Paul Joesph Watson - Imagine if Tea Partiers waving Gadsden flags had rioted, started fights with police and trashed public property in a major American city. The corporate media would be all over the story for weeks, lecturing us all about how it was an ominous sign of the rise of an extremist fringe that threatens to destabilize America.
However, when hordes of Los Angeles Lakers fans waving Mexican flags go drunken rampages, start fights with cops, attack motorists, start fires, and deface public property, as happened last night following the NBA Final, the press barely even takes notice. The story has received local coverage in the L.A. media, but it’s nowhere near a top story nationally. Do you think the same would be the case if anti-big government protesters had engaged in the kind of behavior seen last night?
“Crowds hurled bottles and other objects at police, smashed marquees, jumped on vehicles, broke windows, and set rubbish dumpsters and vehicles on fire along Figueroa Street north of Staples Center and on Flower Street,” reports the L.A. Times.
“Police fired non-lethal rounds to disperse the crowd at Figueroa and Venice Boulevard after several small fires were set, as well as at 11th and Hope streets. At 7th and Flower, a car believed to be a taxicab was engulfed in flames.”
Watch the clip below. Thugs waving Mexican flags and others riot while attacking public property.
Of course, the only question is why are they waving Mexican flags in America after attending an American basketball final? Do these individuals consider themselves to be Mexicans or Americans? These kind of scenes will only encourage other states to pursue similar laws to those that Arizona is attempting to enact in the face of White House lawsuits.
The clip below shows the mob setting a car on fire.
Another clip shows what appear to be Hispanic-Americans bragging about the chaos they are causing.
No matter what color you are, and let’s not forget that Hispanic-Americans and non-whites nationally are some of the strongest proponents of enforcing immigration laws, this kind of behavior should repulse everyone, especially considering the fact that these thugs are aggressively waving the flag of a foreign nation while engaging in this moronic and mindless violence.
The double standard is clear to see – if a so-called Tea Partier is so much accused of breaking a window, the corporate networks obsess over the story as if it’s some kind of Al-Qaeda terror attack, yet when thousands of drunken yobs, many of whom are waving Mexican flags, completely turn a downtown city upside down, the establishment press shrugs its shoulders. Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computer Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Visit http://computers.become.com Also, check out Computers Become online specials. this is a offer you can't refuse. http://computers.become.com
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
BP AWARE OF CRACKS IN OIL WELL TWO MONTHS BEFORE EXPLOSION
Paul Joseph Watson - BP was aware of cracks appearing in the Macondo well as far back as February, right around the time Goldman Sachs and BP Chairman Tony Hayward were busy dumping their stocks in the company on the eve of the explosion that led to the oil spill, according to information uncovered by congressional investigators.
The Mining and Mineral Services agency released documents to Bloomberg indicating that BP “was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast,” according to the report.
The fissures, which BP began to attempt to fix on February 13, could have played a role in the disaster, though this is a question still being explored by investigators. Improperly sealed, the cracks cause explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks,” states the report.
As we previously highlighted, eyewitness evidence indicates that Deepwater Horizon managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20. A crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig told Houston attorney Tony Buzbee of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”
The fact that BP managers were aware of problems with the rig and were seemingly unconcerned about fixing them only lends more weight to the already startling indications of some having foreknowledge of the disaster.
As we highlighted last week, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.
Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.
Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.
On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.
Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.
Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well. Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computers Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Find any computer on the market and compare prices. Visit http://computers.become.com. Also, check out Computer Become Online Specials. This is a offer you just can't refuse.http://computers.become.com.
The Mining and Mineral Services agency released documents to Bloomberg indicating that BP “was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast,” according to the report.
The fissures, which BP began to attempt to fix on February 13, could have played a role in the disaster, though this is a question still being explored by investigators. Improperly sealed, the cracks cause explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.
“The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks,” states the report.
As we previously highlighted, eyewitness evidence indicates that Deepwater Horizon managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20. A crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig told Houston attorney Tony Buzbee of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”
The fact that BP managers were aware of problems with the rig and were seemingly unconcerned about fixing them only lends more weight to the already startling indications of some having foreknowledge of the disaster.
As we highlighted last week, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.
Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.
Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.
Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.
On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.
Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.
Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well. Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computers Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Find any computer on the market and compare prices. Visit http://computers.become.com. Also, check out Computer Become Online Specials. This is a offer you just can't refuse.http://computers.become.com.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
MSNBC & Corporate Media Says Sharron Angle Calling For Revolution
Democrats and liberals are petrified by the primary win by Sharron Angle in Nevada. She threatens to unseat the current Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and upset the Democrat balance in the Senate and because of this she must be demonized as a dangerous gun nut who advocates violent revolution.
Greg Sargent of the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, warned that Angle is calling for violent revolution. “In an interview she gave to a right-wing talk show host, Angle approvingly quoted Thomas Jefferson saying it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years — and said that if Congress keeps it up, people may find themselves resorting to ‘Second Amendment remedies,’” Sargent wrote.
“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years,” Angle told radio host Lars Larson. “I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
“The most charitable interpretation here was that Angle was floating armed insurrection,” opines Sargent.
Democrats and liberals continually avoid the fact the United States was established by a revolution in armed — and, yes, violent — opposition to tyranny. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” states the Declaration of Independence.
A recent poll reveals 72 percent of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The number hasn’t been that high since the week before the 1994 election. Obama’s weekly approval rating is at an all-time low, according to the Gallup Poll, and it is especially low among those 65 or older, those who are married, and those who attend church every week — in other words, the demographic “progressives” characterize as rightwing nut cases, bible-thumpers and Tea Party supporters.
Justin Elliott, writing for TPM, added an element of hysteria to the growing anti-Angle jihad:
For at least six years in the 1990s before she held state-level elective office, Angle was a member of the little-known Independent American Party, a right-wing party that combines elements of Ron Paul’s doctrinaire libertarianism — pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-states’ rights — with Christian social conservatism and fear of the “North American Union” and other forms of “global government.”
The Independent American Party is a threat to not only the Democrats but Republicans as well. The party was founded in 1967 by former Republican activist Daniel M. Hansen, who believed the GOP was growing “too corrupt and socialistic,” a fact beared out by the fact both Democrats and Republicans have increased the size of government and increased the national debt owed to the bankers.
“Don’t give up your guns, folks,” Hansen told a crowd. “That’s all we’ve got to protect us against the advance of socialism. America is in a survival phase.”
Constitutionalists continually place emphasis on using the electoral process to take the United States back to the days when it was a republic, but this aspect is almost completely ignored by the government and the corporate media. Chris Matthews, for instance, insists the Tea Party movement consists primarily of nativist neanderthals, racists, and gun nuts bent on violence.
The patriot movement is increasingly faced with calls by so-called liberals to grant Obama dictatorial power that violate the Constitution. For instance, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz has called for Obama to become a dictator in response to the BP disaster. “Don’t you think this is a moment where President Obama has to make sure that he lets everybody know that he’s calling the shots, and almost in words of maybe a dictator, that this is the way we’re going to do it?” said Schultz. “It’s OK tonight to act kind of like a dictator and call the shots saying this is the way it’s going to be.”
Schultz said the country can no longer afford the Constitution. Obama has to put a boot on the neck of those Schultz and the Democrats consider enemies. He made this statement in regard to BP but the mere suggestion of dealing with corporations and people in this way reveals an intolerance for all who would oppose Obama and the federal government.
Is it any wonder patriots are talking about taking back the government by the last resort means of revolution when Democrats and liberals are urging Obama to become a dictator?
Hopefully, so-called Tea Party candidates will realize a big win in November and during the presidential election in 2012. Short of that, other less palatable options may become necessary in order to save the country from tyranny.
Greg Sargent of the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, warned that Angle is calling for violent revolution. “In an interview she gave to a right-wing talk show host, Angle approvingly quoted Thomas Jefferson saying it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years — and said that if Congress keeps it up, people may find themselves resorting to ‘Second Amendment remedies,’” Sargent wrote.
“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years,” Angle told radio host Lars Larson. “I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”
“The most charitable interpretation here was that Angle was floating armed insurrection,” opines Sargent.
Democrats and liberals continually avoid the fact the United States was established by a revolution in armed — and, yes, violent — opposition to tyranny. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” states the Declaration of Independence.
A recent poll reveals 72 percent of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The number hasn’t been that high since the week before the 1994 election. Obama’s weekly approval rating is at an all-time low, according to the Gallup Poll, and it is especially low among those 65 or older, those who are married, and those who attend church every week — in other words, the demographic “progressives” characterize as rightwing nut cases, bible-thumpers and Tea Party supporters.
Justin Elliott, writing for TPM, added an element of hysteria to the growing anti-Angle jihad:
For at least six years in the 1990s before she held state-level elective office, Angle was a member of the little-known Independent American Party, a right-wing party that combines elements of Ron Paul’s doctrinaire libertarianism — pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-states’ rights — with Christian social conservatism and fear of the “North American Union” and other forms of “global government.”
The Independent American Party is a threat to not only the Democrats but Republicans as well. The party was founded in 1967 by former Republican activist Daniel M. Hansen, who believed the GOP was growing “too corrupt and socialistic,” a fact beared out by the fact both Democrats and Republicans have increased the size of government and increased the national debt owed to the bankers.
“Don’t give up your guns, folks,” Hansen told a crowd. “That’s all we’ve got to protect us against the advance of socialism. America is in a survival phase.”
Constitutionalists continually place emphasis on using the electoral process to take the United States back to the days when it was a republic, but this aspect is almost completely ignored by the government and the corporate media. Chris Matthews, for instance, insists the Tea Party movement consists primarily of nativist neanderthals, racists, and gun nuts bent on violence.
The patriot movement is increasingly faced with calls by so-called liberals to grant Obama dictatorial power that violate the Constitution. For instance, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz has called for Obama to become a dictator in response to the BP disaster. “Don’t you think this is a moment where President Obama has to make sure that he lets everybody know that he’s calling the shots, and almost in words of maybe a dictator, that this is the way we’re going to do it?” said Schultz. “It’s OK tonight to act kind of like a dictator and call the shots saying this is the way it’s going to be.”
Schultz said the country can no longer afford the Constitution. Obama has to put a boot on the neck of those Schultz and the Democrats consider enemies. He made this statement in regard to BP but the mere suggestion of dealing with corporations and people in this way reveals an intolerance for all who would oppose Obama and the federal government.
Is it any wonder patriots are talking about taking back the government by the last resort means of revolution when Democrats and liberals are urging Obama to become a dictator?
Hopefully, so-called Tea Party candidates will realize a big win in November and during the presidential election in 2012. Short of that, other less palatable options may become necessary in order to save the country from tyranny.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Illegal Aliens Openly Promote Communism At Atlanta Rally
Before It's News - The recent pro-illegal alien rally in Atlanta would shock most Americans. These people are openly promoting the destruction of Capitalism along with their hatred of America. Their answer to all problems is the establishment of Communism in the United States. An outright Atheistic pure Communistic government. Why does this story not make the News anywhere in the Mainstream Media? The absence of media coverage speaks to the great advances that Anti-American forces have made in controlling a once venerable profession. Note how they blame Capitalism for Americas debt as Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi spend the country into oblivion. Watch this video, think about it -and pass it along. Then think about Obama’s rush for Amnesty for Illegal Aliens and what it means for America!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Louisianans Think Bush Did A Better Job On Katrina Than Obama On the Gulf Oil Spill
Hot Air - Our new Louisiana poll has a lot of data points to show how unhappy voters in the state are with Barack Obama’s handling of the oil spill but one perhaps sums it up better than anything else- a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama’s done dealing with the spill.
50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.
Overall only 32% of Louisianans approve of how Obama has handled the spill to 62% who disapprove. 34% of those polled say they approved of how Bush dealt with Katrina to 58% who disapproved.
The big winner? Bobby Jindal, whose 63 percent approval (65 percent on handling the spill) is the highest for any senator or governor in PPP’s polling this year. He lost some of his righty rock-star luster after that SOTU disaster, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s gotten it all back: The latest is that he’s lost patience with BP’s containment efforts and given the order to the National Guard to start building a barrier wall off the coast to try to protect the shoreline. 70 percent, here he comes!
As for The One, aside from delivering a big speech tonight in the Oval Office, he’s busy … delivering other speeches, like this one today in Pensacola. Note the quasi-martial rhetoric in the clip about “fighting back” against an “assault on our shores” while a crowd of troops stands assembled behind him. Looks like he’s taking Eugene Robinson’s advice and essentially declaring war on the spill, which won’t change a thing on the ground but might brighten up his approval numbers by projecting some C-in-C authori-tah. Exit question: Did you catch the magic word in the clip? He said it twice!
50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.
Overall only 32% of Louisianans approve of how Obama has handled the spill to 62% who disapprove. 34% of those polled say they approved of how Bush dealt with Katrina to 58% who disapproved.
The big winner? Bobby Jindal, whose 63 percent approval (65 percent on handling the spill) is the highest for any senator or governor in PPP’s polling this year. He lost some of his righty rock-star luster after that SOTU disaster, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s gotten it all back: The latest is that he’s lost patience with BP’s containment efforts and given the order to the National Guard to start building a barrier wall off the coast to try to protect the shoreline. 70 percent, here he comes!
As for The One, aside from delivering a big speech tonight in the Oval Office, he’s busy … delivering other speeches, like this one today in Pensacola. Note the quasi-martial rhetoric in the clip about “fighting back” against an “assault on our shores” while a crowd of troops stands assembled behind him. Looks like he’s taking Eugene Robinson’s advice and essentially declaring war on the spill, which won’t change a thing on the ground but might brighten up his approval numbers by projecting some C-in-C authori-tah. Exit question: Did you catch the magic word in the clip? He said it twice!
Gulf Oil Disaster Will Be End Of Life As We Know It
John Doty Jr. - This is it. It’s over. Get ready for the most insane year of your life. 5 years. 10 years. One day you will look back at your life right now and think about how easy it was, how innocent. We are on the cusp of total collapse, right at the precipice.
If you’re like most people you probably have already decided that I am exaggerating without knowing why I am saying this. Well let me make it clear that I also wish I was exaggerating. I don’t sell survival equipment or gold. My job is not recession proof. I have a family. I didn’t wake up today and randomly decide to declare that this is the end of life as we know it. But I do research. I make calls and tune into radio, scouring the internet for news clips and analysis. I make a concerted effort to only quote trustworthy sources. The information that has emerged over the past few days confirms fears that this is actually an “Armageddon” event. I am being completely serious.
Check it: The oil, spewing out at 20,000 to 70,000 psi, and the sediment within it has eroded the very walls of the well itself in several areas. This means that this is now an uncontainable gusher that is literally spewing oil up from dozens of sites across the gulf floor. The massive oil pocket tapped under immense pressure is now spewing out into the seabed. Capping the well does nothing. The oil pocket is tapped, the pipe is eroded and the oil is now spewing up to the ocean floor with intense pressure. Plumes are being generated everywhere. They cannot stop this. Human technology cannot contain a liquid at that pressure, especially at that depth under the ocean. We simply do not have the technology or know-how to fix this. We don’t. The relief wells are essentially useless now because the original well cannot be plugged so oil will always flow out of it regardless of how many other wells they dig. They needed to get into the pipe, fill the old pipe with mud and cement and then divert the oil into the new well. But because the tapped oil pocket is sand blasting itself routes to the surface that grow each day in diameter due to the eroding walls and passageways, there is no “well” to fill. That is because whats left of the well is already dissolving. And each day that passes until they drill their so-called “relief wells” will only see the oil finding new routes through the escapes it has carved through erosion of the pipes and rock. Thad Allen, the head of the US Coast Guard, has said that the oil isn’t all flowing up the pipe anymore but is now “in communication” with the seabed and the surrounding soft rock formation. It is now blasting its own wells.
Ya, that’s bad, but that isn’t even the scary part. Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, Methylene Chloride, and other toxic gases are also spewing out along with the oil. In concentrations hundreds and thousands of times greater than what is considered safe for humans. Lethal levels. When the hurricanes come they will absorb this toxic seawater and drop it as rain. Literally toxic rain. Let me guess, toxic rain doesn’t scare you. The biggest threat is already actualized with the chemicals entering the atmosphere and being carried around by the wind.
“The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher,” the Institute for Southern Studies blog reported on May 10.
Any one of these chemicals in these concentrations would be lethal. Mixed together it’s truly unthinkable.
The fragile US economy, in the midst of a feeble attempt at a jobless recovery, overstretched by war and out of control spending is not equipped to handle a disaster of this magnitude. No country in the world could. Remember how well they handled the Katrina thing? This makes Katrina look like a grade school fire drill. Well I wonder how well they will do this time as they prepare to evacuate entire cities and states. See this and this. Once the evacuations begin the markets will tank. Once people are forced to grasp what is happening around them the global economy will come to a screeching halt as it’s engine, the USA, sinks into the throes of the worst environmental disaster in the history of the world. This will cause a dollar confidence crisis. Enraged citizens will riot and loot with no hope of a decent life ahead of them. Martial law will be declared.
They have no way to stop this, only a theory that maybe a nuke would implode the oil pocket. Ya, we’re talking about nuking the earths crust under the ocean. Eventually the oil will make it’s way around the world as the entire oil deposit is unleashed into the ocean.
Are you buying the crap coming from BP? The bogus press releases and the downplayed assessments? They’ve been lying through their teeth, censoring the media and destroying evidence. If you trust them, you have some problems.
If you’re like most people you probably have already decided that I am exaggerating without knowing why I am saying this. Well let me make it clear that I also wish I was exaggerating. I don’t sell survival equipment or gold. My job is not recession proof. I have a family. I didn’t wake up today and randomly decide to declare that this is the end of life as we know it. But I do research. I make calls and tune into radio, scouring the internet for news clips and analysis. I make a concerted effort to only quote trustworthy sources. The information that has emerged over the past few days confirms fears that this is actually an “Armageddon” event. I am being completely serious.
Check it: The oil, spewing out at 20,000 to 70,000 psi, and the sediment within it has eroded the very walls of the well itself in several areas. This means that this is now an uncontainable gusher that is literally spewing oil up from dozens of sites across the gulf floor. The massive oil pocket tapped under immense pressure is now spewing out into the seabed. Capping the well does nothing. The oil pocket is tapped, the pipe is eroded and the oil is now spewing up to the ocean floor with intense pressure. Plumes are being generated everywhere. They cannot stop this. Human technology cannot contain a liquid at that pressure, especially at that depth under the ocean. We simply do not have the technology or know-how to fix this. We don’t. The relief wells are essentially useless now because the original well cannot be plugged so oil will always flow out of it regardless of how many other wells they dig. They needed to get into the pipe, fill the old pipe with mud and cement and then divert the oil into the new well. But because the tapped oil pocket is sand blasting itself routes to the surface that grow each day in diameter due to the eroding walls and passageways, there is no “well” to fill. That is because whats left of the well is already dissolving. And each day that passes until they drill their so-called “relief wells” will only see the oil finding new routes through the escapes it has carved through erosion of the pipes and rock. Thad Allen, the head of the US Coast Guard, has said that the oil isn’t all flowing up the pipe anymore but is now “in communication” with the seabed and the surrounding soft rock formation. It is now blasting its own wells.
Ya, that’s bad, but that isn’t even the scary part. Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, Methylene Chloride, and other toxic gases are also spewing out along with the oil. In concentrations hundreds and thousands of times greater than what is considered safe for humans. Lethal levels. When the hurricanes come they will absorb this toxic seawater and drop it as rain. Literally toxic rain. Let me guess, toxic rain doesn’t scare you. The biggest threat is already actualized with the chemicals entering the atmosphere and being carried around by the wind.
“The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher,” the Institute for Southern Studies blog reported on May 10.
Any one of these chemicals in these concentrations would be lethal. Mixed together it’s truly unthinkable.
The fragile US economy, in the midst of a feeble attempt at a jobless recovery, overstretched by war and out of control spending is not equipped to handle a disaster of this magnitude. No country in the world could. Remember how well they handled the Katrina thing? This makes Katrina look like a grade school fire drill. Well I wonder how well they will do this time as they prepare to evacuate entire cities and states. See this and this. Once the evacuations begin the markets will tank. Once people are forced to grasp what is happening around them the global economy will come to a screeching halt as it’s engine, the USA, sinks into the throes of the worst environmental disaster in the history of the world. This will cause a dollar confidence crisis. Enraged citizens will riot and loot with no hope of a decent life ahead of them. Martial law will be declared.
They have no way to stop this, only a theory that maybe a nuke would implode the oil pocket. Ya, we’re talking about nuking the earths crust under the ocean. Eventually the oil will make it’s way around the world as the entire oil deposit is unleashed into the ocean.
Are you buying the crap coming from BP? The bogus press releases and the downplayed assessments? They’ve been lying through their teeth, censoring the media and destroying evidence. If you trust them, you have some problems.
Monday, June 14, 2010
It's 3 a.m., The Phone Is Ringing And Obama Is Asleep
Larry Johnson - Hillary was right. Obama was not and is not ready to answer the 3am call. The evidence, especially with respect to his failure to properly manage the response to the blow out of B.P.’s Deep Horizon well, is damning. Tim Dickinson’s lays out the evidence methodically and in depth in his recent piece in Rolling Stone, The Spill, The Scandal and the President.
Dickinson makes it clear that Obama failed in every regard to even answer the damn phone. He let it ring while the oil flooded the Gulf.
Let’s review the key points:
On March 31st President Obama trotted out his plan to support drilling in the Gulf. He said, “it turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills . . . they are technologically very advanced.” Unfortunately, Obama failed to ensure that the Department of Interior had the proper safeguards and procedures in place and that the existing regulations on the books were being enforced. He trusted the oil companies.
Before he took office Obama vowed to clean up the cronyism and corruption rampant in the Minerals Management Service of the Department of the Interior. Obama did not create the mess. The Bush Administration’s hands are filthy on this count. George W. and his band left Obama with a steaming turd. And what did Obama do when he assumed office? As Dickinson notes, “Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP . . . with virtually no environmental safeguards.” He did nothing and, on the day that the head of the MMS resigned (or was fired) Obama did not have a clue what was going on. He said as much at a press conference.
Obama and his team continued the negligence of the Bush Administration. Wilkinson reports that, “MMS continued to issue categorical exclusions to companies like BP, even when they lacked the necessary permits to protect endangered species.” Moreover, Obama’s Department of Interior did not even ensure “that the MMS had a written manual–required under Interior’s own rules–for complying with environmental laws.”
Obama and his team knew from day one that the blown rig, under a worst case scenario, was spewing as much as 110,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. And what did the intrepid Captain Kick Ass Obama do? Did he mobilize a fleet of ships to start capturing the oil? Did he get on the phone to BP and demand they move immediately to prepare for a worst case scenario? Did he act as if this could be worse than the Exxon Valdez? Nope, he and the wife took off for a weekend excursion in Asheville, North Carolina to play golf and eat barbecue. And when he got back from vacation did he demand that BP give him a current status report? Nope. Instead he hosted the New York Yankees at the White House. In the ensuing weeks he glad handed with the men and women champions from the NCAA basketball tournament instead of accepting offers from other countries to provide oil skimmers. Oh, did I mention the parties and concerts? He had Sir Paul in to sing “Hey Jude.” Captain Kick Ass was just a party animal who couldn’t be bothered with the particulars of harnessing all public and private resources to fight the oil spill.
More than a week passed before Obama’s team declared the BP disaster an “Oil Spill of National Significance.” As Dickinson notes, this was “required to draw on regional resources and to appoint an incident commander to coordinate a federal response.
Who was in charge, on May 3rd of cleaning up the oil spilling into the Gulf? According to Robert Gibbs said, “the responsible party is BP.” Swell. One little problem. According to the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan an “oil company like BP cannot be left in charge” and the “government must direct all federal, state or private actions to clean up a spill where a discharge or threat of discharge poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States.” Captain Kick Ass and his crew of buffoons dropped this ball and the oil continued to flow.
On May 21st the President’s vapid mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, said that Obama lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role. Obama and his team, four weeks into the disaster, were still sitting on the sidelines.
Less than a week later Obama summoned the press and announced, “I take responsibility.” He stated further, “I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.” That, boys and girls, is known in intelligence circles as “NO SHIT ANALYSIS.”
Dickinson also reports that the Obama Administration waited six weeks before deploying its own research vessel to investigate whether or not BP’s estimates of the escaping oil were valid. SIX WEEKS!!
This is not about partisanship. This is about competence and Obama does not possess it. Please be sure to read the DIckinson piece in its entirety. He has done America a service and exposed Obama for the vacuous fraud he is.
Dickinson makes it clear that Obama failed in every regard to even answer the damn phone. He let it ring while the oil flooded the Gulf.
Let’s review the key points:
On March 31st President Obama trotted out his plan to support drilling in the Gulf. He said, “it turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills . . . they are technologically very advanced.” Unfortunately, Obama failed to ensure that the Department of Interior had the proper safeguards and procedures in place and that the existing regulations on the books were being enforced. He trusted the oil companies.
Before he took office Obama vowed to clean up the cronyism and corruption rampant in the Minerals Management Service of the Department of the Interior. Obama did not create the mess. The Bush Administration’s hands are filthy on this count. George W. and his band left Obama with a steaming turd. And what did Obama do when he assumed office? As Dickinson notes, “Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP . . . with virtually no environmental safeguards.” He did nothing and, on the day that the head of the MMS resigned (or was fired) Obama did not have a clue what was going on. He said as much at a press conference.
Obama and his team continued the negligence of the Bush Administration. Wilkinson reports that, “MMS continued to issue categorical exclusions to companies like BP, even when they lacked the necessary permits to protect endangered species.” Moreover, Obama’s Department of Interior did not even ensure “that the MMS had a written manual–required under Interior’s own rules–for complying with environmental laws.”
Obama and his team knew from day one that the blown rig, under a worst case scenario, was spewing as much as 110,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. And what did the intrepid Captain Kick Ass Obama do? Did he mobilize a fleet of ships to start capturing the oil? Did he get on the phone to BP and demand they move immediately to prepare for a worst case scenario? Did he act as if this could be worse than the Exxon Valdez? Nope, he and the wife took off for a weekend excursion in Asheville, North Carolina to play golf and eat barbecue. And when he got back from vacation did he demand that BP give him a current status report? Nope. Instead he hosted the New York Yankees at the White House. In the ensuing weeks he glad handed with the men and women champions from the NCAA basketball tournament instead of accepting offers from other countries to provide oil skimmers. Oh, did I mention the parties and concerts? He had Sir Paul in to sing “Hey Jude.” Captain Kick Ass was just a party animal who couldn’t be bothered with the particulars of harnessing all public and private resources to fight the oil spill.
More than a week passed before Obama’s team declared the BP disaster an “Oil Spill of National Significance.” As Dickinson notes, this was “required to draw on regional resources and to appoint an incident commander to coordinate a federal response.
Who was in charge, on May 3rd of cleaning up the oil spilling into the Gulf? According to Robert Gibbs said, “the responsible party is BP.” Swell. One little problem. According to the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan an “oil company like BP cannot be left in charge” and the “government must direct all federal, state or private actions to clean up a spill where a discharge or threat of discharge poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States.” Captain Kick Ass and his crew of buffoons dropped this ball and the oil continued to flow.
On May 21st the President’s vapid mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, said that Obama lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role. Obama and his team, four weeks into the disaster, were still sitting on the sidelines.
Less than a week later Obama summoned the press and announced, “I take responsibility.” He stated further, “I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.” That, boys and girls, is known in intelligence circles as “NO SHIT ANALYSIS.”
Dickinson also reports that the Obama Administration waited six weeks before deploying its own research vessel to investigate whether or not BP’s estimates of the escaping oil were valid. SIX WEEKS!!
This is not about partisanship. This is about competence and Obama does not possess it. Please be sure to read the DIckinson piece in its entirety. He has done America a service and exposed Obama for the vacuous fraud he is.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
"Gulf Oil Spill 'Could Go On For Years' If Not Dealt With
F. William Engdahl - The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.
In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” 1
According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”3 Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,3 Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.
“In my view the heads of BP reacted with panic at the scale of the oil spewing out of the well,” Kutcherov adds. “What is inexplicable at this point is why they are trying one thing, failing, then trying a second, failing, then a third. Given the scale of the disaster they should try every conceivable option, even if it is ten, all at once in hope one works. Otherwise, this oil source could spew oil for years given the volumes coming to the surface already.” 4
He stresses, “It is difficult to estimate how big this leakage is. There is no objective information available.” But taking into consideration information about the last BP ‘giant’ discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tiber field, some six miles deep, Kutcherov agrees with Ira Leifer a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara who says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day.5
What the enormoity of the oil spill does is to also further discredit clearly the oil companies’ myth of “peak oil” which claims that the world is at or near the “peak” of economical oil extraction. That myth, which has been propagated in recent years by circles close to former oilman and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been effectively used by the giant oil majors to justify far higher oil prices than would be politically possible otherwise, by claiming a non-existent petroleum scarcity crisis.
Obama & BP Try to Hide
According to a report from Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster.’” 6 Madsen cites sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for his assertion.
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. According to informed estimates cited by Madsen, however, the disaster has a real potential cost of at least $1,000 billion ($1 trillion). That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the entire coastline of the United States.”
According to the Washington report of Madsen, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration., according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.” 7
The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. 8
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to hide the extent of the oil leak, according to the cited federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day were gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day. However, submersibles monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what they describe as a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil.
When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.
The Corps of Engineers and FEMA are reported to be highly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only now has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. Under the loose regulatory measures implemented by the Bush-Cheney Administration, the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service became a simple “rubber stamp,” approving whatever the oil companies wanted in terms of safety precautions that could have averted such a disaster. Madsen describes a state of “criminal collusion” between Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton, and the Interior Department’s MMS, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves. 9
Silence from Eco groups?... Follow the money
Without doubt at this point we are in the midst of what could be the greatest ecological catastrophe in history. The oil platform explosion took place almost within the current loop where the Gulf Stream originates. This has huge ecological and climatological consequences.
A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream, and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.
Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.
That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.
The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,”10 has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years. 11
Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP's chief executive, sat on the CI board.
Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ (sic) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted. 12
Of course those organizations are not going to be the ones to solve this catastrophe. The central point at this point is who is prepared to put the urgently demanded federal and international scientific resources into solving this crisis. Further actions of the likes of that from the Obama White House to date or from BP can only lead to the conclusion that some very powerful people want this debacle to continue. The next weeks will be critical to that assessment.
In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” 1
According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”3 Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,3 Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.
“In my view the heads of BP reacted with panic at the scale of the oil spewing out of the well,” Kutcherov adds. “What is inexplicable at this point is why they are trying one thing, failing, then trying a second, failing, then a third. Given the scale of the disaster they should try every conceivable option, even if it is ten, all at once in hope one works. Otherwise, this oil source could spew oil for years given the volumes coming to the surface already.” 4
He stresses, “It is difficult to estimate how big this leakage is. There is no objective information available.” But taking into consideration information about the last BP ‘giant’ discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tiber field, some six miles deep, Kutcherov agrees with Ira Leifer a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara who says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day.5
What the enormoity of the oil spill does is to also further discredit clearly the oil companies’ myth of “peak oil” which claims that the world is at or near the “peak” of economical oil extraction. That myth, which has been propagated in recent years by circles close to former oilman and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been effectively used by the giant oil majors to justify far higher oil prices than would be politically possible otherwise, by claiming a non-existent petroleum scarcity crisis.
Obama & BP Try to Hide
According to a report from Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster.’” 6 Madsen cites sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for his assertion.
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. According to informed estimates cited by Madsen, however, the disaster has a real potential cost of at least $1,000 billion ($1 trillion). That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the entire coastline of the United States.”
According to the Washington report of Madsen, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration., according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.” 7
The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. 8
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to hide the extent of the oil leak, according to the cited federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day were gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day. However, submersibles monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what they describe as a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil.
When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.
The Corps of Engineers and FEMA are reported to be highly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only now has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. Under the loose regulatory measures implemented by the Bush-Cheney Administration, the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service became a simple “rubber stamp,” approving whatever the oil companies wanted in terms of safety precautions that could have averted such a disaster. Madsen describes a state of “criminal collusion” between Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton, and the Interior Department’s MMS, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves. 9
Silence from Eco groups?... Follow the money
Without doubt at this point we are in the midst of what could be the greatest ecological catastrophe in history. The oil platform explosion took place almost within the current loop where the Gulf Stream originates. This has huge ecological and climatological consequences.
A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream, and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.
Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.
That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.
The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,”10 has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years. 11
Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP's chief executive, sat on the CI board.
Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ (sic) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted. 12
Of course those organizations are not going to be the ones to solve this catastrophe. The central point at this point is who is prepared to put the urgently demanded federal and international scientific resources into solving this crisis. Further actions of the likes of that from the Obama White House to date or from BP can only lead to the conclusion that some very powerful people want this debacle to continue. The next weeks will be critical to that assessment.
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