New York Times decries heat island effect as cities sprawl, but also advocates population growth via low-skill immigration

by philg

Every day this summer, the New York Times offers a climate panic story. “Tracking Dangerous Heat in the U.S.” is updated daily and Phoenix is always a dangerous place to be (folks in Atlanta can get away with “Extreme Caution”; South Florida is literally toast):

The same newspaper previously alerted us to the connection between urban growth and oppressive heat. Example from 2018… “5 Ways to Keep Cities Cooler During Heat Waves”:

Cities can be miserable during heat waves. All that concrete and asphalt soaks up the sun’s rays, pushing temperatures up even further. Tall buildings can block cooling breezes. Exhaust from cars and air-conditioners just adds to the swelter.

This is known as the urban heat island effect: A large city’s built-up environment can make it 2 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding countryside during the day and up to 22 degrees warmer at night. That extra heat is becoming a serious public health problem.

More people means bigger cities and bigger cities inevitably will be hotter cities (humans moving around on pavement will never emit less heat than grass). You might think that the natural position for a climate alarmist, therefore, would be to oppose policies that drive population growth, e.g., low-skill immigration, government handouts conditional on having kids, etc. Yet the NYT consistently promotes population growth, especially via open borders. For example, a recent piece from the paper’s in-house Nobel laureate.. “How Immigrants Are Saving the Economy” (Professor Dr. Paul Krugman, Ph.D.):

There are surely multiple reasons. But you may not have heard about one ingredient in the economy’s special sauce: a sudden, salutary rebound in net immigration, which soared in 2022 to more than a million people, its highest level since 2017. We don’t know whether this rebound will last, but it has been really helpful. It’s an exaggeration, but one with some truth, to say that immigrants are saving the U.S. economy.

I’m not sure how net immigration is measured if the undocumented walk across the border and never talk to a Census Bureau worker, but Prof. Krugman is talking about a substantial new city of humans being created every year in the U.S. (for reference, the population of Phoenix per se is 1.6 million).

What about artisanal production of population growth? A June 2023 editorial says that we should ladle out more cash to “families” (usually “single parents”) who do minimal work and choose to have multiple kids. It looks like Americans respond to financial incentives. The middle class is being bred out of existence because they can’t afford family-size housing. Those who don’t work have plenty of kids because the (too-poor-to-have-kids) taxpayers provide them with family-size housing. The rich have kids, but there aren’t enough of them to make a difference in population statistics.

Channeling the spirit of “If you don’t like seeing me naked, you should shop at a different Publix”.. “If you don’t like summer heat waves, why do you advocate for a larger U.S. population?”

I arrived in Pasadena, California last night. I disclosed my plan to walk to dinner to a gal at the front desk. She expressed surprise that anyone would be willing to walk for 10 minutes due to the heat (85 degrees and dry). Separately, after risking heat stroke and/or death, I found that the June 2023 official Pride markings on sidewalks, transformers, and stores (Rainbow-first retail) were all still up.

More photos to follow, but here’s a preview of how city property is decorated in case there is a merchant who does not do his/her/zir/their share:

(This would be illegal in at least some parts of the U.S. ummah: “‘A sense of betrayal’: liberal dismay as Muslim-led US city bans Pride flags”)

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The film flame is alive in Holland

by philg

For the old and nostalgic, or the merely old at heart, Fotohandel Delfshaven in the Netherlands (they’ve moved to downtown Delft, actually) is a great destination. There’s a gallery/showroom downstairs and a team of guys upstairs who try to get everything back to working condition. The store also sells some broken cameras for those who just want to decorate a bookshelf. They sell film and arrange processing:

The front of the shop contains an early smartphone camera prototype:

If you were inspired by astronaut Tom Hanks’s bravery in going to the moon on Apollo 13, why not buy a prototype of the electric Hasselblad that Hanks would have used if not for the unfortunate oxygen tank explosion?

What’s inside a ‘Blad?

For maximum taste and subtlety points, a gold-plated Leica:

I prefer the red Rolleiflex:

You don’t have to be rich to come away with a working film camera. $250-500 should suffice for a high-quality restored example. If you adjust 1960s or 1970s prices to Bidies, you’re actually paying far less for one of these cameras than it cost new.

Delft is a great town and I highly recommend a visit to Fotohandel Delfshaven (or come over to our house and I’ll pull a subset collection out of the closet!).

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Biking without bike infrastructure: the Netherlands

by philg

In Danish happiness: bicycle infrastructure I described the Danish system of road/curb/bike path/curb/sidewalk. What if a significant percentage of a society used bicycles for transportation, but nobody bothered to build infrastructure? That’s the Netherlands!

I recently visited a friend in Delft, a university town south of Amsterdam. There are no generally no curbs at all in the downtown area. The road is informally divided into car/bike/pedestrian, but these divisions can change depending on what exactly is sticking out from a house, possibly forcing pedestrians into the bike area, or whether a truck is trying to use the road.

The risk of injury has ballooned in the last few years due to the popularity of cargo bikes and electric bikes. Instead of getting hit by a 200 lb. person-bike combo going 8 mph you’ll get hit by a 400 lb. person-small person-groceries-bike combo going 15 mph. “Trouble in cyclists’ paradise: Amsterdam accused of favouring pedestrians” (Guardian 2021) describes the increasing conflict between walkers and bikers in Amsterdam.

There aren’t as many collisions as you’d imagine, but pedestrians are required to be constantly mindful. This works for the Dutch, but tourists are frequently wandering casually into near-collisions with cyclists. What the cyclists have gained is balanced by a loss of mental peace and capacity among pedestrians.

Here’s a narrow street designed for pedestrians in The Hague:

The bicycle is being used for transportation, not recreation, so it might be whipping by these pedestrians at 10-20 mph. Here are the two transportation modes interacting in Delft:

Maybe those white boxes are supposed to delineate between walking and biking? Or maybe there are two lanes for opposite directions? I didn’t figure it out.

Just a few of the bikes parked near the Amsterdam Zuid secondary station:

What if you choose “neither” but don’t have a car and/or don’t want to pay what my rich local friend said were insanely expensive parking fees? Take the tram!

My take-away: the Danes did it right.

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Department of Old Guys can Fly: nonstop cross-country at 1,100 lbs gross weight

by philg

Hiding from the heat at the EAA Aviation Museum this week, we noticed an exhibit about a guy who designed and built a small plane then flew it nonstop across the U.S. at a takeoff weight of less than 500 kg. The punchline? Arnold Egneter was 82 years old on the day of the flight.

A Smithsonian article about the achievement says that the airplane had “a crude autopilot”.

EAA keeps saying that their mission is to inspire young people, but if you look at the ages of the airshow performers, the round-the-world and over-the-poles pilots, and achievers such as Ebneter, maybe what EAA is actually doing is inspiring the elderly!

(Separately, if Joe Biden fails to win reelection (the horror!), perhaps he will design, build, and fly his own airplane across the U.S. at age 82!)

Speaking of old age and Oshkosh… here’s the jam that we found in the fridge in the $4400/week $420,000 (Zestimate) house that friends rented:

It’s free of toxic added sugar and expired less than 10 years ago (September 2014). Can “EAA week” pay for the homeowner’s expenses? Zillow shows that property taxes were $6,000/year in pre-Biden money (latest data available are from 2019).

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DeSantis kills permanent alimony

by philg

Although the profit opportunity from child support, e.g., from a one-night unmarried encounter, was limited in Florida, the state was a paradise for alimony plaintiffs, especially those married or 7 years or more who could seek “permanent alimony”. The successful plaintiff could use what had been the defendant’s money to throw a massive divorce party, as recently described in the Wall Street Journal. Due to the cruel tyranny of Ron DeSantis, however, the party may be over a little earlier than planned…

“Governor DeSantis Signs Landmark Alimony Reform Bill Eliminating Permanent Alimony” (Lowndes). As in some other states, the alimony revenue opportunity is now a formula based on time served:

The length of durational alimony is not to exceed 50% of short-term marriages (<10 years); 60% of moderate-term marriages (10-20 years); and 75% of long-term marriages (20+ years);

Plaintiffs still have an incentive to quit jobs and spend like crazy in the months or years leading up to their lawsuits:

The amount of durational alimony is to be determined by reasonable needs not to exceed 35% of the difference between the net incomes of the parties, whichever is less.

“reasonable needs” = whatever a plaintiff was spending during the marriage, so a plaintiff who takes five trips to Europe before suing can say that regular trips to Europe were part of the marital lifestyle. Also note that alimony is now tax-free (as child support previously was), so 35% of the defendant’s income is roughly 50% of the defendant’s spending power (and could become more if Joe Biden delivers on his promise to make successful Americans pay their fair share). Alimony revenue entitlement is subject to modification if incomes change, so a plaintiff who wins 15 years of alimony will have a financial incentive to refrain from work for 15 years.

Embedded in an amoral society, moralism:

Courts can consider the impact of adultery in determining the amount of alimony whether or not it has a financial impact.

(In the true no-fault states, a plaintiff who says “I want a divorce because the defendant objects to all of the Tinder dates I have brought home to the master bedroom” is entitled to the same profits as one who has been faithful.)

It will be tougher to profit after a defendant’s death:

Requires the showing of a special circumstance to secure alimony with life insurance.

Let’s check the reactions…

A “gender bias expert” (PhD!) implies that it is “women” who are alimony profiteers, despite the fact that the Florida alimony law was and is gender-neutral:

Here’s one from a “fascism fighting scribe” (who complains of living in “DeSantistan” (why not move away from fascism?)) in which the reduction in profitability of divorce lawsuits is characterized as “erosion of the institution of marriage in Florida”:

Note that this person also suggests that, out of 74 gender IDs recognized by Science, it is “women” who are passionate seekers of permanent alimony.

Regardless of the gender IDs of those involved, the new law is interesting from a cultural perspective. Americans apparently can agree that decades of cash payments are the natural outcome of a marriage in which one participant decided that he/she/ze/they would be better off partnering with someone else (or flying solo/Tinder). The British have a different point of view. A married defendant will see his/her/zir/their plaintiff in court over a period of months and, in an ideal world, one former sex partner will pay the other a lump sum as part of a “clean break”. And then in Germany, assuming the couple being divorced checked a “separate property” box on the marriage license application, neither former sex partner will pay the other (someone who didn’t work during the marriage is expected to work once divorced).

Related:

  • Real World Divorce Florida chapter (will now require revision!)
  • a look at how family law financial incentives shrink the U.S. economy by discouraging plaintiffs from working
  • below is an ideal Presidential-style tweet from Joe Biden’s handlers that, in my opinion, DeSantis needs to copy if he’s going to win. Biden’s script line, “There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together” is completely false, but it sounds great. (Why false? Building and operating a Chinese-style high-speed rail system is way beyond our capacity. Creating a health care system that an increasingly low-skill population can afford has been beyond our capacity for decades (so 18% of GDP is spent on health care compared to less than 5% in high-skill Singapore).) DeSantis would have to modify the below. Say that he’s optimistic if we change a few things, e.g., stop offering to change the depicted child’s gender with drugs and surgery, try to cut the number of Americans on means-tested welfare down from 100 million, etc. But DeSantis needs to start with a message that even the lowest-skill most welfare-dependent richest-in-criminal-background Americans are going to contribute to a bright future.
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Oshflation v. Official CPI

by philg

Climate change has had a dramatic effect on EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”). High temperature today was 90 degrees, 12.5% higher (using God’s preferred temperature units) than last year’s 80 degrees.

How about prices? We parked a car at the seaplane base this morning. It’s $25 to park for the day, 67% more than the $15 charged a year ago (the Biden administration says that inflation is 3%).

Speaking of the seaplane base, here’s a Cessna that was previously parked in a tow-away zone:

…and some general photos…

Finally, three cheers for AirCam. With two people on board, the twin came off the water after about 100′ with no apparent transition from plowing to step!

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Wall Street Journal on the economic value of low-skill migrants

by philg

Like the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal has worked tirelessly to spread the Good News about the Miracle of Low-Skill Migration. An example from 2015… “Migrants Offer Hope for Aging German Workforce”:

By some estimates, Britain is on course to eclipse Germany as Europe’s biggest economy by 2030, thanks in part to its large numbers of young, energetic immigrants.

Germany “is going to be severely challenged” by demographics, said Peter Sutherland, the United Nations special representative for international migration. Managing the trends “requires a great deal of proactive thinking” and openness to immigration, he said.

About 20% of asylum seekers were from war-torn Syria—more than from any other country—and four out of five arriving Syrians are believed to be from “average or even well-off economic circumstances and have a good education,” the agency said.

In the 1950s, Italians and other Southern Europeans flooded in to help rebuild the country, contributing significantly to its fast postwar economic recovery. In the following decades, millions of Turks arrived and many ended up working in German industrial companies, helping its economy more.

This summer, however, the same newspaper informs us that the countries that have been getting rich via low-skill immigration every year since 1950 are now, in fact, poor. “Europeans Are Becoming Poorer. ‘Yes, We’re All Worse Off.’”:

Europe’s current predicament has been long in the making. An aging population with a preference for free time and job security over earnings ushered in years of lackluster economic and productivity growth.

Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power, wages have declined by about 3% since 2019 in Germany, by 3.5% in Italy and Spain and by 6% in Greece.

Karim Bouazza, a 33-year-old nurse [in Brussels] who was stocking up on half-price meat and fish for his wife and two children, complained that inflation means “you almost need to work a second job to pay for everything.”

The eurozone economy grew about 6% over the past 15 years, measured in dollars, compared with 82% for the U.S., according to International Monetary Fund data. That has left the average EU country poorer per head than every U.S. state except Idaho and Mississippi, according to a report this month by the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based independent think tank. If the current trend continues, by 2035 the gap between economic output per capita in the U.S. and EU will be as large as that between Japan and Ecuador today, the report said.

Apparently, expert consensus is that there is no longer a connection between low-skill migration and economic vibrancy. The 2023 WSJ article does not contain any of the following words or phrases: “migrant”; “immigrant”; “refugee”; “asylum-seeker”.

Separately, here’s a luxury car in one of Europe’s richest countries, the Netherlands (photographed in Delft, July 6, 2023):

The Netherlands now contains 27 percent migrants and children of migrants and thus should be insanely rich if we believe the Wall Street Journal’s 2015 Science.

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Dream address for white Democrats

by philg

Here’s an intersection where a real estate developer could make enormous profits if white Democrats were sincere. Imagine the prestige of being able to tell people “I live at the corner of President Barack Obama Highway and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.”

(Note that President Barack Obama Highway was formerly known as “Old Dixie Highway”; see this NYT story from 2020 and this ABC story about a renaming of the road farther south to “Harriet Tubman Highway”.)

This ideal location is in Riviera Beach, Florida, just a few steps from the water, and it is not currently overdeveloped:

The righteous occupants of the MLK&Obama Building will not be troubled by any neighbors who’ve voted for insurrection/treason. Biden won 96:3 in this neighborhood (source: nytimes 2020 election map):

Zillow says that a house near this corner is currently worth only about $200,000, so an enterprising developer could buy up quite a few lots and create a condo or apartment complex (“Progressive Gardens at MLK&Obama”? “Tower of Justice”?).

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Oshkosh to San Francisco Tent Truck

by philg

Loyal readers may remember the Bloomberg Abortion Care Bus. This post explores the question of whether it would make sense to transport almost-new tents from EAA AirVenture (“Oshkosh”) to San Francisco.

When perhaps 50,000 overnight visitors converge on a town with a population of 66,000 and just a handful of hotels, many tents are pitched. The return journey is usually via light airplane or commercial airline and, therefore, tents are often discarded after a week of use. What about delivering these tents to the vulnerable sidewalk-dwellers of San Francisco and surrounding communities? A truck that gets loaded up starting on Thursday morning and that departs AirVenture on Sunday night.

Here’s a typical “let’s take a vacation in my private Boeing” situation:

Here’s a pilot who won’t have any space for souvenirs in the 1940 Funk unless he loses the tent:

The weather was forecast mostly peaceful and thunderstorm-free for the entire week. What was the actual weather above our Walmart tent this morning?

If the tent truck is a good idea, which California billionaire who expresses passion for housing the unhoused should it be named after? My vote: the Benioff Tent Truck (see, for example, https://cvp.ucsf.edu/programs/benioff-homelessness-and-housing-initiative ).

Labor Day stop for the truck: Burning Man! Speaking of that, Tumbleweed gave a great talk at OSH about her experience running the temporary airport at Burning Man. The airport now has a contract tower staffed by Oshkosh veterans.

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American Eagle eschews Rainbow-first retail in Rotterdam

by philg

May 2023, Manhattan, American Eagle shop windows:

July 2023, Rotterdam (different city), American Eagle (same retailer):

Despite the fact that rainbow flags are almost non-existent in this region, and therefore are sorely needed, American Eagle doesn’t roll out its 2SLGBTQQIA+ message in Rotterdam. If the company is committed to this cause (which they should be), why don’t they promote it in Rotterdam? If the company is not committed to this cause, why do they promote it in New York City?

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