Early afternoon link dump

Because I want to get to the football as soon as possible.

• Getting back to the "books-I'm-reading" meme I started yesterday, one criticism I have of Tom Bower's Oil: Money, Politics, and Power in the 21st Century is that it reads like an extended Fortune profile on the careers of major oil company CEOs. While Bower doesn't flatter his subjects or hide uncomfortable facts, the reader still gets the impression that we're almost supposed to be rooting for these executives as they struggle to buy off the appropriate Russian oligarch or downplay the appropriate spill or execute the appropriate Nigerian rebels and so forth. In any event, it's worth slogging through.
  
  Also worth a look, WikiLeaks cables: Shell's grip on Nigerian state revealed

  The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians' every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable.
  
  The company's top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to every relevant department and so knew "everything that was being done in those ministries". She boasted that the Nigerian government had "forgotten" about the extent of Shell's infiltration and was unaware of how much the company knew about its deliberations.




• How many Gulf shrimp must you eat in one sitting to exceed the threshold by which FDA has declared them safe? Four Also if you're a child eating shrimp, you'd better be a fat child.

  Critics of the FDA program have also questioned using 176 pounds as the average weight of consumers in establishing the levels of concern for PAHs. Sixty percent of respondents to the NRDC survey said they weighed less than 176 pounds.
  
  "That weight obviously also doesn't protect children," said Solomon. "Once again, we're not telling people not to eat Gulf seafood. What we are asking is for the FDA to do the science right, bring truth to local diets."

  Note: Please do not fatten your children up by feeding them excess shrimp.



• SHOCKING BREAKING NEWS: Fox News is a Republican propaganda machine

  Media Matters has obtained leaked emails that show how a top Washington editor at Fox News directed his journalists not to use the phrase "public option."
  
  Instead, Bill Sammon, Fox News' Washington managing editor, told staffers to use the phrase "government option." This happens to be the exact phrase that Republican pollster Frank Luntz had advised Republicans to begin using to describe the public option -- on Sean Hannity's show, no less.




• Speaking of propaganda, I'm all for the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center taking a stand against discrimination, but can we please not ruin young childrens' reading time in the process?



• And, speaking of children and books and the like,
  
  BESE approves Pastorek's plan for the future governance of New Orleans public schools

  The Pastorek plan allows schools meeting an academic threshold to choose whether to return to local control or stay in the RSD. The plan also allows for the creation of a new local governing board in place of the Orleans Parish School Board.

  According to the Twitterings from The Lens, this follows upon a very contentious public meeting last night. Can't wait to read their report.