Bin Laden's death

Vengeance is not justice, but it is often a shallow substitute.

Not to be a killjoy (but be honest, you were expecting this), but I would have preferred America to have a more tempered response to the Bin Laden news. All the flag-waving, gloating, and "God bless America" celebration, while somewhat justified in a long war with few significant victories for the US, won't really help us secure a better future. Especially the religious terminology from Palin and others only serves to complicate reconciliation (and regardless of what the zealots say, most terrorists or extremists can still be bargained with under the right circumstances - see the Sunni Awakening and "nice" Qaddafi). When it's a religious war, it's winner-take-all, which has been the wet dream of psychopathic warmongers for centuries. Both sides think god is on their side, and will help them smite their enemy, yet claim that they worship a prophet of peace? Huckabee said "Welcome to hell, Bin Laden." I thought it was "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," and "Love your enemies"? And that man used to be a Baptist minister.

That's why I wish during his speech last night, Obama would have called on Americans to practice restraint, use this occasion to reflect and remember the victims of war (on all sides), and think about what each of us can do to promote peace and security in our neighborhoods and abroad. I wish he would have refrained from the "G.B.A." cliche. Otherwise it's quite grotesque to see the richest nation with the most powerful (and expensive) military jubilantly celebrating one man's death, especially a man weakened by disease who poses very little direct threat to us, and who was hiding out in broad daylight while we were combing vast swaths of rugged terrain for him for years (and killing many of the wrong people during our hunting efforts). Sadly, it reminds me of the Munchkins celebrating Dorothy's house falling on the Wicked Witch, when the Witch's meaner sister was still out there. As one KQED commentator said this morning, "It's not a football game."

The identities of SEAL Team 6 and the intel personnel responsible for the actual attack may never be known (unless they blow their cover, appear on Oprah, and write tell-all books), so they are happy just to accomplish their mission, and don't need the praise of politicians looking for a sound bite as we head towards election season. I am sure it was the biggest rush of their lives to conduct this historic raid, but of course they were doing it out of love for country. I bet the 9/11 hijackers felt similar pride for their special mission. I'm not saying that our troops are on the same level as terrorists, but it's so funny how everything in the world seems to have its mirror, while politicians and ideologues only see black and white. Well one thing is for sure, this mission will definitely be re-created in the next installment of XBox Call of Duty.

So where do we go from here? There are a lot of unanswered questions. The "original" Al Qaeda, Af-Pak-based and led by Bin Laden, was mostly irrelevant since 2003, and bigger concerns exist from other terror networks like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (supposedly the people behind the underpants and Time Square bombers), radicalism among Muslim youth in Europe, and of course Iranian nuclear research. Then there's all the political upheaval in many Arab nations, and how those events play out could really reshape the security landscape for us. Also, why was O.B.L. permitted to live in a heavily guarded compound in a nice military suburb in our ally Pakistan? It's pretty clear that this wasn't a joint operation with the Pakistanis, because their military-intel establishment is so full of leaks that someone would have surely tipped off Bin Laden. Osama's people built that custom compound with high walls and barbed wire, had couriers coming in and out every day, and even burnt their trash, and no one hunting Bin Laden noticed until this spring?

Also, why the hasty burial-at-sea? While I doubt that even our gov't would dare to falsify Osama's death, the swift handling raises some eyebrows and opens the door for conspiracy theories. Why not return the remains to the Bin Laden family in Saudi Arabia? The KQED guest said that the US may want to avoid having Osama's corpse on display somewhere for veneration and inspiration, so they took this course of action. Lastly, why didn't we try harder to capture Osama? He was supposedly killed by a "double-tap" to the side of the head. Does that mean it was an up-close execution? Isn't Osama more useful to us alive? Even if he won't give up intel (even under torture), some questioning could probably be useful - and isn't he supposed to stand trial for the embassy bombings and 9/11? Or are we worried about what he might say on the stand? Not to incite conspiracy again, but it is peculiar. I know that no captive is worth losing soldiers over, so if the SEALs didn't feel they could capture O.B.L. safely, better to shoot to kill?

It's pretty clear that justice has NOT been done over 9/11, even with Osama dead. Congress is still dragging its feet over compensation for sickened first responders. The wars we launched in response to 9/11 created a bunch of new injustices and problems. The root causes of terrorism that partly inspired Osama are still mostly intact: Crusader-like US military presence in the Middle East, Western support of corrupt oil regimes and Israeli aggression, vast wealth and human rights inequalities, abuse of Muslim immigrants, and other issues that can be seen as insults to Islam. I know Muslims have done plenty of horrible things to each other and us since 9/11 too, so clearly the case is not closed. Finally, let's remember that all the terrible damage done to the US and our interests on 9/11 pales in comparison to the amazing losses we incurred during the recent financial crisis. That "attack" was perpetrated by Western greedy bankers, ignorant investors/borrowers, corrupt politicians, and lax regulators. That wasn't Al Qaeda at all, it was us. So who is the bigger enemy that we should fear and fight?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110502/ts_nm/us_binladen_compound
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden_the_raid
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/the-secret-team-that-killed-bin-laden;_ylt=AtJwovoSU36wQK1iPsoahRxH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTNsMXZucW9jBGFzc2V0A3libG9nX2V4Y2x1c2l2ZS8yMDExMDUwMi90aGUtc2VjcmV0LXRlYW0tdGhhdC1raWxsZWQtYmluLWxhZGVuBGNwb3MDMgRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3JpZXMEc2xrA3RoZXNlY3JldHRlYQ--
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_bin_laden;_ylt=Ai99lNU7AeFlZp8jNWRL9hJH2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTJmNmMybWFyBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwNTAyL3VzX2Jpbl9sYWRlbgRjcG9zAzEEcG9zAzEEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNhcHNvdXJjZXNkbmE-
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201105020900

A pharma marketing tactic you probably didn't know about

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/26/135703500/supreme-court-weighs-whether-to-limit-data-mining

Apparently the Supreme Court is hearing a case about using physicians' Rx habits to target drug marketing efforts. Retail pharmacies are legally required to keep records of every Rx filled, and then they turn around and sell that info to data mining firms, who in turn sell it to pharmas. This helps pharma sales forces see which doctors need the most persuasion and which products are the biggest threats to theirs. Of course patient info is confidential, but doctor Rx habits are fair game, even if it is very upsetting to some. So recently Vermont outlawed this practice (unless the doctor gives consent), though a pharma trade group sued on First Amendment free access to info grounds, and the case has reached the high court.

Depending on how the case plays out, there could be implications for all the other data mining industries out there (Google, Facebook, etc.).

Is sugar toxic?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=3&adxnnl=1&ref=homepage&src=me&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1303339871-np8HMDjThEJmLpLPzTQSew
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201104211000

Maybe you have heard about this issue, which is part of the health care debate. We know that cardiovascular diseases account for over $400B of medical costs in the US per year, and countless other social harm and externalities (lost productivity, caretaking, etc.). We assume that fatty foods are the problem, and that's part of it, but a UCSF pediatrics researcher (and plenty of others) has concluded that the biggest culprit is actually sugar: natural sugar fructose, or processed sugar sucrose which is fructose+glucose. Many foods can cause us to gain weight, but sugars push us to metabolic syndromes like insulin dysregulation (leading to diabetes, which increases risk or exacerbates all the other inflammatory cardio diseases, which is the leading cause of death in the West).

We know that sugar "rots our teeth" and sweets are a guilty pleasure, but there is very little human data out there comparing high vs. low sugar diets in controlled studies. This is partly because it takes so long and it's hard to keep subjects on a regulated diet. In lab animals, it's pretty darn convincing:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081210090819.htm
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=129728500537306200
http://beavercountyblue.org/2010/09/15/high-fructose-corn-syrup-major-cause-of-obesity/

But fructose exists in nature. It's a part of fresh fruit, which the diet experts say are good, right? But in nature, most high-fructose foods also contain a large amount of fiber, which negates the negative effects of fructose. High-fructose corn syrup is all sugar with no fiber, and it's practically everywhere. Actually fiber is mostly absent in processed and fast foods, because fiber falls apart when frozen unless you add stabilizing preservatives. Why is sugar not even on the food pyramid? Americans have no idea how much is dangerous, and frankly most doctors don't know either. The USDA and FDA are really behind the curve on this issue, possibly due to political pressure from the agri-business and food lobbies. The last FDA study on sugar was in 1986, and basically gave it a pass. You probably wouldn't be surprised to know that the FDA administrator in charge of that study later went on to work for the Corn Refiners Association. The study proposed that a sugar consumption (beyond fruit/veggie intake) of less than 40 lbs/person/year is "safe", even though the average American consumption at the time was 75. Now we're up to 90+. But the study didn't say what happens to people at those levels.

Yes, sugar products are pleasurable to consume, and they make most foods taste better (think baker's chocolate vs. milk chocolate, or medical electrolyte solution vs. Gatorade). But it's scary that one 12 oz. Coke contains 39 g of sugars. A typical mouse weighs 25 g. Now convert that to # of tablespoons in your head, and it's a scary picture.

It's one thing to know that sugars are bad, but it's another to stop people from harming themselves with it. Children, with very low impulse control, are abusing sugars and are the group with the highest surge of cardio diseases vs. their historical peers. That's partly why Michelle Obama and others are trying to get parents and schools to reduce their kids' exposure to junk foods. Maybe at some point we will need to implement a "fat and sugar tax", which would raise the prices on these dangerous foods in order to partly cover the social costs of consumers' future health problems. Heck we could even use some of those revenues to subsidize healthier, better foods for the poor, who are the model customers for bad foods because they are less educated in nutrition, and more likely to rely on cheap, fast food for survival.

But then you get the pro-business backlash and the conservative criticisms that gov't is trying to "run your life". People should be free to eat what they want! Even if it puts all of us at risk? The recent threat of a gov't shutdown, and our current debate about raising the federal debt limit, should remind us about the consequences of wasting money on preventable problems. Plus, the gov't already regulates other ingestibles like drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. The costs of abusing those products is arguable smaller than fat/sugar abuse. But it's so easy for these discussions to degenerate into culture war fodder (like climate change), instead of keeping it science and public policy based.

Other peoples, who traditionally consume very different diets than ours, are recently getting exposed to Western high-fat/sugar foods due to globalized food commerce. Fast food consumption in the West is leveling out, so firms are trying to tap new markets, often with great success. Inuits in northern Canada, who have survived on fish and marine mammals for millennia, are now getting Burger Kings in their villages. They're thrilled to eat such good-tasting, affordable food that doesn't need to be caught and hunted, but now their incidence of diabetes is going from near zero to through the roof. The same happened with some Pacific Islanders in the 20th Century.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/24/132745785/how-western-diets-are-making-the-world-sick

Close to some of us, UCSF + the city of Martinez are experimenting with being sugar-free for a year (I couldn't find any web links about it though). This is ironic because a C&H Sugar plant is down the road from them in Crockett. I can imagine the findings will be quite noteworthy.

---------

I heard about this while back. But since everything is better in
moderation, better yet anything is bad for you if you over do it, then
everything (not just sugar) can be considered poisonous no? Surely we
can't label everything poisonous just because people can exercise
"moderation". Stick to the dictionary definition. Poison is something
that is harmful in all dose, not something we normally need as a food
group but now can be harmful because some gluttonous people over eat
themselves to self harm and destruction

---------

Well, this doctor is saying high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in particular is bad for you no matter the dose. The body doesn't gain anything from it, and it only leads to increased triglyceride formation and insulin resistance. Maybe just having one Coke per month, you won't see a change in your health, but every little bit is making a small difference for the worst. So by that definition, HFCS is a poison. Natural fructose is a little different, because it exists in fresh foods with counter-balancing good nutritional properties. So maybe eating an apple is a net gain, even if it contains a small amount of "poisonous" fructose.

Some foods contain formaldehyde, iodine, etc. which are things that can be toxic at high doses, or can be good at low doses. If food labels would educate people on how much sugar becomes dangerous (depending on body weight, age, metabolism, etc.), then maybe consumers could make better decisions. But the problem is more economics than medicine. Our food industry has made sugar cheap and ubiquitous. And biologically, it is pleasurable and addictive like nicotine. So that is a dangerous combination. If we just let diabetic and hypertension people die, no problem. But we're pouring billions into their care, which is often preventable with different life choices. We force people to wear seatbelts and not talk on cell in the car to reduce the risk of harm, and if they violate we fine them. So we can tax booze, smokes, and maybe sugar. People can still eat it if they want, but they have to pay more to help cover the costs of the social harm. I guess it's the same idea as raising the costs of water on those who waste it.

I doubt any of this would happen, but we would have a healthier, more stable society if we did.

---------

article did not mention the word 'inflammation' even once.

metabolism discussion only.

nothing of the true disease cause... not all caused by sugar metabolism in host tissues

boo.

---------

Yeah, I mean he is on the extreme sugar fringe on the obesity-diabetes debate in order to shock people and draw more attention to sugar (that has a more positive perception in society than fat). He has plenty of detractors, but since the article/interview was meant for the general public, maybe he didn't want to get into too much inflammation and metabolic pathway science.

But his basic argument is (my interpretation at least, since I am not well versed in these matters):

-Natural fructose is more tolerable because it is found in high-fiber fruits that counter-balance the harms.
-Calories are not equal, and 100 cal of glucose intake is less harmful than 100 cal of fructose.
-Animal studies show sugar is addictive, and increases triglyceride production and insulin resistance.
-High-fructose corn syrup is more harmful than other forms of sugar.

Update on fracking and water use

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/industry-boos-oscar-nod-for-gasland/
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110225/ap_en_ot/us_oscars_gasland

If you recall this email a while back, the "Gasland" film I reviewed was nominated for Best Documentary Oscar of 2010. Of course prior to the awards ceremony, a gas drilling industry trade group petitioned the MPAA to decertify the film as propaganda instead of documentary. Similar industry protests were made over "Sicko" and "An Inconvenient Truth". But probably the criticism only served to increase attention for the film, and the MPAA responded to the gas industry saying that they should "trust the intelligence" of the judges to know a documentary when they see it, and tell fact from fiction. While the film of course has an agenda, and some scenes are poorly executed and open to criticism, it was director Josh Fox's first film (made on quite a low budget as well), so to be nominated for the highest award in all of film-making must mean his argument has some merit. 

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_drilling_chemicals

Here is some validation for Fox's claims: 3 Congressmen released a report investigating 14 gas companies and the secret chemical mixtures they use during fracking. They said that millions of gallons of fracking fluid, containing up to 29 known or suspected carcinogens, were pumped into wells during domestic drilling from 2005-2009, with very little of that material recaptured by the drillers. So we can only conclude that the rest of it still remains in the ground, possibly leeching into aquifers that humans, wildlife, and livestock depend on. So how could these poisons, many of which are prohibited or on a "watch list" under the Clean Air/Water Acts, be covertly used in unregulated drilling? Congress granted drillers a waiver.

Methanol was the most common questionable substance used in fracking, and this is what it can do to you: http://www.epa.gov/chemfact/f_methan.txt. In my lab, I can lose my bonus or be fired for dumping even an ounce of methanol down the sink that drains to the Bay (not to mention my company getting fined), yet gas companies can get away with pumping untold gallons of it straight into the ground? And if the process is so safe as they claim, why be so secretive about their use of methanol and other poisons?

This may also be of interest to you, kind of an update on the status of drinking water:

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/11/135241362/the-worldwide-thirst-for-clean-drinking-water
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/we-use-how-much-water.php

Americans per capita consume 100 gallons of potable water each day from our daily activities (over 2X the global average, and 3X more than the average Chinese). That is pretty obscene, but when you factor in the water used in electricity generation for our energy needs, our consumption rises to 350 gallons/day. So cutting back on energy use is a win-win-win proposition, saving multiple precious resources and reducing pollution/environmental degradation/dependence on foreign oil dictators. Also adopting a vegetarian diet (avoiding beef consumption especially, since 2,400 L goes into making 1 burger patty) can dramatically reduce one's water footprint. Indian society would collapse if their people had American diets (30% of India is vegetarian). While India and China's per capita consumption is low, their massive populations are putting huge strains on their precarious water supplies (and climate change, standard of living improvements, and population growth will only make the situation worse in the future).

We wouldn't expect it, but leisure cities in Republican states are leading the way for water conservation. Las Vegas and Orlando have some of the most modern and strict water conservation policies, really because they have no choice (Las Vegas is the driest metro area in America with 4" of annual rainfall, and there have been recent severe droughts in the US Southeast). Those cities are known for water waste from golf courses and entertainment, and it's true that their economies still depend on those industries. But Orlando set up a parallel reclaimed water system, where household waste water is treated to near-potable safety levels, and then pumped out to water golf courses and sports fields, since it really makes no sense to waste drinking water on grass. Vegas pays residents to change out their lawns for desert landscaping, and issues huge fines for water overages, especially at golf courses. Therefore, golf courses now adopt drip irrigation for each individual shrub and putting green, instead of the usual wasteful area sprinklers. So even though Vegas has grown in population by 50% since 2000, their overall water consumption is flat, and actually down from 1990 levels. Imagine if progressive California could do that, but then we have the farm lobby, and suburbanites don't want their streets ripped up to lay new and better pipe. Plumbing is of great concern, since a scary amount of clean water (1/6 of total consumption) is lost from leaky pipes and toilets each day.

The author's #1 water concern for the future: corporate control of potable water.

----------

The problem with leaky pipes, etc is there is no good/easy way to detect a leak.  The only way for me as a homeowner to determine if i have a leaky anything that isn't a faucet is to either eventually notice some damage (which means the leak is either quite severe and/or in the drywall) or turn off my entire water supply and come back some undetermined amount of time later t see if the water meter moved.  If my water company put an ethernet output from the water meter and i could log in, take the output from excel or something, man it would be easy to check for leaky water or to see exactly how much water i use on sprinklers (since i generally am not using water at 4am), etc.  Those tools just aren't available for whatever reason.  

Imagine how easy it would be to conserve (or not to) if you knew in real dollars what every toilet flush cost your or how much water you wasted leaving the faucet on while you brushed your teeth.

----------

Yeah seriously, I guess we should get in with Bechtel or Schlumberger exploiting some water-starved third world hole: http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6670

I agree about leak detection. Like that author said, our water system is really 50-100 years old. We take water for granted, and barely commit any resources for maintenance and monitoring. I think he said in his city of Chicago, they schedule pipe replacement at a 160-year rate (meaning they do it so slowly, it would take that long to replace the whole system).

I agree that costs for water, gas, beef, etc. need to better align with the true social costs, but of course companies don't want to acknowledge the externalities associated with their products. Since clean water is a vital resource, I think everyone should have the "right" to access a minimal amount of it, so I wouldn't just advocate an across-the-board rate hike. If we invested in a better monitoring system, each citizen/farm/company could get an adjusted quota of X gallons/month, charged a reasonable rate. For those who exceed the quota, they would pay through the nose. So we would still be free to consume more water if it was that important to us (for watering the lawn, swimming pool, etc.), but the price would reflect the social harm we are doing.

Industry and farming use much more water than households. So this would force farmers to switch leaner irrigation and companies to adopt less water-intensive operations. It might reduce the diversity of available produce at Safeway, or increase the costs of some goods, but we're talking about survival here. And the $ the gov't collects from water overages could then be invested into water research or subsidies to reward people/farms/firms for buying water sparing tech or improving their pipes. Like Orlando, we have to implement a parallel reclaimed water system. Factories, golf courses, etc. shouldn't be allowed to use fresh/clean/reservoir water. All this would require a huge investment to set up, but down the road it could pay for itself.

----------

Of course any extra fees gotten by the gov would invariably be used for something besides improving water efficiency.  When social security runs surplus, does social security get reinvested?  When the budget surplus happened under clinton, did the debt get paid down?  A problem but i suppose a good one to have.

I feel like water is a lot like oil in the sense that no one is going to sweat it until they can't get it.  Unlike oil i've only got ~ 3 days to figure out how to get it or I die.  But no one is going to pay meaningful attention to the problem until it is too late. Perhaps a fundamental human flaw and perhaps just an institutional problem, either way if we aren't in trouble our children or our children's children will be. 

----------

Yes, you are right about inflows of cash to the gov't. But at least higher prices will encourage people to use less. It is true that water and oil management are quite similar. I guess since the Cold War, this is the first time that humanity has had to pay for water. Of course we get a clean, virtually limitless supply of water in our homes and businesses, and that costs something. But humans are not used to seeing water as a commodity. Imagine if it was trading on some exchange like gold and pork!

I think due to globalization, wealth is increasing in a lot of previously poor places, and those people will want better standards of living. We already see this effect with energy (and food to some degree), but soon it will be clean water. But as you said, no one wants to confront the problem until it's too late. Actually I would expect China to be the most proactive due to their centralized gov't. They are transitioning to a less carbon-intensive economy faster than any other nation. It's not like China is a poster child for Greenpeace, but hopefully they can enact smart water management that we in the West could also copy (if Congress ever does anything).

Threat of gov't shutdown

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_re_us/us_spending_showdown

Let me see if I get this straight: the House GOP threatened to shut the gov't down unless the Dems agreed to their draconian spending cuts (keep tax breaks for the rich - because that creates jobs of course, keep the military rolling, but cut aid for the poor and other liberal junk). The Dems compromised on like 90% of their demands last week, but still they didn't budge an inch. Their political posturing and theatrics took the country to the brink, despite a last-minute deal. As of a few hours ago, a shutdown appeared so likely that much of the gov't worked overtime this week to get millions of furlough notices drafted and plans in place to close down or seek alternative funding.

So in these uncertain, stressful times, just think of all the man-hours of lost productivity spent preparing for a looming shutdown that fortunately didn't materialize (not to mention the anxiety and distraction of worrying about it). If this budget battle was supposedly about cutting spending from the get-go, imagine all the millions of dollars wasted by our gov't agencies, because they had no choice but to prepare two action plans depending on what Washington did today.

If the GOP really cares about reducing the deficit, they have a funny way of showing it by engaging in totally unnecessary, reckless behavior that only caused more waste. They could have gotten their spending cuts days ago, without pulling this expensive, shameful poker bluff bitch-move on America, just so they could placate their base that they "worked down to the wire" to de-fund Planned Parenthood and de-claw the EPA. But they don't feel the externalities of their actions, so they don't care. They scared the crap out of millions of Americans who depend on a gov't paycheck or services. But why should we expect them to understand? The median net worth of Congress is over $800K, while overall US median household worth is $96K (that figure is down 23% since 2006, due to the recent recession mostly caused by Washington de-regulation and their Wall Street pals' excesses).

http://www.gobankingrates.com/savings-account/us-family-net-worth-drops-23-percent-during-recession/
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2009/01/wealthy-freshmen-raise-congres.html

After Fukushima, how safe are US nuclear reactors?

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201103181

The transcript of this show is not yet available, but some nuclear experts were discussing the Japan situation and our own nuclear security. We've already seen the consequences of de-regulation or lack of gov't enforcement (due to industry pressure and greed) during the financial crisis, coal mine disasters, and BP spill. Apparently the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is supposed to be the SEC for the nuclear industry. They have fairly sound rules by most counts (and are hardly suffocating considering the risk analysis), but they're not getting enforced. Nuclear companies (that already enjoy huge taxpayer subsidies) piss and moan that if they fully comply and fix all their violations, they won't be able to stay in business. But the underfunded and understaffed (big surprise) NRC said rules are rules. So instead of improving safety, the companies complained to their (mostly GOP) buddies in Congress to get the NRC off their backs. Congress then told the NRC to basically cease and desist, or see their already strained budget cut by 40%. Then the NRC "folded like a tent" and relented on the violations. This is how your gov't works.

Why do we even have watchdog agencies when Congress (under corporate pressure) will simply defund them when they try to do their jobs? Maybe we need a watchdog for Congress that will over-rule them when they get out of line. As usual, there's the revolving door problem of ex-NRC workers getting cushy industry jobs and using their contacts at the agency to promote the interest of their companies (maybe at the cost of public safety).

Apparently this has been going on since 2002: http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/electric/pre2003/rules_cracks.htm

I am ignorant about nuclear power, but the plants are meant to generate electricity, right? If the outside grid goes down, it shouldn't matter. A dairy farmer doesn't care if Safeway runs out of milk. Shouldn't it be self-powered operation? I understand if a big disruption like an 8.9 quake could cause a temporary power failure (and then the tsunami took out the backup diesel generators), but wouldn't batteries keep the cooling water pumps going until they could get the plant online? Why would they need to lay new transmission lines from the outside grid? Was the plant's generating capacity just destroyed? Well, maybe this is a good example why we shouldn't build critical infrastructure in disaster-prone areas. I know Japan is kind of geographically screwed in that regard, so maybe they should have adopted more hydro, wind, or other safer forms of energy. Apparently the nuclear industry in Japan has similar political clout and enjoys generous gov't assistance: http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201103160900. The design of the Fukushima plants are of the GE Mark 1 type (circa 1970's), and apparently 3 prominent design engineers resigned over concerns about project safety.

Oh yeah, and for the record - iodine tablets and salt won't do crap to protect you from this kind of radioactive fallout. But I guess they don't hurt if you don't mind waiting in line and putting others at risk (whose health conditions may depend on those minerals not being sold out).

-------

We should all be calling Jerry Brown right now and demanding he close both Diablo and San Onofre.  You might be safe, but I will guarantee you that all those people within 20 miles of the
Fukushima  plant will most likely have acute radiation sickness. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/18/idUS158664922020110318

How much radiation do you think Japan's been exposed to?  I would start with, 'they were exposed to more than what they got on that flight because the plane was hotter than usual.   I'm not sure if we'll be any more affected by the radiation than we've been affected by all those nuclear tests done in nevada, but i'm pretty sure alot of japan is getting dosed beyond a 'safe' level.

And, keep in mind, the iodine is not for atmospheric exposure, but after the land, water and food supply is contaminated, you can protect your thyroid from heavy iodine by outcompeting it for thyroid receptors.  I'm not sure if people get that little detail....

-------

I know there is a lot of scary radiation going around but I am yet to see an article that says this is anywhere near acute radiation sickness.  The engineerings INSIDE the plant that had the blown containment area are not expected to get acute radiation sickness levels.  Cancer in 10 years, probably.  But those guys are inside the reactor.

Radiation is scary, has long term effects, can spread into groundwater, etc, but i haven't actually seen anything but speculation and fear of that, anyone have an article to reference?

------

maybe that's because the acute rad sickness is being buried. i remember reading a couple of days ago that there were workers showing up with acute rad. sickness. here's even a more recent report.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/03/heroes_of_nuclear_crisis_elite.html

Milton noted reports that some workers have already shown signs of acute radiation sickness. That would be even worse than it sounds because “the sooner it comes on after exposure, the worse it is.” 

-------

I agree, the workers at the power plant, near reactors are just
getting tons and tons of exposure externally and I am sure some
particles are getting through their masks.  One of the NPR reporters
in Japan was reporting her radiation readings last night.  I believe
her hands were 500 cpm, clothes 1000, and shoes 10,000.  Now the
Japanese officials told her to go home and wash her hands, shoes, and
clothes (which is exactly what EH&S tells us not to do because it will
get into our ground water etc but I guess they have bigger more
immediate worries). Granted scientists all over the world work with
100,000 cpm quantities every now and then and it is still safe. But
the scientists work with these elements minutes and hours at a time,
and not every day.  These people who are near the plant, just outside
the 20 mile radius are constantly being exposed to 10,000cpm of
radiation 24/7 and that may climb to 20 or 30k if the radioactive
particles continue to leak. As Lisa noted Japan may face a peak of
cancer and other chronic illness in 5, 10 yrs.

Interestingly, NPR reported that Chinese have temporarily put a stop
on approvals of their current nuclear power plant projects in light of
this incident.  Apparently the president of the company that built
many of their 25 nuclear plants has already been sentenced to life in
prison for bribery and other charges.  one can only hope that he did
not cut too many corners before he was incarcerated.

-----

I didn't see anything in that link that says anything about acute radiation sickness.  I didn't see a Milton story either so maybe i missed that.  I do recall reading (sorry no source) that the same company that is currently downplaying the radiation impact has previously been fined/convicted (not sure which) for a cover up previously.  So that speaks to the potential for burying the story.

However, at this point i think there is more sensationalism than evidence.  My wife (UCLA hospital employee) has been inundated with calls/questions about potassium iodide because of the "deadly radioactive cloud descending on the west coast".  

--------

As we've seen in our own country, I think the Japanese gov't probably isn't fully leveling with the public about health risks, either to save face or avoid panic. I just hope the families of those plant workers will be properly compensated for their sacrifice. At least Japan has quality universal health care.

Yeah as M said about the K-I tablets, typical American hysteria over a minute threat (reminds me of duct tape after 9/11). Like L said, iodine only protects against thyroid cancer (and mostly for young people with an active thyroid), so all the other dozens of cancers are fair game. Maybe the makers of Enzyte and Airborne should quickly market "Radiation D-fenZ" placebo pills, and they would sell out in a minute. Then they could flee with their loot to Venezuela before the lawsuits are processed. As Michael Scheuer said (that ex-CIA guy who worked on hunting Bin Laden), "I remember a time when Americans weren't scared of everything." Plus it's completely insensitive; for whatever level of radiation we are getting in CA, it's orders worse for the millions of Japanese closer to the plant, so have a little perspective. Plus no one seems to mind the radiation dose they are getting flying to Cancun for spring break, or getting an un-necessary CT scan to check for whatever illness. Even bananas are slightly radioactive because of their potassium content. 

-------

what about the full CT scan you're obliged to get when you fly to cancun? 

the last paragraph of that article contains the sentence i'd included in the previous email.  maybe you didn't read that far.

and, i'm really tired of the belittling of the dangers of radiation.  the govt. does lie to you about the dangers.  if you think the shit is so safe and a necessary evil, then why do the people who profit from it not live in the shadow of the towers? as far as i'm concerned, the owners, the profiteers and the major GE stockholders should all be obliged to live in the shadow of the towers.

------

like I was saying about being exposed to 10-30k cpm, low or high does,
if the source of the leak doesn't get secured, it will eventually get
into everything, especially the people near are washing their
contaminated bodies and clothes at home, letting it trickle into their
ecosystem.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake

however, I am not too worried about the same sort of radiation
reaching CA considering the low dose it is reaching our shores.
I think it was my high school physics teacher who taught us that if
you sneeze, it would have circled the world in 4 years.  The
radioactive particles will continue to travel, well pass CA and the
western coast. In a week, it would reach back to Japan considering it
only took 5 days to get to CA in the first place. If there is no way
to escape the traveling radioactive particles, and magnitude of
radiation decreasing with distance, I think half way around the world
from Japan is the safest place to be.

-----

Maybe i'm misunderstanding L's point with her emails.  I read her original link, "milton noted reports" is in there, but not the reports he notes.  Where is the news site that shows reports of acute radiation sickness?  I'm not saying it didn't happen/doesn't exist but i haven't read it.  For something incredibly dire and widespread that seems odd.  Admittedly i'm not scouring the web to find it but if it is as serious as it could be that shouldn't be a problem.

Lisa's later email seems to constantly highlight that the radiation plume reaching the west coast is incredibly dilute and not expected to cause any health problems, giant sarcasm article maybe?  If i have to be drinking the kool-aid as a necessary prerequisite to know what is really happening then you are going to have to try harder.  Distrust of the gov't may make me hesitant to believe these types of articles but it doesn't make the opposite the truth.  

I won't be surprised when in 6 weeks/months/years the truth of the matter comes out and we find it was worse than what was originally stated or that some corporate/gov't entity lied to us.  However I don't think we'll find credence in the news commercial i saw that stated "deadly radiation cloud approaching CA, will your family be safe?  At 11..."  

People's fear of radiation is deep seated in misunderstanding.  It is complex in ways that a lot of other types of contaminants and poisons are not.  There are radioactive things you can hold in your pocket everyday of your life with no ill effects and if swallowed will kill you.  There are things that you can put 6 feet of lead between you and it and you'll have no protection whatsoever.  I think the media is playing on this more than giving us real information which was my original point in my first email. 

------

Yeah I guess radiation is both over-hyped and under-hyped depending on the context. People fear what they can't see or don't understand (I'm not accusing anyone here of this, just the population in general). The concentration of radioactivity drops precipitously with distance from the source, so the amount that gets to us in CA is relatively small. But the bottom line is everything in the world can freaking kill us at a sufficient dose (including water). As the physicists on the NPR Science Friday show explained, any sort of radiation is dangerous, even solar radiation. But the extent of danger is tiny in most cases. Energy from radiation may disrupt our DNA and lead to mutations, but most mutated cells are disposed of by the body and don't lead to disease.

Of course toxicology studies are very hard to perform with radiation (especially the kinds associated with fission) because controlled testing is so difficult/unethical, so there's a lot we don't know, or that the gov't won't tell us. So in the presence of such uncertainty, the only way to truly feel safe is to refrain from using any fission for human purposes. But people made risk-reward calculations, and for the decision makers it's worth it to go nuclear (companies get the rewards, people near plants and gov't agencies get the risks).

We make risk-reward calculations every day, and have a higher chance of harm from driving to work (accidents, emissions particulates). As long as we're evaluating each risk fairly and objectively, then I think we will make good decisions in the interests of society overall. But if special interests control the decision making and information, and leave us and other concerned parties out of it, then we will come to sub-optimal outcomes. But yeah, that should tell people something when the pro-energy politicians and big executives of energy companies won't live or work near their plants, refineries, wells, or mines. 

------

I agree completely.  And at the end of the day it is clear that those that make the risk reward decisions only get rewards.  I watched a short film that was attempting to take that exact thing (socialized risk i think they called it) and make it personal risk.  No perfect alternative exists but until those that get the reward in equal quantities as the risk, the decision making will always be skewed.  And the system we have right now very easily diffuses the risk amongst the world and concentrates the reward amongst the few.

I don't think the energy CEO won't live near power plants, i think he has enough money to prevent power plants from being built where he lives.  Try to put a reactor next to Vale and watch the NIMBY explode.

----------

Heh yeah, wouldn't that be a PR nightmare for the industry if you have nuclear execs and their families protesting plans for a new plant construction near Martha's Vineyard? Why is it only the poor and minorities get screwed by eminent domain?

In the aftermath of Tyco/Enron/Worldcom fraud, I believe one part of Sarbanes-Oxley is a provision that a firm's CEO & CFO must personally sign off on financial statements, and be held legally responsible for any criminal wrongdoing. So in theory, their asses are on the line and they have a personal incentive to make sure their company keeps honest book. I guess that's why the director of the Oscar-winning doc "Inside Job" about the recent financial crisis was so appalled that no Wall Street exec has been prosecuted for fraud so far (excluding Madoff). I guess it's just hard to prove willful malfeasance or deception regarding all those exotic investment vehicles.

For the energy industry (or any industry that can potentially hurt many people and the environment), I wish they would have the same thing, in order to match risk to reward as you said. Yes you have approval to build project A here, but if anything goes wrong we will  lock up upper management and seize their assets. Then I'd think we'd see fewer, better, and safer projects. In order to compensate for the negative externalities of dirty energy, profits should get taxed for a disaster fund that will cover the losses in case of a BP spill type event (and the general health effects for nearby poor people living under their daily pollution). It's the cost of doing business. Surely firms would pass some of that to customers, so maybe that would make us think twice about our use of dirty energy. Even better, some of the tax would go to the budgets of regulatory agencies in order to improve oversight and decrease the burden on taxpayers. And if the firm is good and operates safely, they'll have some of that money reimbursed over time, like good driver insurance discounts. A corporation is a "legal person", so it should be punished for bad behavior just like we would. But unfortunately firms are more like Lindsay Lohan, getting a slap on the wrist for DUIs and parole violations, because they pay top dollar for political favors and legal counsel.

For the Japan nuclear crisis, I'm not saying the firm that runs the plant (Tokyo Electric) is guilty of legal wrongdoing, but I believe that the accidents we have seen are preventable, even after a historic quake-tsunami. The guest on the KQED Forum program I mentioned in my first email said that Tokyo Electric was known to suppress or doctor bad safety inspection data, has spent a lot on pro-nuclear mass marketing, and of course enjoys generous gov't subsidies. 

--------

Has anyone heard from the chinese execs who were responsible for the melamine the the baby food debacle?

no, because they were taken out and shot for profiting at the expense of the public.  i do not support killing or the death penalty, but in the case of massive profit at the public's expense, especially the massive health crisis that will occur in Japan due to this fallout (and whether you hear about it or not, it is a massive health crisis), I might make an exception.  Okay, maybe not with this situation, but if we look at lessons learned from this situation, we can use this as precedent as to why nuclear power should be never considered a viable resource of energy, again.  And, going forward, anyone who does the 'risk benefit' analysis and decides to go with the benefit of taking that risk,  must personally pay for the consequences.

I don't believe the threat of jail will prevent these sociopaths from putting profit before even their own children's lives.  but, if we remove them from the gene pool, we might be able to evolve beyond this anti-social notion.

--------

Eugenics for the win!  Jokes aside L has a point that the people who relentlessly pursue profit like this are either actually or close to being sociopaths.  What other type of person is willing to throw thousands of people in harms way for an EXTRA million per year.

I don't know how i feel about never nuclear but Japan will always be a high risk proposition for nuclear plants being on a major fault line and the associated tsunami risk (seems obvious now...).  But Japan i think i read was 30% nuclear, what alternatives do they, or anyone, have?  If you don't have geothermal and you don't have large tracts of land to provide wind/solar, what are the options?  I think Japan does pretty well as a nation with reducing energy consumption.  Public transit is the norm in major cities, small homes, not a wasteful culture, ~ half the per capita consumption of the US.  So assuming they can't experience a 30% reduction in energy use, how does a country like japan manage to meet its energy needs sans nuclear?

------

well, who's going to power their radiation treatment equipment when they have that big bolus of cancer victims?

I'm sorry, Mark, but this is a subject too close to home.  I have been protesting(my first protest was in Harrisburg, PA) for what seems my entire life, against nuclear power.  I lived 12 miles away from TMI in 1979.  I'm not sure of the outcome at this point.  I do know they lie about the safety and what had happened.  And, I do know my best and oldest friend is dying from breast cancer.

I also do know what it looks like to see someone die from cancer induced from ionizing radiation exposure.  Although 40 years after the exposure, my father suffered for 6 long years, slowly being chipped away by 5 serial, primary tumors. He sat over Almagordo test site.  He didn't witness a blast.  All those soldiers are dead.  He was there 6 years after the test.  He was stationed there for one year.  No rad badges and every assurance he was in no danger.  Of the 5 guys he was stationed with, 4 have had these serial, primary tumors.  I worked in environmental cancer research at UCSF.  I know this is the common pattern for ionizing radiation exposure. 

My guess is I most likely have that same fate coming my way.  I don't want my son (nor anyone's son) to carry on that legacy.  It is not a risk a compassionate society should take.

--------

And i'm not trying to be insensitive but what is the alternative?  Taking nuclear off the table is not a solution without some sort of viable replacement.  And if you made the country vote (obviously i'm guessing here) to either have nuclear power or turn off all their power 30% of the time I think they would choose nuclear.  I'm not anywhere near an energy expert but from what i understand for Japan solar/wind/tide sources won't cover it or at least won't cover it without great expense (time, money, infrastructure, etc).  I'll bet that even given the tsunami and the reactors that will be closed nuclear will stay a strong minority of Japanese energy sources.

--------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_(nuclear_test)

Although I was in disagreement about nuclear radiation exposure from Three Mile Island I was not aware that (even now) radiation levels at Trinity are 10x the normal level of background exposure; I would guess that levels were even higher a number of years ago and probably do not make root cause identification for radiation-related illness (e.g. thyroid cancer) any easier.

--------

Yeah I agree with you two, and thanks everyone for their input on this tough issue. I guess it's just so darn hard to prosecute white collar crime because the offenders are very clever, they have an army of top lawyers and politicians, and it's hard to prove anything without a secret camera or leaked documents (like "The Informant!"). So even if we had the death penalty for those types of crimes (that are much more socially damaging than a gang-banger selling a few rocks), it will be hard to convict, and they will appeal and counter-sue for years and all that. Sometimes with China you have to admire the efficiency of their barbaric justice system.

A past failure analysis of a Louisiana nuclear plant indicated that the cause of a future meltdown was 87% likely to be due to external power loss and cooling system failure (like Fukushima). So knowing that (and they should have), if Japan and other nuclear nations do a better job of creating many redundant power backups, and somehow test them for all sorts of extreme shocks to the system, then maybe nuclear would be safer. But really no family should have to go through the suffering of L's father and other victims of careless nuclear just so we can keep our lights and TVs on.

You know how Russia offered to process Iran's nuclear fuel offshore? Maybe nearby Korea/Russia/China could offer land for Japan to build nuke plants on the mainland (hopefully in earthquake-free, unpopulated areas). Japan would give some of the power to the host nation, and then run long underwater transmission lines to Japan for electricity?

Or Japan could just rely more on fossil fuels, but sign long-term futures contracts for reasonable prices, then invest more in carbon capture? I mean, this is the country that makes the best toilets (Toto), the best passenger cars, the best mass transit, and the best robots in the world. They are also one of the most green-minded rich nations, where the power of corporations and the profit motive is not as strong as the US/UK. Japan has some renewable energy (6% of total in 2005), mostly solar and hydro. But their investments in renewables have been paltry compared to the US and China. So if they get more with the program, I think they can find nuclear alternatives. Plus, the easiest way to generate more energy is to use less of it. Japan is already much more energy efficient than the US, but with the right programs they could easily cut usage by another 10%, and that will allow them to decommission some of their most at-risk nuclear plants. Maybe through gov't and industry PR, the Japanese public have come to overly trust nuclear, but I guess public opinion is changing.

http://www.meti.go.jp/english/policy/energy_environment/renewable/ref1002.html 
http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/renewable-energy-resources/world/asia/solar-asia/solar-japan.shtml
http://www.smartplanet.com/business/blog/intelligent-energy/pew-546-billion-in-renewable-energy-investments-at-risk/3944/

--------

It's funny you mention fighting with China. Japan's expansionist ambitions in the 20th Century were of course dependent on fossil fuels to power their industry and military. They already had a puppet gov't in Manchuria providing coal for their factories, but when Japan invaded French Indochina in 1940, the US cut oil exports as punishment. The US was Japan's primary oil supplier at the time (and Japan has next-to-zero domestic oil), so of course that was unacceptable to them. So then they bombed Pearl and invaded Singapore and the Dutch East Indies to get at their oil.

When faced with future energy shocks and threats to their economic vitality, I don't know what Japan will do in response. I doubt they will turn aggressive, but maybe they will just keep going with nuclear, hope for no mega-quakes, and say to hell with any protests. Or maybe they will take a more dignified, humble approach, and accept that their economy will have to contract in response to these energy and social welfare constraints. Unlike American exceptionalism, where we can't bear the thought of relinquishing our unsustainable lone superpower status, even if the writing is already on the wall.

Problems with the Libya no-fly zone

Here's the problem with the UN's slow response to the Libyan civil war:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theenvoy/20110321/ts_yblog_theenvoy/international-alliance-divided-over-libya-command

Air patrols and cruise missile strikes alone won't force a well-financed sociopathic dictator to step down, especially when he knows no foreign troops will come. The opposition has to topple him and seal the deal. If the international community acted 2 weeks ago, when the rebels had all the momentum and were at the outskirts of Tripoli, then maybe we could have had a relatively clean conclusion to this tough situation and a cessation of violence now. But as we dithered, Qaddafi's better armed and trained forces beat back the rebels, and we only started to attack this weekend when the tables had turned, and Qaddafi was about to deliver his death blow to the resistance at Benghazi. We lost the initiative, and now it's starting to look intractable like our police action in Korea in the 1950s.

I know it's hard to get the UN and NATO to act quickly on anything, and the Japan quake was another major concern to address. But that's why our fumbling in Iraq and Afghanistan is so costly and will hurt us for years more; no-drama Obama is so paranoid of getting embroiled in another Middle East quagmire that he is being too timid when America would have been justified to act weeks ago. If this uprising occurred in 1995, I think Clinton would have swiftly intervened. No one wants Qaddafi around. Unfortunately neither does Al Qaeda, so maybe in his power vacuum some Islamic forces would gain some power, but it's doubtful if they would be able to control the entire country. Qaddafi has survived for 40 years partly by beating down any traces of Islamic movements, like his neighbor Mubarak.

But we don't want another quagmire that ends up biting us in the ass, right? When we toppled Saddam, it was a big boon to Iran and Al Qaeda. We messed up there because we were following a foolish strategy of remaking the region into a "kinder, gentler" Middle East that would be safe for globalization and Israel. Many Iraqis hated Saddam, but his grip on power was strong and he was basically an integral part of the Iraqi society he built around himself and the Ba'ath party. The Saddam opposition movement was comprised of a handful of corrupt, decadent, unknown exiled chumps like Ahmed Chalabi. All that was a recipe for disaster, but Bush and the neocons had blinders on. In the Libyan case, a good portion of the country has already rejected him. We won't have to install any government like with Iraq, we can let the Libyans run the show. The rebels are organized and motivated and not radical Muslims like the Mujahadeen vs. the USSR. Libya is sparsely populated with only a few coastal urban centers, it does a lot of commerce with Europe, and maintains diplomatic relations with the outside world. It is a relatively easier case for post-dictatorship nation building. We could still horribly mess up with Libya, but it's a much easier challenge than Iraq or Afghanistan.

So what are our options now? Air-drop supplies and other assistance to the rebels? Freeze Qaddafi's assets, increase sanctions, and hope we stave him out? But that hurts the innocent population too, and as we've seen with Iran, we can't effectively embargo a country the size of Texas. The rebels will run out of steam before Qaddafi's side does, he's a survivor. Maybe at best we can hope for some sort of bargained truce where Qaddafi stays in power and the rebels get a section of the country, like with Sudan. But there are plenty of problems associated with that scenario too, it will take years to implement, and who says Qaddafi won't crush the other side in a surprise attack down the road when we're no longer concerned with Libya?

Here's an opposing view arguing that liberal interventionists are basically behaving like neocons in calling for Obama to intervene in the Libya situation that we have no business meddling in:

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/21/what_intervention_in_libya_tells_us_about_the_neocon_liberal_alliance

NPR under fire, Muslim hearings

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110310/ap_on_en_ot/us_npr_tea_party_criticism_58

The "gotcha" hidden-camera conservatives who posed as a pimp and hooker with ACORN now punked NPR's chief fundraiser. He thought he was soliciting donations from a leftist group, so he started talking crap about how US conservatives and Tea Party types are racists and xenophobes. He may have a point, but he's obviously not allowed to say stuff like that. He also claimed that NPR would be better off without federal funding. Of course the GOPers in Congress pounced on that as a way to cut spending and screw over a "liberal" media org. America and the world would be much worse off without a strong NPR presence. And then what would I do with myself, listen to my 1990's CDs in the car?

I know I am biased, but in all honesty NPR is not liberal. They report the news and don't inject opinion (that's my job). For discussion or debate programs, they almost always have a conservative voice to balance out the liberal voice. In many cases they only have the conservative/libertarian viewpoint. They interview GOP politicians respectfully and don't try to embarrass them, and they can play hardball with liberal politicians. I guess NPR chooses to report on controversial stories that mainstream or conservative media won't, but that doesn't make them biased. They think it's newsworthy, while the other media have their own reasons to avoid such stories. Commercial media has become so shameful and biased that it makes NPR look leftist, but in reality they have just shifted their own bar while NPR has remained in place. I honestly can't think of many better ways to spend our taxes than the information that NPR provides, and they account for a much smaller chunk of discretionary spending than say, handouts to the rich or big oil/corn. Meager budgetary savings, big loss of information and a cultural icon. NPR wouldn't die without federal funding, but they would have to close many rural affiliates, and maybe the quality of their reporting and journalistic resources would suffer. Plus I don't want to have to donate more than I already do.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/10/134374186/king-hearings-revisit-radical-muslim-question?ft=1&f=1003 (fitting that I use an NPR link)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/20110310/ts_dailybeast/12839_howpeterkingsmuslimhearingshelptheterrorists_1

A Gallup survey ... found that the people of [our ally] Kuwait were the most likely of any in the world to cheer the 9/11 attacks on the United States. And yet Kuwait has generated almost no terrorism. The connection between words and deeds turns out to be tenuous at best.
“The bad news for Americans is this: Islamist terrorists really are out to get you. They cannot be deterred by prison sentences, ‘enhanced’ interrogations, or the prospect of death,” Kurzman writes. “The good news for Americans is this: there aren’t very many Islamist terrorists, and most of them are incompetent. The odds of their getting lucky and repeating an operation on the scale of 9/11 seem like a long shot.” - Daily Beast
So there's going to be a show trial in Congress about Muslim radicalism in the US. I agree that sometimes people are too sensitive with radical Islam, and we should be able to call a spade a spade without being labeled as a bigot. But they are not the only religion/philosophy with radicalization problems. If King wants to hold a hearing, what about investigating the people who were radicalized to violence by Fox News (shootings in Oakland and the Midwest linked to FNC), or radicalized by extremist Christian cults and anti-government militias? Remember the Feds busted several Christian militias last year who were stockpiling arms and intent to use them against the cops? They wouldn't even call them "terrorists". Yet a Muslim who buys a bunch of hair care products is nabbed and branded a terrorist in a heartbeat. We have Islamic violence in the world and brewing here in the US, but it is not the only threat to us. So just treat everyone equally and fairly - isn't that the American way? Don't pick on an already marginalized group.

Plus, I don't think a Congressional hearing is the best way to inform the public about these matters, and I question its utility. The FBI and other agencies have been researching this stuff for years, and they actually know shit, unlike detached legislators like King. Maybe their investigations are classified, but the public deserves to know some of it through Freedom of Information. You know how hearings go, the chairman only calls witnesses who will support his argument with anecdotes. Some Imam said this bad thing, and this website wants to do this bad thing, gang bangers become Muslim in jail, yadda yadda. It's a skewed look at the overall issue. I could produce plenty of crazy fringe witnesses to support ludicrous claims like Boehner is gay and Obama is not a citizen. That doesn't add any value to the conversation. If they want to help, set up a task force or think tank to actually collect impartial DATA about radicalism in the US, the causes, and how to stop it.

And as others have said, these types of selective persecution hearings (while not as bad as McCarthyism or Japanese Internment with which they have been compared) only serve to alienate good US Muslims, make them less likely to be helpful, and maybe push them towards the terrorists' cause. "America doesn't like you and doesn't trust you. You do everything right and still they want to humiliate you and your faith in public. You'll never get a fair shake here, and no matter how much you help them in their fight, they will always think of you as the other. You might as well side with us - we are your brothers and we have the tools to take revenge against the Great Satan that torched our lands, killed our children/women, pillaged our resources, and disrespect the Prophet." You can see how it goes.

Newsweek Ferguson editorial on revolutions

http://www.newsweek.com/2011/02/27/un-american-revolutions.html

To Newsweek:

Niall Ferguson's article about revolutions was one of the worst I have ever read in your publication. Yes revolutions are a dirty business, but America's was not any more noble. Surely the British Empire represented tyranny, and the founding of the US led to many good things, but also the perpetuation of slavery, the butchering of Native Americans during Western Expansion, the gory Civil War, and Hiroshima.

Also, the US has opposed more revolutions than it supported. Business and political elites were horrified by socialist uprisings in Russia and China (the US military even sent troops to oppose the Bolsheviks, and Truman derided Mao as "Mousie Dung"), and preferred to heap praises on Hitler's leadership of post-WWI Germany. During the Cold War, we and our affiliates crushed leftist-nationalist movements in Congo, Central America, and Chile, resulting in years of repression and mass murder. We only supported revolts against the Soviets, even if they were conducted by likes of the Contras or Mujahadeen.

Current protests in the Middle East are not exclusively conducted by illiterates and Muslim extremists, as Ferguson intimates. Yes they are poor and jobless (not their fault), but many of them are college students, and some in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood are from the upper class. This of course does not guarantee that future governments will be peaceful and cooperative with Western interests, but Ferguson should not assume that the result will be carnage just because it fits the Arab stereotype.

Ferguson poo-pooed Obama's 2009 Cairo speech as feeble and vague, but he should know that Obama did call for increased women's rights as well as political reforms. And he wasn't the only Western leader to embrace the "new Gaddafi." Does Ferguson seriously prefer Bush's neoconservative "democracy at gunpoint" approach that may have been well-meaning, but an utter failure in practice? His promotion of the "McCain strategy" is questionable as well. The 21st Century Middle East is not Cold War Eastern Europe. There are no viable pro-democracy social institutions and movements to back because the oil despots that the West tolerates/supports have violently quashed them. And to call for inciting conflict among Islamists as beneficial to US foreign policy is both preposterous and appalling, especially considering the Iran-Iraq War and more recent Iraqi sectarian bloodshed (in both of which the US played a negative role).

GOP congressman laughs off Obama death threats

Un-freaking-believable:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2011/02/rep_paul_broun_asked_who_is_go.html?wpisrc=xs_0005&wpisrc=xs_sl_0001

Not 2 months after the Giffords shooting, a GA congressman was hosting a town hall in his district where a guest asked, "Who is going to shoot Obama?"

This apparently elicited laughter from the audience. The congressman's response was, "The thing is, I know there's a lot of frustration with this president. We're going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we'll elect somebody that's going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare."

Where is the decency? The least he could do was scold that person and get security to remove him from the building. Some things are still inappropriate, right? Apparently this GOPer was totally fine with jokes about murdering an innocent man, not to mention he happens to be the head of state. What message is he sending - it's OK to use violence against people you disagree with politically? I am sure there are thousands of Americans out there who have fantasized about, or may actually want to, kill our president. Well we all have some sick private thoughts. But to unabashedly joke about it in public is taking things to another level. I'm ashamed of our people.

The GOP are calling for a Dem congressman from OR to resign because there is a picture of him in a Tigger outfit, and he didn't disclose that he was seeking psychiatric therapy. Heck maybe it was Halloween, and who but a heartless conservative doesn't love Tigger? If embarrassing photos were a criterion for congressional dismissal, then 90% of them should step down (and I bet a few GOPers have some much nastier photos hidden in their desks). I'd prefer a harmlessly loony leader any day vs. someone who doesn't care to defend his president against death threats, even in jest.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//110223/480/urn_publicid_ap_org_a8a243b6f03c456cbb3894b9a0d16b14/
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/feb/24/oregon-democratic-congressman-david-wu-pressured/

Koch money behind union-busting in Wisconsin

Guess who are behind Gov. Walker and his legislation to kill collective bargaining for public workers in Wisconsin (not all workers of course, cops and firefighters are exempt because screwing them is bad PR, even for GOP standards)?

Yep, the Koch brothers again (scroll down to end for a refresher if you like).

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/us/22koch.html
http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201102210900

The author below has an interesting take on why the Democratic Party no longer represents working people. After the '60s, there was a cultural split between the "new left" of Baby Boomer anti-war, feminist, pro-environment, civil rights folks, and the FDR-type traditional unions and org's that donated to Dems and expected pro-labor legislation in return. Due to the George McGovern debacle, gradual dismantling of union power, and decline of US manufacturing, Dems candidates turned to business as their new lifeline, and they were all too happy to fill the void. Now it didn't matter which party was in power for them. So now is it any wonder why Clinton and Carter have done more for the rich than Bush Sr. and Ford? And what do we have as a result? Real wages for the non-rich have stagnated while costs for college/health care have soared, states and pensions are bankrupt, infrastructure and schools are falling apart, and progressive taxes, worker protections, and various regulations are being rolled back.

Despite its many faults, postwar America was a great nation and a "shining city on the hill" as Reagan put it. But the rich killed the dream, shook us down, gave little back in return (except for oil spills and oil wars), and now we are on a path to "banana republic, third world" wealth gap status (Kristof, Huffington). If the working classes actually had a voice in Washington (and like it or not, labor unions were the best available medium), instead of a virtual monopoly by rich corporatists, then maybe the shining city wouldn't have lost so much luster. Surely collective bargaining causes some corruption and inefficiency. People suffer because of that, but not nearly as much as the suffering due to the rich's excesses (wars, speculation bubbles, eco-disasters, layoffs, etc.). And let's not forget that the concessions won by self-serving labor unions actually improved life for all middle class workers and families. Those people are the real America, not the "corporate citizens" like Goldman and BP that Washington serves.

Koch, Walker, and others claim that unions are bankrupting states and companies, so they must be eliminated in order to restore fiscal responsibility. Well those org's would have more money to cover their negotiated OBLIGATIONS to workers if they didn't give it all away as tax breaks, dividends, and bonuses. Look what our leaders are trying to cut to control the deficit now; it disproportionately hurts the poor and working classes. Sure they killed that GE engine project (Boehner is serious about budget cuts except for pork in his own state), but it should have never existed in the first place. Of course tax hikes are absolutely third-rail, but there's no talk about ending subsidies to big oil and corn, or closing foreign bases either. Budget cuts may be necessary and painful, but we should spread the pain to everyone, not leave the most privileged exempt.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-labor-union-decline

Big unions have plenty of pathologies of their own, after all, so maybe it's just as well that we're rid of them. Maybe. But in the real world, political parties need an institutional base. Parties need money. And parties need organizational muscle. The Republican Party gets the former from corporate sponsors and the latter from highly organized church-based groups. The Democratic Party, conversely, relied heavily on organized labor for both in the postwar era. So as unions increasingly withered beginning in the '70s, the Democratic Party turned to the only other source of money and influence available in large-enough quantities to replace big labor: the business community. The rise of neoliberalism in the '80s, given concrete form by the Democratic Leadership Council, was fundamentally an effort to make the party more friendly to business. After all, what choice did Democrats have? Without substantial support from labor or business, no modern party can thrive.

Here's why this is a big deal. Progressive change in the United States has always come in short, intense spurts: The Progressive Era lasted barely a decade at the national level, the New Deal saw virtually all of its legislative activity enacted within the space of six years between 1933 and 1938, and the frenzy of federal action associated with the '60s nearly all unfolded between 1964 and 1970. There have been exceptions, of course... And the courts have followed a schedule all their own. Still, one striking fact remains: Liberal reform is not a continuous movement powered by mere enthusiasm. Reform eras last only a short time and require extraordinarily intense levels of cultural and political energy to get started. And they require two other things to get started: a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress.

In 2008, fully four decades after our last burst of liberal change, we got that again. But instead of five or six tumultuous years, the surge of liberalism that started in 2008 lasted scarcely 18 months and produced only two legislative changes really worthy of note: health care reform and the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. By the summer of 2010 liberals were dispirited, political energy had been co-opted almost entirely by the tea party movement, and in November, Republicans won a crushing victory.

Why? The answer, I think, is that there simply wasn't an institutional base big enough to insist on the kinds of political choices that would have kept the momentum of 2008 alive. In the past, blue-collar workers largely took their cues on economic policy from meetings in union halls, and in turn, labor leaders gave them a voice in Washington.

This matters, as Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue in one of last year's most important books, Winner-Take-All Politics, because politicians don't respond to the concerns of voters, they respond to the organized muscle of institutions that represent them. With labor in decline, both parties now respond strongly to the interests of the rich—whose institutional representation is deep and energetic—and barely at all to the interests of the working and middle classes.

This has produced three decades of commercial and financial deregulation that started during the administration of a Democrat, Jimmy Carter, gained steam throughout the Reagan era, and continued under Bill Clinton... At nearly every turn, corporations and the financial industry used their institutional muscle to get what they wanted, while the working class sat by and watched, mostly unaware that any of this was even happening... Organized labor has become a shell of its former self, and the working class doesn't have any institutional muscle in Washington. As a result, the Democratic Party no longer has much real connection to moderate-income voters. And that's hurt nearly everyone.

Michael Scheuer on Osama and the Mideast

This was one of the most refreshing foreign policy interviews I've heard in a while, from Prof. Michael Scheuer of G'Town who used to head up the CIA's Bin Laden group (nicknamed "The Manson Family" for how fanatically they performed their jobs). I guess you might think he was a failure for that, but he informed the Pentagon of OBL's precise location on 8 occasions (of course no way to know if they were right), and the Clinton admin. declined to give the green light for their own reasons. In 2007, Osama himself said that the two Americans who understood him the most were Noam Chomsky and Scheuer (make of that what you will).

http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201102231000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scheuer

Scheuer said that as early as 1997, Osama's grand strategy was to foment political discord in the US and alienate us from our allies over our foreign policy, stretch our military-intel apparatus thin trying to chase Al Qaeda, and bankrupt us in foreign quagmires. If that is true, then the self-proclaimed greatest nation in history strutted into a major bear trap set by a guy hiding in a cave. We're not on our last legs yet, but we're not winning either (especially when you consider the price we've paid so far for minor gains). He also said that Osama is more of a smart, dedicated "worthy enemy" like Robert E. Lee than a delusional lunatic like Kim Jong Il. Unfortunately the former is a lot harder to defeat.

Osama's top enemies are/were the non-Islamic dictators in the Mideast (especially the House of Saud, Saddam, Mubarak, and Qaddafi, so this has been a great month for him) and Israel. The US and the West are indirect enemies due to our support for said enemies. But one wonders whether our choice of allies could have prevented Osama from becoming militant. After all, he did fight with us at one time, so we must not have been such intolerable infidels. Just as our "trusted Iraqi sources" told the neo-cons exactly what they wanted to hear, that Iraq had WMD for their own interests, Israel and our dictator buddies in the Mideast (who view grassroots Islamic movements as their top threats to power) have fed us crap for years that Al Qaeda hates us because of our values, and won't stop until we're dead or converted. Well if that's the case then it's personal; we better hate them back and wage an endless, amorphous war against them. Good vs. evil, our civilization is at stake, yadda yadda.

Yes Al Qaeda may want a global caliphate, because that is what Muhammad instructed Muslims to do (not necessarily through violence). I want a new job, and even if I try very hard to get one there's no telling if and when it will happen. Some US evangelicals hope to bring about the conditions that unleash Armageddon - not just prepare for the return of the lord, but actively make it happen. Then the US and all nations will be destroyed, and everyone but the true believers die horrible deaths (including the Jews they profess to support). So should we imprison the evangelicals for conspiracy against the US, and send them to Gitmo as religious fanatics? There is no point fearing and defending against every extreme religious endgame. But hey, it makes for a great bogeyman for people like Bush and Beck to peddle on the ignorant and fearful.

All this masks the truths that are politically inconvenient for our leaders, and hinders their propaganda efforts inspiring us to sacrifice for this righteous conflict. We and our allies created Al Qaeda and Osama. Instead of diffusing the causes of their grievances, we have chosen to fight them head on, and on their terms. And we have taken this problematic path because we care more about propping up dictators in order to keep the Israelis happy, Muslims down, and oil exports up (an industry whose profits go to only a small subset of people), rather than forging true partnerships, cultural understanding, political reforms, and economic development. The region is still affected by the legacies of colonialism; they need a Marshall Plan, not Rendition and sanctions. If we took the higher path, maybe Exxon and Lockheed's coffers would be smaller, but the people over there would have a better quality of life and viable political channels of redress (precluding the need to embrace violent Islam), which ensures greater stability and security for our interests in the end.

-------

Scheuer also made pretty good comments about our precarious support of Israel. Any nation founded on the premise that a deity granted a chosen tribe exclusive rights to a patch of land in an unbreakable, eternal covenant (and much of their government is populated by leaders who espouse this belief) is probably not a great partner for rational, 21st Century diplomacy. The US supposedly trusts in god, but no one except Palin types would claim that god cares whether the US is around or not. Scheuer was the first person I've heard to say that Israel doesn't have a right to exist, contrary to most public statements. He of course believes that Israel has the right to defend itself from threats, but no nation has a "right" to exist, and that is an important distinction. It must be true, otherwise the USSR would still be around, and we couldn't have forced Nazi Germany to surrender. Nations exist as long as they can, but if they grow weak or piss off other nations enough, they're going down. That is the way of the world, so why the double-standard for Israel? Because god said so? And we call the Muslims crazy? This is important because it's much harder to think clearly when existential sentiments are always clouding one's judgment.

Regarding Libya, it's amazing that Obama hasn't publicly condemned Qaddafi's violence against his people and called for him to step down (the Arab League already has). Clinton spoke out a bit, and also previously called on the Iranian people to rise up against their murderous regime. That's easy for her to say 10,000 miles away in safety and comfort, but these are not light decisions for the people on the ground. If they want to revolt, they have to go all the way or it's their death and doom for their loved ones. Despots stay in power by paying for loyalty and crushing opponents, especially those who dare to speak out. There's no turning back, and if we realize that we should really salute the courageous young people who risked everything to defy the odds and topple dictators backed by thousands of gunmen and billions of petro-dollars. The typical American can't even be bothered to drive down the street and vote once a year. It's a real shame that decades of our foreign policy blunders have rendered us nearly impotent during this critical time in Mideast history.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/22/too_little_not_yet_too_late

Why has the US put more heat on Mubarak, when he was responsible for far less bloodshed (at least Mubarak didn't send warplanes to bomb unarmed people in his own cities)? Libya cut a deal with Bush and others in the West to get UN sanctions lifted and to get off the terror blacklist. Qaddafi supposedly agreed to cease his WMD programs, pay reparations to the victims of the Pan Am bombing, and release some Western captives. He must have got a lot in return, including diplomatic cover. And when the EU buys 85% of Libya's substantial oil exports, that's a lot of capital to cash in during a crisis. That shows you how our foreign energy dependence can cripple our diplomatic options and stifle our principles. It's clear that Qaddafi is done; it just matters how much he will kill and destroy in the process. It's better for us and the region to limit Qaddafi's damage now. We enforced no-fly zones over Serbia and Iraq, why not with Libya? Our fleet is already over there. Many Libyan pilots bravely defected and refused to carry out missions to bomb protesters. But at least the US/NATO can embargo incoming shipments of resources and mercenaries from Qaddafi's African allies.

Why do Muslims hate us? Not because of our democracy, shopping malls, and women's rights (well not primarily). It's because we choose to befriend homicidal klepto-sociopaths over the millions of honest, poor people languishing under their boots. It's not just Obama but a long tradition.