The US Coast Guard has confirmed that an oil spill has indeed ensued after the Louisiana drilling platform explosion which claimed 11 lives. Suspicions now grow that Deepwater Horizon may have deliberately scuttled the damaged offshore rig yesterday lest images of the inevitable spill would depict the cause, reigniting the damning imagery that has long tarred oil industry efforts to pollute America’s coasts with the hazardous rigs. Instead of seeing a platform atop a massive oil slick, the public will see a despoiled patch of undefined size and origin; lacking a structure from which viewers could derive the disaster’s scale, or the felonious facility to damn for the deed.
Not My Tribe
The Myth of Middle Ground
Impacts locally too. They’ve been drooling for decades over the shale oil that’s just being wasted, held hostage by those damned ol’ Hippie Conservatives who insist that poisoning all the water in the Front Range would somehow poison all the water downhill, thus downstream, from the Front Range.
But on a more clearly stated note, they’ve demonstrated that all the Laissez Faire, Unregulated Capitalism “marketplace protections” that the Invisible Hand would provide, like the Richest would seriously make sure that Worker Safety and Environmental Protection and Not Destroying the Ecosystem, the base of the Economic System, they would all fall in place because the Richest have “enlightened self interest” and would do the right thing simply because their children and grandchildren would be suffering right along with ours if they do the Wrong Thing.
That they consistently do the Wrong thing, and do it with an in-your-face hubris worthy of a third world dictator shows that they really DO care for their own descendants every bit as much as they do ours. Which is, unfortunately, not at all.
So much for Social Darwinism.
It might turn up something interesting if Deepwater were investigated as to which corporate umbrella covers it.
A LOT of Halliburton affiliates and associates use a compound word involving “water” like Tidewater Oil and Blackwater International.
Tidewater is officially a Halliburton subsidiary. Blackwater is supposedly not. But I would bet a dollar (unlike Wall Street I can’t bet other people’s money, I’m not filthy stinking rich… although when I do work I get the filthy stinking part…) but a dollar and a half eaten donut says that if you examined the top 100 investors in each you would see a more than 50% similarity.
Richard Cheney, not-very-former CEO of Halliburton, used the “1% probability” lie to push for war against Iraq and is still using it pushing for war against Iran, and still denying that it has anything to do with his much more than 1% affiliations with the Oil Industry.
A fancier metaphor than one bad apple spoiling the whole bunch.
But the 1% irrational rationalization is used to seize the assets of OTHER organizations with far more tenuous and far less actual ties to Terrorism than his comrades.
I’d make a similar bet that every one of the Shale Oil mini-corporations here locally has the same ties.
More than just a spill. The holes from which they were extracting the oil are
leakinghemorrhaging oil. Coast Guard says they’ll need to use robot submarines to seal the “leaks”.Place your bets, gentlemen, how much would you care to wager that the Oil Corporation is registered in an offshore (oooffhh… that’s an analogy to ponder) nation like Nigeria where the U.S. courts aren’t going to be able to gain a settlement for the next decade or so, and theres a further wager that the blame will be placed on one of the dead workers, whose family will have to pay billions of dollars to cover the cost of clean-up?
As Brother Jonah and reader Ed cheerlead for President Obomber on this blug, this oil slick is headed onto the Gulf Coast just days after the beloved Democratic Supreme CHANGER called for yet more off shore oil drilling to start up. Now we get to see Obomber’s ‘Katrina’ occurring, and will any of his fan club out there respond to the tar and feathering about to take place?
Well shucks,,, Folks??? It would have been worse if Sarah Palin was calling on God to do the cleanup, wouldn’t it? I vote for the Democrats no mattuh what! I love them Donkeys! Now let’s not hold up our increased drilling, White House! And let’s get them nukes fired up, too! Bombs Away!
So, the oil slick is my fault? If anything, Obama surrendering to the Big Oil lobby would be kind of sorta precisely the opposite of the Big Bad Oligarch Dictator that both Right AND Left have said.
End war immediately? sure, easy, with a little application of Non-Democracy.. That would be special.
A true Dictator would have to actually, you know, Dictate.
As it is, really Stupid People in groups and armed keep threatening to cap off anybody who opposes them, including you, me, and by coincidence Obama.
In a case where a little benign dictatorship would seem almost sane, instead the Ku Klux Klown are allowed to take over an entire park in just about any city in America, try to forbid anybody who disagrees with them to even enter, and, after threatening the “dictator” with Death by all kinds of unpleasant means not only walk around free, but bring guns into crowds like the TeaBag rallies at Acacia Park, right next to churches, schools, day care centers, and of course the Park itself.
Yeah, man, that’s a Real Stalin we have on our hands there, yup.
Now, if I was the president of Dese United States, aside from live on ‘lasses candy and swing on all de gates, I’d probably go overboard just a little bit, and actually use the police powers to keep the Large Groups of Heavily Armed Stupid People from continuing to threaten my own personal life.
Guess that’s why they don’t let me be president.
So, should I, and according to exactly whose rules, cheer for him Not being a dictator or condemn him for Not Being a Dictator?
Of course the choices aren’t that simple. But you’re making them sound that simple.
Apparently I’m not even allowed to praise a little progress, which by the way wasn’t done entirely by either Obama in particular or the Democratic Party in general, but by congressmen who for once listened to People over Big Money. If I say, “hey, for at least this one time the representatives actually represented” then I’m a sycophant, an acolyte and a priest of the Obama Cult.
If it sounds stupid to you that I would perceive it as such, imagine that.
It sounded kind of confused when it was presented to me like that in much harsher tones.
Joanha asks me if…
Who said that it was your fault, Jonah? You’re too busy praising Obomber and his Democratic Party drones for you to have actually been out there with the British Petroleum Advertising or Drilling folk to have had a direct hand in this nasty spill.
Oh NO! WHO except totalitarian thugs such as myself would expect YOUR President, Barack to do anything immediately (like end the Iraqi and Afghanistan occupations?), Jonah, when he’s so busy, continuing things the way they are with your enthusiastic support, it would seem?
And besides, he’s too busy protecting impatient me and noble Brother J from physical attacks by armed fascist thugs!
What would we do without him, BJ? You and I are marching under protection of General Obomber protecting us from armed Tea Baggeers who have already formed a fascist ARMED militia right here in Colorado Springs and are out to march on to your apartment and lynch poor little you from the nearest branch! Boo-hoo-hoo…. I don’t want them to do that to you, Oh Brother J! I don’t!
Uh, what particular ‘progress were you praising when I unfairly ever so unfairly suggested that you were just a little too cozy in bed with Obomber, Jonah? Was it the big OFFSHORE oil spill?Or was it continuing to hide Pentagon prisoners away in hidden torture chambers that Brother Dick set up for the American people to have something to cheer on in their wet dreams? Wait! You said it was progress from ‘congressmen who for once listened to People over Big Money.’ The Health Care Deform! Is that what you are falling down on your knees down here and praying to the Donkey God’s about? They have saved the insurance biz for you and what ‘progress’ that is!
I am so sorry that I am getting in the way of you cheering on ‘progress’, Brother J. How could I? Ed was right! I’m just shameless nasty this way. Why can’t I find donkey love, too? I can if I just really really try!
No, it was me that was confused, Brother Jonah! Thanks to you straightening us now all out, I now am growing to love the ‘progress’ that President Obomber is delivering us as he protects us from armed Tea Bagger terrorists who are gunning to get [people like you, I, and even the Big Boss himself. What was I thinking? Eric says that if I just listen careful to what you write, that I will see just how profoundly wise yout words are?
So that’s what you are doing… ‘cheering Obomber for NOT Being a Dictator’? Good Lord! So that why you have that short dress on and the pom poms in your hands and are always jumping up and down shouting…
You are cheerleading for the team? I didn’t know that? You’re cheering for the Donkey King for he is not a dictator! How wise you are, Brother Jonah. I’ll never say another bad word about what you’re doing, now that I got it clear just how utterly progressive you surely are. Sorry that I could be so rude to you. I definitely don’t want a nasty dictatorship either. Thank Allah and God both that we have Obomber on OUR side? What would we do without him? What could we do? Now, thanks to Obomber, I can go get my rabies shots required by our new medical insurance plan, the Obomber Health Deform Act.