Rigoletto ... cried like he always does upon Ann Marie’s return from work ... but he ate like a champ again today and was up on all four legs for a little while before his hind legs gave. He seems stabilized to us (his sugar and everything else). We love having him home ... at least until next week when we all go through it all over again in anticipation of his surgery.
The BP thing … the fact emails were released about the BP disaster in Houston a few years back showing how it was more a Public Relations concern than remorse over the death of 15 workers and/or injuries to 100 others is pretty telling in itself (without the countless violations BP has been cited for at every U.S. location). The fact they’ve been lying to the public (and maybe the government; not that anybody there seems to have cared) since their April 20th disaster (during which 11 died and as of a week ago, BP officials hadn’t contacted the families of those killed) suggests nothing much has changed. The fact Tony Hayward looked so smug while congratulating his colleagues upon leaving the White House the other day suggests BP sold The One yet another bridge (according to the Wall Street Journal, BP shares surged after the $20 billion deal was announced). Now, we’ll have to wait and see whether or not they come close to doing anything they claim they’ll do regarding compensation and/or whether or not they’ll be able to corral 90% of the gushing oil by the end of June (perhaps they think it’ll run dry by then), but there’s no doubt that BP has elevated the idea of deregulation to a new level of insanity.
Now, we don’t think Obama is doing anything bad on purpose. We simply think he’s in over his head and is looking every bit as feeble as did George Bush during and after Katrina. There is something to the idea of actually working for a living. George had Daddy to give him work (and he failed at nearly all of it). Obama had his charm and good lawyers to obtain his first political position; his lawyers managed to have the incumbents he would’ve had to run against disqualified on petition technicalities (they obtained printed names rather than signatures ... or vice versa).Whatever Obama’s problem, it is yet another sign of government incompetence and I don’t say that easily because zero regulation can only be worse than what we’ve had from BP across the board. The real problem for me is the double dynamic of business running roughshod (using bribes and whatever else they did to avoid genuine regulation and/or render “regulation” useless) and then the government’s inability to a) seat people who won’t be corrupted so easily and b) act in a competent manner when something does go wrong.
Still, this Obama tidbit is frightening: “This is not just a matter of dollars and cents” for a region upended by the spill, Mr. Obama, who returned Tuesday from a fourth tour of the coast, said he had told Mr. Svanberg. “I emphasized to the chairman,” he said, “that when he’s talking to shareholders, when he is in meetings in his boardroom, to keep in mind those individuals — that they are desperate, that some of them, if they don’t get relief quickly, may lose businesses that have been in their families for two or three generations. And the chairman assured me that he would keep them in mind.”
The Chairman of BP assured him? Sounds like a new bridge to nowhere to me.
At this point, if Obama is “assured” by anyone from BP, it is beyond naive ... it is nothing short of stupid.
And from the other side of the aisle we get Redistribution and Shakedowns ...
Well, not that Shakedown ... this one:
From Gail Collins’ NY Times column we get this jewel from the right wing of the aisle: And the ever-popular Representative Michele Bachmann denounced the BP restitution fund as “redistribution of wealth” and “one more gateway for government control.”
Redistribution of wealth? Is this broad always this batshit?
As for Congressman Joe Barton ... this genius is calling the $20 billion compensation fund a White House “shakedown” (good title for a crime novel, by the way). A United States taxpayer paid representative apologized to BP for being held negligibly responsible for the catastrophe they caused.
He apologized ...
Which is why we come back to the Generalissimo Knucks way of handling these things. The rewards these SOB’s get (whether they give themselves the financial rewards or take them from us) merits a likewise risk when they are proven corrupt. Knucks says once we can prove them to have acted in a criminal manner, we line them up and shoot them.
I know, I know, that’s too radical for someone who is supposed to be so liberal, but I never said I’m a fool. I’m only liberal where it makes sense (equal rights, healthcare, education, workers rights) and letting these thieves make fools of us over and over again doesn’t make sense (think back to the PR emails after BP’s 2005 Houston explosion).
So, line them up and shoot them. If for no other reason, how about the look on Tony Hayward’s face when his smug grin gets to deal with the fact the line he’s standing on isn’t for the imported from Japan fish buffet …
And as for Mr. Obama and his Presidency of Change We Can Believe In … well, TK has long felt it’s time for both major parties to take a long needed hike and Obama has proven our point, especially coming on the heels of Dubbya. They are indeed two faces of incompetence from two different worlds, (somebody say Harvard & Yale?) but make no mistake, Obama sold out to privilege and only talks about what the left wants to hear (he abandoned them the day of his inauguration). In fact, talk seems to be all he ever does.
The problem with the Democratic left is they’re way too willing to listen to his bullshit and won’t even consider walking away from him come election time. For people who like to throw the idea that we’re too guided by our “fear” (i.e., we let the fear of terrorism rule our lives), they sure seem “afraid” to abandon that “lesser of two evils” concept and vote for someone who didn’t have to sell out to become part of a machine that operates by big business, for big business (and one has to wonder what the founding fathers would think about that rewriting of their constitution).
My feeling is Obama is one and done, but there’s as good a chance we’ll be stuck with this clown another four years as a Republican clown will win and take his place. But seriously, amici, what’s the difference? Six of one, half a dozen of the other … or as Mr. Marx used to say (Groucho, not Karl), “One for all and all for me and me for you and three for five and six for a quarter.”
—Knucks
And the DOC says ...
Hey Chaz,
I’m glad to hear that Rigatoni is doing better. Maybe I’m clairvoyant, but I had a feeling that the whole air mattress strategery wasn’t going to work out. You see, most air mattresses are made for those “small people” that the head of BP was so concerned about. You need more of an industrial grade air mattress; Like the ones the stuntmen use when they fall off a building.
And yes, Charles, it is a slush fund. As we speak, ACORN is loading up buses with miscreants and heading down to Louisiana. Along the way they will pick up sailor hats and “Gorton Fisherman” rain outfits for everyone. This will be the same clusterf*ck we had after Katrina. In six months we’ll find out that half the money went for lap dances and tattoos.
If I was a homeless person I would buy an old sea captain’s hat, soak it in motor oil and head down to the Gulf coast. I would stroll in to the nearest FEMA office and tell them the heart wrenching tale of how my $100,000 fishing boat was sucked into God’s own hell of an oil slick and was never seen again. I loved that boat. I called it “Obama’s Dream” and now I’m penniless. Ka-ching! Ka-ching!
To top it off, the disbursements of the $20 Billion will be handled by Obama’s “Pay Czar”… no chance of chicanery there.
After the oil first started leaking the head of the Minerals and Mining Agency either quit or was fired (Fredo wasn’t sure which), so he has appointed a new one. Fortunately, this one is a Harvard lawyer. Now, nobody knows more about offshore, deep-water drilling then those Harvard law school types. I know we can rest assured that this kind of accident will never happen again since we now have a preppy shyster overseeing the oil rigs.
Have a great weekend, Chazman
Doc
PS: “The Oil Song” is from 1979. I had the 45. You can explain what a 45 is to the amicis.
