7/3/10 Franklin's Focus

Obama is determined to not only continue drilling in the Gulf, I'm
sure he has not retreated one inch on his plans to okay massive deep
sea drilling along the East Coast. This could eventually end up
destroying the Atlantic Ocean. Folks in states bordering the Atlantic
are becoming quite edgy. Some folks over yonder are starting to wonder
if Obama is running on all cylinders.

The current Gulf situation already is posing a potential threat to the
entire Atlantic and the coastline of Europe. I believe there are good
reasons for impeaching Obama. He played a major role in causing the
current situation. It was he who gave BP permission to hugely cut
corners in their safety machinery. Proved as faulty protection systems
were adopted to speed up the time needed for installing safety
equipment before starting any drilling. Obama okayed this speed up and
the grossly inferior safety equipment that was installed. Now he has
blocked any rights to sue BP in exchange for a measly 20 billion
dollars, a drop in the bucket for BP.

The selection for today indicates quite clearly that Obama simply
never changes his rightwing corporate mentality. The appended piece by
S. Bengali presents clear evidence that Obama cannot be trusted to
tell the truth or fulfill any promises that might offend giant
corporations. Where giant corporations are involved, Obama is their
'house nigger', to use a term that is current among certain black
observers, who have come to despise their first black president. I
have not yet seen the term 'white nigger', but my guess is it will
eventually appear.

Obama's actions speaks quite well for themselves. Obama, for the nth
time, has lied to and betrayed America. If he spends eight years in
the White House, the harm he could and might cause could be
horrendous. Under Obama, enormous banks, giant corporations, insurance
monsters, and the defense industry are going to prosper and grow
hugely in power as government steadfastly moves to the right in every
dimension. Poverty, homelessness, infant mortality, environmental
destruction, illiteracy, and mindless militarism will steadily
escalate. Education, wages, healthcare, and the entire national
substructure of bridges, highways, and rails are all going to slide
downhill due to lack of funding. And so on.

He just might garner for himself the title of the the worst president
since ............ Hey, you fill in the blank. We all have our
favorites for this slot.

Today's Quote

"It's no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or
another."

George Bush, US President

I've often thought presidential candidates should submit to IQ tests
and the scores should be then published. I kid you not. I honestly
believe this should be done. Right now there is no absolute
obstruction to such an event. A mildly retarded person dangled like a
puppet by clever handlers could theoretically become president.

I believe retarded people should be given a fair shake at various
occupations besides bagging groceries or mopping the floors at
MacDonald's. But it strikes me as insane to put somebody like George
Bush in the White House. The man never should have been given a
college degree, and he certainly should not have been made into the
most powerful person in the world. What is extra odious here is the
fact that the Supremes put Bush in the White House; yet they have high
IQs and considerable learning.

I guess there is simply no answer to such folly by brilliant people. A
combination of the Minnesota Multiphasic along with an IQ test, on the
other hand, might weed out bright people such as Obama early on,
office seekers who are highly intelligent but are also poisoned by
lunatic megalomania.

These pensive vagaries of mine merely underscore the fact that human
nature is such that we will probably destroy the planet before humans
evolve sufficiently to preserve our little spot in the universe. In my
latest revised book (which will come out in two or three weeks) I
retain an invented character I refer to as 'Dummibrain', which I use
as a name for the old brain. As a heuristic device it has been useful
to explore the inner conversations we all have. Folks with an
impressive 'new brain' can still be strongly swayed by their
'Dummibrain', but sanity can be nurtured far more successfully when
learns how to ignore Dummibrain. The trouble is this technique has to
be learned, and it is not taught in our schools.

Instead all teachers peddle something known as 'self-worth'
psychology, which only causes damage to one's psyche by increasing
anxiety, anger, and depression. In short, it severely undermines
mental health. Our schools, along with peddling medieval
scholasticism, peddle a harmful form of irrationality that leads to
chronic emotional problems, not to happiness and adjustment to
reality, as nearly all school teachers witlessly believe.

There I go again, wandering down pathways that will surely seem
esoteric to some folks.

Take note of the final sentence in Bengali's article. It will take
your breath away.

Warmest regards,
Richard

================================================

Jun 19, 2010 McClatchy Newspapers

by Shashank Bengali

WASHINGTON: Despite President Barack Obama's promises of better
safeguards for offshore drilling, federal regulators continue to
approve plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with
minimal or no environmental analysis.

The Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service has signed
off on at least five new offshore drilling projects since June 2, when
the agency's acting director announced tougher safety regulations for
drilling in the Gulf, a McClatchy Newspapers review of public records
has discovered.

Three of the projects were approved with waivers exempting them from
detailed studies of their environmental impact — the same waiver the
MMS granted to BP for the ill-fated well that's been fouling the Gulf
with crude for two months.

In a May 14 speech in the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he was
''closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass
some critical environmental reviews.''

Environmental groups, however, say the loophole is as wide as ever and
that the administration is allowing oil companies to proceed with
drilling plans that may be just as flawed as BP's, which concluded
that a major spill was ''unlikely'' and that the company was equipped
to manage even the worst-case blowout.

''It's just outrageous,'' said Kieran Suckling, executive director of
the Center for Biological Diversity, a coalition of conservation
organizations. ''The whole world is screaming and . . . they're just
continuing to move this stuff through the system.''

The Obama administration has said it is cracking down on the oil
industry with a six-month moratorium that prevents regulators from
granting new permits for offshore wells deeper than 500 feet
underwater in the Gulf of Mexico. That, however, hasn't stopped oil
companies from submitting new drilling plans, which, as McClatchy
reported earlier this month, routinely underestimate environmental
risks and overestimate the companies' ability to respond to a disaster.

According to MMS records, since June 2 the agency has granted
environmental exemptions — known as ''categorical exclusions'' — to
three new drilling projects. Of those, an Exxon Mobil site at a water
depth of 1,000 feet and a Marathon Oil site at 775 feet are classified
as deepwater; the third is a shallow-water project by Houston-based
Rooster Petroleum.

Director's order

Environmentalists say these approvals fly in the face of the June 2
order by acting MMS director Bob Abbey that requires oil companies to
submit additional safety information in their development plans. All
three drilling plans were submitted to the MMS before Abbey's order.

The MMS also approved two other deepwater drilling plans — for a
Chevron site 6,730 feet underwater and for an Exxon site at a depth of
6,943 feet — after subjecting them to environmental reviews, the
records show.

When Obama's six-month ban is lifted, experts say these projects could
form the basis for new, flawed wells unless the MMS submits them to
tougher oversight.

''At no point did any of the moratoriums cease the use of [categorical
exclusions],'' Suckling said. ''They're queuing up all these drilling
projects with no environmental review, so they're just sitting at the
starting line'' until the ban ends.

A spokesman for the Department of Interior said the policy on
categorical exclusions ''is still being studied'' as part of a 30-day
congressionally mandated review of U.S. drilling policy. The
department issued a separate directive Friday that requires oil
companies to submit information about the possibility of a blowout,
which had been missing from many drilling plans, but made no mention
of the waivers.

Petition filed

Suckling's group filed a petition with the department this week to ban
the waivers and charged that the MMS violated the 1970 National
Environmental Policy Act when it approved a 2007 lease sale —
including for BP's blown-out Macondo well — saying it would have ''no
significant environmental impacts.''

The center also has filed suit in federal court in Louisiana to force
the MMS to review all 49 exploration plans for the Gulf that were
approved with categorical exclusions.

Other environmental groups have brought similar suits, with lawyers
charging that the ongoing issuance of the waivers is part of a
business-as-usual mentality among the oil industry and the Department
of Interior.

Congressional investigators found that, 11 days before the April 20
explosion aboard BP's Deepwater Horizon rig, the company sent a letter
to federal officials urging them to continue issuing the waivers ''to
avoid unnecessary paperwork and time delays.''

''The fact that the agency continued to spit them out while oil was
pouring into the Gulf is just ridiculous to the extreme,'' said Mike
Senatore, an attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, a nonprofit
environmental group.

There are other signs that the BP spill hasn't put the brakes on
offshore drilling in the Gulf.

Last week, Defenders of Wildlife and the Southern Environmental Law
Center filed suit in federal court in Alabama challenging the MMS's
approval of 198 new deepwater leases in the central Gulf since the BP
spill began. The lease sales — an earlier step, before oil companies
submit drilling plans — create an incentive to continue offshore
drilling.

End