This was very distrubing....

Driving into work this morning, I head this story on NPR.  I found it very disturbing; a sign of just how far this country has devolved.  I'm not sure if I should hope Mister Obama is aware of what's going on or not.  It's a sad state of affairs to be sure.


First of all... Why the fuck are BP employees calling the shots here?! Why are they standing side by side with our coast guard and police force? Are you fucking kidding me?! This is NOT what's meant by "civilian control of the military!" This has been going for some time now, and it grows ever more disturbing as time goes on. Welcome to 1984, folks. If you ever wanted to see the freedom of the press utterly destroyed, well HERE YOU GO. It’s just like George Carlin once predicted: When fascism finally comes to this country, it won’t be wearing jack-boots, it will be wearing Nike’s.

A few points, that highlight the absolute absurdity of this, from the transcript:

"You are not allowed, as a police officer, to rummage through the notebooks and photographs — not published — of newspapers," Engelberg said. "That's not how we do it in this country."

Well said, Mister Engelberg. Have you contacted the ACLU yet?

"We have more than 40,000 people working on this response," [BP spokesman Scott Dean] said. "We're working around the clock to make this situation right. And we very much want that story to be told."

Yeah – they sure do: THEIR VERSION of the story. How else does he explain away the fact that the press has been HINDERED by HIS OWN company from telling the story?! This man is not only a whore, he’s a cheap whore, and doesn’t even try to hide the fact.

The flap in Texas City over the police stop of the Pro Publica photographer involves practices initiated in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. FBI Special Agent Shauna Dunlap, of the agency's Houston field office, said that such stops have become common around sensitive sites like refineries and nuclear power plants.

"People don't think about it, but there are people out there who want to do us harm, and it's our obligation to protect our territory and these critical infrastructures that are targets," Dunlap said

Riiight… I’m sure an already demolished oil well, 5000 feet below sea level, is a really high level target on Al-Quaeda’s hit list.

...adding that the oil company had also been threatened by what she said were environmental terrorists.

"There is a heightened security around those facilities, especially with BP," Dunlap said.

Oh, I get it. It’s environmental terrorism, they're worried about. Because, yeah, again, they’d accomplish SO MUCH by screwing up the cleanup effort, after the rig had burned down, sunk, and spilled X-Million barrels of oil into the gulf. Yeah, that’s when they "eco-terrorists" would SPRING INTO ACTION.

Is our FBI really this stupid, or are they just blatantly insulting our intelligence? If "eco-terrorism" was involved AT ALL, it would have been at the BEGINNING, when the rig was still WORKING. Now, it was already shown that the initial fire was entirely the result of BP’s own negligence.  That’s been clearly established.  And that’s was the only possible oppotunity for “eco-terrorism.” Destroy the RIG. (Something that is completely without precedent, I might add!)  Not showing up three months later and sabotaging the CLEANUP. That doesn’t make any damned sense at all!

This situation is now nothing more than corporatism using out irrational fear of terrorism to PREVENT the real story from being told here. (Behold your LIBERAL MEDIA!) And the only really terrifying thing going on here, is just how much this FOREIGN (not even US-based!) corporate entity can manipulate our gov’t into doing its bidding, even getting them to violate the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

No only should BP’s heads roll over this (and as far as I’m concerned, that BP Corporate Whore Scott Dean should be boiled in crude-oil as an example to other professioanl liars) but there needs to be some serious investigations into the gov’t actions here; Not in dealing with the spill itself, as the right have hypocritically called for, I’ll stand by my earlier judgment that President Obama is doing exactly what he should be in terms of the cleanup, (althought how would I know otherwise, seeing as how the press has been largely shut out?!) but of the way the Coast Guard, FBI and Police have denied press access, intimidated the press, rifled though their private property without warrant or propbable cause and have conspired with BP to keep the Public minimally informed at best, and misinformed at worst. Heads should roll over that.

Hey right-wingers? THIS is what “big government” or "big borther" REALLY looks like: Corporate interests being protected over public ones. 

My Note to BP Pensioners: Go pound oily sand!

Speaking of Britain, there was rather a lot of criticism of the Obama administration for calling on BP to suspend it’s dividend payments until the damages related it’s oil spill are paid for. Now… I’m not completely heartless on this issue. I break with the mainstream liberal voice when it comes to taxing dividends for the very same reason that this criticism was being leveled: The broadest beneficiaries of those dividend payments are pension finds, and retires who actually depend on that income. (Well, that and it’s double taxation, but I don’t feel like giving the moon-bats here a lesson in basic Accounting right now, so we’ll go with “sympathy for old people” for the time being.) The rhetoric of the British Pensioners has been largely along the lines of “Hey America, don’t fuck with my retirement income! You want the oil? You PAY FOR it!”

Hey, British Pensioners? GO POUND OIL SATURADTED SAND!

First of all: We DO pay for it. BP has never been in the business of giving oil away for free to anyone. If they don’t charge enough to cover the cost of contingency plans? Not really OUR problem. I’ll get to the phenomenon of “externalization of costs” in a moment, but I’d have no problem with a MODEST gas tax increase (nothing like the nonsense they have in Europe however) which, considering how much gas we burn, would go a long way to getting more research done, and getting these kinds of things cleaned up. The cost is ultimately borne by the consumer anyway (again, see “externalization of costs”) so whether it’s in the form of a tax, or a price hike which the company would pretty much pocket ANYWAY, I’m all for it. And right now, so are most Americans. One Republican vote in the Senate is all that stands between our newly lubricated shoreline and the beginning of real energy reform.

Second of all: While I sympathize with your loss of income, you must also realize that it is TEMPORARY. That may not be the case for much of the fishing industry in the gulf. Businesses has been destroyed, people have lost everything, and that's before you even factor in the long-term ecological damage, the cost to repair the coasts and the long term economic effects that moving away from Gulf Oil Drilling. Long story short? Our problems are more expensive than yours, and have been CAUSED by a BRITISH company, operated in violation of both what would be the required safety protocols in Europe, and what is accepted industry practice over here. As it is our Government is pursuing a case of Criminal Negligence against BP, its case bolstered by BP’s own internal documents and BP company insiders. I’ve heard more than one legal expert describe the criminal case against BP as a “slam dunk.” So before you open your gobs, consider for a moment what you’d be calling for if an AMERICAN firm had violated your industry standards, fouled your beaches and destroyed your coastal industries, all in pursuit of greater profits for themselves and their shareholders. Somehow I don’t think the plight of the average AMERICAN pensioner would be very high on your list of priorities. And rightly so. NOW STIFLE!

Oh yeah: EXTERNALIZATION OF COST. This is the phenomenon that allows many of these companies to make claims like “oil produces the cheapest energy on a per volume basis” and things like that. There are two reasons why this statement is “true.” (Notice the “quotes?”) ONE is that they make arbitrary assumptions about the pay-off period for solar energy. Now I’m not sure what a given “volume” of solar energy (sunshine) looks like, but I do know that it is not a fuel being consumed. (Next time you here this, challenge one of thes efools to show you what a gallon of sunshine looks like!)  Which means, on a usage basis: It’s FREE. So the only way they can assume a “cost” on a per unit of energy generated basis, would be to amortize the manufacturing cost of a solar panel over its life. And what do they assume for its life? Well, whatever they need to to make oil sound cheaper, of course! The other reason is the “externalization of cost.” This is the fact that they do not include in the cost of their products, the costs associated with disasters, pollution, clean-up, global warming and other environmental impacts. The costs, unless the company is exceedingly generous in volunteering to take on, are largely paid by SOMEONE ELSE. And that’s how they want to keep it. If they can keep those costs EXTERNALIZED (off their books, and thus out of the business case) they not only can keep raking in record profits, but also make the case that OIL IS CHEAPER. Pollition CONTROL sosts the company. POLLUTION usually costs everybody else.  The same goes for coal, and just about every other industry that pollutes: As long as someone else cleans up the mess? Their business case is sound. And for the past 30 years, the three Republican administrations and the Republican Congress which dominated the lone Democratic one (until now) has been more than happy to ignore the problem and support this practice. 

I hope Obama has the courage to do otherwise. I’ll pay the tax, and to hell with any whiny pensioners. I’ve got a word of advice for you lot: DIVERSIFICATION.