they're one of those partners that i would really rely on whether it's finding new customers, or, a new location for my next restaurant. when we all come together, my restaurants, my partners, and the community amazing things happen. to me, that's the membership effect. sorry, i could only get out ten seconds early. >> enough time to catch a fir fish if you're good. >> thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. watch this. this is from nbc news from 1979. it's 33 years ago but it's really uncanny. watch. >> in the gulf of mexico the oil workers are trying to handle a much larger spill. they are dumping 30 thoushsz gallons of crude oil into the gulf. airplanes are to be used to drop chemicals on the oil but there's

a shortage of aviation fuel down there. they are putting it into place and trying to contain the oil slick in the gulf of mexico. >> oil skimming vessels are put into service to catch any patches of oil which may get through. about five miles offshore another team of private oil containment workers is prepared to intercept drifting oil before it gets to land. >> those were the pitiful means by which we had to respond to a giant oil spill in the gulf of mexico more than 30 years ago. that's it, that's all we had. we had boom, skimmers and chemical dispersant dropped by air. 31 years after that oil spill and those pitiful means of ç responding to it, 31 years after that big spill and we had a new spill. it was like time had not passed at all. >> at this hour bp crews are in the air and on boats looking for oil at the mouth of the mississippi river. >> u.s. military officials tell nbc news a list of options are being put together that could

include sending additional planes, boats, skimmers and booms. >> planes, boat, skimmers and booms. so boom and skimmers and chemical dispersants dropped by air. same in 2010 as it was in 1979. the bp oil spill started two years ago today. and one of the shocking things about that disaster is that it made us all realize that over the course of 30 years, cleanup technology, what is available to us to respond when there's a big horrible oil spill, hadn't really progressed at all. we were essentially trying to wipe the oil up with essentially the large jumbo-sized version of paper towels. like we were still stuck in 1979. the bp disaster was a real wake up call for the country. it started today back in 2010 when the initial explosion killed 11 oil workers instantly, but the bp catastrophic spill went on and on out of control for three months. >> over the past couple of decades as the oil industry

has made the kind of profit that turns saints into sippers and sinners into kings, that industry has made an overt choice. they could have spent those resources, some of them maybe, on developing new cleanup technology, newç containment technology for spills but they didn't. they can say they did if they want to, but who cares what they says. if they had, the response out here to this spill wouldn't be so pitiful. booms that do not work and are not put out right. bamboo pickets to hold the boom this place that doesn't hold the boom in place at the first sign of a slight wind. diversion barriers that don't divert the oil, not really. >> the bp oil spill proved that the oil industry had not made any progress at all in 30 years. and that sort of shocked the country. it was a shock to our collective psyche as a nation. >> our culture is threatened. our coastal economy is threatened, and everything that i know and love is at risk.

even though this marsh lies -- along coastal louisiana, these are america's wetlands. excuse me. i just wish to submit that for the record. thank you. >> the bp disaster was devastating. it turned us around as a country on this issue. how could it be that after 30 years of progress in drilling, there had been zero progress in cleaning up the disasters created by drilling. how could it be the only tools to clean upç the oil spill wer the same old ineffective 30-year-old technology, boom and

skimmers and chemical dispersants dropped by air. now in 2012, now that it's been two years since that big wake up call, two years since the bp disaster, the oil industry today wants to assure the nation they are now fully prepared for any future oil spill because they've got lots and lots of boom and skimmers and chemical dispersants dropped by air. seriously, today on the second anniversary of the bp disaster, the oil industry is growing about how prepared they are if something this big ever happens again. in particular, the industry funded marine spill response corporation wants you to know they now have 17 skimming vessels up from 7 before the 2010 gulf spill. they now have 65,000 total feet of ocean boom set aside for the gulf of mexico. and they have two dedicated aircraft for spraying chemical dispersants on the spill. it's the exact same stuff that didn't work 30 years ago let

alone 2 years ago, they now just have more of it. the 1979 disaster was a totally out of control disaster that took place in 200 feet of water. now with essentially no additional means of cleaning up messes, we are now drilling, not in 200 feet of water but in 5,000 feet of water. and on this second anniversary of the bp disaster, the fact that the oil industry has just invested in more of the same old 30-year-old technology, that is actually pretty much the good news. because at least they're doing something. you may remember that after the bp disaster president obama ç announced he was creating a blue ribbon commission to tell us what went wrong and to tell us what needed to be fixed. in washington it's way to make stories go away for a while. but on anniversaries of disasters they come back, and the blue ribbon commission report two years after that disaster today, says that the oil industry has done a heck of a lot more than the united

states congress has. the oil industry which is essentially done nothing has done more than congress, which has done nothing. the co-chair of the bipartisan oil commission says in the two years since the bf disaster congress has yet to enact one piece of legislation, not one, to make drilling any safer. the oil industry went out and at least bought more boom, whoopie, congress did nothing. actually, there's an asterisk on the nothing they did. this week house speaker john boehner passed his long-awaited highway bill through the house. and there was something related to oil drilling and the oil industry inside that bill. tucked inside the highway bill was there, the federal energy regulatory commission shall not later than 30 days after receip issue a permit without additional conditions for the construction, operation and maintenance of the keystone oil pipeline. the keystone pipeline would transport something called tar

sands throughout the midwest. as bad as we are of cleaning up crude oil that spills into the ocean, we have no idea how to clean up spills of tar sandsç oil, none. congress's role is to do nothing to improve the safety of drilling. but they are trying to force new oil projects to be approved even when we know overtly that they are not safe. they are insisting that the safety concerns be overridden. and that is sort of reflective of the overall politics on this issue now. it's as if bp never happened. it's as if there never was a catastrophic oil spill off the gulf of mexico, the biggest offshore spill in american history that continues to leave those along the gulf coast with what appears to be lifelong health problems. the fight in this year's presidential election is the republican side accusing president obama of waging a war on oil. accusing president obama of being too anti-drilling and the democratic response to that has been actually we're drilling way more than the last administration did. we've even opened up more territory to drilling off the

atlantic coast. when these are the terms of the debate, which party is more pro- drilling when that's the fight, i'm more pro-drilling. no, i'm more pro-drilling. when that's the terms of the political debate, it's not like we're progressing in leaps and bounds toward making things more safe. you can see that in the total lack of action by congress on this issue. and frankly you can see it in the behavior of this administration. about a year after the bp oil spill, we had the top offshore drilling regulator from the obama administers as a guest on this show. that interview did not go well. he appeared on the show in order to defend new rules that his agency put into place in theç wake of the bp disaster. among the new rules a requirement that the oil companies now state which containment systems they will have ready in the event of a blow out. this is an emergency system to

cap a leak. you have to say what you use. one of the containment systems was something called helix. listen. >> we now have a very different set of containment equipment and plans than we did then. and so that should make the american people and you feel much differently about deepwater drilling than we did before. >> i felt better when i read you reassurances on them and then i started looking into the basis on which you were issuing them. let's talk about this helix well containment group. five of the eight new permits you had give out went to companies that contracted with helix well containment group. they operate the helix fast response system which you have been bragging about as the new containment technology that they have. this week, helix revealed that by their own assessment it could take them 17 days to contain a spill. 17 days is the new fast response that we're supposed to feel better about in terms of containing a disaster that's

already happened. that to me doesn't feel like a great advance that would justify the type of rash issuing of permit that is you have just done over the last 33 days. >> these haven't been the rash issuance of permits. as i said, we issued none until the latter part of february. we were strongly criticized for dragging our heels on not issuing any permits for several months after the lifting of theç deepwater drilling moratorium, which actually lifted in october, not in february. and the reason we didn't is because the containment capabilities were not yet ready. you're right, 17 days is not fabulous. but 17 days is a lot better than 87 days, which is what it took to contain mccondo well. >> wow. 17 days. not fabulous but not being able to stop an underwater oil gusher for two and a half weeks. that was good enough? full steam ahead. today that same regulatory

agency but lished an editorial in the houston chronicle talking about the lessons learned from the bp oil disaster. they describe all of their strong new safety standards that the oil industry is required to meet. you may note that the head is no longer michael brownwich. it's a new guy named james wattton. whatever happened to my friend michael brownwich? he said the oil spill is okie-dokie. he's landed a brand new gig. he's left the administration and is now working for the oil industry. he's now pitching services like crisis management and strategic advising to the very same oil companies he was tasked with regulating in the wake of the bp disaster. don't worry, quote, mr. brownwich has tasked with regulating in the wake of the bp disaster. he's pledged to not directly lobby the offshore drilling agencies that he created.

this is what our oil politics iç like now. this is the sense of urgency we have around safety and oil spills. two years after the worst oil spill in all of recorded history. would our politics have been worse if we hadn't had that spill? is it possible it could be worse? we have the author of "disaster on the horizon: the story behind the deep water blowout." it's great to see you. thank you for being here. >> great to be with you, rachel. >> in that explanation of what happened, a brief overview of what's happened, did i get anything wrong there? >> no, rachel, you're pretty much right down the middle. it makes me want to bang my head on my desk when i've watched what's not happened over the last couple of years. it has been very frustrating. >> congress specifically has not done anything in terms of safety regulations since the bp disaster, in terms of following the law and drilling legally, things have not gotten better at all? >> that's precisely correct. in fact, it's worse than that. the house actually passed three

bills this last year that luckily didn't go through the senate. but the bills that they passed actually reduced the amount of environmental review for new offshore leases, and they cloaked it in a mantle of jobs, new jobs. by eliminating the environmental review time for the new leases. >> in terms of what the oil companies have to offer, obviously, the regulatory process is supposed to be an adversary yal process, you expect that the companies will pursue whatever is best for their bottom line and then they are constrained by the governmentç telling them it wot be best for your bottom line but you have to do this in terms of safety and in terms of protecting the country, but if the regulatory environment is still so demp shl to the oil companies to take care of everything on their own, have the oil companies themselves come up with anything new in terms of cleaning up oil on the water, are we any better at it?

>> you know, we're actually not. there's really been no advances in surface remediation, surface cleanup. they may have more skimmers, but skimmers don't work in ocean waves. they only work in flat water. and so oil that does come to the surface does end up in the wetlands and does end up on the beach. keep in mind, too, that in deep water, when you have a spill like this, almost 90% of the oil never even comes to the surface. it's in the deep water column damaging the sea life and could be there for months and years, we don't know how long it would last there. >> is there any progress to report in terms of shutting down deep water spills? in terms of dealing with deep water emergencies? i remember back covering the bp spill while it was still ongoing for the 87 days, you hear people talk about, this is equivalent to doing engineering on the moon, trying to invent equipment to operate in environments where, not just americans, but humans don't have, don't really

have experience operating, are we any better in terms of dealing with deep water emergencies? >> you know, the challenge we have here in deep water is control the well itself. we have done nothing to improve the prisb)y control device which is the blow out preventer. we still have that almost 50% failure rate that you and i have talked about before in deep water. so if something does go wrong, there's a 45% to 50% chance that the well is going to lose control. there are a couple of well containment organizations that you mentioned in your introduction that is in place, but the thing that everyone ignores is the fact that there's a massive drilling rig that sits above these wells and 5,000 or 10,000 feet of pipe that goes from the rig to the ocean floor, that has to go somewhere if it sinks. and generally it's going to be on top of the well head. so i think the 17-day number is a really wild number, because

you don't know how to get on top of the well head if you have a rig laying on top of it, and that's something the industry simply hasn't dealt with. >> in terms of the overall politics and response in terms of the country, you've written a book about this disaster, you and i talked about it while it was going on, and we have sense talked about the political response and the technological response by the companies, what do you think it would take? if it wasn't the bp disaster, what do you think it would take? would it take anything in order to get us to mobilize as a country on the safety side of this? you don't have to be hostile to petroleum as a product to want it to be something we deal with safely as a country, but i don't know what else could urge us toward progress in that direction, if not this. >> unfortunately, rachel, i think the only thing that will motivate the politicians to do something is another catastrophe.ç there's already been three other incidents in the last year. not nearly as serious as a

deepwater horizon, but who ten herbally that serious. i'm afraid to get the american public's attention, it's going to take another incident where oil is coming onto people's beaches and people will say, wait a minute, i thought the industry fixed this two years ago or three years ago. until that happens, it's clear to me there's going to be no leadership from the government regulators or the politicians. it's going to have to come from us to make it, to fix this particular situation. >> bob, energy industry veteran, author of "disaster on the horizon." good to have you here, i appreciate it. >> it is great to be with you, rachel. thank you very much. on one important reproductive rights issue, the mitt romney campaign has decided it wants to be to the right of the republican legislation in the gate great state of oklahoma. a magnificent best new thing in the world tonight. stick around.

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you don't have to always have surgery in order to get an abortion. in lots of cases, particularly early cases, you can take medication instead of having surgery. as of today, you can no longer get a medication abortion in wisconsin, at least not from planned parenthood, which accounts for a majority of the state's providers. planned parenthood suspended nonsurgical abortions in the state starting today as a new state law took effect there. it establishes criminal penalties including prison time for doctors. the new law signed by republican governor scott walker earlier this month sets up requirements for exactly how a doctor needs to talk to a patient before any abortion and also includes requirements for specific exams and specific doctors visits before and after the medication is prescribed for a nonsurgical abortion. with the new regulations in effect as of today, a woman seeking a nonsurgical medication abortion in wisconsin would be required to see the same doctor a total of three times. if the woman doesn't want to do

that, if she wants to do the post-abortion follow-up, not at all or with her regular doctor, for example, instead of the doctor who provided the abortion medication to her, that first doctor who provided the abortion medication would face felony charges. could be sent to prison for three and a half years. planned decided that was an insane risk to put doctors through, so they are suspending all nonsurgical abortions in the state. that was a choice of the quarter of their patients in wisconsin, but not anymore after today. the state's largest medical association, the wisconsin medical society asked scott walker to veto the bill last o relationship. scott walker did not take that advice and did not veto the bill targeting nonsurgical abortions. he sign id it into law and a bill and removing contraception from the state's sex ed curriculum. that will help. today the president of the

wisconsin medical society called the new law, quote, an unprecedented inintrusion into the patient/doctor relationship arguing it requires doctors to follow procedures that are not best medical practices. in other words, doctors are being forced to choose between providing best medical care for their patients and going to prison or doing what the republicans in the state legislature and scott walker tell them to do, even if it is not what the doctor thinks is best for his or her patient. we asked planned parenthood if they plan to sue the state over this new law. they told us that all options are on the table right now. in oklahoma abortion rights advocates are already suing the state over a regulation on nonsurgical abortion there is. the oklahoma law would restrict what kind of drugs doctors can use for a medical abortion. a judge in oklahoma overturned a new law that would require doctors to not just perform ç state-mandated ultrasounds but

to force a woman seeking an abortion to view the image. the republican-led legislature in oklahoma has so far been undeterred. yesterday they sent the state's governor a bill that would require doctors to tell women they can listen to a fetal heartbeat before an abortion. oklahoma, is something of a unique case. remember it was oklahoma that voted to ban sharia law back in 2010. last year the oklahoma legislature passed a bill to make cooking hash punishable by life in prison. hash? yes, hash. the oklahoma legislature passed a birther bill last year. they passed it. it passed by a landslide, 77-13 in the oklahoma house on the same day that president obama released his long form birth certificate. nothing is too radical for the oklahoma republicans in the state legislature, really. nothing except it turns out personhood is too radical for them.

the ban to personhood and banning birth control defining a fertilized bill has been kicked around the legislature in oklahoma. it was derailed yesterday. the republican house speaker saying the bill will not get a hearing because the majority of the republican caucus privately voted against hearing it. they voiced a variety of concerns saying it would ban invitro forgetly zags and birth control. we know that the whole personhood idea is too radical

>> absolutely. >> mitt romney's position on abortion and contraception was already to the right of the mississippi electorate. now it is also to the right of the republicans in the most conservative state legislature in the country. the republicans in the great birther, anti-sharia, no cooking hash state of oklahoma. of single mile credit cards. battle speech right? may i? [ horse neighs ] for too long, people have settled for single miles. with the capital one venture card, you'll earn double miles on every purchase, every day! [ visigoths cheer ] hawaii, here we come. [ alec ] so sign up today for a venture card at capitalone.com. and start earning double. [ all ] double miles! [ brays ] what's in your wallet? can you play games on that? not on the runway. no.

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mitt romney got some good news in the polls today. the former massachusetts governor bumped along for most of the republican primary season with overall national support in the low 20s. now that mr. romney vanquished his challengers and pretty much on to the general election, how does he do now in a head-to-head match-up against president obama? the answer according to a new poll is not too badly. he trailed the president by just four points, it's close. that's the good news for mr. romney. he's now in 45%. if you look deeper into the polling, you'll see mr. romney received some bad news this week, or unsettling news about where he's doing well and where he's not doing well. from the same pew poll, these are the results among women vet voters under the age of 50. mitt romney losing women under the age of 50 by 18 points. women voters age 50 and up, so

older women voters, mr. romney loses that group by seven points to president obama. how about men under 50? mitt romney loses just barely but he loses men under 50 by one point. but now look at this. men over 50, let's call them the silver backs.ç men over 50, show that one. hey, there he is. mitt romney finally wins one. he finally finds his club. among men over the age of 50, mitt romney is the clear choice. men over 50, an 11-point favorite. mitt romney over barack obama. now mr. romney is losing every other age and gender demographic, but when it comes to the older men, he's whipping. there's one for him, one out of four. and in his one win, his advantage in his lone demographic category is a little more than half mr. obama's advantage in the strongest of his winning three categories. romney's best among older men. his best is only half as good as

obama's best. that's bad news for mr. romney. if you think about it statistically, if only men were voting in the next election, if the race were held a century ago, mr. romney would be delighted with these turn of events. in 2012, sadly for him, women vote a lot. charlie cook spelling this out. mr. cook writing quote, given that women generally make up 51% to 52% of the electorate, whenever republican candidates lose women by more than they win among men, they can skip ordered the champagne for election night. the romney campaign knows they have this problem. it's great for them they are winning among older men and among men overall because they are winning so much among older men, just as they are winning among white voters overall. the campaign has been staring into certain doom with latino ç voters. they lost all the ground that president bush gained and then

sol. some. they do need to win some of the college crowd. most importantly, given that they are a majority of the electorate, the romney campaign must improve their standing among women, women are most of the voters. if they do not improve among women, lit not matter if he pledges to sign the dream act on the first day of presidency. it won't matter if he offers to pay off every student loan in america, and maybe he could. if he cannot convince more women to vote for him, he has no path to the white house. you want to see what the romney campaign did today. they hired a new spokesman. they hired a man named richard grenell. mr. grenell is a veteran of the second bush administration. he worked for john bolton. he is also a veteran of the twitters from january 22nd. quote, if newt does win, would we call calista the first lady, the second mistress or the third

wife? michelle williams looks like callista gingrich before she puts on the wig. from march, do you think her hair snaps wife number one. he said on the secretary of state, hillary is starting to look like madeline albright. also a note to children, when your mom is a grandmother, do not let her wearç backless dresses. there's some nice stuff about me, which is weird. forced to watch msnbc on jim tv. the rachel maddow commercials can't attract any viewers aside from justin bieber fans. i look like a boy. that is also hilarious. rachel maddow needs to take a breath and put on a necklace. here is one that he deleted even before today. this one was about the first lady, michelle obama, sweating on the east room carpet. that's nice.

after politico.com broke the story he wrote to say that he apologized for his tweeting. he said his tweets were meant to be tongue and cheek and humorous and he would now remove them from twitter. mr. grenell did do an enthusiastic scrubbing today after he was announced as mr. romney's spokesman. now the romney campaign can get back to their prime campaign goal, which is to improve with women the perception of the candidate who just hired this guy as his new spokesman. joining me is e.j.dionne, minneapolis contributor and all-around gentleman. mr. dionne, nice to see you. >> it is good to be here. i assume i'm here for my expertise in older white guys, but i have to say to grenell, how dare he say anything bad about you. >> that's very nice. what he said about me is the least of my worries. i've got to wonder if the romney campaign, if we see any sign that they understand that even

if you're just talking about the callista gingrich ones, that they see a long strand of nasty sexist tweets about callistaç gingrich's appearance might be alienating to those who might otherwise consider voting for mr. romney. >> apparently not. i find it astonishing that given their problem among women they didn't look at that stuff. you ask the question, what can romney do with women? they could fire this guy or they could put mitt romney on your show to personally apologize to you for this. i think that would be -- >> i'd endorse that. >> it would be fun to see him on this show. but the obvious thing for him to do is to start talking a lot more to older working women where he may have a way to get at it. then he kind of tried to talk to working women the other day and insulted the cookies and that

really got rid of the whole story. it's really surprising so far how flat-footed they are on this question. they had a few good days when they are playing off hilary rosen's comments, but even those didn't get them that far, especially when ann romney said that was the best day of her life. she is his best asset, by the way. i guess i would use her more. >> on the other side of this and you're in the obama campaign and you're looking at those roughly scheduled demographics, do they have an old white guy strategy? is there some way the obama campaign could pitch themselves to the big one demographic they are really losing to mitt romney? >> i think they have some potential because mitt romney is who he is. barack obama lost working classç white men by a lot and democrats in 2010 lost them by even more. they lost by 30 points among working class white men.

romney's class profile and i like to fire people in his tax rate, i think that gives obama potential. i think you've seen obama, particularly in michigan, but right through the midwest trying to emphasize how his policies have been good for those folks, the auto bailout being number one. i think what he's got to do with those older white men is play the class card a little bit against romney. i think liberals in general have to learn how to talk to older white working class guys because they have a lot to be angry about. their wages have gone down a lot in the last 20, 25 years. liberals ought to be able to talk about that. i think obama is going to have to talk about that. >> do you think the medicare issue factors in there at all in terms of talking to older voters of every stripe, actually, maybe particularly to female older voters? talking about the romney/ryan budget ideas about medicare, this idea of sort of turning medicare into a coupon program?

does that work as a bigger pitch to older voters in a way that might be more successful in a typical democrat year? >> it does to some degree. but remember the republicans are playing very careful politics with this. they are saying, none of these cuts are going to affect you. because the older generation, in particular, are one of the best constituencies. remember all the old new dealers, most of them have gone to their eternal reward. this particular cohert is a more con serve tiff cohort of older voters than the one that came before. so the republicans know that they've got to pitch to them, but i do think that health care issues and medicare give him some potential. and the ryan budget, i think, is a wide opening because women tend to be more for the safety net than men. >> e.j.dionne, msnbc contributor, thank you for springing to my defense.

>> my pleasure, any time. >> if mitt romney ever does say yes to being on this show, i will send you a bouquet of something. >> thank you. good luck on the book tour this weekend. >> oh, thank you very much. i'm really looking forward to it, actually. best new thing in the world is still ahead. and the best new thing in the world ahead is a musical addition. stay tuned. cuban ca jun raw seafood pizza parlor french fondue tex-mex fro-yo tapas puck chinese takeout taco truck free range chicken pancake stack baked alaska 5% cash back. right now, get 5% cash back at restaurants. it pays to discover.

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today, we know more about

that army black hawk helicopter that went down in afghanistan yesterday. we now know that all four americans on board the helicopter wereç killed in the crash. according to the u.s. military the four were on their site to a suicide bombing in the helmand province. the black hawk was a medivac and they were transporting them to a nearby hospital. we don't know what brought the helicopter down but bad weather is most likely the cause. the taliban did post responsible on its english website saying they shot down the black hawk with a grenade. the u.s. sources are casting doubt on the claim and the taliban is known to claim responsibility for things they didn't do in the fast. back here at home u.s. service members who served in iraq at the tail end of that war are continuing to trickle home months after the war ended in december. this was the scene this week in minnesota with 80 u.s. soldiers coming home from kuwait. these men and women were responsible for escorting the

con voups convoys of supplies and thousands of our american troops leaving iraq and crossing over into kuwait. over the next few weeks nearly 3,000 of these troops from the 34th infantry red bulls will be coming home to minnesota. they were part of the single largest deployment since world war ii. and it is because of those minnesotans returning home that we have news to report tonight on the nationwide grassroots effort to welcome home iraq war vet vans veterans. as we have done for every war in moderate history, the twin cities, minneapolis and st. paul, their parade to mark the end of the iraq war and say welcome home and thank you to the troops, the twin cities parade was planned for tomorrow, this saturday, but because minnesota is right in the middle of this big proation ofç troop coming home from kuwait, the twin cities decided to postpone the parade so as many people can participate as possible. organizers say they were charactered by both the military and by friends and family of the 34th infantry red bull who is

basically said, you guys, we are almost home, we all want to go, wait for us. so there's no specific new date set yet for the twin cities parade for the end of the iraq war, but we are told they are aiming for late july. we will let you know when we know more. also, richmond, virginia, richmond, virginia's end to the iraq war parade is set for may 19. there has been some worry richmond wouldn't be able to pull it off. they needed to raise money to cover the costs, particularly the police costs, of the event. organizers had set the rather intimidating goal of raising $50,000 for the richmond, virginia, parade by today. today was their deadline. and they hit it. so the parade is on. again, may 19th, itch richmond, virginia. they need to raise some money for costs of the event, but at least they now they can cover police reports for the parade. so it is on the calendar in pen. the first of the parades was in st. louis. then there was a big one in tucson. there was another big one in houston. last weekend this was the scene at melbourne, florida.

thousands of people in downtown melbourne, florida, for the welcome home veterans parade. the parade itself included over 650 veterans. melbourne is an hour from orlando and every veteran in the parade was given tickets to theme parks like walt disney world and sea world. next up on the iraq war veterans parade docket will be a parade in media, pennsylvania, set for april 28th, a week from tomorrow. (! des moines, iowa, will be hosting one in june. and then in new york city, apparently never, because even though new york city is where we civilians traditionally have welcomed home the troops at the end of american wars, the pentagon says they do not want that for iraq veterans in new york. everywhere else is in town country they think it is fine, but not new york city for some reason. so new york wet vans of the iraq war do not get a public welcome home and the country doesn't get the collapse to say welcome home and thank you and we are glad the war is over in the traditional new york city ticker tape way, for some reason.

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happy friday. best new thing in the world today. the boston red sox first played their game at penway park on april 20, 1912. they opened fenway on 4/20 as a marijuana joke. no, i'm kidding. that first game back in 1912, the red sox played the new york highlanders, a team that would eventually become the dreaded new york yankees. and in that first game, boston won. today, this afternoon, fenway hosted a centennial rematch complete with old school uniforms that matched what they wore 100 years ago. so if you have a plain white baseball cap, you are now officially a red sox fan, because that's what the red sox wore in their first ever fenway game when they tried to pass

these off as throw-backs. today, sad to say, the yankee highlanders the game, which is not the best thing of today. the thing that is, something i ç have frankly been waiting for for weeks, ever since the red sox put out a teaser about it. composure john williams composed the music from "star wars." john williams is also the guy who composed the music for -- ♪ -- jaws! little known john williams fact, he also wrote the theme to a little something we like to call nbc news. basically, if you have hummed it, john williams wrote it. and john williams has just written a little something for the red sox. it's called "fanfare for fenway." they released a 20-second except of the fanfare to get the blood pumping of every red sox fan in the country.

today before the game we finally got to hear the whole thing, but not before the red sox got us all worked up by inviting 214 former red sox players, managers and coaches out onto the field, including 92-year-old johnny pesky who took the field in a wheelchair. that was just the warm-up. then came the pitch. john williams conducting and playing "fanfare for fenway." ♪ ♪ç >> somebody is cutting up onions in the studio, obviously. ap