Picture of the day

You know there's no real silver lining to the whole BP oil spill. Sure they got it capped... after three months of spilling. Sure Tony Hayward was fired... but not out of a cannon and into a sewage pit. Plus I doubt very much that this will actually lead to increased care for the environment, better and smarter government action, or better regulations.

But we can hang our hat on one thing: at least we aren't China. They're going through their own massive oil spill crisis. Hoo boy! Can you imagine their lax regulations, poor government oversight, and open bribery! Hey, at least we aren't them. It looks way worse! They're cleaning it up with rags!

Pics via BPB. Click to embiggen.

Finally, some good news

After three months, billions of dollars spent on PR campaigns (with a little on oil cleanup as well), unprecedented media blackouts, and a couple of charred whales, BP has finally gotten around to capping that gushing plume of black death that was turning, whoops... TURNED, the Gulf into an open oil pit. Commence mild celebrations that things from this point forward can no longer get much worse.

BP said on Friday the early test results on its recently capped undersea well were heartening and there were no signs of fresh oil leaks, as the stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico held tight overnight and into the morning.

Kent Wells, a senior vice president at BP, told reporters on a conference call that the pressure inside the well had built up steadily, as engineers had hoped it would, and that engineers would continue to perform different analyses and scour video feeds from cameras to look for any underground leaks.
...
The oil stopped flowing from the well around 2:25 p.m. Thursday when the last of several valves was closed on a cap that the company installed at the top of the well last week, Mr. Wells said. Earlier in the week, Mr. Wells said that the longer the test continued, the better, because it would indicate that the pressure inside the well was holding and that the well bore was intact. On Friday morning, the live video feeds from nearly a mile undersea showed no burbling geyser of oil and gas — only cloudy blue waters and white specks floating across the screen.

Well done. What's the old saying? If you give a Brit 90 days and billions of dollars, he'll eventually be able to do something that would have seemed like the obvious solution months ago? I might be paraphrasing.

Though really, at this point, I wouldn't put it past BP to have rigged up a dummy site underwater and a fake feed showing no oil flowing. Then while everyone celebrates, they cancel their P.O. box, pack everything up, and move their offices five miles down the road. By the time we realize we've been had and that they faked us out yet again, they're gone and we don't know where to find BP or how to get in contact with them. You see, we'd never think to look five miles down the road.

So things are looking up for the oil soaked cuddly wuddly animals of the Gulf. Oh, and all those human creatures, what with their shattered lives, ruined homes, and crippled economy. Hey, we can all start giggling when people say "tar balls" again! It's not such a dire and serious situation anymore! TAR BALLS! Tee-hee-hee.

Anyone want to rain on this parade? President Sunshine?

In Washington, President Obama hailed the development but cautioned against concluding that the corner had been turned, noting that it was still possible for there to be complications that “could be even more catastrophic” than the original leak.

Christ, can't we get 15 minutes into a celebration without President Bring-down bringing us all down? This is literally the only thing that will get done in this country from now until the election, then after the election where Republicans win enough to keep filibustering everything or win outright and Democrats start filibustering everything, and on until the 2012 elections when we elect Sarah Palin and the Mayans hit the self-destruct button.

Give us this small victory, Barry. There's no more oil coming out. Plus, in 10,000 years all that oil will finally be cleaned up. Well, 10,000 years given a few massive technological leaps in our oil gathering and cleaning up technology. See, I'm feeling optimistic again.

Your sunshine and smiles of the day

Looks like things might be finally looking up for those poor, beleaguered kids over at that mom and pop operation known as BP. Did they finally get a cap on that oil, drill the relief well, or in any other way stop all the oil from flowing into the sea? Lord no. But at least they're catching a tax break.

The costs to the foreign oil giant BP for poisoning the Gulf of Mexico will lower the company’s taxes by billions of dollars, and BP “may be able to get a refund for taxes paid in previous years.” If BP’s cleanup costs reach $60 billion, as Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates, the company will be able to deduct almost $20 billion over time. In addition to billions in subsidies, the company has received $10 billion in federal contracts from the American taxpayer in the last ten years. BP spokesman Steve Rinehart told Bloomberg News that BP will deduct the $3.5 billion already spent on cleanup efforts and any future expenses.

Good for them. See kids, if you fuck up colossally enough eventually it starts to work in your favor.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.08

Darryl Cunningham Investigates: Homeopathy

In You're Living Up To The Stereotype of Your Country News, Colombian police have uncovered an attempt to send 24 pounds of cocaine to Spain in the form of a molded World Cup statute. Don't plan that celebration, you still have to get through the Oranje first, Espana. Bonus points for creativity, you did find a substance that would make the value of the World Cup even greater. All that aside, if you want an even better story about Colombians and World Cup soccer, give the ESPN documentary The Two Escobars a look.

Let me see if you can follow this. The public sentiment is for cutting the deficit and cutting spending, while at the same time improving the economy and job market. If government were to focus on spending cuts and deficit reduction that would have a negative effect on the economy and job markets, making them worse. Economists know this and have been saying it for months. Our elected betters have been told this for months and should know it. Yet, cutting the deficit and spending is popular. So what is everyone going to do? Try to cut the deficit and spending in order to win in November. Because if we've learned anything over the past decade, it's that doing something smart isn't a good idea if doing something dumb and popular and destructive is. I'll see you in the bread lines.

After years of stalling anything and everything that Democrats could do, Republicans are riding high over thoughts of what could happen in November. They're even planning out their new agenda. But after hamstringing the Democrats on all their priorities, surely Democrats wouldn't be eager to help the GOP go after one of their priorities: gutting Social Security. I mean, that would be ridiculous, helping Republicans carve up one of the great progressive achievements in the country's history, right? Wrong. The Democrats are eager to help. And why not, fucking with Social Security is so very popular. Besides, old people love eating catfood. Good luck with that.

What if I were to tell you that not only was there an Illuminati card game that referenced a Gulf oil spill, but there was an oil company board game from the seventies that talked about the possibility as well. Surely you'd think this was just a decently thought out scenario that simply prefaced an easily possible bad scenario using the oil industry and the area with which they were working in, right? Nope. IT'S PROOF THIS WHOLE OIL SPILL WAS PLANNED ALL ALONG!! JESUS CHRIST, CAN'T YOU SEE IT? Man, the Illuminati, Parker Brothers, the Trilateral Commission, and the Egg Council were all planning this for decades. We're through the looking glass here people. Comb through Trivial Pursuit to see if there are any cryptic references to nuclear war and I'll see when Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots predicted the robots would take over.

Europe Is Better Than Us: #3,215 in a series. In this episode Europe, having surveyed the damage cause by global financial giants, sees that it might be smart to tie bonuses to little things like results, performance, and whether or not a collection of assholes toilets the world economy or not. This is just one of the many, better, steps that their continent has taken while we still dick around wondering if we should leave everything pretty much as is, or give the financial giants a little slap on the knuckles and tell the scamps not to do it again. Plus it comes right at the same time the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development pillories us for hamstringing our own recovery, employment prospects, and general social fabric. On the bright side, if we continue to ignore their good advice and follow their smart lead, nothing they do in Brussels will be able to stop the effects of the next mega crisis America enables. Who's the smart one now, Europe?

In closing, enjoy this racist cat.

I like mine done medium-rare

What with loathed British shitbag Tony Hayward off to the Middle East to beg sheiks for bailout money in a way that doesn't result in him being made to wear a dress and join a harem, BP has been hurting for some really bad news that makes people hate them more. In fact, what with BP sponsoring our love of sky explosions and the baseball combined with this country's gnat-like attention span, the might even be inching their approval rating into that high teens Dick Cheney area.

So really, what's one thing they could do to really surprise and offend us in a new way so as to squander the good will they're getting as a result of spending about as much on PR as they are on the cleanup? Did I hear someone say "burn animals alive"? You know, ones bigger than the turtles? DING DING DING! Bonus points for the man in the back with the magnifying glass, ant-farm, and the sociopath's gaze.

They didn't even cook it right to get the diamond grill marks. Is there no corner they won't cut?

Now I know some of you are saying "How do we know this was BP's fault? How do we know that this whale didn't set itself on fire or swim into a controlled burn area on purpose in order to commit suicide, possibly over a whale romance gone bad?" Ok, valid points. To this I say what if BP set the whale on fire... because it knew too much!

But hell, maybe there is a valid scientific explanation that doesn't legally remonstrate BP for burning a giant sea creature. Science? Anyone from science want to present a plausible alternative theory? I know you're purposefully being kept away from this spill and your solutions are being ignored, so here's your chance to get in there and help.

What's that? A hypercarnivorous giant ancient whale shark that ate smaller whales, you say? I'm sure evolution could have had them develop some sort of rudimentary fire deployment system for cooking their food over the 12 million years since they last existed. Yes, that's clearly what happened here. A new giant species of super whale that's bears some sort of PR grudge against BP. I think we can close the books on this one. BP would never do this, they paid for fireworks one time.

Larry Flynt: Patriot

There are many celebrities stepping forward with varied plans to help combat the Gulf oil spill. We all know about Kevin Costner's plan and that James Cameron offered up his help, but we've heard very little from the pron/smut community. Until now.

Enter Larry Flynt, patriot and pornographer, who has his own solution: he wants one of Louisiana's Senators to employ the perversion that he used to engage in with hookers to help clean up the Gulf. Let us hear him out.

Dear Senator Vitter:

Forgive me for intruding on your valuable time. I know you are a very busy man, especially in regards to the current problems in the Gulf of Mexico. But that's exactly what I want to talk to you about. I concur that everybody must do their part to solve this serious catastrophe. And that's where I think you, in particular, can be of so much help.

As I understand it, you have some expertise regarding diapers. I have no idea how many diapers you actually have on hand (quite a collection from what I hear) but as you know, diapers are quite absorbent. So, when it comes to blocking the oil that's gushing into the Gulf, they might be a very effective way of solving that problem. With that in mind, I urge you to donate your extensive diaper collection to BP so they can use them to stop the leak by creating, for want of a better term, a giant "plug."

It could be a historic moment: An ecological disaster thwarted. And you'll get the credit for it. In fact, when people hear the word "diaper" they will automatically think of you. Hell, they already do.
Please don't piss away this golden opportunity.

Sincerely,

Larry Flynt
Publisher
Hustler

Flynt continues “Senator Vitter has gone on record claiming that the oil spill in the Gulf is ‘too big of an endeavor’ for one company. Accordingly, in an effort to protect the coastlines and marshes on the Gulf Coast, I am asking Senator Vitter to use the personal articles that he’s best known for to aid in the relief. His experience in the discipline of ‘spills’ is unprecedented.”

We would like to commend Flynt for this suggestion and the initial work he engaged in to expose Vitter and the DC prostitution ring. We hope Senator Vitter takes Larry up on the offer. It's not like reminding people of your shady sexual past and your hypocrisy would actually cause you to slip below 50% in the polls LOUISIANA WHAT THE FUCK? At the very least you could towel down a few pelicans. Think about it.

Picture of the day

Via the NASA Earth Observatory comes this looks at the waters around the Mississippi barrier islands. Well, I say "water", but legally speaking I'm not sure there's anything there that could be called water in a court of law.

Hey Haley, this is the oil them hippies is talking about. Don't try to eat it.

Click to embiggen.

Picture of the day

NASA's Earth Observatory with your latest horrifying reminder of the ludicrous size of this spill.

As always, click to really embiggen.



They even came up with time lapse video this time around.

Ad of the day

When we're looking for a vacation spot, what are we looking for? Sun. Fun. And a good hearty mocking of the most current environmental crisis. Spirit Airlines and Ft. Lauderdale understands this.


Hilarious. Not so much that they're using oil washing up on other beaches to advertise their beaches, it's that they're going to have oil of their beaches sometime within the next month or so. I guess they didn't check any ocean current/oil flow research before they slapped it together. Just kidding, the oil was off your coast two weeks ago. Good luck with your future ads.

I am so surprised

Another day, another couple of stories that make you wish you could punch a physical representation of BP right in the sack. First was the story that the rig was damaged and leaking for weeks before the final, catastrophic explosion/mega-leak occurred.

An oil worker who survived the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion has claimed that the oil rig's safety equipment was leaking several weeks before it exploded, triggering the huge spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tyrone Benton says that he spotted a leak on the rig's Blowout Preventer (BOP), the device that is meant to shut the well down if there is an accident. He told the BBC's Panorama programme that both BP and Transocean, who owned the rig, were informed of the leak, and the faulty part – a control pod – was switched off rather than being repaired.

Wonderful. It's not like the blowout preventer failure and leaks were a major part of the problem, were they? Oh, they were. Super.

But that wasn't all.

BP has been accused by a senior US politician of lying to Congress to reduce its liabilities, after an internal company document showed that the oil giant's own worst-case assessment of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was 20 times its public estimate.

In the document, BP attempts to put a figure on the rate of oil spewing into the ocean. It notes that if the condition of the well bore deteriorates to the extent that crucial parts fall off, the rate could reach 100,000 barrels a day.

When the company handed the document to Congress, it was claiming the leak was only 5,000 barrels a day, and that at very worst the figure could rise to 60,000.

The document was circulated by Ed Markey, the Democratic head of the House sub-committee on energy and the environment.

Nice. Well, it's not like accurate numbers on the size of the oil leak is something that would have been useful.

Look, I'm just going to advise you all on a tactic that I've undertook in order to preserve some level of sanity during this whole mess. It'll help you and it'll also help BP. I'm generous like that.

In all circumstances and under all conditions: assume the worst. Right now your working thesis on the entire disaster is that BP, in conjunction with Hitler's robot brain and the Anti-Christ, purposefully exploded their own well and caused this leak in an effort to drive up the price of gas, ruin seafood restaurants, kill cute animals, destroy the world's oceans, and end all life as we know it. In an effort to conceal this fact, they have engaged in the systematic murder of anyone who has figured this out and are in the process of bribing every elected official and law enforcement agency everywhere in order to do their bidding and cover this up. Also, at some point, they drowned a burlap sack full of kittens in the Gulf for fun.

Now how does this benefit you or BP? Well, whenever you hear some new horrifying fact, some awful scientific study on the environmental impact, some new revelation about BP's lax safety records or their naked pursuit of money, or another story about dishonesty, lying, and cover-ups following the spill, you can look at your loved ones and say ''Whew!, Well at least that isn't as bad as the whole global conspiracy, Hitler robot, destroy the earth , murder cover-up plan I heard about. I am relieved.'' You'll feel better in no time.

You're welcome.

Your horrifying oil related story of the day

Turtle fire.

He's on a boat

So you're BP. You've recently ridden a non-oil slicked wave of recent good news. You created a $20 billion fund to help take care of people affected by the spill, making you seem barely human instead of completely reptilian. You've finally moved into a position where ships are capturing almost all of the oil spilling out of the undersea well. And as a bonus you removed the deeply unlikable Tony Hayward to a lesser role.

So after this recent wave of decent PR, what do you do? Yacht party? I think I heard yacht party.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico so he could watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. The 52-foot yacht is made by the Annapolis, Maryland-based boatbuilder Farr Yacht Design.

The annual one-day race is one of the world's largest, attracting more than 1,700 boats and 16,000 sailors as world-renown yachtsmen compete with wealthy amateurs in the 50-nautical mile course around the island.
...
"He's spending a few hours with his family at a weekend. I'm sure that everyone would understand that," Wine said Saturday. "He will be back to deal with the response. It doesn't detract from that at all."

Wine described the race as "one of the biggest sailing events in the world and he's well known to have a keen interest in it."

In his defense, this was his small yacht. The cheap one, the $700,000 one. Now I know Hayward's been pilloried up and down the Gulf Coast for this little boat race trip, but I'm not going to pile on. I mean what better way to research the oil spill than to spend some serious time bobbing and floating on the ocean, like all that oil BP spilled is. Now he understands what all the oil is up to and why. Can we really complain about that?

Plus with the strippers of the Mimosa Dancing Girls strip club suing him, the sea is the only place he can find a moment of relief. With that, the methane dead zones that may kill vast swaths of undersea life, and the fact that sea floor collapses at the leak site may prevent BP from ever capping the well, doesn't the man enjoy a little boat time? Plus *chuckling* the yacht is named "Bob"! Who names a yacht "Bob"? Oh Tony, you are humorous with your rich guy bullshit. Enjoy the boating, I think it's all you'll have left pretty soon.

Positive news? From the Gulf? Head...spinning...

OK, so the news out of the Gulf has been an unending dirge of depression and awfulness stewed in a sauce made of human tears. Drunk dolphins? Oh, the humanity.

But lest we be accused of only focusing on the negatives and only pillorying BP, let us announce that there is finally some semblance of good news: the entire BP Board of Directors and executive group has been gored to death by stray rhinos.

Wait, no. I mean we're finally getting towards that point where the oil spewing out underground is being fully collected. Sure that means there's still a shit ton of oil in the Gulf, but must you rain on everything? We're inching closer to a zero sum game. Given the way things have gone, that's a victory of almost Venezuelan election proportions.

BP captured 18,600 barrels of oil from its leaking Gulf of Mexico well yesterday, a 78 percent increase from the previous day and the most since the spill began in April.

BP increased the capture rate in the first 12 hours today, gathering a total of 12,500 barrels of oil, the company said on its website.

BP, based in London, plans to increase the recovery rate to 28,000 barrels a day next week and to 53,000 barrels a day by June 30, said U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander. Allen spoke today during a conference call with reporters.

OK sure, the cloud to that silver lining is that estimates are that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day is leaking into the ocean and that might be a low estimate... but hey, that's still within a respectable distance of 100%. Think of it as a closest to the pin contest in golf. No one expects you to get a hole-in-one, so just put it close and hope Kevin Costner gets you the rest of the way home.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.17

For those of you wondering how exactly it was that famed Baroque painter Caravaggio died or where he was buried are in luck. Italian archaeologists are 85% certain that he was buried in a Tuscany crypt... and that he died of sunstroke while in a weakened condition from the syphilis he had. Odd, that's exactly how Sean is going to die. And he thought he didn't have anything in common with the great painters.

If any of our readers have enjoyed a Gulf oyster in the last few months, I hope you enjoyed the everliving shit out of it because you might not have another one ever. In a thoroughly depressing article, Mary Tutwiler catalogues the state of the oyster industry, oyster farmers, and the oysters. Shockingly the picture isn't pretty. On the other hand, if you hate oysters, this all worked out nicely for you. Congratulations.

Over the past few decades in American society, knowing how to do something like clean a pelican was left to pelican experts, zookeepers, and the perverse coterie of freaks on Pelicanfetish.com. But now with a large percentage of them covered in oil, it's something that we all need to know. Thankfully Buzzfeed has provided us with a step by step guide to cleaning up an oily pelican; whether it's from the Gulf or just a pet pelican that got into that barrel of oil you keep out back. On the other hand this might be a setback to BP's plan to soak up all that valuable oil with all those worthless pelicans.

The one constant so far in this year's World Cup, besides people getting outraged at plastic horns, has been shockingly bad goalie gaffes. Who is at fault? The goalies? The team defense? The head coaches who put them in? No, clearly the party at fault is the girlfriends of said goalies. The UK has already taken to blaming Robert Green's ex-girlfriend for his bungled effort against the Colonies, owing to their pre-Cup breakup. Spain decided to take that extra misogynistic step forward, blaming Goaltender Iker Casillas' sideline reporter girlfriend for not only distracting him during their 1-0 loss to Switzerland, but distracting the entire team. See what happens when you let women near sports? If there's a bear attack during a game, we'll have to completely ban women from girling up serious sporting events.

Have a dog? Might you like that dog to have everlasting life? Then I give you IMMORTAL DOG!!!!!

Elected Texas idiot Joe Barton finally had to come out and apologize for his apology to BP when even the leaders of his caucus took notice on how unpopular what he said was. But he's not done apologizing, so he set up the site Joe Barton Would Like To Apologize To in order to list the various aggrieved entities like BP who deserve our sympathy.

Tragedy

As Michele Bachmann explained to us yesterday, we are in the midst of a crisis. A large corporation is being held to account for the things it has done. The scandal! The shame of it all. But lest we dismiss her fevered rantings as some outlier in the GOP, the rest of her cohorts took to the streets to drum up support for BP and the horribly onerous conditions that they've been put in.

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas ('natch) took time out of a public hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to apologize directly to the executives at BP. How sweet of the man.

BARTON:I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown
...
I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.

Yes, how dare they be forced to set aside funds to pay for cleanup and to help offset the possible irreparable harm they've caused to the marine economy of the Gulf Coast. What an outrage.

Not able to leave Bachmann and Barton out on their offshore shilling rig, Alabama Governor Haley Barbour took time out of his busy schedule of taking oil money and denying that oil spills were a problem or that the oil was even hitting his shores to dance for oil nickels.

BARBOUR:I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income.

That's right, BP setting aside $20 billion to pay for damages will somehow make it less likely that they'll pay for the damage. Actually, I'm fairly sure that it means they'll be paying $20 billion at a minimum. But no worries, the greater risk is that by setting aside this money to help everyone whose lives they've ruined, that this will make it harder for them to open more rigs and make more money. Christ, I'm tearing up here. poor BP. Why haven't we thought about their ability to make a profit curing this crisis? We're monsters!

Oh, they are making rather large profits even given the costs of the cleanup? Well... they could be making more.

In fact Barbour, Barton, and Bachmann are all just reading off a common script that has arisen in the right wing media over the past few days: namely that this is unconscionable that BP is being held responsible, it is unconscionable that they're being demonized and blamed for actions they caused, and that somehow our Muslim President Hussein Obama X is going to use this independent fund as a "slush fund" to... something something socialism ooga booga liberals. Somehow paying out claims becomes bribery and that's if the black President doesn't steal the money and stash it away with Fannie Mae and ACORN to... I don't know... build a time machine and go back and make white people the slaves, abolish freedom, and rape Ben Franklin.

Why defend a widely loathed corporate entity in the most tin earned manner possible? Because after decades of conservatives fighting for the rights of corporations to do whatever whenever with no repercussions, BP has done the unforgivable: admitted responsibility for a mistake and made some attempt to make it right. We went through an entire economic collapse without the responsible parties even so much as saying "Whoops". If this continues, other corporations might have to issues apologies, *gasp* pay to fix problems they created, and the unfettered right of business to be allowed to do anything to make a buck might be challenged. So thus the attempt at restitution and the government has to be made to seem worse than BP the giant Gulf of Oil they've created.

Funny how it always seems to work out like that.

8th time is the charm

The Daily Show on how we're all totally going to be weaned off of our foreign dependency on oil... this time for certain.

Chart of the day

Via Talking Points Memo, comes this look at the "evolving" estimates of the Gulf oil spill. Ahh, remember those naive days when we thought only 6,000 barrels were spilling out and were thinking this might only be a minor disaster? How quaint that all sounds.

April 23: 200 barrels per day. April 24: 1000 barrels per day. April 28: 5000 barrels per day. May 27: 12,000-19,000 barrels per day. June 10: 20,000-40,000 barrels per day. June 15: 35,000-60,000 barrels per day.

Picture of the day

Via the Big Picture blog, the oil spill, it's effect on animals, and the cleanup.

"Can you believe this shit, Merv?" "No, Phil, I can't. I'm a fucking pelican."

"NO, YOU LOOK INTO THE CAMERA AND SAY 'IT'S A LIVING'!"

"So fresh and so clean clean! Right?" "I don't get the reference, Phil. Again: I'm a fucking pelican."

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.15

Star Wars political cartoons... is that something you might be interested in?

How little have our elected betters learned from our horrific financial apocalypse? Almost nothing. The latest example is the Herculean struggle Al Franken is currently going through to get the Senate to maybe consider the fact that the financial sector getting to choose the agency which rates its products creates rather a large conflict of interest. On the side of randomizing the selection process: people who are smart. On the side of keeping things as is and trusting our financial betters won't game a shoddy system: a probable filibuster proof majority of Senators. Remember to put on your surprised faces when our next financial collapse comes.

Comically oil executives took to the Hill today to explain all the ways in which they were not like BP in their offshore drilling practices. The main differences? Uhhh.... they aren't named BP and none of them has a drilling rig named Deepwater Horizon. One candid moment was when the executives basically admitted they had no way to handle massive offshore spills. Oh really? I think we've noticed that lo these past two months.

People have started to call bullshit and nakedly manipulative bullshit on the timing and PR strategy behind the whole "Afghanistan has trillions in resources! We'll all be rich... RICH!!" story from yesterday. C'mon. How are we supposed to feel good about this war or as if we're getting something out of it if they don't trump up old shit the Soviets were trumping up in 1985... when they we in the midst of an unproductive slog in Afghanistan? Just keep telling yourself "Just a few more years of fighting... then we'll all be rich."

Were you wondering who was cheering for North Korea today during their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Brazil? It certainly wasn't any North Koreans. No, the Chinese government flew in supporters specifically for the purpose of cheering for Kim Jong-Il's future waterslide park invitees/torture victims (depending on how the tournament goes). Commies stick together. Maybe China can fly in some soccer supporters to the US after our team invariably is eliminated before the semis and we lose interest in the sport for another 4 years.

Media Matters has gone to the trouble of picking out choice excerpts from Glenn Beck's new fiction thriller/Randian teabagging circle jerk... The Overton Window. Amongst the gems; "rule number one is, don't tease the panther", various meandering/awful sections of prose, bizarre asides about the flat tax and Bill Clinton, examples where Glenn doesn't seem to remember things his own characters have done, and a Star Wars reference so hackneyed it would make Kevin Smith cringe. Essentially it's a less funny version of his "serious" non-fiction books. Anyway, it doesn't compare to the liberal writing brilliance of Who Blog In Darkness.

In closing, your daily "Oh shit, we're fucked" oil flow estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. Up from the 20,000 to 40,000 from last week. It doesn't really matter; at this point it's like having third degree burns over 100% of your body and complaining about the sniffles.

Chart of the day

Via liberal rag the New York Times, comes this interactive graphic about the oil spill. Included are time lapse representations of the size, volume, and area of the oil spill, landfall areas and boom setups, diagrams of how efforts to stop the leak (HAH!) would go, and all kinds of wildlife that won't exist anymore.

It's quite well put together.