Spill Baby Spill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iolgiIvfV-0

So I wonder how many of these drones and their Chillbilly leader are heading down to Louisiana to help with the clean-up.

Sarah tweeted that it is not the drilling but the fact that the company BP is a foreign company and can not be trusted. She seems to have forgotten that Todd (formerly known "First Dude") worked for BP for almost 20 years.

Selective memory is a wonderful thing isn't it :rolleyes:

Sarah tweeted that it is not the drilling but the fact that the company BP is a foreign company and can not be trusted. She seems to have forgotten that Todd (formerly known "First Dude") worked for BP for almost 20 years.

Can't not trust them too much since the Alaska Permanent Fund holds 7 million shares of BP (that's the investment arm of the Alaskan government that doles out money to the state's inhabitants annually based on the money the state made from their oil reserves). They have held those shares all through Sarah's abbreviated tenure as governor and her state has huge contracts with BP for handling those reserves.

http://www.apfc.org/home/Content/investments/stocksTop502009.cfm

The oil companies are going to all pull together, do the right thing, and make reparations.

The oil companies are going to all pull together, do the right thing, and make reparations.
:lol:

Like Exxon did in Alaska, it took them tons of years but they got their fine reduced by 100s of millions of dollars.

The oil companies are going to all pull together, do the right thing, and make reparations.

If it is safe for you to travel to Arizona, I know a bridge for sale!!

Hey, don't be so cynical.

Remember the "gas crisis" back in the 70's when gas prices tripled and quadrupled overnight from less than $1.00 per gallon?

Right after the oil started flowing again, they dropped the prices down to the pre-crisis levels. Nobody pays $3.00 or $4.00 for a gallon of gas now, silly.

$2.87 for regular in Metro Atlanta as of 5/10/2010

Is that high or low for you down there? Up here prices have been slowly increasing the last 6 weeks or so.

It has been jumping about 4-6 cents every 7-10 days for the past 2-3 months.
It was below $2.00 for a period of time last year. Predictions have gas at over $3.00 for the summer.

As the weather gets warmer, and more people drive more, for some reason the price of gas always creeps up.

Sort of like the swallows returning to Capistrano.

Funny how that works.

The "explanation" "excuse" "fabrication", etc for the increase is that the state (GA) requires an additional additive in the gasoline during summer months to reduce smog.

Personally, I have always thought the gas companies would charge s much as they thought they could get away with and once the public "revolted", the companies would drop prices. With the reported profits for the oil companies for the last several years at an all time high, it seems clear that the price at the pump is not base as much on production costs as the greed of the oil companies.

Getting back to the spill, BP is blaming Haliburton, and also shopping for judges in Texas because they think the judges there will be more favorable to them as far as a cap in payouts goes. So all these TX companies with no regulations, but I guess we're not allowed to blame the Bush admin for this either.

And BP is actually asking folks for ideas because they never had a plan for disaster, besides paying everyone off like they do after leaks in Alaska.

BP is brave to think they will be able to find judges who will rule against Halliburton. But isn't Halliburton the company that fled the US for Dubai? If that is the case, maybe Halliburton has lost some of its clout.

The judge shopping is so they don't have to payout as much to victims. They promised the Mississippi AG there wouldn't be a cap, then went judge shopping the same day to find a TX judge to enforce a cap on the BP payout to states and individual victims (like the fishermen).

The blaming of Haliburton is to also limit what percentage of the fault they will be assessed. Seems Haliburton was fiddling around on the rig not long before the explosion.

Of course, the fact BP has no recovery plan at all should make them responsible for all the cleanup.

But like Exxon and the Valdez, they'll get out of paying all they owe for this.

The citizens in these state elect GOP officials and then they are surprised when the officials and courts side with the huge corporations.

Texas did enact some fairly straight-forward tort reform limiting exactly where a lawsuit in state court can be filed.

http://cagle.com/working/100511/schorr.jpg

http://cagle.com/working/100511/beeler.jpg

http://cagle.com/working/100511/wright.jpg

Maybe I missed it, but during these hearings have any of these three companies mentioned the men who were killed when this thing exploded?

http://cagle.com/working/100513/stahler.jpg


http://cagle.com/working/100513/breen.jpg


http://cagle.com/working/100513/benson.jpg


http://cagle.com/working/100513/deering.gif

Yesterday on NPR, they spoke with the governors of Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi. Florida and Louisiana were extrememly concerned about this spill. Mushmouthed Haly Barbour, former RNC head and now governor of Mississippi was totally nonplussed about the spill, claiming it wasn't as bad as the media was reporting and it was definitely not as bad as the Exxon Valdez. His head is so far up the ass of big oil thhat he is willing to sacrifice both the financial and environmental damage to his own state and blatantly lie to his constituents. It's funny watching the republican party (or as I like to call them, the Theater of the Absurd) squirm and spin on this issue.

It is being reported today that based on independent analysis, the spill is ten times worse than initially reported and is spewing out 50,000 barrels of oil each day, surpassing the Vadez by multiples. If you see the satellite images, this is a massive environmental disaster and I'm willing to bet when all is said and done it will be the worst environmental disaster in our history.

Drill Baby Drill

Now they're trying a tube to suck the oil out...why do I get a feeling all these devices came from the Acme Corporation......

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s257/spacepope4u/looney_tunes_acme_company_products.jpg

Where do you get the "instant girl" stuff?

Acme!!!

http://royshaff.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/wylie-coyote.jpg

Earthquake pills? I thought all you had to do was show off your cleavage for that?

Where do you get the "instant girl" stuff?


http://www.wiseacre-gardens.com/toons/martian_instant.gif

So Haley, how is that little spill doing? Good thing it's nowhere near as bad as the Exxon Vadez. Funny how all the anti-government types down there are screaming why the government isn't doing something to stop this. Why don't they just ask the free market to take care of it?

The spill is now bigger than the state of Maryland. Does anyone realize what a staggering ecologiocal disaster this is?

Rush (Limbaugh) has been on one of his typical rants lately, mocking the chicken littles who have predicted this spill could ultimately be more disastrous than the devastating 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska, which spilled at least 250,000 barrels of oil. That figure looks like a sunny day compared to the potential damage this spill could do to the most vital fishing areas in our nation, not to mention a Gulf Coast that is still reeling from the Katrina disaster.

Let's be blunt, anyone who still listens to anything this bloviating pork roll says is an idiot. Period.

http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/left-right-left-is-the-gulf-oil-spill-really-about-politics/question-1023617/

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) doesn't seem to think the disastrous Gulf Coast oil spill is that bad.

The AP reports:

Oil has not started washing up on shore in any large quantities, and Barbour likened much of the spill to the gasoline sheen commonly found around ski boats.
"We don't wash our face in it, but it doesn't stop us from jumping off the boat to ski," Barbour said.

Barbour also suggested that it was "possible that what happens here will be manageable and of moderate and even minimal impact."

The Republican governor also said media coverage of the spill has hurt his state's tourism industry, and made a pitch for more visitors.

"Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you're here," he said.

Barbour's not the only one trying to downplay the spill. BP CEO Tony Hayward told the Guardian t
hat the spill is "tiny" compared to the "very big ocean."

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) doesn't seem to think the disastrous Gulf Coast oil spill is that bad.

The AP reports:

Oil has not started washing up on shore in any large quantities, and Barbour likened much of the spill to the gasoline sheen commonly found around ski boats.
"We don't wash our face in it, but it doesn't stop us from jumping off the boat to ski," Barbour said.

Barbour also suggested that it was "possible that what happens here will be manageable and of moderate and even minimal impact."

The Republican governor also said media coverage of the spill has hurt his state's tourism industry, and made a pitch for more visitors.

"Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you're here," he said.

Barbour's not the only one trying to downplay the spill. BP CEO Tony Hayward told the Guardian that the spill is "tiny" compared to the "very big ocean."
Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) doesn't seem to think the disastrous Gulf Coast oil spill is that bad.

The AP reports:

Oil has not started washing up on shore in any large quantities, and Barbour likened much of the spill to the gasoline sheen commonly found around ski boats.
"We don't wash our face in it, but it doesn't stop us from jumping off the boat to ski," Barbour said.

Barbour also suggested that it was "possible that what happens here will be manageable and of moderate and even minimal impact."

The Republican governor also said media coverage of the spill has hurt his state's tourism industry, and made a pitch for more visitors.

"Come on down here and play golf, enjoy the beach, catch a fish and pay a little sales tax while you're here," he said.

Barbour's not the only one trying to downplay the spill. BP CEO Tony Hayward told the Guardian that the spill is "tiny" compared to the "very big ocean."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

Let no one forget that the Conservative voters of the Gulf States have sent a solid block of government-hating, corporation-loving Conservatives to Congress for fifty years. For two generations, those Neanderthals have worked tirelessly to weaken every regulation on corporate behavior. For half a century, they have opposed, blocked, gutted, or subverted every anti-pollution regulation, drilling regulation, workplace safety regulation, reporting regulation, wage regulation, and inspection regulation. They vote to reduce the number of inspectors, reduce research, reduce enforcement, and reduce penalties for corporate misbehavior. Global corporations provide them with bribes, campaign contributions, pretty girls, and really great jobs in case they ever lose an election. Corporate money is used to finance phony “scientific research” which “proves” that global warming is a myth, that air pollution is caused by cows, that tobacco does not cause cancer, that the “free” market is self-regulating, and that government is incompetent, incapable, evil, and insane by nature. Conservatives in Congress quote these phony findings as if they actually believed them to be true instead of outrageous falsehoods.

So welcome to the “free” market, my fellow Americans. Unemployed Southerners are now “free” to move to Arizona and pick crops. In a few years, they will have saved enough to send for their families.

We should put an extra tax on Republican voters and use that money to clean up the Gulf. They are more responsible for this mess than BP. After all, we ALL knew that BP would cheat and cut corners wherever they could, just like every other corporation. Every corporation always does. Every corporation that is not closely regulated always will.

For a group of people (especially the elected officials) who have long railed against the interference of BIG government, they all seem pretty quick to demand that the BIG government assume responsibility and take over.

Since the federal government is not in the oil drilling business, I am not sure exactly what they think the government can do with no equipment or trained personnel to stop the leak --- maybe they expect the government to hire (and pay) Hailburton to do BP's job?

Watch from the 4:55 mark:

http://vodpod.com/watch/3596434-release-the-kagan

http://cagle.com/working/100527/luckovich.jpg


http://cagle.com/working/100527/schorr.jpg

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/05/27/gulf.oil.spill/index.html?hpt=T1

Let no one forget that the Conservative voters of the Gulf States have sent a solid block of government-hating, corporation-loving Conservatives to Congress for fifty years. For two generations, those Neanderthals have worked tirelessly to weaken every regulation on corporate behavior. For half a century, they have opposed, blocked, gutted, or subverted every anti-pollution regulation, drilling regulation, workplace safety regulation, reporting regulation, wage regulation, and inspection regulation. They vote to reduce the number of inspectors, reduce research, reduce enforcement, and reduce penalties for corporate misbehavior. Global corporations provide them with bribes, campaign contributions, pretty girls, and really great jobs in case they ever lose an election. Corporate money is used to finance phony “scientific research” which “proves” that global warming is a myth, that air pollution is caused by cows, that tobacco does not cause cancer, that the “free” market is self-regulating, and that government is incompetent, incapable, evil, and insane by nature. Conservatives in Congress quote these phony findings as if they actually believed them to be true instead of outrageous falsehoods.

So welcome to the “free” market, my fellow Americans. Unemployed Southerners are now “free” to move to Arizona and pick crops. In a few years, they will have saved enough to send for their families.

We should put an extra tax on Republican voters and use that money to clean up the Gulf. They are more responsible for this mess than BP. After all, we ALL knew that BP would cheat and cut corners wherever they could, just like every other corporation. Every corporation always does. Every corporation that is not closely regulated always will.

So that means that they are not entitled to the federal government's help in overseeing the operations on federal property? Ridiculously stupid argument.

Ridiculously stupid interpretation/conclusion of what was said.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mitchell-bard/gop-hypocrisy-has-been-ex_b_593521.html

GOP Hypocrisy Has Been Exposed by the BP Oil Disaster

As I read about President Obama's press conference yesterday addressing the government's plans for the cleanup of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I was reminded of two of the major ills affecting our modern democracy.

The first has to do with the political blame game. For the first 16 months, the Republicans (aided by their loyal ally, the right-wing propaganda machine) have engaged in a cynical, anti-patriotic campaign to demonize the president and his policies through lies. (To be clear, opposing the president is not, in itself, unpatriotic. Honest opposition to work towards the best policy for all Americans is patriotic. But, in this case, the GOP was looking out for its own political fortunes ahead of the best interests of the country, and was dishonest in its approach.) What made this plan of action particularly disturbing is that not only was Obama tasked with trying to address major problems he inherited when he assumed office (a failing financial system and economy, two wars, a massive deficit, etc.), but these problems were created in large part by an incompetent and reckless Republican president, aided and abetted by a capitulating Republican-controlled congress.

So, all for political gain, the Republicans engaged in more than a year of lies and distortions, from creating "death panels" to trying to convince the American people that the president was an extremist, a socialist on the fringes of American political ideology, while offering no solutions to address the existing overwhelming problems (no, more tax cuts for the rich will not help create jobs). That doesn't even include the Tea Party types who told the world, often via complimentary right wing media, that the president was a Hitler-like, Communist/Nazi Kenyan Muslim seeking to destroy the United States of America from within.

The GOP strategy might be successful in November, but when a real tragedy happens, like the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, the hypocrisy of this kind of approach becomes apparent. Many of the same right-wingers who tell tall tales of Obama wanting to initiate a government takeover of American industry now criticize the president for not pushing aside BP and overseeing the efforts to stop the flow of oil flooding the gulf. Many of the same conservatives who chanted "Drill baby, drill" are now using the BP oil spill to score political points, accusing the president of Katrina-like incompetence.

(As an aside: It is sad our mainstream news system has become so ineffectual that nobody seems able to point out the simple factual differences between the BP oil disaster and Hurricane Katrina. Katrina was an act of nature with no responsible party -- although the government did nothing in advance to ensure the levees could handle the flooding, and what was required -- search and rescue, humanitarian aid and rebuilding -- was firmly under the traditional banner of government action. But Bush did next to nothing. Meanwhile, the BP oil disaster was caused by a corporate entity, who bears the responsibility of addressing the situation, and the action that needs to be taken is of a technological and industry-specific nature not generally thought of as being within the expertise of the government. I guess it's easier for ratings-seeking news outlets to simply play up the political rhetoric, since, they believe, conflict sells. To be clear, I'm not saying that the Obama administration's response to the BP oil disaster was unassailable. But it would be hard for any objective party to compare the government's responsibility and failures in the two situations and say there were in any way equivalent.)

Put another way, if the president had stepped in a few days after the explosion and announced that the government was leading the operation to stop the flow of oil, Republicans would have undoubtedly screamed "Another government takeover!" to anyone who would listen. GOP complaints of government inaction reek of hypocrisy.

The second aspect of this story that I find disturbing is the cowardice of the right in failing to take any responsibility for its positions. During the 2008 election season, it sometimes felt like the GOP platform had one plank: "Drill baby, drill!" Despite the flawed math in play (the amount of oil to be gained from Arctic or offshore drilling represents a tiny fraction of the amount of oil we import from foreign countries), Republicans advocated for increased drilling as if this would solve the nation's energy problems. So when there is a huge oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, do we get any kind of mea culpa from the right? Hardly. We get Republicans blaming the president and Rush Limbaugh blaming the Sierra Club (seriously?).

I see the oil disaster not as a unique example of this problem, but as just the latest symptom of the disease. Americans seem to lack any short-term memory. The 2008 financial crisis led to a prolonged recession, and yet Republicans opposed financial reform, and the final bill that made it out of the Senate was so toothless, Wall Street was said to breathe "a sigh of relief." I understand why the GOP, whose reason for being is to protect corporate and wealthy interests over those of the majority of Americans, would oppose fixing a system that the party not only defended, but which delivered huge amounts of profit to its wealthy base. But what I don't understand is why there is no political price to pay for these actions. How can nearly every Republican vote against the bill, but those decisions seem to have no effect on public opinion? We are surrounded by casualties of Wall Street recklessness, from out-of-work neighbors to foreclosed houses, and yet Republicans and banking lobbyists win the day in Congress? This is unfathomable to me.

What is it going to take for people to wake up to the need for real financial regulation? We've had a crisis that led to a recession. Do we need a collapse that leads to a depression? I hope not.

The ability of Republicans who supported offshore drilling to act as though they have no responsibility for the BP disaster is not unusual. Like the amnesia related to financial regulation, it is just another instance of GOP hypocrisy.

Clearly, the existence of a right-wing media machine that lies and distorts to create its own set of "facts" has been instrumental in allowing the lines to blur. But, ultimately, if democracy is going to work, citizens have to fight through the propaganda to learn the facts. If not, they get what they deserve (like, for example, re-electing Bush in 2004).

For me, a lesson to be learned from the politics of the BP oil disaster is that the Republicans have spent 16 months attacking the president with lies and distortions, and now that he has to address a real crisis, the GOP rhetoric is smashing into the face of reality. The Republicans are standing knee-deep in hypocrisy, and their true priorities (their political interests) have been laid bare. While I'm not optimistic, I hope Americans learn this important lesson before casting ballots in November.

Ridiculously stupid interpretation/conclusion of what was said.
According to you. Yeah- the Republicans caused the oil spill. Get real. It's no wonder that Cooper's ratings are nonexistent with nonsense like that being espoused.

According to you. Yeah- the Republicans caused the oil spill. Get real. It's no wonder that Cooper's ratings are nonexistent with nonsense like that being espoused.

It wasn't the Democratic convention where the drones were chanting "drill baby drill", it wasn't the Democrats who opposed regulation, it wasn't the Democrats that were in bed (literally) with Minerals Management and big oil. It always amazes me how the Republicans never, ever take any blame or responsibility for anything. They overturn regulation at every corner, implicitly trusting corporations to do the right thing. They mock environmentalists as tree huggers. They have no interest in moving away from fossil fuels. They have no interest in imposing higher mileage standards on cars. Even fuckin' Limbaugh is out there theorizing the eco-terrorists blew up the rig, and the Sierra Club was to blame.

Sorry Dr., but the entire right wing position has everything to do with this - but do what you do best - duck responsibility.

And btw, what do ratings have to do with this - idiotic thing to say. Reality shows have high ratings - does that mean they are the epicenter of culture? Danielle Steele sells shitloads of books - is she the new Marcel Proust? Is that what we judge the value of things by - their public popularity?

All I know is-----Crystal Bowersox got hosed on American Idol this year.

It wasn't the Democratic convention where the drones were chanting "drill baby drill", it wasn't the Democrats who opposed regulation, it wasn't the Democrats that were in bed (literally) with Minerals Management and big oil. It always amazes me how the Republicans never, ever take any blame or responsibility for anything. They overturn regulation at every corner, implicitly trusting corporations to do the right thing. They mock environmentalists as tree huggers. They have no interest in moving away from fossil fuels. They have no interest in imposing higher mileage standards on cars. Even fuckin' Limbaugh is out there theorizing the eco-terrorists blew up the rig, and the Sierra Club was to blame.

Sorry Dr., but the entire right wing position has everything to do with this - but do what you do best - duck responsibility.

And btw, what do ratings have to do with this - idiotic thing to say. Reality shows have high ratings - does that mean they are the epicenter of culture? Danielle Steele sells shitloads of books - is she the new Marcel Proust? Is that what we judge the value of things by - their public popularity?


So what is your answer to the situation?

So what is your answer to the situation?

there is no answer now dumbass. we're going to have 100s of thousands of gallons of crude oil gushing into the gulf until at least august, and if I had to guess, until that whole well runs dry. then we're going to have hurricane season, and some lucky winners on the gulf coast are going to get that poison as a storm surge. yum.

the only answers were in the past, and the were all the things CLK mentioned: stricter regulation, stiffer environmental protections, not drilling offshore, tighter milleage standards, etc. all the things the right had been opposing for 30-40 years.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/tomtoles/2010/05/28/c_05312010.gif

http://www.politicolnews.com/is-sarah-palin-watching-this/

LIVE OIL CAMERA FROM GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL

Palin and the Tea Party people have been noticeably quite these days, no protests, no signs on big government and no comment on the BP Oil Spill, the world’s Largest Disaster? Where is the Tea Party, why are they not protesting the BP Oil Spill are they becoming so un-American that they put their own politics first against the needs and pain that Louisiana is suffering?

The silence is deafening to Americans that these very vocal protesters are backing into the dark corners scattering like rats that their “anti-government” signs that read so stupidly -that less government is better. This is the same Tea party that lobbies for less regulation and less oversight by government into their capitalistic views. To the Tea Party goers -capitalism and greed is king and everything else comes last including safety regulations. The joke is on the Tea Party and their absence is well noticed as a sham and a front for corporate self interests and nothing more.

You may find it strange that the Tea Party favorites like Rand Paul -support the corporations like BP Oil and Alliance Coal in his own state. Read more on Generation Diaster. Rand Paul thought Obama was being too tough on big oil -BP Oil and he made statements about the “boot to the neck” by Ken Salazar saying it was too harsh and wrong to go after BP Oil. Someone must have put a muzzle on Rand Paul because he actually claimed that BP was drilling in international waters? The stupidity of this man knows no bounds and any voters in Tennessee that vote for this moron are throwing their precious vote away to stupidity in action.

I thought Rand was running in Kentucky.

That writer needs a major proofreader.

That's why people who vote for him in Tennessee are throwing their votes away :P

I really don't think people have a clue as to how bad this is.

The fishermen know. And the people who are getting close enough to the outer islands that are uninhabited except by animals who are now covered in oil and full of oil and drowning in oil.

In Canada you can't drill in their part of the artic unless you drill a relief well at the same time, so if something horrible goes wrong remedies are already in place.

The sad part is the people being effected the worst (not counting all the animals who are definitely effected the worse) voted for the idiots over and over who made sure the oil industry was allowed to do whatever they wanted unregulated. And now they blame Obama.

These same people now blame Obama and his administration for the disaster.

Even dumber is wanting the federal government to take over. Since the government is not in the drilling business and therefore does not own any drilling equipment nor employ people with any such expertise - exactly what to they think the "government" can do. Take our tax money and pay someone to do what BP is doing?????

People whine about "big" government and all their money going to Washington - yet at the first sign of a disaster - they all expect "big" government to take over and make everything right immediately.

Gulf Oil Spill: Conservatives Seek Government Solutions To Problem
EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS | 06/ 2/10 09:40 AM

Ben Brooks, a lawyer and Republican state senator from coastal Alabama, says he's no fan of big government but he expects an aggressive federal response as a gunky oil spill threatens the Gulf of Mexico.

"There's nothing inherently contradictory in saying we believe in smaller government and demanding that the government protect public safety," Brooks said.

All along the Gulf Coast, where the tea party thrives and "socialism" is a common description for any government program, conservatives who usually denounce federal activism suddenly are clamoring for it.

Take Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican elected in 2007 when Democrat Kathleen Blanco opted not to seek re-election after she was widely panned for a bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina two years earlier.

Since April 20, when a gulf rig exploded and blew out an underwater oil well about 50 miles south of Louisiana, Jindal has been a ubiquitous presence in the fishing communities and barrier islands along his state's fragile coastline. He's been out on boats and up in Black Hawk helicopters, doors open, to survey the spreading, rust-colored swath of crude.

Jindal, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, has demanded a stronger response from the Obama administration, accusing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of dragging its feet in approving Louisiana's plans for protective berms – a plan that took three weeks to approve.

"This oil threatens not only our coast and our wetlands, this oil fundamentally threatens our way of life in southeastern Louisiana," Jindal said last week.

Jindal is a fiscal conservative who made headlines last year by rejecting some federal stimulus money, then distributing other stimulus funds by handing out oversized cardboard checks to local officials.

Louisiana State University political science professor Kirby Goidel said Jindal's call for larger federal involvement in the oil spill management contradicts the governor's usual persona.

"He's governor largely because of Katrina," Goidel said. "He knows that it's important to get out on top of it and be clear if the federal government is not doing what it's supposed to do. It's important for people to know that."

Goidel said he's not surprised small-government conservatives would seek help from Washington in a disaster that threatens the Gulf's water quality and everything that depends on it, from the shrimping industry to tourism.

"I think it's a pretty predictable response: 'We've got a problem that's beyond our control. Get the federal government in here to take control,'" Goidel said.

In Mississippi, Republican Gov. Haley Barbour – another potential presidential candidate in 2012 – advocates limited government and brags that his fellow citizens "hitched up our britches" to recover from Katrina, even as he lobbied for billions of federal dollars for everything from debris removal to expansion of a state port. Barbour has not called for a larger federal response to the oil spill. He said Tuesday that the first oil had appeared on one of Mississippi's barrier islands, near Alabama – a caramel-colored streak about three feet wide and two miles long. He said additional vessels would be used to gather and absorb oil.

Barbour, who headed the Republican National Committee from 1993 to 1997 and is current chairman of the Republican Governors Association, declined to take any potshots at Democratic President Barack Obama, even hours after Obama criticized himself and said he was wrong to believe oil companies were prepared to deal with a massive spill.

"I'm not going to criticize the president for political reasons," Barbour said. "I don't think it serves any purpose. I don't think it would be fair."

A bipartisan group of attorneys general from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida sent Obama a letter May 6 asking for federal help in documenting information about oil company BP PLC's response to the blown well.

"We recognize that BP has stated publicly that it will live up to its obligation to pay all claims arising from this environmental and economic disaster. We hope that BP will," the five attorneys general wrote. "But we would be remiss in our responsibilities if we did not consider the possibility that enforcement or litigation efforts may be required in the future."

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is in a Republican primary for governor, posted the letter on his state website, with other information about the oil spill.

"This has been a tragic event, and our environment and several local economies still hang in the balance," McCollum says on the site. "I remain committed to ensuring British Petroleum and any other responsible parties do everything necessary to make Florida whole."

In coastal Mississippi, Republican state Rep. Steven Palazzo has been critical of the federal government, including what he sees as an intrusive role in a health care overhaul that he – like many conservatives – calls "Obamacare."

As he runs for Congress in a district that relies on shipbuilding, tourism and the seafood industry, Palazzo says Washington should do all it can to protect the Gulf of Mexico. He said his stance does not contradict his advocacy of limited government.

"This is not only an economic nightmare but it's an ecological one as well," Palazzo said. "We cannot spare any resource."

Brooks, the Alabama senator, said the oyster fishermen, shrimpers and deck hands in Mobile County, Ala., depend on the Gulf and he believes the government should handle the oil spill as it would any public safety issue – quickly and with all the resources needed.

"These are hardworking, good people," Brooks said. "They have to work to take care of their families and pay the rent and buy the groceries."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/02/gulf-oil-spill-conservatives_n_597248.html?ir=Politics

Why doesn't the state governments along the gulf coast do more.

In reality, these 3-4 states are expecting the tax payers in the other 46-47 states to pay for everything!!! And since they don't want to send any money to Washington - exactly WHERE do they think the money they want will come from - tax payers in Wyoming? North Dakota?

This is like being in a car accident on the way to WalMart and expecting WalMart instead of the person who caused the accident, to pay for your car repair. Go after BP.

from the Netherlands:
http://cagle.com/working/100601/arend.jpg



http://cagle.com/working/100601/keefe.jpg



http://cagle.com/working/100601/stahler.jpg



http://cagle.com/working/100521/billday.jpg



http://cagle.com/working/100531/sherffius21.jpg

just got a news bulletin text message that now the saw is stuck in the pipe they were trying to cut.

I really don't think people have a clue as to how bad this is.

From everything we are hearing from my hubby's family in Louisianna - they had a pretty good inkling about how bad things could get pretty quickly. It's those of "us" who are further away from the problem that generally took longer to get concerned.

Ben Brooks, a lawyer and Republican state senator from coastal Alabama, says he's no fan of big government but he expects an aggressive federal response as a gunky oil spill threatens the Gulf of Mexico.

"There's nothing inherently contradictory in saying we believe in smaller government and demanding that the government protect public safety," Brooks said.

With one small exception, you have to be a f*cking moron not to see your own Orwellian doublespeak.

And she still has so many followers who don't think she's an absolute idiot:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/sarah-palin-blames-enviro_n_598977.html?ir=Politics

In her latest note on Facebook, Sarah Palin is blaming "extreme 'environmentalists'" for causing the gulf oil disaster that has been unfolding for over a month. Her logic is that because environmentalists push for tougher drilling regulations onshore in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (also known as ANWR) it forces oil companies to explore deeper offshore drilling which has more risks.

Palin writes:

With [environmentalists'] nonsensical efforts to lock up safer drilling areas, all you're doing is outsourcing energy development, which makes us more controlled by foreign countries, less safe, and less prosperous on a dirtier planet. Your hypocrisy is showing. You're not preventing environmental hazards; you're outsourcing them and making drilling more dangerous.
Extreme deep water drilling is not the preferred choice to meet our country's energy needs, but your protests and lawsuits and lies about onshore and shallow water drilling have locked up safer areas. It's catching up with you. The tragic, unprecedented deep water Gulf oil spill proves it.

This is one of several comments about the oil spill Palin has made that has caused a stir, including a tweet in which she said she said we shouldn't trust BP because it is a foreign oil company. Palin's husband Todd worked for BP for 18 years.

Oh, and her running mate said that the Israel attack on the aid ship was Obama's fault.

And the crazy thing is, their followers believe every word they say.

Kevin Costner to the rescue??

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/kevin-costner-machine-bp-oil-clean/story?id=10689928 (http://)

Kevin Costner's Machine Heads to BP's Oil Spill Clean Up
Costner Financed Research into Oil Spill Clean Ups for 15 Years

141 comments By RAY SANCHEZ
May 19, 2010
BP has turned to "Waterworld" star Kevin Costner to help clean up the oil slick that is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico.

The actor demonstrates a machine he funded that can separate oil from water.Costner has been funding a team of scientists for 15 years in hopes of developing a technology to clean up massive oil spills, and his research has created a powerful centrifuge that he claims can separate oil from water and dump the oil into a holding tank.

Costner and representatives of Ocean Therapy Solutions , the firm that developed the machine, demonstrated the centrifugal device for BP officials in New Orleans last week. "I believe they'll want to do the right thing," Costner told reporters at the time.

"We've agreed to test it," BP spokesman Mark Proegler told ABCNews.com today.

Officials with Ocean Therapy Solutions have said one of their machines is capable of cleaning up to 210,000 gallons of water per day. The oil extractor leaves the water 99 percent clean of crude, the firm said in a statement.

Cleaning the water is all well and good but that won't stop the flow of oil.

Re: Sarah Palin - running the risk of generalizing, I'll go out on a limb here and say if you are a devotee/supporter/enabler of Palin, you are, in fact, an idiot. Period.

her twitter is a hoot! Besides looking like it was typed by a 13 year old....she's a fucking moron!! (if you have a blackberry like she does you can use the ubertwitter free app and get more than 140 characters with "twitterlonger" therefore avoiding looking like a idiotic 13 year old type your tweet....but savvy people know this....)

http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA

Why is this woman even newsworthy anymore? She should go back to her igloo and stay there.

Huffington Post has pics of Pelicans drowning in oil, I don't think you can even clean these animals off, I think they are full of oil.

If the pelicans look that soggy and drowned in oil, I can only imagine how the sea life is doing.

:(

Huffington Post has pics of Pelicans drowning in oil, I don't think you can even clean these animals off, I think they are full of oil.

If the pelicans look that soggy and drowned in oil, I can only imagine how the sea life is doing.

:(

Looking at those videos and pictures makes me want to cry... It's just beyond sad :(

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304148.html

Why is Tony Hayward still on the job?

By Eugene Robinson
Friday, June 4, 2010

How is it possible that BP chief executive Tony Hayward hasn't been fired? At this point, how can anyone believe a word the man says? If he told me my mother loves me, I'd want a second source.

Hayward has apologized for his one lapse of candor -- the now-famous whine last Sunday that "I'd like my life back." It must be a nice life indeed: According to Forbes, Hayward's total compensation from BP in 2009 was about $4.6 million. The Louisiana fishermen who've been put out of work by the oil spill are accustomed to getting by on considerably less. In a Facebook posting, Hayward said that his callous words "don't represent how I feel about this tragedy, and certainly don't represent the hearts of the people of BP."

Within hours, though, Hayward's foot was firmly lodged in his mouth yet again. The effort to contain the oil and keep it away from the Gulf Coast has been "very successful," he told the Financial Times. "Considering how big this has been, very little has got away from us." This sunny assessment came as television networks broadcast images of oil-soaked Louisiana marshes, where hazmat-suited workers -- who said they were under orders from BP not to talk to the media, on pain of getting fired -- were trying to sop up the mess with what looked like rags, as if this were a gargantuan kitchen mishap. Meanwhile, mousse-like clumps of "weathered" oil were being washed onto beaches in Alabama, and authorities in Florida were watching the approach of a menacing, oily sheen. Scientists have not even begun to assess the potential long-term effects of the oil spill on human health, marine life and coastal ecology. Carol Browner, the president's chief adviser on energy and the environment, said that the Deepwater Horizon incident is already the worst environmental disaster in United States history.

Give yourself another pat on the back, Tony.

Adm. Thad Allen, who is directing the response effort, is a nice guy -- in terms of his public handling of BP, too nice. On Thursday, as BP proceeded with its latest attempt to cap the flow, Allen praised the company for providing several different camera views of the action on the sea floor. But for weeks, BP refused to make public any television images of the oil leak, and relented only under pressure from U.S. officials.

Hayward's statements about the effort to plug the well have been consistently unreliable, and it hardly matters whether he's being deliberately misleading or just overly optimistic. The giant containment dome was going to work; it didn't. The second, much smaller containment dome would do the job; it was never even deployed. The "top kill" procedure was surely going to stop the flow, and early indications, according to Hayward, showed that it was succeeding. Yet oil industry veterans such as T. Boone Pickens said the top kill was a long shot at best, and they were right.

And as for those giant underwater oil plumes that scientists and journalists keep discovering? Hayward denies they exist. His position is that of a philanderer caught in the act by an irate spouse: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" Since the explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig six weeks ago, BP's stock has lost more than a third of its value. Two ratings firms, Fitch and Moody's, have downgraded the company's long-term debt, and estimates of what it will cost BP to stop the leak and clean up its mess range from $3 billion to $30 billion. All this happened on Hayward's watch.

Somebody, please, give the man his life back.

But once that's done, let's turn our ire on the real villains. This exercise will require a mirror.

An accident such as the Deepwater Horizon blowout was bound to happen sooner or later. There are nearly 4,000 oil rigs off the Gulf Coast, and those pumping most of the crude are in deep waters -- where, as we now know, state-of-the-art safety procedures are inadequate. President Obama's moratorium on deep-water drilling will last only long enough for some sort of technological band-aid to be devised. Then we'll crank up the drills once again.

We know that our dependence on oil is ultimately ruinous, yet we refuse to take measures -- a meaningful carbon tax, for example -- to ease it. Long after Tony Hayward answers for his sins, we'll be paying for our own.

Huffington Post has pics of Pelicans drowning in oil, I don't think you can even clean these animals off, I think they are full of oil.

If the pelicans look that soggy and drowned in oil, I can only imagine how the sea life is doing.

:(
then you don't want to see the pictures of the dolphins and turtles :(

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ybenjamin/detail??blogid=150&entry_id=64912

I already did, one reporter who was brought out to a place where the animals were dying said that the dolphin was filled with oil, not just covered with it.

I don't know how the gulf recovers from this.

http://cagle.com/working/100603/harville.jpg

http://www.theonion.com/articles/massive-flow-of-bullshit-continues-to-gush-from-bp,17564/

Massive Flow Of Bullshit Continues To Gush From BP Headquarters
June 7, 2010 | ISSUE 46•23

LONDON—As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico entered its eighth week Wednesday, fears continued to grow that the massive flow of bullshit still gushing from the headquarters of oil giant BP could prove catastrophic if nothing is done to contain it.

The toxic bullshit, which began to spew from the mouths of BP executives shortly after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in April, has completely devastated the Gulf region, delaying cleanup efforts, affecting thousands of jobs, and endangering the lives of all nearby wildlife.

"Everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest," said BP CEO Tony Hayward, letting loose a colossal stream of undiluted bullshit. "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean, and the volume of oil we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total volume of water."

Hayward's comments fueled fears that the spouting of overwhelmingly thick and slimy bullshit may never subside.
According to sources, the sheer quantity of bullshit pouring out of Hayward is unprecedented, and it has thoroughly drenched the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, with no end in sight.

Though no one knows exactly how much of the dangerous bullshit is currently gushing from BP headquarters, estimates put the number at somewhere between 25,000 and 70,000 words a day.

"We're looking at a truly staggering load of shit here," said Rebecca Palmer, an environmental scientist at the University of Georgia, who claimed that only BP has the ability to stem the flow of bullshit and plug it at its source. "And this is just the beginning—we're only seeing the surface-level bullshit. It could be years before we sift through it all and figure out just how deep this bullshit goes."

Congressional hearings aimed at stopping the bullshit have thus far failed to do so, with officials from BP and its contractors Halliburton and Transocean only adding to the powerful torrents of bullshit by blaming one another for the accident.

Along with the region's wildlife and fragile ecosystem, countless livelihoods have been jeopardized by BP's unchecked flow of corporate shit. Those who depend on fishing or tourism for their income are already feeling the noxious effects of the bullshit firsthand, as out-of-control platitudes begin to reach land and seep ashore.

Dense streams of shit are expected to continue spreading throughout the region and the entire United States.
"This bullshit, it's everywhere," said Louisiana fisherman Doug LaRoux, who lost his house to a tide of government bullshit following Hurricane Katrina. "It reeks. Big buckets of disgusting shit are oozing everywhere you look and I don't know if it's ever going to stop. I feel helpless"

Added LaRoux, "I never thought I'd be the victim of so much bullshit."

Observers have noted that after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, corporate bullshit gushed up like a geyser for two decades and didn't wane until the oil company had bullshit its way through an exhaustive process of court appeals that ultimately reduced payouts to victims by 90 percent.

Despite Hayward's denials that BP is at fault for the environmental disaster and his concern that it will result in "illegitimate" American lawsuits, the embattled CEO has still managed to trickle out a few last drips of bullshit sympathy for Gulf Coast residents.

"I'm as devastated as you are by this," Hayward said after a meeting with cleanup crews on Louisiana's Fourchon Beach. "We will clean every last drop up and we will remediate all of the environmental damage."

"There's no one that wants this thing over with more than I do," he added a week later, just absolutely defying belief with the thickest, most dangerous bullshit yet. "I'd like my life back."

Millions of Americans reported feeling ill and disoriented upon contact with that particularly vile plume of bullshit.

Many environmentalists, including Palmer, have called for a boycott of BP until the bullshit stops or is at least under control, but they emphasize that in the long term, Americans will have to change their habits if they wish to avoid future catastrophes.

"We must all work together if we're going to cure our nation of this addiction," Palmer said. "The sad fact is, the United States has been running on bullshit for decades."

The governor of Mississippi just referred to Obama as the enemy in this. Huh? You want to name enemies in this Barbour, start with BP and work your way through Cheney's Energy Meetings.

To call the President the enemy shows you as the traitor you are Governor.

Haley Barbour is a f*cking moron (see previous entries), which makes him unduly qualified for the positions he has held.

Why doesn't the president reach out to the world(simce he is so focused on creating a global community) and convene a meeting of any qualified people who may have solutions to the problem? Put them all in a big room, order sandwiches and don't let anyone leave until you have some solutions.

Someone needs to invent a robotic goat that eats oil and shits out Zhu-Zhu Pets.

Why doesn't the president reach out to the world(simce he is so focused on creating a global community) and convene a meeting of any qualified people who may have solutions to the problem? Put them all in a big room, order sandwiches and don't let anyone leave until you have some solutions.

You think someone might then accuse him of showing weakness and being an ineffective leader?

Nah...... :D

You think someone might then accuse him of showing weakness and being an ineffective leader?

Nah...... :D

He's already doing that. Reaching out in an attempt to solve the problem can only help.

Someone needs to invent a robotic goat that eats oil and shits out Zhu-Zhu Pets.

I swear to God, I just watched a Jackie Chan movie with my 10 year old son where Jackie Chan was a CIA spy trying to retire and marry the woman next door who has three kids, but the kids can't stand him (clearly racial, IMHO) because they think he is a geeky pen salesman, so Jackie has a chance to babysit the kids for a weekend (and get the kids to fall head over heels in love with an aging Chinese martial arts actor) while their mom goes out of town to visit her sick dad, and Jackie gets into all kinds of semi-humorous madcap situations with making breakfast, singing Chinese bedtime stories, dealing with class bullies, counseling the older sister through pubescent angst, and the like, and then one of Jackie's buddies (Billy Ray Cyrus) asks Jackie to decipher an encrypted file from the Russkies with a secret formula and one of the kids mistakenly downloads it to his i-Pod thinking it is a bootleg rock concert but the Russkies find out and try to kill Jackie, the kids and everybody else in the whole neighborhood, so Jackie has to fight off the Russkies, save the kids, make them fall head over heels in love with him, keep the formula from falling into the wrong hands, and uncover the CIA traitor who is working with the Russkies [SPOILER ALERT--------------it is George Lopez, who not only is not funny but makes William Shatner look like Sir Lawrence Olivier] and the mom finds out that her kids are being used for target practice by the Russkies and gets so pissed at Jackie that she never wants to see him again, but then the kids have fallen head over heels with the aging Chinese martial arts actor (who clearly wasn't doing any of his own fighting sequences and probably precious little of the dialogue) including the aloof older sister who previously was tough as nails but softens in the end to accept Jackie (clearly symbolic of the quickening sexual being emerging within her) so the mom decides to immediately marry Jackie, despite the fact that her crazy ex-husband will probably show up and kill all of them once he finds out she married a Chinese guy. Okay, so that last part was an editorial observation on my part, given the clear racial overtones and social implications that the filmakers had in mind, here.

And my point? Glad you asked. The FORMULA was for a bacteria that EATS OIL! The Russkies were going to have the bacteria eat everybody elses oil, so that the Russian oil fields and reserves would be the only ones left on the planet! Their oil would be worth like a BILLION DOLLARS A QUART! Okay, maybe not that much, but like REALLY A LOT OF MONEY! Then George Lopez wouldn't have to live off the residuals from his not-funny TV show, and sabes que? he could get the fuck off cable TV, too.

Now, I know there are some holes in this story, like how come the mom can just pick up and go to Colorado without explaining Jackie and the whole Chinese thing to her dad, and what about the aunt that was already flying in to stay with the kids? And what about when early in the movie the youngest kid watches Jackie scramble up a gutter downspout, bounce off a chimney, and get the family's cat off the roof? Pen salesman? I don't think so. Maybe a cable TV installer, but definitely not something a pen salesman would do.

So anyways, all we have to do is get ahold of the kid's i-pod from the movie, and we have this thing licked.

Why doesn't the president reach out to the world(simce he is so focused on creating a global community) and convene a meeting of any qualified people who may have solutions to the problem? Put them all in a big room, order sandwiches and don't let anyone leave until you have some solutions.


That could be construed as kidnapping or at least held against their will. Also why is it solely OUR government responsibility to do this??? In Katrina it made sense for the Feds to take over - with FEMA, they supposedly had decades of experience responding to hurricanes and flood. But the federal government has never been in the drilling business and that is even clearer now than ever before based on how much control or supervision was exerted over the drilling by oil companies during the last decade or so.

The moment the federal government takes over from BP, it becomes the taxpayer's money being spent on the clean up. True the US could sue BP, and years and years from now actually see some reimbursement, but that won't put money back in my pocket.

http://cagle.com/working/100608/overmyer.jpg

That could be construed as kidnapping or at least held against their will. Also why is it solely OUR government responsibility to do this??? In Katrina it made sense for the Feds to take over - with FEMA, they supposedly had decades of experience responding to hurricanes and flood. But the federal government has never been in the drilling business and that is even clearer now than ever before based on how much control or supervision was exerted over the drilling by oil companies during the last decade or so.

The moment the federal government takes over from BP, it becomes the taxpayer's money being spent on the clean up. True the US could sue BP, and years and years from now actually see some reimbursement, but that won't put money back in my pocket.

This is federal land.In Katrina, it was a state and local issue initially, and the feds had to be petitioned to intervene. The government, i.e,. the Environmental Protection Agency(catch the name?) has the power to organize and direct a plan of action, which could use any resources available. Obviously, they have already botched the situation by not following the oil splill protocol which was passed under Bill Clinton. Right now the job should be to stem the flow, organize the clean up and limit the damage, by any means necessary. Who is responsible and who pays for it are issues for the future. Obama is looking for who's ass to kick. I have an answer: cancel some of your celebrity concerts and glad handing events and get focused on this crisis. In other words, start by kicking your own ass.

Bill Clinton was in office in 1990? :confused:
It was the Oil Pollution act of 1990 that was passed by Congress. And it had nothing to do with the EPA, it had to do with oil companies having a plan if a spill should occur also giving Congress the sole authority to regulate navigable waters.

I swear to God, I just watched a Jackie Chan movie with my 10 year old son where Jackie Chan was a CIA spy trying to retire and marry the woman next door who has three kids, but the kids can't stand him (clearly racial, IMHO) because they think he is a geeky pen salesman, so Jackie has a chance to babysit the kids for a weekend (and get the kids to fall head over heels in love with an aging Chinese martial arts actor) while their mom goes out of town to visit her sick dad, and Jackie gets into all kinds of semi-humorous madcap situations with making breakfast, singing Chinese bedtime stories, dealing with class bullies, counseling the older sister through pubescent angst, and the like, and then one of Jackie's buddies (Billy Ray Cyrus) asks Jackie to decipher an encrypted file from the Russkies with a secret formula and one of the kids mistakenly downloads it to his i-Pod thinking it is a bootleg rock concert but the Russkies find out and try to kill Jackie, the kids and everybody else in the whole neighborhood, so Jackie has to fight off the Russkies, save the kids, make them fall head over heels in love with him, keep the formula from falling into the wrong hands, and uncover the CIA traitor who is working with the Russkies [SPOILER ALERT--------------it is George Lopez, who not only is not funny but makes William Shatner look like Sir Lawrence Olivier] and the mom finds out that her kids are being used for target practice by the Russkies and gets so pissed at Jackie that she never wants to see him again, but then the kids have fallen head over heels with the aging Chinese martial arts actor (who clearly wasn't doing any of his own fighting sequences and probably precious little of the dialogue) including the aloof older sister who previously was tough as nails but softens in the end to accept Jackie (clearly symbolic of the quickening sexual being emerging within her) so the mom decides to immediately marry Jackie, despite the fact that her crazy ex-husband will probably show up and kill all of them once he finds out she married a Chinese guy. Okay, so that last part was an editorial observation on my part, given the clear racial overtones and social implications that the filmakers had in mind, here.

And my point? Glad you asked. The FORMULA was for a bacteria that EATS OIL! The Russkies were going to have the bacteria eat everybody elses oil, so that the Russian oil fields and reserves would be the only ones left on the planet! Their oil would be worth like a BILLION DOLLARS A QUART! Okay, maybe not that much, but like REALLY A LOT OF MONEY! Then George Lopez wouldn't have to live off the residuals from his not-funny TV show, and sabes que? he could get the fuck off cable TV, too.

Now, I know there are some holes in this story, like how come the mom can just pick up and go to Colorado without explaining Jackie and the whole Chinese thing to her dad, and what about the aunt that was already flying in to stay with the kids? And what about when early in the movie the youngest kid watches Jackie scramble up a gutter downspout, bounce off a chimney, and get the family's cat off the roof? Pen salesman? I don't think so. Maybe a cable TV installer, but definitely not something a pen salesman would do.

So anyways, all we have to do is get ahold of the kid's i-pod from the movie, and we have this thing licked.

this is the only thing in this thread that makes total sense to me.

Well, yeah, but stuff like the fact that the guy can readjust the satellite dish on the roof with his CIA gadgets, but he can't make scramble eggs.

I mean, come on......... :rolleyes:

You think someone might then accuse him of showing weakness and being an ineffective leader?

Nah...... :D
That was brilliant. Watching these people dance back and forth between their unitlateristand multilateralist perspective which is soley based on assuming the opposite position of Obama is getting old and amplifies the hollowness of their argument(s).

Why don't we just let the free markets fix this - they seem to always know better....in fact, let's loosen environmental regulations so we don't hold back their intellectual and industrial horsepower. This way they can create the problem, fix the problem and bill half to the tax payers and the other half to the consumers (with kudos to the Venn Diagram overlap between the two). Great work if you can get it.

And as far as the "ass kicking" issue goes, this is pure media created bullshit. They criticized Obama for being too cerebral, and then they concoct this crap about him wanting to kick somebody's ass as his mano-y-mano retort. Edward R. Murrow must be doing back-flips. As a culture, have we so limbo'd under the intelligence bar that we just want to yell at and punch somebody/anybody regardless of our vapor thin handle on the facts. Dr. Sarah Palin, (o.k., I'm kidding about the "Dr." part) said "Plug the damn hole", I'll make you a deal - we will if you will.

Emergency Management

All EPA Emergency Management

You are here: EPA HomeEmergency ManagementLaws and Regulations National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan Overview
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Overview
The National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, more commonly called the National Contingency Plan or NCP, is the federal government's blueprint for responding to both oil spills and hazardous substance releases. The National Contingency Plan is the result of our country's efforts to develop a national response capability and promote overall coordination among the hierarchy of responders and contingency plans.

The first National Contingency Plan was developed and published in 1968 in response to a massive oil spill from the oil tanker Torrey Canyon off the coast of England the year before. More than 37 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the water, causing massive environmental damage. To avoid the problems faced by response officials involved in this incident, U.S. officials developed a coordinated approach to cope with potential spills in U.S. waters. The 1968 plan provided the first comprehensive system of accident reporting, spill containment, and cleanup, and established a response headquarters, a national reaction team, and regional reaction teams (precursors to the current National Response Team and Regional Response Teams).

Congress has broadened the scope of the National Contingency Plan over the years. As required by the Clean Water Act of 1972, the NCP was revised the following year to include a framework for responding to hazardous substance spills as well as oil discharges. Following the passage of Superfund legislation in 1980, the NCP was broadened to cover releases at hazardous waste sites requiring emergency removal actions. Over the years, additional revisions have been made to the NCP to keep pace with the enactment of legislation. The latest revisions to the NCP were finalized in 1994 to reflect the oil spill provisions of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990.

Key Provisions of National Contingency Plan
§300.110 Establishes the National Response Team and its roles and responsibilities in the National Response system, including planning and coordinating responses to major discharges of oil or hazardous waste, providing guidance to Regional Response Teams, coordinating a national program of preparedness planning and response, and facilitating research to improve response activities. EPA serves as the lead agency within the National Response Team (NRT).

§300.115 Establishes the Regional Response Teams and their roles and responsibilities in the National Response System, including, coordinating preparedness, planning, and response at the regional level. The RRT consists of a standing team made up of representatives of each federal agency that is a member of the NRT, as well as state and local government representatives, and also an incident-specific team made up of members of the standing team that is activated for a response. The RRT also provides oversight and consistency review for area plans within a given region.

§300.120 Establishes general responsibilities of federal On-Scene Coordinators.

§300.125(a) Requires notification of any discharge or release to the National Response Center through a toll-free telephone number. The National Response Center (NRC) acts as the central clearinghouse for all pollution incident reporting.

§300.135(a) Authorizes the predesignated On-Scene Coordinator to direct all federal, state, and private response activities at the site of a discharge.

§300.135(d) Establishes the unified command structure for managing responses to discharges through coordinated personnel and resources of the federal government, the state government, and the responsible party.

§300.165 Requires the On-Scene Coordinator to submit to the RRT or NRT a report on all removal actions taken at a site.

§300.170 Identifies the responsibilities for federal agencies that may be called upon during response planning and implementation to provide assistance in their respective areas of expertise consistent with the agencies' capabilities and authorities.

§300.175 Lists the federal agencies that have duties associated with responding to releases.

§300.210 Defines the objectives, authority, and scope of Federal Contingency Plans, including the National Contingency Plan (NCP), Regional Contingency Plans (RCPs), and Area Contingency Plans (ACPs).

Oil Removals
§300.317 Establishes national priorities for responding to a release.

§300.320 Establishes the general pattern of response to be executed by the On-Scene Coordinator (OSC), including determination of threat, classification of the size and type of the release, notification of the RRT and the NRC, and supervision of thorough removal actions.

§300.322 Authorizes the OSC to determine whether a release poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States based on several factors, including the size and character of the discharge and its proximity to human populations and sensitive environments. In such cases, the OSC is authorized to direct all federal, state, or private response and recovery actions. The OSC may enlist the support of other federal agencies or special teams.

§300.323 Provides special consideration to discharges which have been classified as a spill of national significance. In such cases, senior federal officials direct nationally-coordinated response efforts.

§300.324 Requires the OSC to notify the National Strike Force Coordination Center (NSFCC) in the event of a worst case discharges, defined as the largest foreseeable discharge in adverse weather conditions. The NSFCC coordinates the acquisition of needed response personnel and equipment. The OSC also must require implementation of the worst case portion of the tank vessel and Facility Response Plans and the Area Contingency Plan.

§300.355 Provides funding for responses to oil releases under the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, provided certain criteria are met. The responsible party is liable for federal removal costs and damages as detailed in section 1002 of the Oil Pollution Act (OPA). Federal agencies assisting in a response action may be reimbursed. Several other federal agencies may provide financial support for removal actions.

Subpart J Establishes the NCP Product Schedule, which contains dispersants and other chemical or biological products that may be used in carrying out the NCP. Authorization for the use of these products is conducted by Regional Response Teams and Area Committees, or by the OSC in consultation with EPA representatives.

Hazardous Substance Removals
§300.415(b) Authorizes the lead agency to initiate appropriate removal action in the event of a hazardous substance release. Decisions of action will be based on threats to human or animal populations, contamination of drinking water supplies or sensitive ecosystems, high levels of hazardous substances in soils, weather conditions that may cause migration or release of hazardous substances, the threat of fire or explosion, or other significant factors effecting the health or welfare or the public or the environment.

§300.415(c) Authorizes the OSC to direct appropriate actions to mitigate or remove the release of hazardous substances.


Right from the EPA website. Updated and passed under Bill Clinton in 1994, clearly spells out what the role of the federal government and the EPA should be. Has not been followed.

http://www.cagle.com/working/100608/cagle00.gif


http://www.cagle.com/working/100608/darkow.gif



http://friendsofirony.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/1292039119356457001.jpg

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/09/bps-approved-spill-plan-r_n_605662.html

BP's Approved Spill Plan 'Riddled With Omissions And Glaring Errors'

VENICE, La. (AP) -- Professor Peter Lutz is listed in BP's 2009 response plan for a Gulf of Mexico oil spill as a national wildlife expert. He died in 2005.

Under the heading "sensitive biological resources," the plan lists marine mammals including walruses, sea otters, sea lions and seals. None lives anywhere near the Gulf.

The names and phone numbers of several Texas A&M University marine life specialists are wrong. So are the numbers for marine mammal stranding network offices in Louisiana and Florida, which are no longer in service.

BP PLC's 582-page regional spill plan for the Gulf, and its 52-page, site-specific plan for the Deepwater Horizon rig are riddled with omissions and glaring errors, according to an Associated Press analysis that details how BP officials have pretty much been making it up as they go along. The lengthy plans approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company's preparedness to deal with one.

"BP Exploration and Production Inc. has the capability to respond, to the maximum extent practicable, to a worst case discharge, or a substantial threat of such a discharge, resulting from the activities proposed in our Exploration Plan," the oil giant stated in its Deepwater Horizon plan.

In the spill scenarios detailed in the documents, fish, marine mammals and birds escape serious harm; beaches remain pristine; water quality is only a temporary problem. And those are the projections for a leak about 10 times worse than what has been calculated for the ongoing disaster.

Billy Nungesser, president of Plaquemines Parish, La., says there are "3,000 acres (of wetlands) where life as we know it is dead, and we continue to lose precious marshland every day."

There are other wildly false assumptions. BP's proposed method to calculate spill volume based on the darkness of the oil sheen is way off. The internationally accepted formula would produce estimates 100 times higher.

The Gulf's loop current, which is projected to help eventually send oil hundreds of miles around Florida's southern tip and up the Atlantic coast, isn't mentioned in either plan.

The website listed for Marine Spill Response Corp. - one of two firms that BP relies on for equipment to clean a spill - links to a defunct Japanese-language page.

In early May, at least 80 Louisiana state prisoners were trained to clean birds by listening to a presentation and watching a video. It was a work force never envisioned in the plans, which contain no detailed references to how birds will be cleansed of oil.

And while BP officials and the federal government have insisted that they have attacked the problem as if it were a much larger spill, that isn't apparent from the constantly evolving nature of the response.

This week, after BP reported the seemingly good news that a containment cap installed on the wellhead was funneling some of the gushing crude to a tanker on the surface, BP introduced a whole new new set of plans mostly aimed at capturing more oil.

The latest incarnation calls for building a larger cap, using a special incinerator to burn off some of the recaptured oil and bringing in a floating platform to process the oil being sucked away from the gushing well.

In other words, the on-the-fly planning continues.

Some examples of how BP's plans have fallen short:

- Beaches where oil washed up within weeks of a spill were supposed to be safe from contamination because BP promised it could marshal more than enough boats to scoop up all the oil before any deepwater spill could reach shore - a claim that in retrospect seems absurd.

"The vessels in question maintain the necessary spill containment and recovery equipment to respond effectively," one of the documents says.

BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks - and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion of the spill has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.

The plan uses computer modeling to project a 21 percent chance of oil reaching the Louisiana coast within a month of a spill. In reality, an oily sheen reached the Mississippi River delta just nine days after the April 20 explosion. Heavy globs soon followed. Other locales where oil washed up within weeks of the explosion were characterized in BP's regional plan as safely out of the way of any oil danger.

- BP's site plan regarding birds, sea turtles or endangered marine mammals ("no adverse impacts") also have proved far too optimistic.

While the exact toll on the Gulf's wildlife may never be known, the effects clearly have been devastating.

More than 400 oiled birds have been treated, while dozens have been found dead and covered in crude, mainly in Louisiana but also in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. On remote islands teeming with birds, a visible patina of oil taints pelicans, gulls, terns and herons, as captured in AP photos that depict one of the more gut-wrenching aspects of the spill's impact. Such scenes are no longer unusual; the response plans anticipate nothing on this scale.

continued:

In Louisiana's Barataria Bay, a dead sea turtle caked in reddish-brown oil lay splayed out with dragonflies buzzing by. More than 200 lifeless turtles and several dolphins also have washed ashore. So have countless fish.

There weren't supposed to be any coastline problems because the site was far offshore. "Due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected," the site plan says.

But that distance has failed to protect precious resources. And last week, a group of environmental research center scientists released a computer model that suggested oil could ride ocean currents around Florida and up to North Carolina by summer.

- Perhaps the starkest example of BP's planning failures: The company has insisted that the size of the leak doesn't matter because it has been reacting to a worst-case scenario all along.

Yet each step of the way, as the estimated size of the daily leak has grown from 42,000 gallons to 210,000 gallons to perhaps 1.8 million gallons, BP has been forced to scramble - to create potential solutions on the fly, to add more boats, more boom, more skimmers, more workers. And containment domes, top kills, top hats.

While a disaster as devastating as a major oil spill will create some problems that can't be solved in advance, or even foreseen, BP's plans do not anticipate even the most obvious issues, and use mountains of words to dismiss problems that have proven overwhelming.

In responses to lengthy lists of questions from AP, officials for BP and the Interior Department, which oversees oil rig regulator Minerals Management Service, appear to concede there were problems with the two oil spill response plans.

"Many of the questions you raise are exactly those questions that will be examined and answered by the presidential commission as well as other investigations into BP's oil spill," said Kendra Barkoff, spokeswoman for Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. She added that Salazar has undertaken transformational reforms of MMS.

Said BP spokesman Daren Beaudo from Robert, La.: "We expect that a complete review of the regional response plans and planning process will take place as part of the overall incident investigation so that we can determine what worked well and what needs improvement. Thus far we have implemented the largest spill response in history and many, many elements of it have worked well. However, we are greatly disappointed that oil has made landfall and impacted shorelines and marshes. The situation we are dealing with is clearly complex, unprecedented and will offer us much to learn from."

A key failure of the plan's cleanup provisions was the scarcity of boom - floating lines of plastic or absorbent material placed around sensitive areas to deflect oil.

From the start, local officials all along the Gulf Coast have complained about a lack of supplies, particularly the heavier, so-called ocean boom. But even BP says in its regional plan that boom isn't effective in seas more than three to four feet; waves in the Gulf are often bigger. And even in calmer waters, oil has swamped vital wildlife breeding grounds in places supposedly sequestered by multiple layers of boom.

The BP plans speak of thorough resources for all; there's no talk of a need to share. Still, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said his shores were left vulnerable by Coast Guard decisions to shift boom to Louisiana when the oil threatened landfall there.

Meanwhile, in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish, Nungesser and others have complained that miles of the boom now in the water were not properly anchored. AP reporters saw evidence he was right - some lines of boom were so broken up they hardly impeded the slick's push to shore.

Some out-of-state contractors who didn't know local waters placed boom where tides and currents made sure it didn't work properly. And yet disorganization has dogged efforts to use local boats. In Venice, La., near where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf, a large group of charter captains have been known to spend their days sitting around at the marina, earning $2,000 a day without ever attacking the oil.

But perhaps the most glaring error in BP's plans involves Lutz, the professor, one of several dozen experts recommended as resources to be contacted in the event of a spill.

Lutz is listed as a go-to wildlife specialist at the University of Miami. But Lutz, an eminent sea turtle expert, left Miami almost 20 years ago to chair the marine biology department at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He died four years before the plan was published.

Updated and passed under Bill Clinton in 1994, clearly spells out what the role of the federal government and the EPA should be. Has not been followed.

Since the earlier versions of this legislation were kicking around since the late 1960's and further developed in the early 1970's, let me take the opportunity to say this: Richard Nixon. So I call your "Bill Clinton" reference with a "Richard Nixon" reference, and raise you with a "Spiro Agnew" reference.

How do you expect to be taken seriously when anything you say is so completely permeated by partisan politics? Gee whiz....... :confused:

Anyways, you make the blanket statement that Bill Clinton's Ineffective National Contingency Plan "has not been followed." In what way? What is not being done under that legislation that you can point to? I really have no idea, but you seem to claim that you do, so maybe you can share that information.

First of all, the entire piece of legislation seems to me to be a classic governmental "List of Lists" and collection of more acronyms than you might see in an episode of "Get Smart." It provides that the EPA is the Chair Agency and the US Coast Guard the Vice Chair Agency to respond to the after effects of a major oil spill. Other member agencies of the National Response Team are the Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Department of Defense, Department of the Interior, the State Department, Department of Justice, the GSA, and a half dozen others.

Again, it appears to me from my quick reading of the legislation that it deals predominantly with reporting requirement of spills, containment of spilled oil, countermeasures, clean-up, disposal, and seeking reimbursement from offenders for damages/governmental expenses of clean-up. They also have lists of approved dispersal/clean-up agents to be used in the event of a major spill.

It also appears that the National Response Team has been juggling its acronyms around and doing something, since if you check on the wesite at www.nrt.org they have information posted about the response to the most recent disaster. But my question is, since you seem to know how this whole NCP thing is supposed to be implemented, what has Obama done or failed to do within the framework of that legislation that leads you to the conclusion that it "has not been followed?"

Don't misunderstand----I don't for a minute believe that the government's response has been adequate, but I need a bit more information other than
"O-DOG IS SATAN!" before I can conclude that the Administration has just forgotten that the EPA and all these other agencies exist.

It certainly doesn't appear to me that this legislation contemplates, funds, or allows for the Federal Government to pick up the Bat Phone and call in the "Emergency Screw Top Cap for Leaking Oil Wells Team." Maybe we should have something like that, but I don't think we do. And maybe at some point in the future we will, but not if the "Drill, Baby, Drill" apologists get their way.

And you are not partisan? I call you on your BS. You definitely have a bias, and I am not being a phony about mine. The point is that there is a clear cut plan of action that was to be implemented by the EPA, not BP, yet we don't hear it or see it. At the very least, this President, who fom the beginning of his election, could not stop talking, has not been giving us updates on progress in this action. You can try and defend this inept leader all you want, the majority of the public is catching on. This man is in over his head.

You missed the part where I said I didn't think the government's response was adequate, I guess. Doesn't sound like I am defending anyone.

Regarding whether the EPA has actually taken any actions outlined in the NCP, apparently you didn't bother clicking on the link I provided. Well, when you make decisions first based only on your political party affiliation, why bother with facts? The "clear cut plan of action" that you are trying to bullshit your way into avoiding reading/understanding deals mainly with how to scrape oil off the little birdies and turtles AFTER the spill has happened.

As for my request that you explain how the "plan" wasn't implemented by Obama, I guess you answered it.

You pulled it out of your ass. Very consistent of you.

P.S.: RICHARD NIXON!!! MUWAAAAAHAHAHA!!!

http://www.ucbcomedy.com/


Watch the video of BP spilling coffee...

pretty much sums it up...
:D

It'd be funny if it wasn't so true.

Mississippi Gov:
http://www.cagle.com/working/100609/ramsey.jpg


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http://www.cagle.com/working/100610/matson.jpg


http://www.cagle.com/working/100609/arial.gif

http://www.cagle.com/working/100613/keefe.jpg


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http://www.cagle.com/working/100611/heller.jpg


http://www.cagle.com/working/100611/zyglis.jpg


http://www.cagle.com/working/100611/koterba.jpg

You missed the part where I said I didn't think the government's response was adequate, I guess. Doesn't sound like I am defending anyone.

Regarding whether the EPA has actually taken any actions outlined in the NCP, apparently you didn't bother clicking on the link I provided. Well, when you make decisions first based only on your political party affiliation, why bother with facts? The "clear cut plan of action" that you are trying to bullshit your way into avoiding reading/understanding deals mainly with how to scrape oil off the little birdies and turtles AFTER the spill has happened.

As for my request that you explain how the "plan" wasn't implemented by Obama, I guess you answered it.

You pulled it out of your ass. Very consistent of you.

P.S.: RICHARD NIXON!!! MUWAAAAAHAHAHA!!!

Well, what specifically has been done? What is the purpose of the federal government and the Environmental PROTECTION Agency? What is the purpose of having all these bureacrats in the government if they do nothing when true emergency strikes?

Well, what specifically has been done? What is the purpose of the federal government and the Environmental PROTECTION Agency? What is the purpose of having all these bureacrats in the government if they do nothing when true emergency strikes?


Now you are getting somewhere. This collection of bureaucrat assholes have been set up in a position to be "reactive" at best rather than "proactive" in preventing crap like this from happening in the first place. Oil companies are cutting each other's throats to beat each other to richly deposited areas, and you are kidding yourself if you think they won't put greed above any and all human or animal life in the process.

This didn't start with Obama, or Bush ("Light"), or Clinton, or Bush (Original Recipe). It has obviously been a problem of turning a blind eye to the avarice and greed of big business for a long time.

As I said, and if you take the time to read about what these agencies have been "empowered" to do (har dee har har) you will see that the response plan is to hand out mops, and little more.

It remains to be seen how this will play out, and I would like to see more agressive action being taken, myself. I drove around Long Island all weekend and saw BP stations selling gas and making money. If I am King of America, I throw BP out of the fucking country like a player being tossed for arguing balls and strikes, and I seize all their assets to distribute/compensate the American workers and independent gas station owners adversely affected. Not sure the "O-Dog" could get away with it----but it's just a thought.

Your position that there is some kind of "clear cut plan of action" that Obama is ignoring is just nonsense.

Wally Walrus is embarrassed about being the big joke of the hearings (before Barton's apology to BP):

http://actinglikeanimals.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/0816274b-f47b-4d0c-bd63-bcb556a57452.jpg

In the past 5 years BP has been cited for 760 safety violations, Sunoco and Conoco had 8 each, 2 for Citgo and 1 for ExxonMobil. Given that fact, I would like to apologize to BP for the shakedown that took place and am personally embarrassed by the flagrant inflamatory pictures of dying birds, sea turtles and other wildlife being shown all in an effort to make a good corporate citizen look bad.

I don't understand how this helps republicans politically. My mother is a republican and she was very upset by the fact that members of the party are putting down the President for getting money from the company that caused this mess. So who do the GOP think they are appealing to? Only the teabaggers and Fox Fanatics will support this view, and they already hate the President and support anything his political enemies say.

it's a damn shame when the "less governement" people now demand more.
BUT outside of talking out of both sides of their mouths maybe they should learn to read.
The Deepwater Horizon was built in South Korea and operated by a Swiss company (Transocean) working for a British oil company (BP).

And under international law, rigs can be treated as ships, with less governmental oversight. The Deepwater Horizon was registered as a ship in the Marshall Islands
So maybe if we had less Joe Barton's who accepted one of the largest campaign contributions EVER by oil companies and then serving as the ranking member of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce....


Yea. Tread on this....:rolleyes:

So who do the GOP think they are appealing to?

Um, I dunno, "Hitler Youth?"

The Brits are upset with the way we treated Tony "I want my life back" Hayward:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/18/AR2010061803443.html

British media denounce BP chief's 'savage grilling' by House panel

By Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi and William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 18, 2010; 3:17 PM

LONDON -- British newspapers and commenters turned on President Obama, members of Congress and Americans in general Friday as they denounced the treatment of BP chief executive Tony Hayward by a House investigative panel.

Responding to what they variously described as a "savage grilling," a hypocritical spectacle and even a "Stalinist show trial," tabloids bristled at perceived anti-British sentiment in Thursday's hearing on the BP oil spill disaster by a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

British politicians, for their part, generally steered clear of the controversy. But one senior member of Prime Minister David Cameron's government expressed sympathy for the Obama administration.

Chris Huhne, secretary of state for energy and climate change, said: "We have to put this in the context of the environmental crisis that Barack Obama is facing in the Gulf of Mexico."

Speaking live on the BBC's current affairs show "Question Time," Huhne took a swipe at tabloids lamenting the alleged anti-British rhetoric coming out of Washington.

"I recognize there is, particularly in parts of the tabloid press, a strong lobby which would like us to re-fight the American War of Independence," he said.

While "some of the [U.S.] rhetoric is clearly over the top," British Foreign Secretary William Hague "didn't find it was anti-British and reported back on that," Huhne said. "But it is clearly anti-BP and anti-big oil for the understandable reasons that this is an environmental catastrophe which has cost lives and livelihoods."

Cameron came to BP's defense Thursday during a visit to Brussels, calling the British oil giant "an important multinational company" that is not only vital to Britain but is "also important, I would argue, to the United States." He said BP "recognizes that it has huge obligations and it will have to spend a huge amount of money" to contain and plug its leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico, clean up the spill and pay appropriate compensation.

But tabloids and their readers lashed out over what they described as the six-hour interrogation of Hayward by grandstanding congressmen.

London's Daily Mail said Hayward, a 53-year-old British geologist who has been chief executive of BP for three years, "was subjected to a grilling so savage yesterday that it was more like ancient Rome than Capitol Hill." It said the "hapless boss and his company" were treated like "Public Enemy No. 1."

Hayward "was always going to get a caning from U.S. congressmen playing to the gallery," the Daily Express said in an editorial. "Cheap lines about taking his 'golden parachute back to England' revealed the anti-British prejudice that was at work."

The editorial continued: "The insatiable demand for oil of the American lifestyle is what has prompted the need for so much inherently risky deep-water drilling. Until the Americans take action to curtail this demand then their complaints amount to nothing more than the squealing of hypocrites."

A news story in the paper said Thursday's hearing "took on the style of a Stalinist show trial." It quoted Richard Branson, the British magnate who chairs the Virgin Group, as accusing Obama of "unseemly behavior" for repeatedly "kicking a company while it was on its knees." Branson said BP "deserves to be criticized," but that so do U.S. government regulators.

The Sun joined the indignant reporting. The paper's business editor wrote that the hearing had a "distasteful anti-British feel."

British actress Helen Mirren also took some flak in the British press Friday for criticizing BP on the "Late Show" with David Letterman. Writing in the Daily Express, columnist James Delingpole said Mirren's "treachery" would not be easily forgiven.

"She has ganged up with President Obama in his cheaply xenophobic and quite appallingly unfair campaign to make out that the BP oil spill is somehow Britain's fault," he said.

Daily Mail columnist Philip Norman agreed: "One might have thought that a Dame of the British Empire who has portrayed the Queen (and, in many American eyes, is almost inseparable from her) would try in some graceful, light-hearted way to counteract the decidedly anti-British rhetoric coming from a grandstanding President Obama."

Online commenters weighed in with more criticism.

"So these are the rulers of the most powerful nation on earth," a "Mr. Grimsdale" wrote on the Daily Mail's Web site. "I think the rest of us should be worried, very worried by this bunch of ignorant potato heads with their fingers on the nuclear button."

On the Sun's Web site, a writer named "dispondant" complained: "It was an accident for god's sake. Do the yanks think it was done on purpose. . . . Obama needs to back off & let BP get on with the job in hand they dont need a prat of a president posturing about & getting in the way."

Commenter "littlesod" wrote on the same site: "so when are the Americans gonna say sorry for IRAQ?? that was a LIE based only on OIL and a foothold in the Arabic region. but then again the US think they rule the world. . . ."

They can all take a jump in the ocean...or better yet, the Gulf of Mexico.

Um, I dunno, "Hitler Youth?"
You mean not your Stalinist club?

R.I.P Spongebob, who died in an oil spill because of BP

[QUOTE=tigger]The Brits are upset with the way we treated Tony "I want my life back" Hayward:/QUOTE]


This from a society in which members of the House of Commons SCREAM at the prime minister!!!!!!!

Maybe we should boycott Britain rather than BP.

My response is

Kiss my Ass!!!!

A lot of the British response is a kneejerk reaction to what is perceived as "anti-British" sentiments. BP is just another big faceless multi national, it hasnt been called British Petroleum for 11 years (however many times Obama&co like to say it), it employs many more Americans than British and both nationalities hold about 40% of the shares each. It's an understandable political ploy to turn this into a 'look what these foreign s.o.b's have done to us, we'll show 'em' scenario but the company does not stand for Britain so it'd be nice not to be knocked for stuff that has feck all to do with us.
Obviously I can also see the other side of things - if a company called AP that used to be called American Petroleum and had a gigantic bellend of a CEO who was also American spilled a gazillion gallons of oil on Britain's coastline and didnt seem to have any way of ever stopping it then the country would probably be in an anti-American frenzy.
Basically, I think the 'Brit Bashing' is wrong and I also think the response of the British press is also wrong (nothing new there).
A huge multinational has really really really f'd up and they need to pay for everything they have done but dont think it represents Britain or its people
And one last thing......why arent Transocean and Halliburton getting hammered? If they were called British Transocean and English Halliburton I bet they would be!
Let's all be friends! Boycotting Britain seems a bit harsh when our lads are dying with distressing regularity alongside your own in Afghanistan. And we let you have a goal during the World Cup!

I agree 100% with Sir Lobbie. This has nothing to do with the country or people of Britain------this is a corporate fuck-up of monumental proportions by a mutinational entity.

I don't see the purpose of boycotting the country, it's a private industry. Boycott the company :confused:


It's not like the State of AZ being assholes, then you boycott the State.

Didn't BP used to be known as Sinclair? With Dino the Dinosaur as their mascot?

no sinclair is still sinclair

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_Oil_Corporation

Remember when Mobil used peagsus as it's logo?? When I was little I called it "Piggy's ass"

I remember when Getty was Flying A, Citgo was Cities Service, and Exxon was Esso...and MObil still uses Pegasus as the logo for their version of the EZpass.

BP used to be known as something else...wish I could remember what...

Are you thinking Amoco (AMerican Oil COmpany)? BP and Amoco merged some years back... with all entities adopting the BP name...

Also when Standard Oil got disolved and BP was part of that??

According to WIkipedia (so take that whatever it's worth or not worth) the disolution of Standard Oil formed 34 individual companies some of which through mergers and name changes became Exxon, Mobil, Amoco and Chevron. While BP eventually acquired some of the divested entities, it wasn't part of the actual divestiture.

I don't see the purpose of boycotting the country, it's a private industry. Boycott the company :confused:




You can't really boycott the company either. Petroleum is a perfectly fungible commodity, and oil and gas is about the most perfect competition there can be. Essentially, EVERY gas station is selling BP gas, not just the BP stations. The only way to truly boycott BP is to not use any gasoline. Bike to work, take public transit, write your member of congress telling them you want incentives for alternative energy and disincentives for oil, and for Christ's sakes, what is it going to take to keep people from voting oilmen and oilwomen into office again and again?


http://www.newsfollowup.com/images/oiltank.jpg

I'd be more apt to soul search for sympathy regarding the "knee jerk anti british sentiment" if it wasn't for the fact that the entire rest of the world tends toward knee-jerk anti-american sentiments. If we were talking about some little arm-pit tragedy case nation, I might even have some more sympathy. But when a western Eurpean nation, Great Britain included, gets a turn wearing the "Shit head of the universe" badge instead of us, I'm not about to go crying a river on their behalf.

I like Sagey's idea.

We should use less oil anyway, so a pox on all their houses.

I think his [sagebrush's] Hummer bumper sticker light-vandalism plot was brilliant. Does anyone remember that?

This new thing he's saying smacks of maturity and unimpeachability. I'm currently unemployed, so I'm disgruntled and would rather tag a bunch of hummers. But on the plus side, with no job to get to, I'm not driving anywhere.

I'd be more apt to soul search for sympathy regarding the "knee jerk anti british sentiment" if it wasn't for the fact that the entire rest of the world tends toward knee-jerk anti-american sentiments. If we were talking about some little arm-pit tragedy case nation, I might even have some more sympathy. But when a western Eurpean nation, Great Britain included, gets a turn wearing the "Shit head of the universe" badge instead of us, I'm not about to go crying a river on their behalf.
Agree.

Plus, just read the comments Brits have to say about the oil spill after articles in various British newspapers, they are vicious and hateful towards all Americans, seem to think we have some nerve being upset with BP, and keep trying to prove how un-British British Petroleum is.

Back to Joe Barton:

A GOP chorus of Joe Bartons on the BP oil spill

By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Joe Barton is not alone. The Texas congressman's lavish sympathy for BP -- which he sees not as perpetrator of a preventable disaster but as victim of a White House "shakedown" -- is actually what passes for mainstream opinion among conservative Republicans today.

The GOP leadership came down hard on Barton after he apologized to the oil company for the beastly way it was being treated by the White House, saying he was "ashamed" that BP was being pressured to put $20 billion into a "slush fund" to compensate victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Barton was reportedly threatened with losing his powerful position as ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Committee if he didn't retract his words, and pronto.

But Barton was only echoing a statement that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) had issued a day earlier in the name of the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of House conservatives whose Web site claims 115 members. The statement groused that there is "no legal authority for the president to compel a private company to set up or contribute to an escrow account" and accused the Obama administration of "Chicago-style shakedown politics." Just to review: A group constituting roughly two-thirds of all Republicans in the House takes the position that President Obama was wrong to demand that BP set aside money to guarantee that those whose livelihoods are being ruined by the oil spill will be compensated. In other words, it's more important to kneel at the altar of radical conservative ideology than to feel any sense of compassion for one's fellow Americans. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how today's GOP rolls.

To be sure, there are Republicans who realize that this is not the message the party should be sending as the midterm election nears. "I couldn't disagree with Joe Barton more," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Party leaders insisted that there was nothing to see at the cliff where Barton went through the political guardrails and that everyone should just move along.

But no. Let's slow down and crane our necks.

Barton's remarks were no spontaneous gaffe. They came in a prepared statement and represent his genuine view of the situation: that the rights of a private company are absolute even when weighed against the clear interests of the public.

While the party leadership has managed to squelch members of Congress who might have been tempted to weigh in on Barton's side, the conservative amen chorus can't help itself. Rush Limbaugh called the agreement on the $20 billion escrow fund "unconstitutional" and accused the administration of acting like "a branch of organized crime." Newt Gingrich said the White House was "extorting money from a company." Stuart Varney of Fox News claimed -- falsely -- that Obama had moved to "seize a private company's assets" and complained that the action was "Hugo Chavez-like." Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol said that "I have no sympathy for BP," but then proceeded to be sympathetic, offering that "it's not helpful for the country, for the economy as a whole, for the president to bully different companies and different industries." I'd advise these people to get a grip, but they're just saying what they believe. It just happens that what they believe is absurd.

There is ample evidence that BP, one of the biggest and most profitable oil companies in the world, cut corners in operating the Deepwater Horizon rig that resulted in the worst spill ever to despoil U.S. waters. BP's assertions about its ability to prevent, contain and clean up any oil leak turned out to be patently false. If we were not dealing with such a tragic situation, the company's tin ear for public relations would be comic; the unforgettable line from BP's chairman -- "We care about the small people" -- sounds like something Mel Brooks might dream up for a sequel to "The Producers." Meanwhile, thousands of fishermen, shrimpers, oil-rig workers, restaurant owners and others along the Gulf Coast are suffering the economic effects of the spill. The environmental damage, still worsening, will be felt for decades. A mile beneath the surface, that noxious plume of gas and oil continues to billow.

Yes, President Obama used the power of his office to pressure BP to set money aside for compensation. If Republicans believe he shouldn't have, then by all means they should speak up. Come November, the voters will be able to decide who's right.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062103699.html

http://www.cagle.com/working/100619/jones.jpg

...by a federal judge:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/22/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T1

Well, you kind of figured a federal judge in Louisianna was going to go toward Oil. As far as I can tell the only gulf state that wants to stop the deep drilling is Florida.

...by a federal judge:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/06/22/gulf.oil.disaster/index.html?hpt=T1

At least some good news for the Gulf economy.

http://www.cagle.com/working/100623/darkow.jpg

http://www.cagle.com/working/100621/holbert.jpg

http://www.cagle.com/working/100621/bors.jpg

I think his [sagebrush's] Hummer bumper sticker light-vandalism plot was brilliant. Does anyone remember that?

This new thing he's saying smacks of maturity and unimpeachability. I'm currently unemployed, so I'm disgruntled and would rather tag a bunch of hummers. But on the plus side, with no job to get to, I'm not driving anywhere.


What was the bumper-sticker plot? :confused:

You weren't the one who wanted to tag Hummers already marked with "My son is a marine" stickers with new ones that said "My son is going to die in a real hummer in Iraq so I can ride around here playing pretend in this one" or something like that, but that would fit on a bumper sticker?

I forget what it really said, but it was brilliant. Too brilliant for me to remember what it really was :lookarou: