As expected, President Obama is planning to lift the drilling moratorium and to return to his planned drilling program off pristine areas of the East Coast. While Obama is no longer claiming that oil rigs really do not spill much, it really does not matter much. Bureau head Michael Bromwich has announced that the six-month ban is unlikely to be renewed in a blow to environmentalists. One lasting change? The Obama Administration changed the name of the scandal-laden Minerals Management Service to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.
The Administration has been putting on a full court press with officials expressing relief that they can find no large amounts of oil left — brushing over the millions of gallons of toxic chemicals that they allowed BP to dump into the ocean to disperse the oil. Experts have objected that the Obama Administration has been actively downplaying research showing these chemicals remain in the food chain for many years. Administration officials have said that the health impact of these chemicals remains uncertain — leading others to question the decision to dump millions of gallons into the ocean.
The recent public offensive appears calculated in part to lift the ban. In the ultimate example of “out of sight out of mind,” Bromwich insists that he can “see no information so far that would justify extending the moratorium.”
Source: CNN
What is late diagnosed prostate cancer?
Blouise,
You said it was rolling towards Buddha, would it not be more correct to say that its a slow drip….but then again…what was the cause of Jefferson’s death?
Bob posted:
In my opinion, the president was faced with a decision to prosecute war criminals or avoid another depression – and I think he made the best choice available. And yes, I do think that mitigates the decision not to prosecute the Bush administration. President Obama can answer for the cases in which his Justice Department has argued against civil liberties, but I will point out that, at least to me, it is important to know if has, for instance, exercised the ability to assassinate US citizens or just argued that he should have it (both are repugnant but I think there is a huge difference in degree here). But as you never tire of pointing out, I’m not a lawyer, so I’m sure you’ll tell me how my understanding is naive…
Whatever. I’m just trying to judge him fairly and in the proper context and I see him as doing quite a bit of good (as well as some bad) and unquestionably having done A LOT (definitely in FDR territory as far as quantity goes) in what I think is the most divisive, partisan political environment since the Civil War.
Again, if the choice was between avoiding a depression vs. prosecuting President Bush, there’s no question in my mind that President Obama made the right one. It’s easy for you to pass judgement sitting at your keyboard when you don’t have to consider the prospect of, say, a 15% unemployment rate.
You’ve certainly implied that you wish to prosecute the Bush administration for complicity in 9/11.
Glad you find me amusing (I find your poor grasp of basic physics hilarious, so I guess it’s only fair). My problem with you is that you don’t seem to understand how investigation works (HINT: employing a confirmation bias is a poor investigatory methodology).
Reading scientific papers (even bad ones) takes time and I haven’t had any. Believe it or not, my life doesn’t revolve around you. You’ll just have to wait for my next installment on how your controlled demolition hypothesis is scientifically unsound. In the meantime you could always get out your tinfoil hat and explain your mysterious ‘holes in the primary radar’ that don’t seem to exist in the primary radar data…
That was a response to buddha and blouise by the way. In that context it almost makes sense.
I talk a good game but mostly I just smoke french cigarettes and try to pick up confused looking world literature majors. I give them the cliff notes version of this or that and make up a few unintelligible quotes and they fall for me like a rock going uphill.
Slarti– I agree with much of what you said and I see your point about Obama and FDR- both began their presidencies under horrifying economic conditions that were deteriorating by the hour and couldn’t be put on the shelf while they worked on other things. I still accuse President Obama of cowardice on civil liberties issues and believe he must restore the previous checks on presidential powers and checks on intrusions into the privacy of the lives of the American people. Need I bring up the spectre of Sarah Palin with unchecked presidential powers- including the power to kill any American without due process of law?
Same as it ever was, Blouise.
Buddha Is Laughing
1, August 11, 2010 at 11:44 pm
Yissil,
“Futility is as futility does.”
You said it, Sisyphus. Where’s my rock?
==========================================================
Rolling right down towards you …
Learned a great deal reading this thread … thank you all
Yissil,
“Futility is as futility does.”
You said it, Sisyphus. Where’s my rock?
I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
“I can’t be too sure I might see that final bionic hybrid, you know that whole Terminator idea that always gets brought up, but for sure we are going to make a lot of progress,” said researcher Collin Luk.
______
Every technology, every tool is a two-edged sword.
Destruction and creation in a hand held package.
From a simple lever to a state of the art military.
Every technology, including this one . . .
This this mircohip technology is as scary as garage genetics.
There is massive misuse potential in this little toy.
War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength.
You are right Henman. I saw the Michael Moore movie. Many American people don’t like the idea of socialized medicine or socialized anything. They think our system is better. Everyone should have medicare.
To the best of my knowledge,no country that adopted “socialized medicine” has ever dropped it and gone back to a private system= the people wouldn’t stand for it.
Slarti: “I do feel that equating the degree of culpability of the former administration to that of the current one is disingenuous, especially in light of the economic realities they had to deal with.”
So, ‘economic realities’ determines whether one is more or less culpable under the law? Or may we ignore the law simply because we think we have too much to do at the time? You’re so full of shit you’re gonna float away.
Kant: “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
Or, if you need an anthropomorphic version of the categorical imperative via modern film:
William Munny: “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
You’re just another wide-eyed liberal groupie looking to make excuses for Obama. Obama not only ignored his Article VI oath by excusing the previous executive of exercising power beyond that which no one has a right to, but he took FURTHER actions to embrace and fortify said constitutionally repugnant policies by defending them in court. And at least Bush spoke out of just one side of his mouth.
Slarti: “It is nice to see that you’re added a desire to see all crimes as equivalent to your willingness to prosecute people for crimes they didn’t commit.”
Outside of your imagination, exactly what people have I identified for prosecution? I find your grasp of criminal jurisprudence quite amusing. It’s rather hard to identify and prosecute anyone without an investigation; just as it’s impossible to evaluate evidence and investigate anything with mere opinion and innuendo.
Speaking of opinion and innuendo, apparently that’s all you have in rebuttal to that little problem of real evidence in your court.
http://jonathanturley.org/2010/08/01/australian-public-schools-teaching-humans-and-dinosaurs-co-existed/#comment-150372
Swarthmore mom–The people of the U.S. want private health insurance because they don’t know there is an alternative. They are against changes in the current healthcare system for the same reason and also the fear of change caused by Republican claims that you couldn’t choose your own doctor and would have to wait months or years to get a simple operation. If you have any Canadian, European, Russian, or South American friends, ask them if they would prefer American health care to their own country’s health care and they will give you the same friendly laugh you would give a child who just told you the moon is made of Swiss cheese. I recommend you get a DVD of Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko”. Granted, it’s slanted to his point of view, but it will give you the basics of how “socialized medicine” works and why it has been adopted by every industrialized country but ours.
Henman,
I said he was doing a better job of being FDR than he was of being Teddy and he is – stimulus, health insurance reform, rescuing the auto industry, financial reform – these are all big things that he has gotten done. Do you honestly think that it was within the realm of political possibility for anyone to have gotten single-payer health care? I’m highly dubious that a public option was even possible in this climate.
Swarthmore mom,
John Boehner will make it look like he’s trying to roll back health insurance reform if he takes over in January – he has no real chance of doing so and he knows it.
Bob,
As Heinlein said, the choice between bad and worse is much more important than the choice between good and better. I do feel that equating the degree of culpability of the former administration to that of the current one is disingenuous, especially in light of the economic realities they had to deal with. Face it, the American public has no stomach for prosecuting war criminals and the bloody partisan fight it would cause – not when most people are far more concerned about the economy. I might stop to think about it if you offered me a choice between a job and prosecuting Dick the war criminal, but I don’t think that many other people that are unemployed would hesitate a second. It is nice to see that you’re added a desire to see all crimes as equivalent to your willingness to prosecute people for crimes they didn’t commit.
The Texas attorney general sued the Obama administration Wendesday over its new deep-water offshore drilling moratorium, claiming it is unjustified and federal officials did not contact the state before issuing the ban.
Attorney General Greg Abbott filed the 18-page suit in federal court in Houston against Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. The ban halted the approval of any new permits for deep-water projects and shut down drilling at 33 exploratory ocean wells in the wake of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
In his lawsuit, Abbott called the ban “an unjustified, arbitrary and capricious policy that will inflict harm upon coastal communities.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/11/1772079/texas-sues-feds-over-offshore.html
I must come to this thread more often. I have seen a lot I agree with here.
Swarthmore mom,
If I recall It was at one time mandatory that companies with more than 50 employees or did business over state lines offer health insurance. I may be wrong….I could be wrong there are or were so many versions..that I could have been right at one time and wrong now. But I think that I am right now….