Sunday News Roundup: We're Still Here

Tazers: The CBC's As It Happens, had a segment focusing on the judicial review of the RCMP's use of tazers and in particular their deployment of tazers and the resulting death of Robert Dziekanski.

Environment: Earth Hour was yesterday. Did you turn off and unplug?

Space: Shuttle Discovery landed safely yesterday after upgrading the International Space Station. NASA TV was incredibly boring. The peaceful and safe use of space in the spirit of international cooperation continues. Thank God that our forays into space display the very best our species has to offer.

War: Continued victories in Iraq. Perhaps even progress? Though the entire escapade is a huge distraction from real threats and future battlegrounds. Maybe I spoke prematurely regarding the peaceful use of space.

The Walk of Shame: Corruption and Government, Don't Look So Suprised

Apparently the tax law is so complex that even the guy in change of writing it doesn't understand his own obligations under that law. Or maybe he just forgot to report tens of thousands of dollars in income over two decades. Somehow, I think that if I made a similar mistake there would be gruff men in dark suits knocking on my door.

Speaking of money owed to the government. Days after the Interior Department received an award for high standards of integrity the Inspector General of the Interior Department issued a detailed report describing inappropriate conduct among the minerals management services who collect royalties from oil companies. The sordid dealings include contract fixing, inappropriate sexual relationships between regulators and oil company execs, and regulators being on the payroll of oil companies as consultants. The missing money comes in where the MMS has failed to pursue thousands of dollars in royalties owed to the government by the oil companies while they have been racking in record profits and growing fat off of huge tax subsidies. Subsidies which also don't seem to be doing anything to keep gas prices low. At least the "MMS Chicks" had a good time.

Pelosi seems to think this will effect the nature of the debates regarding increased offshore oil drilling. By which she doesn't mean that this information revealing that the Bush administration could have done something about the rising cost of oil will be used to take increased drilling off the table. (Drilling that wont do anything to reduce the cost of oil since it will take decades for there to be any production and that production will be so small as to not make any impact at the pump.) No, this will just result in some language being added to the bill regarding integrity. This new information won't change anything because it has already been decided to go ahead with drilling. In fact congress has decided to go ahead with a worse plan than that suggested by Paris Hilton.

Cleveland Ohio: Terrible American City, Or The Worst American City?

Remember five years ago when there was a massive blackout that left over 50,000 people in the North East United States without power for three days? There was the widespread fear that it was the result of another terrorist attack in the wake of 9/11. Afterward there was some news coverage about our vulnerable electric infrastructure and that this accident should never have gotten to this scale. That was all quickly forgotten and last week there was a power outage at the same electrical substation that caused the massive blackout right on the five year anniversary. The public response to the outage by the company was terse and full of self admiration. It was also devoid of any reference to the massive outage of five years ago and it appears the the MSM has failed the public again by refusing to ask any pointed questions.