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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (570563)	6/7/2010 6:51:38 AM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577064

"When the phrase oil plumes is used, some people will think the plumes are all or essentially all oil." Some people will, but they are people who have no idea what a barrel is or what the RW media is trying to lie to them about. RW media? LOL Good touch. And aren't you the guy who posted a pic of a diver covered with oil? --------------------------------------------- "As for "about what the US uses in "4 days" there's not a single solar or wind energy facility even close to that big." What does solar or wind have to do with that figure The same thing Maconda has. The four days comment is meaningless. ------------------------------------------------ ....you'd like us to believe that Macondo is a huge field which is worth the sacrifice of the Gulf of Mexico..... I've made no such comparison. But if you're going to make such comparisons, why not make them about other things too? Even now, importing oil by tanker is a significant risk itself. As I've mentioned on another thread, within the past decade there have been tanker spills in Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay. Though much smaller than BP's current one, they were close to shore and in one case, they slimed 21 miles of Puget Sound beachfront. So if you're going to ask that question about a field in the GOM, you should also ask is importing oil worth the sacrifice of Puget Sound? And you should ask if industrial scale wind power is worth destroying most of our bats, raptors, and migratory birds? And is industrial scale solar power worth destroying desert habitats and the rare species that live in them?

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (570563)	7/2/2010 12:29:54 PM
From: Brumar89	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1577064

In search of an oil plume Scientists using research tools in new ways to look for signs of oil spreading down below, but have turned up nothing By HARVEY RICE HOUSTON CHRONICLE July 2, 2010, 12:37AM Smiley N. Pool Chronicle Monday's sunset as seen from an NOAA research vessel belies the turmoil beneath the Gulf's waves. ABOARD THE THOMAS JEFFERSON — The 208-foot research vessel Thomas Jefferson slicing through swells off Florida's Gulf Coast this week has been chasing an elusive ghost hatched from the BP well blowout: oil plumes. The prospects of these monstrous plumes emerged as a frightening character in the Macando well narrative after limited data suggested that underwater plumes might be the size of some of the Great Lakes. But until BP's well blew out April 20, no one had tried developing the technology for finding oil underwater. For the last five weeks, scientists and the rest of Thomas Jefferson Cmdr. Shepard Smith's crew have been working to develop such a method, using the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel designed for mapping the ocean bottom in shallow water. Scientists haven't found a sure-fire method so far, but they are closer to doing so because of this group's research. They have found no monster plumes of oil extending dozens or hundreds of miles, as had been feared. Smith said new data suggest the plumes may be a few miles across. He is reluctant to use the word "plume," preferring "anomaly," because scientists are still awaiting lab results to verify their conclusions. "I'm not aware of a single sample that shows we found oil underwater," acoustics specialist Lt. Sam Greenaway said. [ The NOAA must be lying! We know the GOM is filled with giant oil plumes and methane, Why it could explode anytime. ] Clues in the deep In the commander's office, Greenaway huddles alongside Smith at computer screens showing dark blue columns turning to purple as they descend toward the ocean depths near where BP's Macando well is spewing oil. The officers are looking for clues in sonar data gathered a week ago that will help them figure out how to find underwater oil. The Thomas Jefferson and other research ships are inventing techniques as they look for something they don't even know how to describe. "Is it in tiny droplets?" Greenaway wondered aloud. "Is it in large droplets? Is it emulsified? Is it there at all?" The Thomas Jefferson was two weeks into a five-month mission to chart hazards to navigation along the Gulf Coast when the Macando well erupted. Worries about underwater plumes arose as the blowout continued to spew millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. To confront the disaster, the NOAA converted the Thomas Jefferson into a plume hunter. NOAA upgraded the ship's sonar and equipped it with a "fish," a device towed behind the ship that can dive and look for a fluorescent light signature given off by oil. Lt. Denise Gruccio, the executive officer, kept watch on the bridge Wednesday. She recalled that because the ship lacked computer steering assistance, it was difficult to keep it stationary for as long as two hours when the fish was cast deep. "It was nerve-wracking," Gruccio said. Never done before The ship had borrowed a "rosette," tubes clustered in a circle resembling a rose. Each tube in the rosette is set to sample water at a certain depth. Although the crew knew how to operate each one of the devices, no one had ever used them in combination to find oil plumes, Smith said. "We don't normally do this type of work," Smith said. "Nobody ever does this type of work because this deepwater blowout is an unprecedented challenge." During its first plume-hunting voyage, the Thomas Jefferson headed for the site of the blowout. But the ship was forced to stand off at a distance of five miles so that its sonar wouldn't interfere with equipment being used in the effort to cap the well. Weeks later, allowed within a half mile of the blowout, they found data suggesting a wake was forming behind the oil column as it spirals to the surface. Greenaway sat at a computer Wednesday and calculated the top of the column, a blue swath on the screen, as about 3,600 feet wide. A U-shaped bump on the screen indicated the possibility of a wake formed by currents pushing against the plume. "This tells us where to find the oil," Smith said, because any that broke off into plumes would be pushed in the direction of the wake. Microbial mystery He said the wake appeared to extend more than 3,000 feet from the bottom of the 5,000-foot column of oil. The Thomas Jefferson also found data suggesting that microbes were eating the oil as it moved away from the blowout site. Smith said it appears that microbes are breaking down the oil, but it's not clear what remains after they finish dining. The ship also discovered that, rather than a river of oil, the plumes are more like clouds of oil droplets being pushed through the depths by currents. chron.com

To: J_F_Shepard who wrote (570563)	7/2/2010 12:31:31 PM
From: longnshort	Respond to of 1577064

Inside the Black Panther case Anger, ignorance and lies By J. Christian Adams On the day President Obama was elected, armed men wearing the black berets and jackboots of the New Black Panther Party were stationed at the entrance to a polling place in Philadelphia. They brandished a weapon and intimidated voters and poll watchers. After the election, the Justice Department brought a voter-intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party and those armed thugs. I and other Justice attorneys diligently pursued the case and obtained an entry of default after the defendants ignored the charges. Before a final judgment could be entered in May 2009, our superiors ordered us to dismiss the case. The New Black Panther case was the simplest and most obvious violation of federal law I saw in my Justice Department career. Because of the corrupt nature of the dismissal, statements falsely characterizing the case and, most of all, indefensible orders for the career attorneys not to comply with lawful subpoenas investigating the dismissal, this month I resigned my position as a Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney. The federal voter-intimidation statutes we used against the New Black Panthers were enacted because America never realized genuine racial equality in elections. Threats of violence characterized elections from the end of the Civil War until the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Before the Voting Rights Act, blacks seeking the right to vote, and those aiding them, were victims of violence and intimidation. But unlike the Southern legal system, Southern violence did not discriminate. Black voters were slain, as were the white champions of their cause. Some of the bodies were tossed into bogs and in one case in Philadelphia, Miss., they were buried together in an earthen dam. Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo. The assistant attorney general for civil rights, Tom Perez, has testified repeatedly that the "facts and law" did not support this case. That claim is false. If the actions in Philadelphia do not constitute voter intimidation, it is hard to imagine what would, short of an actual outbreak of violence at the polls. Let's all hope this administration has not invited that outcome through the corrupt dismissal. Most corrupt of all, the lawyers who ordered the dismissal - Loretta King, the Obama-appointed acting head of the Civil Rights Division, and Steve Rosenbaum - did not even read the internal Justice Department memorandums supporting the case and investigation. Just as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. admitted that he did not read the Arizona immigration law before he condemned it, Mr. Rosenbaum admitted that he had not bothered to read the most important department documents detailing the investigative facts and applicable law in the New Black Panther case. Christopher Coates, the former Voting Section chief, was so outraged at this dereliction of responsibility that he actually threw the memos at Mr. Rosenbaum in the meeting where they were discussing the dismissal of the case. The department subsequently removed all of Mr. Coates' responsibilities and sent him to South Carolina. Mr. Perez also inaccurately testified to the House Judiciary Committee that federal "Rule 11" required the dismissal of the lawsuit. Lawyers know that Rule 11 is an ethical obligation to bring only meritorious claims, and such a charge by Mr. Perez effectively challenges the ethics and professionalism of the five attorneys who commenced the case. Yet the attorneys who brought the case were voting rights experts and would never pursue a frivolous matter. Their experience in election law far surpassed the experience of the officials who ordered the dismissal. Some have called the actions in Philadelphia an isolated incident, not worthy of federal attention. To the contrary, the Black Panthers in October 2008 announced a nationwide deployment for the election. We had indications that polling-place thugs were deployed elsewhere, not only in November 2008, but also during the Democratic primaries, where they targeted white Hillary Rodham Clinton supporters. In any event, the law clearly prohibits even isolated incidents of voter intimidation. Others have falsely claimed that no voters were affected. Not only did the evidence rebut this claim, but the law does not require a successful effort to intimidate; it punishes even the attempt. Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases. Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section. Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race. Core American principles of equality before the law and freedom from racial discrimination are at risk. Hopefully, equal enforcement of the law is still a point of bipartisan, if not universal, agreement. However, after my experience with the New Black Panther dismissal and the attitudes held by officials in the Civil Rights Division, I am beginning to fear the era of agreement over these core American principles has passed. J. Christian Adams is a lawyer based in Virginia who served as a voting rights attorney at the Justice Department until this month. He blogs at electionlawcenter.com." washingtontimes.com