Deregulation Destroyed Power Grid

Why is the cause of the massive U.S./Canada power outage such a big mystery? Hmm. How about we follow the money. Bush and Cheney deregulated energy markets, which allowed Enron to go nuts, destroy the life savings of thousands of investors, and drive the state of California into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, energy companies around the U.S. were busy cutting workers, foregoing maintenance of plants and infrastructure, and basically milking every last dime they could out of the system while putting as little as possible back into it. It's the old profit maximization thing that capitalism is so good at, and profits at electric companies have been getting pretty maximized.

So now the grid goes down and everyone is asking why. The people who know why are the power company executives who have laid off maintenance workers and ordered managers to cut costs in order to maximize profits. Those execs know that the grid went down because they ran into into the ground so they could make more money. But of course, they can't just say, "Well, we basically destroyed the grid in the last couple of years to boost our bottom lines, so this was bound to happen." Instead they say, "Um, we're going to study the matter, but what we do know is more deregulation would be a good thing!"

Don't believe me? Read this story from 2001 [link via Buzzflash]. It recounts what management and labor said about energy deregulation almost two years ago. Management (and Bush/Cheney) said:

Companies like Chicago-based Midwest Generation, a unit of Edison International, are seeking to negotiate new labor contracts that boost productivity and make plants more cost efficient to make electricity at more competitive prices, said Doug McFarlan, a spokesman for Midwest.

Labor said:

The [International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union], which represents about 220,000 utility employees in the United States and Canada, warns that in addition to breakdowns at plants and transmission grids, deregulation leads to smaller, less-experienced workforces as utilities sell their plants to the independent, unregulated power companies.

Now just ask yourself: Who was right? And who should we listen to as the debate over how to "modernize the grid" heats up?

Posted 12:41 PM | Comments (1) | general politics

Countdown Lowdown

Law school starts Monday with three days of orientation, and to get things going the Dean has dutifully posted a "welcome letter" (link may require password) to the GW website to stroke the egos of the school and its incoming students:

This year the Law School received close to 12,000 applications for our class of 500 students. One out of every seven people who applied to a law school in the U.S. applied to GW. From that, we have drawn an exceptional class, one of the very best in our history.

I guess we should feel pretty good about that, and I guess I do. But really, as usual around here, ambivalence reigns. I'm excited to get started and the pre-big-new-thing jitters have begun, but I'm also sad to leave the life of leisure I've enjoyed all summer. Another way to put that is my ass has gotten lazy and the start of school means I have to get off of it and doing something with my life. Ah well, all good things do come to an end, don't they?

Question for others familiar with law schools for whatever reason: Is it common for schools to withhold the orientation schedule until orientation begins? All GW has told us is that we should show up at 9 a.m. Monday and that orientation will last three days. That's great and everything, but it's not very helpful for people who have things like kids, jobs, or any other obligations at all. I'm a big lazy bum so I don't have much happening, but I was going to see the dentist next week and can't really make an appointment because I don't know what my schedule will be. Of course, I have no clue about my class schedule, either, so planning anything after Monday is basically impossible. The reason I wonder if this is common is that it sends a message that your life is over when law school starts, or at least that your time belongs to the law school and is no longer within your control. "All your time are belong to us," GW seems to be saying. Do all law schools take this kind of approach to their incoming classes?

Maybe I'm more sensitive to this because GW's computer policy strikes me as imperious, as well, so I fear I'm seeing a trend. I guess I'll find out soon enough....

Posted 07:33 AM | Comments (7) | law school

Congratulations, Liable!

Hooray for Elle over at liable for her successful transition from Blogger to Movable Type. Not only does the new and improved liable feature all the benefits of MT (robust and reliable comments, rss feeds for those who use aggregators, etc.), it's also been completely redesigned for your reading pleasure, and it now resides at a cool new domain: curiousgirl.org. Don't forget to update your bookmarks so you won't miss any of the fun of following Elle's progress through the wilderness of law school.

Posted 07:06 AM | meta-blogging

Ani Rocks

ani difranco played a terrific show at Wolf Trap last night. Best lines from her new song, "Serpentine":

cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked makes it serpentine capitalism is the devil's wet dream

Ain't that the truth. Ani has kindly made more of her goodness available for download with her poem in response to 9-11-01 and the aftermath.

Hamell on Trial opened the show with good humor, high energy, and amazing guitar strumming. I got a good laugh out of "I Hate Your Kid," and I'm still wondering how one guy can get so much great sound out of one guitar.

Wolf Trap itself is quite possibly the best concert venue I've ever attended. Open air venues are usually great fun, but Wolf Trap lets you do it in style by letting you bring just about anything you want onto the lawn. We took a picnic and a cooler full of wine and beer and had ourselves a fine time. Highly recommended.

(Note: If you're transportationally-challenged or just prefer to rely on mass transit, the shuttles between Wolf Trap and the metro line work great and I think Wolf Trap tries to schedule events to end in time for you to make the last train into the city. At least they did with the Ani show....)

Posted 08:08 AM | life generally

ABA Defends Civil Rights

Despite my criticism yesterday, the ABA isn't all bad:

The Bush administration should drop plans to let agents eavesdrop on conversations between terrorism suspects and defense lawyers and should ease other restrictions to ensure military tribunals are fair and open, the nation's largest lawyers' organization said Tuesday.

Posted 07:06 AM | Comments (1) | law general

The ABA is Broken

According to a recent study by the ABA's Commission on Loan Repayment and Forgiveness, law school costs too much and it's hurting the legal profession [link may require subscription]:

Between 1992 and 2002, the report noted, the cost of living in the United States rose 28 percent, and average tuition at public law schools jumped 134 percent, to $9,252, for in-state students, and 100 percent, to $18,131, for out-of-state students. Tuition at private law schools increased 76 percent, to $24,920, during the same period. ... In 2002, the average starting salary for lawyers in private practice was $90,000, more than twice the $36,000 average for public-interest jobs.

No kidding? Here's what the ABA recommends to change the situation:

Congress should enact legislation, or the U.S. Department of Education should change existing regulations, to forgive income-contingent loans sooner and to eliminate provisions of those loans that amount to a marriage penalty.

More law schools should create their own loan-forgiveness programs, along with scholarships and fellowships for students who choose public-service jobs.

State and local bar associations should create or expand loan-forgiveness programs.

Here's a better idea: Make law school 2 years instead of three and put a cap on tuition. I'm sorry, but when most law school classes hold 150 or more students, I can't see how the costs of professors' salaries and infrastructure could require each of those students to be paying $30k/year for the privilege of being in class. You could also eliminate the costs of doing legal research by creating a public domain research service that will put Lexis-Nexis out of business, which would cut costs dramatically for both law schools and practicing lawyers. I'm sure there are other ways the system could be reformed, but judging by this report, the ABA doesn't seem too serious about it. Tell me again why the ABA exists?

Oh yeah. The legal world and I are going to be best friends, aren't we?

Posted 09:52 AM | Comments (1) | law general law school

Racing to the Bottom

Phillip Greenspun's brilliant satire strikes again, this time on the subject of unfair trade policies. Greenspun asks: "Why can't we buy a Chinese house at Walmart?"

How about this for a brilliant business idea:  clearcut a Canadian forest (they love to cut down trees in British Columbia) and ship the lumber to China, build modular houses there and ship the completed houses back to the U.S. in container ships.  Sell them at Walmart (they'll sell anything Chinese-made at Walmart).  The quality won't be quite as good as the best custom homes in the U.S. but it will be good enough and when things start to get creaky in 20 years you can throw the house out and buy a new one at Walmart or Home Depot.

Yeah, why don't we do that? But really, why do we keep messing around? While we're clear-cutting Canadian forests, why don't we just invade Canada, enslave the populace, and force Canadian labor to build us anything we want? Think of what we'd save on shipping!

Posted 09:24 AM | general politics

Kucinich via Lessig

FYI: Dennis Kucinich is guest blogging on Larry Lessig's blog this week, as Lessig announced here. I'll be curious to see whether Kucinich comes across as more friendly and approachable in writing than he does when speaking.

Posted 09:22 PM | election 2004

Yes We Can!

If you don't have kids or friends with kids, you may not have heard of "Bob the Builder." Bob's a cartoon construction worker/handyman who works with his team of animated tools to, well, fix whatever needs fixing. Bob's theme song is called "Can we fix it?", and the song's chorus answers that question with an exuberant, "Yes we can!" (Click here to hear the song.)

I think of that song sometimes when I read transcripts of speeches by some of the Democratic presidential candidates, or when watching them respond to questions at various forums, such as the one that just finished tonight in Philadelphia. Listening to these Democrats fall over each other to demand universal health care and to condemn "right to work" laws as anti-union, "right to be exploited" laws is like taking deep breaths of fresh air after being under water for way too long. For the last three years Bush and Co. have made all kinds of noises, but most of them seem to have been either lies or attempts to scare their audience, or both. Now, instead of fear mongering and nothing but rhetoric designed to strengthen the corporate class, the Democrats are touring the country talking about ways to take care of all Americans, not just those who are already plenty taken care of. Democrats like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun, and even John Kerry have given me a great deal more hope in the Democratic party and also in the prospects for the future. Can we really do something about the problems in our world? These candidates are standing up and saying "Yes we can!"

For example, at this most recent forum, the candidates addressed the question of global trade justice, and most of them said something along the lines of: we need to have smart trade that puts workers first. Of course, this is what you'd expect them to say when speaking to the Sheet Metal Workers International. But some of them went beyond the empty rhetoric of "we need to take care of workers" to talk about specific ways to do that, and just hearing their ideas made me think for the first time about the possibility of making trade fair via treaties and governmental regulation rather than via grassroots activism. Sure, college students can get together to demand their schools buy only sweat-free products, but progress by such methods is slow, at best. In addition to such efforts, why not build social justice into our trade agreements? As one of the candidates said, we shouldn't allow any products to be sold in the U.S. that are made by child labor, or by any workers without basic human rights, such as a reasonable wage, health care, reasonable working hours, real and enforceable workplace safety, etc. Nor should we allow the importation of any goods made in countries where manufacturers do not use sustainable environmental protections. If the U.S. built these kinds of regulations into its trade policy, the rest of the world would quickly follow suit and the entire world—both humans and their environment—would reap the rewards for generations to come. Under the reign of Bush, the idea of building social justice into trade policy is a farce. Under one of these Democratic presidents, the issues will at least be on the table, and that's a start.

Can we live in a better world with less inequality, less human suffering, and a healthy environment? Keep listening to the Democratic candidates and remember what Bob the Builder says: "Yes we can!"

-----
Just a couple more random thoughts from the SMWI forum:

• Gephardt is not electable for one reason: He doesn't use active verbs. That may sound silly, but language matters and Gephardt's language is all half-measures. Listen to him and you'll hear "I tried," "I worked," "I think," etc. Those verbs don't show confidence or achievement, they only show effort. Do you want a president who can get things done, or one that tries hard? Gephardt would be more convincing if he used verbs like "I did," "I built," "I succeeded," "I know," etc. But he doesn't.
• Moseley Braun needs to address the audience and not the moderator at forums like these.
• Lieberman is all jowls. The poor man is like a poster-boy for a face lift.
• Dean may be the most electable simply because he's really the most handsome. L. thinks so. I think he also comes across as the most trustworthy straight-talker, but the handsome thing is probably more important.
• Kucinich would reach orders of magnitude more voters if he'd just relax a little and concentrate on sounding reasonable and measured. He's got beautiful ideas, but he seems unable to convey them at anything but a fever pitch. A fever pitch is great for emphasis, but it gets tiresome pretty quickly when it becomes your primary means of communication.
• Kerry looks and sounds presidential, but the way he loses me when he dances around the question of why he joined his fellow Senators in abdicating Congress' constitutional responsibility to decide whether to use military force. Kerry and Gephardt (and Lieberman, but he's not a serious contender) are compromised on this issue and the only way they could plausibly get around it is to make the case that they were mislead by the Bush administration, right along with the rest of us. Instead, both echo Bush and Co. about Saddam's history of being a bad man. Sorry, that's not good enough when soldiers are dying every day.


• Sharpton just rocks the house every time he speaks. He kicked off with a jab at Ah-nold: "Schwarzenegger is an impostor. I'm the real terminator: I want to terminate the Presidency of G. Bush, terminate John Ashcroft, and all the people who are taking away our democracy." (That's a paraphrase.) He also whipped out a great analogy to explain how Bush and Tony Blair convinced their countries to commit troops to go to war. Again, I'm paraphrasing, but Sharpton said something like, "What Bush told us about Iraq is like me telling you we have to get out of this building because it's on fire. So we all get outside and you say, 'Where's the fire?' And then I get my friend Tony Blair to come by and say, 'The fire doesn't matter; you needed some fresh air anyway.'" Sharpton's closing statement was priceless—you should be able to access it from a link here, but it involved a story about his grandmother telling him that the only way to get a donkey to move is to slap it, and ended with Sharpton saying "I'm going to slap this donkey all the way to the White House" (or something to that effect). Trust me, it was brilliant.

Posted 09:15 PM | Comments (3) | election 2004

Happy (Belated) Birthday, ai!

It's official. As of last Friday, August 8, 2003, ai was officially one year old. I'm not sure how I missed it; time just flies when you're having fun, I guess.

A lot has happened since that first post, and, all things considered, it's been a great year. Thanks to those of you who have been kind enough to stop by from time to time, and thanks double and triple to those of you who have shared your thoughts via email and comments. Blogging is usually enjoyable, sometimes it's even therapeutic, but it's at its most useful, satisfying, and rewarding best when the conversation flows both ways. So I hope you'll keep reading ai and I hope even more that you'll keep telling me when ai is full of it, whatever "it" happens to be.

For those of you who feel like a scroll down the page and a stroll into the recent past, feast your eyes on the newly functional "ai one year ago today" feature a couple of screens down in the right column. There you'll find a daily reminder of what ai was all up in your face about at this time last year. Try it; it's fun!

Here's hoping ai will be around another year from now to look back fondly at my first year in law school. Which reminds me, is that countdown looking a bit scary or is it just me?

Posted 11:13 AM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Missed Opportunities

Why didn't someone tell me about Brickfest? Maybe because you don't know what it is. I didn't either until I heard a brief mention of it on NPR this morning. A quick search revealed that

BrickFest is a yearly gathering of AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego™) from around the world.

And it just happened this past weekend at George Mason University in Arlington. Aside from a few fun hours many years ago spent wandering among the fantastic creations at Legoland in Billund, Denmark, I haven't been a very active or dedicated AFOL, and now I've missed a perfect chance to make up for my infidelity.

*sigh* I miss all the good stuff. (Come on, you know you loved your legos (or "lego bricks," as their maker wants us to call them) when you were a kid. Didn't everyone spend hours—nay, days!—building fantastic futures out of little plastic bricks?)

Posted 08:57 AM | Comments (1) | life generally