Tag: ek Politics

You can take all the gold in the world and put it in two Olympic swimming pools.

There is not an economy on the planet that ties its economy to gold. Not one. You haven’t been able to turn a note in to gold in decades. It is a medieval view of the modern world. Steve, do you use a calculator or an abacus?

Olympic swimming pools are 8 lanes wide and 50 yards long.

(h/t John Amato @ Crooks and Liars)

Why Governor LePage Can’t Erase History, and Why We Need a Fighter in the White House

Robert Reich

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Maine Governor Paul LePage has ordered state workers to remove from the state labor department a 36-foot mural depicting the state’s labor history. Among other things the mural illustrates the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston. It also features the iconic “Rosie the Riveter,” who in real life worked at the Bath Iron Works. One panel shows my predecessor at the U.S. Department of Labor, Frances Perkins, who was buried in Newcastle, Maine.

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Frances Perkins was the first woman cabinet member in American history. She was also one of the most accomplished cabinet members in history.

She and her boss, Franklin D. Roosevelt, came to office at a time when average working people needed help – and Perkins and Roosevelt were determined to give it to them. Together, they created Social Security, unemployment insurance, the right of workers to unionize, the minimum wage, and the forty-hour workweek.

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The Governor’s spokesman explains that the mural and the conference-room names were “not in keeping with the department’s pro-business goals.”

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Big business and Wall Street thought Perkins and Roosevelt were not in keeping with pro-business goals. So they and their Republican puppets in Congress and in the states retaliated with a political assault on the New Deal.

Roosevelt did not flinch. In a speech in October 1936 he condemned “business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt October 31, 1936–

On the eve of a national election, it is well for us to stop for a moment and analyze calmly and without prejudice the effect on our Nation of a victory by either of the major political parties.

The problem of the electorate is far deeper, far more vital than the continuance in the Presidency of any individual. For the greater issue goes beyond units of humanity–it goes to humanity itself.

In 1932 the issue was the restoration of American democracy; and the American people were in a mood to win. They did win. In 1936 the issue is the preservation of their victory. Again they are in a mood to win. Again they will win.

More than four years ago in accepting the Democratic nomination in Chicago, I said: “Give me your help not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”

The banners of that crusade still fly in the van of a Nation that is on the march.

…

We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

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They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

Unfortunately we can’t say that today.  In 2006, 2008, and 2010 the American people voted against a corrupt Washington establishment and continual War.

And in 2012 we’ll vote the same way again.

How many politicians do we have to fire before they get this simple message?

This is what hunting from helicopters teaches you-

Soldier Admits Killing 3 Afghan Civilians

By WILLIAM YARDLEY, The New York Times

Published: March 23, 2011

Specialist Morlock, 22, of Wasilla, Alaska, is the first of the five soldiers to face a court-martial. He pleaded guilty on Wednesday to three charges of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit murder, assault and other charges.

Before the plea offer, Specialist Morlock gave several interviews to investigators, including some on videotape that have been broadcast nationally, in which he described how members of his unit, part of Stryker brigade deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010, faked combat situations so they could kill Afghan civilians who he said posed no threat.

(h/t dday)

More from dday–

These are not the pictures that President Obama tried to block in 2009, because the incidents from this Army Stryker unit Der Spiegel describes in their story are from 2010. So the change in commanders-in-chief has not occasioned a halt to atrocities and war crimes in Afghanistan.

Tokyo Issues Tap Water Warning for Infants

By DAVID JOLLY and KEVIN DREW

Published: March 23, 2011

Ei Yoshida, head of water purification for the Tokyo water department, said at a televised news conference that infants in Tokyo and surrounding areas should not drink tap water. He said iodine-131 had been detected in water samples at a level of 210 becquerels per liter, about a quart. The recommended limit for infants is 100 becquerels per liter. For adults, the recommended limit is 300 becquerels.

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Earlier Wednesday, Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the public should avoid additional farm produce from areas near the power station because of contamination, according to Japanese media.

And the solution?  Same as it always is, more corporate welfare.

The economic cost of the disaster has hit the power company, also called Tepco, which is in negotiations with its bankers for loans of as much as about $24 billion, according to a source with direct knowledge of the situation who asked not to be identified.

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Additional loans will raise new questions about Tepco’s long-term financial health. The disaster led Moody’s Japan to cut Tepco’s debt rating to A1 from Aa2 and warn that further downgrades were possible. The Fukushima Daiichi station, which was only a few weeks ago listed on the balance sheet as an asset worth billions of dollars, may have to be largely written off.

“Our concern right now is not about whether we’ll be paid back,” the source said. “The important thing is to support the company.”

But of course this is just Japan, a backwards third world banana republic with a culture of denial-

DAVID SANGER, “NEW YORK TIMES” (on Hardball): Michael and I both lived in Japan at about the same time, and you know, the Japanese, first, often don’t want to talk very directly about bad news, particularly if they think it’s going to cause a panic.

Something like that could never happen here.

Update: dday.

You can listen to it here.

It’s very hard to get your arms around what’s happening with the Japanese reactor meltdown since most of what you read is either disingenous apologia for nuclear power in general or baldfaced lies (or more charitably confusion) about what’s actually been happening on the ground.

As near as I can tell the current problem is a big one.  The fuel rods are burning.  This is because the temperature produced by these still hot (and I mean that in the normal, don’t let your cat sit on the stove, sense) units is above the point where the casing and filler start to burn like a Brillo pad you light with a match.

Now unlike oil or electrical the best way to put out these fires is with water which cools the rods and slows down the nuclear reactions that heat them up in the first place.  The problem is that in these conditions water also breaks down into it’s component elements, Hydrogen and Oxygen, and Hydrogen just happens to be explosive.  Indeed one of the most confusing parts of the story is how many explosions there have been and where, but bottom line is a lot and in many places.

In any event each explosion has created more damage in addition to releasing radiation that has made it periodically impossible to continue fighting these fires without getting a toasty fatal tan.

Now there are other things you can do like dump a pile of Boron (even better than water for reaction reduction, not so good at cooling) on top and cover the whole damn thing with concrete.

That’s what they did at Chernobyl.

The problem is that there aren’t huge piles of Boron just sitting around and most of the brave Russian pilots tasked with that mission, ummm… died of radiation poisoning.

So the situation is fluid to say the least.

The NHK live earthquake coverage in English is on the right.

Remember all those safe, clean, cheap nuclear energy ads from the 50s, 60s and 70s?

Here’s one from Westinghouse circa 2007 ——>

Connecticut has 2 active units, Millstone 3 happens to be a Westinghouse reactor.  It’s licensed to operate until 2045.

Makes me feel warm and fuzzy all over.

Partial Meltdowns Presumed at Crippled Reactors

By HIROKO TABUCHI and MATTHEW L. WALD, The New York Times

Published: March 13, 2011

TOKYO – Japanese officials struggled on Sunday to contain a widening nuclear crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and tsunami, saying they presumed that partial meltdowns had occurred at two crippled reactors and that they were bracing for a second explosion, even as they faced serious cooling problems at four more reactors.

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On Saturday, Japanese officials took the extraordinary step of flooding the crippled No. 1 reactor at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, 170 miles north of Tokyo, with seawater in a last-ditch effort to avoid a nuclear meltdown. That came after an explosion caused by hydrogen that tore the outer wall and roof off the building housing the reactor, although the steel containment of the reactor remained in place.

Then on Sunday, cooling failed at a second reactor – No. 3 – and core melting was presumed at both, said the top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano. An explosion could also rock the No. 3 reactor, Mr. Edano warned, because of a buildup of hydrogen within the reactor.

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Officials also said they would release steam and inject water into a third reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant after temperatures rose and water levels fell around the fuel rods.

Cooling had failed at three reactors at a nuclear complex nearby, Fukushima Daini, although he said conditions there were considered less dire for now.

Crisis Underscores Fears About Safety of Nuclear Energy

By NORIMITSU ONISHI, HENRY FOUNTAIN and TOM ZELLER Jr., The New York Times

Published: March 12, 2011

Critics of nuclear energy have long questioned the viability of nuclear power in earthquake-prone regions like Japan. Reactors have been designed with such concerns in mind, but preliminary assessments of the Fukushima Daiichi accidents suggested that too little attention was paid to the threat of tsunami. It appeared that the reactors withstood the powerful earthquake, but the ocean waves damaged generators and backup systems, harming the ability to cool the reactors.

It was not until Sunday that the increasingly dangerous nature of the problems at Daiichi became clear. But even on Saturday, with Reactor No. 1 there having suffered a radiation leak and an explosion, James M. Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the nuclear industry would be shaken. While Japan may try to point to the safety of its newer facilities, concerns may run too deep, he said. Decades ago, after the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island accidents, Mr. Acton said, the nuclear industry tried to argue that newer reactors incorporated much better safety features. “That made very little difference to the public,” he said.

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Over the years, Japanese plant operators, along with friendly government officials, have sometimes hidden episodes at plants from a public increasingly uneasy with nuclear power.

In 2007, an earthquake in northwestern Japan caused a fire and minor radiation leaks at the world’s largest nuclear plant, in Kashiwazaki City. An ensuing investigation found that the operator – Tokyo Electric – had unknowingly built the facility directly on top of an active seismic fault. A series of fires inside the plant after the earthquake deepened the public’s fear. But Tokyo Electric said it upgraded the facility to withstand stronger tremors and reopened in 2009.

Last year, another reactor with a troubled history was allowed to reopen, 14 years after a fire shut it down. The operator of that plant, the Monju Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor, located along the coast about 220 miles west of Tokyo, tried to cover up the extent of the fire by releasing altered video after the accident in 1995.

I could say, “When you’ve lost Scarecrow…” but I haven’t particularly noted him as a proud Obamabot unlike some I could name.  Still, I thought this piece worthy of your notice.  That clunking sound you hear is Cenk Uygur’s jaw hitting the floor.

Sherrod Brown on Cenk: President Obama Has a Loud Microphone

By: Scarecrow, Thursday March 10, 2011 5:27 pm

Expecting the same Obama who sold out on tax cuts for the rich, the Public Option, Gitmo, torture investigations/prosecutions, and coddling TBTF banksters, etc, to rein in the Tea-GOP is, uh, not reassuring.

In just the last three months, Obama undercut Schumer on limiting the tax breaks to those over a million in income. He undercut Schumer again today by making sure that when the White House’s corporate staff sits at the table with the crazies who would destroy the economy and 70 years of progressive governance, the Tea-GOP will not even be asked to consider raising revenues, let alone taking back the recent gift tax breaks for scofflaw corporations or wealthy Americans.

…

There are simply too many White House betrayals, broken promises, secret deals, dashed hopes, disingenuous dodges, stupid blunders (or were they deliberate?), insults to supporters and every element of the Democratic coalition, including America’s working class, to list here. FDL writes about them every day.

So is Senator Brown honestly expecting this President to lead us? Not a chance. Only Pod People still think America’s working class has a President on their side.

And censors them.

A fierce advocate indeed-

“The House of Representatives is expected to soon vote on a funding proposal that contains drastic cuts to several federal agencies, including the National Labor Relations Board. The proposal would eliminate $50 million from this small administrative agency, or 18% of its total annual budget. Because the reduction would be squeezed into the final 7 months of the fiscal year, the cuts would be felt even more deeply – representing the equivalent of one-third of remaining 2011 funding.

Nearly all of the agency’s budget is spent on salaries and rents; there are no programs to eliminate or postpone. The only way to meet this extreme and immediate reduction would be to furlough all of the NLRB’s 1,665 employees for 55 workdays, or nearly three months, between now and the end of September. The great majority of these employees work far from Washington D.C., in 51 local offices, where every NLRB case begins. The economic impact of this cut would be felt by families and communities in 33 states.

If enacted, the House proposal could force the NLRB to curtail all agency operations, including investigating alleged illegal practices by private sector employers and unions, conducting workplace elections, and helping to settle election-related disputes. Regulation of a broad range of conduct, such as unlawful lockouts of workers, termination of union organizers, refusals to bargain with unions selected by workers, unilateral changes to contract provisions covering such things as health insurance and pensions, unlawful strikes, picket line violence, and secondary boycotts, would be stalled if this proposal were adopted.

NLRB: White House Muzzled Us In Budget Debate

Ryan Grimm, The Huffington Post

Posted: 03/ 9/11 11:08 AM

The White House demanded that the NLRB scrub the statement defending the agency from its website, an NLRB spokesperson told The Huffington Post.

…

The White House pushback against the NLRB would sound familiar to Wisconsin demonstrators. The Democratic National Committee’s Organizing for America, the group that is a remnant of Obama’s ’08 campaign operation, initially got strongly behind the pro-labor protests. But after the GOP criticized the White House for its involvement, an administration spokesman told The New York Times that “the White House had done nothing to encourage the demonstrations in Wisconsin,” as paraphrased by reporter Jackie Calmes.

Of course, this President is almost entirely absent from the Budget debate, except when it comes to throwing core Democratic Principles and Constituencies under the bus.

Obama Tries to Re-Engage on Budget with 9 Days Until Government Shutdown

By: David Dayen, Firedog Lake

Wednesday March 9, 2011 11:06 am

The President has been completely disengaged on the budget battle in Congress, preferring to let them battle it out while he jets around the country and says “win the future” a lot. And some members of Congress are sick of it. Now, part of this is Congress wanting to share the blame with the White House for whatever comes out. But the other part is a recognition that the caucus is rootless and without direction, and only a party leader can come in and impose that. The fact that Obama set Joe Biden to the task of working out a compromise, only to have Biden leave for Europe for a week, is testimony to the fact that there’s something wrong with this lack of engagement. When Joe Manchin, who I think got to the Senate three days ago, is calling you out for a failure of leadership, there’s a problem of engagement.

Why did we elect him again?  Oh, he claims to be a Democrat.

Well, he’s not.

And he’s not even doing his job, he’s just an AWOL deserter.

Krugman points out today that Education is no substitute for a Job and as someone who has programmed I’ll tell you flat out there is no repetitive task I can’t automate (well, once I install my compliers and linkers and blow the dust off my language skills).

Sort of off topic, I’m looking for a script that will cycle through a Soapblox database (they’re sequentially ordered) and save the page with contents, links, and comments to a hard drive so I can burn offline archive CDs and DVDs for the authors on our sites.

Yes, I could do it myself, but it’s mind numbing grundge work of the type suitable only for interns and computers.

Degrees and Dollars

By PAUL KRUGMAN, The New York Times

Published: March 6, 2011

(T)he idea that modern technology eliminates only menial jobs, that well-educated workers are clear winners, may dominate popular discussion, but it’s actually decades out of date.

The fact is that since 1990 or so the U.S. job market has been characterized not by a general rise in the demand for skill, but by “hollowing out”: both high-wage and low-wage employment have grown rapidly, but medium-wage jobs – the kinds of jobs we count on to support a strong middle class – have lagged behind. And the hole in the middle has been getting wider: many of the high-wage occupations that grew rapidly in the 1990s have seen much slower growth recently, even as growth in low-wage employment has accelerated.

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(A)ny routine task – a category that includes many white-collar, nonmanual jobs – is in the firing line. Conversely, jobs that can’t be carried out by following explicit rules – a category that includes many kinds of manual labor, from truck drivers to janitors – will tend to grow even in the face of technological progress.

And here’s the thing: Most of the manual labor still being done in our economy seems to be of the kind that’s hard to automate. Notably, with production workers in manufacturing down to about 6 percent of U.S. employment, there aren’t many assembly-line jobs left to lose. Meanwhile, quite a lot of white-collar work currently carried out by well-educated, relatively well-paid workers may soon be computerized. Roombas are cute, but robot janitors are a long way off; computerized legal research and computer-aided medical diagnosis are already here.

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(T)here are things education can’t do. In particular, the notion that putting more kids through college can restore the middle-class society we used to have is wishful thinking. It’s no longer true that having a college degree guarantees that you’ll get a good job, and it’s becoming less true with each passing decade.

So if we want a society of broadly shared prosperity, education isn’t the answer – we’ll have to go about building that society directly. We need to restore the bargaining power that labor has lost over the last 30 years, so that ordinary workers as well as superstars have the power to bargain for good wages. We need to guarantee the essentials, above all health care, to every citizen.