The BP Settlement Has Miles To Go Before It's Done

Accord Reached Settling Lawsuit Over BP Oil Spill - NYTimes.com: "David M. Uhlmann, who headed the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section from 2000 to 2007, said, “The plaintiffs’ steering committee really needs to reach a settlement with BP” because otherwise it could face years of litigation and might obtain less at trial than it could receive in a settlement.

At the same time, said Mr. Uhlmann, now a professor at the University of Michigan law school, said, “BP really needs to reach a settlement with the government” which could extract many more billions from the company in civil and criminal proceedings. Moreover, he said, the company would like to avoid the embarrassment of having its mistakes paraded in open court."

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Rising Market Cautious President

Rising Market Debunks Republican Myth (Again) | National Memo | Breaking News, Smart Politics: "What the president might consider explaining is that the latest market surge (and its rise over recent months) are unsurprising to anyone familiar with America’s financial history. The rule that stretches back over the past century is clear: Stocks rise under Democrats and decline under Republicans. And that simple statistic is matched by a broad set of economic data that follow the same partisan vector. Republicans have often succeeded in persuading voters that their party is “good for the economy” – a persistent myth that the president ought to debunk."

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Still, he has alluded to the market rise.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

The key to smarter construction in the future

The key to smarter construction in the future is building  a matrix that can hold any number of modular elementsThe matrix would be the conductor of water energy and waste for the entire complex of spaces that it holdsSpaces held within the matrix would be made of mass-produced smart surfacesWhat we call walls and floors and ceilings and roofsThese surfaces would be thinner than walls but vastly smarterSoundproof fireproof collapsible and movable with easeFuture communities would combine work play and residenceBe large enough to enable viable businesses to sproutAnd with their matrix be largely eco-sufficientWhen designers and architects wake to this positive evolutionWe will see that with this understanding a thousand flowers can bloom
Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

What of infatuation? Is that love?

Abba's Way: 47 On Child and Marriage:

A bond to win protection from the state.

Should love abate, the state divides the spoils.

Prenuptials define how deep love runs.

What of infatuation? Is that love?

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

How Clean Is The Gulf?

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names: "Three vanishing acts are being played out in the Gulf: the disappearing of the oil from the ocean surface by Corexit, the disappearing of the story by the media blockade, and the disappearing from view of the shadowy private contractors who are making a mint helping BP and the Coast Guard keep a cover on the clean-up. This triple vanishing trick, collectively choreographed by BP and sundry federal agencies, culminated on August 4th in a report released by NOAA that claimed 75% of the oil spill had been captured, burned, evaporated or broken down. The White House hailed the report as something to celebrate. Energy advisor Carol Browne announced: "the vast majority of the oil is gone.""

This documents the big lie we've been told not only by our media but by our government. This complicity is very sad.

The American Dream Is Not More Sprawl

We can't afford: Relying on more oil, the cost of wars, having a car or cars to get where we need to go, the costs of education in a tenure-overladen system, the house that is so set apart that you need a car or cars just to function.

We need: A serious look at alternatives to societies that rely on cars, on eating up land for housing farther and farther from places of work and are finally wed to the vagaries of oil politics.

For more please read the following.

Imagined Human Settlements 1. Car Free, Multiple Use, Three Level

Look To The Court for The Stupidity We Now Confront

Loose Border of ‘Super PAC’ and Romney Campaign - NYTimes.com: "While insisting that the tangle of connections does not violate any laws, Alexander Gage, TargetPoint’s founder, said he understood how it could look “ridiculous.” His own firm had taken steps, he said, to prevent improprieties, including erecting “a fire wall” separating employees who work for the Romney campaign and the super PAC."

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Stories about Super PACs should always show a clip of  Samuel Alito mouthing NO to the President when Mr. Obama correctly noted that the Court had opened the floodgates to wealth-dominated campaigns. They should add a link to Stephen Colbert's reduction of this strategy to absurdity. And they should observe that there is only one way to bring an end to the travesty of today's attack on the voter. It is called electing Obama in 2012 and getting us a new Court. This would be appropriate action which would address the avalanche of nay-saying on all sides. We are not deteriorating as a nation. If we are an empire that failed, so much the better. We were not meant to be an empire. Just a democracy experimenting with the limits of freedom. One way to act is to circulate good sense. Tweet this.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

But if there is war in the Middle East

If there is war in the Middle East

Let it be to quell dictatorship

To stop genocide and the utter disregard of human rights

And let it be the measured action of neighbor states

With the support of all nations who embrace democracy

And let it be a word to Russia and China that their leadership in the world

Is marginalized by their unwillingness

To stand firmly with those neighbor states

Should they be forced to act

I speak mainly of Syria

But also of possible action to keep the Strait of Hormuz open

This signals the end of Iran as we know it and for this reason may not happen

If it does we are at a new ground zero

And the measured care which we take to cleave to the value democracy

And not to the hawkish rhetoric of those who serve big oil

That measured action will spell the difference between something admirable and progressive against forces that would hurt the world

And yet another futile effort to strong-arm the world to control its resources

This is the century of global democratic revolution
Let that be what we stand for and bring about everythere

See also:

ShortFormContent at Blogger: How about no war in Iran:

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Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

The True Pain at The Pump

Pain at the pump is no mystery - Chicago Breaking News: "The price of gas 'makes me sick,' said Geraldine Stiles, 33, of Chicago's Portage Park neighborhood."

Pain at the pump is addiction to sprawl

Pain at the pump is choosing commuting as a lifestyle

Pain at the pump is not being willing to use public transportation

Pain at the pump is everything we do to help oil companies with huge tax breaks

Pain at the pump- is preferring crowded expressways to creating car-free communities zoned for everything that makes life worthwhile

Pain at the pump is our pain for not dealing with these realities

Jesus did away with the devil (aka Satan) in Mark

Time for me to put on my theological threads so idiots like Santorum will have to deal with the actual Biblical textI don't have any theological threadsBut I am familiar with the gospel of MarkThe earliest and most authoritative text when it comes to Satan
Jesus explains in Mark the circumstances in which Satan is at an endIt is so contrary to Santorum and the stance of the GOP that it almost seems  written to show them upJesus says a house divided cannot standWhen the division ends Satan is done
Jesus was in the business of defeating SatanWhether you, wrongly, take this literallyOr, rightly, take it as truth that has to do with the psyche of humankindThe verdict is that long ago the excuse of blaming Satan for human fallibility was removed from the tableIt was removed by JesusJesus brought responsibility to the table and we have rejected it ever since
It takes an ignorant public and a woefully theologically-deprived churchto give credence to the notion of Satan today
Do I hear an Amen .... anywhere? 
THE TEXT IN MARK
[23] And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?

[24] And if a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

[25] And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.

[26] And if Satan rise up against himself, and be divided, he cannot stand, but hath an end.

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Romney Will Probably Win Michigan

Bailout Stand Trails Romney in Car Country - NYTimes.com:

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Romney will probably win Michigan
The polls are close enough to say he can
No one will doubt that he's for oil and cars

Santorum lost  folk saw his second side
And people want the contest to go on
Only the party says that's suicide

Updated 2/24/2012

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

Reform Congress before it does us in

Oil Spill Outrage: How Congress Deprived Cash From Prevention and Clean-Up Program - The Daily Beast: "a law enacted after the Exxon Valdez to avoid future oil spills was deprived of cash by lawmakers.

Reform Congress before it does us in
Both parties share in egregious sin
Now their infighting nothing will win
Let a huge national chorus begin

Some Day We'll Make The Leap We Need

Fire boat response crews - Yahoo! News Photos: "Fire boat response crews battle the blazing remnants of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig at the site of the gulf oil spill off Louisiana in this April... Read more »"

The initial shock of the BP oil spill is now a memory but these pictures bring it starkly into focus. These pictures should raise questions for now and the future.

But the world is still hell bent on oil and cars and superhighways and sprawl and all of the things that these pictures tell us are long term lethal, whether we think of the children killed by vehicles, the wars fought for oil dominance or the current rush in China to become another automotive state with sixty mile traffic jams.

We need experiments to get us out of the mess we are in.

We need a new economy based on the remaking of our society using a holistic model where we can walk to everything and everything we need for living is within a walk.

Such experiments should be the province of both governments and entrepreneurs and should let a thousand flowers of imagining bloom. Until we make the leap we need.

Obama's Narrow Way To Salvation

Jesus said the way is narrow that leads us to life
The President must thread a needle with the thinnest eye
On one side a politics that's based on lies and strife
But on the other truth that hurts that time will not deny

The truth that hurts is a world beyond the economy of cars and oil
A world beyond the affording of a military industrial machine
A truth that says society must be rebuilt completely
And that what we really cannot afford is
Poverty
Miseducation
Abuse
Bullying
False imprisonment
Intolerance
Autocracy
Plutocracy
Obfuscation
Greed
and
Rampant Idolatry

Cut rate solar energy

Can The Cost of Solar Energy Be Cut in Half? Sure. That is the assumption of the gentleman to whom this post happily points. What you will find is a somewhat technical look at his inventive solar process.

Shooting for the Sun - Magazine - The Atlantic: ""There's a lot of debate in Washington about carbon emissions and energy," Paul Werbos says—"about coal, nuclear power, and oil, what I call the three horsemen of the apocalypse. If we can cut the cost of solar energy in half, it becomes possible to escape from the three horsemen. The importance of this is just unbelievable.""

If Lonnie's goal were achieved, Al Gore might smile and Sarah Palin might be a little less beholden to the billionaires behind drill, drill drill.

The future is me and my audience

The future is me and my audience

The royalties I earn will grow

We'll all end up creators and craftsfolk

By sharing what we come to know 

If You Want An Object Lesson - HT @GalleyCat

Barry Eisler Walks Away From $500,000 Deal to Self-Pub' - eBookNewser "Publishers have naturally conflated the specifics of their business model with the generalities of the industry they're in. As you say, they're not in the business of delivering books by paper-they're in the business of delivering books. And if someone can do the latter faster and cheaper than they can, they're in trouble." 

via' Barry Eisler Walks Away From $500,000 Deal to Self-Pub' - eBookNewser.

Beyond green there's no oil no cars

Beyond green there's no oil no cars
Beyond green we have thought our way ahead
Beyond green we have moved to God's free gifts
And built our future around them instead

China and the rest of us are building death into our so-called solutions. This is global triage.

China was still producing more "traditional pollutants" than it could bear, but new industries were also creating torrents of dangerous chemicals and mountains of electronic waste, said Zhang Lijun, vice minister of environmental protection.

via China says environment still suffering growth pains - Laws & Regulations - Ecoseed Information Network.

Drones all over us - waiting for the first mega-accident

Drones With an Eye on the Public Cleared to Fly - NYTimes.com: "But while businesses, and drone manufacturers especially, are celebrating the opening of the skies to these unmanned aerial vehicles, the law raises new worries about how much detail the drones will capture about lives down below — and what will be done with that information. Safety concerns like midair collisions and property damage on the ground are also an issue.

American courts have generally permitted surveillance of private property from public airspace. But scholars of privacy law expect that the likely proliferation of drones will force Americans to re-examine how much surveillance they are comfortable with."

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I can't wait to watch the GOP wrestle with this one. Private enterprise. Invasion of privacy. Mega safety concerns. Ironical if the drone photographed Issa on his own turf. This is an invitation to mayhem you won't believe. I can just see the video - Revenge Drone!!!!

Charles Sanders Peirce - Thinking in Threes

I see the whole world burning

I see the whole world burning

Because we couldn't make the turn

All the time the prophets crying

We won't live if we don't learn

The GOP will cast high gas prices as a Carter reprise and try to crucify the President

The President must finally speak of a life beyond oil

A life beyond sprawl

A life beyond the economy of today

The other way lies the earthly flames of hell

The global warming revolution from pole to pole and sea to sea

The global warming revolution from pole to pole and sea to sea
Steals up on us as we drive our cars but still and all we don't quite see
The global warming we deny
Might help set most of this world free

Yes ladies and gentlemen there is this matter of irony in history first discovered by Reinhold Niebuhr and substantiated by Jon Stewart and Tina Fay

For More On How The Oil Company's Diligence Is Abetting Revolution , Read On:

"Unfortunately, this could be just a taste of things to come because in the next few decades the build-up of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere could greatly increase the risk of droughts, flooding, pest infestation and water scarcity for agriculture systems already under tremendous stress," he added. World food prices hit a record high last month, according to the United Nations. High food prices are adding to poverty and are a factor in triggering uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt which have spread across the Arab world. via High food prices a foretaste of climate shocks - Environment - IOL | Breaking News | South Africa News | World News | Sport | Business | Entertainment | IOL.co.za.