Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Headlines - Wednesday May 19

 
Floundering Father, Glenn Beck, loses half his audience, proving that you can fool some of the people all of the time, but not even the dullest demographic five times a week.
 
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Betty Bowers says:
 
If they gave a Heisman trophy for outstanding hypocrisy, this year's frontrunners, in an admittedly crowded field, would be pious adulterer Mark Souder (R- Indiana) and his married mistress-on-the-payroll, Tracy Jackson. They appear in this smug little video touting the Bristol Palin approach to abstinence. You know, the type of Republican enthusiasm for anything popular with the base that stops just shy of being acted upon. These professional promoters of sexual self-control delight in tuttutting over a young man who got AIDS because he didn't have their type of Jesus-fueled willpower. Of particular delight is the subtext now that we know about their illicit relationship. Pert Jackson, playing late-night TV sidekick, abets as she fondles with Freudian relish a very thin pen. Note her wanton "I can't wait to peel back your freckled belly, Mister!" looks across the table as she all-but licks her teeth in pornalicious approval of her frumpy boss's scolding other people for doing exactly what they are just about to do! My only surprise (and thanks) is that these brazenly stupid people turned the camera off before they got down to it.
 
The (in)famous Mark Souder video where he discusses abstinence education with his mistress Tracy Jackson.
 
AH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA
AHAHAHAHA!
 
Fun fact: Souder voted to impeach Bill Clinton.
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"Overhaul" ain't gonna do it.  Fire everyone, and re-staff with the Gulf Coast fishermen and tour guides bankrupted by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. "US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has promised an overhaul of the agency that regulates offshore oil drilling. He promised to give more resources and independence to the Minerals Management Service (MMS). He was making his first appearance before Congress since the April 20 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, tarballs found off Florida's Key West are being tested to see if they come from the spill. Scientists fear it could travel up the East Coast. They are increasingly worried that the oil could get caught in a current that could take it to Florida, damaging coral reefs and killing more wildlife there. The blobs of oil can occur naturally or come from other sources, such as ships. "We believe it is unlikely (the tarballs) are from the Gulf oil spill, but we'll know for sure in a couple of days. While we are concerned about what will happen, we are trying to keep a positive attitude," Key West Mayor Craig Cates told Reuters news agency. If they are confirmed as having come from the Louisiana spill, they would mark the farthest point east and south that the leaking oil has reached."
 
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"Where is the oil?  Except for little of chunks of it,  you're not even seeing it on the shore yet." FOX's Brit Hume, saying the Gulf spill is no big deal,  Link  

"Britt Hume isn't sure there's actually a massive oil disaster in the Gulf, but he was absolutely fucking certain there were WMD's in Iraq." Attaturk, Link  

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Shell yesterday pushed ahead with plans to drill in the Arctic this summer, defying calls for a moratorium on offshore exploration in the pristine wilderness following the Gulf of Mexico disaster. If they do drill, it will be thanks to Obama, who opened up the area for drilling for the first time in 40 years.
 
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Chris Oynes, whose mismanagement of MMS helped create the Gulf disaster:

And how could we ever forget Lee Raymond?

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Turkana: The Gulf of Mexico may be dying, but that's not the big story. The danger may already be spreading out of the Gulf and into the Atlantic, but that's not the big story. The entire Southeast Coast could be in danger, but even that's not the big story. Joe Romm, of Climate Progress, has the big story:

It was the hottest April on record in the NASA dataset. More significantly, following fast on the heels of the hottest March and hottest Jan-Feb-March on record, it's also the hottest Jan-Feb-March-April on record [click on figure to enlarge].

The record temperatures we're seeing now are especially impressive because we've been in "the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century." It now appears to be over. It's just hard to stop the march of manmade global warming, well, other than by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, that is.

Most significantly, NASA's March prediction has come true: "It is nearly certain that a new record 12-month global temperature will be set in 2010.″

Our dependence on foreign sources of oil is a problem, but it isn't the real problem. Our dependence on dangerous drilling in fragile ecosystems is a problem, but it isn't the real problem.

The real problem is our dependence on fossil fuels. It doesn't matter where they come from, and it doesn't matter how they are drilled or mined. We cannot continue to burn fossil fuels. We have to create the technologies and the infrastructure, we have to educate the public and give people real alternatives, and we have to act as if we are in a crisis. Because we are. And it cannot be said often enough. 

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Albert Einstein

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There's an awesome article by Michael Lind at Salon today; in it, Lind breaks down the history of American capitalism into five different versions, leading to a point now, where, he says, it's time for a new version, American capitalism 6.0. What Lind leaves out is that each of his time periods ends with a great upheaval in the nation that forces social changes. For instance, version 1.0 ends with the Civil War. Sometimes, the result is a more responsible capitalist model, as with version 4.0, which came after the Great Depression, and, according to Lind, was, for all intents and purposes, a time of responsible capitalism. Then, post-1960s and 1970s rights movements and the Vietnam War, the increasing drive towards globalization saw an abandonment of regulation, starting with President Carter, and a greed virus released on the financial markets that has led us to our current endtimes. Lind concludes, "Capitalism 6.0 will be just as American as its predecessors, but it will be better than what we have today. It could not possibly be worse."

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Uncontrolled Experiment  by Mary

Although we humans see the effects of the oil gushing in the Gulf of Mexico in the encroaching veil of oil approaching land, the costs to the environment are much greater than we can yet know. Joel Achenbach writes about the mysterious life that inhabits the deep water of the gulf:

There is beauty in the lightless deep as well. Fan corals, lacylike doilies, form gardens on the seafloor and on sunken ships. The deep is full of crabs, sponges, sea anemones. Sharks hunt in the dark depths, as do sperm whales that feed on giant squid. The sperm whales have formed a year-round colony near the mouth of the Mississippi River, and have been known to rub themselves on oil pipes just like grizzlies rubbing against pine trees.

This is the unseen world imperiled by the uncapped oil well a mile below the surface of the gulf. The millions of gallons of crude, and the introduction of chemicals to disperse it, have thrown this underwater ecosystem into chaos, and scientists have no answer to the question of how this unintended and uncontrolled experiment in marine biology and chemistry will ultimately play out.

We must hope that something can be done to stop or greatly slow down this gusher soon, but the damage from the witch's brew created by humans in their lust for oil and the greed of the corporate chieftains that decided cutting corners in order to maximize profit will transform the ecology of the gulf for decades if not longer. Who knows when it will ever recover?

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If Bristol can pick up $30,000 for a speech, then more power to her.  Perhaps she does have something real to contribute to the issue of teenage pregnancy.  In any case, we can't hold it against her for being born to a self-serving, dimwit of a mom.  Hopefully, for her sake, she'll eventually get an education and become more than the daughter of $arah Palin.

Good luck, kid.  That is one huge monkey on your back.

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Interesting - The very First bank bailout?

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Bristol Palin's Formula for Teen Success
1. Be a Teen Who Gets Pregnant
Out of Wedlock.
2. Give Birth to a Bastard Child.
3. Drop Out of High School.
4. Make Speeches Warning Against
Teen Pregnancy for $30,000 Each.

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I've never understood this business of so-called Christians excusing their misdeeds by saying "I'm born again and forgiven" -- because a Jewish guy was nailed to a cross 2000 years ago. Even if you want to say that this act somehow absorbed all the sins of humanity in perpetuity, why the awesomeness of this act of self-sacrifice isn't taken seriously by such people is a mystery to me. I mean, if someone lets himself be killed for you, don't you owe it to that person's memory to live up to that sacrifice, rather than taking it as a "Get out of jail free" card?

I talk a lot about this idea of God and Satan playing Skee-Ball in a Keansburg, NJ arcade and Satan getting bonus points for successfully tempting Christians, but that's my construction based on someone a Christofascist Zombie once told me rather than any kind of official Christian doctrine.

So it's amusing, if predictable, to see the Usual Suspects blaming everything but Mark Souder's own hypocrisy and hubris for his downfall: 
http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/05/baby-jesus-died-on-cross-so-mark-souder.html

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Southerners were doing stupid shit in the early 1960s, saying that President Kennedy was a traitor and that he should be killed. They've done their level best to wash history of their despicable actions, but we all know what happened.

So stuff like this,
where a teacher in Alabama uses a hypothetical assassination of President Obama to teach geometry, doesn't surprise me one bit.

Sedition runs deep in the South.

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Bakery chain Panera Bread opens non-profit, pay-what-you-want shop.

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If you appreciate journalistic ethics, then surely you are aware of the most ethical moment of every day's journalism, when Glenn Beck spends a 15-minute segment crying and jumping and screaming about how Obama could finish destroying the American economy any day now, rendering the dollar worthless, after which Beck appears in the first commercial as a spokesman for Goldline. It's not just Beck, of course. Pick any right-wing radio show and you have the same situation. But Rep. Anthony Weiner has a problem with this fine practice and with the Goldline company in general. Is it now illegal in American capitalism to scare average folks into shorting American capitalism for fake prices?

Keep reading: 
http://wonkette.com/415481/anthony-weiner-attacking-glenn-beck-and-americas-best-company-goldline#more-415481
 
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Such tragedy, that this 80-year-old lifelong politician never really got his "shot" in the limelight.
 
With 43% of the precincts reporting, it seems Senator Blanche Lincoln will continue having difficulty voting, as she will have to do a run-off against Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, because right now it's Lincoln 44%-Halter 42%. But she is expected to win the runoff, and maybe win her seat back.
 
RAND PAUL (hater of the Americans with Disabilities Act and teabagger) IS PRESIDENT OF KENTUCKY: The MSNBC has just called it and Doctor Senator Rand Paul, son of TOMMY JEFFERSON AND JESUS AND GUY FAWKES COMBINED, is projected to beat Trey Grayson, "some guy," in the Kentucky Senate primary. Congratulations Doctor Rand Paul! FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!
 
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You will be shocked to hear that BP could have stopped what Rachel Maddow calls the Oil Volcano in the Gulf weeks ago, but is still refusing to use that simple solution because - yes, you guessed it - it would cost them too much.
 
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Some dreams are bad dreams
 
Digby on Glenn Beck's surreal commencement speech at Falwell's Liberty U in which he cried, giggled inappropriately and said things like "cabs smell bad in the summer." It was awe-inspiring in its own freakish way. Certainly memorable.

Contrast that with a
sane political TV broadcaster.
 
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h/t Fred
 
Pat Bagley: Marriner S. Eccles: Steely-eyed Utah financier was ahead of his time and Living History: The banker who saved the New Deal
 

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