Massey CEO Don Blankenship is back in the news again, and so are the Senators from West Virginia. One still trying to make money and keep unions out of mines, the other fighting for better mine safety regulations. I’ll let you guess who’s who.

Appalachia Rising will mobilize people from across the country, and especially Appalachia, against the destruction of Mountaintop Removal Mining (MTR). This scourge to the environment has effected thousands upon thousands of people, but coal barons cling to the profit motive and push forward.

The POTUS’s religion comes into question yet again, and this time the White House tries to set things straight. Massey Energy is hit with federal fines totaling roughly $4 Million in 2nd quarter 2010, but will either of these efforts make an impact on their respective current situations?

by Sarah Laskow, Media Consortium Blogger

Yesterday, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took Obama administration officials to task for encouraging Americans to believe that the majority of the oil in the Gulf of Mexico had dispersed.

Two completely unrelated yet very interesting subjects to address today. First, Putin and Medvedev in Russia.. New interesting feelings develop over the two leaders. And also, back on task with Coal Country in WV. A few personal photos to accompany the blog.

Its a mess down here ya’ll

Another Massey Blankenship update!

NPR reports that Massey had Methane detector disabled

CEOs commonly make incongruous assertions to protect profits after corporate-caused disasters. They’re driven by the same factor that is fundamental to the catastrophes – greed. Nothing wrong with that, right? Not in a society that has converted greed from a vice to a virtue. Still, American church-goers might recall that greed is one of the seven deadly sins. When it afflicts CEOs, it’s deadly to workers.

BP, Massey Energy and Tessoro are all using their safety award plaques like shields to deflect accusations of recklessness. The disconnect between safety prizes and dead workers has enabled these corporations to characterize the three explosions at their facilities in April that killed 47 workers as accidents, random events for which no one really is to blame. That’s why these pseudo-safety awards are so destructive. No agency or association should ever again deceive the public or delude workers by handing awards to corporations that fail to accomplish comprehensive hazard avoidance by meeting the standards of process safety management.