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Who Died And Made BP King Of The Gulf Of Mexico?
June 21st, 2010 | 
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There is one question that I would really like an answer to. Who died and made BP king of the Gulf of Mexico? In recent weeks, BP has almost seemed more interested in keeping the American people away from the oil spill than in actually cleaning it up. Journalists are being pushed around and denied access, disaster workers are being intimidated and abused and now BP has even go so far as to hire an army of private mercenaries to enforce their will along the Gulf coast. Are we suddenly living in occupied Iraq? How in the world did a foreign oil company get the right to start pointing guns at the American people? The last time I checked, BP did not own the Gulf of Mexico and did not have the right to tell the American people where they can and cannot go. The truth is that BP could have avoided all of this by running an open, honest and transparent operation from the start. They could have welcomed help from all sources, they could have tried to be open with the media, and they could have tried to be fair with the volunteers and rescue workers. But instead BP has been conducting this whole thing as if we are living in a totalitarian dictatorship and they are the dictators.
Over the last several weeks, members of the mainstream media attempting to cover the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been yelled at, harassed, kicked off public beaches and threatened with arrest. The Obama administration keeps promising ”to improve media access”, but so far their promises haven’t seemed to make much difference. In fact, a recent AP report detailed several recent highly disturbing incidents of journalist intimidation….
Seriously.
The workers say that they are only using their own safety equipment because BP has not provided what they need. It is a fact that a large number of rescue workers have already gotten sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, so it certainly makes sense that those working to clean up the oil would want to do whatever they can to stay safe.
But no, BP has to be a bunch of jerks about the whole thing.
Even the EPA says that workers need to be careful. Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s office of solid waste and emergency response, made the following statement during an interview on Thursday….
“There’s no way you can be working in that toxic soup without getting exposures.”
It’s not just the oil that is the problem. The chemical dispersants that BP is using in the Gulf are even more toxic than the oil. In fact, because it is so extremely toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it.
But the Obama administration has allowed BP to dump over a million gallons of Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527 and other highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico.
Apparently the truth is that BP would rather disperse the oil so that the spill doesn’t look so bad even if it means creating an ecological disaster of nightmarish proportions.
You see, these days BP does what it wants, and anyone who doesn’t like it gets pushed out of the way.
Monique Harden, the co-director and attorney at the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, is so outraged over BP’s behavior that she recently made the following statement….
“BP should not be running the Gulf region like a prison warden, and we’ve got to stop that.”
But rather than becoming more open and taking responsibility for their actions, BP has now hired private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites.
In other words, BP has brought in a horde of private mercenaries (just like the U.S. uses in Iraq and Afghanistan) to muscle the American people around.
Yeah, we are really going to appreciate that.
Doesn’t BP understand that the American people do not respond well to this kind of nonsense?
In fact, it is being alleged that BP has actually attempted to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo.
They seem absolutely obsessed with controlling what we see and think.
Perhaps what BP should be obsessed with is stopping the oil from shooting out of the ground.
Meanwhile, BP execs are busy testifying in front of Congress and making half-hearted apologies.
Carl-Henric Svanberg, the BP chairman, has even apologized for referring to those affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as “small people”.
Isn’t that nice of him?
While all of this is going on, BP is already trying to ensure that things go their way legally. Back in May, BP requested that one particular judge be assigned to preside over all lawsuits related to the spill. Well, it turns out that this particular judge gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to attend oil industry conferences.
Isn’t that convenient?
But that is how the game is played these days.
Meanwhile, the “oil volcano” on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico continues to pump out a nightmarish amount of oil every single day. BP is even admitting that oil is escaping from the leak at such high pressure that if they try to cap it the entire well may blow.
So this crisis may keep getting worse for months.
By the time this is over, will anything in the Gulf be left alive?
Even now, hordes of dolphins, fish, sharks, crabs, rays and other sea creatures find themselves trapped between the rapidly advancing oil and the shore. Unprecedented numbers are showing up just off the Gulf coast in an attempt to escape certain death, but once the oil reaches shore there will be nowhere else for them to go. The tragedy will be unspeakable.
Things did not have to turn out this way. BP and the Obama administration could have done things much differently. But they didn’t.
Now we all have to live with the results.
God's Work? Luck? Or Lawbreaking?
By Karl Denninger
One has to wonder about the BP thing….
It seems incomprehensible that the president and other members of the administration still have jobs when it is now being reported that the federal government was apprised by BP on February 13 that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig was leaking oil and natural gas into the ocean floor.
In fact, according to documents in the administration’s possession, BP was fighting large cracks at the base of the well for roughly ten days in early February.
Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig’s fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, “They damn near blew up the rig.”
Hmmm….
Now let’s see…. there was no public dissemination of this information, was there? Well, no.
According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman’s sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP’s stock during the quarter.
Really…..
Tony Hayward cashed in about a third of his holding in the company one month before a well on the Deepwater Horizon rig burst, causing an environmental disaster.
The latter article also says:
There is no suggestion that he acted improperly or had prior knowledge that the company was to face the biggest setback in its history.
Oh really?
Again:
Further it seems the administration was also informed about this development, six weeks before to the rig’s fatal explosion when an engineer from the University of California, Berkeley, announced to the world a near miss of an explosion on the rig by stating, “They damn near blew up the rig.”
So here are my questions, which I believe we all deserve answers to:
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Did Goldman or Mr. Hayward know this?
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Did they sell stock with knowledge of material inside information that had not been disseminated to the market?
Just curious, mind you….
Obama To Use BP Oil Spill As An Opportunity To Push His Economy Killing Climate Change Bill
Never one to to allow a “good crisis” to go to waste, Barack Obama is pledging to use the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to push the U.S. Congress to pass his controversial climate bill. In fact, during a recent interview Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on. But the truth is that Obama’s climate bill is the same economy killing legislation that it was before the BP oil spill. It would still drive gas and electricity prices through the roof, it would still cause large numbers of U.S. businesses to flee overseas, it would still be one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and it would still usher in an unprecedented era of climate fascism. But now thanks to the BP oil spill there is suddenly a lot more momentum in Congress for doing something about energy and about “climate change”.
Of course the truth is that carbon dioxide is not causing climate change and high levels of carbon dioxide are actually very good for the environment, but reducing carbon emissions has almost become a religion for radical environmentalists, and Barack Obama is absolutely determined to push through his “cap and trade” carbon trading scheme. In fact, just as 9/11 completely changed the war that Americans viewed the fight against terrorism, Barack Obama sees the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico fundamentally changing the way that Americans see energy issues. During a recent interview, Obama told Politico columnist Roger Simon the following….
“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”
Not only that, but Obama considers it one of his greatest “leadership challenges” to make sure that we all “draw the right lessons” from the BP oil spill….
“One of the biggest leadership challenges for me going forward is going to be to make sure that we draw the right lessons from this disaster.”
So what are those “right lessons”?
Well, apparently what we are all supposed to get out of this disaster are the lessons that Obama has been trying to “teach” us all along – that carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes are good for us.
But Barack Obama is not the only one urging us to learn the “right lessons” from the BP oil spill.
In a recent interview with ABC News, Microsoft’s Bill Gates also linked the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with “climate change”. Gates warned that if we don’t make the necessary changes soon that we will suffer severe consequences….
“We’ll have more crises like the oil spill and we’ll have the supply disruption. We’ll start to see more and more effects of the climate problem.”
But would the climate bill that Obama is pushing really save us from “climate change”?
Of course not.
But Barack Obama’s climate change bill would do the following things….
*It would drive gas and electricity prices through the roof.
*It would crush the already fragile U.S. economy by piling a bunch of new taxes and regulations on U.S. businesses. Needless to say, large numbers of them would begin looking for greener pastures.
*It would increase worldwide pollution by forcing companies out of the U.S. and into nations that have no restrictions on pollution whatsoever.
*When you add up all of the overt and hidden taxes in the bill, it would represent one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history.
*Since every action we take involves the production of carbon emissions (including every breath that we take), it would open the door for an era of tyrannical climate fascism where the U.S. government literally monitors every aspect of our lives to make sure that we are being “eco-friendly”.
But Barack Obama makes this climate bill sound like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, he continues to promise that the number of “green jobs” gained by this bill will far outweigh the number of other jobs lost.
But is this true?
Of course not.
In fact, other countries that have tried a “cap and trade” scheme have experienced disastrous results. For example, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the “green economy” there has been an absolute economic nightmare for that nation. Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new “green economy” in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created.
The unemployment rate in Spain is now hovering around 20 percent and the economy there is on the verge of complete and total collapse. In fact, if the government of Spain does end up defaulting on their debts, it could make the financial crisis that has been unfolding in Greece look like a Sunday picnic.
It should be obvious to anyone with a brain that a climate bill like the one Spain implemented will devastate the U.S. economy. But facts haven’t gotten in the way of Barack Obama pushing his agenda before, so why should they now?
However, it is not just Barack Obama that is pushing an agenda of trying to radically reduce carbon emissions. All over the world, many of the global elite have joined forces with the radical environmentalists in an effort to “save the world” from the growing “threat” of carbon dioxide.
And since each person on this planet is a source of constant carbon emissions, many of those who truly believe in this radical environmental agenda consider the rapidly growing population of the earth to be the number one cause of climate change.
You see, to those obsessed with “climate change”, just getting corporations around the globe to radically cut carbon emissions is not nearly going to be good enough. The truth is that they know that in order to get carbon emissions down to where they want them to be, they are going to have to do something about the growing world population.
To them, in the “war against climate change” anyone who breathes is the enemy. In fact, according to an official UN report, no human can ever truly be “carbon neutral”.
So please understand that for those obsessed with climate change, “carbon taxes” and “cap and trade” are just the beginning. To truly achieve their goals, “one child policies” and “forced abortions” will also be necessary.
So if Barack Obama does get his climate bill pushed through Congress and it does kill the U.S. economy, that would only be a “first step” for those truly dedicated to the radical environmental agenda. What they have planned down the road is a whole lot more horrific.
Posted in Barack Obama, BP, British Petroleum, Cap and Trade, carbon dioxide, climate change, global warming, Government, Oil Spill | 
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Wow. Obama & BP Working Together to Steal Your Money
BARACK PETROLEUM
Tue Jun 15 2010 19:09:43 ET
BP America President and Chairman Lamar McKay: “BP supports an economy-wide price for carbon based on fair and equitable application across all sectors and believes that market based solutions, like a cap and trade or linked-fee, are the best solutions to manage GHG emissions.” (Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, U.S. House Of Representatives, Hearing, 6/15/10)
Shell President Marvin E. Odum: “That is why Shell supports legislating a solution to energy and climate issues as a means to create a secure U.S. energy future, reduce dependence on foreign oil and decrease greenhouse gas emissions. This requires setting a price for carbon, and we recommend cap and trade.” (Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, U.S. House Of Representatives, Hearing, 6/15/10)
ConocoPhillips CEO James J. Mulva: “Another key element of a comprehensive energy policy should be federal action to address global climate change. As you are aware, ConocoPhillips supports passage of a comprehensive federal law establishing a clear and transparent price for carbon.” (Committee on Energy and Commerce, Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, U.S. House Of Representatives, Hearing, 6/15/10)
Posted in Barack Obama, BP, British Petroleum, Carbon Emissions, carbon trading, Corruption |
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Saturday Economic Musings
By Karl Denninger
The dichotomy of the following two pieces is rather sobering, when one considers the implications.
“The collapse of the financial system as we know it is real, and the crisis is far from over,” Soros said today at a conference in Vienna. “Indeed, we have just entered Act II of the drama.”
Soros, 79, said the current situation in the world economy is “eerily” reminiscent of the 1930s with governments under pressure to narrow their budget deficits at a time when the economic recovery is weak.
That, of course, is because the original medicine was incorrect. The entire financial world, including Soros, advocated for (and got) more Keynesian stimulus – that is, more debt applies to an over-levered debt-laden world.
Indeed, as the below shows, the fundamental instability here is not one of excess capacity, it is one of excess debt – an excess that has built up since the early 1980s:
This, incidentally, is not just a US-centric thing. It is a global problem and rests at the root of virtually all of the ills. By willfully and intentionally abdicating the black-letter responsibility vested in The Federal Reserve, and by our Congress and Executive refusing to hold The Fed to account in regard to its core mission, the stage was set.
The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Open Market Committee shall maintain long run growth of the monetary and credit aggregates commensurate with the economy’s long run potential to increase production, so as to promote effectively the goals of maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates.
[12 USC 225a. As added by act of November 16, 1977 (91 Stat. 1387) and amended by acts of October 27, 1978 (92 Stat. 1897); Aug. 23, 1988 (102 Stat. 1375); and Dec. 27, 2000 (114 Stat. 3028).]
“Stable prices” does not mean “inflation at some rate.” Stable means stable – that is, level, unchanging, etc.
The Fed has willfully and intentionally refused to follow the law and Congress and The Executive have willfully and intentionally refused to enforce the law.
From here all other evils in the economy flow.
Rising stock prices, a stabilizing housing market and fewer firings may be giving households hope that the recovery from the worst recession since the 1930s will be sustained. The 184,000 increase in payrolls economists project for this month shows it will take years for the economy to reverse the loss of 8.4 million jobs since the contraction began in December 2007.
Why would rising stock prices matter?
The government’s refusal to hold The Fed accountable to it’s mission has effectively forced people to “invest” in what amount to serial Ponzi Schemes in an attempt to have anything at all for retirement!
Why would government do this?
Because it forces dependency.
Social Security and Medicare would both be immaterial and unnecessary if it was possible to simply sock away 10% of one’s earnings every year for retirement, and wind up with the same purchasing power at the end as you began with.
Consider the person who earns $50,000 a year “on average” from entry into th workforce at 23 (assuming a college education) to 65. If we have stable prices then wages would also remain stable. So said person, assuming no promotions or improvements in their contribution to society (as measured by their productivity) works for 42 years and puts away $5,000 x 42 = $210,000.
At 65 they retire and live 20 more years, to 85. They can take $10,500 a year from that money, assuming zero dividends or otherwise, and live on it.
But zero isn’t realistic. What’s the operating return on a real business? Presume it’s 10% – again, in constant dollars. Further presume that as owners, you decide (shareholders are owners, right?) that half of this should be returned to the owners, and half plowed back into the company in development of further opportunity. We now can take out $10,000 a year in dividends and never touch the principal, or we could run a 2 or 3% “depletion rate” on the principal and live on the mixture.
Now you say “but that’s not enough!” Ah, but during those years they also bought a house and were paying for it over time. By 65, they own it free and clear. If that house was a $100,000 (again, we’re assuming stable prices) home it still is, and they now have $310,000. Now we’re up to $18,000-$20,000 a year in lifestyle.
Perfect? No, but remember, in retirement your expenses tend to drop as you don’t need to drive to work, you don’t need fancy suits or other clothing, there is no need to go out to lunch every day and other similar things.
You want more? Save more.
Note that nowhere in this analysis have I factored in any sort of compound growth! It isn’t necessary any more for you to “make it”, nor is any sort of government nonsense necessary either. Mere saving is now enough!
What else does the current intentional malfeasance lead to? This sort of crap:
Has the worm turned at last? As the oil continues to gush in the Gulf of Mexico, angry rhetoric has gushed from President Barack Obama’s lips. His rabid denunciations of BP have damaged the interests not only of that company but of most British people, in a way that must make us wonder whether he leads a friendly country.
….
As BP’s share price has plummeted, it has lost £55billion of its market value, and the company’s entire outlook is very bleak, which affects most of us. Every British insurance company, building society and pension fund has large holdings of BP shares in its portfolio.
If you have a pension, at present or in prospect, your income falls with every sour word Obama speaks. It’s a fine way for a friend to behave, if indeed we should regard the president as a friend.
Spoken like a true douchebag banker apologist.
In point of fact I suspect Mr. Wheatcroft is simply brainwashed by the idiocy of the time, rather than being in the pocket of the bankster cult. After all, when one grows up with and lives under a structure that over the intermediate and long run cannot be stable, but which appears to produce “prosperity” for a time, it is difficult not to become imbued with the premise that one must have “compound growth” of earnings (and interest) to be able to “make prosperity.”
In point of fact chasing compound return is how pensioners and insurance companies got in this mess. Such a quest is an unsustainable Ponzi Scheme that was always doomed to fail – we were merely arguing over the when, not the what. That BP found itself pressured by the demands to fulfill ever-rising profit expectations and thus allegedly decided to install and operate generators without working airdoor shutdowns along with continuing to drill while either knowing or being able to know that critical safety equipment was inoperative in fact doesn’t change this set of facts, it underlines them.
Similarly, Foxconn, which is a contract manufacturer in China that makes Apple iPhones and HP Computers (among other things) is rumored to be intending to pull out of the nation and head for sunnier shores - in India, Vietnam and Taiwan. Suicides at their plants have brought them under intense pressure – deaths blamed on harsh working conditions. When one considers that the average Chinese worker in their plants makes $161 a month (after raises going into effect in July!) the problem should become obvious – these are people who would have to work for nearly three months to afford one of these $500 gadgets.
Contrast this with the US, where at the current $7.25 minimum wage a worker performing 40 hours of work would earn nearly double that amount in one week. That is, at minimum wage a worker in the US earns (gross) about $1,300 monthly, or eight times as much. At the average manufacturing wage in the United States ($10.60 – $15.88 – call it $13 for grins and giggles) said US worker would make $2,340 monthly before taxes – 14.5 times what the Chinese worker makes.
Are you really going to argue that for the minimum wage worker the cost of living in America is eight times that in China, or for the average factory worker it is 14 times higher? Nonsense. The truth is that said Chinese worker lives in what we consider abject poverty with the boot of the company, enabled by a murderous and thuggish central government that refuses to recognize and honor fundamental human rights, pressed ever-more tightly on the people’s necks.
If you can drive people like slaves by first buying up and bulldozing their villages to put in your “compounds” where said work is done, then (as a consequence) becoming the only reasonable means of earning anything at all, you can exploit people like this.
For a while.
Until they jump off the roof.
There are many who claim that our “problems” all come from a lack of “hard money” and “The Fed”, including Ron Paul in Congress. He, and the rest, are wrong.
The problem isn’t The Fed, it’s Congress. It’s Ron Paul and the other 534 Ron Paul’s in Congress. “End The Fed” is a fraudulent premise when in fact The Federal Reserve Act itself contains a legal stricture that imposes, by statute, a zero-inflation mandate – if Congress and The Executive would only enforce it.
The Federal Reserve Act provides for a proper and correct monetary system. Whether the currency is backed by gold, bushels of corn or grains of rice is immaterial if one is allowed to extend credit without bound. The Federal Reserve Act is supposed to place upon The Fed a stricture not to allow that, and they have the ability to prevent it through control of leverage – which they are absolutely capable of exercising (e.g. reserve ratio requirements, etc.)
The failure to do so is no accident, it is policy. Policy of Congress and policy of The Executive, just as it was policy that allowed S&Ls to backdate deposits and detonate the FSLIC and one of the very regulators at OTS who allowed that to happen did the exact same thing with IndyMac bank 20 years down the road!
Regulation and law without enforcement is no law at all. We have seen this time and time again – with liar loans, with securities sold to investors that didn’t really contain what was claimed to be within them, with leverage constraints removed and now with BP, which managed to drill with, it appears, critical safety measures (that were supposed to be present) inoperative or damaged.
When the disaster then strikes we have people cry poverty of foreknowledge, claiming that “nobody could have predicted this” and “nobody saw it coming.”
Baloney.
If you drill oil wells with an inoperative blowout preventer than eventually you will drill a hole that blows out and you will be unable to stop it.
If you make liar loans and sell securities based on them claiming to have “good paper” when it is in fact trash, eventually the number of suckers available to continue to ponzi scheme will be exhausted and the financial market(s) associated with same will collapse.
Mathematically, the results over sufficient periods of time are certain. While it is true that “nobody can tell you in advance which trial of a probability game will result in the bad outcome”, what everyone who analyzes such a mathematical system can tell you is that the ultimate outcome is not one of chance, but certainty – the only element of uncertainty is WHEN the bad outcome will be realized, not if it will.
We as Americans (and indeed as citizens of the world) must demand that the purveyors of schemes that contain these sorts of “will fail, without question of outcome, only time” elements be held to full account personally for their willful and intentional malfeasance.
This, in the context of BP, means each and every executive up and down the line who knew the blowout preventer was not at 100% of design capacity to interrupt a blowout along with each and every person who knew that the generator engines lacked air doors. The former is the cause of being unable to shut down the well, the latter is the proximate cause of ignition of the gas that was ejected during the blowout and thus the explosion, fire and destruction of the rig, along with the death of 11 men.
In the context of our financial system it means that we must put into the dock and demand the removal of each and every lawmaker and regulator who allowed credit aggregates to grow to double their long-run sustainable values. We must force those aggregates to contract to sustainable values and accept the economic contraction and deflation that must come with it, in order to restore long-run stability. At the same time we must put a full and complete stop to the sort of global wage arbitrage that has been enabled by and fueled this insane game, along with all the “high frequency trading” games that have replaced the proper public and social purpose of public equity and debt markets in the first place (the raising and allocation of capital for legitimate business purpose.)
Doing so requires we “clean house” at the legislative and executive levels. Those current lawmakers who wish to retain their jobs must immediately demonstrate that they “Get It” and will act here and now to put a stop to the BS. A few steps that would do so would be reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, a one-second rule for all orders entered on stock, commodity and futures exchanges (once entered no order may be modified or canceled for one second, which would make the “dancing games” of the HFT boys instantly unprofitable) and a stop to all “specialized” information flows for these folks not available to ordinary investors (and by which they cheat said ordinary investors.)
In addition The Government must demand of The Fed that it immediately bring to bear its tools to contract total systemic credit outstanding to a ratio commensurate with the long-run stable economic levels known for more than fifty years – that is, no higher than 175% of GDP economy-wide. Provide for a five year period during which this adjustment must take place, and that aggregates must fall by at least 1/5th of the requirement adjustment from top to bottom each year, with the penalty for failure being de-certification of The Federal Reserve and reversion to Treasury of monetary control.
Finally, regulatory statutes in the United States, including The Federal Reserve Act, Prompt Corrective Action, MMS regulations governing oil and gas drilling and elsewhere must all be revised to contain an “or else” that is criminally enforceable against government actors who fail to perform their duties, and a civil cause of action and standing for each taxpayer.
The day in which one may rob a bank or poison a waterway through regulatory malfeasance and corruption and go free, yet the same crime committed with a ski mask, hold-up note and a gun draws a 20 year sentence must end. The Market-Ticker
Posted in BP, British Petroleum, Corruption, Debt, Economic Crisis, Economy, Federal Reserve, Financial System, Government, Leverage, Oil Spill |
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Cornhole By Government: An Example
By Karl Denninger
Okaloosa County and the U.S. Coast Guard have developed a boom plan for the Destin Pass that county Public Safety Director Dino Villani thinks could be the best oil deflection strategy on the Gulf Coast.
But it will be later in the week at best before the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues the permit required for the booms to be deployed.
Of course he does. Note: this is a “new” boom plan. Why?
The new plan was devised this weekend after the Coast Guard ordered the removal of booms set in its navigable waters.
ITS navigable waters?
Uh, no. Those are STATE waters.
Yes, they’re navigable. They’re still STATE waters.
The new boom plan also calls for the Coast Guard to attach boom at the Destin Bridge that will be extended east and west to the shoreline. Additional county booming will be stretched over two channels that extend into Choctawhatchee Bay.
“If you look at the whole thing, the way it’s laid out, I think it’s as good as it’s gonna get,” Villani said. “I think this is the best pass protection I’ve seen.”
Which will do exactly nothing in a 3-5kt flood current, which is what we get here every single day – unless it covers the ENTIRE opening with no gaps (in which case you can’t navigate through it) and there’s enough catch facility (and coverage) to pump it out of there.
There won’t be.
“I don’t understand, if we have a unified command, why we’re not unified,” said County Administrator Jim Curry. “I’m very upset and very frustrated that there is not a coordinated effort here and local officials are left at the bottom of the trail.”
One word: KATRINA.
Need I say more?
The Federal Government exists to jerk you off and play games. That’s what they do. Then it’s not their fault because “nature” took its course.
Have you wondered about the Horizon? How about all the documents on the web that have been found? That BP knew the Blowout Preventer was not working properly? That MMS approved changes in well design in hours, with nothing other than a simple request? That MMS might have even known about the BOP being inoperative? That there was no “tools up” order issued against that site despite the fact that without a WORKING blowout preventer you can’t stop a blown well except with a multi-month relief well drilling plan, during which the hole is open-flow?
You know the most-feared words in the English language?
I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.
Then there are some people with a bit of sanity:
Many residents, such as Fort Walton Beach businessman Edwin Watts, say they don’t believe booms will survive the beating they’ll take from currents in the pass. Watts said he fears oil will slip, under, through and around the booms and enter Choctawhatchee Bay.
“Oil is going to be in the bay,” Watts said. “And if it gets into the bay, it’s over with.”
Yep.
In his e-mail to fellow county officials, Villani said of blocking the pass: “We have reviewed this with (boom contractor) Coastal Engineering and the Coast Guard.
“Again they reiterate that while it would be an incredible if not impossible feat to fill it in, it would be exponentially harder to reopen it at some later point.”
Baloney. You have a shitload of sand on both sides of the pass and on the bottom outside. You need to be able to breach water level during one slack tide period with your sand pumps. Once the sand is above water level, that’s that. Water isn’t coming in or out.
Clearing it later is even easier. Once you get it open the water will help.
Curry said federal and state authorities have advised the county that sand alone could not be used to block the entrance of the pass and that pilings and some sort of permanent material would be needed to do the job.
Why not? Let me guess – the dunes that are naturally there on both sides now are insufficient? How come they seem to work everywhere else?
“It would take a herculean effort to build and put in place and take all kinds of permits to be approved,” he said. “And then what? You’d close it to any kind of navigation.”
That’s the real problem right there.
As Dr. McCoy observed in the bar in Star Trek III, The Search For Spock, “There aren’t going to be any damned permits! How can you get a permit to do a damned illegal thing?“
Leaders ask forgiveness later if necessary, as is occurring in one place in Alabama right now, where the local volunteer fire chief is prepared to sink barges and go to jail if necessary to prevent the waters in their estuary from being destroyed.
In another, Perdido Key, where I outlined in my previous Ticker as one of the points that could be closed, it is now too late and thick oil flows are entering the estuary there. Like the estuaries and bays here, the bottoms there are mud and the oil will destroy the hatchery permanently.
We’re running out of time and we need leaders.
Now.
proudly supports:
Bill Still For President
for Congress
Michigan 11th District
By Bill Still
There is only one answer for the world economic situation; monetary reform.
1. No More National Debt
2. No More Fractional Lending
PDF PowerPoint Congressional Patriots Federal Reserve Balance Sheet Paulson's Lies Bernanke's Lies FedUpUSA Archive Mathematics of Failure Media Kit Door Hanger Corruption Flier Bank Flier Made In America A list of products and services made right here in the USA. Choosing to buy American made products preserves and creates American jobs.