Oil leak in the Gulf

[Jimmy Chitwood]

i've not seen a thread on this topic, so pardon me if this is the wrong spot. that being said, there's been a LOT of coverage (both information and mis-information) on this big mess down in the Gulf.

looking around for some answers on what's going on, i stumbled across an incredible, albeit low-tech, potential solution for the clean up ... and it's no surprise that i've not seen this talked about anywhere in the mainstream media.

check out the video here.

 

[Riddlewire]

After the Exxon Valdez spill, Popular Science published an article mentioning that the most effective material for pulling crude oil out of sea water was human hair (and confirmed that only Caucasian hair was useful because negro hair was too oily already). Lots of speculative plans were made to create massive net-bags full of human hair to drag through the water in case a large spill ever happened again. It would have been an expensive multi-year process to collect large amounts of human hair, create the net-bags, and store all of it. Apparently, nobody wanted to spend the money to make/store these devices. So now we're here and there's no plan in place to deal with this disaster.

On a related note, this oil spill is a dream come true for the liberal-progressives in control of our country. They have the exact disaster they need to shut down American energy production and slowly (or rapidly) force us on to their Washington controlled Green Power system. You can bet T. Boone Pickens and Al Gore are counting their future billions right now. And don't look for Oblammo to jump to action on this issue with any haste. The longer he lets it spread, the easier it is for him to demagogue about greedy capitalists.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

video: reporters threatened with arrest for video taping the oil spill.

 

[whiteCB]

The spill is already half way to the 11 billion gallons the Exxon Valdez spilled 21 years ago. The oil has reached the wetlands of Louisiana and is now turning the corner around Key West and headed north up the coast. This is killing the fishing community and bleeding Florida'a tourism. Yet, just like always in America no one will pay a price, no one will be fired, and BP will be allowed to operate it's business just like usual.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Now the enviro-fascists are calling for the end of arctic drilling (which would lead to more dependency on foreign oil).

Gulf spill highlights fears over Arctic drilling

May 22 10:01 PM US/Eastern

The devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill has heightened fears of a similar disaster occurring off the Arctic coast when long-planned exploratory drilling is due to get under way later this year.

Environmental activists are calling on US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to halt Shell Oil's plans to begin exploratory drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the coast of Alaska in July.

Salazar is expected to make a final decision sometime after May 28 following completion of a safety review ordered by President Barack Obama.

Shell received a boost last week when an appeals court rejected claims by environmentalists that the federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) had erred when it gave preliminary approval to the oil giant's plans.

"Shell is committed to undertaking a safe and environmentally responsible exploration program in the Chukchi Sea and Beaufort Sea in 2010," Shell President Marvin Odum said in a letter to the MMS released Monday.

"I am confident that we are ready to conduct the program safely, and, I want to be clear, the accountability for this program rests with Shell."

Activists have said the remote nature of the proposed exploratory drilling site, sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds would make be formidable obstacles to any potential clean-up operation.

The Alaska Wilderness League's executive director Cindy Shogan said in a statement that it would be almost impossible to mount the kind of clean-up witnessed in the Gulf of Mexico, describing the Arctic as one of the "most remote and extreme environments on Earth."

Shogan said 32 vessels were able to respond to the Gulf leak within 24 hours. "In the Arctic, that number is 13," she said.

"Likewise the skimming capacity in the Gulf was 171,000 barrels a day; in the Arctic it would be 24,000 barrels a day.

"And while it's 47 miles from the Louisiana coast to the site of the Gulf spill, in the Chukchi Sea the nearest dock is 250 miles from the proposed well sites, with clean-up equipment stationed even farther away."

In its letter outlining plans to deal with any possible spill, Shell said it would have a giant "coffer dam" ready to be deployed within an hour of a possible blow-out, while dispersant would be applied immediately to staunch the flow of oil. Teams of divers and a remote submersible would also be on hand.

However Rebecca Noblin, Alaska Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Shell's proposed contingency plans showed "a basic lack of respect for how dangerous the Arctic environment actually is."

"They've put forth this idea that it would be easier to clean an oil spill in icy waters and that is completely untenable," Noblin told AFP.

"If there were to be an oil spill in the Arctic it would be extremely hard to mobilize the people and the boats and the helicopters and everything you need to respond.

"In the Gulf they've had more than 10,000 people, hundreds of boats. In the Arctic it would be dozens of boats and a few hundred people. They'd have to fly people in. And even then there might not be enough places to house them."

Activists say a spill in the Arctic similar to the Deepwater Horizon disaster could also wreak havoc with the region's Alaskan Native communities and unique wildlife.

"Polar bears are already in trouble and an oil spill could be the difference between survival and extinction," Noblin said.

Martha I Falk, a representative of the Inupiat tribe from the 4,500-strong coastal town of Barrow, told a briefing in Washington on Thursday that the community would not be able to cope with a major oil spill.

Falk had just returned from a visit to witness the clean-up operation in Alabama. "If an oil spill were to occur in Arctic waters there is no proven technology to respond or recover," Falk said. "This would impact our whales, bearded seals, polar bears and ecosystems."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.5753dc5a8b03ae71a7046569eb25039d.1a1&show_article=1

Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[Thrashen]

The corporate buffoons at BP will be making a Hail Mary effort to finally stop this oil leak. They're giving it 60-70% odds to work.

I noticed that the U.S. government has done nothing accept waste the valuable time of the real problem solvers. George W. Bush, the Neocon / Zionist scum, was massacred daily by the MSM for failing to instantly throw billions of dollars to New Orleans. Obongo's administration has barely acknowledged this dreadful environmental disaster, let alone trying to help stop the leak. If the ultra-liberal "Maverick,"Â￾ John McCain, were president during this event, he would be Public Enemy Number 1.

But BHO is a "liberal,"Â￾ so no questions are asked by anyone, ever. This government contains more "partisanship"Â￾ than ever before (so much for Hope and Change)"¦.yet the R's and the D's still manage to be mirror images of each other with only picayune differentiation.


http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100525-707418.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlinesEdited by: Thrashen

 

[Quiet Speed]

Have not heard a progress report on the latest efforts to stop the leak (a woefully inaccurate term if there ever was one). The live video feed shows a still fierce flow.

I had considered volunteering for the clean up. There are plenty of volunteers waiting in the wings if needed for onshore cleanup. For a while when conditions were right you could smell the oil, and the slick is about 40 to 50 miles from our area. Nobody knows the long term impact on the disaster. Who knows if the chemical dispersant is doing more harm than good? The fish, shrimp, oysters all could be effected for decades. That's so much of the culture and lifeblood of the Louisiana and Mississippi coast. The domino effect on business and tourism would be huge. I hate to think if all that becomes non-existent.
Edited by: Quiet Speed

 

[Quiet Speed]

Encouraging developments if true. Supposedly, mud injected into the well is flowing from the blowout at the moment.

Video - http://www.wkrg.com/gulf_oil_spill/spill_cam/

'Top kill' stops gulf oil leak for now, official says <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-top-kill-20100528,0,5782115.story" target="_blank">
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-spill-top-kill-20100528,0,5782115.story</a>

 

[guest301]

I hope that's true for the sake of all the people that have to make a living down there but this spill was and is causing Obama to drop in the polls considerably and the "Katrina" logo is getting attached to him. It won't be till tommorrow till he even visits the site of this disaster for the first time, Bush would have gotten killed in the press for waiting this long.Edited by: guest301

 

[Solomon Kane]

Disasters caused by foreign assault or foreign sabotage usually help american pols--hence Giuliani "looked good" during 911 even though he really didn't do much beyond the obvious. Bush was also able to 'rally the nation' and launch his now-laughable "war on terror"

But accidents and natural disasters tend to make presidents and local pols look bad, unlessthey arespeedily rectified or mitigated.

So Bush and Nagin looked bad because of Katrina.

And Obama and neocon favorite Bobby Jindal will look bad because of this oil spill.

It's a disaster of epic proportions. The eerie thing was the strange ignoring of the problem for one full week, before suggesting doing anything about it. Interested parties have beenand will be making use of this.

An arctic spill like the Valdez does not hurt anyone too much.

A gulf spill will mix with all the normal waste products, the humidity--and the humanity.

It's going to be a hot, humid, and malodorous summer down south. Themaritime industries are going to be devastated.

Let's pray--especially for the victims of this spill.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

was the BP disaster done on purpose? the investigators over at Prison Planet think the evidence says yes.

Troubling evidence surrounding the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20th suggests that the incident could have been manufactured.


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 &amp; Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil
well control company.


The company deals with fires and blowouts on oil rigs and oil wells. It was responsible for putting out roughly one third of the more than 700 oil well fires set in Kuwait by retreating Iraqi soldiers during the Gulf War.


The deal itself is still under scrutiny with Boots and Coots facing an ongoing investigation into "possible breaches of fiduciary duty and other violations of state law"Â￾


Where this information gets really interesting is with the fact that 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.


As the New York Times noted on May 26th, "BP officials chose, partly for financial reasons, to use a type of casing for the well that the company knew was the riskier of two options,"Â￾


Workers from the rig and company officials have said that hours before the explosion, gases were leaking through the cement, which had been set in place by the oil services contractor, Halliburton. Investigators have said these leaks were the likely cause of the explosion."Â￾


According to a 2007 study by Minerals Management Service, cementing was a factor in 18 of 39 rig blowouts in the gulf between 1992 and 2006.


Another intriguing connection Boots and Coots has to the Deepwater Horizon explosion comes via Pat Campbell, the man BP has employed to cap the well beneath the ruined rig. Campbell worked for Boots and Coots as general manager for many years.


BP has admitted to buying Yahoo and Google keywords in an attempt to control publicly available information in the wake of the catastrophe. It seems that the company is taking all the flack for the spill while the Halliburton link is being roundly ignored.


BP's prepared testimony briefing, which has since leaked online, also intriguingly notes that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without their knowledge sometime before the explosion.


"the extent of these modifications is unknown at this time"Â￾ states the report on page 37.

Possible prior knowledge of the explosion is also evident via huge dumping of stocks and shares in the weeks and days prior to the incident.


Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter â€" shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million.


Other asset management firms also sold huge blocks of BP stock in the first quarter. Though the amounts pale in comparison to Goldman's holdings, Wachovia, owned by Wells Fargo, sold 98% of its shares in BP and Swiss bank UBS sold 97% of its BP shares.


Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the chief executive of BP, sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.


In the days before the Deepwater explosion, Obama had announced a new effort to explore for and lease new drilling locations in the deep Gulf and in Alaska. In the wake of the disaster, these plans have been cancelled and BP is taking a PR bashing.


All of which has been capitalized on by the Obama administration to reinvigorate talk of a carbon tax and has created the opportunity to reintroduce the idea of nationalizing oil, which the Democratic leadership has long sought.


The full story of what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico is yet to emerge, there are rumours of more spills and an ongoing coverup. The site represents a $2.2 trillion source of wealth and power, a motive along with a plethora of suspicious activity that needs to be investigated further.

 

[Bart]

Possible prior knowledge of the explosion is also evident via huge dumping of stocks and shares in the weeks and days prior to the incident.


Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter â€" shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million.

Goldman Sachs...again? The more I read of this spill the more suspicious I get.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

I'd not be surprised if it was a sabotage done to finagle oil prices & demonize offshore (U.S.) drilling.

FYI, here's a simple method of soaking oil from water...

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/


Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

I'd not be surprised if it was a sabotage done to fanagle oil prices &amp; demonize offshore (U.S.) drilling.

FYI, here's a simple method of soaking oil from water...

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

Dixie, i'm hurt that you don't read my posts.

i provided a link to that exact video in the opening post of this thread.

i guess great minds think alike ...

 

[DixieDestroyer]

JC, my apologies partner. I'd not logged on since last weekend (buried with work), so I missed the initial link.

We feed our horses Bermuda hay (especially in the winter), so I was aware of it's absorbent quality...but hadn't seen it work in water.

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

i guess it's better to laugh than cry ... and this mockery certainly is funny.

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM[/tube]

 

[jaxvid]

I'd not be surprised if it was a sabotage done to fanagle oil prices & demonize offshore (U.S.) drilling. FYI, here's a simple method of soaking oil from water... http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

<div></div>
<div></div> 
<div>Dixie, i'm hurt that you don't read my posts.

 i provided a link to that exact video in the opening post of this thread. 

</div>
<div> </div>
<div>i guess great minds think alike ...

 </div>
<div> </div>

I thought that from the start because:

a) I'm a conspiracy nut, and

b) why hasn't anything remotely like this happened before? There are thousands of these offshore rigs around the world and they collapse all of the time. I even know someone who was on one when it collapsed. But never have I heard of this kind of damage.

And don't these types of things happen naturally? The oil isn't man-made. It's already in the ground. I know there are under water volcano's which means magma from the earth's core is finding a way to leak up to the water but an oil vein has never done that and dumped a bunch of oil into the ocean?

Somethings fishy.

 

[Solomon Kane]

good post, jaxvid...i think it was definitely sabotaged...and why couldn't they have just have swamped the oil cap with dirt and concrete and then re-drilled? after all...as you point out....earth has done a pretty good job of containing oil for thousands of years...why no natural "oil spills"?


and then there's the incredibly lackadaisical attitude for the first two weeks... Someone wants this disaster...


Edited by: Solomon Kane

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

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<TD =title colSpan=2>BP Hires Mercs to Block Oily Beaches</TD></TR>
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<TD =textsmall>Published on06-15-2010</TD></TR></T></TABLE>




Source: Wired


Last week, we all voted here on who should buy Blackwater now that it's up for sale. In addition to Steve Jobs and the Salvation Army, one of the top finalists was British Petroleum. "Somebody is gonna have to keep all those sunbathers away from the beach,"Â￾ one commenter noted.


Well, today we can tell you: Danger Room gets results. Kinda.


BP, in a move destined to go down as one of the bestest public relations moves ever, has apparently hired a private security company to help to keep pesky reporters from covering the unfolding catastrophe on the beaches of the Gulf Coast. The report comes via New Orleans' 6WDSU reporter Scott Walker, who last week ran into representatives of a "Talon Security"Â￾ trying to block him from interviewing cleanup workers on a local beach. Just which of the various companies named "Talon Security"Â￾ is storming the (public) beaches for BP, however, remains unclear.


Of course, this wouldn't be the first time a private security firm made an appearance in a Gulf disaster. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the Department of Homeland Security and a number of private firms, fearful of reported widespread violence and chaos, turned to private security contractors like Blackwater and ArmorGroup International to protect their property.


So take heart, Blackwater. BP may have opted rent the services of a rival instead of purchasing you wholesale, but disasters are fairly regular occurrences and there seems to be no shortage of companies willing to make ill-considered PR moves in their midst.

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/bp-hires-mercs-to-block-oily-beaches/?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter#ixzz0qvj9xeZw

 

[DixieDestroyer]

BP Oil Spill Obama's Planned Sabotage?

Posted by txgeekgirl

Thursday, June 17th at 8:54PM EDT

I ran across Erik Rush's column today where he discusses the possibility of this oil spill as being purposeful and as a way for Obama to further his No OIL agenda.

FACT: Obama was completely against Oil production in the U.S. He even said he expected to raise gas prices to $7/gallon to FORCE Americans to give up their vehicles and move to Flex Fuel or electric cars.

FACT: Obama, as night turns to day, endorses off-shore drilling in the Gulf.

FACT: 2-3 weeks later, BP has a major explosion and oil leak.

FACT: Obama and his best bud, Rahm, have ties to BP as Rahm is living in an apartment owned by a BP rep.

FACT: We have had other similar issues in the gulf that took hours to repair"¦ not MONTHS"¦ so with all the new fangled technology, why is BP dragging?

FACT: Obama has not met with nor has he even been very visible on this issue except for press visits (go figure, his favorite) and his little TV bomb Tuesday.

FACT: He will use this to further his NO FUEL PRODUCTION in America and make us solely dependent on other countries.

It's the sabotage, stupid!
Posted: June 17, 2010
1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

This is really getting a little tedious.

Along with millions of Americans, on Tuesday night, I watched President Obama's Oval Office address to the nation on the subject of the Gulf oil spill and the "multitude of challenges"Â our nation currently faces. I happened to be in the "green room"Â of a network news studio with a bunch of pro analysts; theopportunity to gauge their reactions proved quite valuable.

Of course, I already have a good idea of what average Americans are thinking (as opposed to pro analysts); I hear from them all the time. And it wasn't long at all before the American people â€" in interviews, the blogosphere and in messages to their favorite pundits â€" began delivering their own analysis. This, not surprisingly, was very similar to what I had heard from the pros â€" prior to their having even hit the airwaves.

The American people â€" like me and those celebrated analysts â€" believe that Obama is simply using the Gulf oil spill crisis to further his agenda, that being the comprehensive government takeover of as many areas of the private sector as possible and implementing big-government collectivism. Some call thiscommunism.

Erik Rush's brand new book is bold, daring and needed: "Negrophilia: From Slave Block to Pedestal - America's Racial Obsession"Â

Although the president appears to be ignoring what the capriciousness of his actions suggests, it was not difficult for even the least attentive viewer of his speech to discern that his plan to create additional bureaucracy to oversee the oil industry, penalize British Petroleum for its part in the crisis and toutalternative energy solutions is merely a tissue-thin ruse for exploiting the situation toward further advancement of his malevolent program.

We can't afford not to change how we produce and use energy. "¦Ã¢â‚¬" President Obama, June 15

I was almost shocked that Obama stooped to employing this overused multilevel marketer's platitude as part of his rationale. Well, we did ask for transparency, and Tuesday night's oratory was about as transparent as this president is going to get. His hawking the necessity for America to begin the wholesale use of inefficient, expensive alternative energy sources was clearly Obama-speak for passing cap-and-trade, which promises to do for America what it did for Europe â€" transfer massive amounts of taxpayer wealth to governments and their chosen energy-industry bed buddies for a hundred years to come.

The transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of good, middle-class jobs. "¦Ã¢â‚¬" President Obama, June 15

The president is well aware that this statement is rubbish. The so-called transition to clean energy has the potential to create millions of government jobs for former ACORN employees and volunteers, and other individuals of their questionable character, and little more than this in the short term.

With each of Obama's speeches and each action that appears imprudent, his poll numbers drop. Every time it is reported that yet another health-care reform perk has fallen apart behind the scenes, his numbers drop a little more. More and more Americans are finding it hard to hang on to his flimsy substance. Unlike Bill Clinton â€" who lived and died by polls â€" however, this doesn't seem to matter to Obama.

Why?

Well, I have said it before, but it bears reiteration. Serving the American people is the furthest thing from this administration's collective mind. We're dealing with a bunch that creates crises, exploits crises and has been working toward the fall of the republic since their youth. Discounting their capitalizing on tragic (but timely) occurrences, it's pretty much sabotage. Pointing out this president's ineptitude, or his failure to be "a leader"Â and act before the Gulf crisis was 60 days out, is pretty much specious.

I don't think the Deepwater Horizon oil rig itself was sabotaged to cause this disaster â€" but it has no doubt been perceived as most convenient by the administration. The hitch is that, unless Obama plans to seize power through a coup, Americans are already so disgusted with him that they're likely to be ready to run him out of Washington on a rail by November 2010, let alone 2012.

So, while visions of cars from "The Jetsons"Â dance in some Americans' heads, let us remain focused on communicating to our neighbors what this administration is really about and doing our part to derail the obscenity that is cap-and-trade.

http://www.redstate.com/txgeekgirl/2010/06/17/bp-oil-spill-obamas-planned-sabotage/

Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Another reason ("benefit" to the PTB) for the (probable) sabotage job...de-stabilize the middle/working class...

Oil Spill to Destroy 100,000+ Jobs

Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[Jimmy Chitwood]

BP photoshops fake photo of crisis command center, posts on main BP site.