Monday, May 10, 2010
Since spill, feds have given 27 waivers to oil companies in gulf
Best and worst case scenarios from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in Biloxi, Miss., on Thursday.
By Marisa Taylor
WASHINGTON — Since the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig exploded on April 20, the Obama administration has granted oil and gas companies at least 27 exemptions from doing in-depth environmental studies of oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The waivers were granted despite President Barack Obama's vow that his administration would launch a "relentless response effort" to stop the leak and prevent more damage to the gulf. One of them was dated Friday — the day after Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he was temporarily halting offshore drilling
The exemptions, known as "categorical exclusions," were granted by the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service (MMS) and included waiving detailed environmental studies for a BP exploration plan to be conducted at a depth of more than 4,000 feet and an Anadarko Petroleum Corp. exploration plan at more 9,000 feet.
"Is there a moratorium on off shore drilling or not?" asked Peter Galvin, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, the environmental group that discovered the administration's continued approval of the exemptions. "Possibly the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history has occurred and nothing appears to have changed."
'There's a great future for you': Studies in Crap presents 1965's 'Your Career in Journalism'
Author: M.L. Stein Date: 1965
Publisher: Julian Messner, Inc.
Discovered at: Salvation Army, Olathe
The Cover Promises: Permanent, established institutions are not immune to change, so one of these pictures has some chicks in it.
Representative Quotes:
- "The journalist enjoys good standing in his community. He is even likely to be held in awe." (page 47).
- "The day may not be far off when a city editor will say to a reporter, 'Check your space gear. You're going to the moon.'" (page 86).
The easy thing would be for your Crap Archivist to treat M.L. Stein's perversely optimistic Your Career in Journalism like I would Edgar Whisenant's 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 or Rudy Giuliani's Leadership -- as Crap proved so absurd by time that its chief value comes from strip-mining it for hilarious quotes.
That's especially tempting thanks to jewels like these:
- "If you are a college graduate in journalism, you may land a job before you even leave the campus."
- "The story that a reporter worried and sweated over will be read by thousands and perhaps millions of people who will be informed, enlightened or amused. ... He has prestige and influence that most persons can never hope to attain."
 |
And there's this, on landing that first big break:
- "By far the best idea is to go directly to a newspaper and ask the city editor for a job."
Or this goofy thought:
- "There is an accepted tenet in the newspaper business that an experienced copyreader can always get a job."
Experienced copyreaders? But it's so much easier to crowdsource those jobs to online commenters!
Easy as it is to laugh at Stein's optimism, remember that he writes with all the certainty of 1965, the last possible moment when it still made sense to hold an absolute faith in journalism, government, or most other chunks of the all-American bedrock. (These also included segregation, Frank Sinatra, and the idea that youth culture wasn't the only culture.)
Shocking Detail:
Sometimes, Stein seems admirably forward-thinking. He writes, "The door is no longer closed against you, girls, and you can often compete with men for the same positions at the same salary."
FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and future
The FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the "Selective Output Control" technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you're watching. And it sucks. As Dan Gillmor notes, "Fans of old TV science fiction will remember the Outer Limits. Given Hollywood's victory today at the FCC -- they'll be able to reach over the lines and disable functions on your TV -- the intro to the show takes on modern relevance."
The FCC says that they're doing this because they believe that if they do so, the MPAA will start releasing first-run movies (the ones that are still in theaters) for TV. They say that Hollywood won't make these movies available unless they get Selectable Output Control because SOC will stop piracy.
This is ridiculous.
First, it's ridiculous because this can't ever stop piracy or get first-run movies into your living room. Even with SOC, the studios are not going to release high-value movies that are still in theatrical distribution for viewing in your house, where you could set up a tripod and high-quality camera (along with ideal lighting) in order to make your own camcordered copy and put it online.
Now, the FCC could have solved this by saying that only movies that are in their first theatrical release run can have SOC turned on, but they didn't, because they knew that the MPAA was lying through its teeth about using SOC to enable the "new business model" of showing you first run movies in your home.
Second, it's ridiculous because it's possible in the first place. The FCC (and the candy-ass consumer electronics companies) allowed for Selectable Output Control to be inserted into your devices even though they claimed all along that they would never allow it to be used. Read your Chekhov, people: the gun on the mantelpiece in act one will go off in act three. Allowing the MPAA to get SOC in your set-top box but "never planning on using it" is like buying a freezer full of chocolate ice-cream and never planning on eating it.
If the CE companies and FCC wanted to prevent SOC from being used, the best way of doing that would be to not include it in devices in the first place.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/05/07/fcc-hands-hollywood.html
Amy Goodman Strikes Back Against RNC Arrest, Files Lawsuit
Filed with the Center for Constitutional Rights in a federal court in Minnesota, the lawsuit says authorities violated the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment to Goodman, her producers and other journalists when they interfered with their right to gather news.
This is not only a violation of freedom of the press, but a violation of the public's right to know. "When journalists are arrested, that has a chilling effect on the functioning of a democratic society," said Goodman, whose show airs on over 750 radio and TV stations across the country. "We shouldn't have to get a record to put things on the record."
According to a telephone conference with Goodman, she and her producers, Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous were arrested despite visibly holding their press passes and equipment and identified themselves as journalist. They were then physically assaulted, detained for a long period and had their cameras, video and other media equipment, as well as their personal belongings, searched and seized.
http://www.truthout.org/amy-goodman-strikes-back-against-rnc-arrest-files-lawsuit59324
Hugo Chavez Hires 200 People to Manage His Twitter Account
Chavez ("Presidente de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Soldado Bolivariano, Socialista y Antiimperialista" according to his bio), has, at the time of writing, 239,994 followers and enjoys inclusion on 7,538 lists. Presumably some of which list people who are "threats to the open web."
With "Verified Account" status on the service, Chavez follows just five others, but it's unlikely the majority in Venezuela follow him — recent estimates put the percentage of the population that boast Internet access at just 31%, although this figure has risen under Chavez's rule.
However, it seems public engagement with the president's new online presence has been high with more than 50,000 messages reported in the two weeks since he's been tweeting. So how does Chavez find time to tweet to the people? A newly appointed team of 200 Twitter aides will help to lighten that load, reports the AP. Chavez said of the new hires, "I'm creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances."
10 amazing truths you already suspected
Part IV! Pink fried chicken, Oklahoma vaginas, French G-spots
This much you already know:
1) The Bible is more violent than the Quran. Wait, what? Really? It's true... sort of. Don't tell this fine racist patriot, but turns out the Bible, America's favorite misinterpreted hunk of swiped fairy tale mythology, is packed like "Saw IV" with wraths and attacks, smitings and genocides, hacked-off limbs and fiery explosions in the sky. Whereas, despite its bad rap and its rather nasty "convert-the-world" directive, the Quran's scriptures are largely peaceful documents that've been hijacked and distorted by fundamentalist jackals for political purposes, to justify all sorts of bias, intolerance and violence against those they hate and fear. Sound familiar?
2) High fructose corn syrup is nasty, obesity-causing swill. I know, right? But here's something you might not know: As a columnist who writes, let's say "unflatteringly" about fast food and the noxious ingredients therein, I've received sneering little letters in the past from the Corn Refiner's Association when I've attacked their sticky cash cow, as they try to claim their synthetic goop is no worse for you than sunshine and flowers. Lying is fun!
Fact: HFCS "prompts considerably more weight gain than sugar," says a big new Princeton study. Fructose also scars the liver. It's nasty stuff, it's in everything from ketchup to soup to the despicable Double Down sandwich, and it's inextricably tied into the federal corn subsidy and the impenetrable farm bill, which in turn is guarded like the Pope's own porn collection by one the most powerful, ruthless government lobbies in America. Upshot: Until the Obama admin takes on the brutal farm lobby, this gummy poison is going to keep right on making everyone thick and fat and stupid.
3) And what happens then? Why, we lose WWIII to the skinny terrorists, that's what. Seems American kids are becoming "too fat to fight," and the U.S. military is in a bit of a panic, as it's becoming increasingly difficult to find recruits who aren't so hugely overweight that they can't even do a single pull-up.
A group of more than 50 retired generals and admirals released a study saying that 30 percent of otherwise eligible recruits are just too chunky to be of any use to the military. And they take anyone. Alert the GOP! The biggest threat to America isn't the gays or the vaginas or the "weak on terror" liberals; it's your own overweight kids.
(At least we're not alone. China, too, is terrified of losing the Great War with Japan -- which is apparently coming around 2025 or so -- due to its own surfeit of obese youth. Yay fast food! You will kill us all!)
Video of SWAT Raid on Missouri Family
In February, I wrote the following about a drug raid in Missouri:
SWAT team breaks into home, fires seven rounds at family's pit bull and corgi (?!) as a seven-year-old looks on.
They found a "small amount" of marijuana, enough for a misdemeanor charge. The parents were then charged with child endangerment.
So smoking pot = "child endangerment." Storming a home with guns, then firing bullets into the family pets as a child looks on = necessary police procedures to ensure everyone's safety.
Just so we're clear.
Now there's video... It's horrifying, but I'd urge you to watch it, and to send it to the drug warriors in your life. This is the blunt-end result of all the war imagery and militaristic rhetoric politicians have been spewing for the last 30 years—cops dressed like soldiers, barreling through the front door middle of the night, slaughtering the family pets, filling the house with bullets in the presence of children, then having the audacity to charge the parents with endangering their own kid. There are 100-150 of these raids every day in America, the vast, vast majority like this one, to serve a warrant for a consensual crime.
http://reason.com/blog/2010/05/05/video-of-swat-raid-on-missouri#commentcontainer
Sheeple: Signs That You Might Be Part Of The Herd…
by Giordano Bruno
Every researcher, writer, and filmmaker who tackles the New World Order issue will suffer the unfortunate experience of running into people who are almost criminally uninformed, and this will happen on a regular basis. For a long time, our frustration was magnified by our inability to specifically define what it was that made these people the way they were. Were some just mentally inadequate, and unable to effectively process the facts? Were they so indoctrinated by the MSM that there was no turning back? Was there an innate difference in intuitive faculties that made some people quick in picking out a lie, and others slow? Many theories abound, but one thing was certain; in our quest to inform the masses, there were always going to be those who were incapable of hearing or understanding what we had to say, no matter how factual, rational, and refined our arguments. We now call these wonders of intellectual rustication "Sheeple"…
Sheeple can be found in every country, every ethnic background, every religious organization, and every subculture. After years of examination and experience, it has become much easier for the Liberty Movement to identify and categorize the various forms of sheeple, and come to terms with the triggers in the human mind that cause some to willfully ignore logic and wisdom.
http://waronyou.com/topics/sheeple-signs-that-you-might-be-part-of-the-herd/
Friday, May 7, 2010
The pill: Making motherhood better for 50 years
It sparked protests and controversy, and is credited with spurring the women's liberation movement. Now, the contraceptive method known as 'The pill' is turning 50.
By Elaine Tyler May
Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.
Today, we celebrate both motherhood and the pill. It is Mother's Day, and it is the 50th anniversary of the pill's approval by the Food and Drug Administration -- though the dream of an oral contraceptive is much older. The birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger first envisioned such a "magic pill" in 1912, two years before Congress established a national Mother's Day. She wanted to do more than honor mothers: She wanted to change their lives.
While in her 30s, Sanger had worked as a nurse in New York City, and she saw many poor mothers become sick and die from the strain of frequent pregnancies. A turning point, she would recall later, came when she heard a physician instruct Sadie Sachs, a frail 28-year-old mother of three who was desperate for contraception, to "tell Jake to sleep on the roof!" Sachs's death from a self-induced abortion inspired Sanger to begin her crusade for birth control.
Moms Speak Out: End This Brutal War
by Rethink Afghanistan
Mother's Day was started in opposition to war and to denounce the death and destruction brought by war.
In honor to this tradition, we created a new video that puts the focus back where it belongs: On ending a war.
Help us get the word out about this costly, brutal war, share this video with your friends and family.
http://www.facebook.com/rethinkafghanistan
In honor to this tradition, we created a new video that puts the focus back where it belongs: On ending a war.
Help us get the word out about this costly, brutal war, share this video with your friends and family.
http://www.facebook.com/rethinkafghanistan
Army Spy Plane May Have Snooped on Bomber
Investigators were able to track wannabe terrorist Faisal Shahzad through his anonymous, pre-paid cell phone — exactly how, they won't say. But there was a tantalizing explanation posted — and then quickly yanked — from the website of WCBS TV. "In the end, it was secret Army intelligence planes that did him in. Armed with his cell phone number, they circled the skies over the New York area, intercepting a call to Emirates Airlines reservations, before scrambling to catch him at John F. Kennedy International Airport."
Jeremy Scahill, relying on a source in U.S. Special Operations, says those planes were likely RC-12s, equipped with a Guardrail Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) system. The planes are designed to pluck all kinds of communications from the air. But from the ground, they could easily be mistaken for an executive aircraft. The RC-12 is based on the Hawker-Beechcraft King Air B200 suit-carrier. And while earlier versions of the aircraft were covered in odd-looking antennas, the latest aircraft are far less conspicuous.
Variants of the planes are at the center of "Project Liberty," a crash project by the Air Force to send more airborne spies to Afghanistan. The first of an estimated 37 aircraft began flying there last December.
"It sucks up everything. We've got these things in Jalalabad [Afghanistan]. We routinely fly these things over Khandahar. When I say everything, I mean BlueTooth would be effected, even the wave length that PlayStation controllers are on. They suck up everything. That's the point," Scahill's source tells him.
New U.S. Push to Regulate Internet Access
FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, whose authority over broadband lines has been questioned by a federal court, plans to use regulation on traditional phone networks to establish rules for Internet providers.
By AMY SCHATZ
WASHINGTON—In a move that will stoke a battle over the future of the Internet, the federal government plans to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks.
The decision, by Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, is likely to trigger a vigorous lobbying battle, arraying big phone and cable companies and their allies on Capitol Hill against Silicon Valley giants and consumer advocates.
Breaking a deadlock within his agency, Mr. Genachowski is expected Thursday to outline his plan for regulating broadband lines. He wants to adopt "net neutrality" rules that require Internet providers like Comcast Corp. and AT&T Inc. to treat all traffic equally, and not to slow or block access to websites.
Amy Schatz and Spencer Ante discuss the federal government's plan to propose regulating broadband lines under decades-old rules designed for traditional phone networks. Plus, a live report from the Web 2.0 event and Yahoo's new ad blitz.
The decision has been eagerly awaited since a federal appeals court ruling last month cast doubt on the FCC's authority over broadband lines, throwing into question Mr. Genachowski's proposal to set new rules for how Internet traffic is managed. The court ruled the FCC had overstepped when it cited Comcast in 2008 for slowing some customers' Internet traffic.
In a nod to such concerns, the FCC said in a statement that Mr. Genachowski wouldn't apply the full brunt of existing phone regulations to Internet lines and that he would set "meaningful boundaries to guard against regulatory overreach."
Some senior Democratic lawmakers provided Mr. Genachowski with political cover for his decision Wednesday, suggesting they wouldn't be opposed to the FCC taking the re-regulation route towards net neutrality protections.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703961104575226583645448758.html
Audit the Fed Amendment Modified – Allows Fed To Keep Secrets
Ron Paul just posted the following message on Facebook:
Ron Paul: "Bernie Sanders has sold out and sided with Chris Dodd to gut Audit the Fed in the Senate. His "compromise" is what the Administration and banking interests want: they'll allow the TARP and TALF to be audited, but no transparency of the FOMC, discount window operations or agreement with foreign central banks. We need to take action and stop this!"
John Tate (Campaign for Liberty) immediately sent out the following alert:
Dear C4L Member,
Any time you find out Senator Chris Dodd is in support of something – watch out.
According to our sources on the Hill, Senator Bernie Sanders caved to pressure from the White House and Chris Dodd and stripped out the Paul-Grayson language from his Fed transparency amendment.
What Sanders is now proposing is essentially the Watt amendment we all opposed last year in the House. In addition, it supports just a one-time audit.
Talking Points Memo reports that, "In order to allay some of the White House's and the Fed's concerns, Sanders has agreed to limit the scope of what the Government Accountability Office would be allowed to audit–but his plan will still require thorough review of all the Fed's emergency lending, beginning December 1, 2007."
Call Senator Sanders' office at (202) 224-5141 and tell him how you feel about this last-minute sell out.
Click here for contact information for your senators and urge them to oppose the Sanders Sellout. Tell them to put back in the original Paul/Grayson language.
A vote could come even late tonight or early tomorrow. Let your senators know where you stand right away.
The American people deserve a real audit.
In Liberty,
John Tate
President
http://www.ronpaul.com/2010-05-06/audit-the-fed-amendment-modified-allows-fed-to-keep-secrets/
Weeds 1, Monsanto 0, Farmers -1
by wufnik
This should come as no surprise, but The New York Times breathlessly informed us yesterday that US farmers are starting to have a hard time coping with Roundup-resistant weeds. That's right. Straight from the heart of the country where people don't want to see evolution taught, farmers are getting a real-life lesson in evolutionary theory. I bet no one, absolutely no one, saw this one coming.Here's how The Times presents it:
Just as the heavy use of antibiotics contributed to the rise of drug-resistant supergerms, American farmers' near-ubiquitous use of the weedkiller Roundup has led to the rapid growth of tenacious new superweeds.
To fight them, Mr. Anderson and farmers throughout the East, Midwest and South are being forced to spray fields with more toxic herbicides, pull weeds by hand and return to more labor-intensive methods like regular plowing.
"We're back to where we were 20 years ago," said Mr. Anderson, who will plow about one-third of his 3,000 acres of soybean fields this spring, more than he has in years. "We're trying to find out what works."
Farm experts say that such efforts could lead to higher food prices, lower crop yields, rising farm costs and more pollution of land and water.
Well, this turns out to not be a new problem, exactly. In fact, there were Round-up resistant weeks ten years ago, found in a soybean field. And the problem has spread since then. And The Times, which has never expressed much reluctance for any new crackpot scheme that also manages to benefit corporate America, ominously intones:
The superweeds could temper American agriculture's enthusiasm for some genetically modified crops. Soybeans, corn and cotton that are engineered to survive spraying with Roundup have become standard in American fields. However, if Roundup doesn't kill the weeds, farmers have little incentive to spend the extra money for the special seeds.
Roundup — originally made by Monsanto but now also sold by others under the generic name glyphosate — has been little short of a miracle chemical for farmers. It kills a broad spectrum of weeds, is easy and safe to work with, and breaks down quickly, reducing its environmental impact.
Note that reference to a miracle. The Times is sneaky that way. Note also, if you actually go and read the article, that the enterprising Times reporters, William Neuman and Andrew Pollock, somehow manage to make it through the entire article without a single mention of the fact that Roundup-resistant seeds have been hugely controversial. Nor do they mention Monsanto's interesting legal strategies to force farmers to stay on the Monsanto dole. They do, however, pass along some interesting and possibly scary statistics, depending on your mood—roundup-resistant crops "account for about 90 percent of the soybeans and 70 percent of the corn and cotton grown in the United States."
They also blame it on the farmers, a pretty neat trick when you think about it:
http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2010/05/06/weeds-1-monsanto-0-farmers-1/
How About We Try the Free Market Solution?
This makes no sense to me:
The White House said it backed "significantly" raising the cap on damages faced by energy firms that pollute the environment, as it demands BP pays in full for the Gulf oil spill.Officials also hit out at fresh complaints by Republicans that it had not acted quickly enough in the immediate aftermath of an explosion on a rig in the Gulf of Mexico last month, which triggered the huge slick.
Under a law introduced after the Exxon Valdez oil tanker disaster in Alaska in 1989, oil companies are bound by law to pay for the full clean-up and containment costs of any oil seeping from their facilities after an accident.
But the legislation caps the damages for which the firm is liable at 75 million dollars unless the company is guilty of "gross negligence." Bills introduced in the House and the Senate would fix the cap at 10 billion dollars.
Here's a revolutionary idea- why don't we get rid of the limit altogether! If BP or Exxon cuts corners and makes a hash of things, and they cause 60 billion dollars worth of damage, they are on the hook for the whole 60 billion dollars! And if they can't pay for the whole bill, the company is liquidated, the shareholders get wiped out, and the company ceases to exist.
Why don't we give that a shot?
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2010/05/06/how-about-we-try-the-free-market-solution/
Oil and Water and Leaky Hydraulics Don’t Mix?
By: emptywheel
I wanted to call your attention to this excellent story from the Houston Chronicle describing some of the potential causes of the Deepwater Horizon spill. The short version appears to be that they were switching the drill chamber over from mud to water, which exposed what may be a potentially faulty concrete job, which brought gas to the surface. When that happened, and the blowout preventer was activated, the BOP failed, potentially because of leaky hydraulics.
As the Chron story explains, BP should not have been replacing the mud with water unless they were very sure of the cement job done the day before.
Experts say well-capping poses special hazards. One arose that day as crews were replacing the mud with seawater in pipes going from the ocean floor to the rig.
Deep gases exert astounding upward pressure on a well. "Drilling mud," a heavy fluid used to lubricate the drill and bring up bits and pieces of rock, is used as the main line of defense against the upward pressure, or a disastrous eruption of gas.
The mud was being displaced so the riser could be detached from the rig and the wellhead, and the well could be capped with a final cement plug. But seawater is much lighter than mud. The pressure the riser was applying to the well would have lessened by as much as 38 percent, experts said.
That could prove significant.
Investigators likely will be considering whether the drill hole and the casing pipe were secured properly with cement a day earlier.
"The big question is how confident were they in the casing cementing job," said Elmer "Bud" Danenberger, who recently retired as chief of offshore regulatory programs for the Minerals Management Service. "They shouldn't have begun this (riser) operation until they were confident in that."
Now, as the MMS recently found, problems with the cementing process have been one (but not necessarily the only) cause in a plurality of blowouts in recent years. Though most of those cementing-related blowouts occurred in far shallower waters than this well.
Cementing problems increased significantly during the current period as these problems were associated with 18 of the 39 blowouts, compared with 18 of the 70 blowouts with identified contributing factors during the previous study. During the current period, all but one of the blowouts associated with cementing problems occurred in wells with water depths less than 400 ft.
The Chron notes that HAL claimed it had tested its cement job in its "we worked to spec" statement from last week, but had not released the results of that test. A number of comments on oil boards suggest this is where a fight over liability between BP and HAL might break out–whether the tests showed the concrete was sufficient or not, and if there were doubts, whether the BP guy in charge should have called a halt to efforts to remove the rig.
In any case, for whatever reason, at the moment they were replacing the mud with seawater, gas and oil surged out of the hole, which is when the BOP should have–but failed to–prevent the blowout.
When the alarms go off "you shut it down," said Daniel Becnel, an attorney from Reserve, La., who has filed lawsuits on behalf of fishermen, oystermen and other Louisiana residents claiming damages from the spill. "They've got panic switches all over the place."
Those switches are supposed to activate a blowout preventer on the ocean floor, a huge and complex tower of valves and pipe crimpers designed to shut down a well in an emergency. It didn't work.
Although it had been tested beforehand, BP now says robot submarines have discovered at least one problem with the blowout preventer, though it is unclear whether it caused the malfunction.
"We have found that there are some leaks on the hydraulic controls," said Bob Fryar, senior vice president of BP's exploration and production operations in Angola, in southwestern Africa.
Is anyone besides me wondering why BP's Vice President in charge of exploration in Angola is the one discussing this malfunctioning blowout preventer off the coast of Louisiana? Because I am.
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/05/05/oil-and-water-and-leaky-hydraulics-dont-mix/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
