Egad! Oil spill truthers!

The Oil Spill Truth Movement is under way, as scientists rip the feds for what seems like willful ignorance of what's going on down deep and how bad it is, the New York Times reported today.

The Times report follows other reports that scientists under contract to BP had been forbidden to discuss their examinations of sea turtles killed by the oil and that a federal scientist had been ordered to stop briefing the press on estimates of the spill.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is not conducting scientific studies of deep sea oil impacts and information on the extent and direction of the underwater oil plumes is limited, scientists say.

Some see collusion between BP and the Obama administration to conceal information about the scope of the damage. Next thing you know, they'll be saying it's classified and running interference against the press for revealing too much.

Sylvia Earle, a renowned oceanographer, told lawmakers yesterday that it "seems baffling" that "we don't know" how much oil is spewing or where the oil is in the water column.

Ian MacDonald, a scientist at Florida State University, says BP is bent on obstructing accurate calculations.

The NOAA chief and BP say their reseources have been stretched thin and they simply haven't had time to check for such [elementary] data.

BTW, Jonathan Katz, a St. Louis physics professor, has been jettisoned from Obama's oil spill advisory team for politically uncool opinions posted online. He said the human body isn't designed for promiscuity, intravenous drug use or homosexuality, and that AIDS is a consequence of this design problem.

Tut, tut... he mighta been wiser to have avoided such public utterances -- but I'm wondering what such opinions have to do with his scientific expertise to help in a great environmental disaster.  This is no time to worry about political correctness.

But then again, one wonders which has a higher priority in the spill crisis: environmental damage containment or political damage containment?

Molly's brainchild is having the effect she intended. Molly Norris's call to make today Everybody Draw Mohammed Day sparked a Facebook war between pro and con groups and an excellent FoxNews article by Joshua Rhett Miller. The Pakistan government even blocked Facebook, sparking outrage among the educated, who wondered why the govcernment didn't merely block the offending pages.

Nolan, who drew some cartoons of ordinary objects claining to be Mohammed, called for the protest after South Park censored an episode over fears of jihadist revenge. She then dropped out of the fracas, perhaps herself worrying about jihadist maniacs.

So I credit FoxNews and many others with heeding the spirit of my call to see this protest as Everybody Defend Molly Day.

(SyFy India News also had a good account.)

Britain's new deputy premier Nick Clegg made a rousing speech promising to dismantle Britain's Orwellian limits on fundamental freedoms and to make the House of Lords fully electable.

Among the many changes envisioned are limits on the government's right to intercept and hold internet and email communications.

However, there is skepticism about the ability of a coalition government to achieve such a rollback of Labor's years of work curtailing liberty in the name of security.

Ten basic steps to safeguard internet communications are given by Jay Butler of Safe Systems. For example, it's best not to clink a URL in an incoming email, but to copy it to the browser bar above.