Day: June 24, 2010

also, it’s “tank top” not “tanky top”

Dear Vapid Stoner Girl Talking on Her Cellphone Right Outside my Window,

You are making me fear for the survival of multiple syllable words. “Like” is a not a comma, “pot” doesn’t have a built-in exclamation point, and ending every sentence with a question mark does not make it sarcastic or more clever.

Sincerely,

The Girl Old Lady Upstairs Trying Not To Laugh

PS. Please, think of the children when you dress in the morning. They will discover puberty on their own. I promise. That is not a skirt, that is a belt.

BP oil disaster update


Oily waters breaking on Orange Beach, Alabama, more than 90 miles from the BP oil spill, cannot distract from the mess 4 to 6 inches deep on parts of the shore.

  • Video: A Possible Rain of Oil in Louisiana.
  • If It Was My Home, trying the spill on where you live for size. Worth revisiting as the disaster progresses. When I first took a look, it was half the size of what it is now. Also see their HOW TO HELP section.
  • BP Burning Sea Turtles Alive. A rare and endangered species of sea turtle is being burned alive in BP’s controlled burns of the oil swirling around the Gulf of Mexico, and a boat captain tasked with saving them says the company has blocked rescue efforts.
  • Judge who overturned drilling moratorium reported owning stock in drilling companies. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction today barring the enforcement of the president’s proposed six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, arguing that the ban is too broad. According to Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure form the judge owned stock in Transocean, (which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico), as well as five other companies that are either directly or indirectly involved in the offshore drilling business.
  • As oil continues to gush from a BP wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, critics say the company has quietly broken ground on a controversial project in B.C.’s Rocky Mountains.
  • BP Is Pursuing Alaska Drilling Some Call Risky. BP’s project, called Liberty, has been exempted as regulators have granted it status as an “onshore” project even though it is about three miles off the coast in the Beaufort Sea. The reason: it sits on an artificial island — a 31-acre pile of gravel in about 22 feet of water — built by BP.
  • BP spill response plans severely flawed. Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP’s 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005. Under the heading “sensitive biological resources,” the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.
  • ‘Reasonably High’ Chance BP Files for Bankruptcy. The specter of Chapter 11 bankruptcy terrifies Gulf residents because it could allow BP to delay, or even avoid, paying billions of dollars to businesses and individuals affected by the Gulf spill.
  • Nigeria’s agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it. In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last month.

    • Required listening: Zoe Keating’s INTO THE TREES

    You know the drill. Stream Zoe Keating’s glorious new album through this widget or do the slightly more clever thing and click through to download the whole thing for $8 or more, depending on how much it’s worth to you that she keeps making music. For example, I’ve been waiting for this album to come out for what feels like half of forever, but I am poor, so I can only give $10 instead of the $25 I’d rather.