Greg Palast Vultures' Picnic: stunning. Everyone should read this book

Greg Palast's Lady Baba-Land: The Islamic Republic of BP (BP in Azerbaijan and worldwide for Channel 4 Dispatches)

If you ever suspected how filthy big business is at the top but never knew the details, investigative journalist Greg Palast's latest book, Vultures' Picnic, will have your jaw hitting the floor every few pages. Greg gives the ins and outs of the dirty deals that are screwing our planet by a bunch of psychopaths (see Jon Ronson's fab The Psychopath Test) with nothing but money and power on their minds.

"You know what the perfect crime is? It's the one that's not illegal."

You knew about BP's Deep Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 men and that we feared would never stop spilling oil (it's still seeping). But did you know this wasn't the first time the dodgy Halliburton cement had failed at a BP well? Yeah, yeah, they swore blind to Congress that this was their first such accident but did you know they'd had one two years before in the land of Eurosong, Azerbaijan? Did you know HOW they got the solo contract in that part of the Caspian Sea?

How about the Euro? You think it's an accident that the new currency is taking us down? Did you know that this was its design? The US under Reagan realised that they hated Europe with its pussy socialist welfare systems and decided to bring it down. Mundell was the architect [Edit: Robert Mundell of Reagonomics infamy]. If that sounds far-fetched, Palast studied under Milton Friedman so he knows the Chicago School of Venality better than most.

Or take the repeal of FD Roosevelt's 1933 Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting saving's banks from merging with the casino "investment" banks: FDR would guarantee deposits but not gambling losses. Following intensive lobbying, US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin smashed up the act in 1999 and promptly joined Citigroup as co-chair on $126 million "compensation". (Check out Rubin's CV since then to understand how fucked we are.) This is what we're reaping now, swallowing America's toxic financial assets: derivatives, sub-prime mortgages, "and all the other exotica coming out of the mad bankers' laboratories"."Let Ireland, Brazil, and Portugal pay cash money to take on the US bankers' risks.... How do we bust down financial rules across the planet? ... It was not enough to erase the laws against speculating with bank deposits in the United States if it was still a crime to do so in Brazil, India, Spain, and Greece."

And, lo, the Financial Services Agreement (FSA) was rewritten, errant nations brought to heel. And here we are today.

So what of China, "the juiciest target of the new FSA"? They signed, joined the WTO and allowed JP Morgan and Citibank into Shanghai. "In effect, US workers' jobs would be sold for the bankers' right to gamble in the new market." Skynet's tentacles have encircled the globe.

Greg Palast is part Hunter S Thompson, a large dollop of Spider Jerusalem and a hefty chunk of Sam Spade. He pursues his corrupt quarry with a breath-taking zeal and steel. In a wrist-slitting scenario, his great strength as a writer is that he gives us all courage in the face of overwhelming odds and overwheening power.

* * *

Engelbert Humperdinck sang "Only love will set you free" at the Eurovision Song Contest last Saturday. Well, in Azerbaijan that's right, 'cause little else will.

Here's an article written by Greg about BP in the Eurovision host country.

EuroVision in the Islamic Republic of BP
The "sexiest Muslim woman in the world" has already won
by Greg Palast

Will "Beyond Petroleum" oil giant BP pick the winner of the EuroVision Song contest this Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan? If so, I wouldn't be surprised.

When I was arrested by the military police of Azerbaijan during my investigation of BP for Channel 4's Dispatches in 2010, one of the cops who surrounded our crew in the desert told us, with great pride, "BP drives this country."

Photo: Military police chief, Azerbaijan, photo by Palast, under arrest, with hidden pen-camera.

Indeed it does.

In 1992, the newly independent former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan elected a kindly Muslim professor Abulfaz Elchibey as President.

But the voters had made an error: Elchibey refused to give BP an exclusive contract to drill the nation's massive Caspian Sea fields as the company wished. In 1993, with the assistance and, reportedly, guns provided by MI6, Elchibey was overthrown by the nation's former Soviet KGB boss, Heydar Aliyev.

Within three months, Aliyev handed BP a sweetheart deal, called "The Contract of the Century", to take Azerbaijan's Caspian oil.

The way to the no-bid deal for BP was "greased," to use the term applied by former BP operative Leslie Abrahams, with several million dollars in illicit payments and weekends with lap dancers in London for Azeri officials. I asked Abrahams, who was ordered by BP to provide military intelligence to MI6, whether he understood that he was paying "bribes on behalf of BP and the British government." He replied, "Absolutely, yes."

Photo: BP Executive/MI6 operative Leslie Abrahams at BP Baku office, with Kalashnikov, during 1993 coup.

Since BP has taken control of Azerbaijan's oil, the nation has become fabulously wealthy--at least for those close to the Aliyev family and BP.

And they eat well. The daughters of the new President, Ilham Aliyev (son of Heydar), picked up the tab for dinner in London for a half dozen of their friends. It came to £300,000 (excluding tip and VAT).

According to Robert Ebel, the CIA's former oil intelligence chief, the whereabouts of $140 million in BP and other oil industry payments are "totally unknown."

This week, EuroVision Song Contest viewers will be treated to the images of the ancient city of Baku where the Silk Road streets are filled with Maseratis and Bentlys. The Bently dealership, and much of the capital, is owned by Azerbaijan's First Lady,

Photo: First Lady Hon. MP Mehriban Aliyeva (middle) and daughters.
Mehriban Aliyeva, the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. That's official, the vote was taken by Esquire Magazine. (She's actually the twelfth Sexiest Women in the World, but the other eleven, infidels all, can be ignored here.)

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve the title: her fashion model face has been created at great expense by "so much plastic surgery," according to the US State Department Manning/WikiLeaks cables, that Lady Mehriban "appears unable to show a full range of facial expression."

But when I left the Old City and its Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana stores and headed off to Sangachal, the town where BP's terminal operates, I found a nation heading full speed into the 14th century.

Baku, once the world's leading manufacturer of oil drilling equipment, is now one of the world's leading centers of oil-toxin cancers.

Walking along the main street of Sangachal, the aptly nick-named, "Terminal Town," was like doing the rounds in a cancer ward. The local shoemaker, Elmar Mamonov, who hasn't sold a shoe in two years, told me, “This one’s daughter has breast cancer; there, Rasul had a brain tumor. Cancers we had never seen. His funeral was last week."

Azlan, afraid to give his last name, paid to have a cancerous lung cut out,” because employer BP wouldn't pay. He says the oil company fired him after he could not keep up with his work.

And there was Shala Tageva, a schoolteacher, who has ovarian cancer. She needs treatment soon, but how to pay for it, Mamonov can’t imagine. Shala is Mamonov’s wife. Suddenly, Mamonov stopped himself. “If I am arrested, you will help me, yes?”

Sorry, sir, not in the Islamic Republic of BP.

Oil, their main industry, has seen employment drop about 90% according to journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Her father, the former oil production minister, was fired by Aliyev when Ismayilov suggested that shopkas, bribery, was behind the destruction of the industry, bribes which allegedly allowed BP to avoid "local content" laws that would have saved those jobs.

Throughout the nation, we heard the same refrain: nostalgia for the old days of freedom and prosperity under Soviet rule. Under BP rule, the people's health, income and freedoms have decayed rapidly, as pollution has turned their Caspian fisheries into a dead, chemical toilet.

But Azeris are well entertained. The massive expenditure for the EuroVision Song Contest follows the government's spending $1 million for an Elton John concert during a depression.

Today, only one in seven dollars of GDP is paid in salaries (versus four of five dollars in the US and UK). Where have the billions gone?

No one dare look for it, nor the source of the First Lady's wealth. The last journalist who asked about the funds, Elmar Huseynov, was gunned down in his home. A journalist who questioned what happened to Huseynov was jailed. No third journalist is investigating what happened to the first two.

Azerbaijan is, nominally, a democracy. Indeed, the First Lady won a convincing election to Parliament (as did every other candidate supporting her husband's regime–- there was not a single member of the opposition elected). But it doesn't, in the end, matter who is voted in, as long as "BP drives."

Within hours of our arrest, my crew and I were released by the Deputy Chief of the Security Ministry: Imprisoning a Channel 4 reporter would have been an embarrassment for BP. But our witnesses to BP's horrific drilling practices didn't do so well. One made it out of the country, but others disappeared.

When you watch the Euro-warblers compete this Saturday, just remember that in Azerbaijan, the winners are already chosen: BP and the family of the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. And that's not a pretty sight.

Greg Palast's book on BP, Vultures' Picnic: a tale of Oil, High-Finance and Investigative reporting, will be released in Britain on June 26.

Welcome to the 21st Century in which Skynet makes its move. In the words of Prince, "I've seen the future and, boy, it's rough!". And, while we're on the subject, the present ain't that great, either.

More on this at Left Foot Forward

Greg Palast on YouTube

UPDATE: Special Guest Warren Ellis (Author of Transmetropolitan), Nick Dearden of Jubilee Debt Campaign and John Hilary of War on Want (more guests to be confirmed) will be sharing the stage at the Vultures' Picnic launch in London 26 June with special guest appearances by Laurie Penny and Anna Chen.

BP In Deep Water: Greg Palast Dispatches C4

An extraordinary exposé by Greg Palast tonight on the subject of BP and, among other locations, the oil company's interests in Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea area in Dispatches: In Deep Water for Channel 4. The Caspian region holds one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Two interviewees state that MI6 was involved in Azerbaijan. There's an interesting photo taken of Tony Blair and BP's Lord Browne and Caspian basin representatives taken in 1998. Blair allies such as George Robertson of NATO and Anji Hunter did well in this milieu.

The US was signing contracts for pipelines from the Caspian Basin to Europe, including one to Skopje in Macedonia, just 20 km from Kosovo. Stability and control of the Balkans would be crucial to the oil industry's bonanza.

In 1999, Britain and the NATO allies attacked Serbia, ostensibly in defence of Kosovo.

Elsewhere:

The objectives of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, according to US officials, is to reduce dependence on OPEC oil producers in the Middle East, create a secure supply of oil to Israel, and begin to end dependence on Russian and Iranian oil transportation networks from the Caspian region. ... Controlling pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea has been identified by strategists as a key post Cold War objective.

Is BP Oil leak unstoppable? BOP tilting

Boris Johnson, Norman Tebbit and Toby Young, among other priority-warped pundits, may be screeching about BP dividends and imagined anti-British sentiment in the US, but there are more pressing concerns.

On May 14th I blogged about the possibility that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may be unstoppable. Now spilling 150,000 barrels a day according to some estimates — not BP's — the nightmare scenario that the entire oil reserve may break open is now increasingly looking like a reality. [EDIT: official figure now around 40,000 barrels per day.] The Oil Drum — a website for oil industry geologists, engineers, technicians and other experts — carries this comment by dougr. I recommend you read it.

Essentially, there are signs that the well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean.

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. ... It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad,
same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to...

... What is likely to happen now?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.

... We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

Also carried by Mother Jones. Via @warrenellis and @stevesilberman.

BP is a multinational company, 49% non-British (Edit: 39% owned by Americans), having been privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Today's $20 billion fund Obama has made BP put aside for reparations plus future fines are beginning to look like chump change for an industry that may have poisoned irreparably the world's oceans.

Will criminal charges be brought?
Porn, cancer, drugs and gifts at the Minerals Management Service.
Collapsing seabed a possibility.

UPDATE: Friday 18th June 2010. "Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico Sea Floor Fractured Beyond Repair"

A dire report circulating in the Kremlin today that was prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology warns that the Gulf of Mexico sea floor has been fractured “beyond all repair” and our World should begin preparing for an ecological disaster “beyond comprehension” unless “extraordinary measures” are undertaken to stop the massive flow of oil into our Planet’s eleventh largest body of water.

According to Sagalevich’s report, the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is not just coming from the 22 inch well bore site being shown on American television, but from at least 18 other sites on the “fractured seafloor” with the largest being nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) from where the Deepwater Horizon sank and is spewing into these precious waters an estimated 2 million gallons of oil a day.

Interesting to note in this report is Sagalevich stating that he and the other Russian scientists were required by the United States to sign documents forbidding them to report their findings to either the American public or media, and which they had to do in order to legally operate in US territorial waters.

As a prominent oil-industry insider, and one of the World's leading experts on peak oil, Simmons further warns that the US has only two options, “let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well.”

UPDATE 2: Sunday 4th July 2010. Former BP chief Lord Browne's former lover is now assisting the American lawyer prosecuting BP and alleging that it is Browne's cost-cutting measures that left to such disasters as the Texan oil explosion in 2005 and the unstoppable Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. He is also the person brought in by David Cameron to lead the attack on the poor and make cuts of nearly £7 billion. I hope this doesn't descend into an orgy or homophobia and that everyone remembers Browne is a scumbag because of his class interest and not his sexuality.

"Volcano of oil" in Gulf may be unstoppable

The breached pipe in the video is 20 inches in diameter

The Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill off the Louisiana coast is now being described as a "volcano of oil" under such high pressure at these depths that it may be impossible to stop.

According to one reading of the situation:

Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. ...Even the word "spill" is incorrect. This isn't some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean -- it's a "volcano" of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It's under extremely high pressure, it's spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site).

This is potentially catastrophic on a global level as the oil is swept beyond the Gulf and into Atlantic currents which will take it around the world, devastating fishstocks and the communities dependent on them, animal and human.

As I wrote last week, it looks as if they may have been drilling deeper than the 20,000 feet allowed by the government. Estimates of the spill may have been vastly underestimated with the real tally being closer to a massive 25,000 barrels per day, five times the official figure. (EDIT: Some are now saying 70,000 barrels a day — one Exxon Valdez every four days.)

It also looks as if doubts about the safety of the drill-equipment were brushed aside with reports that all three companies responsible, "ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment."

No other facilities seem to have been shut down pending investigation. Quelle surprise.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have been holding an "oil and gas" breakfast fundraiser for Texas representative Kevin Brady who touchingly defends the safety of the industry.

More here. And a whole smorgasbord of oil spill horror from the Huffington Post.

When Rosa Luxemburg said the choice for us would be between socialism and barbarism, she wasn't kidding.

Hat tip Gavin Martin. Thanks to Ollie for the video link. Let's hope there's a miracle and they close it off soon.

UPDATE: Deepwater Horizon oil rig didn't have necessary permit for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

UPDATE 2: 17th June 2010. The well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean — Mother Jones and The Oil Drum.

"Volcano of oil" in Gulf may be unstoppable

The breached pipe in the video is 20 inches in diameter

The Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill off the Louisiana coast is now being described as a "volcano of oil" under such high pressure at these depths that it may be impossible to stop.

According to one reading of the situation:

Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. ...Even the word "spill" is incorrect. This isn't some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean -- it's a "volcano" of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It's under extremely high pressure, it's spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site).

This is potentially catastrophic on a global level as the oil is swept beyond the Gulf and into Atlantic currents which will take it around the world, devastating fishstocks and the communities dependent on them, animal and human.

As I wrote last week, it looks as if they may have been drilling deeper than the 20,000 feet allowed by the government. Estimates of the spill may have been vastly underestimated with the real tally being closer to a massive 25,000 barrels per day, five times the official figure. (EDIT: Some are now saying 70,000 barrels a day — one Exxon Valdez every four days.)

It also looks as if doubts about the safety of the drill-equipment were brushed aside with reports that all three companies responsible, "ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment."

No other facilities seem to have been shut down pending investigation. Quelle surprise.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have been holding an "oil and gas" breakfast fundraiser for Texas representative Kevin Brady who touchingly defends the safety of the industry.

More here. And a whole smorgasbord of oil spill horror from the Huffington Post.

When Rosa Luxemburg said the choice for us would be between socialism and barbarism, she wasn't kidding.

Hat tip Gavin Martin. Thanks to Ollie for the video link. Let's hope there's a miracle and they close it off soon.

UPDATE: Deepwater Horizon oil rig didn't have necessary permit for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

UPDATE 2: 17th June 2010. The well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean — Mother Jones and The Oil Drum.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill "containable" but BP incompetent

Bhopal's coming home. Katrina's bringing all her cousins. And now the corporations commit another stunning example of ecological and social vandalism.

I hear sickening news that the oil slick headed towards the Louisiana coast following the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig was entirely containable but that BP, already responsible for the catastrophic Exxon Valdez clean-up debacle in Alaska, has screwed up again. And this time, lives as well as livelihoods have been lost.

Greg Palast reminds us of BP's role in the Alaskan oil spill:

... rapid response is the key. In Alaska, that was BP's job, as principal owner of the pipeline consortium Alyeska. It is, as well, BP's job in the Gulf, as principal lessee of the deepwater oil concession. ... On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the Natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.

Little has changed. Assurances that BP was equipped to deal with the sort of emergency we're seeing off the coast of Louisiana verge on the fantastical:

Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP?... Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews who therefore poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So it blew.

Will anyone be held accountable in any meaningful way? BP share prices are already on the rise again after an initial drop of $32 billion off its market value, so maybe heads won't roll after all. How about compensation for the loss of a way of life and the devastation of environment and community? The Exxon Valdez order to pay $5 billion was slashed to $500 million by the Supreme Court. According to Reuters, "A federal statute caps damage recoveries from oil spills at $75 million, if no negligence is established. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are working on a measure to increase that to $10 billion."

Will Americans stand up to the teabaggers who demand even fewer regulations for big biz?

Athens is interesting: a people who refuse to foot the bill for their Masters' mistakes. I hope they'll inspire all of us in the same leaky tub.

Tony Blair's secret Iraq oil cash deal

Has this man no shame? Yeah, stupid question. What price human lives lost on all sides in an illegal war in Iraq? About £20 million since Tony Blair left office.

The Daily Mail reports:

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. ... also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait. ... They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain. ... Critics also point out that a large proportion of his earnings comes from patrons in America and the Middle East - a clear benefit from forging a close alliance with George Bush during his invasion of Iraq. ... Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: 'These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale - he is driven by making as much money as possible."

We haven't forgotten, though, that David Cameron's Tories voted for this war. And John Major isn't exactly poor off the back of his Middle East skirmishes as Prime Minister.

How about Inspector Knacker whisking Blair off to the Hague for war crimes? And make sure he has to spend his blood money on his defence.

Tony Blair's secret Iraq oil cash deal

Has this man no shame? Yeah, stupid question. What price human lives lost on all sides in an illegal war in Iraq? About £20 million since Tony Blair left office.

The Daily Mail reports:

Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq. ... also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq's neighbour Kuwait. ... They will increase concerns that Mr Blair is using his role as the West's Middle East envoy for personal gain. ... Critics also point out that a large proportion of his earnings comes from patrons in America and the Middle East - a clear benefit from forging a close alliance with George Bush during his invasion of Iraq. ... Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: 'These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale - he is driven by making as much money as possible."

We haven't forgotten, though, that David Cameron's Tories voted for this war. And John Major isn't exactly poor off the back of his Middle East skirmishes as Prime Minister.

How about Inspector Knacker whisking Blair off to the Hague for war crimes? And make sure he has to spend his blood money on his defence.