Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opinion. Show all posts

Friday, 14 August 2015

Representative Democracy: The Work of Cthulhu

Liberal Democracy is perhaps the most congruent style of government for a progressive society. But how is it that in progressive societies, like Canada, the United States, New Zealand, UK or Australia get policies so at odds with methods that have demonstrated advantages over what is being offered by the present government's of these countries?

Perhaps the secret to this problem lies in the style of these governments. Representative democracy promises that parties represent the will of a nations people, and since everyone wants and even expects their will to be represented it certainly sounds good. But where do these parties get advice on the will of the people? Mostly from special interest groups, whose representations of the the people's may be quite selective at best, or otherwise distorted. 

In any event, the parties form their policies good and bad and offer them up as promises to the voting public. This presents the public with a complicated decision, boiling down and balancing long and short term advantages and disadvantages to a choice between two our six parties or candidates depending on the particular electoral system.

Often strong support for a particular policy direction is almost completely ignored by this calculation. Climate Change/energy policy for example was lost in a media frenzy focused on slamming the Australian Labour Party, leading to the most right wing government  that Australia has seen in the best part of a century.  Similarly climate change/energy policy in New Zealand is going backwards with the government sand bagging real progress with weak targets, and the crippling of the emissions trading scheme. All despite the prime minister's assertions that "we are 100% pure", ignoring the Cadmium in the farm land and the Nitrogen in the fresh water ways.

One big problem in New Zealand is child poverty with 1 in 4 children in poverty. The breakfast in schools programme was squeezed out as a public/private partnership that scale to address just 10% of children in need. This is not how tithing is supposed to work.

So the voter is rarely presented with a clear choice from which to choose clear policy directions.

Participatory democracy, or issue driven democracy, reduces the confusion by unbundling irrelevant policy directions from each other.  Why should we accept weaker pollution standards because we want to allow gay people to marry? We shouldn't it is a clear non sequitur and yet as voters we are regularly offered such false choices.

Switzerland offers an interesting example of how issue driven public policy making can work. The Swiss vote for people to work in various issues, and they vote on the work product, economic policy is considered separately from social policy, which in turn is considered separately from environment policy and labour policy. Leaving the voter to tie the threads together.  Over time this has led to better public policy and a more politically aware population. Sure policy mistakes will happen, but these are also corrected by the same process.

Meanwhile in representative democracy problems are only fixed when the wealthy and powerful lobby government or mass popular movements push for change. Here is where we find Cthulhu's tentacle, you will notice that governments respond to lobbyists backed by money much faster than popular mass movements. Lobbyists and the moneyed interests they represent care little for the good order of the system, only for what they can get out of it. Good order of the system is only of concern when the system breaks down and they are less able to exploit it. Thus Cthulhu is served by keeping the system on the brink of collapse.

So we see deregulation of building, extraction,  finance and other sectors; weakening of social safety net programmes at the same time electoral hopefuls promise jobs  and prosperity if only they are elected to remove trade barriers and regulations designed to prevent the system from collapsing eg Glass-Steagal which kept American banks from breaking Wall Street and the broader economy for 80 years.

In representative democracy, a special interest group only has to capture the ear of maybe a few dozen influential politicians in a major political party to get their will expressed in public policy, if not in the current electoral term then in a later one - these SIGs can be patient. But in participatory democracy, SIGs have to make their case to the people in order to gain votes in the referenda. This process is harder to corrupt, which is why Cthulhu, Wall Street, Walmart(US), and Koch Industries(US), Fletcher Building(NZ), Fonterra(NZ), Affco(NZ), Ports of Auckland,  do not like it. 

His Noodliness, The Flying Spaghetti Monster (sauce be upon him) prefers participatory democracy, because it allows for communities to develop strong solutions to the issues they face, and hijacking of the process is less effective.  It is also less of and insult to the intelligence of the voting public.  Sadly representative democracy has devolved into oligarchy, To fix it will require a political revolution, which the oligarchs will not embrace, they will certainly distract us with nonsense wedge issues and shiny new things where they can, and simply dismiss the idea as absurd if forced to address it. We can develop a mass movement, right? They let us  have that option.

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

FSM: "take a breath... It's just a movie"

While critics from major thought traditions are hyperventilating over the atrocity that is Russell Crowe's new movie, The Flying Spaghetti Monster has issued a statement...
I get why people don't love this film, there is so much that is wrong with it. However, might I suggest, that everyone take a deep breath, count to 10, and release. It is just a movie, and as a movie it is an interesting piece of story telling which suffers from just one major flaw, its plot.

Bill Maher has commented on this film too.


Later, the Flying Spaghetti Monster said of Bill's critique “I find Bill's comment curious, because I don't recall any giraffes in it, perhaps there was a random Cosmos style edit in the reel or something.”

Turning back to the movie His Noodliness remarked “It's a grim fairy tale, not to be confused with Grimm Fairy Tales, despite obvious parallels.  I noticed many things, that were jarring about this movie like everyone's wearing pants, which would be so European in the 45 centuries to come.

The movie opens with 13 year old Noah getting a coming of age blessing from his father Lemech with the aid of a magic glowing snake skin. Rather than wearing robes, the pair are setting trends in the middle east with pants. They are interrupted when Dino (the reptilian dog) turns up, with an arrow in his side, Lemech goes to tend to the animal, at this point Tubal-Cain his cousin turns up with the rest of his hunting party. After a little chat Lemech is dead, and Noah is freaked out running away from the rocks he was hiding behind. This event could set a boy up for serious mental health issues in later life.

Next we see Noah (500) with his family. He and Ham are on a rocky hill side, they look for herbs, Ham picks a pretty flower and is gently admonished, by Noah who points out that the flower creates the “seed” that is scattered by the wind to make more flowers. These guys should go ahead and sign up with Greenpeace, and the scene begs the question why aren't Rick Perry the Koch Brother's conservationists? After they are done, Noah returns to camp to rest and he's having trouble sleeping, often a sign of psychological disturbance.

There is no specific mention of the angry old man not in the room in the early stages of the film he is merely referred to as “he” or “our lord”.
Naameh: Did he speak to you?
Noah: I don't know.... I think he's going to flood the world.
These wives have names, now that's novelty for ya. The name was given to various places in the Middle East, so applying this name to a person, may just be the killer app innovation this story needs.

Shortly after Noah decides to go see grandpa Methuselah. Along the way they find a young Ila, an injured girl and the last survivor of an over run settlement.  Noah, his family, and young waif are forced to run as Tubal-Cain and his hoards run them off as pretenders to his claim on the desolated settlement home to curious looking heavily engineered iron geothermal piping. As they run off Noah is KO'ed by rock people. When he awakes, he and his family are in a pit surrounded by rock people who mostly decide to leave them in the pit. But one of the rock people says “Follow me” and leads them to Methuselah for a cup of tea. Be wary of old men who live in caves offering peculiar tasting tea, the DEA may be watching the place.  At this point Noah hallucinates the ark in addition to his usual nightmares.

Clearly, it does not dawn on him that his imagination is running wild, because grandpappy just got him totally baked.

So far there has not been a single tree in site, nor any running water. Before Noah leaves the company of his grand father, the old man gives him a seed from the garden of Eden.

Noah plants the seed, and a day or two later the rock people show up, kind a peeved that Noah got help from one of their own, Noah makes his case as best as he can but they are unmoved until a spring pops up where the seed was planted and flowers, grasses and trees spring up the same we way see in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, or these days Sponge Bob Squarepants.  So impressed were they that the rock people were they decide to help build the Ark.  So the bible had it all wrong, Noah was really just the project manager. Of course Project managers always say they built this or that, so you can see how there is room for confusion.

We also see white pigeons/doves flying towards the constructions site, which begs the question, slugs, snails, turtles and crawling insects, weta. Later a massive flock of assorted birds self organises roosts in the Ark and are then knocked by magic anaesthetic smoke that has no effect on humans. Lets assume such a gas available, the suppressed metabolism of these birds could not be low enough to prevent them from starving over the course of a year without killing them so they would still starve even though they were asleep. Even though some bears hibernate in the wild, they aren't asleep the whole time.

There is a sequence that explains, the history of the rock people. Ancient text describes the as fallen angels encrusted with rock, because the angry old guy not in the room is mad at them for helping humans live better lives through technology. So yeah this angry old guy is an anti-science anti-technology whack-job working for Cthulhu – The Destroyer or is Thule – investigation pending.  Oddly these great aliens so well protected by the burden of the rock are strangely not impervious to iron age weapons and many of them were killed. Despite having an opt-out option available to them.

Ila, who has taken to dating Shem, has trouble coping with foreplay because of the scars from the attempt to kill her as a child have left scars. And she and Shem have been at it for a few years and she appears to be having fertility issues. So concerned is she, that she discusses leaving the family with Naameh. It appears that in her mind her only worth is in child bearing. Later this causes conflict.  Naameh, goes to Methuselah, and asks for help.

Some of the locals, from Tubal-Cain's settlement set a steel bear trap, Just how many of these have ever been found in pre-Sumerian archaeological digs requires some research.

Noah's depressive psychosis deepens, he comes to the conclusion that his family should just die out after the flood. Ham can't take to the plan and sets off to the settlement to find an innocent woman to bring home.

Meanwhile Ila comes across Methuselah is the forest, he claims to be looking for berries, and enlists her help. She find none, but then he notes that she has been a part of the family for so long, that he may as well give her his blessing, he reaches out and touches her belly with his hand (his hand yeah right), and poof – magic happens. On her way back to the boat, she runs into Shem and jumps him like a cow girl – Yeehaw!

Strangely and accidentally, Ham finds a girl his age in a pit of corpses, some of whom were her family. Rather than saying help me get out of here, she threatens Ham with a rock until he shows her that he means no harm with a rag full of bread crumbs. Dating was clearly cheap in this culture, not even a single goat exchanged. There they sit for a while until it starts raining. In the rush to get to the Ark the girl steps in the bear trap. Ham frees her but injured she cannot run, they are over run by Tubal-Cain's hoards, Noah pulls Ham out of the chaos.  Ham is not exactly grateful as Noah leaves the girl behind.

The hoards arrive at the ark and the meat grinder begins, with the rock people slamming the hoards like a scout troupe crushing roaches pouring out of a disturbed nest. The hoards do eventually start to get the better of the rock people, jamming pikes in the gaps. And here is where the opt-out clause kicks in the rock people say “Forgive me” and rip off the incrustation and explode into a light beam flying home and killing a bunch of the panicked hoards at the same time. I note that they could have done this at any time, in a safe location. Perhaps even worked out a plan with the angry old guy not in the room to avoid they mess he held them responsible for creating.

As the last of the rock people emigrate out of this crap-fest, flood waters wash off most of the hoards but Tubal-Cain pokes a hole in the side of the ark and stows himself away. He is later discovered by Ham,

Water spouts pop out of the ground around the ark. And a glimpse of the spherical Earth covered in hurricane weather, runs completely at odds with the flat earth model which was maintained until about 500bce or long after the authoring of the original Cuneiform or revised Hebrew text.  These water spouts, have inspired some to push a hypothesis referred to as the Bukkaki Theory in which the crust of the earth split open and the water under pressure spurted out thus explaining the water on other celestial bodies including the Moon, Mars and Europa. The hypothesis ignores several major flaws, the release of energy from such an event would bake, if not ionise everything in the biosphere, never mind the extra ordinary accuracy of striking these objects with a jet of water from random fissures in rocks.

Ham, despite being a nice young man, out of character decides to help Tubal-Cain in the hope of revenge for the loss of his girl friend. Mental disturbance from grief seems to run in his family.

The family settles in. Screams from the out side penetrate the wooden bulk heads of the ark. And the pinnacle of a mountain has a lot of adults on it getting hosed by big waves, No children are depicted among them, kinda weird this is a horror story right? And the story is supposed to be history say some. Perhaps they forget, or like to forget that the angry old man not in the room is committing mass infanticide at this point. Ham took 5 minutes to find an innocent and even he did not come up empty. This really is kind of like Chris Christie, punishing the innocent, to get back at the few he's mad at. Noah distracts the family from the howling by telling the story of the universe, which is accompanied by an animation sequence that could almost have been ripped from Cosmos, depicting something like big bang cosmology, followed by evolution with special creation tacked on like Eeyor's tale.

Tubal-Cain makes and interesting point to Ham “Your father fills the ark with sheep while children drown” Ham does do a deal with Tubal-Cain, and they plot to ambush Noah on the beast deck.

Ila reveals that she is pregnant and Noah loses his sh*t as his psychosis deepens. He steps out on to the loading ramp yells at the sky, ponders his navel, demands to be let off the hook, before deciding, boy's – meh, girls – gotta kill 'em. Shem's Pretty much has his dad's state of mind nailed saying “Are you mad?” At this point it truly is a miracle that Noah is not a milliner by trade.

Ham pops up and announces that the beasts are rousing and eating each other, a ruse so Tubal-Cain can beat the snot out of him. So the Death Match begins. Ham is kind of stunned by the violence of the brawling, Shem turns up and is KO'ed by Tubal-Cain who is determined to finish Noah himself. While this brawl is happen the ark runs around, convenient, because it stops Tubal-Cain finishing off Shem. Imagine Tubal-Cain's surprise when Ham overcomes his shock, takes his moment and puts the knife Tubal-Cain gave him under Tubal-Cain's arm pit. While dying Tubal-Cain notes that Ham has become a man and gives back Ham's grand fathers snake skin. There seems to be a nonsense here, real men, especially those in my pirate navy avoid killing, especially homicide, and yet every male character in this film has demonstrated a clear capacity and willingness to commit every kind of killing, and that includes the angry old man not in the room.


While the brawl goes on, Ila's twin girls arrive, Noah's wife tries to hide that they are girls, Noah not dissuaded and dagger in hand, finds Ila on top of the ark holding both infants crying. She pleads to let her calm them first, and sings an old song Noah sang to her the first night they met. This seems to give him time to cool off, nurturing instincts kick in and as he holds the dagger above the new born twins and finally relents saying he cannot do it. I would suggest that this moment makes the Noah character more moral/ethical than the angry old guy not in the room. And Scene.

Next we see the ark on top of a green hill, since all the vegetation had been under water for a year, where did this grass come from? The ark didn't carry seed.

It would not be a story about Noah without the drunk ass naked bit. But so much is missing from it, The text says Ham notices that dad is passed out drunk, and when Noah sobers up rather than being grateful that he got him help, he banishes Ham, Possibly for similar reasoning that Fred Phelps Sr. might have employed. 'cause nothing says gay like happening onto your drunk ass naked patriarch and calling for help. In this film Ham leaves of his own accord, without any prospect of finding a mate, he may be opting to just off himself, given the relationship with Noah is so completely in the toilet. But even if not, Noah's potential for instability and the treachery thing would unlikely to be resolved any time soon. To make matters worse, good counsellors were really going to be hard to find.

We finish with a blessing of the twins, and Noah says “.... be fruitful and multiply.” The camera pans up to the 100% high cloud covered sky, with a magic concentric rainbow, of precisely the kind excluded by the physics of refraction.

Reaction to the film has been mixed, Christians are hating it because it's not “historically accurate” enough for them. Muslims are hating it because it depicts Noah, who they hold as a prophet. And it might loose a bunch of money for the studio so the Jews may hate it too. And rationalist atheists, hate it because it is completely unrealistic in terms, of logistics and physics, its obscene globacidal violence, and a cast of characters that would be considered a bag of ass holes in any other dramatic production.

But remember it is just a movie. Humanity survived the final seasons of Dallas, it'll survive this, It may be two hours out of your life that you'll never get back, but it's not like anyone lied to the UN to start an unjustified war. Enjoy the popcorn. Or better yet get the Smurfs movie out on DVD.

See also
   Lunar Bukkake theory

Saturday, 15 February 2014

Off their rockers?

A couple of posts on the Psychology Today website resonated with the observations of the political right that I and many others have been making  for some time, primarily in jest or hyperbole and occasionally in earnest.

Often when progressive or liberally minded people respond with "that's insane" or the GOP or Tories are "crazy", "lunatics" or whatever other allusions to compromised mental health, it may be spoken colloquially in jest, or even as ad hominem, which is the usual inference the right wing usually take from such comments and by extension often taken as evidence of hate directed towards them.

However, sometimes it is simply an astute observation of attitudes, counter factual policies and opinions, variance of counter-factual statements from observation, or counter productive actions.

It appears that these observations, now have some confirmation from a meta-analysis, of studies that point to a cluster of psychological quirks which appear to have  significant association with conservative political opinion. In descending order of significance:
  • Death anxiety
  • system instability
  • dogmatism/intolerance of ambiguity
  • closed-mindedness
  • low tolerance of uncertainty
  • high needs for order, structure, and closure
  • low integrative complexity
  • fear of threat and loss
  • and low self-esteem
Some conservative reaction is likely to be along the lines of "Oh, that psychology thing is all politically driven by liberals", perhaps quite a paranoid response to an apolitical process, but already not uncommon, as similar claims have been made in regard to homosexuality being declassified as a mental illness in the DSM IV. Not to mention conspiracy theories concerning the scientific establishment and climate change and evolution.

There is a fair amount of anacdotal evidence supporting it idea too, recently a pro-gun lobby rep in colorado said it was a good thing James Homes had a 100 round barrel, that jammed after 76 rounds, because who know what amount of damage he could have done, with 6 or 7 - 15 round clips.  Clearly the statement was not well well thought out, because each clip is an opportunity to tackle him while he reloads, and maybe then he would not have shot 70 people.

Corporate execs that want low taxes and low wages, or cake and eating it too. Either they can pay a living wage and benefit from increased consumer demand, or pay starvation wages, then they must pay higher taxes so the government so the can pay the execs under paid staff enough to scrape by on.


Then there is the lunacies of climate denial, racism(or race realists as they like to call themselves), homophobia - which is most strongly promoted by gay/gender variant people in denial and self loathing. Yes that means you Ted Haggard(up to 2006), Bryan Fischer, Marcus Bachman.

So now my New Zealand readers will now understand the Conservative of New Zealand especially Colin Craig, and the National Party who while in government have determined the off-shore oil drilling and fracking are safe and that Roof top solar is hazardous (while no one has been hurt by solar). Actually we are in the middle of a solar energy spill today in Wellington, it is a nice sunny day.

My US readers, many now understand Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan and Michelle Bachman just a little better. And if any of them are in North Carolina, know what they're up against before they can drop the portmanteau of "North Goobertania". Wish I could join you all at Moral Monday.

See Also
   Psychology Today - meta analysis
   Psychology Today - Conservatism a mental illness?(satirical)

Sunday, 2 February 2014

Why the right wing is shocked by "class warfare".

It is not really class warfare that is shocking the delicate sensibility of wealthy avaricious elite, it is the fact that 30 years after Reagan all opposition has not yet be crushed and even though unions are arguably in the worst state that they have been in within the last fifty years, victory is not yet complete, and worse still as they would say, opposition is grown.

If we argue for higher taxes, for public works and employment that can reinvigorate a sagging economy such as America's WPA or for universal health care, right will shreik with horror "that's Socialism". Many of the millennial generation respond the such hysteria with, "if so, I'm cool with that."

The right wing perception of socialism comes from the cold war era Soviet Union, something to which Millennials have not been exposed, nor the reds-under-bed and Mcarthy-esque paranoiac propaganda. Or at least that propaganda which survives sales the oceans of public discourse like the Marie-Celeste. Flouridated water horror story are being promoted by a small vocal group and having disturbing influence that at least goes beyond the science, and even contradicts it.But that is another story for another time.

Meanwhile income inequality continues to crush to potential our children, the 1% in America captures 95% of income gains over the 5 years, while banksters make more money than they ever have and fix LIBOR rates for day old sushi rolls.

The fact is class warfare has been around for millennia. Sometimes the 1% wins, until the 99% are forced to rebel in self defence, but mostly everybody looses. Except when unions bring balance to the conflict, then labour wins some, capital wins some, ultimately everybody wins. Higher paid workers spend more increasing demand for for manufactured goods and services, increasing hiring, the tax base, profits, public services, leisure.

But there is another side, this week the 1% were likened to the Jews of Nazi Germany by one of their own. Attempting to point out how they are now being persecuted like in the 1930's. Here's the thing, 1930's Germany was a very different environment, anti-Semitism was official Catholic doctrine until Vatican II. No one today is talking about loading rail way cattle cars with 1%ers to work camps, these days the 1% run the work-camps  now called for-profit-prisons. Jews had little influence in government, otherwise much of what happened 80 years ago would not have happened. Today the 1%'s money runs government, thanks to Citizen's United and ALEC write the legislation for vaginal probes, ending sick leave(enjoy the bird flu in your clam chowder), taxing private solar installations, "right to work" laws gutting wages.

All of this is why Americans should support movetoamend.org and wolf-pac.com which both seek to put an end to Citizen's United and replace the "money is speech" nonsense with "money is property" and perhaps recriminalize graft at the federal level.

See also
   Rich/Jewish comparison
   day old sushi rolls for rate fixes

Saturday, 1 February 2014

A retarded argument for no minimum wage.

There are many arguments for abandoning minimum wage laws, not that any I've seen have merit, still some have less merit than others while they are offered with varying degrees of eloquence by variously articulate prognosticators.

But few have been so spectaculary poorly conveyed, revealing just how hideously exploitative and supericilous such argument often are as that price moment when CEO Peter Schiff was asked by Samantha Bee "Give me a picture of a person who's work is worth  $2/hour?"

“You know someone that might be? Maybe someone who is – what’s the politically correct word, you know, for mentally retarded,” Schiff said. “I believe in the principles this country was founded on.”
“I’m not going to say that we’re all created equal,” he said. “You’re worth what you’re worth.”
Given the number of minimum wage jobs in an economy, and the high productivity  in advanced economies a living wage of US$10.10 or even US$15/hour, is unlikely to be a huge burden on a well run business, if it is, it shouldn't be a business.

In fact, it is not controversial in economics to say that raising minimum wages up to the poverty line creates more jobs, by increasing demand, because poor people and the almost poor people spend almost all of their income. Something, Mr Schiff ignored in his analysis.

Consider also that prices are not dependant on the intelligence of the buyer. And perhaps the argument appeals those hoping to hire those believed to be too slow to know when they are getting the short end of the stick or have the resources to get redress if they do figure it out.




Additionally, the inarticulate manner in which he conveyed his position perhaps indicates that he is by his own argument doing work that is worth $2/hour.

Simply put, the end-minimum-wage narrative is retarded in that it is regression, pushing economic regression. If they get it, look out for the maximum wage movement. Think that's ridiculous? It gets worse in the 19th century such laws did exist, on the hypothesis that if working-classes were paid too much they would demand changes that would challenge the ruling elite.  To some minds, the 1960s demonstrated that hypothesis, and neoconservativism is this architecture of their solution, and then we got Reagan and it started to turn to cr8p from there.

See also
    Raw Story

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

Hey Hey ho ho, Anadarko's got to go.

It has been an event filled week in Wellington. First the MV Duke slipped quietly into port at 12 noon on Friday and 30 minutes later a rally marched from Midland Park to the Todd building where Anadarko's offices are located. The Rally had been scheduled for over a wee, so let's not have right wing conspiracy nuts making fools of themselves claiming the harbour was being watched and the whole thing was organized in ten minutes. Cool as it would to be able to plan an action involving an estimated 800 people like that, it just did not happen that way. On second thoughts, I enjoy watching buffoon's be idiots, I get the biggest laughs from Pat Robertson, Bryan Fischer (2013 Dim bulb of the year), Colin Craig and Simon Bridges.

Various protests designed to send the message. The message that Anadarko's "legitimate" business is not welcome in the Wellington are expected. For ethical reasons we can't use DGSE frogmen. But, oh - the irony. Anyway street theatre, and promoting public debate are more effective. Polls are saying that "don't knows" are migrating to the "too risky" camp pretty fast. There is good reason for that.

At a rally on Friday, Regional Councillor Paul Bruce spoke of the regional Councils letter to the government that any disaster from the Pegasus Basin exploration would surely have consequences in areas for which they were responsible creating a situation they are distinctly ill equipped and under-resourced to handle, asking that no such exploration put the region at such risk.

Gareth Hughes of the Green party spoke of how Anadarko's own executives admit that it would be at least 80 days before capping operations could begin after a gusher. Citing how Maritime New Zealand were so useless in the wake of the Rena grounding that kids with buckets and spades were more effective.

Exploratory drilling is the most dangerous phase of the extraction process, oil and gas under pressures of the order of 2000 atmospheres can be encountered. These cause blow outs like that seen at Deepwater Horizon.

We rely rather more heavily on fishing than the US spill will devastate our fishing industry. Kaikoura Whale Watch would also be hard it, perhaps even destroyed. Look out for more whale strandings. Seismic testing can damage the sonar of Whales and dolphins for quite some distance as sonic energy from the explosions remains dangerously loud over distance because water is 800 times denser than air.

Vapours from a West coast spill may affect agriculture, as is reported to have happened in Florida as off gassing dissolves into water vapour at sea and later falls as acid-rain.

There is no safe deep-sea drilling there is already too much carbon in the extractive industries' plans, 5 times too much.

So yeah, Hey hey ho ho Anadarko's got to go.