Facing the Future as a Media Felon on the Gulf Coast

LA Progressive, links and photos:

The United States Coast Guard considers me a felon now, because I “willfully” want to obtain more photos like these to show you the utter devastation occurring in Barataria Bay, Louisiana, as a result of the BP oil catastrophe. If the Coast Guard has its way, all media, not just independent writers and photographers like myself and Jerry Moran, will be fined $40,000 and receive Class D felony convictions for providing the truth about oiled birds and dolphins, in addition to broken, filthy, unmanned boom material that is trapping oil in the marshlands and estuaries. We don’t have $40,000 to spare, and have had to scrape the bottoms of our checkbooks as is to hire boats to take us to the devastation the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP, does not want you to see.

The chilling money line is "the Coast Guard, under the direction of BP".

Working and reporting from American Gulf Coast is starting to remind me of working in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where photos and recordings must be hidden on secreted flash drives at border crossings, and where interrogation by drunken border patrols certainly follows if one does not provide a proper “explanation” for visits to certain regions. In 2007, I was accused of being a “spy” and held by the secret police in Goma, DRC, for having video of illicit “conservation” activities. Now the same sick feelings of fear, anger, and helplessness is stalking my mind as I try to plan for the next round in south Louisiana. Never in my lifetime could I imagine that a foreign company could dictate my ability to move freely and openly in American territorial waters (my em).

What’s next? Will media be totally shut down? Will we face assassinations like journalists do in Rwanda? I realize assassination is over-the-top, but when it crosses your mind, even for a moment, you know something is terribly wrong.

No shit. Go read the rest of this. BP is such a powerful entity in the Gulf (and Congress) that it thinks it can get away with anything, and it may be right.

Livin' the iLife

Apple aficionados will love Morford today.

Sweet Jesus in minimalist design heaven, the iPad. No mouse, no extra cables, no mandatory hookups, no startup times, installation DVDs, RAM guides, accelerators, system folders, font drivers, extensions, launch daemons, Kerberos plug-ins, jpg helpers or compression schemes, no diphthong upslingers pongo hurling goober kerfuffling flipblasters.

Just a devastatingly simple, utterly gorgeous sheet of glass and aluminum that does almost everything your average computer user needs it to do, with a couple finger taps and a happy sigh, sans roughly 500 of the usual steps, clicks, guides, installations, file extensions and so on. It's understandable at a glance, intuitive as candy, enjoyable as a porn star in summertime. You know, just like the Mac has always been, except not really.

Enjoy.

Headline of the Day

Hot Dog Eating Champ Kobayashi Charged With ‘Breaking and Vomiting’

Ullllppp...

Quote of the Day

Michael Stickings:

...

Sign already, LeBron. Somewhere. Please.

...

And if you think ...

We have a problem now, just wait a while:

More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one – not industry, not government – is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows.

...

If Big Oil's previous commitments to the environment are any indication, let alone their safety record, this will almost certainly come back to bite us in the ass.

Climate change ...

I tell ya, just anecdotally, in the last 6 months, we've had the worst blizzards in decades this winter and record shattering heat this week (I just love working on a hot car in 110 degree heat). Our storms last longer and are more intense, and tornadoes (though not many) make regular appearances where, when I was a kid, the suggestion of a tornado on Long Island would have men in white suits chasing you with a butterfly net.

While I probably know as much about climate science as the average politician and take the word of the experts (real scientists as opposed to conservative loudmouths), a lot of deniers believe the way to fix the problem is to kill the scientists.

...

A sobering new report warns that oceans face a "fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation" not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major currents that could alter global weather.

...

As Philippe Cousteau said not long ago:

... So it’s not a question of can the oceans can take any more. The ocean can’t take any more. They couldn’t take any more fifty years ago. The question is, when are we going to stop?

...

The way it looks to me, and I see no change of opinion coming anytime soon, the environment will always come in a distant second next to making a buck.

Go laugh yer asses off...

The story of the trial I rode on Saturday is up at Fixer & Gordon. Enjoy.

¡Cuba Sí!

The Hill

A bipartisan pair of senators said Thursday they have the votes in the Senate to lift the longstanding U.S. ban on travel to Cuba.

Sens. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) said they believe they have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster and lift the travel ban to the communist-held nation south of Florida.

“It makes no sense to punish the American people by restricting their right to travel simply because our country is trying to punish the Cuban government,” Dorgan said in a statement.

"Decades of the same policy will get you the same result. We're hopefully about to change that and open up a new world for the people of Cuba," said Enzi.

'Bout fuckin' time. The sanctions against Cuba haven't made sense for decades except to woo a bloc of (now) older voters in Florida.

Best of luck with this bill, Senators, and pick me up a '59 El Camino or a '57 Ranchero while yer down there.

Who's winning in Afghanistan?

Hint: Not the U.S.

Antiwar Newswire

As US fights, China spends billions to build a footprint in Afghanistan

As the U.S. and its NATO allies fight to stabilize Afghanistan, China has expanded its economic footprint with several high-profile investments and reconstruction projects. In 2007, it became the country's largest foreign investor when it won a $3.5 billion contract to develop copper mines at Aynak, southeast of Kabul.

For China, the reward is not only expanded trade and access to natural resources, it's also security for its western flank, the vast Xinjiang region that is home to a separatist movement of minority Uighurs, said Liu Xuecheng of the China Institute of International Studies, the Chinese Foreign Ministry's think tank.

Afghanistan is "well aware that the U.S. is likely to only be a temporary ally so it's looking for a longer-term partner in the region. China would be an obvious choice," said security analyst Christian Le Miere, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review.

China has also benefited by focusing its investments on Afghanistan's relatively safer north, while much of the U.S.-funded effort is in the more violent south and east regions. The Taliban is not known to have made threats against Chinese involved in Afghanistan.

They know better. Threaten the Chinese today, expect a million troops tomorrow. No quarter, no rules of engagement, and soon no Taliban. Or much of anyone else. Think 'locusts' and 'wheat field'.

"The Afghan people prefer this gift from China. The Chinese side has done streets, roads and clinics in Afghanistan," Karimi said. "They didn't bring their troops here."

Liu, the Beijing think tank analyst, said he doubted China would ever send troops. "The war is not China's war," he said. "... But economically and socially, we can try to help."

For Afghans such as Akbar the merchant, China is an example to be emulated.

Clever, these Chinese. Smooth sailing for them while the U.S. and the West dashes its blood and treasure on the rocks.

Who's the fool?

What is this "work"?

I know my productivity has been down:

BERLIN - Told they couldn't watch the World Cup on the job, Italian autoworkers went on strike - conveniently, a half-hour before game time. German companies set up office viewing areas to keep employees from defecting on game days.

...

One study suggests the German economy, Europe's largest, loses more than $8 billion in productivity, about 0.27 percent of gross domestic product, during the monthlong tournament. Surveys in Britain predict output losses there of $1.5 billion to $2.3 billion.

...

Hey, everybody's got their priorities. Heh ...

Dark Age ...

I said, somewhat in jest, in my last post that we are at the dawn of a Dark Age. D-cap sees it too:

...

What these very well paid talking heads (who probably couldn't tell a florence flask from Florence Henderson) failed to bring up during their lament on the state of American ingenuity is that our lack of innovation, creativity and scientific leadership is a deeply endemic problem that cannot be fixed by a bunch of suggestions or changes in policy. Our plunge in to the abyss of stagnancy has been years in the making. And this drop off the cliff is constantly being reinforced by long-term neglect to our education system, the rise and loud voice of evangelical religious dogma (which generally hates science), an obsessive fixation on money, a youth culture which values fame above everything else and the media's need to sell soap as opposed to selling development.

...

We couldn't get to the Moon if we wanted to anymore. We're breeding a race of morons and mystics who believe America is still a great nation just because Hannity, or Beck, or Lintball, told them so. We believe only what we want to hear and anyone who speaks fact or reality is labeled a traitor, a socialist, a communist, or a fascist. We're more interested in some stupid 'reality' show (How much time have so-called 'news' organizations spent on the latest Bachelorette dustup, Lebron James, or Kobayashi?) than we are in how we got into this mess and how to fix it.

When news and entertainment inhabit the same wide, gray area, when mysticism is put on the same level as science fact, when a good chunk of the nation believes we should coddle the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor, and when we look for scapegoats to pin our problems on instead of looking in the mirror, we can consider ourselves finished as a great nation.

TMI ...

Like Lebron, I know far too much about Kobayashi. Professional competitive eating? We are truly at the beginning of a Dark Age of Humankind.

Thank god ...

We'll be in Scandinavia next month. It's fucking hot in NY and it's gonna get worse.

Headline of the Day

More than one-quarter don’t know who US gained independence from

Swell. The Dead End Quarter, self-proclaimed "patriots" to a man, strikes again. I guess it doesn't really matter if they know even a smidgen of our history as long as their ideology is, er, right.

Yeesh.

Clean up. Die. Hurry!

Business Insider, links and videos:

Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.

In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.

Perhaps BP CEO Tony Heyward and other high ranking BP executives could roll up their sleeves and go down there and start cleaning up all of that toxic sludge.

It's their mess, so let them clean it.

Fat chance. There are plenty of peasants who can die early in the service of BP's bottom line.

Quote of the Day

From a good rant on the Supremes by Mark Karlin:

Being a GOP senator who denounces Supreme Court "judicial activism" is like being a vegetarian who owns a slaughterhouse.

Oh, the irony...

Ironic Times

Afghanistan: Deal With Taliban Reportedly in Works
They would help government locate Al Qaeda; in exchange government would destroy all art, jail all women and burn down all schools.

Democratic Party Field-Testing Mid-Term Election Slogans
Best so far:

1. It could have been a lot worse.
2. Standing up to the GOP, except for those who aren’t.
3. Not crazy about the war, but....
4. BP: totally not our fault.
5. Sweeping financial reform, sort of.

New Research: Jesus May Not Have Died on Cross
Christians will be advised what changes, if any, to expect.

"Entitlements" ...

"Incentives" when it comes to the rich; "handouts" when it comes to anyone else:

Corporate socialism is alive and well. Isn't it interesting to see the Republicans do their best to provide a very small safety net to help average Americans who are unemployed yet so willingly go along with massive handouts to Big Oil? Politicians are always so quick to pull out the rug on those most in need yet the richest of the rich are always being supported with handouts that dwarf the social safety net. How does this possibly pass the smell test? Big Oil is the most profitable industry on the planet yet they still need help? Let them make their own money on their own dime instead of freeloading from everyone else.

...

The only thing that isn't "socialized" are the profits. We all pony up for the losses.

If the Dems were smart ...

I could believe he's a 'Manchurian' plant of some type or another but we'll just chalk it up to them being lucky:

...

But leaving aside Steele's utterly blatant lies, having the head of the Republican Party say that the war in Afghanistan is a failure and that it should never have been fought in the first place is undoubtedly news to the rest of his party.

...

God what an idiot. Mikey Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. It'll be a shame to lose him but I think the Republicans are gonna find a way to get him out soon.

Thanks to our pal Creature for the link.

Experts ...

Susie pegs McCain:

On This Week with Jake Tapper, John McCain explains how important it is not to have deadlines for leaving Afghanistan. I've often thought that his alleged "expertise" on war, which seems to be grounded only in his personal experience as a prisoner of war, is sort of akin to pronouncing someone who was hit by a car as an expert on automotive engineering. But maybe that's just me!

...

Maybe he slept in a Holiday Inn ...

A good 4th of July to all

I hope everybody has a good time on our country's birthday, and I repeat Will Durst's comment from my post of a coupla days ago:

Aahh. The 4th of July. Let's drink a lot of beer and handle explosives. The day many nicknames like "Lefty" and "Patch" are christened.

I know none of our readers are that stupid, but listen for the ambulances. Heh.

We're going back up to the trial at Donner Ski Ranch to spectate. I will have a recount of my adventures as a competitor (Ha!) yesterday up at Fixer & Gordon in a day or so, to include some of the most embarrassing video of me you are ever likely to see. I am rethinking the wisdom of showing Mrs. G how to work the camera. Can't shove toothpaste back into the tube, I guess.

The day went very well, considering how it went. Let's just say for now that what didn't kill me can only make me stronger, if not much smarter. I hope you are all having as much fun as we are on this weekend.

Fourth of July 1776, 1964, 2010

Here's a little of Daddy Frank's column about the 4th of July in the context of of the Civil Rights Act of July 4, 1964.

Even before last week’s ceremonial hazing of Kagan, the G.O.P.’s only national black political figure, Michael Steele, attacked her for writing approvingly of a speech Marshall had given calling the original text of the Constitution “defective” — a restrained adjective, actually, for a document that countenanced slavery. On the first day of the Kagan hearings, Marshall received many more mentions (35) than even that other Republican archenemy, President Obama, in the accounting of Talking Points Memo. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said they weren’t sure they could have voted to confirm Marshall to the court. Jon Kyl of Arizona, a state that suffered years of economic boycotts because of its opposition to the King holiday, faulted Marshall’s jurisprudence for advancing “the agenda of certain classes of litigants” (wonder who?) and for being out of the “mainstream.”

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” wrote our current Supreme Court chief justice, John Roberts, in a smug majority opinion nibbling away at Brown v. Board of Education in 2007. His conservative self-righteousness, a product of his time, is as delusional as L.B.J.’s liberal faith in the efficacy of a federal “Community Relations Service” was in 1964. On this Fourth, as on the 233 that preceded it, America is still very much a work in progress.

Sometimes I wonder if "progress" is the right word.

Please read the rest.

Happy 4th!

Be safe (already had some idiot here blow his arm off) and enjoy the day!

This is also our 6th Birthday here at the Brain and we've put up over 15,000 posts in that time (#15,000). If that proves anything, it's that me and the old man are stubborn. Heh ...

Thanks to all the readers, commenters, and contributors for making it interesting. If you would have asked me, 6 years ago, if I'd still be blogging, I would have given you and unequivocal "no". I'd hoped we'd have gotten most of the bad shit fixed by now, but when I started here, I didn't think George Bush would 'win' a second term. I figured people would have come to their senses after 4 years of that idiot. If there were any lessons for me in the last 6 years, the one that stands out is that I've come to realize just how ignorant and stupid most Americans really are.

Gone ridin'...

Trials riding is a Euro-based sport like soccer, except I get to be the ball. There are all kinds of videos showing feats of derring-do, but here's one of a beginner like me at the venue I'm going to. If I do anywhere near as well as this guy I'll be thrilled.

I'm (a beginner) participating in a AHRMA Vintage trial at Donner Ski Ranch on a modern GasGas bike.

Thanks to mikenao.

Saturday Emmylou Blogging

This beautiful number live at ACL 1982

Emmylou Harris ~ Millworker

Thanks to peters332, Netherlands.

Light blogging, things to do

I've got things to do today. My street bike backfired and blew the carburetor clean off. Heh. Gotta get that fixed so I can run nickel-and-dime errands without firin' up a Big American V8.

Then I gotta put the final touches on my Sherco so I can ride the Donner Classic Trial tomorrow. My friend Steve said I should practice by riding figure 8s in my driveway. I told him I practiced something that might be more useful - grabbin' a big handful of throttle and jumping off!

I dug out my riding gear yesterday. Hadn't seen some of it in years. Tried on my riding jersey. I got it on, but this is the first time it ever hummed. Musta shrunk. Today I have a very pretty new blue one from my local 'sickle emporium.

I'll leave ya with this:

Jimmy Buffet was supposed to give a free concert at his sister's restaurant to get some economic relief to hotels and restaurants on the Redneck Riviera. It worked, but the concert was rescheduled 'til 7/11 because of Hurricane Alex. Jimmy showed up anyway.

This is from MeyerVacationRentals in Gulf Shores, Alabama. They have lots of these and other oil spill vids as well. This is a pleasant video and shows there are more attractions on the Gulf Coast than tar balls. I think the lady with the long lens could hold me down pretty good in a big blow...

Also see Jimmy's interview with Anderson Cooper on his reaction to the oil spill.

What a surprise when we showed up for dinner at Lulu's last night! I will have the fish tacos with a side of Jimmy Buffett please. Jameson ordered a shrimp quesadilla with a side of Lucy Buffett, a necklace, a shirt and hair wrap :) Jimmy arrived by boat and played for almost three hours. Sorry if the camera was bumpy - I tried not to dance but it proved too difficult at times. And I apologize for being a back up singer - could not resist. Jameson and I had a blast! Come to the Coast for his next show on July 11th.

Quotes of the Day

Will Durst

Aahh. The 4th of July. Let's drink a lot of beer and handle explosives. The day many nicknames like "Lefty" and "Patch" are christened.

Looks like we will no longer be able to use one of the best oxymorons ever: Larry King Live. But Fox News still works.

Unseemly ...

I don't follow basketball. I follow football (European) and baseball (Mets, I'll root for the Yanks if they're in the Series) and I keep an eye on the Jets and the Giants of the New York Football (American) variety. The most I do with basketball is see the highlowlights on the morning news of whatever way the Knicks or the Nets discovered to embarrass themselves the night before.

That said, I know far too much about Lebron James.

As an outsider, the countdown to Lebron's free agency, and then watching the lineup of millionaires and their minions come and go, kissing his ass personally for him to come and play in their city, is ridiculous and unseemly. Mayor Bloomberg humiliated himself, though he didn't go all the way (amazingly) and proclaim he was just the right height to fellate Lebron without kneeling down and also had a flat head where Lebron could park his drink during the festivities.

We have a nation that's falling apart, pollution poisoning the Gulf, our money being wasted on endless wars, and the big story is how much money a pro sports team can throw at Lebron. Maybe, if times were good, it wouldn't irk me so badly, but at a time when the vultures in Washington are denying people unemployment benefits in the worst recession since the Great Depression, when peoples' livelihoods are being destroyed by the thousands, when our Treasury is constantly being looted by millionaires and billionaires, it pisses me off.

Corporations can own and sponsor sports teams and lavish their stars with huge salaries and bonuses, but heaven forbid they pay their workers a living wage or give them benefits. Heaven forbid they treat the people who keep them in business like human beings.

Long term ...

Republicans don't know the meaning, unless it helps them in the short term, politically.

But here is the thing: There are a whole gamut of long-term problems facing both this country, if not humanity in general, and for the vast majority of them, the Republicans/conservatives don't give a shit. Let's run down a short list:

...

But only when they spy a chance to dismantle the social safety net which keeps old people from starving to death or dying quickly of preventable illnesses, do Republicans rouse themselves to bleat about the future.

...

And people continue to vote for 'em. We'll probly have a Rethuglican Congress by the end of the year.

With July 4th comin' up...

...me 'n Mrs. G have decided to do our grocery shopping this morning instead of on Saturday as usual. This place is a zoo on the 4th, and the supermarkets will look like the locusts have hit them by tomorrow afternoon. I'll just leave ya with this and see yas later:

Sam Seder: Pointing out Bullshit so you don't step in it.

Thanks to SamSeder.

There's also a video called "How did Elena Kagan get so hot?". Musta been the General Tso's Chicken on Christmas. Heh.

Quote of the Day

The last line from a good post by The Rude One on Obama's Wisconsin speech:

It's always nice to see someone rip the corpse of Ronald Reagan out of the earth and smack it around in front of an audience.

Yes it is.

Headline of the Day

It's official!

Presidential scholars: Bush is the worst president of the modern era, bottom five of all time.

Shit, I coulda told 'em that. I guess that makes me a presidential scholar.

Hurricane?

In the Gulf of Mexico? Nah, never happen.