Man, fuck BP

By Wolf Queen · June 3, 2010

This oil spill is only the latest in a series of disasters from that oil company. The first, that I know of, occurred in 2005 (or was it 2007?) when that Texas oil refinery blew up killing about fifteen or more people. Then a few years ago I heard about them dumping waste material into Lake Michigan. And now this. I'm sure there are other infractions as well, but those I'm not aware of. What's especially infuriating about this whole thing is that BP has always stated that they "support" the environment, and yet their actions show quite the opposite.

I'm sure that they aren't the only company to have serious ethical issues, and I know they're not the first to have to deal with an oil spill. Though I do think that this is the worst oil spill in... like... ever. To be completely fair, though, Exxon probably isn't much better, but as corrupt as they likely are, I don't think they've had such serious things as these occur on their record. I heard there was an Exxon oil spill some years ago, but it never was as serious as this.

I just hate how the world seems to revolve around money and that corporations refuse to do what's right either for the people or the environment because it'll cost profits. That's going to be the death of this world one of these days. It really is.

In unrelated news, does anyone know when the World Cup starts if it hasn't already?

Comments 10

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JANUS2 Jun 3, 2010

Next Friday. But it's in South Africa, so you'll have to get up early. or stay up late? Not sure what the time difference is.

zippdementia Jun 3, 2010

I've got to start keeping up with the news. What happened?

aschultz Jun 3, 2010

World Cup = 6/11. 1st game at 10 AM Eastern, e.g. 9 AM Central.

South Africa vs Mexico kicks off.

2:30 on 6/12 (OMG Joe Gaetjens,) then 9 on 6/18 and 23, are when the US plays.

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/index.html

News on the Exxon Valdez. I remember some PR but nothing as appalling as BP's.

zigfried Jun 3, 2010

The Valdez was a huge, huge scandal for Exxon that resulted in some additional safety measures across the industry. This is the first "major" oil-based crisis since then, and it's much worse, but that's to be expected. As things get safer, the fallout when things do go wrong get worse. That's the normal path of progress.

//Zig

Suskie Jun 4, 2010

Zipp... please tell me you're joking.

zippdementia Jun 5, 2010

Suskie... sadly, no... I am stupidly, unforgivably, behind on actual news.

Though I am a little bit shocked at not having heard about this one. You'd think it would've been discussed at some point in all the bars and film venues I've been hanging out in.

Actually, I do kind've blame my film work for this. When you're enveloped in a film project, it's almost like the world outside the project doesn't exist.

Which means the last year has basically not existed for me.

However! Now that I do know, there's a chance I'll be able to get down to Louisiana with a friend to help clean up efforts. Funny how that works... now that I know about it, everyone's talking about it again... or I've just tuned into it.

Maybe it just wasn't my time to know before this... thanks to WQ for the kick in the head.

Genj Jun 6, 2010

Drill baby drill.

sashanan Jun 7, 2010

I just hate how the world seems to revolve around money and that corporations refuse to do what's right either for the people or the environment because it'll cost profits. That's going to be the death of this world one of these days. It really is.

If we establish that a corporation will primarily and maybe exclusively care about money, then the way to make them care about what's right is to make it cost them if they do not. From what I understand the US government intends to present the full bill of this fiasco to BP.

Funnily enough this also seems to be the only reliable way to make the people care about the environment - tax the unwanted behavior, potentially subsidize what you do want them to do. Regrettably in practice this comes down to taxing a behavior and then finding you need to keep it in place because the tax has become vital to your annual budget, leading to that wonderful split excise always seems to become.

But look at me muttering about politics when there's programming to be done!

wolfqueen001 Blogger Jun 7, 2010

Politics is fascinating. You all raise some interesting points. I suppose we can be glad that at least something's finally getting done, though I personally wish it could've started sooner if that's even possible with these kinds of things. The taxing / subsidizing thing seems familiar to something I learned about last semester, though I hink we can safely say that that alone isn't the solution to the problem as a whole because if it were, we probably wouldn't have anymore catastrophes like this.

Zipp: that's great if you can actually do something down there. You'd be doing better than a lot of people looking at the situation, certainly better than me bitching about it. haha

What really gets me about the whole thing is what it can potentially do to the environment. Not only will it wreck the ecosystem of the Gulf states if the oil reaches shore, but it'll wreck people's lives, too. Even now I heard that there were fishermen down there who couldn't fish because of all the oil.

Thanks to those who gave info about the World Cup, too. I found out recently that the first match the U.S. plays is against England. This is going to be epic. Though I sadly likely won't be able to watch it because of where I'll be. Oh well.

zippdementia Jun 7, 2010

I may be slow in getting to things... but I try to do what I can once I know about it. I've been waiting for a good excuse to hit up my Southern roots, anyway.

Hey, Suskie, I just thought about this... remember how I was pretty confident I could avoid Lost spoilers? Now you see why.