mjh's blog

you oughta be in pictures

“When I’m ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I’m interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without.” – Ansel Adams [hattip]

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knowledge in the making

“When there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good [people] is but knowledge in the making.” – John Milton

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The Longest Day of the Year

Happy Solstice, everyone! "Thus, though we cannot make our sun / Stand still, yet we will make him run."

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But who will protect the global mega-corps? Republicans to the defense!

Galling:  “[BP] shouldn’t have to be fleeced and make [made] chumps…” Chumps?!  Poor BP!

Not surprisingly, Bachman ignores the independent body set up to manage the money from BP. It’s no ATM.

Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I’m not a shill for BP.’

Before Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) became BP’s biggest fan and apologist yesterday, one of the loudest voices criticizing the Obama administration was Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), who said that BP needs to stand up for itself:

“They have to lift the liability cap,” said Bachmann. “But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there — ‘We’re not going to be chumps, and we’re not going to be fleeced.’ And they shouldn’t be. They shouldn’t have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest — they’ve got to be legitimate claims.

“The other thing we have to remember is that Obama loves to make evil whatever company it is that he wants to get more power from. He makes them evil, and what we’ve got to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to be paying $9 for a gallon of gas? Because that could be the final result of this.”

Think Progress » Bachmann: ‘I’m not a shill for BP.’

Good gawd, how does this fool come out of Minnesota, of all places.

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WTF?!

Some on the right have said repeatedly that Obama embarrasses America by showing too much respect or deference to some foreign leaders, instead of the bully-swaggering of Duhbya [spit on the ground], when he wasn’t kissing Saudi princes. Now we see a Republican stick his head out of BP’s ass in order to kiss it. Pretty embarrassing, I think.

Think Progress » Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown.’

Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) speaking to BP CEO Tony Hayward:

“I’m speaking totally for myself, I’m not speaking for the Republican Party, I’m not speaking for anybody in the House of Representatives but myself. But I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown…

“So I’m only speaking for myself, I’m not speaking for anybody else, but I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.”

[NOTE:] Barton has taken $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry, including $27,350 from BP.

Think Progress » Joe Barton to BP: ‘I apologize’ for the White House ‘shakedown.’

Remember the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez: Through a decades-long process in court, penalties were steadily whittled down to a trifle, even as Exxon’s profits rose ad nauseum. Corporations rule, and Republicans salute.

[Updated 9:47pm]

Think Progress » More GOP Lawmakers Hop On Bandwagon To Smear $20 Billion Escrow Fund As ‘Chicago Style Shakedown’ 

Last night, the Republican Study Committee (RSC), the largest caucus of Republican House members, fired off a statement declaring that the $20 billion dollar negotiated by BP and the Obama administration for victims of the oil catastrophe in the gulf is a “Chicago-Style Political Shakedown.” Echoing this sentiment, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) told BP executives that he is “sorry” for Obama’s “shakedown” of their company.

Think Progress » More GOP Lawmakers Hop On Bandwagon To Smear $20 Billion Escrow Fund As ‘Chicago Style Shakedown’

Texas rep. Barton backs off defense of BP « New Mexico Independent 

After perhaps underestimating the amount of populist ire directed towards BP, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, has now apologized for apologizing to BP chairman Tony Hayward. Reports indicate that Barton was forced to apologize by GOP leaders or face losing his spot as ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Texas rep. Barton backs off defense of BP « New Mexico Independent

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Mmmoon

mjh wonders what moon water tastes like. And Martian water, too.

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A Week Without Facebook (is like a fish without a bicycle)

[That’s a hattip to a slogan from my youth. Almost a koan, really.]

Trust me, it’s not hard to live without Facebook. Quitting cigarettes was much more difficult – and cigarettes are vile and poisonous. A better analogy might be giving up email or the phone (for some, certainly not for me).

It’s not that I’m noticeably healthier (though I have napped more). Nor have I channeled wasted hours into weight-lifting or yoga or reading. In fact, I’ve spent more time blogging in the past week than of late. That’s ironic because fewer people are seeing these blog entries and, if it were possible, even fewer are commenting. (Not a plea for a comment.)

Still, I’m happy here, back where I began, at home on my blog. Stop by again, sometime.

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