Posts from — April 2008

I lived in San Diego for a decade, but even with Roger Hedgecock’s re-trials, and Maureen O’Connor’s mayoralty, things were never as bad as they appear from the headlines.

On Friday KGTV reported that Beach Closed After Man Dies In Shark Attack

SAN DIEGO — A shark attack on a man was reported at Solana Beach Friday by San Diego County Sheriff’s Department. The man died at the scene, sheriff’s officials reported.

A witness who was part of a Friday swim group the man was with at the time told 10News of seeing a swimmer bitten by a shark below both knees. The attack took place about 150 yards offshore and several swimmers wearing wetsuits were in a group when the shark attacked, Solana Beach lifeguard Craig Miller said.

The experts believe it was probably a Great White who mistook the swimmer for a sea lion, and the county beaches remain closed. I know that beach, well.

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PSoTD says that Senator Clinton has challenged Senator Obama to a real debate, 90 minutes, no moderator – the Lincoln-Douglas format. The CNN story would seem to indicate that the response was the sound of clucking.

OK, that’s not fair, there probably are reasons why the Obama campaign might not be able to alter its schedule other than avoiding a real, old-time debate, and I’m sure that they will be paraded out by “the usual suspects” in short order.

I would point out that anyone who participated in debates in high school and/or college, knows full well that what have been billed as “debates” were not even close to the real thing. The public has been subjected to a series of game show formats, usually hosted by one or more failed comedians.

Florida License Plate?

Beneficiary

A weekend feature of Why Now.

This does not make me a happy camper, for reasons I’ll explain below the fold.

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It is the 22^nd anniversary of one of the worst nuclear disasters in the world: the failure of the number four reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power facility [Чернобыльская АЭС им. В.И.Ленина] near Pripyat, Ukraine. The West found out about the problem from alarms at Swedish nuclear facilities due to the fall out from Chernobyl. The Soviet authorities did not admit the problem for three days.

The BBC has one of their excellent In Depth sites up, and a great slide show that helps you to understand what happened, if not why.

The concrete cap over the destroyed reactor is cracking and must be replaced, but the site is still radioactive and can’t be worked on directly without killing people.

Tell me again why all these people want nuclear power facilities.

Well, the be all, end all WordPress version 2.5 has become 2.51 and and there are security issues, so I will be attempting the upgrade.

If I disappear, or total gibberish [beyond my usual gibberish] appears at this address, I’ll leave a note at the Why Now annex.

Update: It appears to be working.  Let me know if something seems broken.

Well, the CNN headline has some truth: McCain says U.S. government failed New Orleans

(CNN) — Sen. John McCain blasted the Bush administration and all levels of government Thursday for the failed response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

“We know we didn’t have the right kind of leadership … where government agencies were getting information from watching cable television rather than have a flow of information,” McCain said during an event at Xavier University in New Orleans.

“It was not only a perfect storm as far as its physical impact … it was a perfect storm as far as the federal, state and local governments’ inability.”

“Never again will there be a mismanaged natural disaster,” he said, later assuring the crowd that “it will never happen again in this country; you have my commitment and my promise.”

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Oh great, MAC-V MNF-I is gearing up for their latest dog-and-pony show in Baghdad. The Associated Press reports that military officials again claim: Iran Increasing Aid To Iraq Militias

(AP) Iran is ratcheting up its support for militias in Iraq, providing them with newly manufactured weapons and bringing them across the border to receive training from members of Tehran’s elite Republican Guard, U.S. military officials said Friday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military is preparing to roll out evidence – such as date stamps on newly found weapons caches – that shows that recently made Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq at a steadily increasing rate.

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[Note for the Toronto commenter – I approved your comment, but it has disappeared.  I have no idea what happened.]

Paul Krugman notes that some health insurance companies are discovering that they have priced themselves out of the market. Too many people and businesses have come to the conclusion that they can’t afford health insurance.

Among the people who actually provide health care, CNN reports on a doctor who wanted to practice medicine, rather than fill out forms for insurance companies:

PHOENIXVILLE, Pennsylvania (CNN) — After 22 years in private practice and seeing people “kicked around by the system,” Dr. Lorna Stuart found herself frustrated with the number of insurance companies and the rules and restrictions that came with them.

“The day-to-day time that I spent on paperwork was increasing, while my patients weren’t getting the good care that I wanted to give them — face-to-face time, one-on-one time,” she recalls. “I vowed to do whatever little I could about this inequity of care.”

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Mea culpa. When I discussed the filibuster of the Ledbetter bill I didn’t make it clear that this was about all types of discrimination, not just based on sex. As ‘Noz, who works in the field of labor law, points out, if you want Repub votes to break the filibuster Dems need to remind them that this affects people who feel they are discriminated against because of their religion.

It doesn’t make any difference what the reason for the discrimination [sex, age, race, religion, et al.], the Supreme Court has imposed a major hurdle to an individual getting justice.

If the Republicans are concerned about a rash of law suits, they could just make the conduct a capital crime and execute a few CEOs and the practice would end, because everyone knows what a great deterrent capital punishment is. 😈

So you’ve heard about the US claims concerning the building the Israelis bombed in Syria.

The BBC reports that the UN probes US Syria reactor claim

The director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, has now been briefed by the US on their claims but “deplores” the delay, a statement from the agency said.

“The agency will treat this information with the seriousness it deserves and will investigate the veracity of the information,” the statement said.

The agency was critical of both the US delay in releasing the information and of Israel’s bombing of the site before the IAEA could inspect it.

Fine, but look at the picture of the building that the Beeb uses with this story, a picture of the building in question.

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After Jimmy Carter’s latest trip to the Middle East I fully expect to hear Republicans bringing up the law about private citizens not conducting foreign policy. For the edification of my readers here is the actual law: Logan Act

1 Stat. 613, January 30, 1799
Codified as Title 18 U.S. Code § 953 (2004).

§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.

Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

This section shall not abridge the right of a citizen to apply himself, or his agent, to any foreign government, or the agents thereof, for redress of any injury which he may have sustained from such government or any of its agents or subjects.

May as well “nip this in the bud”, as my favorite deputy used to say.

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Surprised Cat

Oh my!

[Editor: There is something about the shape, size, and placement of this juvenile’s eyes that makes it look like everything is a shock to her.]

Friday Ark

By now you heard about the nasty ads running in North Carolina. If you watch television you’ve probably seen them multiple times, because the talking heads want you to know how terrible they are and you need to see them so you can understand.

A number of people have called on McCain to condemn them and he has, and McCain has asked the North Carolina Republican Party not to run them, but those ads are going to run. They are going to run because they have nothing to do with the Presidential campaign: they are about the campaign for governor of North Carolina.

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Via Lisa at All Hat and No Cattle the local puppy trainer tells us that Dick “Dick” Cheney is coming to town. He’ll be here on Friday at a fund raiser for our local Congresscritter Jeff “What exactly does a clue look like?” Miller, who, with a 4 to 1 Republican majority, thinks he needs to build up a campaign fund.

While he will probably be flown from the base flightline to the Fairgrounds, which is sort of a semi-part of the base, they will shut down all of the local roads to fool terrorists. This will create a lot of terrorist thoughts among local drivers, but as “Dick” is fond of saying “So”.