Month: November 2020

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NBN Book of the Day - Robert Vitalis, “Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy” (Stanford UP, 2020)

We've heard and rehearsed the conventional wisdom about oil: that the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf is what guarantees access to this strategic resource; that the "special" relationship with Saudi Arabia is necessary to stabilize an otherwise volatile market; and that these assumptions in turn provide Washington enormous leverage over Europe and Asia.

That common sense is wrong. The author of America's Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford University Press, 2007), Robert Vitalis returns to disenchant us once again—this time from "oilcraft," a line of magical thinking closer to witchcraft than statecraft. Contrary to the deeply-held beliefs of hawkish foreign policy experts and career academics alike, oil is a commodity like any other: bought, sold, and subject to market forces. The House of Saud does many things for U.S. investors, firms, and government agencies, but guaranteeing the flow of oil, making it cheap, or stabilizing the price isn't one of them. Nevertheless, persistent fears of oil scarcity and conflict continue to breed real consequences. Robert Vitalis, Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy (Stanford UP, 2020) presses us to reconsider, among many things, the U.S.-Saudi special relationship, which confuses and traps many into unnecessarily accepting what we imagine is a devil's bargain. Along the way, Vitalis resurrects a forgotten school of critics of empire—a reprisal of his task in White World Order, Black Power Politics: The Birth of American International Relations (Cornell University Press, 2017).

Freeing ourselves from the spell of oilcraft won't be easy. But the benefits of doing so, and the drawbacks of not, make it essential.

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Short Wave - Undisclosed: Fire And Flood Risk In The United States

There have been many climate-related disasters this year, and along with those events come a heavy emotional and financial toll for residents. But what NPR climate reporters Rebecca Hersher and Lauren Sommer have found is that most people don't realize their wildfire or flood risk — and that's putting millions in harm's way.

Additional Resources:
- Read Lauren and Rebecca's series, Climate Risk Hits Home.
- Reach out to us if you've tried to get information about the risk of floods or wildfires when moving to a new home.

Lauren and Rebecca are both on Twitter. You can follow them @lesommer and @rhersher to keep up with the latest climate news. We're always all ears for your climate inquiries and musings — email us at shortwave@npr.org.

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What A Day - I’ve Vaccine Enough

Pfizer says an initial analysis of their vaccine found it was more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19. President-elect Joe Biden announced his 13-member pandemic task force, which includes health experts that previously served in Republican and Democratic administrations.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell backed Trump’s refusal to accept the results of the election yesterday, while simultaneously welcoming new incoming Republican senators. In Georgia, current senators Perdue and Loeffler are demanding that the Republican secretary of state step down over the election, without providing evidence to support their vague claims of “failures.”

And in headlines: Hurricane Eta made landfall in the Florida Keys, Blue Ivy Carter narrates an audiobook, and Trump ousts Secretary of Defense Mark Esper.

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The Daily Signal - Hans von Spakovsky Explains Election Litigation in 5 States

Even though former vice President Joe Biden has claimed victory in the presidential election, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits contesting the results with current litigation in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona.


In Pennsylvania alone, there are at least 21,000 dead people on the voter rolls. Is there a possibility that some of these ballots that went to dead people were used fraudulently? We’ve also heard a lot of people talk about how we largely know the results of all the House and Senate races but still don’t have all the ballots counted for the presidential race. Why is this the case?  Hans von Spakovsky, manager of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and and a senior legal fellow at the think tank's Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss.


We also cover these stories:

  • Former Vice President Joe Biden is saying that the 2020 race for the White House is finished and that people need to be wearing masks. 
  • President Trump fired defense secretary Mark Esper.
  • Pharmaceutical company Pfizer announced that its coronavirus vaccine is 90% effective.



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The Stack Overflow Podcast - Turning your coding career into an RPG with Sai Vennam

You can find Sai's videos here. Come for the deep dives on Docker, stay for the live lightboard  magic. Yes, I know what the comments say, but no, he isn't writing backwards. 

Sai also does a lot of work around OpenShift, the containerization software products created by Red Hat. He talks about what the tie up between IBM and Red Hat has been like and how the enterprise is increasingly learning to work with open source. 

Our lifeboat badge of the week goes to Alex for explaining why you're Getting this as undefined when using arrow function.

If you want to find more from Sai, you can follow him on Twitter here.

 

 

 

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Opening Arguments - OA437: How To Play Hardball If We Don’t Win the Senate

As always, we can't emphasize enough how important it is to win the two Georgia runoffs, but today's show covers why we COULD still win in North Carolina. It involves court thingies. Then in the main segment, Andrew tells us how exactly Biden can play hardball in the event that we don't win the Senate. There's still a lot we can do. Biden's administration had better be show listeners because this is top notch free legal consulting!

Links: 4th Cir. on North Carolina Ballots, Wise v. Circosta, OA415: DeJoy's Illegal Dismantling of the USPS, NAACP v USPS, 5 US Code § 3345 - Acting officer, 15-1251 NLRB v. SW General, Inc, 5 US Code § 3346 - Time limitation, 5 US Code § 3349a - Presidential inaugural transitions, 5 US Code § 3349c - Exclusion of certain officers, Fed Figures 2014: Federal Workforce, Demographic Profile of the Federal Workforce, As of September 30, 2010, L.M.-M., et al., Plaintiffs, v. KENNETH T. CUCCINELLI II, Legality of Service of Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, OA61: Flyin' the Friendly Skies

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Chapo Trap House - 470 – Mothership Connection feat. Derek Davison & Daniel Bessner (11/9/20)

We’re joined by the Chapo Foreign Affairs desk of Derek Davison and Daniel Bessner to discuss what might change and what might continue in a foreign policy transition from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Then, we get beamed aboard the MOTHERSHIP as we take a look at Daniel and Amber’s recent Jacobin article on Democrats’ material incentives to lose. Subscribe to Derek and Daniel’s substack Foreign Exchanges here: https://fx.substack.com/ And check out Daniel and Amber’s Jacobin piece here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/democratic-party-2020-elections-campaign-donations-failure
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The Gist - The News Normal

On the Gist, getting back to normal.

In the interview, WHYY’s Katie Meyer is here to discuss Pennsylvania politics with Mike. They talk about how the changes in voting collection and counting changed in the state during 2020, why it caused such national turmoil, and if Republican meddling even helped their strategy at all.

In the spiel, anchors having too many opinions.

Email us at thegist@slate.com

Podcast production by Daniel Schroeder and Margaret Kelley.

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