A study published today in the journal Nature brings big bad news about the state of life on our planet. Researchers from Nova Scotia conclude that levels of phytoplankton have fallen by about one percent per year for the last several decades. That decline is correlated with rising water temperatures. Add it up, and that’s a significant decline.

Phytoplankton are the base of most of the oceans’ food webs. If they were to go away, much life in the ocean would be unable to survive. Nobody knows what might happen then.

“A crew capable of capping the well is expected onsite later this afternoon.” That was the story on the Barataria Bay oil spill yesterday.

This morning, the story from the spill, which is now up to about a million barrels, is that it will take between 10 to 12 days to stop the oil spill. After everything that’s been learned, and all the promises from the oil industry that they’ve improved their response time, it’s still a week and a half before a well that’s in shallow water close to shore can be capped.

What will the story be tomorrow?

There are still a few Cold Earthers out there, insistently pushing narratives that the Earth is cooling, rather than warming. A lengthy annual review conducted by hundreds of scientists from around the world and just published by the American Meteorological Society, however, doesn’t support the Cold Earthers’ contentions. The review concludes that:“Global average surface temperatures during the last three decades have been progressively warmer than all earlier decades, making 2000-09 (the 2000s) the warmest decade in the instrumental record.”

The review examines 10 different indicators of global temperature:

air temperature over land
sea-surface temperature
air temperature over oceans
sea level
ocean heat absorption
humidity
tropospheric temperature
Arctic sea ice
glaciers
spring snow cover in the Northern hemisphere

The review found that all of these 10 independently-measured indicators show that global warming is taking place. Take note, Cold Earthers: This review provides a model of global warming held up at 10 points. If you’re going to knock it down, you’ve got to take out more than just one point.

Yesterday, Congressman Lloyd Doggett held a breakfast fundraiser to benefit his own re-election campaign. The location of the fundraiser was 138 D Street SE in Washington D.C.

That’s the Washington D.C. home of Congressman Doggett. But then, Doggett represents the 25th congressional district of Texas, and is legally required to reside in that district.

So, which place is Doggett’s real home? For yesterday’s breakfast fundraiser, Doggett requested that political action committees send people carrying checks for $2,000 each. that suggests to me that Doggett has become a real Washington D.C. native.

Yesterday, we saw that out of the 49 PACs and Section 527 organizations registered with the FEC and IRS and including the name of “Tea Party,” only 1 had gathered enough contributions of money or in-kind services to take any significant action in electoral politics or policy debates. Although these small groups may be the face of the “grassroots” Tea Party, they can’t be the source of the sorts of highly-publicized and coordinated activities you see reported on by CNN or FOX News. Unless they’re filing false reports, these 48 small groups just haven’t accumulated the funds or the in-kind volunteering needed to pull such events off.

Surely there must be something more. There is.

Search the Federal Election Commission PAC database not for “Tea Party” but for “teaparty” and you’ll find a reference to a PAC entitled “OUR COUNTRY DESERVES BETTER PAC – TEAPARTYEXPRESS.ORG.” Tea Party Express is not a grassroots “Tea Party” organization started up organically by ordinary citizens who decided they’d had enough. Tea Party Express is a Republican Party operation started up in GOP consultancy shop that openly declared its partisan Republican basis before it changed its name to use the words “Tea Party” and hitch its wagon to the latest meme.

According to FEC records, the Republican Party’s Tea Party Express PAC has raised $4.8 million so far in the 2009-2010 election cycle. Let’s put that in context, comparing the receipts of the GOP Tea Party Express to the receipts of the 15 “Tea Party” PACs, of the Cincinnati Tea Party Section 527 organization that has managed to raise six figures, and of the other 34 Section 527 organizations identifying themselves as “Tea Party” groups:

The GOP’s operation dwarfs all others.

Groupon is a site where people can get significant discounts on stuff, with one significant limitation: There have to be enough people taking advantage of a particular Groupon deal for the deal to take effect. If not enough people join in the offer, it is rescinded. The Groupon site works as a great way to provoke word of mouth, as people communicate with others about the deal in order to make sure that the discount is activated.

I’m happy to note that there’s a great Groupon deal for one of the businesses we work with: Skreened. Skreened is a shirt retailer that only sells shirts that are made in the USA, free of sweatshop labor. They’re a super-ethical company, and so they take a portion of their profits and make Kiva microloans to people in developing countries as well.

On top of that, when you buy from our particular Skreened shop, Irregular Apparel, we’ll make a Kiva microloan of our own, plus another donation to a progressive organization. Good things happen all over when you order one of our Skreened shirts.

For the next 7 hours, a special Groupon offer allows you to claim a coupon for a 50 percent discount on a Skreened shirt. The offer is good for a year from the time you claim it. So, you don’t even have to need a tshirt now – just so long as you’ll know that you’ll be wanting a tshirt within the next year, you’re covered.

Today’s Groupon Deal for Skreened has already been activated, too. A minimum of 25 participants was passed hours ago. 123 people are now participating. Why not join in?

As I mentioned earlier today, there are two routes by which the activity of political organizations in this country can reach federal disclosure. One is through the Internal Revenue Service, which maintains a database of federally-registered non-profit Section 527 political organizations engaged in policy-focused activism. The other route goes through the Federal Election Commission, which collects and discloses contributions to Political Action Committees (PACs) and the diversion of cash by PACs to political parties, other PACs, candidates for office, and operational expenses. PACs’ very reason for being is to funnel money into the political process; a PAC cannot carry out its function without receiving contributions. A PAC cannot even launch a significant all-volunteer action without filing FEC contribution reports, since in-kind contributions must also be reported. For these reasons, a PAC’s report of contributions to the FEC is a reasonable indication of its level of activity.

A quick search through the FEC’s PAC Summary reports reveals the following pattern of contributions in the years 2009 and 2010 for 15 different Political Action Committees using the term “Tea Party” in their titles.

Fewer than half of these FEC-Registered Tea Party PACs have received any contributions whatsoever in the past two years of this highly contested election cycle. Only one of the Tea Party PACs — the Ohio Tea Party PAC — has garnered more than $10,000 in contributions (and that just barely). More detailed peeks into FEC records show that some of these PACs even find themselves in debt.

One of the big stories this year in the papers and on TV news shows has been the increasing influence of Tea Party groups on national politics. If the Tea Party movement really is a big influence on national politics, then that influence is being exercised in some way other than by Tea Party PACs.

Congressman Ted Poe had tough words for Pakistan yesterday: “Isn’t Pakistan supposed to be with us in this war in Afghanistan? And if they’re not our ally, why are we giving them billions of taxpayer dollars? Now, in light of the illegal release of classified documents, Pakistan also appears to be taking our money and supporting our enemy, the Taliban. Maybe Pakistan isn’t the loyal ally we pay them to be. We should not be giving money we need here at home to countries that are friends in public and thieves behind closed doors. As my colleague Louie Gohmert says, ‘We don’t have to pay these people to hate us. They will do it for free.’ And that’s just the way it is.”

Is that just the way it is, Representative Poe?

If that’s just the way it is, why didn’t Ted Poe vote for H. Con. Res. 301, a bipartisan bill that would require the withdrawal of the U.S. military out of Afghanistan?

Q: How did the artist end up getting arrested for graffiti?

A: Well, he had to draw the line somewhere.

…..

Q: Why don’t you tend to find any Yellowfins playing at Carnegie Hall?

A: It’s really quite hard to tuna fish. Besides, their presentation tends to be canned.

…..

Share your favorite bad joke here. Which one can make the rest of us groan the loudest?

There are two routes by which the activity of political organizations in this country can reach federal disclosure. One is through the Federal Election Commission, which collects and discloses contributions to and spending of political parties, political action committees, and candidates for office. The other is through the Internal Revenue Service, which maintains a database of federally-registered non-profit Section 527 political organizations engaged in policy rather than campaign activism. These latter organizations must report expenditures (whether of money or in the provision of in-kind services) they make to maintain their organization and to influence policy in America, and must also reveal the dollar value of contributions they receive (whether in money or in the provision of in-kind services) to accomplish those ends. To the extent that either money or in-kind services are necessary to engage in political activity in America, a Section 527 organization’s reports of contributions are a reasonable indication of its level of activity.

A quick search through the IRS Section 527 Political Organization Disclosure Database reveals documentation for 34 different Section 527 organizations using the term “Tea Party” in their title (more than 34 organizations are listed in search results, but some of these are duplicate records for groups that at some point changed their names). The following is a summary of contributions received since formation by the 34 “Tea Party” organizations registered with the IRS in the United States of America:

This data, current as of today, reveals that slightly more than 3 out of every 4 of these registered “Tea Party” organizations are utterly inactive (or have failed to obey the law and file accurate financial disclosures). Only 5 out of the 34 “Tea Party” Section 527 groups — Arkansas Tea Party, Inc., Tea Party of Louisiana LLC, the Tea Party of Western Michigan, the Baton Rouge Tea Party and the Cincinnati Tea Party — have raised more than $10,000 during the course of their existence. And only 1 out of the 34 “Tea Party” groups registered with the IRS has gathered enough resources to engage in significant public activity and organization-building. That organization, the Cincinnati Tea Party, has raised a relatively whopping amount of $255,400.70 since its inception — enough for it to arrange its own special discount days with Kings Island, organize its own media division and more.

Of the 34 Tea Party groups that have made their activities transparent to the public, only 1 group reports enough activity to make a stink. That group, the Cincinnati Tea Party, bears close watching. The other groups, as “grassroots” as they may be, cannot be the source of the apparent groundswell of “Tea Party” activity — at least not if they report their activities with honesty and diligence.

Can you find the missing 8.7 billion dollars the Pentagon was supposed to be managing? That’s the amount of money in a batch that auditors have announced the U.S. military has lost track of in Iraq.

What did Congress do yesterday to deal with the problem? It voted to send the Pentagon tens of billions of additional dollars. Sure, this money hasn’t brought us the kind of victory we promised, but then, what do we have to lose? (besides the money, I mean)

You know that you’re in the middle of a real environmental crisis when your government tells you, “people are warned to avoid time in the immediate area around the river” and declares a “state of disaster”. That’s just the situation that people around Kalamazoo will be confronted with when they wake up this morning.

Oil spills are slapping the United States silly. Just after I got done writing about a new offshore drilling oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I got news of an oil spill in Michigan. It’s stretched 16 miles long and is moving toward Lake Michigan.

The oil spill is estimated to contain close to one million gallons of crude, and has already fouled many animals, including formerly white swans, living along the Kalamazoo River. It took place when a pipeline run by Enbridge Incorporated burst open.

That pipeline sends millions of gallons across the border out of the United States every day. If we really need more oil drilling to serve domestic American needs, how come we have pipelines like this sending crude oil to foreign customers?

Just when they’ve secured one oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, there’s now another one to deal with. This one was also in Louisiana waters, but closer to the coast than the Deepwater Horizon wreck.

This oil spill took place in Barataria Bay, right behind the lines of defense against the Deepwater Horizon crude oil, amidst the marshes that protect New Orleans from storm surge. There’s not much doubt that this oil will hit the Louisiana Delta’s marshes, as it’s at least a mile in length, and not far at all from the shorelines surrounding it.

The oil spill barge rammed a capped oil well that had been abandoned by the Cedyco oil company. That a spill can come from a capped oil well, long after the well has been sealed, shows an additional risk created by offshore drilling that hasn’t been adequately considered and remedied by Congress.

Considering that this additional oil spill has taken place in the Gulf of Mexico before the Deepwater Horizon oil is even close to being cleaned up, how can we trust that the expansion to new offshore drilling sites will be safe?

Two Democratic voices, speaking about the leak of a huge number of documents, showing profound corruption in the Afghanistan war:

Barack Obama: “I’m concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardize individuals or operations.”

Dennis Kucinich: “We can no longer look the other way, or pretend that the war is something that is it not. Occupying Afghanistan does not help further the freedom of the Afghan people. It is not the leak of documents that endangers the lives of American troops and our allies, it is the belief that occupying Afghanistan will make us safer. Congress must say no to war funding, bring our troops home, and invest in the American recovery.”

Should we have worked to elect Dennis Kucinich President in 2008? Should we work to encourage him to challenge Barack Obama in 2012?