Shitty time to be black in Memphis

Those banks and realtors have kept shifting their games to easily outmaneuver fair housing laws, making sure that housing in this country is still largely segregated and black people pay much higher prices to buy homes or rent apartments. And they've managed to do this while removing all explicit references to segregation (redlining), blockbusting and price gouging (high-interest/risk mortgages) from their rules, regulations and written guidelines for doing business. Memphis seems to be getting it about the worst right now. It's an old story, but it looks a little different these days, with black people actually having had some real money over the last couple of decades and being able to buy houses and keep them. The recession hurricane is taking care of that though:

For two decades, Tyrone Banks was one of many African-Americans who saw his economic prospects brightening in this Mississippi River city.

A single father, he worked for FedEx and also as a custodian, built a handsome brick home, had a retirement account and put his eldest daughter through college.

Then the Great Recession rolled in like a fog bank. He refinanced his mortgage at a rate that adjusted sharply upward, and afterward he lost one of his jobs. Now Mr. Banks faces bankruptcy and foreclosure.

“I’m going to tell you the deal, plain-spoken: I’m a black man from the projects and I clean toilets and mop up for a living,” said Mr. Banks, a trim man who looks at least a decade younger than his 50 years. “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. But my whole life is backfiring.”

Tyrone Banks is fucked, and a lot of other people like him in Memphis are, too. They are experiencing serious downward class motion, completely against their will and largely not a product of their own doing:

The median income of black homeowners in Memphis rose steadily until five or six years ago. Now it has receded to a level below that of 1990 — and roughly half that of white Memphis homeowners...

Black middle-class neighborhoods are hollowed out, with prices plummeting and homes standing vacant in places like Orange Mound, Whitehaven and Cordova. As job losses mount — black unemployment here, mirroring national trends, has risen to 16.9 percent from 9 percent two years ago; it stands at 5.3 percent for whites — many blacks speak of draining savings and retirement accounts in an effort to hold onto their homes. The overall local foreclosure rate is roughly twice the national average.

Fucked, fucked, fucked. And look how little they have to fall back on:

For every dollar of wealth owned by a white family, a black or Latino family owns just 16 cents, according to a recent Federal Reserve study...As of December 2009, median white wealth dipped 34 percent, to $94,600; median black wealth dropped 77 percent, to $2,100. So the chasm widens, and Memphis is left to deal with the consequences.

As usual, there are some dirty banking criminals to be had, the types who will bleed people of everything they own and then lots more with no compunction:

The mayor and former bank loan officers point a finger of blame at large national banks — in particular, Wells Fargo. During the last decade, they say, these banks singled out blacks in Memphis to sell them risky high-cost mortgages and consumer loans.

The City of Memphis and Shelby County sued Wells Fargo late last year, asserting that the bank’s foreclosure rate in predominantly black neighborhoods was nearly seven times that of the foreclosure rate in predominantly white neighborhoods. Other banks, including Citibank and Countrywide, foreclosed in more equal measure...

Camille Thomas, a 40-year-old African-American, loved working for Wells Fargo. “I felt like I could help people,” she recalled over coffee.

As the subprime market heated up, she said, the bank pressure to move more loans — for autos, for furniture, for houses — edged into mania. “It was all about selling your units and getting your bonus,” she said.

Ms. Thomas and three other Wells Fargo employees have given affidavits for the city’s lawsuit against the bank, and their statements about bank practices reinforce one another.

“Your manager would say, ‘Let me see your cold-call list. I want you to concentrate on these ZIP codes,’ and you knew those were African-American neighborhoods,” she recalled. “We were told, ‘Oh, they aren’t so savvy.’ ”

She described tricks of the trade, several of dubious legality. She said supervisors had told employees to white out incomes on loan applications and substitute higher numbers. Agents went “fishing” for customers, mailing live checks to leads. When a homeowner deposited the check, it became a high-interest loan, with a rate of 20 to 29 percent. Then bank agents tried to talk the customer into refinancing, using the house as collateral.

Yes yes, dirty banks playing dirty, complex tricks on people. Also an old story. Such is capitalism, social Darwinism at its best:

Former employees say Wells Fargo loan officers marketed the most expensive loans to black applicants, even when they should have qualified for prime loans. This practice is known as reverse redlining.

Webb A. Brewer, a Memphis lawyer, recalls poring through piles of loan papers and coming across name after name of blacks with subprime mortgages. “This is money out of their pockets lining the purses of the banks,” he said.

For a $150,000 mortgage, a difference of three percentage points — the typical spread between a conventional and subprime loan — tacks on $90,000 in interest payments over its 30-year life.

That's a lot of money. Banks love money, or more accurately, the people who run them do. They also seem to love white people:

A study by the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project and six nonprofit groups found that the nation’s four largest banks, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase, had cut their prime mortgage refinancing 33 percent in predominantly minority communities, even as prime refinancing in white neighborhoods rose 32 percent from 2006 to 2008.

Sure, some black people bought big houses that they could obviously not afford because they were being greedy and materialistic and the bank would give them a loan, just like a bunch of Americans did, especially over the last decade or so. I don't believe that to be the case in much of what's going on in Memphis, or anywhere else across the country. Looking at Wells Fargo's foreclosure rates in Memphis' black neighborhoods (again, seven times higher than white neighborhoods), it's just not possible to say that black people made those kinds of really bad purchases at seven times the rate of white Memphis residents, and only with one bank.

It's easy to blame people for taking on these loans that they ultimately couldn't afford. Even if we put aside the charges of banks altering applications without applicants' knowledge and refusing to disclose all details of a loan, the fact of the matter is that many black people in this country, historically, have not had and still do not have substantial choice of where to live. Their choices are deeply circumscribed by banks and realtors, who literally determine, to a great extent, the ethnic makeup of neighborhoods. Black people were and are denied mortgages in many parts of town, or entire towns, and common racial hostility takes care of the rest.

For the greater part of the last century, racial discrimination crippled black efforts to buy homes and accumulate wealth. During the post-World War II boom years, banks and real estate agents steered blacks to segregated neighborhoods, where home appreciation lagged far behind that of white neighborhoods.

Blacks only recently began to close the home ownership gap with whites, and thus accumulate wealth — progress that now is being erased. In practical terms, this means black families have less money to pay for college tuition, invest in businesses or sustain them through hard times.

“We’re wiping out whatever wealth blacks have accumulated — it assures racial economic inequality for the next generation,” said Thomas M. Shapiro, director of the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis University.

What it really comes down to is that, for many black people, if you want to own a home, a high-interest/risk mortgage is basically your only option:

“The more segregated a community of color is, the more likely it is that homeowners will face foreclosure because the lenders who peddled the most toxic loans targeted those communities,” Thomas E. Perez, the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, told a Congressional committee.

Imagine there being only certain places you could realistically live, regardless of how much money you have? It's an unstated apartheid, and it's entirely a product of banking, realty and federal policy. This stuff is all laid out very well in a whole host of books, such as When Affirmative Action Was White, American Apartheid, Family Properties, The Origins of the Urban Crisis, and American Babylon, among many.

Video to prove that there are oil plumes under water

and that they are killing everything. And that the wild usage of dispersants is wrecking the water in new ways. Here's an accompanying story:

I make my way to the back of the boat unaware of just how covered I am. To be honest, I look a little like one of those poor pelicans we've all been seeing for days now. The oil is so thick and sticky, almost like a cake batter. It does not wipe off. You have to scrape it off, in layers until you finally get close to the skin. Then you pour on some Dawn dishwashing soap and scrub. I think to myself: No fish, no bird, no turtle would ever be able to clean this off of themselves. If any animal, any were to end up in this same puddle there is almost no way they could escape.

The cleaning process goes on for half an hour before the captain will even think about letting me back in the boat. I'm clean, so I stand up. But the bottoms of my feet still had oil, and I fall back in the water. The process starts again. Another 30 minutes of cleaning and finally I'm ready to step into the boat.

BP says they aren't there.

In a shocking development, BP is still lying about how much oil is shooting out of their hole in ocean floor

BP refuses to provide any estimate aside from that old 210,000 gallons a day bullshit scenario that the government put forth way back when. Why? They say something to the effect of "it does not matter how much oil is coming out. All that matters is that we stop it." Actually, it matters quite a bit how much oil is coming out, and not just for the obvious environmental holocaust reason. They get fined on every barrel (42 gallons) of oil that comes out of that hole, and will likely be charged royalties on each barrel as well. Of course they are not going to help dig that part of their grave:

Some scientists involved in the Flow Rate Technical Group say that they would like to produce a better estimate, but that they are frustrated by what they view as stonewalling on BP’s part, including tardiness in producing high-resolution video that could be subjected to computer analysis, as well as the company’s reluctance to permit a direct measurement of the flow rate. They said the installation of the new device and the rising flow of oil to the surface had only reinforced their conviction that they did not have enough information.

“It’s apparent that BP is playing games with us, presumably under the advice of their legal team,” Dr. Leifer said. “It’s six weeks that it’s been dumping into the gulf, and still no measurements..."

The company, which for several weeks had publicly rejected the idea of using subsea equipment to measure the flow rate, now says it is up to the flow-rate group itself to decide whether to undertake such a step.

The government doesn't seem to be willing to do it either. They really need to do what it takes and put some kind of measurement device down there.

Anyway, despite their assurances that they are capturing most of the oil, or as big lying piece of shit CEO Tony Hayward has said, "the majority, probably the vast majority," the reality is that they aren't. They are probably not even getting half of it, and since removing any hindrances from the mangled pipe last week in their preparations to lower the containment dome over it, are releasing way more oil into the water than they originally were:

[Ira] Leifer [a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California Santa Barbara who is also a member of the government's flow-rate panel, tasked with determining the size of the oil spill] said based on the data he's seen so far, the rate of flow from the broken well has increase since the initial April 20 explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig, which killed 11 workers. He believes BP's decision last week to sever the well's damaged riser pipe in order to install the containment cap has increased the flow by far more than the 20 percent BP and government officials had predicted.

In fact, Leifer says, the well may be spewing what BP had called before the spill its worst-case scenario — as much as 100,000 barrels a day from a freely flowing pipe.

He said he's seen no evidence from BP to date that would be inconsistent from that dire scenario.

Judging by live undersea videos, "it looks like a freely flowing pipe," Leifer said. "From what it looks like right now it suggests to me they’re capturing a negligible fraction."

It's unclear how much oil is still escaping because scientists don't have access to enough data and the video feeds show a "disorganized cloud" of oil shooting out of open vents in the containment cap and between the riser and the cap, Wereley said.

"It’s very difficult to judge flow rates from these multiple sources," he said. "My position is that the claims (of capturing the 'vast majority' of oil) cannot be made because the flow is too complicated."

100,000 barrels is four million, two hundred thousand. 4,200,000. People have been estimating this number all along, but the government has been blowing them off, and the newspapers have all been reporting the pathetically low number of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels, which is shit.

Today is day 51 of this. Anywhere from 51,000,000 to 200,000,000 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, and I don't know how many hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic death dispersants.

Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range

Not making a very good case for self-defense on the part of Israeli commandos, even if you discard the fact that the Israelis boarded a cargo ship by force in international waters:

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

Hard to shoot someone in the face and the back at the same time. They were either running or coming, and then you caught them again either on the floor, running or falling.

Read on about the Israeli bravery:

The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had operated a "shoot to kill policy".

He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in the back of the head just two feet in front him and another was shot once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded, 48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds and six activists remained missing, suggesting the death toll may increase.

The Israelis seemed to have unveiled a new weapon in this assault:

Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered multiple wounds. "All [the bullets] were intact. This is important in a forensic context. When a bullet strikes another place it comes into the body deformed. If it directly comes into the body, the bullet is all intact."

He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, he said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."

They are firing entire shotgun shells now. Wow. Shotgun shells are big.

Israeli pig speaks:

An unnamed Israeli commando, who purportedly led the raid on the Mavi Marmara, today told Israeli news website Ynet News that he shot at a protester who approached him with a knife. "I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs," he said. "I cocked my weapon when I saw that one was coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me from all directions and threw me down to the deck below …

"We knew they were peace activists. Though they wanted to break the Gaza blockade, we thought we'd encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance – we didn't expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us. We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything we could to prevent unnecessary injury."

Everyone is a terrorist these days. It seems very difficult to terrorize the military. Especially when you have pipes and maybe knives and they have helicopters, guns and extensive training. And when they are the ones boarding your ship illegally. Interesting perspective.

Courageous rabbi stands up to 89-year-old woman for not being a Zionist and gets her fired

What a brave man it takes to do this, to ruin an old woman's career.

This is what happens when public figures dare to criticize Israel. They are instantly maligned as anti-Semites, as though there is no legitimate critique of Zionism or the Zionist state's military, economic, foreign and social policies. To Zionists, there is none. They allow now. For them, opposing Zionism in any way, including any of its excesses, is to cast hate and disdain upon every Jewish person. The title of the video is quite sensational, and could be seen as misleading. That's what public relations is all about.

The Zionist lobby in this country has done a fantastic job of securing governmental and, to a lesser extent, public support for its cause.

Things like this though, they do not endear Zionism to anyone. It only pleases those who already believe, further angers those who dissent, and does nothing for the great masses who do not care.

Helen Thomas' comment has nothing to do with Jewish people.

All corporations and government agencies involved with the BP oil disaster are to blame

It's all part of that tired old story where money and the unrestrained pursuit of it trumps whatever logic, caution and concern may be present. I will give you the absolute best part of this post first:

The rig’s [Deepwater Horizon, the one that was pumping oil out of that hole in the ocean and then blew up] “spill response plan,” provided to The Times, includes a Web link for a contractor that goes to an Asian shopping Web site and also mentions the importance of protecting walruses, seals and sea lions, none of which inhabit the area of drilling. The agency [Minerals Management Service] approved the plan.

Amazing. Nothing short of amazing. If that is not indicative of a broken, useless government, then nothing is.

Anyway, here are some more highlights:

Deepwater oil production in the gulf, which started in 1979 but expanded much faster in the mid-1990s with new technology and federal incentives, is governed as much by exceptions to rules as by the rules themselves.

Under a process called “alternative compliance,” much of the technology used on deepwater rigs has been approved piecemeal, with regulators cooperating with industry groups to make small adjustments to guidelines that were drawn up decades ago for shallow-water drilling...

“The pace of technology has definitely outrun the regulations,” Lt. Cmdr. Michael Odom of the Coast Guard, who inspects the rigs, said last month at a hearing.

As a result, deepwater rigs operate under an ad hoc system of exceptions. The deeper the water, the further the exceptions stretch, not just from federal guidelines but also often from company policy.

So, for example, when BP officials first set their sights on extracting the oily riches under what is known as Mississippi Canyon Block 252 in the Gulf of Mexico, they asked for and received permission from federal regulators to exempt the drilling project from federal law that requires a rigorous type of environmental review, internal documents and federal records indicate...

As BP engineers planned to set certain pipes and casings for lining the well in place in the ocean floor, they had to get permission from company managers to use riskier equipment because that equipment deviated from the company’s own design and safety policies, according to internal BP documents obtained by The New York Times...

Its [the Mineral Management Service] safety inspections usually consist of helicopter visits to offshore rigs to sift through company reports of self-administered tests.

Even Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, who oversees the minerals agency, has said that oil companies have a history of “running the show” at the agency, a problem he has vowed to correct...

On the Deepwater Horizon, for example, the minerals agency approved a drilling plan for BP that cited the “worst case” for a blowout as one that might produce 250,000 barrels of oil per day, federal records show. But the agency did not require the rig to create a response plan for such a situation.

If a blowout were to occur, BP said in its plan, the first choice would be to use a containment dome to capture the leaking oil. But regulators did not require that a containment dome be kept on the rig to speed the response to a spill. After the rig explosion, BP took two weeks to build one on shore and three days to ship it out to sea before it was lowered over the gushing pipe on May 7. It did not work...

More broadly, regulators have not required technology and strategies for dealing with deepwater spills to be improved.

Engineers trying to control the blowout are using the same tactics they used in 1979 when the Ixtoc I well blew up in the Bay of Campeche off the coast of Mexico. In the earlier blowout, they first tried lowering a containment dome over the leak. When that failed, they unsuccessfully tried to inject golf balls and other material in a move called a junk shot, which was also tried and abandoned for the Deepwater Horizon...

Questions of oversight also came up in the New Orleans hearings last month. For example, Michael J. Saucier, an official with the Minerals Management Service, said that his agency “highly encouraged” — but did not require — companies to have backup systems to trigger blowout preventers in case of an emergency.

“Highly encourage?” Captain Nguyen of the Coast Guard asked. “How does that translate to enforcement?”

“There is no enforcement,” Mr. Saucier answered...

As early as June 2009, BP engineers had expressed concerns in internal documents about using certain casings for the well because they violated the company’s safety and design guidelines. But they proceeded with those casings...

More than five weeks before disaster, the rig was hit by several sudden pulsations of gas called “kicks” and a pipe had become stuck in the well. The blowout preventer, designed to seal the well in an emergency, had been discovered to be leaking fluids at least three times.

Dealing with these problems required teamwork, a challenge to the throng of different companies with responsibilities on the rig. Of the 126 people present on the day of the explosion, only eight were employees of BP. The interests of the workers did not always align.

Look at this raw display of people's pursuit of money literally producing this catastrophe:

In testimony to government investigators, rig workers repeatedly described a “natural conflict” between BP, which can make more money by completing drilling jobs quickly, and Transocean, which receives a leasing fee from BP every day that it continues drilling.

Halliburton was also on hand to provide cementing services, while a subsidiary monitored various drilling fluids. A different company provided drilling fluid systems, another provided technicians to operate the remote-control vehicles that are they eyes of the rig crew deep underwater, and yet another provided the well casing.

Amid this tangle of overlapping authority and competing interests, no one was solely responsible for ensuring the rig’s safety, and communication was a constant challenge...

BP had fallen behind schedule and over budget, paying roughly $500,000 a day to lease the rig from Transocean. The rig was 43 days late for starting a new drilling job for BP by the day of the explosion, a delay that had already cost the company more than $21 million.

With the clock ticking, bad decisions went unchecked, warning signs went unheeded and small lapses compounded.

On April 1, a job log written by a Halliburton employee, Marvin Volek, warns that BP’s use of cement “was against our best practices.”

An April 18 internal Halliburton memorandum indicates that Halliburton again warned BP about its practices, this time saying that a “severe” gas flow problem would occur if the casings were not centered more carefully.

Around that same time, a BP document shows, company officials chose a type of casing with a greater risk of collapsing.

Despite noticing cementing problems, BP skipped a quality test of the cement around the pipe. Federal regulators also gave the rig a pass at several critical moments. After the rig encountered several problems, including the gas kicks and the pipe stuck in the well, the regulators did not demand a halt to the operation. Instead, they gave permission for a delay in a safety test of the blowout preventer.

What a clear case that this was entirely preventable (even once the hole had already been drilled) and resulted purely from a thorough lack of concern and a pervasive failure to hold anyone accountable for more than minimal safety standards.

More:

About 10 hours before the explosion, the challenges of trying to keep the pressure in the well under control led to an argument among the workers about how best to finish the well and move the rig to the next site.

Douglas Brown, a Transocean mechanic on the rig, told investigators that an unnamed BP official whom he called “the company man” had instructed rig workers to execute a new plan for removing the riser and sealing the well. Mr. Brown testified that workers thought the plan was too risky. But he could not hear details of the argument that ensued.

“The company man was basically saying, ‘Well, this is how it’s going to be,’ ” Mr. Brown told investigators at a hearing on May 26 near New Orleans, adding that the Transocean rig workers “reluctantly agreed.”

Finally, it's a bit saddening that Obama is so beholden to business interests. Not that it's surprising; he is a president after all. It's just that I've never seen anything of this magnitude before and with someone who's supposed to be all about change and difference and newness and all that in office, I would like for him to do something new instead of trying to keep everything cool. He should be ripping people's heads off, not silencing Ken Salazar:

But the partnership between BP and the government has strained along with the failure of efforts to plug the well. Mr. Salazar, for example, assured the public on May 2 that the administration was keeping its “boot on the neck” of BP. Next he was being publicly chastised by President Obama for using antagonistic language.

I wish someone had a boot on BP's neck. But no one does. And no one will. They are part of our money-theistic religion and are therefore sacrosanct.

The whole story is definitely worth reading.

Gaza, Israel, apartheid, sanctions and Tony Blair

For some reason, someone made Tony Blair in charge of brokering Palestinian statehood. Anyway, the conversation he has with Fareed Zakaria is quite interesting, and I love Zakaria's articulation of Israel's policy toward Gaza, which comes along at about 3:55 in:

Israel's latest cowboy adventure

Maybe you know by now about Israel attacking a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid-carrying ship, the Mavi Marmara, in international waters last week and killing nine and injuring dozens of the 700 or so passengers, hailing from a wide array of countries? Well, they did. They invaded it (the only one out of six that they hadn't been able to mechanically disable, a condition they achieved most likely through the use of prop foulers, long ropes/cables designed to wrap around a ship's propeller and seize it) by helicopter, with what seems to be a secretive number of "commandos" rappelling onto the deck at 4am on Monday, May 31st. They were immediately met by a number of people prepared for self-defense, who seemed to use whatever they could find to defend themselves, including pipes, pieces of metal, anything that could be thrown, fists, feet and knives. They tossed at least one overboard, and a few of the Israelis jumped overboard. Watch the Israeli Defense Force-edited video of the people defending their ship against a pirate attack:

There is nothing wrong with how the Israelis were met. They were violently invading a humanitarian aid ship bound for one of the most (deliberately) devastated places in the world right now - Gaza. The Israelis say that these ships were violating their military blockade of Gaza. Technically, that is not true, as they had not approached Gaza, and were in international waters. However, their stated aim was to reach the port in Gaza, yes. They planned to violate their illegal blockade that even the United States does not support. The Israelis say their blockade (including things like coffee, chocolate and cement, as well as nearly all exports) is to punish Hamas and destabilize their rule over Gaza, but these things never work. Look at Iraq. George Bush the First and Bill Clinton's decade-long sanctions against the country, along with their ceaseless bombing campaign, did nothing to touch Saddam Hussein, but did quite a bit to kill 500,000 Iraqi children. All they are succeeding in doing is immiserating the people of Gaza, further radicalizing them, making them hate Israel even more than they already do, making them feel isolated, desperate and hopeless, and making the world view Israel as the heartless wonder that it is. Hamas stands as as strong as it ever has, despite the three-year blockade. Egypt was a part of it as well, but has recently renounced it, as a result of Israel's killings about the ship and typically indignant attitude, and indefinitely reopened its non-industrial border crossing with Gaza.

So back on the ship, Israeli commandos manhandled and beat a ton of people for being on the ship:

"Suddenly from everywhere we saw inflatables coming at us, and within seconds fully equipped commandos came up on the boat," said Greek activist Dimitris Gielalis, who had been aboard the Sfendoni. He was among six Greeks returned home Tuesday.

"They came up and used plastic bullets, we had beatings, we had electric shocks, any method we can think of, they used," he said.

He said the boat's captain was beaten for refusing to leave the wheel, and had sustained non-life-threatening injuries, while a cameraman filming the raid was hit with a rifle butt in the eye, he said.

"Of course we weren't prepared for a situation of war.," he added.

The returning Greeks said those still in custody were refusing to sign papers demanded by Israeli authorities.

"During their interrogation, many of them were badly beaten in front of us," said Aris Papadokostopoulos, who was aboard the Free Mediterranean traveling behind the Turkish ship and carrying mainly Greek and Swedish activists.

A fitting retribution for bring wheelchairs and medicine to deeply impoverished people. This is typical for Israel. They love overpowering people and intimidating the helpless. Read on:

Activists returning to Europe said that the commandos had beaten passengers and used electric shocks during the clashes.

Six Greeks and several others, including a Turkish woman and her 1-year-old baby, were released Tuesday.

Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin, who had hidden with her baby in her cabin's bathroom aboard the Mavi Marmara, told reporters she believed there were 11 dead.

”The ship turned into a lake of blood," Cetin told reporters in Istanbul, having returned after Israeli officials warned that jail would be too harsh for her child.

"We were aware of the possible danger in joining the trip," she said. "But there are thousands of babies in Gaza. If we had reached Gaza we would have played with them and taken them food."

She said Israeli vessels harassed the flotilla for two hours starting around 10 p.m. Sunday, and returned at around 4 a.m. Monday, fired warning shots and told the ships to turn back.

When the Mavi Marmara continued on its course the harassment turned into an attack.

"They used smoke bombs followed by gas canisters. They started to descend onto the ship with helicopters," she said, calling the clashes that then erupted "extremely bad and brutal."

"I was one of the first victims to be released because I had a child," she told reporters, "but they confiscated everything, our telephones, laptops are all gone."

Her husband - the ship's engineer - was still being held by Israeli authorities.

Some 400 Turkish activists were on the six-ship flotilla, along with more than 30 Greeks and people of some 20 other nations including Germany, the U.S. and Russia.

Also typical is that Israel cut all communications aboard the ship, and then kept all seven hundred incommunicado while they were detained:

An Al-Jazeera journalist delivering a report before Israel cut communications said Israel fired at the vessel before boarding it. In one web posting, a Turkish television reporter on the boat cried out, "These savages are killing people here, please help" — a broadcast that ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, "Everybody shut up!"

Al-Jazeera said that eight staff members were detained while covering the story, and asked for the Israeli government to release them immediately...

Of the hundreds of activists who were detained aboard the ships after they were escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod, 15 were sent to Beer Sheva Prison, according to a spokesman for the Israeli prison authority. Another 25 were slated for deportation and 50 others who refused to identify themselves were being held separately.

Then Israel went on to propagate a bunch of bullshit about how they, the Israeli military, were set up, victims of an ambush. This is amazing. They allege that somehow, through deliberately placing themselves on the deck of a ship, in international waters, armed with guns and authorized to kill, they were the victims in this situation:

Israel's prime minister claimed Sunday that the Turkish activists who battled Israeli naval commandos in a deadly clash last week prepared for the fight ahead of time, before boarding the ship in a different city from the rest of the passengers.

Benjamin Netanyahu's charges highlight Israel's frantic efforts to portray the activists as terrorists and counter a wave of harsh international condemnation that has left the Jewish state isolated and at odds with some of its closest allies...

Netanyahu told his Cabinet that "dozens of thugs" from "an extremist, terrorism-supporting" organization had readied themselves for the arrival of the naval commandos.

"This group boarded separately in a different city, organized separately, equipped itself separately and went on deck under different procedures," he said. "The clear intent of this hostile group was to initiate a violent clash with (Israeli) soldiers..."

On Sunday, the Turkish daily Hurriyet showed new pictures taken by unidentified people of wounded Israeli commandos, including some with bloodied faces. Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the images seemed to corroborate Israel's version of the events.

"It shows that our boarding party in fact did face deadly violence from the hardcore Islamist activists on the boat ... and that our boarding party was forced to respond," he said. "Had they not, they would have been killed."

Boarding party. Did you get that? BOARDING PARTY? Good one, Mark Regev. When you get tired of lying and killing for a living, you should try writing for Saturday Night Live. They could use someone like you.

The head of the IHH, the Islamic Charity organization that sponsored the Freedom Flotilla, as the six aid ships were called, disagrees with Netanyahu and Regev's assertions:

In Turkey, IHH head Bulent Yildirim said all passengers boarded the ship in the Turkish port of Antalya, and rejected suggestions that those who clashed with the soldiers were trained militants.

"Take a look at who was killed. They had pot bellies. They were old. They were young. Who would believe that they received special training?" he said.

Israel says the IHH is a terrorist organization. Again, even the United States says that they aren't.

Overall, I would say that Israel is taking this well, showing a good amount of contrition for its military escapades:

In a sign of Israeli frustration, some hard-liners produced a music video that parodies the events on the raided ship and has received more than a million hits on YouTube. A group of Israeli men and women portray the activists as Arab and Turkish militants with keffiyehs and mimic their accents. At the end, the mock activists wave clubs and knives in the air.

They sing a song with crude lyrics called "We Conned the World" — set to the tune of "We Are The World."

"We'll make the world abandon reason, we'll make them all believe that the Hamas is Mama Theresa," they sing.

The Israeli government press office relayed a link to the video to foreign correspondents on Friday, then recalled the message and apologized.

Nothing like kicking people who are down. That's Israel's specialty though, and what endears them so closely to many throughout the world.

Further displaying their will to do anything it takes to make themselves the victims in every situation, the Israeli government was forced to admit that it edited the invasion tape to include anti-Semitic rhetoric that wasn't really there:

Israel acknowledged Sunday that it edited recordings of what it said were anti-Semitic and anti-American radio calls by pro-Palestinian activists who tried to run the Gaza blockade and that it could not identify the origin of the broadcasts.

The Israeli military released a 26-second recording Friday night in which a warning call to a ship in the flotilla was met with the reply of "Shut up -- go back to Auschwitz." After another voice reports that the convoy has the permission of Palestinian officials to dock in Gaza, a third voice responds, "We are helping Arabs going against the U.S. Don't forget 9/11, guys."

But after the organizers of the aid convoy accused Israeli officials of manipulating the tapes, the Israel Defense Forces reported it had mistakenly identified one of the six ships in the activists' "Freedom Flotilla" as the source of the broadcasts. And it released a nearly six-minute recording of radio traffic that included those calls and several others, along with bursts of static and calls in other languages on the same channel.

Nice. Nothing like a good lie to drum up support for war. It's a classic technique - Vietnam, Iraq, etc.

I would like to conclude with the fact that Israel has not alleged even once that these ships were carrying weapons, nor anything that Hamas could use as such. Accordingly, despite Israel's best attempts to search the cargo looking for them, all they found were medical supplies and construction materials. Again, this was clearly an entirely just response. What a bunch of fucking monsters.

P.S. The Pixies canceled their first-ever show in Israel because of this. AWESOME. Hooray for people still giving a fuck.

Crocodiles - smarter than you think

Salt water crocodiles of the Indian/Pacific Oceans routinely ride currents for hundreds of miles, know when to ride them, and can not only figure out when they're going the wrong way, but know how to get out of the current and wait until it switches to the direction they want:

One satellite-tagged crocodile, 12.6-foot-long male (3.8 meters) - left the Kennedy River and travelled 366 miles (590 km) over 25 days, timing its journey to coincide with a seasonal current system that develops in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Another croc - a 15.8-foot-long male (4.8 meters) - traveled more than 255 miles (411 km) in only 20 days through the Torres Straits, which are notorious for strong water currents. When the reptile arrived at the straits, the currents were moving opposite to his direction of travel - he then waited in a sheltered bay for four days and only passed through the straits when the currents switched to favor his journey.

Amazing.

They also don't drill holes in the ocean floor, which makes them even smarter.

Organic dairy is still rape

Just without hormones. Isn't that nice? Read about how the CEO of Pacific Natural Foods, Chuck Eggert, treats the "organic cows" that he thinks he owns:

Eggert tapped son Charlie to run the complex operations: managing the milking cows and 100-plus calves; seeing to artificial insemination; and feeding herds an organic mix of alfalfa, barley, flax, composted corn silage and minerals. He found himself birthing calves at 2 a.m. -- and collecting and disposing of millions of gallons of waste each year.

If forceful impregnation, in this case coldly referred to as "artificial insemination" isn't rape, then I don't know what is.

Organic dairy cows are still victims of capitalism, but a variety with a friendlier face. They are supposed to be able to move more than non-organic dairy cows, have "natural" food and all sorts of wonderful benefits that they would normally have if people hadn't made them rape/production slaves, which are all things that make people feel better about themselves for paying people to rape cows, confine them, take their milk and sell them off to slaughter when they pass their peak rates of production.

Capitalists, of course, are chiefly concerned with money. Money always wins over welfare and wellbeing. I think "green" capitalists or "concerned" capitalists or however they try to redefine themselves do those cost/benefit analysis things where they figure out how to make the most money while having to spend the least, which, in this case, often results in keeping a large number of cows and treating them not quite as shittily as their relatives in factory farms.

Here are what some local critics have to say of Eggert's two dairy farms:

Kimbirauskas, with Friends of Family Farmers, says there's a simpler way to reduce manure impacts: Cut herds and get them in pastures. That reduces odor and the volume of waste to be handled.

"There are other organic dairies that aren't putting millions of dollars into waste technology," she says. "They're just putting their cows on grass."

Until now, national organic standards have only required dairies to provide "access to pasture." Some of the Eggerts' neighbors say they've rarely seen cows grazing in the past.

Here is how various Oregon state agencies have felt about Eggert's "green" practices:

His twin dairy farms near the Willamette River southwest of Wilsonville were intended as an extension of that ethos: organic, cutting-edge operations that would be models of environmentally sustainable and economically successful agriculture.

It has not gone well. Eggert's Mayfield and Rock Ridge dairies have repeatedly mismanaged the manure that 700 milking cows produce, racking up 20 manure-related violations and $35,000 in state fines. A $20,000 fine this month was the largest ever by the state's Confined Animal Feeding Operation program.

Nice, Chuck, nice. Good going there, really. You are showing people how much different "green" capitalism is from the normal kind, whatever you want to call it.

Finally, here's Chuck propagating that myth that cow's milk is somehow necessary for life:

"If you just say no dairy should be more than five cows, all you're doing is providing an elitist food system," says Eggert, 61. "Some people might go to the store and pay $10 a gallon for a gallon of organic milk. Most people can't afford that."

"Elitist food system." Or a more compassionate one.

Brave bullfighter catches a horn in the balls

Man, this is amazing. Swung around and whatnot.

It makes me happy to know that they operated on him without anesthesia.

Florida is now fully benefitting from BP's free oil initiative

Fucking communists, just taking and taking:

Driftwood and seashells glazed with rust-colored tar lined the surf along the Gulf Coast's once-pristine white sand beaches Saturday, the crude from a busted oil well deep underwater showing up in greater quantities and farther east.

A cap placed over the gusher was collecting only a fraction of the oil, which had stained beaches with a waxy mess of tar balls and created an unusual orange foam in the surf.

In Gulf Shores, Ala., wooden boardwalks leading to beachfront hotels were spotted with oil from beachgoers' feet, and some condominiums were providing solvents for guests smeared with the brown goo. At Pensacola Beach, the retreating high tide left an orange stain in its wake.

Erin Tamber moved to the beach area after surviving Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where she had lived for 30 years.

"I feel like I've gone from owning a piece of paradise to owning a toxic waste dump," she said as she inspected the beach Saturday morning.

I wish I could have the slightest feeling that this is going to be a turning point, where people really push back in a sustained way against destructive capitalism and the government that loves it, but I don't. People don't care. Now that Lost and American Idol and whatever else are going to repeats, I guess people have to find some other distraction. Baseball? I don't know. I'm fairly confident that people's attention, in significant amounts, will not turn to BP and the federal government. I would love for it to, but it's not realistic. Katrina didn't do it; why should this? I guess it's a bit more spread out, but it hasn't killed anyone aside from Deepwater Horizon workers. People just don't care. Too fucking busy with hating immigrants or Muslims or whatever the political distraction issue of the day is.

Anyway, Florida's western beaches are getting fucked and people can't go in the water anymore:

Swimmers at Pensacola Beach rushed out of the water after wading into the mess, while other beachgoers inspected the clumps with fascination, some taking pictures.

Health officials said that people should stay away from the mess but that swallowing a little oil-tainted water or getting slimed by a tar ball is no reason for alarm.

On Saturday morning at a public beach in Gulf Shores, a long line of brown globs marked the high water line from overnight at the public beach.

Finally, somehow, real thought worked its way into a news story, if ever so slightly:

"This is disgusting," said Macon Srygley, of McCalla, Ala. "I hate it for BP, but this has to be a lesson for anyone drilling in the ocean. We've got all this technology, but are we not smart enough to realize we can end ourselves with it?"

Right on. We aren't, and we will.

BP's tally of dead birds thus far

As of a couple of days ago, this is the official count of how many birds BP has killed in the last month and a half:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported 522 dead birds — at least 38 of them oiled — along the Gulf coast states, and more than 80 oiled birds have been rescued. It's not clear exactly how many of the deaths can be attributed to the spill.

I'm going to go ahead and say all of them, plus many more that will never be found.

Of course, that figure is buried in the bottom of a BP oil hole article, cause no one cares about that stuff nearly as much.

Again, I will say that nothing anyone got from that fucking hole in the bottom of the ocean was ever worth the life of one bird, fish, dolphin, turtle or anything else they have killed and have yet to kill through their bottomless greed and utter lack of regard for whatever "safety" can be assured aboard something as destructive and ruinous as a petroleum extraction platform.

I wish people would stop worshipping perceived "rights" of capital in this country and just go ahead and fucking burn down everything BP and its rapacious managers own.

BP is in the process of expanding its oil pollution to Florida

Any day now, Florida will be able to bask in the glory of BP's free oil program. And I thought we were dealing with capitalists here.

The giant Gulf of Mexico oil slick was Wednesday closing in on the pristine Florida coast, as deep sea robotic submarines hit a new snag in BP's latest bid to contain the spill.

Forecasters said it was virtually certain Florida's panhandle, a major draw for tourists from around the world, would be hit by the spill this week.

The latest official projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show the slick to be about seven miles (11 kilometers) off the state's shores, a Florida official told AFP.

"Within the next 72 hours it should affect our coast," said the official with Florida's Environmental Protection Agency, asking not to be named.

Florida would be the fourth state hit by the oil since an April 20 explosion ripped through the Deepwater Horizon rig, 50 miles (80 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, killing 11 workers. The BP-operated rig sank two days later.

What a bunch of lucky people those Floridians are. FREE OIL. And here I am, paying for it like a sucker.

BP's oil spreads to Alabama and Mississippi

Of course, it will only get worse. There is lots and lots more where that came from, seeing as the hole will probably be spewing oil and gas for at least two more months. Nice.

And if it took that long for oil to reach those places, think of how much is behind it and for how long it will keep washing up, long, long after the hole is plugged or runs out.

Rust-colored oil washed ashore on barrier islands off Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday, while more patches of crude offshore appeared to be moving toward those states' coasts, authorities reported.

Researchers scrambled to clean up tar balls and puddles of oil from the beaches of Alabama's Dauphin Island, while a strip of oil about two miles long and three feet wide stretched along Petit Bois Island, about five miles away off Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour's office reported.

It marked the first time oil has hit Mississippi's shores since the largest oil spill in U.S. history erupted in late April. And while tar balls associated with the Gulf spill had hit Dauphin Island, about 35 miles south of Mobile, in early May, residents said that Tuesday was the first time they had seen oil hitting the beach.

Only part of the island's beaches have been lined with protective booms, with much of those barriers lined up near a protected wildlife area on the west end of the island.

These places are fucked. And BP doesn't care any more than it is legally compelled to.

Tony Hayward is sorry

Thanks big guy. Everything is cool now. Promise.

BP facing civil fines of $86 million a day

Yes, shit fucking yes, PLEASE let this happen:

A clause buried deep in the U.S. Clean Water Act may expose BP and others to civil fines that aren't limited to any finite cap -- unlike a $75 million limit on compensation for economic damages. The Act allows the government to seek civil penalties in court for every drop of oil that spills into U.S. navigable waters, including the area of BP's leaking well.

As a result, the U.S. government could seek to fine BP or others up to $4,300 for every barrel leaked into the U.S. Gulf, according to legal experts and official documents.

It is truly the least these fucking people deserve. They are a bunch of liars, a horde of greedy plunderers who would gladly ruin the entire planet (save for their gated communities) if not kept in check by the ribbons of regulation currently now upon them.

That's oil for you. That's capitalism for you. You need to have assholes like this in every sector of industry, finance and government to give you cheap everything. But no one wants to face that. They want to blame BP and guiltlessly drive to Walmart. And we have them. We have assholes in spades. What a bunch of pieces of shit we are. We all just go on with our lives, letting these people fuck us and everything around us.

Right on, Bob Herbert

Bob is my new favorite person at the New York Times. He seems way more "left" than the most of the rest of their people, and is very frank. All of which means he is a real, thinking person who says what he means and what he believes. He doesn't seem like a bullshitter.

He wrote this mostly great op-ed piece on Memorial Day:

If a bank is too big to fail, it’s way too big to exist. If an oil well is too far beneath the sea to be plugged when something goes wrong, it’s too deep to be drilled in the first place.

YES, fucking YES. Why can't people get that? What the hell business do you have drilling a mile under the sea (assuming that people have a "right" to extract petroleum in the first place, which they don't) when you have absolutely no plan in place in the event of a ruptured pipe, aside from drilling a new well? So many people buy into that industry/business/capital worshipping bullshit where people can do whatever they want in the interest of "progress" and profit.

Some of the rest of it is straight-up liberal and oddly patriotic, but I guess you have to do that shit to get a job there and keep it. They aren't going to publish things that I typically write here, for sure. They've got an agenda, and it is not the same as mine. But the editorial board does seem to allow people to deviate from it, to an extent.

Read on:

When are we going to stop behaving so stupidly? We nearly wrecked the economy and we’re all but buried in debt. But we can’t break up the biggest banks, and we can’t raise taxes. Now we’re fouling the magnificent Gulf of Mexico and ruining entire communities along the southern Louisiana Coast.

And, by the way, we’re still fighting a futile war in Afghanistan that we’ve been fighting with nonstop futility for nearly a decade. (I’m sure the troops saddled with this thankless task were thrilled to see fans and teams demonstrating their undying support for their efforts by wearing fancy baseball caps on Memorial Day.)

For a nation that can’t stop bragging about how great and powerful it is, we’ve become shockingly helpless in the face of the many challenges confronting us. Our can-do spirit was put on hold many moons ago, and here we are now unable to defeat the Taliban, or rein in the likes of BP and the biggest banks, or stop the oil gushing furiously from the bowels of earth like a warning from Hades about the hubris and ignorance that is threatening to destroy us.

BP and the Obama administration have been equally clueless about halting the millions of gallons of oil that have flowed into the gulf since the Deepwater Horizon explosion more than a month ago.

It's nice to see someone hitting at Obama who isn't some conservative piece of shit who will take any chance they can get to take a dump on him, just because he's not conservative, and is black.

Bob Herbert, I will be on a team with him any day. Hell yes, Bob.

BP making cleanup workers sick, legally prohibiting them from speaking to anyone

Manslaughter, again. What a truly awful bunch of people (that's what a company is, a bunch of people). Death to all of them.

"Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, says the company isn't providing masks because their air monitoring shows there's no health threats to workers."

No fucking masks. NOT ALLOWED. While working on top of crude oil and carcinogenic dispersants.

BP allowing Louisiana marshes to die

Murder? Perhaps. At least manslaughter. But they don't care. I wish someone in the government had the willpower to go ahead with dissolving this company and imprisoning, or at least indicting, everyone at BP (and Halliburton) responsible for this.

BP simply does not care. They have virtually unlimited money, but are refusing to spend. They're trying to make a big deal out of the fact that they've spent a billion dollars. They've got a lot more left, and every "analyst" seems to think the company will survive just fine, which is fucking sick.

Gored "bullfighter" still in a really bad place

Nice. Fuck you, Julio Aparicio. Hope you have a long, terrible road of suffering ahead. Please, please do not die. You do not deserve such luck.

A Madrid hospital says Spanish bullfighter Julio Aparicio has returned to intensive care and is fighting an infection after a horrific goring in the throat by a bull.

Aparicio had left the unit and was recovering well on Monday following surgery to reconstruct his throat, mouth and palate, but outbreak of an infection forced a return to the unit where doctors placed him on mechanically assisted breathing, October 12 Hospital said.

In a statement released Saturday the hospital says Aparicio is now breathing normally and it describes his condition as "grave" but stable.

The matador slipped in a bullring, fell to the ground and a 1,168 pound bull drove his right horn through Aparicio's throat and out his mouth.

I guess they got the bull's weight after a couple of brave men killed it for no reason.

Contaminated Cocaine Can Cause Flesh to Rot

So do more and get off the planet, scumbags. Fashionable pieces of shit. Hip slaves.

Cocaine abusers -- already at risk for an abnormal heartbeat, blood pressure problems, hallucinations, convulsions and stroke -- can add another potential health complication to the list: rotting flesh.

"If you are a user of cocaine, you should be aware that some of the cocaine is not clean and can have other agents that can cause you to have a low white-cell count or skin tissue death," said Dr. Ghinwa Dumyati, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester and an epidemiologist for the Monroe County Health Department in New York.

In a report in the June 1 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, Dumyati and doctors from the University of Rochester Medical Center discuss two cases involving women with a history of cocaine use who came to the hospital for help when they noticed purplish plaques on their cheeks, earlobes, legs, thighs and buttocks.

Their profiles were typical of toxicity with levamisole, the doctors reported. The medication is a veterinary anti-worming agent, approved for use in cattle, sheep and pigs. It was once used to treat cancer, autoimmune diseases and kidney problems in humans, Dumyati said. It's no longer approved for use in people in the United States, she said, because of adverse side effects.

But it's often used to cut cocaine, before distribution to the user, she said. "Almost 80 percent of the cocaine coming into this country has levamisole mixed in," Dumyati said...

But that's not all that's bad about levamisole. "It has other side effects," she said. "It has effects on bone marrow function. There can be a drop in the white blood cell count."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in late 2009 on a cluster of cases of problems with white blood cell counts linked to cocaine use. Called agranulocytosis, the condition occurs when bone marrow fails to make enough white blood cells.

Idiots. Do more, really. If I had some, I would sell it to you. All of it. Fuck, I would just GIVE it to you.

Make sure you wear long sleeves and pants to all yr shitty parties. It's hard to look good when you've got purple rotting patches on you.

BP does not allow cleanup crews on the water to wear masks or complain publicly

I guess they are trying to avoid giving people the idea that crude oil is unhealthy.

A fisherman who was hospitalized after becoming ill while cleaning up oil in the Gulf of Mexico has filed a temporary restraining order in federal court against oil company BP.

John Wunstell Jr., is asking BP to give the workers masks and not harass workers who publicly voice their health concerns.

Wunstell, a shrimper, said he was paid by BP to use his boat, Ramie's Wish, to clean up oil that has been gushing into the Gulf since an oil rig sank about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast, gushing an estimated 19,000 barrels (798, 000 gallons) of crude a day.

In an affidavit, Wunstell wrote he started experiencing severe headaches and nasal irritation on May 24. Over the next few days, he also developed nosebleeds, an upset stomach, and aches.

On Friday, Wunstell was airlifted to West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, Louisiana, where he remained hospitalized Sunday...

In his affidavit, Wunstell described his experience at the hospital.

"At West Jefferson, there were tents set up outside the hospital, where I was stripped of my clothing, washed with water and several showers, before I was allowed into the hospital," Wunstell said. "When I asked for my clothing, I was told that BP had confiscated all of my clothing and it would not be returned."

The restraining order requests that BP refrain from "altering, testing or destroying clothing or any other evidence or potential evidence" when workers become ill.

Man, turns out it's all a lie. I hate when I've been had:

Graham MacEwen, a spokesman for BP, said he could not comment on the restraining order, or on allegations that BP confiscated clothing.

He denied accusations from Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association, that BP has been threatening workers who speak out about health concerns.

Fishermen contacted by CNN have declined to speak publicly.

Some, who are making as much as $3,000 a day cleaning up the oil, have said they fear losing their jobs with BP.

"The BP oil spill wiped out their professions and their jobs this year and possibly years down the road," Klick said. "The only work they can get right now is with BP."

The BP spokesman said there have been no threats against workers for speaking out.

That's good to hear, that they aren't threatening them. I guess they also aren't threatening them for failing to wear masks, as they are admittedly not providing their workers with them:

Corexit, a dispersant, is being sprayed into the Gulf to break down the oil. The safety data information sheet from the manufacturer states that people should "avoid breathing in vapor" from Corexit, and that masks should be work when Corexit is present in certain concentrations in the air.

BP has not supplied workers with masks when they work near the oil and dispersants.

"We're been carrying out very extensive air quality since early on in this exercise, to make sure that we have working safe conditions, and thus far not found situations where there are air quality concerns that would require face masks," MacEwen said.

He added that workers who want to wear masks are "free to do so" as long as they receive instructions from their supervisors on how to use them.

According to Guidry from the shrimpers' association, BP told workers they were not allowed to wear masks.

"Some of our men asked, and they were told they'd be fired if they wore masks," he said.

Fired for wearing masks, awesome.

Also, Tony Hayward makes up the most fantastic fucking lies. Why hasn't someone offed this fuck yet?

Tony Hayward, the chief executive officer of BP, offered another explanation for the fishermen's illness: spoiled food.

"Food poisoning is clearly a big issue," Hayward said Sunday. "It's something we've got to be very mindful of. It's one of the big issues of keeping the Army operating. You know, the Army marches on their stomachs."

An expert on foodborne illness cast doubt on Hayward's theory.

"Headaches, shortness of breath, nosebleeds -- there's nothing there that suggests foodborne illness," said Dr. Michael Osterholm, a professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. "I don't know what these people have, but it sounds more like a respiratory illness."

Holy shit. The shit he says isn't even realistic. I guess it doesn't have to be. As long as he pulls in money, no one cares. It's not like he's up for reelection.

Impending increase in oil flow from BP's hole in the ocean floor

BP's newest sure-to-fail attempt to stop the oil from blowing out of that broken pipe a mile under the Gulf of Mexico will bring a 20% increase in the amount of oil flowing from it:

Even as the White House sought to demonstrate that it was taking a more direct hand in trying to solve the problem, senior officials acknowledged that the new technique BP will use to try to cap the leak — severing the riser pipe and placing a containment dome over the cut riser — could temporarily result in as much as 20 percent more oil flowing into the water during the three days to a week before the new device could be in place.

Nice. If we've got, on the low end, one million gallons of oil pouring out per day, we will now have one million and two hundred thousand. If we have four million, on the higher end, we will now have four million and eight hundred thousand. Until August, when they manage to finish drilling their new well.