A blog for all seasons; A blog for one; A blog for all. As the 11th most informative blog on the planet, I have a seared memory of throwing my Time 2006 Man of the Year Award over the railing at Time Warner Center.
Justice. Only Justice Shall Thou Pursue
T. Boone Pickens has scuttled plans for a giant wind farm in Texas, partly out of difficulty with building transmission lines, the latest sign that efforts to rebuild the nation's electrical infrastructure have been marked by fits and starts.
Hurdles faced by the billionaire financier include lower natural-gas prices, which made power from wind less desirable as an alternative to gas-fired electric plants.
Financing is also tough to get nowadays, as alternative energy developers await key moves in Washington on tax breaks, renewable portfolio standards, and other programs. See full story.
He unveiled his plan a year ago against a backdrop of record-high oil and gas prices. He set his sights on building as much as 4,000 megawatts of wind power in Pampa, Texas -- an amount equivalent to the electricity made by four nuclear-power plants.
He wasn't getting transmission lines built in the area that he designated for his plans, the energy prices he counted on didn't materialize, and costs
Jamie Waylett, who plays the beefy bully Vincent Crabbe in the "Harry Potter" movie franchise, was busted for growing 10 marijuana plants in his north London home by Scotland Yards. He was arrested in April after cops found the budding sorcerer with bags of the magic weed in his car.
Waylett, 18, was charged on Tuesday shortly before the London premiere of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth installment of the wildy popular series based on the books by British author J.K. Rowling.
We know she owns multiple homes, including one in her district, but it appears that the Daily News investigation into whether Assemblywoman Ann Marie Carrozza actually lived in her district or just put up a facade that she did has got the county tax department interested in whether she was double dipping for STAR tax relief purposes.
The Nassau County Department of Assessment is investigating whether Carrozza and her doctor husband tried to double-dip under the state School Tax Relief (STAR) Program, which gives married couples a tax break on their primary residence.
Nassau records show that Carrozza's husband, Dr. William Duke, filed a STAR application in December for the $1.8million Gold Coast manse, where the Democratic lawmaker admitted she has lived since February.
The couple already gets a STAR exemption on a home they own in Bayside, Queens, public city records show. Bayside is part of the 26th Assembly District, which the 42-year-old Carrozza has represented since 1997.
After the Daily News discovered Carrozza's new digs, she admitted the family rents out the Bayside house - though she insisted it is still her "primary residence."
The couple bought the Glen Head manse in June 2008, signing public mortgage documents that explicitly state it would be their "principal residence."
The exemption on the Bayside home will save the couple $232 on their 2009-10 tax bill, according to a spokesman for the city Finance Department.
The exemption on the Glen Head home would net another $700+. It's not a lot of money, but it is the principal. These politicians believe that they are entitled to act differently than the people they claim to represent. It's time that they're held accountable and that they're held to the same standards as their constituents.
It's particularly rich that Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY, Tax Cheat) and his fellow Democrats are proposing tax surcharges against the rich to fund health care reform. He couldn't be bothered to pay his actual tax obligations, and here he is busy proposing tax rate hikes on the wealthy to fund health care reform.
House Ways and Means Committee members are likely to propose a surtax on high-income Americans to help pay for an overhaul of the health-care system, according to people familiar with the plan.
The tax would be similar to, yet much smaller than, a surtax proposed in 2007 by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a person familiar with the committee’s talks said. That plan would have added at least a 4 percent levy on incomes exceeding $200,000, and was projected to reap as much as $832 billion over 10 years.
Two people familiar with closed-door talks by committee Democrats said a House bill probably will include a surtax on incomes exceeding $250,000, as Congress seeks ways to pay for changes to a health-care system that accounts for almost 18 percent of the U.S. economy. By targeting wealthier Americans, a surtax may hold more appeal for House Democrats than a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits.
“The surtax is obviously more attractive to Democrats in the House because it’s more progressive, which they find attractive in and of itself,” said Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group focused on policies affecting low- and moderate-income families.
Rep. Rangel makes $174,900 this year. Isn't it amazing that he and his fellow members of Congress have written the proposed tax hikes so that they aren't affected by the hikes and yet they claim that they're being progressive.
On substantive grounds, these taxes will never cover the costs of the health care proposals, and will create structural deficits that will need to be covered at some point. The nation can hardly afford to take on the debt incurred by the stimulus spending package that hasn't stimulated the economy and here Congress is going on about creating another tax and spend package that will spend more than it should be expected to bring in.
We've repeatedly seen that tax rate hikes bring in revenues well below expectations, particularly in a recessionary environment, and here the Democrats are looking to tax the wealthy so as to create a health care overhaul that is unwarranted despite the doom and gloom that the Democrats claim exists regarding health care delivery in the nation. For all their talk about health care access, anyone in the nation can get health care. People grumble about the costs of health care, and this plan does nothing to address the costs. It shifts costs around, and the government isn't going to reduce those costs without imposing unintended consequences such as rationing of care, businesses eliminating their own benefits packages and shifting employee health care plans onto the government, reducing health care choices.
I don't question the need for a memorial. His passing touched millions of his fans and they would like the opportunity to have a public gathering to celebrate his life.
The problem isn't the memorial per se, but the cost.
Jackson's estate can't exactly afford this, and neither can Los Angeles. Overtime costs for policing the event is expected to run into the millions. AEG, the music promoter is running the memorial (they had planned on running the 50-date concert tour later this summer).
In that respect, Jackson's economic woes mirror that of the state of California. Jackson's fame brought massive fortune his way. He was able to buy anything and everything to his heart's content, and even then it wasn't enough. He bought the Neverland Ranch and stocked it with a menagerie of animals to allow him the childhood he never had since he was in show business from such an early age.
No one ever told him no.
No one ever told him that spending to such excess might come back to haunt him as he might suffer economic setbacks.
Well, there were setbacks, and the sex scandals and albums that didn't match earlier expectations meant that Jackson had to leverage assets to maintain his lifestyle.
His estate will have to defend such claims, including the handling of the Beatles collection, which is co-owned by Sony.
If all of that sounds familiar, consider that this too is the problem with profligate spending by California and all too many other states around the nation.
States spent lavishly when times were flush, made bad business decisions, and hoped that taxpayers would bail them out via tax rate hikes that would increase revenues.
That didn't come to pass as the recession sapped consumer spending and tax revenues dropped precipitously. California faces a huge budget deficit and no solution in sight.
California doesn't have Jackson's rabid fan base that is willing to turn out for his memorial. California's fiscal demise will occur with a whimper.
The New York Post did an investigative report to see whether car dealers get the dire situation they're facing. Which dealers would give them the best deals? Chevy and Ford dealers clearly aren't getting the memo, even as Toyota, VW, and Honda all see the benefit of moving cars off their lots.
The Post recently haggled at five city dealerships -- GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda and VW -- looking to land the best deal for a fully loaded, mid-size sedan.
In each case, there was an offer to put $5,000 down, with the understanding that the buyer had excellent credit and wanted to finance the vehicle for five years.
At the domestic dealerships, there was plenty of "Buy American" rhetoric -- with some dealers sounding more like they were running for office than revving their engines for a sale.
"We need to keep jobs in America -- especially in this economy," said a saleswoman at a Brooklyn Chevrolet dealership.
"If you want to give GM a chance -- if you want to give America a chance -- the Chevy Malibu is the car to do it."
The saleswoman -- who spoke with increasing degrees of desperation as the negotiations went on -- said Detroit was getting a bad rap.
"Honda and Toyota are struggling financially just as much as GM. They are as much in danger as we are," she insisted.
"GM has made a lot of mistakes, no question, but we're here to stay."
Still, when it came right down to it, she and her counterparts were hardly ready to give away merchandise, making hunting for a new car no less murky or unpleasant than it has been.
GM is offering zero percent financing for up to five years and extended power-train warranties, the saleswoman said.
But after touting the Malibu's V6 engine and design "with a family in mind," she insisted she could not afford to take more than $889 off the $27,665 sticker price without "losing money" on the deal.
By comparison, at the Queens Honda dealership, there was less sales pitch -- and more price slashing.
The salesman offered to cut $4,075 off the price of a $27,075 Accord, and even with a 3.9 percent interest rate, it seemed a far better deal than the Malibu.
At a Manhattan Ford dealer, a salesman tried steering us from the Taurus to a 2009 Mercury Sable.
Zero percent financing isn't sufficient to make a good car deal, not when Toyota or Honda are willing to take thousands off the sticker price and offer 3.9% financing. Not only do they have better resale values, but they're going to hold up against depreciation far better than automakers who may not be in the same shape just a few months from now.
This chart doesn't totally tell the picture. What you need to know is the full cost of the vehicle after all costs and the down payments are figured in.
The Mercury Sable will cost $33,140 after figuring the down payment plus the 60 month term.
The Honda Accord comes in at $26,960 after figuring the down payment plus the 60 month term. The Passat was $29,000. The Chevy Malibu came in at $29,000. The Camry came in at $30,680. Clearly, the Sable is the biggest loser of the bunch, as why would anyone want to spend that kind of money when they could get an Accord for nearly $6,000 less. The Malibu actually makes a respectable showing here based on this metric. The problem is that the Passat, Toyota, and Honda are all typically found for thousands more. That the Malibu is competing directly in this fashion leads to unflattering comparisons.
If you're going to choose between a Toyota Camry or a Malibu, what do you think people are going to do? They're going to choose the vehicle that they think is the better bargain; the Accord or the Passat.
Dealers are in a real bad position since they're going to be stuck with inventory that isn't moving, so they've got to figure out a way to move their inventories. It seems that the foreign automaker dealerships have decided that aggressively trimming prices is the way to go. The zero percent financing isn't having the intended effect.
There have been multiple reports over the past week that the Iranian regime has been arrested, convicting, and executing protesters who are standing up to protest the stolen election.
The state-run Fars news agency reported that 20 people were hanged at the Karaj prison west of the capital on Saturday, and another 14 executions elsewhere in Iran have been reported by state media since Wednesday, including six hangings at Teheran's Evin Prison. Many of those executed have been described in state media as drug traffickers - a charge often leveled at dissidents.
Iranian police say that about 1,000 people have been detained for involvement in the public protests that erupted after June 12 presidential elections.
Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated candidate who has branded the victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fraudulent, has been laying low since last Wednesday while still challenging the results.
Ahmadinejad and Khamenei are busy trying to spin the election debacle as though the protests are the result of foreign interference, including claims that Mousavi was a US agent.
That's a most interesting claim, given that Khamenei himself has to sign off on all the candidates that run for office. Mousavi was one of the hand-picked candidates for President, and Khamenei and the Guardian Council have to agree to their credentials. Also, as Supreme Ayatollah, Khamenei is supposed to be infalliable. So, how is it that all of a sudden he's totally wrong about Mousavi?
People out on the streets in the vicinity of protests are also subject to arrest, search, and seizure. The Basij are looking for people who have cellphones with images or video of the demonstrations - and the ensuing crackdowns. They don't want people to see the truth.
That's in addition to the regime's attacks on employees working at the British Embassy and foreign journalists:
On Saturday, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that post-election events had caused bitterness.
Britain said one of two UK embassy employees detained for "inciting protests" would be released.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the aftermath of the poll to protest at what they alleged was a fraudulent election.
The protests died down after the authorities deployed lethal force, killing at least 20 demonstrators. More than 1,000 were arrested.
On Sunday, state news agency Irna quoted Iran's police chief as saying about two-thirds of those arrested had been released.
The authorities have blamed the West, in particular the UK, for fomenting the unrest through the use of the media, including BBC Persian television which broadcasts to the country via satellite.
The head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, has said "those who co-operate with such websites and television channels will face prosecution".
On Sunday, Iran's foreign ministry said a British-Greek journalist working for The Washington Times - who had been arrested in connection with "recent street riots" - had been released.
You have to hand it to the North Koreans. They certainly know how to throw a tantrum when people's attentions are cast elsewhere. The North Koreans had been warning that they would fire missiles in the direction of Hawaii, and while they did fire seven missiles, none were long range missiles with the capacity to hit Hawaii.
The launches, which came two days after North Korea fired four short-range cruise missiles, will likely further escalate tensions in the region as the U.S. tries to muster support for tough enforcement of the latest U.N. Security Council resolution imposed on the communist regime for its May nuclear test.
A senior State Department official told FOX News there is "no reason to doubt these reports we're all seeing."
South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said three missiles were fired early Saturday, a fourth around noon and three more in the afternoon. The Defense Ministry said that the missiles were ballistic and are believed to have flown more than 250 miles.
"Our military is fully ready to counter any North Korean threats and provocations based on strong South Korea-U.S. combined defense posture," the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted military officials as saying the missiles appeared to be a type of Scud missile. North Korea's Scuds are considered short-range, the South's military said.
All of the missile launches are in violation of UN Security Council resolutions, but as we've repeatedly seen, North Korea couldn't care less about the UN or resolutions. They seek the rest of the world as weak and incapable of mounting a credible response.
Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican governor from Alaska, is stepping down. It had been rumored that she wasn't going to seek reelection, but this takes things to a whole different level.
Gov. Sarah Palin will resign her office in a few weeks, she said during a news conference at her Wasilla home Friday morning.
Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell will be inaugurated at the Governor’s Picnic at Pionner Park in Fairbanks on Saturday, July 25, Palin said.
There was no immediate word as to why she will resign, though speculation has been rampant that the former vice presidential candidate is gearing up for a run at the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.
Palin made the announcement flanked by Parnell and most, if not all, of her cabinet.
It's only a matter of time before word gets out as to the reason why she's resigning. It would be better if she had done so up front, so as to reduce the speculation that is sure to swirl.
She's going to have to explain her reasoning for resigning instead of serving out her term. You can bet that the left wing is salivating over possible reasons. I can only hope that it isn't something wrong medically or family related.
UPDATE: It's one thing to prepare to run for the Presidency in 2012, which has long been rumored. It's quite another to step down from her current office to do so. It's not like other politicians have campaigned for higher office while serving in other political positions. We'll have to see what the real deal is here.
China is quickly moving ahead with wind, solar, and nuclear power plants to satiate the growing demand for power. The New York Times reports that the Chinese government is increasing its figures for installed wind power projects and will likely have installed 30,000MW of wind power projects by next year, which was the target for 2020.
That said, the Chinese aren't going to stop building coal powered projects anytime soon. The Chinese are bringing two new coal power projects online ever week.
As recently as the start of last year, the Chinese government’s target was to have 5,000 megawatts of wind power installed by the end of next year, or the equivalent of eight big coal-fired power plants, a tiny proportion of China’s energy usage and a pittance at a time when China was building close to two coal-fired plants a week.
But in March of last year, as power companies began accelerating construction of wind turbines, the government issued a forecast that 10,000 megawatts would actually be installed by the end of next year. And now, just 15 months later, with construction of coal-fired plants having slowed to one a week and still falling, it appears that China will have 30,000 megawatts of wind energy by the end of next year — which was previously the target for 2020, Mr. Li said.
In other words, all those wind power projects will be the equivalent of 48 coal power plants. That sounds like a fantastic development until you realize that China brings that many coal power plants online in just 24 weeks (in under six months). The coal power plants are being brought online despite the wind power projects, which tells you that the demand is still outstripping the anticipated supply. It also means that emissions are not going to decline from China anytime soon.
The only way that would happen is if China gave up building new coal power plants altogether and built nuclear power plants alone.
China also doesn't have the kind of environmental controls that the US has, so they're moving ahead with projects that would be sure to raise eyebrows in the US and would certainly be delayed here.
Solar power arrays would require constant attention, including cleaning after every sandstorm, which is a frequent occurrence in the region where they're planning to be installed.
Then, there's the question of energy transmission. The facilities are being built faster than the transmission lines can be strung to get the power where it's needed.
But technical obstacles to renewable energy are popping up. Sandstorms in Dunhuang in the spring, for instance, will cover solar panels and render them useless until they are cleaned after each storm by squads of workers using feather brushes to avoid scratching the panels, a process expected to take two days.
And wind turbines are being built faster here than the national grid can erect high-voltage power lines to carry the electricity to cities elsewhere. On the windiest days, only half the power generated can be transmitted, said Min Deqing, a local renewable energy consultant.
Those are problems that could eventually be overcome, but the current energy loss means that the actual power produced from those wind power facilities is far less than billed.
Also, keep in mind that the Chinese are busy building new nuclear power plants, which can produce far more power around the clock than wind or solar facilities. China is going to be the largest market for nuclear power, and it's a major source of income for GE and other nuclear power plant producers. China is considering increasing its nuclear power capacity to 86GW (it's at 9GW currently), which outstrips the power that would be produced by wind by a considerable margin. In fact, the wind power is little more than a footnote.
Nuclear is the future for power production that will have the least emissions, and yet it's the one source of power that US Democrats are reluctant to pursue because of the continuing stigma associated with nuclear power and the fact that Sen. Harry Reid continues blocking the national nuclear repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mt. in Nevada.
Meryl Yourish once again pierces the bogus nonsense about how there's an imminent disaster waiting to happen in Gaza because of Israeli actions that may somehow affect humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza.
The only imminent disaster in Gaza remains the actions of Hamas, which puts jihad against Israel ahead of all else, including the well-being of all Palestinians.
This week, the John Marchi lost power as it was set to dock at the St. George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island and 15 people suffered minor injuries. The crew did a great job in preventing further injuries, but reports indicate that there has been a troubling spate of problems with the Marchi losing power during its operations.
The Marchi is one of the newest Staten Island ferries, and yet it has lost power on several occasions, including once where it required tugboat assistance to complete a trip. In fact, since it went into service four years ago, it's lost power eight times, which is far more than just the usual teething problems. The NYC DOT isn't exactly saying that there's a problem, and they'd rather focus on the fact that this crew did a great job of preventing a more serious incident.
"We know a transformer failed, and things went from there," said Staten Island ferry Chief Operating Officer James DeSimone.
The four-year-old ferry, the John J. Marchi, struck a pier at the St. George Terminal on Wednesday evening. The vessel was taken out of service for repairs.
DeSimone said the ferry fleet undergoes quarterly inspections by the Coast Guard and additional city checks he compared to preventive maintenance.
The transformer wouldn't normally be inspected and would be expected to last about 15 years, he said.
No one quite knows why the one transformer caused a series of failures leading to a complete loss of propulsion.
So far, it appears the problem started when a transformer failed, shutting down the power to one of the motors that drives the propeller. Then other motors shut down, Captain DeSimone said.
“We understand how the one drive could go off because the transformer failed, but not why the other three drive motors powered down,” he said. “It is what we are trying to determine now.” The final results will be sent to the Coast Guard, he said.
The crew passed alcohol tests, which are required after accidents, and results of similar drug tests are pending, according to a spokesman for the Transportation Department.
These are wholly preventable outbreaks of measles. 11 cases of measles has been reported in New York City, and all the children infected with the disease were not vaccinated against the disease. 9 children and two adults were infected.
According to a report issued by the department on Thursday, nine of the confirmed cases are in children ranging in age from 8 months to 4 years old. Two adults were also confirmed to have the illness. Most of the cases have had some form of close contact with others, and were either never vaccinated against measles or not fully vaccinated.
All of the cases were reported either in the Williamsburg or Borough Park sections of the borough.
The department wants providers to be aware of the recent upswing in cases and to contact the department should they suspect any patients might have the illness, which is very uncommon in New York City, despite an outbreak in 2008. Before then, there hadn't been a major outbreak of measles here since the 1990s.
New York isn't alone. The British health care system is dealing with an outbreak of 51 cases.
A measles outbreak in Brighton and Hove shows no signs of slowing, according to health bosses.
There have now been 51 confirmed cases of the virus in the city since the start of the year.
The results of several suspected cases are still outstanding and could push the number even higher.
Public health managers in the city say the virus is now out in the community and affecting adults as well as children.
The adults are generally parents of infected children.
One of the most recent cases involved an adult who had to be treated in hospital after falling seriously ill.
The virus tends to be more severe in adults and children under two More than 13 schools and numerous nurseries around the city have been affected by the outbreak and letters have been sent home to parents urging them to get their child vaccinated with the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
The situation is being blamed on the poor take up of MMR.
It stands at around 80% , well short of the 95% recommended by the World Health Organisations as needed to protect a community.
Junk science shoulders some of the blame, but so do people like Oprah Winfrey and Jenny McCarthy. Oprah has been touting McCarthy's efforts to stop taking vaccines because she thinks that vaccines are to blame for autism.
That's despite years of medical studies debunking links between autism and vaccines, thimerosol and yet more and more people are avoiding taking the vaccines that can prevent these communicable diseases. That allows diseases that were once rare to make a comeback, and have the potential to create outbreaks that can tax the medical systems. It is the concerted efforts of uninformed people like Jenny McCarthy who are pushing junk science and debunked links between the MMR vaccine and autism that has brought vaccination rates to lows not seen in years.
These people don't realize the health care crisis that is just around the bend because they are urging people not to get vaccinated against wholly preventable diseases.
Work continues around Ground Zero, and here's a video showing a major concrete pour of the plaza adjacent to 1WTC (aka Freedom Tower). To orient yourself with what you're seeing. Vesey Street is to the top (north), West Street is to the left, and the Freedom Tower is adjacent to the right. The circular area is going to be a fountain, and the rectangular areas in the middle of the concrete area are set to become planters containing trees. This is how the area should look when it's completed.
Construction has been delayed because of bad weather in the NY metro area, and the North Core of 1WTC appears to have finally made some headway. I figure that the tower crane on that section will be jumped in the next few weeks and then construction can finally pick up the pace above street level.
Much of the construction is still below ground level, which makes tangible evidence of progress much harder to spot.
Meanwhile, mega-mall operator Westfield Properties is looking to break the impasse on its portion of the Ground Zero rebuilding, by offering to foot the bill itself. That would give Westfield a bigger say in the development, but it would run into opposition from Silverstein Properties, which wants to get the office towers built.
Australian shopping-mall company Westfield Group is offering to foot the $1.3 billion bill to build a retail complex at the World Trade Center site in a bid to break an impasse and seize a bigger role in the site's redevelopment.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the owner of the World Trade Center site, warmly greeted the proposal, which closely resembles the plan the agency has been advocating. The Port Authority is at loggerheads with private developer Larry Silverstein, who has rights to develop three office towers on the site. Their long-running dispute, coupled with the recession, is threatening to further delay efforts to rebuild the complex, which was destroyed close to eight years ago in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Mr. Silverstein declined to comment. But he is expected to oppose Westfield's proposal, which would shift the focus of the site's commercial development away from offices and toward retail. It also would require him to delay building two of his three office towers until the market recovers.
It's curious that Westfield thinks that the retail market will improve sooner than the office real estate market will when both are suffering as a result of the recession. At least Westfield is optimistic about the future; the Port Authority and opponents to Silverstein are not as they're trying to force Silverstein to abandon construction of two of the office towers planned for Greenwich St. Silverstein has been battling with the Port Authority and politicians over obtaining additional financing to make that happen.
The organization, Broadcast Music Inc., which collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers and music publishers, including Mr. Jackson, who died last Thursday at age 50, has gradually shifted the bulk of its jobs to Music Row in Nashville from West 57th Street in Manhattan, said Robbin Ahrold, a spokesman for B.M.I. It now has about 140 jobs in the city, down from a peak of about 500, and plans to move about 110 of them into two floors of 7 World Trade Center in the spring.
Most of the remaining jobs in New York will be executive positions and those of employees who deal with the TV and radio broadcasters based in the city or overseas, Mr. Ahrold said. Most of the employees who are busy these days tracking all of the performances of Mr. Jackson’s music and collecting royalties on them are in Nashville.
While that's good for Silverstein Properties and 7WTC continues to add tenants, it's bad news for the state of NY, which will continue to lose revenues as businesses seek more favorable business climates elsewhere.
"The plane went straight down, almost vertically, towards the surface of the water, very very fast."
The Airbus A330 was unable to fly on autopilot at the time of the crash, air accident investigator Alain Bouillard told reporters in Paris.
That was because the autopilot was not receiving speed, wind or direction information, he said.
"These tell us that the plane has to be, in this case, directed by the pilot," he said. He did not immediately say if the pilots were in control of Air France 447.
Investigators will continue searching for the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder -- commonly known as "black boxes" -- until July 10, he said.
"They normally give a signal for 30 days. We will keep listening another 10 days," he said.
Flight 447 went down in stormy weather while flying from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
Brazil called off the search for bodies on June 27, having found 51 of the 228 people who died when the plunged into the sea June 1, according to the military.
Airbus is facing serious trouble over this incident, and the crash this week of another Airbus plane flown by Yemeni Airlines that killed 153 people and had a single survivor, a 13 year-old girl.
That's the headline from a story today on the website of the Times of London. The publication writes "Airbus is expected to face calls to ground its worldwide fleet of long-range airliners tomorrow when French accident investigators issue their first account of what caused Air France Flight 447 to crash off Brazil on June 1." The Times writes French officials are likely to cite weather as a factor, but will say that "faulty speed data and electronics were the main problem in the disaster that killed 228 people."
The European Aviation Safety Agency "has a legal and moral obligation to get to the bottom of this problem now. If there is a defective system and the aircraft is unsafe then it should be grounded,"James Healy-Pratt of Stewarts Law in London says to the Times. The firm represents the families of 20 of the victims of Flight 447 and specializes in aviation issues, according to the Times. Despite the Times' report, however, a universal grounding of long-range Airbus jets is unlikely
Suspicion over the air data systems on the Airbus 330 and 340 series has increased after the disclosure that the aircraft had experienced 36 episodes similar to the one that brought Flight 447 down as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Airbus first reported problems with the speed sensors — known as pitot tubes — in 1994, it emerged this week. The company advised remedies, but no mandatory action was taken.
Last weekend, the US National Transportation Safety Board, began looking into two incidents in which Airbus A330s flying from the US suffered critical episodes apparently similar to that of AF447.
This raises the prospect of a possible US order on modifications to the Airbus.
The first US incident occurred on May 21 when a TAM Airlines flight from Miami to Sao Paulo, Brazil, lost primary speed and altitude information while in cruise flight. The other was on a Northwest Airlines flight, on June 23, from Hong Kong to Tokyo.
Accounts on the internet from the pilots report a desperate struggle to keep the jet in the air.
The fate of Flight 447 would probably have remained an eternal mystery had the aircraft not automatically transmitted data back to the Air France maintenance base.
Meanwhile, there is a call for an international blacklist of airlines with substandard safety records, which would cull those airlines that don't follow international mandates and required safety upgrades. However, the Yemeni crash was likely the result of weather as the wind near the airport at the time was blowing at near hurricane force (71mph).
Former Jordanian prime minister Abd Al-Raouf Al-Rawabdeh delivered a speech recently in which he called Israel “a cancer that must be eradicated.” His comment were aired on Al-Jazeera TV on June 27 and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Israel is a cancerous body. This is agreed upon,” he stated.
“Usually, you confront a cancerous body in one of two ways: If you have the power, you use it to eradicate the cancer. But if you don't have the power, you try to contain the danger, until you obtain the power you need in order to eradicate it,”said Al-Rawabdeh.
Meanwhile, all the media outlets are busy screaming that Israel killed Palestinians with reckless abandon during Operation Cast Lead. Amnesty International, which has never been known to cast an objective view on matters relating to Israel, issued the report, and the rest of the media jumped on the bandwagon.
Israel bashing has always been in vogue, and it results in all manner of inane statements, particularly when it comes to the construction of communities in the West Bank. German Chancellor Angela Merkel jumped on the settlement bashing train, claiming that it was an obstacle to peace. Merkel should know better.
Sorry, but the obstacle to peace is the fact that Hamas will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state and remains at war with Israel until such time as Israel is destroyed. As I've repeatedly pointed out, Israel has removed Israelis from communities in Gaza and Sinai as part of the disengagement and the Camp David Accords, respectively.
Hamas controls Gaza since 2005, and it has been free of all Israelis save one - Gilad Shalit. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, and all that has done is enable Hamas to arm Gaza for future conflicts, including the ongoing rocket war against Israel. Operation Cast Lead was a response to the thousands of rockets fired against Israel. In other words, but for Hamas firing those thousands of rockets, Israel would not have tried to go after Hamas in well populated areas that Hamas used as human shields.
Instead, Amnesty International and others claim that it was Israel who used human shields. It turns the facts on the ground on its head, but that's what the propagandists do. It's what Israel-haters do. Israel rejects the claims, but now that they're out there, the Amnesty report will be taken as the final word, regardless of what Israel says.
There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption. It is pathetic that we couldn’t do better. It is appalling that so much had to be given away to polluters. It stinks. It’s a mess. I detest it.
Now let’s get it passed in the Senate and make it law.
Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.
So, just because it's the first bill to deal with a problem that might not actually be a problem we have to pass it?
Climate change is a natural part of the global climate since the Earth was created all those eons ago. There were warm periods. There were cold periods. Then, there's the last few hundred years or so when people have been able to take direct measurements of temperature, and the last few decades where satellites can provide global temperature measurements. All of sudden, based on this limited data sample we're told to worry about global warming.
Okay.
We have to stop polluting. I want to see reduced pollution, but the efforts to strangle US business and industry isn't going to affect the global climate, and it surely isn't going to get China or India to suddenly realize that they too have to shut down their polluting industries.
China is the largest emitter of pollution in the world. The air in China is so think you can see it and taste it. Just look at all those photos of Beijing during the Olympics. It was dirty and dingy, despite the government's best efforts to shut tens of thousands of factories and power plants all over China to put the best face on the Chinese Olympic effort. It failed badly, because as soon as the games were over, the government allowed those business to resume their pollution.
Cap and trade is a disastrous policy as all too many countries are already seeing.
If Friedman is so concerned about pollution and cap and trade, how about imploring the New York Times to stop publishing the paper version of its news? After all, think of the trees that could be saved and the forests that could capture all the CO2 that is being emitted.
In fact, Friedman could also shut down his computer and lessen the strain on the power grid, a portion of which requires carbon emissions. He should also give up his trips overseas since the flights release plenty of COx. He should also give up the car.
Instead, he excoriates Republicans, President Obama, and all Americans for why this bill is so poor. Sorry, but that doesn't fly either.
This bill is so awful because it will never do what its authors intend. It will not reduce emissions, will create a new market that can be manipulated in a fashion akin to Enron without suitable regulatory oversight to prevent such manipulation, and will cause shortages of energy all while causing prices of all manner of goods and services to increase as the costs are passed on to consumers.
Spiedi appeared on the show Monday, which was apparently all about the New World Order agenda, which they got into after seeing Jones' latest opus, The Obama Deception. In addition to endorsing Jones's views on 9/11, Fleshbeard aired his concerns about Bohemian Grove, the famous old-boys' private club where, Jones asserts, the rich Republicans go in for "mock child sacrifice" in the presence of 40-foot stone owls. Spencer was troubled by these reports.
He brought them on his show, Jones explains on his website, because "Heidi and Spence are acting as though they have woken up to the New World Order and are plugging away to their combined 800,000 followers on twitter endlessly about the 'New World Order Global Elite.'" Even Miley Cyrus is intrigued!
This has been something that's been brewing for some time. Coarse language in politics is nothing new. It's been around as long as there has been politics. Vulgarity, personal attacks, and smears are part and parcel of American politics, and yet there is something fundamentally distasteful about all of it.
It was awful when the left smeared President Bush and clamored for his impeachment and claimed the 2000 election rendered him an illegitimate president. They have called him a chimp, fascist, and all other manner of epitaph.
That latter bit is from Glenn Beck on FoxNews. He was busy interviewing Michael Scheuer and the bit about hoping for a mass casualty attack came out and that the nation was slipping into a pre 9/11 mindset that will have deadly consequences. Beck nodded approvingly.
Ah, the joys of free speech and the freedom to make complete asses of themselves.
Sorry, but that goes beyond the pale. I was in NYC on 9/11. I smelled, saw, and viscerally felt the terror in NYC on that day when the murderous Islamic terrorists killed thousands of people in a matter of minutes. No one knew how many people were murdered - it could have been 10,000 or more, and the entire city panicked into wondering whether there were more attacks on the way.
That's not an experience I'd want anyone else here in the US have to experience (or again, since NYC remains a top terrorist target).
The nation is rushing headlong into a pre-9/11 mindset courtesy of this Administration, particularly its inept attempt to shutter Guantanamo Bay, tightening up rules of engagement for airstrikes against terrorists that tie the hands of those on the battlefield, and hoping that lawfare will protect the nation when it should be abundantly clear that it takes a focused and dedicated effort from military and intel assets abroad to disrupt plots and groups before they can strike all the way to domestic law enforcement to thwart attacks by groups inside the US. Forsaking the overseas component to claim some mythical improvement in how others view the US undermines the US national security, which should be a President's paramount concern.
Meanwhile, Mark Tapscott was excoriated by the right for noting that calling the eight House GOPers who voted for cap and trade traitors is an assault on the English language. Words have meanings:
Sorry, folks, but, as much as I agree this bill is a disaster for America, calling these eight RINOs "traitors" is beyond the line. Here's why: The word "traitor" has specific reference to national loyalty. Benedict Arnold was a traitor, as were spies like John Walker, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and Aldrich Hazen Ames. The traditional penalty for treason is death, though in recent decades that sentence has been all but forgotten in the U.S., though not in other nations.
When somebody promises you they will take a certain course of action not involving national loyalty, but then does another, they are a rat, a double-crosser, or a jerk, but they are not a traitor because national security is not jeopardized by their failure to do what they promised to do. The Obama-Waxman-Markey bill will certainly burden the U.S. economy, but it won't destroy it. Thus, referring to the eight GOP members who voted for the bill is unjustified.
But isn't "cap and traitor" simply an acceptable rhetorical device whereas "General Betrayus" is self-evidently character assassination? "Rules for Radicals" author Saul Alinsky, President Obama's inspiration, would see both terms as illustrations of his principle of isolating opponents, discrediting them and making them objects of disgust, hatred and villification.
Obama's economic policies are socialist in intent, and redistribution of wealth through the tax system is socialist. It is an objective fact that President Obama is spectacularly inexperienced having held no executive positions prior to being elected President. That's not attacking Obama as a person, but his policies and experience. Express all the disgust you want at the policies, but attacking the person does little to stop them. It is a diversion.
The cap and trade and health care policies are going to be particularly destructive to the economy in ways that its proponents can hardly imagine. Far from improving the quality of health care, it will have the opposite effect, and people will be worse off for it.
Here, we've got tax hikes on cigarettes, wine and hard liquor, personal income taxes, corporate income tax, insurance premiums, and a whole host of other fees to help balance a budget that is still out of whack because it includes structural deficits and obligations that have been shifted to future years.
All those taxes hit across the entire economic spectrum. Corporate taxes get passed on to consumers. People from all income levels buy liquor, wine and cigarettes. Everyone is affected by the insurance tax increases.
Throw in the cuts to the property tax relief program in New Jersey and the middle class got whacked by this state budget, particularly if you made $75,000 or more (which may sound like a lot for the rest of the country, but which is an amount that many will struggle with in the high cost of living here in the NY metro area).
UPDATE: Around the country we're seeing states fail to enact budgets on time because of an inability to figure out how to balance the budgets. The delays mean that the states will incur additional costs for borrowing until the budgets are in place. In most places, the balancing includes demands for tax hikes, but some state legislators or governors are opposed to any additional hikes:
In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed an executive order to keep the government running without a two-year budget in place. While she contends the average taxpayer won’t notice any change, municipal officials fear delays in state grants that fund everything from road repairs to education.
In Arizona, House lawmakers approved nine bills late Tuesday to implement most of a compromise budget negotiated with Gov. Jan Brewer. But they omitted two controversial tax proposals, including a sales tax increase that Brewer has insisted on. The Senate followed by giving the same Republican-drafted bills preliminary approval.
In Pennsylvania, state workers will receive only partial pay on July 17 and July 24, after which paychecks will be withheld entirely until the impasse is solved. They will then be paid retroactively.
Gov. Ed Rendell said 10 banks and credit unions have agreed to help 69,000 state employees by offering them low- or no-interest loans and lines of credit.
In most states, the debate centers around whether states should be raising taxes to bridge the budget gaps. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he wouldn’t sign anything that raised taxes or fees beyond what he has already proposed.
“They should forget about that,” the Republican governor said, accusing Democrats of going through a “song and dance. Let’s get to work, fix it.”
State Controller John Chiang has said he would have to start issuing the IOUs on Thursday unless lawmakers took steps to stem the state’s red ink by then.
California is in the worst position, and it is the direct result of decades of overspending and hoping that no one would notice the taxes had made the state prohibitively expensive. Now that revenues are significantly off, raising taxes isn't even an option.
