you missed the point, the messanger isn't palin, the messanger is trying to say sarah was better prepared because she was a governor. ignoring the fact that she was a governor that quit.
I would be curious to hear Browner's exact quote rather than a second hand report and also where she got the info. My guess is that she was laying out a worst case scenario but not a definitive statement since she stated something like this had never been done before. Without knowing what was exactly said I'm still not going to say he had the info about how bad this was going to be. He had some speculation about how serious this might become, what even we were doing here, but everything I have seen was that the only actual facts about what was going on were coming from BP. I agree he should've done what you say but there is a political risk to incase the worst case scenario didn't pan out, like say if the ROV's were able to close the BOP.
That is sort of my point. That many of those who are complaining about the seeming lack of a government response now more than likely would've been opposed to the government developing the means to address this situation prior to this disaster. Its the same as people like Gov. Jindal who in his response to 2009 State of Union boasted about how they can do things better than the Fed. now screaming for more Federal help. Also I agree with you on relief wells. One other idea I was thinking about was that in the event of a disaster like this the US government could nationalize resources like ROV's to deal with a crisis like this. Sort of how the government can nationalize the Merchant Marine and commercial airliners for military transport. I don't have a firm opinion on whether we should have more coastal drilling versus deepwater drilling. Given that the Ixtoc disaster was in shallow water and still took months to fix I'm not sure that coastal drilling is necessarily safer and you also have to consider that a spill closer in shore would immediately hit valuable ecosystems and tourists resources.
I really really wish I could share everything I've seen with you kind folk, but there are serious legal implications to that. I surely hope you don't still think I'm lame. That would be just the worst. "et alia" 1. Dad works for Transocean LTD. 2. Not involved in the engineering/ecological aspect, only the financial side and the corporate decision-making process (ie. the interactions between BP and Transocean and how the response is being financed/organized)
Totally agreed. It's comical. Jindal's plan is pretty much ridiculous to begin with, but then he demands the federal government come in and implement it, after railing on the "incompentency" of federal beurocracy in 2009. Hypocritical asshat.
Which was the bigger risk? What happened or over-reacting. Let's say Obama came out tough and strong from the get go and they plugged the leak. Obama could say that we got really lucky and the nation could bear a big sigh of relief that for reasons x, y, and z we avoided catastrophe. even better, he could say, "Because of the serious pressure we were able to put upon BP, it we were able to push them into acting quickly and containing the damage. But he still could call it the "3-mile Island" of off-shore drilling" and take the lead. Either way he could win out. The risk in not acting is usually always greater than taking some action as long as that action doesn't have irreversible consequences (such as invading Iraq and disposing of it's leadership).
More on what obama knew: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04coastguard.html and the coast guard knew too:
Just stumbled on these guys and it is HILARIOUS! <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mSujCHfvTb0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mSujCHfvTb0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
latest press release said bp collected over 7500 barrels in the last 12 hours. sounds like it is working well.
Colbert's take on BP's maths: <table style='font:11px arial; color:#333; background-color:#f5f5f5' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='360' height='353'><tbody><tr style='background-color:#e5e5e5' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;'><a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.colbertnation.com'>The Colbert Report</a></td><td style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; text-align:right; font-weight:bold;'>Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c</td></tr><tr style='height:14px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:2px 1px 0px 5px;' colspan='2'><a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/311927/june-07-2010/oil-s-well-that-never-ends'>Oil's Well That Never Ends</a></td></tr><tr style='height:14px; background-color:#353535' valign='middle'><td colspan='2' style='padding:2px 5px 0px 5px; width:360px; overflow:hidden; text-align:right'><a target='_blank' style='color:#96deff; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.colbertnation.com/'>www.colbertnation.com</a></td></tr><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><embed style='display:block' src='http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:311927' width='360' height='301' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' wmode='window' allowFullscreen='true' flashvars='autoPlay=false' allowscriptaccess='always' allownetworking='all' bgcolor='#000000'></embed></td></tr><tr style='height:18px;' valign='middle'><td style='padding:0px;' colspan='2'><table style='margin:0px; text-align:center' cellpadding='0' cellspacing='0' width='100%' height='100%'><tr valign='middle'><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/'>Colbert Report Full Episodes</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.indecisionforever.com'>Political Humor</a></td><td style='padding:3px; width:33%;'><a target='_blank' style='font:10px arial; color:#333; text-decoration:none;' href='http://www.colbertnation.com/video/tag/Fox+News'>Fox News</a></td></tr></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
Gulf oil leak causing upheaval in marine ecology 18:01 08 June 2010 by Phil McKenna As oil continues to leak out of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon well head, researchers are beginning to collect data on how it is changing life in the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier today, Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia in Athens spoke of what they are finding. She said that methane concentrations in a giant underwater plume emanating from the well head are as much as 10,000 times higher than background levels. The consequences of this for life in the gulf are unknown. Joye was one of the first scientists to discover deep-water plumes emanating from the ongoing spill and recently returned from a two-week research expedition on board the research vessel F. G. Walton Smith. "It's an infusion of oil and gas that has never been seen before, certainly not in human history," she said earlier today, as she described her preliminary findings. The plume is more than 24 kilometres long, 8 kilometres wide and 90 metres thick, and stretches from 700 to 1300 metres below the surface south-south-west of the collapsed Deepwater Horizon well head. Busy bacteria Joye's team measured oxygen levels throughout the water column near the plume and found them to be lower than normal, all the way from the sea floor to the surface. She says this is a result of increased activity from bacteria that are digesting the oil. The Gulf of Mexico is no stranger to decreased oxygen levels: every year, fertilisers pouring off the US coast boost algal growth, which sucks oxygen out of the water and stifles other life forms, creating one of the world's largest known dead zones. Joye said she did not think the extra microbial activity would be significant enough to create additional dead zones in the gulf, because microbes need nutrients that do not exist in high enough concentrations at depth. But she cautions that the environmental implications are unknown. "The system as a whole has been substantially perturbed by this event," says Joye. "When you interfere with the natural system, it's likely that problems will cascade up the food web." No end in sight One big unknown, she says, is how chemical dispersants that are being injected into the leaking oil to break it up will affect phytoplankton and other organisms at the bottom of the food chain. In fact, it's possible – but difficult to prove at this point – that the dispersants and oil are already killing phytoplankton, which could account for low oxygen levels recorded in near-surface waters. And the oil and dispersants are likely to be around for a while yet: a seasonal change in surface current flows – from north-east to south-west – that takes effect in August means the mix will continue sloshing around the gulf rather than be pushed out into the open ocean. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19021-gulf-oil-leak-causing-upheaval-in-marine-ecology.html
i think time will tell with this. i really believe a lot of the damage can be avoided if we utilize the modern technology that is out there quickly. when it's all said and done i am curious how this disaster will rank with the dust bowl.
