In Iowa: A “large tornado” trundled through the town of Mapleton yesterday—it destroyed sixty percent of the town’s buildings, but no one was hurt. Gawker has a storm-chasing video.

…and in Germany: Eight people were killed and at least 41 people were injured when a “freak sandstorm” caused an eighty-car highway pileup.

In China: Authorities detained a Protestant church group this morning for praying in public.

Untrained temps: The majority of the workers in the Fukushima Daiichi plant. “This is the hidden world of nuclear power,” a former physics professor in Tokyo told the NY Times. “Wherever there are hazardous conditions, these laborers are told to go.”

Everyone else is pumped about the budget deal, amirite? Tea Partiers are just super bummed about the budget deal, blame “liberal Democrats who refuse to stop acting like selfish children incapable of making the tough decisions voters have demanded.”

Speaking of budget cuts: The State House passed a budget plan yesterday that will cut 4.4 billion dollars in spending.

New best friends! Obama and John Boehner, Reuters reports. Wonkette isn’t having it.

Bernie Madoff and Danielle Steele: Go together like Bernie Madoff and fraud, says the Financial Times.

We might as well start rinsing shorebirds now: BP is in talks to resume deep-water oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

Finally, in yesterday’s (sad) news: Sidney Lumet has died. Here is a clip from “Twelve Angry Men,” arguably his most famous film, and possibly the most compelling movie ever made about jury duty. Good morning!

12 replies on “Morning News”

  2. I became pro nuclear power about a decade ago, but reports from Fukushima Daiichi and diablo canyon make me wonder if nuclear power and capitalism ca coexist.

  4. And let’s not forget the whacko in Holland who shot up a shopping mall, killing six people and himself. How’s that gun control working out for you?

  6. My god, Fnarf. So, Holland, a province of 6.05 million, has it’s first mass shooting (according to Reuters) since it became a province in 1813.

    Let’s compare with the US states most similar in size:

    Tennessee, the closest larger state, has about 6.35 million. 5 minutes on Wikipedia finds me 3 mass shootings since 1995.

    Mississippi, the closest smaller state, has 5.99 million. The same 5 minutes gives me 2 mass shootings since 1995 as well.

    So, I think I’d choose one horrific shooting in 200 years over the alternative.

    Fuck, you’re smarter than this bullshit.

  7. @6: Fnarf = 5-2-80?

    Once the TeaParty regressives realize the biggest budget problems we’ve got are the MIC and a refusal to ask the rich to pay a fair share, then common cause with the left is possible. Until, fuck them.

  8. Oops! Sorry, Fnarf (if you read this), blame it on me being computerless. So much attention on figuring out how to use my phone for tasks that are better suited for systems with windowing.

  10. @4

    Wow, grade-school logic from 5280. What a surprise. “Hear about the girl who was kidnapped and kept as a slave? How’s that Emancipation Proclamation working out for you?”

  11. P.S. 5280, please pause while cleaning a pistol of some kind to accept my thanks for your mentioning Lumet’s last film “Before the Devil Knows You’re Gone”, which I netflixed yesterday. You were spot-on about Marisa Tomei’s simply magnificent breasts, sir. As a ghey I must give her tremendous respect for doing the most she could in that part, in which her character’s name may as well have been “BOOBIES”.

    Great picture overall, a magnificent, fierce tragedy. Am I sad the creator of Dog Day Afternoon gave us only one gay in his last movie and made him a minor villain? Sure. Do I forgive him on account of the outfits and apartment he gave the gay villain? I’m shallow enough that I do, yes.

  12. “Twelve Angry Men” a more famous Lumet film than “Serpico”, “Dog Day Afternoon”, or “Network”? I don’t think so.

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