Tag Archives: Tony Hayward

Mr. Prez, It is Time to Lace Up the Jackboots


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
Oil Wave

A TSUNAMI OF INCOMPETENCE - You can’t swing a dead pelican without hitting gross incompetence and malfeasance in the Gulf these days. It's time for Obama to lace up the jackboots to stop it.

You can’t swing a dead pelican without hitting gross incompetence and malfeasance in the Gulf these days. BP is the most aggressively ignorant corporation on the face of the planet and the Feds have their noses so far up Tony Hayward’s poop chute it will require major surgery to remove them. Hence, some people wonder whether this is Barack Obama’s “Katrina moment”.

What a stupid question.

There are only two things that separate Obama’s oily hurricane from Bush’s merely windy kind – the human death toll is smaller and Obama actually made a speech accepting “responsibility” for getting the mess fixed. That’s a refreshing change from the man who could do no wrong, but the results are, sadly, the same.

On one level it doesn’t matter who’s in charge. There may be no way to plug the leak because a way may not exist. That’s what happens when you allow the free marketeers to write their own regulations, hire a bunch of sex-crazed crackheads to monitor them, and allow BP to act as though the rest of us are a bunch of whining pussies afraid of a little aioli crude on their seafood.

That said, there’s still plenty for St. Barry of Change to do. There should be no more of this politely asking BP to produce key data as though the we hate to intrude on their elite garden party. Using the Coast Guard to keep the world from seeing  just how poorly the Coasties are guarding the coast should be equally verboten.  And, no more of this limp-wristed enforcement that allows BP to do whatever the hell they want, whenever the hell they want either.

There’s only one thing arrogantly crapulent people like Tony Haward understand – brute force.

Obama’s job is to tell BP to jump and when they ask how high, offer them a size 13 boot liberally applied to their well-padded asses by way of explanation. To hell with the Republicans whimpering about shakedowns and stomping competition under the jackboot of anti-corporate fascism (or Communism, they never seem to know the difference). And, to hell with the deregulationists who got us here in the first place. In fact, if there was ever a case for lacing up the jackboots this is it.

And while you have them down, kick them hard and repeatedly.

Mr. Obama, the buck may stop with you, but you have to have the backbone to spend it.

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BP Gives PR a Whole New Dimension in Ineptitude


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
BP PR

BEE PEE PEE RRR-They may suck at drilling for oil, but there's an area where they are monumentally worse...getting you to believe they are responsible for anything.

There is, perhaps, only one area in which BP is more incompetent than in drilling for oil…public relations. The old adage may be that Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language, but BP’s PR department separates the two countries by speaking in some sort of crazy Esperanto that’s incomprehensible to everyone except rocks and Joe Barton.

Of course they know they suck at it. They even hired The Big Dick’s™ former campaign secretary, Anne Womack-Kolton, as their PR guru…now stop laughing, they were serious.

Since then they’ve banished their original plutonium-tongued orator, CEO Tony “I Want My Life Back” Hayward, in favor of BP exec Darryl Willis – who inexplicably wears an orange prison jumpsuit in his advertisements – to look all contrite and humblish. But as Alabama mayor Tony Kennon points out, making empty promises and lying about it isn’t quite the right formula for winning friends and influencing government.

The public has been Pavlovianly conditioned to expect oil companies to lie. No one except a few Republicans expect such upstanding, forthright corporations to do otherwise. But if your entire PR strategy is to outright lie, you need to learn two things.

First, make an attempt to make the lies sound real. Exponentially misunderestimating spill damage and denying there are oil plumes long after every university and high school science lab has confirmed them is a non-starter. Throw in at least a grain of truth.

Oiling for Dollars

OILING FOR DOLLARS - Why the damage escrow account doesn't matter.

Try something like, “Yes, there are hundreds of miles of oil plumes, but in relation to how much of them would fit into a tea cup, they really are negligible.”

The second lesson is don’t appear to be hiding anything. It only makes people dig harder and increases the number of lies.

Somehow, BeePee managed to enlist the help of the Coast Guard and local law enforcement agencies to chase off the media in an attempt to keep…shhhh…the big secret – there’s been an oil spill. WHO KNEW?!!

Any random third-grader with a passing knowledge of that slut Hanna Montana appearing on TMZ knows that if you try to hide something juicy the media will hound you to the ends of the Earth and beyond.

The best thing the Beepsters could do is throw off the blanket of secrecy and let the sun shine in. Embrace their crapulence. Not only should they show clips of the oiled birds in their commercials, they should tout the fact that they are well on their way to creating the largest environmental disaster the world has ever known.

Now that’s some good old-fashioned Cheneyesque PR!

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As We See It: You Know You Suck When Your Name is BP


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah

Cover the Earth

BP Slathers it on Thick

BP Fish

So Much for the Loaves and Fishes

Tony Hayward Gets It

TONY HAYWARD REALLY GETS THE SUFFERING IN THE GULF - "I say old chap, do you have any 10W40?"

New BP Recycling Program

BP's New Recycling Program for Spilled Oil

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Never Trust an Oil Company With Its Fingers Crossed


Posted by Omnipotent Poobah
BP Crosses Fingers

CROSS MY HEART & HOPE TO DIE - BP "promises" they'll pay to clean up the Gulf and The Keebler Elf, Jeff Sessions, thinks that's just so swell there's no need for legislation. Clearly, the Elf has been into the "special" chocolate chips again.

Update GOP Offers New Oil Liability Limit
Update Dems Reject GOP Liability Limit

Keebler Elf Jeff Sessions (R-Hollow Tree) blocked legislation last week to raise the liability for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about that. Republicans, and Dems too, have never seen a corporate pocket they weren’t ready and eager to jump into, so Sessions just proves that white men can jump.

What is noteworthy is Sessions’ reason. A reason – within a season of stupendously lame reasons – is that BP gave Sessions their word they would pay for everything. Their word. Cross their heart and hope to suck the life out of the Gulf of Mexico word.

Oops, Jeffy Wandered Away Again
If Sessions truly believes that – and he’s certainly deranged enough to – he shouldn’t be allowed to go into the streets alone. Anyone that stupid is obviously a danger to themselves and others. That goes double for The Messiah™ – who is at least asking for a formal promise and still backs a legal change – if he trusts a company that has “promised” so many things their fingers are permanently warped from the constant finger crossing.

Last week, the world was treated to the spectacle of the three potentially responsible CEOs fighting hand-to-hand combat in an effort to blame the whole oily mess on someone, anyone, but themselves. Those are some mighty fine intentions there Jeffy.

BP has also tried to buy off fishermen too desperate to wait years for a settlement. Yes, BP’s Lord High CEOness, Tony Hayward, did say, “BP will honor all legitimate claims for business interruption”. However, when asked for examples of illegitimate claims, he hedged, “I could give you lots of examples. This is America — come on. We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.” I won’t argue there will be no illegitimate claims, but not giving examples and backhandedly making that an American characteristic doesn’t make me all warm and fuzzy about the prospects of his promises.

The Elf and Turtle Brain Trust
Sessions and Yertle the Turtle McConnell don’t want to make waves by setting a realistic, though possibly still low liability limit because it would hurt the small drillers (Wow, Mom and Pop oil wells. Who knew?). But the issue here is the same as the banking crisis in reverse. If there are banks too big to fail, there are also drillers too small to not fail.

Small drillers often fail, just ask Dubya about Arbusto Energy. What’s the difference if they fail because they don’t have the resources to do a safe job or they fail because they drill empty holes? The end result is the same – with one important exception – empty holes don’t leak billions of gallons of oil.

In one of history’s lamest PR moves, Hayward called the pesky spill “tiny”. “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

Tony, think about this: When a snake bites you, the amount of venom released into your body is very “tiny” in relation to the total blood volume.

But in the end, you don’t end up being just a “tiny” bit dead, especially if you drink the snake oil.

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