Mar 26 2011
Note: I kept getting errors about text being corrupted while trying to post the complete diary. This is only half the diary. There are many more sections and editorial cartoons in this diary that I posted over at Daily Kos.
Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma
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Mar 26 2011
Despite The Governments Best Efforts To Ensure Failure
You’re Fired
Money Grows Legs Walks Off
Residents feel isolated in movement-restricted areas near nuke plant
FUKUSHIMA
While residents who live closest to the troubled nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture have evacuated, those who have remained in a movement-restricted area 20 to 30 kilometers away from the plant say they are feeling increasingly ”isolated.”Towns were abandoned by many people apparently scared by the government’s instruction to shelter indoors for fear of radiation exposure, local people said.
Residents said they were also troubled by a misperception prevalent among people outside the area that they live in ”a contaminated area,” expressing discontent about what they see as slow actions for help by the central government.
Mar 26 2011
Another good good night for the underdogs, 2 out of 4 including Virginia Commonwealth over Florida State (take that Armando). Don’t complain to me about how they busted your brackets, I root, I don’t pool.
| Seed | Team | Record | Score | Seed | Team | Record | Score | Region |
| 2 | *North Carolina | 30 – 7 | 81 | 11 | Marquette | 23 – 15 | 63 | East |
| 1 | *Kansas | 37 – 2 | 77 | 12 | Richmond | 29 – 8 | 57 | Southwest |
| 1 | Ohio St. | 35 – 3 | 60 | 4 | *Kentucky | 34 – 8 | 62 | East |
| 10 | Florida St. | 25 – 11 | 71 | 11 | *Virginia Commonwealth | 27 – 11 | 72 | Southwest |
I’m not going to bother with Network anymore since all the remaining games are on CBS (I’m pretty sure, one is unlabeled). I suppose it’s unnecessary to mention I’ll be rooting for UConn since they’re the only team from The Big East left in it.
UConn Husky, symbol of might to the foe.
Fight, fight Connecticut, It’s vict’ry, Let’s go. (go. go. go)
Connecticut UConn Husky,
Do it again for the White and Blue
So go--go--go Connecticut, Connecticut U.
C-O-N-N-E-C-T-I-C-U-T
Connecticut, Conneticut Husky, Connecticut Husky
Connecticut C-O-N-N-U!
Deeply stupid.
I’ll probably bump the ladies for the night games and I’m hopeful I’ll have a Formula One piece for midnight (Qualifying repeat, followed by the Australian Grand Prix at 1:30 am on Speed).
Current Matchups
| Time | Seed | Team | Record | Seed | Team | Record | Region |
| 4:30 | 2 | Florida | 31 – 7 | 8 | Butler | 25 – 9 | Southeast |
| 7:05 | 3 | Connecticut | 31 – 9 | 5 | Arizona | 31 – 7 | West |
Follow the 2011 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.
If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-
For a more traditional bracket try CBS Sports.
Mar 26 2011
Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.
Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.
You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.
If you avoid eggs because you think they’re bad for you, you should reconsider. It was never clear that dietary cholesterol had a significant impact on heart health; saturated fat in the diet is thought to be a bigger culprit (how big is also a matter of dispute these days). The government’s new dietary guidelines acknowledge as much, advising that eating an egg every day will not affect blood cholesterol or cardiovascular health.
Mar 26 2011
“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”
Rep. John Conyers: Marking the 100th Anniversary of the Triangle Factory Fire
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of New York City and one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the history of the United States.
This occasion has particular resonance in the present political landscape. Across this country, working men and women are under assault by the conservative agenda. We have all heard the reports from the states — in Wisconsin, Ohio, and my home state of Michigan, the labor movement is under siege.
Joe Ciricione: Hiroshima to Fukushima: The Illusion of Control
On March 11, there were 443 nuclear reactors operating around the world. On March 12, that number shrunk by four.
An earthquake, a tsunami and a record of poor safety management converged to create one of the worst nuclear accidents in history. The crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant is still unfolding and, after some progress earlier this week, has again taken a grim turn with signs that at least one of the reactors may have been breached. Even under the best of circumstances, it is likely that four of the six Fukushima Daiichi reactors are a total loss. Japanese officials are considering what some believe inevitable–entombing the reactors in mounds of sand and concrete, as was done at Chernobyl. If so, the four sarcophagi on the Japanese shoreline will become stark reminders of the limits of human control.
Leonard Pitts Jr.: Gay marriage is a matter of rights
We are gathered here today to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It seems a majority of the American people now favor allowing gay men and lesbians to wed. That majority, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey released last week, is slender, just 51 percent. But even at that, it represents a significant increase from just five years ago, when only 36 percent of Americans approved.
Other polling organizations have reported similar trends, and for those who believe gay men and lesbians ought to be free to solemnize and formalize their relationships, that is very good news. It means they are – we are – winning the argument. That is cause for celebration.
Mar 26 2011
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament 2011
Tuesday (was it just Tuesday?) was a good night for underdogs. For once it’s easier to list the favorites who advanced- Connecticut, Texas A&M, and Baylor. That’s it.
I don’t know why they’ve scheduled Tip Off for Stanford/North Carolina at 11:30 pm, but I suspect that if I’m even awake I’ll be concentrating more on Formula One.
| Seed | Team | Record | Score | Seed | Team | Record | Score | Region |
| 1 | *Connecticut | 34 – 1 | 64 | 9 | Purdue | 21 – 12 | 40 | East |
| 3 | Miami (Fla.) | 28 – 5 | 83 | 6 | *Oklahoma | 23 – 11 | 88 | Southeast |
| 2 | Xavier | 29 – 3 | 75 | 7 | *Louisville | 22 – 12 | 85 | West |
| 4 | Maryland | 24 – 8 | 57 | 5 | *Georgetown | 24 – 10 | 79 | East |
| 3 | Florida State | 24 – 9 | 59 | 6 | *Georgia | 24 – 10 | 61 | Southwest |
| 4 | Michigan State | 27 – 6 | 56 | 5 | *Wisconsin-Green Bay | 34 – 1 | 65 | Southwest |
| 2 | *Texas A&M | 29 – 5 | 70 | 7 | Rutgers | 20 – 13 | 48 | Southwest |
| 1 | *Baylor | 33 – 2 | 82 | 9 | West Virginia | 24 – 10 | 68 | Southwest |
Current Matchups
| Time | Seed | Team | Record | Seed | Team | Record | Region |
| Noon | 1 | Tennessee | 32 – 2 | 4 | Ohio State | 23 – 9 | Southeast |
| 2:30 pm | 2 | Notre Dame | 27 – 7 | 6 | Oklahoma | 23 – 11 | Southeast |
| 9 pm | 7 | Louisville | 22 – 12 | 11 | Gonzaga | 29 – 4 | West |
| 11:30 pm | 1 | Stanford | 30 – 2 | 5 | North Carolina | 26 – 8 | West |
Follow the 2011 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament on The Stars Hollow Gazette.
If you don’t like squeeky shoes you can look for alternate programming here-
If you like a more traditional bracket try this NCAA one, they also have a TV schedule.
Mar 26 2011
Nothing like Internet interruption to get the priorities re-oriented. Nothing like the Mac announcing that it’s “looking for networks” and the persistent message from Vonage that things are not well in VOIP land. Friday brought high winds. First, phones out. An otherworldly, beeping, static laden dial tone. And then, when the phones mysteriously returned all on their own, no Internet. Red lights on the modem. Whirling beach ball email symbols.
According to the consoling voice at the so-called “Internet Help Center,” they are very sorry, very sorry indeed, but your bloguero might be disconnected until, wait for it, Monday or Tuesday. This news raises the specter of no Port Writers’ Alliance digest this week, or writing it on the crusty Blackberry, or scouting out a local Internet hotspot. It also raises the fear of no Netflix on demand. It only occurs to your bloguero after he realizes that no Internet might mean he has a legitimate excuse for no Digest this week and that maybe he will finish reading the first book of Eduardo Galeano’s masterful trilogy, that he first wonders how he will be able to do any work this weekend. Exactly how good an excuse, your bloguero wonders, is no Internet?
These fertile introspections, of course, can’t last. They can’t get played out. No. The phone rings on Saturday morning and the tech guy at the “Internet Help Center” says all is well and that your bloguero should now re-cycle the router. Of course, he’s right. It works. Your bloguero’s growing reveries about being Robinson Crusoe on an island without WiFi are shattered.
This week the Dream Antilles marked the passing of a lawyer hero, Leonard Weinglass. He was held in contempt 14 times by Judge Julius Hoffman during the Chicago 8 7 trial, inspiring me and dozens of other lawyers with his fearlessness in defense of his clients.
Haiku about clouds. These were inspired by a brief passage by Galeano.
Our Nominee For Understatement Of The Week is about the administration’s pathetic understanding of the US role in the centuries long oppression of Latin America. Your bloguero thinks he should make a reading list for US officials and take them on a tour of Central and South America so that they can understand how dreadful and anti-democratic US policy has been in the region.
Cops of the World is about Simultaneous War III in Libya. It was written on Wednesday. The questions remain unanswered. One might wonder why the US isn’t lobbing million dollar missiles at Syria, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen this morning. Meanwhile, Phil Ochs’s song of more than 40 years ago fits the situation.
And an obituary for Pinetop Perkins, a helluva blues piano player.
Your bloguero notes that this Digest is a weekly feature of the Port Writers Alliance and is now posted early Saturday morning. See you next week if the creek don’t rise if there’s still Internet.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Mar 26 2011
This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.
Find the past “On This Day in History” here.
March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 280 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1964, the musical, Funny Girl makes its premiere on Broadway.
Funny Girl is a musical with a book by Isobel Lennart, music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Bob Merrill. The semi-biographical plot is based on the life and career of Broadway, film star and comedienne Fanny Brice and her stormy relationship with entrepreneur and gambler Nicky Arnstein. Its original title was My Man.
The musical was produced by Ray Stark, who was Brice’s son-in-law via his marriage to her daughter Frances, and starred Barbra Streisand.
Mar 26 2011
Fear and devastation on the road to Japan’s nuclear disaster zone
Daniel Howden travels through a post-tsunami wasteland to the gates of the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power station
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Once this road was thronged with traffic: an expressway, one of the arteries of a nation’s economic life, as familiar and modern a sight as you would find anywhere in Japan. The only barriers on the route to Fukushima Daiichi were the other people heading in the same direction.Today the journey is different. It is a journey to the heart of a catastrophe. About 10 kilometres beyond the half-deserted city of Iwaki, the coastal road is blocked not by commuters but by landslides; the satellite navigation system that might once have flashed up traffic jams shows clusters of red circles that denote barred roads.
Mar 26 2011
Somehow, I have a feeling that BP will use this as a defense to stop any liability suits. Meanwhile the Obama regime, ever bowing to their corporate masters, continues to issue permits for deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico with absolutely no safe guards.
Tests on BP Well Blowout Preventer Confirm Redesign a Necessity
By Bob Cavnar at The Daily Hurricane
Yesterday, the Department of Interior released Det Norske Veritas’ (DNV) report on the forensic testing that it conducted on the blowout preventer (BOP) that failed to shut in BP’s blown out Macondo well almost a year ago. I’m still going through the 500-plus page report to find answers to my many questions about the failed BOP, but I do agree with the over riding recommendation to the industry from DNV:
“The finding of these studies should be considered and addressed in the design of future Blowout Preventers and the need for modifying current Blowout Preventers.”
DNV was addressing a recommendation to the industry that it study the causes and results of “elastic buckling” of the drill pipe within the Macondo BOP that pushed it to the side of the wellbore, preventing the blind shear ram, or the ram that is supposed to cut the pipe and seal the well, from doing so. During the time of the blowout, the forces within the well were so strong that it lifted the drill pipe, causing it to buckle and push over to the side of the BOP bore, positioning it outside of the shearing faces of the rams.
BP Can Do More Tests on Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventer, Court Rules
By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Allen Johnson Jr. at Bloomberg News
BP Plc (BP/) can conduct additional tests on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig’s blowout prevention equipment now that government examiners have finished their own forensic testing, a judge ruled.
“The additional BOP testing shall be performed in a manner that preserves the evidence to the maximum extent possible,” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said in his order, referring to the blowout prevention equipment. He ruled that other companies involved in the disaster could also now run additional tests, so long as everyone is allowed to monitor the procedures and share in the results.
The 300-ton stack of valves failed to seal off BP’s runaway well last April, triggering a fatal rig explosion and the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BP asked Barbier for permission to partially dismantle and conduct laser scans on the blowout preventer, which was recovered from the sea floor off the Louisiana coast last year.
“BP is clearly looking for any liability they can pin on the BOP,” said Houston lawyer Brent Coon, one of the lawyers marshalling evidence for the consolidated oil-spill damages lawsuits against BP and other companies involved in the failed drilling operation, referring to the blowout preventer.
(emphasis mine)
In an exclusive investigation Rachel Maddow shows how the Department of the Interior is issuing deep water drilling permits despite a report finding the blow-out preventer design is flawed and despite drilling companies submitting emergency response plans that pre-date the Deep Water Horizon spill and therefore reflect none of the lessons of that disaster
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