To Tom Young, of Plaquemines Parish on the coast, who asks:
“…no one outside of these few parishes really cares. They say they do, but the don’t do nothing but talk. Where’s the action? Where’s the person who says these are real people, real people with families and they are hurting?” (MSNBC)
The people you are calling for in your hour of need were the idealists of the late 1960s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie , http://www.hippy.com/hippyway.htm) who advised all of us to: drop out (of the crapitalist bizshit), turn on (the natural mind), and tune in (to what’s really happening). The idealists, who counseled us to “make love, not war”. The idealists, who grocked the nature of the crapitalist industrialism that they grew up in. They called for us all to ‘return to the land’ and adopt an ecological communalism centered around the ‘expansion of consciousness’.
Now, you can imagine how all of this was received by conservative white Amerika (CWA) and other ‘establishment types’ all over the world. The idealists were set upon with a savagery well known to those who had taken a gentler approach to the earth (as mother) for generations before the acquisitive entrepreneurialists arrived on these shores. They are all now removed from view, having faded into the background of the culture, and taken to looking like everyone else. (Safer that way.)
Amerika made its ‘deal with the devil’ just at the point where the devil started to collect. Anybody remember ‘Love Canal’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Canal)? This is the point where I became aware of the depths of corporate indifference and the stupidity of local government! Then a ‘Love Canal’ was discovered close to where I lived and I got to see up close what a chemical panic is all about. (They just took the fence down this year!) I came to understand in the late 1970s that we live in a sump pit of greed, ignorance, intolerance, public relations (PR), and just plain downright orneriness!
And what did we all expect from big biz PR? Some (including me) expected a leap into space and a great expansion of amerikan know-how outward into the (obviously empty and ready for our use) galaxy forever! Some expected that we would dominate the world both militarily and economically and that every amerikan would get rich (because god wants you to— http://www.ivchristiancenter.org/30mtv/2006/10/god_wants_you_t.html , http://ezinearticles.com/?God-Wants-You-to-Be-Rich&id=173828 ) by a “trickle down” process that would cause “all boats to rise” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics ). Some expected that we would return to a simpler amerika as a Christian nation of strength and moral rectitude founded in our exceptional position in the whole history of civilizations (perhaps, as in, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnificent_Ambersons ?).
This conservative worldview came to dominate our lives in the age of Reagan and governs to this day:
‘Campaigning for the Democratic nomination in 2008, Obama interpreted how Reagan changed the nation's trajectory:
“I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think that people... he just tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.”’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Era)
Blah blah blah…what a load of crap! Reagan was an idiot surrounded by a bunch of thieves and rouges who savaged this place, one good.
White amerikan’s were the greatest benefactors of the Reagan Age and remain so (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/business/economy/31memphis.html ). The southern states became ‘solid’ again, only this time, under republicans. The Bush-Cheney (BC) administration brought forth the highest achievement of CWA—the complete deregulation of corporations, the nearly complete elimination of taxation on the corporate elite, and the destruction of the middle class by wage flattening and ‘off shoring’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compassionate_conservatism ). So, what did you expect with two texass oilmen in the white house and a majority of their type in congress?
Under BC, what I call govcorp came into full power. Govcorp had long existed by the revolving door between the top posts in corporations and the top posts in the government for graduates of the harvard-princeton-yale club. But, under BC, govcorp completely relinquished its control over corporate management of the regulatory agencies (e.g., http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/100179-report-obama-fires-mms-head , http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=544758&articleId=1023804&func=6&channel=Rants+%26+Raves , http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-17-mms-goes-under-the-spotlight/ ). It is here that our bargain with ‘the devil’ was complete! And, now Tom, you stand knee deep in the corruption of what was the only good thing about Amerikan society, its engineering know-how. You can thank all of those who took us down the path of republicanism over the last 30 years to the utter failure of amerikan corporatism.
So, yes Tom, there are those of us outside of the parishes that care and understand and feel your hurt. But, at this point in amerikan history, there’s not a damned thing we can do to help you. There is nothing you can do either. Voting the republicans back into power will only return the people who put you in the situation you now find yourself in back into position to give you more of the same! There is nothing govcorp can do either, because, this time, when they tried to trick ‘mother nature’, they were playing with forces beyond their control. I’ll tell you what the politicians and the bigbizboys won’t: your life living off the gulf is OVER! Finished! Complete! Done! I doubt if even your great-grandchildren will see a thriving gulf. The oil will continue to gush until the pressure in the reservoir balances that at the bottom of the Gulf.
You asked: “where’s the action?” you missed it! It was forty years ago when you or your parents were given a distinct alternative as to what sort of life they should live. It was forty years ago when students all over the world took over universities in protest of the hypocritical relationship between academia and govcorp. It was forty years ago in fights in the streets against the cops of all most all of the major cities in this and other countries to protest police brutality and corruption and poverty (which has only gotten worse). It was forty years ago when we Liberals liberated black people from white conservative slavery and stopped a war in Vietnam! It was forty years ago when a toothless ‘great society’ was formed and shined a ray of hope into what was a pretty hopeless country (now hapless). So, now you know. And now, let me tell you what you have to do.
You have to save what sea life in the gulf there is to save! You have to help build a vast inland sea simulating the conditions of the various niches in the gulf (and soon to be the whole sea) in such as way as to form an ark to take sea life into a future where the natural environment has been ruined. You have your work ‘cut out for you’!
Monday, May 31, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
A Poem For Sarah Louise
chill baby chill,
on the
drill baby drill,
or fix the
spill baby spill,
before we're all
ill baby ill,
or you kill all the
krill baby krill,
and there's no more
whale'n baby whale'n,
and then no
palin baby palin!
on the
drill baby drill,
or fix the
spill baby spill,
before we're all
ill baby ill,
or you kill all the
krill baby krill,
and there's no more
whale'n baby whale'n,
and then no
palin baby palin!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Solution For Stopping The BP Gulf Oil Spill of Spring 2010
Dear readers, I believe I have discovered a solution to stop the oil spill caused by the collapse of the BP oil rig. The solution is complex and expensive, but very probably doable. I breaks down into three parts (no pun intended):
(A) FREEZE THE CRUDE – As I’ve recently learned, oil can’t be frozen solid because it consists of many individual compounds that solidify at different temperatures. However, oil can be chilled into a gelatinous material. (Let’s call it ‘Jell-O’.) My supposition is that once the crude is ‘frozen’ into Jell-O, it can be controlled more easily than it could be in a liquid form. Now, the crude may be frozen by lowering the ambient temperature of the water. I don’t have access to the precise data to know what that temperature would be at 5000ft below the ocean surface. I also don’t know what the ambient ocean temperature would be at that depth. But, I’m guessing that there is not much difference between the ambient temperature of the water at that depth and the temperature required to form a Jell-O of crude at that depth. This conjecture is based on hearing about the hydrocarbon crystal formation which prevented the containment caissons from being used.
To ‘freeze’ the crude will require the construction of refrigeration units able to operate in the pressures 5000ft below the ocean surface. The size and number of such units placed in the vicinity of the leaks depends how on fast it is decided to do the job. The power source for the refrigeration units could easily be nuclear submarines outfitted with cables properly insulated to deliver the power to insulated junctions on the refrigeration units. The number of subs required would depend on how many refrigeration units were used. A ‘refrigeration dome’ will have to be placed over the leaks in order to slow the escape of the cooled water. However, since it is not the purpose of refrigeration domes to contain the leak, they do not have to have the structural integrity of containment domes or caissons. The size of the support crew and the number of supporting submersibles also depends on the required speed of the operation's execution.
(B) CONTROL THE FROZEN CRUDE – Once the crude has been frozen into a ‘Jell-O’ it will need to be moved into some sort of containment structure. Such a structure could be manufactured or geological. Since this structure would not be created to contain liquid crude, it could have less structural integrity than a container designed to contain liquids. Alternatively, the container could be some deep crevasse in the ocean floor close enough to the leaks to move the Jell-O into. The way to move the Jell-O is to create precision controlled currents. This can be accomplished by using the prop wash from a fleet of submersibles or submarines to direct the Jell-O to an appropriate place. Of, course there’ll be no opportunity to practice this, so the whole operation must be precisely planned with the aid of computer modeling and simulations. Manufactured ‘Jell-O containers’ should be obvious. Finding a geological formation to contain the Jell-O would be more of an interesting problem.
(C) LIFTING THE JELL-O – Once contained, the Jell-O needs to be transported away from the containment cite or facilities. This could be accomplished by lowering a six or seven thousand foot long hose of the appropriate diameter from the surface to suction lift the Jell-O. These hoses would also have to maintain the appropriate temperature to keep the crude in a gelatinous state in order to separate it from the sea water sucked up with it. Tankers would have to be leased to form a conveyor to move the oil from the spill cite to facilities designated to handle the crude.
Now, of course, freezing the crude, moving the Jell-O, lifting the Jell-O and transporting it away would all have to be choreographed as one giant conveyor which would run until the crude deposit is exhausted or the escape pressure falls to some magnitude that allows the leaks to be plugged or the relief well is completed and operational. Thus, the operation could possibly run for more than a year.
Further, it must be understood that this ‘solution’ will do nothing for the oil that has already mixed into the ocean and it could cost billions to execute. Minus some technical and engineering details (that I’d be happy to handle for the appropriate fee), it comes down to a political judgment of whether the northern gulf and the southern coasts of the U.S. are worth it. Are they?
Bonne chance!
(A) FREEZE THE CRUDE – As I’ve recently learned, oil can’t be frozen solid because it consists of many individual compounds that solidify at different temperatures. However, oil can be chilled into a gelatinous material. (Let’s call it ‘Jell-O’.) My supposition is that once the crude is ‘frozen’ into Jell-O, it can be controlled more easily than it could be in a liquid form. Now, the crude may be frozen by lowering the ambient temperature of the water. I don’t have access to the precise data to know what that temperature would be at 5000ft below the ocean surface. I also don’t know what the ambient ocean temperature would be at that depth. But, I’m guessing that there is not much difference between the ambient temperature of the water at that depth and the temperature required to form a Jell-O of crude at that depth. This conjecture is based on hearing about the hydrocarbon crystal formation which prevented the containment caissons from being used.
To ‘freeze’ the crude will require the construction of refrigeration units able to operate in the pressures 5000ft below the ocean surface. The size and number of such units placed in the vicinity of the leaks depends how on fast it is decided to do the job. The power source for the refrigeration units could easily be nuclear submarines outfitted with cables properly insulated to deliver the power to insulated junctions on the refrigeration units. The number of subs required would depend on how many refrigeration units were used. A ‘refrigeration dome’ will have to be placed over the leaks in order to slow the escape of the cooled water. However, since it is not the purpose of refrigeration domes to contain the leak, they do not have to have the structural integrity of containment domes or caissons. The size of the support crew and the number of supporting submersibles also depends on the required speed of the operation's execution.
(B) CONTROL THE FROZEN CRUDE – Once the crude has been frozen into a ‘Jell-O’ it will need to be moved into some sort of containment structure. Such a structure could be manufactured or geological. Since this structure would not be created to contain liquid crude, it could have less structural integrity than a container designed to contain liquids. Alternatively, the container could be some deep crevasse in the ocean floor close enough to the leaks to move the Jell-O into. The way to move the Jell-O is to create precision controlled currents. This can be accomplished by using the prop wash from a fleet of submersibles or submarines to direct the Jell-O to an appropriate place. Of, course there’ll be no opportunity to practice this, so the whole operation must be precisely planned with the aid of computer modeling and simulations. Manufactured ‘Jell-O containers’ should be obvious. Finding a geological formation to contain the Jell-O would be more of an interesting problem.
(C) LIFTING THE JELL-O – Once contained, the Jell-O needs to be transported away from the containment cite or facilities. This could be accomplished by lowering a six or seven thousand foot long hose of the appropriate diameter from the surface to suction lift the Jell-O. These hoses would also have to maintain the appropriate temperature to keep the crude in a gelatinous state in order to separate it from the sea water sucked up with it. Tankers would have to be leased to form a conveyor to move the oil from the spill cite to facilities designated to handle the crude.
Now, of course, freezing the crude, moving the Jell-O, lifting the Jell-O and transporting it away would all have to be choreographed as one giant conveyor which would run until the crude deposit is exhausted or the escape pressure falls to some magnitude that allows the leaks to be plugged or the relief well is completed and operational. Thus, the operation could possibly run for more than a year.
Further, it must be understood that this ‘solution’ will do nothing for the oil that has already mixed into the ocean and it could cost billions to execute. Minus some technical and engineering details (that I’d be happy to handle for the appropriate fee), it comes down to a political judgment of whether the northern gulf and the southern coasts of the U.S. are worth it. Are they?
Bonne chance!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
So, Who Is Brooksley Born?
how can this economic fraud we are living through be understood? one could follow the wiki tree of pages associated with the notion of 'swaptions'.
let's see...start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaption or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap or perhaps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_%28finance%29 or, maybe better, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_%28finance%29, and you get the idea...right? no?
well perhaps there's an easier way.
we could look at the people who sold us this fraud and one of the people who stood up to them. you don't have to read any 'great books'. just watch two videos:
Michael Greenberger on credit rating agencies: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293308-7 (which led to my question)
and
a frontline presentation, 'the warning': http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid (which cleared up my question-big time).
so, who is Brooksley Born?
someone who makes a liar out of all the pols and goldman suchs execs currently running around saying 'there's no way we could have seen this coming...'! it seems brooksley did and was put down hard for trying to act on what she saw by Alan Greenspan, Timothy Franz Geithner, and Lawrence Henry (the Hitman) Summers! funny, how the geith and hitman summers are still around.
now i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but i am seeing a reagan-clinton-bush-obama conservative continuum. and while the political party in the WH might change, the Fall St. crowd continues to party on (unregulated). its pretty obvious that the conservatives have gotten all they ever wanted economically: a vast gap in wealth, virtually no taxes for the rich, unregulated fraud markets, a never ending war generating huge profits, and taxpayer bailout bonuses to boot! (you see, despite what your mom might have taught you, crime does pay!)
so, as we fall, let us remember: Ayn Rand, the sophist soul of 20th century laissez-faire conservative economic BS and Brooksley Born, who could have started the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on the path to undoing what Rand's influence ultimately brought us to. perhaps, if we somehow get smarter, we'll allow Born to regulate Rand!
-end of line-
let's see...start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaption or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interest_rate_swap or perhaps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_%28finance%29 or, maybe better, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Option_%28finance%29, and you get the idea...right? no?
well perhaps there's an easier way.
we could look at the people who sold us this fraud and one of the people who stood up to them. you don't have to read any 'great books'. just watch two videos:
Michael Greenberger on credit rating agencies: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/293308-7 (which led to my question)
and
a frontline presentation, 'the warning': http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid (which cleared up my question-big time).
so, who is Brooksley Born?
someone who makes a liar out of all the pols and goldman suchs execs currently running around saying 'there's no way we could have seen this coming...'! it seems brooksley did and was put down hard for trying to act on what she saw by Alan Greenspan, Timothy Franz Geithner, and Lawrence Henry (the Hitman) Summers! funny, how the geith and hitman summers are still around.
now i'm not a conspiracy theorist, but i am seeing a reagan-clinton-bush-obama conservative continuum. and while the political party in the WH might change, the Fall St. crowd continues to party on (unregulated). its pretty obvious that the conservatives have gotten all they ever wanted economically: a vast gap in wealth, virtually no taxes for the rich, unregulated fraud markets, a never ending war generating huge profits, and taxpayer bailout bonuses to boot! (you see, despite what your mom might have taught you, crime does pay!)
so, as we fall, let us remember: Ayn Rand, the sophist soul of 20th century laissez-faire conservative economic BS and Brooksley Born, who could have started the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on the path to undoing what Rand's influence ultimately brought us to. perhaps, if we somehow get smarter, we'll allow Born to regulate Rand!
-end of line-
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Blood On the Border
My god, but are the repubs ever so stupid!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36885852/ns/us_news-life
did they really think that non-stupid americans would just quietly watch this racist law come into play? well they have really put a foot in some hole! thank you reeepubs, your stupidity should keep dems in power for a long time to come--if only, we get a dem president that can lead his base to louder and louder protests of the racism so fundamental to GOP! perhaps though, the problem runs deeper...
the problem with a lot of law (particularly that which i deal with on a daily basis) is that it never defines key terms in a rigorous manner, like say, in mathematics. in the case of the az law, they don't define what it is to 'look like' you are an illegal immigrant! and yet, the law demands that the cops stop you to check your papers (pleeze!) if you don't look legal! how stupid can az law makers be??????
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/apr/21/sue-lowden-lowdencare-chickens-nevada
(opps...that's the nevada chicken lady! but, she'd serve just as well in az.)
well...arizonans will find out very soon. i'm predicting that people will be killed over such interrogations. the cops will kill innocent hispanics who should have never been stopped. bad guys from the mex will kill cops! (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36884616/ns/us_news-life/) hysteria will ensue and the whole mexus border will end up like nuevo laredo.
of course, this has all happened before:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-04-1930s-deportees-cover_x.htm
http://calstate.fullerton.edu/news/2005/valenciana.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation ("the U.S. government began an active drive against immigrants living illegally in the country"--note, this is what the conservatives are calling for)
http://www.coh.arizona.edu/divergencias/current_ed/currentart/envisioningvictims.pdf
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36885852/ns/us_news-life
did they really think that non-stupid americans would just quietly watch this racist law come into play? well they have really put a foot in some hole! thank you reeepubs, your stupidity should keep dems in power for a long time to come--if only, we get a dem president that can lead his base to louder and louder protests of the racism so fundamental to GOP! perhaps though, the problem runs deeper...
the problem with a lot of law (particularly that which i deal with on a daily basis) is that it never defines key terms in a rigorous manner, like say, in mathematics. in the case of the az law, they don't define what it is to 'look like' you are an illegal immigrant! and yet, the law demands that the cops stop you to check your papers (pleeze!) if you don't look legal! how stupid can az law makers be??????
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/apr/21/sue-lowden-lowdencare-chickens-nevada
(opps...that's the nevada chicken lady! but, she'd serve just as well in az.)
well...arizonans will find out very soon. i'm predicting that people will be killed over such interrogations. the cops will kill innocent hispanics who should have never been stopped. bad guys from the mex will kill cops! (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36884616/ns/us_news-life/) hysteria will ensue and the whole mexus border will end up like nuevo laredo.
of course, this has all happened before:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-04-04-1930s-deportees-cover_x.htm
http://calstate.fullerton.edu/news/2005/valenciana.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Repatriation ("the U.S. government began an active drive against immigrants living illegally in the country"--note, this is what the conservatives are calling for)
http://www.coh.arizona.edu/divergencias/current_ed/currentart/envisioningvictims.pdf
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