When Greg Abbott actually sues a company in Texas, you know it’s got to be pretty bad.

In Texas City, an estimated 538,000 pounds of pollutants like benzene, sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide leaked into the air during that period, though Carman believes the release may be “more than 10 times higher” than the number that BP reported to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. That’s because, he says, BP assumes that its flare met the 2 percent standard but has no record proving that it does. “BP has no real monitoring technology up on the flare,” he says. “They have no way to measure the actual emissions that did not get burned over the 40 days.”  (more…)

While we ponder more stringent immigration controls in the state, hows about we deport BP?

Following the release of Google and Verizon’s controversial proposal on managing Internet traffic, which comes less than a week after the FCC abandoned efforts at a hammering out a compromise, Tea Party groups have taken a strong stance on the issue of net neutrality.

Specifically, they’re against it. (more…)

I just…I can’t…words….rage….what the hell? Instead of the Government mandating an open web that is free of tiered-content restrictions based on provider, you’re going to let the ‘free’ market decide what content you should be allowed to access, based on a payment level? Or worse yet be served specific content at a different priority level, thus severely diminishing the open access to multiple sources/viewpoints? So, freedom of speach is cool, but if I’m poor and can’t afford access I only get served a specific…. oh wait, you guys hate poor people anyhow, so this actually works in your favor. I see what you did there.

This was my favorite bit.

The Internet has never been a regulated utility and we urge you to keep it that way by rejecting so-called “Net Neutrality” regulations on the Internet and the proposed Title II reclassification.

Right, cause all those root DNS servers, backbone connections, URL naming conventions -they all magically run themselves with no government intervention or regulation.

Of course he’s form Dallas. What an Asshat.

Cue the lawyers….

Jeffrey Rachlinksi, a Cornell University professor specializing in environmental law, calls the current push by Senate Democrats to lift the upper liability “largely redundant theater.”

Language already in the Oil Pollution Act, established after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, eliminates the cap if the party responsible for a spill is found to have been grossly negligent or violated federal regulations governing the construction, safety or operation of an offshore rig such as the Deepwater Horizon. The rig was destroyed seven weeks ago in an explosion that killed 11 workers.

It’s “highly unlikely that the events of April 20 did not include one or more deviations from these codes,” Rachlinski told NPR. More…

So now it falls to BP to prove they were running a rig in accordance with the letter of the law, a rig that is currently sitting on the floor of the gulf, and was actually operated by another company, all with a price-tag sufficient to  bankrupt a multinational corporation.

Oh yeah, this will be settled quickly and fairly, I’m just sure of it.

BP owns the oil, and I guess any images of said oil?

Last week, a CBS TV crew was threatened with arrest when attempting to film an oil-covered beach. On Monday, Mother Jones published this firsthand account of one reporter’s repeated attempts to gain access to clean-up operations on oil-soaked beaches, and the telling response of local law enforcement. The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

This is what kills me about this oil spill. No one gives a flying shit about the gulf coast, but now as it looks like it might get into the big currents out there, the rest of the country is actually paying attention.  God forbid the filth wash-up in Florida where all the retired baby-boomers will have to cancel their Cialis fueled walks on the beach, or  even worse the east coast. Lets panic now, since before it was you know, just the gulf. It’s the same thing with the offshore drilling – no way would we sully the East coast with our energy needs – oil rigs, wind farms or otherwise, we’ll just do it in the gulf, cause you know its not as pretty, not as wealthy and the hurricanes come in every year and beat the crap out of it anyhow.

Hope you guys enjoy not eating fish for the next few years.

To be clear here, I acknowledge the necessity of the offshore rigs (in our albeit screwball energy strategy), it’s just prevailing attitudes of non-concern about the environmental impacts of this that really chaps my hide. Also the idea that no one thought something this bad could ever happen? Please.  I’m sure BP has a room of guys sitting around dreaming up zombie-apocalypse- equivalent events for oil rigs, and how to either work around them or account for just enough safety to pacify those in charge.  Deep within the bowels of BP this exact scenario is in a file somewhere.

At the end of the day though, this mess belongs to everyone who drove to work this morning, myself included.

I can tell I’m getting old and cranky because the youth of tomorrow, namely the bright and chipper group of college students sitting across from me, annoy the hell out of me. Their shinny optimism, their over-inflated sense of self-worth, the idea that they might someday make a difference in the world, their highly audible lack of musical knowledge (It’s the Red Hot Chil Peppers – Under the Bridge…the song is not that old for christ’s sake) makes me look forward to the day corporate america crushes their spirt so resoundingly, they’ll be capable of nothing but poorly executing the menial tasks assigned to them by uncaring supervisors, and furthermore barely capable of navigating a modern automobile that practically drives itself 30-minutes up the freeway to said dead-end job that has no influence on the world whatsoever.

Or maybe their lives will be great.

Oh shit, they just broke into song. Goose punch us out….

…and is anyone really surprised that the health care industry lawyers found a way to kill kids, at least for a few more years?

The authors of the law say they meant to ban all forms of discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes, birth defects, orthopedic problems, leukemia, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell disease. The goal, they say, was to provide those youngsters with access to insurance and to a full range of benefits once they are in a health plan.

To insurance companies, the language of the law is not so clear.

Insurers agree that if they provide insurance for a child, they must cover pre-existing conditions. But, they say, the law does not require them to write insurance for the child and it does not guarantee the “availability of coverage” for all until 2014.

Yup, that free market sure does take care of everybody, doesn’t it?