By BobbiV

This happened a couple of weeks ago.  I have been saving it, but I can’t say that I really know why.  Perhaps because I am still shaking at the thought of what BP, with our willing consent, has done to the environment in the Gulf.

The reason I am bringing it out now is really very simple.  After the latest storm  the Gulf of Mexico looks a lot better.  The sheen has dissipated in much of the area that was hit with oil and if you don’t look closely, you might just think everything is just A-OK.

That is a deception.  We still don’t know about the long term impact on the environment, wildlife and the fragile eco-systems of the marshes and swamps.  We also don’t have any idea about the health repercussions for the clean up crews and for Gulf residents.  We have no idea what the dispersants BP pumped into the ocean will do and what they will kill.

However, I don’t intend to let it slip from the consciousness of the people I know and that includes readers of this blog.  So I am putting this video up to remind you of how bad this environmental disaster is.  It will continue to plague this country for many years to come.  We must never forget this and we must not let BP off the hook.  As citizens, our duty is to make sure the Obama administration stays vigilant and collects the money from BP that the Gulf residents are due.

By BobbiV

Tea baggers seem to long for the days of the Cold War when the enemy was easy to categorize.  Simply put they have to have a visible enemy to fight or they come unhinged like they have recently.

The truth is wing nuts cannot believe in global warming or climate change because they claim they cannot see it.  They can’t fight the banks or Wall Street because most of their livelihoods depend on them and wing nuts see them as the good guys.  So they fight a class war because they can see the difference between people right in front of them.  It is so much easier and requires no thought, just reaction.

Now there may finally be a way to get Republicans, conservatives and even a few wing nuts on board for a change to green energy.  The evil Chinese Communists are beating our socks off on this front and they will have a green society long before we do!

Think about it.  It is perfect.  The Democratic, liberal, Progressive side would get an energy bill and we could start toward a future free from fossil fuels.  The Republican, conservative, tea bagger side would get a red menace to again wage a Cold War against.

We wouldn’t have to drag the right wing, kicking and screaming all the way to a clean energy future.  We  could just lead them along like lemmings.  Of course we would have to make sure we were out of he way when their leaders heads started exploding.  But eventually…Viola!….clean energy and a fossil fuel free nation.

So start talking to all the right wingers you can.  Let them know China wants to lead the world in clean energy growth, especially solar.  But they are Communists!  We positively cannot let the win.  It is a point of national pride.

Following are some talking points you can use;

75% of solar-power-making machines are being bought by Chinese companies (i.e., the machines that make solar panels are overwhelmingly going to China).

5 years ago, China made about 5% of solar panels in the world. This year, they’ll make almost 50% of them. 50% of all of the solar panels in the world.

“If all those jobs go someplace else, we’re just trading our energy dependence from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East to China or other countries that are really going to make the investment to produce renewable energy.”

China is investing almost $34 billion a year into clean technologies, nearly double what the U.S. invests.

95% of all vacuum tubes using solar power to heat water (solar-thermal tubes) are made in China. 1/3 of them will be exported, but most will remain in and be used in China.

China already has a model solar city, called Dezhou. 80% of the buildings in the city are outfitted with the above solar water heaters and 1/3 of the people in the city work in the solar industry.

Get out there and get to work.  Convince the knuckle draggers to fight the war for clean energy.  Its not against the lefties, its against the Commies.

By BobbiV

With all the attention on the Gulf of Mexico and BP’s failures, little attention has been paid to the oil spill in Utah.  Luna Canus wrote about this spill when it happened and we have been watching the results ever since.

Admittedly, part of the concern here has been the fact that we are not all that far away from where this spill occurred.  The other part is that the oil was threatening to go into Great Salt Lake which would be a real tragedy for the environment.

Now please understand. I do not hold Chevron in any higher regard than I do BP.  All big oil corporations have had spills that have played havoc with native communities and the environment.  So one is just about the same as the next in my view.

However, it appears Chevron may have learned a lesson from the BP debacle, as far as public relations go anyway.  This corporation has been Johnny on the spot to take care of this spill.  Granted it is much smaller and in a more contained area.  But, Chevron has seemed to go out of their way to make sure they get the mess cleaned up with the least possible disturbance to the people and the environment of the area.  In my opinion, other big energy corporations should look at this leak, rather than at the BP mess as a lesson in how to do things when a spill occurs.

From AP by way of Google News;

Chevron resumed operation of the pipeline June 21 following a successful pressure test of a nearly 14-mile section.

The San Ramon, Calif., company has said it believes the leak was caused by a short in a power line that traveled through a utility fence post to melt a hole in the pipe’s casing.

At first, crude oil was pouring down Red Butte Creek, but within days regulators said tests found little chemical traces of oil suspended in water.

“Right now the product is pretty much gone as far as any chemical element. That’s in our rearview mirror,” Baker said Wednesday. “But the results of the spill are still with us.”

The spill killed off critters and bugs that lived in the creek and sustained a food chain, Baker said. That’s the basis for one of the violations.

Creek banks could still be soaked with oil in spots, Baker said.

Cleanup crews planned to flush Red Butte Creek for a second time Thursday to capture any residual oil with absorbent booms. Water will be released from a reservoir east of Salt Lake City, and officials are warning people to stay away as the creek rises by about a foot for two hours.

“We’re working on hand-washing the river,” Johnson said.

You can read the rest about this clean up here.

Chevron will most likely be fined, as well they should be.  But the cooperation they showed and the willingness the corporation took to make sure things were cleaned and returned as close to the way they were as possible is admirable.  Chevron deserves a tip of the hat for their response.

Will other big corporations take note and learn from this example?  If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say, the smart ones will, the others -  not so much.

The majority of big corporations put on the caring act as long as it is of benefit to them and their botton line.

By BobbiV;

You must pardon me for my skepticism, but BP and its fellow big energy corporations have absolutely zero credibility in my eyes.  Please don’t get me wrong, I want this spill stopped and I want the Gulf returned as much as possible to its former self.

I just don’t personally have trust or faith in big oil corporations.  I know the gushing oil has stopped and that is a great development.  But I have this recurring picture in my mind of this rocket shaped piece of equipment that was placed on top of the rampaging oil, flying into the heavens with even more oil propelling it.

I know that is silly, but I really, really do not trust these people.  At best during this whole disaster they have performed little better than The Keystone Cops.  At worst they have been callous, unfeeling bastards who don’t care a whit about anything but money and their bottom line.  In other words, they have done nothing to regain or instill confidence.

I am glad to see the Obama Administration beginning to exercise control over this situation.  I am ecstatic that oil is not, for the minute, pouring into the water of the Gulf.  I do hold out hope the oil will be cleaned up and everyone hurt by this disaster will be adequately compensated.  I just can’t shake the feeling of an ulterior motive here on the part of BP.

I can't help it. When I think of big oil corporations, I think of this.

As many of you may already be aware, one of my pet peeves is big business shipping U.S. jobs overseas in exchange for cheap labor.  The reward for the citizens of the United States is not just a loss in jobs but tainted, dangerous and often deadly, cheap products for your family at the local discount store.  Sound like a fair trade?

One of the biggest offenders for taking our jobs and sending us dangerous products is the nation of China.  Radiator fluid in toothpaste and mouthwash, baby formula with melamine, toys with lead paint, water dots that act as roofies and melamine in pet food that caused sudden kidney failure in thousands of our pets all jump to mind.

These problems, when discovered, were all quickly dealt with by our government agencies.  Thanks to quick action by those agencies we did not have to rely on the Rand Paul theory of:  Let people die from a bad product, once a few people die others will figure out that you shouldn’t buy that product.  Thank you Rand Paul, Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, for making all Americans feel safe!

One issue that I have written several times about is tainted Chinese drywall.

This drywall made in China is unsafe in a home or business.  It will out-gas chemicals that corrode copper and aluminum wiring in the home.  It makes a home or office unsafe to breathe in.

It is very easy to fall into the trap of blaming China for shipping this product to America.  It is also easy to blame the government agencies that are supposed to check these products for contamination.

However, it is becoming apparent there were warning signs in many American businesses,  there was a problem with this drywall.  But these self same businesses ignored the warnings and placed this dangerous product in thousands of American homes.

Any worker who spends a number of years on a job can tell you that you do not just rely on what your eyes tell you.  Equipment, machinery and chemicals all have a certain sound and smell to them.  People with years of experience can tell if something is wrong by the sound a machine pr0duces or the smell a product gives off.  I speak from experience here, often I knew there was something off with my equipment by its sound or smell.

Of course, those in the head office would consider this foolish.  How can you tell there is a problem by a smell they would, and did, ask when workers expressed concern about drywall coming from China.  They ignored these warnings in the pursuit of profit and now point the finger at China.

Yes, China did make the contaminated product and ship it to our nation.  Of that there is no doubt.

It was installed in homes in the Gulf Coast area, primarily those that suffered damage in hurricane Katrina.  Of this there is no doubt.

These same hurricane victims cannot live in their homes because of the danger this drywall presents.  Again, there is no doubt.

The obvious result is that law suits are flying fast and furious between homeowners, contractors, building suppliers and the Chinese manufacturers.  The only question is where some or all of the blame lies for allowing this product into American homes.

The answer to that question is not so obvious.  Yes, the big bad Chinese made the product.  Yes, our government agencies that were gutted under the Bush Regime allowed it through. However, it now appears our last line of defense against this product entering our homes was ignored.

That line was thin and it was blue.  I am not talking about police here but the very experienced and professional American blue collar worker.  The warnings they gave about this product were ignored by the corporations for whom they work.  The experience they have over a collective of what must be hundreds of years was ignored by a professional manager with absolutely no experience in the field.

Now it seems clear, given the warnings from numerous workers, several American companies were aware of the potential problems with this drywall.  But they ignored it for the sake of profit.

Sadly it is not just the big bad Chinese that seem to be seeking profit from the poisoning of American citizens.  It is our own greedy corporations as well.

For some reason I am not surprised and I do appreciate the workers who raised the red flag.  I would like those workers to know that.

To read more about these new developments click here:

http://www.propublica.org/feature/chinese-drywall-stinks-mums-the-word

We need to listen more to experience.

By BobbiV

Is there anyone who doesn’t remember getting ragged on for not making their bed in the morning?  I know I sure do.  I can’t possibly count the number of times the unmade bed conversation was had in our house.

The words pig sty, slob, what would people think and others come to mind when I recall these conversations.  Of course, as a dutiful parent I continued the authoritarian lecturing to my son.  After all, its in the parenting 101 textbook.  However, my son still makes his bed only when he is going to have guests.  The rest of the time it is a mess of tangled bedding, tossed clothing, sometimes the telephone and almost always reading material of some sort.  I don’t look any deeper because I might not be able to handle what I see.

I don’t think it matters what type of politics parents believe in, childhood is an equal opportunity time for slobbishness.  Republican or Democratic, conservative or liberal, wing nut or progressive, all parents have to give the lecture about unmade beds.

That is until now.  According to BBC News, scientists are now telling us an unmade bed is better for your health.

From BBC News;

Failing to make your bed in the morning may actually help keep you healthy, scientists believe.

Research suggests that while an unmade bed may look scruffy it is also unappealing to house dust mites thought to cause asthma and other allergies.

A Kingston University study discovered the bugs cannot survive in the warm, dry conditions found in an unmade bed.

The average bed could be home to up to 1.5 million house dust mites.

You can read the rest here.  I really don’t want to think about it anymore.

By BobbiV

With governors who hike the Appalachian Trail, many members who are very confused as to their sexual identity, birthers, deathers, tea baggers and assorted wing nuts, the Republican Party has no lack of hypocrites, posers and scandal.  In fact, the escapades of Republicans have become so common place, most don’t ping loudly enough on my political radar to warrant taking time to post about them.

However, when a politician in a place of authority over others starts playing politics with a disaster in their state and does things that will harm his constituents while playing those political games, I notice….big time.  I don’t care if it is a Democratic or a Republican politician, they ping loudly and persistently on that same political radar until I am forced to say something.

Recently, Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has been pinging my radar almost incessantly.  First, he seemed to be jumping on the federal government about their inattention to the needs of Louisiana after the BP oil disaster.  Okay, I thought, just more Republican cum Libertarian hypocrisy about small government and not needing the federal government until it is my ox that is getting gored.  Nothing unusual about that,so I let that pass.

Then the pinging got louder when he attacked President Obama and his administration for their slow response to the disaster.  Jindal has aspirations to the Republican presidential nomination in 2012.  So even though I knew he was playing politics to garner press attention and I knew what he was saying about the Obama response was a lie, I marked this up to more games with politics.

But now the radar is pinging non-stop, Jindal didn’t use even half the National Guard Troops he was sent for the spill clean up.  Those troops he did use were assigned to guard BP from problems.  Now this was getting interesting so I began to watch the little Howdy Dowdy look alike more closely.  What is he up to?

Now the news that this Governor has stripped funding from his budget to help cash strapped Parishes in Louisiana with the spill clean up.  He says BP should pay, not the taxpayer and on that point he is right.  But the state should take care of ongoing costs and collect the dollars from BP.  He shouldn’t be delaying clean up because he wants to prove his conservative creds because he is harming those same taxpayers he claims he is protecting.  See the WWLTV story here.

The latest in radar pinging from Bobby Jindal is his veto of a bill by Louisiana legislators.  The bill would require him to preserve and make public records his office has relating to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and events that followed.  Now my curiosity is piqued.  Just why wouldn’t he want to preserve the records relating to the biggest environmental disaster in US history?  What is he really playing at?

From The Miami Herald;

In his veto letter, the governor said the legislation would have hurt the state’s position in future litigation against BP PLC, the oil giant that leased the rig which exploded April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and causing the disaster.

“This bill would allow BP and other parties with potential liability to the state to obtain information retained by any state agency responding to this tragic event,” Jindal wrote, saying such access could jeopardize the state’s position in seeking legal remedy for the spill’s damage.

The Senate sponsor of the public records provision said Friday night that Jindal’s veto was expected. He noted that the governor has repeatedly fought attempts to require preservation and open most of his office’s records to public scrutiny.

“This governor has opposed transparency for the three years he’s been in office, so that’s not a surprise. What is sad about all this is it’s just another black eye on Louisiana internationally now,” said Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton.

Read the rest here.

This idiot Jindal deserves watching.  What he’s doing in regard to this disaster just isn’t adding up to be in the best interests of the citizens of Louisiana.

This is Governor Bobby Jindal,of Louisiana. I told you he was a Howdy Dowdy look alike!

Some television reporters and government agencies are saying that the reports of contaminated oil in rainfall in the south eastern US are not possible.

As reported on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show the government agency NOAA has stated that the elements in the crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico that would evaporate into the air could not cause this oil in rain phenomenon.

This flies in the face of video footage, crop damage and eyewitness reports.  Videos have shown metal grates actually bubbling as if exposed to acid during rain showers.  There is also ample video documentation of crop damage that has been recorded by the areas local news shows.  Eyewitness reports include what the videos have shown and the people in the areas go on to state that the rain smells like a gas station or oil refinery.  It has also been stated that water flowing off of residential lawns has a ‘sheen’ to it that indicates the presence of chemicals.

Granted we have had numerous major oil spills in the past that have never resulted in contaminated rainfall.  Even if you rule out contamination from the crude oil itself we still do not know what the results of so much chemical dispersant could be.

Sadly we do not know the chemical makeup of the over one hundred million gallons of dispersant that has already been used in the gulf.  We also have not seen any long term studies on how the dispersed oil may evaporate differently from normal crude or what it might do to the environment.  Add to that the large quantities of sulfur and methane being released and combine those chemicals into the mix and I find it hard to believe that there is no connection between the supposed contaminated rainfall and the oil spill.  For me the timing is just to convenient.

Only time will tell us for sure if inland communities, farms and wildlife are going to be affected by contaminated rain.  Sadly we will know soon enough as the area enters hurricane season and more moisture is picked up off the Gulf by these storms.

I sincerely hope that NOAA and Miss. Maddow are correct and that the reports of contaminated rain are false or exaggerated.  I am worried however, that even when reporting the facts at hand;  BP’s history of holding back information will mean all the facts may not be available for those reporting to see.

Watch as Rachel Maddow reports about oil in rain.