[…]The group is called the Japan Lessons-Learned Project Directorate. The directorate will support a steering committee consisting of senior agency managers to coordinate and implement the task force recommendations per with our Commission’s direction, including its goal of striving to implement the recommendations within five years.
An important aspect of our path forward is stakeholder engagement with members of the public. We will seek input through public meetings to help us determine whether changes may be required to improve safety at U.S. nuclear power plants.
Magwood, a Democratic appointee, would be the leading candidate to take Jaczko's gavel if the coup succeeds, according to people familiar with the internal workings of the commission (as well as through a simple process of elimination: the other Democratic panel member is not considered a serious candidate for the chairmanship).
America's highest paid executive took home more than $145.2m, and as stock prices recovered across the board, the median value of bosses' profits on stock options rose 70% in 2010, from $950,400 to $1.3m
Ronald Williams, former head of Aetna, a health insurer, exercised 2.4m options for a profit of $50.4m. Aetna's stock price declined by 70% from when Williams assumed the role of CEO in February 2006 until his retirement. At pharmacy chain CVS, Thomas Ryan made a $28m profit on his options. During Ryan's 13-year tenure as CEO, CVS Caremark's stock price decreased almost 54%.
Omnicare's Joel Gemunder retired last August and received cash severance of $16m, part of a final-year pay package worth $98.28m. Adam Metz, the former boss of General Growth Properties, a real estate company that specialises in shopping malls, walked away with a $46m cash bonus in 2010. GGP executives received nearly $115m in bonuses from the firm as it emerged from bankruptcy.
Media-wise parents will want to keep their vulnerable children from seeing the politically correct propaganda of HAPPY FEET TWO.Thought for minute I had fallen for an Onionesque prank on TPM until I followed their link and found that sadly it’s no joke. Happy Feet Two a squeal to last year’s hit animated family film Happy Feet has really raised the hidden liberal agenda warning bells at a christian movie review site.
Very strong mixed pagan, politically correct worldview promoting homosexual same-sex partnerships and homosexual adoption and promoting radical environmentalism and global warming hysteria throughout, including eating meat is seen as bad as are all humans,
...no sexual content but speaking of “making eggs with other penguins”; no nudity[penguins have tuxedos]; no alcohol; no smoking or drug use; and, children deliberately disobey father, children are rebellious, and comments on existentialism fitting in with humanist elements noted above.
“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.
”I tried for years to have a very simple model,” he continued. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
Reich: They're not conservatives. They're regressives. And the America they seek is the one we had in the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century.
“It’s a police matter. We have been in a heightened state of awareness and we’ve been working closely with the Vernon Police Department,” Williams said
Davis said he became aware of the treason statute after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and especially after three men of Middle Eastern appearance were seen photographing the Bellows Falls hydroelectric station owned by U.S. Gen. “I don’t think it’s a good time to be publishing photos of Vermont Yankee,” Davis said. “But I didn’t write the law.”
In 2010, [scandalized Penn State’s recently resigned President] Spanier chose[ UC Davis Chancellor Linda] Katehi to join an elite team of twenty college presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.”
As has been true with the FBI since Hoover, give them a foothold, and they’ll take off their shoes and get cozy. Their classified mandate has since expanded to such euphemisms as “counter-terrorism” and “public safety.” It also expanded federal anti-terrorism task forces to include the dark-helmeted pepper-spray brigades, otherwise known as the campus police.
Given the personal character on display by these two individuals, [former Penn President Spanier and UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi] why should anyone trust that the classified meetings have stayed in the realm of “cyber theft” and intellectual property rights? What did the FBI tell Chancellor Katehi about how to deal with the peacefully assembled Occupiers? Was “counter-terrorism” advice given on how to handle her own students?
It is ironic that those police officers who are busting up the Occupy protesters are themselves victims of the same social ills the demonstrators are combating: corporate greed; the slackening of essential regulatory systems; and the abject failure of all three branches of government to safeguard civil liberties and to protect, if not provide, basic human needs like health, housing, education and more. With cities and states struggling to balance the budget while continuing to deliver public safety, many cops are finding themselves out of work. And, as many Occupy protesters have pointed out, even as police officers help to safeguard the power and profits of the 1 percent, police officers are part of the 99 percent.
The PPP analysis highlights just what a big turnaround he's had: "Gingrich's lead caps an amazing comeback he's made over the last 5 months. In June his favorability nationally with Republican voters plummeted all the way to 36/49. Now he's at 68/23, representing a 58 point improvement in his spread since then. As recently as August Gingrich was mired in single digits at 7%, and even in September he was at just 10%. He's climbed 18 points in less than 2 months."
from csmonitor.com
“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions.”
“Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits and citizens can see whether elected officials are in the pocket of so-called moneyed interests.”
In addition the study uncovered inconsistencies between companiesʼ stated political expenditure policies and what is actually spent. Fifty-seven of S&P 500 companies state they will not make political contributions, up from just 40 in 2010. But an in-depth search of federal and state records shows that only 23 of these companies actually refrained from giving to candidates, parties, political committees and ballot measures in 2010.
“With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions.”
"...But maybe this is not the moment to introduce two all-in bets [single payer, renewable energy investment] that would freeze, well, people like you [manufacturers, financiers and entrepreneurs], who might make decisions about expanding a business or adding people or thinking about new capacity or new markets. Maybe not this moment.”
The Illinois deal shows how competition between the states, and with other countries, helps big corporations wring subsidies from state governments even as the states are being forced to fire teachers and other public workers because of a weak economy that has cost jobs and tax revenue.
Why would the state let companies do this? Most big companies pay little or no state corporate income tax, because companies arrange to take expenses in higher tax states and profits in states with little or no corporate income tax. So the only way to finance incentives without the state writing a check is to let the companies pocket their workers’ state income tax.
Its eventual extinction will have been caused in large part by the failure of political leaders to respond to clear signals from the largest private, taxpaying employer our state is ever likely to have.
In the 1990s, then-Congressman Sanders launched a very public campaign [supporting IBM workers who were] criticizing IBM for [unilaterally] changing its 1960s-era pension plan to remain competitive with nimbler, newer entrants into the semiconductor business.
I am told by the same source [an unnamed most senior IBM corporate executive] that IBM’s then-CEO, Louis Gerstner, reacted to Sanders demagoguery with a statement something like: “Don’t the politicians in Vermont realize there are more than a dozen other states vying for our business?”
The order might have forced [zoo owner]Thompson to surrender his menagerie, said Wayne Pacelle, president and chief executive of the Humane Society of the United States. Bill Damschroder, chief counsel for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, said the order was unenforceable and that the Kasich administration is developing a law to regulate the ownership of wild animals. The Zanesville incident likely will speed its passage, Rob Nichols, a Kasich spokesman, said by phone.
It’s unclear whether Dubie Solutions, the limited-liability company registered by Dubie at the Secretary of State’s Office on June 27, has any paying clients. Dubie did not respond to repeated requests for comment.Maybe the site was taken down to run a quick spell-check.
The company has its own website, however, saying “our team has the experince (sic) when you need results.”
“We have made investments in relationships,” the site says. “Let us tap into our trusted relationships to serve your needs.”
The site was up as recently as 2:30 p.m. Monday but had been taken down by 3:30 p.m. A cached version was still accessible via Google by searching “Dubie Solutions.”
Since then, of course, we have heard a lot about al-Qaida as a result of events that took place 10 years ago today. Perhaps even too much – and definitely too much that has been ill-informed. But one thing is certain: no one can say America was not warned about the biggest attack on its soil since Pearl Harbor.
The 1 1/3-page memo reported that U.S. intelligence officials had not been able to corroborate that bin Laden "wanted to hijack a US aircraft" in 1998. "Nevertheless," it said, "FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York."
It said the FBI was "conducting approximately 70 full field investigations" throughout the United States that it considered bin Laden-related. The CIA and FBI, it continued, were investigating a tip called in to the U.S. embassy in the United Arab Emirates that said a group of bin Laden supporters were in the United States "planning attacks with explosives."
-According to a review of fundraising data, 67 people who work in the financial sector and live in the New York City metro area gave to Obama in 2008 and the former Massachusetts governor in 2011. This select group from Credit Suisse, the Blackstone Group, the Stanwich Group and Goldman Sachs has since donated more than $147,000 to Romney.
“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
unlike the Democrats, there is no correlation between the ideology of the governors and the ideology of the states. Whether you have a Republican governor in a fairly liberal state like Maine, a moderate state like Ohio, or a conservative one like Idaho, that governor’s agenda is likely to be aligned with the extreme right.
It’s official: the chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been outvoted on his proposal that the panel decide within 90 days on the recommendations it received from its Fukushima task force.
Rep.Ed Markey said the NRC had in essence directed the NRC staff “ to endlessly study the 90-day staff report before the commissioners consider the recommendations”
Marvin Fertel, president and CEO of the Nuclear Energy Institute, told Wall Street analysts at a briefing Tuesday. In other areas, the recommendations of the task force call for "significant changes in the way NRC regulates," he said. Those issues should be considered separately, he said.
NEI does not expect the post-Fukushima recommendations to slow license renewals, power uprates or new plant approvals by NRC, Fertel said. Reactor design approvals, including for Westinghouse's AP1000 - the design being used at the two new US nuclear projects closest to completing NRC license reviews and beginning construction - are continuing to move forward, he said.
The only thing he hasn't done so far is act like a staunch Democrat, and take cuts to key Democratic programs off the table. That might not work either, but we don't know, because it hasn't been tried.
The president sincerely believes that the intense polarization of American politics isn't merely a symptom of our problems but a problem in itself – and thus compromise is not just a means to an end but an end in itself, to try to create a safe harbor for people to reach some new common ground. I actually have some sympathy with that point of view. But having now watched two smart Democratic presidents devote themselves to compromise with Republicans, only to be savaged with increasing intensity, I've lost faith that compromise itself holds some healing magic. Maybe it just emboldens bullies.
Will the falling domino effect ripple to the U.S., throttling through News Corp.'s powerhouse properties, Fox TV network, and the respected Wall Street Journal?
"The lack of ethics shown by Murdoch's powerful staffers in England is a transnational virus," said Jeff Cohen, journalism professor on csmonitor.com, "News Corp. has regularly imported these British staffers to his US outlets, from the New York Post to Fox News to the Wall Street Journal."
"Look no farther than the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal," he says. “On the Monday morning of this enormous scandal,” he notes, the paper had only a small notice about the closing of the News of the World.
BULB Act repeals a provision in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that requires traditional incandescent light bulbs to be 30 percent more energy efficient beginning in 2012.
“It was never my goal for Washington to decide what type of light bulbs Americans should use," Upton said in a statement to The Hill. " The public response on this issue is a clear signal that markets – not governments – should be driving technological advancements. I will join my colleagues to vote yes on a bill to protect consumer choice and guard against federal overreach.”
“Vermont’s challenge is neither unemployment nor overcompensation; it’s under underemployment and under-compensation”says Bill Schubart at the close of an opinion piece on VPR Wednesday. However the focus was not specifically on either the under-employed or even the under-compensated, but on departing Fletcher Allen CEO Dr. Estes. Schubart states that her pay package ($826,000 plus a potential performance bonus of $245,000), which he helped negotiate, was “right.”
“Recent news reports indicate that Vermonters, too, feel their business and nonprofit executives are overcompensated. But are they? We all feel more secure singing in a chorus than singing solo, but let’s look at reality.”
“seen nonprofit leadership salaries ranging from $36,000 to $1M a year and have yet to see an overcompensated executive in that sector. Mostly, I have seen the opposite.”
…the results indicate that Fourth of July celebrations in the United States shape the nation’s political landscape by forming beliefs and increasing participation, primarily in favor of the Republican Party.
The pair researched previous studies, finding that July Fourth participation divides along political lines with
a) Republicans viewing the historic anniversary as more important than Democrats do,
and b) Republicans attending July Fourth celebrations more consistently than Democrats do.
"It’s all designed to stay one step ahead of the rising floodwaters."
"It’s all designed to stay one step ahead of the rising floodwaters."That reassuring statement made June 22nd is from the NRC public-blog .
The inflatable berm that had been providing extra flood protection for the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant was punctured and deflated "due to onsite activities" early Sunday morning,Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) said in a statement.
The collapse of the berm allowed floodwaters to surround the main electrical transformers. Operators transferred power from offsite sources to the emergency diesel generators as a precautionary measure due to water leakage around the concrete berm surrounding the main transformers.
There are 160 million so-called set-top boxes in the United States, one for every two people, and that number is rising. Many homes now have one or more basic cable boxes as well as add-on DVRs, or digital video recorders, which use 40 percent more power than the set-top box.
These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day, even when not in active use. The recent study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council(NRDC), concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States — and that 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months
This begs the question: If these firms, and their owners, are the ones that continue to step forward to support their communities, even in a truly lousy economy, why would Vermont work so aggressively to penalize their success through onerous taxation, burdensome regulation, and constant muckraking?
More importantly, to what extent does every additional dollar of taxation, or page of regulation reduce their ability to make important community donations? How many actual cents of that taxation comes back directly to our communities after it has worked its way through the Vermont government bureaucracy?
By the numbers, you may wonder what the rich have to complain about. Corporate profits are up, and the S&P 500 has surpassed 2008 levels. President Obama has signed a renewal of the Bush tax cuts. …Millions of Americans have lost jobs, homes, and savings in a financial crisis and recession caused by the recklessness and incompetence of some of this country’s most eminent and best-compensated financiers.
Over the period from the ’70s until today, while pay for Dean Foods chief executives was rising 10 times over, wages for the unionized workers actually declined slightly. The hourly wage rate for the people who process, pasteurize and package the milk at the company’s dairies declined by 9 percent in real terms, according to union contract records.
“Over the past few years, we’ve maintained a strong democratic organization staffed in all 50 states thanks to the 50-state strategy put in place by Howard Dean,” Wasserman Schultz said. “And I can tell you that I am looking forward to sitting down with Chairman Dean next week so I can pick his brains clean on what he thinks that we should be doing to continue the fight to make sure that we can elect progressives all across the country.”
“No one claimed a particular race. McDonald said the goal was to get these high-profile candidates to discuss their own plans, and use their star power to recruit additional candidates” and “A primary in some cases is a good thing,” and similarly Sen. Randy Brock felt “…it was essentially a meeting to talk about 2012, but no decisions were reached”
Prediction: There will not be 5 ambitious politicians tripping over each other to "be Governor." This state is way out of balance and restoring it is our first priority.
"He who warned, uh, the British that they weren't going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he's riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed." Sarah Palin
On one side stands Godzilla, the Kaiju world's Coca-Cola. Ubiquitous and influential, Godzilla was the one that really got the ball rolling. On the other side stands Gamera, the Pepsi-esqe rival that quickly evolved from mere imitator into a enduring pop-culture presence in its own right. In the between the two are scores and scores of lesser known creatures, equally adept at smashing skyscrapers and crunching tanks beneath their giant feet, but unable to reach the fame that the aforementioned reptiles have achieved. These are the Shastas and the RC Colas and the Faygos; basically as fun but often overlooked.
About 11 hours later, all of the uranium fuel in the facility’s unit 1 reactor had slumped to the bottom of its inner containment vessel, boring a hole through a thick steel lining, the University of Tokyo’s Naoto Sekimura told a committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Atomic Energy Society of Japan is studying the proposal, which would cost tens of billions of dollars, Muneo Morokuzu, a professor of energy and environmental public policy at the University of Tokyo, said in an interview yesterday. The society makes policy recommendations to the government.
“We are involved in intense talks on the cleanup of the Dai-Ichi plant and construction of nuclear waste storage facilities at the site is one option,” said Morokuzu.
