Quote of the Day
First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus
Political Strategy Dance: Myth, Reality, Leadership
It's time for the child to say what everyone knows: the emperor is wearing no clothes. (No, I'm not talking about Washington Post writer Eli Saslow waxing enthusiasm over sun glistening off Obama's chiseled pectorals..) The official story was that President Obama needed every penny of his budget. The Republicans needed to show a good faith measure towards budget reduction. So what we see is this game where the House Republicans focus on defunding some key Democratic special interest priorities--e.g., support for Planned Parenthood, NPR, and EPA climate change funding. This provides Democrats political cover in a quid pro quo for other cuts, having rescued these vital, female lifesaving programs from those nefarious Republicans, or as the Democrats attempt to caricature, the "Tea Party".
As I listened to Sunday talk soup with the ubiquitous Obama Administration spokesman David Plouffe, I was first of all annoyed by moderators I respect, like FNC's Chris Wallace, failed to press on the constant stream of political spin. Can this INCOMPETENT administration go 5 minutes before reminding everybody what kind of economy they inherited? Since when is making excuses leadership? Obama ran for this job 3 years. And the Democratic talking points think they've co-opted the term "compromise": when the partisan Democrats, who in the last Congress failed to compromise on the stimulus, healthcare law, or financial reform, lecture the GOP on compromise, it's manifest hypocrisy. What they mean by "compromise" is what most of us would regard as capitulation.
Plouffe talks a good game about leadership, but this President is more of a tactician than a strategist. Supposedly tomorrow Obama will release his own deficit reduction plan--but this is a guy whom distanced himself from his own bipartisan deficit reduction commission. Even if he co-opts some of their findings tomorrow, how is that leadership? An endorsement months after the committee's report was released? He was willing to let Paul Ryan put out a comprehensive reform proposal first; then he'll counterattack.
The Dems, the GOP and the Spring Dance:
Dancing on the Debt Ceiling
Fukushima Nuclear Incident Update
I KNEW that the America media, including Fox News, would be irresponsible and deliberately, incompetently distort the meaning of NISA's reclassification of Fukushima Daiichi as stage 7 (the highest stage nuclear incident and until now only assigned to the Chernobyl incident). They specifically used words like "worsening"; it's unconscionable. It's a violation of professional ethics. These guys are scientifically illiterate and they have not done due diligence. Fox News, in particular, failed to point out that radiation levels have been declining across the board (despite multiple aftershocks), drinking water is safe across Japan and an increasing number of foods and milk from the Fukushima region has been approved for shipment.
Am I saying everything is fine? No. Any faithful reader in this series knows I've been critical about TEPCO press releases, vacillating test readings and certain lapses in worker safety, and I've noted we are probably some time away from the first 3 reactors in cold shutdown, a critical path step which includes fixing the residual heat removal system. This step has been delayed by flooded basements with contaminated water.
The Hiroshima Syndrome blogger does a good job in today's post of explaining what's going on about the assessment; I leave it to the interested reader to read the full post, but in essence, the reclassification has to do with the amount of damage (most specifically, the amount of iodine and cesium released) that was done before seawater injections into the reactor pressurized vessels and spraying of spent fuel pools. The quantity is a key criterion for event classification; note that Chernobyl release of radioactive matter was at least 10 times (literally) worse--the classification of both at the same event level is because there isn't any further differentiation in radiation amounts released, and note that individual reactor levels remain at lower event levels. The amount has become better known with increased sampling around the Daiichi facility the last couple of weeks. This is no different than, say, government economists releasing revised numbers for a prior month's statistics. It doesn't make today's numbers any better or worse.
NEI notes:
- daily: It looks as though we're about to see reactor 2 basement or trench contaminated waters pumped into available condenser storage (opened up by water pumping into suppression pools). One of the salient issues about the incident reclassification involves reactor 2 suppression pool leaks, which have moderated more recently.
Atomic Power Review
- morning: there had been reduced watering of reactor 1 (in part, to control for observed flows of contaminated waters), which had led to higher measurements (e.g., temperature). TEPCO now is raising the injection flow into the reactor 1 reactor pressurized vessel.
IAEA notes:
- daily: All recent food and drink samples tested within safety thresholds.
Political Humor
Andrew Klavan explores the unintended consequences of progressive policies...
A few originals:
- Nobody seems to know what was exactly in the $38B budget cut that the Republicans negotiated. President Obama was going to address the issue, but for some reason nobody has seen his teleprompter since the weekend...
- A new Rasmussen poll shows only 19% of Americans strongly approve of the President's performance, dropping by a third over the past 10 days. No doubt much of that must be due to that ongoing stalemate between the government and the rebels. Despite strong opposition from the President, the leader in question remains in power: Michele Bachmann of the Tea Party caucus.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
ABBA, "Waterloo". The hit that put ABBA on the map... Not a fashion guy, but dig those crazy clothes...
