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You are here: Home / Economics / Free Markets Solve Everything / Open Thread: Best Gulf-Spill Cleanup Suggestion Yet

Open Thread: Best Gulf-Spill Cleanup Suggestion Yet

by Anne Laurie|  May 15, 20108:04 pm| 106 Comments

This post is in: Free Markets Solve Everything, Open Threads, Assholes, Blatant Liars and the Lies They Tell

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My personal suspicion is that Halliburton’s got way more incriminating stuff buried in its file cabinets, just because we haven’t had Darth Cheney all over the Media Village telling the DFHs and other sane people to go fvck ourselves.

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Reader Interactions

106Comments

  1. 1.

    Yutsano

    May 15, 2010 at 8:06 pm

    Will no one think of the paper shredders?

  2. 2.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    May 15, 2010 at 8:14 pm

    Funny whenever there’s a collosal clusterfuck in the last decade, most of the time Halliburton’s name is associated with it. Hmmmmm.

  3. 3.

    b-psycho

    May 15, 2010 at 8:15 pm

    Anyone else here have Mario Brothers pop into their head after looking at that pipe in the cartoon?

  4. 4.

    bemused

    May 15, 2010 at 8:16 pm

    It is convenient that the last 7 hours of bp rig record keeping/logs were “lost” following the explosion.

  5. 5.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    May 15, 2010 at 8:20 pm

    @bemused: The Invisible Hand took them for safekeeping.

  6. 6.

    Ed Marshall

    May 15, 2010 at 8:21 pm

    Wow, I hadn’t even thought of that, but KBR is going to cease to exist over this.

    When they get sued, the first strategy the plaintiff will use is to ask for everything potentially embarrassing possible during discovery.

    It doesn’t even matter if it’s Halliburton’s fault or not, my guess is that the bodies buried in their records are so outrageously offensive that they will liquidate the company rather than hand them over in discovery.

  7. 7.

    bemused

    May 15, 2010 at 8:27 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:
    It always does.

  8. 8.

    mai naem

    May 15, 2010 at 8:30 pm

    You damn well know Dicky DooDoo would be all over the place talking about terra terra terra regrading the Times Square wannabe terrahrist but he won’t slither out of his undisclosed location because he knows people would be asking about offshore drilling. This is the only positive thing about the TerrahBoy and BP Disaster happening at the same time.
    I remember Josh Marshall wrote an article on Dick Cheney a few yrs ago(maybe around 04) about how many things Dick Cheney had been wrong about his whole career(political and business) and how people still looked at him for what they thought was good advice.

  9. 9.

    Violet

    May 15, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    OT – Anyone know anything more about this?

    Canadian fighter jets have escorted a Cathay Pacific airliner to land at Vancouver airport, military officials said.

    —

    The flight, which originated from Hong Kong, was under a potential unspecified security threat, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) said.

    —

    The plane landed without incident at about 1340 (2040 GMT), a Norad spokesperson said.

    —

    The plane has been towed to a secure area with the passengers on board.

  10. 10.

    cleek

    May 15, 2010 at 8:32 pm

    looks to me like those three CEOs would stop the leak better if they were jammed head-first, one after the other, down that pipe.

    let’s try!!

  11. 11.

    Yutsano

    May 15, 2010 at 8:36 pm

    @Violet: Just checked CBC they’re pretty light on details as well. They do use the word bomb threat though, and Canada does have a history of that before, so I can see them not messing around with this sort of thing.

  12. 12.

    bemused

    May 15, 2010 at 8:38 pm

    @cleek:
    I would have said ass first but changed my mind. With those egos, their swelled heads would make better plugs.

  13. 13.

    Violet

    May 15, 2010 at 8:43 pm

    @Yutsano:
    The fighter jet escorts kind of got my attention. What are the fighter jets going to do?

  14. 14.

    tenkindsofgrumpy

    May 15, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    I think you may be on to something ,Anne.

  15. 15.

    CynDee

    May 15, 2010 at 8:45 pm

    My personal suspicion is that Halliburton’s got way more incriminating stuff buried in its file cabinets, just because we haven’t had Darth Cheney all over the Media Village telling the DFHs and other sane people to go fvck ourselves.

    Hmmm. How about that. Cheney’s been yapping on teevee all year long as if he still signified. But now, NOW . . . he has nothing to say . . .

  16. 16.

    OriGuy

    May 15, 2010 at 8:46 pm

    @Violet:
    MSNBC says there was a bomb threat and that passengers were allowed to get off board. Not much more than that.

  17. 17.

    Linda Featheringill

    May 15, 2010 at 8:51 pm

    Darth Vader has been very quiet during all of this, hasn’t he?

  18. 18.

    Violet

    May 15, 2010 at 8:54 pm

    @OriGuy:
    Yeah, a bit more info is coming out now. Sounds like the passengers didn’t know they had a military escort.

  19. 19.

    cat48

    May 15, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    They have been on the tarmac for about 4 hours now so it’s a real threat…..they landed at 1:35pm so….JUST ENOUGH

  20. 20.

    MikeJ

    May 15, 2010 at 9:08 pm

    @Violet: Seattle news not only didn’t lead with it, they haven’t mentioned it nearly 10 minutes in. Which is really strange since we’re so close to Vancouver.

  21. 21.

    Loneoak

    May 15, 2010 at 9:09 pm

    @Yutsano:

    Is that what they mean by a ‘junk shot’?

    Edit: Oops, that should be @Cleek #10.

  22. 22.

    Keith G

    May 15, 2010 at 9:15 pm

    Electronics recommendation needed.

    My cheap DVD player just played out. It lasted three years which was one year longer than the expensive one I last bought.

    So who has a line on the best sub $50 player now on the market?

  23. 23.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    May 15, 2010 at 9:23 pm

    I think this is a given: Haliburton is one of the most evil corporate multinationals operating today. If the Deepwater Horizon gusher was being capped by stuffing the “blowout preventer” full of Halliburton execs (quick! Grab Cheney, too!), the world would be richer for their loss, as in the accompanying illustration.

    However, it’s my understanding (a phrase meaning: “I’m too busy or lazy to do the research”) that the only reason Halliburton has the power that it does is because it has a near-monopoly on the kind of high-end, big infrastructure (money) support services that it provides to the oil drilling industry. There’s Bechtel (remember them?) and maybe one or two others, but it takes so much money to get the shit together that H-burt has that nobody else can get in there to compete with them: if they can’t elbow an upstart out of the way, they can just buy them up, and then go out to lunch. With a monopoly, the consumer can easily make the best choice– it’s… uh… the only company there is. Must be the best. The market rules!

    Anyway, you might want to remember this: the blowout happened when this “exploratory” well was being capped prior to making it a “production” well. It involves pouring heavy concrete into the casing of the drill pipe, and one of the known hazards is the danger of frozen methane&water getting into the plug, and expanding explosively as it goes up the pipe. (see Wikipedia article, among others : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill, also fun stuff about methane clathrate, those “ice crystals” that fcked up the “containment dome”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_clathrate

    I’m down here waiting to see what the Gulf Loop Current is going to bring to the state I’ve always loved. I’ve signed up to scrub birds in Pensacola, but I’m really worried that I might have to do the same in my beloved Keys, and even a mile or so east of my house.
    I don’t think that’s worth a coupla dimes off a gallon of gas.
    PS, before I spew and run around the house screaming, because I’ve dragged this up again: Know how much the remote switch on the “blowout preventer” costs— you know, that thing that Norway and Brazil won’t let you drill without? The thing that the Oil Companies screamed was too EXPENSIVE and that the MMS finally agreed with them?
    $500,000.
    Yep. That’s my understanding (see 2nd paragraph, above.)

  24. 24.

    MikeJ

    May 15, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    @Keith G: LG. HDMI out along with the standard rca, usb port on the front to plug a thumbdrive into. I’ve got one, works ok.

  25. 25.

    Nick

    May 15, 2010 at 9:31 pm

    @Ed Marshall:

    KBR was a construction subsidiary that I believe Halliburton has sold it.

  26. 26.

    Nick

    May 15, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    @Stan of the Sawgrass:

    Why do you keep putting things in quotations? Yes, an “exploration” well was drilled. They drilled to see if they would hit oil and they did. They were preparing to leave so another ship could come and install equipment to extract the oil. Why is this worthy of quotes and controversy? One ships drills looking for oil. Another ship extracts the oil.

    Oil drilling is difficult and accidents happen.

    The focus shouldn’t be on why accidents happen. They happen. The focus should be why the system didn’t compensate for the accident. And the focus should be on whether systems for most of the Gulf wells are strong enough to prevent this from happening again.

  27. 27.

    Keith G

    May 15, 2010 at 9:38 pm

    By the way, This new NYT story is telling us that there is evidence that the leak is a whole lot worse – as in, we are going need a bigger Gulf.

    Yikes.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

  28. 28.

    kommrade reproductive vigor

    May 15, 2010 at 9:41 pm

    @mai naem: Excellent point. I hadn’t noticed Dick was silent, but when you don’t have a pain in the ass you don’t sit around thinking “Hey what happened to that pain in the ass I had?”

    Thanks, now I can actively enjoy the fact that Cthcheney isn’t snarling into the cameras.

  29. 29.

    Nick

    May 15, 2010 at 9:43 pm

    @Stan of the Sawgrass:

    “Know how much the remote switch on the “blowout preventer” costs—- you know, that thing that Norway and Brazil won’t let you drill without? The thing that the Oil Companies screamed was too EXPENSIVE and that the MMS finally agreed with them?
    $500,000.”

    Also, the remote switch would have been useless. They manually activated the BOP and it still didn’t work. A remote switch would have just tried to activate something that was already broken.

    Clearly, there was a serious problem with the well and probably the BOP. But a remote switch would not have done a single thing to prevent this environmental disaster. The BOP broke. A fancy switch to activate it wouldn’t have mattered.

  30. 30.

    Brachiator

    May 15, 2010 at 9:47 pm

    @Keith G:

    So who has a line on the best sub $50 player now on the market?

    At sub $50, it really doesn’t matter.

    I agree with MikeJ that you go for whatever features you like.

  31. 31.

    Brachiator

    May 15, 2010 at 9:50 pm

    @kommrade reproductive vigor:

    Excellent point. I hadn’t noticed Dick was silent, but when you don’t have a pain in the ass you don’t sit around thinking “Hey what happened to that pain in the ass I had?”

    The GOP is playing change-up (and downplaying any reminders of a Halliburton/Cheney connection). They’ve got Palin out reminding us that we still need to drill baby drill. Cause she’s an oil expert, you betcha.

  32. 32.

    hamletta

    May 15, 2010 at 10:17 pm

    @Keith G: I have an un-recommendation: Phillips. I got one for $30 at Essex, and it works fine, but I don’t like it. The remote is really wonky.

    My beloved Panasonic’s motor gave up the ghost (a notorious problem), and I tried to open it up to replace it, but couldn’t get it apart.

  33. 33.

    Violet

    May 15, 2010 at 10:45 pm

    @Nick:

    Clearly, there was a serious problem with the well and probably the BOP. But a remote switch would not have done a single thing to prevent this environmental disaster. The BOP broke. A fancy switch to activate it wouldn’t have mattered.

    From what I’ve read, it seems the BOP had been modified to the extent that it really wasn’t capable of doing the job it was supposed to do. Plus, the rig owners hadn’t maintained it properly.

    It’s like saying you have brakes on your car, but you’ve replaced brake parts for the wrong ones and haven’t had any kind of maintenance done in years. And then the brakes don’t work. Is that the fault of the brakes or something (someone) else?

  34. 34.

    handy

    May 15, 2010 at 10:48 pm

    God I love these Whitman-Poizner ads:

    WHITMAN: I’m the most racist glibertardian rightwinger in the land!

    POIZNER: NUH-UH! You like teh brown peeple leik OBUMMER!

    WHITMAN: Ya well u voted for Fat Algore!! Take THAT secret marxist!

    POIZNER: oh ya well I hate the environment more than you–and poor people!

    WHITMAN: NO YOU DON’T!

    POIZNER: Yes I do

    (rinse, repeat)

  35. 35.

    AhabTRuler

    May 15, 2010 at 10:56 pm

    @Violet:

    From what I’ve read, it seems the BOP had been modified to the extent that it really wasn’t capable of doing the job it was supposed to do. Plus, the rig owners hadn’t maintained it properly.

    Even worse. Before it was modified it probably was incapable of doing the job, then it was modified in a way that significantly impaired it’s ability to fail to do the job, and then the rig owner hadn’t maintained it properly, rendering it unable to attempt to fail to the job it was inacapable of doing.

    The scary part: Transocean is [was] considered tops in the industry for safety!

  36. 36.

    handy

    May 15, 2010 at 10:58 pm

    It’s all good everybody. BP’s got a fix they’re pretty sure will work. They’re almost completely confident even. This really might have a chance. Cross your fingers.

  37. 37.

    Linda Featheringill

    May 15, 2010 at 11:10 pm

    Huge plume of oil found under the water surface in the Gulf of Mexico.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/us/16oil.html?hp

    Shit. Shit. Shit. Damn.

  38. 38.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    May 15, 2010 at 11:13 pm

    @Nick: You’re right, Nick. I “agree.”
    Seriously, tho– you’re right. The quotes were unnecessary. The question is why the safety was compromised. Whether drilling is ok or not is a separate issue.

  39. 39.

    Violet

    May 15, 2010 at 11:20 pm

    @AhabTRuler:
    Yeah, that’s right. The BOP was the wrong one for the rig, or something like that. So from the start it probably wouldn’t have worked. Then, they replaced parts and didn’t maintain it.

    It really makes you wonder just how bad things are on other offshore rigs.

  40. 40.

    Martin

    May 15, 2010 at 11:34 pm

    @handy: Are they back to stuffing Al Gore in the pipe? I think they’ve already suggested that.

  41. 41.

    Stan of the Sawgrass

    May 15, 2010 at 11:53 pm

    @Nick:
    Go back and look. There were plenty of safety features that had been modified, moved aside for testing, not installed, etc. That was BP’s negligence, nobody else’s. They failed their responsibility, and they did it all on their own.
    The remote switch issue is different. It was never in place because BP whined that it was too expensive and fancy and wouldn’t matter. The MMS, a federal agency, finally agreed with them (and you, I guess) and let them slide. I don’t agree that it doesn’t matter anyway because BP fvcked up somewhere else. They wheedled away a safety feature that other countries require, and they did it because $500,000 was too much off their bottom line.
    They weaseled the Feds over a $500,000 safety feature, and the Feds caved. So you’re telling us that it didn’t matter, because BP had screwed the wellhead up so much it would have failed anyhow?
    That’s an argument?
    (BTW, put these anywhere you wish: ” “, ” “, ” “.)

  42. 42.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 12:01 am

    @AhabTRuler:

    Well I don’t know the details of the modification, but there’s always this to consider (posted in another thread too):

    The story says “modification” but reads “short cut”. As a point of fact, modifications are made all the time to rig systems. They are just like any other piece of industrial equipment. Service bulletins are issued by the manufacturer on a regular basis to recommend improvements, or increase safety or to fix newly discovered flaws. Subsea BOP stacks are multi-million dollar systems that span the technology spectrum from huge iron castings to fiberoptic systems. No single manufacturer provides all of these, and as with other products, multiple manufacturers provide a selection to choose from. When Cameron builds a stack they go to their suppliers just like everyone else.

  43. 43.

    Backbencher

    May 16, 2010 at 12:04 am

    I have been wondering why the federal government does not appear to have the capability to cap the well and has to depend on the same private companies that caused the spill?

    Going forward, would it not be smart for the government to develop this capability and place it within the Coast Guard, the Interior Department, or FEMA?

  44. 44.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 12:08 am

    @Stan of the Sawgrass:

    Actually, it wasn’t just industry whining about the price. The independent report commissioned by MMS raised questions about its reliability. In the end the MMS simply required rigs to have reliable BOP backup systems period.

    Evidently the remote acoustic device has never been tested in a real-life situation. So – given that it’s been around for so long in other countries and purchased by other companies – if you know of a single instance where it made a difference? Not being snarky, I seriously want to know.

  45. 45.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 12:36 am

    @44:

    if you know = I’m wondering if you know

  46. 46.

    Elie

    May 16, 2010 at 12:40 am

    @AhabTRuler:

    Oy Vey! My head hurts….its almost funny in the worst kind of way… I would like to bite off an oil executive head now… Maybe we could put them one at a time in the BOP and see if those heads would trigger the damned thing now…

  47. 47.

    Elie

    May 16, 2010 at 12:42 am

    @Backbencher:

    I disagree that this should ever be the responsibility of the Feds. If it were to become so, the oil companies would become even more reckless, figuring it wouldnt be their responsibility if things fuck up. Naw, the oil companies must maintain this…

  48. 48.

    Martin

    May 16, 2010 at 1:19 am

    @Elie: The feds need to have this capacity. What if it’s something bigger. Remember the aftermath of the first gulf war? Whose responsibility was it to go and cap all of those burning wells in Kuwait?

    I have no problem if the responsibility falls on the feds so long as the bill doesn’t fall on the voters.

  49. 49.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 1:23 am

    @Martin: The military actually did do quite a bit of the capping of those wells, with the cooperation of the Kuwaiti government engineers. So we sort of did foot the bill there, but the alternative was much worse. The Kuwaitis simply didn’t have the capacity to do it all themselves. Plus this is uncharted territory in many areas, the oil companies are just guessing as to what will work to fix all this.

  50. 50.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 2:08 am

    Andy Alexander of the Washington Post reassures us that the paper’s shrinking circulation doesn’t mean that it’s in trouble, but also tries to sell a few papers along the way just to be sure, likening the WAPO to a cup of coffee, only better:

    It perks you up. And it lasts much longer.

    I’m trying to think of a kind of coffee that’s made by mostly ex- George W Bush speechwriters and top Neoconservative relics.

    Freedom Roast?

  51. 51.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 2:09 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I’m sure if Starbucks got right on that they could come up with a decent blend name, although the resulting brew would be so bitter as to be completely undrinkable.

  52. 52.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 2:26 am

    @Yutsano: Well, Freedom Roast is actually way too dark, that’s for sure. It would have to be something much more light skinned. Or maybe Orange Pekoe in honor of Boehner.

  53. 53.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 2:28 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Hmm, what’s the name of the coffee beans that get pooped out of civets?

  54. 54.

    Equal Opportunity Cynic

    May 16, 2010 at 2:31 am

    @Stan of the Sawgrass:

    I always thought Schlumberger was Halliburton’s biggest rival, and Wikipedia calls Schlumberger “the world’s largest oilfield services corporation”.

    But of course, despite their headquarters in Houston, their name and origin is French and no self-respecting American is going to allow the French to provide services to our oilfields.

  55. 55.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 2:35 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: You mean this stuff?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kopi_Luwak

    Being a Northwesterner, I am of course addicted to the little brown bean. I’d try it.

  56. 56.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 2:51 am

    @Yutsano:

    Yeah, but if it was pooped out of neocon civets…ie, WaPo?

    I’ve been off caffeine since New Year’s but I still drink decaf, ‘specially if it’s from the world’s best roaster:

    Old Soul

    A recommendation for anyone looking for first-rate tea:

    Da Cha Teas

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 2:55 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: A good friend of mine (who’s also in the Army) was told by his doctor (and also his brother who’s a physician) to give up coffee and caffeine intake because it was stressing his heart. He’s healthy as a horse, but his family has a history of cardiac issues and he chose not to chance it. I tried going without for a short time in college, I got very cranky and my grades dropped. Not to mention if I go for several days without even now I get moody and headaches that will kill me for days. I may have to mention that too him and possibly order some of my own.

    ETA: Okay, the Two Scotties tea looks very very cute. I may hold onto that as I have a good friend who loves good teas.

  58. 58.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 2:57 am

    @Yutsano:

    I was surprised how easy it was for me to get off the high-octane stuff. No withdrawal, headaches, etc. Still have plenty of energy without the jitters.

    Guess I’m just lucky…’course I didn’t drink more than a cup or two a day anyway.

    ETA re teas: I love their Earl Grey. Their citrus chamomile is fantastic, if you’re an herbal person. My neighbor said their gunpowder green is the best she’s ever had.

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    May 16, 2010 at 3:00 am

    @Keith G:

    It may not be sub-$50 (depending on where you get it), but I am de-lighted with my Philips DVP5990/f7. Plays both NTSC and PAL, can be easily made region-free, “upscales” to 1080p. Short of a Blu-ray player, this is da bomb. I got it specifically because I needed something to play not only U.S. DVDs but occasional “foreign” DVDs. (Montalbano, I’m looking at you.)

    This Amazon link does not go to the exact one I got, but I believe it is the same model.

  60. 60.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 3:01 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: Almost all of the coffee in the US tastes like some sort of brown water to me, it’s an entirely different animal. If I go to Starbucks and order a double espresso it’s in the ballpark, but still nothing like what you get in any corner bistro. It’s that foamy head that’s missing.

    There were some shops in the Village in NYC that made real espresso, but they’re rare.

  61. 61.

    Fern

    May 16, 2010 at 3:03 am

    @Yutsano: When I went off caffeine, I had to kinda taper off – mixed my regular beans with some unleaded – and managed to avoid most of the headaches and such.

    Now I’m so sensitive to caffeine that I have to be careful with chocolate as well – just teeny amounts at a time. It is annoying.

  62. 62.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:04 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    How about Peets?

  63. 63.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 3:06 am

    @Fern:

    Now I’m so sensitive to caffeine that I have to be careful with chocolate as well – just teeny amounts at a time. It is annoying.

    I would honestly have to shoot myself if I could not have chocolate. I don’t think I’ve ever had a form of it that I didn’t care for. And chocolate and coffee, oh baby. I figure since I’m ducking the family curse of high blood pressure and I show zero health issues in the heart area (considering my family history at my age that’s nothing short of miraculous) I’ll go ahead and take the full leaded stuff.

  64. 64.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 3:12 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: Well, it’s good as US style coffee. Starbucks actually learned from the guy who founded Peets, they came down to the Bay Area and trained with him about coffee making before starting Starbucks. So it’s not very different.

    I grew up with Peets and used to just love it, but that was before experiencing non-American coffee for the past ten years or so on a daily basis. I really don’t mean to claim that it’s badly-made, it’s just a different taste, style, etc. In France you can order an “Américain” which is sort of what they call a “long pull”, but just very, very long. It’s so different as to need another name, in other words.

    I think Peets does a pretty good espresso but I can’t remember when I had one last. Something about standing around with paper cups just ruins the whole experience for me now though, to be honest. Small ceramic cup, marble-topped table, people walking by on the sidewalk to gawk at, my writing stuff…

    Well that does it, time to shower and go out to the cafe. I’ve talked myself into it. It looks like a beautiful Spring day out there.

  65. 65.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:15 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    Ah, I would have guessed Italy. But France…geeze, I’d drink a warm Pepsi at one of those cafes.

    Lucky you!

  66. 66.

    Ecks

    May 16, 2010 at 3:16 am

    @Yutsano: Just recently read about people who obsessively documented what they were doing at all times in their life, and the interesting observations this leads to (data cutting through the weird cognitive biases we all have, yadda yadda).

    Anyway, this one guy who did this also got himself off caffeine without side effects. He started with x ml of coffee (I don’t remember, but it was a lot) on the first day, and then reduced it by some tiny amount each day until he was completely off it.

    OTOH, I figure if you can successfully do this, why stop with quitting caffeine when there’s a whole planet to become supreme overlord of.

  67. 67.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 3:17 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim: You’re in a place with an entirely different cultural attitude towards food. The French would think nothing of a dinner that lasts for hours, even if the actual eating time is only about an hour or so at the most. To the French, food is very social, something to be enjoyed and savored every time it passes your lips. Small wonder they’ve refined their cuisine to a fine science and for the most part snub the food conventions of the rest of the world. I come from some good peeps I realize sometimes, even if that tie was cut over 500 years ago.

  68. 68.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 3:18 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: You know actually Italian coffee is almost as different again from French coffee as that. Not quite but it is noticeably different, even an Italian cafe I know in Paris has this amazing Italian coffee.

    When I lived in Rome it was definitely the high point of life, partly since everything else sort of wasn’t. Crazy place.

  69. 69.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:19 am

    @Yutsano:

    I come from some good peeps I realize sometimes, even if that tie was cut over 500 years ago.

    Me too! Well, 300 years ago or so…Huguenots who came through South Carolina.

  70. 70.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:21 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    I loved Italy, though it was 30 years ago.

    And I was surprised at how much I really liked France…and the French were (mostly) very nice to me.

  71. 71.

    Anne Laurie

    May 16, 2010 at 3:22 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals:

    Yeah, but if it was pooped out of neocon civets…ie, WaPo?

    I think they make the Kopi-Lewak by recycling the fermented beans from the civet poop. Obviously, the WaPo blend would be brewed from what was left after the valuable beans were fired and got better jobs at Huffpo, I mean, recycled.

    Then Fred Hiatt would run an ad campaign: “WaPo blend! All the weasel shite, but none of the wake-you-up flavor & caffeine! WaPo… when you want to drink something dark and nasty and totally innocuous!”

  72. 72.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 3:23 am

    @Yutsano: You’re absolutely right, in my experience. Except about the length, the food does actually span the entire evening. You just eat far more sloooooowly.

    I have my theories about the whole dietary US vs the rest of the world thing, and that’s definitely one of the factors.

    Though my favorite take on that subject was this one:

    1. The Japanese eat very little fat, and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans, British or Australians;
    2. The French eat lots of fat, and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans, British or Australians;
    3. The Japanese drink very little red wine, and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans, British or Australians;
    4. The French (and Italians) drink excessive amounts of red wine, and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans, British or Australians.

    Conclusion: Eat and drink whatever you like, and in any quantities; it’s speaking English that kills you.

  73. 73.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:24 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    FTW.

  74. 74.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 3:25 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: My family has been on the North American continent ever since the French figured out Quebec was a decent place to send prisoners they didn’t feel like dealing with. Why my great-grandfather left to go open a bar in Idaho escapes me to this day. I’m pretty sure my Jewish great-grandmother had something to do with it, although what exactly I’m not certain. Oh and I’m the great-great grandson of a Catholic priest. I’m born of such massive sin it makes my heart burst with pride.

    @Bill E Pilgrim: I am sooo going to share that with my French speaker at work. I bet she gets a massive kick out of it.

  75. 75.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:33 am

    @Yutsano:

    Sounds like a robust crowd!

    I’m a Mayflower descendant, but it was the Frenchie side of the family that was the most colorful. They ended up in Mississippi…Tennessee Williams knew a few and included ’em as thinly-disguised characters in some of his plays.

  76. 76.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    May 16, 2010 at 3:36 am

    @Anne Laurie:

    “Washington Post: All the news that’s left after the civets are done with it except the useful stuff.”

    I like it.

  77. 77.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 3:36 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals: Well the incestuous relations of Quebec being what they were (it’s really bad when you KNOW you’re a Tay-Sachs carrier because of two different paths in your geneaology) I’m related to about half of Quebec. RedKitten and I (where is that lady anyway? Hopefully she and SamKitten are well) even speculated we might be distant cousins because of how the families in Quebec are. If you’ve ever heard of the Dionne quintuplets, they’re like my fourth cousins.

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 3:38 am

    Paging Anne Laurie. Anne Laurie, please report to the Open Thread. There is a comment that needs un-moderation please. Anne Laurie to the Open Thread please.

  79. 79.

    Ecks

    May 16, 2010 at 5:07 am

    @Yutsano: Not so: Most Canadians have heard of the Dionne quint’s, not just quebeckers. But I might now be distantly related to you as an in-law, as my sister married a guy from way-way-way Eastern Quebec.

  80. 80.

    Yutsano

    May 16, 2010 at 5:23 am

    @Ecks: It’s entirely possible. My family’s reach in the Quebecker gene pool is pretty extensive. I share no genetic material with Celine Dion thank the FSM.

  81. 81.

    nick

    May 16, 2010 at 6:21 am

    @Stan of the Sawgrass:

    The BOP broke. I’m not arguing it didn’t. And I have no idea why it broke. BP’s negligence certainly could be the cause (although BP didn’t own or operate the BOP nor the rig, so I doubt it was BP’s fault).

    I am just saying the remote kill switch argument is weak sauce. It’s like pointing a remote control at a TV you smashed with a hammer. They went down and manually tried to activate and it still didn’t work. So a remote switch wouldn’t have mattered.

    That’s my only point.

  82. 82.

    WereBear

    May 16, 2010 at 6:25 am

    As a child, I had a Depression era booklet of magic tricks from Quaker Oats. The Quints were heavily featured in it as illustrations. This got me interested in them from a young age.

    Now I see Pierre Berton has a book out on them. That’s a done deal.

  83. 83.

    SiubhanDuinne

    May 16, 2010 at 7:09 am

    @WereBear #82: Here’s another who was fascinated by the Dionne Quints at an early age and for years thereafter. When they turned 18, Life Magazine (or possibly Look) did a big photo feature on them. Marie had become a postulant in a convent, and to me this was such a romantic notion that I horrified my Presbyterian grandmother by announcing my intentions of becoming a nun as soon as I was old enough (I think I was about 10 at the time).

    Five or six years ago there was a piece in Maclean’s about the surviving Quints — three of them were left at that time; I have an inkling that only two are alive today. So sad that the early exploitation and commercialisation — which I certainly kept going in my innocent, small way — created such a fvcked-up childhood for the girls. They were little more than performing animals in a cage for years. But yeah, I’ll read the Pierre Berton book.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    May 16, 2010 at 7:14 am

    Oh for FSM’s sake. I’m in mod and I bet it’s because I used the British/Canadian spelling for “commercialization.”

  85. 85.

    Catfish N. Cod

    May 16, 2010 at 7:15 am

    @Zuzu’s Petals:

    I’m a Mayflower descendant, but it was the Frenchie side of the family that was the most colorful. They ended up in Mississippi…Tennessee Williams knew a few and included ‘em as thinly-disguised characters in some of his plays.

    Really, Zuzu? Tennessee and I are from the same town. (His parents moved when he was three — they were staying at Grandpa’s, which was the rectory of my old church.) We have a Williams festival every fall… and there are people in town today that would make great Williams characters. Seriously. Now I’m wondering if they’re related to your cousins…

  86. 86.

    SiubhanDuinne

    May 16, 2010 at 7:20 am

    @WereBear #82: Here’s another who was fascinated by the Dionne Quints at an early age and for years thereafter. When they turned 18, Life Magazine (or possibly Look) did a big photo feature on them. Marie had become a postulant in a convent, and to me this was such a romantic notion that I horrified my Presbyterian grandmother by announcing my intentions of becoming a nun as soon as I was old enough (I think I was about 10 at the time). Five or six years ago there was a piece in Maclean’s about the surviving Quints—three of them were left at that time; I have an inkling that only two are alive today. So sad that the early exploitation and commercialization—which I certainly kept going in my innocent, small way—created such a fvcked-up childhood for the girls. They were little more than performing animals in a cage for years. But yeah, I’ll read the Pierre Berton book.

    Edited spelling to bypass moderation.

  87. 87.

    Mark S.

    May 16, 2010 at 7:35 am

    Well, at least it isn’t pedophilia:

    A nun and administrator at a Catholic hospital in Phoenix has been reassigned and rebuked by the local bishop for agreeing that a severely ill woman needed an abortion to survive. Sister Margaret McBride was on an ethics committee that included doctors that consulted with a young woman who was 11 weeks pregnant late last year, The Arizona Republic newspaper reported on its website Saturday. The woman was suffering from a life-threatening condition that likely would have caused her death if she hadn’t had the abortion at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center.

    I didn’t know the Church made no exception for the life of the mother. Fuck them, I hope every last one of those fucking child molesters rots in hell for eternity.

    h/t

  88. 88.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 8:01 am

    @Catfish N. Cod:

    Why, it’s ol’ Catfish N. Cod, I do declare. Been looking all ovah the toobz for you, homey. Greetings once again!

  89. 89.

    Ron

    May 16, 2010 at 8:28 am

    Everytime I think I’ve seen the worst behavior from the banks, I see worse:

    http://www.fayobserver.com/articles/2010/05/15/998876

  90. 90.

    WereBear

    May 16, 2010 at 8:41 am

    @SiubhanDuinne: I love Pierre Berton, I’ll read anything he has written. When it’s a subject I already have some interest in, it’s delightful.

    While my childhood was not necessarily unusual, it was deeply felt and rather challenging, and so folks with even more hills to climb have always interested me. Why do so many biographies devote a page or two to the person’s activities before the age of twenty, when that is so largely responsible for the person they became?

    And why does our society raise such a hurdle for people with unusual childhoods? You were a child star, or your mad scientist father screwed you all up (for a real life situation, see Mariette Hartley’s writings) and then you are supposed to just up and lead a “normal” life after that?

    As if.

  91. 91.

    WereBear

    May 16, 2010 at 8:43 am

    @Mark S.: This is pretty much their stance. I remember reading a 60’s era novel where a woman and baby died in childbirth, and it was a sad Handogod kind of thing; intervention that might have saved one and not the other was simply considered unthinkable for Catholics.

  92. 92.

    Theo Bear

    May 16, 2010 at 9:02 am

    Let’s drill less baby. Drill less.

  93. 93.

    Cerberus

    May 16, 2010 at 9:25 am

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    It’s the combination of stress and fat. French (and Italians) have low stress lives with high-fat food, Japanese have high stress and low-fat food because that way they can die of aneurysms and ulcers instead.

    Americans and Brits try and combine high stress with high fat and it kills them faster.

    I’d recommend the “lowered stress” solution but that’d require the dreaded soc.ial.ism word.

  94. 94.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 2:17 pm

    @Catfish N. Cod:

    Omigosh, are you from Clarksdale?

    I’ll say no more about my cousins (so distant I’ve never even met their descendants) in order to protect the innocent, but I’ll bet you have a good hunch.

  95. 95.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 2:51 pm

    @Zuzu’s Petals:

    Z’sPs, if this is the Catfish N. Cod whose blog I wandered into several years ago (and emailed back and forth with a few times then lost track of), no, he’s from the other, red-clay-hills side of the state. I was thinking he’s a Monroe County product (as am I), but the local description he gave on this thread sounds more like the seat of “the W” (which I won’t further identify because you won’t need me to, I bet).

    Anyhow, hope he makes it back around here . . .

  96. 96.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 3:11 pm

    @lotus:

    Ah, I see what you mean…yes, that makes sense.

    I actually have very little sense of the place as I’ve never been to Mississippi. My grandfather was born in Osyka 20 years after the Civil War. He married a northern woman and so my mother only went for the occasional visit…great stories though.

  97. 97.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 3:39 pm

    @Zuzu’s Petals:

    Ah. Where’s Osyka? A new one on me (I moved out of state at age three).

  98. 98.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 3:46 pm

    Okay, cross ever’thang crossable — something’s finally gone right!

    BP: Mile-long tube sucking oil away from Gulf well

  99. 99.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 4:10 pm

    @lotus:

    Good question. It’s right on the MS/LA border. Grew up around the railroad which came through Pike County in the 1850s. Evidently my great-grandfather moved his family up from Louisiana and helped lay out the town.

  100. 100.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 4:38 pm

    Oh, okay — Osyka must be about as far from my homeplace (Amory, another railroad town) as you can get in Mississippi. Actually, CNC and I just missed being from north Alabama (and Tennessee’s just up the road a piece).

    Anyhow, cheers!

  101. 101.

    catclub

    May 16, 2010 at 5:02 pm

    It strikes me that the huge plumes of oil below the surface are there because of the dispersants that BP has been injecting.
    Without them, the oil would reach the surface more quickly.
    Since they appear to be doing substantial damage within the watercolumn, the overall benefit of he dispersants remains to be seen. (The benefit is less oiling of beaches and wetlands.)

    This would help explain the lowball estimates of the spill volume when based on the surface area of the spill.

  102. 102.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 5:17 pm

    @lotus:

    You too.

  103. 103.

    Zuzu's Petals

    May 16, 2010 at 5:24 pm

    @catclub:

    You’re not alone in that thought:

    The use of chemical dispersants at such depths has been controversial because it’s never been used at such depths. Dispersants injected into the spewing wellhead is likely keeping the underwater plume suspended in 3,000 feet of water, said Mandy Joye, a marine sciences professor at the University of Georgia. ……………………………………
    That keeps the oil from bubbling to the surface and potentially reaching fragile coastal marshes. But it’s also creating a massive, toxic plume of oxygen-less oily water stretching through the deeper reaches of the Gulf of Mexico, Joye said.

  104. 104.

    LanceThruster

    May 16, 2010 at 5:28 pm

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    As established in the movie Pontypool

    Tagline: Shut up or die.

  105. 105.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    catclub and ZP, Dr. Joye also says that the microbes chowing on the oil severely deplete the oxygen in their vicinity too. Any biochemists in the house who can explain how that works? It surprised me.

  106. 106.

    lotus

    May 16, 2010 at 5:51 pm

    Oh God, here’s what I’ve been dreading:

    NEW ORLEANS — Researchers tracking the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico say computer models show the black ooze may have already entered a major current flowing toward the Florida Keys, and are sending out a research vessel to learn more.
    William Hogarth, dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science, told The Associated Press Sunday that one model shows that the oil has already the loop current, which is the largest in the Gulf. The model is based on weather, ocean current and spill data from the U.S. Navy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among other sources.
    Hogarth said a second model shows the oil is 3 miles from the current — still dangerously close.
    The current flows in a looping pattern in the Gulf, through the area where the blown-out well is, east to the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

    http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/oil_spill_may_have_entered_maj.html

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