Now you know why foreigners think US conservatives are nuts: other people’s conservatives are always horrible to read. They only make sense within one’s own borders.
Happy Poster is now Little E’
I can’t say if they are or aren’t, but ultimately, BP does have responsibility for the work performed by their subcontractors.
I’m sorry, that was poorly juxtaposed on my part. I was referring to the people in this thread who seem to be making that argument.
No, I think you’re mistaken here. We think our conservatives are nuts, too.
Obama does not seem to be particularly enamored with Britain or the rest of Europe like recent presidents, but to call him anti-British is preposterous and just plain stupid.
Ha, I guess that’s how ours sound to you! Then again, that’s mostly how they sound to me too.
That other article just makes me laugh, especially with the photograph of How Every American Tends To Think An Englishman Looks, We’re Pretty Sure He’s Wearing Tweed And Has A Cup Of Tea Hidden Below Frame, It’s Always Either Him Or Sid Vicious.
I suppose it’s ungentlemanly to mention loudly that a friend has shit in your refrigerator and insisting he clean it up since it’s befouled your leftover sushi. Then again, the British are ever so well known for their politeness, demure manners, and exacting etiquette. What, then, ought we have said? “Terribly sorry to intrude, old chap, but it appears you might have a touch of the ol’ Olestra Squirts?”
Right, now I have two groups to be annoyed with. All the companies that were in on this (including our own regulatory committees, which I’m just as angry with if not more so than with BP), and conservative Brits who whine like soppy babies when they get a sniff that this problem might affect them personally. Were they upset with the company in which they held stock that they’ve manfully destroyed the breadbasket of a friendly nation? Apparently not: they’re just upset with the people who are upset about it.
I think the imbroglio is centred around Obama repeatedly saying “British Petroleum”, which hasn’t been the name of the company in over a decade, and sounds awkward, given the actual name of the company is “BP”, two letters, and a lot shorter and easier to say than “British Petroleum”.
Uh, no. Their subcontractors have responsibility for their own work. If BP contracted Halliburton and TransOcean to perform work which was inherently unsafe, you might have a point.
This is much like the Ford/Firestone tread separation controvery - except that at least Firestone also got sued for that.
By “onto us” go you mean “onto the British?” If so, then could you point to what Obama has said or done to try to “shift responsibility” onto the British? Maybe my google-fu is weak today, but I’m not seeing it. Are you referring to his talk about wanting to know “whose ass to kick” or him saying that he would fire the CEO of BP for the remarks he made? Seems to me those comments are aimed squarely at the appropriate targets: BP and whatever other companies/regulators contributed to the disaster, and the CEO of BP. Are you saying that Obama has been referring to BP as “British Petroleum,” to emphasize the “British” part? I’m not saying he’s not, but I couldn’t find quotes that showed him doing this at all, let alone consistently enough for it to mean something.
FWIW, I can easily believe that a lot of US citizens are unaware that BP no longer stands for British Petroleum. I’ve read the news every day for the last 35 years, and I somehow missed this change, probably because a corporation changing the meaning of its name is not exactly big news. Of course, the President and the Speaker of the House have staff to make sure they know these things.
I think that jjimm has it right, though at this point I disagree with the bolded part:
It’s not that BP doesn’t stand for British Petroleum. It’s that the name of the company is now just BP, which doesn’t officially stand for anything.
Remember that time you saved 15% by switching to Government Employees Insurance Company?
Dear U.S.,
Please continue all rhetoric bashing BP. I am waiting for their shares to hit $25 before I grab those motherfuckers up.
We’re actually weirdly formal in some ways here in the US. Some things get to keep their acronyms. Let’s take AIDS and HIV as examples. When they first came out onto the media mainstream, they would always get extra-explained at the beginning of a news story and then referred to by their acronym with the rest. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “HIV-the-virus-that-causes-AIDS” long after everyone should know this. It’s strongly ingrained in school that we should never use acronyms in formal correspondence, so whenever we find one we always try to ferret out what it means and figure we’re being more ‘correct’ when we do so. Apparently they’re Beyond Petroleum now, but really I doubt anyone actually uses that name, and BP just… just feels wrong.
So while I get what you’re saying, but the notion that this is anti-British is laughable. Especially because people would still be upset that the stock prices were going down. This is a bit like complaining that Billy-Bob Redman set fire to your house and hearing in return that you’re only upset because he has red hair.
We largely don’t care that the company’s British. We care that it shit on our shrimp.
Also, this entertains me. From the article I linked before, the last line:
"On Monday, The Daily Telegraph disclosed that the Foreign Office was concerned that the criticism of BP was harming Anglo-US relations. "
I love it when news outlets make a statement and then report that other people heard it.
Yeah, I was saying to my flatmate last night how I’ll have to invest in some BP shares soon.
You want an American to be pissed at? Here you go.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147155/years_of_internal_bp_probes_warned_that_neglect_could_lead_to_accidents
There has been a very poor attitude at BP in regards to safety. Internal memos say there was infighting in the company over their risky behavior. Some divisions predicted a serious accident if they continued flaunting safety.
BP is preventing workers from being interviewed. They lied about the flow rate over and over. They kept the high res movies away from the government departments who were to make a determination of the flow.
The dislike of BP is their own damn fault.
Flouting. “Flaunting” means showing it off, which clearly they didn’t.
BP is the company that gave us those “Beyond Petroleum” TV commercials, in which actors pretending to be Sincere American Yuppies blathered on about the environment. Then the mellow voiceover exclaimed about all the good BP was doing. The spots were damage control, after BP’s really dismal safety record had become well known. Mostly in the wake of their Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 & wounded may more. Various investigations revealed serious problems with the company’s handling of safety issues.
Now BP’s latest screwup has been getting very bad press. And some of the people losing money are British. Time for more Damage Control! Explain that everybody badmouthing BP is actually criticizing Old England. Valteron just invoked Winnie Churchill in his current disastrous thread; BP’s spokesmodels will follow suit in describing the Second Battle of Britain.
Sorry, I’ll continue to say anything I want about BP. Nothing personal against the Brits. (Although I may backslide a bit during tomorrow’s game.)
[never mind]
Now that’s flaunting.
Bullshit. The “Beyond Petroleum” campaign dates to at least 2001, four years before the Texas refinery explosion.