This morning, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) called for BP CEO Tony Hayward to be fired as the Deepwater Horizon blowout spews millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America, Melancon criticized “the way this company’s performed” and expressed his anger at Hayward for complaining earlier this week, “I’d like my life back.” Melancon suggested that BP grant Hayward’s wishes by firing him:
I was watching this week as the CEO of BP was talking about he wants his life back. I’m to the point where I wish the board would call him back, and give us somebody that really wants to make sure that the people of this state, the people of this Gulf Coast region have what they need, when they want, to try and fight this oil spill.
Watch it:
Melancon said BP should get rid of Hayward because “the buck stops there.” However, earlier in the interview, Melancon made it clear that he still supports offshore drilling.
“The time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future…. And the only way to do that is by finally putting a price on carbon pollution.”
The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months. I will make the case for a clean energy future wherever I can, and I will work with anyone from either party to get this done. But we will get this done. The next generation will not be held hostage to energy sources from the last century.
Yesterday, applications for the second round of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program were due. Several states chose not to participate in this round, after failing to approve the reforms necessary to be competitive for the $3.4 billion in grants that remain available.
One of those states is Texas, where Gov. Rick Perry (R) elected, once again, to not submit an application. Last time, he characterized his decision as a stand for states rights, and he’s reprised that rhetoric for this round. However, Perry, like Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) yesterday, also claimed that the application’s emphasis on adopting common academic standards designed by the National Governors Association would weaken his own state’s standards:
“This administration’s attempt to bait states into adopting national standards is an effort to undermine states’ authority to determine how their students are educated, and is clearly aimed at circumventing laws prohibiting national standards,” Gov. Perry said. “Abandoning state standards and adopting new nationalized standards would cost Texas taxpayers $3 billion, and would likely weaken the rigorous college- and career-ready standards and assessments already in place in our state.”
For one thing, Perry is still mischaracterizing a set of standards designed by governors as some sort of federal mandate. And if Texas wanted to go above and beyond the standards laid out by the governors, it would be free to do so, while still earning points on its Race to the Top application. The program’s executive summary makes that abundantly clear.
But also, as the Dallas Morning News noted, the standards that Perry is so quick to defend “are set by the elected State Board of Education, which just earned national attention for setting social studies curriculum that has been criticized by educators and others as being politically driven.” That criticism is well deserved, as the social studies curriculum includes emphasizing conservative figures like Newt Gingrich and Phyllis Schlafly, downplaying the contributions of the civil rights movement, playing up clashes with Islamic cultures, and even attempting to rehabilitate Joe McCarthy.
Texas is currently 49th in the country in percentage of adults who’ve completed high school and one-third of high school freshmen never make it to graduation. The Houston Chronicle took Perry to task for his stance on Race to the Top, saying that it “echoes Perry’s empty threat to secede from the U.S. and to turn down federal stimulus funds (without which Texas wouldn’t have been able to balance its last budget). Unfortunately, that sort of grandstanding seems to poll well among potential voters in the Republican primary. But it’s no good for Texas — or for the U.S.“
The Biloxi Sun Herald reports that oil began covering two miles of Mississippi’s Petit Bois Island yesterday as a “larger glob crept close to Dauphin Island in Alabama, and the edge of the main slick has moved to within about 35 miles of Mississippi, about half the distance it was last week.” Much of the oil hitting the beaches had “escaped detection because it was floating a couple of feet below the surface.” Reacting to the looming disaster, Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) sounded the alarm to local press yesterday. “This could turn out to be something catastrophic and terrible, but that has just not been the case so far,” said Barbour.
Barbour’s rhetoric yesterday strikes a very different note from his upbeat tone since the spill. Shortly after the spill, Barbour encouraged tourists to “enjoy the beach,” even as dead dolphins were washing ashore. In another instance, Barbour incredulously declared, “some in the news media keep forcing this on the public as the equivalent of Exxon Valdez. Well, the difference is just enormous.”
And as early as last week, Barbour went on CNN to blame “news coverage” for the state’s woes, telling Wolf Blitzer that “we haven’t had enough oil hit Mississippi’s beaches to fill up a milk jug.” Barbour went out of his way to lavish praise on BP, exclaiming that the British oil conglomerate has been completely cooperative:
BARBOUR: But we haven’t had, really, any impact. I mean, we haven’t had enough oil hit Mississippi’s beaches to fill up a milk jug. Now, we’re prepared and we’re prepared for the worst. But thus far, we haven’t had any kind of incursion, except the news coverage is killing our tourist business. Everybody thinks that the Gulf Coast all the way around is ankle deep in oil. And, of course, it’s not. [...]
BARBOUR: We have. BP has never said no to any requests we have made. Now, some requests we’ve made they haven’t been able to perform. But they have never said no. The federal government, whether it’s the Coast Guard or whomever, has worked hard with us. Like I say, they’re giving a lot more attention to Louisiana and should be. But we are satisfied that they’re trying as hard as they can and that they are being very cooperative. I’m not going to complain.
Watch it:
Barbour’s rise in politics has been largely fueled by the oil and gas industry. When Barbour served as the chairman on the RNC during the 1994 and 1996 election cycles, he courted oil and coal companies to donate over $30 million to Republicans — nearly three times the amount given to Democrats. The lobbying firm Barbour founded relied highly on oil industry clients, with Barbour personally lobbying for regulation changes to the Bush White House. And Barbour’s election to his current office owes directly to his friends in the fossil fuel business — oil and gas companies provided $1.8 million dollars in contributions when Barbour ran for Governor.
While Barbour shilled for BP during the first weeks of BP’s oil crisis, Mississippi’s oily beaches may force him to reconsider his pro-BP posture.
Update
Barbour has downplayed the oil spill and encouraged families to continue to visit the state and enjoy the natural environment. “We don’t wash our face in it, but it doesn’t stop us from jumping off the boat to ski,” Barbour said in mid-May. Earlier today, CNN reported that families have been spotted swimming on Mississippi beaches soaked in oil. A reporter saw a child covered in and playing with oil, even as clean up crews worked nearby.
BP’s destruction of Gulf Coast “proves” to her we must let Big Oil exploit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, too!
Blame-the-victim conservatives are on the warpath again. First, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer blamed the extreme deep-water drilling that led to the BP oil disaster in part on those who care about the environment, “Environmental chic has driven us out there.”
Actually, it is “drill, baby, drill” demagoguing by anti-environment, right wingers like him that has driven us to drill out there.
Now Sarah “I just can quit you, Alaska” Palin, has ratcheted up this Orwellian logic on her Facebook page:
In the speech Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) gave immediately after signing off on Arizona’s harsh new immigration law, SB-1070, she stated, “We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life.” She defended her approval of SB-1070 by pointing out, “We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north.” However, last night on CNN, John King pointed out to Brewer that FBI statistics actually show violent crime in Arizona has decreased slightly. Brewer acknowledged that contrary to the bleak picture she has painted, overall crime in Arizona is down. However, Brewer also proceeded to blame the crime that still exists on undocumented immigrants:
KING: There are drugs coming across the border. But if you look at FBI statistics, they actually say despite these awful things that violent crime is essentially at a flat rate, even down a little bit. And some would say that, yes, you know, there have been some horrible incidents, but in total, crime’s actually down. There’s not a need for this.
BREWER: In regards to illegal immigration crime or to what kind of crime? Crime is down in Arizona. The fact of the matter is, if you’re living in Arizona and you are living in the areas that are severely impacted, you are faced with it on a daily basis. And we’re not going to put up with it anymore. We have borders. Every nation has reasons to have lines, borders, might you say, you know? And a nation without borders is like a house without walls. It collapses. And that’s what’s going to happen to America. We need our borders secured.
Watch it:
The FBI Uniform Crime Reports and statistics that King cited show that “while the nation’s illegal-immigrant population doubled from 1994 to 2004, according to federal records…the violent-crime rate declined 35 percent.” More specifically, crime rates in Arizona border towns have remained flat over the past decade. Arizona border Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County, has stated, “This is a media-created event…I hear politicians on TV saying the border has gotten worse. Well, the fact of the matter is that the border has never been more secure.”
FBI statistics also show that crime is declining in U.S. border towns across the U.S. Meanwhile, when Tim Wadsworth, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado, studied U.S. cities with more than 50,000 people he found that “the cities that experience the greatest growth in immigration were the same one that were experiencing the greatest declines in violent crime.”
Perhaps the reason that Brewer feels that “illegal immigration crime” is up is because Arizona law allows the prosecution of undocumented immigrants on felony charges for being “co-conspirators” in their own smuggling. If found guilty of smuggling themselves over the border, those immigrants are then jailed for 90 days at the taxpayer’s expense rather than being immediately deported back to their home country.
During her interview, Brewer also affirmed that she is not worried about Arizona’s image. She also made clear that visitors from several neighboring states that grant undocumented immigrants drivers’ licenses better pack a proof of legal residency when visiting Arizona. “It wouldn’t matter whether you were Latino or Hispanic or Norwegian…If you didn’t have proof of citizenship and if the police officer had reasonable suspicion, he would ask and verify your citizenship.”
Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has faced significant criticism ever since she signed the anti-immigrant bill, SB-1070, into law. In a recent interview with the Arizona Republic, Brewer spoke out about some of the harsher rhetoric she’s heard, saying comparisons equating her with the Nazis are especially hurtful because her father “died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany”:
“The Nazi comments…they are awful,” she said, her voice dropping. “Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that…and then to have them call me Hitler’s daughter. It hurts. It’s ugliness beyond anything I’ve ever experienced.”
While comparisons equating Brewer with Nazis are over the top and not constructive, Brewer’s anecdote doesn’t really stack up. The Arizona Guardian reports that in fact, “the death of Wilford Drinkwine came 10 years after World War II had ended. During the war, Drinkwine worked as a civilian supervisor for a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nev. He died of lung disease in 1955 in California.” Brewer’s spokesman justified the governor’s statement, claiming Drinkwine “eventually died from the toxic fumes he inhaled” while working at the factory. (HT: Markos)
Guillermo del Toro’s quittingThe Hobbit. Hero Complex writes:
The 45-year-old writer-director-producer is notorious in Hollywood for piling his career plate high. Any time you sit down with him, he talks about more than a dozen different projects as if each was at the very top of his to-do list. Last year, I wrote a cover story in the Los Angeles Times Calendar section about Del Toro’s dizzying ambitions – he wanted to make “Drood,” a new Frankenstein film, an adaptation of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” and of course, there was his old obsession with putting H.P. Lovecaft’s ”At the Mountains of Madness” on the silver screen. A few months after that story ran, Del Toro announced a deal for a new production company called Disney Double Dare You. He also has “The Strain,” his trilogy of novels, now underway.
Clearly, this is a creator who is so restless — and so enthused about his current career access to quality projects — that he wants to cram as much as possible into his calendar. So you can imagine how he simmered as his interpretation of The Hobbit remained a prisoner of the pages of his screenplay instead of becoming an epic on its way to the editing room.
One thing I also have wondered about The Hobbit is how it ought to be made in the wake of The Lord of the Rings. The prequel and the trilogy are quite tonally different, and I imagine that it would be difficult to capture the more lighthearted nature of the story, given that even the non-sci-fi nerd contingent of the potential audience probably understands at this point that it’s a prequel to the visually sweeping and emotionally and philosophically searching epic that preceded it to the silver screen.
And I do wonder how it might have been for del Toro to carry Peter Jackson’s creative torch forward. The aesthetic vision of Lord of the Rings has some things in common with del Toro’s Hellboy movies, but the latter are richer, more colorful, even more strange. There certainly would be, if not an obligation, an expectation that The Hobbit would look very much like Lord of the Rings. I’d just wonder if maybe del Toro is more interested in projects that will bring him fully out of Jackson’s shadow for mainstream audiences. I can image I’d want that.
The short answer is…no. But first, here’s Robert Wright on the increasing discomfort over Jobs strategy for the i-Family of products:
Last week Apple’s market capitalization surpassed Microsoft’s — something that seemed impossible 10 years ago and really impossible 14 years ago, when Jobs returned from corporate exile to resume leadership of a down-and-out Apple. And some people think Apple’s best years lie ahead; iPads are selling like — well, like iPhones.
Meanwhile, though, Jobs stands accused of what in Silicon Valley is a capital crime: authoritarian tendencies. He’s long played hardball with journalists who reveal details about forthcoming products, and now he’s deciding what content people can view on the iPhone and iPad. Apps featuring even soft-core porn are verboten, and some kinds of political commentary don’t make the cut. Apple recently rejected an app from a political cartoonist — and then, embarrassingly, had to reconsider after he won the Pulitzer Prize.
At the risk of sounding like an Apple apologist, I think it’s a stretch to say that Jobs is “deciding what content people can view on the iPhone and iPad.” Here’s the truth about the App Store, with few exceptions — mainly video games — most apps are just fancier cousins to the web applications you can access through the HTML5-equipped browser shipped with every iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.
Which is to say, if you want to look at porn, you’re more than welcome to, via the browser. If you want to implement a Google Voice solution, you’re more than welcome to, via the browser. You can do almost anything you’d like on the iPhone or iPad, provided you’re willing to use the browser as your main portal. That might seem like a limitation, but it really isn’t. You can already use HTML5 to design web apps that look and behave like native apps, and as the standard becomes more powerful, the difference between web apps and their native counterparts will shrink to near-zero. Indeed, Apple is actively looking for ways to bring more and more native app-esque functionality to web apps.
Beyond that, I remained mystified by this recent drive to demonize Apple for mundane design and content choices. If you’re bothered by Apple’s decision to rely on the web and curated applications to provide content to its users, then don’t use an i-Device. If you want a Flash-capable phone, then by all means, head to your nearest Verizon store and buy a Droid Incredible. But let’s not pretend like Apple and Steve Jobs are cosmic heralds of a new mobile despotism. No, Apple is capitalizing on its strengths — design, cohesiveness, ease of use — in order to move more hardware into more hands and homes.
Likewise, it’s fine if you prefer “openness” in your mobile devices — I think Android is a fantastic platform, if fragmented and a little unpolished — but let’s not pretend like Google is the scrappy savior of the internet. Like Apple, Google wants to sell you phones and computers for the purpose of delivering a core product: optimized search results. And when it comes to search, Google is just as secretive and anti-competitive as Apple. Google and Apple are companies looking for the best way to make a dollar, and I’d vastly prefer it if tech journalists and the like stopped treating them like their biases personified.
This morning, Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) called for BP CEO Tony Hayward to be fired as the Deepwater Horizon blowout spews millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America, Melancon criticized “the way this company’s performed” and expressed his anger at Hayward for complaining earlier this week, “I’d like my life back.” Melancon suggested that BP grant Hayward’s wishes by firing him:
I was watching this week as the CEO of BP was talking about he wants his life back. I’m to the point where I wish the board would call him back, and give us somebody that really wants to make sure that the people of this state, the people of this Gulf Coast region have what they need, when they want, to try and fight this oil spill.
Watch it:
Melancon said BP should get rid of Hayward because “the buck stops there.” However, earlier in the interview, Melancon made it clear that he still supports offshore drilling.
I made a hurtful and thoughtless comment. I apologize, especially to the families of the 11 men who lost their lives in this tragic accident. Those words don’t represent how I feel about this tragedy. My first priority is doing all we can to restore the lives of the people of the Gulf region and their families – to restore their lives, not mine.
Yesterday, applications for the second round of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program were due. Several states 
Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ) has faced significant criticism ever since she signed the anti-immigrant bill, SB-1070, into law. In a recent interview with the Arizona Republic, Brewer spoke out about some of the harsher rhetoric she’s heard, saying comparisons equating her with the Nazis are especially hurtful because her father “died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany”:
