Petronobyl As Reality

Peak Generation provides one the more incisive synopsis of the current Petronobyl catastrophe, here is the whole post since it is so on target:


"Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Apocalypse watch: BP’s Gulf disaster as reality TV
If French intellectual Jean Baudrillard were still alive to deconstruct the unfurling Gulf oil disaster, I’m sure he’d marvel at the hyperreality of it all. Me, lacking the vocabulary, I’m going to call it reality TV.

True to the genre a dysfunctional cast – Tony Hayward, Barack Obama and Martin Feldman – must coexist in an unlikely situation, promoting themselves while being constantly upstaged by video footage from robots 5,000 feet (1,500 m) below sea level. Watch as they try to cope with reality, each other, and their investment portfolios! Squirm as they star in their own tragedy! Gasp as Hayward, left, reassures you that there’s nothing toxic about the dispersal chemicals!

Want drama? The Gulf of Mexico is becoming toxic, poisoned by both the crude oil surging out of BP’s ruptured well and the million-plus gallons of chemical dispersant, Corexit 9500, being dumped on the slick. Oil is making landfall along the area – if whipped up by a hurricane, it would likely be sprayed over communities along that seaboard – and, it is claimed, a mixture of oil and Corexit seems to be raining throughout the region causing widespread crop damage. People helping clear the oil are coming down with a range of symptoms that suggest poisoning, just as they did after the Exxon Valdex cleanup.

How about some tension? The oil is still gushing out, and the poison is still being sprayed. The blowout preventer is widely believed to be on the verge of collapse, and relief wells might be facing an impossible task, depending on what is left of BP’s wellbore – we don’t know much about this, because no-one will tell us. But then, that’s reality TV for you.

But viewers, I’m jumping ahead of myself – let’s go back to the start of this sorry mess.

BP had problems with its Macondo well long before the Gulf disaster, according to documents and emails released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. As Bloomberg reported, cracks in the well date “as far back as February”:

On Feb. 13, BP told the minerals service it was trying to seal cracks in the
well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast, drilling documents
obtained by Bloomberg show. Investigators are still trying to determine whether
the fissures played a role in the disaster.

The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks.

The problems continued. Rumours from industry professionals writing on The Oil Drum have suggested that BP experienced numerous blowouts over this period. Again from Bloomberg:

On March 10, BP executive Scherie Douglas e-mailed Frank Patton, the mineral
service’s drilling engineer for the New Orleans district, telling him: “We’re in
the midst of a well control situation.”

[We let the scene on the Deepwater Horizon fade out, and cut to Hayward. We see him putting in a vital telephone call in mid-March – to his stockbroker.]

According to the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper, in an item headlined BP chief Tony Hayward sold shares weeks before oil spill:

The chief executive of BP sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant
weeks before the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused its value to collapse.

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one
month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental
disaster.

Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid
off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be
valued at more than £1.2 million.


This alleges Hayward “disposed of 223,288 shares on March 17.” It clearly states he did nothing legally wrong. They were his shares to sell.

Then the showstopper: the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion, killing 11, and sending tens-of-thousands of barrels of crude oil surging into the Gulf every day.

The next cast member featured is Obama, who addressed the nation on June 14, and, by default the rest of the globe: his take on the world’s worst environmental disaster was of interest to billions. His 18-minute address contained more military metaphors than the average sport report – his government’s "battle" against the "siege" in the Gulf of Mexico (we will fight it on the beaches, we will fight on the fields and in the streets, we will fight in the hills. . .) – but no real content.

He had the opportunity to mention peak oil – the reality behind the need to drill in 5,000 feet of ocean, around the depth of the Titanic’s resting place. But, of course, Wall Street would never allow Obama to do that. He did enough to let a knowledgeable audience know he’s no fool, but he worded it in terms that would not alarm Joe Sixpack. From the transcript:

After all, oil is a finite resource. We consume more than 20 percent of the
world's oil but have less than 2 percent of the world's oil reserves. And that's
part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the
ocean: because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow
water.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we've talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires.

This was wrapped up in notions of energy security, fears of foreigners (“Each day, we send nearly $1 billion of our wealth to foreign countries for their oil”) digs at political adversaries (“. . . the path forward has been blocked, not only by oil industry lobbyists, but also by a lack of political courage and candor”) and good old pork barrel hoopla that “the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs.” (Which it has, in theory, although transition should not be presented as something to do in addition to plasma TVs and SUVs; it’s a willful downsizing of the supposedly non-negotiable way of life.)

Just another politician’s speech – but it got the ratings – watched by 32 million US viewers.

Next in our production, some intrigue. . . The man who, to most of the media is Mr. Peak Oil, Matthew Simmons lurches to centre stage. With a rumpled shirt and flushed face, he tells how insiders have told him that massive amounts of oil are pouring through BP’s fractured well and coming up at various points on the ocean floor, and that the chances of capping the gusher are so slim Obama may as well nuke it. The allegations make more impact online, going viral. Simmons, putting his money where his mouth is, seizes the opportunity to short some 8,000 BP shares.

At this point in the broadcast, we need some glamour if we want to get the ratings back up, and what beats a yacht race to bring together the rich and the beautiful? A quick edit will switch the scene to Hayward’s June 20 yacht jaunt around the Isle of Wight. After all, the waters, around the Isle of Wight, were clear of oil. What a great day out on the ocean; what a great photo op for our gaffe-prone star. . .

He’s in the role of a charming, lovable rogue. What this reality TV show needs is a villain. Enter the activist judge.

Obama wanted a six-month freeze on deepwater drilling, presumably along the lines that this is how long it will take the news media to go on to a new topic, allowing him to safely hand the drilling permit rubber stamps back to the industry. But that’s not how Judge Martin Feldman sees it.

Part arbiter of justice, part energy investor, Justice Feldman acted deftly to sell his oil stock and overturn Obama’s drilling moratorium – all in the same morning. According to Associated Press:

A statement released by U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman's chambers in New
Orleans says the judge instructed his broker to sell his stock in Exxon and a
subsidiary as soon as the market opened June 22. That was the day after the
hearing.

Feldman says his broker told him his stock was sold several
hours before he struck down the Obama administration's drilling moratorium. The
judge also said he didn't know if he made a profit or loss on the sale.

Exxon isn't a party in the case, but the company had one of the 33
existing exploratory rigs shut down by the moratorium imposed because of the
Gulf spill.

No-one is accusing the judge of letting his energy investments colour his judgment – he is a judge, after all – but if nothing else, it’s normally considered good manners to declare an interest. Memo to Feldman: suggesting that you might have made a loss on the deal is not the same thing.

Meanwhile, viewers, the blowout preventer deathwatch continues. . . how far is it leaning today? How much of BP’s compromised wellbore will it take with it when it collapses? Can the relief wells get in place before the whole thing goes? Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow, folks.

[Fades out on shots of Obama looking like he wants a cigarette, Hayward on his yacht, and Feldman standing up for the poor downtrodden oil execs.]

In terms of entertainment, is this scraping the barrel? Actually, yes. Millions of them, all told, from the beaches, wetlands and waters of the Gulf of Mexico. An estimated 35,0000 to 60,000 barrels have been gushing out every day since April 20, according to the government – and many more according to Simmons – but the current containment system can only handle up to 28,000 barrels per day."

Gang Of Four "Capital"

Music for the ongoing collapse.

Jah Wobble - Mystery RPS (No. 8)

Jah Wobble collaborates with another of my favorite muscians, Holger Czukay. Interesting video effects.

BP Doesn't Want You To Hear Kindra Arnesan

This YT video is one step ahead of the BP censors. The unvarnished truth is not compatible with corporate values. Thanks to Financial Armageddon.

Jah Wobble Chinese Dub Horse Mountain Song

Deep Water Horizon Methane Tsunami Next?

The Petronobyl worst case scenarios took a new ominous turn recently with new concerns about a potentially catastrophic methane release. Helium discusses why this might add to the list of things that should keep one up at night:

"Disturbing evidence is mounting that something frightening is happening deep under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico—something far worse than the BP oil gusher.

Warnings were raised as long as a year before the Deepwater Horizon disaster that the area of seabed chosen by the BP geologists might be unstable, or worse, inherently dangerous.

What makes the location that Transocean chose potentially far riskier than other potential oil deposits located at other regions of the Gulf? It can be summed up with two words: methane gas.

More than 12 months ago some geologists rang the warning bell that the Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig might have been erected directly over a huge underground reservoir of methane.

Documents from several years ago indicate that the subterranean geologic formation may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit.

None other than the engineer who helped lead the team to snuff the Gulf oil fires set by Saddam Hussein to slow the advance of American troops has stated that a huge underground lake of methane gas—compressed by a pressure of 100,000 pounds per square inch (psi)—could be released by BP's drilling effort to obtain the oil deposit.

Current engineering technology cannot contain gas that is pressurized to 100,000 psi.

By some geologists' estimates the methane could be a massive 15 to 20 mile toxic and explosive bubble trapped for eons under the Gulf sea floor. In their opinion, the explosive destruction of the Deepwater Horizon wellhead was an accident just waiting to happen.

Yet the disaster that followed the loss of the rig pales by comparison to the apocalyptic disaster that may come.

A cascading catastrophe

According to worried geologists, the first signs that the methane may burst its way through the bottom of the ocean would be fissures or cracks appearing on the ocean floor near the damaged well head.

Evidence of fissures opening up on the seabed have been captured by the robotic submersibles working to repair and contain the ruptured well. Smaller, independent plumes have also appeared outside the nearby radius of the bore hole itself."

mi2g goes on to document further concerns:

"Older documents indicate that the subterranean geological formation below the "Macondo" well in the Gulf of Mexico may contain the presence of a huge methane deposit. It has been a well known fact that the methane in that oil deposit was problematic. As a result, there was a much higher risk of a blow out. Macondo shares its name with the cursed town in the novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by the Nobel-prize winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

By some geologists' estimates, the methane could be a massive bubble trapped for thousands of years under the Gulf of Mexico sea floor. More than a year ago, geologists expressed alarm in regard to BP and Transocean putting their exploratory rig directly over this massive underground reservoir of methane. Warnings were raised before the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe that the area of seabed chosen might be unstable and inherently dangerous.

Methane and Poison Gas Bubble

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found high concentrations of gases in the Gulf of Mexico area. The escape of other poisonous gases associated with an underground methane bubble -- such as hydrogen sulfide, benzene and methylene chloride -- have also been found. Recently, the EPA measured hydrogen sulfide at more than 1,000 parts per billion (ppb) -- well above the normal 5 to 10 ppb. Some benzene levels were measured near the Gulf of Mexico in the range of 3,000 to 4,000 ppb -- up from the normal 0 to 4 ppb. Benzene gas is water soluble and is a carcinogen at levels of 1,000 ppb according to the EPA. Upon using a GPS and depth finder system, experts have discovered a large gas bubble, 15 to 20 miles wide and tens of feet high, under the ocean floor. These bubbles are common. Some even believe that the rapid release of similar bubbles may have caused the sinking of ships and planes in the Bermuda Triangle.

50,000 to 100,000 PSI

The intractable problem is that this methane, located deep in the bowels of the earth, is under tremendous pressure. Experts agree that the pressure that blows the oil into the Gulf waters is estimated to be between 30,000 and 70,000 pounds per square inch (psi). Some speculate that the pressure of the methane at the base of the well head, deep under the ocean floor, may be as high as 100,000 psi -- far too much for current technology to contain. The shutoff valves and safety measures were only built for thousands of psi at best. There is no known device to cap a well with such an ultra high pressure.

Bubble Eruption

A methane bubble this large -- if able to escape from under the ocean floor through fissures, cracks and fault areas -- is likely to cause a gas explosion. With the emerging evidence of fissures, the tacit fear now is this: the methane bubble may rupture the seabed and may then erupt with an explosion within the Gulf of Mexico waters. The bubble is likely to explode upwards propelled by more than 50,000 psi of pressure, bursting through the cracks and fissures of the sea floor, fracturing and rupturing miles of ocean bottom with a single extreme explosion.

Cascading Catastrophe Scenarios

1. Loss of Buoyancy

Huge methane gas bubbles under a ship can cause a sudden buoyancy loss. This causes a ship to tilt adversely or worse. Every ship, drilling rig and structure within a ten mile radius of the escaping methane bubble would have to deal with a rapid change in buoyancy, causing many oil structures in its vicinity to become unstable and ships to sink. The lives of all the workers, engineers, coast guard personnel and marine biologists -- measuring and mitigating the oil plumes' advance and assisting with the clean up -- could be in some danger. Therefore, advanced safety measures should be put in place.

2. First Tsunami with Toxic Cloud

If the toxic gas bubble explodes, it might simultaneously set off a tsunami travelling at a high speed of hundreds of miles per hour. Florida might be most exposed to the fury of a tsunami wave. The entire Gulf coastline would be vulnerable, if the tsunami is manifest. Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and southern region of Georgia might experience the effects of the tsunami according to some sources.

3. Second Tsunami via Vaporisation

After several billion barrels of oil and billions of cubic feet of gas have been released, the massive cavity beneath the ocean floor will begin to normalise, allowing freezing water to be forced naturally into the huge cavity where the oil and gas once were. The temperature in that cavity can be extremely hot at around 150 degrees celsius or more. The incoming water will be vaporised and turned into steam, creating an enormous force, which could actually lift the Gulf floor. According to computer models, a second massive tsunami wave might occur.

Conclusion

The danger of loss of buoyancy and cascading tsunamis in the Gulf of Mexico -- caused by the release of the massive methane and poisonous gas bubble -- has been a much lower probability in the early period of the crisis, which began on April 20th. However, as time goes by and the risk increases, this low probability high impact scenario ought not to be ignored, given that the safety and security of the personnel involved remains paramount. Could this be how nature eventually seals the hole created by the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher?"

Given BP's apparent inability to deal with the truth and the government's wishy-washy approach to the whole thing leads me to believe this is a credible concern which will dwarf our present problems should it come to pass.

Moscow Grooves Institute (MGI - Cosmic (Live at Ikra).mov )

The Russian War on Drugs and Afghanistan

The Af-Pak Channel had an article about a problem not well appreciated in the West, the dimensions of the Russian opiate problem. The use of drugs and the corrosive influence of corrupted law enforcement and judicial system should be familiar to any American watching our own "War on Drugs".

"Today the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released an alarming report, finding that since 2005 the number of Afghans addicted to opiate drugs like heroin and opium has doubled and that nearly million Afghans are steady users. But the problem of opiate addiction spreads far beyond Afghanistan. Last October, a UNODC report concluded that Afghanistan's poppy crop, refined into hard drugs such as heroin and opium, kills 100,000 people annually around the world. According to Russian authorities 30,000 to 40,000 of those killed are Russian citizens, a higher number than all the Russian soldiers who died during the Soviet war in Afghanistan during the 1980s. These figures make Afghan opiates the most deadly drug in the world, with Russians the leading victims."
.......The Russia government's Federal Drug Control Service estimates that more than 2 million Russians are now addicted to Afghan-supplied drugs, a higher figure than anywhere else in the world and one that continues to grow. Most of these addicts are between the ages of 18 and 39, depriving Russia of its most productive generation. And in addition to deaths from overdoses, the use of unclean needles for injecting heroin has resulted in more than 1 million Russians becoming infected with the HIV virus."

This sounds an awful lot like bio-chemical warfare as conducted by special services of various governments.
McClatchy goes further on the Russian take on this:

"The drugs usually reach Russia from Tajikistan and Kazakhstan in trucks or, in smaller amounts, tucked away in train compartments or nervous travelers' stomachs.

The trade is nothing new in Russia, but after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, it exploded. Afghan opium production climbed from 3,400 metric tons in 2002 to a record 8,200 metric tons in 2007, partly because U.S. and NATO-led troops put a low priority on curbing it. Heroin flooded into Central Asia, and on to Russia.

"When I heard the Americans were going to enter Afghanistan I thought they were going to solve the problem, to stop the drugs," said Yevgeny Roizman, who had connections with Russian organized crime before he became a member of parliament. He now runs an anti-drug organization in the city of Yekaterinburg, another big heroin-distribution hub north of Chelyabinsk.

"But in the period after they came, there was a big increase in the region . . . ," Roizman added. "It makes me think the Americans have done nothing to stop the drug trafficking."

Although it's an unintended consequence of the U.S. action in Afghanistan, some Russian officials trace the growing problem to an American plot.

Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia's Federal Drug Control Service, the national drug enforcement agency, told parliament in May that it was reasonable to "call the flow of Afghan opiates the second edition of opium wars." He was referring to the 19th-century war between Britain and China sparked by exports of opium from British India to China.

Ivanov isn't alone.

"I can name you a lot of politicians in Russia who said that the Americans specially arranged the situation in Afghanistan so that we would receive a lot of drugs, and this is the real aim of their occupation," said Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament. "I'm not sure this is true, but who knows."

The U.S. government takes no direct responsibility for fueling Russia's drug problem."

Markscheider Kunst - Деньги

More subversive Russki reggae. Thanks to the Wege for reminding me of these guys.

A Work Of BP Inspired Art

What a great time-lapse flick from Atlanta. I wish Obama would take the message to heart.

Touchdown Jesus burns to Metallica's "Ride The Lightning" - Jesus on fire

This opens up so many theological questions (Not).

Звуки Му - Больничный лист (Zvuki Moo Sick List)

Zvuki Moo Sick List.

Nazbols Against Militarizim In Russia

National Bolsheviks facilitate an anti military demonstration in Voronezh against a new Air Force base. We would benefit enormously from a similar movement against outrageous military spending.

JAH WOBBLE - Om Naman Shiva

Petronobyl: It gets worse everyday

Amazingly the horrible situation in the gulf worsens on a daily basis. I expect at some point to hear the entire world ocean has been killed. This is a corporate crime of the first magnitude. All ready republican apologists are weighing in with ludicrous protection for these goons. In the meantime the estimates get bigger as to the actual amount of polluting hydrocarbons. McClatchy has been doing an amazing and enormous amount of reporting and it is not reassuring:

" WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Thursday doubled its minimum estimate of how much crude oil was gushing from the Deepwater Horizon oil well, saying a panel of scientists had concluded that 20,000 to 50,000 barrels, or as much as 2.1 million gallons, were pouring into the Gulf of Mexico every day before BP sheared the well's riser pipe on June 3.

That action, which BP engineers undertook to fit a "top hat" containment dome over the well, almost certainly increased the flow, and Dr. Marcia McNutt, the head of the U.S. Geological Survey, said an estimate of the flow since June 3 would be available in a few days.

"Our scientific analysis is still a work in progress," McNutt said.

The announcement that tens of thousands more barrels of oil than previously estimated have been spewing into the Gulf for weeks added to a growing sense that neither the federal government nor BP correctly assessed the size of the unfolding disaster or marshaled enough resources to meet it.

"It's hard to keep track of all the false estimates and false promises," said Jeremy Symons, a senior vice president of the National Wildlife Federation: "The BP gusher is worse than ever, and big nature is losing its battle with big oil."

Separately Thursday, BP and the Coast Guard acknowledged that their hopes of removing 28,000 barrels of crude from the water daily beginning perhaps next week depend on a largely untested plan to burn more than a third of that oil.

How much oil is flowing from the well has been the subject of heated debate for weeks. BP initially said the well was losing only 1,000 barrels a day, then increased that estimate to 5,000 barrels, a figure that both BP and the Obama administration stuck with for weeks until scientists, examining previously undisclosed video of the spewing oil, testified to Congress that the flow might be as much as 95,000 barrels a day, or nearly 4 million gallons.

Under pressure from Congress, the Obama administration assembled a group of university researchers into what it called the Flow Rate Technical Group to assess the spill. The group released its first preliminary estimate on May 27, providing two minimum estimates, 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day and 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. The group said, however, that it didn't have sufficient data to quantify the spill's likely maximum flow. On Monday, one of the scientists told McClatchy that he thought the rate after the riser was cut might be 100,000 barrels a day.

McNutt said the new estimates came after three teams of researchers reviewed new data and video from before the June 3 shearing of the riser. One of those teams was led by Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics.

One team, basing its estimate on an analysis of new high definition video, said the leak prior to June 3 was 25,000 to 40,000 barrels a day. A second team, using aerial and satellite photos of the spill, said the average flow was 12,600 to 21,500 barrels a day. A third team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts used sonar-like measuring of the flow to conclude that 25,000 to 50,000 barrels of oil have been flowing from the well.

The new estimates suggest that despite engineers' success in capturing an increasing amount of oil — BP said 15,800 barrels of oil was recovered from the well on Wednesday — there seemed to be no reduction in the volume of oil billowing from the well.

This week, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said he hoped to increase the amount recovered from the Gulf to 28,000 barrels a day by pushing the Discoverer Enterprise drill ship past its stated 15,000-barrel-a-day capacity to 18,000 barrels a day, and adding a second vessel, the Q4000, which he said would collect 10,000 barrels a day.

However, BP's vice president for operations, Kent Wells, said Thursday that all the oil recovered by the Q4000 would be flared, and Allen acknowledged that he'd misspoken Wednesday when he suggested that at least 5,000 barrels would be stored and resold.

Environmentalists and health advocates questioned the decision to burn the crude, saying the burn would produce toxic byproducts that could affect both workers aboard ships in the Deepwater Horizon area and residents in coastal areas. The Q4000, which wasn't designed to burn crude and is now being fitted with a burner, has a crew of 122, and there are scores of ships in the Deepwater Horizon vicinity, which is beyond the jurisdiction of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

"If the weather conditions are such that it's blowing on shore and local communities are getting that soot, there are a lot of toxic constituents in it," said Diane Bailey, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

BP spokeswoman Anne Koltun said the Environmental Protection Agency was consulted on the flaring plan. An EPA permit isn't required because the Deepwater Horizon site, 84 miles off the Louisiana coast, is outside the agency's three-mile jurisdictional limit.

Burning the oil also would reduce the amount of money that BP would earn from selling the crude, which the company has promised to donate to a fund to restore and improve wildlife habitat in the four states most damaged by the spill.

"They're essentially burning money that could be used for gulf restoration," said Christopher Mann, a marine policy and science expert at the Pew Environment Group. The price of crude oil settled Thursday at $74.39 a barrel, though BP has said it's likely to get less for the oil recovered from the Deepwater Horizon well.

Mann also questioned why 52 days into the disaster, BP and the Coast Guard still hadn't moved tankers or other ships into the area to accommodate the volume of crude oil likely to be flowing from the damaged well.

"BP has known for weeks they'd be recovering large amounts of oil, and yet they now don't have the capacity to recover it," he said. "There's a continuing failure to connect the dots."

"Can you spit without hitting a tanker in Houston?" he asked.

Koltun said burning the oil instead of loading it onto a barge and selling it was "the most efficient way" to handle the oil "and allows us to collect the greatest capacity."

EPA spokeswoman Adora Andy said the agency had encouraged BP "to come up with every technological option available to reduce the amount that is burned," but added that burning could help reduce the amount of oil in the water.

BP's Koltun said the flaring would continue until at least July, when BP hopes to have a longer-term containment plan in place. The leak will not be stanched, officials have said, until the well is intercepted by one of two relief wells that won't be completed until at least August, and perhaps later.

Koltun said the number of barrels burned would be tracked by a "multi-phase flow meter" that has been installed on the Q4000. The U.S. government is due royalties on every barrel of oil "extracted" from the well, even those that end up washing ashore in a Louisiana marsh or disappearing with a roar of flame into the air.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/10/95708/bps-gushing-well-sent-twice-the.html#ixzz0qVjqpwRQ"

US victims of Israeli attack remember their ordeal

From Russia Today:
"Before Israeli forces raided and killed nine activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, 34 US service men were killed by Israeli forces in 1967 during the the Six Day War.

The USS Liberty was a Navy research ship in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula when Israeli air and naval forces launched an attack that lasted over two hours.

Among the tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery is a hidden chapter in American history. Survivors and family members of the USS Liberty victims gather here every year on June 8 to remember what happened to their loved ones 43 years ago.

“It’s an honor for me to get a chance to honor them at least once a year,” said USS Liberty survivor Calvin Landis.

“It’s not anger, it’s sadness – great sadness that not only a close ally deliberately attacked the ship, but the fact that the US sat by and allowed Israel to attack the ship,” said Jane Emory, whose brother was killed in the attack.

Read more

For 40 years, survivors of the USS Liberty – sworn under oath – were forbidden to tell their stories. But today, the surviving crewmen talk candidly about the dreadful day their nearly lost their lives.

“We couldn’t even open the hatch up because they were shooting at us so bad, there was no place to go, and they shot the life rafts. If we had to go into the water, there probably would have been no survivors,” said USS Liberty survivor Jack Beattle.

Jim Smith was aboard the Liberty when it was bombed for over two hours by the Israeli air force.

“The Israelis claim it was a mistaken identity, and the U.S. government brought that explanation. I’m saying a mistaken identity does not allow to sufficient time to shot all the antennas, to shoot the four gun tubs we had and the shaft the bridge, if it’s mistaken identity than you don’t know what you are looking at,” said Smith.

As the years drag on, the anniversary never gets any easier.

“There’s nothing, medicine, booze, nothing takes it away. It’s just something you have to live with,” said Landis.

The tale of the USS Liberty became a story of courage and betrayal. As another year passes by without a congressional investigation the survivors wonder if justice will ever come their way. THey hope that one day Israel will face harsh penalties for killing American citizens in an event many claimed was a cover up."

Putin vs. Shevchuk

Moscow news reports on an interesting interaction between ДДТ's Yuri Shevchuk and Vladimir Putin:

"Famous Russian rocker Yuri Shevchuk asked the PM some uncomfortable questions at a tea party with artists and musicians.
Vladimir Putin visited St. Petersburg on the weekend where he attended a charity literary-musical evening for children with cancer and leukemia, and met with its participants and organisers. In the course of the tea party an outspoken critic of Putin, rocker Yury Shevchuk, asked him some awkward questions.
At first Putin asked the Russian rock legend what his name was, even though people who go to these events claim that political leaders receive a list of all the guests, their names and occupations – and the seating plan.


After clarifying his name and occupation, Shevchuk started by saying that an aide to Putin had called him in the evening and advised him on what questions he could and could not ask. When Putin said such a thing could not happen, Shevchuk said the caller was a maverick.
However, liberal economist Andrei Illarionov, who used to work as Putin’s adviser until 2005, wrote in his blog that before such events an aide of the president or prime minister always calls participants to discuss logistics and topics of conversation.


Shevchuk then told Putin that he was concerned about freedom of the press, inequality of different social layers and the state’s attempts to cultivate an ostentatious patriotism. “We’ve done that before,” said the musician.

He also asked the prime minister if he was aware that the number of protesters was growing and if he planned “serious, sincere, honest liberalisation and democratisation of the country,” when public organisations are “not strangled" and the people are “no longer afraid of a policeman … who serves the superiors and his own pocket, and not his people.”
Shevchuk finished by asking if the opposition marches on May 31 in St Petersburg was going to be dispersed by police.


Putin replied that “the country has no future without normal democratic development.”
As to the opposition protests planned for the evening of May 31, Putin said that “there are certain rules” and that “these events are regulated by the local authorities.”
Putin said that the authorities would be right to ban marches and demonstrations where they were held somewhere that interfered with the normal life, like “next to hospitals,” but that he hoped that in St Petersburg everything would be done right, “with the citizen’s right to express their discordance with the authorities’ politics on such and such issues.”
He added that these events did not “interfere with me or other representatives of the state authorities; on the contrary, it helps.”


Illarionov in his blog commented that the law on demonstrations did not mention protests held next to hospitals.
On Sunday evening, Putin’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov clarified up his answers on Echo Moskvy radio. “There have been calls to come to demonstrations, because Putin allowed and no one will touch them. That is not the case, Putin did not allow anything, because he cannot allow, local authorities do it. Putin said that everything has to be within legal boundaries.”

Tequilajazzz - Krome Zvezd (Except the Stars)

More exceptional Tequilajazzz.

Tequilajazzz - Такая же как и я

Tequilajazzz from the wild wild side.

Jah Wobble, Jaki Liebezeit, Holger Czukay - How Much Are They? & Where's the Money?

This takes me back quite a way into the past, a great job letting great music sell itself. Of course it was all on vinyl.

и друг мой грузовик "Black Hole"

New Black Panther Party Emerges

Russia Today presents an interview with Malik Shabazz, who gives a refreshing analysis of the American social scene. Of course it's no surprise that an organization such as the New Black Panthers hasn't received much coverage in the U.S. I actually find RT to be a welcome alternative to U.S. media and was rather dismayed to hear MSNBC/GE house liberal, Keith Olbermann, dissing RT with the usual cold-war American stereotypes that Americans reserve for any Russian media that's not funded by the CIA or its various front organizations such as the National Endowment for Democracy.
My own personal opinion regarding racism in the U.S. is that this is a struggle that white Americans have to wage amongst themselves if we are to have any hope of being a non-racial society.

Jah Wobble & The Chinese Dub Orchestra - L1 Dub

The old American world is a tiresome place. Time to find something new and interesting.

Sever the Ties

While our own heavily zionist neo-con influenced government is unlikely to do anything meaningful individuals can boycott Israeli goods, cultural events, educational contacts, travel and anything else which might suggest support to the despicable Israeli Moloch masquerading as a democracy. Here's a few charities to consider:

Palestinian Children's Relief
Palestinian Red Crescent
Electronic Intifada

Memorial Day 2010

Zvuki Mu. Shuba-duba Blues / Звуки Му, Шуба-дуба Блюз

Blues Zvuki Mu style with Pyotr Mamonov's unique stage persona.

A Bigger Leak?

If this story is true Petronobyl will be a prolonged ecological disaster/crime. BP has proven to be selective with the facts to put it mildly.This is turning into a confrontation between national self interest and sovereignty versus a sociopathic corporation. Barak Obama needs to stand and speak to the country's justifiable wrath in the wake of what appears to be a Chernobyl and Bhopal situation.

Петр Мамонов {Pyotr Mamonov}_Консервный нож {Can opener}

Pyotr Mamonov gives a memorable performance which for some reason reminds me of old Talking Heads stuff.

More Blue Bucket Images From Russia

Via Grani-TV.RU it seems that eveyone is now a Blue Light VIP.

Butusov feat. Deadushki - Nastasia

A somewhat noir video featuring Vacheslav Butusov fomerly of Nautilus Pompilius and Deadушки one of my favorite Russian electronic groups.

Russian Blue Bucket Protest

The Russian people are known for their long tolerance of suffering and also saying enough is enough. In this case enough of C-class Mercedes interrupting traffic and behaving like entitled assholes. The Moscow News has more:

"Angry at VIP's abusing the blue flashing lights allowing them to skip through traffic in Russia, one activist group has sent a poignant message.

Armed with only a bucket on his head, a man climbed on top of one such car, supposedly belonging to Russia’s Federal Security Guard Service, waiting at traffic lights just outside the Kremlin in Moscow.

The lights – similar to those used by the police – have sparked outcry from the public, as many have attributed them to a spate of road accidents.

The movement has garnered such momentum that a bill has been put to the floor of the State Parliament which, if passed, would leave offenders facing a hefty fine or having their license suspended for abuse of the privilege of using the lights."

Kultur Shock - God Is Busy May I Help You

More of the gypsy punk genre. They are here to help us.

Sovietland, The Theme Park

Jack Womack, in his amazing 1990s satire of Russian life "Let's Put The Future Behind Us",has his characters envisioning an improbable theme park,"Sovietland".

There the "Only souvenirs will be terrible Soviet Union products and tourist staff will be surly and unpleasant, great specialists in non obtrusive service."

Sovietland has become a reality in....Lithuania. According to Vice Magazine 1984:Isvgyvenimo Drama has opened up 15 miles outside of Vilnius. Here's more:

"So these nuts in Lithuania have opened up a new theme park called 1984: Isvgyvenimo Drama. The basic premise is that you, dear customer, are a freshly caught Russian political dissident and now you are going to be locked up in hell and then interrogated by monstrous communists. Six Flags? Who needs it?

The fun begins about 15 miles away from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius where an abandoned bunker in the middle of the woods has been transformed into the most fun you can have this side of the Gulag Archipelago. You’ll be questioned by a KGB agent, visit the infirmary (whether you need to or not), and learn the Soviet anthem under shrieked threats of a smack in the face. You’ll also watch the TV programs that were broadcast back in the day and eat typical Soviet food on some quality Soviet tableware. And if you don’t carry out all the orders you receive, you will immediately be kicked out with no refund. Sorry comrade, but them’s the rules."

Petronobyl* Continues

The similarities between Chernobyl and Petronobyl grow everyday. In this case corporation trys to evade responsibility as much as the Soviet state did in the past.McClatchy spills on the spill:

"BP, the company in charge of the rig that exploded last month in the Gulf of Mexico, hasn't publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers' exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude over the gulf, even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe.

Moreover, the company isn't monitoring the extent of the spill and only reluctantly released videos of the spill site that could give scientists a clue to the amount of the oil in gulf.


Under pressure from senators, BP released four videos Tuesday, but it hasn't agreed to better monitoring.

The company also hasn't publicly released air sampling for oil spill workers although Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency in charge of monitoring compliance with worker safety regulations, is relying on the information and has urged it to do so.

"It is not ours to publish," said Dean Wingo, OSHA's assistant regional administrator who oversees Louisiana. "We are working with (BP) and encouraging them to post the data so that it is publicly available."

Much of the worker exposure data is being collected by contractors hired by BP.

Toby Odone, a BP spokesman, said the company is sharing the data with "legitimate interested parties," which include government agencies and the private companies assisting in the cleanup. When asked whether the information can be released publicly, he responded, "Why would one do it? Any parties with a legitimate interest can have access to it."

Joseph T. Hughes Jr., the director of the worker education training program for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said he didn't think "anyone has seen much of that data at all."

"The hard part about it is that in a normal response, when the government is doing this, there might be more transparency on the data," Hughes said. "In this case, when you have BP making the decisions and collecting the data it's harder to have that transparency."

Unlike the response to other past national disasters such as Hurricane Katrina where the government was in charge, BP has been designated as the "responsible party" under federal law and is overseeing much of the response to the spill. The government is acting more as an adviser.

So far, the government has been slow to press BP to release its data and permit others to evaluate the extent of the crisis.

"I think that one of the lessons learned here is whether the federal government should have more of a role in the response and not leave that decision-making in the hands of the responsible parties," said Hughes, whose institute was one of the first to raise questions about air quality at the World Trade Center site in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

A recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine found that many Sept. 11 rescue workers still suffer from impaired lung function.

The Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health, one of BP's consultants, is collecting air quality samples over the coast and the water.

"It's fair to say that a majority of the air monitoring along the shoreline is being done by our organization," said Glenn Millner, a partner with the CTEH and a principal toxicologist.

Gina Solomon, a medical doctor and a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said her environmental organization has been pressing the government to release the data, after hearing reports of fishermen concerned about exposure.

"The fact that OSHA is saying that it's safe is important because they have access to data that we don't have," she said. "It's sort of awkward to have to take that on face value given the fact that there are fishermen who feel they are getting sick."

The Environmental Protection Agency is releasing shoreline data on its website, but not information about the air quality workers encounter on the water.

OSHA has access to that data and is monitoring it to determine what type of equipment the workers should be issued and other questions related to worker safety. So far, the air quality does not require workers to receive respirators, Wingo said.

Millner said that data as a matter of practice is shared only with the oil clean up worker and the company overseeing the cleanup.

BP also has exercised considerable control over how much is known about the amount of oil gushing into the gulf.

Early on, the government estimated that 210,000 gallons was being released daily. That estimate was based on satellite observations of the water's surface.

The first look at the oil coming out of the pipe on the sea floor was a video clip that BP released last week in response to demands from reporters and others. It caused a stir because some experts who analyzed it estimated that the amount of oil pouring into the gulf was many times the government's official estimate.

Sens. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., on Monday asked BP on Monday to provide all available video footage.

BP provided clips from several days of the spill on Tuesday.

The clips, however, would still result only in rough estimates because the oil flows at different rates at different times and it's mixed with gas, said BP spokesman Mark Proegler.

The company had no other equipment on the sea floor to monitor the amount of the flow, and no plans to install any.

"We've said from the beginning . . . it's difficult if not impossible to measure from the source of the flow," Proegler said on Tuesday. BP's focus is stopping the flow and keeping the oil away from shore, he said.

Jeff Short, an oil pollution expert and former National Marine Fisheries Service official who now works for the environmental group Oceana, said the estimate based on surface observations was very imprecise, and that looking at the flow rate from the pipe would be better.

"The public has the right to see what harm the environment is exposed to, and knowing the flow rate is fundamental to that," he said.

Judy McDowell, the chair of the biology department and a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts who's studied many oil spills, said that in addition to knowing the amount of oil flowing in, scientists also need to figure out how it's dispersing and breaking down in order to know what effect it would have on living organisms in the water.

Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of NOAA, said in testimony to a Senate committee Tuesday said it was important, but difficult to get a better estimate of the amount of oil. She said that the Coast Guard planned to set up a team to get a better estimate.

Some university researchers have been frustrated by the lack of data and the refusal of federal agencies to press BP to collect detailed measurements from the broken well pipe or fully assess what might be happening underwater.

"We have been screaming from day one for data,'' said Peter Ortner, a fisheries biologist at the University of Miami.

Ortner also said that NOAA had been slow to consider sub-surface effects and didn't deploy the sophisticated gear that might help surveying for submerged oil.

Lubchenco said Monday that the agency had been discussing ideas about more sensing gear on the ocean floor but said "the priority at this point is to stop the flow.''

Meanwhile, an analysis of satellite imagery by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, reported Tuesday that the spill has grown to more than 7,500 square miles, or about the size of New Jersey.

*HT to Mark at Norwegianity for a great new descriptor.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/18/94415/bps-secrecy-keep-facts-on-gulf.html#ixzz0oLIfuc9X

Gorillaz Version Stop Narcotics

Gorillaz do a multi-cultural slightly abbreviated version of dr. Александров's socially uplifting message.

Stalinists On The March

Грани-ТВ: Cталинисты на марше
Grani-TV presents this video of a recent KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) march replete with old and new Stalinists. What many Americans don't realize is that the KPRF is the only politically meaningful opposition to Putin's rule in the country. Western media is fond of focusing on the likes of Gary Kasparov and a handful of western oriented liberals while failing to point out that these people have about as much political traction with the average Russian as Ralph Nader and the Green Party in the U.S. This is particularly clear when looking at the the composition of the Russian State Duma:

United Russia (Putin's faction) 64.3%
KPRF 11.5%
LDPR 8.1% (Vladimir Zhirinovski's party)
Just Russia 7.7% (A mix of nationalists, social democrats, and pensioners)
Others 8.4%.

dr. Александров Stop Narcotics

A public service announcement of sorts from the polyglot dr.

Русский Размер (Russian Size)

Русский Размер - Любовь, а еще есть мультфильмы на video.tochka.net


Some Russian Techno and a view of social and personal tensions.

Al Capone, Leonard Cohen and Everybody Knows

While the decision to audit the Fed is a glimmer of light in an American Darkness, I am not holding my breath. A country driven by mindless consumption and fear now only has fear. Meanwhile Al explained it 80 years ago:

"The world has been capitalized on paper. Every time a fellow had a new idea, they'd increase the capital stock-give themselves so much cash and their stockholders so much paper. The rich got richer; the stockholders speculated with paper. Someone found out it paid to keep a rumor factory going.....

"Why , down in Florida, the year I lived there, a shady newspaper publisher's friend was running a bank. He had unloaded a lot of worthless securities upon unsuspecting people. One day his bank went flooey. I was just thanking the powers that be that he'd got what was coming to him when I learned another business trick that would make safe-cracking look like miniature golf.

"The crooked publisher and the banker were urging bankrupt depositors who were being paid 30 cents on the dollar to put their money in another friend's bank. Many did so: and just about 60 days later that bank collapsed like a house of cards too.

"Do you think those bankers went to jail? No sir. They're among Florida's most representative citizens.They're just as bad as the crooked politicians!I ought to know about them. I've been feeding and clothing them long enough. I never knew until I got into this racket how many crooks were dressed in expensive clothes and talking with affected accents."

From "The Wicked City".

Al Capone, Economic Analyst

"A reckless gambler at almost anything, Al Capone had shunned the market."It's a racket," he said. Those stock market guys are crooked."

"From "The Wicked City".

Happy 170th Pyotr Tchaikovsky from Messer Chups

Yesterday marks Pyotr Tchaikovsky's 170th birthday. Messer Chups remembers him for us.

Prompt Global Strike Resurfaces

The Obama administration has resuscitated a Bush era plan in a misguided effort at arms control.

Zdob Si Zdub Cosmic Song

More Moldovan music with Mikhail Gorbachev.

Petroleum Chernobyl

The disaster in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow to apocalyptic proportions. This is beginning to resemble the petroleum equivalent of Chernobyl. mi2g gives some of the horrific details:

"President Obama is flying out to the Gulf of Mexico coast as the emergency grows post the "Deepwater Horizon" catastrophe. The problem with the dirty "black gold" oil spill is that it is not a spill: it is an abundant flow, like an underwater oil volcano. A hot column of oil and gas is continuously jetting into freezing dark waters 5,000 feet below, where the pressure nears 2,200 pounds per square inch, making it extremely difficult to send down divers to carry out repairs manually. Experts are now calling it a continuous, 24/7 round-the-clock calamity. Unlike a leaking oil tanker, this emergency situation's source will not empty itself in hours or days. As a result, the "black gold" slick is spreading towards the four US states of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, that have all declared a state of emergency....

"Poseidon, the God of the Sea, is clearly upset. The slick has tripled in size in a day and now covers nearly 4,000 square miles, an area the size of a small country. That suggests the oil has started spilling from the well more quickly. 5,000 barrels or 200,000 gallons of oil are gushing into the ocean every single day since the explosion on April 20th killed 11 men. This threatens all marine life in the surrounding area, wildlife in the marshlands, and the entire fragile and interlinked environmental web. The ruptured well, located in ocean water nearly a mile deep, has churned out an estimated 2 million gallons of oil to date into the Gulf. Some experts studying satellite images suggest that the figure is four to five times higher than that already. With no immediate solution to the leak available, it is possible that the oil well could keep churning out the same amount of oil or more for a few months yet. The commandant of the US Coast Guard, Admiral Thad Allen, has said it's impossible to give an exact estimate of how much oil is leaking. He has now been officially designated national incident commander for the uncontrolled oil release accident and reports directly to the US president, and the secretaries of Homeland Security and Defense."

НеГрузовики Не Улыбаются (No Trucks No Smiles)

We Could Rule The World If We Could Only Get The Parts

Our tax dollars at work. No out cry from the right regarding the latest welfare for the the rich which destabilizes world peace from the Timesonline:

"Somewhere above earth is America’s latest spaceship, a 30ft craft so classified that the Pentagon will not divulge its mission nor how much it cost to build.

The mysterious X37B, launched successfully by the US Air Force from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, using an Atlas V rocket, looks like a mini-Space Shuttle — but its mission is top secret.

It is officially described as an orbital test vehicle. However, one of its potential uses appears to be to launch a surge of small satellites during periods of high international tension. This would enable America to have eyes and ears orbiting above any potential troublespot in the world.

The X37B can stay in orbit for up to 270 days, whereas the Shuttle can last only 16 days. This will provide the US with the ability to carry out experiments for long periods, including the testing of new laser weapon systems. This would bring accusations that the launch of X37B, and a second vehicle planned for later this year, could lead to the militarisation of space.
"US defence officials, who would not say how much the project had cost, insisted, however, that it was “just an updated version of the Space Shuttle activities”.

Thursday’s launch was more about testing the craft, a new generation of silica tile and a wealth of other advances that make the Shuttle look like yesterday’s space technology.

Nasa’s X37B programme began in 1999 and ran until September 2004 when it was transferred to the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency before being taken over by the US Air Force.

The flight of the X37B is being managed by the US Air Force Space Command’s 3rd Space Experimental Squadron.

“This bird has been through all of the shake, rattle and roll, the vibration tests, the acoustic tests that any spacecraft would go through,” said Gary Payton, Under Secretary of the Air Force for Space Programmes.

With all the focus on the launch of the secret X37B, another space launch by a Minotaur IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force base in California received less attention.

It was carrying the prototype of a new weapon that can hit any target around the world in less than an hour.

The Prompt Global Strike is designed as the conventional weapon of the future. It could hit Osama bin Laden’s cave, an Iranian nuclear site or a North Korean missile with a huge conventional warhead."

Why shouldn't the rest of the world worry about us?

Gogol Bordello At The Congress Theater Chicago

Originally I was going to try and see what I consider one of the best groups ever at First Avenue in the Twin Cities with my friend the Wege, however a number of circumstances conspired against this and as a fall back Mrs. WINston Smith and I would go to Chicago and see them at the Congress Theater in Chicago. That was until she read the reviews of the venue which reminded her of a rather dumpy place in Milwaukee known as the Rave (the less said about that the better).
I finally recruited my son to accompany me with the now purchased tickets. What a fine show this turned out to be. The show was a spektakl, as Russians would say, of the first order. I haven't seen an audience this involved in years. Inspite of people jumping on stage and climbing wiring the band played on, of course Eugene did say it just looked like people having a "fucking good time". The venue BTW seemed just fine to me, though I never needed to check out the facilities. As a normal male unless pee and poop were ankle deep it probably wouldn't matter. The above video wasn't from the show but captures the spirit.

Умка и броневик "Голос мой дом"

Umka And Bronevik Voice of My Home



More Russian music influenced by the USA when we actually had something to say.

Ольга арефьева & УМКА." SUMMER TIME"

An American classic gets a Russian treatment by Umka and Olga Aryefeva, two of my favorite Russian female vocalists.

Goldman-Sachs Will Justice Be Done?

The Goldman-Sachs saga drags on and the question of whether the criminal conspiracy known as the finacialization of the American economy which has raged on for the last 20 years will result in meaningful change. Business Week argues that this is unlikely, thus confirming fears on both the Left and Right:

" No one can have failed to notice the beating that bankers have taken in public opinion in the past two years. Real-estate agents have a better reputation for honesty, and parking inspectors have a higher rating for fairness.

No surprises there. The banks took huge and crazy risks, got ordinary taxpayers to bail them out, then went straight back to paying themselves massive bonuses as if nothing had happened. If that doesn’t send your reputation straight into the gutter, it is hard to know what will.

There is plenty of statistical evidence to show banks have plummeted in public esteem. In Harris Interactive’s latest survey of corporate reputations in the U.S., the banks took a hammering. Out of 60 companies, Goldman Sachs ranked 56th. Citigroup Inc. was at 57th, while Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were also in the bottom 10. Only the tobacco industry fared worse than finance. You can’t sink much lower than that.

That, however, is what Joe Public thinks. Among the corporate and political elite the story is rather different.

Top of Polls

A British survey, conducted by the graduate-recruitment Web site TargetJobs, asked 100,000 students which companies they would like to work for when they graduate. Goldman Sachs topped the poll for investment banks. All that terrible press, it seems, hasn’t stopped young people wanting to get their feet under a desk in Goldman Sachs’s offices.

Likewise, Fortune magazine recently published its annual survey of the most-admired companies. Who topped the megabank category? That’s right. Goldman Sachs. It was up from 15th to eighth place in the all-industries ranking, ahead of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Coca-Cola Co.

Fortune canvasses the views of more than 4,000 executives, directors and analysts to compile its list. It is a measure of elite, not mass opinion. And in that narrow world, it appears that the big banks haven’t suffered at all.

The message couldn’t be clearer. An avalanche of bad publicity hasn’t really dented Goldman’s reputation, or that of any other major bank, either.

Nasty and Tough

There are two conclusions to be drawn from that.

First, we like our banks to be aggressive and mean. Imagine you were hiring a bodyguard or a divorce lawyer. Do you want one who promises to be conciliatory, kind and consensual? Or one who takes no prisoners? In reality, you want your team to be as nasty and tough as possible. The same is true of investment banking. As gangster rappers say, it pays to be bad.

Second, although there is a lot of waffling about reputation and corporate social responsibility, all that matters is the ability to get the job done. The firm of Nero, Khan (as in Genghis) & Capone would probably win a fair bit of business as long as it got that Greek bond issue sold, or found someone to unwind a position in Florida mortgage derivatives.

There is a moral in that for the investment banks.

They will all spend fortunes in the next couple of years getting their images back in shape. If you happen to have an orchestra you want sponsored, an orphanage that needs a new wing, or a rare species that needs saving from extinction, this is the right moment to send in a polite letter asking for a donation. Don’t forget to mention how their generosity will improve their public image. They will write out a check faster than you can say “giant vampire squid.”

Two Audiences

But actually, for keeping the business going, there are only two audiences that really count.

While the banks can still attract the smartest, most ambitious young talent out of the universities, and so long as the people running big corporations still rate them, what the general public think doesn’t matter much.

And while the banks are repairing their images, it would also be worth remembering that they don’t want to go too far in the other direction. It won’t really do them any harm to be known as nasty and greedy -- that is what bankers are there for."

Борис Гребенщиков И Deadушки "Сны О Чем-То Большем"

A little Russian alternative music from Deadushki and Boris Grebenshchikov.

Volcanoes and Humanity, An Uneasy Relationship

The Icelandic volcano is a reminder that natural forces have profound and unexpected effects on human activity.The more complex the human technology the deeper the implications. There is now concern that the effects of this eruption might be felt for years to come as noted in the Timesonline:

"The wider economic consequence to our ‘just-in-time’ society is incalculable at this stage given the disruption to holidays, business plans and indeed the wider business supply chain. However, the global cost of the disruption will surely ultimately result in a cost of billions rather than hundreds of millions of pounds.

It is exceptionally hard to gauge how long the current grounding of flights will remain in force, although Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic volcano which has erupted, could potentially sputter on for months or even more than a year. Much could depend upon weather patterns, especially wind direction, over the next few days.

The worst-case scenario in terms of precedent here is the 1783-1784 eruption at Laki (a very large eruption of 14km3 compared to the one in Mount St. Helens in 1980 of 1 km3) that had a huge impact on the northern hemisphere, reducing temperatures by up to 3 degrees. This led to catastrophe far beyond the shores of Iceland (where 25% of population died), with thousands of recorded deaths in Britain due to poisoning and extreme cold, and record low rainfall in North Africa."

The article goes on to also make an argument for the role of climate change:

"At the end of the last ice age, the rate of eruption in Iceland was some 30 times higher than historic rates. This is because the reduction in the ice load reduced the pressure in the mantle, leading to decompression melting there. Since the late 19th Century the ice caps in Iceland have been shrinking yet further, due to changing climate. This will lead to additional magma generation, so we should expect more frequent and/or more voluminous eruptions in the future."

Zvuki Mu Grubi Zakat (Disgraceful Decline)

Zvuki Mu with Pyotr Mamamov is one of the great Russian alternative bands and introduced me to the world of Russian rock.

Climate Change and Nuclear War

With the recent attention on nuclear arms limitation its important not to loose sight of the stakes of even a "small" nuclear conflict could have. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has a sobering article on the climate change that could be produced in even a limited conflict:

" Recent scientific studies have found that a war fought with the deployed U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals would leave Earth virtually uninhabitable. In fact, NASA computer models have shown that even a "successful" first strike by Washington or Moscow would inflict catastrophic environmental damage that would make agriculture impossible and cause mass starvation. Similarly, in the January Scientific American, Alan Robock and Brian Toon, the foremost experts on the climatic impact of nuclear war, warn that the environmental consequences of a "regional" nuclear war would cause a global famine that could kill one billion people.

Their article, "Local Nuclear War: Global Suffering," PDF predicts that the detonation of 100 15-kiloton nuclear weapons in Indian and Pakistani megacities would create urban firestorms that would loft 5 million tons of thick, black smoke above cloud level. (This smoke would engulf the entire planet within 10 days.) Because the smoke couldn't be rained out, it would remain in the stratosphere for at least a decade and have profoundly disruptive effects. Specifically, the smoke layer would block sunlight, heat the upper atmosphere, and cause massive destruction of protective stratospheric ozone. A 2008 study PDF calculated ozone losses (after the described conflict) of 25-45 percent above mid-latitudes and 50-70 percent above northern high latitudes persisting for five years, with substantial losses continuing for another five years. Such severe ozone depletion would allow intense levels of harmful ultraviolet light to reach Earth's surface--even with the stratospheric smoke layer in place.

Beneath the smoke, the loss of warming sunlight would produce average surface temperatures colder than any experienced in the last 1,000 years. There would be a corresponding shortening of growing seasons by up to 30 days and significant reductions in average rainfall in many areas, with a 40-percent decrease of precipitation in the Asian monsoon region. Basically, the Earth's surface would become cold, dark, and dry......

Here it's important to point out that the 100 Hiroshima-size weapons detonated in Robock and Toon's regional war scenario contain less than 1 percent of the combined explosive power in the 7,000 or so operational and deployed nuclear weapons the United States and Russia possess. If even one-half of these weapons were detonated in urban areas, Robock and Toon have predicted that the resulting nuclear darkness would cause daily minimum temperatures to fall below freezing in the largest agricultural areas of the Northern Hemisphere for a period of between one to three years. Meanwhile, average global surface temperatures would become colder than those experienced 18,000 years ago at the height of the last Ice Age.

Amazingly, however, no follow-up studies have been initiated to further evaluate the decreases in temperature, precipitation, or ozone depletion predicted to arise from either regional or strategic nuclear war. Large studies were conducted in the 1980s on "nuclear winter" by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the World Meteorological Organization, and the International Council for Science's Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment. But given that Robock and Toon's new research has found that these early studies significantly underestimated the climatic and environmental consequences of nuclear war, wouldn't it make sense for such groups to now revisit the subject? At the very least, Washington and Moscow, with 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, should be required to investigate the environmental and climatic consequences from a nuclear war created by their nuclear arsenals."

Polish Government Decapitated in Russian Plane Crash

This is truly bizarre, a plane carrying the upper echelon of the Polish government crashes on the way to commemorate the Katyn Massacre practically at the site of the massacre. Julia Ioffe from True/Slant has more:

"This morning, a crappy, Soviet-era Tu-154 was headed from Warsaw for Smolensk (near the site of the massacre), but found that its ability to land was hampered by the fog. It tried to land again and again, with no success. On its fourth attempt, the plane grazed a tree, which ripped off its back section, and sent it hurtling into to the ground at 10:50 a.m. local time.

Every crew member died, as did all the passengers. Among them were the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, his wife, the head of the National bank, the vice speakers of the Sejm and the Senate, the chief of staff, the head of national security, the Olympic committee head, the deputy defense minister, and a row of senators.

Vladimir Putin, newly reconciled with the Poles, said he would personally oversee the investigation.

Stranger than fiction, as they say."

Olga Rozhdenstvenskaya and The Moscow Grooves Institute