The first is a great article by David Mizner:

Don't Blame Islam

Also in the New Yorker, Teju Cole wrote, "Violence from 'our' side continues unabated. By this time next month, in all likelihood, many more 'young men of military age' and many others, neither young nor male, will have been killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. If past strikes are anything to go by, many of these people will be innocent of wrongdoing."

That counts as progress. As does CNN's decision to run a piece by Noam Chomsky that calls President Obama's drone killings "the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times." And as does Seamus Milne's piece in the Guardian pointing out that violence like the Paris attack is an extension of Western wars.

Yet these pieces are still relatively kind to the United States and its allies. They downplay the role of the West in producing the violence that its "thought leaders" blame on Islam. The truth is not merely that Team USA's violence is far greater than that of its enemies, or that the former triggers the latter, but that Western governments and their client states have actively empowered right-wing jihadist groups.

Jump!

Millions Of Gallons Of Oil Settled At The Bottom Of The Gulf After BP Oil Spill

The researchers found that the oil was buried in the top layers of the Gulf's sediment, meaning that if the sediment is stirred up in the future, the oil could once again enter the water. Chanton said the oil's position on the sediment's surface also means that it's a part of the food chain: the worms and other benthic organisms that live on the seafloor and feed on sediments will ingest the oil, and the contaminants associated with the oil will be passed on to the creatures that eat the worms. That could be a long-term problem for the health of these deepwater Gulf fish, Chanton said.

So how you doin'?  :D