Jimmy Z has posted yet another interview with Hyphenated-American. This one you should definitely listen to if you want to learn about Marxism. I believe this is by far my best appearance on the Jimmy Z show. During the interview, I gave a brief introduction to Marxism and presented the essential details of the so-called theory of surplus value - the foundation of Marxist political economy. Based on this analysis, I demonstrated why Obama was a Marxist - or if I were to use the Russian terms for the likes of Obama - why he was a spontaneous or vulgar Marxist (these terms had been used by the classics of Marxism - namely Lenin, Stalin and Mao - to describe the social-democrats, the natural allies of the communist movement).
In short - this interview is useful to anyone who is seriously interested in Marxism and Obama-ism. In about 20 minutes you will learn how to turn a flaming liberal into a raging lunatic with a mere 2 or 3 pointed questions.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Hyphenated-American: two more appearances on the Jimmy Z show
Jimmy Z was kind enough to post two more of my appearances on his show. One was posted on June 14th, and the other one on June 23rd. Both appearances are not perfect - I am clearly still learning the radio format, but there is little doubt that I am getting better and better. On June 14th I give my views on Obama's attempt to take over the media, and finish up proposing a list of Obama's misdeeds that GOP should held hearing in 2011 - assuming they win the House. On June 23rd, I channel internal Hayek and Sowell to explain the reasons behind Obama's apparent mishandling of the BP oil disaster. Needless to say that I ended up quoting South Park, Lenin and Karl Marx to prove my point, while relying heavily on the analysis provided by Hayek and Sowell.
And now for something completely different. As Monty Python would say - a liberal with three buttocks. Not too long ago, the liberals proclaimed "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - which they mistakenly attributed to Jefferson. But today, it's quite often to hear that dissent is indeed the lowest form of racism. But the liberals have not stopped at that. The mighty slogan of the recent past was "Question authority" and the highest praise for an individual was to call him a "non-conformist". The worst accusation was to call someone a "sell-out" or a "corporate whore". But today, the left are quite upset if someone were to question the authority of the Supreme Leader, Barack Hussein Obama. Just recently, an MSNBC talkinghead ass was positively upset about any hint of non-conformity. Here is how she reacted to Gen.McChrystal's private comments about comrade Obama and his gang of incompetents:
BREWER: It's about the sort of disdain for authority. And that worries me...
But is his view not only about the President but about Joe Biden, about Jim Jones, the National Security advisor, about Karl Eikenberry [US ambassador to Afghanistan], on and on down the list: Richard Holbrooke --
As the reader can notices - Brewer is worried about a federal employee being critical of Obama. It gets better...
BREWER: There are hundreds of thousands of enlisted men and women in the military who are taught not to question authority; they don't go outside their chain of command. what kind of message does this send to people at the lower levels in the military?
According to Brewer, it is very troubling when American soldiers start questioning the government authority. After all, when a street bum, a community organizer, a university professor or a high-school student questions authority - she is applauding their civil courage. But a man who shed blood defending his country has a negative opinion about the government buerucrat - that's apparently is unpatriotic and treasonous. Just a weeks ago, a liberal journalist called American patriots who disagree with Obama's agenda - "seditious".
Now, in all fairness, liberals in general and Brewer in particular were far more supportive of generals and CIA agents who criticized president Bush - it never occurred to them that questioning authority could be construed as dangerous. But today Brewer and her ilk are running the country - and they don't take too kindly to people who question their authority. It may be because of their inherent authoritarian tendencies and vicious hatred of anyone who refuses to blindly obey them.
And now for something completely different. As Monty Python would say - a liberal with three buttocks. Not too long ago, the liberals proclaimed "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - which they mistakenly attributed to Jefferson. But today, it's quite often to hear that dissent is indeed the lowest form of racism. But the liberals have not stopped at that. The mighty slogan of the recent past was "Question authority" and the highest praise for an individual was to call him a "non-conformist". The worst accusation was to call someone a "sell-out" or a "corporate whore". But today, the left are quite upset if someone were to question the authority of the Supreme Leader, Barack Hussein Obama. Just recently, an MSNBC talking
BREWER: It's about the sort of disdain for authority. And that worries me...
But is his view not only about the President but about Joe Biden, about Jim Jones, the National Security advisor, about Karl Eikenberry [US ambassador to Afghanistan], on and on down the list: Richard Holbrooke --
As the reader can notices - Brewer is worried about a federal employee being critical of Obama. It gets better...
BREWER: There are hundreds of thousands of enlisted men and women in the military who are taught not to question authority; they don't go outside their chain of command. what kind of message does this send to people at the lower levels in the military?
According to Brewer, it is very troubling when American soldiers start questioning the government authority. After all, when a street bum, a community organizer, a university professor or a high-school student questions authority - she is applauding their civil courage. But a man who shed blood defending his country has a negative opinion about the government buerucrat - that's apparently is unpatriotic and treasonous. Just a weeks ago, a liberal journalist called American patriots who disagree with Obama's agenda - "seditious".
Now, in all fairness, liberals in general and Brewer in particular were far more supportive of generals and CIA agents who criticized president Bush - it never occurred to them that questioning authority could be construed as dangerous. But today Brewer and her ilk are running the country - and they don't take too kindly to people who question their authority. It may be because of their inherent authoritarian tendencies and vicious hatred of anyone who refuses to blindly obey them.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Timeline for the BP oil spill
"...before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls -- our souls are broken in this nation"
Michele Obama, 2008
I am pretty sure that one day historians will write a long and entertaining story on the BP oil spill - but American people need to know at least some details now. The purpose of this article is to provide fact-based timeline of the BP oil spill, and can be used as an effective weapon against the attempts of mainstream media to misinform the public.
Before I go into details of the oil spill, I want to quote Michele Obama, and her speech about Barack Obama, soon to be US president. This quote look particularly delicious in 2010, when the magic is gone, and the world sees Obama as a great pretender.
"Barack is more than ready. He'll be ready today, he'll be ready on day one, he'll be ready in a year from now, five years from now -- he is ready.""That is not the question." The question is: What are we ready for?""Wait, wait, wait -- because we say we're ready for change, we say we're ready for change, butcha see, change is hard.""Change will always be hard, and it doesn't happen from the top down." "We do not get universal health care, we don't get better schools because somebody else is in the White House. We get change because folks from the grass roots up decide they are sick and tired of other people telling them how their lives will be -- when they decide to roll up their sleeves and work."
But, here's the BIG ONE -- "And Barack Obama will require you to work." "He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism, that you put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better, and that you engage.""Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual -- uninvolved, uninformed."
If anything, Barack truly has pushed the nation to learn more about its history and what makes America great. It seems to be that it's now common knowledge that Barack's ideas run contrary to the essense of this nation. Barack's America is not a free, prosperous country - it is just another European style welfare socialist shitholes with Mexican-level corruption.
And now back to the topic at hand.
John Browne, Group Chief Executive, British Petroleum (BP America) Stanford University, 19 May 1997
"There's a lot of noise in the data. It is hard to isolate cause and effect. But there is now an effective consensus among the world's leading scientists and serious and well informed people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the climate, and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature.....
"The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven … but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part.
"We in BP have reached that point."
2007, BP and Green Energy
"BP announced that it has moved into full construction of Phase One of the Sherbino Wind Farm, a 150 megawatt renewable wind energy project that is roughly 30 miles east of Ft. Stockton, Texas. BP also valued its green businesses in wind, hydrogen, bio-mass, and solar as being worth $5 to $7 Billion, and said it will look at how best to realize that growing value for shareholders. This may be a sale or spin-off, if not look for joint-ventures or partnerships."
BP funds enviromental groups - 2010
“[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years,” Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.
It’s not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon."
2000-2008
"In September 2008, reports by the Inspector General of the Interior Department, Earl E. Devaney, were released that implicated over a dozen officials of the MMS of unethical and criminal conduct in the performance of their duties. The investigation found MMS employees had taken drugs and had sex with energy company representatives. MMS staff had also accepted gifts and free holidays amid "a culture of ethical failure", according to the investigation."
"BP gave more campaign donations to the Obama campaign in the 2008 election cycle than to any other politician—$71,000 in all—though in total it gave slightly more to Republican candidates. BP also took the step of hiring the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm headed up by Obama confidant John Podesta and his brother Tony, paying the firm $720,000 since 2008. All told, BP has spent just shy of $20 million on federal lobbying over the last two years."
During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.
"Ramh Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg... Greenberg's consulting firm was a prime architect of BP's recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan "Beyond Petroleum." Greenberg's company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit -- GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry's 2004 campaign manager. According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."
August 2008 - Soros invests in Brazilian oil
Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.
In November, Petrobras announced the discovery of Tupi, a field with as much as 8 billion barrels of reserves, making it the largest find in the Americas since 1976. Tupi is part of a new deepwater offshore region known as the pre-salt that may contain as much as 50 billion barrels, according to Peter Wells, oil analyst with the UK’s Neftex Petroleum Consultants.
Presidential elections, 2008
"On November 4, Obama won the presidency by winning 365 electoral votes to 173 that McCain received, in the process capturing 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%.
Obama announces the clean up of federal government, December 17, 2008, appoints Ken Salazar as head of Interior Department
"I also want an Interior Department that, very frankly, cleans up its act. There have been too many problems and too much emphasis on big-time lobbyists in Washington and not enough emphasis on what's good for the American people, and that's going to change under Ken Salazar."
Obama added: "I am confident that we have the team that we need to make the rural agenda America's agenda, to create millions of new green jobs, to free our nation from its dependence on oil and to help preserve this planet for our children."
"Together, they will serve as guardians of the American landscape on which the health of our economy and the well-being of our families so heavily depend," Obama said in introducing Salazar and Vilsack as his latest Cabinet picks. "How we harness our natural resources, from the farmlands of Iowa to the springs of Colorado, will speak not only to our quality of life, but to our economic growth and our energy future."
"Salazar, wearing a cowboy hat and a Western-style Bolo tie, said that if confirmed as interior secretary, "I will do all I can to help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil." He said he looks forward to working directly with Obama "as we take the moon-shot on energy independence" and "confront the dangers of global warming."
"Several experts who have worked with Salazar over the years, including gas and mining officials, farm groups and national environmental leaders, said they expect him [Salazar] to support Obama's energy and environmental agenda rather than attempt to set his own policy course. While both Gale A. Norton and Dirk Kempthorne frequently clashed with liberal groups while heading the agency under President Bush, those experts predicted that Salazar is more likely to pursue compromises that might ease tensions over drilling, mining and endangered species protection on public and private land."
New US president, Barack Hussein Obama
"The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President, and Joe Biden as Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009."
January 2009
"Ken Salazar accepted Obama's offer to join his cabinet as the Secretary of the Interior. The Senate confirmed Salazar's nomination by voice vote on January 20, 2009, shortly after Obama was sworn in as President. As Secretary of the Interior, Salazar is in charge of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the United States Geological Survey, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies overseen by the Interior Department." From January 2009, Ken Salazar is responsible for oil drilling in the United States of America.
Ken Salazar cleans up MMS - sort of...
"Salazar took over Interior in January 2009, vowing to restore the department's "respect for scientific integrity." He immediately traveled to MMS headquarters outside Denver and delivered a beat-down to staffers for their "blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing" that had "set one of the worst examples of corruption and abuse in government." Promising to "set the standard for reform," Salazar declared, "The American people will know the Minerals Management Service as a defender of the taxpayer. You are the ones who will make special interests play by the rules." Dressed in his trademark Stetson and bolo tie, Salazar boldly proclaimed, "There's a new sheriff in town."
"Salazar's early moves certainly created the impression that he meant what he said. Within days of taking office, he jettisoned the Bush administration's plan to open 300 million acres – in Alaska, the Gulf, and up and down both coasts – to offshore drilling. The proposal had been published in the Federal Register literally at midnight on the day that Bush left the White House. Salazar denounced the plan as "a headlong rush of the worst kind," saying it would have put in place "a process rigged to force hurried decisions based on bad information." Speaking to Rolling Stone in March 2009, the secretary underscored his commitment to reform. "We have embarked on an ambitious agenda to clean up the mess," he insisted. "We have the inspector general involved with us in a preventive mode so that the department doesn't commit the same mistakes of the past." The crackdown, he added, "goes beyond just codes of ethics."
February 2009
"In February 2009, Obama put Earl Devaney in charge of tracking stimulus payouts, and since then, the inspector general position has gone unfilled." Mary Kendall was left as an acting Inspector General, even though "acting inspectors general lack “the authority, public standing, and ability to set the agenda that a Senate-approved, presidential appointee brings to the job." In short, no one was watching Minerals Management Services after Obama became president. "Obama has failed to nominate an inspector general for the Interior Department, where MMS is located. In the past, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has been a crucial supervisory body exposing fraud and mismanagement at the agency. "
April 2009
"On April 6th of last year, less than a month after BP submitted its application, MMS gave the oil giant the go-ahead to drill in the Gulf without a comprehensive environmental review. The one-page approval put no restrictions on BP, issuing only a mild suggestion that would prove prescient: "Exercise caution while drilling due to indications of shallow gas."
April 2009 - BP's application approved - even no one reads it at Obama's MMS
"BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says Ruch, who represents government scientists."
"Under Salazar, MMS continued to issue categorical exclusions to companies like BP, even when they lacked the necessary permits to protect endangered species. A preliminary review of the BP disaster conducted by scientists with the independent Deepwater Horizon Study Group concludes that MMS failed to enforce a host of environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act. "MMS and Interior are equally responsible for the failures here," says the former agency scientist. "They weren't willing to take the regulatory steps that could have prevented this incident."
May 2009
The big winner of MMS SAFE award was Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded last month under BP's management. BP was also a finalist at the 2009 conference.
August 2009 - Obama lends billions of dollar to an Brazilian offshore oil company partly owned by
Soros
Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling. The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
February-March 2010
"On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast".
"By March, the natural gas surges had gotten so bad that BP warned MMS that it had difficulty controlling them. On March 10th, BP e-mailed the MMS drilling director for New Orleans that they were in the midst of a “well control situation,” a result which led a Berkeley engineer to tell Bloomberg that “they [BP] damn near blew up the rig.” That was just a day under six weeks before the rig actually blew up in the Gulf.
"This revelation shows that the disaster was far from unforeseen. In fact, it appears that it had already come close to a catastrophic blowout just six weeks before eleven people died in the subsequent explosion. BP didn’t exactly keep it a secret, either. They informed MMS of the problem, which apparently did nothing to intervene in a situation serious enough that a similar situation caused Exxon to shut down its well in 2006."
2009-2010
"Salazar is a core member of what some environmentalists called a "green dream team" of environmental advisers appointed by Obama shortly after his inauguration. Others include Steven Chu, the energy secretary; Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator; and Carol Browner, a White House adviser.
March 31st, 2010 Obama promotes offshore oil drilling
"Obama and Salazar appeared together at Andrews Air Force Base on March 31st to introduce the plan. The stagecraft was pure Rove in its technicolor militaristic patriotism. The president's podium was set up in front of the cockpit of an F-18, flanked by a massive American flag. "We are not here to do what is easy," Salazar declared. "We are here to do what is right." He insisted that his reforms at MMS were working: "We are making decisions based on sound information and sound science." The president, for his part, praised Salazar as "one of the finest secretaries of Interior we've ever had" and stressed that his administration had studied the drilling plan for more than a year. "This is not a decision that I've made lightly," he said. Two days later, he issued an even more sweeping assurance. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced."
April 20, 2010
"The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion happened on April 20, 2010 on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU), situated about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of the Louisiana coast in the Macondo Prospect oil field. The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others; another 98 people survived without serious physical injury. It caused the Deepwater Horizon to burn and sink, and started a massive ongoing offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; this environmental disaster is now considered the largest in U.S. history."
April 20-21, 2010 Obama administration over-rides the scientists and downplays the numbers for the oil spill
"Damningly, the whiteboard also documents the disconnect between what the government suspected to be the magnitude of the disaster and the far lower estimates it was feeding to the public. Written below the federal estimate are the words, "300,000 gal/day reported on CNN." Appearing on the network that same day on a video feed from the Gulf, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry insisted that the government had no figure. "We do not have an estimate of the amount of crude emanating from the wellhead," she said.
"Later in the video, a voice on speakerphone with a heavy Southern accent reveals that government scientists were concerned from the very beginning about underwater plumes of oil – a reality that NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco and BP executives are still seeking to downplay. "They weren't sure how that oil was going to react once it was spilled," the voice says. "Whether it was going to rise, or form layers and start twisting around." The government, in short, knew from the start that surface measurements of the oil slick – on which it would premise its absurdly low estimate of 5,000 barrels a day – were likely to be unreliable."
April 23, 2010 - time for Obama to rest, while the oil is gushing from the rig
"The following day, the Coast Guard – relying on assurances from BP – declared that the spill appeared to be limited to oil that was stored aboard the sunken rig. With a worst-case crisis seemingly averted, Obama checked out, heading off for a long weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, where he and the first lady would stop for ribs at a barbecue joint called 12 Bones Smokehouse before checking into the Grove Park Inn, a golf resort and spa. Asked whether the spill would hamper the president's offshore drilling agenda, spokesman Gibbs made light of the disaster. "I don't honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions," he said. "I doubt this is the first accident that has happened, and I doubt it will be the last."
"After returning from his vacation, Obama spent Monday, April 26th palling around with Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees, congratulating them on their World Series victory. He later took time to chat with the president of Honduras. When he put in a call to Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, it was to talk about tornadoes that had caused damage in that state, with only a brief mention of the oil spill. On Tuesday the 27th, Obama visited a wind-turbine plant in Iowa. Wednesday the 28th, he toured a biofuels refinery in Missouri and talked up financial reform in Quincy, Illinois. He didn't mention the oil spill or the Gulf."
April 27, 2010
"It had taken a full week after Deepwater Horizon exploded for the government to become fully engaged – a critical lapse that allowed the crisis to spiral out of control.
"The failure of the Obama administration to crack down on BP – and to tackle the crisis with the full force of the federal government – is likely to haunt the Gulf Coast for decades to come. Oil continues to lap up onshore in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Pelican rookeries are fouled, their eggs and nests soaked in oil. The region's fisheries – some of the richest in the world – are imperiled; anglers and shrimpers have been barred from more than a third of the Gulf's waters, which may never fully recover from the toxic stew of crude and chemical dispersant now twisting in its depths. The region's beaches are empty, and tourist towns are dying. Administration officials now admit that the oil may continue to gush into the Gulf until August, when relief wells are finally in place. "
April 29, 2010 White House in full panic
"The White House press office organized a show of overwhelming force, with Gibbs convening Browner, Napolitano, Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, EPA chief Lisa Jackson and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara for a single press conference on April 29th. Though clearly meant to signal engagement, the all-star crew didn't have their message straight. When Brice-O'Hara praised "the professionalism of our partner, BP," Napolitano quickly barked, "They are not our partner! They are not our partner!" For her part, Napolitano revealed that she didn't know whether the Defense Department possessed any assets that could help contain the spill, and referred vaguely to "whatever methodologies" BP was using to seal the well. "
From April 20 onwards
"... Obama administration has instead attacked scientists who released independent estimates of the spill. When one scientist funded by NOAA released a figure much higher than the government's estimate, he found himself being pressured to retract it by officials at the agency. "Are you sure you want to keep saying this?" they badgered him. Lubchenco, the head of NOAA, even denounced as "misleading" and "premature" reports that scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had discovered a massive subsea oil plume. Speaking to PBS, she offered a bizarre denial of the obvious. "It's clear that there is something at depth," she said, "but we don't even know that it's oil yet."
"Scientists were stunned that NOAA, an agency widely respected for its scientific integrity, appeared to have been co-opted by the White House spin machine. "NOAA has actively pushed back on every fact that has ever come out," says one ocean scientist who works with the agency. "They're denying until the facts are so overwhelming, they finally come out and issue an admittance." Others are furious at the agency for criticizing the work of scientists studying the oil plumes rather than leading them. "Why they didn't have vessels there right then and start to gather the scientific data on oil and what the impacts are to different organisms is inexcusable," says a former government marine biologist. "They should have been right on top of that." Only six weeks into the disaster did the agency finally deploy its own research vessel to investigate the plumes."
May 2010
"The Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service has postponed a Monday safety awards luncheon at which a nominee for two awards was BP -- which operated the oil rig that sank in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening an unprecedented environmental disaster along much of the nation's Gulf Coast. The awards ceremony recognizes "outstanding safety and pollution prevention performance by the offshore oil and gas industry." BP was nominated for its work on the outer continental shelf.
MMS acknowledges bad timing, noting that it's dedicating too many resources to the Gulf cleanup to hold a luncheon. "
May 6, 2010
Obama prohibits all offshore drilling.
May 27, 2010 (one month after the explosion)
"...a team of scientists charged with establishing the gusher's output – announced a new estimate of 12,000 to 25,000 barrels, based on calculations from video of the plume. In fact, according to interviews with team members and scientists familiar with its work, that figure represents the plume group's minimum estimate. The upper range was not included in their report because scientists analyzing the flow were unable to reach a consensus on how bad it could be. "The upper bound from the plume group, if it had come out, is very high," says Timothy Crone, a marine geophysicist at Columbia University who has consulted with the government's team. "That's why they had resistance internally. We're talking 100,000 barrels a day."
May 27, 2010 Evel liberals are asking - who is charge?
Chris Matthews: "This is a national catastrophe and the President hasn't led this fight...There should be a vivid sense that we all have now, who's the President's top kick [sic] on this? Who's running the cabinet on this? Who, every day, is giving us a report on this? Who's the guy or woman who's doing this? There's no sense of that!"
May 28, 2010 Barack Obama finally takes responsibility for the oil spill.
Standing on the sullied Louisiana coastline, he proclaimed: "The buck stops with me."
May 30, 2010
Jindal recounted to 'This Week' host Jake Tapper one instance where BP and federal government bureaucracy got in the way of the cleanup.
"Terrebonne Parish…submitted a plan for 180,000 feet of hard boom. The Coast Guard approved them for 90,000 feet. A week ago Friday, they didn't even have 90,000 feet. They didn't have that much boom, hard boom, in the parish…”
Tapper asked the governor what happened next.
“Well, in that case, they literally had hard boom sitting on the dock and they didn't deploy it,” Jindal said. “There was no excuse. The BP contractor said BP told them not to do it until the oil was coming. NOAA projections showed for days, and we saw the oil ourselves.”
“We finally brought the Coast Guard captain that was in charge of Louisiana's response with us on a National Guard Black Hawk helicopter, showed him the oil on the island, showed him the sheen in the bay, showed him the oil coming into that area, and said this needs to be boomed. He agreed it needed to be boomed,” Jindal said.
The boom was finally deployed.
June 2, 2010, Obama serenades with Paul McCartney.
Luckily, our president does not over-work himself and always finds the time to have fun.
June 11, 2010 Oil experts consulted by Obama administration claimed their recommendations were ignored and misrepresented
"The seven experts who advised President Obama on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium -- something they actually oppose."
"The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits."
"Salazar's report to Obama said a panel of seven experts "peer reviewed" his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an immediate halt to drilling operations."
"None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report," oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News. "What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation."
Salazar apologized to those experts Thursday."
June 16, 2010 After two months of inactivity, Obama meets with BP CEO
"President Barack Obama and "very senior" BP officials, including chairman Henric Svanberg and Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, are meeting this morning in the White House. They will discuss the President's push to create an independent fund that will pay workers and businesses affected by the Gulf oil spill, a spokesman for the company said."
June 18, 2010
"Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has spent the past week and half fighting to get working barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. By Thursday morning, against the governor's wishes, those barges still were sitting idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.
"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor told ABC News while visiting Buras, La. "Literally, [Wednesday] morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."
Sixteen barges sat stationary Thursday, although they had been sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk. "
Coast Guard Orders Barges to Stop. So why stop now? "The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"
But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges. "
"They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible," he said. But "every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer." After Jindal strenuously made his case, the barges finally got the go-ahead Thursday to return to the Gulf and get back to work, after more than 24 hours of sitting idle. "
Two months after the oil spill - No one is in charge
Along Gulf Coast, Governors Ask, 'Who's In Charge?' Sixty days into the crisis, it still can be tough to figure out who is in charge in Louisiana, and the problem appears to be the same in other Gulf Coast states. In Alabama Thursday, Gov. Bob Riley said that he's had problems with the Coast Guard, too. Riley, R-Ala., asked the Coast Guard to find ocean boom tall enough to handle strong waves and protect his shoreline.
The governor said the problem is there's still no single person giving a "yes" or "no." While the Gulf Coast governors have developed plans with the Coast Guard's command center in the Gulf, things begin to shift when other agencies start weighing in, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It's like this huge committee down there," Riley said, "and every decision that we try to implement, any one person on that committee has absolute veto power."
June 16, 2010, Obama makes a speech from the Oval Office - but it falls flat. No more mister "Silver Tongue". The days of Barack Hussein Carter are upon us. Even liberals are unhappy.
"MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Howard Fineman were particularly disappointed. "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days," Olbermann said, adding, "Nothing specific at all was said... I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling to have heard this, isn't it?" Fineman agreed: "He wasn't specific enough," and failed to lead as a "commander-in-chief" should.
Even close allies of Obama's in Congress sounded critical notes. "I appreciate the President's attention to the disaster," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement, "however, the public needs additional assurance that, all aspects of the spill response, from cleanup to claims, are being enforced and coordinated by the federal government." Another senior Democratic congressman, John Dingell of Michigan, said in a statement, "I was disappointed President Obama did not call for an increase in the liability cap. BP made $16.8 billion in profits last year. BP, and oil companies in general, have been making money hand over fist over the past few years - even while our economy falters."
Fifty-seven days into the crisis, oil continues to gush from the broken wellhead, millions of gallons a day, and Obama has been powerless to stem the leak. The sad episode has raised doubts about his leadership and his administration's response to what Obama has called the nation's worst environmental disaster."
June 20, 2010
"The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly.
Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it's in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists. The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management."
June 22, 2010 Lousiana Judge declare Obama's offshore drilling ban "arbitrary and capricious" and lifts it.
"In stern and unsparing language, a noted federal trial judge in Louisiana Tuesday blocked the Obama administration from implementing its heavily publicized and politically charged sixth-month moratorium on offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "
"If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman wrote in his 22-page order, "is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy handed, and rather overbearing." Later calling the moratorium an "arbitrary and capricious" use of the administrative power of the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, the judge granted a request by several offshore-drilling-related companies for a court order that would allow drilling to continue in the Gulf for 33 licensed operators. Otherwise, he found, those companies would continue to suffer irreparable injuries as a result of the drilling ban.
"[T]he blanket moratorium," the veteran judge wrote, "with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger." Worse, he wrote, the Interior Department/MMS report upon which the moratorium was based was fatally flawed. "The report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium. It is incident specific and driven: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others." As a result, Judge Feldman wrote, the Court "is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium."
"Indeed, while the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that all the experts agree with the Secretary's recommendation. The government's hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue."
Michele Obama, 2008
I am pretty sure that one day historians will write a long and entertaining story on the BP oil spill - but American people need to know at least some details now. The purpose of this article is to provide fact-based timeline of the BP oil spill, and can be used as an effective weapon against the attempts of mainstream media to misinform the public.
Before I go into details of the oil spill, I want to quote Michele Obama, and her speech about Barack Obama, soon to be US president. This quote look particularly delicious in 2010, when the magic is gone, and the world sees Obama as a great pretender.
"Barack is more than ready. He'll be ready today, he'll be ready on day one, he'll be ready in a year from now, five years from now -- he is ready.""That is not the question." The question is: What are we ready for?""Wait, wait, wait -- because we say we're ready for change, we say we're ready for change, butcha see, change is hard.""Change will always be hard, and it doesn't happen from the top down." "We do not get universal health care, we don't get better schools because somebody else is in the White House. We get change because folks from the grass roots up decide they are sick and tired of other people telling them how their lives will be -- when they decide to roll up their sleeves and work."
But, here's the BIG ONE -- "And Barack Obama will require you to work." "He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism, that you put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better, and that you engage.""Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual -- uninvolved, uninformed."
If anything, Barack truly has pushed the nation to learn more about its history and what makes America great. It seems to be that it's now common knowledge that Barack's ideas run contrary to the essense of this nation. Barack's America is not a free, prosperous country - it is just another European style welfare socialist shitholes with Mexican-level corruption.
And now back to the topic at hand.
John Browne, Group Chief Executive, British Petroleum (BP America) Stanford University, 19 May 1997
"There's a lot of noise in the data. It is hard to isolate cause and effect. But there is now an effective consensus among the world's leading scientists and serious and well informed people outside the scientific community that there is a discernible human influence on the climate, and a link between the concentration of carbon dioxide and the increase in temperature.....
"The time to consider the policy dimensions of climate change is not when the link between greenhouse gases and climate change is conclusively proven … but when the possibility cannot be discounted and is taken seriously by the society of which we are part.
"We in BP have reached that point."
2007, BP and Green Energy
"BP announced that it has moved into full construction of Phase One of the Sherbino Wind Farm, a 150 megawatt renewable wind energy project that is roughly 30 miles east of Ft. Stockton, Texas. BP also valued its green businesses in wind, hydrogen, bio-mass, and solar as being worth $5 to $7 Billion, and said it will look at how best to realize that growing value for shareholders. This may be a sale or spin-off, if not look for joint-ventures or partnerships."
BP funds enviromental groups - 2010
“[T]he Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The Conservancy also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years,” Joe Stephens wrote for the Post May 24.
It’s not just Nature Conservancy either, the Post found $2 million in donations to Conservation International and relationships between BP and other lefty activist groups Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Sierra Club and Audubon."
2000-2008
"In September 2008, reports by the Inspector General of the Interior Department, Earl E. Devaney, were released that implicated over a dozen officials of the MMS of unethical and criminal conduct in the performance of their duties. The investigation found MMS employees had taken drugs and had sex with energy company representatives. MMS staff had also accepted gifts and free holidays amid "a culture of ethical failure", according to the investigation."
"BP gave more campaign donations to the Obama campaign in the 2008 election cycle than to any other politician—$71,000 in all—though in total it gave slightly more to Republican candidates. BP also took the step of hiring the Podesta Group, the lobbying firm headed up by Obama confidant John Podesta and his brother Tony, paying the firm $720,000 since 2008. All told, BP has spent just shy of $20 million on federal lobbying over the last two years."
During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.
"Ramh Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg... Greenberg's consulting firm was a prime architect of BP's recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan "Beyond Petroleum." Greenberg's company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit -- GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry's 2004 campaign manager. According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."
August 2008 - Soros invests in Brazilian oil
Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras) in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.
In November, Petrobras announced the discovery of Tupi, a field with as much as 8 billion barrels of reserves, making it the largest find in the Americas since 1976. Tupi is part of a new deepwater offshore region known as the pre-salt that may contain as much as 50 billion barrels, according to Peter Wells, oil analyst with the UK’s Neftex Petroleum Consultants.
Presidential elections, 2008
"On November 4, Obama won the presidency by winning 365 electoral votes to 173 that McCain received, in the process capturing 52.9% of the popular vote to McCain's 45.7%.
Obama announces the clean up of federal government, December 17, 2008, appoints Ken Salazar as head of Interior Department
"I also want an Interior Department that, very frankly, cleans up its act. There have been too many problems and too much emphasis on big-time lobbyists in Washington and not enough emphasis on what's good for the American people, and that's going to change under Ken Salazar."
Obama added: "I am confident that we have the team that we need to make the rural agenda America's agenda, to create millions of new green jobs, to free our nation from its dependence on oil and to help preserve this planet for our children."
"Together, they will serve as guardians of the American landscape on which the health of our economy and the well-being of our families so heavily depend," Obama said in introducing Salazar and Vilsack as his latest Cabinet picks. "How we harness our natural resources, from the farmlands of Iowa to the springs of Colorado, will speak not only to our quality of life, but to our economic growth and our energy future."
"Salazar, wearing a cowboy hat and a Western-style Bolo tie, said that if confirmed as interior secretary, "I will do all I can to help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil." He said he looks forward to working directly with Obama "as we take the moon-shot on energy independence" and "confront the dangers of global warming."
"Several experts who have worked with Salazar over the years, including gas and mining officials, farm groups and national environmental leaders, said they expect him [Salazar] to support Obama's energy and environmental agenda rather than attempt to set his own policy course. While both Gale A. Norton and Dirk Kempthorne frequently clashed with liberal groups while heading the agency under President Bush, those experts predicted that Salazar is more likely to pursue compromises that might ease tensions over drilling, mining and endangered species protection on public and private land."
New US president, Barack Hussein Obama
"The inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President, and Joe Biden as Vice President, took place on January 20, 2009."
January 2009
"Ken Salazar accepted Obama's offer to join his cabinet as the Secretary of the Interior. The Senate confirmed Salazar's nomination by voice vote on January 20, 2009, shortly after Obama was sworn in as President. As Secretary of the Interior, Salazar is in charge of the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the United States Geological Survey, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies overseen by the Interior Department." From January 2009, Ken Salazar is responsible for oil drilling in the United States of America.
Ken Salazar cleans up MMS - sort of...
"Salazar took over Interior in January 2009, vowing to restore the department's "respect for scientific integrity." He immediately traveled to MMS headquarters outside Denver and delivered a beat-down to staffers for their "blatant and criminal conflicts of interest and self-dealing" that had "set one of the worst examples of corruption and abuse in government." Promising to "set the standard for reform," Salazar declared, "The American people will know the Minerals Management Service as a defender of the taxpayer. You are the ones who will make special interests play by the rules." Dressed in his trademark Stetson and bolo tie, Salazar boldly proclaimed, "There's a new sheriff in town."
"Salazar's early moves certainly created the impression that he meant what he said. Within days of taking office, he jettisoned the Bush administration's plan to open 300 million acres – in Alaska, the Gulf, and up and down both coasts – to offshore drilling. The proposal had been published in the Federal Register literally at midnight on the day that Bush left the White House. Salazar denounced the plan as "a headlong rush of the worst kind," saying it would have put in place "a process rigged to force hurried decisions based on bad information." Speaking to Rolling Stone in March 2009, the secretary underscored his commitment to reform. "We have embarked on an ambitious agenda to clean up the mess," he insisted. "We have the inspector general involved with us in a preventive mode so that the department doesn't commit the same mistakes of the past." The crackdown, he added, "goes beyond just codes of ethics."
February 2009
"In February 2009, Obama put Earl Devaney in charge of tracking stimulus payouts, and since then, the inspector general position has gone unfilled." Mary Kendall was left as an acting Inspector General, even though "acting inspectors general lack “the authority, public standing, and ability to set the agenda that a Senate-approved, presidential appointee brings to the job." In short, no one was watching Minerals Management Services after Obama became president. "Obama has failed to nominate an inspector general for the Interior Department, where MMS is located. In the past, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has been a crucial supervisory body exposing fraud and mismanagement at the agency. "
April 2009
"On April 6th of last year, less than a month after BP submitted its application, MMS gave the oil giant the go-ahead to drill in the Gulf without a comprehensive environmental review. The one-page approval put no restrictions on BP, issuing only a mild suggestion that would prove prescient: "Exercise caution while drilling due to indications of shallow gas."
April 2009 - BP's application approved - even no one reads it at Obama's MMS
"BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says Ruch, who represents government scientists."
"Under Salazar, MMS continued to issue categorical exclusions to companies like BP, even when they lacked the necessary permits to protect endangered species. A preliminary review of the BP disaster conducted by scientists with the independent Deepwater Horizon Study Group concludes that MMS failed to enforce a host of environmental laws, including the Clean Water Act. "MMS and Interior are equally responsible for the failures here," says the former agency scientist. "They weren't willing to take the regulatory steps that could have prevented this incident."
May 2009
The big winner of MMS SAFE award was Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded last month under BP's management. BP was also a finalist at the 2009 conference.
August 2009 - Obama lends billions of dollar to an Brazilian offshore oil company partly owned by
Soros
Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling. The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.
February-March 2010
"On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast".
"By March, the natural gas surges had gotten so bad that BP warned MMS that it had difficulty controlling them. On March 10th, BP e-mailed the MMS drilling director for New Orleans that they were in the midst of a “well control situation,” a result which led a Berkeley engineer to tell Bloomberg that “they [BP] damn near blew up the rig.” That was just a day under six weeks before the rig actually blew up in the Gulf.
"This revelation shows that the disaster was far from unforeseen. In fact, it appears that it had already come close to a catastrophic blowout just six weeks before eleven people died in the subsequent explosion. BP didn’t exactly keep it a secret, either. They informed MMS of the problem, which apparently did nothing to intervene in a situation serious enough that a similar situation caused Exxon to shut down its well in 2006."
2009-2010
"Salazar is a core member of what some environmentalists called a "green dream team" of environmental advisers appointed by Obama shortly after his inauguration. Others include Steven Chu, the energy secretary; Lisa Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator; and Carol Browner, a White House adviser.
March 31st, 2010 Obama promotes offshore oil drilling
"Obama and Salazar appeared together at Andrews Air Force Base on March 31st to introduce the plan. The stagecraft was pure Rove in its technicolor militaristic patriotism. The president's podium was set up in front of the cockpit of an F-18, flanked by a massive American flag. "We are not here to do what is easy," Salazar declared. "We are here to do what is right." He insisted that his reforms at MMS were working: "We are making decisions based on sound information and sound science." The president, for his part, praised Salazar as "one of the finest secretaries of Interior we've ever had" and stressed that his administration had studied the drilling plan for more than a year. "This is not a decision that I've made lightly," he said. Two days later, he issued an even more sweeping assurance. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced."
April 20, 2010
"The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion happened on April 20, 2010 on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU), situated about 40 miles (64 km) southeast of the Louisiana coast in the Macondo Prospect oil field. The explosion killed 11 workers and injured 17 others; another 98 people survived without serious physical injury. It caused the Deepwater Horizon to burn and sink, and started a massive ongoing offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico; this environmental disaster is now considered the largest in U.S. history."
April 20-21, 2010 Obama administration over-rides the scientists and downplays the numbers for the oil spill
"Damningly, the whiteboard also documents the disconnect between what the government suspected to be the magnitude of the disaster and the far lower estimates it was feeding to the public. Written below the federal estimate are the words, "300,000 gal/day reported on CNN." Appearing on the network that same day on a video feed from the Gulf, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry insisted that the government had no figure. "We do not have an estimate of the amount of crude emanating from the wellhead," she said.
"Later in the video, a voice on speakerphone with a heavy Southern accent reveals that government scientists were concerned from the very beginning about underwater plumes of oil – a reality that NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco and BP executives are still seeking to downplay. "They weren't sure how that oil was going to react once it was spilled," the voice says. "Whether it was going to rise, or form layers and start twisting around." The government, in short, knew from the start that surface measurements of the oil slick – on which it would premise its absurdly low estimate of 5,000 barrels a day – were likely to be unreliable."
April 23, 2010 - time for Obama to rest, while the oil is gushing from the rig
"The following day, the Coast Guard – relying on assurances from BP – declared that the spill appeared to be limited to oil that was stored aboard the sunken rig. With a worst-case crisis seemingly averted, Obama checked out, heading off for a long weekend in Asheville, North Carolina, where he and the first lady would stop for ribs at a barbecue joint called 12 Bones Smokehouse before checking into the Grove Park Inn, a golf resort and spa. Asked whether the spill would hamper the president's offshore drilling agenda, spokesman Gibbs made light of the disaster. "I don't honestly think it opens up a whole new series of questions," he said. "I doubt this is the first accident that has happened, and I doubt it will be the last."
"After returning from his vacation, Obama spent Monday, April 26th palling around with Derek Jeter and the New York Yankees, congratulating them on their World Series victory. He later took time to chat with the president of Honduras. When he put in a call to Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, it was to talk about tornadoes that had caused damage in that state, with only a brief mention of the oil spill. On Tuesday the 27th, Obama visited a wind-turbine plant in Iowa. Wednesday the 28th, he toured a biofuels refinery in Missouri and talked up financial reform in Quincy, Illinois. He didn't mention the oil spill or the Gulf."
April 27, 2010
"It had taken a full week after Deepwater Horizon exploded for the government to become fully engaged – a critical lapse that allowed the crisis to spiral out of control.
"The failure of the Obama administration to crack down on BP – and to tackle the crisis with the full force of the federal government – is likely to haunt the Gulf Coast for decades to come. Oil continues to lap up onshore in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Pelican rookeries are fouled, their eggs and nests soaked in oil. The region's fisheries – some of the richest in the world – are imperiled; anglers and shrimpers have been barred from more than a third of the Gulf's waters, which may never fully recover from the toxic stew of crude and chemical dispersant now twisting in its depths. The region's beaches are empty, and tourist towns are dying. Administration officials now admit that the oil may continue to gush into the Gulf until August, when relief wells are finally in place. "
April 29, 2010 White House in full panic
"The White House press office organized a show of overwhelming force, with Gibbs convening Browner, Napolitano, Deputy Interior Secretary David Hayes, EPA chief Lisa Jackson and Coast Guard Rear Adm. Sally Brice-O'Hara for a single press conference on April 29th. Though clearly meant to signal engagement, the all-star crew didn't have their message straight. When Brice-O'Hara praised "the professionalism of our partner, BP," Napolitano quickly barked, "They are not our partner! They are not our partner!" For her part, Napolitano revealed that she didn't know whether the Defense Department possessed any assets that could help contain the spill, and referred vaguely to "whatever methodologies" BP was using to seal the well. "
From April 20 onwards
"... Obama administration has instead attacked scientists who released independent estimates of the spill. When one scientist funded by NOAA released a figure much higher than the government's estimate, he found himself being pressured to retract it by officials at the agency. "Are you sure you want to keep saying this?" they badgered him. Lubchenco, the head of NOAA, even denounced as "misleading" and "premature" reports that scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had discovered a massive subsea oil plume. Speaking to PBS, she offered a bizarre denial of the obvious. "It's clear that there is something at depth," she said, "but we don't even know that it's oil yet."
"Scientists were stunned that NOAA, an agency widely respected for its scientific integrity, appeared to have been co-opted by the White House spin machine. "NOAA has actively pushed back on every fact that has ever come out," says one ocean scientist who works with the agency. "They're denying until the facts are so overwhelming, they finally come out and issue an admittance." Others are furious at the agency for criticizing the work of scientists studying the oil plumes rather than leading them. "Why they didn't have vessels there right then and start to gather the scientific data on oil and what the impacts are to different organisms is inexcusable," says a former government marine biologist. "They should have been right on top of that." Only six weeks into the disaster did the agency finally deploy its own research vessel to investigate the plumes."
May 2010
"The Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service has postponed a Monday safety awards luncheon at which a nominee for two awards was BP -- which operated the oil rig that sank in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening an unprecedented environmental disaster along much of the nation's Gulf Coast. The awards ceremony recognizes "outstanding safety and pollution prevention performance by the offshore oil and gas industry." BP was nominated for its work on the outer continental shelf.
MMS acknowledges bad timing, noting that it's dedicating too many resources to the Gulf cleanup to hold a luncheon. "
May 6, 2010
Obama prohibits all offshore drilling.
May 27, 2010 (one month after the explosion)
"...a team of scientists charged with establishing the gusher's output – announced a new estimate of 12,000 to 25,000 barrels, based on calculations from video of the plume. In fact, according to interviews with team members and scientists familiar with its work, that figure represents the plume group's minimum estimate. The upper range was not included in their report because scientists analyzing the flow were unable to reach a consensus on how bad it could be. "The upper bound from the plume group, if it had come out, is very high," says Timothy Crone, a marine geophysicist at Columbia University who has consulted with the government's team. "That's why they had resistance internally. We're talking 100,000 barrels a day."
May 27, 2010 Evel liberals are asking - who is charge?
Chris Matthews: "This is a national catastrophe and the President hasn't led this fight...There should be a vivid sense that we all have now, who's the President's top kick [sic] on this? Who's running the cabinet on this? Who, every day, is giving us a report on this? Who's the guy or woman who's doing this? There's no sense of that!"
May 28, 2010 Barack Obama finally takes responsibility for the oil spill.
Standing on the sullied Louisiana coastline, he proclaimed: "The buck stops with me."
May 30, 2010
Jindal recounted to 'This Week' host Jake Tapper one instance where BP and federal government bureaucracy got in the way of the cleanup.
"Terrebonne Parish…submitted a plan for 180,000 feet of hard boom. The Coast Guard approved them for 90,000 feet. A week ago Friday, they didn't even have 90,000 feet. They didn't have that much boom, hard boom, in the parish…”
Tapper asked the governor what happened next.
“Well, in that case, they literally had hard boom sitting on the dock and they didn't deploy it,” Jindal said. “There was no excuse. The BP contractor said BP told them not to do it until the oil was coming. NOAA projections showed for days, and we saw the oil ourselves.”
“We finally brought the Coast Guard captain that was in charge of Louisiana's response with us on a National Guard Black Hawk helicopter, showed him the oil on the island, showed him the sheen in the bay, showed him the oil coming into that area, and said this needs to be boomed. He agreed it needed to be boomed,” Jindal said.
The boom was finally deployed.
June 2, 2010, Obama serenades with Paul McCartney.
Luckily, our president does not over-work himself and always finds the time to have fun.
June 11, 2010 Oil experts consulted by Obama administration claimed their recommendations were ignored and misrepresented
"The seven experts who advised President Obama on how to deal with offshore drilling safety after the Deepwater Horizon explosion are accusing his administration of misrepresenting their views to make it appear that they supported a six-month drilling moratorium -- something they actually oppose."
"The experts, recommended by the National Academy of Engineering, say Interior Secretary Ken Salazar modified their report last month, after they signed it, to include two paragraphs calling for the moratorium on existing drilling and new permits."
"Salazar's report to Obama said a panel of seven experts "peer reviewed" his recommendations, which included a six-month moratorium on permits for new wells being drilled using floating rigs and an immediate halt to drilling operations."
"None of us actually reviewed the memorandum as it is in the report," oil expert Ken Arnold told Fox News. "What was in the report at the time it was reviewed was quite a bit different in its impact to what there is now. So we wanted to distance ourselves from that recommendation."
Salazar apologized to those experts Thursday."
June 16, 2010 After two months of inactivity, Obama meets with BP CEO
"President Barack Obama and "very senior" BP officials, including chairman Henric Svanberg and Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward, are meeting this morning in the White House. They will discuss the President's push to create an independent fund that will pay workers and businesses affected by the Gulf oil spill, a spokesman for the company said."
June 18, 2010
"Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has spent the past week and half fighting to get working barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state's oil-soaked waters. By Thursday morning, against the governor's wishes, those barges still were sitting idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.
"It's the most frustrating thing," the Republican governor told ABC News while visiting Buras, La. "Literally, [Wednesday] morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges."
Sixteen barges sat stationary Thursday, although they had been sucking up thousands of gallons of BP's oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk. "
Coast Guard Orders Barges to Stop. So why stop now? "The Coast Guard came and shut them down," Jindal said. "You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, 'Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'"
But the Coast Guard ordered the stoppage because of reasons that Jindal found frustrating. The Coast Guard needed to confirm that there were fire extinguishers and life vests on board, and then it had trouble contacting the people who built the barges. "
"They promised us they were going to get it done as quickly as possible," he said. But "every time you talk to someone different at the Coast Guard, you get a different answer." After Jindal strenuously made his case, the barges finally got the go-ahead Thursday to return to the Gulf and get back to work, after more than 24 hours of sitting idle. "
Two months after the oil spill - No one is in charge
Along Gulf Coast, Governors Ask, 'Who's In Charge?' Sixty days into the crisis, it still can be tough to figure out who is in charge in Louisiana, and the problem appears to be the same in other Gulf Coast states. In Alabama Thursday, Gov. Bob Riley said that he's had problems with the Coast Guard, too. Riley, R-Ala., asked the Coast Guard to find ocean boom tall enough to handle strong waves and protect his shoreline.
The governor said the problem is there's still no single person giving a "yes" or "no." While the Gulf Coast governors have developed plans with the Coast Guard's command center in the Gulf, things begin to shift when other agencies start weighing in, like the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "It's like this huge committee down there," Riley said, "and every decision that we try to implement, any one person on that committee has absolute veto power."
June 16, 2010, Obama makes a speech from the Oval Office - but it falls flat. No more mister "Silver Tongue". The days of Barack Hussein Carter are upon us. Even liberals are unhappy.
"MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and Howard Fineman were particularly disappointed. "It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days," Olbermann said, adding, "Nothing specific at all was said... I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling to have heard this, isn't it?" Fineman agreed: "He wasn't specific enough," and failed to lead as a "commander-in-chief" should.
Even close allies of Obama's in Congress sounded critical notes. "I appreciate the President's attention to the disaster," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement, "however, the public needs additional assurance that, all aspects of the spill response, from cleanup to claims, are being enforced and coordinated by the federal government." Another senior Democratic congressman, John Dingell of Michigan, said in a statement, "I was disappointed President Obama did not call for an increase in the liability cap. BP made $16.8 billion in profits last year. BP, and oil companies in general, have been making money hand over fist over the past few years - even while our economy falters."
Fifty-seven days into the crisis, oil continues to gush from the broken wellhead, millions of gallons a day, and Obama has been powerless to stem the leak. The sad episode has raised doubts about his leadership and his administration's response to what Obama has called the nation's worst environmental disaster."
June 20, 2010
"The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about "America's addiction to oil." One member has blogged about it regularly.
Only one of the seven commissioners, the dean of Harvard's engineering and applied sciences school, has a prominent engineering background — but it's in optics and physics. Another is an environmental scientist with expertise in coastal areas and the after-effects of oil spills. Both are praised by other scientists. The five other commissioners are experts in policy and management."
June 22, 2010 Lousiana Judge declare Obama's offshore drilling ban "arbitrary and capricious" and lifts it.
"In stern and unsparing language, a noted federal trial judge in Louisiana Tuesday blocked the Obama administration from implementing its heavily publicized and politically charged sixth-month moratorium on offshore drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. "
"If some drilling equipment parts are flawed, U.S. District Judge Martin L.C. Feldman wrote in his 22-page order, "is it rational to say all are? Are all airplanes a danger because one was? All oil tankers like Exxon Valdez? All trains? All mines? That sort of thinking seems heavy handed, and rather overbearing." Later calling the moratorium an "arbitrary and capricious" use of the administrative power of the Department of the Interior and the Minerals Management Service, the judge granted a request by several offshore-drilling-related companies for a court order that would allow drilling to continue in the Gulf for 33 licensed operators. Otherwise, he found, those companies would continue to suffer irreparable injuries as a result of the drilling ban.
"[T]he blanket moratorium," the veteran judge wrote, "with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger." Worse, he wrote, the Interior Department/MMS report upon which the moratorium was based was fatally flawed. "The report patently lacks any analysis of the asserted fear of threat of irreparable injury or safety hazards posed by the thirty-three permitted rigs also reached by the moratorium. It is incident specific and driven: Deepwater Horizon and BP only. None others." As a result, Judge Feldman wrote, the Court "is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium."
"Indeed, while the government makes light of the fact that several of the experts disagree with the recommendations in the Report by noting that they do not disagree with the findings, of greater concern is the misleading text in the Executive Summary that seems to assert that all the experts agree with the Secretary's recommendation. The government's hair-splitting explanation abuses reason, common sense, and the text at issue."
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Another appearance of Hyphenated-American on the Jimmy Z show
Jimmy Z show is now featuring Hyphenated-American on a semi-regular basis. On June 7, Jimmy has put on his site the recording of our conversation (sorry for the late announcement). The Jimmy Z show is here (I suggest you check it out, there is plenty of interesting stuff), and the recording of my portion can be downloaded here. My insane ramblings are introduced on the 4th minute of the show, and after few words by Jim, I launch into lengthy discussion of Israel, Hamas and the flotilla of peace-loving jihadists. I also express my deep admiration for honesty and integrity of Helen Thomas - the Mainstream Media Antisemite in Chief. Finally, someone broke the glass ceiling and injected a good dose of anti-semitism into the White House Press Corpse (I am using Obama's spelling). I have no doubt that listeners will enjoy the Jimmy Z show, and I hope some will not be bored with the portion devoted to Yours Truly.
Funny, funny, funny....
I was in the middle of putting together a bunch of reviews of what I recently had read in the media, when one particular article and a reply by a liberal teacher were so amazing that I had to drop everything else and publish my comment. It simply could not afford to wait.
Here is the story. The State of Colorado made draconian changes to the school rules. Namely - the teachers will be held accountable for their performance. What a shame! The exact details are given here:
The new law requires teachers to be evaluated annually, with at least half of their rating based on whether their students progressed during the school year. Beginning teachers will have to show they've boosted student achievement for three straight years to earn tenure.
Teachers could lose tenure if their students don't show progress for two consecutive years. That won't be a possibility until 2015, however, because lawmakers slowed down the process under political pressure from the teachers' union. Teachers can appeal dismissal all the way to the state Supreme Court, and school districts have the burden of proving why they should be terminated.
And, as anyone would imagine, the liberals were understandably saddened by this vicious attack on teachers' dignity. Democratic Rep. Nancy Todd, a 25-year teacher who opposed the measure had this to say before she broke into tears: "I don't question your motives. But I do want you to hear my heart because my heart is speaking for over 40,000 teachers in the state of Colorado who have been given the message that it is all up to them."
This woman must surely have a gigantic heart - or, what is even more realistic, Aliens have transformed her heart into a magical receiver of human emotions. Moreover, it is fine tuned to teachers' emotions - because the emotions of parents of hundreds of thousands of failed and under-educated kids are out of its range. It also comes with speakers - which I believe is a needless luxury.
But what I particularly cherished was the comment from one of the readers of this article - a reaction not just to the article and the law, but also the comments from other readers. Here is the reply that left me speechless for about 5 seconds if you don't count my giggling.
Obviously none of you teach. Rewarding or punishing teachers based on student performance is unfair. You can put the best teacher in the world in front of a class who does not care about learning (not hard to do today) and the kids will not learn. Put the worst teacher in the world in front of a class that is motivated, and the kids will learn.The problems with education today are unmotivated students and absentee parents.But it is easier to blame teachers.
This reply is a treasure just waiting to be shown to the world. The first thought that popped into my mind was obvious - if teacher performance is irrelevant to children's education - lets close all university departments of education, fire all teachers and hire instead people from fast food restaurants. After all - if teacher quality makes no difference - why do we need to invest money into teachers? Why high salaries, great benefits, and huge pensions? It was all a scam from beginning to end, and this teacher is honest enough to say so. No wonder teachers have the worst scholastic test results in America!
The second thought was a tad more intellectual. Granted, this poor woman was too depressed to express herself correctly. By all means attacking a liberal school teacher for stupid statements is unsportmanlike behaviour, it's like shooting fish in the barrel. In real life, there are plenty of relatively smart people who repeat same arguments - that taxpayers should not assess the quality of teachers' work by the performance of the children. But this literally begs the question - how else can a taxpayer find out the quality of teacher's performance? It would be remarkable to imagine that teachers would be the only profession that is not rewarded (or punished) for performance - and the final product of teacher's work is children's education.
I fully realize that teachers feel reluctant to have their careers determined by how well little Jimmy (let alone Juan or Laquisha) can read, write and do arithmetic - but contrary to popular belief, taxpayers don't pay mind boggling amounts of money (more than a trillion dollars total annually) so that teachers' first priority would be to explain 100 fastest methods on how to put on a condom if you live in a society controlled by evil white corporatist structure. And this exactly why the taxpayers want some accountability from the public education complex - and it should not surprise anyone that there will be a lot of push back. But as someone said long time ago - When you’re catching flak, you’re on target. But I am consistently amazed at the stupidity of the people who are shooting at us.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Turkey's raid into Gaza - it has little to do with Israel
From time to time I amaze myself. I am no expert on Turkey - but I am an avid student of history, and as an engineer I am trained to notice the patterns. As I said in my letter a few days ago - the main goal of the attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza was to strengthen the Islamist control of Turkey and weaken its secular opponents - most importantly the armed forces and the opposition party. Today, I've done a quick research and found to my amazement that there actually is a pink elephant standing in the middle of the dining room - and few people seem to notice it.
Lets start with the basics - the Prime-Minister of Turkey is a staunch Islamist. He is a supporter of Hamas, he believes in blasphemy laws (when it concerns Islam) and he believes in Islamic imperialism. You can find the appropriate quotes from him in my previous articles here and here. Indeed, Erdogan was so extreme, that according to Turkish laws he was prohibited by law from even becoming the Prime-Minister of Turkey. Even BBC, not known for anti-Islamist bias, noted Erdogan's pro-Islamist sympathies and his criminal conviction for inciting religious hatred in 1998. Back in 2002, BBC expressed clear concern about the danger that Erdogan's ascend spells for Turkey and that the military will be watching him closely.
It seems that Mr.Erdogan was careful enough, and he was able to navigate the muddy waters of Turkish politics for nearly 8 years, slowly but steadily building his power base and limiting the role of secular military and judiciary. But the next step that he took in 2010 is an open claim for unlimited power. Erdogan and his supporters in Parliament proposed a new law, which would allow them to eliminate all opposition in the Supreme Court against Islamization of Turkey. According to an article from Wall Street Journal from May 2010, Turkey will in a matter of months hold a referendum which is supposed to approve drastic changes to the Constitution.
Among the contentious changes are those that would expand the Constitutional Court, a longtime bastion of secularists, to 17 members from 11. Another amendment would increase the powerful Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors to 21 members from the current seven. The changes would give parliament and the president—both currently AKP controlled—a big role in appointing the expanded judicial panels. Other changes would increase the power of civilian courts over the country's powerful military.
In other words, if everything goes according to plan, Erdogan will be able to stuff both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors with his supporters and essentially destroy the secular limits on his power. Turkish secularists swore to stop him and their best option is to use Supreme Court to declare the referendum unconstitutional. An attentive observer would not miss the obvious - that Turkey's Islamists launched the anti-Israeli campaign precisely at the moment when Erdogan's attempt to take over Turkey was in the most vulnerable moment. If anything, Erdogan's appeal to Turkey's nationalism could not have happenned at a more suitable time for his agenda to overturn the constitution. If anything, Erdogan and his Islamist allies played the Jewish card beautifully.
Anyone who thinks that the violence on Mava Marmari ship off the coast of Gaza was not planned by the Turkish authorities to aid Erdogan'a power grab is clearly ignorant of the facts. This was a propaganda op by the Turkish Islamist party, with a clear aim to aid their complete take over of Turkey.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man
I am reading the letter from Namik Tan, Turkish ambassador to the US, published in Washington Post and I must say that it is quite an amazing letter. The document is so pathetically dishonest and internally contradictory, that the most suitable response to it would be to quote the reply that Secretary of State Cordell Hull gave when he had received Japanese declaration of war in 1941: "In all my fifty years of public service I have never seen a document that was more crowded with infamous falsehoods and distortions‑infamous falsehoods and distortions on a scale so huge that I never imagined until today that any Government on this planet was capable of uttering them."
The article starts with author declaring that evil Jews slaughtered 9 "peace activists" who were merely guilty of trying to deliver "humanitarian aid to ease the desperate lives of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip". This by itself is a falsehood, since the "peace activists" publicly declared that their main goal was to break the blockade that Israel maintains around Hamas-controlled territories - and any aid to Gazan population was completely accidental. Moreover, same "peace activists" were given the chance to deliver all the aid they brought - with a simple condition that Israeli troops check the ship and make sure that the peace activists are not trying to smuggle any illegal goods or weapons. It does not help Namik Tan that the "peace activists" openly proclaim that they accepted only two options for themselves (and they were happy about both of them) - either break the blockade or become "martyrs" - martyrs for Hamas.
The next line of thought presented in the article was equally puzzling - even though Namik believes that Israel owes Turkey an apology - he publicly proclaims that Turkey had nothing to do with this flotilla - it was all an initiative of private individuals of the world. In effect, Namik builds up a human shield of respectable participants in his effort to prove how peaceful the "peace activists" were.
It was an international aid convoy made up of nationals of 32 countries taking food, toys, medical equipment and similar aid to the people of Gaza, who have been deprived of these basic commodities for years. Among the ships' 600 activists were Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, European lawmakers, journalists, business leaders and an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor -- hardly targets who could pose a threat to Israel's well-trained commandos.
This line of reasoning begs the question - why then Israel owes Turkey an apology? What's so special about Turkey? He later concedes that the participants of the international convoy used somewhat inappropriate language - namely the battle cries of Mohhamed's hoards before they slaughtered the Jews in the 7th century. Moreover, same peace activists were kind enough to tell the Jews to go back to Auschwitz. According to Namik, no one should mind those understandable outbursts of antisemitism and bigotry among the "peace activists" - it's a freedom of speech issue, nothing more - something we all celebrate. It remained unclear from his explanation whether it was the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Corrigan-Maguire who screamed about killing the Jews, the European lawmakers, journalists, business leaders or an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor - I guess we will find out this later.
But this is really besides the point, since everyone supports freedom of speech - everyone except very few isolated extremists. Sadly, the prime-minister of Turkey (and Namik's boss) Recep Erdogan is among those isolated extremists - and he is quite vocal about the limits of freedom of speech when it concerns Islam. For example, Erdogan called on the international community to declare the enmity against Islam a “crime against humanity”. Prime-Minister Erdogan expects "members of other civilisations to declare Islamophobia a crime against humanity, especially while we say that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity.” Turkish press quotes him as saying: "Caricatures of prophet Muhammad are an attack against our spiritual values. There should be a limit of freedom of press."
There may be even more that meets the eye in Namik's article. According to ambassador, "In any democratic country, people have freedom of expression so long as they avoid violence." And Namik is not shy to point out that he views Turkey as "a redoubt of secularism and democracy in our region, striving hard to protect its own citizens." As I showed earlier, this is a remarkable statement, given Namik's boss calls on the world to jail those who draw caricatures of Mohammed. It becomes even more remarkable, when we find out that Turkey jails her citizens for insulting "Turkey, the Turkish ethnicity, or Turkish government institutions". Here is what it says in Turkish Penal Code, Article 301:
1.A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.2.A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.3.In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.4.Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.
Mind you, that as late as 2007, Arat Dink and Serkis Seropyan were convicted to one-year suspended sentences under Article 301 for printing Dink's claims that the killings of Armenians in 1915 was a genocide.
In this light, some of Namik's claims can be read as a brave indictment of brutal Turkish regime, which violates the most basics principles of free speech - and I am openly worrying for his safety. What if Turkish Prime Minister reads this article and finds out that according to Namik, "people have freedom of expression so long as they avoid violence" - does this not sound like a direct challenge to Turkish laws? Is he saying that Turkey is not democratic? And should we assume that Namik is upset that his boss demanded the world community to jail people for insulting Islam? Never mind that, my reader, don't you worry for the Turkish bureaucrat - his views extend only to the Jews - and any attempt to apply his free-speeching views to Turkey will be struck down by Namik himself as an insult to Turkishness. He may even try to jail you...
Another interesting perspective on Namik's unfortunate comments about antisemitism as freedom of speech lies in connection with Namik's insistance on calling the antisemitic scum - as "peace activists". If I were to make an analogy - who hasn't seen civil rights activists running around screaming about "niggers" and "kikes" and "wetbacks" and "japs" - this is what they do on a regular basis in America. Which is why it is not shocking that "peace activists" armed with knives and baseball bats, violently demanding second Holocaust and dreaming about dying for the glory of Hamas are innocent peace loving civilian angels according to Namik. Anyone who does not see this is guilty of insufficient understanding of cultural diversity - not all things are viewed similarily in the Islamic world and the Western civilization. For example, while Westerners normally stay away from Hitler, Mein Kampf is the best-seller in the moslem world - including "secular, democratic Turkey". This too explains why moslem peace activists seem foreign to an untrained Western eye - but give it time, and we shall get more accustomed to the view.
Another peculiar feature in the article is Namik's insistence that Turkey is a secular republic. Just a few days ago, the secular leader of secular and democratic Turkey, prime-minister Erdogan publicly proclaimed that Sudanese government cannot possibly commit genocide in Darfur because "It’s not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide. That’s why we are comfortable [with the visit of al-Bashir, Sudanese president].” He was equally empathetic towards Hamas - for example he said: “I do not think that Hamas is a terrorist organization. They are Palestinians in resistance, fighting for their own land.” While all religions are equal in Turkey, some religions are more equal than others. Back in 2004, Turkey denounced Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin as a "terrorist act". It also described the Israeli policy in the Gaza Strip as "state-sponsored terrorism." Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza and described Israel's actions as a "crime against humanity." [These are same Turks who have no problem bombing Kurds into oblivion]. And the moderate secular democratic prime-minister of seculare Turkey said in 1998: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers". If this does not sound like secularism - then nothing does!
In the end, I want to note that Turkey's government is tirelessly working for peace in the Middle East. Just recently they gave Iran another opportunity to flunk the world sanctions. And now, Turkish Prime-Minister is threatening to send Turkish fleet (under his own command) to break through Israeli blockade and finally deliver all the humanitarian aid that Hamas so severely requires - chocolate, cement and a few Skuds to terrorise protest those pesky Jews. After all - this is what the friends are for. Of course, Turkey may be on thin ice here - since Israel may decide that Kurds are indeed worthy of statehood, and deserve humanitarian aid - which can include a little bit of training with Mossad and a moderate amount of explosives. Moreover, Turks are not known for their naval glory - so Turkish PM may indeed prepare for martyrdom. It's a bit unpractical for him to leave the quiet of his official residency and wander too close to Israel - the Jews may decide to bite him.
Friday, June 4, 2010
Inquiring minds demand to know - is Turkey cooked yet?
Many observers were surprised by hysterical reaction of the Turkish government to the recent clash between jihadist militia masquerading as peace activists and Israeli Defence Forces in the open seas. It took only short time for journalists to realize that Turkey may well be a different country now - a country which is run by Islamists, and which is attempting to assert its position in the Middle East. And, as one would guess, the best way for a Moslem country to show its leadership is by vicious anti-semitic and anti-Israeli activity. Many people would like to know - can the country named after a legendary Thanksgiving dish be saved from descent into the jihadist abyss?
In short - not a chance. To start with, Islamic religion is awoken from century-long sleep and is going through a major Reformation. The main drivers of this process are well-known to the educated public - Moslem Brotherhood, Osama ben Laden, Taliban and Iranian mullahs. The amazing part is that while Moslem Brotherhood is a Sunni religious group, it does view Iranian Shiites with respect and support. It is also quite clear that all four groups have similar views on the supremacy of Islam over individual rights. They also share vicious hatred of Western Democracy. All four also hate the Jews, but this really goes without saying.
Once we take into account that all leading moslem groups driving Islam's revival are crazy - it is fair to note that any country with substantial moslem population is in danger of sliding into chaos. The current Islamic trends leave little hope for the moslem world to rejoin the rest of the mankind. In this context, the fall of Turkey into Islamist abyss should not strike us as something extraordinary - this is just another example of a so-called "Sudden Jihad Syndrom". At some point, people will notice the obvious pattern about Islam and the purported suddenness will give way to something which everyone expects - like rain in Seattle.
In all fairness though, Turkey was balancing on the edge of Islamic precipice for the last 100 years. The late Ataturk was able to drag Turkey out of backwardness by legislating modernity and secularism - in other words by sending Islam to the dustbin of history. He also turned Turkish armed forces into the guards of modernity, and 4 times (in 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997) in the last 50 years the military found it necessary to use brute force to save the nation from Islamism (and communism).
But alas, all good things come to end, and any state that exclusively relies on its military to preserve society from degeneration is not sustainable. On one side, European bureaucrats, as condition of Turkey's entry into EU, drastically weakened the powers of the secular armed forces. On the other side, resurgent Islamists became much more powerful in Turkey and finally seized the power through democratic elections. Turkish slide to Islamism could be easily noticed in the last decade - from the sudden popularity of moslem headscarves for the wives of high-level government bureaucrats to consistent and rising Turkish estrangement from Israel.
Wikipedia notes the rising animosity of the Turkish ruling class towards Israel from 2004 to 2010 thus:
In 2004, Turkey denounced Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as a "terrorist act". It also described the Israeli policy in the Gaza Strip as "state-sponsored terrorism." ...Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Israel to halt its military operations in Gaza and described Israel's actions as a "crime against humanity." [These are same Turks who have no problem bombing Kurds into oblivion].
At the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, the Turkish prime minister stormed off the stage after a heated exchange with Israeli president Shimon Peres.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan clashed with Shimon Peres, whose voice had risen as he made an impassioned defence of Israel's actions, jabbing his finger. Mr Erdogan said Mr Peres had spoken so loudly to conceal his "guilt".
Turkish Prime Minister had made an address himself, describing Gaza as an "open-air prison". When the audience applauded Mr Peres, he said: "I find it very sad that people applaud what you said. You killed people. And I think that it is very wrong."
Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted that shortly after the Davos incident, Erdogan hosted the Vice President of Sudan, who is being indicted for his role in the Darfur genocide. Cagaptay brings up this fact to note that Erdogan's action at Davos were less about humanitarian concern than they are about what Cagaptay calls a "civilizational view."
The position of Turkish Islamists towards Israel is quite easy to explain from strategic and tactical points of view. Clear analysis shows that such a policy is very beneficial to the ruling Islamists, and may well be the glue that will finally hold together their control over Turkey. To start with, no one should be surprised that Islamists hate Israel - after all Islam is essentially founded on anti-semitism. Secondly, any population in a poor backwards country requires a simple but effective method to channel the frustration of the population - and Israel is truly an easy target for the brainwashed people of Islamic faith. Thirdly, Turkey may indeed become the leader of Islamic world by leading the attack against Israel (this does not have to be a full-blown war - but rather a series of verbal sparring and low-level support of terrorism against the Jews). Lethal combination of subconscious anti-semitism, appeal to Turkish nationalism and religious intolerance is a very powerful weapon in the hands of the rulers of Turkey.
The fourth reason which I have not seen anyone mention is probably the most important reason for Turkish sudden move against Israel. The biggest threat to the Islamist government in Turkey is the secular army. It is also well-known that Turkish army is relatively pro-American and pro-Israeli. The ruling Islamists are now appealing to large swamps of Turkish population - and any attempt by the military to over-throw the Islamist regime will be denounced as a Zionist plot against Turkish nationalist and religious movement. A military coup three months ago would have been seen by everyone as eternal Turkish struggle between secular army and Islamist government - but today the situation is completely different. Any attempt to destroy Islamists will surely be presented as CIA and Mossad's attack on Turkish society.
It is also quite clear that very soon Islamists will attempt a radical cleansing of the military forces from the secular officers. This cleansing will be presented as a war against Zionist agents - and I have no doubt that any officer that is known for working with Israeli Defense Forces in the last 20 years can be sent into early retirement if not even outright jailed.
It is my belief that Turkish Islamists struck gold when they trained, financed and organized the latest provocation against Israel. The Jewish card became a Joker in the power play in Turkey. At this point, this country is lost to the West - unless the Turkish military realize that they have nothing to lose. There is very little time left for them to turn the ship around - and if they fail to act, it won't be just the end of their career. Some of them may also lose their heads - and I mean it literally.
P.S. After I had finished writing my post, I discovered that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to stand still and instead continued his accelerating descent into complete madness. It's only a matter of time before this clown becomes Hugo Chavez or Muamar Qaddafi. This imbecile is hosting Organization for Islamic Conference (OIC). Dictator of Sudan, murderous Omar al-Bashir is welcome in Turkey in spite of the fact that he is charged with genocide in Darfur (hello, liberal activists for Darfur - whass up, comrade Clooney!). Erdogan dismissed the claims that al-Bashir is a murderer (500,000 people exterminated - and no one blinked an eye) - by simply stating that accusations are absurd. The conscience of Turkey and fighter for civil liberty explained it thus: "It’s not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide. That’s why we are comfortable [with the visit of al-Bashir].”In case anyone was wondering about Erdogan's position, he added:
According to the article, "Erdogan went on to suggest that the Jews of Israel are the only genocidal group in the Middle East. The Turkish Premier has very publicly accused Israel of widespread war crimes and even genocidal intentions in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian-controlled areas, severely straining relations between the two nations, which were previously regional allies."
Erdogan also added:
In case someone is wondering what kind of animal is this "Turkishness" and what can be construed of an insult to it - here is the official explanation:
P.S. After I had finished writing my post, I discovered that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to stand still and instead continued his accelerating descent into complete madness. It's only a matter of time before this clown becomes Hugo Chavez or Muamar Qaddafi. This imbecile is hosting Organization for Islamic Conference (OIC). Dictator of Sudan, murderous Omar al-Bashir is welcome in Turkey in spite of the fact that he is charged with genocide in Darfur (hello, liberal activists for Darfur - whass up, comrade Clooney!). Erdogan dismissed the claims that al-Bashir is a murderer (500,000 people exterminated - and no one blinked an eye) - by simply stating that accusations are absurd. The conscience of Turkey and fighter for civil liberty explained it thus: "It’s not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide. That’s why we are comfortable [with the visit of al-Bashir].”In case anyone was wondering about Erdogan's position, he added:
If there was such a thing [genocide], we could talk about it face to face with President Bashir.
Those world leaders who criticize us, have they ever visited Darfur? Their information is solely based on what the rapporteurs are reporting. These kinds of moves will not contribute to world peace.
We are aware of the fact that there are those who want to corner Turkey through al-Bashir’s visit. These people should know well our sensitivities about human rights violations. I went to Darfur myself. I want to ask: How many of these worlds leaders paid a visit to Sudan, to Darfur?
According to the article, "Erdogan went on to suggest that the Jews of Israel are the only genocidal group in the Middle East. The Turkish Premier has very publicly accused Israel of widespread war crimes and even genocidal intentions in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian-controlled areas, severely straining relations between the two nations, which were previously regional allies."
Erdogan also added:
Gaza and Darfur should not be confused with each other. Fifteen-hundred people were killed in Gaza. If there was something like this in Darfur, we would follow that to the end as well.I have no doubt he would - just as he followed to the end the Armenian genocide perpetuated by the Turkish Islamists a century ago. Ahm - bad example though, since Turkish official position is that the murder of a million Armenian civilians was a mere misunderstanding and anyone mentioning it is guilty of "insulting Turkishness" - a criminal offense in freedom loving Turkey.
In case someone is wondering what kind of animal is this "Turkishness" and what can be construed of an insult to it - here is the official explanation:
1.A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.Not surprisingly, Obama's State Department sent a strongly-worded response to the hosting of a genocidal maniac by the promoter of civil liberties Edrogan: "It was really up to the government of Turkey whether to allow the indicted president to attend a meeting of the OIC. Kelly [U.S. State Department spokesman] also said Washington’s purpose was not to criticize Turkey but that it would expect Turkey to raise “Darfur issues” if it holds meetings with al-Bashir." I wonder why the State Department cannot imagine criticizing Turkey - is there some kind of Turkish mafia in control of Washington DC, stronger than evil Zionists and AIPAC put together? And if so - why haven't we heard about it?
2.A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.
3.In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.
4.Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Damn! That was an easy one...
I am reading an article from the New York Times about one poor little girl (who also happened to be a 26-year-old graduate of New York University). This poor creature owes $100,000 in student loan debt from her four years in school. The NYT editorializes: "It is utterly depressing that there are so many people like her facing decades of payments, limited capacity to buy a home and a debt burden that can repel potential life partners."
The authors of the article are struggling with a very painful question - who is at fault that this girl (and her elderly mother) are now completely incapable to pay off the student loan - even though both of them are proud that she graduated from such a prestigious university.
Did the banks rip her off? Was her mother insane? The authors believe that "it's a shared failure of parenting and loan underwriting." I am impressed that that they also mention the college authorities - "because they have the most knowledge of the financial aid process. And I would argue that they had an obligation to counsel students like Ms. Munna, who got in too far over their heads."
After much soul searching, the article mentions that the girl now "makes $22 an hour working for a photographer". According to the article, "after taxes, she takes home about $2,300 a month." Now, why a 26 year old graduate from a prestigious university is not able to find a proper job? The answer is simple - she has an "interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies." Let me stop here and laugh hysterically for a few minutes. In short, this poor mentally deranged girl (and her elderly mother) paid $100,000 to get a useless degree in "religious and women's studies" - a degree which has as much value as a degree in metaphysics and alchemy. Even the girl herself wised up a little and says "I don't want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back. It feels wrong to me." Fair enough - no one should pay $100,000 (or even $100) to get a 4 year lecture in "religious and women's studies". No one benefits from it, except the lecturer.
One thing that surprised me though is why this obvious conclusion was not mentioned in the article. I can presume that the article was designed to be a mystery story, a sort of a puzzle, where the solution comes at the end - something like this: "For God's sakes, she got a interdisciplinary degree in religious and women's studies - that's why she is f*cked!" - but still, it felt like the authors were reluctant to even mention that the girl was bamboozled off her money by slick (and politically correct) thieves at the New York University. Moreover, the authors did not even attempt to interview her professors and ask them if they were ashamed of selling fictitious degrees. I wonder, why is that - is this because the authors get a share of the ill-gotten profits or because they hope that one day they will be selling fictitious degrees?
P.S. After I finished writing this post, I've found that same article was arfully disected by WSJ on the very same day. Great minds think alike.
P.S. After I finished writing this post, I've found that same article was arfully disected by WSJ on the very same day. Great minds think alike.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
I am trying to dissern a pattern - can you help?
Pakistan bans Facebook because it allows mockery of Islam
According to Al Jazeera, a Pakistani court has issued a ban on the social networking site Facebook after a user-generated contest page encouraged members to post caricatures of Prophet Mohammed.
The Lahore High Court on Wednesday instructed the Pakistani Telecommunications Authority (PTA) to ban the site after the Islamic Lawyers Movement complained that a page called “Draw Mohammed Day” is blasphemous.
State Department confirms that it supports Pakistan's laws against blasphemy. They call it "offensive speech" - so it's okay. According to the suit from the Foggy Bottom,
Pakistan is wrestling to this issue. We respect any actions that need to be taken under Pakistani law to protect their citizens from offensive speech.
Many of the images that appear on Facebook were deeply offensive to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. We are deeply concerned about any deliberate attempt to offend Muslims or members of any other religious groups.
We do not condone offensive speech that can incite violence or hatred.
Facebook bans sites that participate in "Draw Mohammed Day". Finally, after pressure from Pakistan and US, Facebook decided to ban any sites that mock Islam. This is a great victory for freedom of speech - ahm, for freedom of non-offensive, politically correct, liberal approved, Islamo-respectful speech.
US government prohibits ads helping people who left Islam - but approves atheistic ads. "Piss Christ" is still free speech and requires government funding. According to WND,
A lawsuit against Detroit's transit agency alleges officials sold space for ads promoting atheism but censored a message offering help for those wanting to leave Islam.
The Thomas More Law Center filed suit yesterday against the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation, or SMART, and several of its executives.
Thomas More's clients, the Freedom Defense Initiative and founders Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, had sought to purchase ad space for their message, "Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!"
Afghan government suspended two Christian groups accused of proselyting. Google news dryly reports that "Proselytizing is illegal in Afghanistan, as it is in many Muslim countries. It is a hot-button issue for many Afghans sensitive to the influence of the scores of foreign aid groups operating in the country to help it recover from decades of war." The Christian groups in question were feeding hundreds of thousands of starving people - but laws of Islam and religious purity take precedence over the lives of people in the country of "religion of peace". There was no public protest or UN outcry. I am baffled.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
What's new, pussycat? #10
During last few weeks, the news from the world were consistently bad - but some news were funny.
Islamo-fascist is allowed to enter Britain
United Kindgom allowed a moslem jihadist Zakir Naik to visit Britain. An infamous tele-jihadist is known for his extreme views - for example claiming that "People who change their religion should face the death penalty” or "“It is a blatant secret that this attack on the twin towers was done by George Bush himself” and "“If he [Osama Bin Laden] is terrorising the terrorists, if he is terrorising America the terrorist ... I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist”. Interestingly enough, United Kingdom recently prohibited a number of non-jihadists to enter the country - the list includes Mike Savage (conservative talk show host), Benny Hinn (American Christian preacher - peaceful nutcase) and Geert Wilders (Dutch MP and civil rights activist).
Self-Described conservative David Brooks steps into sh*t - keeps walking
Pseudo-conservative David Brooks finally regained his composure and rallied against all evil people who doubt Obama's competence. In his jihad for Obama, Dave was forced to perform human caused disasters against poor innocent libs - including James Carville. According to Dave, Obama "had a really heroic presidency for the first year..." Moreover - while Dave roundly criticized Bush for his alleged incompetence during hurricane Katrina - it was patently unfair (maybe even racist) to expect anything positive from president Obama and the federal government. Way to go, Dave! Now that you are to the left of James Carville - maybe it's time to register with Communist Party.
P.S. Good quotes from Dave back from 2008, when he was dreaming about being teabagged by Obama: "I remember distinctly an image of–we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”
"I think he’s more talented than anyone in my lifetime. I mean, he is pretty dazzling when he walks into a room."
Obama and liberals are finally moving against freedom of speech
According to Fox News, liberals in Michigan consider licensing for journalists. According to Senator Bruce Patterson who has introduced the bill which will regulate the reporters, "“Legitimate media sources are critically important to our government". There is an eerie similarity to Lenin"s pronouncements that "movies are the most important art" - which of course meant that the communists would take complete control over the movie industry.
The bill proposes a multi-step application process for would-be reporters in the great state of Michigan (15% unemployment) in their quest to satisfy the board of government specialists.
--"Good moral character” and demonstrate they have industry “ethics standards acceptable to the board.”
--Possession of a degree in journalism or other degree substantially equivalent.
--Not less than 3 years experience as a reporter or any other relevant background information.
--Awards or recognition related to being a reporter.
--Three or more writing samples.
According to Bruce, “We have to be able to get good information. We have to be able to rely on the source and to understand the credentials of the source.” According to Fox News, he believes that
In a completely different story, Obama's Federal Trade Commission recently proposed to nationalize the press. Among the measures, FTC proposes to drastically increase government subsidies to selected media outlets, expand the role of government owned media in the US, raise taxes on independent media and the like. It remains to be seen if Michigan senator will get employment in the FTC - but it would make perfect sense.
And yet another story is brewing - more than 30 liberal organizations (one of them with Orwelian name "Free Press") filed a letter to FCC demanding it to root out all "hate speech" from Internet, Radio and Cable TV. There are no explanations on what the authors consider "hate speech" (for example some may quite reasonably assert that Obama's claims that his administration keeps its boot on the throat of BP is an obvious example of hate speech) - there was one paragraph that hinted to what the liberals meant. According to the signers, "Just last week, Arizona enacted some of the most backward-sliding legislation that has existed since freed-slaves were forced to show their papers in the 1800s." In other words, be ready that any common sense opinions will be considered hate speech.
I must mention that the document is very poorly written (which is to be expected from people of very low intelligence) - for example this passage is actually quite funny: "As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve." It would be for example interesting to find out how ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS became less "diverse" in the last few decades - just for laughs and giggles - and see how much evidence exists to prove it. Moreover, the fact that "traditional media" has lost its monopoly due to invention of AM radio and Internet is also cited in the document as evidence that diversity is lost. It would be interesting to know how the authors define "diversity".
Moreover, the same authors made quote a lot of interesting claims - including these ones: "The Internet gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than before. Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye. Even worse, sometimes anonymous Internet speakers hold their information out as news, leaving the public with the difficult job of discerning fact from fiction." The entire passage is bizarre - for starters, what's the base year for comparison of the number of journalists - let alone where is the definition of "journalist". A good blogger is worth more than 10 top journalists from the NYT. Secondly, many newspapers editorials are anonymous - which seems not to bother the liberal proponents of legacy media. Lastly, every media outlet claims it provides news - and it is up to the public to do the "difficult job of discerning fact from fiction". In other words, the public has to do this irrespective of whether it gets its information. But what apparently the left-wing groups demand is that the Obama regime takes on the difficult task of deciding this - and not the public. In other words, they want government control over the press.
In all fairness, I believe once conservatives take over the House, they should start congressional hearings and find out if any of the tax dollars are given to these left-wing fascistic groups. I don't see why my money should support their efforts to censor free speech and castrate the First Amendment.
Islamo-fascist is allowed to enter Britain
United Kindgom allowed a moslem jihadist Zakir Naik to visit Britain. An infamous tele-jihadist is known for his extreme views - for example claiming that "People who change their religion should face the death penalty” or "“It is a blatant secret that this attack on the twin towers was done by George Bush himself” and "“If he [Osama Bin Laden] is terrorising the terrorists, if he is terrorising America the terrorist ... I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist”. Interestingly enough, United Kingdom recently prohibited a number of non-jihadists to enter the country - the list includes Mike Savage (conservative talk show host), Benny Hinn (American Christian preacher - peaceful nutcase) and Geert Wilders (Dutch MP and civil rights activist).
Self-Described conservative David Brooks steps into sh*t - keeps walking
Pseudo-conservative David Brooks finally regained his composure and rallied against all evil people who doubt Obama's competence. In his jihad for Obama, Dave was forced to perform human caused disasters against poor innocent libs - including James Carville. According to Dave, Obama "had a really heroic presidency for the first year..." Moreover - while Dave roundly criticized Bush for his alleged incompetence during hurricane Katrina - it was patently unfair (maybe even racist) to expect anything positive from president Obama and the federal government. Way to go, Dave! Now that you are to the left of James Carville - maybe it's time to register with Communist Party.
P.S. Good quotes from Dave back from 2008, when he was dreaming about being teabagged by Obama: "I remember distinctly an image of–we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant, and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president.”
"I think he’s more talented than anyone in my lifetime. I mean, he is pretty dazzling when he walks into a room."
Obama and liberals are finally moving against freedom of speech
According to Fox News, liberals in Michigan consider licensing for journalists. According to Senator Bruce Patterson who has introduced the bill which will regulate the reporters, "“Legitimate media sources are critically important to our government". There is an eerie similarity to Lenin"s pronouncements that "movies are the most important art" - which of course meant that the communists would take complete control over the movie industry.
The bill proposes a multi-step application process for would-be reporters in the great state of Michigan (15% unemployment) in their quest to satisfy the board of government specialists.
--"Good moral character” and demonstrate they have industry “ethics standards acceptable to the board.”
--Possession of a degree in journalism or other degree substantially equivalent.
--Not less than 3 years experience as a reporter or any other relevant background information.
--Awards or recognition related to being a reporter.
--Three or more writing samples.
According to Bruce, “We have to be able to get good information. We have to be able to rely on the source and to understand the credentials of the source.” According to Fox News, he believes that
some reporters covering state politics don’t know what they’re talking about and they’re working for publications he’s never heard of, so he wants to install a process that’ll help him and the general public figure out which reporters to trust.
In a completely different story, Obama's Federal Trade Commission recently proposed to nationalize the press. Among the measures, FTC proposes to drastically increase government subsidies to selected media outlets, expand the role of government owned media in the US, raise taxes on independent media and the like. It remains to be seen if Michigan senator will get employment in the FTC - but it would make perfect sense.
And yet another story is brewing - more than 30 liberal organizations (one of them with Orwelian name "Free Press") filed a letter to FCC demanding it to root out all "hate speech" from Internet, Radio and Cable TV. There are no explanations on what the authors consider "hate speech" (for example some may quite reasonably assert that Obama's claims that his administration keeps its boot on the throat of BP is an obvious example of hate speech) - there was one paragraph that hinted to what the liberals meant. According to the signers, "Just last week, Arizona enacted some of the most backward-sliding legislation that has existed since freed-slaves were forced to show their papers in the 1800s." In other words, be ready that any common sense opinions will be considered hate speech.
I must mention that the document is very poorly written (which is to be expected from people of very low intelligence) - for example this passage is actually quite funny: "As traditional media have become less diverse and less competitive, they have also grown less responsible and less responsive to the communities that they are supposed to serve." It would be for example interesting to find out how ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS became less "diverse" in the last few decades - just for laughs and giggles - and see how much evidence exists to prove it. Moreover, the fact that "traditional media" has lost its monopoly due to invention of AM radio and Internet is also cited in the document as evidence that diversity is lost. It would be interesting to know how the authors define "diversity".
Moreover, the same authors made quote a lot of interesting claims - including these ones: "The Internet gives the illusion that news sources have increased, but in fact there are fewer journalists employed now than before. Moreover, on the Internet, speakers can hide in the cloak of anonymity, emboldened to say things that they may not say in the public eye. Even worse, sometimes anonymous Internet speakers hold their information out as news, leaving the public with the difficult job of discerning fact from fiction." The entire passage is bizarre - for starters, what's the base year for comparison of the number of journalists - let alone where is the definition of "journalist". A good blogger is worth more than 10 top journalists from the NYT. Secondly, many newspapers editorials are anonymous - which seems not to bother the liberal proponents of legacy media. Lastly, every media outlet claims it provides news - and it is up to the public to do the "difficult job of discerning fact from fiction". In other words, the public has to do this irrespective of whether it gets its information. But what apparently the left-wing groups demand is that the Obama regime takes on the difficult task of deciding this - and not the public. In other words, they want government control over the press.
In all fairness, I believe once conservatives take over the House, they should start congressional hearings and find out if any of the tax dollars are given to these left-wing fascistic groups. I don't see why my money should support their efforts to censor free speech and castrate the First Amendment.
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