So, while we were sleeping last night (well, I was sleeping, anyway), the brave Israeli Navy attacked a flotilla of ships in International waters carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza, killing at least 10 people. Among the 600 or so people on board the aid ships were a Nobel Peace Prize winner (a real one, not like Obama) and an 85 year old Holocaust survivor. A dangerous crew, indeed. According to the Israelis, when they attempted to illegally board the ships, those aboard actually had the temerity to defend themselves.

“That is a lie,” said Greta Berlin, a leader of the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement, speaking by telephone from Cyprus. She said it was inconceivable that the civilian passengers on board would have been “waiting up to fire on the Israeli military, with all its might.”

“We never thought there would be any violence,” she said.

Rather unfortunate name you got there, Greta.

I’m sure that when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington on Tuesday, our President will give him a stern talking to. He may even scale all the way up to BP-level righteous indignation (very scary, that). Hey, here’s an idea; why not take some of the billions in aid and loan guarantees to stop the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, and maybe fix New Orleans with the leftovers? I know, that’s crazy talk.

Anyhow, it’s Memorial Day, which you can celebrate via the teevee by watching all number of really depressing movies. Just last night, I watched Kevin Bacon in “Taking Chance“, “Alive Day Memories” is on this morning, and hopefully “Last Letters Home” will be on at some point, ‘cuz that’ll make you cry faster than “Old Yeller”.

I’ll bet there’s even a few movies on today starring our most famous veteran and war hero, John Wayne (who of course was neither vet nor hero, but he was pretty much down with sending young men off to die in some stinking jungle on the other side of the planet).

Personally, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have lost any friends or loved ones to military action. It would be nice if the last person killed in war was just a distant memory that you had to read about in a musty old history book that told the story of how things were back when humans (or the ones in charge, anyway) were still savages.

Some day, maybe. But not today.

On Press the Meat today, it’s White House Energy Adviser Carol Browner & BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, and chowderhead J.D. Hayworth. Then a roundtable with the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne & dickhead David Brooks.

Carol Browner heads over to Faze the Nation along with Ed Markey, BP Managing Director Bob Dudley, and Edward Overton, Environmental Scientist from LSU.

Dudley makes his way over to Fux News Sunday, and then a “fair and balanced debate” about Obama supposedly offering Joe Sestak a job. Plus there’s Ed Rendell, Douchebag Darrell Issa, Mike Mullen, and a whole bunch of fuxheads.

At the Goebbels network, they’ll have Colin Powell, Bobby Jindal, and a roundtable with George :jerk: Will, Matty Dowd, Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, and Joan Walsh.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria has Bill Gates, “picture the Iranian regime doesn’t want you to see”, and a panel of Martin Wolf, Richard Haass and Chrystia Freeland.

No work tomorrow. Cool.

So, I was looking at the Huffington Post last night, and there was a headline that read “Starr’s Ex-Stripper Wife Allegedly Profited From Ponzi Scheme“, and I thought, “Barbara Bach used to be a stripper?” But no, wrong Starr. Turns out it’s Kenneth Starr. And I thought, “holy shit! Ken Starr’s wife used to be a stripper, and now she’s involved in a Ponzi scheme? And then I saw another story that said Ken Starr was arrested for fraud and hid in the closet when they went to arrest him. Wow. I mean, I always kinda figured he was in the closet, but I had no idea about the fraud stuff. But, no, turns out it’s a different Ken Starr. Who knew? Here I thought one Ken Starr in the world was one too many, and now there are two.

So then I’m clicking around the Internets, and I’m reading this thing over at the Wonk Room about how this oil well blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is actually a pretty routine thing that’s happened 39 times since 2007 (I don’t recall seeing any of those on the Today Show, do you?), and how BP isn’t exactly this “environmentally friendly” oil company it’s been made out to be. And the Wonk Room ends their post with:

But this event is yet another tragic reminder of the truth of George Santana’s dire maxim: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

And I thought, “holy shit, it was Carlos Santana’s brother that said that?” But, no. Turns out it was George Santayana. But, well, close enough, I guess.

Besides, I’m still trying to get over the death of Gary Coleman. He was great in Office Space (and made a really good Mike Brady, too).

Sue Lowden got all pissed-off and refused to say on-air whether she was cool with the Civil Rights Act (though she sent a follow-up saying she did support it; I guess she just didn’t want to alienate any teevee watchin’ racists out there). I guess when it comes to civil rights, Republicans prefer “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

Speaking of which, the House voted to repeal DADT, as did the Senate Armed Services committee (or, as our lo-cal news twit just said, it passed “both sides of the Senate.” 🙄 Republicans like Grampy McCain and Roger Wicker, however, adamantly oppose the repeal, and are vowing to do everything they can to keep it from happening. Hmmm. These Queens doth protest too much, methinks. 😉

The Senate also voted to approve $60 billion in war funding, while the House voted to strip $24 billion in aid for health insurance subsidies for laid-off workers. That should be OK, though, ‘cuz congress enacted all that sweeping socialist health care reform, meaning that all Americans will get affordable health care regardless of their employment status. Right?

I heard a little bit of Obama’s press conference yesterday while I was driving around. I had to turn it off; he just sounded like he was full of shit when he told us he was in charge of the oil spill from day one. He needed to tell us ‘cuz we sure couldn’t tell from anything he did.

BP is thinking about adding rubber balls to its “top kill” mixture. No so much ‘cuz they’ll do any good, but because they’ll look really cool flying out of the leaks in the pipes on that live video feed.

Our Governor has announced a deal that will hopefully open all State parks for the Memorial Day weekend, and the rest of the summer. The deal gets the $11 million to keep the parks open by stealing $74 million from the Environmental Protection Fund. Now, hold it right there, math majors. Never mind a slight discrepancy between those two numbers. No doubt the balance will go to something important – like subsidies for oil exploration in Long Island Sound or something.

Speaking of our esteemed Governor and the NYS budget, we may get a ruling on the legality of the Guv’s attempt to furlough unionized State Workers. Of course, I’ll keep you in the loop, no matter how much you don’t care.

Otherwise, I’m just gonna lay low and try to slide through Friday and into this three-day weekend, which will be over too damn soon.

There’s a “social media” conference in town this week called Biz Buzz. I wonder if they know that’s a drinking game we used to play? For Buzz, you get in a circle and go around clockwise counting. But when you get to a number that’s got a 7 in it or is a multiple of 7, you say ‘buzz’ and then you reverse direction. If you screw up, you have to chug a beer (or do a shot, whatever). When you add Biz, you do the same thing on the sixes. So Biz Buzz could get pretty tricky. Especially when you threw in the other rules, like no swearing, no pointing, and no false accusations. Ah, those were the days.

Looks like the “top kill” thing is working OK, so far. If you can believe BP, anway. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best so we can get back to ignoring Louisiana and offshore drilling again. Until the next catastrophe.

We had the hearing here in NY to see if the Gov. is allowed to break legal contracts on a whim. I’m guessing the ruling – which may come as early as tomorrow – will be in favor of the unions. Then it’ll be time for layoffs, I guess. Something more to worry about.

Makes me want to start smoking again like this 2-yr old, who smokes two packs a day. You gotta wonder what would possess a parent to start giving their 18-month old baby cigarettes. I mean, lit ones (or did they teach him how to use a lighter).

It hit 90 degrees here yesterday, which broke the old record of 89, set the year I graduated from high school (which was a long, long time ago). Sucked. And it’s supposed to be hot again today, too. So far, we’ve managed to keep the a/c off.

Beats having two-inch hail and tornadoes, I guess. I hope all you folks (and your cars) out in Colorado came out unscathed.

Well, crap. I guess it’s about that time again.

Is it just me, or are you creeped out when you go to a website and it tells you your facebook “friends” have joined the Huffington Post, or CNN updates you on your friends activities? Do I show up on other people’s pages too? I think I changed all those settings, but who the hell knows? I mean, I think some of the people I see are the same people who passed along those helpful “change your facebook privacy settings” tips. I really should just pull the plug on the facebook thing. I never quite got it in the first place, and I really don’t look at it all that often. I guess I just don’t care whether Billy Bob fertilized Betty Sue’s crops in Farmville (I mean, go for it you two, but, geez, is nobody discrete these days?).

Hey, how’s this for a quandary? You get picked up by five-oh on some bogus stolen car charge (so you say, anyway), and you post bail but you’re, you know, kinda Mexican looking, so the feds hold you for being an illegal immigrant. And you show them your ID and your birth certificate that shows you were born in Puerto Rico (and, yeah, that really, really is part of the United States, no matter what Vaughn Ward may think), but well, did I mention you’re kinda Mexican looking? So obviously your documents are forged, so they hold you and tell you you’re gonna be deported. Fortunately, your Congressman – who’s kinda Mexican looking himself – intervenes and springs you.

That would kinda suck, huh? And it didn’t even happen in Arizona; this was in Chicago.

So, while nobody was paying much attention, it looks like North and South Korea are on the verge of resuming their war. Now, as much as I liked M*A*S*H, let’s say we just sit this one out, eh? It might make the price of TVs, DVD players, and other consumer electronics go up, but, well, it just doesn’t seem worth it. Besides, we’re still in the process of bringing Democracy to Afghanistan.

Ever get the urge to fire off an angry e-mail to a Senator or congresscritter? Well, you might wanna think twice about that (especially if you happen to be kinda Mexican looking). Turns out what I always thought was one of our “rights” is actually called “felony harassment” or something. Go figure. I hope it’s still OK to bitch about ’em here, or I’m gonna need to start up a collection for my legal fees.

BP is gonna try packing their hole with mud today (maybe). I always knew those Brits were a bunch of mud packers (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Hopefully this will actually work (or at least slow it down so they can do something else). I have my doubts, though. I think they may just wind up stressing the pipe and blowing it out in a few more places. I hope not though.

The lamestream media keep pushing the “Is This Obama’s Katrina” meme. Unfortunately, this seems to be worse. For one thing, Katrina the hurricane at least was an event that ended in a couple of days (even if the aftermath goes on), while this oil spew has been going on for over a month, and it may be many more months before they can drill a relief well to stop it. And while there are really only a handful of hurricanes that threaten the Gulf Coast in a given season, there are Allah only knows how many of the 800+ active offshore drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico are ready to blow at any moment, like a bunch of aneurysms ready to pop without warning. Without any warning to us anyway. It appears that BP actually had quite a few clues that there were pressure and flow problems (which, at my age, I can relate to) before the damn thing blew up. And Obama keeps allowing new ones (fuck new ones; they ought to shut them all down until they can be inspected and relief wells drilled), and seems to be unwilling – despite the tough talk – to regulate them.

Fortunately, I live inland and don’t really like shrimp, so I think I’m good.

The President has requested a $37.5 billion “emergency” war supplemental – $32 billion of which is earmarked for Obama’s Folly in Afghanistan (which will bring the Afghanistan War spending for this fiscal year up to $99 billion). Two reports – from the Congressional Research Service and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction – make you kind of wonder just why we’re throwing all this money down the Afghan rabbit hole instead of, oh, I dunno, plugging the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico or maybe rebuilding New Orleans after Katrina (I mean, it’s only been 5 years now), or, hey, how about single payer healthcare, building high speed rail, or fixing every crappy bridge and highway in the country?

According to the reports, there’s no exit strategy, we’re not making our timeframes for withdrawing troops, and the “surge” has been quite as wonderful as Saint Stanley McChrystal led us (or some of us, anyway) to believe it would be.

There’s also the matter of seemingly unrealistic goals for training Afghan security forces, poor planning of infrastructure projects, pervasive corruption within the Afghan government and the lack of contracting oversight. Finally there’s the concern that some of the individual funding requests seem inflated, in certain areas the Pentagon isn’t spending the money it already has and billions of dollars in requests don’t appear to genuinely qualify as emergency spending — the only thing Obama vowed he would ever use an emergency spending bill for again.

I predict the supplemental will pass overwhelmingly. I mean, you gotta support the troops, right?

It was too goddamn hot yesterday, it’s gonna be too damn hot today, and it’ll be too dam hot again tomorrow. Expect much whining from me.

Interesting events here last night, as an apparently pretty big underground transformer blew up, sending manhole covers flying and flames shooting up into the night sky. Good thing this isn’t New York City, or you know everybody would be flipped out over a terrorist attack. We’re not very high on the target list, though, so they just cut the power and put out the fire. Not a job I’d want – climbing down a manhole and hoping that the people from the power company were really, really sure they’d gotten the electricity shut down. Pretty fortunate that it happened on a Sunday night when nothing was going on (not that there’s a whole lot going on ever around here, but it’d kinda suck to be driving over a manhole when it exploded.

When I first briefly glanced at the headline, I thought Joe Arpaio had been gored by a bull. Sadly, it was somebody else. I wasn’t gonna look at the pictures after reading what happened, but, well, I finally did. One of those staring at a car wreck things, I guess. I hesitate to say that anybody deserves a horn through the throat, but, well, if you’re gonna torture and kill a 2,000 pound animal that can run, like, 35 miles an hour, I gotta say you’re both cruel and crazy. At least the fools at Pamploma aren’t cruel. Just stupid.

While the financial reform bill headed to conference doesn’t exactly have the blessing of Wall Street, folks in the financial sector are apparently pretty relieved that it doesn’t really do anything.

Speaking of not really doing anything, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is talking tough about BP, but not actually doing anything about them as oil – that may be un-cleanable – oozes into Louisiana’s wetlands, and the oil keeps gushing out more than a month since their drilling rig blew up (a month already? My how time flies). Well, that’s unfair, I guess. The Obama Administration did issue a moratorium on offshore oil drilling. For those wishing to expand their vocabulary, “moratorium” apparently means “business as usual,” as at least 17 permits (more than one every other day) have been issued since the “moratorium” went into effect.

Tonight is the series finale for Law and Order, which bows out after 20 years. Well, sort of. A new Law and Order LA will premiere in the fall (which I predict will be a flop; not the fall, the show), the SVU show will be back for another season, and I’m pretty sure that L&O or one of its spinoffs is on somewhere 24/7 (often at the same time).

Still it’ll be sad to the show that brought us Stephen Colbert as a murderous forger, a young Lewis Black with a Jewfro, and a then-unknown Phillip Seymour Hoffman and his lawyer, Samuel L Jackson.

Yes, I havewatched the show once or twice.

Oh well, time to shut all the doors and windows; it’s gonna be way too hot today.

On Press the Meat today, it’s Rand Paul and Joe Sestak. OK, mostly it’s Joe Sestak, since, as we all know, Rand Paul is too much of a coward to defend his bullshit, “first amendment” objection to the Civil Rights Act. Also up, Tex-ass Senator John Cornyn and Bob Menendez, plus a roundtable with flat head Tom Friedman, Paul “I’m nothing without Shields” Gigot, Andrea Mitchell, and the mummified remains of Bob Woodward.

Faze the Nation has Robert Gibbs, Lamar “Tennessee Jed” Alexander, and Joe Sestak.

On Fux News Sunday, Weaselface Wallace has Caribou Barbie, plus Tim Kaine, and Bozo the Clown, Michael Steele. There’s also a panel with the usual fuxheads, and the “Power Player of the Week”, Mrs Clarence the Clown Thomas tells us how she wants the people to take a pledge against “Washington’s big government agenda.” Plus, she’ll share her husband’s favorite free porn sites.

The Kaine and Steele show makes its way over to the Goebbels network, where the Axis of Drivel is reunited with a “classic” roundtable of George :jerk: Will, Cokie “the hag” Roberts, and Sam :omg: Donaldson. Oh, plus token roundtable sitter, political mastermind Donna Brazile.

Over at CNN, Fareed Zakaria has the story of some guy’s terrifying experience in Russia, plus, the President of Georgia on dealing with Russia two years after the Georgian war, and two experts discuss Putin’s Russia. Even better, you can buy a Fareed Zakaria GPS coffee mug.

Enjoy the day – and try not to think about what’s coming tomorrow.

We are a divided nation. Half the country thinks Obama is a Nigerian commie mooslam who wants to take your guns, money, and women, and give them to Mexicans. The other half of the country thinks Obama is an ineffectual, naive corporatist, selling out to the insurance industry, big pharma, big oil, big banks, and big nukes (by the way, Mr. President, if companies are too corrupt and inept to safely dig a hole in the fucking ground, do you really want them playing with fissionable materials?). The third half of the country, of course, believes Obama can do no wrong, has a secret liberal agenda that he’ll unleash in his second term (yeah, like he’s gonna get a second term), and really, what can he actually accomplish with the Democrats in charge of the House and Senate (can’t wait to see what he does with Republicans running at least one house of Congress – though, I must say, the Democrats might owe the teabaggers a steak dinner at a fancy whites-only restaurant for all their help in keeping Republicans in the minority)?

Although Obama moved with a Bush-like pace (and a Dick Cheney mindset) on the whole underwater oil gusher thingie, his administration has now sprung into action. Which, of course, means he’s created a commission to study it. I don’t know about you, but I feel much better. Plus I hear Toni Morrison is working on a new novel based on the BP oil spill – “Tar Baby 2: This Time It’s Personal.”

Speaking of BP, they’ll be taking a much-needed break this weekend, and will get back to not stopping the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico next Tuesday (must be British Memorial Day is a week earlier than ours; kinda like the opposite of Russian Christmas, I guess). No doubt, the President will be drafting a stern letter, expressing his desire to have them get back to work (which Rand Paul will decry as being un-American and mean).

It’ll be interesting to see how the Texas history books (coming soon to a school near you) cover all this. On the one hand, they’d want to emphasize how bad Obama fucked it all up (maybe even caused it), while still praising deep water oil drilling and the corporate right to rape the Earth in the name of the almighty dollar.

Keith Olbermann mentioned this the other night, and I remember seeing it before. Thanks to the Intertubes, we don’t need to purchase the Tonight Show box set to see it. Thank you, YouTube.

Oh, and John Fund’s an asshole.