"Go Ahead and Say It"

It's been years since I posted this song. One of my very favorites.

Is This a Game of *Risk*?

So weird:

At sea, news reports said six NATO warships started patrolling off Libya’s coast Wednesday to enforce a United Nations arms embargo, but Germany, which has opposed military intervention in the Libya crisis, said it was withdrawing four of its ships in the Mediterranean from NATO command. To offset the impact of its action on other NATO allies, Germany said it would send 300 more troops to Afghanistan to help operate surveillance aircraft, German officials said.

Bigots Complain to UN About Bigot-bashing

What assholes.

The Naked Eye

At the other place.

Six Ways Fukushima is Not Chernobyl

One list here; my list here:

1. The Chernobyl disaster took place in the Ukraine, in what was then the USSR. The Fukushima disaster is taking place in Japan, a much more densely populated country than the Ukraine.

2. The Fukushima plant's reactors have containment units, Chernobyl's didn't. (If containment units at Fukushima fail, please see "Five Ways Fukushima is Not Chernobyl.")

3. There wasn't a major catastrophe already happening in the region around Chernobyl.

4. Fukushima is on an ocean. Chernobyl wasn't.

5. Everybody already knew long before the Chernobyl accident that the people running the plant there dangerously skirted safety rules.

6. Fukushima starts with "F." Chernobyl starts with "C." Other words that start with "F" include fucked, fuuu-huuuu-ck!, FAIL, and four-year-olds.

The Message From Fukushima

News agencies have been bantering about the real message that should be learned from Japan's ailing nuke plants. Here it is: Nuclear energy would be awesome…if there were no such thing as earthquakes. Or tsunamis. Or humans.

Air pressure inside the No.2 reactor at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, located 250 kilometres north of Tokyo, rose suddenly when the air flow gauge was accidentally turned off, its operator Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) said.

Japan's Nuclear Plant

I'm just going to say that calling this Japan's Chernobyl has to be overblown. The USSR's nuke plants were nowhere near as safe as plants in Japan (and in many other countries) today.

But, that said, this guy knows a bit more about it than I do:

“The electrical grid is down. The emergency diesel generators have been damaged. The multi-reactor Fukushima atomic power plant is now relying on battery power, which will only last around eight hours. The danger is, the very thermally hot reactor cores at the plant must be continuously cooled for 24 to 48 hours. Without any electricity, the pumps won’t be able to pump water through the hot reactor cores to cool them. Once electricity is lost, the irradiated nuclear fuel could begin to melt down. If the containment systems fail, a catastrophic radioactivity release to the environment could occur.”

Are we supposed to believe that they can't pretty easily get replacement generators in there? Why?

Maddow: Michigan GOP bill would allow takeover of local governments

The sick part about this: they'll still have people who believe them when they call themselves the party of "small government."

Governor Walker: "In my heart I know I am funny."

I finally found Walker's equal from the movies:



The moment beginning at 5:34 pretty much sums up where Scott Walker is going to be one day. Hopefully one day soon.

The Proper Way For Americans to Think

Professional political-religious-asshole Mike Huckabee was on a radio show yesterday talking about how African President Obama is, because it's what professional political-religious-assholes do. In the course of the conversation he said this:

.

..one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American ... his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours

"Ours." Our way of viewing the world, history, liberty, truth - all that jazz. Because, you see, there is only one proper way for YOU, American, to think. And Mike Huckabee knows it. Exceptional.