Mississippi River Delta 31 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans.33 comments
This NASA Earth Observatory image taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite shows a false-colour, high-resolution view of the very tip of the Mississippi River Delta.
Ribbons and patches of oil that have leaked from the Deepwater Horizon well offshore are silver against the light blue colour of the adjacent water. Vegetation is red. Oil smoothes the water, making it a better mirror, so the oil-covered waters are very bright in this image [Picture: AFP/GETTY / NASA]
They keep saying the oil “can’t go up the Mississippi”.
Looks to me like the oil is in charge.
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So threatening… 31 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Border Issues, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Israel/AIPAC, WAR!.59 comments
Pro-Palestinian activists from Turkey hold a news conference on board the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara as part of a humanitarian convoy. (Erhan Sevenler / Reuters / May 31, 2010)
It’s not the first time activists have attempted to break the Israeli blockade. Previously, protest ships have been turned back, escorted to Israel or allowed to pass through to Gaza. But the current flotilla, organized by Free Gaza and other pro-Palestinian advocacy groups, presented a greater challenge due to the sheer number of people — as many as 800 — taking part.
Yup.. the Great State of Israel, nuclear armed, is under attack from the high seas.
FFS.
Sent by Gawd… 30 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, San Francisco, The Battle for New Orleans.62 comments
Obama visits the oil spill
Obama – June 3 2008 – Xcel Center – St Paul MN:
I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people…
I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal…
This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation…
A few months later, La Nan, at a three tier fundraiser here in SF in August 2008, intro’d Obama as “sent to us by God”.
The party has three card monte down… with incense and the holy happy wafer… what’s not to like?
Snicker.
*******
Here is a very sad read. If someone who has lived and worked on the Gulf for decades, in the oil industry and in Civil Rights work and writing/ reporting, cannot sort out what is going on… I sure will not be able to……..
[J]indal and Nungesser have been arguing that barrier berms would stop oil from reaching more marshland. And their arguments make obvious sense under the circumstances.
The danger in the dredging plan, argues Dr. Murphy, is that the dredged material would be drawn from polluted shipping channels and washed ashore during the volatile hurricane season coming soon. The oil will not be stopped, yet the toxic damage will be multiplied.
There is money involved, of course. And already by Thursday evening Nungesser was on CNN demanding more.
The CNN media campaign this week has the shocking effects that we remember from oil wars past. And the effects are especially felt among those of us who like Louisiana Congressman Charlie Melancon find it difficult not to cry at the sight of our dying Gulf. And there is no doubt that our shock is being played like a football on its way to one goal line or the other. …snip…
The close:
[T]hey say the first stage of grief is denial, and I don’t want to believe that any of this is happening. What Congressman Melancon did in public yesterday, we have been doing in our homes this week all along the Gulf Coast. You cannot love the Gulf Coast, witness this shocking trauma, and control your tears at the same time.
But now on top of it all we have to watch out for the ways that our tears are being maneuvered into contracting strategies that may have no other uses beyond profiteering. I’m not convinced that there are worse things than a raw oil slick, not even if they are barrier berms or 6-mile plumes of noxious crap. But if it is the best thing for all God’s creatures on the Gulf Coast to just stand aside and accept the sacrifice that oil slicks bring once they are imminent, then it’s time we started moving from Denial to Acceptance at some improbable speed.
Ark 29 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2008 Election, 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, The Battle for New Orleans.27 comments
Smoke, a 39-year-old harbour seal at the New England Aquarium, is presented with a special present for her birthday Picture: SPLASH
I don’t think there are any seals, otters, sea lions in the warm waters of the Gulf.. but the photo seems oddly appropriate. A few weeks ago, around week two of this mess, a caller to the local talk radio said, if Obby REALLY wanted to do something to help, he should send an ark down to the Gulf, to collect 2 by 2, of all that will be gone.
Caller was right.
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I can’t wait for Barack Obama to become president.
Watching the latest tragedy unfold in the Gulf this last month, all I can say is: I can’t wait for Barack Obama to become president.
This Bush guy is such a disaster, literally and figuratively. It just seems that the destruction of America he presides over is all but endless. As if one Gulf Coast disaster left to rot in the sun wasn’t enough for this president, now comes a second. What did those folks in New Orleans ever do to him? Heck, what did Americans ever do to him?
I just can’t wait any longer for the new administration to take office. They are absolutely guaranteed to handle things so much differently than the Cheney Bots in the White House who seem intent on wrecking the whole world, with their charity beginning at home.
Look at this oil spill disaster, for example.
To start with, Barack Obama would never pick a guy like Ken Salazar for the crucial environmental position of Secretary of the Interior. Of course Bush would, though. Salazar has been deeply tied to mining and ranching industries his entire career – just the kind of corporate hack Cheney would insist on for the position. In fact, Salazar was even a big supporter of his predecessor, the corrupt industry shill, Gale Norton. After all the work environmentalists put into getting Obama elected, there’s no way he’d choose someone like Salazar for this position, a guy so lame that mining association lobbyists welcomed the appointment when Bush made it. What does that tell you? Of course, Salazar has turned out – just as you’d expect – to be the “Heckuva Job, Kenny” of the oil spill. This will never happen once Obama gets in and puts a real environmentalist atop the Interior Department.
…snip…
The country elected some billiard ball, off the corporate pool table…
As I see it.
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Just like force feeding a baby… OGMAFB 29 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans.57 comments
An oil-stained cattle egret is seen on the deck of the Joe Griffin supply vessel May 9. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
[B]ut Bob Bea, a professor of engineering at University of California at Berkeley who has studied offshore drilling for 55 years, said late Friday that what he saw didn’t look promising.
He likened the effort to pushing food into a reluctant baby’s mouth — it only works if the force of the stuff going down is more than the force of what’s coming up.
“It’s obvious that the baby’s spitting the baby food back” because the pressure pushing up from the well is stronger, Bea said. …snip…
We are so screweddd. I think Bea’s characterisation is likely on target, for one thing, he has made sense since the get go.
Shields, the long time Dem operative, speech writer, consultant, whatever-job-there-is dog’s body who is on Lehrer, said the Dems will regret the day they asked for the stream of the oil “leak” to be broadcast…
Because day after day, people will watch. Day. after. day.
I hope they do.
***
I scammed this link from a comment at Sky Truth… Grassroots in and around Chandeleur Islands, 20 miles from the actual coast of Louisiana, are sending balloons up to photograph and try to map the oil.
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“spill” 28 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans, WAR!.65 comments
A false-colour image created by combining data aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft shows the size of the oil spill [HO/Reuters]
Just a little spilt oil which, as some BP slag said, will have “minimal effect”.
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Blood ‘n guts… 26 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, WAR!.64 comments
La Louche… on the lam.
What wretched escapades we are up to, looking over the news. Nothing but bloodletting.
How soon do we acquire Jamaica? Will we offer a Prime USDA Choice Viceroy position to a favored son of Jamaica, Colin Powell?
Seems as likely as anything else…
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Welcome to BP Reality TV! 26 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, The Battle for New Orleans, WAR!.87 comments
“We’ll take a decision within the course of today,” Hayward said.more by Tony Hayward – 33 minutes ago – Washington Post
We’ll be your EmCee for months and months… stick with us, we promise a show!
Marvel as we try things never done before! Watch us ignore Obby!!
I find it interesting Obby, who looked peevish here last night, arranged a Friday drop in before the “Top Kill”, which may take 48 hours to be completed (either way!) is even tried. Perhaps there were assurances and a higher measure for success than is indicated to us, mere taxpayers and peons.
Because Obby is not courageous nor, as I see it, all that much interested.
But we are all on tenterhooks!, especially the turtles, the oysters, the fish, the dolphins, the shellfish, the manatees, the pelicans, the terns… and let’s not forget those valiant folks (we are all just ”folks” now, “citizen” is forgotten) of the Gulf.
Meanwhile, I see a headline, Lisa Jackson, late of NJ that clean and pure place, is, in her capacity as EPA head, “praying”.
Well, we KNOW she is on her knees. What she is actually doing……….
Can this all get more rank? I doubt it.
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Why go quietly? 25 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, The Battle for New Orleans, WAR!.79 comments
Demonstrators outside BP Amoco’s Washington office, 12 May Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
I caught a news segment, a reporter walking on the beach with Heywood (is that his name? Hayward? I just know his pusillanimous face, weak boy face with little lips, the CEO of BP) and mentioning he has received Death Threats (cue the Prayer Circles! He and Obby can be sympa email pals!).
Anyone surprised? I am not.
I said I would carry the link to Naked Capitalism forward, I had posted it at the end of the last link… and he/she links back to a good post at corrente wire/lambert.
I don’t care how dramatic it sounds… it is better than the namby pamby bullshit we are getting:
This is just a snippet (and this message is per the request of Lambert Strether, who has a post of his own up and trying to get further information from other Deepwater Horizon live cam bloggers or watchers):
Major changes happening at BP Disaster site:
http://monkeyfister.blogspot.com/
There have been several major eruptions of the seabed under riser pipe. I’ve been watching and live-blogging all day. Some screengrabs. Whatever happened is very serious, and I am sure not good news for BP or even Republicans. Seabed dropped several feet, Spillcam covered in oil, Spew increased. New leaking hole in seabed. Possible casing failure.
NOTE Seabed dropped several feet???? –lambert …snip….
I got the NC link at Business Insider, Cluster Stock… they seem to be “getting” it as well.
*****
oh PS, forget the bullshit from Monkey Fister about how this is ”bad for Republicans”. What an idiot. It’s bad for us, we the people. We are dealing with the power of the State here. It hardly matters who is who, what ticket the criminal collaborator ran on….
Any Democrat who hopes to make points by bullshtting about “Caribou Barbie” should be used as an absorbent boom. I read they last about a half hour, having to be changed constantly, in daylight at least.
And with millions and millions of gallons and barrels of oil headed for the barrier islands, the beaches, the marshes, the loop current and the Gulf Stream, is it any wonder the PTB care little about a major, all hands on deck clean up assault?
They know.
They just want to spare our weak and delicate minds.
Pledging allegiance to BP 23 May 2010
Posted by marisacat in 2010 Mid Terms, 2012 Re Election, Culture of Death, DC Politics, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Lie Down Fall Down Dems, The Battle for New Orleans, WAR!.69 comments
Workers hired by BP rake up globs of oil that have come ashore on the beaches near Port Fourchon and Grand Isle in southern Louisiana. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times / May 22, 2010)
People / Politico:
[B]ut just after placing responsibility on BP, Gibbs, who had a heated exchange Friday with journalists who asked about perceived government passivity, turned to his other flank to defend the aggressiveness of the administration’s response:
“We were activated [what is the Obama administration? A secret cell? — Mcat] the moment that this oil rig exploded. This has been on the president’s agenda ever since that happened. And we have mobilized every aspect that we possibly can in our government.
“There have been calls to every sector of our government to ask for help. That’s what we’ve done. My frustration was with the notion and the premise that — that we had sat by and done nothing, which I think is certainly not true,” Gibbs said.
As for Allen, he suggested on CNN that the federal government doesn’t have the wherewithal to manage the underwater oil leak without the equipment and expertise of BP.
“They have the eyes and ears that are down there. They are necessarily the modality by which this is going to get solved,” Allen said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
He added that he had “Tony Hayward’s personal cell phone number — if I have a problem, I call him.” …snip…
They are phoning it in, Thad Allen to Hayward, Gibbs and the administration to “every sector of our government”.
Hard to think how it can get more passive or more awkwardly explained.
Lie down and die and get it over with. This long death rattle is boring.
Pictures of the oil hitting the beaches, marshes, estuaries and cane fields are hard to look at… what we see now, just beginning, will arrive with every wave, every tide for a long time.
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Marisacat 