How Was Your Florida Spring Break?

Courtesy of Redskynews

I have a few young family members that just had Spring Break. I called them personally and asked them to not go to Florida (or anywhere on the Gulf Coast). I explained to them that I believe that swimming, eating the seafood (maybe some people don’t mind their fish with lesions on it), or even frollicking in the sand could be hazardous to their health.

As far as I know, only one relative went (after telling me on the phone that she wasn’t going). I have yet to speak with her about it (and probably won’t). Young people have priorities very different than an old guy like me, I understand that. But had one of my uncles ever personally called me and asked me to not do something, I would have evaluated sources and information shared with me and made my own decision. I hope she did this.

Would she have seen the news that shrimpers keep pulling up nets full of oil (found in the Courthouse News Service link above):

At a scoping meeting last week in Biloxi, Miss., Vietnamese shrimpers said they have pulled up nets full of oil from the seafloor and have had to decide whether to report the oil to the Coast Guard, which would mean dumping their day’s catch, or pretend they don’t see the oil.

John Lliff, a supervisor with NOAA’s Damage Assessment Remediation and Restoration Program, said no one knows how much of the seafloor is covered in oil. …

Shrimpers in Biloxi also said that in places where shrimp have been plentiful, there are no shrimp now. …

If she had been investigating my claims, she may have found one such article that caught my attention where I was informed that Mississippi’s Attorney General, Jim Hood, attended various Town Hall meetings in South Mississippi to find that the biggest complaint was not the slow financial payouts by BP’s hired hand, Feinberg, (I covered him here) but more related to how many people are getting sick:

[Waveland resident Laurie] Lambert said, “I mean there’s people getting sick everywhere and nobody realized how bad it is.”

“It makes me sick to see little kids swimming out there in that water. There’s dead fish everywhere. I mean, that alone is nasty. That’s just a cause right there for health problems,” said Lambert.

While others were a bit more poignant describing their ailments:

“When they started burning the dispersants out there, my lungs caught on fire. I have emphysema and COPD,” Martin Rehbein said.

He is now beginning to see skin problems. He wants Hood to know he’s convinced it’s caused from the spill.

“These things just started coming out and this has gotten a lot worse,” said Rehbein.

I wonder if she saw any of the 136 dead bottlenose dolphins that seem to be washing up all over the coast during her visit? From MSNBC:

As of Monday night, scientists counted 136 bottlenose dolphin carcasses found since mid-January along the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, almost half of them newly born or stillborn infants.

And [Blair Mase, NOAA's stranding coordinator for the Southeast] noted that “we’re still in the response phase” since carcasses are washing up daily, including at least two on Tuesday in Louisiana.

Or the new rash of sea turtles dying in droves?

“In the past couple of weeks, we’ve seen an increase” in turtle deaths in the northern Gulf, Connie Barclay, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told msnbc.com.

Since March 15, she noted, 39 deaths were confirmed in Mississippi, 4 in Alabama and 3 in Louisiana.

I will admit that when I read at Digital Journal (via Activist Post) that the Obama Administration decided to restrict finding on these dead dolphins referenced above, it causes me to consider that we have just another lie and cover-up in the making. But what else is new with the Fascist State?

And like everything else I bitch about here, surely any thinking person will admit the huge possibility that things are far worse in this situation than officials will ever admit to. Just consider that for every dead animal that washes ashore, there is likely many more that don’t make it to be seen:

The death toll from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill goes far beyond the animal corpses washing ashore, says a report that warns that whale and dolphin deaths may be 50 times higher than believed.

The report, by an international team of marine mammal specialists, estimates that for every corpse that washes ashore another 50 may never be found.

I was discussing a different topic at my friend, DublinMick’s blog, when I noticed this comment post that caught my attention:

FLORIDA MEGASTORM: WORST YET TO COME, 3/31/11 10 a.m.

400 lightning strikes in 20 minutes, widespread flooding, power outages near Brooksville and points east. This is from the first hours of this storm, although it was turbulent overnight.

Majority of storm still out in Gulf, aimed at coast just north of Clearwater. Storm moving 45 mph. They keep extending the tornado watches. Wind 100 mph in places.

Lots of reported tornado sightings. Everything canceled, people running for cover. Weather guy on channel 8 is explaining it as just another cold front. Lots of high rises on the beach near St. Pete are in big trouble in about 15 minutes.

Dutchsinse called this two days ago on YouTube.

Report from St. Pete: “My dogs have been freaking out since Sunday night.”

National Weather Service: “Main threat straight line winds.” Hmm, that would put the multiple tornadoes second. Lightning and hail #3.

Speaking of some way to stir this mess up even more and then dump it further inland. One of the early fears about this poison dump was “what if” a big storm hit? It appears we may see what happens. My prayers and hopes for the safety of those citizens go out.

Now, I don’t think that my young niece has any immediate health effect to deal with, but from what I have read it doesn’t necessarily happen immediately. I also understand that most that have had ill effects are full time residents, by and large.

If you like what you see here at The Revolt, please subscribe via Email subscription or by the RSS Feed button found on the upper right hand corner of this page and/or hit the Share Button at the bottom of the post to share via various means.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Revolt or WordPress.com

Flash Back

             http://www.planetpuna.com/Dolphin-Birth-Hawaii/index.htm

Dolphin Attended Birth
and
Dolphin Assisted Therapy
in Hawaii

Well– I do believe that back in the 60’s this idea had to come from a ‘head’ on the island….lol. And to be honest– back in the day I just might have done this. Don’t tell my daughter!!! lolololol  Naw, it sounds just ‘out there’ enough to be pretty cool!       

SOME Ongoing Disasters!

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/07/16/the_world_s_worst_ongoing_disasters

SOME of The Globes Worst “ONGOING” Ecological Disasters

NIGERIA

Disaster: Oil spills
Going since: Around 1966

Damage done: The Deepwater Horizon incident may have been the worst oil spill in U.S. history, but it pales in comparison to the ongoing catastrophe that has afflicted Nigeria’s Niger River Delta over the last five decades. As many as 546 million gallons of oil are believed to have spilled since oil exploration began in this region — the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every year. There are around 2,000 official spill sites in the region, some of them decades old.
Oil companies operating in the region blame thieves and sabotage for the majority of the spills, though local activists say aging equipment and lax safety are the cause of many of them. The number of severity of the spills may actually increase in coming years as the industry moves into more remote and difficult terrain in the delta.
It’s not just the spilled oil that can be dangerous. Pipeline explosions, like in the one that killed more than 100 people outside Lagos in 2008, are increasingly frequent as well.

CHINA

Disaster: Coal fires
Going since: 1962

Damage done: China’s recent industrial growth depends heavily on coal — the source of 70 percent of the country’s energy — a major reason why it recently became the world’s largest carbon emitter. The country’s mining sector is also extremely dangerous, killing as many as 13 miners every day. But nowhere is the danger of China’s out-of-control coal addiction more evident than in the 62 raging underground coal fires that have burned in Inner Mongolia since the early 1960s.
Covering an area more than 3,000 miles long, China’s northern coal fires are estimated to destroy as many as 20 million tons of coal per year, more than the entire annual production of Germany. According to some estimates, these fires could be the cause of up to 2 to 3 percent of the world’s carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. A new initiative by the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region aims to put half the fires out by 2012.
Inner Mongolia’s coal fires may be the most severe, but they are hardly unique. An underground fire in Centralia, Pa., begun the same year as many of China’s, is also still burning.
[remember they are battling an enormous oil spill in the China Sea currently]

HAITI

Disaster: Deforestation
Going since: 1492

Damage done: Haiti and the Dominican Republic share an island, as well as similar geographic and climate conditions. So why do severe storms and hurricanes — not to mention earthquakes — only cause horrific human tragedy on the Haitian side? One large reason is the almost complete destruction of Haiti’s trees.
When explorer Christopher Columbus first landed in what was then dubbed Hispañola, around three-fourths of it was covered in trees. Today, 98 percent of its forests are gone — one of the worst cases of deforestation in human history.
The main culprit is charcoal, by far the country’s most popular fuel source, which consumes up to 30 million trees per year. The Dominican Republic has banned cutting down trees for charcoal and subsidized propane as a substitute, and the contrast can be seen in satellite photographs of the border.
Without roots to hold the soil together, hurricanes and earthquakes are much more likely to case deadly landslides. The erosion of high-quality topsoil has also devastated Haiti’s agricultural sector, exacerbating its endemic poverty.
The list of challenges confronting Haiti following this year’s earthquake is long and daunting, but if the country is ever going to stand a fighting chance, what it needs more than anything else is more trees.

UZBEKISTAN/KAZAKHSTAN

Disaster: The shrinking of the Aral Sea
Going since: The 1960s

Damage done: Straddling the border of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the Aral Sea was once the world’s fourth-largest inland water body and home to at least 20 species of fish and a thriving coastal economy in the surrounding towns. In the early 1960s, the Soviet government built more than 45 dams and 20,000 miles of canals in an effort to create a cotton industry on the desert plains of Uzbekistan, depriving the sea of its main sources.
Over the next three decades, the sea shrank to two-fifths its original size, turning fishing villages into barren desert outposts. Thanks to the high salt content in the remaining water, all 20 fish species are now extinct. Drinking water supplies in the area are dangerously low and the ground contains dangerous pesticides from the cotton farms. When the wind sweeps across the now-dry sea bed, it spreads up to 75 million tons of toxic dust and salt across Central Asia every year.
Thankfully, dams constructed in the last decade on the Kazakh side seem to be leading to a partial recovery. The Northern Aral’s surface span has grown by 20 percent and fish and bird species are starting to return. The Southern Ara

PACIFIC OCEAN

Disaster: The Eastern Garbage Patch
Going since: Discovered in 1997

Damage done: Somewhere between California and Hawaii lies the world’s largest garbage dump — a massive soup of plastic and debris one-and-a-half times the size of the United States and 100 feet deep. The “patch” is the product of the North Pacific Gyre, a loop of currents that picks up trash from the West Coast of the United States and East Asia and funnels it into an endless loop in the North Pacific.
Within the patch, pieces of plastic outweigh zooplankton by a factor of 6 to 1, and are often mistaken by fish and birds for food. Chemicals from the plastic can also make their way into the food chain, including fish consumed by humans.
The patch is the most widely publicized example, but this is a global problem. According to the U.N. Environment Program the world’s oceans contain 46,000 pieces of plastic per square mile. These plastics are responsible for the deaths of more than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals every year.

The world is going to be close to it’s breaking point very very soon!

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

I wanna hold your hand…

Lately, it seems I need a daily reminder that I am a very Blessed woman. A friend sent me this video– I had seen it before, but it is worth the lesson again, and again……

                                      http://www.wimp.com/watchingthis/

                                                …. yes; I am Blessed. AND so is he!!

The Sweetest Deal EVER made—

…. who made it and who was in on it????

Okay folks– just for the sheer sake of jumpstarting your nervous system today. Read this report. I promise you that in it you will discover one sentence that will make you pause your breath for a second– and then you will think “ How did I not already figure that was coming”. What a deal folks, what a deal!!!!!!!!!!!

European Stocks Climb for Sixth Day; BMW, BP Shares Advance
July 13, 2010, 12:14 PM EDT

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-13/european-stocks-climb-for-sixth-day-bmw-bp-shares-advance.html

July 13 (Bloomberg) — European stocks climbed for a sixth day to a three-week high as Alcoa Inc. began the U.S. earnings season with profit that beat estimates, Bayerische Motoren Werke AG raised its forecast and BP Plc gained.
BMW, the world’s biggest maker of luxury cars, jumped the most in 15 months after saying higher volumes in 2010 will boost profit. BP increased 2.9 percent after installing a new cap on its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and as Abu Dhabi said it’s considering making an investment in the company.
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index advanced 1.9 percent to 255.99, erasing this year’s losses. The measure has risen 8.2 percent over the past six days amid easing concern about the economic recovery and speculation that the selloff in equities since April has overshot the outlook for company profits. The gauge remains 5.9 percent below this year’s high.
Earnings “forecasts look too low and we expect a strong majority of companies to beat their numbers,” said Graham Bishop, the London-based head of pan-European equity strategy at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. “We already know a great deal about the performance of the global economy through the second quarter. Consensus economic forecasts have actually been revised materially higher.”
Portugal’s PSI-20 Index was the second-weakest western European market today as Moody’s Investors Service cut the nation’s credit rating by two notches to A1 because of a growing debt burden and weak economic growth prospects. The gauge gained 0.1 percent, while the U.K.’s FTSE 100 and France’s CAC 40 surged 2 percent. Germany’s DAX rallied 1.9 percent.
Greek Bond Sale
Greece’s ASE Index surged 2.6 percent as the nation sold 1.63 billion euros ($2.1 billion) of 26-week Treasury bills at a rate below the 5 percent charged by the European Union for its bailout package, easing concern the country faces punitive costs to borrow.
BMW rallied 8.3 percent to 42.13 euros, leading a gauge of auto stocks to the biggest gain among 19 industry groups in the Stoxx 600. The luxury-car maker forecast 2010 sales volumes will rise by about 10 percent to more than 1.4 million units, with a full-year profit margin of more than 5 percent expected for the automobiles segment. Rival Daimler AG advanced 5.4 percent to 43.81 euros.
Automakers Advance
Peugeot SA climbed 5.3 percent to 24.37 euros and Volkswagen AG preferred shares gained 5.2 percent to 77 euros. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its price estimate on the French carmaker by 3 percent to 34 euros and on the German automaker by 4 percent to 78 euros, saying increased demand and “attractive valuations” favor the industry, according to a report today.
BP advanced 2.9 percent to 410.35 pence, extending yesterday’s 9.4 percent jump. The oil company installed a new cap on its leaking Gulf of Mexico well and will start testing today whether this will stop the gusher while work continues on a permanent plug. Separately, the Financial Times reported that BP expects to be able to write off the oil-spill cleanup costs against taxes, without saying where it got its information.
Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan said the emirate is considering making an investment in BP.
‘Still Thinking’
“We are still thinking about it,” he said in an interview in Abu Dhabi today, when asked about potentially buying a stake in the London-based oil producer. “We are looking across the board. We have been partners with BP for years.”
Alcoa, the largest U.S. aluminum producer reported second- quarter profit that topped analysts’ projections as higher metal prices boosted sales. Earnings from continuing operations were 13 cents a share, exceeding the 11-cent average estimate of 17 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Profits for S&P 500 companies are projected to have increased 34 percent in the second quarter and by the same amount in 2010, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Intel Corp., the biggest maker of semiconductors which reports quarterly earnings after the close of U.S. exchanges today, is among 23 companies in the index to announce results this week.
Burberry Group Plc surged 3.7 percent to 818.5 pence, the highest level since at least 2002. The U.K.’s largest luxury retailer posted a 27 percent gain in first-quarter sales, beating analysts’ estimates, led by growth in Asia and deliveries to wholesale customers.
Unilever, BAT
Unilever, the world’s second-largest maker of consumer products, gained 2.9 percent to 1,898 pence and British American Tobacco Plc advanced 2.6 percent to 2,277 pence as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. upgraded both companies to “buy” from “neutral.”
SEB AB surged 4.9 percent to 48.75 kronor after the second- largest bank in the Baltic countries returned to profit in the second quarter as loan losses in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania decreased.
DNO International ASA rallied 4.9 percent to 8.74 kroner, the highest close since April, after the Daily Telegraph reported that RAK Petroleum Pcl has made an offer to buy the remainder of the Norwegian oil producer. DNO Chief Executive Officer Helge Eide said he had “no comment and no information” on the report.
–Editors: Andrew Rummer, David Merritt.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

$16.00 Per Month…

I am lost and forgotten in this hell where countless Americans exist!! My Unemployment runs out very soon… and also while you read this, know that they only cleared me for $16.00 per month for Food Stamps! Now let me bitch about the new healthcare for Pre-Existing folks. What I feared the most about this bill came true! I knew they all talked about healthcare for everyone– no one turned away or denied. BUT what they never ever said was ’ affordable to the poor”. I contacted the state about the pre-existing Ins. Oh, I can get it– but the premium is 600 per month!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Suck, things suck badly! WTF! People need jobs!!!!!!

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20100712/US.Jobless.Aid.Analysis/

WASHINGTON — Keeping unemployment benefits flowing for millions of workers whose jobs were eaten by the recession should have been a slam dunk in an election year.
But until this month, Senate Democrats have been unable to bring themselves to pass a simple bill that just does it. Instead they’ve demanded a series of unrelated and often controversial tax and spending add-ons that have enabled Republicans to mount successful filibusters.
Now that the legislation has been shorn of all the extras, the bill could win final passage soon. It can’t come soon enough for more than 2 million people whose checks have been cut off in a five-month impasse in which there’s plenty of blame to go around:
_ Democrats and their leaders made several decisions that in retrospect look like miscalculations, like pulling the rug out from under a bipartisan measure launched back in February and loading a subsequent bill with $24 billion for governors — guaranteeing that most Republicans would vote against it.
_ Republican moderates voted one way in March to help the bill pass but changed their minds just weeks later, having gotten religion from GOP leaders and tea partiers on the budget deficit.
Little remembered amid the ongoing partisanship and recrimination is that jobless benefits also got sideswiped by President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.
To reduce the health care bill’s impact on the deficit, Democrats decided to close almost $30 billion in tax loopholes. Until the final health care push, those revenues had been designated to cover the cost of extending other popular family and business tax breaks as part of a broad bipartisan jobless benefits package.
Besides the jobless aid, the measure contained a payroll tax holiday for businesses, tax breaks for business, health insurance subsidies and help for doctors facing a cut in their Medicaid payments. It had support from across the political spectrum, from Obama to conservative Senate Republicans.
Some liberals, however, balked at the deal, which was cut principally by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the committee’s senior Republican, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa. The liberals didn’t like that their “jobs agenda” seemed hijacked by business lobbyists, who won items like research and development tax credits and some arcane measures such as tax breaks for NASCAR tracks. With unemployment hovering just under 10 percent, they also thought it was too light on subsidies for preserving and creating jobs.
So Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blew up the agreement, instead advancing a pared-back jobs bill excusing businesses from having to pay the employer share of Social Security taxes this year on any new workers they hire. Economists were dubious it would produce many jobs. Meanwhile, unemployment aid would wait for later legislation.
“We could have had this bill passed in three days and … Reid decided to scuttle it,” Grassley complained. “Baucus read about it in the paper.”
The delays meant that Congress had to pass a short-term extension of jobless benefits at the end of February. Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked out a deal for a quick vote to avoid an interruption in benefits.
But another Kentucky Republican, Sen. Jim Bunning, single-handedly held up the bill for days, demanding that government spending elsewhere be cut to pay for the jobless benefits rather than add to the federal debt. Bunning folded on March 2. But his fight resonated with tea partiers and millions of other voters worried about year after year of trillion-dollar deficits.
In the meantime, Reid resurrected the longer-term jobless aid package. He mixed in familiar elements like extending expired tax breaks and added a $24 billion package of aid to cash-starved state governments so they could avoid layoffs of tens of thousands of public employees — a key part of last year’s economic stimulus bill.
The result was a bill adding almost $100 billion to the deficit. That meant that GOP support would be limited. But it still passed in March with support from several Republicans, including key moderate Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio.
That was the bill’s high point. The political sands soon began to shift.
Another short-term unemployment insurance extension — needed to buy time for negotiations on the bigger bill — came at the end of March. It would be the last. Beginning in June, hundreds of thousands of workers unemployed for more than six months started losing the weekly checks.
More Republicans picked up on Bunning’s position and demanded cuts in other programs, including Obama’s $862 billion stimulus bill passed a year earlier, to pay for the extension.
It was a message the party felt increasingly comfortable with after losing the health care fight, especially as the European debt crisis roiled the markets and the U.S. government’s debt topped $13 trillion. Republicans stressed that with the unemployment rate still near double digits, jobless benefits averaging $300 a week should be extended — but that they should be paid for.
“You never know in politics when that magic moment comes when things really begin to change, but I believe that it has occurred now,” GOP Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona told reporters March 26. “I think you’ll see a much greater commitment now to fiscal responsibility.”
The short-term jobless aid extension passed, but it took until late May for their House and Senate negotiators to agree on a longer-term jobless aid package featuring new business tax increases but still racking up $115 billion in new government debt over the next decade.
This time, conservative House Democrats recoiled. House leaders were forced to sharply pare the measure back, eliminating new aid for state governments as well as a longer-term fix for doctors threatened with a 21 percent cut in Medicare payments.
The House passed the bill on May 28, returning the measure to the Senate, where debate consumed the Senate’s entire June schedule. Democrats still wanted to help governors with their payrolls but ultimately acceded to cutting it by one-third and paying for it partly with cuts from last year’s stimulus bill. Even that measure failed just before Congress recessed for the July 4 holiday.
Reid is now resigned to a stand-alone six-month extension of unemployment benefits at a cost of $33 billion. Aides say he will try to pass it when West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin names a successor to fill the seat of Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd, who died two weeks ago. Those who lost benefits will get them retroactively.
Democrats also maintain hopes of passing a $16 billion aid package for governors aimed at preserving the jobs of tens of thousands of state workers through the election. They intend to pay for it in part by cutting food stamp benefits.

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

According to Uncle Sam’s Accountants…

                             http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/

These are the figures for U.S. Trade per Country….

Call me crazy– but first : I don’t believe ‘all’ the figures
and secondly I just keep thinking ‘ what exactly did we trade for that couldn’t of been produced here?”

And why the hell do we trade with our enemies???? To win their hearts and minds…?  How about winning your own citizens hearts and minds so they can get back to work, make a liveable wage, stay healthy… and pay into their own systems .

It’s Always July 4th!

video:        http://www.sermonspice.com/product/32960/i-fought-for-you

Remember— teach it— celebrate it.

Start with 1776…

(Not So) Great Expectations

During my travels the last two days, I had a wonderful opportunity to spend time with some old friends. We went to Hooters, ate wings, drank beers and talked shit. But, eventually, the conversation turned to serious things. Since one guy is from New Orleans originally and his dad retired from Exxon, he had a few things to say about this mess that is devastating his home state. He does have some insight and explained that he is extremely worried that this well is blown out so bad that it will never be sealed. Relief wells will never stop this, because the damage to the well is so bad.

Like me, he thinks of all the things that could go wrong. The main problem will be the health effects of the crap that aerosols and gets in to the air for the locals to breathe. If you follow the three videos below that WSWS produced (Greg from the Goon Squad recommended one and I believe all three should be viewed to get an idea about what to expect on various fronts):

In this first part in a series of videos on the Gulf Coast oil spill, the WSWS interviews Dean Blanchard, the owner of a shrimp processing and distribution company located in Grand Isle, Louisiana. Like many others, his business has been ruined by the oil spill that has contaminated the Gulf of Mexico and largely destroyed shrimping and fishing in the region.

Part 2—The effect on human health
By C.W. Rogers and Andre Damon
30 June 2010

This video, the second in a series, explores the health consequences of the BP oil spill. It features interviews with Nathalie Walker, an attorney and co-director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, as well as environmental chemist Wilma Subra.

This video, part three of a series, explores the social consequences of the BP oil spill. The disaster has destroyed the livelihoods of tens of thousands of fishermen and small business people, and experts say it may uproot whole communities and trigger mass migrations.

from the World Socialist Website

Yes, this oil blowout is fouling water, land and air. And no matter how emotional you get about the cleanup (like my little sister, who, with the world’s biggest heart, is outraged and wants to go help clean up). But like I told her son, who wanted to go clean up, too (they lived at Pensacola for a few years and love the place), this shit may not only make you ill, but it could very well KILL YOU. People, please wake up to how bad this shit is and will be.

Do not fall for the Floridian leadership pleas lies telling you that the water and beaches are ok. Those assholes are thinking about money, not you or your health.

I visited another old friend who is a big wheel at a major automobile manufacturer and he told me about his family’s plans to go to Panama City, Florida in the next couple of months and I felt a wave of nausea as I thought about his beautiful children going to the beach, breathing that air and getting flu-like symptoms. Or, even if the least is getting burned by the Corexit and tar balls:

Don’t Scare the Tourists

One of the concerns is that the local officials want to downplay the hazards from the oil spill to avoid alarming tourists and driving even more people away from the beaches.

“The official story,” said Mogavero, “is that the water is clear, and there are a few tar balls but it is safe to swim in and I feel that is in direct opposition to the reality of the situation…

“When you’ve got this detergent, this dispersant in the water – coming in – I have first-hand experience with burn marks on my skin with these tar balls that these children are playing in that potentially could cause their death.”

The long-time Floridian is also shocked to see people swimming so close to where clean-up boats, with workers in hazmat suits, were cleaning up the toxic sludge.

“It is probably a couple hundred yards across, right smack in the middle of Destin Harbor,” he said. “And there are two boats dragging a boom, obviously skimming the surface oil within 20 yards of where there were people on the beach, entering the water, and going swimming.”

The next day, Lepori went to investigate reports of another school of sick dolphins. As soon as she got to the water’s edge, she became dizzy and nauseous, similar to her experience out on the Gulf off Alabama.

“Within minutes of getting on the beach with families swimming in the water and it was maybe because I was so exposed to all these chemicals, I was sick,” she said. “I had a headache, I couldn’t breathe, again, I was dizzy and I ended up having to leave the beach.

“And again, there were families. I walked along the beach telling the families along the beach, did you know this water’s poisonous that you’re putting these children in? …There were no signs, no one telling anyone anything about the toxicity of the water. And you know sometimes I don’t even have words. And none of those people knew.”

h/t Common Dreams

I saw this interesting video on Facebook this morning from a friend who lives in Florida. Apparently, the stuff is being picked up and dumped inland by rain (this home is 10 miles from the coast, in Tampa):

The same friend posted this video, produced by a couple who lives and work in New Orleans. In it, they show that the brand new, gleaming white roof of the Super Dome is turning black and oily from the rains that are picking the shit up and dumping inland. According to these two, this roof was solid white just a week or two ago.

Supposedly, BP is getting real close to having the relief wells completed. But, as history shows, this usually doesn’t work correctly the first time. It can take many stabs before actually hitting the mark.

One relief well is now within about 20 feet [1] of BP’s ruptured well in the Gulf, but historically these fixes haven’t always worked on the first try–even on blowouts in far shallower waters.

The Ixtoc well in the Gulf of Mexico was only 150 feet below the surface, and it took nine months [2], two relief wells, and several tries before a relief well finally stopped that spill. That was in 1979.

And the Montara well, off the coast of Australia, was in 250 feet of water [3] and flowed for 10  weeks last fall. A relief well took five attempts [4]. At one point engineers even lost control of the relief well, causing a fire that destroyed the original rig [5], according to The Times-Picayune of New Orleans.

BP’s well in the Gulf, by comparison, is 20 times deeper than the Montara well and more than 30 times deeper than the Ixtoc well. Two relief wells are being drilled–one as a backup.

Initial failure is “almost a certainty [6],” David Rensink, president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, told Bloomberg. “It would be like winning the lottery to get it on the first shot.”

H/t to Marian Wang at ProPublica

Should we expect them to cap this thing? Or, should our expectations change as we begin to clearly see the damage being done and the feet being dragged. When will it become acceptable to SUSPECT these people of criminality?

All posts are opinions meant to foster comment, reporting, teaching & study under the “fair use doctrine” in Sec. 107 of U.S. Code Title 17. No statement of fact is made or should be implied. Ads appearing on this blog are solely the product of the advertiser and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BuehlahMan’s Redstate Revolt or WordPress.com

Weight in on this topic…

…. with a suggestion for change… and an opinion. The folks below did.

Video Link:     

 

http://www.latimes.com/videobeta/aeab153a-cec4-47f3-b8da-cb787966c8c3/News/KTLA-Calif-Welfare-Cards-Can-Be-Used-at-Casinos-Lu-Parker-reports

Topic: People on welfare using their State Aid Debit Cards at Casinos!

When Times readers heard about Thursday’s front-page story by Jack Dolan that California welfare recipients can go to more than half of the state’s casinos and gaming rooms to get cash from state-issued EBT cards, they were royally flushed with anger, despite assurances from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that this practice will soon cease.

tocono asked:

Why are these cards functional at ATMs anyway? They should limit their use only to points-of purchase, and then only to grocery and discount clothing stores. Why should they be able to convert food and clothing benefits into cash? Utterly ridiculous!!!!

beachgirl 61 said:

 The sooner it is blocked the better, too. It’s bad enough you can use the welfare cards at places like 7-11 to buy junk foods. They should be ONLY for proper grocery items in proper grocery stores!

sniffy_likes didn’t like the news said:

 Man, I try to think of myself as a progressive person, who believes that there needs to be a means to make sure that children in our state don’t go hungry, but when I hear of stories like this I cringe. I’m a technophobe, so I don’t even know if its possible, but if there is any possible way to trace which recipients did use these cards in casino’s, I think they should have their benefits suspended, and let them think about their actions and how it hurt their children.

Howdyfromtexas added this:

 They charge from 6- 10 dollars per transaction at most the machines. Some charge a percentage. I think the tax payers deserve those fees refunded.

southoc has a solution:

Until California has money again there should be no welfare other than birthcontrol and prisons.

Are these suggestions reasonable to you? How should we handle benefits being distributed through ATMs?

Lrose48: I think instead of ATM cards… they should get prepaid utilities/rent etc mailed to their landlords, etc. And they need commodity coupons. Food, gas, etc… hell– I can’t go to a casino! How can they afford this and Maybe the card should be coded to only beable to be used at atms at gas stations, or something. I don’t know… but why do they even get a free accountant and bookeeper! It all pisses me off!!

General… oh General….

Nation building in Afghanistan is not our job— it is theirs.

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 25, 2010
Washington Post

The good news? Nobody has to pretend anymore that Gen. Stanley McChrystal knew how to fix Afghanistan within a year. The bad news? No
President Obama was absolutely right to sack the preening McChrystal, whose inner circle, as portrayed in Rolling Stone magazine, had all the seriousness and decorum of a frat house keg party. And it was a brilliant political move to turn to Petraeus, who is made of purest Teflon. Critics who might have been tempted to blast the president for changing horses in midstream can hardly object when he has given the reins to the man who averted a humiliating U.S. defeat in Iraq.
Note that I didn’t credit Petraeus with “winning” in Iraq. He didn’t. What he managed to do was redeem the situation to the point where the United States could begin bringing home its combat troops. If the Obama administration’s aims in Afghanistan are recalibrated to accommodate objective reality, then Petraeus can succeed there, too. But this means that the general’s assignment should be a narrow one: Lay the groundwork for a U.S. withdrawal to begin next summer, as Obama has pledged.
After relieving McChrystal of his command Wednesday, Obama called in his national security team and read the riot act. No more bickering, sniping, backbiting or name-calling, the president ordered. Play nice.
But all the comity in the world doesn’t resolve the essential tension between those who believe our goal in Afghanistan should be defined as “victory” and those who believe it should be defined as “finding the exit.” Two thousand years of history are on the side of the “exit” camp, and the fact is that at some point we’re going to leave. The question is how much time will pass — and how many more young Americans will be killed or wounded — before that inevitable day comes.

McChrystal, who designed the counterinsurgency strategy being attempted in Afghanistan, didn’t disguise his opposition to administration officials such as Vice President Biden, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and special envoy Richard Holbrooke, who questioned whether the strategy could work. Petraeus is far too good a politician to fall into that trap. He won’t allow any daylight between himself and the civilian leadership.
But ultimately, there’s going to be no way to avoid the central question: What kind of Afghanistan will we leave behind?
One answer would be that we have to leave in place a durable, functional central government that has full legitimacy and control within the nation’s borders. This would provide the United States with a reliable ally in a dangerous region and also ensure that Afghanistan would never again be used as a launching pad for attacks by al-Qaeda. But to get the country to that point, given where it is now, could take a decade or more of sustained, concentrated attention. It would mean not just defeating the Taliban but molding the regime of Afghan President Hamid Karzai into a reasonably honest, effective government. This would be a tall order even if Karzai were a stable, consistent, loyal partner. Does anybody believe that he is?
A better answer would be that it’s enough to leave behind an Afghanistan that no longer poses a serious threat to the United States or its vital interests. Nation-building would be the Afghans’ problem, not ours.
Petraeus was successful in Iraq because he realized that he couldn’t create an Athenian democracy in Baghdad. But the highly imperfect Iraqi government is light-years beyond what the general is likely to be able to achieve in Kabul. Even after the war, Iraq was left with modern infrastructure, a highly educated and sophisticated population, and a sizable percentage of the world’s proven oil reserves. Afghanistan has none of these advantages. The political culture is stubbornly medieval; the populace is poor, uneducated and wary of foreign influences. Afghanistan does have great mineral wealth, apparently, but no mining industry to dig it out and no railroads to get it to the marketplace.
In recent testimony before Congress, Petraeus was less than definitive when asked about Obama’s July 2011 deadline. Because he has such credibility and standing in Washington, his view on when we can begin to leave Afghanistan will be more important than McChrystal’s ever was. I hope that by putting Petraeus in charge of the war, President Obama hasn’t consigned us to a longer stay. His comments Thursday seem to indicate the possibility.

Oh– and I can bet you that Petraeus told the President that he would accept this position with a few conditions– Like ‘Hey I am a Battle Field General.. And I want to WIN, [ like there is such a thing as win] not mandy-pandy around. I am going to make a few changes to your rules of combat– LIKE allow the men to shoot!!!!!” “ Oh and by the way, Rolling Stone Mag, set up McChrystal!”

Space shuttle, the MOVIE!

   

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=KZrFC988Thc

  

 

 

 

 

 

6 weeks in thousands of seconds!   way cool

The Coming Gulf Crud

I pointed out early on how horrific this Gulf oil vomiting is. How it could turn the Gulf (and possibly every ocean black). How it could kill all living beings in her waters and if the reservoir is as big as they claim, might kill off every living being in ALL oceans (thereby killing every other terrestrial being, as well). What I am saying is that if this isn’t stopped, it could be the very end of the planet. I don’t think this is overboard, in any degree.

As I have said already a few times, this is far worse than what they have been telling us and even MSM is beginning to pick up this story. NPR had a fascinating story the other day and Common Dreams picked up on it.

Steven Wereley, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, analyzed videotape of the seafloor gusher using a technique called particle image velocimetry.

A computer program simply tracks particles and calculates how fast they are moving. Wereley put the BP video of the gusher into his computer. He made a few simple calculations and came up with an astonishing value for the rate of the oil spill: 70,000 barrels a day — much higher than the official estimate of 5,000 barrels a day.

The method is accurate to a degree of plus or minus 20 percent.

Given that uncertainty, the amount of material spewing from the pipe could range from 56,000 barrels to 84,000 barrels a day. It is important to note that it’s not all oil. The short video BP released starts out with a shot of methane, but at the end it seems to be mostly oil.

“There’s potentially some fluctuation back and forth between methane and oil,” Wereley said.

But assuming that the lion’s share of the material coming out of the pipe is oil, Wereley’s calculations show that the official estimates are too low.

“We’re talking more than a factor-of-10 difference between what I calculate and the number that’s being thrown around,” he said.

At least two other calculations support him.

Timothy Crone, an associate research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, used another well-accepted method to calculate fluid flows. Crone arrived at a similar figure, but he said he’d like better video from BP before drawing a firm conclusion.

Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California, Berkeley, also got a similar answer, using just pencil and paper.

Without even having a sense of scale from the BP video, he correctly deduced that the diameter of the pipe was about 20 inches. And though his calculation is less precise than Wereley’s, it is in the same ballpark.

“I would peg it at around 20,000 to 100,000 barrels per day,” he said.

Chiang called the current estimate of 5,000 barrels a day “almost certainly incorrect.”

Chiang is being pretty nice about that. For, as always, the lying liars are bald-facely NOT telling us the truth. Of course their official estimate is untrue. To explain that they have ruined our planet irreversibly, would never do. BP disagrees with the figures, altho they were the fastest to suggest that no one could accurately estimate the flow of oil, even tho there is technology readily available to do such an estimate.

No matter what the lying assholes say, tho, what is happening in the Gulf is far worse than the Exxon Valdez spill (which was about 250,000 gallons of oil). This hole is shitting that every day. Magnitudes worse in volume.

Guess what? Even the MSM is hinting that we were lied to about this:

This new, much larger number suggests that capturing — and cleaning up — this oil may be a much bigger challenge than anyone has let on.

And you want to know what else? It could do this for years or even decades before emptying its gut:

Matthew Simmons, retired chair of the energy-industry investment bank Simmons & Company, said that BP and the US military’s engineers are more or less clueless about cutting off the flow.

“We don’t have any idea how to stop this,” Simmons said. The former banker mocked a proposal to try and plug the leak with trash, saying it was a “joke.”

Simmons noted that the pressure at 5,000 feet undersea — where the well site is located — is so high, that containment efforts are likely often to fail. At 5,000 feet underwater, blocking elements have to be able to hold even with pressures off 40,000 pounds per square inch.

Incoming American Association of Petroleum Geologists chief David Resink says the oil reservoir that is feeding the spill is colossal.

“You’re talking about a reservoir that could have tens of millions of barrels in it,” Resink said. At the current spill rate, it “would take years to deplete,” he added.

There is history with spills and as in the case of the Valdez, there was a cost associated with harm to humans. There is nasty stuff in that putrid slime (an estimated 50,000 gallons of benzene were released from the Alaska disaster. To those in clean up, it cost the their health (and lives):

Oh, and by the way, It’s Here!

Sit back… chew on this…

                         http://www.megavideo.com/?v=2ALY0DGI

How cool is this ultimate ‘think piece’ flick!!!!

In case the above link doesn’t work
   http://www.movies-links.tv/movies/what_the_bleep_do_we_know/

If Liz Were Queen, We Would Undermine The Entire Process

I read at a place called “If Liz Were Queen“. Nice blog, especially when it comes to the health care/health insurance issues/debate/giveaway. She explains why the Tea Partiers Are Clueless To What Is Really Wrong With The Health Care Legislation:

WHAT IS REALLY WRONG WITH THIS BILL?

IT FORCES 50 MILLION AMERICANS TO BUY AN INSURANCE PRODUCT FROM KNOWN CROOKS!

IT IS NOT “SOCIALIZED” MEDICINE. These people are just repeating what the Republican leadership have told them to say–people like Chuck Grassley who have done nothing but lie about the content of the bill.

IT IS WALL STREET CORPORATE PREDATOR MEDICINE.

IT HAS NO SAFEGUARD OF ANOTHER CHOICE, ANOTHER PLACE OTHER THAN WALL STREET FOR AMERICANS TO GO TO PURCHASE THEIR INSURANCE.  IT HAS NO PUBLIC OPTION.

IT IS NOT A “GOVERNMENT TAKEOVER” YOU FOOLS!  IT IS JUST ANOTHER WALL STREET TAKEOVER.

Her Highness provided a youtube clip of a young student as he interviews various partiers and gets their incoherent and erroneous responses.

Doesn’t that just say it all? Is it just me, but wouldn’t it make just a bit more sense if these people actually knew what they hell they were protesting? And let me just say right here and now, if you have the audacity to wear a GW Bush hat after those 8 years, you are totally beyond any hope. Its like a Bush bumper sticker on your car: surely you are so embarrassed by your two votes that put that imbecile (and his evil handler, Dick) in office, that you long ago scraped that off (even if the paint or the bumper, itself, had to go).

If this is what it means to be in a Tea party, ya’ll can have it.

Her Highness also points out that the Republicans May Have The Tables Turned On Them Over Health Care In November:

For certain it will be the Republicans from poor areas who don’t endorse the health care bill who will suffer the most.

Yep that’s how it’s shaping up.  Many of the Republicans who long touted that  the Democrats will lose the House and the Senate if they vote for health care reform look like they could lose out in November if they vote against the health care bill.

Virginia Foxx, a Republican Congresswoman from the 5th Congressional District of North Carolina might be ammong the Republican casualties in November…

Wouldn’t that be great, except that it could get much, MUCH better than putting Corporately owned and controlled Democrats such as Dennis Kucinich back in the office where they, like the Senate’s Bernie Sanders, can simply back off from principle and promises because standing for what is right might “Undermine The Entire Process“. Well, duh, you damned old fool. That is exactly what needs to be done. Disrupt the giveaway and make the system right. So, with this kowtowing remark, we lost the only seemingly sensible Senator we had.

They ALL suck.

Let us acknowledge that and get rid of every damned one of them next election cycle.

Simply do NOT vote another incumbent and ignore the two parties. For even the “Independent” Bernie Sanders has no spine after being in for so long.

They ALL must go.

If Democrats really get serious about real health care reform as Harry Reid has promised and pass the public option in the next couple of months, it’s all over for the Republicans in November.

The Democratic health  care reform would have the full support of 82% of the American people.

The Republican liars like Ghuck Grassley with his lies about “death panels” and other Republican poliiticians with their lies about the bill supporting abortion could very well be toast.

But if the Democrats are not careful and do not support a strong public option they can lose as well–not to Republicans, but to independents.  More and more Americans are beginning to get the ties of Congress–both Republicans and Democrats–to Wall Street.  We are not so dumb that we don’t get the connection between 50 million forced Wall Street Health Insurance customers and the stock portfolios of the 263 multimillionaires in Congress.