More Volcanic Ash In Iceland Causing All Sorts Of Problems, Conspiracy Theorists Continue To Exist, & Seriously, Screw Goldman Sachs

Hi everyone. We're kicking things off tonight with Mother Nature gone wild. I don't think we've seen this much craziness out of Iceland since Bjork. Apparently, the volcano there has been angered, because today it spewed out even more ash. Perhaps it's upset that no one can pronounce its name correctly. Eyjafjallajokull? C'mon! You can hurt yourself saying that. None of the 360 kids even try. They're just going to pretend like it doesn't have a name, I guess. Also? Are we absolutely positively sure that the whole 2012-world's-gonna-end thing isn't true? Because if you'll look to your left, there's freaking lightening coming out of a volcano. I mean, I'm just sayin'.

Anyway. Gary Tuchman is still on-the-ground in Iceland and Anderson Cooper informs us he actually got caught in an ash cloud. Did he ever. Take a look at the picture of Gary that I stole borrowed am using to promote his awesome blog post (heh). He looks like he's broadcasting from post-armageddon. I am very happy to see the mask, but I'm a bit worried about Team Gary's lungs right now. And of course, this isn't just about a news crew bringing us cool images--farmers live there and now their livelihood is covered in ash. God knows the long term effects of breathing the ash. Seeing as though it can stall a plane engine, I'm thinking not good.

Gary also talks to us live by phone (satellite went down) about the extremely poor visibility in the ash. At one point they just had to stop driving because they couldn't see anything. Then when the ash cleared a bit they discovered they were on a collision course with another vehicle. So basically? Danger, danger, everywhere. Oh, and Gary went up in a helicopter to check out the volcano too, which I imagine was both awesome and terrifying. Hopefully this volcano--which I think I'm going to refer to as Stan--will calm down soon.

After Gary, we have Chad Myers live to talk about the ash and the millions of travelers who are stuck. One such traveler is CNNI's Richard Quest, and he joins us in studio since, well, I guess he has nothing better to do. Actually, Richard is pretty relevant to this story given his business expertise and the financial implications on the airlines of all these grounded flights. Yet I still can't help laughing every time I see him. If that end-of-the-world thing does happen, they should totally have Richard anchor. It won't seem quite so bad.

Transitioning now to an acknowledgment that today is the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing; a day when 168 people lost their lives. Today was also a day of pro-gun rallies and protests against the government, which segues us into a Drew Griffin piece on some of these like-minded people. The first person we meet is Catherine Bleish of the Liberty Restoration Project. Drew asks her if Obama was born in the U.S. "I don't know that, but everyone should question that at this point," she replies. Oh. My. God. His birth certificate is on the Internet, independent fact-checkers have held the original, a birth announcement was published in the Honolulu Advertiser...what more do you people want?!!

Ahem. I'm okay now. Okay, so thing is, best I can tell, conspiracy theorists don't really want you to "question," but rather to believe their craziness. Because anyone who questions Obama's citizenship will quickly find the proof they need to confirm he's an American. One of the other whoppers thrown at us is HR-645, AKA the "Oh my God, they're going to throw us in FEMA camps!" bill. Drew notes that it's stalled, but that's pretty much where the reporting ends. He does even tell us the introducer, much less call them for the context.

Anyway, that Catherine person seems nice and all and I'm down with her desire to work together for the good of the country, but I don't see that happening when there are people who refuse to accept simple proven facts. (Also, Obama doesn't want to take your guns, people. In case you haven't noticed, he's kinda busy right now.) This is all followed by discussion with centrist dude John Avlon. It's noted that April 19th is also the anniversary of Waco and Lexington and Concord. These are big dates for violence. Virginia Tech was April 16th; Columbine April 20th. As T.S. Eliot said, April is the cruelest month.

Moving on now to Anderson at the Magic Wall, giving us info on those douchebags at Goldman Sachs. This is important and everything, but I kinda got distracted with breaking news (on Twitter) that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will be staying put through 2012. Yay! I don't know how I'd get through an election without my boys. They're my longest news relationship! Anyway, back to my second-longest news relationship (360 got bumped after I "broke up" with Countdown), we've got Michael Lewis and David Gergen and Alexis Glick, but meh. I'm not in the mood.

The "shot" tonight is Willie Nelson on Larry King. Again. Actually, it's Joe Johns' reaction to the edited clip, except he doesn't realize it's edited. I'm not nearly as amused by this as the Silver Fox. "I can't believe you thought that's what actually happened," he says. Well dude, you are supposed to be the most trusted name in news.

I wasn't all that interested in the show, if we're being honest (and I kinda always am). The stuff Gary brought us was amazing. Other than that? Eh. Sorta boring. Tomorrow is another day.

Volcano photograph by Marco Fulle, Barcroft/Fame Pictures