The best news today comes from Dr Jeff Masters who writes that indications are that the oil slick isn’t moving towards shore with the volume you would expect from the higher than normal Spring tides, and the on-shore winds that are creating the waves that are over-topping the containment barriers. Dr. Masters thinks the shape of the bottom may be creating an eddy that is keeping the bulk of the oil off shore.

The spill is spreading out, generally to the east, which isn’t good news for my beaches. Hopefully the wind will shift.

CNN has set up an aggregator for for news on the gusher, and, as I noted earlier, here’s NOAA’s National Ocean Service official site on the DEEPWATER HORIZON Incident and NASA’s Earth Observatory’s satellite images of the oil.

The legislative session finished last night and people headed home for a break until the special session is called after people realize that what got passed won’t work. It’s the same every year, although, since Charlie became an “independent”, the legislature may decide it doesn’t want to return to fix things.

Here’s the AP list of the bills that the Republicans thought were necessary, including some that violate the state constitution, but that’s traditional.

Because Florida likes to be on the leading edge of bizarre, we now have a political party called the “Florida Tea Party”, and they are selecting candidates. As The Hill reports: First elected official from the Tea Party

The newly created Florida Tea Party announced Friday it is nominating Polk County Commissioner Randy Wilkinson in the race for retiring Rep. Adam Putnam’s (R-Fla.) seat.

It would be wonderful if “Howdy Doody’s” seat in the US Congress went to a Democrat because of the Florida Tea Party. Putnam was one of the sponsors of the bill to open coastal waters to drilling. He quit to run for Agricultural Commissioner. [He is Cruella de Harris’s cousin, a grandchild of Ben Hill Griffin who was the king of Florida politics for years]

The Republicans called it the “Malaise Speech”, but it was actually titled “Crisis of Confidence” and was delivered by President Jimmy Carter on July 15^th, 1979.

An excerpt from the text:

We ourselves are the same Americans who just ten years ago put a man on the Moon. We are the generation that dedicated our society to the pursuit of human rights and equality. And we are the generation that will win the war on the energy problem and in that process rebuild the unity and confidence of America.

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path I’ve warned about tonight, the path that leads to fragmentation and self-interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure.

All the traditions of our past, all the lessons of our heritage, all the promises of our future point to another path, the path of common purpose and the restoration of American values. That path leads to true freedom for our nation and ourselves. We can take the first steps down that path as we begin to solve our energy problem.

Of course the voters chose the easy path which has led to exactly where Jimmy said it would. He learned one of the hard realities of American politics: voters don’t reward people who tell them the truth.

The May Day association with labor is all American, and just as controversial as everything of any consequence in history. The day is tied to a strike for the eight-hour day and the so-called “Haymarket Riot” of 1886. When it comes to “riots” and the Chicago police are involved, you are not going to find a single truth.

The dynamic duo that mucked up the Pledge of Allegiance, Dwight Eisenhower and his Republican Congress, made May 1^st both Law Day and Loyalty Day so those Commie working people wouldn’t get any ideas about having rights.