"There are no crabs" -- "Parasites inside of their lungs eating them alive"

[Generic Other]

Run time: 00:54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_fj4lUV49U   Posted on YouTube: November 27, 2010 By YouTube Member: OilFlorida Views on YouTube: 215   Posted on DU: November 27, 2010 By DU Member: Generic Other Views on DU: 4797

 
More eyewitnesses who try and help those with eyes shut tight open them!

[sabrina 1]

1. Unconscienable! 'Our beach is gone, because of BP's oil!

What is being done about BP btw? Are they off the hook for what they did? For the deaths of those 11 men and the destruction of the environment? We get all this coverage of these major disasters, we learn that greed and corruption was the main cause, same thing with the mining disasters, and then silence. Are deals made behind closed doors, is anyone looking out for the American people?

If what she says is true, it is unconscienable that the government would allow and even encourage people to eat anything coming from those waters.

And people want us to believe the government when they tell us that the Full Body Scanners are 'perfectly safe'. Like the air at Ground Zero was safe.

Money rules and the people clearly don't have enough of it to buy back our government.

[Generic Other]

2. The EPA conducts sniff tests

Last chemical tests were done in September according to their own webpage.

"The 1,735 samples tested so far were collected from June to September."
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2010/20101029_seafood.html

DADT is not just a gay thing.

[RoccoR5955]

33. All they had to do is change the safety threshold.

They probably did when Bush was in office. As we all know Bushco, Inc. was quite friendly with the oil companies.

[CrispyQ]

3. "Like the air at Ground Zero was safe. "

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

People need to be reminded of this. They lied to us before & they will continue to lie to us.

[slay]

7. +1

it has become very clear - pretty much since Reagan - that our government - Dem or repub - they just don't care about us AT ALL. it's all about IMAGE with those bastards. :(

[gadjitfreek]

15. As a teacher...

...I can tell you it's no different. Those at the top care only about image and perception and it's a VERY hollow shell with a thin, pretty facade. I think any time you have any kind of organization, those at the top are interested only in self-enriching and providing a pretty face for the public to hide the rot within. From a small school district all the way to the federal government. No difference except for scale of consequences. The rug gets bumped so high from all the $h!t swept underneath it that eventually someone is bound to notice it. Those who caused the bump invariably say "bump? What bump? There's no bump!" They get paid a lot of money to camouflage that bump.

[slay]

40. That's very sad

but i can see it. I saw it a lot at my last job as well. Too much stuff is about politics instead of doing the "right thing". i blame capitalism at the core and then these government puppets who help prop up this toxic economic system second. Bernie Sanders is the only one in congress on the real right path. we need to change the whole structure of our economy - but nobody seems ready or willing to take that on at this point and until they do i don't except much at all in the way of real change unfortunately.

[ulaes]

25. No.

They were wrong, as all people frequently are. That's different than lying. Who could accurately predict what that air would do?

[bread_and_roses]

26. OMFG "Who could predict?"

I don't know why I'm even bothering to respond to such nonsense, I must be bored. Like, no one had ever heard of air quality or air pollution, man, right?

Not to mention ... oh, never mind.

[crim son]

31. I'm guessing you're not a scientist.

There were people who predicted the 9/11 attack and that there would be dire health consequences for people who worked there without protective gear, there were people who predicted the failure of the levees during Katrina, and there were people who predicted that BP was living on borrowed time. It's not that science isn't able to make accurate predictions, it's that we are not informed of the predictions i.e. we are lied to. Anybody who hasn't figured this out yet hasn't been doing their reading.

[pscot]

36. I am so goddammed tired

of being lied to by bureaucrats.

[felinetta]

21. This is a Stephen King novel come to life. I still think they all know there is no solution.

Granted we should be warning people, but I think this a
catastrophe of epic proportion and they are frankly scared to
tell the
truth.  I also think people who live there should just start
realizing what is not safe to eat. They should not take any 
chances.

[ooglymoogly]

4. What does it take for this country to say "stop this insanity"

The folks who did this and the folks who enabled this catastrophe need to be brought to justice...if any still exists in this country of looking "forward" as far as crimes by the powerful are concerned. What has happened in the gulf is pure criminal insanity; power and greed, willing to commit horrific crimes in search of a windfall.

[Shining Jack]

5. +1 n/t

[Chulanowa]

10. It takes effort

Which is why this is an ongoing problem. People ask "Why isn't anyone doing something!" when they should be going "I'm going to do something!"

[JTFrog]

17. +1 n/t

[ooglymoogly]

23. But, but, but, that is why we elect a government...to protect us.

Sarcasm on.

[gtar100]

6. That's simply inhuman. Oil executives, bankers, politicians, investors

can blatently destroy an ecosystem and *still* *STILL* only care about their god damn money. Sick fucking bastards.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

14. +1

[mike_c]

8. with all due respect, crabs don't have lungs....

I don't doubt for a moment that gulf invertebrates are being affected by oil pollution, and I've predicted several times that Washington will ultimately let BP walk away from any real responsibility for cleaning up this mess. I stand by that prediction still.

But it doesn't help the credibility of affected watermen or the environmental movement to characterize the damage in utter nonsense. Crabs don't have lungs. They have gills, but they're external, despite being covered by the carapace, so even the statement "in their gills" would not make sense except in an anatomy context, i.e. in reference to their circulating hemolymph. Perhaps she meant "among" their gills instead of "in their lungs," but saying it correctly matters, IMO. Instead, we're left to wonder whether she really has any clue what she's talking about.

Can someone post credible reports explaining the nature of these putative "parasites" that eat their hosts alive? That's uncommon except in instances of parasitoidism, and although parasitoidism is frequent among land arthropods, it is not nearly so common in marine arthropods.

[Xicano]

9. n/t

http://fishcooking.about.com/od/crablobsterrecipes/ss/crab_picking_5.htm

[mike_c]

16. LOL-- OK, cookbooks don't get the biology right either...

Crab gills are located at the bases of their walking legs, "inside" a branchial chamber that is functionally contiguous with the external environment. They have to be fuctionally "outside" in order for water to flow across the gills and maintain respiratory gas exchange. When you peel the dorsal carapace off you expose the gills within their chamber. Although covered by the carapace, it is not "inside" the body cavity (the hemocoel).

Here's a schematic pic that illustrates this:

[sabrina 1]

24. Thank you for the accurate information. It is important.

However, people who grew up in fishing communities and earn their living from fishing, are often not educated on the science of ocean creatures, but having lived most of my life in such a community, I have found that they have instincts most of us lack which helps them detect unusual signs that something is wrong, with the weather, eg, and anything else that relates to their profession.

I imagine a vast majority of Americans, including me until I read your post, have not studied the anatomy of a crab so I didn't question her account, and still don't. She may not know the terminology to describe what she saw, but I will take her word over BP's, known liars, any day.

Having said that I do appreciate the information you provided.

[Red Knight]

12. You must be a marine biologist

That's interesting.

I don't blame the poor woman really. She just knows something is WRONG. She may not have the expertise to diagnose the exact nature of what is happening but her family has been crabbing for 30 years and I'm sure they know that something is wrong. It would be great if actual scientists were standing with her and helping to explain the mess--but of course we know from Climate Change debates how well scientists are respected in this country. Her impassioned plea may actually have greater effect.

But we should certainly know what is happening--and of course I mean by actual scientists studying the matter. I understand your point--it's a good one.

[Generic Other]

20. The non-scientists appreciate the knowledgeable ones

sharing info. So far, too many have been silent. I really want to post accurate information. Unfortunately, most of the voices being raised are those easily dismissed and marginalized. I have posted the eyewitness reports of mostly uneducated folks who admittedly lack book learning but still are wise enough to know when something is not right with the environment they have lived and worked in all their lives.

The scientific community and the federal agencies sworn to protect the environment are strangely siolent. What do you think of the fact that the last time EPA tested a sample of seafood was in September? Is this cutting edge science? Or avoidance behavior?

[bertman]

38. mike_c, you're correct; however, my wife and her family, who are from

Chalmette, La. (just outside of NO) all refer to the gills as lungs. Those folks are some serious crab eaters, as are all of the folks from that area that I have met. Soft shell, hard shell, it doesn't matter. They love crabs and can shuck one in a heartbeat.

My point, of course, is that the colloquial term is lungs.

[Red Knight]

11. Well--you know this BP thing is over

The media has moved on to the next "thing"---like Sarah Palin's Alaska show.

These folks are forgotten. Unless there's a focus on all of this the country quickly forgets and moves on. It isn't seen in Pennsylvania, or Ohio or Nebraska or Arizona.

And if it isn't in our face we assume it's no problem.

The United States of Apathy.

[Perfect Ten]

19. +1

[90-percent]

13. Frontline

Frontline on PBS covered BP's safety record recently and it's chilling. Just because they had an abysmal safety record didn't stop the government from giving them the permits for the Deepwater Horizon rig. Like the government dropping off gay teenagers on Jeffrey Dahlmer's doorstep.

-90% Jimmy

[felix_numinous]

18. If corporate monsters like BP have grown so big

that no government is able or willing to control them, and they are unable or willing to govern themselves, who is going to stop them?

[FluxRostrum]

22. there's more coverage of this event HERE

I live streamed the full 4 hours of this event and there are several other videos of the speakers that day at this link.

http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/story/Rally-Truth-Grand-Isle-LA

[Generic Other]

27. Thanks so much Flux

You should post this in GD. I suspect it will sink like a stone there lost among the TSA rants and the Palin blather, but it is important that people try to stay informed and keep the information out there!! You are doing the mainstream media's job for them!!

[FluxRostrum]

29. GD?

What's GD?

[Generic Other]

30. general discussion forum

People over there need distraction from their distractions!

[BetsysGhost]

28. wow

[earth mom]

32. Is this story on the evening news? I doubt it. And the BP cover up continues...

:argh: :grr:

[spin]

34. Who do we blame?

I absolutely hate to say this but I tend to blame Obama and his administration for allowing BP to get away with deceiving the American public. Of course, the Republicans also participated in the cover up. You would expect the Republicans to favor Big Oil, nothing new there.

But why did our government with with the Democrats in change of the White House and both houses of Congress have to kneel and kiss the ass of Big Oil and BP? Is BP "too big to fail" just like the banks and Wall Street?

We need Michael Moore to focus on BP and how the Gulf was destroyed. If he made a movie on the Gulf fiasco it just might make the difference and overcome the apathy of the useless mass media.

[localroger]

35. Not sure what to think about these vids

I work in NOLA in an industry which frequently caters directly both to seafood processors and, when they sell their own wares at roadside stands, fishermen. Our service personnel are often in direct contact with these people and they love to talk.

And we've heard bitter complaints from them, sure -- about the lack of compensation, the lack of work, the lack of money, and in a lot of cases going out of business.

But we haven't been hearing these tales of bad health and contamination. If it were as pervasive as these vids make it seem, I have trouble believing it wouldn't have been relayed to me directly from one of the sources. Bear in mind that every single vendor in the South has to deal with us or someone else in our industry in order to legally sell their product by weight, and my company is one of the largest in the area. We do lots of business in Plaquemine Parish, down along the bayous toward Grand Isle, and throughout the Gulf Coast. And I have heard stories of bankruptcies, abandoned boats, of processing facilities being shuttered because of the lack of product, of people moving because there are no processing jobs, and so on, but I haven't heard any of these tales of health and food contamination. Not one.

I am as willing to believe BP and their minions are a pack of lying, coverup inclined rat bastards as anyone. But all of the buzz I have heard from the actual field, after we were all wound up to prepare for the worst, has been pleasant surprise. Yes there is damage, yes there are eroded beaches, yes there is oil under the sand in places. But much more of the grass survived than anyone expected and in many places it seems to be doing its natural job of purifying the water for points further in. The bird population has rebounded, even on Grand Isle where the recent migration was as robust as ever.

So I have to seriously suspect that these people are either being overly sensitive or just trying to get attention. I'm not saying that has to be true or that the lack of reported news is proof or disproof of anything. But I live here and I work with these people and if they were as pissed off about this as the people in the vids seem to be, I can't believe I wouldn't have heard about it directly. That simply doesn't pass my own smell test. It makes me suspect very strongly that we are being fed an outrage we are expected to want to hear.

I would be very skeptical unless there are more than a few point sources of this kind of field reporting.

On edit -- oh, and hunters and fishermen know their animal organs. Nobody who really had been crabbing for 30 years would make the mistake of using the word "lung" to refer to any part of a crab. That alone makes this particular vid highly suspicious.

[Celebration]

37. thanks for that perspective n/t

[Generic Other]

41. "we haven't been hearing these tales of bad health and contamination."

"I have heard stories of bankruptcies, abandoned boats, of processing facilities being shuttered because of the lack of product, of people moving because there are no processing jobs..."

Why are there no jobs? Why are they going out of business? What is the reason for "lack of product" if everything is as hunky dory as you say? Have you asked that question? You can't just point out negative effects and then not connect them to some cause.

Even as you admit things are not back to normal in your area, you conclude this is a a sign of improving conditions. It doesn't sound normal to me. Is business back to normal levels for you? Are you processing anywhere near the amount of product you did before the spill? Who is buying that product? I wouldn't eat it. Most of the people I talk to say the same thing. NOAA closed 4000 sq miles of the Gulf to shrimping again this week. Why would they do that if nothing was wrong?

What do you mean we "are being fed an outrage we are expected to want to hear"? Maybe you are also fed what you want to hear by people who need to make a living in any way they can. They are not going to tell you the product they sell you is bad. If they even have product to sell which it sounds like they don't. They are not going to tell you grandma got lesions from eating shellfish they are trying to sell to you.

Like you, they are going to try and downplay people's concerns. You are clearly not an uninterested party with nothing to gain from the outcome.

Much of what you say doesn't pass the smell test with me either. And since I am your potential customer, you should worry more about what I think. And I think you are doing damage control--public relations--rather than really addressing the problem in an honest fashion.

Aside from a few BP apologists, yours is the only voice I have heard making claims that things have improved since the initial spill.

[localroger]

42. Well business is down, duh

...in large part because of hysterical claims about the safety of the seafood. You've got idiots who won't eat shrimp at all even though a lot of shrimp is harvested elsewhere in the world and has nothing to do with the GOM. A lot of bad stuff happened but a lot of people are also clearly overreacting.

I did not say "everything is hunky-dory." I said that if people were landing in the hospital at the rate these vids imply, or that if there was a lack of product or contamination to the extent that these vids imply, I think I'd have heard of it. About two million people live in southern Louisiana but the only place I see these stories is online.

Anyway, if you want to see claims that things are not as bad as expected google "birding southern louisiana." The birders are just astonished at how quickly things have recovered. As for the fishermen, I think they are more worried about people chasing away their customers than crabs with parasites in their "lungs."

[Generic Other]

43. "hysterical claims about the safety of the seafood"

Good luck selling that idea.

[localroger]

44. Well, it's like this

I do not inherently trust officials not to whitewash what is going on. I have no capability to do proper tests myself. These online vids make a consistent, powerful argument. So who to believe?

I can't test the food but I do talk to fishermen and processors, and the people I work with talk with a lot more of them than I do. Where are the people getting sick and dropping like flies? We haven't met them, nor have we met anybody who has met them, and we are in bayou country all the time.

We know people who catch, eat, and sell seafood. They lost their shirts during the spill itself and many had to go out of business, but the ones who survived are catching seafood, and the ones I know are eating it. They know better than to eat something that is clearly diseased and they would be complaining loudly if they were catching diseased or obviously contaminated seafood. As the oystermen -- who actually do have a problem, since some of the beds definitely were contaminated -- are complaining.

These vids leave the impression that people are flooding hospitals with mystery illnesses and catching oil-covered shrimp all over the coast, and that simply doesn't seem to be true. That doesn't mean there aren't problems. It is a grotesque lie to say I'm saying everything is "hunky-dory." What I am saying is that it doesn't help the situation to blow the very real problems that do exist all out of proportion.

I don't doubt that there are a lot of very upset people in this area. I don't doubt that there are people who got sick at the height of the spill, and I know there have been a few -- but only a few -- confirmed incidences of contaminated seafood. A lot of people lost their jobs and livelihoods during the spill and more lost their jobs due to the moratorium. But I've seen no evidence whatsoever from local people of widespread sickness, ongoing wildlife die-offs, or contamination. And I'm fairly sure I would if such things were going on.

This is not to apologize for either the government or BP. The whole thing has been a horrible mess and is ongoing for many people. But there is no general feeling in the area comparable to the attitude of the people on the vids. These are the work of a fairly small group of people, and they are creating a very exaggerated impression of what life is like in a part of the country most of the people who watch them will never visit.

Anyway, as I said before someone who has been crabbing their whole life would never use the word lung to describe any part of a crab. It's crab season and I haven't heard of anything like what she is describing. So even if I didn't live here and didn't know that crab season has been proceeding fairly normally, that prices are normal, and that people are regularly eating them, that would cast a lot of suspicion on everything else said.

[jberryhill]

45. Many of the unusual videos and stories originate with one site

floridaoilspilllaw.com is registered under WHOIS privacy, so one really can't know who is responsible for the site, although it appears to be connected to a law firm in some way.

This was the same site which had the "Corexit appearing in inland swimming pools" and similar previous unusual claims which were both unique to their site, and unconfirmed by anyone else.

Whether they simply have a knack for finding odd stuff, or whether there is something else going on, is unclear.

[Generic Other]

46. Fluxrostrum post # 22 linked to the stream on his webpage

http://mobilebroadcastnews.com/MBN/story/Rally-Truth-Grand-Isle-LA

The FloridaOilSpill site posts short clips to Youtube usually of longer videos as it did in this case. I post these as well as the primary sources if I can track them down.

In this case, the primary source is spread through multiple videos. Flux's webpage has links to them all.

[bertman]

39. My wife visited the Mississippi Gulf coast of Mississippi several months ago

and reported that her friends and relative there told her the oil was gone. But when they actually went down to the beaches and saw the tarballs and the cleanup crews still cleaning tar off their beaches they just kind of shrugged.

When there's an ugly truth staring you in the face, it's sometimes easier to just pretend it isn't there.

I'm glad there are folks like these crabbers who are not giving in to the propaganda.

Too late to rec, so here's the kick.