This is why I love East Chicago (cell phone photos).

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Thomas East Chicago Portrait Series

Thomas Economics

The Other end of BP’s pipeline - From the Alberta TAR SANDS to BP’s Whiting Refinery.

via [ Democracy Now ] Indigenous Groups Lead Struggle Against Canada’s Tar Sands

Thomas Energy, Environment, Tar Sands

via [ IDEM ]

The Grand Calumet River Restoration Fund (GCRRF) was established by Trust Agreement after settlement with “Industrial Users” in the case “United States of America v. The Sanitary District of Hammond, et al., Civ. Action No. 2:93-CV-225 JM”, for the benefit of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM), the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (IDNR), the Deputy Director of IDNR’s Bureau of Water and Resource Regulation (IDNR Co-Trustee), and the Assistant Commissioner of IDEM’s Office of Environmental Response (IDEM Co-Trustee). The purpose of the Fund, as established in the Trust Agreement is to “…address and correct environmental contamination in the Area of Concern, including particularly the cleanup of contaminated sediment and the remediation and restoration of natural resource damages within the Area of Concern….and, more specifically, in and around the West Branch of the Grand Calumet River in the State of Indiana (the “Hammond Reach”).”

The administration of the GCRRF was established by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) among the Commissioner of IDEM; the Director of IDNR; the IDNR Co-Trustee; the IDEM Co-Trustee; the Regional Director of Region 3 of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service; and the Regional Administrator, Region 5, United States Environmental Protection Agency. Each of these “Parties” appointed a representative to serve on a GCRRF Council, the purpose and function of which is to “….coordinate the Parties’ activities relating to the GCRRF in order to achieve the maximum environmental benefit.” The Council is authorized and directed to:

• conduct and oversee scientific and technical studies, sampling, and other activities necessary to the development and implementation of sediment remedial action plans and natural resources restoration plans; make all necessary decisions for the management and administration of funds in the GCRRF in accordance with applicable law and this MOU;
• and arrange for contracts with professional consultants as necessary to provide services to the Parties to undertake activities pursuant to this MOU and the GCRRF Trust Agreement.”

The GCRRF Council has initiated Restoration Alternatives Development and Evaluation for contaminated sediment cleanup and restoration of natural resources in the West Branch Grand Calumet River. This project was divided into 3 phases: Phase I was to compile historical information on sediment contamination and to identify data gaps necessary for alternatives development (results of this portion of the study are included in Technical Memorandum Restoration Alternatives Development and Evaluation West Branch of the Grand Calumet River Indiana, February 2002); Phase II was initiated to collect samples necessary to fill data gaps identified during Phase I - Roxana Marsh and West Branch Characterization studies were initiated (documents related to each of these studies can be accessed below); and Phase III will be the Development and Evaluation of Alternatives.

Read more…

Thomas Misc

Neda: “What are you really thinking?”

I wish I could have protected you, the innocence. Your arrival is memorizing.

Thomas Misc

Thomas Visual Culture

via [ The Atlantic ] By Richard Florida

Thomas Information Graphics

Thomas The Water I Drink

via [ Esquire ] “Biography of Usain Bolt, Mutant” By Luke Dittrich

A few months ago I posted this quote on facebook. There are Ah-ha moments and then there are moments of aw.

His top speed is such a spectacle, so phenomenal, so searing that many who witness this race, who see Bolt cross the line in 9.69 seconds, breaking his own three-month-old world record by three hundredths of a second, don’t notice, until they see the replay, what is perhaps the most salient and frightening thing about his performance: Approximately eighty meters into the race, twenty meters from the finish line, Bolt stops trying.

Thomas Misc

We all remember these ads from BP. You couldn’t miss them, they were all over the airwaves.

Thomas Energy, Environment

via [ Max Blumenthal ] IDF Releases Apparently Doctored Flotilla Audio; Press Reports As Fact

(original video - released by the IDF on May 31)

(doctored video - released on June 4)

Thomas International

via [ Post Trib ] “Rainbow-Push Leader Leads BP Spill Protest” By Christin Nance Lazerus

Photo by Stephanie Dowell/Post-Tribune

As crews struggle to contain the largest oil spill in American history in the Gulf of Mexico, critics of BP are starting to turn up the heat.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson led a group of protesters on a march outside of BP’s Whiting refinery on Wednesday afternoon to focus attention on what he says is the lax environmental enforcement that allowed the Gulf oil spill to occur — and problems closer to home.

“We need the (Environmental Protection Agency) standards enforced,” Jackson said. “At this point, businesses look at EPA fines as the cost of doing business.

“This reckless behavior is a threat to us all,” the Rainbow-PUSH leader said.

About 20 pickets walked along the busy stretch of Indianapolis Boulevard, carrying signs emblazoned with “Spill Baby Spill?,” “We Want Clean Energy,” and “Don’t Pay the Bill for the Spill.”

Jackson and Sierra Club Illinois director Jack Darin criticized BP for its $3 billion expansion of the Whiting refinery, which could see an increase the pollution due to processing oil from tar sands.

“There is a tragedy occurring right here in our midst,” Jackson said. “We all deserve the right to breathe free.”

Many of the protesters belong to Greater First Church in East Chicago.

Bishop T. Lane Grant II criticized the air and wastewater permits approved for BP by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

“There’s no plan to ensure that BP wouldn’t continue violations,” Grant said.

East Chicago resident Tanya Moss said concern about the Gulf oil spill prompted her to act.

“We want to to make sure they take every safety precaution,” Moss said. “Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for their ‘oops,’ since they wouldn’t pay for my ‘oops’.”

Darin said he hopes this critical time prompts political leaders to action on planning a cleaner energy future.

“We’re well positioned to act,” Darin said.

“We have a president who is pointing in that direction, and the House passed an energy bill. It’s one of big things on senate’s agenda this summer.

“We want a future free of oil spills.”

Thomas Environment, Tar Sands

Thomas Adaptive Reuse, Urbanism

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Thomas Infrastructure

Set in a futuristic urban dystopia and examines a common science fiction theme of the day: the social crisis between workers and owners in capitalism. The film stars Alfred Abel as the leader of the city, Gustav Fröhlich as his son, who tries to mediate between the elite caste and the workers, Brigitte Helm as both the pure-at-heart worker Maria and the debased robot version of her, and Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the mad scientist who created the robot.

Thomas Visual Culture

via [ Mail Online ] By PETER BARBER, Head of Map Collections at the British Library

1) BE ON GUARD! 1921	2) HENRICUS MARTELLUS WORLD MAP, c1490	3) CHINESE GLOBE, 1623
4) WALDSEEMULLER WORLD MAP, 1507	5) GOOGLE EARTH, c2005	6) DESCRIPTIVE MAP OF LONDON POVERTY, 1889
7) 'RED LINE' MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, 1782-3	8) LONDON TUBE MAP, 1933	9) PETERS PROJECTION WORLD MAP, 1974
10) EVESHAM WORLD MAP, c1400

Thomas Information Graphics

• Pre-cautionary:

if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

• Post-cautionary:

Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, the lack of full scientific certainty shall be used as a reason for not implementing cost-effective measures until after the environmental degradation has actually occurred

Thomas Environment

via [ The Hindu ]

In this photo taken on Saturday, former South Africa president Nelson Mandela is reunited with The Elders, three years after he launched the group, in Johannesburg. Photo: AP

“The Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people who were attempting to deliver relief supplies to the Gaza Strip by sea,” the 12—member group said in a statement issued in Johannesburg, where it met over the weekend.

The group, which was launched by Mr. Mandela on his birthday in 2007 to try to solve some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, called for a “full investigation” of the incident and urged the UN Security Council “to debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.” “This tragic incident should draw the world’s attention to the terrible suffering of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under the age of 18,” the group said.

Israel’s three—year blockade of Gaza was not only “one of the world’s greatest human rights violations” and “illegal” under international law, it was also “counterproductive” because it empowered extremists in the Palestinian territory, they said.

The Elders includes six Nobel peace prize winners — former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former US president Jimmy Carter, detained Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Mandela and Tutu.

Thomas International

Emily Henochowicz’s blog [ Thirsty Pixels ]

Obstruction:

Ingredients; One layer of determined activist over a layer of obediently angry army men, and a layer of camera people (to give it that worldly flavor) with a bulldozer on-top!

Emily Henochowicz is the American artist/activist, who lost her eye during clashes with Israeli troops at the Kalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem yesterday, Monday, May 31, 2010.

“Activism as a Genre of Art” is a nice idea but difficult to follow to its logical end when the opposition is willing to exert it’s interests with overwhelming violent means.

Are you willing to give your eye, your hand, your hearing, or your voice to your cause?

AP Story

- My prayers are with Emily

Thomas What I am Looking at

Thoughts:

via Paul Kane from comments [ The Messenger ]

This was a bloody slaughter, a bloody slaughter with global implications for the relationship between each of us and our goverment, for the utter bloody impunity of government.

via [ Matthew Yglesias ]

Gaza doesn’t contain nearly enough arable land to support the Strip’s population as subsistence farmers. Which of course is true of many other places on earth. But the effect of the embargo is to make meaningful commercial activity in Gaza nearly impossible, pushing living standards down to what would be a below-subsistence level were it not for the trickle of aid that flows in. The Hamas authorities exercise some fairly rough justice over the area, extremist groups burn down summer camps and Israel launches airstrikes periodically sometimes injuring dozens sometimes hurting no one. The overall situation is incredibly bleak. Construction supplies aren’t allowed into the area, so it’s been impossible to rebuild since the war there from a couple of years back, and all the physical infrastructure is just degrading over time.

via Steve Clemons of [ The Washington Note ]

From a distance, what seems to be happening is that Israel is ratcheting up its test of what it can do in the confines of the US-Israel relationship. It is testing to see whether there exist any limits or conditionality on Israeli behavior at all. Israel believes that the Obama team is weak — and is pushing aggressively to compel the US to tolerate anything the State of Israel does as a signal to the rest of the Middle East that is itself clamoring for any sign that the Obama administration is willing to put some muscle and substantive action behind the President’s Cairo speech and other comments to the governments and people in the Arab world.

The flotilla may have been populated by peace activists who really did want to get humanitarian supplies to Gaza — but the leadership of this flotilla was trying to expose the “false choice” contradiction that the US and other powers were making between Israel’s interests and the interests of the rest of the Middle East.

This was a strategic flotilla — designed to elicit exactly the response that Israel gave. This flotilla knew which button to push to animate Israel’s military response. It is not dissimilar from what al Qaeda did by attacking New York and Washington and drawing the US military to intervene in the Middle East.

Israel, like the United States, showed itself incapable of nuance and of outmaneuvering this flotilla by resorting to means that would not have helped the activists succeed in their objectives. At the Doha Forum, I am speaking to Arabs, Jews and Christians who represent senior governmental and non-governmental organizations in their home countries — and no one here that I have found thinks that the Israeli government responded to the flotilla sensibly — even if one buys the argument that the blockade of Gaza is justified.

The U.S. really can’t afford to make the choice of Israel over the Arab world. There will be enormous geopolitical and geoeconomic consequences if it does

Thomas International, Misc