So the oil spill is happening, and is essentially terrible. It almost seems futile to shift into a full-blown rant at this point, because no amount of outcry can possibly do this thing justice. It will invariably fall short in relation to the sheer magnitude of what is happening.

Instead, I just wanted to post a really useful article I found on the New York Times website:

Oil Spill Tracker

Above is a small screencap of the live videofeed of the oil leaking into the Gulf. Experts estimates range widely as to how much oil has been spilled already, but even the most conservative estimates are astonishing, devastating, gut-wrenching…

Speaking of conservative things: A few of them are acting crazier than usual, whether that means rising to the defense of a multi-billion-dollar generating corporation when it’s asked to compensate those affected, or whining that the dissemination of information is the biggest problem with the oil spill, these boys are in rare form.

In particular, they’re giving President Obama a hard time for pursuing energy reform at this time, saying he is politicizing the issue. There are two ways to respond to this:

First is the nicer: to pursue energy policy reforms now is a logical response to a catastrophic failure linked directly to the issue of energy consumption in the United States; to ignore the underlying causes of the issue would truly be the worst possible response.

Second is the more childish one: Republicans used the tragic loss of human life on September 11, 2001 to justify the pursuit policy goals of their own which had been waiting in the wings for years. Now its our turn.

I don’t really like the second response, and the larger part of me doesn’t want to believe that everyone is quote so callous, but trudging up the moral high road gets more tiresome with every trek, and you never seem to meet very many people along the way.

One of my favorite film quotes of all time comes from Steve Buscemi’s character in the 2001 film Bandits:

You know the problem with being smart? You always know what will happen next. It ruins the suspense.

Let’s pair that with a fantastic Will-Smith-One-Liner from 2004′s I, Robot:

You know, somehow, “I told you so” just doesn’t quite say it.

I’ll leave you to draw the parallel yourself.

I’ve been watching the fallout from the Democrats successful passage of their health care bill and Obama’s signing ceremony today. Man-oh-man. What a mess. I gotta give it to guys leading my team though: you did it! Be proud, and bask in this moment, because it is sure to not last.

To celebrate, Patrick Kennedy visited his dad, and in the spirit of the moment, Joe Biden proves once again he is merely mortal and easily excited to profanity: Truly, a man after my heart.

There’s also a lot of negative stuff flying around, about how almost all of America hates the health care bill, etc. I, for one, like it a lot, and just wanted to extend a “thank you” to the Democrats who voted for it, and Olympia Snowe, who helped in her own way. It means a lot, and I appreciate you doing it not just for people like me, who think it’s a good idea, but who you really did it for: the millions of Americans who NEED this legislation.

Thanks.

Normally I don’t like to give stuff like this that much attention. It should be a non-story, and really there’s little-to-no information to be gained from it. That said, even I like to indulge in junk-news on occasion: As if I didn’t love President Obama enough, this really can only help his image.

Not that I care at all about the MTV’s fully-decked sparkle-spectacle that is the VMAs, but that action there of all places spawned this news story serves to underscore how funny this all is. That Kanye West would get so bent out of shape over an award of such insignificance is eyebrow-raising to begin with; that he would get all emotional about it on Leno sortof makes me giggle.

The President offhandedly calling him a ‘jackass’ is comedic gold. I just posted the audio because I hadn’t heard it before today, and it made me laugh pretty hard. Just listening to the intonation in his voice kinda reminds me that he’s a normal guy who has normal opinions and reactions to the silly stuff that goes on in our country. It helps to recall that, from time to time.

(816): holy shit our president is awesome

~E.L.S.

I’m not going to spend a whole lot of time getting to deep into Ted Kennedy nostalgia, because that would be a little disingenuous. The guy has been a figure in political life since the 1960s, and I’ve only really been paying attention to such things for the past five years. If I had a favorite Kennedy though, it would probably have been Edward. It’s pretty easy for people in my parents generation to relate to Robert or John, and particularly our grandparents for John, but who did we have?

Camelot was more or less over well before I was even born. Ted Kennedy is as close to that as a lot of us ever got, and now that he has passed away, I think it’s really over. Sure, Kennedy Kids are scattered throughout the American political system, but he was that last, final, clinging thread to that earlier age that has now snapped and is closed forever.

Certainly, his life was not without controversy: the scandal involving his automobile accident at Chappaquiddick, his bitter primary struggle with Carter in 1980, and a multitude of substance-abuse related incidents; in spite of that, he persevered through it all and remained relevant to the legislative stage. No small feat to combat so much negative press and still emerge from it all with the dominating image being that of a dedicated public servant.

It was the funniest thing, last night, turning on the TV. Allison had wanted to finish watching an episode of Countdown that had started at 12 AM CST. She left her house at 12:15, and we turned the TV on at around 12:30. On the screen was an image of Ted Kennedy. I remember walking into the kitchen, commenting that I hated it when they would show B-Roll of him, because it always scared me for a second because…

“-because you think he’s died,” Allison finished for me. I sat down, and saw they were showing footage of young Ted Kennedy too. We both realized in that moment what we were watching, and it was an eerie moment I’ll not soon forget.

Certainly Kennedy leaves a huge legacy behind for his surviving family, and a huge void in the United States Senate. I hope that his dedication to his causes will galvanize Congress to make meaningful, well-reasoned reforms to healthcare, in the fashion that Kennedy would have were he well enough to do it himself. I’ll sign off with his most famous quotation:

“For all those whose cares have been our concern,
the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives,
and the dream shall never die.”