The Gulf Coast Is a Giant Dead Zone

The Gulf Coast Is a Giant Dead Zone

...and it's not for the obvious reason you are thinking. It's not because BP is flowing millions of barrels of oil into it daily, but it's because of a simple thing we grow on farms. Corn. Corn is the culprit behind it all.

The Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone is among the world's largest—and corn is one of the culprits
by Chris Kromm

For the hundreds of thousands of people in the Gulf of Mexico who depend on commercial and sport fishing, directly and indirectly, the assault on sea life from the BP oil disaster has been a serious blow. But it's hardly unfamiliar.

That's because even before the spill, up to 8,000 square miles of gulf waters would turn every year into dead zones—vast areas of the coast so depleted of oxygen that shrimp, crabs and other marine animals could no longer live.

Now scientists fear the BP spill will make a bad situation worse. Despite blithe predictions that the gulf fishing industry will bounce back like Alaska's after the Exxon Valdez disaster, the already-expanding Gulf Dead Zone presents a uniquely dangerous scenario that many fear poses a long-term threat to ocean life.

First noted by scientists in the 1960s, dead zones are formed when huge amounts of nutrients—such as those found in agricultural fertilizers, municipal sewage and other wastes—overload the water, leading to explosive algae growth that ultimately robs oxygen from marine life below.

A 2008 study found more than 400 dead zones around the world, and the Gulf of Mexico's is one of the largest. Snaking along the Louisiana and Texas coasts, the expanding Gulf Dead Zone has drastically reduced seafood stocks and pushed fishers further out to sea.

The primary culprit? Nitrate-laced runoff from agricultural operations along the Mississippi River, which eventually drain into gulf waters. One study found that 51 percent of the Mississippi's nitrogen load was from commercial fertilizer, with livestock manure, human sewage and runoff from other crops contributing to the mix.

Fall weather brings cooling air and churning waters that dampen algae growth, but scientists are now seeing a "legacy" effect where lingering decomposed organic matter continues to steal away oxygen. This means that even if nitrate levels hold steady or decline, past pollution can still cause dead zones to expand in the future.

Now add the BP disaster. Gushing oil is the most immediate threat to marine life, but scientists see another looming danger: methane, which BP itself has estimated constitutes 40 percent of what's flooding out of the Deepwater Horizon drill site.

Last week, John Kessler of Texas A&M University measured methane levels at 35 different locations near and far from the BP disaster, and he found levels of methane in deep ocean waters near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are 10,000 to 100,000 times higher than normal, and in some very hot spots, Kessler said, "we saw them approaching 1 million times above what would be normal."

What's wrong with methane? Like nitrates, it stimulates the growth of shallow-water life—in this case, feeding microbes—that sucks up ocean oxygen and kills off deeper-water animals like seabed shellfish. In some places, Kessler's team found "depletions [of oxygen] up to 30 percent."

While BP's spilled oil has already killed much marine life, a growing threat to the health of gulf waters comes from another energy source further up the Mississippi River: ethanol.

Most U.S. ethanol comes from corn; in fact, ethanol accounts for more than a third of U.S. corn production. And corn is one of the worst crops when it comes to dead zone-causing pollution runoff, because it depends on higher concentrations of nitrates to grow.

That problem will only grow worse as the U.S. ramps up production of ethanol fuel. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 set a goal of the U.S. using 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, including 15 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol—triple the current amount. President Obama affirmed the country's commitment to ethanol in a directive last year.

The result would be "a disaster for the Gulf of Mexico," says Simon Donner, a geographer at the University of British Columbia. A study that Donner wrote along with scientist Chris Kucharik, which was published by the National Academy of Sciences on March 18, 2008, showed that:

"[S]caling up corn production to meet the 15-billion-gallon goal would increase nitrogen loading in the Dead Zone by 10-18 percent. This would boost nitrogen levels to twice the level recommended by the Mississippi Basin/Gulf of Mexico Water Nutrient Task Force, a coalition of federal, state, and tribal agencies that has monitored the Dead Zone since 1997. The task force says a 30 percent reduction of nitrogen runoff is needed if the Dead Zone is to shrink."

Groups like the American Farmland Trust are pushing for solutions: Their Best Management Practices contest pays farmers to reduce fertilizer use and therefore nitrate runoff. But these are still small-scale answers to a national problem that demands a federal response.

Until Washington comes up with a plan to address the growing Gulf Dead Zones, thousands of square miles of ocean waters—and the thousands of families who depend on them for a living—face a grim future, long after news headlines of the BP disaster fade away.

Yes, you should all be thanking BP as they are truly international heroes for bringing attention to the grossly unsustainable farming practices that most countries engage in, which have already doomed much of the ocean. Their spill? Won't kill very much because everything that lived in the gulf was already dead.

Ha! How do you like that for irony. Though, if their spill actually causes a deathly toxic death fart that kills all humanity, that's another story. But you could read more about that in another blog post of mine.



Biomass is terrible for biofuels. Why aren't there any decent lipid producing algaes yet? Oh right, yeah. Because the only place which does any scientific research for the US government is NASA. Then there's always all the university pharmaceutical research that the US government pays for.

Guess what Vegans: getting rid of meat won't do anything about this. Corn, soy, and human waste are causing most of the damage. While I'm going to go all rage against the machine against corn in a bit, it should be worth noting that if we stop growing so much corn and soy, human waste will always be an issue due to the size of the human populations. So I guess the only real solution here is to kill your self.



Yes, getting rid of mass beef would mean you don't have to feed them mass amounts of corn, but the only reason there is so much corn in the gulf is because of massive government subsidies for great plains agriculture in the first place. That's all thanks to capitalism at work.

You see government subsidies that were demanded by big agriculture, which would exist in those states even without the subsidies and the tariffs that give them preference. --The Omnivores Dillemma

Government farm programs, once designed to limit production and support prices (and therefore farmers), were quietly rejiggered to increase production and drive down prices. Put another way, instead of supporting farmers, during the Nixon administration the government began supporting corn at the expense of farmers. Corn, already the recipient of a biological subsidy in the form of synthetic nitrogen, would now receive an economic subsidy too, ensuring its final triumph over the land and the food system.

These such subsidies were started as part of the new deal. The subsidies encourage farmers to put far more land under corn than would be possible without ongoing, massive government support. Midwestern farmers are pretty much the most "socialized" sector of the American economy and even then, it's just part of capitalism's welfare. So please, don't mistake it with anything but a byproduct of capitalism at work.

They're Taking ARE Jobs!

They're Taking ARE Jobs!

We're a little past the 4th and we're all done blowing up our hands in a blaze of glory celebrating the good ol' red, white and blue. So let's focus on them damn illegals again! This time, it's all about getting non-illegals to actually work for shit pay.. I have no idea what the hell the concept of this is, but it's a fantastic thing..

TAKE OUR JOBS

There are two issues facing our nation--high unemployment and undocumented people in the workforce--that many Americans believe are related.

Missing from the debate on both issues is an honest recognition that the food we all eat - at home, in restaurants and workplace cafeterias (including those in the Capitol) - comes to us from the labor of undocumented farm workers.

Agriculture in the United States is dependent on an immigrant workforce. Three-quarters of all crop workers working in American agriculture were born outside the United States. According to government statistics, since the late 1990s, at least 50% of the crop workers have not been authorized to work legally in the United States.

We are a nation in denial about our food supply. As a result the UFW has initiated the "Take Our Jobs" campaign.

Farm workers are ready to train citizens and legal residents who wish to replace them in the field, we will use our knowledge and staff to help connect the unemployed with farm employers. Just fill out the form to the right and continue on to the request for job application.

Bu-bu-but my business model doesn't work if I have to pay my laborers a living wage!
-Every American Employer

Clear proof that American agriculture needs more subsidies. Even then, while I don't have the link I do remember reading somewhere that even if you double the wage of a certain kind of agricultural worker (maybe strawberries?) it would only raise the price in to the consumer by a few cents.

Used to be they could just pay something called farm wages that were officially allowed to be like 10% of minimum wage. Oh how times have changed. I'm sure that everyone now a days is just thrilled about being bussed out to a field to detassle corn for $2 an hour 15 hours a day... Yes sir, that's gonna wor- Oh, what's that? It's not? Yeah. Pretty much. I know people who would turn to a life of crime to pay rent before they ever consider detassling corn.

If you like your arugula trucked in from California to be fresh, then some sacrifices are going to have to be made. And while the idea that Farmers are the heart and soul of America seems to be tossed around a lot, it's not being backed up by anything. Especially when they have to depend on subsidized income to stay afloat.

Maybe they should just pay the farmers a huge amount to grow a tiny crop like they do in Japan. Farmers make more than doctors and everyone can enjoy the taste of white rice. Though with our farm fishing dependency, I really wouldn't want to try the worm infested sushi we produce. Maybe we should attempt to keep illegal immigrants away from the workforce, ideally by the means of fully legalizing immigrants.

Do you even realize how much farm equipment of any kind costs these days? I realize that physical labor is strictly a theoretical concept to the average person, but try to imagine how it would be more desirable to employ dozens of undocumented Mexicans at $2 an hour rather than invest in John Deere shit that runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let's face reality. They're not going to take those jobs unless they start paying a living wage. That's why they exploit the Mexican immigrants. To them it's more money than they've seen their entire life and it's a quick way to make money to send back home.

The last time I talked to someone about all this, the first thing I heard was "Yeah, how are they going to be able to afford to pay min. wage and the new health care requirements?" To which I replied "Farm work is generally legally exempt from both." Then they just called me a socialist and went about their way.

Then there's always those smart farmers who take advantage of those gullible people. You know the places "Pick your own berries" type of places. Ha, yes. There's a cherry farm near me and they do a tourist thing where you can pay them to pick your own cherries alongside day laborers. Don't white people do the darnedest things?

There was a documentary on the other night about the American working poor and they had a dude who literally sleeps on the street, goes to the gym at 5, work at 7 and then back to sleeping on the street at 5pm. America - what a country.

You ever wonder why salads cost so much? Well, here's a chart.



But still, the obesity epidemic in America is directly related to food subsidies, which is cool because even more tax dollars go to treating the resulting chronic diseases like diabetes and congestive heart failure through medicare and medicaid.

Maybe the answer is just to go full tilt here. Let's subsidize more grains, stop growing any fruits or vegetables. Replace all fruits and veggies with artificial flavoring for our high fructose corn syrup.

This is why I make it a habit to buy produce from old guys sitting besides the road with trucks full of produce. Better stuff, locally produced and you're eliminating the middleman. Sure, they have some sort of pimp making sure they sell the produce, but you gotta pick your pimp's. One's named Jorge and the other, you have a club card for and his name is Ralph's. It also encourages people to grow diversified crops in a 100 mile radius.

Nothing But A Heat Wave!

Nothing But A Heat Wave!

While I'm sure you would think that I was talking about the recent heat wave we've been having in SoCal, I'm not. No, this Heat Wave is a new non-lethal weapon that is being tested in Afghanistan. Yes, a Heat Ray is going to help win the war in Afghanistan.

A newly-developed heat-ray gun that burns the skin but doesn't cause permanent injury is now with US troops in Afghanistan. The Active Denial System (ADS) is a non-lethal weapon designed to disperse violent crowds and repel enemies. It uses a focused invisible beam that causes an "intolerable heating sensation", but only penetrates the skin to the equivalent of three sheets of paper.

The discomfort causes whoever it's pointed at to immediately start moving away. They often scream but the US military says the chance of injury from the system is 0.1%. It's already been tested more than 11,000 times on around 700 volunteers. Even reporters have faced the heat-ray.

Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a US military spokesperson, says the kit is now in Afghanistan but no decision has yet been made on its use. There's been much talk about the need to keep civilian casualties in Afghanistan to a minimum. The heat-ray gun could help.

The beam produced by the ADS can travel more than 500m (1,640ft) and is seen as an important new way to limit unnecessary deaths and minimise war zone casualties. Developers also say it could also be adapted to other operations, like fighting drug smuggling at sea and general peacekeeping operations. Research is continuing to make the system smaller, lighter and less expensive, says the Pentagon's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program.

It's Like A HEAT WAVE, Burning Up My Skin!

Raytheon is two years into a four-year, $40 million development contract, Karcher said. How soon the weapon is deployed will depend on the military's interest, and while the technology may be ready, troops must also be trained on it and engagement rules must be decided by a four-star general, he said.

Heal said the military version would cost about $1 million, and the U.S. military could require many. Karcher said the first prototype cost about $10 million.

It's pretty clear, living in America is awesome. It's like Star Trek without the socialism or humanity. I guess the old saying is true; If you can't take the heat stay out of the Kandahar. We're living in the science fiction dystopias we read about as children.

This thing will make your average elderly 60 minutes correspondents flee from 100 yards! Just look at it in action!



Ha! Did you see that shit? They tested it on "unruly mobs" with "no more war" and "peace not war" signs. They aren't even trying to disguise that dissent is officially seen as treason by the army. Well, in America anyway.

Though I guess anti-war protesters are more of an existential threat to the military than every terrorist in the world put together. Terrorist might kill individual soldiers, but protesters might alter public opinion and cause someone to cut funding. Then how are they going to afford those fancy long range microwave ovens?

Either way, that clip should also highlight on how the History channel is total shit

How can you face angry protesters and think to yourself - Hmm, perhaps we should develop a million dollar ray gun to zap them instead of considering the legitimacy of their indignation? And we wonder why people hate us.

Then again, we could always burn them until they love us.



It's said that this will minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan. Know what else would minimize civilian casualties in Afghanistan? The US leaving it. It's a fucking microwave designed to boil the water under you skin.

I wonder how long it will be until they start using this to keep teenagers from loitering in front of the mall. I'm sure I can't wait to see this deployed and in action at the next g8 summit. When will this be used to interrogate your standard hajji as they're tied to a chair for hours.

I guess the key features of this is it's effective even on "individuals with a surplus of melanin" if you get what I'm saying. Maybe it will be easy to counter this. You could always just carry panels of whatever the antenna is made out of and reflect that shit back. Reversal of fortune is a beyatch!

And for those of you who think you can use tin foil to counter the rays and protect yourself, have you ever put any kind of conductive material inside a microwave oven? If this thing hits a solid metal object. it will arc and create plasma. Hint: That is not a good thing. It's sort of like those sleeves for hot pockets and little paper trays for microwave pizzas. They heat up somewhat and add some browning to the food.



The cheap Do it yourself way to shield against this is to either cover yourself in vegetation or get some of the anti-WiFi paint they have now and cover your clothes and shielding with it. The paint works up to 100GHz but sadly isn't for sale.

You could make it easily by getting some regular paint and mixing in a bunch of metal oxide dust into it. One other thing that could possibly save you from a non-genital burning sensation is a special primer used in welding applications which contains a high percentage of metallic aluminum.

There's a lot of ways to bypass heat waves to get to your skin, this is why there's always the taser to fall back on. You can't forget that poster child of the non-lethal world. You can't overlook it when it's in the form of a god damn shot gun..



Now that scares the hell out of me more than being cooked alive or having my eardrums burst. Then again, have you've ever heard of an officer hitting a target 70 feet away on the first try? I wonder how many people will get hit with a random shocking shotgun shell?

Back to the heat wave of doom - When you think about it, it's ineffective for the peeps on Jersey Shore. To them this sounds like a bad ass way to speed tan, this thing would probably bronze you up in like 10 seconds. No more outrageous fees at the tanning salon or ruining a good club shirt with orange dye. All you gotta do is start a riot!

It's only a matter of time before some G.I. in Afghanistan uses this thing to vape some bomb-ass opium. You know it's going to happen.

Other uses would be to make a wicked sick grilled cheese. You know it's going to taste good when a $10 million dollar oven is used to make it. What would really be cool is if this thing caused the metallic strips in dollar bills to spontaneous combusted immediately upon exposure.

Next time I'm at a riot I'm going to carry buttered potatoes in my pockets. Or maybe popcorn kernels stuffed under my shirt so the cops will be like, "oh shit, the radiation! He's hulking out!"

There's like a million different funny things you can do at a riot these days. Humor is a very powerful weapon. Though not as powerful as the water in your skin boiling.

Polls Show Americans Don't Know What A Socialist Is

Polls Show Americans Don't Know What A Socialist Is

Not sure how else to explain it. Other than people just consider being for socialism something of evil intent. What are we, in the cold war? Either way, 55% of Voters believe Obama is a socialist.

Poll: 55% Of Likely Voters Think Obama's A Socialist

Have months of Fox News hyperventilating and right-wing fear mongering over our supposed socialist-in-chief finally paid off? A majority of voters now think President Barack Obama is a socialist, at least according to one new poll.

The poll (PDF) from Democracy Corps finds that 55 percent of likely voters believe that the word "socialist" describes the president either "well" or "very well."

Peyton Craighill, a senior associate at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, a firm that does polling for Democracy Corps, attributed the surprising number to voters' impatience with the lagging economy.

"It probably has to do with the fact that people are very unhappy with the dire economy and the fact that the budget deficit is quite large," Craighill said. "People who don't like the man are going to use any label they can to ding him, even if they don't think he's a socialist in the vein of the Soviet Union or China."

June's poll was the first Democracy Corps survey to ask respondents if they consider the President to be a socialist, but Craighill said the monthly poll will continue to ask the question in the future. "It's something we want to track on future reporting for how this might relate to the Tea Party movement," he said. Craighill expects Democracy Corps to publish a report specific to the Tea Party movement in a few weeks.

The poll was conducted June 19-22. It surveyed 1,001 adults who voted in 2008, including 867 adults likely to vote in 2010 and 134 "drop-off" voters, defined as 2008 voters less likely to vote in 2010. Its margin of error is ±3.0.

This right here. This is America. George Carlin once said "Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that." That saying is so true. But I guess I can't really fault the person themselves for being woefully ignorant. 98% of undergrad political science students don't even know what socialism is.

Somehow I want to blame public education, is that ironic or what?

So 55% of likely voters are fucking idiots. Perhaps the only proof most people need towards him being a Socialist is that he doesn't advocate abolishing Socialism Security. But this is the message that America has been bombarded with for the last two years, so I guess eventually Fox news will make you believe their lies.

This poll essentially showed us proof that 98% of Americans don't know what the fuck socialism actually is. And no, it's not what ARE TROOPS died in WW2, Korea, and Vietnam to protect us against.

It really is the perfect rhetorical assault on corporatists, because if you explain what socialism actually is it might sound like a good idea.

I don't know about you, but I find it completely hilarious that when you ask a typical liberal about Bush, you'll hear endlessly about how he's stupid, incompetent, and looks like a monkey. The fact that he deliberately looted the government will be mentioned only in passing. Maybe it's because TV pundits will openly talk about his incompetence but not his corruption. Or maybe it's because people would rather believe the president incompetent than evil.

Wait, no. Only democrats would rather believe this. Republicans are quite willing to call Obama evil.

"He's a bad president, therefore he's SOCIALIST!" - Americans

I wish Obama was a socialist. Besides, wouldn't being socialist instead of another milquetoast 'moderate' make him a better president? But that's if he was socialist. As we all know, socialism involves letting private corporations do whatever the hell they want without any regulations, as was the case with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

But hey, what do I know. The majority clearly knows what socialism is. I wonder how many farm owners getting corn subsides complain about his socialist practice. Though those aren't socialist practices either but considering how they're lumping everything of Welfare into Socialism, they should. Please don't confuse socialism and welfare.

Welfare is the state redistribution of funds toward necessary public expenses (education, food stamps, health care, unemployment insurances, etc.)

Socialism is the worker/state ownership and control of the means of production.


Corn subsidies are the largest example of welfare. NOT socialism. Those EBT cards you see minorities use at the market for milk and cheese are NOT socialist programs. They are simply welfare. And even then, I guess the real term to use would be wealth redistribution, which it actually is. This isn't a bad thing in a capitalist society anyway. It's just not socialism, which would be a better thing.

The Postal service is another one tossed around by crazy conservatives. I guess you can say the military is run by the soldiers who are kind of like workers, and control the means of production... which is death. I guess the government buying GM could potentially be mistakenly pinned to socialism, but no. still not a winner.

At the current moment, there is no examples of socialism in the United States. You teabaggers really need to fight another cause or find another word to use. Obama is not a socialist. I wish he was. But he's not.

We sure wouldn't want to confuse anybody into liking socialism.


Though there's many who would say that what I'm saying here is just nonsense. "Control of the means of production" is to them, meaningless sloganeering, Socialism is not worker's control, it is the end of recognition of all property norms. A rejection of the concept of value, and not a restructuring of who controls the means of production, but a programmed production system where goods are produced for their usefulness and not for exchange.

But hey, I guess the co-op I'm talking about is just a more acceptable socialism example that could appeal to the petit-bourgeois inside all of us.

So there you go. Now I don't want to see you tea baggers with your stupid signs saying Obama is a Socialist. And if you believe Hitler actually was running off of National Socialism, you should go fuck yourself.

Goldman Sachs $550 Million Slap On The Wrist

Goldman Sachs $550 Million Slap On The Wrist

You see that? YOU SEE THAT?! The biggest damn fine levied against a business. Boooyah! It's time to pay the piper, oh yes...

Goldman Sachs has agreed to pay $550 million to settle SEC charges that it defrauded investors. In 2007, Goldman worked with a hedge fund manager to set up an investment that allowed investors to bet on the housing boom. It didn't tell investors that it had allowed the hedge fund manager to select many of the mortgages that made up the security.

Wait.. WHAT? Seriously? That's it? That's all we're going to fine them for helping in crippling our financial system?

They're paying less money for their part of the financial crisis than Tiger Woods is in his divorce to Elin Nordegren. Yup, Woods will be paying his former wife between $750 million and $833 for fucking everything with a pair of tits and in return for such a big payment, she can never publicly speak about the affairs.



We don't even get some stipulation out of this like "Goldman Sachs can never practice security exchanges again" sort of thing. All this means is that they'll find a method to cheat people that is less obvious.

Goldman will also change several business practices, including the way it draws up marketing materials for complex mortgage securities and the way it educates employees in that part of its business.

never again will we use such an easily investigated system for fraud we gotta make it tougher to crack. If corporations get as many rights as people, then why can't we imprison and execute companies for their crimes against society? Oh wait, we don't imprison and execute the rich. My bad.

I want to live in a world where I'm able to rob a bank for $100k and then let them fine me for $20k and then having it be as if all is well. I'm sure 550m is just a fraction of a percent of the amount of money they actually made from all this.

In after-hours trading yesterday, GS spiked up more than $13 from before the news of the settlement. It seems people want to invest in a company that just bought itself out of trouble. Given their 515 million outstanding shares, that means their company gained a value of approximately $6.7 billion dollars since the news was released.

But man, IT WAS ONE OF THE LARGEST PENALTIES EVER PAID TO THE SEC! This is literally 3% of the tarp money they got, by way of AIG. In 2009 Goldman reported a $1.8 billion profit.



So how much is $550 million to Goldman? About 4 days worth of revenue. If you tally up according to 2009's revenue, that is. I can't even say it's like a min. wage worker getting fined $250 because to their 51 billion dollar ass, losing 4 days of revenue is pretty minor, rather than what happens with a min. wage worker is that they are probably going to be super tight to cope with the new budgetary expense.

Did you see the cool bit of info about how that 550m is getting cut up?

The S.E.C. filed a lawsuit against Goldman in April, accusing the bank of securities fraud. The settlement came just days before Goldman is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings.

Under the terms of the deal, Goldman will pay $300 million in fines to the Treasury Department, with the rest serving as restitution to investors in the mortgage-linked security. Goldman will not admit wrongdoing, though it will admit that its marketing materials for the investment “contained incomplete information.”

So the tax payers only get $300 million and the other $250 million goes to share holders. Man, they must be tickled pink. I know what you're thinking, $550 million may not be a lot of money but Goldman lost their reputati..... Ha, as if Goldman even cares about what the public eye sees anymore. This fine is almost, just almost as much as their CEO's annual bonus.

As much as I joke around about it, this is probably the most horrible news I have heard all week. And what's depressing is that no one realizes it or even cares. We've all become complicity numb to the thievery that happens in the white collar area.

Just look at the unprivileged. If you get caught selling a single joint the cops can take away your house and car because those gains are ill gotten. Here's a time the government stole a man's life savings because it might have been gained through illegal means. They had no evidence as such, and the guy was never charged with a crime, but, man, all that money sure looked shady.

The district court found there it was not more likely than not that the money was drug related, thereby giving they money back to its rightful owner and the appellate court reversed.

The Evidence: (1) the amount of the money; (2) that it was in a cooler packaged in an unusual way (no evidence was presented on what made it unusual beyond the method of packaging); (3) that a drug-sniffing dog sniffed the money and reacted (Note that the dissent raises the issue that most money in circulation tests positive for cocaine to no effect.); (4) the driver was out of state; (5) it was a rental car and the rental contract was not in the driver's name.

That didn't even meet a prima facie showing much less the burden of persuasion. Just goes to show you how fucked up our social structure is that many of you have already just given up and realized that the rich or those with celebrity get off with a slap on the wrist.

Though, it's not like if we saw the SEC get a trillion billion dollars in monopoly money from Goldman it wouldn't make a lick of difference. As if you'd ever see any of that money actually put to good use by the Security Exchange Committee.

Can't Stand The Heat - Get Out of South Beach

Can't Stand The Heat - Get Out of South Beach

By now you've become a Miami fan with LeBron's announcement of gathering Professor Xavier and the X-men in creating something... astonishing.

Move over The Avengers - King LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade have joined forces to shift the balance of power in the NBA and create a new some sort of super duper X-treme NBA team in Miami that will win enough rings that they'll have to start putting them on their cocks. Oh don't worry, even though I'm from L.A., don't be fooled. I spent a good year in Florida so I can justifiably hold duo fan citizenship on Lakers and Heat.



To help ease fans trying to acclimate to this unprecedented shift of power I figured it might be helpful to educate old and new Heat fans on the history of their adopted franchise to ensure they have maximum credibility when quizzed by die-hards who have lived and died with this turbulent franchise over the past 40 years.

Before you become a Miami Heat fan, you need to know of the unique traditions fans have, especially at home games. The next time you are preparing to go to a game at The Big House, as it is called, be sure to dress up as an empty seat to lull the opposing team into a false sense of superiority.

The ABA Years
The Miami Heat Started off life as an expansion team in the upstart American Basketball Association. In 1969 east coast dance club mogul Lucious Wilson was awarded an ABA franchise for the city of Charlotte and began play in the 1970 season under the name the Carolina Cuckolds.



The team experienced uneven success during Wilson's tenure as owner who was known for his erratic behavior, encouraging trainers to work for tips and paying players in singles. After the ABA merger in 1985 Harris retired to South Florida and took his team with him, re-branding them the Heat and beginning a new era of basketball in Miami.

Early Miami

The name the Miami Heat was actually coined by Vernon Maxwell after three weeks without medication.



The early Heat teams were anchored in the middle by the talented but controversial Rony Seikaly, best known outside of NBA circles as the nephew of Youssef Majed al-Molqi, who brutally shot and killed handicapped American industrialist Leon Kinghoffer during the hijacking of the cruise ship the Achille Lauro.



Controversy swirled after Seikaly described al-Molqi as an inspiration in a pre-draft interview with the Kings.

In the end the Heat felt they could not pass on the large, sweaty center and made him the ninth overall pick in the draft and a fixture in both the Heat lineup and club scene for a decade.



Soon after the Heat reached out for a shooter in the draft and hauled in Minnesota shooting guard Willie Burton, who as you may have guessed is the name sake of the tragic Burton's disease. An affliction which has impacted contemporary players like Tracy McGrady and Channing Frye. It's an overwhelming anxiety that pushes a player near blacking out the closer they get to the rim.



Glen Rice suffered from a similar affliction later in his career, but it was not just his closeness to the hoop but his distance from concession.



Tim Hardaway hates queers, but there are more important things we should be worrying about like the war in Iraq and deep water drilling.



A player for the Heat is known as "Heat." LeBron James can now say, for example, "I'm a Heat." The Miami Heat's new motto, YES WE DID, is a reference to the presidential motto of Thomas Jefferson, who used the phrase to describe his administration's purchase of the Louisiana territory.

A little known fact is that Le Batard is French for "The Bastard" and Dan Le Batard is going to bastard all over the faces of anyone who isn't down with the heat.



Fact: Every seat in American Airlines Arena is wheelchair and walker accessible in order to accommodate their fan base. For the younger set, every concourse has a display offering free pamphlets covering the dangers of STD and overexposure in tanning beds.

The Miami Heat enjoyed a remarkable inaugural season as a franchise in 2005-2006 winning the NBA championship. This gives them an amazing 100% winning percentage as far as championships go in their existence as an NBA franchise.



This is the new Miami Heat theme song

When I lived in Florida I was lucky enough to make it to Heat Stadium a couple of times. Looking up in the rafters I got shivers thinking about having these three guys someday retiring their numbers alongside Heat legends Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, Michael Jordan, Jackie Robinson, Wayne Gretzky and Dan Marino.



Sometimes The Heat refer to themselves as El Heat and even wear Jerseys with the Spanish name for games. Wait wha-- Don't they fucking know? It should be Los Heat. The Miami Heat are (is? stupid singular sports nicknames) the only team to have the NBA logo on the right shoulder of their Jersey instead of the left.

Mickey Mantel is from commerce, just to the north of Miami, which is why he was called the "Kid from Commerce" and "The Commerce comet". You would think Miami would be a baseball mecca, since Mickey Mantle was from the area, plus all of the Cuban Americans.

Then you have Chris Quinn. The Miami Heat are always the fliest fuckers in the league and know how to dress.



This must be what convinced Kobe Bryant to do that photo shoot with the white clothes. Yes, I'm implying that Chris Quinn is the Yin to Kobe's Yang.

Just think about it. Their careers are mirror images of each other. One played on the west coast, the other on the east coast. One is an all time great, the other is an all time great.



The only question you may have right now is where does Yao Ming fit in this picture? Simple, I say.

As a 7-foot tall Chinaman, Yao Ming was originally drafted by the Heat. He was subsequently traded to a nonexistent franchise in exchange for having the old Miami Arena imploded, which was necessary due to an overabundance of Alonzo Mourning's spare kidneys making the place inhabitable for humanity. Ming then shrunk into a toaster and changed his name to Now Ding.

So there you have it. Now you can say you're no bandwagoner and truly feel like a life long Miami Heat fan.

BP Allows The Great Die-off To Begins

BP Allows The Great Die-off To Begins

As you may know BP has been working hard to cap this "leak" of theirs. I say it with an apostrophe because the verb "leak" doesn't seem very accurate when writing about something that's spewing out fluid at a rate sufficient to fill well over 100 big swimming pools a day.

It's being reported now that BP, for the first time in three months, has made it so that oil is not flowing out into the Gulf. Oh yes, let me have this optimistic feeling for a moment and the realization that I now have something I could quote in another 8 hours when this cap eventually breaks. But otherwise, let's just break out the bottles of crystal and party, yo.

Besides that, this isn't really much of a fix. The oil isn't actually stopped, they're just controlling the flow of it like a water hose and blocking off the end. What happens when you do that but don't stop the pressure build up? Usually your pipes explode, so don't be surprised if other leaks appear, specifically ones that aren't in front of the under water camera. .

This pretty much means that everyone could stop caring about this even more and flip the news channel when any of the minor stories about this ever show up, which considering the small amount of coverage this was getting lately, means we'll stop seeing all reports altogether.



I guess it could be pinned on burnout. We've totally failed at actually stopping the damn thing, the best we can hope for is a gradual tapering off when the relief well is done, there's no news except "things continue to suck and we can't do anything about it." I guess that's not something as entertaining to hear like how long Lindsey Lohan is going to spend in the poky.

But perhaps this piece of news should be a little alarming to you, if you by chance enjoy fishing or ever hope to be able to see life in the Gulf coast again.

Biologists find 'dead zones' around BP oil spill in Gulf

Methane at 100,000 times normal levels have been creating oxygen-depleted areas devoid of life near BP's Deepwater Horizon spill, according to two independent scientists

Scientists are confronting growing evidence that BP's ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is creating oxygen-depleted "dead zones" where fish and other marine life cannot survive.

In two separate research voyages, independent scientists have detected what were described as "astonishingly high" levels of methane, or natural gas, bubbling from the well site, setting off a chain of reactions that suck the oxygen out of the water. In some cases, methane concentrations are 100,000 times normal levels.

Other scientists as well as sport fishermen are reporting unusual movements of fish, shrimp, crab and other marine life, including increased shark sightings closer to the Alabama coast.

Larry Crowder, a marine biologist at Duke University, said there were already signs that fish were being driven from their habitat.

"The animals are already voting with their fins to get away from where the oil spill is and where potentially there is oxygen depletion," he said. "When you begin to see animals changing their distribution that is telling you about the quality of water further offshore. Basically, the fish are moving closer to shore to try to get to better water."

Such sightings – and an accumulation of data from the site of the ruptured well and from the ocean depths miles away – have deepened concerns that the enormity of the environmental disaster in the Gulf has yet to be fully understood. It could also jeopardise the Gulf's billion-dollar fishing and shrimping industry.

In a conference call with reporters, Samantha Joye, a scientist at the University of Georgia who has been studying the effects of the spill at depth, said the ruptured well was producing up to 50% as much methane and other gases as oil.

The finding presents a new challenge to scientists who so far have been focused on studying the effects on the Gulf of crude oil, and the 5.7m litres of chemical dispersants used to break up the slick.

Joye said her preliminary findings suggested the high volume of methane coming out of the well could upset the ocean food chain. Such high concentrations, it is feared, would trigger the growth of microbes, which break up the methane, but also gobble up oxygen needed by marine life to survive, driving out other living things.

Joye said the methane was settling in a 200-metre layer of the water column, between depths of 1,000 to 1,300 metres in concentrations that were already threatening oxygen levels.

"That water can go completely anoxic [extremely low oxygen] and that is a pretty serious situation for any oxygen-requiring organism. We haven't seen zero-oxygen water but there is certainly enough gas in the water to draw oxygen down to zero," she said.

"It could wreak havoc with those communities that require oxygen," Joye said, wiping out plankton and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain.

A Texas A&M University oceanographer issued a similar warning last week on his return from a 10-day research voyage in the Gulf. John Kessler recorded "astonishingly high" methane levels in surface and deep water within a five-mile radius of the ruptured well. His team also recorded 30% depletion of oxygen in some locations.

Even without the gusher, the Gulf was afflicted by 6,000 to 7,000 square miles of dead zone at the mouth of the Mississippi river, caused by run-off from animal waste and farm fertiliser.

The run-off sets off a chain reaction. Algae bloom and quickly die, and are eaten up by microbes that also consume oxygen needed by marine life.

But the huge quantities of methane, or natural gas, being released from the well in addition to crude presents an entirely new danger to marine life and to the Gulf's lucrative fishing and shrimping industry.

"Things are changing, and what impacts there are on the food web are not going to be clear until we go out and measure that," said Joye.

You know who BP needs for their PR? Muhammad Saeed Al-Sahhaf - That guy rules. Sharks head to the coast, oily humans die by the tens. Tides pull oil to the coast, sharks die out en masse. Oily humans thrilled, take a dip! Oily death for them as well.

So far the only positive out of all this is that it's socially acceptable to hate the English out in the open once again. Fucking people all sound like they have a mouth full of marbles.

I'm sure you're wondering if an oxygen depleted area affects the buoyancy of boats at all. I'm sure your rich uncle with a speed boat and you gotta make sure you're still able to go out for that ocean ride. I picture in my head this comical image of boats suddenly sinking for no discernible reason.

Sadly the answer is no. There would need to be lots of little bubbles bubbling up to the surface to sink a boat because that would reduce the density of the water and floating is all about difference in density. So, let's just say if I was Aquaman, I would probably run around the oceans ordering sea creatures to blow bubbles and sink cruise liners.



So the lesson here is.. um.. don't go boating in the Gulf as it's pretty clear that there's a lot of gas coming out of those cracks that will sink your boat.. maybe..

Now this next piece of potential doom and gloom is a long shot. But I've given up hope that we'll see Hurricanes covered in oil get lit by lightning causing a oilcane fiery death to all that it gets near. The closest thing I could hope for is the Corexit acid rain, more on that in a bit. But first let's talk about one potential death that is a long shot, but what a way to go out.

You know how I mentioned that methane gas under the crude that could be released if the sucker fails under pressure and cracks more? Well, that's the next doomsday situation for us...

Ominous reports are leaking past the BP Gulf salvage operation news blackout that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico may be about to reach biblical proportions.

251 million years ago a mammoth undersea methane bubble caused massive explosions, poisoned the atmosphere and destroyed more than 96 percent of all life on Earth. Experts agree that what is known as the Permian extinction event was the greatest mass extinction event in the history of the world.

Now, worried scientists are increasingly concerned the same series of catastrophic events that led to worldwide death back then may be happening again-and no known technology can stop it.

The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.
...
If the methane bubble—a bubble that could be as big as 20 miles wide—erupts with titanic force from the seabed into the Gulf, every ship, drilling rig and structure within the region of the bubble will immediately sink. All the workers, engineers, Coast Guard personnel and marine biologists participating in the salvage operation will die instantly.

Next, the ocean bottom will collapse, instantaneously displacing up to a trillion cubic feet of water or more and creating a towering supersonic tsunami annihilating everything along the coast and well inland. Like a thermonuclear blast, a high pressure atmospheric wave could precede the tidal wave flattening everything in its path before the water arrives.
...

You see that there? This sort of world ending event already happened! Global extinction about 250 million years ago! Don't you see that there's puzzlingly high levels of methane in the oil that's flowing out? Welp, I guess we should all wrap it up.



At least this wont be a job killer. Looks like the recession is over! This is a choice quote to end that article;

Perhaps if humanity is very, very lucky, some may find a way to avoid the mass extinction that follows and carry on the human race.

If we're very lucky, humanity will die. I was pretty certain that my species would destroy themselves thanks to their idiocy when it comes to energy, but now that I get to watch it happen, it's so much more exciting.

I'm taking bets now. Odds to follow that the relief well will:

1:4 finish the fracture of the seafloor; methane apocalypse. direct result of further bp cost-cutting during relief well construction.
1:2 finish fracture of the seafloor; methane apocalypse. unavoidable at this point.
1:1 fail, opening a second spill site, eliminating hope of successful top-kill.
2:1 fail, well continues to spill as usual, second relief well continues as planned.
5:1 fail, slow flow rate by <25%>These are good and fair odds. If you are taking me up on my wager, currencies accepted are: Arable land, firearms, ammunition, seed, fuel, bottled water, non-perishable food and preferred shares of BP stock.

When it comes down to it, this nutcases' theory has been debunked various times over and unfortunately I don't think Deppwater Horizon will be directly responsible for the end of humanity. Besides, we can't let Reagan off the hook that easy yet.

It should be noted that the writer of this article, Terrence Aym, also wrote an article about how North Koreans attacked the BP oil well.

But in the event of methane-death, you should know the general time line. It's an important question. You should know if there would be some sort of massive eruption or explosion that we'd experience right away, even from a great distance or if it would be like a leaking methane slowly killing us.



From my understanding, people within its range would immediately fall asleep and die. I guess in theory, people at the very edge would just pass out and wake up later not knowing what the fuck happened. Perhaps there would be a atmospheric shock wave and anyone hit by that would be obliterated by getting enough methane in their lungs to kill them.

To some degree and in smaller scale, this has happened in Africa several times now. You just lie down and be dead. I know what you're thinking, that's no fun. It really does sound like the most boring world extinction event ever. We need to think bigger. Like, Michael Bay bigger.

Well, in thinking about it some more, there's absolutely no way a cloud that size would not eventually be detonated by something so the effects would be more like several large nuclear explosions and most definitely affect the entire world.

The skies would literally burn. You know, cause it's methane. Just think about it. Methane fire death! You do have to admit that if America is killed by a giant far blast and ignites the atmosphere leading to a massive world war in the chaotic aftermath, it'll be pretty awesome.



Give me fart death. Fill my lungs with Gaia's shit gas! Ha. America is going to die by a fart, how fucking appropriate. If it all comes up at once, enough to displace a large amount of air, then ignited immediately, it would be a methanopocalypse. Like a big uneven blast-firestorm, with the sufficiently-mixed outer gasses detonating and the passing pressure wave pushing unburned methane and oxygen in chaotic ways, igniting when mixed.

I knew watching Bill Nye would eventually pay off. Basically a bunch of southerners will fall asleep and die and then the rest of the world will reenact the gas station scene from Zoolander. Either that or there will be a huge earth-shattering explosion that will fuck up weather patterns all over the world and lead to mass starvation and war.

In short, you better go pick up The Road and read it to prepare. If you're looking for something to do in order to survive and profit off of this catastrophe, your best bet is to move to the other side of earth and buy bullets.

The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions. He got up and went to the window. What is it? she said. He didn’t answer. He went into the bathroom and threw the lightswitch but the power was already gone. A dull rose glow in the windowglass. He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub and then turned on both taps as far as they would go. She was standing in the doorway with her nightwear, clutching the jamb, cradling her belly in one hand. What is it? she said. What is happening?

I don’t know.

Why are you taking a bath?

I’m not.

Seriously folks, The Road is The Great American Novel.

Though let's forget the way-out-there sort of predictions and look at the real world shit that this oil spill and the collective fuck up of the clean up ended up doing. Firstly, dealing with covering up the oil with Corexit.

Aren't you glad BP ignored an order from the EPA and put plumes of deadly toxic oil in the water column by spraying 1,000,000 gallons of crime-cover-upper poison into the ocean? Goes to show what the free market is capable of when it's not tied down by big government.



So now the Corexit is raining down on the homes of those in the area. Ha! Death is certainly certain. Just one more sign that the end is near.

You remember all those years ago when people worried about acid rain and death from above? Yeah, that pretty much happened. Only it's over Texas, so who the fuck cares as long as there's a football game on Friday Night, Am I right?



My ultimate favorite quote, and the one that best exemplifies the whole reason we're in this shit situation where we dream up oilcanes and fart clouds of death is from this Yahoo news article.

"This thing's been going on for so long now, it's time to take a gamble," said Mitch Jurisich, a third-generation oyster farmer from Empire, La. "If it's going to blow the bottom of the ocean out, it's just going to blow the bottom out."

In case you don't speak gibberish, this is the translation from Cajun to English

"Welp, if it's going to fuck this gay earth, then just fuck this gay earth. I don't care anymore." -Shameful Cajun.

Man, I sure love driving. I could drive all day. Oh shit Red light, guess I need to stop
*starts installing brakes*
*Shoots past red light at eighty, starts phoning in press releases about how brakes will be installed by August*
*Runs over endangered species as vehicle goes off the road*

Yup, that pretty much sums it all up right there. Then again, maybe the oil spill is just god punishing us for allowing homosexuality in America. You ever think about that, Huh Oregon?
http://www.thankgodfordeepwaterhorizon.com