Gulf fishing ban expanded, extended

post from Daily Kos on 07 May 2010 09:10:04 PM. © Daily Kos

NOAA fishing ban boundary NOAA has expanded the fishing ban in the gulf by about 50% and extended it through at least May 17

Here's a roundup of some of today's news about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico:

NOAA has expanded the fishing ban in the Gulf by about 50% and extended the ban through at least May 17.

Crews are in the final stages of placing a "containment vessel" on top of the gushing well. If it works, this could reduce the spill flow by 85%. It also runs the risk of making things worse. As of late Friday afternoon local time, it was suspended about 200 feet over the well, with robots positioning it to capture the flow of oil.

Video of the "containment vessel" being lowered into the ocean 5,000 feet above the oil spill site.

BP says it has given up on trying to close valves to stop the leak. They are now betting heavily on the containment vessel. If that fails, they are debating other options, including injecting liquid into the well to disrupt the flow, and drilling a new well to relieve pressure.

Since the spill, the Federal government has granted 27 exemptions for oil company projects from conducting a detailed environmental impact survey.

The Feds have also cleared 30 rigs as being safe. Hmmm. Didn't they do that to Deepwater Horizon?

55% of Floridians oppose offshore oil drilling.

Breton National Wildlife Refuge closed while crews attempt to clean up oil

The oil spill could force the closure next week of LOOP, the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port which handles more than 1 million barrels per day, 50% of the nation's refinery capacity.

Janet Napolitano and Gary Locke met with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour in Pascagoula earlier today on oil spill response plans.

Projections for Sunday put the spill's "area of uncertainty" close to the Mississippi shoreline between Bay St. Louis and Pascagoula.

NOAA has redirected a mission that was to examine deep sea corral to instead take samples from sea floor sediment to begin assessing the impact of the spill.

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nded,-extended

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Sarah Palin To Bill OReilly: We Must Criminalize
Working On Sundays; Women Wearing Hats In Church; Eating Shellfish

post from The Gun Toting Liberal on 07 May 2010 09:08:26 PM. © The Gun Toting Liberal

Sarah “Barracuda” Palin In O’reilly Interview Says All Of Our Laws Should Come Directly From Christian Bible And Ten CommandmentsThat’s right, The Barracuda is at it again — this time telling O’Reilly our Founding Fathers had meant for all of our laws to come...

This is only a comment summary. Visit http://guntotingliberal.com to view the lastest content complete with some of the most outrageous original photoshops in the political blogosphere!

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Kagan frontrunner for Supreme Court, reportedly
hard to hit

post from AMERICAblog News on 07 May 2010 09:02:12 PM. © AMERICAblog News

From Chris Good at the Atlantic:

Solicitor General Elena Kagan is reportedly the overwhelming frontrunner to be picked by President Obama as his next Supreme Court nominee. But if she does get picked, she could be tough for conservatives to attack.

Her critics will have significantly less fodder to play with, it seems, than those of Obama's last nominee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

I asked Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network (a conservative group focused on judicial nominees) what conservatives are going to say about Kagan, and what Kagan's "wise Latina" moment, if there is one, will prove to be.

"She has been much more careful than Justice Sotomayor. She never would have said something like that even if she thinks it. She's been so careful for so long that no one seems to know exactly what she does think," Severino said.

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Game 3 - Los Suns vs. Los Espuelas And Other
Sports Matters

post from TalkLeft on 07 May 2010 09:02:00 PM. © TalkLeft

Tonight in San Antonio at 9:30. Go Los Suns!

Presently, the Cavs are demolishing the Celtics.

Yanks are playing the Sox in Fenway this evening in the first of a 3 games series. Go Yanks.

Tomorrow the Giro d'Italia starts in Rotterdam (next year it starts in Washington, D.C.) Podium Cafe remains the best site for commentary on this first of the 3 big 3 week cycling races (the others are the Tour de France and the Vuelta de Espana.)

34 days till the World Cup in South Africa.

Open Thread.

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Worst. Sponsor. Ever.

post from Firedoglake on 07 May 2010 09:01:19 PM. © Firedoglake

Has anyone ever been less supportive of their own legislation than Lindsey Graham? First he withdrew his support for the Kerry-Graham-Lieberman climate bill because Democrats wanted to move on immigration reform first (and really, what better way is[...]

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It Would Be Irresponsible Not To Speculate, Part
2: No Confirmation Yet of Terrorist Training for Times Square Bomber

post from Crooks and Liars on 07 May 2010 09:00:02 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Hmm. So while Shahzad wasn't a fan of the Beckster, it appears that neither was he a member of any radical Islamic group. I wonder how many wingnut heads will explode now:

WASHINGTON ? No credible evidence has been found so far that the Pakistani-American man accused in the Times Square bombing plot received any serious terrorist training from the Pakistani Taliban or another radical Islamic group, six U.S. officials said Thursday.
"There is nothing that confirms that any groups have been found involved in this for certain," one U.S. official told McClatchy. "It's a lot of speculation at this point."
Faisal Shahzad may have, at the most, had "incidental contact" with a terrorist organization, and he may have been encouraged to act, said one of the officials, who declined to elaborate further.
Four U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials and two other U.S. officials with knowledge of the case spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss classified intelligence or the ongoing investigation publicly.
According to a five-count criminal complaint filed by U.S. prosecutors in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday, Shahzad admitted after his arrest on Monday to receiving bomb-making training in Waziristan, a part of Pakistan's tribal area bordering Afghanistan, during a five-month trip to his homeland that ended in February.
According to the criminal complaint, Shahzad admitted that he'd parked a Nissan SUV loaded with propane tanks, gasoline canisters, fertilizer and fireworks coupled to two alarm clocks in New York's Times Square on Saturday evening and fled.
The vehicle began smoldering, but failed to explode. Shahzad was apprehended on Monday night on a Dubai-bound Emirates flight at John F. Kennedy Airport that he'd been allowed to board even though his name was on the "no fly" list.
The U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials, however, said that the bungled nature of the bombing and the trail of clues that led the FBI to him suggest that he never received even rudimentary terrorist training or instructions on how to evade arrest.
Nor has any credible evidence been uncovered verifying his story of being trained in Waziristan, they and the other U.S. officials said.
"We've seen nothing suggesting that Shahzad received even minimal training, and everything about what he did suggests otherwise," one U.S. official said.

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Cheers and Jeers: Dry Martini FRIDAY!

post from Daily Kos on 07 May 2010 08:45:54 PM. © Daily Kos

From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...

Viva Los Late Night Snark!

"As Justice Louis Brandeis once wrote: "The states are the laboratories of democracy," a place where programs can be developed and tested to help solve national problems. And then there's Arizona. It turns out Arizona is the meth lab of democracy."
---Jon Stewart
-
"Oil is still leaking off the coast of Louisiana. BP, the company responsible for it, has a very good plan. BP is hoping to create a giant vinegar spill to turn the Gulf of Mexico into a delicious salad dressing."
--–Jimmy Kimmel
-
"Rush Limbaugh said today that the oil rig could've been deliberately sabotaged by environmentalists to make oil companies look bad. That's right...a team of hippie frogmen snuck onboard an oil rig on the Gulf of Mexico and blew it up to frame the oil companies. Rush, how many pills is your maid giving you?
---Bill Maher
-
"The market was so bad today that Goldman Sachs had to lay off three congressmen."
---Jay Leno
-
"A few weeks ago I was able to throw out the first pitch at the Nationals game. And I don't know if you saw it, but I threw it a little high and a little outside. This is how FOX News covered it: President panders to extreme left-wing of batter box."
---President Obama at the White House Press Dinner Thingy

And this...

Stephen Colbert: The Rev. George Rekers, this mastiff of masculinity, is co-founder with Dr. James Dobson of the Family Research Council, and he's on the board of The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, or NARTH, which is dedicated to turning gay people straight again. So you'll never guess who this alpha dog recently took on a ten-day, all-expense-paid trip to Europe. Unless...you guess "gay male prostitute."

Clip of NBC newscaster: Rekers claims he was unaware the escort was a male prostitute, and that he hired him because recent surgery left him unable to lift his luggage.

Colbert: Technically, I believe he was looking for someone to hoist his sack.

Okay, one olive or two? Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

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-Martini-FRIDAY!

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We could use this from Dems in our state house

Democrats in the S.C. state house could use this example to help themselves in furthering the truth:

video details and more

Rep. Jay Hoffman (Illinois) stands up to the Republicans who always vote "No" but offer no solutions.

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ms-in-our.html

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Late Afternoon/Early Evening Open Thread

Coming up on Sunday Kos ...

For Mother's Day, Angry Mouse shares some lessons from her mother.

Dante Atkins will expose the National Organization for Marriage for the racist, sexist organization it really is.

exmearden discusses cancer as a commodity in a growth industry.

In the 2010 election cycle, Democrats seem to be putting a lot of faith and hope into the idea that a far-right Republican primary electorate will put forth less electable general election candidates.Steve Singiser will go into the time machine, examining the past decade of elections in order to test that theory.

Meteor Blades will dissect the skewed demographics of the Sunday talk shows.

Devilstower says 2010 is the Three-Mile Island of fossil fuels. The hidden costs are all too visible at the moment following a string of disaster and tragedy, and a little focus could turn this moment into a time of substantial change... if we can only provide the focus.

While most of the nuclear weapons wonk community headed to New York City to review the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Page van der Linden headed to the desert to find some answers about the bygone days of Cold War nuclear weapons production. This weekend, she'll publish the first part of a multi-part series, starting with a visit to the B Reactor, and why it should be on every American tourist's agenda.

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Evening-Open-Thread

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General McChrystal Has No Idea Whats Going On in
Afghanistan

McChrystal and Eikenberry's plan for measuring progress is absolutely required if we care at all about the truth in Afghanistan. However, the variable in this plan is not necessarily the ability to produce these assessments, but access to the reliable,[...]

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http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/46013

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