Greetings and Happy Sunday to you all, and thanks for tuning in to my semi-regular environmental musings. This week's round-up is brought to us by Don Blankenship, who was recently told by a judge to shut his flapping yap up about how politically persecuted he was. It might very well be true that under the Obama Administration, investigators spent more time inspecting his mines and pointing out the very tragically wrong things that led to the deaths of miners at his mines. But this might have been for a lot of reasons, such as, the pattern emerging that Blankenship was awful, the Obama Administration being less likely to ignore these kinds of abuses, and, I don't know--the deaths of 29 miners in a preventable accident due to Blankenship's pathological management? (Not a big fan of Blankenship, this blogger right here.)
But this conflict in knowing full well climate change was real, and also working to sow doubt, is pretty unnerving. They could only act like that if profits entirely outweighed any sense that they should be responsible corporate and global citizens, and exposes a real weakness of the capitalist system.
Well, I can't forget it, and you know what? I'm pretty sure the lawyers of Halliburton will not forget to defend their client by saying they at least had the unmitigated gall to admit after a couple of years that they were probably negligent and maybe destroyed some evidence, paid a freaking pittance and made a donation to a wee fund, like they are responsible corporate citizens just trying to live the only way they know how. Because that kind of shallow shit-show always looks good even if it's nakedly a tap-dance around how they got caught out this time over it being a disaster this time, and if they don't learn this time, well, next time it'll just be a huge disaster again, m'kay?
It's almost enough to make you stop crying over the eyeless shrimp. Which they caused.
(But since all involved are also involved with the rising oceanic temps because global warming is a real thing, can I still also blame them for the flesh-eating bacteria? Because I will, probably, anyway. )
If you've been reading this blog, you know the answer to that:
Nothing is over!
The Water Sample Explodes
Now, you know, and I know, that one sample exploding for an unknown reason might not be anything to get our panties in a wad about--does that mean any sample from that spot is possible explosive under the right conditions? Probably not. But what it does mean is that that water isn't anything I'd be thrilled to have my family playing or working in without hazmat gear.
An administration official familiar with the spill oversight, however, told The Associated Press that a seep and possible methane were found near the busted oil well. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Sunday because an announcement about the next steps had not been made yet.
The concern all along - since pressure readings on the cap weren't as high as expected - was a leak elsewhere in the wellbore, meaning the cap may have to be reopened to prevent the environmental disaster from becoming even worse and harder to fix.
The official, who would not clarify what is seeping near the well, also said BP is not complying with the government's demand for more monitoring.
The possibility that the seabed itself is unstable is what I would consider the real worst-case scenario--it might be difficult to cap a well, but how in the hell does anyone cap a series of fractures in earth itself?
In his opinion today, Feldman wrote, “Oil and gas production is quite simply elemental to Gulf communities.” Indeed, it is so elemental that the justice system is invested in the oil and gas industry. As TP’s Ian Millhiser has written, “Industry ties among federal judges are so widespread that they are beginning to endanger the courts’ ability to conduct routine business. Last month, so many members of the right-wing Fifth Circuit were forced to recuse themselves from an appeal against various energy and chemical companies that there weren’t enough untainted judges left to allow the court to hear the case"
Do check the link. You may wonder if the Reagan-appointed jurist ever thought to recuse himself from the case at hand given his financial connections? Oh no--never forget my formula for Republican conflict of interest:
If you always work in your own self-interest, there's never a conflict.
Although I daresay enough Democrats in the Gulf region are very invested, too. I'm rooting for the WH on appeal--it seems likely to me that this one bad-enough incident could be the tip of an iceberg of environmental concerns. I don't want there to be a Guulf full of petroleum-based time-bombs out there, and I suspect one good, solid reason for the moratorium might be to catch up on inspections--or at least, I hope it is. In which case, a slow-down is a good plan--
And I get back to this scary idea of the well-casing being flawed, and fissures around the sea floor (recent pics almost look if the well is leaning--that would not be good). That just gives me a gut-level feeling that a really, really worst-case scenario hasn't been considered--what about a leak that can't be switched-off?
Nobody's pocket should take precedence over other people's safety and the health of this planet.
This "shakedown meme" is abhorrent from so-called conservatives who like to talk about personal responsibility and self-accountability. Of course the people most responsible for the destruction in the Gulf should be paying for it--and of course the American taxpayer should not be taking on this burden--
Hello? Conservatives? Am I wrong about all that?
But what Biden lays out is the larger issue of what people in politics should be in it for--and what I think always should be the reason--to help people and to represent the people and to always remember who you are working for, Joe Barton seems to think he's working for BP--well, if the goal of politics is to get bought and stay bought, Barton represented himself very well! But I like what this administration is trying to do and don't think they are at all ganging up on poor multi-national trillion-dollar oil-conglomerate BP--I just don't think several public servants, like Boehner and others, ever properly recognized how much resources these companies have got, which is why they, and I think many casual observers, have wanted to blame the government more for what isn't getting done, and BP less--
Long story short, BP misrepresented their readiness to respond to a spill of this nature, and I really think it would behoove the government to take a second look at who is being granted leasing-rights. I sincerely wish the government interfered and banned the use of Corexit, which is a highly toxic compound and which I think will interfere with the natural breakdown of the oil through bacterial and standard decomposition means. I think BP used Corexit at first, and manipulated the media the way they did--because they wanted to pretend the accident wasn't such a big deal because it would lay bare all the bullshit, slipshod, corner-cutting ways they've been doing business. That has to end, and I sincerely don't care if all the BP execs go begging and they have to auction off their office supplies--y'hear? What is more important to me, though, is that safety and environmental regulations get properly enforced, and that means are taken to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. I think this White House, the Obama Administration--does properly recognize that government has a specific regulatory role to play. I think people who bitch that more hasn't been done, or who think the government is being a "heavy" for wanting responsibility, are both full of it.
Government is a tool, and it does what it is equipped for. The government Obama inherited from Bush, in specifically the weak-ass regulatory arms of the MMS--wasn't much. He should see to it that it becomes stronger, and I think incentives need to be made for energy alternatives and I really think oil should be disincentivized--and yes, that means I'm willing to pay, too. I believe we can do cleaner and better as a species, and stop crapping where we eat--who's with me?
Scientists provided a new estimate for the amount of oil gushing from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday that indicates it could be leaking up to 2.52 million gallons of crude a day.
A government panel of scientists said that the ruptured well is leaking between 1.47 million and 2.52 million gallons of oil daily. The figures move the government's worst-case estimates more in line with what an independent team had previously thought was the maximum size of the spill.
The long story made short about Corexit is that it was designed to break up long-chain organic molecules. You are probably made of those. I know I am. And so are all those sea critters the Gulf ecosystem depends on. Everything I hear about this mess makes me sadder and sadder.,
CNN) -- BP's CEO said Sunday he's sorry for the largest oil spill in U.S. history and the "massive disruption" it has caused the Gulf Coast, telling reporters the company hopes to corral most of the crude offshore.
"The first thing to say is I'm sorry," Tony Hayward said when asked what he would tell people in Louisiana, where heavy oil has already reached parts of the state's southeastern marshes.
"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."
Ah, but this is his life. It just sucks.
And at least he's not one of the eleven people who died in the rig explosion. Or a dolphin. Or a turtle. Or one of the fishermen who got sick from "food poisoning." Hmm?
I've felt next-to-useless this past week and missed covering some interesting things.
Here they go:
This is Cynthia Dunbar, whose prayer is not either a self-important lecture that is more or less pronouncing exactly the outcome she wants in the Texas curriculum exchange in the name of her very particular god:
Much of the really silly things in the Texas curriculum passed, although the youngsters will be spared the nonsense of referring to the "slave trade" by the positively deceitful "triangular trade" and the motion to refer to the current president by his full name-- "Barack Hussein Obama" was curtailed for being, well the kind of thing it was. But the kids will still get more Reagan, Gingrich and Schlafly than they probably need. And be lied to about the separation of church and state.
Oh! And regarding church and state separation and Gingrich, here is some Gingrich being really obnoxious and probably trying to sell his new book to the dwindling number of Glenn Beck fans:
Ignore his pathos for the patriots at Valley Forge--what's his deal with "secular"? What's wrong with this country being secular? Religious values don't really by definition have a place in our political discourse--because the Constitution does not allow for any particular creed dominating the discourse. The government should not favor any particular creed, and there should be no litmus tests deciding who can hold political office. It's not like anyone anywhere said that people holding office need to be "undecided" as far as religion goes--or else we'd have an overwhelmingly atheist/agnostic contingent in government. We absolutely have people of faith representing us in government. It's just that people of various faiths or no-faith aren't to be discriminated against by government services. So the person who isn't Judeo-Christian isn't supposed to be confronted by a Ten Commandments plaque in a courtroom to let him know he is somehow a heathen who might be judged differently. Or a child of no-faith isn't supposed to perform a religious act in praying or singing words that are a lie to his or her non-belief in a public school.
Why doesn't Gingrich, who is not stupid, understand that "secular" is not a slur, but actually, neutral? Or is it that he'd rather see secular as a slur, to suck up to the religious? Hmm.
(I'd go into why "socialist" isn't a slur either, because any government is, to some extent, "socializing" from the very second a tax is levied in the very broadest sense of what governments do, but since I think the casual reader lighting upon my blog like a lady bug lighting upon a tomato plant at least knows that much, I won't press the point. In other words, Newt takes too much for granted that his listeners are stupider than him. And if any of his hearers were actually cleverer than him, he'd be well and truly f***ed? No?)
And BP finally--we get to see the damage, or as Brit Hume I think rhetorically put it--"Where is the oil?"
Oh, there it is:
BP put a pipe down there that they are a little proud of because it is siphoning off 5,000 gallons barrels a day from the leak--which is exactly the amount they originally said the gusher was putting out a day. And yet, it seems like so much more than they originally said is actually getting out. It's like several Exxon Valdezes by now. Or any number of BP's very own Prudhoe Bays. I truly wish they knew how to cap this nasty mess.
And as for what the White House is doing--what does anyone suggest--taking over BP? Offering a bundle of government-backed assistance? That would be so much socialism! Oh stop! Why wouldn't the people at BP who decided they knew where and how deep to drill and what the risks were entirely soak up the responsibility? Those are just the risks of capitalism, right? To bail out BP from such a disaster is....a moral hazard.
No?
Maybe with so much ecology at stake, this a very high-risk poker game for the Administration to play. I understand, of course. I just regret the stakes, and think the American south and the fragile swamps and wetlands and the pretty islands down there, and the bird sanctuaries and so much attractive beach to play on, in other words, a swath of irreplaceably valuable real estate, is at stake--
But I want people who depend on real estate and tourism to get mad. I want the fishermen and their friends to get mad. I want scientists who treasure our biodiversity to get mad. I want everyone to be a little mad, a lot. Mad enough to change the rules. Mad enough that this doesn't happen again.
