Friday Discussion: Presidential Royal Rumble

[Shirley]

He should have regulated Jerry a bit better.

[howard]

the warren g abides. and he gets a bad rap, but he deserves credit for taking the proper action in the face of the financial depression/deflation/panic of 1920-21.

he did nothing. he took no substantive action. and, the market cleared, all by itself. which is why most people today have never heard of this depression.

this is in contrast to the fake laisse faire president, Hoover, who cut taxes, raised deficit spending tremendously, and otherwise massively intervened in the economy. and that didn't work out quite so well.

much better Harding fucked a bunch of hoes than fuck with the economy. I salute his memory.

[SportsDoc]

the warren g abides. and he gets a bad rap, but he deserves credit for taking the proper action in the face of the financial depression/deflation/panic of 1920-21.

he did nothing. he took no substantive action. and, the market cleared, all by itself. which is why most people today have never heard of this depression.

this is in contrast to the fake laisse faire president, Hoover, who cut taxes, raised deficit spending tremendously, and otherwise massively intervened in the economy. and that didn't work out quite so well.

much better Harding fucked a bunch of hoes than fuck with the economy. I salute his memory.

... and I am a proud graduate of Warren G. Harding H.S. in St. Paul, Mn. Go Knights!!!

[L-Jam3]

Talking about Carter's undeserved rep, this guy went into a nuclear sub reactor and cleaned up a fucking meltdown.

Jimmy Carter and Fukushima

Apr 2nd 2011, 11:42 by K.N.C. | TOKYO

THREE weeks after Japan's earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima nuclear power plant, spewing radiation as far as Iceland, clean-up crews have been working around the clock to bring the reactor under control and contain the leakage. Their life is a nightmare. "Crying is useless," wrote one worker in an e-mail to a colleague. "If we are in hell, all we can do is crawl up to heaven."

Workers who were already facing deadly radiation exposure were forced to sleep on a floor with barely enough to eat and drink, until the Japanese media exposed their terrible conditions. Some workers were sent into the toxic plant without basic protective gear like rubber boots, and needed to be hospitalised. On April 1st the government revealed that the plant's operator, TEPCO, had not even provided dosimeters—small, inexpensive badges that record radiation exposure—to all workers.

The fear and danger is beyond comprehension for most people, and in particular the political leaders who must order men in to danger. But interestingly, it is not unfamiliar to former American president Jimmy Carter. Nearly half a century ago, as a young naval officer, he led a 23-man team to dismantle a reactor that, like Fukushima, had partially melted down.

The reactor in Chalk River, Canada, about 180 kilometres (110 miles) from Ottawa, was used to enrich plutonium for America's atomic bombs. On December 12th 1952 it exploded, flooding the reactor building's basement with millions of litres of radioactive water. Lieutenant Carter, a nuclear specialist on the Seawolf submarine programme, and his men were among the few people with the security clearance to enter a reactor. From Schenectady, New York, they rode the train up and got straight to work.

"The radiation intensity meant that each person could spend only about ninety seconds at the hot core location," wrote Mr Carter in "Why Not the Best?", an autobiography published in 1975 when he was campaigning for the presidency.

The team built an exact replica of the reactor on a nearby tennis court, and had cameras monitor the actual damage in the reactor's core. "When it was our time to work, a team of three of us practised several times on the mock-up, to be sure we had the correct tools and knew exactly how to use them. Finally, outfitted with white protective clothes, we descended into the reactor and worked frantically for our allotted time," he wrote. "Each time our men managed to remove a bolt or fitting from the core, the equivalent piece was removed on the mock-up."

"For several months afterwards, we saved our feces and urine to have them monitored for radioactivity. We had absorbed a year's maximum allowance of radiation in one minute and twenty-nine seconds. There were no apparent after-effects from this exposure—just a lot of doubtful jokes among ourselves about death versus sterility," Mr Carter wrote.

The men at Fukushima face similar risks. Some 21 workers have been exposed to more than 100 millisieverts of radiation, the maximum permissible during an emergency, according to Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA). As a result, NISA raised the limit to 250 millisieverts for plant workers. At 500 millisieverts the exposure begins to have detectable effects on health.

In 2008, when Mr Carter was 83, he was asked if he had been scared. The former president grew quiet and, speaking very deliberately, replied: "We were fairly well instructed then on what nuclear power was, but for about six months after that I had radioactivity in my urine. They let us get probably a thousand times more radiation than they would now. It was in the early stages and they didn't know." The account, from Arthur Milnes, a journalist and historian at Queen's University in Canada, appears in a book published last month, "Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter: A Canadian Tribute" (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011). "I learned the dangers," said Mr Carter.

People close to Mr Carter credit his Chalk River experience for his decision not to develop a neutron bomb and to restrict plutonium enrichment to prevent nuclear proliferation. And it is considered one of the principal reasons he took quick, precautionary actions during the Three Mile Island reactor crisis, which occurred two years into his presidency. As for the Chalk River disaster itself, some of today's reactor safety features came out of the incident, such as a system for independent, fast shutdowns that is separate from the regular reactor controls.

Fukushima had this feature. But the system failed due to poor planning. Back-up generators were placed on the plant's ocean-facing side and at basement level. The tsunami's waters flooded everything, and disabled the back-up power for cooling the reactor.

The Economist has contacted Mr Carter's office with questions for the former president about the Chalk River incident, advice to workers at Fukushima and his views on international regulation during nuclear crises. If we hear back from Mr Carter, we'll write a follow-up post.

If Carter Hulks the fuck out, he wins. No questions asked.

[rass]

[Gunpowder]

Warren Gamaliel Harding may have done nothing, but that allowed cunts like Joe Kennedy to rob people blind at their leisure in the pre-modernish era.

I guess that's a different aspect compared to actually meddling with the economy and like, building some bridges or something and printing moneys, but man was it the wild wild west back in the old days of the stock market.

[Gunpowder]

I know that's all old but this is an underrated hall of fame thread. Second whoever nominated Truman. Coolidge was a little dude but so stoic that murdering another man with his bare hands may barely phase him.

Trump would get fuckin' destroyed.

[The Sybian]

I know that's all old but this is an underrated hall of fame thread. Second whoever nominated Truman. Coolidge was a little dude but so stoic that murdering another man with his bare hands may barely phase him.

Trump would get fuckin' destroyed.

But Trump is the only President with pro wrestling experience!

[bfj]

I would love to see a return of Presidential Biographies by SL22.

[P.D.X.]

(copies/pastes Trump's from wiki and lolz all around)

[DaveInSeattle]

People are actually sitting around analyzing/arguing about which President salutes better? Are you fucking kidding me?

[rass]

Pretty sure the second guy was mocking the first guy, who was himself completely serious about the quality of Trump's salute.

[Pruitt]

People are actually sitting around analyzing/arguing about which President salutes better? Are you fucking kidding me?

Question is whether people were always this angry, or if Twitter just makes them this way.

[mister d]

Pretty sure the second guy was mocking the first guy, who was himself completely serious about the quality of Trump's salute.

Yeah, the guy with the picture that gives away that he's fucking around is a Clickhole writer.

[howard]

This was a Swamp HOF post:

The head of the fourth one not only tilts back, but also to the left. (sorry)

[Johnnie]

I can see the palm of his hand. It isn't that good.

And I do distinctly remember his thumb being out from his hand when giving his first salutes at the inauguration. Like this:



If it was more like this one, he'd be in business. (It's better than the Army officer's, btw.)

Notice how the middle finger is touching the brim of her cap and not her pointer finger? Trump's pointer finger is touching too far into his eyebrow, and not the corner. (If she was saluting without a cap that's where the placement would be.)

[Pruitt]

Hey, how come his illegal alien ex-hooker wife isn't saluting?

Protocol or does she not realize where she is?

[A_B]

Probably has somehjng to do with not being the commander of the armed forces.

[Pruitt]

Probably has somehjng to do with not being the commander of the armed forces.

Oh... (he says while feeling dumb)

But actually, this is the picture I saw earlier and I was thinking about when I made that post. Must be some protocol involved if Mom Pence is holding her heart (or nipple) while the former Miss Nude Slovenia isn;t doing anything.

[BSF21]

Probably has somehjng to do with not being the commander of the armed forces.

Oh... (he says while feeling dumb)

But actually, this is the picture I saw earlier and I was thinking about when I made that post. Must be some protocol involved if Mom Pence is holding her heart (or nipple) while the former Miss Nude Slovenia isn;t doing anything.

Mom Pence doesn't have nipples. That would be sinful.

[Pruitt]

Mom Pence doesn't have nipples. That would be sinful.

One has to wonder, if Vice President Retro calls his wife "Mother," than what does (did) he call his Mother?

[rass]

Do they get to bring a pet?

https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status ... 9436561410

Because Jefferson, Teddy, Coolidge and Hoover would get a bump if they do.

[Gunpowder]

Damn it, Polk! Trump and Andrew Johnson would have been such an easy comparison if President Shopping List hadn't fucked it all up.

[P.D.X.]

Love the implication that any pet birds were vultures.

[rass]

I didn't know this? (the part about Cleveland all but grooming his wife, though I guess I somehow missed that Booker was dating Rosario Dawson, too)