The BBC is reporting that Wreckage from Air France jet found in Atlantic

Searchers located wreckage during the past 24 hours, investigators in Paris said, without giving details.

Flight 447 from Rio de Janeiro to Paris came down in a storm on 1 June 2009.
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The search has been financed jointly by Air France and Airbus. It involves dives to depths of up to 4,000m (13,120ft) with the use of special robots to examine the ocean floor between Brazil and West Africa.
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France’s Bureau of Investigations and Analysis (BEAR) said that plane parts of the plane had been located by the searchers, led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

“These parts have been identified by BEA investigators as belonging to the wreck of the A330-203, Flight AF 447,” it added.

It is possible that they might locate the flight recorders, which, if they are still intact, will provide information on what happened to the flight.

A lot of civilians are dying in the Ivory Coast [Côte d’Ivoire], so why hasn’t there been an intervention?

There is no room for a new intervention. The French Operation Unicorn has been in place since September 2002, and the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire followed in February of 2004 in response to UNSCR 1528.

When the Ivorian Air Force “accidentally” attacked the French units in the country, the French responded by “accidentally” eliminating the Ivorian Air Force. Notes of regret were exchanged regarding the “accidents”.

The former President, Laurent Gbagbo, lost an election to Alassane Ouattara according to everyone except Gbagbo and his friends, and refuses to step down. This has resulted in the civil war that French and UN forces have twice stopped, breaking out again. The situation is that the “government forces” of the Ivory Coast are fighting for a man the world considers illegitimate, while the “rebels” are fighting for the internationally recognized President of the Ivory Coast.

To anyone who thinks the US should get involved I would ask how? People are being killed by small arms fire and edged weapons. There is no simple way of knowing who is doing what to whom. This is why “one size fits all” doesn’t work in interventions. Taking out air forces and eliminating armor is a simple straight-forward operation that eliminates “wholesale” slaughter, but once it becomes “retail” you need very large armies on the ground to reduce it.

The CBC reports on the latest TEPCO screw-up: New effort to plug radioactive leak at Japan plant

Engineers tried to seal the crack with concrete on Saturday, but that didn’t work. So on Sunday they injected a mix of sawdust, shredded newspaper and a polymer that can expand to 50 times its normal size when combined with water. The polymer mix had not yet stopped the leak Sunday night but engineers have not given up hope and should know by Monday morning whether it will work.

Apparently they were inspired by BP’s “junk shot”.

Before a red oak took it out during one of out little storms, my Mother had a concrete water garden. Because of settling the concrete would crack and the water would begin to leak out. To repair it I used the same product that is used routinely in cold climates to repair cracks in basements that allow groundwater in. Whether you are attempting to keep water in or water out, it is the same product.

This miracle product is called expansive hydraulic cement. It sets under water, and unlike regular Portland cement which shrinks, it expands to seal the leak. You make it thicker than regular cement when applying under water to push it in place without worrying about it being washed out. If you are sealing something like my Mother’s pond or the sump of a nuclear reactor the water pressure will hold it in place for setting.

I am not aware of a hardware store that doesn’t have it stock.

This is the reason you do not run government or anything you really want to see prosper like a business.

This is not an April Fools joke, and was reported by the BBC: Transocean gives bonuses after Gulf of Mexico BP spill

The offshore drilling firm responsible for running the Deepwater Horizon rig has given its top executives bonuses for its “best year” for safety.

Transocean was blamed along with BP and Halliburton after last year’s massive spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Eleven workers, nine of whom worked for Transocean, died when the Deepwater Horizon exploded almost a year ago.

But Transocean said there had been a drop in the rate of recorded incidents and also in their potential severity.

Apparently “only” getting 11 people killed, and “only” losing one deep-sea drilling rig is an improvement over previous years.

It’s bad enough that it doesn’t look like anyone will do jail time over the Well from Hell, but having the low-life scum at the top receive bonuses after the ruin their actions caused along the Gulf Coast is rubbing salt into a lot of still open wounds. Doing this shows clearly that corporations are sociopathic.

Update: Not exactly a blogswarm, but Badtux, Attaturk, and tristero, and Digby felt this was a bit outrageous.