One of your villages is missing an idiot, and we appear to have located him...
Of course, on this blog, which actually is largely peopled by commenters who are not bloviating idiots, somebody asked the rather obvious question:

...what was the FBI doing looking into terrorist cells overseas? Now if it was a retired NSA agent, or CIA agent, then this story would simply be idiotic, but adding in the fact that this alleged source worked for an agency tasked with internal law enforcement...

This rhetorical question has been popping up all over websites that I frequent, including Facebook.
By any standards, the performance of BP and its CEO Tony Hayward, since the explosion of their sub-contracted deep-water drill-rig and the subsequent ongoing oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico, has been lamentable.
Hayward has uttered a string of remarks in public that have revealed that he has next to no awareness not only of self, but also of how his remarks can impact the corporation of which he is CEO. For the edited highlights (or lowlights) of his recent public utterances, see here.
More sinisterly, there is compelling circumstantial evidence that BP has been working to restrict media and public access to beach and marine areas, and to illegally restrict reporting of events from the Gulf Coast. The pusillanimous approach of the US government is revealed by the meandering, flip answers given here to media questioning of why access is being restricted by BP.

The answer to the question of why Tony Hayward still has a job may be found in this article in Slate:

...Hayward owes his continued tenure largely to BP's unsuccessful efforts to cap the well. For better or worse (mostly for worse), Hayward has emerged as the public face of BP. When he shows up at the Gulf, or on television, he catches all the flak—for his colleagues, for those who report to him, and for those to whom he reports. As a human punching bag, he absorbs all the blows thrown by politicians, the media, and locals that might otherwise land on the corporate board or on investors. He literally owns the spill—and its consequences.
For this reason, it wouldn't be prudent to replace Hayward midstream. New CEOs—especially those who step into troubled situations—like to have a clean slate. There are a few basic narrative arcs to CEO stories—the phenomenal success story, the crash, and the comeback/turnaround. The ideal time to take over is after the company has hit bottom, when all the bad news has been absorbed by the market.

I suspect that in a few months' time, Hayward will suddenly decide that it is time for him to "spend more time with my family" or "move on to the next challenge in my life" or some other form of departure euphemism, and he will step down as CEO, with his contract paid up and a nice golden parachute. Until then, as the current CEO, he will continue to be the lightning rod for resentments at the arrogance and mendacity of BP.
The brief high-profile public-figure career of Tony Hayward provides another window into the bubble-like existence that many senior corporate leaders live within. Any sensibly-tutored middle leader in most businesses would not have uttered any of the inanities, stupidities and falsehoods uttered to date by Tony Hayward. Why? Because those levels of leaders would be too authentic to attempt to spin and BS their way through encounters with a hostile media system. Quite simply, people who live in the real world are grounded enough to know better.
Tony Hayward's numerous gaffes are, quite simply, the behaviour I would expect from somebody who has been living in a corporate bubble, divorced from everyday reality. He has no clue how deeply wounding the oil leakage is to entire industries in the USA, and to the world ecosystem. His flippant remark that "BP has too many people who have been trying to save the planet" is a revealing insight into his fundamental contempt for ecological stewardship. The picture of him in the obligatory safety hat pointing to a drilling rig currently looks like a masterpiece of the CEO suffused with hubristic "It's all mine!" pomposity. And the attempted hiring of Ari Fleischer as the BP PR go-to guy in the USA for this debacle shows an amazing lack of understanding of why Fleischer left the White House in the first place (hint: a credibility level somewhere deeper under water than the BP oil leak).
Hayward's very public self-immolation is a cautionary tale to other top-flight corporate leaders, including my employer's. When you are faced with a disaster of this size, you need to be grounded and authentic and open in your dealings with public stakeholders. However, my fear is that most corporate leaders will resolve that if anything similar happens to their corporations, they will simply hunker down, circle the wagons and attempt to control the message and shoot unwelcome messengers. This will not work in the social media age. Andy Borowitz has already snapped into action with a fine piece of satire on BP's attempt to control the flow of information...
However, senior corporate leaders would not be the first class of people to prove the wisdom of Albert Einstein's famous saying that insanity is the practice of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...
UPDATE - Tony Hayward went to Washington last week and testified to a commmittee of elected representatives. It must be noted that I am more than a little skeptical about the purpose of such events. As a political commentator once observed, there are usually three reasons for these events:
1. To get elected representatives on television
2. To get elected representatives on television
3. To get elected representatives on television
And, as if we needed proof of the truth of those three reasons, up popped Rep. Joe Barton (Oil Industry, Texas) to allege that the $20bn escrow fund agreed to by BP as part of its response to the oil leak was a "shakedown" by the Federal Government. For this prime example of self-interested BS, Barton was apparently threatened with the loss of all of his committee seniority by senior Republican leaders (who presumably realized what an idiotic wanker he was being), which in turn forced him to "walk back" his allegations, although the mealy-mouthed and obfuscatory way in which he did it merely confirmed that he is yet another idiotic, classless, extractive industry shill. This may have diverted some attention from the BP CEO's own testimony.
Tony Hayward appeared to alternate between contrition and obfuscation. He came across as a person over-briefed by PR shills and paranoid lawyers, and his testimony did not impress many, including watching people in the Gulf states caught up in this environmental disaster. Yet another blow to his personal credibility and the credibility of BP.
UPDATE 2 - As if Tony Hayward's testimony in Washington wasn't a big embarrassment, BP then proceeded to score another own goal, when Hayward appeared at a prestigious yacht race. That smacked of a combination of hubris and insensitivity, as residents of the Gulf states of the USA saw Hayward's yacht sailing in only-slightly-polluted ocean, instead of the hundreds of square miles of polluted ocean in the Gulf. The bubble mentality of BP senior corporate leadership apparently has not been entirely punctured...
UPDATE 3 - When testifying in Washington, the BP officials were caught utilizing a scientific expert who died 5 years ago...
UPDATE 4 - Tony Hayward will be stepping down as the CEO of BP. He has apparently been appointed to a non-job in Eastern Europe, but I do not expect him to take that job offer. It is a job offer designed to allow him to leave and collect his severance package.

..over at this blog.

...following their weasel-words, dog-whistle tap-dancing around the furore that some bigoted fools decided to stir up after they broadcast an advert on French television aimed at a gay audience.
I once again invoke my standard purchasing decision rule: if a corporation decides to let religion and dogma rule its decision-making processes, I will also invoke my value system when deciding whether to purchase from that corporation.
I will not purchase anything from McDonalds until I see evidence that the values of the CEO are no longer being imposed by proxy on corporate decision-making.

My own personal opinion is that Valentino Rossi will not return to MotoGP this season. And the reason why he will not return has nothing to do with the broken tibia he suffered last weekend.
Lost amid all of the speculation of how much resemblance Rossi has to Superman (will he get back on the bike in 2 months, as some optimists believe?) is a potentially more serious medical issue for Rossi. To wit, the shoulder injury that he suffered over the Winter riding a Motocross bike.
On May 21st Yamaha finally publicly admitted what was already common knowledge in the pit lane in MotoGP, that the injury was affecting Rossi's ability to ride his bike at the maximum. Here is the MotoGP lead doctor and his Yamaha crew chief:

"The situation with his shoulder has always been more serious than anyone thought," Costa told Motosprint magazine.
"First of all, the shoulder almost dislocated in the crash, and this has caused an instability, albeit a limited one.
"He has an inflammation of the bursas: what is known as periarthritis; there is a very important tendinitis at the long head of the bicep; and the cartilage is damaged in the area that completes the skeleton of the shoulder blade [glenoid cavity]. It's an important temporary disability."
Yamaha crew chief Jeremy Burgess says the injury has been slowing Rossi down in recent races, where he has been overshadowed by team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.
"The telemetry is clear regarding the way Valentino is forced to ride these days: he is forced to enter turns more slowly, he has to adopt an inefficient position on the bike and sometimes he rides one-armed, in order to rest the other arm," said Burgess.

This is a collection of injuries that would probably have folks like me wearing a shoulder sling and undergoing intense physio and rehab... the important thing to realize is that these kinds of injuries heal relatively slowly.
The cynic in me (shock horror. Moi?) believes that, following the principle that injuries are often under-reported by athletes in order to avoid giving information to their rivals, Rossi might have more serious issues with the shoulder that can only be cured by surgery. For a MotoGP rider, whose body has to work quickly and effectively to shift the bike around a lot, a deficient shoulder is a bad impediment.
Even minimally invasive shoulder surgery has a significant recovery time - up to 4-5 months. I would not be surprised if Valentino Rossi also undergoes shoulder surgery in the next 2 months. If he does opt for surgery, his 2010 MotoGP season is over. Which would really ignite the speculation that Rossi may opt out of MotoGP to race in F1, although it is not clear how he could competitively do so, since there is no agreement in prospect to allow teams to run three cars, the only obvious way in which Rossi could race for Ferrari. It is difficult to see Rossi signing for any other team, unless it is a team that uses Ferrari engines, and neither Sauber or Toro Rosso are exactly setting the F1 world alight right now.
My guess is that Rossi will end up taking the rest of the season off, partly to heal his leg but also to heal his shoulder, which could end up taking longer to heal than the leg, and will consider his options over the Summer.

Not very long ago, I was somewhat perplexed when Sting, who I had regarded as one of the smartest men in the music business, agreed to play a concert in 2009 for the family of the President of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov. Karimov has a reputation for being a fairly nasty piece of work, even for that part of the world, which made Sting's decision to play there below perplexing. To his credit, Sting attempted to justify his decision, claiming that refusing to play would have been a "pointless gesture".
I find the explanation unconvincing. Sting (I have to assume) does not need the money, and must have been aware that playing the concert would be an exception to the rule that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Other than some odd commercial obligation, I cannot fathom why he would risk so much of his reputation even for a sum of money rumored to be around $1m.
However, Sting does not seem to be alone in suffering a moral compass failure. Elton John just played at the wedding of Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's predominant audience, I can assure you, are not exactly tolerant of gay people. Limbaugh himself is rather silent about issues of marriage and morality, perhaps because, as he is now on his fourth marriage, he is in a poor position to hold forth about such topics (although that never seems to stop people of a bullying pathology).
I guess that when you are a very rich pop star, that money is even more impossible to turn down. I am disappointed in both Sting and Elton John. Given their focus on charitable works in the past, I expected better.
Perhaps they have the same agent?

AZ State Senator Sylvia Allen has a lengthy Op-Ed in the Tuscon Citizen where she talks at length about SB1070 and why she supported it.
I am going to examine some of her statements in detail below. Here we go:

...Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way.

This is not illegal immigration. This is drug smuggling. This would be a serious felony even if the smugglers were U.S. Citizens. Already, Senator Allen is deliberately conflating two different concepts. None of the activities that she complains about in this paragraph of her op-ed has anything to do with immigration, illegal or otherwise.

One man told of two illegal’s who came upon his property one shot in the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the ranch and they can’t leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left when they come back.

I don't know about you, but I would be more impressed if Senator Allen could actually write the English language properly...there is at least one egregious grammatical and spelling error in each of those sentences.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal’s and 20% of Arizona prisons are filled with illegal’s.

Not according to the Center for Immigration Studies:

Analysis of data from State Criminal Alien Assistance Program showed that illegal immigrants were 11 percent of the state’s prison population

I am also struggling to see how the word "filled" is a viable word choice even if as many as 20% of the prison population is illegal immigrants. This reads like exaggerated BS.

The border can be secured. We have the technology and we have the ability to stop this invasion.

When big assertions are made in an article, I start looking for supporting evidence. There is none whatsoever. How can the USA secure a southern land border that is 1,933 miles long? 372.5 miles of that border are in Arizona. That's a lot of border to secure in a deeply inhospitable climatic region. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and there is nothing being offered here to back up a claim that seems to me to be living somewhere between fantasyland and cloud-cuckooland.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding? The ACLU and the leftist courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but it was an effort to try and stop illegal’s from setting up businesses, and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause, like a traffic stop, to determine if they are here legally.

This, to be blunt, is illiterate BS. Any time I see a paragraph that begins with a peurile ad hominem fallacy ("the leftist media") I know that in all probability I am about to enter a fact free zone. And...so it proves. Let's take this apart and see what we have:
"The leftist media"
Fallacy 1 - a juvenile ad hominem
"It is not going to set up a Nazi Germany"
Fallacy 2 - a strawman. Who said it was going to "set up a Nazi Germany"? Provide the accurate in-context cites to support this.
"Are you kidding?"
Fallacy 3 - argument from incredulity
"The ACLU and the leftist courts will do anything..."
Fallacy 4 - Ad hominem and a strawman combined. The ACLU has a track record of defending people right across the political spectrum. They defended Rush Limbaugh when the police tried a "fishing expedition" on him over possible prescription drug abuse.
"...and give the ability to local law enforcement when there is probable cause, like a traffic stop, to determine if they are here legally."
Multiple Fallacies, including the fallacy of False Dichotomy.
This is where I start to worry about Senator Allen's fundamental understanding of the law. A traffic stop is not probable cause for a check to determine if somebody is in the country legally. If I get stopped for speeding in Texas, the police will check that I have a valid drivers license, but the absence of a drivers license does not mean that I am in the country illegally. I might have a drivers license in another country and be here on business. That does not make me an illegal immigrant.
There is a slang term for these kinds of peripheral investigations of people stopped by law enforcement. It's called a fishing expedition, and it is illegal. It is (for example) illegal for a police officer to search your vehicle during a traffic stop, if the only reason for the stop is an alleged driving infraction. If he smells the odor of dope coming from the car, then he has probable cause to search the vehicle for possible illegal drugs, but if an officer decides he wants to search my car after stopping me for speeding, that is not a legal search because it is not backed up by any viable probable cause.

The Socialists who are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do something.The Socialists wants us to just let them come. They want the “Transformation” to continue.

What socialists are in power? And what is this "Transformation"?. Is this perhaps, some form of coded language that I am not familar with?
It is at this point that I become convinced that Senator Allen simply has no clue about the meanings of words. There are no socialists in the current Obama administration. In Europe, the Democratic party would be regarded as a highly capitalist and conservative party. There is a dictionary definition of socialism, and none of the major US political parties meet it in any way shape or form.
This is an example of argument by empty slogan. This part of the communication is a fact-free zone.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I can to protect our Constitutional Republic.

Oh purleeese...this is the worst kind of cheap rhetorical pearl-clutching. The only thing missing is a sniffing sound and the visuals of a flag being waved while Toby Keith plays in the background...

Living in America is not a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the Constitution, the law of our land, which says what you must do to be a citizen of this country. FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.

Good Lord...does Senator Allen have no damn clue about what is in the Constitution, and its purpose? The Constitution is the highest law of the land, it is not the only law. The Constitution does not lay down any rules about what you must do to be a citizen of the United States of America. Those rules are codified elsewhere in Federal Law (including the quite clear law about what constitutes a "natural born citizen", the law that a large number of people cannot read or understand).
Now, if Senator Allen had added the word "and" prior to the phrase "law of our land", that might have made this almost correct. In its current form, it is nonsensical.

Short Summary: this is a badly-written, poorly argued, incoherent, xenophobic rant. It jumps all over the place, it consists of a series of only tenuously-connected, poorly-structured thoughts, supplemented by bald assertions, and peurile ad hominems mixed with falsehoods and fear-mongering of the worst kind.
I would expect more from a State Senator, especially since one of my requirements of elected representatives is that they provide leadership. All leaders have an obligation to tell people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. Unfortunately, this op-ed reads like a spineless elected representative pandering to angry and frightened people. This is not the sort of leadership needed at any level of elected representation right now.
UPDATE - Some people commenting on Facebook on the 1807 Insurrection Act and the 1879 Posse Comitatus Act are suggesting that amendments to the 1807 act made in 2006 can be used to allow the National Guard or the US Army to patrol the borders with Mexico.
Alas, what those people failed to notice is that the 2006 amendments were repealed in 2008. Time for people to do some research before commenting...
UPDATE - It has been brought to my attention that Senator Allen also appears to believe that the Earth is only 6000 years old, according to a statement she made in the AZ state legislature chamber. With that ability to promote Young Earth Creationist dogma over settled science, it is little wonder that Senator Allen's article was, at times, close to a fact-free zone. She clearly regards facts as something for The Other Guys to worry about.

After reading of this uneffingbelieveable overreach by a hyped-up SWAT team, resulting in the discovery of an amount of marijuana that barely qualified for a misdemeanor possession charge...Columbia MO just went off my list of places to visit.
UPDATE - The police chief of Columbia MO appears to have decided to thumb his nose at any oversight. Surprise surprise. The phrase "bullying authoritarian out of control" springs to mind. I wonder if he is a friend of Sheriff Joe Arpaio?

1. McLaren has one driver who is driving hard, and one driver who is driving smart. Guess which is which? The cars in parc ferme told the story - Jenson's fronts were worn, but still had tread, Lewis's fronts were completely bald and the nearside front looked to be very worn indeed. The 2 lap difference in tire usage does not explain that. Lewis is driving like a man possessed, but as long as Jenson keeps his head and keeps making good race-time decisions, he will continue to pile up points. This is shaping up to be a repeat of Prost-Lauda from 1984. Lauda was not as quick as Prost that year, but he consistently scored points, and won the title by looking at the big picture and driving smart. Lewis will be beaten by Jenson until he stops driving every lap like it is his last on earth, and starts looking at the bigger picture.
2. The 2010 regulations reward drivers who are kind on their equipment (Jenson Button...cough!).
3. The 2010 regulations are working against a seven-time WDC who has been out of the sport for over 3 years. In the Ferrari days, Michael Schumacher could rely on car problems being sorted by Luca Badoer and Marc Gene piling up hundreds of kilometres a week pounding around Fiorano, Mugello etc. Now that is no longer possible, issues with the Mercedes chassis can only be sorted at race weekends.
4. There is somebody out there in Mercedes overalls impersonating Michael Schumacher. The 7 time WDC Michael Schumacher is not here any more. Passed by Vitaly Petrov? Please....
5. Ferrari still has engine issues. Fernando lost another one on Friday, De La Rosa blows another one in the race...Ferrari and Sauber will be crippled at the end of the season if this continues. However, Toro Rosso has no apparent issues, so the fault may be installation and not engine design.
6. Williams look horribly slow in the races right now. They need a car upgrade, and quick. And whose idea was it to send Nico Hulkenberg out on slicks when it was raining hard? (shakes head).
7. All of the Cosworth cars look to be way slower than predicted at the start of the season. Either they are running at reduced power for reliability reasons, or there are fuel consumption issues that are causing them to run at reduced power. They are 2.5 (Williams) 4.0 (Lotus), 4.5 (Virgin) and 5.5 (HRT) seconds off the pace.
8. Sauber have to get a car to the finish.
9. The white lines at the edge of the pit lane entrance are there for a reason. I am astonished that overtaking is even contemplated in the pit lane entry zone by anybody. The FIA needs to forbid it before a pile-up occurs. The drivers will continue to try and make places wherever they can until they are told that they cannot, and punishments are handed out that involve them not being able to drive.
10. A great start by Fernando Alonso, except that you can see Charlie Whiting pointing at him immediately as the cars launch from the grid...he presumably beat the minimum allowed reaction time when the lights went out.

Fulton MS clearly is dominated by folks who think that end-running a court order to perpetuate bigotry and discrimination is just fine and dandy...no way will I visit that example of regressive thinking and intolerance.
UPDATE - It would appear that the behavioural pathology displayed in Fulton MS may be part of a broader pathology in the state of Mississippi...anecdotally, I have experience of continuing segregation in that state. Whenever I land at Natchez MS in my plane, the line personnel are black and the office staff are white...that stuck out like a sore thumb the first time I droppped in there 9 years ago, and I have visited several times since and not noticed any significant change.
UPDATE 2 - Constance Mcmillen has filed an amended complaint against the Fulton ISD over the fake prom. It will be interesting to see whether the court finds that the letter of the original injunction has been violated in addition to the spirit (which has been egregiously violated). The key to this complaint may be paragraph #54.