Oil!

[Twisted Intestine]

Stupid environmentalists! If you would have just let us drill up north we could have pawned the spill off on Canada, because it's not really America anyways!

 

[CBright7831]

Palin's got it all figured out, guys.

http://www.thespectrum.com/article/20100605/OPINION/6050331

I really hate that women.

 

[vivisectvi]

Wow: http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/

 

[Urban Warfare]

WASHINGTON — BP's runaway Deepwater Horizon well may be spewing what the company once-called its worst case scenario — 100,000 barrels a day, a member of the government panel told McClatchy Monday.

"In the data I've seen, there's nothing inconsistent with BP's worst case scenario," Ira Leifer, an associate researcher at the Marine Science Institute of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a member of the government's Flow Rate Technical Group, told McClatchy.

Leifer said that based on satellite data he's examined, the rate of flow from the well has been increasing over time, especially since BP's "top kill" effort failed last month to stanch the flow. The decision last week to sever the well's damaged riser pipe from the its blowout preventer in order to install a "top hat" containment device has increased the flow still more, far more, Leifer said, than the 20 percent that BP and the Obama administration predicted.

 

[NoCalMike]

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Broadcast/bp-buys-search-engine-phrases-redirecting-users/story?id=10835618&page=1

BP Buys 'Oil' Search Terms to Redirect Users to Official Company Website

Scott Slatin, an analyst who runs search engine marketing company Rivington in New York, estimates the company is paying upwards of $10,000 per day to maintain the various search terms.

 

[vivisectvi]

A simple Google search of "oil spill" turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. "Learn more about how BP is helping," the link's tagline reads.

How's that? The first link, below the News, is to a Wiki entry on Oil Spills

 

[Vitamin X]

He's talking about the "sponsored links" which I always ignore or have adblocked.

 

[vivisectvi]

Ahh, yeah, same here. I guess that's why I didn't notice them.

 

[BruiserBrody]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/06/14/2010-06-14_bp_to_test_out_actor_kevin_costners_oil_spill_cleanup_machine_for_possible_use_i.html


Kevin Costner is going to save the day

 

[Dobbs3K]

Obama has even lost MSNBC after last night:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/06/15/msnbc_trashes_obamas_address_compared_to_carter_i_dont_sense_executive_command.html

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Can someone tell me how/why Obama's getting so much shit for this? Jindal isn't even utilizing the LA National Guard fully!

 

[Urban Warfare]

It's funny, because you know if the government actually stepped up relief efforts ten fold, the same people criticizing Obama right now for 'not doing enough' would be bitching about higher taxes or "big government". BP is a private corporation. They fucked up, they should fix it.

I don't like Obama very much, but I don't think it's fair to blame him for this. The comparisons between this and Katrina by Fox and others is astounding to me. The Bush administration had more than enough notice to respond better. The country is so ridiculously polarized that finding someone to blame seems to be more important than realizing how truly fucking devastating this is.

And shit like this...

Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
Mr Hayward, whose pay package is £4 million a year, then paid off the mortgage on his family’s mansion in Kent, which is estimated to be valued at more than £1.2 million.

There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.
His decision, however, means he avoided losing more than £423,000 when BP’s share price plunged after the oil spill began six weeks ago.
Since he disposed of 223,288 shares on March 17, the company’s share price has fallen by 30 per cent.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/7804922/BP-chief-Tony-Hayward-sold-shares-weeks-before-oil-spill.html

The brokerage firm that’s faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP (NYSE:BP).
According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.

http://www.usatrends.info/goldman-sachs-sold-250-million-of-bp-stock-before-spill/1370

 

[Sex Machine Gun]

Perhaps the saddest part of this entire episode (besides the deaths of the men on the rig obviously) is that the throngs taking up "drill baby drill" as their rallying cry have likely not changed their minds on the issue. Worse yet, such intellectual dead-enders are now driving the all-important narrative on the issue. That Haley Barbour doesn't endorse an escrow fund to offset the damage done to his state's economy is borderline criminal considering that it's only going to get worse.

That all said, given the precipitous decline in BP stock, I might buy some for myself. That's how confident I am in big oil being allowed to continue their activity with no real new regulations or progress toward research into alternative fuels. How do they not see that being at the forefront of any new clean technology only benefits them in the long run?

 

[NoCalMike]

Is the poll going around that 49-45 still favor BP being in charge of the cleanup efforts? If that's true, then what exactly do they expect BP to do? What do they think BP's interest in all of this is mostly? Probably to salvage as much oil as possible. So with BP in charge that is we are going to get.

 

[Dobbs3K]

Can someone tell me how/why Obama's getting so much shit for this? Jindal isn't even utilizing the LA National Guard fully!

The same people criticizing Obama so fervently are the same people not mentioning how the lack of oversight under Bush/Cheney at least indirectly lead to this mess.

 

[909]

Wrong. The restrictions that were in place under Bush and Cheney pushed BP out to a point where they wouldn't be able to plug any hole at this depth. Not to say BP should be drilling out there, but if not for those regulations they surely would not have been. To complain about under regulation in this case is more than foolish as well as completely untrue. I will even bold it for you so you cannot drag the conversation onto any other field. As usual, you are completely off, you cannot blame everything on the boogeyman.

 

[ericmm]

You are repeating such malarky.

The idea that there are massive untapped reserves left on land is ridiculous. They've been drilling that shit out of the ground for decades, and the US on land output peaked in the 70's, especially in the continental U.S.

 

[909]

Wow, you are a fucking idiot and cannot read. Somehow I just knew it would be you that would respond to my post, call it crap, and say I said something which I never said.

Read these two parts and shut the fuck up.

The restrictions that were in place under Bush and Cheney pushed BP out to a point where they wouldn't be able to plug any hole at this depth.

To complain about under regulation in this case is more than foolish as well as completely untrue.

So are you dense? Why not discuss that instead of referring to something which is completely irrelevant to my points?

 

[Byron The Bulb]

I think it's fair to complain about under regulation in this case insofar as there probably should have been restrictions in place to stop companies from drilling at depths where they would be incapable of plugging any leak.

 

[909]

The thought behind the initial regulations was that spills wouldn't reach the coast if in fact a leak came about out there. It was regulated that way for that specific purpose. Construction was begun on the rig during Clinton's presidency so any claims of Bush Bush Bush or telling me I was full of crap are totally hogwash. I had to lay into that. The land however was leased to BP in 2008 at an open auction. Which has nothing to do with Bush. Anything that has happened where the rig has gone wonky has been after Bush left office.

I mean, how about this

Prior to Director Birnbaum's appointment, MMS granted a categorical exclusion waiver on April 6, 2009 to BP exempting it from National Environmental Policy Act's requirements including a detailed environmental analysis, concluding the spill risk in that part of the Gulf was “minimal or nonexistent.” Such NEPA waivers have become routine at MMS, and the Interior department approves 250 to 400 per year for Gulf of Mexico projects.

The problem is simply that BP had too many undertrained workers who didn't know how to do their job.

As far as Eric's point about being dried up goes, that isn't true. There is more oil being found and produced down there than ever before, even in these conditions of dangerous drills.

 

[909]

I just realized one part of that post made me sound a certain way, not my intent. There is no President to blame for the blowout or what happened leading up to it (so for people to say Bush! or Obama! is pretty silly honestly), what has happened afterward is merely a matter of opinion and I don't feel like arguing about it again.

 

[Dobbs3K]

All I meant earlier was that most of the bitching about Obama is partisan politics as usual. Every president in the last 30 years has been on record saying we need to end our "addiction to oil", and then done nothing about it.

More stupidity:

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/bp-oil-spill-gov-bobby-jindals-wishes-crude/story?id=10946379

 

[Byron The Bulb]

 

[Incandenza]

I'm so proud to have that homoheterosexual as my governor.

Slightly related, I should go to the beach before the oil completes its trip around Florida and ruins the southeast coastline, huh.

 

[Urban Warfare]

What the fuck is going on here already? This thing has been going for two fucking months so far, and not only have the ideas to stop or even slow this leak been few and far between, they've been laughable and frighteningly incompetent. The fuck gives? How can a company that had 760 safety violations in a three year span even be allowed to drill in the first place? Not to mention that they were obviously grossly unprepared in the event that a leak did occur. I am really starting to fear what else might be at play here. The astounding level of incompetence not only before, but after this leak are one thing, but now we have reports of Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward himself selling off BP stock in huge numbers before the spill. This can only lead me to believe something else is going on here, so my question is: What the fuck?!

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Anyone know where Downhome was when things hit the fan?

 

[CBright7831]

I've been on vacation here in Clearwater but no oil to report. It's kind of sad looking at this beautiful beach and ocean and know in a month from now it probably will get affected by the spill.

 

[NoCalMike]

So supposedly there may be something rotten in Denmark regarding the disbursement chemicals being used. BP is keeping secret some of the chemical ingredients in it.

Also, I guess the disbursements doesn't get rid of the oil, it just breaks it into clumps and makes it sink to the bottom, which in change does nothing to clean anything up, rather gets it off the surface where it can be photographed and videotaped daily.

http://www.ewg.org/kid-safe-chemicals-act-blog/2010/05/why-are-dispersant-chemicals-secret/

 

[Jaxxxson Mayhem]

I'm so proud to have that homoheterosexual as my governor.

Slightly related, I should go to the beach before the oil completes its trip around Florida and ruins the southeast coastline, huh.

It won't likely effect all of Florida. It will likely be carried around Florida by a current.

 

[Dobbs3K]

I'm not sure who to be more angry at. Obama for appearing as if he doesn't care about this issue, or the GOP and neo-con pundits who act like there is some sort of magic cork that will fix this mess.