I've been trying to keep up with the Deepwater Horizon hearings and I'm sorry to say that I don't think it would cause even a temporary rise in blood pressure to testify before Congress anymore. I used to think it would be pretty much the worst thing that could happen to a CEO. These days? Pfft. Just strike a tone of modest contrition and stonewall the hell out of them. What can Congress do about it? Better yet, what does Congress want to do about it? Nothing.

Clearly our captains of industry and finance have all read Machiavelli's Prince.

What a farce.

So I'm going to catch up on some reading instead. Thanks to Colbert's segment with Mark Moffett the other day, I picked up  Adventures among Ants: A Global Safari with a Cast of Trillions and it's a fascinating read. Really. If you're hunting for something out of the ordinary, I highly recommend it.

Not for nothing but I need to find real employment soon. I'm working myself to the bone being unemployed. Guilt, boredom and availability are a ruthless combo. I just don't feel like I have the right to rest unless I'm bringing in a paycheck. That's sick and wrong. But there it is.

I've been in Oil and Gas Production (all upstream) and Exploration for over 30 years...Not only is Oil Spill Booming a large industry in the USA, teaching Oil Spill Booming is a large industry in the USA...BP's drilling folks have mostly not attended booming school...I guarantee BP's drilling executives think that booming is for pussies -- and that's if they think about booming at all or even know what it is.

Fu@king Nomenclature
Since this is your first day of DKos Booming school, lets go over some important definitions and oilfield grammar. Rope is not rope. It is fu@king rope. All of it. Every yard of rope is fu@king rope. Every section of boom is fu@king boom. An anchor block is not an anchor block. It is a fu@king anchor block. You get the idea...why is most or all of the booming along the Gulf being done wrong?

Great Fu@king Question, DKos Boomer!
   1. The booming is being run by a company that concentrates on drilling and booming is for pussies. Production employees were not invited because they would just cause trouble. This is a drilling operation so just fu@k off.

   2. There's not enough boom, rope nor anchor on this planet to properly boom the Northern Gulf of Mexico. There should be! It's not that much an expense! Really! It's not! They said they were ready! Having enough materials to perform fu@king proper fu@king booming, IS part of being ready! THEY'RE NOT READY! ARE THEY?

   3. Governors, Senators, Presidents and most of all the Piece-Of-$hit-C*nt Media don't know what fu@king proper fu@king booming LOOKS LIKE! So you can just lay a single line of neon-glo-orange boom out parallel to the shore, for miles, with anchor points every quarter-mile to where a good part of it washes up onto the shore like a huge, dead, orange nightcrawler... and they won't know the difference! Where it manages to stay off the bank, a little two-foot chop you would let your kids frolic in will send all the oil either over or under it! ALL THE OIL! ON THE SHORE! IN THE REEDS! ON THE BEACH! IN THE NESTS! OIL! So what! It's not gonna make CNN send a single correspondent to booming school, is it?

Now the Coast Guard?
They know booming. They know what fu@king proper fu@king booming looks like. Coast Guard commandant, Adm. Thad Allen should be fired. Today. Now. This minute. Before he can give another press conference echoing what BP said not five minutes before him. Then he should be fu@king court-martialed and fu@king sent to prison before BP can give him a goddamned fu@king job. He's a shameless piece of $hit. And so is President Obama if he can't see that.

People who know me and how I've supported our President through thick and thin, know how hard it was for me to write that. I'm literally on the verge of tears, right this second. But I won't erase it. There it is.

PHOENIX - Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district's ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district's Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

"It's just like the old South, and it's long past time that we prohibited it," Horne said.

STOCKHOLM - A Swedish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Muhammad offended Muslims said Wednesday he hopes to get another chance to deliver a lecture on free speech that was interrupted by violent protests.

While Vilks escaped the incident with broken glasses and a bit of a shock, he said it raised concerns about the freedom of expression at Sweden's oldest and most prestigious institute of higher learning.

"What you get is a mob deciding what can be discussed at the university," Vilks told The Associated Press, adding he was ready to repeat the lecture if re-invited.

"I'm ready to go up again," he said. "This must be carried through. You cannot allow it to be stopped."

Witnesses said the violence Tuesday broke out a few minutes into Vilks' lecture about the limits of artistic freedom, when he showed a film by an Iranian artist about Islam and homosexuality. A young man leaped from his front-row seat and tried to attack Vilks, police and the artist said.

This morning XXXXX Schools have received a date specific threat. We are relocating students until the buildings can be searched. ---- We will hold students there until it is safe to return or you may pick them up there.

Hello, this is XXXX, Superintendent for XXXXX Schools.
As you are aware our school district received a threat this morning that was date specific and mentioned all five buildings.  In order to ensure the safety of our students and staff we are canceling school for the remainder of the day.  Students that have not been picked up by a parent or guardian will be bussed home this morning starting at 11 o'clock.
Thank you for your patience during this situation.

I haven't read the the Shallows yet, but I might pick it up. I'd like to see if the book talks about the difference in the ways the internet vs TV rot your brain. The review focuses on how the internet vs sustained serious reading affects concentration. I'm not sure it is any worse than watching TV.

So was Monday's 'Nurse Jackie'. A cut above even that show's normal high standard.

Tonight on my Tivo - last night's 'Justified'.

... I understand that it is somebody's baby but sometimes a baby is a horrible freakbaby with flipper hands and you need to kill it before it grows into Danny Devito and runs for Mayor of Gotham.