Today's News Headlines

Ned finds so many items to amuse, bemuse and outrage him that this morning he will do a number of bullet point items for his readers' amusement.

1* In this month's Harper's Magazine, reporter Ken Silverstein describes the members of the Arizona legislature as "cranks, dimwits and racists." Ned wonders how these modifiers serve to distinguish these humble servants of the people from any other group of lawmakers.
2* Within a week of the explosion on its platform, the drill company Transocean paid a $1 billion dividend to its mainly wealthy stockholders. Ned did not detect any degree of ire from the Asskicker-in-Chief, even though Transocean had recently moved its corporate headquarters from Houston, then to the Cayman Islands, and finally to Switzerland. Most of its employees apparently remain in Houston (where thoughtfully Texas has no income tax--Ned believes he is correct on this). Its critics charged the moves were solely to avoid U.S. taxes and regulations, but Ned won't have that. Moreover, Transocean is the subject of federal investigations to determine whether a bankruptcy filing of one of its subsidiaries violated U.S. law.
3* Speaking of the Gulf, the feds have given BP another "ultimatum", namely, to come up with a plan to "get out more oil, or else" within 24 hours. To those who claim the company is not being extorted, Ned would like to have an explanation of the phrase "or else" in this context.
4* The NYT reports today in a true dog-bites-man story, that the rich are walking away from their mortgage obligations at a much higher rate than lower-income people, but Ned recalls Republican lawmakers (please see bullet one) blaming the housing crisis on the poor who were conned into buying houses they couldn't afford.
5* True to form, climate-change 'deniers' are claiming a whitewash on the part of the four separate scientific studies that completely exonerated climate scientists at East Anglia University.
6* Levi Johnson, son-in-law not of Sarah Palin, former half-term governor of Alaska (please see bullet one) is now saying he misspoke in "some" of the allegations he made against the Palin "family" but thoughtfully did not say which ones. In related news Brirtol Palin, who gave birth to an illegitimate child by the aforesaid Johnson, is making lots of money going around the country giving talks to teens and tweens advocating abstinence before marriage.
Ned wishes his faithful readers a very good morning.