Simmering Hope

The news made already the rounds: Liam Neeson has been offered the cameo originally proposed to Mel Gibson: a tattoo artist from Thailand.
Neeson told ‘Variety’ that he just got a call to do a one-day shoot. Has he known that it was a last minute change? Personally I don’t think that Liam Neeson is a good choice for the role. He is way too serious. Bruce Willis would have been a much better option. But I guess Bruce Willis is not friends with Bradley Cooper, who is in Hangover 2.

Celebrity media speculated that Hangover actor Zach Galifianakis was the star who spoke up about not wanting to work with Gibson. In a radio pod cast he said “I’m in deep protest right now with a movie I’m working on, up in arms about something. But I can’t get the guys to listen… it’s very frustrating”

Who is Zach Galifianakis you may ask? For sure he is not Oscar material.
Galifianikis is an ex stand-up comedian, whose punch lines were ‘Shut up you fucking cunt’ to women in the audience. Classy, right?

In my opinion what happened was a retaliation from the Hollywood Bully Boys. Among them Ari Emanuel, the brother of Rep.Rahm Emanuel.

From the article “The Four Gospels of Mel:
James Mee, Ari Emanuel, Alan Nierob and Kevin Youkilis”

“Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel was less forgiving. Just days after the incident, he set the tone for the film colony arguing on his blog that Gibson should be blackballed. “Now we know the truth. And no amount of publicist-approved contrition can paper it over,” wrote Emanuel, kid brother of Rep. Rahm Emanuel (see above) and inspiration for super-agent Ari Gold on the HBO show “Entourage” (see Jeremy Piven). “People in the entertainment community, whether Jew or gentile, need to demonstrate that they understand how much is at stake in this by professionally shunning Mel Gibson and refusing to work with him, even if it means a sacrifice.”

This is the real reason. The stupid Galifianakis and his big fat mouth was just the scapegoat.
As time proved again and again, Hollywood has no problem opening its arms to Mike Tyson (cast in Hangover) and Roman Polanski, both convicted rapists.

So far, Mel Gibson has not been convicted of anything. He only made three big mistakes.
1. Allegedly using anti-Semitic remarks while drunk
2. Getting involved with a gold digger
3. Not wearing a condom

Of course the Russian mistress does not have enough power to ruin his career, only to milk lots of money; however, the Hollywood Tribe can and it’s been happening since the release of The Passion of the Christ.

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Another good song from Garou.

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It’s official: Bachelor Pad is the most stupid show I have ever watched. However, I have never watched ‘Big Brother’.

This show is promiscuous, with plenty of shady characters and it looks like modern version of an orgy. Most of the girls are ugly and stupid and the men are just about as ridiculous only less manipulative. Or so it seems to be.

Following is the roundup of the show:

- I have never understood the fascination for Kiptyn, from Jillian’s ‘The Bachelorette’. He is an average guy, nothing special about him. Maybe he was white washed during her show; however, right now he just look like a guy you can pass on the street without giving him a second look. Sometimes I even feel sorry for the character assassination he is going through. But then I remember the rumours about him and Tenley and yeah, I reconsider all of that.
- Tenley is pretty ugly and when she cries- and she does it a lot- she looks even worse. She has no substance and she is immature, clingy and kind of stupid. That throws a bad image on Kiptyn. I mean, come on! She was the best you could do Kiptyn?
- Elizabeth is horrible. A manipulative feral bitch. I have no idea what was in people’s mind for sending Gia home and keeping her around. She has a bad tan, wrong hair colour and over all she looks like a low life, like a trailer trash. I have seen better-looking prostitutes on East Hastings.
- Jesse Kovacs- the good edit he’s got on Jillian’s show is gone. Is this the real Jesse? Bleah.
- Nikki should have stayed at home. She milked the bad romance she had with Juan, and now she is just a side dish.
- Melissa- this chick should just vanish into the sunset ASAP. She is so, so freaking annoying I can’t even describe it. I feel like switching the channels and watching Larry King or the old dinosaurs from the ’60 minutes’ rather than her face. OK, so she was publicly humiliated. Water under the bridge. She got the Dancing with the Stars gig, now it’s time to stop flapping her gums and go home. Seriously, Chris Harrison is more than sufficient for this super stupid show. Why did he need a sidekick? She had her 15 minutes of fame.

Hello!!!! the producers of ‘Bachelor Pad’!!! Stop this insanity. It’s not funny, smart or sexy. It’s just disgusting. If you just wanted to show us how low people can go to win $250,000 we got the message.

I am done with this show. I was done with The Bachelor and The Bachelorette long before this stupid show came on board. But you know what? They look classy by comparison.

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Without taking any of BP’s responsibility away from them, the farce called ‘Justice for All’ should stop. It’s time to bring in in front of the fierce and hypocritical Congressional Hearing the other partners in crime, namely Transocean Ltd and Halliburton.

I started digging for information on Transocean, and the more I read, the more disgusted I am.

First of all, Transocean is the biggest contractor of offshore oilrigs in the world.
With drilling rigs and other vessels servicing the rigs, Transocean Ltd has about 141 vessels, 14 of them alone in the Gulf of Mexico. Following is a picture representing the platforms currently in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Transocean/s vessels sail under various obscure flags: Marshall Islands, Panama and Liberia.
Because Deepwater Horizon is Marshall Islands flagged- along with 34 other rigs- the primary responsibility for safety and other inspections rested not with the U.S. government but with the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The Republic of Marshall Islands outsourced the inspections to private contractors, making the whole situation a lot more stinkier.
Transocean moved their legal domiciles first to Cayman Island, then to Switzerland to avoid paying U.S. taxes. According to Martin Sullivan, contributing editor of Tax Analysts, the move saved Transocean a grand total of $1.88 billion in taxes, since 2002.

As it can be seen, Transocean is not really a poor company, about to go bankrupt. They should face the music and part the guilt with BP. Instead of that, they shamelessly cited an 1851 law requesting that its liability to be limited to $27 million. That would be the cost of the sunken vessel

‘While the company may not succeed in limiting its financial liability, the filing could give Transocean an edge in what could be a lengthy, multipronged legal battle against claims for damages from the accident that killed 11 workers

Zug, Switzerland-based Transocean also said it contests any liability arising from claims filed under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, enacted after 1989’s Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, for damages from the oil emanating from the sea floor. Under the Oil Pollution Act and the British company’s contract with Transocean, oil-field owner BP is responsible for paying clean-up costs, and executives of the London-based company have said they will foot the bill and honour legitimate damage claims.
“We expect that BP will honour that contract,” Transocean Chief Executive Steven Newman said last week during a conference call on the company’s earnings. ‘
(Source: MarketWatch)

In case you are curious to know how much insurance money we are talking about, the company said it has received $481 million of the $560 million it expects in insurance proceeds to cover the cost of its oil drilling rig.
Of the insurance money, Transocean predicts an accounting gain of $270 million for the total loss of the rig.
Source: Insurancenewsnet.com

Transocean’s rigs are leased to various companies like: BP, Chevron, Stateoil, Total, Anadarko, Husky (now I am officially worried) etc. The rigs were commissioned over 30 something years and had been build at various shipyards, spread from Spain to Korea.
Source: Rigzone.com

At this point in time, I really don’t believe that we actually know the full extend of the damages or that we have been told the true story. It’s more interesting to figure out what it has not been told; however probably it’s classified information that will be buried for the next century or so.

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Now that every one is fully aware of the ecologico-economico-political catastrophe the spill in the Gulf of Mexico really is, let’s try to shed some light over who is responsible.

Various websites host articles and comments related to the spill. Most of the comments are pretty angry rhetoric flying back and forth between British and American people, each of them blaming the other ones for being inconsiderate or quite fully responsible just because.

Let’s start by saying the British Petroleum (BP) is NOT a 100% British company. British Petroleum merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana) in December 1998,becoming BP Amoco plc. In 2000, BP Amoco acquired Arco (Atlantic Richfield Co.) and Burmah Castrol plc. In 2001 the company formally renamed itself as BP plc and adopted the tagline “Beyond Petroleum,” which remains in use today (see Wikipedia)

It’s owned 40% by the USA. Brits and Americans own shares in the company- mostly pension funds- both nations enjoying the dreadful dividends that are subject to immense pressure currently due to the approaching July deadline. On the stock market, BP has already lost about 40% of its value, along with some pensions I guess. Any bad news will translate into more loss.

Let’s move on and try to figure out why President Obama’s reactions are all over the place.
First of all he is worried about the coming November primaries. Accordingly, depending on the published articles and peoples’ reactions over the lack of government timely response to the disaster, his voice and tone will change to become ‘outraged’ if necessary. As a side note, I can only guess that Exxon’s executives are finally dancing the happy dance around the table, now that they lost the spot as the most hated people in the USA. Another side note: George W. Bush is vindicated (Disclaimer: I have never been a fan of the ex president of the USA)

Back to President Obama, it’s worth to mention that according to Reuters, he is on BP’s payroll, hence his reaction to the situation.
“During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.” (May 5, 2010).

However, critics in Washington said that the President Obama has gone too far by passing the entire blame to BP and that his rhetoric will hurt the diplomatic relationship with the UK and the US economy. So far his approval rate has dropped to 44%, the lowest point of his presidency.

What about BP’s executives? Well, the heavily battered CEO Tony Hayward is heading back to the UK, to be replaced by a figure that is considered by many out of his league regarding this situation. I am talking about BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, ex. executive for Ericsson.

He might be out of his league, but he was smart enough to counteract the American position by saying that attacking BP is like attacking itself, considering that BP is the biggest oil and gas explorer in the continental United States. Ouch!

Is BP the only responsible for the disaster? Of course not. Somehow the other bad guys managed to fly under the radar. It’s time to bring them out.
Drum roll please! We present you…. Halliburton and Transocean. Transocean is the owner of the drilling rig that BP leased and Halliburton was the one pumping the cement slurry into the drill hole prior to the Deepwater Horizon’s explosion.

The bad news for Halliburton is that a number of experts think the accident probably originated in the pipe that the cement was being pumped into. The good news for the company is that investigators may find it difficult to tell whether the cement did its job or not.

What about the Feds? Namely the inspectors from Mineral Management Service. Where were they? They are supposed to fly from one rig to another and check if documentation and procedures are in place and followed and that the deep water drilling is safe.

It looks like the circle is complete and it involves a few parties, not only BP. The kids were caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Who is going to be punished?

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