Exclusive: Multiple independent lab tests confirm oil in Gulf shrimp

Experts operating states apart confirm toxic content in not just shrimp, but crab and fish too

The federal government is going out of its way to assure the public that seafood pulled from recently reopened Gulf of Mexico waters is safe to consume, in spite of the largest accidental release of crude oil in America's history.

However, testing methodologies used by the government to deem areas of water safe for commercial fishing are woefully inadequate and permit high levels of toxic compounds to slip into the human food chain, according to a series of scientific and medical professionals interviewed by Raw Story.

In two separate cases, a toxicologist and a chemist independently confirmed their seafood samples contained unusually high volumes of crude oil and harmful hydrocarbons -- and some of this food was allegedly being sent to market.

One test, conducted by a chemist from Mobile, Alabama, employed a rudimentary chemical analysis of shrimp pulled from waters near Louisiana and found "oil and grease" in their digestive tracts.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) tests, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have focused on the animal's flesh, with samples shelled and cleaned before undergoing examination.

Unfortunately, many Gulf coast residents prepare shrimp whole, tossing the creatures into boiling water shells and all.  More...

Daily Mail Online - CIA Paid Liverpool Buyout Tycoon Millions to Use his Jet for Torture Flights

A jet owned by a senior executive in the US firm which has bought Liverpool Football Club was chartered by the CIA and used in flights allegedly linked to the rendition of terror suspects.

The plane is owned by Phillip Morse, 69, the vice-chairman of New England Sports Ventures, which bought the club on Friday for £300million.

An investigation has established that between 2002 and 2005 the CIA chartered the plane from Mr Morse for millions of pounds and made extensive use of it.

Paid by the CIA: Philip Morse, above right, with ex-U.S. president George Bush Snr

Inquiries by the European Parliament and human rights groups have linked the plane to alleged extraordinary rendition operations which took place during the same period.

A European Parliament report linked the jet directly to the abduction of Abu Omar, an Islamic preacher, who was snatched from a Milan street by the CIA in 2003 before being taken to Cairo.

Extraordinary rendition entails the abduction and transfer of a terrorist suspect from one country to another. People have been taken to states such as Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Uzbekistan which are suspected of practising torture in violation of a United Nations Convention.

The disclosure that such a senior figure in New England Sports Ventures (NESV) has been paid millions by the CIA is likely to alarm football fans already concerned that one of the country’s most prestigious clubs is still in American hands.

Snatched: Abu Omar was apprehended by the CIA while in Italy

Mr Omar was snatched by the CIA in 2003 despite having been granted political asylum by the Italian government. He was moved to an American air force base at Aviano near Venice before being transported to a NATO base in Ramstein in Germany. He was then flown from Germany to Cairo.

The European Parliament report reproduced flight documents for Mr Morse’s jet, which carries the logo of the Boston Red Sox baseball team, also owned by NESV, on its tail fin. The 19-seater Gulfstream IV, with the registration N85VM, flew from Washington to Ramstein on February 4, 2003.

On February 17, the day of Mr Omar’s abduction and rendition, the plane left Ramstein at 6.52pm and arrived in Cairo at 10.30pm. The following day the plane made the return journey to Washington via Shannon in Ireland.

MEPs and European rights campaigners believe the plane may have been used in other rendition operations. They point out that its travel destinations, which are detailed in flight logs, are totally at odds with those expected of a normal private charter jet.

During the same period it was on loan to the CIA the jet flew to Kabul in Afghanistan, Rabat in Morocco, Tripoli in Libya and Baku in Azerbaijan. The jet, which changed its registrations details in December 2004 to N227SV, also made at least 51 trips to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Amnesty International, which produced a report on rendition flights in 2006, believes the aircraft may have notched up 114 separate take offs and landings at the facility.

In a report released exclusively to The Mail on Sunday last week, human rights group Reprieve raises concerns that the plane was used in at least two more rendition flights.

It links a flight from Guantanamo Bay to Morocco on March 27 2004 and a journey from Guantanamo to Romania and Morocco on April 12 2004 to the abduction of al Qaeda operatives Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

Abduction link: Mr Morse's jet with the Red Sox logo on its tail fin

All four men were reportedly transferred from Guantanamo to foreign prisons in March and April 2004. The CIA subsequently admitted that it has video footage of al-Shibh under interrogation in a Morocco black prison.

The plane’s flight records show it also made a series of visits to RAF Leuchars in Scotland and also landed at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Luton airports.

Located by The Mail on Sunday at his home in Florida on Friday night, Mr Morse confirmed the arrangement with the CIA. He said: ‘Yeah, that’s true.’

But he insisted he had stopped renting the plane to the agency after he became aware of the rendition of Mr Omar.

He said: ‘The plane is still chartered. It’s just not chartered to the CIA.’

He said he became aware of the investigation into Mr Omar’s abduction in early 2005 and at that point he stopped hiring the jet to the CIA.

He said: ‘I didn’t know anything at the time. I don’t know that it’s ever been verified.’

Mr Morse, a partner in NESV, made his fortune from a company he founded which makes tubes used in heart surgery.

In 2002 he bought a ten per cent stake in NESV, which experts believe was valued at £26million at the time.

Mr Morse bought the white Gulfstream IV in 1995.

Clara Gutteridge of Reprieve said: ‘Questions have now been raised about the involvement of Mr Morse’s plane N85VM in three illegal rendition operations, and Reprieve is actively investigating its involvement in a number of further “transfers to torture”.

‘In light of these revelations, I hope very much that Mr Morse’s moral fibre is of the same high calibre as his bank balance.

‘I therefore look forward to Mr Morse’s full co-operation with our investigations into the clandestine activities of this executive jet. If Mr Morse fails to assist in investigations, this would raise serious questions as to his fitness to own Liverpool Football Club.’

Overseas tycoons now own nine of the 20 Premier League clubs. A NESV UK spokesman said: ‘Phillip is a passive investor in NESV and is not involved in our work here in the UK. Phillip addressed these questions publicly back in 2005, and any further inquiries about the use of his private plane are really a matter for Phillip.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1321244/CIA-paid-Liverpool-buyout-tycoons-millions--use-jet-torture-flights.html#ixzz12ewUoPOV

Alternet – Elon Green Permalink

10 Young Right-Wingers Being Prepped to Take Over the Conservative Movement

Given their constant claim to be the “party of ideas,” Republicans don't offer much beyond the hopelessly impractical. Among them: deregulate anything that isn’t tied down; deficits don’t matter, until a Democrat's in office and they suddenly do; low-income “lucky duckies” need to be taxed, the top 2 percent does not. What happens when the Old Guard of conservatism moves on? Who will replace them as dependable propagandists for the right's most monstrous ideas? Readers, what follows is a comprehensive roundup of the guys and gals who will for the next half-century wield an increasing level of influence within the conservative movement and/or the Grand Old Party (assuming the latter isn’t reduced to a regional coffee klatch after the imminent desertion of Hispanic voters). This is the lovechild of The Breakfast Club and the Laffer curve.

1. Michael Goldfarb The Weekly Standard

"The Mercenary"

Approximate Age: 29

Accomplishments: The line between political hack and hack journalist should be bright and impenetrable. Not so for Goldfarb, who temporarily abjured his wingnut welfare sinecure at the poor man’s National Review to take a position as “deputy communications director” of McCain’s vegetative campaign. Don’t let the fancy title fool you. Goldfarb’s singular triumph was to maintain a smile as he got the shit kicked out of him by Rick Sanchez, who is kind of dumb, on CNN. His failures will be forgotten or forgiven; expect to see him shuttle between the Fourth Estate and campaigns in perpetuity.

Fun Fact: Worked on a project called “The Upside of Global Warming.”

Antecedent: William Kristol, who did double duty as Goldfarb’s boss at the Standard and foreign policy adviser for McCain. (Kristol’s worldview is basically ‘bomb ‘em all and let the contractors sort ‘em out,’ which probably explains McCain’s ability to distinguish between Iraq and Iran.) History will show that between Goldfarb and Kristol -- thanks for Sarah Palin, asshole -- the Weekly Standard helped deliver the presidency to the Kenyan.

2. Mary Katharine Ham, Fox News, The Weekly Standard

"The Babe"

Approximate Age: 30

Accomplishments: Ham’s first station of the conservative cross, a stint at the Heritage Foundation, is notable only for a series of columns in which she kvetched that her political beliefs made life a slog; she endured vicious jibes for her Bush-Cheney bumper sticker and was tossed from a taxi after the cabbie “f[ound] out I was conservative and supported the war effort.” It was, to be sure, tough times for a fundamentalist embryo on the conservative borg’s tenure track. Since then, the precocious Ham has twinkletoed the line at evangelical Christian media outlets and the House of Murdoch. In an unrelated note, a panel of judges declared her the “fourth-hottest conservative woman in new media.”

Fun Fact: Ham to Larry King, one week before the Republicans lost the House and Senate in the 2006 midterms: “I think the get-out-the-vote is strong. The money is strong. I think we're going to do fine.”

Antecedent: Laura Ingraham, who has made serious bank putting a pretty face on conventional wisdom. You know, when she isn’t outing gay college students.

3. John Hawkins, RightWingNews.com

"The Stenographer"

Approximate Age: 39

Accomplishments: Hawkins is indispensable to the movement for putting a new spin on Reagan’s 11th Commandment -- Thou shalt not ask a difficult question of any fellow Republican. “In your opinion,” he asked Ann Coulter, “if someone like Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush had been in the White House instead of Johnson, would we have won in Vietnam?” To Richard Perle: “Is there anything else you'd like to say or promote before we finish?” Newt Gingrich, John Yoo, Karl Rove, Michael Steele and Roy Blunt have all been similarly grilled.

Fun Fact: Is friends with that Daily Show Muppet.

Antecedent: Hugh Hewitt, master of the soft-soap interview: “Well, Marco Rubio, except for the fact you went to the University of Florida, and you root for the Dolphins, which means you don’t know much about football, I’m from Ohio, other than that, what defines your political theory?”

4. Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Christianity Today, GetReligion.com

"The Fundamentalist Scold"

Approximate Age: 36

Accomplishments: Hemingway has perfected the art of slathering scholarly gloss on social conservative bullshit. In this way, she can take classically retrograde, fundamentalist positions -- i.e. gays are uniquely promiscuous and stem cell research is B-A-D -- and pretend it’s not because Jesus Told Her So. When Hemingway crosses paths with an expert one sees the limitations of the racket. Here, for example, Hemingway tries, fails, to convince Sarah Posner that homophobic business owners will be economically imperiled by a gay marriage fiat.

Fun Fact: According to Ziegler’s Friendster profile (“I’m awesome and have trouble with commitment”) she is single. She married Mark Hemingway in 2006.

Antecedent: Peggy Noonan? Ziegler, however, has yet to match Noonan’s column on the magical dolphins who “surrounded [Elian Gonzalez] like a contingent of angels.”

5. James Kirchick, The New Republic, Commentary

"The Contrarian"

Approximate Age: 27

Accomplishments: Under the strict tutelage of Martin Peretz, Kirchick has eagerly absorbed the knee-jerk contrarianism of The New Republic (i.e. Sonya Sotomayor = bad, buying off politicians = good). This ability may be what enables the fiercely intelligent, openly gay Kirchick to work for the brainchild of the reptilian Norman Podhoretz -- who believed that “AIDS is almost entirely a disease caught by men who bugger or are buggered by dozens or even hundreds of other men every year." Though he often conflates criticism of Israel’s foreign policy with anti-Semitism for fun and profit, Kirchick can be an excellent reporter. His monster on the Ron Paul newsletters will be remembered long after his cri de coeur on dating liberals is forgotten.

Fun Fact: Once canvassed for Ralph Nader but turned on him during freshman year at Yale.

Antecedent: Kirchick should be so lucky to take after his mentor -- marry an heiress and cease to work for a living.

6. Erik 'E.D.' Kain, The Washington Examiner

"The Apostate"

Approximate Age: 29

Accomplishments: The only reason Kain is not widely loathed by his conservative brethren is that he is not, for the moment, widely known. He’s got a touch of the wingnut (“pro-life across the board”) but is anti-war, anti-torture and anti-death penalty. And if that isn’t enough, Kain wants to cut defense spending, which aligns him with, of all people, Alan Grayson. He has so far collected one antagonist of note: Robert Stacy McCain of “Emmett Till had it coming” fame.

Fun Fact: He’s so goddamn reasonable as to be unquotable.

Antecedent: Kain’s pulled a neat trick. He’s essentially David Frum: The Next Generation. But unlike Frum, Kain has nothing to apologize for.

7. Kathryn Jean Lopez, The National Review

"The Virgin"

Approximate Age: 34

Accomplishments: Lopez has worked for the National Review for a third of her life. Her reign as editor of its blog, The Corner, has been marked by very little actual editing (did you know Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife’s name was Loretta?), at least one sentence from May 25, 2004 that should be remembered -- “If the radio gig doesn’t work out[,] Al Franken can always run for Senate” -- and pom-poms whenever gays suffers a civil rights setback. The Corner perch has given Lopez entrée to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and the cable networks.

Fun Fact: From her Amazon wish list: The Nanny: Complete Season 4, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season One and an Israeli paratrooper bag.

Antecedent: None. Lopez is a true original. Never in the history of American letters has an editor had so little grasp of basic sentence structure.

8. Sean Medlock, The Daily Caller

"The Comedian"

Approximate Age: 42

Accomplishments: Writing as “Jim Treacher,” Medlock was actually sort of funny. His Eminence Roy Edroso once said the boy was the best the right-wing had -- to be fair, that’s praise so faint as to be invisible. TreachLock currently writes for Tucker Carlson’s vanity project, The Daily Caller, which reduces him to bits about how Newsweek sucks. Still, Edroso’s judgment holds true.

Fun Fact: In February, Medlock was hit by a State Department SUV. He was served with a jaywalking ticket while he was in the ER.

Antecedent: Medlock is treading the path worn by late-period Dennis Miller and P. J. O'Rourke.

9. Joseph Rago, Wall Street Journal

"The Elite"

Age: 27

Accomplishments: Traditionally there are three daily U.S. newspapers at which journalists hope to die: the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. That Rago, just out of puberty, has already been a Journal staffer for five years is absurd. He has mostly avoided the Kleigs, but surfaces occasionally -- to paint Massachusetts health care as a failure, or push WellPoint’s claim that reforms are a “wasted opportunity.” His low profile is understandable: Not long after he joined the Journal, Rago wrote a very true piece in which he observed that blogs “produce minimal reportage,” “ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps” and are “excruciatingly boring.” Minds were lost, much laughter was had.

Fun Fact: Recently fell in with Breitbart’s Big Government scam. The youngster may not be aware that Breitbart is a charlatan.

Antecedent: The late, much loved/loathed Robert Bartley stayed with the paper for most of his life, too, and he did okay for himself. When Michele Obama’s whitey tape surfaces, Rago will have his very own Whitewater.

10. Reihan Salam, National Review Online, The Daily Beast

"The Wonk"

Approximate Age: 30

Accomplishments: Salam is the lesser-known co-author of “The Party of Sam’s Club,” a 2005 Weekly Standard thumbsucker that made a splash by proposing a number of policy prescriptions that boil down to: Republicans, stop acting like cocks. Parts of it, particularly on health care reform, are excellent. There are moments of hindsight hilarity: “The current Republican majority isn't likely to be defeated, or disappear, in the next few election cycles.” It’s a solid effort, and Salam continues to push his party into a more cerebral direction, recently from the pages of the National Review.

Fun Fact: He raps.

Antecedent: Salam adheres to a humane conservatism practiced by his old boss, David Brooks. Which isn’t to say that most of his or Brooks’ ideas are agreeable; but the fact that neither relies on the usual crutch of wedge issues is sort of admirable.

How Japan Caught and Hid $2Billion Worth of Rare Tuna – 2006  Sydney Morning Herald

AUSTRALIA'S top fisheries manager has revealed Japan illegally took $2 billion worth of southern bluefin tuna, effectively killing the stock commercially.

An investigation into the imperiled fishery found Japanese fishers and suppliers from other countries caught up to three times the Japanese quota each year for the past 20 years, and hid it.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority's managing director, Richard McLoughlin, said it was an enormous international fraud. "Essentially the Japanese have stolen $2 billion worth of fish from the international community, and have been sitting in meetings for 15 years saying they are as pure as the driven snow. And it's outrageous."

Mr McLoughlin was speaking at an ANU seminar in a speech recorded and posted on the internet. The official findings of the inquiry were presented at an international meeting in Canberra in July, but remained confidential.

Mr McLoughlin's revelations raised the prospect yesterday that other fisheries in the Pacific and Indian oceans were pilfered. There were also renewed calls for southern bluefin to be protected under international wildlife law.

One of the world's most expensive fish, southern bluefin migrate around the temperate waters of Australia and grow to about 200 kilograms. A $280 million industry is based on catching the fish in the Great Australian Bight and cage-fattening at Port Lincoln.

The Japanese overcatch was uncovered by Australian industry figures who scrutinised publicly available market documents.

An independent review was ordered after the Federal Government put its concerns to Japan at a meeting of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The Japanese also sought a review of Australian southern bluefin tuna farming.

Mr McLoughlin detailed the fraud on August 1 during a wide-ranging speech on national fisheries reform at a lunchtime seminar to the Australian National University's Crawford School of Economics and Government.

"It's just been revealed that … on a 6000-tonne national quota, Japan's been catching anything between 12,000 and 20,000 tonnes for the last 20 years, and hiding it. And has probably killed that stock … And that's one of our major fisheries in Australia."

At the end of the seminar he was asked how it happened. "Largely it's [because] the Japanese only ever allowed Japanese observers on Japanese boats. And essentially it was just plain fraud.

"There were many thousands of tonnes of bluefin a year that were coming in unreported, or were being caught in Taiwanese or Thai boats that were coming in through the back door of Japanese business houses; that were going onto the marketplace recorded as big eye tuna, or you know, northern bluefin or something like that. So it has been an enormous international fraud … [discussion of which] has reached all sorts of levels of government at the present time."

Asked what the solution was, Mr McLoughlin said attempts had been made for years to put satellite monitoring systems on the Japanese vessels. "They won't have a bar of it," he said.

Legal catch limits for southern bluefin have been steady at about 14,080 tonnes in recent years, despite indications the fish stock is still in dire straits.

But it is a relatively tiny portion of the Japanese appetite for tuna. The country imports about 650,000 tonnes of tuna annually, much of it from the Pacific and Indian oceans.

"This is a defining case," said Glenn Sant, the Oceania director of the global wildlife trade monitoring organisation, Traffic. "People can no longer believe what they are told. What we now have to have is transparency."

At least until the early 1990s there was substantial under-reporting or non-reporting of catches in the South Pacific, said Sandra Tarte, of the University of the South Pacific.

The findings also raised a red flag over the Japanese whale fishery, said Humane Society International's Nicola Beynon. "Any countries that are contemplating lifting the moratorium and letting Japan go whaling must be concerned about the probability that it will be misreported as well," she said.

The Bureau of Rural Sciences said the most recent estimate by Australian scientists of southern bluefin's parental biomass - the quantity of adult tuna - was that it stood at as little as 4 per cent of its original size.

Ms Beynon said the commission had proved itself inept many times over.