bank run blog

An assessment of the environmental damages left in the wake of Hurricane Ike performed by the federal government found that oil extraction industries were hit hard by the storm, causing releases of hazardous chemicals and oil products into the ravaged area. According to a report released by the Minerals Management Service, more than 500,000 gallons of crude oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico and island beaches, bayous and marshes that stretch from Texas to Louisiana.

The agency said that there were 3,000 pollution reports between September 11th and 18th, and 448 incidents of the release of oil, gasoline, and other petrochemical pollutants. The area hit
by the hurricane contains a high concentration of oil related industrial production facilities. Offshore in the Gulf of Mexico there are 3800 oil drilling platforms. 86 of these were damaged, with 54 of them completely destroyed. The Coast Guard said it received a report of a hazardous gas release or toxic chemical or oil spill every five to 10 minutes in the aftermath of the storm.

The report said that researchers found the most common contaminant left in the wake of the hurricane was crude oil. Researchers found that air contaminants from chemical plants and refineries were the second most common dangerous release. While the environmental devastation of the recent storm was less than the damages left after Hurricane Katrina, MMS reported that more than1500 sites will require environmental remediation.

The most severe spill took place at an oil refining facility operated by the St. Mary Land and
Exploration Company, on a spit of uninhabited land in the gulf. The company had abandoned the oil refining plant before the hurricane hit. When employees of the company returned to the site a day after Ike made landfall, it was discovered that storage tanks holding 266,000 gallons of crude oil had been breeched. Company officials said that the oil had simply vanished into the gulf.

In spite of these examples of the kind of pollution that can be caused by natural calamities such Hurricane Ike, the candidates running for president from both parties agree that oil reserves in US waters should be exploited whatever the environmental costs may be.

cross posted at

redstateupdate.net

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In recent weeks, telecommunications giants Comcast and Time Warner Cable have announced pilot programs aimed at metering Internet usage, offering tiered services featuring escalating pricing structures and bandwidth caps for individual consumers. Industry observers say that the service providers have been seeking to end unlimited Internet access and charge particularly heavy users premium fees since the advent of file sharing and video applications that consume large amounts of their network capacity. Critics of the telecoms warn that the companies are purposely undermining the principle of “net neutrality” for a new generation of customers who will have no alternative to metered bandwidth usage and different levels of service based on price.

Time Warner will test its tiered service plans in Beaumont, TX, offering basic service at 768 kilobits per second with a monthly cap of 5 gigabytes for $29.95 a month. The company will also offer a premium service at 15 megabits per second, capped at 40 gigabytes, for $54.90 a month. A company spokesman said of metered Internet usage, “We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure.”

Comcast has already endured a wave of bad publicity this year, after revelations that it surreptitiously monitored individual usage and secretly slowed service to specific consumers. The company admitted to delaying data transfers for customers using BitTorrent software. Comcast’s new approach, to be tested in Chambersburg, PA, Warrenton, VA, and Colorado Springs, CO, will target large capacity users, rather than certain software applications. These users can expect to experience delays and slow service during periods of heavy traffic, according to the company.

Consumer advocates and civil liberties groups assailed the move away from “net neutrality” in which all Internet users have equal access, as more about new revenue streams for the telecoms than issues of available bandwidth. “The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL,” communications expert George Ou said in testimony before the Federal Communications Commission in April. The FCC is investigating allegations that Comcast’s secret blocking or delaying of individual users’ accounts was illegal. The practice was revealed in a report by the Associated Press.

cross posted at

redstateupdate.net

These reports, one from CNN and another from local California TV station KCRA, focus on a tragic consequence of the foreclosure crisis in America, pets that are abandoned by owners who are faced with losing their home. Pets are turned out into the street or left in abandoned homes by their owners.

The reporter from KCRA relates that she has talked to realtors who find pets as they show properties to potential buyers “abandoned in foreclosed homes.” The reporter says, “you walk in there to show it to sombody and there’s an animal left there, for months.”

Many of these pets are given to shelters. Contact your local Anti Cruelty Society or municipal animal shelter to find out how to adopt an abandoned pet.

CNN report-

KCRA report-

BBC : Northern Rock bank run



1 of 150,000 : eviction auction



CBS News : abandoned homes



CNN : parkinglot living



Nouriel Rubini : the global financial crisis



CNN : rice rationing and the food crisis



BBC : modern tent city



ABC News : a new era of hunger



Jim Cramer : Bernanke has no idea



CBS 60 Minutes : walk aways make sense



Reuters : History Repeats Itself



Al Jazeera TV : a horrible choice they have to make



WXMI Fox 17 : walk away, renee



CBS News : the end of suburbia



Al Jazeera : economic meltdown in mississippi