Consider all those Deepwater Horizon reports safely buried before they're even written

PLUS: "Big Dick" Cheney gets his heart fixed.
Now what about his brain? (See below)


"'It's disappointing,' said 84-year-old Walt Parker, chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which made dozens of recommendations for preventing a recurrence. 'It's almost as though we had never written the report.'"

-- from "Lessons from Exxon Valdez spill have gone unheeded" by Joe Stephens, in today's Washington Post

by Ken

Howie has been doing his usual diligent job covering the Gulf oil disaster and its terrible but predictable roots in the insatiable greed of the energy industry and the collaboration of its government "regulators," so that I don't think I've had occasion to write about it since my May 30 post, "Déjà vu all over again: Who could have foreseen the Deepwater Horizon disaster?" -- prompted by an article that appeared in that day's New York Times, "Documents Show Early Worries About Safety of Rig." The article had set me to thinking back to another of those totally unexpected and inexplicable disasters, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, which turned out to be not only predictable but predicted, something we might never have learned if Nobel physicist Richard Feynman hadn't overcome his skepticism about the seriousness of the commission appointed to "investigate" the disaster and accepted a place on it, and proceeded to undermine the commission whitewashers by seeking out the right people and asking them the right questions.

Back then I wrote:

I learned something from that experience which other people already knew but which we all need to learn, one way or another. Anytime one of these "inexplicable" events occurs, surpassing the limits of human understanding, just wait for it. The odds are overwhelming that soon enough we'll learn that not only can it be understood, it was understood, and was probably a subject of deadly concern among the initiated.

The odds are also extremely good that a small, beleaguered band of fact-based whiners was pitted against a larger, or at any rate more powerful, group of deniers. Usually it will turn out that the deniers were looking at a balance sheet, seeing precious dollars flying out the window to assuage the concerns of the comparatively lowly whiners, who might not even know how to read a balance sheet.

In the end, of course, the balance sheet on the Challenger didn't look all that great even to the all-important and all-powerful Money People. Just as the balance sheet on the Deepwater Horizon mess isn't going to look so good, unless you happen to be looking at the balance sheet of one of the companies that is, er, cleaning up on the disaster. (Never forget that article of faith to the Corporate Right: Disasters are just financial windfalls that haven't been cashed in yet.)

Thank goodness we've now got our own commission to investigate the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I bet its report is going to be a shocker, whose findings will reverberate throughout the energy industry and government regulation thereof. Ha ha ha! Is that hilarious, or what? On the contrary, I expect that even as we speak a place is being found for that eventual report on a shelf in a dingy, out-of-the-way basement right next to the report on the Exxon Valdez oil-spill disaster.

In today's Washington Post, reporter Joe Stephens has a piece with the shocking headline "Lessons from Exxon Valdez spill have gone unheeded." Here's a bit of what he has to report:

[T]he full story of the Exxon Valdez wreck. . . offers striking parallels to today's events in the Gulf of Mexico -- including a central role played by a consortium led by British Petroleum, now known as BP.

A commission that investigated the Alaska spill found that oil companies cut corners to maximize profits. Systems intended to prevent disaster failed, and no backups were in place. Regulators were too close to the oil industry and approved woefully inadequate accident response and cleanup plans.

History is repeating, say officials who investigated the Valdez, because the lessons of two decades ago remain unheeded.

"It's disappointing," said 84-year-old Walt Parker, chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which made dozens of recommendations for preventing a recurrence. "It's almost as though we had never written the report."

Marine experts predict that the many panels investigating the Deepwater Horizon blowout -- including a presidential commission that began work this week in New Orleans -- will produce reports with numerous findings that could have been cut and pasted from the 20-year-old report written by Parker's commission or another body that examined the Valdez accident. They also fear those findings may have no more impact than the Valdez conclusions have.

For more details, check out Stephens's report, though I can't think why you would want to bother. Surely we can consider all those reports for all practical purposes already safely buried and forgotten before they've even been written. We already have a pretty good idea how this latest disaster came about -- whose stupefying as well as literally death-defying money-saving "shortcuts" led to the disaster, and which government agencies, backed by which pro-business political factions, enabled them.

Already, however, even though the water-carrying energy-industry shills of the Right don't like being caught too flagrantly licking their masters' boots, the stooges are hard at work sanitizing the history of this disaster so as to grease its passage down the legendary and indispensable Right-Wing Memory Hole. By the time those reports reporter Stephens mentions start tumbling out, even if by chance any of their authors take their job seriously, the public is apt to remember mostly how BP organized its great 2010 "All You Can Carry" free crude-oil giveaway.


OK, THEY'VE FIXED BIG DICK'S HEART. NOW
CAN THEY DO ANYTHING ABOUT HIS BRAIN?

"The Scarecrow reveals that he lacks a brain and desires above all else to have one. . . . "
"[The Tin Man's] desire for a heart notably contrasts with the Scarecrow's desire for brains, reflecting a common debate between the relative importance of the mind and the emotions. . . . "
"The Cowardly Lion joins [Dorothy] so that he can ask The Wizard for courage, being ashamed that, in his cultural role as the King of the Beasts, he is not indeed brave. . . . "

-- Wikipedia

--------------------
News Alert: Former vice president Cheney says he had heart surgery last week
04:35 PM EDT Wednesday, July 14, 2010
--------------------

Former vice president Dick Cheney said in a statement Wednesday that he underwent surgery last week after he "began to experience increasing congestive heart failure," the Reuters news service reported. Doctors implanted a new heart pump in Cheney, 69, who has a long history of heart problems.

For more information, visit washingtonpost.com:
http://link.email.washingtonpost.com/r/5O5UA2/38UOQ/QFQBR0/RVTL6Z/14YIG/RF/t

As for courage, that seems hopelessly out of the question. Note that unmitigated gall, which the former vice president unquestionably has, not only isn't the same thing as courage but is a pathetic substitute for it. In the wimpiest of war-wimp fashion, this deep geopolitical thinker who believes in invading any country that won't give him a blowjob made damn sure he never got near a battlefield when he had his chance to walk the walk. It hardly came as a surprise that he demonstrates his manliness by "hunting" small birds furnished for the occasion while sitting drunk in a vehicle (clearly having imbibed more than just the spirit of the Second Amendment), shooting . . . well, shooting wherever the hell his weapon happens to point.

Whatta guy!

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High Court, slashing Exxon Mobil tab, declares itself the Official Tool of CorporateAmerica, a wholly owned subsidiary of CheneyCo

"The new law made by the court should have been left to Congress."

-- Justice Ginsburg, dissenting from the made-up majority opinion that
punitive damages can't exceed actual economic compensation

With Justice David Souter of all people writing for the Roberts Court's CorporateAmerica majority, the Supreme Court voted today 5-3 to slash the punitive damages Exxon Mobil Corp. must pay to victims of the Exxon Valdez oil wreck -- previously halved to $2.5 billion by lower courts -- all the way down to $500 million, on the theory that the company can't be made to pay victims more in punitive damages than they were paid in economic compensation, according to the Associated Press.

Writing in dissent (along with Justice John Paul Stevens), both Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer registered the technical objection that, hey, bub, there's no such law, and law-making is kind of what, y'know, Congress is there to do. "The new law made by the court should have been left to Congress," Justice Ginsburg suggested.

Justice Souter seems to have been concerned that the courts not give up their traditional role as judge of punitive damages.

Justice "Slammin' Sammy" Alito, who recused himself from the case on the ground that he owns Exxon Mobil stock, was allowed by Chief Justice Roberts to carry his Exxon Mobil-colored pompoms to Court deliberations. "I'm sure I could have been impartial," Justice Alito said. "Actually, I think what would have been fair is if all those bird and bunny lovers had been made to pay Exxon Mobil $500 milliion in partial compensation for the $3.4 billion it's already paid out. Nino and Clarence [i.e., Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas] were all set to go for it too. I mean, accidents happen."

On a more personal note, Justice Anthony Kennedy was jubilant. "Oh man, this is sweet," he said. "Ever since Sandy O'Connor left, whenever we do crap like this, I'm usually the swing vote, and people jump up and down and curse me and my family. Personally, I think Soutie's been sniffing too much model-airplane glue. You know, for my last birthday he gave me a model he built, it's really great. Anyway, when he announced his vote, I told him, 'I'm buying lunch.' He got hysterical, 'cause if there's anyone cheaper on the Court than me, it's him."


NOTE: THE ABOVE ITEM PARAPHRASES SOME REPORTING
FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AS WELL AS . . .

However, since we can't afford to pay the AP the rates they're now trying to charge bloggers -- more from each blogger, we have to think (even if you use only 50 of their golden words), than they paid the actual writer -- we've supplemented their material with stuff from, er, other sources.

Okay, the Alito and Kennedy quotes we made up. But can anyone prove that this isn't what they were thinking?


UPDATE FROM ALASKA: SENATE CANDIDATES MARK BEGICH
AND TED STEVENS HAVE VERY DIFFERENT VIEWS ON THIS

Ted Stevens continues taking massive campaign donations from Big Oil in general, and from Exxon in particular, and he continues voting for their very special interests. Mark Begich, the progressive seeking the bring sane representation back to Alaska, points out that "the thousands of Alaskans whose lives were devastated by this disaster are hurt, once again, by this ruling. What we're seeing today is another example of how Washington is out of touch with real people. The justices have sided with corporate America rather than with Alaska families who have suffered for nearly 20 years. Sen. Stevens continues to show he works hard for special interests, but where has he been when it comes to doing what's right for Alaskans? No more delays. Exxon needs to write those checks today."

If you'd like to see a senator representing Alaska's families, workers and consumers-- instead of another well-paid off shill for Corporate America, please consider giving Mark Begich a hand at our Blue America page.

-- Howie

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