Blaming the Victims for BP’s Negligence

Bert opines that if we had less regulation, BP would have had fewer corners to cut while drilling Deepwater

Explosion is CG--No Squirrels were hurt in the production of this cartoon

Yup, that’s right, it isn’t Biggish Petroleum’s fault that the Gulf of Mexico is turning into La Brea East. After all, they have such a lovely service record with hundreds of safety violations … in the last 2 years! So it couldn’t possibly be THEIR fault for being in such hot … errr … water. How dare President Obama shake them down for damages when it manifestly is not their fault.

It’s the Democrat’s fault for allowing themselves to be bullied into toothless regulation. It’s the fault of those damn liberals who forced them to drill so far off-shore. It’s the fault of the American people for buying those gas guzzlers and not forcing the auto manufacturers to make electric cars. It’s their fault for not throwing away their incandescent light bulbs and replacing them with mercury-filled CFLs that are 10 times as expensive and require a HAZMAT team to come clean up if one breaks. It’s their fault for keeping on using gas and oil instead of smoke-belching coal, since they don’t have any other viable alternatives. Except ultra-safe nuclear! It’s the fault of the alternative energy folks for not developing their technologies on a shoestring while Congress is giving subsidies to the oil folks who are already making the largest profits in history. It’s the fault of that guy in all the emergency contact documents who had the temerity to die without informing the oil companies of the need to update their plans. It’s the fault of the turtles in the Gulf for being so delicious that they’re endangered.

Yeah. And as the bank robber said to the security guard:

Damn you! if you hadn’t gotten untied and started screaming, I wouldn’t have had to shoot you.

See. It’s YOUR fault.

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Keeping the Gulf Crisis in the Short-Range View

David Cameron explains to President Obama how the needs of British pensions outweigh the loss of the Gulf of Mexico.

In Saturday's talk, Obama assured David Cameron that BP is important to the US

WASHINGTON (IVC)–President Obama and British Prime Minister met by phone on Saturday to discuss the ongoing crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. Cameron expressed his deep regret that billions of barrels of British oil were being lost in the Gulf of Mexico and that it was unfortunate that it might destroy an entire international eco-system. The President and Prime Minister reaffirmed the “special relationship” between the US and UK and expressed how they’d like to meet in person soon to administer the official special reach-arounds. Cameron reminded Obama how important BP was to the world’s economy, which, he added, “includes the USA.” According to Robert Reich, 12% of British pensions are invested in BP. Cameron continued that while BP was a British company, the problem is strictly an American one. “It’s not as if the oil will enter the Gulf Stream and head out across the Atlantic,” he noted. Obama, for his part, apologized for the emphasis everyone seemed to be placing on called BP “British” Petroleum, which was merely an unfortunate accident from the fact that BP happens to be a British company. Obama further said that he understood that this accident was not an act of war and that we would do everything possible to avoid invading Britain any time soon. The rest of the conversation was devoted to talk about their families.

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2009? I’m outta here…

Three scenes--Obama foisting a knockoff Christmas gift on his daughter, Lloyd Blankfein wishing happy holidays as he drinks champagne and eats caviar, and Fred'n'Bert harvesting Christmas lights...

Man, I'm tired of this year

This is one year I’m glad to be leaving–hell, it’s a whole decade I’m glad is over. And what a decade–starting with the Supreme Court deciding that ANY President is better than the elected President when it’s too annoying to actually have a legally mandated recount, through 9/11, not capturing Osama bin Laden when he was less than a handful of football fields away, attacking Iraq because they might have horrible weapons while their army barely had shoes, setting up concentration camps to house interrogations fueled by torture, having the country’s transportation held hostage by the oil companies who were given carte blanche to raise prices anytime they saw fit, watching one of the great cities of the US be destroyed by storm and flooding due to inadequate levees built by the Army Corps of Engineers, having a damn over-a-year long Presidential race, electing the first black President who offered us a vision of hope while the economy tanked and then seeing those hopes tarnished by a first year in office that seemed like nothing less than more of the same BS we’d been through for the first nine years of the new millenium.
President Obama grades his performance as worth a solid B+, but if he were to be graded with regards to his success in the most important issues of his first year, tougher regulation of banking, staving off unemployment, delivering a health care reform that actually helps Americans, a C would be the best he could be given and then only from a professor who didn’t give out D’s. What Obama lacks is leadership. He’s an inspiring speaker, but in terms of actually getting things done, he’s been too focused on trying to reach a consensus with an opposition party that would say no if he said the sun rises in the east, and a renegade faction of his own party that is more intent on making sure their bread gets buttered rather than achieving something of value to the country. At times, it seems like Obama is not running the country but has delegated that task to Rahm Emanuel filling in as America’s Chief Operating Officer. We are on the verge of legislating a “health care reform” whose principle accomplishment is mandating that all Americans buy insurance from the same pack of parasites that has driven American health care into one of the worst in the world. Instead of taking the tough love route he took with the automobile companies, Obama has been mollycoddling the bank industry and not even blinking when he gets flipped the bird by the three CEOs who just couldn’t make the meeting he called. Not to mention an unemployment rate over 10% and a lackluster mortgage relief program that has failed to stem the rising tide of home foreclosures.
President Obama, the time to get tough was yesterday. You’d better make it one of your New Year’s resolutions or you’re going to find yourself with a hostile Republican-led Congress come next November. Stop thumbing your nose at the progressives who elected you because, if you think it was tough reaching across the aisle when you had a majority, just think how tough it will be when the people who want to impeach you for existing hold the reins.
So Goodbye 2009. I’m going to forget about politics for the next few weeks. May all my readers have happy holidays no matter what holidays they have to suffer through. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, whatever you say for Kwanza, we’ve already passed Eid, Happy New Year, Gode Yule, blessed solstice and my personal choice, Sated Saturnalia–the holiday designed to offend EVERYONE. We’ll see you again on January 11.

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Change We Can Believe In–Sure, I Got Four Quarters…

Strangely resembling the Montauk Monster, this creature whose marking resembled the word REFORM was washed up in Panama

The curious markings seemed to spell out REFORM...

(PANAMA CITY, PANAMA) A curious beast was found this weekend on the beach of Panama. Four teenagers first saw it and when the beast appeared to charge them, threw stones at it until it died. Resembling the Montauk Monster or a space alien, the creature had markings that amazingly seemed to spell out the word “REFORM”. “Of course, that is merely an illusion,” Professor Noitall said. “It seems to be some kind of stillborn animal fetus,” he continued in contradiction to the teenagers’ story. While some have suggested that it was the product of a sloth, Professor Noitall opined that it actually came from north of Panama, possibly the United States. “I’ve heard Reform is still-born up there,” he joked.
But it’s no joke for us. President Obama’s change we can believe in appears to be limited to four quarters on a dollar, since a dollar is about all the average citizen has seen from the bank bailout. “We’re going to close the loopholes,” the president said. And as Jon Stewart (congratulations on the two new Emmys) said, “You gave away 700 billion dollars BEFORE you closed the loopholes???” Steve Keen wrote a searching criticism of the bank bailout whose rationale could be summed up as “If the banks have the money to lend, more people will take out loans.” What people? The Unemployed or Underemployed? Fat chance, they only need the money to stay alive, not to run some risky investment scheme, they’ll never get a loan approved. The up-to-their-ears-in-debt middle class? They’re all cutting coupons out of the papers–the last debt they’re going to incur for some time was the New SUV they bought that gets 4 mpg better than the old one so they could take advantage of Cash for Clunkers. And the banks have already started back into the risky portfolios–didn’t Bernanke say that the recession was over? Partay, PAR-TAY! You get a bonus, You get a Bonus–it’s almost like Oprah was giving out new cars!
And what about that new Health Care Plan that Senator Bilkus–I mean Baucus–lobbed at us like a chimpanzee in a zoo? The Republicans don’t like it, the Progressives don’t like it, the only people who DO like it are the Blue Dog Democrats and the Insurance Companies that pay them. Real Reform–i.e., single payer–has been off the table so long it’s growing mold and Baucus even managed to substitute the unworkable cooperative for the best compromise public option–which the White House is still willing to give up for Republican support that it will never get.
I see a different analogy to the Great Depression. Bush wasn’t Hoover–he was Calvin Coolidge, the guy who said and did nothing and so allowed the Depression to get started. Hoover was the one who stayed with the “tried and true” to fix the economy–the things that didn’t work. And after four years, we elected someone who was willing to propose change–and had the balls to carry it out. You talked the talk, Barry–now walk the walk or you may find yourself walking in another 3-1/2 years–away from the White House.

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And There’s A Bridge In Brooklyn We’re Running An Ad For

Cartoon strip of a spokesperson for the NY Post issuing a non-apology for their chimpanzee cartoon while being subjected to indignities by a real chimpanzee.

The Post defends its innocent (KOFF!bullsh*tKOFF!) cartoon...

There’s an saying in New York: “The Daily News is for people who can’t read, the Post is for people who can’t think…” (and the Times is for people who think they can read). If you haven’t been living in a cave for the past week, you’ve probably heard of the latest demonstration of total thoughtlessness on the part of the New York Post. Thoughtlessness at best. Rabidly racist and possibly treasonous at worst. Seems there was this pet chimpanzee that suddenly went bonkers and attacked its owner’s neighbor and well-nigh tore her face off before the boys in blue shot it down. That’s part one. Part two is that President Obama signed his stimulus bill–a bill which he was one of the principal architects of. There was a photo of this on page 11 of the Post. Turn the page. On page 12 is a cartoon. A dead chimpanzee shot by two policemen and one says to the other, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”
Now the Post says that this was really an innocent cartoon. It OBVIOUSLY referred to the chimp in Connecticut that got shot down. And they were kinda sorta sorry if anyone misinterpreted it, meaning any member of a racial minority who gets a bit bent out of shape when subjected to a racial slur. Like calling them apes. You remember apes–chimpanzees are one of them. Why would this be so “misinterpreted”? Because the stimulus plan–you remember, the thing that President Obama just signed on page 11–had been put forward–by a BLACK person. You know, one of THOSE people (to use one of the euphemisms by which bigots often refer to African-Americans) that racists have called apes.
That’s only the half of it. By portraying the author of the stimulus plan as a crazed, out of control beast that needed to be shot before it caused any more harm, the Post came VERY CLOSE–too close–to suggesting that the President of the United States deserves to be shot down like a wild animal. That sounds extraordinarily like a call for assassination to me. And to a lot of other people. Some of whom think it’s a good idea. I am appalled by the thought that a major American newspaper can suggest a heinous crime and then just get away with it. I don’t just blame the Post. I blame the Republican Party and all its hacks on right-wing radio for creating an environment of hatred. Yes, there are good Republicans. Many of them. But I ask–when are they going to stand up and abjure the politics of division and hatred that is poisoning the land they claim to love? Think about it–racism is the neo-conservative patriotism.
As for the Post’s non-apology. You’ve all run into them–the verbal bully. The man/woman who makes jokes at everyone else’s expense. And if you complain–they make it your fault–what’s the matter, no sense of humor? You’re just too sensitive. Somehow they make the fact that you took offense at an insult winds up being your fault and everyone around agrees–mainly because they don’t want to be the butt of the NEXT slur. Well, re-read the Post’s apology. If that isn’t an attempt to deflect the criticism back onto the offended (in the person of the Rev. Al Sharpton), I don’t know what is.
(DailyNews) New York Post offers half-hearted apology for chimpanzee cartoon has an excellent summary and a deservedly small reproduction of the cartoon.

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