The Great Invisible ~ Disaster & Addiction to Oil

Thanks to the Scuttlefish for spotting trailer for The Great Invisible...

"Margaret Brown’s searing documentary [...] Rather than simply hurling oily muck at the perpetrators of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, this film promises a far more in-depth view of one of the worst environmental catastrophes in global history, its lingering effects, and the economic and human consequences of a global addiction to oil."

Exaggerated Relief ~ Map of Western US & Mex

MapPorn spots very cool Exaggerated Relief Map of Western US and Mexico made by Anton Balazh (with NASA help;-) sourced from UnofficialNetworks!

Macondo Blowout ~ Deepwater Disaster Anime

gCaptain spots the CSB's draft investigation report video anime of BP's Macondo well blowout and Deepwater Horizon disaster...

"The blowout preventer (BOP) that was intended to shut off the flow of high-pressure oil and gas from the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico during the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20, 2010, failed to seal the well because drill pipe buckled for reasons the offshore drilling industry remains largely unaware of, according to a new two-volume draft investigation report released on June 5, 2014, by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB)."

Risking It All ~ AlJaz on Earning a Living...

Amazing AlJazeera series Risking It All about people facing great dangers in order to earn a living...

Death Map ~ Humane Borders, Better Future?

The Guardian's Edward Helmore writes that 'Death map' of deserts aims to save lives of desperate Mexican migrants...

"...over the past decade, more than 2,000 corpses, often desiccated, with the bones scattered by animals, have been recovered [...] Humane Borders is one of several groups working to reduce the number of migrant deaths. Yet even as the numbers of Mexican -- and increasingly Central American -- migrants attempting the hazardous crossing appears to have declined, the number who die trying remains troublingly consistent.The crossing to America is simply becoming more dangerous. [...] a new project known officially as The Arizona OpenGIS Initiative for Deceased Immigrants -- Younglas call it the "death map" -- may begin to reduce the deaths and help families of the missing recover the bones of their members."

P.S. Weaponized Drones for the Border Patrol will not help.

Dangerous Passage ~ Mexico's Migrant Gauntlet

Nicholas Casey writes in the WSJournal about the horrors as Migrants Fall Prey to Mexican Gangs on Way to the U.S...

"Kidnapping Central American and Mexican immigrants is one of the latest rackets of Mexican organized-crime groups, which are expanding beyond drugs into pirated DVDs, illegal alcohol sales and business extortion. Just this year, more than 4,000 immigrants have been rescued by the Mexican army and federal police from their captors, according to government statistics. Because authorities say only a fraction of those kidnapped are ever rescued, the figures suggest that gangs kidnap tens of thousands of migrants each year. The victims, almost always headed to the U.S., are captured by gangs where they are ransomed back to relatives, forcibly recruited as workers or sometimes sold into prostitution."

This is seriously not good. Migrants are among the most vulnerable and yet ambitious of humanity and deserve special favor and protection. We ought to do and be better here.