— 1.) Will Deepwater Horizon sink Obama? — News from the gulf doesn’t bode well for the relaxer-in-chief: “We’re now more than 40 days in, and the White House has finally gone into full crisis mode,” writes Steve Lombardi, just in time for BP’s White House-authorized “top kill” maneuver–which involved pumping mud into the wellhead in order to clog the flow of oil–to fail. The goal now? According to Lombardi, it’s to cut off America’s expectations for a speedy, efficient, or ecologically sound resolution at the knees. “The statement from White House energy and climate adviser Carol Browner tells us that Team Obama does not want another expectations setback like the failed ‘top-kill.'” That would be bad…for poll numbers.Share:   | — 2.) California union wants its cut of the marijuana pie — The United Food and Commercial Workers, which is still trying to socialize Whole Foods, “has announced that about 100 employees of Oaksterdam University–‘Quality Training for the Cannabis Industry’–and two subsidiaries have voted ‘to enhance job security and gain a clearer voice on the job,'” reports USA Today. “One new job classification being negotiated: ‘bud tender,’ which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as ‘a sommelier of sorts who helps medical marijuana users choose the right strain for their ailment.'” Because there’s nothing more efficient than bargaining with an entire collective of potheads.Share: |
| — 3.) Pakistan finally forgives a repentant Facebook — “Pakistan lifted a ban on Facebook on Monday after officials from the social networking site apologized for a page deemed offensive to Muslims and removed its contents,” the AP reports. Pakistan initiated the ban two weeks ago, when users of the social networking site posted pictures of the Prophet Mohammed (may peace and blessings be upon him) as part of Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, some of which were actually kind of funny. Over fears of losing its share of Pakistan’s cutthroat social-networking market, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and crew acquiesced and took the offensive images down. A Pakistani official told the AP that Facebook “has informed us that all the sacrilegious material has been removed from the URL” and that “nothing of this sort will happen in the future.”Share: |
| — 4.) Incredibly boring activists plan to drink coffee en masse this summer — “A group of progressives who call themselves the Coffee Party and who attracted national media exposure by forming what was billed as the liberal response to the Tea Party movement has scheduled a summer national convention for its activists in Kentucky,” writes The Daily Caller’s Alex Pappas. The convention even has a name: “Wake Up and Stand Up, America!” According to the party’s website, this convention will basically be like a huge meet-up for World of Warcraft/Match.com types: “This event will be an exciting and historic opportunity to meet fellow Coffee Partiers from around the country, going beyond virtual relationships to real friendships.”Share: |
| –5.) A broke NY still has money for tennis — “While Gov. David Paterson has declared that New York is facing an ‘unprecedented fiscal crisis,’ the state has paid out millions of dollars to local nonprofit groups,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Including $28,500 for a tennis league, $11,000 for a lighthouse museum and $2,700 for a curling club—in grants that critics deride as pork-barrel spending.” Let the power-starved fiscal hawks screech, say New York Dems. “This is not play money. It’s meat and potatoes. It’s core services,” Linda M. Leest, the executive director of Services Now for Adult Persons in Queens Village, told the Journal.Share: |
| — 6.) Americans feel so free now that they are no longer paying their mortgages — Alex Pemberton and Susan Reboyras, the two unlucky saps the New York Times discovered for its overdue trend story on people who are refusing to pay their mortgages but also refusing to leave their homes, are actually kind of glad that they took out a mortgage they can’t afford. According to the Times, “Foreclosure has allowed them to stabilize the family business. Go to Outback occasionally for a steak. Take their gas-guzzling airboat out for the weekend. Visit the Hard Rock Casino.” These are all really fun things that Pemberton and Reboyras would not be able to do if they were behaving like functioning adults. Apparently, the “pace of resolving these problem loans is slow and getting slower because of legal challenges, foreclosure moratoriums, government pressure to offer modifications and the inability of the lenders to cope with so many souring mortgages.” As a result, “the average borrower in foreclosure has been delinquent for 438 days before actually being evicted, up from 251 days in January 2008.” We are all Peter Pan now.Share: |
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