The Transocean executives are giving their “safety bonuses” to the families of those killed on the Deepwater Horizon.

But Others Don’t:

TEPCO is offering the people who were “inconvenienced” by the problems at the Fukushima plant $12.00. Twelve dollars for being forced out of your home and not knowing if you will ever be able to return. Believe it or not, some of those people are upset with the gesture.

The ABC says that Japan stops water leaks from nuclear plant

Engineers have stopped highly radioactive water leaking into the sea from a crippled Japanese nuclear power plant, a breakthrough in the battle to contain the worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl.

However the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), still needs to pump contaminated water into the sea because of a lack of storage space at the facility.

“The leaks were slowed yesterday after we injected a mixture of liquid glass (sodium silicate) and a hardening agent and it has now stopped,” a TEPCO spokesman said.
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TEPCO says it has detected radioactive iodine at 7.5 million times above the legal limit in seawater near the facility, adding to fears contaminants had spread far beyond the disaster zone.

The government is considering imposing radioactivity restrictions on seafood for the first time in the crisis after toxic caesium was found in fish off Japan’s east coast.
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[Read more →]

A few helicopter gunships make.

The BBC is reporting there are surrender talks taking place in Côte d’Ivoire:

The UN says three generals loyal to Ivory Coast’s besieged President Laurent Gbagbo are negotiating terms for surrender in return for guarantees of safety for him and themselves.

France says negotiators are on the brink of agreeing his departure.

Mr Gbagbo is sheltering with his family in the basement bunker of his residence in the main city, Abidjan.

Troops loyal to Mr Gbagbo’s rival, UN-recognised President Alassane Ouattara, say they have surrounded the compound.

The UN says Mr Gbagbo’s military and civilian advisers are leaving him.

Three of his generals – the head of the armed forces, the head of the police and the head of the republican guard – have opened negotiations, the UN told the BBC’s Andrew Harding, who is on the outskirts of Abidjan.

The UN said the generals had instructed their forces to stop fighting and hand in their weapons to the UN.

Without heavy weapons, Mr. Gbagbo’s supporters cannot win, or even draw, so the generals are going for the best deal they can get from the UN, rather than waiting to be defeated.

How many thousands have died because of the personal pride of one man?

That’s the logo of the latest version of the “Committee to Re-Elect the President” [CREP – pronounced “creep”]. Obama is truthfully represented as the zero, because that is what he has done for the people who voted for him – nothing, nil, zilch, nada.

Now he wants those people whose interests he has ignored to send him money so he can ignore them for another four years, based solely on the premise that a Republican will be worse. He misses the fact that by promoting and enacting policies that are only wanted by people who hate him, he has managed to push the Democratic base into the financial insecurity of unemployment and foreclosure.

What about the health care reform, you ask? That was a give away to insurance and drug companies, people won’t see any benefits from it, and he is on the road to attack the programs that do help people with their medical bills – Medicare and Medicaid. He is a Reagan Republican and will, in the end, help the Republicans in Congress disable them both.

You don’t have to vote for the Democrat or the Republican, other people run for office and you can write in anyone qualified for the office. People tell you that voting for someone else doesn’t affect the outcome, and they are wrong. If you vote, but don’t vote for either of the major parties, you are sending a message that can’t be sent by not voting. You are saying that you pay attention, and will go to the polls, but you don’t like what the major parties are “selling”.

CREP is trying build a grassroots campaign. They should give up. The White House killed the grass by pissing on it.