OK - If you've thought that we're in deep shit with the oil spill, and that mainstream media wasn't giving us all the news, then look at what government is doing to block accurate reporting of the news.
In the news article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/us/10access.html?hp
the NY Times reports that various levels of government are blocking access by the media to view the spill zones. Yes, some media may be getting into "ground zero" to report the news. But other media is being denied "fly-over" access, as if Uncle Sam is helping BP with managing its spin.
What bothers me now is not BP declaring bankruptcy, but that the bankruptcy will be prepackaged. This means that BP will supply a one time funding of a trust to pay out oil spill related claims against the old BP, sever the link between the old and new BP, and preserve stockholder assets at the expense of the gulf coast inhabitants and businesses they have screwed. This is not right.
We must make sure that if BP declares bankruptcy, that all of its assets are liquidated, and the proceeds from the liquidation be dedicated solely to restoring the health of the gulf coast - as long as there is money in the liquidation fund. I don't know about other people, but this is one time I intend to write my congressman and senators about an issue....
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Ecological Disaster
I wonder how many people have seen the projections on how the oil spill will flow into the Atlantic. I have, and it is scary. It looks like much of the key Atlantic fishing areas are about to become a dead zone.
Are we hearing much about this in the mainstream media? NO - Of course not! The media and the government are afraid to tell the people the truth - the situation is FUBAR! (For those who are not familiar with the expression "FUBAR", it means - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.) What is going to happen when we can no longer eat North American lobster and other shellfish? What is going to happen to our already decimated herds of whales in the North Atlantic? Can they survive? We know so little about what will happen to marine life - and we depend on it so much.
In today's news, the mainstream media finally noted that government has no knowledge of what to do about the oil spill - all knowledge is in the hands of the oil companies. Why didn't government take on an active observation role, and help develop mandatory best practices? Why did we let BP, one of the worst violators of safety standards, drill an extremely risky well? Even the Canadians have better mandated practices than we have. What would it have taken for current and previous administrations to convince business to invest more in remediation technology? (I just learned that much of the oil spill remediation technology we have was developed in the late 1970's/early 1980's - not much has been developed or enhanced in 30 years!!!!) This seems like a multigenerational screw up to the maximum degree!!!!
Of course, we're now seeing a criminal investigation of BP. But will they ever be able to extract much money from the oil company. The other day, I heard an estimate for EPA criminal penalties for this oil spill of $12 billion. Does anyone think we'll get more than a fraction of this figure? I don't.....
Are we hearing much about this in the mainstream media? NO - Of course not! The media and the government are afraid to tell the people the truth - the situation is FUBAR! (For those who are not familiar with the expression "FUBAR", it means - Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition.) What is going to happen when we can no longer eat North American lobster and other shellfish? What is going to happen to our already decimated herds of whales in the North Atlantic? Can they survive? We know so little about what will happen to marine life - and we depend on it so much.
In today's news, the mainstream media finally noted that government has no knowledge of what to do about the oil spill - all knowledge is in the hands of the oil companies. Why didn't government take on an active observation role, and help develop mandatory best practices? Why did we let BP, one of the worst violators of safety standards, drill an extremely risky well? Even the Canadians have better mandated practices than we have. What would it have taken for current and previous administrations to convince business to invest more in remediation technology? (I just learned that much of the oil spill remediation technology we have was developed in the late 1970's/early 1980's - not much has been developed or enhanced in 30 years!!!!) This seems like a multigenerational screw up to the maximum degree!!!!
Of course, we're now seeing a criminal investigation of BP. But will they ever be able to extract much money from the oil company. The other day, I heard an estimate for EPA criminal penalties for this oil spill of $12 billion. Does anyone think we'll get more than a fraction of this figure? I don't.....
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Ineptitude and Confusion
Malcolm Gladwell, in his book, The Outliers, notes that it takes about 10,000 hours of "practice" to become expert practitioner in almost any field. For most of us, this means that once we enter the work force, it takes about 5 years to develop expertise in our craft.
Most of us talk about common sense when it comes to preventing problems. But when it came to the "O Rings" on the Challenger space shuttle, did we heed the call of the engineer who wanted to call off the launch? Or, did we heed the needs of the politicians who wanted to send the bird up on schedule? Common sense gets thrown away when large institutions get involved with doing anything, as they have too many competing interests.
Right now, we're seeing the American right wing make a lot of noise about Obama not doing what America needs. Do they expect a "Superman"? And what about the "dittoheads" who parrot what Rush Limbaugh says? Could any of them do any better? It's a miracle that Obama has not crashed and burned, given less than 2 years on the job and the fires he has had to fight.
Both political parties are responsible for the mess we're in. The oil spill has shown how corrupt the MMR department became, because the United States has had no energy policy (except to buy it from risky areas such as the Middle East) and has had no intention of pursuing one. The law in Arizona shows what the lack of a real immigration policy has done to the United States - We depend on the illegal aliens who do much of the grunt work native Americans no longer do. When was the last time we went to a diner which didn't have illegal staff where the public didn't see them? What about many of our gardening services - I'll bet that many of their workers are illegally here as well. Do we want to kick them all out and end up paying more for these services? Most people will say NO to that. So what do we do?
Let's focus on immigration first. (I've covered Resource/Energy policy in a previous posting.) The people who want us to seal the border are correct. How can we have a serious immigration policy when we can't control who is immigrating to the United States? We need realistic penalties for those employers who hire illegal help. This also means that we need an easy (100% accurate) way to validate a prospective employee's right to look for work in this country. This is likely to be a big problem, but not an unmanageable one - I don't hear of any problems with US Passports being issued to illegal aliens. A similar document could be used as proof as our right to work here, and it could have biometric validation for safety.
But what about our dependency on the illegal work force? It would be inhumane to send these people home to countries where no work is available *and* it would disrupt much of the service sector economy we depend on these days. The conservatives are right when they talk of these immigrants as having broken laws. Why should they be first on line to be legalized? Once legal, why should they be first on line to become citizens? They have shown us a great disrespect by breaking the law for the first action they do on American soil.
I propose that any program developed as part of a real immigration policy consist of the following:
1. Building an effective border "fence" to keep people from crossing our Southern border illegally.
2. Create a foolproof way to validate that a person has the right to work here, and have meaningful penalties for those employers who hire illegals without appropriate due diligence.
3. For a one year period, create a temporary amnesty, where people illegally resident in the United States could apply for residency (not leading to US Citizenship for them or their children once legal residents). This application may not be done on United States soil, but must be sent to the United States from foreign soil. (In short, the illegals must go home to apply for legalization of their status.)
4. Only legal immigrants and their offspring may gain United States citizenship. (We may need to clarify this with an amendment to the constitution.) However, illegal aliens (and their children) who filed for legal residency (according to rules of #3 above) may only become American Nationals - they may carry American passports (like residents of some Pacific islands), work in the United States, travel freely, but NOT vote or hold public office. In short, they gain permanent green cards and American passports.
Even with these changes, this is the tip of the iceberg. We need the labor, and they need the work. All I'm proposing is a humane way of breaking the political deadlock and making political reality reflect the reality we all see every day.
Most of us talk about common sense when it comes to preventing problems. But when it came to the "O Rings" on the Challenger space shuttle, did we heed the call of the engineer who wanted to call off the launch? Or, did we heed the needs of the politicians who wanted to send the bird up on schedule? Common sense gets thrown away when large institutions get involved with doing anything, as they have too many competing interests.
Right now, we're seeing the American right wing make a lot of noise about Obama not doing what America needs. Do they expect a "Superman"? And what about the "dittoheads" who parrot what Rush Limbaugh says? Could any of them do any better? It's a miracle that Obama has not crashed and burned, given less than 2 years on the job and the fires he has had to fight.
Both political parties are responsible for the mess we're in. The oil spill has shown how corrupt the MMR department became, because the United States has had no energy policy (except to buy it from risky areas such as the Middle East) and has had no intention of pursuing one. The law in Arizona shows what the lack of a real immigration policy has done to the United States - We depend on the illegal aliens who do much of the grunt work native Americans no longer do. When was the last time we went to a diner which didn't have illegal staff where the public didn't see them? What about many of our gardening services - I'll bet that many of their workers are illegally here as well. Do we want to kick them all out and end up paying more for these services? Most people will say NO to that. So what do we do?
Let's focus on immigration first. (I've covered Resource/Energy policy in a previous posting.) The people who want us to seal the border are correct. How can we have a serious immigration policy when we can't control who is immigrating to the United States? We need realistic penalties for those employers who hire illegal help. This also means that we need an easy (100% accurate) way to validate a prospective employee's right to look for work in this country. This is likely to be a big problem, but not an unmanageable one - I don't hear of any problems with US Passports being issued to illegal aliens. A similar document could be used as proof as our right to work here, and it could have biometric validation for safety.
But what about our dependency on the illegal work force? It would be inhumane to send these people home to countries where no work is available *and* it would disrupt much of the service sector economy we depend on these days. The conservatives are right when they talk of these immigrants as having broken laws. Why should they be first on line to be legalized? Once legal, why should they be first on line to become citizens? They have shown us a great disrespect by breaking the law for the first action they do on American soil.
I propose that any program developed as part of a real immigration policy consist of the following:
1. Building an effective border "fence" to keep people from crossing our Southern border illegally.
2. Create a foolproof way to validate that a person has the right to work here, and have meaningful penalties for those employers who hire illegals without appropriate due diligence.
3. For a one year period, create a temporary amnesty, where people illegally resident in the United States could apply for residency (not leading to US Citizenship for them or their children once legal residents). This application may not be done on United States soil, but must be sent to the United States from foreign soil. (In short, the illegals must go home to apply for legalization of their status.)
4. Only legal immigrants and their offspring may gain United States citizenship. (We may need to clarify this with an amendment to the constitution.) However, illegal aliens (and their children) who filed for legal residency (according to rules of #3 above) may only become American Nationals - they may carry American passports (like residents of some Pacific islands), work in the United States, travel freely, but NOT vote or hold public office. In short, they gain permanent green cards and American passports.
Even with these changes, this is the tip of the iceberg. We need the labor, and they need the work. All I'm proposing is a humane way of breaking the political deadlock and making political reality reflect the reality we all see every day.
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