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Just the bear facts…

Posted on July 12, 2010 By

Spain wins the World Cup; Lance clips a pedal and sees his Tour hopes dashed to the curb; the Gulf of Mexico continues filling up with oil and toxic chemicals and the Congress returns to Capitol Hill.

Quiz: which of these events presents the most disappointment and dread?

Answer: Mama Grizzlies.

(It was a trick question.)

What, exactly, is with the extremist right wing in this country and all the talk of animals and shootin’ guns and teeth-barin’ metaphors?

Seems to be working, though.

Sarah Palin compares right-wing female politicians to Mama Grizzlies and her political action committee raises nearly $1 million in the second quarter.

Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggests armed revolt might be the answer to today’s troubled nation and she wins the GOP nomination.

Some winger fringe preacher says a Yellowstone National Park visitor killed by a bear is God’s revenge for researchers drugging the bear to study it…rather than killing it.

Then, of course, there is the famous admission by abortion extremist Neal Horsley that everyone growing up on a farm has sex with mules.

Oh…wait…that’s a different story.

Palin has long made the best out of animal metaphors, of course. Pit bulls and pigs with lipstick became a national phrases célèbre during the 2008 presidential campaign. So much so that, by golly, she’s stickin’ with it.

“I always think of the mama grizzly bears that rise up on their hind legs when somebody’s coming to attack their cubs, to do something ADVERSE toward their cubs,” Palin recently told an adoring audience, not at a zoo.

“You thought pit bulls were tough, well you don’t mess with the mama grizzlies. Look out, Washington, because there’s a whole stampede of pink elephants crossin’ the line and the ETA — stampeding through — is November 2nd, 2010. Lotta women, comin’ together.”

Palin was, of course, comparing politicians and office-seekers who happen to be women – and right wing – to mama grizzlies. That’s sweet and all – and certainly a different view of women than one might get from, say, the National Organization of Women or Emily’s List.

Maybe just a few too many pink elephants stampeding along. Who knows?

“It seems like it’s kind of a mom awakening in the last year and a half, where women are rising up and saying, ‘No, we’ve had enough already.’ Because moms kinda just know when something’s wrong,” she said.

We all know when something’s wrong. One just can’t put lipstick on a pig and expect anyone to see it as anything but a pig.

Congressmen say the darndest things…

Posted on June 18, 2010 By

HeadUpURAss

One doesn’t have to be crazy to get elected to the Congress – but it helps.

So let me get this straight: seemingly angry that his amigos at BP (“Bustamante Pendejos,” according to @DCDebbie) got their corporate arms twisted by President Obama to ante up a $20 billion down payment for the carnage they wreaked on the Gulf of Mexico, Texas Congressman Joe Barton said yesterday the President’s demand “amounts to a shakedown.”

Shakedown is street for extortion, you see, and the esteemed representative from Texas, who couldn’t possibly be close to Big Oil interests back home, was saying the President of the United States was acting like a thug to demand BP put money immediately on the table to pay for attempting to kill the Gulf of Mexico.

“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” said Congressman Barton. “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.”

Mr. Barton followed up his comments by suggesting we might have acted a little hastily back in 1776.

Just kidding about that last part.

Seriously, are these guys nuts or what? Let’s look this up in Politics for Dummies. Yep, there it is…page 174: “A good political strategy is ALWAYS taking up for major multinational corporations who are responsible for the worst environmental and social disaster in the history of the United States.”

Good move, Mr. Barton.

But Barton is not Batman. He did not act alone. Turns out Congress is full of dweebs who express similar comments and sympathies.

While many members of Congress, including the leaders of his own party, decried Barton’s moronic expressions, other chimed right in.

“BP’s reported willingness to go along with the White House’s new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics,” said Congressman Tom Price, Republican of Jawja.

And the hits just keep on comin’ from the unbelievably stupid. Thanks to Mother Jones Magazine, we have a list of the dumbest comments flatulently gushing forth from some congressional orifices.

Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, way back in May, said of the oil spill, “Accidents happen. You learn from them and you try to make sure they don’t happen again.”

Texas Congressman Pete Olson said of the 6-month moratorium on drilling in wake of the oil spill devastation: “This is a kneejerk reaction by the administration to address a problem that doesn’t exist.”

Fellow Texan Ralph Hall said: “It’s a shame we can’t drill ANWR. It’s a shame we don’t get that energy off the coast of Florida,” and followed it up with: “I resent the fact that [Obama's] trying to blame some of this on Bush. On 9/11 I don’t remember Bush trying to blame this on Clinton.”

You just can’t make up this stuff.

Senator Bob Bennett of Utah, recently considered by the erudite Tea Baggers as not conservative enough for re-election said earlier this month, “The bridge to that promised land of renewable energy is built out of fossil fuels.”

Illinois Senator and President Abraham Lincoln said, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

“Moral equivalent of war.”

Posted on June 15, 2010 By

“Tonight I want to have an unpleasant talk with you about a problem that is unprecedented in our history,” said the slighting graying man with the soft, South Georgia accent.

“With the exception of preventing war, this is the greatest challenge that our country will face during our lifetime.”

The year was 1977 and President Jimmy Carter was just over 3 months in office.

“The energy crisis has not yet overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly. It’s a problem that we will not be able to solve in the next few years, and it’s likely to get progressively worse through the rest of this century.

“We must not be selfish or timid if we hope to have a decent world for our children and our grandchildren. We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.”

He was about to tell us he would within the next couple of days submit to the Congress a comprehensive energy strategy designed to wean us off foreign oil, stimulate production of clean energy, require greater energy efficiency in cars, homes & appliances.

“Many of these proposals will be unpopular,” he said. “Some will cause you to put up with inconveniences and to make sacrifices. The most important thing about these proposals is that the alternative may be a national catastrophe. Further delay can affect our strength and our power as a nation.

“Our decision about energy will test the character of the American people and the ability of the President and the Congress to govern this Nation,” he suggested. “This difficult effort will be the moral equivalent of war, except that we will be uniting our efforts to build and not to destroy.”

The energy policy he presented was based on 10 principles: 1.government must take responsibility for leading the nation; 2. economic growth must continue through conservation of energy; 3. the environment must be protected; 4. dependence on foreign oil presents security risks to the U.S.; 5. solutions must be fair to all, sacrifices spread evenly; 6. demand for energy must be reduced; 7. the price of energy must be accurate and authentic; 8. government policies must be planed and predictable; 9. scarce sources of energy must be conserved; abundant sources developed; and 10. the use of even more abundant sources of energy (sun, wind) must be developed.

He went on to set goals for the nation to reach by 1985:

—to reduce the annual growth rate in our energy demand to less than 2 percent;

—to reduce gasoline consumption by 10 percent below its current level;

—to cut in half the portion of U.S. oil which is imported—from a potential level of 16 million barrels to 6 million barrels a day;

—to establish a strategic petroleum reserve of one billion barrels, more than a 6-months supply (this happened);

—to increase our coal production by about two-thirds to more than one billion tons a year (this was a disaster, too);

—to insulate 90 percent of American homes and all new buildings;

—to use solar energy in more than 2 1/2 million houses.

“We can be sure that all the special interest groups in the country will attack the part of this plan that affects them directly,” Carter said at the time. “If they succeed with this approach, then the burden on the ordinary citizen, who is not organized into an interest group, would be crushing.

“If you will join me so that we can work together with patriotism and courage, we will again prove that our great Nation can lead the world into an age of peace, independence, and freedom.”

The special interests and their hired politicians sure did attack the plan – setting up in this nation a permanent and professional corporatist right-wing. Reagan, Clinton and George.W. Bush would be the result.

Last night, in his speech from the Oval Office, President Obama told us, “The consequence of our inaction is now in plain sight.”

Peace, independence and freedom remain elusive. Given the immoral state of war – particularly over the last decade – maybe the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico really is the moral equivalent of war.

There’s gold in them thar Afghan hills!!

Posted on June 14, 2010 By

BREAKING NEWS: U.S. officials say $1 trillion worth of minerals have been found in the mountains and dry lake beds of Afghanistan!

In a related announcement, U.S. officials say the new U.S. colony of Afghanistan will be renamed, Pandora, and a team from Halliburton and Massey Mining will begin immediately extracting the Unobtanium from beneath the surface.

Seriously, $1 trillion in iron, copper, gold, cobalt and lithium in Afghanistan? What could possibly go wrong?

Forget the poppies, maaaan. Everyone will want to get mellow on the lithium…while also powering our batteries!!

Curiously, enough, the cost of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have, so far, cost $1 trillion. Well, waddya know? Guess, maybe, we owe Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz an apology for doubting them.

Meanwhile, in the Gulf of Mexico, officials with BP say they’ve discovered gold and cobalt pouring from the undersea volcano known as the Deepwater Horizon mine…er…well.

No, just kidding about that. Its still hydrocarbons and chemicals gushing forth to kill the Gulf.

But, they, the good news is President Obama will make his fourth trip today to the Redneck Riviera where he’ll get in a little beach time (unrefined oil and saltwater make an excellent SP 15 sunscreen, or is that STP oil treatment 15?). He’ll talk to the locals, assure them he feels their pain and, maybe, get in a little golf at SanDestin, now renamed OilSandsDestin.

No, just kidding about that, too. Remember, he’s lookin’ to kick a little ass so, BP officials, I don’t think I’d mess with him right now. I think he means it.

And to show he means it, he’ll address us all on the TeeVee Box on Tuesday night when he returns from the Coast Formerly Known as Emerald. He’s gonna tell us he will demand BP immediately set up an escrow account to make sure the money is there to repay Gulf Coast residents for their losses.

BP has, by the way, $7 billion in cash. Tony Heyward carries it around in a steel briefcase. It also has the capacity to borrow $15 billion and is – or was – expecting to make $34 billion this year. Costs of cleaning up this disaster will reach $123 million…and climbing.  BP was planning to give its shareholders $10.5 billion of that cheese. They may have to take IOUs.

The President will have to take a break from kicking ass, however to hear the bitchin’ from oil industry workers about his moratorium on offshore oil drilling. Tobacco workers complained, too, about all that silly nonsense suggesting smoking kills.

Hey, Mr. President, here’s a thought: let’s retrain all those roughnecks and put them to work building solar panels and wind turbines and lithium batteries. I understand we just struck the mother lode. Just a thought.

Oh yea…and one final, little tinsy-tiny note: The National Hurricane Center center says a very unusual early season Cape Verde-type weather system half-way between Africa and South America might grow into the season’s first tropical depression.

The good news is forecast models are not – so far – giving it much chance to survive into a storm.

Fight back: use less oil! PACE is an answer.

Posted on June 11, 2010 By

Jacques Yves Cousteau was born 100 years ago today.

Imagine what he might say to us as he watches one of the world’s great oceans being destroyed by the greed and malfeasance of Big Oil…with the duplicity of a U.S. government bent on deregulation of large industries over the past 30 years.

We can all grab Vuvuzelas and make a big noise…

…OR…we can do something about it.

Floridians actually have now a remarkable new tool for actually doing something about the murder of the Gulf of Mexico.

Floridians can now greatly reduce the amount of energy used in homes and buildings. Depending on which estimates is to be believed, between 50 and 70 percent of all electricity is Florida is generated by burning fossil fuels, including and especially oil.

The Florida Legislature created a way for communities to band together to reduce energy use.

The Florida Legislature adopted in its 2010 session a new PACE initiative allowing Florida counties and cities to develop pools of money from which property owners can borrow to make energy efficient and hurricane-hardening improvements to homes and buildings.

PACE – Property Assessed Clean Energy – is an innovative national approach to public-private partnerships enabling local governments to inspire private property owners to reduce energy use while also creating jobs.

Here’s how PACE will work in Florida:

Local governments – counties, cities perhaps even entire regions as a whole – will create Energy Conservation Districts which will then be allowed under new state law to develop a pool of money from which property owners can borrow to make energy improvements on homes and buildings.

The PACE legislation also allows for hurricane-hardening measures to be installed with these funds.

The cost of these retrofits – the home improvement loans – will then be repaid as small additional payments on annual property tax bills. The loans will run with the property, be transferred to successive owners and be spread over 20 years.

The bottom line: PACE loans will not cost property owners any additional money and won’t put the local government further into debt.

Savings from reduced energy use will more than offset the cost of the home improvement loan while at the same time increasing the value of the property which, then, accrues to the benefit of the local government in the form of increased tax base.

PACE is modeled on traditional land-secured financing of improvements such as storm water utilities, road and sewer construction projects and other public improvement projects.

One of the differences, however, in the PACE initiative is that participation by property owners is completely volunteers. Property owners will sign up & enter into an agreement with the county before accepting the home improvement loan. They will pay only for improvements on the homes and buildings they own and the improvements must be permanently attached to the home (solar systems, for example, window/door treatments, wind turbines).

Loans to property owners are secured by statutorily authorized non-ad valorem special assessments; a tax parity lien on the property.

Because the PACE program is new and participation in it is voluntary, the Legislature sees unique funding opportunities for participating counties.

The Florida PACE legislation allows local governments to seek interim financing through a third-party lender – a bank or group of banks – which would float the county a line of credit to implement the project.

Once the number of loans and the value of loans reaches a certain threshold, the “warehoused” loans can then be bundled and sold on traditional bond markets.

PACE in Florida will give Floridians a way to fight back, to reduce the need for oil in the Sunshine State.

Kick-ass primaries, whomp!

Posted on June 9, 2010 By

Big Oil is still kicking the Gulf of Mexico’s ass but it was another primary election day across ‘Murka, yesterday, and that bright shiny object has everyone’s attention. Whomp, there it is…

So, what the hell?

In a clear sign voters prefer candidates who don’t campaign, raise no money, don’t even put up a campaign site on the InnerTubes, for God’s sake, unknown political novice Alvin Green garnered 100,000 votes to win the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in South Carolina.

This simply proves, as all pundits will point out today, that 2010 is THE year of the low key, if not downright invisible, campaign that wastes no money and does not bother anyone.

And, please, no Al Green jokes. The Democratic nominee for Senate in South Carolina doesn’t even live in Memphis!

It was the Republican “Let’s Spend the Night Together” race for the goobernatorial nomination in South Carolina that received all the pre-election press and spotlight where front-runner Nikki Haley, an attractive woman of Indian descent, was accused of sleeping with nearly every political consultant in the state.

She didn’t win. She faces a run-off with a dude who did not claim to sleep with her and only managed to get 21 percent of the vote. Maybe just one more alleged paramour mighta done the trick.

Lord help us if a woman of Brazilian descent ever seeks elected office in South Carolina.

Up in Arkansas, voters disappointed headline writers across the nation who were poised to print, “Halter Tops,” when state AG Bill Halter easily bested incumbent Blanche Lincoln in the senate run-off. He didn’t. Much to everyone’s surprise and disappointment, Lincoln won and headline writers were forced to remove Halter Tops to stay abreast of election results.

Out in California, rich right-wing business women won in both the senate and gubernatorial GOP primaries. Pundits across the nation will loudly today proclaim 2010 to be the year of rich, right-wing Republican women. And this is good because rich, right-wing Republican women have never gotten a fair shake from anyone, let alone voters and the press.

Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman will now face Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown, respectively, in a beach volleyball game to become California’s next senator and governor, respectively.

And in Nevada, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid got the GOP opponents he wants in November. Sharron “two Rs” Angle won the GOP nod and will continue her chicken-in-every-pot-to-pay-the-doctor health care reform campaign.

Finally, voters in Florida suggest in a Quinnipiac University poll they now oppose offshore oil drilling by a 51 to 42 percent majority. That’s a 48-point swing from an April poll which suggested Floridians favored offshore oil drilling by a 66 to 27 percent majority.

Pundits across ‘Murka will point out Floridians are sharp like that.

Under siege by a foreign corporation…

Posted on June 7, 2010 By

It’s Monday, all you oil-soaked peeps and beaks, we’re now at 50 days into the killing of a major ocean.

The bad news is we’re now officially under siege by a foreign oil corporation and being held hostage by its greed, incompetence and general disdain for humankind and Mother Earth.

But the good news is…oh, wait, there isn’t any good news.

“This is a siege across the entire gulf,” said U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen over the weekend on the TeeVee Box. “This spill is holding everybody hostage, not only economically but physically. And it has to be attacked on all fronts.”

So, would someone PLEASE attack it? AND save a little punishment for the corporation responsible for it?

“This is the most messed up thing I’ve ever seen,” said another astute observer.

Yep, it is quite possibly this will be the most messed up thing we’re likely to see it our lifetimes.

“This is worse than the financial meltdown,” continued the astute observer. “We can overcome money disasters.”

So, let’s take stock.

The Gulf of Mexico contains 2,434, 000 cubic kilometers of water or 642,994,775,444,240,000 gallons.

It now also contains between 30 million and 117 million gallons of oil plus another 1 million gallons of chemicals intended to, um, disperse the oil.

So…carry the 1…sin(ax)sin(bx) – k cos(ax)cos(bx)… let’s see…that means roughly 1.807723911257192e-10 percent of the Gulf of Mexico is now filled with oil and cancer-causing chemicals.

One is legally drunk is Florida when one’s blood alcohol content reaches .08 percent. Just sayin’.

But not to worry, the “drill-baby-drill” crowd has it all under control.

Why just this past weekend, Drill-Baby (otherwise known as Sarah Palin) posted on her Facebook page the root cause of this catastrophe of Biblical proportions.

Yes, you guessed it: the “extreme environmentalists.”

“With your nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you’re doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet,” wrote the half-term governor of Alaska.

“Your hypocrisy is showing. You’re not preventing environmental hazards; you’re outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.

“Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country’s energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It’s catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.”

How could we have been so wrong to oppose offshore oil drilling?

Finally, noted carnival sideshow barker and human cartoon Rush Limbaugh got married over the weekend to his fourth wife. Newt Gingrich was there with his third wife.

It’s good to celebrate life-long commitments and family values.

Junk shots all over the place!

Posted on May 28, 2010 By

BP backed off its first junk shot and after a rest and, maybe, some protein will try another junk shot.

It’s a hard business.

BP or “Beyond Petroleum-and-into-destroying-one-of-the-world’s-great-oceans” will get a visit today from President Obama. He will, no doubt, kick their corporate ass before donning his Aquaman suit, swimming down 5,000 feet and plugging the volcano himself with one of the whale carcasses he may find.

Probably gonna be a lot of junk shots today.

After all, the President took full responsibility yesterday, explaining the federal government’s been in charge of this fiasco from day one. That was, of course, before he realized BP decided on its own to pull out of the initial junk shot leaving us all disappointed and unfulfilled.

“I take responsibility,” said the President during an afternoon presser. “It is my job to make sure that everything is done to shut this down. That doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen right away or the way I’d like it to happen. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to make mistakes.”

Then he told us even his 11-year-old daughter, Malia, is concerned.

“You know, when I woke up this morning and I’m shaving, and Malia knocks on my bathroom door and she peeks in her head and she says, ‘did you plug the hole yet, Daddy?’”

No, sweetie, Daddy didn’t plug the hole, yet.

But, hey, the good news is officials of Beyond Petroleum-and-into-destroying-one-of-the-world’s-great-oceans described this disaster of Biblical proportions as – not making this up – an “environmental catastrophe.”

Thanks Tony Hayward, head of BP in ‘Murka, for upgrading your assessment from “a modest spill.”

Lots of junk shots today.

Fearful of losing headline attention, Sarah Palin is tweeting (again, can’t make this up): “I never say drill,baby,drill. Ahh, that’s much of the problem, Mr.President, Drill ANWR & unlock land for safe onshore devlpmnt/energy security.”

Seriously? Hey Sarah, let’s go to the video tape.

Speaking of mouthing off, where’s Dick Cheney been? He’s always good for a quote about the Obama Administration. No? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Oh yea, that’s right…his, um, cozy and helpful relationship with the oil industry just might share a teeny-tiny bit of the blame for all this. Maybe, once the Gulf of Mexico is dead, we can rename the aquatic wasteland, the Gulf of Dick.

But the good people of Morgan City, Louisiana are going right ahead with their 75th Annual Shrimp & Petroleum Festival.

“All systems are go,” said Lee Delaune, the festival’s director to the New York Times. “We will honor the two industries as we always do. More so probably in grand style, because it’s our diamond jubilee.”

More so probably because as an added treat, the good people of Morgan City, Louisiana can pick up shrimp coated in oil right off the boats! Good for deep fryin’.

Stupid is as stupid votes…

Posted on May 24, 2010 By

Rand Paul says he would’ve voted against making Woolworth’s open lunch counters to black folks and thinks the government goes too far by requiring ramps near stairs for wheelchairs.

Sarah Palin thinks asking a politician about such matters is gotcha-journalism like, you know, when she was asked, “what newspapers do you read?” (Remember answer? “All of ‘em.”)

The Gulf of Mexico continues filling up with oil and chemicals.

Let’s hope this week is better…or, at least, a little less stupid.

That’s right, I said it: stupid. Just plain stupid; meaning: dumb, dim, think, dense, slow, dull, brainless, obtuse, foolish, silly, daft.

Perhaps Palin is simply pissed because someone finally knocked her off the cover of Dumb Politicians Monthly magazine. Oops, sorry, but it’s time to move on to the next season of “American Idiot Idol.”

Richard “yea, sure, I served in Vietnam…with my wife, Morgan Fairchild” Blumenthal can give ‘em a run for their money.

Yea, that’s the ticket.

It’s one thing to be really mush-brained but think you have all the answers and put them out there in public for all the world to see and hear.

But it’s a whole other level of dumbass to go out there in public and defend dumbass, blame it one someone else or – especially – the media.

But let’s be honest, we’ve no shortage of publicly expressed dumbassiness. Remember these?

“Considering the dire circumstances that we have in New Orleans, virtually a city that has been destroyed, things are going relatively well.” – FEMA Director Michael Brown on his heckuva job in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“I was recently on a tour of Latin America and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people.”  - Dan Quayle.

“We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” – Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.

Know hat? Maybe, for once, I agree with what Douche Limpbranch said on his dumbass radio show back in February:

“Our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards.”

Oh, and did I mention the best guess estimate is over 35 million gallons of oil is now in the Gulf of Mexico…AND COUNTING!

Dumbass.


Seize BP…

Posted on May 21, 2010 By

It’s been a month.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20. An oil volcano 5,000 feet below, on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, has been gushing hundred of thousands of gallons of oil for 30 days.

Chemicals poured into the lethal mix to disperse the oil add to toxic stew.

Will the Gulf of Mexico survive this gross negligence?

Almost 20 percent of the Gulf of Mexico is now closed to fishing.

BP & the U.S. government have maintained all along the gusher has bee pouring 210,000 gallons of oil and gas each day into the Gulf. The evidence is now pretty clear: the rate is more like 1.1 million gallons each day – or close to 33 million gallons since the explosion occurred.

Why is this travesty not being treated as criminal negligence? Why are the top officials of BP, Transocean and Halliburton still walking around as free men? Why have then not been placed into custody?

Why has the U.S. government not seized the assets of those companies? Why have they not been shut down?  Why have the assets of those companies not be placed into a trust to immediately begin saving the Gulf’s wildlife and provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents whose communities and livelihoods have been – or will soon be – decimated by this travesty?

Why has the full force of the federal government, even the military if necessary, not been called in to stop this murder of one of the world’s great oceans?

Seriously.

We go crazy over terrorism. We stand on chairs and scream bloody murder because we fear some poor, barely-surviving Mexican might be within our borders without proper authorization. We rant incessantly about meaningless ideologies of right vs. left. We threaten financial institutions and – maybe, just maybe – pretend to have reined them in.

By its own figures, BP earned $5.6 billion in profits in the first quarter of 2010, a 135 percent increase over profits of the 2009 First Quarter. It earned $17 billion in profits in all of 2009.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case corporations should be treated as individuals, allowed to give as much money as they wished to politicians and office-seekers.

If corporations are now to be treated as individuals why should we not seize BP, Transocean & Halliburton? Why should the officers of those corporations not be arrested and charged with high crimes?

How long will this disaster be allowed to continue without a day of reckoning for those responsible and restitution made for the damage?

What is the price that should be paid if the Gulf of Mexico is destroyed?

Mad as hell!!

Posted on May 14, 2010 By

Headline: Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say.

Headline: U.S. Said to Allow Drilling Without Needed Permits.

Headline: Gulf Coast Battles Oil Spill with Big Bags of Hair.

Headline: Pogo Points and Says, “Told You So.”

Seriously, it’s time – yet again – for quite a bit of righteous indignation bordering on anger.

It’s going to be a long, slow summer for the Gulf of Mexico and its inhabitants. The Gulf oil spill has been called a slow motion disaster but a disaster nonetheless.

And it didn’t have to happen. We all bear some responsibility. I loved my little 40th Anniversary Edition Mustang GT Turbo convertible with huge woofers in the trunk. But it was amazingly selfish.

We’ve all done it: thought first of our own pleasure and convenience.

Now, we’re collecting hair to sop up oil from the beaches of the Gulf Coast.  We’re donating hair as a penance for our sins.

It’s come to that. Its 2010, the 21st Century. We have unbelievable technology at our fingertips and we using bags of hair to soak up a disaster of Biblical proportions.

Doods, this is nuckin’ futs!

You’ll remember initial estimates of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill suggested it was gushing 1,000 barrels of oil each day.

Nope, came the revised estimates. It’s more like 5,000 barrels a day. That’s 210,000 gallons, each day.

Now, according to the New York Times, it the spill could actually be gushing 20,000 to 25,000 barrels of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico. Do the math: over 1 million gallons each day.

And no one knows how to stop it.

Oh, but not to worry. We’re gonna put a cork in it or, maybe, dress it up with a top hat. Maybe we should ask one of the sperm whales living nearby to simply stick its tail up the pipe. You know, take one for the mammal team.

Or, maybe, plug up the leaking pipe with Hummers smashed up into balls.

And while BP, Transocean and – yes – Halliburton fight to limit their responsibility for this disaster, we learn the permits for the Deepwater Horizon well were given by the U.S. Minerals & Mining Service without obtaining the necessary permits from agencies charged with protecting the surrounding environment and wildlife.

The MMS was too busy getting good drugs and good sex from the oil industry to bother with procedures and permits.

Where is Howard Beale when we really need him?

\”Mad as hell and not gonna taken it anymore!\”

And, while you’re at it, remember this one, too…and this was 1976!!

\”There is no democracy…\”

Oil’s well that ends well!

Posted on May 3, 2010 By

“Drill, baby, drill; not stall, baby, stall!”

“We already drill in an environmentally sensitive manner.”

Okay, so maybe Michael ManofSteele, Sarah Palindrome & Shame Humanity missed the mark just a skosh on this one.

Gee, ya think?

As the people of Perdido Key, Florida spent Sunday patrolling their 10 miles of beach, picking up anything that could soak up the millions of gallons of oil possibly headed their way, the rest of the nation watched in horror as oil advocates gagged on their own words.

Fortunately, we can count on radio carnival barker Douche Limpbranch to find the solution for us.

“The ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and left out there,” Limpbranch told the St. Petersburg Times. “It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is.”

Limpbranch also suggested the April 20 oil rig explosion which led to the 200,000-gallon-per-day open gusher on the Gulf floor might have been a case of eco-terrorism by one of the oil rig workers.

This is all excellent logic, the kind of logic that leads pundits across the meme-scape to call this horrible disaster, “Obama’s Katrina.”

Obama’s Katrina? Really? Seriously? Okay, to begin with journalist and rescue workers can actually get to, stay in and enjoy the food of New Orleans…unlike the days following Katrina.

Second, sales of Dawn dishwashing liquid will soon spike as experts suggest the common household product is the single best way to clean befouled fowl of oil. Really, not making this up.

“There is something in that Dawn detergent that cuts that oil right off of them,” said Lee Fox, head of Sarasota, FL.-based Save our Seabirds.

Fox wrote a manual for how to clean up birds covered with oil after a 1993 oil spill in Tampa Bay.

Wait…you mean we’ve had other massive oil spills? Sure we have. You might recall Alaska’s Exxon Valdez spill in 1989…President George H.W. Bush’s Katrina.

Close to 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

The good news is BP, which owns the leaking oil rig, announced last week its first quarter 2010 profits were up nearly $2.4 billion over the first quarter 2009…thanks to rising oil and gasoline prices.

So…this is working out pretty well for them.

“Drill, baby, drill.”

“Eat shrimp while you still can.”

Gulf of Mexico: America’s sewer!

Posted on April 30, 2010 By

The good news about the massive oil spill in the northern Gulf of Mexico is that it will cover up and make us forget about the massive dead zone in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Oh…and, by the way, you’ll hear the word, “massive,” a lot in the coming days.

But what the hell, right? It’s just the Gulf of Mexico. We’ve been using it as America’s sewer for years now, flushing all kinds of poisons down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Just like Colonel Jackson in Johnny Horton’s song.

So, let’s rewind back to the Republican National Convention of 2008. What’s that, you chant…loudly?

“Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!”

Yea, seemed like a good slogan at the time. So, Sarah, how’s that, “drill, baby, drilly-thingy workin’ out fer ya?” Wink-wink.

“Globs of roofing tar” reported washing up on the Chandeleur Islands, according to the Christian Science Monitor. But, heck, that could be left over from Katrina. No, not really.

The infamous Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone, you see, is a 7,000 square mile area, generally just west and south of the…here it is again…massive oil spill. Nothing lives in the dead zone. Nothing can live in the dead zone because pollutants – nutrients, fertilizers, all sorts of chemicals – sucked up all the oxygen years ago.

Flushed down the Mississippi River from our nation’s heartland, the Gulf of Mexico dead zone was created by our nation’s ongoing, greatest (and massive) bowel movement.

But now we have a 2,000 square mile oil slick washing toward the Louisiana marshes and, should the wind shift and regular currents pick it up, the island and beaches of Mississippi, Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and possibly even to the Florida Keys eventually.

Ain’t that just great? Drill, baby, drill! Pump 200,000 gallons of oil each day into the Gulf of Mexico from a broken well head!!

Some experts predict it could take as long as 3 months to cap the leaking well. Let’s see…200,000 gallons a day times 90 days…carry the 1…why that’s close to 18 million gallons of black gold spread across the Gulf of Mexico in three months!

We’ll all be rich!!

Oh, what the hell, we’ll just burn the Gulf of Mexico…and Mexicans could then walk to Florida and avoid Arizona altogether!

Oh yea…and President Obama let it be known this morning he is rethinking his whole notion of allowing more offshore oil drilling. Good call, Mr. President.

Back on dry land, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist reversed himself after reversing himself and finally decided, “offshore drilling…bad.”

He also decided, “Republican Party…bad,” as he officially proclaimed his independence making for a man-to-man-to-man three-way for election to the U.S. Senate in November. We’ll see who ends up spooning who.