How ironic, eh?

We were talking today about Steven Harper, Canadian Prime Minister from Alberta; and how he was in the USA to lobby Obama on behalf of the Alberta tar sands bitumen producers - and on behalf of the Koch brothers from Wichita, KS, who (inherited their wealth, are now "libertarians" and are the money behind the tea party etc) want the diluted bitumen piped to their heavy crude refineries in TX - so they can sell more gasoline on the world market from the deep water ports on the Gulf coast of TX.
We were talking about how BP is complaining how the clean up costs from their Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico off the US shoreline are getting expensive, how it might impact their dividend (OMG!); how BP has asked UK Prime Minister David Cameron to lobby Obama for help keeping BP's cost of their cleanup down.
Heidi was saying something to the effect of "it's like the mafia, but 'official'". She said "it's like a virus; and we need 'a new operating system'". I was trying to explain to her how Congress is supposed to represent "the people" - but instead it represents multinational corporations (via their lobbyists and campaign "contributions"). How do you explain the American Congress writing a law that makes pipeline corporations NOT liable for "diluted bitumen" spills - it's not oil, after all. Especially when those pipeline corporations are CANADIAN.
Heidi was saying there should be some kind of check on the system (since Congress is owned by TransCanada and Koch Industries, as in this case), she said "the Supreme Court should be a check on that". I tried to explain to her about Chief Justice Roberts and Samuel Alito et al and their "Citizens United" decision and massive over-reach - and how the US Supreme court is currently making things worse - and how it has historically represented large corporate interests over "the little man" (I'm thinking how the US Supreme Court used the 14th Amendment, which was supposed to protect newly freed slaves, to protect...the large railroad business interests that were dominant at the time).
This is all while we biked 75 miles today, in the heat, humidity, and cross-headwinds of Southeast TX.
Then we pulled into an RV park in Silsbee, TX, and when Heidi commented on how full and busy it was the host said "Yes. There are a lot of workers here from the TransCanada pipeline going in."
(They have been building this southern section for a long time now, even though the US State Dept has NOT yet given the go ahead for the pipeline section coming across the border from Canada.)
Wow.
How ironic, eh?

For extra credit look up the "diluted bitumen" spills that have already occurred on US soil/water in the
1) Kalamazoo River in MI
and
2) the recent "it's not oil!" spill in Arkansas.