Big Sole Blog (BSB)

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Miranda Lambert's emotional performance of "The House That Built Me" got to me, too. The country singer and wife of Blake Shelton, sang the song at Wednesday night's benefit on NBC, Healing in the Heartland, for victims of that massive tornado that slammed Moore, Oklahoma, earlier this month. Tornado destruction or not

Through his Rebuild the Dream organization, environmental activist Van Jones seems to be playing the prophet Nathan to President Obama's David on matters of climate change. Jones says in the video above that if President Obama continues to support the Keystone XL Pipeline, then the president should rename it "The Obama Tar Sands Pipeline." Clearly Jones is disappointed in President Obama

Sinkholes fascinate and terrify me. They have for years, long before I heard about the story of the man whose bedroom was sucked into one in Florida in February. So, when I see a story about sinkholes on the news or online, I have to watch or read, and lately, if the report is about sinkholes in general, like the video posted above, I wait to see whether the reporter covers the mess we've got

Giraffes' mating ritual commences at Disney World's Animal Kingdom Lodge, but doesn't get far.

I know people who live in Terrebonne Parish and near the Atchafalaya Basin. Naturally some of them are suspicious about the reasons behind the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (USACE) decision to open the Morganza Spillway because its opening will result in flooding an area that includes approximately 25,000 people in south-central Louisiana. This event is rightfully described as a modern-day

New Orleans-located infectious disease expert Dr. Brobson Lutz says in the video above that people going to watch the rising Mississippi River along the area's levees should be more concerned about the viruses they could catch from mosquito bites than about encountering a snake. He said that whenever flooding makes the news, you can count on someone to air video with a snake swimming in the flood

President Barack Obama said that he and First Lady Michelle wanted to express their deepest condolences to families in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and the other states hit by tornadoes earlier this week. "I've never seen devastation like this," the President told reporters as captured in CNN video, and he also assured citizens that he will get the maximum federal help to the ravaged states as soon as

Below is an effective montage of video footage from CNN of the earthquake hitting Japan, the tsunami destruction, and the aftermath of these two catastrophic events. In the shadow of loss of life--"more than 1,000 feared dead"--and property, the Japanese face another potential catastrophe with unstable nuclear power plants shaken by the 8.9-magnitude earthquake. The area around one of the plants

My dad told me yesterday that he heard Wal-Mart was going to stop building mega stores, to get away from big box monstrosities and try to look more like the "little guy." I thought that maybe he had confused the news, but he was fairly accurate in his report.Wal-mart will purue urban areas with smaller stores. That will be good for some communities that grocery stores have abandoned.And its

National media is still on the BP Gulf of Mexico oil leak/spill/greatest environmental disaster of all time/oilpocalypse--whatever the media gurus are calling it now. CNN is reporting on the next phase of well fixing, putting mud in the well, called a "static kill." Next comes relief wells. Watching the video at the top of this post, I marvel at how I'm not breaking out in hives. The video

The probability that the oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico would reach Lake Pontchartrain has been one of my concerns since the oil crisis began, and today I and other New Orleans area residents learned that tar balls have been spotted in the lake in the Rigolets. WWL TV reports:The tarballs floated to the shore in the Treasure Isle subdivision near Slidell."The

From the L.A. Times:William Allen Kruse, 55, a charter boat captain recently hired by BP as a vessel of opportunity out of Gulf Shores, Ala., died Wednesday morning before 7:30 a.m. of a gunshot to the head, likely self-inflicted, authorities said."He had been quite despondent about the oil crisis," said Stan Vinson, coroner for Baldwin County, which includes Gulf Shores.Additional reports say

Is it raining oil in Louisiana? Worse, is it raining oil with Corexit in Louisiana? I don't know. As I start this post, I'm collecting some rain in Louisiana in a container outside where it's pouring. My location is about 34 miles from Bay St. Louis, Miss. and technically closer to the Gulf of Mexico than River Ridge, La., where a video producer says it's raining oil. So, I'm about halfway

Here's a video of BP's CEO Tony Hayward testifying before congress boiled down to four minutes. It's all you need to know to understand why people in the U.S.A. are angry with Hayward short of reading all my oil posts. This video comes courtesy of Huffington Post, where you can read the associated story, "The Man Who Wasn't There."...if I was the CEO of a major oil company (and was asked) ... "