Hipshot

(via the Awl's ranking of state slogans)

# 38. "Virginia is for Lovers"
North Virginia, however, is for motherf[*]ckers.

Time Traveller? Doomed

...that is unless they know a hell of a lot about celestial mechanics.

(Via Buzzfeed)

WI Gov. Walker Asks For Federal Funds For More Trains

No, you are not reading that wrong. See?

Several months after rejecting federal funds to build high-speed rail across Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is now asking for at least $150 million to add trains for an existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago line.
Walker said Tuesday the federal funds would be used to buy two train sets and eight locomotives as well as build a maintenance facility in Milwaukee.

It's like... Scott Walker's on a quest to make everyone hate him or something. All those people who went to bat for him on the high speed rail thing... how ya feeling now?

(H/t WSJ)

Random Sip From the Firehose, VI

• WaPo's Sally Jenkins: The NFL is like "the Marie Antoinette of the sports world." (H/t CJR)
• GE gets Wall Street Justice - they agree that they committed fraud yet no GE employees get charged with fraud (H/t CJR)
• Surprise! Bear Sterns wasn't alone in ripping off their investors by double dipping
• Mississippi plans (again) to honor (Cavalry Commander/Traitor/KKK Grand Wizard) Nathan Bedford Forest

I Wonder Where Goldman Got The Idea

Y'know I think emptywheel skewers Goldman's Facebook deal about as well as you can.

 A sample:

FROM: Mr. Lloyd Blankfein
200 West Street
New York, New York

202-555-MOTU

TO: CEO
Chump City, ForeignLand

Dear Sir:

I have been requested by the Facebook Company to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. The Facebook Company has recently concluded new agreements to share its users’ identities. The contracts have immediately produced moneys equaling US$50,000,000,000. The Facebook Company is desirous of harvesting user identities in other parts of the world, however, because of certain regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is unable to move these funds to another region.

You assistance is requested as a non-American citizen to assist the Facebook Company, and also the Goldman Sachs, in moving these funds out of America. If the funds can be transferred to your name, in your non-United States account, then you can forward the funds as directed by the Facebook Company. In exchange for your accommodating services, the Facebook Company would agree to allow you to retain 10%, or US$5 billion of this amount.

(H/t trainreq)

Dancing to the Other Side's Tune

(Via War is Boring)

Obama's Kryptonite

This was just too perfect:

Walruses and Seals

The Boy's birthday is imminent, so my mom had sent up her usual dose of birthday duds and knicknacks. True to form - she'd send stuff for little E as well - so both kids were tearing up the boxes and having a good time.

Two odd items stuck out - litte E's box included two stuffed animals - a walrus and a seal. These stuck out mostly because there was no equivalent item in the Boy's box.

Mom pressed the point by asking us to guess the significance of the two.

As I'll be headed to Norway soon - my first guess was these were animals you could find in Norway. But no.

Mom winged me the correct answer this morning.

BP's 583-page Gulf [disaster] plan, last updated in June 2009, included references to how to protect walruses and sea lions, which, as Energy and Environment subcommittee chair Ed Markey (D-Mass.) noted, "have not called the Gulf [of Mexico] home for 3 million years." The plan also included the phone number of a sea turtle expert who has been dead for five years.

And it gets even worse: The other four oil giants are using almost the exact same plans.

In yesterday's hearing, representatives brought out the emergency response plans of Shell, ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and BP that had been drafted in case of an oil spill in the region. The cover photos of rigs and tankers are identical, just in different colors, and four of the five plans include the references to walruses, sea lions, seals, and sea turtle expert Dr. Peter Lutz. They list him as a staff member of the University of Miami, though he hadn't worked there since 1991, when he left for Florida Atlantic University. Oh, and he passed away in February 2005, so he probably wouldn't be able to offer much help now anyway.

"ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Shell are as unprepared as BP," said Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), who called the responses "cookie cutter" plans. "When you look at the details, it becomes evident these [response] plans are just paper exercises."

Markey summed up the companies' response strategies pretty well in Tuesday's hearing: "The only technology you seem to be relying on is the Xerox machine."

Lovely.

America's Finest News Source Bags Another Scoop

Behold, the Onion's latest masterpiece:

Massive Flow Of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP Headquarters