Category: Politics

The following article was written by my younger brother, Mark Christopher Hackett, for Operation Broken Silence, the anti-genocide organization he founded in 2007.

In  2006, I, like many others, purchased an Apple laptop. At the same time  I was purchasing what has been a very valuable product to me, a woman was getting raped in eastern Congo every few seconds. Like everyone else, I had no idea. At the time of my purchase, Apple also posted what was then the second highest quarter in terms of sales in Apple history.

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CNN:

Lawmakers told BP Chief Operating Officer Tony Hayward on Thursday that they intend to grill him on what they believe to be cost-cutting measures adopted by the oil giant that compromised the safety of the Gulf of Mexico well.

“After learning of risks, BP made a decision to ignore them,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, citing documents and confidential e-mails obtained by investigators.

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ProPublica investigative reporter Abrahm Lustgarten to NPR:

The documents are strikingly consistent, which was the first thing that jumped out to us. You start to see a couple central themes. And those were: internal criticism for a lack of accountability in the company, lack of support for workers at BP and at BP’s contractors. … [There was also] a consistent emphasis of profits over production over safety and maintenance and environmental compliance, meaning they were putting profits ahead of safety. And finally, a systematic disregard for maintenance of their equipment. It’s a process that they call ‘run to failure’ where they would use the equipment for as long as possible while investing as little effort and money in maintaining it as possible.

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More backward madness from the The Grand Canyon State.

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If you are’t familiar with @BPGlobalPR on Twitter, you need to be. It was setup as a fake PR account for BP, a company that you may have seen on the news recently:

Here are some of my favorite tweets from the account:

• • OMG This isss ridciulsus. playing a drinking gamee where we drink a shot everytme we seeee an oily birdddd!!! LOL! so wasted!!11
• • We are very upset that Operation: Top Kill has failed. We are running out of cool names for these things.
• • What a gorgeous day! The ocean is filled with the most beautiful rainbows!
• • If Top Kill doesn’t work, we’re just gonna toss a giant “Get Well Soon” card into the gulf and hope for the best.
• • Sadly we can no longer certify our oil as Dolphin Safe.
• • Catastrophe is a strong word, let’s all agree to call it a whoopsie daisy

Hopefully it is easy to see why the account has become very popular, very quickly.

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Matthew Brown for Boston.com:

Coast Guard officials also said there was no intent to conceal the scope of the disaster. Rather, they said, the spill’s complexity had made it difficult to allow the open access sought by the media.

Reporters have been turned away when attempting to reach the coast — even being threatened with arrest. This is a huge problem.

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NY Daily News:

British Petroleum - desperate for ideas - gave the okay to test six of Costner’s gizmos Wednesday, after the Army Corps of Engineers gave the machine a thumbs-up.

Costner’s $24 million centrifuge machine has a Los Angeles-perfect name, “Ocean Therapy.”

Placed on a barge, it sucks in oily water, separates out the oil and spits back clean water.

“It’s like a big vacuum cleaner,” said Costner’s business partner, Louisiana trial lawyer John Houghtaling.

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Nashville is still reeling from massive flooding that has leveled much of the city and surrounding areas. Today, the news from the city got worse. NPR’s Lee Hill:

City officials in Nashville say the area’s water supply is now “critically low” after a weekend storm dumped a record 13 inches of rainfall over two days.

Because of potential shortages, the city’s Metro Water Services utility urges residents to cut down on taking showers and is now directing its customers to “use water for drinking and food preparation only.”

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The Associated Press:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the FCC lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. That was a big victory for Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable company, which had challenged the FCC’s authority to impose such “Net neutrality” obligations on broadband providers.

The ruling marks a serious setback for the FCC, which is trying to adopt official net neutrality regulations. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, argues that such rules are needed to prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over Internet access to favor some online content and services over others.

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The Denver Post:

Associated Press photographer David Guttenfelder not only documents the war in Afghanistan with traditional digital cameras, he also used an iPhone camera, carried in his flak jacket pocket, coupled with a Polaroid film filter application to photograph the daily lives of Marines, Afghan soldiers and fellow journalists during the military offensive in Marjah, Afghanistan.

Each shot is fascinating and gut-wrenching, all at the same time.

[via Gruber]

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This is a great interactive page by the New York Times.

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The White House:

This year, thousands of uninsured Americans with pre-existing conditions will have the opportunity to purchase quality, affordable health insurance. Beginning in 2010, small business owners will no longer be forced to choose between offering health care and hiring new employees because they’ll be offered tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums to help insure their employees. Medicare beneficiaries will no longer wonder how they’ll afford their prescription drug bills because they’ll be given a rebate of $250 if they hit the prescription drug donut hole in 2010. And early retirees will be provided help through the creation of a temporary re-insurance program to help offset the costs of expensive premiums.

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