Gulf of Mexico

I can hardly believe there's no comment on this catastrophe, unless I missed it. When the fuck are those motherfuckin BP pricks gonna plug that fuckin hole? Lying bastards! This is a disaster of the first order..a disaster never before seen in the history of the United States. The damage done by these corporate scumbags passes any damage done to this country even in wartime. This really pisses me off! A bunch of money hungry assholes have virtually destroyed our whole Gulf Coast because of their greed. These "people" should be brought up on criminal charges and prosecuted...I don't give a shit where they're from. This is an unbelieveable assault against our country, a travesty fueled by pure greed. These people should be made to clean up the mess if it takes every dollar they have, and then go away forever.

Why stop at BP?

One day the full story of this disaster will be told, but that will take a while. First it will be necessary to stop this leak: I know the communities around the Gulf coast of Louisiana, Alabama and Florida are frustrated by the lack of a clean up operation, but you can't even start to clean it up until the source has been sealed.

Your attack on BP and its executives is thoroughly deserved brian. But here's a couple of things to ponder on.

• Until the mess is cleaned up (it'll take years), the USA and the people around that polluted coast will actually need BP to finance and organise the operation. The US government will not manage this without the money and the other resources of BP.
• The target identification shouldn't stop at BP. There should be a detailed look at the prostitution of the US political system to Big Business and especially to Big Oil. How many politicoes echoed Sarah Palin and parotted that imbecile slogan, "Drill, baby, drill?" Every single senator, governor or congressman who ever said this should be out on his/her ear at the next ballot. The question should also be seriously asked of them: "OK, now that we know you are a whore, we want you to tell us what the price was."

I see no reason why BP should carry the can alone.

I see your point, scounds, but try telling that to the thousands of people who's livings have been demolished by this catastrophe. Sure, like many areas of American politics the lobbyists and special interests are hard at work, as they've always been. And yes, the regulatory overseers have been in bed (literally) with their subjects. But in the final tally, I can't see anyone worthy of the lion's share of the blame except for BP. Let's face it, this is nothing more than the usual story of corporate greed that we've become much too familiar with. The only difference being..in this case, they gambled not only with money, but with the environmental consequences of a major disaster, as it seems to be their history of doing.

I agree about the Sarah Palin tea party assholes causing much of the groundswell for drilling, of course. But the tea party isn't in power now, as much as they'd like to be. President Obama's ban of offshore drilling is hardly a sign of approval for the oil industry. This administration is clearly for alternative sources of power. Progress may be painfully slow, with so many other issues on the plate, but do not for a moment think that the agenda has been pushed aside. Our President is in no way aligned with the oil industry, as our last president was.

I have to conclude, therefore, that besides any mitigating factors, that the lion's share of the blame still has to rest on BP, based on the obvious evidence of past disasters, their history of many infractions of the rules, and the obvious record of cutting corners to save money in spite of the consequences to the environment. Come on..it's just corporate greed, once again.

You can't call BP a scapegoat when in fact they were the ones who actually did it. They'll be made to suffer for this one for years to come and that's quite alright. But I would extend this argument somewhat: BP's real mistake was to screw up so royally off the coastline of the most powerful country in the world. If they did this somewhere in the developing world, no-one would bring them to book. After 25 years, the heirs and successors of Union Carbide Inc, who killed more than 15,000 people in the Bhopal Disaster, have shamefully fobbed off their victims with compensation which would barely pay for my car to be serviced. This is fairly typical of neo-colonialism practised by multinational corporations worldwide. Our first world governments knowingly collude in this. The American citizens who have been so badly affected by this shameful act of BP might also spare a thought for the citizens of Bhopal, who have never had redress and never will have.

This maybe the saddest thing I have ever seen:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hccreekkeeper#p/a/u/1/pxDf-KkMCKQ

It looks like BP may have killed the Gulf for a long time to come.

Well i wasn't gonna say anything but has anyone seen the movie "Knowing"? Apparently from now on anything major that happens in the world will be foretold by Hollywood.

Hey, why don't we let the Russians help us out?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10564798.stm

Let's learn something from all this.

mindido said:

This maybe the saddest thing I have ever seen:

http://www.youtube.com/user/hccreekkeeper#p/a/u/1/pxDf-KkMCKQ

It looks like BP may have killed the Gulf for a long time to come.

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I am pretty daunted by what I saw on this link. The scale is the stuff of nightmares. Of all the species of this planet, it is we humans who really foul our own nest. If we cannot learn from a disaster as bad as this one is, we do not deserve to survive. "Drill, baby, drill": this greed for resources (and tax streams) will be our undoing.

Vice President Biden did not oppose the propostion that America must drill more oil wells but he was the one urging the pursuit of alternatives and of energy conservation. Ms Palin was the one who openly declared that oil exploration was safe for the environment. Here is a transcript of the Vice-Presidential TV debate on 2nd October 2008. See page 14 and afterwards for Ms Sarah Palin's views on off shore oil exploration.
http://debate.wustl.edu/transcript.pdf

This shouldn't be made into a partisan issue if anything positive is really to be learned but the Republicans should eat some serious humble pie and stop trying to pretend this mess is Obama's fault. In return, the Democrats should have the common sense to say, "OK, let's sing from the same hymn sheet now, lets work together to fix this and to make damn sure the oil companies never do this to our people again, ever." This thing has happened, it must be dealt with. The blame game is only worth playing in so far as it can help us all to learn lessons, it isn't valuable to look for scapegoats and then carry on business as usual.

Sarah Palin has said a lot of idiotic things that a large portion of Americans seem to have either forgotten or simply ignore. I'm betting on the latter. You're right in ideal, it shouldn't be a partisan issue, but of course it is. It's the Republican view of small government that has led to so many disasters by means of deregulation in the last regime.

As far as them claiming it to be Obama's fault, well, that's just amazing, isn't it? When I first heard that one I was so stunned I had to remind myself to breathe. Yeah, come to think of it, I believe he had something to do with the Lindbergh baby, too.

Well, I've been away for a few days, but it's nice to return and see that these threads have gone...uh, fuckin nowhere. :computer:

Anyway, since most of you apparently have been shut off from the outside world, or are too busy beating your dicks to a bloody stub, it looks like BP has finally put a new cap in place that may finally do the job. Yay! :mrgreen: And that's a good thing, you know. Alright, continue pounding.:flipthebi

From the acute phase to the chronic.

Don't be counting any chickens quite yet Brian. BP have turned fucking up into an art form and it isn't certain that the "acute" phase of this catastrophe is over. I do hope it is.

Now, on the assumption that no more crude oil is going to be leaked into whatever is left of the ecosystem of the eastern Gulf of Mexico, it is imperative to throw everything possible at removing the oil slick from the sea. Not only is it a terrible poison there, it is also a time bomb. One severe on-shore hurricane, not even in the class of Catagory 3 Hurricane Catrina, will be enough to blow untold thousands of tonnes of crude oil onto the land, into the swamps of the Louisiana and Mississippi delta and cause damage which will not be reversed in our lifetimes. Every day counts. I'm not aware right now of anything BP is doing to start sucking this pollution out of the environment. They could probably help their own position by not only deploying all the effective technology they can lay their hands on, but also by being seen to be doing this. Urgency should be their watchword now instead of "Can't be arsed", the attitude which caused the spill in the first place.

The dismissal of their discredited CEO, Tony Hayward, to be replaced by an experienced senior oil executive who never worked for BP one day in his life before, would be an astute move as well. Hayward and his board should worry about worse things than the loss of career and pension. In President Obama's shoes, I'd bide my time but I would not want to leave office without having senior BP executives, probably includung Hayward, immured in a Federal prison for a seriously long time. Investigations to find out whose hands are dirty should be ongoing right now. I sincerely hope they are.

I agree completely, scounds, and yes, the Justice Dept. is looking into criminal charges as we speak. I don't see too many yacht races in Hayward's future. Also, the EPA has yet to levy the fines on BP for the oil released, which is something like $1100 a barrel, amounting to several billion dollars, besides the 20 billion put in escrow from BP for the clean-up. No, I think Obama's going to hold their feet to the fire on this one. I think when the dust settles Hayward will be lucky to get a job pumping gas at a BP station.

Brianwp said:

I agree completely, scounds, and yes, the Justice Dept. is looking into criminal charges as we speak. I don't see too many yacht races in Hayward's future. Also, the EPA has yet to levy the fines on BP for the oil released, which is something like $1100 a barrel, amounting to several billion dollars, besides the 20 billion put in escrow from BP for the clean-up. No, I think Obama's going to hold their feet to the fire on this one. I think when the dust settles Hayward will be lucky to get a job pumping gas at a BP station.

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Others as well as Hayward may have to carry the can. BP the corporation will also be followed around anywhere they go in the world by their newfound reputation. If for example deep ocean oil exploration drilling takes off in the waters off the Falkland Islands, a very stormy locale and a massively sensitive ecosystem adjacent to Antarctica, I can imagine that:

• Argentina, which fought and lost a war over its dispute with Great Britain over these waters, will make great play of the threat to her territorial waters from irresponsible British colonialist exploitation of Argentian natural resources.
• Environmental groups will vigorously oppose the drilling activity. Expect lots of pictures of Greenpeace rubber boats being fired at by water cannons.
• The Falklanders themselves, who stand to get very rich, will start to doubt the wisdom of trusting their pristine environment to oil companies

In such a case, not only would ostentatiously tough regulation by inspection be attractive to the politicians as a sop to public opinion, so also would a ban of blacklisted oil companies whose proven safety and pollution record was too bad to be swept under the carpet. BP will be the first name on any such list. Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee has already distanced itself from BP as a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympic Games, implying that if BP are proven to have been negligent over the Gulf spill, their status as sponsors will be considered again:
http://sify.com/news/bp-s-2012-lond...of-mexico-news-international-khstkdfbhaa.html

Reputation has no cash value on a company's balance sheet in their published annual accounts but for a world corporation such as BP it is a vital asset. BP have put short term greed ahead of their reputation and they will still rue the day, decades from now. No-one will ever forget this.

Now I read on the BBC website that we may be in danger of oil finding its way out via flaws in the bedrock. Just when I thought it could no longer get worse....

Well, say bye bye to Tony Hayward, and good riddance! Poor guy's only getting around $900,000 a year pension. Boo fuckin hoo. Of course he's already got 50 mil or so worth of stocks. I guess he can now get his life back. Cocksucker.

Brianwp said:

Well, say bye bye to Tony Hayward, and good riddance! Poor guy's only getting around $900,000 a year pension. Boo fuckin hoo. Of course he's already got 50 mil or so worth of stocks. I guess he can now get his life back. Cocksucker.

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Hay Brian, don't pull your punches. Say what you really think.:mallet:

I understand that Warren Anderson, the man who carries executive responsibility for the actions of the Union Carbide Corporation before, during and after the Bhopal disaster, now live the life of Riley. The USA has quite frankly harboured and protected him from justice. What Union carbide and Anderson did in India was a classic act of callous colonialism: I'm British, I should know. This doesn't mean you're wrong about Tony Hayward but it gravely weakens the USA's case if your Federal government wants to have a pound of flesh from Hayward.

Hayward is a British citizen and will probably go to live in a British territory. I would advise him not to live in Great Britain because British courts right now will extradite to the United States for the pleasure of being asked, under a one-sided extradition treaty between George W Bush and Tony Blair which I bitter oppose as unjust and also a prostitution of my country's national sovereignty by Tony Blair. But if it was applied to Tony Hayward I would simply say "karma."

However, since Hayward's oil well was in international waters, I would suggest the US Government should bring civil action against him personally in British courts. Equally, if criminal negligence can be traced back to him, he should face justice here in Britain as well, again because the crime was committed in international waters. BP has extensive commercial activities in US territory and in President Obama's position I would make no bones about saying I expect Tony Hayward to appear before Congressional hearings and I expect BP to answer all questions honestly and not to prevaricate or plead the 5th Amendment. Open and honest co-operation would probably lead to very humiliating admissions of wrong doing and extremely serious penalties but penalties which fall far short of the expropriation without compensation of BP's entire asset base in the USA. In Obama's position I would urgently enact legislation to enable expropriation as a possible sanction if BP (or Hayward) fail to co-operate. By the same token, he should re-open the case against Union Carbide and Warren Anderson and force them to deliver genuine help and compensation to the thousands of widows, orphans and horribly disfigured survivors of Bhopal, Those evil bastards have been gloating over what they got away with and have been laughing up their sleeves at the victims of Bhopal for more than 25 years. It's time for what went around to come around for them too.:breathefi

Prevaricate? Really? Do you honestly think anyone here knows what prevaricate means? Damn it, scounds, I'm a doctor, not an English professor!

Well, first of all, I don't know about the US wanting a pound of flesh from Hayward. I thought the criminal charges were just in the "maybe" stage. But you're probably right, we won't let this go.

And yes, Anderson did resist extradition, I can't say why. Bhopal was a terrible disaster, no doubt. All I can reason is that first of all, India accepted the compensation payment from Union Carbide, which as any first year law student knows effectively closes a case. And then there's the fact that the Bhopal operation was actually under Indian supervision. I'm not defending UC, it was an unbelievably horrible disaster, and still is. But in my opinion nothing more will ever come of it.

Tragedies and the repercussions of tragedies occur in the world all the time. Unfortunately justice doesn't always reign. In this case, it seems, like in your own past, that the advantage goes to the most powerful country in the world, which at the current time is the US. That doesn't make us right, but it does give us the edge. Plainly spoken, BP fucked with the wrong country, and they will pay for it.

have the most are those who will come out cheaper crime, is law of life, unfortunately

Brianwp said:

Well, first of all, I don't know about the US wanting a pound of flesh from Hayward. I thought the criminal charges were just in the "maybe" stage. But you're probably right, we won't let this go.

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I think corruption and lack of true democratic accountability in India probably saved Warren Anderson from justice and the poverty of his victims means no-one has been able to fly to America and choke him to death with hydrogen cyanide as he richly deserves. But I also think President Obama and also the state governors of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are democratically accountable and wouldn't dare to be bought off and that the people of the affected states will have Tony Hayward's balls and make them into toys for the parakeets in one of their state zoos.

And what a lovely pair of playthings they will make!

For the parakeets, I mean. :idea:

That didn't come out right..:fag: