The Government Shutdown.

As our government moves to shutdown mode, all of our hope

rests on the efforts of an albino ghost and a tanned carrot.

We're fucked.

Everyone who is anyone is talking about the government shutdown that seems inevitable tonight at midnight.  That's right, I said it.  You aren't cool unless you are talking about this.  I guess that means I'm not cool.  The fact of the matter is, there are several reasons why I don't give a shit about whether the government shuts down tonight or not.  Allow me to explain.

1.) We, as individuals in the United States of America, have little to no say as to what goes on at the Federal level.  Hell, we hardly have any say at the State level (Example: my own state elected a pompous windbag that had only 38% of the vote).  Bitching about the nuances of what a shutdown means will do absolutely nothing.  It won't stop the House and Senate from getting paid, it won't give the military their money any faster, and it won't keep people at their desk.  Why?  Because we are fucking lazy.  If all of the non-politicians in this country rose up, then hell yeah, we could do something about this.  But we aren't going to band together.  The closest thing we'll come to in terms of "rising up" is joining a Facebook page that might - might - make the news.  And guess what, America?  Senators don't give a flying fuck about Facebook.

2010- The Best Year In Safety.

"Notwithstanding the tragic loss of life in the Gulf of Mexico, we

achieved an exemplary statistical safety record as measured by our

total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate... As 

measured by these standards, we recorded the best year in safety performance in our

Company's history."

What Transocean Ltd. is trying to say is that the year in which it annihilated the Gulf of Mexico (they owned the Deepwater Horizon rig), turning it into a black smear visible from space, was their best year in safety. Ever.  Is anyone else as confused as I am by this?  If last year was their best year, what in the hell was their worst year?

  

It's truly a company that does nothing but look on the bright side of things, isn't it?  "Well, Tim, we officially wiped out every thinking organism in a good portion of the world's ocean, of which we as humans depend on for sustenance and water, as well as killed eleven of our employees... but look at the bright side!  Fuel costs almost $4 a gallon!  Those little peons are practically throwing money at us!"

Delusions aside, what really pisses me off about this isn't that the executives seem to be living in some kind of fantasy land.  No, no.  If that's all this post was about, even I'd quit reading about now.  No, what really pisses me off is that the executives of Transocean Ltd. have declared 2010, the year of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster (you remember - the one where the hole kept throwing up oil for, oh, I don't know, three months), their safest year, and are giving themselves bonuses for it.