Gulf Oil Spill-Information Blackout

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2010/bp_info_blackout

This article starts off a little dull, but delivers in the end, read it through...seems legit to me.

Reading between the lines, it seems to me that BP is spreading these dispersants only to hide the true extent of the spill in the Gulf.

Me thinks this story is going to get pretty before it gets really ugly.
Pretty because all the news in the media will be whitewashed clean before you see/read it.

Really ugly once time exposes the true extent of this disaster and people wake up to what is really going on...

They (BP, The Feds. Coast Guard, National Guard Media etc.) are working really hard at hiding how bad this is ......There is an all out closure and no access to beaches & wetlands. They are heaving truckloads of dead wildlife - covered with tarps onto barges to dump at sea. The toxic dispersing chemicals they used are outlawed in the UK. Also, it causes the oil to sink below the ocean's surface so the aerial views aren't that bad........

Reports of Tampa residents choking from fumes over the weekend...

I don't know if any one else saw the documentary on about the exxon valdez spill but the similarities between BP and exxon are so much alike its not funny. 20 yrs later and exxon got away with what amounted to a slap on the wrist and devastated many small communities. Hopefully BP and horizon have there feet held to the fire for the clean up and hardship they have created.

OK, so I expect BP to downplay the extent of any damages resulting from their well explosion. What's up with MY federal gov't. and military doing the same? I don't pay taxes to be lied to or denied as much truth as is known. Seems like corporations really do rule the world. The government is just a puppet.

Sg

+1 Salmo. It's totally unacceptable that environmentalists and reporters are being disallowed by our government from seeing the worst areas and relaying the truth to the public..

This is going to be so ugly that no one here can even begin to understand the fall out.

For the last 4 weeks the cheapest way of handling the spill has been the approach.

What it's going to cost in the long run will be staggering.

This mess is 10 times worse than you can imagine. The chances of it having a global impact on the economy is very real.

My favorite quote read today:

""The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene," said Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation, "and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage."

Sad to see the government siding with Big Oil. Really thought Obama would be different but his environmental record to date is less than impressive, not GW/DC mine/net/drill and shoot it all bad but not what I voted for. Guess a city boy from Chicago doesnt really give a [censored] whether he is repub or demo...lots of cover up and everyone sees it happening with only a token senate hearing or press conf to chide BP. This sucks...

It shouldn't surprise anyone that BP would underestimate and minimize...

What surprises me is the continued appetite for drilling... I mean, seriously? Will this stuff be a game-changer in our foreign oil dependence? Not a chance. There ARE legit alternatives (a topic for another thread) but people just seem to want to drill and spill.

See the results on this poll:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/29/scale-offshore-drilling/

Here's the skinny--

Not a single one of us will ever live long enough to see the planet fully recover from this. Probably not even our children. Maybe not even our grandchildren.

As fishermen, what price do you put on having an entire sea and all it's coastlines turned into a toxic waste dump?

The sheer volume already sea-bourne and growing by an Exxon Valdez every 4 days make it worse than all the ghost nets ever all combined, 10,000x worse than Exxon Valdez, Worse than all the dams, possibly worse than The Plague.

Even Chernobyl didn't fvck schit up this bad.

Humans really screwed the pooch this time.

Another "funny" part of this mess is the continued line of "we have never done this or that at 5000 feet deep". Well if you dont know how the fook to fix something that goes wrong in a deep water well it should NEVER be allowed to exist period.

I try not to get political and this is why. How can this be happening without Bush being in charge. I don't think the US has had a real president sense maybe before I was born. Face it folks when the countries economy is tied to a runaway freight train and the oil companies are posting consecutive record breaking profits who do you think is using the money. That's rite WE ARE. Why raise taxes when you can let corporations over inflate the cost of something everyone uses then barrow most of the extra profit for little or no interest or maybe not pay it back at all. Just don't throw the corporation under the bus or they may cut off the easy money or worse yet want some of it back to pay for one of there F ups. The definition of Big money is when you reach the level that Uncle Sam comes to you and ask to barrow some then ask that you keep it on the down low. The corporations being successful and all are going to want the loan secured in some form or another. You know some funny looking president puppets to take the heat and blame [censored] on. Don't forget if profits get to low no money for Uncle Sam so if need be we may need to go to war or something to stimulate things a bit. We all want chit and were all to blame so no sense getting all bent out of shape over it. You wouldn't want to use your medical Insurance that everyone will soon need to have. Hey ya ever notice that Microsoft stock would split about every other time ya got your hair cut. I remember that. It was back when I first would get on a computer once in awhile because they were little tricky to figure out. Hell I even got ONE before the stock stopped splitting. Whats funny is they still get a [censored] load of cash for every operating system on every computer sold and now I seem to buy a new computer about every 2nd or 3rd haircut and use 2 or 3 different ones a day. Wonder what's the deal with there profits? Never could understand why Apple can't seem to catch up with em.

Oh well....Peace out

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/21/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=C1

The Obama administration announced Thursday that it has ordered BP to release all data related to the massive spill, including environmental sampling analyses, internal investigation reports and details of the cleanup effort. In a letter to BP Group CEO Tony Hayward, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson told BP to post that information on a website and update it daily.

"The public and the United States government are entitled to nothing less than complete transparency in this matter," they concluded.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFmBedwbVWU

The Coast Guard, enforcing BP's rules to keep media away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UbtuLjEyVA

The 60 minutes episode with one of the rig survivors is worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLJHTTOSkpg
Drill faster and don't worry about the broken chunks of gasket coming up.

I guess if you have enough $$$ you don't have to have a legitimate game plan for when things go FUBAR.

The video of the broken pipe has been set to loop since Sunday, when part of the seafloor began spewing gas and oil around the well head. Experts now surmise that the well itself has been compromised, and that is how natural gas and oil have begun seeping out of the seafloor in close proximity to the wellhead.
These same experts now say that if the well itself has begun to break down, the whole "Top Shot" idea will never work, because the well itself is now leaking into the seabed well below the wellhead.

again, major media not covering this....its all covered up...

This is BP's Katrina.

Try BP's Chernobyl with a load of Valdez mixed in .. . . .

Ryley, where did you see/hear that the video is looping? I've searched for and not found that?

Liquid Nitrogen will do the trick. A good friend living in Australia, that's an expert on these Oils Well, tells me that he sent a recommendation almost 3 weeks ago to BP, suggesting that they use Liquid Nitrogen. The reason is that Crude Oil has a lot of coagulants and other particles that freeze on contact with Liquid Nitrogen. Once the freezing slows and then stops the flow, a more permanent solution can be affixed.

If Bush were still in office you can bet your sweet ass that every lefty on this site would be screaming bloody murder at the administration's procrastination and calling for every cabinet member to be executed.
Not saying that the Obama admin has an answer or that they even should, just the fact that if the tables were turned....

Bingo........

Keith

Apples and oranges. Man-made disaster vs. nature caused. It's BP's rig, it's their responsiblity. BP should have been prepared for something like this. It was inevitable.

You're probably right though that most liberals would have wanted W's head if the tables were turned.

I think W's background as an oil-man would likely have done that, you guys are 100% right. It doesn't make it correct, but I bet it would've happened.

The sand barriers thing -- I heard the presser yesterday and the on-site commander (name escapes me) had a pretty reasonable answer, including:

a) this is a non-trivial request -- probably 3+ months to build
b) the sand barriers present immense logicstical problems (e.g. where to get the sand from)
c) the impact of making them is in and of itself an ecological impact, not to be taken lightly

It's easy to point the "inaction on our request" finger, but the "do no harm" Hippocratic oath might lead us to be a bit thoughtful before going here. I'm as frustrated as anyone that this all is going on, but let's not make it worse by guessin and taking wild shots.

Bobby "We don't want the federal government intervening in matters of the state of Louisiana" Jindahl?

The BS is him crying for federal assistance now. What happened to "state sovereignty?"

Typical right-wing hypocrisy: We don't need no federal government... until we need the federal government.

Olbermann said that too?

Ya know... brilliant minds think alike they say.

I haven't seen an episode of "Countdown" in a long time sorry to say Hank. When I do watch TV at 10 pm... it's usually History Channel or Nat Geo.

I gotta admit though... you ARE the definitive expert on ignorance!

Yep.

I never bought into the "hopey, changey" stuff in the first place.

Obama is still better than Bush was or McCain would have been.

Hey, if like you say, things are still pretty much the same... what exactly is it about Obama that drives you wingnuts so crazy?

A whole lot better than that doomy-gloomy-I-hope-America-fails thingy the cons embrace.

Seems to me the banksters did a pretty good job of breaking this country without all those social programs.

A lot of the European Union countries too. What with Goldman Sachs sellin' 'em billions of dollars worth of allegedly AAA rated securities that they KNEW weren't worth the paper that they were written on. The financial derivative house of cards is what's got the world in recession right now.

Social programs aren't killing the Social-Democracies of Europe Hank... the "Global Economy" is.

Do you know WHY Reagan began the whole deficit spending policy?

Because the corporate cabal that pulled his Alzheimer's-addled strings knew that they couldn't do away with Social Security, Medicare and Welfare directly. The People would never stand for it. But they also knew that if they could run the deficits high enough... those programs would eventually have to be dealt with. Couple that with the Baby Boomer generation now reaching retirement age en masse... along with a bunch of financial fear-mongerin' and you now have the situation we are faced with today.

Lemme ask ya Hank... who REALLY benefits from "fiscal responsibility"?

I'll give you a hint... it ain't you or I or the vast majority of American citizens.

Yet you continue to scrub the scrotums of those who would just as soon see you livin' under a bridge somewhere once you reach your golden years.

So I gotta ask you Hank... WHY?

What's in it for you?

If that's genuinely a concern for you, why aren't you more motivated to pay a larger portion of your debt now (increase taxes) to reduce the burden of your kids and grandkids?

I guess, then, protecting your offspring from paying your debts isn't really all that important to you.

"Increasing taxes during a recession is quite possibly THE most insane thing that should be considered."

Decreasing them during war time WAS the most insane.

RR began the era of borrowing from SS.

+100

I suppose that depends on how genuinely concerned you are with your offsprings future debt responsibilities.

Do either increased taxing or decreased spending really net us any long term benefits? My guess is no, seeing as both indirectly lead to increased unemployment, and subsequently lower consumer spending. If you increase taxes, people buy less stuff, and small businesses suffer. When they fail, people lose jobs and can no longer contribute to the economy. Reducing spending, while it prevents the need to raise taxes, ultimately means laying people off, which leads to the same problem of more people who cannot spend.

Back to the original topic for just a moment... I know it's been said a hundred different ways in this thread, but this thing is going to screw us pretty hard. I know, I know, they just lowered gas prices a bit, but I'm pretty sure we're about to see some pretty steep increases over the summer. BP may end up shouldering the bill initially, but you can bet we'll be the ones who pay it in the end (if it ever gets truly paid).

Keep those gardens healthy and the chickens laying, folks....

Okay, I admit I didn't read all this and did not visit the site Ryley makes refrence to, but I sure as hell don't see any info blackout. The tube is saturated with photos of oil on the beaches and marshes, fishermen looking sadly at oily oysters, diagrams of how far it might spread, oil soaked birds, clams, etc, and constant photos of the spewing oil. Not much of a blackout IMHO.

The "top kill" procedure is going on now. You can watch a live feed here:

Oil Spill

I don't see Obama's administration as having any culpability in the BP disaster. Too new and likely only recently learned that MMS has been in bed with the industry since day one. That's makes Congress (as an institution) and numerous prior administrations culpable for not requiring better regulatory oversight. That doesn't mean that better oversight would prevent oil well explosions; it only means that better oversight would reduce the frequency of such events. Total prevention probably requires zero offshore drilling, which is a different subject.

I'm puzzled by all the gov't. activity over the oil leak. The administration needs to send the memo that neither the government nor anyone else, including BP, knows what to do or how to stop the leak. Instead, in order to appear presidential and doing something, numerous federal agencies have diverted tons of staff to LA in regards to the spill. Except for a few that can actually contribute something useful, what I'm hearing is that hundreds, maybe thousands, of federal employees who have been sent to the Gulf attend daily briefings. That's it. They attend meetings and are briefed about the latest goings-on. But they aren't actually doing anything to solve the problem. Not that they wouldn't. But because they can't. Not to worry however; at least every week each Cabinet Secretary can report that he or she has sent XX federal staff to the Gulf to deal with the oil spill catastrophe, which is mostly true, except that next to no one is actually dealing with it because for the most part there is next to nothing that people can actually do that is worth doing in the long run. So scads of staff are hurrying up to look busy so that the gov't can report that it is doing everything possible to deal with the oil spill, which is also mostly true, even though those scads of people are just attending briefing meetings day in and day out.

That is my problem with gov't. The lack of intellectual honesty. I'd rather they just send those who can actually contribute to problem solving, even if it appears that it is too few, instead of sending many for appearances sake. That's my fairly non-partisan appraisal.

Sg

I don't know if it's so much a lack of intellectual honesty as it is a misguided instance of public appeasement.

The public keeps crying for the president to do something, but there's absolutely nothing he can do at this point. This isn't a natural disaster like a hurricane, it's an industrial accident through negligence. Therefore, it's industry's responsibility to fix it.

The most the president can honestly do right now is start the process to investigate what happened in order to develop policies to prevent similar disasters in the future. In other words, more corporate regulation and oversight.

Speaking of an industrial accident causing an ecological disaster, is this a good time to talk about tort reform again?

Had the government proposed more rigorous oversight of the oil extraction industry prior to this accident, Rory........err, Hank, would have been crying like a baby with a loaded diaper, calling Obama a socialist.

Sh!t, Hank............you don't know if you're punched or bored.

And what happens if the berms become a larger, longer-lasting detriment to the marshes? Where's the sand going to come from? Who's going to move it all? How long will it take?

No one knows, do they?

That's the problem with pandering to appease the base: rash irrational decisions.

From your posts it's obvious you don't get out much, so we'll keep this simple for ya.

Coastlines are not all sand. And of those portions that are sand, not all sand is alike. Removing sand from one area to build berms in another creates new problems in the area of removal; navigation, erosion, ecological, etc. Building berms to keep the oil out also keeps the water out. The marshes dry up, ergo, no marsh. What have you accomplished? You've gone from an oil-damaged marsh to a dead dry ex-marsh. Congratulations?

Stick to taking pictures, it'll help us all.

No, I would not agree. History has shown that Mother Nature can repair herself from a disaster such as this given adequate time. Those wetlands' ecosystem requires both salt and freshwater to survive. It's a chemical balance. Building berms will starve the marsh of the needed salt water, upsetting the balance, thus possibly doing far more damage. Depending on the size of the berms they could quite possibly affect the aerodynamics of the offshore flows. We're talking miles and miles of coastline. LA's coastline is nearly all marshland, so which neighboring state is going to allow their beach be torn up to contribute to LA? Screwing with the coastline in the past has already destroyed much of the marshland in that area which contributed to the destructive force of Katrina.

Harley owns you Hank.

He maintains his calm demeanor and presents facts...while you babble on with the juvenile name callin'.

He wins... you lose... simple as that.

Sure there are stories all over the news media about the spill, but how much of it is accurate?

It's only now coming to light that the scope of this disaster is far greater than has been communicated, and it may be twice as big as Valdez.

The original post on this thread was on a story that exposed how much the information getting out of the gulf is being controlled as much as possible by BP with help from our government entities. BP said publicly that no one was being forbidden from viewing the areas affected by the spill, yet in the field reporters and the general public are still being forbidden to access many of the affected areas to document the tragedy. They say one thing and do another without consequence.

Those actions alone put an inexcusable spin on what the general public sees and hears about this disaster.

Perhaps this doesn't matter any more, because now this spill has graduated to the worst environmental disaster in the history of our nation, and no amount of spin or cover up will contain that fact.

That's damn funny right there.

Not exactly how I would characterize their exchange there Quatre Sel

+ many Sky

But how is this cover up any different than any other mega-disaster or major fuk up that's happened in recent history?

You don't think the media is there to actually report do you?

You wingnuts sure do circle the wagons and make excuses for one another!

C'mon, really? KK did this... KK did that? You gotta be freakin' kiddin' me!

Hey, there's definitely a time and a place for juvenile name callin'!

But not when one party is presenting a reasonable argument.... and I think you'll find that KK is very respectful of reasonable arguments as well.

The problem is... you right-wing fanatics never present one.

Fixed that for ya

No.

The Coast Guard has given LA permission to build one berm as a prototype on BP's dime, all other berms will be paid for by state and federal funds. (That's right, Hank, more federal spending. But being a proponent of the berms, you should be okay with that.)

The goal: divert the currents to force the oil onto the barrier islands. Yeah, those islands washed away by Katrina that they're still trying to rebuild with dredging. The sand needed for that operation will go for the berm. What happens when the islands don't get rebuilt? Again, where do they get the sand? They've mentioned getting it from a location only a mile from the islands. What affect will the underwater borrow pits have on erosion of the existing islands? What happens when we change the course of ocean currents? How many scientists have studied and approved of this work? It'll take months just to build one prototype berm. Is the cost/benefit worth it?

But all that doesn't really matter, does it. It's a nice feel-good action to appease the crying public that doesn't undertand rational reality.

Consider the Ixtoc spill in '79 and the infamous Valdez. The Ixtoc spill lasted almost 10 months, and spewed about 3 million barrels which hit Texas shores. And there are still remnants of the spill in PWS, but both areas have recovered more or less.

Interesting point about the Ixtoc spill, Mexico avoided paying compensation by asserting sovereign immunity. What's the B in BP stand for?

Hank, my facts are from today. Jindal hadn't been informed of the CG's decision when the bulletin I read was written.

Yeah, taking action without studying the after-affects is like--oh, I dunno--a Deepwater Horizon accident maybe?

Mmhmmm. And where was Exxon's HQs in '89, and they finally paid what percentage?

Civil suits are done. Supreme Court closed that deal couple of years ago. Exxon drug it out for nearly 20 years and ended up paying mere pennies on the dollar. You don't think BP learned something from that?

So all the global climatologists are now coastline rehabilitation experts as well, huh?

Awesome.

How long does the game where we all pretend to know every f'n thing last anyway?

I thought it was refreshing for Palin to blame Obama for taking big oil's money. Does she EVER think before opening her pie hole? A quick check shows the McCain Palin team took roughly four times as much money as did Obama. Of course its a dan shame ANY politician is allowed to take money form corporations or unions. We desperatly need the type of campaign reform McCain was for before he was against it.

When do you think Palin will again say "Drill baby drill"?

Anyone who places this at Obamas feet is a political POS. So tired of that crap. Of course if W. was still in office the looney lefties would be asking for his head on a plate. Glad it has not gotten that nasty......yet and the majority of reps have not went there. Yes I have heard some of the usuals attempt it but few aside from the looney left care what the looney right has to saythese days. Hopefully this will get solved and BP will be held accountable without the pol grandstanding that so often takes these situations over.

Dan, you took the words out of my mouth. So now Hankster's an ecosystems management expert as well.

Given that I happen to know a thing or two about salt marsh ecology, but am not personally familiar with the Louisiana coast, I've been keeping my damn mouth shut on the sand berm subject cuz it's more entertaining to watch Hank prove that he's a dumb sh!t.

Sg

Hank ain't dumb... he's just bizarrely and sociopathically misguided... that's all.

I wasn't talkin' about your alleged knowledge of salt marsh biology there Hank... I was speakin' more in general terms.

Reading all of this has given me a headache.

Tard syndrome runs deep on the dark side.

Someday all of you asswipes will quit the partisan BS and realize that none of you are absolutly correct.

For now, we have a major problem. One that I really doubt most of you can really comprehend because your too busy pointing fingers at the left and the right while trying to unsecesfully prove that that your smarter or more up to date on the problem that we will all be facing for generations.

Enough of you tard's, it's time to get busy. But that isnt going to happen and here is part of the problem.

I was asked if I would be able to voulenteer my time to go down and help with the clean up.

This is how bad this f'n mess is......They expected all of us who have the training and skills to help with this mess to simply voulenteer our time. Plus the company I work for, said they would not allow me to leave my position at this time.

Wish I could, but wife, kid and mortgage prevent me from missing more than a couple of checks at this time.

Money talks, and BP is doing what ever it takes to not spend it. And the feds havent got the ball's to demand it because big oil has bought them.

This whole mess is so fuked up, it's beyond the dark sides simple minds. Imagine how the rest of the general public must see it.......Wait, they watch the new's, what more do they need to know?

Syko Goes Yard! tellin it like it is!

here's a cut/paste from another site i found interesting


"Here's a little gem for everyone to start the day. The Ixtoc I oil spill released 3.5 million barrels into the Bay of Campeche and took 10 months to cap. The spill was the result of an oil and gas explosion on the Ixtoc I rig operated by a company called SEDCO. After a few mergers and acquisitions SEDCO now operates under a new name----Transocean"

this was back in 1979 in the gulf but on the mexican side

so? i have to ask why bp is taking all the heat when transocean had not technically handed the well over to them (transocean drills then bp pumps) and seem well versed on making a mess?

+1 on syko's post btw

I beleive she says it several times on Dogfish's video .. . . at least that is what I have been told. . . . .

underwater ploom 22 miles long by 6 miles wide reported this morning...good times.

I tell yu what, if this ever happened off the Oregon coast I would be punching anyone with a British accent. Irish, Scottish and Australians may not be safe either....

Hank,

My issue with you is that you write as though the info you posted is "the" answer, when in fact you haven't an f'n clue. It could be the best alternative, or it might be a really stupid one. Either way, you still don't have a clue. If you were a smart guy, you'd know that even copy/paste expertise if quite often worth even less than the zero you pay for it.

The smartest people I know are typically the first to admit the limitations of their knowledge and expertise. Know-it-alls are occasionally correct, but it appears to be more a matter of coincidence than design. The fact is that no one on this forum, including you, knows whether the sand berms are a great alternative or a really stupid one. Why get wrapped up in solutions when you're clueless as to their efficacy?

Sg

Hank,

OK, maybe you're not the dumb fvk you appeared to be.

Still, just because the ones calling for the berms are in LA, doesn't mean they're right. I've noticed in my experience that there is an over-abundance of dumb sh!ts, even among locals, when it comes to nearly any type of environmental management.

Desparate times may call for desparate measures, but that's no reason to drain intelligence from the equation while you're draining the swamp. Being up to your ass in alligators is going to be the least of your problems when you discover that that swamp water was also the source of your M&I water, waste management water, and possibly energy supply as well. Unless it's an immediate matter of life and death, my stock answer if you need an answer right now is, "no." The answer may change after some critical analysis.

Sg

This is only a small piece of what the enviroment is up against.

http://acp.repoweramerica.org/page/invit...0100527&v=2

This spill is bieng handled so poorly, it is beyond belief. Nobody has a clue on how to handle this, and many mistakes have allready been made. The cheapest way out has been the motto.

This is going to get much worse when all of this hits land.

I am no scientist, and my training on handling spills is limited. But if we dont start to attack this mess with a different mindset, and sense of urgency, the end result is beyond what anyone can predict.

I predict a enviromental disaster that could possibly cripple food production, the economy (like that needs another hit right now), and life as we know it.

Actually Aunty, it is no surprise. Is there anything in modern society that is allowed to respond quickly? Not much. There is concern about risk. If they put in the berm, and some resource or somebody's house, or... is damaged; somebody will sue.

Look at the Chehais basin. We know building in the floodplain is bad, we know migratory fish and dams don't get along well, we know that in order to keep I-5 open it has to be raised or protected. We know all this but to take action means somebody wins and somebody loses. Current politics do not allow for losing.

We believe that there is always a win-win solution to every problem. There isn't but as long as people sue we will be paralyzed to act.

Do some research on the Mexico spill in the Gulf back in 1979...there is one single difference between the current problem and the problem we had then...that difference being that the drillers have gained the technology to make these problems even deeper and farther from fixing.

They used the exact same techniques to "fix" it then...chemical dispersants, a "cap", and the the "top shot"...and none of it worked worth a chit then, either.

Oh, I guess there's one other difference...BP calls the cap a "top hat"...the Mexicans called it the "sombrero"...no, not kidding, you can't make stuff up as good as this.

It took ten months to fix it last time.

Why have the oil companies been given such free reign to develop technologies that allow them to make disasters three times as deep as the 70's, when they have shown over the past 50 years that they couldn't even fix the problems they were causing then?

Fish on...

Todd

Liquid Nitrogen will do the trick with less environmental impact. Book it!

It could be that American politicians are oil whores, and that any politician proposing tighter regulations for the drilling industry would have been crucified by the likes of Fox News, and.........well, you.

Just a guess.

Politicians have learned that the electorate is unwilling to pay what it costs for the various safety requirements. Those regulations add too much cost to (fill in your own item such as gasoline, house, car safety, functional floodplains, etc.).

Are we pushing any dam operator to fully mitigate for their resource damage? Are we regulating logging to the extent necessary to preserve the ecosystem? Are we willing to treat wastewater to remove all the nutrients and other human additives so that the water released is as clean as it was when diverted?

The spill is bad but how much oil have we gotten out of the gulf, so far, compared to the spill? It's all about risk, and if it saves each of us a few cents we are willing to accept that risk, until the ship hits the sand.

You're full of sh!t, Hank.

When is the last time the government proposed more rigorous oversight of ANY indistry, and you supported it?

It would be labeled a death sentence for the economy by Fox, Hannity would call Obama a socialist for wanting the government to poke its nose into private industry, and you'd have a thread up within 15 minutes parroting all their talking points.

Your track record is proven.

A piss poor guess?

Are you f'n serious?

Take it from someone who is in the industry, those bastards are bought!

And if you want to know how I come to this conclusion, I recieve emails constantly from corprate asking us to email congressman about proposed regulations and policies.

Do you actually think any of it is for the better of the enviroment?

Dam Hank, we think alot alike. For the most part I disagree with most libral thinking. But I still fish with KK and Todd, and they seem to tolerate me just fine.

You are loosing it here.

Speaking of looking like a damn fool.

I've remained quiet on this thread because I think turning an unmitigated disaster like this oil spill into a left/right political argument is about the stupidest fukking thing I've seen on "The Dark Side" to date. It's a slap in the face to the people who are actually suffering through this $hit.

There's nothing to argue about. BP caused this mess and is now polluting the property of others due to their negligence. BP and BP alone is responsible for any and all damages incured. If the costs put them out of business, so be it. They took on that risk by deciding to drill 5,000ft below the surface of the ocean. Should the Feds contribute resources to the clean up effort, BP should compensate the Feds accordingly. End of story. Now lets clean it up.

KKK as far as your self-grandised drivel is concerned regarding free markets,.......you are and always will be wrong on the issue of how a free market operates under the rule of law. The fact that you constantly equate free markets to anarcho capitalism to use as the base of your argument tells me all I need to know,......you've got nothin', and you know it. You're a washed up liberace reciting your washed up economic idealology from your better days many moons ago. You can post all the ad hominem baseless, factless, twisted garbage you please while sipping your sauce and wallowing in your self-congratulatory bubble of isolation. None of it will change the fact that everyday your philosophy is proven wrong in the real world. To add to that scores of people are waking up to this sham. You are frustrated by this and it's apparent by the ever increasing arrogance in your posts. It's a defense mechanism and it's painfully obvious. I almost feel sorry for you, almost.

Luckily enough this status quo rip off of an econmic system you advocate is on it's last leg.

Damn............................I think fence setting just left facility!!!!!!!!!!!!

Apparently you do,....as evidenced by the fact that you even responded.

By the same token,........what makes you think anybody gives a flying fuk what you think?

I've never seen you offer one solution to any presented problem on this board, not one. Attack others then pat yourself on the back for it.

But hey,......that's par for the course for a limp-wristed pillow biter with absolutely zero intestinal fortitude such as yourself.


Complete Tool Shed.

KK and smelly waters......

Thanks for confirming what is wrong with this world.

Your both asswipes!

I say that with a smile on my face and disgust in my heart.

KK, hope to see you on the water this summer....you know where.

I will the day you remove your tongue from the o-rings of the puppets running this country into the ground. Although your rim job skills may be noteworthy,......your naivete is an embarrassment.

I was cetainly on the mark with POS so-called Financial Reform Bill that you gleefully supported like a yell duke dressed in pink. It was gutted,......no derivatives exchange, no naked short ban, no legit audit of the Fed, no reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. Exactly what I said it would be. An insignificant nothing that will have no marked impact on the fleecing the banks are giving this country in plain view.

Answer me this o' "Great Prognosticator". - The US economy will be in better shape than it is today in 2012 as a result of the legislation being passed and to be passed by this administration and congress. Yes or No?

It's a pretty simple question really,........if you have the guts to answer it.

Sunday morning, coffee...laffin' my ass off.

Thanks, guys

Fish on...

Todd

Agree Todd......

Sunday morning with some good giggles here... KK and StinkingWaters debating on fixing the world.....

Good luck boys.

Keith

http://www.beowulfe.com/oil/

Excuse me, this isn't a regular post, this is an attempt at a TOP KILL on all the exploding gas spewing from this thread. I'm stuffing shredded tires, golf balls, and my left boot into this post, hoping it'll plug y'all up.

A man can hope...

That's the "Junk Shot" when they try to plug it with garbage Brian.

The "Top Kill" is when they pump a dense mud into the hole at high pressure... kinda like Hank and Stink do whenever proven wrong.

Where do ya think Stink got his name?

In the spirit of "heads out of the sand", there just may be a dose of reality at the old debt clock....the far right columns break it down into somewhat more digestible terms.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

Slab, I've posted that debt clock a couple of times and get the ho-hum about it each time. Libtards don't care about debt. When they run out of money from taxing the rich they just print up more...


One reason why I do not think much of youe writing. By your definition G.W. was a libtard.

Heres a thought, raise the top tax bracket to roughly 75% of what it was under Ike, Nixon and Ford. Deficit solved.

We will pay for it one way or another.

First, the cap on the cost of clean up liability has yet to be raised.......Why?

Second, we will pay for it with higher energy costs even if BP is forced to pay for the entire clean up.

C'mon Hank.

There should be no cap period!

BP doesnt just raise the cost at the pump, the higher cost of crude will do that.

The higher cost of exploration and extraction of the crude to be exact.

Little known fact......The margins are higher in exploration and extraction. Refining margins are not even close today. The money earned from distribution of finish product is nothing in comparison.

We turn everything into a partisan pissing match.

It's what we do.

Sooo Hank, how about we argee on a middle ground. We slow spending by limiting unnecessary wars, farm subsidies, tax lopholes for corporations and put the upper bracket back to somewhere around 2/3 of what it was fron 1950 to till the Reagan years, which by the way, were years whne America grew strong and prosperous. Oh yeah, and please repeat after me. Bush was a libtard.

It is amazin'... ain't it?

FishPrince... you should stick to garglin' BigStick's sack and leave the political discussion to people who actually know what the hell they're talkin' about.

Seriously? That doesn't even come close to passing the sniff test.

How has the interstate highway system benfitted business? Did you see any conglomerate of business interests building interstate highways?

How about the US air-traffic control system. Paid for by the taxpayer to benefit the public as well as the business sector.

Do you think any military contracts have led to US manufacturers growing their businesses?

And let me assure you that not every dollar my company spends grows the economy.

You could have stated that dollars spent by business are more apt to grow the economy than dollars spent by government. That wouldn't have risen the bullsh!t flag to fully erect.

Since the government is a non-profit, every dollar it spends is wasted and does not grow the economy. The private sector is for profit and every dollar spent in the private sector grows the economy. It's a pretty simple concept. However, the libtards can't figure this out and want to tax and spend our way out of the recession.

.Simple answers to complex issues are almost always wrong. This is not a simple issue but the concept you espouse is simply wrong.

Sometimes profit shouldn't be the only concern.

Wow, AuntyM.......having a moment? Thought you liked being informed....
No need to be like the head in sand'er's.
The idea that gov't dollars circulate throughout the private sector is, like most other things, only partially correct.....the dollars do circulate, all right.....at greatly inflated prices.....hardly the stuff of profit driven supply and demand parameters.

Not only are the "confiscated" dollars still out there in circulation, but they pass thru more hands...which helps "create" wealth.

As with most "platforms" from the wingnuts, it's not really about what they say...it has nothing to do with taxes or spending, it has to do with them being taxed, or the money being spent on something they like, i.e., something other than guns, bombs, tanks, or fences along the borders.

Fish on...

Todd

I'm a bit confused Slab... what exactly does this mean?

How do government dollars circulate through the private sector at greatly inflated prices?

And how is this "hardly the stuff of profit driven supply and demand parameters"?

Holy sh!t.............

My econ profs from back in the day would have a f'n field day with some of the statements floating around this thread.

A couple things..........

Price does not affect demand OR supply. Price affects QUANTITY demanded and QUANTITY supplied. And, yes, there is a huge difference between the two.

Boeing most certainly survives, in part, on the tax dollars the government takes from you and uses to buy jets/missiles/etc. These dollars allow Boeing to employ many, who then spend their paychecks at numerous private enterprises.

Tax dollars spent aren't necessarily "wasted". All dollars spent by private enterprises don't necessarily grow the economy.

WTF did you guys get all your info on economics?

Lots of dimbulbery going on here.

I find it pretty funny some of you advocating reverse trickle down economics.

Give all our money to the gov't and watch it "trickle down" into the hands of all the private sector individuals.

Ever stop to consider that defense spending exists at the cost of the private market? If we weren't hell bent on bombing the brownies out of existence perhaps the money used to do so might be spent elsewhere on more productive means.

Marsha,......by your logic we'd be out of this recession in no time if we just had the gonads to start carpet bombing Canada. War is the health of the state afterall

Oh yeah,......when people save,.......that's a good thing. Money remains productive in an economy even when it's sitting in a bank account.

That wasn't my intention at all.

If you're corporate America and you're doing well enough to save money you are most certainly growing the economy.

That money saved is reinvested into the economy in the form of loans to individuals to start new businesses and hire more employees. What do you think a bank does with it's deposits? Good credit. It's not rocket science or some diluted right wing agenda. It's the very definition of common sense.

I can't believe that this thread doesn't even have one star. But then again, I just may not understand the rating system. Yet.

I can guarantee you one thing. When the commissions have commished, and Congress has investigated, and the president has re-staffed the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, and the pundits have pontificated, and everything else that could possibly happen has happened, we will, once again, have learned next to nothing -- other than, perhaps, how to drill for offshore oil at the depth of one mile marginally more safely. We will not be any closer to an alternative energy future. We will not have one mile more of high-speed rail.

All thanks to our broken government, Nothing that matters will have happened. And months from now, BP will again be announcing profits in the billions and pouring more money into the pockets of politicians heading for Washington, while the people of Louisiana, among others, will be left to their misery as the 24/7 media moves on to the next set of disasters, real or ephemeral.

Is the oil that is cleaned up out of the ocean or beaches have a monetary value, as in can it be refined? I imagine that the beach cleanup would go in a landfill or perhaps burned. Is the oil gleaned from the ocean free for the taking or does BP "own" it?

As hazardous waste, I doubt it is free for the taking. Did you need a few blobs to throw at a politician or two? Grab a couple for me as well, then.

and SkyGuy.....you're dead on.....sadly

Like I said earlier in the thread, there is only one single difference between the '79 Gulf spill and this one, and it's that the oil companies have gained the technology to drill deeper and deeper, yet have not increased the technology one iota to actually fix the fuckups.

That spill took 10 months to cap...there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that this one should be any better, and there is reason to believe that this one can take even longer to fix due to the greater depth.

Everything they're trying now, they tried then, and it didn't work then, either.

There needs to be a moratorium on all offshore drilling until the oil companies come up with a plan to actually fix the chit when they fukk it up, period, or this will repeat itself again...and again.

The potential to make the problems more severe with no accompanying ability to fix even the "old" problems is the root cause of this fiasco.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. They should try stuffing Palin's hairdo, with head attached, into the hole...might not work, but at least I wouldn't have to hear her shrill voice yapping about "drill, baby, drill!" any more.

Pretty easy to agree with most of this and certianly BP and the Fed's share the bulk of the blame but I'm surprised the environmental groups aren't getting some of the blame. Area's we've proven we can safely drill for oil are all now off limits??? Why??? Politics of course. This has moved oil companies to drill into area's using riskier and riskier technology. With the Fed's and inviro's blessings of course sense a mile deep is out of site out of mind.

Now I'm hearing that this is more of a reason to not drill in the arctic? This makes no sense to me as land based rigs are safe. If anything I think we need to move from offshore drilling to land based drilling where the risks are known and contingency plans are in place and proven!

This is going to get much uglier and who knows what the end effects to the environment and thus the local economy or even national/world economy will finally be. For all we know they will never get this thing plugged and it wont stop until it's empty or at least the pressure even outs.

Yikes-

p.s. I think Sky-Guys last post was spot on!

When airliners crashed, killing hundreds of people, there was never any talk about shutting down the airline industry. Instead, vital safety information was learned from each and every crash and from that information new regulations and fixes were put in place to make airline travel one of the safest modes of transportation. The number of people who die in auto crashes used to be around 47,000 a year in this country. No one ever suggested to quit making cars and go back to the horse and buggy, instead, like the airlines, information gleaned from each investigation lead to new standards and regulations to make auto's much safer.

So why because of this disaster (and I don't minimize it) is there a call to quit drilling? IMHO, what needs to happen is an end to the political talk, finger pointing, and conduct an investigation that looks for the cause of the accident, and what can be done in terms of fixes and regulation to reduce the likelyhood of it happening again. Perhaps, as been suggested, the technology is outpacing the ability to make drilling deep safe. Whatever it is, and there are probably a whole host of causes (as there is in any accident), there is a lot to be learned to make better informed decisions, rather then the political knee jerk reactions and finger pointing.

It's not just BP. They'll point the finger at Haliburton and TransOcean. Haliburton will point at BP and TransOcean. TransOcean will.... you get the picture.

Those three will drag this through the courts for generations. The taxpayer will see virtually not a dime. If any money is ever recouped, it will mean little or nothing by the time it's received.

The Blackout continues:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/02/bp-media-clampdown-no-pho_n_598119.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/02/2010-06-02_the_hidden_death_in_the_gulf.html

Ann Coulter

Oil is spewing from beneath a British Petroleum oil rig into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of about 1 million gallons a day. There's no end in sight -- although White House officials have made it clear their goal is to stop the leak before the midterm elections in November.

Obama now spends at least half of every day answering pointed, increasingly aggressive questions about the oil spill, most of them from his daughter Malia.

The president finally went down to take a look at the oil disaster last week –- which is weird because I didn't even know there were golf courses near the Gulf. To show his concern, Obama is thinking about returning some of the nearly $1 million the oil industry donated to his campaign.

Ha, ha -- just kidding. He's not returning any oil money. But the situation has gotten so urgent that Obama did take time off from his golf game to praise the Phoenix Suns for protesting Arizona’s new immigration law.

He really did endorse the Phoenix Suns, which -- like most of his endorsements -- has resulted in their being eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers over the weekend. (Did I dream this, or was it just yesterday that President Obama was congratulating Al and Tipper Gore on their long and happy marriage?)

The media have been crowing that Republicans will lose the Hispanic vote forever if they support enforcing laws against illegal immigration, such as the Arizona law. To great fanfare, a poll was released last week showing that 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the Arizona law.
The headline on that poll should have been: "One-Third of Hispanics Support Arizona Immigration Law Despite Frantic Media Campaign to Convince Them It’s a Racist Plot Against Hispanics."

Incidentally, 67 percent of Hispanics also vote Democrat. The exact same percentage of Hispanics who oppose the Arizona law voted for Obama over John McCain -- who was championing amnesty for illegals.

Suck up to Hispanics with insane amnesty proposals; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Do the right thing and defend the country's borders; get one out of three Hispanic voters. ... Promise to make every Tuesday "Ladies' Night"; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Offer them a choice between "Extra Crispy" and "Original Recipe"; get one out of three Hispanic voters.

Indeed, according to a new Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday, only 52 percent of Hispanics oppose the law, while 37 percent support it. In other words, more Hispanics support the Arizona law (37 percent) than voted for John McCain (31 percent) -– which is the strongest argument for amnesty I've heard in my entire life
Overall, 66 percent of voters support enforcing the border before discussing amnesty. A plurality -- 48 percent to 35 percent -- would like their own states to pass a law just like Arizona's, despite the strong likelihood that the mainstream media will accuse them of being Nazi police states.

The New York Times' Linda Greenhouse recently compared the Arizona law to Hitler's policies toward the Jews. You remember how Jews were constantly sneaking across the border into Nazi Germany?

Finally, in keeping with the White House tradition of only releasing really good news on the Friday afternoon before the Memorial Day weekend, last Friday the White House announced that no one in the administration offered Rep. Joe Sestak a job to drop out of the Senate primary against Arlen Specter, despite Sestak's claims to the contrary.

After a 10-week investigation, the Obama White House concluded that Bill Clinton, acting on his own, offered Sestak a nonpaying, advisory job with the administration.

It sounds like something Bill would tell Hillary after sneaking back into the house in the wee hours of the morning. "Honest, honey, I wasn't out with a tawdry cocktail waitress. I was offering some guy I barely know a job at the Obama White House."

So yeah, I know it sounds fishy, but if Bill Clinton says this is how it happened, that's good enough for me. Why, Clinton hasn't lied under oath in front of a federal grand jury for more than a decade.

Incidentally, why do so many Bill Clinton stories end with the words "nothing improper happened"? As I recall, the definition of "proper" gets pretty elastic when you're talking about Bill Clinton.

It's too bad Sestak turned down the offer, because if he had said yes, Obama could claim to have created at least one job, albeit unpaid.

I have mixed feelings about Obama trying to get Sestak out of the way in order to help Arlen Specter. As far as I'm concerned, the only good thing Obama has done so far is to endorse Specter, thus ensuring his defeat.

Maybe Obama should endorse oil spills.

Ann Coulter

And the beat goes on.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/08/gulf-oil-spill-federal-estimate_n_605095.html

Sorry if this is getting in the way of newer headlines

The enviromental destruction is just starting, and it is going to get 1000 time worse.

Exon Valdeze was a cake walk compared to this.

Ann Coulter

Some humor there, but only if you think about how stupid most of her remarks are.

Drill Baby Drill

Obviously there's nothing funny about the gulf spill, but this is pretty funny:

Oh, what a tangled web....


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37625734/ns/business-us_business

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1326556220100513

hmmmmmm...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt617zYAbng


Here's another one!

RvW has a thing for Trannies. So what?

It's all Bushs fault...

Nothing new from Ann Coulter?

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Environment/the_bp_oil_spill_may_be_bad_1206100628.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZHnStD690U

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100615/ap_on_bi_ge/us_gulf_oil_spill_fire



Beginning to think if it wasn't for bad luck these guys wouldn't have any luck at all.

- The northern Gulf of Mexico is a crucial spawning ground at this time of the year for the Atlantic population of bluefin tuna, which is critically endangered. Their eggs float near the surface and the larvae also stay near there after they first hatch. So, the spill has occurred at a critical time in their life-cycle.

"We expect a spill like this could dramatically decrease the amount of bluefin tuna larvae that are surviving," said John Hocevar, the Oceans Campaign director for Greenpeace USA.





Whoops..Someones doing a good job of keeping this suppressed, found this in a Singapore Newspaper.

Hankie, are you and Phoenix77 having a cut-n-paste contest?

Since I had an eight hour drive yesterday, I listened to the entire subcommittee hearing where Heyward was drilled...it was like listening to Reagan "not recall" or "not know" virtually anything of any substance whatsoever. There were some very unhappy legislators.

Just for kicks and grins, I popped over to BBC after the hearings and got to hear a bunch of Brits complaining that the legislators were being too mean to him, and they were commending Heyward for keeping such good manners.

The "expert" the BBC had on was a crisis management PR consultant, who seemed to be of the opinion that having good manners and saying "sir" and "ma'am" was the important part, and not actually saying anything at all didn't bother her one bit.

A few others on the BBC, though, said that it was a PR disaster for BP, and that Heyward did nothing but rile up the US even more, which I think is true.

Fish on...

Todd

...and Pemex went through the exact same rigamarole that BP is going through, in the same order, on the same timeline, with the same stupid assurances and under-reported oil flows...only to finally stop the leak with relief wells.

The same will happen here, so don't expect it to be done until at least August.

Fish on...

Todd

All dependant on the hurricane season.

So what would you suggest to stop it faster?

AM: That's a good start. Then lets add all the politicians that took their money then turned theor heads to potential safety issues.

We would se a ton of politicos pointing fingers, but they are all dipped in oil $$. Yet another reason we need campaign finance reform. Yep, I wouldeven go so far as to publicly fund the campaigns. I bet it would save us a ton of money in the long run.

I know no one wants to actually admit, especially anyone to the right of Marx, but the fact is the seeds of this disaster were planted with Ronald Reagan and the "Contract with America" that came to follow...and Hank, I don't give a rip if you condemn BP and this spill, the fact of the matter is that you suppored then, and continue to support, the anti-regulatory "free market" that direcly lead to this disaster.

You can't have it both ways...you either supported the deregulation and Dumbya's staffing of the MMS with folks who aren't qualified to sell hot dogs at AM/PM, or you didn't...and all of you righties did.

Cry about it all you want now, but if you supported the regime that allowed this disaster to come to fruition, then you are not only not allowed to blame it on anyone else, but you are to blame yourself.

Fish on...

Todd

Here ya go, Dave. Simple fix from a simple mind.

and just in case it hasn't already been thought of and discussed......

BP is NOT interested in plugging the leak. Got it? NOT interested.

They want to capture the oil. Reason is simple....money. Look at every one of the "fixes". Do they not facilitate harvesting the oil in the "fix"? I believe they could plug the damn thing in two heartbeats, if that's what they wanted to do.

Think about it.

The latest I read was that they stopped trying to plug it,top kill, because they found the pipe between the ocean floor and the oil is damaged. If they plug it at the top it could blow out below and be even harder to control.

Okay, I thought about it. My conclusion is there is no possible way BP cna make money by continuing to let the oil flow. None, nada, zippo!!!

Do you honestly believe BP would rather cough up $20 billion, plus who knows how much more, lose their worldwide reputation and be paying claims for years to come, to save a little oil? Have you calculated the vaule of all the oil recovered to date vs $20 Billion?

Hard to see where BP is making any money on this.

Let's see...
BP plugs well, and writes off losses. Losses will be much less if plugged now, right?
NOT
BP captures oil and sells it. Still has to deal with some of the losses....some....., but comes out in the end better than a write off.
If you think BP will cover all the losses, you're not being realistic.

I know, some still think BP would like to plug the well.
I don't.
Oh, that's right. They're drilling relief wells to
(A) plug the leak
....or....
(B) capture the oil and sell it.

Chuck's right. There are plenty of sharp minds available to solve this problem. His response sounds like a "thinker" to me.

Just thought I would kick a rock in the fire and stir up a few sparks.
KK...how's the coup counting going for you? You are pathetic.


Published on Friday, June 4, 2010 by McClatchy Newspapers
BP Looks to Profit from Oil Salvaged from Gushing Well
BP, Feds Could Make Millions from Runaway Well's Oil
by Erika Bolstad

WASHINGTON - BP's runaway deepwater well could still become a moneymaker for the company, even as it tries to stem the gush of crude oil that's fouling the Gulf of Mexico.
If the current containment effort works - and BP and the government say they're optimistic that it will - the oil giant will salvage much of the oil that's now spewing from the crumpled pipes on the ocean floor. That captured oil, McClatchy estimates, could generate more than $1.4 million in revenue for BP each day.

BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward listens during a news conference in London February 2, 2010. If the gusher in the gulf can be contained, all the oil that BP is able to siphon off will be sold at market. "It's exactly the same as if it's normally produced oil," BP spokesman Graham MacEwen said. (Reuters)Once the oil is piped to the surface to the drill ship Discoverer Enterprise, it will be processed and sent by tanker to a refinery to be sold.

"It's exactly the same as if it's normally produced oil," BP spokesman Graham MacEwen said.

Based on government estimates of the flow rate, the mangled well could produce oil valued at as much as $85 million over the next 60 days, until a relief well is complete and the well is capped permanently.

Yep, them BP guys are geniuses. At $72 a barrel, they will break even - on the first $20 billion - after recovering only 277,777,777 barrels. Of course they would have recovered it anyway, and they did agree to give all recovery profits to the gulf residents. Damn, I think there may be a flaw in their get rich quick scheme.

This article only proves that Erika Bolstad is a complete idiot. And the news company she writes for is equally as stupid.

BP will not prosper from this spill, and it stands to bankrupt the company.

Sure there are some people who would love to see that. But once BP files for bankrupcy protection, who do you think will be left holding the bill for the clean up?

The American taxpayer is going to pay enough for this mess, why should we foot the entire bill.

Cant wait to see the mess that is created when a hurricane moves in to the gulf this summer.

Imagine everything you can see from the top of your home covered in crude oil.

It will happen!

http://community.cdiver.net/forum/topics/strippers-demand-bp


Its way worse than were being told!

I fear Syko is right. If a major hurricane passes near that mess, we could have oil 50 miles inland over a swath of incomprehensible porportions. If BP is held accountable, for ALL damages, they will be bankrupted. The questions is, do our politicians have the courage to bite the hand that has been feeding them so long. Apparently Barton does not!

Watched a clip on Cspan about a week ago that was talking about how many renewable energy bills have been shot down by the oil and gas industry.. Obama also gave his assurance's that we were not trying to Bankrupt BP because almost all British retirement funds held large positions.

Aunty, to compare the Exxon Valdeze spill to this one is comparing a grape to a watermelon.

The Valdeze spill was many times smaller in a remote part of the world.

The cost's and the clean up from this has barely been started. The spill continue's on, and is in a totaly different enviroment, and is in a heavily populated area.

Like I said earlier, wait untill a hurricane moves in this summer.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where BP will not be held accountable for a huge chunk of change. Even the oil financed politicians are likely to be gun-shy about fighting a full liability bill. Most are smarter than Barton. (But the Rs should dump him from any energy policy position, which they seem loath to do.)
That said, I do not believe BP will pay for ALL the damage they have done, but I’m equally sure they will pay one hell of a lot more than Exxon ever did. For one they have already coughed up $20 billion.

I thought I heard it was 5 million a year for 4 years. Once SEIU unionizes the cleanup workers things should go alot smoother.

Joe Barton is not alone in tossing bouquets and sympathy toward the corporation responsible for the worse pollution disaster in American history. Other examples:

--BP "shouldn't have to be fleeced," in the words of Rep. Michelle Bachmann, R-Minnesota, who described as "a redistribution of wealth fund" the $20 billion escrow account set up to pay cleanup costs and claims.

--"We can't afford to demonize" BP, Sarah Palin declared on television last week as she upbraided President Obama for taking so long to meet with BP's chief executive Tony Hayward. (Hayward has been exiled back to England.)

--President Obama "is directly engaged in extorting money" from BP, ex-House Speaker (and possible presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich charged, appearing on Fox News' "Hannity."

--Back when he was a law professor, Barack Obama taught his law students "how to use the Constitution to shake down corporations through race and grievance lawsuits," Rush Limbaugh charged. "That's what he taught students at the University of Chicago . . . much like he is doing to BP."

--The BP escrow account is an example of "Chicago-style shakedown politics" by President Obama, Rep. Tom Price, R-Georgia, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, charged in a statement.

After Republican House leaders beat his brains in, Barton apologized for his apology. Interestingly, however, House Republican leader John Boehner declared about 10 days ago that government and BP should share burdens of spill response, before hastily clarifying that cleaning up is the company's responsibility.

Republican Senate hopeful Dino Rossi told seattlepi.com that he supports the escrow fund and removing the liability cap on oil spills. In Kentucky, however, GOP Senate nominee Rand Paul delivered a now-famous "Accidents happen" response before he stopped giving interviews to non-tame media.

Dating back more than a century, to the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, "green" Republicans have done yeoman service for conservation and the environment. But they are now an endangered species.

When supertankers were banned from Puget Sound -- via an amendment slipped into the Marine Mammals Protection Act -- Democratic Sen. Warren Magnuson received the kudos. But two Republicans in our House delegation, moderate Joel Pritchard and conservative Jack Cunningham, cleared away obstacles to House floor passage.

By contrast, Joe Barton is responsible for legislative language that forced the Minerals Management Service (MMS) to speed up approval of drilling rigs. MMS was already more a lapdog than a watchdog.