Starship Troopers

Starship Troopers

And now, for the same kind of ingenuity, but in a sillier vein (but I definitely want one):

Actually, we saw a car with front doors that opened in this peculiar fashion just last week, obviously on its way to South Padre Island beach for spring break. I don't know if the owners of that car could make the doors rotate and flap, too, but if so, I'm sure they picked up all the chicks they could handle, especially since the car was painted in a fetching metallic blue with a faux-alligator roof and all kinds of Barbarella-style chrome ornaments.

Ahead of Our Time

Ahead of Our Time

My husband maintains that, once again, we're on the cutting edge culturally. The WSJ ran a piece today on "The Artfully Disheveled Home." Out: professional decor. In:

[C]leverness over money, taste over expense, personality over hired expertise, idiosyncrasy over polish . . . . The fantasy of the undecorated house is Tuesday morning as it is actually lived, not as we would like other people to imagine it; it is the idea of energy, of chaos, of motion, of mess (well, mess within very circumscribed and aesthetically pleasing limits: children lying in a pile of books, artfully unmade beds, one piece of clothing strewn across a couch).

Our version of "un-decoration" is fabrics artlessly covered with tasteful dog hair, casually draped with the fascinating detritus of our complex lives, covered in a quirky patina of grime, giving our home that charming "lived-in" look. Boy, howdy.

I go further and apply this aesthetic to my person. Maybe I should start a magazine.

Fukushima Update

Fukushima Update

The news coverage has mostly moved on to Libya and other stories, but the Fukushima troubles are hardly over. Good information continues to be posted on the PhysicsForum site, a thread with over 1,300 posts now, whose members are exerting an admirable discipline on each other by relentlessly pointing out the difference between speculation and credible sources. Commenters on that site recently posted these two excellent links. First, YouTube is carrying video footage of several helicopter flyovers. This footage, previously almost unwatchable, has been run through a terrific piece of software that stabilizes the bumping and jerking of the camera.

Second, a slideshow from AREVA, a French public power company with a strong presence in nuclear energy projects of all kinds, depicts the unfolding accident in fairly clear schematic form, with due attention given to which conclusions are the most speculative. It is unfortunately clear that fissile products have escaped into the environment. The damage, nevertheless, still is not of Chernobyl-like proportions. The nearby crops, for instance, may have been ruined for this year, but it does not appear that the land is permanently contaminated. (We take our blessings where we can find them.) Workers have been injured, but reports of deadly doses so far appear to be alarmist and inaccurate. (I very much hope.)

This picture keeps bothering me, though. For several days, the participants at PhysicsForum have been discussing whether these could be fuel rods that were blown out of the spent-fuel pool at Unit #3 when that unit exploded on March 14. They don't really look like ordinary structural rods, and yet the radiation readings in and around the unit don't suggest that a lot of fuel rods could be lying around in the open air, either. Considering how much contamination already has escaped in the form of steam and coolant-water runoff, the last thing the suffering residents of the area need is another explosion and/or fire that might blow pieces of fuel rods into the air.

If this disaster does nothing else, it has demonstrated that on-site storage of fuel rods, coupled with vulnerable cooling systems, is a less-than-perfect solution to the public distaste for permanent nuclear waste facilities of the Yucca Mountain variety. The core containments have held up pretty well at Fukushima, but the spent-fuel pools were nowhere near as well contained as the reactor vessel.

Wisconsin Open Records Laws

Wisconsin's Open Records Laws

Does the law matter? I think it does. And because I think the law matters, I must take exception to a few of Grim's statements on the Cronin brouhaha. He begins by putting forth a hypothetical that differs in several crucial respects from the Cronin case and those respects are not distinctions without a difference. Grim's hypothetical begins:

Let's say an FBI agent started a blog called "The G-Man as Citizen." On this blog he investigated liberal interest groups and posted apparently factual information about the special interests and big money behind their proposed legislation.

Federal (and some state and local) employees are prohibited by law from participating in partisan political activities at work. The FBI is subject to an even stricter set of rules than those applied to other government employees. So the first question to ask would be: is there any evidence that Grim's G-man blogged on a government computer or during working hours? Because if he did, that alone puts him in violation of the law.

Because of the Hatch Act, I never sent even politically themed jokes to my husband's work email, nor did he ever send such materials. That's how strict the law is. Because my best friend (a liberal Democrat who voted for Kerry and Obama) works for Social Security, she doesn't send or receive political jokes or any other political material from her work email account.

EVER. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Has my progressive friend been "stripped of her right to question or challenge the government"? Of course not. It's just that if she wants to do so, she must do so on her own time, using her private email account. That's the problem with Grim's argument: he is conflating the rights and privileges of private citizens with their duties as employees of the government. He is also conflating public records with private ones:

The fact that a man works for the government does not, and should not, strip him of his right to question or challenge the government. To some degree we accept limits on that in the military, but only to some degree: and the military is a very special case.

...In the absence of any criminal accusations, security in one's person and papers should be absolute. The fact that the government owns the email sever is no more germane than the fact that it may own the letterhead and envelopes on which Dr. Cronon may have written a sealed letter; that fact bestows no right on them to open the letter and read it. If they wish to do so, they should get a warrant. If there is no cause for a warrant, they can go to hell.

Has anyone tried to strip this man of his right to question or challenge the government? If so, I must have missed it. The fact of the matter is that Grim's G-man is prohibited BY LAW from participating in partisan political activity AT WORK. And the Hatch Act applies to state and local employees if the entity they work for accepts federal funds (as do nearly all state universities). But there's yet another law that applies to Prof. Cronin: Wisconsin's Open Records law. And that law is stunningly broad. I don't have time to dissect it in detail, but here's a taste:

WHO CAN REQUEST RECORDS: "[A]ny requester has a right to inspect any record." Wis. Stat. § 19.35(1)(a) (2003-04)

PURPOSE OF REQUEST: "Except as authorized under this paragraph, no request . . . may be refused because the person making the request is unwilling . . . to state the purpose of the request." Wis. Stat. § 19.35(1)(i)

These brief excerpts are by no means a thorough examination of Wisconsin's Open Records law, but they are sufficient to rebut the notion that government employees, using government sponsored email accounts, have the same right to privacy as private citizens. They absolutely and categorically do not.

As for the notion that Professor Cronin would be "silenced" if he were asked to obey the same laws any government employee is bound by, that is a canard. He may participate in all the political activity he wants to... on his own time and so long as he does so in his capacity as a private citizen.

The real irony here is that, though I am NOT employed by a federal, state, or local government, I do not engage in political activity using my company-issued email account. I do not do so because, were a politically charged email of mine to fall into the wrong hands, I would be creating the appearance that my company encourages or endorses my political beliefs, and that appearance could damage my company's reputation or business interests. When I am at work, I am not "Cass" - I am Company X's Technical Manager. That is what my signature block says - it does not list my home address and phone but the address and phone number of my employer.

Yes, it is an old fashioned idea - the notion that private actions are private and that while we are at work, using computers and resources we don't own, we ought to be doing our jobs and not engaging in other pursuits.

It's also a damned good practice.

Security in Papers

Security in Papers:

Let's say an FBI agent started a blog called "The G-Man as Citizen." On this blog he investigated liberal interest groups and posted apparently factual information about the special interests and big money behind their proposed legislation.

Let's say that the Democrats in Congress responded by filing a FOIA request for all of his government emails that might contain certain key words. We're not talking about a legal investigation -- no one is suggesting he violated any laws or even any policies. Rather, you have a political party trying to intimidate government employees from expressing political opinions... or even insight into our political reality.

That's a rough analogy to what is going on with Dr. William Cronon, except that he works for the state, not the Federal government; he is liberal, not conservative; and he is a history professor, not a G-man.

Some liberal bloggers are speaking up in his defense, but this strikes me as an issue that isn't a left/right question. He is clear about his political leanings, and his scholarship has the potential to be of benefit to all of us. I learned several things I didn't know reading Dr. Cronon's posts, and I'd suggest you read them too. We should want to have those with insight into these systems helping lay them bare; and if we prefer conservative to liberal policies, nevertheless the answer is to try to do the same kind of work to lay bare the organizations operating on the other side.

In any case, no political group -- no Republican and no Democratic legislator, at any level of government -- should feel they can harrass American citizens into silence. The fact that a man works for the government does not, and should not, strip him of his right to question or challenge the government. To some degree we accept limits on that in the military, but only to some degree: and the military is a very special case.

Too, Dr. Cronon is right to say that some emails caught in such a request may come from students who have political concerns; to publish their names and private thoughts is to violate a trust between student and teacher. I am sure we can all think of teachers we confided in, or looked to for guidance at points in our lives. This is a relationship that ought to be honored and protected. In the absence of any criminal accusations, security in one's person and papers should be absolute. The fact that the government owns the email sever is no more germane than the fact that it may own the letterhead and envelopes on which Dr. Cronon may have written a sealed letter; that fact bestows no right on them to open the letter and read it. If they wish to do so, they should get a warrant. If there is no cause for a warrant, they can go to hell.

Mileage Tax

Economy:

For years and years, I've heard arguments that higher gas prices would make Americans morally better people. It would break our dependence on consumer culture. It would make Americans less fat. It would make Americans less greedy for energy. It would make Americans buy more fuel efficient cars. This last article actually has a pile of moral arguments: Americans would stay closer to home, enjoying their communities and building relationships. They would gamble less. They would use less credit.

So, I was not surprised to see that nobody in the political class is all that worried about gas prices: after all, they're convinced that high gas prices will be good for us. Given that the political class thinks we're not capable of making good decisions on our own, naturally it follows that the political class would be fine with high gas prices.

That is not to say that they would want to be blamed for those high prices. So, instead of the occasionally-floated 'European style gas tax,' we've gotten increasing restrictions on refineries in the United States; bans on drilling in lots and lots of places inside the country; a "moratorium" on offshore drilling; etc., etc. It looks like market forces if you aren't paying attention -- which allows blame to be shifted to the oil companies. If you look closely, though, you see that there is a lot of pressure being added by the 'hand of government.'

None of that is surprising.

So now you're paying a lot more for gas, but your job is just as far away as it ever was. You may not be taking a vacation or flying anywhere, and you certainly won't be living it up at the casinos! You'll be spending time closer to home, building communities, etc.

Still, you can't really sell your house and move closer to work because the real estate market is broken. So, you do what you've been told to do, and trade in your much-derided SUV for a more fuel-efficient car. Say, one of those praiseworthy Prius-type cars we've heard so much about. Or a Leaf. Whatever.

Good work. You've done everything right. Obviously, you must be punished.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week released a report that said taxing people based on how many miles they drive is a possible option for raising new revenues....

The report discussed the proposal in great detail, including the development of technology that would allow total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) to be tracked, reported and taxed, as well as the pros and cons of mandating the installation of this technology in all vehicles....

[Sen. Conrad] noted the possibility of a VMT tax as a way to solve the problem of collecting less in taxes as people move to more fuel-efficient vehicles.

"Do we do gas tax?" Conrad asked. "Do we move to some kind of an assessment that is based on how many miles vehicles go, so that we capture revenue from those who are going to be using the roads who aren't going to be paying any gas tax, or very little, with hybrids and electric cars?"

You can read the report here. The report does consider among the "cons" the implications for privacy -- to whit, the fact that your every move will be monitored by the government to ensure they get paid for each exercise of your right to travel. Sensing the danger of trying to impose such a regime upon Americans, the report ponders possibly allowing some people to choose to pay higher taxes elsewhere in return for 'opting out' of the system. The wording here is careful: "Allowing users with the strongest concerns about privacy to opt out... might serve as a safety valve to make the system more acceptable to the public."

It shouldn't be acceptable, even so, because there's no reason poorer Americans -- who may not be able to afford the higher taxes necessary to 'opting out' -- should not enjoy the same privacy protections as rich Americans. This is not the first time this issue has arisen.

Keeping the roads in good condition is one of the legitimate functions of the government, and even the Federal government in the case of what the Constitution calls "post roads." They must be funded one way or another. However, our right to be free from unreasonable searches is not to be sacrificed for it.

Variations

Variations:

'Going down to Georgia, to knock down my last game... I had not been in Washington/ many more weeks than three...'



The song is traditional, so the way they switch verses may suggest they mean Washington, as well as Georgia. There is, though, a Washington, Georgia: I was there just recently. It was the first city named after George Washington in the United States; it was also the place where the Confederate States of America was officially dissolved by Jefferson Davis and the remains of a government in flight before the Union army. It's a beautiful place.



Like many traditional songs, this one has several variations. Here is a famous one:



Here is another variation, by the lead singer of Social Distortion on his solo album:



Well, we've got lots of gamblers down Georgia way, in any case.

Um, No

Warning:

I'm under the weather a bit, and the doc gave me some antibiotics. The warnings include this:

Although most antibiotics probably do not affect hormonal birth control pills, some antibiotics may decrease their effectiveness. This could cause pregnancy.

I'm pretty sure that's not actually true.

Aptly named "Badass of the week" (and probably year, decade and century at this point...)

When asked by Southeast Asia Bureau reporter Rick Westhead why he risked his life to save his wife, he simply replied “She is very important for me” through his interpreter.

Well said.

Making a Star

Making a Star:

The Killer talks about how it all got started, and he talks about it from his age.



Picking cotton and corn, and hoping all the time.

Pegleg

Pegleg:

Hat tip to DL Sly:



Actually, the horse's name is Midnight. What most people don't realize about horses is that their legs are part of their circular system. There is a part of the bottom of the foot called the "frog," which acts as a pump to push blood back up the legs when the horse is walking. This is why horses with broken legs are often put down: without the ability to move, they can't live.

Pegleg Midnight doesn't need all four frogs to function perfectly, but does have 3/4 functionality because of the prosthetic. That's enough to keep the animal alive and functional. Pretty nifty stuff they can do these days!

Ejjication

Ejjication

Weren't we just talking about education? I find that I can't understand how our President uses some very simple words. He has said several times recently that Moammar Qaddafi "needs to go" or "has to go." So far, so good: this doesn't pretend to be much more than a meaningless statement using a vague idiom. Obviously Qaddafi has no such need and is under no such compulsion. The speaker merely describes his preference, carefully avoiding any commitment to action.

Today, however, the President took it a step further and announced that it is U.S. policy that Qaddafi has to go. It seems an odd use of the word "policy." I normally associate that word with an intention to engage in certain behavior toward a specific goal. There's no mystery about the goal here, but the means to the desired end are less clear, particularly since the President and his spokesmen are at pains to explain that our current military mission does not include as one of its goals the ousting of Qaddafi. As an exasperated Stephen Hayes asked this evening, do we propose to arm our diplomats, then?

In this context, "policy" seems to mean "wish." Our actual policy, in the traditional meaning of the word, is harder to make out. It can't be to interpose ourselves between every homicidal leader and his suffering people, or we'd have a lot more hot wars going on around the world. I can see why Mr. Obama is in no rush to address Congress on this issue and ask for a vote.

Didn't the President go to one of those fancy schools? They ought to have taught him better than to sound like such an empty bumper-sticker: Visualize No Qaddafi.

Update (Clearing That Up):

Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes explains:

We're clarifying, as we’ve said repeatedly, that the effort of our military operation is not regime change, that as we actually say in this readout, it’s the Libyan people who are going to make their determinations about the future . . . . We support their aspirations, their democratic aspirations, and have stated that Gadhafi should go because he’s lost their confidence.

Correct and Unwanted

True but Unwanted:

This author is one of those who is on to something exactly correct, but entirely unfashionable.

Home from the Road

Home from the Road:

It was a good ride.



Here we are encamped on Skidaway Island. The nearby Skidaway Narrows had a battery defense during the Civil War; you can hike out to the remains of the earthworks.



This is a bar called Spanky's Beachside, on Tybee Island. We stopped for lunch. I ordered the steak sandwich, expecting sliced or chipped steak. Instead, it was a whole ribeye, served on a bun. The thing was covered with melted cheese, sauteed onions and mushrooms. Delicious.



The Chatham Artillery claims to be "the oldest military organization of record" in Georgia, dating to 1786. You can find the punch recipe there too. I think they mean to claim to be the oldest surviving such organization, though. General Oglethorpe's Colonial Rangers predate them, as did the Georgia Continentals; but I believe that the 1st of the 118th FA claims descent from the Chatham Artillery. They returned from Afghanistan about a year ago now.



We visited the tomb of Gunnery Sergeant Pearson, KIA in the Beruit bombing. His tomb, located at the northern end of Forsyth Park, is also the Marine Corps monument in the city of Savannah.



Kevin Barry's second floor includes a large hall called "The Hall of Heroes," which is dedicated to celebrating our armed forces. Fort Stewart is not far away, but they've gotten quite a lot of display pieces given to them by others as well: for example, there's an impressive Army Ranger display featuring a black powder rifle, and a few things devoted to the 160th SOAR.

I was mistakenly served an entire pitcher of Guinness when I had actually ordered only a single pint. Any other day of my life this would have been wonderful news; but since I was the only driver available, I had to send it back. This was the only tragic event to mar an otherwise perfect trip.



The wife is inspecting my rigging of the bike for the ride home. She found nothing wrong with it, I'm pleased to say.

What Do They Teach Them in These Journalism Schools?

What Do They Teach Them in These Journalism Schools?

Over at Maggie's Farm, they're having one of their frequent debates about the content of a good curriculum. The low level of reporting in recent years on controversial aspects of climate change, nuclear power, and economics does suggest to me that the public and nearly all reporters could use better training in basic math and science, if nothing else. Just watching reporters and their audience struggle with the difference between "micro," "mili," "million," "billion," and "trillion" is enough to make me want to add a whole year that focuses on the location of the decimal point.

The Maggie's Farm post proposes a broad curriculum, intended to be covered by a combination of high school and college. It all seems like a good idea, though I confess I had to self-instruct in many of the recommended areas well after I had completed college. I somehow managed to get all the way through my formal schooling, for instance, before learning anything at all about geology.

I have my elder sister to thank for whatever balance was in my high school curriculum. My parents weren't the sort to interfere in my choice of classes, or really even notice whether I was going to school; they seemed to have a lot of confidence in me and would check in periodically to confirm that I was keeping my grades up. My father would provide additional instruction in any area where I showed curiosity, without insisting on a comprehensive approach. At the beginning of 9th grade, however, my public school expected me to develop a "four-year plan" for the remainder of my high school career. I began filling it in with all kinds of nonsense. My sister happened by and explained that we would be doing things a little differently. "Four years of science," she said, "four years of math, two foreign languages, and all the core subjects like English and History. You may have one elective each year." I took her word for it, and things worked out well.

The protagonist in Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful novel "Slapstick" describes himself as a good, if uninspired, student: someone who could "sort out good ideas from heaps of balderdash." When it comes to news reports on nuclear power accidents, public health, or national budget policy, our citizens need at least enough education to do that much. It would be nice if our journalists got it, too.

From the Road:

If you're ever down on Highway 1, you might find this little honky tonk.



Here's a closeup of the sign on the door.



Actually, they didn't seem to mind my knife at all. They have bands on Friday and Saturday, and a mechanical bull. If you stop in while the sun is shining, and they happen to be there, they'll be glad to open the place up just for you if you're wanting a beer.

Some appropriate music:

And they're off!

A French plane has fired the first shots in Libya as enforcement of the UN-mandated no-fly zone begins.

The UK prime minister later confirmed British planes were also in action, while US media reports said the US had fired its first Cruise missiles.

The action came hours after Western and Arab leaders met in Paris to agree how to enforce the UN resolution.

It allows "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces.

Where it will end, nobody knows. (Least of all, the President.

War On The Poor: Minnesota Republicans Want To Bust Poor People Who Carry Cash

Sounds awful, doesn't it? But if one actually consults the proposed legislation rather than relying on the purple prose of writers like Suzie Madrak, (I think there's a reason she complains about being unemployed on her wannabe named blog, 'Suburban Guerilla' ), one will find something slightly different:

1.9 Section 1. [256.9870] ELECTRONIC BENEFIT TRANSFER DEBIT CARD.
1.10 Subdivision 1. Electronic benefit transfer or EBT debit card. (a) Electronic
1.11 benefit transfer (EBT) debit cardholders in the general assistance program and the
1.12 Minnesota supplemental aid program under chapter 256D and programs under chapter
1.13 256J are prohibited from withdrawing cash from an automatic teller machine or receiving
1.14 cash from vendors with the EBT debit card. The EBT debit card may only be used as a
1.15 debit card.
1.16 (b) Beginning July 1, 2011, cash benefits for programs listed under paragraph (a)
1.17 must be issued on a separate EBT card with the head of household's name printed on the
1.18 card. The card must also state that "It is unlawful to use this card to purchase tobacco
1.19 products or alcoholic beverages." This card must be issued within 30 calendar days of
1.20 an eligibility determination. During the initial 30 calendar days of eligibility, a recipient
1.21may have cash benefits issued on an EBT card without the recipient's name printed on the
1.22 card. This card may be the same card on which food support is issued and does not need
1.23 to meet the requirements of this section.
2.1 (c) Notwithstanding paragraph (a), EBT cardholders may opt to have up to $20
2.2 per month accessible via automatic teller machine or receive up to $20 cash back from
2.3 a vendor.

So, it looks like a rather restrictive measure to attempt to ensure that people getting these welfare grants are not using them for things like booze and tobacco, and I suppose, (since I've seen similar instruments used in PA), using them to buy groceries at stores that will take the card.

This thing actually looks pretty onerous to use in any case, and one can imagine the bureaucratic red tape that recipients have to wade through, but it's hardly criminalizing "poor" people for having cash.

It really doesn't matter where they are, officials in a disaster always seem to start out unable to tell it like it is.

Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency admitted that the disaster was a level 5, which is classified as a crisis causing 'several radiation deaths' by the UN International Atomic Energy.

So the UN finally passed a resolution.

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council voted Thursday to authorize military action, including airstrikes against Libyan tanks and heavy artillery and a no-fly zone, a risky foreign intervention aimed at averting a bloody rout of rebels by forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi.

Senator Lugar thinks the President has to ask for a declaration of war. (Where was this guy in 2003? Seriously.)

Anyway, the UN resolution means that yes, Libya can be bombed now. The Enterprise was in the Red sea on March 10th. Anybody know where it is now? Will the President order airstrikes? Can he? Does Congress have to approve any action? Will they?

Discuss.

I had heard that the movie "Red Dawn" was being remade, this time with the Chinese as the bad guys instead of the Russians and Cubans--I'm sure people will remember that the Chinese were actually allies in the original movie--but apparently no longer:

Without Beijing even uttering a critical word, MGM is changing the villains in its 'Red Dawn' remake from Chinese to North Korean. It's all about maintaining access to the Asian superpower's lucrative box office.

You'd have thought that somebody would have realized that out in the pre-development meetings, rather than having to digitally airbrush Chinese flags and dialog and such.

North Koreans?

The remake will suck like a vacuum.

What Do All These Radiation Numbers Mean?

What Do All These Radiation Numbers Mean?

The Wall Street Journal posted a graphic that I found helpful in understanding a barrage of confusing radiation-level reports over the last five days. If I'm understanding this correctly, everything before Tuesday morning was small potatoes, even onsite, let alone in the surrounding area. Tuesday morning things got more serious, though still far from deadly, and certainly not in the same league as Chernobyl.

It remains a hard story to follow. The MSM reports are alarming, but if you try to run down the details it generally turns out they didn't understand the words they were quoting. In those circumstances, just a little bit of paraphrasing can take all the meaning out of story, even if you set aside the massive agenda being injected. On the other hand, the consequences of failed cooling systems are anything but minor, and it remains to be seen whether the many varieties of backup cooling are keeping up with the problem. As I understand it, as long as the containment vessel holds, things can't get too bad, and no containment vessel has ever breached. On the other hand, the vessel isn't built to withstand the heat and pressure of a complete loss of coolant and consequent buildup of steam, hydrogen, etc. So they can't afford simply to evacuate and hope for the best. So far, they have only temporarily withdrawn workers to shelter and then sent them back in. God bless all the brave workers, who presumably have a far better grasp of the dangers than I do. They are having to do this against the backdrop of a shattered region and homeland, without time to mourn their losses.

The red lines are recorded levels at Fukushima Dai'ichi. The blue lines are for comparison. As this is a little blurry, you might prefer the original at the WSJ.

Update

From a commenter on the long-running WSJ piece "Japan Does Not Face Another Chernobyl":

I only found this out recently. (Of course. Why would any power source other than nuclear make the news?)

As a result of the earthquake, a dam failed, washing away 1800 homes downstream. Of those 1800 homes, it's very likely many were inhabited, and many people died. (I don't know if the dam produced electricity or was used for other purposes. I don't think it matters to the victims however.)

So, while the world worries about what WILL happen with the nuclear power plants, almost utterly unreported is that a dam ALREADY failed in a way that puts it on par with Chernobyl.

The Voters Are Revolting

The Voters Are Revolting

Not just a recall of the Miami-Dade county mayor and commissioner but a real spanking. Mayor Carlos Alvarez pushed through property tax hikes, pay hikes for county workers, and the construction of a several-hundred-million-dollar ballpark. In a special recall election yesterday, voters ousted him by almost a 90% margin with over 200,000 residents voting. Commissioner Natacha Seijas was recalled by similar margins.

Out

Riding Out:

I'll be out on the road for a few days.



With God's permission (insh'allah) I should be back next week. Happy St. Patrick's Day.

L'homme Armé:

As performed by the Welsh National Opera, at St. David's Hall in Cardiff.



The lyrics state:

L'homme, l'homme, l'homme armé,
L'homme armé
L'homme armé doibt on doubter, doibt on doubter.
On a fait partout crier,
Que chascun se viengne armer
D'un haubregon de fer.

The man, the man, the armed man,
The armed man
The armed man should be feared, should be feared.
Everywhere it has been proclaimed
That each man shall arm himself
With a coat of iron mail.

The armed man, then, bears arms at the order of his civilization and in its defense. He is to be feared, though he is a defender. He is the prototype of what we later came to call a gentleman, and the bedrock of our civilization.

In Praise of Mael of Moray

In Praise of Máel Brigte of Moray:

Máel Brigte, called "the Tusk," had a single buck tooth that gave him his by-name. He was a Pictish warleader in the Viking Age, and like many who lived in that age he fell to the Vikings. In death, though, the very thing for which he was so often mocked gave him his revenge.

...made an arrangement to meet in a certain place, with forty men each, in order to come to an agreement concerning their differences. When the appointed day arrived Earl Sigurd was suspicious of treachery on the part of the Scots. He therefore caused eighty men to be mounted on forty horses.... Earl Sigurd and his men fastened the heads [of their enemies] to their saddle-straps, in bravado, and so they rode home triumphing in their victory.

As they were proceeding, Earl Sigurd, intending to kick at his horse with his foot, struck the calf of his leg against a tooth protruding from [Máel's] head, which scratched him slightly; but soon it became swollen and painful, and he died of it. Sigurd the powerful was buried in a mound at Ekkialsbakki.

Powerful and treacherous, full of guile; but the buck tooth of a slain enemy brought him low.

Heh

Heh:

The nation was left reeling yesterday by the revelation that the presidential election of 2008 was a hoax. The shocking announcement came when White House press secretary Jay Carney told reporters that Barack Obama has been working in secret with conservative provocateur James O'Keefe since 2007....

"By combining empty, touchy-feely slogans like 'hope' and 'change' with far-left-wing policy planks and presenting them in the person of a racial minority from a major Midwest city with an Ivy League background, we thought we might be able to make a good showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, maybe even capture the Democratic nomination," Carney told reporters. "But the entire country? No. We never, ever for even a second imagined the American people would elect someone who had served only half a term in the U.S. Senate to be the leader of the entire free world."

That would explain some things. I hear Saudi Arabia has sent troops into Bahrain to quell Shi'ite protests in favor of a more democratic, constitutional regime. That's our major ally in the Middle East helping to suppress protests in the nation that hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet. It is doing so to suppress an ethnic minority -- which happens to be the majority in our other regional ally, Iraq.

Apparently America has nothing to say about that. There will be a statement on the NCAA tournaments, though.

Discipline

Discipline

A Virgina fire chief reports on the week he spent last summer with the Tokyo Fire Department:

The Tokyo Fire Department (TFD) has 18,000 highly-trained and supremely capable firefighters; without exception, they are up to the monumental task facing their department, city, and country.

Everywhere we went in Tokyo we found well-disciplined, fit, and confident personnel who seemed to be training constantly. When we asked about safety issues that often face U.S. fire departments (e.g. seat belts, SCBA compliance, etc.), the firefighters couldn't understand why anyone wouldn't wear the required/provided safety equipment; to them, it just didn't make sense!

I've been reading, too, about the orderly and disciplined response of the populace to the emergency shortages. It seems you can hand out the food and water to anyone, and they'll all make sure it gets shared properly. There is no looting.

3.14

3.14

Happy Pi Day. Little Miss Attila says Iowahawk refuses to celebrate Pi Day, because it's irrational.

As we said in my old college cheer, "Secant, tangent, cosine, sine/Three point one four one five nine."

For Want of a Nail

For Want of a Nail

Brave New Climate has one of the most comprehensible descriptions of the Fukushima reactor accident that I've seen so far, though there's a lively debate in the comments section about how accurate it is. While quite a few of the comments sound like ignorant hysteria, others make me wonder, since I don't know nearly enough to be able the answer the questions they raise. By far the most amazing part of the story to me is why it proved impossible to get backup generators in there fast enough to circulate the coolant to bleed off the post-shutdown residual heat:

Things were going well for an hour. One set of multiple sets of emergency Diesel power generators kicked in and provided the electricity that was needed. Then the Tsunami came, [at least five times as big as the plant had been designed for]. The tsunami took out all multiple sets of backup Diesel generators.

. . . When the diesel generators were gone, the reactor operators switched to emergency battery power. The batteries were designed as one of the backups to the backups, to provide power for cooling the core for 8 hours. And they did.

Within the 8 hours, another power source had to be found and connected to the power plant. The power grid was down due to the earthquake. The diesel generators were destroyed by the tsunami. So mobile diesel generators were trucked in.

This is where things started to go seriously wrong. The external power generators could not be connected to the power plant (the plugs did not fit). So after the batteries ran out, the residual heat could not be carried away any more. [Emphasis supplied]

There are hundreds of comments, but it took a while for someone to say, "Really? The plugs didn't fit? They couldn't just wire around somehow?" (But more colorfully.) Another commenter tried to explain why that might be harder than you'd think:

I think that we’re talking 100s of KVA needed to run the coolant pumps. You can’t exactly splice those wires without dedicated tools. You need a hydraulic ram with correct die to do attach lugs to the wire. You can’t do temporary insulation using electrical tape either. It just takes ONE missing piece for the job to be stopped. You don’t have the right die for the size of the wire available, or you don’t have the lugs, or, or, or. It’s very easy NOT to be able to do such a job when it’s unplanned for.

The following commenter is beating an anti-nuke drum, but I do take seriously his caution about the inevitability of human error:

[Y]ou can be certain humans will screw up. Constantly. And do things like build nuclear power plants on a subduction zone – with small containment vessels – and then put the power hookups for the cooling system in the basement. The cooling system which is the only thing that stands between them and a meltdown. It’s cheaper. Or extend the operating licenses of dozens of plants here and in Europe even though they are past there design lifetimes (and some like Vermont Yankee are leaking radioactivity into the the ground water). It’s cheaper. Or the contractors that cut this and that corner.

Along those lines, there are reports that all coolant is now being supplied by fire trucks, but the trucks keep running out of gas, or sustaining damage from the explosions.

In spite of all this, the author's conclusion is that the "core catcher" is there in case back-ups one, two, three, and four fail. The core catcher is designed to catch anything that slags down and is built to hold up easily to the total residual heat of the powered-down core. It will be a tedious and expensive business to clean up, but that's a headache for TEPCO, not the civilized world or even the immediate neighborhood. He believes there's practically no risk of a containment rupture, no matter what happens to the outside buildings, whose primary function is to keep rain off of the reactor and perform some air/steam filtration. In particular, he minimizes the level of radiation that can be detected in either the vented steam or the debris from the hydrogen explosion

I'm not finding very good information yet about that last part. It all seems to have been translated through a couple of layers of bureaucrats and/or journalists who don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about.

By the way, if you want to see how differently the story reads when an operator isn't as scrupulous as TEPCO, try this account of Chernobyl, especially the role of the grid operator, who insists that the plant power back up halfway through its safety test, because someone out there needs the electricity. Then reflect on the fact that Chernobyl had no containment dome of any kind. Then consider whether warm-hearted socialists make better engineers than the cold fish-eyed capitalists.

Spring Fertility:

The winter winds and snow took down many trees and branches, and we had to take down a few more with saws because they were dead and likely to fall on something we valued. Gathered up and burned on a garden spot, these provide potash and charcoal to the soil: natural fertilizer.

I also built some raised beds out of the larger limbs of some of the bigger trees. We're going to have a more formal garden this year, with the raised beds on one end, and the rows enclosed by a hedge of rosemary that should help keep out the deer. Our fruit trees -- planted last year -- are still not likely to produce, but by a year from now we should have several varieties of apples and pears. We also have numerous blueberry bushes and blackberry canes.

All of this is still at an early stage. It takes years to make it all right. Still, the work is good work, and it is coming along.

Gun Control

Presidential Gun Reforms:

President Obama's editorial from Sunday's Arizona Star is an unusually refined example of his rhetorical style. Normally he has the habit of positioning himself rhetorically as the single voice of reason between two groups of ugly, warring extremists. While this allows him to suggest that his position is the road of sensible compromise, it has the disadvantage of painting his allies as well as his ideological foes with a very negative brush. Since most Americans have interests aligned with one or another of the factions being painted, over time this rhetorical strategy tends to annoy most everyone.

This letter is finer than the usual technique because it uses the "compromise" rhetoric with far less disdain for his opponents (or, for that matter, his allies). It's well crafted.

Here's the part directed at gun rights supporters:

However, I believe that if common sense prevails, we can get beyond wedge issues and stale political debates to find a sensible, intelligent way to make the United States of America a safer, stronger place.

I'm willing to bet that responsible, law-abiding gun owners agree that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few - dangerous criminals and fugitives, for example - from getting their hands on a gun in the first place.

I'm willing to bet they don't think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas - that we should check someone's criminal record before he can check out at a gun seller; that an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to buy a gun so easily; that there's room for us to have reasonable laws that uphold liberty, ensure citizen safety and are fully compatible with a robust Second Amendment.

The one rhetorical flaw here is the phrase "common sense." The line is about getting beyond 'stale' debates, but the phrase "common sense gun [controls/reforms/laws/etc.]" is perhaps the oldest and most worn of the many old chestnuts here. I can't think of a single proposed gun control law that wasn't described as a 'common sense' reform.

If you've always had the feeling that somehow that particular rhetorical strategy was unfair, you're right. The "common sense" is an idea we have from Aristotle's Parva Naturalia (and De Anima, although there is some dispute about whether his "common awareness" here is analogous to his "common sense" from the other work) where it is a mental faculty of the individual's: it is the "sense" that unifies and orders all the other senses into a "common" picture. Thus, you see a beach and an ocean; you smell the salt water; you hear a seagull behind you: your common sense is what puts that all together into a mental representation of being on a beach, and allows the part of your mind that does hearing to warn the part of your mind that handles sight to expect a seagull arcing into the picture. When the gull appears from behind you, you are not surprised and are prepared to track its movements through space.

"Common sense" as we normally use the phrase in natural language is an extension of this capacity to humanity as a group. Now, instead of ordering separate senses (sight, hearing, etc.) we're ordering together our several separate representations. We are able, as a group, to compare our several ideas about what the world is like, and put them together into a picture we can agree upon.

Thus, the rhetorical ploy is unfair because it attempts to slide over the fact that there is substantial disagreement about the proposed new law. In order for a reform to be "common sense," it really needs to be something that we all pretty much agree 'fits our picture.'

Does the President's proposal achieve that for you? It's a little unsettling to read the Chief Executive of the United States arguing before the public that the first major reform needed is better enforcement of existing laws.

Good point: if only there were someone whose job it was to make sure the laws were enforced!

Aside from that, though, I think there is a serious sticking point in terms of defining what constitutes an "unbalanced" person in the right way. We all know this category exists -- we were just talking about ax-murderers yesterday -- but for the purpose of the proposal we would need to be able to define its membership pretty precisely. We talked about this at the time of the shooting. At that time, it was Rudy Guiliani who was proposing the restriction.

What is the due process that could work here? The diagnosis process, as I understand it, is largely an Occam's razor process -- that is, you look at reported symptoms and determine what is most likely. There's no lab test. No one can be sure the diagnosis is right.

There's also no meaningful appeal. Presumably, since the diagnosis has no force, you could simply get a second opinion. However, why would anyone give you one? They can't be any more certain of their diagnosis than the original doctor. That puts them in particular legal jeopardy if they give you the 'all clear': if they say you're good and they're wrong, they are personally liable for the harm you do. If they concur, or give a report that is noncommittal, they're safe. Why would they take the risk?

You might answer: "Because they believe in individual liberty." In that case, though, how can we rely on their clearance? Let us say that the ACLU were to set up a shop of psychologists who took it as their duty to clear everyone possible, in the interest of civil liberty. (Or say it was the NRA; whoever.) Now you really do need due process, to decide between the competing reports.

On what basis, though, would a court decide? Something as sentimental as the judge's personal sense of whether or not you 'seem normal'? A jury's? Shall we pursue a foundation for our fundamental liberties no more certain than that?

All of this suggests to me that we're far better off absorbing the occasional shooting -- and preparing ourselves, as individual citizens, to resist it -- than accepting this kind of restriction on basic liberty.

I still think 'a good sharp knife' is a better defense than the law in cases like this; the law is too blunt, you might say. Many times liberty can only be adequately defended by the individual who possesses it. This strikes me as a case of that type.

At the Great Rising Day

At the Great Rising Day

Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. We're not meant to think death is no big deal. This being Lent, too, the liturgy and lessons are more focused on the trial than the overcoming. So when the lay reader mentioned Cheyenne in the service this morning I pretty much lost it. I came home and decided I needed a dose of this:

Why do we mourn departing friends,
Or shake at death's alarm?
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to His arms.

Why do we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay
And vanished all the gloom.

Thence He arose, ascended high,
And showed our feet the way.
Up to the Lord our souls shall fly
At the great rising day.

Bons Mots

Bons Mots

Of course pragmatism is true; the trouble is it doesn’t work.

-- S. Morgenbesser

This book fills a much-needed gap in the literature.

-- Geoffrey Pullum

He is a quantum philosopher. I can’t understand him and his position at the same time.

-- S. Morgenbesser

He speaks in semi-entendres.

-- Unknown

Only you can prevent solipsism.

-- Unknown

I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I could repeat them exactly.

—Peter Cook

I was walking down Fifth Avenue today and I found a wallet, and I was gonna keep it, but I thought: well, if I lost a hundred dollars, how would I feel? And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson.

-- Emo Phillips

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”

-- Groucho Marx

Obliteration

Obliteration

This is why we don't have much idea yet how many people were killed in the Japanese earthquake and tsunami. It's like Galveston after the 1900 hurricane: the destruction is so complete that's there no information coming out of some areas. This site has a couple of dozen pictures, of which I've included just a couple.

Teaching an Axe Murderer

Teaching an Ax-Murderer:

An accused and convicted one who is now appealing the verdict, in any case. The problem of having an accused murderer in your classroom is an interesting one; but I was more intrigued by this claim:

Perhaps I should change [the syllabus] all overnight, or at least drop the group-project requirement for this term.

As I considered eliminating one story after another, however, I confirmed what I had sensed would be the case: Every story on the syllabus had some degree of relevance to this crime and to these students. Each story seemed crucial for students to read and for me to teach. Even if I revised the syllabus, the textbook's table of contents listed comparable stories. In fact, the course came to seem like an emergency measure, something akin to academic triage. The universal truth and central questions within the literature invariably circled around some aspect of this student and the crime.

The question that interests me is whether (as the author seems to fear) the subconscious had taken over and caused her to draw up a syllabus oriented around the ax-murder of a family by one of its sons; or if, rather, serious literature will always be found to be relevant to such questions. It can be more-or-less relevant, perhaps; but the great questions certainly include family tensions and violence. I wonder to what degree it is possible to get away from them. If you had been teaching Louis L'amour novels, where the family is usually a bulwark against violence from the rest of the world, you'd still be thinking in terms of families and violence. If you were teaching Jane Austen, you'd be asking whether the pressures of the family on its members were unduly aggressive in forcing compliance with accepted social standards. Mightn't that lead to violence? And so forth.

When I was eighteen or so, one of the members of my old Boy Scout troop took his .22 rifle and killed his whole family -- starting with his little brother, then his mother, then his step-father. We'd known him for years and years; he'd been out on camping trips with us many times.

What is to be made of all this? Or of any of it?

I think Corb Lund has a pretty good answer.



To return to the story, then, the lady asks:

Was there a risk? If so, could I ensure my students' safety? Could anyone? How much time would it take for security to respond to a call for help? Of course, I obsessed about my own safety....

The song answers, "Always keep an edge on your knife... because a good sharp edge is a man's best hedge against the vague uncertainties of life."

And that's right, as much as "right" has anything to say about these things.

Philosophy & Violence

The Philosophy of Violence:

"Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog" has come under some fire lately for having written this with regard to Wisconsin:

At some point these acts of brazen viciousness are going to lead to a renewed philosophical interest in the question of when acts of political violence are morally justified, an issue that has, oddly, not been widely addressed in political philosophy since Locke.

Dr. Althouse says, "And for the ordinary people outside of the circle of Leiter's respect, it's a simple matter to reject violence." Indeed, I suppose, it is a simple matter: but that's only because they haven't thought about it very much.

Leiter himself hadn't, and is therefore surprised to note (as he does in an update) that there has been quite a bit of discussion of the problem of justifiability in terrorism in the last few years. That article, like all the ones from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, is well worth reading. There have been many recent attempts to justify terrorist violence; there have been some attempts to ban it absolutely as a moral matter.

Of course, justifying violence is much easier than justifying terrorist violence: if you merely want to know when you may take up arms against the government, as opposed to a civilian population, the standards are much easier to meet. In general, too, the philosophical community has been enamored of nonviolent resistance movements like Gandhi's and Dr. King's; and they invariably miss the fact that Gandhi's movement led to the wars of partition, in which perhaps a million people were killed; while Dr. King's movement was successful not because its nonviolence swayed the violent, but because it finally forced the President to call out the National Guard. It was the Guardsmen with their rifles that made real King's reforms.

The question of violence is one that we've discussed here very often over the last eight years. I'd be damned glad to see Leiter take it up, if he has the guts for the exercise.

Really?

Surprised?

The Atlantic was.

If you pay your bills on time, then you're probably also a good driver. This statement might come as a surprise to you, and Fair Isaac Corporation CEO Mark N. Greene says his firm didn't expect this result either. But over the years, auto insurers noticed a correlation between his company's FICO credit scores and their customers' driving records. As any good business would, FICO saw this as an opportunity.

Why would this be a surprise? Both of these qualities play off the same mental faculty. To be specific, it is the faculty of threat-awareness. The good driver has to remain aware of the world about him, and keep track of all the things that might impact him in his course of action; the man who pays his bills on time is likewise keeping track of external factors that may cause him problems if they are not adequately addressed.

If I pay my property-tax bill on time, the government doesn't auction off my house on the courthouse steps; if I pay my other bills on time, I don't have to field calls from irate collection agents. It's the same skill as avoiding car crashes. The world is full of threats; you're tracking them and putting them down as they come up. Good for you!

Health care is another industry that you might not expect FICO to be able to employ behavioral analysis. It turns out that many people with imperfect credit scores are also imperfect patients. Greene explains that his company has found that these individuals often don't take their medication as indicated and don't adhere to health care regiments set up by doctors.

Again, is this really surprising? The faculty here is self-discipline. So?

She'll Never Be a Soldier

She'll Never Be a Soldier

Our small community suffered a heavy blow last night. This lovely, strong, active young woman, our next-door neighbor, not yet 17, had a congenital heart valve defect for which she'd already had several open-heart procedures. She was due for open-heart surgery this summer, but then she was expected to need only one more, at the age of 21, after which the repair was expected to be permanent.

That's her on the left, in her party dress, just last night. In the middle of dancing at the ROTC Military Ball, she dropped like a puppet with cut strings. Her young dance partner had only time to break her fall and lay her gently on the dance floor. She was gone before medical help could arrive.

Cheyenne Turner had lived since she was quite young with her grandparents, our neighbors across the south fence. She was a brave young woman. She also had one of the loveliest, purest, most unaffected sopranos I've ever heard. This afternoon I said she sang like a bird. My neighbor reminds me that when I first heard her, that's not what I said. I said she sang like an angel.

The Japan Syndrome

The Japan Syndrome

Update: Explosion; What's with the Containment?

This happened sometime during the night, or at least, I couldn't find news reports at about 12:30 a.m. Central. The BBC report, last updated this morning at 8:14 Central, says the Japanese authorities are claiming that the "container housing the reaction was not damaged and radiation levels have now fallen. . . . [T]he concrete building housing the plant's number one reactor had collapsed but the metal reactor container inside was not damaged." Four workers were injured. It's clear that steam escaped, but it's not yet clear how contaminated the steam was. Radioactive cesium and iodine had been detected hear the number one reactor before the explosion. If the metal reactor container inside the concrete building was not breached, that's certainly good news. Although it's too early to rely on the frantic bits of official releases being reported worldwide, it's still possible that the steam, which is being blown out to sea, was not wildly dangerous. The damage to the nuclear plant, however, is considerable, and the damage to the nuclear power industry worldwide is incalculable.

Original post: Japan has 33 nuclear reactors, of which half a dozen or more were shut down by the earthquake. One in particular is turning some hair gray: the 480MW Fukushima nuclear plant about 160 miles north of Tokyo.

The plant had emergency systems, of course. The violent shaking of an earthquake triggers a shutdown in which the control rods are plunged into the nuclear core material to damp off the chain reaction. But the control rods don't work properly if they are allowed to melt -- and it's hot in there. So there's an emergency cooling system, which is basically a lot of liquid (water? I don't know) circulated by pumps through a cooling tower and cooling pond. The pumps are electric. The primary system is to run the pumps on the normal power grid, but the power grid was knocked out by the tsunami. Not to worry; there's a back-up: diesel generators. Unfortunately, those were knocked out by the tsunami, too. But hold on: there's a back-up back-up, which is batteries. They last for 8 hours.

The U.S. military has a crash-priority task to get more generators and/or batteries in there, along with everyone in Japan who can help with the same. If they lose the back-up back-up power to the cooling pumps, all the coolant can boil off in as little as an hour. When the coolant boils off, the reactor core can melt. At Three Mile Island in 1979, loss of coolant for 30 minutes led to a 50% meltdown. Not that meltdowns punch through the crust of the Earth or any of that nonsense, but radiation levels do start rising, and you worry about radioactive steam building up pressure and breaching the containment structure. Indeed, the Japanese government announced earlier today that the pressure was 50% above normal and that they planned to vent some gas to prevent too high a build-up. The gas is "slightly radioactive," they report. They also state that the level is so minimal that the release would cause no danger.

I'm as big a supporter of nuclear energy as you'll find, but that doesn't inspire my confidence. It's one thing to know that the U.S.S.R. couldn't build adequate safety systems, but Japan? It was a big earthquake, but not unprecedented, particularly in an especially earthquake-prone region. The tsunami was a well-known consequence of earthquakes at low altitudes near the coast. It's not hard to predict that an earthquake and tsunami might knock out the power grid. So how come the back-up diesel generators weren't someplace safer? How come the batteries are adequate only for 8 hours? I'd like to think that nuclear reactors were a little more conservative than this.

Elmore James

Elmore James:

One of the pieces Bill Kirchen does below is a riff from an old Elmore James piece called "Dust My Broom." I don't think we've looked at James before here at the Hall, but I'm sure you all know the piece.



Elmore James was called "King of the Slide Guitar" for a reason. He was also a veteran of the US Navy, and was there present at the invasion of Guam.

A fighting man and a true artist -- just the kind of man we respect here at the Hall.

Gutless

Gutless:

This video of death threats aimed at Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is making the rounds.



Professor Jacobson asks why people aren't afraid to say this, even though many are professionals. Professor Reynolds agrees, pointing to a climate of impunity.

I can't agree that these people are fearless. "I hope someone shoots him" strikes me as a gutless thing to say. If you really believe that violence is warranted as a means of resisting political changes, you should take responsibility for your feelings and pick up a gun. Why should somebody else go to prison -- or to hell -- for you?

These cowards just hope that somebody else will have the courage of their convictions.

Tsunami

TSUNAMI

A huge 8.9 earthquake has struck Japan. A really nasty tsunami already has hit Hawaii and is due to strike the Pacific Northwest U.S. any minute now, with California an hour behind. Incredible video is coming in:

This one is almost deceptively calm until you get near the one-minute mark, and then you want all those guys on the bridge to get off the bridge and out of there.

For perspective, here are the largest earthquakes on record per Wikipedia. This one would rank number 7 worldwide, counting all the earthquakes we've ever been able to document (and estimate the sizes of) in recorded history.

1. 1960 Chile 9.5

2. 1964 Alaska 9.2

3. 2004 Sumatra 9.2

4. 1952 Kamchatka 9.0

5. 1868 Chile 9.0

6. 1700 Canadian/U.S. border West Coast 9.0

7. 2011 Japan 8.9

Every 0.1 increase in the Richter scale means about a 1.3x increase in intensity. Every 1.0 increase means a 10x increase in intensity. The difference between an 8.9 earthquake and a 9.5 earthquake is 10 to the power of (9.5-8.9), or 10 to the 0.6 power, which is about 4x, if I'm doing it right. So this earthquake was about 1/4 as big as the biggest one we know about, ever. Worldwide, earthquakes from 4.0 to 5.0 are basically a dime a dozen. From 5.0 to 6.0, they happen more than 100 times a month. From 6.0 to 7.0, a little over ten a month. From 7.0 to 8.0, a little over one a month. We can expect one over 8.0 only about once a year, and you can see from the above chart that "greater than 8.9" means you're going back hundreds of years to find a good pool of equivalent events.

It does get worse. Going back 65 million years gets you the asteroid impact that may have finished off the dinosaurs, and 250 million years gets you the Permian extinction -- the beginning of the Dinosaur Age -- which may or may not have had something to do with a million years or so of Siberian volcanoes leaving basaltic flows miles deep over an area nearly as big as the continental United States. Whether the Permian extinction resulted in part from an impact, or seismic upheavals, or something else, no one knows for sure.

They say the tsunami in northern Japan was 33 feet. So far, though, the reports in Hawaii and the U.S. west coast sound pretty moderate. I hope so.

CNN Thumbnail

A Thumbnail Sketch:

CNN has put together a useful thumbnail sketch of the current unrest in the Middle East and North Africa. It's remarkable that there's been this sudden push for democratic reforms across the entire region. If only we had seen this coming and had planned for it...

Well, no matter. The French are on the job, threatening airstrikes in support of the rebels in Libya if Gadhafi uses chemical weapons or attacks civilians. That's a more robust policy than the "no fly zone" that has been suggested -- which, on reflection, is both too weak and too expensive in that it requires you to control all the sky all the time, rather than just taking out Gadhafi's air assets once.

Time was we'd have been a bit embarrassed to have the French out-cowboying us, but in this case it's appropriate.



One of our 2012 requirements should be that 'any Presidential candidate must be a horseman.' Or horsewoman, as the case may be.