Could Be Fined $18 Billion The fire you see here may be BP’s capital reserves going up in flame. A federal judge has ruled that BP was “reckless,” grossly negligent, and primarily to blame for the April 2010 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that killed 11...
BP
Live-Blogging from Rising Tide 6
A conference on the future of New Orleans Xavier University, New Orleans Tune in to webcast here. Rising Tide 6 main web site here, and RT6 blog here. Photos here, here, and here. * Usually we worry that Rising Tide might be disrupted by a hurricane—after all, it’s...
Come Surf the Rising Tide : Aug. 28 in New Orleans
* We’ll be in New Orleans for Rising Tide 5—and you’re invited too. First, on Friday afternoon, we’re embarking on a boat tour of Barataria Bay southwest of New Orleans—thanks to friendly connections at the Plaquemines parish government, Loyola University, and the...
Tony Hayward, Stonewaller-in-Chief
I am here today because I have a responsibility to the American people to do my best to explain what BP has done, is doing, and will do in the future to respond to this terrible incident. . . . —BP CEO Tony Hayward, opening statement to House Energy and Commerce...
From the Oval Office, Promises for Gulf Coast Restoration, MMS Rehab
We’ll look at the energy aspects of President Obama’s Tuesday Oval Office address “in the coming days” (as he might say). Meanwhile, we want to focus on two of the most promising elements of the president’s remarks (text here). First, about three minutes in, he...
Fake President Rachel Maddow’s Oval-Office-in-Her-Own-Head Address
Getting Real with a Fake President Superb, every word of it, except maybe the part at the very end about the White Sox and the Red Sox. Click here for the full text, and click the photo above or here for the video. Read it and share it. Watch it and weep for joy....
Notes for Tonight’s Oval Office Script
Very briefly, what we’re hoping to hear in the president’s address is a strong commitment to progressive energy legislation—the best of the Kerry-Lieberman and Waxman-Markey bills currently in Congress. (Here are some good, sensible specifics proposed by the Center...
BP Oil Flood Brought to You by U.S. Supreme Court?
[cross-posted at Daily Kos] Let’s play what-if: Would the BP Oil Flood have happened if the Rehnquist Supreme Court in its Bush v. Gore ruling had not stopped the state of Florida’s vote-counting? We think maybe not. We think it’s not too far a stretch to say that the...
Oil Flood in Hot Water
It’s not like we really needed this extra twist of fortune, but the hurricane season that began June 1 and runs through the end of November (or as long as nature wants) is forecast to be “one of the most turbulent ever.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric...
Welcome Back, Mr. President, to Louisiana, the Dark Underside of the Nation’s Guilty Conscience
* [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] Take a good look around. Our state bird, only recently removed from the Endangered Species list, now so soaked with crude oil it can’t lift its wings or even breathe. Our hearts are breaking for the dying pelicans and all that they...
“Our Kinship Will Not Be Washed Away”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxWHabgk34w&feature=player_embedded We always hate to miss a good protest, so we really wish we could have been in Jackson Square yesterday for the big SAVE THE GULF rally (organized, at least in part, by Murdered Gulf). In her...
“This Small Planet”
* At a loss for words while Louisiana’s at a loss for land, life Like many bloggers we’re sometimes at a loss for words in the face of the widening catastrophe in the Gulf—the one that began with a bang on April 20, Earth Day. We want to say something, to do something...
“Sometimes Accidents Happen”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLhyPnZgKgg&feature=player_embedded Libertarian snipes at “un-American . . . criticism of business” Dr. Rand Paul’s comments about the 1964 Civil Rights Act have been getting the attention they deserve, but we’re also troubled by...
BP Oilpocalypse Threatens New Orleans’s Very Existence
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlPPFcy-3Vo&feature=player_embedded Steve Wereley [of] . . . Purdue University, told NPR the actual spill rate of the BP oil disaster is about 3 million gallons a day—15 times the official guess of BP and the federal government. . ....
“Oil-Spotted Dick”: Cheney’s Oily Fingerprints in the BP Disaster
It’s Not “Obama’s Katrina”—But It’s Cheney’s Second [ cross-posted at Daily Kos ] “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” —Vice President Dick Cheney, quoted in New York Times, May 1,...
“Held Up Without a Gun”
I was out driving just taking it slow / Looked at my tank, it was reading low / Pulled in a [BP] station out on Highway 1 / Held up without a gun / Held up without a gun . . . —Bruce Springsteen (1980) * BP’s 2010 first quarter profits were $5.6 billion, a 135 percent...