Friday, July 30, 2010

Where is all the Oil?

Where is all the oil?

That is the question of the day. Now that the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil well spewing thousands of barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico has finally been capped, the visible signs of the oil spill are starting to recede. The friends of oil companies have started to crow "we told you all along" - the oil will dissolve, disappear, disperse, whatever, and we don't need to worry any more. No need to change our habits, no need for more regulations on the oil industry, and no need for a drilling moratorium.

So where did all the oil go?

According to Dan Froomkin's report, the oil indeed may have been dispersed, by the millions of gallons of toxic dispersant Corexit BP poured into the ocean to try to make it appear as if the oil spill wasn't doing any damage to the ecosystem. Of course, dispersant doesn't make the oil go away, it just breaks it down into smaller droplets, so that it can't be seen by humans. It can be seen by small animals, however, like shrimp larvae and small fish, who may mistake the small droplets of mixed dispersant and oil for food and eat it.And into the food chain it goes.

So where is the oil, we ask?

It is under the shells of blue crab larvae, as the scientists in Froomkin's report are finding. It is in the tiny stomachs of shrimp larvae and young fish. It is floating in millions or billions of droplets, mixed with toxic dispersant, under the surface of the Gulf where it can wreak its damage unseen by humans for a long time to come. And perhaps, it will be coming to a dinner plate near you. Bon Appetit, BP!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Israel demolishes Bedouin village - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Israel demolishes Bedouin village - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

Unrecognized Bedouin Village, Negev, Israel
Unrecognized Bedouin Village, Negev, Israel by Paulhrob (flickr)

Al Jazeera reports:


Israeli authorities have demolished the homes of about 300 Bedouins in a village in the southern Negev desert.

Al-Arakib, which had about 40 homes, is one of 45 Bedouin villages not recognised by Israeli authorities.

Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld confirmed the early-morning operation, saying the homes had been "illegally built" and were destroyed in line with a court ruling issued 11 years ago which was never implemented.


Noach said Israeli authorities had first given residents of al-Arakib a notice to evacaute on June 15, but that no action had followed, so the residents began to doubt that the demolition would occur.
But this morning, Israeli police arrived and forced residents to leave their homes within minutes, Noach said.

According to the Negev Co-existence Forum, around half of the 155,000 Bedouins in the Negev - all of whom are Israeli citizens - live in villages that are unrecognised by the government, without municipal services like water and electricity.



Bedouins comprise 25 per cent of the northern Negev's population, but live on only 2 per cent of its land. Nevertheless, this sort of demolition has been occurring with increasing regularity in recent years. Bedouin, who have lived on their land in the Negev since before the establishment of Israel in 1948, are said to be "squatters" who are "endangering state lands" and must be removed, by force if necessary. Their settlements have never been incorporated into any state planning and therefore have been left out of infrastructure and development planning.


According to a 2009 report by the Israeli Health Ministry, Bedouin children suffer more from growth disorders, nutritional deficiencies, and underweight conditions that could cause serious damage. In the first and second grades some 13% of Bedouin children suffer from growth delays, while 17% are underweight.
Over half (56%) of Bedouin infants at the age of six-months-old suffer from anemia, and about a tenth of them have zinc deficiencies. At the average age of 18-months-old 27% of Bedouin children suffer from anemia, while 11.5% lack zinc, 5% lack Vitamin A and 3% have Vitamin E deficiencies. In comparison, various studies conducted in Israel showed that only 10% of Jewish infants suffered from anemia.


Small wonder that the Bedouin are said to be "radicalizing," or at least, becoming much less friendly to the state of Israel. Many sympathize with the growing Islamic Movement in Israel, which preaches non-violent self-reliance and autonomy from Israel. Can the Bedouin be blamed for not playing nice when the rules of the game are stacked against them?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Primary Election Day in GA

It is primary election day in Georgia, and do you know who your candidates are? Primary elections are notoriously low-profile and confusing for voters, which explains their traditionally low turnout rate. Here are a few tools for those of you who are motivated to get informed about the candidates in today's elections.

1. An interactive voter guide by the AJC and League of Women Voters. Here, you can customize the ballot by zip code/address and by political party. The LWV questionnaires filled out by the candidates are available for side-by-side comparison for each race. At the end, you can print out your sample ballot to bring with you to the polling place.

2. PolitiFact Georgia, the Georgia edition of PolitiFact.com, attempts to sort through the political rhetoric by labeling political claims made by politicians on their "Truth-O-Meter" somewhere between "true" and "false" - including "half true," "mostly true" and "barely true."

3. For local information, the Athens Banner-Herald has its Election Central webpage, which is quite simple compared to the AJC. It mainly lists the candidates by race and includes some basic information (age, education, campaign website). However, the sidebar lists recent election articles by the ABH, many of which have a local flavor.

Happy Voting!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Paul Broun Comes Home to Roost

WooHoo! Local wacko comes home for a town hall meeting: Thursday 6pm at the Holiday Inn (197 W Broad St., Athens). The Athens Banner-Herald says to "stay respectful..." If you want any respectful or disrespectful ammo for the meeting, just go to http://politicalcorrection.org/
and click on the "Paul Broun" tag or pull-down filter option. (Yes, he has his own!)
Examples: Broun claims a Muslim-American advocacy group is planting spies ("interns") in Congressional offices; Broun warns the "socialistic elite" might plan to "declare martial law" and "establish an authoritarian government"; Broun claims the public option part of the proposed health care reform "is gonna kill people."

This is the same Paul Broun who made national headlines last year for comparing Obama to Hitler.

Fortunately, I can make the claim that Broun did not carry my part of his congressional district - his challenger Bobby Saxon won nearly twice as many votes as Broun in Athens-Clarke county in November 2008.

Crazy? Yes, but not my kind of crazy.