Paul Krugman
David Brooks
Dana Milbank
It turns out that the Osama bin Laden compound in Attobadobad was slated to host the next Bilderberg Group Conference, if they could get the catering figured out... And this summer, Northern California will once again host the Bohemian Grove, a summer camp for wealthy lost boys who have never fully grown up... The favorite pastime there is drinking to excess and then peeing freely all over the woods. You really don't want to be downwind or within a two mile range when the first rains come... Bohemian Grove is where George W Bush and Dick Cheney were when they made the decision that Dick would be Bush's running mate, and flew to Houston to make the announcement. George senior pretended to be surprised, since he was away camping "somewhere" in Northern California at the time. He actually was a Master of Ceremonies at one of the sophomoric skits they put on every year...
I love the fact that Sarah Palin drove her bus all night from New York up to New Hampshire to try and upstage Mit Romney's announcement that yes, he was running for President. She had to drive on through the tornado warnings in Massachusetts. Where most other traffic got off the roads, our intrepid Sarah pushed on through to the other side, so she could pretend to be casual... Oh, this isn't about Sarah, it's a family vacation with her name printed on the side, where mom and dad get to sleep in hotels and maybe the kids can sleep in the bus... Other GOP non-events planned are riding on a helicopter with New Jersey's governor to his son's next baseball game, playing pin-the-tail on the immigrant with Jim DeMint, and bodysurfing in Florida with Rick Scott, as he accepts federal stimulus money for his state budget over 66 times... We were hoping that she'd make out to Colorado for the lipstick-on-a-pig-toss, but it looks like she will bypass us to pray with Rick Perry in Texas instead... You go, girl. Seriously, you go on back to Alaska...
It turns out that last summer's oil problems still haven't been resolved. The Federal government is still issuing deep water drilling permits without requiring any other safety devices than the blowout preventer, which has proven to be ineffective and of poor design, meaning it actually won't do what the plans say it will do. There are already over 33 active deepwater permits in the Gulf, and over 3000 ones for shallower waters... In fact, the GOP has tried to introduce bills that would speed up the permit process, as if nothing ever happened... The group Earthjustice has challenged both the government and the oil permits in court, especially the ones recently given out for Alaska. You know that the proposed Alaskan oil pipeline that Sarah Palin was negotiating when she was governor, only went to Canada. It was never planned to come down to the lower 48.
Anyway, oil is just one of the problems we have in the Gulf of Mexico. Every year, for the last 35 years, we have had a dead spot in the Gulf, thanks to the amount of fertilizer and animal dung that's washed away in the rivers that flow to the Gulf. The nitrogen and phosphorus get deposited around the mouth of the Mississippi River and fuel the growth of plankton. When these short-lived organisms die, they consume oxygen, which kills everything below and make the larger fish swim away.
This year, with the largest rising of the rivers in recent history, it's anticipated that we will have the largest dead spot, too, making the life of a fisherman that much harder... We've known about this for over 35 years and have done nothing to correct or change the way things are done. And with the use of genetically altered corn, we have improved the yield of an acre of land by 80% while reducing nitrogen by 4%..
The current Chilean government is organizing an inquiry into the death of Pablo Neruda, back in 1973. Pablo is one of the world's greatest poets, and he served as the Chilean ambassador to Spain during the Allende regime. Then, the American backed, right-wing military junta of Agusto Pinochet took over and Neruda was recalled to Chile, where he promptly died from colon cancer... The inquiry is to find if he really had cancer or if that was a convenient story to use as a cover-up. Notice that these kinds of stories are used in political assassinations everywhere, from 13 year-old Syrian boys to Iranian teenagers in prison, to Guantanamo...
Speaking of poets, last Friday saw the passing of Gil Scott Heron. A talented man who let that talent be consumed by the fires ravaged from drugs. He wrote one of the few songs that I still can barely listen to without breaking down and crying my eyes out. After 35 years, it still wrecks me...
David Brooks
Dana Milbank
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| click on cartoon to see in full size |
It turns out that last summer's oil problems still haven't been resolved. The Federal government is still issuing deep water drilling permits without requiring any other safety devices than the blowout preventer, which has proven to be ineffective and of poor design, meaning it actually won't do what the plans say it will do. There are already over 33 active deepwater permits in the Gulf, and over 3000 ones for shallower waters... In fact, the GOP has tried to introduce bills that would speed up the permit process, as if nothing ever happened... The group Earthjustice has challenged both the government and the oil permits in court, especially the ones recently given out for Alaska. You know that the proposed Alaskan oil pipeline that Sarah Palin was negotiating when she was governor, only went to Canada. It was never planned to come down to the lower 48.
Anyway, oil is just one of the problems we have in the Gulf of Mexico. Every year, for the last 35 years, we have had a dead spot in the Gulf, thanks to the amount of fertilizer and animal dung that's washed away in the rivers that flow to the Gulf. The nitrogen and phosphorus get deposited around the mouth of the Mississippi River and fuel the growth of plankton. When these short-lived organisms die, they consume oxygen, which kills everything below and make the larger fish swim away.
This year, with the largest rising of the rivers in recent history, it's anticipated that we will have the largest dead spot, too, making the life of a fisherman that much harder... We've known about this for over 35 years and have done nothing to correct or change the way things are done. And with the use of genetically altered corn, we have improved the yield of an acre of land by 80% while reducing nitrogen by 4%..
Speaking of poets, last Friday saw the passing of Gil Scott Heron. A talented man who let that talent be consumed by the fires ravaged from drugs. He wrote one of the few songs that I still can barely listen to without breaking down and crying my eyes out. After 35 years, it still wrecks me...
Gil Scott Heron, RIP
But he didn't know what he was saying
He could hardly understand
That he was only talking to
Pieces of a man
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