"Honestly we can't believe a thing BP says and a lot of people are starting to question what they're hearing out of the administration simply because both have their own vested interests here," said Steiner.
link: Expert: If cap fails, oil in Gulf will triple | Raw Story
We are shocked.
A New York City woman has sued Citigroup for firing her because she was just too good-looking, reports the Village Voice.
link: Debrahlee Lorenzana Says Citigroup Fired Her Because She Was Too Hot
Wait.
What?
Well, yes, it's true. This woman is too hot to be a banker, says Citigroup, where (according to the Voice)...
...the managers gave her a list of clothing items she would not be allowed to wear: turtlenecks, pencil skirts, and fitted suits. And three-inch heels. "As a result of her tall stature, coupled with her curvaceous figure," her suit says, Lorenzana was told "she should not wear classic high-heeled business shoes, as this purportedly drew attention to her body in a manner that was upsetting to her easily distracted male managers."
Really.
I'm not exactly sure what a pencil skirt is but maybe bankers are supposed to do it in ink.
2:22 p.m. In what seemed like a failsafe arrangement, a man met someone he knew only as “The Hippie” near an I Street store and let the heavily jailhouse-tattooed man “test drive” his car for later purchase. It went so well that they were to meet at a future date so The Hippie could give him money for the car. Bye, The Hippie, in my car! But at the appointed pay-up point, The Hippie never returned with the cash. And what would be his motivation, anyway? Honesty? Funny. Anyway, the now the seller is now without car or cash value. He was unable to supply police with the license plate number or any registration paperwork.
link: Humphrey, The Hippie And Hordes Of Hortatory Half-Wits – June 1, 2010 | The Arcata Eye
The Latvian Association of Blondes (LAB) is doing its part to ensure their country has a robust economic comeback. Hundreds of blondes from around the country came to Riga, Latvia's capital, on Saturday to parade in pink and strut with their poodles in an effort to cheer up the struggling nation.
link: Latvia's 'Blonde Parade' Hope To Stimulate Economy (PHOTOS)
A blonde parade!
As Congress investigated its role in the doomed Deep Horizon oil rig, Halliburton donated $17,000 to candidates running for federal office, giving money to several lawmakers on committees that have launched inquiries into the massive spill....
Of the 10 current members of Congress who got money from Halliburton in May, seven are on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath.
link: Halliburton campaign donations spike - Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com
HAMPTON, Va. -- President Barack Obama, addressing graduates at historically black Hampton University on Sunday, said that it is the responsibility of all Americans to offer every child the type of education that will make them competitive in an economy in which just a high school diploma is no longer enough.
Moreover, Obama said, the era of iPads and Xboxes had turned information into a diversion that was imposing new strains on democracy.
"You're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that high on the truth meter," he told the students. "And with iPods and iPads, and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."
link: Obama: iPad, Xbox Turn Information Into A 'Distraction'
I missed this somehow. And already I forgot how I found it, probably because the internet has turned my once-crunchy brain to Pablum.
But really. Isn't this the guy who famously wouldn't go to Washington without his Blackberry? And now he can't figure out how to work an iPod? And by the way, do we really want a guy who can't work an iPod anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico?
(And what's even worse than Obama's yammering here is that in the poll at HuffPo (on the page linked above) 56.5% (as of my reading) agreed with him.
And they say Steve Jobs is the one with the reality distortion field.)
Some jobs just seem impossible to keep filled. Hollywood studio head. United States ambassador to Iraq. Editor of the New York Daily News. Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
To these we must now add "al-Qaida's No. 3 official." John Crimmings, proprietor of the New York-based Blogenlust, has been keeping track of al-Qaida third-in-commands captured or killed by our side, and counts no fewer than four.
link: Why are we always killing al-Qaida's "No. 3" operative? - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine
Note U.S intelligence officials now confirm they think they've gone and bumped off another one.
It is not unfair to say that if his name were not Sean Patrick O’Malley, Boston’s cardinal and archbishop would not be shipping up to Dublin.
And if Boston had not been the epicenter of the clerical sexual abuse crisis that continues to rumble across the United States and Europe, Cardinal O’Malley would not be spending some time in the near future advising his Dublin counterpart, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, on how to weather a scandal.
But it’s more than that.
link: Plenty of lessons to go around - The Boston Globe
“Safety first,” said Andrew Gowers, a BP spokesman
link: BP Tries Again to Capture Oil With a Dome - NYTimes.com
Indeed.
And by the way, maybe we should stop calling that gadget down there a blowout preventer since, obviously, it did not.
THE BOROWITZ REPORT -- In a new video that is light on his usual threats but heavy on admiration, Osama bin Laden admits that he is "professionally envious" of oil giant BP's massive oil spill, saying that it puts his efforts to create destruction and chaos to shame.
"There are times in an evildoer's life when one has to stand back and admire a job well done," Mr. bin Laden says in his latest video. "BP, you blow me away."
link: Andy Borowitz: Bin Laden Says He's 'Professionally Envious' of BP
Speaking of which, why can't we send this Tony Hayward guy to Guantanamo Bay? It's still there, isn't it?
An estimated 910,000 gallons of dispersants — enough to fill more than 100 tanker trucks — are contributing a new toxin to the mix. Containing petroleum distillates and propylene glycol, the dispersants' effects on marine life are still unknown.
What is known is that by breaking down oil into smaller droplets, dispersants reduce the oil's buoyancy, slowing or stalling the crude's rise to the surface and making it harder to track the spill.
Dispersing the oil lower into the water column protects beaches, but also keeps it in cooler waters where oil does not break down as fast. That could prolong the oil's potential to poison fish, said Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
"There's a school of thought that says we've made it worse because of the dispersants," he said.
link: Deepwater mystery: Oil loose in the Gulf - Yahoo! News
More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real.
link: Op-Ed Columnist - The Pain Caucus - NYTimes.com
Bangor DaIly News, ME - About 2,700 Mainers will get notices from the state Department of Labor next week that their unemployment benefits are ending because Congress failed to pass an extension before taking a week off over the Memorial Day holiday.
link: UNDERNEWS: SENATE DESERTS UNEMPLOYED FOR ITS VACATION
“My impression is that we were unprepared for this,” he said.
link: Our Fix-It Faith and the Oil Spill - NYTimes.com
Times, UK- Three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline.
link: UNDERNEWS: ISRAEL STATIONS THREE SUBS WITH NUCLEAR MISSILES OFF IRANIAN COAST
(Israel, by the by, has no nuclear weapons, wink wink.)
