This is what corporations do WITH regulations:
Massey Energy Co. could have prevented the West Virginia mine explosion that killed 29 workers last year and the company failed to disclose some hazards in reports it provided to government inspectors, federal safety officials said Wednesday.
Patricia Smith, the U.S. Labor Department’s top lawyer, said not recording hazards where required was a potential criminal violation of the Mine Act and “we have notified the U.S. attorney of that.”
The Justice Department’s probe of the accident is continuing, it said recently. Its investigation has so far resulted in a criminal indictment against the former head of safety at the Upper Big Branch mine for allegedly attempting to destroy evidence. He has pleaded not guilty.
The April 2010 explosion at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va., was the worst U.S. coal-mining disaster in 40 years. It resulted in several wrongful-death lawsuits against Massey and led to the resignation of the company’s chief executive and the sale of Massey to Alpha Natural Resources Inc. of Abingdon, Va.
At a briefing Wednesday in Beaver, W.Va., Kevin Stricklin, coal administrator for mine safety and health at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, said, “We found there to be two sets of books” kept by Massey.
Clearly if we got rid of these pesky regulations, corporations would do a better job managing themselves.
Kyle
Too many corporate executives are sociopaths, and the corporate structure and their personal wealth provides them plenty of shelter against any personal consequences. The only thing that will keep them on the straight and narrow is if they personally face a credible threat of jail time.
Valdivia
But but–The Invisible Hand of the Market!
Ron
But regulations are communist job-killing things,right?
Spaghetti Lee
Clearly if we got rid of these pesky regulations, corporations would do a better job managing themselves.
The libertarians I know say this with complete and utter earnestness. It’s like they think that the regulations themselves cause the misbehavior, and that some theoretical consumer pressure (because the average citizen just follows this stuff so closely) will seriously make them behave better than someone with the ability to actually police and prosecute them.
I just don’t get how warped your mind must be to look at the world and that’s the conclusion you come to. People who believe in economic fairy tales have this country by the balls.
Chris
“Clearly if we got rid of these pesky regulations, corporations would do a better job managing themselves.”
We have regulations? Based on what’s been reported about how Massey worked, I wouldn’t have known there were any.
And I’ll say it again: there should be prosecutions under RICO/conspiracy statutes, and there should be manslaughter charges. They’re sure as hell all justified here.
Frapalinger
Chris @ 5
I’m with you, but then again, from the most recent decisions I’ve seen from the judicial system, the big companies are all but immune from prosecution. Furthermore, Massey has got the money to fight its way to the Supreme Court, where they will certainly be treated as the victims.
buckyblue
Just got the weekly email from Fat Jim Sensenbrenner with the headline claiming that regulations are killing job creation. Amazing what a pompous asshole he can be. What regulations are those, Jim, the ones that keep miners alive or the ones that crash our economy.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
And we need to make it a felony to die in an industrial accident. Workers must learn that it makes their employer look bad when they wantonly fling their limbs and guts all over the place.
I bet the unions put them up to it.
AT
I just hope that they can’t bring a group claim against the poor Company and each claimant has to proceed individually in a long and costly court battle, because that’s the fair way to do things.
Jimperson Zibb (formerly Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
I think it might be time to change our tack here. These Randian supermen keep threatening to withhold their productivity. How much would it cost to just buy these geniuses off We could tally up just who qualifies as Randian supermen, and just pay them each $50,000,000 a year to go Galt. Maybe if we pay them enough they’ll just do it already. Lord knows they’ve threatened it often enough; they keep getting our hopes up and then they wimp out and won’t quit. Maybe it wouldn’t have to pay them for life; maybe we could negotiate a 10 year payout; maybe 5, maybe 20, who knows? I know $50,000,000 a year for each of these leeches is a lot, but if it gets them to withhold their productivity at long last, we could forget these losers and stop having to suck up to their tender feelings. Businesses could promote or hire competent people to run the companies for a change, we could tax the profits, regulate their behavior, I have a feeling that this outlay would end up paying for itself over time.
The Dangerman
Does West Virginia have a Death Penalty statute? Two sets of books sounds beyond reckless endangerment, it’s damned near premeditation (IANAL).
scav
Worse than the mere job-killing, think of all those trees you libtards killed by FORCING that Poor POOR company to maintain TWO sets of books, huh huh? Proud of yourselves yet?
Cacti
I’m guessing the Roberts court will rule that corporate officers have absolute immunity from prosecution for corporate crimes, because corporations are legal persons…
and it would be a violation of the CEO’s due process rights to charge him with another person’s crimes.
piratedan
and here we sit, watching the Republicans hold the world hostage for the principle of destroying the “welfare state” the US has become so we can eviscerate health care for seniors and take away the retirement money that they’ve paid into the system over the last 40-50 years and debate why only THOSE programs are on the table without also considering the Military aspect of the budget or being allowed to discuss revenues in the form of ending free money for the rich or corporations. Is it time for someone to finally stand up and just shoot these lying duplicitous bastards where they stand or do we wait for the next election and win in such a fashion that we make them feel some fucking pain with a little quid pro quo to what they’ve done to the American middle and working classes.
Mark S.
If you don’t like Massey polluting the environment and killing their workers, don’t buy coal from them.
/libertarian
joeyess
@Kyle
This is why I’m for confiscatory taxation on very wealthy individuals.
High taxes keeps a chain pinch-collar on feral corporate dogs like Blankenship.
Martin
That was my idea back in 2005 or so. We had just raised hundreds of millions of dollars to (unsuccessfully) remove him from office. Instead, set up an escrow account that Dems could pay into. If Bush leaves office, he gets the fraction of the number of days remaining in his term. If he leaves 150 days into the 1500 day term, he’d get 90% of the account at that time. The remainder of the account would go to the DNC for the next election. Dems would have two incentives to pay in.
phantomist
I’m boycotting West Virginia Cole!
Starting…. now.
JCT
@piratedan
My current fantasy is an electoral slam and enough congressional seats to give Pelosi her gavel back. Let her finish the job she started. Would love to give new meaning to shoving stuff down these asshole’s throats.
MikeBoyScout
You’re missing the point. If there were no regulations to follow those deaths would just be an accident that nobody could have prevented.
Or maybe it is that without regulation Massey would have been free to create the Rearden Method of coal extraction which not only extracts coal, but can extract the rainbow from the horseshit of Invisible Hand Fairy Randroid Glibertarian philosophy.
Don’t mess with my Fracking Freedom!!
BillinGlendaleCA (aka 10amla)
No regulations; no two sets of books, WIN.
/snark
General Stuck
29 counts of negligent homicide if there was any justice in the world. I grew up around this shit, and have no love for coal miners. They pretty much laid waste environmentally and socially to a once treasure of beauty forest. Massey needs a seat in Hell next to Dick Cheney.
Villago Delenda Est
Executives at Massey need to swing for this.
They are murderers, pure and simple.
mr. whipple
I hope you mean the owners.
jl
More like mining with the invisible (carefully hidden by management and very and blatantly illegal) safety records that showed the mine was a dangerous mess.
General Stuck
Yes, of course. There is a good reason why I refer to owner operators as “coal miners” but I can’t tell you cause it’s classified.
trollhattan
Goddamnit, bogdamnit, fuckdamnit, in the era of Citizens United when corporations are “people too, with rights and such” where’s the accountability and the consequences? How are the Massey bosses any different from the D.C snipers?
Frogmarches, trials, convictions, gulag for these fucks. BP can be their cellmates.
If there are no consequences, then it’s business as usual until they really have extracted everything there is to take from the ground.
Ooh, I see something shiny!
J.W. Hamner
Libertarian response: The fact that regulations didn’t stop criminal behavior simply proves that regulations are useless and we shouldn’t have any! Also too: no regulations means unicorns and puppies for everybody.
Mark S.
I hope you all are sitting down, because you won’t fucking believe this:
I am shocked, SHOCKED!, there’s robber baroning going on here.
burnspbesq
@Spaghetti Lee:
Right.
Do you know from whom your local electric utility buys its coal? Didn’t think so. Neither do I, and I have no idea how I would find out. And even if I were to find out, how do I go about getting SCE to breach a long-term supply contract just because Massey kills its workers on a semi-regular basis?
In theory, libertarian ideas make a certain amount of sense. Alas, we don’t live in a theoretical construct where there is perfect information and no transaction costs.
MattR
J.W. Hamner – Not only that, but the regulations forced them to keep a second set of books adding unnecessary costs that the consumers end up paying for.
Caz
How about letting the states handle the regulations? Surely WV knows better how to regulate the mining industry than a bunch of beauracrats in Washington, D.C.
Can you articulate a single reason why those beauracrats are better suited to regulate the mining industry in WV than the various elected officials in WV? Perhaps federal officials are just way smarter than state officials, so the federal officials are better suited to run everything in the country.
God forbid we allow states to handle their own business, especially WV. Those derned rednecks in WV don’t know no better than lettin’ them danggummit minin’ companies run roughshod over the good ol’ folks who live in the mining areas.
Clearly, the State of WV needs the feds to babysit it and regulate the numerous industries here. WV just doesn’t have the ability to figure things out on its own. Thank god the federal government is there to look out for every person in the country.
I bet once the feds get a package of comprehensive regulations together for the mining industry, there will never be another mining related death in the country.
You liberals always go from one extreme to the other. There’s a mining accident caused by the screw-ups of the company. So liberals pose two choices: either let the mining industry go totally unregulated, pretty much murdering its employees to make a buck, or the feds can take over and regulate the shit out of the mining industry nationwide. There is a third option, whether you want to admit it or not – LET THE STATES HANDLE IT!!
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
if we outlaw regulations, only outlaws will regulate?
burnspbesq
Here’s the guy to write to:
R. Booth Goodwin II
United States Attorney
300 Virginia St. E.
Suite 4000
Charleston, WV 25301
The fax number is (304) 347-5104
Jeffro
David Brooks, when will the lies and twists and selective fact-plucking stop??
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/opinion/01brooks.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Suffern ACE
@Mark S – Gosh. Compare that to the robust “recovery” that the tax cuts of 2002 did to revive us after 9-11Enron and low and behold! Same thing. Why should the recovery be different than the normal economy?
burnspbesq
@ Caz:
Are you actually suggesting that the mining, distribution, and sale of coal do not constitute interstate commerce, and are therefore outside the Federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause?
Your side lost that argument. In 1824. See Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. 1.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Caz @32
Oh, I dunno…Maybe because the big mining interests are major players in funding campaigns in mining states- much more than the UMWA.
ETA: And what burns said- but I thought that was a given.
Dennis SGMM
@Caz
1)If the elected officials in West Virginia were put in charge of regulating the mining industry then their election would depend on placating that industry for campaign cash.
2)If the regulation of mining was thrown back to the states the mining companies would immediately begin complaining about “a patchwork of regulations.”
3)Clearly you’ve missed the news lately about state governments laying off employees. The only way for states to deal with assuming the regulatory burden would be to raise state taxes on mining. You wouldn’t want that now, would you.
This is easy.
Suffern ACE
Yep. While I might see a reason for state mine regulation, I’m not thinking that anyone would be served well at the moment by attempting that novel approach after the accident.
I wonder where the feds get those mine inspectors from. Probably hiring philosophy PhDs to issue orders about mines from downtown DC. Never been in a mine or seen one.
burnspbesq
@ Caz:
You may also want to take a gander at Section 506 of the Mine Safety and Health Act. Congress was (and with good reason) concerned about a race to the bottom. Accordingly, only state laws that are more stringent than Federal law are permissible.
Outsmarted again by those wascawwy Congwesscwittas.
Try again another time, Mr. Fudd.
pattonbt
I work in mining. Thankfully, my company takes safety and compliance seriously (part of my job is checking that). Our CEO and leadership team get it. They preach it and they practice it and they punish it when wrong. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t a ton of nut job tea baggers in the company who don’t. Mining and Oil & Gas are chock full of tea baggers. I am considered “weird” for my far left views and my lack of fear for arguing for them (it’s easy when facts have a liberal bias though).
An anecdote. Right before the election in 2008 we had a management meeting where the CEO was speaking about our (the mining industry) future operating environment and a tea bagger associate (one who had “concrete proof” from her uncle who used to be “high up” in the Air force that Obama was not born in the US) tried to goad the CEO into saying who to vote for (I give you two guesses who she wanted him to say).
He handled it brilliantly. Paraphrasing, he said “the operating world for mining is going to be getting more and more regulated whomever is elected and it is better to be on the front of that curve than the back end. Better be a responsible corporate citizen with a long term outlook than not.”.
But there are a lot of bad actors in mining and it is a tough industry which has many good and bad sides, even when done well. Kind of a necessary evil. But I am glad I can hold my head up high(ish) regarding the path my company tries to take.
But assholes like Massey should face criminal charges and serve hard time.
scav
so we’re already back to state laws being magically delicious and uniquely effective (unlike laws from higher in the administrative hierarchy) so soon after the how dare those evil evil sodomite states dare establish marriage laws different than ours? sooooo hard to keep up.
burnspbesq
@Suffern ACE:
Not exactly. How the heck did Obama get this guy confirmed?
PeakVT
Survey says! better trolls, please.
Suffern ACE
@Jeffro-of course he never argues against that. Nope. The problem with tests is that they don’t show how charter schools kick ass in school spirit. Suddenly, a metric that is so hard to measure, is the most important one.
JasonF
I think the libertarian argument goes something like this: Look, you hippies. We spent all that taxpayer money on regulations and regulators and all those miners still died. What a waste of money. We might as well save our money and get rid of all those regulations. Miners will still die, but that was going to happen anyway, and at least this way, we won’t have to pay taxes.
(It’s an argument that’s chock full of logical holes, but I have a number of libertarian friends, and that’s the sort of argument I would expect them to make)
cbear
Who is this “caz” fellow? And, why is it that almost every time I come into a thread where he has commented earlier– he comes stumbling out, with stains on his trousers, and looking disheveled?
pattonbt
Caz (at stupid). We, the mining industry, would hate having 50 different state regulations to deal with. We have operations everywhere and the bureaucratic burden of trying to keep in compliance with that many statutes would be a horrific. Additionally, many individual mines/operations affect more than a single state (water/environmental issues being one I can think of off the top of my head) so trying to keep up two differing statutes would be cumbersome (especially if we get caught in between to states having a dick measuring contest).
Having one set of standards makes things easier and more effective for business operations (while still giving latitude to the states to be more cumbersome if they wish). It also allows us to be more effective in compliance and lobbying for change.
In addition, it makes it easier for the regulators to work from a common standpoint and makes government bureaucracy much, much more efficient and effective (cost and compliance). Things we in the industry easily recognize.
So, even when considering the amazing stupidity of your normal talking points, this ones a doozy.
burnspbesq
@ JasonF:
I’ll get a threesome with Rachel Maddow and Hope Solo before a libertarian makes an argument that’s NOT chock full of logical holes.
Steeplejack
@burnspbesq:
Union stooge!
Mark S.
PeakVT:
You go to war with the trolls you have. They’re not the trolls you might want or wish to have at a later time.
trollhattan
Not unrelated:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8727881.stm
Who’s a lucky ducky now?
Mnemosyne
@ Caz
Caz, mining has been subject to federal regulation for 120 years.
It’s like you’re proud of being ignorant.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
trollhattan @53
From the Hindustan Times:
[emphasis added]
Jebus! Is the Hindustan Times the Subcontinent’s version of The Onion?
Jeffro
Suffern Ace @ 46: yes, and he’s actually worse than that. The charters he cites are all superbly funded compared to public schools, Ravitch has never come out for more job security for teachers, and…and…arrrgh.
I have an Aspen Idea for Mr. Brooks, and it doesn’t involve sitting around pretending he knows jack squat about how to help schools and students do better. It’s more about where to put the aspen.
Villago Delenda Est
Interestingly, the military leadership gets this, too. Safety is a HUGE deal in the military, where you’re doing inherently dangerous things that require a great deal of training investment (in both the time and dollar sense) to pull off. Like landing jets on football field sized landing strips that are moving up and down and forwards at the same time. Mind you, not only is the hardware expensive, but getting the pilots trained is expensive (in time and dollars), and training the crews that service the jets is expensive (in time and dollars) so being cavalier about safety is the sort of negligent behavior that is, um, FROWNED UPON, to the degree that it’s not unheard of for careers to end with time in Leavenworth for disregarding safety.
Of course, when you have assholes like Caz who consider the lives of their peasant inferiors to be utterly expendable, you’ll get attitudes like Caz expresses.
Mike Kay (The Base)
Huh?
Hope is fucking hawt, but Rachel looks like a guy.
Jebediah
Caz, sometimes your ridiculous shit is amusing to read. But a bunch of miners died and you’re using it as trollfuel? You need a big fat punch in the face. Where are you?
joeyess
I didn’t even bother to address Caz. I knew you folks would handle the light work.
AAA Bonds
Countdown to the Rick Perry gay scandal starts tonight!
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/57381.html
AAA Bonds
@burnspbesq:
Whoa, man, let’s not get stupid in here. I haven’t even rolled the blunt yet.
burnspbesq
@Mike Kay:
Haven’t you heard? Smart is sexy.
socraticsilence
So the CEO moved out of state right? Because if not, man I hope for his sake he’s not a hunter b/c wow thats “accident” waiting to happen.
Mike Kay (The Base)
@AAA Bonds
I refuse to click on politico. Can you summarize what it says.
Mike Kay (The Base)
That’s what Sean Connery used say about his torrid affair with Bella Abzug.
cbear
shorter Rick Perry:
“When I was in England I experimented with cock a time or two, I didn’t like it, I didn’t inhale it, and never tried it again.”
AAA Bonds
@PeakVT:
Well, you are saved, because I am motherfucking here.
See, the secret to good trolling is to tell the truth:
How’s everyone liking Obama’s new war in Somalia?
Oh, wait, we’re using ROBOTS to blast people into cole slaw in another country, it’s not a WAR, right?
After all, who wants to make a movie about a bunch of weird looking robots getting slice-‘n’-diced by anti-imperialist civvies?
Here’s a profile of the murder machines Obama is using to wage our wars in
1) Pakistan,
2) Afghanistan,
3) Iraq,
4) Libya,
5) Yemen,
and 6) Somalia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper
I have to admit: the transformation of children into ash is definitely the sort of change I can believe in. How could I deny it? It’s indisputable.
Suffern ACE
@Temporarily Max Magee – The 12,000 rupee compensation for each victim is less than my daily room rate at the hotel I stay in when I go to India. It is not one years minimum wage in India. It may have been 25 years ago, but then it wasn’t paid 25 years ago.
Villago Delenda Est
Basically, it says that Perry has an army of staffers prepared to push back on any rumors circulating about how Perry has a wide stance.
They seem to be confident that they can repulse any stories about Perry doing the wild thing with a meth dealing gay boytoy.
AAA Bonds
@ Mike Kay (The Base):
It says Perry is gay, people have been saying Perry is gay for a while, and it’s only a time before he Larry Craigs himself into John Edwards.
Tell all your friends.
socraticsilence
Seriously, though how is Blankenship not hanging from a tree surrounded by an angry mob?
AAA Bonds
What is extra-super cute is how our latest war was announced.
Oh, yeah, we started bombing Somalia last week, forgot to mention it to everyone. Wanna fight about it? I got a malfunctioning Black Hawk with your name on it . . .
Mike Kay (The Base)
Romney has been out there on the down-low pushing the Perry-gay stuff. Nobody wanted to touch it (no pun intended) but looks like Politico has volunteered to be Romney’s house organ.
AAA Bonds
P.S.:
If you are a guy and you don’t think Rachel Maddow is hot, you are definitely yourself GTRM (“gayer than Rachel Maddow”, if you don’t know High Lipstick).
AAA Bonds
@Mike Kay (The Base) :
Does Romney really have a choice?
Larry Craig was the Senate liaison for Romney’s presidential campaign.
Romney has to get behind this tale before he gets pounded himself.
Err, sorry, I mean Romney has to get out in front of Rick Perry so he . . . I don’t know, there’s no G-rated way to explain this.
Dennis SGMM
@cbear
Perry’s aides are now saying that Perry only held the cocks in his mouth to get the taste.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Suffern ACE @69
I know. It’s shamefully low, as are the sentences.
My point, if you missed it, was the unfortunate choice of language by The Hindustan Times. Poison and clouded in a piece about Bhopal? Not very sensitive, is it?
AAA Bonds
“The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy – a naughty boy. I’m going to speak out for the citizens of my state, who in the majority think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.”
–Larry Craig on Meet The Press, 1999
AAA Bonds
@Dennis SGMM:
LOL
Martin
Teatards on mining: State regulation is vastly superior! States best know the local issues!
Teatards on health insurance: State regulation is killing the industry! States prevent insurers from expanding the market by forcing them to deal with stupid local issues!
So, the rule is that you pretty much make up whatever bullshit position you want without really even giving it a moment of thought.
cbear
@Dennis SGMM
Hmmm, that might work until the inevitable rentboys start showing up–then he’ll probably want to switch to some sort of “I was attempting to de-ghey those boys” defense.
Yutsano
But that’s DIFFERENT!! Because SHUT UP THAT’S WHY!!
(you’re welcome)
Lysana
@Mike Kay (The Base):
Since she’s a woman, she looks like a woman. An occasionally wildly off-base but mostly very smart and hot woman who sports short hair and pants, but she still looks like a woman. Appearance standards based on gender identity are part of the problem, not the solution.
Caz
“Commerce” is the transfer of goods or services. Manufacturing is not commerce. Pulling coal out of the ground is not commerce. Processing coal is not commerce. Commerce is when you buy a lump of coal to put in someone’s stocking. When a company in KY is buying lumps of coal from a coal company in WV, that’s interstate commerce. Just because the govt has tortured and stretched the commerce clause insanely beyond its intended scope does not mean we should sit by and say it’s ok because the govt says it’s ok.
The commerce clause was not intended to apply to the entire chain of events in the free market – only to the transfer from one party to another.
So if a coal company in WV is mining coal, processing it, and selling it to parties within WV, there is no interstate commerce going on. But according to you progressives, anything that has any effect on interstate commerce (which itself you are defining incorrectly) falls under the federal government’s control.
90% of the stuff that the federal government regulates pursuant to the commerce clause is not interstate commerce.
So as much as you want to make fun of me and tell me I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I do know what I’m talking about.
Based on your position, can you think of something that actually ISN’T subject to the commerce clause?? Do you really think it was intended to cover everything in whole godddamned economy?? Of course not.
Of course, the Constitution is merely an annoying impediment to the progressives’ goal of total control of everything by a centralized government. If any of you would spend a little more time learning history and a little less time finding a new conservative to call an asshole every day, you might know what the hell I’m talking about and why it’s so damaging to our nation to continue to rape the Constitution for the sake of centralized planning of everything.
Actually, I think that’s what I’ll call my new book: Raping the Constitution for the Centralized Planning of Everything. Has nice ring to it, doesn’t it, lol?
Xenos
The law is what judges say it is. Good luck finding a judge, anywhere, who agrees with you.
Hint: Santa is not a judge, although his sleigh does travel across state lines.
OzoneR
It appears he was confirmed in that short period of time between July 2009 and January 2010 when there were actually 60 Democrats in the Senate.
Bulworth
Yeah, same thing with food regs. Rep Kingston (R-Teabag) said something to the effect the other week about how it isn’t necessary to fund the new food safety regs because American food companies are Exceptional and safe and regulate themselves, etc.
burnspbesq
@Caz:
Nine paragraphs, zero correct statements. Keep spouting those Tea Party talking points, chump.
Jimperson Zibb (formerly Duncan Dönitz, Otto Graf von Pfmidtnöchtler-Pízsmőgy, Mumphrey, et al.)
“If any of you would spend a little more time learning history and a little less time finding a new conservative to call an asshole every day…”
Yeah, well, see, sparky, we don’t need to find conservatives to call assholes: They pretty much out themselves as assholes for us. If you don’t want everybody to think you’re an asshole, then the answer, I would have thought, leaps out at you: Don’t be an asshole.
Oh, and one other thing, asshole. Why don’t you go try working in a mine for Massey for a year and then come back and tell us how much better off you’d be if we let bought and paid for politicians in West Virginia oversee the company?