Schadenfreude, via the Financial Times.
The value of the Murdoch family's shareholding in News Corp has fallen by $1bn since the political firestorm erupted over the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World.
I hadn't realized that the British Prime Minister's former director of communications, Andy Coulson, had resigned over this affair, and was just arrested as a result of it.
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How hot has it been across the U.S.?
Well, as CBS reports…
- 17 states have issued heat warnings and advisories
- Oklahoma City has seen 47 consecutive days of 90+ degree temperature with only a single day this month below 100
- Record temperatures in various cities and towns has seen the high temperature record tied or broken over 800 times
- Tallahassee, Florida: 105 degrees on June 15 – Record high
- Amarillo, Texas: 111 degrees on June 26 – Record high
- Borger, Texas: 112 degrees on June 26 – Record high
- Childress, Texas: 117 degrees on June 26 – Record high
- Gage, Oklahoma: 113 degrees on June 26 – Record high
- 29% of the U.S. is in drought and 12% is in exceptional drought – both are record highs
Tragic circumstances as the weather plays havoc with the lives of millions. So, what does Mary Fallin, Oklahoma's Republican Governor, suggest people do?
Pray. Actually, she's called for a statewide day of prayer.
"I think if we have a lot of people praying, it moves the heart of God."
Is there anything wrong with people praying and asking for divine intervention at a time of crisis?
Definitely not if praying to one's god helps comfort the soul and gives greater strength to deal with a difficult situation. In that case, it's a positive. But if praying to one's god is an excuse to sit on your ass and do nothing, then the practice is both dangerous and foolish.
In 2009, Mary Fallin, as a member of the United States Congress, voted against a global warming bill. Here was her rationale for doing so.
"Our state is a large producer of both oil and natural gas, and the restrictions this legislation places on the production and exploration of these resources will devastate our energy producers. That will not only destroy oil and gas related jobs, it will also lead to a reduction in tax revenue, which in turn will affect our ability to maintain and repair roads, bridges, schools and other public works and services."
As a gubernatorial candidate in 2010, she said.
Protecting our nation should be a number one priority. Does leadership really think that our surveillance satellites should be aimed at polar ice caps and not terror cells, and that spies should be investigating global warming? Congress must adequately fund our intelligence operations. If we don't, we may need to be more concerned about global warming in the U.S. caused by a nuclear attack in our own back yard.
She is on record as saying that climate legislation is completely unnecessary. Somehow, Fallin believes it makes much more sense to call for the citizens of her state to bow their heads, get down on their knees and pray to god to make it all go away even though climate science predicts the exact sort of extreme weather patterns which Oklahoma is currently experiencing.
Rest assured that while the ignorance displayed by Mary Fallin is astounding, it is secure and happy in the minds of Republican leadership everywhere.
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Utah Democrats made history Saturday afternoon, electing Jim Dabakis as state party chairman by a wide margin. He is believed to be the state's first openly gay major party leader. Dabakis, who is an art dealer and co-founder of both the Utah Pride Center and Equality Utah, said his election shows how fair-minded the people of Utah are. "I visited all 29 counties during the last five months, and people were very interested in what kind of a job I would do and what my experience was," Dabakis said. "The whole gay thing just simply did not surface as an issue. People are broad-minded in Utah, and they want to know if you can do the job or not."
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action. (you liberate a city by destroying it.) Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.~Gore Vidal
David Dayen at Firedoglake gets to the core of liberal discontent with Obama: He never makes the case for the liberal values he claims to support, and does everything he can to prevent anyone else from making the case, either.
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Republicans Backing A Balanced Budget Amendment Refuse To Say How They'd Balance The Budget
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By now you know there has been another BP oil spill, this time a ruptured pipeline in Alaska. But the evening news may have left this tidbit out: "A section of the BP pipeline that leaked thousands of gallons of methanol and oily wastewater into the Alaskan tundra on Saturday was flagged by the company more than a year ago as so corroded it presented an imminent threat of rupture. ... Documents obtained by ProPublica last fall listed 148 sections of pipelines that BP said failed its basic inspection criteria. These sections had worn so thin - in some cases to a few thousandths of an inch - that internal BP records said they needed to be replaced, or operated only under reduced pressure. Among the pipelines listed was the one that leaked Saturday: the "Drill Site L1" line at the company's Lisburne Production Center, a large oil gathering facility near the shoreline of the Beaufort Sea."
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