News Roundup for 7/20/10

America's greatest enemy

-Headline of the day-
"Sen. Cornyn: 'I Think A Lot Of People Are Looking Back With More Fondness On President Bush's Administration.'"

My first thought when reading that was "define 'a lot.'" I mean, one hundred people in a small tavern could qualify as "a lot" of people, so what are we talking about here? Well, it turns out that for Cornyn "a lot" means "a significant percentage of the American population."

See, former president Bush is coming out with a memoir -- tentatively titled Fighting for Breath: Remembering That One Time a Pretzel Kicked My Ass -- in October. In other words, everyone's going to be reminded what a Republican-controlled government looks like right before the elections. Because Bush is smart like that.

So Cornyn went on C-SPAN, where I guess he figured no one would see it, and said that this wouldn't be a problem since everyone's writhing in the throes of Bush nostalgia. "Look, I think President Bush's stock is going up a lot since he left office..." John said. "I think a lot of people are looking back with a little more -- with more fondness on President Bush's administration, and I think history will treat him well." Bush's book will come out, everyone will recall his courageous pretzel-battle, Republicans will sweep into Washington, and the Democratic Party will be dead forever.

There's a little hitch in this reasoning though -- it's based on bullshit. According to the report, "A recent Time poll found that 61 percent blame Bush for the 'balky economy,' versus 27 percent who blame President Obama. By a whopping 53-to-33 percent margin, Americans favor Obama over Bush." Worse, one the point of history remembering Bush's greatness, we're reminded that "the Siena Research Institute this month released its latest poll of presidential scholars, who ranked Bush as the worst president of the modern era and in the bottom five overall."

So, I suppose you could describe the 33% who think Bush was wonderful as "a lot." But you could also describe the 53% who know better as "a lot more." (Think Progress, with video)


-BP has secretly been fighting gusher since 2001!-
What's wrong with this photo of whizbang geniuses watching the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico on a Star Trek viewscreen? Well, if you look at the fancy notes that photographers attach to their photos in secret metadata code, you see it was created in 2001. Here's the photo (it doesn't get any larger than that, by the way, so don't get all click-happy trying to open it bigger):



And there's the gusher right there! In 2001! How did they even... What the... Huh?

Turns out there's this thing called "photoshop" and BP used this contraption to make an old photo of guys watching football or something look like they were working on plugging the damn hole! They put this up on their website as evidence of all the hard work they're doing to get the damn hole plugged.

Which kind of makes you wonder; why they couldn't just go get a new photo of all that hard work? Wouldn't that be way easier? Maybe those guys are still watching football. Who knows?

All I can say is quit dicking around with Photoshop and plug the damn hole! (AMERICAblog)


-Bonus HotD-
"Playboy unveils 'safe-for-work' website, TheSmokingJacket."

A boobless Playboy? What would be the point? (Agence France-Presse)