165 Comments
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Anti-Social Socialist's avatar

Real missed opportunity in the opening paragraph. Could have been:

"Itโ€™s a happy symbiosis between producers of toxic sludge and the oil companies they protect."

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Pexas Teat's avatar

Randy Newman had it right:

"College men from LSU

went in dumb, come out dumb, too"

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Fog of Jen's avatar

Fox, hen house, all that.

Bonus, now shell et all get to BOAST about how they are too fighting climate change, really, never mind how they are directing research away from how they are causing it

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Darth Trad's avatar

$25 million could grow a lot of trees and dig a lot of wells. Instead it's going on fancy dinners and photo ops. Fuck that.

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wavicles's avatar

"Itโ€™s a happy symbiosis between producers of toxic sludge and politicians who love to talk about all the great jobs they bring to the states."

I think that you mean; Itโ€™s a happy symbiosis between producers of toxic sludge and oil companies...

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el duderino's avatar

It seems like the whole point of this institute is to produce reports for the oil industry that say "Everything is fine, keep doing what you're doing." Why spend $5 million on that when $500 would get you the same results

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wavicles's avatar

Because the whole lege wants their $500 each?

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SterWonk's avatar

> An investment of $5 million, over five years, will get your company a vote on the instituteโ€™s advisory board ...

Obligatory "Leverage", in *the second goddamned episode*:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1293988/quotes/?item=qt0955673&ref_=ext_shr_lnk

๐—ฆ๐—ผ๐—ฝ๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ฒ ๐——๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐˜…: [๐˜ฑ๐˜ณ๐˜ฆ๐˜ต๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ฅ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ต๐˜ฐ ๐˜ฃ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ข ๐˜ฅ๐˜ฆ๐˜ง๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ด๐˜ฆ ๐˜ค๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ๐˜ต๐˜ณ๐˜ข๐˜ค๐˜ต๐˜ฐ๐˜ณ] My company's focused on meeting Senators, but, um, I'm thinking Congressmen.

๐—–๐—ต๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—น๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐——๐˜‚๐—ณ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜: You know the great thing about Congressmen? 50, 100 grand, well spent, will get one elected. But then, once they're in, the incumbency rate is over 95%! So you can get on an average 18, 20 years use out of one of them. In these uncertain times, buying a United States Congressman is one of the best investments a corporation can make!

๐—”๐—น๐—ฒ๐—ฐ ๐—›๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ป: [๐˜ญ๐˜ช๐˜ด๐˜ต๐˜ฆ๐˜ฏ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ๐˜จ ๐˜ช๐˜ฏ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ฏ ๐˜ด๐˜ถ๐˜ณ๐˜ท๐˜ฆ๐˜ช๐˜ญ๐˜ญ๐˜ข๐˜ฏ๐˜ค๐˜ฆ] Oh, I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. I'm a professional criminal, and I find that disturbing.

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Runfastandwin's avatar

The fact that god saw fit to put New Orleans in Louisiana tells me god is a vindictive evil bastard.

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Bitter Scribe's avatar

LSU has a highly regarded environmental engineering program whose top graduates are virtually guaranteed lucrative starting positions at the likes of Exxon.

I once spoke to an EE grad who told me there are three career paths to take: The lucrative but soul-destroying corporate path, whereby your job will consist of proving, with facts and figures, that those fumes aren't really so bad; the totally virtuous but starvation-wage path of nonprofit advocacy, where you can be an expert consultant and witness in lawsuits that likely aren't going anywhere due to corrupt courts; or the mostly good and decently paid path of government service, whereby you try to apply regulations that protect people as best you can.

After a few years of that last path, this guy got out and is now running a very good restaurant.

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marxalot's avatar

I see, I see, the tech is too new, that's why your faculty are not prepared to engage with it, it's not yet mature enough for innovation in the energy sector, I see.

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marxalot's avatar

Ah, the academic freedom of pure, unfettered research, without prior restraint nor outside interference (other than from the IRB)! As long as what you want to research aligns perfectly with what wealthy interests want to fund.

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Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

This should be labeled reverse naming rights. Instead of large corporations paying money to name sports facilities after their businesses, large corporation are paying money for LSU's imprimatur.

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randomnessliz's avatar

uhhh, right.........in LSU's defense, it was a really big check!

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Cliff Hendroval's avatar

Maybe a big check in the Publishers Clearing House sense, but $25M isn't even all that much money.

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Caepan's avatar

"They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house. I'm not made of stone!" - Krusty the Klown

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Darrell Leland's avatar

As an alien in an episode of The Outer Limits once observed, "there is nothing so malleable as morality."

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Mark Linimon's avatar

"Texas Bureau of Economic Geology" aka T-BEG.

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Daniel O'Riordan's avatar

How To Find Oil 101.

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Jeff, still got my guitar's avatar

"LSU faculty has not been similarly engaged with renewable energy companies, because oil and gas companies have the resources to tackle the climate crisis now โ€“ and are not reliant on future technology, Thompson said. โ€œRenewable energy is much more abstract,โ€ he said. โ€œSo, I think thatโ€™s the difference. Itโ€™s not that we donโ€™t care as much.โ€

Don't know who this Thompson guy is but he's obviously full of shit.

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