The New Deal

Good God man! What happened to this place? Last time I was here you at least had a handful of hangers-on tryin to make this place look normal. Talk about a sinkin ship!

You may have noticed Big Ed is now Bigger Ed! Yep, the world loves a winner. I hope the last one the to leave will pull the plug on this place. Nothin worse then leavin Sam to pay the monthly bills for a ghost ship!

Maybe Sam could convert this place over to some kind of sports blog. Sam's gotta know more about sports than he does politics!

WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- President Barack Obama announced Saturday the U.S. Department of Energy will award nearly $2 billion in Recovery Act to two solar companies.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said Abengoa Solar will build one of the world's largest solar plants in Arizona, and Abound Solar Manufacturing will build solar panel construction plants in Colorado and Indiana.

One day after the Labor Department reported the private sector added 83,000 jobs but the economy overall lost 125,000 jobs in June, the president noted that the economy has created private sector jobs for six straight months, following 22 consecutive months of job losses.

"That's a positive sign," he said. "But the truth is, the recession from which we're emerging has left us in a hole that's about 8 million jobs deep. And as I've said from the day I took office, it's going to take months, even years, to dig our way out -- and it's going to require an all-hands-on-deck effort."

The president again urged Republicans in the Senate to allow passage of unemployment insurance extension for the long-term unemployed. He also called for expanded small business loans and aid to states facing budget gaps.

He said the solar energy grants represent an attempt to compete "aggressively to make sure the jobs and industries of the future are taking root right here in America."

The Arizona project is expected to create about 1,600 construction jobs and more than 70 percent of construction components and products will be manufactured in the United States. The projects in Colorado and Indiana are expected to create more than 2,000 construction jobs, and more than 1,500 permanent jobs producing solar panels.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/07/03/Obama-2B-grants-to-two-solar-c...

Paterson Urged to Veto Limit on Stop-and-Frisk List

To police officials, a computer database full of the names and addresses of people questioned by officers in millions of street stops in New York City is a core tool in their fight to keep reducing crime.

The officials argue that the files — which include information about people never actually arrested or charged — have fed detectives essential clues for making arrests, particularly in some high-profile bias and hate crimes.

But to an increasing array of lawmakers, the database represents an unconstitutional inventory of mostly young blacks and Hispanics, many of whom, although they are determined to have done nothing wrong, have their names and addresses in the hands of a powerful law enforcement agency. There have been roughly three million street stops in New York since 2004, and by one count, 9 in 10 of the people stopped by the police were not accused of any crime or violation.

(more)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/nyregion/03frisk.html?_r=1&ref=todaysp...

To understand why Gov. David A. Paterson’s proposed tax on sugary sodas has apparently gone down the drain — despite strong support from good-government groups, editorial pages and health advocates — it is only necessary, political analysts say, to compare these two advertising campaigns:

(Goddard Claussen, check these guyys out. I bet cee Cee Knows some dirt on this Org.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/nyregion/03sodatax.html

Voters in Teaneck have chosen the first Muslim mayor in Bergen County.

And while he said his religion wasn't a factor, it's still a major mark of tolerance for a place with a huge Jewish population.

Teaneck has 14 synagogues and lots of stores catering to the town's large Jewish population. And now they have a new mayor, Mohammed Hameeduddin, who is Muslim.

"What's wrong with that?" asked resident Art Ekelchik. "He's an American citizen. Isn't he? That's all that counts, right."

"He seems to be somebody who is putting Teaneck first and not necessarily religion first, looking at what's good for the community, which is what he is supposed to do," resident Shari Baran added.

"A lot of people have a lot to say about the politics of this town. Is it divided, Jewish, non-Jewish? But the people I know who are on the town council, they live in this town and they're deeply committed to this town," resident Joe Kessler-Godin said.

An employee of a local kosher bakery was the only person CBS 2 HD spoke to with reservations.

"I don't think it's right, but everyone has a chance to be whatever they want. But Muslims are against us Jews and I think it's horrible," Eddie Loeb said.

The mayor said Teaneck's Jews helped him get elected and that the Jews and non-Jews of Teaneck want the same thing.

"We want to have children. We want a life better for our children. We want to live in a town where they have a good education with a good quality of life, you know. You just want the American dream," Hameeduddin said.

Budget woes are the big thing on the minds of the mayor and his deputy.

"In this recession the most important thing for us as a council is to listen to the taxpayers who are screaming for tax relief," Hameeduddin said.

Like most public officials in these tough economic times the mayor is looking for ways to raise a few bucks. One idea he thinks might be profitable is to have parking meters take credit cars.

The mayor -- who is a Democrat -- said he supports Republican Gov. Chris Christie's call for a 2.5 percent cap on property taxes.

http://wcbstv.com/local/mohammed.hameeduddin.muslim.2.1784710.html

A growing and unregulated evangelical movement is preaching unconventional ideas about how to get rid of HIV/Aids..

Al Jazeera's Zeina Awad reports from Nairobi on how some of the most vulnerable in Kenya are being promised miracle cures - for a price.

http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2010/07/201073101520116968.htm...

I would love to be a father. I think I'd be good at it, but I like just being a person. Don't forget to take time to be a person and do the things that make you happy. Don't get so caught up in the career thing. It's never going to nourish you. It's not, in the end, what matters. On my death bed I'm not going to say, "God I wish I did more movies." I'm perfectly happy I was present for the ones I did.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jul/03/mike-myers-family-val...

a good morning here, overcast but i always think of that as "softening" the day. good french roast and fruit loaf toast can't be beat for brekkers.

Did Social Security help create the budget deficit? No, it did not. Would cutting Social Security actually reduce the budget deficit? No again, it would not. So why is Obama's deficit commission even considering cutting Social Security in the first place? Listen to FAIR's interview with Nancy Altman, the co-director of Social Security Works, for some answers:

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4112

For more, visit Social Security Works website:

http://socialsecurity-works.org/2010/to-deficit-hawks-we-the-people-know...

"Notwithstanding the dour 'truth-telling' of alarmist politicians, anti-government ideologues, and misinformed journalists, Social Security can be sustained indefinitely without inflicting any pain whatsoever on the vast majority of Americans, and with only modest costs to upper-income taxpayers."

http://www.newdeal20.org/2010/06/17/how-social-security-can-gain-without...

"Ending the conservative era requires organizing, yes, but also hard thinking and shrewd analysis. When progressives of the future look back at how they triumphed, one of the people they'll thank is Greg Anrig. Drawing inspiration from the work of the early neoconservatives who demolished public support for liberal programs, Anrig casts a sharp eye on conservative ideas and nostrums and shows that many of them simply don't work because they are rooted more in ideological dreams than in reality. Facts are stubborn things, Ronald Reagan once said, and Anrig makes good use of them in this important and engaging book."
-E. J. Dionne, syndicated columnist and author of Why Americans Hate Politics

"Greg Anrig's wide-ranging and perceptive book looks beyond the ideology of the right and offers a persuasive account of the many policy failures that have emerged out of the conservative movement. Anrig has put the Bush administration and the right to a test that they themselves have carefully avoided. He has held them accountable not for their ideas, but for their performance."
-Alan Brinkley, Allan Nevins Professor of History, Columbia University

"In this well-researched and witty book, Anrig critiques 'right-wing ideas' by examining what the policies and programs that embodied them have wrought over the last three decades.While giving several conservative ideas their due, he finds their record to be mixed at best."
-John J. DiIulio Jr., political science professor and first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

"With fastidious research and unimpeachable facts, Greg Anrig establishes the sound proposition that competent governance is incompatible with disbelief in government. The odd combination of the religious right dictating personal morality, 'neoconservatism' preaching unilateral interventionism, and radical libertarian tax cuts have cast our Republic adrift from its moorings. Restoration of common sense to government is long overdue."
-Gary Hart, Former United States Senator

http://www.amazon.com/Conservatives-Have-No-Clothes-Right-Wing/dp/047004...

These efforts to cut into Social Security are "warranted" by the sluggish economy and the huge deficit. Supposedly we can no longer afford the cost of Social Security, as the deficit needs to be reduced for the sake of the economy. Nobody buys into these lies, do they? In a related story[?]: What was Obama's message to the G20 all about? Focus on strengthening the economy, and not on cost cutting.

I think we can do something right now about this phony situation about SS in crisis, unlike the problems with the runaway costs of the private healthcare delivery system and the taxpayer funded Pentagon system.

In response to ThingsComeUndone @ 6
The so-called Deficit Commission (aka Catfood Commission) headed by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles is using the deficit as an excuse to cut Social Security amd Medicare/Medicaid. 18 members of the commission with at least fourteen of them being folks on the record that social security has to be cut to save it, even though we have been paying in more than needed since the early 80s specifically to cover the baby boomers.

Funny how they need to have at least fourteen votes for the “recommendations” the catfood commission will make.

They stole the money to pay for tax cuts for the rich now the rich don’t want to pay it back so they intend to default on government bonds being held by social security.

Boehner Puts Democrats on the Spot

Cut Social Security to Fund the War?

By DEAN BAKER

In a remarkable interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Republican Leader John Boehner explicitly called for cutting Social Security in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. The article reports:

"Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them."

In principle Boehner gave the Democrats as much ammunition as a serious political party could want. After all raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits to pay for the war in Afghanistan is an idea that consistently polls in the high single decimals. We should expect every Democratic politician in the country to be jumping up and down demanding to know whether the Republican leader speaks for all Republicans.

That would be the case, unless of course the Democrats actually hold similar views. After all, several prominent Democrats have been saying in public recently that we will have to cut Social Security benefits (benefits workers have already paid for). These prominent Democrats also support the war in Afghanistan.

So, they may not use the same words as Mr. Boehner, but it seems that many Democrats may effectively agree that we have to cut Social Security to pay for the war in Afghanistan. It would be nice if they would insist that this is not true.

Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of Plunder and Blunder: The Rise and Fall of the Bubble Economy and False Profits: Recoverying From the Bubble Economy.

By NORMAN SOLOMON

For the warfare state, it doesn’t get any better than 99 to 0.

Every living senator voted Wednesday to approve Gen. David Petraeus as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

Call it the unanimity of lemmings -- except the senators and their families aren’t the ones who’ll keep plunging into the sea.

No, the killing and suffering and dying will be left to others: American soldiers who, for the most part, had scant economic opportunities in civilian life. And Afghans trapped between terrible poverty and escalating violence.

The senatorial conformity, of course, won’t lack for rationales. It rarely does.

An easy default position is that the president has the right to select his top military officers. (Then why is Senate confirmation required?) Or: This is a pivotal time for the war in Afghanistan. (All the more reason for senators to take responsibility instead of serving as a rubber stamp for the White House.)

In today’s Senate, the conformity is so thick that it’s almost enough to make you nostalgic for the Senate of four and a half decades ago. At least there were a couple of clear dissenters from the outset -- first and foremost, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, who in August 1964 voted against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that “authorized” the horrors of the U.S. war on Vietnam.

Within a couple of years, appreciable dissent was coming from William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Frank Church and George McGovern. Then Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy and other senators.
http://www.counterpunch.org/solomon07022010.html

By JOHN ROSS

Jose Saramago and Carlos Monsivais, two writers who shared an enthusiasm for popular struggle and a mutual disaffection with the Catholic Church, were buried a few Sundays ago amidst tumultuous public acclaim. Saramago, the first writer in the Portuguese language to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, drew tens of thousands of mourners in Lisbon, as did Monsivais in his beloved Mexico City, a megalopolis whose foibles he chronicled for a half a century.

Although the two writers held much in common - they were both writers of conviction and commitment, Quijotes who tilted at the windmills of power - they were hardly peas in a pod.

Immaculately dressed even when visiting tropical jungles, Saramago was tall and almost gaunt - only a profound sadness saved him from generalized dourness. Monsi, as he was universally pet-named around here, was short and bumptious and rumpled. So far as can be determined, Monsivais was never photographed wearing a necktie.

If one were casting them for a play it would have to be Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" with Saramago in the role of Vladimir (played by the master character actor E.G. Marshall in the original Broadway production) and Estragon, portrayed by the comic Bert Lahr, "the Cowardly Lion", both of them stranded at a crossroads in time pondering Godot's arrival or fretful that he (she?) may have passed by before they even got there.

Saramago was not even his name. Like his father, he was a Souza, born in 1922 in the impoverished Portuguese farming town of Azingha. As the writer lovingly recalled it in "The Small Memories", his father had acquired the nickname of "Saramago", a wild radish with which poor farmers fed the bellies of their families when times were tough on the land which they always were, and when the writer's father went to City Hall to register the birth of his new son, town officials ascribed him the surname of Saramago. It fit.

June 25 - 27, 2010

Distorting Chavez

By MARK WEISBROT

Stephen Sackur provides a misleading and one-sided picture of Venezuela after a brief visit there, during which he interviewed President Hugo Chávez for The Guardian ("A chat with Chávez — Oliver Stone's new lead tells all," 14 June). I am the co-writer of Oliver Stone's forthcoming documentary on Chávez, South Of The Border, and was present throughout the interview.

Sackur says that Chávez "categorically denied claims frequently aired in the U.S. that Venezuela is supplying Iran with uranium." But Venezuela does not even produce uranium, as Chávez told him during the interview.

Sackur paints a distorted picture of economic failure under the Chávez government. "In the capital's sprawling hillside barrios, jobs are scarce," he says. But jobs are much less scarce today than when Chávez took office, with unemployment at 8% in 2009 compared with 15% in 1999 – which Chávez also mentioned to him.
http://www.counterpunch.org/weisbrot06252010.html

Essay of the week: What drives Israel?

Published on 6 Jun 2010
Probably the most bewildering aspect of the Gaza flotilla affair has been the righteous indignation expressed by the Israeli government and people.

The nature of this response is not being fully reported in the UK press, but it includes official parades celebrating the heroism of the commandos who stormed the ship and demonstrations by schoolchildren giving their unequivocal support for the government against the new wave of anti-Semitism.

As someone who was born in Israel and went enthusiastically through the socialisation and indoctrination process until my mid-20s, this reaction is all too familiar. Understanding the root of this furious defensiveness is key to comprehending the principal obstacle for peace in Israel and Palestine. One can best define this barrier as the official and popular Jewish Israeli perception of the political and cultural reality around them.

A number of factors explain this phenomenon, but three are outstanding and they are interconnected. They form the mental infrastructure on which life in Israel as a Jewish Zionist individual is based, and one from which it is almost impossible to depart – as I know too well from personal experience.

The first and most important assumption is that what used to be historical Palestine is by sacred and irrefutable right the political, cultural and religious possession of the Jewish people represented by the Zionist movement and later the state of Israel.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/essay-of-the-week...

- When fleeing [from the police], when arrested and the weeks after that, Hitler had the shit scared out of him. He fled in '30 seconds' [from the demonstration site], he asked for protection against possible 'mobbing' by the crowd, and he thought of killing himself in the prison cell. What happened in that prison and Hitler turned back into being his usual 'arrogant' self and had the guts to write 'Mein Kampf' in the prison? Who were the people that visited him there for the period of a year? Is it far-fetched to deduce that the institutions that saw Hitler as a useful 'tool' for their goals contacted him in the prison?

I think that if there are any ZNet Commentaries readers in the Munich area, they could start searching the archives of the Visitors Books in Landsberg prison. Who knows, there might be something there.
NIKOS RAPTIS

The Allure of Fascism and Reactionary Politics for the Working Poor
By Stuart Bramhall at Jul 01, 2010

(From Reich’s Mass Psychology of Fascism)

Reich begins with the observation – which he carefully documents – that fascism and reactionary political movements have a strong allure for oppressed and economically deprived people. He believes this attraction is based is based in a nearly universal conflict between an innate desire for freedom and the responsibility that accompanies this freedom. A conflict he believes develops during childhood and is based in an inability to accept that we, as human beings, are basically biologic creatures.

The Role of Sexual Repression

Reich devotes a large portion of his book to the concept of sexual repression. This makes sense to me, as anxiety about sexual functioning has always been the most troublesome aspect of our biologic make-up (obviously TV advertisers already know this). However his analysis of humankind’s universal struggle with our fundamental biologic nature goes far beyond the health of our sex lives. Moreover he is far more concerned about political, religious and economic institutions that deny women and adolescents, in particular, full expression of their sexuality. Mainly because the authoritarian family structures which enforce sexual repression, cause considerable psychic injury that children carry into adulthood – and which makes them extremely susceptible to right wing ideological propaganda.

Reich traces how “civilization’s” systematic suppression of normal biological (mainly sexual) functioning becomes perverted into “sadistic” social institutions (murder, war, torture, prostitution, rape, pornography, racial hatred, wage exploitation and slavery) that are rarely found in primitive societies that have yet to adopt paternalist and authoritarian social structures.

He describes in some detail early matriarchal (woman run) societies, which were the norm before our ancestors figured out where babies came from. In these societies both women and men were free to have sex with anyone they wanted as soon as they reached sexual maturity – and children were free to play doctor with other willing children. The potential for sexual excess or exploitation was dealt with via self-regulation and – where necessary – group pressure. As he and many anthropologists have noted, murder, war, rape, prostitution and the other atrocities noted above are considered aberrations in these societies.

The reasons why all primitive societies shifted to patriarchal (male run) social structures with the agricultural revolution (raising livestock and crops instead of hunting and picking berries) is widely debated. However there is general agreement that the ability to produce crops immediately led to the ability to produce agricultural surpluses and “wealth.” With it came a desire for men who accumulated wealth to bequeath it to their offspring. Which only became possible by instituting control over their partner’s (but not their own) sexuality.

The Role of Rigid Authoritarian Families

For many millennia this control was exerted through political and religious mandates under which women literally became the property of men. Although women are no longer regarded as property in most industrialized society (except for states that operate under fundamentalist Islamic law), Reich – and many contemporary feminists – assert that women and adolescents continue to be denied full enjoyment of their sexuality under male-controlled political, economic and religious institutions that continue to reinforce a rigid authoritarian family structure.

And, as Reich convincingly argues, it is not just women, children and adolescents (who eventually grow up) who suffer the harmful psychological effects of these structures. What results, according to Reich, is an inbred fear, anxiety and guilt about inner drives that most adults find very confusing – unpleasant feelings that are constantly reinforced by the power structure that controls public information.

All successful right wing propagandists (from Hitler’s propagandist Goebbels to Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove) have been tuned in to this fear and confusion and exactly how to convey that they alone have the answer – through even more rigid, hierarchal structures.

To be continued – with Reich’s detailed analysis of the passive, non-voting majority that is characteristic of authoritarian “democracies.”

BERLIN — Adolf Hitler enjoyed special treatment while jailed in 1924, being allowed hundreds of visitors – sometimes unsupervised – including some 30 to 40 to celebrate his 35th birthday, according to a treasure trove of documents that have surfaced from the prison near Munich where he was held.

The 500 documents from the Landsberg prison were recently found by a Nuremberg man among the possessions of his late father, who had purchased them at a flea market in the 1970s, according to Werner Behringer, whose auction house in the Bavarian city of Fuerth will offer them for sale next month.

Behringer said they were packed among a bundle of books on World War I that the man had bought, and his 55-year-old son, who has requested anonymity, never knew of their existence.

"His father probably didn't know what he had there," Behringer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Robert Bierschneider, an archivist with the Bavarian State Archives in Munich, said he had examined images of the documents that Behringer sent to him, and that they had stamps and notations that matched with others from the same prison at the time.

"The documents appear to be genuine, but to do a real examination we need to have the originals in our hands," he told the AP.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/23/hitlers-jail-time-new-doc_n_622...

now must get more tea grrr...

next to me {by a church}, next Tuesday (by a city councilman).

Eck. I try not to speak out anymore {...okay still in "certain" ways} cuz I am a misanthrope. eek ;}.

Councilman... :}
{I'm just nervous...:}

This is an odd part in that piece:

>>He describes in some detail early matriarchal (woman run) societies, which were the norm before our ancestors figured out where babies came from....The reasons why all primitive societies shifted to patriarchal (male run) social structures with the agricultural revolution (raising livestock and crops instead of hunting and picking berries) is widely debated. However there is general agreement that the ability to produce crops immediately led to the ability to produce agricultural surpluses and “wealth.” With it came a desire for men who accumulated wealth to bequeath it to their offspring. Which only became possible by instituting control over their partner’s (but not their own) sexuality.<<

So the claim is made that previously in matriarchal societies there was no knowledge of the male's role in making babies.

But then in this paragraph above the author does not think that "raising livestock"/domestication of animals could have been the way that an understanding of male fertility would have brought with it a challenge in the form of a male-centered mythos, and so, support the earlier statement? Hmmmm.

[That pre-science male mythos being that it was Man's Seed that was planted in the woman; she's just dirt for the seed sorta thang. Unfortunately, patriarchy has taken such thorough hold, that even when science shows it is an endeavor of equally participating egg and sperm, the attitude/myth of male superiority lives on. (And don't say I'm behind the times on this, because, in our nation, women do NOT receive equal pay for equal work.)]

------

On another aspect of this writing, if only Freud et al had also used the term biological drives to refer to numerous drives that need to be in balance with the sex drive, and acknowledged that reproductive drive and sexual drive are only two of those drives. Perhaps then it would be easier to see that the perverted cultural/societal repression of the sexual drive is really an expression of one of the other drives being out of balance. What might that other biological drive be, I wonder?

Maybe there might be a clue in the fundamentalist approach to school "sex" education classes. Fundamentalists seem to claim that their abstinence only classes are still teaching biology when they are actually avoiding the biological aspects (information that would constitute scientific information), and replacing biological information with their own fundamentalist Religious, Cultural and Societal notions. What out-of-balance "biological drive" would the Fundamentalists be expressing as they do this?

Are they expressing a drive to dominate, perhaps?

Image. Image. Image.

Now miso will never taste the same....

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100702/ap_on_re_us/us_psy_ops_name_change

[excerpt]

WILMINGTON, N.C. – The Army has dropped the Vietnam-era name "psychological operations" for its branch in charge of trying to change minds behind enemy lines, acknowledging the term can sound ominous.

The Defense Department picked a more neutral moniker: "Military Information Support Operations," or MISO.

U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Ken McGraw said Thursday the new name, adopted last month, more accurately reflects the unit's job of producing leaflets, radio broadcasts and loudspeaker messages to influence enemy soldiers and civilians.

"One of the catalysts for the transition is foreign and domestic sensitivities to the term 'psychological operations' that often lead to a misunderstanding of the mission," McGraw said.

Fort Bragg is home to the 4th Psychological Operations Group, the Army's only active duty psychological operations unit. Psychological operations soldiers are trained at the post.

The name change is expected to extend to all military services, a senior defense official said in Washington. The official, who has direct knowledge of the change, spoke on condition of anonymity because not all services have announced how they will revamp or rename their psychological operations offices.

[end excerpt]

Center for Constitutional Rights has filed the request...

http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/rights-group-files-foia-re...

BP's Toxic Spewage has entered the food chain.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/01/96909/oil-found-in-gulf-crabs-rais...

[excerpt]

BILOXI, Miss. — University scientists have spotted the first indications oil is entering the Gulf seafood chain — in crab larvae — and one expert warns the effect on fisheries could last “years, probably not a matter of months” and affect many species.

Scientists with the University of Southern Mississippi and Tulane University in New Orleans have found droplets of oil in the larvae of blue crabs and fiddler crabs sampled from Louisiana to Pensacola, Fla. The news comes as blobs of oil and tar continue to wash ashore in Mississippi in patches, with crews in chartreuse vests out cleaning beaches all along the coast on Thursday, and as state and federal fisheries from Louisiana to Florida are closed by the BP oil disaster.

"I think we will see this enter the food chain in a lot of ways — for plankton feeders, like menhaden, they are going to just actively take it in," said Harriet Perry, director of the Center for Fisheries Research and Development at the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory. "Fish are going to feed on (crab larvae). We have also just started seeing it on the fins of small, larval fish — their fins were encased in oil. That limits their mobility, so that makes them easy prey for other species. The oil's going to get into the food chain in a lot of ways."

Perry said researchers have not yet linked the hydrocarbons found in the crab larvae to the BP disaster, but she has little doubt it's the source. She said she has never seen such contamination in her 42 years of studying blue crab.

[end excerpt]

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/01/96909/oil-found-in-gulf-crabs-rais...

http://www.naturalnews.com/029130_Gulf_of_Mexico_censorship.html

[excerpt]

(NaturalNews) As CNN is now reporting, the U.S. government has issued a new rule that would make it a felony crime for any journalist, reporter, blogger or photographer to approach any oil cleanup operation, equipment or vessel in the Gulf of Mexico. Anyone caught is subject to arrest, a $40,000 fine and prosecution for a federal felony crime.

CNN reporter Anderson Cooper says, "A new law passed today, and back by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, ... will prevent reporters and photographers from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife just about any place we need to be. By now you're probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they're working for because they're afraid of losing their jobs."

Watch the video clip yourself at NaturalNews.TV: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=203

The rule, of course, is designed to restrict the media's access to cleanup operations in order to keep images of oil-covered seabirds off the nation's televisions. With this, the Gulf Coast cleanup operation has now entered a weird Orwellian reality where the news is shaped, censored and controlled by the government in order to prevent the public from learning the truth about what's really happening in the Gulf.

The war is on to control your mind
If all this sounds familiar, it's because the U.S. government uses this same tactic during every war. The first casualty of war, as they say, is the truth. There are lots of war images the government doesn't want you to see (like military helicopter pilots shooting up Reuters photographers while screaming "Yee-Haw!" over the comm radios), and there are other images they do want you to see ("surgical strike" explosions from "smart" bombs, which makes it seem like the military is doing something useful). So war reporting is carefully monopolized by the government to deliver precisely the images they want you to see while censoring everything else.

Now the same Big Brother approach is being used in the Gulf of Mexico: Criminalize journalists, censor the story and try to keep the American people ignorant of what's really happening. It's just the latest tactic from a government that no longer even recognizes the U.S. Constitution or its Bill of Rights. Because the very first right is Freedom of Speech, which absolutely includes the right to walk onto a public beach and take photographs of something happening out in the open, on public waters. It is one of the most basic rights of our citizens and our press.

But now the Obama administration has stripped away those rights, transforming journalists into criminals. Now, we might expect something like this from Chavez, or Castro or even the communist leaders of China, but here in the United States, we've all been promised we lived in "the land of the free." Obama apparently does not subscribe to that philosophy anymore (if he ever did).

So how does criminalizing journalists equate to "land of the free?" It doesn't, obviously. Forget freedom. (Your government already has.) This is about controlling your mind to make sure you don't visually see the truth of what the oil industry has done to your oceans, your shorelines and your beaches. This is all about keeping you ignorant with a total media blackout of the real story of what's happening in the Gulf.

The real story, you see, is just too ugly. And the government has fracked up the cleanup effort to such a ridiculous extent that instead of the "transparency" they once promised, they're now resorting to the threat of arrest for all journalists who try to get close enough to cover the story....

[end excerpt]

and I have a headache.

The Dems are to blame, are they not?

Hey that Thad Allen bought himself a mighty fine $3,000 GQ suit with his BP money, now didn't he?

Is he also lightin' his cigars with dollah bills?

Sheesh.

Thad Allen now looks just like a Corporation Man!

It looks to me like using COREXIT dispersant does four things for BP and friends:

o BP gets to hide the oil below the ocean surface
o BP makes money on the COREXIT itself
o BP deducts cost of COREXIT from its liabilities
o BP and friends dump this outlawed toxic dispersant into the Gulf instead of disposing of it properly and put those dollars in their profits instead

It must stop.

http://www.naturalnews.com/029127_Gulf_Coast_cleanup.html

AND, resources from link above:

Corexit (the stuff BP is using as a dispersant) is Killing the Gulf (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2fl...

Oil Eating Microbes Used Successfully by Texas Gov't for Oil Spills (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vfy...

Florida Farmers Propose Hay for Gulf Clean-up (video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7Jk...

Hay Used for 1969 Santa Barbara, CA Spill (text and pictures)
http://www.rense.com/general90/barb.htm

ABC Video Report: Cousteau Jr Dives into the Goop
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/div...

Siphoning Up Existing Oil for BP Resale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wKs...

Dots to Connect?
http://redicecreations.com/article....

Aren't thse percentages something else? Are some monied risk takers somewhere making bets on the figures right now?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-20100703,...

[excerpt]

Using computer simulations based on 15 years of wind and ocean current data, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a report Friday showing a 61% to 80% chance of the oil spill reaching within 20 miles of the coasts of the Florida Keys, Fort Lauderdale and Miami, mostly likely in the form of weathered tar balls.

Shorelines with the greatest chance of being soiled by oil — 81% to 100% — stretch from the Mississippi River Delta to the western Florida Panhandle, NOAA scientists said in a statement on its projections for the next four months.

[end excerpt]

...and not happy about the news. I have just got to wonder whether the Dems are intentionally trying to lose the election. Although for the life of me, you would have to be stupid or mentally ill to vote reThug. Can we get a third party going? Please!

...posting on an iPhone is not so easy. I'll be back when I get to my laptop.

Of course the Dems are to blame.

And the liberal servant Obama media who did their very best to help Obama and his campaign chain gang to hoodwink the voters who refused to think on their own to elect him Prez. They all owe everybody an apology. No matter who voted for Obama and who didn't - Everybody has to suffer the consequences now.

The Obamawriting was on the wall so big, I will never understand how people fell for such an obfuscating incompetent candidate. I listened to the rest of his acceptance speech and every single sentence was a lie. Like I said .... Never in a million years. When I saw all the old gang join the Obama Admin I knew it was all over for sure. Felt the same way when I say Rumsfield and Cheney come back in 2000. I was physically sick and I kid you not.

Re Voting Rethug or NeoDem? What is the difference? There is no such thing as a liberal progressive party anymore. They all march towards the same goal. What we are left with now is a two-headed monster and it is v. possible that if we have a third party we will have a three-headed monster. One party, three heads.

You give me an INDEPENDENT Candidate who can convince me that he has integrity to spare, speaks the truth and will fight to lead the country back into the right direction, honor the constitution, this country and every other country - and give us back our peace and freedom - I will support that Candidate. IMO the partys are all dangerous monsters after 10 years of solid Warmongering. They are so unbelievably dishonest and outdated and I hope every single congressperson up for election loses big time. Repubs and Dems, Independents .... they all must go.

I just spent three ours studying chemtrails, Nora. I just told Mr. B about it and he is studying it now himself on the net.
I am not a happy camper and I better stop before I rant and rant and rant some more.

But I appreciate everything you posted the last couple days and will watch the BP whistle blower on Thursday on TV. Its on Thursday, right?

xo

P.S. Can't wait to watch the Oliver Stone document about South America. After watching Che and The Motorcycle Diaries that will be esp. interesting.

I watched Tariq Ali in 2005 discuss Chavez on CSPAN and pretty much ignored anything the US badmouthing media has said about him since.

XE has endangered species BBQ with a a poppy flower salad to celebrate the 4th of July. and real orignal Coca Cola from the 1894 formula. Of course Nascar is on the big screen and the wait staff is all un-documented..

I hope the rest of you can muster up some bit of summer joy with or with out miso soup loaded with aspergillus oryzae .

as long as we have the right to write what we feel there is still hope. It is healthy to face the facts of the fukt democratic party. .

good night and be careful with your sparklers.!

Glenn Greenwald covers a study of newspaper coverage--

http://www.infowars.com/new-study-documents-medias-servitude-to-governme...

A review of The Politics of Genocide--an amazing overview:

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/07/reviewing-the-politics-of-genocide/

It is in a DEEEEEEP canyon--You gotta go see the actual topography of the Gulf of Mexico and adjoining Caribbean! Amazing. AND locations of offshore oilwells; shocking. (Apologies if this is a repost.)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19813

[excerpt]

Some oil industry professionals are worried that a landslide at the spill site could make the oil spill much worse by carrying away the blowout preventer, riser and all other equipment. While I have no idea how likely it is that a landslide could occur before the well is capped, it is true that:

(1) The spill site is located in a steep canyon, as discussed above;

(2) There are hundreds of feet of loose mud and muck on top of the sea floor in this area; and

(3) Many deepwater, oil-rich areas within the Gulf are tectonically active.

[end excerpt]

thx 4 SS-B. Barker Vid
;)

BLOODY HELL WTF GRRR!