http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071202/FRONTPAGE/712020311
Article published Dec 2, 2007
Campaign 2008
Giuliani welfare record critiqued
By JOELLE FARRELLMonitor staff
here-->
Dec 2, 2007
Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who often touts his record on crime reduction and tax cuts when he visits New Hampshire, said last week that he was most proud of the welfare reforms he initiated as mayor.
"We moved more people off welfare than the population of most cities in this country: 640,000 people," he said at the Politics and Eggs forum in Bedford last Monday. "And we found them jobs."
Giuliani's welfare policies drastically cut the number of people on welfare, but not all of the people who left the rolls - or were forced from them - found jobs. Many were wrongly denied benefits, including food stamps, which led more people to seek emergency shelter and food, city anti- poverty advocates said.
During Giuliani's tenure, the poverty rate declined only marginally, remaining about 70 percent greater than the rate for the rest of the country, according to the independent Citizens Budget Commission. The rate of homelessness increased from 23,431 people in the shelters each night to 34,576 people, according to the Coalition for the Homeless. About 500,000 fewer people received food stamps, forcing many to turn to food pantries and soup kitchens, said New York State Sen. Liz Krueger, who oversaw a nonprofit organization that helped poor people avoid eviction and secure emergency food during Giuliani's mayoral terms.
"The data shows that he moved them off of welfare, but he did not move them out of poverty," she said. "The easiest thing in the world to do is close a welfare case. The question is what happened to the household when you closed their welfare case. Many ended up not being able to pay their rent, putting themselves at greater risk for eviction and homelessness."
Mary Brosnahan, executive director of the New York-based Coalition for the Homeless, said it's unclear how much welfare reform may have contributed to homelessness. Giuliani also discontinued a program that gave homeless families priority for low-cost housing and tightened up standards for shelter eligibility, which worsened homelessness in New York City, she said. Homelessness continues to plague the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who has put some of his own money toward poverty initiatives in the city.
"The overarching theme in his administration as it relates to poor people was get tough and crack down," Brosnahan said. "Certainly just in terms of numbers, that approach was a complete failure.
"Tonight in New York City shelters, we will have over 36,000 people, including 15,000 girls and boys," she said. "The toll it takes on those kids is just staggering. I see this as port of the Giuliani legacy."
Giuliani's campaign did not respond to requests for comment. But Jason Turner, who oversaw Giuliani's welfare policies as commissioner of the city's human resources administration, disputes the data presented by anti-poverty advocates. He said the best statistical indicator of the success of Giuliani's welfare reform comes from the U.S Census: In 1996, two years after Giuliani's reforms went into effect, 16 percent of single mothers with a high school education or less - the demographic most likely to be on welfare--were in the workforce. By 2001, that number had increased to 44.5 percent, he said.
"That's a social revolution that's never been seen before," Turner said.
Asked if those entering the workforce could still be suffering economically, working a minimum wage job, for example, Turner said that a woman with two children working a full-time minimum wage job is entitled to up to $4,600 annually with the federal earned income tax credit.
"Add food stamps, if you're still eligible, and you're above the poverty line," he said. "You have to get them on the ladder of employment and you're out of poverty. Yeah, you still have economic struggles, but this is the way out of them."
Andrew White, director of the Center for New York City Affairs, a policy institute that examines poverty issues at The New School, said wages for single mothers with only high school education decreased dramatically during Giuliani's time as mayor. People were leaving the welfare rolls, but many were still poor.
"If your measure of success is just stopping the payment of welfare, then (Giuliani's) programs were a huge success," he said. "If your measure is stabilizing families, strengthening neighborhoods and reducing poverty, then his method was too much on the inflexible and Draconian side."
Giuliani initiated welfare reform more than a year before the federal government put its own reform measures into place.
Also, the rate of welfare reduction in New York City under Giuliani was slightly lower than the national average. In New York City, welfare was reduced 58 percent, while nationally welfare was reduced 62 percent.
Working-class roots
Unlike some of the wealthy candidates running for president, Giuliani rose from working-class roots. His father, Harold, worked as janitor and a bartender. His mother, Helen, stayed home to take care of her only son, according to Wayne Barrett's biography, Rudy! Giuliani attended Manhattan College and New York University Law School before becoming a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
His background informed his view on welfare and public assistance. He and his family worked hard to make their own way, and Giuliani believes others should do the same. He thinks giving someone a check for nothing is insulting and creates an underclass society dependent on entitlements, he has said at campaign stops.
As mayor, Giuliani aimed to crack down on welfare fraud and give people a greater incentive to seek work rather than public assistance. He also required all able-bodied welfare recipients to work 20 hours per week for the city in exchange for their welfare benefits, whether they answered phones for a city agency or picked up litter by the roadside. Welfare recipients were expected to put in another 15 hours a week searching for a job or receiving training and education in order to keep their benefits.
Giuliani renamed welfare centers "job centers" and set strict standards for welfare recipients. If they missed appointments with job counselors, they could be sanctioned from the welfare rolls. If they arrived late to a workfare site or didn't show, they could also lose their benefits.
Turner said the measures were meant to teach necessary workplace skills such as punctuality and organization so that workfare employees would succeed when they entered private employment.
"In real employment, you have to go to your job on a regular basis, and you have to please your boss and get things done," Turner said. "If you take 100,000 welfare recipients and you don't ask anything of them, then next year they will be as they were the year before."
But anti-poverty advocates say some of the restrictions were impractical for people struggling to get out of poverty.
"We would tell some woman with two young children, show up in another borough at 8 a.m. to sweep the park," Krueger said. "But we won't give you child care, so you have no place to leave your 4-year-old. But if you don't show up, we'll close your welfare case. . . . Women stopped showing up because they thought their answer was a child neglect case or a loss of their welfare case."
Rejection rates for those seeking welfare soared, according to Barrett's book. In 1998, 57 percent of those who applied for welfare were denied. A Bronx facility set a record in the first four months of 1999 by rejecting 90 percent of the 3,000 people who applied for welfare; 7 percent were granted assistance, compared with 61 percent from the previous year.
Eligibility for food stamps did not change. Yet in 1997, requests for food stamps in New York City dropped 15 percent, while requests for help from food pantries and soup kitchens increased 24 percent, according to The New York Times. The U.S. Department of Agriculture warned New York city officials that requiring a two-day application for food stamps violated federal law and, in 1999, the agency told the city to offer food stamps to applicants without delay.
Krueger said Giuliani's crackdown on food stamp recipients wasn't the right way to attack welfare fraud. She called it a "cruel and even sick philosophy."
"It's $1 per meal, per person per day," she said. "That's $3 per person. Is that what would motivate you to stay home and say, 'I'll just stay home and eat bonbons?' "
"You're hungry if you're only eating on food stamps," she said. "We're still trying to undo this unbelievable damage to the food and nutrition system in New York City."
On and off the rolls
Many welfare recipients were wrongly denied benefits and requested a hearing, winning in court at least 80 percent of the time, according to news accounts.
The welfare reforms also caused a "churning" of people on and off the rolls, anti-poverty advocates agreed. A welfare case would close, sometimes causing a person to seek emergency food or shelter while the case was reviewed. Then the person would usually regain the benefits. Some argue this allowed for artificial statistics - many who were knocked off welfare were simply waiting to get back on or seeking help elsewhere, advocates said.
Giuliani frustrated academics wanting to follow the people leaving the welfare rolls to see where they ended up. He cited privacy concerns and said he didn't want to be "Big Brother," according to The New York Times.
"He refused to allow any kind of research," White said. "If he couldn't control the message, he wasn't happy about that."
The city's human resources administration did offer some information to the Times, which showed that only 5 percent, or 256, of the first 5,300 people to enter Giuliani's city job centers found employment.
And the Work Experience Program, which required welfare recipients to work for the city, rarely led to permanent jobs, White said. Of the hundreds of thousands who were on welfare, only 35,000 ever participated in the program at any one time, he said. Critics argued that the work program placed too great an emphasis on temporary work instead of helping people gain the skills and education they'd need for a better-paying job.
No one is sure what happened to the 640,000 people who left the rolls.
"People get by," White said. "Even people on welfare, many of them have found ways to earn money. Whether it's healthy for them and their families," he added, no one knows.
When Giuliani was elected mayor, 1.1 million, or about 1 in 6 New Yorkers was on welfare.
"That was crazy; it wasn't healthy," White said. But Giuliani focused almost entirely on reducing the number of welfare recipients rather than solving the problems they faced.
In Bedford last week, Giuliani spoke about his welfare policies.
"I was accused by all the liberal media of being mean, being cruel," he said. "And I would go to those neighborhoods and I would say to people, 'I'm doing this because I love you more, because I care about you more, because I actually care about you as a human being not as some kind of a statistic.' "
He added, " 'I care about you as a person that I want to see being able to work, being able to take care of themselves.' "
------ End of article
By JOELLE FARRELL
Monitor staff
Sunday, December 02, 2007
List of the location of chairman Klein speechs....since 4/07
Who NRC commissioner Klein gave speech’s to since 4/16/07
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
Center for Strategic & International Studies
INPO
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM) Conference, U.S. DOE, NRC and U.S. DOT in cooperation with the IAEA and INMM…who sponsored
Baker Center for Public Policy
Digital Instrumentation and Control Workshop
IAEA General Conference
Global 2007: Advanced Fuel Cycles and Systems
ANS Utility Working ConferenceAmelia Island, FL
Women in Nuclear Conference, ANCAnaheim, CA
Canberra User’s Group, Areva
Society of Nuclear Medicine
Browns Ferry Unit 1 Restart
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference
NEA Forum
GE Nuclear Innovations Conference
Goizueta Leadership Center, INPO, as we call it — the National Academy for Nuclear Training, and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Nuclear Energy Assembly, NEI
Before the International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (Icone 15)JAIF Annual Conference…4/16/07
Citizens for Nuclear Technology Awareness “Teller Lecture”
Center for Strategic & International Studies
INPO
Packaging and Transportation of Radioactive Materials (PATRAM) Conference, U.S. DOE, NRC and U.S. DOT in cooperation with the IAEA and INMM…who sponsored
Baker Center for Public Policy
Digital Instrumentation and Control Workshop
IAEA General Conference
Global 2007: Advanced Fuel Cycles and Systems
ANS Utility Working ConferenceAmelia Island, FL
Women in Nuclear Conference, ANCAnaheim, CA
Canberra User’s Group, Areva
Society of Nuclear Medicine
Browns Ferry Unit 1 Restart
Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism Law Enforcement Conference
NEA Forum
GE Nuclear Innovations Conference
Goizueta Leadership Center, INPO, as we call it — the National Academy for Nuclear Training, and the Goizueta Business School at Emory University
Nuclear Energy Assembly, NEI
Before the International Conference on Nuclear Engineering (Icone 15)JAIF Annual Conference…4/16/07
Friday, November 30, 2007
NRC chairman Klein is pulling a Giuliani!
NRC chairman Klein is pulling a Giuliani!
I am getting to the point of saying NRC commissioner Klein and his agency are showing clear signals that they are seeing the world through a ideological lens. I frankly think they see the world partially through a lens of filter….they deny the evidence coming from a big part of the world.
At its core, it’s so sickening anti nuclear…it’s a lens seen through a system of self protection… dress up as being pro nuclear....that it’s a disservice to the nation, global warming, the nuclear industry and to all the honest workers who are desperately trying to define human dignity and nuclear safety…with a system in crisis…and a hint that better days may be on the horizon.
Now is the time to tell the truth no matter what the consequence.
Can any organization perform a RCA if they have a severe ideological dysfunction?
As far as feedback…I won’t put it in a manager/employee format…power over one with less power…I frame it completely unjudgmental…the only job of feedback is trying to creating a mental picture or video of what went on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/us/politics/30truth.html?hp
Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and
In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.
Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was “the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994.” In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York “had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years.” When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”
An examination of many of his statements by The New York Times, other news organizations and independent groups have turned up a variety of misstatements, virtually all of which cast Mr. Giuliani or his arguments in a better light. “He’s given us a lot of work up until now,” said Brooks Jackson, the director of Annenberg Political Fact Check, which is part of Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania that has corrected statements by candidates in both parties.
I am getting to the point of saying NRC commissioner Klein and his agency are showing clear signals that they are seeing the world through a ideological lens. I frankly think they see the world partially through a lens of filter….they deny the evidence coming from a big part of the world.
At its core, it’s so sickening anti nuclear…it’s a lens seen through a system of self protection… dress up as being pro nuclear....that it’s a disservice to the nation, global warming, the nuclear industry and to all the honest workers who are desperately trying to define human dignity and nuclear safety…with a system in crisis…and a hint that better days may be on the horizon.
Now is the time to tell the truth no matter what the consequence.
Can any organization perform a RCA if they have a severe ideological dysfunction?
As far as feedback…I won’t put it in a manager/employee format…power over one with less power…I frame it completely unjudgmental…the only job of feedback is trying to creating a mental picture or video of what went on.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/us/politics/30truth.html?hp
Citing Statistics, Giuliani Misses Time and
In almost every appearance as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination, Rudolph W. Giuliani cites a fusillade of statistics and facts to make his arguments about his successes in running New York City and the merits of his views.
Discussing his crime-fighting success as mayor, Mr. Giuliani told a television interviewer that New York was “the only city in America that has reduced crime every single year since 1994.” In New Hampshire this week, he told a public forum that when he became mayor in 1994, New York “had been averaging like 1,800, 1,900 murders for almost 30 years.” When a recent Republican debate turned to the question of fiscal responsibility, he boasted that “under me, spending went down by 7 percent.”
An examination of many of his statements by The New York Times, other news organizations and independent groups have turned up a variety of misstatements, virtually all of which cast Mr. Giuliani or his arguments in a better light. “He’s given us a lot of work up until now,” said Brooks Jackson, the director of Annenberg Political Fact Check, which is part of Factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania that has corrected statements by candidates in both parties.
The monster running around in a nuclear plant...in our heads?
The monster running around in a nuclear plant...in our heads?
I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael MulliganTo: rootcauseconference@yahoogroups.comSent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 11:34:04 AMSubject: The monster running around in a nuclear plant...in our heads?
This comes from a compilation of a recent conversation with three different Vermont Yankee nuclear plant employees. The gist is…could it be hindsight bias, I don’t think so.
The “cooling tower accident” was absolutely probable in their eyes before the accident. Everyone thinks the categorization of plant systems into nuclear safety, half nuclear safety and non safety…is a false distinction. The object of being a non safety and nuclear safety system ends up morphing into prioritization system based on a financial consideration. All of these guys think it was based on the group think at the time…they were worried before hand…they could see the increasing degradation of the plant…that the cooling tower collapse type accident is right around the corner. I find it amazing that a significant amount of the population of employee’s at that plant thought the corporate behavior was asking for an event.
The question that drives me crazy…why couldn’t the employees create a dialog with somebody before the cooling tower or valve accident…in the corporation, the NRC, INPO, to outsiders…who should have prevented the accident?
They told me they are glad the NRC was onsite…they couldn’t imagine the terrible corporate behavior based on a warped nuclear magic philosophy…nobody could understand the resource priorities…if the plant could get away with what they wanted independent of the NRC. Their idea is the corporation is just trying to maximize profits…I think it’s a lot more complex than that…it’s just the rationalization that’s easy to understand.
I find it fascinating they don’t think Entergy’s ethic’s with nuclear safety is sustainable without governmental oversight. It’s not that they would risk a meltdown…hiding secrets… for making a few pennies of profits. It’s that they will side into a predictable event based on a crazy group think rationalization. Then nobody would have the horsepower to break the trance until a public accident gives the insider’s the leverage to bring the maintenance back up to an acceptable level. They were worried with the runaway and disconnected offsite corporate culture that wasn’t aware of the physicalities of the maintenance of the plant.
They all tell me there is significant soul searching going on at the plant with what occurred.
Everyone thinks this is normalized throughout the domestic nuclear industry….it’s not a localized to Vermont Yankee.
Two employees’ chided me about the legacy of the Bush’s regulatory philosophy with safety…and the dynasty of the republican hold on our national regulatory structure for many years. They are republican's.
They are intimidated into engaging into a controversial debate…whomever; internal, NRC, INPO and outsiders… about the general reliability and safety of their plant! They can’t organize and display the information that could bolster their idea of the condition of the plant…especially if it is controversial to the group think of the corporation.
It’s like they got an unstoppable monster running around in their plant…everyone can see it…can predict the negative results of it, looking down the road with predicting the kinds of the damage this can do. Everyone is resigned to the fact that they are powerless to engage and stop the monster’s action. They feel if they engage the hypocrisy of the monster…it will destroy them and their family without doing any good.
Hmmm…who has more wage slavery pain and terrorism….a man walking on the black hole edge of employment…absence wages and benefits and having any meaningful power of any influences in work….or an employee making $80,000, excellent benefits and a ineffectual Union …who is intimidated and hurts more, if the floor is threatened to be removed from underneath them?
I mean i lose nothing when i get fired...can you imagine the lost of the magnitude of the world a nuclear middle manager or operator with 25 years at the plant has? I wonder what this would be in dollar terms. I think it easier for me to speak truth to power...what the hell do i have to lose.
These events have changed the public's perception of safety with this nuclear plant on a regional based. It's a public relation meltdown! They are telling me VY's whole page ad in the local paper is a result of my investigation.
Entergy's tells us through this their first three priorities are ...SAFETY...SAFETY....SAFETY thru this local newspaper advertizement.
Thanks,
mike
I meant, what is the optimal "state of mind" in a person in a complex system? What and who should i work for in defense of human dignity...is human dignity safety....is human dignity profit maximization in the long term. I am not against profits.
Is the search for truth the prize no matter what the consequences ...maybe we should have no consequences?
I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael MulliganTo: rootcauseconference@yahoogroups.comSent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 12:07:32 PMSubject: Re: [rootcauseconference] Re: Human Behavioral Technology
Oh, man…doesn’t Chomsky make that phrase come alive, that words have meanings. I got this jerk at work telling me my language is sloppy….and he is right. Chomsky justified my existential fears…of who should I trust? How do I come up with whom should I trust a lot and who should I trust a little? Do i trust someone with a predictable repeated behavior or do i trust somebody who is creative?
I just never had the vocabulary to express my knowings and feelings. Now I understand why everyone hates Chomsky:
http://www.chomsky.info/
That there isn't much difference between slavery, and renting one's self to an owner, or "wage slavery." He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that destroys and undermines our freedoms. He holds that those that work in the mills should run them.
You should see it from the bottom step of the employment ladder….I mean there is no fall back job underneath me and my cohorts….just a dark hole of unemployment.
We were forced into doing a corporate chant last night at work. The emotional force of not doing what everyone else was doing was so strong. One young and new manager was somewhat balking, saying why am I being punished with you choosing to make me lead the chant…with the top manager coming back with, that is why you joined the management team. It couldn’t be expressed more perfect. It is a soft demonstration of force in front of everyone.
At the bottom rung of the ladder, you should see how easy it is for people to sell their soul and individuality…being nothing through all their years of employment…to become “somebody” such as a manager…who can assert some amount of power over the weak. Are you somebody if you can assert some level of power over another in an organization! Why is power so addictive? What are the attributes of good assertion of authority or power and a bad one...does power restrict visibility or increase visibility? Should you use power to punish people or increase visibility?
At the bottom end of the ladder, the hopeless and sitting right next to unemployment chaos…you should see how easy it is to sell your integrity and your soul, your humanity. You should see how good it feels to dehumanize your self and your peers. You should see how easy this becomes with people who have a limited vocabulary.
“To be or not to be, that is the question”….? To be someone…in the eyes of a manager higher than you?
I mean, that is the fundamental question of life…of human dignity…human rights…. "whom am I" ...of less human errors?
They have gone to extraordinary lengths to surveil me at work.
What is the optimal “state of mind” in a complex system…in human error analysis?
I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan
This comes from a compilation of a recent conversation with three different Vermont Yankee nuclear plant employees. The gist is…could it be hindsight bias, I don’t think so.
The “cooling tower accident” was absolutely probable in their eyes before the accident. Everyone thinks the categorization of plant systems into nuclear safety, half nuclear safety and non safety…is a false distinction. The object of being a non safety and nuclear safety system ends up morphing into prioritization system based on a financial consideration. All of these guys think it was based on the group think at the time…they were worried before hand…they could see the increasing degradation of the plant…that the cooling tower collapse type accident is right around the corner. I find it amazing that a significant amount of the population of employee’s at that plant thought the corporate behavior was asking for an event.
The question that drives me crazy…why couldn’t the employees create a dialog with somebody before the cooling tower or valve accident…in the corporation, the NRC, INPO, to outsiders…who should have prevented the accident?
They told me they are glad the NRC was onsite…they couldn’t imagine the terrible corporate behavior based on a warped nuclear magic philosophy…nobody could understand the resource priorities…if the plant could get away with what they wanted independent of the NRC. Their idea is the corporation is just trying to maximize profits…I think it’s a lot more complex than that…it’s just the rationalization that’s easy to understand.
I find it fascinating they don’t think Entergy’s ethic’s with nuclear safety is sustainable without governmental oversight. It’s not that they would risk a meltdown…hiding secrets… for making a few pennies of profits. It’s that they will side into a predictable event based on a crazy group think rationalization. Then nobody would have the horsepower to break the trance until a public accident gives the insider’s the leverage to bring the maintenance back up to an acceptable level. They were worried with the runaway and disconnected offsite corporate culture that wasn’t aware of the physicalities of the maintenance of the plant.
They all tell me there is significant soul searching going on at the plant with what occurred.
Everyone thinks this is normalized throughout the domestic nuclear industry….it’s not a localized to Vermont Yankee.
Two employees’ chided me about the legacy of the Bush’s regulatory philosophy with safety…and the dynasty of the republican hold on our national regulatory structure for many years. They are republican's.
They are intimidated into engaging into a controversial debate…whomever; internal, NRC, INPO and outsiders… about the general reliability and safety of their plant! They can’t organize and display the information that could bolster their idea of the condition of the plant…especially if it is controversial to the group think of the corporation.
It’s like they got an unstoppable monster running around in their plant…everyone can see it…can predict the negative results of it, looking down the road with predicting the kinds of the damage this can do. Everyone is resigned to the fact that they are powerless to engage and stop the monster’s action. They feel if they engage the hypocrisy of the monster…it will destroy them and their family without doing any good.
Hmmm…who has more wage slavery pain and terrorism….a man walking on the black hole edge of employment…absence wages and benefits and having any meaningful power of any influences in work….or an employee making $80,000, excellent benefits and a ineffectual Union …who is intimidated and hurts more, if the floor is threatened to be removed from underneath them?
I mean i lose nothing when i get fired...can you imagine the lost of the magnitude of the world a nuclear middle manager or operator with 25 years at the plant has? I wonder what this would be in dollar terms. I think it easier for me to speak truth to power...what the hell do i have to lose.
These events have changed the public's perception of safety with this nuclear plant on a regional based. It's a public relation meltdown! They are telling me VY's whole page ad in the local paper is a result of my investigation.
Entergy's tells us through this their first three priorities are ...SAFETY...SAFETY....SAFETY thru this local newspaper advertizement.
Thanks,
mike
I meant, what is the optimal "state of mind" in a person in a complex system? What and who should i work for in defense of human dignity...is human dignity safety....is human dignity profit maximization in the long term. I am not against profits.
Is the search for truth the prize no matter what the consequences ...maybe we should have no consequences?
I will never discover the full truth, or the truth is infinity...but I will always be looking for it...always test everything, always be looking for god....always make sure me and everyone's mental model is correct.
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan
Oh, man…doesn’t Chomsky make that phrase come alive, that words have meanings. I got this jerk at work telling me my language is sloppy….and he is right. Chomsky justified my existential fears…of who should I trust? How do I come up with whom should I trust a lot and who should I trust a little? Do i trust someone with a predictable repeated behavior or do i trust somebody who is creative?
I just never had the vocabulary to express my knowings and feelings. Now I understand why everyone hates Chomsky:
http://www.chomsky.info/
That there isn't much difference between slavery, and renting one's self to an owner, or "wage slavery." He feels that it is an attack on personal integrity that destroys and undermines our freedoms. He holds that those that work in the mills should run them.
You should see it from the bottom step of the employment ladder….I mean there is no fall back job underneath me and my cohorts….just a dark hole of unemployment.
We were forced into doing a corporate chant last night at work. The emotional force of not doing what everyone else was doing was so strong. One young and new manager was somewhat balking, saying why am I being punished with you choosing to make me lead the chant…with the top manager coming back with, that is why you joined the management team. It couldn’t be expressed more perfect. It is a soft demonstration of force in front of everyone.
At the bottom rung of the ladder, you should see how easy it is for people to sell their soul and individuality…being nothing through all their years of employment…to become “somebody” such as a manager…who can assert some amount of power over the weak. Are you somebody if you can assert some level of power over another in an organization! Why is power so addictive? What are the attributes of good assertion of authority or power and a bad one...does power restrict visibility or increase visibility? Should you use power to punish people or increase visibility?
At the bottom end of the ladder, the hopeless and sitting right next to unemployment chaos…you should see how easy it is to sell your integrity and your soul, your humanity. You should see how good it feels to dehumanize your self and your peers. You should see how easy this becomes with people who have a limited vocabulary.
“To be or not to be, that is the question”….? To be someone…in the eyes of a manager higher than you?
I mean, that is the fundamental question of life…of human dignity…human rights…. "whom am I" ...of less human errors?
They have gone to extraordinary lengths to surveil me at work.
What is the optimal “state of mind” in a complex system…in human error analysis?
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Denial Makes the World Go Round
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/health/research/20deni.html?ref=science&pagewanted=all#
November 20, 2007
Denial Makes the World Go Round
By BENEDICT CAREY
Excerpts:
Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news, like a cancer diagnosis….
Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.
In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum — from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness — on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people.
“The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” “We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.”….
It is a mistake to underestimate the power of simple attention. People can be acutely aware of what they pay attention to and remarkably blind to what they do not, psychologists have found. In real life, to be sure, casual denials of bad behavior require more than simple mental gymnastics, but inattention is a basic first ingredient.
The second ingredient, or second level, is passive acknowledgment, when infractions are too persistent to go unnoticed. People have adapted a multitude of ways to handle such problems indirectly. A raised eyebrow, a half smile or a nod can signal both “I saw that” and “I’ll let this one pass.”
The acknowledgment is passive for good reasons: an open confrontation, with a loved one or oneself, risks a major rupture or life change that could be more dire than the offense. And more often than is assumed, a subtle gesture can be enough of a warning to trigger a change in behavior, even one’s own.
In an effort to calculate exactly how often people overlook or punish infractions within their peer groups, a team of anthropologists from New Mexico and Vancouver ran a simulation of a game to measure levels of cooperation. In this one-on-one game, players decide whether to contribute to a shared investment pool, and they can cut off their partner if they believe that player’s contributions are too meager. The researchers found that once players had an established relationship of trust based on many interactions — once, in effect, the two joined the same clique — they were willing to overlook four or five selfish violations in a row without cutting a friend off. They cut strangers off after a single violation.
Using a computer program, the anthropologists ran out the simulation over many generations, in effect speeding up the tape of evolution for this society of players. And the rate of overlooking trust violations held up; that is, this pattern of forgiving behavior defined stable groups that maximized the survival and evolutionary fitness of the individuals…..
Nowhere do people use denial skills to greater effect than with a spouse or partner. In a series of studies, Sandra Murray of the University of Buffalo and John Holmes of the University of Waterloo in Ontario have shown that people often idealize their partners, overestimating their strengths and playing down their flaws.
This typically involves a blend of denial and touch-up work — seeing jealousy as passion, for instance, or stubbornness as a strong sense of right and wrong. But the studies have found that partners who idealize each other in this way are more likely to stay together and to report being satisfied in the relationship than those who do not.
“The evidence suggests that if you see the other person in this idealized way, and treat them accordingly, they begin to see themselves that way, too,” Dr. Murray said. “It draws out these more positive behaviors.”
Faced with the high odor of real perfidy, people unwilling to risk a break skew their perception of reality much more purposefully. One common way to do this is to recast clear moral breaches as foul-ups, stumbles or lapses in competence — because those are more tolerable, said Dr. Kim, of U.S.C. In effect, Dr. Kim said, people “reframe the ethical violation as a competence violation.”
She wasn’t cheating on him — she strayed. He didn’t hide the losses in the subprime mortgage unit for years — he miscalculated.
This active recasting of events, built on the same smaller-bore psychological tools of inattention and passive acknowledgment, is the point at which relationship repair can begin to shade into willful self-deception of the kind that takes on a life of its own. Everyone knows what this looks like: You can’t talk about the affair, and you can’t talk about not talking about it. Soon, you can’t talk about any subject that’s remotely related to it.
And the unstated social expectations out in the world often reinforce the conspiracy, no matter its source, said Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutgers and the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life.”
“Tact, decorum, politeness, taboo — they all limit what can be said in social domains,” he said. “I have never seen tact and taboo discussed in the same context, but one is just a hard version of the other, and it’s not clear where people draw the line between their private concerns and these social limits.”
In short, social mores often work to shrink the space in which a conspiracy of silence can be broken: not at work, not out here in public, not around the dinner table, not here. It takes an outside crisis to break the denial, and no one needs a psychological study to know how that ends.
November 20, 2007
Denial Makes the World Go Round
By BENEDICT CAREY
Excerpts:
Everyone is in denial about something; just try denying it and watch friends make a list. For Freud, denial was a defense against external realities that threaten the ego, and many psychologists today would argue that it can be a protective defense in the face of unbearable news, like a cancer diagnosis….
Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.
In this emerging view, social scientists see denial on a broader spectrum — from benign inattention to passive acknowledgment to full-blown, willful blindness — on the part of couples, social groups and organizations, as well as individuals. Seeing denial in this way, some scientists argue, helps clarify when it is wise to manage a difficult person or personal situation, and when it threatens to become a kind of infectious silent trance that can make hypocrites of otherwise forthright people.
“The closer you look, the more clearly you see that denial is part of the uneasy bargain we strike to be social creatures,” said Michael McCullough, a psychologist at the University of Miami and the author of the coming book “Beyond Revenge: The Evolution of the Forgiveness Instinct.” “We really do want to be moral people, but the fact is that we cut corners to get individual advantage, and we rely on the room that denial gives us to get by, to wiggle out of speeding tickets, and to forgive others for doing the same.”….
It is a mistake to underestimate the power of simple attention. People can be acutely aware of what they pay attention to and remarkably blind to what they do not, psychologists have found. In real life, to be sure, casual denials of bad behavior require more than simple mental gymnastics, but inattention is a basic first ingredient.
The second ingredient, or second level, is passive acknowledgment, when infractions are too persistent to go unnoticed. People have adapted a multitude of ways to handle such problems indirectly. A raised eyebrow, a half smile or a nod can signal both “I saw that” and “I’ll let this one pass.”
The acknowledgment is passive for good reasons: an open confrontation, with a loved one or oneself, risks a major rupture or life change that could be more dire than the offense. And more often than is assumed, a subtle gesture can be enough of a warning to trigger a change in behavior, even one’s own.
In an effort to calculate exactly how often people overlook or punish infractions within their peer groups, a team of anthropologists from New Mexico and Vancouver ran a simulation of a game to measure levels of cooperation. In this one-on-one game, players decide whether to contribute to a shared investment pool, and they can cut off their partner if they believe that player’s contributions are too meager. The researchers found that once players had an established relationship of trust based on many interactions — once, in effect, the two joined the same clique — they were willing to overlook four or five selfish violations in a row without cutting a friend off. They cut strangers off after a single violation.
Using a computer program, the anthropologists ran out the simulation over many generations, in effect speeding up the tape of evolution for this society of players. And the rate of overlooking trust violations held up; that is, this pattern of forgiving behavior defined stable groups that maximized the survival and evolutionary fitness of the individuals…..
Nowhere do people use denial skills to greater effect than with a spouse or partner. In a series of studies, Sandra Murray of the University of Buffalo and John Holmes of the University of Waterloo in Ontario have shown that people often idealize their partners, overestimating their strengths and playing down their flaws.
This typically involves a blend of denial and touch-up work — seeing jealousy as passion, for instance, or stubbornness as a strong sense of right and wrong. But the studies have found that partners who idealize each other in this way are more likely to stay together and to report being satisfied in the relationship than those who do not.
“The evidence suggests that if you see the other person in this idealized way, and treat them accordingly, they begin to see themselves that way, too,” Dr. Murray said. “It draws out these more positive behaviors.”
Faced with the high odor of real perfidy, people unwilling to risk a break skew their perception of reality much more purposefully. One common way to do this is to recast clear moral breaches as foul-ups, stumbles or lapses in competence — because those are more tolerable, said Dr. Kim, of U.S.C. In effect, Dr. Kim said, people “reframe the ethical violation as a competence violation.”
She wasn’t cheating on him — she strayed. He didn’t hide the losses in the subprime mortgage unit for years — he miscalculated.
This active recasting of events, built on the same smaller-bore psychological tools of inattention and passive acknowledgment, is the point at which relationship repair can begin to shade into willful self-deception of the kind that takes on a life of its own. Everyone knows what this looks like: You can’t talk about the affair, and you can’t talk about not talking about it. Soon, you can’t talk about any subject that’s remotely related to it.
And the unstated social expectations out in the world often reinforce the conspiracy, no matter its source, said Eviatar Zerubavel, a sociologist at Rutgers and the author of “The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life.”
“Tact, decorum, politeness, taboo — they all limit what can be said in social domains,” he said. “I have never seen tact and taboo discussed in the same context, but one is just a hard version of the other, and it’s not clear where people draw the line between their private concerns and these social limits.”
In short, social mores often work to shrink the space in which a conspiracy of silence can be broken: not at work, not out here in public, not around the dinner table, not here. It takes an outside crisis to break the denial, and no one needs a psychological study to know how that ends.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Wanna Talk Values
http://www.tompaine.com/print/wanna_talk_values.php
Wanna Talk Values?
Rhonda Soto, TomPaine.com
November 26, 2007
Rhonda Soto is the Race/Class Intersections Project Coordinator at Class Action, a national non-profit based in Hadley, Massachusetts.
African Americans have broken two new barriers, according to the Pew Charitable Trust Economic Mobility Project’s new report. Almost half the children of middle-class blacks have fallen into the lowest income bracket in the last 30 years, the first generation in a century to lose so much ground. And for the first time, a majority of African Americans polled say that blacks are responsible for their own economic situations, and that the values of poor and middle-class blacks have become more different over the last generation.
Yeah, right, it’s the values. Those middle-class African Americans whose children are now in poverty—rotten parents, every one of them. While going out to work every day, they were obviously telling their children not to do the same. The black unemployment rate in October was double the white unemployment, 8.5 percent versus 4.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employers of all races, with their superior values, no doubt rejected those black pavement-pounders because they could see the poor work ethic a mile away. The quarter-million drop in the number of U.S. jobs in October, and all the offshore outsourcing of the last decade must be “a poor black values thing.”
It was poor black values that led neighborhoods of color to be targeted by predatory lenders. It wasn’t the secondary mortgage industry that started the current tsunami of foreclosures now evicting people, disproportionately black and Latino people—it was the homeowners’ bad values. Higher interest rates charged to borrowers of color with identical credit rating are obviously payback for their poor behavior. And the mostly white executives who made millions off discriminatory sub-prime lending, they deserved that reward for their exemplary moral character.
The drop in unionization from 20 percent to 12 percent in the last 25 years wouldn’t have happened, and the American labor force would not have lost 265,000 black union workers, if those workers’ values had been better. The professional union-busting consulting firms, who advised companies how to illegally fire pro-union workers—they’re role models of the American work ethic.
Similarly, the mostly white Congress members increased their own paychecks over $50,000 with multiple raises since 1990 while blocking an increase in the minimum wage for a record-breaking decade. And the mostly all-white billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans who are $290 billion richer than last year — they must have finest values of all.
Prison sentences are longer for blacks and Latinos than whites convicted of the same crime because judges can just see the difference in moral fiber between defendants of different races. And of course employers and health insurance companies are not insuring 7.2 million black people—nearly 20 percent—because their moral failings have made them too sickly.
The re-segregation of schools, and the widening gap in class sizes and per-pupil spending between mostly white and mostly black schools? The roll-back of affirmative action in higher education? All due to the character flaws of African American students.
Are values really the explanation for the racial income gap? Or do we too often assume that the American dream of equal opportunity is a reality? Do we overlook growing structural obstacles that block the path of some more than others among us?
Employed African Americans on average work more hours per week than employed white people. Blacks are slightly less likely than whites to use illegal drugs. They are more likely to be affiliated with a religious congregation. Poll after poll shows no difference between races in attitudes towards education, paid work, or expectations for children’s advancement. Where are these famous bad values?
As a former teacher I know that some young people have self-destructive attitudes and behaviors—some black and Latino youth, some white youth, and some youth of 30 years ago. Far more young people have talent, ambition and a work ethic that go underutilized, especially working-class youth of color in this 'have and have-nots' economy.
We as people of color are used to noticing racism and putting it into words. We’re less accustomed to naming classism—but it’s rampant among middle-class people of color. Is this what racial progress has come to: more middle-class blacks taking up the previously white sport of blaming the victim?
Wanna Talk Values?
Rhonda Soto, TomPaine.com
November 26, 2007
Rhonda Soto is the Race/Class Intersections Project Coordinator at Class Action, a national non-profit based in Hadley, Massachusetts.
African Americans have broken two new barriers, according to the Pew Charitable Trust Economic Mobility Project’s new report. Almost half the children of middle-class blacks have fallen into the lowest income bracket in the last 30 years, the first generation in a century to lose so much ground. And for the first time, a majority of African Americans polled say that blacks are responsible for their own economic situations, and that the values of poor and middle-class blacks have become more different over the last generation.
Yeah, right, it’s the values. Those middle-class African Americans whose children are now in poverty—rotten parents, every one of them. While going out to work every day, they were obviously telling their children not to do the same. The black unemployment rate in October was double the white unemployment, 8.5 percent versus 4.2 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Employers of all races, with their superior values, no doubt rejected those black pavement-pounders because they could see the poor work ethic a mile away. The quarter-million drop in the number of U.S. jobs in October, and all the offshore outsourcing of the last decade must be “a poor black values thing.”
It was poor black values that led neighborhoods of color to be targeted by predatory lenders. It wasn’t the secondary mortgage industry that started the current tsunami of foreclosures now evicting people, disproportionately black and Latino people—it was the homeowners’ bad values. Higher interest rates charged to borrowers of color with identical credit rating are obviously payback for their poor behavior. And the mostly white executives who made millions off discriminatory sub-prime lending, they deserved that reward for their exemplary moral character.
The drop in unionization from 20 percent to 12 percent in the last 25 years wouldn’t have happened, and the American labor force would not have lost 265,000 black union workers, if those workers’ values had been better. The professional union-busting consulting firms, who advised companies how to illegally fire pro-union workers—they’re role models of the American work ethic.
Similarly, the mostly white Congress members increased their own paychecks over $50,000 with multiple raises since 1990 while blocking an increase in the minimum wage for a record-breaking decade. And the mostly all-white billionaires on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans who are $290 billion richer than last year — they must have finest values of all.
Prison sentences are longer for blacks and Latinos than whites convicted of the same crime because judges can just see the difference in moral fiber between defendants of different races. And of course employers and health insurance companies are not insuring 7.2 million black people—nearly 20 percent—because their moral failings have made them too sickly.
The re-segregation of schools, and the widening gap in class sizes and per-pupil spending between mostly white and mostly black schools? The roll-back of affirmative action in higher education? All due to the character flaws of African American students.
Are values really the explanation for the racial income gap? Or do we too often assume that the American dream of equal opportunity is a reality? Do we overlook growing structural obstacles that block the path of some more than others among us?
Employed African Americans on average work more hours per week than employed white people. Blacks are slightly less likely than whites to use illegal drugs. They are more likely to be affiliated with a religious congregation. Poll after poll shows no difference between races in attitudes towards education, paid work, or expectations for children’s advancement. Where are these famous bad values?
As a former teacher I know that some young people have self-destructive attitudes and behaviors—some black and Latino youth, some white youth, and some youth of 30 years ago. Far more young people have talent, ambition and a work ethic that go underutilized, especially working-class youth of color in this 'have and have-nots' economy.
We as people of color are used to noticing racism and putting it into words. We’re less accustomed to naming classism—but it’s rampant among middle-class people of color. Is this what racial progress has come to: more middle-class blacks taking up the previously white sport of blaming the victim?
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Growing Up Giuliani
http://www.newsweek.com/id/72121
Growing Up Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani was raised to understand that fine, blurry line between saint and sinner. The making of his moral code.
By Evan Thomas and Suzanne Smalley
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:14 PM ET Nov 24, 2007
On Sept. 16, 1992, the police in New York City held a rally that spun out of control. The cops wanted a new collective-bargaining agreement, and they were angry at Mayor David Dinkins for proposing a civilian review board and for refusing to issue patrolmen 9mm guns. More than a few of them tipsy or drunk, the cops jumped on cars near city hall and blocked traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge. According to some witnesses, they waved placards crudely mocking Mayor Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, on racial grounds, while at the same time chanting "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" to welcome Rudy Giuliani, the crime-busting former U.S. attorney who had arrived in their midst to shore up his political base.
It is not clear Giuliani knew exactly what he was getting himself into—he later denied that he did—but video shows him wildly gesticulating and shouting a profanity-laced diatribe against Dinkins. The next day the New York newspapers were sharply critical of Giuliani (a Daily News editorial called his behavior "shameful"), and Dinkins, years later, accused him of trying to stir up "white cops to riot." At the time, Giuliani refused to back down or apologize for his remarks, saying only: "I had four uncles who were cops. So maybe I was more emotional than I usually am." Giuliani's performance that day lost African-American voters, some permanently, but it guaranteed the informal backing of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, which helped him get elected mayor in 1993....
Growing Up Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani was raised to understand that fine, blurry line between saint and sinner. The making of his moral code.
By Evan Thomas and Suzanne Smalley
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:14 PM ET Nov 24, 2007
On Sept. 16, 1992, the police in New York City held a rally that spun out of control. The cops wanted a new collective-bargaining agreement, and they were angry at Mayor David Dinkins for proposing a civilian review board and for refusing to issue patrolmen 9mm guns. More than a few of them tipsy or drunk, the cops jumped on cars near city hall and blocked traffic near the Brooklyn Bridge. According to some witnesses, they waved placards crudely mocking Mayor Dinkins, the first black mayor of New York, on racial grounds, while at the same time chanting "Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!" to welcome Rudy Giuliani, the crime-busting former U.S. attorney who had arrived in their midst to shore up his political base.
It is not clear Giuliani knew exactly what he was getting himself into—he later denied that he did—but video shows him wildly gesticulating and shouting a profanity-laced diatribe against Dinkins. The next day the New York newspapers were sharply critical of Giuliani (a Daily News editorial called his behavior "shameful"), and Dinkins, years later, accused him of trying to stir up "white cops to riot." At the time, Giuliani refused to back down or apologize for his remarks, saying only: "I had four uncles who were cops. So maybe I was more emotional than I usually am." Giuliani's performance that day lost African-American voters, some permanently, but it guaranteed the informal backing of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, the policemen's union, which helped him get elected mayor in 1993....
Friday, November 23, 2007
Broken Windows, Broken Hearts
NRC broken windows
I happen to like this model of controlling a complex system:
A new design for healthcare delivery
By Steven J. Spear and Donald M. Berwick
November 23, 2007
Excerpts of speech concerning “broken windows” of NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein:
"Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the State of the Nuclear Renaissance"
INPO Atlanta, GA
November 15, 2007
“First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law.
It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.’
If the public believes that standards at nuclear plants are not being enforced, it leads to an erosion of public confidence in the whole nuclear energy industry. On the other hand, when industry does its job, it leads to public confidence in nuclear power more broadly—which lends credence to the work of the NRC. And when we, in turn, hold the utilities to a high standard of safety and security, it enhances confidence in the job you are doing."
I guess I have troubles with the phrase… "if the public believes”…how does the public know, if the regulators see events through a ideological lens. How do we know the NRC is holding the utilities to high standards…who over sees the overseers?
The NRC and nuclear industry should fund a seminar about NYC'S broken windows…invite a group of experts to explain it and the results. How about seeing broken windows through the eyes of a black man and through the eyes of the mentally ill? They should think of broken windows and inner city disorder as a complex problem. We all should get an idea of what’s true with this metaphor…and what is an illusion. I happen to think this is a great case study issue…and it would help the NRC and nuclear industry with helping them understand cause and effect in a complex system….and inaccurate political rhetoric. A independent regulator should be above inaccurate political hyperbole.
It is so astonishing…NRC commissioner Klein…is recklessly playing with a road-side cultural and racial IED bomb with talking about the “broken windows” theory of causes with problems and incidences. Effectively, he knowingly or unknowingly was speaking in racial code or class warfare words…to a group of white men of INPO. I am not sure he has a full understanding about the undertones…but as a US governmental official…he should have fully understood the terms of these code words. He should have had somebody on his staff who understands how this phrase was politically developed. I hope he doesn’t look at all nuclear plant problems…problems across many plants…in such simplistic ideological and distorted political terms. Can you imagine the nuclear meltdown of the Renaissance being implemented exclusively though the ideological lens of race and class?
I like to know what the racial and gender percentage is of INPO with this private nuclear organization. INPO is a southern based organization with their headquarters located in Atlanta Georgia. Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to “rule out” those nuclear minority employees…as the means to remove the heat from the whites? Whom are the minorities, those that don’t have your exclusive special ideology of true belief…that cover-up of the magnitude of disorder in the nuclear industry. Basically giving tickets and arresting vagrants in the broken windows theory (panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed)…is that how Klein sees nuclear industry with increasing problems through the lens of a violations of rule or code? What is going on below the rules or equipment breakdowns…why is bureaucracy allowing this? Is he normalizing the problems in the nuclear industry…where he should be thinking this disorder is the beginning of the death rattle of the Renaissance. One wonders if the events are so numerous…that these executives only has the time to digest these problems through a interpretation of a rule violation?
Is Palo Verde and Vermont Yankee there“panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed"…who is their corporate vagrants' and graffiti artist? I have issues of when we see disorder…do we punish the lower class with legal troubles…or do we see the complexity of the whole system? Do we have a mostly complete model of the component interactions in our heads before we began to correct complex system problems? Is our operative mental model…is it simplified in order to blame one class of people... then to shield blame from another group of people? I have real issues with this “broken window” theory, as Klein has extraordinarily simplified with what is causing the troubles with the inner city problems. His conclusion of lower levels of crime as a result of the ideological "broken windows" is absolutely disconnected from the results of lower levels of crime.
Doesn’t it bother people that nuclear plant profits are the only source that is powering corporate profits? If nuclear profits are so important for the bottom line of the whole corporation…are they spending enough money to keep the plants away from small troubles relative to their importance for the organization? If the nuke’s are so important for keeping corporate ship from sinking…does that equate to having to keep the plant’s connected to the grid without maintenance?
“Perception lead to reality” is a mind blower to me….does he mean that if we believe that minor law violations of the lowest class people is at the root of the problems with the disorder of our nation. Does he mean if we believe his (NRC) and nuclear industry disclosed perception of industry’s problems…everyone would internalized it…our perceptions will become the public reality independent of the real evidence and facts? Is the Reactor Oversight Program (ROP) the illusion created “perception”…with the deeper truths hidden underneath it? Obliviously “Perception leads to reality” is a class code word/phrase…I like to understand more deeply what this means through the lens of his class of people. What is the NRC’s definition of “perception leads to reality” and how did our culture come up with this phrase…what does it really means? Is he saying the current problems in the industry aren’t significant…is he talking about a type of over confidence or willful blindness…in the face of the nuclear Renaissance. Are they as enlightened as the Renaissance implies?
Everyone who has studied the nuclear industry over a number years understands there always has been a periodicity (3 to 5 years) with large reactor accidents and corruption charges against the industry….are we at the next incipient stage of the new accident that wrecks once again the credibility of the nuclear industry? Are we at a particularly critical time with shortages and high cost of energy, we are at war and a president has lost his popularity, both the House and Senate are controlled by the democrats…the next presidential election may go democrat…would a TMI or Davis Besse style accident have a bigger political outcome than past accidents?
In the “broken windows metaphor”, whom are the “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed” in the nuclear industry…who are the self righteous corrupt police (Keric) managers and political executives with Gucci shoes making deals with the mafia? Who is telling the truth and who is creating a political illusion? Are the nuclear “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed”….the lower level plant operators, maintenance people and troubled NRC inspectors. Is he saying, if you only finger these low level nuclear malingers with simple rules and code violations the whole industry will correct itself? Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to come up with a political scape goat…an illusory tool as Giuliani’s white broken windows …where we absolved the high level executives and regulators with a fancy social theory …and we put the mentally ill in prison? Don’t we remember prior to 9/11 Giuliani’s private life and his political life was in tatters...the whole broken windows theory was in disrespect because of the way he managed his being a mayor?
The broken windows theory shows absolutely no correlation with the reduction crime in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Many cities including San Francisco showed even lower reductions in crime than New York City in the same timeframe…. with SF having no broken windows theory. Basically the crime rate of the US population has been declining since the 1990…..the implementation of the broken windows occurred during a reduction of crime rates. “Unlocking America: Why and How to reduce America’s Prison population”…basically shows us the increasing jail population had nothing to do with the crime rates…an increase or decline.
There is no doubt in my mind that Giuliani was playing the poor, racial polarization and unjustified crime wave illusion as a mean to polarize the population against each other in his mayoral election campaign of NYC. It was profoundly undemocratic. The Klein “broken windows metaphor” only brings to the nuclear table nothing but confusion and disorganization with understanding what’s wrong in the industry. If our community is the whole nation…how can we blame one class of people for the chaos cause by us all? How come we haven’t figured out law violations for the police and political managers who allowed increasing chaos from our troubled population. It is a discredited narrow finger pointing conservative republican ideological and political tool. Giuliani/Keric’s broken windows class metaphor has no place being within an independent federal regulator’s speech concerning nuclear safety. Here is the lie:
City Homicides Still Dropping, to Under 500
By AL BAKER
Published: November 23, 2007
“The low number of killings by strangers belies the common imagery that New Yorkers are vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or die in robberies that turn fatal.”
And there is a disgusting hint of race baiting in a white organization…real or unintentional. There is just no question that “broken windows” and the southern republican strategy is an ideological code word of winning elections while dehumanizing large groups of people. Giuliani aim was to create fear in the white minds about rising black and inner city crime in order to push the white’s into voting. It did not express a profound truth. There is no doubt in my mind that mayor Giuliani with the “broken windows” social theory was playing the great white Republican southern strategy of president Nixon and Reagan in New York City. He was picking on the littlest and most troubled population of people…creating a political illusion of threatening crime and disorganization…in order to create fear in the white population and get them to vote Republican. You put people into jail and give them police tickets as the means to gain political office…white people get into political office and black people go to jail …you don’t get down to the factors that demoralized groups of people. Who does the metaphor represent for the black and mentally disturbed people in the current nuclear industry…who is going to get fingered with the chaos in the industry today?
What would be the more appropriate non class and non race based term that we can use instead of “broken windows…because I believe our upper and privilege class of people is creating magnitudes more disorder than our disadvantaged people. Here we sit sub prime mess…$500 billion at last count…I’d say that is a lot more chaos than what the poor and low level criminals have done. The hopeless poor break widows and litter…while rich breaks bank's such as Citigroup and dries up liquidity for us all.
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Race
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 19, 2007
Excerpts:
The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.
And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.
True, he never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”
You can’t get away from the conservative Bush people has turned out to be one of the most undemocratic administration in the history of this country. It certainly has turned into an administration that has become immensely disliked across both the American public and the Republicans themselves. The ethic’s of the NEI, INPO and the whole nuclear industry has to be questioned with cleaving to the undemocratic Bush people so closely.
I have spoken in the past…and I will say it clearly again…the nuclear industry has shown their true colors with backing this undemocratic and untransparent administration. This is so ethically dysfunctional…this ranks up there as the nuclear industy’s greatest failure…bigger than the early days of the 1960 and 1970’s. They have shot themselves in the foot and the executives in the industry has poorly served their employees, the utilities and the American people….long term this is going to be horrendous. I don’t think these guys know what ethic’s means…except following a corrupt untransparant leader. Remember, this whole Renaissance has been backed by this failed Republican ideology….its based on having an extreme Republican administration for a far as the eyes can see. What would the industry…past and future…look like through an extreme reactionary liberal and the democrat’s lens? You see how fragile the utility executives have made this?
That’s when we, and the nuclear industry are going to regret their Bush’s years.
Its interesting thinking what the NRC has become…nuclear power is so politically powerful…it’s become a protection system for both the Republicans and the Democrats. The politician’s are so afraid a nuclear event will taint their administration and media cycle.
All I can say is a system who demands this amount of protection…un-transparency…is a danger to everyone in the USA. Opaque is dangerous and transparent is safe.
Thanks,
mike
I happen to like this model of controlling a complex system:
A new design for healthcare delivery
By Steven J. Spear and Donald M. Berwick
November 23, 2007
Excerpts of speech concerning “broken windows” of NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein:
"Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the State of the Nuclear Renaissance"
INPO Atlanta, GA
November 15, 2007
“First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law.
It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.’
If the public believes that standards at nuclear plants are not being enforced, it leads to an erosion of public confidence in the whole nuclear energy industry. On the other hand, when industry does its job, it leads to public confidence in nuclear power more broadly—which lends credence to the work of the NRC. And when we, in turn, hold the utilities to a high standard of safety and security, it enhances confidence in the job you are doing."
I guess I have troubles with the phrase… "if the public believes”…how does the public know, if the regulators see events through a ideological lens. How do we know the NRC is holding the utilities to high standards…who over sees the overseers?
The NRC and nuclear industry should fund a seminar about NYC'S broken windows…invite a group of experts to explain it and the results. How about seeing broken windows through the eyes of a black man and through the eyes of the mentally ill? They should think of broken windows and inner city disorder as a complex problem. We all should get an idea of what’s true with this metaphor…and what is an illusion. I happen to think this is a great case study issue…and it would help the NRC and nuclear industry with helping them understand cause and effect in a complex system….and inaccurate political rhetoric. A independent regulator should be above inaccurate political hyperbole.
It is so astonishing…NRC commissioner Klein…is recklessly playing with a road-side cultural and racial IED bomb with talking about the “broken windows” theory of causes with problems and incidences. Effectively, he knowingly or unknowingly was speaking in racial code or class warfare words…to a group of white men of INPO. I am not sure he has a full understanding about the undertones…but as a US governmental official…he should have fully understood the terms of these code words. He should have had somebody on his staff who understands how this phrase was politically developed. I hope he doesn’t look at all nuclear plant problems…problems across many plants…in such simplistic ideological and distorted political terms. Can you imagine the nuclear meltdown of the Renaissance being implemented exclusively though the ideological lens of race and class?
I like to know what the racial and gender percentage is of INPO with this private nuclear organization. INPO is a southern based organization with their headquarters located in Atlanta Georgia. Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to “rule out” those nuclear minority employees…as the means to remove the heat from the whites? Whom are the minorities, those that don’t have your exclusive special ideology of true belief…that cover-up of the magnitude of disorder in the nuclear industry. Basically giving tickets and arresting vagrants in the broken windows theory (panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed)…is that how Klein sees nuclear industry with increasing problems through the lens of a violations of rule or code? What is going on below the rules or equipment breakdowns…why is bureaucracy allowing this? Is he normalizing the problems in the nuclear industry…where he should be thinking this disorder is the beginning of the death rattle of the Renaissance. One wonders if the events are so numerous…that these executives only has the time to digest these problems through a interpretation of a rule violation?
Is Palo Verde and Vermont Yankee there“panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed"…who is their corporate vagrants' and graffiti artist? I have issues of when we see disorder…do we punish the lower class with legal troubles…or do we see the complexity of the whole system? Do we have a mostly complete model of the component interactions in our heads before we began to correct complex system problems? Is our operative mental model…is it simplified in order to blame one class of people... then to shield blame from another group of people? I have real issues with this “broken window” theory, as Klein has extraordinarily simplified with what is causing the troubles with the inner city problems. His conclusion of lower levels of crime as a result of the ideological "broken windows" is absolutely disconnected from the results of lower levels of crime.
Doesn’t it bother people that nuclear plant profits are the only source that is powering corporate profits? If nuclear profits are so important for the bottom line of the whole corporation…are they spending enough money to keep the plants away from small troubles relative to their importance for the organization? If the nuke’s are so important for keeping corporate ship from sinking…does that equate to having to keep the plant’s connected to the grid without maintenance?
“Perception lead to reality” is a mind blower to me….does he mean that if we believe that minor law violations of the lowest class people is at the root of the problems with the disorder of our nation. Does he mean if we believe his (NRC) and nuclear industry disclosed perception of industry’s problems…everyone would internalized it…our perceptions will become the public reality independent of the real evidence and facts? Is the Reactor Oversight Program (ROP) the illusion created “perception”…with the deeper truths hidden underneath it? Obliviously “Perception leads to reality” is a class code word/phrase…I like to understand more deeply what this means through the lens of his class of people. What is the NRC’s definition of “perception leads to reality” and how did our culture come up with this phrase…what does it really means? Is he saying the current problems in the industry aren’t significant…is he talking about a type of over confidence or willful blindness…in the face of the nuclear Renaissance. Are they as enlightened as the Renaissance implies?
Everyone who has studied the nuclear industry over a number years understands there always has been a periodicity (3 to 5 years) with large reactor accidents and corruption charges against the industry….are we at the next incipient stage of the new accident that wrecks once again the credibility of the nuclear industry? Are we at a particularly critical time with shortages and high cost of energy, we are at war and a president has lost his popularity, both the House and Senate are controlled by the democrats…the next presidential election may go democrat…would a TMI or Davis Besse style accident have a bigger political outcome than past accidents?
In the “broken windows metaphor”, whom are the “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed” in the nuclear industry…who are the self righteous corrupt police (Keric) managers and political executives with Gucci shoes making deals with the mafia? Who is telling the truth and who is creating a political illusion? Are the nuclear “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed”….the lower level plant operators, maintenance people and troubled NRC inspectors. Is he saying, if you only finger these low level nuclear malingers with simple rules and code violations the whole industry will correct itself? Is he telling the nuclear executive’s to come up with a political scape goat…an illusory tool as Giuliani’s white broken windows …where we absolved the high level executives and regulators with a fancy social theory …and we put the mentally ill in prison? Don’t we remember prior to 9/11 Giuliani’s private life and his political life was in tatters...the whole broken windows theory was in disrespect because of the way he managed his being a mayor?
The broken windows theory shows absolutely no correlation with the reduction crime in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Many cities including San Francisco showed even lower reductions in crime than New York City in the same timeframe…. with SF having no broken windows theory. Basically the crime rate of the US population has been declining since the 1990…..the implementation of the broken windows occurred during a reduction of crime rates. “Unlocking America: Why and How to reduce America’s Prison population”…basically shows us the increasing jail population had nothing to do with the crime rates…an increase or decline.
There is no doubt in my mind that Giuliani was playing the poor, racial polarization and unjustified crime wave illusion as a mean to polarize the population against each other in his mayoral election campaign of NYC. It was profoundly undemocratic. The Klein “broken windows metaphor” only brings to the nuclear table nothing but confusion and disorganization with understanding what’s wrong in the industry. If our community is the whole nation…how can we blame one class of people for the chaos cause by us all? How come we haven’t figured out law violations for the police and political managers who allowed increasing chaos from our troubled population. It is a discredited narrow finger pointing conservative republican ideological and political tool. Giuliani/Keric’s broken windows class metaphor has no place being within an independent federal regulator’s speech concerning nuclear safety. Here is the lie:
City Homicides Still Dropping, to Under 500
By AL BAKER
Published: November 23, 2007
“The low number of killings by strangers belies the common imagery that New Yorkers are vulnerable to arbitrary attacks on the streets, or die in robberies that turn fatal.”
And there is a disgusting hint of race baiting in a white organization…real or unintentional. There is just no question that “broken windows” and the southern republican strategy is an ideological code word of winning elections while dehumanizing large groups of people. Giuliani aim was to create fear in the white minds about rising black and inner city crime in order to push the white’s into voting. It did not express a profound truth. There is no doubt in my mind that mayor Giuliani with the “broken windows” social theory was playing the great white Republican southern strategy of president Nixon and Reagan in New York City. He was picking on the littlest and most troubled population of people…creating a political illusion of threatening crime and disorganization…in order to create fear in the white population and get them to vote Republican. You put people into jail and give them police tickets as the means to gain political office…white people get into political office and black people go to jail …you don’t get down to the factors that demoralized groups of people. Who does the metaphor represent for the black and mentally disturbed people in the current nuclear industry…who is going to get fingered with the chaos in the industry today?
What would be the more appropriate non class and non race based term that we can use instead of “broken windows…because I believe our upper and privilege class of people is creating magnitudes more disorder than our disadvantaged people. Here we sit sub prime mess…$500 billion at last count…I’d say that is a lot more chaos than what the poor and low level criminals have done. The hopeless poor break widows and litter…while rich breaks bank's such as Citigroup and dries up liquidity for us all.
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Race
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 19, 2007
Excerpts:
The G.O.P.’s own leaders admit that the great Southern white shift was the result of a deliberate political strategy. “Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization.” So declared Ken Mehlman, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, speaking in 2005.
And Ronald Reagan was among the “some” who tried to benefit from racial polarization.
True, he never used explicit racial rhetoric. Neither did Richard Nixon. As Thomas and Mary Edsall put it in their classic 1991 book, “Chain Reaction: The impact of race, rights and taxes on American politics,” “Reagan paralleled Nixon’s success in constructing a politics and a strategy of governing that attacked policies targeted toward blacks and other minorities without reference to race — a conservative politics that had the effect of polarizing the electorate along racial lines.”
You can’t get away from the conservative Bush people has turned out to be one of the most undemocratic administration in the history of this country. It certainly has turned into an administration that has become immensely disliked across both the American public and the Republicans themselves. The ethic’s of the NEI, INPO and the whole nuclear industry has to be questioned with cleaving to the undemocratic Bush people so closely.
I have spoken in the past…and I will say it clearly again…the nuclear industry has shown their true colors with backing this undemocratic and untransparent administration. This is so ethically dysfunctional…this ranks up there as the nuclear industy’s greatest failure…bigger than the early days of the 1960 and 1970’s. They have shot themselves in the foot and the executives in the industry has poorly served their employees, the utilities and the American people….long term this is going to be horrendous. I don’t think these guys know what ethic’s means…except following a corrupt untransparant leader. Remember, this whole Renaissance has been backed by this failed Republican ideology….its based on having an extreme Republican administration for a far as the eyes can see. What would the industry…past and future…look like through an extreme reactionary liberal and the democrat’s lens? You see how fragile the utility executives have made this?
That’s when we, and the nuclear industry are going to regret their Bush’s years.
Its interesting thinking what the NRC has become…nuclear power is so politically powerful…it’s become a protection system for both the Republicans and the Democrats. The politician’s are so afraid a nuclear event will taint their administration and media cycle.
All I can say is a system who demands this amount of protection…un-transparency…is a danger to everyone in the USA. Opaque is dangerous and transparent is safe.
Thanks,
mike
Monday, November 19, 2007
Energy Experts Warn Of Worker Shortfall
Published: Monday, November 19, 2007
Energy Experts Warn Of Worker Shortfall
By ASJYLYN LODER St. Petersburg Times
While state politicians worry about what fuel will help power Florida's energy future, they have overlooked another increasingly scarce resource: the people qualified to produce the power.
Energy executives nationwide worry about the coming shortfall of workers. In the Southeast, industry leaders are doubly concerned, as the pace of growth in states like Florida drives billions into new energy projects throughout the region.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate this month , Andra Cornelius, a vice president with Workforce Florida, warned, "Unless we undertake long-term solutions to expand our energy sector work force, we'll face exceptional challenges to keep the lights on.
"Experts predict "severe" shortages and call staffing the "Achilles' heel" of the industry. The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C., trade group, estimates the Southeast needs 40,000 workers in Texas and along the Gulf Coast in 2008, 19,600 workers will reach retirement age in the next five years just in the nuclear industry, and 104 power plants will be built in the region over the next decade. Cornelius counted 20 generating units planned for Florida.
Retiree power
After a lull of nearly three decades, the U.S. nuclear industry appears poised to build the first of a fleet of 31 power plants - 27 of them in the Southeast.
"We've seen this coming," said Loren Plisco, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's deputy head of construction for the Southeast.
To help offset the shortage of trained local workers, Progress Energy Florida draws on its pool of retirees.
Earnie Gallion, 58, helped build the Crystal River power plant and worked there for nearly three decades. It's where he met his wife, Joy Gallion. When he retired in 2005, he knew he would come back. He promised his wife he would take at least a year off, and he did. He returned early this year for the plant's "outage," a refueling and maintenance shutdown that happens ever two years.
Carla Groleau, a utility spokeswoman, said 35 retirees came back for the outage.
The 15-month job will help Gallion and his wife pay for an addition to their Crystal River home without going into debt. It also gives the nuclear veteran a chance to pass on his experience to a new generation.
"I see a lot of former retirees back," Gallion said. "You get experienced personnel with plant knowledge. They can not only help out and provide that level experience, but also kind of show the new people the way.
"Recruiting in schools
Schools throughout the state have worked with the utilities to recruit new energy workers.
The University of Florida's nuclear program provides summer interns to power plants. Gulf Power created high school recruitment programs in the Panhandle. Progress Energy set up a high school program in Levy County, where it hopes to build a nuclear power plant.
"A lot of this labor pool are ninth- and 10th-graders right now," said Danny Roderick, Progress Energy vice president of nuclear projects and construction. "When we get into 2013, 2014 time frame, they'll be ready and qualified or what we need them to do.
"The industry needs everything: plumbers, welders, electricians, chemists and engineers.
Cornelius testified that energy jobs can pay well above state and national averages for industrial work. For example, power line installers earned an average of nearly $53,000, while power plant workers averaged nearly $60,000.
It's a challenge, Cornelius said. But for many in Florida, "this provides a wonderful opportunity."
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Energy Experts Warn Of Worker Shortfall
By ASJYLYN LODER St. Petersburg Times
While state politicians worry about what fuel will help power Florida's energy future, they have overlooked another increasingly scarce resource: the people qualified to produce the power.
Energy executives nationwide worry about the coming shortfall of workers. In the Southeast, industry leaders are doubly concerned, as the pace of growth in states like Florida drives billions into new energy projects throughout the region.
Testifying before the U.S. Senate this month , Andra Cornelius, a vice president with Workforce Florida, warned, "Unless we undertake long-term solutions to expand our energy sector work force, we'll face exceptional challenges to keep the lights on.
"Experts predict "severe" shortages and call staffing the "Achilles' heel" of the industry. The Nuclear Energy Institute, a Washington, D.C., trade group, estimates the Southeast needs 40,000 workers in Texas and along the Gulf Coast in 2008, 19,600 workers will reach retirement age in the next five years just in the nuclear industry, and 104 power plants will be built in the region over the next decade. Cornelius counted 20 generating units planned for Florida.
Retiree power
After a lull of nearly three decades, the U.S. nuclear industry appears poised to build the first of a fleet of 31 power plants - 27 of them in the Southeast.
"We've seen this coming," said Loren Plisco, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's deputy head of construction for the Southeast.
To help offset the shortage of trained local workers, Progress Energy Florida draws on its pool of retirees.
Earnie Gallion, 58, helped build the Crystal River power plant and worked there for nearly three decades. It's where he met his wife, Joy Gallion. When he retired in 2005, he knew he would come back. He promised his wife he would take at least a year off, and he did. He returned early this year for the plant's "outage," a refueling and maintenance shutdown that happens ever two years.
Carla Groleau, a utility spokeswoman, said 35 retirees came back for the outage.
The 15-month job will help Gallion and his wife pay for an addition to their Crystal River home without going into debt. It also gives the nuclear veteran a chance to pass on his experience to a new generation.
"I see a lot of former retirees back," Gallion said. "You get experienced personnel with plant knowledge. They can not only help out and provide that level experience, but also kind of show the new people the way.
"Recruiting in schools
Schools throughout the state have worked with the utilities to recruit new energy workers.
The University of Florida's nuclear program provides summer interns to power plants. Gulf Power created high school recruitment programs in the Panhandle. Progress Energy set up a high school program in Levy County, where it hopes to build a nuclear power plant.
"A lot of this labor pool are ninth- and 10th-graders right now," said Danny Roderick, Progress Energy vice president of nuclear projects and construction. "When we get into 2013, 2014 time frame, they'll be ready and qualified or what we need them to do.
"The industry needs everything: plumbers, welders, electricians, chemists and engineers.
Cornelius testified that energy jobs can pay well above state and national averages for industrial work. For example, power line installers earned an average of nearly $53,000, while power plant workers averaged nearly $60,000.
It's a challenge, Cornelius said. But for many in Florida, "this provides a wonderful opportunity."
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} else { window.print(); }
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Mind of a Rock...NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-lede-t.html?ref=magazine&pagewanted=print
The Way We Live Now
Mind of a Rock
By JIM HOLT
Most of us have no doubt that our fellow humans are conscious. We are also pretty sure that many animals have consciousness. Some, like the great ape species, even seem to possess self-consciousness, like us. Others, like dogs and cats and pigs, may lack a sense of self, but they certainly appear to experience inner states of pain and pleasure. About smaller creatures, like mosquitoes, we are not so sure; certainly we have few compunctions about killing them. As for plants, they obviously do not have minds, except in fairy tales. Nor do nonliving things like tables and rocks.
All that is common sense. But common sense has not always proved to be such a good guide in understanding the world. And the part of our world that is most recalcitrant to our understanding at the moment is consciousness itself. How could the electrochemical processes in the lump of gray matter that is our brain give rise to — or, even more mysteriously, be — the dazzling technicolor play of consciousness, with its transports of joy, its stabs of anguish and its stretches of mild contentment alternating with boredom? This has been called “the most important problem in the biological sciences” and even “the last frontier of science.” It engrosses the intellectual energies of a worldwide community of brain scientists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, computer scientists and even, from time to time, the Dalai Lama.
So vexing has the problem of consciousness proved that some of these thinkers have been driven to a hypothesis that sounds desperate, if not downright crazy. Perhaps, they say, mind is not limited to the brains of some animals. Perhaps it is ubiquitous, present in every bit of matter, all the way up to galaxies, all the way down to electrons and neutrinos, not excluding medium-size things like a glass of water or a potted plant. Moreover, it did not suddenly arise when some physical particles on a certain planet chanced to come into the right configuration; rather, there has been consciousness in the cosmos from the very beginning of time.
The doctrine that the stuff of the world is fundamentally mind-stuff goes by the name of panpsychism. A few decades ago, the American philosopher Thomas Nagel showed that it is an inescapable consequence of some quite reasonable premises. First, our brains consist of material particles. Second, these particles, in certain arrangements, produce subjective thoughts and feelings. Third, physical properties alone cannot account for subjectivity. (How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from the equations of physics?) Now, Nagel reasoned, the properties of a complex system like the brain don’t just pop into existence from nowhere; they must derive from the properties of that system’s ultimate constituents. Those ultimate constituents must therefore have subjective features themselves — features that, in the right combinations, add up to our inner thoughts and feelings. But the electrons, protons and neutrons making up our brains are no different from those making up the rest of the world. So the entire universe must consist of little bits of consciousness.
Nagel himself stopped short of embracing panpsychism, but today it is enjoying something of a vogue. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers and the Oxford physicist Roger Penrose have spoken on its behalf. In the recent book “Consciousness and Its Place in Nature,” the British philosopher Galen Strawson defends panpsychism against numerous critics. How, the skeptics wonder, could bits of mind-dust, with their presumably simple mental states, combine to form the kinds of complicated experiences we humans have? After all, when you put a bunch of people in the same room, their individual minds do not form a single collective mind. (Or do they?) Then there is the inconvenient fact that you can’t scientifically test the claim that, say, the moon is having mental experiences. (But the same applies to people — how could you prove that your fellow office workers aren’t unconscious robots, like Commander Data on “Star Trek”?) Finally, there is the sheer loopiness of the idea that something like a photon could have proto-emotions, proto-beliefs and proto-desires. What could the content of a photon’s desire possibly be? “Perhaps it wishes it were a quark,” one anti-panpsychist cracked.
Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute. But even if it proves a cul-de-sac in the quest to understand consciousness, it might still help rouse us from a certain parochiality in our cosmic outlook. We are biological beings. We exist because of self-replicating chemicals. We detect and act on information from our environment so that the self-replication will continue. As a byproduct, we have developed brains that, we fondly believe, are the most intricate things in the universe. We look down our noses at brute matter.
Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards “see” the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers’s slogan, “Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside.”
But the rock doesn’t exert itself as a result of all this “thinking.” Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn’t depend on the struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the prospect of being pulverized. If you are poetically inclined, you might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers are too blinkered to notice.
Jim Holt, a contributing writer, is working on a book about the puzzle of existence.
The Way We Live Now
Mind of a Rock
By JIM HOLT
Most of us have no doubt that our fellow humans are conscious. We are also pretty sure that many animals have consciousness. Some, like the great ape species, even seem to possess self-consciousness, like us. Others, like dogs and cats and pigs, may lack a sense of self, but they certainly appear to experience inner states of pain and pleasure. About smaller creatures, like mosquitoes, we are not so sure; certainly we have few compunctions about killing them. As for plants, they obviously do not have minds, except in fairy tales. Nor do nonliving things like tables and rocks.
All that is common sense. But common sense has not always proved to be such a good guide in understanding the world. And the part of our world that is most recalcitrant to our understanding at the moment is consciousness itself. How could the electrochemical processes in the lump of gray matter that is our brain give rise to — or, even more mysteriously, be — the dazzling technicolor play of consciousness, with its transports of joy, its stabs of anguish and its stretches of mild contentment alternating with boredom? This has been called “the most important problem in the biological sciences” and even “the last frontier of science.” It engrosses the intellectual energies of a worldwide community of brain scientists, psychologists, philosophers, physicists, computer scientists and even, from time to time, the Dalai Lama.
So vexing has the problem of consciousness proved that some of these thinkers have been driven to a hypothesis that sounds desperate, if not downright crazy. Perhaps, they say, mind is not limited to the brains of some animals. Perhaps it is ubiquitous, present in every bit of matter, all the way up to galaxies, all the way down to electrons and neutrinos, not excluding medium-size things like a glass of water or a potted plant. Moreover, it did not suddenly arise when some physical particles on a certain planet chanced to come into the right configuration; rather, there has been consciousness in the cosmos from the very beginning of time.
The doctrine that the stuff of the world is fundamentally mind-stuff goes by the name of panpsychism. A few decades ago, the American philosopher Thomas Nagel showed that it is an inescapable consequence of some quite reasonable premises. First, our brains consist of material particles. Second, these particles, in certain arrangements, produce subjective thoughts and feelings. Third, physical properties alone cannot account for subjectivity. (How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from the equations of physics?) Now, Nagel reasoned, the properties of a complex system like the brain don’t just pop into existence from nowhere; they must derive from the properties of that system’s ultimate constituents. Those ultimate constituents must therefore have subjective features themselves — features that, in the right combinations, add up to our inner thoughts and feelings. But the electrons, protons and neutrons making up our brains are no different from those making up the rest of the world. So the entire universe must consist of little bits of consciousness.
Nagel himself stopped short of embracing panpsychism, but today it is enjoying something of a vogue. The Australian philosopher David Chalmers and the Oxford physicist Roger Penrose have spoken on its behalf. In the recent book “Consciousness and Its Place in Nature,” the British philosopher Galen Strawson defends panpsychism against numerous critics. How, the skeptics wonder, could bits of mind-dust, with their presumably simple mental states, combine to form the kinds of complicated experiences we humans have? After all, when you put a bunch of people in the same room, their individual minds do not form a single collective mind. (Or do they?) Then there is the inconvenient fact that you can’t scientifically test the claim that, say, the moon is having mental experiences. (But the same applies to people — how could you prove that your fellow office workers aren’t unconscious robots, like Commander Data on “Star Trek”?) Finally, there is the sheer loopiness of the idea that something like a photon could have proto-emotions, proto-beliefs and proto-desires. What could the content of a photon’s desire possibly be? “Perhaps it wishes it were a quark,” one anti-panpsychist cracked.
Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute. But even if it proves a cul-de-sac in the quest to understand consciousness, it might still help rouse us from a certain parochiality in our cosmic outlook. We are biological beings. We exist because of self-replicating chemicals. We detect and act on information from our environment so that the self-replication will continue. As a byproduct, we have developed brains that, we fondly believe, are the most intricate things in the universe. We look down our noses at brute matter.
Take that rock over there. It doesn’t seem to be doing much of anything, at least to our gross perception. But at the microlevel it consists of an unimaginable number of atoms connected by springy chemical bonds, all jiggling around at a rate that even our fastest supercomputer might envy. And they are not jiggling at random. The rock’s innards “see” the entire universe by means of the gravitational and electromagnetic signals it is continuously receiving. Such a system can be viewed as an all-purpose information processor, one whose inner dynamics mirror any sequence of mental states that our brains might run through. And where there is information, says panpsychism, there is consciousness. In David Chalmers’s slogan, “Experience is information from the inside; physics is information from the outside.”
But the rock doesn’t exert itself as a result of all this “thinking.” Why should it? Its existence, unlike ours, doesn’t depend on the struggle to survive and self-replicate. It is indifferent to the prospect of being pulverized. If you are poetically inclined, you might think of the rock as a purely contemplative being. And you might draw the moral that the universe is, and always has been, saturated with mind, even though we snobbish Darwinian-replicating latecomers are too blinkered to notice.
Jim Holt, a contributing writer, is working on a book about the puzzle of existence.
Expansion simultaneously of both the naval nuclear program and the domestic nuclear industry.
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/navy_nuclearwarships_071118/
Expansion simultaneously both the naval nuclear program and the domestic nuclear industry.
Can anyone imagine the magnitude of the new experienced worker, operators and the professional people needed for the expansion of the navy nuclear program and the nuclear Renaissance at the same time? Both the domestic nuclear industry and the Naval nuclear programs are sitting on the edge of collapse…
I like to talk about the submarines training, operation and maintenance budgets…their trends. I think the function of the submarines force is to feed the shipyards with submarine projects. So our primary function of the submarine fleet is to make money for the ship yards and to keep them in business….that ultimately feeds the corrupt political campaign contribution system in Washington.
There is very little interest in funding the support systems of submarines and naval reactors…bettering the peoples associated with maintaining the fleet…and those systems that better supports the bureaucracy.
All our money goes into the metal shell of the submarine…our war fighting strategy is primarily about keeping the shipyards and defense establishments well fed...fed like pigs...the nuclear ship yards…not in making these submarines more effective fighting machines relevant for our times.
Lawmakers: Nuclear power is Navy’s future
Bipartisan effort would wean fleet off of fossil fuels
By Zachary M. Peterson - Staff writerPosted : Sunday Nov 18, 2007 8:58:44 EST
The Navy should be required to use nuclear propulsion to fuel all large surface ships beginning with its next-generation cruisers, two top members of the House Armed Services Committee said.
Reps. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., told Navy Times on Nov. 7 that nuclear power is the “right way to go” for future Navy surface ships in light of the rising cost of fossil fuels and the benefit of being able to spend more time at sea without having to refuel.
Language in the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill calls for nuclear power to be used in all large vessels, which would include destroyers and cruisers. The Senate version of the bill contains no such provision.
Taylor said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., strongly supports the nuclear power measure in the House bill and is fighting to keep it. However, some senators have argued that requiring nuclear propulsion on surface ships would be too costly for a service already struggling with its shipbuilding plans.
But Bartlett and Taylor argue it is cheaper to go nuclear in the long run.
The Navy could be at “the edge” of nuclear power becoming cheaper with the cost of oil at nearly $100 dollars per barrel, Taylor said.
“If you look at the enormous cost escalation we’ve seen with the [Littoral Combat Ship program] because we’re dealing with unknowns and something that is new and different, nuclear propulsion has been around a long time,” he said. “The cost of a nuclear power plant is a known entity.
“Oil is a limited commodity,” Taylor added.
Bartlett said he thinks the Senate has been hesitant to support the measure “solely because of the upfront costs.”
Upfront cost estimates for nuclear-powered ships range from $600 million to $800 million more than conventional ships.
The price would come down with orders for nuclear-powered ships, Taylor said.
Right now, only two U.S.-based shipbuilders are certified by the Navy to build nuclear-powered ships: Northrop Grumman’s Newport News facility in Virginia, which builds aircraft carriers and submarines, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat division in Connecticut and Rhode Island, which builds submarines.
Taylor said that if the measure becomes law, other shipyards, such as Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in his district in Mississippi and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works facility in Maine would be encouraged to become nuclear-certified.
Measure targets CG(X)
The first Navy ship that would be affected by the measure would be the next-generation cruiser, CG(X). The service plans to build 19 of the ships between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2023.
Nuclear cruisers would not be a first for the Navy, which deactivated the last of its nuclear cruiser fleet, the California, in 1998. The ship was built by Newport News Shipbuilding in the early 1970s.
“Operationally, these [surface ships] are supporting carriers and submarines that are fueled for 30, 33 years and these ships are fueled in three to five days,” Bartlett said. “Operationally, it makes a whole lot of sense to go nuclear.”
Current warships could be at risk because they are dependent on oilers to refuel at sea, Bartlett said.
With the increase in electric technology onboard future naval vessels, it makes sense to go nuclear to ensure ships have enough organic power generation, he added.
Barlett said he had a “long talk” with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and the congressman said he thought cost was the only argument the CNO had against nuclear propulsion for surface vessels.
When life-cycle costs are considered, however, Bartlett said the additional cost upfront is “easily explained to the American people.”
Expansion simultaneously both the naval nuclear program and the domestic nuclear industry.
Can anyone imagine the magnitude of the new experienced worker, operators and the professional people needed for the expansion of the navy nuclear program and the nuclear Renaissance at the same time? Both the domestic nuclear industry and the Naval nuclear programs are sitting on the edge of collapse…
I like to talk about the submarines training, operation and maintenance budgets…their trends. I think the function of the submarines force is to feed the shipyards with submarine projects. So our primary function of the submarine fleet is to make money for the ship yards and to keep them in business….that ultimately feeds the corrupt political campaign contribution system in Washington.
There is very little interest in funding the support systems of submarines and naval reactors…bettering the peoples associated with maintaining the fleet…and those systems that better supports the bureaucracy.
All our money goes into the metal shell of the submarine…our war fighting strategy is primarily about keeping the shipyards and defense establishments well fed...fed like pigs...the nuclear ship yards…not in making these submarines more effective fighting machines relevant for our times.
Lawmakers: Nuclear power is Navy’s future
Bipartisan effort would wean fleet off of fossil fuels
By Zachary M. Peterson - Staff writerPosted : Sunday Nov 18, 2007 8:58:44 EST
The Navy should be required to use nuclear propulsion to fuel all large surface ships beginning with its next-generation cruisers, two top members of the House Armed Services Committee said.
Reps. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., told Navy Times on Nov. 7 that nuclear power is the “right way to go” for future Navy surface ships in light of the rising cost of fossil fuels and the benefit of being able to spend more time at sea without having to refuel.
Language in the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill calls for nuclear power to be used in all large vessels, which would include destroyers and cruisers. The Senate version of the bill contains no such provision.
Taylor said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., strongly supports the nuclear power measure in the House bill and is fighting to keep it. However, some senators have argued that requiring nuclear propulsion on surface ships would be too costly for a service already struggling with its shipbuilding plans.
But Bartlett and Taylor argue it is cheaper to go nuclear in the long run.
The Navy could be at “the edge” of nuclear power becoming cheaper with the cost of oil at nearly $100 dollars per barrel, Taylor said.
“If you look at the enormous cost escalation we’ve seen with the [Littoral Combat Ship program] because we’re dealing with unknowns and something that is new and different, nuclear propulsion has been around a long time,” he said. “The cost of a nuclear power plant is a known entity.
“Oil is a limited commodity,” Taylor added.
Bartlett said he thinks the Senate has been hesitant to support the measure “solely because of the upfront costs.”
Upfront cost estimates for nuclear-powered ships range from $600 million to $800 million more than conventional ships.
The price would come down with orders for nuclear-powered ships, Taylor said.
Right now, only two U.S.-based shipbuilders are certified by the Navy to build nuclear-powered ships: Northrop Grumman’s Newport News facility in Virginia, which builds aircraft carriers and submarines, and General Dynamics’ Electric Boat division in Connecticut and Rhode Island, which builds submarines.
Taylor said that if the measure becomes law, other shipyards, such as Northrop Grumman’s Ingalls shipyard in his district in Mississippi and General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works facility in Maine would be encouraged to become nuclear-certified.
Measure targets CG(X)
The first Navy ship that would be affected by the measure would be the next-generation cruiser, CG(X). The service plans to build 19 of the ships between fiscal 2011 and fiscal 2023.
Nuclear cruisers would not be a first for the Navy, which deactivated the last of its nuclear cruiser fleet, the California, in 1998. The ship was built by Newport News Shipbuilding in the early 1970s.
“Operationally, these [surface ships] are supporting carriers and submarines that are fueled for 30, 33 years and these ships are fueled in three to five days,” Bartlett said. “Operationally, it makes a whole lot of sense to go nuclear.”
Current warships could be at risk because they are dependent on oilers to refuel at sea, Bartlett said.
With the increase in electric technology onboard future naval vessels, it makes sense to go nuclear to ensure ships have enough organic power generation, he added.
Barlett said he had a “long talk” with Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, and the congressman said he thought cost was the only argument the CNO had against nuclear propulsion for surface vessels.
When life-cycle costs are considered, however, Bartlett said the additional cost upfront is “easily explained to the American people.”
Broken Windows, submarines and leadership
The next submariner generation?
http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2007/11/uss-hampton-easy-button.html
Submarine Iconoclast said...
LMAO at "loyalty up and loyalty down" being used as defense of SUBFOR leadership. Maybe we just have different definitions of loyalty - here is mine:
Hard, honest, capable and willing work is the only loyalty your superiors need. Not patronizing them by holding them to a lower standard than you hold your own men. In turn, establishing clear goals, putting them in position to meet those goals, and recognizing a job well done is the loyalty your men expect from you. Not pressuring them to report good results no matter what the facts are, and claiming any glory for yourself while blaming your men whenever the organization falls short.
Guess which brand of loyalty I have experienced at submarine commands, and which I've seen elsewhere in the Navy and on Joint tours?
Focusing attention where things are going well helps you look good, but doesn't allow you to get better. The Submarine Force has grown arrogant and narcissistic; we need to get over the infatuation with how good we'd like to think we are and start concentrating on where we must improve. Lamenting that junior guys let us down is neither entirely true (yes, some let us down - but that ignores the root causes and dooms us to more of the same) nor productive.
When was the last time someone messed up, stood up and admitted it before anyone else even noticed, was given the chance to fix it, fixed it, and went on to have a successful career in the sub force? THAT is a significant factor in the widespread integrity issues many of us see every day, but are only rarely acknowledged officially. The refusal to admit there is a larger problem is a second major factor in developing the culture of lying found on HAMPTON (and to some extent on many more submarines operating today). VADM Donnelly should be leading change to correct these problems, not insulting his Force by describing real, hard problems we face every day as a simple case of a few individuals choosing the easy way out of a problem.
11/17/2007 8:54 AM
We have been talking about broken windows on rootcauseconference for many years now….you should do a look-up on broken windows and Keric. Notice the date when I first mentioned “broken windows” and NRC chairman Klein!
NRC commissioner Klein:
“First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law.
It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.”
I think Klein is using a sociological theory of “broken windows” in a extremely shallow way…it’s almost false. It is like we are looking at the problem of the inner city blight and poverty through the lens of the power, influence and wealth system...as an infration of laws by the powerless people by the powerful…while the little people feel they have no way to climb out of poverty, hopelessness and their sins…because all of society has shunned the poor and all paths has been cut off to the middle class....because there is too little social mobility.
Nothing more represents this than in New Orleans’s within Katrina…where the American Katina refugees were trying to flee the horrendous conditions through the “Crescent City Connection”…"The bridge to Gretna"…where the whites by force of guns where keeping the blacks and poor within the inhumane conditions of our largest natural disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretna,_Louisiana
I think that “bridge to Gretna” represent a class and wealth demarcation…with the wealthy keep out the dirty poor by what ever means necessary.
I am astonished Klein sees this in such simplistic terms...and doesn't want to understand this in its complete complexity. I hope he doesn't see the problems in the current industry and the new nukes...in these simplistic terms.
God help the nuclear industry then!
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Mulligan
To: USS_Scorpion_SSN-589@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 10:55:59 AM
Subject: Re: [USS_Scorpion_SSN-589] Re: Credibility, facts and evidence....and gulags
Todd,
Actually it began big time with Mayor Giuliani of NYC and ending with his police chief Kerik. All the rest of the country followed them. It is interesting looking at this from today…with Keric accused of fraud and mafia ties. Giuliani began the big “broken window” policy…filled up our prisons with the mentally ill…in defense of sterilizing Manhattan for the moneyed interest. You can’t get by corrupt NYC police chief Keric with his mafia Gucci shoes that ended the Giuliani broken windows years….with the justice of the homeless and mentally ill sitting in prisons. You get that don’t you, Giuliani and Keric fingered the law breaking of the littlest peoples…while Keric is the police chief… and lies and break laws, steals and is corrupt beyond belief. Sounds like the Navy to me?
I worked on the Vermont Governor Dean issue during his presidential campaign…with him covering up the gulag like conditions of Vermont state mental hospital. In order to be president we have to show financial responsibility as a state governor…no deficits…and thus making worst the horrors of the state hospital under his watch.
Of course all of these politician’s are doing the bidding of the American public.
Thanks,
mike
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Mulligan
To: Michael Mulligan
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 10:46:41 AM
Subject: Re: [rootcauseconference] Start with ????Giuliani
So who picks up that dirt on the floor, is it the powerless Kerik’s illegal alien housekeeper who he’s not paying taxes on? Is it the low paid worker you just hired? Who metaphorically gets fingered with culpability...is it a sliding scale? How about the long term employees...who knows about the results of not dealing with small problems? Should we more blame the degreed individual who has been trained on the broad view...how about the managers? The higher the degree... the more we should blame them for walking by the same problems. The executives, the CEO...all the governmental overseers...don’t think these guys operated a broom in a long
time...maybe we should key culpability to income levels. Should we hold the elders more culpable more than the teenagers? How about a loner or somebody who is very popular?
So for the sin of walking past the exact same dirt on the floor...ignoring it...for the entry level employee, to the president of the USA...do we hold them equally culpable for ignoring the small problems...should we hold one more culpable because of their knowledge and position...the power they hold?
Thanks,
mike
http://bubbleheads.blogspot.com/2007/11/uss-hampton-easy-button.html
Submarine Iconoclast said...
LMAO at "loyalty up and loyalty down" being used as defense of SUBFOR leadership. Maybe we just have different definitions of loyalty - here is mine:
Hard, honest, capable and willing work is the only loyalty your superiors need. Not patronizing them by holding them to a lower standard than you hold your own men. In turn, establishing clear goals, putting them in position to meet those goals, and recognizing a job well done is the loyalty your men expect from you. Not pressuring them to report good results no matter what the facts are, and claiming any glory for yourself while blaming your men whenever the organization falls short.
Guess which brand of loyalty I have experienced at submarine commands, and which I've seen elsewhere in the Navy and on Joint tours?
Focusing attention where things are going well helps you look good, but doesn't allow you to get better. The Submarine Force has grown arrogant and narcissistic; we need to get over the infatuation with how good we'd like to think we are and start concentrating on where we must improve. Lamenting that junior guys let us down is neither entirely true (yes, some let us down - but that ignores the root causes and dooms us to more of the same) nor productive.
When was the last time someone messed up, stood up and admitted it before anyone else even noticed, was given the chance to fix it, fixed it, and went on to have a successful career in the sub force? THAT is a significant factor in the widespread integrity issues many of us see every day, but are only rarely acknowledged officially. The refusal to admit there is a larger problem is a second major factor in developing the culture of lying found on HAMPTON (and to some extent on many more submarines operating today). VADM Donnelly should be leading change to correct these problems, not insulting his Force by describing real, hard problems we face every day as a simple case of a few individuals choosing the easy way out of a problem.
11/17/2007 8:54 AM
We have been talking about broken windows on rootcauseconference for many years now….you should do a look-up on broken windows and Keric. Notice the date when I first mentioned “broken windows” and NRC chairman Klein!
NRC commissioner Klein:
“First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law.
It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.”
I think Klein is using a sociological theory of “broken windows” in a extremely shallow way…it’s almost false. It is like we are looking at the problem of the inner city blight and poverty through the lens of the power, influence and wealth system...as an infration of laws by the powerless people by the powerful…while the little people feel they have no way to climb out of poverty, hopelessness and their sins…because all of society has shunned the poor and all paths has been cut off to the middle class....because there is too little social mobility.
Nothing more represents this than in New Orleans’s within Katrina…where the American Katina refugees were trying to flee the horrendous conditions through the “Crescent City Connection”…"The bridge to Gretna"…where the whites by force of guns where keeping the blacks and poor within the inhumane conditions of our largest natural disaster.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretna,_Louisiana
I think that “bridge to Gretna” represent a class and wealth demarcation…with the wealthy keep out the dirty poor by what ever means necessary.
I am astonished Klein sees this in such simplistic terms...and doesn't want to understand this in its complete complexity. I hope he doesn't see the problems in the current industry and the new nukes...in these simplistic terms.
God help the nuclear industry then!
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Mulligan
To: USS_Scorpion_SSN-589@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 10, 2007 10:55:59 AM
Subject: Re: [USS_Scorpion_SSN-589] Re: Credibility, facts and evidence....and gulags
Todd,
Actually it began big time with Mayor Giuliani of NYC and ending with his police chief Kerik. All the rest of the country followed them. It is interesting looking at this from today…with Keric accused of fraud and mafia ties. Giuliani began the big “broken window” policy…filled up our prisons with the mentally ill…in defense of sterilizing Manhattan for the moneyed interest. You can’t get by corrupt NYC police chief Keric with his mafia Gucci shoes that ended the Giuliani broken windows years….with the justice of the homeless and mentally ill sitting in prisons. You get that don’t you, Giuliani and Keric fingered the law breaking of the littlest peoples…while Keric is the police chief… and lies and break laws, steals and is corrupt beyond belief. Sounds like the Navy to me?
I worked on the Vermont Governor Dean issue during his presidential campaign…with him covering up the gulag like conditions of Vermont state mental hospital. In order to be president we have to show financial responsibility as a state governor…no deficits…and thus making worst the horrors of the state hospital under his watch.
Of course all of these politician’s are doing the bidding of the American public.
Thanks,
mike
----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Mulligan
To: Michael Mulligan
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 10:46:41 AM
Subject: Re: [rootcauseconference] Start with ????Giuliani
So who picks up that dirt on the floor, is it the powerless Kerik’s illegal alien housekeeper who he’s not paying taxes on? Is it the low paid worker you just hired? Who metaphorically gets fingered with culpability...is it a sliding scale? How about the long term employees...who knows about the results of not dealing with small problems? Should we more blame the degreed individual who has been trained on the broad view...how about the managers? The higher the degree... the more we should blame them for walking by the same problems. The executives, the CEO...all the governmental overseers...don’t think these guys operated a broom in a long
time...maybe we should key culpability to income levels. Should we hold the elders more culpable more than the teenagers? How about a loner or somebody who is very popular?
So for the sin of walking past the exact same dirt on the floor...ignoring it...for the entry level employee, to the president of the USA...do we hold them equally culpable for ignoring the small problems...should we hold one more culpable because of their knowledge and position...the power they hold?
Thanks,
mike
Defending an attack on my integrity by Stephen Johnson
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan To: USS_Scorpion_SSN-589@yahoogroups.comSent: Friday, November 9, 2007 1:18:13 PMSubject: [USS_Scorpion_SSN-589] Re: Credibility, facts and evidence....and gulags
Three big police officers tackled him out of his wheel chair and flung his foot through a plate glass window. I had been feeding this guy by hand and watching him crawl out of his wheelchair to go to the bathroom. You have no idea with the problems with steps and the mechanics of pissing with a guy like this. I requested a meeting with a police chief. He didn’t have his job long after that. I asked them why had his policemen tackle him out of the wheel chair. They told me they thought he had a pistil or revolver…they only did it for the protection of the police.
He and they were afraid of Tom with a fork…they though he would poke his eye out with a fork…he had such troubles controlling his muscles. Tom couldn’t hold a revolver. I got so mad at the police chief. I remember him and his lieutenant standing up in the meeting when I became so upset with this, telling me to calm down right now, you are frightening us….or you will be cuffed and arrested right here in the police chief’s office.
But for the grace of god…that could have been my son! At the time I was having some difficulties accepting the cards that had been dealt to me. I watched my son’s bent legs and horrendous running gait at school….and I remember my son asking me why couldn’t run like the rest of the kids. I remember the stares he got from people. I was so mad a god....then Tom came into my life. But for the grace of god!
Thanks,
mike
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulliganyahoo.com>To: USS_Scorpion_ SSN-589@yahoogro ups.comSent: Friday, November 9, 2007 12:48:28 PMSubject: Credibility, facts and evidence.... and gulags
This e-mail wouldn’t have happened if I haven’t hit a huge nerve.
What do we think of his two degrees…one in history and the other one in music…Tom. Because his muscle tone was different than all of the rest of us including his stomach….medication responded differently than the rest of us. He and his mother hated medications because of this.
The community couldn’t afford his proper care….so they found a way to arrest him. They put him in a antiquated county jail….and the warden called up the judge telling him it was a gross human rights violation. The faculty just wasn’t designed for a guy like him. When I went in there visiting him I discovered a lot of the inmates have a mental illness. I couldn't believe this was America!
Don’t get me talking “ Crotched Mountain ” rehabilitation facility run by one of the most politically connected republican families in the USA .
Stephen Johnson:
“Here's a passage that appears to be a question to you regarding your devolving into some odd discussion about care for people with cerebral palsy. (I suggest the man in question may have suffered from Tardive Dyskinesia due to long-term use of anti-psychotic medications and probably did not have Cerebral Palsey):”
I suppose my son…you know my adopted Korean son has cerebral palsy (CP)...it was disclosed way after the adoption process. We discovered it a few months after he arrived in our house. So you are telling me he’s is psychotic. What kind of investigation journalist are you? I get it now you think all CP people are psychotic. Next you will tell me all mental illness is their fault. He was so sick, under weight and undeveloped at four months old. He is a perfectly normal young man today. We had to clip some of his tendons.
That is the gulags! We’d seen the mentality of the gulags in our culture before they even showed up through our war on terrorism, 9/11 and Iraq . It’s been simmering is our society in our care of those with a mental illness, in our institutions, community care, police and the jails…way before 9/11.
To this day I still get a parade of Vermont Employees telling me their problems in the plant and w/i their corporations… they know I will get it in the newspapers and we will force the NRC to correct that.
I considered the future up ahead of us in 2001…I though we could no longer be mindlessly anti nuclear…and thus I disconnected myself from the NECNP. I forced them to work on VY when I was there.
Honour cultures are all around us!
Thanks,
mike mulligan
Three big police officers tackled him out of his wheel chair and flung his foot through a plate glass window. I had been feeding this guy by hand and watching him crawl out of his wheelchair to go to the bathroom. You have no idea with the problems with steps and the mechanics of pissing with a guy like this. I requested a meeting with a police chief. He didn’t have his job long after that. I asked them why had his policemen tackle him out of the wheel chair. They told me they thought he had a pistil or revolver…they only did it for the protection of the police.
He and they were afraid of Tom with a fork…they though he would poke his eye out with a fork…he had such troubles controlling his muscles. Tom couldn’t hold a revolver. I got so mad at the police chief. I remember him and his lieutenant standing up in the meeting when I became so upset with this, telling me to calm down right now, you are frightening us….or you will be cuffed and arrested right here in the police chief’s office.
But for the grace of god…that could have been my son! At the time I was having some difficulties accepting the cards that had been dealt to me. I watched my son’s bent legs and horrendous running gait at school….and I remember my son asking me why couldn’t run like the rest of the kids. I remember the stares he got from people. I was so mad a god....then Tom came into my life. But for the grace of god!
Thanks,
mike
----- Original Message ----From: Michael Mulligan
This e-mail wouldn’t have happened if I haven’t hit a huge nerve.
What do we think of his two degrees…one in history and the other one in music…Tom. Because his muscle tone was different than all of the rest of us including his stomach….medication responded differently than the rest of us. He and his mother hated medications because of this.
The community couldn’t afford his proper care….so they found a way to arrest him. They put him in a antiquated county jail….and the warden called up the judge telling him it was a gross human rights violation. The faculty just wasn’t designed for a guy like him. When I went in there visiting him I discovered a lot of the inmates have a mental illness. I couldn't believe this was America!
Don’t get me talking “ Crotched Mountain ” rehabilitation facility run by one of the most politically connected republican families in the USA .
Stephen Johnson:
“Here's a passage that appears to be a question to you regarding your devolving into some odd discussion about care for people with cerebral palsy. (I suggest the man in question may have suffered from Tardive Dyskinesia due to long-term use of anti-psychotic medications and probably did not have Cerebral Palsey):”
I suppose my son…you know my adopted Korean son has cerebral palsy (CP)...it was disclosed way after the adoption process. We discovered it a few months after he arrived in our house. So you are telling me he’s is psychotic. What kind of investigation journalist are you? I get it now you think all CP people are psychotic. Next you will tell me all mental illness is their fault. He was so sick, under weight and undeveloped at four months old. He is a perfectly normal young man today. We had to clip some of his tendons.
That is the gulags! We’d seen the mentality of the gulags in our culture before they even showed up through our war on terrorism, 9/11 and Iraq . It’s been simmering is our society in our care of those with a mental illness, in our institutions, community care, police and the jails…way before 9/11.
To this day I still get a parade of Vermont Employees telling me their problems in the plant and w/i their corporations… they know I will get it in the newspapers and we will force the NRC to correct that.
I considered the future up ahead of us in 2001…I though we could no longer be mindlessly anti nuclear…and thus I disconnected myself from the NECNP. I forced them to work on VY when I was there.
Honour cultures are all around us!
Thanks,
mike mulligan
NRC commissioner, triumphalism, broken windows and the early nuclear industry.
This speech’s triumphalism reminds me of a sub prime mortgage CEO who is living in his rich isolation, in his sea side mansion in East Hampton long island…who is obliterate to the mortgage mess in Cleveland OH.
Think of how Klein has oversimplified the terms of the troubles with the nuclear industry and regulator’s of the 1970’s …how arrogant and isolated they were to the needs of the public and transparency back then, how the industry and the NRC had blinded themselves internally and externally…look at how simplified Klien has used the term “broken windows” today. He is using these terms in a simplified selective Orwellian disinformation campaign. These guys spend an enormous amount of print with blaming the outsiders on the early developmental problems with the nuclear industry…stagflation and external interveners.
Imagine if they are regulating nuclear power and bringing on the nuclear Renaissance through such a class warfare lens, top down hierarchal and nuclear industry centric perspective…through such a lens?
Can you imagine if Klein was the CEO of Palo Verde or a shift supervision of a plant…how he would externalization the blame to outside influences with the troubles on the largest nuclear facility in the USA? He’s be better explaining what was the exact problems were with the NRC communication and IT technology...or what cause the tower collapsed at Vermont Yankee and why everyone missed it. He’s be better explaining how the INPO missed the VY tower issue…instead of playing nice with these guys in his speech.
See, these guys are all into the risk perspective…they are interested in the magnitude of an accident at a nuclear plant…they are extremely careless with the idea of a non safety accident that obliterates the credibility of the NRC and the industry…can a non nuclear accident cause as much financial damage as a nuclear accident based not based on risk? The ideology of the risk perspective doesn’t capture this effect….and it is an ideological and class tool.
Again, he implying historic pressures with re-licencing and new plants…we don’t have a understanding with how much the resources of the agency doesn’t match their current and future responsibilities…this unseen financial drought…the mismatch of resources…the pressure and intimidations…the internal and external pressures creating blindness…this has been at the bottom of all our institutional failures.
Doesn’t it bother anyone after ever incident and accident the agency always says they got to better communicate to the public…as if the problem is just about communication…that they will next correct the NRC’s communication problem and a accident will never happen again. What a conn job.
Can anyone see this repeated addictive externalization of problems on a grand scale?
Play attention to the date of this speech!
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-050.html
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein
"Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the State of the Nuclear Renaissance"INPOAtlanta, GA
November 15, 2007
Good afternoon. I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today.
I have a lot a tell you. I do not mean that my speech will be excessively long; it won't be. What I mean is that I have some substantial and important things I need to say to you. Some of what I need to discuss with you is negative. Of course, pointing out the negative is part of my job as a regulator. But I should also mention that there is good news. In fact, those of you who are optimists could say that the glass is half-full.
This counterpoint, in fact, leads me to the theme of my remarks, which is: contrast.
The contrast between the things that are going well, and where we need to be better.
The contrast between perception and reality. And the contrast between the past and the present.
I want to say a brief word about each of those, but not necessarily in that order. Let's look at the contrast between past and present first. Certainly things are very different today than, say, thirty years ago when the building of new nuclear power plants ground to a halt.
During the "stagflation" of the late 1970s, demand for energy was predicted to level off. The NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with "carbon" was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made "carbon copies" in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different—as all of you know very well.
Even within the last year, we have seen dramatic changes. Brown's Ferry Unit 1 was re-started; and the President of the United States personally attended the ribbon-cutting. Construction resumed at Watts Bar Unit 2. The NRC issued three license renewals this year, with 10 more under review; while 13 power uprates are under review, with one already issued this year. We are expecting applications for several new uranium mining operations; and if the Department of Energy follows through on what it has said, we could be receiving an application for Yucca Mountain next year. In addition, of course, the first COL applications—for NRG in Texas and Bellefonte in Alabama—have been submitted. And we are preparing for quite a few more.
These are not the signs of a stagnant industry. To the contrary, these are signs of expansion and growth. The NRC is probably the busiest we have been in our history.And that points us away from the past and the present, into the future. However, I don't work on Wall Street, so I am not in the business of predicting the future. I would rather focus on the here and now. You have probably heard the saying, "If we do our jobs in the present, the future will take care of itself." I think that's true.
So let me turn to the contrast between what we are doing, and what we should be doing. Or rather, let's frame it in terms of some things that should not be happening.
We should not have cooling towers collapsing, corrosion of safety-system piping, or security guards sleeping.
Not to mention sirens that don't work, emergency diesels that won't run, safety- related valves that don't work, safety-related breakers that don't work, and ECCS sump suction lines full of duct tape.
In addition to these items, we currently have a site that is already in column four, with three more that could move into column four within the next 18 months.
This is not a good situation.
Now, when I said "we" a moment ago, I really did mean that all of us need to improve. I think you are all aware of our agency's embarrassment over the GAO sting involving materials licenses given to a bogus company. Obviously, the NRC is not exempt from error or failure.
We need to be doing a better job in a number of areas, including communications. We also need to improve our information systems, and make information publicly available and transparent. And we need to upgrade our technology and business practices more generally. As I have told the staff several times: We should strive to hold ourselves to the same standards we expect from our licensees.
Now, you and I know that from the perspective of risk-informed analysis, most of the items I listed were not matters of significant safety risk. But, let me stress, that doesn't matter, for several reasons.First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law. It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.
If the public believes that standards at nuclear plants are not being enforced, it leads to an erosion of public confidence in the whole nuclear energy industry. On the other hand, when industry does its job, it leads to public confidence in nuclear power more broadly—which lends credence to the work of the NRC. And when we, in turn, hold the utilities to a high standard of safety and security, it enhances confidence in the job you are doing.
Last week I spoke to a delegation of Japanese government officials and utility executives from the Japanese nuclear power industry. I think some of you may be with us today. One of the things I mentioned is that nuclear utilities and regulators from both of our countries need to do a much better job of communicating with the public when an incident occurs at a nuclear facility.
At the time of the Kashiwazaki earthquake, I am not sure that the public was given the accurate and timely information it needed to understand the risk and safety issues. In many cases, when there is an incident at a nuclear facility, the headlines in the newspapers should read, "All safety systems worked." But, as we know, this important fact is often not made clear. And often—though not always—this is because no one had laid the communications groundwork ahead of time to make it clear.
The NRC needs to do better in this regard, as well. For example, I don't think we have done a great job explaining to people—especially on Capitol Hill—the difference between today's Reactor Oversight Process and the Independent Safety Assessment that was done away with years ago—why we made that change, and how the ROP is a greatly superior, internationally recognized approach for promoting safety.
So we need to be better at explaining these facts, and these incidents. Of course, it would also make things easier if there were fewer incidents that required explanation.
Another reason all this is important is that the United States is at the forefront of the global nuclear expansion. People all over the world are paying close attention to what we do. Now, I have mentioned this often, and at times people have responded by saying, "Well, so what? Let others watch us, if they want. That doesn't make us responsible for the rest of the world."
Well, that is true, except for this significant fact: The rest of the world is not just watching the U.S. nuclear renaissance; they are participating in it! Whether it be major components, minor parts supplied by sub-vendors, reactor designs, manpower, software, or other elements, a new reactor today depends on a supply chain that is truly global in scope. This wasn't necessarily the case, say, 20 years ago. But I think that it has become clear that it simply isn't possible to obtain all the necessary components domestically. Just consider that the number of N-stamps held by U.S. companies today is about a fifth of what it was in 1980.
So the safety of both new and existing reactors in the United States simply can't be separated from what is happening internationally. That is what I mean when I say that "A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere." I hope that you will consider helping by expanding your international outreach efforts.In fact, this is such a good idea, I would even say, don't stop with extending cooperation and communication around the world, try it here at home. What I mean is, as the nuclear resurgence gets under way, I hope you engage in more collaboration and sharing of information among yourselves.
If we are serious about the need for greater standardization in the future—and I think we all know this must happen—we need to share information within the nuclear industry. If there is some way you can get together and critique or "red-team" each other's COL applications—to ensure completeness, accuracy, and quality—it will streamline the process for us, promote the goal of standardization, and lead to enhanced safety for the future fleet.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude my remarks on two personal notes. The first concerns human resources—which is a big issue for all of us.
As both industry and government seek to locate and train the next generation of employees, let's remember to work on expanding the talent pool as much as possible. The NRC has a very aggressive recruitment effort to expand the diversity of our workforce, with the result that 60 percent of our new hires in FY2007 are women and minorities.
I also know from direct experience while I was at the Pentagon that our men and women in uniform are highly dedicated and professional. And regardless of the differing opinions people may have on various political questions, I think we can all agree that America owes a great debt of gratitude to those who have been disabled while serving their nation. So as we seek out the best and brightest, and seek to reflect the diversity of society at large, let's not overlook the nation's disabled veterans.
My final point is more of a personal reflection. It was just about this time last year that the NRC was facing a budget impasse, as Congress contemplated passing a year-long Continuing Resolution. And while some things change, some things stay the same, because we are facing that same situation again, and it reminds me how much I miss Ed McGaffigan.
Ed was invaluable in working with me, making numerous trips to the Hill, arguing the case for the agency, and getting us our full funding. Many of you knew him. It wasn't just Ed's technical competence that made him special, but also his willingness to fight battles on behalf of the agency, whether it was setting the record straight on the GAO sting and the RTR study, or explaining the critical work we do to members of Congress.
Ed and I didn't see eye-to-eye on every issue, but with him you always knew where you stood. He told you what he thought. We could differ, and still maintain a collegial relationship. That approach helped us achieve a lot as an agency. It helped the NRC resolve the issue of the Continuing Resolution; but it also helped us become a better place. It made us more efficient, more responsive, and more responsible. And it is something I hope we can continue to see at the NRC in the coming years.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your invitation to join you today, and for your kind attention.
Think of how Klein has oversimplified the terms of the troubles with the nuclear industry and regulator’s of the 1970’s …how arrogant and isolated they were to the needs of the public and transparency back then, how the industry and the NRC had blinded themselves internally and externally…look at how simplified Klien has used the term “broken windows” today. He is using these terms in a simplified selective Orwellian disinformation campaign. These guys spend an enormous amount of print with blaming the outsiders on the early developmental problems with the nuclear industry…stagflation and external interveners.
Imagine if they are regulating nuclear power and bringing on the nuclear Renaissance through such a class warfare lens, top down hierarchal and nuclear industry centric perspective…through such a lens?
Can you imagine if Klein was the CEO of Palo Verde or a shift supervision of a plant…how he would externalization the blame to outside influences with the troubles on the largest nuclear facility in the USA? He’s be better explaining what was the exact problems were with the NRC communication and IT technology...or what cause the tower collapsed at Vermont Yankee and why everyone missed it. He’s be better explaining how the INPO missed the VY tower issue…instead of playing nice with these guys in his speech.
See, these guys are all into the risk perspective…they are interested in the magnitude of an accident at a nuclear plant…they are extremely careless with the idea of a non safety accident that obliterates the credibility of the NRC and the industry…can a non nuclear accident cause as much financial damage as a nuclear accident based not based on risk? The ideology of the risk perspective doesn’t capture this effect….and it is an ideological and class tool.
Again, he implying historic pressures with re-licencing and new plants…we don’t have a understanding with how much the resources of the agency doesn’t match their current and future responsibilities…this unseen financial drought…the mismatch of resources…the pressure and intimidations…the internal and external pressures creating blindness…this has been at the bottom of all our institutional failures.
Doesn’t it bother anyone after ever incident and accident the agency always says they got to better communicate to the public…as if the problem is just about communication…that they will next correct the NRC’s communication problem and a accident will never happen again. What a conn job.
Can anyone see this repeated addictive externalization of problems on a grand scale?
Play attention to the date of this speech!
http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/speeches/2007/s-07-050.html
Remarks Prepared for NRC Chairman Dale E. Klein
"Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on the State of the Nuclear Renaissance"INPOAtlanta, GA
November 15, 2007
Good afternoon. I appreciate the invitation to speak to you today.
I have a lot a tell you. I do not mean that my speech will be excessively long; it won't be. What I mean is that I have some substantial and important things I need to say to you. Some of what I need to discuss with you is negative. Of course, pointing out the negative is part of my job as a regulator. But I should also mention that there is good news. In fact, those of you who are optimists could say that the glass is half-full.
This counterpoint, in fact, leads me to the theme of my remarks, which is: contrast.
The contrast between the things that are going well, and where we need to be better.
The contrast between perception and reality. And the contrast between the past and the present.
I want to say a brief word about each of those, but not necessarily in that order. Let's look at the contrast between past and present first. Certainly things are very different today than, say, thirty years ago when the building of new nuclear power plants ground to a halt.
During the "stagflation" of the late 1970s, demand for energy was predicted to level off. The NRC had only recently been created, and—frankly—was not a very efficient or predictable regulator, in my view. And the only problem people had with "carbon" was that the stuff rubbed off on your fingers when you made "carbon copies" in the typewriter. The prospects for nuclear power did not appear bright. Today, of course, the situation is very different—as all of you know very well.
Even within the last year, we have seen dramatic changes. Brown's Ferry Unit 1 was re-started; and the President of the United States personally attended the ribbon-cutting. Construction resumed at Watts Bar Unit 2. The NRC issued three license renewals this year, with 10 more under review; while 13 power uprates are under review, with one already issued this year. We are expecting applications for several new uranium mining operations; and if the Department of Energy follows through on what it has said, we could be receiving an application for Yucca Mountain next year. In addition, of course, the first COL applications—for NRG in Texas and Bellefonte in Alabama—have been submitted. And we are preparing for quite a few more.
These are not the signs of a stagnant industry. To the contrary, these are signs of expansion and growth. The NRC is probably the busiest we have been in our history.And that points us away from the past and the present, into the future. However, I don't work on Wall Street, so I am not in the business of predicting the future. I would rather focus on the here and now. You have probably heard the saying, "If we do our jobs in the present, the future will take care of itself." I think that's true.
So let me turn to the contrast between what we are doing, and what we should be doing. Or rather, let's frame it in terms of some things that should not be happening.
We should not have cooling towers collapsing, corrosion of safety-system piping, or security guards sleeping.
Not to mention sirens that don't work, emergency diesels that won't run, safety- related valves that don't work, safety-related breakers that don't work, and ECCS sump suction lines full of duct tape.
In addition to these items, we currently have a site that is already in column four, with three more that could move into column four within the next 18 months.
This is not a good situation.
Now, when I said "we" a moment ago, I really did mean that all of us need to improve. I think you are all aware of our agency's embarrassment over the GAO sting involving materials licenses given to a bogus company. Obviously, the NRC is not exempt from error or failure.
We need to be doing a better job in a number of areas, including communications. We also need to improve our information systems, and make information publicly available and transparent. And we need to upgrade our technology and business practices more generally. As I have told the staff several times: We should strive to hold ourselves to the same standards we expect from our licensees.
Now, you and I know that from the perspective of risk-informed analysis, most of the items I listed were not matters of significant safety risk. But, let me stress, that doesn't matter, for several reasons.First, carelessness in small things may lead to carelessness about bigger things. In the early 1980s, the sociologist James Q. Wilson pioneered the so-called "broken windows" theory of law-enforcement. The idea was that when small signs of disorder or decay—such as vandalism, graffiti, or even excessive littering—are allowed to persist, it leads to bigger crimes, because people assume that the neighborhood does not have any standards, and that no one is enforcing the law. It is a theory that was actually put into practice in several major cities, and led to major reductions in crimes. One lesson we can take from that is: Perception leads to reality.
If the public believes that standards at nuclear plants are not being enforced, it leads to an erosion of public confidence in the whole nuclear energy industry. On the other hand, when industry does its job, it leads to public confidence in nuclear power more broadly—which lends credence to the work of the NRC. And when we, in turn, hold the utilities to a high standard of safety and security, it enhances confidence in the job you are doing.
Last week I spoke to a delegation of Japanese government officials and utility executives from the Japanese nuclear power industry. I think some of you may be with us today. One of the things I mentioned is that nuclear utilities and regulators from both of our countries need to do a much better job of communicating with the public when an incident occurs at a nuclear facility.
At the time of the Kashiwazaki earthquake, I am not sure that the public was given the accurate and timely information it needed to understand the risk and safety issues. In many cases, when there is an incident at a nuclear facility, the headlines in the newspapers should read, "All safety systems worked." But, as we know, this important fact is often not made clear. And often—though not always—this is because no one had laid the communications groundwork ahead of time to make it clear.
The NRC needs to do better in this regard, as well. For example, I don't think we have done a great job explaining to people—especially on Capitol Hill—the difference between today's Reactor Oversight Process and the Independent Safety Assessment that was done away with years ago—why we made that change, and how the ROP is a greatly superior, internationally recognized approach for promoting safety.
So we need to be better at explaining these facts, and these incidents. Of course, it would also make things easier if there were fewer incidents that required explanation.
Another reason all this is important is that the United States is at the forefront of the global nuclear expansion. People all over the world are paying close attention to what we do. Now, I have mentioned this often, and at times people have responded by saying, "Well, so what? Let others watch us, if they want. That doesn't make us responsible for the rest of the world."
Well, that is true, except for this significant fact: The rest of the world is not just watching the U.S. nuclear renaissance; they are participating in it! Whether it be major components, minor parts supplied by sub-vendors, reactor designs, manpower, software, or other elements, a new reactor today depends on a supply chain that is truly global in scope. This wasn't necessarily the case, say, 20 years ago. But I think that it has become clear that it simply isn't possible to obtain all the necessary components domestically. Just consider that the number of N-stamps held by U.S. companies today is about a fifth of what it was in 1980.
So the safety of both new and existing reactors in the United States simply can't be separated from what is happening internationally. That is what I mean when I say that "A nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident everywhere." I hope that you will consider helping by expanding your international outreach efforts.In fact, this is such a good idea, I would even say, don't stop with extending cooperation and communication around the world, try it here at home. What I mean is, as the nuclear resurgence gets under way, I hope you engage in more collaboration and sharing of information among yourselves.
If we are serious about the need for greater standardization in the future—and I think we all know this must happen—we need to share information within the nuclear industry. If there is some way you can get together and critique or "red-team" each other's COL applications—to ensure completeness, accuracy, and quality—it will streamline the process for us, promote the goal of standardization, and lead to enhanced safety for the future fleet.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude my remarks on two personal notes. The first concerns human resources—which is a big issue for all of us.
As both industry and government seek to locate and train the next generation of employees, let's remember to work on expanding the talent pool as much as possible. The NRC has a very aggressive recruitment effort to expand the diversity of our workforce, with the result that 60 percent of our new hires in FY2007 are women and minorities.
I also know from direct experience while I was at the Pentagon that our men and women in uniform are highly dedicated and professional. And regardless of the differing opinions people may have on various political questions, I think we can all agree that America owes a great debt of gratitude to those who have been disabled while serving their nation. So as we seek out the best and brightest, and seek to reflect the diversity of society at large, let's not overlook the nation's disabled veterans.
My final point is more of a personal reflection. It was just about this time last year that the NRC was facing a budget impasse, as Congress contemplated passing a year-long Continuing Resolution. And while some things change, some things stay the same, because we are facing that same situation again, and it reminds me how much I miss Ed McGaffigan.
Ed was invaluable in working with me, making numerous trips to the Hill, arguing the case for the agency, and getting us our full funding. Many of you knew him. It wasn't just Ed's technical competence that made him special, but also his willingness to fight battles on behalf of the agency, whether it was setting the record straight on the GAO sting and the RTR study, or explaining the critical work we do to members of Congress.
Ed and I didn't see eye-to-eye on every issue, but with him you always knew where you stood. He told you what he thought. We could differ, and still maintain a collegial relationship. That approach helped us achieve a lot as an agency. It helped the NRC resolve the issue of the Continuing Resolution; but it also helped us become a better place. It made us more efficient, more responsive, and more responsible. And it is something I hope we can continue to see at the NRC in the coming years.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your invitation to join you today, and for your kind attention.
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