Update on the Radio Towers: It's Over. We Won!

An update on the “towers” issue that I first wrote about almost exactly two years ago and last blogged on back in November of last year: On December 1st the saga ended. In late October, Washington State’s Superior Court ruled against BBC Broadcasting (a local company with no links to the UK’s BBC). When the November 30th deadline for an appeal passed it was over. We won. There will be no array of AM broadcasting towers erected in Point Roberts.

This battle took quite a toll out of our band of “elderly activists.” Roughly a dozen of us, mostly retired folks living on the Tsawwassen - Point Roberts peninsula where the Lower Mainland of British Columbia abuts the northwestern corner of Washington State, have been engaged in this effort for two and a half years. It’s cost us countless hours with lawyers, land-use specialists, government agencies in both Canada and the US including the FCC, FAA, Homeland Security, Industry Canada and the CRTC (Canada’s FCC), the border patrols of both countries, experts in radio frequency emissions, surveyors, engineers and, of course, politicians on both sides of the border.

The legal expenses ran a tad over a quarter of a million(!) and we still owe our legal team some $20k. We’re holding a big fundraiser in February and hope to be able to retire the debt then.

But even after that the fat lady won’t be singing quite yet. There are four more related tasks, ones that we never anticipated when this all began. First is the matter of the renewal of BBC’s license to operate station KRPI. Over a dozen formal Petitions to Deny and Informal Objections to renewal have been filed with the FCC. They tell a powerful story of an American radio station totally under the control of a foreign broadcasting company (Sher-E-Punjab Radio, Inc.) that not only provided all the contents of every program but collected all advertising revenue and owned parts of both BBC Broadcasting and BBC Holdings (a land-holding company).

BBC’s lawyers recently submitted a “Supplementary Filing” with the FCC stating that, since they are abandoning the Point Roberts towers and will continue to broadcast from their current site, they want their license renewed — and all Petitions and Objections stricken from the record.

This is unlikely. It would be a violation of basic protocol to renew the license without first taking into consideration the many objections voiced which include the fact that BBC has been in violation of FCC regulations regarding “alien control and ownership” of an American radio facility for over a decade and that they repeatedly misrepresented matters on their applications to both the FCC and Whatcom County’s Planning Department.

We await FCC’s decision.

Second is the matter of the 1984 Ottawa Accord, the US-Canadian treaty that governs radio and TV broadcasting near the border. The treaty focuses on “frequency” interference. It requires each country to ensure that any new facility will not interfere with the signal of an existing station on the other side of the border.

But the 1984 agreement does not touch on “blanketing” interference which occurs to electronic equipment proximate to the towers. This kind of interference disrupts devices like computers, cordless phones, radios, TVs — anything with speakers or a receiver. Had the towers been built they would have caused interference to some 300 or residents in Point Roberts (which was within the FCC limits) but they would also have affected over 8,000 homes, businesses and organizations in Tsawwassen which is roughly 20 times the FCC threshold. The treaty doesn’t require that a broadcaster take the residents on the other side of the border into account. BBC didn’t. In fact, they redacted Tsawwassen from all maps submitted in their applications hoping, one can only assume, that no one would notice. The FCC didn’t. We did.

The treaty also makes no mention of health. There is growing evidence that long-term exposure to high-powered radio signals has serious health consequences, particularly in children, particularly cancer. The Canadian government has begun examining this issue and will likely revise the official limits on exposure to radio frequency emissions. The US needs to as well.

Any updating of the Ottawa treaty needs to take both blanketing interference and health issues into account. Our coalition will stay together to work with both the US Congress and Canada’s House of Commons to help in drafting a new treaty.

Third, we are working on a “text amendment” to the local zoning and land-use codes to set sharp limits on the height of any antenna or transmission tower that can be built in the Point Roberts. This is a relatively straightforward, if tedious, process and we hope to have the new regulations in place by late 2016.

Finally, there is the matter of Sher-E-Punjab Radio which has notified the CRTC of plans to apply for a licence to operate an AM station in Metro Vancouver. We and several other Punjabi language stations in Canada will likely file “Interventions” (CRTC’s version of an “Informal Objection”). Sher-E-Punjab has been operating in violation of the regulations of both the FCC and CRTC for over a decade. In addition they have been siphoning off advertising revenue from the legitimate, licenced stations. The hearings will likely be held in the Spring, 2016.

I’ll get back when these other issues are resolved.

Our Fears: Terrorism and Guns

Headines are blasting out: “Fear of Terrorism Grips the Country.” And “Terrorist Attack Boosts Trump.”

I don’t get it. We’ve had two terrorist attacks, separated by a fourteen year gap. In this latest in San Bernardino fourteen people died. Everyone should be concerned but this panic whipping across the land is just not rational.

Close to 35,000 people die every year in the US from guns and tens of thousands of others are wounded. Yet everyone seems to accept this as “normal.” Why isn’t there a long howl of outrage over this? Why aren’t we in a state of fear and trepidation? Your chance of getting gunned down by some random character with a gun and an attitude, or a gun and a mental disorder, or a gun and a grudge or a gun and no clue about gun safety or a … is thousands of times more likely than being caught up in a terrorist attack.

Color me confused.

The Freedom Caucus: Political Suicide in Action

Ryan Lizza has a fascinating piece in The New Yorker on the divided Republicans in the House and how the extremists in the Freedom Caucus forced Boehner’s resignation. It’s long and insightful as it chronicles the verbal dancing, the backroom maneuvering, the efforts to rally supporters on many issues. Lizza is rather kind to the Tea Party types who make up the Freedom Caucus. He follows classic journalistic tenets: be objective, report who said what to whom and when and let the reader figure out who are the good guys and who are the assholes.

The Freedom Caucus is presented as a solid group of House Members who wish to defund or repeal Obamacare, reduce the size of government, cut spending (except military), eliminate the deficit, cut taxes and fight against anything and everything that is initiated by the White House or proposed by any Democrat. In fact, at one point one of the group states that the thing he believes Congress needs to do is stop governing all the time.

As a good journalist Lizza lets his subjects hang themselves by their own words. He never asks any of the Caucus members he interviews the question that bounced right up the front of the long list I’d like answered:

Why are you doing this?

Really, why?

Can it be that this group honestly believes that the lives of Americans will be improved if their health care coverage is removed? That eliminating the services and support systems that government provides will improve the quality of life in America? That increasing military spending is a good thing? That cutting or eliminating spending on roads and bridges will make our lives better? That shutting down the government improved things? That defaulting on our debts would improve our standing in the world?

Oddly, nothing the Caucus members say gives even a hint that they believe these things or, worse, that they’ve even thought about them.

They are so hell-bent on opposing Obama and fighting against everything he has done or proposes to do that no thought is given to analyzing the long-term impact of their agenda. Obama is demonized and any Republican who even hints of compromise is immediately rendered suspect.

Their fanaticism is so perfect that they vigorously opposed the “trade promotion authority” bill because it gave the president too much influence over trade despite the fact that they have always been strong defenders of free trade. They so hate immigrants that they were willing to shut down the government unless all funds for processing them were deleted from the budget. They are so obsessed with Planned Parenthood that they refused to vote for essential pieces of legislation unless a clause was inserted defunding it. The fact that Obama said he would veto any bill that contained these poison pills fell on deaf ears.

So, yes, these extremists are even crazier than I thought. And by the end I realized Lizza’s genius. He just let the idiots talk and talk and with each statement, each remark they wove another silken strand into the noose they’re hanging around their own necks. This small band of fanatics has forced the Republicans in Washington further and further right. They’ve hijacked the agenda and unless saner voices can wrest control away or the electorate revolts and dumps these lunatics in ‘16 the GOP is doomed.

GOP Insanity: Yet Another Spasm of Irrationality

The deeply weird collection of hotheads running for the Republican presidential nomination has looked at the massacre in San Bernardino and gone batshit crazy.

Christie: “Our nation is under siege. I believe we’re facing is the next world war. This is what we’re in right now, already.”

Cruz: “This nation needs a wartime president. Whether or not the current administration realizes it, or is willing to acknowledge it, our enemies are at war with us.”

Bush: “Islamic terrorism that wants to destroy our way of life, wants to attack our freedom. They have declared war on us. And we need to declare war on them.”

Graham (without actually using the word “war”): “I think they’re already here. I think there are organized cells here in America, and the sooner we disrupt their headquarters in Iraq, the less effective they’ll be.”

Rubio: “The West is waging war against radical apocalyptic Islam.”

Pataki (realizing he’s been too reasonable): “We must declare war on radical Islam. I’m not edging toward violent speech, I’m declaring we kill them.”

To call this kind of rhetoric “dangerous” is to treat it too kindly. It is, first and foremost, total bullcrap. We’re not at war with ISIS or with Islam. We’re not being invaded and this last event was not, as Kasich claimed “worse than 9/11.”

The current situation is new and different. Shoot-from-the-hip crap borrowed from childish notions about the tough guy smacking the bad guy around the schoolyard is as dated as a John Wayne western.

The tough talk is designed to inflame passions, instill fear and boost the candidate’s street-fighter cred. But it makes no sense. It’s insane, crazy talk and if any of these morons actually wins the presidency and engages this kind of military action we’re going to be a mess so horrific it will make Vietnam and Bush’s Iraq look like a picnic at the seashore.

Nations go to war with nations. There is no “Islamic State.” It is a collection of fanatics who move about, hide within local populations and cities. They are elusive and secretive. Tough talk about “killing ‘m all” is stupid. It makes as much sense from a military point of view as it did when it was tried in Vietnam. We got stuck in a quagmire in Southeast Asia and the GOP candidates are just dying to get us into a quicksand pit in the Middle East.

The current mess requires careful thought, effective diplomacy and the forming of broad-based coalitions. An appropriate start is the recognition that ISIS is Sunni as is Syria. Iran is Shite. Various other sects of Islam dominate in neighboring countries.

Then appreciate that ISIS has killed far more Shia than Westerners or Christians.

Then acknowledge that each act of terrorism committed by ISIS has two aims. The first is, of course, to instill a sense of fear and terror in the target population. The second is to inflame the passions and angers of Westerners, especially in the US.

Every time an American politician makes another sword-rattling speech ISIS celebrates. Each call for war is an invitation for disaffected young men to sign on. The GOP candidates need to stop the irresponsible “war” crap, turn on their brains for a change and stop handing ISIS exactly what it wants.

Sam Brownback and Benjamin Rush: A Very Odd Couple

In 2013 Kansas, under the guidance of Governor Sam Brownback embarked on a great experiment to test a particular economic theory. They slashed the state income tax.

The theory is the one derived from models developed by the Austrian School (go here for a detailed discussion) and honed in the 1970s by a conservative group of economists at the University of Chicago led by Milton Friedman.

While the theory gets very abstract one of the core hypotheses is that tax cuts will stimulate the economy. This argument is based on the assumption that people will spend the money saved and spending stimulates the economy. When people have more money they buy more things, someone has to manufacture and produce these goods which means that hiring will go up in those plants and manufacturing centers which will bring more money into the mix which people will use to buy more things, etc. This notion that increasing expendable cash will have a generally positive impact on growth is shared by Keynesian macroeconomics but the Keynesians understood some subtleties that the Austrians didn’t that Brownback and his conservative legislators either did not know or chose to ignore.

For one, the amount of money saved by each individual isn’t very much and does little to simulate the overall economy of the state. Second, the goods and services aren’t necessarily made or produced locally so whatever gains might occur won’t always have their impact on the local economy. In fact, they rarely do. Kansans may buy more bread and cheese but it likely won’t be made by local bakers or cheese mongers.

Third (and critically) the most immediate impact of the reduction in taxes is a reduction in tax revenue and all the services and support systems from health care to education to roads and street maintenance suddenly find themselves underfunded.

Fourth, agencies do anything they can to replace the lost revenue. Permitting fees go up. License fees go up. Property taxes are increased. Nuisance taxes are introduced. All these under-the-table taxes hit the working poor the hardest and any tiny gains from the income tax reductions are wiped out.

The quality of life drops precipitously and without the hoped for gains in jobs things begin looking bleak. Worse, the state is legally obligated to provide certain services (public hospitals, police, sanitation, justice, education) and these expenses drain the state coffers.

But, undaunted by these caveats Kansas embarked on their great experiment — and it was paraded loudly as just that. Brownback held several press conferences in which he said that the state was engaged in a final, practical test of the conservative model of economics which, he was certain, was going to work wonders.

What happened? Well, putting it as gently as possible, it was a f*cking disaster. In the first year Kansas actually saw its economy retract — while the rest of the country was undergoing an expansion (-.3% v. +1.9%). In 2014 things improved a bit but below what was going on elsewhere (+1.8% v +2.2%) and 2015 is even worse (+1.2% v +2.4% or barely half of the national average).

Has Kansas acknowledged the results? Has Brownback behaved like a good scientist should when the data are in and the analyses are unambiguous?

No, they acted like Benjamin Rush back in the late 1700s.

Rush was a remarkable chap, physician, politician, diplomat and signer of the Declaration of Independence. He is generally regarded as the founder of the field of psychiatry and his profile is on the seal of the American Psychiatric Association.

He was also a firm believer in blood-letting as a general cure for virtually all disorders. He became quite ill, from his descriptions it was likely an influenza. Since he was the best physician he knew he treated himself — by opening a vein. There was no improvement over the next several days so he bled himself again. Again, no improvement.

He then engaged in what he later described as “heroic” bloodletting for he was certain that it had to work — eventually.

And, miraculously, he recovered, slowly and painfully. But he recovered and concluded, of course, that he had found the ultimate cure for general bodily dysfunction.

If Brownback’s Kansas recovers it will be for the same reasons Rush returned to health. Other factors managed to finally overwhelm the unhelpful, even damaging, impact of the opening of (literal and metaphoric) veins.

My guess is that while Rush recovered because his own immune system finally defeated the virus, Kansas isn’t going to be made “all better” until someone with a grip on modern economic theory boots Brownback and the Republicans in the legislature out. I’m not holding my breath.