Disenfranchised Citizen

Never let 'em see ya sweat, Bob...

I’d buy a ticket, hell, I’d even buy a few shares of British Petroleum stock just so I could get in the door to watch, and then set them on fire during the middle of the meeting:

From the Independent…

“Annual general meetings are sometimes stormy affairs, but the tempest swirling around the London AGM of the oil giant BP this morning looks unprecedented.

At least half a dozen vociferous and angry groups are set to lay siege to the British Petroleum board and its American chief executive, Bob Dudley, when they go through the annual ritual of facing their shareholders at the Excel convention centre in London’s Docklands.

Fishermen and women from the Gulf Coast in the United States who were hit by the oil spill that followed the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig will be joined in protests at the meeting by indigenous communities who are angry about the company’s involvement in tar sands extraction in Canada.”

And the quote of the day, from Diane Wilson, a commercial fisherman from Texas who will be at the meeting today, the same Diane Wilson who had to be dragged out of a US Senate hearing on the oil spill last year:

“I want to give a voice to an outrage and make it clear that these corporations need to be held accountable for what they do…I have three charges against me, have been banned from Washington DC and I could face 800 days in jail. Yet no one from BP has been charged with anything.”

Enjoy the article:

BP executives brace for a stormy meeting with shareholders

Have a nice day.

Go Sharks!

When will these people understand, the process is transparent, so long as they take me at my word...

“The idea that there’s some sort of conspiracy to force people to take the Quick Payment is totally false… mounting a soap box and making that argument is no substitute for taking a close look at the statistics, reviewing the claims and seeing what is going on here.”

So says Ken Feinberg in response to Mississippi Attorney General Hood’s district court filing where Hood requested the court appoint officials to oversee the claims process, in effect asking for an audit of the GCCF. Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but it would appear taking a close look at the statistics, and reviewing claims to see what is going on with the claims process is precisely what  Jim Hood wants to do.

The problem, it seems, is Hood wants to look at the entire claims process, not just the parts Feinberg is willing to show, or as Hood states, “It just seemed kind of surreal and defensive to me. It seems like they are nervous the judge is going open the books on this process…transparency is what we want.”

Feinberg also writes that Hood’s assertion the GCCF is forcing people into quick payments by way of intentionally stalling claims until people are financially desperate is an “unsupported and damaging assertion.”

I disagree, due to just a few simple facts:

1. This oil spill and its aftermath have been going on just a few days short of a year.

2. Some people have been out of work, or making a minute fraction of what they did pre-spill for a year.

An entire year, Ken.

3. At this point, again, a year later, the GCCF has paid 98% of quick pay claims, $5,000 dollars to individuals and $25,000 dollars to businesses, all of which require people to sign away their rights to sue BP for future damages and at the same time, the GCCF has paid only 3% of interim claims, payments which allow people to keep filing for damages, and thus not waive their rights to sue…this of course can give the appearance claimants, if they need their money bad enough, are being steered to certain choices, and these choices benefit British Petroleum.

4. When claimants do receive a final claims offer, the acceptance of which also requires the claimant to sign a waiver not to sue, these offers appear to be of low monetary amounts.

5. When Ken gets all petulant in the press, stating there is no proof his final claim offers are too low, he often intimates his critics haven’t seen the claims which might prove the GCCF offers to be reasonable, but at the same time, he continually refuses an audit of the claims, something which might clearly show if he is telling the truth, or lying. This lack of transparency, once again, requires the public and local officials to take him at his word…

6. Ken Feinberg’s days of being taken at his word ended a long, long time ago…right about the time Judge Barbier ruled he was not a neutral arbitrator, and further bolstered by his law firm’s recent raise from $850,000 to $1.25 million dollars a month, all paid by British Petroleum.

Again, this has been going on for a year…

It should also be noted that in the court filing that contained Feinberg’s response, it is argued that Barbier’s court has no jurisdiction over the GCCF, claiming the GCCF is “working effectively” and any court intervention would “chill the ability of GCCF personnel to work expeditiously without fear of running afoul of an independent auditor.”

This may very well be true, so long as one considers that British Petroleum is the one the GCCF is “working effectively” for, and when it comes to a fear of an auditor, they mean, an auditor besides BP.

As Jim Hood said in response to Ken’s most recent legal tantrum: “At some point, I’m going to put his tail in a chair and make him raise his right hand in a deposition and get to the bottom of whether him and BP conspired to force people into the Quick Pay process…”

And again:

“Transparency is what we want.”

Yes, yes it is…

Transparency is what Ken has promised over and over again…

And these promises have held up about as well as his promises to do right by the residents of the Gulf Coast.

Read the article:

Gulf of Mexico oil spill claims administrator fires back at Mississippi attorney general

Have a nice day

Down a game...three to go

For those of you who don’t check out this site too often, and are not fans of the NHL, it should be known that you will all have to bear with me for the next two months as the Stanley Cup Playoffs have begun, and the only thing I like more than the New Orleans Saints is NHL hockey…and one of my favorite things to do during the chase for Lord Stanley’s Cup is to root on the San Jose Sharks and to hate on the Chicago Blackhawks…

Hey, we all have our hobbies…

So, last years playoffs were really bad for me. Not only did the Blackhawks beat the Sharks, but they actually won the whole damn thing. Kind of kept the universe in balance so to speak considering the Saints won the Super Bowl…but it was still, very bitter.

So tonight, we pause to laugh as the Vancouver Canucks beat the Blackhawks two-to-nothing in game one, of round one…so, so very good.

The Canucks lead the series 1-0.

Game two is Friday night.

Have a nice day.