Most important news story for the week ending July 25, 2008.

[ColbertWatcher]

What do you think is the most important news story for the week ending July 25, 2008?

Choice 1: arrest of Radovan Karadžić

Choice 2: Obama's Middle East-European trip

Choice 3: McCain's numerous gaffes missed by GOP-controlled media

Choice 4: Hurricane Dolly

Choice 5: Mississippi Oil spill

Choice 6: attempts and calls for citizen's arrests of members of Dumbya's Administration

Choice 7: Novak's hit and run and GOP-controlled media's minimizing of it

Choice 8: Savage Weiner becoming a headlining GOP spokesman and living example of compassionate conservatism

Choice 9: Lil' Smokey

Choice 10: Other, please elaborate in reply

[robinlynne]

1. impeachment hearings!

[ColbertWatcher]

2. Aww damnit. I always forget something! n/t

[readmoreoften]

3. Impeachment hearings. Iran ending the IAEA investigation.

[DogPoundPup]

4. Tanker Oil Spill in the Mississippi

It happened just after midnight Wed. morning in the New Orleans area and has closed the Mississippi all the way down to the Gulf. It's just being reported today that the closure to barge traffic is costing the economy $3 billion a day (CNN Lou Dobbs :puke: ) (only place I've seen report it so far.)

This is maddening as hell to me that the press is so anxious to repeat non stop to DRILL, DRILL, DRILL to benefit the OIL COS. and when something like this happens, they shut the hell up and don't report it even when this is going to have dire consequences to your food costs and so on and so on!

The info on spill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=3407926&mesg_id=3407926

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Choice 5. You post some very good reasons.

And of course you're right that the GOP-controlled media's reporting on the dirty energy industry is erratic.

[Breeze54]

7. I've seen multiple stories about it in the Boston area and on National News!

I have. That's the truth!!

[DogPoundPup]

9. Honest to gosh, I must be looking in all the wrong places then cause me OR my husband

have actually seen it covered till just tonite.

[Breeze54]

13. You have seen it or you haven't seen it? I saw it at least 4 times, localy and nationally.

I know it's a big deal. The problem is there are so MANY big deals going on right now.

:hug:

[DogPoundPup]

16. I haven't seen it mentioned ( I hardly watch tee-vee). My husband told me he say it

mentioned on Dobbs. I must say, good for you that you've heard it covered multiple times locally and nationally. What do they say about it? Just a minor little oil spill and no one needs to be concerned?

[Breeze54]

17. NO! It is a huge concern!! - Here's a story on my local news channel in Boston

Mississippi River Reopens After Massive Oil Spill

Jul 26, 2008 1:10 am US/Eastern

http://wbztv.com/national/mississippi.river.oil.2.780090.html

NEW ORLEANS, La. (AP) -

The first of 200 ships idled by a massive oil spill began crawling down the Mississippi River Friday after the Coast Guard reopened the waterway to traffic, but it could be days before all of the ships are cleared.

A 100-mile stretch of the river has been shut down since Wednesday, when a barge split open in a collision with the Liberian-flagged tanker Tintomara. Roughly 419,000 gallons spilled into the fast-flowing waterway to commerce, and crews have sopped up about 11,000 - just a fraction of what the barge was carrying.



A sheen of fuel oil remains on the Mississippi River following a large spill July 25, 2008,
in New Orleans, La. Two ships collided spilling over 400,000 gallons of industrial oil into
the river, dumping oil from New Orleans nearly 100 miles downriver. (Getty Images)




The first ship to leave the mouth of the river, the Overseas New York, is bound for refineries upriver from New Orleans, said Coast Guard Capt. Lincoln Stroh. Ships will move based on economic priorities, Stroh said. The Mississippi between New Orleans and Baton Rouge is dotted with oil refineries and huge grain operations.

A cleaning station was set up near the mouth of the river to scrub the hulls of vessels heading into the Gulf Of Mexico as they sail through the oil sheen that extended south from New Orleans. The ships are scrubbed to avoid further contamination.

Barges carrying grain south from the American heartland and a 2,000-passenger cruise ship were among vessels affected by the closure. Carnival Corp. said its Carnival Fantasy liner, due in New Orleans Saturday, was diverted to Mobile, Ala. Passengers would be bused to New Orleans.

The shutdown could cost shippers millions of dollars in lost commerce, said John Hyatt, vice president of Irwin Brown Co., a New Orleans-based freight forwarder.

State authorities were optimistic environmental damage could be contained. Divers were inspecting the barge, which is wedged against the Mississippi River bridge. Officials said they believe little fuel is left, and say they don't think it is a danger to navigation or a hazard to the structure of the bridge.

The spill was the largest since a tanker ran aground in 2000 about 40 miles south of New Orleans, dumping more than half a million gallons of crude oil on the Mississippi. That spill closed about 26 miles of the river. Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash, and said there wasn't a properly licensed pilot aboard the tugboat towing the barge.

It wasn't clear how much cleanup would cost, or what the economic impact on commerce will be. John Hyatt, vice president of Irwin Brown Co., a New Orleans-based freight forwarder, said he expected the total impact on shippers and receivers would quickly climb into many millions of dollars.

Also Friday, residents sued the owners and operators of the vessels that collided, alleging in U.S. district court that they have been exposed to fumes from the fuel oil wafting off the river.

A fuel odor hung in the air in the French Quarter and Algiers areas Wednesday and Thursday. By Friday, morning diners at the Cafe du Monde near the French Quarter riverfront were sipping coffee, and the aroma of New Orleans' signature beignets, a fried and sugar-powdered pastry, had replaced the fuel smell.

Still, ferries and the riverboats Natchez and Creole Queen, which carry tourists on daily tours along the river, awaited Coast Guard approval to sail.

"There's a lot of disappointed people," said Jamie Messersmith, manager for the Natchez steamboat. "One couple was married on the Natchez and they came for their anniversary," he said.

Here's another in a newspaper from Minnesota...

Biologists fear oil will kill marsh plants that feed birds

http://www.startribune.com/nation/25919454.html?location_refer=Homepage:6

By CHRIS KIRKHAM, Newhouse News Service

Snip-->

Attempts to place the booms used to trap the oil have been chancy because of the fast currents in wide, deep navigation channels near the mouth of the river. That water will flow into adjacent marshes and eventually into the gulf.

In the shallower and narrower waterways near Delta National Wildlife Refuge, crews are setting up hundreds of feet of barriers to prevent oil from killing marsh plants that provide food to nearly 100,000 migratory birds every fall.

"This is a major wintering area for waterfowl," said James Harris, a senior wildlife biologist at the refuge.

The main concern for biologists so far is the plants, not the animals. Most of the avian traffic at the refuge comes in the fall. If the plants die from the oil, it could mean a full year before they regenerate.

More....

This news about the spill is all over the country and the world!!

I even saw articles in the NYT !

[Breeze54]

6. # 10 - Other-- The Impeachment Hearings!

If not for the asshat-and-thief, we wouldn't all be in this predicament!

[kas125]

8. I agree - NOTHING is more important than impeachment! n/t

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Nothing is more important than accountability. We are not on a witch hunt. n/t

[kas125]

12. If you watched the hearing, then you heard the testimony

that backs what many of us have been saying for two years already - there IS no way to hold them accountable except impeachment.

[ColbertWatcher]

15. I watched, but I meant the idea of accountability in general.

Under these current circumstances and any in the future.

[lonestarnot]

11. Ditto Breeze54!

:applause:

[proud patriot]

14. As I work with Autistic kids I picked choice 8

:hi:

[ColbertWatcher]

18. Saturday night kick. n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

19. Angelie giving birth to twins.