Mar 28 2011
Regular Features-
Featured Essays for March 27, 2011-
Mar 28 2011
There was a good bit of feedback from last week’s installment, and I want to point out that I am always glad when people point out flaws in my treatment. I emphasized a particular sort of reactor, and neglected a couple of other ones. I intend to set this right tonight.
The concern that seems to be in the forefront at present is the radiation leakage from the stricken plants. As I write this (20110326), it is still not clear whence it comes, but I suspect that fuel rods are compromised and that nuclear fuel rod material is becoming commingled with the water that is supposed to cool the systems.
I say that because it is unlikely that if the spent fuel rod ponds were the source that the high levels of radioactive materials would have found their way into the turbine rooms, where the subcontractors were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation.
The primary thrust of this piece is to go through some of the fission products in the spent (and in use) fuel rods. This will give us a basic understanding as to why used nuclear fuel is so much more dangerous than new fuel.
First, a little background. There are a few different legacy nuclear reactor types, the most important being the Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR), and the other being the Boiling Water Reactor (BWR). There are more, such as the Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR), an improvement of the older style Boiling Water Reactor, Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR), and the CANDU, which is really just a variant of the design of the PHWR. There are several other designs, but these are the most common for production of electricity.
Last week, I described in some detail how a PWR works, without bothering to look up that design the stricken reactors were in Japan. It turns out those are BWRs, and they differ from PWRs in that there is no heat exchanger, the water to spin the turbine being the same water sent through the reactor core. In this case, that water is boilt within the containment shell of the reactor, and the high pressure steam resulting passed directly to the turbines. This steam is condensed and returned to the loop as water, to go through the cycle again. I do not much like that design because it eliminates a safety stage in opposition to the PWR one that I described last week.
I speculate that since the reactor in question are BWRs, the compromised fuel rods allowed the steam to become contaminated with relatively volatile radionucleides and thus enter the turbine room(s). With a PWR, there is another level of protection, since the water exposed to the core never reaches the turbines themselves, but is recycled back the the core through the closed loop on the “hot” side of the heat exchanger.
I was incorrect when I implied that the reactors in Japan were PWR ones. They are, or now, were, BWR ones. This is a significant difference, but insofar as the problems there, pretty much a difference without a distinction. With either reactor design, loss of water circulation would have had the same end result except for the contamination of the turbine rooms.
Here is how two different readers corrected me. Please do not get me wrong, I absolutely and positively want to be corrected when I need to be. Remember, the difference is betwixt PWR and BWR reactors. Here is the first one. My comment precedes the answer. I have wiped out the identities of the commentors, and have streamlined the comments so as for them to make more sense. If you want to see the whole thing, just click back to last week’s installment.
Me: These pressurized water ones need to be phased out, and rapidly.
Commentor: Interesting thought, but why?
All of the reactors at Fukushima-1 are boiling water reactors, not pressurized water reactors.
Here’s a tip: if you’re going to make grand pronouncements, you should learn the basics … at the very least you should use the right lingo.
Now, for someone asking for clarification, that was a bit harsh.
To make the exact same point, another reader said this:
The fuel rods begin to get hot, heating the water, which in turn is circulated under high pressure (to keep it from boiling) to a heat exchanger, which is used to heat other water. Thus, the water in the reactor core is circulated continuously through the heat exchanger and core, and unless there is an upset, never is released to the environment. The water in the heat exchanger that the core water is boiled and the steam used to spin the turbine, and thus the generator.
That’s correct for a pressurized water reactor (PWR) which is in fact the most common design, but incorrect for a boiling water reactor (BWR), which make up 7 out of the 11 reactors here in Illinois (1) and all of the reactors at Fukushima. In a BWR, the water in the reactor vessel boils and the resulting steam goes directly into the turbines. Thus the turbine steam contains relatively small levels of radionuclides, whereas in a PWR the steam is “clean”.
1) Four of them are the same design (Mark I) as the Fukushima units; the other three are a design about 15 years newer (Mark III). The oldest Mark I (Dresden 2) is 40 years old.
If you Google “headache brain tumor”, you will come away convinced that your headache is actually cancer-Seth Mnookin
You can see that I was corrected by both parties. The latter one did it with courtesy and respect, but the former one with less than that. I prefer the latter.
I never mind being called out for being incorrect, and for those of you that read this series on a regular basis, you know that I actually ask for it. However, I prefer, like most people do, the velvet glove approach rather than the iron gauntlet one. I appreciate the kind correction that the latter commentor gave, and respect the expertise.
With all of the conflicting information coming from Japan, I shall not even attempt to describe what is going on there. What we will discuss this week is what is in fuel rods in a reactor core, or in the spent fuel rod ponds. Uranium-235 is not actually that dangerous itself, unless it is widely dispersed into the environment, in particular the air and water. Plutonium-239 is more hazardous, since it has a higher specific activity, as measured by the half life of the isotopes. The half life is the amount of time required for half of a given number of nuclei to decay away (often to other radioactive isotopes, by the way). For U-235 it is about 731,000 years, and for Pu-239 it is 24,000 years, so very roughly one can say that the plutonium is around 30 times more radioactive than the uranium. However, these are not the problem isotopes in Japan. The fission products are much more troubling, and so are some of the activation products, other nuclei that have been made extremely radioactive because of neutron absorption. We shall consider the fission products first, and stipulate that these are coming from U-235. Other isotopes have slightly different yields.
The most common fission isotope is cesium-133, which is not radioactive, which accounts to around 6.8% of the total fission products. However, it is converted to the extremely highly radioactive cesium-134 (half life only about 2.1 days) by neutron activation, and this isotope is a major contributor to heat in the core. In the spent fuel pool it is not really much of a factor, since in 10 days only 1/32nd of the original amount is left. The next most common fission product is iodine-135, also intensely radioactive (half life only 6.6 hours), so it is a major contributor of heat if it still being produced in the fuel rods. It decays away rapidly, obviously. Neither cesium-134 nor iodine-134 are significant environmental hazards since they decay away so rapidly.
Also at around 6.3% yield is zirconium-93, with a half life of about 1.5 million years. It is not a significant source of heat in the reactor core because of its relatively long half life. At 6.1% yield is cesium-137 (half life of about 30 years). Cs-137 is often used as heat source industrially because of it high activity and relatively middliing energy gamma emission. It is also one of the nuclei of concern in “dirty bombs” because lots of those heat sources are loosely guarded in the former Soviet Union.
Also at about 6.1% is technicium-99 (half life of about 214,000 years). It is not particularly a problem for heat buildup in the core, but is responsible for long term radioactivity in spent fuel. Coming in at about 5.8% is strontium-90 (half life of about 29 years) which is active enough to cause significant heating. At about 2.8% is iodine-131 (half life of right at 8 days), active enough to be a very significant source of heat. At about 2.3% yield is promethium-147 (half life of about 2.6 years), also a rather significant heat source. Finally, at about is samarium-149, which is stable.
There are many more fission products in a U-235 fuel rod, but for the sake of brevity I shall limit the discussion to those that are produced in more than 1% yield. That is not to say that these fission products are not important, but as the amount produced becomes smaller, their contribution to heating is significantly less. All of the isotopes mentioned above, except for the stable ones, are significant sources of potentially harmful radiation, but the isotopes of three elements are of particular concern insofar as effects on people are concerned.
Probably the most significant one is iodine-131. Since iodine is selectively absorbed by the thyroid gland, it accumulates there and is readily absorbed. With a half life of 8 days, it is active enough to do significant damage to the thyroid. This is why potassium iodide tablets are distributed in areas close to high levels of contamination. The idea is to load up the thyroid gland with nonradioactive iodine before exposure to the radioactive kind is experienced, to make the radioactive isotope less apt to be absorbed. The thyroid essentially quits absorbing iodine if it already has enough. By the way, this is the same isotope of iodine used in medicine to treat certain thyroid conditions.
Another element that is problematic is cesium, and two radioactive cesium isotopes are produced in high yield. Cesium is chemically similar to sodium and potassium both essential minerals in humans, and so is readily absorbed. The third one of concern is the strontium-90, because strontium is a calcium mimic, being absorbed and incorporated into the bone. This is particularly hazardous, since the bone marrow is the formative tissue for all sorts of blood cells, and irradiation of the blood forming cells can lead to leukemias and other blood diseases. As a matter of fact, Marie Curie died of aplastic anemia, almost certainly caused by her work with radioisotopes before it was know that radiation was harmful to the body.
Activation products, those isotopes produced by absorption of neutrons by rather low mass elements, are also of concern (actinides are a special case of activation products and shall be considered in a bit).
A troubling one is tritium, or hydrogen-3. It is formed from boron-10, and boron is a common element used as a control material. With a half life of only 12.3 years, it is intensely radioactive and reacts with atmospheric oxygen to produce water. This is not a good thing. Another one of concern is carbon-14, half life of 5730 years, formed from the nitrogen-14 in the air, and to a much lesser extent naturally occurring carbon-13. While not that big a deal in water moderated reactors, it is a significant problem in graphite moderated ones. By the way, carbon-14 is also formed naturally in the atmosphere by cosmic radiation, and this is the basis for carbon-14 dating. It reacts immediately with atmospheric oxygen to form radioactive carbon dioxide and is taken up by plants during photosynthesis.
Another isotope of concern, at least in the Japanese case, is chlorine-36, with a half life of around 300,000 years. Normally, it is not produced in water moderated reactors because purified fresh water is used. However, with the use of seawater for the past over a week to try to cool the reactors, no doubt significant quantities of this isotope have been formed, since it is formed from the naturally occurring, stable chlorine-35, and seawater is rich in it.
If steel has been exposed to a high neutron flux, some iron-55 will surely have been formed from iron-54, although the natural abundance of iron-54 is only around 6% of the total. However, it is intensely radioactive with a half life of only 2.7 years. Two others of concern are nickel-59 (half life of around 76,000 years) formed from nickel-58 in alloy and stainless steels. Another one of concern is silver-108m, with a half life of around 418 years. The “m” stands for metastable, because this is a nuclear excited state of silver-108 that is kinetically more stable than silver-108 itself. The metastable state has a half life of 418 years, as I said, emitting a gamma photon (or more than one). When it finally reaches the ground state, this half life is only around 2.4 minutes. This a problem, because as we reported last week, control rods are around 85% silver, and around half of that is silver-107, the parent isotope of silver-108m. Finally, there are cadmium-113m and cadmium-113, produced from natural cadmium-112 in nuclear control rods and discussed last time. Cadmium-113 is not really a problem, because it has a half life in the quadrillions of years, so it is not very active. However, the 113m one has a half life of only around 14 years, and so is quite radioactive.
The special case of neutron activation about which I spoke a few minutes ago involves irradiation of the nuclear fuel itself, or actinide formation. For example, when uranium-238 (the bulk of the uranium in a reactor core) absorbs a neutron, uranium-239 is produced. With a half life of only around 23.5 minutes, it is extremely radioactive. The U-239 ejects an electron to form neptunium-239, also highly radioactive with a half life of around 2.3 days. It also emits an electron, forming plutonium-239 (half life of 24,000 years), which is stuff of which fission bombs are often made. It is also used as a reactor fuel, and at least one of the units in Japan uses plutonium as part of its fuel mix. The Pu-239 can also absorb a neutron, forming Pu-240 (half life of about 6600 years). This is just one set of many, many reactions that can occur with the heavy elements. The end result is that before very long fuel rods contain hundreds of different heavy, some highly radioactive, isotopes. To go into more detail would not be useful, but one good thing is that many of these materials are rather high boiling solids, so are not as easy to disperse as iodine, for example.
However, they are serious hazards when they escape into the environment, especially if for some reason they are dispersed in the air. The graphite fire at Chernobyl dispersed essentially everything, and the situation in Japan is apt not to be nearly as energetic, so large area dispersal of actinides is unlikely by an atmospheric mechanism. For some perspective, even the open air detonations of thermonuclear devices (“hydrogen bombs”) in the Pacific did not produce highly health threatening air dispersions of radioactive elements (although there was worldwide distribution, just at very low levels), and essentially everything was injected high into the atmosphere. One Soviet detonation was so energetic ( the 50 megaton AN602, tested on 19611030) that it actually created a new radiation belt above the earth, but no where were lethal levels of radiation experienced, outside of the offset for the test range.
Therefore, there is no reason to panic over the release in Japan. Certainly, there is cause for concern, partarticulaly in the region in the immediate vicinity around the plants. There is no doubt that some of that population will be affected, most likely with elevated cancer rates in years to come. Also without doubt, the workers at the plant will suffer severe health effects. But the rest of the Japanese population, and certainly just about everyone everywhere else will see no effects.
Please do not get me wrong: this is the second largest nuclear power plant incident ever, and I am not trying to minimize its importance nor the negative effects that certainly result from it. However, it is important to keep things in perspective and not overreact to a situation that the media have sort of overhyped. This is also an opportunity to learn some important lessons so that positive regulatory steps can be taken worldwide to increase the safety level of existing nuclear power plants. Like it or not, they are with us to stay, and I strongly suspect that more will be built in the near future. Next week we shall close this series by looking at the latest generation technology that goes a long way to mitigate the problems with these old design plants.
Well, you have done it again! You have wasted many more einsteins of perfectly good photons reading this hot material. I usually insert a political joke here, but will instead this week make a very rate reference to sport. Most of you know that I am originally an Arkansawyer (only the self important folks say “Arkansan”). Since the Razorbacks did not go anywhere in the NCAA basketball tournament, I have to congratulate the Kentucky Wildcats for making it to the semifinals. The Bluegrass is my adopted home now, and although I will always root for the Razorbacks when they play the Wildcats, I am pleased that Kentucky won today. Those kids played their hearts out and NEVER gave up, even though late in the game it looked like they would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
I always learn much more than I could possibly hope to teach by writing this series, so please keep those comments, questions, corrections (as discussed above), and other feedback coming. The comments are always the best part of the post, and remember that no scientific or technology issue is off topic here. I shall hang around as long as comments warrant, and shall return tomorrow evening around 9:00 Eastern for Review Time.
Warmest regards,
Doc
Mar 28 2011
I’ll be sitting in for ek hornbeck who is Live Blogging the Men’s and Women’s NCAA Championship Games for the next few days. Come live blog with us.
BIN JAWAD, Libya (AFP) – Libyan rebels’ push westwards towards Tripoli gathered momentum on Sunday amid promises the uprising would not further hamper oil production in the areas under their control.
The rebels’ pursuit of Moamer Kadhafi’s forces saw them wrest back control of key oil town Ras Lanuf and press on as far as Nofilia with Kadhafi’s hometown of Sirte firmly in their sights 100 kilometres (60 miles) further along the road where the next major battle was expected.
Operator of quake-hit nuclear plant says reading that radioactivity was 10 million times more than normal was an error
The operator of Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi quake-crippled nuclear complex has said a spike reported in radioactivity at the plant is a mistake.
Jiji Press quoted the Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO) as saying on Sunday that the mistake – which indicated radiation levels 10 million times higher than normal – was due to confusion between readings of iodine and cobalt in the water.
The inaccurate reading had forced emergency workers to flee from the complex’s Unit 2 reactor.
“The number is not credible,” said TEPCO’s spokesman, Takashi Kurita. “We are very sorry.”
He said officials were taking another sample to get accurate levels, but did not know when the results would be announced.
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TOKYO – Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and inadequate storage tanks for huge amounts of contaminated water, stymied emergency workers Sunday as they struggled to nudge Japan’s stricken nuclear complex back from the edge of disaster.
Workers are attempting to remove the radioactive water from the tsunami-ravaged nuclear compound and restart the regular cooling systems for the dangerously hot fuel.
The day began with company officials reporting that radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal, a spike that forced employees to flee the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.
WASHINGTON – In a sign of U.S. confidence that the weeklong assault on Libya has tamed Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses, the Pentagon has reduced the amount of naval firepower arrayed against him, officials said Sunday.
The move, not yet publicly announced, reinforces the White House message of a diminishing U.S. role – a central point in President Barack Obama’s national address Monday night on Libya. The White House booked Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on three Sunday news shows to promote the administration’s case ahead of the speech.
LATAKIA, Syria – Syria’s army was out in force Sunday in a port city scarred by unrest aimed at symbols of the government, which is struggling to put down an unprecedented nationwide outbreak of protest and dissent.
President Bashar Assad’s regime has responded by both fatally shooting protesters, and promising reform, and a lawmaker told The Associated Press on Sunday that he expected Assad to soon announce that he was lifting a nearly 50-year state of emergency. The timing remained unclear.
Bin Jawad is the latest town to fall as Libyan rebels’ rapid advance west takes them closer to Gaddafi-held Sirte.
Libyan rebels are moving westwards towards a possible showdown with government forces loyal to the country’s embattled leader, Muammar Gaddafi.
Opposition forces backed by coalition air strikes have already seized control of the key towns of Ras Lanuf, Uqayla, Brega and Ajdabiya in a rapid advance along the coastline.
By Sunday afternoon, the rebel advance had reached the town of Bin Jawad, Al Jazeera’s James Bays reported from the outskirts of the city.
Our correspondent said Gaddafi’s forces appeared to have withdrawn eastwards. Those still in the town surrendered without a fight, Bays said.
Revolutionary forces move more west along Libya’s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as they get closer to Sirte
Libyan rebels are advancing on Muammar Gaddafi’s home town, Sirte, after retaking all the ground lost in earlier fighting as government forces broke and fled under western air strikes.
Revolutionary forces rapidly moved more than 150 miles west along Libya’s coastal road, seizing several towns without resistance, as the first witness accounts emerged of the devastating effect on Gaddafi’s army and militia of the aerial bombardment that broke their resistance at Ajdabiya on Saturday.
DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian authorities have decided to lift emergency rule, a presidential adviser told AFP on Sunday as residents of the northern city of Latakia buried victims of a wave of unrest that has put President Bashar al-Assad under unprecedented pressure.
Troops have deployed in Latakia, a religiously diverse port city 350 kilometres (220 miles) northwest of Damascus, where at least 12 people have been killed by gunfire involving snipers since Friday.
SANAA (AFP) – President Ali Abdullah Saleh has warned of Somalia-like “chaos” in Yemen if he steps down without an agreed successor as Washington said on Sunday his fall could endanger its fight against Al-Qaeda.
Highlighting the multiple challenges facing any ruler of Yemen, suspected Al-Qaeda militants seized control of Jaar, a town in the restive southern province of Abyan, security officials told AFP.
ABIDJAN (AFP) – Hopes for a negotiated solution to Ivory Coast’s bloody post-election crisis took a knock Sunday as rival claimants to the presidency failed to agree on the African Union’s choice of mediator.
Alassane Ouattara, internationally recognised as the winner of November presidential elections, rejected Cape Verde ex-foreign minister Jose Brito, pointing to his close ties to Ivorian strongman Laurent Gbagbo.
(Reuters) – Militants clashed with the Yemeni army in a southern town on Sunday, fuelling Western fears that the country could descend into chaos which would benefit al Qaeda if President Ali Abdullah Saleh is forced out.
The army tried to dislodge a coalition of Islamists from Jaar in Abyan province after they seized buildings on Saturday and security forces appeared to have deserted the town of several hundred thousand.
(Reuters) – The United States will cut its military role in the Libya no-fly zone in the next week or so and with other nations start to focus on how to ease Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi from power, top U.S. officials said on Sunday.
In television interviews, the U.S. secretaries of state and defense raised the possibility that Gaddafi’s regime could splinter and said a London conference on Tuesday would discuss political strategies to end his 41-year rule of the oil-exporting North African nation.
(Reuters) – President Bashar al-Assad, facing the gravest crisis in his 11-year rule, deployed the army for the first time in Syria’s main port of Latakia after nearly two weeks of protests spread across the country.
Assad, 45, who has made no direct public comment since protests started sweeping Syria, was expected to address the nation shortly, officials said, without giving further details.
(Reuters) – Elizabeth Warren, the Obama administration’s defender of financial consumers, will venture into the corporate lion’s den this week, along with Jamie Dimon, CEO of banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co.
The two will be speakers at an event set for Wednesday at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobbying group, in its Corinthian-columned headquarters situated within view of the White House.
(Reuters) – Ireland’s government wants to impose losses on some senior bondholders in Irish lenders to reduce the burden on taxpayers from a prolonged banking crisis, a senior minister said on Sunday.
Dublin wants to impose losses on banks’ senior unsecured bonds not covered by a state guarantee, which currently amount to over 16 billion euros, as part of a new deal with the European Union, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
(Reuters) – It would make sense for Portugal to seek aid from the European Union bailout fund, although such a decision will be caught up in domestic politics, European Central Bank Governing Board member Ewald Nowotny said.
Portugal’s Premier Jose Socrates submitted his resignation last week after parliament rejected austerity measures proposed by his minority Socialist government to try to avert a bailout.
(Reuters) – Taliban insurgents abducted around 50 off-duty Afghan policemen in an ambush in a volatile province in northeastern Afghanistan, the militant group and provincial officials said on Sunday.
Taliban-led militants have stepped up their fight this year against the Afghan government and its Western backers at a time when Kabul has announced security responsibilities for seven areas will be handed to Afghan forces in July.
(Reuters) – Bahrain’s largest Shi’ite opposition group Wefaq has accepted Kuwait as a mediator with Bahrain’s government to end a political crisis gripping the tiny kingdom, a member of Wefaq said on Sunday.
Bahrain imposed martial law and called in troops from neighboring Sunni-ruled states earlier this month to quell weeks of unrest by mostly Shi’ite protesters.
(Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives appeared set to lose power in a major regional stronghold on Sunday after early results suggested the anti-nuclear Greens were surging to their first ever state premiership.
In Baden-Wuerttemberg state, where anti-nuclear sentiment has been mobilized by Japan’s nuclear crisis, the Greens and Social Democrats (SPD) were set to win 48.3 percent, eclipsing the Christian Democrats who have held power for six decades.
(Reuters) – The French voted on Sunday in a second round of local elections that have caused alarm and disarray in President Nicolas Sarkozy’s party after the far-right National Front surged in first-round voting.
The polls served to gauge the national mood a year before a presidential election and will determine whether the anti-immigrant National Front gains a foothold in a handful of local councils — levers of grassroots political power.
CORAL SPRINGS, Fla. – If there’s any place where tea partiers in Congress might hesitate to call for cuts in Social Security and Medicare to shrink the federal debt, Florida’s retirement havens should top the list.
Even here, however, Republican lawmakers are racing toward a spending showdown with Democrats exhibiting little nervousness about deep cuts, including those that eventually would hit benefit programs long left alone by politicians.
WASHINGTON – Millions of retired and disabled people in the United States had better brace for another year with no increase in Social Security payments.
The government is projecting a slight cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security benefits next year, the first increase since 2009. But for most beneficiaries, rising Medicare premiums threaten to wipe out any increase in payments, leaving them without a raise for a third straight year.
PHILADELPHIA – Maya Moore had 23 points and 14 rebounds to help Connecticut rally from a seven-point second half deficit and beat Georgetown 68-63 on Sunday in the regional semifinals.
Bria Hartley added 17 points for UConn (35-1), which is now three victories away from a third straight national championship that would match the school’s own run from 2002-04 and Tennessee’s from 1996-98.
ANAHEIM, Calif. – Jim Calhoun could scarcely watch when the most improbable postseason run of his coaching life at Connecticut came down to an open 3-point attempt by Arizona’s Jamelle Horne.
The shot clanged off the back rim. The clock hit zeros.
Nine victories in just 19 days. Calhoun has seen just about everything, but nothing like this – and now his Huskies will keep running all the way to Houston.
NEW ORLEANS – Of course Butler erased a late deficit. Of course the Bulldogs hit a clutch 3-pointer late in overtime. Of course they’re going back to the Final Four.
This is the Butler Way.
Shelvin Mack scored 27 points, including five in overtime, and Butler reached the Final Four for the second year in a row with a 74-71 victory over Florida on Saturday.
DAYTON, Ohio – No overtime this time. Notre Dame’s defense needed less than a half to end the drama.
Brittany Mallory scored season-high 20 points Saturday, and Notre Dame’s defensive pressure took its toll in a 78-53 win over Oklahoma that sent the second-seeded Fighting Irish to the regional final.
Notre Dame (29-7) will play top-seeded Tennessee on Monday. The Lady Vols (34-2) pulled away from Ohio State in the second half for an 85-75 win – their 25th straight – in the other semifinal.
SPOKANE, Wash. – When Stanford needed its sister act the most, Chiney and Nnemkadi Ogwumike came through with exactly what the Cardinal needed.
Nnemkadi Ogwumike and her freshman sister, Chiney, scored 12 of Stanford’s final 15 points and the top-seeded Cardinal held on in the final minute for a 72-65 win over No. 5 seed North Carolina on Saturday night in the Spokane Regional semifinals.
DAYTON, Ohio – There are halftime chats and then there are coach’s rants. Pat Summitt hasn’t won 1,071 games by not knowing when to let her team have it.
Summitt absolutely lit up her Tennessee Lady Vols at the break and their regional semifinal game Saturday tilted soon after. With Shekinna Stricklen scoring 14 of her 20 points in the second half and touching off a critical 11-3 second-half run, Summitt and the Lady Vols moved into their accustomed spot in the Elite Eight with an 85-75 win over Ohio State.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Two-time defending series champion Dario Franchitti won IndyCar’s season opener on Sunday, showing he’s once again the one to beat in open-wheel racing.
Franchitti grabbed the lead early on and was hardly challenged in the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg. The Scottish driver was nearly perfect for 100 laps on the scenic, 1.8-mile street course, beating pole-sitter Will Power to the finish line by more than seven seconds.
MELBOURNE, Australia – Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel opened his Formula One title defense by driving a flawless race and beating McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton to win the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Starting from the pole, Vettel maintained his lead after the first turn and had already opened a gap of more than 2 seconds over Hamilton following the first lap and the German’s lead was never seriously threatened.
Mar 27 2011
(midnight. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Essays Featured Sunday the 27th of March~
Late Night Karaoke shines a spotlight on Massive Attack, mishima DJs
Six Brilliant Articles! from Six Different Places!! on Six Different Topics!!!
Six Days a Week!!! at Six in the Morning!!!!
Insanity from Alma in Sunday Open Thoughts
edger highlights a recent article from F. William Engdahl in The Curious Libya ‘opposition’
While spring cleaning the bookmarks RiaD found the question Is more equal more green?
In the latest edition of Sunday Bread Bill Egnor shares my long lost recipe(!) Oat Raisin Bread.
I am forever grateful.
Mar 27 2011
Only the one upset thank goodness.
| Seed | Team | Record | Score | Seed | Team | Record | Score | Region |
| 2 | Florida | 31 – 8 | 71 | 8 | *Butler | 26 – 9 | 74 | Southeast |
| 3 | *Connecticut | 32 – 9 | 65 | 5 | Arizona | 31 – 8 | 63 | West |
I’m kind of hoping Virginia Commonwealth does me a favor and drops Kansas, but that would be quite an upset indeed.
Current Matchups
| Time | Seed | Team | Record | Seed | Team | Record | Region |
| 2:20 pm | 1 | Kansas | 37 – 2 | 11 | Virginia Commonwealth | 27 – 11 | Southwest |
| 5:05 pm | 2 | North Carolina | 30 – 7 | 4 | Kentucky | 34 – 8 | East |
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 27 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 27 is the 86th day of the year (87th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 279 days remaining until the end of the year.
On this day in 1939, March Madness is born.
The University of Oregon defeats The Ohio State University 46-33 on this day in 1939 to win the first-ever NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The Final Four, as the tournament became known, has grown exponentially in size and popularity since 1939. By 2005, college basketball had become the most popular sporting event among gamblers, after the Super Bowl. The majority of that betting takes place at tournament time, when Las Vegas, the internet and office pools around the country see action from sports enthusiasts and once-a-year gamblers alike.
For the first 12 years of the men’s tournament, only eight teams were invited to participate. That number grew steadily until a 65-team tournament format was unveiled in 2001. After a “play-in” game between the 64th and 65th seeds, the tournament breaks into four regions of 16 teams. The winning teams from those regions comprise the Final Four, who meet in that year’s host city to decide the championship.
March Madness is a popular term for season-ending basketball tournaments played in March, especially those conducted by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and various state high school associations. Fans began connecting the term to the NCAA tournament in the early 1980s. Evidence suggests that CBS sportscaster Brent Musburger, who had worked for many years in Chicago before joining CBS, popularized the term during the annual tournament broadcasts. The phrase had not already become associated with the college tournament when an Illinois official wrote in 1939 that “A little March Madness [may] contribute to sanity.” March Madness is also a registered trademark, held jointly by the NCAA and the Illinois High School Association. It was also the title of a book about the Illinois high school tournament written in 1977 by Jim Enright.
H. V. Porter, an official with the Illinois High School Association (and later a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame) was the first person to use March Madness to describe a basketball tournament. Porter published an essay named March Madness in 1939 and in 1942 used the phrase in a poem, “Basketball Ides of March.” Through the years the use of March Madness picked up steam, especially in Illinois, Indiana, and other parts of the Midwest. During this period the term was used almost exclusively in reference to state high school tournaments. In 1977 the IHSA published a book about its tournament titled March Madness.
Only in the 1990s did either the IHSA or NCAA think about trademarking the term, and by that time a small television production company named Intersport, Inc., had beaten them both to the punch. IHSA eventually bought the trademark rights from Intersport and then went after big game, suing GTE Vantage, Inc., an NCAA licensee that used the name March Madness for a computer game based on the college tournament. In a historic ruling, “Illinois High School Association v. GTE Vantage, Inc.” (1996), the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit created the concept of a “dual-use trademark,” granting both the IHSA and NCAA the right to trademark the term for their own purposes.
Following the ruling, the NCAA and IHSA joined forces and created the March Madness Athletic Association to coordinate the licensing of the trademark and investigate possible trademark infringement. One such case involved a company that had obtained the Internet domain name marchmadness.com and was using it to post information about the NCAA tournament. After protracted litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held in March Madness Athletic Association v. Netfire, Inc. (2003) that March Madness was not a generic term and ordered Netfire to relinquish the domain name. (This domain name is currently being used to redirect into the main NCAA.com web site.)
In recent years, the term “March Madness” has been expanded to include all conference tournaments in college basketball, with the term “The Big Dance” being used more frequently when specifically referring to the NCAA Tournament. March Madness has also has been used generally to describe all basketball tournaments across the country that occur in the month of March – high school and college, male and female.
The coverage and live blogging of all the 2011 Men’s and Women’s NCAA Championship are happening here at The Stars Hollow Gazette.
196 BC – Ptolemy V ascends to the throne of Egypt.
1306 – Robert the Bruce is crowned King of Scotland at Scone.
1309 – Pope Clement V excommunicates Venice and all its population.
1329 – Pope John XXII issues his In Agro Dominico condemning some writings of Meister Eckhart as heretical.
1613 – The first English child born in Canada at Cuper’s Cove, Newfoundland to Nicholas Guy.
1625 – Charles I becomes King of England, Scotland and Ireland as well as claiming the title King of France.
1782 – Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
1794 – The United States Government establishes a permanent navy and authorizes the building of six frigates.
1794 – Denmark and Sweden form a neutrality compact.
1809 – Peninsular War: A combined Franco-Polish force defeats the Spanish in the Battle of Ciudad-Real.
1814 – War of 1812: In central Alabama, U.S. forces under General Andrew Jackson defeat the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.
1836 – Texas Revolution: Goliad massacre – Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna orders the Mexican army to kill about 400 Texas POW’s at Goliad,
Texas.
1846 – Mexican-American War: Siege of Fort Texas.
1851 – First reported sighting of the Yosemite Valley by Europeans.
1854 – Crimean War: The United Kingdom declares war on Russia.
1871 – The first international rugby football match, England v. Scotland, is played in Edinburgh at Raeburn Place.
1881 – Rioting takes place in Basingstoke in protest against the daily vociferous promotion of rigid Temperance by the Salvation Army.
1884 – A mob in Cincinnati, Ohio, US, attacks members of a jury who had returned a verdict of manslaughter in a clear case of murder, and then over the next few days would riot and destroy the courthouse.
1886 – Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.
1890 – A tornado strikes Louisville, Kentucky, killing 76 and injuring 200.
1915 – Typhoid Mary, the first healthy carrier of disease ever identified in the United States, is put in quarantine, where she would remain for the rest of her life.
1918 – Moldova and Bessarabia join Romania.
1938 – Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Taierzhuang takes place.
1941 – World War II: Yugoslavian Air Force officers topple the pro-axis government in a bloodless coup.
1943 – World War II: Battle of the Komandorski Islands – In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska.
1945 – World War II: Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways begins.
1948 – The Second Congress of the Workers Party of North Korea is convened.
1958 – Nikita Khrushchev becomes Premier
of the Soviet Union.
1963 – Beeching Axe: Dr. Richard Beeching issues a report calling for huge cuts to the United Kingdom’s rail network.
1964 – The Good Friday Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake in U.S. history at a magnitude of 9.2 strikes South Central Alaska, killing 125 people and inflicting massive damage to the city of Anchorage.
1975 – Construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.
1976 – The first 4.6 miles of the Washington Metro subway system opens.
1977 – Tenerife airport disaster: Two Boeing 747 airliners collide on a foggy runway on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 (all 248 on KLM and 335 on Pan Am). 61 survived on the Pan Am flight.
1980 – The Norwegian oil platform Alexander L. Kielland collapses in the North Sea, killing 123 of its crew of 212.
1980 – Silver Thursday: A steep fall in silver prices, resulting from the Hunt Brothers attempting to corner the market in silver, led to panic on commodity and futures exchanges.
1981 – The Solidarity movement in Poland stages a warning strike, in which at least 12 million Poles walk off their jobs for four hours.
1986 – A car bomb explodes at Russell Street Police HQ in Melbourne, killing 1 police officer and injuring 21 people.
1990 – The United States begins broadcasting TV Martí to Cuba in an effort to bridge the information blackout imposed by the Castro regime.
1993 – Jiang Zemin is appointed President of the People’s Republic of China.
1993 – Italian former minister and Christian Democracy leader Giulio Andreotti is accused of mafia allegiance by the tribunal of Palermo.
1994 – One of the biggest tornado outbreaks in recent memory hits the Southeastern United States. One tornado slams into a church in Piedmont, Alabama during Palm Sunday services killing 20 and injuring 90.
1994 – The Eurofighter takes its first flight in Manching, Germany.
1998 – The Food and Drug Administration approves Viagra for use as a treatment for male impotence, the first pill to be approved for this condition in the United States.
2000 – A Phillips Petroleum plant explosion in Pasadena, Texas kills 1 and injures 71.
2004 – HMS Scylla (F71), a decommissioned Leander class frigate, is sunk as an artificial reef off Cornwall, the first of its kind in Europe.
2009 – Situ Gintung, an artificial lake in Indonesia, fails, killing at least 99 people.
2009 – A suicide bomber kills at least 48 at a mosque in the Khyber Agency of Pakistan.
* Armed Forces Day or Tatmadaw nei (Burma)
* Christian Feast Day:
o Alexander, a Pannonian soldier, martyred in 3rd century.
o Augusta of Treviso, a virgin, beheaded by her pagan father in 5th century.
o Gelasius
o Romulus of Nimes, a Benedictine abbot, martyred c. 730.
o Zanitas and Lazarus of Persia
o March 27 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
* World Theatre Day (International)
Mar 27 2011
NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament 2011
Yesterday was a good day to be seeded. The only underdog to advance was Gonzaga which will no doubt make mishima happy.
| Seed | Team | Record | Score | Seed | Team | Record | Score | Region |
| 1 | *Tennessee | 33 – 2 | 85 | 4 | Ohio State | 23 – 10 | 75 | Southeast |
| 2 | *Notre Dame | 28 – 7 | 78 | 6 | Oklahoma | 23 – 12 | 53 | Southeast |
| 7 | Louisville | 22 – 13 | 59 | 11 | *Gonzaga | 30 – 4 | 76 | West |
| 1 | *Stanford | 31 – 2 | 72 | 5 | North Carolina | 26 – 9 | 65 | West |
Today we start off with the Lady Huskies whom I think will be unwilling to exit the Tournament before the Men do.
You see, they’re just a far superior program.
They play Georgetown and all The Big East Teams are tough, but they’ve beat them twice already this year and there’s no reason to expect any different.
Current Matchups
| Time | Seed | Team | Record | Seed | Team | Record | Region |
| Noon | 1 | Connecticut | 34 – 1 | 5 | Georgetown | 24 – 10 | East |
| 2:30 pm | 2 | Duke | 30 – 3 | 3 | DePaul | 25 – 9 | East |
| 4:30 pm | 2 | Texas A&M | 29 – 5 | 6 | Georgia | 24 – 10 | Southwest |
| 7 pm | 1 | Baylor | 33 – 2 | 5 | Wisconsin-Green Bay | 34 – 1 | Southwest |
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 27 2011
(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
Who exactly are these rebels we’re supporting?
A short quote from a very exhaustive annotated article:
The so-called Libyan opposition itself is a hodge-podge mix of political opportunists, ex-CIA-trained Mujahideen guerillas such as Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi of the so-called Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, who openly admits to close ties to al-Qaeda going back to Afghanistan.12 That certainly raises the level of incredibility of Washington’s most bizarre military crusade of recent times.
As well, the opposition includes former senior Gaddafi regime members who saw greener grass on the US, British and French-backed opposition side, and outright cutthroats who, encouraged by Washington, London or Paris smelled the chance to grab control of one of the richest lands on Earth.
Their “opposition,” unlike in Tunisia or elsewhere, was never “non-violent.” It was an armed revolt from the git-go, a war of tribe against tribe, not of surging aspirations for democracy. NATO member countries are being told by Washington to back one band of tyrants to oust another whose agenda does not comply with what the Pentagon calls Full Spectrum Dominance.
The Libyan “opposition” for most of the world is still a vague CNN or BBC image of stone-throwing youth crying out to the well-positioned cameras for “freedom, democracy.” In reality it is far different. As George Friedman of Stratfor pointed out, the “Libyan uprising consisted of a cluster of tribes and personalities, some within the Libyan government, some within the army and many others longtime opponents of the regime.” He adds, “it would be an enormous mistake to see what has happened in Libya as a mass, liberal democratic uprising. The narrative has to be strained to work in most countries, but in Libya, it breaks down completely.”13
It emerges that the main opposition to Gaddafi comes from two very curious organizations-the National Front for the Salvation of Libya and a bizarre group calling itself the Islamic Emirate of Barqa, the former name of the North-Western part of Libya. Its leadership claims the group is made up of former al-Qaeda fighters previously released from jail. Their record of bloodshed is impressive to date.The main opposition group in Libya now is the National Front for the Salvation of Libya which is reported to be funded by Saudi Arabia, the CIA and French Intelligence. They joined with other opposition groups to become the National Conference for the Libyan Opposition. It was that organization that called for the “Day of Rage” that plunged Libya into chaos on February 17. 14
The key figure in the National Front for the Salvation of Libya is one Ibrahim Sahad who conveniently enough lives in Washington. According to the Library of Congress archives, Sahad is the same man the CIA used in their failed attempt at a Libyan coup of 1984. The Library of Congress confirms that the CIA trained and supported the NFSL both before and after the failed coup.
On March 11 the French government became the first nation to recognize the National Front for the Salvation (sic) of Libya, which is now operating under the amorphous cover of an umbrella group calling itself the Libyan National Transitional Council, which is little more than the old NFSL, a group financed for years by the Saudis, the French and the CIA. 15
The new Transitional Council umbrella group is little more reportedly than the old NFSL — an unelected group of aged monarchist business exiles and now defectors from Gaddafi who smell opportunity to grab a giant piece of the oil pie, and have Saudi, French and CIA backing to drive their dreams of glory. These are the ones on whose behalf now NATO is fighting.
Read it all…
Creative Destruction: Libya in Washington’s Greater Middle East Project
F. William Engdahl
March 26, 2011
F. William Engdahl is an economist and author of the best selling book “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order”, and of “Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order”. Mr Engdhahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s. Mr. Engdahl contributes regularly to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine; Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland respectively. He is based in Germany.
Mar 27 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”.
The Sunday Talking Heads:
This Week with Christiane Amanpour:Sitting in theis Sunday for Ms Amanpour is ABC News’ Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. His guests will be Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who will discuss American involvement in Libya. Then the un-indicted war criminal, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will weigh in on Libya and push his new book.
On the roundtable: ABC News’ George Will, former Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA), national correspondent at The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg, and Egyptian journalist Mona Eltahawy take on the substance of America’s third war and the potential Republican 2012 Presidential candidates
Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer:Mr. Schieffer’s guests are Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hyping Libya.
The Chris Matthews Show: This week’s guests are Katty Kay, BBC Washington Correspondent, Andrew Sullivan, The Atlantic Senior Editor, Michael Duffy, TIME Magazine Assistant Managing Editor and Norah O’Donnell, MSNBC Chief Washington Correspondent. They will discuss these questions:
Is President Obama failing to lead?
Could Republican “Red Hots” spoil the party
Meet the Press with David Gregory: Again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will appear, still defending Obama’s Libya decisions. Also the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) in an exclusive interview.
Our roundtable guests The Washington Post‘s Bob Woodward; the BBC’s Ted Koppel; senior fellow for the Center for a New American Security and author, Tom Ricks; and NBC News White House Correspondent, Savannah Guthrie.
State of the Union with Candy Crowley: The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Carl Levin, supports the mission; and former director of the CIA, Gen. Michael HaydenMr (Ret.) and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley will weigh in on Libya. Nuclear policy expert, Joe Cirincione will discuss the nuclear reactor disaster in Japan and a discussion about the anemic US economic recovery with two former directors of the Congressional Budget Office.
Below the fold is NYT’s columnist Bob Herbert’s last Op-Ed for the Times. He will be missed but promises he’s not going too far away. Thank you, Mr Herbert.
This is my last column for The New York Times after an exhilarating, nearly 18-year run. I’m off to write a book and expand my efforts on behalf of working people, the poor and others who are struggling in our society. My thanks to all the readers who have been so kind to me over the years. I can be reached going forward at [email protected].
Bob Herbert: Losing Our Way
So here we are pouring shiploads of cash into yet another war, this time in Libya, while simultaneously demolishing school budgets, closing libraries, laying off teachers and police officers, and generally letting the bottom fall out of the quality of life here at home.
Welcome to America in the second decade of the 21st century. An army of long-term unemployed workers is spread across the land, the human fallout from the Great Recession and long years of misguided economic policies. Optimism is in short supply. The few jobs now being created too often pay a pittance, not nearly enough to pry open the doors to a middle-class standard of living.
Marjorie Cohn: Bradley Manning Treatment Reveals Continued Government Complicity in Torture
Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is facing court-martial for leaking military reports and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, is being held in solitary confinement in Quantico brig in Virginia. Each night, he is forced to strip naked and sleep in a gown made of coarse material. He has been made to stand naked in the morning as other inmates walked by and looked. As journalist Lance Tapley documents in his chapter on torture in the supermax prisons in The United States and Torture, solitary confinement can lead to hallucinations and suicide; it is considered to be torture. Manning’s forced nudity amounts to humiliating and degrading treatment, in violation of U.S. and international law.
Nevertheless, President Barack Obama defended Manning’s treatment, saying, “I’ve actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures . . . are appropriate. They assured me they are.” Obama’s deference is reminiscent of President George W. Bush, who asked “the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government” to review the interrogation techniques. “They assured me they did not constitute torture,” Bush said.
Alan Strachan From Trance-State to Moral Outrage: Recognizing The Civil War Against We, the People
The American Creed reminds us that we all are created equal, and that our compassion for each other is the very basis for our democracy and our honor. In times of greatest crisis, we are called upon to assert our Creed, as we originally did during the American Revolution, or to reaffirm it, as we did during the Civil War.
Lincoln re-asserted our Creed with eloquence and persistence during the Civil War. He called us to the “better angels of our nature,” reminded us of the values upon which this country has been founded, and so led us through that time of great crisis.
The Mega-Rich have declared war against ordinary Americans:
Although current circumstances have not been labeled as such, we are in another Civil War. This time it is not the North against the South. This time it is the Mega-Rich against ordinary Americans.
Bill Moyers and Michael Winsap: Just a Couple More Things About NPR
Like Jake LaMotta and his brother Joey in the bloody boxing classic “Raging Bull,” we are gluttons for punishment. So, here we are again, third week in a row, defending NPR against the bare-knuckled assault of its critics.
Our earlier pieces on the funding threat to NPR have generated plenty of punches, both pro and con. And although most of the comments were welcome, and encouraged further thinking about the value of public media in a democratic society, a few reminded us of the words of the poet and scholar James Merrick: “So high at last the contest rose/From words they almost came to blows!”
Nonetheless, reading those comments and criticisms made us realize there are a couple of points that these two wizened veterans of public broadcasting – with the multiple tote bags and coffee mugs to prove it – would like to clarify.
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