File under “OMG! WTF?” We took our eyes off the BP oil cam just long enough to see this headline : “Feds Under Pressure to Open U.S. Skies to Drones.” The Federal Aviation Administration has been asked to issue flying rights for a range of pilotless planes to carry...
Levees Not War
BP Oil Flood Brought to You by U.S. Supreme Court?
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Let’s play what-if: Would the BP Oil Flood have happened if the Rehnquist Supreme Court in its Bush v. Gore ruling had not stopped the state of Florida’s vote-counting? We think maybe not. We think it’s not too far a stretch to say that the...
Oil Flood in Hot Water
It’s not like we really needed this extra twist of fortune, but the hurricane season that began June 1 and runs through the end of November (or as long as nature wants) is forecast to be “one of the most turbulent ever.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric...
Welcome Back, Mr. President, to Louisiana, the Dark Underside of the Nation’s Guilty Conscience
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Take a good look around. Our state bird, only recently removed from the Endangered Species list, now so soaked with crude oil it can’t lift its wings or even breathe. Our hearts are breaking for the dying pelicans and all that they...
Rachel Maddow Reporting from Jean Lafitte National Park
When Rachel Maddow broadcast from the French Quarter the Friday night before the Super Bowl (how long ago that feels!), she surely did not imagine she would be back a few months later covering the hugest godawful environmental catastrophe this nation has ever seen....
After “Epic Foolishness,” Time to Wake a Sleeping (Green) Giant
Columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times, a stalwart advocate for reinforced infrastructure and an eloquent defender of the unemployed, of over-stressed and under-supplied soldiers, and other victims of neglect, is usually moderate in temperament as he shows...
“Our Kinship Will Not Be Washed Away”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxWHabgk34w&feature=player_embedded We always hate to miss a good protest, so we really wish we could have been in Jackson Square yesterday for the big SAVE THE GULF rally (organized, at least in part, by Murdered Gulf). In her...
“This Small Planet”
* At a loss for words while Louisiana’s at a loss for land, life Like many bloggers we’re sometimes at a loss for words in the face of the widening catastrophe in the Gulf—the one that began with a bang on April 20, Earth Day. We want to say something, to do something...
“Sometimes Accidents Happen”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLhyPnZgKgg&feature=player_embedded Libertarian snipes at “un-American . . . criticism of business” Dr. Rand Paul’s comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act have been getting the attention they deserve, but we’re also troubled by...
BP Oilpocalypse Threatens New Orleans’s Very Existence
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlPPFcy-3Vo&feature=player_embedded Steve Wereley [of] . . . Purdue University, told NPR the actual spill rate of the BP oil disaster is about 3 million gallons a day—15 times the official guess of BP and the federal government. . ....
“Oil-Spotted Dick”: Cheney’s Oily Fingerprints in the BP Disaster
It’s Not “Obama’s Katrina”—But It’s Cheney’s Second [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” —Vice President Dick Cheney, quoted in New York Times, May 1,...
“Held Up Without a Gun”
I was out driving just taking it slow / Looked at my tank, it was reading low / Pulled in a [BP] station out on Highway 1 / Held up without a gun / Held up without a gun . . . —Bruce Springsteen (1980) * BP’s 2010 first quarter profits were $5.6 billion, a 135 percent...
“Break the Addiction” : A New Ad from Greenpeace
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aquaNj9J0l0&feature=player_embedded
BP Celebrates Earth Day with Bonfire, Oil Spill:
Well Leaks 210,000 Gallons a Day into Gulf of Mexico
But Seriously, Tragically, 11 Missing Workers Are Presumed Dead On Saturday, April 24, Coast Guard officials reported that the damaged Deepwater Horizon well on the seafloor in the Gulf of Mexico was leaking oil at a rate of about 42,000 gallons (or 1,000 barrels) per...
Campaign to Save Ivor van Heerden’s Post at LSU
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6Bd6vgtjBQ Click this video to see testimonies to the critical work of Ivor van Heerden by such experts and friends as John Barry, Dr. Marc Levitan, Harry Shearer, Sandy Rosenthal, Mtangulizi Sanyika, Jed Horne, and Dr. Oliver Houck....
Obama Sends Wall Streeters to “Reform School”
[ Ed. note: The following account of President Obama’s remarks on Wall Street reform yesterday are not, strictly speaking, part of Levees Not War’s usual portfolio (we do have many interests!), but then again it’s not every day that we get to personally attend a...
“Something Called ‘Volcano Monitoring’ ”
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] “[The Democrats’ stimulus] legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes . . . $140 million for something called ‘volcano monitoring.’ Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of...
Tax Day: How Much Have You Paid for the War?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTPKxjgw5N4&feature=player_embedded Most likely you’ve paid $7,334 of the $1.05 trillion that has gone to the Afghan and Iraq wars since 2001. Here is Tom Englehardt’s compelling introduction at TomDispatch.com to a piece (below the...
“Kill the Bill” vs. “Stop the War”: A Tale of Two Protests
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Has anyone besides us found it kind of odd that there’s been so much “fire and brimstone” about the health care reform bill compared to Bush’s Iraq War? The first thing we’ll say about the violence and threats following Congress’s passage...
Welcoming Committee Second-Lines for Louisiana’s State Hospital & Public Education System
While the GOP convenes in New Orleans with nary a mention of Katrina (who? that Nation editor?), here’s an event we’re sorry we missed, but we’re “retro-promoting” it a day late, for the message remains true: From the Southern Republican Leadership Conference...