Hansen was right all along: We’ve become friggin’ Venus!

This amusing mistake won’t be on Spencer’s and Braswell’s Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit satellite data plotting website for long, so here’s a screen grab:

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Let’s be clear: Strong action to reduce carbon pollution is crucial to preserving clean air, clean water, and a livable climate for our children.

In his analysis of Obama’s primetime speech, WashPost blogger Ezra Klein underscores a point that I’ve made many times here:

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First 4,400 Volt buyers to get free chargers

General Motors will offer the first 4,400 buyers of its Chevrolet Volt the option of having a 240-volt charging station installed in their home when the car is released this fall, the company said Thursday.

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During a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this morning, Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) “apologize[d]” to BP CEO Tony Hayward, accusing the White House of an illegal “shakedown” of the foreign oil giant to secure a $20 billion escrow fund for Gulf Coast damages. Barton repeated the Republican attack that the escrow fund is a result of a White House “shakedown” that contravenes “due process,” saying that he was “ashamed” and would “go to jail” if he abused his elected powers similarly. Although he admitted that BP was liable for the billions of dollars of damages to the American people caused by its catastrophic oil disaster, Barton said “I apologize” that BP had to establish this “slush fund,” which he called “a tragedy of the first proportion”:

BARTON: 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 — with the Attorney General of the United States who is legitimately conducting a criminal investigation and has every right to do so to protect the interests of the American people — participating in what amounts to a $20 billion slush fund that is unprecedented in our nation’s history, that’s got no legal standing, which I think sets a terrible precedent for the future.

If I called you into my office, and I had the subcommittee chairman Mr. Stupak with me, who was legitimately conducting an oversight investigation on your company, and said if you put so many millions of dollars in a project in my congressional district, I could go to jail and should go to jail. Now, there is no question that British Petroleum owns this lease, that BP made decisions that objective people think compromise safety. There is no question that BP is liable for the damages. But we have a due process system where we go through hearings, in some cases court cases, litigation and determine what those damages are and when those damages should be paid.

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.

Watch it:

The “slush fund” will not be managed by the federal government or BP, but an independent third party, funded over four years with a small fraction of BP’s annual revenues. By calling the Gulf Coast relief money a “slush fund,” Joe Barton was following the lead of conservative thinker Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing pundits. Barton has taken $1.4 million from the oil and gas industry, including $27,350 from BP. In Barton’s world, it seems that the small people have to pay for their mistakes, but companies don’t.

Joe Barton says it is “a tragedy of the first proportion” that BP agreed to Obama’s request to set up a $20 billion fund to compensate Americans — and then he apologizes to BP CEO Hayward!

UPDATE:  The Daily News notes, “Before his election to Congress, Barton was an executive with ARCO, which was later acquired by BP.”  More updates below, including the threat by GOP leadership that made Barton retract the apology.

At first it was only fringe libertarians who defended BP (see Rand Paul calls White House pressure on BP “un-American”).  But the dam broke yesterday when the mainstream conservatives of the Republican Study Committee labeled the $20 billion BP escrow account for victims of the tragedy a “Chicago-style political shakedown.”

Today, in a must-see video from the House hearing, JoeGlobal Warming ‘Is A Net Benefit To Mankind’ Barton (R-TX) called the fund a “tragedy” and then apologized to BP CEO Tony Hayward:

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Or click here.

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The right-wing’s favorite new conspiracy theory, via TP.

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BP and the Obama administration agreed upon on a $20 billion escrow account overseen by an independent third party that will handle claims from individuals and businesses affected by the company’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “We need to make sure that the interests of people in the Gulf are protected,” senior White House adviser David Axelrod said on Sunday.  As TP reports, however, conservatives hate the idea of corporate accountability.

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On Tuesday, Obama delivered a national address on BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “We pray for the people of the Gulf, and we pray that a hand may guide us through the storm towards a greater day,” Obama said. Next morning, Fox and Friends invited former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to find fault with Obama’s prayer.  In this repost, TP has the story of the man who would be president in 2012.

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To respond to President Obama’s first Oval Office address, Fox News last night turned to former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, whom Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) once said “knows more about energy than probably anyone else in the United States of America.”  As TP reports, when asked about how to stop the leaking oil well, Palin said that the United States needs to accept more assistance from foreign governments:

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