Epic Fail: Deja Vu Edition

The Federal Aviation Administration said the unnamed controller slept for five hours intentionally during the midnight shift on Feb. 19 in Knoxville, Tenn.

It's the second incident in as many months that an FAA controller fell asleep during a midnight shift. A supervisor working alone at Washington's Reagan National Airport fell asleep for at least 24 minutes shortly after midnight on March 23.

The difference is the first guy dozed in his chair, while the second fellow apparently made a makeshift bed.  At least one emergency situation was delayed while he slept.   I have worked night shifts, some lonely and quiet.  I know how tiring it can be, and how tempting a tiny little nap can seem when there is nobody around to know the difference.  But perhaps it's time to review some policies for changes and up the bar a little, what do you say?

Land Of The Rising Core Temperature, Part 27

It looks like Operation Concrete Coffin is now on in Japan, and it may take years to finish it.

Engineers will need up to nine months to fully shut down the damaged reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, the scene of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, its owners announced Sunday.


It would take three months to bring down radiation levels and restore normal cooling systems at the plant, Tsunehisa Katsumata, the chairman of the Tokyo Electric Power Co., told reporters.
An additional three to six months would be needed before the reactors reach their cold shutdown point, he said.

The plan announced Sunday is the first timetable that Tokyo Electric has disclosed for reining in the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, which was swamped by the tsunami that followed Japan's March 11 earthquake.

It comes five days after Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for Tokyo Electric to develop a timeline for bringing the disaster to an end.

The ultimate plan for the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant involves the construction of a giant concrete box around all damaged reactors, according to the timeline. Design for the box should begin within nine months.

So if everything goes to plan, Fukushima Daiichi will be spewing out radioactive mess for several months, be wound down over the second half of the year...and then the concrete box project will extend well into 2012 or longer.

This is the best case scenario.  Another three months of radioactivity.  How much damage will that do to the people, the environment, and the economy?  And it's not like the best case scenario is happening, as new problems continue to spring up.

Workers stopped a severe leak of contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean on April 6, but elevated levels of the short-lived nuclear waste iodine-131 recorded over the weekend could indicate a new problem, a Japanese safety official announced Saturday.

Iodine-131 has a radioactive half-life of eight days, and a more than fivefold increase in iodine concentrations in seawater behind the intake for the No. 2 reactor could be either from a fresh leak or from sediment stirred up while placing steel panels around the intakes, said Hidehiko Nishiyama, the top spokesman for Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.

"They will continue to monitor this carefully," Nishiyama said. "At this point, they have not visually found any leakage of any water into the ocean, and it is hard to check the conditions around No. 2 due to high radiation levels."

And on and on it goes.

Musical Chairs

The Philadelphia Orchestra survived the entire 20th century, two world wars, the Great Depression and Hooked on Bach.  It did not survive Goldman Sachs.

The Philadelphia Orchestra filed for bankruptcy protection after 111 years of operation to restructure leases, contracts and agreements.

The company listed both assets and debt of as much as $50 million in a Chapter 11 petition filed yesterday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Philadelphia.

“Revenues and going concern value have steadily declined over the past several years, like countless other performing arts enterprises,” attorneys for the orchestra said in court papers.

The orchestra, founded in 1900, said its board voted to seek bankruptcy. Affiliates including the Academy of Music and Encore Series, also sought protection.

The orchestra operates at a loss because of declining ticket revenues, decreased donations, eroding endowment income, pension obligations, contractual agreements, and increased operational costs, it said in a press release. Last night’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 went on as scheduled, and no performances have been canceled. 

For now, anyway.  That will change, I'm betting.  But more and more art, musical, and cultural venues like this are going by the wayside.  Cities, counties, and states are saying "we can't afford this" and saying "let's cut taxes!" instead.

So what are the people who can afford it doing?

Bon, who is an orchestra geek herself, will cover more of this tomorrow.

Birthers Get A Trump Card, Part 7

The Donald will not go gently into that good night with his birther idiocy, but he is 100% right when he says "people love this issue especially in the Republican Party."

Pushing back against calls from Republicans to abandon his new-found birther quest, Donald Trump snapped back Saturday at party leaders like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) who accuse him of being less than serious about his presidential ambitions, warning Republicans that abandoning the conspiracy theories surrounding President Obama's birth certificate will harm the party.


In an exclusive interview with TPM recorded before Trump spoke to what those in attendance called a record crowd at the Palm Beach County Tax Day Tea Party rally, Trump said Republicans like Cantor dismiss the birther issue at their peril.

"I think it's a very bad thing for Cantor to have done," Trump said, "because I'll tell you, people love this issue especially in the Republican Party. And there's something to what we're saying." 

One thing's for sure:  none of the GOP candidates are going to be able to run away from the birther crowd.  And that's nobody's fault but the Republicans themselves.  They started this nonsense and have kept it going for years now.  And here's where they begin to pay the price.

The birther stupidity is an absolute loser in the general election.  All Obama has to do is say "Instead of debating the issues, the Republicans have nothing better to talk about than my birth certificate."  A majority of Republicans have some doubts about it, even though it was proven years ago.  And the more they bring this up, the more it's going to kill them in the election.

If I didn't know better, I'd say Trump was a secret Howard Dean plant.  Like Steve M. says, Trump is pushing all the right buttons, and he knows how to sell, sell, sell.

You're Doing It Wrong, Jeff

Meet GOP freshman Rep. Jeff Dunham of California.  He's on the transportation, interior, and veteran's affairs committees, but like most lawmakers in the House, he's already fundraising for 2012.  The problem is that Jeff here is particularly bad at that part.

A freshman California lawmaker made a big splash but barely broke even at a glitzy and controversial January GOP fundraiser featuring country singer LeAnn Rimes, new campaign filings show.


Celebrity, it seems, comes at a cost.

Rimes and her entourage made out well at the Jan. 4 fundraiser that served as Republican Rep. Jeff Denham's big political debut in Washington. Between assorted fees, flowers, catering and other costs, Denham's special fundraising committee reported spending $212,250 on the Rimes event.

The committee, meanwhile, raised only $212,900 from outside contributors.

Add it all up, and Denham's special committee spent nearly a quarter of a million dollars to net a grand total of $650 in outside contributions.

"It's an industrial-strength waste of money, and the people who gave the money are going to resent it," said Michael Fraioli, a longtime Democratic fundraising expert.

Denham didn't respond Friday to requests for comment.

Dunham's district includes the suburbs of Fresno and Modesto and a median household income of $51,000 or so, so it's not like he's in a bad place to be raising cash as a California Republican, especially with Dunham being an Air Force veteran in an important aerospace state.  Yosemite National Park is in his district too (CA-19) so being on a couple of environmental committees gives him some important purple district cred as well.

The problem is Jeff here seems to be really, really bad at math or at suckering rubes into giving him money.  Either one is a serious liability if you're pretending to be Tea Party freshman and you're a purple district moderate.  Even worse, he dragged in some 11 other Republicans into his big fundraiser...and they walked away with chicken feed.  Oh, and I'm betting Jeff isn't too popular around the "No Socialists Allowed" couch fort the Tea Party kids have in the House basement, either.

Why The Ryan Unicorn Plan Was Doomed From The Start

The more I see the GOP House eager to stab Tea Party seniors in the back, the more I shake my head and wonder why they are going down the road of oblivion.  The fact that Republicans will destroy anyone and everyone in their quest for political power isn't news, but I honestly don't see what the point of the Ryan Unicorn Plan vote is.  There are a number of reasons the Medicare provisions in particular are done for, and reason number one is the insurance companies themselves.

At first glance, Paul Ryan's plan to send millions of seniors into the free market with dwindling vouchers in hand might seem a boon to the private insurance industry. But would companies even want to participate?

Unlike the Affordable Care Act, which mandated that millions of young and healthy Americans purchase insurance with government subsidies, the Paul Ryan plan would instead bring the oldest, sickest, and least profitable demographic to the table. And with the CBO projecting that the average senior would be on the hook for over two-thirds of their health care costs within just 10 years of the plan's adoption -- a proportion that is projected to worsen in the long run --- the government subsidies backing them up may not bring in enough profitable customers to make things worthwhile.

"If reimbursement rates are too low to provide basic benefits, they'll tell the government, 'You do it,'" one insurance lobbyist told TPM. "I don't think they can require they lose money, they'd just pull out."

They'd stop insuring seniors.  After all, the whole point of the insurance industry is to make a profit, not to provide health care coverage.  You take government out of the picture with the voucher plan that won't cover costs, and the insurance companies are stuck with the bill.  They of course would either pass along the costs to the rest of us, or just refuse to provide coverage at all for seniors.  That would in turn raise rates on everyone else.

Maybe that's Ryan's real point.  I'm betting however that the insurance industry loves getting big money from the government, and they want more customers, not fewer ones with less money.

I'll Have That Steak Well Done, Please

(Reuters) - Meat found on grocery store shelves often contains high levels of bacteria, with more than half of the bacteria resistant to multiple types of antibiotics, a study released on Friday said.

Price said the most significant finding is not the level of bacteria on the meats, but rather how the bacteria are becoming strongly resistant to antibiotics used to treat animals before slaughter.

The study found that in 96 percent of the meats with staph bacteria, the bacteria were resistant to at least one type of antibiotic, and 52 percent were resistant to three or more types.

This is cause for some serious follow-up studies.  When antibiotics changed the face of medicine forever, it was immediately taken for granted.  For a dash of surprise (at least on my part), when the meats were listed in order of what was safest, chicken won the prize. But seriously, folks.  Everybody strays from the safety practices once in a while.  This is a solemn reminder to prep food safely and be aware of what can happen when we lapse.

Royal Flush-Up Of The Week

The founders of the three largest online poker sites were indicted on Friday in what could serve as a death blow to a thriving industry.
Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker and a number of their affiliates were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court. Two of the defendants were arrested on Friday morning in Utah and Nevada. Federal agents are searching for the others.

Prosecutors are seeking to immediately shut down the sites and to eventually send the executives to jail and to recover $3 billion from the companies. By Friday afternoon Full Tilt Poker’s site displayed a message explaining that “this domain name has been seized by the F.B.I. pursuant to an Arrest Warrant.”

I'm not sure who didn't see this coming, but it's still dramatic and fun to follow.  My greatest surprise is that  they were able to last for so long.  So the next time you want to throw money away, see the tip jar.  At least you will know for sure where it's going.

Land Of The Rising Core Temperature, Part 26

As the all but confirmed containment breach at Fukushima Daiichi continues to leak radioactive material into the environment and with news that the leak could continue for months before being fully contained, the problem now turns to the political "fallout" as the finger pointing for whose fault this is begins in earnest. 

Japan's fragile post-disaster political truce unraveled on Thursday as the head of the main opposition party called on unpopular Prime Minister Naoto Kan to quit over his handling of the country's natural calamities and a nuclear crisis.

At the stricken Fukushima Daiichi plant in the northeast of the country, engineers were struggling to find a new way to cool one of the six crippled reactors and Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said it was now "highly likely" there was a hole in the suppression unit of the reactor.

Kan, whose public support stands at about 30 percent, had sought a grand coalition to help the country recover from its worst ever natural disaster and enact bills to pay for the country's biggest reconstruction project since World War Two.

Kan's Democratic Party controls parliament's lower house but needs opposition help to pass bills because it lacks a majority in the upper chamber, which can block legislation.

But the head of the main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) -- who last week ruled out joining hands -- on Thursday pressured Kan to go.

"The time has come for (the prime minister) to decide whether he stays or goes," Kyodo news agency quoted Sadakazu Tanigaki as telling a news conference.

Tanigaki's comment reflects the view of many in his conservative party that Kan must step down as a precondition for any coalition as well as a hope that criticism of Kan within his own Democratic Party will gather steam after party powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa blasted the premier over his crisis management.

Upper House speaker Takeo Nishioka, a well-known Kan critic from the Democrats, also urged Kan to resign, Kyodo said.

That the Kan government was going to fall was a given, I'm just honestly surprised it took this long.  It won't be long now before Kan is forced to resign either by pressure or a no-confidence vote, and the faster Kan is ousted, the more quickly I believe the world will learn the true extent of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition!

• A suicide bombing at an Afghan military base killed 5 foreign soldiers, the Afghan Taliban is claiming responsibility for "killing the invaders".
• President Obama used a signing statement on the budget deal to keep funding for his "czars".
• Environmental groups say new plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico have woefully inadequate safety precautions.
• Georgia has become the latest state to sign an Arizona-style immigration law, complete with provisions the courts have found unconstitutional in Arizona's law.
• The FBI has shut down online poker sites, claiming they constitute fraud and money laundering.

Last Call

Obama says more in a few open mic, off the record moments than he has all year on the Republicans.

Republicans have made defunding Democrats' health care law a top priority, but at a closed-to-the-press fundraiser Obama candidly described to donors how he defeated their attempts. Perhaps not realizing his mic was on, Obama's private remarks were caught by CBS correspondent Mark Knoller, who was able to listen to through a live audio feed.

"I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate," Obama said, describing his negotiations with Speaker John Boehner. "You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'"

According to CBS, Obama quoted himself as telling Boehner to "Put it in a separate bill," adding that "if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don't try to sneak this through."

And surprise, Democrats proved this afternoon that they can play the procedural gotcha game with the best of the GOP.   More of this, please...instead of the supine, spineless Dems that lost the House.

Exciting New Horizons In Obama Derangement Syndrome

Today's contestant:  Mickey Kaus (whose move to the Daily Caller tells you everything you need to know) discussing this Jay Cost Weekly Standard piece:

Cost doesn’t go into why Obama managed to get to the top of politics without being all that good at it. The answer is distressingly obvious: Obama’s the biggest affirmative action baby in history.  When other pols are trying, failing, learning, while climbing up the middle rungs of the ladder, he got a pass.

He got a pass?  He got a pass?

A guy who went through eighteen months of brutal, foul, nasty, racist, ugly, depressing, demonizing, dehumanizing "opposition research", where he was attacked for being:

too black,
not black enough,
not white enough,
too white,
too smart,
too stupid,
being a "community organizer",
palling around with terrorists,
being far too ethnic,
being far too mundane,
a secret Muslim,
a Christian-hater,
an anti-Semite,
a fist jabber,
a misogynist,
a effete out-of-touch snob,
a Kenyan plant,
too "clean and articulate",
disrespectful,
America-hating,
and for being the damn anti-Christ...


and he got a pass?

Mickey Kaus can kiss my black ass.  Repeatedly.  Obama fought through all that racist, idiotic, stupid garbage and he won.  They only made it harder for him.  He took a nasty knock at the polls in 2010, and they made it harder for him again.  He's still here.  Pass?  Obama's the most battle-hardened political survivor out there.

In Kaus's view, is it possible for an African-American to make it without being an affirmative action baby?  Maybe he ought to ask himself why the hell he still has a job if he's spouting inanities like that.

Oh wait, he works for the Daily Caller.  That explains it.  The guy getting a paycheck from Tucker Carlson's Wingnut Welfare gravy train says the President is the quintessential affirmative action case.  That's a Charlie Sheen lack of awareness folks...and you don't get that without plenty of time as a Villager.

Only guy getting a pass here is Kaus.  Not from me.

Hornswoggled And Flim-Flammed

The expected kabuki theater of the House passing the Ryan Unicorn Plan got very, very far off-script as the Dems struck back today in the House, turning a routine dismissal of the ultra right wing Republican Study Committee's amendment to make the Ryan budget even worse suddenly became the GOP's default voting position for a few minutes.  Brian Beutler documents the carnival:

The vote was on the Republican Study Committee's alternative budget -- a radical plan that annihilates the social contract in America by putting the GOP budget on steroids. Deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, more severe entitlement rollbacks.

Normally something like that would fail by a large bipartisan margin in either the House or the Senate. Conservative Republicans would vote for it, but it would be defeated by a coalition of Democrats and more moderate Republicans. But today that formula didn't hold. In an attempt to highlight deep divides in the Republican caucus. Dems switched their votes -- from "no" to "present."

Panic ensued. In the House, legislation passes by a simple majority of members voting. The Dems took themselves out of the equation, leaving Republicans to decide whether the House should adopt the more-conservative RSC budget instead of the one authored by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. As Dems flipped to present, Republicans realized that a majority of their members had indeed gone on the record in support of the RSC plan -- and if the vote closed, it would pass. That would be a slap in the face to Ryan, and a politically toxic outcome for the Republican party.

So they started flipping their votes from "yes" to "no."

In the end, the plan went down by a small margin, 119-136. A full 172 Democrats voted "present."

Kudos to the Dems to turn this piece of political theater on its ear as now Orange Julius has to explain to his troops why when given free and clear reign to pass the most fiscally conservative budget to date, one that has cuts so deep that it eliminates the deficit for next year and actually balances the budget (unlike the Ryan Unicorn Plan, by the way) the GOP wimped out.

If this doesn't all but eliminate the dwindling control Boehner had over the Tea Party loonies, nothing will.  The Dems saw an opportunity to force Boehner to tell the Tea Party kids to go screw themselves, and now he'll have to live with the consequences.

And let's nor forget all but six House Republicans voted for the Ryan Unicorn Plan to kill Medicare.  Thanks for letting the Dems have the House back, boys. Advantage:  Pelosi.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

To recap, the GOP presidential hopefuls have all been skirting the birther stupidity for the last year and all have been drifting around, nobody with a commanding lead.

Then Donald Trump takes a month to fully embrace birtherism and he takes a healthy lead in the polls.

Only 38% of Republican primary voters say they're willing to support a candidate for President next year who firmly rejects the birther theory and those folks want Mitt Romney to be their nominee for President next year. With the other 62% of Republicans- 23% of whom say they are only willing to vote for a birther and 39% of whom are not sure- Donald Trump is cleaning up. And as a result Trump's ridden the controversy about Barack Obama's place of birth to the highest level of support we've found for anyone in our national GOP polling so far in 2011.

Trump's broken the perpetual gridlock we've found at the top of the Republican field, getting 26% to 17% for Mike Huckabee, 15% for Romney, 11% for Newt Gingrich, 8% for Sarah Palin, 5% for Ron Paul, and 4% for Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty.

Among that 23% only willing to vote for a birther Trump is cleaning up even more, getting 37% to 13% for Huckabee and Palin, and 10% for Romney and Gingrich. He's a lot weaker with the 38% who say they're perfectly happy to vote for someone who's dismissed the birther theory- with them Romney leads at 23%, with Huckabee at 18%, Trump at 17%, Gingrich at 10%, and Palin at only 7%.

Better than anyone else, The Donald understands the GOP electorate's chief concern:  They hate the fact their country voted a black man into office, and they mean to correct that.  This is what they want, and more importantly they want to vote for someone who understands that millions of pissed off Republicans will never accept "one of them" in the White House.

So yes, Trump finally plants the birther flag and the support overwhelmingly follows.  The birthers now have their candidate.  And that should tell you everything you need to know about the Republican base in 2011.  Dismiss him at your own peril, for even if Trump never runs, if he successfully establishes birtherism as the mainstream position for the Republicans, he's done the damage.

Forget dog whistle references, it has becomes overt racism through a bullhorn now.  Welcome to the GOP primary.  May the worst person win.

Windows Syndrome Strikes Blackberry

Windows Syndrome - releasing a product when it is not complete, thus producing a half-baked product that ultimately fails.  However, due to one or two claims to fame, the brand suckers consumers into purchasing for a bloated price and a lifetime of regret.

Well, maybe lifetime of regret is a little strong.  But if you ask people who have bought the new Playbook, the reviews are not kind.  Without a BlackBerry phone, the pad will not work with email (one of those claims to fame alluded to above).  That's unnecessary and I hate the crippleware principle.  If they're so damned smart, they can make email work on the device, that's all I'm saying.  BlackBerry's reply that there will be significant improvements released after launch makes me wonder why they didn't just leave it in the oven a little longer and do it right.

I've used BB products, and I was never impressed.  Much like Windows, I considered them to be a recognized name and nothing more.  Their network is a PITA and the phones are buggy and sluggish.  If you're used to that then maybe the Playbook won't seem so bad after all.