They don't like it up 'em

Thanks to what I think is a flaw in their intranet, I've had a little insight into Shell Oil's monitoring of the web - they're clearly a little worried about what we think of their disgusting behaviour.

It showed up in my visitor logs - a hit from Shell Email Portal. Clicking on the link gave me a login page with the username and password helpfully already filled in. Unfortunately, I can't simply copy and paste the password for future use, but I'm sure a more highly skilled cracker could manage it.

In the meantime, have a look for yourself:
http://potola.meanin...10&endDate=23/8/2010

Or reacquaint yourself with Shell's ugly side over at Shell Guilty.

Good news for oil producers

Apparently, the incredible, poisoned condition of the Niger delta isn't Shell Oil's fault, despite the fact that everything's covered in oil.

A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.

Just goes to show that lefty conspiracy theorists like myself and our poor, black, oppressed allies in Africa should think more carefully before jumping to conclusions and blaming the old military-industrial-Western-capitalist nexus for all the world's ills. I'm sorry, Shell. Despite the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his friends when they got in your way, we all owe you a massive apology for our decades of cynicism and distrust - the Ogoni are obviously Luddite whingers who couldn't move with the times. Next time a tiger encourages me to fill my tank, I'll bloody do it, with gratitude and a smile because we got you all wrong.


Oh wait.

The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell and commissioned by the Nigerian government 

who both have massive oil interests in the region will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.

Er… phrases like 'you gotta dance with them what brung ya' and 'he who pays the piper calls the tune' spring to mind. As well as musings about why the locals in one of the world's biggest oilfields can't afford petrol and are dying younger.

With 606 oil fields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of the crude oil imported by the US. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 over the past two generations.

But that's just me. Put it out of your mind, Vole. We're living in the Age of Business. That's why the new government's abandoned the Human Rights Annual Report and told British embassies to concentrate on business business BUSINESS. Let's just trust Dave'n'Nick on this one.

Vuvuzoiler

There's a Kickstarter plan afoot: to fund a Vuvuzela orchestra to play outside BP's headquarters for an entire day - longer if they can manage it! This reminds me of the Indian state which hired singing eunuchs to serenade tax avoiders until they paid up, with excellent results!

The question is - what songs should the orchestra play for BP? 'Bridge Over Troubled Waters'? Blur's 'Oily Water'? Steve Earle or Kristin Hersh's 'Snake Oil' or Incubus's 'Oil and Water'? Tower of Power's 'Only So Much Oil in the Ground'? Midnight Oil's 'Somebody's Trying to Tell Me Something', 'Underwater', or their 'Someone Else to Blame'? 'Oil Field is Burning' by Mark Lee Allen? Paul Wall's 'Sliding on that Oil'? Jerry Reed's 'The Crude Oil Blues'?

Just not Jethro Tull's 'North Sea Oil' (play the clip at your own risk - it does contain Jazz Flute).

Other suggestions?

This tracklist writes itself. Send them a small donation.

They think it's oil over…

So, did you all enjoy the big match between the United States and BP England? I thought there was some slick passing, though many of the tackles were pretty crude, and the defence leaked badly. 


Still, congratulations are due to England for achieving a creditable draw against a country where football ranks somewhere below competitive spitballing in the popularity stakes. Onwards and upwards, eh?


Actually, I didn't watch the match, other than ten minutes on a badly tuned TV in a takeaway. The streets were deserted - like the opening scenes of 28 Days Later. Instead, I watched Sense and Sensibility, the version with every Classically-Trained British Actor of the last 30 years. It was excellent, though obviously a novel of two halves, and poor Miss Dashwood (Emma Thompson) was left sick as a parrot until the lads Ferrers and Brandon turned it around in the dying minutes of extra time. 

Beyond Pollution?

Doonesbury nails BP's PR effort, which is only slightly less expensive and useless than its clean-up operation.

Click for a larger version.

Oilcam

Watch the bastards wreck the planet in real time.





By the way, for the benefit of my Conservative readers, this is what happens in advanced capitalist states, especially ones which suffer constant lobbying by big business for 'small government' and 'deregulation':

3.43pm (9.43am CDT): 

The head of the troubled US Minerals Management Service, Elizabeth Birnbaum, has been sacked.

The agency was heavily criticised over the leak. An official report found that it allowed staff at oil and gas firms to fill in inspection reports in pencil, with regulators later going over the answers in ink. 

If you think it's different over here, try asking the Ministry of Defence how many of its officials are on secondment from weapons manufacturers, and how many civil servants and military officials retire to the boards of weapons manufacturers. Ask the Treasury and Business department how many of its staff are on secondment from major corporations, particularly the accountancy firms, or go on to work there.

It's corrupt. These companies hardly need to lobby because the door's wide open for them to write the rules on financial regulation, or defence procurement. They run these departments, threatening ministers with dire warnings about job losses in marginal consituencies, or 'market destabilisation' if the elected government doesn't do exactly what business wants (and that's worked out brilliantly, hasn't it?). 

The mantra used to be 'what's good for business is good for Britain', repeated while their shareholders moved the head office offshore to avoid tax, outsourced workforces elsewhere, fought employee safety and environmental regulation and generally worked for a jungle of exploitation. If you haven't noticed, 'bonuses are back' while public services are cut to the bone. So much for 'good for Britain'.