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| FromAlbum3 |
Unfortunately things aren’t looking any better off the Gret Stet coast;just the opposite, in fact:
NEW ORLEANS — Government officials said late Wednesday night thatoil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates.
Meanwhile, BP admits that they can’t control the leak themselves and are asking for help from wherever they can get it…including the US military.
Do so-called “small government” advocates really think we should “let the private sector” handle this potential economic and ecological catastrophe? Or do they think the money is “better spent” on unconstitutional laws all but forcing police in Arizona to arrest “those people”…andshameful laws in Oklahoma designed for the sole purpose of humiliating women exercising their constitutional right to choose?
And what sort of compensation will we get from BP/Haliburton and their insuraance companies for the destruction of our fuckin’ coastline? Yeh, you think Mary, Diaper Dave and Bobby Jindal are gonna do a thing?
We’ll be waiting decades for a partial payment, just thike the poor slaps in Alaska did. Bye-bye coastline, offshore fishing out of Venice, Delcambre shimp fleet, Gulf “Ersters.”
By definition, corporations are amoral. They must be regulated and severly punished every time they cross a legal/moral/ethical line. The potential for losing VAST amounts of money is the only thing that can keep a corporation in check. THE only thing.
I’d have State troopers seize all of BP’s and Haliburton’s (and others’ involved) assets in the entire state before they pack up their tents and move to Costa Rica.
Immediately after seizing the assets of those pillaging corporations, a lawsuit should be filed, along with seeking an injunction to stop all offshore drilling until this case is settled. This makes Obama’s decision to allow more off shore drilling look even more stupid.
My hope is that BP will be driven into bankruptcy by this.
Since not one, but two, National Wildlife Refuges are threatened, the Federal government should put BP out of commission.
Every person practicing in the field of “public relations” has been/will be schooled in the Exxon Valdez incident. BP’s excellent immediate response proves that.
That quick response doesn’t cost so much money, and BP doesn’t look like an oil-sucking monster. At first.
Good, quick PR buys BP time to consider its options and make plans to wriggle out of as much monetary cost as it can.
Eventually, BP will blame the dead workers. BP will blame its live workers. BP will blame the makers of its drilling platform and equipment. It will blame safety regulations. It will even blame Haliburton.
In 7 to 10 years it will battle in the courts and will have paid about one-tenth of any fine/penalty levied.
While in court, BP will be bought/merged/liquidated/broken up. The new “owner(s)” will not be found liable for the extensive, long-term damages to my (and Bobby Jindal’s) state, or Haley Fuckin’ Barbour’s state or Crist/Rubio’s state, or Rick Fuckin Perry’s state, or Whoeverthefuck’s the gov of Alabama’s state.
And these Republitard assholes will be OK with that. The people will get screwed, all the corporate slap-dicks will remain enormously rich and all these governors will be lobbying for Goldman Sucks for $750,000 per year.
And they’ll demand tax breaks.
As pointed out above, who is gonna pay for the environmental damage? A la Exxon Valdez, can you really clean up the damage?
Is the military gonna give the well owners a bill for their services? As a precedent, the govt is, in some cases, billing the people they save for the costs of the Search and Rescue.
The link to Oklahoma is outrageous. It lists several laws that don’t have a chance in hell of being upheld by the courts (and also covers that the state is very likely to have to pay not only for the State’s legal work but also for the legal work of the people challenging the law.).
The item that caught my eye was a law that would affect firearms made in Oklahoma and remained in Oklahoma. Although this may sound like it gets around the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution, they obviously haven’t read up on how the Supreme Court has applied the clause.
I should have added, when I was a kid growing up, Lester Maddox was known for not allowing blacks in his Pickrick Restaurant. He was also known for selling axe handles at the restaurant.
He argued that he only served chickens raised in Georgia. The courts ruled that although the chickens may have been Georgia chickens, they ate grain from other states. Therefore it fell under Interstate Commerce.
Remember when Barack Obama and the GOPers screaming “Drill Baby Drill” assured us this could NEVER EVER happen?
Inspires me with confidence about the whole nuclear plant thing, really.
Stupid motherfuckers.
too depressing to think about. i just imagine the gas pump’s loss BP is suffering with pleasure. boy, fighting more ability to stop this from happening looks EVER SO BRILLIANT NOW.
Inspires me with confidence about the whole nuclear plant thing, really.
and the new offshore wind farm, which is an environmental disaster waiting to happen to begin with
Of course any form of energy has inherent dangers involved. Coal has cost thousands of lives of miners, many more thousands of lives due to air polution, etc. Windmill farms kill lots of birds. Solar power farms are dangerous to wildlife in the area. Oil – well, that should be obvious. Nuclear is also dangerous, but I’m not yet convinced that it is an order of magnitude more dangerous than the other forms of energy.
Maybe we should just reduce our dependence on energy? Wow, that almost sounds like I’m a dirty socialist.
I’m also wondering when Govs. Jindal, Perry and Barbour will be calling out the Republitard Teabaggers to protest “socialized oil-spill-disaster cleanup.”
Maybe we can farm out the work to BP, Haliburton, etc., and pay them tens of billions to do a shitty job cleaning up the coastlines.
Also wondering how many tar balls I’ll encounter when I hit the Perdido beach in June. Fun, fun! That was a nice tourism economy you had there, Redneck Riviera. You’ll eventually get used to brown sand…
There was a mining accident in Kentucky today. HuffPo also records the hissyfit of a mining industry spokesweasel, re: West Virginia. Both items on the a day where we wait for a completely preventable oil slick to kit the Gulf Coast. I may throw up the next time I see one of those commercials where gloved hands wash ducklings.
Windmill farms kill lots of birds.
In particular large raptors. Also bats.
They also produce massive amounts of low frequency noise. While the negative side effects of prolonged exposure of humans to low frequencies from neighboring wind farms has been pretty well documented, there has not been enough conclusive research done on the longterm effects of persistent low frequncies on animals, particularly on marine mammals (whales). The Stellwagen Bank off Cape Cod is critical territory for North American whales.
But even the most well-reasoned opposition to wind turbines gets tossed aside as just rich people NIMBY bullshit by dimwits who haven’t paid any attention.
My 2 cents: all those assholes who were chanting “Drill, Baby, Drill!” along with Moose-o-lini should be paddling around the gulf in cheap canoes with paper towels to mop that shit up