Month: March 2011
Palin’s Book Sales are Off
797,955
Copies of “America by Heart,” Sarah Palin’s book of political and cultural musings, sold last year, according to Publisher’s Weekly’s sales numbers for hardcover books in 2010. It was the third-highest-selling political book of the year, after George W. Bush and Glenn Beck. That’s quite a drop from her first book, “Going Rogue,” which sold 2,674,684 copies in 2009.
Angle Ain’t a Quitter
Both Ronald Reagan and Lincoln had losses. What would’ve happened to our country if they’d quit? A true leader leads by example, and I’m no quitter.
— Sharron Angle (R), quoted by the Reno Gazette Journal, explaining why she’s not letting her U.S. Senate loss prevent her from making a congressional bid next year.
Hey, Let’s Test a New Oil-Production Technology in the Gulf of Mexico!
What could possibly go wrong?
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) today provided final approval for Petrobras America Inc. to begin oil and natural gas production at its Chinook-Cascade project using a Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) facility. This is the first time this technology will be used in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Cascade-Chinook oil and natural gas project is located in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf, about 165 miles off the coast of Louisiana in 8,200 feet of water. The FPSO, named B.W. Pioneer, is a floating facility that can process oil and natural gas, store the crude oil in tanks located in the vessel’s hull, and offload the crude to shuttle tankers for transportation to shore. Natural gas processed by the facility will be transported to shore by pipeline. The FPSO has a production capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil and 16 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
Petrobras’ FPSO will be equipped with a disconnectable turret-buoy, so in the event of a hurricane or tropical storm, the vessel is designed to disconnect from the buoy and move off location until the storm passes.
Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard and BOEMRE would have us believe that all the safety bases have been covered, and the permitting process and deep-water operating plans will prevent another Deepwater Horizon disaster from happening again:
“These regulatory approvals pave the way for safe, new production of oil and gas resources in the Gulf of Mexico,” said BOEMRE Director Michael R. Bromwich. “They reflect enormous and sustained effort by both BOEMRE and Petrobras personnel and represent the commitment shared by government and industry to the safe production of our country’s offshore energy resources.”
What could possibly go wrong?
Following the Frogs
The Republicans say Obama’s stuck on the bench,
That international cooperation has a cowardly stench.
But don’t let ’em fool ya,
It’s not about going in to Libya —
It’s just that we we went in AFTER the French!
American Skeptical About Health Care Reform
46%
Of Americans say the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a good thing one year after President Obama signed it into law, but 44% say it was a bad thing. Most Americans are skeptical that the law will improve medical care in the U.S. or their own personal medical care.
GOP House Judiciary Committee Resolves to Put ‘In God We Trust’ on All Federal Buildings – What Will That Cost?
Like typical politicians, the tea party Republicans have not even bothered to deliver on their campaign promises. They have done nothing to create jobs — they haven’t even held a hearing on employment. And their approach to reducing the deficit is to cut programs that help the middle class, sick and elderly or that are counter to their right-wing ideology, while adamantly refusing even to discuss raising taxes on the 400 American families that control $1.27 trillion of the nation’s wealth — that’s $3.175 billion per family.
Instead, the GOP House has resorted to the same sort of ideological gimmickry that was their predecessors’ hallmark. Since they took control of the House in January, the tea party has:
Nearly Three-Quarters of Americans Worry About Economy
71%
Of Americans say they have more anxiety about the economy than about any other major national issue Gallup tracks. “Federal spending and the budget deficit” spark nearly as much concern, at 64%. The environment and race relations rank lowest of 14 issues tested.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott Booed at Ballgame
Gov. Rick Scott received a chilly reception while throwing the first pitch at a spring training game between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays.
Scott was greeted by boos, mixed with modest applause, at Saturday’s game in Tampa.
