Barbie Hooks a Muskie

A true daughter of Minnesota, Ella Haag was out at Round Lake with the family last Saturday, the start of Walleye season. She carefully cast her worm-baited hook into the lake’s waters with her pink Barbie rod and reel. Ella is two years old.

Ella caught a sunfish and was reeling it in when the water exploded. A muskelunge had struck her catch. Carrie Haag, Ella’s mom, grabbed the pink fishing pole before her daughter was dragged into the lake and started hauling the big fish in. Grandpa David netted and weighed it: 20 pounds, more than Ella.

The family snapped a photo and released the finny beast. “I caught a shark,” said Ella. More here.

BP Sips Away at Oil Spill

BP announced that it has inserted a tube into the seabed pipe that has been gushing crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for nearly a month. The new tube is diverting 1,000 barrels of oil a day into a tanker, according to BP. The blowout is spilling  anywhere from 5.000 to 80,000 barrels into the Gulf each day, so this is colf comfort.

 UPDATE:

BP now says it is reclaiming 2000 barrels a day from the oil spill. What BP has not done: revise the estimated rate of oil spill volume upward, as other observers have.

New directions in BP engineering outlined by Carl Hiaasen (Miami Herald). 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Palin’s Book-Like Object

Sarah Palin, Former Temp-Governor of Alaska and failed vice presidential candidate, will have her name on another HarperCollins publication, America By Heart (original title: America By Heart and Gizzard). The publication date is November 23rd.

Unlike Mrs. Palin’s previous non-book, America by Heart will not be ghostwritten by Lynn Vincent but will be a collection of passages written by many authors, including some unable to protest inclusion of their work because they are dead. Mrs. Palin doesn’t read, of course, but will include words from her favorite songs, movies, sermons, and bumper stickers.

While Mrs. Palin may not be the most well-read politico in the country, her new title is appropriate. The lady’s got plenty of heart — in the meat locker.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Gulf Oil Spill Spreads

The Deepwater Horizon oil slick on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico is 53 miles long and 34 miles wide. On the bright side, it sort of looks like a swan.

Things look bad underwater, too. Giant oil plumes are spreading across the Gulf seabed; one of them is ten miles long. Currents could carry the oil anywhere from Yucatan to the Atlantic coast of Florida. The effect on sea life is expected to be catastrophic.

Arizona Vies With Texas in Ignorance Race

The Texas Education Board removed Thomas Jefferson and Darwin from school textbooks so, in the great race to the bottom, those competitive Arizona Republicans passed a new law banning Ethnic Studies programs in the state’s schools.

“So the complaint is that ethnic studies in general, and Chicano studies in particular, teach hate,” explains Salon’s Gabriel Winant:

“In a moment of truly dazzling irony, Horne {Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne] said, ‘It’s just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it.’

The logic seems to be that any time brown folks get together in groups to talk about their identity and history, they must be plotting against white people. Maybe something here sounds like the old South, but I don’t think it’s the students and teachers.”

BP Hangs Up ‘Top Hat’

BP had planned to stop the Deepwater Horizon oil spill by lowering a steel “top hat” containment device over the sea floor gusher. The company has now decided it can’t pull a rabbit out of that hat, and has an alternate strategy: it will heal the seabed wound by inserting a giant catheter in the well and draining the discharge of crude into a tanker.

Perhaps liability insurance won’t pay for top hats and the new procedure is covered by BP’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield policy.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Gulf Oil Spill: International Edition

The Korean-made Deepwater Horizon, owned by a Swiss corporation, was flying a Marshall Islands flag while drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico under contract to British-born BP. It was fitted with a Cameron International blow out preventer (BOP) and serviced by Halliburton, both Houston-based firms. Other partners in the BP oil lease: Japan’s Mitsui and Anadarko Petroleum of Texas.

There is plenty of globalized blame to go around.

Elena Kagan’s Secret Life

Most accounts say Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was raised on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, within walking distance of Zabar’s.

Wrong!

The Solicitor General and SCOTUS nominee actually lived in Stuyvesant Town on New York’s East Side until her teens.

“No big deal,” you say? You must not be a New Yorker.

You expected, um, another topic? Honestly, some people …. Well if you must know, her law school chum Sarah Walzer says Ms. Kagan dated guys. We know she’s not kinky with it because she never dated classmate Elliot Spitzer.

There. Happy now? Honestly ….

 

Note: NTTAWWT, alright? Jeez.

Culinary note: Ms. Kagan did not have a nosh-deprived childhood before moving near Zabar’s. Look here.

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Law and Order: Adjourned

After two decades, NBC cancelled the TV series “Law & Order.” The death sentence was pronounced by Judge Nielsen; the show’s demise was attributed to low ratings. The series is survived by its spin-offs, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” “Law & Order: Overtime Parking Squad” and the infant ”Law & Order: Los Angeles.” The original program will no doubt live on in syndication and the hearts of fans.

Best quote:

“Law & Order must have been canceled because there are no print publications left from which to rip headlines.“ –@pourmecoffee via FishbowlDC.

 More postmortems:

Soft Drink Tax

The District of Columbia is considering a tax on sugar-sweetened soft drinks. There is opposition:

“They taxed the cola drinkers,

and I didn’t speak up because I don’t drink cola.

Then they taxed the Diet Coke drinkers,

and I didn’t speak up because I don’t drink Diet Coke.

Then they taxed the Hawaiian Punch drinkers,

and I didn’t speak up because I don’t drink Hawaiian Punch.

Then they taxed the Perrier drinkers

and by that time no one was left to speak up.”

– after Martin Niemöller (1892–1984).

 

Image by Mike Licht. Symbols are registered to the respectice trademark holders (Coca Cola Inc., Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc., Nestlé Waters North America) and are used here under the parody provisions of the Fair Use Doctrine.

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