Archive for May 6, 2010
BP Protected by Pro-Business American Media
BBC News: Oil Slick Hits Chandeleur Island Off Louisiana:
Oil from a massive slick in the Gulf of Mexico has started washing ashore on an island chain off the coast of Louisiana, US officials have confirmed.
Pelicans and other birds covered in oil have been found on the uninhabited Chandeleur islands, which are part of the Breton National Wildlife Refuge.
A federal maritime agency said there was “oiling all over” the islands.
FOX, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. — where is the 24/7 breaking news coverage?
Where are the helicopters?
Where are the vans and the reporters who breathlessly describe what’s happening, second by second, LIVE, every three minutes?
The Soviet Union Never Existed for Today’s College Grads
Here’s this year’s “Mindset List,” courtesy of Beloit College, about the mindset of today’s college grads.
A sample:
- The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
- They have known only two presidents.
- For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
- Manuel Noriega has always been in jail in the U.S.
- They have grown up getting lost in “big boxes.”
- There has always been only one Germany.
- They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.
- They are wireless, yet always connected.
- A stained blue dress is as famous to their generation as a third-rate burglary was to their parents’.
- Thanks to pervasive headphones in the back seat, parents have always been able to speak freely in the front.
If a Typo Can Cause the Stock Market to Come Close to Crashing…
IT’S TIME FOR STRONGER REGULATION.
George Soros — Buy Newsweek
Newsweek is for sale. George Soros, please buy it. Oprah, please buy it. Turn it into a liberal rag!
Don’t let Rupert Murdoch buy it. God help us.
The left desperately needs more media voices to counter the blanket conservative coverage here in the U.S.
“Liberal media?” Don’t get me started (long, but spot-on article about what a bunch of BS that is).
Conservative Groups Helped BP Brainwash Americans Into Thinking it Was a “Green” Company
Bottom line: We can’t trust anything — anything — a company says:
BP has long touted itself as a “green” company interested not only in oil and other fossil fuels, but in renewable energy like wind and solar. But as Rebecca Lefton reported on ThinkProgress last week, BP barely invests anything in clean energy — most of its green campaign is actually just a massive advertising gimmick to conceal the truth about the company.
While BP has spent hundreds of millions building its brand, it has offshored the dirty work of promoting expanded drilling to right-wing front groups and trade associations. In a 2007 PowerPoint presentation obtained by ThinkProgress, BP appears to have been interested in fighting to open up protected waters to new offshore drilling. The presentation, organized by the BP-funded front group “Consumer Energy Alliance,” was delivered at the American Gas Association’s marketing meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The presentation calls for a five-year plan to build grassroots support to open wide swaths of both the East and West coasts to new drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.
[...]
– Slide 14 lists the groups involved in doing grassroots outreach. Under “affiliated groups,” FreedomWorks — a right-wing “grassroots” group that helped plan the tea parties and continues to lobby aggressively against clean energy reform — is listed along with the 60 Plus Association, the American Conservative Union, and others. U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute are some of the trade associations involved. Slide 14 also shows that BP is one of the member companies supporting the campaign.
So BP literally wanted to convince American citizens — the “grassroots” — to essentially campaign for its right to drill off the East and West coasts. BP wanted us to do their bidding for them. Wow. Talk about 1984.
Near 1,000 Pt. Dow Plunge May Have Been Caused by a Typo
UPDATED @ 6:46 p.m. ET.
This is wild, but shouldn’t there be checks and balances that prevent something like this from happening, for God’s sake? You mean to tell me one trader can make a typo and send the world into a panic? That’s insane.
In one of the most dizzying half-hours in stock market history, the Dow plunged nearly 1,000 points before paring those losses in what possibly could have been a trader error.
According to multiple sources, a trader entered a “b” for billion instead of an “m” for million in a trade possibly involving Procter & Gamble, a component in the Dow. (CNBC’s Jim Cramer noted suspicious price movement in P&G stock on air during the height of the market selloff.)
Sources tell CNBC the firm in question that handled the erroneous trade is Citigroup. The bank said it has no evidence of a bad trade but is investigating the situation.
Sarah Palin Stiffs Fellow Tea Partier, Endorses Fiorina in California
This is actually pretty disgusting:
Chalk up another conservative base endorsement for ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina, and it’s a big one: Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
Palin, the unsuccesful GOP VP candidate, posted her nod on her Facebook page…complete with an unnamed dis to Fiorina rival Tom Campbell as “a liberal member of the GOP who seems to bear almost no difference to Boxer.”
Tsk, tsk, Sarah. You broke Reagan’s 11th Commandment…about three sentences before praising Fiorina as a Reagan conservative.
Palin, who quit before her first term as gov ended, talks up Fiorina as growing up in a “modest home with a school teacher Dad.” Uh, sort of. Fiorina’s dad was a law professor who taught at A-list universities — Yale, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, the London School of Economics — that Sarah’s peeps might sneer at by using the “e-word.” Elite. Palin also doesn’t mention that Fiorina studied several languages and attended the finest schools as her family traveled around the world.
Also: No mention of the “CEO” moniker or Fiorina’s $21 million golden parachute she got from HP or the layoffs that went down while she was there.
But then again, that would spoil the parallels with Sarah’s own moose field-dressing back story.
And here is Palin’s Factbook page and her entire endorsement letter.
So, I guess we’re to assume that Palin is moving away from the extreme wingnuto’sphere toward the middle of the wingnuto’sphere in preparation for 2012? I think so.
Oh, and last I heard, Fiorina was running an awful campaign. A Palin endorsement will likely be the kiss of death.
Obama Administration Approves New, Controversial Gulf Oil Rig
The Obama administration has given a “passing grade” to a new Gulf oil rig, the Seadrill:
The Department of Interior issued a report on Wednesday determining that a potentially unsafe oil rig operating in the Gulf of Mexico had in fact passed recent safety inspections.
In what was a delayed response to a request for information, the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) released findings showing that Seadrill Limited — the company behind a damaging oil spill off the coast of Australia last fall — had environmental violations with their operations in the Gulf but nothing else.
“The things that were found here, none were related to safety,” Walter Cruickshank, Deputy Director of the Minerals Management Service, told the Huffington Post. “The major issues were related to pollution, some drilling mud spilling. But the basic safety equipment all passed the inspections.”
“We are not making any editorial comment on the findings,” Cruickshank added. “It is a factual review of what is found in these inspections and you can see what was found. And the violations have to do with pollution as opposed to safety issue.”
The Market is WAY Down and Gold is WAY Up
Wow. The financial world is freaking out over the troubles in Greece.
Calculated Risk is my go-to website at times like this.
Poll: No, This Isn’t Obama’s Katrina
Poor Republicans, they just can’t get it right. It wasn’t long ago that they were jumping up and down because Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan, supposedly showing himself to be subservient. Were American’s on their side? No. 67% thought it was appropriate.
This week they’re falling all over themselves claiming that the Gulf oil spill is “Obama’s Katrina.” Do Americans agree with that? Again, no. It’s the oil companies’ Katrina:
(H/t Political Carnival.)
British Petroleum as Victim
Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum (BP), told The Times of London yesterday that there will be “lots of illegitimate claims” made against BP as a result of the Gulf oil spill, setting the stage for BP to belittle and dismiss potential claimants, and to insinuate it is, in essence, being harassed.
As a former paralegal who worked on lawsuits involving huge corporations, I know it is incredibly expensive and time-consuming to take on a corporation like BP. Corporations have armies of lawyers whose sole purpose is to bombard private attorneys with make-work in an effort to frustrate them into dropping their cases. No lawyer is going to do file suit unless he thinks he can win because BP will make that lawyer’s life hell. Sure, there will probably be a few illegitimate claims, but I’m willing to bet that the vast majority won’t be.
An Incompetent Eric Cantor Blames His Failure on Liberals
Yeah, sure, we believe this:
In April 2009, Republican leaders, led by House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), launched an initiative called the National Council for a New America as a “new effort to revive the image of the Republican Party.” Though Cantor and other Republican leaders promised that the organization would “listen” to the American people, they held only one townhall meeting in a pizza parlor in Arlington, VA before largely going silent. Today, Roll Call reports that the group has officially been put on ice:
Cantor aides explained that the group has been “suspended” one year after its splashy launch in part because of the intense negative attention it received from the Democratic campaign committees and other groups after its introduction.
The NCNA was intended to be a traveling forum of Republican leaders who could engage the public in a broad-ranging discussion of hot-button issues.
Cantor spokesman John Murray said despite 5,000 positive news hits, the “relentless attacks from the left” became overwhelming to the whip office soon after its launch.
“I think now, we are in a suspended state,” Murray said.
Sorter version: We have no idea how to revive our image so we give up.
CBS Says Faisal Shahzad on Terror Watch List Since…1999?
The idea of a “no-fly terror watch list” was hatched in November, 2002. But “sources tell” CBS News that the Times Square bomber was on that list as far back as ah, 1999?
Hey, I know, slamming Obama is de rigueur these days but hey CBS, a mistake like this makes you look totally incompetent. And this is indicative of the inherent problem of letting “sources” be your source for facts “news.” You know, think about it for a sec. Gosh, golly, gee, they just might have – ulterior motives!
Jesus.
Boulder, Colorado Votes to Boycott Arizona
I am so proud to live in a city that has decided to boycott Arizona over its new “immigration” law:
Boulder Suspends Official Travel to Arizona Over Immigration Law:
The city of Boulder will immediately suspend sending any employees to Arizona on business, and may take additional action against the state, in a show of opposition to its wide-reaching new immigration law.
City Manager Jane Brautigam on Wednesday morning sent a memo to all department directors ordering them to cancel any plans to travel to Arizona for conferences or other city business, even if the tickets have been paid for.
“This action is being taken to demonstrate our opposition to Arizona’s new public policy, embodied in recent legislation, to require documentation for all persons who may be suspected of being in that state without official status or approval,” Brautigam wrote. “Such a policy is contrary to our organization’s commitment to diversity and is a violation of our core values.”
