'Internet Slowdown' is Coming

This goes down tomorrow. You are hereby warned.

Top websites partaking in September 10 day of action in support of net neutrality. From Common Dreams:

Calling attention to the widespread disruption that will occur if Internet 'fast lanes' become the norm for wealthy websites, grassroots groups have organized a widespread Internet Slowdown Day on Wednesday to voice their support for net neutrality. 

A number of the Internet's largest companies including Etsy, Kickstarter, Mozilla, reddit, Foursquare, Vimeo, and Wordpress have announced that they will also join in the September 10th action by displaying an alert with a symbolic "spinning wheel of death" loading symbol and pushing individuals to submit comments to the Federal Communications Commission, Congress and the White House.
"As that wheel spins, the rules about how the Internet works are being redrawn," Amy Goodman wrote this week.
As Goodman explains, large Internet service providers, or ISPs— such as Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T and Verizon— are "trying to change the rules that govern your online life," by creating a two-tiered Internet where certain content providers will pay to get preferred access on an Internet "fast lane."
Current FCC chairman Tom Wheeler is currently weighing a new classification for the Internet that could be a "huge boon" for big cable companies, according to protest organizers Fight for the Future. Those participating are calling on Wheeler and the federal government to protect Internet democracy and reclassify the web as a telecommunications service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act, which will mandate that ISPs deliver all content at equal speeds.
The FCC is expected to issue a final rule as soon as the end of the year.

Feel free to pass this on, or at least the above link to the original story at Common Dreams.

And so it goes.
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Scientists: BP Spill Much Worse than People Think.

Don't believe the commercials and the "it's all cleaned up" propaganda

from BP.  Not if you know anyone in the areas impacted by the spill, or read the scientific data.

Yes, just as BP stalls again files yet another appeal with the SCOTUS (story here) essentially crying “foul and unfair” - again - this report is released by Climate Progress at Think Progress:

Scientists at Penn State University have discovered two new coral reefs near the site of BP’s historic 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the impacts to those reefs from the spill have been greater than expected, according to research released Monday. 

The two additional reefs found by the PSU team were both farther away and deeper than the one coral reef that had previously been found to have been impacted by the spill. That indicates not only that marine ecosystems may be more greatly affected, but that some of the 210 million gallons of oil that BP spilled into the Gulf is making its mark in the deep sea. 

“The footprint of the impact of the spill on coral communities is both deeper and wider than previous data indicated,” PSU biology professor Charles Fisher, who led the study, said.

The rest is HERE. Includes a conversation with Prof. Fisher and more.

BP commercials continue to saturate TV and radio in New Orleans and the Gulf with their lies and propaganda, but folks who know better just sluff it off because, well, they know better.

And so it goes.

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Netflix vs. Verizon

As mentioned many times in the past, I do not have a television service - neither cable, nor satellite service.  It’s just too expensive; a waste of time and money. If I had that extra $65.00 monthly, I'd sit and watch it. If you get my drift.

I get news from the Web, (The Guardian, BBC, Raw Story, NYT, TPM, Think Progress, etc.), watch movies on DVD and enjoy documentaries and music videos via YouTube, and I’m pretty happy with that setup. I also have Amazon Prime, but never used it and never learned how.

Then when I got sick last Fall, some folks suggested that I sign up for Netflix to keep up with all the new TV shows and movies that I couldn’t give a tinker’s damn about. 

They persisted, going so far as to offer to pay for a subscription so I wouldn’t be bored.  I was not bored. I was sick! Besides, the (slow) DSL I have is a standard, set price service for folks like me and I didn’t think the streaming would work to my advantage.  It's slow, but again, I can't afford another $65.00 for the super fastest service, either.

Well, imagine my surprise when I found this in the news this week.  Seems Verizon is pulling their gimme-gimme-greed number and Netflix isn’t taking their shit lying down.  BTW, I didn’t write the headline. 

Netflix Couldn't Give a Sh*t About Verizon's Feelings, Releases Letter Criticizing Their Speeds
Netflix and Verizon have been going back and forth with each other over data speeds on the network.
Just last week, Netflix started posting notifications on their service whenever data speeds starting slowing, with a message putting the blame on the Internet service provider, and not them (see above). Verizon had a problem with this, and the company sent Netflix a cease and desist letter. 

Now, in a letter obtained by Quartz, Netflix general counsel David Hyman had a bone to pick with the ISP (emphasis added): 

Dear Randy,
I am in receipt of your letter dated June 5, 2014. 

Your interpretation mischaracterizes our messaging. The message you cite to in your letter merely lets our consumers know that the Verizon network is crowded. We have determined this by examining the difference between the speed at which the Verizon network handles Netflix traffic at peak versus non-peak times. The messaging is part of our ongoing transparency efforts to let consumers know their Netflix experience is being affected by congestion on their broadband provider’s network. We are testing this type of messaging across the US with multiple providers. 

Furthermore, your attempt to shift blame for our customers’ experience on the Verizon network “squarely to Netflix itself” disregards Verizon’s responsibility to provide its customers with the service it has promised them. Verizon sells residential Internet access to its customers. In fact, it is my understanding that Verizon actually upsells customers to higher speed packages based on improved access to video services, including Netflix. 

Verizon’s unwillingness to augment its access ports to major Internet backbone providers is squarely Verizon’s fault. As an ISP, you sell your customers a connection to the Internet. To ensure that these customers get the level of service they pay you for, it is your responsibility to make sure your network, including your interconnection points, have sufficient capacity to accommodate the data requests made by those customers. 

To try to shift blame to us for performance issues arising from interconnection congestion is like blaming drivers on a bridge for traffic jams when you’re the one who decided to leave three lanes closed during rush hour.

Read the rest of his letter and the entire article HERE.

I’ll stick with DVDs and YouTube, thanks.

And so it goes.

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SCOTUS to BP: Pay Up.

BP took their most recent - and slimiest - shot at getting their initial agreement annulled.  Didn't work.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court says BP must continue paying claims from a fund established after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill while the company appeals terms of its settlement with some businesses.
The justices on Monday let stand without comment lower court refusals to halt payments while BP PLC appeals lower court rulings that businesses don't have to prove they were directly harmed by the spill to collect money.
The 5th Circuit and a district court have ruled that BP must stand by its agreement to pay such business claims without requiring strict proof that the spill caused losses.
The order indicates that the high court is unlikely to hear BP's appeal, said Loyola University law professor Blaine LeCesne, who is not involved in the case. BP contends that that the claims administrator is misinterpreting its agreement with many businesses.
"It's obviously a major victory for the plaintiffs, who can now proceed with processing these business economic loss claims," he said. "Given the several months interim before the Supreme Court rules on the appeal, likely many of these claims will have been processed and paid."
Steve Herman and Jim Roy, lead attorneys for businesses and individuals who have filed claims against BP, said in a one-sentence statement that the order "will allow businesses to continue to receive the compensation they're rightly entitled to according to the objective, transparent formulas agreed to by BP."

I wonder how much longer they can stall as they appeal this valid agreement into the ground. I'm surprised that BP's not used the "Panic Defense" thus far. The media has all but forgotten the people and family businesses most harmed - or destroyed - by the spill. Not to mention the still-very-tainted Gulf of Mexico. 

Still, it’s good that the Supremes threw BP out on their slimy ear.

And so it goes.

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Another BP Deepwater Appeal Rejected.

That’s it,  Appeal, stall, and appeal. Blather, wince and repeat. Do anything and everything except what you're obligated to do, and promised to do. For the past FOUR YEARS! 

From the BBC:

Oil giant BP has suffered a setback in its attempt to limit payouts over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill.
A US court has refused to reconsider its decision that firms do not have to prove they were directly harmed by the oil spill to get settlement payouts.
It means the compensation claims process, which has been suspended since a separate court ruling in December, should now be able to resume.
BP said it was "disappointed" by the decision and mulling its legal options.
It had argued at an earlier court hearing that some firms had filed fictitious spill claims.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans voted 8-5 against BP.
Legal battleThe court hearing was the latest in a long series held to determine who BP owes money to following the largest oil spill in US history.
The oil giant will now have to decide whether to progress to the next legal stage, and take its case to the US Supreme Court.
The explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig four years ago killed 11 workers, and pumped millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
In the latest ruling, Judge Leslie Southwick stated that a 2012 policy statement, issued by the court-appointed claims administrator and developed with "input and assent from BP," clearly spelled out the criteria for business compensation claims.
Mr Southwick said all parties agreed to the relevant criteria, before court approval of that 2012 settlement deal.

Foot-dragging and appeals hoping it will all go away. Just do the right thing and move on, will ya! Jeez.

And so it goes.

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BP Disaster: Court Rules for Claimants, Again

Instead of the stalling and cover-up BP could have done the right thing long ago by coming clean and doing what was best for the Gulf wildlife, businesses, and people, but that would have been admitting wrongdoing, and that wasn't an option for them.

From NOLA.com

A divided panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that businesses seeking money as part of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement need not prove they were directly harmed by the accident and its aftermath to collect payments. The ruling is likely to be appealed by BP to the full 5th Circuit Court or the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The decision was immediately criticized by BP. "BP disagrees with today’s decision," said Geoff Morrell, a senior vice president for BP America. "BP had asked the court to prevent payments to business economic loss claimants whose alleged injuries are not traceable to the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill. BP believes that such ... claimants are not proper class members under the terms of the settlement and is considering its appellate options." 

The Plaintiff Steering Committee, made up of attorneys representing claimants, praised the decision. "Today's ruling makes clear that BP can't rewrite the deal it agreed to," said a joint statement by lead attorneys Steven Herman and James Roy Monday's ruling is the latest in a series by two three-judge panels of the 5th Circuit concerning the way U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has overseen the approval of the settlement and its implementation by court-appointed claims administrator Patrick Juneau. Within a week of the settlement agreement's approval in early 2013, as it became clear that the claims payouts would exceed the company's original estimate of $7.8 billion, BP began questioning its application of the settlement agreement. By July, the company's estimate had risen to $9.6 billion. 

But in Monday's ruling, written by Judge Leslie Southwick with Judge James Dennis issuing a separate concurring opinion, the 5th Circuit panel agreed with Barbier's Dec. 24 opinion that the language contained in the settlement agreement and its exhibits was in line with federal court rules governing settlements in class action lawsuits. Barbier said those rules recognize that the purpose of such settlements in large damage cases is in part to reduce the expense and burden that would be involved by holding individual trials for each claimant. In the case of the oil spill, the number of claimants could easily reach 200,000.  

Barbier also ruled that BP's demand that all business claimants prove "causation" before being paid was an improper reversal of the company's original strategy in the settlement. BP asserted that the payments were improper long after the company's attorneys agreed during court proceedings that many businesses and other claimants living closest to coastal areas directly affected by the spill would be assumed to be damaged by the spill.

BP thinks they can win by holding out and appealing for how ever long it takes, but I hope they have finally met their match on this one.  Of course, they'll appeal, yet again. but this story will not die like all the people and businesses in the Gulf did because of their greed and arrogance.  What more can those people lose, after all?  Keep spending that money, boys.  I'll keep buying popcorn.

Read the rest at the link above.

And so it goes.

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Turgid Thursday

Perusing the headlines this morning from around the country, I had to chuckle and shake my head. The photos looked more like refugees fleeing the Nazis, or citizen stampede at ancient Roman festivals, than an American celebration of Thanksgiving.

"Never Again."

"A Nightmare!"

"Fights Break Out"

"No One Expected This"

"Store Security Overwhelmed"

"Merchandise Trampled, Destroyed"

"Inside Macy's Flagship on Thanksgiving Completely Insane"

(That last headline is by far the longest and deserves an award of its own.)

Main entrance is at the very back of this long line.

This is beyond all words.

Just one look at these pictures and you'll understand why that headline was so true. (Oh, and let me know if you spot anyone wearing even the hint of a smile, will you.) Store's like Macy's, real department stores, were designed for leisure shopping, intimate one-on-one communication with knowledgable  sales staff. Elegant displays grace small tables on end-aisles containing special, or featured items.They employ hundreds of sales personnel who, though not holding the "personal shopper" title, tend to do just that. Personal care was a Macy's hallmark. These stores were NOT designed for trampling hordes, at least not all at once.  Essentially, the civilized shopper.

The big box, and warehouse stores were laid out differently to attract the maximum traffic to a given area.  Rather than browsing and true shopping, they were designed for  grabbing, pole-vaulting, snatching, grenade-throwing, urban warfare. Frenzied monsters clutching a sale flyer who know what they're after and can spot their prey thanks to huge displays reaching to the ceiling. They will climb over dead bodies to get to them. Displays that will be decimated in less time than it takes to jingle a single holiday bell.

"Greed is good," and "I've got mine pal, f**k you" roll off the tongue like honey tinged with acid.

As many who lived in New York, I had the pleasure of working a single Christmas at Macy's and it turned out to be one of the grandest holiday seasons of my life. Unlike David Sedaris (I wasn't an elf), I worked in 3 different departments as needed and with the old-time dedicated staff who made Macy's - and other grande dame stores - the shopping experience to remember. 

At Christmas in the stock rooms and staff lounge there was food everywhere.  In the final days, the 23rd. and 24th, one might even be privy to a bit of spiked eggnog or bubbly in those same stock rooms.  

I was young, made oodles of money (there were tips involved for helpful helpers; assisting customers with their purchases to waiting cars or taxis, etc.), met some wonderful New York characters and had the time of my life. 

Back then, a Macy's Charge Card, (not a credit card - a story for another time - and long before MC or Visa) was like money in the bank. An outstanding credit history was necessary before one was issued in your name.  But when it was, the perks of a bona fide Macy's shopper kicked in and you were set for all manner of specials throughout the year.  For many years I was one of them.

These images make me sad.  So few people will ever experience what real holiday shopping was all about.  All they will know is written in the headlines above. And that is a tragic loss. 

The next door tenants noisily took to their cars last night around 11 pm, waking me from a deep sleep. They have just now returned at 5:45 am making even more noise as they rattle, giggle, tussle, and clomp up and down the stairs.  I guess their spree was  successful and no blood was spilt. .  They all sounded in high spirits - and a bit drunk.  Oh, don't get me started on that issue, too.

I need some cheering up.  A cup of eggnog and a little P.D. Q. Bach's "Throw the Yule Log on Uncle John!" (without punctuation) will fill the bill nicely.  

Cheers, and you're welcome!

And so it goes.

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Christmas Line Dancing is All The Rage.

Last evening's Christmas party at the restaurant went on without me. Couldn't muster the energy or spirit.  I didn't eat much all day and was in bed by 8 PM - slept til 6 AM. Still not much of an appetite, so I ran a few errands that needed attention.

Today I learned to do the line dance - again.  It's been a long time, I was a little rusty, but quickly got into the groove (line) with the downbeat. The Holiday Line Dance

I had completely forgotten what Christmas shopping mania was like first hand. Seriously! There were lines EVERYWHERE!!!  It's not like I was hunting down the newest must-have electronics or the hot toy du jour, no...mixed nuts (in shells, not easy to find anymore), a special wine and infused rum for a couple of co-workers. Hell, even the grocery store (on a Wednesday?)

A mass of stressed out humanity shouting into cell phones to someone on the other end their most desperate needs and fears would have put me on edge if I didn't find their complaints inane and funny.  In Staple's, I overheard more 4-letter-words from shoppers with kids in tow than at the local VFW hall.  (OK, don't ask)

The lines moved quickly, but the frustration etched on the faces in those lines was anything but Christmas/Christian like. No wonder I can't find my Merry-ho-ho this year.

Example, the last stop was the post office to post a few cards and a package. When I arrived I was 14th in line. Probably 10 people stuck their heads in then left immediately. What they didn't see was that all service windows were open and the line moved along at a rapid rate; I was on the way home in 6 or 7 minutes.

As the holiday pace quickens, those lines will become longer, more frustrating, and the folks who didn't give a few minutes of their time today, will be stuck in even longer lines before they finally get the items sent.

This was my final sojourn into the tinsel-tension, aside from one more trek to the market, so I'm home free until the holidays are over. And grateful beyond all measure.


And so it goes.
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Oil Companies Bribing Gulf States to Ignore Spill?

 Interesting reading from whowhatwhy.  A news site I've just stumbled upon.

Recently, Gulf area legislators have been pushing to get their states a larger share of government income from offshore drilling. We’re told that they need the extra revenue to improve flood protection. But more is afoot here, and it deserves scrutiny.
First, here’s the background, from the Los Angeles Times:

Severe flooding from Hurricane Isaac has prompted a new effort by Gulf Coast lawmakers to secure a larger share of federal offshore drilling revenue to fund projects such as flood protection.

But the idea faces opposition from lawmakers who say it would siphon away money needed to pay Uncle Sam’s bills.

Sen. Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.) stoked the debate this week by appealing to President Obama during his visit to the storm-battered area to support letting states share 37.5% of federal revenue from energy production off their coasts…..

Fair enough. But there’s a missing piece of this, about who benefits most. And it’s not the public.
Flood control work generates a ton of local income. It creates jobs. Channeling a larger share of the federal share of drilling income into the local area, you give residents a reason not to oppose continued drilling. Of course, these are the same people whose environment has been so badly harmed, perhaps permanently, by the risky practices of offshore production.

Read the rest HERE.

 I know.  Bribery is such a harsh word. But the truth is sometimes indelicate.

And so it goes.
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Examples of "gross negligence" by BP

Interesting. Very interesting. From Reuters:

(Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is ramping up its rhetoric against BP PLC for the massive 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, describing in new court papers examples of what it calls "gross negligence and willful misconduct."

The court filing is the sharpest position yet taken by the U.S. government as it seeks to hold the British oil giant largely responsible for the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

Gross negligence is a central issue to the case, slated to go to trial in New Orleans in January 2013. A gross negligence finding could nearly quadruple the civil damages owed by BP under the Clean Water Act to $21 billion.

The U.S. government and BP are engaged in talks to settle civil and potential criminal liability, though neither side will comment on the status of negotiations.

"The behavior, words, and actions of these BP executives would not be tolerated in a middling size company manufacturing dry goods for sale in a suburban mall," government lawyers wrote in the filing on August 31 in federal court in New Orleans.

The filing comes more than two years after the disaster that struck on April 20, 2010 when a surge of methane gas known to rig hands as a "kick" sparked an explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig as it was drilling the mile-deep Macondo 252 well off Louisiana's coast. The rig sank two days later.

The well spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 straight days, unleashing a torrent of oil that fouled the shorelines of four Gulf Coast states and eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska in severity.

Specifically, errors made by BP and Swiss-based Transocean Ltd, owner of the Deepwater Horizon platform, in deciphering a key pressure test of the Macondo well are a clear indication of gross negligence, the Justice Department said.

"That such a simple, yet fundamental and safety-critical test could have been so stunningly, blindingly botched in so many ways, by so many people, demonstrates gross negligence," the government said in its 39-page filing.

The rest is HERE.

And so it goes.
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A Captain's View of BP & Dolphin Health in the Gulf

It's been a while since there has been anything like this reported. This is long overdue, and I thought it was time for another update and to let you know that BP continues to lie about the cleanup and life in the Gulf.

Lori DeAngelis: Do My Eyes Deceive Me?

As a charter boat captain on the Alabama Gulf, I have seen a lot taking people on tours to see our magnificent federally protected dolphins. But hurricanes, red tides and algae blooms have not been nearly as devastating as the oil that's impacted these beautiful animals since the BP oil blowout more than two years ago.
Seeing is believing, and my eyes are not what they used to be after I've endured countless eye infections and other ailments since BP unleashed more than 200 million gallons of oil into our waters. Our air and water is still contaminated. For years I've watched the way the Gulf water ebbs and flows, her movement drifting like air through my lungs. But now the ocean moves differently, her beauty now blemished by an ugly brown foam and sudsy residues stirred up, evidence of each passing boat.
Life changed forever on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon oil well blew up, creating the largest environmental catastrophe in US history and altering life forever for marine life and coastal residents alike. I've seen the impacts firsthand: a reduction in the number of dolphins in the Back Bays near my home of Orange Beach, Ala. Bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico are experiencing the longest running Unusual Mortally Event (UME) ever recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA). According to scientists, if dolphins here were hospital patients, they would be in the Intensive Care Unit. Those that survive have to live in water day after day tainted by oil and Corexit, the toxic dispersant used to sink the oil.
Currently at least 749 cetaceans -- dolphins and whales -- have died, some held in freezers as evidence in the criminal investigation against BP. But these are just the tip of the iceberg. Scientists estimate that for every dead dolphin found there are many more that perish undetected -- perhaps as many as 50 die for each one discovered. That means there are thousands of dead dolphins unaccounted for, perhaps impacting the survival of dolphin pods in many areas of the Gulf.
snip
BP says things are returning to normal, but that's not what the dolphins are telling me. My eyes don't deceive me, and from what I'm seeing this is far from over. BP needs to clean up its mess and continued oil pollution cannot be tolerated in our seas. After all, humans cannot live on profit alone. Our bodies need clean water as much as my beloved Alabama back-bay dolphins. They are our true canaries in the coal mine. And I fear we are all going to pay with our health and survival if we continue to ignore them.

More HERE and at the links above.
And so it goes.
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Shop Local

This message should be taken to heart and cheap Chinese s**t and big box stores ought to be ignored. It really costs us much more in the long run. Think about it. This small resort town depends on locals and tourists to keep the whole thing thriving and humming nicely.  I know these people and all they do to keep this community thriving and moving forward. 

Malls and Outlet Stores can't begin to offer what local merchants can.   Yes, Think about supporting local businesses. It could save your town as it has mine.

And so it goes.
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BP Gulf Oil Spill Is Not Over

What else is there to say. The cover-up, news black-out and "all is well" commercials from the BP Public Relations Department continues.  And, so one seems to care. Yesterday at Nola.com:

Two years after the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, there are still clear signs that the environment along the northern Gulf of Mexico, especially in Louisiana, continues to be affected by oil pollution, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Wildlife Federation. "Although the oil has stopped flowing from the wellhead, the gas has stopped spewing out of the wellhead, the Gulf oil spill is not over," said Doug Inkley, senior scientist for the federation.
The federation called on Congress to pass the Restore Act, which would dedicate fines and penalties against BP and other responsible parties toward long-term restoration of the Gulf. It also called for better safeguards in oil and gas leasing practices and permitting.
The federation concluded that six key Gulf features remain at risk from BP oil, although not all are in serious danger yet, Inkley said.
The most visible of them: the bottlenose dolphins of Barataria Bay, declared in poor health last month by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Prior to the spill, the federation rated the status of those dolphins as "good." Today, they're "fair," because of an "unexplained mortality event" that has resulted in more dolphins being stranded at a higher-than-average rate for 26 consecutive months. Most of the stranded dolphins were dead.
NOAA scientists last month said that it's still too soon to link the deaths to the heavy oiling of the Barataria Bay area, but said the dolphins' health problems might have been exacerbated by the oil exposure.
"They are at the top of the food chain in the Gulf, perhaps even more than we are, because they eat whole fish. They consume everything," said George Crozier, retired director of Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. "That creates a situation where they might be bio-accumulating any toxics in the food chain."
Because they breathe air, the dolphins also are likely to have inhaled toxic fumes and to have swum through oil. 

The rest is HERE.

UC Davis Pepper-Spray Incident Reveals Weakness Up Top

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone nails it yet again. Here's a taste:

(W)hen we abandoned our principles in order to use force against terrorists and drug dealers, the answer to the question, What are we defending? started to change.

The original answer, ostensibly, was, "We are defending the peaceful and law-abiding citizens of the United States, their principles, and everything America stands for."

Then after a while it became, "We’re defending the current population of the country, but we can’t defend the principles so much anymore, because they weigh us down in the fight against a ruthless enemy who must be stopped at all costs."

Then finally it became this: “We are defending ourselves, against the citizens who insist on keeping their rights and their principles.”

What happened at UC Davis was the inevitable result of our failure to make sure our government stayed in the business of defending our principles. When we stopped insisting on that relationship with our government, they became something separate from us.

And we are stuck now with this fundamental conflict, whereby most of us are insisting that the law should apply equally to everyone, while the people running this country for years now have been operating according to the completely opposite principle that different people have different rights, and who deserves what protections is a completely subjective matter, determined by those in power, on a case-by-case basis.

Not to belabor the point, but the person who commits fraud to obtain food stamps goes to jail, while the banker who commits fraud for a million-dollar bonus does not. Or if you accept aid in the form of Section-8 housing, the state may insist on its right to conduct warrantless "compliance check" searches of your home at any time – but if you take billions in bailout aid, you do not even have to open your books to the taxpayer who is the de facto owner of your company.

The state wants to retain the power to make these subjective decisions, because being allowed to selectively enforce the law effectively means they have despotic power. And who wants to lose that?
The UC Davis incident crystallized all of this in one horrifying image. Anyone who commits violence against a defenseless person is lost. And the powers that be in this country are lost.

They’ve been going down this road for years now, and they no longer stand for anything.

All that tricked-up military gear, with that corny, faux-menacing, over-the-top Spaceballs stormtrooper look that police everywhere seem to favor more and more – all of this is symbolic of the increasingly total lack of ideas behind all that force.

It's an insightful and frightening read.  It's all HERE.


And so it goes.
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I Thought So.

 

More later.

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From OWS to All Police Officers

A bit long, but watch it; a riveting piece that will stay with you for a long time. 
From the YouTube description: 

Mike Ruppert addresses those police officers who have begun a campaign of violent and brutal attacks at some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters around the country, and around the world.

 So many emotions surface on this one.

And so it goes.
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"The Big Fix" - Official Trailer

The new documentary about the BP Gulf disaster and cover-up. No need for comments from me.  You all know how I feel about this. Just watch and decide for yourself.

More later.
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BP Hasn't Learned the Lesson

It's all about money and greed.  As usual, no US media coverage about this one, either. From the Independent UK:

BP is making contingency plans to fight the largest oil spill in history, as it prepares to drill more than 4,000 feet down in the Atlantic in wildlife-rich British waters off the Shetland Islands.

Click HERE to view graphic (207k jpg)

Internal company documents seen by The Independent show that the worst-case scenario for a spill from its North Uist exploratory well, to be sunk next year, would involve a leak of 75,000 barrels a day for 140 days – a total of 10.5 million barrels of oil, comfortably the world's biggest pollution disaster. 

This would be more than double the amount of oil spilled from its Deepwater Horizon well in the Gulf of Mexico last year, which had a maximum leak rate of 62,000 barrels a day in an incident lasting 88 days – and triggered a social, economic and environmental catastrophe in the US which brought the giant multinational to the brink of collapse.

The North Uist well, in a seabed block named after the Hebridean island but located 80 miles north-west of Shetland, is part of BP's ongoing attempts to open up the West of Shetland sea area, sometimes referred to as the "Atlantic Frontier", as a rich new oil province to replace the dwindling productivity of the North Sea.

The project appeared to have been shelved by the former BP chief executive Tony Hayward last year in the aftermath of Deepwater Horizon and the barrage of criticism directed at the company for its safety record. But it is now going ahead, and the well will be drilled by a drilling ship, the Stena Caron, some time from January onwards, as long as it is given a licence by the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne.

The company already has three West of Shetland wells producing oil, at depths from 140 to 500 metres (460 to 1,640ft). But North Uist, described by BP as "stepping out, in terms of depth", will be nearly three times as deep, at 1,290m below the surface, in immensely testing conditions similar to those of its ill-fated Gulf well, which was located 1,500 metres down, and began its unprecedented "gusher" leak in April last year. 

There's more HERE, as well as more links.

More later.

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OWS: Putting Pundits to Shame

This is the best piece I've read about the Occupy Wall Street movement since it began. Put aside the endless video clips and the sound bites and get to the meat and potatoes of the issues at hand.

From Joshua Holland at AlterNet:

Putting Pundits to Shame: Protesters Know Exactly What They're Fighting for.
Their style may not have been as mainstream as the retirees attending a Glenn Beck rally, but they knew precisely what they were there for. 

It should come as a surprise to nobody that the corporate media's early coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement has featured an abundance of hippie-punching but very little about the substantive issues driving thousands of Americans to take over the streets of cities across the country.

As I approached the 30 or so activists who have been camped out for weeks in front of the Federal Reserve Building as part of OccupySF – a protest smaller than those in New York, Boston or Los Angeles – I'd been primed by news stories heaping scorn on these ostensibly confused, foul-smelling rebels-without-a-cause, but what I encountered was very different.

I discovered that while their style may not have been as mainstream as that of the retirees attending a Glenn Beck rally, they knew precisely what they were there for. They had specific demands and even a simple-to-understand "bumper-sticker" message. “We stand for the 99 percent who don't have much of a voice in this system,” a young woman named Melissa told me. A recent graduate with “not much in the way of job prospects,” she said she'd never been involved in a protest before.

Genuine grassroots movements don't begin with poll-tested messages or slick media operations and aren't fronted by polished spokespeople. In any group of ordinary citizens, be it a Shriner's convention or an uprising against the Wall Street hucksters who took down the global economy, there will be some number who are in fact confused or clueless. A visiting reporter can shape whatever narrative he or she chooses by simply selecting whom to interview and which parts of those interviews make the cut.

At OccupySF on Saturday morning, I too could have crafted a story of hapless, unfocused hipsters had I chosen to focus on the 20-year-old kid serenading confused tourists with a bullhorn rendition of “You Are So Beautiful.” But it wouldn't have been honest. A minute after he began crooning, several other activists told him that he wasn't doing much good for the cause.

Instead, I decided to speak with a man named John, who I found collating and stapling a box of leaflets fresh from the copy store. A 30-something dressed in a tie-dyed shirt who had been “out of work for about two years,” John was noticeably uncomfortable being interviewed. He asked me several times if he could start an answer over. “You'll edit that part out?” he asked me more than once. “I'm really not good at public speaking,” he said, awkwardly.

Then, in stops and starts, John proceeded to lay out a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of our economic straits, and offered a series of very specific prescriptions for making the economy work for everyone, rather than just those at the top. It was a breakdown that made most of the pundits looking down their noses at the Occupy Wall Street movement look like superficial dilettantes obsessed with trivia.

“We know what we're against,” he told me, “but what do we stand for?” John had a 12-point agenda, which he acknowledged would “probably need to be condensed.” “We need to bring back Glass-Steagal,” he said, referring to the Depression-era law that created a firewall between investment- and commercial-banking. “It's really ironic that a law whose purpose was to prevent another Great Depression was repealed and now we have an economy that is worse than at any time since the Depression,” he said. “That's strange.”

“We need a massive investment in infrastructure, in green technology, high-speed rail, things like that,” he said. “We need to abandon or significantly modify these free-trade agreements like NAFTA... these weren't the result of some democratic groundswell. They were written by lobbyists,” he told me. “You know, to oversimplify things, they're intended to maximize corporate profits.”

Read the whole thing HERE.

More later.
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How Important are Vacations?

Yes, my ass needs a vacation!  Just came across this and couldn't agree more with the handsome Mr. Branson.

Sir Richard Branson

Founder and Chairman, Virgin Group
"Dr. Yes" "I get quite angry about companies in America, including some of our own, who give people such short vacations. I think you can say it's an absolute disgrace and especially for people that have families. I really do think -- and especially when you've got such high unemployment -- the jobs could be shared around amongst everybody in America. Those people that want to job-share would have longer time off with their family without being made to feel guilty by the company. You should be allowed to do so. It's a much better balance of life.
"I know how difficult it is to change that attitude, because I get the chief executives of our companies from America down to Necker to talk to them occasionally and tell them that if people want to take leave for six months, they should be able to do so. If they want to share jobs with somebody else, they should be able to do so. It's just so difficult to get people to change their attitudes. But, it's time that parents need to find time with their children and occasions like that are very important for recharging the batteries, getting healthy and coming back to work even harder."

The others have some interesting things to say, as well. 

More later.
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