"Politics"
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0
I've got huffpost, NYT, AP, BBC, Sullivan, and lots more lodged in my RSS reader, and I scour them religiously, 3-4 hours a day. I could post about a lot more news than I do, is what I'm saying, but I don't really have much to add other than the occasional chuckle. The whole ratf*ck episode made me laugh, but there's not much substance there. WHY DID RUDD SAY RATFUCK? WHY NOT OTHER ANIMALS ASSOCIATED WITH DISINGENUOUSNESS, LIKE WEASELFUCK OR COCKROACHFUCK? I wonder if Rudd has a childhood history with rats? Do the leaders of China actually have sex with rats?
Another reason I don't say anything is when I'm overwhelmed. I've been watching news about the oil spill trickle out, a screwup here, an idiot move there, and most of it doesn't bear commentary. This does though. Go read that article.
"Nowhere was the absurdity of the policy more evident than in the application that BP submitted for its Deepwater Horizon well only two months after Obama took office. BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says Ruch, who represents government scientists."
....
"After the blast, BP pleaded guilty to a felony, paying $50 million to settle a criminal investigation and another $21 million for violating federal safety laws. But the fines failed to force BP to change its ways. In October, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hit the company with a proposed $87 million in new fines - the highest in history - for continued safety violations at the same facility. Since 2007, according to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, BP has received 760 citations for "egregious and willful" safety violations - those "committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health." The rest of the oil industry combined has received a total of one."
"As BP was cutting corners aboard the rig, the Obama administration was plotting the greatest expansion of offshore drilling in half a century. In 2008, as prices at the pump neared $5 a gallon, President Bush had lifted an executive moratorium on offshore drilling outside the Gulf that had been implemented by his father following the Exxon Valdez. On the campaign trail, Obama had stressed that offshore drilling "will not make a real dent in current gas prices or meet the long-term challenge of energy independence." But once in office, he bowed to the politics of "drill, baby, drill." Hoping to use oil as a bargaining chip to win votes for climate legislation in Congress, Obama unveiled an aggressive push for new offshore drilling in the Arctic, the Southeastern seaboard and new waters in the Gulf, closer to Florida than ever before. In doing so, he ignored his administration's top experts on ocean science, who warned that the offshore plan dramatically understated the risks of an oil spill and petitioned Salazar to exempt the Arctic from drilling until more scientific studies could be conducted.
Undeterred, Obama and Salazar appeared together at Andrews Air Force Base on March 31st to introduce the plan. The stagecraft was pure Rove in its technicolor militaristic patriotism. The president's podium was set up in front of the cockpit of an F-18, flanked by a massive American flag. "We are not here to do what is easy," Salazar declared. "We are here to do what is right." He insisted that his reforms at MMS were working: "We are making decisions based on sound information and sound science." The president, for his part, praised Salazar as "one of the finest secretaries of Interior we've ever had" and stressed that his administration had studied the drilling plan for more than a year. "This is not a decision that I've made lightly," he said. Two days later, he issued an even more sweeping assurance. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced.""
That's not ordinary politician stupid, that's Bush stupid. I voted for Obama, I was glad to see healthcare, I always realized he was just another politician, but DUDE. There's a fucking standard you have to live up to. A basic level of not fucking up that has to be accomplished. And if you read the rest of the article about how he handled the situation...I'm really not cool with that.
Fuck off. I'll keep my votes to myself next election cycle.
I've got huffpost, NYT, AP, BBC, Sullivan, and lots more lodged in my RSS reader, and I scour them religiously, 3-4 hours a day. I could post about a lot more news than I do, is what I'm saying, but I don't really have much to add other than the occasional chuckle. The whole ratf*ck episode made me laugh, but there's not much substance there. WHY DID RUDD SAY RATFUCK? WHY NOT OTHER ANIMALS ASSOCIATED WITH DISINGENUOUSNESS, LIKE WEASELFUCK OR COCKROACHFUCK? I wonder if Rudd has a childhood history with rats? Do the leaders of China actually have sex with rats?
Another reason I don't say anything is when I'm overwhelmed. I've been watching news about the oil spill trickle out, a screwup here, an idiot move there, and most of it doesn't bear commentary. This does though. Go read that article.
"Nowhere was the absurdity of the policy more evident than in the application that BP submitted for its Deepwater Horizon well only two months after Obama took office. BP claims that a spill is "unlikely" and states that it anticipates "no adverse impacts" to endangered wildlife or fisheries. Should a spill occur, it says, "no significant adverse impacts are expected" for the region's beaches, wetlands and coastal nesting birds. The company, noting that such elements are "not required" as part of the application, contains no scenario for a potential blowout, and no site-specific plan to respond to a spill. Instead, it cites an Oil Spill Response Plan that it had prepared for the entire Gulf region. Among the sensitive species BP anticipates protecting in the semitropical Gulf? "Walruses" and other cold-water mammals, including sea otters and sea lions. The mistake appears to be the result of a sloppy cut-and-paste job from BP's drilling plans for the Arctic. Even worse: Among the "primary equipment providers" for "rapid deployment of spill response resources," BP inexplicably provides the Web address of a Japanese home-shopping network. Such glaring errors expose the 582-page response "plan" as nothing more than a paperwork exercise. "It was clear that nobody read it," says Ruch, who represents government scientists."
....
"After the blast, BP pleaded guilty to a felony, paying $50 million to settle a criminal investigation and another $21 million for violating federal safety laws. But the fines failed to force BP to change its ways. In October, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis hit the company with a proposed $87 million in new fines - the highest in history - for continued safety violations at the same facility. Since 2007, according to analysis by the Center for Public Integrity, BP has received 760 citations for "egregious and willful" safety violations - those "committed with plain indifference to or intentional disregard for employee safety and health." The rest of the oil industry combined has received a total of one."
"As BP was cutting corners aboard the rig, the Obama administration was plotting the greatest expansion of offshore drilling in half a century. In 2008, as prices at the pump neared $5 a gallon, President Bush had lifted an executive moratorium on offshore drilling outside the Gulf that had been implemented by his father following the Exxon Valdez. On the campaign trail, Obama had stressed that offshore drilling "will not make a real dent in current gas prices or meet the long-term challenge of energy independence." But once in office, he bowed to the politics of "drill, baby, drill." Hoping to use oil as a bargaining chip to win votes for climate legislation in Congress, Obama unveiled an aggressive push for new offshore drilling in the Arctic, the Southeastern seaboard and new waters in the Gulf, closer to Florida than ever before. In doing so, he ignored his administration's top experts on ocean science, who warned that the offshore plan dramatically understated the risks of an oil spill and petitioned Salazar to exempt the Arctic from drilling until more scientific studies could be conducted.
Undeterred, Obama and Salazar appeared together at Andrews Air Force Base on March 31st to introduce the plan. The stagecraft was pure Rove in its technicolor militaristic patriotism. The president's podium was set up in front of the cockpit of an F-18, flanked by a massive American flag. "We are not here to do what is easy," Salazar declared. "We are here to do what is right." He insisted that his reforms at MMS were working: "We are making decisions based on sound information and sound science." The president, for his part, praised Salazar as "one of the finest secretaries of Interior we've ever had" and stressed that his administration had studied the drilling plan for more than a year. "This is not a decision that I've made lightly," he said. Two days later, he issued an even more sweeping assurance. "It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills," the president said. "They are technologically very advanced.""
That's not ordinary politician stupid, that's Bush stupid. I voted for Obama, I was glad to see healthcare, I always realized he was just another politician, but DUDE. There's a fucking standard you have to live up to. A basic level of not fucking up that has to be accomplished. And if you read the rest of the article about how he handled the situation...I'm really not cool with that.
Fuck off. I'll keep my votes to myself next election cycle.