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Hi, and welcome back! Going to try and catch up on the storie I've covered on the radio show but not had time to post. It all begins with Rush Limbaugh this weekend as his brand of sickening hate radio and politics leaves me angry and feeling somewhat hopeless. Why is this tolerated? What does it say about the level and nature of so-called political discourse in the land to the south? The divisive nature plays into corporate interests as they divide us one from the other so they can fleece us. You'll note that he's still defending Joe Barton's (R-Tex) tone deaf apology to BP that has been roundly denounced.

I could almost live with that, but reading the story about Rush attacking the children of the poor - openly mocking their circumstance as if they were somehow responsible was too much for me. I do not understand how he can get away with it. I don't get why someone, anyone doesn't raise a stink about this. How is this not a scandal? Why is he still on the air reaping millions of dollars annually for doing nothing more than regurgitating hate?

He is not merely being uncharitable, nor is this parody. This is vile, putrid, low, and unthinkable. There's not a cockroach or insect anywhere on the planet that compares to him. I hesitate to compare him to a living creature - his soul is blacker and more foul than the oil that spews into the Gulf daily. His brain a fetid grey dump of dusty excrement squeezed dry of all humanity after years of Oxycontin abuse and unfettered hate that has seeped into every fibre of his being.

Read and produced by Lachlan Fletcher.

Stories written by Alina Gotcherian, Jonathan Moore and Jose Espinoza.

President Obama's Tuesday night address was universally panned. It's hard not to like Rachel's version better.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Still, there were some good things in the speech. Not in specifics but the long term goals and the over-arching theme that it is time to get off oil dependence is a good start. Other than that though, the speech offered little reassurance to  progressives who have been waiting action on AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). But Obama doesn't directly address climate change or global warming in his speech because no one wants to hear about it. There are allusions, but that is all. No sticking his chin out and laying it on the line. Vague assurances that BP will pay and they'll never give up on the people of the Gulf coast. Is that the voice of a politician who believes he can sell his vision to his constituents?

Has a year-and-a-half of non-stop demagoguery by the right neutered the President to the point that he only speaks in vague platitudes for fear of the next day's backlash? Or is this the first step towards a clean energy bill and future? Maybe he's not trying to reach the choir with this speech. Maybe he just wants the average person who doesn't get embroiled in the day to day madness of partisan politics to understand something very serious is going on here and it will take time and effort and a change of direction to fix it.

I'm the first guy to cut Obama slack. I know it. I read the complaints of other liberals and progressives and worry that they're forgetting what the alternative is - and it was eight long years of murderous god-awful. The sad thing is that there has been a carryover. Not just of the debts and two unfinished wars, but some of the policies as well. He has not undone rendition or put an end to torture or Gitmo or a lot of the other things he said he's do - he has even  defended the Bush administration's handling of the Mahar Arar case though it was clearly demonstrated Arar was guilty of no crimes. He was arrested and renditioned to Syria where he was tortured. No apology, no prosecutions for wrongful imprisonment, nothing! The NYT's calls it disgraceful, and they're right.

As for BP though, he seems to be making good on his promise to make them pay as today they agreed to the $20 billion dollar escrow account to meet the mounting claims that will be administered by a third party. So that's a victory, but it's not clear if it's the pressure Obama is bringing to bear, or if BP has finally come to their senses and are going to try and salvage what they can of their reputation so that next year they can still remain in business. Their credit rating was downgraded by six notches today to just above junk status.

News on the spill itself has the well gushing as much as 60,000 barrels per day into the ocean but there's hope that a second containment system may help to mitigate 90% of that by as early as next week. That's pretty much where the good news ends. There's talk over at The Oil Drum, a sounding board for petroleum geologists, that the gusher may be unstoppable and get far worse before the relief wells are dug. I've seen hints at this elsewhere, let's hope they're wrong.

As for wankery on the subject, well that continues at the regular rate. Palin lies about what Obama's said on the subject - this should come under the heading of water is wet. BP, in yet another winning move, hired mercenaries to keep people away from the despoiled beaches. And just yesterday, big oil executives were lobbying for tax breaks and subsidies. These are the most profitable corporations in the history of the world and they want welfare.

The Sierra Club reports that clean beaches in New Jersey make more money than off-shore drilling will. The only god is the god of irony - do not trifle with him!

I'm not even sure this is merely wankery anymore. I've called Glenn Beck the most despicable man in the world and I mean it. I put him on a par with child molesters and murderers. His kind of hate is lethal. Rush Limbaugh deserves to be counted as equal to Glenn. Today Rush was suggesting poor kids who are hungry should go dumpster diving.

Of course Rush didn't like Obama's speech - not really worth mentioning in the previous post but the best part was his attack on the "fraud" of global warming. The science on global warming is clear and indisputable except to idiots, liars and corporate shills.

One of the reasons Rush and Glenn get away with the crap they do is because of a compliant press.

The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, may be releasing a new video soon which probably explains why American officials have stepped up efforts to locate him.

Imagine the outrage from the "law and order" Tories if a Liberal member ignored parliamentary procedure or ducked a legal summons in this fashion?

There was also the business of trying to ram through Bill C- 23 by claiming that Karla Homolka could be set free if it wasn't passed - they sure love their fear, fear, fear tactics. A compromise has been reached and the national parole board will be able to deny any pardon which brings the system into disrepute and the period of ineligibility for a pardon increases to five years from three for summary crimes, and to 10 years from five for more serious indictable offences. The rest of the bill will remain in committee until the fall, bringing to an end the Conservatives attempt at using Homolka's name to pressure the opposition to pass the bill in haste. Nice huh?

News that should concern Canadians about the goings on in Afghanistan - high profile setbacks and delays.