The American-Philippines War

I’m amazed that Filipinos generally march hand-in-hand with America on most diplomatic and military issues. The American-Philippines War of 1899-1902 should haunt them and us through history. It was not America’s finest hour.

Around 1890, we good Americans who had demanded freedom from England suddenly decided we needed colonies. So we took Hawaii, Cuba, Guam and the Philippines. We told the Filipinos we’d give them independence if they fought on our side against Spain. When we won, we told them they were too “uncivilized” to run themselves. We’d run them.

That started a new war: Us versus the Filipino insurrectos. First an ordinary war, then a guerrilla war we were losing. So we started indiscriminately killing Filipinos, burning villages and destroying food supplies on Samar and Leyte. To say there was a racial reason for that policy is an understatement.

Roosevelt wrote: “In a fight with savages, where the savages themselves perform deeds of hideous cruelty, a certain proportion of whites are sure to do the same thing.”

Gen. Jacob Smith’s orders to his officers on Samar were: “I wish you to kill and burn. The more you kill and burn the better you will please me.” He said every male over the age of 10 should be killed and the island turned into “a howling wilderness.”

Some Americans were appalled at the atrocities that came out in hearings, but most thought it wrong to impugn our fighting men – 2,446 died there. Filipino deaths have been estimated at anywhere from 34,000 to 1 million.

It’s where the “water cure” was invented, the antecedent to today’s waterboarding.

The Stars and Stripes would fly over the Philippines for 46 years.

-- Bob Jones, Midwee, April 18, 2012

12 killed in Colorado movie theater

AURORA, Colo. >> A gunman wearing a gas mask and black SWAT gear hurled a gas canister inside a crowded movie theater during a midnight showing of the new Batman movie and then opened fire, killing 12 people and wounding nearly 60 others in an attack so bizarre that some moviegoers at first thought they were watching Hollywood special effects.

As smoke from the canister spread, audience members watching "The Dark Knight Rises" at the suburban Denver theater saw the silhouette of a person materialize near the screen, point a gun at the crowd and begin shooting, apparently without a word.

It was one of the deadliest mass shootings in recent U.S. history.

The suspected gunman, identified as James Holmes, a 24-year-old doctoral student in neuroscience who was about to drop out of the University of Colorado-Denver, was arrested near a car behind the theater.

America's broken health care system

Regardless of how you feel about last week's Supreme Court ruling upholding most of Obamacare, one thing is clear: America's health care system is broken, unsustainably expensive, and often embarrassing compared with the systems of other developed nations.

Here are 17 charts showing why.

***

Why does health care in the United States cost so much?

Obamacare upheld

WASHINGTON >> The Supreme Court upheld the vast majority of President Barack Obama's historic health care overhaul, including the hotly debated core requirement that virtually all Americans have health insurance.

Today's 5-4 decision means the huge overhaul, still taking effect, will proceed and pick up momentum over the next several years, affecting the way that countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care.

The ruling hands Obama a campaign-season victory in rejecting arguments that Congress went too far in approving the plan. However, Republicans quickly indicated they will try to use the decision to rally their supporters against what they call "Obamacare."

Stocks of hospital companies rose sharply, and insurance companies fell immediately after the decision was announced that Americans must carry health insurance or pay a penalty.

Breaking with the court's other conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts announced the judgment that allows the law to go forward with its aim of covering more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

***

“We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders,” Roberts wrote. “We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions.”

Although he answered that question in the affirmative, Roberts agreed with the law's conservative critics -- and the court’s four other conservatives -- who said Congress does not have the power to require people to buy a product such as health insurance.

But, he said, the law does not truly impose such a mandate on Americans. It simply requires those who do not have health insurance to pay a tax penalty. That tax requirement, he said, passes constitutional muster.

"The federal government does not have the power to order people to buy health insurance," he wrote. "The federal government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance."

The justices also upheld a major expansion of the Medicaid program, which is one of the chief ways the law sought to expand coverage of the uninsured. But, they said, the federal government cannot force states to participate. Those states that do not want to expand Medicaid, even if the federal government pays for most of the expansion, will have to be given the right to opt out.

That part of the ruling could open the way for significant differences in healthcare coverage between liberal states, which already have said they welcome the additional federal money for expanded coverage, and conservative ones. Some Republican governors have indicated they want to reject the expanded coverage.

***


Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the health insurance mandate, most Americans must be insured starting in 2014 or pay a penalty.

The penalty will be assessed on your tax return and administered by the IRS. But exactly how is a big question.


The IRS has not issued its guidance yet. But IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman addressed the issue shortly after the law was enacted in 2010.

Based on his comments, a reading of the Affordable Care Act and information from the Kaiser Family Foundation, here's a look at just how the mandate will work and how it will be enforced.

budget surplus?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- For the first time in more than three years, Washington took in more money than it paid out last month.

The Treasury Department on Thursday recorded a $59 billion surplus. Tax receipts were higher and spending lower than they were last April.

The government has been bedeviled by budget deficits. The last time federal coffers were in the black for a month was September 2008, when Treasury reported a $46 billion surplus.

Of course, a lot has happened since then: a historic financial crisis, a deep recession and a slow recovery.

To counteract the negative effects on the economy, lawmakers have passed at least $2 trillion in tax cuts and spending increases since 2008.

Even though a surplus after so much time is welcome news, it's not likely to be the start of a trend. Including the April surplus, Treasury forecasts a $1.33 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2012, which ends Sept. 30.

Obama declares support for gay marriage

WASHINGTON >> Equivocal no longer, President Barack Obama declared his support for gay marriage on Wednesday in a historic announcement that instantly elevated a polarizing social issue to a more prominent role in the 2012 race for the White House.

The announcement was the first by a sitting president, and Obama's Republican rival, Mitt Romney, swiftly disagreed with it. "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman," Romney said from Oklahoma.

Gay rights advocates cheered Obama's declaration, which they had long urged him to make. Joe Solomonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said it "extends that message of hope" to gays and lesbians.

Obama announced his shift — he had said for years that his views on gay marriage were "evolving" — in an interview with ABC in which he cited a blend of the personal and the presidential.

He said "it wouldn't dawn" on his daughters, Sasha and Malia, that some of their friends' parents would be treated differently than others, and added that he had thought of aides "who are in incredibly committed monogamous same-sex relationships who are raising kids together."

He added he had also thought about "those soldiers or airmen or Marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf, and yet feel constrained even though now that 'don't ask, don't tell' is gone because they're not able to commit themselves in a marriage."

The president's decision to address the issue came on the heels of a pair of events that underscored the sensitivity of the issue.

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview on Sunday that he is completely comfortable with gays marrying, a pronouncement that instantly raised the profile of the issue. White House aides insisted the vice president hadn't said anything particularly newsworthy, but gay rights groups cited Biden's comments in urging the president to announce his support.

On Tuesday, voters in North Carolina — a potential battleground in the fall election — approved an amendment to the state constitution affirming that marriage may only be a union of a man and a woman.

While the nation appears roughly divided on the issue, the political cross-currents are tricky.

Some top aides argued that gay marriage is toxic at the ballot box in competitive states like North Carolina and Virginia because, as Tuesday's vote demonstrated, the issue remains a reliable way to fire up rank-and-file Republicans. It also could open Obama up to Republican criticism that he is taking his eye off the economy, voters' No. 1 issue.

Other Democratic supporters claim Obama's decision could energize huge swaths of the party, including young people. He also could appeal to independent voters, many of whom back gay marriage, and he could create an area of clear contrast between himself and his Republican rival as he argues that he's delivered on the change he promised four years ago.

plastic bag ban

Oahu consumers will have until summer 2015 to get used to the idea of not getting a plastic bag when they shop at a grocery store or other retailer.

The City Council on Wednesday voted 7-1 to approve a bill that bans distribution of nonbiodegradable plastic bags at checkout counters, what's known in the retail industry as the "point of sale," effective July 1, 2015. Nonrecyclable paper bags will also be banned.

Council Chairman Ernie Martin, who co-authored the original bill, said the latest draft ensures retailers have ample time to use their existing inventories of bags.

Honolulu would be the last of Hawaii's counties to establish an islandwide ban on plastic bags. Maui and Kauai counties already have bans in place while Hawaii County passed a measure that will take effect next year.

North Korea agrees to stop nuclear tests

WASHINGTON, Feb 29 (Reuters) - North Korea agreed on Wednesday to stop nuclear tests, uranium enrichment and long-range missile launches, and to allow checks by nuclear inspectors, in an apparent policy shift that paves the way for resuming long-stalled disarmament talks.

The surprise breakthrough, announced simultaneously by the U.S. State Department and North Korea, also includes U.S. food aid for the impoverished state and makes possible the resumption of six-nation nuclear negotiations with Pyongyang. The news followed bilateral diplomatic talks in Beijing last week.

"These are concrete measures that we consider a positive first step toward complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.

Analysts cautioned that Pyongyang had backtracked repeatedly on past deals, but the moves by North Korea mark a sharp change in course, at least outwardly, by North Korea's reclusive leadership after the death in December of veteran leader Kim Jong-il.

Sears at Ala Moana to close

Sears said today it will sell its Ala Moana Center store to the mall’s owner and close the venerable retail establishment sometime next year.

The sale is part of a move by Sears to sell 11 stores in nine states to General Growth Properties for $270 million, the retailer said. The transactions are expected to close in 45 to 60 days, the company said.

Sears will continue to operate the stores into 2013. Final closing dates will be announced later this year.

The Sears store was one of the original tenants when Ala Moana opened in 1959.

The chain, led by billionaire Eddie Lampert, has faced slumping sales as consumers turn elsewhere for goods such as clothes and appliances. Investors have long speculated that Lampert’s long-range plan could be to unlock the value of the company’s massive real estate holdings. The company reported a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.4 billion.

Health care reforms kicking in

It will be a busy year for health care reform, as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as the Affordable Care Act, continues to reshape America's health care system. It became law in 2010.

"The broad consensus is that we need to move away from an outdated fee-for-service system that rewards volume and toward a system where doctors and hospitals are rewarded for improving quality, value and health outcomes," says Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, an industry trade group.

speech

President Obama gave a speech at the U.N. urging peace between Israelis and Palestinians...

Israelis and Palestinians then gave a speech urging...

Hawaii Medical Center Hospitals to close

Community leaders were working Friday on plans to revive the Hawaii Medical Center hospitals in Liliha and Ewa after the owners said they will shutter the bankrupt facilities within three weeks.

Closing the former St. Francis medical centers, which date back to the 1920s, will leave 990 workers unemployed and eliminate more than 340 hospital beds.

The loss will be felt throughout the health community. HMC provides critical dialysis services to a significant portion of Oahu's renal patients and operates the only organ transplant center in the Pacific. The Ewa facility is the only full-service emergency hospital in West Oahu. The 150 patients in the two hospitals will have to be moved or discharged.

To prevent a public health emergency, the state administration is hopeful that buyers can be found to operate one or both of the facilities.

The situation appears dire for HMC's employees since many Oahu health care facilities won't likely be able to absorb the significant number of workers who will be left without jobs.

"I don't think there's any one health system here that could absorb all those workers," said HPH spokeswoman Shawn Nakamoto.

HMC had a brief glimmer of hope in recent weeks that it could stave off a shutdown when an affiliate of California-based Prime Healthcare Services offered to pay a minimum of $25 million for the facilities. However, the deal fell apart this week because St. Francis, the former owner of the hospitals which is owed $39 million by the current owner, objected to the offer, according to Prime. Prime's offer would have paid the Catholic religious order $11.3 million.

"The problem here was that St. Francis basically conveyed that they wouldn't support a sale unless we paid (them) off," said Prime's attorney Mark Bradshaw. "It's clearly about money for St. Francis. Given that the hospitals are not worth $40 million, it didn't make sense for anybody. We were basically discouraged from bidding."

***

[1/5/12] Hawaii Medical Center said today it has closed its Liliha campus, after transferring the last few patients to area hospitals and long-term care facilities late Wednesday.

"With the cessation of patient care, HMC will lay off a significant majority of its nearly 1,000 employees by this weekend," said Maria Kostylo, HMC's CEO. "Today is a sad day for all of us at Hawaii Medical Center. We've been a part of the community for 85 years, first as St. Francis Medical Center and then as Hawaii Medical Center. Despite our many challenges in recent years, the employees of HMC never wavered in their commitment to provide quality care for patients."

Hawaii Medical Center's Ewa hospital shut down last week after transferring the last of its patients to the Liliha campus. The hospital said it had a difficult time placing its last remaining patients with complex, chronic medical conditions that require long-term care, which is scarce in the community.

HMC's administration and billing departments will remain open as the hospitals wind down business operations.

*** [2/10/12]

House Health Committee lawmakers advanced today two measures intended to help St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii reopen the now defunct Hawaii Medical Centers.

The first, House Bill 2345, would provide St. Francis up to $80 million in special-purpose revenue bonds to renovate the HMC-West and HMC-East campuses and "reopen the now-closed hospital in Ewa Beach," said state Rep. Rida Cabanilla (D, Waipahu-Honouliuli-West Loch-Ewa), who introduced the measure.

Meanwhile, the committee passed another measure, House Bill 609, which would allow the public hospital system known as Hawaii Health Systems Corp. to negotiate with St. Francis to operate Liliha's HMC-East facility.

Both bills now head to the House Finance Committee.

The Franciscan sisters sold the hospitals in January 2007 for $68 million to HMC LLC, then a for-profit joint venture between Hawaii Physician Group LLC, composed of 130 local doctors, and Kansas-based Cardiovascular Hospitals of America. St. Francis provided the bulk of the financing for the sale, $40.2 million.

HMC first filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in August 2008. It emerged in August 2010 and became a nonprofit organization before filing its second bankruptcy in June. HMC began closing the hospitals in December.

*** [5/17/12]

The effort by St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii to sell two shuttered medical facilities on Oahu that it recently took back in bankruptcy has attracted an offer from a partnership led by someone very familiar with the properties in Liliha and Ewa.

Eugene Tiwanak, a former St. Francis official, is leading a bid to buy the two former Hawaii Medical Center hospitals in partnership with a San Francisco-based physicians group, Hampton Health Ltd.

Tiwanak’s group hand-delivered a letter of intent Tuesday to St. Francis, offering to buy and reopen both facilities. A proposed purchase price was included but isn’t being made public. The partnership said it has necessary financing from investors to complete the acquisition.

The offer follows an expression of intent announced last week by the parent company of The Queen’s Medical Center to explore the feasibility of reopening the Ewa hospital.

Separately, the state’s Hawaii Health Systems Corp. won legislative approval earlier this month to buy the Liliha facility, though there haven’t been discussions with St. Francis and no funds were appropriated for such an acquisition.

Kim Jong-il

North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has died of a heart attack at the age of 69, state media have announced.

Millions of North Koreans were "engulfed in indescribable sadness", the KCNA state news agency said, as people wept openly in Pyongyang.

KNCA described one of his sons, Kim Jong-un, as the "great successor" whom North Koreans should unite behind.

Pyongyang's neighbours are on alert amid fears of instability in the poor and isolated nuclear-armed nation.

Fears were compounded by unconfirmed reports from South Korean news agency Yonhap that the North had test-fired a missile off its eastern coast before the announcement of Kim Jong-il's death was made.

Unnamed government officials in Seoul were quoted as saying they did not believe the launch was linked to the announcement. The South Korean defence ministry has declined to comment.

Following news of Mr Kim's death, South Korea put its armed forces on high alert and said the country was on a crisis footing. Japan's government convened a special security meeting.

China - North Korea's closest ally and biggest trading partner - expressed shock at the news of his death and pledged to continue making "active contributions to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula and in this region".

taxing the rich

Despite the flaws in the parties' strategies -- Democrats always reach first to tax the rich and Republicans always rush to protect them even at the expense of everyone else -- each contains a bit of truth the other side will have to accept sooner or later.

Both the rich and the middle class eventually will have to contribute to efforts to spur the economy and stabilize the federal budget.

"Democrats today can't solve our nation's many budgetary woes primarily by taxing the rich, and Republicans risk alienating the middle class when they try to spare the rich from sharing the additional burdens most Americans soon must bear," former Treasury official Eugene Steuerle wrote in his public policy column "The Government We Deserve."

The rich will have to pay more in taxes, he notes, because even if spending is cut across the board, they won't feel the pinch since they don't rely on government spending to get by.

And the middle class will eventually need to accept some spending cuts and tax increases, Steuerle said, "not because the rich can't pay more, but because most income in the economy resides with that 80 percent of the population that is neither poor nor rich."

War in Iraq declared over

AGHDAD >> There was no "Mission Accomplished" banner. No victory parade down the center of this capital scarred and rearranged by nearly nine years of war. No crowds of cheering Iraqis grateful for liberation from Saddam Hussein.

Instead, the U.S. military officially declared an end to its mission in Iraq on Thursday with a businesslike closing ceremony behind blast walls in a fortified compound at Baghdad airport. The flag used by U.S. forces in Iraq was lowered and boxed up in a 45-minute ceremony. No senior Iraqi political figures attended.

With that, and brief words from top American officials who flew in under tight security still necessary because of the ongoing violence in Iraq, the U.S. drew the curtain on a war that left 4,500 Americans and more than 100,000 Iraqis dead.

The conflict also left another 32,000 Americans and far more Iraqis wounded, drained more than $800 billion from America's treasury and soured a majority of Americans on a war many initially supported as a just extension of the fight against terrorism after the 9/11 attacks.

As the last troops withdraw from Iraq, they leave behind a nation free of Saddam's tyranny but fractured by violence and fearful of the future. Bombings and gun battles are still common. And experts are concerned about the Iraqi security forces' ability to defend the nation against foreign threats.

"You will leave with great pride — lasting pride," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told the troops seated in front of a small domed building in the airport complex. "Secure in knowing that your sacrifice has helped the Iraqi people to begin a new chapter in history."

Many Iraqis, however, are uncertain of how that chapter will unfold. Their relief at the end of Saddam, who was hanged on the last day of 2006, was tempered by a long and vicious war that was launched to find non-existent weapons of mass destruction and nearly plunged the nation into full-scale sectarian civil war.

"With this withdrawal, the Americans are leaving behind a destroyed country," said Mariam Khazim, a Shiite whose father was killed when a mortar shell struck his home in Sadr City. "The Americans did not leave modern schools or big factories behind them. Instead, they left thousands of widows and orphans. The Americans did not leave a free people and country behind them, in fact they left a ruined country and a divided nation."

Some Iraqis celebrated the exit of what they called American occupiers, neither invited not welcome in a proud country.

Occupy Wall Street

What are they and why? Here's some quick googling..

Occupy Wall Street is a people-powered movement that began on September 17, 2011 in Liberty Square in Manhattan’s Financial District, and has spread to over 100 cities in the United States and actions in over 1,500 cities globally. #ows is fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process, and the role of Wall Street in creating an economic collapse that has caused the greatest recession in generations. The movement is inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, and aims to expose how the richest 1% of people are writing the rules of an unfair global economy that is foreclosing on our future.

***

What do they expect to accomplish?

Well, here's what they want.

Or do they know what they want?

inspired by Egyptian protesters

How did it get started? Adbusters

The 99%

pepper spray

Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show Monday night and seemed to downplay the impact of pepper spray while commenting on the UC Davis protests. She said of the substance, “it’s like a derivative of real pepper. It’s a food product essentially.”

Now, a petition is calling for Kelly to test her theory by ingesting pepper spray on television. More than 11,000 people have signed the pledge.

It’s a road other newscasters have trod before. Rick Sanchez and Erich “Mancow” Muller both took it upon themselves to demonstrate the effects of the police crowd control. Sanchez allowed himself to be Tasered, while Mancow opted to be waterboarded.

***

The active ingredient in pepper spray is capsaicin, which is a chemical derived from the fruit of plants in the Capsicum genus, including chilis.

Super-Committee agrees

that they cannot agree..

The congressional supercommittee charged with coming up with $1.2 trillion in deficit reductions gave up the task this afternoon, saying it could not resolve ideological differences to find common ground.

The committee's statement came after stocks had another miserable session, with the Dow Jones industrials ($INDU -2.11%) falling as many as 342 points in the morning before recovering to finish down 249 points.

"After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, said in a statement. The committee ended their deliberations firm in the belief that the "nation's fiscal crisis must be addressed."

The committee's failure sets up a year of uncertainty on taxes and spending that could further rattle investors.

Congress is likely to engage in another round of brinksmanship over the coming weeks as Democrats scramble to extend economy-boosting measures like a payroll tax cut and enhanced jobless benefits that are due to expire at the end of the year.

Republicans have vowed to shield the military from the automatic spending cuts and will also try to lock in low tax rates for the wealthy before they rise at the end of 2012.

Republicans were blaming Democrats on Sunday for stubbornness on cutting entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. Democrats have blamed Republicans for demanding that the Bush administration tax cuts be made permanent.

The committee's failure, however, will not trigger another downgrade from Standard & Poor's Corp. S&P downgraded U.S. debt on Aug. 5, setting off a market sell-off the next week.

Doing nothing at all, as Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne noted last week, would actually result in $7.1 trillion in deficit reduction. The Bush tax cuts would expire at the end of next year. Estate-tax cuts would expire.

So would tax extenders, like allowing residents of Washington state, Texas and others to deduct sales taxes, which would also boost revenue. There will be a move to extend those tax breaks.

Congress can and likely will try to override triggers designed to impose $1.2 trillion in cuts if Congress won't act. The triggers would impose half the cuts on defense spending and the balance elsewhere in the federal budget. However, President Obama said late today that he would veto any attempt to change those formulas and exempt defense.

The supercommittee did manage before today's close to suggest that it might try one more time to find a deal. Stocks trimmed their losses substantially when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said, "There's always hope," as he joined a meeting of committee members in the office of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

But the statement that came out at around 4:50 p.m. ET ended those hopes.

Job Creators?

Congressional Republicans recently passed on President Barack Obama’s offer of $4 trillion in cuts in federal spending over the next decade, including changes in expensive entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

Why? Because Republicans across the land have signed anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist’s pledge never to vote for a tax increase. From South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint to former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, those who call themselves “Rs” have gone dry on taxes, even taxes on the richest among us who can most easily afford to pay them.

People like Phillipi Dauman, the CEO of Viacom, who received $84.5 million in compensation in 2010, a 149 percent raise over his previous year’s salary. And Occidental Petroleum’s Ray Irani, who was paid $76.1 million for his labors, a 142 percent raise from 2009. And Leslie Moonves of CBS, who took home $56.9 million, a pay raise of 265 percent.

So why do congressional Republicans insist that these exorbitantly compensated CEOs should not pay more in taxes to deal with the nation’s growing national debt?

Because, Republicans argue, they are “job creators” and should not be discouraged in a bad economy.

Nonsense and balderdash.

“Job destroyers” is the proper term. According to Marketwatch.com, “The CEOs of the 50 firms that laid off the most employees in the past two (recession) years earned 42 percent more in salary and perks than the average boss of an S+P 500 company.”

In other words, it pays to fire people.

How well did these job destroyers do? Verizon’s Ivan Seidenberg fired 21,308 workers in 2009; his board of directors paid him $17.5 million for his job-destroying skills.

Frank Hassan of Schering-Plough couldn’t match Seidenberg in distributing pink slips. He only reduced his work force by 16,000, but it was enough to earn him $49.5 million from his shareholders’ compensation committee.

The top 10 job-destroying CEOs in the country fired a total of 107,448 workers in 2008-2009. Their companies rewarded their knifewielding CEOs with an average compensation of $23.4 million per year.

The nation’s CEOs have, in short, made out fabulously while the rest of us not so well. As a nation, we’ve compensated our CEOs two times as much as comparable industrial nations. Our median executive income has risen 430 percent since 1970. Our corporate profits have grown 250 percent. The wage of the average American worker since 1970? Try a meager 26 percent.

In 1975 the top 0.1 percent of the population who earned $1.7 million or more held 2.6 percent of the nation’s earnings. Today it’s 10.4 percent and growing.

-- Dan Boylan, Midweek

***

That sort of makes sense. If more and more money is going into their pocket, there would be less money to pay for more jobs.

And WTH needs that much money anyway?

Abercrombie sinks to new low

Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s job approval rating has plummeted since March, a new survey shows.

The Hawaii Democrat’s job approval is just 30 percent, down from 48 percent in March, according to Public Policy Polling, a Raleigh, N.C., firm. The firm found that he had the dubious distinction of the worst job approval rating among governors.

Most significantly, Abercrombie’s support has fallen among Democrats, the poll shows. Just 43 percent of Democrats approve of the governor’s job performance, down from 66 percent in March.

"Polls are not our focus," Donalyn Dela Cruz, an Abercrombie spokeswoman, said in an email. "The governor's focus is on looking at all avenues to boost our economy. We're making progress in education and energy and we will continue to build upon that momentum."

Obama declares end to war in Iraq

President Barack Obama on Friday declared an end to the Iraq war, one of the longest and most divisive conflicts in U.S. history, announcing that all U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the country by year's end.

Obama's statement put an end to months of wrangling over whether the U.S. would maintain a force in Iraq beyond 2011.

"After nearly nine years," the president, "America's war in Iraq will be over."

He spoke at the White House after a private video conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and he offered assurances that the two leaders agreed on the decision.

The American withdrawal by the end of 2011 was sealed in a deal between the two countries when George W. Bush was president. Obama declared the end of the combat mission earlier this year.

Hurricane Irene batters East Coast

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. » Hurricane-force winds and drenching rains from Irene battered the North Carolina coast early Saturday as the storm began its potentially catastrophic run up the Eastern Seaboard. More than 2 million people were told to move to safer places, and New York City ordered the nation's biggest subway system shut down for the first time because of a natural disaster.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Irene's maximum sustained winds were around 85 mph on Saturday morning, down from about 100 mph a day earlier. But they warned the hurricane would remain a large and powerful one throughout the day as it trekked toward the mid-Atlantic.

Japan's Prime Minister Resigns

TOKYO >> Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced Friday he was resigning after almost 15 months in office amid plunging approval ratings over his government's handling of the tsunami disaster and nuclear crisis.

In a nationally televised speech, Kan said he was stepping down as chief of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, effectively ending his tenure as leader of the country. The decision was widely expected because in June, Kan had promised to quit once lawmakers passed three key pieces of legislation. The final two bills cleared the parliament earlier Friday.

The Democrats will vote Monday for a new leader, who will almost certainly become Japan's next prime minister — the sixth since 2006.

Looking back on his year and three months in office, Kan said he did all he could given difficulties he faced, including the disasters and a major election defeat in upper house elections last summer that left the parliament in gridlock.

"Under the severe circumstances, I feel I've done everything that I had to do," he said. "Now I would like to see you choose someone respectable as a new prime minister."

The 64-year-old Kan has seen his approval ratings tumble amid a perceived lack of leadership after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis. Survivors complain about slow recovery efforts, and radiation from the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi plant has spread into the air, water and food supply.

Political infighting between the ruling and opposition parties also have discouraged the public. Recent polls show that his public support has fallen under 20 percent.

President and Congressional leaders reach agreement on debt limit

Washington (CNN) -- The U.S. House on Monday passed the debt-ceiling deal worked out by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders, sending it to the Senate for consideration a day before the deadline for the government to face possible default.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced his chamber will take up the measure at noon on Tuesday. No amendments will be allowed, and approval will require a super-majority of 60 votes in the 100-member Senate, Reid said.

On Monday, the House overcame opposition from liberal Democrats and tea party conservatives for ideologically different reasons to pass the measure by a 269-161 vote.

One of those supporting the plan was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona, who cast her first House vote since being shot in the head in an assassination attempt in January.

In an emotional moment, Giffords entered the chamber during the vote and received a prolonged standing ovation from her colleagues. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hugged Giffords as other House members mobbed her, and the commotion diverted attention from the ongoing vote total showing the measure would pass.

The agreement reached Sunday by President Barack Obama and congressional leaders from both parties calls for up to $2.4 trillion in savings over the next decade, raises the debt ceiling through the end of 2012 and establishes a special congressional committee to recommend long-term fiscal reforms.

The legislation needs to reach Obama's desk by Tuesday at the latest. If the current $14.3 trillion debt limit is not increased by that point, Americans could face rapidly rising interest rates, a falling dollar and shakier financial markets, among other problems.

A number of Republicans worried about cuts in defense spending and the lack of a required balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Progressive Democrats were livid over the extent of the deal's domestic spending cuts, as well as the absence of any immediate tax hikes on wealthier Americans.


July 31 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said tonight that leaders of both parties in the U.S. House and Senate had approved an agreement to raise the nation's debt ceiling and cut the federal deficit.

"The leaders of both parties in both chambers have reached an agreement that will reduce the deficit and avoid default," Obama said at the White House.

Congressional leaders are sifting through the details of the tentative bipartisan agreement to raise the debt ceiling, preparing to sell the deal to skeptical Republicans and Democrats ahead of possible votes tomorrow.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed the emerging accord among Republican leaders and the Obama administration even as negotiators were working out the final details. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told senators tonight that the U.S. will not default on its obligations

The framework would raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling through 2012, cut spending by about $1 trillion and call for enactment of a law shaving another $1.5 trillion from long-term debt by 2021 -- or institute punishing reductions across all government areas, including Medicare and defense programs, according to congressional officials.

Across the Capitol, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said she was reserving judgment on the plan until she could see details and discuss them with fellow Democrats, some of whom were already voicing concern that the package calls for steep spending cuts with no tax increases to help shrink the deficit.

"We all may not may able to support it -- or none of us may be able to support it," she told reporters at the Capitol.

***

Boehner and Obama had a deal: a $4 trillion cut in the national debt that included cuts in Medicare a program Democrats and almost every American over the age of 60 like very much. But the Obama-Boehner compromise called for elimination of some tax loopholes. That’s called compromise.

The Tea Partyers would have none of it. Said Minnesota congresswoman and Tea Party darling Michele Bachmann: “I am not fooled by President Obama’s math ... I refuse to be a party to deceiving the American people yet again. I won’t do it. I will vote against any proposal that includes tax increases or raises the debt ceiling.”

So ideological purity was maintained. The Tea Partyers and their leader, Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, forced Boehner to pull out of a $4 trillion cut in the national debt in exchange for a lastminute, $2.1 trillion cut. Go figure. No, for your sanity’s sake, dear reader, don’t. -- Dan Boylan

[Pat Buchanan responds]

The Cooties Option

Washington DC -- The political theatre surrounding debt talks took a strange twist this weekend at the White House when Republicans stormed out of the meeting, accusing President Obama of having the cooties.

With both the broad outlines and specifics of the debt ceiling negotiations having been settled for weeks, both Republicans and Democrats faced a common challenge: how to sustain audience interest until the last minute when the deal would be signed.

The original script for "Epic Clash" (as the mini-series became known inside the The White House) called for increasing levels of acrimony with a series of strident accusations and "disconnects" leading to dramatic break offs in the talks. But when Republican House Speaker John Boehner stormed out of talks last Friday, and ratings of the series plummeted, a script rewrite was the only real option, especially with the unfolding News Corp hacking scandal diverting audience attention. Even the carefully choreographed performance of a "visibly angry" Obama at his "hastily called press conference" failed to engage viewers who already had started settling into their weekend rituals of beer and baseball. Suddenly, the White House script writers knew they needed a game changer to revive audience interest.

Focus groups made clear their disgust with the political process describing it in terms that had leaders of both parties concerned. "Boring" was the most damning indictment and the White House scriptwriters worst fears were confirmed when it became clear that the tired themes of "increased taxes vs spending cuts" were not sufficiently entertaining to keep the audience involved in the unfolding drama. Their market research report tellingly concluded, "Viewers need a character based subplot with a more visceral appeal and personal hook to sustain their level of interest, although the solvency of the U. S. government is at stake."

According to informed sources that requested anonymity, the so-called Cooties Option (Code Name: CO) had been on the table since the talks began months ago, but President Obama had initially dismissed it as "silly" and "demeaning of the political process." One well placed source was even more blunt, saying "neither party wanted anything to do with it."

But when Obama faced a revolt from fellow Democrats for caving into Republican demands, suddenly the "Cooties Option" came into play again. It presented Obama with the ability to box Republicans into a corner as not only unreasonable, but also completely "off their rocker." Obama harbored reservations about latent "racist overtones" of the Cooties Option, but those concerns were blunted when research showed that the "Cooties Theme" had been used effectively in comic strips such as Calvin and Hobbes and Dilbert as well as popular movies like Grease, and Pulp Fiction and several episodes of The Simpsons, all with significant ratings boost and no significant racist backlash.

bin Laden killed

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed by a team of U.S. operatives earlier today after a firefight at a house in Pakistan where he had been hiding, President Barack Obama said.

“On nights like this one we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda’s terror: Justice has been done,” Obama said in a late-night televised address from the White House.

Obama delivered the news to the nation almost 10 years after the Sept. 11 attacks that bin Laden orchestrated. Bin Laden was killed, along with other members of his family in a mansion outside Islamabad, an official said. Almost 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, most at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia just outside of Washington.

The administration briefed congressional officials ahead of the president’s address.

Obama and his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, made capturing Bin Laden a key national security priority. Obama has called the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan the “epicenter of violent extremism,” where he said al-Qaeda leader bin Laden was hiding.

Obama said bin Laden was killed today by U.S. assets during a “firefight” outside of Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The president said he authorized an attack on bin Laden’s compound after he determined last week there was enough intelligence to take action.
‘Painstaking’ Work

Bin Laden’s killing came after years of “painstaking” work by the U.S. intelligence community, Obama said.

Obama said that shortly after taking office in 2009, he directed Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the “top priority” in the war against al-Qaeda. In August, Obama was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden, he said.

“Tonight we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to,” Obama said. “That is the story of our history.”

The news brought a cheering, chanting crowd outside the White House fence before Obama was set to appear on television.

Obama warned that the fight against terrorism is not ended with the death of bin Laden.

“There’s no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us,” he said.

Obama releases birth certificate / Trump takes credit

Washington (CNN) -- The White House released copies of President Barack Obama's original long-form birth certificate Wednesday, seeking to put an end to persistent rumors that he was not born in the United States.

The certificate states, as Obama's advisers have repeatedly said, that the president was born at Honolulu's Kapiolani Hospital on August 4, 1961. Doubters insist Obama was born overseas -- possibly in his father's home country of Kenya -- and may be constitutionally ineligible to serve as president.

"We do not have time for this kind of silliness," Obama told reporters at the White House. "I've been puzzled at the degree to which this (story) just kept on going."

"Normally I would not comment on something like this," the president said. But the country has "some enormous challenges out there" that it will not be able to effectively meet "if we're distracted."

"We're not going to be able to (meet those challenges) if we spend time vilifying each other," he stressed. "We're not going to be able to do it if we just make stuff up and pretend that facts are not facts. We're not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers."

Obama released a shorter, legally binding "certification of live birth" in 2008, but failed to persuade members of the "birther" movement.

The administration had to make a special request from the state of Hawaii to get the long-form certificate released, White House legal counsel Bob Bauer said. Typically, the state only releases the shorter, computer-generated live birth certification when people request such documentation.

***

A giddy Donald Trump could barely wait to meet and greet the people of New Hampshire today, impressing upon a group of Portsmouth manufacturing workers the role he and his supporters believe he played in President Obama's decision to release this morning his original, long-form birth certificate.

"Oh, by the way, I don't know if you heard? Did you hear?" Trump asked Wilcox Industries Corp. employees in reference to the birth records.

"I am so proud of myself. I got this guy to release his birth certificate. I'm really, really happy," Trump told the employees before a lunch-time New Hampshire Republican Party fundraiser in downtown Portsmouth.

***

Unsurprisingly, not everybody is convinced.

Federal shutdown averted

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders reached a historic, last-minute agreement just before a midnight deadline to slash about $38 billion in federal spending and avert the first federal government shutdown in 15 years.

Obama hailed the deal as "the biggest annual spending cut in history." John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, said that over the next decade it would cut government spending by $500 billion, and won an ovation from his rank and file — conservative tea party adherents among them.

The deal came together after six grueling weeks and an outbreak of budget brinksmanship over the past few days as the two sides sought to squeeze every drop of advantage in private talks.

"This is historic, what we've done," agreed Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the third man involved in negotiations that ratified a new era of divided government.

Obama, Boehner and Reid announced the agreement less than an hour before government funding was due to run out. The shutdown would have closed national parks and other popular services, though the military would have stayed on duty and other essential operations such as air traffic control would have continued.

The Democrats and the White House rebuffed numerous Republican attempts to curtail the reach of the Environmental Protection Agency and sidetracked their demand to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood, which provides family planning and other medical services.

Anti-abortion lawmakers did succeed in winning a provision to ban the use of government funds to pay for abortions in the Washington capital district.

For Congress and Obama there are even tougher struggles still ahead — over a Republican budget that would remake entire federal programs and a vote to raise the nation's debt limit.

Republicans intend to pass a 2012 budget through the House next week that calls for sweeping changes in health care entitlement programs and would cut domestic programs deeply in an attempt to gain control over soaring deficits.

And the Treasury has told Congress it must vote to raise the debt limit by summer — a request that Republicans hope to use to force Obama to accept long-term deficit-reduction measures.

U.S. and allies launch missle attack in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya >> The U.S. and European nations pounded Moammar Gadhafi's forces and air defenses with cruise missiles and airstrikes Saturday, launching the broadest international military effort since the Iraq war in support of an uprising that had seemed on the verge of defeat. Libyan state TV claimed 48 people had been killed in the attacks, but the report could not be independently verified.

The longtime Libyan leader vowed to defend his country from what he called "crusader aggression" and warned the involvement of international forces will subject the Mediterranean and North African region to danger and put civilians at risk.

The U.S. military said 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from American and British ships and submarines at more than 20 coastal targets to clear the way for air patrols to ground Libya's air force. French fighter jets fired the first salvos, carrying out several strikes in the rebel-held east.

British military spokesman Maj. Gen. John Lorimer said British fighter jets also had been used to bombard the North African Nation.

"This is not an outcome the U.S. or any of our partners sought," President Barack Obama said from Brazil, where he is starting a five-day visit to Latin America. "We cannot stand idly by when a tyrant tells his people there will be no mercy."

nuclear reactor on fire in Japan

[4/5/11] The leakage of highly radioactive water from a cracked concrete pit at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Daiichi reactor No. 2 has stopped, the Japanese utility said early Wednesday.

The leakage stopped after workers poured 1,560 gallons of "water glass" — a sodium silicate compound—through holes around the pit and at the bottom of the pit, a Tepco spokesman said.

The radiation level of the water in the pit was 1,000 millisieverts an hour, and has been regarded as the most dangerous water flowing into the ocean.

Workers had tried a variety of methods to reduce the flow from the heavily damaged No. 2 reactor, put at several tons of water an hour, since it was discovered coming from a crack in a concrete container near the shoreline Saturday.

The steady flow from the crack had been blamed for a surge in the level of contamination in seawater near the complex. A water sample taken just outside the water intake for the No. 2 unit showed the level of radioactive iodine-131 at 7.5 million times the allowable limit, the most dangerous level of radiation so far detected.

[4/4/11] TOKYO >> Workers used a milky bathwater dye Monday as they frantically tried to trace the path of radioactive water seeping into the ocean from Japan's tsunami-damaged nuclear plant.

The crack in a maintenance pit discovered over the weekend was the latest confirmation that radioactivity continues to spill into the environment. The leak is a symptom of the primary difficulty at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex: Radioactive water is pooling around the plant and preventing workers from powering up cooling systems needed to stabilize dangerously vulnerable fuel rods.

The plant operators also deliberately dumped 10,000 tons of tainted water — measuring about 500 times above the legal limit for radiactivity — into the ocean Monday to make space at a storage site for water that is even more highly radiactive.

Engineers have turned to a host of improvised and sometimes bizarre methods to tame the nuclear plant after it was crippled in Japan's magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami on March 11.

Efforts over the weekend to clog the leak with a special polymer, sawdust and even shredded newspapers failed to halt the flow at a cracked concrete maintenance pit near the shoreline. The water in that leak contains radioactive iodine at rates 10,000 times the legal limit.

Suspecting they might be targeting the wrong channel to the pit, workers tried to confirm the leak's pathway by dumping several pounds (kilograms) of salts used to give bathwater a milky hue into the system, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday.

"There could be other possible passages that the water may be traveling. We must watch carefully and contain it as quickly as possible," said Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear Safety and Industrial Agency.

Radioactive water has pooled throughout the plant because the operator has been forced to rely on makeshift ways of pumping water into the reactors — and allowing it to gush out wherever it can — to bring down temperatures and pressure in the cores.

Government officials conceded Sunday that it will likely be several months before the cooling systems are completely restored. And even after that happens, there will be years of work ahead to clean up the area around the complex and figure out what to do with it.

[3/27/11] TOKYO >> Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan's damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater farther north of the plant than previously thought, officials said Monday, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.

Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and no place to store dangerously contaminated water, have stymied emergency workers struggling to cool down the overheating plant and avert a disaster with global implications.

The coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.

On Monday, workers resumed the laborious yet urgent task of pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to power up the plant's cooling system, nuclear safety officials said.

The contaminated water, discovered last Thursday, has been emitting radiation that measured more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour in a recent reading at Unit 2 — some 100,000 times normal amounts, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

As officials scrambled to determine the source of the radioactive water, chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano repeated Monday that the contaminated water in Unit 2 appeared to be due to a temporary partial meltdown of the reactor core.

He called it "very unfortunate" but said the spike in radiation appeared limited to the unit.

However, new readings show contamination in the ocean has spread about a mile (1.6 kilometers) farther north of the nuclear site than before. Radioactive iodine-131 was discovered just offshore from Unit 5 and Unit 6 at a level 1,150 times higher than normal, Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told reporters Monday.

He had said earlier there was no link between the radioactive water leaking inside the plant and the radiation in the sea. On Monday, though, he reversed that position, saying he does suspect that radioactive water from the plant may indeed be leaking into the ocean.

Closer to the plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week and climbed to 1,850 times normal over the weekend. Nishiyama said the increase was a concern, but also said the area is not a source of seafood and that the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

Up to 600 people are working inside the plant in shifts. Nuclear safety officials say workers' time inside the crippled units is closely monitored to minimize their exposure to radioactivity, but two workers were hospitalized Thursday when they suffered burns after stepping into contaminated water. They were to be released from the hospital Monday.

Meanwhile, a strong earthquake shook the region and prompted a brief tsunami alert early Monday, adding to the sense of unease across Japan. The quake off the battered Miyagi prefecture coast in the northeast measured magnitude-6.5, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

[3/27/11] TOKYO >>Japanese officials reported a huge jump in radioactivity — levels 10 million times the norm — in water in one reactor unit at a tsunami-damaged nuclear plant Sunday, forcing workers to evacuate and again delaying efforts to control the leaking complex.

Radiation in the air, meanwhile, measured 1,000 millisieverts per hour — four times the limit deemed safe by the government, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita said.

Word of the startling jump in radioactivity in Unit 2 came as TEPCO struggled to pump contaminated water from four troubled reactor units at the overheated Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo. The reading was so high that the worker measuring the levels fled before taking a second reading, officials said.

[3/23/11] TOKYO >> A spike in radiation levels in Tokyo tap water spurred new fears about food safety Wednesday as rising black smoke forced another evacuation of workers trying to stabilize Japan's radiation-leaking nuclear plant.

Radiation has seeped into vegetables, raw milk, the water supply and seawater since a magnitude-9 quake and killer tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant nearly two weeks ago. Broccoli was added to a list of tainted vegetables, and U.S. and Hong Kong officials announced a block on Japanese dairy and some produce from the region.

The crisis is emerging as the world's most expensive natural disaster on record, likely to cost up to $309 billion, according to a new government estimate. The death toll continued to rise, with more than 9,400 bodies counted and more than 15,600 people listed as missing.

[3/18/11] As General Electric defends the reactors it designed for Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, independent nuclear specialists are also coming to the company's defense amid the nuclear crisis.

"I think GE should really be saluted for their design of the reactors," says Najmedin Meshkati of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, a nuclear safety expert who has studied power plants worldwide, including at Chernobyl and in Japan. "[The crisis] really hasn't been a problem with the reactor design."

The most pressing issue now at the plant is a possible crack in a spent fuel pool, which sits above the reactor containment vessel and was damaged during explosions earlier this week. The containment vessels that hold the actual nuclear reactors, meanwhile, appear to have largely withstood a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, a 30-foot tsunami, explosions, and fires.

"I think GE is a hero in this," says Dr. Meshkati.

Dr. Meshkati says a root-cause analysis traces the current crisis back to the failed diesel generators. The March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out electricity to the plant, which triggered the activation of diesel generators that stopped operating within hours. At that point, cooling water was no longer pumped into the reactors to prevent the fuel rods from overheating.

As to why the generators failed to withstand the earthquake and tsunami, Meshkati says that's a question for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) and the Japanese regulatory body. "Had the diesel generators worked, we wouldn’t be talking today," he says.

[3/16/11] ZAO, Japan >> Japanese military helicopters dumped loads of seawater onto a stricken nuclear reactor Thursday, trying to avoid full meltdowns as plant operators said they were close to finishing a new power line that could restore cooling systems and ease the crisis.

U.S. officials in Washington, meanwhile, warned that the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in northeastern Japan may be on the verge of spewing more radioactive material because water was gone from a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel rods.

The troubles at several of the plant's reactors were set off when last week's earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and ruined backup generators needed for their cooling systems, adding a major nuclear crisis for Japan as it dealt with twin natural disasters that killed more than 10,000 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

A Japanese military CH-47 Chinook helicopter began dumping seawater on the damaged reactor of Unit 3 at the Fukushima complex at Thursday morning (Wednesday afternoon in Hawaii), said defense ministry spokeswoman Kazumi Toyama. The aircraft dumped at least four loads on the reactor, though much of the water appeared to be dispersed in the air.

The dumping was intended both to help cool the reactor and to replenish water in a pool holding spent fuel rods, Toyama said. The plant's owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., said earlier that the pool was nearly empty, which might cause the rods to overheat.

The comments from U.S. officials indicated there were similar problems at another unit of the Dai-ichi complex.

[3/16/11] FUKUSHIMA, Japan >> Nuclear plant operators trying to avoid complete reactor meltdowns said Thursday that they were close to finishing a new power line that could end Japan's crisis, but several ominous signs have also emerged: a surge in radiation levels, unexplained white smoke and spent fuel rods that U.S. officials said might be on the verge of spewing more radioactive material.

As fear, confusion and unanswered questions swirled around the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex, and Japan suffered myriad other trials from last week's earthquake and tsunami believed to have killed more than 10,000, its emperor took the unprecedented step of directly addressing his country on camera, urging his people not to give up.

"It is important that each of us shares the difficult days that lie ahead," Akihito said Wednesday (Tuesday in Hawaii). "I pray that we will all take care of each other and overcome this tragedy."

The 77-year-old emperor expressed his own deep concern about the "unpredictable" nuclear crisis. "With the help of those involved I hope things will not get worse," he said.

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko said at a congressional hearing in Washington that all the water is gone from the spent fuel storage pond of Fukushima Dai-ichi's Unit 4 reactor, but Japanese officials denied it. Hajime Motojuku, a spokesman for plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., said the "condition is stable" at Unit 4.

Earlier, however, another utility spokesman said officials' greatest concerns were the spent fuel pools, which lack the protective shells that reactors have.

"We haven't been able to get any of the latest data at any spent fuel pools. We don't have the latest water levels, temperatures, none of the latest information for any of the four reactors," Masahisa Otsuki said.

If Jaczko is correct, it would mean there's nothing to stop the used fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. The outer shells of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

"My understanding is there is no water in the spent fuel pool," Jaczko told reporters after the hearing. "I hope my information is wrong. It's a terrible tragedy for Japan."

He said the information was coming from NRC staff in Tokyo who are working with the utility in Japan. He said the staffers continue to believe the spent fuel pool is dry.

[3/16/11] The emergency at Japan's wrecked nuclear plant appears to be worsening after surging radiation levels forced engineers to temporarily withdraw, losing time in a desperate operation to cool the overheating reactors.

The technicians were dousing the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant with seawater in an effort to cool them when they had to retreat late Wednesday morning local time. They returned in the evening after radiation levels subsided but in the hours between it was not clear what, if any, operations continued.

***

High levels of radiation leaked from a crippled nuclear plant in tsunami-ravaged northeastern Japan after a third reactor was rocked by an explosion today and a fourth caught fire in a dramatic escalation of the 4-day-old catastrophe.

Workers were striving to stabilize three reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant in Fukushima state that exploded in the wake of Friday's quake and tsunami. Officials said 50 workers, all of them wearing protective radiation gear and working at great personal risk, were still trying to put water into the reactors to cool them.

The crisis at the complex is already the worst nuclear accident since the Chernobyl reactor disaster a quarter-century ago.

earthquake hits Japan

An 8.9-magnitude earthquake hit northern Japan on Friday, triggering tsunamis and sending a massive body of water filled with debris that included boats and houses inching toward highways.

The epicenter was 373 kilometers (231 miles) away from the capital, Tokyo, the United States Geological Survey said. But residents there felt the tremors.
The quake rattled buildings and toppled cars off bridges and into waters underneath. Waves of debris flowed like lava across farmland, pushing boats, houses and trailers toward highways.

***

A tsunami warning has been issued for Hawaii as a result of a 8.9-magnitude earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a tsunami watch at 7:56 p.m. after the quake struck 231 miles northeast of Tokyo. The watch was upgraded to a more serious warning about 9:30 p.m.

"A tsunami has been generated that could cause damage along coastlines of all islands in the state of Hawaii," the agency said. "Urgent action should be taken to protect lives and property."

Hawaii legalizes civil unions

Less than a year after seeing the push for civil unions vetoed, gay rights advocates cheered as Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill legalizing civil unions and making Hawaii the seventh state to grant such privileges to same-sex couples.

Abercrombie signed the legislation at a ceremony today at historic Washington Place.

"E Komo Mai: It means all are welcome," Abercrombie said in remarks before signing the bill into law. "This signing today of this measure says to all of the world that they are welcome. That everyone is a brother or sister here in paradise."

"The legalization of civil unions in Hawaii represents in my mind equal rights for all people," he said.

2011 Medal of Freedom recipients

The following individuals will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom at today's ceremony (read their full bios here):

President George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush was the 41st President of the United States.

Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Congressman John Lewis
John Lewis is an American hero and a giant of the Civil Rights Movement.

John H. Adams
John H. Adams co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970.

Maya Angelou
Dr. Maya Angelou is a prominent and celebrated author, poet, educator, producer, actress, filmmaker, and civil rights activist, who is currently the Reynolds Professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University.

Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is an American investor, industrialist, and philanthropist. He is one of the most successful investors in the world.

Jasper Johns
American artist Jasper Johns has produced a distinguished body of work dealing with themes of perception and identity since the mid-1950s.

Gerda Weissmann Klein
Gerda Weissmann Klein is a Jewish Holocaust survivor who has written several books about her experiences.

Dr. Tom Little (Posthumous)
Dr. Tom Little was an optometrist who was brutally murdered on August 6, 2010, by the Taliban in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, Afghanistan, along with nine other members of a team returning from a humanitarian mission to provide vision care in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan.

Yo-Yo Ma
Yo-Yo Ma is considered the world’s greatest living cellist, recognized as a prodigy since the age of five whose celebrity transcends the world of classical music.

Sylvia Mendez
Sylvia Mendez is a civil rights activist of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent.

Stan Musial
Stan “The Man” Musial is a baseball legend and Hall of Fame first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals. Musial played 22 seasons for the Cardinals from 1941 to 1963.

Bill Russell
Bill Russell is the former Boston Celtics’ Captain who almost single-handedly redefined the game of basketball.

Jean Kennedy Smith
In 1974, Jean Kennedy Smith founded VSA, a non-profit organization affiliated with the John F. Kennedy Center that promotes the artistic talents of children, youth and adults with disabilities.

John J. Sweeney
John J. Sweeney is the current President Emeritus of the AFL-CIO, and served as President of the AFL-CIO from 1995 to 2009.

***

PBS report

full program as seen on CSPAN [via lethean46]

Mubarak steps down

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak stepped down Friday and handed over power to the military -- three decades of his iron-clad rule ended by an 18-day revolution that could ripple across the Arab world.

In a somber one-minute announcement on state television, Vice President Omar Suleiman said Mubarak had resigned and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will "run the affairs of the country."

Tens of thousands of emotional Egyptians exploded in deafening cheers on the streets of Cairo, electric with excitement. It was a moment they had anticipated throughout long days of relentless demonstrations -- sometimes violent -- that demanded Mubarak's departure.

***

CAIRO — Cries of "Egypt is free rang out and fireworks lit up the sky over Cairo's Tahrir Square where hundreds of thousands danced, wept and prayed in joyful pandemonium Friday after 18 days of mass pro-democracy protests forced President Hosni Mubarak to hand over power to the military, ending three decades of authoritarian rule.

Ecstatic protesters hoisted soldiers onto their shoulders and families posed for pictures in front of tanks in streets flooded with residents of the capital of 18 million people streaming out to celebrate. Strangers hugged strangers, some fell to kiss the ground, and others stood stunned in disbelief. Chants of "Hold your heads high, you're Egyptian" roared with each burst of fireworks overhead.

deficit commission targets Social Security

[11/12/10] The leaders of the deficit commission are baldly calling out the budget myths of both political parties, challenging lawmakers to engage in the "adult conversation" they say they want.

Their plan -- mixing painful cuts to Social Security and Medicare with big tax increases -- has no chance of enactment as written, certainly not as a whole. But the commission's high profile will make it harder for Republicans and Democrats to simply keep reciting their tax-and-spending talking points without acknowledging the real sacrifices that progress against government deficits would demand.

It's time for both conservatives and liberals to "put up or shut up," says Jon Cowan, head of the centrist-Democratic group Third Way, which praised the bold new proposals and urged politicians to show courage. Republicans failed to produce their often-promised deficit reductions when they controlled the government, Cowan said, and Democrats refuse to acknowledge that entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare must be trimmed.

***

In a politically incendiary plan, the bipartisan leaders of President Barack Obama's deficit commission proposed curbs in Social Security benefits, deep reductions in federal spending and higher taxes for millions of Americans Wednesday to stem a flood of red ink that they said threatens the nation's very future.

The White House responded coolly, some leading lawmakers less so to proposals that target government programs long considered all but sacred. Besides Social Security, Medicare spending would be curtailed. Tax breaks for many health care plans, too. And the Pentagon's budget, as well, in a plan designed to cut total deficits by as much as $4 trillion over the next decade.

The plan arrived exactly one week after elections that featured strong voter demands for economic change in Washington. But criticism was immediate from advocacy groups on the left and, to some extent, the right at the start of the post-election debate on painful steps necessary to rein in out-of-control deficits.

The plan would gradually increase the retirement age for full Social Security benefits -- to 69 by 2075 -- and current recipients would receive smaller-than-anticipated annual increases. Equally controversial, it would eliminate the current tax deduction that homeowners receive for the interest they pay on their mortgages.

No one is expecting quick action on any of the plan's pieces. Proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare are making liberals recoil. And conservative Republicans are having difficulty with options suggested for raising taxes. The plan also calls for cuts in farm subsidies, foreign aid and the Pentagon's budget.

***

[3/6/13] 5 ways to fix Social Security

North Korean allies?

Was it a simple blunder or did a possible 2012 presidential contender really get her geography wrong?

That's the question being debated after Sarah Palin said in an interview with Glenn Beck Wednesday that North Korea was a U.S. ally.

When asked by Beck how she would handle a situation like the one that was developing in North Korea, Palin responded: "This is stemming from, I think, a greater problem when we're all sitting around asking, 'Oh no, what are we going to do,' and we're not having a lot of faith that the White House is going to come out with a strong enough policy to sanction what it is that North Korea is going to do."

It is unclear whether Palin is talking about sanctions against North Korea, or U.S. sanctioning -- i.e. approving or supporting -- its actions.

Palin continued: "Obviously, we gotta stand with our North Korean allies," when Beck interrupted and corrected her to say "South Korea."

"And we're also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes," she responded.

Rod Tam

[11/2/11] Rod Tam sentenced to two days of jail

[11/25/10] City Councilman Rod Tam pleaded guilty yesterday to 26 misdemeanor counts of theft and falsifying documents, and for the first time admitted to overcharging the city for meals unrelated to his work as a Council member.

The guilty pleas came eight months after Tam admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to pay $11,700 in restitution and a $2,000 civil fine over allegations by the city Ethics Commission.

The commission said Tam improperly used his Council contingency fund for hundreds of personal meals -- totaling more than $22,000 -- unrelated to his city work.

Tam was unavailable for comment, but issued a written statement saying he was responding to the charges "out of embarrassment."

"Pursuant to compromise, I have pleaded guilty to a variety of petty misdemeanors and misdemeanors," Tam said. "I submitted vouchers that exceeded actual bill amounts. I also submitted vouchers that were below actual billing amounts.

"I should have practiced better bookkeeping methods. I take full responsibility and deeply apologize for my mistakes."

Tam previously admitted only to sloppy record-keeping and faulty math, while arguing that the rules covering discretionary expenses of Council members needed to be clarified.

Tam is completing his second four-year term on the Council, after serving nearly two decades in the state Legislature.

He is perhaps best known from his time in the Legislature for introducing a bill to provide naps and snacks for public workers and more recently for a bill in the City Council that would have allowed bus drivers to ban riders emitting offensive body odor.

[9/17/10] Why would you invite Rod Tam to a debate?

The same reason you'd put Paul Lynde in the center square or have Paula Abdul as a talent judge or book Dennis Rodman and his dress for an awards banquet.

Same reason you'd write a column about him.

He's a sideshow. He's a clown. He's for entertainment purposes only. You can count on Tam to sprinkle the goofy powder on an otherwise bland event.

The question is, why would anyone vote for him?

Tuesday night's mayoral debate on KGMB featured front-runner Peter Carlisle, acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell and last election's spirited underdog, Panos Prevedouros.

Rod Tam was just there for laughs. And, like he always does, he came through for the crowd.

***

Sometimes writing about Rod Tam feels like shooting fish in a barrel, yet the man keeps piling up the fish and handing out the guns. And, amazingly, he keeps running for public office and keeps getting elected.

That incredible winning streak might come to an end now that he's aiming for higher office and is facing other candidates who haven't billed taxpayers for every meal they've eaten for the past four years.

The 18-page document summarizing the Ethics Commission investigation into Rod Tam's bento-gate is the sort of thing you print up and pass around the office for comic relief:

He doesn't like to meet with people in his office because there are allergens in Honolulu Hale that bother his sinuses.

He took his brother and sister out to dinner, called them "constituents" and sent bills for $400 for city reimbursement.

He took his family to dinner at the Empress restaurant and claimed it was a "crime in Chinatown meeting."

On that Valentine's Day dinner, he claimed was meeting with two state employees to discuss how the economy affects Hawai'i's public education.

And not only did he say he was on city business when clearly he was feeding his family, he overcharged for the reimbursements. Ethics Commission investigators caught him when they went back to the restaurants and matched up the credit card slips Tam submitted with restaurant copies of the same bills. Ho! Busted!

Tam received repayments for hundreds of meals because he said they were related to council business. He justified the claims by saying the mealtime discussion was about "Hawai'i's economy," "economic development" or the "city's economy," which is what the rest of us talk about these days at all the meals we pay for ourselves.

It may be tempting to shrug it off with, "Yeah, well, I'll bet they all do it." But they don't. In the Ethics Commission report, it says by comparison, a few of the other council members have used their discretionary funds for the occasional staff lunch or as per diem when they're traveling on council business. Some council members haven't submitted meal reimbursements at all.

The whole thing is so classically Rod Tam. When other politicians are running up tabs on the taxpayers' backs, they're doing crazy stuff like ordering room-service lobster dinners and pay-per-view dirty movies or flying to Argentina pretending it's an international trade mission. Not Tam. He takes his wife to dinner at a low-end Japanese restaurant. That doesn't make it less wrong, but it does make it more Rod Tam.

-- by Lee Cataluna

***

City Councilman Rod Tam wants to be our mayor.

I would chuckle at the very thought, but ... wait. People keep voting for him. In fact, Tam has held public office for close to three decades - 20 years in the state Legislature and eight as a City Councilman.

Wow. Gee. That means there is actually a chance he could become mayor. Hoooo boy.

North Korea shells South Korean island

SEOUL (AP) — North Korea bombarded a South Korean island near their disputed western border Tuesday, setting buildings ablaze and killing at least two marines after warning the South to halt military drills in the area, South Korean officials said.

South Korea said it returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response, and said the "inhumane" attack on civilian areas violated the 1953 armistice halting the Korean War. The two sides technically remain at war because a peace treaty was never negotiated.

The skirmish came amid high tension over North Korea's claim that it has a new uranium enrichment facility and just six weeks after North Korean leader Kim Jong Il unveiled his youngest son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent.

The United States, which has tens of thousands of troops stationed in South Korea, condemned the attack and called on North Korea to "halt its belligerent action," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in Washington. He said the United States is "firmly committed" to South Korea's defense, and to the "maintenance of regional peace and stability."

The North's artillery struck the small South Korean-held island of Yeonpyeong, which houses military installations and a small civilian population and which has been the focus of two previous deadly battles between the Koreas.

One South Korean marine was killed, three were seriously wounded and 10 slightly wounded, a Joint Chiefs of Staff official said. Island residents were escaping to about 20 shelters in the island while sporadic shelling continued, the military official said.

North Korea's supreme military command threatened to continue military strikes against South Korea if it violated their disputed sea border "even 0.001 millimeter," according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The firing came amid South Korean military drills in the area. North Korea's military had sent a message to South Korea's armed forces early Tuesday to demand that the drills stop, but the South continued them, another military official said.

disasters strike Indonesia

MOUNT MERAPI, Indonesia -- A volcanic eruption and a tsunami killed scores of people hundreds of miles apart in Indonesia -- spasms from the Pacific "Ring of Fire," which spawns disasters from deep within the Earth.

The eruption of Mount Merapi on Tuesday killed at least 25 people, forced thousands to flee down its slopes and spewed burning ash and smoke high into the air on the island of Java.

Meanwhile, off the coast of Sumatra, about 800 miles west of the volcano, rescuers battled rough seas to reach the remote Mentawai islands, where a 10-foot tsunami triggered by an earthquake Monday night swept away hundreds of homes, killing at least 113 villagers, said Mujiharto of the Health Ministry's crisis center. Up to 500 others are missing.

The twin disasters happened hours apart in one of the most seismically active regions on the planet.

spending silly season

We call elections the "silly season," but this year we should call it the "spending silly season."

Never has so much money been spent to say such nasty things about so few.

If you have a mailbox in the 1st Congressional District, you already know that Charles Djou ruined the economy, actively killed jobs and is now trampling our schools.

And you have learned that Colleen Hanabusa is a tax-and-spend tsunami intent on strangling our economy with job-killing regulations.

How could we have ever elected this despicable pair in the first place?

Negative advertising is fueled by the big political action committees. There's more of it this season, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in January to free up corporate and union money.