room and your bag had to go under the seat in front of you, further restricting leg room. In either case it was $30 to check bag.
I think this discriminates against tall people. I am a victim.
You missed the data&society slander report on how the center-left, libertarians, and some of the mainstream right are going to trick everybodies kids into being a neonazi with a whole host of phobias and -isms, and that google/youtube/government need to squash this so people stop beating the far left in the marketplace of ideas.
I find this statement reprehensible.
For sake of argument. Lets say the accusations are spot on.
There was no rape or sex. Maybe handsy.
A man lives a virtuous life for 35 years and is a fabulous citizen. Pillar of the community.
He gets destroyed for this conduct 35 years ago at the age of 17 ?
Give me a freaking break!
Free speech doesn’t exist in France. If you speak out of turn, you will be ordered to the psychiatrist. A French court has ordered that Marine Le Pen obtain psychiatric treatment, she has been stripped of parliamentary protections and could face both fines and jail time for retweeting images of ISIS killings in 2015. She has refused to follow the court’s order. France is the new Soviet Union. BBC Independent Guardian
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Michel Barnier led Theresa May to believe that Chequer’s Plan was making progress towards Brexit. Remainer columnists were gloating that Brexiteers were not going to get their wish of a clean break with the EU, since the Chequer’s Plan essentially left Britain heavily entwined with the EU, paying massive subsidies, and obeying EU rules without having any say in how those rules were made.
But then there was summit in Salzburg that just wrapped up. Instead, Barnier pulled the rug out from under May. Barnier told the other 27 nations that Chequer’s was impossible. May, forever being delusional, spoke at a press conference as though this was a small bump in the road. She has a party conference next month. So the question becomes will she survive and who will replace her. Guardian Euronews Defiant Theresa May tells EU, show us some respect as she refuses to back down on Brexit – live updates Seriously delusional.
At least one columnist gets it right: The problem isn’t the EU or Brexit. The problem is Theresa May’s terrible leadership
“Let’s please drop the chivalry. Every time Theresa May goes to a summit and is ignored or mocked, the British rally to her like a damsel in distress. Cut it out: she isn’t the Queen, she’s the Prime Minister, and it’s her job to project authority. If the Eurocrats say her voters are dupes, she should call them corrupt (which half of them are). If they’re standing in front of her at a photo shoot, she should do like Trump and push her way to the front. And if they won’t give her what she wants, she should walk away. Why? Because she’s not there to get the best deal for Maidenhead. She’s there representing Britain – and what the country needs right now is a lion with a bit of roar.”
And the French boy toy, Macron, warmed relations with Britain by calling over half of them liars. Daily Telegraph
Nice roundup. Gonna disagree on the bag fees for carry-on bags though. Too many airlines are doing that already.
And holy cow Ed Whelan. I read that tweetstorm this morning before it got deleted. Sure, it’s exactly what some people suggested in that it’s a Kavanaugh doppelganger and sure the guys childhood house does fit Ford’s story quite well, but there had to be a better way to get the information out there that didn’t sound like you were accusing him of being the one who assaulted Ford.
Also, doesn’t this normally go on the main feed?
I respect the idea that someone was trying to find the answer which involved everybody being honest.
It may be worth noting that rich people didn’t choose to live by the ocean in the early half of last century.
Now it’s hard to find the beach because there are high-end hotels everywhere – with glass walls facing directly into the path of the hurricane.
I agree with the idea of charging to bring bags into the cabin. Most people I know who bring their luggage on board do so for their own convenience – save time at the end of flight baggage claim, maintain flexibility to change itineraries, etc. People pay for convenience, so those seeking the convenience should be the ones to pay.
In the last couple of years we have flown mostly Southwest Airlines (which does not charge for either checked bags or carry-on bags), and the boarding and deplaning process does go much smoother.
In the airlines’ defense: I have read that total “turnaround” time at the gate is actually slightly longer when baggage handlers load the bags in the hold than when passengers load them in the overhead bins. A goal of the airlines is to reduce turnaround time at the gate. Plus, the airlines have to pay for baggage handlers. And we have seen that the airlines don’t much care about the customer experience. So, the airlines will continue to discourage checking bags by charging fees for checked bags, and won’t care how aggravating customers find the boarding process.
I used to fly United all the time, but now find their fare structure and add-on fees to be the most confusing and most likely to generate surprises of any of the four big domestic airlines.
I think that we severely underestimate the benefits of child labor.
Here’s another one. The results surprised the academics involved, which says something about academic bubbles.
I guess math isn’t their strong suit.
Math wasn’t the problem. They thought that the official stats were a politically motivated overestimate rather than an underestimate.
The data gave them a lower end of the range of 16.7 million illegals, the mean was the 22 million figure, and IIRC the top of the range was about 31 million.
I wonder who benefited from the inaccurate official estimate. Let’s see…
Oh, I meant that if 11 million was the starting point, and they expected there to be fewer, if they found 22 million, that’s a 100% increase.
The way I read this: The researchers expected/wanted the real number to be less than the official numbers. To their credit, they published their work even though they didn’t like the results. The bottom end of their confidence interval, which is 16.7%, is 50% more than the official numbers and was the least bad outcome for their sensibilities.
I never took statistics, but I did listen to a Great Courses series of lectures on it. I guess I’ll have to go back and listen to it again.