Saturday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Saturday, November 4, 2023
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22 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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The times keep getting interesting.
Recently the Dutch government announced a reduction in the number of total flights at Amsterdam. The reason, as stated in the link, is to reduce pollution and noise. Flights will be capped at 460,000 per year, compared to a capacity of 500,000 (which was planned to be increased to 540,000).
This will hit several airlines hard, as Amsterdam is a popular destination and a major hub for connections. It will hit KLM particularly hard, seeing as the vast majority of their flights originate there.
JetBlue took this news hard, as they’ll lose their slots at AMS. They just recently began flying there from NY and Boston. The airline went a little trumpy, demanding the US government ban KLM from JFK entirely.
This doesn’t seem likely to happen, but the DOT is contemplating measures to restrict flights to the US by Dutch airlines.
This goes beyond JetBlue and KLM. In order to meet CO2 reduction goals, other forms of transportation might be curtailed in the near future. France made a half-hearted, complicated attempt to reduce domestic flights, which was also controversial. Reducing transportation is easier than reducing other sources of CO2 emissions, like energy generation or manufacturing.
For the tiny group of you all that are not boycotting twitter, a couple of feeds I have found to follow:
(Assuming you also want to stay current on stuff Middle East or Ukraine):
https://twitter.com/shashj
https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom
https://twitter.com/glcarlstrom/status/1720354062246318430
F. L. “Bubba” Copeland, Our Sibling Who Never Was
Is it just me, or does it seem like we’ve heard of an inordinate amount of otter attacks this year?
https://www.kcra.com/article/placer-county-serene-lakes-otters-attack/45729327
@Jax: The rebellion has just begun.
@Kathy:
AMS, the only airport to ever leave behind my luggage during 1996-2002 when I did over 400,00 flight miles. I was a Platinum Northwest Airlines FF, my wife Silver, we had priority tags on our baggage but KLM left them behind instead of putting them on our connecting flight to Warsaw.
@Jax: @OzarkHillbilly:
You’re being otterly ridiculous.
@Jax:..attacks…
I think that Mr. Leffers otter stay out of the watter…
@Stormy Dragon:
That’s so depressing.
Yesterday, quoting The Hill, Political Wire reported Mark Meadows’ publisher is suing Meadows. Sales tanked after it was reported his Grand Jury testimony contradicted the book. They want payments to Meadows back and damages. They say he violated an understanding that he would be honest in the book. I don’t see how they can appear in court and claim with a straight face they thought he was telling the truth. They knew he was a Republican.
@Kathy:
The AMS move will cut competition, raise prices on flights, and have the (perhaps unanticipated) effect of reducing the crushing Amsterdam tourist load while improving the economic quality of tourists that continue to come.
@Stormy Dragon: I took some crap on Kevin Drum’s site for describing the situation as trans genocide.
I don’t think I was wrong.
Instead of recognizing that the phenomenon that is a trans person is as old as humanity itself, they have convinced themselves, that this is some new “woke” thing, and they are determined to stop it. They want nothing less than to eliminate trans people from visible public life.
One of the more aggravating aspects of this is that there’s nothing “conservative” about it. This is what I appreciate about the late Justice Kennedy. His conservatism says the government has no business intruding on very personal matters that have no consequence of any weight for third parties.
It is a particular trial to me, being that even though I am avowedly 95 percent non-violent, the situation makes me periodically want to kick someone in the ass. It won’t help, and it will make me feel regret, so I’m not going to. Still…
@Jax: Now we know they’ve been talking to the orcas
@Jay L Gischer:
Which is why his decision to leave the court at a time when someone who isn’t likely to share his brand of conservatism is so disappointing. Then again material concerns over human ones is sort of a conservative thing.
@Kathy:
Another take.
It seems they are “greenwashing” the plot to make the airlines use larger aircraft for Amsterdam. Fewer 737 -ish types, more 777-ish, clearly fewer private small jets, and trying to shift more to the nearby airports, like Rotterdam.
@Franklin: That’s what I love about this site….the sense of humor amongst the commentariat. 😛
@dazedandconfused:
That’s not entirely greenwashing. A larger plane with a high load factor consumes less fuel per passenger mile than a smaller one.
KLM will have to reduce their flight numbers. It will be interesting to note whether they take down more of the small city hopper flights that use small planes, or the long haul flights that use larger planes.
I pulled out my copy of “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. Seemed fitting for the times. The chapter on “How to Tell a True War Story” cuts deep. All of it, and especially the part asking: “How do you generalize?” (p7 of the linked pdf).
44 years ago Iran proxies took American hostages during the administration of a weak Democrat president
Now the difference is that in 1980, the US mainstream media highlighted the hostage crisis while today they make no mention of the Americans being held by Iran’s proxy, Hamas.
It took a bit to find any statement of numbers that wasn’t newer than October 11, but this was in an October 20 NPR piece on the two Americans released, buried deep.
@Jay L Gischer:
As of this writing, Anthony Kennedy (that’s who you meant, right?) is still alive, albeit retired from the Court.
Bleeding gash Judge and lawyer for the Trump 14th Amendment trial in Colorado complaining about someone streaming and commenting on it as against the law and court protocol.
@dazedandconfused:
I agree it’s not entirely green-washing. What I suspect this is about is noise. There are three north-south runways, clearly the left and right ones were placed wide enough apart from the original center one to allow all-weather instrument approaches on all three simultaneously, which means they have to be about a 1/2 mile between them. This means there is a major noise footprint nearly 5 miles across, essentially all over the city. The number of people affected and complaining is certainly a very large percentage of the total population of Amsterdam.