I’m beginning to think that older celebrities like Bill Cosby are joining twitter simply to be able to rebut claims that they are dead.

http://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/20163336496

Again, I’m rebuttaling rumors about my demise. But, I’m confirming I have an app – http://bit.ly/BillCosbyApp

http://twitter.com/BillCosby/status/20171613296

Emotional friends have called about this misinformation. To the people behind the foolishness, I’m not sure you see how upsetting this is.

So, straight from the mighty and all powerful Coz, he’s still alive and kicking!

h/t Talkingpointsmemo.com
USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s apology to Shirley Sherrod, he discusses new opportunities for Sherrod in the administration.

The Full Shirley Sherrod Video

In 2009, Brietbart launched his foray into “investigative” journalism with a then searing expose ACORN (Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now a non-profit that worked to ” advocate for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other social issues” via en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Community_Organizations_for_Reform_Now)

After the story and “expose” ran through the news cycle — from Brietbart to Fox News to Conservative radio — it all ended with ACORN losing Federal contracts, funding and needing to abandon their name.

However, after the facts came out it was shown that the Brietbart “contractor” responsible for the story, James O’Keefe had not only selectively edited the “documentary” he went so far as to slice footage into the documentary that had nothing to do with the Acorn employees. The worst example was Mr. O’Keefe’s use of a pimp costume in introduction, then lied on numerous Fox and conservative talk radio interviews that he had dressed as a pimp during the documentary.

Yet, the damage had already been done — ACORN was defunded and Fox and conservative talk radio did not bother with correcting the record.

In 2010, the same “Brietbart magic” is happening to Shirley Sherrod a now former USDA official who’s comments on race, redemption in 1986 ! were a cautionary tale to always do your best for people regardless of prejudice were a case file in doing your best. Brietbart now claims he received the edited video and posted it along with commentary without actually bothering to view the original unedited video (this after the O’Keefe issue with Acorn — and the criminal charges fired against O’Keefe for tampering with a Senator office telephones).

Although very little can be done to repair the damage done to Sherrod’s reputation after Fox News, the NAACP and various organizations piled onto the deceptively edited video — ultimately leading to her being forced out of the USDA, at least vindication came days later.

Ghana and Germany are tied at half!

Australia and Serbia are tied at half!

I’m starting to get disgusted with CNN’s lopsided coverage of the oil spill.

Rather than examining the claims of different parishes, and comparing their claims to the reality of the situation, they have descended into a non-stop complaints and foolish emotion-heavy vignettes with very few actual bits of information.

New plans, new machines, and new ideas are great; however, do they actually work? Anderson Cooper rarely asks if the proposed technology is actually affective and if the technology is actually worth the time and effort. Additionally given the volitale nature of both oil and toxic chemicals, he doesn’t bother to back-up the Coast Guards concerns that the ships might be incredibly dangerous given the oil, toxic fumes and electronic equipment (I would think this would be an obvious concern).

At the same time LA Republicans are complaining about the response, CNN seems to ignore the role that Republicans — particularly Bobby Jindal had in creating the current regulations on the books. The current regulations place a significant amount of the planning and expertise behind the clean-ups in the hands of oil companies like BP. In fairness to BP, the congressional testimonees showed that every single major company relied on similar clean-up plans.

As a result, the same people complaining about the response by both BP, the Coast Guard, the Federal Government, allow no burden on the state and local government who have both pushed for expanded drilling without regard to safety (before the BP spill), and now are pushing for drilling to continue without any sort of review of existing platforms.

Anderson Cooper’s show is particularly egregious, as he both shamelessly panders to local officials, without bothering to critique the fact that they are the main people pushing for more offshore drilling.

Bobby Jindal is grandstanding in front of television cameras — taking interviews, and walking along shores in hard hats day after day. Oh yeah — he’s busy criticizing everyone else instead of taking his own huge share of the blame.

1.) It turns out Jindal has only bothered to deploy 1,100 out of 6,000 National Guard members to handle LA coastline.

It also was revealed that the state has called up only 1,100 of the 6,000 National Guard members authorized for the spill clean-up efforts, Peterson said.

2.) Also Jindal hasn’t yet dispersed the 25 Million in funds BP provided as a grant to assist LA immediately.

Peterson said that at a meeting Thursday with BP officials, coastal Louisiana legislators and representatives of the Jindal administration, it was disclosed that the state has spent only about $3 million of a $25 million BP grant for spill-related expenses, and that it has not yet issued a contract for BP’s $15 million grant to promote tourism attractions threatened by the spill.

NOLA’s article on what Jindal is really doing

All this time Southern Republicans have been pounding a drumbeat about both “states rights” and “drill baby drill” ; yet, when a direct outcome of those policies causes a massive accident, rather than having a state-level response, there are nothing but complaints.

Jindal himself is uniquely responsible for this current calamity — In 2006, Jindal sponsored the Deep Ocean Energy Resources Act (H.R. 4761), a bill to eliminate the moratorium on offshore oil and gas drilling over the U.S. outer continental shelf.

One of the many surprises from Tuesday’s Primary night was an unheard of black candidate winning the South Carolina Democratic nomination for Senator.

Theroot.com has begun to unwrap what many would call the strange case of Alvin Greene:

Alvin Greene, a 32-year-old, unfunded, unemployed veteran who is black and lives with his mother in Manning, S.C., ran away with the Democratic nomination for the Senate in the Palmetto State last night. In the November general election, he will face first-term GOP incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint, who many expect to seek the GOP presidential nomination in 2012.

TheRoot.com Alvin Greene

Alvin Greene himself was able to put his win into historical perspective:

Greene, who is completely unknown to Democratic officials in South Carolina or anywhere, put his win in dramatic historical perspective: ”I want to thank all my supporters for making history in South Carolina,” he told the Greenville News. ”It’s been over 100 years since a black has won the nomination of a major party to the U.S. Senate from this state.”

However, I think this says a lot about Greene’s unlikely candidacy’s ability to succeed and the lack of Democratic machinery in South Carolina.