I have been very distraught about the Gulf and
the wildlife and the sand but there is clearly
child endangerment going on in Destin.
I am posting this so people will see just how
ignorant people are and how desperate they are
to buy the propoganda of "Come on in, the water's fine".
We have dolphins dying and wildlife dying and stupid
parents allowing children to swim inhttp://www.youtube.com/...
This was the week that many conservationists were dreading because there was a compromise on the table at the International Whaling Commissions annual Meeting in Morroco. The deal was supposed to spare lives while giving up the moratorium on commercial whaling by allowing Japan, Norway and Iceland to whale under very strict guidelines, to slaughter whales within smaller quotas than the ones they follow today.
For many like me, this compromise was still too many whales killed. Many scientists agreed that the quotas agreed to were unsustainable under any circumstance and no matter how closely they were monitored.
First, 57 Democratic Senators walked out of a caucus meeting today sounding like they'd been to a summer blockbuster movie instead. The meeting was thrilling and inspirational. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
"A number of senators said this was the best caucus they've ever attended," Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) said at a press conference after the meeting. "It was really very, very powerful. It was inspirational, quite frankly."
And within a few hours, we learn why Democratic Senators sound like 57 cats who hijacked the cream truck: Reid is making a high-stakes gamble on a climate bill. Not a clean energy bill, but a climate bill to cap greenhouse gases. Details below the fold.
I love Michigan. Anyone who has ever seen the fantastic Great Lakes, fished our bountiful streams or walked our beautiful beaches which rival those of California or Florida would feel as strongly as I do. If you've seen our "Pure Michigan" ads, you get a little glimpse of how protective we are of our natural resources. But now, as the Gulf is being damaged beyond anything we can imagine for generations to come, by our demand for oil riches - the Great Lakes are on the verge of ecological disaster too.
The criminals running loose are responsible for another life lost.
Gulf boat captain shoots himself on boat's deck
A Gulf of Mexico charter boat captain from Alabama committed suicide yesterday after he allegedly became too upset over the BP oil spill ruining the charter boat business.
UPDATE: I don't like presenting issues without some form of solution or action. There is a resource available for mental health and suicide.
crossposted at intlawgrrls
On June 22, Judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction overturning the Department of Interior’s May 28, 2010 Temporary Moratorium on deepwater drilling. Several facets of this decision are truly astonishing. Nowhere in the decision is there any recognition of the unique, emergency circumstances or the grave threat to the public that the agency was seeking to combat. Nor did the judge pay much attention to the express and explicit congressional intention that offshore oil activities be suspended when necessary to protect against environmental threats.
 Pelican Gate |
Originally this was a story of people who had no concern for the environment or the value of old trees. Then it became the story of the destruction of the habitat for an endangered species. It progressed to being a story of civil irresponsibility when workers for Seton Hall Prep were instructed to demolish some 90 year old Japanese yew trees in favor of what were called "test pits." Exactly what was being tested was unclear.
Imagine your local Widget Factory, employs dozens of workers,
to put together hundreds of the latest Must-have Widgets, each and every day.
Now imagine this Widget Factory, in the hopes of increasing profits,
took all its industrial by-product Gunk, gathered them up each day,
and quietly dumped them, each night around midnight, when no one was looking,
in the local River waterway. Pollution be gone!
Instant Profit Gain, right? No costly "Gunk Processing" equipment to buy or operate. No extra hidden costs, need be added to that Price of a Widget -- which could keep consumers from flocking to Widget Retail Outlets, right?
Wrong ... ONE Big Problem in this Free Market scheme ...
The Folks living downstream on that local River waterway!
The Folks making a living on the beauty and productivity of that River --
They all might notice that somethings up, in their once pristine Waterway?
They might eventually figure it out too, that "Widget One" has been "cutting corners", in its responsibility to be "good neighbors".
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today issued a notice of violation and is seeking a $2.9 million fine from the city of Birmingham in Alabama for a 2008 incident in which city workers killed off more than half the population of a small endangered fish.
The fish kill resulted in the deaths of 11,760 watercress darters and injury to 8,900 other darters.
Marco Rubio, running as a Republican for U.S. Senate from Florida, yesterday:
So now you’re talking about deep-water drilling. And I only want to see it if it can be done safely. And that’s why it’s so important that we study why this happened. And if you tell me we’re going to have to put up with a couple of more of these, of course not. But can it be done safely? There is evidence that it can be done safely. It’s being done safely all over the world.
So Rubio says he'll only support oil if it's safe, and then says there's evidence that "it's being done safely all over the world."
Case closed, right? Thanks to Dick Cheney's energy task force, oil is safe, right? Drill, baby, drill. Right?
Yeah. Uh, except there's always this:
It's being done safely all over the world. Except when it's not.
