Seder on Radio

July 9, 2010, 11:41 am
Pentagon Reinstates Banned Guantánamo Reporter
By JEREMY W. PETERS
After weeks of sparring with the media over First Amendment issues, the Pentagon has agreed to allow a Miami Herald reporter it expelled from Guantánamo Bay in May back onto the naval base.

Carol Rosenberg, who was barred along with three other journalists from reporting on the Guantánamo military commissions after she identified an Army interrogator whose name was already public, will return to cover hearings next week, her lawyer said Friday.

But Ms. Rosenberg’s return is conditional: She had to submit a written acknowledgment to the Defense Department that she understood why she was barred, and she had to pledge to abide by the ground rules for reporters covering the Guantánamo trials.

The Miami Herald and a coalition of several other news organizations, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press, have all said they believe those ground rules are unconstitutional and are continuing to fight them.

“Reporters are operating under these unconstitutional and illegal guidelines,” said Ms. Rosenberg’s lawyer, David Schulz. “She’s going back, but under the existing regulations, which we believe to be illegal.”

Mr. Schulz added: “Our first goal is to get her there.”

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Rosenberg was one of four reporters barred by the Pentagon for printing the identity of an Army interrogator who testified in the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen being held at Guantánamo on charges that he lobbed a hand grenade in Afghanistan in 2002 that killed an Army sergeant. The other three reporters had not been reinstated by early Friday afternoon.

The interrogator’s name became public after he gave an interview to The Toronto Star in 2008. Under the Pentagon’s ground rules for journalists covering the Guantánamo commissions, reporters are not allowed to disclose information that the military deems “protected,” even if that information has already been disclosed.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/pentagon-reinstates-ban...

and

Free Democracy

Looks like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are being hunted like the last mastadon for one last feast! It's their target alright, since they're ruling out all other belt-tightening options...

UNACCEPTABLE.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/11/AR201007...

[excerpt]

Monday, July 12, 2010; A02

BOSTON -- The co-chairmen of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future here Sunday, calling current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington.

The two leaders -- former Republican senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton -- sought to build support for the work of the commission, whose recommendations due later this year are likely to spark a fierce debate in Congress.

"There are many who hope we fail," Simpson said at the closing session of the National Governors Association annual meeting. He called the 18-member commission "good people with deep, deep differences" who know the odds of success "are rather harrowing."

...

Bowles said that unlike the current economic crisis, which was largely unforeseen before it hit in fall 2008, the coming fiscal calamity is staring the country in the face. "This one is as clear as a bell," he said. "This debt is like a cancer."

The commission leaders said that, at present, federal revenue is fully consumed by three programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. "The rest of the federal government, including fighting two wars, homeland security, education, art, culture, you name it, veterans -- the whole rest of the discretionary budget is being financed by China and other countries," Simpson said.

"We can't grow our way out of this," Bowles said. "We could have decades of double-digit growth and not grow our way out of this enormous debt problem. We can't tax our way out. . . . The reality is we've got to do exactly what you all do every day as governors. We've got to cut spending or increase revenues or do some combination of that."

Bowles pointed to steps taken recently by the new coalition government in Britain, which also faces an acute budgetary problem, as a guide to what the commission might use in its recommendations. That would mean about three-quarters of the deficit reduction would be accomplished through spending cuts, and the remainder with additional revenue.

Most Republicans in Congress are opposed to any tax increases, which has made the work of the commission far more difficult. Bowles and Simpson appealed for support to the governors, who have been forced by their states' constitutions to balance their budgets with deep spending cuts and, in many cases, tax increases.

Bowles and Simpson said the commission would have had a stronger hand politically had it been created by Congress, rather than through an executive order. Simpson was pointed in his criticism of seven Republicans who once co-sponsored such a measure but who helped block it in the Senate.

"As far as I can discern, it was to stick it to the president," Simpson said. "That's where we are in Washington." He later added that all seven "have now come to us to say, 'We're ready to help.' "

The presentation by Simpson and Bowles, which included repeated statements of determination to produce a bipartisan set of recommendations, drew praise from the governors.

"I don't know that I've every heard a gloomier picture painted that created more hope for me," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe (D).

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire (D) said that many governors fear that the commission's recommendations will result in more demands on the states.

Bowles, who noted that the 1997 balanced-budget agreement between the Clinton White House and the Republican-controlled Congress included many provisions that put more burdens on the states, said that wasn't likely....

[end excerpt]

The Ruling Elites LOVE privatizing ANYTHING, even public water supplies! Note-- Los Angeles bilionaire Stewart Resnick is a big friend of Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/12/BAB21EAV9U.D...

[excerpt]

Control of California's largest underground water bank was illegally bestowed on a handful of private, wealthy agriculture and real estate companies in the 1990s, according to a group of environmentalists, sport fishermen and delta farmers.

...

"In times of drought, (the water bank) is a dry-day fund that means we don't have to shut people's taps off during drought," said Adam Keats, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of five groups that filed the lawsuit July 2 in state superior court in Kern County. "But rather than protect key populations, it's increasing the profit potential for a small group of water barons in Kern County."

The Kern Water Bank, a vast system of wells, pipelines and underground cisterns spread over 20,000 acres in the southern San Joaquin Valley, was developed as a key surplus reservoir by California in the late 1980s. After sinking about $75 million into the bank, however, the state handed it over to the Kern County Water Agency in 1995 in exchange for water rights to 45,000 acre-feet of water, or enough to supply 90,000 households for a year.

That same year, a public-private partnership called the Kern Bank Water Authority was formed among four water districts and one private company, Westside Mutual Water Company.

Today, the lawsuit argues, about 84 percent of the water bank is effectively in the grip of two mammoth businesses: Paramount Farms, an agricultural holding company that owns Westside and is controlled by Los Angeles billionaire Stewart Resnick; and Tejon Ranch Company, a real estate firm proposing a resort, 3,500-home development and shopping center in the Tehachapi Mountains.

While the Tejon Ranch proposal marches forward and Paramount Farms - the largest grower of almonds and pistachios in the world - grows apace, dry spells brought on by climate change and environmental restrictions on water pumping are likely to mean water shortages for most other cities and farmers in the state, the plaintiffs contend.

[end excerpt]

Hanford, Washington nuclear waste dump proves nuclear technology was and is a big mistake perpetrated by ignorant, uncaring fools who wanted to profit from physics' so-called "advances".

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/07/11/Plutonium-levels-triple-previo...

Plutonium levels triple previous estimate

July 11 (UPI) -- The amount of plutonium buried at a U.S. nuclear reservation in Washington state is almost triple what the government had previously reported, officials say.

The New York Times Sunday reported the discovery of the higher plutonium levels at the 560-square-mile Hanford Nuclear Reservation will likely make long-term cleanup a greater challenge than previously thought.

The plutonium poses no immediate radiation danger because of "institutional controls" such as guards, weapons and gates, the Times said.

But scientists note plutonium, which can cause cancer in even small quantities, takes 24,000 years to lose half its radioactivity.

In coming generations, experts worry, plutonium could reach the underground water flow and enter the Columbia River.

The U.S. Energy Department said it is deciding whether to try to clean up 90 percent, 99 percent or 99.9 percent of the waste and now prefers the 99 percent option, the Times said.

Hanford, taken over by the federal government as part of the Manhattan Project, has produced most of the nation's plutonium. It stopped production in the 1980s.

Plutonium waste is also greater at other U.S. nuclear sites than the Energy Department's official estimates, Robert Alvarez, a former department official, told the Times.

Alvarez reanalyzed studies conducted by the department in the last 15 years for Hanford, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, the Savannah River Site, near Aiken, S.C.; and elsewhere, the newspaper reported.

###

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/roman_polanski

The TABOO is misplaced. Our taboo against talking about sexual abuse is stronger than our taboo against perpetrating sexual abuse.

We have a taboo against discussing in public Roman Polanski's crime. And by not discussing it and him, clarifying it and him, exposing it and him, shaming it and him -- what happens is we cannot make a taboo against abusing/molesting/raping/kidnapping minors stick because we can't get judges to control these pedophiles and we cannot get children themselves to be aware of the predators who are out there.

At least this is how I feel today when I see that Polanski is essentially free and enjoying his self-inflicted exile living in luxury in Europe, enjoying his role as cause celebre amongst the pederasty crowd of the Power Elite and patriarchy defenders.

Wow.

Mike Malloy played audio of Ralph Nader interviewing author Andrew Napolitano on the Bush crimes -- torture, dissolution of habeus corpus, spying, etc.

Holder and Obama should be prosecuting now. That they are not, indicates they are coconspirators in anti-Constitutional actions initiated by Bush/Cheney.

It will be fine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDBvY13FE64&feature=related

***************

Robert Plant - Morning Dew

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Eba5xrhIPc&feature=related

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/07/12/internationa...

I wanted to relate something similar to you. But I don't know how. I've lost all but one family elder, and it just isn't easy. Be gentle with yourself and them.

Malloy's caller just said something about it.

Reagan's father was an alcoholic.
Clinton's father was an alcoholic.
BushII was one.

Obama's father was an alchoholic?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/6...

Caller's message being, we need to face our nation's addictive behavior and how it causes dysfunctional behavior in us as individuals and as a nation.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gIXWYBTpLtSayJtg41LKXp...

Harvard professor Niall Ferguson at the Aspen Ideas Festival--

http://www.aspendailynews.com/print/141349
...the federal debt is going to be absorbing around 20 percent — a fifth of all the taxes you pay — within just a few years.

-----------

What is Aspen Ideas Festival?--

http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20100705/NEWS/100709922/1077&parentpro...

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/

-------

I'm afraid I still don't quite understand what this event represents or what its "non-partisan" organizer, The Aspen Institute, represents, but it is a policy institute with a strange combo of interests--

http://www.aspeninstitute.org/policy-work

http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2010/07/requiem-for-antiwar-mov...

This is a gem out of an essay by a Middle East history professor, Lawrence Davidson:

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion/42-42/2402-right-wing-thought-pol...

[excerpt]

1. In their daily lives the vast majority of Americans are apolitical. They really don't care about left or right politics because it doesn't seem to have much to do with their local lives. They are, however, the consumer audience for which the media outlets compete.

2. While inherently apolitical, this audience does not live in an apolitical media environment. In my opinion, there is no "objective media," much less a "liberal" one. The majority of the media outlets are one of two kinds. They are either: a) overtly conservative because they are owned by right-wing ideologues who are interested in inserting their ultra-conservative worldview into the heads of their audience (the Murdoch/Fox News bunch), or, b) they are "politically neutral" media operations (often owned by bigger businesses like Westinghouse and Disney) whose foremost interest is making a profit (CNN and its ilk). You do also have a few left-leaning media organizations out there, mostly in print (i.e. The Nation), but they are on the fringe and don't reach a mass audience.

3. Since the end of World War II, leftist ideas have been demonized almost out of existence in the US. And, since 9/11, the "commies" have been transformed into Muslims. These simplistic stereotypes set the parameters for correct and patriotic thinking in this country, and they are delivered to you at different levels of intensity by both the conservative and "neutral" media systems. No matter how apolitical one might be in one's daily local life, these notions are in the media air, so to speak. You take them in almost by osmosis. They mess with your mind without you realizing it.

[end excerpt]

I can't even speak about the new "cap" .
:):(

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/08/louisiana-watermen-demand_n_639...

[excerpt]

Robert Kennedy Jr.'s Waterkeeper Alliance, the United Commercial Fisherman, the Louisiana Shrimp Association, Commercial Fisherman of America, the Nassau Sierra Club in Florida and the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, among dozens of others, are calling on BP to properly equip rescue workers mired in the toxic muck that has been spewing from the Gulf floor for nearly three months.

"We cannot let the denial of protective gear that hurt so many 9/11 clean-up workers happen again with the Gulf clean-up workers," reads a statement signed by the groups, organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. "President Obama and the federal government must demand that BP allow every clean-up worker who wants to wear respiratory protective equipment to do so -- and ensure that workers get the equipment and training they need to do their jobs safely."

The fishing organizations represent those who have been transformed into cleanup workers by the spill. A scientist with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network recently testified before Congress on the hazards of Gulf cleanup.

[end excerpt]

Plus video--

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/11/cutthroat-bp/

http://www.sott.net/signs/list_by_category/3-Grand-Theft-Economics

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6106.shtml

[excerpt]

The logistics of the oil clean-up is being criticized because of the over-dependence on deepwater oil skimmer boats. No procedures are in place for using skimmers that can operate in shallower waters of 1 1/2 to 2 feet. There are a number of boats that could be used for shallow water skimming being tied up in port and not being used by BP.

Fishermen who have experience in rescuing sea turtles enmeshed in fishing nets are not being used in turtle rescue operations. In fact, they face arrest if they even touch an endangered turtle.

Some 3,000 fisherman remain idled by the oil disaster and most have not been hired by BP. Idled fishermen were told by BP that they would be called when their help was needed. However, later BP told them that many would probably never be called. However, BP has hired an army of contractors and sub-contractors who are spending plenty of “flash money” to assuage some local businesses. However, WMR noticed while driving to Venice a large number of seafood distributors and restaurants that were shuttered.

Those hired by BP to clean up beaches and waters are not permitted to wear respirators and many are becoming sick, even coughing up blood. This editor, while driving to Venice, began to experience burning and watering eyes, a condition that lasted hours after returning to the west bank of New Orleans.

The disinformation being promulgated by BP is being accentuated by a number of local TV reporters being “embedded” with Coast Guard units in the waters off the coast and in the marshland and estuaries. Furthermore, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), accused by many local environmentalists and fishermen of being complicit in the cover-up of bad news, has issued a report claiming that tests of 600 fish caught in waters “near the edge of the oil” have proven negative for chemical toxins. Fishermen interviewed by WMR said the claim is ludicrous since there are no fish in the waters in the oil zone or near it.

Gone from the waters of the Gulf off Louisiana are grouper, snapper, amberjack, tuna, and even the small colorful blenny, which normally feeds at oil rig pylons in the Gulf and is found only in the Amazon basin, in addition to the Louisiana Gulf waters.

The Gulf waters are slowly being turned into a hydrocarbon soup of dispersed oil bubbles that is translucent black in color. Fishing boat owners whose boats have been used for clean-up efforts are suffering fiberglass hull damage from hydrocarbon penetration and BP has informed the owners that their boats will have to be destroyed afterwards and their hulls ground up. However, even boats not being used for clean-up will be destroyed with no assurance that BP will compensate the owners.

NOAA is also reportedly sitting on bathymetric maps of the Gulf sea floor that shows a massive fissure on the sea floor that is located 7 miles from the Deepwater Horizon site. The fissure is leaking 120,000 gallons of crude a day, along with methane gas.

The Corexit-dispersed oil has seeped under booms set up to protect Lake Ponchartrain, which lies north of New Orleans. Dead fish and tar balls have now turned up in the lake.

Further out in the Gulf and along sensitive refuges like Elmer’s Island, massive fish kills are being reported by local residents. The Coast Guard and BP have established a no-fly zone over Elmer’s Island, a major bird sanctuary.

In addition, local fishermen said that nurseries in the Gulf, responsible for producing 40 percent of America’s seafood, are being destroyed by the oil and the chemical soup created by the mixing of oil dispersant Corexit 9500. Corexit is breaking down the crude oil into small oil bubbles and a watery oil mixture that is seeping under the booms set up to protect sensitive fish nurseries, oyster beds, and other pristine areas. Many Atlantic fish species also spawn in the Gulf and they are also threatened by the oil disaster.

Even barnacles, one of the most resistant sea creatures to extreme situations, are dying in vast numbers, along with sponges and coral.
...

BP clean-up workers have also been found dumping tar balls from the water and beaches in land fills in Mississippi and St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana. The oil from the sludge is seeping into the local water tables.
...

[end excerpt]

Thanks for you "Tea Cheers!"

Now I'm off to dream land....

Agriculture Chairwoman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and ranking member Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) have raised concerns over court decisions setting back the sale of genetically modified foods, waging that the rulings are not based on sound science.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/107263-lincoln-and-c...

How to Share Time
When dollars are scarce, timebanks help neighbors swap skills,
instead.
--------------
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/how-to-share-time?utm_source=w

(Reuters) - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday that NASA administrator Charles Bolden was wrong to say that reaching out to the Muslim world was a top priority of the U.S. space agency.

Bolden raised eyebrows in the space community and outrage among conservative pundits by telling Al-Jazeera television recently President Barack Obama had instructed him to work for better outreach with the Muslim world.

He said Obama told him one of his top priorities was to "find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering."

Improving relations with the Muslim world was a top foreign policy priority for Obama on taking office last year and he delivered a major speech on the topic in Cairo in June 2009.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66B6MQ20100712?type=politicsNews

You are not authorized to see these photos.

Just a small sampling of what BP and your government are hiding from you so you wont get uppity.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/07/you-are-not-authorized-to-see-the...

Thanks for the heads up. Out here on the Left Coast I assume the time is 11:00am to 3:00pm. Bye the way in my browser favorites lists your under, Activism not Media.

that if our species snuffs itself
that there's another species of sentient beings that are in the wings to cash in

this next one is more up beat and less creepy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3JaOAynaeE

omg!
omg!
sam's on the radio!
i shouldn't put shit up like this, it
may scare the guests
(hello)
(and welcome)
(to the)
(show)
(and you're very welcome to the show)
(always)
(we will be together always)
(NOW THAT WE'RE TOGETHER)
can i come around your place
?

We Left Coasters are waiting with "bated breath" {or baited hahaha ...My wee bit of attempt of humour teahee :}.

teahee LOL snicker nudge nudge ;) wink wink

Is there anyone out there who will be recording these shows? If so what can I do to get ahold of them. I'm dying to hear Sam on the radio again or at least to hear him speak for more than five minutes.
Thanks

Grover Norquist
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

The size has not been reduced but it’s been hamstrung by, Tax cuts for the Rich, War and the Economy.

through firefox 3.6 or IE8 on XP (like I am) there is an app called SiriusXMStreamer that will let you run Sirius off of your pc. It works.

waiting for the top of the hour.
The player shows a 49kbs stream
_ _ _ _ _ _
|

So good to hear you on the air again!

:)

haven't you heard Obama's Austerity Commission...Social Security is a fiscal cancer....

...right now the Dems are just twisting the cube trying to find a palatable spin to deliver the bad news...

btw, you sound great.... must be the gear. ;)

can someone record sams show and post here

much appreciated

FYI
If your using the sirius player:
after 90 minute the player will ask you.
"Are You Still Listening?
If So Click Here"

I gotta go drive so I can hear Sam.
Fuck global warming. Sam is more important.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/07/ap-repor...

((((SAM))))

Got stuck in meetings this afternoon until ten minutes ago. What a treat to hear Sam.

Give that man a contract! Please!

Grover Norquist
"I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

...I tell them that may have worked when there was only 30 people in existence, but it's more appropriate to want effective government. And I point out that the reThugs are guilty of big government that gets nothing accomplished more so than any other party that has been in charge and just hand out jobs to their chronies and distribute subsidies to big business. The most recent example of this--the Gulf Oil Gusher.

.

sammy sammy sammy! so happy to have been able to catch you on the fly

4 hours went by like nothing... thought you might be rusty, but no

you and chris hayes talking about social security and fake deficit scares was so sexy

you talking about your daughter and fatherhood in such endearing terms was so sweet

didn't realize how much we've been missing you and how much we still need you

nobody can be so perceptive, well informed, and yet make us laugh

please get back on radio soon

you're multitalented and i love your "bullshit" but i think radio is your biggest talent

It was great hearing you today Sam....really miss you :(

Iroquois lacrosse has become a world sport, but now the USA sees it only as another reason to insult our intelligence with draconian War on Terra fear-mongering 'precautions'. If the Iroquois leave to go to this lacrosse tournament, the USA won't let them back into their native American home predating USA???

I have noticed that Corporatists/imperialists maintain a purposeful intent displayed in actions to destroy the cultures and existence of indigenous peoples. So it is really awful to see it happen right here with the current administration denying the Iroquois their Native American sovereignty to travel on their own i.d.s--

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/j...-lacrosse-team/

Wooo-hooo! YES!

This is a strange world we live in when BP can just pick up the phone and then get a doctor (chosen by Libya) to examine the convicted terrorist and finagle said convicted murderer's release on medical reasons and "kindness". Billions of dollars for BP/BritishPetroleum in Libyan oil contracts is more like it.

Sheesh.

I wonder how this will shake out....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100...rious-terrorist

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/13/noaa-hoarding-key-data-on_n_645...

[excerpt]

NOAA Hoarding Key Data On Oil Spill Damage

...

Despite early urgent warnings from independent scientists that oil suspended in the water column is likely killing wide swaths of sea life in the short run -- and possibly endangering marine animals and coastlines for decades to come -- NOAA was slow to send out research vessels to probe the extent of the problem, and even slower to confirm it.

NOAA eventually sent out a half dozen ships packed with scientists, on back-to-back research missions. But the only detailed results so far made public were collected during a single mission that ended in late May -- almost two months ago. And some data -- including from the very first research vessel to take underwater tests, the Jack Fitz -- wasn't slated to be released at all, because it's part of what NOAA calls its Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA).

NRDA data is traditionally kept close to the vest until potentially adversarial legal wranglings are over. But in this case, the obvious lead defendant, BP, is part of the Joint Incident Command, to whom all the raw data is being turned over immediately.

NOAA officials told the Huffington Post on Tuesday that, in a turnaround, they will now be making NRDA data public -- but they offered no timeline for that process.

In a statement to the Huffington Post, NOAA officials insisted that they are working as hard as they can to get the public accurate data, as fast as possible. "We understand the public's need for answers and consider it our responsibility to help provide those answers," NOAA spokesman Justin Kenney wrote in an e-mail. "Our commitment is to do what it takes to provide the right answers. Doing so requires upholding the highest standards of data quality and analysis to ensure our conclusions are correct. This process does take time, but we are doing everything we can to make quality data available in a timely fashion, to responders, our scientific partners, and to the public."

Kenney also noted that a considerable amount of other information is being posted online, on such websites as NOAA's new GeoPlatform.gov. Indeed, detailed data about such things as current ocean conditions are posted in near real-time on one NOAA website. And since the get-go, NOAA has been publicly tracking the trajectory of the oil that's made it to the surface.

But when it comes to data about what's going on under the surface, some marine researchers are fed up with NOAA's slow-walk policy.

"It's not about science, it's about what their responsibility is to the public," said Vernon Asper, a professor of marine science at the University of Southern Mississippi.

"We want to find out what the impact is going to be. In order to do that, we need to find out as much as possible about what's happening to the oil, and make as many measurements as we possibly can."

Asper was part of a team of scientists aboard the Pelican, one of the first research vessels to test for oil under the surface -- and, it should be noted, to report the existence of underwater plumes.

"What I'd like to see is the data released as soon as possible, with the proper qualifications, in the interest of openness and especially in the interest of allowing scientists like myself to plan our work. To plan our sampling, we need to know what they've found," Asper told the Huffington Post.

Scientists are primarily searching for signs of oil in the water and the consequent depletion of oxygen. Calibrating oxygen measurements is apparently a consistent challenge, and researchers typically don't release data until they've accounted for any inconsistencies.

...

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a whisteblowers group, on Monday demanded that NOAA lift its "gag order muzzling NOAA scientists."

And some scientists contacted by HuffPost over the past few weeks have said they were explicitly told they could not talk to reporters without permission from NOAA's public affairs office. "That's what I've been told, that I'm supposed to direct any media contacts to the media," one scientist said on Monday.

...

[end excerpt]

==================================

Not allowing the public to see the BP oil spewage data and pollution measurements is CHENEY-ESQUE secrecy and stonewalling.

How many months does the Obama administration want to keep the data secret before they release it? How much longer? And what does it mean when BP gets to "coordinate" and "synthesis" the data?

Isn't the data essentially public data, and much of it required of BP by the government, or authorized by the government to be paid for with public monies?

Isn't this a matter of Public Health, where timeliness is of the essence in saving lives? It is our data that belongs in the public domaine so citizens and their physicians can make decisions with it.

As the author says, no one ever died from handling herbs...

http://www.naturalnews.com/029191_secondhand_chemotherapy_cancer.html

[excerpt]

Pharmacists give themselves cancer from dispensing toxic chemotherapy chemicals

...

The Seattle Times now reports the story of Sue Crump, a veteran pharmacist of two decades who spent much of her time dispensing chemotherapy drugs. Sue died last September of pancreatic cancer, and one of her dying wishes was that the truth would be told about how her on-the-job exposure to chemotherapy chemicals contributed to her own cancer.

Secondhand chemo
The Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA), it turns out, does not regulate workplace exposure to toxic, cancer-causing chemotherapy chemicals. At first glance, that seems surprising, since OSHA regulates workplace exposure to far less harmful chemicals. Why not chemo?

The answer is because the toxicity of chemotherapy has long been ignored by virtually everyone in medicine and the federal government. It has always been assumed harmless or even "safe" just because it's used as a kind of far-fetched "medicine" to treat cancer. This, despite the fact that chemotherapy is a derivative of the mustard gas used against enemy soldiers in World War I. Truthfully, chemotherapy has more in common with chemicals weapons than any legitimate medicine.

So today, while workers are protected from secondhand smoke in offices across the country, pharmacists are still being exposed every single day to toxic, cancer-causing chemicals that OSHA seems to just ignore. The agency has only issued one citation in the last decade to a hospital for inadequate safety handling of toxic chemotherapy drugs.

As the Seattle Times reports, "A just-completed study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) -- 10 years in the making and the largest to date -- confirms that chemo continues to contaminate the work spaces where it's used and in some cases is still being found in the urine of those who handle it..."

...

"Danish epidemiologists used cancer-registry data from the 1940s through the late 1980s to first report a significantly increased risk of leukemia among oncology nurses and, later, physicians. Last year, another Danish study of more than 92,000 nurses found an elevated risk for breast, thyroid, nervous-system and brain cancers."

The story goes on to report how new safety rules are being put in place across the industry to protect pharmacists, veterinarians, nurses and doctors from toxic chemotherapy chemicals. But even the Seattle Times, which deserves credit for running this story, misses the bigger point:

If these chemicals are so dangerous to the doctors, nurses and pharmacists dispensing them, how can they be considered "safe enough" to inject into patients who are already dying from cancer?

It's a serious question. After all, if nurses can become violently ill after merely spilling chemotherapy chemicals on themselves (it's true), then what effect do you suppose these chemicals have when injected into patients?

The cancer industry, though, has never stopped injecting patients long enough to ask the commonsense question: Why are we in the business of dispensing poison in the first place?...

[end excerpt]

Jeff Bridges

Hold on You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grP22coLFhw&feature=related

Jeff Bridges Colin Farrell filming
Crazy Heart

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkMDJuKeix0&feature=related

Jeff finally received his Oscar

and Colin Farrell is so good
there is nothing he can't do in film :-)

and both look fabulous

A SINGLE MAN

Colin Firth was so awesome - so glad he was nominated
he could have easily won the big prize

this film is a masterpiece
saw it last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm5pbLMn8j8

Colin Firth is my favorite Mr. Darcy of all time
but that was in 1994 Price and Prejudice

Here he is all grown up and stunning in A Single Man
Ford, a first time Director, couldn't have done a better job w. this material
and he gave the whole film a v. elegant look.

Loved it.

Good stuff Sam!

THE CRYING GAME - I'M SORRY FOR VOTING OBAMA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XZmfLt4eX4&feature=fvsr

====

I am sorry, too

and I didn't even vote for Obama

it is a total Crying Shame

*sigh*

So-called "honor" killings...NYTimes editorial--

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/opinion/13tue3.html?emc=eta1

[excerpt]

Honor killings are widely reported in the Middle East and South Asia, but in recent years they also have taken place in Italy, Sweden, Brazil and Britain. According to Navi Pillay, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, there are 5,000 instances annually when women and girls are shot, stoned, burned, buried alive, strangled, smothered and knifed to death by fathers, brothers, sons, uncles, even mothers in the name of preserving family “honor.” Ms. Pillay has rejected arguments that such family violence is outside the conceptual framework of international human rights.

There is a reason these religious and cultural beliefs are allowed to persist. Politicians don’t have the courage to call it what it is: murder.

[end excerpt]

http://www.truth-out.org/the-attack-real-black-helicopter-gang-the-imf-i...

[excerpt]

...

Last week, the IMF told the United States that it needs to start getting its budget deficit down. It put cutting Social Security at the top of the steps that the country should take to achieve deficit reduction. This one is more than a bit outrageous for two reasons.

...

[more at link]

Horrible.

http://www.truth-out.org/bad-air-barataria61296

[excerpt]
...

"Just days ago Barataria Bay was full of oil," Tracy informs us, while sweeping an arm out toward the south, where the large Bay sits, toxified, "Then they hit it with dispersants and the oil goes to the bottom. But then during the day, it heats up and the oil bubbles up to the surface."
Tracy, like many other shrimpers with whom I will soon speak, refers to this effect as that similar to a "Lava lamp."
"The oil, after they hit it with dispersants, moves around beneath the surface and they can't track it," she continues, "they are using dispersants so they can minimize their liability."
She shows us several photos and video clips on her computer. In some, a whitish foam lines marsh areas. Others show an emulsified, off-white paste floating atop water. Several times over the next hours that we talk, Tracy complains of a persistent headache she can't get rid of and feeling nauseous. She also complains of feeling "out of it" often.
Barely two hours after our arrival, I pull Erika aside. My eyes are burning with pain, I feel dizzy and lightheaded. "So are mine and so do I," she says, "And my skin burns. Look at this." She turns her head and one of her cheeks has a light-red rash.
Pressure pulses against my forehead and I can feel my heartbeat in my nose. We are both already exhibiting several symptoms of exposure to the dispersant. I'm shocked by the rapidity of the onset of symptoms.
But we're in the majority, because according to every shrimper with whom we talk today, everyone has some, or more commonly, most, of the symptoms of exposure.
Tracy, who, given her position, is up on what most of the shrimpers in the area are up to, is as up to date on how the community is being affected as anyone. She informs us that most of the fishermen are now working for BP laying out boom. "If you're not doing this cleanup work, you're not working," she says, "They feel like they are helping by doing clean up work and they can't stand to just sit here and not do something to help. They feel helpless sitting at home and that's when the depression, suicide and drinking kick in."

[end excerpt]

The security company in charge of clearing passengers and videotaping passengers as they board a plane has never released videotapes of the boardings of the 9/11 hijacked planes.

And, oddly, one security company was responsible.

And the Patriot Act, passed shortly after 9/11, contains specific language to protect security companies like this one that failed to release boarding tapes; the Patriot Act protects by saying they are immune from 9/11-related lawsuits.

http://www.rense.com/general68/dutch.htm

I have to admit that I was wrong. doctoral degree | visual communication associate to bachelors degree

I have to admit that I was wrong. doctoral degree | visual communication associate to bachelors degree