Marcy on how the CIA tried to use Congressional briefings to cover their asses on torture.

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I read the papers
I played the old Strat
I spent $18 at the local laundromat…

Sonia Dada:

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Janis Joplin:

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No, they’re not crazy.

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Paul Krugman.

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I am always absolutely tickled by these “flash mob” musical events. Here’s one that took place here recently with the Philadelphia Opera Company (h/t Maya):

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Because we have a profit-based system, these tests are ordered when they shouldn’t be – but doctors are between a rock and a hard place, because insurance companies won’t pay them for treating a condition unless it was verified by a test:

We fret about airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and even microwaves. It’s true that we get too much radiation. But it’s not from those sources — it’s from too many medical tests.

Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, even more than folks in other rich countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation, and the average American’s dose has grown sixfold over the last couple of decades.

Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he’d already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, “I was horrified” at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said.

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Gee, ya think?

LONDON, June 8 (UPI) — The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is transforming the regulatory environment in the waters of the North Sea, energy officials in London said Tuesday.

British Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said environmental agencies in London found systems in place to monitor offshore drilling in the North Sea were adequate, though the situation in the Gulf of Mexico prompted another look.

“The events unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico are devastating and will be enduring,” he said. “What we are seeing will transform the regulation of deep water drilling worldwide.”

British petroleum giant BP is scrambling to control a steady flow of oil and natural gas spilling into the Gulf of Mexico following the April sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform.

Huhne said the regulatory regime in his country was “fit for purpose,” but the BP disaster gave London “every reason to increase our vigilance.”

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Fastball:

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Mother Jones is doing remarkable work on the Gulf oil spill. If you can, go donate a few bucks:

After a BP refinery in Texas exploded in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring scores more, the oil giant paid $1.6 billion in settlements to employees and their families. But the families of the workers killed on BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexcio probably won’t receive a similar windfall. That’s because the Deepwater rig is legally considered an ocean-going vessel, and was more three miles offshore at the time of the accident. As a result, the families of the dead workers can only sue BP and its contractors under a 90-year-old maritime law, the Death on the High Seas Act, which severely limits liability. In some cases, BP could get away with shelling out sums as paltry as $1,000.

Gordon Jones, a mud engineer killed on the Deepwater rig, left behind a pregnant wife who had quit her job to stay home with their two-year-old son. But thanks to DOHSA, the most BP could owe them is the equivalent of Gordon’s salary over his working life, minus what he would have paid out in taxes and personal expenses. So if Gordon made $60,000 a year for the next 30 years, BP could owe the family less than a million dollars.

The math works out even worse for workers without dependents. Jones’ brother Chris testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the other Deepwater workers who was killed was single and childless. That means his family would only be entitled to recover funeral expenses under DOHSA. But because his body was never recovered after the explosion, the funeral costs will be lower. BP could end up paying his family as little as $1,000 for their loss.

Chris and his father Keith have pleaded with Congress to fix the law so that any employer can be held accountable for negligence—regardless of whether an employee dies on land or at sea. Last week, Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation that would do just that.

But Leahy’s bill faces an ugly political fight. And giant oil corporations—the most obvious potential opponents of such legislation—may not even have to flex their lobbying muscle. There’s another powerful industry with an interest in doing BP’s dirty work to preserve the status quo. That would be cruise line operators—and when it comes to Beltway battles, the cruise lobby is no Love Boat.

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