Oil Spill Update

The latest attempt by BP to stop the leaking called "top kill" officially failed over the weekend. Now they are going to try to contain the spill by cutting the riser, which is the broken pipe, which would temporarily increase the flow, and then fit a new pipe to the surface. Meanwhile, relief wells will be drilled, which could stop the spill by August. I'm skeptical of all these efforts, of course, since they're all being performed by the same people that caused the original spill, and all the information about these maneuvers are likewise controlled by those companies. Meanwhile, the government and independent scientists attempt to figure out what the facts are.

From the BP May 29 press release

Despite successfully pumping a total of over 30,000 barrels of heavy mud, in three attempts at rates of up to 80 barrels a minute, and deploying a wide range of different bridging materials, the operation did not overcome the flow from the well.

The Government, together with BP, have therefore decided to move to the next step in the subsea operations, the deployment of the Lower Marine Riser Package (LMRP) Cap Containment System.

BP also has recently come out in denying the existence of underwater plumes of oil/dispersant. BP clashes with scientists over deep sea oil pollution. Hopefully scientists can manage their public relations better this time and finally gain more credibility than BP.

Today I was just saying how it's hard to really feel empathetic with Louisianans over this spill when many of them still support the oil industry and ridiculed those who warned of inevitable environmental destruction. Ironically, right after I said that a Louisianan congresswoman came on the radio and talked about how she and her constituents are against the 6 month off-shore drilling moratorium imposed by Obama.

Nature in the Neighborhood

There is a hawk's nest near Alewife station in Cambridge on an office building next to the Fresh Pond Mall. A lot of onlookers have been hanging out everyday with their binoculars and telescopes just watching their day-to-day activities. The two parents are "Buzz" and "Ruby." They have three chicks and they're almost ready to fly for the first time. I've stopped by a couple of times, and it's really fun.

Ernie Sarro has been out there a lot and he has posted some videos on the his CCTV blog.

Letters to the Editor

Some interesting comments published in the NYT. Some of the people are in the oil industry.

Gigi

yesterday I was watching TV, and I watched Good Night and Good Luck again, and also this old musical Gigi.



Gigi was about a French girl being trained by her grandma and great aunt to be a courtesan. It was a look into early 1900s French society, which was interesting because I don't know anything about it. I had no idea being a courtesan or mistress was such a profession. It's more like being a professional girlfriend.

Both of these movies had some moral contradictions. On the one hand, Gigi and her family of courtesans are wholesome, but on the other hand, she is being trained to be a girlfriend and sell her body. Gaston is a gentleman, but also kind of a sexual predator in another lens. Then again, I guess all women are trained to be girlfriends and then wives, and nowadays people divorce when they tire of each other, which is like changing mistresses.

In Good Night and Good Luck, it's not really that ambiguous since McCarthy's methods were really ridiculous. At the same time, I think it turned out that perhaps some of the people on his list, perhaps maybe even a majority, did have some ties to Communism, although that doesn't mean they were a security threat. In the case of Annie Lee Moss, there is evidence that actually she probably did join the Communist Party briefly inadvertently, although it's unlikely she did anything to help. At any rate, it was a very interesting episode of public opinion vs. news media vs. politicians vs. corporate interests.

Finance Reform Bill Passes in Senate

59-39 vote in Senate for the Finance Reform Bill.

Raise Fuel Standards

Obama Mandates Raising Fuel Efficiency Standards for Cars

Apartment to myself

My roommate has gone to Asia for a couple of months and so I have the apartment to myself in the meantime. It's really nice to have my own space and to have more time being alone. I haven't had this much personal space since high school, and it's really nice. I feel very comfortable and there's a feeling like cheerful nostalgia and deja vu.

It's not really about having more privacy, since at that time I lived with my parents, who tried to keep tabs on me all the time. Plus, Chinese parents don't tend to have much respect for privacy of their children, probably because they grew up and always lived in much more crowded spaces. Even so, I lived more "inside my head" then because I wasn't always around friends or other people I need to interact with socially and blab my thoughts. I also don't have any siblings so I just spend nights, weekends, and summers mostly by myself. So I guess the big difference from now is that I spent a lot less time socially interacting with peers.

Since going to college, I've made many adjustments. I really like interacting with people and I'm a very social and political person. However, it has been hard for me to learn to think while other people are around. I've gotten a lot better but it's still hard for me to think while interacting with people socially. Usually, I kept those two tasks very separate. If I didn't understand something, I could always spend time figuring it out alone in my room rather than working it out in front of everyone.

Hanging out with myself, I never have to wonder if I am in anyone's way or what some other person's plans are. I think I do get lost in my head and my actions are somewhat more automated. It's almost like I just do whatever my body wants, more literally whatever I "feel" like, rather than having to think deliberately about anything. In some senses, it leads to a more selfish and self-centered way of thinking. I mean, you just spend all the time thinking about what you want, how you feel, etc. Then again, that's what being an American adolescent is all about for some reason. At any rate, it is a mode of existence I've forgotten about, but it's definitely nice. And maybe I'll think better and get more done. :)

Deep Sea Oil

The latest on the spill from the NYT

Giant Plumes of Oil Forming Under the Gulf

Democracy in the Information Age

Democracy, especially the kind we have in the US, requires an informed voter base. Otherwise, corporate interests end up making all the policy decisions. While it's good to foster a healthy private sector, no matter how you look at it, the bottom line for a corporation is not always aligned with the goals of a government, which I think are to make lives better for all citizens.

It seems like today's technology like the internet should enable voters to make much better informed decisions. However, most people don't have the time to really go through all the information, and people tend to cherry-pick the information that is aligned with what they already believe. In recent years the news has become increasingly partisan such that there is no news source which reaches everyone. I think now it's becoming clear that decision-making is more about belief than really making informed decisions, especially because of the complexity of issues today.

Liberals such as Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman, and Frank Rich are frustrated at the rise of anti-government and anti-regulation conservatism in the aftermath of a financial meltdown and oil spill. He writes about how the extreme right has gained legitimacy in his latest op-ed. In other recent op-eds, he's been talking about the anti-regulatory mood of the public. Sex, Drugs, and the Spill and Berating the Raters.

At the same time, all of them realize that people are right to be upset about things. It makes sense that people are upset about the bank bailouts and the subsequent bonuses. All in all, the white collar workers have hardly been affected in this crisis. People are right to be upset about the price of health care, and it makes sense that they're concerned about the extra paperwork and possible inefficiencies from a government mandate for everyone to have health care. People have a feeling that corporate interests are colluding with the government. However, they are not right about what policies they think should be adopted.

I wonder if a better way to run the government is for people to vote on what problems they would like solved rather than on policies. I'm not sure how different it would be from how things are done now. I suppose people mostly vote for politicians they think will be able to solve their problems. Politicians have platforms where they talk about what they think are the biggest problems and their plans. I would hope that if we were more focused on identifying the problems and then giving a mandate to more knowledgeable and qualified people to solve them, that we'd have better policies, but actually, what we might end up with is just more of the same where corporate interests dictate policy.

My main concern is whether people are really be able to vote on policy because while we live in an information age, our lifestyles and jobs are pretty specialized at this point. While people had their specialized professions when the US was founded, at least they still had to do many things for themselves since they could just not hire services or buy things off the shelf the way we do today. Within one company, people in the marketing department don't know anything about engineering and vice versa. Those in the car manufacturing industry don't know anything about the energy industry or construction or agriculture or the health care industry, and the financial sector is a big mystery to everyone, of course. The system we have now is interest and advocacy driven so your piece of the pie is only as big as you can fight for. How can people really make informed policy decisions for the long term well-being of a nation as a whole?

Rent

So, apparently I am really absent-minded or just brain dead, and this whole time I've been paying $650/month for rent when my place is actually $625... doh!

Well, I'll get a discount next month! Whooo!