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In his opening statement, Barton, the top Republican on the committee overseeing the oil spill and its aftermath, delivered a personal apology to the oil giant. He said the $20 billion fund that President Obama directed BP to establish to provide relief to the victims of the oil disaster was a “tragedy in the first proportion.”

Other Republicans are echoing his call. Sen. John Cornyn said he “shares” Barton’s concern. Rep. Michele Bachmann said that BP shouldn’t agree to be “fleeced.” Rush Limbaugh called it a “bailout.” The Republican Study Committee, with its 114 members in the House, called it a “shakedown.”

Rep. Barton and Republicans like him don’t understand that the real tragedy is what’s happening to the people in the Gulf Coast. They’re the ones who deserve his apology — not BP.

But big oil knows exactly who its allies are. And if Republicans win control of the House, Rep. Barton could be chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee — overseeing regulation of the oil and gas industry.

Notably, companies like Halliburton — the folks responsible for cementing the Deepwater Horizon rig — are directing their political committees to deliver thousands of dollars to GOP candidates this cycle. Barton himself has received more than $100,000 from the oil and gas industry this election cycle.

Barton should apologize to the people of the Gulf and he should step down as the highest-ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

(*Note. I borrowed this from David Plouffe)

Latasha (food service worker): Can I hep who next?

Me: Hi, could I please have the egg, sausage, and cheese sandwich combo, except instead of coffee may I have a Diet Coke?

Latasha: Nope. Tha’s not a combo.

Me: Really? I can’t substitute a soda for a coffee.

Latasha: What do you mean?

Me: I want the combo meal, but for my drink I want a cold soda, not hot coffee.

Latasha: Tha’s not whuz in th’ COM-BOW! (Yeah, she raised her voice to me.)

Me: OK. Let’s try this. Order me the sausage, egg, and cheese sandwich, a hashbrown, and a Diet Coke.

Latasha: That’ll be $8.25.

Outcome for me – loss of $0.65, and of course I ended up getting the bacon egg and cheese sandwich. Classic fail.

A lot of people have been wondering, what would really happen if jets tried to fly through some of this dust – this volcanic ash. A lot of people have not understood that this flight ban is not optional.

Really? I mean, REALLY?

Here is the piece from the broadcast:

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Just wanted to let you know that the people who are questioning the validity of such grave consequences as “total engine failure” are the same ones who commit one or more of the following acts of idiocy during air travel:

1. Get pissed off when security is “taking too long” when actually they should have gotten in line an hour ago.
2. Get drunk before the flight and then wonder why the flight attendant will not serve them onboard the plane.
3. When de-planing tell the pilots that “they didn’t like all those turns at the end.” (That happened to me on a recent flight. We got vectored off final approach to allow space for landing traffic on the crosswind runway prior to our arrival. The passenger said it was, “Too wild.” Yeah, but not as wild as colliding with a 737 at 100 miles an hour, pal.)
4. Ask the flight attendant to call the pilots and tell them that deicing the airplane is un-necessary since it wasn’t snowing. (But we had about an inch of ice on our leading edges. Despite our announcement to the passengers explaining why this was necessary, the passenger still told us that we “made him late just so we could make a few bucks.”)
5. Tell the pilots to just “punch through the line of thunderstorms and get us there on time.”
6. Break their tray table/seat recline function/headrest/etc. and then blame the airline for “shotty” airplanes.
7. Tell the gate agent that they want a 1st class upgrade comp’d because they had to change gates.
8. Write a letter of complaint to the airline because a flight attendant didn’t give them more than one peanut/pretzel bag until they asked for it.
9. Decide to get up to go use the lav during taxi-out to the runway.
10. Think it is appropriate to tell anyone that pilots are under-worked and overpaid.

I am willing to admit that – like in any activity requiring coordination and at times strength – golfers need to remain relatively fit. But not to the extent of athleticism required to compete in football, baseball, basketball, soccer, or hockey. Don’t get me wrong here…I am not trying to demean golf. It is an interesting game which requires a LOT of skill. But not athleticism.

So today, when the final round is played at 2:40 EDT, Tiger tees off within reach of the win. Everyone is keyed up on the real possibility of him making “the greatest comeback in sports history.” (Just run the search string “greatest comeback tiger woods” through Google and see what I mean.) The anticipation is so hyped up that the PGA estimates that the number of viewers could eclipse every past PGA television record today, even saying that they will attract more than 1/2 the viewership of the SuperBowl.

If he does win, I think we will truly know how much of a hype-driven sport golf truly is. We have already seen it in the Nike ad that has been showing this week during Masters coverage. It seems that in order to right his wrongs, Woods’ spin machine wants people to forget quickly that he has a real problem. How should he gain redemption? Win a major golf tournament? When? Now? A year from now? Should he be allowed to golf in the PGA anymore? How much is this different from Michael Vick (who is a true athlete, BTW)? When can we forgive you, Tiger?

It doesn’t matter. The forgiveness is window dressing at this point. The real message to society that Woods is sending is, “repentance is just a comeback away.”

It has been pretty entertaining over the last year watching the debate ebb and flow across the country. In general, there was a lot of downright bullshit coming out of both sides during the first six months. Then the bullshit became raucous clamoring for the whole thing to end. That didn’t happen (thank God) and Obama and the democratic leadership got the ball rolling again. Utilizing similar tactics that won Obama the White House and gave the Dems the majority in the House and Senate, a grassroots effort kept pounding on the offices of legislators to make health care reform a reality.

The insurance companies, for their part, did not keep quiet. They descended in droves on Capitol Hill and even bought off a few Dems. But in the end it was that “Do-Nothing” President of ours who kept Congress focused on the goal line. As a direct result, the GOP – who have outwardly said and demonstrated that they only want Obama to fail – went Code Red and with the help of the conservative media got the rube citizenry wrapped around an axle of hatred. Rep John Boehner, minority leader of the House (and leader of the chilling efforts to remove dignity and decorum from the House chamber by having lackey-frosh congressmen challenge every Democratic Speaker Pro Tempore with ridiculous parliamentary inquiries, disruptions, and even the occasional slur or insult thrown towards presenters in the well or at the rostrum.)

Meanwhile, the rube citizenry “took up arms” and marched in protest on Capitol Hill, among other places across the country. They got all riled up. Burning pictures of the President. Making pictures of Obama that liken him to Hitler. They SPIT on a congressmen (yeah, just like the Roman Soldiers did to Jesus). They got into fisticuffs. It was great, wasn’t it? (Nice op-ed piece about more of this disgusting behavior) I watched the news and said aloud, “They don’t even know what they are protesting.” And now that the votes have passed – securely, legally, mathematically certainly – these same idiots have Tweeted death threats to Obama, and called for acts of protest and violence. Who is mustering them up? In the words of one Rush Limbaugh today, “We need to defeat these bastards…We need to wipe them out.”

So what are they protesting, anyway? Progress. Change. Charity. Compassion. Dignity. Human rights – Speaker Pelosi pointed out that this bill, by allowing Americans access to health care, upholds the Declaration of Independence’s call for the unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. What on earth would possess someone to vehemently oppose such things? Some say the bill is unconstitutional because it forces Americans to have health insurance (not true). Health care costs have been driven sky-high because of the overall hindrance of uninsured/underinsured claims in the medical system. It is incumbent to our government to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” (Yeah, that’s in the Preamble of the Constitution) Saying that this bill and its mandates are unconstitutional (because they protect the welfare of the Nation) is akin to saying that homicide laws are unconstitutional.

I am not going to detail the bill and its pros and cons. Everyone knows that this bill, like so many before it that ended up as law, is not perfect. But where do you start? You gotta start somewhere. The GOP tried and tried to “kill the bill” but all they did was piss everyone off. Ariana Huffington in her blog post today said, “The GOP’s toxic smokescreen of fear-mongering (“This is going to cause Armageddon“) and untruths (they want “to pull the plug on grandma“) has been blown away, revealing a party that stands unified against progress.” Many of the protesters this weekend were still probably carrying around the “NO DEATH PANELS!” signs. Wow.

It makes me sad. This nation is so rich. We are so blessed. There is a TON of wealth in the US, even in hard economies. And this bill will save us money. The GAO reported that the health care reform will cut our deficit by $1 trillion over the next twenty years.

I am excited that this bill passed. So much so, I posted, “Health Care FTW!!!!” on my Facebook status yesterday. One of my “friends” called me out on it:

There was another back and forth with “Him.” Then he “unfriended” me. I guess that is how open dialogue works, right? Since you decided to leave the fold, Mr. Anonymous small business owner, I am not obligated to point anything out for your argument like you requested. First off, you’re plain wrong. Second, it’s my fucking blog. Third, some day you will be happy that this bill passed. Some day.

But today, as I buckled the kids into their car seats for a trip to Chairman Bob’s establishment in Lakeville, it dawned on me why I am looking so much forward to this March. Everyone always wonders whether March will, “Come in like a lamb and go out like a lion,” or vice-a-versa. March is a month of veritable weather changes. It is a month of sports pandemonium. It is a month full of general uncertainty. The northern hemisphere awakens from winter slumber in March, shakes off the dust of inactivity and gets moving again. Hell, we even set our clocks ahead one whole hour to increase our daily productivity.

March 2010 for me will be the first month in close to 1/4 a year that I have been able to control my own work schedule. December, January, February, my employer determined it for me as I endured “long-term training.” Now that I have completed said training, I was able to bid a schedule for March using the preferential bidding system I worked on for the last few years with my union brothers. Now, the result wasn’t ideal by any means…Sarah still works weekends, and I will be flying over two of them in March. Lucky for the kids they have eager grandparents who look forward to such conflicts in my schedule, as they gladly watch the kids for us.

The truly nice thing about the schedule being back in my hands is this:

This is Sarah and the kids at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium. On truly a whim, we decided on the day after Oliver turned 1 year old to just hop on a flight to Chicago and spend the day there. The loads were quite good – very open in and out of Midway Airport. We enjoyed both flights – down on Compass’ E175 and back on Mesaba’s CRJ900 (my plane…making the trip special for the family because Daddy could annoy them with all the play-by-play action of every move the airplane and the crew made.)

This was a day where we all were together. We all were able to be a family having fun…sharing a day of adventure. It was really a special, and given the last couple of years, a unique thing for us. With more personal control over the sked, kids at a decent age to do things like major travel, and the weather getting warmer, March (and the months beyond) look better and better all the time.

So what else is going on. No doubt if you have visited Meggisi recently you saw the video of Oliver’s first steps. Well, especially this weekend, Ollie has become a full-fledged toddler! More video is forthcoming, but in the meantime I want to share some great pics from me’boy’s 1st birthday:

Oh yeah. It was my mom’s birthday this last week too, so the celebration was for her too. As you can see, she was having a blast!

Oliver’s First Steps from Kris Pierson on Vimeo.

J.R. Celski and Si-Bak Sung skate in Vancouver

I dig the fact that they race not only around the rink, but around each other. I am trying to forget about the drama on the luge track, and the graphic scene of young Nodar Kumaritashvil crashing to his death. But it is hard to forget when network TV decided that it was okay to show the video of the crash over, and over, and over again. (a)

Life moves on, however, and despite the sad start to the games things are relatively back to normal. The triumph of these athletes is evident – even in those who just barely miss the medal they are after. They are all very accomplished and talented. It is a blast to watch. Besides short track, I am also looking forward to snowboarding, alpine skiing, hockey, and even some figure skating. My main goal, though, is to watch, follow closely, and gain complete understanding of curling.

Women's Team USA at Olympic Trials (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

I have to say, I am fascinated. Also, if you are Minnesotan, you need to pay attention: the entire US Men’s team is from MN, out of the Duluth and St. Paul clubs. The Women’s team is 1/2 MN and 1/2 WI, out of the St. Paul, Bemidji, and Madison clubs.

GO TEAM USA!

(a) Obviously a decision mired in controversy. Yahoo! Sports has an argument in it’s blog that NBC made a good journalistic decision. I disagree. If they had to show it as a proper way to cover the story, they could have just kept the video on the internet, or at least wait until the late show to air the footage.