Tag: BP

TBC: Morning Musing 2.2.15

I have 2 articles for your perusal this morning.

The first is a great article by David Mizner:

Don’t Blame Islam

Also in the New Yorker, Teju Cole wrote, “Violence from ‘our’ side continues unabated. By this time next month, in all likelihood, many more ‘young men of military age’ and many others, neither young nor male, will have been killed by US drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. If past strikes are anything to go by, many of these people will be innocent of wrongdoing.”

That counts as progress. As does CNN’s decision to run a piece by Noam Chomsky that calls President Obama’s drone killings “the most extreme terrorist campaign of modern times.” And as does Seamus Milne’s piece in the Guardian pointing out that violence like the Paris attack is an extension of Western wars.

Yet these pieces are still relatively kind to the United States and its allies. They downplay the role of the West in producing the violence that its “thought leaders” blame on Islam. The truth is not merely that Team USA’s violence is far greater than that of its enemies, or that the former triggers the latter, but that Western governments and their client states have actively empowered right-wing jihadist groups.

Jump!

TBC: Morning Musing 10.29.14

I have 3 articles for your perusal this morning.

First, an accurate treatise on the state of ‘we the people’ in this country:

So Long, Liberty: 10 Ways Americans Have Lost Their Rights

Our most fundamental rights-to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness-are under assault. But the adversary is Big Wealth, not Big Government, as conservatives like to claim…

(snip)

These changes didn’t just happen. Wealthy individuals and corporations made it happen – and they’re still at it. Meanwhile, Corporate America’s wholesale theft of your individual liberties has been rebranded as a fight for … the corporation’s individual liberty.

Jump!

Pipe Dreams And Drilling Rights

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

After scrapping stricter smog limit, President Barack Obama continues to throw the environment under the bus.

BP allowed back into the bidding for gulf oil drilling rights

by Terry Macalister

US regulator declines to enforce ‘death penalty’ on oil company despite environmentalists’ fury

The Obama administration has infuriated environmentalists by giving BP the green light to bid for new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

The move – seen as a major step in the company’s political rehabilitation as an offshore driller following the Deepwater Horizon accident – was revealed by the head of the US safety regulator after a congressional hearing in Washington.

[]

BP declined to comment, but Friends of the Earth said it was appalled. “Governments should be administering the death penalty to all deepwater drilling rather than waiting for yet more devastating incidents like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico or in any other part of the world,” argued Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at the environmental group.

“It is not just BP operations that are deeply flawed,” he added. “There is not a single oil company that can say with a high degree of confidence that it can drill safely and how it will clear up if something goes wrong. It is clear in the context of climate change we need to develop new clean technologies, not hunt for fossil fuels in ever more remote and hard-to-reach areas.”

Obama allies’ interests collide over Keystone pipeline

by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson

In May, the environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben – pondering a simmering energy issue – asked a NASA scientist to calculate what it would mean for the Earth’s climate if Canada extracted all of the petroleum in its rich Alberta oil sands region.

The answer to McKibben’s query came a month later: it would push atmospheric carbon concentrations so high that humans would be unable to avert a climate disaster. “It is essentially game over,” wrote James E. Hansen, who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is one of the nation’s leading voices against fossil fuel energy.

“This project represents a collision of multiple national interests and multiple political interests,” said P.J. Crowley, who served as spokesman for the State Department during part of the review process. “Energy security and environment normally go together, but in this case they are somewhat at odds. All have come together to make this a bigger deal than it might have appeared at first blush.”

Charles K. Ebinger, a senior fellow for energy at the Brookings Institution, said the issue has “become a test case for the Democrats” with two factions within the Obama camp asking the same question: “Is he with us or against us?”

“I do think it has become a defining political issue,” Ebinger said. “I don’t think he’s going to win any friends whichever way he goes.”

Pipe Dreams And Drilling Rights

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

After scrapping stricter smog limit, President Barack Obama continues to throw the environment under the bus.

BP allowed back into the bidding for gulf oil drilling rights

by Terry Macalister

US regulator declines to enforce ‘death penalty’ on oil company despite environmentalists’ fury

The Obama administration has infuriated environmentalists by giving BP the green light to bid for new drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico.

The move – seen as a major step in the company’s political rehabilitation as an offshore driller following the Deepwater Horizon accident – was revealed by the head of the US safety regulator after a congressional hearing in Washington.

[]

BP declined to comment, but Friends of the Earth said it was appalled. “Governments should be administering the death penalty to all deepwater drilling rather than waiting for yet more devastating incidents like the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico or in any other part of the world,” argued Craig Bennett, director of policy and campaigns at the environmental group.

“It is not just BP operations that are deeply flawed,” he added. “There is not a single oil company that can say with a high degree of confidence that it can drill safely and how it will clear up if something goes wrong. It is clear in the context of climate change we need to develop new clean technologies, not hunt for fossil fuels in ever more remote and hard-to-reach areas.”

Obama allies’ interests collide over Keystone pipeline

by Juliet Eilperin and Steven Mufson

In May, the environmental writer and activist Bill McKibben – pondering a simmering energy issue – asked a NASA scientist to calculate what it would mean for the Earth’s climate if Canada extracted all of the petroleum in its rich Alberta oil sands region.

The answer to McKibben’s query came a month later: it would push atmospheric carbon concentrations so high that humans would be unable to avert a climate disaster. “It is essentially game over,” wrote James E. Hansen, who heads NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and is one of the nation’s leading voices against fossil fuel energy.

“This project represents a collision of multiple national interests and multiple political interests,” said P.J. Crowley, who served as spokesman for the State Department during part of the review process. “Energy security and environment normally go together, but in this case they are somewhat at odds. All have come together to make this a bigger deal than it might have appeared at first blush.”

Charles K. Ebinger, a senior fellow for energy at the Brookings Institution, said the issue has “become a test case for the Democrats” with two factions within the Obama camp asking the same question: “Is he with us or against us?”

“I do think it has become a defining political issue,” Ebinger said. “I don’t think he’s going to win any friends whichever way he goes.”

Agreement to Fund Gulf Coast Restoration Projects

This is just breaking within the past hour or so.

Below is the press release from the ‘Restore the Gulf.gov’ site along with the initial draft agreement.

Still looking at the news articles just coming online.

Blow Out Over the Blowout Preventer

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Somehow, I have a feeling that BP will use this as a defense to stop any liability suits. Meanwhile the Obama regime, ever bowing to their corporate masters, continues to issue permits for deep water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico with absolutely no safe guards.

Tests on BP Well Blowout Preventer Confirm Redesign a Necessity

By Bob Cavnar at The Daily Hurricane

Yesterday, the Department of Interior released Det Norske Veritas’ (DNV) report on the forensic testing that it conducted on the blowout preventer (BOP) that failed to shut in BP’s blown out Macondo well almost a year ago.  I’m still going through the 500-plus page report to find answers to my many questions about the failed BOP, but I do agree with the over riding recommendation to the industry from DNV:

   “The finding of these studies should be considered and addressed in the design of future Blowout Preventers and the need for modifying current Blowout Preventers.”

DNV was addressing a recommendation to the industry that it study the causes and results of “elastic buckling” of the drill pipe within the Macondo BOP that pushed it to the side of the wellbore, preventing the blind shear ram, or the ram that is supposed to cut the pipe and seal the well, from doing so.  During the time of the blowout, the forces within the well were so strong that it lifted the drill pipe, causing it to buckle and push over to the side of the BOP bore, positioning it outside of the shearing faces of the rams.

BP Can Do More Tests on Deepwater Horizon Blowout Preventer, Court Rules

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Allen Johnson Jr. at Bloomberg News

BP Plc (BP/) can conduct additional tests on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig’s blowout prevention equipment now that government examiners have finished their own forensic testing, a judge ruled.

“The additional BOP testing shall be performed in a manner that preserves the evidence to the maximum extent possible,” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier said in his order, referring to the blowout prevention equipment. He ruled that other companies involved in the disaster could also now run additional tests, so long as everyone is allowed to monitor the procedures and share in the results.

The 300-ton stack of valves failed to seal off BP’s runaway well last April, triggering a fatal rig explosion and the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. BP asked Barbier for permission to partially dismantle and conduct laser scans on the blowout preventer, which was recovered from the sea floor off the Louisiana coast last year.

BP is clearly looking for any liability they can pin on the BOP,” said Houston lawyer Brent Coon, one of the lawyers marshalling evidence for the consolidated oil-spill damages lawsuits against BP and other companies involved in the failed drilling operation, referring to the blowout preventer.

(emphasis mine)

Deep Water Permits Issued With No Lessons Learned

In an exclusive investigation Rachel Maddow shows how the Department of the Interior is issuing deep water drilling permits despite a report finding the blow-out preventer design is flawed and despite drilling companies submitting emergency response plans that pre-date the Deep Water Horizon spill and therefore reflect none of the lessons of that disaster

Oil Spill’s Unlicensed Engineers

My oh my, and to think that all one apparently needs is that higher education industry mill piece of paper, when if a tradesman performs any work and gets caught without being licensed all hell breaks lose, Especially if something goes wrong!!

Uncalculated Risks

Back from Canada with some canadian views

So I just returned from a quick visit to Toronto, more precisely Etobicoke and the Muscoka lake area.  It was my uncles 80th birthday and all but one of his kids were there with husbands, wives and kids.  Needless to say as most large(ish) family gatherings go it was in turns fun, stressful, disheartening and uplifting with to much eating and drinking thrown into the mix.  Being the avid DD reader, news and political junkie and lefty I am lots of my conversations wormed their way towards Left and Right, Tea baggers, environmental issues, taxes, religion and all those topics mothers tell you not to discuss in polite company.

In the main most of my northern family has a rather dim view of our nation, not our people individually but our nation as a whole.  I’d venture to say they look at the U.S. in much the same way as many of us here at DD do.  What gives us the right to play big brother to the rest of the world and whats more does anyone with more than two brain cells communicating with one another really believe in manifest destiny, divine right etc. etc. they are tired of us.  China they believe is or will be the dominant nation for the foreseeable future.  They see massive upheavals ahead for all of mankind as well as life on earth as a hole.  Melting glaciers, rising waters, increasing population and demands on food resources worry them as well as any number of other issues we all worry about.

“Even Jesus couldn’t save their souls”

BP and the Feds have fooled America and the entire world into thinking the BP Gulf Oil Spill is over, that the beaches are clean and that the seafood is safe, and everything is OK.

Titled “The Gulf Oil Spill isn’t over!” here’s a little bit of mournful Louisiana blues to tell the real story.



Uploaded to YouTube Oct. 02, 2010 by:

Holt Webb – writer/photographer & publisher of

The Vanishing America Project

http://vanishingamerica.net

a multi-year journey I’ve undertaken to use my skill as a photographer and a writer to promote conservation and raise awareness about what we are losing – our culture, our wildlife, and our landscape – in hopes that some of it will still be around for future generations to enjoy.

Hat tip to Alexander Higgins who for months on his blog has been collecting every bit of news you can imagine about the BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe.

Alaska Walruses Without Ice



“an unusual gathering on a barrier island in Alaska. ”  They’d normally be out on the floating ice after foraging, but there is no ice this year near their feeding grounds.  Arctic sea ice is at the 3rd lowest point in recorded history.


Walruses Swarm Beaches as Ice Melts

National Geographic

http://news.nationalgeographic…

Biologists with the USGS say the situation can be very dangerous because walruses are easily startled, and can stampede. Some walruses, particularly calves and juveniles, can get crushed to death by larger walruses moving about.

BP and CEOs Fight the Laws



Kendrick Meek; Blast BP and Corporate Irresponsibility

copyright © 2010 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

Whispers whirled around the White House, on The Hill, within the Department of Justice, and finally filtered down to the streets.  In truth, talk could be heard on the avenues, where average Americans roam, long before declarations came from above.   Should BP CEO Tony Hayward Go to Prison?  The public wonders.  What would the Obama Administration do.  Countless clamored; with full knowledge that President Bush’s DOJ Killed a Criminal Probe Into BP.  It was believed that the potential indictments threatened the most senior officials.  More recently, words of warrants have become a distinct possibility.  Criminal charges are being considered against BP in regards to the Gulf oil rig tragedy.

Gulf Coast Residents are NOT the Problem. So What is?

Even though many of us have Disaster Fatigue, for scores of hundreds of local Gulf Residents, this BP Crisis is very much their recurring daily Nightmare.

BP Oil Spill Compensation Fund Not Living Up to Promise

NewsInferno.com, News that matters! — Sep 10, 2010

In an interview with USA Today, Feinberg promised a better response times as his staff weeds through old claims. “I’ve inherited a huge number of claims that have never been processed that need to be processed, especially business claims,” he said. Such claims, he said, were placed on a “side track” by BP when it was handling the process.

According to USA Today, more than 46,000 people have filed claims since Feinberg took charge. By September 8, his staff had paid 10,252 claims for nearly $80 million. Most claims paid are small, with payouts of $5,000 or less, USA Today said.

So Ken Feinberg has inherited an extensive paper trail of bureaucratic procrastination;

While the Gulf Coast Residents, simply keep reaping the BP whirlwind …

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