Friday, June 18, 2010

It's time to call a Brit a Brit. Got that, Brits?


We've got Brits calling Americans "anti-British" because somebody over here referred to BP by its old name, British Petroleum.

Never mind that, multi-national or not, BP it is British. Never mind that it was founded in Britain. Never mind that a substantial chunk of its stock is held in Britain. Never mind that the entire British pension system is shaky because it has so much invested in BP. Never mind that under British Common Law, if you own a company that creates damage, you as owner are liable for the damage.

No, we Americans are "anti-British" for wanting the owners of BP to pay for the damage.

Do I feel sorry for British pensioners who now will have less to live on, at least for a while? Sure. But I feel sorrier for the entire gulf coast of the United States, which is drowning under British Pet...oh, sorry, BP's mess.

Meanwhile, we've got President Obama sounding more and more like a Professor of Mediation Practice at the Graduate School of Social Work, and less and less like a President who can seize this opportunity, wring money out of a recalcitrant Congress, and apply it to an energy project that would resemble the Manhattan Project of WWII, or the space program of the 1960s.

Instead we get some Republican idiot in Congress, a Republican dunderhead from Texas named Joe Barton, apologizing to BP because we're pressuring it to pay up, and then apologizing for apologizing. And no doubt he'll eventually apologize for apologizing for apologizing.

I could probably go look up the links and put them in here, but I'm too down on current events. I've been down on it for weeks, which is why I'm posting so little lately.

Oh bother! And blah! Everything sucks. I'm going home.

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