BP oil spill killing dolphins, in Gulf cost area and Australia

                         Murder on the Gulf Coast

The Obama administration has issued a gag order on data over the recent spike of dead dolphins, including many stillborn infants, washing up on Mississippi and Alabama shorelines, and scientists say the restriction undermines the scientific process.


An abnormal dolphin mortality this year along the Gulf coast has become part of a federal criminal investigation over last year’s BP oil spill disaster and as a result, has led the US government to clamp down on biologists’ findings, with orders to keep the results confidential.

The dolphin die-off, labeled an “unusual mortality event (UME),” resulted in wildlife biologists being contracted by the National Marine Fisheries Service to record the recent spike in dolphin deaths by collecting tissue samples and specimens for the agency, but late last month were privately ordered to keep their results under wraps.

Reuters has obtained a copy of the agency letter that states, in part: “Because of the seriousness of the legal case, no data or findings may be released, presented or discussed outside the UME investigative team without prior approval.”

One biologist involved with tracking dolphin moralities for over 20 years and speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that: “It throws accountability right out the window. We are confused and ... we are angry because they claim they want teamwork, but at the same time they are leaving the marine experts out of the loop completely.”

Some scientists said they have received a personal rebuke from government officials about “speaking out of turn” to the media over attempts at determining the dolphins’ deaths.

Additionally, these scientists say the collected specimens and samples are being turned over to the government for evaluation under a deal that omits independent scientists from the final results of lab tests.

Almost 200 dead bottlenose dolphin bodies have been found since mid-January through this week along shorelines of Gulf coast states, including Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Reuters notes. About half of the carcasses are newborns or stillborn infants.

That number is around 14 times the average numbers recorded during the same time frame between 2002 and 2007 and has coincidentally occurred during the first calving season since the BP Deepwater Horizon debacle last year in the Gulf.

Although many of the dolphin specimens recently collected show no outward signs of oil contamination, lab analysis is crucial in helping to determine their deaths.

Some experts believe the recent surge of deaths is the result of dolphins inhaling or ingesting oil during the oil spill, the results of which are just now beginning to show their toll, including a possible upsurge in dolphin miscarriages.

The recent spike in dolphin deaths has compounded the dolphin mortality problem, as scientists were already busy attempting to determine the deaths of nearly 90 dead dolphins, mostly adults, that washed up along the US Gulf coast during the weeks and months after the BP disaster.

Some are questioning the Marine Fisheries Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and its delay in providing dolphin samples to laboratories.

“It is surprising that it has been almost a full year since the spill, and they still haven't selected labs for this kind of work,” said Ruth Carmichael, of the independent Dauphin Island Sea Lab, located in Alabama, according to Reuters. “I can only hope that this process is a good thing. I just don’t know. This is an unfortunate situation,” she added.

Officials with the NOAA state the confidentiality measures are an integral part of the current investigation over the BP oil spill.

“We are treating the evidence, which are the dolphin samples, like a murder case,” said Dr. Erin Fougeres, a Fisheries Service marine biologist, Reuters notes. “The chain of custody is being closely watched. Every dolphin sample is considered evidence in the BP case now,” she add   Do your remember  Star Trek IV? On the planet Vulcan, the former officers of the USS Enterprise are living in exile (after the events of Star trek III: The search for Spock). Accompanied by the Vulcan Spock, still recovering from his resurrection, the crew—except for Saavik, who remains on Vulcan—take their captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey starship and head to Earth to face trial for their theft and destruction of the Enterprise. Hearing Starfleet's warning, Spock determines that the probe's signal matches the song of extinct humpback whales, and that the object will continue to wreak havoc until its call is answered. The crew uses their ship to travel back in time via a slingshot maneuver around the Sun, planning to return with a whale to answer the alien signal   What if the Murder of sentient beings other than humans would cause the destruction of the Planet. Could we be seeing the future of the world as we know it? When will mankind learn that Murder of any kind is killing us all?  

Catholic Church in Ireland promises to do better

The cleric set to become the next head of the Catholic Church in Ireland has pledged to work to heal the wounds of those who have lost trust in the institution.




Eamon Martin delivered a call for renewal in the Church as he was ordained into an interim post ahead of eventually succeeding current Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady.



The Derry-born former teacher became Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh and will act as an assistant to Cardinal Brady for at least another two years.



The 52-year-old takes up his new post after a period of unprecedented turmoil for the Church in Ireland, during which its influence has been damaged by a series of clerical child abuse scandals.



At his ordination ceremony in St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh - during which a letter endorsing his appointment signed by former Pope Benedict was read to the congregation - the new Coadjutor Archbishop reiterated his belief that the time had come to "sing a new song to The Lord".



"Of course there are some who will not want to listen," he said. "There are others too who have been so hurt and betrayed in the past that understandably they find themselves unable to trust our message. That is why we must continue, as Pope Benedict XVI exhorted us in his letter, 'to reflect on the wounds inflicted on Christ's body', and persevere in our efforts to bind those wounds and heal them."



Archbishop Martin said he felt a whole mixture of emotions on being chosen to take up the role. "Excitement, nervousness, a sense of my unworthiness and inadequacy," he said.



The cleric then referred to Pope Francis's call for the Church to reach out to people. "Pope Francis has spoken recently about the need to 'go out of ourselves', beyond our usual comfort zones to the 'edges of our existence'," he said.



"It is there, he says, that we meet the poor, the forgotten, the disillusioned. And there we must sing our new song in a way which will speak to the reality of their daily lives, with all their hurts and burdens and troubles. The only way we can do that is by singing about God's mercy and love for each one of us personally.



"That is what the new song is about - it is a song of love, that God unconditionally loves each one of us, despite our sinfulness and imperfections, and that the Lamb of God, who suffered and died to take away the sins of the world, has mercy on us."



..

I don't suffer fools-Cause you can't fix stupid Chapter 2

And the stupid award goes to GLEN BECK!!!!!


Prefacing his comments by insisting he knows "how foreign affairs work," Glenn Beck on April 18 announced that his website, The Blaze, was breaking news about the Boston Marathon bombing: A Saudi national student on a student visa and was "absolutely involved" in the Patriot's Day blast was being deported by the U.S. government for security reasons.



Beck went further, claiming the student, or "dirt bag," as the host described him, was "possibly the ringleader" in the bombing that killed three people and injured more than one hundred, and the government was deliberately covering it up.



Beck urged listeners to spread the breaking news via Twitter and Facebook because, he warned, the mainstream media would ignore the revelation. But the right-wing media would pick up the slack. Fox News' Sean Hannity (No. 2 in line for the award)  helped launch the story on April 17 and continued to fan it yesterday, claiming the student had previously "been involved with a terrorist or terror activity," while a swarm of right-wing sites pushed the paranoid tale.



By making his wild allegations, Beck was asking listeners to ignore the fact that law enforcement officials had previously, and repeatedly, denied earlier right-wing media claims that the Saudi student had been taken into "custody," or was in any way responsible for the blast.



Indeed, officials at Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security bothsoundly denied the story, explaining that there were two different Saudi nationals: one recovering in a Boston hospital who had witnessed and been injured in the explosions but was not a suspect, and another in ICE custody who was unrelated to the bombing investigation. Beck responded by calling for President Obama to be impeached for what he considered the sprawling government cover-up that now surrounded the student, Saudi Arabia and Al Qaeda.

So all in all , it was that kind of week for the right-wing media. It was a debacle.


In the same week that Pulitzer prizes were announced honoring the finest in American journalism, many in the  right media worked to set news standards in mindless, awful behavior in the wake of the Boston attack.

Faced with covering the most important American terror news story in a decade, too many players opted to just make stuff up. Prompting witch hunts, they cast innocents as would-be killers and then couldn't be bothered with apologies.

It was a memorable week in which the conservative media's highest profile newspaper, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, seemed committed to getting as many stories wrong about the Boston attack as possible.



The hapless Post somehow managed to completely botch the simplest Journalism 101 fact of how many people were killed in the Patriot's Day attack. But hey, according to beleaguered Post editor Col Allan thePost tried its best and that's all that really matters. (It would've taken a "crystal ball" to get the story right, Allan now complains.) So no, there doesn't appear to be much introspection unfolding inside Murdoch's daily; a big-city tabloid that managed to get wrong, for days, a breaking crime story.



Yes, CNN this week was forced to concede mistakes when it reported sources had informed the news channel that arrests had been made in the case. But CNN quickly, and publicly, corrected the errors. Those unfortunate miscues happen when reporters let a be-first mindset trump the more important be-right standard. What we saw from portions of the far-right press this week however, was completely different; they almost couldn't have gotten more stories if they had tried.



Of course Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham used the terror attacks to push her partisan agenda about immigration reform. (This, before she knew anything about the suspects.) Of course chronic Obama critics like Fox News host Oliver North attacked the president for traveling to Boston to attend a prayer service for the terror victims; to try to help comfort the rattled city. And of course Fox News couldn't wait more than five minutes after that prayer service concluded before inviting Stephen Hayes on to criticize Obama for how he'd handled the issue of gun legislation.

So when you watch Fox News you are prone to shed brain cells

Terrorists Don’t Get to Be Heroes

                                                             Terrorists Don’t Get to Be Heroes




“How to defeat terrorism? Don't be terrorized. Don't let fear rule your life. Even if you are scared.” Salmon Rushdie



The events in Boston this week have shown us once again that we in the United States are not able to completely be safe from the acts of terrorists. While we do not know the motivations or affiliation of the Tsarnaev brothers, nor if they are connected to others in this country or abroad who would attempt similar acts of terrorism.


The attack by the brothers Tsarnaev was unsettling but it did not fill the city of Boston with fear. Instead, that city, its citizens, its law enforcement agencies as well as Federal and State law enforcement showed a resolve that I do not think that either the Tsarnaev brothers or other terrorists, foreign or domestic expected. Even as the citizens of the city grieved a systematic investigation that relied on the help of citizens identified the brothers and flushed them out of hiding. When the battle with the terrorists began in the streets of Watertown the city went on lockdown until one was killed and the other captured. The operation to identify and capture the two brothers was like nothing seen in this country.



Americans, especially those in the “liberal” Blue states like Massachusetts are supposed to be soft and cowardly. However the people of Boston showed how wrong they are in their assessment.



Terrorists tend to be rather dismissive of how Americans will react when attacked. They are a rather arrogant type of people. They are “True believers” who believe that they alone and those that agree with them completely are right, that they alone have heaven’s blessing and that others be damned. Salmon Rushdie, the Iranian novelist who has lived under the threat of death for decades said of them: “The fundamentalist believes that we believe in nothing. In his world-view, he has his absolute certainties, while we are sunk in sybaritic indulgences. To prove him wrong, we must first know that he is wrong.”



It was fascinating for me to read that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was thrown out of the Boston Islamic center recently for going into a tirade against the Imam for using Dr Martin Luther King Jr as an example to emulate. Tamerlan shouted “You cannot mention this guy because he’s not a Muslim!” to the shock and dismay of those in attendance. When I read this I immediately thought of something written by Eric Hoffer:

“A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.”



Somehow I do not think that this will be the last terror attack that we see from some true believer, be they Islamic and connected with one of the myriad of Islamic terrorist groups, or domestic American ant-government or anarchist types from the right or the left. Their world views may seem disparate, religious, political, economic or social from points all around the spectrum of belief but they are surprisingly alike. They believe that they are the holders of truth and righteousness. Those that do not agree with them or who they believe have offended them, their “god” be that “god” a deity, a book of scriptures or their political, economic or social beliefs are the enemy and worthy of desruction. However, I think that Charles Dickens writing in David Copperfield said was right when he said “what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad humours and arrogance.”



This week we saw two young men who had lived in our country for over a decade decide to, for yet unknown reasons decide to attack, kill and maim fellow citizens as well as visitors to this country. I’m sure that they thought that they were doing something heroic. However, the real heroes were the people of Boston who responded to the attack providing help and hospitality to those injured or displaced and the men and women of law enforcement who helped hunt the Tsaraev brothers down. Salmon Rushdie was right the way to fight terrorism is not to be terrorized and not to live in fear. It is time that we learned that lesson like so many Bostonians did this week.



s far as the terrorists themselves, to quote Major Kira Nerys from Star Trek Deep Space Nine “Terrorists don't get to be heroes.”

An honest Man

The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XV - The Presidency: The Middle Way


Part VI: Crises Abroad, Party Problems at Home; September 1954 to December 1954

Chapter 13: "A new phase of political experience"

Philosopher Jeremy Bentham had a similar quote: "It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong."






Dear Ed:1 I think that such answer as I can give to your letter of November first will be arranged in reverse order--at least I shall comment first on your final paragraph.



You keep harping on the Constitution; I should like to point out that the meaning of the Constitution is what the Supreme Court says it is. Consequently no powers are exercised by the Federal government except where such exercise is approved by the Supreme Court (lawyers) of the land.2


Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas.5 Their number is negligible and they are stupid. [not any longer as long as the American don't pay attention]

The American peope  vote their interests and tend to ignore an old Star Trek Maxim "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few"



No matter what the party is in power, it must perforce follow a program that is related to these general purposes and aspirations. But the great difference is in how it is done and, particularly, in the results achieved.



A year ago last January we were in imminent danger of losing Iran, and sixty percent of the known oil reserves of the world.7 You may have forgotten this. Lots of people have. But there has been no greater threat that has in recent years overhung the free world. That threat has been largely, if not totally, removed.   [no longer ] I could name at least a half dozen other spots of the same character.





http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/f...

The controversy over the second Amendment and your rights to “bare arms”

                           The controversy over the second Amendment and your rights to “bare arms”




Amendment II

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.



In spite of extensive recent discussion and much legislative action with respect to regulation of the purchase, possession, and transportation of firearms, as well as proposals to substantially curtail ownership of firearms, there is no definitive resolution by the courts of just what right the Second Amendment protects. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, are an “individual rights” thesis whereby individuals are protected in ownership, possession, and transportation, and a “states’ rights” thesis whereby it is said the purpose of the clause is to protect the States in their authority to maintain formal, organized militia units, Whatever the Amendment may mean, it is a bar only to federal action, not extending to state or private restraints. The Supreme Court has given effect to the dependent clause of the Amendment in the only case in which it has tested a congressional enactment against the constitutional prohibition, seeming to affirm individual protection but only in the context of the maintenance of a militia or other such public force.

After that thought let me point out that the purpose designed by this amendment was to “keep and bare arms” to protect the country. Not as some would try to convince themselves to protect themselves from the Government.



And while the spokesmen for the Corporate Gun lobby the NRA will try to tell you that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” And that what we need is more teachers and people with guns in our schools. I think that the parents of the Sandy Hook school, or Combine, or Aurora theater might disagree. What if instead more guns and assault rifles designed for the single purpose of killing people and not for hunting we had less? I would be foolish to think that all Americans would not want to have some sort of protection. But massive amounts of firepower doesn’t make any one safer.


 Those who have and hold  so many guns only show me that they are inadequate in other areas of their life.



To Hell with your Children! "Lets watch Basketball" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell

14 Senators will decide to filibuster and to let your children be in danger. Bought and paid for by the NRA!

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would join a group of Senate Republicans threatening a filibuster to oppose a cloture vote if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moves a gun bill to the floor this week.


Reid has promised to move a gun bill to the Senate floor this week, but it’s unclear which one. It depends on whether Democrats can strike a deal on background checks on gun sales — otherwise, they may settle for a less strict bill that includes some form of background checks, increase penalties for gun trafficking and increase school security. In order to get around the filibuster, Reid has indicated that he would file a cloture motion, which would require a 60-vote margin to move the bill.


“While nobody knows yet what Senator Reid’s plan is for the gun bill, if he chooses to file cloture on the motion to proceed to the Reid Bill (S. 649), Senator McConnell will oppose cloture on proceeding to that bill,” McConnell spokesman John Ashbrook said in a statement.


McConnell joins a group of 13 senators who have already vowed to block any gun legislation.



President Barack Obama, who traveled on Monday to Hartford, Conn. to speak in favor of gun control legislation, will speak critically of the threats of a filibuster from Senate Republicans, according prepared remarks.



“Some back in Washington are already floating the idea that they might use political stunts to prevent votes on any of these reforms,” Obama will say, according to the remarks. “They’re not just saying they’ll vote ‘no’ on ideas that almost all Americans support. They’re saying they won’t allow any votes on them at all. They’re saying your opinion doesn’t matter. And that’s not right.”


The Senate returns to work on Tuesday after a two-week recess.



Reid, who indicated in March he wanted a gun bill to see a vote after the recess, took to the Senate floor on Monday to blast Republicans for threatening to block any gun legislation. McConnell was in Atlanta Monday evening to watch the University of Louisville, his alma mater, play in the final game of the NCAA basketball tournament.

Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Day)

Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Day) – a solemn day in modern Jewish history.




Six Million Jews (half of the world’s Jewish population at the time) perished under Hitler’s Final Solution.

Multiple tracks led to concentration camps like Auschwitz. Jewish people were crammed into cattle cars and shipped to these death camps. Few who went to them survived.




The Nazis intended that no one survive. Many were gassed and burned in ovens. Those who were healthy enough to work, were literally worked to death.


May We Never Forgot.

Understand your Government in 2 minutes (How to say no to being ripped off)!

Want to take your Government back? Start with helping your self and your parents and Grandparents Chained CPI is not the way to go. It reduces the wee amount of money you receive when you retire. You paid into it. You should at least receive what you paid, back! Tell President Obama No! Tell your representative No! to chained C.P.I. Call (202) 224-3121 

 Suggest that Congress needs to cut their salrey first and then they can tells those of us in the dismissed 47% what to do. More to come