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

[hanshan]

There is no end to the blinders of naivete; & no, he hasn't yet realized he's just a tool.
DU? Surely you jest.

Oh I'm under no illusions about DU, or Obama, and it's his own damn fault his big-business Reagan act is biting him in the ass, and all but the most ardent DU loyalists have jumped ship. It just seemed unusually fast. So fast they missed the fact that for the first time since he's been in office, Obama got off the couch and came up with something useful, even if it's only a campaign bribe. In earlier days they'd be crowing with pride, but at this point he has no credibility, and while that's his own damn fault, I'm not sure it's a good thing.

For example: what if BP's spokesmodel Palin was in a position to give that speech, which may well came to pass? It would be all about Clinton's anti-enterprise regulations tying BP into knots so they couldn't innovate, and see where that got us, and hey how about a hand for the hard-working BP heroes working 24/7 to fix a mess NOBODY could have predicted, etc etc. There wouldn't even be $20 bil to spread around, there'd be nothing. And Hayward would be sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom while Halliburton got the nuke ready.

Wasn't suggesting you couldn't see Obama & his act clearly; he's set a record
for being Powell'd (recall Colin Powell's performance at the UN Security Council (case for war) .
Credibility w/ whom? Shuck & jive is the same whether it's street language
or polished verbage.
Palin, in high office, is too painful to consider.

& you're quite correct - these bozos are itching for somethin' to nuke



....

[Iamwhomiam]

Advocating for a nuclear weapon to be detonated in the Gulf to stem the flow of oil from this one well (and nearby seabed faults) must surely want a catastrophe, if they don't think we have one already.

Such an explosion here, with the incredible tonnage of methane hydrate accumulating on the sea floor, all of the oil piplines and thousands of nearby wells can only serve to exacerbate immensely the ongoing emerging disaster.

Please! - get off of the 'Nuke the Well' carousel. Things are bad enough.

I wish there was a link to the figures Krall reported for the oil reservoir. The highest figure I've seen reported (by BP) was 3 billion bbls.

[2012 Countdown]

Gulf News; From Bad to Worse
By Rob Kall
June 17, 2010

]We need to take a Apollo, moon landing technology approach to what is happening in the gulf. We need big ideas and solutions because there are other deep water wells out there waiting to become catastrophes. Joe Trippi said it well, responding to Obama's speech Tuesday night:

The president could have told the American people that it is clear that we had the technology to drill a hole in the ocean floor 1 mile beneath the surface.
Then, he should have leveled with us and said that it is just as unclear, right now, how we can put the technology in place to shut it down quickly after the tragic explosion.

Just as we were able to bring Apollo 13 back to earth safely, we will shut this well down, the president could have assured us.[/list]

We need to take a WWII approach to low tech temporary interventions, like building 10,000 skimmers that can be rigged to existing boats. We need to figure out ways to use trawlers to drag booms that absorb oil through those massive curtains of oil, so they can be cleaned up deep in the ocean.

Obama still does not get the immensity of the problem. He needs to imagine 1.25 to 5 BILLION barrels-- 50 billion to 210 billion gallons of oil-- spewing into the gulf rounding the keys, despoiling the Caribbean, riding the Gulf Current up the eastern seaboard, jumping over to Europe....

I really don't think he gets it. STILL. This son of a bitch is a failure. He was a failure in banking reform, in open government, in healthcare, on civil rights, on and on. We are going to be drowning in oil. If the worst case scenario plays out, Louisiana should just liquidate and become parts of surrounding states. It may be the first state 'delisted' from the flags 50 star blue field, provided the USA is still intact for much longer.

[Peregrine]

We need to start thinking about a black gulf that is dead, that oil and other toxins are leaking to other oceans. What will our world, our nation, the human race, life on this planet look like if all the seas die?

sigh...

[Bruce Dazzling]

Gulf News; From Bad to Worse
By Rob Kall
June 17, 2010

]We need to take a Apollo, moon landing technology approach to what is happening in the gulf. We need big ideas and solutions because there are other deep water wells out there waiting to become catastrophes. Joe Trippi said it well, responding to Obama's speech Tuesday night:

The president could have told the American people that it is clear that we had the technology to drill a hole in the ocean floor 1 mile beneath the surface.
Then, he should have leveled with us and said that it is just as unclear, right now, how we can put the technology in place to shut it down quickly after the tragic explosion.

Just as we were able to bring Apollo 13 back to earth safely, we will shut this well down, the president could have assured us.[/list]

We need to take a WWII approach to low tech temporary interventions, like building 10,000 skimmers that can be rigged to existing boats. We need to figure out ways to use trawlers to drag booms that absorb oil through those massive curtains of oil, so they can be cleaned up deep in the ocean.

Obama still does not get the immensity of the problem. He needs to imagine 1.25 to 5 BILLION barrels-- 50 billion to 210 billion gallons of oil-- spewing into the gulf rounding the keys, despoiling the Caribbean, riding the Gulf Current up the eastern seaboard, jumping over to Europe....

I really don't think he gets it. STILL. This son of a bitch is a failure. He was a failure in banking reform, in open government, in healthcare, on civil rights, on and on. We are going to be drowning in oil. If the worst case scenario plays out, Louisiana should just liquidate and become parts of surrounding states. It may be the first state 'delisted' from the flags 50 star blue field, provided the USA is still intact for much longer.

Obama gets it just as much as Bush got the extent of the catastrophe that Katrina was.

I gave up on being an incompetence theorist long ago.

How many times do these people need to completely destroy stuff (the WTC complex, the Iraq war, based on "bad intelligence," the world economy, and now the Gulf of Mexico) before we realize that they're doing it on purpose?

What the fuck does Obama care if the Gulf's ecosystem is destroyed, and clean up workers are getting sick, and the fishing industry is destroyed, and the tourist industry is destroyed, or even if the U.S. completely collapses?

Why would anyone think that he would care about any of that? Because he wants to get reelected????? Because he's a nice guy???? Because he cares about people???? Because he believes in America?????

BWAAAAAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

Nope. I'm afraid that the reality is that he serves the same interests as the previous doooshbag in chief, and the one before him, and the one before him, and those interests seem to include a systematic destruction of the United States, in order for the internationalists to tighten their grip on world government, as we head into the end timesian carnival that the Zionists and Christian Zionists have been working towards.

And what's happened to all of the trillions of dollars that vanished during the global economic collapse? Well, they needed more deep underground military bases, and seed vaults, to protect them from the extinction level event they've been hinting at in every freaking movie and tv show over the past 15 years. Have you ever watched the History Channel? It's end times central, baby.

I have no "hard evidence," and I can't post a link to a mainstream source, but to me, it looks like a duck, and it smells like a duck, and my gut tells me that this is what's going on.

Incidentally, I had several drinks with dinner tonight, so I may regret this post later.

We'll see.

[Simulist]

Oh, Obama "gets it" alright — and he's determined to get a hell of a lot more of it for himself and for the wealthy interests he works for.

I agree with Bruce about the "incompetence theories" — they're bullshit.

[beeline]

.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a well
No one could believe that he burst when he fell
And all the King's horses
And all the King's men
could stave off the truth of what's happening

.

[Nordic]

Okay, a few things just occurred to me. Obvious things, yet I have to see anyone, anywhere, yet, make the connection.

We just found out today that Halliburton is going to make money on the spill. No big surprise. Everybody's asking "is it just luck/good timing?" that Halliburton bought that oil clean-up company just before the well blew?

And good old Tiny Tony. Didn't he sell just a TON of BP stock right before the well blew?

Well both of those are kind of old news.

So we kind of forgot them.

But suddenly we've learned that BP knew this well was bad news all the way back in 2009. And they REALLY knew this well was fucked up back in February of 2010.

So when, exactly, did Tiny Tony sell his stock?

Oh yeah.

And when, exactly, did Halliburton make the deal to buy that oil-spill-cleanup company?

Oh yeah.

Wow.

They all knew this well was gonna blow. It seems they acted in ways, on purpose, so they would just "get it over with" so they could "get their life back" perhaps.

Let's see now long it takes for anyone else to make this connection.

[thatsmystory]

The two party dominated political system has led to a state of affairs in which government officials are held to a pathetic standard of conduct. That explains the response. The Obama administration knew there were problems at the MMS and did nothing. Then they went into grandstanding mode after the spill and blamed BP because that is what politicians do. One of the most absurd aspects of the past few years is the Executive Branch power grab. We are supposed to pretend the President/CiC is like a king and MUST have unitary executive powers to keep us safe. Yet Bush and now Obama are not to be held accountable when something goes wrong. What a joke.

The other key aspect is that politicians have conflicts of interest. The public doesn't think so because the propaganda is designed to make people believe bullshit. Obama didn't screw up HCR. He had a conflict of interest. Same with the leak response.

[Nordic]

The two party dominated political system has led to a state of affairs in which government officials are held to a pathetic standard of conduct. That explains the response. The Obama administration knew there were problems at the MMS and did nothing. Then they went into grandstanding mode after the spill and blamed BP because that is what politicians do. One of the most absurd aspects of the past few years is the Executive Branch power grab. We are supposed to pretend the President/CiC is like a king and MUST have unitary executive powers to keep us safe. Yet Bush and now Obama are not to be held accountable when something goes wrong. What a joke.

The other key aspect is that politicians have conflicts of interest. The public doesn't think so because the propaganda is designed to make people believe bullshit. Obama didn't screw up HCR. He had a conflict of interest. Same with the leak response.

The entire government of the United States has a huge conflict of interest. Hell, it's not even a conflict anymore! They work for Big Corporate, it's as simple as that.

If there's one sorta good thing that might come out of this disaster it's that particular truth. It's just disgustingly obvious now. You'd have to be a complete moron to miss this now. And it's regardless of party, although the Repubs seem to spout off at the mouth more than the Dems, who play "good cop", but the differences are VERY slight.

[justdrew]

it looks different, faster? more gas pressure?

mms://a662.l9789246661.c97892.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/662/97892/v0001/reflector:49182?MSWMExt=.asf

[lupercal]

Wasn't suggesting you couldn't see Obama & his act clearly; he's set a record
for being Powell'd (recall Colin Powell's performance at the UN Security Council (case for war) .

Powell'd, that's good. Sums it up well. But then again, Powell was a military guy, and gave that phony intel testimony wearing his uniform, so even though he was in a civilian position, and knew that we knew that he knew he was lying, as a military man, his first duty was to follow orders, and that's what he was doing. Obama on the other hand has to worry about getting reelected and getting Democratic pols reelected, and he doesn't have Powell's built-in excuse.

I really don't think he gets it. STILL.

I think he gets that he's in a political jam, and the Gulf of M is his personal Bay of Pigs: he can either appease the MIC that installed him, a la Palin, or he can push back, but either way, he's politically f#cked. Strange that the denouement we seem to be approaching is a nuke next to Cuba, but maybe that was the idea all along. If it comes to that, and it might, Obama's going to be in the same lose-lose pickle Kennedy was. Weird. I hope he doesn't do it, and I think it's possible that he won't, but the pressure is going to be intense.

[Nordic]

Obama officials still approving flawed Gulf drilling plans

WASHINGTON — Despite President Barack Obama's promises of better safeguards for offshore drilling, federal regulators continue to approve plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with minimal or no environmental analysis.

The Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service has signed off on at least five new offshore drilling projects since June 2, when the agency's acting director announced tougher safety regulations for drilling in the Gulf, a McClatchy review of public records has discovered.

Three of the projects were approved with waivers exempting them from detailed studies of their environmental impact — the same waiver the MMS granted to BP for the ill-fated well that's been fouling the Gulf with crude for two months.

In a May 14 speech in the Rose Garden, Obama said he was "closing the loophole that has allowed some oil companies to bypass some critical environmental reviews."

Environmental groups, however, say the loophole is as wide as ever and that the administration is allowing oil companies to proceed with drilling plans that may be just as flawed as BP's, which concluded that a major spill was "unlikely" and that the company was equipped to manage even the worst-case blowout.

"It's just outrageous," said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, a conservation organization. "The whole world is screaming and . . . they're just continuing to move this stuff through the system."



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/06/18/9 ... z0rGv9lVjC

Obama. Douchebag.

[Nordic]

from here:

http://blog.ted.com/2010/06/aerial_photos_o.php

[mentalgongfu2]

The entire government of the United States has a huge conflict of interest. Hell, it's not even a conflict anymore! They work for Big Corporate, it's as simple as that.

. . .

You'd have to be a complete moron to miss this now.

Our peers, the American people, are complete morons. A sad but unavoidable truth. Sometimes it's systematic, sometimes it's individual, but dumbness abounds.

I was watching an episode of The Wire earlier tonight. It contained this dialogue:

''Americans are a stupid people, by and large,'' Bunk's partner told a rookie detective. ''We pretty much believe whatever we're told.'' ''The bigger the lie, the more they believe,'' said Bunk.