Lots of primaries yesterday. Blanche Lincoln won, which sucks. Her opponent got lots of support from Organized Labor, but unions in the motherland of Wal-Mart don’t really have a lot of pull these days. The chicken lady went down, and Harry Reid will get to run against a teabagger and “oath keeper” in Sharon Angle. Nikki Haley won by a large majority, but didn’t get 50%, prompting a runoff in SC (so there’s still plenty of time for more people to come out and claim they had an affair – or at least a quickie – with her and call her a f*ckin’ rag head). Of course, the big news from last night came in baseball.
Former Syracuse Chief (OK, he was only here for like a month, but still, I’ll be able to say I saw him when he was in the minors. Not that I actually went out to see him, but I can still say it) Stephen Strasburg had his Major League debut with the Washington Nationals. Although he gave up a 2-run homer in the 4th (welcome to the bigs, Steve), he also struck out 14 batters with no walks in 7 innings, getting the win. Not too shabby.
The lo-cal news is running a poll this morning on whether or not adultery should be illegal (which it is in NY State, though I don’t think there are enough jails to actually enforce it). So far, it’s running 61-39 against it being illegal. I guess they couldn’t think of anything else to poll. They ought to try asking if the Israelis ought to get out of Palestine, as the late Helen Thomas suggested. That would get everybody all riled up.
More spending cuts from our Governor, whose latest emergency spending bill (still no budget here, in case you were wondering) includes $775 million worth of cuts to health care. Where I work, that means $1.5 million less from NY State, plus about the same amount in matching Federal funds. Next week, the Guv is expected to announce a $1 a pack cigarette tax (which would be fine with me, personally), but our hero and Senate Majority Leader Pedro Estrada (who acquired his position, you may recall, for his role in the rather short-lived coup that allowed Republicans to briefly take control of the NYS Senate. He was the one who didn’t assault his girlfriend – or at least hasn’t been charged and/or convicted of it) is saying he’ll vote against the next spending bill, so either we’ll get a budget or NY will shut down.
Estrada, by the way, is being sued by NY AG Andy Cuomo for embezzling some $14 million from a network of nonprofit health care clinics he founded, as well as for vastly underpaying janitors at his Bronx health clinics – some getting paid as little as $1.70 an hour. Which means you’d have to work for 4 hours and 42 minutes to pay the toll to cross the George Washington Bridge (on the bright side, it’s free on the way back).
NOAA says there’s – get this – oil in the water in the Gulf of Mexico. BP CEO Tony Hayward is positively gobsmacked at this news. Still, despite what appears to be oil gushing out rather profusely, BP is confident that the gush will be reduced to a “relative trickle” soon.
On the bright side, BP engineers are developing a car engine that runs on seawater. Assuming the seawater comes from the Gulf of Mexico, of course.