So I thought I was going to have another Jay Inslee story for y’all today, but it turns out that I’m going to have to do more research before we can “come to press” with that one.
But that’s OK, because the world’s been busy doing a lot of other things – and while many of them get media coverage, some don’t get a lot of notice at all.
And of course, there are also those stories that look one way at first glance…but look a lot different when you dig a bit deeper.
We’ll hit a few of those today, have a bit of fun doing it, and get ready for what promises to be another busy week of strategically not doing things in Washington.
To make things even better, some of the stories will be real, and some won’t.
The Further Adventures of Macondo, the Misbehaving Well.
Oh, Macondo, you were supposed to save us, and now look what you’ve done!
Can you hear the drums, Fernando ? I remember long ago another starry night like this
In the firelight Fernando, You were humming to yourself and softly strumming your guitar
I could hear the distant drums , and the sound of bugle calls were coming from afar
They were closer now, Fernando, every hour every minute, seemed to last eternally. I was so afraid Fernando, We were young and full of life and none of us prepared to die
and I’m not afraid to say, the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry
There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, they were shining there for you and me, For Liberty, tho we never thought that we could lose, there’s no regret, if I had to do the same again, I would my friend, Fernando
Enjoying a stroll today at Acadia National Park in Maine, Properly Attired for the Neighborhood.
A small earthquake hit Washington DC, this morning. The 3.6 magnitude rattler was the largest recorded within 30 miles of the nation’s capitol since 1974. There were no reports of damage from the 2.0 aftershocklette.
Matt Simpson’s Prediction Comes True at Last.
The House of Congress adjourned the day before, and scheduled its next meeting for lunchtime on Monday, July 19, 2010. The Senate also adjourned at 6:33 pm Thursday, and vowed to return next Monday afternoon, whereby they will take up the Jobs Bill. Or the Energy Bill. Or something.
It was the 87th day since the pierced earth in block 252 of the Macondo prospect in Mississippi Canyon, nearly a mile under the sea, had bled out all the ancient dead liquified souls that it had held for eons, and covered it, shifted it back and forth by wind, strangled it in its carbon and sulfur stench, and mired its living things in tar and fed the swimming things the liquid toxins. People of the coastal Gulf waters watched with cynical eyes as the British Petroleum company and the government told them that first they had shut it off, and then they would wait and see, and then maybe they would turn it back on, after all.
“There’s a couple of weak points at 9,000 feet, and one at 17,000 feet, that they might be particularly interested in looking at watching in the seismic. ”
Another telegenic oil wonk, Rob Cavner, of Houston, put it thus:
“they are just sitting there circulating on the bottom at 17,840 (feet). Just sitting there. Wells claims they are doing that for “safety reasons” during the well integrity test. What ? …. what the hell are they doing ? They now have an ability to capture all the oil and stop this massive pollution of the Gulf, as well as measure it. We have great weather to get the relief well completed. We already know without the “well integrity test” that they have severe damage to the BOP and other surface equipment and casing. If that were not true, it wouldn’t have blown out in the first place.”
____
“As soon as they do capture all the flow, then a real, measurable number will be in front of the public, and that’s the last thing BP wants, since that number will then be used to extrapolate environmental damage, hence per barrel fines that will likely run to the tens of billions anyway.”
But for those who need help before a heart is available, or for whom a transplant is too risky, we have a gizmo called the left ventricular assist device, a $200,000 item. The LVAD is a cumbersome almost-artificial heart that requires the recipient to wear heavy batteries, a shoulder sling with various parts, tubes going through the chest and into the heart and abdomen, and other substantial inconveniences. It helps push a portion of the heart’s blood forward, doing the work the failing ventricle no longer can accomplish. Once used only to stabilize people awaiting heart transplant, it now is referred to, not ironically, as a “destination therapy”-the exact intervention that you want, not the half-assed loaner you are stuck with till the real McCoy arrives.
Six years ago, the doctor and medical historian Howard Markel, writing in The Atlantic, assembled seven fancy cardiologists and discussed Anonymous Patient C’s medical history with them; all were surprised that he was still puttering along, and even more surprised to then be informed that he was at the time their vice president. Stated most simply, he should have died long, long ago. Most people with his heart, his weight and sedentary habits, his history of cigarette smoking and who knows what else already have heard the bell toll. But not Cheney-pointing out that, though useful to define national trends, population-based statistics are completely useless for predicting the fate of an individual. The extremely unlikely happens every day, all of the time: Just as it’s the rare person who wins the lottery, or is struck by lightning, or rolls snake eyes 50 times in a row, so too does a bad guy with a worse heart beat all the odds to stay alive.
So too does a destructive national energy policy, with a bad deepwater oil well, beat all the odds to stay alive.
____________
Saturday Dawning:
Break out the champaign for brunch, darlings!
BP announces at its only press briefing of the day that :
[13:39] “This is quite normal. First piece of pipe put in down to 500′. Build well on top of that”
[13:39] “There are 6 or 8 valves around this piece of pipe, it’s quite caution. But we’ll go take a sample and make sure it’s not gas from deeper down in the riser”
[13:40] ahh
[13:40] “Could be nitrogen or biodegrading methane”
[13:40] “As the well cools down, that’s probably what caused those bubbles”
Next technical update will be tomorrow (July 18) at 7:30 am CT. Any other updates btwn now & then will be announced.
You know what’s missing on the Intertubes? (well, if you read my title the cat is already out of the bag)
Haiku written for the right wing!
For some inexplicable reason the right has not yet embraced this literary form. Maybe that’s because right-wingers can’t use the left half of their brains. Or is it the right half? OK, they generally don’t use either half. So being a generous soul, I’m offering some haiku written from a right-wing perspective to get them started.
