BP May Drill In Same Undersea Oil Pocket Again
Really?! What about learning from our mistakes? What about waiting to see if the plug actually holds? How about cleaning up the mess before making a new one? RawStory reports:
BP PLC said Friday it might someday drill again into the same lucrative undersea pocket of oil that spilled millions of gallons of crude, wrecked livelihoods and fouled beaches along the Gulf of Mexico.
“There’s lots of oil and gas here,” Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said at a news briefing. “We’re going to have to think about what to do with that at some point.”
The vast oil reservoir beneath the blown well is still believed to hold nearly $4 billion worth of crude. With the company and its partners facing tens of billions of dollars in liabilities, the incentive to exploit the wells and the reservoir could grow.
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man on the spill, said he…
BP Fakes Cleanup Effort Photos
Apparently BP is about as good at Photoshop as they are at keeping oil out of the ocean. Observers have noted that some of the response effort photos on BP’s web site seem a bit faked. For instance, the below shot of their crisis command center:
BP Hires Prison Labor to Clean Up Spill While Coastal Residents Struggle
The Democracy Now! summary of Abe Louise Young’s article in The Nation:
The Nation magazine has revealed new details about how BP is receiving tax credits by relying on cheap or free prison labor to help clean up the Gulf spill. BP’s reliance on prison labor has been criticized by many in the region since the disaster has left so many people out of work. But the hiring of prison labor has apparently been financially beneficial for BP. Each new prisoner hired by BP comes with a tax credit of $2,400. On top of that, BP may earn back up to 40 percent of the wages they pay to prisoners. Prison workers are required to work up to twelve hours a day, six days a week, and are liable to lose earned good time if they refuse the job. Inmates are also forbidden to talk to the public or media. It is unclear…
Offshore Oil Strike: The BP Board Game
Want to teach your kids about the fun of deep-sea drilling? Pick up a copy of the unfortunate 1970 board game Offshore Oil Strike, produced by BP. “The 1st player to make $120,000,000 cash is regarded as the winner.” Via BLDGBLOG:
With this “exciting board game for all the family,” released in 1970, BP delivered all “the thrills of drilling, the hazards and rewards as you bring in your offshore petro-dollars.”
It’s “a race to find and develop the riches ‘neath the seabed,” where no deepwater is beyond the horizon of possible drilling.
Accumulating this fortune, however, is not without its difficulties. Each player has “Hazard” cards to deal with; here are some of the risks BP thought to include:
—”Fire breaks out. Pay $2,500,000 for repairs.”
—”Hit High-Pressure Gas—Rig Damaged. Specialists called in.”
—”Blow-Out! Rig Damaged. Repairs cost $2,000,000″
—”Drill pipe breaks. Pay $500,000 for replacement.”
—”Strike High Pressure Gas. Platform Destroyed.”
—”Blow-Out! Rig Damaged. Oil Slick Clean-Up…
BP Says They’ve Stopped The Oil
Don’t get too excited now, this is only a test. The well has been temporarily sealed, successfully stopping the flow of oil. This provisional solution will allow tests to be conducted to determine the details of BP’s next plan to redirect and capture the oil. BBC covers:
It is the first time the flow has stopped since an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig on 20 April.
The well has been sealed with a cap as part of a test of its integrity that could last up to 48 hours.
BP executive Kent Wells said the oil had been stopped at 14:25 local time (1925 GMT) and he was “excited” by the progress.
“It is very good to see no oil go into the Gulf of Mexico,” said Mr Wells.
But BP is stressing that even if no oil escapes for 48 hours, that will not mean the flow of oil and gas has been stopped…
Nothing Good in This One-Year Projection of the Gulf Coast Oil Spill (Video)
Cyriaque Lamar posted on io9.com this interesting research from the University of Hawaii. Cyriaque Lamar writes:
Researchers at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa have created a simulation of the potential spread of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill over 360 days. Their hypothetical scenario? All sorts of bad.
Researchers at Mānoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) have created a model that charts the oil’s possible path over the course of approximately a year:
Would You Blow It Up Bill?
Since the oil spill in April, the Gulf of Mexico has witnessed numerous accounts of failed attempts to stop the oil from gushing into the water. With BP’s constant efforts to find a new solution to blocking the well, it is best to see how other nations have dealt with similar instances in the past. Bill Clinton spoke with Wolf Blitzer about the use of explosives to seal the well. This stems from the success that Russia has seen with the use of nuclear weapons to deal with gas well fires, as Jeremy Hsu of Live Science points out:
“The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily…
The Link Between The Oil And Financial Crises
It seems clear that BP can’t seem to fix the catastrophic gusher the press calls a “leak,” and that President Obama can’t fix the economy because its problems are structural and won’t respond to soaring rhetoric emanating from his bully pulpit.
Meanwhile, most of the world’s people really don’t get the fix we are all in. I take that back; the million Americans who have just lost their benefits probably do. The deficit hawks voted that down without doing anything about the growing deficit of jobs.
43 members of the Congress and the Senate are tinkering with an increasingly diluted financial “reform bill.” Lobbies like the powerful Business Roundtable have pushed the White House to weaken proposed curbs on executive compensation while former Fedhead Tim Geithner is maneuvering behind the scenes to save dangerous derivative trading from too much regulation.
It is for this reason that financial writer Ilan Moscovitz worries about a…
Two Minutes Hate: Working Class Politics, History, Culture
The ISO Dutifully Joins "The Left" in Reformist Protest Politics
Nick Pell at the Red Star Times:
Just wanted to do a quick roundup before the weekend comes. Things have been hectic around RST central as I gear up to move and begin work on my book. Still, there’s a few things I just have to make time for.
There’s the small matter of the continuing oil spill uncontrolled hemorrhage, for which no one has, nor will they ever be, arrested and tried for crimes against humanity.
The unions continue their attacks on workers while the Chinese working class continues to prove that it is at the vanguard of struggle against the fake left, capitalism and imperialism. And Red Star Times’s favorite fake left sect the International Socialist Organization gears up for their annual love-in with the Democratic Party, its radical hangers-on and vaguely left-of-center celebrities, ironically named “Socialism 2010.”
Read the Full Article at Red Star…
Beauty and Horror Found in This Oil Spill Pic
This was taken on Orange Beach, Alabama, more than 90 miles from the BP oil spill …
Source: Dave Martin via the Guardian
The BP Deepwater Horizon, Macondo Well Blowout And What We Are Truly Facing In The Gulf
In my opinion BP and our Govt have not been forthcoming about what is really is going on with this well and the situation we will likely face. Understandably they would not want to create panic, but we also need to prepare for this oil leak getting worse, ignoring the reality that there is good chance it will get worse leaves us vulnerable. Just like we shutter up before a hurricane we should be preparing now because we know that if we don’t, we are going to sustain far more damage than if we did.
BP Blocking Media Access to Public Beaches (Video)
I don’t know for sure what President Obama is going to say in his first-ever address from the Oval Office tonight, but I’m still wondering exactly whose ass he is planning on kicking …
Vatican Official Tied To BP, Goldman Sachs And Media Censorship In The Oil Fiasco…
[disinformation ed's note: we're not sure whether to consider this so crazy that you can't make it up, or that actually you can - what do you think?] By Sherri Kane and Leonard G. Horowitz for rense.com:
News unfolding from the oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico has linked media censorship to investment bankers at Goldman Sachs (GS) stewarding the Vatican’s wealth, and increasing evidence that the explosion was intended.
A near total news blackout from independent sources, and arrests of anyone caught photographing and filming the devastation, show the Halliburton-British Petroleum (BP) oil crisis is being criminally controlled, implicating some of Wall Street’s heaviest hitters.
According to a report issued by frightened, yet faithful, documentary filmmaker, James Fox, interviewed from the Gulf’s Grand Isles by Mel Fabregas on the Internet’s Veritas Radio Show, “There is a complete media blackout” on news coverage broadcast from the region.
“They are arresting people with cameras…
BP Buys Search Term “Oil Spill” from Google
Reports Reuters:
BP Plc has bought terms such as “oil spill” from search engine providers including Google Inc to help direct Internet users to its website as it attempts to control the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
A spokesman said BP would pay fees so its own website would rank higher or even top in the list of advertisements that appear alongside search results when Internet users search on terms such as “oil spill,” “volunteer” and “claims.”
BP did not say how much it was paying for the service but U.S. President Barack Obama has criticised the company for spending $50 million on TV advertising to bolster its image during the crisis.
BP said it wanted to help people who were trying to access information on the BP website to find it more readily, rather than intending to draw away hits from other sites.
“We know people are looking for those terms on our…
Bilderberg Agenda Revealed: Globalists In Crisis, Supportive Of Attack On Iran
Paul Joesph Watson writes for Prison Planet:
The 2010 Bilderberg agenda has been revealed by veteran Bilderberg sleuth Jim Tucker and it paints a picture of crisis for the globalists, who are furious at the increased exposure their gatherings have received in recent years, as well as being dismayed at their failure to rescue both the euro and the failing carbon tax agenda, but more alarmingly according to Tucker, the majority of Bilderberg members are now in favor of military air strikes on Iran.
American Free Press muckraker Tucker has proven routinely accurate with the information he obtains from sources inside Bilderberg, which makes this year’s revelations all the more intriguing…
Russia’s Scientists: Toxic Rain From Oil Spill Will Ravage America
Russia’s top scientists have informed their president that they expect toxic rain from the Gulf oil spill to destroy the eastern coast of the United States. They also believe that BP’s use of a chemical dispersal agent at the spill site is hiding just how bad the spill really is. Er, here’s hoping they’re wrong? From the EU Times:
A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.
Russian scientists are basing their apocalyptic destruction assessment due to BP’s use of millions of gallons of the chemical dispersal agent known as Corexit 9500 which is being pumped directly into the leak of this wellhead over…
Two Minutes Hate: Spill, Baby, Spill
Nick Pell at Red Star Times writes:
How many of you have woken up over the last couple weeks and almost immediately thought: damn, the world is in the toilet? Me too. The last month or so has been perhaps one of the most horrible times I have ever experienced, with the beginning of the Iraq War being one of the few things that even comes close.
Whether or not it’s a Chinese curse, the adage about living in “interesting times” becomes more and more apt with each passing week. Despite how awful things are, there seems to be a lingering scent of resistance in the air. I concede that this could entirely be wish-fulfillment and solipsism on my part, but it seems as if things could explode at any second.
Explosions in and of themselves go nowhere, however. A political analysis and direction is necessary to make an explosion travel in the right direction.…
Should the U.S. Nuke the Gulf Coast Oil Spill?
Daniel Foster writes in National Review:
It was September of 1966, and gas was gushing uncontrollably from the wells in the Bukhara province of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. But the Reds, at the height of their industrial might, had a novel solution.
They drilled nearly four miles into the sand and rock of the Kyzyl Kum Desert, and lowered a 30-kiloton nuclear warhead — more than half-again as large as “Little Boy,” the crude uranium bomb dropped over Hiroshima — to the depths beneath the wellhead. With the pull of a lever, a fistful of plutonium was introduced to itself under enormous pressure, setting off the chain reaction that starts with E = MC2 and ends in Kaboom! The ensuing blast collapsed the drill channel in on itself, sealing off the well.
Rebranding BP
Greenpeace UK held a rebranding contest to generate fresh new redesigns of the BP logo.
That plain green flower was introduced in 2000, and ten years later … it’s time for an update.
One of my favorites is to the right.
500+ results are included in a Flickr set. Enjoy.
Worst CEO 2010: Goldman’s Blankfein vs. BP’s Hayward
Who gets your vote for most heinous CEO of the year? From Marketwatch:
Tony Hayward is Lloyd Blankfein’s new best friend. For months, Blankfein, chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has been the CEO ALTH (America Loves To Hate). He’s been defiant before Congress, unapologetic, a defender of ruthless Wall Street practices, invoking God and bare-knuckle capitalism in the same breath.
His firm has been accused of betting against clients, masking Greece’s debt problems, taking backdoor bailouts through American International Group Inc. and good, old-fashioned fraud.
Enter Hayward, the bumbling, stumbling chief executive of BP PLC, and the man ultimately responsible for the disaster that began April 20 on Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.
Hayward’s BP is blamed for 11 dead workers, an environmental catastrophe, a slow and inadequate response and insensitivity to the havoc his company has sprung upon nature and the livelihood of those on the Gulf Coast.
In his…
