Jim Miller has a bunch of good stuff today

   

The Chinese Are Strengthening Their Border Fences:   Against refugees fleeing North Korea.

Fences more than 13ft high, topped with barbed wire, are now being erected along an eight-mile stretch of the Yalu river around the Chinese city of Dandong.  This is a popular escape point for North Korea refugees seeking food or better lives, Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

"It's the first time such strong border fences are being erected here.  Looks like it is related to the unstable situation in North Korea," a resident said of the work which began last November but is ongoing.

The refugees are fleeing to escape a monstrous tyranny and a looming famine.  The Chinese government has decided that, for its own interests, it would be better if those refugees stayed in North Korea.  (In the 1990s famine, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, died.  Estimates — and that's all we have — vary, but one common guess is that the famine may have killed more than 10 percent of North Korea's population.)

(Obviously, the Chinese do not agree with those who claim that fences can not stop people from crossing borders.  Of course their border guards may not operate under the same restrictions ours do.)

- 6:54 AM, 30 March 2011   [link]

Japan Will Be Short Of Electricity For Months:   That's the disturbing, but not surprising, conclusion in this New York Times article

Utility experts and economists say it will take many months, possibly into next year, to get anywhere close to restoring full power.

The places most affected are not only in the earthquake-ravaged area but also in the economically crucial region closer to Tokyo, which is having to ration power because of the big chunk of the nation's electrical generating capacity that was knocked out by the quake or washed away by the tsunami.

They've lost about 10 percent nationally, about 20 percent in that region.

If there is a quick fix, it isn't obvious to me.  (They might be able to add gas turbine generators fairly quickly, but I don't know how easy it would be for them to import the additional natural gas those would need.)

(One oddity:

In theory, the Tokyo area could import electricity from the south.  But a historical rivalry between Tokyo and the city of Osaka led the two areas to develop grids using different frequencies — Osaka's is 60 cycles and Tokyo's is 50 cycles — so sharing is inefficient.

Some electric appliances are sensitive to frequencies.  I wonder how the two regions solve that problem.)

- 3:40 PM, 29 March 2011   [link]

So Why Is Carter Going to Cuba?

Former President Jimmy Carter isn't in Cuba to negotiate for the release of jailed U.S. contractor Alan Gross, though he is hoping that his visit will help to thaw U.S.-Cuban relations, he said Tuesday.

Sometimes I think that Carter is taking revenge on us for rejecting him in the 1980 election.

(Jay Nordlinger has a telling detail about Carter, Castro, and Pierre Trudeau.)

- 1:05 PM, 29 March 2011   [link]

Russian Reactors Are Safe:  Thanks to the lessons of Chernobyl.

Opportunistic or not, in recent years the Russian nuclear industry has profited handsomely by selling reactors abroad, mostly to developing countries. That includes China and India — whose insatiable energy appetites are keeping them wedded to nuclear power, despite their vows to proceed even more cautiously in light of Japan's disaster.

And though Fukushima Daiichi provides a new opportunity to stress the message, Rosatom has long been marketing its reactors as safe — not despite Chernobyl, but because of it.

At least that's what their salesmen are telling prospective customers, with some success.

And, though I wouldn't necessarily accept those claims, they aren't obviously false.  As any engineer can tell you, we learn from our mistakes.  Sometimes.

(At one time the Soviets were exporting reactors without containment buildings.   And, if I recall correctly, a Finnish company had, for a time, a profitable business providing that basic protection to some of the Soviet customers.)

- 11:07 AM, 29 March 2011   [link]

Distasteful But Necessary:  Robert Samuelson defends TARP.

One lesson of the financial crisis is this: When the entire financial system succumbs to panic, only the government is powerful enough to prevent a complete collapse.  Panics signify the triumph of fear.  TARP was part of the process by which fear was overcome.   It wasn't the only part, but it was an essential part.  Without TARP, we'd be worse off today.  No one can say whether unemployment would be 11 percent or 14 percent; it certainly wouldn't be 8.9 percent.

Samuelson admits that parts of TARP were mis-handled.  I think that there is a strong argument that GM and Chrysler would have been better off if they had gone through formal bankruptcies, and an unimpeachable argument that the Obama administration did far too much for its political allies, the United Auto Workers.

But his central argument is impossible to refute, since no one, including Samuelson, really knows what would have happened without TARP.  Impossible to refute, and impossible to prove, for the same reason.

(I am inclined to think that he is wrong when he claims, in the final paragraph, that the rescue did not increase moral hazard.)

- 10:30 AM, 29 March 2011   [link]

Funniest Reaction To The Nuclear Reactor Problems In Japan?   Of the ones I've seen, this is the funniest.

The German broadcaster of "The Simpsons" said Monday it has decided not to show any episodes of the US cartoon series showing nuclear disasters in light of Japan's atomic emergency.

It's almost as if they want to revive that humorless-German stereotype.

- 9:33 AM, 29 March 2011   [link]

"You Cannot Hope To Bribe Or Twist . . ."  Mark Steyn offers an American version of a little poem on British journalists.  (The original is often attributed to Hillaire Belloc, but was actually written by Humbert Wolfe.)

Steyn thinks that our "mainstream" journalists should be a little less willing to oblige the Obama campaign.

(More on Humbert Wolfe here.)

- 8:53 AM, 29 March 2011   [link]

The Royal Air Force Is Running Short Of Pilots?  That's what the Telegraph is saying.

Since the conflict began, a squadron of 18 RAF Typhoon pilots has enforced the Libya no-fly zone from an air base in southern Italy.  However, a shortage of qualified fighter pilots means the RAF may not have enough to replace all of them when the squadron has to rotate in a few weeks.

The situation is so serious that the RAF has halted the teaching of trainee Typhoon pilots so instructors can be drafted on to the front line, according to air force sources.  The handful of pilots used for air shows will also be withdrawn from displays this summer.

(The Typhoon is a relatively new aircraft.)

And, as far as I can tell, the Telegraph is right.  (Though you do have to consider the possibility that this story is being published as part of a bureaucratic fight over cuts in military spending.)  And that shows, sadly, just how much even the British have come to rely on our "unique" military capabilities.

- 7:34 AM, 29 March 2011   [link]

If You Are Going To Listen To Obama's Libya Speech this evening, you might want to prepare by reading Speaker Boehner's letter, just to see if Obama answers any of Boehner's questions.

(I'll be following my usual procedure and skipping the speech, though I will probably read it later.)

On the whole, I thought Boehner's letter was quite good.  And it is a pleasure to see an adult in the Speaker's chair again.

- 3:38 PM, 28 March 2011   [link]