The [North Pacific Gyre], or area of spiraling ocean currents, is approximately twice the size of the continental United States. It isn't filled with garbage, but the region is known for accumulating large amounts of waste and debris that get trapped by its large clockwise currents between North America and Japan.

"I've been out to the same part of the ocean 30 years ago, and then, it was clean oceanic wilderness. And now, it's like a dump," Crowley said. "This is significantly worse."

Although news reports about this giant garbage dump have been circulating for years, it remains safely out of sight and out of mind. So Crowley started taking teams of scientists and fellow ocean enthusiasts out to study the mess.

Their greatest discovery? The ocean is now thoroughly infused with plastic. In fact, "it's hard to find water without it," according to her. And most of it comes from landlubbers, says Diane Sherman, director of the International Coastal Cleanup, which collected 7 million pounds of trash last year.

Crowley is full of ideas on how the world can keep its oceans clean but given the overwhelming concern people have demonstrated thus far, you should probably begin training your stomach to ingest small bits of plastic.

[More: Project Kaisei]

[Pic: Boating SF]

Patrick Nayyar and Conrad Stanisclaus Mulholland, a couple of middle-aged would-be entrepreneurs, agreed to sell "guns, ammunition, vehicles, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles" to an interested religious organization based in Lebanon called The Party of God.

Mulholland is currently absconding (possibly in his home country Britain) but Queens native Nayyar is in custody and his lawyer thinks the FBI needs to look into the concept of "real terrorism". You see, back in 2007, Nayyar heroically battled a devilish wife-stealing cabdriver:

came to the aid of a Queens couple after an angry cabbie ordered the man out of his cab and sped off with the passenger's screaming wife. The ordeal ended when Patrick Nayyar, 43, used his SUV to cut off the cab.

"I don't know what this guy's intentions were," said Nayyar, who pulled the daring move near 57th Ave. in Elmhurst. "But he could have done anything to her."

Does that sound like the actions of a man who could sell arms to an FBI informant posing as a representative for Hezbollah? A cabbie-battler like him? Never! Except for the part where it totally looks as though he did.

Pic: NY Times.

Markopolos testified this morning before the House Financial Services Subcommittee, telling members how he delivered details on Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme to SEC regulators in 2006 but was ignored. The agency is overlawyered and understaffed, and is rife with "financial illiteracy." One SEC regulator he spoke to could not grasp his basic argument — that there was no way Madoff could execute his stated options-trading strategy based on the actual volume of options trading on the market. The agency was afraid of prominent industry leaders like Madoff, who once chaired the Nasdaq, Markopolos charged. It "roared like a mouse and bit like a flea." His testimony, via MSNBC:

Markopolos wants Congress to revamp the SEC. A sensible request, given its performance. But in asking this, he will likely prove another unheard prophet. In good times, we never want to listen to the sagest of warnings. Congress can restructure a government agency. But can it change human nature?

Hero journalist Brian Montopoli transcribed the relevant portion of Blago's disquisition on cowboys and Senate rules:

"[Under state Senate rules] if the cowboy charged with stealing a horse was charged with doing that in town, but in fact on the date and time that he apparently stole the horse in town he was on the ranch with six other cowboys, herdin' cattle and ropin' steers, and then he expects that when his day comes to go to court he can bring those six cowboys to say it wasn't him 'cause he wasn't in town he was on the ranch heardin' cattle, even if he could bring those cowboys into say that, under these rules, under 8B, it wouldn't matter."

You got that?

Howard screened his movie before a Washington DC audience, then he and writer Peter Morgan and respected journalist James Reston, Jr. had a little panel discussion. And Howard, who voted for Nixon, said he was sad that America was all "never again" about Nixon and then Bush happened. And all the panelists compared Bush to Nixon and then Chris Wallace stood up and schooled them. (Or, as James Pinketon puts it, "FOX News’ Chris Wallace threw a fair-and-balanced apple of discord into the middle of the festivities.")

"Richard Nixon's crimes were committed purely in the interest of his own political gain," Mr. Wallace told Mr. Howard before an audience of a few hundred after viewing the filmmakers new film "Frost/Nixon," which is about the only U.S. president to resign from office.

"I think to compare what Nixon did, and the abuses of power for pure political self preservation, to George W. Bush trying to protect this country — even if you disagree with rendition or waterboarding — it seems to me is both a gross misreading of history both then and now," Mr. Wallace said.

And!

"Yeah I respectfully would like to disagree with that," Mr. Wallace said. "It trivializes Nixon's crimes and completely misrepresents what George W. Bush did. Whatever George W. Bush did was after the savage attack of 9/11, in which 3,000 Americans were killed, and was done in service of trying to protect this country. I'm not saying that you have to agree with everything he did, but it was all done in the service of trying to protect this country and keep us safe."

"And the fact is that we sit here so comfortably, and the country has not been attacked again since 9/11," Mr. Wallace said.

Chris is right, of course. Bush is no Nixon. Nixon was a smart paranoid criminal lunatic who actually effectively managed the nation even as he abused the office for his personal gain, railed against Jews, and illegally bombed Cambodia. Bush, of course, is a messianic moron who ran the nation into the ground, allowed a great American city to be washed away, and lied us into a pointless, poorly planned foreign war because he was so stupidly convinced of his own essential goodness and infallibility.

But, you know, Chris is less right to dismiss Bush's various crimes as borne out of a desire to do good and protect the nation (and do good intentions actually make a difference when you're violating the fucking constitution from the office of the presidency, Chris? really?), as opposed to Nixon's supposedly less pure motives. What the hell was the illegal dismissal of seven US Attorneys for partisan political reasons? That was for the security of the nation?

Giving Karl Rove, architect of the permanent Republican majority plan, a policy position certainly smacks of "pure political self-preservation." The Valerie Plame thing?

Also, yes, Chris, motivation aside, making torture official United States policy is actually worse than a two-bit burglary. Asshole.

How the hell does Mike Wallace even talk to his miserable son?

After the jump: Which new dad is going to wish they never even heard the name David O. Russell in a matter of months?

· ABC won the night with the Three Hours of Country Music Industry Auto-Fellation You'll Never Get Back Again Awards. [Variety]
· Matthew McConaughey's life is about to be made a living hell by director David O. Russell in The Grackle, about a "barroom fighter in New Orleans who hires himself out for $250 to settle disputes." He then dispatches a couple of walleyed Malibu surfers to beat the shit out of the warring parties. [Variety]

As the Telegraph reports:

He went on to conclude: "My name is Adam Smith, also known as Steve Zacharanda, who has just resigned from the Birmingham Mail, the Birmingham Post and the Birmingham Sunday Mercury, to set up my own magazine. F—- you, I'm doing what I want."

Steve Dyson, the editor of the Birmingham Mail, declined to comment on the video, saying: "This is an internal matter".

This man is a hero to journalists everywhere.

[NYDN]

He described the live-action series as labyrinthine and similar to Lost. "It's not campy either — it's not The Gayest American Hero. He just happens to be gay. It's just one of the many things he wrestles with."

Moore, a longtime Walden Media executive, was one of the passel of producers on the Narnia movies, but sounds dramatically more excited about the producer who's helping shepherd Hero along: Stan Lee. "The ultimate fanboy moment," Moore calls the first phone call from "legend" Lee. "Just to have a straight older man who's the comic-book legend of all time ... just to have him think that the next big movie is my humble little creation about the world's first gay superhero — it was just wonderful. Wonderful!"

We're excited, too, if only for another moody, marquee franchise role in the making for Shia LeBeouf. Well, that and to see what the Happy Meal tie-in looks like.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

• Is America's First Gay Superhero Coming to TV? [Vulture]