BP Begins Paying Dividends AGAIN!!!

Wake up sleepy head!!

Day before yesterday we heard news that BP's fourth quarter net income was $5.6 billion, over $4.3 billion, same quarter, previous year, because of recent high prices for oil.

Big surprise here is that we are surprised at high oil prices as we approach the presidential election cycle again and a busy, soft recovery holiday season. (They are all gouging us to get their money back)

Thus, BP are making more money this year over last year, during the same time frame.

That news didn't sit well out there in opinion land.

So today we learn via gigantic splash "boo hoo" big bad BP had a net loss over the entire year of some $5 billion. Essentially the same number, different context. The unwary observer might not know what in hell to think. Which is rather the point of modern media, anyway, to generate a confusing shell game. Mission accomplished.

The net loss comes, according to CNN, after booking $41 billion in damages and reparations, expenses along the Gulf Coast due to their oil spill.

Boo hoo. Poor dears.

But CNN again fails to mention that the $20 billion escrow, part of the write down, is fungible just as their commodity is.

That means it is a set-aside in theory, on the books. But, it isn't an account that is filled, sitting there waiting for sums to be withdrawn from it. No. It is a "pledge" administrated by a paid employee Ken Feinberg who states that only half of this $20 billion - that being $10! - should suffice for total reparations to oil spill victims.

So, do these numbers really mean anything? Is BP, boo hoo, actually losing money?

Not likely. In fact, the loss on paper surely enables the oil giant to ask for an ungodly reduction in taxes all round.

And is BP hurting from all this?

Not nearly enough, apparently.

Witness the fact (and funny ole world, innit?) that BP has quietly begun paying dividends again. It made huge news months back that BP shareholders were still getting paid dividends - essentially bribed with gifts to stick around, or profiting from doom, depending on your point of view - for owning shares of the oil giant.

This didn't sit well with public opinion either and so, those payments stopped until the mess was sorted out. Well, with the release of the Boo Hoo news, there was the simultaneous, ever so quiet announcement that dividends would resume, albeit at only half the margin experienced by lucky shareholders before the oil spill.

Note that the $5 billion net loss isn't so great on paper as to disrupt BPs recent stock value appreciably. Just enough so some of us who are watching should feel some sense of relief that at the very least BP felt their own egregious negligence in the pocket book.

In my view, not nearly enough.

This company needs to be made an example of. A reduction of stock value of 0.3 percent on the news of a year to year loss, and a $41 billion write down, is little more than a speed bump.

This is a company that takes in $240 billion annually. It operates at a net operating profit year to year of $33 billion. It lists $0 spent in research and development in this report. Research and development into safer operations? Can this be right?

What can we do? Urge everyone you know to STOP using BP gas stations. Shame them using whatever techniques you have at your disposal.

The rinky dink commission is apparently, all we the people are going to get in the form of justice for this oil spill. People have experienced massive health issues, their businesses have been wiped out, the environment has suffered and incalculable calamity.

The government officials who sold their positions haven't even been fired.

To date not one criminal charge has been filed, not even for negligence.

When Bob Graham says it's okay to open up drilling again in the Gulf of Mexico as long as the little chillins are good and the government "gosh golly" looks into ways of making things safe again, meanwhile people with legitimate claims are being ground down with innumerable hassle and paperwork, these are roadsigns that NOTHING IS BEING DONE.

The only legal weapon that remains is a boycott deterrence for other companies to learn from.

Now is the time to squeeze BP

Machiavelli said it best: there is very little difference between a problem and an opportunity.

That being said, what have we here with the Egypt situation?

An opportunity. Right now oil prices are rising. Why? Because Egypt contains both the Suez canal and the pipeline connecting the Saudi oil fields to tanker supply lines through the Mediterranean Sea. Without these two crucial elements, said tankers must travel some 6,000 miles out of their way to make the same deliveries.

Thus, oil giant BP has already begun gouging the consumer in addition to the rising price of oil attached to the futures market of that commodity. Do you love it? It was also recently announced BP had posted record profits due to inflated prices.

Think back to the days when the Big Oil apologists were urging you not to boycott BP because the oil giant wouldn't be able to pay reparations to the Gulf Coast. Witness how they have bought off the process through Ken Feinberg, who thinks BP should skate on half the tab.

The only way to combat rising prices is to select one oil company and boycott the shit out of that one producer, or retailer, thereby forcing the others to come down in price to compete with it.

You didn't create the situation in Egypt, at least not directly. But there's no excuse for you NOT to use it to your advantage. The best defense is a good offense. Go on the attack against BP because you can bet your ass they are going on the attack against you, the end user.

It's not enough anymore to simply stop using BP yourself. It's time you got out, got aggressive and urged others not to as well.

Corporate Controlled News

CCN: what news will look and sound like in just a few short years

Clean Energy by 2035

"We choose to go to the moon and the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard."

Who said that? John F. Kennedy.

President Barrack Obama at the very least, now has put a time-table on a Clean Energy Bill becoming the reality of a bright shiny new future. Or was he saying the bill would be passed by 2035, or would it just make it through the house at that point?

History recap: "Clean energy! Solar power!"

I feel confident that somewhere in the speeches of George Washington can be found a snippet of a promise or two about clean energy.

This has become embedded within the tradition of the State of the Union Address; the nod to self sustaining, clean and reliable energy for the future that does not depend on a resource that causes so many wars and heartache as well as the release of so much greenhouse gas.
Trouble is, energy is life. You can't grow or transport food without it. You can't stay alive in winter, and in some places during summer, sans that stuff which makes it.

Oil.

Gasoline, and oil. Oil is found at certain depths pressures in the rock strata. It only happens after millions of years of time which can't be recreated in a lab. Thus, there's only so much of it.

You can't ask Jesus to change this fact. You can't call it a Liberal or a commie or a socialist or hint that this fact isn't Christian, or that it is unpatriotic.

And most assuredly, if you wish to understand this resource - very inconvenient for some to admit - you have to accept that the world is a good bit older than 4,000 years.

The "only so much of it" nature of this stuff is what's killing us. Because before the greenhouse gas does the rest we will run out of it. And since we have not planned for this, there will be chaos.

It'ls like a drug that way.

The hydrocarbon molecule is just so damned good at making energy. Long flowing chains of hydrogen and carbon and a few oxygens thrown in for good measure. Carbon can bond at four places. It can triple bond with itself, double bond with oxygen, if memory serves. Carbon bonds, when they break, release a lot of energy. Thereforethe combustion of long flowing chains of hydrocarbons as is found in gasoline is a very efficient explosion, doing more work than coal, or alcohol or synthetic or bio-fuel.

Well, scratch that: gasoline, light sweet crude, (oooh baby) ARE biofuels, in that they came from living matter. Only, they have been given that sweet essence of time and deep pressure and simmering heat so that those long chains can form.

Imagine nature creating a Barry White song, and all the little chains hooking up and the song going on and on. Beautiful really.

Between now and 2035, when Obama has set forth his mandated time for clean energy, absolutely NO new light sweet crude will have been created by nature. In fact, if you took that time and raised it to the power of 8?.....no new light sweet crude will have been created. Not enough time.

But, the energy needs of the world will have exploded exponentially.

So when Rep. Paul Ryan, and Rep. Michelle Bachman talk about "job killing" proposals for clean energy, really listen to what they are saying.

Sure, they'll talk about the flag, they'll say "God Bless America" they might even quote scripture. But that isn't a plan.

Peak oil is what they call it; concerned scientists who think that owing to finite nature of the juice from the ground, there comes a point where we have drank up half of it already. That we can pour more and more money into digging deeper and deeper and in different places but still, we won't be able to get anymore out, that the end of the curve approaches. Can't get blood from a stone.

Some said in 1986 Peal Oil was here. Some said it happened in the late 1990s. Some say it's here now.

No matter. The science is pretty sound and in the geologic time frame, 1986 the late 1990s and 2011, are all essentially the same time.

So, whats the move?

Well yeah, we've got to get on that, like the president says. Oh hell yeah. Let's do that. Let's DO exactly THAT, as in NOW!

Errr, back up. Who are we talking about?

More than half the people in that room, including President Barrack Obama, have taken money from the oil lobby, which is why, uh-gin, the mention of clean energy gained a smattering of feigned delayed applause which lasted precisely .7 seconds. Don't bother running the tape, I checked. Just over half a second.

Oil lobby folks want you to go right on believing, just like that Journey song, that somehow everything is gonna be alright. They want education budgets cut nationwide, so that smart young chillin' never get edumaketed enough to see what's going on.

They want you to go right on believing the world is 4000 years old and that God invented the V-8 so that man could slurp up just as much damned gas as he wanted to.

Why?

Because THEY WANT the end of the curve to come. Because as it draws closer, they will become THE most powerful consortium, or cartel in the history of the world. They are very nearly there as it is.

Look at the horror that was visited on us last summer.

Not one criminal charge has been filed.

Obama gives a marvelous speech. Really and truly he does.

The challenge is every bit as difficult as going to the moon inside a decade. As with Apollo 13 "failure is not an option."

MSNBC Fires Keith Olbermann

Yes, it's true. MSNBC makes it official. The corporate state has spoken. Big brother is watching and listening.

The take away?

Make sure, pundits, that you don't question the large, monolithic corporate construct. That you don't too deeply touch upon oil spills, corporate corruption, war profiteering and especially don't question Halliburton, and Poppa Dick.

Friday we posted something on the resurrection of the anti-Lazarus Dick Cheney through the wonders of the modern pay-for play, forgive and forget, BigMediaCorp "I love Dick" fest.

Whether it is related or not, Keith Olbermann DID have the guts to bring up the serious issues with regard to Halliburton, Cheney, Big Oil and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

He was fired Friday. At the end of my last missive, boys and girls, I said the following of BigMediaCorp:

"Watch them, read them with an eye toward what they DON'T ask, and how hard they stretch NOT to ask it. Then come talk to me about how we still have a free press in this country. If such talk keeps you up at night, it should."

Here's the Judas version: that being, the official story that the Associated Press ran:

Note the words "combative" and "liberal"?

"Ooo. Uhm....yeah. Big no-no. Mmmmm. See? We're not gonna be able to keep someone on who is, uh, doing that."

Translation. Liberal =bad.

"Campaign contributions". Yeah. Joe Scarborough did the same thing. Didn't he?

"Yeah, but, uhm....well. (stammer) I mean, c'mon, right?"

Now let's look at the real reason. Olbermann, as much as he was able to, didn't pull any punches against the monstrously huge, corporate dildo attempting to fornicate all of us into slavery, or reduce civilization to rubble, or send all of us, minus the elites, back into the stone age; or whatever the hell it is, precisely, they have planned for us all. And surely, it can't be pretty.

In honor of someone who dared to speak out and now joins the ranks of we lowly basement bloggers, I have randomly gathered some highlights from his take on Big Corp, Big Oil and the oil spill. If you gain the sense there might be a correlation between his termination, and these clips, then you are not alone.

On Halliburton's Move to Dubai and War Profiteering.

His guest, there, a former CIA officer and investigative journalist, said it best, perhaps

"These companies are not interested in what's good for the United States they are interested in what's good for themselves." But I guess that makes him a liberal, and combative as well.

Here's another one on Halliburton receiving twenty five percent of the overbilling charges during the Iraq war.

Snippets:

"Corporate CEOs knowingly happily stealing millions in profits off the backs of Americans and even our troops." - great quote.

"Should corporations be making millions and millions when Iraqis and Americans are being killed?" - What a great question.

"Are they (corporations) actively getting pro war candidates elected?"- Olbermann.

Here's a link to a video that MSNBC has disable for embedding. Excellent presentation.

The link discusses all the issues, BP, MMS, "voluntary self audits", Halliburton. He also discusses the mandatory acoustic cut-off switch.

Of course there's no doubt Olbermann's attacks on FOX are part of the reason he's been let go.

But remind yourself of one thing here:

THIS is permitted to remain:

And THIS was taken off the air:As Marvin Gaye said, "what's goin' on?"

Cheney's Whitewash In Virtual Journalism

Used to be, you asked God to forgive you. You confessed, and you were all clean again.

Now, apparently, the worst sins of this world can be washed away by corporate media.

Offending puff pieces fall into two categories. 1. Those that talk about his heart, and what a loveable old bear he is. 2. Those that Disneyfy the Dickmeister by referring to his "dark" public image without ever actually looking at the specifics.

The second tactic of BigMediaCorp schlebs is the naked attempt to get themselves around the issue of behaving like actual journalists.

The journalism of the virtual.

Here's one of the former variety. "Cheney Reaches a Truce" What utter vomit, ending with a quip from former Secretary of State James Baker, agreeing to go hunting with Cheney after donning some "good body armor".

Okay? We all know this story: Cheney shot a man in the face in 2006. Tea Party republicans, who as former Rep. Alan Grayson said "show a strong resilience to the suffering of others" love this story. They love it! But, I want you to think of the pain of getting shot in the face from one or two paces with bird shot!

No? Nothing? Whatever, moving on.

I have nattered on about the man's misdeeds enough. See former posts for greater detail. Let's look more closely at the vomit and excrement from corporate fawning and blithely indifferent to actual news media, as they tout Cheney emergence from his lair while he shows off the scars from his SHT, Strategic Heart Trouble.

Here's Brian Williams going over what everyone already knows about Dick Cheney. He has heart trouble. Watch innocent young Brian thoughtfully tell you with his girlish straight face, all about these medical facts, as though relating news of an impending air strike.

How do you sleep, Brian?

Brian is a former journalist. He has joined the pantheon of former journalists who don't actually do anything. They don't actually uncover the news, nor even review newsworthy issues. His face, his voice, give credibility to soft gibberish. It gives you the sense you are being informed, that tough issues are being looked into, without actually providing any information.

And the media gods pay handsomely for it. Others of course, in this pantheon include, Wolf Blitzer. Wolf was doing well in this interview, really getting to the nut of the matters with regard to the war in Iraq, when, mid-stream, he went on a personal attack. Undoubtedly urged there by his corporate masters, better to discredit himself and the previous honest questions a journalist might ask.

Since then, Blitzer has been working hard to rebuild his credibility.

Here's the NBC piece of fawnorama of course.

Olbermann of MSNBC needs some credit here for bringing up the Nigerian bribery case, but of course, he muddies the issue by satirizing the country of Nigeria, from whence come many internet scams, then morphing into one of his network's pet, hotbutton issues,waterboarding.

Oh, but here Olbermann wraps up his take on Cheney and the Nigeria connection - moving on, now people! - with a nice send up on "Not Really Worst Person in the World." Cheney's Halliburton's pay off to the Nigerian government was sandwiched between a blooper made headline and a comedy routine that was mistaken for news.

In an earlier time, the story would have graced the front page of every newspaper in the country "Former VP's Halliburton Pays Off Nigeria to Kill Bribery Charge". Now, such news is trivialized. And we then permit the center of the story to rehabilitate his image via corporate fluff pieces with all the bite of the comfy chair.

Since Cheney's resurrection, Olbermann has been silent on Cheney as an entire subject matter. Of course there is no reason whatsoever to suspect coercion from his corporate masters.

Totally forgotten is Cheney's alleged 100 day meeting with oil executives in the White House. Also forgotten are the allegations that Cheney himself put the rubber stamps all over the gelded Minerals Management Service, turning that regulatory agency into a romper room of position selling and free for all, leading up the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill.

If you can stomach Cheney's new debut as kindly old Yoda archetype who really is just a cuddly, misunderstand man, then watch them. Watch them, read them with an eye toward what they DON'T ask, and how hard they stretch NOT to ask it.

Then come talk to me about how we still have a free press in this country. If such talk keeps you up at night, it should.

The Cheney Interview Installment 1

NBC/Today Show national correspondent Jamie Gangel recently interviewed the Dickmeister. It ran on MSNBC this morning.

The self-congratulatory softball fest, billing itself as news, ran for slightly less than six minutes. If you wade through about a thousand car commercials today and don't blink, you might catch it again. They've promised to replay it.

Poppa Dick was shielded from tougher questions by handlers, no doubt, as well as his on-going Strategic Heart Trouble (SHT). One fifth of this morning's installment was devoted to talk about Cheney's heart; plaguing him since the 1980s when people began asking him serious questions about his role in some of the darker episodes in American history. You may recall some of them; Iran Contra, Panama, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, Valerie Plame, his take on water-boarding, the rendition program, and his involvement with Halliburton?

No? Nothing?

Throughout his career there has been a growing trend. The more serious the questions become, the more serious his ailment grows. It's so serious now, in fact, he wears electrical devices to keep himself alive.

"Liz! I am your father! Let's do a book!"

One notes Cheney's easy willingness to even consider a heart transplant. That's telling. Any other senior citizen would be coached to understand, it is not medically wise, and perhaps shading toward the unethical, to donate a heart to someone not expect to live much longer, when the organ can be given to a younger candidate with a great chance of success.

A human heart he's talking about here. An organ so rare, precious and complex, it cannot be supplanted by any known mechanical device, with any measure of meaningful success. He's comfortable with taking one from someone younger on the list. Sure. Did you expect less from Poppa Dick?

Not once in this segment did Gangel ask Cheney about Halliburton. Nor did she pester him with questions about the 100 day meeting with Big Oil executives which, perhaps, led to the fatal deregulation, which resulted in the BP oil spill. Chances are, in that she has chosen the non-neutral ground of Cheney's home for the interview, she never got round to it, and such honest inquiry befitting actual journalism will never be aired.

We wouldn't want to be impolite, of course. Wouldn't want to upset Poppa Dick in the confines of his lair, especially with his heart trouble.

Breaking it down. The vice president was charged with bribery in a Nigerian court. His former employer promised to pay the Nigerian government $250 million to make the charge go away. This didn't rate a question and likely won't in the upcoming segment of the interview.

We can safely predict this issue will be glazed right over, covered under the broader, gelded heading of "more controversial decisions?" or perhaps another softball, the like of which we heard this morning, namely "any regrets?"

Rating higher on the importance list this morning?Cheney's take on Sarah Palin's reality TV show; the attack in Tuscon and Obama's treatment of it, and the over all political landscape.

Remember Frost/Nixon? So far, this ain't it.

Corporate media strikes again?

Well, there's always tomorrow's segment.

Pffft....