Chicken Hawks, Carry Home My Seabag, The Heavy One

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Wednesday September 22, 2010 · 8:21 AM PDT

2010/09/22 · 08:21

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

I read a piece last night by Jason Linkins at Huff Post in which he describes the experience of CNN correspondent Michael Ware and Ware's difficulty in dealing with the memory of the death of a presumably innocent young Iraqi shot execution style by US troops in 2007.

Mr Ware tells of the alleged incident he says he witnessed and filmed in 2007 when working for US news giant CNN, but claims the network decided the footage was too graphic to go to air.

He alleges that a teenager in a remote Iraqi village run by the militant Islamist group, al-Qaeda was carrying a weapon to protect himself.

[Editor's note: There is a photograph below the fold that may disturb some people. It shows dead people... war, you know. ]

Bob Higgins

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Tuesday August 17, 2010 · 7:09 AM PDT

2010/08/17 · 07:09

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

The current hoo-hah over President Obama's public statement of the obvious, that Muslims have the same rights as everyone else, to worship, to speak, to petition the government for redress, to get jiggy, and just about whatever, Dude, has had the media, the Republicans and a few chicken shit Democrats obsessing through the weekend and deep into today, with no end in sight.

This is, as usual, being driven by the same gang of Republicans who really don't give a damn about the siting of this Islamic cultural center but do care deeply about sticking a knife in every vulnerable patch of flesh that the President and his party expose to their efforts.

They hope only to drive a wedge between the electorate, at least the fraction of it that cares about this sort of nonsense and the Prez and Democrats in general.

Bob Higgins

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Saturday August 14, 2010 · 8:47 AM PDT

2010/08/14 · 08:47

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

Sharron Angle, the Tea Bagger running against Harry Reid for the Senate in Nevada says that we should use Augusto Pinochet's model of privatization as a guide for reforming our social security system.

Yes, Pinochet, the infamous fascist dictator and Nixon/Kissinger ally who engineered the subjugation of Chilean democracy in the 1970s.

Pinochet seized power from the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a bloody, US backed military coup d'état in 1973.

Through torture, terror, murder, with the assistance of the CIA and corporate America his brutal regime held power until 1990.

Bob Higgins

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Thursday August 12, 2010 · 7:26 AM PDT

2010/08/12 · 07:26

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

Before I had a chance to finish my first cup of coffee this morning I was swatted with the news (from Al Jazeera) that Iraq says we "must stay until 2020."

This shocking news came from Lieutenant General Babaker Zerbari and therein lies the crux of the problem. Zerbari is a Lieutenant General and Iraq's most senior military officer.

We send Lieutenant Generals out for coffee and donuts in the morning. We have Bird Colonels sharpening pencils and Major Generals escorting defense lobbyists to strip clubs.

Bob Higgins

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Sunday August 08, 2010 · 2:57 PM PDT

2010/08/08 · 14:57

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

For the last several days I've watched and read a steady stream of media coverage on the miraculous disappearance of more than a hundred million gallons of oil from the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Since the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank on April 20 killing 11 workers the NOAA estimates that 206 million gallons of "light sweet crude" spewed from BP's Macondo well field, fouling the waters of the Gulf, shutting down much of the commerce of the surrounding region and creating a giant toxic bouillabaisse in which now swim whatever critters managed to survive poisoning, suffocation, or being roasted alive.

Bob Higgins

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Tuesday June 29, 2010 · 8:36 AM PDT

2010/06/29 · 08:36

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

I read a brief story yesterday from the AP about a restaurant in Phoenix, Mesa actually, .. that's in Arizona ... an upscale Mediterranean eatery, that in celebration of, or as a tribute to the Wold Cup of Football ... that's soccer... began serving Lion Burgers on their Mediterranean menu.

You read it right ... Lion Burgers, the friggin' "King of Beasts" on a friggin' bun.

Cameron Selogie, the owner of "il Vinaio" (that means "The Wine Seller," I had to look it up) reported that he couldn't fry these babies up fast enough and had a waiting list of 100 eager customers licking their chops in anticipation of a taste of Leo.

Like many others around the globe who were aghast at loin of lion for lunch I expressed my outrage in an email and last night I received the following reply:

We do not serve lion at il Vinaio any longer.
Thank you for your time. We do respect your opinion and apologize for offending you.

Bob Higgins

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Monday June 28, 2010 · 5:17 AM PDT

2010/06/28 · 05:17

[Editor's note: This began as a comment this morning to "Oil spill: The nightmare becomes reality" a Carl Hiaasen piece on the arrival of BP's poisonous gusher of crud on the shores of Pensacola.]

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

Carl,

You're right; it is difficult for people living far from our coasts to feel the horrible weight of this disaster.

I live in Ohio but have lived on the coasts of California and North Carolina. I have also lived through and helped clean up an oil spill near San Francisco in 1970 or thereabouts. I have friends and family though who have never seen or at least never lived near the sea and had it become, as seems inevitable to me, a part of them.

Bob Higgins

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Tuesday June 22, 2010 · 10:11 AM PDT

2010/06/22 · 10:11

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

Oil giant Chevron, in the wake of one of the world's worst environmental disasters in the Gulf of Mexico is dragging its corporate feet over Canadian requests for increased safety procedures at a deep water well off the coast of Newfoundland. The company's Lona O-55 exploratory well is about 258 miles northeast of St. John's, in the Orphan Basin.

BP's out of control gusher in the gulf is just over 5000 feet deep while the Chevron well off the Canadian coast is 8,530 feet beneath the surface.

Bob Higgins

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Sunday June 20, 2010 · 9:07 AM PDT

2010/06/20 · 09:07

BP's 'Prince of Public Relations' Tony Hayward left his reluctant witness chair in Washington and headed (by private jet I assume) for the Isle of Wight for a typical family weekend of ... yachting or more correctly 'yacht racing.'

Hayward's yacht, a 52 foot Farr named 'Bob' was one of nearly 1700 entries in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. The race, which is being held this year for the 79th time is a 50 mile trip around the Isle of Wight and attracts some 16,000 sailors from around the world.

It is unknown how many shrimpers and skimmers from the Gulf coast entered this year.

Bob Higgins

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Saturday June 19, 2010 · 7:16 AM PDT

2010/06/19 · 07:16

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

The Guardian reports that according to figures provided by BP 'Weasel in Chief' Tony Hayward, the Macondo field reservoir now emptying into the Gulf of Mexico contains enough oil to continue spewing at the current rate for more than two years.

Hayward told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that the reservoir contains 50 million barrels of crud and is gushing at the rate of 60,000 barrels a day which would give it the capacity to continue for 833 days.

Bob Higgins

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Monday June 14, 2010 · 11:57 AM PDT

2010/06/14 · 11:57

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

"We need to be realistic about operating in a mile of water"

Tony Hayward, the cherubic little weasel who serves as the front man for British Petroleum, BP, Beyond Pathetic or whatever they are calling their 'brand' this week, made the statement above, on camera to reporters while standing on an oil fouled Louisiana beach a couple of weeks ago.

Earlier that day I had a fairly heated argument with an elderly acquaintance who recently became enraptured by the 'Teabaggers.' This giddy political infatuation has had the gruesome effect of making him more of a pain in the ass than he was previously. At one point in the 'discussion' he asked me why BP was drilling at 5000 feet below the surface and I told him that most of the 'easy oil' has been used up and drilling is increasingly taking place in ever riskier and more technologically challenging sites.

Bob Higgins

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Saturday June 12, 2010 · 5:03 PM PDT

2010/06/12 · 17:03

Originally posted at my site Bob Higgins

Among today's top stories is yesterday's sudden flushing of the Little Missouri and Caddo rivers in Arkansas. Flash flooding caused by unusually torrential rains swept through the river course raising the level from a normal of three feet to twenty-three feet in a few hours. Reports from the scene are that at least 7.5 inches of rain fell during a three or four hour period and the river near Caddo Gap rose at the rate of 8.5 feet per hour.

Early Friday, around 2:00 AM the river banks in the Caddo Gap area were crowded with campers in tents and travel trailers out for a weekend in the remote and beautiful Albert Pike Recreation area. Sometime before 5:00 AM, disaster and terror in the form of a massive wall of free falling water struck.

Most people were likely sleeping at that hour and completely unaware of the relentlessly approaching deluge. I can imagine kids in their tents playing with flashlights and giggling in their sleeping bags or bedrolls, too exited to sleep, anticipating the adventures of the day ahead.

As of this writing 17 are confirmed dead with dozens still listed as missing, many of them children.

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Chicken Hawks, Carry Home My Seabag, The Heavy One

The Mosque: Courage, Truth and the Law

Sharron Angle: Remaking America on the Pinochet Model

10 More Years In Iraq, We Must Stay So We Can Leave

Disappearing Oil and Gulf Seafood: Passing the Sniff Test

Rats! "il Vinaio" No Longer Serves Lion Burgers

A Sickening in the Gulf Stream

The Oil Game They're Playing In Our Oceans Ain't "Beanbag"

Tony and 'Bob': Sailing, Not Skimming around the Isle of Wight

Get Used to Blackened Seafood, BP’s Spew May Continue For Years

A Gusher of Light Sweet Terror

Going Downstream, A Tragedy in Caddo Gap