You would not BPelieve it

[hoolaman]

There's a really interesting documentary called "The Corporation" that sort of sets out to prove that a corporation, which is a "legal person", would medically be considered a psychopath if they really were a real human. A corporation has no emotions, no empathy, no motive except seeing to profit at almost any expense.

It is really a very good documentary, despite its clear left leaning premise, it is well worth watching. It also includes a history of how corporations came to be, and how they came to be so huge.

[gunnergoz]

Corporations are absolutely lethal to democracies when those same democracies allow elected officials and political parties to collect campaign and advertising funds from corporations. Were there a clear separation of campaign funding and corporate deep pockets, corporations would be much more likely to receive impartial handling by lawmakers and the courts.

[Michael Emrys]

Corporations are absolutely lethal to democracies when those same democracies allow elected officials and political parties to collect campaign and advertising funds from corporations. Were there a clear separation of campaign funding and corporate deep pockets, corporations would be much more likely to receive impartial handling by lawmakers and the courts.

Which suggests to me that we need a Constitutional Amendment that establishes a wall between corporations and the state such as exists between church and state. I admit though that I have not as yet given much thought to what the defining characteristics of such a wall would amount to.

Michael

[dieseltaylor]

First off stop allowing people to flit between industry and regulatory bodies. That is such an incestuous system its not true. I suppose you could say the closest analogy is being trained by the police force to detect crooks and then becoming a consultant to pass on your advice to the crminals.

Secondly politicians also should be restricted as to what they can do out of office. Same thing no jobs in any industry where they had oversight for 5 years.

And just to show whats going on:

As one of my colleagues just noted [1], the head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration acknowledged today that more training is needed [1] to protect some Gulf cleanup workers. It turns out that’s not the only critique that the agency’s chief had regarding the safety in the Gulf.

OSHA’s David Michaels said that his own agency’s chemical exposure limits, which BP has continually cited in its assurances about worker safety, are so “outrageously out of date” that no one should be citing them as evidence of safety. (You can listen to his full answer [2].)

“Let me be very clear. In the Gulf, we’re not saying BP has to protect people to those limits, because they’re not safe,” OSHA chief David Michaels said in an interview on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal [3] earlier today.“What we’re telling people is don’t refer to our legal limits. What we’re trying to do here is make sure workers are safe.”

Someone might want to tell BP, and other federal agencies [4]. As we’ve reported, they’ve continually responded to our inquiries about worker illness and chemical exposure by pointing out that air sampling results have been within permissible exposure limits set by OSHA [5].

But as experts interviewed by ProPublica have also pointed out, most of OSHA’s standards haven’t been updated for decades. As one expert put it, workers in the Gulf are being exposed “to levels that are perhaps perfectly legal, but not safe [6].” Now add OSHA’s chief to the list of experts who question the exposure limits.

[dieseltaylor]

no conflict of interest then

Shocker: Judge Who Blocked Drilling Moratorium Has Massive Holdings in Energy Companies

Great news, a Louisiana judge has ruled that the government can’t destroy capitalism by temporarily halting offshore drilling while we figure out why our gulf has been destroyed by offshore drilling (from the New York Times): (from the New York Times):

In a 22-page ruling, Judge Martin L. C. Feldman of Federal District Court issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a May 28 order halting all floating

offshore drilling

projects in more than 500 feet of water and preventing the government from issuing new permits for such projects.

The White House promised to appeal the decision…

Mr. Gibbs said the president “strongly believes that continuing to drill at those depths without knowing what’s happened” in the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and left a well gushing out of control, “makes no sense” and puts people’s lives at risk.

The Obama administration had argued that a six-month suspension of deepwater drilling was necessary so that the government could complete its investigation of the Deepwater Horizon accident, and make sure that other drilling operations on the outer continental shelf were safe.

But the order was challenged by a coalition of businesses that provide services and equipment to offshore drilling platforms. The companies sued, asking the judge to declare the moratorium to be invalid and arguing that there was no evidence that existing operations were unsafe.

Nope, none at all.

Oh, and here’s a list, compiled by Think Progress, of Judge Feldman’s holdings in various oil-related enterprises:

Like many judges presiding in the Gulf region, Feldman owns lots of energy stocks, including Transocean, Halliburton, and two of BP’s largest U.S. private shareholders — BlackRock (7.1%) and JP Morgan Chase (28.3%). Here’s

a list of Feldman’s income in 2008

(amounts listed unless under $1,000):

BlackRock

($12000- $36000)

Ocean Energy

($1000 – $2500)

NGP Capital Resources

($1000 – $2500)

Quicksilver Resources

($5000 – $15000)

Hercules Offshore

($6000 – $17500)

Provident Energy

Peabody Energy

PenGrowth Energy

RPC Inc

Atlas Energy Resources

Parker Drilling

TXCO Resources

EV Energy Partners

Rowan Companies

BPZ Resources

El Paso Corp

KBR Inc

Chesapeake Energy

ATP Oil & Gas

[gunnergoz]

Here's a judge that never learned the meaning of the word "recusal."

[Michael Emrys]

Just out of curiosity I'd like to know which administration appointed him to the bench.

Michael