Picture of the Week

From the ocean floor, directly off the Alabama coast. That brown crust you see coating everything -- including the crab in the foreground? That's oil.

Bonus Picture of the Week

Bonus Quote of the Day

"The BP oil spill has been a daily reminder of our toxic relationship with decomposed dinosaurs. On just about every blog and every cable news show, we've watched in shock-horror as 75,000,000 gallons of oil spew from the top of the Deepwater Horizon's blowout preventer. We see it. We cringe. Some of us shout, 'Why, oh, why?!' Others curse Tony Hayward and BP. Maybe some of us curse President Obama or former President Bush. A clear majority of Americans are pissed off, and they're taking it out on everyone except themselves: the ones actually buying the oil."

-- Bob Cesca

I've made a point similar to this before, in the comment section, but Cesca's ability to sum it up far more articulately than I have the time to at the moment deserves a place on the main page here. The fact is that while BP is indeed a monolithic multi-national that will always put profit ahead of people, simply because that's the nature of the beast, the addict it's dealing to is us. We're the fat-and-happy assholes who demand that oil be cheap and plentiful; who wouldn't be able to fathom a world in which we couldn't get in our cars and go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted; who don't like to be told that driving a Suburban Assault Vehicle that sucks down a finite resource by the barrel and spits it out the other end as poison gas just might be irresponsible.

Look, I'm as guilty as anyone: I drive a Dodge 1500 pick-up and I couldn't muster much more than a shoulder-shrug at the demise of the Hummer last February (a fact which some thought should've cost me every drop of my Center-Left street cred). I get that people should be entitled to live their lives, for the most part, however they see fit; if they want to cart their litter of kids -- or an abnormally small penis -- around in a tank or some other gas-Hoovering monstrosity, so be it. But you have to accept the consequences of your actions -- and the consequences of a Plainview-esque, Milkshake-gulping greed for oil is that companies like BP will occasionally gang-bang your beaches and water supply raw and will inevitably bleed the planet dry. There's just no way around either of these realities. The only hope is for a major sea change -- no pun intended -- in the way we as Americans think. And since these days "sacrifice" is little more than a word -- one you'll find in the dictionary somewhere between "fuck" and "you" -- that's highly unlikely.

Quote of the Day

"I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy in 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... I'm only speaking for myself. I'm not speaking for anyone else, but I apologize."

-- Republican Representative Joe Barton of Texas (of course) on the successful push to make BP set up a $20 billion escrow account to pay out claims in the wake of the oil catastrophe

Here's an idea: Since I'm willing to bet that Texan Joe is a vocal proponent of our government's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," as well as an ass-kissing Renfield to the vampires of Big Oil, what say we strap him down and waterboard him with a nice big bucket of this crap:

Picture of the Week

The ocean on fire in the Gulf of Mexico.

...And the sun turned black as sackcloth.

Quote of the Day

"I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are
greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case with BP.
We care about the small people."

-- BP Chairman Carl Henric-Svanberg

Wait a minute -- am I the only one who thinks this is a little suspicious? For weeks now, Tony Hayward has been the face of this disaster on the BP side -- everybody's favorite gaffe-prone punching bag. Now suddenly we're introduced to a new guy whose name sounds like he should be stroking a white cat while ordering the unnecessarily elaborate execution of James Bond.

What do you want to bet Mr. "Henric-Svanberg" makes a couple of more statements about how the people of the Gulf can go fuck themselves, sets an oil-soaked pelican on fire on national television, then is promptly "fired" by an outraged Tony Hayward -- who rides in on a white horse, Excaliber drawn, to vanquish the scourge in the name of decent people everywhere?

What's Brown, Disgusting and Generally Floats?

From the Onion:

"Massive Flow Of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP Headquarters

LONDON — As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.

The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has completely devastated the Gulf region, delaying cleanup efforts, affecting thousands of jobs, and endangering the lives of all nearby wildlife."

(via Cesca)

Quote of the Day

"There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

-- BP CEO Tony Hayward

Really, jackass? You want your life back? You know who else does? Every fisherman along the Louisiana coast, whose means of supporting himself and his family has been strangled by your monumental fuck-up. And seeing as how you're raking in around 4.5 mil a year, I'd say your life's pretty damn good regardless.

(via Cesca)

Crude Awakening

I can't stress enough how sorry I am that things have been so phoned-in around here lately, but all I can do is promise you that the drought won't last forever.

Until then, as I said last week, I'm glad guys like Cesca can do a lot of the heavy lifting for me. I was waiting for someone to point out the mind-bogglingly shameless hypocrisy of the normally anti-government, horseshit populist crowd on the right suddenly pleading for federal help in the wake of the BP oil disaster and demanding the "government takeover" of the clean-up effort -- and he does it flawlessly in his column over at HuffPo this week.

It's not even a surprise anymore that the entirely self-serving political schizophrenia of these assholes has them contradicting their own positions from one minute to the next -- but it still requires being dragged into the daylight and put on a pedestal for all to see as often as possible.

The Huffington Post: Republicans Demand a Government Takeover and Bail Out of the Oil Spill/5.26.10

I Clean Your Milkshake

Thanks as always, Greg.

Everything Is Under Control

I'm as entertained as anyone by a clever conspiracy theory, but let's face it: Unless you have something more than a couple of admittedly peculiar coincidences to back up an outlandish claim, you're just talking out of your ass. That said, when one of those curiosities smacks you right in the face -- or threatens to arrest you for trying to take pictures of oil-slicked beaches -- you're naturally going to want to peel back the onion and see what, if anything, is at the center.

By now this video, shot yesterday by CBS News's Kelly Cobiella -- who's a good friend of mine as well as an all-around terrific reporter -- has made the rounds far and wide. It shows Kelly and her crew being stopped at sea by a Coast Guard boat and ordered to turn around under threat of arrest. CBS had chartered their own boat in an effort to get video of the impact of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf -- specifically of one shore in South Pass, Louisiana that's now completely blackened with oil. What's disturbing is that on board that Coast Guard boat -- apparently working in conjunction with with the Guard -- are several BP contractors. After stopping the CBS crew, one member of the Coast Guard tells Kelly, "This is BP's rules -- it's not ours."

In other words, if you believe what we seem to be seeing and hearing, BP is giving orders to the United States Coast Guard and apparently has the authority to commandeer our armed forces to keep the press away from public property.

Isn't the first rule of a conspiracy that you don't willingly let anyone know about it?

Quote of the Day

"From time to time there are going to be things that occur that are acts of God that cannot be prevented."

-- Texas Governor and staunch advocate of the notion of his state's merciful secession from the union Rick Perry, on the BP oil rig fire and the resulting environmental catastrophe