popular logistics

From the appellate court decision in Nash v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The Port Authority had moved to set aside a jury verdict or, in the alternative, be granted a new trial. The litigation involved the 1993 truck-bombing, which killed six people and injured hundreds. The Appellate Division, First Department (New York’s intermediate appellate court) ruled against the Port Authority in a unanimous decision decided on April 29, 2008, with an opinion by Presiding Justice Jonathan Lippman:

the exact scenario followed by the 1993 World Trade Center bombers had not merely been foreseeable, but had actually been foreseen and brought to the attention of the Port Authority management by its internal and retained security consultants years in advance of the event.

The entire opinion is worth a read - and is so well-written that non-lawyers will likely be able to follow some of the nuances of the legal arguments.

Interview of the Vice President by Martha Raddatz, ABC News

Shangri-La’s Barr Al Jissah Resort & Spa

Muscat, Oman

10:20 A.M. (Local)

Q Mr. Vice President, I want to start with a speech Barack Obama gave. I doubt you’ve seen the entire speech, but he denounced comments by Reverend Wright, but he didn’t distance himself completely. Do you think he did the right thing?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Martha, one of the things I’ve avoided so far is getting in the middle of the Democratic presidential primary process. And I think I’ll stay there.

Q But it was an important speech.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: It was an important speech, …

Click here for the full transcript, on ‘WhiteHouse.gov’

This Letter to the Editor, written by Larry, was published in the Asbury Park Press, Wednesday, Jan 23, 2008 (Click Here). The full text is reproduced below.

Nuclear power too dangerous.

Nuclear power is not green or cheap. It is a security nightmare.

When you look at mining, milling and transporting nuclear fuel, nuclear power emits four to five times as much carbon dioxide as wind and solar. The fuel cycle also creates massive amounts of radioactive waste — 100,000 metric tons per plant per year. Thermal pollution from Oyster Creek kills fish, shellfish and amphibians. And radioactive wastes must be isolated from the environment for a long time.

No new nuclear power plants were built in the United States after electricity was deregulated. That’s not because of the Three Mile Island accident or the Chernobyl disaster, and not because of the protests against nuclear power or rational fears of the technology, but because of the time and expense to build new nuclear power plants. When you look at the capital costs of building nuclear plants, and add the costs of insurance, evacuation plans, security systems and government regulation, nuclear power becomes too expensive to compete.

So in 2005, the federal government mandated $125 million in tax breaks for each new nuclear power plant and provided loan guarantees of 80 percent of a plant’s cost, including overruns. Taxpayers pay for those tax breaks and loan guarantees. That does not make it cost-effective; it just shifts the burden.

Nuclear power is a security nightmare. If the Sept. 11 killers had crashed one of the hijacked planes into Oyster Creek rather than the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, much of the Jersey Shore would be like the area around Chernobyl — condemned, abandoned and uninhabitable.

If we were smart, we would move forward quickly on offshore wind, photovoltaic solar, geothermal, ocean current turbines and conservation.

Larry Furman

Harvard School of Public Health research concludes that airport security isn’t helping. Reuters, or Yahoo News.

The researchers could not find any studies showing whether the time-consuming process of X-raying carry-on luggage prevents hijackings or attacks.

They found no evidence to suggest that making passengers take off their shoes and confiscating small items prevented any incidents.

The researchers conclude that it would be “interesting” to apply medical standards to airport security. Screening programs for illnesses like cancer are usually not broadly instituted unless they have been shown to work.

The TSA response:

The Transportation Security Administration defended its measures by reporting that more than 13 million prohibited items were intercepted in one year. … Most of these illegal items were lighters.”

The TSA needs to think things through and implement security protocols that work to stop terrorists, rather than those that work to inconvenience passengers, confiscate lighters, water, homemade pies, and toothpaste.

Bruce Schneier, in his blog on Security and Security Technology, sums it up well:

The goal isn’t to confiscate prohibited items. The goal is to prevent terrorism on airplanes. When the TSA confiscates millions of lighters from innocent people, that’s a security failure. The TSA is reacting to non-threats. The TSA is reacting to false alarms. Now you can argue that this level of failures is necessary to make people safer, but it’s certainly not evidence that people are safer.

So today, 6 years after Sept. 11, Airport Security, to put it mildly, is a work in progress. Or, as Schneier puts it, “the TSA has it completely backwards.“

Back in 2000 Nader said there ain’t no difference between George W. Bush and Al Gore. I disagreed back then, and disagree today. But let’s look at some of the Republicans and Democrats today.

The Republican candidates:

• Rudy Guiliani, like Bush and Cheney, believes it is “My way or the Highway” and “if you’re not with me you’re against me.” Guiliani was on the street on Sept 12, 2001 because he ignored his advisors and put New York’s Office of Emergency Management in the World Trade Center. Is this what how we want the President to make decisions?
• When asked if his sons are serving in Iraq, Mitt Romney, who supports the war, replied “They are doing the best thing they can do for America – working to get me elected President.” Shouldn’t he offer to bring all the soldiers home from Iraq and pay them what he is paying his sons?
• Fred Thompson promises a government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists, and for the lobbyists.
• Mike Huckabee lists among his qualifications that he pardoned Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones for an old driving offense. While the offense may have been blown out of proportion; is pardoning a celebrity for no other reason than to curry favor with said celebrity is a qualification for the office of President of the United States? Or is it selling access? Inequality under the law.
• John McCain, when asked about his age, responded “Thanks for the question, you little jerk … you’re drafted.”

Contrast the Liberal Democrats. John Edwards and Barak Obama have put forth plans to provide health care for all Americans, including the 1 out of 6 who have no health insurance and therefore very limited access to health care. While she hasn’t discussed the details, Hillary Clinton says “We are all saying pretty much the same thing.”

The calendars may say “21st Century” but the Republicans are still fighting the Skopes trial. The Democrats want to fund stem cell research.

From Greg Sargent’s August 29th piece on TPM’s Election Central:

ou may recall that some time ago Rudy Giuliani unveiled a group called “Firefighters for Rudy” in response to some heat he was taking from firefighters over the deficiencies they saw in his 9/11 performance. At the time, this blog noted that the group’s leader was merely a Rudy campaign aide and wouldn’t say how many firefighters were in this new “group.” Not much has been heard about the group since.

Now Rudy, who’s again under fire from recovery workers over his exaggerations about his Masterfully Churchillian Performance on 9/11, is pulling the same trick from his hat once again. Today his campaign plans to unveil “First Responders for Rudy” at a firehouse in South Carolina.

Giuliani To Unveil “First Responders For Rudy” at TPM  Election Central.

Via The Giuliani Papers.

Check out Arlen Parsa’s piece in The Daily Background today, a good tour d’horizon of Giuliani’s claim that he is a 9/11 worker - and was at ground zero as often as, “if not more often,” than other workers.

Couldn’t this be easily resolved by a check of the mayor’s calendars - or local print coverage - for the time period?