Tuesday, April 02, 2013

This is from the Guardian. It is somewhat embarrassing to realize the USA South succumbs to their own preference for infidelity.

Mark Sanford Win GOP nomination of South Carolina (click here)
AP in Mount Pleasant
Tuesday 2 April 2013 22.05 EDT
...Sanford's political career was derailed four years ago when he disappeared from the state and later admitted to an extramarital affair with an Argentinian woman – they are now engaged....

Mark Sanford not only kept is paramour out of the election process he also kept his four children, four sons, out of the view of the electorate. He abandoned four sons to chase the tail of an Argentine woman no doubt interested in having the USA and/or South Carolina rescue the bankrupt national government.

Basically, Sanford was a fool for a great body and a pretty face. But, hey, every South Carolina man 'with the wisdom of the ages' understands that part of life.

Mr. Bostic and his wife appeared in commercials together with their son. It was a method of letting South Carolinians know they stood for strong Christian values, too. Did that matter? No.

South Carolina women know they are cheated on and they know they always forgive. South Carolina men defend their 'sexual activities' as 'the natural state of things' like their gun rights.

The election of Mark Sanford to the Republican candidacy to a national office is not a surprise, it is a defense of the southern male ego imposed on the southern female ego. So much for The Defense of Marriage Act. Every symbol of decency matters to the South, but, symbolism is all they have after all.

The NRA recommendations are about zoning.

Zoning is not going to stop the deaths of Americans. Those are half measures. Zoning will turn the USA if elected as federal statues into Baghdad.

I don't want blast walls surrounding playgrounds. That might be prudent in some LOCAL jurisdictions, but, not in all jurisdictions across the country.

Asa Hutchinson may be looking for a new job if this is the best he can do for the NRA.

Typical of tactics from the Right Wing pundits is the demand to circumvent the authority that sees NRA values as frivolous.

..."In terms of volunteers, (click here) my impression of school superintendents is they would have great reluctance and so it's not the best solution," Hutchinson said. "That's why we have shifted to school staff, trained school staff, that's designated by the superintendent of the school board." He said that each armed staff member would need 40 to 60 hours of training that would cost $800 to $1,000 each....

They don't care about doing the best thing for any child in school, they are only interested in what is good for the gun manufacturers in the USA. These folks, including Asa Hutchinson, drank the Kool-Aid a long time ago. They believe their own rhetoric. They actually believe the USA government is their enemy.

If blast walls were shown statistically to be the sincere answer for protecting people from gunmen, President Obama would have demanded blast walls for play grounds. Walls and training and other half measures won't stop anyone determined to kill. If a stronger wall is built that means a stronger explosive has to be obtained or fashioned to realize the success of the goal. If staff trained with 40 to 60 to 80 hours are in place, the gunmen will be trained with 100 hours to accomplish the end result. 

These are half measures that are unrealistic and UNENFORCEABLE. What is enforceable are bans on dangerous weapons entering and being manufactured in our country. That is enforceable. While it is possible, at the federal level, to enforce local governments and states to COMPLY with hideous ideas, that won't stop the bad guys with a gun.

After September 11th and the anthrax attacks this country went through some of the strangest paradigms it has ever experienced including appropriating monies to places in the USA that would never be a target for al Qaeda. Everyone was buying Duct Tape for their windows to stop WMD. 

The country is no longer in Republican Dreamscapes that make excuses for the culture of fear. We want laws that work and have been proven to work. We want the volatility of guns on our streets gone. There is only one way to achieve that.

US Representative Markey is under attack for his very good involvement in the Gulf Oil Spill.

If his integrity as per the BP Deepwater Horizon is not being used against him in his election bid. He saved lives. He saved economic integrity. He brought about reality no one else did to mitigate the damages by BP.

 5:43 PM EDT Mar 21, 2013
...Giselle Barry, campaign spokeswoman, (click here) said Markey's idea to put the spill camera underwater captured the real amount of oil being discharged into the Gulf daily. BP had claimed it was 1,000 barrels a day when in reality it was 60,000 barrels.
"He was integral, I think, in making sure we did see the oil cam," said Professor Gregory Payne, of Emerson College's Communications Department. "He pointed out that BP was not telling the truth about how much was really leaking. So I think he gets the narrative going on his behalf."
While Payne said the ad is primarily fact based, he questions the tone which leaves viewers with the impression Markey was solely responsible for holding BP accountable....
Ed Markey's involvement was pivotal during the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster without question. By the way, the House Committee that he was a member and chairman during that time, the "Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming," has been disbanded by the Republicans elected to the House in 2010. His pivotal involvement in the spill was not appreciated by the very members of Congress who were elected from the Gulf States. That says something about where some elected authority values the people and economy of their very constituents.
I don't want to impose my will on any Attorney General in the USA, but, if there is a lack of experience in handling the petroleum industry there are some facts the Arkansas AG needs to know.

It would be prudent to 'source' his own information and not completely rely on ExxonMobile. A little known fact about the BP Deepwater Horizon is the quality of the oil and the level of toxins in it.

There were many wonderful people involved in the investigation of the spill along the Gulf Coast, including world renowned institutions like Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I am not suggesting Woods Hole is involved here, I simply don't know. But, citizen groups like Sierra Club are involved. The Arkansas AG should trust their insight and focus. They know of what they speak.

But, back to the Gulf Oil Spill. The quality of the oil submitted from the records of BP was incorrect. A very distinguished US Representative now running for US Senate was involved with that spill, Ed Markey. He was a hero to people. He made sure the closed circuit televisions at the bottom of the Gulf were open to the public to understand and monitor the disaster. What else came out of his interest in bringing about justice was the independent testing of the oil spewing from the ruptured well head one mile down.

When the testing of the specimens were conducted by local university labs the results were startling. The oil quality was very different than that of the information submitted by BP to authorities.

The point is there are many, many moral and educated people among his own constituency such as Arkansas Sierra Club. They can bring expertise and national clout to his investigation without a cost, by the way. He could ask the state university to bring about information of the investigation without compromising the safety of anyone. These folks use hazard suits in such situations.

So, while he is correctly stating ExxonMobile has to come forward with their information and records and compel them if necessary, he also is not reliant on ExxonMobile for the best information. 

One other thing. This oil came across a national border and while the US DOT is responsible for the pipeline, there is also the issue of the State Department. There are resources with both these federal agencies to assist in the best outcome for the people of Arkansas. I wish him well. This can and most probably will be a daunting task, but, there are many people that want to see the outcome benefit the victims and the natural world which Arkansas to date has sought to protect.

North Korea has been viewed as a leader in the Third World.

The USA has been outside this dialogue. It is exclusive to countries that believe the USA is a threat to their people, nations and power. Chavez gave President Obama about the problems the USA has caused. This is still a viable dialogue. It appears to me Un intends to carry out the dialogue into a reality.

FRANK LÓPEZ BALLESTEROS |  EL UNIVERSAL
Tuesday December 20, 2011  11:30 AM
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez sent condolences to North Korean authorities expressing the "most sincere sorrow" for the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, on behalf of "all Venezuelans," after learning about the death of his "comrade."

President Chávez said that he has full confidence that North Koreans will move "toward a prosperous and peaceful future," according to a Venezuelan foreign ministry statement.

In the text, the government expressed its willingness to "keep walking along with sovereign nations for the auto-determination of countries and world peace."

Trade between Caracas and Pyongyang significantly increased when President Chávez took office in 1999, but it has dwindled since 2007, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE).


The unsuccessful preservation of Chavez body was a threat to the survival of his ideology. The current aggressive nature of North Korea is a matter of obtaining the stature in the world previous leaders spoke of, but, never sought to achieve. Albeit, the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

Un is leading more than his people. He is leading the Third World including Iran. I believe he is very serious for more reasons than everyone wants to recognize. The USA and Europe think the world changed with the deaths of it's leaders. I don't think so.

To Kim Jong Il, Chavez and Latin Americans leaders it was more or less politics. It was breathing fire at the USA dragon. I believe the generation that followed them seek to achieve the dream setting aside rhetoric from outcomes.

by Jack Apollo George, 
...In consequence, (click here) North Korea severed all ties with South Korea, including scrapping all prior peace talks. Kim Jong-Un thus seems to be even more volatile than his predecessors. While on the face of it, this situation is extremely worrying, it demonstrates an increased insecurity and will only augment North Korea’s political isolation.
There are very few states that stand up to Western powers, but those that do have always tended to do so along one of two paths. One way is to combat imperialism ideologically and politically through more integrating economic policies that focus on welfare and the public good rather than simple and senile quests for profits and nothing else.
These socialist principles are noble but are suffocated by the global market and can rarely lift off effectively. Venezuela, along with its close partner in Cuba, were some of the few states who could function with a true socialist model without sacrificing too much. It has to be noted that much of Venezuela’s ability to instigate such policies was due to the country’s notable oil wealth.
An alternative route to fighting the West is through an extremist ideology coupled with quasi-totalitarian state control and the dissuasive weight of military aggression. North Korea and Iran are probably the best contemporary examples of this path. That said, Iran has done nothing terrible of late; in fact, it has seemingly followed some UN regulations, converting all recorded uranium production into innocent domestic energy. Meanwhile, North Korea’s recent outburst of ridicule-worthy rhetoric follows no logic. The UN sanctions mean that North Korea is effectively driving itself to economic suicide, and any real physical attack would have consequences just as self-destructive.
With Latin America’s great post-Bolivarian leader dead and North Korea’s violent rhetoric verging on the suicidal, it seems that there is a void in coherent anti-U.S. political discourse. While it is undoubtedly a good thing that violent states have become isolated, it is a danger to have the whole world on the same route of absolute capitalist truth....

There were guards that ended their vigilance. He was armed in his home. But he could not stop the gunman.

Authorities are saying it was a single gunman leaving fired shells all around the scene. 
Why didn't the personal weapon stop the gunman? 
Huh? 
Why did this murder happen? 
He was a trained professional with a dead deputy and he and his wife are dead.
If the guns weren't in the hands of criminals this couple would still be alive.

Texas has been an incubator for NRA policy. And look at this. I don't think so.
...McLelland said he carried a gun (click here) everywhere around town, a bedroom community for the Dallas area. He figured assassins were more likely to try to attack him outside. He said he had warned all his employees to be constantly on the alert.
"The people in my line of work are going to have to get better at it," he said of dealing with the danger, "because they're going to need it more in the future."
The number of attacks on prosecutors, judges and senior law enforcement officers in the U.S. has spiked in the past three years, according to Glenn McGovern, an investigator with the Santa Clara County, Calif., district attorney's office who tracks such cases.
Neighbors said sheriff's deputies were parked in the McLelland's driveway for about a month after Hasse's slaying....

Well......so long as the sex is good.


By SUSAN A. PATTON
Guest Contributor
Published: Friday, March 29th, 2013
Forget about having it all, or not having it all, leaning in or leaning out — here’s what you really need to know that nobody is telling you.
For years (decades, really) we have been bombarded with advice on professional advancement, breaking through that glass ceiling and achieving work-life balance. We can figure that out — we are Princeton women. If anyone can overcome professional obstacles, it will be our brilliant, resourceful, very well-educated selves....
There is only one way... ONLY ONE WAY. ...to stop the violence on the streets of the USA and that is to take the weapons off the street.

The USA 'street' is too far gone to expect half and quarter measures to work. 

The gun zealots want everyone in the country armed equivalent to any ability of a gunman to do them harm.

That is not possible. 

The USA is a civilized society. It seeks power over the criminal through laws. We need to move forward. I am not going to a theater opening night with body armor, smoke bombs and assault weapons. I am not going to do that. I could not afford that lifestyle. It is laughable.

The gun zealots want everyone to believe arming themselves beyond any reasonable possibility is the only way to 'stay alive.' If that were made into a movie it would be a comedy.

Okay, so it is radical and dangerous, but, it doesn't work. We already know that.

This is nothing new.  Promise. There are schools across the country that have had at least one armed LAW ENFORCEMENT officer, not a guard; a law enforcement officer in schools. That won't stop a gunman armed to carry out his own personal war.

Armed officers in schools go back to the 90s BEFORE Columbine occurred. It is common practice in many school districts. Weapons have been a problem for a long time in the southern USA. It is not uncommon for principals to have to deal with weapons in their schools.

This way of thinking doesn't carry brevity in the real world. By some magical idea an armed guard is suppose to stop someone equipped with body armor, hand grenades, smoke bombs and assault weapons. What planet does the NRA live on? Maybe we need one of those Robo Drone Soldiers Rumsfeld dreams of.


Ed Pikington
2 April 2013
The National Rifle Association has unveiled (click here) its recommendations for placing at least one armed guard inside every school campus in the country in proposals that were immediately denounced by gun control advocates as radical and dangerous...

This happened in 1997. FX made a movie about this. The bank robbers changed the way patrol officers were outfitted in Los Angeles after this incident. The gun battle went on for 44 minutes before the gunmen were finally killed.

SHOOTOUT IN L.A. 2 "armed-for-war' robbers killed; 16 hurt in failed heist (click here)
   Paula Story The Associated Press 
March 1, 1997; Page A-02 
Section: 1A SECTION 
Article ID: 672339 -- 610 words 
LOS ANGELES -- Dressed like commandos, a group of masked robbers bungled a bank heist Friday and came out firing, unleashing their arsenal on police, bystanders, cars and even the TV choppers broadcasting it all live

When the shooting stopped, two robbers were dead and at least five bystanders and nine police officers were wounded by gunfire. One other officer and one civilian were injured in a related car wreck.
Bank customers and employees locked themselves in a vault

It is not a school but the power of available weaponry in the USA has a long history. There is nothing new here. The NRA are trying to say they have some kind of new idea about providing a safer school environment.

NOT.

Who is going to pay for all this? The NRA?

The gunmen that threaten our children's lives can out gun the guards that are suppose to stop them. It won't work.

The country needs to take these problems seriously and do something about it. the NRA needs to promote hunting, skeet shooting and target practice for enjoyment not private wars of choice.

Why Canadian Oil Sands crud is more dangerous than crude oil.

This picture is the oil extracted from the Canadian Oil Sands. It is thick, heavy and laced with toxins. It is a different kind of monster than crude oil out of a well.

Oil sands is not a well. It is a form of geology, sand. The oil sands are so much a geological structure it is classified by the USGS.

Introduction (click here)
Because conventional light oil can typically be produced at a high rate and a low cost, it has been used before other types of oil. Thus, conventional oil accounts for a declining share of the Earth's remaining oil endowment. In addition to assessing conventional oil resources, scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey's Energy Resources Program collect data on the abundant energy resources available as heavy oil (including extra-heavy oil) and natural bitumen; see definitions in sidebar. The data in this Fact Sheet are compiled from commercial databases (NRG Associates, I.H.S. Petroconsultants), unpublished government data, and the published literature....

Oil is rated on QUALITY. It is rated by a standard known as API gravity. This graph explains the DEGREE of API to Specific Gravity and Weight.

The temperature of the specific gravity calculation in this graph is at 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

The specific gravity also refers to viscosity. The flow rate of the oil.

Example: "A flowrate of 1.0; 1/min of oil of specific gravity 0.92 exists in the pipeline."

What does all that mess mean? It means that when a specific gravity is lower and the weight of the oil is less and the flow rate is better. 

Imagine maple syrup and molasses. What flows faster? The maple syrup. The specific gravity is lower with maple syrup. It is less viscous and flows easier.

Now, imagine pouring maple syrup and molasses down the kitchen sink drain. What happens?

That is the difference between crude oil out of a well and tar sands oil. What occurs when kitchen drains back up? What occurs when tar sands are in an oil pipeline? The slower the oil flows, the more stress placed on the system and the pressure builds by pure gravity. The flow rate is lower with tar sands and it increases the pressure within the pipeline system. The more volume in the system the greater the pressure. The flow rate does not accommodate the viscosity of the extracted oil and there is rupture in the pipeline.

Basically for the pipelines to hold up under heavier oil in them, the viscosity should be lower and not higher. The distribution of weight can be somewhat accommodated by increased flow rate. Water flows very fast, ask any farmer in the Midwest that has lost his topsoil to flooding. Water causes erosion it flows so fast.

So, the idea in any pipeline is to distribute the weight of the fluid over a larger 'surface area' by increasing the flow rate. The faster the fluid flows the less stress it places on the pipeline.

...A less rigorous definition (click here) of heavy oil is oil that is “not recoverable in its natural state through a well by ordinary production methods.” However, some heavy oil less than 22.3° API does flow very slowly but most requires heat or dilution to flow into a well or through a pipeline. Heavy oil from the Lloydminster area of Alberta and Saskatchewan has API gravities ranging from 9° to 18°. Heavy oil makes up about 15 per cent of the world’s remaining oil reserves. It usually contains impurities such as sulphur, heavy metals, waxes and carbon residue that must be removed before it is refined....

What do we know about degrees of API? If under 10 it will sink and not float. The Canadian Tar Sands requires heat to travel through any pipeline. It has to be extracted with heat and made higher in API degree to provide a flow rate of some kind.

The point is this. What is occurring on a regular basis is pipeline rupture due to the changing state of oil traveling through it. I question whether some of the qualities of the tar sands oil is even corrosive, but, I haven't looked into that. I don't care the pipeline or age, the petroleum industry is a disaster in the USA and we can't afford to continue to play with it in a country with economic concerns, fishery collapse and land degradation. 

What occurred in Alabama happened in a zoned area of housing. Today in North Carolina if anyone builds a home they lose their mineral rights under their property to the petroleum industry. This is where people live and there is an understanding by governments the American Dream is allowed to be toyed with for profits to companies so desperate they are harvesting tar sands at the cost of the climate. What does that say about an industry's regard for human life? What does that say about the respect of the American Dream?

The API of crude oil is:

According to the NYMEX, light sweet crude (the grade of oil most commonly traded in the commodities markets due to its comparable low level of difficulty in gasoline distillation) has an API gravity of 34 degrees to 41 degrees for foreign delivery.


The API gravity is a scale developed by the American Petroleum Institute according to a Wikipedia article which can be found at http://www.answers.com/API%20gravity.

Weight per gallon formula:

The formula given is to calculate SG at 60 degrees F. (weight in kilograms) = 141.5 / (API gravity + 131.5) which translates to between 0.855 and 0.820 (per liter).
A gallon is equivalent to 3.785 liters, so the answer is:

The weight of light sweet crude is between 3.104 and 3.236 kg (7 lbs) per gallon.

The weight of Canadian Tar Sands oil is between 3.806 and 3.582 kg (8.39) per gallon.

No matter how the petroleum industry tries to justify the extraction of Canadian Oil Sands they will NEVER be able to build an infrastructure that will hold up. The Tar Sands is far too much a desperate measure to maintain a market and profits for this industry.

Processing the tar sands oil even at refineries requires completely different handling and processes. This venture was wayward from the beginning and will cause a great deal of grief throughout it's production.

When a company destroys nature in order to provide a product, one has to realize the brevity of the decision and what it took to make it.
By Coti Howell | chowell@al.com 
Follow on Twitter 
on April 01, 2013 at 4:20 PM


TUSCALOOSA, Alabama (click here) --The Tuscaloosa Community Dancers have chosen"Coppelia" for their 2013 Spring Repertory Ballet from April 12-14 at the Bama Theatre.
The comedy is choreographed by Roger Van Fleteren of the Alabama Ballet and adapted by the Interim Artistic Director Amy Cole Ahmed.
The production takes place in a small town in Europe in the mid 19th-century involving an almost married couple and a bizarre doll maker.
“'Coppelia' is a light hearted and fun comedy that appeals to all audiences," Ahmed said of the production, in a recent release. "It’s not a heavy show, it’s very entertaining and would be a great show to introduce children to ballet.”...


Open Letter to Wayne LaPierre.

The NRA is welcome to entertain their readers in any way they care to, no different than Playboy or tabloids do, but, there is a gun problem in the USA and from this cover story it has a great deal to do with attitude.

Guns have a long history with the USA. This country was established because Colonists owned hunting guns and used them to declare their freedom, liberty from an English King and set up a democracy of, by and for the people. There was no formal military when the USA became a sovereign nation.

The acceptance of guns in the USA throughout it's history have been with the idea they are benevolent. For a better part of it's history long guns have been the majority of ownership. Hunting primarily, but, the West was won with them and Native Americans know that all too well. 

Hunting as well as fishing is a valuable commodity in this country. In some places it is even subsistence still today. But, the idea of guns being dangerous and deadly and a problem resulted after they became a military all by themselves on the streets of the USA.

The introduction of automatic weapons literally took control over the streets of the USA. We all know about Al Capone and Bonnie and Clyde. They were very real people who achieved power over government because of automatic weapons. Drive by shootings are not new ideas, they existed at the time of "Gangsterland." Eventually, the automatic weapons would be completely banned from the streets of the USA. Rightfully so. So there is a significant and important history of gun regulation in the USA, Mr. La Pierre.

Today, the USA is a facing a problem with guns powerful enough to make one person their own military. Now you can say it is due to psychiatric problems but it is more than that. It has been more than that for a very long time. There are challenges to Mexico's sovereignty because of the military style weapons available in the USA. Dare I say that dynamic plays out all over the world and empowers rebels and terrorists in far away lands.

The NRA has been acting to support gun manufacturers in a very insidious manner for decades now. The NRA takes extremist positions stating no regulation is going to be effective. That, Mr. LaPierre, is a lie. We know regulation works. What does work well when there is regulation is the decline in sales of expensive military style weapons causing profits to become reasonable to gun manufacturers. That is the real issue. The NRA should speak to that reality and how the gun manufacturers are going to change their focus and survive regulation.

See the thing is this. Guns have a status higher than the lives of citizens at this point and there is no other way to change that status except regulation. Perhaps you noticed how Connecticut has passed significant regulation to end the destruction of their society and the anarchy that existed there. An anarchy that exists across the country in hiding places we have only to imagine. 

The issue of regulating guns comes from a very different paradigm than any other dangerous commodity in the country. When it comes to medications, surgical appliances and devices there is an agency called the Food and Drug Administration that acts proactively to prevent danger from entering the American Landscape. Why does that agency exist? Because to prevent tragedy is an American value. The value of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

In the 1970s the people of the USA were presented with a newly authored book called Silent Spring. It was about the dangers of chemicals in our environment. As a result of that knowledge being passed along to consumers the legislation for Clean Air and Clean Water resulted. The agency that seeks to prevent damage to our environment is the Environmental Protection Agency. Their approach is a little different. They like to prevent tragedy, but, they also discover and mitigate dangers to citizens of the country.

Now, guns are completely different. There is no agency of regulation for guns. Oh, the ATF, but, that is more a policing organization than a regulatory agency. Arguably there should be a regulatory agency. 

I think of it this way. 

If there were no guns in the USA and the citizens wanted them what would I let in? What would the agency let into the country that would provide the purpose of the people? We as a country don't have that pleasure. We can't let guns of choice into the country like the FDA or seek protections from danger like the EPA. The guns are already here. What does a society faced with the nightmares we have in the USA today do about that lack of ability to regulate something as lethal and dangerous and destabilizing of governments as guns?

Mr. LaPierre while you seem to want to focus on particular issues and pick apart the virtues of initiatives like Connecticut or New York or cities like New York City or Chicago or Washington, DC; you dearly have been given a very comfortable place to run game on the people of the USA. I don't see that continuing. In the past the NRA wasn't the people's enemy. The NRA wasn't Mexico's enemy. But, one thing we do know that after flooding the country with very dangerous weapons for decades now, the NRA's speech is to undermine the authority of the people and their leaders for the sake of profits by a so called non-profit and the gun industry. That, sir, is hardly a benevolent place and no one can say that it is.

Guns will be regulated and it will go forward from here on. Guns and their regulation will be an election issue from today into the future. There will be no returning to the NRA standard of running game on the people of the USA. We want our streets to be safer than they are now and quite frankly we are tired of criminals getting their hands on weapons to harm us. The weapons the criminals use in the USA and Mexico don't come from any place else but the USA.

I think the people of this country know what the problem is very clearly. Unfortunately, the NRA has't figured it out yet in their cloud of war for profits.

Best regards.