Bloomberg Parody

I hope this is out of context:

"The guy who runs BP didn’t exactly go down there and blow up the well," the mayor said on his WOR radio show.

Otherwise Bloomberg deserves a bop on the head

No, he really said that in defense of BP's fine leadership. Not their fault, according to Bloomy. The quote was big in the news since he said it.

Man, what was Bloomberg thinking? Oh, right, he's probably played golf with the guy who runs BP over at the world billionaires' club, so he naturally feels sympathetic toward the guy. I bet billionaires who run major world conglomerates have super-hard lives and are generally misunderstood.

@DBlack Right? Rich guys might as well stick together, so as their golf games don't end up being awkward.

@DBlack: Actually, they all stick together because they play golf together and belong to the same club. So it is obvious Bloomberg will say what he said. But there is one thing Bloomberg is not admitting to, and that is that the executive, or anyone in charge of a company has to know what is happening to his products and inventory every second. If he didn't know, he couldn't serve his customers. So what Bloomberg said is off the wall and disgraceful.

Also, who would he have then be responsible for the disastrous consequences of BP's cost-cutting decisions? The cafeteria guy at BP? Hey, let's all blame the janitor...

It's always the butler who did it

@Uraniumfish @ajadedidealist HA.

Ah, ajadeidealist, that's only for murder mysteries, silly! For ecological disasters it's the cafeteria staff! everyone knows that!

Have you all seen this? People affected by the disaster are so upset it leads them to suicide:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill

@DBlack I didn't see anything about suicide in that article....? Did I miss it?

@everyone There are actually a lot of people who can take blame for the oil spill - obviously the CEO who decided that cost-cutting and profit-maximizing were key is one of them. But anyone who drives a car and complains about the high price of gas is pretty responsible, too. I know I feel bad about helping destroy the Gulf Coast (which is where I am from). But it annoys me that so many people are posting complaints on FB and whatnot about the oil spill when I know they are also drivers. No one takes responsibility, but everyone wants to whine about what BP did. The government seriously neglected to do their job when they knew equipment in the Gulf wasn't exactly safe... and the list of who is responsible goes on. (The Obama administration was all for expanding drilling in the Gulf before this happened, btw.) So maybe Bloomberg has a point, sort of. This wasn't ALL Hayward's fault. And that's my rant. Point being that the spill is pretty tragic and it's pretty ridiculous that it happened at all, but there was an entire system in place that let it happen.

@BroadwayBk You're so right!

Really the use of oil is inescapable in modern civilization.... sad but true.

@BroadwayBK Hey, they changed the link to lead to a different article! That's really strange. The link I posted used to lead to an article about people literally killing themselves in the wake of the spill, because their lives and livelihoods were totally destroyed.

@BroadwayBK Too true. The greed for oil begins with all of us taking for granted what a commodity it really is to drive our cars around all day, dropping the kids off to their soccer games and whatever.

Don't forget the wonders of petrochemicals! Gotta have those. And man, I really NEED to have my water imported from halfway around the world - those FIJI bottles are just so adorable.

I suppose I'm mixed here. I'm no fan of the SUV, mini-van, strip mall, or other hallmarks of eco-unfriendly commercial life, but my entire life and livelihood depends on wifi-internet (freelance writing) and cheap short-haul easyjet flights through europe (travel). So I guess I can't really be the first one to throw stones here.

No one can throw stones... unless they live in a shack and hunt food with a spear.

Like NeverSleeps mentioned, petrochemicals - derived from oil - are in just about everything (plastic, linen, etc), and they are even used to fertilize crops... Oil is not just used for transportation. If you buy something that was made on an assembly line (a laptop!), it was produced using petroleum. And it's probably got some petrochemicals in its makeup, too. And if you live in a city where all goods are imported (often from far, far away), which we do, then you are consuming products on a daily basis that used oil to get to you - and probably in more ways than one. Really just about everyone's livelihood depends on this resource, but for some reason no one seems to care about this problem.....

Isn't indifference the same thing as not caring? And, yes, I agree that it would be pretty amazing if anyone actually found an alternative to oil. But I also think that waiting until there is no more oil would be baaaaad in an apocalyptic sort of way.

@uptowngirl Yeah... I get that, but the whole thing is frustrating.

@ARam I really hope I am not around to see what happens when it's gone.

@ARam, BroadwayBK But, guys, Americans are a special breed of greedy consumers of oil. You just don't see fat jerks driving oil-guzzlers around in summer with the windows down and the air conditioning on high anywhere else in the world. You just don't do it, it's not only economically not possible, but it's part of the culture not to be so freakin wasteful. Or, let's say, whereas the rest of the world has some sense of perspective about this, American are abnormal about consumption and their right to do so.

@Uraniumfish That's along the same lines as what I was ranting about above. I agree. And then there is the American habit of buying things at stores that have everything imported from afar - and this isn't the only country that imports a ton of goods made halfway 'round the world.

But I also think most people have no idea just how many products use oil and what it would mean to suddenly not have any.

Ugh... I think I just got really overwhelmingly tired of this topic.

@BroadwayBK I know what you mean...

@Everyone And still going... I understand the exhaustion on this topic. It's hard to maintain the anger for so long, and knowing that it's getting worse and worse by the day...

Here's an article called: "Technology's disasters share long trail of hubris"

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jhcf6M5u4DgrphRfJg9ew8S5LAvQD9GSUQIO0