#national nuclear power program

[carlocarrasco]

International nuclear supply chain forum set for November 13-15, 2024 in Quezon City

In what could be a boost for a nuclear-powered Philippines, the Department of Energy (DOE) is officially hosting the Philippine International Nuclear Supply Chain Forum (PINSCF) which will take place in Quezon City from November 13 to 15, 2024, according to a news article by the Philippine News Agency (PNA). To put things in perspective, posted below is an excerpt from the PNA news article. Some…

[batboyblog]

Things the Biden-Harris Administration Did This Week #38

Oct 11-18 2024

President Biden announced that this Administration had forgiven the student loan debt of 1 million public sector workers. The cancellation of the student loan debts of 60,000 teachers, firefighters, EMTs, nurses and other public sector workers brings the total number of people who's debts have been erased by the Biden-Harris Administration using the Public Service Loan Forgiveness to 1 million. the PSLF was passed in 2007 but before President Biden took office only 7,000 people had ever had their debts forgiven through it. The Biden-Harris team have through different programs managed to bring debt relief to 5 million Americans and counting despite on going legal fights against Republican state Attorneys General.

The Federal Trade Commission finalizes its "one-click to cancel" rule. The new rule requires businesses to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up for it. It also requires more up front information to be shared before offering billing information.

The Department of Transportation announced that since the start of the Biden-Harris Administration there are 1.7 million more construction and manufacturing jobs and 700,000 more jobs in the transportation sector. There are now 400,000 more union workers than in 2021. 60,000 Infrastructure projects across the nation have been funded by the Biden-Harris Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Under this Administration 16 million jobs have been added, including 1.7 construction and manufacturing jobs, construction employment is the highest ever recorded since records started in 1939. 172,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during the Trump administration.

The Department of Energy announced $2 billion to protect the U.S. power grid against growing threats of extreme weather. This money will go to 38 projects across 42 states and Washington DC. It'll upgrade nearly 1,000 miles worth of transmission lines. The upgrades will allow 7.5 gigawatts of new grid capacity while also generating new union jobs across the country.

The EPA announced $125 million to help upgrade older diesel engines to low or zero-emission solutions. The EPA has selected 70 projects to use the funds on. They range from replacing school buses, to port equipment, to construction equipment. More than half of the selected projects will be replacing equipment with zero-emissions, such as all electric school buses.

The Department of The Interior and State of California broke ground on the Salton Sea Species Conservation Habitat Project. The Salton Sea is California's largest lake at over 300 miles of Surface area. An earlier project worked to conserve and restore shallow water habitats in over 4,000 acres on the southern end of the lake, this week over 700 acres were added bring the total to 5,000 acres of protected land. The Biden-Harris Administration is investing $250 million in the project along side California's $500 million. Part of the Administration's effort to restore wild life habitat and protect water resources.

The Department of Energy announced $900 Million in investment in next generation nuclear power. The money will help the development of Generation III+ Light-Water Small Modular Reactors, smaller lighter reactors which in theory should be easier to deploy. DoE estimates the U.S. will need approximately 700-900 GW of additional clean, firm power generation capacity to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Currently half of America's clean energy comes from nuclear power, so lengthening the life space of current nuclear reactors and exploring the next generation is key to fighting climate change.

The federal government took two big steps to increase the rights of Alaska natives. The Departments of The Interior and Agricultural finalized an agreement to strengthen Alaska Tribal representation on the Federal Subsistence Board. The FSB oversees fish and wildlife resources for subsistence purposes on federal lands and waters in Alaska. The changes add 3 new members to the board appointed by the Alaska Native Tribes, as well as requiring the board's chair to have experience with Alaska rural subsistence. The Department of The Interior also signed 3 landmark co-stewardship agreements with Alaska Native Tribes.

The Department of Energy announced $860 million to help support solar energy in Puerto Rico. The project will remove 2.7 million tons of CO2 per year, or about the same as taking 533,000 cars off the road. It serves as an important step on the path to getting Puerto Rico to 100% renewable by 2050.

The Department of the Interior announced a major step forward in geothermal energy on public lands. The DoI announced it had approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah. When finished it'll generate 2 gigawatts of power, enough for 2 million homes. The BLM has now green lit 32 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands. A major step toward the Biden-Harris Administration's goal of a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035.

Bonus: President Biden meets with a Kindergarten Teacher who's student loans were forgiven this week

[reasonsforhope]

"In a major win for the traditional owners of Australia, the federal government has ordered the end of the land leasing program for the Jabiluka uranium deposit, ensuring that mining will never occur on the land owned by the Mirarr people.

At the same time, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his coalition added it to the nearby Kakadu National Park, a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site twice the size of Yellowstone.

Various parties to the disagreement over the destiny of Jabiluka described the decision as “a great day for the Mirarr people, for Kakadu, the Northern Territory, and for Australia,” “a genuine and welcome surprise,” and “a reminder of the extraordinary privilege all of us have, to share this continent with the world’s oldest continuous culture.”

The dispute over Jabiluka dates back to 1991, when traditional owners, environmental groups, peace activists, and others protested the granting of a lease for Jabiluka to Energy Resources Australia (ERA) majority-owned by the Australian mining giant Rio Tinto Group.

Located in the Northern Territories, activism by Indigenous owners like the Mirarr and Djot has forced successive administrations to defer or avoid the actual development of the potential mine. This included a road blockade in 1998 during which 500 people were arrested.

The Jabiluka Long-Term Care and Maintenance Agreement signed in February 2005 gave the traditional owners veto rights over the future development of Jabiluka.

Key details about the history of Jabiluka to understand are that the land has been under mining leases for over 30 years, but they’ve never been developed. ERA was not seeking to renew the 10-year lease to try and push forward with uranium mining, as they acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land have the ultimate say as per the 2005 agreement.

ERA stated they sought renewal of the lease in order to secure the asset should the traditional owners ever change their minds. Jabiluka is one of the world’s richest and most extensive uranium deposits ever located.

In 1991, PM Bob Hawke declined to exploit the mine’s riches, as did the Gillard Administration in 2013, but with Rio Tinto and ERA never forsaking the mine as a lost cause, and the Albanese government planning to move forward with nuclear power expansion, the Mirarr and others felt that another, hopefully final push was necessary.

As a result, the federal government provided recommendations to the state government of NT that the will of the people should be respected, and that the lease should not be renewed.

“[It] means there will never be mining at Jabiluka,” Mr. Albanese was quoted as saying last Saturday. “This beautiful part of Australia is home to some of the oldest rock art in the world, a reminder of the extraordinary privilege all of us have, to share this continent with the world’s oldest continuous culture.” ...

Officials from the NT government said the decision was made based on the recommendations from the Coalition government in Sydney, saying that Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King advised that the most important position to respect was that of the Mirarr."

-via Good News Network, July 31, 2024

[forbidden-sorcery]

The devastation of nuclear colonialism, which permanently destroys Indigenous communities throughout the world, is outright ignored by some of the most devout climate justice advocates. They claim nuclear energy production is also a green solution to the climate crisis. More than 15,000 abandoned uranium mines are located within the so-called US, mostly in and around Indigenous communities, permanently poisoning sacred lands and waters with little to no action being taken to clean up their deadly toxic legacy. There are currently ninety-three operating nuclear reactors in the so-called US that supply 20% of the country’s electricity. There are 60,000 tons of highly radioactive spent nuclear waste stored in concrete dams at nuclear power plants throughout the country with the waste increasing at a rate of 2,000 tons per year. In 1987 the “US” Congress initiated a controversial project to transport and store almost all of the US’s toxic waste at Yucca Mountain located about 100 miles northwest of so-called Las Vegas, Nevada. Yucca Mountain has been held holy to the Paiute and Western Shoshone Nations since time immemorial. In January 2010 the Obama administration approved a $54 billion taxpayer loan in a guarantee program for new nuclear reactor construction, three times what Bush previously promised in 2005. In April 2022, the Biden administration announced a $6 billion government bailout to “rescue” nuclear power plants at risk of closing. A colonial government representative stated, “US nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals.” They, along with Climate Justice activists cite nuclear energy as necessary to combat global warming, all while ignoring the devastating permanent impacts Indigenous Peoples have faced. There is nothing clean about energy produced from nuclear colonialism. From its weapons (including depleted uranium) to its mining and its waste; Indigenous bodies, lands, and waters continue to be sacrificed to heat water with radioactive materials which creates steam that moves generators to charge batteries made from lithium extracted from other Indigenous sacred lands so Teslas can move you forward into a “just” climate future. A green economy sustains and advances colonial progress, which means mitigated selective and ongoing destruction of Mother Earth.

Klee Benally - No Spiritual Surrender: Indigenous Anarchy In Defense of the Sacred

[16woodsequ]

Things People Seem to Forget About Steve Rogers (aka the past is complex)

Things in the future didn't happen in a vacuum, and while Steve missed a lot of stuff while he was in the ice, he would have seen the roots of things like the Civil Rights, Women's Rights and even LGBTQ+ Rights movements in his time.

While I'm sure Steve encountered a lot of people expecting certain right-wing behaviours from him, due to his birth year and the things he missed in the ice, this doesn't mean he would act that way—even right out of the ice.

But first lets take a look at the things Steve missed and see what he did in fact know:

The atom bomb. Steve never saw the atomic fallout, but what did he see? Hydra bombs literally being flown to his home city. There is also a possibility that as a specialty team, he learned about the German Nuclear Program during the war. His unit was tied to the Strategic Science Reserve, so I wouldn't be surprised if between that, and Hydra's bomb initiatives, Steve was well aware of the potential of a bomb threat. I doubt Steve has clearance to know about the Manhattan project, and I think he would be horrified to learn about the impact of the atom bomb on Japan (especially since he essentially thwarted the same thing from happening to New York) but majorly powerful bombs would not surprise him.

• The Cold War. Steve may not have experience the Cold War, but he grew up surrounded by the outcome of the First World War after the Communist take over of Russia. The debates surrounding Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism aren't new. Steve would have grown up with them and would probably be familiar with American pro-capitalist, anti-communist rhetoric. But would he agree?

Here's some things we know about Steve: He's an artist, he grew up during the Depression which was heavily mitigated by socialist measures, he grew up poor, he grew up disabled. As an artist Steve would be well aware of the debates between the political movements, and with his background, and the success of Roosevelt's New Deal reforms, it would not surprise me if Steve leaned more towards the Socialist side of the scale.

All this to say: Steve would not be unfamiliar with the tension between Russia and the USA. Especially since even though they were allies during the war, there were already concerns that the USSR wasn't so much 'liberating' the countries they drove Germany out of, as putting them under new management.

Steve would be familiar with the tensions underlying the Cold War, and his background might lead him to have a critical view of some of the pro-Capitalist propaganda that came out during the Cold War. While I don't think Steve would approve of Russia's methods and the ultimate outcome of Communism there, I don't think he would approve of the Red Scare Witch Hunt that happened in the States either.

• Civil Rights Movement. While Steve missed the major changes that occurred during the 50s and 60s, he would not be unfamiliar with movements for equality. Steve would also not be unaware of the inequality that minorities faced in his country.

For example:

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was established in 1909 and is still run today. The NAACP fought and fights against discrimination and advocates for equality.

In the 30s President Roosevelt responded to "to charges that many blacks were the "last hired and first fired," [his administration] instituted changes that enabled people of all races to obtain needed job training and employment. These programs brought public works employment opportunities to African Americans, especially in the North" (Link)

"The first precedent-setting local and state level court cases to desegregate Mexican and African American schooling were decided during [the late 1930s]" (Link)

In 1941 thousands of Black Americans threatened to march on Washington for equal employments rights which pushed Roosevelt to issue an executive order that "opened national defense jobs and other government jobs to all Americans regardless of race, creed, color or national origin." (Link)

The Double Victory or Double V Campaign during the war was an explicit campaign to win the war against fascism in Europe and the war against racism as home.

All this to say, Steve would not be unfamiliar with many of the issues tackled during the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s.

Not only that, but Steve led a multi-racial special unit during the war during a time of active army segregation. Not only does he have a Black man on his team, but also a Japanese man. This would have most definitely led to backlash from higher command as well as discrimination from other units against Jones and Morita. Steve and the entire Howling Commandos would be explicitly aware of prejudice against two of their members and likely had to fight for them many times.

• Anything space travel. It's true Steve wouldn't know anything about attempts to reach the moon. But there were still several space discoveries he could know about, especially since he and Bucky are clearly interested in scientific discoveries, considering how they went to the Stark Exbo before Bucky shipped out.

Some discoveries:

Hubble's Law: In 1929 Hubble published evidence for an ever expanding universe, and thus provided evidence of the Big Bang theory.

1930: Discovery of Pluto (makes me chuckle to think this is a relatively new discovery for Steve and he wakes up to find it is a dwarf-planet now. You think Millennials are protective of Pluto? I think Steve would be too 😆.)

1937: "the first intimation that most matter in the universe is `dark matter'"

Personally I think Steve would be absolutely amazed by the advances in space travel.

• Women's Rights. Like with Civil Rights, while Steve may have missed the large movements during the 50s and 60s, he was around for the early movements. The 60s movement is called Second Wave Feminism for a reason. This is because there was already many pushes for women equality in Steve's time.

For example:

1920: White women win the right to vote. This means Steve's mother first voted in his lifetime. I feel this alone would make Steve heavily aware of inequality faced by women. (As a side note I feel that Sarah always emphasized voting to Steve since it was such a major development in her lifetime.)

Also in the 20s the Flapper trend rose, along with hemlines. Women's skirts were shorter and they smoked and drank with men. Middle-class and working-class women also worked outside of the home. The 1920s-1930s 'modern' woman is very different from the Victorian vision of a woman in petticoats and skirts.

Early Birth Control movement: Was "initiated by a public health nurse, Margaret Sanger, just as the suffrage drive was nearing its victory. The idea of woman’s right to control her own body, and especially to control her own reproduction and sexuality, added a visionary new dimension to the ideas of women’s emancipation. This movement not only endorsed educating women about existing birth control methods. It also spread the conviction that meaningful freedom for modern women meant they must be able to decide for themselves whether they would become mothers, and when."

1936: A Supreme Court decision declassified birth control information as obscene. Legalised doctor-prescribed contraceptives.

WW2 Watershed: Women serve in the army and work factory jobs. The government establishes universal childcare while women work.

Women also wore pants and form fitting clothes to work in factories. We also see Peggy wearing pants during the last assault on Hydra. While Steve may need to get used to modern fashion, he would already be familiar with the 'morale outrage' over women's clothes in his time, and probably try to manage his surprise in private as well as possible.

• LGBTQ+ Rights. Like with the rest of the equality movements, LGBTQ+ rights movements also started before the late 1900s.

1924: "Society for Human Rights is founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. The society is the first gay rights organization as well as the oldest documented in America." This organisation was broken up soon after founding due to arrests, but it published "the first American publication for homosexuals, Friendship and Freedom."

In the 1920s and 30s "the gay and lesbian movement started taking shape. Social analysts began rejecting prior medical definitions of "inversion" or "homosexuality" as deviant.

Communities of men and women with same-sex affiliations began to grow in urban areas. Their right to gather in public places such as bars was tenuous, and police raids and harassment were common." (Link)

WW2 Watershed: While many LGBTQ people lived in rural areas or outside 'queer neighbourhoods' the war brought people from all backgrounds together. "As with most young soldiers, many had never left their homes before, and the war provided them an opportunity to find community, camaraderie, and, in some cases, first loves. These new friendships gave gay and lesbian GIs refuge from the hostility that surrounded them and allowed for a distinct subculture to develop within the military."

They still had to hide their identities for fear of persecution and a 'blue discharge', however "Gay and lesbian veterans of World War II became some of the first to fight military discrimination and blue discharges in the years following the war."

It's unclear how much Steve would have known about the gay and lesbian rights movement. But in the comics he has a gay friend Arnie Roth, and there are many meta posts (X X X) about how Steve may have lived in a queer neighbourhood.

And, according to my history professor, gay and lesbian soldiers were often protected by their friends in the army instead of outed. This is not to downplay the discrimination and pain outed veterans faced, but there was a comaraderie and understanding that developed between soldiers that protected many gay soldiers.

• Computer and the internet. The seeds of modern computers began during World War Two. Arguably it began earlier with Ada Lovelace. While technology has changed a lot for Steve, there is a long history of it's development.

Colossus Computer: Kept secret until the 70s, it's unclear if Steve's association with the SSR, Peggy (who was a code breaker before SSR) and Howard, would have led him to know anything about the "the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer", but we see electric screens and machines being used in Captain America: The First Avenger. So he would know something of those mechanisms.

Also the first American TV was broadcasted in the 1939 World Fair, And since Steve and Bucky are already shown going to a science fair, I believe it is reasonable for Steve to know about the concept of television, though it looks much different in modern day.

• Rise of Neo-Nazis. Steve already saw the rise of fascism in his own country before the war, so while I think he would be horrified and saddened to learn of the Neo-Nazi movement, I don't think he would be surprised.

Because:

Eugenics: A large part of the Nazi campaign, this part of the movement originated and was inspired by the United States Eugenics movement. "It is important to appreciate that within the U.S. and European scientific communities these ideas were not fringe but widely held and taught in universities."

Lobotomies and institutionalisations were part of the treatments for disabled and 'weak-minded' individuals during Steve's time. With Sarah being a nurse it is likely Steve knew of these treatments and more. And as a disabled child of immigrants, I have no doubts Steve brushed up with eugenics beliefs many times.

1939: More than 20,000 people attended a Nazi rally in Madison Square while "[a]bout 100,000 anti-Nazi protesters gathered around the arena in protest".

In the comics Steve canonically has a Jewish friend, Arnie Roth. If he wasn't part of the protests against the Nazi rally, he would have heard about it and known about the rise of antisemitic sentiment in the US before the outbreak of the war.

So Where Does That Leave Us?

Steve has a history of anti-racist behaviour. While he would still have a lot to learn from the Civil Rights Movement and no doubt has unconscious biases he grew up with, he also explicitly builds a multi-racial team that would have led to clashes with systemic racism in the army. This would have inevitably led to him and the Howling Commandos taking an anti-racist stance in protection of their members.

Would Steve say the N-word? Likely not. The N-Word already held negative connotations by the 19th and early-20th century. I doubt Jones would be willing to follow a man who would knowing use the insult. 'Coloured' or 'Negro' were seen as the more acceptable terms. So Steve may use those words at first, instead of 'Black' or 'African-American'. 'Negro' is a controversial term for some Black Americans, so this would be something for him to learn, but he would not purposely by insulting or hurtful. And I believe he would adapt as quickly as possible upon learning.

Steve saw the early steps of many social movements. Given what we know about Steve—artist, disabled, immigrant, poor, raised by a single mom, gay and Jewish friend, potentially lived around queer people, worked with Peggy and smiled when she punched a sexiest, and built a multi-racial team—Steve would not only be aware of the social movements of his time, but he would be happy to learn of the developments after he went into the ice.

While it would take some time for him to learn all the changes that happened, Steve's background would led him to be pleased with the changes in society. This is the opposite of being racist, sexist, and homophobic. Some things might take some adjusting for Steve to get used to, but he is already open-minded and has a frame of reference for many of the social changes that happened.

People sometimes bring up Steve's Catholic upbringing to argue about some beliefs he might have. But while I do think this upbringing would lead to some biases, I think Steve's life experience helped counter, or helped him unlearn some of those biases, even before he hit the ice.

Also, as an Irish-Catholic, Steve would have faced some discrimination of his own. It is most certainly not on the same level as other minorities, and things were better in the 20th century. Being very clear, any discrimination Steve faced for being Irish-Catholic would not be systemic or commonplace like racism. But adding his heritage to the rest of Steve's background helps give us a better idea of why he was already open to social movements like the Civil Rights movement before the ice. And it may have made him already more understanding of LGBTQ+ people, who he may have lived around, even if he grew up being taught certain biases.

Other Things We Forget About Steve

He is quite tech-savvy. While Steve would have a lot to learn, we know he is capable. There are a lot of jokes about his technical know-how in Avengers, but I think he's actually managing very well considering it's probably only been a few weeks or months since he came out of the ice.

Examples:

Deleted scene where we see Steve using a laptop in his apartment. He presses the spacebar to pause a video, which is a keyboard shortcut. So not only can he set up a laptop to watch a video, but he already knows key shortcuts.

Deleted scene where waitress mentions 'wireless'. Steve is confused and thinks she means radio. But I think he actually knows about wi-fi at this point, but probably had never heard it referred to as 'wireless' before. By this point he knows radio is not as common, so his real confusion is why the waitress is offering him 'free radio'. If she had said free wi-fi (the more typical phrase in my opinion) I think he would have understood.

Canon scene of Steve helping Tony fix the Helicarrier engines. This is my favourite evidence because Tony asks Steve to look at the relays and Steve makes a quip that they 'seem to run on some sort of electricity' indicating he is out of his depth. But we never see Tony tell Steve what to do. Steve figures out how to fix the relays himself. Tony is busy with the debris in the rotors and the next thing we see is Steve telling Tony the relays are all good.

Steve is much better at adapting and figuring out technology than we give him credit for. This doesn't mean he won't be anxious or uncomfortable with the sheer amount of stuff he has to learn (especially if everyone keeps making jokes about it to him). But by 2014, it's clear he's already mastered all of it, which is amazing when you think about it, because that's only two years of learning.

Steve is very book smart. In the comics Steve goes to art college, implying he finished high school. Even if he did drop out of high school to work, we know Steve is very smart.

We see him unloading a whole suitcase of books in the barracks before he got the serum.

The mental math is must take to throw the shield at the right angles for it to bounce back is insane.

Steve is also known as a master tactician. So it is clear he has the brains and smarts to run his team during the war. Not only that, but he is not just Captain in name. He actually has that rank, which means he passed the Captain's exam. I also have a feeling he would have needed to pass some kind of evaluation to get the serum in the first place.

We see in Steve's 2014 apartment that his bookshelves are full of history books. Steve is a veracious reader and spends a lot of his time catching up on what he missed. Things he didn't learn or were taught differently growing up would definitely exist, but Steve is actively working to counter that.

Steve would swear. Swearing has been a constant throughout all of history. So too, the backlash against profanity. Even if Steve grew up being told not to swear he would have heard it. And, Steve became a soldier. If he didn't swear before the war, he most definitely picked up some of it then.

I think Captain America isn't supposed to swear, and I think Steve would be aware of this perception of the symbol of him. But I think when Steve is comfortable with people, he would swear. We see in Avengers he doesn't swear, but in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he does.

We joke about Steve and the "Language" line, but I think that line has something to do with Steve's history of being perceived as a symbol and as Captain America since he said it 'just slipped out'. So, while Steve may have been encouraged not to swear growing up, and expected not to swear as Captain America, I fully believe that soldier, veteran, and Irish man Steve Rogers does swear.

Wrap up

I hope you liked this deep dive into Steve's history and character.

I think it can be easy to take the past as a lump sum and view everyone in the past through one lens. We know the past was racist, sexist, and homophobic, so we view everyone from the past that way.

And while it's true things were different back then, people were most definitely fighting for change and aware of the issues. There is also a lot of nuance to the past, and a lot that can be gleaned from what we know about Steve.

It's true that Steve would have a lot to learn when it comes to terminology and specific technology, but I believe Steve's background would prepare him for a lot of the social changes that happened after he went into the ice.

[lunaeclipse1057-ao3]

Hi guys! I'm here to tell you about some of the stuff Project 2025 would do to America.

Number One: Making America a Christian Nation. What this means is the separation of church and state would be gone, and Trump will implement a "Bible-based system of government". Practicing other religions could be banned.

Number Two: Climate Change. Project 2025 will be completely removing most of the nation's regulations to help our environment. Abandoning ways to reduce greenhouse gases, abolishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, relaxing regulations on fossil fuels, encouraging fossil fuel usage, and supporting arctic drilling.

Number 3: Letting states control education. No more nationwide education, every state chooses what it wants to do. Possibility of removing accommodation plans for students who need it, no more free school meals even for free and reduced lunch plans, and the quote "Education is a private rather than a public good."

Number 4: Giving the president more power. The branches of government are supposed to balance each other out, make sure no one branch gets too powerful. This will make that a lot harder.

Number 5: Foreign Affairs. Congressional approval would not be required for the sale of military equipment and ammunition to a foreign nation. Also "The word gender would be systematically purged from all USAID programs and documents"???? "Such aid will not be allocated for helping poorer countries address the impact of climate change; rather, it will be devoted to advancing the interests of fossil fuel companies"????

Number 6: Healthcare. Removing Medicare's ability to negotiate medicine prices, denying gender-affirming care to trans people, forcing people to have a nuclear family basically.

Number 7: All of this bullshit. It's all shit, but please take a look at the last sentence of paragraph 4: "Trump has also spoken of rounding up homeless people in blue cities and detaining them in camps."

Number 8: LGBTQ community. "Proposes the recognition of only heterosexual men and women, the removal of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual or gender identity, and the elimination of provisions pertaining to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from federal legislation." "The goal here is to move toward colorblindness and to recognize that we need to have laws and policies that treat people like full human beings not reducible to categories, especially when it comes to race." THEN LET US BE WHO WE ARE. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION OF WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

Number 9: Banning pornography. Just let people be people. We have needs. Let us be. Especially when Trump had that sneaky link that led him being charged on 34 counts.

Number 10: Abortion. Are we really going to let white males who don't know where the clitoris is decide what Women get to do with their bodies? You said in the pornography thing that it leads to the exploration of women, but isn't this doing the exact same thing?

In conclusion, Project 2025 would take away numerous rights that we deserve as human beings, including, but not limited to, having a clean environment, the right to an education, access to necessary medication, freedom of expression, sexual media, women's choice with their own bodies, and possibly freedom of religion, one of America's first amendment rights.

I'm scared. I am a queer minor with school accommodations, who has no way out of America.

I don't want to flunk out of high school because my accommodations got taken away from me.

I don't want to have a child at all, let alone before I turn 18 because I got raped and can't get an abortion because of what the government says I can and can't do with my body.

I don't want to be trapped in an area where I can barely breathe because of all the pollutants in the air.

I don't want to be discriminated against, harassed, or dehumanized because of my gender identity and sexuality.

I don't want to be forced to be a Christian.

I'm scared of my own country, and what it could do to me. I don't want to die.

Vote Blue. Or else America could be turned into a suppressive dictatorship.

Note: I will be unpinning this because there have been a lot of comments that make me think I may have said some things wrong in this post. I don't want to completely remove it, because a lot of people have reblogged it to spread information, but I will be removing it from my pin.

[deadpresidents]

Formal Presidential Proclamation Announcing the Death of President Carter

December 29, 2024

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

To the People of the United States:

It is my solemn duty to announce officially the death of James Earl Carter, Jr., the thirty-ninth President of the United States, on December 29, 2024.

President Carter was a man of character, courage, and compassion, whose lifetime of service defined him as one of the most influential statesmen in our history. He embodied the very best of America: A humble servant of God and the people. A heroic champion of global peace and human rights, and an honorable leader whose moral clarity and hopeful vision lifted our Nation and changed our world.

The son of a farmer and a nurse, President Carter's remarkable career in public service began in 1943 as a cadet at the United States Naval Academy. He later served in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets before becoming a decorated lieutenant and being selected to join the elite nuclear submarine program.

After his father died, he shifted from active duty to the Navy Reserve and returned home to Plains, Georgia, to help manage his family's peanut farm. He worked hard stewarding the land while leading his community as a church deacon, Sunday school teacher, and board member of a hospital and library. His deep faith inspired a passion for public service that led him to be elected State Senator, Georgia's 76th Governor, and ultimately President of the United States.

As President, he understood that Government must be as good as its people -- and his faith in the people was boundless just as his belief in America was limitless and his hope for our common future was perennial.

With President Carter's leadership, the modern Department of Education and the Department of Energy were created. He championed conservation, and his commitment to a more just world was at the heart of his foreign policy, leading on nuclear nonproliferation, signing the Panama Canal treaties, and mediating the historic 1978 Camp David Accords. His partnership with Vice President Walter Mondale is one that future administrations strived to achieve.

Following his Presidency, President Carter advanced an agenda that elevated the least among us. Guided by an unwavering belief in the power of human goodness and the God given dignity of every human being, he worked tirelessly around the globe to broker peace; eradicate disease; house the homeless; and protect human rights, freedom, and democracy.

Through his extraordinary moral leadership, President Carter lived a noble life full of meaning and purpose. And as a trusted spiritual leader, he shepherded people through seasons of pain and joy, inspiring them through the power of his example and healing them through the power of his guidance.

As we mourn the loss of President Carter, we hold the memory of his beloved Rosalynn, his wife of over 77 years, close in our hearts. Exemplifying hope, warmth, and service, she and her husband inspired the Nation. The love Rosalynn and President Carter shared is the definition of partnership, and their devotion to public service is the definition of patriotism.

May President Carter's memory continue to be a light pointing us forward. May we continue to be guided by his spirit in our Nation and in our world.

Now, Therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, in honor and tribute to the memory of President James Earl Carter, Jr., and as an expression of public sorrow, do hereby direct that the flag of the United States be displayed at half-staff at the White House and on all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions for a period of 30 days from the day of his death. I also direct that, for the same length of time, the representatives of the United States in foreign countries shall make similar arrangements for the display of the flag at half staff over their embassies, legations, consular offices, and other facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval vessels and stations.

I hereby order that suitable honors be rendered by units of the Armed Forces under orders of the Secretary of Defense.

I do further appoint January 9, 2025, as a National Day of Mourning throughout the United States. I call on the American people to assemble on that day in their respective places of worship, there to pay homage to the memory of President James Earl Carter, Jr. I invite the people of the world who share our grief to join us in this solemn observance.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-ninth.

JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

[metamatar]

In 1975, civilian nuclear technology was part of a worldwide strategy to bring the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC) to heel. That body’s power seemed unprecedented, given that most of its countries were historically impoverished or “backward” peoples. [...]

Many developing countries did adopt nuclear technologies, often with crucial parts of their national infrastructures relying on American and European expertise, equipment, and fuel. Rather than seeing liberation from nature, such countries faced renewed forms of dependence. Iran certainly never gained reliable access to uranium and did not become the economic miracle envisioned by Ansari back in 1975. Instead of lifting up the poorer nations of the world, the global nuclear order seemed structured in ways reminiscent of the colonial era. The most heated debates within the IAEA pitted the nuclear weapons states against the so-called LDCs—less developed countries. The agency never became a storehouse for fission products. Instead, one of its primary functions was to monitor an arms control treaty—the Treaty 4 on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. By the end of the century, the IAEA was referred to as a “watchdog,” known for its cadre of inspectors. In 2003, IAEA inspections were crucial talking points in public debates about the invasion of Iraq by the United States [...] evidence gathered over the years by the agency created for the peaceful atom was being interpreted by the United States government as justification for military intervention. [...]

Focusing only on arms control glosses over the domestic politics of nuclear programs, particularly the role of high technology as symbols of state power and legitimacy. But it also does not square with what scholars of the Cold War have been pointing out for decades—that governments, especially the United States, deployed science and technology as diplomatic tools, to achieve feats of prestige, to shape business arrangements, to conduct clandestine surveillance, or to bind countries together with technical assistance programs. Poorer countries’ dreams of modernization, of using advanced technology to escape hunger, poverty, and the constraints of nature—these were the stock-in-trade of US diplomacy. Why, then, should we imagine that the promises connected to peaceful uses of atomic energy were any less saturated with geopolitical maneuvers and manipulation? [...]

American officials in the late 1940s and early 1950s were very worried that commercial nuclear power would siphon off supplies of uranium and monazite needed for the weapons arsenal. So they explicitly played down the possibility of electricity generation from atomic energy and instead played up the importance of radioisotopes for medicine and agriculture—because such radioisotopes were byproducts of the US weapons arsenal and did not compete with it. The kinds of technologies promoted in the developing world by the United States, the USSR, and Europeans thus seemed neocolonial, keeping the former colonies as sites of resource extraction—a fact noticed, and resented, by government officials in India, Brazil, and elsewhere. Mutation plant breeding, irradiation for insect control or food sterilization, and radioisotope studies in fertilizer—these were oriented toward food and export commodities and public health, problems indistinguishable from those of the colonial era. These were not the same kinds of technologies embraced by the global North, which focused on electricity generation through nuclear reactors, often as a hedge against the rising political power of petroleum-producing states in the Middle East. By the mid-1960s and 1970s, the United States and Europe did offer nuclear reactors even to some of the most politically volatile nations, as part of an effort to ensure access to oil. Convincing petroleum suppliers of their dire future need for nuclear reactors was part of a strategy to regain geopolitical leverage. Despite the moniker “peaceful atom,” these technologies were often bundled in trade deals with fighter jets, tanks, and other military hardware [...]

By the close of the century, two competing environmental narratives were plainly in use. One was critical of atomic energy, drawing on scientific disputes about the public health effects of radiation, the experience of nuclear accidents such as Three Mile Island (1979) and Chernobyl (1986), or the egregious stories of public health injustice—including negligence in protecting uranium miners or the wanton destruction and contamination of indigenous peoples’ homelands. In contrast was the narrative favored by most governments, depicting nuclear technology in a messianic role, promising not only abundant food, water, and electricity, but also an end to atmospheric pollution and climate change. [...]

As other scholars have noted, the IAEA tried to maintain a reputation of being primarily a technical body, devoid of politics. But it had numerous political uses. For example, it was a forum for intelligence gathering, as routinely noted by American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) documents. It also outmaneuvered the World Health Organization and Food and Agriculture Organization in the early 1960s and was able to assert an authoritative voice playing down public health dangers from atomic energy. Further, it provided a vehicle for countries to stay engaged in atomic energy affairs even if they did not sign on to the non-proliferation treaty—India, Pakistan, and Israel most notably. It provided apartheid-era South Africa with a means of participating in international affairs when other bodies ousted it because of its blatantly racist policies. By the same token, it gave the Americans and Europeans political cover for continuing to engage with South Africa, an important uranium supplier.

Introduction to The Wretched Atom, Jacob Hamlin

[transmascpetewentz]

democratic platform in 2028 if they want to win:

$20 federal minimum wage

stronger protections for unions

abolishing prison slavery by making the minimum wage for prison labor start at $15

medicare for all

federal cannabis legalization and regulation

decriminalize possession of psychedelics and promote regulated research into their benefits in treating mental health conditions

federally funded harm reduction programs and official recognition of the drug problem as a public health epidemic

remove gender from all personal government documents

trans healthcare legalized federally for all

abortion legalized federally

more government funding to medical and climate research

government funded national public transit program connecting the 30 biggest cities to each other

national fracking ban

national coal regulations to encourage the development of nuclear power as our primary source of energy

updated safety standards across industries

[wumblr]

okay

For decades, nuclear power has been the largest source of clean energy in the United States, accounting for 19% of total energy produced last year

false. first sentence. off to a great start. you may notice this is a 2022 chart but i can tell you the only new reactors started since then are vogtle 3 and 4 (you may notice that's not a new power plant but new reactors at an existing plant), years late and $17b over budget, vogtle as a whole produces 1.1gwh, we use about 29 million annually. point being: it has not risen to 19%, the last reactor since vogtle was watts bar in 2016 and since then we've decommissioned 14 of them

The industry directly employs nearly 60,000 workers in good paying jobs

weirdly low estimate, almost by half

maintains these jobs for decades

"maintains" is doing a lot of work here, does that include toxic exposure payouts? because they are still fighting pretty hard to get those in the world's first nuclear contamination site, hanford

and supports hundreds of thousands of other workers

✅ true! 475,000 according to the NEI link above

In the midst of transformational changes taking place throughout the U.S. energy system

sure

the Biden-Harris Administration is continuing to build on President Biden’s unprecedented goal of a carbon free electricity sector by 2035

have they developed carbon free cement yet? (yes.) at scale? (no.) are we just not counting construction emissions because they're one-time emissions investments or how does this work exactly, i would love to know because i think we're also not counting emissions from waste transport to longterm storage because we haven't started doing that. anyway they've built a train for it even though we don't have a storage site so that's umm. that's uhh. fine i'm sure

while also ensuring that consumers across the country have access to affordable, reliable electric power

i guess you can still say "across the country" if you exclude texas as an outlier

and creating good-paying clean energy jobs.

i guess you can still call them good paying clean energy jobs if everybody who mines and refines the uranium dies of cancer because you just pulled out of the largest disarmament program in history due to it being geopolitically inadmissible (for russia... to continue... selling us the uranium from decommissioning...? i'm still trying to figure out the optics of that one but anyway as i have previously stated we didn't actually stop buying it in cases where it's "liable to cause supply chain issues")

Alongside renewable power sources like wind and solar, a new generation of nuclear reactors is now capturing the attention of a wide range of stakeholders

weird way to say that

for nuclear energy’s ability to produce clean, reliable energy and meet the needs of a fast-growing economy, driven by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda and manufacturing boom.

this is a carrier sentence to inject the president's name, but i would like to question which sectors of the growing economy are driving the most energy demand because i'm sure there are no nasty truths being elided there (it's computing)

The Administration recognizes that decarbonizing our power system, which accounts for a quarter of all the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, represents a pivotal challenge requiring all the expertise and ingenuity our nation can deliver.

it's time once again for... the energy flow sankey chart! the reason the power system accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions is in no small part because 67% of it is lost to waste heat. has the nation's expertise and ingenuity started working on that yet

The Biden-Harris Administration is today hosting a White House Summit on Domestic Nuclear Deployment, highlighting the collective progress being made from across the public and private sectors

oh boy! a summit! talking about it is the same as doing it

Under President Biden’s leadership, the Administration has taken a number of actions to strengthen our nation’s energy and economic security by reducing – and putting us on the path to eliminating – our reliance on Russian uranium for civil nuclear power and building a new supply chain for nuclear fuel

gosh, i got ahead of myself and already criticized both of those things

including: signing on to last year’s multi-country declaration at COP28 to triple nuclear energy capacity globally by 2050

everybody criticized that

developing new reactor designs

which ones, the bill gates project that just got cancelled because utilities pulled out (edit: that's nuscale, the bill gates project is terrapower), the rolls royce submarine, or the one that just got regulatory approval (edit: this is also nuscale)

extending the service lives of existing nuclear reactors

yep! you sure showed the embrittlement at diablo canyon by doing nothing about it

and growing the momentum behind new deployments

nonsense clause, but it has this really ominous undercurrent due to its vagueness

Recognizing the importance of both the existing U.S. nuclear fleet and continued build out of large nuclear power plants, the U.S. is also taking steps to mitigate project risks associated with large nuclear builds and position U.S. industry to support an aggressive deployment target.

this one is not nonsense but they can't just out and out say "we are deregulating the industry because opening the process for public comment is most often the thing that slows it down" because then somebody might realize they're bulldozing ahead no matter what any constituent says, does, or actually wants

To help drive reactor deployment while ensuring ratepayers and project stakeholders are better protected, theAdministration is announcing today the creation of a Nuclear Power Project Management and Delivery working group that will draw on leading experts from across the nuclear and megaproject construction industry to help identify opportunities to proactively mitigate sources of cost and schedule overrun risk

i'm sure a revolving door working group packed with industry insiders can solve this without compromising their commitment to the profit motive, not that it particularly matters since the cost is passed on to the consumer in the form of fees on the electric bill

The United States Army is also announcing that it will soon release a Request for Information to inform a deployment program for advanced reactors to power multiple Army sites in the United States

good god... that is a fresh nightmare i did not see coming

Additionally, the Department of Energy released today a new primer highlighting the expected enhanced safety of advanced nuclear reactors

"expected" really serves to demonstrate several points i've made

i'm going to stop going line by line here because i know this is already too boring and long for anyone to read this far, unless anybody wants to know what i think about parts 50, 52, and 53 of the NRC licensing guidance -- which many of you have very clearly stated over the years that you don't -- and while i do want to acknowledge that it does go into more detail and even answer some of the questions i raised (vogtle comes up, diablo canyon comes up, a list of which SMR designs is given, or at least a list of the companies responsible for them),

what i would like to focus on is one conspicuous absence:

the reason we need a new fleet of reactors is because they are an essential part of the bomb production chain. they are the beginning of the refinement process, and we cannot carry out the plan (already underway) to replace the minutemen missiles currently in silos with sentinel missiles without significant new construction. we cannot start the president's desired wars with russia and china without the new sentinels. he's not going to be the one to carry this out, he's ensuring whoever is his successor in about 2030 or more likely 2040 will be armed to do so. limited amount of time left to prevent that

[angrybell]

He’s so appalled he’s done…. Absolutely nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked at rallies. Biden does nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked on campus. Biden does nothing.

Jews get harassed and attacked at their synagogue. Biden sends a tweet.

Why is the majority of my community supporting this man and this party? He’s never been a real friend. He hates Jews when they defend themselves. He likes us as victim, but not enough to do anything tangible.

Has Garland been ordered to prosecute s1985 cases, treating these pro “Palestinian” thugs like the KKK as they should be? No.

He wants to import more of them.

He wants to reward their terror by supporting an independent “Palestine”. The only people who will profit from this are the terrorists who want formal recognition because it affords them more protections for when they launch their next 10/7 style attack.

So why are we supporting this man? He’s not good for us.

Oh that’s right.. Trump. Did Trump permit pogroms? Did Trump undercut Israel trying to destroy a terrorist organization?

No. He did worse. He said mean things.

Don’t tell me that Biden did things better than Trump. Most of Biden’s successes are continuations to Trump’s policies. Most of the failures are Biden’s personal or party initiatives.

Do you not see the absolute insanity?

I get that many in the community are unable to override three or more generations of indoctrination that American Jewish protection can only come from the Democrats. It makes absolutely no sense historically when you consider that the Democrats were the ones who

Was the party of the KKK.

Strictly enforced the immigration quotas against the Jews before and during

Did not criticize Hitler for his treatment of the Jews and other minorities by the Nazis

Obama embraced and provided funds to nations, most notably Iran, who had committed or orchestrated acts of terror against Jews in Israel and around the world. He then tried to make it possible for them to construct nuclear weapons through a deal that perversely was sold as a deal to prevent Iran from making nuclear weapons.

Have continually elected openly antisemitic members to Congress for the past decade.

Biden has tried to prevent Israel from rescuing American and Israeli Jews held by Hamas by establishing a “red line” when it comes to Rafah.

Our allegiance to the Democrats is a poisonous inheritance of our ancestors. Back in Eastern Europe, the socialists were the only ones not likely to participate in the pogroms while the Russian and Austrian-Hungarian Empires existed. And because of that, Jews were attracted to that. Yes, there are some aspects of their program that agrees with Jewish culture, but many of those same areas can also be found with conservative movements as well.

What worked, badly, for the Jewish community at the start of the 29th century does not work for us anymore. Remaining wed to the Democrats is like an abused spouse saying “they really will change this time.”

They’re not. They’ve promised to get worse.

So, are we going to vote for our own destruction? Or are we going to use our power and votes to support someone, or just as importantly to support someone?

I get that if you’ve gotten this far you’ve at least thought of something along these lines but then you get to the other option: Trump. He’s been more vilified than any politician in American politics in the last half century. He’s got a lot of faults. So maybe you’re not ready to vote for him.

Fine. At least don’t vote for Biden. And, if you live in one of the districts, don’t vote for members of the “The Squad”. Don’t donate to the Democrats or groups that are simply going to give it to Biden.

Otherwise, you’re saying you’re fine with where this heading. Another 4 years of Democrat rule is not going to fix the problems we’re experiencing. It’s going to make them worse.

[carlocarrasco]

DOE eyes 1,200-MW nuclear power capacity with SMR technologies in the Philippines by 2032

The path will be long and challenging for the Philippines to become a nuclear-powered nation but the Department of Energy (DOE) remains determined on achieving that goal by the year 2032 with the use of small modular reactor (SMR) technologies that could generate an initial 1,200 megawatts, according to a news article by the Philippine News Agency (PNA). To put things in perspective, posted…

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #20

May 24-31 2024

The EPA awards $900 million to school districts across the country to replace diesel fueled school buses with cleaner alternatives. The money will go to 530 school districts across nearly every state, DC, tribal community, and US territory. The funds will help replace 3,400 buses with cleaner alternatives, 92% of the new buses will be 100% green electric. This adds to the $3 billion the Biden administration has already spent to replace 8,500 school buses across 1,000 school districts in the last 2 years.

For the first time the federal government released guidelines for Voluntary Carbon Markets. Voluntary Carbon Markets are a system by which companies off set their carbon emissions by funding project to fight climate change like investing in wind or solar power. Critics have changed that companies are using them just for PR and their funding often goes to projects that would happen any ways thus not offsetting emissions. The new guidelines seek to insure integrity in the Carbon Markets and make sure they make a meaningful impact. It also pushes companies to address emissions first and use offsets only as a last resort.

The IRS announced it'll take its direct file program nationwide in 2025. In 2024 140,000 tax payers in 12 states used the direct file pilot program and the IRS now plans to bring it to all Americans next tax season. Right now the program is only for simple W-2 returns with no side income but the IRS has plans to expand it to more complex filings in the future. This is one of the many projects at the IRS being funded through President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.

The White House announced steps to boost nuclear energy in America. Nuclear power in the single largest green energy source in the country accounting for 19% of America's total energy. Boosting Nuclear energy is a key part of the Biden administration's strategy to reach a carbon free electricity sector by 2035. The administration has invested in bring the Palisades nuclear plant in Michigan back on-line, and extending the life of Diablo Canyon in California. In addition the Military will be deploying new small modular nuclear reactors and microreactors to power its installations. The Administration is setting up a task force to help combat the delays and cost overruns that have often derailed new nuclear projects and the Administration is supporting two Gen III+ SMR demonstration projects to highlight the safety and efficiency of the next generation of nuclear power.

The Department of Agriculture announced $824 million in new funding to protect livestock health and combat H5N1. The funding will go toward early detection, vaccine research, and supporting farmers impacted. The USDA is also launching a nation wide Dairy Herd Status Pilot Program, hopefully this program will give us a live look at the health of America's dairy herd and help with early detection. The Biden Administration has reacted quickly and proactively to the early cases of H5N1 to make sure it doesn't spread to the human population and become another pandemic situation.

The White House announced a partnership with 21 states to help supercharge America's aging energy grid. Years of little to no investment in America's Infrastructure has left our energy grid lagging behind the 21st century tech. This partnership aims to squeeze all the energy we can out of our current system while we rush to update and modernize. Last month the administration announced a plan to lay 100,000 miles of new transmission lines over the next five years. The 21 states all with Democratic governors are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin.

The Department of Transportation announced $343 million to update 8 of America's oldest and busiest transportation stations for disability accessibility. These include the MBTA's the Green Line's light-rail B and C branches in Boston,  Cleveland's Blue Line, New Orleans'  St. Charles Streetcar route, and projects in San Francisco and New York City and other locations

The Department of interior announced two projects for water in Western states. $179 million for drought resilience projects in California and Utah and $242 million for expanding water access in California, Colorado and Washington. The projects should help support drinking water for 6.4 million people every year.

HUD announced $150 million for affordable housing for tribal communities. This adds to the over $1 billion dollars for tribal housing announced earlier in the month. Neil Whitegull of the Ho-Chunk Nation said at the announcement "I know a lot of times as Native Americans we've been here and we've seen people that have said, ‘Oh yeah, we'd like to help Indians.’ And they take a picture and they go away. We never see it, But there's been a commitment here, with the increase in funding, grants, and this administration that is bringing their folks out. And there's a real commitment, I think, to Native American tribes that we've never seen before."

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged $135 million to help Moldavia. Since the outbreak of Russia's war against neighboring Ukraine the US has given $774 million in aid to tiny Moldavia. Moldavia has long been dependent on Russian energy but thanks to US investment in the countries energy security Moldavia is breaking away from Russia and moving forward with EU membership.

The US and Guatemala launched the "Youth With Purpose” initiative. The initiative will be run through the Central America Service Corps, launched in 2022 by Vice President Harris the CASC is part of the Biden Administration's efforts to improve life in Central America. The Youth With Purpose program will train 25,000 young Guatemalans and connect with with service projects throughout the country.

Bonus: Today, May 31st 2024, is the last day of the Affordable Connectivity Program. The program helped 23 million Americans connect to the internet while saving them $30 to $75 dollars every month. Despite repeated calls from President Biden Republicans in Congress have refused to act to renew the program. The White House has worked with private companies to get them to agree to extend the savings to the end of 2024. The Biden Administration has invested $90 Billion high-speed internet investments. Such as $42.45 billion for Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment, $1 billion for the The Middle Mile program laying 12,000 miles of regional fiber networks, and distributed nearly 30,000 connected devices to students and communities, including more than 3,600 through the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program

[youzicha]

Normal Accidents

📖Charles Perrow, Normal accidents: living with high-risk technologies, 1984. Second edition 1999.

The Title

This is another example of a book that lives on its title, a great racket which works like this:

Find a proposition which many people would like to be true. E.g., Nations are fake and don't exist except in people's imagination. Victorian doctors used vibrators as a treatment for hysteria. Computer programming used to be gender-balanced and then male programmers took over. There's no way to run a nuclear power plant without accidents.

Find a catchy phrase that strongly hints at the proposition without outright stating it.

Write a few hundred pages of text: long enough that plausibly somewhere in there could be convincing evidence of proposition X, and someone would have to spend a whole day reading to find out whether there is or not.

Congratulations, you are set for life.

The Theory

The book theorizes that there is a particularly intractable type of accident which it calls “system accidents”. They are different from simple component failure accidents and happen in systems that are “complex” and “tightly coupled”. It classifies systems on two axes: a system is “linear” if each subsystem mostly interacts with one subsystem in front and one after (like an assembly-line factory) or “complex” if the subsystems all interact with each other, and it is “tightly” coupled if each subsystem immediately affects the other one without room for recovery.

Perrow then reads a bunch of accident investigation reports from different industries (nuclear, chemical, airlines, maritime, etc) and highlights interactions and coupling. The whole book produces this diagram:

From this we conclude… what exactly? Maybe that system accidents are important, and we should pay attention to them? Or slightly stronger, that there are more accidents in the upper-right quadrant than in the other ones? A big problem is that Perrow never says precisely what he is trying to prove and doesn't apply any objective measures.  I would want to count the number of accidents in different industries, and compare the ratio of system/non-system ones, or compare the absolute numbers, but Perrow just relates a sampling of accidents and says that they are illustrative.

Whether these accidents really are good illustrations of "system accidents" seems to depend a lot on the spin he puts on them. The classification into complex versus linear seems very hand-wavy. In one example of aviation, which is supposedly complex, "even after bailing out … there was room for the unexpected interaction" because the pilot was hit on the head by the falling ejection seat. By contrast the mining industry is assigned the center of the linear-complex axis, and one example concerns a worker who walked under a conveyor belt—and got hit on the head. Basically the same accident can be glossed as interactive or not.

Or how about this airplane accident:

The next accident, an account of problems with a four-engine corporate jet, the Lockheed Jet Star Model 1329, is more prosaic, but it gives some idea of the world of corporate jets and involves a system accident, unusual risks, and a safety change that was responsible for killing eight people. The safety improvement involved new, solid state units in the generator control units and new wiring. The airplane was flight-tested after installation and one generator failed. Repairs were made. In the next test flight, all four generators failed at one time or another, and were manually reset during flight. [Two weeks later] The plane crashed a mile short of the runway […] The NTSB is not certain of the proximate cause of the crash […] The example strongly suggests a system accident

It is typical of the book: there are no statistics showing that system accidents are common, only isolated examples, and in this example he doesn't even know what caused the accident!

(Later in the book the level of rigor goes down even further. For accidents in space, instead of reading accident investigation reports Perrow says "I am drawing here on the immensely entertaining, and exceptionally perceptive book by Tom Wolfe, The Right Stuff." Then for accidental war the discussion is based on Dr. Strangelove. And then he turns to DNA technology, which "appears to be complex in its interactions and tightly coupled, but I caution the reader that I know even less about it than I do about nuclear weapon systems." Thanks.)

But the actual central claim that Perrow wants to conclude is something even stronger than that systems accidents are common: he says that there is no way to prevent them. Thus the final chapter says that we should only accept complex-coupled systems if accidents have acceptably small consequences, and otherwise we must replace them with safer alternatives. In particular Perrow wants to get rid of nuclear power; the book started as an anti-nuclear pamphlet written after the Three Mile Island accident. But it seems quite hopeless to prove this impossibility by just reading accident reports.

So the book has much talk about catastrophic risk, but very few testable predictions. In fact, I could only find two. First, there is this paragraph about airline accidents:

With millions of operating years of experience, repeated trials, tests without catastrophic consequences, and considerable government support, the industry has been able to maximize the potential for technological fixes, including buffers and redundancies. Two engines are better than one; four better than two; the jet engine less complex than the piston engine; and of course the industry makes use of exotic new materials and instrumentation. System accidents in flying will remain, but they have been reduced substantially. […] The safety of both automobile travel and airline travel (and military and general aviation as well) has increased dramatically in this century, but since the 1960s and 1970s the safety curve has flattened out; we appear to be in the area where further increases are very hard to achieve.

It seems to say that airline accidents first fell quickly because we solved the issue of component failures, and now will fall no more because the rest is intractable systems accidents.

Second, there's this nicely unambiguous paragraph:

I would expect a worse accident than TMI in ten years—one that will kill and contaminate. […] There will be more system accidents; according to my analysis, there have to be. One or more will include a release of radioactive substances to the environment in quantities sufficient to kill many people, irradiate others, and poison some acres of land. There is no organizational structure that we would or should tolerate that could prevent it. None of our existing reactors has a design capable of preventing system accidents. Perhaps a safe one will be discovered—loosely coupled and linear—but I am doubtful.

Forty years later, there has not been any accidents in American nuclear power plants, so the analysis seems nicely refuted. The airplane accidents also did not come through. The trend in the 20th century was that the accident rate halved every 10 years:

And based on this data the same trend remained. From 1983-1989 to 1990-1999 the deaths per departure halved, from 1990-1999 to 2000-2009 they halved again, and from 2000-2009 to 2010-2017 it decreased even faster.

As it happens, there's a second edition from 1999 with a retrospective afterword, and it talks about how warmly the book was received while skipping over the fact that its predictions were wrong. It says “Commercial jet disasters are at approximately the same (low) level as in 1984, per departure” (no), and “of course we had Chernobyl”. But Chernobyl was not one of the American power plants whose incident reports the prediction was based on, and also it was not a systems accident. There was only one relevant subsystem, the core, and only one relevant parameter, the power output.

The second edition also adds a chapter about the Y2K problem, which could be "a test of the robustness and applicatory scope" of the Normal Accident Theory. While officials are optimistic, those Y2K plans are "fantasy documents" and there could be disaster whose "potential scale and scope dwarfs all other 'normal accidents' discussed in the book". (Notably one of the scenarios discussed in the book is a global nuclear war.) Having seen the actual outcome of Y2K, I think the robustness and applicatory scope comes across as well here as in the other cases.

Annoyances

So the theory seems dubious and the conclusions wrong, but that on its own would not make me write this long screed. What really gets to me is two annoying tics in the writing. First, constant smugness. The style matters because most of the book consists of summaries of accident investigations, and although they are supposed to illustrate his "normal accident theory", in practice he is mostly just writing descriptions without any particular theoretical angle. Of course I love reading accident reports too, but these days you can get all the pdfs you can read at the click of a mouse button, which raises the question what Perrow adds over the source material. And the main difference is that he thinks he is smarter than everybody else, and lets us know so through constant asides.

First, he is smarter than the reader. The first chapter, about the TMI accident, reassures us that it "will be the most demanding technological account in the book, but even a general sense of the complexity will suffice if one wishes to merely follow the drama rather than the technical evolution of the accident." Don't worry your pretty little head, Perrow is here to explain things. This tendency is even more annoying when he doesn't understand what he is explaining. He does not know what the word envelope means, and then projects his own confusion by saying that this aspect of flying has "poorly understood dynamics".

Second, he is smarter than the accident investigation board, and takes random snipes at them. A random board member in a press conference mentions a “remote possibility”, which Perrow jumps on. He comments that in marine accidents "the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) do what they can. But they can do little in this error-inducing system. […] It can happen. It is bound to. The recommendations are futile." I guess his methodology forces him to take this polemical tone, because all he is doing is reading accident investigation reports, so if he didn't complain, there would be nothing added by his descriptions.

In fact, he is smarter than just about anyone, and happy to share his observations even if they are not related to the accidents at all, e.g. “the approach to the Westchester Airport goes right over an interstate highway with one of those curious signs with the fruitless warning: ‘watch out for low flying aircraft’”.

I think this is a general hazard with writing about nuclear policy: both the pro- and anti-sides seem to have a lot of very smug people. I think for me the biggest takeaway from this book was that I should try to tone it down in my own writing.

The other annoyance is that Perrow never mentions any numbers, even in situations that really cry out for them. For example, there are many mentions of plutonium, in criticality accidents or when it was accidentally released from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An article says “‘in all plutonium incidents to date, only a small fraction of the plutonium involved was released.’ That is like saying that in a war, only a small fraction of the bullets kill anyone.” A Titan ICBM can “literally go off with the drop of a workman’s wrench and possibly release plutonium”.

And beyond these local accidents, in 1964 there was a “cosmic” one: “Most of the failures of the space program have not been death-dealing, and if they were, they were limited to first-party victims—the astronauts or technicians. However, in three cases of failures with plutonium power packs, the risks are potentially catastrophic, since plutonium is perhaps the most deadly substance known to humans. … a navigational satellite sent up in 1964 that failed to achieve orbit when its rocket engine failed. It reentered the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and distributed 1 kilogram of plutonium-238 about the earth.”

Like, at this point surely you’d want to know how many people were actually killed? From looking around on google a bit, it seems the 1964 satellite may have caused two hundred cancer deaths if you assume the cancer risk scales linearly to extremely small radiation doses. (And it prompted a change in policy to no longer let plutonium burn up in the atmosphere.) To me this kind of number seems essential to judge how catastrophic the accident is.

Another example where the numbers are lacking:

The price of electricity from nuclear power plants does not reflect the very large government subsidies, nor the costs of the unsolved problem of long-term waste storage, nor even the unknown costs of dismantling reactors after their forty allotted years, if they run that long. Had all these been properly considered in the 1950s and included in the cost, this book would have not been written because no utility would have ordered a plant.

This claim is not cited to anything. I believe that people were in fact considering this, but in any case the costs are now known: the long-term waste storage came to 0.41 cent/kWh and the dismantling to 0.24 cents/kWh. Meanwhile electricity prices have varied between 19 cents/kWh and 13 cents/kWh (in 2020 dollars), so the waste + decommissioning costs are a rounding error in comparison to other factors.

At some point he says that “you are good at counting while I (as I tell my quantitative colleagues) don’t count”, but really, you live like this?

Coal versus nuclear

Perry spends most of the book talking about the risk from nuclear power plants. But what is the alternative? In the introduction he says

There is no technological imperative that says we must have power or weapons from nuclear fission or fusion, or that we must create and loose upon the earth organisms that will devour our oil spills. We could reach for, and grasp, solar power or safe coal-fired plants

And then he doesn’t mention those coal plants again until the final chapter. But as he was writing, American coal plants were killing 30,000 people/year. Compared to the deaths from cancer, that corresponds to multiple Chernobyl accidents every year. Does he not know this?

Actually he includes a final chapter about “current risk assessment theory”, where he notes that fossil fuel plants kill a lot more people than nuclear power, but nuclear power provokes more “dread” and “the public’s fears must be treated with respect”. I feel this would be more convincing if Perrow had not spent an entire book trying to stoke that fear.

He gives a more operational description of “dread risk”: “lack of control, high fatalities and catastrophic potential, inequitable distribution of risks and benefits, and the sense that these risks are increasing and cannot be easily reduced by technological fixes”. I think this still doesn’t distinguish the coal pollution and nuclear accidents very well. Neither is controllable, the particulate emissions and the radioactivity both drift with the wind, the parties that take the risk and benefits are the same for both, and the “sense” that technological fixes don’t work is illusory.

Of course, nowadays we know that coal has has another drawback besides the particulate pollution, and this is mentioned in a single paragraph, literally in parentheses!

(One enormous risk which the industrialized nations may be facing is not considered in this book on normal accidents; eliminating this ill would require much more drastic measures than any of the above: This is the problem of carbon dioxide produced from deforestation primarily, but also from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and wood. This threatens to create a greenhouse effect, warming the temperature of the planet, melting the ice caps, and probably causing an incredible number of other changes, most of them disastrous. If it is significant—the experts do not agree—we may have a few decades to handle this; but it may be too late. It is one of the strongest cards the nuclear addicts can play, though the enormity of the problem, by some accounts, would dwarf the capacities of nuclear industry. We would have to divert our energy and natural resources from much of industry and use it to build nuclear plants for the next generation to meet some estimates. Battalions of scientists, engineers, and operators would have to be recruited and trained, and so on.)

Conclusion

This book is frequently cited (I have even seen tumblr users refer to it), and I think it’s considered a classic, so I was very disappointed. Let’s mark it as another mistake of the 20th century and forget all about it.

[thedystopianexperiance]

A short introduction to the goals of project 2025

Project 2025 aims to radically transform the federal government and advance a conservative political agenda. Some of its primary goals include:

1. Reorganization of Federal Agencies

- Eliminating the Department of Education: The project calls for transferring educational authority to states and removing federal influence, asserting that it promotes "left-wing" ideologies like critical race theory and gender policies.

- Reducing Environmental Regulations: Plans include disbanding climate change research programs, downsizing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and promoting fossil fuels over renewable energy.

2. Promoting Conservative Social Policies

- Traditional Family Values: The initiative seeks to reinforce the nuclear family structure, opposing gender ideology, and restricting reproductive rights, including banning certain forms of research using embryonic stem cells.

- Restrictions on LGBTQ+ Rights: Proposals include limiting the recognition of transgender identities in schools and workplaces and opposing policies like allowing trans women to compete in women's sports.

3. Centralizing Executive Power

- Advocates for the 'unitary executive theory', which would grant the president more direct control over the federal government, including the ability to replace civil servants with political appointees loyal to the administration.

4. Economic Policies

- Tax Reform: Supporting pro-family tax cuts and eliminating taxes perceived to penalize marriage or large families.

- Medicare and Medicaid: Proposals suggest reducing the scope of these programs, emphasizing privatization over federal involvement.

5. Dismantling Bureaucracy

- Aims to significantly reduce the size of the federal government, decentralizing power to states and increasing accountability through stricter oversight of agencies.

These goals have sparked significant debate. Supporters view them as a return to limited government and traditional values, while critics argue the plan undermines democratic institutions, civil rights, and environmental protections.

[biscuityskies]

Wait, I feel silly. What's in the Project 2025 that would threaten AO3? Are they actually implementing some anti-shipping policy???

Hi nonnie! No need to feel silly, there’s a lot going on and it’s all very overwhelming.

No, there’s not a no-ship policy. There is, however, the stated goal of Health and Human Services (HHS) of “Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families”. The first language of this goal says “Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs … are fraught with agenda items focusing on ‘LGBTQ+ equity’… These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.” (Project 2025 p451)

So essentially, are your blorbos gay? Not under the HHS. Marriage is between one man and one woman.

(There’s a caveat there where Chief Executive Bozo just signed to make everyone female, so even my cishet parents are now in a loving sapphic relationship, but we don’t have to get into that. Except maybe everyone’s actually enby?? Because nobody actually is assigned ova or sperm at conception… well. We already knew the authors of Project 2025 weren’t book smart unless the book was the bible and only if they can use it as a weapon.)

Further, “Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children…” is followed by “Pornography should be outlawed.” (Project 2025 p5)

Are your blorbos not cis? That’s porn, and liable to be outlawed.

What we’re seeing the administration do so far seems to follow Hitler’s rise to power. In 1923, Hitler led a failed coup. After his release from jail (though I will note Trump never spent any time in jail) he returned more popular than ever, and promised to fix the economy and “make the fatherland once again a world power” (or, make Germany great again). He then proceeded to recall many of the freedoms Germans had previously enjoyed, including their freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and right to an assembly. Sound familiar? (Hint: that’s the first amendment. “There’s no way he could do that if the first amendment is still in place—” why do you think the “woke liberal media” hasn’t reported on Musk’s Nazi salute? Because Trump can shut them down without a problem.)

We can draw other similarities too. The literal burning of books by MAGA. The “reinstatement” of the Christian faith nationwide— particularly in the form of the Trump Bible, which is then brought into schools to say the pledge of allegiance every morning and learn the Ten Commandments. (This also is an infringement on the first amendment, which is not only a freedom OF religion but a freedom FROM religion.) The attempt on birthright citizenship to be able to deport “the enemy from within”: even if you’re a German Jew you’re still a Jew; even if you’re born in the states to immigrant parents you’re still an immigrant. They don’t care who they deport. You think you can satisfy an ICE officer with documentation?

If we look at the past and we apply it to the present, we can reasonably infer the future. Knowledge was not welcome in the Nazi regime; why do you think they burned the books? Difference was not welcome in the Nazi regime; where do you think eugenics came into play? You were either a loyal cishet white German or you were sent to the concentration camps and/or killed on sight. You’re either a loyal cishet white USian or… we don’t know what the total plan for that is, but we can infer it’s not great. There have already been steps to repeal rights for anything DEI. If you’re not a cishet white man, you’re kind of fucked.

AO3 is a “ship and let ship”, “dead dove do not eat” archive. There are very few censors. AO3 is in immediate danger due to the pornography ban and the number of gay ships; my thought is that if conservatives catch wind of it, they will see it as a cesspool of liberal “woke agenda”ism and shut it down. It doesn’t follow the tenets of the conservative Christian faith, it doesn’t follow their structured plan for Nazi America. It’ll be one of many things to go.

And if it’s saved at the last minute, we’ll all have to be aware that that’s propaganda too.