Sting in local paper

[vespapod]

Sting was in my local paper this AM questioning why they allow all of this deep oil drilling without any safeguards in place. "Who allowed this to happen?" he states...

I thought the name of the company is BRITISH petroleum...hmmmmm one of the biggest taxpayers to the British empire....about to be bankrupt by America, deservedly so I may add....I smell the revolutionary air of 1776 again...AND the UK could really be in deep shit because their government needs money bad....and BP stock is in all the pensioners stock fund portfolios....

You know...world war II started because the european economies were bankrupt from WW one allowing dictatorships to rule...are we very far from world war 3??

I have a house call on Copeland Court next week in Washington Township, NJ...ha

[ltwoman]

We could all be in deep shit. We already are in deep shit.

[HalcyonLisa]

Ah but BP rented the rig to do the drilling for them? Rented it from Transocean who are an American company?

[smudge]

Apologies for an incoming rant (ish) .

British Petroleum, a private company (sold off to private investors from public ownership in the 80's) have presided over the worst oil slick in US history. They deserve to be kicked in the goolies. But Vespa - I suspect they've been paying tax on the profits on Gulf operations to the US not the UK.

Most of us over here are nauseous over the pension portfolio idiocy.

Personally, I'm happy for the fishermen and women of the Gulf (all of 'em - not just the US) to sue BP out of existence, but I hope they do so slowly and lucratively. And don't get me started on the life that's been snuffed out for generations (just because it has fins, scales or feathers doesn't mean it doesn't count).

[steveohno]

40% of BP shareholders are from the UK; 39% are from USA; Just sayin'....................

[63falcon]

This whole thing is awful, from an unengaged US president who happily signed extensions to (and collected boucoup BP campaign $$$) environmental waivers for BP up thru the end of May, to any pension plan investors already seeing their funds diminishing. Not to mention the horrible-ness all the animals are being subjected to.
The French have been successfully 75+% nuclear for years now. Thanks to Peanut Carter playing on the US public's uninformed fears, the US got away from this practical oil alternative.

[vespapod]

I have shares in BP....but Im looking at it beyond the financial hardship to humanoids....we people are "idiots in the machine"....I am for the environmental catastrophe because I helped cleaned oiled out egrets in Cape May years ago..its a suffering death...If BP goes under oh well....First of all if your retirement portfolio contains more than 20% of a particular stock, you were the idiot in the first place for not having diversity (I have 6 checking accounts with three banks, FOUR different mutual fund companies and 14 individual stocks...thats anal but I wont be suicidal come the next monster depression and I have banged out 9% annually since 1989)

I actually cannot totally ream out Obama on this one..he did rely on BPs "expertise". I do blame him for not asking the world for help once the crisis deepened...and also not making this a military operation which would have cleaned the beaches much faster.

If I were president I would have set up a tent, jammed some Police music, and had a line forming of all the businesses and fisherman affected by the spill....I would have had a laptop connected directly to the IRS and as somebody made a claim to me personally I would have handwritten a check for their tax return of 2009 with 3% raise. I would have then charged BP that amount of money and seized their assets if they cant pay. I also would have immediately tacked on 15 cents a gallon NATIONALLY to help out those states in the gulf...we spoiled americans can certainly afford to help out our brethren. Then I would have helped clean some of the oiled birds. I definitely would not have had Paul McCartney sing, vacation in Chicago or recieve foreign dignitaries at this time.

I think I got politics in my blood....Vespa for Prez in 2012

[vespapod]

"Peanut Carter" .....I love it!!!

[smudge]

Vespa - you're dead right about what people invest in. The broohaha over here is due to many people having no control - well not direct control - over how their pension funds are invested. Most don't even know where their funds are placed until something goes pear-shaped.

The bigger issue is how the heck does a major player in deep sea oil extraction not have a disaster plan for this? And since they don't, who on earth let them go ahead without one?

The REALLY big issue is how much of a risk are we prepared to take in the north-western hemisphere with current and future habitat to preserve our oil-based, lotus-eating lifestyle? I guess that last question answers the preceding one - 'a big risk'.

France has a large nuclear generating programme, but that doesn't fill gas tanks, and the fuel is finite. In the UK we're in a muddle over whether to 'go nuclear' or not given our less than stellar record on dealing with reprocessing the resultant waste in a way that doesn't irradiate the Irish Sea (which understandably pisses off our Irish neighbors), and the fact that we're a small island so any new nuclear plant is in somebody's back yard. I guess memories of Long Island cause similar twitches stateside.

In the meantime, anyone want to form a syndicate of 3 or 4 or more to adopt a Gulf pelican? If we had half a dozen or more contributors we could adopt two and call them Eugenio and Giovanni. (I'm serious about this...) http://www.ibrrc.org/adopt_a_bird.html (thanks to Sockii for the link)

[vespapod]

Just heard the Obama speech...I think he may have put the first coffin nail into BP...

[Kim]

This is way worse than Exxon Valdez. Exxon was charged a penalty of millions for that, paid it, and kept on going. The cleanup and penalty for this should put BP out of business forever. It will devastate the wildlife and habitats in the Gulf, plus will affect thousands of businesses and millions of lives for years. And they are trying to get permission to build more rigs. I hope it motivates scientists and the government to seriously look for alternate energy sources.

[luddite lady]

I don't want anyone to assume my silence on this issue is due to disinterest. I've stayed quiet on this and other environmental topics here because my passion about this stuff is so great that I'd undoubtedly produce a rant of such magnitude as to make David Suzuki look complacent. (In fact, I once stayed up to an embarrassingly late hour harping on about Sting and the rainforest here only to have my post disappear upon submission as I had timed myself out.)
I promise to be brief. *fingers firmly crossed behind back*
First off, smudge, I'm all for the pelican idea and simply love the names you have in mind. Secondly, smudge again, my memories of Long Island are very fond. That's where Jones Beach I and II took place. My memories of Three Mile Island--not so much. When I was growing up I could see the local nuclear plant on the horizon from my front verandah. In fact, this would still be the case if they hadn't slapped up so many apartments in the interceding years. (Hurray, urban sprawl!) So, nuclear power is of grave personal concern to me though I'm not sure of what else we should do as a planet until we can get renewable energy sources up to speed. These are not being taken seriously enough and I think we (particularly North Americans) should all spend sometime cold and in the dark until we get our collective acts together on this.
A further problem is that we really have very few true experts out there who can combine scientific knowledge with managerial and policy making skills. We are dealing with a huge game of broken telephone when it comes to the process of getting the scientific work in the field up to the decision makers and then the needed changes back down to those who implement them on the ground. And many in power are afraid to take the urgently needed steps and be accountable since the changes are necessarily bold and bound to piss off those that reap benefit from the status quo. The BP catasrophe illustrates this perfectly.
I know that there's a giant vacuum in this regard because in September my daughter will be starting a Bachelor degree which combines environmental science with business management and policy making. This programme is very new and ridiculously tiny (20 students in first year), and is the only one of its kind in a part of the world with arguably the most tree-huggers per capita. Just doing the research to find this degree programme should have accounted for a couple of advanced credits.
So here's hoping that this crisis will bring to light the need for more such programmes and an increase in the funding required to get them off the ground. I also hope that this steels the resolve of the young folks out there (my own daughter included) whose passion ends when the necessity to charge their iPod begins.

[HalcyonLisa]

in the town in which I live we are doing our best to support renewable energy

http://www.ness-point.co.uk/Lowestoft-R ... apital-UK/

and whilst I spit and I swear and I cry about this ecological disaster and I hoped never to see it again anywhere - I still hop in my car and drive to work, even if I have changed it for a much more economical 60mpg fuel efficient model, I'm still driving and not walking or cycling

Governments have to force change upon us sometimes and sometimes so do economics, my o/h is a petrol head and is now considering swapping his fast, gas guzzling motor for a more efficient one because he suddenly has less money in his pocket to spend on golf clubs

we can all learn from this - the whole world - I'm an optimist and try not to spend too much time being angry and laying blame but try to learn how we dont do this again and how we can save our wildlife. I've been an avid birdwatcher since I was a tiny girl and I've watched my small island lose common species and gain new Mediterranean ones that were never here before - in 40 short short years....

Smudge I'm in for £20 for those beautiful Pelicans, let me know where and how to send it

[vespapod]

Just heard that Wall street is warning mutual funds not to view BP as a one year long investment option for their portfolios.....thats not good news at all for BP....coffin nail number 2... You Britons better get that stuff out of your portfolio...its out of mine real fast...

[Throb]

And BP has Goldman on retainer now, bet they are getting a nice Fee.

And the rich get richer....