Rewriting history, Texas style

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BITS for May 2010

Hay! This will remove oil in the gulf.
The Republican Party has given their lunatic fringe (or is it their mainstream?) a new venue for speaking out about "true" american values.
Sign of the times in California real estate: There are more than two real estate agents for each house on the market.
"Monterey County AIDS Project accused of misusing $2.8 million". These leeches should be put away for a long time.
A first-hand look at oil cleanup on the Louisiana coast.
Lots of films (non-theatrical) from around a century ago.
Cool! Now I'll be able to get a Prius that goes 0 to 60 mph in 4 seconds.
Rap dealt another death blow with 'Swagger Wagon'.
And they say learning math is a waste of time. Alabama Geometry teacher shows best trajectory for assassinating Obama.
Ugly as hell, but hey, if it works then sign me up when I retire.
Think twice before you make your next copy of a legal document.
California's women are taking the brunt of the recession's effects on the state's population.
Sheriff of Arizona county that borders Mexico is strongly against new state immigration law.
Some of these fixes are actually quite ingenious.
Meg Whitman's run for the Republican nomination for California Governor just keeps getting more fascinating.
"Get out of there!" and "It's gonna blow!"
NOAA will keep you abreast of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.
How to kill iPhone envy.
The Khan Academy is a wealth of free educational lecture videos on hundreds of subjects. Makes learning fun again.
As much as I hate the term "conservative" these days, I am glad that I've got my 401K set to very conservative choices so that events that happened this week won't wipe me out.
Republican Congressman wants to deport some U.S. citizens. Maybe he should be the first to go.
Great satellite shots of the oil spill as compiled by Google
New way to clean your kitchen floor (video)

Here's my slate for the California June 8 Election:

Governor - Jerry Brown U.S. Senate - Barbara Boxer Secretary of State - Debra Bowen Controller - John Chiang Treasurer - Bill Lockyer Insurance Commissioner - Hector dela Torre Board of Equalization-District 1 - Betty T. Yee Board of Equalization-District 2 - Chris Parker Board of Equalization-District 4  - Jerome E. Horton Proposition 13 - Earthquake Safety Measure - YES Proposition 14 - "Top Two" Primary - NO Proposition 15 - California Fair Elections Act - YES Proposition 16 - Utility Power Grab - NO Proposition 17 - Insurance Rate Hike Initiative - NO

Glenn Greenwald explains yesterday's anti-establishment election results:

"....It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment.  Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade:  a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage.  The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is.  But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.....

"If you take steps to prevent a disaster from happening, and the disaster doesn't happen, it's hard to know whether it would have happened if you hadn't taken the steps to prevent it."

Nice quote by Chairman of the Republican Policy Committee, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), supporting Sen. Bob Bennett's (R-Utah) support for TARP. Bennett was ousted by his state party at their recent nominating convention, led by those rascally and endearing tea baggers.

See why this graph is a predictor of more bad news for the economy HERE.

C'mon, how big is the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, really? By Patrik Jonsson, Staff writer posted May 1, 2010 at 11:49 am EDT Atlanta — Calculating the exact flow of crude out of the bent Deepwater Horizon oil rig "riser" pipe on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is difficult. But it's now likely that the actual amount of the oil spill dwarfs the Coast Guard's figure of 5,000 barrels, or 210,000 gallons, a day. Independent scientists estimate that the renegade wellhead at the bottom of the Gulf could be spewing up to 25,000 barrels a day. If chokeholds on the riser pipe break down further, up to 50,000 barrels a day could be released, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration memo obtained by the Mobile, Ala., Press-Register. As estimates of the spill increase, questions about the government's honesty in assessing the spill are emerging. At the same time, pressure is building for the US to release worst-case scenario estimates so residents of the Gulf Coast can adequately prepare. Meanwhile, BP is working furiously to do the unprecedented: Activate a faulty blowout preventer a mile under the Gulf to stop the leak at its source. If that fails, it could take three months, or more, to drill a relief well in order to plug the renegade well. “In the environmental arena, risk modeling is done day-in and day-out for every type of pollutant, whether going in the water, earth or air," says Stuart Smith, an environmentl attorney in New Orleans, in a statement. "Why are BP and the Environmental Protection Agency not releasing such information to the public? After originally saying the rig wasn't leaking at all, the Coast Guard originally used estimates in part provided by BP to describe the size of the spill as 1,000 barrels a day. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on March 20, killing 11 and injuring 17 of a 126-member crew. It exploded again and sank 36 hours later. The resulting leak has created a Jamaica-sized oil slick that is now whirling in a hurricane shape into sensitive marshes of the Louisiana coastline, endangering birds, fish, oysters, and many peoples’ livelihoods. President Obama prepared to visit the affected area this weekend as the government began wresting control of the relief operation from BP, which leased the Deepwater Horizon rig, and which has so far provided leak estimates based on reconnaisance of the crumpled pipe done by remote-controlled mini-subs on the murky bottom. Officials say measuring the outflow is extremely difficult – like trying to gauge by eye the amount of water spurting from a leaky garden hose. The Obama administration, which only a month ago proposed opening up new coastal areas for oil exploration, has put on hold all new exploratory drilling along the US continental shelf and is now fighting to stay ahead of what sociologist Steven Picou at the University of South Alabama calls a "monster catastrophe that boggles the mind." A government report obtained by the Mobile, Ala., Press-Register explains that "choke points" in the crumpled riser are controlling the flow from the so-called Macondo well at Lease Block 252 in the Mississippi Canyon. But scrubbing action from sand in the oil is further eroding the pipe. There are likely tens of millions of gallons in the deposit that BP tapped with the Deepwater Horizon. "The following is not public," reads National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Emergency Response document dated April 28, according to the Press-Register. "Two additional release points were found today. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought." An order of magnitude is a factor of 10. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that John Amos, an oil industry consultant, said that NOAA revised its original estimate of 1,000 barrels after he published calculations based on satellite data that showed a larger flow. The 5,000 barrels a day is the "extremely low end" of estimates, Mr. Amos told the Journal. "There's a range of uncertainty, and it's very difficult to accurately gauge how much there is," BP spokesman John Curry told the Journal.

Here's a very nice summary of what's going on and the possible consequences to our environment. It's all very disturbing, to say the least.

On the other hand....

Gray Makes Sense

Greed, negligence behind BP oil spill By Donna Brazile, CNN Contributor May 3, 2010 5:19 p.m. EDT (CNN) -- I spent a restless night, worrying that another man-made disaster might devastate my beloved hometown, New Orleans, just as its post-Katrina motto "Recover, Rebuild, Rebirth" was becoming real. The oil spill couldn't come at a worse time. Everybody was so up, waiting for the inauguration of our newly elected Mayor Mitch Landrieu. The BP oil spill threatens New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast in a way that's more insidious than Hurricane Katrina. After all, the failure of the levees and the response from the previous administration, widely criticized for incompetence and indifference, followed an act of nature: the destruction, immediate; the impact, obvious; and the pain and suffering, visible to all. The BP disaster has only one cause: human greed, and the almost inevitable result, negligence. The immediate tragedy was that 11 people died. But the destruction that will result from BP's "crude river" will be long-term and the impact far from obvious. The "crude river" will spawn streams of suffering: economic, environmental and emotional. So as the "Big Muddy" fights the "Big Cruddy," how do we assess the players? And what actions should be taken against rigged disasters, both once and future? First, we must hold BP accountable and responsible. Was it an accident? Only if we define "accident" as negligence. The failure of the "shear ram," the set of steel blades intended to slash through a pipe at the top of a well and close off the flow of crude, should not have surprised BP or the corporations that work for it. Eight years ago, the Minerals Management Service found that 50 percent of the shear rams tested failed. So calling the failure of the "last resort device" an accident is like calling the damage caused by a drunken driver an accident. Failure to take the proper precautions is not an accident; it's negligence. BP has rightly accepted responsibility. We may grant the company a skeptical benefit of the doubt regarding its willingness to pay for the cleanup and the damages. We should, however, monitor its PR-to-payout ratio. But we should not lose sight of the role of companies like Halliburton, under investigation because it was responsible for the cement seal that apparently leaked; Cameron International, which supplied the rig's blowout prevention system; or Transocean, which manufactured the rig. As the federal government begins its investigation, it should ask not only who was negligent, but why. To what extent did profit preclude prudence? Since BP can't contain the spill -- rather, the river, which is what it really is -- government at all levels must do what it's supposed to do, and do it right. For example, officials should carry out Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser's plan to deploy local fishermen with booms on movable platforms in the Gulf, ready to "draw a line in the sand," depending on how the oil moves. Gov. Bobby Jindal has approved. Already the response from the Obama administration exceeds that of the federal response to Katrina, and the oil hasn't yet begun to cause the catastrophic damage we all fear. The morning after the explosion, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes was sent to the Gulf. The morning after the explosion, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David J. Hayes was sent to the Gulf. President Obama began monitoring the situation, staying in contact with the governors of the five Gulf states, making sure every available resource be at their disposal and ordering a coordinated Cabinet-level response. Here are a few authorizations the president has made, before his personal visit. • The U.S. Coast Guard; the Departments of Homeland Security, Commerce and Interior; and the Environmental Protection Agency immediately began directing and overseeing BP's response. • The Navy is using advanced technology and working with the Coast Guard to contain and disperse the oil. • The Departments of Homeland Security and Interior will be investigating the cause and inspecting all platforms and rigs in the Gulf. • The secretary of defense is authorizing the Louisiana National Guard to help communities in the cleanup and to protect critical habitats from contamination. But Obama has to let people know what's being done, what will be done, and that he takes this personally. He needs to express, perhaps as only he can, that the federal government gets it. He gets the plight of the fishermen, the restaurants, the waiters, the taxi drivers -- the economic ripple effect and the environmental tide of disaster. This is a visual and visceral crisis. If he handles it right, it will be known as a sign of Obama's competence. Obama can't split the sea, but he must help to plug the Gulf. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Donna Brazile.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Papers! By RON JACOBS The new anti-immigrant law in Arizona (SB 1070) is more than a racist law. It is a device designed to divide and conquer. It's not designed to just divide white-hued folks from brown hued ones; nor is it designed to merely divide citizens from non-citizens. It is also designed to divide Latinos. If one looks to previous such laws, say in Nazi Germany or apartheid South Africa, they will find stories of Jews who turned in their fellow Jews and South African blacks who turned in their fellow Africans. A common motivation for this behavior was the belief that by turning in a supposedly illegal person, the forces of the law would not turn their wrath on those who were doing the turning in. This scenario rests on the very supposition that a person can or can not be illegal. Illegality is a human construct. It can be given and taken away at the whim of those in power. Laws such as Arizona's SB 1070 utilize the suppositions inherent in this construct by labeling a certain type of person as illegal. It then takes this supposition and applies it to everyone, no matter whether they are legal or not in the eyes of the state. In Arizona, it works like this. There are many Latinos in the state of Arizona that do not have the necessary documents that would make it legal for them to live in Arizona. Most of these Latinos are brown-skinned. There are also many Latinos who live in Arizona that are either native-born US citizens or have documents that state they are in Arizona legally. SB 1070 mandates that the police in Arizona check the documents of everyone whom they suspect of being in their state illegally. This means that either the police are to develop a special sense to determine who is living there illegally before they ask for identification or they are to ask for the required documents at their whim. Furthermore, if a citizen thinks someone is without documents stating their legal status and the police fail to investigate this citizen's belief, those police will be in violation of the law. Secondary violations of any part of the law by any party are considered to be felonies and will result in prison time for the offending party. The response to this law from politicians, the media and other self-appointed societal guardians has been mixed at best. Some have come out against it while others have come out strongly in favor. Most, however, seem to be waiting to see which way the political winds blow. We are told by many of the politicians that are against SB 1070 that this law is "un-American." This is categorically untrue. The historical record of the United States is filled with laws whose only intention was to maintain a second class status for certain immigrants. From the laws enforcing the slave status of Africans to the Chinese Exclusion Acts; from laws institutionalizing racial segregation in the US South to the various employment schemes designed to control the flow of Latinos into the fields and other workplaces of corporate America, there is very little that is so profoundly "American" as legalized discrimination against immigrants, especially those labeled non-white. Of course, most politicians speaking out against SB 1070 are unlikely to share this understanding of history. This doesn't render their opposition irrelevant. Instead, it provides the more radical wing of the movement for a humane immigration policy with an opportunity to gain the ears of these politicians and their supporters. The opportunity to challenge the idea that some people can be illegal merely by their presence has never been greater. Indeed, Arizona's attempt to codify that idea has the potential to expose anti-immigrant sentiment for the ultimately racist sentiment that it is. Getting back to the point made earlier in this piece, this law is about creating division. National borders are reinforced to control wages of workers of all nationalities and to create and maintain divisions. Laws like SB 1070 are merely internal extensions of those borders. Just like imperial war, immigration control is a tool of the imperial elites in their pursuit of domination and profit. If the immigrant rights movement wants to be truly successful, it must keep this perception as its basis. While opposing laws like SB 1070 is crucial, the movement's essential demand must be the eradication of borders--especially those borders that restrict humans from crossing them.

I'm against borders of any kind. As animals of this planet, we have the right to go anywhere we please.

Incredible Update

Received my Droid Incredible phone April 29th (would've had it a day earlier but I missed the FedEx delivery). Comparing this to my Blackberry 8830, all I can say is that it's like going from a Yugo to a BMW. It really does everything Verizon claims, and the browser speed is comparable to my Dell Studio XPS laptop w/ Vista (when using WiFi). Be careful to read reviews when purchasing software and accessories, as some stuff is not compatible and the manufacturer might not mention that in their descriptions, whereas the disappointed reviewers most definitely will. The only disappointment so far is that I've been unable to find a desk cradle for it (besides that goofy leather one with a large hole). I plan to buy a spare, higher-capacity battery, some spare charger cables for work and home, and screen protectors. I recommend Skyfire browser if you want to be able to view some online videos besides YouTube. So far the phone is living up to its hype.