Posts filed under ‘BP / Gulf Oil Disaster’
The Truth Hurts
This from wanna be president, Sarah Palin:
The “lamesteam media” wouldn’t be sucking anyone in Sarah, they’d be telling the truth: Republican Joe Barton Apologizes to BP for US Making Them Pay for Damages.
It’s raining oil in Louisiana
All I can think is “what have we done?”
Mourning the Death of the Gulf
If you do nothing more today, please watch this loving, gorgeous – yet tragic and heartbreaking — video Denise Redmour composed: A Farewell to the Gulf. It both celebrates and mourns what is happening to our south.
The pictures and the music combine to make a lovely tribute to the life that is dying there. Hard to watch — it literally brought tears to my eyes — but it’s also an in-your-face slap at what BP has wrought, hour-by-hour, day-by-day. It’s a must-see in terms of coming to terms with the loss we all feel:
MSNBC Says, “BP: Relief Wells Are Ahead of Schedule”
Three minutes ago MSNBC aired this chyron: “BP: Relief Wells are Ahead of Schedule.”
Note to MSNBC: Put a big ol’ disclaimer on that “news” because everything BS BP has said so far has been a lie.
Sea Turtles Dying in BP’s “Burn Boxes”
Watch this interview with Mike Ellis, a Venice, Louisiana boat captain who works for BP and the Coast Guard. He talks about how sea turtles that could easily be rescued, are instead dying in “burn boxes” in the vicinity of where the Deepwater Horizon sank in the Gulf of Mexico.
“They just drag a boom between two shrimp boats and whatever’s caught between the two boats, they circle it up and catch it on fire,” says Mike Ellis in the below interview. “Once the turtles are in there they can’t get out.”
[...]
They’re just, they said they, they’re pretty much keeping us from doing what we need to do out there, and they’re shortening it just because of the frustration you know. They don’t want to let you do what you need to do. I think Wednesday [the turtle rescue people], they’re pulling out.
Suicide in the Gulf
My brother, Eric, committed suicide in 1988 so this news hit me right in the gut: Despondent Boat Captain Hired by BP for Gulf Cleanup Commits Suicide:
“I hate to say it, but I’m surprised something like this hasn’t already happened.” This, tragically, was the death by suicide of a charter boat captain hired by BP to take part in oil leak cleanup or protection efforts in the gulf.
The quote comes from Jason Bell, who worked for William Allen “Rookie” Kruse, 55, for three years as a deckhand and pilot. Kruse put a bullet through his head this morning [June 23, 2001] at a marina in Fort Morgan, Alabama. His boat was about to launch today and he was reportedly upset with the oil leak, the cleanup efforts and loss of income, and wondering how he would be paid for taking part in the Vessel of Opportunity program.
The local coroner ruled that the gunshot was self-inflicted. Kruse was found right on the captain’s bridge. He had no known health problems.
“He had just let his deckhands off the boat and sent them to get something,” Baldwin County Deputy Coroner Rod Steade told the local newspaper, the Press-Register. “He was going to meet them at the fuel dock. They heard a pop and when the boat didn’t come around, they went back and found him.”
The newspaper related that Baldwin County Coroner Stan Vinson “said witnesses told investigators that Kruse had been upset about the loss of business caused by the closing of fishing grounds and public perceptions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.”
The despair in the Gulf is unimaginable.
Oh. And when it comes to paying damages, how will the government and BP decide how much William Allen “Rookie” Kruse’s life was worth? Will they consider that his family will suffer until they too die because of the pain of his loss?
Shocker: The EPA Still Hasn’t Tested Safety of Dispersants
If this isn’t a perfect example of the inefficiency and incompetence of government I don’t know what is:
During a conference call with reporters on May 24, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, fielding questions about the use of toxic dispersants to break up the oil from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, made a clear promise: “We will conduct our own tests to determine the least toxic, most effective dispersant available in the volumes necessary for a crisis of this magnitude.” Jackson said that she was “not satisfied that BP has done an extensive enough analysis of other dispersant options.”
Well, guess what. Here we are, thousands of gallons of dispersant poured into the Gulf and a month later, and the testing still hasn’t been done.
You’d think there would be a sense of urgency about this, wouldn’t you? Guess not.
BP Doesn’t Want You to See This
BP doesn’t want you to see these images and neither does the corporate media. If they did, we’d see them all day and all night and all the time in between. Kinda like the Natalee Holloway story.
Judge Martin Feldman — Owned by the the Oil Industry
The oil companies who sued the Obama administration over its 6-month oil moratorium (and won today) couldn’t have had a better friend on the bench than the man who decided the case, U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman:
The federal judge whooverturned Barack Obama’s offshore drilling moratorium appears to own stock in numerous companies involved in the offshore oil industry—including Transocean, which leased the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to BP prior to its April 20 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico—according to 2008 financial disclosure reports.
U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman issued a preliminary injunction today barring the enforcement of Barack Obama’s proposed six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling, arguing that the ban is too broad.
According to Feldman’s 2008 financial disclosure form, posted online by Judicial Watch [pdf], the judge owned stock in Transocean as well as five other companies that are either directly or indirectly involved in the offshore drilling business.
It’s not surprising that Feldman, who is a judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana, has invested in the offshore drilling business—an AP investigation found earlier this month that more than half the federal judges in the districts affected by the BP spill have financial ties to the oil and gas industry.
Feldman should have recusing himself. He never should have heard (much less decided) this case. He’s too tainted to be impartial, and he knew it and knows it today. This case illustrates just how far our judicial system has fallen. Thirty years ago, this would have been an outrage.
Oh, and by the way, Feldman was appointed to the bench by none other than Ronnie Reagan.
Louisiana Police Working for BP
Why hasn’t this kind of behavior — which we’ve been hearing about for weeks — been brought under control? It’s absolutely outrageous:
Everyone knows by now that BP is still blocking press access to oil-spill sites even though they’re not supposed to anymore. I’ve been blathering about it for weeks, and it’s been all of three days since four contractors wouldn’t let me through the Pointe Aux Chenes marina outside Montegut, Louisiana. And though as of June 16 the federal government was saying helicopters could fly reporters as low as 1,500 feet around spill sites, on June 17 I was on a helicopter that was prohibited from flying below 3,000 feet (and whose pilot flipped silent birds at the “military guys” coming over the radio and hassling him about being in the area at all). But Louisiana state police pulling over a video camera-wielding private citizen because the head of BP security wanted to ask him some questions is a whole other level of alarming.
Here’s the key exchange:
Wheelan: ”Am I violating any laws or anything like that?”
Officer: ”Um…not particularly. BP doesn’t want people filming.”
Wheelan: ”Well, I’m not on their property so BP doesn’t have anything to say about what I do right now.”
Officer: ”Let me explain: BP doesn’t want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense.”
Not really! Shortly thereafter, Wheelan got in his car and drove away but was soon was pulled over.
It was the same cop, but this time he had company: Kenneth Thomas, whose badge, Wheelan told me, read “Chief BP Security.” The cop stood by as Thomas interrogated Wheelan for 20 minutes, asking him who he worked with, who he answered to, what he was doing, why he was down here in Louisiana. He phoned Wheelan’s information in to someone. Wheelan says Thomas confiscated his Audubon volunteer badge (he’d recently attended an official Audubon/BP bird-helper volunteer training) and then wouldn’t give it back, which sounds like something only a bully in a bad movie would do. Eventually, Thomas let Wheelan go.
What Do You Want Your Kids to Inherit?
Compare this:
to this:
What do you want your kids to inherit?
How Many Animals Have Died in the Gulf?
I heard a report today on my local radio station about how BP has cordoned off some small islands in the Gulf where hundreds of dead birds and turtles have reportedly been found. They don’t want any pictures documenting how the wildlife is suffering. Not only that, larger animals like dolphins likely sink to the sea floor when they die. So, who knows if we’ll ever know what’s going on down there but here’s a site — FYI — that’s trying to keep track: DailyDeadBirds.com.
For the record, I took a screenshot of today’s tally to compare and contrast as time goes by.
(It’s so sad, isn’t it, that there’s a site anywhere on the web titled, “Daily Dead Birds?”)
When “Journalists” Float GOP Talking Points
“Journalists” in the “liberal media” have become so accustomed to floating GOP talking points that they don’t even try to hide it anymore:
Oil Owns Republicans (and Some Democrats)
Watch this…drill here, drill now!
BP’s Pelicans v. God’s Pelicans
BP’s pelicans:
Pelicans as God and Mother Nature intended them to be:
I want my 2-year-old friend to know Mother Nature’s pelicans, not BP’s.
A Hole in the World
Here’s a must see, featuring the wonderful Naomi Klein. Also note the accompanying article: Gulf Oil Spill: A Hole in the World.
Naomi Klein visited the Gulf coast with a film-crew from Fault Lines, a documentary programme hosted by Avi Lewis on al-Jazeera English Television. She was a consultant on the film.
Oil Spews Out of the Gulf — Tony Hayward Goes Yachting
Even though Tony Hayward has been taken off the front line as the face of BP, he’s still the CEO. And yes, while we all need time to rest and recharge, it is just me and my “small people” mentality or does it seem just a tad unseemly that Tony boy attended a yacht race today? Specifically, the very humble-sounding J.P. Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race:
In what one environmentalist described as “yet another public relations disaster” for embattled energy giant BP, CEO Tony Hayward took time off Saturday to attend a glitzy yacht race around England’s Isle of Wight.
I Volunteer for Tony Hayward’s Job
So, it looks like BP CEO Tony Hayward has his life back. BP’s Chairman, Carl-Henric Svanberg, the guy who said he really, really cares about the “small people,” sent Hayward back to London today after Hayward spent yesterday in front of a congressional panel saying, in essence, I don’t know anything about what went on or what’s going on.
Tony took home $36.5 million last year.
I’ve volunteered at a food bank for the last year and a half. I am a “food bank assistant” and I’m charged with making sure there are ample supplies of food on the floor of the food bank (as opposed to in the basement, where stocks are kept) so the shelves and bins can be replenished at a moment’s notice. I don’t get a dime for what I do. Yet if I’d been hauled before congress to answer questions about how the food bank works, I could have told the representatives a whole lot more about how the place works than $36.5 Million Tony did.
Outrageous, isn’t it, the imbalance going on around here?
Oil Coming Up Through Floor of the Gulf
FireDogLake has video of oil spewing up through the floor of the Gulf. If it is, we have a problem of biblical proportions.
Apologize to Poor BP
We all feel sorry for BP don’t we? Poor things have to pay all that money because of their Gulf oil spill and mean ol’ Obama made them set up a $20 billion escrow fund.
Let’s help make them feel better. Go to ApologizeToBP.com and send your thoughts.
Have You Seen This Picture?
At first, intriguing and beautiful, then horrifying:
Oil in the water off the coast of Alabama.
BP Providing Hookers for Clean-Up Workers
BP may not want its clean-up workers to wear protective clothing or respirators (wouldn’t look good), but you can’t say they are neglecting them altogether. In “More Dirty Details From My BP Mole,” Mac McClelland reports that,
Oh, wait. Not nothing: “They’ve brought in prostitutes.” No one knows who the “they” that brought in the pack of hookers is, but the gals have definitely arrived, and you can buy time with one for $200. It only took someone a whole month even to figure out that it would be lucrative to sell sex to guys earning 44 hours of overtime a week and living in camps and converted 18-wheelers.
So thoughtful of them.
Now We Know Why Joe Barton (R-TX) Feels Sorry for BP
Ah yes. Now we know why Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) felt the need to apologize to BP because President Obama is making the poor thing pay for the clean-up: Top Corporate Donor to Barton is Partner of BP on Deepwater Horizon.
Tony Hayward Plays Dumb
The gist of BP CEO Tony Hayward’s testimony before congress today is this: “I don’t recall.” I can’t count how many times he said that.
UPDATE: Just heard on Countdown that he said “I don’t know” or “I can’t recall,” 77 times.
Republicans Feeling Sorry for BP
My God. Republicans are up on Capitol Hill today in a hearing with Tony – I want my life back – Hayward and they’re apologizing to poor little ol’ BP because President Obama is making them pay for the mess they’ve made. This from Rep. Joe Barton of Texas:
I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” Barton said in his opening statement. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown in this case a $20 billion dollar shakedown.
Hey, I thought they were the party of personal responsibility. Oh, that’s right. That only applies to the small people, not to corporations.
Are You One of the “Small People?”
Are you one of the “small people?” Those would be the words of BP’s chairman, referring to the “small people” in the Gulf.
I am.
(Wow. The rich, corporate elite really do think we’re scum/slaves, don’t they?)
Why The War Analogy Doesn’t Fit the BP Oil Disaster
Love this article by Robert Scheer over at Truthdig.org:
Rape and Spillage
What’s with the president’s war analogy on the oil spill? It’s as if some alien force, “The Invasion of the Slippery Sludge,” suddenly attacked us. “Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al-Qaida,” President Barack Obama said Tuesday in his White House speech, “and tonight, I’ve returned from a trip to the Gulf Coast to speak with you about the battle we’re waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens.”
What nonsense. The oil was minding its own business until some multinational corporations, enabled by a dysfunctional government regulatory regime, decided to wage war on the ecological balance of the oceans by employing technology that they were not prepared to control. Cleaning up the oil spill mess we made by raping the environment to satiate our consumer gluttony is not a glorious battle against evil but rather obligatory penance for the profound error of our ways.
You wound Mother Nature by punching a hole deep in her pristine ocean where you have no business going and when she bleeds uncontrollably you dare blame her for the assault?
Right on!
“We Care About the Small People”
“We care about the small people.” That would be Carl-Henric Svanberg, the Chairman of BP just now in front of the White House, speaking to reporters after his meeting with President Obama.
What a truth-revealing gaffe.
