Your daily dose of brightness and sunshine

With the 'top kill' efforts seeming to show some progress, people are starting to be optimistic about finally stopping all that oil from gushing into the Gulf. But make no mistake, the 'top kill' procedure is a measure of last resort, before they basically have to throw their hands up and say "any crackpots have some off the wall ideas out there"? And then we start talking about detonating nukes underwater. Seriously.

But if this doesn't work? Well... all the clamoring for President Obama to send in the military, take over, and so on isn't going to help. David Roberts of Grist explains.

The BP Gulf oil disaster is reaching an interesting phase. People's gut instinct, their first reaction, is to find someone to blame. They blame BP for negligence; the Obama administration for its tepid response; the Bush administration for lax regulatory enforcement. People have been casting about for some way to compartmentalize this thing, some way to cast it as an anomaly, an "accident," the kind of screwup that can be meliorated or avoided in the future.

We are, however, drifting toward a whole different kind of place. [Today] BP is attempting the "top kill" maneuver -- pumping mud into the well. If it doesn't work, well ... then what? Junk shot? Top hat? Loony stuff like nukes? Relief wells will take months to drill and no one's sure if they'll work to relieve pressure. It's entirely possible, even likely, that we're going to be stuck helplessly watching as this well spews oil into the Gulf for years. Even if the flow were stopped tomorrow, the damage to marshes, coral, and marine life is done. The Gulf of Mexico will become an ecological and economic dead zone. There's no real way to undo it, no matter who's in charge.

I'm curious to see how the public's mood shifts once it becomes clear that we are powerless in the face of this thing. What if there's just nothing we can do?

We'll know if there's nothing we can do by tomorrow. Feel better yet?

He goes on to make points about how we do this kind of irreversible damage to the Earth every day in the search and excavation of energy and wonders that if having that sort of catastrophe shoved in our face like this will make us reconsider how we go about things. Easy answer: we're Americans, it won't.

But there we are. The damage has been done already and all the yelling about Superman, big business, or the Government to come in and do something is moot. The 'top kill' move is pretty much it before we have to resign ourselves to a minimum of months of this well throwing oil into the ocean. So then what? Do we just keep bitching, like we always do, and keep trying to retroactively blame someone and take measures to close the barn door after the horses got out... and spilled oil everywhere? Or do me actually try to move forward as a society and actually, for once, try to make a commitment to transforming our energy needs into methods that don't contain a potential "colossal environmental disaster" scenario? I think you know what I think we'll do. But, I do like to be surprised.

Chart of the day: Happy fuckers

We all know what the Cantril Self-Anchoring Striving Scale is, right? It's so ubiquitous as to not even merit explanation. But as I'm sure there are a few, let's call them "special needs readers", I'll just say that it's a way to measure personal well-being, judgment of quality of life, and feelings, among other things. It's also the basis http://www.gallup.com/poll/126977/Global-WellBeing-Surveys-Find-Nations-Worlds-Apart.aspx entitled Just a Little Too Happy Considering The Fucking State of World Affairs Right Now or Depressed and Demoralized Enough: A Look At Global Well-being.

In a nutshell, people are asked how they're doing, and those who don't respond "Fuck off Gallup" are classified into categories of "thriving," "struggling," or "suffering", compiled, and ranked on a country-by-country basis on a cool little interactive map midget that the bastards didn't make embeddable.

So what is the most miserable nation on earth? Togo at 1% "thriving". I would have put money on Haiti, but they only come in with a 4% "thriving" marker. True, that does represent most of the Fugees and those who were airlifted to the US, but it's still shockingly high. Taking the most miserable crown in Europe is Bulgaria at 6%. I wouldn't have guessed Bulgaria, but then again, I never would have thought of Bulgaria for any reason. Which I guess is part of their economic problems.

Which country is the most "thriving"? Was it ever any wonder: every Scandinavian country. Denmark (82%) and Finland (75%) top off the world rankings, with Norway (68%) and Sweden (67%) ranking highly as well. Now do you see the perils of socialist government?

And where does the United States of Freedom rank? With 57% "thriving", though most of those reporting they were thriving were in the banking and finance sectors and most of this survey was conducted between 2005 and 2009. I wonder if they're still doing all right? Where does that big shit 57% put us? Only behind Costa Rica (63%) and Canada (62%), Panama (58%), and Brazil (58%)..... and New Zealand (63%), Israel (62%), and Australia (62%)... and the Netherlands (68%), Switzerland (62%), and Austria (58%). But not Turkmenistan (52%)! So, uhhh.... yeah!

We do however rank #1 in... the region where the highest percentage of "thriving" countries are. Americas 42% thriving - Africa 8% thriving. You lose again, Africa. Americas, Americas, Americas!

So if you're ever feeling down about the state of America and feelings about self worth and happiness, at least you can always say "At least I don't live in Togo" and have a statistical well-being analysis to back up that supposition.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 11.18

Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again
The Independent recounts an epic story of several British Islamist jihadists who were trained in Afghanistan to fight against the West, but have since had a change of heart and are now trying to speak out about why they believed what they believed and have begun outreach work with other Islamic youth. That all sounds like a misprint. If we've learned anything over the past few days, its that once someone has come into contact with Islam, we must not allow them to come within contact of our judicial and legal system and preferably not even our soil. Shunning them plus a few bombing runs on their own country is the only way to beat back this menace.

In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’
What? You mean to tell me that intellectual titans and honest brokers like Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and the "You Lie" jackass are having their health care speeches and public statements crafted by lobbyists opposed to health care reform? And that they aren't the only ones? It's almost as if they aren't concerned with the plight of Americans without health care and are instead only looking out for corporations and their donations. The international community still has the nerve to say we're only 19th in corruption? I just hope the lobbyists write them some extra good "freedom is dead" material for when health care reform does pass.

Cost of happiness discovered by Australian economist
Yes, a man has spent the time calculating the monetary equivalent of various milestones in life and the effect of money on happiness. For instance: a marriage makes a woman feel as if she has gained the equivalent of £8, 726.25, while it makes a man feel like he has gained the equivalent of £17, 675.68. Dr. Sean and I have conducted our own study in conjunction with the These Bastards Institute of Scientific Discovery and we have found that the cost of happiness is equal to that of the cost of the cheapest alcohol with the highest percentage of alcohol by volume and the cheapest hooker within walking distance. Take that, Australia.

Celebrating Revolution With Roots in a Rumor
A story that recounts the events that sparked the Czech revolution, and how it turns out that some of those events that inspired a nation to march and overthrow it's communist overlords was based on a lie. That's all well and good and even a little funny, but don't you think the honest thing to do would be to turn the country back over to the Politburo with a written apology? To continue on as is just strikes me as dishonest.

Civilian Supercomputer Shatters Nuke Simulator’s Speed Record
For the first time ever a civilian supercomputer, the Jaguar, is the fastest supercomputer in the world. It's speed is 1.759 petaflops or 1,759 trillion calculations per second. What is a petaflop? Well, it's sort of like a gigabyte, but it's bigger and likes to touch children in their bathing suit areas. As this computer is 69% faster than the previous record holder and twice as fast as the 3rd fastest supercomputer, it is now the frontrunner to lead the machine intelligence against its human oppressors that house it in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Forget Skynet, Jaguar is our new master.

Happy happy, joy joy

From Gallup/Healthways via the New York Times, comes a statistical survey of the happiest and most misery filled places in the US.

The sucking black holes of depression? The Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia trifecta. I always knew Pittsburgh was a little depressed, but our middling ranking in the face of this three state vortex of misery and pain is practically a Herculean achievement of happiness in the face of the WV swamps of sadness. Christ this survey didn't even factor in the Steelers SB43 victory, that ought to be good for at least 6 months of "top 20% happiest" delusion.

The happiest places in the US, nay the Earth? Hawaii, natch, Utah, and Wyoming. Guh? Perhaps special underpants and Big Love marathons are truly the way to enlightenment. Wyoming? That's just because Dick Cheney had spent the last eight years out of state and the hell forges and pain wheels of his black tower hadn't been running. Now? That place is depressed as shit...and fighting back the demon armies of their dark lord.

What is the biggest correlation resulting in happiness besides living on an island pardise? If you guessed money, then welcome to the land of the obvious, it is money. It's always money. It will always be money. People will live in an outhouse with a smile if they're pulling down enough green. So if you no longer want to live in a depressing state, no worries, you don't even have to move. Just earn/steal more money. That automatically makes your surroundings turn from a depressing gray dirge that strangles your soul into your own personal happy area. Science says so.