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BP wants to save oil not lives

Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 5:45 am  
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I am not sure for how long it has been since the oil leak. Ever since it happened a lot of things have changed. We saw how big corporate companies become childish and start blaming each other for what has happened. Innocent wildlife die off while people who depend on the sea for an income now suffering. Crude oil coming to shore line turning soil, sand and rocks to black. Placing a camera near the leak which resulted in becoming an internet sensation where people started to monetize on it. There are many lawsuits till today being filed against BP and its associates. BP with its so called oil capping methods has been a failure so far.

So what is the end result? What are the people of Louisiana looking forward too? Even if the oil leak situation is resolved the sea wildlife is not going to get to normal instantly. It could take week, months or even years. So what will the people living there have to do in the mean time? Will BP compensate them all till life gets back to normal? BP has been charged with many law suites and possibly might face criminal charges. The issue is that still they are blaming other companies in the US and foreign lands for the oil leak. Does it really matter who gets the blame or should they be focused on stopping the disaster from getting any worse?

When I look at the way BP works it did a good job at containing the media and as well as the public but not the oil leak. The methods that BP uses to stop oil leak does not look it is meant to do that. Every time the news is on about the leak, BP representatives would talk about how they have come up with a tactic to stop the oil leak. When I look into these methods, it does not seem like they want to stop the oil leak but continue to siphon it. They are not going cap or clog the damaged pipes but are trying to ensure that they can still continue to suck the oil.

Their latest method requires them to have a diamond saw to cut the remainder pipelines. So what happens here on after is that there will be more oil gushing into the sea. This will allow them to send a tanker which would than release a cap over it and continue to take up oil. What if this fails? The cap is successfully over the leaking area but their engineers are still adjusting and it is not guaranteed that it will work.

BP now has to bare costs more than US$360 million on the constructions related to the shore lines. Furthermore, the oil could possibly reach Florida. Sad thing is that it took so long for the White House to get strict with big corporate. The much needed pressure to force BP into getting viable solution came much later on. Hopefully, in the future the White House will take action much faster rather than waiting for things to get worse.

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Obama promises all-out relief effort in Haiti – Yahoo! News

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 5:27 pm  
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WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Wednesday promised an all-out rescue and humanitarian effort to help the people of Haiti overcome a “cruel and incomprehensible” tragedy, the ruinous earthquake that ravaged the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.
The president said the relief effort is gearing up even as the U.S. government is working to account for Americans who were on the island nation when the disaster struck late Tuesday afternoon.
Obama said he named U.S. Agency for International Development administrator Rajiv Shah to coordinate American efforts, and the president called upon all nations to join in helping stricken Haitians.
Obama spoke Wednesday in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room. Later, spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters the president had no plans to go to Haiti.
“We’ve mobilized resources to help rescue efforts. Military overflights have assessed the damage, and by early afternoon our civilian disaster assistance team are beginning to arrive,” the president said. Obama adjusted his Wednesday schedule, canceling a jobs event in Maryland to better monitor the situation in Haiti.
Obama encouraged Americans who want to help to go to http://www.whitehouse.gov to find options for contributing to the aid effort.
The president received updates on the situation in Haiti and the U.S. response Wednesday morning from his national security adviser and the Department of Homeland Security.
It would take some days for the ship, in port in Baltimore, to be serviced, supplied and arrive at Haiti, one official said.
The 7.0-magnitude earthquake caused thousands of buildings to collapse in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, trapping untold numbers

All but one American employed by the embassy have been accounted for, State Department officials said.

Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said there are about a dozen wounded people — embassy staff, American citizens and family members of local embassy personnel — being treated at the embassy or the ambassador’s residence for non life-threatening injuries like broken bones. The first Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) from USAID is expected to arrive in Haiti from San Jose, Costa Rica around 1:30 p.m. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday that U.S. military personnel worked throughout the night in response to the disaster in Haiti.

“An awful lot of people are working in that direction right now.”

Former President Bill Clinton, who is U.N. special envoy for Haiti, said in a statement: “My thoughts and prayers are with the people of Haiti.

Click here to read more

YAHOO!

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Carrie Prajean utter lack of respect!

Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 5:44 pm  
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I have never really gotten down hard on Carrie Prajean. I always felt that she was just a media whore, someone like Levi Johnston, who is doing anything for media attention. But after her treatment of Larry King, I think it is time to give her a tongue slashing usually reserved for older hosts.

I do not like the manner that she answered her question, but then I would have disqualified half the women based on the manner the answered their questions. So, yes I am not an expert! Politics is my field, not beauty pageants.

Then she went about opening her mouth saying that she was doing it for God and so on and so forth. She became the darling of the far right. Of course there are the instances of her topless photographs and her masturbation videos, okay. I would not be surprised if it was Carrie Prajean herself that exposed all these leaks to stay in the media. Hey, there is no such thing as bad publicity right.

I always put her as a person that was crying for attention. I put her in the same category as Levi Johnston who is doing the same thing by posing nude for playgirl and throwing dirt at Governor Sarah Palin. They are just attention seeking whores to me.

This incident changed everything. In political commentary, there are many people who could be considered bigots, rude, obnoxious, terrible. These can be from the left like Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher and Rachael Maddow, from the right like Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck or Bill O Reilly or even independents like Governor Ventura, Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader or the people here at ST.

But nobody disses CNN’s Larry King. Anybody would tell you that he is a very soft-ball host. He has been doing this for so many years and I never heard of anybody being pissed off with Larry King. Even people like Bill O Reilly and Rush Limbaugh do not mind him. I am shocked at the manner that she treated Larry King. It is disgraceful.

She began by saying how she is “Palinized” by the far-left media like Keith Olbermann. Okay, that is a fair point. He is really a jacka**. But is there really a double standard as she suggests? Would right-wingers be forced out of the air because of mean words?

Rush Limbaugh supported (supports?) the apartheid government is South Africa in the 90s, he is still on the air. Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist for no damn reason, he is still on the air. Michael Savage in on the air despite his outright racist remarks against Latinos. Governor Sarah Palin is still on the air despite claiming that our President pals with terrorists. So, the idea of there being a double standard is really ridiculous.

Larry King then went to the point where she agreed to settle for some lawsuits that she made. He did not ask what the settlement was, he asked why. Why did she settle? It is a fair question. It is nothing intrusive. Even then he went on for just 30 seconds.

“So you can even say why you settled? I am not asking for what is in the agreement? … So the agreement discusses why each party agreed to settle?” That was basically all Larry King asked! That was it! It was not a tough one. She could have answered that she was tired of everything and wanted it to end quickly etc. Those kinds of excuses are okay, but you can’t tell why you settled?

Because of that, she gave Larry King the ultimate disrespect by taking off her microphone while a viewer was asking her a question. If I were Larry King, I would have freaking exploded. Try doing that to other hosts like Bill O Reilly, Geraldo Riviera, Ann Coulter, Olbermann and see what the reaction would be.

I also hope there was a person she was talking to in the room, because if she was talking to herself, she would really need psychiatric help!

Watch it at cnn.com/video

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Far right dangerously too powerful

Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 5:53 pm  
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Ex-Republican challenger in the New York 23rd Congressional district, Diedre “Dede” Scozzafava, was all but forced out of her place because the far right of the Republican party are backing her Conservative Party opponent, Doug Hoffman. This is something that troubles me…

I have said time and time again, to watch out for ex-Governor Sarah Palin. I really think that she is a poison to America with her hate, and even though she know little about running America, she has a political capability to strike fatal political venom. The fatal concoction is that the Liberals tend to disregard Governor Palin as much as she has the potential to harm them. They just do not get it, and that is why they lose elections! I think they are going to lose this election too.

It is Governor Palin that turned the tide against Ms. Scozzafava. You think Doug Hoffman would have a chance without her backing? After her backing, a lot of Republicans backed Hoffman. Apart from Steve Forbes, all the people I know backing Hoffman are, to put it crudely, nuts. We are talking about, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, Governor Rick Perry, Michelle Bachmann, Bill Kristol, of course Rush Limbaugh, etc.

And look at the reason why they back Hoffman! It is not that they hate Scozzafava for her policies. They just do not like a person that differs in thought from them! Scozzafava worked with a group that worked with ACORN, which the nuts on the Right think is made by Lucifer himself. She is for gay-marriage that drives them mad, and she made the cardinals sin of being pro-choice. These are the reasons they hate her!

It is not the debt as they claim it out to be! Her stance does not differ as much from Hoffman when it comes to taxes. It does not differ on the agenda that the conservatives put it out to be. They have become a fanatically puristic party and I do not like that!

The first reason is that the Liberals do not have as many “leaders” as the Republican party has, or use to have. The Republicans had people General Colin Powell, (ex) Senator Chuck Hagel and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who are Presidential material, were thrown under the bus by the Republican Party for being too liberal. These people are the moderates!

The second reason is that the country is going to head in the far right doldrums like Hitler’s Germany, or more likely, a fundamentalist Iran, rather than a democracy that we are today. I read an Washington Independent article sent to me recently that quoted Governor Tim Pawlenty who said that Newt Gingrich is becoming too liberal. Newt Gingrich!? Come on! To me, he is already too far right, but he was not as loony as many are today! And I am an Independent!

Who is next for them? Meg Whiteman, who we at ST have endorsed for Governor of California? They are already setting their sights on Senator Lindsey Graham, who they claim must work less with the “enemy”, the Democrats. The nuts also called Senator John McCain too progressive in the last election!

I want the far right to lose in this race. Therefore, I would endorse Democrat Bill Owens. To be honest, the only Bill Owens I knew recently was the former Governor of Colorado! The only thing I know about this is that he is pro-gay marriage, pro-choice, for gun control and he is against the Public Option regarding health care. However, if he stops the far left train, that would be good enough for me.

That being said, I do not think that the Democrats would take that seat even though Owens is technically in the lead. The district is too conservative and I think that the majority of the 20% that supported Scozzafava vote for Hoffman or not vote at all. I cannot see Owens taking 70% of Scozzafava’s vote that he needs to win the seat right now.

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Obama’s Gay speech; all talk

Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 6:57 am  
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President Obama gave a speech at the Human Rights Campaign, the biggest driver for gay rights in this country. To put it simply, this is a speech that we have heard umpteen times in his campaign and he has yet to deliver on any one of the promises that he has made with regards to the LGBT community.

He mentioned that he was going to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He could have simply on the first day gave an executive order that people were not going to be fired because of their sexual orientation till the policy was reviewed. Did he do that? No!

He mentioned that he was against the “so-called Defense of Marriage Act.” There are 2 components of DOMA. 1) People are not to be deemed married in one state even if they are married in another. 2) The federal government is to recognize marriage as one between a man and a woman. While we cannot determine the President’s stance on component 1, we know that the President agrees with the second part of DOMA. Hence, I find it hypocritical of him to say that he is going to repeal DOMA when he himself supports part of it. (I have a different view, which is to ban marriage altogether…. Read older article http://slashingtongue.com/politics/gay-marriage-sts-position-becoming-popular/.)

He said that there would be a hate crimes bill that he would sign soon. But that bill was around for ten years! Why didn’t he bring it up when he was a Senator? What is his record on this bill? A big fat zero! There has yet to be a bill that he has sponsored, co-sponsored or signed that has anything to do with LGBT issues.

Criticism to this hate crime bill disgusts me. When I was young, my father always told me to stand against discrimination of others. Because if they can discriminate against one group of people today, we could suffer discrimination tomorrow. If we allow people to get away with beating up someone because they were gay, this could lead to someone else being beaten up for being Black, Latino or Asian.

The only issue where we can cut him some slack on is the defense of his nominees. It is obvious that he would do that. He nominated them! If he did not want to stand up against the gay bashing on his nominees, why would he have even nominated them?

I think that we, as Americans, should grow up on this kind of issues. We have to stop considering people with a different sexual orientation as someone that is inhuman. There are still some idiotic politicians that can equate a homosexual relationship to bestiality and pedophilia. This is utterly nonsense, as animals and children minds are not as mentally developed as adults.

I myself, had looked at gay men as sex-hungry sissy boys. That changed in the Army, where I served alongside gays. I realized there that they were no different from me, other than the fact that I like girls and they like boys. I hope that America receives that kind of enlightenment too.

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