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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sun May 15th 2011, 08:57 AM
http://www.examiner.com/environmental-news...

Last year, during the height of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nonprofit organization SkyTruth located a second leak just a few miles away at the former site of the Ocean Saratoga oil rig. The platform was damaged in 2004 during Hurricane Ivan, and was scheduled to be permanantly plugged by Taylor Energy, the owner of the well, during an operation to seal 26 leaking sites in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

This indicates as many as 251 barrels of oil spilling from the damaged oil well each day. The frightening thing about this figure, though it pales in comparison to last year's Deepwater Horizon incident, is the number of damaged and partially abandoned rigs in the Gulf of Mexico that are leaking potentially unchecked over a number of years. In fact, Taylor Energy still has not made any measurable ground on plugging its 26 abandoned wells.

The other alarming fact is how oil companies seem to get away with underreporting the amount of their spills in the Gulf. It seems that many operate on a veritable honor system when it comes to reporting accidents to government agencies. Just this past March, Houston-based Anglo Suisse was caught underreporting by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries as a 100 mile long oil sheen was spotted by independent pilots and fishermen in the area. That spill caused nearly 30 miles of shore impact along Grand Isle, LA.



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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Mon May 02nd 2011, 02:22 AM


....amazes me that any questioning of 9/11 is now wholeheartedly embraced here as conspiracy theory....
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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sat Mar 19th 2011, 05:39 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rocky-kistne...

The Coast Guard is investigating reports of a potentially large oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico not far from the Deepwater Horizon site. According to a knowledgeable source, the slick was sighted by a helicopter pilot on Friday and is about 100 miles long. A fishing boat captain said he went through the slick yesterday and it was strong enough to make his eyes burn.

According to the Times Picayune, the Coast Guard has confirmed they are investigating a potentially large 100 mile slick about 30 miles offshore. They are going to a site near the Matterhorn well site about 20 miles north of the BP Deepwater Horizon site, according to the paper. The Matterhorn field includes includes a deepwater drilling platform owned by W&T Technology. It was acquired last year from TotalFinaElf E&P.

Also, another Louisiana fisherman reports that fresh oil is coming ashore near South Pass, LA, and that cleanup crews are laying new boom near the beach. He also reports that cleanup crews in four-wheeled vehicles were patrolling the beaches near the marsh filled coast spraying a substance on the beach.



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Posted by jus_the_facts in Latest Breaking News
Wed Mar 16th 2011, 09:50 PM
Source: NYTimes

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

Get Science News From The New York Times » Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in ten days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

The projection, by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, an arm of the United Nations in Vienna, gives no information about actual radiation levels but only shows how a radioactive plume would probably move and disperse.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/17/science/...
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Posted by jus_the_facts in Latest Breaking News
Wed Mar 16th 2011, 03:37 PM
Source: AP

The chief of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Wednesday that all the water is gone from one of the spent fuel pools at Japan's most troubled nuclear plant, but Japanese officials denied it.

If NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko is correct, this would mean there's nothing to stop the fuel rods from getting hotter and ultimately melting down. The outer shell of the rods could also ignite with enough force to propel the radioactive fuel inside over a wide area.

Jaczko did not say Wednesday how the information was obtained, but the NRC and U.S. Department of Energy both have experts on site at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex of six reactors. He said the spent fuel pool of the complex's Unit 4 reactor has lost water.



Read more: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...
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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sat Mar 12th 2011, 02:35 PM
Unfortunately, we’ve learned time and again that government sources lie in these situations – Chernobyl, the 9-11 attacks, the BP oil spill – they lie at first, I guess, to try and prevent panic. Then they seem to lie to coverup their former lies, then reveal it all years later when few are watching. Whatever the reason, anyone trusting “official” sources is ignoring history.

http://oilspillaction.com/radiation-leak-i...
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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sat Feb 26th 2011, 01:43 PM
http://oilspillaction.com/secrecy-surround...

February 26, 2011 9:35 am

With the dolphin death toll pushing 70 confirmed fatalities – more than half of them calves (or babies) – the most obvious place to seek answers is the testing conducted on the 89 dead dolphins that washed ashore last year, most of them adults that died in the BP spill.

Easier said than done. If you think NOAA and BP will make that information public any time soon, you haven’t been paying attention. Sure, government officials admit that the 89 dolphins “died from something environmental during the last year,” but won’t say what that “something” is and won’t release test results, according to a Reuters report.



While government agencies continue to downplay the likely oil spill involvement, NPR outlines one reason the situation is so alarming: “Dolphins have an 11 or 12-month gestation period. These dead baby dolphins were conceived just before the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig leased by BP blew up…”

“So, these animals were undergoing development during the height of the oil spill,” Teri Rowles, a top marine mammal scientist for NOAA tells NPR, indicating once again why NOAA tries so hard to keep its actual scientists away from the media – they just can’t seem to stay on the pro-BP talking points.

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Posted by jus_the_facts in Political Videos
Mon Feb 14th 2011, 01:22 PM

 

Around two-dozen high school students come home, in the middle of winter with what looks like... Get this--- a sunburn.
Now, parents and teachers want to know how this happened.
It's a mystery in the community of Hathaway and it has people burning to know the answers.
"We don't know what caused it," parent, Donald Demary said.
"We just kept trying to find answers," Hathaway High Principal Mona Miller said.
On Wednesday, about two dozen Hathaway High School students came back from a field trip with what appears to be a sunburn.
The mystery is, students and teachers don't know what caused it.
"We have no idea," Principal Miller said.
"It's very bizarre." Demary says, "it's something we need to be very concerned about."
"We're grasping at straws." Miller says, "trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together."
The first stop on the field trip was a school conference in Rayne at the Civic Center; but only Hathaway High students have these burn symptoms.
"It looked more like a flash burn." Miller described, "or something someone would experience inside a tanning bed."








Mobile Z-Backscatter X-Ray System?

http://www.defense.gov/contracts/contract....

American Science and Engineering, Inc., Billerica, Mass., is being awarded a $61,277,418 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract with a maximum ordering quantity of 52 Z-Backscatter X-Ray Systems and associated manuals, spares and field support. The initial delivery order of $38,695,288 is for 32 of the 52 Backscatter Systems available on the contract. Work will be performed in Billerica, Mass., and work is expected to be complete by August 2006. Contract funds will not expire by the end of the current fiscal year. This contract is a sole source award to American Science and Engineering, Inc., the sole manufacturer of the Z-Backscatter X-Ray System. The Marine Corps Systems Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity (M67854-05-D-5168).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X...

The "Z Backscatter Van" from AS&E is a mobile backscatter X-ray machine in a van which "from the outside looks like an ordinary delivery van, allowing it to blend in to urban and other landscapes". It is being promoted as a means of examining the contents of vehicles, containers, and dumpsters.<11>

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Posted by jus_the_facts in Latest Breaking News
Thu Feb 10th 2011, 10:27 PM
Source: NOLA.com



"It's a chance to really showcase Louisiana oysters and our entire Gulf Coast oyster industry," said Ewell Smith, executive director of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, during a "Let the World Be Your Oyster Reception" at Washington's Acadiana Restaurant Wednesday night. More Louisiana seafood, including oysters, was served at a Washington Mardi Gras reception Thursday night. "There hasn't been much pressure on the oyster beds because of the BP spill, and now that they are open again, the oysters are big and plump," Reggio said. "I just ate a bunch of them, and they were incredible."

Also this week, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., led other members of the Louisiana delegation in sending a letter to BP demanding the company agree to a state request to provide $15 million to rehabilitate oyster beds damaged from last year's massive oil spill.

"In hopes of mitigating future damages and facilitating the robust recovery of this vital industry, we strongly encourage you to reconsider this $15 million investment opportunity," the letter said. "Timing will be critical. Unfortunately, due to the direct and indirect impacts of the oil spill, oyster production continues to trail historic averages."



Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/201...



Yeah...safe and tasty....no problems at all...yet Mary asks for money to rehabilitate the damage done?
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Posted by jus_the_facts in Political Videos
Thu Feb 10th 2011, 12:41 PM

 
22 Year Old Paul Doomm from Florida traveled to Wilma Subra, MD's health forum in New Orleans on 2-5. Paul apparently was chemically poisoned by Oil & Dispersants after swimming in the Gulf at Navarre Beach, FL and Eating seafood in July. He has now seen 93 doctors, been to 14 hospitals and has uncontrolable seizures every day. Recent scans show lesions on his brain. Prior to moving to Florida for US Marine traning Paul was a healthy young adult male.
WARNING: SOME VEIWERS MAY FIND THE CONTENT DISTURBING. THIS IS THE LONG EDIT. THE SHORTER VERSION IS PERHAPS A LITTLE LESS DISTURBING
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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Thu Feb 03rd 2011, 02:03 PM


http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20110...


From a distance the toxic goo looks like oil, but up close it smells like rotten eggs and wiggles like jelly. Scientists have no idea what it is or how it wound up in the northern Gulf of Mexico, near Perdido Pass.


Just off the Florida Panhandle coastline, within site of Perdido Key, scientists have discovered an underwater mass of dead sea life that appears to be growing as microscopic algae and bacteria get trapped and die.

Early samples indicate the glob is at least three feet thick and spans two-thirds of a mile parallel to the coast.


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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Wed Jan 26th 2011, 03:02 PM
http://www.space.com/10691-oldest-galaxy-d...


Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have peered further back in time than ever before, spotting a galaxy that formed less than 500 million years after the birth of our universe, making it the oldest and most distant ever seen.

The find, reported today (Jan. 26) in the journal Nature, should help astronomers better understand the early days of the universe, researchers said. In particular, the discovery should shed light on the evolution of early galaxies, which first formed just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.


"In essence, the most important aspect of this is, it provides us with some sense of how fast galaxies are building up," lead author Rychard Bouwens, of the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) and Leiden University in The Netherlands, told SPACE.com. "It provides a sort of measuring stick."

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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sat Jan 08th 2011, 10:26 PM
The identity of the 9-year-old tragically killed in this morning's deadly rampage is Christina Taylor Greene.

Family says she was vibrant, excited about life, and she was the "best daughter in the world."

Born on September 11, 2001, Greene was excited about the political process, was on the student government, and went to the Giffords event today to learn more about the political process, family members say.

http://globalgrind.com/channel/news/conten... /

This is almost too bizarre to believe though...Google books didn't show her name listed in the contents either...?

The 9-year-old who was shot dead today at the Giffords event was featured in a book “Faces of Hope: Babies Born on 9/11"

https://twitter.com/kold_news13/status/239...
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Posted by jus_the_facts in General Discussion
Sat Jan 01st 2011, 03:24 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBOpk33VlSg

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...




NOLA lawyer prepares challenge to declaration of Gulf seafood’s safety

An environmental law firm in New Orleans said it was preparing to challenge the government's public declaration that following the nation's worst-ever oil disaster, seafood from the Gulf of Mexico remained safe to eat.



http://t.co/g74rasV
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Random Thoughts....
http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

"I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law."

-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814





An exerpt from Call of Cthulhu...written in 1926 by H. P. Lovecraft...


"The most merciful thing in the world...I think...is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity....and it was not meant that we should voyage far...

The sciences...each straining in its own direction....have hitherto harmed us little....but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifing vistas of reality....and of our frightful position therein...that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."



.....in light of our war machines and nukes...and the ongoing destrution and dessimation of the environment...the reality of the 21st century's vistas of terror our sciences have created...I find Lovecraft's words eerily prophetic....



_____________________________________________________
The Almighty Dollar ~ Ozzy

It's In The Lives That We Lead
Setup For Money And Greed
A Little Isn't Enough We Have To Use It All Up
Success, Excess, The Truth Is Inconvenient

Oh Hang Your Head
Pillaged And Left Us For Dead
You Kept Us Blind And Mislead
How Could You Think Nothings Wrong
You Won't Be Smiling For Long
When It's All Gone, Gone
We Can Never Go Back

Burn Into The Air And Atmosphere
Watching The Rain Come Down
Turn Your Head Away Ignore The Fear
Watching The Ice Crash Down

Our Father's Justice Gets Closer
How Could You Screw Us All Over
Rape, Steal And Murder
God Bless The Almighty Dollar
The Almighty Dollar

Poison The Air That We Breathe
Chained To Industrial Need
Destroy The Souls That You Steal, The Radiation Is Real
Debate, Too Late, You've Built Our Funeral Pyre

You Kill My Faith
Mother Earth, Desecrate
Deceive The Whole Human Race
I Know You Think Nothings Wrong
We Won't Be Breathing For Long
When It's All Gone, Gone
We Can Never Go Back

Burn Into The Air And Atmosphere
Watching The Rain Come Down
Turn Your Head Away Ignore The Fear
Watching The Ice Crash Down

Our Father's Justice Gets Closer
How Could You Fuck Us All Over
Rape, Steal And Murder
God Bless The Almighty Dollar

Death, Doom And Disaster
The Point Of No Return
No Earthly Life Ever After
Is It Too Late To Learn?

Burn Into The Air And Atmosphere
Watching The Rain Come Down
Turn Your Head Away Ignore The Fear
Watching The Ice Crash Down

Our Father's Justice Gets Closer
How Could You Fuck Us All Over
Rape, Steal And Murder
God Bless The Almighty Dollar
The Almighty Dollar

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~*~Poetic Interlude~*~
It's like a spell
cast in the depth of my heart
Relinquishing all fears
Persuading me to love
Making me realise
Hope in paradise.

It was like a dream
Hoping to be fulfilled
Coping with the circumstances
That entails
Revolving contemplation
in the mind.

At last, it came to reality
The eyes see the invisible,
The mind feels the impossible,
Love is portrayed well enough
Through the beauty of you
It's true, love really exists,
Because I see it in you.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Love...

Sweet sounds from the music of the heart
Composed of flowers and flattery
Played by instruments - each has its own part
Sung with passion and delicacy

Love...

Faded pages with meaning beyond comprehension
Written with strength and fervency
Read by many with constant devotion
Stored on shelves of diversity

Love...

Strokes of vivid colors and happiness
Drawn by the instinct of desire
Painted with tenacious tenderness
Displayed in galleries of grandeur

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Against Indifference....

More love or more disdain I crave...
Sweet, be not still indifferent...

O send me quickly to my grave,
Or else afford me more content!
Or love or hate me more or less,
For love abhors all lukewarmness.

Give me a tempest if 'twill drive
Me to the place where I would be...

Or if you'll have me still alive,
Confess you will be kind to me.
Give hopes of bliss or dig my grave...
More love or more disdain I crave.

Webbe c. 1678


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

A Poem from 'Queen O' the Damned'...

Tempting to place in coherent collage......
...the bee...the mountain range...the shadow my hoof...

Tempting to join them...enlaced by logical vast and shining...
Molecular thought-thread...thru all Substance...

Tempting...to say I see in all I see...
The place where the needle began in the tapestry...but ahh...

It all looks whole and part...long live the eyeball and the lucid heart...

Some Lamb~ Four Days in Another City ~ Stan Rice

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

~Tasting The Earth~

In a dark hour, tasting the Earth.
As I lay on my couch in the muffled night, and the rain lashed my window,
And my forsaken heart would give me no rest, no pause and no peace,
Though I turned my face far from the wailing of my bereavement....
Then I said: I will eat of this sorrow to its last shred,
I will take it unto me utterly,
I will see if I be not strong enough to contain it....
What do I fear? Discomfort?
How can it hurt me, this bitterness?

The miracle, then!
Turning toward it, and giving up to it,
I found it deeper than my own self....
O dark great mother-globe so close beneath me...

It was she with her inexhaustible grief,
Ages of blood-drenched jungles, and the smoking of craters, and the roar of tempests,
And moan of the forsaken seas,
It was she with the hills beginning to walk in the shapes of the dark-hearted animals,

It was she risen, dashing away tears and praying to dumb skies, in the pomp-crumbling tragedy of man...
It was she, container of all griefs, and the buried dust of broken hearts,

Cry of the christs and the lovers and the child-stripped mothers,
And ambition gone down to defeat, and the battle overborne,
And the dreams that have no waking....

My heart became her ancient heart:
On the food of the strong I fed, on dark strange life itself:
Wisdom-giving and sombre with the unremitting love of ages....

There was dank soil in my mouth,
And bitter sea on my lips,
In a dark hour, tasting the Earth.

James Oppenheim 1882



~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Destiny

Harrison Smith Morris 1899

OUR many years are made of clay and cloud,
And quick desire is but as morning dew;
And love and life, that linger and are proud,
Dissolve and are again the arching blue.

For who shall answer what the ages ask?
Or who undo a one-day-earlier bud?
We are but atoms in the larger task
Of law that seeks not to be understood.

Shall we then gather to our meagre mien
The purple of power, and sit above the seed,
While still abroad the acres of the green
Invisible feet leave imprint of their speed?

We are but part; the whole within the part
Trembles, as heaven steadied in a stream.
Not ours to question whence the leafage start,
Or doubt the prescience of a people’s dream.

For these are cradled in the dark of time,
And move in larger order than we know;
The isolate act interpreted a crime,
In perfect circle, shows the Mind below.

Forth from the hush of equatorial heat
The wiser mother drove her sable kin—
Was it that through our vitiated wheat
A lustier grain should swell the life, grown thin?

Was it that upward through a waste of blood
The brutal tribe should struggle to a soul,—
That white and black, in interchange of good,
Might grope through ages to a loftier whole?

Who knows, who knows? For while we mock with doubt
The ceaseless loom thrids through its slow design;
The waning artifice is woven out,
And simple manhood rears a nobler line.

Then wherefore clamor to your idols thus
For bands to hold the Nation from its growth,
And wax in terror at the overplus
Won from dishonor and imperial sloth?

Wherefore implore the Power that lifts our might
To punish what His providence ordains;
To fix our star forever in its night;
To hold us fettered in our ancient chains?

The Nation in God’s garden swells to fruit,
And He is glad, and blesses. Shall we then
Shrink inward to the dulness of the root,
And vanish from the onward march of men?

Give up the lands we won in loyal war;
Give up the gain and glory, rule, renown,
The orient commerce of the open door,
The conquest, and the wide imperial crown?

Yea, were these all, ’t were well to let them go;
For idle gold is but an empty gain:
An empire, reared on ashes of its foe,
Falls, as have fallen the island-walls of Spain.

Treasure is dust. They need it not who build
On better things. Our gain is in the loss:
In love and tears, self victories fulfilled,
In manhood bending to the bitter cross.

In burdens that make wise the bearer, wounds
Taken in hate that sanctify the heart,
In sympathies and sorrows, and in sounds
That up from all the open waters start;

In brotherhood that binds the broken ties
And clasps the whole world closer into peace;
In East and West enwoven loverwise,
Mated for happy arts and home’s increase.

What though the sere leaf circle to the ground,—
Its summer task is done, the bough is clean
For Spring’s ascent; the lost is later found
In some new recess of the risen green.

We are but Nature’s menials. ’Tis her might
Sets our strange feet on Australasian sands,
Bids us to pluck the races from their night
And build a State from out the brawling bands.

Serene, she sweeps aside the more or less,
The man or people, if her end be sure;
Her brooding eyes, that ever bend to bless,
Find guerdon for the dead that shall endure.

Truth marches on, though crafty ignorance
Heed not the footfall of the eternal tread.
The land that shrinks from Nature’s armed advance
Shall lie dishonored with her wasted dead.

Yea, it behooves us that the light be free.
We are but bearers,—it is Nature’s own,—
Runners who speed the way of Destiny,
Yielding the torch whose flame is forward blown.

We are in his wide grasp who holds the law,
Who heaves the tidal sea, and rounds the year;
We may return not, though the weak withdraw;
We must move onward to the last frontier.
 
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