Picture of the day

You know there's no real silver lining to the whole BP oil spill. Sure they got it capped... after three months of spilling. Sure Tony Hayward was fired... but not out of a cannon and into a sewage pit. Plus I doubt very much that this will actually lead to increased care for the environment, better and smarter government action, or better regulations.

But we can hang our hat on one thing: at least we aren't China. They're going through their own massive oil spill crisis. Hoo boy! Can you imagine their lax regulations, poor government oversight, and open bribery! Hey, at least we aren't them. It looks way worse! They're cleaning it up with rags!

Pics via BPB. Click to embiggen.

Finally, some good news

After three months, billions of dollars spent on PR campaigns (with a little on oil cleanup as well), unprecedented media blackouts, and a couple of charred whales, BP has finally gotten around to capping that gushing plume of black death that was turning, whoops... TURNED, the Gulf into an open oil pit. Commence mild celebrations that things from this point forward can no longer get much worse.

BP said on Friday the early test results on its recently capped undersea well were heartening and there were no signs of fresh oil leaks, as the stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico held tight overnight and into the morning.

Kent Wells, a senior vice president at BP, told reporters on a conference call that the pressure inside the well had built up steadily, as engineers had hoped it would, and that engineers would continue to perform different analyses and scour video feeds from cameras to look for any underground leaks.
...
The oil stopped flowing from the well around 2:25 p.m. Thursday when the last of several valves was closed on a cap that the company installed at the top of the well last week, Mr. Wells said. Earlier in the week, Mr. Wells said that the longer the test continued, the better, because it would indicate that the pressure inside the well was holding and that the well bore was intact. On Friday morning, the live video feeds from nearly a mile undersea showed no burbling geyser of oil and gas — only cloudy blue waters and white specks floating across the screen.

Well done. What's the old saying? If you give a Brit 90 days and billions of dollars, he'll eventually be able to do something that would have seemed like the obvious solution months ago? I might be paraphrasing.

Though really, at this point, I wouldn't put it past BP to have rigged up a dummy site underwater and a fake feed showing no oil flowing. Then while everyone celebrates, they cancel their P.O. box, pack everything up, and move their offices five miles down the road. By the time we realize we've been had and that they faked us out yet again, they're gone and we don't know where to find BP or how to get in contact with them. You see, we'd never think to look five miles down the road.

So things are looking up for the oil soaked cuddly wuddly animals of the Gulf. Oh, and all those human creatures, what with their shattered lives, ruined homes, and crippled economy. Hey, we can all start giggling when people say "tar balls" again! It's not such a dire and serious situation anymore! TAR BALLS! Tee-hee-hee.

Anyone want to rain on this parade? President Sunshine?

In Washington, President Obama hailed the development but cautioned against concluding that the corner had been turned, noting that it was still possible for there to be complications that “could be even more catastrophic” than the original leak.

Christ, can't we get 15 minutes into a celebration without President Bring-down bringing us all down? This is literally the only thing that will get done in this country from now until the election, then after the election where Republicans win enough to keep filibustering everything or win outright and Democrats start filibustering everything, and on until the 2012 elections when we elect Sarah Palin and the Mayans hit the self-destruct button.

Give us this small victory, Barry. There's no more oil coming out. Plus, in 10,000 years all that oil will finally be cleaned up. Well, 10,000 years given a few massive technological leaps in our oil gathering and cleaning up technology. See, I'm feeling optimistic again.

Your sunshine and smiles of the day

Looks like things might be finally looking up for those poor, beleaguered kids over at that mom and pop operation known as BP. Did they finally get a cap on that oil, drill the relief well, or in any other way stop all the oil from flowing into the sea? Lord no. But at least they're catching a tax break.

The costs to the foreign oil giant BP for poisoning the Gulf of Mexico will lower the company’s taxes by billions of dollars, and BP “may be able to get a refund for taxes paid in previous years.” If BP’s cleanup costs reach $60 billion, as Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates, the company will be able to deduct almost $20 billion over time. In addition to billions in subsidies, the company has received $10 billion in federal contracts from the American taxpayer in the last ten years. BP spokesman Steve Rinehart told Bloomberg News that BP will deduct the $3.5 billion already spent on cleanup efforts and any future expenses.

Good for them. See kids, if you fuck up colossally enough eventually it starts to work in your favor.

I like mine done medium-rare

What with loathed British shitbag Tony Hayward off to the Middle East to beg sheiks for bailout money in a way that doesn't result in him being made to wear a dress and join a harem, BP has been hurting for some really bad news that makes people hate them more. In fact, what with BP sponsoring our love of sky explosions and the baseball combined with this country's gnat-like attention span, the might even be inching their approval rating into that high teens Dick Cheney area.

So really, what's one thing they could do to really surprise and offend us in a new way so as to squander the good will they're getting as a result of spending about as much on PR as they are on the cleanup? Did I hear someone say "burn animals alive"? You know, ones bigger than the turtles? DING DING DING! Bonus points for the man in the back with the magnifying glass, ant-farm, and the sociopath's gaze.

They didn't even cook it right to get the diamond grill marks. Is there no corner they won't cut?

Now I know some of you are saying "How do we know this was BP's fault? How do we know that this whale didn't set itself on fire or swim into a controlled burn area on purpose in order to commit suicide, possibly over a whale romance gone bad?" Ok, valid points. To this I say what if BP set the whale on fire... because it knew too much!

But hell, maybe there is a valid scientific explanation that doesn't legally remonstrate BP for burning a giant sea creature. Science? Anyone from science want to present a plausible alternative theory? I know you're purposefully being kept away from this spill and your solutions are being ignored, so here's your chance to get in there and help.

What's that? A hypercarnivorous giant ancient whale shark that ate smaller whales, you say? I'm sure evolution could have had them develop some sort of rudimentary fire deployment system for cooking their food over the 12 million years since they last existed. Yes, that's clearly what happened here. A new giant species of super whale that's bears some sort of PR grudge against BP. I think we can close the books on this one. BP would never do this, they paid for fireworks one time.

Plea of the day

A sign you'll see popping up at local BPs... if you'd even bother to buy gas from one now.


This was the final draft of the placard. There were many earlier drafts and through the magic of making shit up and lying to you, we at These Bastards is able to bring a few of them to you.

Thanks for not caring about anything other than the price of a gallon of gas.

Like you were ever going to see a Roseate Spoonbill or Red Egret in person. And Pacific Bluefin Tuna taste just as good as the Gulf ones. I dare anyone to say we've made the Brown Pelican browner.

Fuck birds, man. Anyway, thanks.

Then there's this one.

What the fuck don't you people understand about "Independently owned and operated?" Do I sound like I have a British accent? I didn't spill anything in your ocean.

These signs are being made in bulk, so we're just going to assume the accent you're hearing is Pakistani or possibly Russian, because odds are it is.

We hate the Brits just as much as you. Colony having motherfuckers. Please don't take it out on us.

Third try.

I'm fine with it if you don't want to buy gas from me. I wouldn't want to support BP if I were in your position either.

Can I tell you a secret? *moves in closely*

*whispers* We make more from the snacks and pop than we do from the gas. So really, fuck BP and their oil. But could you buy a Coke and some Twizzlers?

Thanks.

Also.

Like you've never made a mistake in your life!! OH, MR. AND MISSUS FUCKING PERFECT SITTING THERE IN THEIR CAR GETTING SO FUCKING JUDGMENTAL!!!

Buy gas, don't buy gas. We don't care. We're all rich British lords and at the end of the day we'll all still be rich British lords. You'll still be some Yank asshole.

Fuck it, FUCK OFF! We don't event want to sell you any gas anyway. Get stuffed, tosser. Jog on.

Finally.

Why does everyone think we're the ones that spilled oil in the Gulf?

Nah man, that was Sunoco. You must have heard wrong.

We won't hold it against you, though. BP is cool like that.

BP is cool like that.

The future

Tom the Dancing Bug

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.30

Ron English on the Kellog's cereal drama. I know Apple Jacks usually gives you diarrhea, but it wasn't supposed to this time.

Matt Taibbi takes out his well worn indignation bat to beat Lara Logan, the establishment media, and the notion of today's media that it is their job to protect our political betters lest the peasants learn what they really think. It's over the Rolling Stone McChrystal piece. Taibbi nicely sums up everything that is wrong with most of our media, from their subservience to power to their galling contempt for people who aren't as cravenly sycophantic as they are. Glenn Greenwald also jumps in and throws a few elbows.

#374B in Things I Am Disappointed With the Obama Administration Over: An Ongoing Series. In this episode, the White House goes out of it's way to help banking sycophant Scott Brown insert loopholes into financial reform so that they could lighten the minuscule financial burden on large banks, remove it from hedge funds, and shift it onto small banks and the taxpayer. As one does. Funny, when it comes to something like a public option or, soon, cap-and-trade, the White House can never seem to muster the energy to make even the tiniest effort to push for it. But shift reform burdens from hedge funds to taxpayers? They'll work up a sweat for that. Bang up job.

The 4th of July is almost upon us and thus it is our duty as Americans to use cheaply made Chinese explosives to light up our skies, blow up frogs that couldn't get away fast enough, and remove fingers and/or hands. Except that due to the budget crisis that many communities are going through, firework celebrations are being cut. I hope you'll join us here at TB in celebrating the first annual Imagination Independence Day! It'll help us all work out the kinks so that Imagination Christmas will go off without a hitch.

With a hurricane bearing down on the Gulf oil spill, one asks God "Jesus fucking Christ, what else can you do to make this worse you bearded son of a bitch?" Would you be interested in a tsunami... caused by BP? That's right, the relief well that they're drilling that will totally fix everything for honests, may set of a "supersonic tsunami" by igniting all the trapped underground methane. Nice. After that, the BP Board will go door to door for face macing and groin kicks. It's the only way they know.

We've been a little hard on Barry recently, but we will commend him on one thing: before arresting a bunch of deep cover Russian spies, our President went out munching burgers with Russian President Medvedev as those commie spies were being rounded up. It takes a stone cold motherfucker to have burgers with the man whose spies you are about to have exposed and incarcerated in a massive international incident. More please.

I am so surprised

Another day, another couple of stories that make you wish you could punch a physical representation of BP right in the sack. First was the story that the rig was damaged and leaking for weeks before the final, catastrophic explosion/mega-leak occurred.

An oil worker who survived the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion has claimed that the oil rig's safety equipment was leaking several weeks before it exploded, triggering the huge spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Tyrone Benton says that he spotted a leak on the rig's Blowout Preventer (BOP), the device that is meant to shut the well down if there is an accident. He told the BBC's Panorama programme that both BP and Transocean, who owned the rig, were informed of the leak, and the faulty part – a control pod – was switched off rather than being repaired.

Wonderful. It's not like the blowout preventer failure and leaks were a major part of the problem, were they? Oh, they were. Super.

But that wasn't all.

BP has been accused by a senior US politician of lying to Congress to reduce its liabilities, after an internal company document showed that the oil giant's own worst-case assessment of the size of the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was 20 times its public estimate.

In the document, BP attempts to put a figure on the rate of oil spewing into the ocean. It notes that if the condition of the well bore deteriorates to the extent that crucial parts fall off, the rate could reach 100,000 barrels a day.

When the company handed the document to Congress, it was claiming the leak was only 5,000 barrels a day, and that at very worst the figure could rise to 60,000.

The document was circulated by Ed Markey, the Democratic head of the House sub-committee on energy and the environment.

Nice. Well, it's not like accurate numbers on the size of the oil leak is something that would have been useful.

Look, I'm just going to advise you all on a tactic that I've undertook in order to preserve some level of sanity during this whole mess. It'll help you and it'll also help BP. I'm generous like that.

In all circumstances and under all conditions: assume the worst. Right now your working thesis on the entire disaster is that BP, in conjunction with Hitler's robot brain and the Anti-Christ, purposefully exploded their own well and caused this leak in an effort to drive up the price of gas, ruin seafood restaurants, kill cute animals, destroy the world's oceans, and end all life as we know it. In an effort to conceal this fact, they have engaged in the systematic murder of anyone who has figured this out and are in the process of bribing every elected official and law enforcement agency everywhere in order to do their bidding and cover this up. Also, at some point, they drowned a burlap sack full of kittens in the Gulf for fun.

Now how does this benefit you or BP? Well, whenever you hear some new horrifying fact, some awful scientific study on the environmental impact, some new revelation about BP's lax safety records or their naked pursuit of money, or another story about dishonesty, lying, and cover-ups following the spill, you can look at your loved ones and say ''Whew!, Well at least that isn't as bad as the whole global conspiracy, Hitler robot, destroy the earth , murder cover-up plan I heard about. I am relieved.'' You'll feel better in no time.

You're welcome.

Your horrifying oil related story of the day

Turtle fire.

He's on a boat

So you're BP. You've recently ridden a non-oil slicked wave of recent good news. You created a $20 billion fund to help take care of people affected by the spill, making you seem barely human instead of completely reptilian. You've finally moved into a position where ships are capturing almost all of the oil spilling out of the undersea well. And as a bonus you removed the deeply unlikable Tony Hayward to a lesser role.

So after this recent wave of decent PR, what do you do? Yacht party? I think I heard yacht party.

Spokeswoman Sheila Williams said Hayward took a break from overseeing BP efforts to stem the undersea gusher in Gulf of Mexico so he could watch his boat "Bob" participate in the J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race. The 52-foot yacht is made by the Annapolis, Maryland-based boatbuilder Farr Yacht Design.

The annual one-day race is one of the world's largest, attracting more than 1,700 boats and 16,000 sailors as world-renown yachtsmen compete with wealthy amateurs in the 50-nautical mile course around the island.
...
"He's spending a few hours with his family at a weekend. I'm sure that everyone would understand that," Wine said Saturday. "He will be back to deal with the response. It doesn't detract from that at all."

Wine described the race as "one of the biggest sailing events in the world and he's well known to have a keen interest in it."

In his defense, this was his small yacht. The cheap one, the $700,000 one. Now I know Hayward's been pilloried up and down the Gulf Coast for this little boat race trip, but I'm not going to pile on. I mean what better way to research the oil spill than to spend some serious time bobbing and floating on the ocean, like all that oil BP spilled is. Now he understands what all the oil is up to and why. Can we really complain about that?

Plus with the strippers of the Mimosa Dancing Girls strip club suing him, the sea is the only place he can find a moment of relief. With that, the methane dead zones that may kill vast swaths of undersea life, and the fact that sea floor collapses at the leak site may prevent BP from ever capping the well, doesn't the man enjoy a little boat time? Plus *chuckling* the yacht is named "Bob"! Who names a yacht "Bob"? Oh Tony, you are humorous with your rich guy bullshit. Enjoy the boating, I think it's all you'll have left pretty soon.

Not getting it

Rand Paul isn't in the news a lot lately. Mainly because he decided to go hide in a ditch, only pop his head out for softball interviews on Fox, and has relied on the moribund and dying Kentucky newspaper business to help repeat all of that "The Civil Rights Act is for homos" thing he was caught up in.

But because Rand is a man who never wants to pass up a good "government and media are oppressing the average rich white man" jag, he decided that the perfect opportunity to insert himself back in the national debate was the whole Joe Barton apologizes to BP situation. Naturally.

Emerging from relative silence since his rocky general election roll-out, Paul stressed that BP "should be responsible for cleaning up" the mess it created. He did not explicitly address the role that government had to play in compelling the oil giant to do that.

"Lets not convict them before we give them a chance to figure out where the problem came from," Paul said.

Asked specifically if Barton should resign, Paul confessed to having no opinion, save to offer his sympathies once more.

"I'm not really in a position to know about what they should do to him personally. I do know what it is like to be piled on," he said.

No, no Randy my dear boy, you both know what it's like to be justifiably piled on. Everyone going "Can you believe this asshole doesn't like the Civil Rights Act?" was completely justified. Everyone going "Can you believe that asshole apologized personally to BP and BP's CEO during a government hearing on the massive catastrophe they caused?" was totally justified. You weren't being persecuted, you weren't being picked on, the nation and the media just looked at two idiots going virulently against common sense and decency and decided "Hey, let's give these assholes an easy brickbat beating. They deserve it."

As to your other point: we really need to wait for the verdict to come in on this whole BP situation? Really? What do you think an investigation is going to find? An elite strike team of Greenpeace ninja hippies scubaed down to the well and placed some C4 charges and granola at the base of the thing? Some group of rogue whales decided to declare war on the land people and their floating sea fortresses? Ghost possession? Alien conspiracy? Government squelching of the freedoms creating a psychic shockwave that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon? Nah, kid, nah. I think we can close the book on this investigation.

So Rand, next time you feel the need to stand up for the rights of idiots to not get criticized for moronic things they say or mean things the President says about a company comprised of shitbags, pause, take a breath, and step outside the deluded little Ayn Rand/libertarian bubble you live in. It'll save you a lot of piling on.

Positive news? From the Gulf? Head...spinning...

OK, so the news out of the Gulf has been an unending dirge of depression and awfulness stewed in a sauce made of human tears. Drunk dolphins? Oh, the humanity.

But lest we be accused of only focusing on the negatives and only pillorying BP, let us announce that there is finally some semblance of good news: the entire BP Board of Directors and executive group has been gored to death by stray rhinos.

Wait, no. I mean we're finally getting towards that point where the oil spewing out underground is being fully collected. Sure that means there's still a shit ton of oil in the Gulf, but must you rain on everything? We're inching closer to a zero sum game. Given the way things have gone, that's a victory of almost Venezuelan election proportions.

BP captured 18,600 barrels of oil from its leaking Gulf of Mexico well yesterday, a 78 percent increase from the previous day and the most since the spill began in April.

BP increased the capture rate in the first 12 hours today, gathering a total of 12,500 barrels of oil, the company said on its website.

BP, based in London, plans to increase the recovery rate to 28,000 barrels a day next week and to 53,000 barrels a day by June 30, said U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander. Allen spoke today during a conference call with reporters.

OK sure, the cloud to that silver lining is that estimates are that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day is leaking into the ocean and that might be a low estimate... but hey, that's still within a respectable distance of 100%. Think of it as a closest to the pin contest in golf. No one expects you to get a hole-in-one, so just put it close and hope Kevin Costner gets you the rest of the way home.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.17

For those of you wondering how exactly it was that famed Baroque painter Caravaggio died or where he was buried are in luck. Italian archaeologists are 85% certain that he was buried in a Tuscany crypt... and that he died of sunstroke while in a weakened condition from the syphilis he had. Odd, that's exactly how Sean is going to die. And he thought he didn't have anything in common with the great painters.

If any of our readers have enjoyed a Gulf oyster in the last few months, I hope you enjoyed the everliving shit out of it because you might not have another one ever. In a thoroughly depressing article, Mary Tutwiler catalogues the state of the oyster industry, oyster farmers, and the oysters. Shockingly the picture isn't pretty. On the other hand, if you hate oysters, this all worked out nicely for you. Congratulations.

Over the past few decades in American society, knowing how to do something like clean a pelican was left to pelican experts, zookeepers, and the perverse coterie of freaks on Pelicanfetish.com. But now with a large percentage of them covered in oil, it's something that we all need to know. Thankfully Buzzfeed has provided us with a step by step guide to cleaning up an oily pelican; whether it's from the Gulf or just a pet pelican that got into that barrel of oil you keep out back. On the other hand this might be a setback to BP's plan to soak up all that valuable oil with all those worthless pelicans.

The one constant so far in this year's World Cup, besides people getting outraged at plastic horns, has been shockingly bad goalie gaffes. Who is at fault? The goalies? The team defense? The head coaches who put them in? No, clearly the party at fault is the girlfriends of said goalies. The UK has already taken to blaming Robert Green's ex-girlfriend for his bungled effort against the Colonies, owing to their pre-Cup breakup. Spain decided to take that extra misogynistic step forward, blaming Goaltender Iker Casillas' sideline reporter girlfriend for not only distracting him during their 1-0 loss to Switzerland, but distracting the entire team. See what happens when you let women near sports? If there's a bear attack during a game, we'll have to completely ban women from girling up serious sporting events.

Have a dog? Might you like that dog to have everlasting life? Then I give you IMMORTAL DOG!!!!!

Elected Texas idiot Joe Barton finally had to come out and apologize for his apology to BP when even the leaders of his caucus took notice on how unpopular what he said was. But he's not done apologizing, so he set up the site Joe Barton Would Like To Apologize To in order to list the various aggrieved entities like BP who deserve our sympathy.

The conspiracy revealed

Now that we're two months into this oil spill thing, I think we can all be clear of one thing: it was a conspiracy. Shady forces colluding with even shadier forces to dump bazillions of barrels of oil into the gulf in order to further their goals. Yet no one wants to mention this for fear they'll be labeled an insane douchebag or as ripping off Rush Limbaugh's material. Thankfully we have North Carolina GOP congressional candidate and teabagger Bill Randall to make the case for us. Oh yeah, you knew it would be a teabagger.

"Personally, and this is purely speculative on my part and not based on any fact, but personally I feel there is a possibility that there was some sort of collusion. I don’t know how or why, but in that situation, if you have someone from a company violating a safety process and the government signing off on it, excuse me, maybe they wanted it to leak."

“But then it got beyond what was anticipated, and we had an explosion and loss of life. And, oh man, then we have panic. Is there a cover up going on? I’m not saying there necessarily is. But I think there’s enough facts on the table for people that (they) really need to do some investigative research and find out what went on with that and get a subpoena of records and everything else.”

He doesn't want to suggest there was a conspiracy or say that there's evidence of it, he just wants to suggest there was a conspiracy and say that there's evidence of it.

Well now that he's lifted the veil on this nefarious collusion, we here at These Bastards would like to offer up this suggestion of the way it all went down. We're not saying this is exactly how it went down, but this is just what we've transcribed form the tapes we have of the meeting.

Barack Obama: Listen, I've talked it over with the lizard people, the reploids, the Trilateral Commission, the Ruling Commission of the Bilderburg Group, and the Seven Jew Bankers in the bunker under Zurich... they agree: it's time to spill a shitload of oil into the ocean.

Tony Hayward: Agreed. While this would normally seem like a horrible idea that would both cripple our company financially, make us extremely unpopular, and hamper the future of offshore drilling as a whole, we thing this is a great step forward.

Obama: As do I, even though at first glance engineering a massive environmental catastrophe miles underground and starting the largest oil spill in world history would seem counterproductive to my goals and make me seem weak, this is clearly the best step forward. Because we all know what will happen if we spill an inconcievable amount of crude into the Gulf...

Both together: Profit! And power!

(both laugh maniacally)

Hayward: I'll call Halliburton, Transocean, the merpeople, and Bigfoot and we'll get this started.

Obama: I'll start counting the money and consolidating power.

Hayward: Wait, but what if some freedom loving patriot, caught up in the spirit of 1776, decides to expose this conspiracy during the election season?

Obama: Hah! It'll never happen! Our plan is too brilliant!

(both laugh uproariously)

Obama: Now let's talk about that slush fund...

This all makes so much sense. It was all so obvious. Thank God we have Bill Randall to light the way.

Tragedy

As Michele Bachmann explained to us yesterday, we are in the midst of a crisis. A large corporation is being held to account for the things it has done. The scandal! The shame of it all. But lest we dismiss her fevered rantings as some outlier in the GOP, the rest of her cohorts took to the streets to drum up support for BP and the horribly onerous conditions that they've been put in.

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas ('natch) took time out of a public hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to apologize directly to the executives at BP. How sweet of the man.

BARTON:I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case a $20 billion shakedown
...
I apologize, I do not want to live in a country where anytime a citizen or a corporation does something that is legitimately wrong is subject to some sort of political pressure that is again in my words amounts to a shakedown. So I apologize.

Yes, how dare they be forced to set aside funds to pay for cleanup and to help offset the possible irreparable harm they've caused to the marine economy of the Gulf Coast. What an outrage.

Not able to leave Bachmann and Barton out on their offshore shilling rig, Alabama Governor Haley Barbour took time out of his busy schedule of taking oil money and denying that oil spills were a problem or that the oil was even hitting his shores to dance for oil nickels.

BARBOUR:I do worry that this idea of making them make a huge escrow fund is going to make it less likely that they’ll pay for everything. They need their capital to drill wells. They need their capital to produce income.

That's right, BP setting aside $20 billion to pay for damages will somehow make it less likely that they'll pay for the damage. Actually, I'm fairly sure that it means they'll be paying $20 billion at a minimum. But no worries, the greater risk is that by setting aside this money to help everyone whose lives they've ruined, that this will make it harder for them to open more rigs and make more money. Christ, I'm tearing up here. poor BP. Why haven't we thought about their ability to make a profit curing this crisis? We're monsters!

Oh, they are making rather large profits even given the costs of the cleanup? Well... they could be making more.

In fact Barbour, Barton, and Bachmann are all just reading off a common script that has arisen in the right wing media over the past few days: namely that this is unconscionable that BP is being held responsible, it is unconscionable that they're being demonized and blamed for actions they caused, and that somehow our Muslim President Hussein Obama X is going to use this independent fund as a "slush fund" to... something something socialism ooga booga liberals. Somehow paying out claims becomes bribery and that's if the black President doesn't steal the money and stash it away with Fannie Mae and ACORN to... I don't know... build a time machine and go back and make white people the slaves, abolish freedom, and rape Ben Franklin.

Why defend a widely loathed corporate entity in the most tin earned manner possible? Because after decades of conservatives fighting for the rights of corporations to do whatever whenever with no repercussions, BP has done the unforgivable: admitted responsibility for a mistake and made some attempt to make it right. We went through an entire economic collapse without the responsible parties even so much as saying "Whoops". If this continues, other corporations might have to issues apologies, *gasp* pay to fix problems they created, and the unfettered right of business to be allowed to do anything to make a buck might be challenged. So thus the attempt at restitution and the government has to be made to seem worse than BP the giant Gulf of Oil they've created.

Funny how it always seems to work out like that.

#bpcares

BP has a message for you, the small chattering masses of people that seem like ants from the big fucking office at the top of the big fucking skyscraper: BP cares about you. You personally. You specifically.

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg: "I care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case at BP. We care about the small people."

Now stop fucking causing their stock to plummet YOU UTTER FUCKING PEASANT INGRATES! Sorry, that just slipped out.

Thankfully he used the term "small people" to let all of us know exactly who we were and didn't confuse us with "Big people' like him. Of course they care about the small people; those are the people that drive their company cars, fly their private planes, nanny their children, work their rigs, clean up the oil spill (DON'T TALK TO THEM), and have so expertly made their way of life dependent on oil. And that Gary Coleman guy was hilarious. Small people: good.

Here's a hint, BP: if a Swedish billionaire with a hyphenated name has to come out after two months of the worst ecological disaster in world history and reassure the teeming masses of people that hate him that their faceless mega-conglomerate cares about "the small people".... then it's all become pretty clear that you don't care about the small people or people in general. And we prefer to be called "the unwashed masses."

Chart of the day

Via Talking Points Memo, comes this look at the "evolving" estimates of the Gulf oil spill. Ahh, remember those naive days when we thought only 6,000 barrels were spilling out and were thinking this might only be a minor disaster? How quaint that all sounds.

April 23: 200 barrels per day. April 24: 1000 barrels per day. April 28: 5000 barrels per day. May 27: 12,000-19,000 barrels per day. June 10: 20,000-40,000 barrels per day. June 15: 35,000-60,000 barrels per day.

Nice to see you back from vacation, Michele

Last night, during the President's insubstantial, maddeningly vague, afraid to take a serious position on energy legislation, wet fart of a speech he did offer up one concrete idea: BP sets aside billions to a third party who can quickly and competently deal with paying out claims to those disaffected people of the Gulf who inexplicably still fucking love offshore drilling.

To most people this sounded like a smart idea. BP isn't a claims handling service, so let some entity that is properly equipped to do so handle that task and let BP get back to what it does best: blocking media access to oil spill areas and not fixing an undersea geyser of oil. But to Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, this is a clear sign of one thing and one thing only: the icy black hand of Stalin.

"The president just called for creating a fund that would be administered by outsiders, which would be more of a redistribution-of-wealth fund," said Bachmann. "And now it appears like we'll be looking at one more gateway for more government control, more money to government.
...
"But if I was the head of BP, I would let the signal get out there -- 'We're not going to be chumps, and we're not going to be fleeced.' And they shouldn't be. They shouldn't have to be fleeced and make chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest.

That's right, a third party entity paying out legitimate claims to the thousands upon thousands of people BP fucked over is just a Trojan horse for teh socialisms and teh government control! Tea baggers unite! And as an added bonus she offers a warning to BP not to let them get pushed around by big bad government and all those assholes who think they're entitled not to starve just because BP took away their means of making a living.

Nicely done Michele, way to look out for the little guy. It's heartening to know that even in the midst of a serious environmental and corporate malfeasance crisis, you've bravely hewed to socialist conspiracy theories and the idea that BP is in danger of being the victim here. Those lazy peasants and their complaints about the oil killing all the shrimp. Don't they know BP has dividends to pay out? Stay classy.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.15

Star Wars political cartoons... is that something you might be interested in?

How little have our elected betters learned from our horrific financial apocalypse? Almost nothing. The latest example is the Herculean struggle Al Franken is currently going through to get the Senate to maybe consider the fact that the financial sector getting to choose the agency which rates its products creates rather a large conflict of interest. On the side of randomizing the selection process: people who are smart. On the side of keeping things as is and trusting our financial betters won't game a shoddy system: a probable filibuster proof majority of Senators. Remember to put on your surprised faces when our next financial collapse comes.

Comically oil executives took to the Hill today to explain all the ways in which they were not like BP in their offshore drilling practices. The main differences? Uhhh.... they aren't named BP and none of them has a drilling rig named Deepwater Horizon. One candid moment was when the executives basically admitted they had no way to handle massive offshore spills. Oh really? I think we've noticed that lo these past two months.

People have started to call bullshit and nakedly manipulative bullshit on the timing and PR strategy behind the whole "Afghanistan has trillions in resources! We'll all be rich... RICH!!" story from yesterday. C'mon. How are we supposed to feel good about this war or as if we're getting something out of it if they don't trump up old shit the Soviets were trumping up in 1985... when they we in the midst of an unproductive slog in Afghanistan? Just keep telling yourself "Just a few more years of fighting... then we'll all be rich."

Were you wondering who was cheering for North Korea today during their 2-1 defeat at the hands of Brazil? It certainly wasn't any North Koreans. No, the Chinese government flew in supporters specifically for the purpose of cheering for Kim Jong-Il's future waterslide park invitees/torture victims (depending on how the tournament goes). Commies stick together. Maybe China can fly in some soccer supporters to the US after our team invariably is eliminated before the semis and we lose interest in the sport for another 4 years.

Media Matters has gone to the trouble of picking out choice excerpts from Glenn Beck's new fiction thriller/Randian teabagging circle jerk... The Overton Window. Amongst the gems; "rule number one is, don't tease the panther", various meandering/awful sections of prose, bizarre asides about the flat tax and Bill Clinton, examples where Glenn doesn't seem to remember things his own characters have done, and a Star Wars reference so hackneyed it would make Kevin Smith cringe. Essentially it's a less funny version of his "serious" non-fiction books. Anyway, it doesn't compare to the liberal writing brilliance of Who Blog In Darkness.

In closing, your daily "Oh shit, we're fucked" oil flow estimate is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day. Up from the 20,000 to 40,000 from last week. It doesn't really matter; at this point it's like having third degree burns over 100% of your body and complaining about the sniffles.

Good news eneryone

So what's the first thing you want to hear about a new BP strategy to collect all that oil that's everywhere there used to be water? Is it this?

BP's latest plan to capture the oil gushing from the runaway Deepwater Horizon well poses significant safety risks for "several hundred people" working aboard the ships that will process the corralled crude, the oil giant has told the Coast Guard.

Hmmm. Continue.

With so many vessels working in a relatively small area, Suttles wrote that there's a risk of a "major surface accident." Video of the site Sunday showed more than a dozen vessels on the scene; a jet of burning natural gas perhaps 200 feet long shot from one.

Ahh. Massive oil, oil fumes, ships, people, and fire collected in a small area. And, given BP's normal level of safety, combined with the surely cut rate level of safety that will be required of a hastily thrown together plan, as well as the fact that there's no properly tested or designed equipment to try this new plan, or that there's all the junk and garbage BP threw down the pipe floating around that could clog up this equipment, there's a larger than usual risk of explosion, death, and the Gulf turning into a oil and dead animal soaked inferno.

Eh. Is that actually going to make this situation even marginally worse? No. Onward with the dangerous plan. I hope everything doesn't explode. Though, given the planet's luck throughout this whole incident I'm expecting that this will somehow set the atmosphere on fire or accelerate global warming to the point where the ice caps are melted fully by August.