Date: November 30, 2021
Time: 5:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m
Description: Everyone is invited to attend.
Facilitated by Vice Mayor Jim Shulman.
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Friday, November 26, 2021
Memphis, TN Reported One of the Highest Murder Rates in the US
Some experts speculate that each of these factors likely played a role in the rising homicide rate. While it may be years before the precise causal factors are identified, the effects are being felt in communities across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists homicide as a contributing factor in the historic 1.5-year decline in life expectancy in the U.S. last year -- trailing only COVID-19 and accidental deaths, like drug overdoses, in significance.
Memphis, Tennessee, is among the U.S. cities with the highest homicide rates. There were a total of 289 murders reported in the city in 2020, or 44.4 for every 100,000 people -- well above the national homicide rate of 6.5 murders per 100,000.
Even though homicide is the least common form of criminal violence -- accounting for less than 2% of all violent crimes -- places with high homicide rates also often have high overall violent crime rates, and Memphis is no exception. There were 2,352 violent crimes reported for every 100,000 people in Memphis in 2020, compared to 399 incidents per 100,000 nationwide.
All data used in this story is from the FBI's 2020 Uniform Crime Report. Only places with populations above 25,000 based on five-year estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2019 American Community Survey were considered. Limited data was available in the 2020 UCR for areas in Alabama, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, though these places were not excluded from analysis.
(For the list and ranking of the most murderous cities in America, follow this link.)
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Biden's hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering results in a travel ban on eight African Nations amid ‘Omicron’ Variant.
by Rod Williams, November 26, 2021 - Today President Biden, amid the discovery of the new highly infectious “Omicron” variant of the coronavirus, imposed a travel ban on eight African countries. The ban applied to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi. These are all majority Black countries.
You may recall that in February 2020, Biden criticized Trump for his xenophobic response to the coronavirus crisis. The mainstream press, popular cultural influencers, CNN and MSNBC pundits, and many Democratic politicians denounced Trump's ban on Chinese travel as hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. To show her solidarity with the Chinese people Nancy Pelosi, toured San Francisco's Chinatown and hugged some Chinamen.
Biden is right to impose this travel ban on these African countries. Trump was right to impose a travel ban on China. Biden, Pelosi, late-night TV talk show entertainers, and a whole lot of other people owe Trump an apology. I am not going to hold my breath and wait for it to happen.
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Thursday, November 25, 2021
Wednesday, November 24, 2021
Tennessee has the 10th most cost-effective highway system in the nation.
by Rod Williams, Nov. 24, 2021- Reason Foundation's 26th Annual Highway Report measures the condition and cost-effectiveness of state-controlled highways in 13 categories, including urban and rural pavement condition, deficient bridges, traffic fatalities, spending per mile, and administrative costs per mile of highway. Tennessee ranked 10th best. For a more in-depth look at the data, follow the above link.
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Sunday, November 21, 2021
University School of Nashville Is the Best School in The Nashville Area.
by Grant Suneson, 24/7 Wall St. via The Center Square Nov 15, 2021 - Parents want the best for their children, including the best school experience. This, of course, includes getting good grades and performing well on state and college entry exams, but that is not all.
Students also benefit from a positive school culture, participating in extracurricular activities, having individualized attention from teachers and counselors, and learning in a diverse environment.
Though there are hundreds of excellent schools across the country, each major city and metropolitan area has one school that stands out as the best in its area.
Located next to Vanderbilt University, University School of Nashville is the Nashville, Tennessee, area's top school. The school earned an A+ overall grade from school data platform Niche as well as A+ grades for its academics, teachers, clubs and activities, and college prep.
University School of Nashville has just over 1,000 students from kindergarten through 12th grade. The school also has an average graduation rate of 100% and a student-to-teacher ratio of 9:1.
To determine the best schools by city, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the 2022 K-12 School & District Rankings from Niche, a platform for education data. The Niche ranking is based on academic and student life data from the U.S. Department of Education as well as reviews submitted to Niche. City boundaries are based on Census Bureau definitions for places. We identified the best school in every city for the 50 largest U.S. cities based on five-year population data from the Census Bureau's 2019 American Community Survey.
(To see the complete list follow this link)
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Kyle Rittenhouse is still no hero
by Rod Williams, Nov. 21, 2021- I am pleased that Rittenhouse was found not guilty, but I agree with this article. He should have stayed home. Last summer when BLM and Antifa were terrorizing Nashville, I went armed. If I would have found myself in the midst of a mob attempting to do me bodily harm, I would have used deadly force to protect myself. However, I avoided areas where there were protests. I avoided the interloop of the interstates. I figured a route of non-interstate roads provided opportunities to avoid the conflict if the terrorist decided to block a roadway. I am not a coward, but I think it prudent to avoid conflict rather than seek it out. I am not ready to abandon civil society. I am not ready to take the law into my own hands. Rittenhouse's not guilty verdict should not be interpreted as a call for an armed citizenry to confront rioters. We still have the ballot box and when city or state officials do not do their job by maintaining order we can vote them out of office.
Link
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Saturday, November 20, 2021
How much would it cost to reduce Global Warming? $131Trillion is one answer. Last year the world's GDP was $85 Trillion.
Money is a sticking point in climate-change negotiations around the world. As economists warn that limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius will cost many more trillions than anticipated, WSJ looks at how the funds could be spent, and who would pay. Illustration: Preston Jessee/WSJ
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We'll Always Have Paris
by Rod Williams, Nov. 15, 2021- The Glasgow version of the Conference of Parties (COP) came to an end on Sunday, and it is hard to call it anything other than a failure. As the Wall Street Journal said, "Glasgow produced little of consequence. How could it have done otherwise? The conferees who warn that the Apocalypse is nigh absent draconian energy policies are disconnected from political and economic reality."
If you don't want to take my word or the Wall Street Journal's word for it, Children's Crusade leader Greta Thunberg said it. “It is not a secret that COP26 is a failure. It should be obvious that we cannot solve the crisis with the same methods that got us into it in the first place,” Thunberg said. “The COP has turned into a PR event, where leaders are giving beautiful speeches and announcing fancy commitments and targets, while behind the curtains governments of the Global North countries are still refusing to take any drastic climate action.” (link)
Not that I expect this child to have any insight as to how to fix it, but she is right in calling it a failure. Not that Glasgow was a total absolute failure. Progress was made on a carbon-trading agreement which may lead someday to a standardized trading carbon credit system. The way carbon credits work is that if a government can’t meet the emissions plans it submitted to the U.N. it could buy credits to make up the difference. This could produce good results. If you recall when acid rain was an issue, it was successfully reduced by a system that relied on "cap and trade," which created a market for acid rain emission reduction credits.
The problem with carbon credits is that there is no standardization and little regulation of the market. Often, carbon credits are nothing but a scam and greenwashing. Any effort that moves toward a legitimate carbon credit market is a positive development. However, there is a long way to go before anything like a real trustworthy market for carbon credits is created. A global carbon market won’t happen overnight. There is a long way to go and time is running out. Unfortunately, this minor move toward someday having a standardized global carbon credit trading system is about the only positive thing to come out of Glasgow.
The development that got the most attention was that instead of waiting five years for countries to submit their next round of carbon reduction pledges, the Glasgow Climate Pact calls for countries to gather again next year with revised pledges.
The goal of the Paris Accords is to keep the rise in earth's temperature from exceeding 1.5°C rise above preindustrial levels. We are not on target to make that happen. So delegates agreed to go back and redo their homework and come up with better pledges for reductions. To avoid the 1.5°C rises, the world needs to eliminate a lot of carbon emissions and reach net carbon neutrality by 2030. That is not that far away and we are moving further from the target, not closer.
I am not hopeful. There is nothing to indicate next year will be any better than this year. In fact, with an expected cold European winter, European countries are looking at increasing the use of coal. With inflation rising in the US and many other nations, now is not an opportune time to adopt policies that will increase utility prices. There is no reason to be optimistic that Paris will achieve anything. The Paris Accords is not a treaty. One, country can not require another country to act. It doesn’t require nations to do anything but merely urges or requests them to do so. Also, it creates no system of incentives or disincentives for achieving a target. To say the least, it is difficult to get 197 countries to agree on anything and then follow up. Some of the 197 countries may not even exist next year. Many that do will have different dictators.
Paris is a romantic idealistic dream of the world getting together holding hands singing kumbaya, and solving a common problem. The world doesn't work that way. The Paris Accords are a joke. We need to ditch the Paris Accords.
The seven wealthy democracies of the world need to focus on a solution. The solution needs to recognize that there needs to be a price for carbon and embrace carbon border adjustments. The G-7 has enough economic clout that the rest of the world will fall in line.
For more on Glasgow COP-26, see the below links:
COP26 Climate Deal Shows Fragility of New Emissions-Cutting Pledge - WSJ
Glasgow’s Climate of Unreality - WSJ
Was COP26 in Glasgow a success? | The Economist
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