A little happy news. Or at least, something optimistic and hopeful, if I dare. Digby wrote about this on the 4th:
Hundreds of turtles and birds have already died in the oil spill, but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is determined that this year's hatchlings won't be among the casualties. Biologists plan to relocate all the nests from the Gulf Coast to Florida's eastern coast, agency spokesman Chuck Underwood tells NPR's Scott Simon.
[...]
In a couple of weeks, he says, the rescue team will dig up an estimated 700 to 800 nests, place them in foam containers and ship them overland to Florida's far side.
They don't make car seats for baby turtles, but it turns out some companies do specialize in transporting wildlife — like FedEx, which will be delivering the eggs. Another big name is offering luxury accommodations for the eggs when they reach their destination: the Kennedy Space Center.
Huffington Post confirms that the evacuation is underway:
After about 90 minutes of parting the sand with her fingers like an archaeological dig, 107 eggs were placed in two coolers and loaded onto a FedEx temperature-controlled truck. They are being transported to a warehouse at Florida's Kennedy Space Center where they will incubate and, hopefully, hatch before being released into the Atlantic Ocean.
The effort began in earnest along Florida's Panhandle, with two loggerhead nests excavated. Up to 800 more nests across Alabama and Florida beaches will be dug up in the coming months in an attempt to move some 70,000 eggs to safety.
I wonder if clapping for them to live like we did as kids during the Peter Pan movie when Tinkerbell was dying would be considered silly? Oh well, I'm doing it anyway. Live, little turtles, live.
(Yes, my photo at the top is a Hawai'ian sea turtle...but it seemed to be happy about the news)
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Immigration enforcement: and yet, the Republicons are upset
The Obama administration has replaced immigration raids at factories and farms with a quieter enforcement strategy: sending federal agents to scour companies' records for illegal immigrant workers.What the Obama Administration is doing is going after the demand side of the problem, not the supply side. That is completely antithetical to the party of Hoover's ideas of only going after the supply side (the illegal migrants themselves), which is little more than a reprise of other campaigns which sought to only go after the supply side, such as Prohibition and Nixon's Enduring War on Drugs and Civil Rights. And we all know how well those have worked.
While the sweeps of the past commonly led to the deportation of such workers, the "silent raids," as employers call the audits, usually result in the workers being fired, but in many cases they are not deported.
Over the past year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate.
Arresting and deporting illegal migrants does not work, but it gives lots of jobs to law enforcement and those who run the private prisons that have become ICE's black sites. trying the idea of "maybe they won't come if there is no work for them to do" apparently really upsets the party of Hoover, not to mention their donors from industries that use undocumented workers.
As to what will happen once those industries are faced with the choices of either closing down or improving their working conditions and pay to attract American citizens to fill those jobs, well, let's just say that things will get interesting, indeed.
The real values of Barack Obama and the Obama administration have become clear: if you commit war crimes you will receive immunity and won't even be investigated; if you tell the public about American war crimes you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. These are the explicit positions of a president whose platform while a candidate was to restore the rule of law in America and restore America's moral standing around the world.
This isn't spin or hyperbole, they are the simple facts of how the Obama administration has been behaving. Barack Obama stated unambiguously that he preferred to "look forward and not backwards" when he learned that Spanish prosecutors would be investigating Bush administration officials for sanctioning torture at Guantanamo. Bradley Manning, in contrast, won't be receiving that sort of privileged treatment and is instead facing 52 years in prison for releasing classified tapes of Americans shooting unarmed civilians.
Whistle-blowers vs. Classified Material
It has to be admitted up front that it is important for governments to be able to keep some material classified and hidden from public view. It would be absurd to demand that every government document be open to everyone. The critical difference between material that deserves to be kept classified and material that deserves to be released lies in why someone wants it classified in the first place. Who or what is being protected? What interests or goals are being furthered?
If the "who" is a spy in Iran and the "what" is the ability to understand the true motives and capabilities of the Iranian government, then you've got a great case for keeping the information classified. If the "who" is people who may be guilty of crimes and the "what" is protecting the image of the government, then you've got no case for keeping the information classified. Which do you suppose applies in the case of the Apache attack video which Bradley Manning turned over to WikiLeaks?
Barack Obama vs. Whistle-blowers
It's instructive that Barack Obama didn't just campaign on restoring the rule of law in America, but also on protecting whistle-blowers. Obama stated clearly that whistle-blowers' "acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled." This was consistent with his acts as an Illinois senator when he helped pass legislation to protect government employees who reveal waste, crime, and corruption.
Now that he's president and has gotten a taste of the imperial power accumulated by George W. Bush, though, Barack Obama's tune has changed dramatically. The Obama administration has targeted journalists to reveal their sources for stories on America's policies and military activities. Barack Obama also added a signing statement (remember how he criticized Bush for those?) to a spending bill in which he unilaterally declared he had the authority to bypass whistle-blower protections to act against executive branch employees to dare to tell Congress what the president is really doing.
Barack Obama vs. Thomas Drake
At least as bad as, if not worse than, the case of Bradley Manning is the case of Thomas Drake. Obama has pushed the prosecution of Thomas Drake who exposed the government's warrantless domestic spying operations... back during the Bush administration. Yes, Obama's trying to punish someone who blew the whistle on crimes that took place under Bush, not his own administration. Why is this prosecution only occurring now? Because George W. Bush didn't indict Drake.
That's right, the only action taking against Drake by the Bush administration was to revoke his security clearance. It was Barack Obama who is responsible for launching a criminal prosecution here — he doesn't even have the excuse that he's simply continuing something started by Bush.
This is an even more egregious violation of Obama's stated principle that he'd rather "look forward rather than backwards" — even when it comes to activity that occurred years ago rather than weeks ago, Obama only wants to look forward when it means ignoring the violent crimes of government officials. When it comes to those who dared to tell the public about those crimes, his keen gaze reverts backwards faster than you can blink.
Barack Obama's Police State
To allege that a country is a "police state" is a pretty serious accusation, but more and more we are being handed evidence that that is exactly where America is going — if it isn't already there. Supporting such an accusation isn't easy because the definition of "police state" isn't simple and, like any political system, it exists along a spectrum such that a nation will be "more or less" a police state, not simply "is or is not" a police state.
Gonzalo Lira makes a good case for the claim that America has become a police state and defines a police state in this way:
A police-state uses the law as a mechanism to control any challenges to its power by the citizenry, rather than as a mechanism to insure a civil society among the individuals. The state decides the laws, is the sole arbiter of the law, and can selectively (and capriciously) decide to enforce the law to the benefit or detriment of one individual or group or another.
In a police-state, the citizens are "free" only so long as their actions remain within the confines of the law as dictated by the state. If the individual's claims of rights or freedoms conflict with the state, or if the individual acts in ways deemed detrimental to the state, then the state will repress the citizenry, by force if necessary. (And in the end, it's always necessary.)
What's key to the definition of a police-state is the lack of redress: If there is no justice system which can compel the state to cede to the citizenry, then there is a police-state. If there exists a pro forma justice system, but which in practice is unavailable to the ordinary citizen because of systemic obstacles (for instance, cost or bureaucratic hindrance), or which against all logic or reason consistently finds in favor of the state—even in the most egregious and obviously contradictory cases—then that pro forma judiciary system is nothing but a sham: A tool of the state's repression against its citizens. Consider the Soviet court system the classic example.
A police-state is not necessarily a dictatorship. On the contrary, it can even take the form of a representative democracy. A police-state is not defined by its leadership structure, but rather, by its self-protection against the individual.
Prosecuting people who reveal evidence of crimes, but not prosecuting the people who actually commit the crimes, sounds utterly bizarre, yet it suddenly makes a lot of sense if the government is using the law as a means to control challenges to its power rather than as a means for protecting the citizens. It makes sense if the government is selectively applying the law in order to protecting a ruling class (i.e., current and former holders of high government posts) and to repress those who challenge the actions of members of that class.
Really, think about whose interests are truly being served when wealthy, powerful people like Cheney are virtually guaranteed that they'll never face even an official inquiry while people like Drake and Manning face decades of prison (if they are lucky). Your interests and security aren't being protected. It isn't even partisan interests that are being protected, because it's Democrats who are pushing the furthest and hardest on behalf of powerful Republicans.
President Obama has asserted the authority to kill you at any time, anywhere in the world, if he personally decides that you're a terrorist — and you will never have any recourse to challenge that decision. The Supreme Court has granted the Obama administration the authority to unilaterally declare any group a "terrorist" organization and thus anyone who does anyone to help them is automatically guilty of providing "material support" to terrorism — even including facilitating legal speech by that group. You have no right or ability to challenge such a decision. Such policies are nothing if not arbitrary and they make a sham out of any pretense that you're protected by an impartial judiciary.
Barack Obama didn't create this situation — it's been developing for years, and it's precisely because the changes have been so gradual that so many Americans are in denial about how bad the fundamentals are. Even George W. Bush didn't create this situation. Both Bush and Obama, however, are guilty of pushing the problem along much further and making it much worse than it would have been otherwise.
The world's least ethical corporation is at it again:
Agriculture giant Monsanto was slapped with a record-breaking fine of $2.5 Million for mislabeling and illegally distributing cotton seeds containing genetically engineered pesticides.The EPA limits the planting and selling of this GM cotton seed to protect the environment from the 'potential harm associated with the uncontrolled spread of the genetically engineered component of these pesticides, Bacillus thuringiensis [BT].'
The EPA cites 1,782 violations which occurred in 22 states.
$2.5 million is a slap on the wrist for a giant like Monsanto, but the fact that it's a "record-breaking fine" says something about our regulatory system here. Yeah, I'm glad to see the EPA is doing something right, even though it's not nearly enough.
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Sullivan documents Palin's blood lust when it comes to dead bears and her ironic "mama grizzlies" meme.
This for example:
Yeah. Her love of bears is about on par with her faux feminist screechings.
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Ken Salazar has issues with bad timing.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Interior Department is offering oil and gas leases on 1.8 million acres of Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve while promising to protect critical migratory bird and caribou habitat.Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Bureau of Land Management will offer 190 tracts with bids to be opened Aug. 11 in Anchorage. The sale is one of dozens, mostly in Western states, that Salazar announced in November.
Meanwhile, I thought Sarah Palin said the "extreme greenies," with all of their mighty influence to overrule the most powerful corporations in the world, forced oil drilling to move offshore and into deep water.
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From Southern Atheist Gentleman:
In what can only be called an act of hatred and cowardice, the "One Nation Indivisible" billboard on Billy Graham Parkway has been vandalized. Who would have guessed that Christians could have enough hatred, or time, in them to do this? I mean, we are talking about the group of people responsible for the Crusades.I can't wrap my head around this. What is so horrible about the billboard; the unity part or the patriotism part? I suppose that we could expect no less from a group of dullards that need to have the word "god" written on everything they see. I was also surprised to see a lack of creativity. That was the best the vandals could come up with? What a sad state of affairs the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System must be in.
I think that this makes the point of the billboard. Just the very act of letting the public know you exist is enough to draw their scorn and their mentally damaged vandals. The message is needed, so I am going to reiterate it here:
ATHEISTS LIVE IN NORTH CAROLINA
WE WILL NOT BE BULLIEDThe billboard will be fixed and so will our resolve. We will continue to promote our positive messages that we are one country and you can be good without that figment of the imagination that some call god. I think this really proves our point: obviously Christianity doesn't make you a good person.
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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Robotic submarines working a mile underwater removed a leaking cap from the gushing Gulf oil well Saturday, starting a painful trade-off: Millions more gallons of crude will flow freely into the sea for at least two days until a new seal can be mounted to capture all of it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/10/gulf-oil-spill-cap-remove_n_641907.html
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