Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Sign of the Times: Current Events

There has been some crazy shit going on in the world in these last 2 weeks...
The news cycles are just jam-packed full.

What's going on in Britain?!?
The Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, resigned today. I can't figure out why. His party has lost a lot of seats in the Parliament, and he announced plans to step down, but then literally the next day, he stepped down

SCOTUS Nomineee
Over the weekend, President Obama named Elena Kegan as his 2nd supreme court nominee...
Is she gay or not? It seems like "people in the know" know that she is. Now her "Friends" have come out to say, "She isn't"... I don't know if that's true or not, but a closeted lesbian scares me a little politically. The people that hate me and my people don't want her on the bench b/c they think if she's (secretly) gay, then she will rule for her own rights should a case come up. But I think if she is secretly gay, there's a bigger chance she will rule against "her" own rights (Which of course are also MY rights.)

Oil Spill
Last week, a big oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico caught fire and sank, leaving 3 holes in the pipe that is broken but still connected to the oil well.

This is underwater video of oil pouring out of the biggest of the 3 leaks:



Something like 500,000 barrels of oil a day are leaking out into the Gulf of Mexico.
Let that sink in for a moment. When this first happened (April 20th) I was like, "O.M.G, how awful!" But now I'm a little more like
o.
m.
g...

I mean this is really, really tragic. This will have effects on the environment and the world for generations. The oil has reached the Gulf coast (bu-bye yummy shrimp) and is likely to head up the Atlantic coast too (goodbye crabs and fish and lobsters), not to mention the bird and the people... It is just incomprehensible.
Drill, Baby, Drill...

indeed.

Immigration Racism

Also on the WTF end of the spectrum, Last week, the state of Arizona passed the anti-immigration "Papers, please" law. I haven't read the law, but I understand it requires law enforcement officials to stop anyone that looks as if they could maybe be an illegal immigrant... And the law requires anyone that might possibly look like they might not be white to have to carry around proof of citizenship...
Don't leave home without your papers, please...


Asshats.

3 comments:

ed002d said...

Re: Britain, the way their system of government works means Gordon Brown had to step down.

The Prime Minister is the leader of the party, but the position is different from President of the U.S., in that the executive branch in Britain really consists of members of the legislative branch.

If the Dems were to lose their majority in the U.S. House, Pelosi would have to step down as Speaker. Same deal, more or less, with Gordon Brown in the UK. Labour lost, so he's out.

Tracy said...

ok. But didn't he call for someone to be elected to replace him? Why is he stepping down from being the leader of his party? Is it b/c they lost so badly under his leadership (shame/putting party first)? or just because he wants to get out of it and relax (lazy/sore loser)?

I was going to poke around the web a little to refresh my memory about the British system, but my eyes were rolling around b/c I needed to go to bed. In my exhausted state, the whole thing reeked of scandal. I was convinced when we woke up today, there would be published pictures of him schtupping a koala bear or something.

ed002d said...

Ah, right, he stepped down for the good of the party, which is a good move, given that he's just not very popular.