Archive for May 2, 2010
CNN Desperate for Ratings — Stuck on “BREAKING NEWS”
24+ hours on (@10:11 p.m. ET) CNN is still airing a chyron about “BREAKING NEWS” in Times Square.
Seems to me that proves the point that CNN is desperate.
BP Bribing Alabama
Hey little people — the Supreme Court is on our side – we’re “people” now.
We’ve busted up the unions so you have no say and nowhere to go.
We’re making our profit overseas so we don’t give a shit about you.
The taxes we pay are a pittance but we own the politicians; we don’t care what you think.
You lose!
So, yo, hats off (heeheh, not really) to the people of Alabama. You’re desperate and we love that because that means you’ll do just about anything!
So here, take these crumbs you peasants — $5,000 — and shut up forever.
New York City Mayor Bloomberg Having Dinner in Times Square
I just caught the tail end of a presser held by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He talked about the car filled with explosives that was found in Times Square last night. He was calm and reassuring and said there is no evidence whatsoever that this was the work of foreign terror organizations. Surveillance video points to a white guy in his 40′s (maybe we should profile white guys in their 40′s?).
(Oh, by the way, Fox — the 24-hour terror “news” network at a time like this — didn’t cover it.)
Thank goodness McCain lost in ’08. If he were in charge we’d probably be bomb, bomb, bomb, bombing Iran right about now.
Break Time
Oh my God. This is so funny. Look at the ritual this dog goes through when he gets fed (a compilation).
I wonder what he’s thinking!
33% of U.S. Bee Colonies Fail to Survive the Winter
This is huge: Fears for Crops as Shock Figures From America Show Scale of Bee Catastrophe.
The world may be on the brink of biological disaster after news that a third of US bee colonies did not survive the winter.
Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.
The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.
The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS).
The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26 [$39.7 billion] bn to the global economy.
I look at my neighbor’s darling, 1-1/2-year-old grandson and wonder what the world will be like when he’s 20, much less my age.
Leaked Memo: Government Fears Gulf Oil Leak Could Become “Gusher”
Leaked report: “Government fears Deepwater Horizon well could become unchecked gusher:“
A confidential government report on the unfolding spill disaster in the Gulf makes clear the Coast Guard now fears the well could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.
“The following is not public,” reads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Emergency Response document dated April 28. “Two additional release points were found today in the tangled riser. If the riser pipe deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought.”
In scientific circles, an order of magnitude means something is 10 times larger. In this case, an order of magnitude higher would mean the volume of oil coming from the well could be 10 times higher than the 5,000 barrels a day coming out now. That would mean 50,000 barrels a day, or 2.1 million gallons a day.
If this happens, maybe we will finally learn the lesson the gods have been trying to teach us for decades: drilling for oil in oceans and gulfs is not safe and it’s not worth the risk.
The Size of the Gulf Oil Slick — in Perspective
I think it’s hard to put the size of the Gulf oil slick in perspective when looking at those satellite shots we’ve been seeing for a week now. Skytruth posted a photo of the slick — taken on April 25, so it’s probably at least twice as big now — that includes several boats, which gives a far better perspective as to the size of the slick:
I know this picture is ridiculously small. Click here for a larger version.
