Archive for May, 2010
BP’s Experiments With Truth
Even at this stage of the game, BP continues to play fast and loose with the truth. The top kill procedure at the Deepwater Horizon site started on Wednesday, at 1 p.m. CDT. For about ten hours, BP’s engineers pumped the heavy drilling mud into the blown well. Around 11 p.m. CDT on Wednesday, this [...]
Quote Of The Day
U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt, releasing the findings of a U.S. government expert panel that has produced an official pronouncement on the amount of oil that has spilled from the Deepwater Horizon: This is obviously a very, very significant environmental disaster and I think with the numbers I’ve given you, you can do the [...]
Microsoft: Real World Shark, Stock Market Minnow
Given the great-white-shark reputation that Microsoft Corporation has earned for itself over the years, I was quite surprised when I stumbled upon the fact that the return on its stock over the last ten years hasn’t exactly been very stellar. In May 2000, Microsoft’s stock closed at $62.56. Adjusted for a two-for-one stock split on [...]
Hysterically Hysterical
How upset is the religious right over the prospect that Dont Ask Don’t Tell might be repealed? You really shouldn’t have asked! Here’s how the Family Research Council envisions things going if Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is repealed: first, more straight soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines will be fellated in their sleep against their will. [...]
Scenes From A Spill
Here’s Mac McClelland of Mother Jones reporting from the front lines. (On) Grand Isle beach … toddlers splash in the surf. Only after I’ve stepped in a blob of crude do I realize that the sheen on the waves and the blackness covering a little blue heron from the neck down is oil. The next [...]
The Dream Team With Feet Of Clay
Back in January 2009, when President Obama was assembling his Justice Department team, liberal bloggers were giddy with excitement over the fine, fine people he was picking. Champions of the Constitution, and paragons of virtue, they were going to preside over the Constitution’s slow but complete recovery from the gang rape it had suffered for [...]
How Retarded Can One Corporation Be?
BP — like many other corporate behemoths — has claimed for years in its advertisements to be deeply committed to public service, in many different forms. Nice to see them actually living up to such claims. It must be purely as a public service that they are putting on a clinic (for the whole world, [...]
Ya Think?
Craig Crawford on CQ Politics: The President’s supporters don’t automatically vote for someone just because he asks them to. We saw this trend again on Tuesday. Sen. Arlen Specter had counted on White House backing, but lost Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary. Of course, it didn’t help that Obama dodged last minute campaigning for Specter, despite flying [...]
On The National Stage, Front And Center
(1) Rand Paul, and his views on the Civil Rights Act, dominated the news yesterday. His campaign wriggled and squirmed all day, trying to defuse the situation his sincerely held and clearly expressed beliefs have got him into. His campaign issued a statement at midday: Even though this matter was settled when I was 2, [...]
Who Is Rand Paul? Who, Who? Woo Hoo!
Meet Rand Paul. The most salient thing about him is that he’s currently lacking an ass. And just to make it clear that’s not an animal reference, the Daily Show‘s John Oliver — may his tribe increase — would call it his arse. Except that he doesn’t currently have one, so it’s not really his [...]