'The Con Artist'

We can't afford a sequel, via Nice Deb.

Japan Barely Avoided Nuclear Worst-Case Scenario During Fukushima Disaster

A fascinating report, at New York Times, "Japan Considered Tokyo Evacuation During the Nuclear Crisis":

TOKYO — In the darkest moments of last year’s nuclear accident, Japanese leaders did not know the actual extent of damage at the plant and secretly considered the possibility of evacuating Tokyo, even as they tried to play down the risks in public, an independent investigation into the accident disclosed on Monday.

The investigation by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, a new private policy organization, offers one of the most vivid accounts yet of how Japan teetered on the edge of an even larger nuclear crisis than the one that engulfed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. A team of 30 university professors, lawyers and journalists spent more than six months on the inquiry into Japan’s response to the triple meltdown at the plant, which followed a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that shut down the plant’s cooling systems.

The team interviewed more than 300 people, including top nuclear regulators and government officials, as well as the prime minister during the crisis, Naoto Kan. They were granted extraordinary access, in part because of a strong public demand for greater accountability and because the organization’s founder, Yoichi Funabashi, a former editor in chief of the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun, is one of Japan’s most respected public intellectuals.

An advance copy of the report describes how Japan’s response was hindered at times by a debilitating breakdown in trust between the major actors: Mr. Kan; the Tokyo headquarters of the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco; and the manager at the stricken plant. The conflicts produced confused flows of sometimes contradictory information in the early days of the crisis, the report said.

It describes frantic phone calls by the manager, Masao Yoshida, to top officials in the Kan government arguing that he could get the plant under control if he could keep his staff in place, while at the same time ignoring orders from Tepco’s headquarters not to use sea water to cool the overheating reactors. By contrast, Mr. Funabashi said in an interview, Tepco’s president, Masataka Shimizu, was making competing calls to the prime minister’s office saying that the company should evacuate all of its staff, a step that could have been catastrophic.

The 400-page report, due to be released later this week, also describes a darkening mood at the prime minister’s residence as a series of hydrogen explosions rocked the plant on March 14 and 15. It says Mr. Kan and other officials began discussing a worst-case outcome if workers at the Fukushima Daiichi plant were evacuated. This would have allowed the plant to spiral out of control, releasing even larger amounts of radioactive material into the atmosphere that would in turn force the evacuation of other nearby nuclear plants, causing further meltdowns.

More at that top link.

Smokin' Angelina Jolie on the Red Carpet at Oscars

Well, when Angelina was announcing the awards for best screenplay and so forth I told my wife she looked fabulous. Man, that's some style.

And Telegraph UK has some video from the red carpet:

And check the slideshow, "Oscars 2012: Red carpet fashion best dressed."

BONUS: At London's Daily Mail, "And the award for best breakout star goes to... Angie's right leg: Miss Jolie's lithe limb attracts attention, mocking and 15,000 Twitter followers."


EXTRA: At WaPo, "Oscars red carpet Polyvore remix: Dressing down the best-dressed."

One Dead in Shooting at Chardon High School in Ohio

The New York Times is updating at The Lede blog, "Ohio High School Shooting Leaves 1 Student Dead and 4 Wounded."

And at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Chardon High School shooting: A guide to what happened and how word spread."

CHARDON, Ohio - The chilling actions of a teenager as he systematically shot Chardon High School students sitting at a cafeteria table were captured by surveillance video at Chardon High School, which also showed the chaos afterward.

According to a source who viewed the video, the student - identified by fellow students as T.J. Lane -- sat down by himself at a table in the cafeteria around 7:30 a.m. Within moments he reached into a pack or a bag. He pulled out a .22-caliber handgun.

Lane walked around his table and stood behind students identified by classmates as Russell King, Demetrius Hewlin and Nick Walczak, all juniors and friends. Russell and Nick were waiting there before catching a bus to Auburn Career Center.

Also, "1 student killed, several hurt in shooting at Chardon High School; suspect in custody."

UPDATE: At New York Daily News, the death toll is now at two, "Ohio high school shooting kills two students, suspect in custody."

And at Fox 8 Cleveland, "Teachers’ Heroic Actions During Chardon High Shooting," and "Community Deals with Chardon High School Shooting at Vigil."

GOP Class War Hits First Industrial-State Primary of 2012

At Los Angeles Times, "Santorum and Romney fight their own class war in Michigan":

Rick Santorum, flaunting the fieriest populism in years by a GOP presidential contender, is waging a determined challenge against Mitt Romney, heir to a storied Michigan political dynasty. Romney had once been expected to cruise to victory in the state his father governed and that he won four years ago.

But Santorum was aiming for an upset that, as he says, would shock the Republican world. In the first industrial-state primary of 2012, he has cast himself as a fighter for working men and women against the "elites in society who think that they can manage your life better than you can."

The biggest threat facing the country, the former senator from Pennsylvania says, is a big government in Washington that is bent on expanding its reach ever more deeply into the lives of ordinary Americans. And he links Romney to those forces and to the plutocrats of Wall Street, while drawing implicit contrasts between himself and one of the richest men ever to seek the presidency.

Romney defended his wealth — and by implication the wealthy — during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."

"If people think that there is something wrong with being successful in America, then they better vote for the other guy," he said. "Because I've been extraordinarily successful and I want to use that success and that know-how to help the American people."

More at that top link.

And also at LAT, "Romney, Santorum locked in dead heat."

Santorum's up 37 to 35 in that poll cited at the article above.

We'll see how it goes. I'll be checking around for more news. But see CNN, "Santorum adviser on Michigan: 'We have already won'." (At Memeorandum.)

Denver Anarchists Throw Urine Bombs at Police

At FOX31 Denver, "Protestors throw urine bombs at Denver police" (via Memeorandum), and KMGH-TV Denver, "5 Arrested In Anti-Police Protest: Activists Accused Of Spray Painting Graffiti On Cars."

There's video at that first link. The report indicates that this wasn't an Occupy protest. The anarchists were protesting police brutality, and it's an annual event apparently.

Still, those urine bombs have Occupy written all over them.

Obamacare Hurts Obama in Battleground States

At USA Today, "Swing states poll: Health care law hurts Obama in 2012" (via Memeorandum):

WASHINGTON – The health care overhaul that President Obama intended to be the signature achievement of his first term instead has become a significant problem in his bid for a second one, uniting Republicans in opposition and eroding his standing among independents.

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of the nation's dozen top battleground states, a clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage "a bad thing" and support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November. Two years after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act— and as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about its constitutionality next month — the president has failed to convince most Americans that it was the right thing to do.

"Mandating that you have to buy the insurance rubs me the wrong way altogether," says Fred Harrison, 62, a horse trainer from York County, Pa., who was among those surveyed and supports repeal even though he likes some provisions of the law. "It should be my own choice."

"It seems like it forces you to take health care (coverage), and you don't really have a say in the matter," says Beth Leffew, 26, a college student from Cincinnati. She says the president "didn't really listen to people" when they objected to the proposed bill. "It seems like he just shoved it right through Congress."

Also at Lonely Con, "Obamacare Still Unpopular in Swing States," Doug Powers at Michelle's, "Health Care Law Hurting Obama in Swing States," and Pirate's Cove, "Obama’s Signature Legislation, Which He Won’t Talk About, Hurts Obama In Swing States."

More On the Academy Awards

At the New York Times, "Loud Oscar Roar for ‘The Artist’: 5 Wins," and the Washington Post, "Oscars 2012: The comprehensive Academy Awards recap."

Plus, at the Los Angeles Times, "'The Artist' wins three top Oscars, including best picture."

Meryl Streep Wins Best Actress Oscar for 'Iron Lady'

I suppose this is a good time to post Reason.tv's video on "Iron Lady." Meryl Streep took home the Oscar for best actress for her portrayal of Margaret Thatcher.

And see Los Angeles Times, "Oscars 2012: Meryl Streep wins for lead actress."

Meryl Streep won the Oscar for lead actress Sunday at the 84th Academy Awards, for her role playing former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady."

Though the film itself was greeted with mixed reviews, Streep's performance received universal acclaim. In the film, Streep portrays Thatcher throughout her life and career, beginning in her later years and looking back.

This was Streep's third Oscar for lead actress, but her first since "Sophie's Choice" in 1982. Additionally, it was her 17th overall nomination.

And lots more at Los Angeles Times.

George Friedman Resigns as CEO of Stratfor

This would normally be an inspirational level of personal responsibility, although in this case I think Friedman has a point. Stratfor got pwned.

At Instapundit, "AN EMAIL JUST RECEIVED..."

And check CNBC, "Wikileaks Stratfor Memo Reminiscent of a Spy Novel," and Daily Beast, "WikiLeaks to Publish Stratfor Emails."

Added: At Sacramento Bee, "Stratfor Statement on Wikileaks," and Wired, "Wikileaks Pairs with Anonymous to Publish Intelligence Firm’s Dirty Laundry."

'Saving Face' Wins Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject

Well, I hadn't heard of this one (and I'm moved by this), so I checked online for some information. There's a page at Wikipedia, and the Los Angeles Times reports, "Oscars 2012: 'Saving Face' wins for documentary short."

'Act of Valor' Dominates Box Office Weekend

Well, it's movie night, with the Academy Awards and all.

So, here's a movie-related post, via Los Angeles Times, "Box Office: Navy SEALs take out Perry, Aniston, Seyfried."

And from Ed Morrissey, "Film Review: Act of Valor."

Full Interview: Rick Santorum on 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos'

Well, here's your afternoon non-controversy. The progs are up in arms over Rick Santorum's comments on the separation of church and state. And you have to understand this: Progressive really are working for a complete separation of religion and public life. It's not just that folks of non-belief should be protected by constitutional doctrines against religious establishment, the left has gone on the warpath against people of faith, demonizing religion and hammering to destroy traditional values. That's what this is about.

At ABC News, "Rick Santorum: JFK’s 1960 Speech Made Me Want to Throw Up" (via Memeorandum):

There's lots of commentary at Memeorandum.

Israel Apartheid Week

William Jacobson reports, "'Israel Apartheid Week' Sickness Returns."

I visited UCLA last year on February 23. See: "Israeli Apartheid Week, Students for Justice in Palestine, UCLA, February 23, 2011." These people are basically terrorists. And Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA has an event planned for next week, a "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Panel." Check that link. The panel,, alternatively titled "Confronting Apartheid," features members of the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, including Professor Robin D. G. Kelley, who was recently interviewed at Mondoweiss: "‘A level of racist violence I have never seen’: UCLA professor Robin D. G. Kelley on Palestine and the BDS movement." Last week the university hosted a talk by anti-Israel propagandist Ilan Pappé, "The False Paradigm of Parity and Partition: Revisiting 1967." Professor Steven Plaut had this the other day on Pappé at FrontPage Magazine:

Pappe is a notorious fabricator, someone who claims proudly that facts and truth are of no importance. “Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts. Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers,” the French newspaper Le Soir, has cited Pappe as saying.

Pappe is an expatriate Israeli who devoted one of his “books” to his sons with the wish that they may grow up in a world without Israel. His own University of Exeter recently chastised him for his infamous habit of playing fast and loose with facts. Pappe is best known as a fulltime anti-Israel propagandist who has done more than any other anti-Israel Israeli to promote the moral equivalence of “Nakba denial” with Holocaust denial. (For those who are unaware, “Nakba,” meaning “catastrophe,” is the term Arabs use to refer to Israel’s birth.) He is a “new historian” in the sense of pseudo-historian. His mission in life is to invent an imaginary Palestinian historic “narrative.” Nearly all those beating the “Nakba” drum today cite Pappe and his books about the supposed “ethnic cleansing” of Arabs by Israel in its war of independence.

Pappe was a lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa, but moved to resume a pseudo-academic propagandist position at the University of Exeter in the UK. Even other anti-Zionists have repudiated Pappe as a liar and fabricator. He openly calls for Israel to be exterminated and endorses Hamas terrorism. He considers Noam Chomsky insufficiently anti-Israel.

Pappe, who ran for the parliament in Israel on the slate of the Stalinist communist party and played a central role in fomenting boycotts of Israel in the UK and elsewhere, was also the central figure in the now infamous “Tantura Affair.” In this incident, Pappe coached a graduate student of his into inventing a non-existent “massacre” of Arabs by the Hagana Jewish militia (Alexandroni Brigade) in Tantura, south of Haifa, a “massacre” that Pappe claims took place in 1948. Not a shred of any evidence for any such “massacre” exists. Arab and other journalists who were present at the time of the battle that took place in Tantura reported no massacre. Arabs living in the town at the time confirmed that a battle did occur, but that after the battle the Jewish militiamen aided and assisted the townspeople, not massacring anyone. The graduate student in question was sued for libel by the veterans of the Hagana militia. He later admitted in court with his lawyer present that the entire massacre was an invention.

No matter – Pappe roams the world and continues to spread the lie about the imaginary Tantura “massacre,” a lie that has found its way into nearly every anti-Semitic web site and Neo-Nazi magazine on Earth, and even a handful of otherwise respectable mainstream journalists foolishly rely upon him. Pappe has lied about practically everything else, including about being “persecuted” by his own university in Israel. In fact, Pappe was never fired for his fraud and fabrication by the University of Haifa, although he should have been. (Some wags even suggested the university should be boycotted for not firing Pappe.) That did not stop Pappe from waving his stigmata as a “victim of Zionism” before the European anti-Semites promoting “divestment” from Israel. His recruitment by the University of Exeter proves how indifferent that school is to scholarly standards. His coming appearance as the star of the Harvard academic pogrom shows that things are not much better there.

Well, that's a pretty good flavor of what all this "Palestine Awareness" is about.

PREVIOUSLY: "Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government to Host Conference On the Extermination of Israel."

How Moderate Republicans Became Extinct

It's really amazing listening to this interview with Reihan Salam at the clip below. Salam is the co-author of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream. Written with Ross Douthat, the book came out around the time of the 2008 campaign. The first half of the book is a tour de force on the changes in the Republican Party and general party realignment since the 1960s. The thesis is that the GOP can't hold onto the "Sam's Club" constituency --- which is basically the old working class Reagan Democrat types who have frequently shifted over to the GOP column since the cultural tumult of the 1960s. It's a fickle demographic, and the problem diagnosed in Grand New Party returns in Salam's new piece at Foreign Affairs, "The Missing Middle in American Politics." It's all fascinating from an academic perspective, and realistic in terms of our two-party system, but the notion of the "moderate Republican" is quaint. In seven minutes Salam mentions the tea party not once. So while all the talk of the old-style GOP moderates makes for some good establishment-style nostalgia, I think in the age of Obama it's not too risky to widen the perspective a bit. The economy will continue to be a huge issue through November, so those "swing voters" allegedly repulsed by the "fanatical" GOP candidates are hardly cemented into the Democrat column as if it were October 2008. More on that later. Meanwhile, here's this from Salam's essay:

The dominant ideology and style of today’s Republican Party would have been utterly alien to [Mitt] Romney’s father. In Rule and Ruin, the historian Geoffrey Kabaservice’s vivid account of the pitched ideological battles that shaped the postwar Republican Party, George Romney is cast as the last hope of a moderate Republicanism that has all but vanished. Born into poverty in a Mormon colony in northern Mexico, Romney rose to become the chief executive of the American Motors Corporation. There, he succeeded in taking on the Big Three car companies, scoffing at their “gas-guzzling dinosaurs” and offering sleek, fuel-efficient compacts that anticipated the later triumphs of the Japanese automobile industry. Like many self-made business executives of the time, Romney felt a deep sense of moral obligation, which flowed in part from his devout religious faith. As poor African Americans from the Deep South settled in and around Detroit, Romney made it his mission to better their condition. Shortly after his election as governor in 1962, Romney pressed for a massive increase in spending on public education and on generous social welfare benefits for the poor and unemployed. During Romney’s first term alone, Michigan’s state government nearly doubled its spending, from $684 million in 1964 to $1.3 billion in 1968. To finance the increase, Romney fought for and won a new state income tax, which would become a thorn in the side of future Michigan Republicans.

What separated Romney from liberal Democrats who were similarly eager to expand government was his conviction that he was doing God’s work on earth. Today, it is entirely common for Republican presidential candidates to describe the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as divinely inspired documents, as Romney did. But in the mid-1960s, as Kabaservice observes, such religiosity was unusual, at least for a moderate Republican. Kabaservice briefly speculates that Romney’s brand of moralistic progressivism might have resonated with many Christian voters who instead embraced a harder-edged form of conservatism infused with evangelical fervor. But Romney’s political program was badly undermined by the 1967 Detroit riots, which discredited the notion, fairly or not, that large-scale social spending was the most effective route to social uplift, at least among conservatives.

Disagreements on race and the Vietnam War fueled the split in the late 1960s between the radical New Left and the liberal Democratic establishment. But the upheaval of the late 1960s also divided the Republicans. Conservatives of that era saw themselves as defending the United States’ founding ideals against communism abroad and radicalism at home. Moderates, in contrast, sought to modernize the GOP: to keep up with the baby boomers’ shifting sensibilities on social issues and to share in their embrace of a more diverse and dynamic society. Some even praised what they saw, perhaps naively, as the freedom-loving spirit of the antiwar movement.

Yet as Kabaservice relates, the moderates never coalesced into a movement with a coherent program and ideology, despite Dwight Eisenhower’s earlier attempts to build a modern party that embraced the New Deal and a vision of responsible American global leadership. This failure left moderate Republicans in an awkward position. Those who shared the Democratic faith in activist government, tempered by a desire for decentralization and fiscal rigor, found themselves gravitating to the left. Those who shared conservative skepticism of big government, tempered by a recognition that Social Security and Medicare were here to stay, found themselves gravitating to the right. There was no glue to hold the two sides together.

Ultimately, Kabaservice argues, it was this lack of coherence that doomed the centrists within the Republican Party. The absence of a rigid ideology freed them to embrace creative solutions to emerging social problems, which proved useful when they were in power. But precisely because they were so allergic to ideology, the moderates were disinclined to rally the troops or to wage scorched-earth campaigns against their political enemies. Even when they had the advantage of numbers, as they did after Goldwater’s 1964 defeat, they routinely failed to coordinate their efforts, never managing to build the kind of grass-roots fundraising network that fueled the rise of the political right.

Continue reading.

What Has America Become?

I've read this letter before, but it hit home more closely this time.

Via Theo Spark, "A Letter to the Editor of a Small Northern Michigan Newspaper."

And the text is published in full at Questioning With Boldness…

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison Delivers GOP Weekly Address

Sen. Hutchinson will retire at the end of this Congress.

A genteel Southern lady:

Hollywood's Golden Age in Pictures

A compelling photo-slideshow at Telegraph UK, "Oscars glamour in Hollywood's golden age."

Review: 2012 BMW 328i

What's really interesting is that BMW downsized the engine to four cylinders.

But see LAT, "BMW 328i raises the bar as it takes a new path."

Imagine if Orson Wells [sic] was expected to improve on "Citizen Kane" every six years, or if Kobe Bryant's contract demanded that every time he put Nike to hardwood, he needed to score 60 points.

Such is the sphere of influence where BMW's 3 Series operates.

The company says one out of every three BMWs sold since 1975 is one of these compact sport sedans — that's 12.5 million in all.

Not only has the car been the automaker's most recognizable ambassador to the car-buying masses for the last 30 years, but with such volume comes corresponding profit.

If brand identity and corporate affluence weren't big enough burdens to bear for the 3 Series, consider that more than one rival automaker has lost plenty of sleep trying to capture the gestalt-in-a-bottle the car has long represented.

So, you know, no pressure on BMW in bringing this 2012 328i to life.

The biggest change for this new model, other than some interesting design choices, is the 328i's engine. Reflecting the trend toward smaller and more efficient, this model, starting at $35,795, is now moved by a 2.0-liter, turbocharged four cylinder.

Although size drops by two cylinders from the previous in-line six cylinder, this direct-injected turbo unit is up on power. Its rating of 240 horsepower and 260 pound-feet of torque is a gain of 10 horsepower and 60 pound-feet of torque over the old engine. BMW says the 328i I tested with an automatic transmission will go from zero to 60 mph in 5.9 seconds.

Impressive.

More at the link.

Shepard Fairey Pleads Guilty Over Obama ‘Hope’ Image

A report at the New York Times.

Image via Jim Treacher (c/o Instapundit).