With extraordinary lucidity [Durtal] revisualized the picture ... the Christ rose before him, formidable, on a rude cross of barky wood, the arm an untrimmed branch bending like a bow under the weight of the body.

This branch seemed about to spring back and mercifully hurl afar from our cruel, sinful world the suffering flesh held to earth by the enormous spike piercing the feet. Dislocated, almost ripped out of their sockets, the arms of the Christ seemed trammelled by the knotty cords of the straining muscles. The laboured tendons of the armpits seemed ready to snap. The fingers, wide apart, were contorted in an arrested gesture in which were supplication and reproach but also benediction. The trembling thighs were greasy with sweat. The ribs were like staves, or like the bars of a cage, the flesh swollen, blue, mottled with flea-bites, specked as with pin-pricks by spines broken off from the rods of the scourging and now festering beneath the skin where they had penetrated. [...]

This lockjaw Christ was not the Christ of the rich, the Adonis of Galilee, the exquisite dandy, the handsome youth with the curly brown tresses, divided beard, and insipid doll-like features, whom the faithful have adored for four centuries. This was the Christ of Justin, Basil, Cyril, Tertullian, the Christ of the apostolic church, the vulgar Christ, ugly with the assumption of the whole burden of our sins and clothed, through humility, in the most abject of forms.

It was the Christ of the poor, the Christ incarnate in the image of the most miserable of us He came to save ...  He entered upon the unspeakable torment of the unceasing agony. Thus, dying like a thief, like a dog, basely, vilely, physically, He had sunk himself to the deepest depth of fallen humanity and had not spared Himself the last ignominy of putrefaction.

PAHs

On top of all that info this caught my eye:

"PAHs possess very characteristic UV absorbance spectra. These often possess many absorbance bands and are unique for each ring structure."

Chemical Dispersant: According to Riki Ott, marine toxicologist and author...spraying Corexit 9527A (which contains 2-Butoxyethanol) in the Gulf, as BP is currently doing, in an attempt to minimize damage to the coast, will kill the shrimp eggs and larvae and young fish that are in the water column now. The chemicals in them can linger in the water for decades, especially when used in deep water, where low temperatures can inhibit bio-degradation. The use of this chemical was responsible for the collapse of the herring fishery in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez. What is so counterproductive about this is the fact that this chemical will also kill the very micro-organisms that would otherwise naturally break down the oil.

As we now know, BP's use of chemical dispersants at source has driven much of the oil beneath the surface making it impossible to boom or mop up with absorbent materials. Anyhoo, for the oil that makes it to the surface:

Absorbent materials (corn cobs): a Michigan woman named Adria Brown (her company is Recovery I Inc.), has developed and patented a product called Golden Retriever that is designed to recover oil from water. It is made from corn cobs which are especially effective in this task; they are buoyant; and they tend to spin in moving water, which exposes their entire surface to the oil which clings readily to it. The absorption occurs quickly...As an added benefit, the oil can be completely recovered by centrifuge and the cobs can be reused. Brown has been working with an extensive farm network across the Midwest...they have amassed a stockpile of close to 34,000 tons of material that is ready to be deployed to the Gulf. That is, as soon as someone down there asks for it. Sen. Chuck Grassley has also been involved, helping to move the paperwork in Washington.

Did you see the presser?  What a scene. . . .

And the media are digging up the guy's quotes from the past, as when he infers that he was subjected to "taunts and insults" for his service.  In the reserves?  

Saw some editorial in a Connecticut paper that said tidbit was not known before about him.

Isn't that even more deferments than Cheney got?