Newspaper Musings
Of course, it’s
soccer! The US women’s team vs the world, and the Ladies kicked ass. Of course,
some will bemoan their complaints re: compensation, without doing a shred of
research. Here’s some data (remember facts and data? It’s my stock in trade.)
·
In the year following the 2015 World Cup win,
women’s games generated $1.9 million more than the men’s games.
And in recent years, the men’s revenue tally also includes the fees that
opposing teams pay in order to play the United States. If both teams played 20
friendlies in a year, a top-tier women’s national team player would earn
$164,320 less, or “38% of the compensation of a similarly situated MNT player.”
· Some, men, primarily, may point out that the MLS
draws more fans, ergo more gate receipts than the women’s league. That’s apples
and oranges. We’re speaking of just the income earned by representing the nation
in international competition.
· With a World Cup win, the max earnings for a
USWNT player is $200,000, while a USMNT player could earn $1.1 million with a
title. That’s 5 times as much, for the math challenged!
·
In what must surely be one of the more galling
slaps in the face, USMNT players are compensated $99 per diem while travelling,
while USWNT player rate is $75 daily. In an environment where “equal pay for
equal work” has become a mantra for many, the USWNT players are smacked in the
face with “less pay for more and better work.” Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?
In lighter news: A hearse was pulled
over in Las Vegas recently, by a Nevada state patrolman, for driving in the HOV (2 or more passengers) lane. The patrolman, who noticed that the operator was apparently the sole
occupant, instructed said driver that the corpse in the coffin didn’t count, as
HOV refers to “living passengers only.”
It would be interesting to see how a judge ruled in the matter!
I note with a mixture of anticipation and
foreboding, that Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have reunited, 30 years after
their most recent collaboration, to make a third Bill and Ted movie. If Reeves is
trying to break out of the recent “John Wick” character mode, this should
definitely do it. I loved the first one and liked the second one. I mean, after
all, where else would you find dialogue like “You killed Ted, you medieval
dickweed,” a band like Wyld Stallyns, or a super-hot stepmom like Missy??
Having said that, this will, at a minimum put the
test to the old adage, “You can’t go home again.” We will see. I don’t think there’s a lot of
middle ground here. I predict this will either become another cult classic or simply
a terribly bad idea.
Finally, just because I ponder things like
this: What would be our (the US’s) reaction to Iran dictating to us how much we
could be allowed to enrich Uranium? I mean after all; we are the only nation in
the world to ever actually use a nuclear weapon on a human population. We also have
sufficient seaborne nuclear capability in just one submarine to essentially eradicate
all of Iran’s population centers from the globe within 20 minutes of any
offensive use of such weaponry against us.
In typical bully fashion, the current administration
withdrew from the Obama administration’s negotiated agreement with Europe and
Iran. There still has been no concrete reason given for that action which,
combined with ramped up sanctions on oil sales, pushes Iran farther into
economic woes which fuel the anger of a civilian population, which truth told,
would probably love to join the rest of the world as a free nation, but are constrained
and limited by a theocratic government. We seem to believe we have the only
world franchise on the safe and sane use of nuclear weapons, economic
restraint, etc. How odd that we only seem to apply them to weaker nations. We have
more to fear from Russia, yet, “non-collusion” protestations notwithstanding, we
seem to allow them far more leeway than Iran.
There are several facts in play
here: With all the Trump bullshit, what’s really going on is far simpler and
monumentally less threatening than it’s being “spun” to be.
“Enrichment” means in layman’s terms, processing natural Uranium as it exists to increase the amount of the fissionable isotope in a sample. After being mined and processed down to pure, elemental, Uranium, the amount of the fissionable isotope, U235, constitutes just .7% of the sample! That is grossly insufficient for “weapons grade” nuclear material. It
is also grossly insufficient for civilian electrical power generation plants
using Nuclear energy as the heat source.
Typically, "weapons grade" is defined as around 90% enriched
Uranium, that is, a sample where 90% of the whole is U235. The level
of enrichment Iran was allowed under “the agreement” was 3.67% enriched. All
their 20% enriched material was sold to Russia. That level — 3.67% — is far
below what's needed for developing weapons.
More importantly for Iran, it’s also insufficient for the operation of
Iran’s only nuclear power plant, the Bushehr plant, bought from Russia, which
requires fuel with a concentration of about 5%. Without increasing enrichment
above the 3,67% specified in the agreement, now defunct because Trump backed the
US out, Iran, already facing economic
sanctions imposed, primarily, by the US, is facing a constant need to
repurchase their own Uranium back from Russia at 5% concentration to keep
producing electricity.
The statement
regarding increasing enrichment was not about weapons grade fissionable
material, but about becoming self- sufficient in producing fuel for their domestic
electrical production facility. Iran's
deputy foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, made the announcement at a news
conference in Iran. Araghchi said Iran would start enriching uranium to provide
fuel for the Bushehr power plant, which requires fuel with a concentration of
about 5%. There is very little difference between 3.7% and 5% enrichment, other
than that it frees Iran from the expense of repurchasing their own Uranium from
Russia in the face of already oppressive economic sanctions.
If one had a sense of history, one might reflect on the series of escalating economic pressures on Japan, by the USA leading up to the Pearl Harbor attacks.
On July 2, 1940, Roosevelt signed the Export Control Act, authorizing the
President to license or prohibit the export of essential defense materials.”
Under this authority, on July 31, exports of aviation motor fuels and
lubricants and No. 1 heavy melting iron and steel scrap were restricted. Next,
in a move aimed specifically at Japan, Roosevelt slapped an embargo, effective
October 16, “on all exports of scrap iron and steel to destinations other than
Britain and the nations of the Western Hemisphere.” Finally, on July 26, 1941,
Roosevelt “froze” Japanese assets in the United States, thus bringing
commercial relations between the nations to an effective end. One-week later
Roosevelt embargoed the export of such grades of oil as still were in
commercial flow to Japan.”] The British and the Dutch followed suit, embargoing
exports to Japan from their colonies in southeast Asia. Anyone besides me see
any parallels?
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