Aug 30, 2020 – School Buses – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 322

Description: Kelley, Nate, and Bill discuss the outsourcing of school buses, the history of school buses, and the historic debate on integration busing.

Ep. 322 links and notes (PDF): http://arsenalfordemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AFD-Ep-322-Links-and-Notes-School-Buses.pdf

Theme music by Stunt Bird.

Mar 22, 2020 – More on Tax Havens – AFD 301

Description: Rachel and Bill continue their discussion of corporate and individual tax avoidance in the US, including offshore havens and onshore havens like Delaware and Nevada.

Ep. 301 Links and Notes (PDF): http://arsenalfordemocracy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/AFD-Ep-301-Links-and-Notes-More-on-Tax-Havens.pdf

Theme music by Stunt Bird.

Return to ep. 298. Return to ep. 147 (Oct 2015).

Sept 11, 2018 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 241 Extended

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Topic: Lessons from the recent Massachusetts and Delaware primary elections. People: Bill, Jonathan Cohn, Paul Blest. Recorded: Sept 9th and 10th, 2018.

Episode 241 (34 min):
AFD 241

This version includes a longer discussion of Massachusetts than what we aired in Delaware.

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RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”
Stitcher Link: Arsenal for Democracy on Stitcher

Music by friend of the show Stunt Bird.

June 12, 2018 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 229

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Topics: Delaware’s new sports betting system and the global problems with gambling in sports. People: Bill, Rachel, Nate. Produced: June 10th, 2018.

Episode 229 (30 min):
AFD 229

Note that all episodes for the rest of the summer will only be a half hour long.

Related links

http://www.espn.com/chalk/story/_/id/23501236/supreme-court-strikes-federal-law-prohibiting-sports-gambling
https://www.pokernews.com/news/2018/06/inside-gaming-delaware-first-sports-betting-scotus-ruling-30965.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/05/sports/sports-betting-delaware.html
https://www.legalsportsreport.com/21065/the-week-in-sports-betting-june-8/
https://deadspin.com/i-went-to-all-three-delaware-casinos-on-the-first-day-o-1826605299
https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveprice/2018/06/08/world-cup-2018-ghana-referee-bribes-scandal-shows-fifas-flaws/#5fdc1a03d460
https://sports.yahoo.com/kenyan-world-cup-referee-resigns-accepting-600-undercover-journalist-213344306.html

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RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”
Stitcher Link: Arsenal for Democracy on Stitcher

Music by friend of the show Stunt Bird.

Apr 24, 2018 – Arsenal For Democracy Ep. 223

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Topics: CDC de-funding and other science budget cuts by Trump; radicalism in Delaware history. People: Bill, Rachel, Nate. Produced: April 22nd, 2018.

Episode 223 (52 min):
AFD 223

Related links

Episode 223 Notes and Links

Subscribe

RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”
Stitcher Link: Arsenal for Democracy on Stitcher

Music by friend of the show Stunt Bird.

Beau

As you all no doubt know by now, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden (one of the Vice President’s sons) passed away yesterday from brain cancer at age 46.

I was fortunate enough to meet him during his re-election campaign when I was the President of the University of Delaware College Democrats. I didn’t necessarily agree with him on every issue, but he was a very decent and good man. He truly cared about the people he served.

Indeed, Beau Biden was one of the few people I’ve ever met in politics who seemed sincere when he referred to his public service — in Kosovo, Delaware, Iraq, or in swing states for his father — as an obligation, and said his career was not about ambition. He was there because it was the family business and he hoped he could use that background to help people. Not because he wanted office itself.

In fact, he also seemed pretty sincere when he would quietly suggest he didn’t really want to be there – in politics – at all … and would rather be spending time with his family. He did not seek any office last fall and retired in January specifically, as I understand it, so that he could do just that: spend his little remaining time with his family.

Beau Biden accomplished a lot in his short life. He wasted no time, because he knew that his father had had a near-fatal health scare around the same age and it might happen to him too. He will certainly be missed.

Rising seas threaten coastal drinking water

Here’s a global warming impact you may not have considered: saltwater contamination of drinking water in some coastal areas. It’s especially worth discussing, to me at least, because of my longstanding interest in water policy and because I just completed an environmental geology course, where we discussed the science behind drinking water supplies and coastal processes.

Basically, due to rising sea levels brought on by global warming, millions of Americans (and presumably people around the world) face possible destruction of reliable water supplies in low-lying areas. This can happen due to saltwater intrusion into the groundwater — something that has been occurring on Long Island for some time now as wells deplete the aquifers — or by saltwater further penetrating coastal marshes in estuaries, reaching into the non-tidal freshwater marshes. Also individual incidents such as storm surges, which often contaminate drinking supplies and treatment facilities, are going to be exacerbated by higher sea levels.

I’m particularly concerned because the state where I currently live (Delaware) has a coastline that is mainly an estuary, which was the subject of a new study on the impending problem. The potentially affected freshwater found in the coastal regions along the lower Delaware River and estuary provides drinking water for several million people in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. I caution you that the blog post I’m about to quote has some glaring errors, but I’ve tried to fix/remove them here:

Fresh water that now is flowing to the sea in the Delaware estuary is threatened by future sea-level rise resulting from rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions, a new study finds. As sea levels rise, salt water will move inland up the estuary.
[…]
The Partnership for the Delaware Estuary studied impacts [PDF] on drinking water, tidal wetlands and shellfish like the local oysters and freshwater mussels in “Climate Change and the Delaware Estuary” and how people can adapt to help protect the threatened resources.

Drinking water, tidal wetlands and shellfish are key resources for the estuary; and all three are vulnerable to effects of climate change, including warmer temperatures, higher sea levels and saltier water. Oysters alone brought about $19.2 million into the [region] in 2009.
[…]
Currently a “narrow fringe of freshwater wetlands” protects the freshwater, but the wetland marsh plants are very susceptible to rising salinity.

 

Low-lying wetlands of the lower Delaware River and estuary. Key: Red=Tidal wetland, Green=Nontidal wetland. NVCS map via the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary.

It looks like there’s a pretty noticeable correlation between some of those freshwater wetlands and the population distribution on the New Jersey side…

If they become tidal wetlands instead of freshwater, that’s a big problem.

If you’re at all familiar with the disaster-ridden English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, then you probably know that, “the colonists soon discovered that the swampy and isolated site was plagued by mosquitoes and tidal river water unsuitable for drinking, and offered limited opportunities for hunting and little space for farming.” While the hunting and farming issue is not as much of a problem for the coastal United States these days, rising sea levels could basically expand a lot of estuaries and make much more of the seaboard’s water “unsuitable for drinking.” I know Jamestown had more problems than its drinking water, but everybody needs clean, freshwater to survive, and there are a lot more of us now living in threatened areas than ever before. We don’t want to repeat Jamestown if possible.

This post originally appeared on Starboard Broadside.