Someday, Schmaybe, We’ll Get to Quit Singing It, Too

Everybody else seems to get their shot, right?

A Couple of Points about McChrystal [Rich Lowry] I’m just reading the piece now, but a couple of very quick points based on the coverage:

1) Rolling Stone? Rolling Stone???

UPDATE: Drudge has him RESIGNING! No link yet…

The Worst-Case Scenario

I’ve been mulling this post over for a few days. It was linked to in Ace’s news sidebar a few days ago, and it’s a very sobering read. Now, the site where it was posted is, from what I can tell, one that leans towards the “peak oil” point of view and seems generally to be in favor of aggressive moves away from oil use so I’d keep that in mind when reading this

First of all…set aside all your thoughts of plugging the well and stopping it from blowing out oil using any method from the top down. Plugs, big valves to just shut it off, pinching the pipe closed, installing a new bop or lmrp, shooting any epoxy in it, top kills with mud etc etc etc….forget that, it won’t be happening..it’s done and over. In fact actually opening up the well at the subsea source and allowing it to gush more is not only exactly what has happened, it was probably necessary, or so they think anyway.

So you have to ask WHY? Why make it worse?…there really can only be one answer and that answer does not bode well for all of us. It’s really an inescapable conclusion at this point, unless you want to believe that every Oil and Gas professional involved suddenly just forgot everything they know or woke up one morning and drank a few big cups of stupid and got assigned to directing the response to this catastrophe. Nothing makes sense unless you take this into account, but after you do…you will see the “sense” behind what has happened and what is happening. That conclusion is this:

The well bore structure is compromised “Down hole”.

Carefully read the whole thing for all the author feels that this entails…and why it’s a really really bad thing.

Again, I think this site leans towards making it as bad as it can possibly be, but I think we need to know what exactly that is.

And pray that he’s wrong.

Happy Burfday Sweet Boy!

Sweet sweet Claude is 9 on this Solstice day!

As the Beatles might have sang…

When I get old
and lick my self bare
(Because, hell, I can)
Will you still be giving me a walk at dawn
Belly rubs
Let me poop in the lawn?

If I get up
And run to the door
Would you let me pee?
Will you still need me
Will you still feed me
When I’m 63?

So Yesterday I Got Asked By a NJ Facebook Friend

…how our Florida Oil Industry experiment’s been going and I replied:

“It’s been a beach.”

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Hanging Over Our Heads

No one in DC wants to talk about it, least of all our Golfer-In-Chief, mainly because it makes his spending plans look even more recklessly insane, but here’s a huge reason why we need to get the budget under control

CASA GRANDE, Ariz. — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took over a foreclosed home roughly every 90 seconds during the first three months of the year. They owned 163,828 houses at the end of March, a virtual city with more houses than Seattle. The mortgage finance companies, created by Congress to help Americans buy homes, have become two of the nation’s largest landlords.

…For all the focus on the historic federal rescue of the banking industry, it is the government’s decision to seize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in September 2008 that is likely to cost taxpayers the most money. So far the tab stands at $145.9 billion, and it grows with every foreclosure of a three-bedroom home with a two-car garage one hour from Phoenix. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted that the final bill could reach $389 billion.

My guess is $400-plus. This is going to be around our necks for a long, long time.

Thanks, Barney Frank.

It’s Nice Our Little CRISIS Down Here is Such a BFD That Captain Kick-Ass

…puts his BEST f*%#ing people on it.

Obama spill panel big on policy, not engineering

The panel appointed by President Barack Obama to investigate the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is short on technical expertise but long on talking publicly about “America’s addiction to oil.” One member has blogged about it regularly.

Ooooooh. A blogger!!! Isn’t he a hep-cat and whoop-dee-f*%&ing-doo!

…The commission has yet to meet…

It’s not like Obama’s been in any rush either.

But then, Barbara Boxer was calling for a “Rapid Response Team” on Face the Nation this morning.

No shit. (I do not think “rapid” means what she THINKS it means.)
Laughable, yes?
Richard Shelby knew.

…SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (D-California/Chairman, Environment & Public Works
Committee): Well, Senator Nelson and I have been very concerned that we need to get ahead
of the oil. And, coming from a coastal states– and we have a twenty-three-billion-dollar coastal
economy, Bob. And it– you know, the fishermen, recreation tourism, we can’t put that at risk on
the West Coast, just like my colleagues on the East Coast and in the Gulf are struggling to
make sure that those industries stay alive. So we want to see a rapid response team get out
there. And as Bill said a command and control. It’s just in the area of the beach protection and
the clean-up and the near shore areas like those beautiful islands that I saw off the coast in
Louisiana and the marshlands. And we think this will be a big improvement. President Obama
has suggested it for the long term. We’re saying accelerate it and get it going now.

BOB SCHIEFFER: In other words, get the Navy in there now–

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (overlapping): Yes.

BOB SCHIEFFER: –to– to coordinate.

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (overlapping): On the beaches, yes.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yes, to coordinate.

SENATOR BARBARA BOXER (overlapping): The beach clean up and the near-shore areas like
the islands and the marshlands.

BOB SCHIEFFER: How does that strike you, Senator Shelby?

SENATOR RICHARD SHELBY: Well, I– I like to see the matrix. I’d like to see how this really
would work, because maybe we needed something like that sixty days ago, two months ago.

NOBODY in this administration or the Democratic Party does “rapid”, unless it’s getting to a tee time or fund raiser.

I wonder if Hayward has any room on that boat for me?

Happy Father’s Day!

To my most wunderbar major dad, the Grinch, Bingster, Crusader, Mountain Man, along with Mr. Summers, Kraut, Cullen…all my precious Swiller fellas. To all the dads who have come before and those about to be, like my nasty nephew. To those ‘dads’ who have been fathers to children not their own, because theirs were hearts big enough to love that much and hold young lives that dear.

To all the fellows out there who know how important it still is to be a real man. A real GOOD man.

I really **heart** you guys.

There Are Some Wonderful People Who Just Grace This World

…spend their time here giving endlessly of themselves and then have to leave too soon.

Manute Bol, a lithe 7-foot-7 shot-blocker from Sudan who spent 10 seasons in the NBA and was dedicated to humanitarian work in Africa, died Saturday. He was 47.

It seems doubly cruel for such tender hearts to have to suffer so, as well, doesn’t it?

Why I Love My Family, Part MCLVI

Daughter and I were at Costco today and I was sort of pondering side dishes/vegetables for tonight’s meal and I said “What do you think we should have with the cassoulet?”

She thought for a second and said “How about a nice Rosé?”

Oil Spill Breaking News

BP announced that this morning they installed a wedding ring around the
leaking pipe & it quit putting out.

Hehehe.
(received via email)

Update: I should add for my own protection that this was sent to me by a married woman.

Germany Versus Serbia This Morning?

Gee, seems to me we’ve been down that road before…

“Stopping The Spill Is Our First Priority”

Er, well, except when the Nanny State has to intervene

Eight days ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal ordered barges to begin vacuuming crude oil out of his state’s oil-soaked waters. Today, against the governor’s wishes, those barges sat idle, even as more oil flowed toward the Louisiana shore.
Louisiana Governor Jindal frustrated over decision-making red tape.

“It’s the most frustrating thing,” the Republican governor said today in Buras, La. “Literally, yesterday morning we found out that they were halting all of these barges.”

Sixteen barges sat stationary today, although they were sucking up thousands of gallons of BP’s oil as recently as Tuesday. Workers in hazmat suits and gas masks pumped the oil out of the Louisiana waters and into steel tanks. It was a homegrown idea that seemed to be effective at collecting the thick gunk.

“These barges work. You’ve seen them work. You’ve seen them suck oil out of the water,” said Jindal.

“The Coast Guard came and shut them down,” Jindal said. “You got men on the barges in the oil, and they have been told by the Coast Guard, ‘Cease and desist. Stop sucking up that oil.'”

Un-freakin-believable.

Well, actually, sadly, completely believable.

Seen Driving Home Yesterday

I guess it’s no longer a bumper sticker when it covers most of your truck.

Didn’t Really “Connect” With Obama’s Speech?

Well, according to CNN, it’s not his fault you’re stupid

(CNN) — President Obama’s speech on the gulf oil disaster may have gone over the heads of many in his audience, according to an analysis of the 18-minute talk released Wednesday.

Tuesday night’s speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.

Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence “added some difficulty for his target audience,” Payack said.

So I guess this explains the problems that MSNBC’s pundits had with the speech.

(CNN, on the other, is chock full of high-falutin’ interlexyalls who completely understand all the nuanced suavity that the President meant to impart on us more simpler folks…and who don’t understand the difference between “less” and “fewer.”)

CNN: The “We got your back, Mr. President” Network.

THIS Should Freeze the Very Blood in Your Veins

The federal government would have “absolute power” to shut down the Internet under the terms of a new US Senate bill being pushed by Joe Lieberman, legislation which would hand President Obama a figurative “kill switch” to seize control of the world wide web in response to a Homeland Security directive.

Article here.

Lieberman’s 197-page bill Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA PDF here.

OMG. VOTE, people.

It’s our only hope.

Bar-Aqua Bama

“Perhaps I should plug the damn hole with my Unicorn’s horn…”

I admit I watched very little of The Speech last night; in fact I only caught the last few pablum-laced minutes as I turned on the TV to play Red Dead Redemption. I found the references to WW2 to be completely…odd. I mean, a little perspective here: we’ve got a horrific spill in the Gulf but it ain’t quite the Nazis goosestepping across Europe.

So now Captain Detachment is going to take 20 minutes out of his busy golfing schedule to meet with BP executives. Gosh, that’s laser-like focus and commitment, isn’t it? That’s really take-charge leadership, eh? What a sad, pathetic joke. And his bold innovative plan to solve this spill? “Let’s form a Commission of Experts to study the problem – hey, did you know one of my advisers won a Nobel Prize (like me!)? We’re smart, by gum!” Yes, you know, experts.

The same ones who 60 days ago said the spill was schmaybe 1,000 barrels per day…then 5,000…then 12,000…okay, okay how about maybe 60,000? They don’t have a clue.

So instead of focusing on stopping the spill we get panels formed to talk about compensation. And, much in the same way Arizona has been forced to deal with immigration because of burgeoning bureaucratic bloat, so the Gulf States have been forced to act while Washington “studies.” Washington can pass massive legislation that they haven’t read to re-order our Health care system, they declare carbon dioxide a mortal hazard, they invest massive sums to control what we eat “for our own good,” they write laws to limit our speech and other freedoms…but to actually clean up a mess? Well, gosh, you need to fill out the proper permits and there is a period of time required for public comment and discussion and review by our Impact Assessment Experts…it’s sickening.

And in the rarefied air of their academic exercises they express shock and saddened dismay at how un-edjumacated we the People are; how we must be, regrettably, racist and just, well, too stupid to grok the munificent brilliance of their plans to make us Proper World Citizens; certainly we are failing most miserably to appreciate their subtle nuancity.

We just get the bill and the restrictions.

Update: Ed at HotAir has it exactly right

Obama didn’t even offer an original thought for spitballing. In his short presidency, Obama has had two responses to any issue: appoint a czar or create a commission. The auto industry got a czar, for instance, and the deficit that Obama’s spending has driven out of sight got a commission. Last night, Obama wanted to know he was taking this seriously by appointing a czar and a commission, the latter of which had been announced weeks ago. That was the sum total of his substantive response last night. Small wonder Obama chose an Oval Office speech rather than face another press conference.

During the 2008 campaign, we repeatedly criticized Obama’s lack of executive experience, but perhaps even Obama’s critics might be surprised to see how badly Obama has performed in this crisis. He has nothing left to offer; Obama is running on empty. In the face of a crisis that has unfolded for almost two full months, Obama chose to talk about wind turbines. A nation waited to see if a leader would emerge from the White House, and instead it got an absent-minded professor desperate to change the subject.

As I commented over there: we need a Churchill but all we got was a Barack Quixote.

SHOCKA!!! ManBearPig

…MOSTLY PIG?!

Al Gore’s split from wife Tipper after 40 years of marriage was a shock to everyone who thought theirs was the ideal marriage. Now Star can exclusively reveal that the former Vice President was having an affair with Larry David’s ex-wife — for the past two years!

Not that THAT’S hard to believe, him being such a…big catcheroo and all.

But it IS the Star, mind you, NOT the Enquirer, so take it with a grain of salt-substitute. (The EOnline Blog says, “They’re JUST GOOD FRIENDS!!!!!”)

Anyway, it does let my filthy, voyeuristic, mush-book reading mind wander a bit into “so, what IF” land. Like, what IF it’s true, and Al and Laurie cohabitate…
…and IF she’s insists on that ONE SQUARE of toilet paper and Al’s still, well…ALL of Al…

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tipper, you are SO lucky to be rid of Señor Mui Gordo Pendejo Barfiloso. Oh, yes, you are.

Wave “Bye!”

One Person, One Vote…

Unless, of course, the government doesn’t like the results

PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate.

Furano cast multiple votes on the instructions of a federal judge and the U.S. Department of Justice as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation.

Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair. The election ends Tuesday and results are expected late Tuesday night.

Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.

Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.

This is completely insane.

If “nearly half” the village residents are Hispanic and let’s assume they are all citizens then their failure in elections is due to sucky candidates and apathetic Hispanic voters. End of story.

Is It Me…

Or would it really suck if this forms in to something stronger and follows that blue path

which by my Weath-O-Vision goes in to the Gulf and, well, would cause all types more of trouble.

Stunning Announcement

From the World Sport Desk

Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay

A HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the United States Army

…and all the fine soldiers of my aquaintance, like my gorgeous nephew, our BGen cousin Pat and ~ jeez! Even Cullen! OMG! And JEFFS!!!

We think you all are A-okay!

Re-Arranging The Deck Chairs On The Titanic

This is the kind of stupidity that GOP Senators concentrate on. We are running insane budget deficits. We have a huge ecological and economic disaster in the Gulf. Our national economy is a mess. Our foreign policy is succeeding in pissing off both old allies and old adversaries with remarkable even-handedness. So the pressing issue that The Greatest Deliberative Body In The World is working on is…changing the name of the Department of The Navy?

A bill to rename the Department of the Navy is quickly catching on in the Senate, but faces staunch opposition from Armed Services Committee leaders.

Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), a former Marine and the sponsor of the bill in the upper chamber, has convinced 79 senators to sign on the measure he introduced in late February.

…Meanwhile, Jones, whose House district includes the Marine Corps base at Camp Lejeune, has been pushing the House bill for years. Last month, he told The Hill that the bill is “a matter of respect” and said it should be able to survive Senate opposition.

““This isn’t about Walter Jones. This isn’t about John McCain. This is about the Marines who serve this country,” Jones said. “Haven’t they earned the right to be recognized?”

Look, I adore and deeply respect the wonderfully brave men and women of the USMC.

But in the opinion of this civilian Marines are recognized and honored and revered for the ass-kickings they dole out to our enemies, for their many sacrifices for our nation, for their integrity and for their honor.

That’s where true respect is earned, not by adding their name to some stationary.

And you know damn well the cost will far exceed what they list here. This is not the time for this type of legislation. Can we please concentrate on the important things?

Here’s to the Most Beautiful Girl in the World!

She always brings a tear to my eye.

Happy Flag Day!

Barney Frank Wants To Cut Spending

Really. Of course, it’s all military spending

A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget during the next 10 years.

The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars from a broad ideological spectrum appointed by Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, laid out actions the government could take that could save as much as $960 billion between 2011 and 2020.

I’m shocked.

Jimmy Dean, RIP

Breakfast just got a little less tasty

(CNN) — Country music artist and sausage entrepreneur Jimmy Dean died at his home in Varina, Virginia, Sunday evening, police said. He was 81.

In spite of it being made by a mongo conglomerate now (Sara Lee) it’s still the best dang sausage.