Trump Great for Cable, Not Bad for Bloggers

See this

Where Driverless Vehicles First Are Used

In controlled environments, such as mines.  See this Technology Review article  on their use in Australia. 

Habits and Back Pain

Interesting piece here on what our health dollars are spent on.

" The three most expensive diseases in 2013: diabetes ($101 billion), the most common form of heart disease ($88 billion) and back and neck pain ($88 billion)."

"only about 4 percent of spending on low back and neck pain was on pharmaceuticals. Generally, more spending is done on elderly people, but about 70 percent of the spending on low back and neck pain was on working-age adults"

Several years ago I was having low back pain.  Finally mentioned it to my doctor who gave me an exercise routine which takes 15 minutes a day.  No more back pain.  I wonder how much of the pain people suffer could be avoided with similar routines: 10 percent maybe? That's a bunch of money.

It requires access to doctors, establishing habits, and perseverance. 

Contra Trump II

I blogged previously on how Democrats should view and oppose Trump.  To extend my thoughts, because Trump has few or no principles, he can be unusually flexible (can Teflon be flexible?).  Similarly his opponents must be flexible, meaning they should avoid confirmation bias. (See this New Yorker post on this and other ideas relevant to the Trump era.)

We shouldn't believe or argue that Trump is fascist, authoritarian, racist or inept.  I guarantee for every  ten examples we can point to over the next four years showing those qualities he will have a few counter examples. Our best bet is to attack him as inconsistent, unprincipled, hypocritical showman, of whom the American people will become tired and disillusioned and be willing for a return to Democratic sanity and steadiness in 2020.

The bottom line on Trump is he lost the popular vote by 2.8+ million and won the electoral vote with a lot of luck and a very unlucky opponent.  And demographic trends are still against the Republicans.  So a competent candidate in 2020 without 40 years of baggage should be favored, even against an incumbent president, assuming Trump will have as rocky a tenure as we Democrats have to believe he will have.

Merry Christmas

Historical Drinking Patterns

A piece here on current drinking patterns:  New England and Wisconsin the heaviest, northern Midwest and Northwest states next, the evangelical South, Utah, and Idaho the least.  There's a note that the patterns don't change rapidly, but the only data is 21st century.  I wonder about the origins:

• Utah and Idaho would date from their settlement by whites--the Mormon church frowns on alcohol.
• Wisconsin presumably dates back to the German immigrants who settled there with their beer, among whom were some of my maternal ancestors.
• but how about the South?  Their current dryness is accounted for by evangelical religion. I'm not sure when that developed--George Whitefield did evangelical work in the 1740's.  I don't remember that he was particularly teetotal.  Did dryness develop along with the progress of evangelical religion?
• and how about the North?  Evangelical religion, the second Great Awakening, was perhaps more powerful in the North during the early 19th century.  I'm thinking Prohibition saw a contest between the immigrant wets, the Germans with their beer, Italians et.al. with their wine, etc. against the WASPy religious types.  With the end of Prohibition the immigrants had won.

Miller and Smith--And the Course of History

The Times had a piece on changes in the most common last names, the hook being the fact that Latino last names are moving up.

What caught my eye, though, were two of the other most common names: "Smith" and "Miller".  (Jones and Williams and Johnson were also big).  Why?  They're occupational names. Back in the day when surnames first were assigned, the predominant occupation was farming, but we don't see "Farmer" as a big surname.  Miller and smith would be higher income occupations back in the 16th century.  It appears that higher income people had more surviving offspring then, and in the future.

On a related issue Megan McArdle has a piece on the inheritance of status, giving a brief summary of some work tending to show that socioeconomic status is very inheritable. 

NIHism in Government

FCW has advice to high ranking career civil servants who have to adjust to their new bosses in the Trump administration.  All good, but this recognizes the NIHism common in government.

" Don't let arrogance or intransigence alienate you from the incoming leadership team. It's crucial to focus on outcomes and not be wed to the name of an initiative or its current process. Change happens. President George W. Bush's administration had a number of shared services initiatives branded as "eGov initiatives" and "lines of business." Those named initiatives were set aside by the Obama administration and time was lost before a new wave of shared services efforts were launched. This is a normal occurrence. Be prepared for it and keep the goal in mind -- the outcome matters much more than the form or structure of a current program."

As I've written before, the Madigan "Infoshare" (GHWBush's USDA secretary) initiative limped into the Espy USDA tenure, lost momentum, then was sort of revived under Glickman, but changed/killed under the GWBush administration.  The problem is that special projects represent a way for the administration to make a difference, to put their own stamp on the agency.  But because they're identified with one administration, unless they're completed within the term of the administration, it makes them particularly vulnerable as targets for the next.   By contrast the daily work of the bureaucracy is more immune to change. 

Two-fer for USDA Secretary?

Chris Clayton discusses possible picks for Secretary, including a Hispanic woman from Texas with previous USDA experience.

USDA is vitally important to Trump--he's devoted one transition team member to the entire department!!!

Contra Trump

I think our new president will be a transactional one.  Mr. Trump seems to have few fixed principles or beliefs, so he's likely to be very flexible in approaching issues.

I also think this flexibility and his lack of government experience (along with that of his appointees) is sure to lead to fiascoes and scandals, as well as significant changes and accomplishments.  (See Cowen's  post on the latter.)

With that assumption, I don't agree with those who believe Democrats should be unfailingly confrontational, following the pattern of Republicans with Obama but going one better. I'd suggest a two-pronged stance:

• take every opportunity to point out Trump's lack of principles and flip flops--he'll provide sufficient ammunition.
• do deals when possible.  Given past partisanship such deals are likely to split Republicans.

So in 2020  our candidate should run against Trump based on a set of principles and a set of deals.

 My underlying assumption is that the deals Dems reach with Trump will be successful, at least as contrasted to the issues on which we attack.