Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico Part 3

It's weird how focused the media is on what gimmicks BP are pulling day to day to stem the flow. How about some coverage of the damage that's already been done? It seems like the storyline is suggesting that if they can just stem the flow the crisis will be over. What they should be doing is covering the fact that no matter what anybody does now it's a huge huge disaster.

The real story is that the Gulf coast will be devastated for years to come, and if a Hurricane hits this thing will get way worse. Stemming the flow will not make this go away.

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

Set location for Rochester NY and you will see that the area of the oil spill is now larger than Lake Ontario.

And check this:

Goldman Sachs sold 44% of its BP Stock, Three weeks before the Oil Rig disaster.

 Wed, 06/02/2010 - 08:35

Want Proof? HERE IT IS... http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Holding=Institutional+... This is a list of the institutional owners of BP stock. This is NOT private owners. There are 350 million shares of BP. Financial Institutions own roughly 40% of BP. Goldman Sachs (on March 31st) owned 6 million shares...after it sold 4.7 Million shares. WHAT DID THEY KNOW?

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/136466

http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/069659-2010-06-01-goldman-sachs-sold...

http://moneycentral.msn.com/ownership?Holding=Institutional+Ownership&Sy...

Who might be capable of sabotaging an ocean and nations just for fun?

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/george-soros-public-enemy-1/

The oil spill is apparently now bigger than Lake Ontario...

For some reason, I am fascinated with the video of the ROVs at work in the Gulf. I promise to stop posting these links after this last one, because this has links to all the ROV cameras [only some of them are on at any given time].

Mother of All ROV video links> http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9033572&contentId=7062605

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I don't think the conspiracy theories about the spill are going to get much traction. You know me, a conspiracy wonk - I would love it if there was something to suck on here, but I don't see it.

1] Goldman-Sachs selling BP stock was probably just normal trading;

2] even though BP is creating a separate division for the spill operation, it doesn't separate the main BP from costs or guilt,

3] That Obama is "Engaged" is certainly true, but this idea is not a conspiracy about the spill exactly, it is more the general idea of corporate rule. My hopes for Obama to fight for common people over corporate powers was dashed early on; he has proven himself to be a total "establishment guy" who is going to keep the same old Elite Wealthy Corporate Rule politics going

But sure, the spill does offer us the opportunity to talk about what that article says {maybe the moderator wants to start a different thread for this?} - "Huge corporations are empowered to seek profits with absolutely no regard for the consequences to Earth or Man." Obama is not going to advance the cause much...

In Canada, any politician running for the Liberals and the Conservatives will be a corporate minion; in the USA it is even more obvious that any Democrat or Republican is a corporate minion too. Any major party who has been in power at all in the past 20 years will be a corporate apologist, willing to advance their crimes against environment and humanity.

So until "we the people" stop giving those types the power by voting for one or the other of them, we cannot expect meaningfull change.

What will it take to make change happen? Half of "we the people" don't even bother voting - the movement has to get them involved, there has to be some way of getting the disaffected ones to vote for a third party. The NDP have failed to rouse them in Canada...

INDEPENDENTS!! Imagine a Cdn Parliament with 400 independant MPs!! Could they form a coalition and appoint a PM? - does our constitution allow for that? Would the "Independent Party" be able to resist corruption/threats?

ENERGY might be the key to the revolution. If the monopoly of 'fossil fuels as our main source of energy' is broken by ordinary people owning renewable energy gear, powering their own homes and electric cars, we will have made progress in wrestling the power from the cabal. The next step might be about illegal drugs, which is the worlds 2nd largest industry - we should just grow our own, and stop supporting organised crime [which is a major source of income for banks and the financial industry]

TALK!! - if we could get the watercooler conversations to include the idea of ending corporate rule and giving average people a proper slice of the prosperity pie that the Elites are eating, we just might get those independents elected!!

Noah_Scape wrote:

INDEPENDENTS!! Imagine a Cdn Parliament with 400 independant MPs!! Could they form a coalition and appoint a PM? - does our constitution allow for that? Would the "Independent Party" be able to resist corruption/threats?

There are two legislatures with all independents. You should be able to guess which ones. I believe the constitution would allow for it; the independents would just meet and decide who the Prime Minister was. Not sure about the Leader of the Opposition though. The Canadian constitution is still composed partly of unwritten components.

http://aslwww.cr.usgs.gov/Seismic_Data/telemetry_data/DWPF_24hr.html This USGS chart is a report from near the Gulf of Mexico - at the Florida Disney Wildlife Preserve. A great deal of oil and gas have been displaced from the Deepwater Horizon and this may have serious geological consequences.

Interpretation: 6.0 and  lots of duration? 

Yeah ... right ...

God is punishing those terrible Americans for their travesties once again.

And here we go... Who would have thought it would be this soon?

Premier Danny Williams, bless him for what he has done for Nlfd-Lbdr., but he came out today and said that demanding a relief well when drilling offshore "would dramatically increase the cost of drilling", and something about "prohibitive costs", "it will discourage exploration" and so on.

It won't be prohibitive, it would be $100 Million extra per well, and those wells produce $billions of oil. I understand that the complaint is that not all wells hit oil and so they won't get anything to cover those doubled drilling costs. But take a look at bottom lines of companies like BP or Exxon and there is no doubt that it all comes out pretty favourably, like $10 Billion in profits per year, year after year. 

They send out $100 million on dividends every quarter fer gads sake.

  Asking some for protection from the mess in the Gulf of Mexico seems like a reasonable expense compared to that kind of money.

BP's PR campaign is now buying up search terms on the 'net. Who knew BP would do things like this rather than act responsibility.

BP faces daunting Gulf liability costs

Quote:

the dire prospect of the well gushing uncontrollably for another two months, spewing the equivalent of four Exxon Valdez loads of crude into the Gulf, renders all estimates of BP’s ultimate liability into pure speculation. The final tab could strain even BP’s considerable resources.

BP's official response plan for oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico is studded with patently inaccurate and inapplicable information but was nonetheless approved by the federal government, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).  Most notably, the response plan contains no information about how to cope with a deep water blowout but is littered with outright inanities, suggesting that no regulator seriously read it.

Their plan has ensured that no walrus has died in this accident.

Keep shorting that BP stock as it will soon be worthless.

BP Now Valued At Less Than Its Assets

Is BP headed for bankruptcy?

Most likely - especially if it turns out that the oil slick annihilates tourism in Florida.

Researchers have doubled estimates of how much oil has been spewing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, reporting Thursday that up to 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) a day may have escaped for weeks.

No, really? But don't worry, next time they'll do better! Um...next time?

"We will learn so much more about measuring oil in the ocean that we will be able to do a much better job next time in terms of how we go about measuring the release of oil and the inventory of oil in the ocean."

T_P,

BP's probably on the verge of going under, but both USA & UK governments will not allow it to happen.

Gulf Oil Spill: Cleaning Animals Largely Futile, Scientist Says

Doug wrote:

Researchers have doubled estimates of how much oil has been spewing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, reporting Thursday that up to 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) a day may have escaped for weeks.

 

No, really? But don't worry, next time they'll do better! Um...next time?

 

"We will learn so much more about measuring oil in the ocean that we will be able to do a much better job next time in terms of how we go about measuring the release of oil and the inventory of oil in the ocean."

WTF??

Yeah, and I really need a way to measure the pain I feel when I stab myself in the leg ... 'cause not stabbing myself in the leg never crossed my fucking mind.

What we need is a new measure of stupidity, because they just popped the top off any existing one.

Extinction level event?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4R8npXb2c&feature=related

Scientist speaks about disaster on Coast to Coast- first of eight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD67Af3EVAc&feature=related

Fumes make people ill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65ek2EfWNEU&feature=related

The short film BP doesn't want you to see

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRl6-o8CpXA

I am not certain who to believe but Harper says drilling is under control in Canada as CBC and local media downplay any risks involved  with off shore drilling.  I was taken aback when listening to the CNN a few days ago when reporting on the Gulf spill and how fortunate we all where it happened in the Gulf where Americans had the capabalities and not Canada where the wells aren't as deep as in Newfoundland where Canada has the deepest off shore wells creating immense risk for the Atlantic.

ravenise did some good legwork to find this quote:

" it appears that the real problem is not at the well head, [or] the leaking riser; the problem is around 1000 feet deep in the well bore, where the casing has blown out and the oil is leaking off into the surrounding rock or fault lines"

And that explains a lot, like why the relief wells have to go 1000s of feet down below the ocean floor instead of just a few 100 feet to cement the original bore. Ok, so now I know.

It raises some questions too - like why the media, with all it's fancy graphics and detailed explanations of the operations to stop the oil, has NEVER MENTIONED THIS FACT.

And, does it mean that BP was negligent in setting the bore casing? Was that another shortcut they took?

I was just looking around to get a good radar view of the weather here today, and came across this:

http://www.intellicast.com/National/GulfOilSpill.aspx

You might want to book mark it, to see where the oil goes in the coming months.

Welcome to the beautiful Florida beaches. Oops!

Can't get much sicker than this - thanks Obama.

 
BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence

In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.

Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.

For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!" The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama

"There's only one reason for that," the pilot said. "BP doesn't want the media taking pictures of oil on the beaches. You should see the oil that's about six miles off the coast," he said grimly. We looked down at the wavy orange boom surrounding the islands below us. The pilot shook his head. "There's no way those booms are going to stop what's offshore from hitting those beaches."

BP knows this as well -- boom can only deflect oil under the calmest of sea conditions, not barricade it -- so they have stepped up their already aggressive effort to control what the public sees.

At the same time I was en route to Orange Beach, Clint Guidry with the Louisiana Shrimp Association and Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp processor in Louisiana, were in Grand Isle taking Anderson Cooper out in a small boat to see the oiled beaches. The U.S. Coast Guard held up the boat for 20 minutes - an intimidation tactic intended to stop the cameras from recording BP's damage. Luckily for Cooper and the viewing public, Dean Blanchard is not easily intimidated.

A few days later, the jig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle.

With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!"

The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.