Kagan Kraps on the Declaration of Independence

People exist first and then create governments of laws. The ninth and tenth amendments refer to prior existing rights.

To deny human rights of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness is to deny the very validation for the war of independence.

She is a wolf in sheep's clothing, a big government authoritarian, and one who ONLY believes in "rights" that the government/law grants to a person. If she is confirmed then the Senate has again broken faith with the American people and with our historical understanding of natural rights.

This goes to prove again that rule by none is better than rule by some.

I would not be surprised that, as per her admission of how she spends Christmas, she also spends the 4th of July in a Chinese Restaurant!

Krap on Kagen!

Was Mrs. O'Leary's Cow was a British Agent?

By Phasma Scriptor

Mrs. O'Leary's Cow was a British Agent; the latter-day Cow is an Elephant, agents of the BP, or Why BP’s Alaskan faux island gambit provides ZERO protection against federal rules concerning offshore drilling

When the Brit-owned Illinois Central RR (technically, everything in a monarchy is owned by occupant of the Throne via dominion directum - absolute power to direct) decided to construct its main route from Chicago to Mobile, it was doing so as part of the Queen's grand strategy to take back the renegade colony. All the other main rail lines traversed the US E to W; the IC cut the country in half parallel to the Miss R, upon which the Brit Navy could navigate w/impunity vs. the puny American Navy (forget that silly 1812 affair). The IC would supply logistical support and rapid troop transport/deployment.

One ointmental fly - the crooked-from-year-0 Chicago City Council (dominated by the original ruling triumvirate of saloonkeepers, pimps & gamblers) which, w/o proper grease (that would be an actual shakedown, done Chicago-style), wasn't about to approve IC right-of-way into downtown Chicago. Undeterred, the Brits bought up available land as far N as they could - up to 55th St. ~8 miles from the business district (now the Loop). The rest of the route eventually veered off into Lake Michigan on pilings several hundred feet from the South Shore.

The Councilmen, wise in the ways of protecting their turf, passed an ordinance forbidding landfill off the lakeshore, obviously, a clear this-means-you shot across the bow of IC. As part of the Brits' 'scuse-us for their part in the semi-successful attempt to recoup the Amer colonials via the coup dubbed The Civil War, a specially-tricked-out IC train carried the body of murdered Prez Lincoln back to his home state of Illinois, at the Chicago terminus (pix are available). Inter alia, it was a return shot across the bow of the Chicago fixers.

6 years later, w/Reconstruction in full swing (there being no Honest Abe to prevent the post-war Deconstruction of the Constitution under the guise of freeing the slaves; Lincoln would have freed the slaves w/o converting the Rebel States into military regions, key to the necessity to eliminate him, he having been a praying man, not, as was the Queen, a preying mantis), Mrs. O'Leary's cow started the Great Chicago Fire, burning down the all-wood infrastructure of Chicago's downtown, all the way up to, hmmm, 55th St., where a man dressed-up as an Army Major just happened to be parked w/wagons loaded w/just enough dynamite to blow a firebreak in the wood-frame bungalows, heroically stopping the raging flames just short of the, uh, um, hmmmm, IC trackage from where it said bye-bye to the shoreline.

What to do? What to do? Here we veddy prahper Brits are w/all this construction equipment and all this debris lying around. Should we get in touch w/the Councilmen? Maybe, they might try to enforce that landfill ordinance. Naw. Let's go ahead and shove all this ugly debris into the water. We won't even charge ‘em.

Thus, the IC tracks were wondrously joined to land. The Queen was pleased. Of course, as any visitor to Chicago's South Shore and to Grant Park can see, the IC didn't stop the landfill gambit at their sort-of offshore tracks; those tracks now appear to be well inland. According to Illinois Central Railroad v. Illinois, 146 US 387 (1892), they're not.

The IC wanted to claim that the "land" upon which they had, with such intrigue, labored to reclaim from navigable waters, were theirs to do w/as the Queen pleased. The Supremes exclaimed, w/a nod to the Great Wizard of Oz, Not so fast. They held that navigable waters always remained navigable waters. Their reasoning:

It is a title held in trust for the people of the state, that they may enjoy the navigation of the waters, carry on commerce over them, and have liberty of fishing therein, freed from the obstruction or interference of private parties. The interest of the people in the navigation of the waters and in commerce over them may be improved in many instances by the erection of wharves, docks, and piers therein, for which purpose the state may grant parcels of the submerged lands; and, so long as their disposition is made for such purpose [and does not substantially impair the public trust], no valid objections can be made to the grants. … But that is a very different doctrine from the one which would sanction the abdication of the general control of the state over lands under the [146 U.S. 387, 453] navigable waters of an entire harbor or bay, or of a sea or lake. Such abdication is not consistent with the exercise of that trust which requires the government of the state to preserve such waters for the use of the public. The trust devolving upon the state for the public, and which can only be discharged by the management and control of property in which the public has an interest, cannot be relinquished by a transfer of the property. The control of the state for the purposes of the trust can never be lost, except as to such parcels as are used in promoting the interests of the public therein, or can be disposed of without any substantial impairment of the public interest in the lands and waters remaining. … A grant of all the lands under the navigable waters of a state has never been adjudged to be within the legislative power; and any attempted grant of the kind would be held, if not absolutely void on its face, as subject to revocation. The state can no more abdicate its trust over property in which the whole people are interested, like navigable waters and soils under them, so as to leave them entirely under the use and control of private parties, … than it can abdicate its police powers in the administration of government and the preservation of the peace. In the administration of government the use of such powers may for a limited period be delegated to a municipality or other body, but there always remains with the state the right to [146 U.S. 387, 454] revoke [emphasis added] those powers and exercise them in a more direct manner, and one more conformable to its wishes. So with trusts connected with public property, or property of a special character, like lands under navigable waters; they cannot be placed entirely beyond the direction and control of the state.

Soooo, building a faux island in the Beaufort Sea, 3 miles offshore, upon which to build BP's latest Doomsday device (dubbed Project Liberty), in order to justify claiming that offshore oil-drilling rules don't apply to BP's plan to put holes in really, really cold Alaskan water has, well, one honking big hole in it. Given the loss of the Gulf of Mexico shores, placing the enjoyment of those navigable entirely in jeopardy via this ruse is “always” subject to revocation.

Of course, we are talkin’ the State of Alaska, which, we've been lately given an entirely unwanted update, is populated w/"sportsmen" of which at least 1 is a "sportswoman" ("sportsditz"?). You betcha. All sportspersons own, at minimum, 1 shotgun per family member. And, I would guess, a significant number have sat w/their loaded shotguns, after a particularly bad day for harvesting moose antlers and ... think "The Deer Hunter" & Christopher Walken doing Russian Roulette duels. At that point, the typical Alaskan might catch himself (or her Sister-self) and realize, "I can't blow my brains out. I don't have any!! How useless is that?" More to the point, oh, wait a minute, yeah, that is the point. They're provably brainless, having put the Sister into the Governor's log cabin; thus, Alaskans aren't going to use the perfectly serviceable ruling in Illinois Central to insist that BP abide by offshore drilling rules on their faux island sitting on the public trust.

Balloon Pricks

By Phasma Scriptor

As of yesterday, the 10-year bond yield hit the yearly low of 2.93% just a few ticks above the crash lows of the fall of 2008; although the yield had bounced off 3.1, as soon as it traded below that, 3% provided no resistance whatsoever. As I’ve noted before, a decisive move below 3 would signal 30-year mortgage rates at about 4.5% for ordinary mortgages with jumbos down to about 4.3. The idiotic decision by the Euro states to move to “austerity” measures will mean those economies, led by the PIGS, have a downturn ahead. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Fed, forecast a sluggish economy here because of the idiocy going on over there; of course, he didn’t say Euro-dummies, but the most successful bond fund investor, for some time, has been Bill Gross of Pimco, who agrees, mostly, with Nobel-Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, of the NY Times, that cutting sovereign debt is the wrong move, by 180 degrees, and that more, not less, governmental spending is in order. In fact, both have been recommending that the budget deficit be much, much larger for some time. My own fear about The Balloon goes back to my experience in the derivatives markets going back over 35 years.

Bernanke, whose decision to go against the wishes of the super-rich (that is, the Rockefeller family and the Rothschild family, or R&Rs) is the main reason the US economy didn’t collapse last year, has maintained the ZERO% interest rate for months and keeps saying that ZERO is the rate of the foreseeable future, despite the call of the Amer-idiots who, with the trinkle down marching orders of the R&R rulers of the financial world, persist in braying about the need for reducing deficits and raising interest rates right here, right now. The R&Rs do NOT want Obama to succeed; they’ve ordered their lackeys amongst the Rs (gee, we could play Glenn-Beck-stupid and say that the Rs go with the R&Rs), with help lately from the Teabaggers, who want to fill as many boxes with their dum-rox as they possibly can. The reason is as simple as the color on Obama’s face, meaning, he’s not white AND a trustworthy super-Mason, as are, for instance, the senior members of the Family, like Sen. Tom Coburn [R-OK] (white male), Sen. David Vitter [R-LA] (white male), and Sen. John Ensign [R-NV] (white male) and, of course, Glenn Beck (as a high-ranking white male Mormon, he’s a super-Mason).

For those of you who are stupid (that’s you, Teabagger), the super-Masons are above the 33rd Degree and are all Satan-worshippers … excuse me, that’s Lucifer to you, dumshit Teabagger. The reason that the reformed Bernanke has kept interest rates as low as he can go (if he could, he’d go one better and make them negative) is that we continue to have a severe deflationary problem, not even a whiff of inflation. Why?

Quick/dirty review:

Derivatives - financial instruments, limited by time, which enable the participant to control a much larger piece of the pie (a much larger asset) than they otherwise could afford, for a fairly short period of time.

Hedgers - individuals or organizations that have actual skin in the game of derivatives; that is, they’re either producers/originators of the underlying assets or users/investors in such assets.

Speculators - individuals or organizations that participate in derivatives markets purely to make a profit, that is, are not hedgers. Most of the participants in the derivatives markets are speculators.

Effect of speculation - by large multiples, book-entry-only assets (imaginary assets) are increased.

World’s most significant derivatives market participant - The Federal Reserve Banking System, a private corporation, for which the term “reserve” refers to the variable percentage of available funds which each member bank must keep on hand (that is, not loaned out) of the total amount of demand deposits held by a particular bank; the time element as to reserves is that unseen factor, the velocity of money, the speed with which money that’s loaned out circulates throughout the economy.

The amount of imaginary money available to an economy dominated by a reserve system is simply (demand deposits)/(reserve percentage); for example, where a member bank has $100,000,000 in demand deposits with the reserve requirements, dictated by the Fed, set at 5%, the amount of imaginary money created out of thin air by that bank is $100,000,000/.05=I$2,000,000,000, where I$ stands for imaginary dollars and the amount of funds kept in reserve, available for withdrawal, is 5% of $100,000,000=$5,000,000. Although technically, the reserve amount ($5,000,000 in this example) reduces the I$ amount, for practical purposes, the combined derivatives trickery not only erases that 5%, but forms the basis for so many other derivatives instruments that the reserve amount is laughably irrelevant.

Effectively, the I$2,000,000,000 is created over the period of time that it takes for the imaginary dollars to be completely loaned out, which is based upon the process of the 1st bank making a loan, having the borrower re-deposit the loan amount in that same or another member bank, having that 2nd bank re-loan the money, having the 2nd borrower re-deposit that 2nd loan amount in that same or another member bank, etc. Each loan incident reduces the original amount loaned out by the 1st bank by the 5% reserve amount. So, the 1st loan amount would be $100,000,000 less $5,000,000=$95,000,000. The 2nd loan amount would be $95,000,000 less $4,750,000=$90,250,000. And, as they say, so on and so on and so on … The velocity of money, the time limit in the reserve system, equals the amount of time, usually measured in days, that it takes for the loan amount to be reduced, effectively, to zero. The sum of all the loan amounts, in this example, works out to I$2,000,000,000. The velocity of money, due to the long-ago complete transformation of all financial systems to kung-fu-fighting fast, that is, “fast as lightnin’”, or speed of light, takes any and all equity reducible to electronic bits to the full monty within a few seconds. That would be nanoseconds were it not for the problem of the globe being about 27K miles in circumference. Hmm. If only the R&Rs could put a communication cable through the center of the Earth …

That is, of course, an enormous swindle, enormous benefits accruing to the reserve system of banks, but the system has been in place for over 90 years and has generated unparalleled prosperity since the reserve system encourages profligate lending (because banks’ profits geometrically increase by the reserve loan process). Thus, the general populace, having enjoyed the generations of good economic times of the past century had very little reason to squawk.

Due to financial accounting wizards of the R&Rs (against whom finregs have become almost meaningless) and with the advent of the overarching reserve system, overarching the globe, that is, which has been on steroids and meth via the proliferation of newly fabricated derivatives instruments over the past decade, the era of maximum free market criminality has lately come to dominate the Fed and all other central banks combined, despite the bedrock that these banks provide for the most prolific fraudsters of all time. From an intrinsic feature of the reserve banking system to an extrinsic feature of almost every piece of paper representing somebody’s equity in property on Earth, the baggy-pants economic slack in the Western world that could be filled up by the phunny money of derivatives traded mainly on exchanges in this country, was pretty well overinflated as of June 2008.

The awful secret about the AIG/Lehman-Bros. debacle of that summer of the historic Obama stretch-run is that it was all under control, more or less; overinflation, nay, hyper-hyper-inflation, is the norm for the new regime of the Mad Max super-derivatives in the worldwide Thunderdome, overseen by the new gorilla on the block - Goldman Sachs - where there is no sheriff able to bring the bad guys to heel. Bigger and more important than the Federal Reserve? Yes.

As gang members of GS, et cie, AIG and Lehman Bros. were both in deep trouble, but, again, the condition of being in deep trouble is the new normal for the financial markets and its major players, because their methods of accounting aren’t exactly AICPA-approved; in fact, most CPAs would blanche at the bookkeeping abracadabra that’s parties hardy at GS, et cie. The ability of Goldman Sachs to instantly create ultra-hordes of I$, way, way beyond what the Fed and all other central banks combined can do, has been proven via the spike-y looking market moves over the past several weeks.

As I’ve repeatedly warned (with the NY Times well out in front on this issue, but even the NYT is still ignored), GS, et cie, has been criminally front-running these spike moves (the so-called flash-crash, accompanied by several trading sessions of super-whipsaw action, that is, where the stock market flashes upward in minutes and then crashes with equal rapidity downward); with high-frequency trading to put a kind of derivatives-variety supercharged crotch rocket under the markets, front-running is the ultimate in insider trading. Add that to the insider-trading-via-PIGS maneuver (where GS, having structured the sovereign debt of the PIGS - Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain (Rothschild pawns all) - has inside knowledge of what’s going to happen to the bonds of the PIGS because GS, et cie, advises the PIGS’ finance ministers what to do with their bonds and because GS, et cie, has two puppet ratings agencies, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s, to downgrade bonds whenever GS’ Chairman Lloyd Blankfein snaps his fingers, or maybe gives the CEOs of S&P and Moody’s wedgies.

This enables GS, et cie, to amass immense mega-fortunes; using the techniques perfected by Michael J. Riconosciuto during the S&L hyper-embezzlement, those mega-fortunes can be hidden from view (kinda like invisible electronic casino chips that can be thrown into any pot, at any table, at any time GS, et cie, click on “Go”), Bernie-Madoff-like, but at the ready whenever GS, et cie, want to bludgeon the global economy … such as during the so-called bailout of US and Euro banks during the summer of 2008. In fact, GS, et cie, can effectively manufacture mega-fortunes by the methods described above virtually at will, stealing, in a new-fashioned nano-heartbeat, from everyone else with an old-fashioned Clydesdale heartbeat on the planet.

While GS, et cie, are loyal to the Rothschild side of the R&R equation, they, at least temporarily, cooperate with the Rockefellers in the classic “community of interest” of the super-rich (of which there used to be more, but all the lesser lites were just that - super-rich-lite), what was formerly known as the “robber barons” with the emphasis on the “robber” part. When President Dwight Eisenhower gave his famous exit speech in the Oval Office, the Robber Barons had morphed into the “military-industrial complex” (actually, the military-industrial-Congressional complex in his original speech). In other words, by that time, the R&R takeover of the world (apologies to Pinky & the Brain) was already just about fait accompli. But, I digress.

When the pundit-analysts of R&R saw the Obama forces had out-foxed the FOX-NEWS pols (including, John McCain and Hillary Clinton) by reaching youthful voters doing the political thing for the 1st time, and utilizing the flash-mob techniques of street organizing before the term “flash-mob” was ever a twitter-term in someone’s tweet, they decided that they would destroy the economy and leave the black-boy nothing to work with. At that time, Bernanke was the stooge of the super-rich, as had Alan Greenspan been before him, and Paul Volcker before him, ad nauseum.

Of course, there were so many GS, et cie, agents in the administration of Jr. (including, but not limited to, former GS Chair Henry Paulson, who was the face-plant of GS as Secretary of Treasury), that it was a lock that the terms of economic destruction would be dictated by GS, et cie. Among those who were ordered to walk the plank in order to stick it to Obama were AIG and Lehman Bros. As it later was revealed, AIG was bailed out to provide derivatives loss payback to GS, leaving AIG with less than enough to survive (at least, for public consumption, since GS, et cie, could have used one or more of the many derivatives vehicles available to super-vac AIG, as well as Lehman Bros. back from the brink.

AIG and Lehman Bros., however, were the linchpins to the economic debacle that was and is intended to blow-up Obama’s Presidency, the purpose of which was and is to bring about a financial Armageddon that will end all financial freedom with the imposition of the totalitarian martial law that the dumshit Teabaggers fear, but are helping to bring about with their brainless/clueless/witless agenda to aid GS, et cie, by vociferously backing “pro-business” politics, because, after all, that’s what the toy jesus of the dumshit Teabaggers would do. That would be Christ-Almighty GS Chair Lloyd Blankfein as the Latter-Day Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, using the the Pied Piper of Mormonism, Glenn Beck, to lead the dumshit Teabaggers around by their noses. Actually, Beck doesn’t lead the dumshit Teabaggers around by their noses. No, he’s got ‘em by hairs, lower on the anatomy and not as short as nose hairs.

Why are Teabaggers so stupid? Well, it’s just plain old ignorance, the sort of ignorance out of which “You can fool some of the people all of the time” was originally excreted in the ancient mists of time. It is understandable, though, because, in this instance, “some of the people” is an awful lot of people; the dumshit Teabaggers (you probably get it by now that I think dumshit and Teabaggers are inextricably bound, although that may be putting dumshits into an unfairly bad light) are just philosophically in tune with the R&R elites; they hate Obama, too.

Why do the R&Rs hate Obama? Because he’s got his own cloak-and-dagger guys just like the R&Rs; the Rockefellers have the CIA and the KGB, while the Rothschilds have the Mossad, as well as the Mossad-factions of CIA and KGB, each R paying handsomely for the protection afforded by the cold-blooded killers in Mossad, CIA and KGB. Obama has his own protectors. I’ll leave you to guess whose his are.

In any event, Obama doesn’t really have to do anything political out of fear for his life, despite the danger; he is, unlike, say, JFK, whose daddy didn’t quite get the danger in which he’d put his boys (until it was too late) by having them vie for the Presidency, without his own group of cold-blooded killers to keep him alive. Thus, the R&Rs knew that it would be difficult to get to Obama, because, one, the Secret Service, which organized the “hit” on JFK (see Best Evidence, by David Lifton), would be neutralized by Obama’s “people” and, two, Obama’s “people” have longstanding links to a variety of wet work spooks, none of whom are “patriots” and, thus, willing to assassinate anyone, to and including, the highest echelons of the R&Rs (turn-about being the fairest kind of play with the murderous clans of the R&Rs). So, their best option would have been, and remains, taking the legs out from under the US economy, which would take out the Euro-zone and Japan as well, leaving China’s immense worker’s paradise and the GS derivatives to bring the global economy back, once Obama’s recovery was made to fail, which, because of Obama’s reclamation of Bernanke’s soul, has been less than a sure thing.

There’s never been a hyper-inflated economy like the one that R&R henchmen, chiefly GS, et cie, managed to huff and puff, like a Big Bad Wolf on speed, into an electronic derivatives balloon that required and still requires computers that can handle 18 digits, that is, totals in the hundreds of quadrillions, with velocities of money that are less than nanoseconds. There’s only one of those … computers, that is. It’s the one that Howard Hughes’ techs developed for His Royal Highness and his excuse for progeny … himself (see the blog about the Mormons and their lead dumshit Teabagger mouthpiece, Glenn Beck). The software running the HRH computer is known as PROMIS (ibid, and see blog about Riconosciuto)

Prick this balloon, however, and the consequences would have been and, obviously, were, melt-down vicious. That’s because the subconscious portion of the economy (the global economy has humanoid characteristics), made up of the almost reflexive actions of all the individuals that participate in the economy (which is virtually everybody), reacts in humanoid fashion; thus, when the derivatives markets pump up actual assets worth trillions of $ into assets worth I$ many thousands of times their actual worth in $, any rapid reduction, via the balloon prick (the AIG/Lehman Bros. episode), doesn’t change the humanoid expectation that there are, at least in humanoid terms, hundreds of trillions of I$ available for economic activity with the quadrillions being, essentially, the background imaginary equity stream for the quantum level of derivatives that appear and disappear within nanoseconds.

Meaning, the deflation was, and remains, unprecedented because … oh, this thing is already long enough. You get the picture … unless, you’re a dumshit Teabagger, in which case, flush yourself.

More later.

Would you tar and feather a tax collector?

Thanks to Libertarian Punk by way of The Sipsey Street Irregulars for this great video!

The Ignoble Leading the Ignorant

Happy Litha!!

Today is a very special day! Celebrated in ancient times as Litha, it's the longest day of the year or the "summer solstice."

The science is fairly straightforward: The Earth's axis is tilted by about 23.5 degrees from its orbital plane. In other words, our planet spins around its axis like a spinning top, but its north pole is always "off vertical" by 23.5 degrees.

As the Earth orbits the sun, the North Pole is pointing preferentially toward the sun during the summer in the northern hemisphere (now), but points away 6 months later on December 20 or 21. For the northern hemisphere, when the north pole is tilted toward the sun, it's the summer solstice; when pointing away, it's the winter solstice. For the southern hemisphere, the opposite is true (i.e. when it's the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, it is the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere).

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, while the winter solstice is the shortest day of the year.

Also, the summer solstice is the day that the sun can be seen at the highest point in the sky. At the summer solstice, the sun will be directly above the Tropic of Cancer (northern hemisphere) or the Tropic of Capricorn (southern hemisphere). If you are located between the Tropics, the sun will pass overhead (i.e. the zenith) in the run-up to summer solstice. At these latitudes, the sun will be directly overhead at different times of the year depending where you are.

Summer solstice is also a reminder about how lucky we are to be living on a planet with a tilt.

If the Earth spun vertically -- with no tilt relative to its orbital plane around the sun -- the equator would always have the sun directly overhead and the poles would be in perpetual twilight. Every day would be a summer solstice for the equator and winter solstice for the poles. There would be no seasons, the world as we know it would be a very different place; a lifeless desert around the equator and frozen poles equally as hostile to the life. I suspect there would be some pretty nasty weather in between; hot and cold air forming a huge cell of violent circulating air dominating the hemispheres.

So, if one was inclined to celebrate the times of the year, summer solstice should be added to it. After all, everything we have comes directly or indirectly from the sun. I'm not saying to necessarily worship the sun anymore than the celebration in December worships the Sun coming back from dying; I'd be giving thanks for our "tilted world".

Dividing the Sheeple from the Goats

Vin Suprynowicz writes an excellent column about the growing split in America between Liberty loving small government folks and those who are limited Liberty large government lovers. Where do you stand? Personally I'm an Anti-Federalist. I believe that the so called "social contract" between the people and the government has been abrogated by the government so many times and so many ways that What passes for "America" today is a different country than the one that the propaganda education system taught. Not really a surprise when you look at how the Feds have handled all their Native American "social contracts!" (Treaties) Furthermore, when you have a "Supreme" Court that has the authority granted to it by the "Constitution" to re-interpret ANYTHING that is in the "Constitution," and rule on ANYTHING the "law-makers" do (ex: treaties, contracts, laws, rights) then everything is up for "interpretational" grabs. Control the meaning of the words and you control the words. The Anti-Federalists were right then and they are still right today. A Consolidated Government Is A Tyranny!

Let the would-be tyrants explain why they’re opposed

By Vin Suprynowicz

“Constitutional amendments we’d like to see” is usually an ineffective game.

But this one keeps occurring to me. It’s about 600 words, but I still believe it passes the basic test of comprehensibility, despite being in three parts. It also gives us a litmus test to determine who — if anyone — in the political world REALLY favors smaller government.

It would not solve all our problems — only a populace dedicated to the IDEA of expansive freedom and sharply limited government could set us back on that road. But it would be a start:

“1) Given that the courts and the Congress have consistently defied the wish, command, and instruction of the people to have, to erect and enjoy a federal government of sharply limited powers, often by giving a willfully and absurdly broad reading to any and all constitutional provisions containing the phrases ‘general welfare’ and ‘interstate commerce,’ the words ‘welfare’ and ‘commerce,’ and the phrases ‘general welfare’ and ‘interstate commerce,’ wherever they occur and in whatever context, are hereby stricken from this Constitution in all occurrences, and are to be treated as though they were never present in that document, and about the fact that these deletions may render some sentences in such document ungrammatical we the people hereby declare ourselves to not give a damn.

“Judges are instructed that if there is anything in the Constitution of which they cannot make plain sense, they must err on the aside of assuming it grants no power to the government, and restricts no natural right of the people, express or implied.

“2) Because the central government, its agents, officials and branches have so vastly abused their previously delegated power to regulate interstate commerce, which was intended only to block counterproductive tariff barriers between the states, the people and the states hereby repeal that grant of power to the central government. The central government from the date of ratification of this article of amendment shall have no power to regulate interstate commerce, nor any thing or service that moves in interstate or intrastate commerce, specifically including but not limited to plants, crops, foodstuffs, medicines, drugs, firearms, and any other weaponry or instruments which might eventually prove useful in the overthrow of said central government, should it or its members persist in the despicable habit of claiming and exercising powers not specifically granted. All powers and authorities previously claimed by any legislature, court or official on the basis of those phrases are hereby instantly and permanently repealed.

“The powers of the Congress of the central government are limited to those specifically itemized, named, delegated and enumerated in the words of Article One, Section 8 — all references to “general welfare” and “interstate commerce” having been deleted — and any member or officer of any of the three branches of the central government who shall propose to exceed these limited powers shall be subject to immediate seizure, trial, and — if unanimously convicted by a jury of taxpayers — execution for the crime of treason.

“3) The responsibilities and powers of the central government having been vastly reduced by the first two sections of this amendment, and the government’s need for revenue thus concomitantly reduced, all federal taxes on income, dividends, capital gains, and on estates at death, be they personal, corporate, or other, as well as any and all Constitutional authorization to levy such taxes (if any) are hereby repealed, and the Congress shall not ‘make up the difference.’

“The amount of the federal budget which has been funded by the above mentioned taxes shall be calculated, and the amount of annual federal spending reduced and limited to the total spent in the year prior to this enactment less the amount contributed by said taxes mentioned above, and also less any amount financed by borrowing, such spending amount being set as the maximum limit of all future annual federal spending, regardless of emergencies, with the ‘dollar’ defined for purposes of this calculation as having a constant value equal to one twentieth of an ounce of silver. Amen.”

Others will offer their own proposals. Another strongly worth considering would be an amendment requiring the judge at every jury trial to inform the jury they have the right and power to “judge the law as well of the facts, bringing a verdict of innocense in the face of and despite any and all facts in the case, should you judge the law to have been misapplied in this case, or should you find the law itself to be an affront to the conscience of the community,” and furthermore that “You have a right to see a copy of the current statute book containing the law under which the defendant is charged, that your reading of the law itself shall have precedence over any interpretation of the law you may have been offered by this court, and further that you are not obliged to bring a unanimous verdict, that a hung jury benefits the defendant, and in the end you must vote your own conscience.”

Please note this amendment would GRANT no new right or power — excepting perhaps the right to read the actual law, a curious omission of current process (why do we write them down, anyway?) — that it instead merely requires the court to INFORM jurors of rights and powers that the courts already acknowledge they possess, but of which judges are curiously reluctant to inform them.

Most will say these amendments would never pass. I believe the proper response is, “Yes, but do you think they OUGHT to pass, and if not, why not?”

This may help us identify the friends of freedom and limited government, distinguishing them from the enemies of freedom and limited government. Which might someday turn out to be a handy pair of lists to have.

Worst Case Scenario

New BP Corporate Logos

From Rense.com

17 Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill That We Desperately Need Answers To

From The End of The World

As the environmental nightmare that the ruptured BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico has unleashed upon humanity becomes more apparent, there are some burning questions that we desperately need answered. The truth is that it has now become exceedingly obvious that BP has been lying to us all along. Researchers have doubled their previous estimate and now say that up to 1.7 million gallons a day may have been escaping into the Gulf of Mexico ever since this disaster began. If this new figure is correct, that means that over 90 million gallons of oil have gushed into the Gulf of Mexico in the 53 days since the rig exploded. To put that in perspective, that would be eight times the amount spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989. The truth is that we are looking at the end of the world as we know it for those living along the Gulf of Mexico. It is hard to even put into words how horrific this nightmare is. But the sad thing is that there is still a lot about this oil spill that we do not know.


The following are 17 questions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that we desperately need answers to....

#1) Why is the FAA shutting down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? Do they not want anymore pictures taken of the area?

#2) What is BP doing so much to keep the press away from the oil spill?

#3) Should we be concerned that birds are flocking north by the thousands?

#4) If the smell of the oil on some beaches is alrady so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to our wildlife?

#5) When BP officials say things like "we discovered things that were broken in the sub-surface" and when they say that the damaged well was leaking "out to the side, into the formation", what does that mean?

#6) Is there evidence of multiple oil leaks possibly coming from other rigs?

#7) Has the Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused additional ruptures in the sea floor?

#8) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

#9) About a third of all rescued birds have died so far - but what is the death rate for the birds that have not been rescued?

#10) BP is being accused of trying to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo. So what is it that they are trying so desperately to hide?

#11) If "70% or 80%" of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

#12) If BP starts burning a large amount of the excess oil, won't that be really bad for the air?

#13) Houston attorney Tony Buzbee claims that he has new evidence which shows that Deepwater Horizon’s managers knew that the oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20th. Does that mean that there is clear negligence involved here?

#14) If Kevin Costner's oil-cleanup machines work so well and could have kept the oil from getting to the shores of the Gulf coast, then why did BP wait for so long before purchasing some?

#15) Why are three states along the Gulf of Mexico preparing for a massive call up of thousands of National Guard members?

#16) If the primary dispersant that BP has been using, Corexit 9527, ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed, then why are they continuing to use it?

#17) Is there a serious risk that the entire Gulf of Mexico could become one gigantic dead zone if the oil is not completely stopped soon?

Who Were Those Kids?

Still in love after 32 years ago today.

Some said we would not last two years.

So far, soooo wrong!

Mon amour, Je vous aime plus de aujourd'hui et moins de que demain!

A Word From the Mothership

Soothing the savage breast. No, really!

Once again we are blessed by another missive from that well known monomaniacal wanna-be rodent the "Brain," now in semi-retirement in the Acme Retirement Home for Cartoon Characters based on real people. Enjoy!

US News & World Report

Health Buzz: Study Opens Door for Breast Cancer Vaccine

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/managing-your-healthcare/cancer/articles/2010/06/01/health-buzz-study-opens-door-for-breast-cancer-vaccine.html

By Megan Johnson

A vaccine for breast cancer is in the works, and appears to be protective in mice, HealthDay reports. New findings, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that it prevented tumors in mice engineered to develop cancer. Cleveland Clinic researchers who tested it want to conduct human trials next year; they expect that the vaccine would target women older than 40, according to HealthDay.

*******************

Newser

Successfully blocked disease in mice

http://www.newser.com/story/90638/human-trials-next-for-promising-breast-cancer-vaccine.html

By Jane Yager⁠ (Newser)

Breast cancer may someday go the way of polio and smallpox, stamped out by a routine vaccination. A promising new breast cancer vaccine is moving into human trials after effectively blocking the formation of the disease in mice genetically prone to it. "If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental," one researcher told the BBC. "We could eliminate breast cancer." If the researchers manage to vaccinate against cancer in humans, it would be a first. Because cancer is an overgrowth of the body's own cells rather than a virus, scientists have not yet been able to fight it with a vaccine. The two existing cancer vaccines target viruses that lead to cancer rather than cancer itself. Scientists are hopeful about the breast cancer vaccine, but even if it proves successful, widespread availability remains years away.

******************

“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” “Why, I think so, Brain.” Unfortunately, no one has pondered the plight of the poor laboratory mouse, except, maybe, those ultra-loonies at PETA. I am, thus, a genetically-altered mouse without an advocate to help me (and Pinky) avoid having our breasts bio-engineered to be prone to getting cancerous lumps. On us mice, cancerous breast lumps are really unsightly; they make our tiny mouse boobs drag on the dirt.

Beyond that, as I ponder it, I smell a rat. OK, maybe not a rat. How 'bout a kangaroo? Oooo! Brain, I'm getting all squishy thinking of those cozy-warm pouches ... FOCUS, Pinky!!!

Vaccines work via the injection of dead pathogens (viruses/bacteria) into someone whose body doesn't produce antibodies when exposed to the pathogen. The dead pathogens provoke an immune reaction, that is, cause the body to "learn" how to generate antibodies that would combat an invasion of live pathogens - provide a measure of immunity.

In the case of most cancer problems, there isn't a pathogen. There might be an environmental factor, as we've been assaulted with those lawyer commercials that inform us, over and over and over, that asbestos causes mesothelioma, a rare cancer that's not as rare as the cancer caused by the constant irritation of meso-advocacy ads; brain scans reveal meso-ad tumors in the mid-brain portion of the stem, which control sight & hearing. Egad, Brain! I wish I was as smart as you. I wish you were as smart as a tree stump, Pinky.

Let's see. What was I pondering before that witless sponge interrupted me? Oh, yes. With cancer, the issue is the organism's own cells that go Sarah-Palin rogue-y. Thus, a breast cancer vaccine must necessarily attack cells generated by the organism being vaccinated.

The danger inherent in that approach is the provocation of a so-called auto-immune reaction, wherein the antibodies that the body learns to produce (because of the vaccine) attack its own healthy cells. Brain, has that ever happened before? Why, yes, Pinklet. Troz. What the heck is "troz"? It's "zort" thru the looking-glass. Yahhahah!

When the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) decided to come up with an anthrax vaccine (since Saddam Hussein had weaponized anthrax bacterium, same as WMD. Poit!), their efforts were as successful as, as, oh, right, my efforts to take over the world. Egad! To get a better result than 1 out of 4 test victims experiencing an immune response to Vaccine A, our military Mengeles decided to add squalene as a Vaccine A booster. Pinky's not smart enough to be this stupid.

Squalene is naturally produced by the human body. Add it to a vaccine and the consequences are, well, does Gulf War Syndrome ring a gong of doom? Are you pondering what I'm pondering? I think so, Brain. Do they sell little buns for those tiny hot dogs?

The symptoms of GWS are those of individuals whose immune system is attacking its own tissues and Precious Bodily Fluids - that's called General Ripper's fail-safe recall code, uh, oh, no, sorry, wrong studio. Actually, it's called an auto-immune disease, but that's a misnomer. Your body's too smart to attack itself without an artificial element dumped into the mix. With Vaccine A, the artificial element was squalene, which, in a vaccine, was made to seem to be a pathogen. Hence, the immune systems of GIs "infected" with Vaccine A attack the naturally-occurring squalene in their own bodies. NAArf.

So, Obstacle One to a non-lethal breast cancer vaccine? The fine line between attacking those factors, naturally-occurring, which lead to cancer before the cell goes Sarah-Palin rogue-y and the healthy cell. Obstacle Two? The intractable nature of cancerous cells.

Healthy human cells are called eukaryotes, which are generally aerobes, i.e., they are very fond of oxygen. Cancer cells are anaerobes, i.e., they just hate oxygen. Out of all the cancer research joints, in all the labs, in all the world, no cancer cell has ever walked into ... the aerobic's cafe.

The fundamental things apply. So, there's very little chance of a beautiful friendship between a proposed breast cancer vaccine and a true preventative for breast cancer unless there's a link between the vaccine's chemistry and a super-oxygenation regimen, a regimen which would avoid the auto-immune issue.

Stop pondering. The best strategy for lowering the incidence of breast cancer, in fact, all forms of cancer, is self-evident, even for "Fuchsian dolts."

1, determination of genetic predisposition to cancer;
2, determination of cancer-causing environmental factors for a particular individual;
3, increasing cellular aerobic context, as needed. "deedni ,troZ!"

We must prepare for tomorrow night, Pinky.

Why? What're we gonna to do tomorrow night, Brain?

Same thing we do every night, Pinky - try to take over the world ... by controlling the world's supply of oxygen!!!

Oh, wait. No, no. What about ...

Stop it, Pinky! We'll just get rid of all the Oxygen Bar guys.

How, Brain?

By substituting swamp gas for their oxygen. YES!!!

Happy Memorial Day?

Soldier shot in Iraq billed for missing military gear

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0529/soldier-bill-missing-equipment/

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Gary Pfleider II served his country for six years before he became a member of the new generation of disabled veterans.

Pfleider, a former Oregon National Guard soldier, was shot by a sniper while on patrol in Iraq in September 2007. He has only vague memories of the event, but now must live with a permanent reminder -- a brace he'll have to wear on his leg for the rest of his life.

"I remember grabbing a hold of my leg, and realizing I had blood on my hands," he said. "And from that point on until I got loaded onto the Stryker was just a big blur."

Three days after he was shot, Pfleider received a Purple Heart.

Almost two years later, he received a bill from the military for missing equipment.

The sum of the bill, which includes interest, is $3,175. It itemizes a list of gear the military issued to Pfleider that did not come back with his unit in 2008. The lists includes clothing items, canteens and grenades.

Pfleider, who now walks with a cane, believes the items were lost after he was flown out of the country for medical treatment. He doesn't believe he should be held responsible for the items, but the military disagrees.

The federal government has been deducting money from his disability check each month to cover the billed costs. And Pfleider said the feds withheld his tax return for the same reason.

Capt. Stephan Bomar with the Oregon National Guard said the bill was issued by Joint Base Lewis-McChord, where Pfleider spent a year recovering from his injury. Bomar added it is customary for soldiers in Pfleider's situation to be billed for missing equipment.

"It's one of the processes. That way, we keep good accountability for the equipment," he said.

Bomar said Pfleider should submit a sworn statement explaining his situation and requesting reimbursement.

But Pfleider has already done that. He still has a copy of his sworn statement, which he signed and submitted at the Albany, Oregon armory in February. The former soldier fears his case is lost in a pile of paperwork between Oregon and Washington.

"Honestly, I do. I think it's just sitting somewhere on somebody's desk at Fort Lewis, and they just don't want to mess with it because they don't think it's a big enough issue," he said.

But to Pfleider, who is scheduled to undergo his ninth leg surgery, the delay is an additional source of stress.

"To me, it's my livelihood," he said.

The veteran is still battling with flashbacks, and trying to adjust to civilian life. He said he never thought he'd have to fight the military once he returned home.

"Car going down a road, backfiring -- it still sends me into flashbacks of being over there. But I deal with it, because I know it's part of my life that's never going to leave," he said.

Lewis-McChord officials said they're looking into Pfleider's charges. Bomar said unless the charges are found to be erroneous, Pfleider will still have to pay the full sum.

Freedom Shenanigan #46
Bury Them With Paper

From: LewRockwell.com

The 1099 Tsunami

by Gary North
by Gary North

Earlier this year, some staffer in some office on Capitol Hill dutifully inserted a provision into the health insurance bill that will force businesses to file 1099 forms on every transaction with another business for over $600. Buy a $601 used car for your business? You must file a 1099. CNN Money describes this law.

The massive expansion of requirements for businesses to file 1099 tax forms that was hidden in the 2,409-page health reform bill took many by surprise when it came to light last month. But it's just one piece of a years-long legislative stealth campaign to create ways for the federal government to track down unreported income.

The result: A blizzard of new tax forms that the Internal Revenue Service will begin rolling out next year.

There appears to have been little discussion before this damaging mandate was slipped into the health bill and rammed through Congress, but a few business groups did raise concerns. Here's what the Air Conditioner Contractors of America said:

The House bill would extend the Form 1099 filing requirement to ALL vendors (including corporate) to which they pay more than $600 annually for services or property. Consider all the payments a small business makes in the course of business, paying for things such as computers, software, office supplies, and fuel to services, including janitorial services, coffee services, and package delivery services. In order to file all these 1099s, you'll need to collect the necessary information from all your service providers. In order to comply with the law, you would have to get a Taxpayer Information Number or TIN from the business. If the vendor does not supply you with a TIN, you are obligated to withhold on your payments.

The IRS will be buried in billions of new forms. I'm an older guy. I think back to Carl Sagan's memorable words in the 1980 PBS series, Cosmos: "billions and billions." These forms will have to be scanned into the system. If businessmen want to protest this law in a legal but effective way, they will have their tax preparers write in the numbers by hand. Then IRS will have to type in the data on each form by hand. Billions and billions!

ARCHAIC COMPUTERS

The IRS computers in Martinsburg, West Virginia are old. How old? The system became operational in 1962, three years after Robert Byrd (D-WV) was elected to the Senate. That is to say, it is really old! For over a decade, the IRS has been trying to implement a new system with the acronym, CADE. It is not anywhere near fully operational. This report appeared in Federal Computer Week (Jan. 12, 2010): "Stuck in the mud: IRS spins its wheels on electronic modernization."

The Customer Account Data Engine (CADE), a part of the IRS Business Modernization Program that is intended eventually to replace the legacy Master File processing system, processed 40 million returns in 2009, producing taxpayer refunds from one to eight days faster than the older system. CADE originally was to be completed by 2012, but increasing complexities have extended that date. "After over 5 years and $400 million, CADE is only processing about 15 percent of the functionality originally planned for completion by 2012," a Government Accountability Office report says. Each successive release of the system was expected to process more complex returns, but several technical challenges in the system had not been dealt with. The IRS estimated that full implementation would not be achieved until at least 2018, and possibly as late as 2028. After realizing how much remained to be done, the IRS decided to stop development of new CADE functionality and rethink its strategy for modernizing individual taxpayer accounts, the GAO report said. To handle the expected volume in electronic tax return filing for 2010, the IRS will upgrade its legacy Individual Master File system to handle returns not being processed by CADE more quickly.

In short, the IRS has been unable to modernize its system after a decade. It will take another decade. It may take two. Now some staffer has created a 1099 tsunami for the IRS, which will hit in 2013.

GIVE THEM WHAT THEY ASK FOR: PAPER

Business owners and managers will be outraged. But what if word spreads? "No electronic filing!" What if the tax preparers fill in all the forms by hand. It is legal. It is not efficient, but it's not all that much extra work. Pay a few dollars more per filing. At the other end, the IRS will get to process these forms by hand. Think of what happens if businesses were to challenge every challenge by the IRS? The business's CPA simply asks in writing – I do mean writing (hand-written) – for the IRS to review the case. Point out one mistake made by the IRS. Automatically, every business should challenge every request for more tax money. No exceptions. Be polite. Just ask the IRS to review its case in terms of this new information. There are always gray areas. Put them to use. Pay a few bucks to your tax preparer. Paperwok is the essence of every bureaucracy. Let's do it by the book: with paper.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north846.html

Pressure from below, pressure from above

By Phasma Scriptor

"Pressure from below, pressure from above" is the political strategy employed by the super-rich/powerful from ever the first money-grabbing mogul discovered its wondrous effectiveness. Elegantly simple, it's the conspiracy-theorist's nightmare - use the fears of the illiterati, a role currently being played to an Oscar winning circle by the TeaBaggers, as an invisible agent provocateur. Result? Pressure from below via the outcry of the boxes of rox to do something, anything to get rid of the self-inflicted boogeyman. Thank you very much, we, the super-rich/powerful, grant you your wish and will erase the phantom-boogeyman (PB) by erasing something valuable from your grasp, which is as limp as your grasp of what's really happening. Pressure from above.

For most of the 20th Century, the world's PB was (cue the scary organ music)... the Soviets! While a full treatment of the sheer incompetence of the Russians and our being held sucker-hostage to those knuckleheads is well beyond the scope of this comment, suffice it to say that their ICBMs, able to be numbered on the fingers of 1 hand at the time of the fateful Cuban "missile crisis", while growing subsequently to a more respectable PB number, were never under the control of the Russian ballerinas in the Kremlin; all Soviet ICBMs were firmly planted on their launchers because they all had guidance systems manufactured by Hughes Aircraft and controlled, via satellite (US satellites), by, essentially, the Chase Manhattan Bank. CMB's chairman, David Rockefeller, owned SMERSH (smert shpionam, "death to traitors"), the assassination arm of the KGB. Had any smartass member of the Russian military (their asses were the smartest part of their anatomies) gone rogue (is that where Sarah gets that stuff?), to try to alter the Hughes devices, SMERSH would have dropped him in his tracks, wrench in hand.

The corporate world is administered Soviet-style. That's why the Peter Principle supposedly applies - you rise to your level of incompetence, allegedly. But, as anyone who's ever worked in a large corporation knows, Peter frequently gives in to cronyism. And, just try to assert your "rights" in a corporate setting. The corporate officers dictate policy which, unless you want to sue, runs roughshod over that silly notion of your rights in the workplace, since the most rights-trashing policies aren't written down anywhere; try proving that.

As the Kremlin's former behavior, both internationally and domestically, could be determined to be psychopathic (OK, it still is, just wi/a friendlier face), so does the money-grabbing corporation psychopathically pursue profits (see, eg, The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit, Prof. Joel Bakan, Univ of Brit Col). Both are subject to, utilize and are tools of the "pressure from below, pressure from above" dynamic (or its reverse corollary); in the case of the Soviets, their clout, their pressure, was actually, relatively speaking, from an even more inferior position than mere nuclear impotence - they were, economically, under the control of Mobil Oil, which, in a previous existence as Vacuum Oil, latched onto the oil franchise in Russia, the quid pro quo from Lenin for the Rockefeller cabal's $1 million gift under the flag of the Red Cross. Sounds a lot like the island of Manhattan for a few strands of beads; those Russkies, hard bargainers, eh? "Pressure from below" is totally ineffective when dealing with psychopaths who deem themselves to be deities, even when dealing w/lesser psychopaths.

BP, as its corporate-pathological-profit-protecting response to the Gulf spill has shown, grabs $ as well as any corporation, seeking first the kingdom of God (where $ is god) by ignoring the impending doom for the Gulf Coast and all who and which depend on the relative purity of its waters, preferring to avoid the fixes which might have immediately and permanently stanched the gusher in the Gulf. The consequences for the Gulf victims were certain with that strategy, though the outcome of the initial maneuvers (designed to keep that well viable and not have to fritter away profits, horrors, on drilling another relief well) were uncertain.

Only wi/the certainty of "pressure from above" has BP gone to the previously unannounced permanent fix of a "top kill" been mentioned. In this case, public opinion, "pressure from below" netted absolutely ZILCH that's been useful from BP. So, what's the source of "pressure from above" to move BP to repent of its sins? Why god, of course ... and, I don't mean the false tinhorn deputy god, Secy of the Interior Salazar, or the would-be sheriff Eric the Holder.

The following comment, buried in the last segment of a lengthy press release from last week, illuminates:

BP-LN News & Analysis

18 May 2010 EDT - CNBC.com

Stockpiles, Oil Spill

Markets continue to monitor the progress of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the attempts by oil major BP [ BP-LN 520.80 ⁠ +28.80 (+5.85%) ] to contain the leak.

"The biggest issue in the U.S. is not getting enough attention," said David R Kotok, Chief Investment Officer at Cumberland Advisors.

"If the oil slick gets below the rigs in the Gulf and does so at sufficient intensity it causes those rigs to have to shut down because of safety concerns. Similarly there is a shipping lane risk. You do not take ships and barges through oil slicks. It harms the ships and it is a fire hazard just like the slick would be if (the slick) covered the sea below the rigs."

Ah, so. The 6 other Sisters of mega-oil (which have merged/morphed into 3 others - Exxon-Mobil, Chevron/Texaco/Gulf, Shell) have, from high up on Mt. Oil-ympus (sorry), rendered their judgment on the discomfiture the BP member of the Pantheon has caused them, meaning, it's not in any sense a public relations issue (the Sisters care not about pusillanimous mortals and their frivolous "pressure from below"). In other words, "Plug the damn hole, bitch!" Pressure from above, indeed.

Let's see, BP? Bitch Petroleum. Yeah, that works.