Welcome to the Dead Zone

Posted: May 13, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill | Comments Off on Welcome to the Dead Zone

The more I read about the catastrophe that is spinning exponentially out of control in the gulf, the more I’m convinced that we’ve more to fear from corner cutting profiteers than from any Greek-style deficit debacle or Pakistani Taliban. I want to grab everything I own and my daughter and drive due North. Things are looking very bleak down here.

They’re throwing everything thing they’ve got at the spill now. Tires, golf balls, and dispersant. They’re opening up spillways to try to wash the stuff away from the shores with the freshwater of the Mississippi, fully knowing that the freshwater is toxic to the salt water ecosystem. It’s thought to be less permanently damaging, however, than the oil.

They’re not going to wash us ‘way this time. They’re poisoning us, the land, and the wildlife. It’s just a matter of which poison gets us first.

A relocated New Orleanian sent me this from Protect the Oceans. It’s about that dispersant and it’s damn scary.

It has been confirmed that the dispersal agent being used by BP and the government is Corexit 9500, a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, IL. Their stock took a sharp jump, up more than 18% at its highest point of the day today, after it was announced that their product is the one being used in the Gulf. Nalco’s CEO, Erik Frywald, expressed their commitment to “helping the people and environment of the Gulf Coast recover as rapidly as possible.” It may be that the best way to help would be to remove their product from the fray. Take a look at some of the facts about Corexit 9500:

A report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. entitled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” states that “Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527, and Corexit 9580 have moderate toxicity to early life stages of fish, crustaceans and mollusks (LC50 or EC50 – 1.6 to 100 ppm*). It goes on to say that decreasing water temperatures in lab tests showed decreased toxicity, a lowered uptake of the dispersant. Unfortunately, we’re going to be seeing an increase in temperatures, not a decrease. Amongst the other caveats is that the study is species-specific, that other animals may be more severely affected, silver-sided fish amongst them.

Well, that’s just the basics. This is the bottom line.

Dispersal of the oil does not eliminate it, nor does it decrease the toxicity of the oil. It just breaks it up into small particles, where it becomes less visible. It’s still there, spewing toxicity at an even greater rate (due to higher surface area.) But now it’s pretty much impossible to skim or trap or vacuum or even soak up at the shoreline, because most of it will never make it to the shoreline. Instead, that toxic crude oil AND the dispersant will be spread all over the ocean’s waters. This is why introducing such a product into the crude oil as it comes out from the pipe is a very bad idea for the ocean.

It may not be pretty, but if the oil makes it to the shore, it can be soaked up, cleaned up. To “disperse” it means it will NEVER be cleaned up. It will just stay out there, polluting and poisoning the ocean, her inhabitants, and all the food we take from it.

Of course the talk is all about law suits now that every one’s had their chance before the camera at congressional hearings. The speculation now is of criminal charges.

While Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed that Justice Department lawyers are helping the agencies involved in the oil spill inquiry with legal questions, department officials have refused to detail what their role entails.

But Uhlmann and other experts said it’s likely prosecutors are already poring over evidence from the spill because under the Clean Water and Air Acts and other federal laws aimed at protecting migratory birds, an accidental oil spill of this magnitude could at least result in misdemeanor negligence charges.

And under the migratory bird regulations, prosecutors have very broad discretion.

In 1999, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the misdemeanor conviction under the Clean Water Act of a supervisor at a rock quarry project that accidentally ruptured an oil pipeline, causing a spill.

For a felony, prosecutors have to demonstrate companies “knowingly” violated the regulations.

Tracy Hester, the director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Center at the University of Houston, said prosecutors would be looking for “any possible concealment of the risks, a failure to respond to any known risks, and a failure to report a dangerous situation.”

“Knowing is a slippery term,” Hester said. “But knowing doesn’t necessarily mean that you knew it was a violation of the law. You just have to be aware that what you were doing fell into what is regulated.”

A Under a 1990 federal law, the primary leaseholder of the well, BP, is responsible for picking up the lion’s share of the cleanup costs. Anadarko Petroleum and Matsui Oil Exploration together own 35 percent of the lease, and they would pay that share of expenses.

The law requires BP and the other leaseholders to pay an unlimited amount in direct cleanup costs. Their liability for other damage, such as ruined fisheries and lost tourist revenue, is legally capped at $75 million, although the company says it is willing to pay claims beyond that. Above the cap, the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, financed by a tax on oil companies, is supposed to pick up the tab, up to a total of $1 billion.

Craig Bennett, the director of the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center, said that as of Wednesday morning, BP had received 6,414 claims, mostly from fishermen for lost wages and damage to their boats. He said the company had paid out $2.5 million so far, and “they have not denied any claims yet.”

So, read that again. It talks about the CLEAN up costs and that’s it. The dispersant stops the crap from coming ashore so they don’t have to clean up. The water rushing out of the Bohemian Spillway or some other place, stops the crap from coming ashore so they don’t have to clean up. BUT, there is still tremendous damage to ecosystems either way. That doesn’t even take into account the impact on the people, the cities, the lost sales, the lost business, the lost tax revenues, and who knows what it does to the property and health of those who are vested down here?

Social and Ecosytems are fragile things. We’re on the verge of wiping out some huge ones. Who is REALLY going to pay for all of this and how do you measure the ultimate cost?

The Greece Card

Posted: May 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Global Financial Crisis | Comments Off on The Greece Card

It’s a simple enough question. Are the problems in Greece being hyped in this country so that politicians can either reduce benefits or privatize parts or all of social security and medicare? I’m thinking that’s a yes.

David Leonhardt, writing at NYT, seems to find some parallels between Greek and US sovereign debt that belay the underlying differences in the two nation’s economies. The first argument is the size of the debt in relation to the size of GDP. Some of his arguments are based on projecting GDP 20 years out which is a specious activity in and of itself. This is something Paul Krugman talked about today on his blog.

Um, that’s comparing a (highly uncertain) projection of debt 20 years from now — a projection that’s based on the assumption of unchanged policy — with actual debt now. Actual US federal debt is only about half that high now. And it’s worth pointing out that Greek debt is projected to rise to 149 percent of GDP over the next few years — and that’s with the austerity measures agreed with the IMF.

While we’re not experiencing a robust recovery that is creating jobs within the usual expectation of Okun’s law, it will certainly be consistently better than the economic growth rate of Greece. Both our growth rates and unemployment rates have historically been better than Greece for a variety of reasons. This was even true during the post WW2 when our debt was a huge multiple of our GDP. Economic Growth compounds and there are a lot of factors that go into a good economy. Good laws, protection of private property,education, technology, and innovation are just among a few that can accelerate a country’s growth rate. Greece is not well known for any of these things.

When I hear many right-wingers’ arguments right now–that it’s the Greek welfare state that is at the heart of Greece’s problem–I cringe. When I know we currently have an administration that buys a weaker form of their viewpoints, I can’t help but think we’re going to revisit privatization of Social Security and benefits cuts in all these kinds of programs. We’re already hearing them referred to as entitlement programs when they are a paid-for benefit program. The difference is that the demographics between the time they were developed and now is quite different along with the expansion of key benefits. The original social security wasn’t really set up with COLA clauses in mind or survivor and disability benefits. The funding mechanism does need to be revisited, however,this doesn’t necessarily mean we have to completely revamp the system.

Leonhardt does eventually get around to elucidating the spending/funding gap which is going to be a problem. My issue is that by playing in to the just like Greece wail of the right wingers, he’s opening us to blaming ‘entitlement programs’ completely with no serious recognition of the burden placed on the country by the excessive Bush tax cuts and two wars. By comparing us to Greece whose problems were triggered by a lot of things–including an Olympics they couldn’t afford–Leonhardt plays into the the current meme about ‘welfare’ states.

As a rough estimate, the government will need to find spending cuts and tax increases equal to 7 to 10 percent of G.D.P. The longer we wait, the bigger the cuts will need to be (because of the accumulating interest costs).

Seven percent of G.D.P. is about $1 trillion today. In concrete terms, Medicare’s entire budget is about $450 billion. The combined budgets of the Education, Energy, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation and Veterans Affairs Departments are less than $600 billion.

This is why fixing the budget through spending cuts alone, as Congressional Republicans say they favor, would be so hard. Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin has a plan for doing so, and it includes big cuts to Social Security and the end of Medicare for anyone now under 55 years old. Other Republicans have generally refused to endorse the Ryan plan. Until that changes or until the party becomes open to new taxes, its deficit strategy will remain unclear.

Democrats have more of a strategy — raising taxes on the rich and using health reform to reduce the growth of Medicare spending — but it is not nearly sufficient.

What would be? A plan that included a little bit of everything, and then some: say, raising the retirement age; reducing the huge deductions for mortgage interest and health insurance; closing corporate tax loopholes; cutting pensions of some public workers, as Republican governors favor; scrapping wasteful military and space projects; doing more to hold down Medicare spending growth.

Another consideration is that Greece–as part of the EZ–has less flexibility with monetary and fiscal policy than the United States. It is also obviously a smaller economy with far fewer resources. If you take a trip over to Brad DeLong’s page, he has six different factors that he talks about that are germane to this comparison. This is one that I think is worth mentioning here.

As long as unemployment is unduly elevated–above 7.5%, say–our major economic ill connected with big deficits is not excessive deficits forecast for the 2020s and beyond but excessive unemployment and idle capacity now

So, I’m wondering why are we getting so much discussion about the US becoming Greece these days when so clearly the underlying structures of our US economy are so different? The only thing I can come up with is that folks want to point to Greece’s social programs. They are a huge part of the Greek budget, but, this is a country that also doesn’t build and maintain a huge, world inhabiting, technologically advanced military. As such, they are bound to have a larger portion of their expenditures in butter instead of guns.

I can only figure that this is buttering us up for the inevitable discussion of what to do with Social Security.

Maybe you should Invest in Booms

Posted: May 9, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

All we can do is lower the boom (More pictures at the National Geographic Site)

I’m not really certain who to blame right now because–just as it as with Hurricane Katrina and the 2007 financial meltdown–there’s plenty of it to go around. Big messes usually have the finger prints of big corporations,big government agencies and pols, and big investors all over them. These are people that make a lot of money taking chances with every one’s livelihoods, savings, and resources. Some how they always escape the lowering of the boom.

All of these folks are very short-sighted.

Big Corporations only see the next quarterly earnings reports and bonuses. Big Government only sees the next election. Big investors only look at the return on assets over the next earnings window. All of this combined has made my life very complex over the last five years and I’ve just about had enough of it. The problem is that it’s systemic so there’s not much I can do but blog, pull my hair out, and wonder if I my credentials can cause me to land in a better place with a better job.

All this short-sightedness. Where will it lead us?

I have to say, despite everything, I love the city where I live but I’m not sure how much more I can take of local corruption, corporate piracy, and government incompetence. I sit in my little piece of land high and dry with chaos around me. My house did not flood or lose its roof, or suffer much damage during Hurricane Katrina. My house will not be damaged by the oil spill. You have no idea what it’s like, however, being in the middle of a chaos vortex.

I teach, so the only thing that threatens my livelihood is our governor who appears to believe we graduate way too many 4 year college students here. He argued he wanted the technical colleges to have more funds to train folks for life on those oil rigs out there in the Gulf. As I said, I am surrounded by short sightedness and that creates chaos for the lot of us. Chaos the power brokers can avoid as long as we keep re-electing the politicians that do this to us. For certain, most investors only look at their ROA and not what the companies they invest in do to the world around them. Every one puts social responsibility at the bottom of their list.

Local officials have now decided to try their own plan which basically means their going to try to fight with containment. Yup, (with apologies to Winston Churchill)

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight on Breton Sound
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender

So what does that mean? St. Bernard Parish President Craig Taffaro called for all vendors of hard and soft boom to sell him 300,000 more feet of boom. Boom, boom, and more boom. It’s really evident the response to this is pretty much one big hail mary. The containment dome (cement condom used after the spew) has proven to be one big piss in the wind. Ice crystals evidently clogged the top of the thing and it wouldn’t stay put on the ocean floor.

Meanwhile, the response ranks right up there with the Keystone cop response to Hurricane Katrina headed up by heckuva-job-Brownie. Remember “no one could know the levees wouldn’t hold?” Via a link from BB, it looks like we also have “no one could know the spill could be this big.” The battles are fought by the little people and their boats. Meanwhile, every one else yucked it up at a big ol’ dinner inside the beltway.

Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: “we’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.

I’m getting tired of having my neck of the woods victimized by these failures of engineering wedded to an ‘everything done on the cheap’ attitude of tax haters and profit lovers. This crap never seems to happen in their back yard and always in mine. We pay with for it with our livelihoods and heritage.

So here’s a link to something in TNR called The Crisis Comes Ashore: Why the oil spill could change everything. I’m looking at the headline and thinking, wow, I heard that the response to Hurricane Katrina was going to change everything, and that electing Barack Obama president was going to change everything, and getting rid of Dubya was going to change everything. WHY should I believe this? (BTW, it uses the gulf oil spill to talk about global warming, and calls for stopping the use of fossil fuels which is all very much against the short run interests of big corporations,big government, and big investors.)

It is understandable that the administration will be focused on the immediate crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. But this is a consciousness-shifting event. It is one of those clarifying moments that brings a rare opportunity to take the longer view. Unless we change our present course soon, the future of human civilization will be in dire jeopardy. Just as we feel a sense of urgency in demanding that this ongoing oil spill be stopped, we should feel an even greater sense of urgency in demanding that the much larger and more dangerous ongoing emissions of global warming pollution must also be stopped to make the world safe from the climate crisis that is building all around us.

Okay, so let me pull the punch line on this for you. This article is penned by Al Gore; the coulda been president.

I have only one central question. What ever hope do we have of getting folks to actually think in long run terms in this country when the people in power are rewarded with bonuses in the short run, votes in the short run, and accolades in the short run? Will the bodies of dead dolphins and oily birds, the tears of life long shrimpers who will lose their homes and livelihoods, and the desperate ramblings of an old bitter knitter that keeps getting sideswiped by all this shit really change the incentive structures?

Ritual Mutilation of Women

Posted: May 7, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment

“…It is degrading. And it is a violation of the physical integrity of a woman’s body, leaving a lifetime of physical and emotional scars.” – Hillary Clinton, in China, Sept 1995.

According to the World Health Organization:

  • Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures that intentionally alter or injure female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
  • The procedure has no health benefits for girls and women.
  • Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later, potential childbirth complications and newborn deaths.
  • An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM.
  • It is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15 years.
  • In Africa an estimated 92 million girls from 10 years of age and above have undergone FGM.
  • FGM is internationally recognized as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.

    • It is very difficult for meet to look at that drawing, read the accompanying information, then think about how the American Academy of Pediatrics has trivialized this horrible form of torture to an acronym: FGC (Female Genital Cutting). I might add the drawing came from their site and there’s more information and as well as more gruesome drawings. There is a long list of all the accompanying health and emotional problems that this act of violence causes its victims.

    The AAP’s stated position for GPC (such a almost harmless sounding name) is:

    Immigrants in the United States from areas in which FGC is common may have daughters who have undergone a ritual genital procedure or may request that such a procedure be performed by a physician. The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that pediatricians and pediatric surgical specialists should be aware that this practice has life-threatening health risks for children and women. The American Academy of Pediatrics opposes all types of female genital cutting that pose risks of physical or psychological harm, counsels its members not to perform such procedures, recommends that its members actively seek to dissuade families from carrying out harmful forms of FGC, and urges its members to provide patients and their parents with compassionate education about the harms of FGC while remaining sensitive to the cultural and religious reasons that motivate parents to seek this procedure for their daughters.

    How about just calling the police and having the girl removed from the people who want to torture her? Don’t they have a legal obligation to report child abuse?

National Day of Hypocrisy

Posted: May 6, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off on National Day of Hypocrisy

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. (6)But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (7)And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. (8)Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. – Matthew 6.5-8 NASB

I have a huge problem with evangelical christians who deny history, constitutional law, and if you believe that jesus existed and said the above per the new testament, deny the words of the dude with whom they have a close personal relationship.

This is what two of our greatest presidents thought of a National Day of Prayer. First, from Thomas Jefferson.

“I have duly received your favor of the 18th and am thankful to you for having written it, because it is more agreeable to prevent than to refuse what I do not think myself authorized to comply with. I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the
Constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises….

Certainly no power to prescribe any religious exercise, or to assume authority in religious discipline, has been delegated to the general government…. But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting & prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U. S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from. It must be meant too that this recommendation is to carry some authority, and to be sanctioned by some penalty on those who disregard it; not indeed of fine and imprisonment, but of some degree of proscription perhaps in public opinion. And does the change in the nature of the penalty make the recommendation the less a law of conduct for those to whom it is directed?

I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of affecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting & prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, & the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it.

This is from James Madison. You can read a list of his reasons at the link, but here’s his general argument. (It’s interesting that the folks that are challenging this National Day of Prayer’s constitutionality come from Madison, Wisconsin.)

“Religious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings & fasts are shoots from the same root with the legislative acts reviewed.
“Although recommendations only, they imply a religious agency, making no part of the trust delegated to political rulers.

So, what about our current President, the constitutional law lecturer?

President Obama issued a proclamation last Friday as his Justice Department appeals a federal judge’s ruling last month that the day of prayer is unconstitutional.

“Prayer has been a sustaining way for many Americans of diverse faiths to express their most cherished beliefs, and thus we have long deemed it fitting and proper to publicly recognize the importance of prayer on this day across the Nation,” Obama said in the proclamation.

The folks that are in charge of this even include Mrs. James (beat your children into submission) Dobson as well as Franklin (muslims are evil) Graham. You can find a history of the controversial event here. There is an on going bible reading in Washington, DC and other events to protest the judge’s decision.

Meanwhile, Obama had this to say in his proclamation.

“I call upon the citizens of our nation to pray, or otherwise give thanks, in accordance with their own faiths and consciences, for our many freedoms and blessings, and I invite all people of faith to join me in asking for God’s continued guidance, grace, and protection as we meet the challenges before us,” Obama said in his official proclamation.

I have to admit to being one person that feels extremely uncomfortable when some one stands up in a crowd and suggests we offer up a prayer to his/her deity (whatever it is.) Being surrounded by people obediently reciting things gives me the same kind of creepy, uneasy feeling I get when watching “1984” or those ‘we love fearless leader ceremonies’ they do in North Korea. I feel surrounded by aliens that might turn on me or shriek and point like those pod people did to Donald Sutherland.

I now defiantly stay seated. I do not bow my head to something I believe does not exist. I no longer add that extra ‘under God’ remnant from the cold war in the pledge. I refuse to sing “God bless America” although I have been known to sing Dogs Bless America. I’m really tired of having to endure people’s need to prove themselves sanctified. I do not want to participate in a show of forced holiness.

Isn’t it time to put these folks back in their churches where the constitution protects them and me? I don’t need the President telling me what to do with any religious conviction I might have. That’s above his pay grade.

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