Quote of the day

Some of us may be wondering how South Africa got the World Cup. I know, I know, "First World Cup in Africa" was probably all anyone from FIFA had to hear. But one still wonders how a country with Johannesburg in it, which combines all the destitute charms of Detroit and Baltimore and adds in a dash of war-torn Sarajevo and the roving cannibal gangs of the Road, and is still allowed to host games there?

Well now we know: God did it. Or should I say: God related deal-making.

Anti-apartheid icon Desmond Tutu promised FIFA top brass a first class pass to heaven if they granted then-World Cup hopeful South Africa the host bid, a top organising official said on Monday.
...
"Then we had our first meeting with the FIFA executive and Archbishop Tutu said: If you vote for us, I will make sure that you get a first class ticket to heaven," Jordaan quoted him as saying.

Now, you might ask yourself "Isn't that a bribe?" No.

"I said: Arch but you said we must not bribe. Isn't that a bribe?.

"He said: No, no, it's not a bribe. A bribe is only when you give things to people who are alive. In order to get their first-class ticket, they must first die. That's not a bribe."

That clears it up.

Still, I find fault with the Archbishop's promise and the whole theological underpinning of his offer. I mean how can God even exist if He allows the world's biggest sporting event to take place without replay and review technology to correctly call off-sides plays and determine if goals go over the line?

Hmm? Where's you God now, Archbishop Tutu? He can't exist! He would want the score to be kept properly! LAMPARD'S GOAL WAS IN!

Sorry, Sepp Blatter and the rest of FIFA's Governing Council of Kicky-Footy Games are just going to die and go into the endless black void of nothingness like the rest of us. The lack of goal line technology proves the non-existence of God. It's science.

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.

Business as usual

So you've gone and dumped the entire oil/dinosaur blood contents of the earth into the Gulf of Mexico. One million billion trillion gallons of oil so far and the flow doesn't look to be stopping any time during this calendar year. It's beginning to look like you caused the death of all sea life, ruined the coastal economy of the Gulf states, and have made our elected betters spend in excess of five whole minutes considering that maybe we should make a serious push into renewable sources of energy. What do you do? I mean besides attempt to stop media access to the area and make anyone with a boat sign a confidentiality agreement. You start gearing up to buy Congressmen.

Halliburton’s campaign donations have spiked as it tries to curry favor with key members of Congress investigating the disaster. The company donated $17,000 in May, making it “the busiest donation month for Halliburton’s PAC since September 2008,” Politico reports. Thirteen of the 14 contributions from May went to Republicans, while seven went to members of Congress who are “on committees with oversight of the oil spill and its aftermath”:

About one week before executive Timothy Probert appeared before the House Energy and Commerce’s investigative subcommittee, Halliburton donated $1,500 to Ranking Republican Joe Barton’s reelection effort. It was Halliburton’s second-largest donation of the month — topped only by $2,500 to former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), who is running for the Senate.

In the Senate, Idaho Republican Mike Crapo, who serves on the Environment and Public Works Committee, Georgia Republican Johnny Isakson, who serves on the Commerce Committee and North Carolina Republican Richard Burr (N.C.), who serves on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, all got $1,000. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) also got $1,000.

And that's only one of the three companies legally culpable for the oil spill. I'm sure BP and Transocean, the oil rig company run for and by transsexuals, are doling out the cash as well. In fact, over the last few years BP has doled out nearly $30 million to influence legislation. In fact they've already won a small victory by getting shallow water drillers to be excluded from offshore drilling bans and moratoriums. Because apprently you aren't as big of a dangerous, negligent shitbag if you do your drilling in knee high water. The NYTimes article was notable for some grade A whining from lobbyist shits, complaining that a little massive environmental disaster might affect the industry that caused it. Who woulda thunk it?

Bruce Vincent, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, which represents both deep-sea and shallow-water drillers, said Wednesday that he was concerned about a “domino effect” sweeping through Washington, with new regulations now under discussion threatening to cut oil production, jobs and industry profits.

“It’s amazing to see the impact that one company can have for all sorts of other people,” he said. “When a plane crashes, you don’t just shut down every airline in the fleet until you find out what happened.”

Good point, although I'm struggling at the moment to ever think of a plane crash that rendered a massive body of water a toxic oil dump. And one oil company impacts all the others, because we've all rightly assumed that BP's practices, regulations shirking, shoddy safety, and numerous violations are the industry standard. You guys don't seem to be big on sacrificing a single nickel to maybe make it a tiny bit less certain that all the oil you're drilling doesn't flood into the ocean in a torrent of Biblical proportions.

So in case you were worrying that a little think like the end of all life in the Gulf and oil replacing water in the Gulf was going to cause sweeping changes or our elected betters choosing what's right over money, rest assured the oil companies are gearing up to make sure that doesn't happen. Whew! I was worried there for a minute.