July 1, 2010 archive

Break out the clown shoes and slapsticks:

“Fighting corruption and supporting the rule of law in Afghanistan are top priorities for this administration, and we will continue to assist the Afghan government in creating and sustaining the effective criminal justice system to which the Afghan people are entitled,” Mr Holder said in the statement from Kabul.

OPEN THREAD

The top political story today at the New York Times was adorned with a promising headline…

“Harsh Words for G.O.P. From Obama”

Okay! Tell it like it is, Barry! Sock it to those torture-pigs and perverts!

Liars! Cowards! Whores!

Satanic ministers of violence and greed!

What is their foreign policy?

Violence!

What is their domestic policy?

Greed!

Who is their master?

Satan!

But instead of an accurate identification of “conservatism” with the Satanic agenda of greed and violence…

And a radical re-alignment of the Democratic Party in accord with the defining Christian principles of peace and charity…

What kind of “harsh words” did Barack Obama apply the the Republicans?

“I just want everyone to remember – we’ve tried the other side’s theories,” he said at a town-hall-style meeting. “We know what their ideas are. We know where they led us. So now we’ve got a choice: We can return to what we know did not work, or we can build a stronger future. We can go backwards or we can go forward. And I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward in this country.”

“I don’t know about you, but I want to move forward in this country.”

You can’t argue with that!

In a speech that is just as true of today as it was in the days when it was first spoken, Teddy Roosevelt, before he became President, opined on who Progressives really are. I strongly suggest that everyone read the whole speech, but I have included a few excerpts of what I think are the key parts, beginning with this.

    The Republican party is now facing a great crisis. It is to decide whether it will be, as in the days of Lincoln, the party of the plain people, the party of progress, the party of social and industrial justice; or whether it will be the party of privilege and of special interests, the heir to those who were Lincoln’s most bitter opponents, the party that represents the great interests within and with out Wall Street which desire through their control over the servants of the pubic to be kept immune from punishment when they do wrong and to be given privileges to which they are not entitled.

We all know how that one turned out, don’t we?

More below the fold

On June 15, 2010 the US Department of Energy announced that a group of federal and independent scientists convened by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command’s Flow Rate Technical Group (FRTG) Dr. Marcia McNutt (Director of the U.S. Geological Survey) had developed a new estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico that indicated the leak could be spewing up to 2.52 million gallons of crude oil per day into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum’s Macondo Well.

“This estimate brings together several scientific methodologies and the latest information from the sea floor, and represents a significant step forward in our effort to put a number on the oil that is escaping from BP’s well,” said Chu, who then expanded with “As we continue to collect additional data and refine these estimates, it is important to realize that the numbers can change.  In particular, the upper number is less certain – which is exactly why we have been planning for the worst case scenario at every stage and why we are continuing to focus on responding to the upper end of the estimate, plus additional contingencies.”

Estimates from both BP and from the US Government of the amount of oil gushing from the blown out wellhead on the gulf seabed have been almost continually revised upwards since the well blowout and leak began on April 20, with widespread suspicions that BP has deliberately understated the leak rate in attempts to limit liability for the company.

It now appears that Chu may have been somewhat prescient with his statement that “it is important to realize that the numbers can change”, and that the estimate of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico may need to be increased again, since an undated internal BP document (.PDF) obtained by Chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Congressman Ed Markey (D-MA) was released by Markey on Sunday June 20 showing that BP’s own internal analysis believed that a worst-case scenario, based on damage to the well bore, could result in a leak rate from the well of 55,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil per day.  

New York Observer (via ):

If you watch just one funny and handsome Marxist critique of the financial crisis, make it the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce’s animated version of David Harvey’s RSA speech “Crises of Capitalism.” It’s been making the rounds this afternoon, and for good reason: Mr. Harvey, a Marxist scholar who heads CUNY’s Center for Place, Culture & Politics, describes not just the failures that caused the ongoing fiasco, but the failure of how we’ve explained it.

Also, check out these superb illustrations.