Midday open thread: Google map apology, chemical spill in W.Va., activists beat Radio Disney

• Today's comic by Mark Fiore is Cartoon: One minute Middle East update:
  
• What's coming up on Sunday Kos ...
  

  • War On Poverty, Income Inequality, And Wealth Disparity Not A Winning Message, by Egberto Willies
  • What Aitzaz can teach Christie, Wildstein, and Kelly, by Ian Reifowitz
  • Peak water is here, by VL Baker
  • Snow trolling for fun and profit, by Darksyde
  • Racism and "The War on Weed," by Denise Oliver Velez
  • The tragic pathos of Frank Luntz, by Dante Atkins
  • The nation sleeps a dreamless sleep, by Hunter

• Nine paragraphs in Newsweek written in 1975 still trump climate science for deniers.
• Limbaugh goes for the wild in criticism of GOP's failure to back Christie:

  Said Limb[au]gh: "Have any of the RINOs, the Republicans in name only, the moderate Republicans, have any Republican establishment types come out and said that they support Christie? They haven't. This is the thing, folks. This is the thing. Republicans—when any of them get in trouble, I mean—it's like a bunch of wildebeests."

  He continued: "If a lion in Africa attacks a wildebeest, all the other wildebeests scram and get out of there and offer no assistance whatsoever. You've seen it on National Geographic. You've seen it on all the Earth shows, all the animal shows, animals eating animal shows, you've seen it all. And the Republican Party is the same way."

• These Daily Kos community posts were the most shared on Facebook Jan. 9:
  

  FBI Now Investigating Christie Scandal, by ericlewis0

  Kentucky Democratic Congressional Candidate Goes Undercover And Finds A Broken Economy. Awesome!, by Rural Progressive

  Kornacki & Maddow: Christie was trying to run out clock on Assembly subpoena power., by hungrycoyote

• Governor Chris Christie is embarrassed and humiliated about this whole Fort Lee/George Washington Bridge scandal. It's nice that he finally admitted it. But it's hard to give someone the benefit of the doubt when, well...you're a dick. A huge arrogant, bullying dick. Like we're talking the ruling Dicktator of Dickistan. On today's show #TeamBlackness discusses how Christie's handling of this scandal will hurt and possibly help him. Also on #TWiBRadio: the aging powers of racism (27:09), whether it's legal to take away a two year old for cursing on camera (55:06), atomic wedgies, and we read reviews for Feedback Thursdays.
  

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• A strangled definition of "not toxic" in West Virginia chemical spill. The spill into a river left 200,000 people in 10 counties without water Thursday:

  The spill was discovered Thursday at a storage facility about a mile north of a water treatment plant on the Elk River, where a 48,000-gallon tank began leaking 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, or MCHM, a compound used to wash coal of impurities, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. [...]

  The chemical, which smells like licorice, is not toxic, but can cause headaches, eye and skin irritation, and difficulty breathing from prolonged exposures at high concentrations, according to the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.

• Ooops!:

  Google has apologized after a Berlin intersection accidentally regained its Nazi-era name, Adolf-Hitler-Platz, on the Google Maps service.

• Activists pushed Radio Disney to end its oil industry-funded "educational tour" in Ohio.:

  The program, “Rocking In Ohio,” was an interactive presentation by Radio Disney hosts that engaged children in activities such as creating pipelines out of drinking straws to learn how oil and gas is transported. Its ties to the oil and gas industry sparked outrage from many groups, including the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, which sent a letter to Radio Disney on Thursday asking them to end its partnership with the oil and gas industry and stop the Rocking in Ohio program. The letter called the program an “attempt to fool and brain wash Ohio children and families” and was signed by 23 Ohio-based organizations.

• On today's Kagro in the Morning show, 9 counties in W.Va., and as many as 300,000 people got their supply "libertarian-ed." Brian Beutler notes the danger for the Gop in ACA cost curve-bending. Greg Dworkin took the reins and told us "liberal" self-ID is up, examined the realities of health care costs and how they mesh with social services. We review Christie's marathon presser, then recap Rachel Maddow's alternative theory of the case. And just for fun, we watched noted wackadoodle Mark Levin drag out his stock outraged response, cross out where it says "liberals" and instead pencil in Mitch McConnel and the NRSC. It's Yargle vs Bargle!