A very palpable hit

There's an interesting story in today's Charleston Gazette regarding the federal prosecutions of Massey Energy officials in the wake of the Upper Big Branch mine disaster which killed 29 West Virginia miners in April 2010. Ken Ward reports:

A former Massey Energy official pleaded guilty this morning to taking part in a decade-long conspiracy to violate mine safety laws and cover up the resulting hazards, and told a federal judge that the company's "chief executive officer" was part of the plot.

An attorney for Blankenship claimed that he was guilty of no wrongdoing. That was a shock.

Apparently, Blankenship has been diverting himself these days with a website, www.donblankenship.com, wherein he touts himself as a "Native of Appalachia," "Job Creator," and "Capitalist and Entrepreneur." Other attributes may come to mind.

HOLY RACIST ART, BATMAN. I used to subscribe to Business Week and learned a good bit there. Occasionally I think about re-subscribing. But not any more.

OF RATS, BRAINS AND HUMANS. A friend sent me a link to this science story, with a comment that things like this worry him about the human race.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Mediscare

This is what can happen when you don't have health care.

Opponents of a pubic option for health coverage have been trying to scare people with the prospect of a government run health care system. As noted in yesterday's post, it isn't working.

There are any number of reasons for this but here's a big one: millions of Americans already receive health coverage from one form or another of public insurance. Consider:

Medicaid in 2006 covered almost 59 million Americans, mostly those with low incomes and/or disabilities.

Medicare in 2008 covered almost 45 million Americans, mostly the elderly.

TRICARE, a health program for military personnel and retirees, covers more than 9 million Americans.

And this doesn't count the many other kinds of health coverage directly or indirectly provided by federal, state, and local governments. What the country needs is a public insurance option to compete with private plans for those not eligible for the programs listed above.

AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, here's Paul Krugman again on health care. He's worried that some senators want to party like it's 1993.

COAL'S COSTS outweigh its benefits, according to a new study. Here's Ken Ward's story from the Sunday Gazette-Mail and more from Coal Tattoo.

STATES FEEL THE PAIN of the recession as they make painful cuts or look for ways to raise revenue.

SOCIAL COMPETITION in early humans may made our brains get so big.

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS. El Cabrero has been busted more than once for yesterday's post which made a play on words about ducks when in fact geese were pictured. As one correspondent put suggested, a better caption might have been “We’re tired of getting goosed on health care.”

HAS ANYBODY NOTICED that I've managed to go four days without posting anything about Greek tragedy? It's really tough.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

ONE BLUE HOUSE

If these walls could talk. Pictures of the home of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera.

El Cabrero is back in WV after 10 days in Mexico, split between Mexico City and Oaxaca. There were plenty of things to see and plenty of native speakers for me to torment with my horrible Spanish. Thanks to good farm-sitters, no mass animal graves were required on our return, which was a plus.



I enjoy traveling but always have this haunting fear that I'll miss something interesting while I'm gone. The great Greek sage Heraclitus said that you can't step in the same river twice, but given the state of some of our rivers, that might not be an altogether bad thing.



There were several places I wanted to see, one of which was the Casa Azul, home of revolutionary artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and currently a museum in the Mexico City neighborhood of Coyacan.



There I learned that every home should have its own pyramid. I've got it on my to-do list.

Now, where were we...

MISTAKES WERE MADE. A new Army report finds major faults with the early stages of the occupation of Iraq.

RETIREMENT. More older workers are working longer as economic conditions decline, according to this Economic Policy Institute snapshot.

CAN WE TRUST OUR BRAINS? Maybe not so much...

A LITTLE GOOD NEWS. Supporters of clean elections will celebrate the state legislature's recent passage of a bill that requires financial disclosure for political ads. A previously passed law was struck down in a court decision.

A LITTLE FORGOTTEN HISTORY was the subject of an op-ed of mine in yesterday's Gazette-Mail.

URGENT EARLY TETRAPOD UPDATE. A new fossil from Latvia shows the link between fish and land animals.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED