The Real Reason All Those Oil Companies Screwed Up

We'd have been better off if the Three Stooges had been in charge of drilling in the Gulf.

Moe Inc., Larry Inc., and Curly Inc. Woowoowoowoowoooooo!

Well, let’s see, you still need papers in Arizona–finish the danged fence, eh, John McCain? And Elena Kagan is now the darling of Laura Bush–who has started opening her mouth more and more since she doesn’t have to just nod her head and smile–although she does that quite a lot in her new book–the one with the mummy mask on the cover? So it looks like we’re back with the LaGulfa Tar Pit–formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. Just think, boys and girls, in 50,000 years, people, or whatever intelligent species will be inhabiting this planet, will be able to excavate the Gulf of Mexico and find all sorts of creatures that used to live in the ocean!

We were treated to the spectacle of BP, Transocean and Halliburton all pointing fingers at each other, saying that it was some other guy’s fault that for nearly a month now, crude oil has been gushing into the sea, endangering wildlife, fishing, creating a dead zone far greater than the previous one, and in general, becoming OILMAGEDDON. Really, it looked like a Three Stooges movie. In fact, it probably would have been much more fun for all of us victims to see these three guys slapping each other and poking fingers into eyes!

True, this is probably unfair to Moe, Larry and Curly. They only created disasters on a purely local level. Like leveling a house. It takes an oil executive to create one on a global scale! See what a college education can do for YOU!

The “Drill, Baby, Drill” ideologues have in the meantime weighed in with their peculiar brand of irrationality. Sarah Palin says this is why we shouldn’t trust furriners like BRITISH Petroleum (never mind that TransOcean and Halliburton are American companies). Rush Limbaugh ideates that environmentalists did this to scotch any further offshore drilling–this is the cutting off your nose to spite your face strategy–or maybe Koreans. He’s not sure–he’ll know in another dose of oxycodone. And of course, the pro-drill crowd says this just PROVES we need to do more offshore drilling–look at all the oil we’re losing, we’ve got to make that up SOMEHOW and after all, practice makes perfect!

In the meantime, BP has tried to cap the well with the TOP HAT and the HOT TAP–amazing that the ONLY thing they’ve gotten to work so far is something that allows them to recover some of the spill into a tanker, but in the meantime, we still have the 10 mile long plumes of crude shooting out to sea. And it’s getting near the current that will take it to the Florida Keys. Ernest Hemingway couldn’t do it, hurricanes couldn’t do it, but it looks like good old capitalism will finally shut Sloppy Joe’s down!

And as we watch the death of one of the most important bodies of water in the world, let’s have a drink on that old fisherman and his soon-to-be-vanished marlin. One more for my baby and one more for the road–because it was the road that got us here.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!

Or maybe it’s just the hot air cloud over Rush’s studio…

Too big to nail?

Well, our natural world seems to be having its fun with us as a huge ash cloud erupts from Mount Eyjafjallajokull (Eye-ya-falafel-cul?) and cuts off Europe from air travel for several days. This is not the first time such a huge cloud has occurred: there was the famous Mt. St. Helens eruption back in 1980. The centuries have been dotted with darknesses “enveloping the whole of Europe” as the description of one 5th century eruption of Mt. Vesuvius that, curiously enough, signaled the start of the Dark Ages (although the Dark Ages could have been presaged by an eruption of Mount Etna in 417, on whose dating, I, in an earlier incarnation as an historian, wrote a paper on in 1990 (Olympiodorus’ Eruption of Mount Etna: a possible dating of 417. EOS: Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 71:329-334)). Rush Limbaugh has been having fun with it, calling attention to Obama’s statement on the passing of the health care bill that the world hasn’t ended yet. I certainly hope the Almighty has better aim than to punish Europe for OUR supposed transgression, so I shall assume that Rush-boy is being ironic, should he be capable of such complexity of thought.

But with such a global disaster, it might be better to look for a more global transgression, and I think we have our candidate at Goldman Sachs. Their financial manipulations–along with other august companies–managed to pull off a global economic disaster, yet their CEO Lloyd Blankfein had the effrontery to make a positively BLASPHEMOUS statement that he was “doing God’s work” while bankrupting the entire world. Now if I know one thing about Our Lord God Jehovah, you can kill millions of people and He won’t bat an eyelash, but say one thing wrong about Him and all Armageddon is gonna bust loose. On top of all, Goldman Sachs has the sheer CHUTZPAH to announce 5 billion dollars in bonuses to be paid to its executives–you know, the ones who bet short on the world disaster they themselves engineered–and you say, enough is enough.

The teabaggers have it all wrong–the cause of our ills is not the government–tho it’s not helping by spending 20 times the amount that could eliminate world hunger on a military that has gotten itself bogged down in the middle of a desert for 8 years. It’s these bankers who think God’s work consists of lining their pockets with our money. They’re no better than the guy who is going to the track and convinces you to bet on a certain longshot that he says he has a tip that it can’t loose. Then, when he goes to the track, bets all YOUR money on the favorite and after the race, picks up one of the losing tickets off the floor to give you with the lame explanation that he’s never gonna listen to THAT TIPSTER again. It’s beyond time that they should be sued for fraud. It’s about time that they should be INDICTED for it!

In the meantime, Europe is enjoying a slower pace and beautiful sunsets. Maybe Mt. St. Palin in Alaska will explode in a few years and we’ll be the lucky ones 😀

I went to a small con this weekend in Alexandria called T-MODE and had a great time. The advantage of a small con is its size–you can meet everyone and do everything. Naturally, you have a bigger selection of activities at a big con, but you always wind up missing some things you would have enjoyed. The organizers of T-MODE called it “fun-sized” and that it was. I got to hear a lovely singer Emi Meyer (also on MySpace–beautiful woman, beautiful voice, beautiful music) and hip hop artist Shing02 and DJ Icewater. I had a TAIKO DRUM LESSON from Doug Manring (Power Kix Drum Team and Real School of Rock) as well as meeting the new voice of Haruhi Suzumiya and a great singer herself Cristina Vee. Also there were our friends from the webcomic Geeks Next Door, who gave sessions ON webcomics, and Interrobang Studios, whose artist Sarah Martinez, gave a great session on surviving Artist’s Alley. I didn’t get to meet the vocal artist Mega Ran (aka Random) or voice actor Todd Haberkorn, or Roland Kelts, author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has invaded the US–I did have to run home and feed the kitten occasionally LOL. Oh and I nearly forgot, I got interviewed for Vidgle and I hope to have up a link next week to my podcast with them 🙂 Congratulations to the organizers–I had a great time. My personal photos will be up on my Flicker account later this week.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!

The National Health Care Soap Opera Hits a Curtain–Intermission or Climax?

Making believe they are the true Amaricans, teabaggers hurl racial and other epithets at the Congress ...

Teabagging's true colors--and I don't mean red, white and blue

After a year of deals, compromises, debates, broken promises, lies, protests, counterprotests, Health Care Reform(?) is passed. With all the incredible rancor and venom, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have to be congratulated for actually getting SOMETHING done. There are about 32 million people who will have them to thank for actually having some kind of health care, and countless others who will not be denied coverage for “pre-existing conditions” or other BS. Is it a perfect bill? Hell, it may not even be all that GOOD a bill. It strengthens the stranglehold of the health insurance industry–that mandate for all citizens to buy health insurance can be seen as nothing less than a bribe to get the parasites to give up denial of coverage and if anyone thinks that the insurers are going to keep rates down and risk lowering executive salaries and bonuses, I’ve still got that bridge in Brooklyn I’m offering on eBay.

But let us be generous and think of it as a first step in what is likely to be an arduous journey. Real Reform for the rest of us lies further ahead. Let us be thankful for the people who won’t be forced to die for lack of medical care.

You would think the votes wouldn’t be so close. But all you have to do is look at the demonstrations over the weekend to see the bitterness that poisoned the hope of better legislation. Teabaggers running through the House offices, banging on doors and shouting. Hurling racial and other insults at Representatives as they prepared to vote. Spitting on them. One person in a wheelchair was mocked and told his “free ride” was over.

It wasn’t because of the sweeping nature of the plan. It kept to guidelines established by Republicans decades ago. This bitterness arose because some people in the US could not abide the thought of a black President and wanted to do anything in their power to destroy his tenure in office. They were whipped into a fury by Fox News and demagogues like Rush Limbaugh. Responsible Republican leadership has been out to lunch. They excuse this behavior instead of telling the teabaggers to stop acting like children. And they did this because the teabaggers were pulling the stunts they themselves knew they couldn’t get away with. Finally, after the vote, Boehner told everyone to start acting like adults.

But the genie’s out of the bottle. This is not the end of the teabaggers, I betcha. I hate to see what will happen next.

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!

I guess we’re lucky Eric Massa didn’t try to tickle Rahm Emanuel

Glenn Beck gets a vision of Eric Massa trying to retaliate against Rahm Emanuel by tickling him to death

We TOLD Glenn Beck not to look!

Poor Glenn Beck! He was sure he was onto the key to the downfall of Obama’s socialist fascism. Rush Limbaugh told him not to do it. Bill O’Reilly told him not to do it. Michelle Malkin told him not to do it. But…he did it. He booked Eric Massa.

Eric Massa had been loudly proclaiming that he was being forced out of office because he was the key vote for dooming health care. Salivate, Glenn, Salivate! What did they do to you? What kind of pressure did they put on you? Well, I have non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. NEVER MIND THAT–the WHITE House–what did they do? OK, there were these sexual harassment allegations. AH-HAH! And those weren’t true at all? Well, of course, I groped a few people. Guy people. I mean, who doesn’t when you’ve had a few?

Ummmmm…

And then there were the tickle fights. Nothing sexual at all there. How can you say that’s sexual harassment?

Ummmmm…

I’ve been fighting these charges all my life. What we need to do is campaign reform! Stop calling each other names like socialist, fascist! You can be a progressive and a fiscal conservative at the same time! What we don’t need are these teabaggers pretending the deficit didn’t happen until Barack Obama took office.

Ummmmm…

Don’t worry Glenn, you didn’t waste our time. THAT night. Now try not wasting it every OTHER night!

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!

Palin’s Pick, Preferred by Pawlenty, in Potsdam and Plattsburgh, got Plainly and Powerfully Pwned

Sarah Palin is offered THE BOX--press the button and a million dollars in publicity, but a conservative has to lose an election--PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS PRESS

Also starring Doug Hoffman and Frank Langella

This is going to grab me no readers–after all, the results of this past Tuesday’s election are already wrapping yesterday’s fish. Which is odd, considering the runup which made it seem like it was the most important election after the last election (as Jon Stewart noted). Yesterday we had 24 hours of “Was this a referendum on Obama?” or “Was it just local politics?” Myself, I think it was a little bit of the former and a LOT of the latter. But That is NUANCE. And Cable TV News doesn’t do nuance. Leaving aside Faux News as a propaganda machine, the other two 25/8 news networks wouldn’t know nuance if it grabbed a mallet from hammerspace and hit them over the head. I mean, when Wolf Blitzer accidentally got a confession from Balloon Boy, someone had to whisper it in his earpiece before he even noticed what he’d tripped over. And over on MSNBC, Chris Matthews’ idea of a debate resembles more a college wrestling match than any intellectual exchange–2 out of 3 throws. But I shouldn’t take them to task–even the newspapers don’t do nuance any more–and they wonder why they’re being run out of business by the Internets.
Anyhow, to return to Tuesday’s election, pretty much everything happened the way it could really be expected–no matter how much anyone hoped otherwise. But the fun race of the day was Congressional District 23 of New York. District 23 has gone Republican for the last 2000 years, and this year it promised no difference. IF it hadn’t been for the teabaggers who decided that the Republican candidate, Dierdre Scozzafava, was a closet lefty, planning to bring socialism down on the heads of her constituents. After all, she supported abortion rights and gay marriage, the next thing you know, she would be demanding the re-distribution of wealth. So they sent in their ringer, Doug Hoffman. Hoffman, who had to be told where the 23rd District was, had no idea what its issues might be–he was being sent in to defend the country from Kenyan aliens masquerading as Hawaiians. Soon Sarah Palin descended upon the 23rd District, tho’ invited by none. Along with Tim Pawlenty, governor of Minnesota, they supported the hell out of Dougie.
Now you know the deer in the headlights look. Imagine that deer suddenly noticing a 16-wheeler coming hellbent down the highway at 85 mph and you’ll have a good idea of how Doug Hoffman started to look. I mean seriously, I’ve never seen a candidate with a more shell-shocked expression on his face–if he opened his eyes any wider, they would have exploded from the pressure differential. Because of or in spite of Sarah’s help, he started taking Scozzafava’s voter base and Scozzafava dropped out–instructing her supporters to vote for the DEMOCRAT, Bill Owens, who was at least playing fair. Despite that clue, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, and the rest, all fell over themselves predicting a landslide for the carpetbagger. The entire MSM called it the most important race of all time because it would show how much support Obama had lost and how important the teabaggers had become.
Then Dougie lost. The 23rd went Democrat for the first time in two millenia and … everyone switched gears and started discussing NJ and VA and THAT became the referendum on Obama. And by Monday, no one will even remember if we had the most important off-off year election of the century last Tuesday.
Have a good weekend folks 🙂

ANNOY YOUR FRIENDS! CONFOUND YOUR ENEMIES! PRESS ONE OF THESE BUTTONS--OR ELSE!