And We're Back!

Fell way behind in everything and had to temporarily abandon doing this blog which was essentially about American politics, international news and global warming science. I missed it and so I'm back to pick up where I left off. I'm still over at our Canadian blog most every day and at the radio station too. Check them out if you have time.

Starting with what should be a huge story so far as global warming is concerned but so far has received very little coverage in the media, Antarctic waters are warming and a citadel of ice is melting. It's completely remarkable when you consider that the fringes of the world's coldest continent are warming faster virtually than any place on earth. This represents what is essentially the first breech in an area that holds 90% of the world's ice. Steady warming has the potential to raise ocean sea levels many feet.
Here's a link to the indispensable Climate Progress's pretty thorough wrap on global warming and green energy news that includes stories about how the World Bank has been talking about focusing its support on clean energy projects, the UK is negotiating a central role for business at the Cancun climate summit next week, hybrid tugboats, an organic farming system geared for homeowners, schools, restaurants and commercial growers, optimizing wind farms, China hitting their energy efficiency and pollution targets and at the cost of one Tim Horton's donut per month Ontario's solar PV industry will have created 72,000 person-years of jobs.

The people at Motor Trend take on the hate-mongering, drug addicted blowhard Limbaugh over his uninformed stance on the new Chevy Volt and remind him that driving and Oxycontin don't mix!

Some insight from Harold Meyerson about how Germany got it right on the economy and why theirs is the strongest in the world with a trade balance second only to China's.

 So, on to the overseas wars, and it is notable that the US is shrugging off Afghan anger at civilian killings. They're just being ungrateful and have no appreciation for the freedom the US and NATO forces are bringing them. The US denies the allegation of such killings, but admitted that they don’t both the investigate the vast majority of the complaints because they assume them to be “Taliban propaganda.” The commander of the Marines is the district says that the Taliban are to blame for “every single instance” of a civilian casualty in the district. In direct contradiction to such claims by the US, airstrikes are the single largest cause of civilian deaths by foreign and Afghan government forces during the first half of 2010, accounting for 31 percent, said the U.N..

US envoys are being forced to apologize in advance of the upcoming WikiLeaks document dump that promises to be an embarrassment to the US and the Pentagon is being described as "hyperventilating over being held to account" for its actions. According to the Independent, "Hillary Clinton and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public." A thought to which I have a one word response, Good!

Of course as always the US is claiming that the release will put lives in danger -- I think it'll put politicians careers in danger. The US's unending war efforts are what puts lives in danger. Shining a light on what they're up to is merely holding the accountable for their actions. Something there needs to be more of.

Okay, that's enough for one post! Will do my best to come back and post on right-wing American wankery which will no doubt be just as long a post.

The question now, as humanity pours greenhouse gases into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, is not whether Antarctica will begin to warm in earnest, but how rapidly.

War: What is it Good For?

Wednesdays down at the radio show once the Canadian headlines are all covered are now officially for the conflicts taking place around the globe so I ask you, who could resist using that title at least once? Certainly not me.



In Canada an anti-war ad made by the Federation des femmes du Quebec was edited to appease military parents who were upset that the ad referred to the soldiers as "cannon fodder." It looks like a free speech issue to me. The objecting parents have every right to be unhappy with the ad but it is within the rights of the anti-war protesters to say what they want say about how they feel about war and Canada's participation in the Afghan conflict. Cannon fodder or not, good Canadian kids have died for a war that serves who in Canada? What exactly does victory look like? Why are we still there? Seems as if these questions should be answered poste haste.

And the wars of occupation in the middle-east continue to go poorly -- civilian casualties it is being reported are soaring in Afghanistan (and NATO is lying about it) and the occupations and wars it only serve to feed terrorism around the globe studies prove. Glenn Greenwald writes, ...a new, comprehensive study from Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor and former Air Force lecturer, substantiates what is (a) already bleedingly obvious and (b) known to the U.S. Government for many years:  namely, that the prime cause of suicide bombings is not Hatred of Our Freedoms or Inherent Violence in Islamic Culture or a Desire for Worldwide Sharia Rule by Caliphate, but rather.  . . . foreign military occupations.

Those oft mentioned peace talks with the Taliban have no momentum and would seem to offer little hope for peace in the near future.

As for Iraq, Juan Cole argues that the real victor of the Iraq election, albeit 7 months later has been Iran.

Monst Important Story Of The Week (IMHO)

On Monday September the 27th, the Washington Post published the first of three excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book Obama's Wars. There was some notice but hardly any genuine consternation over what should be alarming to believers in representative democracy -- especially as it concerns our American cousins.

I have been openly critical of Obama's Afghanistan war strategy on my radio show. I saw it as a continuation of the previous administration's policies -- which is as damning a thing as I could think to say about it. After reading the excerpts I no longer feel that way but am far more worried about who really is in charge. Woodward reports of Obama's dilemma in his 'I am the tape recorder' fashion,

He was looking for choices that would limit U.S. involvement and provide a way out. His top three military advisers were unrelenting advocates for 40,000 more troops and an expanded mission that seemed to have no clear end.

"So what's my option? You have given me one option," Obama said, directly challenging the military leadership at the table, including Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, then head of U.S. Central Command.

"We were going to meet here today to talk about three options," Obama said sternly. "You agreed to go back and work those up."

The only real option offered him was a surge of 40,000 troops and the beginnings of a drawdown in 2016 from the war in Afghanistan -- everything else was a variation on those same ideas. Not what he wanted or asked for but it was where the military brass were steering him. Gaming him if you will. As he tells the brass that his lawyerly compromise of a 30,000 troop surge and a drawdown in 2011 is what they'll have to accept, there is a moment where he looks to call their bluff and just get out noting that would be the expedient thing to do politically,

"It'd be a lot easier for me to go out and give a speech saying, 'You know what? The American people are sick of this war, and we're going to put in 10,000 trainers because that's how we're going to get out of there.' "

It was apparent that a part of Obama wanted to give precisely that speech. He seemed to be road-testing it.

Sadly, Obama is swayed by Defense Secretary Gates and the people who seem to want a forever war and he opts for the compromise. He tries to define victory -- something few people have been able to do when discussing the afghan conflict calling for a plan that will deny safe haven to al Qaeda, to "degrade,” rather than defeat the Taliban insurgency as well as provide guidelines for building sufficient Afghan capacity to secure and govern their country. An approach that is not fully resourced counterinsurgency or nation building -- just a way out.

In reading this I was reminded of the Dwight Eisenhower farewell address he gave 50 years ago and the warning about the Military Industrial Complex, that came with it. His words have as much relevance today as they did then but clearly have not been heeded. There is an awful lot at stake here and cable news as well as the rest of the MSM are doing a poor job of explaining it. When the duly elected civilian head of state tells his generals he wants to see plans that will take them out of a bloody conflict that the people are tired of, he should get what it is he asks for. Anything else is unacceptable.

Compare and Contrast

Covering the very unsexy Afghanistan war today on my radio program I began by reporting what Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance said on Monday night on his return to Kandahar where he was in command.  “Although we’ve been in Afghanistan for a long time, and in the south since 2006, we really did not have the forces necessary to defeat the enemy using counterinsurgency tactics at the time.” But that's all changed now with Obama's surge in troops for Afghanistan and now the allies do have what’s needed for “enduring progress.”

  Did you get that? You see all this time we've had Canadian soldiers fighting and dying in a situation that they could not win so, unbeknownst to Canadians, they have essentially just been in a holding pattern all these years. But now, with the extra troops the Americans are providing to the southern battlefields, now victory is on the way!

It sure sounds like bunk after eight long years of Canadians doing their part on behalf of their American and NATO allies, but who am I to dispute the General's assertions? So let's hear what Robert Blackwill, who was Condolezza Rice's deputy as National Security Adviser in 2003 to 2004 has to say. The Telegraph reports that he will use a speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies think tank in London on Monday to call on President Obama to make drastic changes in the war's objectives. He believes the surge will likely fail and that, "The Taliban are winning, we are losing, They have high morale and want to continue the insurgency. Plan A is going to fail. We need a Plan B."

Indeed the do, as there are reportedly now 1,000 soldiers deployed for every one of the estimated 100 al Qaeda operatives now believed to be based in Afghanistan, and it's costing the US $100 billion dollars a year. Even General Petreus is reported as having said on ABC News that success over the insurgency could be another 9 or 10 years away. This presents us with the obvious question of, do any of the allies have the stomach to wage war in Afghanistan for that much longer and what exactly would a plan B look like?

As for Canada's part in all this, by 2011 at least $18 billion dollars of taxpayers money will have been sunk into the war ($1500 per person) and is the reason Canada has essentially abandoned  its' 50-year commitment to UN peacekeeping.  Some estimates of the total costs to Canadians by 2011, when the private costs to families and community of lost and injured soldiers are factored in, as being as high as $28 billion.

So, exactly why was General Vance trying to paint such a rosy picture? Who in hell believes him, and why doesn't the Canadian media challenge his assertions?

Intolerance Nightly

The planned burning of the Qurans to mark the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack has sparked outrage around the world -- here in Canada, Peter MacKay has stood up and rightly denounced it noting that this may put Canadian troops in Afghanistan in further danger. Terry Jones of the laughably named Dove World Outreach Center has said he doesn't care who's against it and that includes General David Petreus the Commander of the Nato Afghanistan forces who has said it could endanger the troops. Right-wing blogger and CNN (fox-lite) contributor Erick Erickson has said that General Petreus has "folded like a cheap suit" to violent Islamists in being against this hateful act of extremism. And the cowardly leadership of the GOP has remained silent on the issue not wanting to alienate any of their racist voters one guesses. Here's Keith Olbermann on the fiasco:

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This is one of those stories that I've been ignoring on my radio show until today. They're a relatively small group and I always like to explain the craziest of this stuff away by pointing out that these are extremists and out of the mainstream of current American politics... but they're really not that far out there compared to what is regularly broadcast nightly on fox and other MSM news outlets. Have a listen to some of the stuff as chronicled on Rachel Maddow's show:

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Earth Blues

And we're back! Seventeen minutes past the big hour and we've got lots of stories but rapidly running out of time here tonight.

Starting with a story that should be getting way more ink, Pakistani government officials admitted that they deliberately sabotaged secret peace talks between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban because they resented being excluded from those talks. And in some news from the middle-east that actually might be called good news, turns out the prospect of an alliance between the Iraqiya and Iraqi National Alliance (INA) blocs and the formation of a coalition government could be closer than anyone realized.

Sadly that's where the good news ends for Iraq, as the country has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life.  All brought about by the havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.



The right has the brothers David and Charles Koch, heirs to the oil and chemical conglomerate Koch Industries the Koch family to orchestrate not only the Tea Party movement, but much of the modern right-wing infrastructure. They have founded or funded dozens of conservative or libertarian publications, think tanks, and attack groups. Grass roots my ass! The New Yorker goes further in exposing the Koch brothers.

The Koch brothers delight in misleading and muddying the waters about the nature of climate change -- they are not alone in this endeavor and there are a myriad of ways to do so. To paraphrase a song I heard, you don't believe in climate change, you understand it or you don't. The above link from Skeptical Science, in an article entitled How Climate Skeptics Mislead, looks at some of things that help us understand climate change. The point to signs of warming that are found all over the globe:

•From space and the Earth’s surface, we see more heat being trapped by carbon dioxide

•Nights are warming faster than days
•The upper atmosphere is cooling while the lower atmosphere is warming
•Ice sheets are melting
•Sea levels are rising
•Biological changes in tens of thousands of species
•Glaciers are retreating
•Seasons are shifting
•Species are becoming extinct

Also from Skeptical Science, in an article about Arctic sea ice volume, they ask the question why do skeptics only think in two dimensions?

To close out on some troubling environmentally related stories, starting with a story from Julia Whitty over at Mother Jones, the IWC (International Whaling Commission) has granted Greenland an aboriginal quota to kill 27 humpback whales starting in October. But (maddeningly) the hunters aren't waiting for the season to start.

From Science Daily, A previously undefined expanse of the western North Atlantic has been found to contain high concentrations of plastic debris, comparable to those observed in the region of the Pacific commonly referred to as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

And from Nigeria, what happens when sweet crude turns sour.

Late Night Blogging

On Friday morning, the radio show featured a week's news about the war in Afghanistan. The link is from our sister site and it's pretty much a collection of links to  mostly alarming reports about course of the war for the NATO allies. For example, from the Washington Post: With most Afghan and NATO troops stationed in the country's south and east, villagers in the path of the Taliban advance into the once-peaceful north say they are powerless and terrified, confused by the government's inability to prevail -- and ready to side with the insurgents to save their own lives. Go read at the whole post and don't be surprised when the realization that in spite of all that you may have read previously, things are deteriorating for the NATO allies in the Afghanistan war.

In Pakistan, floods have not just devastated the lives of millions of people, they now present an unparalleled national security challenge for the country, the region and the international community. Lest anyone under-estimate the scale of the disaster, all four of Pakistan's wars with India combined did not cause such damage.

And there are a myriad of other problems that have been created: Millions of acres of crops have been destroyed and villages washed away. Joblessness and helplessness will lead to more young men joining the militants ...and the floods have not stopped the rampant violence in the country. The Pakistani Taliban continue to carry out suicide bombings and assassinations and have vowed to wipe out the Awami National Party which governs KP province. The Taliban are now threatening to prevent Pakistani non-governmental organisations from carrying out relief work.


There's also the scourge of water-borne diseases and the risk of an epidemic:

Afghan Army Not Quite Ready For Prime Time

In A bold move the Afghan army started an ambitious strike against the Taliban without the aid of the Nato forces. On August 3rd a force of 300 soldiers began the operation against the Taliban in Kunar province. According to a Afghan Ministry of Defence the plan was betrayed and the Taliban was able to ambush the Afghan army. In the insuing confusing army commoners lost contact with the battalion. The Taliban was able to inflict heavy damage before Nato forces could aid the besieged Afghans.

An old vid from some four years ago but it's always good to see a Democrat bashing Fox news. Heard there were lots of fancy canvas shelters at Chelsea's wedding, you know how Bill loves his tents.

Julian Assange As Daniel Ellsberg

The moment Julian Assange of WikiLeaks released the 92,000 plus reports that are a daily diary of the war in Afghanistan, it was inevitable that they would be compared with the Pentagon Papers. The Washington Post does a good job of sorting out the similarities and the differences noting on the one hand that, unlike the Pentagon Papers, there are no high-level documents here that raise basic questions about the credibility of Presidents Obama and George W. Bush and their top advisors. However just like the Pentagon Papers, the Wikileaks Afghanistan War Logs will (likely) fuel political opposition in the U.S. to American troops continuing combat operations in Afghanistan.

The Guardian describes the revelations as being, ...a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

This is one of the biggest leaks in US military history and make no mistake will have enormous consequences for the current White House who are rather clumsily trying to both downplay the information contained in the leaks and claim that they may affect "national security." Ever the lapdog, Harper's Minister of Defense, Lawrence Cannon makes the same claim. Jay Rosen takes apart their arguments in short order, describing them as the world's first stateless news organization:

•This leak will harm national security. (As if those words still had some kind of magical power, after all the abuse they have been party to.)



•There’s nothing new here. (Then how could the release harm national security?)


•Wikileaks is irresponsible; they didn’t even try to contact us! (Hold on: you’re hunting the guy down and you’re outraged that he didn’t contact you?)


•Wikileaks is against the war in Afghanistan; they’re not an objective news source. (So does that mean the documents they published are fake?)

•“The period of time covered in these documents… is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three month policy review and a change in strategy.” (Okay, so now we too know the basis for the President’s decision: and that’s a bad thing?)

The New York Times publishes some of the reports so as to give the reader a sense of what's in the more than 90,000 reports and describe the leaks as, ...a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year.

Glenn Greenwald wonders if the same Democrats who have said of the Daniel Ellsberg leak of the Pentagon Papers back in 1971 was heroic and necessary will follow the White House lead. He paints an ironic picture as the original Pentagon Papers exposed the amoral duplicity of a Democratic administration -- occurred when there was a Republican in the White House. This latest leak, by contrast, indicts a war which a Democratic President has embraced as his own, and documents similar manipulation of public opinion and suppression of the truth well into 2009.
 
Julian Assange's motives for doing this seem pretty clear from the following statement he made to Der Spiegel before publishing the Afghan logs, "They will change our perspective on not only the war in Afghanistan, but on all modern wars. This material shines light on the everyday brutality and squalor of war. The archive will change public opinion and it will change the opinion of people in positions of political and diplomatic influence."

These documents illustrate why the US military campaign in Afghanistan has achieved so little success. The release also focuses on Pakistan’s intelligence service, which has provides strategic support to the Taliban, helping it coordinate attacks against US troops and assassinate Afghani leaders. All the while claiming to be an ally of the US. Go listen to the NPR Q&A on what WikiLeaks is all about.
The toll on Afghan civilians is well documented and stands as one of the major failures of the Afghan war effort. It's hard to read all of this and not wonder exactly what is the point of all this war, bloodshed and destroyed lives? Stateless terrorists will always find a place to train and plot their terror. Even if the NATO allies could magically transform Afghanistan into a western style democracy there would be little if any decrease in terrorist activities - in fact the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have created more terrorists than existed after the World Trade Center bombings of  Sept11, 2001.

Sunday and I Should Be in the Park

Genuine pushback from David Axelrod the Obama admin on republican lies about the economy.



Six US soldiers get killed in Afghanistan.

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, taking corporate donations for her teaparty activities. Does that smell corrupt to you? Sure looks like influence peddling to me.

Some good news from the MSM - well, in reality the evidence was in a long time ago but you take good news where you get it - the New York Times acknowledges "climategate" was not a scandal after all.

In another bit of good environmental news, water and life are returning to Iraq's 'Garden of Eden.' Saddam Hussein's draining of the Mesopotamian marshes of Iraq – recorded as the Garden of Eden in the Bible - was one of the most infamous outrages of his regime, leaving a vast area of once-teeming river delta a dry, salt-encrusted desert, emptied of insects, birds and the people who lived on them.



But nearly two decades later the area is buzzing and twittering with life again after local people and a new breed of Iraqi conservationists have restored much of what was once the world's third largest wetland to some of its former glory.

Sadly, that mass of plastic garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean is still there - David de Rothschild set out on an ocean crossing aboard his recycled yacht to highlight pollution of Earth's waters and is shocked by what he found. In the Gulf of Mexico, grappling with a different and very real problem - dead zones.

Word that the Obama administration hasn't been as friendly to scientists as first hoped.

A look back at the legacy of the Rainbow Warrior - and some of Greenpeace's finer moments.

PZ Meyers over at Pharyngula is my new favourite blogger - go have a read of his take on the brain of the Christian conservative.

War Zone Weekend Round-Up

With more U.S. troops set to leave Iraq in August, leaving a mere 50,000 troops in country, the state of affairs seems to be progressing in a backwards fashion. Once there was an elected  government now not so much with many factions vying for power after an inconclusive election. Vice President Biden went to Iraq on friday to meet the parties involved and try and help reach a settlement (yell at them using his most favourite adjectives).

If you thought your city has bad water be thankful you don't live in Falluja Iraq. After six years of work and $104 million spent on rebuilding the city wide water treatment system in Falluja, the American reconstruction authorities has cancelled the operation with not one house being hooked up with water. In a rush to finish reconstruction projects before the troops leave (no troops, no protection for workers) they have to stop some or rush to finish others.

Meanwhile back on the opium plantation Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai has realeased a thousand Taliban prisoners (in hopes they will return home with news that they have seeing the light and convince everybody that they should just get along). General David Petraeus has taken over control of the 130,000 international force fighting in Afghanistan after the previous General Stanley McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of the Rolling Stone (lost out to Lady Gaga). A sober thought, Lt Col Paul James, British commanding officer in Sangin district feels Nato forces should stay for the next ten years.

Barrack and Stanley

It's been all over the media all day but I thought I should post today's top story: Obama replaces McChrystal with General Petreus. In short, he found a way to dump McChrystal, for his ridiculous statements to a Rolling Stone reporter, and thus avoid being called a wimp or milquetoast. He did it without upsetting his Afghan allies, and the lack of uproar from the right on this speaks to his canniness on dealing with the crisis. No doubt after a weekend of thinking it over the right will emerge with quibbles but you can put his handling of this in the victory column for Barrack.

Rachel walks us through all the complicated issues in play including the COIN strategy and whether or not Obama should use this crisis as an excuse to re-evaluate the war and its' goals. The point that this is, and has been of late, an unsexy war which mirrors what I've been saying for weeks.

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A Weekend's Roundup

Usually I like to intro any video I post but I thought this spoke rather eloquently for itself.

The disaster in the Gulf continues apace and as the news gets worse, word is Obama is going to address the nation on Tuesday and take concrete steps to make sure BP pays for what the have wrought. I can hear the caterwauling from the right already. One such whore in the thrall of bigoil spent last week trying to undermine EPA regulations. Murkowski (R Alaska) failed but still managed to get 47 votes.

The scariest thing is now that they've finally admitted the actual amounts of oil spilling daily into the Gulf from the blown well head, word comes that there may be other problems with the damaged well that may mean oil is leaking up from the sea floor. Evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer.

Ever mindful of bad publicity BP continues to block media access to damaged wetlands and beaches. They are also keeping the press away from Wildlife Rehab Centers. They are despicable and I hope Obama throws the kitchen sink at them!

Chevron feeling left out of bad publicity extravaganza decides to cover a few birds in oil. It is time to move away from dependence and addiction to oil - a reminder of exactly how difficult that will be.

News out of Afghanistan that maybe explains why everyone wants to stay and fight in a hopeless war, a place often characterized as the graveyard of empires: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan! In the meantime US intelligence is busy focusing on Afghan graft and corruption - Karzai and his brother-in-law are probably in trouble if that's true. And in Iraq things are fabulously still twirling, ever twirling towards freedom as five Iraqis, including 2 who were standing on their rooftop witnessing the arrival of US infantrymen, have lost their lives after their house was attacked by the troops!

The Pentagon have their priorities straight amidst all this though, they are busy hunting for Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder.

Tea party loses steam as crotchety members can't get along or agree on anything except wearing onions was once all the rage.

Lastly, the right wing media hacks in a never ending effort to prove their ignorance, find something new to hate: Soccer!

A Day's Roundup

Since everyone seems to give the overseas wars short shrift, I start there.

General McChrystal seems to be stalling for time so that coming offensive in Kandahar will be extra awesome - because war always is. An attack so brutish that the Taliban doesn't claim credit, but then they're murderous liars. Hamid Karzai has lost faith in US ability to defeat Taliban - turning to Pakistan. It's been a pretty bad month for Nato allies in Afghanistan and it's only 1/3 done.

Obama got his sanctions against Iran but no one actually believes they'll accomplish much.

On to the volcano of oil spewing into the Gulf, and the numbers are not good. The numbers have been revised upwards by the government and the uppermost estimates are frightening: 20 to 40 thousand barrels per day, and maybe even as high as 50 thousand, or 2.1 million gallons!

The right are trying to blame environmentalists for the oil spill - their fault for being right about the risks of off-shore drilling. John Boehner, minority House leader suggesting taxpayers should pay for the oil spill cleanup. BP still denying the existence of large oil plumes underneath the ocean waters. Aaaaand they couldn't be bothered to attend hearings on the oil disaster.

A couple of articles on how Dick Cheney and GWB jr. helped create a culture of corruption and deregulation that led to the BP disaster. Obama and his administration, especially Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, deserve to shoulder their fair share of the blame while we're doling it out. There really is no excuse for not doing more to change the culture and dynamics at the MMS.

The last five months have easily been the warmest on record. The Obama administration have been complacent about acting on global warming issues too.