News Roundup for 5/14/10

Not all that much, when you think about it

-Headline of the day-
"Gulf Spill May Far Exceed Official Estimates."

So now might be a good time to stop calling it a "spill." Once you get to the point where it's equal to two Exxon Valdezes a week, "spill" is just an abuse of the language. According to the report, "The amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico may be at least 10 times the size of official estimates, according to an exclusive analysis conducted for NPR."

That's a lot of freakin' oil. But it helps to put things into a broader perspective. "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean," says BP CEO Tony Hayward. "The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

Allow me to point out that a bullet is tiny in relation to your head, but that doesn't mean you want one in there. And, yes, he really did say that.

When I read that, I twittered, "This is -- by a wide margin -- the dumbest thing anyone's said all week." Because that's the sort of thing I do. (NPR)


-That danged fence-
John McCain has a great idea -- jump on the "we hate Hispanics" bandwagon just in time for reelection. He's cooked up a new plan -- which is 180 degrees off his previous plan -- to deal with illegal immigration. It's a ten-point plan, but mostly it's a fence, because ladder technology hasn't reached Mexico yet.

So John decided to shoot an ad where he talks to the Sheriff of Pinal County about what he oughta do. And Sheriff Paul Babeu thinks it's the best idea anyone has ever had and tells him so, saying, "You're one of us," meaning a Sheriff, I guess... but not a white person, because that'd be racist.

Of course, Sheriff Paul is from Pinal County, which isn't exactly on the border -- it's 115 miles away from the border -- but a lack of firsthand knowledge has never kept anyone from claiming to be an expert. "Chances are McCain didn t feature a local border town police chief because that person probably would ve told him his ten-point plan is a waste of manpower and resources," wrote Think Progress's Andrea Nill.

But all the people at Think Progress are lefty commies who love illegal immigrants. What do real Americans -- i.e., conservatives -- think of McCain's idea? Let's find out from former GOP Rep. Joe Scarborough and current GOP Rep. John Shadegg.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

It's weird, but it almost seems like they think it's a joke... A really funny one, too. (MSNBC, Wonk Room)


-Bonus HotD-
"Buchanan: With Kagan, too many Jews on Supreme Court bench."

For the life of me, I can't figure out why MSNBC keeps this senile old racist around. (Raw Story)