A Year Later

What a difference a year makes!

BP is completely bankrupt after settling to clean and scrub all the oil out of the Gulf of Mexico, and for restitution for all the damage caused to the industries around the Gulf, and for the disease and health effects caused to the people in the region. The entire board was dissolved after the stockholders decided that the entire concern was insolvent - which was an afterthought since the entire board was brought up for crimes against humanity and tried at the Haig. Who knew the World Body would come together in such unity against the criminals who allowed such gross negligence in their operation.

And since the dangers of using unchecked resources were final realized, Americans got out of their cars, shunned all plastic goods and took a long walk. And they haven't stopped. Since oil prices fell to less than two dollars a barrel, the Middle East rulers went bankrupt and decided to stop fighting and worry about feeding and educating their people. After retooling to create shoes and bicycles, Ford and GM assembly lines are back into full gear, and ironically, a manufacturing base has returned to the United States. The obesity problem has been solved by all this exercise, and the life spans of the average American is going upward. In fact, unless you're reading this on a self powered internet device, it's probably going out to fall on blind eyes.

What an amazing, wonderful world that we live in, isn't it?

Documentary Review: The Spill

Expecting a play-by-play review of the Deep Water Horizon last night's FRONTLINE: The Spill | PBS [Watch streaming online] was instead a deep dive into the events and corporate culture that created the environment in which the Gulf Oil spill was just one of many disasters ready to pop.

Apparently, the investors and the Board of Directors were pence wise and pound foolish by cutting, across the board 25% of their operating cost. While this was great for pentioners depending on BP's stock dividends - the men on the ground and the antiquated equipment suffered. They suffered with safety failures that lead to death. Their systematic attitude that comes across is, "Why spend hard dollars on silly things like updating safety gear? It's not like there's been an accident!?"

The documentary uses Deep Water as the cherry pit on the moldy banana split that BP had created. I had the expectation of a play-by-play of a failed blow-out preventer, and instead the journalists got into the DNA of BP and the failure of a culture. I was pleasantly surprised, and then horrified by the misconduct of BP management and employees, let alone their complete disregard for overall safety of human life and consequences be damned... the plan was to just get the checkbook out after it happens... and then lowball it.

A dollar saved is a dollar on the balance sheet.

One of the episode’s strengths is footage found in BP’s own film library. In one sequence, newly-minted BP boss Hayward, speaking to business-school students, pretty much confesses to all of the company’s extant flaws and errors.

“He comes in and pledges that he’s going to correct all this,” Smith said. “He analyzed it correctly and had good intentions, and was by all accounts trying to do the right thing, but you essentially have a guy who’s trying to turn around the Titanic when it’s too late.”

Expecting to see Hayward come off as the media comic book villain - I was disappointed. They actually were able to show his, if not human, at least pragmatic sense of course correction. It's a study in his Public Relation's department that should show the failure of the image of the man -- that's a whole other doc, if you were to ask me.

I should also note that the documentary doesn't shy away from pointing out that the failure of the United States government to connect the dots also contributed to the Gulf spill.

Do give this a watch, it's worthy of your hour of attention.

BP School Yard Logic

In a cunning move, BP announced that unless the ban on drilling is lifted, they'll have no lunch money to give to the Big Bully Government.

BP, you'll remember spilled about 500 million gallons into the Big Bully's pool at a birthday party, and BP pledged that they'd pay to clean it up. Meantime, Big Bully said that BP couldn't come over anymore and play 'dig for oil' at their house anymore... something like that.

Comes down to this, BP won't pay unless they get to play.

Seems like there's still some swagger in BP's step? It's hard to side with either of these two characters - since they're both doo-doo heads wrecking everyone else's fun.

So instead - I'll note the reader response to this story lifted from NYTimes -- which, when I read it, reminded me that no one has ever made it through Atlas Shrugged or knows what's going on in Venezuela. This comment to Nationalize BP is as short sited, shrill and ignorant as anything ANYTHING I've seen on the Right-Kook-Fringe† side of the carpet for a long, long time. I say, ship this reader to Hugo, for a year. See if he still agrees with his little casual comment about nationalizing a company.

The Week In Review - Sunday Comics

See you next week folks