Worst Case Scenarios

I try to avoid anything I can't verify with multiple sources here at the blog. Even when I can find them, if what I'm reading is out there (alarmist), I'll take my time to verify before posting it, knowing that the blogosphere will always be ahead of the MSM.

For the last month I've been tripping across information about the worst case scenario for the spew in the Gulf of Mexico - as if 60,000 barrels pouring in daily weren't bad enough - and been waiting to confirm it. There's no point to my freaking out, right?

So this weekend the MSM manages to stay roughly even with the blogosphere on the oil spew story and report on a document (that somehow got leaked) and reveal BP is worried that the gusher in the Gulf (BP hates it when you call it that) could leak or be leaking as many as 100,000 barrels a day - 4 million gallons or the equivalent of a spill the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez every 3 days. Problem is that's not the worst case scenario I've been reading about. The worst case involves the integrity of the hole itself collapsing and oil gushing into the Gulf at the rate of 150,000 barrels a day. Trust BP to low ball the figures one more time!

The emotional and psychological toll the Exxon Valdez spill took on the residents of the Alaska coastline has been chronicled in some detail, and the same things are expected to occur to Gulf residents but on a much larger scale.

I guess you'll be shocked to read that BP were told of a s safety fault weeks before the explosion.

This makes me smile, kinda'. While the right-wing media, including Limbaugh, double down on the idiocy of Barton's apology to BP and the use of words like "shakedown," to describe the $20 billion escrow account Obama got BP to fund,  Haley Barbour (Gov. R-Miss.) admits it was a smart idea.

The BP Valdez - Nothing Has Changed

This is going to be a quick hitter (for me). Here's some video of Rachel Maddow making the point, in no uncertain terms, that oil companies (still) do not know how, nor do they have the technology to stop a spill 5,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. And a reminder that 21 years after the fact Exxon still has not paid the full amount of their fine for the Valdez spill. In fact before dime one was ever paid as compensation to victims of Valdez oil spill 8,000 of the potential recipients died.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There are very good reasons for Obama to force BP to set up a $20 billion dollar escrow account for the financial victims in the Gulf states. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the Republicans most beholden to their big oil donors.

A Weekend's Roundup

Usually I like to intro any video I post but I thought this spoke rather eloquently for itself.

The disaster in the Gulf continues apace and as the news gets worse, word is Obama is going to address the nation on Tuesday and take concrete steps to make sure BP pays for what the have wrought. I can hear the caterwauling from the right already. One such whore in the thrall of bigoil spent last week trying to undermine EPA regulations. Murkowski (R Alaska) failed but still managed to get 47 votes.

The scariest thing is now that they've finally admitted the actual amounts of oil spilling daily into the Gulf from the blown well head, word comes that there may be other problems with the damaged well that may mean oil is leaking up from the sea floor. Evidence is growing stronger and stronger that there is substantial damage beneath the sea floor. Indeed, it appears that BP officials themselves have admitted to such damage. This has enormous impacts on both the amount of oil leaking into the Gulf, and the prospects for quickly stopping the leak this summer.

Ever mindful of bad publicity BP continues to block media access to damaged wetlands and beaches. They are also keeping the press away from Wildlife Rehab Centers. They are despicable and I hope Obama throws the kitchen sink at them!

Chevron feeling left out of bad publicity extravaganza decides to cover a few birds in oil. It is time to move away from dependence and addiction to oil - a reminder of exactly how difficult that will be.

News out of Afghanistan that maybe explains why everyone wants to stay and fight in a hopeless war, a place often characterized as the graveyard of empires: U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan! In the meantime US intelligence is busy focusing on Afghan graft and corruption - Karzai and his brother-in-law are probably in trouble if that's true. And in Iraq things are fabulously still twirling, ever twirling towards freedom as five Iraqis, including 2 who were standing on their rooftop witnessing the arrival of US infantrymen, have lost their lives after their house was attacked by the troops!

The Pentagon have their priorities straight amidst all this though, they are busy hunting for Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder.

Tea party loses steam as crotchety members can't get along or agree on anything except wearing onions was once all the rage.

Lastly, the right wing media hacks in a never ending effort to prove their ignorance, find something new to hate: Soccer!

Soylent Green

 

I can remember being a kid and watching the film about a future dystopia, "Soylent Green," and thinking it quaint. I don't get that same sense of kitschy fun now when I view it. Characters portrayed by Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson live in a world where complete desertification has taken over the planet, destroyed the environment, and the inhabitants live a hard-scrabble life in a world completely depleted of all its' wonders and natural resources. It's (quite famously and literally) a dog eat dog world.

Today, as I busy myself posting the news links to stories I covered on my radio show, stories that are not getting enough MSM coverage because the medias are far too busy focusing on fake scandals like Obama using the word "ass," I find myself thinking of that fictional world. (My only problem with Obama's use of that word is that he did not direct it those truly responsible for the continuing disaster in the Gulf and those who really lower the level of discourse, especially when it comes to policy and politics.) Anyhow, as I continue following the nightmarish stories that are coming out of the Gulf while those on the right continue to push for an end to the moratorium on drilling, I see nothing but people blind to the real potential of this disaster in concert with everything else that is taking place around the globe. So much so that an entertainment I once regarded as a B-movie fantasy now seems prophetic and frightening.

Listen to how short-sighted and ignorant this man sounds now in the light of what's taking place:

Accountability

Been trying not to make all my posts about the disaster in the Gulf of late. It's playing out long, slowly and painfully. We made pretty good calls here based on common sense and decent internet sources. The first being that there was no way the rate of flow was anything like only 5,000 barrel a day. The figure has now been set at 19,000 or so and that's still low-balling the true figure - as is pointed out in the video below by CBS legal correspondent Sharyl Attkisson on Face the Nation:



Maybe BP thinks by playing games with the figures they're going to get away with paying a smaller fine - and maybe they will. They certainly have the resources and wherewithal to try. Corporate citizens are never taken to task the way the rest of us are - or would be if any of us were responsible for the deaths of 11 people and destruction of various flora and fauna that has robbed tens of thousands of people of their livelihoods.

Speaking of corporate accountability in these instances, or lack thereof, word today that those responsible for the tragedy at Bhopal were finally convicted - 25 1/2 years later, of negligence. The seven surviving defendants were sentenced to two years in prison and fined 100,000 rupees, or $2,100.

They were the first criminal convictions from the leak at the Union Carbide chemical plant in Bhopal, a central Indian city. The leak killed 3,000 people almost instantly, and thousands more died later from the aftereffects of the toxic gas, an ingredient in pesticides the plant produced.

Maybe BP will get the same deal. Or maybe they'll get the same deal as Exxon, 'cause that's what they really want. They want the rough estimates to be off by 2/3's and to fight it in court for 20 years and then dole out pocket change and pretend they've paid their debt.

The President has been doing his part near as we can tell, but will get little credit as there is little he can do other than try and make the accountable - seems unlikely if BP finds ways to drag it through the courts for 20 years. The reality is that they will have to wait until August when the relief wells have been dug, and even that's not a sure thing, before oil stops gushing into the Gulf. Meanwhile, he's out-numbered by the whores and spinmeisters and those in the pockets of big oil.

For comic relief from all this, try reading about an under-reported spill stemming from the BP offices in the UK.

Bigtime Roundup

There's nothing like taking a couple of days off to help you fall behind!

I'm going to start with the story that actually kept me from blogging Friday and Saturday: I checked in late and the first story the blogosphere brought to my attention was this ghastly story out of Arizona courtesy of Wonkette:

From the Arizona Republic:


A group of artists has been asked to lighten the faces of children depicted in a giant public mural at a Prescott school. The project’s leader says he was ordered to lighten the skin tone after complaints about the children’s ethnicity ….


R.E. Wall, director of Prescott’s Downtown Mural Project, said he and other artists were subjected to slurs from motorists as they worked on the painting at one of the town’s most prominent intersections.


“We consistently, for two months, had people shouting racial slander from their cars,” Wall said. “We had children painting with us, and here come these yells of (epithet for Blacks) and (epithet for Hispanics).”

Happily the story doesn't end there. By weekend's end the man leading the campaign against the multi-ethnic mural, Steve Blair, had been fired from his talk radio show and they were no longer changing the color of the children's faces in the mural. Maybe the moral of the story is I really should have more faith in humanity.

While we're on the subject of raging Republican racists let's not forget this idiot, South Carolina State. Sen. Jake Knotts, who said, "We got a raghead in Washington; we don't need one in South Carolina." Classy!

Okely-dokely, don't stop me if you think you've heard this one before: BP spills 500,000 lbs of toxic chemicals at Texas plant where 15 people died in 2005. BP, always willing to prove they have their priorities straight, have purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company's official website. Aren't they awesome?

Some Republican shills say things so stupid that it's hard to know exactly what to say about them - with others, it's pretty cut and dried, "We give you money, you say nice things about us or nothing at all!"



Climate Progress has the complete story about how the Bush/Cheney administration enabled the mess in the Gulf that we are currently witnessing. It's a sad tale of tax breaks for coal, oil and gas and nuclear energy corps, and non-stop cuts for renewable energy programs.

Consequences of Climate Change: Ocean acidification.

Right-wingers complain that homophobes are always portrayed as mean and bullying on TV. Not enough happy-go-lucky hate-filled people on your box! While we're on the subject of whiny Republicans, here's House Minority leader John Boehner crying because Paul McCartney made fun of Bush's intelligence, or lack thereof, and demanding an apology. Coincidentally it was on the same day that Bush declared waterboarding (although illegal) was awesome!

One of the more ridiculous media memes out there week, "Bitch-slap us please Mr. President!"