Footnotes for the "
Duck and Cover" episode of
The West Wing, which includes the expected surprise that finally cuts into Arnold Vinick's lead and gives Matt Santos a chance at winning the presidency.
Unfortunately, stepping outside the show's internal universe, NBC has announced (on-line
here) that this season will be the last of the show, which means that we will not get to see a Santos or Vinick administration, no matter how the campaign turns out. I loved this show even before it helped inspire this project that I've been working on for the past half-decade (I had the initial idea on Christmas Day 2000 and launched it in February 2002), and I'll be sad to see it go.
Still, we at least have a few more episodes to go and footnote, so here goes.
- San Andreo / San Onofre. There is no San Andreo nuclear generating station in real life, but there is a nuclear power plant near San Diego, the San Onofre power plant near San Clemente, California. This plant was created in the 1960s with one reactor, and two additional reactors went on-line in the early 1980s. The plant generates about half the electricity generated by nuclear power in California. California has two nuclear power plants and ranks in the top 10 states of the 31 states with nuclear capacity. Southern California Edison, which operates the plant, has information on-line here and the U.S. Energy Information Administration has information about San Onofre on-line here.
- Nuclear Power. There currently are 104 commercial nuclear generating units that are fully licensed for operation. These reactors are located in 31 states and produce about 20 percent of the electricity generated nationwide each year. California has two nuclear plants (San Onofre near San Diego and Diablo Canyon near Santa Barbara). The map below shows the 31 states with nuclear reactors in red; (source on-line here). Illinois, considered a swing state in the West Wing election even before the San Andreo incident, has six nuclear power plants and has the most nuclear capacity of any state.
- Electoral Map Changes. In the immediate aftermath of the nuclear incident, a reporter says that states that Vinick previously had safe margins in are now too close to call, specifically citing Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, and California. Florida and Ohio had been up for grabs back in the wedding episode (see on-line here), indicating that Vinick had solidified his support there before losing it now. As of episode's end, Vinick is still ahead in electoral votes 144 to 112, but 282 electoral votes are up for grabs.
For more footnotes, go
here.
New footnotes for the Peter Sarsgaard episode of
Saturday Night Live.
Regarding wiretaps, which were mentioned in Weekend Update and a sketch late in the show, this refers to recent reports that President George W. Bush has authorized the National Security Agency to monitor communications involving U.S. persons within the United States without warrants. Bush has defended the program as focused on those communicating with members of al-Qaeda and as effective in fighting terrorism, as in a December 19 appearance where he first discussed the program (on-line
here). He has also said that the program was legal and was authorized by his constitutional authority to protect the United States and by a Congressional resolution to use military force against al-Qaeda.
However, some have questioned the legal basis for the program. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a January 5 memo (on-line
here) that there is uncertainty about the legal justification for the program and that the justification "does not seem to be as well-grounded" as suggested in a December letter to the heads of the Senate Intelligence Committee. The American Civil Liberties Union, along with other groups, filed a lawsuit on January 17 challenging the wiretaps as illegal (information on the lawsuit
here).
In addition, as noted in Weekend Update, former Vice President Al Gore said in a January 16 speech (transcript on-line
here) that the Bush administration had acted illegally via the wiretaps and that a special counsel should investigate "the criminal issues raised by the warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the president."
Some also have questioned the effectiveness of the program, as suggested by the skit in which the NSA listens to the communications of two elderly women. The New York Times reported on January 17 (on-line
here) that more than a dozen current and former officials said that the tips provided by the NSA based on its wiretaps did not provide much new information and distracted agents from more productive counterterrorism work. "We'd chase a number, find it's a schoolteacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," one former F.B.I. official told the New York Times. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."
For more footnotes, go
here.
1/19 - My Name is Earl
I don't usually footnote NBC's My Name is Earl, but I am a big fan of the show and could not help but noticing that part of Thursday's episode ("Stole P's HD Cart") was "ripped from the headlines." So, here's a footnote.
"Plan B" seems to be inspired by the incident in which Anna Ayala claimed to have found a fingertip in a bowl of chili purchased at a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose on March 22, 2005. Wendy's officials reportedly suspected a hoax, in part because the fingertip was not cooked, and said within days that they had investigated the incident and found "no credible evidence to indicate that Wendy's was the source of the foreign object" (statement on-line
here).
Ayala was arrested by San Jose police in April on charges that she had made a false claim. Ayala's husband reportedly obtained the fingertip from a co-worker who had suffered a workplace accident. Ayala and her husband pled guilty in September 2005 and were sentenced in January 2006 to jail time.
"From the moment we learned of this terrible hoax, we pledged to do everything we could to find out what really happened that night, including offering a $100,000 reward. Now thanks to the incredible work of the San Jose Police Department, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together. Based on the reported evidence, there can be no doubt that we are completely vindicated, " Wendy's President of North America Tom Mueller said in a May 13, 2005 statement (on-line
here).
New footnotes for Wednesday's episode of
Law & Order.
Regarding assisted suicide, nearly all states prohibit assisted suicide. In New York, for example, intentionally causing or aiding someone to commit suicide is considered manslaughter in the second degree under Penal Law 125.15, and is punishable by up to 15 years in jail.
In recent years, many people have tried to change laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide in the political arena and in the courts. Most of these efforts have ultimately failed, with Oregon the first and still only state to have permitted physician-assisted suicide in certain circumstances.
The United States Supreme Court on January 17, 2005 upheld Oregon's assisted suicide program, which allows doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients and which was created after voters approved initiatives in 1994 and 1997. More than 200 people have committed suicide via the program from 1998 to 2004 (see report by Oregon's Department of Human Services on-line
here). The federal government sought to block the Oregon law as violating the federal Controlled Substances Act, but this argument was rejected by some lower courts. The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 majority that the CSA was not meant to cover medical practices that a state had deemed legitimate (opinion on-line
here).
For more footnotes, go
here.
New footnotes for Tuesday’s episode of
Commander in Chief, in which President Allen handles an international crisis with North Korea. A few points of note:
- China Incident. The episode is reminiscent of a 2001 international crisis between the United States and China over an EP-3 plane colliding with a Chinese jet. In that incident, a U.S. EP-3 plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided on April 1, leading to the U.S. plane making an emergency landing on China’s Hainan Island. The United States demanded the return of the crew and plane, while China demanded an apology. Ultimately, China accepted an April 10 letter by Ambassador Joseph W. Prueher (on-line here), in which Prueher wrote that Bush and Powell had expressed their "sincere regret" and were "very sorry" for the loss of the pilot and aircraft, and also "very sorry" that the plane entered Chinese airspace and landed without verbal clearance. The crew returned on April 11, and the plane was cut into pieces and flown out that summer.
- Owen Lattimore. The name of President Allen's Korea expert (pictured above) may ring a bell, because Owen Lattimore in real life was an expert on China who was accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950 of being the Soviet Union's top spy in the United States. Lattimore was indicted on perjury charges, but those charges eventually were dropped. An article on Lattimore is on-line here and the FBI's public file on Lattimore is on-line here.
- Coastal Limits. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, every state has the right to establish its territorial sea to a maximum of 12 nautical miles from shore (on-line here) and the right to establish an exclusive economic zone to a maximum of 200 nautical miles (on-line here). However, neither the United States nor North Korea has signed this convention (signatories on-line here), limiting to some degree the United States' ability to invoke that law itself.
For more, go
here.
Footnotes for Sunday's episode of
The West Wing, featuring CJ as she tries to push forward a resolution to help end the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan by sanctioning Sudan's petroleum sector, handles a potential sex scandal, monitors the situation in Kazakhstan, and nearly receives a marriage proposal.
Regarding Sudan, in real life, the United Nations has not imposed sanctions on Sudan's petroleum sector, though the U.N. Security Council did warn that such sanctions were possible if Sudan's government did not fully comply with resolutions calling for an end to the conflict. In a September 30, 2004 resolution (on-line
here), the Security Council declared that it "shall consider taking additional measures … such as actions to affect Sudan's petroleum sector and the Government of Sudan or individual members of the Government of Sudan, in order to take effective action to obtain such full compliance or full cooperation."
Sudan exports roughly 250,000 net barrels of oil a day (source
here), but not to the United States, which does not import oil from Sudan. The United States has imposed sanctions on Sudan since 1997 because of Sudan's support for international terrorism, its efforts to destabilize neighbors, and the prevalence of human rights violations (on-line
here).
As is suggested in the episode, the resolution CJ proposes would not impact the United States much but would cut off an oil source for other countries such as China. One of China's major oil companies, the China National Petroleum Company, owns a stake in a Sudanese oil project and has about 150,000 barrels a day in equity oil from the project (source
here).
For more, go
here.
Footnotes now on-line for the
January 14 episode of
Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by Scarlett Johansson.
Regarding the "700 Gang," Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson linked the condition of Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Israel's withdrawal from Gaza during a January 5 broadcast of The 700 Club. “In the book of Joel, the prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has ‘enmity against those who divide My land.’ God considers this land to be His. When you read the Bible, He said this is my land. For any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he will carve it up and give it away, God said, “No, this is Mine,'" Robertson said (release on-line
here).
Robertson's comments received much criticism. White House spokesman Trent Duffy said on January 6 that Robertson's comments were "wholly inappropriate and offensive" (transcript on-line
here) and Democrat Minority Leader Harry Reid said in a statement (on-line
here) that Robertson's comment was "completely outrageous, insulting and inappropriate."
Robertson said his comments were "inappropriate and insensitive" in a January 11 letter to Sharon's son (on-line
here and
here).
For more, go
here.
Footnotes for
Running Mates, the first West Wing episode to run since actor John Spencer's death on December 16. It was an honor and a pleasure getting to watch Spencer's work over the past seven years, and he will be missed.
Here are some notes on the questions Leo was asked about during debate prep and the debate. Go
here for more information.
- International Criminal Court. The United States has not accepted the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, which went into effect on July 1, 2002 and which can try and punish individuals who commit war crimes. The ICC (on-line here) generally has jurisdiction only over individuals from those states that have accepted the ICC's jurisdiction by signing and ratifying the Rome Statute, but it can prosecute war crimes committed by individuals from those states that have not if the United Nations Security Council refers the situation to the ICC's Prosecutor.
- Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto agreement that commits participating countries to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases went into effect on Feb. 16, 2005, having been ratified by countries accounting for more than half of the carbon dioxide emissions in 1990. Under this agreement, industrialized countries would have to meet certain carbon-dioxide emission reduction levels by 2010 while non-industrialized countries such as China and India would not have such specific goals. Only countries that have ratified the Kyoto agreement are bound by it; the United States and China, the two largest emitters of carbon dioxide, did not ratify the agreement though President Bill Clinton did sign it.
- Foreign Ownership of U.S. Debt. As Leo refers to in the debate, foreign and international investors have taken on a larger share of the U.S. debt (now about $8 billion), raising concerns about the economic power that such investors potentially could wield. Foreign and international investors increased their share of the privately-held debt from 20 percent in 1993 (14% percent of overall debt) to about 53 percent as of June 2005 (26% of overall debt), as reflected in the graph below, which is based on Treasury data available on-line here.
- Health Coverage. Most people in the United States have health insurance, with most people under 65 years old having coverage through their employment, and with some covered by Medicaid. But about 40 million people under 65 years old (about 16-17 percent of the population) did not have any health insurance in 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Health’s annual report on national health trends, and a political debate continues as to how the United States can address these people’s health needs.
Happy new year to everyone, and welcome back. New episodes are starting to air again after the holiday break, and here are footnotes for last night's Daily Show, the first after a nearly three-week break. The Colbert Report comes back next week.
