In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.

~ Katherine Hepburn

If you can't draw something, just draw it.

~ Dieter Rot

Hence those who attempt to "get even" or who would stand for their rights irrespective of what may be brought for others will find disturbing forces in their experience in the material sojourns.

Edgar Cayce Reading 1539-2

Power is the ability to do good things for others.

~ Brooke Astor

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding.

~ Yehuda Amichai

Billionaire hedge fund managers shouldn't pay lower taxes than average Americans http://ping.fm/63FHH

On May 30, at a little after 10 a.m., we'll pass the trillion dollar mark for the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks.

~ Winslow Homer

Off The Map - Movie Review

This movie surprised me as well. I thought Sam Elliot reached a very sincere and real portrayal of his character. The movie was rented for the Mrs. a big Sam Elliot fan, but Sam was far from his cowboy dapper ways and in the end it was well worth the time to see this actor step outside the box and deliver a knockout performance.

Despite all of that the real star of this movie is Valentina de Angelis as the movie uses her as the pre-teen vehicle in which to observe and comment on her rather extraordinary circumstances. Joan Allen delivers another strong performance and the setting of Taos New Mexico stars as well.

This movie is not lighthearted in fact it's down right desperate but through it all and if you stay with it amusing, thoughtful, and potently fulfilling. I'm guessing but it seems the director wants to take you to an uncomfortable spot in dealing with Sam Elliot's character but manages to pull you out in time before you go slit your wrists. You have never seen Sam like this before and that has a doubling impact in coordination with his performance.

J.K. Simmons provides some comic relief from a very understated but nonetheless moving role. But the scene stealer, lightness and real relief comes from Valentina de Angelis's role. It's not all magic fairy dust as she has her own ups and downs but her role and acting is deft, and charming to say the least.

An unknown actor to me Jim True-Frost crashes the sanctuary that is off the grid and acts as the real world vector into their idealistic and Utopian surroundings. His character is another vehicle for the viewer to process, and his characters role and transformation is just as dynamic. A story of survival this movie delivers, has some surprising turns, doesn't get swallowed up in the melodramatic and in the end is actually very, very inspiring.

Four stars for stark honesty, depth, beauty, and realizing that the essential ingredient in a beautiful painting, in a beautiful life, in a beautiful world is that very same stark honesty to oneself and each other in the face of it all.

The Invention of Lying - Movie Review

Here's another movie we loved (me and the Mrs.) of course the Mrs. is a huge Jennifer Garner fan. Jennifer is sort of the anti-Hollywood starlight. Well at least she's not wearing an ankle bracelet like poor Lindsey (nice job Mom). And I think she is cast beautifully and perhaps the only one who could have pulled off this role.

Starring Ricky Gervais this little gem turns the notion of lying on its head and portrays a world were everyone is 100 percent honest. This is a great foundation for laughs and makes a subtle play on our relationships to each other and how we interact. Johna Hill has a supporting part as well as Rob Lowe who turns in a fun performance as a foil to Ricky Gervais's character. There are cameo's by Tina Fey, Jason Bateman, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman, and Edward Norton all which are pretty funny and some out of character from their typical work.

I do mean to emphasis subtle because while the premise is overblown to make a point as well as the immediate portrayal of the characters it is the acting, the delivery of lines, and the unexpected turn of events that hold your interest while you are being thoroughly amused by the window dressing shallowness of it all. There are some sly little moments that take you a little deeper than you thought you were going. That's good writing and good acting even if the characters appear to be be parodies and caricatures of themselves. Can you see where this movie is going - lying is wrong - are you so sure?

Anyway food for thought but the handeling of the premise and the evolution of the story is terrific and downright necessaary as it allows for an "honest" exploration of some of our assumptions about everything from relationships to religion. The Invention of Lying does all of this with a calm unforced panache that is amusing, light, fun, heartfelt and godsmack on point.

Go ahead and pull the trigger on this netflix rental - you'll be glad you did. What a refreshing turn from all the gun, car chase, profanity and violcence laced chum hollywood consistently pours into our collective consciousness.

Four stars - fun subtle acting with aplomb, lighthearted farce and heart felt conviction. This is a good one.

You're stronger than you seem; Braver than you believe; And smarter than you think you are. When shall we live if not now?

~ M.F.K. Fisher

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week

~ Spanish Proverb

"...we'll live in a clean world, energy independent, financially stable, prosperous, with lots of jobs. There's nothing except the coal industry and the oil industry standing in the way..." Ted Turner

There may be as few as 3,200 wild tigers in the world today -- and they need our help

Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Think on This ...
. . . unless each soul entity . . . makes the world better, that corner or place of the world a little better, a little bit more hopeful, a little bit more patient, showing a little more of brotherly love, a little more of kindness, a little more of longsuffering--by the very words and deeds of the entity, the life is a failure; especially so far as growth is concerned. Though you gain the whole world, how little ye must think of thyself if ye lose the purpose for which the soul entered this particular sojourn!

Edgar Cayce Reading 3420-1

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

~ Abraham Lincoln

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit.

~ Elton Trueblood

What we play is life.

~ Louis Armstrong

Flakes - Movie Review

This is a definite netflix rental for those of you who love Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Lloyd and New Orleans. It's been a while since I viewed the movie but I have been meaning to post something up. It should have stayed out in the theaters longer and I think suffered from the promotional poster more than anything.

In a typical big corporation versus small mom and pop struggle they replace the Starbucks Coffee with cereal. On one corner you have your originals, locals, and committed aficionados and across the street you have your corporate opportunist not exactly sure why the coffee shop (err cereal shop) is doing so well but hell bent to imitate it without its soul of course.

Sorry Starbucks customers although you might have heard this Starbucks is not the new age feel good place they pretend to be. Behind that edge of pretentiousness we all can feel at our local Starbucks lies a heartless corporate behemoth that rules with an absurdly iron fist. Ever notice how there aren't any fliers or promotional material up for your local open mikes, authors, or environmental groups? Starbucks isn't about anything else other than making money. The movie Flakes turns the coffee motif on its head but sets out to expose, and mock that insincerity of purpose while also mocking themselves. I mean we are talking about cereal here right?

Zooey of course turns in her slightly off kilter but centered at the heart performance, unconventional but charming, appearing flaky but actually not so much. Christopher Lloyd is his disheveled taxi cab self and sets in perfectly onto the back drop that is the uniqueness of New Orleans.

Aaron Stanford plays the employee of the local cereal bar and of course is in the process of defining himself one way or the other. It's Zooey's job as his paramour to help him along. It's cruel to be kind is the old saying but the only thing cruel about this movie is that it was swept under the carpet before it had its chance.

Highly recommended for Zooey fans, Christopher Lloyd fans, fans of New Orleans, and for local coffee shop denizen's around the world. Also recommended for pretentious Starbucks zombies who can't see the soullessness behind the glare of the counter and the noise of the machines or worse yet don't care.

Three full stars for fun, laughs and romance and a little righteous political indignation.

Walk Hard The Dewey Cox Story - Movie Review

This movie has the potential to be the next Big Lebowski. In fact I think its smarter and certainly warmer than the Dude. Both movies are great and I'm not choosing sides but Walk Hard by virtue of its soundtrack is a hilarious cut above!

John C. Reilly is beyond fantastic in this laugh out loud fun as anything movie. If you think Ashton Kutcher completely bought into his character Kelso in the 70's show you haven't seen anything. John playing Dewey Cox goes through all the metamorphoses you can possibly think of throughout his fictional musical career. The cast of supporting actors are having a blast with their roles. Kristern Wiig is deadpan hilarious, Chris Parnell the same, Tim Meadows in his best role ever,and Jenna Fischer with her tongue firmly planted in her cheek trots out her inner sex pot and nails her performance.

The dance scenes and musical numbers from the 1970's variety show are a complete hoot. The lyrics to the music are so full of double entendre's that you'll want to get the CD. And the music itself is great. Although certainly a spoof of Walk the Line the music is genuinely good. And the whole Dylan phase is monumentally funny.

In fact this is one movie you'll want to buy for your collection. The second disc of features is worth watching all the way through.

Good clean fun that never takes itself too seriously and moves along briskly. I can not say enough about John C. Reilly. In my humble opinion this blows away anything and I mean anything Adam Sandler or Will Ferrell have ever done on the big screen or television (and I love Will's Bush).

Hooray for Dewey Cox! It's one of the few movies I have watched more than once....it's my favorite thing to do :)

Julie & Julia - Movie Review

This is a great movie. Two stories are told simultaneously and yet in sync with one another. Meryl Streep is a titan in this movie. She plays the role of Julia Child with zany charm, and believe it or not restraint. In fact the moments of restraint let us peer farther into Julia's character as portrayed in the movie.

Amy Adams is beyond adorable in this movie all three feet of her as she goes through the task of portraying the creation of 524 recipes in a year. It's not all wine and roses. Her task is not only to render the french cuisine but give a larger glimpse into Julia Child's life.

There is a real zest for life saturated in this movie about having and gaining knowledge, doing something with it in the pursuit of dreams, and the road blocks along the way. The movie is at once farcical as well as sweet and endearing. This is a great couples movie. Stanley Tucci matches Meryl's charm, wit and screen presence. The husbands of our two wanna-be chefs get plenty of room to stretch out their characters. Foils to their wives they are hardly window dressing in this character driven movie that never bores, preaches or fails to uplift.

Jane Lynch Charlie and Alan's shrink and of Glee fame turns in a typically great performance more heartfelt than sardonic, and all with Paris in the 1950's as a back drop.

Great fun and more - four buttery stars up!

Anybody out there reading this: Drugs are a (bleeping) cop-out. … I remember that ad they used to have out about cocaine that said “Cocaine is a lie.” Well, it’s all a lie. Liquor: You figure your prefrontal lobe is the first part of your brain that alcohol affects. That’s also the part of your brain that decides whether you’re gonna take another drink or not. So it’s just a loaded game.

I must sound like a damn goody-two-shoes, but I’ve been clean 15 years in November, and I’ve never felt better in my life. - Gregg Allman

"Rep. Henry Waxman: You have been a staunch advocate for letting markets regulate themselves. Were you wrong?

"Alan Greenspan: Yes, I found a flaw in the model that I perceived that was the critical functioning structure of how the world works.

"Waxman: In other words you found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right.

"Greenspan: Precisely." --Testimony, House Oversight and Government Committee, Oct. 23, 2008

Cars convert only 15 percent of the energy in gasoline to forward motion? An astounding 85 percent escapes as heat or is used to keep the engine running at idle.

Think on This ...
. . . unless each soul entity . . . makes the world better, that corner or place of the world a little better, a little bit more hopeful, a little bit more patient, showing a little more of brotherly love, a little more of kindness, a little more of longsuffering--by the very words and deeds of the entity, the life is a failure; especially so far as growth is concerned. Though you gain the whole world, how little ye must think of thyself if ye lose the purpose for which the soul entered this particular sojourn!

Edgar Cayce Reading 3420-1

In the end, everything is a gag.

~ Charlie Chaplin

Tell Talisman Energy CEO John Manzoni: Respect the Achuar people! http://ping.fm/Q3LSL

America's Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists - http://ping.fm/PzTNm

This isn't a great slide show - it's awesome - http://ping.fm/fEMvI how come complete hypocrites trip over each other to get elected -

Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), a champion of abstinence education and traditional family values, will resign effective Friday after an affair with a female staffer in his district office, he announced today.

Great slide show at this link - http://ping.fm/SSwTb

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

In the hope, in the associations, in the directing; not by long precepts, but by the living example; ye may bring harmony to many. For thy presence oft brings peace to others, when they will not even admit it. But it must be within self first, before ye may give it to others.

Edgar Cayce Reading 2376-4

What is reading but silent conversation?

~ Walter Savage Landor

USA: Tell Govt. to Reject Cruel Factory Farm Confinement Methods! http://ping.fm/nwEtn

We are what we repeatedly do.

~ Aristotle

The soul is the same in all living creatures, although the body of each is different.

~ Hippocrates (philosopher)

Shocker: GOP Blocks Effort to Hold Oil Companies Accountable for Economic Damage from Spills http://ping.fm/yw67U

Gulf Oil Spill Proves the Idiocy of Unfettered Deregulation http://ping.fm/mMLcR

Stunning Statistic of the Week:

* $500,000: Cost of a safety device that could have prevented the BP oil disaster. BP opted not to buy it.
* $14 billion: BP's profits in 2009.

If BP were a person it would be a career criminal, a pathological liar and an international serial killer with a rap sheet several times the size of the Chicago Yellow Pages. http://ping.fm/YBWL2

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

Ever wonder if signing an online petition makes a difference? Wonder no more -- Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) just read your petition demanding an end to big bank gambling on the floor of the Senate!

Click here to watch the video -- then keep the momentum going by calling your senator. http://ping.fm/yEe5T

1.2 million acres, including 500 mountains, have been demolished by coal companies in Kentucky, West Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee. http://ping.fm/PFuZR

Here's another group doing great work to rid the world of pesticides and herbicides which cause cancer, investigate, inform and take action: http://ping.fm/JjYZY

Here's Beyond Pesticides Web Site - use your consumer power to get the status quo moving: http://ping.fm/6LtzT

Here is a list from the Organic Material Review Institute for the best natural weed-killing alternatives. http://ping.fm/fVY0W

The U.S. Geological Surveys have found pesticides in nearly every stream they've ever tested.

Ken Salazar Must Go!

When Obama put Ken Salazar in charge that groan you heard was from all the environmental voters immediately betrayed upon him taking office. Barrack is a shrewd politician playing both sides of the isle and trying to balance everyone's interest. Unfortunately the lesson learned here is that those with a "self" interest are the ones doing the most damage.

Environmentalist care about the whole not some grubby little corner of the market where oodles of money can be made. It is god's green earth and without it our butts are cooked - literally. Take care of what's taking care of you is the message. The health of the Earth trumps all other considerations because it is key to our interwoven and interdependent global and economic survival. No one industry, sector or interest should be given preferential treatment if the end result is the degradation and outright destruction of the whole operating system we rely on for our very survival.

Profit has to be slotted and removed as our number one and sole consideration. You can't eat money no matter how much of it you have. Our health (economic and personal) and the health of the planet are completely entwined with one another. Arrogant monied bullies need to be schooled and their access revoked. They need to stop blatantly raping the system that they have gleefully corrupted and remember - it's a question of balance. When the environment comes first it will bring on a renaissance of global and economic prosperity that no one industry or even a handful could ever hope to create operating independently and at cross hairs with one another.

The green economy is bursting at the seams to get going and only the status quo stand in the way entrenched by money and corruption and totally clueless as to how the whole world works in the first place.

Maybe more science in high school instead of less might help - ya think - morons.

Read the brief Daily Kos link here

Here's a brief history lesson:
_____________________________________

After 9 years in the Gulf, "Drilling Policy" on the Rig was Cheney's
AMC/NYC of NY
May 15, 2010 07:16:17 AM

A few points to remember about the chronology of drilling policy blame:

1.Deepwater Horizon rig was launched into the Gulf in 2002 - Obama was a state senator at the time.

2.Deepwater Horizon was under BP management since then & Coast Guard records show a history of spills,equipment failure, pollution, accidents, 6 warnings, a civil penalty & violation. In 2005 there was a fire on the rig. BP is on probation for several safety violations.

3.The rig was under 6 years of Bush administration, run by 2 Texas oilmen, that drilling policies & safety habits were in place for this rig & its operators.

4.In 2000, the fed govt (Clinton)issued a safety alert calling for operators to have multi-layers of backup, including the acoustic system, "an essential component of a deepwater drilling system" to prevent a spill. In ‘03 in response to BIG OIL pushback, the new fed govt (Bush)reversed course & ruled additional safety measures were no longer needed & acoustic system at $500,000 were “too costly” .

http://www.bilerico.com/2010/05/oil_spill_-_a_gift_of_bushcheney_-_to_foul_entire.php

5.A 2002 NRDC investigation found that a secretive “behind closed doors” relationship between BIG OIL & Cheney Energy Task Force resulted in a GOP Energy Policy “calling for billions of dollars in corporate subsidies and the wholesale elimination of key health and environmental safeguards”

http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/020327.asp

6.The MSM became a cesspool of corruption under 8 years of Bush & Cheney Energy Policy, not Obama. Bush/Cheney enabled the corruption & lax performance, Obama inherited the issue to fix, along with several others.

7.It is the responsibility of the oil companies/rig operator to maintain the operation in high working order, ensure the safety of structure & lives on-board, environmental safeguards and follow safety protocols, as well as have all swift remedial measures at hand in the case of a spill.

8.A pressure test inspection conducted 6 hrs before the explosion that took 11 lives declared "dangerous conditions"; gas leaking into the drill pipe, and Congress uncovered several blowout preventer equipment issues.

9.It is also obvious BP was unprepared & had no idea how to stop the oil gushing out - criminal negligence combined with insufficient government oversight.

10. The law capping damages other than cleanup at $75 million was a GOP/GHW Bush law. And now GOP Senators are blocking Democrats' efforts to pass legislation to raise it.

11. Since Day 1, the Obama administration were mobilized, with Coast Guard, govt & independent scientists but the govt does not have expertise in oil drilling equipment at 5,000 ft. Also, BP kept giving false information

12.None of the 3 oil companies pay US taxes - they use Bush tax loopholes & benefit from Bush Big Oil subsidies - but they were farming US oil & have destroyed a US coastline, economy, wetlands & livelihoods.

13.We hope Obama will now make drastic changes to Bush/Cheney drilling policy.

Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.

~ The Dalai Lama

Have Fun, Be Healthy, Buy Fresh, Buy Local

You have been hearing a slow but steady drumbeat about buying from your local farmers market. When I was a boy my parents did this out of habit but because of supermarkets we became accustom to one stop shopping. Here's the deal; the average supermarket vegetable travels about 1300 miles from farm to table. That's a lot of fossil fuels and emissions for one carrot.

If every family spent just ten dollars a week on local food in a mid sized city area like Hampton Roads Virginia (where I live) that would equate to 1.37 million dollars a year kept in our community.

Supporting the long standing tradition of farming and fishing communities is a way to make those communities stronger and its the right thing to do. We are loosing more and more land to development especially in our coastal communities. Supporting and buying local would help stem that tide. Who doesn't want more farm land in their communities?



But most of all the local family farm produce is fresher and has been treated with fewer chemicals and some boast none at all. Compared to factory farms this is enormous. Every one knows and has the common sense to realize it is the pesticides and man made chemicals that we dump onto our food and into our water that is jumping the rate of cancer in this country. Because there are far fewer chemicals on local produce than on supermarket produce you not only get the freshest but the safest food for your family.

I'm on the band wagon yet again but this time to stay. Whats more fun than visiting your local farmers market? We have one right down the road from our house. Often there is music and crafts, fresh cut flowers, local seafood, honey, grass fed hormone free beef, and free range poultry. Back to the future indeed.

The industrial revolution gave us a lot but it took away some of the essentials that make us who we are and disconnected us from not only each other but the very Earth that sustains us. The remnants of the industrial revolution has had and continues to have a devastating effect and affect on our health, and sense of well being. The pendulum has swung too far from those very real, very necessary, god given essentials.



American Farmland Trust

Pesticide Action Network

I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

~ Dr. Seuss

This is What God Looks Like

A Least Tern feeds its chicks on a Florida Beach
_______________________________________________________

This is What Man Looks Like

The oil slick from BP's rig is now three times the size of Rhode Island, with 200,000 gallons of crude per day.

Bird's Eye View: The Oil Spill - pretty sad...http://ping.fm/JcfQ8

Ban big banks from using their own capital to engage in market speculation.

Love isn’t an emotion or an instinct......it’s an art. Mae West

Insurance Companies Anti-Trust Exemption Back on the Table - Thank God!

Patrick Leahy Proposes Amendment To Wall Street Reform Bill To Repeal Antitrust Exemption For Health Insurers the Amendment is Cosponsored By 21 Senators.

The Insurance companies don't want this and here is their one and only talking point: Health insurers have argued that State insurance regulators already apply antitrust rules to health insurers when health insurers are making acquisitions and setting prices, and that antitrust repeal would backfire, by reducing small health insurers’ ability to get the claims data they need to stay in the health insurance market.

I would add that isn't it so heart warming that these kindly and caring insurance companies don't want to shut the door on their smaller competitors and bleed every cent out of the insurance markets for themselves? I mean that fits their method of operation to a tee you know the one that denies claims to sick people over typos and pre-existing conditions.

I call the Insurance Companies concern over small insures ability to stay in the markets big time "bullshit, bullshit, bullshit".

Ha, like they care about their smaller competitors. Who do they think they are fooling??!!!

The bottom line is that a single State lacks adequate funding to take on Transnational, International, and National Insurance Companies.

If a State ever wanted to bring suit it would drain every last cent out of their meager over burdened coffers and budgets. They could close all the fire stations in the State, and still only be able to last a month suing a behemouth Insurance Company with a National or International footprint. Get real!

In other words the Insurance Companies have enormously deeper pockets than an individual State and can operate with impunity knowing an individual State isn't going to risk its meager budget suing a National or Transnational Corporate Conglomerate for not following their laws. The only one big enough to take on the Insurance industry is the Federal Government.

Therefore to ensure compliance the anti-trust exemption has to be repealed.

The insurance industry argument is specious at best and complete bullshit as if they care about their competitors - only to the extent of how much their competitors take away even one cent from their profits....did I say it enough - complete and utter bullshit!

Write Senaator Leahy and thank him for addressing this issue of Supreme Corporate Power and Impunity in the face of the will of the people, for the people, by the people.

Also we find the inclinations for the entity at times to become, when aggravated, rather severe in its criticisms of others. This should be tempered; for what one says of another will usually be one's own state also - in one form or another.

Edgar Cayce Reading 1669-1

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.

~ James Thurber

Everybody right and left is bashing the bailouts like an election year pinata, but they cost less and were more effective than just about anyone predicted -- and may have prevented the U.S. from experiencing its own Lost Decade. http://ping.fm/mZVnP

Tell British Petroleum: Don't even think about dragging your feet, passing the buck, or billing American taxpayers so much as one penny (or one pence) for this mess. http://ping.fm/QvV6q

Officially, at least 3.5 million gallons have gushed into the ocean since the oil rig first exploded, but recent satellite data leads some scientists to believe the spill is actually far larger. And 21 days later we still don’t know when it will stop

The Sun will not rise, or set, without my notice and thanks.

Winslow Homer

Sex & Drugs & the Spill http://ping.fm/ISQ1c

This is like deja vu all over again.

Yogi Berra

For thirty years, deregulation has been all the rage in Washington. Even where regulations exist, Congress has set such low penalties that disregarding the regulations and risking fines has been treated by firms as a cost of doing business. And for years, enforcement budgets have been slashed, with the result that there are rarely enough inspectors to do the job. The assumption has been markets know best, and when they don’t civil lawsuits and government prosecutions will deter wrongdoing.

Wrong. (Robert Reich)

Stunning Statistic of the Week:

* $75 million: The liability cap for BP for the Gulf oil spill, for damages such as lost wages and economic suffering
* $5.6 billion: BP's first-quarter profits, a 135 percent increase over the first quarter of 2009

Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world and the inclination to savor it.

~ E.B. White

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. Frank Lloyd Wright

BP chose not to install a $500,000 safety device that could have prevented this disaster. A company that made $21.6 billion in profits in 2008.

"At last I do not know how to draw!" Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec

"I expand and live in the warm day like corn and melons." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Man did not weave the web of life - he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." -Chief Seattle 1854. Thank You To Lisa at - http://ping.fm/naiLt

Today's NOAA Map of Spill - http://ping.fm/MDIJY

In a landmark report so strongly worded that it stunned even the environmental health community with its findings, the President's Cancer Panel explicitly urges President Obama to "remove the carcinogens and other toxins from our food, water, and air that needlessly increase health care costs, cripple our Nation's productivity, and devastate American lives." http://ping.fm/vNuij

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.

Lao Tzu

It's up to us to save the world for tomorrow: it's up to you and me. - Jane Goodall

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.

~ Henry James

Way cool incident map of oil spill - http://ping.fm/0eJgV

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

~ Mark Twain

There is NO Such Thing as American OIL!!!!

There's no such thing as "American Oil" - it gets pumped out from wherever (around the globe) and then goes out on an oil exchange for purchase - so where the oil "COMES" from is completely irrelevant.

The argument against drilling along our coast is a risk versus cost assessment. Having only 2% of the WORLDS reserves - our oil supply - off our coast - is completely irrelevant except to those 15 guys on the rig living in the area - the rest of the whole operation is a Transnational event.

So why should we risk our billion dollar tourist, fishing and home markets for international conglomeration. Our puny reserves won't make a dent in the actual price of the oil. But the the risk to our macroeconomic community and to our health and to the environment on which our very health and well being survives on - is WAY to much to risk.

Any real risk assessment devoid of politics would re-direct our subsidies (tax dollars) away from oil and into the clean energy sector creating millions of high paying jobs - updating the grid, and retrofitting downtown City areas for efficiency - that right there would cut demand (SUPPLY & DEMAND) for oil and LOWER the price at the pump.

Everything else is specious lip service to the powers that be that can control the debate through mass media to keep their particular industry propped up.

Take action here and here

Oil, Oil Everywhere

When are we going to remember that these are businessmen and not to be trusted - not because they intentionally are crooks and liars (a lot of them are) but because what motivates them is one simple thing only - PROFIT and their bottom line - they do not take into account the big picture and their feet have to be held to the fire in order to comply with common sense. Just because they are rich doesn't make them smart.

Regulation wouldn't be necessary if our captains of industry operated from a macroeconomic mind set but they don't. Self interest and often corrupted self interest govern their every move.

Beyond short sighted they are damn near blind to anything other than hustling for the one last buck ($) on the table.

Take Action here and here

Enjoy every sandwich.

~ Warren Zevon

See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Ray Bradbury

Oil Sucks - Deregulation Sucks

The real long term success of our economy across the board depends on the real long term success of our environment.



This is complete and utter bullshit, incompetence and criminal. The oil spills from Valdez and Santa Barbara are still on those beaches less than an inch below the surface. Well done status quo - well done your leadership skills are impeccable.

Beauty is in the heart of the beholder.

~ Al Bernstein

From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.

~ Dr. Seuss