The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

You Never Know Whom You’ll Run Into

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Today I went on a bit of a scavenger hunt in Bagram to turn in some paperwork at NAVCENT. This place is all dust and conex boxes, with a background hum of prop and jet engines, with bonus diesel generator noise at night.

Ran into a Navy Reserve Senior Chief after I’d done my business, out having a coke, a smoke, and a smile. He’d served in Iraq, too, but had just arrived in Afghanistan, and could not make comparisons. Lots of Navy Reserves here, like me. Talk turns to where you’re from and what you do. The guy is a high school principal somewhere in Arkansas. Has he been following the Formidable Ann Althouse on Wisconsin? No, but he feels Walker’s pain. It takes him three years of documentation to expunge a lousy teacher, and the bureaucratic costs are non-trivial, in addition to the time.

Meanwhile, closer to home, The Underground Conservative relates a story in al-NYT about the teachers mutinyunion covering for abusive members. RTWT. He summarizes:

Collective bargaining has allowed bad and corrupt employees to remain on the job on the taxpayers’ dime because they belong to Da Union. 

I’m pretty sure that if unions were connected with conservative politicians that the media would see this as a bad thing.

Category: Unions

Even In The Shrunken Google Reader Version, I Was Sure That Little Miss Attila Was Not Talking About Me

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Heh.

Category: Little Miss Attila

What Da Tech Guy Didn’t Mention About Herman Cain

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

This blog and a lot of others are huge fans of Herman Cain because he’s the genuine article. As a result of surgeries, he might technically have less guts than Allen West, but they’re both men cut from classic American cloth, and I’m privileged to have met them.

While Da Tech Guy captures the current Cain news well in his Examiner column, he skips (likely for lack of space) some crucial back story:

I was raised in Atlanta, Georgia by loving and hardworking parents. We grew up poor, but we grew up happy. Things weren’t always easy, but my mom and dad knew that if they kept their faith in God, faith in themselves and their faith in the greatest country in the world, they, too, could achieve their American Dream.

That dream, we discovered, was for my parents to own their own home and watch their two sons graduate from college. Those dreams required that my father work three jobs to support our family.

The first dream was realized in a brick home on Albert Street. I can still recall the excitement of the day, as he surprised us—even my mother—when he drove us to our new home.

As the ship of state threatens to stack up on Socialist Shoal, and the people prefer Johnny Lang to Francis Scott Key, the POTUS who can avert disaster will be the one who can both articulate the danger and inspire the people to endure the higher sea state of open ocean liberty.

I think Cain is one of the stronger voices for that. As with Ross Perot, he is a political outsider. Unlike Ross Perot, Cain has more personality than a dented wastebasket.  The chief concern with Cain will be his health, which will make the VP choice even more crucial, should things progress so far.

Category: Da Tech Guy, Herman Cain

The Afghanistan Analysts Network: What The Netty-Tubes Are For

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

by Smitty

Now and then you find a trove of genuinely useful references on the Internet. As I sit in Bagram at the Green Bean, surrounded by stunning mountains, wondering what the place will be like in a few decades, it’s good to encounter something actually helpful in understanding the situation.
Those interested in learning something more about what the US is dealing with, peruse AAN.
For my take, there are many sincere people working very hard trying to get the hang of this nation building thing. Not to diminish the blood and treasure already invested, but the country needs to think really, REALLY hard about the goals and objectives we’re trying to attain here, as well as the possibility that we could emerge with fuzz-all to show for it.
We can lead the Afghans to water, but the minority who’d prefer dying of thirst to a drink from the infidel have an input, too.

Category: Aghanistan

LIVE AT FIVE – 03.15.11

Posted on | March 15, 2011 | Comments Off on LIVE AT FIVE – 03.15.11

TOP NEWS
Radiation Leaking After Explosion At Fukushima Plant

NHK video captures explosion at Fukushima

Blast at #2 reactor not like previous explosions

PM Kan Warns People Within 30 Kilometers To Stay Indoors
Supply Crunch To Affect Durables Companies



Unrest In Bahrain Could Provoke Regional Conflict
Saudi troops called in by Bahrain’s royal family to help suppress protesters

Qaddafi Loyalists’ Advance Puts Forces 100 Miles From Rebel Capital
Obama administration continues to fiddle as Libya burns



POLITICS
President Wants No Child Left Behind Renewed By Fall

The President visits Kenmore Middle School in Arlington

Senate working on compromise; House GOP says it’s time to reconsider the federal role in education

House Conservatives Oppose Stopgap Spending Bill




NRA Snubs White House, Won’t Attend Gun Policy Summit

Next Up For Wisconsin: Mother Of All Recall Drives

Wisconsin Senate Majority Leader Says Fleebaggers Remain In Contempt, Votes Won’t Be Counted in Committees

Senate RINOs Feel Tea Party Heat

California Estimates Tsunami Damage Over $40 Million



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Japan Stocks Plunge, Other Asian Stocks Off
Crude Oil Prices Drop With Loss Of Japan Demand Despite Continued Mideast Unrest
HP CEO Aptheker Pushes Cloud Computing
India, PRC, Other Emerging Nations To Push Ahead With Nuclear Power Despite Japanese Troubles
IE9 Newest Move In Browser Wars
No More New Zunes, Says Microsoft



SPORTS
NCAA Womens’ Hoops Brackets Announced

Jacqui Kalin and Coach Tanya Warren of UNI pore over stats

UConn, Tennessee, Baylor and Stanford heavy favorites

Heat Get Payback Against Spurs, 110-80

Grizzlies Maul Clippers, End Two-Game Slide

Outlook Grim As A’s Closer Bailey Exits With Elbow Injury

Brees: NFL Owners Had No Intent Of Reaching Deal

Nuggets Keep Rolling With Impressive Win In New Orleans



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Ryan Philippe Ready For Baby #3?

Alexis Knapp to be the other mom in Ryan's life?

Ex-girlfriend Alexis Knapp claims her bulge is Ryan’s baby

Usher Sex Tape For Sale

Lisa Rinna, Star Jones Get Ugly Behind The Scenes Of “The Apprentice”

Lindsay Bids Farewell To Another Vice

Pete Wentz Talks Split With Ashlee, Thanks God For Charlie Sheen



Mila Kunis Had Nothing To Do With the Biel/Timberlake Split

Photoshop Of Horrors: What Happened To This Model’s Thighs?

Gilbert Gottfried Canned As Voice Of AFLAC Duck After Japan Tweets

Tyra Banks Attending Harvard Business School



FOREIGNERS
Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Has European Repercussions
France Pushing For Swift G8 Agreement On Libya
IDF Continues Mass Arrest On West Bank In Wake Of Itamar Massacre
Death Toll In Japan Could Rise Above 10,000
Kremlin Seeks Warmer Relations With Japan, Sends Aid



BLOGS & STUFF
Allahpundit: Despite Japanese Crisis, Nukes Remain Part Of Energy Plan, White House Says
Riehl World View: Mark Levin On The Hate For Sarah Palin
Cubachi: Palin – The GOP Cannot Allow The Status Quo To Continue
Marco Rubio: No More Short-term Budget Continuing Resolutions
Power Line: USA, Inc.
Reihan Salam: Unpleasant Thoughts About Japan

— compiled by Wombat-socho

Category: Live at Five

Bad to Worse: Third Explosion at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant UPDATE: Japanese Officials ‘Freaked Out’

Posted on | March 14, 2011 | 55 Comments

OK, while I’m trying hard to avoid the Shep Smith Calamity-Disaster-Catastrophe School of Dramatic Sensationalism, the Chip Diller Remain-Calm-All-Is-Well Motif is also becoming increasingly non-operational:

Japan faced the likelihood of a catastrophic nuclear accident Tuesday morning, as an explosion at the most crippled of three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station damaged its crucial steel containment structure, emergency workers were withdrawn from the plant, and a fire at a fourth reactor spewed large amounts of radioactive material into the air, according to official statements and industry executives informed about the developments.

(Via Memeorandum.) As Ace said in declaring an early open thread: “I’m not lovin’ the news today.” Let’s stipulate that situations like this generally come in two types:

Type A. Disaster strikes, things seem very bad at first; some people panic, invoking worst-case scenarios; however, once the initial scare is over, things don’t turn out nearly so bad as first feared.
Type B. Disaster strikes, and most people don’t really grasp how bad the potential outcome could be; however, events steadily shift toward a worst-case scenario that few people originally imagined.

This one is definitely beginning to look a lot more like Type B.

UPDATE: “Tens of thousands” have already been evacuated from a zone with a 20-kilometer radius of the plant. Officials are telling people within 30 kilometers to stay indoors to avoid radiation exposure. Meanwhile, note the highly technical language in this ABC News story:

The explosion at unit 2 and the fire at unit 4 of the plant, where units 1 and 3 also have exploded since the powerful earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on Friday, have Japanese officials “freaked out,” a senior U.S. official said.

So, we have explosions at units 1, 2, and 3, plus a fire at unit 4. While many of the safety issues surrounding nuclear power are difficult for layment to comprehend, you don’t have to be a senior U.S. official to understand what “freaked out” means.

More details from the Wall Street  Journal:

Japan’s nuclear crisis showed signs of spinning out of control Tuesday, after officials reported a third explosion and warned of possible damage to a critical part of the cooling system at the troubled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear-power complex. . . .
Even before the reported explosion, officials were becoming increasingly worried about No. 2 reactor, due to a problem in the cooling system that hasn’t occurred in the others. Now all three appear to be experiencing a degree of melting of the fuel rods in their cores—a condition that, if it worsens, could lead to dangerous radiation leaks.
In a surprise turn of events, Monday saw a sharp deterioration in the condition of the No. 2 reactor, which had previously been stable. By late Monday night, No. 2 had become the most problematic of the three reactors, with all its fuel rods fully exposed, making them highly vulnerable to significant damage.

Someone sent me an e-mail Saturday night with this prediction:

Stacy, mark my words. We’ll all be heaving a collective sigh of relief on Monday or Tuesday when we learn that the Japanese have the situation well under control. And you can quote me on that.

OK, my friend, it’s Monday night and I’m thinking this “collective sigh of relief” is very unlikely in the next 24 hours. Do you want to own that quote with a link to me, and an admission that the best-case scenario hasn’t materialized?

UPDATE II:  In the comments below, an accusation:

You might as well drop the act, you were in this to promote hysteria from the start so you could “prove” how “balanced” and “impartial” you are.

Horseshit. What I’ve been trying to do from the start is to separate facts from spin and hype. Go back to my multi-updated Saturday post: I woke up (and you’ll have to scroll down to the sequence beginning at 11:57 a.m. ET) to the news of the first explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, a situation that Stratfor was already calling a “meltdown.”

Japanese officials denied that there was a meltdown, and the Economist wrote: “There was a momentary sense of relief on Saturday evening when the government assured the public that the explosion had not been caused by the meltdown of the reactor.”

Freely admitting my own ignorance of what exactly constitutes a “meltdown” — which I’m told is a colloquial term, rather than a scientific one — what I recognized was that official sources had an interest in minimizing the severity of the situation in their public statements. And so, when asked about a Christian Science Monitor story that conveyed the official “all-is-well” reassurances, I responded:

THE FUCKING ROOF BLEW OFF!
OK? I mean, sure, “officials say” everything’s just hunky-dory with the reactor itself, but when there’s a massive explosion that destroys the building that houses the reactor, excuse me for suspecting that the “officials say” version of the story might be a bit too sunny-side-up.

Call that a gut hunch, common sense, whatever. But it has nothing to do with any effort to appear “balanced” or “impartial” — as I said this morning, I was surprised when bloggers began taking sides on this story — and everything to do with detecting the distinct aroma of bovine excrement in those official assurances that the situation at Fukushima Daiichi was hunky-dory.

UPDATE III: I’m trying to calm down after being forced to defend myself against the bogus charge of having some kind of hidden agenda about the Japanese nuke-plant situation. I’m just a dude aggregating the news. If you want to see somebody pushing an agenda, check out the university psychology professor taking cheap shots at Milton Friedman. (Hat-tip: Insty.)

Left Bank of the Charles says Fukushima Daiichi is now his favorite cussword. Don’t know about that, but it did occur to me that “Fukushima Meltdown” would be a great name for a punk-rock band. And speaking of meltdowns:

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei average plummeted 14 percent on Tuesday, after the country’s prime minister Naoto Kan warned of an increasing possibility of a radioactive leakage.

Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, so a 14-pecent loss on their stock market is very bad news, generating economic ripples that could affect our own economy.

Am I trying to “promote hysteria”? No, but watch this video interview with “independent nuclear energy consultant” Shaun Burnie:

“One of the nuclear industry’s worst nightmares,” he says. And he has an entire column about the “nightmare scenario.” The most interesting part of that column? The thumbnail bio at the end:

Shaun Burnie is the former nuclear co-ordinator for Greenpeace and is now a nuclear consultant.

Greenpeace. No bias there, I’m sure. “Independent consultant,” my ass.

Please give to the American Red Cross. I did.

Category: Japan

Oh My Pi! Another 5th Bloggiversary!

Posted on | March 14, 2011 | 1 Comment

No sooner did I finish congratulating Ginny on her five-year bloggiversary than I discovered that Joe Fein at Valley of the Shadow is also celebrating his fifth year today.

You’ll recall that when I went to California for the BCS Championship Game (Roll, Tide!) Joe’s was one of the sofas on which I crashed. And after the game, he and I went strolling through downtown Pasadena hanging out with the fans.

What are the odds that two of my blog buddies — one in L.A., one in Atlanta — would have both started their blogs on the same day?

Go hit Joe’s tip-jar!

UPDATE: You’ve got to admit, by the way, that Joe’s first post had an elegant poetic touch:

In the book, The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk he describes the history of the British and Russian Empires during the 19th and early 20th Century (Pre-October Revolution). The British Empire during that time faced their own Waterloo at the Khyber Pass. Your journeyman for this blog is experiencing a transition, not unlike the British in 1919. I am between many things, covered only by the shadows of the San Fernando Mountains; I am between jobs (and looking for a new career), between beliefs (a Jew who enjoys going to Bel Air Presbyterian Church) and worried about my own purpose in life. Through this blog, I hope to find my way, out of the pass and out the Valley of the Shadow.

Joe has some keen insights on politics, and has worked very hard with conservatives trying to shake the California GOP out of its decadent torpor. Maybe you don’t know anything about the woeful state of the Republican Party in California, but it is certainly no mystery why Joe suffers occasional spells of depression. If you were a conservative in L.A., you’d be depressed, too.

At any rate, there is one sure way to cheer Joe up: Go hit his tip jar!

Category: Valley of the Shadow

Rule 5 Sunday Falls On A Monday This Week

Posted on | March 14, 2011 | 8 Comments

by Wombat-socho


Apologies to all for the delay; I spent much of the weekend either in the tax mines, helping my daughter to prep for a cross-country move, or (not nearly enough) sleeping. On with the linkagery!


Too late for last week’s roundup, but still worthy, Fritz Riedel salutes science and beauty by commenting on the demonstrated brainpower of Oscar-winning scientist Natalie Portman. Also, pictures!

Elsewhere, the POH Diaries do some comparisons of redheads who are already cast (or should be) as Governor Palin in the upcoming “Game Change” movie; there are also some nice Jessica Biel bikini pix. Not to be outdone, the Rio Norte Line presents Gemma Arterton; WyBlog introduces his new Blog Assistant, Tori; and from faraway Trashcanistan, Smitty alerts us to a Cute Brunette TV Death Match featuring spokesmodels for T-Mobile and State Farm.

The ever-reliable Soylent Green presents appropriately skin-toned women for St. Patrick’s Day (Captain Kirk approved!) and goes on to question the dubious taste of his readers (NSFW and NMS) on the appropriately named WTF Friday.

Eye of Polyphemus scopes out some Malin Akerman cuteness, Fishersville Mike supplies some vintage Baltimore Colts cheerleader cuties, and Dustbury pays tribute to Cyd Charisse.

Proof Positive offers us Alexandra Bastedo and Katheryn Winnick; over at the Camp of the Saints, we have Marilyn Lange (Part II), Rule 5 Thursday, Karen Thompson, and a review of 2011’s bikini styles.

Daleygator brings us a Hometown Hottie from Houston, some DaleyBabes from Dai Nippon, and the final round in the DaleyBabe playoffs, pitting Monica Bellucci against Jessica Alba!

Finally, we come to a link sent in by regular commenter Richard McEnroe, which cannot be described; you must experience it for yourself. Somewhat more explicable is this video of Jane Russell looking for trouble.

Category: Rule 5
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