A constructive suggestion for retribution against BP

Look at this: BP knew about problems at that burning oil rig 11 months ago. They screwed up with bad decisions in the short interval immediately before the explosion, but documents have come to light showing that they were worried about “loss of control” months before the disaster — and what they did in response was to ask for delays in testing (which they got), and then they fudged the tests by using a lower pressure.

This is basically criminal misconduct. But hey, what’s the point of getting upset over 11 deaths and a mere environmental catastrophe? We need the oil. Let’s just help the oil companies get beyond this.

Here’s a map of the approximately 4000 oil rigs operating in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Everyone is fixated on that one burning mess in the Gulf, which is probably exactly what the oil companies want — they are probably sweating pungent carcinogenic petrochemicals at the thought that someone might look around and notice all of those other rigs, which almost certainly have a paper trail of shortcuts and risks and shoddy management. While BP is struggling to catch up with its responsibilities and close off the well and clean up the poisons, I think a great thing for the Obama administration to do would be to descend on each of those other wells with a force of elite regulatory accountants, documenting all the potential and extant problems, and telling each company to fix them. Now. Without cheating, without getting any special dispensations. If they can’t fix them, shut them down or hit them with massive penalties.

I have a very low opinion of oil company executives. I doubt that they have any sincere regrets about the loss of life or the destruction of the environment. But having to fix every place where they shaved corners, and pay out money to bring everything up to legally mandated standards — now that will make them cry.

Hmm. Here’s another site with a count of US oil and gas rigs — it says there are about 1500. I can’t account for the discrepancy, unless there has been a rapid decline in the last few years (this site is more current), or there is some other criterion for inclusion in this particular list.

It doesn’t matter, of course — except that a smaller number makes it easier to review them all.

Republicans discover sarcasm, don’t like it much

I’ve been receiving a lot of mail lately urging me to pharyngulate the America Speaking Out site, but when I saw what it was about, I held off…I could tell what kind of self-screwing it was going to be. Here’s the premise: the Republicans saw, in their remote and confused sort of way, that the internet (aka “series of tubes”) had some real potential, and looked really smart, and maybe if they took advantage of it, they could look a little less yokely and rubish. Seriously. You can’t make this stuff up.

Lest you think Republicans are just discovering the Internet, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.) let it be known that “House Republicans have tweeted five times as many as the House Democrats. Leader Boehner has almost five times as many Facebook fans as Speaker Pelosi.” Boehner grinned and gave a double thumbs-up.

Rep. Mike Pence (Ind.) contributed to the discussion by twice giving out the wrong address for the new site.

So what did they do that was making them so pathetically proud? They created an open web site to formulate an agenda for the future of the Republican party, where anyone could make any proposal, and everyone could vote on it. No filters, except against profanity. The doors are open, y’all are invited to come on in and tell the Republicans what to do.

The results are predictable: complete chaos. Teabaggers are raving, liberal saboteurs are inserting all kinds of crazy suggestions, and you can’t tell them apart. You tell me; which of the following suggestions are serious, and which are taking the piss?

A ‘teacher’ told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story.

Require all Muslims in the U.S. to wear ankle bracelet transponders so we know where the terrorists are at all times.

We should administer capital punishment to anyone who has an abortion. In order to cut costs that the death penalty normally entails, we will have lax gun laws that will allow people to obtain guns with greater ease. Then we would allow the “free-market” to dictate whose philosophy wins out – the liberals irrational philosophy or our logical and God following philosophy. Liberals who have abortions would be taken care of by a militia of the willing who will get rid of all liberals who take the life others irrationally and will allow us to remove all of our opponents to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

all leaders should proclaim faith in Jesus Christ. anyone who does not, like muslims and atheists should be removed from office.

It’s like Poe’s Law written out all across the country, on every subject. It’s insane.

They’ve also discovered another little problem: Americans are rushing to take part in the hilarity, and this error message is coming up all the time.

A very high volume of Americans are speaking out right now.

Please wait a moment and try again.

I bet they are. Every basement-dwelling troglodyte with an opinion, and every laughing liberal looking for a giggle, is hitting that site right now. And once again, the Republicans are looking like incompetent idiots.

Another reason to ban official prayer at public meetings

Cynthia Dunbar, one of the wingnuts on the Texas board of education, is a revolting human being. She delivered a ‘prayer’ before a meeting that is an excellent example of grandstanding piety. She seems to be lecturing god on American history…her version of American history.

Of course she wasn’t actually lecturing god — that entity doesn’t exist, and if you believe he does, then it would be an act of hubris to stand there and tell him what to think — but she was instead taking a moment to harangue the committee and audience with her far-right revisionist baloney without risk that someone might challenge her. In a room full of god-fearin’ folk, she didn’t have to worry about anyone interrupting a prayer to tell her that she’s full of crap. It was an act of outrageous cowardice.

Here are a few bits of what she said.

I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the savior have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses.

Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England…the same objective is present — a Christian land governed by Christian principles.

I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion. I like also to believe that as long as we do so, no great harm can come to our country.

That’s not a prayer. Those are dogmatic assertions, used to advance a loony political position.

Why shouldn’t public meetings begin with a prayer? Because they’re usually sectarian, always inane, and as we see here, can be used to advocate a specific political point under the mask of piety.

Unbelievable!

A Republican congressman from Indiana, Mark Souder, is resigning. He’s one of those conservative, abstinence-only sorts of politicians who uses family, family, family to flog his politics for him, so it’s no surprise that the reason he’s quitting is that he got caught with his pants down in an affair.

But sit down, here’s the part you will not believe: it was a heterosexual fling! Maybe he should get a medal from his party for confounding expectations.

I’m ashamed of our governor

It’s not all good news: Jonathan Katz may have lost a position, but someone who had much more power to do good keeps his. Our Minnesota governor, Tim Pawlenty, is also a homophobic jerk—he just vetoed a bill that promoted some common decency, giving gay partners a few end-of-life rights and responsibilities, so gay people could make decisions about disposition of the body at the death of a partner, for instance. It was a bill that did not go so far as to legalize gay marriage, but simply acknowledged that grieving gay people ought not to be barred from making decisions about the people they love.

And Governor Pawlenty shot down basic human decency, making noises about defining marriage as “between a man and a woman” and how he opposes efforts to “treat domestic relationships as the equivalent of traditional marriage”. He’s a rotten excuse for a human being.

But then, he is a Republican.

The pandering slimeball is angling for a presidential nomination in the next election, and he knows the only way the Republicans will pay attention to him is if he plays up more bigotry and hatred. He’s going to be sidling farther and farther rightward in the next few years, and it’s not going to be good for Minnesota.

Proud Homophobe gets just deserts

I remember Joycelyn Elders. The woman was appointed to the position of surgeon general, and when asked about masturbation at a conference on AIDS, she replied, “I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught.” It was a perfectly ordinary comment about something nearly everyone does or has done, and she got fired for it, by Bill Clinton. It was part of my disillusionment and disappointment with the Democrats.

Now look who Obama has appointed to a team to assist with the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico: Jonathan I. Katz. He’s not quite a climate change denialist, but the next best thing: he agrees that the climate is warming, that it’s anthropogenic, but tells us that it’s good for us, and we ought to stop research on it. At the same time, he’s doing research on geoengineering to counteract global warming. I’m confused. I think he’s confused.

But here’s what made me think of Joycelyn Elders. Katz is a self-admitted, flaming homophobe, and he’s proud of it. Literally. He comes right out and says it while blaming gays for killing innocent people (the deaths of gays, of course, were there own damn fault).

Unfortunately, the victims are not only those whose reckless behavior brought death on themselves. There are many completely innocent victims, too: hemophiliacs (a substantial fraction died as a result of contaminated clotting factor), recipients of contaminated transfusions, and their spouses and children, for AIDS can be transmitted heterosexually (in America, only infrequently) and congenitally. The icy road was lined with unsuspecting innocents, who never chose to ride a motorcycle. Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves.

What of those cursed with unnatural sexual desires? Must they forever suppress these desires? Yes, but this is hardly a unique fate. Almost everyone has desires which must be suppressed. Most men and women think adulterous thoughts fairly often, and find themselves attracted to members of the opposite sex to whom they are not married. Morality requires them to suppress these desires, and most do not commit adultery, though they feel lust in their hearts. Almost everyone, at one time or another, covets another’s property. They do not steal. Many people feel great anger or intense hatred at some time in their lives. They do not kill.

I am a homophobe, and proud.

This is what I don’t get. Joycelyn Elders could make an accurate, honest, and relevant comment about the fact that masturbation is a part of human sexuality, and that if we’re concerned about sexually transmitted diseases, it is a reasonable alternative outlet for sexual urges…and she got fired for it.

Jonathan Katz writes stupid and wrong comments about how gay people are killers, and says that they should completely suppress their sexual urges…and he gets a distinguished appointment from the Obama administration.

However, there is some good news here. People complained, and the administration listened: Katz has been dismissed from the position. Maybe there is some hope after all.

Now we just get to sit back and wait for the wingnuts to start complaining about the exclusion of bigotry.

Aww, who needs those pesky principles of justice anyway?

Have you heard about the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act?

Meanwhile, the bill recently introduced by Joe Lieberman and John McCain — the so-called “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act” — now has 9 co-sponsors, including the newly elected Scott Brown.  It’s probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act.  It literally empowers the President to imprison anyone he wants in his sole discretion by simply decreeing them a Terrorist suspect — including American citizens arrested on U.S. soil.  The bill requires that all such individuals be placed in military custody, and explicitly says that they “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners,” which everyone expects to last decades, at least.  It’s basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla — arrest him on U.S. soil and imprison him for years in military custody with no charges. 

If this bill passes, may I suggest that, since it does undermine the rule of law and does great damage to the republic, that the first persons charged under its provisions be the despicable McCain and Lieberman? Won’t they be surprised!

Of course, since we do respect the rule of law, I suggest that everyone write to their congresspeople and tell them that you oppose this bill. Save McCain and Lieberman from the fate of Danton and Robespierre!

Congress is a dysfunctional mess

Once upon a time, there was a bill moving through congress that was a good bill. It increased funding for research, and for science and math education. It had bipartisan support and was sailing through.

There is a villain to this story, though. Some congresscreatures — Republicans, led by a fool from Texas — didn’t like the good little bill. It’s not clear why. Maybe because it was going to cost some money. Maybe just because they don’t like that science and education stuff.

So they hatched a plan, taking advantage of a little rule. They made a motion to recommit, stopping the bill in its tracks by adding a new addition that would require the whole thing to go back to committee. Congress could vote to kill the addition, which would let the bill proceed, or they could vote to for the recommit, throwing the good little bill back.

Now here’s the cunning part: the addition was a completely irrelevant demand, a new requirement that federal employees caught watching porn would not get paid. Congress could vote for better science and education funding and allow porn watching, or they could vote against science and education and against porn. Sneaky. Devious. Evil. Jebus, but I’ve come to despise Republicans.

So what happened? 121 Democrats promptly abandoned the bill and voted against it. Because they’re cowards without a single bone of principle in their flabby, craven bodies. They didn’t want to be seen voting for porn, so they let the Rethuglican ringmaster crack his whip and herd them right where he wanted them to go.

I think I despise them all.

Republicans vandalize classrooms — literally

That insane tea-baggin’ Maine GOP convention did something else of interest. Some of the Republican caucuses were held in a local school, including the 8th grade classroom of teacher Paul Clifford. He returned to the classroom after the weekend to discover that the Republicans had indulged themselves in remodeling the classroom.

  • For seven years, Clifford has had “a collage-type poster depicting the history of the U.S. labor movement” on his classroom door. He uses it “to teach his students how to incorporate collages into their annual project on Norman Rockwell’s historic ‘Four Freedoms’ illustrations.” When Clifford returned to his classroom on Monday, after the GOP caucuses, the poster was gone; in its place was a sticker reading, “Working People Vote Republican.”

  • Republicans opened a “closed cardboard box they found near Clifford’s desk” and later objected to the fact that it contained copies of the U.S. Constitution donated to the school by the American Civil Liberties Union.

  • After the caucuses, “rank-and-file Republicans who were upset by what they said they had seen in Clifford’s classroom” began calling the school, objecting to student art they had seen and a sticker on a filing cabinet reading “People for the American Way — Fight the Right.”

Labor is so un-American, Norman Rockwell was an America-hating commie pinko, and kids shouldn’t be exposed to the Constitution, especially if the ACLU likes it.

It’s getting so you can’t tell the patriots from the vandals. And Republicans are clearly the party against intellectualism, education, and diversity.