T-Bone Wolk, 58. Don’t know how I missed this one (he died back in February). He’s played with so many people, but most recently I’ve been enjoying his work on Daryl Hall’s home studio series. He had a heart attack and died just after finishing another session with Daryl. He played bass (and everything else) with Hall & Oates since the 80s and was a consummate musician. In this clip, he’s the guy in the red shirt playing guitar.

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The answer’s still “Hell, no!” But it’s a great song, isn’t it? Todd Rundgren and Daryl Hall:

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What a great story. Last night Alice Tan Ridley, a NYC subway singer who’s been performing her heart out at the 42nd St. station for 20 years, made it to the next round on “America’s Got Talent.” As if that wasn’t interesting enough, she’s also the mother of Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey “Precious” Sidibe.

And what a set of pipes:

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Listen, you already know how screwed up everything is, right? I don’t need to hit you over the head with it. We can use a day off from the craziness, so I’m not writing about the insanity for the rest of the day.

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Via Rep. Ed Markey:

Now the other big oil companies, testifying in Congress today, contend that this was an isolated incident. They say a similar disaster could never happen to them.

And yet it is this kind of Blind Faith — which is ironically the name of an actual rig in the Gulf — that has led to this kind of disaster.

In preparation for this hearing, Congress reviewed the oil spill safety response plans for all the top five oil companies.

What we found was that Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell and BP have response plans that are virtually identical. The plans cite identical response capabilities and tout identical ineffective equipment. In some cases, they use the exact same words and made the exact same assurances.

The covers of the five response plans are different colors, but the content is ninety percent identical.

Like BP, three other companies include references to protecting walruses, which have not called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years.

Two other plans are such dead ringers for BP’s that they list a phone number for the same expert – a man who has been dead since 2005.

The American people deserve oil safety plans that are ironclad and not boilerplate.

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I’m gonna have to go with the pessimists on this one: Our president seems incapable of stopping his slide into mushy irrelevance. Ezra Klein:

Obama did not make any specific promises about the bill he would support, or even that he wanted. He did not say he would price carbon, or that we should get a certain percentage of our energy from renewables by a certain date.

But his language was a close echo of the language he used in the health-care fight. “There are costs associated with this transition,” he said, using a formulation many will remember from health care. “And some believe we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy.” Similarly familiar was his reminder that “I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party – as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels,” and his promise that “the one approach I will not accept is inaction.”

The optimistic take, at least for environmentalists, is that this is the language and approach Obama uses when he really means to legislate. The pessimistic take is that Obama shied away from clearly describing the problem, did not endorse specific legislation, did not set benchmarks, and chose poll-tested language rather than a sharper case that might persuade skeptics.

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The answer is “Hell, no!” Todd Rundgren and Daryl Hall live:

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Josh Ritter:

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These are the President’s remarks on the oil spill:

Good evening. As we speak, our nation faces a multitude of challenges. At home, our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession that has touched the lives of nearly every American. Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists. And tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens.

On April 20th, an explosion ripped through BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, about forty miles off the coast of Louisiana. Eleven workers lost their lives. Seventeen others were injured. And soon, nearly a mile beneath the surface of the ocean, oil began spewing into the water.

Because there has never been a leak of this size at this depth, stopping it has tested the limits of human technology. That is why just after the rig sank, I assembled a team of our nation’s best scientists and engineers to tackle this challenge – a team led by Dr. Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and our nation’s Secretary of Energy. Scientists at our national labs and experts from academia and other oil companies have also provided ideas and advice.
Continue Reading »

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Peace can only begin with the telling of the truth. And now, thirty-eight years later, the truth is finally out:

LONDONDERRY, Northern Ireland – Relatives of 13 Catholic demonstrators shot to death by British troops on Northern Ireland’s Bloody Sunday cried tears of joy Tuesday as an epic fact-finding probe ruled that their loved ones were innocent and the soldiers entirely to blame for the 1972 slaughter.

The investigation took 12 years and nearly 200 million pounds ($290 million), but the victims’ families and the British, Irish and U.S. governments welcomed the findings as priceless to heal one of the gaping wounds left from Northern Ireland’s four-decade conflict that left 3,700 dead.

Thousands of residents of LondonDerry — a predominantly Catholic city long synonymous with Britain’s major mass killing from the Northern Ireland conflict — gathered outside the city hall to watch the verdict come in, followed by a lengthy apology from Prime Minister David Cameron in London that moved many locals long distrustful of British leaders.

The probe found that soldiers opened fire without justification at unarmed, fleeing civilians and lied about it for decades, refuting an initial British investigation that branded the demonstrators as Irish Republican Army bombers and gunmen.
Cameron, who was just 5 years old when the attack occurred, said it was “both unjustified and unjustifiable.”

“I couldn’t believe it, I was so overjoyed,” said Kay Duddy, clutching the handkerchief used to swab blood from her 17-year-old brother’s body that day. Jackie Duddy, the first of the 13 killed, was shot in the back.

“Never in my wildest dreams would I ever envisage a British prime minister would stand up in Parliament and tell the truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday,” Duddy said. “David Cameron told the world and its mother that Jackie Duddy and the rest of the deceased and injured were innocent people. They were totally exonerated today,” she said.

One by one, relatives of the 13 dead and 15 wounded went to a podium, huge black-and-white pictures of their dead or wounded relative displayed on a massive television screen. Each declared their relief that the demonstrators were found innocent and the elite soldiers of the Parachute Regiment solely to blame.

“Thirty-eight years ago a story went around the world … that there was gunmen and bombers on our streets, and they were shot and killed. Today that lie has been uncovered,” said Kate Nash, whose 19-year-old brother William was shot fatally once through the chest.

“Unjustified and unjustifiable. Those are the words we’ve been waiting to hear since January the 30th of 1972,” said Tony Doherty, whose father, Patrick, was fatally shot as he crawled away from gunfire. The fact-finders rejected soldiers’ claims that Doherty had been carrying a gun by digging up photos of Doherty seconds before he was hit and showing he was unarmed.

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