Archive for August 7th, 2011
MinnPost – Don Shelby: Remember BP’s Tony Hayward? He’s trying to get his life back in northern Minnesota
I kept thinking, “I’m too old for this!” A couple of days ago, I was carrying an 18-foot, 6-inch canoe across the Horse Portage around Upper Basswood Falls. The map says it is a mile long. I’m at the halfway point and I’m certain I’ve carried this beast 10 or 15 miles. Thank goodness there are trees with limbs I can rest the canoe on. I’m also thankful that I have along my sons-in-law, Manny and Matt, who end up carrying the canoe the rest of the way, plus the packs, and if they really wanted me to like them, they would offer to carry me. They offered. I demurred, only because I didn’t want anyone to see such a sight.
Despite it all, the BWCA and the north country of Minnesota are such wonders of overwhelming beauty and peace that no matter how troublesome one’s existence, folks can get their lives back.
Wait a minute! Wasn’t that what British Petroleum’s Tony Hayward said to the press as he surveyed the ruin caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion and the largest oil spill in U.S. history? Tony just wanted his life back. Gaffes like that ended his leadership of BP. So they gave him about $4 million to go away. Maybe he will end up in Minnesota’s north country. You think I’m kidding? Read on.
Drifting bird carcasses used to estimate Gulf oil spill’s toll | al.com
MOBILE, Alabama — The dead seagull, rotten and stinking, had clearly been in the water for a while by the time it washed up on a Mobile Bay beach last week with a small Styrofoam buoy tethered to its leg.
Sporting an orange-and-white paint job and a small, black antennae protruding from a glop of putty, the cue-ball-sized buoy looked like a Cold War-era listening device.
Instead, the float equipped with a radio-transmitter is part of a $1 million U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service study funded by BP PLC. The study is aimed at estimating how many birds died as a result of exposure to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill last year.
via Drifting bird carcasses used to estimate Gulf oil spill’s toll | al.com.
BBC News – Riots in Tottenham after Mark Duggan shooting protest
Police are on the streets of Tottenham, north London, where overnight riots saw petrol bombs thrown at officers and patrol cars and buildings set alight.
Eight injured police officers have been taken to hospital, at least one of them with head injuries.
The unrest began after a protest over the fatal shooting by police of 29-year-old Mark Duggan on Thursday.
About 300 people gathered outside the police station on the High Road after demonstrators demanded “justice”.
London Ambulance Service said a total of 10 people had been treated and nine had been taken to hospital.
Two patrol cars were set alight at about 20:20 BST but officers were not inside at the time.
via BBC News – Riots in Tottenham after Mark Duggan shooting protest.
