Month: March 2011

A Washingtonian writes:

Thanks for bringing attention to our area. It's worth emphasizing that we are also at risk for a tsunami in the Puget Sound. And just the Alaskan Way Viaduct is on liquefaction soil, the entire south section of downtown Seattle (Pioneer Square, Sodo, etc) are all liquefaction zones. This includes our entire Port area. The liquefaction map is large but the PDF is here and another map of the city (click liquefaction to the left) here.

An architect in California writes:

When one says that building codes ensure that a building can withstand an 8.0 earthquake, that does not mean that the building will not be heavily damaged.  What most people don't realize is that most buildings will be unusable after a massive earthquake.

Seismic Codes are similar to fire codes. Fire codes don't ensure that the building will not burn to the ground.  Fire codes only attempt to insure that occupants have enough time to exit the building safely before it burns down.  Likewise, seismic codes attempt to ensure that the building rides out the earthquake and that occupants can safely exit the building after the earthquake.  Most buildings after a 8.0+ quake will be too damaged to be saved and will need to be heavily renovated or demolished. (This does not apply to hospitals and emergency facilities, which are required to meet higher seismic standards.)

By the way, an NOAA simulation of the recent tsunami is here.

Balko wants to shield forensics from law enforcement:

The best way to begin mending the problems with the forensics system is to fix the incentives, aligning them so analysts are rewarded only for sound, scientifically supported work and punished for allowing their work to be influenced by bias, intentional or not.

[Roger Koppl, director of the Institute for Forensic Science Administration at Farleigh Dickinson University,] makes several specific recommendations in his paper for the Reason Foundation, which he and I summarized in a 2008 Slate article. The most important changes are taking state crime labs and medical examiner officers out from under the control of state law enforcement agencies and introducing a system of "rivalrous redundancy" for forensic analysis. To its credit, the Mississippi legislature is considering a bill that would have the state medical examiner report to an independent board of supervisors. Unfortunately, while the North Carolina bill changes the name of the state crime lab, it still puts the lab under the control of the State Bureau of Investigation, a police agency.

The above video of a bullied kid beating up his tormentor has been making the rounds. In response, Ta-Nehisi reflects on the "seductive righteousness that comes from being victimized":

This kid–who shouldn't have put his hands on anyone–gets power-slammed on a concrete driveway, is stumbling out of the frame, and for all we know could be concussed, and you read the comments, and everyone's yelling "Damn right." This is a world filled with people who've been bullied–but no people who are, or ever were, actual bullies.

I watched that video wondering where that boy's parents were. That kid–the aggressive one–was out of his head, and there was no one to put the right kind of hands on him. And now he's famous. And I say this as a Malcolmite, as someone who believes in the sacred right of defending your person, and has told his own son as much. But you don't do it because it makes you feel "good," because it makes you "right." To the contrary, defense is usually the best of a bunch of really awful options.

A reader writes:

I have to say that I know of two people right now who are on Social Security disability and could work.  Both are overweight men in their mid to late 50s who have lived unhealthy lives that resulted in heart conditions. Both found doctors willing to sign off on their SS disability applications several times because they initially got rejected.  Both are only high school educated and would have trouble finding a job in eastern NC.  One has a wife worth millions.  He collects his $2500/month check and then must decide if he is going to fish or go hunting each day.  He and his wife just purchased property worth $250K.  The other one would have to work a job making less than what he made before and that's just not acceptable.

So while your reader's story seems legitimate, I can guarantee you there at least two stories that are not.  Disability is a safety net for people like your reader, not the two men I know.

Ron Moreau says al Qaeda is trying to get a foothold in Libya:

Al Qaeda’s top ranking Libyan, Abu Yahya al-Libi, the movement’s senior Islamist ideologue and bin Laden’s head of operations for Afghanistan, broke his public silence over the Libyan revolt this past weekend. He issued a call to arms to his countrymen in a 30-minute video that was posted on Al Qaeda-linked Internet sites, urging Libyans to fight on and do to Qaddafi what he has done to them over the years: kill him.

"Now it is the turn of Qaddafi [to die] after he made the people of Libya suffer for more than 40 years," he said. “Retreating will mean decades of harsher oppression and greater injustices than what you have endured." He also called for the institution of Islamic law once an Arab nation has cast off its former, Western-supported rulers. Overthrowing these Western-backed Arab regimes, he added, was "a step to reach the goal of every Muslim, which is to make the word of Allah the highest."

(Image: From video provided by the SITE Intelligence Group showing Abu Yahya al-Libi, an official in al-Qaeda's Shariah Committee, addressing Libyans in a video speech released on jihadist forums on Saturday March 12, 2011. By AP)

Today on the Dish, Saudi Arabia invaded Bahrain, and Andrew raised red flags looking back to Kuwait, and ahead to the world's oil supply. In Libya, Hitchens itched for intervention, Peter Feaver took issue with Obama's laissez-faire policy, and neocons ignored how the other two wars in the Middle East went. Marc Lynch warned Arab leaders don't want real American military intervention, a reader proposed an Arab League-funded no-fly zone, squatters took over Qaddafi's UK mansion, and Babak Dehghanpisheh wondered whether Libyan rebels can hold their ground. NHK live-streamed updates in Japan, Godzilla lived in Japan's memory of Hiroshima, Sharon Begley warned of radioactive pools, and Clive Crook voiced fears of the spent fuel factor. Seattle prepared for a quake of their own, Evan Osnos kept an eye on China's nuclear plants, the tsunami hit the global economy, and Tyler Cowen encouraged you to donate to Japan. The Japanese didn't loot, we relived the mountain of water hitting, and your reassuring quote of the day is here.

Andrew examined tax breaks and how they affect the debt crisis, and countered Mark Levin as he chronicled the war over Palin on the right. Huckabee rode the wave, Palin flailed for attention on energy policy, and Yglesias fumed at Evan Bayh's new Fox gig. Romney's healthcare vote troubled voters more than his Mormonism, Bachmann urged a Tea Party revolt, a reader refuted Limbaugh with his own disability story, and a slew of anti-evolution bills crushed the social issues truce. Avent explained why NIMBYism is bad for the environment, California was two-faced, and the DEA went after Montana's medical marijuana. News travelled via new media, a sane conservative blog comforted Andrew, and Rummy regretted FOIA. Catherine Rampell described the unhappiest person in America, Alexis glimpsed a DIY appendix removal, and a reader hatched the ultimate rich girl's American Idol. Tom Waits appreciated mishearing, Joel Johnson confessed his tech guilt, we watched Pokemon backwards, and Beard Madness began.

Malkin awards here, here and here, hathos alert here, chart of the day here, FOTD here, MHB here, VFYW here, and VFYW contest winner #41 here.

–Z.P.

Yglesias finds a paper with "evidence that intellectuals reorganize the issues before parties realign around them." Timothy B Lee applies this finding to liberaltarianism:

Politicians, activists, and septegenarian billionaires are lagging indicators of ideological trends. The right-leaning politics of the Koch brothers are the result of intellectual arguments that happened in libertarian circles in the 1960s and 1970s. Contemporary libertarian politics is right-leaning because a previous generation of libertarian intellectuals (Friedman, Hayek, Rand) chose to focus primarily on “right-wing” issues like taxes and deregulation. But there’s nothing inevitable about this. If the present generation of libertarian intellectuals chose to focus on “left-wing” issues—war, civil liberties, immigration, urbanism, patent reform, gay rights, etc—then the next generation of libertarian donors, activists, and politicians would likely see the Democrats, rather than the Republicans, as natural allies.

Peter Wynn Kirby connects the dots between Japan's disaster and nuclear-themed monster movies from the 1950s:

This B-movie fare is widely mocked, often for good reason. But the early “Godzilla” films were earnest and hard-hitting. They were stridently anti-nuclear: the monster emerged after an atomic explosion. They were also anti-war in a country coming to grips with the consequences of World War II. As the great saurian beast emerges from Tokyo Bay to lay waste to the capital in 1954’s “Gojira” (“Godzilla”), the resulting explosions, dead bodies and flood of refugees evoked dire scenes from the final days of the war, images still seared in the memories of Japanese viewers. Far from the heavily edited and jingoistic, shoot’em-up, stomp’em-down flick that moviegoers saw in the United States, Japanese audiences reportedly watched “Gojira” in somber silence, broken by periodic weeping.

Along the same lines, Garance Franke-Ruta unearthed a cartoon movie version of the Hiroshima bombing from her childhood.

(Image: Daniel Holz compares devastation from Hiroshima in 1945 (left) and Sendai today on the right.)

Jacob Sullum absorbs the news of the raids, which took place just as the Montana Judiciary committee deadlocked 6-6 on passing a repeal to the Montana Medical Marijuana Act:

Now that the attempt to repeal Montana's Medical Marijuana Act has been stymied, people who believe the current system is too loose are expected to propose regulations that will clarify exactly what is and is not permitted. If such rules are established, the DEA will no longer have an excuse for breaking Obama's promise.

More on the wiggle room left by Obama's supposedly tolerant attitude toward medical marijuana here.

In 1961, a Soviet surgeon stuck in an Antarctic base came down with acute appendicitis. As the only trained physician, he was forced to operate … on himself. Alexis dug up an old journal entry by the surgeon:

I worked without gloves. It was hard to see. The mirror helps, but it also hinders — after all, it's showing things backwards. I work mainly by touch. The bleeding is quite heavy, but I take my time — I try to work surely. Opening the peritoneum, I injured the blind gut and had to sew it up. Suddenly it flashed through my mind: there are more injuries here and I didn't notice them … I grow weaker and weaker, my head starts to spin. Every 4-5 minutes I rest for 20-25 seconds. Finally, here it is, the cursed appendage! With horror I notice the dark stain at its base. That means just a day longer and it would have burst and …