September 2, 2010 by mike.

Initial reports say the crew got off and all are accounted for. Hopefully, this will not turn out to be another runaway well.

clipped from news.yahoo.com Gulf oil platform explodes, burning off La. coast GRAND ISLE, La. – An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP’s undersea well spilled after a rig explosion. The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known. The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.

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September 2, 2010 by mike.

If there was ever any reason for us to invade Afghanistan, it got away along Osama Bin Laden when Bush let the Al Qaeda folks slip away into Pakistan from Tora Bora.

Now we are in a really disastrous situation in Afpakistan, an area that is home to both nuclear weapons and a lot of folks with a grudge against the US.

I never expected anything good from the Bush-Cheney folks, but I thought the Obama administration might make better choices, but I have been disappointed as Obama earns his warrior scout badge by escalating the death and destruction in Afghanistan.

Too bad about this Kabul Bank, though. Are we going to need to prop up another bank? Can we persuade Kabul Bank to merge with Goldman Sachs?

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Nervous Afghans pull money from Kabul Bank, raising fears KABUL - With Afghans clamoring to pull their cash from their nation’s biggest bank, the United States risks a politically perilous decision: whether to step in to help shore up a wobbly bank critical not only to Afghanistan’s economy but also to the battle against the Taliban. A swarm of customers at the headquarters of Kabul Bank in the Afghan capital on Wednesday raised the prospect of a full-scale bank run that would further alienate dispirited Afghans from their government and imperil American efforts to contain the insurgency.

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September 1, 2010 by mike.

Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada spoke to a capacity crowd at the Olympia Center about why the Olympia Food Co-op decision to join the Palestinian Boycott Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement was a big deal. And up the road a piece in Seattle, a guy walked into a convenience store and assaulted the store employee who was wearing a turban.

I caught that story on Slate, who say they got it from Talking Points Memo, but the Slate link jumps to Gawker.

I think that assault story is part of the larger wave of Islamophobia that is being stoked by the right-wing as an election tactic and it’s a big story.  But the possibility of pressing Israel to deal fairly with the Palestinians through the BDS movement, the tactic that has been used in the past against South African apartheid, against grapes to support the UFW and Cesar Chavez and more is also a big story.

Ali Abunimah was persuasive, rational, collected and engaging.  He’s an articulate spokesman for Palestine.

Speaking of elections, Feingold seems to be in a tight race in Wisconsin, Murkowski got bumped by a tea partier who found some room to Murkowski’s right, and the prospects for the dems holding on to any congressional majorities continue to dim.

We progressives may feel it makes no difference when the dems are as hapless as they have been since the 2006 election when they were given a chance by the electorate, but then there is always the opportunity to look back and wonder if a President Gore would have used the 9-11 events to attack Iraq.  Even though Obama again declared the mission complete in Iraq yesterday, we will continue to reap the dubious benefits of that military adventure for many years and we are facing deficit hawks who want to cut Medicare and Social Security, but have no reservations about deficits if we are putting boots on the ground, drones in the air, or bailing out the bankers.

Oh, weather report - there’s a hurricane approaching the east coast.  Not just the political storm of tea parties in sequins, Hurricane Earl is currently pointed at North Carolina.    Category 4, that’s a big storm.  Earl also.

Cheers!

clipped from gawker.com A Washington man was charged with a hate crime today for assaulting a 7-11 clerk wearing a turban last week. His words to the convenience store employee? “You’re not even American, you’re Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country.” A 35-year-old Seattle man has been charged with a hate crime for allegedly punching a 7-11 clerk in the head. Police say Brock Stainbrook walked into the 7-11 just after midnight Aug. 24, approached a clerk wearing a turban, threw change on the floor and then punched the clerk in the side of the head. “You’re not even American, you’re Al-Qaeda. Go back to your country,” he then said, according to police. Another clerk then forced the man, kicking and screaming, to leave the store. Police picked him up a few blocks away after witnesses described a man in a white shirt, black pants and carrying one shoe. The Post-Intelligencer notes that the victim’s last name “is common within the Sikh community.” (Sikhs are, notably, not Muslim.)

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August 29, 2010 by mike.

I think that covers our options.

clipped from climateprogress.org Real adaptation is as politically tough as real mitigation, but much more expensive and not as effective in reducing future misery Rhetorical adaptation, however, is a political winner. Too bad it means preventable suffering for billions. clipped from climateprogress.org We basically have three choices: mitigation, adaptation and suffering. We’re going to do some of each. The question is what the mix is going to be. The more mitigation we do, the less adaptation will be required and the less suffering there will be. clipped from climateprogress.org August 27, 2010

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August 29, 2010 by mike.

Planet Earth’s attic is on fire.

clipped from climateprogress.org Arctic sea ice volume heads toward record low as Northwest Passage melts free fourth year in a row Masters rebukes disinformers: “Diminishing the importance of Arctic sea ice loss by calling attention to Antarctic sea ice gain is like telling someone to ignore the fire smoldering in their attic, and instead go appreciate the coolness of the basement, because there is no fire there. Planet Earth’s attic is on fire.” Arctic sea ice volume heads toward record low as Northwest Passage melts free fourth year in a row Chris Mooney has a good piece in New Scientist, “Arctic ice: Less than meets the eye,” the source of the above figures.  Mooney focuses on the work of Canada’s David Barber — you can find his peer-reviewed work here:  “Where on Earth is it unusually warm? Greenland and the Arctic Ocean, which is full of rotten ice” — New study supports finding that “the amount of [multi-year] sea ice in the northern hemisphere was the lowest on record in 2009.” Mooney also discusses the PIOMAS ice volume model developed by the University of Washington’s Polar Science Center in Seattle, which I have been featuring on CP this year.  Their analysis finds “not only has the total volume of Arctic ice continued to decline since 2007, but that the rate of loss is accelerating” [see also Arctic death spiral: Naval Postgrad School’s Maslowski “projects ice-free* fall by 2016 (+/- 3 yrs)”].

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August 29, 2010 by mike.

From Peaceful Rivers:

Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still.

This one time upon the earth, let’s not speak any language,

let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much.

It would be a delicious moment, without hurry, without locomotives,

all of us would be together in a sudden uneasiness.

The fishermen in the cold sea would do no harm to the whales

and the peasant gathering salt would look at his torn hands.

Those who prepare green wars, wars of gas, wars of fire,

victories without survivors, would put on clean clothing

and would walk alongside their brothers in the shade, without doing a thing.

There is more, of course, but you get the sense of it.

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August 29, 2010 by mike.

Talking Points Memo has the Robert Reich oped piece on intolerance. Intolerance, violence, bigotry seem to be in the air.

In times of fear, Americans will compromise their most basic civil rights for the false promise of security. Need an example? Look back at Japanese internment after the Pearl Harbor attack.

Reich’s piece is dead-on imho, but it is an uphill battle reaching the cerebral cortex of america when the reptile brain is responding so strongly to the fear-mongering.

What did FDR say? All we have to fear is what? Japanese among us? Mosques at Ground Zero? Communists in the State Department?

No, it was all we have to fear is fear itself. Come on, step up, be brave.

clipped from tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com The Anatomy of Intolerance Connect the dots: Many Americans (and politicians who the polls) don’t want a mosque at Manhattan’s Ground Zero. An increasing percent believe the President is a Muslim. Most Americans approve of Arizona’s new law allowing police to stop anyone who looks Hispanic and demand proof of citizenship. Most would deny citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are here illegally. Where is all this coming from? It’s called fear. When people are deeply anxious about holding on to their homes, their jobs, and their savings, they look for someone to blame. And all too often they find it in “the other” - in people who look or act differently, who come from foreign lands, who have what seem to be strange religions, who cross our borders illegally. Economic fear is the handmaiden of intolerance. It’s used by demagogues who redirect the fear and anger toward people and groups who aren’t really to blame but are easy scapegoats.

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August 28, 2010 by mike.

Yes, please. Check your hatred. Check your lunacy. Check your bigotry before you go any further.

In NY the conflict, rhetoric and hate crimes are building up in response to the fear-mongering, the wedge-politics of the opposition to the Ground Zero mosque - Cordoba House, a community center blocks away from the Twin Towers.

In Olympia, the home of slain activist Rachel Corrie, the boycott divestment and sanction movement is roiling the community and spilling over around the Northwest Coast. BDS Olympia has made the news for its work to persuade the Olympia Food Co-op to join the BDS movement.

Many folks who feel a special kinship with the State of Israel are in an uproar and the community is engaged in an animated and heated debate about Israel, Palestine, boycotts, two state/one state solutions and more.

clipped from theactivist.org “This Is A Checkpoint!” Posted by Chris Maisano on 8/26/10 • Categorized as Culture,Domestic,International,News and Views When I first read about how Michael Enright nearly murdered New York City cab driver Ahmed Sharif simply because he is Muslim, I immediately assumed that the hysterical campaign against the Park51 “Ground Zero Mosque” had resulted in the kind of violent act it seemed it would inevitably produce. Over the last few weeks, the civic atmosphere here in New York turned poisonous as the conflict over Park51 reached a fever pitch. I have personally overheard numerous people around the city commenting ignorantly on the project, its backers, and Islam itself. Last Sunday, hundreds of people protested against the Park51 project in lower Manhattan in a demonstration inspired by raving Islamophobes like Pam Geller, whose Atlas Shrugs blog provides a glimpse into the terriyfing dreamscape that is the far-right id. Unsurprisigly, video emerged of a rabble of know-nothings accosting a black man falsely assumed to be Muslim and shouting charming epithets like “Muhammad was a pig!” Read the whole post at The Activist.

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August 28, 2010 by mike.

I guess we should sing Happy Birthday.   But it’s a little discouraging really.

Real Climate remembers climatologist Wally Broecker’s 1975 article in Science where he laid out the problem of CO2 accumulated heat on the planet.

Real Climate is for climate wonks. Always worth keeping an eye on the discussion there.

clipped from www.realclimate.org Happy 35th birthday, global warming! Global warming is turning 35! Not only has the current spate of global warming been going on for about 35 years now, but also the term “global warming” will have its 35th anniversary next week. On 8 August 1975, Wally Broecker published his paper “Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?” in the journal Science. That appears to be the first use of the term “global warming” in the scientific literature (at least it’s the first of over 10,000 papers for this search term according to the ISI database of journal articles). To those who even today claim that global warming is not predictable, the anniversary of Broecker’s paper is a reminder that global warming was actually predicted before it became evident in the global temperature records over a decade later (when Jim Hansen in 1988 famously stated that “global warming is here”).

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August 27, 2010 by mike.

Two stories that are in the news caught my attention.  The massive egg recall story reminds me why I buy my eggs from the Egg Lady in South Olympia.  She has a pretty big operation, hundreds of chickens, but the chickens are free to run in a fairly large space.  They look like happy chickens, if chickens experience joy walking around pecking at the ground.  It’s not an industrial scene where the chickens are trapped in very tight spaces with lots of other chickens.  This small farm operation looks good to me.  The industrialization of farming has some risks as the recent massive egg recall suggests.

The other story that caught my attention was the judicial decision that has effectively stopped embryonic stem cell research again.   There are lots of ways to look at this story, but I was thinking about the inconsistency of our political positions on the sanctity of life.  Dvorak Uncensored was also contemplating the sharia law implications of the debate.

Folks who are emphatically opposed to stem cell research because they believe a fertilized egg is a human being don’t seem to get up in arms over genetically modified crops and animals.  That upset is left to more liberal, tree hugging types who are not impressed with the inherent humanity of an embryonic stem cell line. And it continues down the line, progressives often don’t like the death penalty or drone attacks that take human life, but the conservatives who get apoplectic over human embryos seem less distressed by collateral damage, you know, children maimed and killed by proximity to our war on terror.

I am uneasy about the use of embryos as basic fuel for scientific research, but then I am uneasy about embryos in general.  I have a sense there are too many of us walking and pecking on this small blue planet and I don’t see how this species can collectively sort out the question of how, when, why we can decide who gets to carry a human embryo to term, and as the environment degrades, we face the demand to feel compassion over and over again for large numbers of human beings displaced by extreme weather, flooding, by drought, by food shortage, and sea rise displacement is on the horizon.  We are in this together, whether we are the folks displaced or the temporarily comfortable worrying about the folks dealing with flooding in Pakistan, or Tennessee or wherever.

Store owner Richard Dorer in the Tennessee link mentions that this is the second thousand year flood that has brought water into his store.  I don’t know if he has his stats down quite right, but I am willing to wager that Mr. Dorer believes that something is different about weather patterns on the planet.

Connect the dots.

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