I really need to stop reading econobloggers who tell the truth. [Via Lambert.]

Because believe it or not, Krugman’s still understating just how bad it is.

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If you missed me on Nicole Sandler last night, you can hear it here. (My portion of the show starts at 1:30.)

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Karl Burkart, well-known writer who specializes in green technology, posts an anonymous email he got from someone who says he’s an industry insider. Go read the whole thing:

What is likely to happen now?

Well…none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact…it’s about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the Blow Out Preventer and the erosion which has exposed the wellhead connection. What eventually will happen is that the Blow Out Preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don’t, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? …it won’t be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov’t must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit…after that, it goes into the realm of “the worst things you can think of.” The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out…as I said…all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn’t any “cap dome” or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the Gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It’s a race now…a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it’s last gasp in a horrific crescendo.
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Fred Clark’s Slacktivist is one of my favorite blogs, maybe because we so rarely disagree:

In a couple of recent posts (here and here), Brad DeLong responds to the accusation that he and Paul Krugman are oversimplifying the current debate between austerity and growth.

Let’s be clear: this accusation comes from those trying to defend the claim that 9.7-percent unemployment is acceptable. Worse than that, it comes from those arguing that 9.7-percent unemployment may not be high enough.

Which is a difficult thing to argue while still being a decent person. To quote one of my favorite economists,Karol Jozef Wojtyla (emphasis original):

When we consider the rights of workers in relation to the “indirect employer,” that is to say, all the agents at the national and international level that are responsible for the whole orientation of labor policy, we must first direct our attention to a fundamental issue: the question of finding work, or, in other words, the issue of suitable employment for all who are capable of it. The opposite of a just and right situation in this field is unemployment, that is to say the lack of work for those who are capable of it. It can be a question of general unemployment or of unemployment in certain sectors of work. The role of the agents included under the title of indirect employer is to act against unemployment, which in all cases is an evil, and which, when it reaches a certain level, can become a real social disaster.

So let me oversimplify things a bit more. Unemployment is, right now, as JP2 says, “the opposite of a just and right situation” and “an evil” and “a real social disaster.” DeLong and Krugman are arguing that something can and ought to be done or at least tried to reduce that evil. In response, their critics accuse them of oversimplifying.

“Macroeconomics is not, by any reasonable measure, simple,” Kartik Athreya counters, meaning that the reason “the opposite of a just and right situation” should be embraced is very, very complex and something that we laypeople couldn’t possibly be expected to understand.

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The prison system far too often attracts sadists, and the management looks the other way. And so do we. What does it take to get us to protest this kind of horror?

PEKIN, Ill. — For days before he died in a federal prison, Adam Montoya pleaded with guards to be taken to a doctor, pressing a panic button in his cell over and over to summon help that never came.

An autopsy concluded that the 36-year-old inmate suffered from no fewer than three serious illnesses — cancer, hepatitis and HIV. The cancer ultimately killed him, causing his spleen to burst. Montoya bled to death internally.

But the coroner and a pathologist were more stunned by another finding: The only medication in his system was a trace of over-the-counter pain reliever.
That means Montoya, imprisoned for a passing counterfeit checks, had been given nothing to ease the excruciating pain that no doubt wracked his body for days or weeks before death.

“He shouldn’t have died in agony like that,” Coroner Dennis Conover said. “He had been out there long enough that he should have at least died in the hospital.”

The FBI recently completed an investigation into Montoya’s death and gave its findings to the Justice Department, which is reviewing the case. If federal prosecutors conclude that Montoya’s civil rights were violated, they could take action against the prison, its guards, or both. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment, saying that the matter was still being investigated.

The coroner said guards should have been aware that something was seriously wrong with the inmate. And outside experts agree that the symptoms of cancer and hepatitis would have been hard to miss: dramatic weight loss, a swollen abdomen, yellow eyes.
During Montoya’s final days, he “consistently made requests to the prison for medical attention, and they wouldn’t give it to him,” said his father, Juan Montoya, who described how his son repeatedly punched the panic button. Three inmates corroborated that account in interviews with The Associated Press.

The younger Montoya was taken to the prison clinic one day for “maybe five, 10 minutes,” his father said. “And they gave him Tylenol, and that was it. He suffered a lot.”

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If he doesn’t vote for this financial reform bill, doesn’t that kind of make him a tool?

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According to Ian Welsh, the Canadian police apparently allowed a group of hard-core G20 protesters to smash and vandalize the downtown area of Toronto – on purpose. For two hours.

I think you can imagine why.

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Go give Alan Grayson some money, since he’s one of the few people in Congress who actually votes against war funding. Plenty of other reasons to like him, too!

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It’s that they just don’t care.

I’ve been saying for years that liberals have a specific handicap: They think if they just explain to people why what they’re doing is wrong or ineffective, why, those people will just thank them and change their ways!

I put this on a par with the same distorted neocon fantasy that we would be greeted in Baghdad with flowers and cheers. It’s just not the way the world works.

Our problem with the politicians and other economic powers-that-be is that they know exactly what they’re doing, and simply make up cover stories to distract us. Our problem is that we need a vehicle through which our pressure becomes equal to, or greater than all their other pressures (like money).

I think a national strike on Election Day might get their attention.

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