Gail Anne's a much better singer than she is a bassist. thanks for posting- i hadn't seen this version.
blood in the water? [rquoter]The Scent Of Fear Posted by Jay Tea Published: June 21, 2010 - 6:30 AM I've always been enamored of Professor Glenn Reynolds' oft-repeated aphorism: "I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who say there's a crisis act like there's a crisis." It's a great BS detector, but it has some corollaries that I'm finding truly terrifying. What does it mean when those people say there's a crisis, I agree that there's a crisis, but they refuse to act like there's a crisis? I speak, of course, about the Gulf oil spill. I read the alleged inside account of the situation Kevin posted last week, and come to the conclusion that the anonymous author is a lousy writer, but seems to know his ****. And the conclusion I drew from that -- as well as what so many others have said -- is that the situation below the former Deepwater Horizon platform is developing into an ecological catastrophe that could scar -- and economically cripple -- the US for a very, very long time. This is Katrina bad. This is 9/11 bad. This is JFK Assassination bad. This is Pearl Harbor bad. And -- it should go without saying -- this is "screw politics, all hands on deck" bad. But it isn't. The Obama administration wastes no opportunity to remind us of how dire the situation is in the Gulf. But its actions are utterly inconsistent with their words. While the oil is still spewing, we have certain needs to best respond to the ongoing catastrophe. And those needs are not only being ignored by the Obama administration, but -- in some cases -- being actively sabotaged. We need a strong, focused BP -- the people who ran the rig that failed so disastrously -- to lead the efforts in stopping the flow. They were the ones who ran it, who were in charge of it when it blew up. Unless we think they deliberately destroyed it, they are the best people to know exactly what happened and how best to stop it. Instead, we have an administration that seems hell-bent on destroying BP. Hell, last week they extorted a $20-billion-dollar shakedown out of BP. And, cynically, the primary motive wasn't to get that money, but to secure the federal government's first dibs on BP's assets should they file bankruptcy in the US. This was the same move the Obama administration pulled with GM and Chrysler -- bypassing the normal rules of bankruptcy and screwing out the other creditors. We need an easing of normal restrictions and limitations, freeing up all parties concerned to react swiftly to the impending slow-motion disaster. Instead, we have the Coast Guard turning away skimmers for inadequate life jackets, states being blocked from building berms due to long-term environmental impact concerns, foreign vessels and offers of assistance and expertise being ignored. We need to find ways to minimize the immediate economic impact of the disaster, to somehow compensate for the loss of revenues from the damage in the Gulf. Instead, we have a proposed moratorium on all new offshore drilling, throwing even more people out of work, removing even more oil from our national supply. We need to get the best and brightest and throw them at the problem. We need the experts, the geniuses, to figure out how best to stop the ongoing crisis, repair the harm it has caused, and prevent it from happening again. Instead, we have a panel of experts finding their words distorted and their explicit rejection of a suspension of offshore drilling rewritten into an endorsement. And we have a new panel of "experts" who have absolutely no experience or knowledge of oil drilling, but have absolutely solid leftist credentials in Big Oil Bashing and environmental extremism. There are several possible explanations for this, and I have no idea which is the most frightening. 1) The disaster isn't as bad as we all think it is, and the Obama administration knows that. If that was true, then their "never let a crisis go to waste" response is understandable. Heinous, but understandable. This is an opportunity for them to push their agenda, and push it hard. 2) The disaster is as bad as we think, but the Obama administration doesn't realize it. This would be entirely in character with this administration. They are the Peter Principle writ large: they have been promoted past their level of competency. They simply can't grasp that this disaster is a game-changer, so they are simply playing the game that they have played all their lives. Not because that's what they think is best, but because that's all they know how to do. "When your only tool is a hammer, all your problems start looking like nails." 3) The disaster is at least as bad as we think, if not worse, and the Obama administration knows it. If that is the case, then the only explanation that makes any sense is that they believe that the whole thing is a lost cause, that it is pretty much an unstoppable catastrophe, and they're figuring that since we're all pretty much ****ed, they might as well get theirs before it all goes to hell. 4) The disaster isn't as bad as we think it is, but the Obama administration doesn't realize it. That's the fourth possibility of my little 2x2 matrix here, but I give it very little weight. It's the most Pollyannaish of the possibilities, and fits in with the first part of "hope for the best, but plan for the worst." I only include it here for the sake of completion. At this time, we -- as a nation -- need leadership. Real leadership. We don't need an ass-kicker-in-chief. We don't need someone firing up the blamethrower and sending in the lawyers to make certain all i's are crossed and t's are dotted. We don't need partisan hacks making certain their opponents get the blame and their friends get benefits, regardless of the facts. We don't need a community organizer in chief. We don't need someone to rally anger over Big Business and the politicians "owned" by Big Business, marshaling the high emotions provoked by the disaster to find a villain or villains to string up (hopefully, only in effigy) while the disaster continues unchecked. What we need is a leader. A commander in chief. Someone who knows that the first thing you do in a disaster is stop the ongoing harm. The second thing you do is try to repair the harm done. The third thing you do is figure out what went wrong. The fourth thing you do is try to prevent it from happening again. Only after all that is done to you apportion blame and punish those whose misdeeds caused or enabled or enhanced the disaster. I find myself hoping that there's an explanation for the Obama administration's actions in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout. That there is a method behind their madness, that there is some unifying theory or principle or belief that justifies all their actions so far. But I'm not betting on it. [/rquoter]
from the post linked in my post above: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/06/18/bp-oil-spill-worst-case-scenario.php [rquoter]Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks. A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons. There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation. This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore. (...) It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo. We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said. Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well. We can only hope the race against that eventuality is one we can win, but my assessment I am sad to say is that we will not. The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come. Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong. We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.[/rquoter]
I like the author says we need to be tough on BP but then is upset that we are. Says that we don't need partisanship but ends up writing a partisan screed.
US Fish and Wildlife personnel cleaning up the beaches in the national refuges have stopped working during the day. At night, the workers don't have to deal with sun's heat, the oil is easier to clean up at cooler temps, and the tidal schedules favor the night. Of course, they are all dog tired with no end in sight.
(A) please don't quote him. TIA (B) you interrupted three straight posts, robbing him of a new record.
there's an amazing set of pictures up at boston.com's The Big Picture. one example, spoilered for img size. Spoiler
i think this is the type of partisanship we should be concerned about. [rquoter]Why Won't Obama Waive the Jones Act? While the president says he "will not settle for inaction," his failure to waive the Jones Act -- even if for the sole purpose of sending a message to our allies -- suggests he's not doing everything he can. Five years ago, in the midst of another crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, the Bush administration waived the Jones Act, easing the way for foreign vessels to move in U.S. waters and between ports. The decision came with the administration under duress for its handling of Hurricane Katrina. Today the Obama administration faces a different set of challenges with the Gulf oil spill cleanup. But unlike his predecessor, President Obama has declined to suspend the law, even temporarily. Obama's decision has turned into a public relations headache for an administration already reeling from its oversight of the oil spill. European allies, longtime opponents of the Jones Act, have asserted they were turned away when making offers of assistance. The State Department acknowledges it has had 21 aid offers from 17 countries. Critics in both parties are now seizing on the issue to question the administration's competence. It took center stage at a House subcommittee hearing Thursday. Some critics have suggested that Obama is protecting the pocketbooks of his union allies by keeping foreign vessels at bay. But several Jones Act experts told me that makes little sense because unions have minimal influence in the Gulf. Foreign competition, therefore, would do little to hurt their bottom line. In addition, the Seafarers International Union, while supporters of the Jones Act, maintained good relations with the Bush administration. In 2000, the union donated $3,544 to candidate George W. Bush and nothing to Democrat Al Gore. Bush benefited with a $2,000 donation in 2004, while Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) received nothing. The union didn’t donate any money to candidate Obama in 2008. So why won't the Obama administration simply issue a blanket waiver, just as the Bush administration did in 2005? It would end the controversy and quiet a growing chorus of critics. The administration defends its stance by citing a well-established waiver process for foreign vessels. In short, a request to U.S. Customs and Border Protection prompts an inquiry to the Maritime Administration, which leads to a search of the U.S. fleet. If an American ship can provide the same services, the request is denied. Otherwise, the foreign vessel gets a waiver. That process differs from a blanket waiver -- the tactic used by then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff in 2005 after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Bush administration justified the move by citing a need to transport oil and gasoline in the Gulf region. Jones Act expert Charlie Papavizas said the 2005 Katrina waiver, which lasted from Sept. 1 to Sept. 19, was used primarily to move cargo between ports, but it didn't result in any new foreign ships in the region. "Twenty days is not enough time to reposition and do anything useful," he said. Mark Ruge, who works with the Maritime Cabotage Task Force, was even blunter: "After the fact, if you look at Katrina and ask, ‘What was the advantage to the United States of America by blanket waiving the Jones Act?’ The answer is nothing came of that -- nothing that couldn't have been accomplished with the usual process. It was just one more thing you could say you did." The Obama administration's critics think otherwise and show no signs of relenting. Sen. George LeMieux (R-Fla.) pressed the president on the Jones Act during a recent face-to-face meeting. LeMieux said the action would signal America's allies that their help is wanted. Given the dire situation in the Gulf, what's the harm? Two other members from Florida, Reps. Corrine Brown (D) and John Mica (R), said their state is suffering while skimmers sit idle. At a hearing on Thursday, Brown held up photos of vessels in Mexico and Norway, asking, "What is the process for the state to take advantage of skimmers from other countries?" Mica trained his criticism on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano for failing to mobilize the entire American fleet. "U.S.-flag vessels have the capacity to bolster the current oil skimming and removal taking place in the Gulf of Mexico," he said. "Over the last couple of weeks, we have seen oil products wash up on the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida while vessels, which could have been pressed into service, sit idle. This is unacceptable." With the spill cleanup reaching its 63rd day, is it too late for a Jones Act waiver to have an impact? LeMiuex believes there's still time for foreign vessels to help near the coast, given the uncertainty about how long the cleanup will last. He's disappointed it has taken the administration so long to act. This, of course, is the primary criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the spill. While the president says he "will not settle for inaction," his failure to waive the Jones Act -- even if for the sole purpose of sending a message to our allies -- suggests he's not doing everything he can. Robert B. Bluey directs the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation.[/rquoter] which reinforces the questions raised in my post above- if this is as epic a disaster as it appears, why is Obama concerned about protecting unions? where's the all hands on deck mentality?
“President Obama will keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He and Vice President Biden will take steps to ensure that the federal government will never again allow such catastrophic failures in emergency planning and response to occur.” -- White House Web Site, Jan., 20th, 2008 Spoiler
And, of course, he has kept that promise by mobilizing the entire Coast Guard along with thousands of people cleaning up the oil when and where it makes landfall. The picture was cute, but doesn't change the fact that everything you type is loaded with FAIL.
Submitted by Wayne Madsen of www.OilPrice.com Obama Administration Knew About Deepwater Horizon 35,000 Feet Well Bore President Obama and Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were informed that BP would drill an unprecedented 35,000 feet well bore at the Macondo site off the coast of Louisiana. In September 2009, the Deepwater Horizon successfully sunk a well bore at a depth of 35,055 below sea level at the Tiber Prospect in the Keathley Canyon block 102 in the Gulf of Mexico, southeast of Houston. During the September drilling operations, the Deepwater Horizon drill penetrated a massive undersea oil deposit but BP's priorities changed when the Macondo site in the Mississippi Canyon off the coast of Louisiana was found to contain some 3-4 billion barrels of oil in an underground cavern estimated to be about the size of Mount Everest. It was as a result of another 35,000 feet well bore sank by the Deepwater Horizon at the Macondo site that the catastrophic explosion occurred on April 20. According to the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR) sources within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Pentagon and Interior and Energy Departments told the Obama Administration that the newly-discovered estimated 3-4 billion barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico would cover America's oil needs for up to eight months if there was a military attack on Iran that resulted in the bottling up of the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic, resulting in a cut-off of oil to the United States from the Persian Gulf. Obama, Salazar, Chu, and Gates green-lighted the risky Macondo drilling operation from the outset, according to WMR's government sources. WMR learned that BP was able to have several safety checks waved because of the high-level interest by the White House and Pentagon in tapping the Gulf of Mexico bonanza find in order to plan a military attack on Iran without having to be concerned about an oil and natural gas shortage from the Persian Gulf after an outbreak of hostilities with Iran. BP still has an ongoing operation to drill down to 40,000 feet below sea level at the Liberty field off the north coast of Alaska. Source: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-G...t-Deepwater-Horizon-35000-Feet-Well-Bore.html By. Wayne Madsen for Oilprice.com who offer detailed analysis on Oil, alternative Energy, Commodities, Finance and Geopolitics. They also provide free Geopolitical intelligence to help investors gain a greater understanding of world events and the impact they have on certain regions and sectors. Visit: http://www.oilprice.com
