Australia moves forward with internet censorship

What a horrible move in the wrong direction.

The government's $128.8 million Cyber Safety policy includes forcing internet service providers to block access to a secret blacklist of website pages identified as ''refused classification'' by Australian government bureaucrats.

Web pages will be nominated for blacklisting by Australian internet users who come across illegal or ''unacceptable'' websites.

''This is a policy that will be going ahead,'' Senator Conroy said. ''We are still consulting on the final details of the scheme. But this policy has been approved by 85 per cent of Australian internet service providers, who have said they would welcome the filter, including Telstra, Optus, iPrimus and iinet.''

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Vatican talks fire and brimstone for child rapist priests

Monsignor Charles Scicluna is going old school. He's also in charge of catching pedophile priests, so it's an interesting development.

"It would be really better for him that his evil deeds cause him death" under secular laws, he said.

Scicluna added that those who hurt children should be thrown into the sea with a millstone around their neck.

In his sermon, he also suggested that priests who covered up abuse committed by colleagues would also face the fires of hell.

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BP sued by pension fund for falling value due to Gulf disaster

I hear these lawsuits can be expensive. And damaging. And they might even trigger additional lawsuits. Oh dear. Investors really don't like to see waves of legal actions when they're trying to make money.

A UK pension fund alleges that it lost money because of falls in the BP share price after a pipeline leak in the Prudhoe Bay field four years ago. Lawyers for the fund say the latest spill is providing further ammunition for its case.

"It is too soon to tell exactly what went wrong in the gulf, but what is clear is that they [the accidents] both reflect a corporate culture and series of operating procedures that need to be reformed," said Thomas Dubbs, a partner at New York law firm Labaton Sucharow, which is handling the case against BP for the Lothian pension fund, claiming tens of millions of dollars. The fund, an investor in BP, looks after the retirement benefits of 67,000 workers employed by councils in Edinburgh and the Midlothian area, and also by the local bus company.

The pension providers are taking the company to court for the stock market losses attached to pipeline fractures that resulted in 200,000 gallons of oil being spilled and the Prudhoe Bay field being temporarily shut down. Accidents in March and August 2006 knocked billions off the BP share price, and Lothian is arguing that its funds have paid the price for management ineptitude.

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BP - Beyond Petroleum images

Lots more images of Beyond Petroleum here. Read More......

David Gergen: Mr. President, take command

The left of the left can be so annoying and extreme sometimes. Oh wait...

What can the White House do? For starters:

-- Set up a daily command center in Washington where a presidentially appointed leader runs the show, calls the shots, coordinates the overall effort, briefs the president and briefs the country

-- Have two deputies, one to direct the leak-stoppage and the other to direct the clean-up. Ex-CEOs and generals would be excellent candidates

-- Summon all the major oil and drilling companies to the White House for emergency efforts to get the hole plugged

-- Get BP out of the picture for clean-up; just send it the bill. If it is still needed for hole-plugging, okay, but ensure that it answers every day to directions from the government. If BP needs new internal leadership, figure out how to get that done

-- Employ the U.S. military for organizational coordination and where needed, for anything else such as clean-up

Lots more good suggestions in the link. Read More......

Report: BP confiscated cleanup workers clothing, refused to give back

If anyone is looking for yet another reason why BP needs their butts kicked out of the process, here's another. The cleanup worker is now suing BP though it's unimaginable that it had to come to that. The federal government should control this process and send BP the bill. Does BP own the country or do the people of the US own it?

In his affadavit, Wutstell described his experience at the hospital.

"At West Jefferson, there were tents set up outside the hospital, where I was stripped of my clothing, washed with water and several showers, before I was allowed into the hospital," Wutstell sais. "When I asked for my clothing, I was told that BP had confiscated all of my clothing and it would not be returned."

The restraining order requests that BP refrain from "altering, testing or destroying clothing or any other evidence or potential evidence" when workers become ill.

Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, said he could not comment on the restraining order, or on allegations that BP confiscated clothing.

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Monday morning open thread

It's Memorial Day. And it's going to be hotter than hell again in DC. All week in fact. It's usually not this hot this soon in this town - and we hit the 90s like a month ago (though only for a few days). In other news, my puppy Sasha discovered what a kitchen pot was yesterday. Apparently, pots are quite scary things in puppyland.

We typically try to be a bit lighter with the news on holidays, so let's start the day with the video I grabbed of Sasha encountering her first kitchen pot.

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Scientists encouraged by breast cancer vaccine

This would be fantastic news if the vaccine turns out to be as successful as they believe it will be.

American scientists say they have developed a vaccine which has prevented breast cancer from developing in mice.

The researchers - whose findings are published in the journal, Nature - are now planning to conduct trials of the drug in humans.

But they warn that it could be some years before the vaccine is widely available.

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Israel sinks Gaza aid ship leaving 10 dead

What was Israel thinking? Even if stopping the ship was the mission, killing 10 people in the process is a complete disaster and will only hurt Israel's already poor public relations standing. BBC:

More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.

Armed forces boarded the vessels overnight, clashing with some of the 600 protesters on board.

The exact location of the interception is unclear. Israel had warned the ships not to enter its territorial waters.

The ships are carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid to try to break a long-standing Israeli-led blockade.

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Malawi frees gay couple sentenced to 14 years following UN visit

A very positive move by Ban Ki-moon after one of the most disgusting cases on the continent. Well done by Jacob Zuma as well for speaking out against the case and the sentence. Shouldn't Malawi be more focused on irrigation and farming to feed its population instead of hateful actions like this? The Guardian:

A gay couple sentenced to serve 14 years in jail in Malawi have been pardoned after their country's president met Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general.

Steven Monjeza, 26, and Tiwonge Chimbalanga, 20, were tried and found guilty of sodomy and indecency earlier this month in a move that sparked international condemnation.

But after talking with Ban today, Malawi's president, Bingu wa Mutharika, announced the pair would be freed.

"These boys committed a crime against our culture, our religion and our laws," he said after the meeting, at the southern African country's State House. "However, as the head of state, I hereby pardon them and therefore ask for their immediate release with no conditions.

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Big Oil's other spill zone disaster: Nigeria

Being outside of the media spotlight for the rich countries, Nigeria doesn't receive the same media attention. That's not to say the problem doesn't exist though. The ExxonMobil example is only one of many. And these are the companies that Washington allows to call the shots?

On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP.

This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."

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Additional BP documents show safety problems

Is the NY Times suggesting BP hasn't been transparent and that maybe, just maybe, they didn't share everything with Congress? Pearlstein at the Post is going to be very upset about this after drooling over BP's crisis response. Damn, there goes the MBA crisis management case study that sounded so impressive. Today's daily dose of Top Spill on the Gulf.

The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.

On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.

“This would certainly be a worst-case scenario,” Mark E. Hafle, a senior drilling engineer at BP, warned in an internal report. “However, I have seen it happen so know it can occur.”

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Bill Clinton slams liberals at campaign rally

Now that he's out there defending Goldman Sachs, what else should we really expect from him? Clinton is part of the problem with the Democratic party. That Obama picked up Clinton's old team to deliver "change" tells us where things are going. If there's a reason to have faith or trust in this same old, same old establishment who brought us here in the first place, it's not obvious. Heck, Clinton still can't accept his own deep involvement in the economic crisis.

Promoting more of the same politics of the status quo pays well. Cha-ching!

Using unusually vivid language to describe the threat against Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Clinton urged the voters who nurtured his career to resist outside forces bent on making an example out of the two-term Democratic incumbent.

He pounded the podium with Lincoln at his side, warning that national liberal and labor groups wanted to make her a “poster child” in the June 8 Senate run-off to send a message about what happens to Democrats who don’t toe the party line.

“This is about using you and manipulating your votes to terrify members of Congress and members of the Senate,” Clinton said in the gym of a small historically black college here.

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GOP Senate candidate Mark Kirk caught lying about military award he didn't get

He lied about it repeatedly. Washington Post:

The Republican candidate for President Obama's old Senate seat has admitted to inaccurately claiming he received the U.S. Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year award for his service during NATO's conflict with Serbia in the late 1990s.

Rep. Mark Kirk, a Navy reservist who was elected to Congress in 2001, acknowledged the error in his official biography after The Washington Post began looking into whether he had received the prestigious award, which is given by top Navy officials to a single individual annually.

Kirk, whose campaign has emphasized his military service as a reservist, similarly misstated the award during a House committee hearing in March 2002. In a remark recorded by C-Span, he said, "I was the Navy's Intelligence Officer of the Year," an achievement he depicted as providing special qualifications to discuss national security spending.

Media Matters would like to know if the Sunday shows are going to cover this story as much as they did the story about Connecticut Democratic Senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal saying that he has served in Vietnam when in fact he did serve in the military during the Vietnam War, just not on the ground in Vietnam.

Following The New York Times' wildly misleading hit piece on Connecticut attorney general and Democratic senatorial candidate Richard Blumenthal, last weekend's Sunday shows devoted significant attention to the allegations that Blumenthal had misrepresented part of his military service.

According to a Nexis search:

Fox News Sunday devoted 480 words to the Blumenthal story.

NBC's Meet the Press, meanwhile, devoted 598 words to the Blumenthal story.

And ABC's This Week devoted 1,363 words to the story (including gross falsehoods advanced by George Will about related matters).

This Sunday, those same shows should devote comparable attention to a prominent Republican Senate candidate who reportedly made false claims about his own military record.

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Sunday morning open thread

Joe is still in Paris, and the oil is still spewing in the Gulf. Scientists are discovering some very odd things taking place with the oil spill, including plumes of oil below the surface. GOP governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, is facing criticism for his lousy handling of the spill relief effort:

Three Democratic state senators blasted Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal on Saturday for not quickly distributing $40 million in grants from BP at the same time he's been criticizing the company and the Obama administration for taking too long to provide needed resources to combat the Gulf oil spill.

Jindal has "been out there talking to the people impacted by the disaster and the media and got his life jacket on and is out in the water, but I want him to use his executive power to get resources out there instead of standing on the bully pulpit and pointing fingers," said state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, D-New Orleans.

Peterson said that at a meeting Thursday with BP officials, coastal Louisiana legislators and representatives of the Jindal administration, it was disclosed that the state has spent only about $3 million of a $25 million BP grant for spill-related expenses, and that it has not yet issued a contract for BP's $15 million grant to promote tourism attractions threatened by the spill.

It also was revealed that the state has called up only 1,100 of the 6,000 National Guard members authorized for the spill clean-up efforts, Peterson said.

It's supposed to be almost 90 here in DC today. Sasha the new puppy doesn't do too well when it's over 80 (or below 60) - her genes optimize at San Francisco temperatures. So today's walk should involve a lot of Sasha plopping down on the sidewalk in front of people, and me carrying her around. Read More......

Bo Diddley - Who do you love

Whew, very late morning today. Jojo and I had Carlos and Joe over last night and it was pretty much impossible for us to stop talking we were having so much fun. You name it, we talked about. Politics, Paris, pets, the environment, food all made the list. It was the first time we met Carlos and he has to be the nicest person on the planet. He even didn't mind being Sushi's first target for leaping on the lap at the dinner table. (I blame Sushi's parents and his poor upbringing.) We really loved hearing about how Joe managed to keep the trip a surprise. What a birthday gift!

We started with some seasonal white asparagus served with our uncle's olive oil and fresh lemon from our friends garden in the south. For the main, I cooked my daube together with some organic basmati rice. I rounded up a wide selection of cow, lamb and goat cheeses so they could get a real taste of France and then we finished with mango sorbet and cherries from the Rhone. Read More......

Gulf Crisis Command Center guarded by Wackenhut

As in the Wackenhut hazing scandal from Afghanistan. What, wasn't Blackwater available? They're blocking media access as you might expect. This whole transparency thing sounds a little different than the transparency I used to know. Ahhh, modern times where the corporate world calls the shots and runs the show.

Wackenhut, of course, is the notorious private security company that operates in the US and around the globe. It recently became part of the huge British mercenary network G4S. Most recently, Wackenhut gained global infamy for the conduct of guards from its subsidiary Armor Group after it was revealed by whistleblowers that the company created a "Lord of the Flies environment" at the embassy "in which guards and supervisors are 'peeing on people, eating potato chips out of [buttock] cracks, vodka shots out of [buttock] cracks... [drunken] brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity." According to the Project on Government Oversight, "Multiple guards say this deviant hazing has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired. The result is an environment that is dangerous and volatile. Some guards have reported barricading themselves in their rooms for fear that those carrying out the hazing will harm them physically."

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Photos to go with BPGlobalPR Twitter page

Here's the Twitter page that I blogged about the other day and now photos to match the tweets.





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Report: BP shipped in workers for Obama visit - left after Obama left

But remember Steven Pearlstein at the Washington Post is impressed with BP and thinks business schools will be teaching this case study in crisis management in years to come. If these allegations are true, this is a problem. It also highlights why the government and not BP ought to be running the cleanup. Let BP pay but in no way should be they in charge. Read More......

Exposure to crude oil and dispersants are a public health risk

Maybe when people start to get sick, BP can bus in healthy people so it looks OK for the photo ops. It appeared to work for the Obama visit so why not try it again? And those protective respirators for workers? Are you kidding? Do you know how bad that looks on TV? People might think there's a serious problem or something. You have to crack eggshells to make an omelet after all. The workers are glad to have a job and will die happy knowing they were able to pitch in and help BP's cause.

Wilma Subra, a chemist who has served as a consultant to the Environmental Protection Agency, said there was growing anecdotal evidence that locals were falling ill after exposure to tiny airborne particles of crude. Air quality data released earlier by the EPA suggested the presence of chemicals that – while still within legal limits – could be dangerous. But Subra complained that the EPA was not releasing all data it had gathered from BP.

"Every time the wind blows from the south-east to the shore, people are being made sick," she said. "It causes severe headaches, nausea, respiratory problems, burning eyes and sore throats." Long-term health effects include neurological disorders and cancer.

Subra said there was even greater concern for those recruited to lay booms and skim crude off the water, since they were in closer proximity to the oil and the chemical dispersants.

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Top Kill reportedly not working on Gulf oil spill

NYT:

BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico.

BP made a third attempt Friday night at what is termed the “junk shot,” a procedure that involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, and golf balls into the blowout preventer, the five-story safety device atop the well. The maneuver is complementary to the heavily scrutinized effort known as a “top kill,”which began four days ago and involves pumping heavy mud into the well to counteract the push of the escaping oil. If the well is sealed, the company plans to then fill it with cement.

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Oil leak zone much wider than previously reported

As we posted yesterday, experts had already been raising this issue though BP somehow failed to raise this issue. When people talk about wanting transparency in the process, they would full disclosure as opposed to the foggy information being trickled out by BP and the government. Blockading the media continues to benefit BP and now we have yet another surprise that has been kept hidden.

What unpleasant surprise will we discover next? Well, besides the report that there are perhaps two underwater plumes with one dangerously close to the current that would drag the mess to the west coast of Florida. Some days it can be very difficult to follow the transparent relief process.

New evidence emerged Friday that the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico was spreading more broadly than previously thought as BP continued its fitful efforts to stop the worst oil spill in U.S. history and President Obama returned to the Gulf Coast to assess the damage.

A day after a research team reported finding a huge "plume" of oil extending miles east of the leaking BP well, another university scientist said his crew had located another vast plume of oily globs in the opposite direction, in a section of the gulf 75 miles northwest of where the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20.

James H. Cowan Jr., a professor at Louisiana State University, said his crew sent a remotely controlled submarine into the water, a section already closed to fishing, and found it full of oily globules, ranging from the size of a thumbnail to the size of a golf ball -- "like big, wet snowflakes, but they're brown and black and oily."

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Orrin Hatch's unethical concern for ethics

It seems Orrin Hatch is concerned about the ethics of Democratic Senate candidate Democrat Richard Blumenthal in Connecticut. Only problem? Hatch has business dealings with two people working on the campaign of Blumenthal's opponent, Linda McMahon. It would be unfortunately unethical if the McMahon campaign were the ones who hatched this idea in the first place. Read More......

Saturday morning open thread

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The Stones - Loving Cup

I grew up listening to the Stones since my older brother was a huge fan. They're not really at the top of my list of favorites but I'm really enjoying the new release of Exile on Main Street. If there is one album that has always been near the top of my favorite list, it would be exile. I couldn't believe the recent Times article about the new album because the writer couldn't see that Exile is hands down the best Stones album ever. He did acknowledge that it tends to be the favorite for Stones fans. Here's the link to the "new" version that is on the recent release. I like it as well.

Strangely enough, since moving to France I've run into Mick Jagger three times. The first time I nearly bumped into him as I was making my way through the narrow streets of a village in the Loire. It was raining so I was hiding under my umbrella when I heard a very proper British accent, which was unusual. Most of the tourists in the area had different accents. I popped my head up and there was Mick and his daughter (who had the proper accent) and then some massive bodyguard with an equally massive dog. Apparently he has a chateau somewhere nearby so pops into the village on a regular basis. He red Ferrari stands out, every so slightly so he's not the most discrete person around.

The second time was in the same village when I met a bunch of friends at a local cafe. There he was, hanging out at a very ordinary place which was pretty cool. My third encounter was in Paris while leaving the George V hotel for a conference. He was coming in at the same time. What stood out for me was how wiry he was up close. He's in amazing condition but he has to be to perform the way he does. Read More......

Spanish debt downgraded by another ratings agency

Borrowing just became a bit more difficult and expensive for Spain. The downgrade by Fitch is the second in recent weeks.

"The economic adjustment process will be more difficult and prolonged than for other economies with AAA rated sovereign governments, which is why the agency has downgraded Spain's rating to AA+," it said.

"The inflexibility of the labour market and the restructuring of regional and local savings banks will... hinder the pace of adjustment, particularly in the aftermath of the real estate boom," it warned.

The European Union has been anxious to see more fragile European economies - including Spain, Portugal and Greece - impose tougher austerity measures.

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Bank of America tries to take away yet another house

Documents? We don't need no stinkin' documents. Seize the house! Who cares that the problem has happened once or twice or more? Bank of America is above the law. They are the law.

Nancy Willmes paid cash for her Tuolumne home in 2001. So she was quite surprised when Bank of America send her a notice of default on the property in February.

"I honestly felt like Bank of America was trying to steal my property," Willmes said.

She contacted Bank of America to try to find out why the bank believed it could foreclose on property she had purchased outright.

Willmes has chain-of-ownership records, which show Bank of America had sold the property to Fannie Mae years earlier. Fannie Mae foreclosed on the previous owner, and Willmes purchased the property with cash from Fannie Mae.

But Willmes said Bank of America did not care about the documentation.

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Glenn Beck smears Obama's 11 year old daughter

What a complete piece of shit. Media Matters has the entire ugly recording. Read More......

When the photos of oil-drenched wildlife start to hit the presses, politicians should become very nervous

Heart wrenching. Read More......

BP's effort to plug leak is suspended again

Oh, and here's a surprise. It seems that BP wasn't being totally honest with us. NYT:

BP’s renewed efforts at plugging the flow of oil from its runaway well in the Gulf of Mexico stalled again on Friday, as the company suspended pumping operations for the second time in two days before resuming the procedure Friday evening, according to a technician involved with the response effort.

In an operation known as a “junk shot,” BP engineers poured pieces of rubber, golf balls and other materials into the crippled blowout preventer, trying to clog the device that sits atop the wellhead. The maneuver was designed to work in conjunction with the continuing “top kill” operation, in which heavy drilling liquids are pumped into the well to counteract the pressure of the gushing oil.

The company suspended pumping operations at 2:30 a.m. Friday after two junk shot attempts, said the technician, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the efforts. They resumed the procedure at about 3:45 local time, after the nearly 12-hour interruption.

The suspension of the effort was not announced, and appeared to again contradict statements by company and government officials that suggested the top kill procedure was progressing Friday.

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My thoughts on the DADT compromise

I've written a rather long piece over at AMERICAblog Gay, explaining why I believe the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise is, on par, a good thing.

We had to pass something this year on DADT or, I think, the fall congressional elections would have precluded action on DADT for years to come. Most observers, all really, think that the Democrats are going to lose seats in November. The question is how many, and whether it will be enough to lose control of at least the House. Some people say it will be enough. If Democrats lose control of the House, you can kiss pro-gay legislation goodbye for years to come (the last time we lost the Congress it took 14 years to get it back). And even if we don't lose the House, but "simply" lose a ton of Democratic seats, we all saw how Democrats flipped out after simply one electoral loss in January (to Scott Brown in Massachusetts). Imagine how they'll react to even larger losses in November. They won't want to touch what they call "controversial legislation" until they rebuild their super-majority, which again could be years.

Simply put, this compromise keeps DADT repeal alive. It permits us a vehicle for seeking full repeal in December of this year, after the Pentagon study is completed, and after the November elections. Had we said "no" to this compromise, I challenge anyone to explain how we could have gotten anything better this year, or for years to come.

Why do I think this compromise protects a future repeal option? Because as weak as this compromise is, most of the media, and a large swath of the American people, think that Congress just voted to repeal DADT. Even the President's own Organizing for America group is calling this a "repeal" vote:

The House of Representatives and the Senate Armed Services Committee have already voted in favor of repeal...

And what's more, everyone knows for a fact that the President repeatedly promise during his campaign, and as recently as during this year's State of the Union, to fully repeal DADT. When the Pentagon finishes its study in December as promised, most of the country - and most of the Congress - expects the Pentagon to immediate prepare regulations fully repealing DADT once and for all. If that doesn't happen, the President is going to face a serious political problem just as he launches his re-election campaign.

Whether you agree with my assessment, no one can accuse Joe or me of being soft on this President. We came out swinging for Obama during the primaries, before it was cool, and ended up raising $43,000 for candidate Obama, a sum that usually makes you at the very least a well-respected donor. But when the President went back on his word on health care reform, went soft on the stimulus, and seemed to be backtracking on his gay rights promises, we publicly held him accountable when the easy thing to do would have been to sit back, shut up, and ride his victory to our good fortune. If I thought this compromise were the end of the world, I'd say so. I'm not happy with the compromise, to be sure, and I'm not happy that the President chose half a loaf instead of just lifting the ban now and being done with it. But I do see a path forward under this compromise. And I see no chance whatsoever if we reject it.

That is why I say that, on balance, this compromise does more good than bad, and is certainly better than the alternative - doing nothing.

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Photo blockade helps BP, but what about the environment?

It's pretty clear how blocking access to photographers helps BP from their own Exxon Valdez catastrophe though it's not clear how this helps everyone else appreciate the full extent of the oil leak. Limiting movement in certain areas at certain times makes sense though we're talking about a very large area. Adding a few more boats or planes can surely not be a problem to the relief effort. Providing easy media access is what we do in a democracy. It's also what a transparent relief effort would include. Newsweek:

As BP makes its latest attempt to plug its gushing oil well, news photographers are complaining that their efforts to document the slow-motion disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are being thwarted by local and federal officials—working with BP—who are blocking access to the sites where the effects of the spill are most visible. More than a month into the disaster, a host of anecdotal evidence is emerging from reporters, photographers, and TV crews in which BP and Coast Guard officials explicitly target members of the media, restricting and denying them access to oil-covered beaches, staging areas for clean-up efforts, and even flyovers.

Last week, a CBS TV crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered beach. On Monday, Mother Jones published this firsthand account of one reporter’s repeated attempts to gain access to clean-up operations on oil-soaked beaches, and the telling response of local law enforcement. The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

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Breaking the social contract

This is about the homeless. When you break the social contract from above:

it breaks from below as well:

A good-hearted Republican friend of mine recently asked, How can we truly help the homeless? Because I knew he was an engineer, I said it was a manufacturing problem. We have to stop making them.

I don't know what's happened around you, but around me the homeless problem has gotten a lot worse, and the angry nihilism and hopelessness seem to have grown — sort of like an oil well about to blow.


If Pete Peterson gets his way, this could easily turn into a nightmare.

GP

(By the way, the second link above is to an article by William Greider, a good writer to keep on the radar. For an high-energy alternate performance of Street Fighting Man, click here.) Read More......

Oil leak may not be limited to only one location

The problem continues to sound much more complicated than we have been hearing. The large plume that has been talked about is probably from somewhere other than the leak that they are attempting to close using the "top kill" method. This is a very interesting exchange with a few oil experts. Read More......

In defense of BP's response to the oil spill

Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post gives it a try. For those not paying much attention to the crisis, maybe it sounds fine. BP has not "cut and run" but they've hardly been transparent either. ABC News dove into the oil leak which provided us with a good look of what's going on inside the oil being treated with dispersants. BP has been much more reluctant to show anything other than the one underwater view they want people to see. They repeatedly provided a low oil leak count even after experts said otherwise.

As far as financially supporting the disaster recovery, to a degree yes, but why are workers getting sick and why are health clinics not receiving immediate financial assistance from BP? This is yet another good reason why the US government should demand money from BP and take control of payments. How could BP really have the resources that are available from FEMA for such disasters?

Concerning BP being open, pleading the 5th Amendment doesn't sound like "open" to me. BP may have shared some data with a Congressional committee but obviously there's more to tell. BP could have been worse but they're hardly creating a new example for business school MBA crisis management courses either. Then again, maybe they are and that is the problem. Read More......

Katla, the other volcano, is rumbling in Iceland

Let's hope it was simply a heavy meal and she will settle down with a bit of warm milk. Here we go again.

An initial research paper by the University College of London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction said: "Analysis of the seismic energy released around Katla over the last decade or so is interpreted as providing evidence of a rising ... intrusive magma body on the western flank of the volcano."

"Earlier seismic energy release at Katla is associated with the inflation of the volcano, which indicates it is close to failure, although this does not appear to be linked to seismicity around Eyjafjallajökull," it added.

"We conclude that given the high frequency of Katla activity, an eruption in the short term is a strong possibility," the report said. "It is likely to be preceded by new earthquake activity. Presently there is no unusual seismicity under Katla."

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Obama on oil leak: 'I was wrong'

It doesn't make up for the problems to date but it may be a start. The positive side here is that he can actually admit mistakes as opposed to the last government. Now that this has surpassed the Exxon Valdez as the worst spill in US history, there's no time to waste. We still need to see a more deeply engaged administration though that appears to be doubtful heading into a holiday weekend. Everyone wants to believe that the administration is taking over though time will tell.

He strode into the East Room to mount a robust defense of his handling of the largest oil spill in American history, reassuring the nation that he was in charge and would do “whatever is necessary” to stop and clean up the BP leak in the Gulf of Mexico. But by the time he walked out an hour later, he had balanced that with a fairly unusual presidential self-critique.

He was wrong, he said, to assume that oil companies were prepared for the worst as he tried to expand offshore drilling. His team did not move with “sufficient urgency” to reform regulation of the industry. In dealing with BP, his administration “should have pushed them sooner” to provide images of the leak, and “it took too long for us” to measure the size of the spill.

“In case you’re wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility,” Mr. Obama said as he concluded the news conference. “It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. It doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away or the way I’d like it to happen. It doesn’t mean that we’re not going to make mistakes. But there shouldn’t be any confusion here. The federal government is fully engaged, and I’m fully engaged.”

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GOP uses public money for Internet site to collect 'new ideas'

What a bunch of complete frauds who insist on sponging off of taxpayer dollars yet again. Doesn't the free market work? Is this really a good use of public money during an economic crisis? Remember this the next time they start crying about the lack of money to fund whatever project they don't like.

Republicans by law cannot use the americaspeakingout.com website for political purposes, since they established it with taxpayer money.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, who is in charge of the effort, said it would not cost much more than an average website for a congressional office.

Using the information gained, Republicans hope to develop legislative priorities for Congress based on their conservative principles by September, two months before the November 2 elections. Boehner said an agenda for congressional candidates is being developed on a separate track.

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Charlie Crist supports compromise DADT language

This is interesting for a variety of reasons, that go beyond the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy itself. Crist, like Lindsey Graham has had to face longtime rumors that he's gay. So, siding with a compromise that is perceived as pro-gay poses either a risk, or an opportunity, for any politician, depending who exactly he's trying to woo. Crist seems to think being pro-gay woos him the votes he needs to win the Senate seat in Florida. So much so, that he's willing to flip-flop on his previous opposition to changing the current policy. Read More......

Friday morning open thread

Joe arrived in Paris early this morning for a sneaky birthday getaway that he planned for his boyfriend Carlos. They'll be there till Monday, and plan on having dinner with Chris (in Paris) and his wife Joelle, and the two cats Nasdaq and Sushi, Saturday night.

In the meantime, the big news last night was the passage of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise by Senate Armed Services Committee (the vote was along party lines, except for Jim Webb (D-VA) who sided with the bigots, and Susan Colins (R-ME) who sided with the good guys. The amendment was also successfully added to the House Defense authorization bill. We posted a number of videos of the speeches in the House here and here on AMERICAblog Gay. And you can watch the Republican bigots getting all upset about it here. It's important to remember that the legislation does not repeal DADT. Rather it provides for the future repeal, at an undetermined time, only if the President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs certify a number of things. If that never happens, the law is never repealed. Read More......

Girlfriends of priest send letter to Pope

Are they suggesting the rule of celibacy is not as effective as the church believes? This is a shocking revelation. OK, so a few Popes had children - lots of them - but let's not split hairs when rules are there to be enforced. The Guardian:

Dozens of Italian women who have had relationships with Roman Catholic priests or lay monks have endorsed an open letter to the pope that calls for the abolition of the celibacy rule. The letter, thought by one signatory to be unprecedented, argues that a priest "needs to live with his fellow human beings, experience feelings, love and be loved".

It also pleads for understanding of those who "live out in secrecy those few moments the priest manages to grant [us] and experience on a daily basis the doubts, fears and insecurities of our men".

The issue was put back on the Vatican's agenda in March when one of Pope Benedict's senior advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, the archbishop of Vienna, said the abolition of the celibacy rule might curb sex abuse by priests, a suggestion he hastily withdrew after Benedict spoke up for "the principle of holy celibacy".

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Spain passes austerity budget, barely

There's a lot of this going around these days in Europe. It has to be done to solve the budget crisis that is hitting so many countries. At the same time, by cutting spending, they're also likely to chop any potential for growth in the near term. Every answer at the moment is a bad one and voters are unlikely to respond well to the cuts. At least Germany has finally settled enough to realize that by bashing the rest of Europe, they're only hurting themselves. BBC:

The Spanish parliament has backed a 15bn-euro ($18.4bn; £13bn) austerity package by one vote as the country strives to cut its budget deficit.

The vote saw 169 in favour of the Socialist government's austerity plan and 168 against, with 13 abstentions.

Spain announced the austerity package earlier this month. It includes wage cuts of 5% or more for civil servants and slashes public investment plans.

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Apple passes Microsoft on Wall Street

That really says a lot about the great products that Apple is delivering. A friend passed through the other day and showed us his new iPad, which was much nicer than I had imagined. (The price is steep so I may hold off for a Google Android equivalent, but still.) Back when Apple was on life support, I don't think anyone would have imagined such a day.

And Apple is in the right place at the right time. Although it still sells computers, twice as much revenue is coming from hand-held devices and music. Over all, the technology industry sold about 172 million smartphones last year, compared with 306 million PCs, but smartphone sales grew at a pace five times faster.

Microsoft depends more on maintaining the status quo, while Apple is in a constant battle to one-up itself and create something new, said Peter A. Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook. “Apple is a bet on technology,” he said. “And Apple beating Microsoft is a very significant thing.”

As of Wednesday, Wall Street valued Apple at $222.12 billion and Microsoft at $219.18 billion. The only American company valued higher is Exxon Mobil, with a market capitalization of $278.64 billion.

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DADT compromise adopted by House 234-194

It's been added to the Defense Authorization bill, which is still being debated by the full House. You can watch a number of the speeches here and here. Read More......

Senate Armed Services Committee pass DADT compromise

It's not a repeal, Dear NYT. It's legislation that will permit the Pentagon, working with the President, to repeal the language in the future, if and when they so choose, if ever. The vote was 16-12. Webb (D-VA) voted with the bigots. Collins (R-ME) voted with us. Read More......

Economies of Europe: the lending merry-go-round

Sometimes when the problem is so bad, you have to find a way to laugh about it. Read More......

I guess it takes men to plug a leak

From AP and the NYT. Read More......

Rachel Maddow revisits the 1979 Gulf oil spill

It's déjà vu all over again, as Yoggi said. The damned "top kill" better work better this time because nine months of oil pumping into the sea is a long time and probably only a minimum. How is it that so little has changed in terms of safety in those years? Watching this report is not very settling at all. Read More......

Two of the four joint chiefs wrongly think DADT compromise repeals the law immediately; send letters to Congress about the wrong legislation

I'd like to think that you have to be pretty smart to be chosen to run an entire branch of the military. But yesterday, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey and Air Force Chief of Staff General Norton Schwartz brought that assumption into question when they wrote letters to GOP Senator John McCain suggesting that the compromise "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" legislation being debated today before Congress would immediately repeal the anti-gay law, before the Pentagon's implementation study is completed.

That is utterly false. And a simple read of the rather short amendment, even by a non-lawyer, would clarify this point beyond a doubt.

You can read more about this on AMERICAblog Gay. But it really is disturbing the lengths to which our military leaders will go to subvert their own commander in chief, and to meddle in the democratic process. We're supposed to have civilian control of the military. But somehow, whenever a Democrat becomes president, the military conveniently forgets this fact and believes, instead, that we live in Bolivia. Read More......

California health insurers to increase rates 12% - 23% for small businesses

It's a good thing Congress scrapped that pesky public option. Who would really want it anyway because everyone knows that private industry is always more efficient and better to work with, right? Thanks for killing the recovery and glad to see the protection you received has been appreciated.

Small businesses in California are being hit this year with double-digit hikes in health insurance costs that could hurt the state's economic recovery as companies curtail plans for hiring and expansion to pay their insurance bills.

Five major insurers in California's small-business market are raising rates 12% to 23% for firms with fewer than 50 employees, according to a survey by The Times.

Similar increases are being felt by many small businesses across the nation, including those in Texas, Ohio and Florida — mainly the result of escalating costs for medical care and pharmaceuticals, insurers say.

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