Science Attacks the BP Deepwater Horizons Oil Spill

Here's some good news about the oil spill - and some good press about the work of science and scientists in the spill zone.

"If you think of information as a wave, the wave of truth in this calamity is not being driven by the government and government information sources. It's being driven by independent academics who are working under pressure and creatively to get information out," MacDonald said. "It's truly astonishing to see what's happening. The data cloud is so large and so complex, it's beyond the scope of one person to figure it out."

"This is so complicated and has so many dimensions. It will take a lot of science to figure out what is happening from a biological point of view, from an oceanographic point of view and from an economic point of view," said W. Ross Ellington, associate vice president for research at Florida State, where the task force is based.

You can read more about the taskforce's work HERE.

Defending us from ourselves - Do we need arrests like these?

On NPR this morning (and run in the Washington Post) we learn that federal and state law enforcement authorities have arrested two men from New Jersey who were headed overseas to Somalia, supposedly to join up and fight with "Islamic" terrorists.

The increasing allure for some Americans of destinations such as Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen has alarmed U.S. officials, though no evidence has surfaced that the two men planned any immediate attacks in the United States or overseas. Officials fear that radicalized Americans, even if they start off as naive as the two New Jersey aspirants appeared to be, could return home battle-hardened and determined to commit terrorist acts on American soil.

Now, a few things you need to know. First, both are U.S. citizens, and so the "usual" canard about holding foreigners shouldn't apply. Second, they have yet to actually be linked to any attack that is planned or known about, so the arrest appears to be preemptive in nature. Third, amongst their training regimen was the use of paint balls and first person shooter games.

Ok, you say, the authorities need a pat on the back for getting a couple of rotting apples before they broke open and stank up the place, so to speak. But root deeper, and one has to ask what's the difference between a Palestinian-American who uses paint balls to learn how to shoot, and a white American who does the same thing from within a white supremacist militia? How radical is it to go and fight, overseas on the side of people you believe your government is oppressing?

My second question there is an important one, historically, as Americans fought with the Zionists as they battled to set up what we now know as Israel. Ditto for Americans fighting with Franco in the Spanish Civil War. But because history deemed those "good, moral" causes (Franco's later dictatorship not withstanding), those Americans were not ever persecuted or demonized.

So now, we wait and see if the U.S. Justice system can live up to its reputation. One hopes that these two men will be afforded their full Constitutional rights, since they were arrested on American soil long before they could become enemy combatants. Sadly, the Holder Justice Department seems as blind on this issue as his predecessor.

While we wait, ponder this - these two Americans have been arrested by our government for the crime of deciding to take up arms against a regime that they see as evil and oppressive. All they did was talk a lot, and play games that many of us play each weekend (or night, or afternoon). They haven't actually done anything yet, but our "leaders" now call them terrorists. Imagine what would have happened if Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and the Concord Militia had all been rounded up while they were still talking, and practicing "terrorist training" by shooting their muskets to hunt. What, dear readers would the world look like then?

Celebrate National Doughnut Day

Lest you all think me COMPLETELY serious all the time, I offer this: Tomorrow (Friday, 4 June) is National Doughnut Day. Seriously. Now hold the jokes about bureaucrats and doughnuts, but do get yourself to the closest Krispy Creme or Duncan Donuts, where you can get free eats!

34,083,300 gallons of oil and counting acccording to CNN.

37% of the US waters in the Gulf of Mexico are now closed to commercial fishing. BP can't possibly cover that opportunity cost. Can the US?

Regulatory Capture - What does it really mean?

Lots of hand wringing (again) about the "lax" regulation that MAY have allowed BP to set up a rig that would fail, catastrophically, under certain circumstances. Lawrence Baxter talks about this phenomenon in detail, and it's a post worth considering:

Not all industry influence is inappropriate: after all, industries exist to make money and, if lawful, their prosperity benefits us all. They should be able to influence the development and application of sensible and appropriate regulations. And industries are entitled to proper regulatory expertise and intelligent, well-versed regulators. But backdoor influence that leads to the kind of capture to which I am referring undermines the whole point of regulation. To use the old metaphor, it leads to the fox guarding the henhouse.

To be sure, there are many public-minded Americans–perhaps even proportionately more than in most other countries–but public service is seldom a chosen career path, at least for very long. And for good reason. We don’t teach its virtues and we don’t reward public service adequately. Where are the professors of regulation in the US? We don’t give knighthoods to regulators. They don’t get paid much in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, either but at least they are considered important. But what do we do? We pull them up in front of Congress and beat up on them, so they go get highly paid jobs in the private sector.

H/t James @ The Baseline Scenario

Why do we in government talk about "drivers" instead of just calling them laws?