Posted: January 8, 2025 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 Elections, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Canada, Denmark, Greenland, Gulf Of Mexico, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta, Panama Canal, social media moderation, Trump press conference |
Good Afternoon!!
Trump holds forth at his Mar-a-Lago press conference.
Trump isn’t in office yet, but he is already dominating the news. It’s difficult to believe, but I think he is actually getting crazier.
Trump 2.0 is going to be chaos to the nth degree. I have no doubt that it will make his first term look sane by comparison. He is aging noticeably–he’s approaching 80–and his dementia is getting worse.
As we all know, this time there won’t be sane handlers trying to hold back his worst inclinations; he will be surrounded by MAGA loyalists who will do whatever he wants. It’s going to be awful, and getting through what’s coming is going to be tough.
Again, he’s not even waiting until he’s sworn in to begin causing trouble. Yesterday he held a “press conference” during which he came off as truly psychotic. In case you missed it (I couldn’t bear to watch), here are some media write-ups.
David E. Sanger at The New York Times:
Dripping Faucets and Seizing Greenland: Trump Is Back and Chaos Ensues.
There was talk of the rising number of beached whales in Massachusetts, the victim, the president-elect said, of those windmills that have been erected off the coast. They “are driving the whales crazy, obviously.”
There was a vow to rename the Gulf of Mexico, by presidential decree, to the “Gulf of America.” And then there was Donald J. Trump’s refusal to rule out using military force to seize the 51-mile Panama Canal on national security grounds, along with the 836,000 square miles of Greenland, the world’s largest island.
Mr. Trump’s family and supporters like to say “We are so back!” and they are, without doubt. Yet as the man who will be president again spun out threats and angry denouncements of the Biden administration and personal grievances for more than an hour on Tuesday in the living room of his Mar-a-Lago club, something else was back: the chaotic stream-of-consciousness presidency.
Mr. Trump has returned to our daily national cognizance, even though one could argue he never really left. Tuesday’s news conference was a reminder of what that was like, and what the next four years may have in store.
He waxed on about a favorite complaint during his first term: Shower heads and sink faucets that don’t deliver water, a symbol of a regulatory state gone mad. “It goes drip, drip, drip,” he said. “People just take longer showers, or run their dishwasher again,” and “they end up using more water.”
Then he moved on to the prospect of a military clash with Denmark. After refusing to rule out the prospect of coercing a NATO ally with the use of force if it remained reluctant to turn over property the president-elect coveted, Mr. Trump suggested that Denmark had a dubious claim on Greenland anyway.
Don Jr. and his buddies in Greenland yesterday
“People really don’t even know if Denmark has any legal right to it, but if they do, they should give it up, because we need it for national security,” he said.
As for Panama, he insisted the United States had to defend against an urgent national security threat from China, though the situation around the canal was little changed from the last time Mr. Trump sat in the Oval Office.
“It might be that you’ll have to do something,” he said with signature vagueness, when asked about his suggestion that the only solution to this problem may be military force.
There was a lot of déjà vu in Tuesday’s news conference, recalling scenes from his first presidency. The conspiracy theories, the made-up facts, the burning grievances — all despite the fact that he has pulled off one of the most remarkable political comebacks in history. The vague references to “people” whom he never names. The flat declaration that American national security was threatened now, without defining how the strategic environment has changed in a way that could prompt him to violate the sovereignty of independent nations.
But there were also several differences in this version of Mr. Trump that are easy to overlook in a man who can move, in an instant, from the failures of American plumbing to the need to revive the territory-grabbing spirit of President William McKinley.
More on the “press conference,” by Hunter Walker at Talking Points Memo:
Off The Rails And Off To The Races.
President Trump has created a massive gulf in America.
No, I am not talking about the half baked promise “to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America” that Trump announced in his news conference on Tuesday. The gulf that our country actually is going to have is the one between our current reality and the one we will be experiencing when Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
This news conference, which was the first since Trump’s re-election was certified by Congress, was a wild one — even by Trumpian standards. In a little over an hour behind a podium at his Mar-a-Lago beach club, the president-elect, along with promising to rename an ocean basin, threatened potential military force against Panama and Denmark. He also suggested he might use “economic force” to make Canada the 51st State.
“They should be a state,” Trump said of one of America’s closest neighbors and allies.
And, if Hamas doesn’t release the remaining hostages taken in the October 7th attack before Trump’s inauguration, Trump vowed that would also result in a massive show of force.
“If they’re not back by the time I get into office, all hell will break out in the Middle East,” Trump said. “It will not be good for Hamas and it will not be good frankly for anyone. All hell will break out.”
Trump’s feverish foreign policy visions were mixed up with his other weird obsessions and blatant lies. He ranted about President Joe Biden’s efforts to promote electric power and suggested heat generated this way will make you “itch.” As he vowed to make “major pardons” for some of his supporters who attacked the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection, Trump reiterated some of his preferred, debunked conspiracy theories about that day including that, the FBI is concealing the identity of the unknown pipe bomber and that, somehow, the Middle Eastern terrorist group Hezbollah might have played a role in the violence.
“We have to find out about Hezbollah. We have to find out about who exactly was in that whole thing because people that did some bad things were not prosecuted,” Trump said….
The whole thing was objectively bizarre and it’s difficult to track how much of Trump’s comments were bluster or how many of these wild ideas are even remotely feasible. Can you even effectively rename an ocean? Does he really intend to try to essentially annex Canada? Would he really consider using military force to take over Greenland or the Panama Canal? Would the military stand for that? Would Congress?
Minho Kim at The New York Times:
Why Does Trump Want Greenland?
President-elect Donald J. Trump’s attention returned Tuesday to an idea that has fascinated him for years: acquiring Greenland for the United States. In a news conference on Tuesday, he refused to rule out using military or economic force to take the territory from Denmark, a U.S. ally.
“We need Greenland for national security purposes,” he said, arguing that Denmark should give it up to “protect the free world.” He threatened to impose tariffs on Denmark if it did not.
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that the potential American acquisition of the Arctic territory “is a deal that must happen” and uploaded photos of his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who was visiting Greenland….
Greenland
Maegan Vazquez at The Washington Post:
Trump says he will rename the Gulf of Mexico. Can he do that?
Donald Trump on Tuesday said the United States would change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and the president-elect seemed to tie the prospective renaming to his long-standing grievances with Mexico’s handling of immigration, drug trafficking and trade.
“We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America,” Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. “ … What a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.”
The president-elect subsequently decried the Mexican government for allowing migrants to “pour” into the United States, saying Mexico “can stop them and we’re going to put very serious tariffs on Mexico and Canada because Canada, they come through Canada, too.”
Trump provided no additional details about how he planned to implement the name change, but the comments sparked immediate questions about whether a president has the authority to rename an international body of water and prompted at least one Republican member of Congress to draft legislation.
That member of Congress was Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Here’s what we know about what Trump can and cannot do to rename the gulf….
The Gulf of Mexico is a 218,000-square-mile oceanic basin connected to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits and the Yucatán Channel. It spans from the eastern coast of Mexico and the southeastern coast of the United States to the western end of Cuba….
The Gulf of Mexico
The body of water has been known by many names, but European explorers and mapmakers have used the name “Gulf of Mexico” for at least 400 years….
There are existing mechanisms to rename places recognized by the federal government. However, if the federal name change becomes official, that does not mean that other nations will recognize it.
The U.S. Board on Geographic Names is a federal interagency organization that is responsible for maintaining uniform geographic name usage throughout the federal government. The board operates under the interior secretary. The board’s Foreign Names Committee is responsible for standardizing foreign place names. The committee is composed of representatives from federal agencies, including several appointees specializing in geography and cartography. Members are appointed every two years.
While the BGN does not create names for geographical features, it approves or rejects names proposed by others based on its established policies. A recent example of the board’s work includes approval of replacement names for all features that included the word “squaw,” which is used as a derogatory slur toward NativeAmerican women. The name changes were made after an order by Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in 2021. Haaland is the first Native person to serve as a Cabinet secretary.
Trump probably doesn’t know that Mexico and Canada, along with the U.S., are each parts of “America.”–that is, the continent of North America. Of course changing the name is ridiculous and idiotic, but so is Trump.
During the “press conference,” Trump also said that the changes Mark Zuckerberg is making to his social media platforms are in response to his (Trump’s) threats to imprison the the billionaire social media owner.
NBC News: Meta is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a ‘community notes’ system similar to X’s.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a series of major changes to the company’s moderation policies and practices Tuesday, citing a shifting political and social landscape and a desire to embrace free speech.
Zuckerberg said Meta will end its fact-checking program with trusted partners and replace it with a community-driven system similar to X’s Community Notes.
The company is also changing its content moderation policies around political topics and undoing changes that reduced the amount of political content in user feeds, Zuckerberg said.
The changes will affect Facebook and Instagram, two of the largest social media platforms in the world, each boasting billions of users, as well as Threads.
“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video. “More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”
Zuckerberg pointed to the election as a major influence on the company’s decision and criticized “governments and legacy media” for, he alleged, pushing “to censor more and more.”
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech,” he said. “So we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”
So what is this going to look like?
Cath Virginia at The Verge:
Here are some of the horrible things that you can now say on Facebook.
Meta overhauled its approach to US moderation on Tuesday, ditching fact-checking, announcing a plan to move its trust and safety teams, and perhaps most impactfully, updating its Hateful Conduct policy. As reported by Wired, a lot of text has been updated, added, or removed, but here are some of the changes that jumped out at us.
These two sections outlining speech (written or visual) are new additions:
We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like “weird.”
We do allow content arguing for gender-based limitations of military, law enforcement, and teaching jobs. We also allow the same content based on sexual orientation, when the content is based on religious beliefs.
Another section that specifically banned making dehumanizing references to transgender or non-binary people as “it” or referring to women “as household objects or property or objects in general” has been removed entirely.
The opening statement about what the policies are “designed to allow room for” that previously listed only health or positive support groups has changed too (new additions marked in bold):
People sometimes use sex- or gender-exclusive language when discussing access to spaces often limited by sex or gender, such as access to bathrooms, specific schools, specific military, law enforcement, or teaching roles, and health or support groups. Other times, they call for exclusion or use insulting language in the context of discussing political or religious topics, such as when discussing transgender rights, immigration, or homosexuality. Finally, sometimes people curse at a gender in the context of a romantic break-up. Our policies are designed to allow room for these types of speech.
The section that specifically banned targeting people or groups “with claims that they have or spread the novel coronavirus” has also been removed.
Read the rest at The Verge.
One more from Claire Duffy at CNN:
Calling women ‘household objects’ now permitted on Facebook after Meta updated its guidelines.
Meta on Tuesday announced sweeping changes to how it moderates content that will roll out in the coming months, including doing away with professional fact checking. But the company also quietly updated its hateful conduct policy, adding new types of content users can post on the platform, effective immediately.
Users are now allowed to, for example, refer to “women as household objects or property” or “transgender or non-binary people as ‘it,’” according to a section of the policy prohibiting such speech that was crossed out. A new section of the policy notes Meta will allow “allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality.”
Previously, such comments would have been subject to removal under the policy. The changes to Meta’s hateful conduct policy were first reported by Wired.
Meta had hinted in its announcement about its content moderation policy changes Tuesday morning that it would get rid of restrictions on certain topics, such as immigration and gender identity, and allow more political discussions. But the updated policy shows just how quickly Meta is moving to enact CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for “free expression.”
Meta on Tuesday also announced it would do away with its network of independent fact checkers in the United States and will instead rely on user-generated “community notes” to add context to posts. It also said it would adjust its automated systems that scan for policy violations, which it says have resulted in “too much content being censored that shouldn’t have been.” The systems will now be focused only on extreme violations such as child sexual exploitation and terrorism.
Basically, it’s open season on women and LBGTQ+ people.
Please take care of yourselves today and every day for the next 4 years.
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Posted: April 21, 2011 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill, net-neutrality, Psychopaths in charge, the internet, The Media SUCKS, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Barack Obama, bible, Boston Red Sox, BP Oil Gusher, Charles Manson, Eric Cantor, Frank McCourt, Fukushima nuclear plant, Gulf Of Mexico, JoAnne Kloppenburg, Kindle, LA Dogers, Major League Baseball, meltdown, net neutrality, public libraries, stupid Republicans, U.S. debt ceiling, Wall Street, wetlands. Louisiana, Wisconsin |
Good Morning!!
According to Politico, Republicans are escalating their game of chicken with demands they want met before they agree to raise the debt limit.
One day after being named to a presidential task force to negotiate deficit reduction, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor fired off a stark warning to Democrats that the GOP “will not grant their request for a debt limit increase” without major spending cuts or budget process reforms.
The Virginia Republican’s missive is a clear escalation in the long-running Washington spending war, with no less than the full faith and credit of the United States hanging in the balance.
Wait a minute…Obama put ERIC CANTOR on a deficit task force??!! Okay, the joke’s over. This guy cannot legitimately run on a Democratic ticket in 2012.
Cantor says he’s ready to plunge the nation into default if the GOP’s demands are not met. People close to Cantor say that he hopes to make clear that small concessions from Democrats, including President Barack Obama, will not be enough to deliver the GOP on a debt increase….
Republicans are floating a wide range of major structural reforms that could be attached to the debt limit vote, including statutory spending caps, a balanced budget amendment and a two-thirds vote requirement for tax increases and debt limit increases.
Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency has finally admitted that nuclear fuel in reactors 1, 2, and 3 has melted. From reading the article, it isn’t exactly clear what has happened, but I still detect efforts to minimize the damage. There’s a little more detail in an article from the Irish Times:
The head of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, Takashi Sawada, said yesterday that fuel rods in reactors 1 and 3 have melted and settled at the bottom of their containment vessels, confirming fears that the plant suffered a partial meltdown after last month’s huge earthquake and tsunami.
Engineers have been struggling since to bring four reactors under control by pouring water onto overheating nuclear fuel, and that water is highly contaminated as a result. Mr Sawada warned the condition of the plant could worsen if another strong quake knocks out power to its cooling systems.
“That would destabilise pressure and temperatures inside the reactors and the situation would become extremely unpredictable again,” he said.
The story also says that there was an aftershock yesterday centered around 25 miles from the plant.
All the news outlets are covering the BP oil gusher and the damage it has done to the Gulf, because yesterday was the anniversary of the explosion that killed 11 oil rig workers. Don’t worry, they’ll drop the subject like a hot potato in a couple of days. Here’s an article from the NYT.
Even in the worst days of the BP spill, coastal advocates were looking past the immediate emergency to what the president’s oil spill commission called “the central question from the recovery of the spill — can or should such a major pollution event steer political energy, human resources and funding into solutions for a continuing systemic tragedy?”
That tragedy is the ill and declining health of the Gulf of Mexico, including the enormous dead zone off the mouth of the Mississippi and the alarmingly rapid disappearance of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, roughly 2,000 square miles smaller than they were 80 years ago. Few here would take issue with the commission’s question, but the answer to it is far from resolved.
Eclipsed by the spill’s uncertain environmental impact is the other fallout: the vast sums in penalties and fines BP will have to pay to the federal government. In addition to criminal fines and restitution, BP is facing civil liabilities that fall roughly into two categories: Clean Water Act penalties and claims from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment process, whereby state and federal agencies tally the damage caused by the spill and put a price tag on it. This could add up to billions, perhaps tens of billions, of dollars.
Awwww, gee. Poor BP. It sounds like the writer feels sorry for them.
In Wisconsin, JoAnne Kloppenburg has asked for a recount in the race for the state supreme court.
JoAnne Kloppenburg arrived at the state Government Accountability Board’s office in Madison barely an hour before the 5 p.m. local time deadline by which she had to ask for a recount or concede defeat. According to the vote count finalized by the state last week, she trails Justice David Prosser by 7,316 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast in the April 5 election.
“Today, my campaign is asking the Government Accountability Board to conduct a statewide recount,” Kloppenburg said at a news conference. The announcement was met with applause and cheers of “thank you.” She’s requesting the recount “in part to determine what the proper outcome of the election will be and to ensure that elections form this point forward will be fair.
“I do not make this decision lightly … I have weighed the options and I have considered the facts,” Kloppenburg, currently an assistant state attorney general, said. The tight margin — small enough to trigger a provision allowing the state to pay for the recount process — means that “the importance of every vote is magnified and doubts about every vote are magnified as well,” she said.
And in silly Republican news, eight Wisconsin doctorswho wrote excuses for protesting teachers are being investigated.
The state Department of Regulation and Licensing and the Medical Examining Board said Wednesday that they had opened investigations into eight individuals who allegedly wrote doctor excuse notes for protesters at the state Capitol during rallies in February.
Last month, the Department of Regulation and Licensing said it had identified 11 people who may have provided the medical excuses, and it asked them to submit information about their activities at the Capitol.
Three members of the Medical Examining Board reviewed the information and decided to open investigations on eight of the 11, according to a department news release.
The eight being investigated are all licensed physicians, department spokesman David Carlson said.
Are Wisconsin taxpayers going to have to pay for this silliness? How ridiculous.
As a Kindle owner, I’m excited about this news. Amazon’s Kindle Will Offer E-Books From Libraries
Bookworms who own Amazon.com Inc.’s popular Kindle electronic reader will finally be able to borrow digital books from public libraries….
The move is likely to have major repercussions for public libraries and the digital-reading market generally, since Amazon currently dominates the e-book industry and its actions in the space are closely watched. There are an estimated 7.5 million Kindles in the U.S., which gives Amazon a two-thirds share of the $1 billion digital-book market, said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey.
Many major public libraries, including those in New York, Chicago and San Francisco, offer free digital-book lending. A physical trip to the library isn’t required. Instead, library-card holders can download books from library websites. Each library sets its own digital-book lending policy, but typical lending periods are 14 or 21 days.
Major League Baseball has seized the LA Dodgers and will now control day-to-day operations for the team. Owner Frank McCourt is having financial problems.
The move was prompted by a number of issues surrounding the Dodgers, including owner Frank McCourt’s recent receipt of $30-million personal loan to meet payroll and the parking-lot attack at Dodger Stadium on March 31 that left a San Francisco Giants fan in a coma, according to a league source.
“This has been like watching a soap opera unfold,” said Gary Toebben, the president and CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. “We want a financially solvent Dodgers. We want a winning team.”
The league will now have approval rights over every significant expenditure by the team, including a trade or contract extension. This will likely put the franchise on the path to being sold.
The commissioner’s move adds to the turmoil surrounding a team already embroiled in divorce proceedings between McCourt and his wife, Jamie, who is seeking joint ownership.
McCourt tried to buy the Red Sox back when the the former owner died. Thank goodness he didn’t succeed in buying the team–they probably never would have beat the curse and won the World Series twice.
Some nutty right wing talk show host says the Bible forbids net neutrality.
The idea that all Internet traffic should be treated equally is against the teachings of the Bible and America’s Founding Fathers, according to evangelical Christian minister and political activist David Barton.
During his radio show on Tuesday, he said that net neutrality violated the Biblical principle of free markets, a principle upheld by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington.
“That is part of the reason we have prosperity,” Barton said. “This is what the Pilgrims brought in, the Puritans brought in, this is free market mentality. Net neutrality sounds really good, but it is socialism on the Internet.”
“This is really, I’m going to use the word wicked stuff, and I don’t use that word very often, but this is wicked stuff,” he added.
Well that settles it then!
Monday was the 40th anniversary of Charles Manson’s conviction, so some media types decided to give him an opportunity to spout a bunch on nonsense. Manson’s new lawyer has asked the president to let the maniac out of prison, but Manson ruined his chances by giving his honest opinion of Obama.
Manson, 76, called Obama foolish in reference to Wall Street, saying he considered the president “a slave of Wall Street.”
“He doesn’t realize what they are doing. They are playing with him,” he said, according to the magazine.
Bla, bla, bla … so what else is new?
That’s about it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?
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Posted: March 23, 2011 | Author: dakinikat | Filed under: Environmental Protection, Gulf Oil Spill | Tags: BP, deep water drilling, drilling permits, ecosystem restoration, Gulf Of Mexico, oil spills, wetlands |
I just got a tweet from the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). This comes days after complaints that the government isn’t approving Gulf drilling permits quick enough. I should also mention that the Obama Administration has approved the fourth deep-water drilling permit since the BP oil gusher approximately one year ago. So, here’s information from the NWF where they are tracking THREE separate incidents in the Gulf right now.
At this point, we’re following what are likely three different incidents in the Gulf:
- Oil coming ashore west of the mouth of the Mississippi River near Grand Isle
- Reports of possible oil east of the mouth of the Mississippi in Chandeleur Sound
- A large amount of sediment mixed with a small amount of oil at the mouth of the Mississippi
The Times Picayune reports on the first oil occurring near beleaguered Grand Isle, LA and a Houston company has accepted responsibility for that one. TP also reports on the second oil sighting near the Chandeleur islands. That’s a picture of it at the top of the thread.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Steve Leeman said the Coast Guard had received no reports of oil-like material east of the river, but a group of environmentalists, engineers and scientists flew over Chandeleur Sound on Monday and Tuesday, and shared photographs and detailed descriptions with The Times-Picayune showing black, streaky plumes over a 20-mile stretch from just east of Quarantine Bay to just west of the shoal remains of Curlew Island.
While the oil industry whines it’s not getting to drill quickly enough, it’s becoming evident that their record of maintaining and inspecting existing rigs is pretty pathetic. Also, we’ve seen no push by the administration or any one in Congress to implement the recommendations of the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Furthermore, BP is not living up to its obligations to deal with its damage to the wetlands done by the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Louisiana’s congressional delegation has asked BP for $15 million to restore oyster beds and fisheries. Louisiana is ponying up $12 million of state funds to begin some kind of effort. BP is still supposedly cleaning up the damage still but has no projects active to restore wetlands.
BP set up the GCRO to deal with the spill. On Tuesday, the GCRO opened up its New Orleans office, in an effort to show they are still working on the oil spill.
“BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization is really centered on four things,” Utsler said. “The first and foremost is continuing the completion of this response.”
Dan Favre is with the environmental advocacy “Gulf Restoration Network.” The group has a similar name to BP’s GCRO, but with a totally different take on the response.
“Unfortunately, the response is clearly lacking,” Favre said. “We’re coming up on the one-year memorial mark of the beginning of BP’s disaster here in the Gulf. And so it’s just crazy that there hasn’t been any action to actually start to repair the damage that’s been done.”
That is true, in part. BP set aside hundreds of millions of dollars for their restoration organization, but a year after the spill, only one of their restoration projects is so far underway.
“One of those is already in progress in Mississippi, in terms of wetland restoration,” Utsler said. “Other projects are in discussion in readiness for being approved and agreed to with NRDA [Natural Resource Damage Assessment] trustees, the states and ourselves to conduct.”
However, none of those projects is currently underway in Louisiana — arguably the state hardest hit by the spill. Utsler said they are working on a list of projects, with pending approval. Yet, some environmental groups believe the federal government needs to step in to move the restoration along.
“I don’t think we can leave it to BP to do it on their own accord,” Favre said. “I want to see Congress and the administration actually make BP pay for Gulf ecosystem restoration, by levying the maximum fines and penalties under the Clean Water Act and then allocating those resources directly to environmental restoration in the Gulf.”
It seems somewhat premature to allow these businesses continued access to drilling in the Gulf when they obviously haven’t maintained the rigs, inspected rigs for problems, and shown signs of good faith following damage to the ecosystem and people living in the Gulf. I think the administration should ask for implementation of the recommendations before allowing any more new permits. We also need to look for patterns of abuse so that operators with bad records are not allowed new permits. That’s just one shrimp lover’s opinion. But then, there’s Michelle Bachmann that wants to do away with the EPA and she’s a congress critter. Newt Gingrich–oil industry suck-up extraordinaire wants that too. I just want my seafood and vacations in warm Gulf Waters to be safe again.
Oh, and honk if you’ve seen or read any of this on MSM from the village.
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Posted: January 17, 2011 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Corporate Crime, Gulf Oil Spill, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: Andrew Bacevich, Bank of America, BP Oil Gusher, dispersants, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gulf Of Mexico, Julian Assange, Martin Luther King's Birthday, military-industrial complex, Ms Magazine, Naomi Klein, New Yorker Magazine, oil, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Sargent Shriver, Sexism, Wikileaks |
Good Morning!! Today is the official Martin Luther King birthday holiday. I hope everyone has the day off. I think I have a few interesting reads for you this morning.
I’ll start with this in depth report by Naomi Klein on scientific studies of the impact of the BP oil gusher on the ecology of the Gulf of Mexico. While the government reassures Americans that everything down in the gulf is safe safe safe, scientists are finding plenty of evidence that that’s not the case. According to
Ian MacDonald, a celebrated oceanographer at Florida State University. “The gulf is not all better now. We don’t know what we’ve done to it.”
MacDonald is arguably the scientist most responsible for pressuring the government to dramatically increase its estimates of how much oil was coming out of BP’s well. He points to the massive quantity of toxins that gushed into these waters in a span of three months (by current estimates, at least 4.1 million barrels of oil and 1.8 million gallons of dispersants). It takes time for the ocean to break down that amount of poison, and before that could happen, those toxins came into direct contact with all kinds of life-forms. Most of the larger animals—adult fish, dolphins, whales—appear to have survived the encounter relatively unharmed. But there is mounting evidence that many smaller creatures—bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, multiple species of larvae, as well as larger bottom dwellers—were not so lucky. These organisms form the base of the ocean’s food chain, providing sustenance for the larger animals, and some grow up to be the commercial fishing stocks of tomorrow. One thing is certain: if there is trouble at the base, it won’t stay there for long.
There is evidence of permanent changes in organisms likely caused by the oil and dispersants, and those changes may be passed on to future generations as mutations. In addition, the damage to creatures at the lower end of the food chain is so extensive that it may lead to collapses and even extinctions in larger species. While it will be difficult to directly pin all the damage on BP, there really isn’t much doubt that the oil and dispersants are at the root of the problems. It’s very bad, folks.
Ms Magazine has gotten involved in a protest against the New Yorker.
Last week, Anne Hays put her latest copy of the New Yorker back in the mail, with a note explaining that the august publication owed her a refund for putting out the second issue in a row featuring almost no pieces by women. In a December issue of the New Yorker content by women made up only three pages of the magazine’s 150; one January issue contained only two items by women, a poem and a brief “Shouts and Murmers” item.
“I am baffled, outraged, saddened, and a bit depressed that, though some would claim our country’s sexism problem ended in the late ’60s, the most prominent and respected literary magazine in the country can’t find space in its pages for women’s voices in the year 2011,” wrote Hays in the letter, promising to send back every issue containing fewer than five female bylines. “You tend to publish 13 to 15 writers in each issue; five women shouldn’t be that hard,” she concluded.
Her letter, posted to Facebook and widely circulated last week, has prompted Ms. magazine to start an online petition reminding the magazine’s editors that there are in fact lots of women in the world and that many of them write feature articles, reviews and poems, and that the premier literary/current events magazine in the country should reflect that fact.
According to the article, the New Yorker is not alone in ignoring women writers. Read it and weep.
Read the rest of this entry »
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