2010: The Battle for who Sucks Less ...

... and this comes from dailykos.com.

2010: The Battle for who Sucks Less
by Dr Teeth Wed May 26, 2010
So yesterday I'm chatting with a Republican friend of mine, I have known since I volunteered on the Clinton campaign. I've been charmed to have lived in swing states, blue states and red states. Nothing beats a swing state (with the exception of maybe being in Wichita during the height of the abortion protests).
Well, I knew this guy before that first election. We actually were on opposite street corners, and I waved at him while others yelled insults at each other. The sight of these run down western PA downtown regions is somewhat surreal. On the only intersection with a few businesses and municipal buildings, groups with signs stake out opposite corners. If one group changes intersections, the other moves as well. It is rather comical.
Well my friend and I realized how silly this election already looks.

The Democratic Platform for 2010
Republicans are bad for America

The Republican Platform for 2010
Democrats are bad for America
Turns out after looking at some polls, Americans have an interesting take on this.
Both Parties are Half Right

It turns out a majority of Americans don't like either Republicans or Democrats on just about anything. On any issue both parties can't seem to find any kind of plurality. If Obama intended to change politics the in Washington, he can at least say that he stopped the ebb and flow of things. Now people just seem to universally hate politics in general.
As far as the hope thing, I'm afraid that ship has sailed. The electorate just seems to be toggling between anger and depression. They honestly just don't believe they can get a square deal economically or politically. There is always another Goldman Sachs or BP, and the story of government collusion that follows.
Now I wasn't alive in the 60s, so I can't speak for all of history. I have never seen an electorate so beat down in my lifetime. I'm not talking about political division either. I'm talking about universal political dismay. If there was an environmental, economic, ethical and political tipping point, people just seem to have accepted our country has gone over that cliff.
So where is 2008 now? The President has seemed fortified in the White House as of late. Congress looks like they are a fighter in the 11th round in a fight they are losing. Republicans seem just as tired and absent. Everyone still talks in their perspective echo chambers, but there is very little back and forth occurring. Everyone seems to be avoiding the biggest ecological disaster in the history of our country.
So what's the plan for 2011? Are the Democrats all governed out?
If I'm not mistaken this country is still facing huge problems.

-A Failing Education System
-Climate Change
-No Energy Policy
-High Unemployment
-Crumbling Infrastructure
-Federal and State Deficits
-Social Security Insolvency
-Trade Deficits
-No Immigration Policy
-Corporate Influence in Government
That is just off the top of my head. None of those I would even call progressive issues. They are national issues that resonate with just about anybody. Neither party as of today has any kind of platform. Is this election really just going to be about who sucks less?

Sad to say, but, I do think that the Democrats are about to get their asses handed back to them in the coming elections, for the most part. I'm not so sure about yourself, but the Democrats haven't done a whole hell of a lot for me since Obama and gang swept into office. Health care reform? I'll believe that when it is actually implemented. If it survives the "party of no" assault. Don't count on that happening.
Have you ever notice that the Republicans have always managed to stick together while coming up with a message to the American people that the people actually buy into? This is what will be going on once again. the Dem's have gotten to weak minded and spineless to fight back in any favorable way.
Sure, we have all become sick and tired of the way in which our government operates, but what is one to do about it? We basically have no good candidate to choose from, so we'll keep on voting for the man,or woman who says the things that we want to hear.
Sad day in America!

As BP's Oil Floats

From commondreams.org
Published on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 by the McClatchy Newspapers
BP Withholds Oil Spill Facts — and Government Lets It
by Marisa Taylor and Renee Schoof

WASHINGTON - BP, the company in charge of the rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, hasn't publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers' exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude over the gulf, even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.

Moreover, the company isn't monitoring the extent of the spill and only reluctantly released videos of the spill site that could give scientists a clue to the amount of the oil in gulf.

BP's role as the primary source of information has raised questions about whether the government should intervene to gather such data and to publicize it and whether an adequate cleanup can be accomplished without the details of crude oil spreading across the gulf.

Under pressure from senators, BP released four videos Tuesday, but it hasn't agreed to better monitoring.

The company also hasn't publicly released air sampling for oil spill workers although Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency in charge of monitoring compliance with worker safety regulations, is relying on the information and has urged it to do so.

"It is not ours to publish," said Dean Wingo, OSHA's assistant regional administrator who oversees Louisiana. "We are working with (BP) and encouraging them to post the data so that it is publicly available."

Much of the worker exposure data is being collected by contractors hired by BP.

Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, said the company is sharing the data with "legitimate interested parties," which include government agencies and the private companies assisting in the cleanup. When asked whether the information can be released publicly, he responded, "Why would one do it? Any parties with a legitimate interest can have access to it."

Joseph T. Hughes Jr., the director of the worker education training program for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said he didn't think "anyone has seen much of that data at all."

"The hard part about it is that in a normal response, when the government is doing this, there might be more transparency on the data," Hughes said. "In this case, when you have BP making the decisions and collecting the data it's harder to have that transparency."

Unlike the response to other past national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina where the government was in charge, BP has been designated as the "responsible party" under federal law and is overseeing much of the response to the spill. The government is acting more as an adviser.

So far, the government has been slow to press BP to release its data and permit others to evaluate the extent of the crisis.

"I think that one of the lessons learned here is whether the federal government should have more of a role in the response and not leave that decision-making in the hands of the responsible parties," said Hughes, whose institute was one of the first to raise questions about air quality at the World Trade Center site in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that many Sept. 11 rescue workers still suffer from impaired lung function.

The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, one of BP's consultants, is collecting air quality samples over the coast and the water.

"It's fair to say that a majority of the air monitoring along the shoreline is being done by our organization," said Glenn Millner, a partner with the CTEH and a principal toxicologist.

Gina Solomon, a medical doctor and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said her environmental organization has been pressing the government to release the data, after hearing reports of fishermen concerned about exposure.

"The fact that OSHA is saying that it's safe is important because they have access to data that we don't have," she said. "It's sort of awkward to have to take that on face value given the fact that there are fishermen who feel they are getting sick."

The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing shoreline data on its website, but not information about the air quality workers encounter on the water.

OSHA has access to that data and is monitoring it to determine what type of equipment the workers should be issued and other questions related to worker safety. So far, the air quality does not require workers to receive respirators, Wingo said.

Millner said that data as a matter of practice is shared only with the oil clean up worker and the company overseeing the cleanup.

BP also has exercised considerable control over how much is known about the amount of oil gushing into the gulf.

Early on, the government estimated that 210,000 gallons was being released daily. That estimate was based on satellite observations of the water's surface.

The first look at the oil coming out of the pipe on the sea floor was a video clip that BP released last week in response to demands from reporters and others. It caused a stir because some experts who analyzed it estimated that the amount of oil pouring into the gulf was many times the government's official estimate.

Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on Monday asked BP on Monday to provide all available video footage.

BP provided clips from several days of the spill on Tuesday.

The clips, however, would still result only in rough estimates because the oil flows at different rates at different times and it's mixed with gas, said BP spokesman Mark Proegler.

The company had no other equipment on the sea floor to monitor the amount of the flow, and no plans to install any.

"We've said from the beginning . . . it's difficult if not impossible to measure from the source of the flow," Proegler said on Tuesday. BP's focus is stopping the flow and keeping the oil away from shore, he said.

Jeff Short, an oil pollution expert and former National Marine Fisheries Service official who now works for the environmental group Oceana, said the estimate based on surface observations was very imprecise, and that looking at the flow rate from the pipe would be better.

"The public has the right to see what harm the environment is exposed to, and knowing the flow rate is fundamental to that," he said.

Judy McDowell, the chair of the biology department and a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts who's studied many oil spills, said that in addition to knowing the amount of oil flowing in, scientists also need to figure out how it's dispersing and breaking down in order to know what effect it would have on living organisms in the water.

Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said in testimony to a Senate committee Tuesday said it was important, but difficult to get a better estimate of the amount of oil. She said that the Coast Guard planned to set up a team to get a better estimate.

Some university researchers have been frustrated by the lack of data and the refusal of federal agencies to press BP to collect detailed measurements from the broken well pipe or fully assess what might be happening underwater.

"We have been screaming from day one for data,'' said Peter Ortner, a fisheries biologist at the University of Miami.

Ortner also said that NOAA had been slow to consider sub-surface effects and didn't deploy the sophisticated gear that might help surveying for submerged oil.

Lubchenco said Monday that the agency had been discussing ideas about more sensing gear on the ocean floor but said "the priority at this point is to stop the flow.''
Meanwhile, an analysis of satellite imagery by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, reported Tuesday that the spill has grown to more than 7,500 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.
Curtis Morgan of The Miami Herald contributed to this article.)
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