More bad news from the Gulf

The Associated Press reports that "[s]cientists fear if the oil spill isn't contained and the underwater well continues to spew unstopped, it could grow so large that it may be sucked with the currents around the Florida Keys and up the East Coast."

Gee, the oil slick might even destroy blue crab fishing in the Chesapeake Bay region. How horrible. So horrible, in fact, that a potential blue crab disaster might prove to be too much for the insiders living in the Washington metro area, thus forcing them to act intelligently on the issues raised by the Gulf disaster. Still, I will not risk holding my breath waiting for Washington to make an intelligent decision. Such a decision is so unlike our political caste.

The Gulf oil disaster timeline

Courtesy of Talking Points Memo.

Terror returns to NYC

Manhattan suffered a failed terrorist attack yesterday evening, according to news reports (this, this, this, this and this). The attack began around 6:00 PM. According to the New York Times' report:

A crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks was discovered in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night. Although the device had apparently started to detonate, there was no explosion, and early on Sunday the authorities were still seeking a suspect and motive.

…

A large swath of Midtown — from 43^rd Street to 48^th Street, and from Sixth to Eighth Avenues — was closed for much of the evening after the Pathfinder was discovered just off Broadway on 45^th Street. Several theaters and stores, as well as the South Tower of the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel, were evacuated.

At this time no one has taken credit for the attack and there are no suspects.

Finally, Mayor Bloomberg disgraced himself by proclaiming:

"Terrorists around the world who feel threatened by the freedoms that we have always focus on those symbols of freedoms and that is New York City," said Bloomberg, who had been in Washington D.C. attending the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Update

The most recent New York Times report informs us that the:

Federal authorities have joined the search for a suspect who planted a crude car bomb of propane, gasoline and fireworks in a smoking Nissan Pathfinder in the heart of Times Square on Saturday evening, prompting the evacuation of thousands of tourists and theatergoers on a warm and busy night. Although the device had apparently started to detonate, there was no explosion, and early on Sunday the authorities were reviewing surveillance tapes and forensic evidence as they sought out a motive.

…

Federal authorities said the incident appeared to be an isolated one, and that there was no evidence of an ongoing threat to the city.

"We are treating it as if it could be a potential terrorist attack," Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, told CNN, one of several television appearances she made on Sunday morning.

The bomb itself was not a sophisticated device, Ms. Napolitano said on ABC's "This Week." She said there was no clear sense about how large the explosion might have been. "Right now, we have no evidence other than it is a one-off," she said.

Last updated on May 2 at 12:35 PM

Drill, baby, drill

As Louisiana faces another catastrophe, one that is wholly the product of human hands, an always courageous Sarah Palin publicly defends off-shore drilling:

We've all been shocked and saddened by the tragic events in the Gulf of Mexico. My heart breaks for coastal residents who are facing fears of the unknown impacts of the oil spill.

As an Alaskan, I can speak from the heart about the tragedy of an oil spill. For as long as I live, I will never forget the day the Exxon-Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef and millions of gallons of North Slope crude poured into the waters of our beautiful Prince William Sound. The spill was devastating to so many Alaskans who, like my own family, make their living on the water from our commercial fishing industry. "Heartbreaking" was the word my husband Todd, an Alaska Native and trained oil spill responder, used to describe the scene as we watched it unfold on land and water that we feel is sacred.

Alaskans understand the tragedy of an oil spill, and we've taken steps to do all we can to prevent another Exxon tragedy, but we are still pro-development. We still believe in responsible development, which includes drilling to extract energy sources, because we know that there is an inherent link between energy and security, energy and prosperity, and energy and freedom. Production of our own resources means security for America and opportunities for American workers. We need oil, and if we don't drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has.

Is Palin suggesting that British Petroleum engaged in responsible drilling? that the American federal government ensures adequate environmental oversight in the drilling sites it governs? that the residents of the Gulf were made secure by the oil industry located in their region? and that they will remain secure after the initial phase of the disaster concludes?

Do any of these questions matter, as Palin sees the issue? It looks like they do not:

All responsible energy development must be accompanied by strict oversight, but even with the strictest oversight in the world, accidents still happen. No human endeavor is ever without risk — whether it's sending a man to the moon or extracting the necessary resources to fuel our civilization. I repeat the slogan "drill here, drill now" not out of naiveté or disregard for the tragic consequences of oil spills — my family and my state and I know firsthand those consequences. How could I still believe in drilling America's domestic supply of energy after having seen the devastation of the Exxon-Valdez spill? I continue to believe in it because increased domestic oil production will make us a more secure, prosperous, and peaceful nation.

It's all for the best except for those unfortunate people who live along the Gulf Coasts. For one thing, they will have the opportunity to observe the responsible folk wielding authority over the matter set ablaze one of the world's greatest natural environments so that they can practically minimize the damage the slick causes to the region as a whole. This effort will not be without perverse effects. Gulf residents can expect polluted water, foul air, decimated shorelines and much else. Yet these effects, bad as they might be, will only prove a lesser harm than the one produced by doing nothing but stopping the oil at its source. In any case, the people of the Gulf will likely have the opportunity to prepare for the next oil disaster since oil drilling in their neighborhood will not stop because it is risky and because we all know accidents will happen, as Palin points out. Their prosperity, security and peace may suffer for it, but the rest of the country will enjoy the benefits which oil provides to those with the right technology and access to the stuff. Of course, these benefits will seem like a witless diversion once the ecological crisis goes global and becomes decisive.

Obama’s Katrina moment?

The oil leak catastrophe in the Gulf

While internal debate continues over the efficacy of setting the Gulf of Mexico afire in order to destroy the oil slick which now threatens the region, local and federal government officials made a public show of their solidarity with British Petroleum officials. This incident prompted Bill Quigley to wonder:

Why then would federal and state officials hold a joint press conference with BP, given the multinational corporation's role in the unfolding disaster? Perhaps the reason was hinted at by a comment from the Secretary of the Interior in which he cautioned that the U.S. depends heavily on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though the White House protested that the oil spill is not President Obama's Katrina, a public partnership between the perpetrator BP and the government certainly has the potential to become a "Katrina moment."

In other words, a disaster of this magnitude will not deter Obama and his people from pursuing their corporatist agenda.

Louisiana must now prepare to weather another preventable catastrophe.

Show us your papers

As Bill Quigley rightly points out:

While people protest the terrible Arizona state law that uses local law enforcement to target immigrants, the federal government is expanding its efforts to use local law enforcement in immigration enforcement and has launched a major PR campaign to defend it.

Why is Quigley right to point to the federal government's efforts in this matter? Consider:

One example of the out-of-control federal program occurred last week in Maryland. Florinda Lorenzo-Desimilian, a 26 year old married mother of three, lives in Prince George's County Maryland. Last week she was arrested in her home by local police on a misdemeanor charge of selling $2 phone cards out of her apartment window without a license. Ms. Lorenzo-Desimilian was booked at the county jail. During booking, she was fingerprinted. Local police sent her prints to the FBI who in turn notified ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that she had overstayed her work visa. Even though her three children are U.S. citizens, ICE kept her in jail for two days and is now trying to deport her. This is the result of a federal ICE and Homeland Security program called "Secure Communities" which is supposed to be targeting violent criminals. Instead, the program is really operating a dragnet scooping up and deporting tens of thousands of immigrants, like Ms. Lorenzo-Desimilian, who are no security risk to anyone.

Congress provided funding to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in 2008 to "identify aliens convicted of a crime, sentenced to imprisonment, who may be deportable, and remove them from the US once they are judged deportable." ICE says this program "supports public safety by strengthening efforts to identify and remove the most dangerous criminal aliens from the United States." However, ICE is not actually targeting convicted criminal aliens, dangerous aliens, or even violent aliens. They are targeting everyone.

ICE, through Secure Communities contracts with local law enforcement offices, runs every accused person's fingerprints through multiple databases regardless how minor the charges. Thus, people like Ms. Lorenzo-Desimilian are subject to ICE investigation, detention and deportation.

America's security fetish points to a dictatorship to come. Labeling a program of this kind a police state operation is to us a cliché as the program's identifying mark. Yet, what else could it be but a police state operation?

Drill away, come what may

The New York Times reports:

Government officials said late Wednesday night that oil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates.

In a hastily called news conference, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not 1,000 as had been estimated. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables.

He promises a page turner

I may come as a surprise, but I refer to George W. Bush in the title. Dubya pledges to deliver in a memoir that will appear this November. Entitled Decision Points, you may preorder the book from Amazon.com if you must have it. For those who can wait or know they can bear the disappointment if they were to miss out on this exceptional opportunity, Decision Points will undoubtedly find its way to the remainder bins not long after its initial publication.

And, for those fans with cash to burn on a trifle like this, surely a group limited to members of the Bush Super Rangers, 1,000 signed copies of the book will be sold for $350.00 a piece.

The failed center-left in the United States

Chris Hedges confronts reality:

It’s only extreme when the powerless notice it

James Bovard shows how the common use of the word "extremism" depends not on the acts to which the word is meant to refer, but to the authors of those actions. Interpreting Bovard's depiction of the word-referent relationship, no act will be extreme if the actor in question happens to be America's federal government. The federal government, it seems, is authorized to act as it pleases without also having to suffer this particular label. In other words, the act is not extreme when the American government spies on, tortures, frivolously incarcerates, crusades against, etc. an other. It does not mater if the other is American citizen or anyone else. The act is not extreme by definition. Yet, when a nongovernmental actor accuses the federal government of committing these very acts and when conclusive proof is lacking and even if compelling proof exists, those who make the claim are labeled extremists by responsible journalists, governmental officials, major party apparatchiks and others of this sort. The same derogatory label applies to those who advocate the use of these extreme actions by the federal government when that government wishes to use 'non-extreme' measures or wishes to deny their use.

Bovard did not state as much, but his short article depicts the corruption of the language and the political uses that a thus corrupted language makes possible. As Orwell once put the matter: A language "…becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts." Bovard's article merely reaffirms Orwell's insight.