I really hate to say "I told you so"...

But all those people I've been writing to for years who have replied (when they've replied) that off-shore drilling is safe and necessary and that there would probably never be a spill or accident because the oil companies know what they're doing??? I told you so! I told you that yeah, they know what they're doing like the Captain of the Titanic, and it's too dangerous to keep temping fate this way.

Now we've got a gusher going at a rate of at least 200,000 gallons per day with a slick currently covering the approximate area of Puerto Rico (3,500 square miles+). The shrimp and oyster industry in LA and MS is completely ruined for probably the next few years, just as it was finally recovering from Katrina and in this economy. BP is saying it will continue spilling for at least another 8 days before they have any hope of stemming the flow with - get this - a dome that they're going to put over the site of the busted pipe (which, personally, I can't imagine will actually work), and another 3 months before they have a "relief well" drilled to divert the oil to another rig. We're screwed. And God help us if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream. Seriously, God help us because no one else will be able to at that point. Good job, BP.

I also think it's hilarious in a completely not funny way that our governor, who until recently has been a Republican, was against off-shore drilling (because most of the state is against it) until he was elected, then he was for it because it was popular in the Republican party, and now that he's an Independent because that's his only hope of being elected to the Senate, and this has happened, he's against it again.

I'm not particularly pleased with Obama on this issue either because he's been trying the impossible to do task of placating the Republicans to try to get them on his side way too much on these energy issues, saying coal, nuclear and drilling for oil is largely okay. The Republicans will oppose him, whatever he does, unless he becomes one of them and does exactly what the party line is. And even then they might oppose him just on principle. Best to tell them what Bush told the Dems all these years: my way or the highway. Because I do not agree with trying to placate people whose main motivation is money and power for themselves and their backers and the status quo because it preserves the other two. At all. I think it's all disasters just waiting to happen. And since the worst that can happen with a wind mill is a bird can fly into the propellers and get chopped into little birdy bits, I'm thinking that - despite the fuming of traditional energy corporations and the cost to set green methods up - it is the way to go. Seriously.

What they said...

So I didn't watch the Superbowl this year. I've watched it in the past for the game, or for the half-time show, or for the commercials, but this year, I just didn't feel like it. Plus, they had that anti-choice commercial and wouldn't air that other commercial for the gay dating site because that would be controversial.

I have seen some of the commercials since then, and the Dodge Charger commercial was stupid and sexist and freaking offensive. In response, this has been made...



And no, unlike the original commercial there is no consolation that "oh, but women put up with all these things, but at least we get to drive an awesome car at the end of the day" because that isn't true. Driving an awesome car, or anything else material, is not sufficient consolation for the serious bullshit we put up with on a daily basis. It just isn't. And to say otherwise would be a patronizing lie.

Also, I honestly do feel sorry for the kinds of men that would feel emasculated by the sorts of things mentioned in the original commercial.

What the...?!?!

Sorry, I've been busy praying in synagogue and working this weekend and week respectively, so I'm just now hearing about all this...


(Feel free to take the above and use it elsewhere against these crazies who either signed the petition supporting Polanski or have publicly stated they support his release from jail.)

Roman Polanski - the creep - finally got arrested and will hopefully be extradited back to the US. But some people, who no doubt believe that art and time should heal all evils, seem to think he should be allowed to continue fleeing justice. What part of "HE DRUGGED AND RAPED A 13-YEAR-OLD-GIRL AND DIDN'T EVEN CONTEST IT! IN FACT, HE ADMITTED IT, PLEAD GUILTY, AND THEN FLED THE COUNTRY SO HE WOULDN'T GO TO PRISON FOREVER!" don't these people understand?!?!?! HE'S A PEDO FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY! I'll repeat that for those who missed it the first time: HE'S A PEDO! FOR THOSE WHO DOUBT IT, I HAVE THIS QUOTE, SPOKEN BY ROMAN POLANSKI HIMSELF:

"If I had killed somebody, it wouldn’t have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But... fucking, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to fuck young girls. Juries want to fuck young girls. Everyone wants to fuck young girls!"

(This was reported by The Telegraph UK, having been found in an interview that Polanski did with Martin Amis, a novelist, in 1979.)

If nothing else, we've all seen enough Law & Order: SVU to know that THAT RIGHT THERE is the way a PEDOPHILE THINKS to justify THE SICK things they do! They think everyone wants to do what they do, but everyone else just won't admit it. WTH?

And for those who might think that Polanski was right to run because the judge, who had accepted his plea deal, which Polanski had agreed to on the basis that the judge would reduce his sentence, reneged on the agreement that the sentence would be reduced and instead had decided to sentence Polanski to 50 years... The judge changed his mind because he was given evidence that Polanski had raped two underage girls in Germany before and had reason to believe that, if given the chance, Polanski would do it again. Sounds like a good reason to levy maximum sentence to me. The fact that Polanski has admitted to having sex with underage girls in the years since he fled the US just makes it that much worse.

So many people that I have to put on the "Dead to Me" list now, the people who have signed the petition asking for Polanski's release from the Swiss jail in which he's currently awaiting extradition... Including Terry Gilliam, who I adored until now, and Martin Scorsese. I notice, however, that most people on the list supporting his release are French or in some way Continental European... I find that rather interesting...

Oh, and I love (read that with sarcasm, k?) that this petition says he's been arrested on a 30 year old warrant in which he's charged "in a case of morals"... Nice euphemism for "child rape"? As if the rape of a child is not a generally abhorrent thing and it's all a matter of Americans being Puritanical prudes. Really, WTH?!? DIAF!

Another awesome article that obviously does not miss the point of all this at all. YAY! for SALON!

And I would like to say to Whoopi Goldberg, who clarified her "but I don't believe it was rape-rape" statement earlier today: You need to get your facts straight before you open your mouth. Polanski plead guilty to the lesser charge of "unlawful sex with a minor" in a plea deal. He would have been charged with and tried for "aggrivated rape" - which certainly is "rape-rape," as you put it - if he hadn't plead out. And if you read the transcripts of the victim's grand jury testimony, it is very obvious that what he did was aggrivated, violent rape of a 13 year old girl. The DA offered the deal to spare the child further anguish by having to go through what would have been a high-profile trial at a time when there were no protections for victims like there are today. There's no mitigation or down-playing of Polanski's crime, no matter to what he formally plead guilty.

Also: See this open letter to the signers of this petition and consider passing it on. This deserves to become viral on the internet and I hope every single one of the signers of the Polanski supporters' petition sees this letter and the comments.

As of 2:30am September 1st, the following people I once respected have signed the petition for Polanski's release:

Darren Aronofsky (husband of Rachel Weisz), Ethan Coen (one half of the Coen Brothers), Penelope Cruz (yeah, you read that right), Alfonso Cuaron (the director of Prisoner of Azkaban), Guillermo del Toro (damn it, and I wanted to see The Hobbit), Terry Gilliam (of Monte Python), David Lynch (who did Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive), Brett Ratner (the shit director who ruined X-Men: the Last Stand), Martin Scorsese (who needs no introduction), Tilda Swinton (The White Witch in Narnia), Sam Mendes (Kate Winslet's husband), and Woody Allen (who I never respected, ever, but who isn't a surprise to the point that it's a freaking joke...)...