Archive for category Environment
ILL Baby, ILL
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Business and Money, Capitalism, Energy, Environment, Pollution on August 24th, 2010
IT’S ENOUGH TO MAKE YOU SICK . . .
A Halliburton employee serving as a technical advisor to BP on the Deep Water Horizon oil rig that blew up in the Gulf of Mexico recently testified before a U.S. Coast Guard inquiry currently investigating the disaster. In that testimony, he informed the Coast Guard commission that he had sent emails and a computer model to BP’s engineers two days before the explosion indicating that their was a considerable risk of gas leaks given the lack of sufficient stabilizing supports utilized in the construction of the oil well.
BP Chief Engineer Brian Morel’s response to that email?
“Hopefully, the pipe stays centralized due to gravity [because] it’s too late to get any more product to the rig.”
In other words, “I hope SH!T doesn’t happen.”
Morel and one of the top two BP officials on the rig have invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and have refused to testify. The other top BP official has said he is too sick to testify.
So what do BP boys do when faced with having to take personal responsibility for their own monumentally disastereous – as in deadly – decisions?
They either TAKE THE FIFTH or DRINK A FIFTH.
Republicans’ Are Skimming Off Political Froth
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Conservatives, Energy, Environment, Politics, Pollution, Republicans on July 20th, 2010
OIL SKIMMING BOAT
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his fellow cohorts now claim President Obama did not act quickly enough in response to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. McConnell appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” this past Sunday, and based his assertions on the premise that a Republican President would have brought a multitude of oil skimmers into the Gulf much sooner.
As is typical with many Republicans, this Palin-like “common sense” retort to complex problems is far too simplistic when set against the facts.
Besides, you don’t just move hundreds of oil-skimmers away from other critical areas – like harbors and ports – where ships and oil depot facilities routinely spill untold amounts of oil into the waters, having the potential to create smaller-scale environmental disasters. Furthermore, how do they think – well actually, they obviously don’t – they could transfer hundreds of the smaller skimmers from, for instance, California to the Gulf of Mexico? Would they sail in the treacherous waters down the Pacific coast of Central America and through the Panama Canal in such small watercraft?
Not if their asses were on the line.
Are Republicans really interested in fixing this country’s problems?
Then first start by skimming all the political B.S. off your claims.
BP Takes Integrity Test: Grade = F
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Energy, Environment, Oil, Pollution on July 15th, 2010
So BP is going to commence with a procedure to test the integrity of a new system installed on that broken well that they have promised numerous times to fix over the past 80+ days now.
Talk about testing integrity? Look at this long list of their previous blunders.
Think about it. An Integrity Test and BP. Is this engineering lingo or a public relations gambit? Who inside BP would even consider putting the words “Integrity” and “Test” and “BP” all in one sentence. After all, it’s a classic oxymoron - a contradiction in terms.
BP’s integrity has already been tested numerous times. They flunked.
Meanwhile, the United States is being executed by its own energy policy.
AND WE HAVE NO ONE TO BLAME BUT OURSELVES.
Come On In, the Water’s Nice and . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, BP oil spill, Conservatives, Energy, Environment, Government, Oil, Pollution, Sarah Palin on June 29th, 2010
WTF?!?
For all you people who supported Sarah Palin’s “Drill, Baby, Drill” policy, and are now living on ocean-front property along the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic Seaboard – what’s that old saying regarding the three things that determine the value of real estate?
“Location, Location and Location.”
Damn that nasty little Law of Unintended Consequences!?!
NOTE: the above graphic simulation (and it is graphic) projects where the Gulf Stream current will carry the oil slick over time based on an experimental placement of dye in the Gulf waters, measured over a two month period. [graphic courtesy of NOAA - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]
Is Today Thursday?
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Congress, Energy, Environment, Government, House of Representatives, Oil, Pollution on June 17th, 2010
Seriously.
That was one of the questions posed to BP CEO Tony Hayward Thursday by a Congressman during the BP hearings before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. This was following several hours of questioning by others, after it became obvious that Hayward was well-versed in giving emotionless, but polite, non-descript, evasive answers to every question. He simply answered every question without ever giving a clear answer.
Finally, in a show of exasperation, an unidentified Congressman apparently had had enough. He asked Hayward, “Is today Thursday?”
Hayward almost showed a flicker of emotion, and seemingly answered in a veiled defensive tone:
“Yes, it is Thursday.”
That is likely the only good answer Americans will ever get from BP.
A Tragedy of the First Proportion?
Posted by Lance Haley in 2010 Election, BP oil spill, Business and Money, Campaigns, Capitalism, Energy, Environment, Government, House of Representatives, How and Why We Get Screwed, Oil, Politics, Republicans, Show Them the $$$, White House on June 17th, 2010
No, the heading of this post is not a reference to the tragic deaths of the eleven men killed from the horrific explosion and fire on that Gulf oil rig. Nor is that heading alluding to the environmental devastation being wrought upon Gulf coast region by the oil spill. And it is not even a commentary on the hardships the people of the Gulf coast are experiencing.
Quite to the contrary.
That statement was Texas Republican Representative Joe Barton’s characterization of the outcome of the meeting between BP executives and President Obama in the Oval Office on Wednesday – where BP voluntarily agreed to pay $20 Billion into a fund to cover legal claims for the oil spill. Barton seems to think that BP had no choice in the matter – describing it as a political “shakedown” – and then openly apologized to BP’s embattled CEO, Tony Hayward, as more Congressional hearings got underway this morning. Here is what Barton had to say:
“I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday . . . [it's] a tragedy of the first proportion, that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, a $20 billion shakedown.”
Furthermore, Barton attempted to insinuate that BP was denied it’s right to utilize the legal system by invoking the constitutional doctrine of “due process and fairness” - thereby concluding that BP entered the agreement under duress, thus ostensibly elevating it to the level of “a tragedy of first proportion”; at least in Barton’s obviously warped world-view.
If anything, Barton’s response is so remarkably disproportionate, it begs the question as to how he could reach such an extraordinarily nonsensical conclusion? Want a not so little clue?
M-$-O-$-N-$-E-$-Y!
Barton – who is the top Congressional recipient of almost $1.5 million in political campaign contributions from the oil industry over the past 20 years – is just another shameless Big Oil shill in Washington, who is willing to do the bidding for their interests; all while placing the interests of average Americans at the bottom of the barrel.
Barton may be the only Republican brazen enough, or outright stupid enough, to say what he really thinks. I guess money and power will do that to you. Other Republicans simply insinuated that it was another Obama-style government takeover, of sorts. Their “measured responses” are just a veil for the same manner of thinking.
Meanwhile, as I am just finishing writing this post, Barton has suddenly issued a retraction of his earlier apology to BP CEO Tony Hayward – not so ironically, under duress from Republican leadership. In Barton’s mind, that is probably compounding the “tragedy of first proportion”? But even soul-less politicians have to compromise from time-to-time.
Nevertheless, don’t be fooled. After all, defending Corporate America is the primary business of the Republicans. Meanwhile, the small business owners of the Gulf Coast are cast afloat on a proverbial sea of oil, all going to Hell in a hand-basket together.
Let’s just hope the voters remember that come November.
Message to British Regarding American Criticism of BP’s Monumental Screw Up . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Business and Money, Capitalism, Economics, Energy, Environment, Oil, Politics, Pollution on June 11th, 2010
ENGLAND vs. U.S.A – WORLD CUP SOCCER or BP OIL FIASCO?
Help Americans understand this:
So you are distressed over the fact that Americans are extremely outraged at BP’s (formerly called British Petroleum) environmental disaster which is wrecking havoc on our Gulf Coast region; that our fury over this corporation’s massive blunder is somehow to blame for the precipitous drop in it’s stock price; that this drop in the value of BP’s stock has effected the value of many of your citizens’ pensions; therefore Americans need to “ratchet down” criticism of the company so that the stock price can go up again?
Interesting.
So when our Wall Street banks screwed up the world economy, thereby effecting the value of your citizens’ pension funds because they bought some of the over-rated collateralized debt obligations (CDO’s) these financial terrorists were selling, it was OK for you to whip them like the worthless dogs they are. However, when one of your energy corporations screws up, effecting the lives of millions of Americans living on the Gulf coast, we have to bite our tongues because that too negatively affects your retirement accounts?
Locke, Hobbes, Bentham, John Stewart Mills, Bertrand Russell - all great British philosphers. Men of extraordinary reason and intelligence. Did present day British citizens skip the class in Logic and Critical Thinking? These great British philosophers must be rolling over in their graves.
My ancestors left England (and Scotland) in order to come to the United States over 300 years ago.
Maybe for good reason . . . no pun intended.
Yes, Sarah “Drill Baby Drill”, Now We Get It . . .
Posted by Lance Haley in BP oil spill, Business and Money, Conservatives, Energy, Environment, Oil, Politics, Pollution, Sarah Palin on June 2nd, 2010
BP EXECUTIVE TESTIFYING ABOUT 2006 OIL SPILL (promising no future spills)
So, Sarah Palin, let me try and clarify this really twisted, illogical construct.
Because some Americans – present company included – insisted that certain environmentally-protected areas be deemed off-limits from oil exploration because of the risk that oil spills would destroy those fragile eco-systems, we are the one’s at fault for BP’s deep-water drilling disaster? Because the U.S. would not have had to open up deep-water off-shore drilling to the oil companies – thus resulting in the BP Gulf oil spill – if they had been allowed to drill in these protected areas?
As Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic magazine so eloquently labeled your preposterous argument: From The Annals of Chutzpah
It’s not the utter stupidity of the argument that is most disturbing to me. I have come to expect nothing less from you. It’s the fact that a significant minority of Americans actually think you are smart, and should lead this country.
That is why you scare the Hell out of me, Sarah Palin.
Because you should scare the Hell out of every American.
And you don’t.
[Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
Sarah Palin: “Spill Baby Spill”
Posted by Lance Haley in Conservatives, Energy, Environment, Government, Oil, Pollution, Sarah Palin, White House on April 28th, 2010
Hey Sarah “Drill Baby Drill” Palin?
About a month ago you called President Obama’s new energy proposal, “Stall, Baby Stall“.
Let me guess – you are working on your next great idea - putting a floating oil refinery in the Gulf of Mexico to process that crude oil spill out there? That’ll fix it . . .
You betcha!
UPDATE: Sarah. Would you like to try some of our new Louisiana Cajun “Black Broth” Gumbo? Oh, and do you and Todd need a fleet of used shrimpboats? These guys cannot make the payments on their boats anymore due to some politicians’ defense of off-shore drilling policies.
Mother Nature is Indifferent to the Folly of Human Arrogance
Posted by Lance Haley in Climate Change, Environment, Mother Nature on April 16th, 2010
Want just one piece of evidence?
For the past several days, hundreds of planes sit grounded all over Western Europe, and flights are indefinitely cancelled, while a volcano located in the far reaches of Iceland - an isolated island-nation located near the Arctic Circle – continues to erupt, spewing volcanic ash over thousands of square miles. In other words, we are never far enough away from the benign wrath of Mother Nature’s calamities.
Volcanic ash is a fine particulate glass-like mineral that is abrasive to machinery and engines, as well as dangerous to human respiratory systems – it cuts lung tissue when inhaled. Carried on wind currents high in the atmosphere, it can spread around the world in a matter of weeks, affecting the climate and altering human activity for years on end.
As two authors noted last month in this Op-Ed piece from the Los Angeles Times: “The Earth Has It’s Own Set of Rules“.
When will we ever learn that we are powerless in the face of forces far greater than we are?
Likely never.