“BP has either been blocking blood panels or they have been taking blood panels and not letting really anyone see what the blood panel works look like.”

— Riki Ott the marine biologist and author of Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill on Virtually Speaking July 8, 2010/

Last weekend, while millions of Americans gorged on hot dogs, burgers, beers, cokes and fries, 2009 Alaska Muckraker of the Year, Jeanne Devon, 2009 Steve Gilliard Award winner, Shannyn Moore, and environmental writer-blogger Zach Roberts gagged on the fumes of oil that still reeks and seeps out of the intertidal zones in Alaska’s once pristine Prince William Sound. Here’s Jeanne’s video.

The reported suicide of a Gulf charter skipper begs comparison. There is no exact number, but many suspect at least 30 people in Alaska or who worked on or were ruined by the Exxon Valdez oil spill killed themselves over the succeeding 20 years, one as recently as last year. I knew three of the victims, one very well.

David Brooks see Joe Barton as one-third right, revealing a deep truth about conservatives.

In America, wind turbines echo the almost melodic taunt of a schoolyard victor — Neh-neh-neh-neh-neh-neh: You can’t get me. That’s because American wind turbines are the manifestation of freedom from foreign oil. The more American wind turbines, the fewer barrels of oil America must import to meet its energy needs. And American-built wind turbines help propel the nation out of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression by generating good-paying American jobs.

A cap placed over a severed pipe is siphoning some oil from the broken BP well in the Gulf Coast, the company said today.

Landrieu says that BP’s liability will be “hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, and BP’s going to pay every penny. When I pressed her on the long-term damage done to fishermen and the community – one person told me that last time oil hit his oyster beds, it was there for 10 years – Landrieu immediately swatted back that number and said “we don’t know.” She says that if a fisherman “made $50,000 last year, BP’s going to write them a check for $50,000.”

But this disaster will last for well more than one year, and likely well beyond a decade.

In late 1992, as bronze sculptor Peter Bevis finished his forensic impressions of animal victims of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, he asked me to compose a sonic background to his upcoming Anchorage and Seattle showings. I told him I thought the background should have the words of people involved in the spill, and in the gathering of the dead animals her had cast. He agreed.

Alaska professor Rick Steiner explained that there are two kinds of booms: one absorbent, one non-absorbent. The absorbent type are thrown away after use, but the non-absorbent ones should be cleaned and reused. “The booms being placed in the dumpster in this photo are containment booms, which should be cleaned and reused, not thrown away,” said Steiner.

So, we are now just over a month into the largest environmental disaster in history as it unfolds in slow motion before our eyes; the geyser spewing anywhere between 5 and 110 millions gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico (depending on what estimates you believe) and we, as only Americans can, care less and less and less as time drips on like a an ancient form of Chinese torture, just another chapter in our Christian Nation’s favorite book: The End of F*cken Days, right?