Sea-raping mega-oil firm Shell has a new rig to launch, and like any enormous company, it decided to celebrate with a private party atop Seattle's Space Needle. The crown jewel? An oil rig-shaped cake which sprays liquor! Into your face.
This video was captured by a sneaky environmentalist who crept into the fete uninvited—as you can see when a Shell goon asks him to get the hell out and hand over his phone. Who ever hands over their phone in these cases? Nobody. And we're glad, because now we get to see some oil Barbara Bush clone get doused with an alcoholic simulacrum of a crude geyser from the scale model edible derrick, straight in the bread basket. Rich old people being soaked with things: always funny, forever and always. [TreeHugger]
Update: Welp, that was fun while it lasted. Gawker points out this is almost certainly a hoax.
Update 2: Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow says Shell threatened him because he dared write about this faked video with the hashtag #shellfail. Which is idiotic! What a horrible job being an oil lawyer must be, aside from the gargantuan paychecks. The legal goon squad email is below:
Lawyers operating on behalf of Royal Dutch Shell plc. (Shell) are considering formal action against unknown activists who staged a counterfeit campaign launch event at the Seattle Space Needle.
The groups released a stream of social media content, with the defamatory hashtag #shellfail, which deliberately misrepresents the safety of Shell's drill rigs heading to the Arctic, and extensively violated Shell's intellectual property rights.
Shell is monitoring the spread of potentially defamatory material on the internet and reporters are advised to avoid publishing such material.
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DISCUSSION
I'm not fond of many of the practices of large companies, but at the same time I use their products. I pretty much have to and so do you. Oil literally lubricates our economy and allows us to live the lives we do.
I'm sure the big green tech energy companies only want to save the planet and don't care about the bottom line, right?
Oh well. I guess hating on "big oil" or the rich is still plenty trendy.