As promised, our Governor has announced plans to layoff up to 10,000 NY State public employees. In typical brave fashion, these layoffs will take place on Jan 1, 2011 – the first day of the next Governor’s term, and the day that Paterson’s pledge to not lay off workers expires (which he agreed to when the unions agreed to a deal to reduce pension costs). Of course, both the likely Republican candidate, Rick Lazio, and Democrat Andrew Cuomo have already said they intend to cut the State workforce, so I suppose they’re down with whatever Blinky comes up with. What the hell – they can always just blame it on him. I can think of a lot of layers of unnecessary management that could easily be done away with, but my guess is it’ll be the little guys (and gals) that get axed.

Folks in Pensacola, FL may be seeing a little oil on their beaches today. They ought to ask Obama to come down for a photo-op this weekend so BP will bus in a few hundred cleanup workers for the day.

BP is now moving into the “cut and cap” phase, where apparently they plan on cutting through the bad pipe and putting a cap on it. All at a depth of about 5,000 feet, which I think – and Andy will probably be able to tell us the exact number – is at a pressure of over 2,000 pounds per square inch. I’m guessing that putting a cap on a pipe that’s gushing oil under those conditions (I mean, since the oil is coming out of the hole, rather than sea water going in means it’s got more than 2,000 psi behind it, but then I don’t really know how all that works) is a little difficult. I mean, threading pipe is kind of a pain in the ass under normal conditions (but then, I don’t reckon they’re doing it by hand).

Now, I’m a bleeding heart, big-government, tax and spend socialist librul, so it should come as no surprise that I’m OK with Robbie Reich’s plan to have the feds take BP into temporary receivership until the leak is plugged and everything’s all cleaned up (twenty, thirty – fifty years, tops). But I’m not quite sure why so many teabaggers and redneck Republicans seem to be clamoring for government intervention in all this. I mean, I know the golden rule is that the taxpayers assume the risks and a handful of corporate executives get the profits, but I thought the teabaggers wanted all that to stop. It’s almost like they’re a bunch of, oh, what’s the word? Hypocrites.

Well, so yesterday sucked, and I don’t see today being any better.