Krugman's article on Obama and the spill

The Gulf is one of the most productive fishing areas on the planet. Now the industry is screwed for years. Much of Gulf fishing is done by small, immigrant operations that don't have the scale to weather this disaster. If I were them, I would take truckloads of rotting seafood and dump them at BP USA's headquarters. Let's see how they like another industry shitting on their livelihood.

G was kind enough to send me a piece from Krugman about Obama and GOP criticism over his handling of the spill: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/opinion/10krugman.html.

Did you see the press conference today? I agree with Krugman that Obama has done about all he reasonably can for the spill. The government doesn't have the know-how or equipment to fix drilling disasters. I guess he could threaten BP and make them hurry up, but based on their track record, do you want to rush a reckless, accident-prone company into another mistake? Obama could have mustered up more anti-spill resources and pulled rank on BP for the cleanup though. Recruit the fishing boats, get all the booms and vacuums you can requisition. Overwhelming force to silence the critics and put people at ease, even if it's not fixing the problem 100%. Apparently 7 nations have offered us help, but we only accepted it from 2: Mexico and Norway (a nation with vast offshore drilling experience in worse waters, yet with a better safety record). But he still did much better than Bush during Katrina.

As Krugman and Obama have said, I don't know why there is such a blanket anti-government sentiment among conservatives. Reagan said government is the problem, but government is the solution (and the unique solution) for many things too. Do they really not care that America lost trillions in wealth due to de-regulation, that hundreds of people are dead due to gutted, corrupt federal inspection agencies, and that we are stuck in 2 un-winnable wars because the separation of powers failed? Bad, dysfunctional government is a problem, so why not fix it instead of weaken it more? They are sending our concept of government to a "death panel". Just because of the Toyota pedal problem, do critics say that all cars are bad and we should do away with them? You can't judge something based on its worst performance (also a critique of our penal system). And you especially can't judge when you set up something to fail beforehand for your own selfish purposes. If they don't want government, then what is their alternative? Every man for himself? We'd just be a nation of paranoid, selfish assholes stealing from and lying to each other. Is that their American dream? Is that conservatism? Freedom must go hand-in-hand with personal responsibility, as any GOP would say. But clearly personal responsibility is fallible, so who is there to enforce it but the government and rule of law?

More on the MMS:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127126854

In one case, it was reported that a MMS inspector gave his inspection form to a rep of the company being audited. He filled out the questions in pencil, and the MMS guy just wrote over in pen. Another was being recruited to a company at the very moment that he/she was auditing the company. Needless to say the company passed and he/she got a new job.

Consequences of our "great success" Iraq Surge

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/woundedplatoon/view/?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=proglist&utm_source=proglist

Politicians and the Pentagon love to tout the Surge as positive validation of our counter-insurgency and Middle East strategies. But this documentary describes the human costs on a particular platoon of soldiers from Fort Carson, CO, which had one of the highest kill and casualty rates in the Army. Due to the Army's desperate need for more boots on the ground, they relaxed their admission standards and granted waivers to young men with criminal records. While those men mostly served gallantly and performed similarly to non-criminal peers, they also had a higher incidence of misconduct. After their first tour (pre-Surge), the platoon returned to Fort Carson and some engaged in substance abuse, criminality, and poor performance. 15 of 42 soldiers in the platoon left the Army for various reasons, which reduced the unit's combat readiness and seniority. Their commanders asked if anyone wanted to talk about problems, and "offered" mental health services, but it was mostly lip-service and troops were scared to come forward, possibly risking harsh judgment or punishment (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10374760). The fort was terribly under-staffed and under-trained for PTSD treatment anyway, and even needed to outsource to local doctors in town.

Despite these problems at Fort Carson and elsewhere, Washington needed more troops for the Surge in 2007, so many unfit soldiers were called up again to deploy after just one year home (the military recommends two years). Despite pending criminal investigations and evidence of PTSD/substance abuse against some, the Army broke its own rules and allowed these troubled men to return to combat. These already mentally and physically wounded men were now asked to live in forward areas outside base protections, and street fight with more intensity and at a higher frequency. Their tours were extended from 12 to 15 months midway. Morale was down and casualties were up, as well as unconfirmed reports of indiscriminate killings of non-hostile Iraqis. Complaints of PTSD rose, as did demand for battlefield mental health services. But since many of the needy soldiers now lived beyond the wire, they were inaccessible to psychiatrists, and those who got treatment were often declared "fit for duty" despite obvious warning signs. Instead, the Army prescribed a huge amount of pharmaceuticals such as anti-depressants and sleep aids like Ambien, to 20,000 soldiers in total (prior to the Iraq War, combat soldiers did not take psychological drugs due to supply logistics and inability to monitor treatment). Yet the warning labels for those drugs state, "Do not perform hazardous activities while medicated. May cause side effects such as depression, aggression, insomnia, reduced inhibitions. Take only under the close supervision of a doctor." Withdrawal from those drugs can also be severe, and due to combat constraints, soldiers would exhaust their prescriptions on the field and wonder "now what?". Soldiers also got their hands on black market Valium, pot, and other drugs.

Since the Iraq War began, 17 soldiers from Fort Carson have been charged or convicted of murder/attempted murder/manslaughter, many of whom had prior criminal records, symptoms of PTSD and TBI (traumatic brain injury), and were taking prescription or illegal drugs. 36 others have committed suicide. Fort Carson had 14,000 soldiers, so their suicide rate is 40% higher than the overall US male population (according to WHO). When asked about these matters, retired Fort Carson officer Colonel David Clark, head of the 506th Infantry (that this platoon is a part of), said, "The Surge worked. War is a dangerous thing. [There will be] psychological problems for soldiers; is that reason not to do it? You gotta do what you have to do."

Easy for him to say from behind a desk.

Mexican drug war

There was an interesting series on NPR about the war among drug gangs and government forces in Mexico. The most powerful cartel in the country is Sinaloa (named after their home state). Their boss "Chapo" Guzman is the most wanted drug trafficker in the world, with a $5M bounty on his head. Recently the Sinaloans have tried to bully their way into Juarez, since it is such a valuable smuggling conduit into the US. The smaller local Juarez cartel (La Linea) is fighting back of course, and the city has become the murder capitol of the world, with 6 killings per day. This prompted the US to contribute another $1.3B in anti-narco aid to Mexico, and President Calderon sent in 10,000 army troops to the city. Violence went down for a couple months, but then actually got worse than pre-army levels. Now the city looks like a Mad Max movie.

A possible explanation is that the army is taking a side. Whether due to political strategy or corruption, the Mexican military seems to be favoring the Sinaloa newcomers in Juarez. The majority of recent arrests have been La Linea members. Former police and army officers told NPR in secret that they are sure there is collaboration. Juarez cartel members recently assassinated 6 federal cops and left this tag on a nearby wall: This is what happens to officers "who ally with Chapo and all those mother- - - - - - - who support him. Signed — La Linea."

Of course this is nothing new, as law enforcement has made its services available to criminal organizations for centuries. For the right price, they stay out of their way and even make life difficult for rival gangs. But for the cops/federales to blantantly take a side is unusual. Aren't all drug pushers the enemy? US authorities shot a video of a Mexican army Humvee towing a stuck Sinaloan SUV (carrying a major pot shipment) out of the Rio Grande (unfortunately I can't find it on the web). Beats the heck out of AAA. The Mexican government dismissed the incident as Sinaloans masquerading as army, which is possible, but they could just be covering their asses.

On the other hand, the majority of overall recent anti-narco arrests has been against the Gulf-Zeta cartels in the east (FYI, the especially violent Zetas were founded by anti-drug commandos who defected for higher pay to become guns for hire, and eventually made their own drug business), who happen to be the next most powerful rivals to the Sinaloans in the west of the country. But is this bias actually a good thing? We know that drug demand in the US isn't going away any time soon, and probably never. We know that law enforcement can't really stop the production and trafficking of those drugs from Latin America northward. Most of the drug violence is due to rival gangs fighting over territory and power. If the Mexican government favors the strongest dog in the fight (and the Sinaloans happen to be relatively more professional, well liked by many Mexicans in Sinaloa, and less randomly brutal than their rivals), this may help the Sinaloans wipe out the other cartels and monopolize the Mexican drug trade. Then there would be no more drug war. The Sinaloans would then make some sort of truce with the Mexican government, and order would be restored. Sure there would still be some bloodshed, internal conflicts, and new gangs emerging that the Sinaloans would need to confront, but conditions would probably be better than what we have now.

Of course the US wouldn't like this because the same (or similar) amount of drugs, dirty money, and guns would still be crossing our mutual border, no matter how many gangs are out there. But for the Mexicans, they don't care as much. Their priorities are stopping the violence and restoring order in their country. And frankly, that's probably worth cutting a deal with the devil. The US wants the drug trade to stop in Mexico, which will never happen on our present course, and much of it is our fault. So if drugs are still moving, might as well stop the gang war and slaughter over it, so it makes sense to let the Sinaloans "win".

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126890838&ps=rs

What caused the Deepwater Horizons to sink?

Earlier AP investigations have shown that the doomed rig was allowed to operate without safety documentation required by MMS regulations for the exact disaster scenario that occurred; that the cutoff valve which failed has repeatedly broken down at other wells in the years since regulators weakened testing requirements; and that regulation is so lax that some key safety aspects on rigs are decided almost entirely by the companies doing the work.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill_inspections

L also informed me of a great "60 Minutes" interview with a Transocean (world's biggest offshore drilling company) Deepwater Horizons worker who was there during the explosion. That rig did the drilling, and another would handle the oil collection. Apparently the DH did already successfully drill the world's deepest well that I mentioned last week (4k feet water + 35k feet rock), and the current well was a "mere" 5k water + 13k rock. Much of the accident is due to BP's reckless, rushed, greedy timeline. In their haste to tap the huge Tiber reserve (since drilling cost BP $1M/day), they drilled too fast and destroyed their first well. That set them back 2 weeks (delaying the job from 21 to 42 days), showing that haste makes waste.

Regarding the blowout preventer (BOP), they ran a test 4 weeks before the accident. There is a giant rubber seal called the annular that closes around the drill pipe and essentially shuts off the well like the washer in your faucet. But during the test, a worker accidentally moved the drill pipe. So it rubbed on the annular while it was fully engaged (like driving with your parking brake engaged), which probably damaged it. Workers on the surface found chunks of rubber coming out of the well later. A damaged annular may skew pressure tests/measurements (and those tests are the main data for drillers to determine whether it's safe or not to let oil in the well), but the manager said it was "no big deal". Also there are 2 electrical control pods that connect the BOP to the surface (1 primary, 1 backup). They lost communication with 1 of them. A later investigation showed that the BOP was also leaking lubricant and had weak battery charge. But rig tests showed full functionality, so they went ahead as planned.

BP and Transocean managers were fighting over how fast to finish the job too. Drillers use a heavy metal-doped fluid nicknamed "mud" to fill the well and keep the pressurized oil from shooting up. But it needs to be removed before the oil can start to be pumped. Halliburton was paid to install a set of concrete plugs along the well to reduce the pressure without mud. One of the plugs wasn't finished yet, but BP ordered Transocean to remove the mud and get rolling. If the mud and third plug were in the well, it's quite possible that the blowout wouldn't have happened. Each of these mistakes may not have been critical, but the sum of the errors led to the catastrophe. Though the terrible part is that it was all human error and human decisions, not really technical failures. But no matter how infallible our tech gets in the future, how can you divorce human frailties from the offshore drilling equation? Laws can't be written to safeguard against every possible circumstance and bad judgment.

Despite all these concerns, they "stayed the course". Just as a crew was flown in to celebrate the rig's record of 7 years without accident, the explosion occurred. Flammable gases from the well probably leaked through the damaged annular and reached the rig, where it was sucked up by the rig's diesel electricity generators and blew them up. 11 people were incinerated and the rig sank soon after.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490348n&tag=contentMain;contentAux
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6490378n&tag=contentBody;housing

The war on drugs has been a "failure", or has it?

"President Obama's newly released drug war budget is essentially the same as Bush's, with roughly twice as much money going to the criminal justice system as to treatment and prevention," said Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. "This despite Obama's statements on the campaign trail that drug use should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal justice issue."
Obama is requesting a record $15.5 billion for the drug war for 2011, about two thirds of it for law enforcement at the front lines of the battle: police, military and border patrol agents struggling to seize drugs and arrest traffickers and users. About $5.6 billion would be spent on prevention and treatment.
- Martha Mendoza, AP

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100513/ap_on_re_us/failed_drug_war

Some high (or low) lights from our 40-year "war on drugs":

- Nixon proposed the war on drugs to "protect our young people" from the hippies, degenerates, and homeless Vietnam vet addicts (who only took drugs to cope with the horrible war that he escalated). When adjusted for inflation, the current war on drugs budget is 31X larger than Nixon's.

- We've spent $20B to export the war to other nations ($6B to Colombia alone). In many ways, Colombia and Mexico (and definitely Afghanistan) are less safe today than 1970. Speaking of Afghanistan, politicians often say that we have to stop the Taliban because they're responsible for exporting the bulk of global heroin to the West. Well a recent UN/CIA study showed that the Taliban account for about 3% of total heroin trade in that country, while the president's brother's cartel (Walid "Escobar" Karzai) accounts for much more (http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201005131030).  

- $33M on "Just Say No" and other youth marketing, but drug use among HS students has been relatively unchanged since the 1970s. Though the CDC reports that overdoses have risen since, peaking at 20,000 last year.

From the AP: $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders (or $3.3k per arrest - imagine how many books and meals that could buy), about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse. $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

- The Justice Dept states "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" is costing the US $215B PER YEAR.

- At $320B per year worldwide (about the GDP of Argentina), the drug trade accounts for 1% of all human commerce, and that doesn't include drug enforcement and drug rehab.

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But hey, the Navy Seals got to brag that they whacked Pablo Escobar (at one time on Forbes' 10 richest list) with a killer sniper shot to the head, and Hollywood made millions off "Scarface", "Clear and Present Danger", "Blow", "American Gangster", "The Wire", "Miami Vice" (Michael Mann version), etc.

But on the other hand, the "prison-industrial complex" has risen to become a serious economic and political player in our country (especially in CA). We've locked away thousands of poor colored people, and under the justification of drug enforcement, authorities have illegally seized millions of dollars worth of honest property for their own benefit (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126386819). We've sold billions of dollars of military and intelligence hardware to US communities and (oppressive, corrupt) foreign governments. Thousands of Mexicans, Colombians, Afghans, and Americans have died. So if you're a warden, drug kingpin, member of law enforcement, arms manufacturer, conservative politician, or racist/xenophobe, then the war on drugs has been a smashing success for your careers and values. The pro-war camp says that the world would be worse off if the war on drugs was never declared, and drug abuse/criminality were permitted to run rampant. That is debatable, but clearly the resources haven't been used in the most intelligent, effective manner.

More on the BP Gulf spill

http://www.newsweek.com/id/237651
http://www.newsweek.com/id/237619

Some interesting articles regarding the aftermath of the BP disaster. Incidents like the Gulf oil leak and the West Virginia mine deaths remind us of the question: how many lives and how much environmental damage are we willing to offer up on the altar of commerce and cheap energy? If we had a renewable energy economy, all of that harm could be avoided, unless a solar panel came loose in the Mojave and crushed a mouse. Unfortunately or not, very few Americans are directly affected by these industrial disasters, like the Middle East wars. So therefore it is a lot easier for the rest of us to ignore problems or even live in denial as long as the gasoline and electricity keep flowing. But although we don't see it, Alaskan fishing communities are still devastated two decades after the Valdez spill. Local ecosystems will probably never recover to pre-spill vitality, and fishing economies were decimated (suicides and domestic violence have risen significantly in those hard-hit communities too). Yet those victims have been swept under the rug, since oil is so vital to Alaska's economic survival (and provides hefty payouts and kickbacks to many in power), so Palin et al. up there are as pro-drilling as ever. Sacrifices for the "greater good", I suppose. I hope this sad narrative won't repeat in the Gulf, which is still struggling after Katrina, but I don't think their future is bright (in some cases, it has taken an entire year to finally plug a blown out well).

The recent NYC terror scare reminded us to be vigilant, and the government/law enforcement often state that we can't afford to be wrong even once - zero tolerance for terrorism. If only we could hold companies to the same standard regarding environmental harm (and we're not even talking about climate change yet, though the Kerry-Lieberman bill is sparking new discussion on the sausage making of energy reform: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201005130900). We're petrified of Abdul the crazy Muslim bomber, even though the chances of being a victim of terrorism are at lottery levels. 9/11 was a major human and economic disaster (though smaller than the subprime bust), but after 9/11 the US has suffered much more from environmental disasters than terrorism (domestically at least). So what should we really fear? As a society, we've almost tuned out eco-disasters. Yes the Gulf spill is huge in magnitude and may well spur a (watered down) overhaul of drilling and environmental regulations. But there were at least 5 major North American energy disasters since 2000, and I doubt many of us could name them. It's one of those "oh well, what a shame" tragedies, like the problems in Africa - we're sympathetic when asked but otherwise it's barely on our radar. I hope we don't become like the Iraqis, where a daily car bomb isn't even news anymore. Are WV and the Gulf just the price we pay to keep the economy humming? We only get mad when gas exceeds $4/gallon or our block gets a blackout.

If we don't care about the millions of dead avian and sea life, what about the human costs? The Texas City refinery explosion that I previously mentioned killed 15 and injured 180, so imagine the ripple effects for that community. Toxic fumes displaced 43,000 other shelter-seekers. It could happen in the dozens of US communities near refineries. BP was fined tens of millions, but it was a slap on the wrist considering the magnitude of the crime. And it's no accident that the federal investigation was weak at best. The EPA lawyers were chomping at the bit for a home run case, but the Justice Department suppressed their efforts or watered down the case to the point of futility. BP's strategy to stunt the investigation after their Alaska pipeline leak was creative: they responded to the federal subpoena by spamming the EPA with 62M pages of documents, fully aware that the government only had 3 or 4 employees on the case. They got off nearly Scot free. Last year, BP spent almost $16M on Washington lobbying (a record for them), and like Goldman Sachs, they want a return on their investment. In the past, BP has made consultants out of major government players: Leon Panetta (current CIA director), George Mitchell (Obama's special envoy to the Middle East), Christine Todd Whitman (Bush's EPA chief), and Tom Daschle (former House majority leader and Dancing with the Stars contestant). What do you think they discussed - geology and pipelines?

The current Federal cap for environmental damages is a paltry $75M, and the Gulf disaster will cost an order of magnitude more. Obama vows to hold BP accountable for every penny, and their CEO Tony Hayward promised to "honor all legitimate claims", which sounds like the health insurance industry. But BP is the #4 oil company in the world, and so we face the "too big to fail" problem with them. BP is a major employer/taxpayer/campaign contributor, and is the #1 oil supplier for the US wars in the Middle East, doing $2.2B in business with the Pentagon last year. If we lean on BP too much, don't you think they're going to play that card?

BP made over a $17B profit in 2007. Apart from the recession, they have done really well in the last 5 years. If we are serious about avoiding environmental disasters, ensuring safety at facilities, and holding energy companies accountable, we have to hit them where it hurts. Revoke their license to do business. Like the Pfizer Bextra email I sent out before, the FDA has the right idea by blocking medical companies convicted of fraud from doing business with Medicare (unfortunately they let Pfizer off the hook that time because they were "too big"). For energy companies convicted of skirting safety regulations and guilty of causing environmental/human disasters, we should revoke their permits and confiscate their assets. That will keep them on the wagon, or weed out the reckless companies that shouldn't be in business anyway. But of course it's not just the companies' fault. They do what makes business sense. They don't necessarily want to club baby seals, but if the benefits of skirting regulations to improve output outweigh potential government penalties from rare accidents, of course they will keep being reckless.

We people are to blame for our addiction to cheap energy. We should boycott polluters like we did to apartheid South Africa, but then where will we get our power? If we get tough with Big Oil, they will rebut with, "Sure we can reform our operations and become safer/cleaner, but it could cost American jobs and we're going to pass on those costs to the consumer". Then we shut up. The feds are to blame as well, with the Department of Interior is one of the most corrupt parts of our government. Finally the regulators are under fire after the recent coal and oil disasters, and some may have accepted bribes. Obama was right to separate the regulatory and royalty-collecting arms of the DOI due to the obvious conflicts of interest (obvious to anyone outside of Washington it seems). And even so, the US people are getting really shortchanged on energy royalties like we were a Third World shit hole. Oil companies build their offshore platforms just beyond the state waters limit to avoid taxes, yet their wells suck up oil from adjacent rock that the state owns (like "I drank your milkshake!" - Daniel Day Lewis). In Mexico, their constitution states that natural resources belong to the PEOPLE. Not so here. Of course the Mexican people get shortchanged from corruption as well, but they are more progressive than us on this front at least.

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Did we find out that BP is at fault for this particular leak?  Or that it was through skirting of regulations that this occured?  In theory there is a moderately low risk way to drill in the ocean, and i assume the regulations that exist are to hold you to that moderately low risk method.  I read, more so in the end, about how BP skirts regulations in favor of good business, but was that the case here?  I am asking as i have no clue, not as a rhetorical point.  And i believe that BP has most certainly, at least in other isntances, chosen money over "the right thing" but what about in this specific case?

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Well BP blames the rig owner they leased from (since the "fail safe" blowout preventer valve didn't close, in fact 4 of them failed), and the rig owner blames Halliburton for a leaky well head. And Halliburton blames BP because they were just carrying out BP's work order that BP designed. So the merry-go-round of BS continues.

I am not an expert, but drilling a mile underwater in a hurricane area is NOT low risk (industry/conservative propaganda: http://www.aei.org/article/101949). The BP rig was on one of the deepest oil wells on earth (see ABC article below, and actually BP is currently drilling THE deepest well off Texas: 4,000 ft water + 35,5000 ft rock, so cross your fingers). And because of the depth, the rig has to float instead of having fixed moorings, which exposes you to ocean drift. The long drilling pipe means that the oil needs to be pressurized more to reach the surface, which can heat up the oil to 250 F (also increasing the risk of blowout). And of course anything in salt water corrodes, and the deeper you go, the harder it is to monitor, maintain, and service your stuff (as we now see). But I guess they thought it was worth it because the Tiber reserve in the Gulf that BP owns 62% of is estimated to be as lucrative as AK's North Slope (4-6B barrels of gas/oil). But for these expensive, deep projects to pay off, the price of crude must stay above $70/barrel.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=8476359
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_drilling

American Enterprise Institute: The two main reasons oil and other fossil fuels became environmentally incorrect in the 1970s--air pollution and risk of oil spills--are largely obsolete. Improvements in drilling technology have greatly reduced the risk of the kind of offshore spill that occurred off Santa Barbara in 1969... To fear oil spills from offshore rigs today is analogous to fearing air travel now because of prop plane crashes in the 1950s.

Prohibition

Going back to Rotisserie Baseball, remember the co-founder from the 30for30 documentary, Dan Okrent? Apparently he's a pretty famous media dude too. He was an editor for the NYT and Time, and a Pulitzer nominee. His recent book is about the hidden history of prohibition, and the interview below is pretty interesting.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126613316

Some factoids:

- "Brand name" liquors started from prohibition. Before that, people just ordered "scotch" or "beer" at a saloon and didn't care who made it. But due to the spread of nasty improvised booze (in some cases, filtered from industrial alcohol in paint thinner), you had to buy brand name to feel more confident that you wouldn't sicken yourself from knock-off crap. But of course the spread of phony booze labels made it harder for the consumer. So China learned from us.

- Prohibition did more for woman's lib than we would imagine. Women's suffrage groups made deals with anti-booze groups, like "you vote for my cause and I'll vote for yours". Also before prohibition, "bars" were men-only saloons. Speak-easies were the first co-ed alcoholic social establishments, persisted after prohibition, and never again did hot chicks have to drink at home alone, or pay for a drink. 

- Due to the advent of federal income tax, Washington had less need to tax liquors, so the anti-booze conservatives had more clout. And the crash of 1929 was one of the big economic motivators to repeal prohibition and recoup liquor tax revenues.

- Turn-of-the-century America was getting more anti-immigrant, much like 100 years later. WWI created anti-German sentiment, and there was also the usual anti-Jew/Catholic bigotry. Those people happened to be big booze makers at the time, so the Midwest WASPs used prohibition to indirectly promote racism/xenophobia. Speaking of racism, I find it funny today, but part of prohibition was to keep booze out of black hands. I guess whites were fearful of drunk out-of-control blacks.

- Sacramental and medicinal alcohol were still permitted during prohibition. As you would expect, the number of prescriptions for alcohol and the number of rabbis authorized to distribute wine (as well as the size of Jewish/Catholic congregations) ballooned during prohibition. It was pretty similar to the "medicinal pot" fad now I guess. Drug stores were one of the "dispensaries" where one could obtain medicinal booze. Not surprisingly, the Chicago-based Walgreen's chain exploded from 20 to 525 stores during prohibition.