It's 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in the Gulf Mexico. Early reports called it an explosion, but later reports call it a fire. Robert Gibbs announced at the White House press briefing that the Mariner Energy platform was "not in active production" and the depth of the water at the site is about 340 feet.
The Coast Guard reports that all 13 of the platforms workers are accounted for and one is injured.
Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.
"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."
Bobby Jindal will hold a press conference on the incident at 1:30 p.m.
Nate Silver and Jonathan Chait disagree with my recent assessment that the health care law has been a factor in the political decline of the Democrats. Both of them make essentially the same point: you can't prove it! Well...yeah! Absent a poll asking people if their main reason for opposition to the Democrats is health care, the best we can do is make a circumstantial argument.* This kind of argumentation happens all the time, especially over at FiveThirtyEight: Every time Silver offers up a statistical correlation, he's making a circumstantial argument. Nothing wrong with that. And while correlation does not necessitate causation (and all that jazz), there is a very strong circumstantial argument to be made here. Consider the contrary assertion: The president and the Democrats' numbers dropped sharply between Memorial Day and Labor Day of last year, right when the health care debate heated up, then declined again between November and December as each chamber passed their versions of it; yet while the bills were manifestly unpopular, it was not a reason for the decline. Does that really make sense?
For his part, Silver says that my argument is "underdetermined" but also that it's "implausible that (health care) hasn't played some role." I suppose that both of these statements could be true at the same time, but that really requires some nuance, doesn't it?
One of the most innovative voices in the health care debate, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), is accelerating the process of exempting his state from some of the national reforms passed under President Barack Obama.
The Oregon Democrat is seeking to take advantage of a provision he helped write into the legislation that allows states to set up their own health care systems as long as they meet minimal requirements established by the Department of Health and Human Services. In a letter to the state's Health Authority office, Wyden announced that he will introduce legislation to accelerate the start date for state waivers from 2017 to 2014, if not earlier for Oregon specifically.
In addition, he strongly suggested that the state should use the provision to exempt Oregon from the individual mandate, which would penalize those individuals who refuse to purchase insurance coverage. The mandate was a feature of Wyden's own health care bill but has proved to be remarkably unpopular among voters.
Wyden is up for reelection this year. So far, he looks fairly safe. But it is peculiar, isn't it? An incumbent Democrat up for reelection is petitioning to get his state waived from one of the major provisions in the bill.
Somebody needs to tell Senator Wyden that the argument that health care has hurt his party's prospects is underdetermined!
In all seriousness, we can look to the actions of politicians to get a sense of the political effects of health care reform. Are Republicans running against it? Yes. Are Democrats in vulnerable districts running in support of it? Not really. Are some Democrats even running away from it? Yes. Is there a strong correlation between House Democrats who voted no and McCain's share of the district vote? Oh, most definitely.
Well that was quick. Just last week Matthew Futterman wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "as the U.S. Open begins on Monday, Andy Roddick will be celebrating his 28th birthday. He will also be facing what could be his last realistic shot at glory." Then suddenly, Roddick, ranked 9th, was ousted in last night's second round match by 44th-ranked Janko Tipsarevic, a colorful character from Serbia who sports an arm tattoo that reads, "Beauty will save the world."
During the third set, Roddick was set off by a lineswoman who called him on a foot fault. Video shows she was right—but she was wrong about which foot. The 2003 U.S. Open champion decided to make an issue not over the foot fault itself but the judge's mistaking the right foot for his left. (His serve would have otherwise been an ace.) And it was downhill from there.
So is this the end? Says Futterman,
Now Mr. Roddick is quieting whispers that he might be at the end of his career. "I'm going to throw a stat at you," he said defiantly after a straight-set loss to Gilles Simon earlier this month. "The average age of a top 100 player on tour is 27, so define end."
Here's one way to define it—the average age in the top five is 24.6.
Ouch.
And yet there is still so much for the young (in the nonprofessional sense) Roddick to look forward to. Such as spending more time with his wife, model Brooklyn Decker.
As usual, incisive explanation and analysis from the Taiwanese media outfit, NMA World Edition. This time the subject's the Ground Zero mosque controversy:
In this episode of "Better Know Your Democratic Governor," longtime Obama ally (and speech donor) Deval Patrick seems to commit a Kinsleyan gaffe when asked about the Glenn Beck rally held on the Mall August 28.
The rally faced criticism from liberals, particularly black leaders who believed it was inappropriate to hold it on the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Most of those liberals were wise enough not to question Beck's right to hold a rally; just the wisdom and symbolism of the date and place. Gov. Patrick is not so sure about the Constitutional rights of those who disagree with him.
When asked whether he was troubled by the rally, he replies, "It's a free country. I wish it weren't. You know, you got to respect that freedom." Here's Massachusetts talker Michael Graham discussing the comment, with audio of the clip:
If I were the defense for Patrick, I'd argue that it's possible he was saying, in essence, "It's a free country. I wish it (the rally) weren't (held on that date). You know, you got to respect that freedom." But my, that would be an odd construction for that sentiment. In defending his remark, Patrick doesn't put forth that argument. He merely reiterates that it's a free country, and he wishes the rally hadn't been held that day.
“It’s pretty unbelievable and typical of the far left,” Cahill told the Herald. “When they don’t like what the other side says, they want to close down free speech.”
Patrick later in the day defended his radio remarks, stressing he has long defended freedom of speech. The governor said he meant that Fox TV host Glenn Beck should not have chosen the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech on its 47th anniversary to hold his “Restoring Honor” rally. The rally was held Saturday.
“I wish they hadn’t chose that place and that day to have that event,” Patrick said. “But it’s a free country. That was my point, and it has to be respected.”
Time on "Mr. Unpopular": A sense of disappointment, bordering on betrayal, has been growing across the country, especially in moderate states like Indiana, where people now openly say they didn’t quite understand the President they voted for in 2008. The fear most often expressed is that Obama is taking the country somewhere they don’t want to go. “We bought what he said. He offered a lot of hope,” says Fred Ferlic, an Obama voter and orthopedic surgeon in South Bend who has since soured on his choice. Ferlic talks about the messy compromises in health care reform, his sense of an inhospitable business climate and the growth of government spending under Obama. “He’s trying to Europeanize us, and the Europeans are going the other way,” continues Ferlic, a former Democratic campaign donor who plans to vote Republican this year. “The entire American spirit is being broken.”
Tony Blair on George Bush: "One of the most ludicrous caricatures of George is that he was a dumb idiot who stumbled into the presidency," writes Blair. "No one stumbles into that job, and the history of American presidential campaigns is littered with the corpses of those who were supposed to be brilliant but who nonetheless failed because brilliance is not enough."
Boxer vs. Fiorina: During the hourlong debate in which both women exchanged feisty jabs, Fiorina called Boxer an agent of big government spending, taxes and policies that strangled America's entrepreneurial spirit. Boxer fired back by criticizing Fiorina for serving the interests of "billionaires, millionaires and companies that outsource jobs," rather than average Americans.
The question everyone here is asking is why—having been to China just this past May—the reclusive Great Leader and dictator of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong-Il, would return last week. More than four years had elapsed between his 2006 trip to China and his “unofficial” visit this past spring. So why was he back again after only three months?
Kim is often looked upon by the Chinese as some kind of crazy nephew. As much as they try to support him, spend time and resources and endure the international embarrassment of propping him up, Kim’s behaviour seems to become more—rather than less—erratic.
Occam’s Razor suggests his latest trip is a sign of the growing desperation that the Kim Family Regime is feeling in its efforts to ensure a smooth transition to a new generation of despot. Conditions in the country continue to deteriorate for the great mass of the poor, and there is a growing disparity between these have-nots and those who have been active in the growing number of private trading markets. Added to this discontent is the still palpable anger over a December 2009 remuneration of the North Korean currency, the won, which lopped two zeroes off the banknotes and then restricted the amounts of the old notes that could be exchanged for new ones. A large number of people had their savings wiped out.
Welcome. This is a regular feature I'll be offering every weekday, first thing in the morning. Basically, what I'll do is flag the most notable stories of the 2010 midterm campaign, and provide my two cents on what's really happening.
(1) Generic ballot. Still making the rounds a few days after publication is Gallup's out-sized Republican lead on the generic ballot: 10 points, 51-41. Wowsa. That would translate into a 55-45 Republican victory in the two-party vote. That's larger than 1994. Heck, that's larger than 1946. That's 1928 territory, which was back when the GOP won every congressional district in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Milwaukee, and even San Francisco. And that's GOP +10 among registered voters. Over at Pollster, Harry Enten argues, "the Republican margin on the likely voter model could be 5-10% greater than on the registered voter model."
I think the appropriate posture here is one of caution.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that the Gallup poll is bouncy. Obvious question: Just recently, the ballot had a Democratic lead of 6 points, so has enough happened to justify a 16-point shift so quickly? Similarly, President Obama has gone from -11 to +2 in his net job approval in the last two weeks. This is a bounce that nobody else has found. It's appropriate not to get hung up on the day-to-day or even week-to-week changes in the Gallup poll.
The generic ballot has other issues. My sense of it is that when one party has a lead in the real world, the generic ballot will often overstate that lead in the poll. So, the Dems win by 13 points in 1958, but the generic ballot that fall has them winning by 23. They win by 17 in 1974, but the generic ballot has them winning by 27.
Another point. To get a good sense of what these results mean, we need a decent historical trendline. We don't really have that here. It's not coincidental that this is the first time the generic ballot has the GOP up by this much. It's only recently that the Republicans have become competitive in the race to control the House. From 1932 to 1994, the Democrats held the House all but twice by splitting Northern districts and winning 70-90 percent of Southern districts. Since 1994, the GOP has remained competitive in the North, but now roughly splits Southern districts. That's why a year like 2010 could produce a Republican House majority, but the GOP couldn't even take the House in 1972 when Richard Nixon won 61 percent of the vote. The South was just off the table.
So, the fact that the GOP lead of +10 being "unprecedented" doesn't mean exactly what we might want to think it means. It's as much a testament to Republican non-competitiveness from 1954-94 as much as Democratic doldrums in 2010. In other words, the shape of the congressional elections has fundamentally shifted in the last 20 years. So, I wouldn't take a 10-point lead literally. I'd say a 10-point lead points to a solid House majority for Republicans, but these numbers should be read cautiously.
What's more noteworthy than GOP +10 on the generic ballot is that Republicans in Congress now outpoll Democrats on seven of nine issues, according to Gallup. What's amazing about this is that Gallup tested "Republicans in Congress" versus "Democrats in Congress" and gave voters the potential response of "No Difference." And even with this, the GOP is at or above 50 percent on terrorism, immigration, and federal spending. And on the economy, the GOP hits 49 percent. That's amazing because "Republicans in Congress" has long been a surefire way to generate terrible GOP polling numbers. Not anymore, apparently. Two theories as to why: (a) Republican candidates nationwide are rebranding the party's congressional image; (b) Democrats have really shot themselves in the foot. My money is on (b) with a twist of (a).
(2) Is Sarah Palin running for president? This is a taste of what will begin almost immediately after the midterm:
Last week House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio delivered a stinging critique of the Obama administration’s economic policies. But the White House’s swift and tart reaction to Boehner was both illuminating and sadly predictable.
On the day of the speech, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer offered a “pre-buttal,” ripped from the playbook of a presidential campaign. Vice President Biden joined the fray, donning his full-electoral jacket, reminding us once again that it was another president that got us into this mess.
Blame is like classic rock for this administration – they like it so much they never stop playing it.
Aiming a political fusillade at a specific congressional critique may seem normal in today’s rough-and-tumble 24-hour news cycle, but it’s a fundamentally flawed method of steering the ship of state.
Yet this tactical retort to a congressional appraisal was dismally emblematic of a broader governing style, demonstrating that the Obama White House fundamentally misunderstands the role of the presidency.
Presidents like Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, or George W. Bush, occasionally, but rarely, engaged in personal tit-for-tat with congressional leaders. But whenever they did, it also weakened them and advanced their opponents. But this president has raised the practice to an art form.
Instead of positioning himself as the leader of the free world or as a post-partisan healer, Obama regularly inserts himself as a combative participant in Washington’s permanent campaign.
Alaska's soon-to-be-former senator Lisa Murkowski only won election in 2004 with 49 percent of the vote. Still, given the fact that 2010 seems to be a much stronger year for Republicans than 2004, you might think Joe Miller would poll better than 50% to 44% against Democratic nominee Scott McAdams (whose name the DNC's spokesman didn't know last week).
Of course, both candidates are fairly unknown right now, and Miller just won a primary by tearing down Lisa Murkowski. I presume the Murkowski dynasty does have some devotees who could be persuaded to support Miller if Lisa Murkowski gets around to supporting Joe Miller. But that appears to be a big "if" at the moment.
Just a few days ago, German defense minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg presented five different reform proposals to restructure the country’s armed forces. Declining defense budgets coupled with increasing expeditionary demands on Bundeswehr forces around the world underline the case for fundamental reform of an institution which, in the minister’s own words, is “still breathing the air of the Cold War.” In essence, the proposed reforms center on two core issues: First, at the quantitative level, how many active soldiers should the Bundeswehr have in the future? And second, at the qualitative level, what should be the armed forces’ composition in terms of professional soldiers, volunteer personnel, as well as drafted conscripts?
Great breaking news from Silver Spring, MD, where a several-hour stand-off with a gunman holding hostages has ended with the hostages safe and the gunman shot and in custody.
He was wearing an explosive of some kind on his chest, but the chief of police said it smoked instead of exploding. Police are sweeping the building for other suspicious packages or dangers.
The chief of police didn't know what James Jay Lee's condition was nor what convinced police to take a shot instead of continuing negotiations. It had been reported by several outlets that the bomb had a dead-man's switch, which would cause it to explode if the shooter were killed and let go of the switch.
From now to September 15, and between September 26 and December 15, passengers on the Amtrak Cardinal can enjoy a 20 percent discount. And if you depart mid-September, you'll most likely arrive at your destination by mid-December. Seriously, if you leave New York's Penn Station at 6:45 am on a Wednesday, you should get into Chicago at 10:05 am—the following day. Yes, it takes more than 27 hours to get from Manhattan to the Windy City. (A plane ride from Newark to O'Hare lasts all of two and a half hours.) As my colleague Jonathan V. Last noted in a Casual from a few years back, "In 1938, you could travel from New York to Chicago by train in 16 hours."
I am sure the folks at Amtrak will argue that the point of riding on the Cardinal is to soak in as much of America's beauty as possible on the way from one city to another—including the Allegheny Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley. But it's clear from a basic search on Amtrak's site that a traveler simply cannot get from New York to Chicago in any less time than it took in 1938. You'd also think at the very least the Cardinal could have a catchy jingle like that of the JFK Express. (That line will be in your head for years.)
Police and media are now identifying the gunman holding hostages at the Discovery Channel corporate headquarters as James Jay Lee.
A Google search reveals Lee's grudge against Discovery has been longstanding. He's also a devotee of environmentalist and sustainability author Daniel Quinn. His preoccupation with overpopulation and Quinn are obvious in his manifesto, which WUSA Channel 9 first reported this morning.
Sometime last week a friend of DCist sent in this rather hilarious web site promoting what appears to be a one-man crusade and protest against the Silver Spring, Md.-based Discovery Channel. As you can see, the singularly named "Lee," with his faux-tough mug shot and all-caps, is dishing out a little of the old insane rambling on the cable network to promote his "Save the Planet Protest Against the Discovery Channel," which the web site says is planned from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. for the entire week of February 15—23, 2008.
At the time, they excerpted his manifesto, and identified him as a disgruntled TV producer who had had his pitches rejected by Discovery. The full manifesto is at SavethePlanetProtest.com, but heavy traffic is making it hard to access. His first three points demand that Discovery stop using its programming to glorify babies and military technology:
The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY: 1. The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas. Focus must be given on how people can live WITHOUT giving birth to more filthy human children since those new additions continue pollution and are pollution. A game show format contest would be in order. Perhaps also forums of leading scientists who understand and agree with the Malthus-Darwin science and the problem of human overpopulation. Do both. Do all until something WORKS and the natural world starts improving and human civilization building STOPS and is reversed! MAKE IT INTERESTING SO PEOPLE WATCH AND APPLY SOLUTIONS!!!!
2. All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions. In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it.
3. All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease. There is no sense in advertising weapons of mass-destruction anymore. Instead, talk about ways to disassemble civilization and concentrate the message in finding SOLUTIONS to solving global military mechanized conflict. Again, solutions solutions instead of just repeating the same old wars with newer weapons. Also, keep out the fraudulent peace movements. They are liars and fakes and had no real intention of ending the wars. ALL OF THEM ARE FAKE! On one hand, they claim they want the wars to end, on the other, they are demanding the human population increase. World War II had 2 Billion humans and after that war, the people decided that tripling the population would assure peace. WTF??? STUPIDITY! MORE HUMANS EQUALS MORE WAR!
The DCist post was not the first time Lee's crusade had faced criticism. A message board poster using the name misterfifteen, with a profile picture and crusade that match those of James Jay Lee, brought the plan to other environmentalists who advised him to change his tone.
"While your expression and desire to better the condition of the planet is justified, you are being foolish and irrational," said one user. "If your proposals were written anything like your posts (with the tone, etc) then I am certain they were not well received," said another.
Others were not as charitable, calling Lee names and writing mocking poetry about him.
Lee responded by throttling Discovery for its "corporate greed" and declaring his intent to "set up a booth" in Silver Spring. His last posting is defiant:
Discovery is the enemy. They must be protested into saving the planet and reducing their propaganda. But if you feel that this is wrong, then don't show up. You're welcome to stay at home and watch TV or do whatever it is you do.
And if I look like an idiot, so what? But I won't fail in this. This is going to happen and Discovery is going to change their course and start saving the planet. I will never personally feel like an idiot for trying.
His username is also connected to a meet-up group for Daniel Quinn devotees called the "Friends of Ishmael." A man named Lee, with a misterfifteen e-mail adress seems to have started his own chapter in San Diego in 2006, called "World Guardian Voices." The site for his group is archived here, with a notice of an upcoming meeting at a Borders book store to talk about global warming and overpopulation.
He even offered his e-mail address for anyone who'd like to "schedule a speech."
