‘Top kill’ has halted flow of Gulf spill, USCG says
It’s still too early to celebrate, or even breathe a sigh of relief. But the attempted “top kill” of the Gulf oil spill may be working.
Reports the Los Angeles Times:
“Engineers have stopped the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government’s top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning.
The “top kill” effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persists, he said.
[For the record ... an earlier version of this story termed the effort "successful." Officials clarified that neither government nor BP officials had declared the effort a success yet. They caution that only after the cementing is complete and the well is sealed can the top kill be called successful.]
If the flow of oil is indeed halted, hallelujah. But all that means is that a very very bad situation will now stop getting even worse. An enormous amount of oil has been dumped into the Gulf over the last 37 days, and I fear we’re not even close to comprehending the scale of damage it will do.
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220 comments Add your comment
Gale
May 27th, 2010
10:08 am
At least we can shift focus to safeguarding wetlands and coasts, and making certain regulations and safeguards are enforced.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
10:18 am
Oh good new thread. That one was getting a little too much.
This is good news. I just wonder why they didn’t try this first – this seemed like a much better plan than a dome.
Steve
May 27th, 2010
10:18 am
Hopefully it is stopped. Now on to the cleanup. BP get your check book ready.
@@
May 27th, 2010
10:18 am
Awesome!!! although, I must say, I was disappointed to see “the slick” you left downstairs, jay.
Chris
May 27th, 2010
10:23 am
Stopping the oil is nothing to cheer about when they have all of these huge oil plumes still floating around that need to be cleaned up. Only when that’s cleaned up can we start to smile again.
jt
May 27th, 2010
10:23 am
Hope it works but alas……….
the real tragedy is yet to come.
The final monetary settlement will leave a few well-connected lawyers wildly rich, government larger and more intrusive, BP none the poorer, the enviroment possibly ravaged, and the American consumer obscenely fleeced.
As usual.
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 27th, 2010
10:27 am
The other day we were talking about how long the oil would come out of the well, if repairs are unsuccessful. Last night I saw a scientist on TV and he was saying, it could go on for years and nobody really knows how much oil is in that particular reservoir. Whether or not he knows what he’s talking about, I have no idea.
I do know that the Centralia, PA coal fire has been burning since 1961. That’s a scary thought.
Proud American
May 27th, 2010
10:29 am
Now if the Oblunder admin will get out of the way so the local gov’s can prevent additional oil from reaching the coast.
FinnMcCool
May 27th, 2010
10:29 am
“Hey, BP guys. glad you got that stopped. Now, we need you to take a look at this map. This is the Gulf of Mexico and we want it cleaned from end to end.”
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:30 am
jt, I agree with you. But how do we keep the lawyers from getting rich while the locals get NOTHING for thier losses?
NRB2
May 27th, 2010
10:33 am
And now worthless Obama will step up to the ‘prompter and take all the credit for it.
At least the spill gave the Dems an excuse to raise taxes on oil.
Thank Oblamer when you’re paying 4 bucks per gallon, folks.
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:33 am
So… “Oblunder” is now responsible for EPA regulations that have been in place for decades?
This just keeps getting better and better… What next? “Oblunder” is responsible for the extinction of the Dinosaurs? “Oblunder” is responible for the dissappearance of the Mayan civilization? “Oblunder” gave Eve the apple?
scrappy
May 27th, 2010
10:35 am
PA – Cause the Obama Administration has been trying to purposely hinder the efforts to stop the oil? More empty talk from the party of no, where anything the Prez does is considered socialist and anti-American.
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:35 am
“At least the spill gave the Dems an excuse to raise taxes on oil.”
Ummmm no, the rapid reaction cleanup force advocated by wingnuts costs money. Can’t build and maintain the equipment and manpower neccessary to be ready to cleanup everytime a private corporation screws up without money now can we?
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:37 am
“And now worthless Obama will step up to the ‘prompter and take all the credit for it.”
Well… gosh if he is responsible for the blowout and oil leak, then he’s just as responsible for the fix, right?
md
May 27th, 2010
10:38 am
“Awesome!!! although, I must say, I was disappointed to see “the slick” you left downstairs, jay.”
This is Jay’s version of “top kill” – he choked out the downstairs thread.
Proud American
May 27th, 2010
10:39 am
Rightwing troll, from some one who worships the biggest finger pointer in history , I find your comments laughable, hold on Oblamer will blame Bush for something in 5 4 3 2 1 seconds. Right on cue Oblunder scum bag of the decade.
joe matarotz
May 27th, 2010
10:39 am
Yeah, yeah. The oil stopped. It’s Obama’s fault. It’s the Dims fault. It’s the Repugs fault. BP is richer. Yada, yada, yada.
What about those poor people who are out of work, or who have lost everything they had, with little hope of ever getting much compensation for all they lost?
That’s where the real outrage should be.
CJ
May 27th, 2010
10:40 am
should hav ben attempted 1st wat took so long?
Mick
May 27th, 2010
10:40 am
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that there are other leaks in that pipeline. BP wants to control this but where did the large oil plumes come from? This is a long way from over.
md
May 27th, 2010
10:41 am
“But how do we keep the lawyers from getting rich while the locals get NOTHING for thier losses?”
When their brethren are the misfits in DC, don’t hold your breath. Attorneys taking care of attorneys – just another good ole boy club.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
10:42 am
King Obama said cap it, and it was done.
ALL HAIL KING OBAMA!!!
Gator Joe
May 27th, 2010
10:44 am
Jay,
Having spent a good deal of time in South Florida’s Everglades, specifically the fresh, brackish, and salt marshes, it is difficult to imagine that effects of this oil spill will ever be corrected, or even mitigated in our lifetimes, or those of generations to come. BP doesn’t have enough money to compensate anyone for this disaster, though seeing them pay until they are forced out of business would be a good start. As for those directly responsible, arrest, trial and incarceration if appropriate, should be the course of action. The most apalling comments, especially from politicians, since the disaster, are those which support continued offshore drilling.
Normal
May 27th, 2010
10:44 am
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
10:18 am
Bosch,
I’m not sure but I think at first they wanted to save the oil. Now they just wanted to stop it.
aaron levin
May 27th, 2010
10:45 am
They didn’t try this method earlier out of a concern that it could damage the mangled riser pipe, thereby increasing the oil and gas flow. When real people like engineers do real work like killing a well, rather than just talking about it, they have to work systematically, and balance best solutions with the risks of applying them. This entire situation has been a wake-up call around the costs of technological complexity, and widespread social/policy indifference to anything but delivering oil to everybody’s 20th century lifesstyles.
Normal
May 27th, 2010
10:46 am
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
10:42 am
Ramble,
The one good thing I can think of if we really had a king, is that we wouldn’t have to suffer through all of those political ads every five minutes…
BMDPD
May 27th, 2010
10:47 am
Finally some good news. RAMBLE ON!!!, you may be a techie, but at least we have something in common
!
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
10:48 am
Normal, if you were in AL., you would consider the political ads a godsend.
jt
May 27th, 2010
10:50 am
The first head has rolled for the MMS. (she probably still gets a lifetime pension).
RWT-
jt, I agree with you. But how do we keep the lawyers from getting rich while the locals get NOTHING for thier losses?
Simple ………cap all federal lawyer/proscecutors/politicians salary. Maybe around 80,000 dollar. This would work for the oil spill downstairs that Jay top-killed toooo.
NRB2
“Thank Oblamer when you’re paying 4 bucks per gallon, folks.”
We should be so lucky. Try 8 dollars. After all, other countries get this. Politicians lose sleep over this.
CJ
May 27th, 2010
10:50 am
thanks aaron!
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:50 am
“Rightwing troll, from some one who worships the biggest finger pointer in history”
So can you show me some proof on the “worship” thingy? You’ll find plenty of examples of me criticizing those who worship Bush (like yourself) so much to the point they voted for him not once but twice, and who will act like the years 2000-2008 never happened and scream bloody murder about someone who has carried on most of Bush’s policies and done the same thing Bush did, but no worship… not my style. I’m dissappointed that the “change” is just more of the same. I’m mad that while the economy blew right through rock bottom and continued down, our “change” was over a year of partisan bickering over something that should’ve been put off until the economy was in a better place.
I, unlike you and yours, can find fault and admit failures.
reebok
May 27th, 2010
10:50 am
of course this is good news if true…now all available brainpower and resources needs to go to limiting the damage…skimmers, man-made barrier islands (seriously, it can be done), chemical dispersents, burning the stuff on the surface…
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:51 am
But there was no better choice in 2008. Crapshoot for “change” or more of the McSame/Snowbilly from wasilly?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
10:52 am
BMDPD, I’d rather be a dawg than a democrat, and that’s saying something.
Pennsylvanian
May 27th, 2010
10:53 am
I heard the “Top Kill” technique is a variation on the little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in the dike with his finger. And now Janet Napolitano is missing. Coincidence?
CJ
May 27th, 2010
10:53 am
after top kill can this well be re opened?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
10:56 am
“But there was no better choice in 2008. Crapshoot for “change” or more of the McSame/Snowbilly from wasilly?”
Well, the USA would have about 1 trillion dollars not wasted on paying back The Kings lobbyist.
Doggone/GA
May 27th, 2010
10:56 am
“after top kill can this well be re opened?”
Not this well, no. But the field can still be drilled at some other place.
Rightwing Troll
May 27th, 2010
10:57 am
“Simple ………cap all federal lawyer/proscecutors/politicians salary. Maybe around 80,000 dollar. This would work for the oil spill downstairs that Jay top-killed toooo.”
It’s not the fedral lawyers that are going to get rich on this, it’s the guys out there in the private lawyers are going to be flocking to the gulf coast like Republicans to a Klan meeting. No, it’s the free market that’s going to screw the folks who have already been screwed the hardest….
Gale
May 27th, 2010
10:59 am
I really get tired of the constant “Obama’s fault” shouted by some here, with “witty” misspellings of the name to point up their intelligence, I guess. Neither the explosion, nor the cleanup were anything the President can do anything about. The Coast Guard was on the scene doing what they could do. Experts were working on the problem. What did anyone expect a career politician, Obama or who ever they would prefer in the Whitehouse, could do about this. If you want to complain about Obama, choose something he can effect.
godless heathen
May 27th, 2010
11:00 am
I knew once Obama got on top of this the hole would be plugged. All he had to do was tell BP to “Plug the damn hole!” Maybe he should have acted a little quicker but what the hey, he’s a busy man.
Jess
May 27th, 2010
11:02 am
After standing on the sidelines, it will be interesting to watch Obama start taking credit for stopping the leak. I predict he will become very visable on the issue starting today.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
11:03 am
Gale, King Obama has taught us well on how to blame someone else.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
11:06 am
Will King Obama be giving his press conference (307 days since his last one) from the Paul McCarthy stage, or a golf course?
jt
May 27th, 2010
11:06 am
RWT–you are wrong.—–you wrote
“It’s not the fedral lawyers that are going to get rich on this, it’s the guys out there in the private lawyers are going to be flocking to the gulf coast like Republicans to a Klan meeting. No, it’s the free market that’s going to screw the folks who have already been screwed the hardest….”
If the free market WAS allowed, then SOME people MIGHT get justice. You probably forgot that our friendly federal government has already put a cap on damages.
There will be millions of ambulance chasers involved, but only the select connected few will see any compensation.
The American consumer will be sore and fleeced.
jt
May 27th, 2010
11:08 am
Putting caps on damages is NOT the free market.
godless heathen
May 27th, 2010
11:08 am
NOAA has predicted a really bad hurricane season. Similar to their predictions last year and the year before. They will revise their prediction all through the season, until at the end they will have the # exactly right.
TaxPayer
May 27th, 2010
11:08 am
Republicans are so funny.
Where is Obama. Why hasn’t he fixed this?
Why is Obama taking credit. Who asked him for help
Obama is just going to raise our taxes for this!
Why is Obama out to get the oil companies. They didn’t do anything!
Why didn’t Obama stop the leak from happening?
Why did/didn’t Obama let them drill in the Gulf?
Y’all keep it up. Humor is supposed to help us live longer and healthier lives.
Jay
May 27th, 2010
11:09 am
jt proposes that we “cap all federal lawyer/proscecutors/politicians salary. Maybe around 80,000 dollar” as a way to keep the money from being wasted on lawyers.
Intriguing idea, but it gets to part of the problem in this industry/government relationship. We cap the salaries of federal lawyers and prosecutors at around $80K, meaning you limit your employee pool to folks with five years or less legal experience.
Now who do you think BP is going to hire? How much are THEY going to get paid? Surely jt isn’t proposing to also cap what BP, a private company, should pay their own people?
You walk into a courtroom where the government and people are represented by a handful of rookies and BP is represented by lawyers who bill $80K in a week, who do you think is going to win? Once again, the corporation skates. And why? Because we hate federal lawyers?
The problem is, that’s not all too far from what already goes on in such matters.
John
May 27th, 2010
11:10 am
If BP has control of the well as reported what disaster or crisis will Obama fall to next? He is already vowed to punish the American economy with a moratorium on drilling. The 1,200 National Guard troops he says he’s deploying on the border won’t be armed or allowed to enforce the law. He’s even to good to attend the memorial at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, but instead will be on another vacation from “stress”. What a guy.
Gennifer Flowers
May 27th, 2010
11:10 am
If Bill Clinton was still President that hole would have been plugged the day it blew. Bill is the master at plugging holes, especially ones that blow .
Doggone/GA
May 27th, 2010
11:10 am
“They will revise their prediction all through the season, until at the end they will have the # exactly right.”
Yep, that’s how predictions work. They are making PREDICTIONS, not prophesies
scrappy
May 27th, 2010
11:10 am
Did you ever refer to him as King Bush? excessive much?
After all, Bush obviously did nothing wrong in the previous 8 yrs.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
11:12 am
I wonder where Gail has been the previous 10 years?
whose fault was Katrina?
Not Mother Nature (a democrat), the Gov. at the time (democrat), or the Mayor (democrat)…NOPE, George W. Bush, remember?!?
maybe you been busy monitoring the Glaciers melting for the last ten years?
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
11:13 am
Blessed be. This appears to be good news.
Still have every finger and toe crossed per Jay’s earlier instructions (I follow them closely so’s to have a better chance of entering the Inner Circle of Dingleberries referenced downstairs).
scrappy
May 27th, 2010
11:14 am
I didn’t know Mother Nature was a democrat? I will have to invite her to the next meeting…
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
11:23 am
“after top kill can this well be re opened?”
Not this well, no. But the field can still be drilled at some other place.
Actually it is being drilled in two places, per this…
http://www.examiner.com/x-46110-Sacramento-Technology-Examiner~y2010m5d27-The-tech-behind-Top-Kill-BPs-latest-plan-for-the-oil-leak-in-the-gulf
“They are drilling two relief wells that are continuing to approach the current spilling well.”
I’ve heard elsewhere that they won’t be pumping oil out of a relief well any sooner than August.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
11:25 am
BP = OO
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
11:28 am
Too bad we don’t have live feeds from Iraq and Afghanistan. Then the American public couldn’t exist in blissfull ignorance.
Pennsylvanian
May 27th, 2010
11:30 am
SFD @ 11:13 – Not a chance for you. Decibel is a dimensionless unit…..
Betty Boop
May 27th, 2010
11:31 am
Scout,
Did you order the code red?
Scout
May 27th, 2010
11:33 am
Betty Boop:
No, but I did take part in the “blanket party” and the next day that recruit (although a little bruised) was highly motivated !
Ooo Rah!
Sextet
May 27th, 2010
11:33 am
The leak is plugged?
Buy signal.
Gale
May 27th, 2010
11:35 am
Ramble on, Katrina was not the result of corporate actions. Bush was not responsible for the hurricane, nor the failed levies. Bush was not even responsible for the failure of people to evacuate. Bush was responsible for putting a poor administrator in charge of FEMA. Who do you think Obama should have put in charge of BP, or maybe the Coast Guard?
stands for cubic centimeters
May 27th, 2010
11:36 am
SFD @ 11:13 – Not a chance for you. Decibel is a dimensionless unit…..
maybe now?
Gale
May 27th, 2010
11:37 am
Soothsayer, live feeds from the battle arenas? Do you remember the reactions to video footage from Viet Nam? TV watchers became desensitized to the pictures of wounded soldiers crying. Live feeds will not end the wars.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
11:38 am
Who do you think Obama should have put in charge of BP
I could go for Naomi Klein.
Peadawg
May 27th, 2010
11:41 am
We can get the champaign bottles ready…just can’t pop the cork yet. This is good news. Lettuce hope it works. Better late then never, right?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
11:44 am
Umm, you mean he put someone in charge?
Janet?!?
oh yeah, she’s got her ‘foot on the throat of BP’. lol
did you hear about a little flood in Nashville recently. It killed a few people. Does Barrack Obama hate country music fans?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
11:48 am
Maybe Barrack just hates people from the South.
jt
May 27th, 2010
11:51 am
So Jay buys into the fact that it takes a high priced lawyer to interpret the law?
As per Jay, the higher paid attorney, the better understanding of the law?
And I guess a federal judge is not immune to this fallacy? What happened to “higher” calling of public service.?
The Harvard school of Law has done more damage to our enviroment than any oil spill.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
11:51 am
Now the wingnuts want to cap salaries of federal prosecutors (who are on salary) and private attorneys…but they dont want to cap salaries of Wall Street companies. The way you level the playing field is to make BP liable not only for damages but also to compensate claimants for legal fees in filing their claims and to bring actions against BP to collect. Currently the rule in most states is that each party pays its own attorneys fees and that is way plaintiff’s lawyers take some matters on contingency (when clients cannot fund their own fees but are still wronged), except in extreme abuse situations which are difficult to prove. Too often justice in civil matters is determined by those who have the deepest pockets (read BP). Some of the Exxon Valdez victims got paid only after 20 years….so their attorneys had to wait years for any payment. Its not the attorneys who are making millions, it is the company who finds it cheaper to pay their big firm attorneys large sums of money to delay and to resist valid claims and to threaten the little people who need money to eat, etc. Its way too easy to blame the lawyers for the abuse of justice by those with deep pockets.
Kamchak
May 27th, 2010
11:52 am
Does Barrack Obama hate country music fans?
Do the people that use this puerile “Why does ____ hate ____?” have the ability to think beyond this good/evil dichotomy?
jt
May 27th, 2010
11:52 am
And I don’t “hate” federal lawyers. I hate no one nor anything.
Maybe corruption among public servants.
Mr. Snarky
May 27th, 2010
11:54 am
Finally some good news! Keeping fingers crossed.
Jefferson
May 27th, 2010
11:57 am
Great news, now clean the mess up and learn a lesson.
jt
May 27th, 2010
11:59 am
Keep up the good fight! (and cheerleading for corruption)
“Its way too easy to blame the lawyers for the abuse of justice by those with deep pockets.”
Just who exactly is “delaying and resisting” claims?
I’ll answer. Government lawyers who just so happen to wear black robes.
Get a clue.
Kamchak
May 27th, 2010
11:59 am
Keep up the good fight!
You once expressed the desire for the ability to code for italics, bold, strike and link through text. This tutorial—http://jaybstutorial.blogspot.com/–can teach you that .
Kamchak
May 27th, 2010
12:00 pm
Oops — http://jaybstutorial.blogspot.com/
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:04 pm
RAMBLE…. perhaps you MISSED the fact that Obama and our Federal Government were right on cue with giving money to the “country music fans” in Nashville:
From Nashville Public Radio:
http://wpln.org/?p=17682
“Tennessee communities trying to rebuild from historic flooding could be in line for more money from the federal government. A U.S. Senate committee approved billions of dollars in extra emergency funds for states on Thursday. Tennessee’s share is $150 million.”
http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/president-declares-nashville-disaster
“President Declares Nashville A Disaster Area; Federal Funds On Their Way
By Susie Madrak Wednesday May 05, 2010 10:00am
Today, according to the Office of the Press Secretary, President Obama “declared a major disaster exists in the State of Tennessee and ordered Federal aid to supplement State and local recovery efforts.”
Say again?
Hillbilly Deluxe
May 27th, 2010
12:04 pm
The Harvard school of Law has done more damage to our enviroment than any oil spill.
I’d agree with that but I’d add the Harvard Business School to it.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:06 pm
“OFF TOPIC #1″
Prefixes and Suffixes:
I have given Obama several prefixes since he became president ………….
“Che/Karl/Capo/Private/Jimmy/Jose/El” Obama ………….
but he has degraded so far now that he gets a suffix:
“Obamagate” !
Del
May 27th, 2010
12:08 pm
Elizabeth Birnbaum Director of MMS has been fired. Let the B.O. administrations internal finger pointing begin. Strategy might be a little late since many now are pointing fingers at Obama.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:11 pm
150 million wouldn’t even pay for his own presidential inauguration. That cost, 175 million. I guess he does hate country music fans.
Thanks for verifying.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
May 27th, 2010
12:15 pm
Elizabeth Birnbaum Director of MMS has been fired.
Yep, and I goggled her. Guess which law school she went to. Go ahead, I dare you.
Yep, Harvard Law School.
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:16 pm
Scout: The “THREE” federal offenses Obama broke please? Please list the actual “laws” he broke via our “federal laws and policies”… feel free to copy and paste the COMPLETE verbiage of those laws and defend your position on HOW he broke those three.
****tap, tap, tap****
jt
May 27th, 2010
12:17 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe
I second that.
Redneck Convert (R--and proud of it)
May 27th, 2010
12:17 pm
150 million wouldn’t even pay for his own presidential inauguration. That cost, 175 million. I guess he does hate country music fans.
Tennessee didn’t vote for Obama. Any more questions?
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
12:19 pm
Thanks for the info Kam!
Ummm…jt (or champion for ignornace?).. perhaps you need to learn more about our justice system. Not all judges are lawyers. There are local, state and federal systems as well as time constraints built into the rules and by law. In addition, there is not unlimited funding of courts. There are dockets, etc. There is also a criminal and a civil system. Most civil matters are not handled by government prosecutors.
Cheerleading for corruption! Hardly. I spend most of my days fighting for small business and small owners. People that dont have deep pockets. There is also a great deal of litigation caused because of poorly written laws and just simply bad laws…..
Larry Craig
May 27th, 2010
12:19 pm
****tap, tap, tap****
I am not gay. I never have been gay. So stop doing that.
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:19 pm
Redneck Convert (R–and proud of it) :
“Elizabeth Birnbaum Director of MMS has been fired.
Yep, and I goggled her. Guess which law school she went to. Go ahead, I dare you.
Yep, Harvard Law School.”
Those damn “elites” huh? Must be some sort of Commie School up there in Cambridge. I mean… look at how much those that have come from there have “harmed” our nation…
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:20 pm
Larry….wrong restroom!!! Jezbus! I TOLD you I had that sex change operation! I was waiting here all day in the ladies room! Don’t you love me anymore? Where is Ted Haggard when you need him! I’m SOOOO over you!
AmVet
May 27th, 2010
12:23 pm
If this thing is truly stopped (why do I have my doubts?) that is great.
But as Andy asked for days on end, “what oil?” I imagine when the final numbers are revealed by BP it will show that the thing was only leaking 500 pints a day. No big whup…
As for Obama’s rendition of Bush Corporatism uber Alles, why the self righteous indignation now, conned?
I told you schmucks back in Oct. of 2008 he was gonna be just like his predecessor in this regard and take his marching orders from the same boys.
I know, I know. You true patriots were screaming for him to clean up the MMS and EPA and SEC! And to crack down on corporate crime and tighten up on the innumerable unenforced regulations.
You are back seat driving, never got it right, frauds and posers almost to a man…
diabolical butter
May 27th, 2010
12:26 pm
Obama probably had to beg Bush to make a call to his oil buddies to stop the leak.
Aaron
May 27th, 2010
12:26 pm
Now all of yall redneck republicans should be satisfied now. What happened to “Drill baby drill”
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:28 pm
Maybe that plugged the link now, so Obama can finally provide proof to the media, that yes indeed, he can walk on water.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:30 pm
Aaron, just wondering, how did you get to work today?
If you have a job, that is.
Normal
May 27th, 2010
12:30 pm
Off topic, but
here’s a good employment for Scout…
http://www.thenation.com/blog/pentagon-seeks-contractor-move-weapons-through-pakistanafghanistan
Mick
May 27th, 2010
12:30 pm
Obama derangement syndrome – symptoms include: all bad events connected to obama, teleprompter fixation, military disloyalty, socialist delusions, and not one of us. Treatment: shut off fox news, get out of the house and breath some fresh air, get some exersize and enjoy your precious time on earth.
Sgt. Schultz
May 27th, 2010
12:31 pm
What happened to “Drill baby drill”
I know nothink. I hear nothink.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:32 pm
Saul Good: Why three ?
Aaron: It’s still “drill baby drill” but do it in shallow water or on land !
Do you realize the environmentalist wacos and many liberals are at least partly responsible for this mess by forcing oil companies to drill so far off shore in water miles deep? If this accident had been in shallow water (say 300 feet) divers would have fixed it much sooner. If it had been on land it could have been contained ……… period ! The problem is drilling in such deep water !
Normal
May 27th, 2010
12:32 pm
Ramble,
He may prove that he can walk on water, but I shan’t be impressed unless he does it without getting his feet wet!
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:32 pm
This just in. Chris Matthews is getting a tingle up his leg.
Department of Homeland Oil Spill Litigation
May 27th, 2010
12:34 pm
jt is an unpatriotic citizen. Do not listen to him.
We have this under control. Justice takes time and commen citizens can not understand the law.
That is why we have highly trained lawyers.
Attention!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gays are trying to join the military, brown-skinned people are flowing across the border, and there are rumors that MADONNA may judge the next AMERICAN Idol.
Carry on citizens.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
12:34 pm
Let’s thank those Republicans in congress for leading the fight against removing the caps on oil clean up responsiblity because it will be “too great” of burden on “mom & pop” deep water drilling companies and therefore should be the responsibity of the taxpayers to pay for their mistakes……
Private enterprise with government entitlements…yes, that is the Republican way.
Russ H
May 27th, 2010
12:35 pm
OBAMA baby!!! They should have let him do it earlier. Thank god for this president if George W was still in office nothing would have got done. Thanks Prez!!! Leak fixed!!! , now now lets get on with life!!!
Russ
diabolical butter
May 27th, 2010
12:35 pm
Does this mean obama gets the nobel peace prize again?
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:38 pm
No Ramble…it’s only YOU Talibangelicals who believe he’s the Messiah…most “rational” people don’t believe in those sorts of things. (like walking on water, parting of seas, talking/burning bushes, etc)…. they they DO make for good fiction.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
12:38 pm
Scout…. did you go brain dead in your logic recently…. now its the fault of environmentalist that the companies dont drill on land? You mean its not economics? A lack of reserves on land in the US because htey already drained most of them? Or maybe its that on land its easier to check to be sure they compy with the law? What exactly is the fault of liberal/environmentalists that causes oil companies to go with deep water rigs? Care to back up your inane argument
Normal
May 27th, 2010
12:39 pm
Off topic #2…
An interesting read…
http://www.thenation.com/blog/general-petraeuss-secret-ops
“If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.”
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:41 pm
SCOUT… OMG!!! This is the “environmentalists” who caused this??? Funny… I thought we environmentalists were AGAINST drilling for more oil…ANYWHERE. We want alternative energies. It was the LAST administration that gave the “leases” to allow them to drill in the deepest parts of the Gulf… Google it.
Mick
May 27th, 2010
12:41 pm
** Care to back up your inane argument**
Sounds like flush rimbaugh 101…
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:41 pm
Saul Good, you mean I won’t have 17 virgins waiting for me when I die?!?
please tell me your joking.
TaxPayer
May 27th, 2010
12:42 pm
Do you realize the environmentalist wacos and many liberals are at least partly responsible for this mess by forcing oil companies to drill so far off shore in water miles deep? If this accident had been in shallow water (say 300 feet) divers would have fixed it much sooner. If it had been on land it could have been contained ……… period ! The problem is drilling in such deep water !
Scout must be trying to top his last performance.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:43 pm
Keep up the good fight:
Do the research ………….. there is much oil to be had on land and especially in shallow water but permits have only been issued for deep water drilling where the extraction is much more difficult, expensive, dangerous and as you can now see hard to fix problems.
“A temporary moratorium on new permits to drill in deep waters, where more than 1,000 feet separate the seabed from the surface, will continue for at least six months. However, the White House left open the possibility that Salazar’s safety report could prompt the administration to begin easing its temporary ban on approving new applications to drill for oil and gas in shallow waters.”
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
12:43 pm
brown-skinned people are flowing across the border
Reminds me (and this is enough of a gear-shifter that I’ll mark it Off Topic #1) — a really good piece on why AZ’s law is a) FUBAR and b) really going to make things much more difficult for law enforcement.
Good cops know the difference between dangerous criminals and illegal aliens, which is one reason violent crime is going down, even in Arizona.
Last Friday, supporters of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer posted an amusing little video on YouTube showing a Kermit-ish frog singing about the need to read and then going into a funk after screening clips of Obama administration officials admitting they opined on the recent Arizona immigration bill without having, well, read it.
Fair enough. You have to take a good look at the law to appreciate how truly sinister it really is. But Brewer and her supporters need to do their homework, too. A little basic research would have shown them that big cities with large immigrant populations are safer places to live.
[...]
Experience has shown that when immigrants think they’ll be nailed for immigration offenses, they stop cooperating with law enforcement. The intelligence needed to find and fight hard-core criminals, whatever their immigration status, will be harder to get. People who feel themselves singled out for discrimination will withdraw more and more into ghettos, increasingly marginalized from American life instead of integrated into it. Smart cops understand all this perfectly well.
But of course if you’re using frog puppets as part of a know-nothing campaign to convince people that immigrants bring crime to the United States like rats carrying the plague, you’re not going to want to listen to reason, and you’ll ignore facts like the just-released preliminary statistics from the Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Report, which appear to line up with Wadsworth’s research. What’s so striking about them, he told me in an e-mail, is not just that the FBI numbers provide anecdotal support for his analysis, but that they are “entirely inconsistent with the claims of politicians and the general public sentiment.”
Let’s start with Arizona.
Something scary is going on there, and it’s not just politics. It’s gangs that smuggle people and drugs and that sometimes settle scores among themselves by murdering and kidnapping. Most of those involved are of Mexican origin, which is why the Obama administration is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest to get more “boots on the ground” near the border. But nobody’s going to be manning a Great Wall of Arizona. The troop deployment, along with a request for a half billion dollars in new funding, aims at building what the office of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords describes as “a multi-layered effort to target illicit networks trafficking in people, drugs, illegal weapons, and money.” Notice the focus is not on the illegal immigrants, who are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.
That’s a distinction that raving pundits on the right have always had trouble making when they talk about an “illegal-alien crime wave.” And even some politicians who know better have been happy to stoke the fire. Thus Governor Brewer told Fox News and anyone else who’d listen, “We’ve been inundated with criminal activity. It’s just—it’s been outrageous.” Arizona’s Sen. John McCain said last month that the failure to secure the border with Mexico “has led to violence—the worst I have ever seen.” The president of the Arizona Association of Sheriffs, Paul Babeu of Pinal County, claims, “Crime is off the chart in this state.”
What the FBI chart actually shows is that the incidence of violent crime in Arizona declined dramatically in the last two years. After a spike in 2006 and 2007, the number in Phoenix dropped to 10,465 in 2008 and to 8,730 in 2009, which is lower than it was six years ago. Murders, which hit a high of 234 in 2006, dropped to 167 in 2008 and 122 in 2009. (Some lesser crimes may go unreported, especially if people are scared to talk to the cops, but police statistics only rarely miss a murder.)
The Phoenix authorities should be congratulated. But as Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris said last month, Brewer’s immigration law is just going to make his job more difficult. “It takes officers away from doing what our main core mission is, and that is to make our community safe, and instead tells us to become immigration officers and enforce routine immigration laws that I do not think we have the authority to even enforce,” Harris told the local Fox station, KSAZ. If you want to keep preventing violent crime, you do not waste your limited manpower on job-seeking “illegals.”
(Sorry for the long copy/paste, I don’t normally indulge myself, but felt these points really needed ’splaining.)
Normal
May 27th, 2010
12:45 pm
Ramble,
Not 17…72 virgins, and yes you will have them, but they will all be lesbians…
diabolical butter
May 27th, 2010
12:46 pm
Where is my alternative energy?
I’ve been eating fruit rollups for the past 16 months.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:46 pm
Normal :
“Obamagate” hates the military but he will do whatever it takes to make sure he does not suffer politically.
Matilda
May 27th, 2010
12:49 pm
SCOUT: “Do you realize the environmentalist wacos and many liberals are at least partly responsible for this mess by forcing oil companies to drill so far off shore in water miles deep?”
You mean the Prius drivers, recycling enthusiasts, spandex clad, two-wheeled traffic hazards, and animal lovers are responsible for “FORCING” oil companies to rely on bribes to regulators, penciled-in safety reports, and the phrase, “nah, these pressure readings indicate a serious problem but that’s nothing to worry about. Let’s proceed anyway.”???? Right. Blame anything but GREED: The True American Patriot’s “God.”
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:50 pm
RAMBLE…it’s a MUCH better “version” of the fable… I’ll take the virgins over what the talibangelicals have to offer any day! (basically a white’s only country club surrounded only by others who believe fiction to be true and use FEAR to scare their children into believing the same myth they too were taught by old scary white men when they were children).
Mick
May 27th, 2010
12:50 pm
scout
**“Obamagate” hates the military **
Seriously, just how do you come to that conclusion?
TaxPayer
May 27th, 2010
12:52 pm
This one’s for you, Scout.
Michael Smith
May 27th, 2010
12:52 pm
As much as I detest our power-lusting Looter-in-Chief and Head Socialist Obama, it is ridiculous to blame him for this leak or to expect him to correct it or to believe that “better regulations” would have prevented this.
Fighting something like this leak — or preventing it — takes state-of-the-art technical expertise. The private sector will always have more of that than the government because government cannot be an expert in everything. What’s more, the very best technical experts are the kind of people that cannot stand working in a bureaucracy.
Bash Obama for being a power-hungry statist who has seized the power to have government dictate all the details of your private healthcare, thereby extinguishing a large measure of your individual liberty.
But leave him alone on the oil spill. He pretty much did the only good thing he could do in this situation: stay the heck away and let the experts work.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:52 pm
Normal, please provide your name and address. I have no other choice but to behead you.
Sorry.
72, dang I’ve been under selling myself.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
12:52 pm
Scout… you have not made the point as to why all these “available” spots on land have not been granted permits for drilling. There could be 1,000s of reasons including a misstatement of the available oil, land ownership, earthquakes, volcanos, pipelines, rights, locations (do we drill in lake lanier for example where are drinking water comes from…or in your back yard), zoning, etc. You make a jump from an unsupported claim of available oil to some unnecessary or costly environmental “reason” without a single shred of evidence. Even in shallow water there has to be some assessment of risk to wetlands, fisheries and real proven methods to address accidents and safety issues.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:53 pm
Mick:
Have you read “Dreams From My Father”? I did ……… cover to cover. It’s scary.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
12:54 pm
“scary white men”
Like Jimmy Carter?
Yup, you got me.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
12:55 pm
M Smith, for once we agree on most points…other than better regulation and safety enforcement might have proven effective as stopping the “accident” and might have had relief holes ready to go, etc.
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
12:57 pm
No…just the “leaders” of the Talibangelical “cult.
Michael Smith
May 27th, 2010
12:57 pm
Matilda wrote:
Right. Blame anything but GREED: The True American Patriot’s “God.”
The desire to make ever-more money does not cause one to foolishly risk the many millions invested in drilling this well, as well as risk the billions the clean-up will certainly cost — BP, by the way has already spent well in excess of 500 million dollars fighting this spill — so the notion that this accident is due to “GREED” is preposterous.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
12:59 pm
Keep up the good fight and Matilda:
I will try to make this simple.
1) We need oil. If we don’t get it or the price goes too hight the economy will tank.
2) We buy most of our oil.
3) We must drill for our own and the more the better.
4) It is more dangerous to drill miles down in the ocean than on land or close offshore in shallow water were emergencies can be better handled.
5) There WILL be accidents ……. always have been, always will be (i.e., coal mines)
6) Enviornmentalist legislation has forced drilling farther and farther offshore.
7) A ten year old realizes that if it’s more economical and safer to drill close in or on land.
John Wayne
May 27th, 2010
1:01 pm
Scout – Have you read “Dreams From My Father”? I did ……… cover to cover. It’s scary.
Don’t you have some video of handshakes that need reviewing?
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
1:02 pm
Banks and Wall Street profited immensely from millions of unqualified home buyers reaching out for the simulacrum of middle class “ownership.”
The fundamental root of the housing bubble–the collusion of the Central State and banks to extend home ownership to millions of citizens who did not qualify for that burden– remains firmly in place.
The Federal government continues to pour tens of billions of dollars into this “home ownership should be for everyone” project via subsidies to Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and FHA. Mortgage lenders have been delighted to write mortgages in our completely nationalized market in which the government backs literally 99% of all mortgages and the Federal Reserve bought $1.2 trillion in mortgages that no sane private investor would touch.
theyeshaveit
May 27th, 2010
1:02 pm
Ramble, when will you write something that is based on fact, thoughtful conclusions or otherwise some indication that the neural synapses are firing properly in your brain matter? Please, show us that you can be civil for a change. To date, you just seem like the poster boy for why we need the No Child Left Behind act.
RB from Gwinnett
May 27th, 2010
1:03 pm
“Bush was responsible for putting a poor administrator in charge of FEMA. ”
When was the last time you dealt with any federal agency that didn’t appear to be run by a poor adminstrator? Do you want to tell us whoever is in charge of border security is doing a great job? TSA? There is a theme here you know…..
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
1:06 pm
now Mr. Smith you have gone too far….. greed can cause foolish errors. business people may misassess the risks (or the costs if the perceived risks occur). In this case there is seemingly evidence that some processes were overridden or disregarded. Less safe procedures were used in order that the oil could be more readily obtained after changing the rigs from drilling to production, back up batteries were either not available or proper testing made, drawings of equipment and designs were not made after changes, etc. All of these factors, some of which are based in part of a perception that the cost was not worth it to the company who would rather have the profits (ie “greed”) led to an “accident” just as sure as a decision to do 150 mph down an Atlanta highway in order not to be miss an airplane flight which leads to a car wreck is just an “accident”.
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
1:09 pm
Scout…do you also support Solar energy and wind power as much as you support oil? Do you believe in “peak oil” and believe that it has it’s limits? Do you “believe” that we as a nation can use LESS oil and MORE solar/wind/geothermal energy? Or….should we ONLY “drill baby drill” to supply our needs?
Perhaps you believe in the “rapture” and Obama being the Anti-Christ…and that it matters little how much we harm the environment because SOON you’ll all be at that “exclusive” Country Club you were sold memberships to.
theyeshaveit
May 27th, 2010
1:09 pm
Scout, I understand that you are an advocate of “Drill here, drill now” but where is that elusive here (on land) that you are talking about? Do you know something that BP doesn’t know? Well, come to think of it since BP was asking the general public for advice on how to stop the leak, maybe you do know more than BP.
Second, where is the no handshake for the President evidence? Do you admit that you fabricated the story now or is the evidence forthcoming?
Peadawg
May 27th, 2010
1:09 pm
“OBAMA baby!!! They should have let him do it earlier. Thank god for this president if George W was still in office nothing would have got done. Thanks Prez!!! Leak fixed!!! , now now lets get on with life!!!”
Yes, he did sooooooooo much to help. Talk about drinking the kool-aid!!! Geeze.
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
1:10 pm
1) We need oil. If we don’t get it or the price goes too hight the economy will tank.
At present we need oil. Our future depends on finding alternatives.
2) We buy most of our oil.
True and to the great detrement of our country.
3) We must drill for our own and the more the better.
Domestically produced oil accounts for a very small percentage of the oil this country uses now and for the foreseeable future.
4) It is more dangerous to drill miles down in the ocean than on land or close offshore in shallow water were emergencies can be better handled.
Without doubt.
5) There WILL be accidents ……. always have been, always will be (i.e., coal mines)
No doubt
6) Enviornmentalist legislation has forced drilling farther and farther offshore.
This is false. Can you provide a link to substantiate this claim? Your argument is that there is “undiscovered oil” on the mainland that we cannot access because of environmental concerns.
7) A ten year old realizes that if it’s more economical and safer to drill close in or on land.
No doubt.
Gale
May 27th, 2010
1:10 pm
I agree that greed was a factor for BP. But the shortsightedness that lets planners crunch projects to the absolute minimum time frame they can get is also a factor. When a project is scheduled so that everything must happen perfectly and on schedule, the project is doomed. This is something that happens far too often in business.
Does anyone know for sure whether this vast oil reservoir is even accessible closer to shore?
Department of Homeland
May 27th, 2010
1:13 pm
RB from Gwinnett please report to your nearest .gov website.
Remember, North Korea may kill us all, white Republican Tea Partiers are threatening our very existence, and black Democrats are smoking more pot.
We have this under control.
NJ
May 27th, 2010
1:14 pm
Yup, the low salaries of existing government lawyers are largely responsible for the oil companies being able to go into courts and get restraints of trade cases won with regard to regulation.
Blame it all on Reagan. The government isn’t in the petroleum business. It doesn’t own oil drilling or repair equipment. Reagan, in the interests of cutting taxes turned all of this into “put it out to bid to the private sector” mode 30 years ago.
And in 1988, his own Comptroller General warned that the consequences domestically and environmentally would be catastrophic.
Move ahead to 2000 when BP and the other oil companies virtually rewrote the legislation that the EPA, MMS, and Coast Guard recommended.
The ploy of not allowing “shallow water drilling” is another distraction. This is the natural gas companies trying use the current mess. There is no longer any oil in shallow water sites. They are marginal wells or have nothing left but natural gas.
So far the government has sent 20 workers out for each ONE sent by BP, in 1000 coast guard ships, with hundreds of boom cranes. To cover 600,000 miles of the Gulf of Mexico. They have been corraling oil into ponds surrounded by cranes, Setting the oil on fire, and then scooping or pumping the remaining solid masses out of the water.
The reason Exxon Valdez claimants did not get paid for 20 years is that the oil companies have 500 dollar an hour attorneys on retainer, and the government has rather young attorneys barely out of law school on the salaries the government starts them on.
It turns out that much of the problem lies in the huge cuts in staff at the MMS and EPA that occurred during the Bush years.
Gale
May 27th, 2010
1:14 pm
RB, I concede the administrator point. I am sure there have been good Federal administrators, but I cannot point to them. As for so many things, when it is working well, we don’t hear about it. Smart people leave the well run organizations alone. However, those admin positions are often political payoffs.
Jefferson
May 27th, 2010
1:16 pm
Tax bad gas milage(on top of the gas tax- double wammy !!!). No excuses to ride around in something that gets less than 25mpg today, other than fat asses and stuck up noses.
theyeshaveit
May 27th, 2010
1:17 pm
Speaking of leaks, I have read that someone has leaked the story that BP and Trans Ocean had been in heated disagreement as to what procedures would be utilized at the deep sea oil rig. The more we drill into the BP story, the more the sludge rises to the surface.
AmVet
May 27th, 2010
1:18 pm
Man, talk about increased chatter, there is an unusually large number of childish right wing comments today.
I wonder if this isn’t the direct result of this week’s CorporalGate scandal…
j
May 27th, 2010
1:18 pm
“500 dollar an hour attorneys on retainer,”
Here is another one that thinks justice is “bought”.
Shameful.
FrankLeeDarling
May 27th, 2010
1:18 pm
reminds me of the typical con
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCyMkgqY2FM&feature=related
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:19 pm
John Wayne & theyeshavit:
That’s for the weekend when it’s raining, etc. You’ll have my post by Monday and if it’s not there it’s not there. Big deal. He still loathes our military and they’re not fond of him either.
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
1:19 pm
Great post NJ.
Matilda
May 27th, 2010
1:19 pm
I’m still now sure how Scout connects the dots between a colossal, fatal equipment failure resulting from NOT HEEDING THE WARNINGS FROM THE OIL DRILLER’S OWN SAFETY TESTS, and Prius drivers, and other dirty-hippie liberal whacko granola munchers that he seems to fear and loathe because they seek to protect the planet OUR God gave us to live on. Perhaps the 10-year-old of which he speaks can decipher his delusions for the rest of us.
Michael Smith: Fair enough. If GREED was not their motivation for ignoring and subverting safety procedures, please do enlighten us to your theory about their motivation.
diabolical butter
May 27th, 2010
1:21 pm
“No excuses to ride around in something that gets less than 25mpg today”
Yeah and anyone who drives more than 25 miles per day has to pay the government .25/mile for every mile over.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:21 pm
Soothsayer:
“A temporary moratorium on new permits to drill in deep waters, where more than 1,000 feet separate the seabed from the surface, will continue for at least six months. However, the White House left open the possibility that Salazar’s safety report could prompt the administration to begin easing its temporary ban on approving new applications to drill for oil and gas in shallow waters.”
jt
May 27th, 2010
1:22 pm
“So far the government has sent 20 workers out for each ONE sent by BP, in 1000 coast guard ships, with hundreds of boom cranes.”
That is probably 19 too many.
I called to volunteer my boat and labor.(a very nice Carolina skiff). What a stupid idiotic paper-work nightmare involving the coast-guard. It is still sitting out back.
Keep up the good fight!
May 27th, 2010
1:23 pm
so Scout your entire argument is based upon the premise that your intelligence is comparable to a 10 year old.
1. There are risks to drilling for oil which are not the responsibility of the taxpayer to pay for.
2. Corporations should not be permitted to make “profits’ by passing off the costs of risks and accidents to the taxpayers.
3. Prior to drilling, good government requires that we understand the risks to the land, the people and the environment. If there is a risk of methane explosion, you dont drill in populated areas. etc.
4. As you assure us, accidents will happen, so you better have appropriate safeguards and protections as well as proper plans to effectively deal with accidents. This includes inspections and further government regulations.
5. If you want the taxpayers to effectively “subsidize” your costs by taking on the risks of accidents and killing the environment, and to allow you to make profit, then let’s do so openingly and with full knowledge…and lets also have a policy discussion about why those dollars you want us to “spend” are not better used toward developing other alternative energies.
6. Environmental legislation does not “force” drilling in deeper water. It is the corporate desire to avoid some regulatory costs and to make great profits or if the “people” determine some areas should remain pristine, that is the right of the people as to public lands and to other areas.
7. Oil ought to be priced at its true cost including the cost to clean up “accidents”. to compete fairly in the market….if that means $8/gallon then so be it. There will be drive to find cheaper alternatives.
8. I dont trust economics to a 10 year old who has not had opportunity to learn real economics and the issues….. given your claim to status similar to a 10 year old….well…you see where this goes.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:24 pm
Matilda:
I’ll try one more time ……….. the point is there will always be “corruption in inspections”, faulty equipment, worker error or a natural disaster that will cause what happen on the “Horizon”. It WILL happen.
Now ……… when that DOES happen, would you rather it be in deep, deep water or shallow water where it can be repaired/mitigated much easier? or better yet on land ?
Doggone/GA
May 27th, 2010
1:25 pm
“someone has leaked the story that BP and Trans Ocean had been in heated disagreement as to what procedures would be utilized at the deep sea oil rig.”
Leaked? What “leaked”? They’ve been reporting on that almost since the day the well blew.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:25 pm
Keep up the good fight! :
Silly, silly ……….. see my 1:24 and then go take your nap.
NJ
May 27th, 2010
1:25 pm
And of course there is little land drilling in the U.S. because any idiot who can read the maps shows that 99 percent of the wells are labeled as “marginal” There are 40 million acres of land leases owned by the oil companies. 10 million owned by BP alone. They are all marginal wells that will not be worth even attempting to drill on until the price of gas goes up to about 20 dollars a gallon.
There is about four times a much land being OFFERED to the oil companies to lease, but they will NOT lease the land. Because it is considered even WORSE than the marginal locations.
Of course the REAL problem here is that the plans that BP gave MMS engineers for approval do not match what they eventually ended up building without telling government engineers that they changed the plans.
This is because over the last decade, the Republicans in control of Congress changed the scenario to allow companies to “self police”. Republicans asserted that you could trust the oil companies to do the best thing and the right thing.
Once laws are on the books, they are notoriously difficult to get OFF the books, because as one knows, we do not have a 50 percent plus one vote system of passing laws. Once something is law, reversing it takes more than a simple majority.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
1:26 pm
Perhaps the 10-year-old of which he speaks can decipher his delusions for the rest of us.
You make a kid read that crap and I’m calling DFCS.
theyeshaveit
May 27th, 2010
1:26 pm
Scout said, “He still loathes our military and they’re not fond of him either.
Scout, don’t you realize that you have made yet another reckless, baseless comment? Obama hates the military? Come on. Do you really imagine that is true? Oh, and the military hates Obama? Man, prove it to me. You are losing credibility. Semper Fi is cool but not Semper Lie.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:32 pm
theyeshaveit:
As Jay always says, this is an “Opinion” blog. That is my opinion after reading his book and watching his actions and policies as well as the response of the military to him.
P.S. If I have lost cedibility in your eyes then by all means I invite you to NOT read my posts.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
1:33 pm
“and other dirty-hippie liberal whacko granola munchers”
Did someone call me?
Saul Good
May 27th, 2010
1:34 pm
Keep UP…. BEST POST TODAY!!!
Thanks!
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
1:37 pm
“Oil ought to be priced at its true cost including the cost to clean up “accidents”. to compete fairly in the market….if that means $8/gallon then so be it. There will be drive to find cheaper alternatives.”
Yeap – and it’ll get alot of fat asses out of their cars walking too.
Matilda
May 27th, 2010
1:38 pm
Scout, @ 1:24,
I guess I’m just confused by how the principle (mandate?) of “personal responsibility” is frequently applied to maligning individuals who fall upon hard times (whether through their own actions or not), and yet the phrase is completely absent when addressing corporate malfeasance. BTW, this was NOT an accident. It is a catastrophe, the catalyst of which was, at best, negligence on the part of people whose personal responsibility it was to ensure that no one in the process entertains the temptation to be negligent. At worst, it is much, much worse than that, but it is still not an accident.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
1:40 pm
I would like to dedicate this to Scout:
http://icanhascheezburger.com/2010/05/27/funny-pictures-to-slap-sumthing/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ICanHasCheezburger+%28I+CAN+HAS+CHEEZBURGER%3F%29&utm_content
godless heathen
May 27th, 2010
1:44 pm
I went here and it wasn’t what I expected.
http://jaybstutorial.blogspot.com/
I read it as jay bs tutorial
TaxPayer
May 27th, 2010
1:44 pm
Bosch at 1:40,
Are you referring to the Monty Python Youtube video in the comments?
NJ
May 27th, 2010
1:47 pm
That’s the fact. The majority of people who are unemployed or down on their luck did NOT cause the economy to act the way it does. Businesses do. And when businesses screw up people’s lives by cutting jobs, etc, there should be some method of accountability for doing it.
Businesses utilize and get the greatest advantage from government funded services than any individual does. Businesses get a far greater benefit from having a relatively highly educated work force then those individuals get themselves. But businesses do not even come close to paying for a portion of the costs of educating the work force. Perhaps passing on the entire cost of educating the entire work force should be passed onto the businesses in some way. Or at least a significant portion of it.
It is rarely the talent of the people who START businesses that make them profitable. It is more often than not, the talent of the employees who make any business functional and profitable.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
1:49 pm
Matilda :
I don’t necessarily disagree. I’m only saying when is DOES happen (from whatever cause) do you want it in DEEP water or SHALLOW water?
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
1:52 pm
Taxpayer,
I saw that – funny huh?
Mick
May 27th, 2010
1:52 pm
Scout
No, I haven’t read that book and don’t plan to. Whatever it is about the president that rubs you the wrong way, well nothings gonna change you. I know from experience, no matter how much fun people make of gore and kerry, either of them would not have driven this country into the ground like bush did. Cheney and bush still harming america to this minute – imagine that, regulatory agencies allowing oil companies to do their own inspections. Bush, selected as president, born on third base, shirking military duty and failing at every business venture, then cratering the whole economy, now thats a record thats pretty hard to beat. When obama tops that then let me know and I might join your team.
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
1:55 pm
Your Household’s Share Of The September 2008 Economic Collapse: $104,350
A recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts tallies up each US household’s share in the economic collapse. Your household’s share? $104,350. That includes lost income, government bailouts, and both reduced home values and reduced stock values.
Check out the photo!! How many of us have wanted to say that!!
Outhouse GoKart
May 27th, 2010
1:58 pm
Goron…lol…That guy has gone off the rails…he has almost rendered himself harmless.
Kerry is dangerous liar.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
1:59 pm
Outhouse,
So what’d Kerry lie about?
Oh, did you watch the American Idol finale?
Outhouse GoKart
May 27th, 2010
1:59 pm
MMS head resigns or was fired>>>>?
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
1:59 pm
And now . . . for something completely different!
You have to watch this to the end.
NJ
May 27th, 2010
2:00 pm
Or simply put, to drill on land would require thousands and thousand of oil rigs. The cost of producing gas and oil products basically is a function of the fact that oil rigs are expensive. And a rig that must be built to attempt to get oil out of “marginal” wells is the same as building one that gets oil out of a new strike.
80 percent of all the leases being kept by oil companies constitute what are known as “stripper” wells.
These are the FACTS:
“In the United States of America, one out of every six barrels of crude oil produced comes from a marginal oil well, and over 85 percent of the total number of U.S. oil wells are now classified as such. There are over 420,000 of these wells in the United States, and together they produce nearly 915,000 barrels (145,500 m3) of oil per day, 18 percent of U.S. production.”
Additionally, as of 2006, there are more than 296,000 natural gas stripper wells in the lower 48 states. Together they account for over 1.7 trillion cubic feet (48 km3) of natural gas, or about 9 percent of the natural gas produced in the lower 48 states. Stripper wells are more common in older oil and gas producing regions, most notably in Appalachia, Texas and Oklahoma.
The real problem is that it is the owners of the leases, the oil companies, who abandon and seal off marginal wells. Reopening them to access the oil that is still left costs much more than if the companies chose to keep them open and just operating to keep them in existence, but that costs money that the companies do not want to spend, and therefore they seal off the wells. During the Bush years, 177,000 marginal wells were permanently sealed off. representing 42 percent of ALL oil wells in the continental U.S.
The government still gets roughly 3.5 billion dollars a year in lease revenues from these lands. Its the companies that are willing to pay for these wells and NOT produce from them because it’s cheaper to keep the leases and not produce than to keep them and try to extract oil from them.
Shallow water drilling is an excuse. The reason it is not allowed is that the problems it would cause the local communities relative to the costs would simply put a huge amount of burden on the taxpayer, and the oil companies expect some sort of government assistance for keeping these wells actively producing.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:02 pm
Soothsayer,
That’s just wrong – and yes, I liked the picture.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:03 pm
To clarify:
I liked the picture from your 1:55 post.
Disgusted
May 27th, 2010
2:07 pm
MMS head resigns or was fired>>>>?
Doesn’t matter–she’s completely out of government work. That’s much better than the usual stuff that occurs in the government—for example, somebody who was director of an entire agency gets “reassigned” as Special Assistant to the Special Assistant of the Director. And worse, it gets announced as some kind of promotion that makes better use of the individual’s “unique talents”!
Scout
May 27th, 2010
2:12 pm
Mick:
This is Obama’s economy and war(s) now …….. but I see nothing is going to change your mind either …………… so be it my friend.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
2:13 pm
P.S. to Mick:
You do yourself a great disservice by not reading his book.
md
May 27th, 2010
2:13 pm
“It is more often than not, the talent of the employees who make any business functional and profitable.”
Yea, all those burger flippers down at mickey d’s that take one’s order with a blank stare while they hold their pants up are the key to profitability.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:15 pm
md,
But if those kids didn’t flip those burgers – how would you get your Big Mac, extra cheese?
md
May 27th, 2010
2:16 pm
“And when businesses screw up people’s lives by cutting jobs, etc, there should be some method of accountability for doing it.”
Yea, it would be much better to absorb all the losses and not cut any jobs, that way everybody can go home on the same day – the day the company goes under.
jconservative
May 27th, 2010
2:17 pm
Several points on the oil spill – all bad.
The oil released is bad enough. The chemicals used to try to disperse the oil may be even worse.
So now the American people have demanded that the government solve another problem. And we know that once government owns a problem, it keeps that turf forever and ever. Lets spend more billions on a new agency!
Liberal – One who when he see a problem, be it a real or imagined problem, looks to the government to solve that problem.
We now have 535 Liberal members of Congress and 6 southern Republican governors who now toe the Liberal line. All demanding that the government solve the oil spill “crisis”.
This is how a country becomes a Socialist country – people demanding that government solve all problems for all people. Anyone here ever heard of Greece?
Hegel was right – neither governments nor people learn anything from history.
md
May 27th, 2010
2:19 pm
“But if those kids didn’t flip those burgers – how would you get your Big Mac, extra cheese?”
Actually, the trend has been to hire older folks vs the “don’t want to be theres”. They don’t skip out on Friday night party night and they don’t have to be trained to get out of bed.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:24 pm
Where the hell is Paul and jewcowboy?
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
2:24 pm
This is a great post from the Oil Drum. Apparently, what is coming out of the BOP is “mud” and they are very close to setting a cement seal. The “live” feed takes a minute or two to come up.
John Birch
May 27th, 2010
2:25 pm
Is it just because libs hate the evil corporations that they don’t understand simple economics? Or is it because they don’t understand economics that they hate corporations? “Oil ought to be priced at its true cost”. The oil market is huge and relatively efficient and, consequently it is priced at it’s true cost. I’ll leave it to you to do a lilttle homework to determine why that same oil is more expensive in those European social democracies you love so much. And all that justice/punishment you think is appropriate for BP is a joke. You can’t send corporations to jail. And they will have to pass the cleanup costs and any fines or judgments along to their customers or they won’t be able to pay them. BP won’t cry and have a breakdown if you put it out of business, the crying will be done by all the employees that lose their jobs and the hardworking investors, 99.9% of whom did absolutelky nothing wrong. If you own a mutual fund or an insurance policy with a cash value, there’s a fair chance you’re a BP investor.
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
2:26 pm
What you are looking at is the top of the BOP with the riser pipe bent over (away from you) and the leak coming out of the ruptured riser pipe.
Jefferson
May 27th, 2010
2:32 pm
md – those worker’s no matter what age can put you out of business too.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:33 pm
md, ’round this time yesterday I had to depart before I could address something you’d posted about off topic posts, to wit:
Dude. Does it matter where an off-topic is posted? Who cares if it’s the first or the last?
That’s a fair question. Answer: I do, somewhat.
However, it’s not really what I was on about, earlier, and which you seemed to be referring to. If you remember, I had taken issue with those who outright refused to address Jay’s discussion topic at all, or who betrayed a complete lack of familiarity with the point Jay was making (i.e., didn’t bother to read beyond a headline) prior to ranting.
This may or may not have led, some days later, to Jay mentioning to Scout that he’d tried at one point to enforce a two-off-topic-post limit per thread, but at this point simply wished people would try to abide by it.
That’s what got Scout doing his “OFF TOPIC POST #1…” business.
And why I myself, these days, try not to introduce more than two off-topic posts, generally well after the original topic has been discussed at some length.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:35 pm
Where the hell is Paul and jewcowboy?
Don’t know about Paul, but JCB told us last week he was flying off to Japan and would be incommunicado for awhile.
He said something about looking to find some peace. Got the impression this wasn’t a business trip, but rather, something personal.
I hope he’s ok.
Mick
May 27th, 2010
2:35 pm
scout
Maybe I’ll give the book a reading someday. Just can’t imagine it could be that damaging seeing how it was written before he became president.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:39 pm
I’ll leave it to you to do a lilttle homework to determine why that same oil is more expensive in those European social democracies you love so much.
No homework needed–those nations recognize that personal cars using internal combustion engines are a filthy mess, and the only sane thing to do is to tax gasoline consumption on these things (and make their licensing a good deal tougher as well, but that’s another topic) so that cleaner forms of transit like rail, trolley and bus lines are available to most people.
It’s called personal responsibility, something you libbers and conservos claim to be for, but not really, not so much.
Soothsayer
May 27th, 2010
2:39 pm
John Birch: We hate that Multinational Corporations control our government and therefore pass laws in their best interest at the expense of the general populace.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
2:39 pm
sfd,
He had a rather tragic event right before Christmas — so, yeah, I could see him needing to find some peace.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:45 pm
Yep, Bosch, I heard about JCB’s loss as well.
John Birch
May 27th, 2010
2:50 pm
stand for – If it was ‘personal responsibility’ the gov wouldn’t have to force it on the peeps by punitive gas tax causing their prices not to reflect the true cost. The soc dems would just voluntarily quit driving personal vehicles and demand only electric mass transit. Also American capitalism has been so successful that our per capita income is great enough that a significantly larger percentage of our population can afford cars and gas and not have to rely on mass transit.
md
May 27th, 2010
2:52 pm
sfd,
I appreciate the explanation, and I mentioned it more as a “funny” than a serious matter. As for the blog, it is what it is – a microcosm of the real world – and there will always (most likely) be those that march to their own drummer.
As I explained to soco awhile back, I personally look at Jay as just another blogger, he just happens to be first all the time. The only difference between he and I is in this particular environment – he sets the rules.
Mick
May 27th, 2010
2:56 pm
md
So, you just consider bookman another blogger? I think he writes a pretty good column whether you agree with him or not. Do you think you have the skills to be a weekly columnist?
John Birch
May 27th, 2010
2:57 pm
Sooth – I agree with you there, except that I see that more as a function/failure of the government than the corporations. Perhaps I’m wrong though. Twits like Lincoln have rambled on about government of, by, and for the peeps but the reality is politicis has always been about the legitimization of power. We theoretically limit campaign contributions than allow all the PAC’s and lobbyists, etc.
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
2:58 pm
The soc dems would just voluntarily quit driving personal vehicles and demand only electric mass transit.
In America that’s as good as saying they’d commit personal and professional suicide. Na gone duit, sorry.
(I do hear this argument from online folks all the time. I probably shouldn’t even dignify it with an answer, because I suspect you know better.)
Doggone/GA
May 27th, 2010
3:00 pm
“I hope he’s ok”
I’m pretty sure it has to do with still trying to recover from losing “Mr Jewcowboy”
stands for decibels
May 27th, 2010
3:03 pm
This is kinda on topic–this morning I heard a very interesting chat with the Former Shell Oil president John Hofmeister (whose new book is called “Why We Hate the Oil Companies”).
I don’t agree with everything he says–being the good progressive that I am, I think he is deliberately mis-characterizing Al Gore at one point, although he takes shots at Newt Gingrich as well–but hearing an insider like that give a prescription for getting ourselves weaned off the filthy stuff is illuminated, and highly recommended.
(there’s a link to an mp3 download on that page if you need to pick it up and run with it, literally…)
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:07 pm
theyeshaveit, Jimmy Carter isn’t an old white guy?
Do you doubt King Obama’s inauguration? from the AllBarrackChannel:
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Inauguration/president-obama-inauguration-cost-170-million/story?id=6665946
Umm, what other facts would you care for.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
3:19 pm
sfd,
Interesting what he said about the Waxman/Markey Bill – and how some of these companies are working on renewable energy that will work. It’s nice to hear people who actually know what they are talking about instead of bloggers stuck on the stoopid.
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:20 pm
Here’s a fact, err, riddle that’s not funny.
What do King Obama and BP both have in common (besides BP donating Obama the most money of any presidential candidate)?
RAMBLE ON!!!
May 27th, 2010
3:21 pm
Both have spent almost 1 trillion dollars in just over 1 month, to create 20,000 temporary jobs.
Bosch
May 27th, 2010
3:23 pm
sfd,
And the Federal Energy Resources Board? Hmmm….interesting. Sounds practical– I liked how he determined that changes in policy we need can not come about by our current system of legislation. I have to say I agree with that.
Scout
May 27th, 2010
3:35 pm
Mick:
The book just helps you understand who he is ……… what’s between his ears.
Eli Jones
June 1st, 2010
3:03 pm
“THE OBAMASPILL”
When “The Obamaspill” first occurred, Obama should have utilized every means possible to stop the massive oil ecological disaster. Obama was very busy at that time planning how to shove his next piece of Marxist Change down our throats so he was super slow in his response! Precious time was lost while Obama slouched! In the year of our lord “1993″, the Saudi’s used super tankers to clean up their massive 1993 Persian gulf oil spill with great results. The tankers sucked up the Saudi oil while it was still out at sea and removed it. Now The Gulf Of Mexico oil is destroying our beaches and marshes. Obama could have stopped it before it got to the shoreline by mobilizing those super tankers. As I said the Saudi’s did it 17 years ago! “The Obamaspill” is the worst oil spill the USA has ever had! It is sad for the Gulf Of Mexico, Planet Earth, & us that Obama was so indecisive on this catastrophe of Biblical proportions! ………………………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………………..
THE SAUDI PERSIAN GULF OIL SPILL:
(May 14) — Even as proposals pour in for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, one veteran of a massive (and secret) crude spill in the Persian Gulf says he has a tried-and-true solution.
Now if only the people who could make it happen would return his calls.
“No one’s listening,” says Nick Pozzi, who was an engineer with Saudi Aramco in the Middle East when he says an accident there in 1993 generated a spill far larger than anything the United States has ever seen.
Eric Gay, AP
A shrimp boat collects oil with booms in the waters of Chandeleur Sound, La., on May 5. An engineer who witnessed a crude spill in the Persian Gulf in 1993 says BP should use a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface.
According to Pozzi, that mishap, kept under wraps for close to two decades and first reported by Esquire, dumped nearly 800 million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf, which would make it more than 70 times the size of the Exxon Valdez spill.
But remarkably, by employing a fleet of empty supertankers to suck crude off the water’s surface, Pozzi’s team was not only able to clean up the spill, but also salvage 85 percent of the oil, he says.
“We took null out of the water so it would save the environment off the Arabian Gulf, and then we put it into tanks until we could figure out how to clean it,” he told AOL News.
While BP, the oil giant at the center of the oil spill, works to stanch the leak from the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, Pozzi insists the company should be following his lead.
FOR MORE ON THE SAUDI OIL SPILL GO TO THIS SITE BELOW:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/could-cleanup-fix-for-gulf-oil-spill-lie-in-secret-saudi-disaster/19476863
Eli Jones
June 1st, 2010
3:16 pm
“Only 16 Percent Approve of Obama’s Handling of “The Obamaspill” /// ZOGBY SURVEY
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Positive opinion about Obama’s government’s handling of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill is down 13 points from two weeks ago, dropping from 29 percent to 16 percent, a new Zogby Interactive survey finds.
Currently, only 16 percent rate Obama’s government’s response to The Obamaspill as excellent or good. The same question in a May 7-10 Zogby Interactive survey found 29 percent giving a positive rating. Opinion of BP’s handling of the spill is also down from the previous poll, going from positive ratings of 25 percent then to just 15 percent now.
The Zogby survey of 2,085 adults was conducted from May 25-27
Almost 60 percent agreed with the assessment that The Obamaspill is “a disaster that will cause long-term environmental and economic damage.”
A CONSERVATIVE
June 2nd, 2010
6:59 am
SENDING A.G. ERIC HOLDER & a plane load of lawyers to the GULF will not stop the OIL from gushing…AS USUAL…LIBERALs have their priorities backward….
A CONSERVATIVE
June 2nd, 2010
7:04 am
GULF SPILL PROVES THE LEFT has been completely wrong all along…They are always wrong….there is trillions of barrels of OIL in the earth..