The Watering Hole: May 29 – Eurovision Song Contest

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Tonight is Eurovision Song Contest, this is a very, very, very ancient contest format, which nobody admits to having seen, but I will watch it (I always do). Unlike American Idol there are seasoned musicians, mixed with newcomers and some songs are hilariously bad, some are surprisingly good (those always lose). So you have to be very brave now. I give you Germany’s last winner (1982) and tonights German competitor here.  The first one is just corny and the latter one can’t sing at all. What’s new?

Abba’s win in 1974 “Waterloo” was the beginning of a great career, however.

This is our open thread. If you move on to other topics quickly, I don’t blame you.

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80 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: May 29 – Eurovision Song Contest”

  2. Didn’t some very weird Swedish(?) death metal band win this a few years back? Guys who dress up in armor with animal themes or something?

  3. WHAT??!!!

    Clint Guidry, of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, has accused BP of threatening to sack workers who turn up wearing respirators. The oil firm said it was not aware of any workers being turned away, but noted that it was the responsibility of the Obama administration to decide whether such protective gear was warranted.

    So, really the government should have told them to wear masks???

  4. EV,
    Thanks to Schumacher, we’ll never know if Vettel had something for Webber on that last lap. Alonso couldn’t get out of Q2 and qualified 12th, but if he charges from there on the grid tomorrow, it should be even more entertaining than Monaco.

    Didn’t some very weird Swedish(?) death metal band win this a few years back? Guys who dress up in armor with animal themes or something?

    Now if you could just narrow that description down a little, so it doesn’t describe almost every death metal band I ever listened to for three seconds before my fingers could reach the dial to change stations…

  5. EV,
    What I want to know is why every third Government official in the gulf isn’t from OSHA?
    That’s the equivalent of sending machinists home for wearing safety glasses!

  6. HoR, Vettel had something wrong with a left back suspender (or something, I don’t know carspeak all that well) so his wheel blocked, they’ll fix that by tomorrow I guess. Turkey will be more entertaining, because there is a chance to overtake without risking everybody’s life.

    It was a Finnish Band in 2006, Lordi. Hard Rock Hallelujah

    My boys loved it!

  7. HoR, this turns to ever deepening shit. The blatant arrogance of BP must have it’s roots. I so wish I was a fly on the wall when Cheney met the oil execs. And I then wish, I as a fly carried a deadly disease and spit on every one of their sandwiches.

  9. These guys won in 1995. Their called “Secret Garden”. We used to play lots of their stuff. Nice, simple, relaxing, beautiful. Their from Norway I think..

  10. Hello everyone.

    Interesting videos above. :)

    So we’re still in wait-and-see mode about the top kill at Deep Horizon. Estimates for how much the well has been leaking keep going up. Combine the higher flow estimates, with the never-ending days of leaking, and this is just unimaginable.

    Relief wells are being dug (by the same companies that caused this mess). That personally doesn’t give me any warm fuzzies.

    The dispersant issue is one of the more understated problems in this as well; the typical scenario where the solution is as bad (or worse) than the problem.

    Time will tell how well Obama will fare in all of this. But Fox is readying both barrels now to go after him on the Sestak/Clinton/job thing, as well as keeping at him on the oil leak. I’m sure the folks at Fox, and the National Review are just giddy. Nevermind that we’re facing a decades-long, environmental and economic disaster, they seek a chance to hurt Obama. And that’s all they care about.

    • They will try and get him on the defense. If he’s on the defense, he can’t be on the offense. Offense would be to go after the oil company and start investigations or put some of these people in jail. Offense would be to try and remove or raise the caps on damages so that some justice would take place. These companies caused an ungodly amount of damage that will continue for decades. THEY are responsible to make this right, in every instance where people, creatures and land are hurt. This wasn’t an accident, it was negligence. They should pay big time. BIG time. Someone[s] had better go to prison – for a long, long time.. That still won’t begin to make up for the damage done and the lives lost..

      I am also interested to find out if anyone showed up on the beach in Grand Isle today for cleanup..

    • zxbe, nationalize the well and tell BP the profits are dead and they’d better hurry up with plugging the leak and cleaning the gulf, because the government will sue them for damages from here to eternity. I am rarely this extreme, but I am so fed up. There’s oil spilling from the well right now and nothing else. Stop them buying time until they have the side drills in place so they can go on exploiting the well.

  11. i thought saturday was cookin day?

    euros rock some, shall we say unusual vibes.

    look for stateside copycats to emerge in 3…2…

    p.s. sieze BP, Halliburton, and Transocean assets until they’ve proven their claims to responsibility.

    that’ll tame’em.

  13. I haven’t watched the news today and I was in a good mood. I guess I’ll go ruin that now. :(

  14. The ironic thing about this, is the righties refuse to make any changes to our energy policy out of fear of what it might do to the economy.

    The damage from this leak is not only going to leave ecological devastation, but the economic impacts are going to be profound.

  16. Since BP is not a US corporation I don’t know if we can nationalize it or what we can do. I think the 3 countries that the 3 corporations are located in should be helping.

  17. Issa was talking about an FBI investigation of the White House over Sestak. I hope Pelosi and Reid are happy with their keeping investigations and impeachment off the table. What we’ve gotten is a hiatus of bogus charges until there are enough Republicans to persecute Dems again. All they learned from our behavior was to be even meaner.

    • The Democrats must pull all the stops now. Obama is vulnerable, because of the disaster, it’s not like his “Katrina”, but it is damaging if he doesn’t show some teeth already.

    • Sorry Shayne, he nationalized all. Foreign or domestic. But that’s Fidel, he is not appreciated by all.

  19. Lots of protesters in Arizona today against the new law. A few counter protesters showed up with guns and confederate flags. They showed one guy that said the protests are an attack on AZ businesses and nothing else, idiot. And then they mentioned that there was going to be a rally in support of the law later. My guess if anybody showed up they would have aired it.

  20. I had about 4 hours of drive time today and spent much of it pondering the Gulf thing. This is really bugging me. I’m sorry to see the top kill failed.

    One of the things I was wondering about is the incidence of illness in the cleanup workers. Clearly there is an elevated level of toxicity in this embrocation of crude oil and dispersant. It can be dealt with by using respirators and maybe even hazmat suits. Can you imagine working on the Gulf coast, in summer in one of those?

    The part that I’m really concerned about I haven’t been able to find much information on yet. The thing is tropical storms and hurricanes exist by sucking up moisture from the sea. By thinning out the crude oil with dispersant is it possible for that concoction to be sucked up? Its bad enough the tidal surges are going to carry the mess inland but if we get toxins sucked up into the clouds, they will be rained down, possibly as far north as the Great Lakes.

  21. hooda,

    I was listening to Ring of Fire with RFK Jr, and he had a guest on (didn’t catch her name) but she had a lot of experience with the illness aftermath of the Exxon Valdez spill. She suggested that with what’s taking place with the workers being forced to not where respirators, that they are very likely to contract serious illnesses from the chemicals.

    As you pointed out, she confirmed that a lot of this could become airborne, particularly with hurricane season upon us.

    It’s a very bad situation.

  22. It is raining oil in Florida

    Hoodathunk,
    This was in a comment from Abbybwood on last night’s C&L open thread.
    I’ve wondered the same thing, but all my rain has been northeast to southwest, or east to west, since this thing started. If it ever starts moving north-northeast, I bet we see some oily rain here

  23. Rush and company actually stated something correct about nature having its own ways to clean up this mess. It does. Its called dilution. The ocean will continue to spread the poison until at some point, it is diluted to the point where it loses its toxicity.

    If sea life can survive the initial levels, they will ingest it and act like natural filters. Just as the fish do in the rivers around here with things like mercury and PCB’s. The fish may survive but they become inedible. When this hits the Gulf Stream it will pass through waters that supply fish for millions of people. Not good.

  24. Thanks for the info, zxbe and house. Sometimes I was more of a specialist type of thinker. This big picture stuff is getting scary. Time to dig out Silent Spring and reread it.

  26. Most of the Great Lakes winds are in prevailing westerlies that come from the north then spiral east as the earth turns and come back down here so we might be spared that.

    There is a named tropical storm as of today.

    Some of the workers became ill immediately after being sprayed with dispersants today.

  28. Totally screwed, as it were, and not pleasantly.

    The oil alone is disastrous combined with the dispersant catastrophic.

    There were a lot of lessons learned from the Exxon Valdez spill in Prince William Sound in Alaska in 1989. One form of dispersant Corexit was used there too. Nineteen months after that spill, the dispersant was not only evident in the marine ecosystem, but mussels were still poisoned. And the effects of spreading the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons were far and wide as they caused developing hearts of Pacific herring and salmon to fail.
    People exposed to Corexit suffered a number of long-term respiratory and other serious ailments.

  29. Well, the good news is the Tin Man won’t have to worry about getting rusty out in the rain. Ironic trivia…Buddy Ebsen started in the role made famous by Jack Haley but due to an allergic reaction to the aluminum powder in the makeup ended up spending several weeks in the hospital in an oxygen tent.

  31. Aw shucks! Doctor Who is in reruns!

    House, that has to be disappointing –

    Are you all set for Indy 500?

  32. I’m set for the Turkish Grand Prix, the Indy 500, and the Coca Cola 600! The weather at Indy and Charlotte looks promising, unless a pop up shower happens.

  33. So it’ll be a full day of church – racing ;>

    Here’s to blue skies and green lights!

  34. Our Lady of the Ultimate Velocity!

    Dedicated to the devout practice of turning Gasoline (and Ethanol), Oil, and Rubber into fun, smoke, and noise!

  37. AHHH!! I missed this part!

    Mother’s sentence suspended, and the couple is expecting another child in AUGUST!!

  38. Contrast a 2 year sentence for negligent homicide (Korean couple) to a 14 yr. sentence for loving someone of the same sex in Malawi!.

    Malawian gay couple to be released

    The President of Malawi has personally intervened to pardon a gay couple who were sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment with hard labour for holding a public engagement ceremony in the country.

  39. Oops, I may have ended up in the spam bin.
    Let me try this again.

    Contrast a 2 year sentence for negligent homicide (Korean couple) to a 14 yr. sentence for loving someone of the same sex in Malawi!.
    Malawian gay couple to be released

    The President of Malawi has personally intervened to pardon a gay couple who were sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment with hard labour for holding a public engagement ceremony in the country.

  40. That baby weighed about 6 1/2 pounds when it was born, and just 5 1/2 pounds when it died at 3 months. This makes me ill (coming from a new first time grandmother..).

  42. That named storm was in the eastern Pacific. It will only stir up the Caribbean around Guatemala. Still, the first tropical storms often originate in that area on both sides of Central America. Anyone wishing to follow the storm season can look here.

  43. Thanks for that link, Walt.
    Living on the West coast I don’t often think to check – but given the disaster in the Gulf… it’s bookmarked!

  45. That was a funny clip. He’s got the repiggies pegged – in their own little bubble, no reality.

    The remark about everything being recorded – and in McCain’s case probably in a telegram, cracked me up!

  46. No problem, ebb’n, I book-marked the site about ten years ago. Comes from living in Florida!

  47. Lena won yesterday. Among 25 contestants three acceptable songs, her’s was one. She won on her “what a nice girl” aura.

  48. walt, I have bookmarked nhc. as well. Comes from living in Switzerland, nothing ever happens here. ;)

  49. Jenson Button’s Grid Girl fainted from the heat. That’ll teach her to party too hard the night before the race. Button’s dad took her place. :D

    • I just saw it, too. It’s hot in Turkey and never nurse a hangover in the blaring sun!

  50. Webber’s holding Hamilton so far. This may be decided in the pit stops.

  52. Damn! Hamilton attacked Vettel just as Speed Channel went to commercial!

  55. Caught just the end of Meet The Press, with EJ Dionne and David Brooks joining David Gregory for a short panel on the oil disaster. They mostly agreed with each other, saying the government can’t do everything every time, so the problem still has to be solved by the experts. Dionne said he’d liked to have seen the Obama Administration out front on this sooner, and the rest was the usual blah blah blah.

    On This Week, Tapper tries to pin down Bob Dudley, a BP Managing Director (new face, since the others are all proven liars by now), and surprise!, surprise!, surprise!, he refutes every allegation with, ‘we’ll wait for the results of the investigation’. (I’m likely to channel Gomer a bit today, expecting to hear his traditional “Back Home Again In Indiana’ in a few hours)

    Tapper then goes to Bobby Jindal, who basically accuses the Feds (Obama) of protecting BP instead of the Louisiana wetlands. Then he says big government can’t handle its core functions properly. These teabagger/rot-wingers never want government to spend money except where it helps them. Jindal said “We need our Federal government exactly for this kind of crisis”. He would have led the kicking and screaming if the same Federal government had tried to impose more stringent regulations on the oil industry to prevent this kind of crisis.
    I can’t take any more so I fast forward to the Colin Powell interview. His role, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in a crisis like this would have been limited to allowing the National Guard to deploy at the request of the state governors. As Secretary of State, it wouldn’t have affected him. But he’s in Washington on a holiday weekend, so he gets on tv. He says Obama was involved soon enough, but didn’t convey that to the people soon enough.
    Tapper asks him about Senator Bill Nelson’s idea to have a retired general “like Colin Powell” in charge. Powell said the military would bring organization and control, and it would be better to have a current leader who was in charge of the appropriate assets that were needed. But he made the case that civilians in the area know it best.
    Powell next is asked to address DADT, says that was 17 years ago, and the situation is different now, and the law will change and go away.
    They talk about Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan but no new ideas are discussed. The thousandth service member death in Afghanistan reminds us, Powell says, to value their sacrifice to keep us free.
    This Week’s round table is George Will and Matthew Dowd on the right, and Clarence Page and Joan Walsh on the left. The panel discusses “is this Obama’s Katrina”? Page recalls Colin Powell’s words just spoken on the show. George Will says it may instead be his Iranian Hostage Crisis, saying despite Carter’s being likeable and well meaning, the perception was he just wasn’t up to the job. And the jury is still out on Obama. Of course, we now know that Carter was being treasonously undermined by the Reagan people, promising them weapons if they held the hostages and helped Reagan win.

    That’s all I have. A phone call took out the rest of the program for me.

  56. House, maybe we should adopt the usual big business/Republican solution for the Gulf problem. Convert all of BP’s value into dollar bills and then dump it in the Gulf to soak things up.

    Got a problem? Throw money at it.

  57. Just saw a campaign ad for a Republican running for Alabama Treasurer named Young Boozer. He looks more like an old boozer to me!

    We have had Jewel sing the anthem, and Jim Nabors has sung Back Home Again In Indiana, the balloons have been released. It’s time to start the engines!

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