Thursday Open Thread
Welcome to Thursday! We have beautiful weather today and tonight is Drinking Liberally! We’ll be gathering at Iron Hill Brewery in Wilmington starting at 7 PM. Hope to see you there!
The oil spill off the shore of Louisiana is much worse than first thought. It’s leaking 5 times faster than they thought and it’s mulitple leaks, not just one. Nothing they’ve done so far has helped to stop the leak.
The oil spill from last week’s deadly rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico has increased to 5,000 barrels a day — five times more than the original estimate, said Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry.
A third underwater oil leak has been located in the pipeline that connected the rig to the oil well, said Doug Suttles, chief operating officer for BP.
…
CEO Tony Hayward told CNN’s Brian Todd in an exclusive interview that Transocean’s “blowout preventer” failed to operate before the explosion. A blowout preventer is a large valve at the top of a well, and activating it will stop the flow of oil. The valve may be closed during drilling if underground pressure drives up oil or natural gas, threatening the rig.
“That is the ultimate fail-safe mechanism,” Hayward said. “And for whatever reason — and we don’t understand that yet, but we clearly will as a consequence of both our investigation and federal investigations — it failed to operate.
The oil slick is now the size of the state of Delaware. Right now officials are doing a “controlled burn” of the spill. Grill, baby grill!
In the blogosphere, the left still rules:
In this paper, we revisit these findings by comparing the practices of discursive production and participation among top U.S. political blogs on the left, right, and center during Summer, 2008. Based on qualitative coding of the top 155 political blogs, our results reveal significant cross-ideological variations along several important dimensions. Notably, we find evidence of an association between ideological affiliation and the technologies, institutions, and practices of participation across political blogs. Sites on the left adopt more participatory technical platforms; are comprised of significantly fewer sole-authored sites; include user blogs; maintain more fluid boundaries between secondary and primary content; include longer narrative and discussion posts; and (among the top half of the blogs in our sample) more often use blogs as platforms for mobilization as well as discursive production.
The difference between left-right in solo-authored blogs vs. multiple-author blogs seems very stark.
Tags: Open Thread
Here’s a story for those who like seeing women in new positions…
Now that I’ve got your attention, the US Navy has announced that starting in 2011, women will be able to serve on submarines.
Eric Bodenweiser’s hand puppet, Chris Weeks, is going to announce his candidacy against Pete Schwartzkopf on May 5 at the Broadway Plaza Hotel in downtown Rehoboth Beach. Unfortunately, there is no such place. There is the Boardwalk Plaza Hotel, though. One would think that the former chair of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce would at least know the correct name of his announcement location.
Lots going down in the Snate these days. Anybody asking Coons or Castle what they make of it? Does anybody know if Castle would have supported the FR filibuster?
I loved that article on the left vs right blogosphere. The open, participatory framework of the left blogosphere is probably the influence of the GOS and the effort by the GOS and Chris Bowers to get state blogs set up on Scoop. But the difference also seems reflected on the way that the left and the right operate — the right still is very fond of that top down, command and control model.
California legislators calling for a boycott of Arizona.
Chutzpah Alert!
Arizona is asking the Feds for help in training officers in implementing their stepped up harassment of brown people.
The answer better be a big, fat NO.
The first of what will be many lawsuits have been filed against the AZ “stop them they’re foreign and look suspicious” law
It’s official! Crist is leaving the GOP and running as an independent.
And John Cornyn told Crist that he “could never come back to the GOP.” I wonder if this means that Crist would caucus with the Dems if he somehow wins this thing.
Moonbat Opinion: Arizona alienates world as “hate state” GlobalPost ^ | April 27, 2010 |
Below is a sane comment posted in responce to the lunacy at GlobalPost:
This take on the situation is so incredibly wrong-headed, I scarcely know where to start. Let me start by saying I´m a former American newspaper editor who retired early at age 55 a decade ago and moved to a mountaintop in the middle of Mexico. I have become a Mexican citizen. My wife is Mexican. I speak Spanish all day long. I know Mexicans. I am one.
Some of my relatives are current or former illegal aliens who stole into the U.S. I also am personally acquainted with others who´ve done the same thing. Each and every one can support himself here in Mexico. Things just look brighter over the border. Who cares if it´s illegal? Nobody down here does.
Most Mexicans live as we did in the U.S. during the 1940s and 1950s. Americans in that time were not poor. They simply did not have Toyota Tundras, plasma TVs, iPods, designer clothes, etc., etc. It was another time, and it´s another time in Mexico. Alas, Mexico is right up against another nation that lives in a separate universe, so to speak. It´s very alluring.
Educational opportunities abound in Mexico, probably more so than in the U.S., and they are affordable, but they are under-utilized due to cultural issues. Jobs can be found. Help Wanted signs are common. Newspapers, especially in their Sunday editions, carry reams of Help Wanted ads, everything from the most humble work to high-tech positions. Anyone with focus and drive can make it in Mexico. Are pay scales low? You bet. Is the cost of living in Mexico correspondingly low? It sure is. That´s important to remember when you´re weeping over people who only make ten bucks a day.
Utilities are incredibly low. Medical care is cheap to sometimes free. Income taxes are usually nonexistent. Many people live in homes their families have owned for generations. Property taxes? I pay ten bucks a year. Think of these elements when you´re moaning about our low salaries.
But the allure of the U.S., especially to the young, is powerful. And the U.S. makes it soooo easy with its refusal to get serious with border controls.
Mexicans, if they wish to move to the U.S., have every right to apply, just like other immigrant hopefuls from around the world. People everywhere want to move to America, and America allows that, but standards are set. There are requirements. Most Mexicans do not fulfill those requirements.
There is no “right” to move to the United States.
What´s most important to understand is that we Mexicans are not going hungry. We do not lack clothes. We are not homeless. We are not sitting forlorn on the desert floor, wasting away. This is not Chad. It is not Rwanda. It´s not even Bolivia. Mexico has one of the best standards of living in Latin America. Sure, things could be better. And the primary problem is cultural. Mexicans are not a cooperative people. They do not trust each other, and trust is the foundation of a vibrant economy. Our attitudes come from our troubled and violent past. We need to get over that, but it´s not happening quickly.
Mexicans are flooding over the U.S. border at an absurd rate, and most are doing it through Arizona. Arizona got fed up, and I don´t blame them. Both the U.S. government and the Mexican government are to blame for the lamentable situation. Americans are sick of it, and are taking matters into their own hands. Thus, Arizona. More states will follow, and not just on the border, if Washington doesn´t get real and address this issue in a meaningful way.
you moonbat racialist may now return to your brown fantasies.
Schwartz posts the rebuttal. Here’s the original article. Take your pick:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100427/arizona-immigration-american-mexicans
One of the droll aspects to this discussion is the number of right-wingers [like George Will] penning defenses of the law that will look dopey in 10 years. Remember when Wm F Buckley Jr. argued that Nelson Mandela belonged in jail?
And is Connie Mack III [R-Fla] a “moonbat”?
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/95123-mack-r-compares-ariz-law-to-nazi-germany
Whoa Chico….you went over the border with your savings, pension, and, by now, social security. I am certain Grande Gringo that you are ‘king of the hill’.
We see, on our plasma TVs, how conditions (for those w/o savings, pensions, or ss.) are in Mexico and countries around the world. Iam, for one, not impressed with your ‘success’ story.
So Mexico is the new libertarian paradise?
It can’t be anon, they have universal health care. We all know that means death panels and socialism.
JM,
A lot of what Republicans are saying is going to look foolish in the extreme in 10 yrs. A lot of it looks foolish now.
Well, the recycling bill has passed. I thought it would need more work-up.
A lot of what Republicans are saying is going to look foolish in the extreme in 10 yrs.
Sure, why not? It looked foolish when they were saying it 10 years ago… 20 years ago…
This is for you drunk bastards when you get done swilling cheap liquor. You know damned well that if a Republican was in charge with record oil earnings, and an oil slick was about to come ashore, the republican president would be at fault. No doubt about it
Why don’t Korn and Matlusky engender the same level of passionate fire that the treasurer’s race is experiencing? The auditor is certainly more powerful than the treasurer in Delaware. Is it because we’re ceding that race to the Republicans already?
“Randy…..I am the liquor”
In lieu of a Friday Open Thread … wow, that Minner story in TNJ this morning was interesting. I guess the laws really don’t apply to her, do they?
I think it’s because Korn and Matlusky aren’t that kind of guys.
In lieu of a Friday Open Thread … wow, that Minner story in TNJ this morning was interesting. I guess the laws really don’t apply to her, do they?
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Linkee?
it is still better to adhere on organic farming because the fruits and vegetables does not contain those harmful chemicals.~;,
the oil spill in Mexico would surely be one of the greatest environmental disasters for this year.-*.