I, for one, will make every effort to avoid buying my gas from a BP station from now on. I heard on the radio this morning that the CEO of BP was down-playing the environmental damage being done in the Gulf of Mexico by his rig. Anyone see 60 minutes this past weekend? If these guys aren't put out of business for this, then shame on everyone. They cut safety corners on this hole to save money. Funny, I thought the oil companies were reporting record profits over the past SEVERAL years! Abosolutely NO excuse for them to cut corners for profits' sake. Thanks BP...you've forever trashed one of the world's most beautiful places for generations to come. I'm sick to my stomach to think what is going to happen to the Everglades. I'm also fearful to see what might happen to their bigger rig that too cut corners, as mentioned in the 60 minutes interview. It's a ticking bomb waiting to go off.

So, the decision is yours folks. Drilling for oil is a dirty, dangerous, and risky business for everyone, but unfortunately a neccessary evil in our lives. We can't change that today. But, we can change who gets our money from our wallets and purses.

Yeah, because we should all punish independent owners of gas stations in suburban Chicago for something they had absolutely nothing to do with. You're climbing a slippery slope, young man. Where do you draw the line? Human rights violations? Don't shop at WalMart. Lousy pay, treatment and benefits to its workers, don't shop at WalMart. Concerned about the environment? do you really feel that BP is the only oil company causing environmental havoc to the earth? C'mon. Better plan on doing a lot of cycling given that you'll most likely be boycotting all oil companies. And before heading down the corner to buy from Shell, given that you want to do what is right, you may want to read this first. As a matter of fact, do a Google of any oil company's name followed by the word "scandal" and tell me which one deserves our chaste dollars.

While I feel that many, many things that the CEO of BP has uttered are a public relations nightmare, I don't think that they intended or wished this event upon the coasts of our Southern states. One plus, they have publicly stated that they will fix the situation regardless of cost. We'll see. But if you really want to be offended by the actions of a BP CEO, be offended by the actions of Sir John Browne and his four-year long homosexual tryst with a young man (boy in my eyes) all funded with BP money. That, as a shareholder, is truly offensive to me.

We should be boycotting our fossil-fuel driven lifestyles. In the long run, we are the problem. The technology has been there to ween ourselves off of oil for years, bu the auto companies have successfully quashed any forward movement. Maybe we should boycott all of the car companies, too.

Now where is that menu from the place that sells those awesome Panda burgers?

Ask former Amoco gas station franchisees [and owners] what they think of British Petroleum. A good place to start would be Wayne's Auto Repair on the northeast corner of Geneva and Schmale Roads.

Wayne owned his station. It was Amoco. Notice that it is not a BP station now. No, it is "Wayne's Auto Repair".

BP is careless, shoddy, arrogant and lies like a rug.

Let's tick off all the careless, arrogant, shoddy stuff....almost an annual Hall of Shame...

2005 - The Explosion At BP's Texas City Refinery

2006 - Oil Gushes into Arctic Ocean from BP Pipeline

2007 - EPA head OKs BP Lake Michigan dumping

2010 - Massive oil spill from shoddily maintained, rushed, careless practices in the Gulf of Mexico...no need for a link, is there?

I haven't bought one drop of gasoline from BP since 1999 and never will.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ByTheNumbers,

I understand what you're saying Clam, but most of those indi owners make their profits from the candy bars, cigs, and beer, not gas. I won't argue Big Oil is a problem in general, that's why I said it's a necessary evil in our lives. However, I will argue that for any of them, in the height of profits, and says "we're reinvesting those profits for safer practices and new findings", to cut corners on those safer practices for the sake of even more profits....isn't just criminal, it's flat-out careless/reckless/stupid/disrespectul towards the buying public. At the end of the day, there is absolutely NO excuse why this has happened, other than pure greed and intentional malice. Isn't it bad enough the blue collar working class "the true fabric of this nation, both currently and historically" has to struggle to feed the kids because it costs $3/gallon+ to get around, but to then destroy one of our most beautiful natural resources, the Gulf of Mexico, all because it would have costs too much to drill that exploritory hole CORRECTLY! They had industry experts screaming at them that what they're doing will cause this problem, and they not only ignored them, but fired them.... I hope this puts them out of business forever, and the public boycots BP, and they become the ENRON for Big Oil. The indi guys in the suburbs? Sorry fellas, time to change the sticker on the pump if you want my dollar. Or adopt the 7-Eleven platform of being just a convience store.

I guess what I am saying, in a nutshell, is that any corporation that tells you either thru print or video that they care about anything more than their shareholders or owners and making moolah is full of sh!t.

Yeah, look at all these lying criminals... all these boards breaching their responsibilities to their shareholders.

Think of the bright side. All that oil is slowly drifting towards the Bermuda Triangle. We all know stuff just disappears in the Triangle, so no worries! Have a nice day, please shop again soon.

Leave it to GEM to make me laugh while I'm having flashbacks to the Valdez oil spill....

All corporations are not created equal. Some are much more ethically conscious than others. BP has been the pits for along time. And yes, global oil politics suck but the Gulf likely will not recover and yes- we actually need to hold our elected officials responsible and we need to pay for regulation. Contrary to whatever you want to call it, the Bushs and Reagans, "free market" "capitalism" is not going to police itself.

I thought we learned that lesson after Love Canal.

Bio, I had no idea Bush- and Reagan-era policies were responsible for Love Canal One has to ask, where do they keep the time machine? And how did FDR, Truman, and Ike feel about it at the time?

Didn't say they were- Love Canal was one of the first large scale environmental disasters to reach US citizen's consciousness resulting in the recognition that regulations needed to be ramped up and enforced and they were.

Bushs and Reagan touted that gov should be smaller and because they felt capitalism could be self policing they relaxed regs as much as possible. Clinton also bears some blame.

History repeats itself when we don't learn from our mistakes.

And maybe you really don't have an idea Mid- its actually called a "Wayback Machine"

What about the bubbly creek? Right here in Chicago. Bubbly Creek

The real issue is our dependence on oil, period. Frankly, it doesn't matter if it's BP, Exxon, or Amoco. And it doesn't matter where the oil comes from.

It's the oil itself.

So if you want to stick it to the Man -- and really stick it and make an impact -- then get an electric car. But good luck finding one that's 100% electric.

There's no solution here. The worst thing (IMHO) is punishing the folks trying to make a living from the franchise, though. True, the franchise may be thug-like (what franchise isn't?) but the dudes and dudettes behind the counter have mortgages, too.

Now we admit that the spill estimates were wrong- 100 million gallons and counting.

Electric car? Not unless Bolivia wants to give up the worlds reserves of Lithium for batteries. (one of those "evil" states). Plus electricity is not an energy source. It's conveyance of nuclear, coal, nat gas, or whatever used to generate power. Unsustainable however you look at it.

No worries. Afghanistan has plenty of lithium.

Interesting article.

Now we just need to stop the Taliban, reform the existing government of corruption, and then as the article points out it will be decades before a mining infrastructure can be built.

Might as well focus on steam cars that can burn our "clean coal". Seems better than burning the coal to make electricity, sending it down powerlines to our homes, and storing it in batteries.

GREAT points, Farber....

Come to think of it....I just read something the other day about Nissan (I think) releasing a 100% electricity-powered vehicle. The only problem with the electric vehicles is that electricity is, more often than not, also created using non-renewable resources....which means that it's only a matter of time until we run into the same issue with electricity that we curently have with oil.

Wouldn't it be great if someone could manufacture a car powered by farts? I'd never run out of fuel with my daughter in the car!

And now after thinking about the mineral article for awhile I'm wondering if it may not be the usual BS spin to make us feel better about all the dough we've dropped in Afgan. As a geologist it seems unlikely to me that tremendous mineral reserves were just found there. The Russians were there for years and likely looked for valuable resources plus initial prospecting can be done with remote sensing techniques (planes, satellites). Could be wrong but something doesn't sit right with this story and it's widespread publication.

Read page 2 of that article:

"In 2004, American geologists,...soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989. "

and

"Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted. "