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Climate Progress

Third explosion reported, 3 cooling systems failing, 3 meltdowns can’t be ruled out, 1 spent fuel pool boiled over

By Joe Romm on Mar 14, 2011 at 8:19 pm

Germany, Switzerland suspend nuclear plans as U.S. right-wing calls for faster nuclear permit process!

The spent fuel scenario I raised last night (detailed below) appears to have begun.  The  NY Times reports as of Tuesday 9:36  “… late Tuesday Japan’s nuclear watchdog said a pool storing spent fuel rods at that fourth reactor had overheated and reached boiling point and had become unapproachable by workers.”  Here’s their front page:

NYT 3-15

An “explosive impact” occurred Tuesday morning at the No. 2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan, a day after a hydrogen explosion rocked another reactor, the plant’s owner said….

Yukio Edano, Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, said he could not rule out the possibility of a meltdown at all three troubled reactors.…

The situation in Japan is unprecedented, as the CNN story from 7:32 pm EDT makes clear.  I don’t believe there’s ever been more than one reactor with a malfunctioning cooling system seriously facing a possible meltdown at one time.  Yesterday 2 were and now 3 are simultaneously.

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Politics

KS GOP State Rep. Compares Undocumented Immigrants To Pigs, Suggests Shooting Them From Helicopters

By Ben Armbruster on Mar 14, 2011 at 7:00 pm

Today, during a Kansas state House Appropriations Committee hearing on state spending for controlling feral swine, GOP state Rep. Virgil Peck suggested that hunters could shoot undocumented immigrants like they do with pigs in order to control illegal immigration:

A legislator said Monday it might be a good idea to control illegal immigration the way the feral hog population has been controlled — with hunters shooting from helicopters.

State Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, said he was just joking, but that his comment did reflect frustration with the problem of illegal immigration. [...]

After one of the committee members talked about a program that uses hunters in helicopters to shoot wild swine, Peck suggested that may be a way to control illegal immigration.

The Lawrence Journal World reports that Peck refused to apologize for the remark. “I was just speaking like a southeast Kansas person,” he said. The Kansas blog Dome on the Range has the audio clip and direct quote of Peck’s remarks. “It looks like to me if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works maybe we have found a [solution] to our illegal immigration problem,” he said:

(HT: Political Correction)

Related Posts

Security

Federal Agent Admits ATF Gun Operation May Have Led To Over 1,800 Deaths

By Andrea Nill Sanchez on Mar 14, 2011 at 6:40 pm

Back in December, border patrol Brian Terry was shot and killed by a group of Mexican thieves who were believed to have been preying on undocumented immigrants. The gun which was used to kill him was later traced to an Arizona gun store. Even more appalling, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purposefully permitted the weapon to “walk” into the hands of drug lords and gun runners. It was all part of an ATF operation entitled Fast and Furious which allowed guns to be trafficked south of the border with the hope that they would lead authorities to high-level cartel operatives.

Special Agent John Dodson — the program’s whistle blower — told Univision’s Jorge Ramos yesterday that he found Fast and Furious morally reprehensible, pointing out that it might have led to the death of over a thousand people:

My motivation is simply because this isn’t what we signed up for, this isn’t what we do as law enforcement officers, as an agency, this is not what we do as ATF. My mission for coming out here was to stop this kind of activity. To prevent as much firearms trafficking as I can and then as I learned that my agency, as I believed, is perhaps contributing to that, at the very least condoning it, allowing it to occur right underneath our noses, if not contributing to it – I disagree with professionally, morally, ethically and I felt that I had an obligation of all these things to try and do something about it. [...]

We knew that these weapons were going to end up in crimes; they were going to a known criminal organization; that was the whole theory behind the case. So you have 1,800 guns that you let go, imagine if you only had one bullet for each gun, or you get one death for each gun, that is 1,800 people.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is calling on Congress to hold hearings on the ATF’s efforts to stem the flow of weapons to Mexico. Ironically, it’s the NRA lobby that has so weakened the ATF and rendered it leaderless since 2006. The Washington Post recently reported that for “over nearly four decades, the NRA has wielded remarkable influence over Congress, persuading lawmakers to curb ATF’s budget and mission and to call agency officials to account at oversight hearings.”

Yet, according to The Hill, the NRA hopes that “the public discussion [about Fast and Furious] will help kill a request from federal regulators for more authority to track gun purchases in the southern border states.” That request would involve requiring gun dealers to report multiple sales of rifles and shotguns to ATF. According to the NRA, the reporting requirement “would flood the agency with even more reports of legal transactions, while likely driving criminal traffickers further underground.” Yet, experts argue that the proposal could save thousands of lives from drug cartel violence.

In 2010, MSNBC reported that Mexican cartels are taking advantage of lax U.S. gun laws which the NRA has lobbied hard for. At that time, around 80 percent of the 90,000 weapons confiscated by Mexican authorities were purchased in the U.S.

Watch the interview [in Spanish]:
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Yglesias

Endgame

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 14, 2011 at 6:14 pm

Walk without rhythm and it won’t attract the worm:

— 42 percent of millionaires don’t feel wealthy.

— 100 percent of poor people don’t feel wealthy.

— Coal ash is more radioactive than nuclear waste.

— The real NIMBY problem.

— Bloomingdale “plagued” by popular coffee shop.

— Why Rep Michael Grimm is making John Boehner smile.

— Why Dune is motherf—ing awesome (and also here, here, andhere).

I only recently realized that Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” is about Dune.

Politics

After Accepting $5 Million From Big Oil In 2010, Haley Barbour Accuses Obama Of Cheering On Higher Gas Prices

By Guest Blogger on Mar 14, 2011 at 5:45 pm

Our guest blogger is Kristen Bartoloni, Researcher for Center for American Progress Action Fund.

barbourGov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), former RGA Chair and lobbyist, has gone on the attack. In a speech to the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce today, he accused President Obama of purposely trying to drive up the price of oil, saying that “the Obama energy policy basically boils down to this: increase the price of energy so Americans will use less of it. That’s an environmental policy, not an energy policy.” But it’s nothing new for Barbour. Last week he claimed Obama’s energy policies “are working – pushing gas prices near $4.” And a few weeks ago, he attacked the administration and its energy policies, claiming they “have been designed to drive up the cost of energy.” The AP was quick to point out the glaring fallacy in that statement – that Middle East turmoil is the primary factor in rising gas prices, not Obama’s policies.

But it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Barbour continues to shill for the oil and gas industry. Barbour raised significant amounts in campaign contributions from the industry, and from 1999 to 2003, was a lobbyist for various energy interests. Even as oil was touching Mississippi shores in the summer of 2010, Barbour downplayed the effects of the catastrophic spill. A ThinkProgress review of IRS documents revealed that with Barbour at the helm, the RGA received over $5 million in contributions from the oil and gas industry – including four of the Big Five oil companies – in just one year:

• $1,000,000 from David Koch, $25,000 from Koch Industries
• $625,000 from Exxon Mobil
• Over $150,000 from Chevron
• $50,000 from Shell
• $25,000 from ConocoPhillips

Further, while Republicans like Barbour blame Obama for higher gas prices – pointing to the Gulf drilling moratorium – the numbers show that U.S. domestic oil production has actually risen to its highest level since 2002.

Even with increased domestic production, the Financial Times reports that the rise “would still not be enough to end America’s dependence on imported oil.” And a 2009 report from the Energy Information Administration found that offshore drilling would have an “insignificant” impact on prices at the pump.

But while Americans continue to pay higher prices for gas, oil-funded Republicans protect generous subsidies to oil companies. And fluctuations in gas prices in the past few years have shown that when gas prices increase, so do Big Oil’s profits.

LGBT

With Support From Anti-Gay Foundation, West Virginians Can Sexually Discriminate For Another Year

By Guest Blogger on Mar 14, 2011 at 5:40 pm

In February, coal miner Sam Hall recounted that, because of his sexual orientation, he received threats, vandalism, and a litany of verbal mistreatment while working at Massey Energy Co. — all of which is okay in West Virginia because sexual discrimination is not outlined in its anti-discrimination law. West Virginia’s existing civil rights law protects against race, religion and disability discrimination, but a sexual discrimination provision has never been able to pass the House.

This legislative year, two bills meant to protect against sexual discrimination were proposed in West Virginia, but ultimately failed to be taken up in their relevant committees in time for the legislation to pass. So the legal harassment of the LGBT community will continue for at least another year. The bill’s failure comes as a major blow to Fairness West Virginia President Stephen Skinner, who has an online petition to push West Virginia lawmakers to protect the LGBT community, but it is a win for the West Virginia Family Foundation (WVFF), which publicly stated that the bills promote “deviant behavior.”

WVFF’s crusade against equality and civil rights isn’t new. In 2009, WVFF released a video in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages that depicted a heterosexual family with crosshairs over it, while saying that traditional marriage “is under an unrelenting attack“:

In response to the failure to protect against sexual discrimination, West Virginia Delegate Meshea Poore (D) sponsored a bill to toughen anti-bullying policies. The House Education Committee ultimately did not take up Poore’s bill, which would have outlined bullying as that grounded on race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation. Not surprisingly, WCFF opposed Poore’s bill also.

— Paul Breer

Cross-posted on ThinkProgress.

Yglesias

Life In Germany

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 14, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Michael Kimmelman:

Many jobs require such degrees in Germany, where, as is not the case in America, calling oneself doctor for having completed a thesis in, say, political science or art history, is not embarrassing but normal, even when filling out Lufthansa’s online booking forms. (The airline generously provides three levels of academic achievement for its overachieving countrymen: doctor, professor and professor doctor, skipping the extremely rare but not unheard-of German mouthful Herr Professor Doctor Doctor).

I keep hoping universities will start handing out degrees in blogging so I can get myself a cushy professoring gig.

Climate Progress

NOAA: Monster crop-destroying Russian heat wave to be once-in-a-decade event by 2060s (or sooner)

By Joe Romm on Mar 14, 2011 at 5:23 pm

Exclusive: NCAR’s Trenberth challenges the attribution analysis, “Many statements are not justified and are actually irresponsible.”

Russia NOAA

Simulated frequency of occurrence of western Russia temperature extremes for 30-year overlapping periods. Shown are time series for exceedance values of 3, 4, 5 and 6 C…. Insert shows the time series for the number of models in [%] that simulate at least a 10% probability of occurrence of a heat wave with specific temperature exceedance values.

Apologies for leading with a complicated chart, but the NOAA release and study on the Russian heat wave last week buried the lede.  All the news was about whether or not global warming caused the monster heat wave, but, as NCAR’s Kevin Trenberth explained to me about the paper, “Many statements  are not justified and are actually irresponsible.”

First, the real news.  The Russian heat wave was, according to NOAA, roughly 5°C ( 9°F) above average for July.  The figure above shows that, using an ensemble of climate models, July temperatures will match that by the 2060s once a decade — twice a decade by century’s end.  Remember, this 9F heat wave was enough to end Russian grain exports for a year. Note that a 4C (7F) warmer-than-average July would occur once a decade by 2040.

Moreover, the authors based their simulations on the A1B emission scenario. In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures “only” about 3°C (5 F) warmer than today. In fact, on our current emissions path, a 3C temperature rise will likely happen much sooner (see M.I.T. doubles its 2095 warming projection to 10°F “” with 866 ppm and Arctic warming of 20°F).  Thus, the monster heat wave might well be once-a-decade much sooner.

Unfortunately, this got lost in all the noise about the main “finding” of the study itself.  For some strange reason, the authors, Randall Dole et al., posed this titular question:  “Was There a Basis for Anticipating the 2010 Russian Heat Wave?”

They concluded the event was not predictable.  Ironically, if that finding holds up, it would actually be much more cause for concern, since the uncertainty about extreme weather events is one of the things that drives up the cost of adapting, as Sandia National Laboratories demonstrated in a major 2010 report (see Sandia Labs study: “It is the uncertainty associated with climate change that validates the need to act protectively and proactively”).

NOAA also concluded — and this is what received all the media attention:

Read more

Politics

With Support From Anti-Gay Foundation, West Virginians Can Sexually Discriminate For Another Year

By Guest Blogger on Mar 14, 2011 at 5:10 pm

In February, coal miner Sam Hall recounted that, because of his sexual orientation, he received threats, vandalism, and a litany of verbal mistreatment while working at Massey Energy Co. — all of which is okay in West Virginia because sexual discrimination is not outlined in its anti-discrimination law. West Virginia’s existing civil rights law protects against race, religion and disability discrimination, but a sexual discrimination provision has never been able to pass the House.

This legislative year, two bills meant to protect against sexual discrimination were proposed in West Virginia, but ultimately failed to be taken up in their relevant committees in time for the legislation to pass. So the legal harassment of the LGBT community will continue for at least another year. The bill’s failure comes as a major blow to Fairness West Virginia President Stephen Skinner, who has an online petition to push West Virginia lawmakers to protect the LGBT community. But it is a win for the West Virginia Family Foundation (WVFF), which publicly stated that the bills promote “deviant behavior.”

WVFF’s crusade against equality and civil rights isn’t new. In 2009, WVFF released a video in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages that depicted a heterosexual family with crosshairs over it, while saying that traditional marriage “is under an unrelenting attack“:

In response to the failure to protect against sexual discrimination, West Virginia Delegate Meshea Poore (D) sponsored a bill to toughen anti-bullying policies. The House Education Committee ultimately did not take up Poore’s bill, which would have outlined bullying as that grounded on race, religion, disability, and sexual orientation. Not surprisingly, WCFF opposed Poore’s bill also.

— Paul Breer

Yglesias

Whatever Happened To Tim Pawlenty, The Sam’s Club Republican Of Tomorrow?

By Matthew Yglesias on Mar 14, 2011 at 4:44 pm

While reading Jeff Zeleny’s account of Tim Pawlenty’s efforts to position himself as the generic orthodox Republican I couldn’t help but be reminded of the article that put Pawlenty on my radar screen. That, of course, was the 2005 joint from Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat that jumped off Pawlenty’s vacuous injunction that Republicans should be “the party of Sam’s Club, not just the country club” to argue for a conservatism focused on working class economic concerns:

The third possibility–and the best, both for the party and the country as a whole–would be to take the “big-government conservatism” vision that George W. Bush and Karl Rove have hinted at but failed to develop, and give it coherence and sustainability. This wouldn’t mean an abandonment of small-government objectives, but it would mean recognizing that these objectives–individual initiative, social mobility, economic freedom–seem to be slipping away from many less-well-off Americans, and that serving the interests of these voters means talking about economic insecurity as well as about self-reliance. It would mean recognizing that you can’t have an “ownership society” in a nation where too many Americans owe far more than they own. It would mean matching the culture war rhetoric of family values with an economic policy that places the two-parent family–the institution best capable of providing cultural stability and economic security–at the heart of the GOP agenda.

The piece even offers a shout out to Mitt Romney’s health care thinking as an important step in the right direction.

At any rate, I think it’s telling that not only has Pawlenty failed to live up to this aspiration of innovative thinking, but the general trend in conservative politics has been to simply ratchet up the Bush/Rove incoherence. Instead of cutting taxes without offsetting tax cuts, the new thing to do is to insist very loudly that spending must be cut immediately while simultaneously positioning yourself as the one true defender of Medicare. It’s a very different political style and mood from what prevailed five years ago, but it reflects the exact same tension Ross and Reihan were writing about then. There’s a disjuncture between the funding base of a movement focused on rich people’s tax rates and the voting base of a party relying on older working class white people for the bulk of the votes.

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