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BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg doesn’t have too many defenders these days, but he can count Mayor Bloomberg as one of them.
“The guy who runs BP didn’t exactly go down there and blow up the well,” the mayor said on his weekly WOR radio show today.
Uh-huh. And before that it was Rand Paul saying “it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault instead of the fact that sometimes accidents happen.” And before that it was the head of FreedomWorks calling it “a natural disaster.” And before that it was David Vitter and some offshore drilling consultant comparing it to a plane crash.
I even had a conservatarian commenter spout the Bloomberg line in one of my posts:
To listen to the left talk of the spill you would think that BP purposely set this rig ablaze. It was a horrific accident that neither BP nor the federal government are prepared to deal with effectively.
Suffice it to say that I am well and truly sick of this “It was just a tragic accident that just happened and no one could have prevented” bullshit.
Consider all of the following and tell me whether this disaster sounds unavoidable to you: . . .
- MMS determined that BOPs are unreliable enough to require backup systems, but allowed the offshore drilling industry to police itself anyway. BP claims BOP failure was “inconceivable” and didn’t install a backup, even though BOP failures are an Actual Thing That Happens.
- MMS apparently forgot its own 2000 study on the dangers of offshore drilling and gave BP a “categorical exclusion” from performing a thorough environmental impact analysis because a major spill was just so damn unlikely.
- BP’s emergency plan for an accident at the Macondo site was a half-assed cut-and-paste job that references seals, sea otters, and walruses.
- BP sent Schlumberger engineers home without performing an acoustic test which “a top cementing company executive called ‘the only test that can really determine the actual effectiveness’ of the well’s seal,” apparently because it was too time-consuming and expensive. The well also lacked seals on either the annulus or the central bore.
- BP didn’t perform a “bottoms-up” test of the mud where the cement casing was to be placed.
- When BP lost “well control” and the BOP started leaking fluid, BP resisted testing the BOP, and when they finally did it was at a much lower pressure level. They also dismissed “chunks of rubber [BOP seal] in the drilling fluid” as “no big deal.”
- BP didn’t use a “liner” between the pipe and the cement, saving time and money but significantly increasing the risk that the cement would fail. It appears that BP was aware of the risk and ignored MMS’s and their own safety guidelines. Halliburton warned “that BP’s use of cement ‘was against our best practices’” and “that a ‘severe’ gas flow problem would occur if the casings were not centered more carefully.”
- The BP “company man” on the Deepwater Horizon ignored abnormal pressure readings and Transocean engineer warnings and went forward with replacing heavy drilling mud with seawater, making it much easier for gas to explode up out of the well.
All of this is consistent with BP’s Massey-like commitment to profits first and safety last – their record is appalling even by oil industry standards. This disaster was not some capricious whim of fate, it was actively courted by BP’s impatience, greed and arrogance and MMS’s complicit passivity. If a drunk driver runs over a kid, that’s not a tragic unavoidable accident; it’s a despicable crime committed by a self-important asshole who couldn’t be bothered to take a cab, and enabled by the friends who didn’t take away his keys.
That’s what regulations and regulators are supposed to be about – they may be a drag, they may be a buzzkill, they may cost time and money, but when they’re effective they protect us from disasters like mine collapses, poisonous food and drugs, financial meltdowns, and the extinction of entire ecosystems. If Republicans can advocate suspending huge chunks of the Constitution to supposedly protect us from terrorists, is it really so much for us to ask for some protection against corporations?
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Mr. Mayor Bloomberg, I didn’t see bin Laden’s name on a passenger list.
Eli! Accidents will happen, it’s only hit and run…
NASA administrators didn’t go out onto the pad and blow up the Challenger, either. They just set up the conditions that allowed it to blow up on its own.
It’s really difficult to trust the judgment of leaders who think that way.
Kelly!
See, that’s what I originally intended to put up there. I clicked on the Thomas The Tank Engine thing totally by mistake, but quickly realized that it was probably more appropriate…
Well, he might just as well have. Reverse Russian Roulette – he put five bullets in the six shooter, instead of one. Except the gun was pointed at the gulf and its people. Bad aim?
(So, ironically, my choice of accident video to highlight my accident post is, itself, an accident)
Eli!
BP didn’t intentionally cause this but they did intentionally skip on safety and scrimp on contingency plans. There is a difference between an arsonist and somebody who carelessly lights a fire in a park during a drought and then leaves it to blow up into a wildfire perhaps but both belong in prison.
It’s so ironic that Republicans are always the first to use the “She was asking for it” defense when it comes to rape, but when it comes to actual malfeasance and negligence, they’re like “Who knows how these things happen? It’s just the fanciful whim of the universe!”
Sweet Kelly. I think I’m going to take you up on your offer but it will be a month or two. :-)
Yeah, I didn’t deliberately set my house on fire and kill my family, I just fell asleep while smoking.
Exactly! Since when is criminal negligence okay and defensible? These clowns are transparently angling for BP bucks. Period.
Awesome, lady!
The most loathsome are the ones calling this a “natural disaster”. Yeah…and so was Hiroshima 1945.
It’s especially humorous that the green engine is the one that is accident prone.
Thanks flat. You humble me.
The good news is that we’ve so far been spared having to listen to Wolfowitz pontificate about it.
Hey, you take your good news where you can get it.
My opinion of Bloomberg was pretty low, but now it’s even lower.
A couple of years ago, we had a blackout here for a number of days and it took ConEd almost a week to get power up to every borough. Bloomberg took ConEd’s side and said “they were doing their best.”. Nothing’s really changed with that idiot.
He barely won re-election, beating a little known Democrat by only five points despite shoveling out a ton of money. He was for term limits until he decided he wanted a 3rd term. He’s also more concerned about BP’s welfare and the Knicks getting LeBron James than he is at properly funding the MTA and public schools.
He may be officially an “independent”, but he’s a Republican, always has been, always will be.
What offer is this, may I be so nosy as to ask?
I find it totally strange that the media has absorbed without question the amount that their crazy straw is sucking up is WAY more than their original estimates of the leak.
It. Defies. Logic.
Not to be rude, but sorry, you can’t.
Peg and I just haven’t reconnected by email last day or so and we’ll take it offline.
And really, I don’t mean to be rude in the least GW. Just got caught up in the reconnect moment.
I’ve read that 97% of all safety violations that got fined in recent years were by BP. Accident? No. Reckless carelessness? Yes.
You may be so nosy but I don’t think I’ll answer. It’s nothing nefarious or intimate. Just a friend helping out a friend.
Logic, you want logic from a media that advertised Saddam Hussein in love with al quaeda?
Deepwater Horizon didn’t have an acoustic shutoff valve, either.
All other countries, except the United States, require acoustic valves in deep water.
Only terrorists would run a damaged, deep-water, oil rig flat out for two months expecting success.
Earlier I saw a clip of Jindal criticizing the Feds and BP for being unprepared for this disaster and almost in the same breath, condemning the suspension of deep water drilling because it will result in job losses. He is a how do you say… idiot.
I was asking because I was hoping he had been offering to help you in some way, so I’m glad to hear that’s what it is. I’m not offended to not hear the details.
*homer*
D’OH!
Yes, I noticed that. What an insincere tool.
I wonder if he understands the need to monitor volcanoes yet…
I turned on MSNBC tonight just before Olberman came on and I had it muted so I didn’t have to listen to Tweety and that yellow headed, flatulent MORON had a map of the United States on with a few highlighted states and over that was the legend “Palin’s path to victory, 2012″. That is, without question, idiotic even for Tweety. Honestly, who is that man related too?
He’s been taking those make-Jindal-schizophrenic pills again.
You two are so right – because the response really should be to KEEP the moratorium, and replace the jobs with a WPA style GREEN JOB replacement!
Reverse Shock Doctrine, please ye MOTUs.
Oh good, a name the relation contest.
He reminds me of the Golom in Lord of the Rings.
*standing on chair clapping*
excellent outline of the elements of the crime, eli. this was criminal negligence and not a fucking accident or natural disaster.
The thing is that this “moratorium” only affects just under 1 percent of the wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Probably hasn’t cost any jobs at all. Not only that but I have no doubt congress will feel inclined to help THOSE particular people out, while they cut the rest of us loose.
Well, technically it should be to START the moratorium. since they’ve been issuing permits even tho they SAID there was a moratorium
Okay, I have to …. please don’t be mad at me for the correction but that’s one of my faves. It’s “Gollum”
Bloomberg is running for President. Maybe in 2012, maybe in 2016. But he knows that the voters that matter are the corporatins like BP, so he’s sticking by them when they’re down.
Remember how George Bush went to ground zero, grabbed the guy in the hardhat and put his arm around him in solidarity?
It’s roughly the same thing. We’ve just devolved since then.
Thanks, Suz! I had a lot more of them saved up than I realized – I even shelved a few as too speculative or open to interpretation (i.e., that the BOP was inadequately maintained).
Yep. At the very LEAST it was criminal negligence and since when did that become okay?
I knew I wasn’t spelling it right – so thanks for the correction.
Thankfully not to me! I already have enough morans in my family! Goes without that Tweety’s a tool.
Exactly. If you *invite* disaster, it’s not an accident.
I getcha.
Just saying that we should have a “issues = opportunity” moment for REAL people for once instead of the normal Shock Doctrine.
This is really the perfect time for a modern WPA to build wind turbines, tide turbines, and so forth as well as much needed infrastructure.
I was just looking at some of the sidewalk today when I was walking home from the bus stop, and many slabs are still around stamped “WPA.”
Aloha, Eli…! Anderson Cooper is doing a great job right now on recounting the night of the disaster…!
SO, when BP gave us low estimates in the beginning, was that intentional? Or was that just an accident? And, was it bad? Or was it good? And if it was intentional and bad, was there other behavior leading up to this that was intentional and bad? Or did their intentional and bad behavior just begin after the accident?
The extent of the damage done by one out of control deep water well is incalculable, imagine if there were two or three leaking simultaneously.
I do not consider that outside the realm of possibility since the people in charge of these operations have demonstrated that they are utterly incompetent.
Most citizens don’t get the concept of criminal negligance, so thanks for spelling it out & listing most of it. Of course these excuses are just propoganda; hope folks don’t buy it.
It absolutely is but I won’t hold my breath. I’m afraid that I would asphyxiate.
And liars.
Whatever the reason you can be sure that their PR and legal responses were much more well thought out than their physical response.
Yes we have devolved.
I consider myself relatively hard-boiled, yet I am constantly astonished at my naivete that these things have happened under my watch, under my nose, and can’t explain it to myself.
It’s why appreciate FDL so much. Given the opportunity for activism when it arises, it totally serves a hunger.
Aloha, CTut! Excellent!
Doesn’t matter that your sick of it.
These jerks get reelected. People have to stop electing big business men and people who are funded by them.
Let us not forget that eleven people paid with their lives for this crime. I blame MMS about as much as BP. SOBs should all be in jail but you know what — none of them will be. probably only a few will even lose their jobs. Meanwhile Jindal and anyone else who wants to take cheap shots just keep trucking on. Obama is f’d. Who we gonna get to replace him? Not Sarah I hope, but the mood out there is ugly.
As it happens, I’ve been re-reading the series for the first time in thirty years. I started with The Silmarillion and went from there. You get all of the historical references that way. Just re-started The Return of the King before I came to this thread in fact.
Full page ads in my local daily every day. In color, showing pristine water matched with a pristine boat and boom. I’d rather see that money go to the shrimpers. Yesterday.
Yes, one of the questions that is strenuously begged here is “How many *more* offshore oil rigs has BP or other companies cut corners on? How many more disasters are out there waiting to happen?”
It is likely a good strategy. Anyone want to take bets on 2012?
I honestly no longer see what difference it could possibly make. It could be argued that an incompetent corporate shill is less dangerous than a competent one.
It’s much like the Bush administration approach and, sadly, it seems the Obama approach – it doesn’t really matter whether or not you’re fucking up, just so long as you can *convince* everybody that you’re not fucking up.
Of course, some fuckups are just too big and too obvious to keep under wraps.
When it first came out, I was a computer programmer at a very cool consulting company. We were all reading it and we had a bulletin board set aside for what we titled “Gossip from the Trilogy”.
As are some sellouts….
Cool! Alas! When I first read it I only had one co-worker with a three digit IQ. I could only discuss it with myself, a practice which further estranged me from them!
you can almost see MMS deciding to do what they should have done years ago and going out there and saying: “ok lets test all these shut off valves.” and one or more of them blow up.
I think it is fair to assume they cut corners on all of them and every other off shore platform. Bringing rigs online under budget is a middle manager’s fast track to promotion.
I just want to put something out there, popular or not.
I keep reading a lot of comments with something to the tune of “serving their masters” or variants.
I don’t think that’s true, as it smacks to much of conspiracy.
What I do think is more true is a theory of “convenient convergent interests,” which may be a distinction without difference to some, but I personally think is meaningful.
It just annoys the shit out of me that you hear these facile little arguments such as this one out of Bloomberg and our press is so stupid that they cannot ask him the obvious follow up question. Obviously the issue is whether this is a case of very very extreme negligence, but they let Bloomberg spout his little freshman argument seemingly without question. What if some Air Force guy “accidentally” nuked the whole world? Would Bloomberg come out and say it was just an accident so it’s OK? The other day I read that one of the BP idiots said that they couldn’t be prepared for this because it was unprecedented. Here the circle of logical stupidity is even tighter than in the Bloomberg case. The press reports it without asking the obvious question: uh, so does it follow that the first time you destroy an entire body of water you get a pass?
I reread it when Bush was at the height of his lunacy. The parallels were horrifyingly real. Fighting for the ring so good could overcome evil. Uh, I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet, Virginia.
Talking to oneself does tend to do that…! ;-)
I don’t think it really requires a conspiracy, just that our supposed representatives are a lot more in tune with and respectful of the wants and desires of their large corporate and wealthy donors than those of their dinky little people constituents like us.
The infuriating thing is that there will be testimony with posturing congress critters and defensive industry people and then everybody will retire to the cloak room and the checkbooks will come out. After due consideration, several months down the road, no charges will be filed and the taxpayers will pay for the clean up while compensation suits drag through industry friendly courts for the next decade. Ten years from now, when peak oil is a nostalgic memory, the drill, baby, drill mantra will be louder than ever and the industry will be less regulated than ever.
I hope you don’t mean that. I can’t take another 8 years of Bush, McCain or Sarah or even Bloomberg. Obama may be ineffectual but he is not a criminal or a total idiot. You have to look to BP or MMS for that.
O is just as incompetent as W; just puts a prettier face on it.
He is a liar and some would say that makes him a criminal.
I agree with that to a large extent. Money, power and influence are both groups’ ultimate masters. It doesn’t take an active conspiracy but there is definitely a mutual interest.
Totally agree with your sentiment.
But I see too many fights among the corps and the reps to see a “master and servant” relationship. They fight with each other, in teams too.
And definitely, wethepeople are the last factor in calculations. Undoubtedly.
Sorry, I can’t go there with that.
Uh, who controls MMS? Secretary of the Interior? Who does the Secretary of the Interior answer to? Obama?
If you and I knew MMS was cavorting and snorting in bed with the oil industry, shouldn’t Obama have known it and ACTED on that knowledge?
If Cheney had applied his 1% doctrine to deepwater drilling, this never would have happened. No way would he have permitted BP to take such a huge risk of possibly causing a blowout that would wreak so much destruction to the US’s prime oil production area. Just think how such an accident would affect the hundreds of other oil platforms. They might have to be shut down due to toxic fumes endangering the workers, or the risk of fire from all that oil, and what about the oil inundating the terminals where the tankers off-load their precious black gold from Saudi?
So why not ask why all the huge give-aways to Bioport and all the other grifters that suck away our taxes on make-work just in case there’s that 1% smallpox or Ebola or Marburg outbreak? But no requirement that BP actually have a backup plan in case of a blowout?
I DO mean that! Other than working around the edges of policy, what has changed since 2008? We are still fighting two wars, there is still an entire population in this country subject to second class citizen status, The middle class is still being fleeced to maintain unjustifiable and unsustainable dividend payments to Wall Street investors, Industry lobbies are still writing legislation and money is even more entrenched in our political system that ever before. I see no difference.
I understand the burrowing in federal jobs, but I don’t understand how Salazar/Obama could have ignored it in such a crucial area. What else has been ignored?
Exactly.
I actually used this argument on climate change a few months ago.
Indeed. But as Gandalf said, I like to pick the smartest person in the room to talk to. ;-)
Margaret…
I think your suspicions may be correct and extremely possible…but I think the bigger question may be of how long can the american taxpayer keep paying for every fuck up the elites manifest? I think the well is just about dried up folks…what happens when we are broke and backed into the inevitable corner?
Maybe the Obama admin embraced the burrowers.
Gates, Brennan are still in.
Dawn Johnsen, for instance, not so much.
The elites move on to greener pastures and we are left holding the empty bag.
EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT, THIS IS THE QUESTION. Americans stopped believing in give me liberty or give me death. They said, ok, take my liberty, but give me security. But now they find that their security doesn’t extend to environmental superdisasters. So why the fuck did they give up their liberty again?
There are differences. There are more troops in Afghanistan amusing the people in that region and creating more potential for health and long life for the troops there and the citizens. We have insurance industry reform to mandate people give more of what money they have for crappy insurance. We have the removal of Helen Thomas from the White House Press Corpse. What am I leaving out?
The well is dry….but when has that stopped them? They seem determined to throw good money after bad until we are as destitute as any third world country.
In at least one respect it is worse under Obama. Since Republicans had no interest in passing legislation under the guise of health care reform they would not have enacted a mandate requiring Americans to purchase junk insurance from private companies with no cost controls.
Not suggesting they wouldn’t have found another way to screw us.
As long as I don’t get blown up by terrorists, I don’t care what else happens.
No more ACORN for one.
I hear ya Mary…the empty bag equals what?
Well, there’s always reinstating debtors prison.
The elites actually can’t do without the middle class because we pay the taxes and we buy things. They are rather short-sighted about this.
Bingo. Be afraid when we tell you to. This no, don’t be afraid. It was just an accident.
Perhaps. Then why are these idiot elites doing what they are doing? I don’t get it.
Fine! But I want my habeas corpus back!
Of course! But that’s been going on for years now. Quarter after quarter, most companies don’t care about sustainability, They leverage, they fire long time employees, they sell assets, they use accounting tricks, all to maintain the illusion of profit. They do it at the expense of sustainability because the next quarter is three months off and these dividends are here and now. See Enron.
Because the so-called ‘rainy day’ they have been fighting off and saving (piling up the loot) for has gotten so far off in the distance that they forgot about it.
They can’t see past acquiring all that personal wealth and power. When everything crumbles we will be able to handle it much better than they will. Money is not food.
OK, it’s Friday…
Let’s have a round of Jello Shots!
So we go down without a fight and look forward to the chains and shackles? I am not swallowing that bile…at 65 years on this ole planet…I will move on elsewhere pups!
Ok I guess that means you have someone else in mind? I think you and others here believe O has a cape in the closet somewhere. He was handed a depression, wars and a party of NO. He has been trying to drain the swamp but the alligators are still nipping at his ass. If you have a saviour somewhere, please tell us who that be???? But I do agree he and his buddies are toast, as things now stand. I am afraid of who takes his place. I guess you are not. That is what scares me.
Ain’t that the truth.
Nope, can’t do it. Might get blown up by terrorists. I can take some of those unnecessary job-killing regulations off your hands, though.
The generation that was around when pearl harbor was attacked went immediately to a justified war and sacrificed what had to be sacrificed to see it through to it’s conclusion. OUR generation after the events of September 11, 2001, threw up out hands and said “I surrender”.
Hope you have your nomex suit on…
Wow. That looks fantastic. Have you ever had them?
Hang on – to be fair generationally, look at the media too.
1942 demanded signup, and got it.
2001 demanded shopping, and got it.
No, I don’t. This isn’t about Obama. This is about the failure of the two party, money driven system.
I didn’t say we go down without a fight. I thought you were asking what else they can do. And what I wrote was pure snark on my part.
Hmmm….Good point.
Nom nom nom – YES!
There’s a melon version too. Equally delightful.
I’d like Wellstone to take his place, but we no longer have that choice. Also.
A plugged watermelon with vodka poured in is equally delightful.
So! You’re angling in your sly way for all the rest of the regulations? I knew you show your true colors.
That’s a pretty cynical shot. I can tell you don’t live around here. ACORN actually helped people.
One thing I do agree with Pelosi on is that this is Shrubco’s fault…! The gutting of the entire Federal Bureaucracy’s regulatory capacity, across the spectrum from the USDA, OSHA, SEC, FDA, ad nauseum… The veritable foxes guarding the chicken coops… They either downsized, ‘privatized’, or even forced out, by way of hostile, politically appointed ‘Bosses, many of the meritocratic mid-level bureaucrats that did the scrutinizing…!
The main problem for Obama is that those needed regulators have to be trained and that can take years, and, he’s still has to weed out the many ‘burrowers’…!
I bet some of those regulations actually make it *easier* for terrorists to blow us up.
I just honestly don’t see what difference it makes when whomever it is, whether it be Obama or some other Democrat or even a Republican, is elected and serves amid the same perverted framework of money, elections and lobbying. Until that system is dismantled and returned to something resembling what it used to be, before the governance by shiny object came along, I just don’t see how it makes a difference. And yes, they all scare me. More than you are aware. I couldn’t care less what letter they have after their name when what comes bvefore their name is $
Hee! You’re really not synch’d up with the regular commenters here.
Mayor Bloomberg’s History of Disasters, part Uno:
Chernobyl: How exceptionally fortunate we are that only tens of thousands died. It could have been millions if the wind had blown toward Kiev!
Three Mile Island: That block valve? It was just a small engineering oversight—and those operators that didn’t believe their instruments—just having a bad day! Don’t tell me YOU never had a bad day! Thank goodness that 1/3 of the core remained intact and the power company didn’t take a total loss!
Exxon Valdez: Thank goodness that this happened in a desolate wasteland and the only people that were harmed were Exxon, who lost a beautiful ship and poor people and Indians, terrorists who can’t understand English anyway. I don;t know why Exxon just didn;t pay them off in Beads since it worked so great for us here on Manhattan! Imagine it if this had happened at Jones Beach or Southhampton! The HORROR! Think of the declining property values and the inconvenience!
And they probably believe the chumps rewriting textbooks in Texas are swell people doing us a favor.
Apologies…the snark flew past me, although there are parts of the current mess that are extremely Dickensonian. As for the fight, where do we engage?
24/7 showing and reshowing the videos and intoning, “nothing will ever be the same again.” as i said at the time, “how the fuck do they know?” what i didn’t understand at the time was that they were creating that reality.
Cynical!?! I deplore the fact that ACORN is gone!!! How do you get cynical??? Greenwarrior asked what he had forgotten and I supplied the fact that the Republicans and cowardly Dems took ACORN down. Stop reading things into what I write that aren’t there!
Dood, you done took a wrong turn somewhere…!
You must be a Newbie…!
Btw, Aloha…! ;-)
I think it was a simple misunderstanding.
Oh you have got to tell us what you would do?? Yeah, I know Iraq had nothing to do with it, but surrender??
Do you have some evidence that he was even trying to change that agency or any other? I still haven’t forgotten Dawn Johnsen swaying in the breeze.
Totally right…no difference…they are all part of the same soulless cabal that worship money and power and sublimation of the serfs…and they are really scary because they own it all except our souls and they are working on that also!
If I dress in nomex will it protect me from the Austin heat in August?
Nope – you’ll still get Schweddy Balls
Well, for one I wouldn’t have surrendered my civil liberties or created homeland secret police or any number of other things. Terrorists want us to change our way of life, that’s what they do. How do you define “surrender”? Please stop deliberately misrepresenting what I write.
Oooh, I like Schweddy wieners….
I don’t suppose you play any golf…
Greatest threat is internet interference.
I guess you are just too cynical for my taste. Who is going to fix whatever you see as wrong? It will not magically repair itself. Some of us thought O was our best shot and still do. If it is beyond him then we need someone else. At the moment I don’t see anyone else capable. So yeah, I still support him. Magical thinking won’t work, of that I am sure.
I thought so too initially but now I’m beginning to think that Bluetoe12 has an axe to grind. Perhaps the misunderstanding lies in the belief that I’m expected to blindly support Democrats because that’s what they call themselves, regardless of how they behave.
Oh, hunny…
BTW – Swopa upstairs with nekkidandorshirtless staffers and such
Actually, I put nothing past Obama. Who knows, maybe we will have debtors prisons before he’s gone. Where to engage? I’m not sure what it is for you. Until we’ve got a real movement, I don’t know. My next step is to support the Jewish flotilla headed for Gaza. I vote tomorrow in runoff elections for the local school district and community college boards. Maybe if the school district candidate wins and ever goes to the state board, we’ll see a resurgence of sanity at the Texas Board of Education.
Loo Hoo
Agree! Let them keep their stinkin hands off the last pillar of open speech!
I would suppose that surrender happens when you give up. I don’t think we gave up. You may not like what we did, but it was not surrender. Again, what would you do?
So? Who said you shouldn’t support him? Do yourself a favor before you alienate even more people and look back through the comments and assure yourself that I have never suggested you are any less for supporting him. No, I said that I didn’t see any difference. I’ve never found fault with YOU for believing in him. Unlike what you have done to me, I have never judged you. In fact, I’ve been nothing if not polite about it, despite your determination to pick a fight with me. You’ve only damaged your own credibility I’m afraid.
Well, between the Wall St opps, and the BP accident, the “elites in charge” are doing a heck of a lot more damage than Osama Bin Laden.
When can we start two stupid wars to round up and get rid of the “elites”?
not he, she. we’ve actually met. you and me and texas betsy all had lunch one day at triumph cafe.
Sanity and the Texas Board of Ed do not sound synonymous. Crazy stuff they are pushin. I am with ya on the Gaza support! As far as the real movement, that would take an awakened and engaged populace and I really do not see that on the horizon…
peace…
Sorry. I’m usually much more careful when I don’t know someone’s gender but when somebody is unfairly trying to pick a fight with me, I sometimes get in a hurry. Again, sorry.
Hilarious!
Really? Are you certain it was me? What year would that have been? Not being snarky but I’ve met a lot of people and I honestly don’t remember.
We could probably agree on a few dems who should take a very long vacation. But, yeah, I do tend to support the majority of them because the alternative is usually a disaster. The party of NO just won’t cut it for me. Sorry, I am a partisan that way. did I mention I even like O?
Yep! We sat outside at Triumph Cafe on Spicewood Springs Road and the three of us stayed and talked for quite a while after we finished eating. It was the first time either Texas Betsy or I had met you. Only time for me that I met you. Do you remember meeting Texas Betsy? She may have been in a wheelchair. I don’t remember if she was using it that day. I seem to think not.
It might have been maybe two years ago. I don’t think you’d been commenting very long at that point here at the Lake.
I worked for Obama. Hell, I used my gasoline to drive people without cars to the pols for Obama. I was also never under the illusion that Obama was some wonderful progressive savior. I was four square behind him until it became apparent that he was more interested in being “bi-partisan” than he was in passing good legislation. Maybe you can afford to still support him but after 17 months of unemployment with no end in sight, I can’t.
Nope, I don’t remember a wheelchair. Would this have been around 2005 or maybe 2006? Gosh, I’m really sorry but I know exactly where Spicewood Springs Road is, I used to work very close to it. Did Texas Betsy use a different pseudonym at the time? I used to know a bunch of people in Austin though, that’s for sure. I’m sorry that I’m having trouble remembering you.
17 months is not all that long when you look at the trouble he had and still has and an impossible congress to deal with, and we have no viable alternative in sight to replace him. Hell, 4 years is not long enough in my view. Someone said politics is the art of the possible. But within that some things are impossible. So we can disagree on that. Unemployment lasted all through the 30s and only ended with WW2. I expect we will have high unemployment for years to come. We had a complete and utter financial collapse. We are lucky not to see bread lines and I mean that seriously. But that is another argument. This oil spill did not help either. Bastards should be in jail. Yeah, I am a little partisan about O.
The Great Depression only lasted that long because Roosevelt bowed to the deficit hawks in 1936. A mistake that Obama seems bent on repeating.
He has done nothing to earn your support, unless you are a banker or shareholder in insurance, pharma, or some other corporate entity. Make excuses for him all you like. It’s not that he has fought the good fight and failed, he sold us out from the very beginning.
Right, and what is Pearl Harbor if not preemptive war? Pearl Harbor, now our national policy.
I used to be sad that my dad, a farm kid who joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor, died in 2007, before Bush left office. Maybe I should be sad instead that he lived so long.
or an assassin, don’t forget these boom times for assassins
Bingo! He started the health care debate by taking single payer off the table. he started the energy debate by allowing offshore and deep water drilling. He always negotiates from weakness, not strength.
I confess to being out of that loop.
What gives you the idea that I’m defending those who attacked Pearl Harbor? I’m praising the response, not the assault.
Debtors prisons…. mmmmm healthcare
What gives you the idea that I’M defending those who attacked Pearl Harbor? I’m sick that it’s now our national policy is what I said, and that my dad, who joined the Navy in response to Pearl Harbor and then served 30 years, lived to see it.
Never mind.
Me too. (Where do they come from? Didn’t they have mothers?)
Poem by the mother of a Green Beret:
Wonder if this festival will actually happen this year?
Louisiana Shrimp and Petroleum Festival
Eli:
You might want to learn more about this oil rig.
Concerns over another BP oil rig in the Gulf
Late to this game but Eli, fuckin bless ya and fuck them if they can’t take the truth.
Great read . . . wish I’d read comments, but I gotta go catch up on too much.
Eil Rawhks. End of story.
Perfect.
btw, your list of negligences could be compared side by side with the one bmaz made here in BP Criminals in the Gulf, and please note too that Jason Leopold at truthout has been covering the CRIMINAL acts of BP and the failure of govt regulators, in reports such as Ex-EPA Officials: Why Isn’t BP Under Criminal Investigation? (one of several he’s done).
In the federal waters soiled by the spill, strict liability, an absolute duty to make safe applies. People dead, billions in capital losses, the largest environmental disaster in US history…sounds like somebody is in trouble.
But wait, what are those snoring sounds at our Justice Department?
That’s right, Holder has yet to even ask the court to establish an escrow account.
The good news is that BP’s PR guys went ahead and made one anyway. Score: BP 1, Justice 0.
Accident? This is a questionable proposition because some banksters seemed to know that catastrophe was coming.
http://www.pocketfives.com/f13/goldman-sachs-dumps-44%25-its-bp-stock-weeks-before-oil-rig-disaster-586150/
Either these Wall Street folks had an extraordinarily good understanding of BP’s Deepwater Horizon project or inside information that disaster was (literally) a good bet.
The next corporate killing waiting to be made is buying up the Gulf shoreline after the natives are forced to abandon their homes (by toxins, local economic collapse and/or government edict).
From my perspective, it looks like yet more “Disaster Capitalism” for Louisiana.
Apply a legal analysis.
1. Was there a duty?
ANSWER: Yes. BP, Transocean, and Halliburton each had a duty to exercise reasonable care to avoid causing injury to others.
2. Was anyone injured?
ANSWER: Yes.
Eleven people were incinerated in the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig.
3. Did BP, Transocean, or Halliburton breach their respective duties to exercise reasonable care and, if so, did the breach proximately cause the eleven deaths (i.e., but for their conduct would the explosion have occurred and were the deaths a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the explosion)?
ANSWER: Yes, as to BP. Unclear, but likely as to Transocean and Halliburton.
Vidrine was BP’s employee and the “company man” with the authority to make the decisions that resulted in the blowout. He made the decisions and gave the orders to cap the well and replace the drilling mud with seawater in violation of industry wide safety procedures developed over many years to prevent blowouts, procedures that included various tests checking the cement job. Whether Halliburton and Transocean proximately caused the deaths remains to be seen. I lack sufficient information to answer this question now, but this is the legal test that will be applied to definitively answer the question. The apparent failure of the cement job by Halliburton and the defective condition of the blowout preventer (BOP) likely constitute joint proximate causes of the explosion that killed the eleven men.
4. Were the people who proximately caused the explosion employed by one of the three companies and were they acting within the scope of their employment when the explosion occurred?
ANSWER: Yes.
6. Are there any damages?
ANSWER: Yes, eleven men died.
7. Are there any defenses?
ANSWER: No defenses are apparent, although the companies might claim the victims’s conduct contributed to causing their deaths. That might reduce the amount of damages.
CONCLUSION: BP is liable for the wrongful death of the eleven men because of the negligent conduct of Vidrine, its employee. Transocean and Halliburton probably also are liable. Each corporation that is liable will be jointly and severally liable for all of the damages. This means that, although damages might be apportioned as to the three companies, each will be responsible for the whole amount, if on or both of the other companies defaults on its obligation.
A Workmen’s Compensation statute would simplify this process by requiring the employer companies to pay survivor claims, but the amount of compensation might be limited to a flat fee.
There is another potential basis for liability, which is strict liability, but I don’t want to get too technical, so I’m going to skip it.
Many others have been injured economically by the blowout and they should be contacting lawyers and discussing lawsuits. The standard negligence analysis that I described is a useful measuring device of any potential claim. Assuming liability, all reasonably foreseeable damages should be compensable.
But what about the damage to the Gulf of Mexico? It’s not a person and it lacks standing to sue, according to common law, and the same is true of all of its life forms.
Ecuador has been embroiled in a long legal fight with Chevron over an horrific spill in eastern Ecuador’s Amazon region that is the subject of the documentary film, Crude, with which some of you may be familiar. I believe Ecuador is the only country in the world that has a provision in its constitution which recognizes that the earth itself has legal rights that must be protected and enforced. We would do well to do the same.
BP’s actions establish to a reasonable scientific certainty that free market economics do not work.
Right on Cujo
On Saturn’s moon Titan the seas are made of Hydrocarbons ..just like Earth soon it seems.