Now is the time to squeeze BP

Machiavelli said it best: there is very little difference between a problem and an opportunity.

That being said, what have we here with the Egypt situation?

An opportunity. Right now oil prices are rising. Why? Because Egypt contains both the Suez canal and the pipeline connecting the Saudi oil fields to tanker supply lines through the Mediterranean Sea. Without these two crucial elements, said tankers must travel some 6,000 miles out of their way to make the same deliveries.

Thus, oil giant BP has already begun gouging the consumer in addition to the rising price of oil attached to the futures market of that commodity. Do you love it? It was also recently announced BP had posted record profits due to inflated prices.

Think back to the days when the Big Oil apologists were urging you not to boycott BP because the oil giant wouldn't be able to pay reparations to the Gulf Coast. Witness how they have bought off the process through Ken Feinberg, who thinks BP should skate on half the tab.

The only way to combat rising prices is to select one oil company and boycott the shit out of that one producer, or retailer, thereby forcing the others to come down in price to compete with it.

You didn't create the situation in Egypt, at least not directly. But there's no excuse for you NOT to use it to your advantage. The best defense is a good offense. Go on the attack against BP because you can bet your ass they are going on the attack against you, the end user.

It's not enough anymore to simply stop using BP yourself. It's time you got out, got aggressive and urged others not to as well.

Corporate Controlled News

CCN: what news will look and sound like in just a few short years

Clean Energy by 2035

"We choose to go to the moon and the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard."

Who said that? John F. Kennedy.

President Barrack Obama at the very least, now has put a time-table on a Clean Energy Bill becoming the reality of a bright shiny new future. Or was he saying the bill would be passed by 2035, or would it just make it through the house at that point?

History recap: "Clean energy! Solar power!"

I feel confident that somewhere in the speeches of George Washington can be found a snippet of a promise or two about clean energy.

This has become embedded within the tradition of the State of the Union Address; the nod to self sustaining, clean and reliable energy for the future that does not depend on a resource that causes so many wars and heartache as well as the release of so much greenhouse gas.
Trouble is, energy is life. You can't grow or transport food without it. You can't stay alive in winter, and in some places during summer, sans that stuff which makes it.

Oil.

Gasoline, and oil. Oil is found at certain depths pressures in the rock strata. It only happens after millions of years of time which can't be recreated in a lab. Thus, there's only so much of it.

You can't ask Jesus to change this fact. You can't call it a Liberal or a commie or a socialist or hint that this fact isn't Christian, or that it is unpatriotic.

And most assuredly, if you wish to understand this resource - very inconvenient for some to admit - you have to accept that the world is a good bit older than 4,000 years.

The "only so much of it" nature of this stuff is what's killing us. Because before the greenhouse gas does the rest we will run out of it. And since we have not planned for this, there will be chaos.

It'ls like a drug that way.

The hydrocarbon molecule is just so damned good at making energy. Long flowing chains of hydrogen and carbon and a few oxygens thrown in for good measure. Carbon can bond at four places. It can triple bond with itself, double bond with oxygen, if memory serves. Carbon bonds, when they break, release a lot of energy. Thereforethe combustion of long flowing chains of hydrocarbons as is found in gasoline is a very efficient explosion, doing more work than coal, or alcohol or synthetic or bio-fuel.

Well, scratch that: gasoline, light sweet crude, (oooh baby) ARE biofuels, in that they came from living matter. Only, they have been given that sweet essence of time and deep pressure and simmering heat so that those long chains can form.

Imagine nature creating a Barry White song, and all the little chains hooking up and the song going on and on. Beautiful really.

Between now and 2035, when Obama has set forth his mandated time for clean energy, absolutely NO new light sweet crude will have been created by nature. In fact, if you took that time and raised it to the power of 8?.....no new light sweet crude will have been created. Not enough time.

But, the energy needs of the world will have exploded exponentially.

So when Rep. Paul Ryan, and Rep. Michelle Bachman talk about "job killing" proposals for clean energy, really listen to what they are saying.

Sure, they'll talk about the flag, they'll say "God Bless America" they might even quote scripture. But that isn't a plan.

Peak oil is what they call it; concerned scientists who think that owing to finite nature of the juice from the ground, there comes a point where we have drank up half of it already. That we can pour more and more money into digging deeper and deeper and in different places but still, we won't be able to get anymore out, that the end of the curve approaches. Can't get blood from a stone.

Some said in 1986 Peal Oil was here. Some said it happened in the late 1990s. Some say it's here now.

No matter. The science is pretty sound and in the geologic time frame, 1986 the late 1990s and 2011, are all essentially the same time.

So, whats the move?

Well yeah, we've got to get on that, like the president says. Oh hell yeah. Let's do that. Let's DO exactly THAT, as in NOW!

Errr, back up. Who are we talking about?

More than half the people in that room, including President Barrack Obama, have taken money from the oil lobby, which is why, uh-gin, the mention of clean energy gained a smattering of feigned delayed applause which lasted precisely .7 seconds. Don't bother running the tape, I checked. Just over half a second.

Oil lobby folks want you to go right on believing, just like that Journey song, that somehow everything is gonna be alright. They want education budgets cut nationwide, so that smart young chillin' never get edumaketed enough to see what's going on.

They want you to go right on believing the world is 4000 years old and that God invented the V-8 so that man could slurp up just as much damned gas as he wanted to.

Why?

Because THEY WANT the end of the curve to come. Because as it draws closer, they will become THE most powerful consortium, or cartel in the history of the world. They are very nearly there as it is.

Look at the horror that was visited on us last summer.

Not one criminal charge has been filed.

Obama gives a marvelous speech. Really and truly he does.

The challenge is every bit as difficult as going to the moon inside a decade. As with Apollo 13 "failure is not an option."

MSNBC Fires Keith Olbermann

Yes, it's true. MSNBC makes it official. The corporate state has spoken. Big brother is watching and listening.

The take away?

Make sure, pundits, that you don't question the large, monolithic corporate construct. That you don't too deeply touch upon oil spills, corporate corruption, war profiteering and especially don't question Halliburton, and Poppa Dick.

Friday we posted something on the resurrection of the anti-Lazarus Dick Cheney through the wonders of the modern pay-for play, forgive and forget, BigMediaCorp "I love Dick" fest.

Whether it is related or not, Keith Olbermann DID have the guts to bring up the serious issues with regard to Halliburton, Cheney, Big Oil and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

He was fired Friday. At the end of my last missive, boys and girls, I said the following of BigMediaCorp:

"Watch them, read them with an eye toward what they DON'T ask, and how hard they stretch NOT to ask it. Then come talk to me about how we still have a free press in this country. If such talk keeps you up at night, it should."

Here's the Judas version: that being, the official story that the Associated Press ran:

Note the words "combative" and "liberal"?

"Ooo. Uhm....yeah. Big no-no. Mmmmm. See? We're not gonna be able to keep someone on who is, uh, doing that."

Translation. Liberal =bad.

"Campaign contributions". Yeah. Joe Scarborough did the same thing. Didn't he?

"Yeah, but, uhm....well. (stammer) I mean, c'mon, right?"

Now let's look at the real reason. Olbermann, as much as he was able to, didn't pull any punches against the monstrously huge, corporate dildo attempting to fornicate all of us into slavery, or reduce civilization to rubble, or send all of us, minus the elites, back into the stone age; or whatever the hell it is, precisely, they have planned for us all. And surely, it can't be pretty.

In honor of someone who dared to speak out and now joins the ranks of we lowly basement bloggers, I have randomly gathered some highlights from his take on Big Corp, Big Oil and the oil spill. If you gain the sense there might be a correlation between his termination, and these clips, then you are not alone.

On Halliburton's Move to Dubai and War Profiteering.

His guest, there, a former CIA officer and investigative journalist, said it best, perhaps

"These companies are not interested in what's good for the United States they are interested in what's good for themselves." But I guess that makes him a liberal, and combative as well.

Here's another one on Halliburton receiving twenty five percent of the overbilling charges during the Iraq war.

Snippets:

"Corporate CEOs knowingly happily stealing millions in profits off the backs of Americans and even our troops." - great quote.

"Should corporations be making millions and millions when Iraqis and Americans are being killed?" - What a great question.

"Are they (corporations) actively getting pro war candidates elected?"- Olbermann.

Here's a link to a video that MSNBC has disable for embedding. Excellent presentation.

The link discusses all the issues, BP, MMS, "voluntary self audits", Halliburton. He also discusses the mandatory acoustic cut-off switch.

Of course there's no doubt Olbermann's attacks on FOX are part of the reason he's been let go.

But remind yourself of one thing here:

THIS is permitted to remain:

And THIS was taken off the air:As Marvin Gaye said, "what's goin' on?"

Cheney's Whitewash In Virtual Journalism

Used to be, you asked God to forgive you. You confessed, and you were all clean again.

Now, apparently, the worst sins of this world can be washed away by corporate media.

Offending puff pieces fall into two categories. 1. Those that talk about his heart, and what a loveable old bear he is. 2. Those that Disneyfy the Dickmeister by referring to his "dark" public image without ever actually looking at the specifics.

The second tactic of BigMediaCorp schlebs is the naked attempt to get themselves around the issue of behaving like actual journalists.

The journalism of the virtual.

Here's one of the former variety. "Cheney Reaches a Truce" What utter vomit, ending with a quip from former Secretary of State James Baker, agreeing to go hunting with Cheney after donning some "good body armor".

Okay? We all know this story: Cheney shot a man in the face in 2006. Tea Party republicans, who as former Rep. Alan Grayson said "show a strong resilience to the suffering of others" love this story. They love it! But, I want you to think of the pain of getting shot in the face from one or two paces with bird shot!

No? Nothing? Whatever, moving on.

I have nattered on about the man's misdeeds enough. See former posts for greater detail. Let's look more closely at the vomit and excrement from corporate fawning and blithely indifferent to actual news media, as they tout Cheney emergence from his lair while he shows off the scars from his SHT, Strategic Heart Trouble.

Here's Brian Williams going over what everyone already knows about Dick Cheney. He has heart trouble. Watch innocent young Brian thoughtfully tell you with his girlish straight face, all about these medical facts, as though relating news of an impending air strike.

How do you sleep, Brian?

Brian is a former journalist. He has joined the pantheon of former journalists who don't actually do anything. They don't actually uncover the news, nor even review newsworthy issues. His face, his voice, give credibility to soft gibberish. It gives you the sense you are being informed, that tough issues are being looked into, without actually providing any information.

And the media gods pay handsomely for it. Others of course, in this pantheon include, Wolf Blitzer. Wolf was doing well in this interview, really getting to the nut of the matters with regard to the war in Iraq, when, mid-stream, he went on a personal attack. Undoubtedly urged there by his corporate masters, better to discredit himself and the previous honest questions a journalist might ask.

Since then, Blitzer has been working hard to rebuild his credibility.

Here's the NBC piece of fawnorama of course.

Olbermann of MSNBC needs some credit here for bringing up the Nigerian bribery case, but of course, he muddies the issue by satirizing the country of Nigeria, from whence come many internet scams, then morphing into one of his network's pet, hotbutton issues,waterboarding.

Oh, but here Olbermann wraps up his take on Cheney and the Nigeria connection - moving on, now people! - with a nice send up on "Not Really Worst Person in the World." Cheney's Halliburton's pay off to the Nigerian government was sandwiched between a blooper made headline and a comedy routine that was mistaken for news.

In an earlier time, the story would have graced the front page of every newspaper in the country "Former VP's Halliburton Pays Off Nigeria to Kill Bribery Charge". Now, such news is trivialized. And we then permit the center of the story to rehabilitate his image via corporate fluff pieces with all the bite of the comfy chair.

Since Cheney's resurrection, Olbermann has been silent on Cheney as an entire subject matter. Of course there is no reason whatsoever to suspect coercion from his corporate masters.

Totally forgotten is Cheney's alleged 100 day meeting with oil executives in the White House. Also forgotten are the allegations that Cheney himself put the rubber stamps all over the gelded Minerals Management Service, turning that regulatory agency into a romper room of position selling and free for all, leading up the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill.

If you can stomach Cheney's new debut as kindly old Yoda archetype who really is just a cuddly, misunderstand man, then watch them. Watch them, read them with an eye toward what they DON'T ask, and how hard they stretch NOT to ask it.

Then come talk to me about how we still have a free press in this country. If such talk keeps you up at night, it should.

The Cheney Interview Installment 1

NBC/Today Show national correspondent Jamie Gangel recently interviewed the Dickmeister. It ran on MSNBC this morning.

The self-congratulatory softball fest, billing itself as news, ran for slightly less than six minutes. If you wade through about a thousand car commercials today and don't blink, you might catch it again. They've promised to replay it.

Poppa Dick was shielded from tougher questions by handlers, no doubt, as well as his on-going Strategic Heart Trouble (SHT). One fifth of this morning's installment was devoted to talk about Cheney's heart; plaguing him since the 1980s when people began asking him serious questions about his role in some of the darker episodes in American history. You may recall some of them; Iran Contra, Panama, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Valerie Plame, his take on water-boarding, the rendition program, and his involvement with Halliburton?

No? Nothing?

Throughout his career there has been a growing trend. The more serious the questions become, the more serious his ailment grows. It's so serious now, in fact, he wears electrical devices to keep himself alive.

"Liz! I am your father! Let's do a book!"

One notes Cheney's easy willingness to even consider a heart transplant. That's telling. Any other senior citizen would be coached to understand, it is not medically wise, and perhaps shading toward the unethical, to donate a heart to someone not expect to live much longer, when the organ can be given to a younger candidate with a great chance of success.

A human heart he's talking about here. An organ so rare, precious and complex, it cannot be supplanted by any known mechanical device, with any measure of meaningful success. He's comfortable with taking one from someone younger on the list. Sure. Did you expect less from Poppa Dick?

Not once in this segment did Gangel ask Cheney about Halliburton. Nor did she pester him with questions about the 100 day meeting with Big Oil executives which, perhaps, led to the fatal deregulation, which resulted in the BP oil spill. Chances are, in that she has chosen the non-neutral ground of Cheney's home for the interview, she never got round to it, and such honest inquiry befitting actual journalism will never be aired.

We wouldn't want to be impolite, of course. Wouldn't want to upset Poppa Dick in the confines of his lair, especially with his heart trouble.

Breaking it down. The vice president was charged with bribery in a Nigerian court. His former employer promised to pay the Nigerian government $250 million to make the charge go away. This didn't rate a question and likely won't in the upcoming segment of the interview.

We can safely predict this issue will be glazed right over, covered under the broader, gelded heading of "more controversial decisions?" or perhaps another softball, the like of which we heard this morning, namely "any regrets?"

Rating higher on the importance list this morning?Cheney's take on Sarah Palin's reality TV show; the attack in Tuscon and Obama's treatment of it, and the over all political landscape.

Remember Frost/Nixon? So far, this ain't it.

Corporate media strikes again?

Well, there's always tomorrow's segment.

Pffft....

Stanley Morton Diaries: Talk to the Dog

Dr. Chu Wants to HEAR from YOU!

Leave it to a democratic administration intimately dialed into Big Oil, on the one hand, while playing the Green Card, on the other, to come up with a solution to all the ills of the runaway oil industry, and a disaster of biblical proportions swept under the rug!

"Hey Gang! We want to hear from you! And, boys and girls, we've updated our website! Yaaaaaay!

Gosh golly, why, THAT'S PROGRESS!

Thanks Dr. Chu, your little pep-talk went a long way to assure us all is well, and that everything is Hunky-Dory.

Well, that's it from here, kids. Until next time.

And now a word from our sponsor.

Fox News Had NNNNNOTHING TO DO WITH THE TRAGEDY IN Arizona

Rupert Murdoch's Fox News has been working hard to destabilize this country. And he is succeeding.

We have to ask whether Beck will begin to "hate" the victims of this tragedy.

Here's Fox New paid contributor Sarah Palin during some down-time from her busy life.

Remember? "Don't retreat, reload!"

But today, Fox News issued a statement that there is no evidence to suggest the shooting in Arizona in which 6 people died and a congresswoman was critically wounded, was politically motivated, or that they had anything to do with it. Sure. As if.

Dead birds, NOW ZOMBIES!?

Zombies were reported in five cities today.

Chicago Department of Health Director, Dr. Stanley F. Lubbeck said "our zombies are not related to the zombie outbreak noticed in Indiana."

Dr. Lubbeck said City of Chicago authorities have noticed zombies before. The zombification of corpses has been ongoing for quite some time in Chicago, he said.

"We've always had zombies, so I don't know what everyone is worried about" Dr. Lubbeck said. "It's just now, with the internet; Twitter and Facebook, people are knowing about it more. The media is to blame for a lot of the panic. If everyone would calm down the problem will quietly go away."

Miriam Johnston of Indianapolis, Indiana isn't so sure; "You can't trust what the government people tell you. They don't want to admit this is bad. I mean, c'mon (expletive) zombies? Zombies? This is normal? What the (expletive) is wrong with you people?"

Last week she was approached by a small crowd of walking corpses near her home. She said one tried to bite her but there were no witnesses to back up her claim.

"I've never seen zombies before this. I wouldn't have moved here if there had been zombies. I've never even heard of zombies, except for in the movies."

What's more, she doesn't believe that zombies aren't potentially toxic.

"I don't like the way they look at us. And the smell," she said.

For now, federal authorities have said there is no evidence zombies are poisonous, or that they devour human flesh, as rumors have reported.

"Zombies are perfectly harmless," said Bud Styles an assistant to Ken Salazar, Interior Secretary.

Styles was interviewed in Yellowstone National Park, a zombie staging point for mass relocation and disposal.

He spoke via SKYPE as teams of federal workers in full HAZMAT gear escorted zombies into paddocks for eventual transportation to an incineration facility at an undisclosed location.

Styles said the HAZMAT gear was standard precautionary.

Test of Zombie flesh has revealed nothing out of the ordinary but more tests are being conducted, he said.

"Those tests will take a few weeks," he said.

Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner said rumors of preferential zombie-disposal contract letting are untrue.

"No members of my party have been unduly influenced in contract letting for zombie removal," he said.

ZombieCorp has contributed more than $5.9 million in campaign contributions to several key members of the House and Senate.

Some members of congress are listed on the ZombieCorp board of directors.

"There is no connection," said Boehner, refusing further comment.

President Barrack Obama has appointed a special investigatory committee to look into the problem and the allegations of contract letting.

"We understand (pause) that people are upset. (look out over audience with calm demeanor.) (pause) Listen, my family is concerned about zombies too. (smile charmingly). We will get to the bottom of this question. The important thing to remember is, we are all Americans. Even zombies."

(file it under satire!)

DEAD BIRDS! Nothing to see here folks, just thousands of them

Now in Kentucky, in addition to Louisiana and Arkansas.

CNN sent a reporter to the University of Georgia who in 3 minutes at the bottom of the hour between 5:57 and 6:00 EST rehashed the same story as yesterday. The blunt trauma theory rides again.

Without mentioning the state of Kentucky, CNN again assures us that birds, all in unison, mostly red wing blackbirds, with a smattering of starling, now, and other delicate creatures, for some reason or other, began driving themselves into phone poles, power lines, and the ground on New Years, presumably due to sensory overload from fireworks.

In this BBC video, you see the birds didn't even wait for the fireworks in Beebe, Arkansas before becoming "disoriented" by loud noises and explosions, they began their death spirals at 7 p.m. Dec. 31.

CNN calmly informs us there is no reason to suspect chemical poisoning, even though chemical tests to rule out chemical poisoning, could take "a couple of weeks." They nod, and ask no further probing questions.

It should be noted that hard-hitting, gruff and tough journalist Wolf "take no shit" Blitzer and company spent a roughly equal amount of time near the TOP of the hour, on their courageous story on Starbucks (tm) changing their logo on their coffee cups. (NO LIE!)

Sometimes the courage and fortitude of CNN in their in-depth coverage makes me weep with pride that I was once a journalist, and that we have a truly free press in these United States of America(tm). God Bless the mighty 4th Estate.

Pffft....

Add this to yesterday's little ditty on the matter if you missed it.

Stanley Morton Diaries: "Let's get back after the BOYCOTT!"

Corporations

First they came for the farmers,

But t'was nothing to me, I don't farm.

That they next robbed the craftsmen and workers?

To me, was no cause for alarm.

When after they came for the fishermen,

T'was the same old story, you see.

As I don't ply waters for riches,

I only fish sport by the sea.

Soon after they came for the environment,

But here too, I made not a peep.

For am I to be an extremist,

When t'is safer the silence of sheep?

After which, came they for the markets,

And with it, our housing, our jobs.

Which we learned were all sent to China,

While our cheeks ran runny with sobs.

T'was then (much too late) I to Washington made,

With a hat, and waiving I sign.

On a bus owned by my captors,

I was driven in comfort sublime.

Through all of it I remained trapped,

encased in my fear and my dread,

of being seen as alarmist?

I'd sooner be thought of as dead.

And as they took the courts and the judges,

We were blithely given our due.

There wasn't a word of protest,

Nor even the right to sue.

Now t'is slavery all that I am left with,

My chains and my bowl by my side.

This I leave to my namesake,

With barely enough to survive.

By David Anthony Kearns

Blackbird DIE! Can you say 'COREXIT?'

You remember growing up, every time you lit off a firework on the 4th of July or on New Year's Eve, you hit a red wing black bird?

Yeah. And neither THE FUCK!!!! do I.

But to believe the state wildlife officials in Arkansas, that is precisely what happened to thousands of red wing black birds (Agelaius phoeniceus) over the past week. No word of a similar explanation coming from Louisiana. Yet.

Sure, you remember how it went: the annual clean-up of thousands of dead and dying MIGRATORY birds, all from one particular species? Remember how birds fell from the sky in waves, after every thunder storm for the same reason, FRIGHT FROM A LOUD EXPLOSION?

Pfft....

"Norwegian Blue, he's just restin', is all. Sure that's it."

This is how quickly the government will lie to you. This is how fast the lie will be spread via the lightweight swill-heads in the televised media.

This excrementus journalisticus was being bandied about on CNN Sunday and Monday; that Arkansonian firework launchers on the eve of December 31 had specifically targeted the red wing black bird which resulted in a number of dead and dying creatures in one particular hamlet.

Apparently, and quite strangely, all of the firework enthusiasts living in the environs of the Beebe, Arkansas are descended from Annie Oakley and John James Audubon, and they don't cotton to no Agelaius phoeniceus around these-here parts!

All the birds showed signs of blunt-force trauma, officialdom said. Not that falling out of trees, or the sky would have anything to do with it.

But this morning it was announced that such trauma was also being reported in Morganza, Louisiana 300 miles to the south. And so, the geniuses at CNN had to revamp, then finally scrap their story regarding said fireworks as deathly fright mechanism. This, in snippets between their courageous, in-depth coverage of the Lindsey Lohan having an arm wrestle with a nurse during her drug and alcohol rehab.

This is what happens when you stop teaching science in the classroom; replacing it instead with swill, Walmart Jesus, and gobbletygook. You find a body public stupefied enough to actually entertain such notions.

Let's take a look at the red wing black bird, shall we?

Its migratory sex and feeding habits place it throughout the cat-tail and coastal marshes of these United States. One of its favorite haunts (wait for it!) is at the edges of the Gulf of Mexico.

The little bird is omnivorous. That means it can and will! eat just about anything. It enjoys is mosquitoes, flies, maggots, and dead things as well.

Repeating now, it enjoys dead things as well.

"Dead things?"

Sure, no problem. It will eat a dead thing. Yeppers.

"Dead, like fish?"

Oh hell yeah. It'll eat that. Good-to-go.

We spoke over the summer, if you've been reading, about something called "bio-accumulation," wherein a toxin is introduced into the environment at the lower levels, say in mosquito larvae, or shrimp larvae, and then it accumulates in a species that eats a whole mess of those smaller critters, or their larvae.

"The canary in the coal mine?"

Precisely. The canary was used to tell the miners when bad gases were building up BECAUSE IT WOULD DIE FIRST SO THEY COULD GET THE HELL OUT OF THE MINE AHEAD OF THE GAS!!

Yeah. Like that.

Corexit - and we really have not the first idea WHAT it does to human tissue AND the government won't speculate - has been shown to behave like a neurotoxin in some forms of critterdom. It attacks soft tissues, brain, the nerves, while it also goes after the muscles. It might render a little bird off-balance. Unable to fly, or even hold on to a branch should it decide to take a rest.

SILENCE! While I listen to an official from Arkansas, Dr. George P. Badley, stumble over his words as he is interviewed by CNN's genius in residence, Kira Phillips. (They'll get her too. You watch. They fire the smart ones right after they get rid of the back-sassers)

Dr George P. Badley notes that the red wing black bird is considered a "nuisance". He also said the 17 birds undergoing necropsy had suffered "internal hemorrhaging" which is precisely what would happen if you had some acute chemical poisoning.

But don't take my word for it. Continue believing it's the result of fireworks.

Dr. George P. Badley, he's the state veterinarian for Arkansas, also stated the bird has notoriously bad night vision.

Well you can see where this is going, can't you? Yep, blame the victim. And he's a blind nuisance. He contributes nothing to the economy. He pays no taxes, and liberals love him, so fuck him. Who needs Agelaius phoeniceus around these here parts!

Dr. George P. Badley, also (the interview just gets worse here) said he hasn't spoken to anyone in Louisiana but "he can't see" how the massive die off of the exact same species, the same weekend, under the same conditions, could be related to what went on on Beebe.

Beebe is north by northwest of Morganza, Louisiana, about 280 miles on the Google Earth. It is 80 miles north by west of the Mississippi River. Morganza is right on the Mississippi, and north of the Gulf of Mexico by 90 miles.

The bird flies in massive groups, and can cover more than 30 miles in a day. Its migration pulses back and forth over the delta from the Gulf into the heartland, over the course of the year. But don't take my word for it. Go to Google, type in "red wing black bird" and read all about it. See how wide the habitat is, covering much of these United States. Has the bird fallen from the sky in your town immediately after New Year's fireworks?

Is it Corexit, or something chemical in the water, killing the bird?

Could be. Smells like a chemical poisoning by the evidence. One species? Something it ate? Yep.

Will the government look into it?

Not likely. Lassez faire government likes the "go boom" explanation. Why sure, there's a government cheese grazer somewhere between coffee breaks, writing up a press release as you read these words. The release will undoubtedly employ the appropriate pseudo-sci lingo citing fireworks as the principle culprit.

Meanwhile, add this bird die-off to a thousand potential impacts of the spill, and the chemical dispersant, still reverberating in the environment. Still reverberating as the government tries to bribe, arm-twist, or entice innocent victims to give up their right to sue at a later date.

Net loss to life? Unknown.

Dollar value? Priceless.