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Monday, April 4, 2011

Off the Cuff – 4/4/11

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Commentators have taken a narrow view of protecting the people of Libya under Security Council Res. 1973. Doesn’t protecting the people include precluding the reality of a blood bath if Khadafy remains in power? How couldn’t it? That means regime change in Libya no matter the terminology of the day. The United States remains unshaken from demanding that Khadafy must go, a position on which US NATO allies Great Britain and France wholeheartedly agree. I do not understand how John King and others can hold up a printout of Resolution 1973 and ask where it says regime change. By direct implication it says just that.

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Charlie Sheen had best learn how to say losing. Apparently Charlie can win with drugs, prostitutes, porn stars, and rehab but not so much with his one man and 2 porn stars self-aggrandizing, grandiose “Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour”. Opening in Detroit he was booed off stage. The porn stars kissing though, did get a rise out of the audience. Next stop Chicago and, if Charlie sticks with it, 2 sold out shows at Radio City Music Hall in NYC. While Sheen changed the show’s format in Chicago going to a Q&A format, ticket sales for future shows have fallen. Yes Charlie – learn how to say l-o-s-i-n-g!


4/10/11 Update:

Charlie Sheen has been booed off stage for a second time during his “My Violent Torpedo Of Truth/Defeat Is Not An Option” tour.

The former Two and a Half Men star was heckled by the crowd during his appearance at Radio City Music Hall in New York last night, and ended the show approximately 30 minutes earlier than scheduled.

TMZ reports that Sheen told "barely coherent" stories involving his drug use, including an anecdote about performing CPR on a model in a heroin coma, and was booed heavily when he claimed to have recently embraced a sober lifestyle.

Read the full article here:


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It couldn’t happen here. At least that’s what Japan’s nuclear power people assumed when designing the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. While a 9.0 earthquake and tsunami isn’t exactly commonplace in Japan, being in a highly earthquake prone location designers should have planned for the worst – not playing the percentages. The tragic consequences of that failure are all too obvious.

Consider then the Indian Point nuclear power plant in the bucolic village of Buchanan, NY. Indian Point’s design is identical to that of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Indian Point sits less than 25 miles from New York City. Yes, it sits – sits on two (2) seismic faults less than a mile from the Hudson River. How large an earthquake can Indian Point sustain? Executive and management of the plant have been distressingly coy in dodging that question. How well would an evacuation of New York City go?


4/8/11 Update from MSNBC’s investigative reporter Bill Dedman:

The reactor with the highest risk rating [in the United States] is 24 miles north of New York City, in the village of Buchanan, N.Y., at the Indian Point Energy Center. There, on the east bank of the Hudson, Indian Point nuclear reactor No. 3 has the highest risk of earthquake damage in the country, according to new NRC risk estimates provided to msnbc.com.


The chance of an earthquake causing core damage at Indian Point 3 is estimated at 1 in 10,000 each year. Under NRC guidelines, that's right on the verge of requiring "immediate concern regarding adequate protection" of the public. The two reactors at Indian Point generate up to one-third of the electricity for New York City. The second reactor, Indian Point 2, doesn't rate as risky, with 1 chance in 30,303 each year.

Read the full article here:


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