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Global Green has a video of the fishermen of Shell Beach, Louisiana, who know that the BP oil spill will probably soon put them out of business:
Anthony Greco III: I’ve been fishing all my life.
Robert Campo: I don’t have Type A blood, I’ve got type saltwater. My family’s been at this four generations.
Lindy LeBouef: That’s all I know how to do, is a commercial shrimper
Campo says the business has been in his family for over 100 years: it’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. LeBouf says he can carry himself for 5 months without going out of under. Meanwhile, according to the NYT, BP is using dispersants in the gulf that are made by a company with which it shares close ties, “even though other U.S. EPA-approved alternatives have been shown to be far less toxic and, in some cases, nearly twice as effective.”
When Salazar went to Louisiana earlier this week, Glynn Wilson of the Locust Fork News Journal followed him to Gator Lake for a press conference. Cameras followed Salazar as he put on waders helped workers place booms and dispersents, and assured them that BP was on the hook for all costs (6:30):
SALAZAR: We are committed that the United States of America will not spend any taxpayer money in terms of the removal or the cleanup or the compensation costs. Those are the responsibilities of British Petroleum under the law. Those are responsibilities that BP has assumed, that they have articulated they will be assuming.
In fact, when BP Chairman Larry McCay was questioned by Democrat Maria Cantwell in a Senate hearing, he refused to say:
LAMAR McKAY: We are paying legitimate claims right now, and so, yes, I am. And obviously we can’t keep from being sued, but, yes, we have said exactly what we mean. We’re going to pay the legitimate claims.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: OK, so if it’s a legitimate claim, a harm to the fishing industry, both short term and long term, you’re going to pay?
LAMAR McKAY: We’re going to pay all legitimate claims.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: If it’s an impact for business loss from tourism, you’re going to pay?
LAMAR McKAY: We’re going to pay all legitimate claims.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: To state and local governments for lost tax revenue, you’re going to pay?
LAMAR McKAY: Question mark.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: Long-term damages to the Louisiana fishing industry and its brand?
LAMAR McKAY: I can’t—I can’t quantify or speculate on long term. I don’t know how to define it.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: Additional troubles from depleted fisheries in their recovery?
LAMAR McKAY: We’re going to pay all legitimate claims.
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL: Shipping impacts?
LAMAR McKAY: Legitimate claims.
Cantwell is from Washington state, and thus rightfully concerned that BP will do just what Exxon/Mobil did after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 — use every legal maneuver to evade payment for as long as possible.
Here’s what Exxon-Mobil told a town hall meeting full of angry Alaskan fisherman at the time:
Don Cornett: Whatever it takes to keep you whole. You have my word on that. Don Cornett. I’ve told you that.
Those promises were hollow. Just ask John Platt, an Alaskan fisherman whose business was decimated by the Exxon-Valdez. spill. Platt was one of 32,000 plaintiffs whose case was fought all the way to the Supreme Court by Exxon-Mobil. It was finally settled last year. Twenty years later, Platt — deeply in debt — saw his $400,000 settlement check go straight to the government for $600,000 he owed in fishing licenses,. He still has to pay taxes on the settlement money.
According to CBS, at least 6000 of the original plaintifs have died, and 8000 have liens against their settlements.
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski told CBS News: “I think that’s been Exxon’s strategy every step of the way. To wear everybody down. They succeeded in fatiguing those who were entitled to this compensation.”
BP is already fingerpointing, saying that Halliburton and Transocean were to blame, not them. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where the “legitimate claims” argument is going.
What does Ken Salazar intend to do to hold BP accountable now, and prevent Anthony Greco III, Robert Campo and Lindy LeBouef from suffering the same fate of John Platt?
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And who just the other day blocked legislation to remove the liability cap?
BP, TransOcean and Halliburton will fight this for 50 years if it takes that long for all those seeking compensation to die.
When the prophet said “Let justice roll down like waters,” I think the waters were not yet polluted….Just a reversal these days…
How will we work to support those people whose lives are in the fishing industry? They are a hearty and brave bunch.
That’s one of the best, and most foreboding, ‘follow me below the fold’ lines I’ve seen in a long time.
Thank FSM the leak is tiny, relative to the water volume (and if it expands, or as it moves around the tip of Florida into the Gulf Stream BP can still keep it relatively tiny by choosing a new denominator, like the total of Earth’s saltwater.)
our own Edward Teller warned us of this sh* weeks ago – urging everyone to be wary of BP’s claims – ‘we’ll make you whole again’
crikey – now I see that in Jane’ post – serious face palm
With a new Tar Taffy I guess.
Lets set up a fund with all three companies chipping in equal amounts then let the three companies battle in court among themselves what they owe.
The Alaska spill has taught us that even 20 years later the fish won’t be back so the companies have plenty of time to fight over who owes what.
Our government can decide by looking at tax records who needs cash and how much. The important thing they start getting cash now.
The lawyers will do what lawyers do. And it will be ugly.
i think the lobbying firms these companies hired to block EPA rules should also be liable.
Their lawyers should also be held liable!
Yes what is the plan?
Ooops, lookin’ at folks tax returns. The Tea Partiers/Rethugs won’t like that. What better way to sabotage any govt help for these folks.
The oil industry doesn’t want to pay out anything and the reichwing doesn’t want anybody helped by the govt. Talk about rock meet hard place.
But…. the President is angry. Didn’t anyone see the Rose garden theater today? Someone’s going to pay for this.
Nail your wallets shut.
And the phony, derelict regulators….intentional fraud.
and apparently Gov Haley Barbour stopped sucking McKay’s dick long enough to say:
link
Political amnesia on her part?
Jane, one of the high moments of my FDL reading was an Book Salon of Ricki Ott’s superb “Not One Drop” about the ExxonValdez oil spill, which was hosted by EdwardTeller.
If there is any possible chance of having an FDL event where Ricki Ott could come online and answer reader questions about this BP spill, or perhaps we could start a Seminal Diary with reader questions that Ricki Ott, PhD and some of her associates could check daily and answer questions, that would be wonderful.
(Ott has a PhD in marine biology, and had/has a commercial fishing license for Prince William Sound.)
Even as a Grand Symbolic Gesture that was a total fail.
LOL, I had a “Grand Symbolic Gesture” of my own.
I should add that “Not One Drop” documents how ExxonValdez dragged out legal procedures, argued against good science, and made a disaster even worse by using dispersant that was chemically at least as toxic as the petroleum leaking out of the tanker.
So: get him a nice house on the gulf side of one of those islands, and make him spend the summer there. Including post-hurricane cleanup, because I think he’s missed out on a lot of stuff that he needs to learn.
Ski boats….what do they carry? About 10 gals? Hysterical….well, he got his big $$s after Katrina
The courts should not decide this the government should if you worked in fishing or tourism and paid taxes you get a check equal to what you made last year doing that.
If BP and Hal want to argue this in court BP can lose all its oil licenses as compensation. Hal well they never got investigated for trading with Iran despite there being a trade embargo. Transocean well they and the rest of them can be banned easy for safety reasons from working on any American oil well.
We have leverage lets use it.
Until we get our hands on a sample of the dispersant they’re using we don’t know that this stuff isn’t just as bad. The oil industry doesn’t give a rat’s ass.
JANE
O/T Have I told you how much I Love You for creating out, of thin air, an avenue we can express ourselves with, with the perfect restraint shown by your mods.
You are spectacular.
We promise Red State workers checks lets see the GOP fight that in an election year. :) Lets see the Corporate Tool Tea Baggers fight that, Lets see Rush and Glen Beck scream socialism as we pick up a few Red States.
I want this fight.
Leverage.
Hundred thousand folks on the McMansion front lawn with torches and lookin’ to renovate the place.
2nd that.
So exactly what is a ‘legitimate claim’? Well there is this which basically indicates that a claim can be illegitmate but still legal and vice versa.
But the real ‘proof of the pudding’ is Obama’s request for $10M for legal expenses the DOJ may need to pursue such ‘legitimate claims’, and this pretty much sums up what the BP approach will be:
“BP CEO Tony Hayward insultingly told the Times of London yesterday that because “this is America,” many of the claims will be “illegitimate”:
Mr Hayward reiterated a promise that BP “will honour all legitimate claims for business interruption”. Asked for examples of illegitimate claims, he said: “I could give you lots of examples. This is America — come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”
And then,of course, Murkowski objected to raising the damage limit oil companies now enjoy.
Personally, I’m tired of the kabuki; can we have some different dance/drama for a change?
have had a gut feeling for some time now, that he was positioning himself as one of the last GOP grown ups standing and planned to launch a Pres. bid off same – think he just ‘sheened’ all over any chance of that with these remarks
yeah, I know the GOP faithful look past a lot – but this should do him in with those outside their ever shrinking tent
Ask him if he wants some fresh caught fish Lord knows he looks like he could eat enough regular sushi in one sitting to get mercury poisoning.
If he eats Gulf Fish and smokes a cigar afterwards:)
Anybody want to carpool?
Seconded!
want the fight but not at this cost…
When is the busy season for holidays in Florida if the spill hits Florida before then we can get those numbers easy.
The cost was already paid in the oil spill we just have to use muscle to collect.
Sure, but we’re going to look a little suspicious cruising into DC with pitch-forks and torches sticking out of my sun-roof.
Well, spring break just past, but the busy tourist season will be starting at the end of this month..
Tourist season generally runs from All Hallow’s Eve to the first part of May. The beach businesses have been struggling since before the recession. I can remember driving pretty much the length of Treasure Island on the way to the vet and not seeing one “No Vacancy” light lit. Traffic’s been down as well. This will make it worse, hence Crist wanting the OM (oil muthafuckers) to pay for a $35M tourist ad campaign.
I have to apologize for not being able to spend more time helping get information out on this spill and what we learned up here in Alaska 21 years ago. I’ll have more time after I finish a job tonight.
I’m hoping to convince Riki Ott to find time to write more about the toxicity of dispersants and the true danger of the almost unbelievable amounts of oil that are accumulating between 100 and 300 meters above the ocean floor. Riki is the world’s leading expert in the progressive community on how dangerous to the environment the dispersants are, and on how to assess what oil, or oil-plus-dispersants will do in the water column. She’s still down in the gulf, but will return to Alaska next week.
I have to say that, looking over the web and the MSM, firedoglake, Jane Hamsher, Seymour Friendly, David Dayen, Marcy Wheeler, Scarecrow and others here are the number one team in the world covering this issue in all its downstream implications. I have to also say, it looks like the US media paid more attention to the Nashville Tea Party Convention than it has to the scientific and ecological aspects of this enormous tragedy.
I hope to be able to get back into helping out by the end of this weekend.
http://www.google.com/finance?hl=en&tab=we
Maybe markets are sliding because no fish means food prices go up? Maybe markets slide because airlines won’t be flying to Florida as much?
Maybe markets slide because banks can expect a bunch of home loans from fishermen and tourist industry workers to go bad.
If we fail to stand up for and win this battle!
Ahhhh, leave the pitchforks at home. With that number we’d end up pokin’ each other in the ass alla time.
I called Riki last Sunday, asking her if she would consider writing regularly about the spill here. She is thinking about it, and I’ll try her again tomorrow. She is saving turtles and birds and communicating one-on-one with human victims near ground zero.
Thank you, very much.
What come to Florida now before the oil spill hits? Ads won’t fix this jobs will we need a jobs program and or checks a jobs program will help more in the long run unless BP likes the idea of paying fish and tourist workers for decades.
Thanks, ET. Anything you can tell us would be helpful.
Let’s see … surveying the news …
* Obama administration claims they were addressing the problesm at MMS; said problems including poor to no regulation and failure to address concerns that repeated drilling technology failures were being ignored;
* Statistics show that there are many spills every year and word is MMS is now going to be paying attention to these issues … BUT Obama crows in April that drilling is safe and 99.99% accident free;
* Video from the Gulf seabed has been running 24/7 in the situation room BUT the WH and BP have been carrying on as if there was really not much to worry about in terms of flow;
* There is a moratorium on drilling but new permits are being authorized every day and Alaska is open for business;
* BP “will be made to pay” but liability must be capped and the legal apparatus is being fired up before the oil eruption is under control;
* I could go on but I am too disgusted.
And Obama is ANGRY. Angry??????? Say what??????
This whole thing makes less and less sense and looks more and more like PURE EVIL every day.
Please ask her about algae dying and fish populations also how much the algae in the gulf eats CO2 the global warming implications scare me and are to much for me to figure out.
Someone is lying
Construction, fishing and tourism are FL life blood. Since a/c FL has based its economy on the tax revenues generated by development. Tampa area is over 12% unemployed and that’s being very conservative imo.
Before a/c the whole state was pretty much like the Everglades: gators, snakes and things that bite.
Fish are food, food prices are used to calculate inflation higher inflation means higher interest rates that means less money in the stock market.
Can’t hold them liable for doing what they are licensed and paid to do. They will defend their clients’ interests. Just like the Exxon lawyers did. That’s what corporate defense lawyers do.
It can be an ugly business, but the guilt is with the clients, not the lawyers (unless they cheat in the litigation).
This has been asked, but here goes: Are there any legal consequences for the deliberate, blind-eye failure of the regulators to regulate? Even Brownie lost his job….but anything more weighty?
In Response to SouthernDragon@41
You’re right of course, plus the SS would surely confuse them for rocket launchers. BTW, I bet those guys use 50 cals from the roof-tops. We should definitely make it a peaceful, intimidating march.
Solar energy panels on every roof would be a nice jobs program when the sun is out and you need the AC the most is when solar works best.
your diary about artists response is seared in my heart ET – I have papered FB and other sites with it every chance I’ve had – thank you so much
’bout that Number 1 Team
- when I saw this morning’s post about WH having seen the gusher video 3 weeks ago (and all that portends), I took a tour around the usual so called progressive sites – Nothing, nada, zip. Big Orange had a BP-link filled diary by a Major front pager – and zilch on connecting those dots
firedogs, I am not being tribal or an unabashed Hamsher fangirl – this was incredibly disheartening and underscores Jane’s remarks ’bout there being no bottom for those who will defend anything out of this WH
Da team got the juice, don’t they.
Nope, too heavy a caliber. Big weapon.
Did see the Philippine Constabulary (PC) cut a 2 story house in half with a Jeep mounted 50 cal cuz the bad guy wouldn’t come out and took a shot at ‘em. Little town called Cavite, across the bay from Manilla.
For the life of me I can’t figure out why FL hasn’t taken the initiative on this. It’s been brought up for years but falls on deaf ears in Tallahassee. Do Zombies have hearing problems?
I’ll second that, strongly, even if the Mods keep the leash too short sometimes lol.
ET, please contact RGB.
Thx.
And thanks also for encouraging Ricki to help more of us get farther up the learning curve.
sound is muffled when you have your head up a donor’s ass
It would be interesting to know how these folks, who are going to directly bear the brunt of this ecological catastrophe, have been voting.
Back to work.
Namaste
Ah, so.
GOP Zombies only hear the what they want to hear. Same with Blue Dog Zombies free markets rule is GOP code for stuff we already invested in.
They are to lazy to research and invest in the future.
In FL it’s been to the reich.
Yes ~ so many lies are coming to light in just the last 24 hours. Lies upon lies upon lies. I am just now seeing a clip of Obama’s *angry* statement. What a load of hooey. What a fucking fool. Don’t forget to send a sternly worded letter.
Keeping the live video feed under wraps is so telling. Like the abuse photos? Yup. Assumed they weren’t seeing it themselves. Assumed they didn’t know.
Multiple failures at the drill site. Dead batteries. Are you kidding me?
Oh, but we will keep drilling. And make people whole again. Honestly. Just. go. away.
And Kerry. Oh give me a freaking break.
I am so *hot* I can hardly breathe today.
I think we know how they’ve been voting. Which is why my greatest sympathies lie with the dolphins, et al.
Well, yeah. They get to keep their job as the head of the Fed, as Ben Bernacke demonstrates, or they get a raise in their position within the structure, like Timmy Geithner did. Those seemed to be very deliberate actions, and both are replete with legal consequences that will never come to pass because the top of their respective departments would likely have to take disciplinary actions and in these cases, they would have to discipline themselves.
*gasp*
A reported on CNN just held up an aluminum tub (the size you would use for bobbing apples at Halloween) and said THIS IS THE DIAMETER OF THE PIPE IN THE VIDEO!
No kidding. I’m not surprised ~ I know this ~ but it’s on CNN ~ that’s graphic. Some people might start to *get* it.
hah, I think I know the one you mean.
glaring contradiction in Florida -
continue to vote for the Drill Baby Drill crowd – but then floridians went full metal mean girls on Crist when he so much as proposed opening the FL coasts back in his ‘exploratory committee’ days
21 Inches is pretty big when you actually look at it, isn’t it?
my computer with RBG’s e-mail died in January.
do not go over to HuffPo and read the banner – jes sayin’
We need Guido’s services on the execs!
Yeah no shit.
ET just sent the contact info, we’re doing it now.
The value is the people who show up and participate like yourself.
But the mods do abjectly rock.
Thank you ET! You are the best.
No consequences.
In our municipality there are laws that protect the municipality from legal consequences for management failures that cost residents dearly. Shocked me when I found that out. Especially since I was a resident who was harmed and had no recourse. Even after the local government lied that they had repaired the problem!
Obama is such an ass to be saying BP will pay. Blah. Blah. Blah. The government will help. Does he know nothing about Katrina.
I have no doubt calls for Obama’s impeachment will accelerate after November. What happens if Obama is impeached for whatever ~ planting an organic garden at the WH perhaps. Bush and Cheney get a free ride. Clinton and Obama get impeached. And then what.
Do we ever get to go after the real crooks for the real crimes?
Why do we have to listen to lies 24/7?
Thank god for Jane!
Well… there’s a sternly worded letter in the offing here. To BP, and Transocean… and Halliburton…, and MMS…
Hmmm… maybe they’ll just make it generic and send it by email. Wouldn’t want to waste all that paper, ya know. Bad for the environment.
And thank god for everyone reporting at FDL!
“Spank me! Spank me harder! THAT’S IT.
And when the hoopla dies down a little, get back to work on those permits.”
whistleblower up on CNN ~ interview about BP’s history of falsifying the pressure tests.
Yeah -gasp- really! Held the damn thing up beside his own puny head!
Thanks. You are a peach. Maybe later when my blood pressure goes down a bit …
“Do we ever get to go after the real crooks for the crimes?”
I *hear* you, but let us know forget so-called “Democrat” Speaker Pelosi emphatically telling us effen retards that “impeachment is off the table.” It would *seem* that the Dems and Repubs (merely 2 faces of the one corporate party) have some kind of agreement that only Dems have to bear the brunt of impeachment these days. Why? Don’t know; don’t care.
Secondly, though, although it was bogus in the extreme to impeach Big Dog Clinton for a blowjob or perjury or whatever expensive nonsense, Clinton is QUITE guilty of many crimes, imo, most notably for NAFTA, DADT, joyously repealing Glass-Steagle and standing firmly with Reagan on the “cadillac welfare queen” meme and gutting welfare (which MANY Dems agree with, sadly). So, meh, I’m not so sad that Clinton got a spanking.
And why are you exoneratig Obama? Seriously, please name one darn thing that BHO has done one whit differently from W? Other than kinda sorta speaking better and more intelligently?? I’d be glad to read about it.
I think that BHO is every bit as “guilty” as Cheney and W, and I don’t see any difference.
Yes, I wanted W impeached for high crimes, and I’m upset that didn’t happen. However, if they come after BHO with an impeachment attack, I surely won’t be sad.
This is disgusting. Nobummer is “angry.” Oh dearie me, call the waaaaahmbulance. What a waste of the space time continuum.
And to answer the Post’s question: YES, for darn sure, Mr. Big Oil and Big Mining Ken Salazar will do whatever is necessary to *shield* his bosses, BP, from any, you know, niggling inconveniences. That’s what Salazar is paid handsomely to do (in between sucking BP’s dick, that is).
I keep thinking back to those untested and failed hydraulic rams and Blowout Preventers. I worked with a Company which serviced, repaired and rebuilt similar equipment. Whenever the Government was involved, we were contractually obligated to perform all sorts of fairly stringent testing before their witness. These items they would, of course, be further tested once they were installed.
One would (wrongly) think any application coming with this degree of risk would merit the same consideration. Of course, I don’t remember any drilling rigs sullying the waters around Kwajalein last time I was there…
‘why do we have to listen to lies 24/7?”
Good question! The silly side of me sez: make it stop, Mr. Wizard, make it stop!
Why, though? I think it’s been the slow steady drip, like Chinese water tortue, where the permanent republican majority has worked very hard and with finesse and stealth to get the populace to this dumbed down, cowed existence. Most people quite happily listen to the lies and then flip the channel to the next reality tv show. Easier to manipulate that way.
Most people really don’t want to know what’s going on. They’re happy to watch BHO get his “close up” to ACT “angry,” then, eh? let’s watch that weird family on the next channel act stupid and all… and so, on it goes…
I thought the diameter of that pipe is 5 ft? Or was that the original bore hole piping?
Ok, pipe diameter about 20″ . . . . as shown in video . . . my bad . . .
Then again maybe it get’s interesting with holder unleashed to reign in the war criminals. Let them go at it.
22″ is the working number I’ve read.
You got only ONE thing wrong: I do not exonerate Obama!
I agree with everything you said. This is what has occurred to me overnight. I am so sick of these political games (including what Pelosi did) that are patently dishonest, unconstitutional, AND CRIMINAL that I really don’t care if they go after Obama. I wouldn’t lift a finger except to pile on.
Then I started wondering … it would be such a farce to impeach anyone after not impeaching Bush … and how long would it take for a reset? How long before we can impeach a deserving republic? Never? Probably.
The problem is … as I learned in my little municipality (and why I told that story) if there are no consequences then there is no protection against bad or even criminal behaviour. They can do anything they want and just carry on. And they can keep doing it. No matter who gets hurt. That’s the real moral hazard.
Just. so. beyond. sick. of. it. all.
but watch this video to get a sense of the magnitude
and consider the dimensions of the containment dome – 100-ton, 4-story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_55lpGMxgKM
It’s because Americans are immersed in lies from cradle to grave. It’s the new normal. We celebrate our most successful liars. Get a thesaurus, see how many synonyms we have for the word “lie.” Comparable to how many Eskimos have for the word “ice.” and for the same reason.
I’m not assuming we are sure we know the diameter. I’m with the *faction* that says, let all the guessers keep guessing and overstate it all they want. It will only serve to force the truth to the surface (sorry) sooner.
Having said that, though, it looks like the current consensus is 21 inches.
The news is that CNN broadcast such a *hard-core* graphic explanation of what is happening.
Just off the phone with Riki Ott’s personal assistant, who has spent the past week or so on the Gulf coast. Jane’s probably going to get this former Cordova fisher, Lisa Marie, to tell us more.
What I got from my conversation is this:
A high percentage of the smalltime fishers in the impacted areas are actually illiterate. Many are signing off their rights with “X”
BP tells them if they sign, they’ll get contracts for cleanup. Then BP walks away, not having intended to hire them in the first place.
BP’s contractors are illegally moving, applying and using dispersants 24/7 – people are getting exposed to it from surface splash on recovery vessels, and are blistering up all over body parts that get splashed.
There is no national media coverage at 90+% of the areas that are being hit the worst.
Very few know what they are in for. Ott is moving from place to place, speaking to fishers’ organizations, local response groups and has so much to do it has been hard for her to focus. Someone should be following Riki around, making a documentary.
One thing Riki and Lisa Marie have come to realize, according to the latter, is that the Exxon Valdez was merely a dress rehearsal for how bad this already is, let alone for what it will probably become.
One thing about Republicans and Neo-Liberals is that if you give them enough rope they will hang themselves.
Obama “Drilling for Oil is Safe” now the GULF OF MEXICO is a disaster.
razorbrain@96
That’s a really interestng way of putting it, razorbrain, the comparison between ‘ice’ in the Eskimo language and ‘lie’ in American culture.
Ok: more video replay from this morning. Obama talking about booms (that do next to nothing) and dispersant. AS IF THESE were positive things. Fuck him.
And a cute little spanking for BP execs. They probably *like* it that way.
And he’s angry about MMS’ lax regulation enforcement. I THOUGHT he was cleaning this up? LIAR! Defending Salazar from his critics. Call the Wahhhhhhmmmmbulannnce. Ooh: eliminate conflicts of interest. Wait 30 days. Riiiight. New procedures.
“This can never happen again.” But it only needs to happen this once, you idiot. Game over.
Go blow yourself, Obama.
LOL! Perfect. You’ve got a way with words.
And RoyalOak @31
Equally LOL.
FDL has become the place to go, not only for news and insight, but for gallows humor.
“How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.”
From Black Hawk, Sauk
Glad you didn’t sugar coat it, Reader.
Thank you guys, for helping me keep my sanity at a time when I shouldn’t.
I had this thought too ~ that a reporter or videographer could hook up with her and she could keep doing her work while her knowledge and experiences are captured. I think this is a really important idea.
Thanks, ET. I have had this feeling from the beginning. The MSM coverage is completely *sanitized.* It’s crazymaking. It’s not possible for this not to be disastrous.
Something must be done for the fishermen. They think they are losing one season, no? And that is so far from the truth.
BP must be exposed. Sooner rather than later.
The comparison is linguistically sound. When your environment is perpetually full of something, it is evolutionarily benficial to draw increasingly fine distinctions about it.
But, bottom line, ice is ice, and a lie (any intentional departure from the truth) is a lie.
It is built into our system at the foundational level. Exaggerated claims are called “puffing” in contract law, and they are legal.
Why is “spin” not a lie? Why is “PR” not a lie? They are.
Lies are the root of all evil. (Ice is not lol.)
Someone say “gallows” ?
Indeed. It takes a savage to see the civilized man clearly. How fucked is that?
Now that is reporting. Thanks for the heads-up!
I’ve come to expect so little from the TradMedia that even a whiff of actual investigative journalism is like a quad-espresso, with sugar.
Big Oil and their CEOs own the USA
Obama and congress are just puppets
The BP OIL SPILL is a HUGE DISASTER, and the MSM acts like it happens everyday.
The ignorant masses of the USA allows Big Oil, Big Health Care, etc. to rape them and the planet daily.
But no one can answer this simple question, when Humans destroy their ability to live on Earth, where are we going? (the Dinosaurs got done in by an Astroid we call them dumb, we suppose “Intelligent LIFE creatures Humans” are going to wipe ourselves out without anyone helps”
thus the reason the smart scientist said that Humans need to stop trying to connect with aliens, because what happen to the native americans, will happen to all Humans.
Absolutely! You are right: all these ways of saying ‘lie’ with variations in meaning and specificity are a reflection of the culture. I never thought of it ~ don’t know why not!
{I am an Anthropologist at heart … and I have a degree too. :-)}
What, these Red Blooded Southerners (I bet they all Vote Red) want a Socialist Handout? Certainly that would be unfair to the rest of us, like here in CA where we’ve always fought to protect our Coast.
I’d say the South is getting what it voted in favor of.
Not all of us vote Red and we get screwed right along with the rest of them.
Thanks Jane!!
22″ OD 21′ ID
Because it’s so ubiquitous. Does a fish think about the water around it?
Every lie grates on my commitment to finding truth, so I never miss a chance to respond to it with harshness.
I already did. I presume it’s the same one. My eyes are still bleeding.
Best on the net! I think they all deserve free eats today and a new car!
New cars. Sigh. The plural.
What’s being glossed over is the reason the government sits on its hands during disasters like this. They’re fully privatized. It’s up to industry to clean up industry’s messes, and of course, that means lawsuits. Disasters without a man-made cause are difficult to deal with now (see: Katrina) when no profits or great losses are involved. Meanwhile, the laws and regulations we used to have to protect citizens from the excesses of industry and government are largely gone or ignored. This is the predictable result.
Both parties are bowing down to corporatism, and both parties have essentially treated the Constitution as “just a piece of paper” for decades. Lacking a basis for legitimacy, our government is nothing but a PR front, cash cow and apologist for corporate greed.
If we do nothing else, we MUST get corporations out of Washington and their enablers off of the Supreme Court.
Actually the US Government (via FEMA) should step in and provide coastal residences the financial assistance they need. The Feds can pop BP, Transocean and Halliburton at any time for criminal violations (environmental laws are strict liability and almost impossible to defend). No $10 million limit on criminal penalties– the cap is 2 times damages, which includes economic damages.