The Rantings & Ravings Of A (Formerly) Mad Mailman

Tuesday night’s Nebraska boys state soccer championship has sparked some national interest, but it wasn’t because of the game or Lincoln East’s undefeated season. It is now being called “the green card” incident.

A championship victory, an exciting overtime win, the triumphant end to a perfect season, all of it could be overshadowed by the Lincoln East fan reaction.

Some knucklehead, racist, backwoods ass rednecks thought the best way to celebrate their win was to toss fake “green cards” in the air as a taunt to their fallen opponents.

The student body of South High is approximately 60% latino.

Manuel Lira says, “That is something to be ashamed of.”

Manuel Lira’s last game was a disappointing one, but he says what happened after the game was even more so.

The perception of the South High student body is not unique to Lincoln East students.

Manuel Lira says, “It’s not like this is new to us because it has happened many other times in a lot of other situations it is not the first time.”

Joe Maass has been coaching soccer at South for more than a decade and says what happened last night is similar to past incidents, but the stage was different.

Maass felt the paper fall on him, even went through the medal ceremonies before he realized what he thought was confetti was actually a racial slam.

Joe Maass says, “It was just sort of a disgrace that a great event like the state soccer championship would have something like that occur.”

Susan Cassata agrees, as Principal of Lincoln East she wants to make sure something like the green card incident never happens again.

Cassata says the actions of a few have hurt East’s reputation.

Susan Cassata says, “Inexcusable something that I don’t even have words to articulate how devastating the interaction or behavior or the intent was.”

But the East administration does have the power to do something about the behavior.

Cassata said that school administrators have interviewed 25 to 30 students. Fewer than five had been suspended by Wednesday afternoon.

Now, hopefully this isn’t just lip service that is being tossed about to appease those of us that find this kind of behavior to be both disgusting and intolerable.

From what several people involved have said this isn’t an isolated incident, that there have been similar situations in the past.

We have seen this with the infamous “Jena 6” trial (one that involved an actual “white’s only” tree in a schoolyard and nooses), segregated proms in Georgia and some nitwit in a Jersey Wal-Mart living up to that states unfortunate stereotype of ignorance.

Three varying degrees of severity. Three different parts of the country. Stupidity clearly knows no bounds.

Clearly, some significant steps need to be taken to address this kind of crap that is occurring all too often.

America is the melting pot. If you think that somehow that isn’t a good thing then you don’t get it and all hope is lost for you my friend.

If you want to live in a place that is genetically homogenous move to Iceland, otherwise learn to play well with others please.

BP conceded Thursday that more oil than it estimated is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico as heavy crude washed into Louisiana’s wetlands for the first time, feeding worries and uncertainty about the massive monthlong spill.

Well color me surprised. An oil company lied and tried to cover it’s ass? Never!

Mark Proegler, a spokesman for oil giant BP PLC, said a mile-long tube inserted into a leaking pipe over the weekend is capturing 210,000 gallons a day – the total amount the company and the Coast Guard have estimated is gushing into the sea – but some is still escaping. He would not say how much.

Several professors who have watched video of the leak have said they believe the amount spewing out is much higher than official estimates.

For a looksie at the varying opinions on the damn thing click here:

Oil in the Gulf

Proegler said the 210,000 gallons – 5,000 barrels – has always been just an estimate because there is no way to measure how much is spilling from the seafloor.

“I would encourage people to take a look at the changing amount of oil coming from the ocean floor,” said Steve Rinehart, another BP spokesman. “It’s pretty clear that now that we’re taking 5,000 barrels of oil a day, there’s a significant change in the flow reaching the sea.”

A live video feed of the leak posted online Thursday at the insistence of U.S. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., shows what appears to be a large plume of oil and gas still spewing next to the tube that’s carrying some of it to the surface.

The well blew out after an explosion a month ago on the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon that killed 11 people. At least 6 million gallons have spilled so far, making it the worst U.S. environmental disaster in decades. The Exxon Valdez tanker spilled 11 million gallons in Alaska in 1989.

There is little arguing that three weeks after the initial explosion that sunk, the Deepwater Horizon BP and their executives look insensitive, irresponsible, callous, and, at present, largely unaccountable for their actions.

Compounding their woes even further is the childish display that they, Haliburton, and Transocean put on for the public as they shrugged responsibility and instead pointed the finger of blame at each other in front of congress.

BP’s primary PR objective was damage control. This damage control was both immediate and forward-looking. Immediately they would need to dominate the coordination of press in the Gulf states.

Second, they would need to pacify the people whose livelihoods would be directly impacted by the oiling of the waterways.

Within five days of the disaster, reports started coming in of coastal residents being approached with contracts that equated the forfeiture of their rights to file claims against BP. Many local workers signed these in exchange for temporary paid positions as part of the marine cleanup.

At a time when they were coming up with half-assed solutions like “the top hat” and “the junk shot”, seemingly cooked up by a few stoners at M.I.T. after visiting their friend Billy Bong Thornton, they had a clear cut plan on how to save their corporate asses.

Another shining example of the company’s approach to things is the use of chemical dispersants that coagulate the surface slick into dense clumps that sink. One does not need a degree in hydrology to understand that this process is about sinking the spectacle of the slick below the surface of the Gulf and into less visible subsurface waters.

A submerged problem is no less a problem; the introduction of a foreign chemical into a marine habitat is a problem in itself, and a subsurface cleanup is far more complicated than collection and removal on the surface.

But we all know they just don’t give a shit about that lil’ fact.

However this trade-off mirrors more of this reoccurring theme of “out of sight, out of mind” that has become a central narrative in BP’s PR response to the disaster.

“BP is going to reckless lengths to cover up the severity of the catastrophe they caused,” says Tod Emko, of The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

“Not only are they preventing volunteers and media from getting to affected areas, but they’re also telling trained, licensed wildlife rehabilitators not to take action outside of BP-organized beach cleanups in areas that have not been hit by oil.

Imagine how much good BP could have done if they devoted even a fraction of their cover-up budget and resources to bringing in help and allowing trained professionals to aid affected areas. Instead, we can only marvel at the amount of additional suffering they’re causing the Gulf ecosystems and its inhabitants through their present actions.”

Emko’s sentiment is not a unique one. Many local residents, volunteers, and even law enforcement officials are beginning to question how BP, a foreign, non-governmental agency, can exercise jurisdictional authority over the volunteer response efforts.

And damn if that isn’t one good f@#kin’ question.

Where is the Tea Party now? Where are the “nativists” who are at the forefront of the immigration movement.

Here is a foreign based company, whose shoddy safety practices have caused arguably the single greatest environmental disaster in our nation’s history dictating to us how we can handle the situation?

But the levy of “out of sight, out of mind” may be a levy that is about to break. Tension fills the air in Gulf Coast communities amidst fear of lost jobs, lost tourists, and the related revenue they generate.

Formerly apolitical communities are now getting a crash course in ecology and community activism. Hopefully that will be at big oil’s expense.

DMV employees often have the stereotype of being generally depressed, rude, bitter people.

How wrong we’ve all been. Apparently, some of our nation’s best jokesters are running the show.

According to NBC Miami, Florida resident Ashlee Lineberger was met with quite a surprise when she received her new driver’s license. Not a funny picture (if anything, she looks rather chipper and full of life!).

The license said she lived in “Eat Ass,” Florida.

DMV officials say they have no clue how it happened. But we assume that promotions were in order.

It took Barry Goldwater the whole 1964 presidential election to implode.

It took the Gingrich Revolution two to six years for the wheels to fall off the bus, depending on how you measure it.

It took Rand Paul less than 24 hours.

Election eve, I was downright worried for Jack Conway, Paul’s Democratic opponent in November’s election.

Paul was (and still is) going to raise a ton of Tea Bucks. And, I had heard, Paul was shrewd, and was already working his way back to the center to capture the centrist vote.

But then Paul’s victory speech showed that, to the contrary, Paul was aggressively doubling down on Teabag Libertarianism.

Jack’s chances had just improved markedly.

Then yesterday Paul questioned the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and therefore the racial integration of Kentucky’s businesses, from diners in coal country in the east to hotels in Paducah in the west.

Paul set himself up to be 2010′s Barry Goldwater – whose radical libertarianism and 10th Amendment states’ rights advocacy turns him from right wing darling to general election loser in record time.

Except that in 1964, Goldwater’s views were not counter to nearly 50 years of settled Supreme Court law and societal acceptance. Goldwater was a libertarian – but he was rooted in his time.

George Allen’s soft Macaca racism didn’t play, even in the most rural parts of my beloved Virginia where he said it. And in Kentucky, just one mile to the west, Paul’s refusal to endorse the Civil Rights Act of JFK/MLK/LBJ won’t play either.

It was a brilliant display of political self-mutilation.

While he quickly back-pedaled somewhat, the proverbial cat was out of the bag. One can claim to be against discrimination all day long, but when you advocate the repeal of a law making it illegal that’s a tough sell.

It is an even tougher sell when you, as a “man of the people”, are giving said speech safely in a private club in suburban Kentucky.

This might come across as a bit of a cheap shot, but is he the tea party favorite/populist or is he a country club Republican?

Paul’s Constitutional Hot Tub Time Traveling back to the 1950s (or even 1920s) – and his particular focus on state’s rights and the Commerce Clause open more and more opportunities for Conway.

(BTW, why stop at at 1930? Why not Constitutional Hot Tub Time Travel back to 1860? Seriously, a reporter needs to ask Paul if he believes states have the right to secede).

And seriously, we need Conway to engage Paul in a broad dialogue so that voters can really get a look at what Rand Paul is about.

I have followed his father for years and years, more than a little bit intrigued by some of his beliefs. The apple has not fallen far from the tree.

Paul and the Tenth Amendment true believers (who evidently haven’t read the rest of the Constitution, such as the Supremacy Clause) — see the Health Care challenge as merely the first domino to tip over.

If Health Care’s constitutional basis falls, so too falls Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and yes, the Civil Rights Act.

Legal precedent, stability and the rule of law. Something neither Rand Paul nor the Tea Party seem particularly concerned about.

Do your homework on this guy before you “fall in love” with some of his beliefs. Caveat emptor my friends. Let the buyer beware.

Some times, just some times, life throws you a big, juicy gift. Last month when I stumbled across this lil’ tidbit was one of those times for me.

Over the last few years, the world has seen many things, including the rise of grassroots fundraising and political campaigns, and actor Stephen Baldwin’s re-emergence as a born-again Christian.

Now, these two things combine, and for good measure, invoke the biblical story of Job as a framework to inspire donations to restore the wealth of the actor we used to refer to as “the blond Baldwin.” (via Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish)

The character of Job is used to invoke intense, all-encompassing suffering, the loss of everything that a man could hold dear. In this case, the organization and website called Restore Stephen Baldwin invokes not just the image of a suffering man, but of the community’s power to alleviate that suffering.

By offering a token gift, each community member will be able to help restore Stephen Baldwin the way Job’s community helped to restore him.

Getf@#koutofhereareyouf@$kingkiddingme?

According to the “privately funded and managed website,” the fact that Baldwin has become a voice for preaching the word of God, and because of his convictions “it has caused him the loss of many jobs and the most recently, a highly publicized bankruptcy.

He has been publicly ridiculed and insulted by people who think that he has been abandoned by God. “A simple search through the internet will reveal that people not only mock Stephen, but mock God.”

Soooo he has been forced into poverty by refusing to take acting roles he didn’t like (just like Job!), and now it’s up to the Christians of the world to save him so he can yell at people some more and still pay for soul-patch wax and pouting cream?

And why does Baldwin’s wealth need to be restored? The FAQ is glad you asked:

Q- Why does Stephen need personal wealth?
A- Stephen’s influence is in Hollywood. Hollywood worships money and without it you are seen as a loser and cannot be an effective influence to this group.

While you may or may not be sensitive to Baldwin’s image in Hollywood, one interesting thought comes as the website asks visitors to consider the potential impact of small gifts. “What if 10% of the 159 million Christians in America gave a Token Gift? What if 10% of the worlds 2 billion Christians gave a token gift?”

What if, indeed. And then next we can start tossing money at Screech, Gary Busey, Tonya Harding, Vanilla Ice and pretty much every other Surreal Life cast member/TruTV has-been’s ass.

You can also follow RestoreSB on Twitter for updates like “Why do we send missionaries to every tribe on the planet and exclude the most influential tribe of Hollywood?” – the answer is once again provided in the FAQ:

“His family does not perceive Stephen’s predicament as a matter of spiritual warfare. They see Stephen’s outspoken Christianity as poor choices therefore they will not help.”

They are also on Facebook, or pretty much any other social network one can think of, holding out their hands in an effort to help this “poor martyr”.

The website states some outlandish claims that makes be concerned about the sanity of our population and even many who have leadership roles. One of the quotes states:

“He deserves hundreds of millions for his Job-like faithfulness in the face of relentless loss and persecution.”

Hundreds of millions! Really?

If people actually donate to this cause, in this economy, that is what you call a really sad day. The fact that someone can’t find something more worthy to spend money on is eye-opening. So if you are reading this and have tons of money to donate and think that this is worth your time and money, think again.

Baldwin filed for bankruptcy in 2009 claiming to owe over $2.3 million, he obviously doesn’t have a clue what he is doing financially and most likely nothing has changed since.

Now tell me this, why would you donate to a cause involving someone who wasn’t able to pay off their $2.3 million debt when you can donate to people who ACTUALLY NEED money and are disabled and starving on the streets.

One last thing, Daniel Southern (Baldwin’s Ministry President btw), claims that Baldwin has not profited from this financially; yet the site is based on “restoring” his career and wealth. So, where are the donations going again, and who is spending the money?

I’m confused…can someone explain this all to me?

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner sounded the war drums against Glenn Beck and other conservative talk radio hosts this morning by releasing a report accusing prominent advertiser Goldline of “ripping off” its customers.

The New York Democrat is on the attack against the popular Fox News commentator over his association with Goldline International, a company that sells precious metals in the form of bars and coins.

According to a report released by the congressman’s office on Tuesday, Goldline “rips off consumers, uses misleading and possibly illegal sales tactics, and deliberately manipulates public fears of an impending government takeover.”

And the congressman believes that Beck, whose show Goldline heavily advertises on, as well as other conservative commentators have formed an “unholy alliance” with Goldline to generate an atmosphere of fear that is designed to help the company’s bottom line.

“This industry goes beyond Goldline, but the Goldline circle has been particularly cynical in its cultivation of these conservative commentators,” Weiner told Politico.com. “There are two industries that are intertwined here in this cynical play: the media industry and the online gold industry, and there is a lot of blame to go around.”

Beck was widely criticized last year for aggressively encouraging his Fox News viewers to buy gold, while at the same time serving as a pitchman for Goldline and featuring its ads on his Web site.

Beck’s reaction this morning was a reminder to his audience of two previous organized boycotts on his show and making references to McCarthyism, and tonight, Keith Olbermann invited Weiner over to respond.

“This is again another arm of this administration coming out to try to shut me down,” Beck said on his radio show on Tuesday.

Sorry Glenn, hate to point out the obvious that as a Congressman Weiner is from a part of the legislative branch of our government, a completely different entity from the executive branch.

Geesh, for a guy that clutches his copy of the United States Constitution as he weeps every other day you sure as shit don’t know much about the thing.

The congressman’s report based its findings on a study of 18 gold coins offered for sale on Goldline’s Web site. When it compared the sale price with the value of the gold if it were melted, it found an average markup of 90 percent. Coins sold as collector items were even higher, with a markup of 152 percent, Weiner’s report said.

Albarian defended gold as an investment and said his markup was 35 percent. He said melt value is only part of the value of a coin, which also has a collectible value that the company doesn’t set.

The report also alleges that Goldline salespeople were misrepresenting themselves as investment advisers. Weiner spokesman Dave Arnold said that while it’s not illegal to charge a high price, sellers were making misleading claims about gold’s investment value. Albarian said that was false.

Weiner said he would propose a new law that would require Goldline and other dealers to disclose their fees and explain such terms as melt value and resale value. In addition, he asked the Securities Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate.

Weiner described buying gold from Goldline specifically as a “bad deal,” and took ethical issues with the lack of disclosures in their advertising. “I never intended this to be a battle of wits with Glenn Beck,” he joked, adding that he didn’t think Beck had many wits to battle with.

Asked where the “crime” is in Goldline’s advertising, as opposed to simple ethical issues, he noted that there is little Congress can do against hosts without infringing on free speech, but he would like to write legislation that forces companies to make their disclosures “much clearer.”

While that might not completely deal with the issue, and certainly doesn’t properly chastise idiots like Beck who are nothing more snake oil salesmen for companies like Goldline, that is probably the best we can hope for.

The safety records of oil giant BP and the government agency charged with overseeing offshore drilling drew sharp criticism at a Wednesday morning House hearing on the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

“Many of the elements of this tragedy are familiar to the committee,” said Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. With BP America President Lamar McKay sitting in front of the panel, Oberstar assailed BP’s “sorry record” on safety, adding that the well blowout 48 miles off the Louisiana coast was the latest in a spate of BP safety lapses.

Those include a deadly refinery blast in Texas and “the worst spill in the history of oil development on Alaska’s north slope,” incidents that have “cast doubt on whether the company has the commitment to the practice and the culture of safety necessary to protect the public,” Oberstar said.

Almost a month has passed since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 people, Oberstar noted. “BP has harnessed impressive scientific and technological experience to drill at great depths in the sea, and you have to wonder why they hadn’t harnessed similar science and technology to anticipate failure, to install redundancy to prevent failure, and practices to clean up after an oil spill.”

A ruptured riser pipe once connecting the well to the drill rig is gushing an estimated 210,000 gallons of oil per day, although some scientists believe the amount to be orders of magnitude higher. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said at a hearing Tuesday that a siphon pipe BP has inserted into the riser is drawing off as much as 40% of the oil.

While I sincerely doubt those numbers are accurate, because EVERYTHING they seem to have said about this whole incident to date has proven to be a load of bullshit, I really hope they are correct in their assessment.

But interestingly, somehow in the last few days, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has become Obama’s Katrina. Um…look, I’m as pro-pelican as the next guy, and obviously I don’t mean to gainsay the scope of this environmental catastrophe, which will end up being staggering.

But Katrina killed about 1,500 humans. And no, it’s not George Bush’s personal fault that they died, either. But I still rate Katrina a far bigger tragedy for that reason.

And now it turns out, according to an environmental lawyer whose interview on Ed Schultz last week is getting a lot of circulation, that this leak may well be traceable in part to…Dick Cheney.

How? It’s hardly as far-fetched as it sounds. From the Wall Street Journal:

The oil well spewing crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn’t have a remote-control shut-off switch used in two other major oil-producing nations as last-resort protection against underwater spills.

The lack of the device, called an acoustic switch, could amplify concerns over the environmental impact of offshore drilling after the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig last week…

… regulators in two major oil-producing countries, Norway and Brazil, in effect require them. Norway has had acoustic triggers on almost every offshore rig since 1993.

The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn’t needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.

The U.K., where BP is headquartered, doesn’t require the use of acoustic triggers.

The Journal’s report doesn’t come out and say this, but the environmental lawyer, Mike Papantonio, said on the Schultz show in an interview you can watch here that it was Cheney’s energy task force – the secretive one that he wouldn’t say much about publicly – that decided that the switches, which cost $500,000, were too much a burden on the industry. The Papantonio segment starts at around 5:00 in and lasts three minutes or so.

Let me get this straight, $500,000 is “too much of a burden” on the oil companies? Are you fucking kidding me? What’s that, their profit line in the time it took me type this last sentence?

In the interests of disclosure I will note that I haven’t heard the phrase “acoustic switch” until this weekend, so I don’t really know. And obviously the fact that the US isn’t alone in not requiring this switch indicates that there are legitimate questions about cost v. efficacy. So maybe it’s just one of those things. But then again, maybe it’s not.

Regulatory decisions have consequences all the time, and the people who made them should be asked to justify their decisions in a democracy. It’ll be very interesting to watch this week and see if other news outlets pursue this.

Bill Galston makes a very convincing case that the Bush Administration’s pro-oil disdain for environmental regulation, starring Dick Cheney, prevented the government from requiring these devices played a major role in the spill.

Ah, and there it is again. That nasty little word in Bush/Cheney-land. Regulation.

So in the last two years we have had to endure a financial meltdown the likes of which we last saw just before the Great Depression, due in large parts to unregulated Wall Street yahoos taking astronomical risks with our friggin’ money.

Now we have bore witness to what, in all likelihood, will be the single worst environmental disaster the nation has ever see because of massive amounts of de-regulation that took place on Bush & Cheney’s watch.

Now I’m not the smartest guy around, but when something occurs once we can write it off as happenstance. When it happens again only a fool would write it off as coincidence.

I know we are living in this era when groups like the Tea Party are clamoring loudly for “smaller government” (unless it’s about a racial profiling immigration law- in that case it must be “A-okay” as evidenced by their silence on the matter), but in certain aspects of society “big government” isn’t just acceptable…it’s needed.

Don’t play the part of the fool and “trust” big oil, big banks and big business in general to look out for our best interests. They don’t have a good track record for doing so.