Big Oil wins again

Shit like this puts me in rage. The most lucrative business in the world right now is oil. Not because there is a shortage of it, its because Big Oil controls the government. Every wonder how the Bush's made money? Oil. How can some shitty countries pay .78 cents for gas, and we get anal raped. Its not because its different oil, it all comes from the ground. Its because Big Oil companies brainwashes you to believe that you have to pay what they are asking for. We our a country filled of sheep, so blinded that we can not even see the wrong doing in front of us. Which brings me to this.

Washington—The Supreme Court on Wednesday slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million.

The court ruled that victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., but not as much as a federal appeals court determined.

Justice David Souter wrote for the court that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses, about $500 million compensation.

Souter said a penalty should be "reasonably predictable" in its severity.

Exxon asked the high court to reject the punitive damages judgment, saying it already has spent $3.4 billion in response to the accident that fouled 1,200 miles of Alaska coastline.

A jury decided Exxon should pay $5 billion in punitive damages. A federal appeals court cut that verdict in half in 1994.

The Supreme Court divided on its decision, 5-3, with Justice Samuel Alito taking no part in the case because he owns Exxon stock.

Exxon has fought vigorously to reduce or erase the punitive damages verdict by a jury in Alaska four years ago for the accident that dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound. The environmental disaster led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals.

Nearly 33,000 Alaskans are in line to share in the award, about $15,000 a person. They would have collected $75,000 each under the $2.5 billion judgment.

At this moment 2 billion dollars is pocket change to them, that is like their revenue in about 3 weeks. The Valdez spilled ruined lives. People that live in Alaska depend on the land, and this spill took away their livelihood. So what the government did today was just more anal raping. But the sheep didn't notice.