'Not for public': the oil spill may be getting much worse

[Cordelia]

And where's the fucking US Navy?? Posing around in the Persian Gulf, trying to look tough and rock-jawed and threatening, that's where. Why aren't battleships and destroyers being refitted at lightning speed and ordered to do something useful (for once), such as sucking up that oh-so-valuable (& increasingly-scarce) oil and storing it in floating pontoons, or sent in their hundreds to corral this gigantic fucking mess with barriers? How complicated can that be?

They're right around the corner (relatively speaking) from The Gulf, in Norfolk Virginia.

Naval Station Norfolk

Naval Station Norfolk occupies about 3,400 acres of Hampton Roads real estate in a peninsula known as Sewells Point. It is the world's largest Naval Station; in fact, based on supported military population, it is the largest military station in the world. The Norfolk Naval Base (NNB) is located on 4,631 acres, directly northwest of the City of Norfolk, Virginia. The Naval Complex includes Norfolk Naval Base as well as other Naval Facilities of the Sewells Point Naval Complex.

When the 78 ships and 133 aircraft home ported here are not at sea, they are alongside one of the 14 piers or inside one of the 15 aircraft hangars for repair, refit, training and to provide the ship's or squadron's crew an opportunity to be with their families. Naval Station is homeport to aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, large amphibious ships, submarines, and a variety of supply and logistics ships. Port Services controls more than 3,100 ships' movements annually as they arrive and depart their berths. Port facilities extend more than four miles along the waterfront and include some seven miles of pier and wharf space.

Naval Station's Nimitz Hall is a major stopping-off point for people destined for ships, aircraft squadrons, and stations overseas. Nearly 9,000 people are processed through the Transient Personnel Unit annually en route to their destinations.

It is uncommon for these ships to all be in port at one time. Naval Station Norfolk made history with the berthing of five (5) Nuclear Aircraft Carriers on 02 July 97 at 1730, when the Navy's newest Nimitz class carrier, USS JOHN C. STENNIS (CVN-74), returned to port, joining the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN-73), USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN-71), USS ENTERPRISE (CVN-65) and the USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN-69). The only other time five carriers were berthed at the Naval Station was in 1992, but they were not all nuclear carriers.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... orfolk.htm

[semper occultus]

(left to right) BP Chief Executive Mr E Blackadder pictured with Head of Planning Mr Baldrick.....

....firing f**king golf-balls into the exploding oil vent - I mean I'm really surprised that didn't work !

[wintler2]

Dmitry Orlov has some choice thoughts on leadership re this catastrophe and others..

It is embarrassing to be lost. It is even more embarrassing for a leader to be lost. And what's really really embarrassing to all concerned is when national and transnational corporate leaders attempt to tackle a major disaster and are found out to have been issuing marching orders based on the wrong map.

Everyone then executes a routine of turning toward each other in shock, frowning while shaking their heads slowly from side to side and looking away in disgust. After that, these leaders might as well limit their public pronouncements to the traditional "Milk, milk, lemonade, round the corner fudge is made." Whatever they say, the universal reaction becomes: "What leaders? We don't have any."

Getting lost can be traumatic for the rest of us too. When we suddenly realize that we don't know where we are, urgent neural messages are exchanged between our prefrontal cortex, which struggles to form a coherent picture of what's happening, our amygdala, whose job is to hold on to a sense of where we are, and our hippocampus, which motivates us to get back to a place we know as quickly as we possibly can. This strange bit of internal wiring explains why humans who are only slightly lost tend to trot off in a random direction and promptly become profoundly lost. ..

[TVC15]

"This is the Seventh Sign: You will hear of the sea turning black, and many living things dying because of it."

[82_28]

Lucifer Rising:

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/up ... htm#053010

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/lucifer_rising.htm

Read that shit. . .

[Fresno_Layshaft]

Lucifer Rising:

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/up ... htm#053010

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/lucifer_rising.htm

Read that shit. . .

Is that HMW's blog?

EDIT: I take that back. That gobbledygook is beneath Hugh. Sorry Hugh!

[82_28]

Lucifer Rising:

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/up ... htm#053010

http://www.goroadachi.com/etemenanki/lucifer_rising.htm

Read that shit. . .

Is that HMW's blog?

Not even remotely. Read his shit and just think man. Goro is actually one of the reasons I've had a soft spot in my heart for HMW. Only because, Goro is deadly serious and I don't even know what to say -- I really don't. His archives are there. Check it out for yourself. I'm no believer, but the dude is "insane". Don't judge me by me linking to him, but there is a lot there and it has previously blown my mind over the course of the last several years. But he's not into the CIA iz for KIDZ stuff. He is extremely mystical and "multi-contextual". Once you delve in, there's no going back. And no, I am not going to defend him. Just read his shit.

[seemslikeadream]

BP Oil Spill: Attorney General Heads to Gulf Coast

Could Visit From Eric Holder Signal a Possible Criminal Investigation?

By MATT GUTMAN, CLAYTON SANDELL, SARAH NETTER and BRADLEY BLACKBURN
May 31, 2010
PrintRSSFONT SIZE:SHARE:EmailTwitterFacebookMore
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now 42 days old, with tens of millions of gallons of oil already having spewed into the water and no end in sight.


BP will now have to answer to the U.S. Attorney General.
As political pressure grows for the White House to intervene , BP may soon have to answer to the top law enforcement official of the United States. Attorney General Eric Holder has announced that Tuesday he's going to to the Gulf Coast.

Holder will survey affected areas and meet with state attorneys general, the Department of Justice said in a statement.

But some are asking whether this might be a sign of something bigger -- that BP could face a potential criminal investigation. The DOJ has already asked for BP to preserve all documents related to the spill.

BP Overestimated Ability to Cope with Disaster
From the beginning, BP underestimated both the amount of oil leaking and the potential for environmental destruction.

Today, we learned the company overestimated its ability to handle a disaster. In a 2008 application, they claimed they could stop a leak of 250,000 barrels per day, a spill ten times larger than what they're dealing with now.

That news has left many along the Gulf Coast wondering if the British oil company should step aside and let the U.S. military take over.


"You don't allow someone to mind the store if they have been caught stealing," said Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, a low-lying part of the Mississippi River delta that stretches out into the Gulf of Mexico.

James Carville , a political commentator who grew up in Louisiana and currently lives in New Orleans, echoed that comment on "Good Morning America," saying, "I do know, for too long, they were taking BP's word for everything, which turned out to be wrong at every junction. It's all turned out on the wrong side."

But a military takeover is not so simple. The Pentagon says there are some missions it does well, but stopping an oil leak 5,000 feet under water isn't one of them.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged as much on "GMA" this morning, saying that "the best technology in the world with respect to that exists in the oil industry."

'Top Kill' Fails to Stem the Leak
So far, though, all of BP's technology has failed.

The sixth attempt to control the week failed this weekend, with the "top kill" procedure unable to plug the blowout preventer on the ocean floor. But BP is now making a seventh attempt, the riskiest move yet, that could actually make things worse, officials acknowledge.

The new plan would send undersea robots to lop off the crippled pipeline. The company would then lower a small dome -- the third they've tried -- to siphon the oil. But by making that cut to the pipeline, BP could release up to 20 percent more oil than is already gushing, White House officials admitted today.

The only fix that anyone has real confidence in -- two relief wells -- won't be completed until August.

Oil Spill Devastates Tourism Industry in Gulf, Florida
ABC News has learned that federally backed scientists who are hunting oil plumes made a grim discovery -- that the biggest plumes yet, located some 3,500 feet under the surface, are comprised of a concentration of oil that was literally off the charts. Some are as long as 22 miles.

On Sunday, BP's CEO Tony Hayward denied that such plumes exist.

"The oil is on the surface. It's very difficult for oil to stay in a column," he said. "It wants to go to the surface because of the difference in specific gravity."


While oil has made it to shore in some places along the Gulf coastline, fears about contamination have devastated the tourism industry all along the Gulf and Florida coastlines on what would typically be a hopping holiday weekend.

Some resorts in the Gulf have reported reservations dropping by about half. And four in 10 travelers say the oil spill would influence their decision to visit the area.

"People are convinced there is a black blanket coming across the Florida Keys that has smothered every fish here," said charter boat captain Mike Weinhofer.

Though the oil hasn't come close to places like Key West, tourists are still nervous about the water. Some hotels have even made guarantees to patrons that if tar balls wash up on the beach, their money will be refunded.

[smiths]

i hope this is not a repost

BP Now Owns the Airspace Above the Spill, Too - Bars Journalists From Flying Over It

The latest instance of denied press access comes from Belle Chasse, La.-based Southern Seaplane Inc., which was scheduled to take a New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer for a flyover on Tuesday afternoon, and says it was denied permission once BP officials learned that a member of the press would be on board.

"We are not at liberty to fly media, journalists, photographers, or scientists," the company said in a letter it sent on Tuesday to Sen. David Vitter (R-La.). "We strongly feel that the reason for this massive [temporary flight restriction] is that BP wants to control their exposure to the press."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/05 ... ll-too.php

[Username]

~

BP CEO Tony Hayward: ‘I’d Like My Life Back’

The millionaire CEO of foreign oil giant BP, Tony Hayward, is upset at the inconvenience caused to him by his company’s devastation of the Gulf of Mexico. BP’s offshore drilling explosion claimed 11 lives on April 20, and has since spewed 20 to 100 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. At least 491 birds, 227 turtles and 27 mammals, including dolphins, have been found dead. On Sunday, immediately after apologizing, Hayward then complained about the effect of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on himself, saying “I would like my life back“:

"We’re sorry for the massive disruption it’s caused their lives. There’s no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Watch it:


Hayward, who pulled in $4.5 million last year, has a record of insensitive comments about the greatest environmental disaster in the United States:

“What the hell did we do to deserve this?” [New York Times, 4/30/10]

“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.” [Guardian, 5/14/10]

“I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest.” [Sky News, 5/18/10]

There are no indications that the Obama administration intends to remove Hayward or his company from running the cleanup effort, however. “I trust Tony Hayward,” Admiral Thad Allen, the top federal official overseeing the Gulf disaster, told CNN last week.

Hard as it may be for Hayward to believe, the residents of the Louisiana coast may want their nightmare to end even more than BP. “I was just sitting here thinking our way of life is over. It’s the end, the apocalypse,” fisherman Tom Young of Plaquemines Parish told reporters today. (HT Eschaton)
~

[82_28]

Poor guy.

But to his credit, he has destroyed planet Earth. I will give him his moment to piece his life back together. Give everybody else his money and stretch himself like a camel, through the eye of a needle.

No matter how rich and what a cut throat capitalist douche he is, I will give him his moment of terror. Every time I look at him, I think he's about to off himself. Again, to his credit he must be under tremendous stress. I do actually feel for the guy. Management decisions with the eye for cheap profit are never really one dude's decision. He has to be be the most stressed man on Earth right now. I am sure he would like his "life back".

[seemslikeadream]

hey how 'boot this one?

Emergency evacuations plans have been drawn up for entire Gulf of Mexico region as secret financial negotiations head to climax
Posted by benjaminMay 31, 2010
The Pentagon and US government have drawn up emergency plans to evacuate much of the population surrounding the Gulf of Mexico in anticipation of toxic rain and severe environmental damage, a military intelligence source says. The extreme environmental destruction and the deliberate failure to put an end to the oil leaks are all part of the dark cabal’s bargaining strategy since all they have left to bargain with now is the threat of mayhem. At the same time, a senior oil industry source has approached the White Dragon Society with an offer of $60 billion a month to be spent on saving the planet so long as the money goes through the Vatican, the BIS and the Federal Reserve Board.

[Jeff]

"I would like my life back."

Nevermind the environmental ruin under his watch, that's a hell of a thing for a CEO to say days after a memorial service for 11 men.

[Nordic]

I do actually feel for the guy. Management decisions with the eye for cheap profit are never really one dude's decision. He has to be be the most stressed man on Earth right now. I am sure he would like his "life back".

You're joking, right? This guy is paid $4.5 million bucks a year to run a company that DELIBERATELY has shortchanged environmental protections, and who has lied and cheated their way to more fake profits. And now his little fiefdom is claiming sovereignty over our public beaches and airspace?

I'd like to see a bullet in this fucker's head. I'd like to see the crowd take him and stomp on him until he's a bag of bloody broken pulp.

[Bruce Dazzling]

I do actually feel for the guy. Management decisions with the eye for cheap profit are never really one dude's decision. He has to be be the most stressed man on Earth right now. I am sure he would like his "life back".

You're joking, right? This guy is paid $4.5 million bucks a year to run a company that DELIBERATELY has shortchanged environmental protections, and who has lied and cheated their way to more fake profits. And now his little fiefdom is claiming sovereignty over our public beaches and airspace?

I'd like to see a bullet in this fucker's head. I'd like to see the crowd take him and stomp on him until he's a bag of bloody broken pulp.

I'd like to see him swim laps in a boom-enclosed oil pool.

And when that's done, we can move on to Nordic's plan.