Irish aid vessel still sailing for Gaza, ‘most serious consequences’ promised if passengers harmed

By Stephen C. Webster

Irish humanitarian aid ship the MV Rachel Corrie is still sailing for Gaza, in spite of Israel's recent, devastating attack on other vessels in the Gaza aid flotilla, resulting in at least nine dead activists and hundreds of prisoners.

The ship, named after 23-year-old U.S. peace activist Rachel Corrie -- who was crushed to death in 2003 by an American-built bulldozer operated by the Israeli army -- has been pleading with the international community to pressure Israel into leaving them alone.

The Irish government, for its part, has threatened Israel with "the most serious consequences" if any Irish national, captured or currently aborad an aid vessel, is harmed.

"If any harm comes to any of our citizens, it will have the most serious consequences," Taoiseach Brian Cowen said, according to The Irish Times.

"Taoiseach" is the position bestowed upon the individual who leads Ireland's government.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0601/irish-aid-vessel-sailing-gaza-minister-pledges-serious-consequences-passengers-harmed/

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Egypt opens Gaza border after Israel ship clash

GAZA (Reuters) - Egypt will open its border with the Gaza Strip to let Palestinians cross, officials said on Tuesday, following a storm of international criticism of Israel's bloody enforcement at sea of its blockade on the enclave.

The decision, urged by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against whom the embargo has been directed, prompted dozens of people to race to the crossing point in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, although the gates remained closed.

Officials in Egypt and Gaza said the crossing would open on Wednesday until further notice -- a step seen as an attempt by Cairo to deflect criticism of its role in imposing the blockade.

Rafah is the only point on Gaza's borders not controlled by Israel. Cairo, coordinating with Israel, has opened it only sparingly since Hamas seized control of Gaza three years ago.

A permanent opening of the crossing, which runs across a stretch of desert frontier riddled by hundreds of smuggling tunnels, would be a major boost for Hamas and a blow to efforts by Israel and its Western allies to cripple the Islamists.
However, a full, permanent opening is seen as unlikely.

Cairo fears such a move would allow Israel to wash its hands of any responsibility for the territory, which the Jewish state captured from Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war and which the Palestinians want to become part of their future state.

Cairo, which made peace with Israel in 1979, also has strained relations with Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, Egypt's biggest opposition group.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6502H820100601

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Pro-Israel Dems defend raid

 
By: Jake Sherman

While the Obama administration takes a wait-and-see approach to the newest crisis in the Middle East, some Democrats in Congress stand firmly behind Israel's raid of a Turkish flotilla en route to Gaza.

New York Democratic Reps. Anthony Weiner, Jerrold Nadler, Gary Ackerman, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.) have all vigorously supported Israel's boarding an aid ship bound for the blockaded Gaza — an act that resulted in ten deaths and a U.N. condemnation.

The comments expose a bit of daylight between the White House and some staunch defenders of Israel in Congress. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the administration is "greatly supportive of [Israel's] security. That's not going to change." And in a statement, the White House said it had "regret" for the deaths but supported an investigation to uncover the facts.

Pro-Israel Democrats aren't being so nuanced.

"I think that members of the United States Congress understand why the blockade was in place against Hamas and support it, once you start at that place, a boat that bows into the teeth of that blockade isn't going to be viewed sympathetically," Weiner said. "To the extent that any time that there is a flare-up of tensions, it's bad for U.S. and Israeli efforts of peace. We obviously had a bad weekend."

Ackerman, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, said he "strongly support(s) Israel's right to defend itself, and the right of Israel's naval commandos, who were executing a legal mission, to defend themselves by using force when they were brutally attacked."

He called Hamas the "true villain in this drama."

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=F552438D-18FE-70B2-A88DCB0C7A113BA0

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Ron Paul points out some unpleasant truths

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The way to lie about another war

by John Pilger

The CIA set a precedent with the Tonkin "incident", sparking off the Vietnam war. Today, we see the same arts of spin at work in Israel's reasons for the bloody assault on the Muslim aid ships to Gaza.

How do wars begin? With a "master illusion", according to Ralph McGehee, one of the CIA's pioneers in "black propaganda", known today as "news management". In 1983, he described to me how the CIA had faked an "incident" that became the "conclusive proof of North Vietnam's aggression". This followed a claim, also fake, that North Vietnamese torpedo boats had attacked an American warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.

"The CIA," he said, "loaded up a junk, a North Vietnamese junk, with communist weapons - the agency maintains communist arsenals in the United States and around the world. They floated this junk off the coast of central Vietnam. They shot it up and made it look like a firefight, and they brought in the American press. Based on this evidence, two marine landing teams went into Danang and a week after that the American air force began regular bombing of North Vietnam." An invasion that took three million lives was under way.

The Israelis have played this murderous game since 1948. The massacre of peace activists in international waters on 31 May was "spun" to the Israeli public for the better part of the week, preparing them for yet more murder by their government, with the unarmed flotilla of humanitarians described as terrorists or dupes of terrorists. The BBC was so intimidated that it reported the atrocity primarily as a "potential public relations disaster for Israel", the perspective of the killers, and a disgrace for journalism.

Guilt trip

A similar master illusion now consumes Asian governments. On 20 May, South Korea announced it had "overwhelming evidence" that a torpedo fired by a North Korean submarine sank one of its warships, the Cheonan, in March with the loss of 46 sailors. The US keeps 28,000 troops in South Korea, where the public has long supported détente with Pyongyang.

On 26 May, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, flew to Seoul and demanded that the "international community must respond" to "North Korea's outrage". She flew on to Japan, where the new North Korean "threat" eclipsed the briefly independent foreign policy of the Japanese prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, elected last year with popular opposition to America's permanent military occupation of Japan. (On 2 June Hatoyama resigned, having failed to move a US military base in Okinawa.) The "overwhelming evidence" is a propeller that "had been corroding at least for several months", reported the Korea Times. In April, the director of South Korea's national intelligence, Won Se-hoon, told a parliamentary committee that there was no evidence linking the sinking of the Cheonan to North Korea. The defence minister agreed. And the head of South Korea's military marine operations said, "No North Korean warships have been detected [in] the waters where the accident took place." The reference to an "accident" suggests the warship struck a reef and broke in two.

To the American media, North Korea's guilt is beyond doubt, just as North Vietnam's guilt was beyond doubt, just as Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, just as Israel can terrorise with impunity. But, unlike Vietnam and Iraq, North Korea has nuclear weapons, which helps to explain why it has not been attacked, not yet: a salutary lesson to other countries, such as Iran, currently in the cross hairs.

In Britain, we have our own master illusions. Imagine someone on state benefits caught claiming £40,000 of taxpayers' money in a second-home scam. A prison sentence would almost certainly follow. But David Laws, chief secretary to the Treasury, does the same and is described as follows: "I have always admired his intelligence, his sense of public duty and his personal integrity" (Nick Clegg). "You are a good and honourable man" (David Cameron). Laws is "a man of quite exceptional nobility" (Julian Glover, the Guardian), and "a brilliant mind" (BBC).

The Oxbridge club and its associate members in politics and the media have tried to link Laws's "error of judgement" and "naivety" to his "right to privacy" as a gay man, an irrelevance. The "brilliant mind" is a wealthy, Cambridge-groomed investment banker devoted to the noble task of cutting the public services of mostly poor and honest people.

http://www.newstatesman.com/middle-east/2010/06/north-korea-vietnam-pilger

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Of course, they were asking for it

by Mark Steel

It's time the Israeli government's PR team made the most of its talents, and became available for hire. Then whenever a nutcase marched into a shopping mall in somewhere like Wisconsin and gunned down a selection of passers-by, they could be on hand to tell the world's press "The gunman regrets the loss of life but did all he could to avoid violence." Then various governments would issue statements saying "All we know is a man went berserk with an AK 47, and next to him there's a pile of corpses, so until we know the facts we can't pass judgement on what took place."

To strengthen their case the Israelis have released a photo of the weapons they found on board, (which amount to some knives and tools and wooden sticks) that the naive might think you'd expect to find on any ship, but the more astute will recognise as exactly what you'd carry if you were planning to defeat the Israeli army. It's an armoury smaller than you'd find in the average toolshed in a garden in Cirencester, which goes to show the Israelis had better destroy Cirencester quickly as an essential act of self-defence.

It's a shame they weren't more imaginative, as they could have said "We also discovered a deadly barometer, a ship's compass, which could not only be frisbeed at someone's head but even had markings to help the assailant know which direction he was throwing it, and a set of binoculars that could easily be converted into a ray-gun."

That would be as logical as the statement from the Israeli PM's spokesman – "We made every possible effort to avoid this incident." Because the one tiny thing they forgot to do to avoid this incident was not send in armed militia from helicopters in the middle of the night and shoot people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-of-course-they-were-asking-for-it-1988684.html

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San Diego Anti-Gay Religious Zealots Launch Judicial Crusade

BY BILL BERKOWITZ

Better Courts Now's candidates are on a 'mission from God' to transform San Diego's court system.

If you've had your fill of athletes thanking God for their good fortune on the basketball court or gridiron, and/or politicians claiming that God directed them to run for public office –- think George W. Bush –- then do not read any further. If, however, you're interested in and/or intrigued by the "Mission from God" conceit, and wondering if folks adopting that charge from on high just might be coming to your humble township, then check out what's been happening in San Diego, California.

What may have started out as a small, almost stealth-like campaign –- similar to those that took over school boards across the country -- has evolved into a rock-em, sock-em, full-throated effort to remove four Democratic-appointed judges from Superior Court, and replace them with four bona-fide "Mission from God" Christian conservative attorneys.

The movement, called Better Courts Now, is supporting four San Diego Superior Court candidates that have the backing of "pastors, gun enthusiasts and opponents of abortion and same-sex marriages," the Associated Press recently reported.

A banner on the front-page of the Better Courts Now (BCN) website welcoming visitors, reads: "Welcome to BetterCourtsNow.com. The most innovative approach to unifying the moral vote. Better Courts Now, is an attempt to network with you in a way that allows you to become a change agent in making judges accountable. Join the fight and let your voice be heard!"

In mid-March, Capital Weekly reported that the website "also includes testimonials from at least one person affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), a group that has been in the center of political battles over gay marriage in California and around the country."

http://blog.buzzflash.com//contributors/3245

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Veterans Cemetery

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When Oil & Water Collide

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Gaza flotilla - Eyewitness accounts of Israeli raid

Passengers aboard the Gaza-bound aid flotilla and Israeli soldiers give their accounts of what happened when Israeli commandos boarded the ships, killing nine.

The activists, speaking on their return to Germany, Greece and Turkey on Tuesday, said that as well as firing live and plastic rounds, commandos had administered electric shocks and beaten passengers during the assault.

Israeli soldiers, meanwhile, said the troops acted in self-defence after they were attacked while boarding the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara.

NORMAN PAECH, GERMANY

Norman Paech, a former member of Germany's Left Party, was aboard the Mavi Marmara, the largest of the six ships in the convoy.

Speaking at a news conference in Berlin, he said the ship was surrounded by small Israeli assault boats on Monday morning at about 0430 local time.

"Moments later, we heard detonations and then soldiers from helicopters above us dropped down on board.

"The soldiers were all masked, carrying big guns and were extremely brutal."

Mr Paech said he only saw three activists resisting.

"They had no knives, no axes, only sticks that they used to defend themselves," he told reporters.

But he said he could "not rule out" that others used weapons somewhere else on the boat.

NILUFER CETIN, TURKEY

Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin told reporters she hid with her baby in the bathroom of her cabin aboard the Mavi Marmara.

"When the Mavi Marmara continued on its course, the harassment [from Israeli ships] turned into an attack," she said.

"They used smoke bombs followed by gas canisters. They started to descend onto the ship with helicopters.

"It [the violence] was extremely bad and brutal. The ship turned into a lake of blood.

"I was one of the first victims to be released because I had a child. They confiscated everything, our telephones, laptops are all gone.

"We were aware of the possible danger [in joining the trip] but there are thousands of babies in Gaza. If we had reached Gaza we would have played with them and taken them food."

IDF CAPTAIN ARIA SHALIKER

Captain Aria Shaliker was part of Monday's operation.

"From 10pm to 4am... the Israeli army, again and again, asked the flotilla to please not approach Israel, to not continue sailing in the direction of Gaza," he said.

"When the soldiers went on board in order to take over the ship… they were attacked violently by thousands of extremists... attacking the Israeli soldiers with metal rocks, with knives - and tried to lynch them basically."

DIMITRIS GIELALIS, GREECE

Activist Dimitris Gielalis, who had been aboard the Sfendoni, was among six Greeks who returned home on Tuesday.

"Suddenly from everywhere we saw inflatables coming at us, and within seconds fully equipped commandos came up on the boat," he said.

"They came up and used plastic bullets, we had beatings, we had electric shocks, any method we can think of, they used."

Mr Gielalis said the boat's captain was beaten for refusing to leave the wheel, and had sustained non-life-threatening injuries, while a cameraman filming the raid was hit with a rifle butt in the eye.

"Of course we weren't prepared for a situation of war," he said.

ANONYMOUS IDF SOLDIER

In an IDF video posted on YouTube, an anonymous Israeli soldier says his arm was broken while he tried to defend himself.

"We were above the ship hovering above it. We understood there were 15 people on the roof," he said.

"They took [another soldier], tied him to one of the antennas. We came down using the other rope, one by one, and every guy that descended was met by three or four people.

"And they just started beating him up, tearing him to pieces. It was a lynch.

"Every guy that came down the ropes was taken aside, and everyone there had metal rods, knives, sling shots, glass bottles. At one point there was live fire... two guys there had live ammunition.

"They started hitting me with metal rods, and while defending myself, I guess I broke my arm.

"At this point, I didn't even have a weapon in my hands. Any soldier coming down the ropes did not have a gun in his hands. We were empty-handed, our guns were on our backs.

"It's important to clarify that the weapons were riot dispersal means, we had paintball guns.

"They just came prepared for battle. We came prepared to straighten things out, talk to them, convince them to unboard the ship."

ARIS PAPADOKOSTOPOULOS, GREECE

Aris Papadokostopoulos was aboard the Free Mediterranean, travelling behind the Mavi Marmara and carrying mainly Greek and Swedish activists.

"The Turkish ship [the Mavi Marmara] was in front of us... on which there was a terrible raid from the air and from the sea and from everywhere, with shooting.

Mr Papadokostopoulos said that aboard the other boats, commandos beat activists but nobody was gravely injured.

He said no one put up resistance on the Free Mediterranean, which was carrying a cargo of wheelchairs, building material and medical and pharmaceutical aid.

"Some people were hit by clubs and electric shocks. During their interrogation, many of them were badly beaten in front of us," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10206802.stm

 

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Not in My Jewish Name

By Rob Kall

I am a Jew and I am outraged and ashamed by the acts Israel has perpetrated. I am not a self hating Jew, not an anti-semite, as some religious extremist Jews have accused me and other Jews who criticize Israel.

I am a Jew who knows right from wrong, who can see that the band of evil idiots in Israel who are making decisions are doing the wrong thing, doing things that are bad for the Jewish people. I stand up now declaring that Israel does not act in my name. AIPAC, the lobbying group for Israel does not act in my name.

I was ashamed and outraged when Israel attacked Gaza, killing over 1000 innocents. I told my son it would be like him throwing a balled up peice of paper at me and me coming back with a hammer smashing him in the head and face repeatedly.

There's no other way to explain it. The Israeli leadership have become psychopaths, without conscience. I know that there are Jews who are bigots, who see the Palestinians as less than human. These are usually the same racist haters who listen to Rush Limbaugh like the Christian racist haters who treat all Muslims and blacks the same way. It's not a Jewish or Zionist thing. People who like to hate Jews tend to think that way. Sorry, It's not the case.

Israel is now controlled by a small minority of extreme, ultra-orthodox Jews. They have the power because they have small minority power bases in the Knesset that they use to help larger groups to gain power-- as long as these fringe groups get specific things they want. These ultra-orthodox are extremist fundamentalists, just like the crazy, rabid right wingers we have here in the USA.

It is time for the US to deal with Israel, facing the reality that these extremists are controlling too much. The US should tell AIPAC that the curtain has been lifted, it no longer will be paid attention to and it should go away.

 

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Not-in-My-Jewish-Name-by-Rob-Kall-100601-960.html

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Silence Right Must Be Invoked Explicitly, Court Says

 

By Greg Stohr

Criminal suspects must explicitly invoke their right to remain silent to force police to stop questioning, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled.

The 5-4 decision upholds the Michigan murder conviction of a man who sat silent throughout most of a three-hour interrogation by police. The ruling blunts the force of the landmark 1966 Miranda v. Arizona decision, which required police to inform suspects of their rights.

"A requirement of an unambiguous invocation of Miranda rights results in an objective inquiry that avoids difficulties of proof and provides guidance to officers on how to proceed in the face of ambiguity," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

The ruling divided the court along what have become familiar lines, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito joining Kennedy in the majority.

"Today's decision turns Miranda upside down," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent. "Criminal suspects must now unambiguously invoke their right to remain silent -- which, counterintuitively, requires them to speak."

Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg joined Sotomayor in dissent.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-06-01/silence-right-must-be-invoked-explicitly-court-says-update1-.html

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To Kill a Mockingbird – America’s National Novel – Turns 50

In July 1960 a novel about the collision between childhood innocence and the sometime harshness of life in the American Deep South was published, to little fanfare.  Quickly, however, it became a hit, first domestically and then internationally.  Translated in to over forty languages and still selling at least a million copies each year, To Kill A Mockingbird has become to many the singular American National Novel.

Sorry, Messrs Twain, Capote, Salinger and Hawthorne – you were pipped at the post by an unassuming girl from Alabama - Nelle Harper Lee.

Expect documentaries, readings, discussions, reruns of the (albeit marvellous) eponymous 1962 Gregory Peck film (left with actor Brock Peters as Tom Robinson) and school productions ad infinitum.  Don't expect one thing though – and that is to catch sight of the Harper Lee, the author of the novel.  She is a lady not for talking.  A lesson that many novelists should perhaps take to heart – that they should be not seen and not heard is epitomized by Lee and seconded only by Salinger.

Harper Lee has effectively vanished.  She never published another novel and is most certainly not to be seen reminiscing about her struggle with whatever on Oprah.  To all intents and purposes she has disappeared off the face of the earth.  However, she is still alive and well.  Now 84 she lives in the town in which she was born, Monroeville, Alabama.

 

http://www.kuriositas.com/2010/05/to-kill-mockingbird-americas-national.html

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5 Ways to Avoid Financial Ruin, Hollywood-Style

Just when you thought Madoff was rotting away in prison, along comes alleged Ponzi schemer to the stars, Ken Starr, arrested last week on charges of swindling $30 million in Hollywood fortunes. Herein, bold-faced lessons for your own (much smaller) fortune.

By Marty Beckerman

Oceanic Media Group via FilmMagic

1. Savings

You could... ...make $737,000 a month, just like Britney Spears, then save or invest exactly zero dollars. Just like Britney Spears, according to actual court documents.

You should... ...give away some of that gargantuan salary and all the goodies that come with it. George Clooney donated his Oscar gift bag to charity for $45,000, and the IRS is cracking down on swag anyway.

You're probably better off... ...regularly depositing your earnings into a tax-deferred annuity that would support you in old age and shield you from your worst youthful impulses. Also: adhere to a restrained lifestyle, à la Warren Buffett. Note: this is way less fun than racking up $600,000 in credit-card debt, like Lindsay Lohan reportedly managed to do.

RELATED: How to Save (and Spend) Money at Every Age

Walt Disney Pictures

2. Real Estate

You could... ...make like Nicolas Cage and buy a bunch of castles all over the world, then flip them (headache-free!) for a huge markup whenever you want. And by "for a huge markup," we mean "for a loss of unfathomable millions."

You should... ...get a mortgage for a house — one house — now that rates are at their lowest in decades. And remember: you are the king of the sofa, not Bavaria.

You're probably better off... ...keeping some penalty-free liquid assets. The FDIC has bumped-up its insurance guarantee from $100,000 to a just-for-this-neverending-recession cap of $250,000, which you and your spouse can bump up much higher by opening a joint account, two retirement accounts, and dual trusts. Because when you're married, it's always good to have cash on hand for — how should we put this, Tiger? — unpredictable emergencies.

RELATED: How to Blow a a Million Dollars

3. Accounting

You could... ...emulate Starr's clients and hand off "total control" of your finances to a mysterious guru — he even allegedly paid their bills — but the federally mandated Securities Investor Protection Corporation only protects $500,000 per account. And the SIPC might deny your claim anyway, as many of Madoff's victims cataclysmically discovered.

You should... ...emulate a (non-dickish) banker and diversify your own portfolio, like Shia LaBeouf claims to have done with a self-made $500,000 in his Schwab account while preparing for Oliver Stone's Wall Street sequel. If you must entrust another, make sure he is not himself entrusting an exotic dancer, a handbag-obsessed secretary, or a "glamorous, club-hopping lifestyle."

You're probably better off... ...double-checking your statements — Uma Thurman's attention to detail apparently led to Starr's arrest. No word on whether she is coming for his scalp with the Kill Bill katana.

RELATED: Celebrities Who Hid Their Money... Poorly

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/celebrity-financial-advice-060210#ixzz0pi6hPeWY

 

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Missionaries of Hate, Pt. 1

 

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/92438541_missionaries-of-hate-pt-1.htm

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Underground green economy employing millions

 

by Glenn Hurowitz

There's a new economy springing up around the country -- but it's operating almost entirely in secret. It's called "the restoration economy" and it's remaking America's landscape while putting millions of people to work.

This economy is devoted to restoring what's been lost: degraded forests, watersheds, oceans, cities, communities, buildings, transit -- and it's the product of a major turning point in our history that's been almost entirely missed by the press and politicians.

I recently had the opportunity to learn about this stealth green economy when I participated in a panel at the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference about land and water-based jobs. In a telling sign, this panel (organized by The Wilderness Society's relentless JP Leous, one of the brightest rising stars in the environmental movement) was apparently the first in the history of the conference to focus on forest, land, and water based jobs (or as I like to think of them, the ultimate green jobs).

One of my co-panelists was Storm Cunningham, who in his seminal book, The Restoration Economy, revealed this major shift for the first time:

...But then, in the late 90's, I began noticing a miraculous new trend: a number of places -- both ecosystems and communities -- were actually getting better, some spectacularly so. Rivers that had been devoid of fish were teeming with them. Blighted industrial waterfronts were becoming gorgeous, lively, economically thriving public areas. Devastated, clear-cut hills were becoming forests again -- real forests, not just the typical tree farms that are devoid of wildlife. ...

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, we failed to notice a turning point of immense significance. New development -- the development mode that has dominated the past three centuries -- lost significant "market share" to another mode: restorative development.

Despite the fact that restorative development will dominate the twenty-first century, its phenomenal rate of growth has gone largely undocumented. This is hardly an unimportant transition: economic growth based primarily on the exploitation of new resources and territories is giving way to economic growth based on expanding our resources and improving our existing assets..

Why is it happening? Primarily, it's because we've now developed most of the world that can be developed without destroying some other inherent value or vital function of that property. The major driver of economic growth in the the twenty-first century will thus be redeveloping our nations, revitalizing our cities, and rehabilitating and expanding our ecosystems. We'll be adding health and wealth in a way that doesn't cause a corresponding loss of wealth elsewhere.

To put it in other words, today's economic potential isn't in the exploitation of untapped resources, but rather in the restoration of wealth (natural, infrastructural, community and otherwise).

For that reason and others, the restoration economy is dollar-for-dollar by far the best job creator of any economic activity.

http://www.grist.org/article/underground-green-economy-employing-millions/

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Could Secret Saudi Spill Hold Fix for Gulf Slick?

by Chanan Tigay

Even as proposals pour in for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one veteran of a massive (and secret) crude spill in the Persian Gulf says he has a tried-and-true solution.

Now if only the people who could make it happen would return his calls.

"No one's listening," says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.

 

According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.

But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water's surface, Pozzi's team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.

"We took [the oil] out of the water so it would save the environment off the Arabian Gulf, and then we put it into tanks until we could figure out how to clean it," he told AOL News.

While BP, the oil giant at the center of the recent accident, works to stanch the leak from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, Pozzi insists the company should be following his lead.

AOL News could not independently verify Pozzi's account, but one former Aramco employee did acknowledge that there was a large spill in the region in the early '90s, and that Aramco had used tankers to clean up earlier oil slicks.

Pozzi, now retired, spent 17 years of his career in Saudi Arabia, part of it as a manager in Aramco's technical support and maintenance division.

Shortly after the April 22 sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, he and a friend, Houston attorney Jon King (with whom Pozzi recently launched a business called Wow Environmental Solutions), traveled to Houma, La., headquarters for BP's response center, to offer up the lessons he'd learned working in the Persian Gulf.
Ever since, he says, the pair's been stonewalled.

 

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/could-cleanup-fix-for-gulf-oil-spill-lie-in-secret-saudi-disaster/19476863

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10 ways to kick the offshore-oil habit

by Jonathan Hiskes

One of the most depressing aspects of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak is the idea that we've got no choice but to rely on offshore drilling and the stomach-turning dangers it carries. We know all the problems with importing oil from petro-dictatorships. Electric cars aren't ready to replace fuel-combustion engines. The only option, political leaders tell us, is for Americans to choke down the occasional drilling catastrophe and deal with the ugly consequences.

"Accidents happen," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.). "You learn from them and you try not to make sure they don't happen again."

"I doubt this is the first accident that has happened and I doubt it will be the last," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.

"The reality of it is that we will be depending on oil and gas as we transition to a new energy future," Ken Salazar, President Obama's Interior secretary, told a Senate panel last week. "You are not going to turn off the lights of this country or the economy by shutting it all down."

Is it true that we've got no alternative?

The last time lawmakers truly freaked out about the problem of our oil dependence--when gas prices topped $4 a gallon in the summer of 2008--the Senate Energy Committee called in Skip Laitner, director of economic analysis at the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

The committee asked Laitner what efficiency--the famously unglamorous energy strategy--could do to relieve gas prices. He gave them an astonishing figure: It could save 46 billion barrels of oil. If the U.S. made an all-out investment in energy efficiency-cutting energy waste out of vehicles, buildings, the electrical grid, and elsewhere in the economy--Laitner believes it could save the energy equivalent of 46 billion barrels by 2030.

Domestic offshore drilling produced 537 million barrels a year over the last nine years, according to the Minerals Management Service. A full-bore efficiency plan would save the equivalent of 85 years of offshore drilling.

Looking at the transportation sector alone, Laitner recommended 10 short-term policies that would cut the need for oil. Congress eventually passed one of them-the "cash for clunkers" program. Even that could be improved upon: the lax fuel-economy standards for new cars meant the trade-in program didn't save nearly as much fuel as it could have

If you're tired of dead sea turtles, oil-coated marshlands, destroyed fisheries, disputes over leak rates, political cop-outs, terms like tar balls and junk shots (OK, those are funny), these are for you:

10 solutions to our oil addiction

1. A better "cash for clunkers." Last summer's popular program took hundreds of thousands of low-performing autos off the road, but its low standards for the fuel economy of eligible new cars made it more of an auto-industry bailout than an environmental boon. A two-year version that gave credit for only truly efficient new vehicles (35 mpg or better) would save more oil. Congress could pay for it by extending the 1978 gas guzzler tax to light trucks and SUVs--it currently applies only to passenger cars.

2. Emergency funding for endangered mass transit. A chilling 59 percent of public transit networks have cut service or raised fares (or both) since January 2009, pushing more commuters into cars. Congress could save both oil and jobs by preserving existing bus and rail lines with emergency funding.

3. A national telecommuting and videoconferencing initiative. Encouraging employees to work from home and cut back on business travel would cut fuel usage, save them money and commuting time, and probably make a lot of them happier. Congress could direct federal workers to telecommute and videoconference as much as possible. For everyone else, a campaign would help make these things more normative and socially acceptable.

4. Smarter freight movement. Congress could commission a study to explore a grab-bag of methods to lighten the impact of trucking and rail and jet shipping. "Heavy trucks might save 32 percent of energy use through a combination of improved fuel efficiencies, and better coordination to reduce empty backhauls and unnecessary travel," Laitner writes in a journal article [PDF] Train design that reduces aerodynamic drag and collects energy from braking (as a Prius does) could produce more savings.

5. Smarter land use. Congress could direct (and help fund) local government efforts to update zoning and land-use regulations in ways that encourage compact development compatible with transit service and friendly to walkers and bikers. (Obama's Partnership for Sustainable Communities is already taking steps in this direction.)

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-05-24-10-ways-to-kick-the-offshore-oil-habit/

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