The Oil Drum

Something to keep your mind off the endless misery of samsara?

Nope.

The Oil Drum.

Topkill Fails

BP announces the failure of its "topkill" plan to plug the Oilmaggedon leak.

BP began a risky operation known as "top kill" on Wednesday. The procedure involves pumping heavy drilling mud into the crippled well in a bid to stop the oil. It's never been tried in 5,000 feet of water.

The oil spill began after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded last month, killing 11 people. It's the worst spill in U.S. history, dumping between 18 million and 40 million gallons into the Gulf.

Um, This Is Fun

VastLeft dialogue with Lotus at whoviating.

Smearing Elena Kagan: Grey Lady Smear-Sandwich Edition

I read the NYT this AM and realized that I was actually reading the National Enquirer.

No, really.

On the front page, to which I shall not link, is a charming piece smearing Kagan with the "A" word -- gentle readers, you must know what that one is, the thing that uppity women must not be -- (whispers) ambitiouss -- ooooooooooooo so scarey --- and on the inside back page, NYT features comments on Kagan's views of executive powers as parsed by --- insert drum roll here --- pro-torturer-in-chief John Yoo.

Oh, my. Who thought that one up? The Heathers? ("Hey, whatcha say we ask John Yoo what he thinks about Kagan's views on executive power?" [Crowd chortles, all dig elbows into one another's ribs.] "Hyuk, hyuk!" "Do it! Do it!")

Really I do get sick of this sh*t.

But -- why am I so alone?

So lucky that early adopter Goldman-Sachs-slayer Obama Afghanistan-surge non-supporter public optionist Martha Coakley didn't win over uber-charmer Scott Brown, isn't it?

Brown? Coakley? [Insert The Big Shrug.]

It really doesn't make any difference, does it? It's all hopeless, so who cares?

And then we have a wonderful blogger to whom I shall not link who's very generally wonderful save for relatively rare spasms of bad madness who's spending his precious time on earth helpfully calling Hillary Clinton a war criminal.


Jeez, people.

Wake the f*ck up.

Domestic Violence Homicides Up, Way Up, in MA

Interesting story, save for the unbelievable blame-the-victim-ism.

It's never too late to keep victimizing victims, is it?

I Dunno About All This

I love the Daily Howler.

But I don't love this.


The Kagan pie-fight has nothing to do with Kagan any more, it's a pie fight about having pie fights, and about having had pie fights, and having lost them.

And about being righteously enraged that liberal-progressive-green-socialdem-whatever you call them, keep on losing the actual serious fights, and not winning even when we should have won, and not winning when we have (supposedly) won.

Beyond the meta-piefight, it's rage about the machine, even about the continuing existence of suffering in samsara. One had been expecting a reprieve, perhaps, had one? Good luck with that.

Uh-oh. It's the Old Tribalism Thing Again. Pile On Kagan NOW, or Or Else!

What can I say?

I'm with Larry Lessig.

Lessig Calls Greenwald's Take on Kagan "Absurd"

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig took Salon blogger Glenn Greenwald to task for his opposition to Kagan, the current U.S. Solicitor General. Lessig took particular exception to Greenwald's contention that Kagan lacks a clear judicial record.

"The hyperbole in what Glenn is saying here is something we really have to check. He said right at the top of your show that there's a complete blank slate here. That every substantive legal question she has left unanswered," Lessig told Maddow Monday night. "That is just absurd."

And I think those who are getting all hysterical need to recognize their own groupthink hysteria. It's pretty hopey-change, with us or agin' us, rabid mob rule kinda thing.

Not pretty.

Happy Mother's Day, Ladies: Celebrating the Fact That It's Never Too Early to Start Making Fun of a Female's Appearance

.


















Hey, let's hear it for diversity! Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's taking flak from all sides! And she deserves it! The ever-compassionate HuffPo started it last week, posting arguably the most unattractive pic of Kagan ever. (Not the pic above. It was waaay worse).

BUT--this morning on my local TV that one was topped by an even MORE unattractive pic of Kagan, ever, because she was looking unattractive AND scowling!! Scare-y!

Wow, let's talk about Hillary's thick ankles! Let's talk about Obama saying she was only "likable enough"! Let's talk about Menino not supporting Goldman-Sachs-slayer AG Martha Coakley because "no one" (meaning Menino) likes her"?

Yes, Virginia, girls R fair game!

We smear them on their girly appearances and likeability and scariness/non-scariness factor -- because that's just how it is! And because -- we can!



.
Note non-scary pic of Elena Kagan, above, which was not chosen by the bostonchannel.com

AG Martha Coakley Expands Jobs Programs for Youth

Thinking outside the box, AG Coakley expands jobs for youth program with monies from her successful suits against Big Pharma and Big "Health."

Shame on us for failing to elect her to the US Senate.

-----
From the Boston Globe:

"With the economic crunch squeezing the number of jobs available for young people, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced yesterday that her office would devote another $100,000 to employment programs, creating 64 more positions for at-risk youths in programs across Massachusetts.

The funding — which came from settlements of cases against health care and pharmaceutical companies — will boost the $1.5 million the attorney general’s office already committed to 16 programs through Project YES, or Youth Employment Solutions. The grants were open to municipalities, public school districts, and nonprofit groups that serve low-income or at-risk youth and include physical fitness in their programs.

With yesterday’s announcement, the program is now expected to create a total of 225 jobs.

“It’s not enough. But it’s a good start,’’ Coakley told about 100 teenagers assembled in the gym at the Catholic Charities Teen Center at St. Peter in Dorchester, where she was joined by Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley and Mayor Thomas M. Menino. . . "

Considering how he backstabbed her in the election by failing to turn out his machine on her behalf, it must be challenging to share a stage with Menino.

Talibangelical Anti-Homosexual Evangelist Snagged Hiring Hired Hand at Rentboy.com

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Swiftingboating Martha Coakley

Using Twitter.

And let's keep in mind that Attorney General Coakley's going after Goldman Sachs pretty much right after her 2007 election as AG had absolutely nothing to do with [insert special interest here] needing her to be smeared into defeat in 2010. That was just because she spent too much time with her family and didn't know the name of a conservative Republican baseball player and was both too feeble and too ambitious. Ok?

Death of Alice Miller, Brilliant Defender of Children.

Hat-tip to fellow Miller enthusiast Arthur Silber.

Yes, I know, I'm still behind.

So read Arthur Silber.

And Corrente.

And Jesus' General.

And Reclusive Leftist.

Love that Dirty Water

Love that dirty water

Cardinal Calls Priestly Pedophilia Plague: "Petty Gossip"

Why?
Because they still don't get it.

Except for those who do get it, because they do it, and want to keep on keeping on.

Feh.

Catholic Cardinal rejects sex abuse 'gossip'
A senior cardinal has said the Roman Catholic faithful will not be swayed by "petty gossip" about child sex-abuse allegations.

Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, made the remark in an unusual message of support to Pope Benedict XVI during Easter Mass.

"For every 10 people you hear saying they were abused, 10,000 have kept silent.

Empire Stated

Empire stated

$250 Million Dollars of Our Tax Dollars Wasted On Cost-Free Message: "Just Say No"

What a scandal.

Health bill restores $250 million in abstinence-education funds


"A little-noticed provision of the health legislation has rescued federal support for a controversial form of sex education: teaching youths to remain virgins until marriage.

The bill restores $250 million over five years for states to sponsor programs aimed at preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by focusing exclusively on encouraging children and adolescents. . ."

not to have sex.

Full story here.

OK, Where were we?

Sorry about the hiatus. I am, anyhow. Been working on a play. Been working on it for three years. (That's quick playwriting for me -- got another I've been working on for decades.)

So anyway, let's catch up.

Most fun piece today:

Noam Chomsky Supports Health Care Bill.


Second most fun piece, as Dems throw half the population under the bus, again:

Democrats Woo Foes of Abortion.

Because why bother supporting a woman's right to choose? Why bother, when you can support rightwing fetus-firsters instead, and get away with it?

Speaking of which, I bet you've been wondering, "Hmm, what does become of all those unwanted feti once they're post-born into families who wish they had never been born?"

We turn to Parents Behaving Badly, which features the things actual parents/step-parents actually do to their actual kids.

Scroll down to my favorite so far:

7-year-old Beaten To Death By Father on Father's Day.

What's yours?

Yuh, read this.

Ethics.


And from commenter, Kia:

Let me put my answer in the form of a question: what does civilization, or society, provide for us? The low-wage workers in this story face the choice between working for starvation wages and simply starving. In what possible sense can this be described as freedom? How does it differ from the freedom that a pirate offers me to give him all I have or get killed? Isn't society supposed to protect us from piracy and brigandage?

I thought the whole point was that we would not have to prey on one another.

Sorries All Around

OK, so I've been sick, Mr. NBFH has been sick (I gave what I had to him, unhappy sharing), doggie NBFH has been sick, work is sick as in oy vey, and I just have too f* much on my plate, thus this blog too is suffering, alas alas.

[Sighs, shrugs.]

As they say in Nepali -- "ke garne?"

Which they really do.

Poetrymind: Year of the Iron Tiger

Poetrymind: Year of the Iron Tiger

Department of Coakley As Collateral Damage (Not to Mention Menino Throwing Coakley to the Wolves, Which I Won't Mention, As I've Mentioned It Before)

Just found this diary by peterboy.

"Scott Brown got the same vote total as McCain, but Coakley got 900k
fewer votes.

Dem turnout and independent turnout just disappeared.

MA Election results
2010 election

1,168,000 brown
1,059,000 coakley
20,000 others
2,247,000 total

2008 election

1,109,000 mccain
1,904,000 obama
100,000 others
3,113,000 total


Brown wins with about the same vote as McCain got.

Where were the 900k or so voters that didnt show up at all and who just a year ago gave Obama the win?

Brown ran identical numbers to McCain, but Coakley drew 900k fewer.

Dems and independents just didn't turn out. It is as Howard Dean tried to say but then didnt have the data to support it--Progressives are mad at Obama for talking tough on Corporations, HMOs, Big Rx, and Wall Street. But then playing kissy face with them.

Too bad progressives failed to notice that actual progressive Martha Coakley don't play that kinda kissy face. But they did not. Scott Brown attracted lots of late money from Wall Streeters wanting Brown to kissyface them.

In her bid to become the first woman elected to the United States Senate from Massachusetts, Ms. Coakley has thrown her support behind the proposed health care overhaul, the issue that has given this special election a national focus. She has said, though, that she supports a public option to encourage competition and reduce costs.

As attorney general, Ms. Coakley investigated subprime lending practices and helped provide relief for Massachusetts homeowners beset by foreclosures. In 2009, Goldman Sachs agreed to pay up to $60 million to end an inquiry by her office into whether the firm helped promote unfair home loans in the state.

Ms. Coakley supports President Obama’s proposal to tax financial institutions to recoup taxpayers’ investments and would vote to end tax cuts that favor wealthy Americans.

However, Ms. Coakley has said she does not support Mr. Obama’s decision to send 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, saying instead that Afghan leadership must be strengthened.

On civil liberties issues, Ms. Coakley was the first state attorney general to sue the federal government to overturn a section of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and woman. She also opposes the death penalty and advocates civilian trials for terrorism suspects.

Elections have consequences.

Department of Remind Me Again Why Wingers Think Kids Need a Mommy and a Daddy?

Because they sure don't need a Daddy like this.

Daddy waterboards his 4 year old daughter as punishment for her failure to recite the alphabet on command. No, really, I am not making this up. I don't have to. I never have to.

Hat-tip to Bookem/Seattle Tammy.

The Bush/Cheney Depression: A Gift That Keeps On Giving, Domestic Violence/Murder Edition

Sudden rise in domestic violence homicides in Massachusetts linked to economic stressors.

Rising economic stress cited in domestic violence increase

The Westford man who shot his wife Monday, critically wounding her, before fatally shooting his daughter and himself is the second to allegedly kill a family member in this suburb in less than a month, and the fatal shootings are the latest in a rash of domestic killings in Massachusetts this year.

Since Jan. 9, at least five women have been killed in domestic violence. Two others were severely wounded in the total of six different incidents.

The violence has alarmed authorities and advocates for women, who point out that women’s groups are reporting dramatic increases in domestic abuse in Massachusetts and across the country.

“I haven’t seen this level of violence - and it’s not just the homicides, it’s the assaults and attempted murders - and I’ve been doing this for over 30 years.’’ said Joanne Tulonen, director of the YWCA/Battered Women’s Resources organization in Leominster, where a domestic dispute led to a knife attack on two women Sunday morning.

There seem to be few common threads in the deadly domestic violence that began Jan. 9 in Westford, where a man allegedly shot his 43-year-old wife before turning the gun on himself. In Spencer the following week, a man facing a foreclosure auction took his own life after shooting and killing his sick wife and their horse, setting fire to their home, and torching his pickup truck.

On Jan. 16, a Fall River man allegedly shot his wife at a Westport restaurant before killing himself. His wife survived. The next day, a 23-year-old Seekonk man and a 20-year-old woman died in an apparent murder-suicide at a motel in North Attleborough after police tried to arrest the man on an outstanding warrant.

A Fitchburg State College freshman, Allison Myrick, 19, of Groton, was stabbed to death Jan. 23, allegedly by her 19-year-old boyfriend, Robert Gulla of Shirley. Gulla stabbed and shot himself, but survived, police said. In Leominster on Sunday morning, a 23-year-old man allegedly slashed the throat of his girlfriend

Women’s advocates said they believe that despite the varying circumstances, at least one underlying cause is an unforgiving economy that has intensified family disputes, inflamed some men’s abusive tendencies, and left some women more reluctant to leave violent relationships.

“The story behind the story is the economy,’’ said Suzanne Dubus, executive director of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center, a domestic violence organization in Newburyport. “Bad economic times do not create batterers, but they do exacerbate problems. And women who are lying in the dark at night, thinking about leaving, they have no idea how they’ll support themselves and their kids on their own.’’

Black Box Voting: Rage Against the (Diebold) Machine(s)?

So Coakley won the hand count?


I didn't know that.

A little something from Black Box voting re: Coakley vs Brown in MA.

This article is about our right to know, not about Martha Coakley or Scott Brown. And lest you think something here favors a Democrat, just you wait, I'm still working on anomalies in the NY-23 election that are just plain hard to 'splain. As Richard Hayes Phillips says when people tell him to forget it, "I'm a historian, I've got all the time in the world." NY-23 still has history to be written. My public records are starting to arrive. But that's another story.

Back to Massachusetts, I think you have a right to know that Coakley won the hand counts there.

That's right.

According to preliminary media results by municipality, Democrat Martha Coakley won Massachusetts overall in its hand counted locations,* with 51.12% of the vote (32,247 hand counted votes) to Brown's 30,136, which garnered him 47.77% of hand counted votes. Margin: 3.35% lead for Coakley.

Massachusetts has 71 hand count locations, 91 ES&S locations, and 187 Diebold locations, with two I call the mystery municipalities (Northbridge and Milton) apparently using optical scanners, not sure what kind.

ES&S RESULTS

The greatest margin between the candidates was with ES&S machines -- 53.64% for Brown, 45.31% for Coakley, a margin for Brown of 8.33%. It looks like ES&S counted a total of 620,388 votes, with 332,812 going to Brown and 281,118 going to Coakley. Taken overall, the difference -- 8.33% Brown (ES&S) added to 3.35% Coakley (Hand Count) shows an 11.68% difference between the ES&S and the Hand Counts. Of course, as Mark Twain used to say, there are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. These statistics don't prove anything, and probably shouldn't be discussed without a grain of salt handy before examining more detailed demographics.

As a point of reference, however, in the Maine gay marriage issue recently there was no significant overall difference between machine count and hand count locations.

DIEBOLD RESULTS

Diebold's results are 51.42% for Brown, with 791,272 Republican votes counted by Diebold, vs. 47.61% for Coakley, with 732,633 Democratic votes counted by Diebold, for a spread of 3.81% favoring Brown.

LATE-REPORTED RESULTS

It's always interesting to watch hand counts beat machine count results to the newspaper.

In the Massachusetts special senate election, results from six of 71 hand count locations were reported about 2 1/2 hours after the polls closed, with the remaining 65 hand count locations in right away. The slower hand count results represent 8.45% of all hand count locations.

These latecoming hand-counted results favored Coakley very heavily (she got 55.68% of these, earning 4,610 votes to Brown's 42.9%, representing 3,552, a 12.78% margin) Whether the reports came to the media late or the media posted them late is unclear.

ES&S SLOWPOKE VOTES

ES&S had 12 of its 91 locations reported at least 2 1/2 hours after polls closed, a total of 13.2% of all its locations (as compared with just 8.45% of slower reporting hand count locations). So ES&S certainly wasn't faster than hand counts, overall!

These slow-arriving votes represented 88,288 of ES&S's 620,388 votes. Overall Brown got 46,257, for 52.39% of the late-arriving ES&S votes, and Coakley got 41,238, for 46.71%, yielding a margin of 5.68% of the late-arriving votes going to Brown, for a net gain of 5,019 votes to Brown.

North Attleboro and Paxton appear to be the last locations in the state to be reported, and they are both ES&S. North Attleboro brought in 10,881
very late votes, 71.48% of them going to Brown; Paxton brought in 2,036 votes, 65.37% going to Brown.

THE SLOW BOAT FROM DIEBOLD

Yes, I know they're supposed to be called Premier machines now, and ES&S bought the company so it's now all one big monopoly family, and then the whole kit and kaboodle in New England -- Premier and ES&S -- is programmed by the juicy little LHS Associates guys. But I like to just call them Diebold, that familiar name which we all know and love.

Twenty-four of Diebold's 187 locations wandered in late, smoking cigarettes and wearing a bathrobe. That's 12.83% of all its locations. Apparently it was faster to hand count 8,497 ballots, as they did promptly in Newburyport, or 7,339 ballots, as they hand counted in public for all to see in Milton, than to push a button and wait five minutes for the machine to spit out a Diebold results report in Pelham where they had 725 votes. East Brookfield's 899 Diebold votes must have run out of gas somewhere; they weren't reported for hours.

All in all, a total of 170,594 Diebold votes took a long time to stumble in the door, These votes -- surprise! -- favored Coakley. She got 86,214 of them, for 50.54%, and Brown got 82,911 tardy Diebold votes, for 48.60%, putting Coakley on the plus side of the late arrivers by a 1.94% margin, for a net gain of 3,303 slow-moving votes.

They'd called the election by the time the 170,594 tardy Diebold votes showed up. Coakley had conceded. And of course, there are many ways to look at this if you don't trust voting machines, and why should you? It's hard to know who was fooling around, or if anybody was.