If a picture is truly worth 1,000 words......

 

A TERRIBLE IDEA

"Musk gives all federal workers 48 hours to explain what they did last week or face consequences"

Dear Mr Muskrat: This is what I did last week:

On Mon, Tue, Wed, Thu & Fri  -- on a new sheet of embossed government stationery, each day -- I wrote "fuck you" Muskrat 100 times in cursive. 

Church and 30th St. San Francisco MUNI Construction from Ken Murphy on Vimeo. Or, how to spend $3 million in just over 12 minutes (actually, about 3 1/2 days). 

This is a time-lapse video showing the replacement of the MUNI tracks in front of my house. Demolition began on the evening of Friday, October 8, and work continued around the clock until early in the morning of Tuesday, October 12. The MUNI folks were nice enough to distribute earplugs to those of us in the immediate vicinity.

This was shot using a Canon A590, with CHDK installed (a firmware replacement for Canon cameras that enables all sorts of additional features). An image was captured approximately every 15 seconds.

Whatza a Goolsbee? The last line may explain it all.

Breaking news from Politico

President Barack Obama will announce Austan Goolsbee as the new chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers at an East Room news conference on Friday, providing continuity in the face of a political storm. A senior administration official said Goolsbee, 41, will succeed Christina Romer. Goolsbee is a member of the CEA, and staff director and chief economist on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board. As a University of Chicago economics professor, he advised Obama’s 2004 Senate campaign and 2008 presidential campaign. Last year, he won a “D.C.'s Funniest Celebrity” contest.

Who's got the really big tar balls? How about congress?

Even as more tar balls wash up, Congress is on pace to break its record on oil industry contributions. Samuel P. Jacobs from The Daily Beast has written a comprehensive article on why no one can stop the most uncappable cash spill in politics.

President Obama was so upset about the BP oil spill he announced he was looking for “whose ass to kick.” Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) was moved to ask whether companies with bad safety records should be banned altogether. Even oil-industry friendly Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) called for BP executive Tony Hayward to get his yacht down to the Gulf to help clean up oil.

The air in Washington is full of hostility toward the oil industry these days, the result of the Deepwater Horizon explosion nearly 80 days ago—and BP’s continuing failure to plug the resulting leak. So you’d think all those politicians might be a bit sheepish about collecting campaign checks from the beleaguered industry right about now.

“It’s definitely been challenging at times,” says IPAA’s Dan Naatz. But, he adds, “We haven’t seen anybody walk away from us.” You’d be wrong.  [...]

You should read the rest of this important article here. 

And here's a chart that lists the congressperson, their party affiliation, chamber, state & amount received from the the oil and gas industry. At the top of the list is Blanche Lincoln, Democratic Senator from Arkansas who has received $286,400.

Finally, here's another chart compiled by the Associated Press that shows how much members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee received in political contributions from oil and gas interests since the beginning of 2009.