"A Gaping, Unstanched Wound in the Planet"

NASA satellite imagery confirms the slick reached the edge of the Loop Current of the Gulf Stream a week ago, May 18; this is the latest satellite view I've been able to find today.

Oil-coated egret on Grand Isle, Louisiana, May 20.

Photo by U.S. Coast Guard.

Sullivan:

I have to say I have struggled with how to blog about this. In many ways, it seems to me to be the biggest story of the year, a gaping, unstanched wound in the planet, emitting death. And yet the prospect of going without drilling seems remote, the possibility of any political will to jump-start alternatives with the impact we need seems just as elusive, and the helplessness of government and industry to stop this nightmare is the most obvious fact (I just assume that BP is doing all it can as of now): all of it makes this story as huge as it is simply despair-inducing.

If we cannot stop this, what else can we not stop?

Your Head Trucker does not believe the government needs to own and run everything; and certainly no one planned for this disaster to happen.  The free-market capitalists at BP are working day and night to stop the spill, to be sure - but to protect the environment, or to save their own butts?  Oh and no volunteers, please:  we will handle everything with our own contractors, so get the fuck away from the coast!

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But wait!  It's un-American to criticize BP!  So says dipshit libertarian teabagger Rand Paul:
 

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The President takes note of the long-standing "cozy relationship" between the oil industry and the government in his weekly video address:
 

 
Transcript and info on the new commission here.  The White House overview of the federal response is here. 
 
What I Say:  I don't believe any of these commentators have yet foreseen the full, longterm ramifications of the oil spill on the environment or on the economy of this nation and all the others that surround the Gulf, and beyond.  Having lived on the Gulf Coast, my intuition tells me that much worse is to come, which will make the Exxon Valdez spill look like a dropped teacup.  This is not Obama's Katrina; it's Katrina and 9/11 and Pearl Harbor all rolled into one and multiplied times ten.  It's the Hiroshima of the Gulf of Mexico, boys.
 
Your Head Trucker predicts that Obama's response to this single event will be the make-or-break issue of his Presidency, all else aside.  I don't know how he can or should meet all the challenges involved in this horror, but I feel certain that if he does not meet them all effectively - and is not seen to meet them effectively by the public - well fellas, just call him one-term-Jimmy and prepare yourselves for another twenty years of god-fearing, business-loving, flag-waving Republican rule, count on it.
 
In fact, I wouldn't doubt that before year's end, the head-up-their-ass Republicans will be claiming that Obama engineered the oil spill as an excuse to take over the oil industry and extend his Communist domination of the government.  Which of course is a fulfillment of Bible prophecy.  Remember, you heard it here first. 

God help us all.

Exempt Private Businesses from Civil Rights Laws?

Hecklers pour sugar, condiments, and water over sit-in protesters at a lunch counter in Jackson, Mississippi, 1963.  Notice that the protesters are practicing nonviolent resistance, as Dr. King advocated.

Jeezus.  People who didn't pass high school American History really should not be allowed to run for public office.  Notice how this fuckweasel consistently avoids answering Rachel's direct questions about his real view on segregation:

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What I Say:  Boys, I was there in the segregated South, and when I close my eyes I can see it all again just plain as day.  Hotels, movie theaters, restaurants, cafes, railroad stations, bus stations, gas stations, barrooms - all those private businesses were strictly segregated, often with separate restrooms for "Colored" and "White" and separate entrances - or, as in the case of hotels and motels, including the major chains like Holiday Inn and Howard Johnson's, simply did not take any black customers at all. 

I well recall that every place that served food - even down to the corner hot-dog stand or ice-cream parlor - had a sign prominently displayed behind the counter: 

We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone. 

As a kid, waiting to be served or to pay for my hamburger, I often studied that sign and pondered what it meant.  Now I know:  "We Don't Serve Blacks" is the translation.

True, it was all required by law; but that law was the express will of the vast, overwhelming majority of white citizens of the South, too.  Even if the segregation laws had all been rescinded, I promise you that all those businesses would have kept the signs and policies in place - as a "business necessity," because white people, like my own family, I am sad to say, simply would not have patronized them otherwise - unless there was a positive law forbidding private businesses from discriminating, which is part of what the Civil Rights Act achieved.

And that is the America that dumbshit racist assholes like Rand Paul want to take us back to.  No thank you.  Here's a couple of clips to give you a little hint of what life was like under the segregation regime - imposed not arbitrarily by "big government," but directly at the hands of the white majority: