Spill baby spill, slippery politics

I think that's where it's all leading, as a matter of fact.

On the other hand, it's always election time here. House and 1/3 of Senate are elected every two years, and campaigns are not getting any shorter.

Good evening. Two comments today.
BP stock has lost more than 50% of its value since the spill with it slumping from $32/share to around $27 on the NYSE in the last week. The concern, beyond the suspension of the dividend, is the rising direct cost plus the expectation that the ultimate liability could end up being really, really big.

On the A2K hurricane thread (yes, there are a few of us-edgar, JPB, me, etc-who monitor this daily) we are watching a storm in the southern Gulf about to hit the Yucatan. It could peter out there. That is my prediction but it could turn more towards the north. My understanding is that skimming ships will have to leave the area if seas are expected to get 8' swells and the decision to leave has to be made 4 or 5 days before the event happens. Watch that storm this weekend.

Government and business meet in the form of the lobbyist, the most dangerous animal on the plains.

what is the status of the leak at this point?
Its difficult for us outsiders to get a clear picture.

I understand some form of containment has happened is this correct?

The current estimate from the government’s Flow Rate Technical Group is 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/top-bp-exec-still-thinks-flow-rate-doesnt-matter

Help may have come from a strange quarter:

was treated as an oddball twist in the otherwise wrenching saga of the BP oil spill when Kevin Costner stepped forward to promote a device he said could work wonders in containing the spill's damage. But as Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, the gadget in question — an oil-separating centrifuge — marks a major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology. And BP, after trial runs with the device, is ordering 32 more of the Costner-endorsed centrifuges to aid the Gulf cleanup.
The "Waterworld" actor has invested some $20 million and spent the past 15 years in developing the centrifuges. He helped found a manufacturing company, Ocean Therapy Solutions, to advance his brother's research in spill cleanup technology. In testimony before Congress this month, Costner walked through the device's operation—explaining how it spins oil-contaminated water at a rapid speed, so as to separate out the oil and capture it in a containment tank:

And James Dyson told Craig Ferguson a few nights ago that one of his devices might work. Too sleepy to remember what he said although Ferguson suggested Dyson connect with Costner.

as the very reverent Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family explained quite clearly the oil spill is gods' way of punishing ameria for allowing queers and faggots to vote. BP is on a mission from god.

As soon as I read your post, I dropped down to my knees and thanked god.

It's the Goddess actually. Nemesis.

We are all outsiders except British Petroleum. We don't need to know.

Containment. Yes they've got a little sucker pipe stuck inside the pipe from the well pipe and it's working real good. By the second day, it was already salvaging more oil than we ever knew was leaking. It's only been knocked loose once, but if the storm developes, they will have to disconnect. Otherwise, all is well. Thanks for asking.

the oil is all 100% natural organic so what's the problem?

The 1st named storm (Alex) would really have screwed things up if it got into the Gulf. Its course now, though, is pretty much due west into Mexico where it will die out.
The spill is starting to disappear from the headlines in the U.S. after 60 days. It is still spewing as much oil as ever but reporters are running out of things to write about.

So is hemlock.

Nobody said it wasn't.

Taking a point of view that seems inconsistent with the evangelical stance, Dr. Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, told NPR's Audie Cornish on this morning's Weekend Edition Sunday that, "There's really nothing conservative — and certainly nothing evangelical — about a laissez-faire view of a lack of government regulation," Moore says, "because we, as Christians, believe in sin."

"Simply trusting corporations to about their business without polluting the water streams and without destroying ecosystems is really a naive and utopian view of human nature. It's not a Christian view of human nature."

Moore recognizes that not all Christians and certainly not all evangelicals agree with him.

"There are some evangelicals, of course, who hold to a much more libertarian understanding of the relationship between government and protecting natural resources, but I think for the most part, evangelicals are ready to have a conversation about protecting the Creation."

Moore thinks that being pulled toward the sarah palin view and toward an environmentally friendly point of view is a sign that, "we're thinking through issues from a biblical point of view, rather than from a purely political point of view."

It is heartening that some in the Christian movement believe in protecting the environment, and that corporations cannot be left to their own devices. It is a pity that the right in general does not share those views. The right controlled everything during the first six years of the Bush administration, and they nearly destroyed the country, if not the world.

World's Largest Oil Skimming Vessel On Its Way to Gulf of Mexico...finally

NORFOLK — After making a brief stop in Norfolk for refueling, U.S. Coast Guard inspections and an all-out publicity blitz intended to drum up public support, a giant tanker billed as the world's largest oil skimming vessel set sail Friday for the Gulf of Mexico where it hopes to assist in the oil-cleanup effort.

The vessel's billionaire owner, Nobu Su, the CEO of Taiwanese shipping company TMT Group, said the ship would float across the Gulf "like a lawn mower cutting the grass," ingesting up to 500,000 barrels of oil-contaminated water a day.

But a number of hurdles stand in his way. TMT officials said the company does not yet have government approval to assist in the cleanup or a contract with BP to perform the work.

That's part of the reason the ship was tied to pier at the Virginia Port Authority's Norfolk International Terminals Friday morning. TMT and its public-relations agency invited scores of media, elected officials and maritime industry executives to an hour-long presentation about how the ship could provide an immediate boost to clean-up efforts in the Gulf.

TMT also paid to fly in Edward Overton, a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at Louisiana State University, to get a look at the massive skimmer.

Overton blasted BP and the federal government for a lack of effort and coordination in their dual oil-spill response and made a plea to the government to allow the A Whale to join the cleanup operation.

(Full story and video at the link)

Amen!

wouldent the oil be like an abandoned ship? Anyone who could collect it could claim ownership? After all BP abandoned it.