Here is a good comment from the post yesterday about the oil spill and the Obama response, with some specific suggestions. I’ll just post it here, because I think some of the suggestions are genuinely good:
Rayne over at Firedoglake has specific answers to your question. And this is only the beginning of what the administration could do. Cole seems to lack an appreciation of what power the president SHOULD wield on behalf of our country.
1) Obama needs to use that goddamned unitary executive power he’s been clinging to and declare a state of emergency in federal waters along the Gulf of Mexico, using an Executive Order. This is now an international situation, not just an American one, because the oil will eventually end up in the North Atlantic.
2) Declare British Petroleum in violation of its lease and kick them off the site. Threaten to seize all American assets of BP-America immediately if they do not assist in setting up a claims system which will be administered and overseen by the U.S. and paid by BP. (Hire all those poor Sallie Mae folks who were going to lose their jobs because of student loan reform for this purpose. /snark)
3) Ask the Department of Energy’s Steve Chu to create a skunkworks rapid solutions team from NASA and DARPA along with schools which specialize in oceanography, mechanical technology, geology, and computer modeling. Stop waiting for the nice old farts they pulled from JASON because this is an emergency, goddamnitall, we don’t have time for them to come up with a vetted, peer-reviewed whitepaper on this. Don’t listen to anybody’s crap about so-called experts on deepwater drilling and how they’ll solve the problem. As my 16-year-old said, “If there’s experts, where are they? Show me one.” Yeah. What she said.
4) Threaten to kick Ken Salazar to the curb if he doesn’t not immediately have every one of the 15+ deepwater offshore drilling sites reevaluated; every evaluation must be on POTUS desk inside 15 days from the date the Executive Order. And we want the evaluations made public — no more of this bullshit opacity the White House calls transparency. No excuses; all this stuff should have been submitted when BP and the other oil industry firms applied for the leases to begin with.
5) Approach corporations to develop an X-Prize type program to develop a private solution in tandem with the skunkworks solution. Ask Congress to create a special R&D tax credit for firms which donate money to the X-Prize for development.
6) Approach Florida State University (which now owns the former Scripps’ Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and its submersibles) along with Mississippi State (which has an oceanography program) and ask them to work with NIUST to develop models of the plume’s distribution, along with identifying the impact short and long-term on the ocean bottom and the ecosystem above it.
7) Suck up the arrogance and pride and ask the elder statesman of the environment to be the face of this effort. Ask Al Gore to do the legwork with the corporations and educational facilities whose cooperation is needed. Tell him this is to be used as an example of what people can do for the larger environment if they focus on this problem first. If they can solve this, they can solve the big problems.
8) Tell the Catfood Commission (read: Presidential Deficit Commission) to find a way to shoehorn in funding for an alternative energy Apollo Program or Marshall Plan. If you have to find a front man, go to Al Gore because this was his idea back in 1992. Jeebus, catch a clue and use the resources you have already; Gore wrote it all out for you in 1992.
9) Call that lazy-assed sad-sack Joe Lieberman and tell him whatever super-secret-y deal you guys have going in the way of a quid pro quo is off if Lieberman cannot find some reason to investigate the relationships between Department of Interior and any corporation with which it deals. Make the call private, and tell him if he doesn’t have hearings within 15 days you are going to publicly call him on the carpet for the benefit of CT voters every chance you get until 2012.
10) You know damned well if they cut corners in the Gulf of Mexico, they did it elsewhere. Threaten to go for the jugular on them if they don’t continue to play ball with clean-up in the Gulf.Take a bunch of bloggers up to BP’s operations in Alaska and let them roam around for a couple weeks. Make BP pay for it — figure it out, you have the EO in one hand and the power to print money in the other. Keep the pressure on BP until they beg for mercy.
11) And right now I’m tempted to tell one Barack Obama to get really, genuinely excitedly-upset, be more than that Spock character for once, add the passion of Captain Kirk and the anger of Dr. McCoy in the mix. That fakery last week only made us heave with nausea. And Rahm? Just bite me; whatever counsel you’ve offered Mr. Spock-the-President has been both incompetent and impotent.
While some of them are interesting, I’m still puzzled by the “kick BP off the site” stuff. And then what? Issue sternly worded letters to the spill? The government does not have the equipment to stop this spill. I’m not sure how many times this can be pointed out.
And point eleven is just more of this “We need a cheerleader” nonsense. Of all people, George Will made a lot of sense about this in the green room after an appearance on ABC’s This Week. Scroll to about 2 minutes in when Will starts to talk about the “cult of the Presidency.”
BR
Not only that, but if we kick out BP, they may be able to claim in court that they were prevented from doing their cleanup duty and therefore aren’t financially liable for anything after that date.
Edit: looking over the list again, I’m again amazed how some folks suggest things that were done weeks ago, such as getting Sec. Chu and a team together.
Michael
I think a “we need a cheerleader” tag is in order.
Michael
I also realized it took quite a while for the “Obama sucks” crowd to even come up with a wish list, regardless of how stupid it is.
arguingwithsignposts
WTF? Point 3 has already been done. Chu’s been working on this for weeks – see the Maddow program from this week.
They’ve got hundreds of engineers working on this problem already. Here’s an LA Times story about the skunkworks.
brantl
I think they have a fuck of a lot right, here, Cole. And I think that much of this may already be happening, as you never know until it finalizes.
BP isn’t getting it done. Nobody in the oil business (all of them) has ever done anything except blue sky estimates about what might need to be done about an oil spill, BPss reaction to this makes this painfully obvious. They are woefully incompetent at breach recovery, and the only things that they are managing about are public perception and anger, and they are doing that badly.
The government does need to take this over, and soon. All BP is planning is how to save BP. And they aren’t doing a very good job at THAT, either. And this is exactly the chance to show what government and higher education can do together, right now.
gurglebleg
This might take a nuclear detonation to clear…
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0504/russian-paper-suggests-nuclear-explosion-cut-gulf-oil-geyser/
beltane
We are only a few centuries removed from a time when kings were thought to have magical powers to cure disease, improve harvests, etc. Humans seem to have an innate need for a “Great Leader” to heal and protect. This combined with a public whose sense of reality has been damaged by Hollywood has led to a weird passivity and a whole raft of unrealistic expectations. If this were a Star Trek episode after all, a way would have been found to plug up the hole with anti-matter; all in the space of an hour.
Mike Kay
Arrogance?
that’s the shit you hear on Fixxed News and from the teabaggers.
Might as well dispense with the pleasantry and calll him uppity.
hal
The writer couldn’t have toned down the fake indignation? Oh that’s right, it’s FDL.
On point 11, it still amazes me that people think Obama should put on a fake outrage party in public, just to make them feel better.
Chyron HR
Like mighty king Canute of old, Obama should command the waves to recede before him. Then it would be easy to reach the well and plug it.
(Alternatively, he can blow up the well with his Kamehameha blast.)
Mike Kay
there are over 1,000 people from Interior/Energy/Military/etc. already working on the spill.
And the nerve of the firebaggers appealing for Al Gore’s help, when 10 years ago, they screamed in my face, “there’s no difference btwn Bush and Gore.”
WereBear
@beltane: I do wonder if our success at creating alternative worlds has now unhinged some people’s sense of reality.
Aside from the fact that since the turn of the last century, people make a lot of money unhinging it for us in the form of marketing and advertising.
Now there’s a kind of crisis peak in which whole segments are simply propaganda. Goebbels only wished he had that kind of machine.
flukebucket
James Carville was mighty shrill this morning on ABC. He ended his tirade by saying, “people are dying down here!”
Maybe they have resorted to cannibalism down on the coast.
Mike Kay
Obama PNWS Firebagger at Boxer rally
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid1726689860?bctid=88014189001
Priceless.
cat48
The guy doing the special work on the well today has worked in the oil wells in the Persian War when they needed to be capped. He’s from Wild Wells which makes me smile. Wild Wells is a better name than his first company which was
Hoots & Coots. heh
Imo, anyone who gets rid of BP right should be jailed unless they have a team with them. 2 relief wells going
3. Done and ongoing. Chu will talk with anyone with experience & expertise.
I’ll read the rest of the list later maybe; had enough of hysteria from watching Morning HO.
A Guest
Some of the items are good, some are being done, some are stupid. The whole thing reeks of “purity.”
Morbo
We need to kick BP off so we can bring in Halliburton and put their safety record to work for the Gulf.
Mike Kay
@hal:
It’s as if they want Obama to put on a stage production of “RENT”.
MBunge
“Take a bunch of bloggers up to BP’s operations in Alaska and let them roam around for a couple weeks.”
Seriously?
Mike
Va Highlander
@brantl:
Could you be more specific?
I’m trying to find out how the operational review is going, this morning, and you sound like you actually know what’s going on at Deepwater Horizon.
Can you fill us in on the details?
If BP is doing nothing, then who is behind the top-kill that may or may not go forward today?
Mike Kay
Arm chair quarterbacks, whose only experience with football comes from a video game.
DougJ
You should have titled this post “this one goes up to 11”.
Guster
Cheer. Leader.
Guster
You know what always pissed me off? FDR wasting time with those ridiculous fireside chats.
The very notion that a president can shape and channel public opinion is utterly ridiculous. Might as well wave pompoms around. Because God knows cheerleaders are completely useless.
Ryan
I say we form an exploratory committee, then hire BP to come back and fix their shit.
Mike Kay
what they can’t seem to grasp is the government doesn’t have experience in drilling oil wells 30,000 leagues under the sea. That, and they’ve seen too many episodes of McGyver and The A-Team.
debit
@Va Highlander: Oh come on. If you take away our generalizations and sweeping statements, you weaken our hyperbole. Why do you hate our hyperbole?
Napoleon
What a stupid ass post from this guy. First as long as you have BP handling the clean up they are the ones who are entering into contracts with their subcontractors and therefore they are on the hook financially.
Oh and the Supreme Court back in the 40’s decided the Pres does not have the power to seize a companies assets, as he suggest, in the Youngstown Sheet and Tube case.
Mike Kay
@flukebucket:
He must be referring to being married to Mary Matalin.
Mike Kay
@debit: these guys couldn’t even unplug a toilet.
arguingwithsignposts
@Napoleon:
There you go with your facts and all.
@debit:
haters gotta hate.
debit
@Mike Kay:
Then one can only guess what he means by “down there.”
Pete
Shorter Firebaggers:
“The Bush administration acted like jackbooted authoritarians beholden to the interests of their brand armchair pundits, so we were kind of hoping that our guy would extend us the same courtesy”
liberal
For clarity, I think we need to differentiate between “what should we do about the spill?” and “what should be do about culpability?” They’re different. There’s the claim that they’re tangled, because if the guvmint goes after BP too harshly, the spill recovery will be stunted, though I’m not so sure I believe that.
kay
I don’t think they’re genuinely good suggestions.
I do have a question, though. I’m wondering if there’s any truth to the charge that there are better subcontractors out there than the subs BP is hiring.
“BP” doesn’t really do anything. It’s all subbed out. If there’s corner cutting, that’s where it would show up.
If Petals is around and knows (a commenter here) , I’d really appreciate anything on that specific question.
AxelFoley
@Mike Kay:
And the funny thing is, what do they expect Gore to be able to do?
Fuck the left. They’re no better than the right. Fuck ’em all.
burnspbesq
I like Rayne – she’s part of what I used to call the “thinking minority” when I used to hang at FDL. Alas, most of what she is suggesting seems to have a common characteristic: there’s no legal basis for doing it. Even Magic Negroes can be tied down, Gulliver- like, by injunctions against over-reaching their statutory authority, and Big Awl os nothing if not litigious. And the unitary-executive crack was a cheap shot. Obama’s unitary-executive theory is more akin to Kagan’s view than Addington’s elected dictator theory.
AxelFoley
@flukebucket:
Aw, good lord, was Skeletor–I mean Carville–this pissed off when Bush let New Orleans drown after Katrina and Rita? I don’t recall hearing a peep from this muhfucka when that happened.
Lit3Bolt
Jesus, remind me to never shop for empathy at Balloon Juice…it’s like all of your a Borg-controlled by Tunch or something.
People are literally weeping in frustration over this, and all you fuckers can do is cast Snarkbolts (Rank 11) or Rantstorms (Rank 3). This could be a rare opportunity for some anti-oil, pro-alternative energy legislation to pass, but it won’t be I guess. Could stop off shore drilling, but why get excited over that? Sure don’t want to be mistaken for loony leftie who just wants a national Daddy! Let me wave my Smug Dick of Realism +6 around some more! That’ll prove my point.
Ok, if you guys are only concerned with political perception and fighting memes, do you realize how bad “What can he do?” sounds? It sounds fucking awful. It sounds like excuse making. It sounds like water carrying. It sounds like defending Obama for the sake of defending Obama. Please stop, because you may think you are helping Obama, but are in fact hurting him.
georgia pig
Looks mostly like a mix of firebagger axe-grinding and magical thinking.
liberal
@cat48:
But as Atrios pointed out re a hagiography published in the MSM on the guy, why don’t we wait until the guy’s actually done something to cap the well before we laud him right now?
I doubt he has much experience with a wellhead 1 mile under the surface of the ocean. Not that anyone else has much, either.
kay
@liberal:
He says he doesn’t have that experience. He also says no one else does either. But is that true? Is he the best, or did he bid the lowest? I’m not sure interviewing the subcontractor they hired answers that question.
WereBear
This whole FUBAR is why we need science.
The competing elements claiming expertise could be suspect; the old Hire me! gambit backed up by the fact that no one has done this at such depths before, so failure could be shrugged off with hoocoodanode while they cash the check. The fact that Kevin Costner looks the best at this point says a lot.
I’m really grateful to Rachel Maddow for having Uber-Geek Dr. Chu on her show; he seems to be running this thing, and a science approach is exactly what will get the thing handled as best we can.
Jindahl is doing exactly the game plan as referenced above: splashy declarations, doing something, and getting weepy Louisiana pols on board, but from what I’ve read, it’s more likely to do harm than good… yet cynically speaking, he’ll get credit for Doing Something, and the people who knew better from the beginning, just like the Iraq War, will get frozen out and marginalized.
liberal
@Lit3Bolt:
Unfortunately, the quality of the comment section at BJ has degraded significantly ever since it’s been taken over by O-bots.
On the issue of efforts to cap the well, though, the O-bots are right—there’s not much else Obama can be doing. On the issue of using the event to push legislation, etc, Obama could be doing a lot more than he’s doing, of course.
cleek
@hal:
i know it’s more fun to go after a strawman, but no: people want real outrage. because, while the people are pissed, and frustrated and worried, the govt seems not to be.
arguingwithsignposts
@Lit3Bolt:
It sounds fucking awful because it is fucking awful. Because there’s not a goddamn thing he can do. This is not Katrina. Until BP stops the leak, that bully pulpit ain’t worth a damned thing.
Mudge
That is a bizarre list. The unfortunate truth is that petroleum companies and their subs drill off shore wells and have the experts who may possibly be able to solve this catastrophic problem. It is easy for a 16 year old to bemoan the lack of success and hint that some super expert has been held incommunicado, but this is a new problem, there are no known solutions and new solutions take time. To suggest that we not listen to so-called experts, then rant about it is pure conspiracy theory as so often seen at FDL. I had the thought that Rayne was Ralph Nader. Impatience at FDL does not foster success. The US government neither has the expertise nor the manpower to do this. I did not see the suggestion that Obama hire Halliburton (who have the expertise, as sad as that may be to realize) to solve the problem, no, the author suggests some academics (who do research, not solve problems) be brought on board. Try to find an academic who knows anything about deep sea drilling who is not being supported by an oil company. Chu’s team was composed to develop out-of-the box possible solutions using smart guys who are not oil experts. It was a last resort gesture. And, as much as I like Al Gore, what in the world could he do here?
Having Al Gore ride in on a white horse to set up alternative energy policy and mapping the pollution using submersibles does not plug the leak. Eventually investigating malfeasance by BP (and other oil companies) has merit, but it will not plug the well, and sending a blogger investigative team is nonsense. FDL, of course, cannot trust anyone else, however. Even Greenpeace has better cred to do this than bloggers.
In my case, I wonder why a relief well was not started instantly. If other solutions had worked, fine, but if not, we’d have a month’s worth of (BP’s) equity in diverting the oil to a controlled well.
Doing something about this leak is a separate issue from recriminations, clean-up, short term policy changes for oil leases and long term energy policy changes, yet Rayne seems to bunch them all. What stands out is a total lack of confidence in the government and the oil industry (perhaps even more the implication of evil intent) and the firm belief that Al Gore (and his ilk) and academics are the solution.
I truly wish that righteousness, accompanied by appropriate indignation, could solve the oil leak. I fear not.
liberal
@kay:
I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure that this experience, if not unique, is almost unique.
I’ve got nothing against hiring the guy; seems like a good decision. I’m just saying it’s not a magic bullet. The current algorithm of “throw everything at it, see what sh*t sticks, and in the meantime drill those relief wells at full speed!!1!” is really the only one we’ve got.
MBunge
“Ok, if you guys are only concerned with political perception and fighting memes, do you realize how bad “What can he do?” sounds? It sounds fucking awful. It sounds like excuse making. It sounds like water carrying. It sounds like defending Obama for the sake of defending Obama.”
It sounds like you need to grow up.
Mike
Mike Kay
Hey, on second thought, let’s not be too hard on them, after all, they’re at least moving Overton’s Window.
someguy
Here’s what needs to happen.
1) Nationalize all BP assets within US jurisdictions, and use those assets to fix the gusher and compensate the victims, including the state.
2) Hand the president of BP a pistol, put him in a room and encourage him to do the right thing. Webcam pay-per-view, proceeds to benefit the victims, optional.
3) Conduct a junk shot to block the pipe, using ground up Sarah Palin, the pus from Rush Limbaugh’s infected ass, Charles Krauthammer, and whatever other vile waste substances can be scraped up from Mary Matalin’s parlor. Failing that you can use useless junk for it, like golf balls, mud, and Glen Beck.
4) Hang pretty much everybody at the Department of Interior, publicly, and preferably at a mountain top mine in WVA. Better yet, sentence them to work in a coal mine that has lots of safety violations.
5) Pass Cap & Trade, or whatever environmental bill you want to pass, and do it right now. Anybody that opposes it, tie ’em to the oil spill. Go big, fix whatever problems the bill has later.
liberal
@arguingwithsignposts:
It’s indeed not worth a damn thing for stopping the leak. It’s worth quite a bit for starting to free our energy and environmental policies from the influence of the oil companies.
gpleigh
In addition to everything else that’s going on with thousands of experts working on this, there will be a science summit at LSU on June 3rd.
PBO gave his pitch to pivot to green energy last night in SF.
liberal
@someguy:
Uh, he’s not nearly first in line for that. That’d be Alan Greenspan.
kay
@liberal:
They interviewed him and his former business partner, both of whom said, unsurprisingly, that he’s the best.
I do more due diligence putting a new roof on.
liberal
@WereBear:
Heh. The best examples of that were Bush and Rudy in the immediate aftermath of 9-11. “America’s Mayor.”
Linda Featheringill
I really appreciate the list of specific suggestions. Much better than DO SOMETHING.
I’ll need to look over the list and think about some stuff before I can add anything.
But thanks again for the list! [to both of you]
Napoleon
@someguy:
Hey moron, that is illegal. See Youngstown Sheet and Tube vs. Sawyer.
liberal
@someguy:
Here’s something they really can do. Those MMS (?) guys who had the oil companies write the inspection reports, then transcribed them…I find it hard to believe that there’s not a statute that makes that a felony. If nothing else, throw good ole 18/1001 at them.
/begin{flame bait}
But the Obama DOJ is too busy putting whistleblowers in jail.
/end
Punchy
Wait….are these fuckers down in SoLA bitching and bitching and bitching about how the gov’t needs to step up and take over and fix their coast with Magic Pixie Dust(TM) the very same fuckers who 3 months ago bitched about how gov’t was going to take over their lives, take their guns, impose taxes on them for services, and regulate their livelihood into oblivion?
The hypocrisy-fu is mighty strong down there among the River Folk.
arguingwithsignposts
@liberal:
true that.
cleek
this assumes putting additional pressure on BP will have no positive effect.
i don’t think that’s been proved.
correct me if i’m wrong.
Mike Kay
@Mudge:
LOL!
That was funny, wasn’t it.
LOL!
What are gonna do, put Jane and Glen in a diving suit like in the “The Abyss” and drop them into the bottom of the ocean? On 2nd thought, that sounds like a great idea.
Brandon
@DougJ: Heh.
I actually think that the number one thing that Obama should do is remove the Coast Guard from their lead agency on-scene coordinator responsibility and replace them with the EPA. I think it is clear to me that the Coast Guard are not operating in the best interests of the environment or the Obama administration.
Need some evidence?
1. We have them threatening to arrest the media on BP contractors boats to prevent media images of the spill being broadcast because they are ‘BP’s Rules’.
2. A Coast Guard official mistakenly still believes that BP shares the priority of stopping the gusher and cleaning up the spill instead of limiting their liability and publicly says that ‘BP is our friend’.
3. Coast Guard commandant Thad Allen has the nerve to say the following on the same day that BP refused a direct order from the EPA to stop using dispersants and after all of the controversy about not releasing the video footage and BP’s grossly inaccurate spill estimates:
4. If you want to know how seriously the Coast Guard is taking this issue, just go take a look their website and the DHS website (USCG are under DHS). Then go over the EPA and have a look at their website. Or the website of the Department of Interior for that matter. It is hard not to look at the websites and get a bit pissed about which organizations are taking this seriously and which are not. The Coast Guard needs to get shitcanned immediately.
Prof. K&G
Tell you what. If you have a helpful suggestion for the president, please help us figure out what you’re trying to say by stating which of the following two categories it fits in:
1. Things to improve energy policy and oversight to assure that a leak like this never happens again. (Revenge fantasies, and I have a few myself, go here)
2. Things that will actually stop this leak, that’s happening right now.
chopper
the only two on that list that actually has anything to do with capping the leak are #2 and #3. #2 is stupid, and #3 has already been done.
yeah, let’s kick BP off the site. so now the government is in charge, even though it has no experience with oil wells, and lets BP off the liability hook.
brilliant.
Va Highlander
@liberal:
What do you imagine has been thrown at it?
On what dates?
What was the reasoning or lack thereof?
How many wells have been drilled “in the meantime”? One, two, twenty?
Still awaiting your ansers on the ops reviewk, by the way.
Thanks in advance.
someguy
Yes.
arguingwithsignposts
@cleek:
Actually, i don’t think it’s true. How much more “pressure” can he put? Will it accomplish anything?
Bulworth
I’m not aware of this Internets tradition of identifying the Presidential Deficit Commission as the Catfood Commission. I think I like it. Can someone explain it? Maybe another entry to the Balloon-Juice lexicon?
Napoleon
@Bulworth:
I would take a WAG that someone came up with that name because some (including me) think the commission will screw seniors out of Social Security they were guaranteed in the early 1980 Greenspan lead change in the SS system and then will need to eat catfood.
demo woman
@Mudge: Ditto
Your entire post was thoughtful and captured my sentiments also.
Brandon
Hey, why am I in moderation Kafka-land?
Mike Kay
Shorter fDL: if obama claps harder, the leak will be plugged.
as someone said yesterday, these guys really did think Obama was jesus and captain kirk, rolled into one.
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Guster: A President can’t shape public opinion? Are you serious? Were you alive when Ray-gun was President?
Bobby Thomson
I’m not sure how many times you can overlook the difference between taking over managerial oversight and telling all BP employees and contractors to leave.
PeakVT
While Team Obama clearly can’t do anything about capping the well, I think more could be done about cleaning up the oil has made it to the surface. So far, BP’s booming efforts aren’t working, the use of Corexit has become a disaster in its own right, there are too many reports of the CG and other law enforcement agencies acting to help BP manage media access, and I haven’t seen a reliable estimate of how much oil has been released and where it all is. That adds up to a less than satisfactory response, IMHO.
Perhaps the Obama administration has determined that more active intervention will absolve BP of its liability to clean up. If so, at least that should be stated (or leaked if nobody has the courage to go on the record.)
cleek
@arguingwithsignposts:
quite a lot.
the govt is all kinds of involved in the oil industry: subsidies, tax breaks, leases, permits, etc.. all of those are subject to pressure. not to mention the power an angry president could have on consumers’ choice of filling stations… etc..
i know BP is doing a lot. i don’t know that it’s doing everything possible. do you know ?
it might. it might not. you’ve clearly concluded it won’t, but you haven’t given any proof to back up that conclusion. so, why won’t it work ?
Prof. K&G
@Mike Kay: I think they also consider him their therapist, as they seem to be enraged that he won’t validate their feelings.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
after the obligatory paranoid non-sequitur spasm about “Rahm”, I think my favorite is the Joe Lieberman one. A Senate enquiry! That’ll stop the spill!
The rest seem to rely on the underlying conclusion that someone, Al Gore or the FSU oceanography department, know what to do, but haven’t said because Obama is too “proud and arrogant” to ask.
WereBear
@Punchy: Yes, I am constantly reminded of the same thing.
But we are obviously victims of consecutive logic because why do you hate Amurrika?
Mike Kay
@Prof. K&G: win.
tomjones
@Lit3Bolt: Thank you for capturing so perfectly the modern left’s (self-aware, it seems!) embrace of emotion over logic and reason.
I’ll stick with logic and reason kthnxbai.
J.W. Hamner
@cleek:
What incentive does BP have for letting the leak continue? How is it possible to put more pressure on them then thousands of barrels of oil from a oil well they own?
What gives you the impression that the reason they are failing is because they are insufficiently motivated to stop this?
What a bizarre theory.
Emma
Mudge: I was going to write something and then saw this.
Also. Cosign. Thank you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Punchy: I caught a clip last week of Mary Landrieu excoriating the loathsome energy industry and its craven supporters in the government. I was too stunned to gag.
tomjones
@liberal: Have you ever considered that the comments section hasn’t changed, but you have?
MikeMc
I love the part where this blogger suggests to Obama that he take a bunch of bloggers up to Alaska and let them roam around BP’s operations for a few weeks. Also, Have BP pay for it. What would be the point?! I didn’t realize FDL had deep core drilling experts on staff. Easily, the dumbest suggestion I’ve heard.
If Rayne really cared all that much about this she could crawl out from behind her computer, grab a shovel, head to the Gulf, and get to work. After all, “People are dying down here!”
cat48
James K Polk, Esq.
@Bobby Thomson: What part of removing BP from the chain of liability don’t you understand?
They call the shots = BP responsible for the resulting outcome.
arguingwithsignposts
@cleek:
I’m not sure gov’t pressure is going to shut this leak, that’s true. Nothing he could do right now will do so. IIRC, Obama pounded the bully pulpit several weeks ago in the Rose Garden. I would love if they weren’t so in bed with the industry. I hope Obama fixes that. But that’s the future, that’s not the now.
Him pounding on the “bully pulpit” isn’t going to do anything at this point about the *now*. “Fix this shit” doesn’t mean anything at a mile below the surface.
Dan
Why we need Kirk and not Spock.
I watched Fox last night and it is all about Where is he? Where is he? He’s not doing anything!
This has entered the mainstream, which is why you and other left leaning blogs have had many posts about it.
Perception is reality and the perception is Obama is not engaged, so the reality is Obama is not engaged.
Bobby Thomson
@James K Polk, Esq.:
BP has already caused more damages than they will ever pay. At this point I care a hell of a lot more about fixing the problem than assigning a liability that will never be paid.
cleek
i think they’ve become more motivated in the past couple of weeks. but they were slow to get to this point, and were secretive and misleading at the start. the application of public pressure had something to do with all of that.
why do i think they aren’t doing everything they can? because they haven’t earned the benefit of the doubt.
not to me anyway.
you’re free to believe their press releases, if you want.
James K Polk, Esq.
@Dan: You are basing your perceptions of reality on Fox News?
brendancalling
@hal:
besides, when he did the fake outrage thing last week, he was roundly lambasted for it.
magurakurin
@someguy 51
I’m all about #2. In fact, if I were king of the world(not something anyone should wish to happen by the way) I would have shot Tony Hayward myself last week when he made that dumb ass comment about believing the damage would be moderate. I would have flown down there, hopped out of my KingForce One jet, asked my marine guard for his side arm, and then just popped a cap in Tony’s ass without so much as a sigh. Then I would have asked if anyone else had any dumb ass comments to make.
To me, the constant cry that more needs to be done, doesn’t hold water. It is in nobody’s interest for this gusher to continue uncontrolled. The response may be inadequate, but it is almost certainly all that is possible. And therein lies the real failure. Known, tested, and proven successful emergency measures should have been in place before such a deep water well was allowed to be drilled. In this case it seems like the blow out was caused by an asshole, mid level BP exec who rushed the drilling process, but it just as well could have blown up due to an act of nature such as an earthquake. The end result would have been the same. We would be here, over a month out, still without a solution. And that’s because the solution should have been developed, tested, and proven years ago when this type of oil exploration began.
Perhaps the drilling companies need to be required to pre-drill the relief wells before the oil is tapped. The two relief wells that are being drilled now will take three months to complete. Maybe the companies should be required to drill those safety wells to within a day or two of completion, and then maintain them and keep them ready in case of a blow out. If such a measure is too expensive, then maybe the wells shouldn’t be sunk.
But, I’m not king of the world, or even my own house(wife=queen), and that is something Tony Hayward should be goddamn thankful for.
Marc
@Mike Kay: Yeah, you’ve got to love how the same people who accuse Obama’s defenders of shouting “Clap harder!” are now screaming for the President to clap harder.
No, wait, “love” isn’t the right word…
James K Polk, Esq.
@Bobby Thomson: Ah, I see… we’ll just call on the stable of highly trained (and highly paid) experts in the field the government keeps on retainer for just such an occasion.
Seriously, this is a huge clusterfuck and EVERYONE is pissed. That doesn’t mean there is a solution to 1,000,000+ gallons of oil being dumped into the Gulf every 24 hours. Pretending like some federal employee can do anything different in the operational theather than what is being done is wishful thinking.
celticdragonchick
Why is it nonsense?
If a person is not seen or perceived as leading or even being interested in the subject, he or she will not be taken seriously about it.
I’m sorry, but point 11 is spot-on.
We do, in fact, need some public leadership from the President. Right now, he looks like the epitome of disengagement.
Remember that damning photo of President Bush looking down at Louisiana from an aircraft window as he passed overhead from California right after Katrina?
This is starting to have the same feel.
jwb
@liberal: Possibly, and days after the rig blew and we knew we had a major disaster on our hands, legislation significantly raising energy taxes to establish a fund to cover such future events probably should have been on the table. But since Congress seems disinclined to even raise the liability limit on oil companies from the current paltry $75 million, call me unpersuaded that anything was going to happen then or now. It’s unlikely that much substantive will happen until we are ready to gather our pitchforks and head into the streets.
celticdragonchick
@Bobby Thomson:
Agreed.
Bobby Thomson
@J.W. Hamner:
Not at all. If people don’t go to work, most of them don’t get paid for that day, but sometimes people have other priorities. If people don’t pay a loan shark, the threat of maiming and/or the breaking of digits has a way of focusing the mind.
They have “an” incentive to capture oil. Their incentives to seal the leak are to capture oil (which may run at cross purposes with some methods of sealing the leak) and to avoid bad publicity (and they would rather dump that poison on the surface and commandeer the Coast Guard to strongarm reporters than seal the leak, because it’s not only cheaper, but actually profitable when they are the ones manufacturing the poison).
gnomedad
@Mike Kay:
Obama should put these names on a huge poster as a backdrop for his next presser.
celticdragonchick
@Dan:
Exactly. The “Obama’s Katrina” meme has entered the mainstream, and it looks worse every day that he appears inactive and disengaged.
James K Polk, Esq.
@celticdragonchick:
What made Katrina a disaster was what the federal government didn’t do in the first 7 days of the disaster (when the outcome was controllable).
What part of the outcome of dumping 1000s of barrels of oil a day has ever been under any sort of federal control?
EDIT| FOX News is NOT mainstream.
Bobby Thomson
@James K Polk, Esq.:
No. We’ll just have the experts that do exist directed by someone else who doesn’t have an inherent conflict of interest. LBJ wasn’t an aerospace engineer, either.
No, actually, that’s not wishful thinking. It’s mischaracterizing my argument.
Rick Taylor
One thing that really bugs me, and correct if I’m misinformed, is that it seems BP is has taken charge of the clean up effort. And while I understand they need to have a prominent role in closing up the well, since they have the equipment and the expertise, there is no reason in the world I can see why they should be the ones keeping cleaning up the oil; the coast guard should be in charge of that. They’re an oil drilling company, not an oil cleanup company. If some big chemical company exploded starting a fire, and my house caught on fire and I called the fire department, I would not want them telling me, well, the corporation who owned that plant will be coming to put out your fire, and don’t worry if they do a bad job we are sending them an extremely sternly worded letter!
__
More on this from Fishgrease’s diary, with pictures.
Dan
@James K Polk, Esq.:
No, if you read the entire comment (it is very short) I say that this notion that Obama is not doing anything has entered the mainstream. Whether or not that is because Fox is pushing it doesn’t really matter.
greg
Look, this isn’t hard: BP are not the only experts in the field, the do not own the only resources, and they are not the only company with experience in this area. If they get kicked off the site, that opens up the work to mother, more experienced contractors without a vested interest in saving the oil to get the job done.
Or it that just too easy and inexpensive?
Patrick
When a truck overturns on a highway, a DEP (or DSC or whatever your state calls its Enviro dept.) official might respond. They don’t have a mop in their car/truck. They call, or make sure the tanker company calls, a response company. The response company has the equipment and trained staff to clean up the spill.
It is no different in the Gulf. Whomever the Gov’t would hire, is no doubt already employed by BP. If they weren’t, the Gov’t would force them to.
The only other solution would have been for the U.S. Navy to drop a depth charge on the well head in an attempt to collapse it. Obviously, since nobody is even talking about that, our depth charges cannot work at 5,000′. That makes sense, since no submarine can operate below 2,000′.
This catastrophe could only have been stopped before it happened. Katrina is the wrong analogy, 9/11 probably a better one. But unless Obama had a memo last March titled, “Deep Oil Rig Spill Imminent”, it is hard to give him crap.
cat48
@Brandon:
That or go to the Deepwater site where the Coast Guard info is kept. Adm. Allen retired yesterday but will see this thru to the end. I don’t think he needs to turn populist since he is part of the military/was. I like his explanations because they make sense. Frankly everyone down there gets on TV & starts screaming and then it’s over for me.
zzyzx
@celticdragonchick: I’m sure Obama is going to rush to do something in order to change the lead story in the news cycle.
From the beginning of the campaign, Obama has been about a long term plan over drifting from day to day based on what the press is saying. This is why some of us liked him.
Va Highlander
@celticdragonchick:
Um…so what?
All that says is that you are buying what the MSM is peddling and that sounds like a personal problem, to me.
I am looking for possible solutions and as high-quality data on what’s going on and what’s being done as I can lay hands on.
You, and the people you support, are not providing me with either of those things. You folks don’t even seem interested in such things.
I honestly think that says something meaningful about your position vs mine.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Why are we wasting our time with this nonsense? You can’t kick BP off the site, they are the entity that has the machinery and the skillsets to do whatever they are doing down there.
If we are going to resort to tough, absurd talk, why don’t we just become Republicans?
Drill baby drill. Plug baby plug. WTF? Is the response to stupidity to just get more stupid?
Here’s what happened in the Gulf the last time something like this happened:
Who the hell expected this thing to be solved in a few weeks? What kind of FUCKING stupidty is that? What steps were taken since the Pemex spill (the one in the blockquote) to insure that incident plans and resources were ready to pounce on the next spill of this magnitude? None. Whose fault was that? I dunno, ask presidents Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush 2. Maybe the living three of those men should get together and explain to Morning Joke and Balloon-Juice what the realities are here. I think you are your pals voted for about 3 of those 4 presidents, John. What’s your great idea?
Red Adair, the most legendary blowout fixer in history, and ten months’ work. Is anyone paying attention out there?
les
@Va Highlander:
Checking out The Oil Drum site, the White House site, the CG or EPA site, any of the links from yesterday’s fest, or the press conference with the CG head would alleviate teh fucking ignorance you display with apparent pride. Oh, you might also learn that two relief wells are underway, started weeks ago. It’s not fucking magic, dolt.
The FBI has told BP, focus on capping the well but don’t get rid of any papers.
MMS is and has been under investigation and review by DOE inspector general, by DOJ and the White House.
22,000 people, from BP, other oil companies, foreign environmental/oil agencies, US gov’t, academia and private companies are working on this fucking problem.
Well permitting and approval processes are under review during a new permit moratorium.
Legislation has been proposed, Murkowski (R-big oil) and others are blocking it.
Oh, and idiots like you and Bobby Jindal are screaming DO SOMETHING1!
All of this information is out there; half the NPR hourly news brief covered a bunch of it, press conferences are happening, gov’t spokesmen are talking every day.
But Highlander has a better idea–Daddy needs to fix it.
The stupid, it burns.
Glenn Beck's Chalkboard
Nor the in-house expertise. I have some archaeologist friends working for MMS, who do legally-mandadated assessments for pipeline routes and drilling sites. They don’t even have a fucking johnboat, much less the ROVs and offshore construction vessels and trained operators. Anytime they need to go somewhere they can’t drive in their own cars, they have to borrow a research ship from NOAA or charter one from the oil and gas industry.
This situation is like having a fire raging downtown, continuing to spread. When the local fire department — in this case, BP — fails to put it out, people start screaming at city council members, “well, do something!” It’s an insane and helpless situation.
Brandon
@PeakVT: I have to agree with this. I have seen a lot of pictures of booms washing up on shore. That us pretty obvious evidence that they are doing it wrong and whatever they are doing is just for show. I actually read a diary at GOS on this topic that was well informed on this issue. I get the feeling, and maybe this is my bias showing, but that a lot of the subs they’ve got working down there doing precisely these types of things, either don’t know how it is supposed to be done or are just a bunch of lazy jimbos with boats who are unconcerned with the quality of their work. “All I was told to do was lay boom, no one told me that it should be anchored”.
Face
Jeebus. When libs start trying to make this comparison, I shudder to think what the insane right is comparing it to. Somewhere, in Erik Son of Erik’s new column, this is soooo Obama’s Auschwitz.
tomjones
@Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle: I think your snark detector has failed. But never fear, I hear that BP is on the case.
Patrick
BP probably has neither equipment nor expertise. Possibly Transocean does or Halliburton. But BP has a large pocketbook to hire people. The environmental spill laws at the Federal and State level require the corporation to clean up the mess. As long as they are willing, the law makes the Gov’t let them. Now, someone from the Coast Guard is certainly watching every move and can suggest things. If the Coast Guard (who is the responding agency) thought BP wasn’t doing something they wanted done, they could get a court order. Seeing the political gain from that, we have to conclude BP is doing everything asked by the Coast Guard (if not the EPA, which has no jurisdiction).
jwb
@Mudge: “In my case, I wonder why a relief well was not started instantly. If other solutions had worked, fine, but if not, we’d have a month’s worth of (BP’s) equity in diverting the oil to a controlled well.”
I believe the relief wells were in fact started as soon as possible, as this was understood from day one to be the only certain solution to the problem. It just took time to get the positions researched, the gear in place, and so forth. The bigger issue, I think, is why the contingency planning wasn’t done before the disaster. My understanding is that this sort of accident is not terribly unusual in drilling for oil, so what shocked me was that everyone seemed completely unprepared for it. It actually reminded me a lot of the Iraq War, where the Bush administration was constantly blindsided by the failure of Plan A. I don’t suppose it’s a coincidence that both Bush and Cheney came out of the oil business.
MikeMc
@Patrick: Exactly! There’s only like four subs in the world that can handle the pressure this deep. I was watching Hardball last week and Chris Mathews, all pissed off at Obama not being properly pissed off, asked some lady if they could send scuba divers down. The dip shit obviously doesn’t understand the situation at all!
Emma
Rick Taylor: this is off the top of my head and if someone knows better please correct me. I believe that it has to be BP because it is the law. One that was passed after the Exxon Valdiz disaster to make sure the oil companies paid for cleaning up their own messes.
James K Polk, Esq.
@Bobby Thomson:
You are implying that BP has little to no incentive to attempt to stop the leak?
You realize they have spent $750 million to date on mitigating this, and it is their investment / assets floating away in the current? And they are on the hook for 4K for each barrel of oil dumped into the gulf?
Va Highlander
@les: Why is reading for comprehension such a problem for you and not for others?
I am already following all the sources you recommend and if I’m really being ignorant, then I sincerely ask that you cite a specific example.
Jeezus fucking Christ…
tomjones
@J.W. Hamner: Here is their incentive for letting the leak continue:
Oh, err. Wait a second. That would seem to imply they have a pecuniary interest in shutting this thing down now, wouldn’t it?
celticdragonchick
Bacause the government has allowed the culprit for the spill to dictate how and when any mitigation and cleanup would occur. No public effort has been made to cultivate other private sector talent and resources to deal with this, and nothing is said as Republicans continue to block unanimous consent motions to reaise liability caps.
I’m sorry, but the President and the Dems look like willing victims here for their own abuse. If Obama is not interested in looking or sounding like a leader when the country needs a President to do just that, then someone else may be elected next time.
This is a catastrophe, make no mistake. When England needed some cheer leading during the blitz, Churchill stepped up with the ‘Blood, sweat and tears” speech. We need Obama to be publicly cajoling and browbeating and also pointing out Republican intranisence in holding the industry responsible. He just as publically needs to be calling for all the academic and practical help we can get.
He is the frakking President. Cheer leading and molding public opinion is part of the Goddamned job!
Kirk Spencer
1) With the possible solution of a big blast, the oil’s going to continue to gush until a relief well is finished. Everything we do between now and then are palliatives. If we’re lucky they’ll slow the leak but they’re not going to stop it.
Why? Because it’s not just coming out of the pipe now. For some reason it’s coming out of the seabed. There are two (general) possibilities as to why. The better-for-us reason is that the casing further down has ruptured and the oil is coming up on the outside of the casing. As it finds crevices and weak points it presses into them and comes up.
The much-worse-for-us reason is that it’s oil coming up alongside the casing from the drill point. If it’s this, the relief well won’t work. That leaves us solely with the big blast.
2) The big blast is dangerous. Re-examine something that keeps being said: we DO NOT KNOW MUCH about oil at this depth. Now on dry land and relatively shallow water (see Russia and nuked oilheads) we know that the blasted rubble does not seep. We do not know why, we just know it doesn’t. Best guess is that the oil merges with small particles and makes its own cap, but that is a guess. The question is whether the very strong pressure of the oil and the pressure of the depth change the equations.
If we blast the hole, will we make it worse? I don’t know, but neither do you. Why? Because nobody has done it before at this depth on this type of underlying geology.
Bottom line from these two points – it’s not going to be over soon, regardless. You might want to save some outrage for later.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Really? So who are the people in the Yellow Pages you can call when you need a blowout preventer fixed and a pipeline capped or plugged at 5000 foot depth?
Who else has the undersea vehicles, the special gear, the equipment? The trained personnel to run this equipment and operate down there?
I’d like to see a list of the outfits that are prepared, and why any of them would be a better choice than BP …. since I expect that they will all be oil companies. And who pays those other outfits the zillions of dollars it will cost them to take this on? And who explains to the gulf coast why they will have to wait a month or more for some other company to ramp up an operation down there? Build a team, assemble the resources, start an operation?
If people on BJ were calling for Superman and Mighty Mouse to come in and save us, I’d have more regard for the usefulness of the blog in this situation. Fuck.
Emma
Tomjones: now that is good news. But are you saying that BP would let the spill continue knowing that there is a possibility that the government can bankrupt them out of existence? Wouldn’t that be even more of an incentive to resolve the problem?
Mike Kay
I knew this was gonna happen when they stop putting Thorazine in the water.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MikeMc:
Do you remember who the woman was? Marsha Blackburn? Susan Page? David Letterman had a professor of oceanography (IIRC) for a several minute-long discussion of the situation and the possible solutions. Tweety will have Ron Christie and Jennifer Palmieri, CNN turns to Mr Mary Matalin, and I’m sure Cokie Roberts is preparing a seven minute video diary on the effects of the spill on how the spill is affecting the Boggs Compound for This Week.
Mike Kay
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Roto-Rooter?
celticdragonchick
@Face:
This is what is being screamed on Faux News every night. It is being noticed on mainstream venues as well, in a somewhat less inflamatory way.
Sorry, but perception is reality, as has already been pointed out.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Mike Kay:
Sounds as good as some of the suggestions I have seen around here lately.
Christ, call Disneyland. They have submarines, don’t they?
( rolls eyes … around and around and around …..)
Va Highlander
@Kirk Spencer:
Do you have a source for that?
I was aware that there seem to be multiple leaks, but I did not know that oil was leaking from the sea bed.
burnspbesq
@liberal:
“Here’s something they really can do. Those MMS (?) guys who had the oil companies write the inspection reports, then transcribed them…I find it hard to believe that there’s not a statute that makes that a felony. If nothing else, throw good ole 18/1001 at them.”
If that’s not a good honest services fraud case, there will never be one.
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
There ya go.
les
@cleek:
Where is your evidence that BP is not being pressured to the max? You and many are assuming that since the Pres isn’t on teevee 24/7 spanking BP mgmt, nothing is going on. What the fuck do you think constitutes pressure? the FBI is lurking, Chu is looking over their shoulder with experts from all over the world, they know their and everybody else’s oil production biz just got more expensive and less profitable, shareholder lawsuits are already gearing up, they’ve spent $800MM already…
This is an unprecedented fucking disaster; nobody knows for sure how to “fix it;” and the response is massive and equally unprecedented.
Two days of posts screaming for Obama to do something. All these wonderful suggestions, nearly all in one of 3 categories: physically impossible; blatantly illegal; and already under way.
Do I think Obama, or the gov, has performed perfectly? Of fucking course not. Do I think they’ve marshalled the best assets available to attack it? I haven’t seen anyone here with a (real world, legal) suggestion that isn’t out there somewhere. And I’m damn glad bush or Grampy McCain isn’t running the show.
debit
Oh, oh, I know, I know! Obama should go to the Gulf with a shovel and a bucket for a photo op. Then people will say he’s doing something. “Look, everyone! He has a bucket!”
What the hell is going on lately? Posters I normally find to be voices of reason are either accusing me of being a bicycle Nazi or lambasting Obama, a man I voted for because he is calm and reasonable, for being calm and reasonable.
James K Polk, Esq.
@celticdragonchick:
What mitigation can be done? Really. I really, really want to know.
Emma
I was going to direct this to someone, but hell, I’ll just make it generic.
Most of the things “the government hasn’t done” are being done. See here, under “federal resources”. There is a massive influx of government money, personnel, and equipment in place right at this moment. If you don’t want to believe the White House, for some reason, other people in these threads have pointed to articles in the press, both online and dead tree.
I swear, we don’t deserve to have adults in charge.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
I for one welcome our new BP-BJ(tm) overlords.
They totally deserve each other.
Our new slogan: Balloon-Juice — the British Petroleum of Blogville.
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick:
your comment is a priceless spoof.
LOL!
it reminds me of the classic movie ‘Airplane”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrwNqf8ujtk&feature=related
celticdragonchick
@burnspbesq:
We called that “pencil whipping” the inspection when I was in aviation. Not good.
Also a felony in certain situations and cause for revocation of any license.
MikeMc
@celticdragonchick: Are you seriously comparing this to the Battle of Briton? Do you think he should have a weekly radio address where he assures Americans that we will “never surrender”…to an oil spil!?
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
I’m sure that numerous member of the voting public wondering why nothing seems to be coming from the government in the way of leadership will be doubtless amused by your merriment. Maybe you should entertain them as well. I know they will appreciate it.
Chinn Romney
I’m sure there’s an alternate reality out there somewhere where President Barack Obama actually acts like the guy everyone thinks he is. In this one he’s just another DC hack, who happens to have dark skin and a very slight tilt to the left.
TJ
Did BP become the only drilling company in the world and I missed it?
Kelly
John Cole is calling out someone else for succumbing to “Cult of the Presidency” thought? As a way to act the apologist for the president? Awesome.
celticdragonchick
@MikeMc:
If you don’t like the analogy, then American History can be easily combed for better fitting examples.
Is that your concern? Really?
You have got to be kidding me…but snark away. So much easier and emotionally fulfilling!
les
@Brandon:
My fucking god, what’s your degree, your experience, your expertise that makes it “obvious”? There are hundreds of miles of boom deployed; there are endless resource allocation decisions under way; there are thousands of miles of coast at risk. But you saw a picture of some booms on shore, so the whole fucking effort is bogus. Because otherwise, in an unprecedented effort involving tens of thousands of people, NOT A SINGLE FUCKING THING WOULD EVER GO WRONG.
No young CG kid would bend to BP requests and yell at some reporters. No, that would mean the THE WHOLE GOV’T IS IN BP’S POCKET.
No local commander would make a mistake of judgment about getting booms out. No, that would mean that THE ONLY PRIORITY IS SAVING BP MONEY.
Etc. etc.
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick: I just link to your comments, they’ll laugh their asses off as the burn oil to power their computers.
debit
@Chinn Romney:
And he doesn’t have anything to do, so it frustrates people that he’s not using all that free time for photo opping and speechifying.
D.N. Nation
1) Obama’s never been like that; and
2) Star Trek isn’t real.
Also: I love these Nadroid putzes who only now think the difference between Gore and Teh Wingnuts was a little bit more than SCOTUS pick or two. Get in your flying DeLorean, go back to 2000, and hit your old self with a frying pan, please.
Bill H
Fairly minor point to anyone who doesn’t live in San Diego, home of Scripps Oceanographic, but Florida State merely houses Scripps in Florida, it does not own them. I recall the bidding war to house the Florida branch, because I have a good friend who is a graduate of FSU.
les
@<a href="#comme
MikeMc
@celticdragonchick: Jesus Christ Lady it was just a joke. Tone down the drama.
Face
Say what?
August J. Pollak
Here’s my response to the “well what can Obama do?” crowd. It’s an honest question: what will be done? That’s why the perception exists that Obama is not doing anything. Yes, the immediate response exists, and I’m not going to ignore that. But I have yet to see what changes- executive, legislative, economic, whatever- have resulted from a now month-old massive oil spill. Changes. Not responses (which is what the FDL post seems to mostly focus on), changes. Things to make sure this is stopped and never happens again.
Environmentally: The well’s still not capped. BP has embargoed the media so most of us have no clue what’s happening. We just see photos of dead animals and tainted water. It’s heartbreaking and no one knows why people “in control” aren’t. The EPA said that BP should stop using incredibly dangerous chemical dispersant. BP ignored them. Welp, guess that’s it then. No I don’t expect Obama to Hulk out and close the goddamn thing with his bare hands but if you sarcastically ask me if I think that’s what I expect him to do then congratulations, way to duck the issue and the fact that you don’t have an answer either.
Policy wise: So far, Obama has rescinded his declaration to open more offshore drilling- a declaration he made a week before the spill. The only significant piece of legislation being reported in the media is the bill to remove the cap on BP damages… which the GOP is filibustering and… welp, guess that’s it then.
If you want to call it a copout, fine, but my answer to “what can he do?” is “well, what has he offered to do?” So far, I’ve heard a story that he got angry behind closed doors. Awesome. What changes to laws and regulations are going to come out of this? Not “proposed,” not “can be done.” What will actually change? Who is losing their job and what changes will their replacement make? What proposals have been made to help the massive economic suffering that’s going to hit Gulf region fishermen, hotel owners, tourism vendors, and so forth? If the answer is “nothing” even if it’s “nothing because Republicans are gonna filibuster it all” then yeah, the people “in charge” have failed. And if you just want to say that it’s “not Obama’s fault,” be it Congress or the media or public perception or whatever then I’m really sorry that you seem to think that the day he was elected politics just ceased to exist.
tavella
4) Threaten to kick Ken Salazar to the curb if he doesn’t not immediately have every one of the 15+ deepwater offshore drilling sites reevaluated; every evaluation must be on POTUS desk inside 15 days from the date the Executive Order. And we want the evaluations made public — no more of this bullshit opacity the White House calls transparency. No excuses; all this stuff should have been submitted when BP and the other oil industry firms applied for the leases to begin with.
This, and it’s one of the things that boggles me that it’s not being done or at least not publically. How many other BOPs are there with dead batteries, misconfiguration,and inadequate shears? And setting in motion a rule change to Petrobras “show me” rule where they have to actually fire their BOP and show that it works.
I can do without the threatening part (unless Salazar drags his feet), but the rest is basic.
Noonan
I think what it comes down to is that BP can not fail. BP can only be failed.
Mike Kay
@D.N. Nation: 8 years from now they’re gonna be crying for Obama to come out retirement and fix something like Spock.
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
Always glad to be a source of entertainment for the incompetant and non-thinking.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Face:
Har.
I think the modern parlance, is, lolwhut?
rickstersherpa
I kind of wonder about BP’s authority to keep independent observers off of land owned by the People of the United States. And I wonder at why the so called journalistic organizations are not running into court asking for injunctions against this activity.
http://motherjones.com/environment/2010/05/oil-spill-bp-grand-isle-beach
As Bob Somerby at “The Daily Howler” points out, Chris Matthews is remarkably dumb. MSNBC, our “liberal” cable network is remarkably dumb. I expect it out of Fox Noise, whose fundamental purpose is to dumb us all down, but all the MSM media seems to ignore providing the answers to the old quetions of What, When, Who, Where, How, and Why. I have been watching these shows for weeks, and no one, not even Lawrence O’Donnell who was a Senate aide at the time, has explained the workings of the Oil Pollution Act. For instance, one reason the Government does not want to take over for BP the responsibility of capping the well is this provision:
“§1002(d) Provides that if a responsible party can establish that the removal costs and damages resulting from an incident were caused solely by an act or omission by a third party, the third party will be held liable for such costs and damages.”
If the Government takes over, BP can argue that all the spill damage after that date is the United States responsibility, not theirs, since the United States acts and omissions past that date could be the sole cause of cost or damage. Likewise with the clean up and shore protection, if a non-BP contractor or volunteer does something, BP will argue that there act or omission actually caused the damage, not the oil that came from the well when BP controlled it. You might argue, that is absurd, but I am a lawyer and I can tell you we lawyers argue absurd things every day and win, see: artificial persons, corporations, have the same Free Speech protections as real persons.
Finally, it is not just cable. NPR, the N.Y. Times, the Washington Post, NBC, ABC, and CBS, all remarkably dumb. So the dumb rules.
WereBear
I am frankly gobsmacked that so many people are claiming Obama should act like McCain in this instance. Remember McCain… the dude running for President who made a big fuss about running off to “do something” when the financial crisis occurred, then sat like a rotted stump at the meeting, pouting at the one guy who did have answers and a plan… the guy he was running against? “That one”?
McCain, whose solution to immigration reform is to “finish the dang fence”?
Some people are actually demanding grandstanding and Marxist style confiscations. Some people are demanding that we use this in the most obvious and cynical ways possible to get an energy bill going NOW. And some continue to demand that the President dominate the 24/7 news cycle with emotional speeches about how the water bottles in the White House are made of stainless steel, not plastic. (Ref: the Checkers speech and the Republican cloth coat.)
This is not a political problem. This is not an propaganda opportunity. This is not yet another opportunity to complain that you though you were voting for Superman as played by Laurence Olivier in his scenery chewing days, and Obama isn’t that person.
I don’t want McCain style crap. I didn’t vote for that, and thank FSM that’s not what we’re getting. I’m as emotional as anyone who doesn’t actually live there; I spent years on the Gulf Coast, Tampa Bay, and I have friends who live there now. I have close relatives in Florida. Tourism is a $60 billion industry there; their economy is TOURISM, Orange Juice, and strange religions, in that order.
Since Spindletop, oil has had greasy fingers around America’s throat. That’s not going to go away in a day. It’s only Karmic justice that the very states who enabled and supported the culture of corruption and regulation scoffing, right down to Bush v. Gore, are the ones now getting kicked in the teeth.
Call me an Obot. I don’t care. He appointed a genius to be in charge of Energy, and I can’t humanly ask for more.
celticdragonchick
@August J. Pollak:
Careful. The Jackals won’t like what you wrote here. You might be a dirty hippy from FDL.
some other guy
I’m sure this will be snarkily dismissed as a “firebagger” post (even though I’ve never visited the place except to read Tbogg), but I’ve gotta agree with a few other posters in this thread. In the face of the largest man-made environmental disaster in a generation– perhaps in all-time– many of you sound like enormous assholes for mocking peoples’ outrage over it, misplaced as you may think it to be.
It’s scarily reminiscent of how the right responded to criticisms of Bush’s handling of Katrina. Thankfully, though, the BJ commentariat has not yet devolved to the point of mocking the victims themselves.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Really? I have been watching a continuous live shot of the leak and a blow by blow account of BP’s preparations for the TopKill(tm) they want to try today or ASAP. On CNN, pretty much all the time now.
They’ve prepared the blowout preventer, they are taking pressure measurements to make sure their kill shot will have enough pressure to do the job, and planning for the TopKill around the clock.
Whether you like that activity or not, that’s what they are saying they are doing, which doesn’t sound like an embargo to me. Maybe a few posters here should go down for a close up look? Just order up some scuba masks at Amazon and jump in.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@flukebucket:
They could lower Carville down there and have him blow back the oil.
Either that or shoot him into the pipe to clog it up.
Win-Win-Win either way.
ruemara
@Chyron HR:
FTW
If Obama had a kamehameha blast and a flying cloud, I would vote for him every election until I die. Just skribble him into the margins.
A number of these are being done and a couple have legal ramifications the writer is not aware of. I’m not sure what the “get angry” crowd is so angry about. Reminds me of an interview I did at a temp place where I didn’t get onto their rolls because I wasn’t “happy” enough. I’m 17, I’m trying to be professional. He’s trying to govern a bunch of ne’er do wells and backstabbers and those are from his party. The republicans are pretty much planing insurrection if they can’t burn this place to the ground and you want him to visibly lose his shit to make you feel he’s on your side? Too early for the brain hurt.
Va Highlander
@les: You are a hot-headed moron.
I asked those question because I actually knew the answers, such as they are knowable, and was pretty sure that the person to whom I posed said questions did not.
My goal—and I shall type this slowly for the intellectually challenged—was to establish that the poster in question was mouthing off from ignorance and not from an informed opinion.
Ironic, isn’t it? It’s as if reality was exactly the opposite of how you assumed it to be.
Idiot.
Mike Kay
@WereBear: Win.
rickstersherpa
Chris Matthews, is upset he does not see scuba divers at 5,000 feet beneath the sea. What further proof of dumbness can we see.
Until April 20, 2010, only a few of us environmental hysterics thought about the dangers of drilling for oil in the deep sea, particularly drilling off the U.S. where oil corporations have such a degree of regulatory and political capture (see Landreiu and Vitter, Senators, Louisiana) that prudent safety rules followed in other places, like Norway, Brazil, and Canada or not likely to be followed. The plan A the oil companies said is that there would not be any blowouts (although blowouts are such a common drilling event that as one poster has pointed out Red Adair made a large fortune putting them out). And since we are talking 5,000 feet under the ocean, there was no plan B, despite the fact the Oil Pollution Act requres such plans. But at least until April 20, 2010, that part of the law was a “dead letter.”
colby
Actually, I think this list is mostly crap.
1 and 2 have the “then what?” problem. Okay, declare a state of emergency (and didn’t that happen already?). Kick BP out. And then what? The oil’s still there, someone has to get it. I don’t think the government has that kind of equipment, and if any other oil company had a workable plan, they’d be screaming it from the rooftops, the fat government contract would already be signed (AND we’d just be trading WHICH evil corporate oligarchy is in control of the situation).
3, 5, and 6 are all just “get some experts to think of something!”. It’s amusing that it BASHES experts in the process (And cites a 16 year old as an authority), but that’s really all those points are asking for- and, of course, plenty of experts, including Chu, have already been brought in. (BTW, 5 and 6 are really just asking private individuals to do something. I know that the prestige of the Presidency is hard to say “no” to, but all of that is still really asking someone ELSE to take action).
4 sounds fine, but the insistence on 15 days might be silly. Some of these issues are complicated, and clearly it’s better to do it right than fast.
7 ignores the fact that Al Gore has no interest being the public face of ANY government effort. He already turned down the Climate Czar gig, and this one seems more hopeless (if that’s even possible).
8 sounds fine. Obama’s already talked up such a program, so, okay, let’s do this.
9 is cool because it bashes Lieberman, but I don’t know that it’s really a plan of action. Senate hearings certainly aren’t going to clean up the oil, and hell, even if Lieberman isn’t willing, there’s plenty of other committees that could. Hell, I can’t imagine Obama could STOP Boxer if he tried…
10 is fine, though a lot of the system is already under review. But sure, send in the bloggers, they oughtta solve this mess.
And yeah, 11 is just cheerleading.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
( sound like “Omnaris — to the nose!” commercial …..)
Balloon-Juice — to the blowout!
D.N. Nation
@some other guy:
I’m outraged, but also realize demanding that Obama act meaner is ridiculous. Sorry.
Shalimar
You really think BP has any equipment that the government wouldn’t be able to use if they kicked them off the site? BP is in full public relations cya mode, they are going to catch media hell if Obama calls them out on not helping with something necessary. As for kicking them off the site, I’m not a scientist so I can’t measure who would be able to do the work effectively. All I do know as far as government inaction is that if they haven’t done everything in their power to come up with at least a close estimate of the spill rate (even if they have kept it quiet to avoid even more alarm) then they are completely incompetent. The 5000 barrels a day lie should not have been allowed to stand for this long. My main frustration is that most of our government’s efforts seem to be geared towards helping BP with it’s PR rather than holding them accountable for the worst man-made disaster in history.
Mike Kay
@rickstersherpa: and he keeps saying, why doesn’t the Navy send their submarines down to bottom.
okay fine. say the Navy had subs that could dive below 2,000 feet, what do they do then, open their hatches?
les
@Va Highlander:
Gee sorry. Your imitation of clueless ignorance was a total success. You should be proud. I grovel at your mastery.
Mike Kay
@D.N. Nation: it’s like demanding Obama cap the volcano in Ireland while it was erupting.
Emma
Some Other Guy: Speaking for myself only: mockery is all I’ve got left.
1. We elected someone to respond to situations like an adult. Not to do photo ops on carriers or invade countries that had nothing to do with hurting us. To find solutions to problems. To think things through calmly and find solutions. Now some of us seem to want Bush back, stomping around looking “presidential.”
2. We screamed for eight years about the Bush White House flouting the law. Now some of us want the Obama White House to do exactly the same. Someone in a previous thread seriously suggested we use Chinese Communist tactics.
3. We get people screaming that the White House isn’t doing anything, and offering suggestions. When they are pointed to articles, the White House web site, experts blogs, etc. that show the White House is already doing what they want, they pout and get angry and talk about optics. They ignore all the evidence and all the information. They want ACTION, by God. When someone asks “what actions other than what’s already being done?”…. anger.
4. We get people who seem to believe there’s a conspiracy by the government to hide the fact that there is a big deep source of technology that is not being used because the government is in BP’s pocket. Or suggesting things like blowing up the well. You know how we always snicker about Republicans getting their ideas about torture from 24? Liberals seem to be getting their ideas about technology from McGyver.
After all that, rinse and repeat, for two days, I’m left with no rational response.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Oh, yeah. Those deep diving subs are just tin cans with a big UP-DOWN lever on the dashboard, from what I hear. Easy-peasy.
Hell, your grandmother can drive one. And it has SiriusXM radio too, so she can get her Big Band music. Okay, sounds a little gurgly at depth, but not bad.
And the complicated pipes, pumps, control lines, the resources for pumping various materials into a blowout preventer, all that sort of stuff? Hell, you can get most of that at ACE Hardware. In fact, on Dollar Days, you can get that stuff dirt cheap.
And the tools needed? Fuhgeddaboudit. You can get a Home Oil Well Blowout 32-piece Tool Set at Sears right now, they are on sale for Father’s Day.
Barry
@liberal: “Uh, he’s not nearly first in line for that. That’d be Alan Greenspan”
Considering that he’s both the man who trashed our economy *and* a man who conducted a trillion-dollar fraud on Social Security (Greenspan Committee), I feel that that would be far, far better than he deserves.
mcd410x
@les:
I’m going to single out Les here only because his/her comment was right in front of me — this could be many of the comments on this and other posts.
The use of understatement is truly a lost art.
angler
More infuriating firebaggers!
Those riveted on the real problem in the Gulf–insufficient fealty to a vision of Democratic Party proper conduct–have another varmint to flush.
Va Highlander
@les: Well, les, I suppose you’re to be admired, in a way. When caught out falsely accusing someone, you just double-down on the hot-headed douchebaggery. A lesser man would have stooped to apologizing or some pussy-ass bullshit like that.
Did you notice that debit figured it out before you even showed up?
I hope for your sake that you did not.
Hunter Gathers
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
That’s known as the ‘Junk Shot’, filling the hole with shredded golf balls, tires, Carville, his insectoid wife, and the shriveled remains of David Gergen’s testicles.
tomjones
@Emma: Yes, it would tend to support that conclusion. My half-assed snark to the contrary. ;)
Va Highlander
@les: If, given your level of emotional maturity, that counts as a sincere apology for your false accusation, then I accept.
Jim J
Not a Firebagger here, but I’m really struck by how prevalent/useless the whole “what do you expect him to do, grow gills and go down there himself and cap the leak” strawman is, so common at GOS and becoming the line du jour here as well.
There is a huge difference between having unrealistic expectations of a president, and having the perfectly reasonable reaction that the dude seems to find plenty of time for fundraisers and sit-downs with Marv Albert about where LeBron James is going to play, but is waiting until five weeks into this cataclysm to specifically address the public’s concerns through the media.
“Just optics” or not, it’s inexcusable. Optics is part of the gig. Optics is how the dude got elected.
It reminds me of how he “handled” the health care debate: come up with a rubric, and kick the can down the road to a variety of deliberative bodies. It is exactly how an academic handles such problems, and it is infuriating to many of us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@angler: I’m not going to watch a clip of Carville (the man got on my nerves even when he was politically relevant, a decade and half ago), but from the quotes given by TPM, he is quite literally saying Obama should do more photo-ops
Va Highlander
@Va Highlander: Why did this go into moderation?
AxelFoley
@Chinn Romney:
Son, you gotta do better than that.
Citizen_X
@Dan:
Oh, for fuck’s sake. No, stop: it is not reality. If there’s anything nearly four hundred years of science has taught us, it’s that one’s perceptions can be fatally misleading.
Now, maybe that can be said about politics, but it’s more accurate to say, “Marketing is reality.” Or, “Propaganda is reality.”
And I think that’s what a lot of complaints boil down to: we need a better propaganda effort. Color me unimpressed.
joeinoklahoma
the first thing Obama needs to do is address the nation and tell us what IS being done. so far, he has sent out his aides to dismiss speculation and criticize the critics, even as they talk of BP as “partners”.
also, has anyone else noticed that in the 21 years since Exxon Valdez, the oil companies have not moved forward one inch on spill prevention and clean-up. they are “trying” the same tactics they did then. nothing has improved.
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
Imagine that! We leased phreatic eruption rights to a strato-volcano in Iceland that then proceeded to send silica ash into the air routes across the Atlantic. We need to investigate!
Hoocadonode?
Va Highlander
@mcd410x: Considering that les did not even know why he was yelling at me, what’s your point?
slag
@DougJ:
Hilariously awesome! Seriously, DougJ, you should form a consulting company for this stuff.
Also, count me in as someone who could use a cheerleader right now. After a goddamn cheerless month, some fucking cheer sure wouldn’t hurt. Although, I guess the only cheer that would make a difference right now would be for somebody to Fix. It. FIX IT! (you bastards).
Anton Sirius
@Michael:
The tag should be “Be a cheerleader, save the world.”
Because nothing says cutting edge like dated pop culture references.
WereBear
I haven’t seen it, but I’d guess that’s what Carville Skeletor is frothing about; this is a wasted propaganda opportunity! Republicans do propaganda so much better than we do!
True; because the optics are all they care about.
James K. Polk, Esq.
@celticdragonchick:
Still waiting on those mitigation ideas that BP is not implementing.
Anything at all?
celticdragonchick
@Citizen_X:
You do understand that people do actually vote in a democracy? Or did our publick educashun sistim leave that out?
If people (remember all those low information voters and independant types that watch Faux news as well as other channels?) think Obama is fucking up the response, then he and Dems will be punished accordingly in elections.
By the by, it was Bush’s non response to Katrina that forced my break with the Republican Party.
Liz
Thanks for front-paging my comment containing Rayne’s suggestions. The more good ideas we can put in front of people, the better.
Today, I see that James Carville also feels that a lot more can be done and I’m glad he’s getting shrill about it.
Carville said the administration needs “to launch a criminal investigation — the Attorney General needs to investigate criminal negligence on the part of BP and what went on at MMS (the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that regulates offshore drilling). There’s a thousand things that he could do. He just needs to get down here and start doing something, people are dying.”
Tim I
Why did you post this drivel. Long on emo and short on realistic solutions.
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick:
not the giant fuck up in iraq that killed 5,000 GIs, after he lied about WMD and yellow cake uranium, after he lied about saddam being behind 9/11?
and you blab that obama should be more sensitive?
celticdragonchick
@James K. Polk, Esq.:
last I heard we have a lot of smart and talented folks at Scripps, DARPA and numerous other places in this larg-ish country of ours.
Bring them in.
In the mean time, it would be informative for the President to do an old Reagan trick and talk directly to the American people…in prime time… and explain what the government is doing, what is possible and how some Republican senators are refusing to allow debate on expanding the damages cap for catastrophes like this.
Or, Fuck it! Faux news can frame it any way they like and we can scream about our butthurt because they are getting their message out to the gullible public and that is just so unfair!
tim
@celticdragonchick:
You’re wasting your breath, my wise friend.
But never fear, Va Highlander is researching this on the web and will let the White House know when he has found the solution.
Until you yourself have the engineering solution to this problem in hand, and post it here so that Va Highlander can pass it on to our friends at the WH and BP, then you’re not supposed to say anything.
Anton Sirius
@liberal:
Cue chorus of “Obama’s politicizing this disaster!” from the usual suspects.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Liz: A congressional panel has turned up an internal memo from BP that indicates they ignored warning signs that the site was headed for trouble. This will probably lead to a criminal negligence investigation. Salazar (whom I hate with the white hot intensity of a thousand suns and if he winds up being a sacrificial lamb for this, I won’t shed a tear) announced two days ago that he was going to turn up the heat in the on-going investigation of MMS. Obama is holding a press conference on this issue tomorrow, and is going to the Gulf Coast Friday. So what Carville called for is happening.
Which of them is going to stop the leak or clean up wetlands?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@celticdragonchick:
That is illuminating.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
In other words, you’ve bought into the lies being propagated by Fox News and you want Obama to “do things” that have already been done.
This is really what’s getting on my last nerve — people complaining about things Obama “should” do that have been in progress for three goddamned weeks. Criminal investigations? Ongoing. Tapping the expertise of everyone they can think of? Ongoing. Drilling relief wells? Ongoing. Obama making angry speeches every week? Ongoing.
I understand that people are angry because they feel helpless, but you know what? We are helpless. This fuckup by BP is so huge that there’s not a damn thing we can do and even the fact that Obama has been making weekly speeches isn’t going to fix that.
Va Highlander
@tim: “Ignorance is strength”, &c, &c.
tonyatlas
@Bobby Thomson: Do you have proof of this? I know there is a need to paint every corporation in an evil, profit greedy light, but what you wrote borders on the fictional. With all the noise out here in the MSM and blogisphere, we need facts not more conjecture.
Face
Ireland has erupting volcanoes? Or is this some thinly-veiled while-in-Europe condom reference?
celticdragonchick
@Mike Kay:
Do you have a ADD problem? Just wondering.
If you want to moan about why I didn’t leave the Republican Party sooner, we can argue in private. Maybe you should ask John Cole that question as well, right?
Sanctimonious strawman-punching asshole.
tim
@Kelly:
Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Cole the Bush Nazi, explaining to the world how NOT to put too much faith in a leader.
There’s an issue of credibility here…
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
THEY ALREADY HAVE. THEY DID IT THREE WEEKS AGO. That’s what Sec. Chu has been doing every day for the past month.
Have you noticed yet that everything you’re complaining hasn’t been done has, in fact, already been done? Maybe you need to check your news sources since they don’t seem to be informing you of the facts very well and in fact are freaking you out by claiming that operations that are in progress don’t really exist.
Mike Kay
@celticdragonchick:
Struck a nerve. Heh!
Fern
@Liz: I can’t remember where I read this, but it appears that the justice dept has been allocated a substantial sum of money for investigation and prosecution related to the spill.
Max Power
Seriously? FDL? Seriously? I wouldn’t trust them to run a laundromat, let alone give advice on how to combat a fucking oil disaster in the gulf.
celticdragonchick
@Face:
Meh. Iceland.
Ireland has some interesting flood basalts of early Tertiary age (about 60 MA) that cooled into giant hexagonal columns called the Giant’s Causeway.
tomjones
@angler: You should probably start at the beginning of the thread. Carville has been addressed and your comment is woefully redundant/brings nothing to the table.
Mnemosyne
@Liz:
DOJ investigators have been in Louisiana for three weeks now.
Carville is demanding something that is happening right now but he was too lazy and butt-ignorant to check on that before he shot his mouth off on TV.
Gus
@mcd410x: Ah, but the art of being a dick is at a high point.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Some sort of blue ribbon panel was formed, about which we know (relatively)little except there was some screaming about one of them being a homophobic idiot, who was dumped the next day.
Considering I am a news obsessed type, I wonder just what is getting through to the average person with a life who is not plugged into blogs and arguing about pointless shit like this on a beautiful day…
Maybe you need to find several million of those people and reassure them that Obama is playing 11th dimensional chess and has every duck in a row.
mds
@Mike Kay:
Wait, so Presidential rhetoric does matter?
South of I-10
I wonder if they are going to name the BP company man?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Overlooked this on my first read of the original post because I got distracted by the Rahm-tourette’s at the end, but:
As a lot of the comments on this thread and elsewhere demonstrate, the problem is that the discussions between the experts, consultants, scientists, technicians, lawyers, etc, aren’t being televised. I’m guessing a lot of that is happening by email, telephone, memo and other non-telegenic ways, but maybe the 24 producers could do some kind of mash-up, with fast-paced editing and bass-heavy music.
(I want some points for resisting the easy snark about the adolescent world-view)
James K. Polk, Esq.
@celticdragonchick:
Ok, your solutions are:
Do what we already have done.
Speechify.
Punitive actions via congress critters (which do not mitigate the disaster continuing to unfold).
THIS is Obama’s Katrina?
les
@Va Highlander:
Hey, if you choose to play the fool, you get the response. I hear you say “I’m not the fool, I’m the mocker!!”, but if you possess any information or sense you haven’t made it apparent. Performance art, if that’s what you’re about, is hard to distinguish in a comment thread.
tomjones
@tim: That is some weak tea you’ve got there.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Probably, but Carville is the liberal version of Dick Morris. He is a consumate political image person, and most people do not know about whatever the DOJ is doing right now since that is not reported. What we see and hear is how BP is telling Coast Guard officers to threaten reporters and how they coerce their employees into signing statments at sea while they falsify inspection logs.
ruemara
@celticdragonchick:
How does this have the same feel? I know my president was out there a week later. I’ve seen him talking about it. I’ve read the releases and timelines at Whitehouse.gov. I may not believe in BP expertise or think everything legislative that could be done is being done, but the sheer horror of bodies floating in the water and people in true physical harms way is simply not there. I don’t deny you your right to feel this way, but I must point out that people had already died in by hundreds before we saw the federal gov lurch into reaction.
celticdragonchick
@mds:
Foolish consistancy!
Heh!
hal
@cleek
Yeesh. The strawman accusation that seems to pop up from time to time. I read plenty of comments stating “perception is everything” and all but demanding Obama drop down into the gulf and give a performance so people don’t get the wrong impression. Being calm and collected is somehow offensive compared to a Bush level mission accomplished sign? I say bullshit.
tomjones
@Mnemosyne: I suspect that for many of the people complaining, daily kos and fire dog lake are the only “news sources” they consult.
Jules
So many comments.
The problem with this list is that the writer/writers are obviously uninformed.
A number of their points are already being done.
I have found this twitter feed to be helpful, it is updates from the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center (JIC) on Unified Command response efforts to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
http://twitter.com/Oil_Spill_2010
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Just them having the actual facts would be nice at this point since even people who are plugged in don’t seem to know them.
Can you at least stop spreading the lies once we tell you that they’re lies, or even that too much to ask?
Emma
Celticdragonchick: you don’t need to spend the whole day reading blogs, etc. The White House has a page on the oil spill action. If you don’t want to believe them, try The Oil Drum for the technical stuff. For the news, BBC World is unbeatable.
danimal
Patience isn’t always perceived as a virtue during an emergency, but I’m glad we have an administration that works behind the scenes to actually solve the problem rather than preen for the cameras. Most of the suggestions I’m seeing fall into “Marxist takeovers of private companies” or “better photo ops” categories. While better photo ops may have a short-term positive impact, stopping the damned oil from spilling really needs to be the priority right now.
There will be PLENTY of time to make political hay out of this disaster, but right now the best approach is to work with (and threaten as necessary) BP nonstop to stop the flow of oil. BP can spend down their billions in profits and use their expertise and business relationships to plug the spill.
I’d be shocked if this oil spill and the WV mining disaster aren’t used to sell a climate bill either this year or next year, but right now we need all efforts concentrated on fixing the immediate problem.
tomjones
@celticdragonchick: Wow, you say this and have the audacity to complain about straw men?
This pot could not be any blacker if it were teh soul of a BP corporate exec.
Mike Kay
@mds: no, only empty rhetoric is meanless. obama can clap as loud as you want, and it won’t cap the well.
celticdragonchick
@ruemara:
Thank you for actually taking time to write a reasonable and measured response! :)
Keep in mind that the sheer horror of what this leak is doing is not visible to the public, and that the human death toll is a mere 14 dead as opposed to Katrina. Also, we don’t have photos of the casualties floating in the Gulf (I don’t think any remains have yet been found)
So, we get the slo-mo unfolding of anoxia in the Gulf extending from the wave surface all the way to the seabed, follwed by the poisoning of the coral reefs of the keys and then the extension of the dead zone all the way up the Eastern Seaboard.
This will unfold for months, if not years, and the consequences of it will be measered in multiple human lifetimes.
Bill H
I think the single issue that makes any sense is that it should be the government communicating with the public rather than BP. I’m not sure we really care about who is doing what, we just would rather listen to people whom we percieve as representing the solution rather than listening to people whom we percieve as representing the problem.
Max Power
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Christ, call Disneyland. They have submarines, don’t they?
( rolls eyes … around and around and around …..)
Va Highlander
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Sometimes the low-hanging fruit is also the sweetest.
Otherwise, well said.
Martin
You know, WWII would have ended sooner if Roosevelt would have said ‘fuck’ more in his fireside chats and streamed live video of the troops organizing the week before D-Day. The American public never thought he took that war seriously.
AhabTRuler
I don’t know if this has been covered, but the relief well was begun almost as soon as the drill ship was able to pull it’s drilling equipment and move to the site. The Development Driller III was in the process of drilling nearby, and it took a couple of days for it to close down the bore it was working on. Furthermore, the relief well will be used (if needed) to inject mud into the bottom of the existing well (a bottom-kill), not to extract oil.
Va Highlander
@les: Dwell in darkness.
celticdragonchick
@tomjones:
Since satire seems above your grade level, I will try to make this simple:
It does not matter if John Cole or you think that DFH’s are yelling for Obama to clap louder and that they should shut the fuck up and let the (as yet unknown) experts do some sort of mitigation behind the scenes.
Voters are going to want public answers and public results and they will blame the President, rightly or wrongly, for not producing either.
But by all means, keep getting pissed off at the people pointing this out!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@magurakurin:
Thanks for writing what I was thinking. It may require a new law to be passed by Congress to make it permanent, but in the meantime Obama should issue an executive order requiring that no new deep water offshore drilling will be permited without the simultaneous drilling of a relief well to at least something like 80-90 percent of the required depth, and the prepositioning of the other equipment required to put it into use within days if a blowout occurs. That will make drilling more expensive and slow it down, but that’s what the invisible hand of the marketplace is for, to take care of problems like that (the pricing).
celticdragonchick
Okay..that was interesting.
Jules
Last night we were watching Katie Couric interview 6 folks in the Gulf Coast area and she had led in with HOW PISSED OFF these people were with the Feds.
Except once we were in the interview she was having a hard time getting them to really go off on “the gov’t”. She kept asking things like “but you are also supper pissed at the federal gov’t, right” and the folks were just “well they are doing the best they can and BP broke it so they have to fix it.”
You could tell she was very annoyed with the lack of “OMG!!!! OBama, worst evah” from the people.
slag
@Bill H:
I agree with this, in theory, but at this point, pretty much everyone in a position to represent is perceived as representing the problem.
Also, WordPress malfunction. Attention. Attention. Cleanup needed on Aisle 10.
Michael
Fixed.
ETA – Well, shit. Not fixed. Italics as far as the eye can see.
How about some old fashioned html?
Martin
Correct. This well was dead the moment the BOP failed. There was never an ability to save it.
The first relief well started drilling on May 2. The DWH sank on April 22. It took a few days for them to map out where the relief well should be drilled from – they had to find the DWH wreckage, the collapsed pipe, make sure they weren’t going to hit any of that stuff, etc. Meanwhile the DD III was shutting down its operation and preparing to move. The relief also needed to be planned and designed, they needed to source a new BOP, pipe, and other equipment and get it on site – and the DOI had to approve the plan to drill the relief.
That it only took 10 days to get a new well started is actually pretty impressive. Sure, they might have been able to cut some corners and shave a day or two off of that, but we’ve already got on disaster on our hands – no point begging for a second.
ruemara
Close that bloody tag pls. You’re fancifying the thread with italics everywhere. Looks like Rush Limbaugh designed it.
Mary G
I feel queasy when I read about BP’s holding the rig’s survivors incommunicado on a boat somewhere for 40 hours and only letting them go onto dry land after they signed some sort of legal release.
Hearing the CEO saying “get them out of here” about reporters and cameras near a large pool of oil on a beach makes me wary.
Also, there seem to be allegations that news organizations aren’t being allowed to film dead birds, etc. and that BP is rejecting offers of volunteers to help with the cleanup. The Coast Guard may or may not be in cahoots with this.
They were offering fishermen whose whole livelihood may be gone up to $5,000 to settle claims. Classy. How someone with a $200,000 bank loan on their shrimp boat is supposed to find that acceptable is beyond me.
I wouldn’t mind a stern rebuke from President Obama calling them out for this type of “move along there, nothing to see here” PR-managing, incident-minimizing behavior, much like he did after the fingerpointing that went on at the Senate hearings between Halliburton, Transocean and BP.
wrb
@liberal:
Actually it seems to have created a bind. It looks like it has made passing the climate change bill harder. L Graham pretty much called it dead this morning. Now some Democrats won’t vote for a bill with offshore drilling and republicans won’t vote for a bill that doesn’t include it. So say goodbye to putting a price on carbon.
Obama’s path is really tricky if he’s to get anything done. It would probably involve persuading Nelson et al to support a bill with highly regulated drilling.
But then the Firebaggers would be screaming “BETRAYAL!” Idiot purity freaks endanger our survival.
eemom
if yer gonna do a front page full quote of a clueless firebot, you really ought to do one of Giordano’s piece that you linked to yesterday. Fair and balanced. Jussayinzall.
Fern
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: It’s my impression that this procedure, or something like it, is required in other countries. This is currently under dispute in Canada – proposed regulations to mandate relief wells are being strenuously opposed by industry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@celticdragonchick:
SInce you won’t click on any of the links that are repeatedly offered you:
True, they don’t give the names of the experts, but be honest, if they did, would it mean anything to you?
Fern
@Mary G: The story about holding the workers has been debunked.
ruemara
ok
@celticdragonchick:
I get that. But the issue is one of the huge devastation in an arena where the government has legal responsibility, not where a corporate entity has accepted the legal responsibility as a cost of wallowing in the profits. People are horrified, the devastation is real, yet I’m finding most of the “solutions” presented are already being done, the bully pulpiting has happened. Even the above statement that it shouldn’t be BP spokesmen but government spokesmen is ignoring all the ranting against the Coast Guard that has happened up thread. This is a perception that you’re demanding actions be taken to change, that have already been done, but you’re dismissing it. Legally, the federal government must work within the confines of allowing BP to take the lead on all labor, provide a secure work environment to keep citizens safe as possible, set parameters for what a clean up is and investigate the source of the accident. This is all happening or has happened. Most of the complaints I’m hearing, listening to Thom Hartmann right now, come from people who have no idea wth is involved in drilling and is couched in generalities divorced from the facts.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fern: THank god. That gave me a start, and struck me as all too believable.
Va Highlander
@Martin: This.
celticdragonchick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Actually, yes it would. I am finishing a geology degree and it would be informative to see who in my field is being tapped to deal with this.
ruemara
fixed?
if not, fywp
chopper
@Max Power:
“20,000 leagues under the sea” refers to the distance the sub traveled, not the depth.
mds
According to the dominant expert opinion in this thread, the answer is yes. No one else has done deepwater drilling … ever.
And all this horseshit about “cheerleading” manages to be even stupider. For those of us who haven’t spent the past thirty years in their parents’ basement thinking that Jimmy Carter served two terms, we’ve noticed that rhetoric actually influences elections. Hell, if it weren’t for rhetoric at the Dem convention in 2004, a lot fewer people would have heard of Barack Obama. The low-information voting public aren’t combing technical minutiae about droplet size on the Internet in order to form their opinions. Is this necessarily fair? No. Welcome to reality, kiddies.
And if vague public perceptions don’t matter to this White House, why the fuck is the President deploying 1200 National Guard to the border? Because he’s actually a moron who thinks that will accomplish something substantive, or because of the optics?
celticdragonchick
@ruemara:
Well stated (no pun intended), but political realities and political calculus do not change.
If the disastor continues and Obama contiues to look disengaged (look at Senator nelson complaining about it at HuffPo), then voters are apt to punish him and the Dems.
Mnemosyne
Okay, all of the “20,000 Leagues” talk forced me to look it up: a league is generally considered to be about 3 miles.
Mr Furious
@Hunter Gathers:
They wouldn’t clog Daniel Plainview’s milkshake straw.
celticdragonchick
@mds:
This!
Mary G
@Fern: Thanks. I hadn’t heard that.
Max Power
@chopper:
Thanks. I never understood the nautical measurement of “leagues.”
kay
@Liz:
It’s a great suggestion, Liz, except the DOJ has been there for three weeks.
Three weeks. Investigating. They’re on it.
I really. really expect Carville to freaking Google for 30 seconds before making suggestions.
Rick Taylor
I very much want the government to be in charge of addressing this disaster, of knowing they are the one’s making the most important decisions. Take for example BP injecting hundreds of thousands of chemicals into oil to break it up. Is this a good idea? I don’t know, but it shouldn’t be BP’s call either way. It helps the surface marine life, but it’s creating underwater oil plumes you can no longer coral using booms, and know one knows what the ultimate effects on sea life are going to be. They won’t even say what they’re injecting, as it’s a trademarked secret which is just astounding to me; you mean you can dump hundreds of thousands of gallons into the ocean and not even have to tell anyone what it is? Of course when the government via the EPA did make a decision, BP basically told them to fuck off, so we can see who’s in charge.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
You mean that someone who’s opposed every big piece of legislation that Obama has tried to push through Congress is trying to make Obama look bad in public?
Well, knock me over with a feather. Whoocodanode?
Mr Furious
@magurakurin:
That’s an EXCELLENT idea.
I’m sure Sen. James Inhofe is getting ready to filibuster it…
Mnemosyne
@mds:
Yes, it does. That’s why we think that Democrats like Carville should stop spreading lies and misinformation about the efforts in the Gulf. I really don’t want the Democrats to lose seats based on the kind of ignorant idiocy that’s been spouted on these threads demanding why Obama hasn’t done things that are already done.
Max Power
@kay:
I’d really, really like some of the commenters in this thread to consult “teh google” as well as other sites and links before mouthing off as well. But that would get in the way of a good rant.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne:
This!
Ed Drone
Do something about this italic font!
So many people clamoring for “doing something” that’s already being done — it is reminiscent of those MS Windows 7 commercials, where the actors claim “Windows 7 was my idea!”
Gaaaah!
Ed
stormhit
Most of that is stupid on its face, and I’m actually pretty sure you’re aware of that. It’s like you’re just trying to be fair and balanced when you post their responses sometimes.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Did you somehow reach the conclusion that Nelson is the only one wondering why the President looks, ahem, diffident on this issue?
The arguments are starting to look like desperate rationalizations.
I’m not your enemy, folk, nor is mds. You are going to have to deal with voter perceptions and elections, and we are trying to warn you guys that Faux News looks to be winning that war…but don’t mind any of us.
Va Highlander
I recently tangled with a nest of birthers, which I’d stumbled upon by accident, and came away thinking, innocently enough, that such mind-numbing stupidity must surely be a conservative thing.
How wrong I was!
Most days, I cannot decide whether to just follow them off to the Booby Hatch or draw a hot bath while I look for a razor blade.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Worth a try
AhabTRuler did it with an unclosed em tag at 251
I will try closing it here
LikeableInMyOwnWay
So, do I get the free carwash coupon?
I guess not
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
No, I’m pointing out that Nelson is one of the people pushing the story, and yet for some reason you’re seeing him as an objective observer, not someone with an agenda.
Nelson isn’t “wondering” about Obama’s diffident image. He’s creating it. Deliberately. And you’re buying what he’s selling.
wrb
@Mnemosyne:
The is the other Nelson. The Dem from Florida who has now pledged to vote against the climate bill because it authorizes additional offshore exploration.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, I’m sorry…that would require the administrtion to start cheerleading and letting people know what was being done instead of letting them divine it by magic or get it from Faux News. We are already resolved that the administration shouldn’t be cheerleading and it is up to the public to figure it all out with help from Hannity and Michelle Bachmann.
angler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’d be # 4 from following menu choices on display in this thread:
1. irresponsible drama queen
2. uninformed media whore
3. ideological purist, head in clouds
4. obsolete hack.
5. a little knowledge is a dangerous thing
6. stealth Republican
7. secret Santa
8. dirty Sanchez
9. Roman Polanski’s pizza delivery service
10. none of the above, a.k.a. I fart in your general direction.
kay
@Max Power:
If he’s talking about political perception, then he should say that.
You know, this happens again and again, and we all get up in arms when the Right does it, but the fact is, all pundits do it too, on both cable and the internet.
There are facts, and then there is political spin.
Carville knows goddamn well the place was crawling with prosecutors beginning three weeks ago. BP is paying claims. They’ve paid 27 million, as of yesterday.
He’s saying this stuff to push his opinion that Obama isn’t doing enough. Doesn’t make spouting it less of a lie.
If we agree with him, does that make it okay to launch these ridiculous charges?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@celticdragonchick:
No, but ill-informed hysteric (and, does anyone think its not relevant?–bitter PUMA) James Carville is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@angler: alternatively, you could point to something a) substantive and b) true in what Carville said.
@kay:
Personally, I think you vastly overestimate him.
celticdragonchick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well, I can’t really disagree with that.
I still think Carville is Smeagol’s lost twin.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Max Power:
I’m pretty sure it is more than 100 Friedman Underwater Units.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@celticdragonchick:
Good god, does that mean he married his own sister!
kay
@celticdragonchick:
Major news agencies asked the DOJ yesterday if they were anticipating criminal charges, because they’re there and they know they’re investigating.
The DOJ can’t, of course, say anything, because they have silly formalities like an investigation, a grand jury and then an indictment, but the fact is most of the major news agencies have been following James Carville’s inquiry.
He doesn’t read anything, or he’s got an agenda. Pick one.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@celticdragonchick:
Laugh of the day.
Max Power
@kay:
Oh, I totally agree with you.
celticdragonchick
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Maybe we can stop the leak with Friedman’s mustache hairs mixed with condensced droplets of ego and shreds of newspaper stories about cab drivers in India…
celticdragonchick
@kay:
I pick both. He is a PUMA opportunist.
Can’t we drop his ass in Mordor so he can mumble about ‘precioussss’ and throttle orcs for food?
Glen Tomkins
Why we should nationalize the problem
It is indeed quite possible, even likely, that there is no strikingly obvious and easy remedy for the leak. And yes, BP probably has at its disposal better assets than the US gummint currently has to deal with this kind of problem.
Well, for one thing, strike that last argument. What nationalizing the problem means, at anyone’s minimum description of what that might mean, is that the gummint expropriates all those resources — labor, materiale and expertise, from BP and any other entity — that might be needed to deal with the problem. Now, if that seems too extreme, if you believe that sacred, libertarian fundamentalist, property rights trump every consideration of even the most extreme and pressing public good, then, sure, you don’t think we should nationalize the problem. But your objection is ideological, not practical. You probably don’t think we should nationalize any problem.
What prospect is there though, that practically speaking, the gummint running the show would give the public interest a better outcome? Sure, a magic solution, something quick and easy, is almost certainly not possible, or BP would have done that already, because its interests align with those of the public at that extreme end of the spectrum of possible responses. But BP’s interests are not identical with the public’s — the arbitrary cap on their liability insures that — and there is still quite a bit of daylight between what is good for BP, and what is good for the public, at the less extreme end of the spectrum of possbile responses; responses that improve the public good at least marginally. In a disaster of this magnitude, even a very marginal improvement would be incredibly valuable.
This idea that BP might not act as zealously to guard the public good in the present circumstances as the gummint would, is not some mere theoretical consideration. They have systematically dragged their feet on sharing what they know of the shape and size of the problem. They blew through their liability cap about 2 seconds after the initial explosion. At this point their sole interest is minimizing the PR hit. So of course they guard information about the leak carefully, no matter how much that information might let others, the gummint, or engineers who work for academia or other oil companies, help with marginally improving suggestions.
At the very minimum, information about this problem needs to be fully and completely nationalized, controlled by the gummint and made available to all, and not subject to any consideration at all of BP’s interests in controlling the PR or protecting business secrets. If we don’t take at least that step, if we don’t get the full extent and nature of the porblem out in the open for the scrutiny of the whole world, how can anyone say that there is nothing useful to be done that BP isn’t already doing? Glasnost has to be the first step of perestroika. Surely this procedure applies to crony capitalism as least as well as to crony Communism.
And if we have nationalized the means of information about this problem, it follows that we need to go the next step, and nationalize the means of at least ameliorating the problem, if no miracle cure is possible. For one thing, in many cases it’s the same machines and technicians for the information and intervention. But even if the functions were cleanly separable, there is still the fact that BP’s interests simply do not align perfectly with the needs and interests of the public. All of the experise, the skilled labor, and the specialized machines that BP controls are now deployed to protect BP’s interests. Sure, nationalizing them will not make them more expert or skillful, or more powerful. But it will deploy them serving our interests rather than BP’s.
The fact that no miracle cure seems likely is actually the strongest possible argument for nationalizing the problem. The solutions available are likely to provide only marginal improvement, and that at a trade-off. We obviously already have a trade-off in the question of dispersants. BP has a clear interest in maximal dispersant use, the effects on deep sea ecologies be damned, no matter what the ultimate potentially much greater cost of destroying those ecologies, because there is more risk of PR hit plus breach in their liability limit, from surface oil. Right now we’re letting BP do what is in its interests with dispersants, not ours, at a potentially devastating cost.
The same reasoning applies to every measure to stop or ameliorate the leak. To take an extreme case, perhaps the idea of nuking the leak really is simply a bad one, with bad outcomes dominating the decision tree. But surely, if it is at all possible that the potential good outweighs the likely (and largely imponderable, which may doom further consideration of this idea) risks, it is for the people and their representatives to make that trade-off, not BP. Extreme solutions are right off the table unless we nationalize, even ones that might be worth the risk, because only the gummint, after public debate, can take those risks.
Lastly, even if there were no benefit directly accruing to the handling of this disaster, I think that the deterrent effect of nationalizing this problem would prove salutary at preventing recurrences. Maybe the initial explosion really was a truly freak occurrence, something that deterrence won’t help prevent because there was no wild risk-taking in this case that needs deterring. But that hardly seems certain, or even likely. Visiting ruin upon BP would hardly be an act of irrational vengeance, even if it wouldn’t help out the present disaster, even if that horse is already out of the barn. These malefactors of great wealth need to learn that negligence has consequences, and when the consequences their negligence visits upon the public reach a Wrath of God magnitude, the public will visit some wrath of equal magnitude on the perpetrators.
kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They have a whole massive section on civil damages. It’s a big part of what they do. They sue or defend on behalf of the government. Carville thought they were just sort of waiting around, until he speaks, then LIGHTBULB! “Let’s go do our job!”
Not to mention that Louisiana has a whole set of laws to enforce, and their own mob of lawyers.
I have to say, I love, love,love listening to “experts” who didn’t bother to Google and read the Oil Pollution Act, or anything else that might offer insight.
Maybe James Carville can be the special master in charge of claims.
NobodySpecial
@mds:
Some people on this site don’t like ‘optics’. Probably because the view from their own ass burns their eyes.
The firebagger post that started this is mostly wrong, but their pooh-poohing of the political ramifications is mostly wrong, too. And if we end up with House Speaker McConnell and President Rand or Palin because someone failed to manage the optics of an ongoing crisis, they’ll certainly be blaming ‘the left’ for being insufficiently…whatever.
Midnight Marauder
@celticdragonchick:
And I think that is my biggest frustration with the repeated nonsense in this (and previous) threads. We are supposed to be on the same side in this fight, and yet for some reason, there is a large contingent that continues to be outraged over things that are already happening! If we are talking about voter perceptions, then we need to address the critical fact that a vast number of voters are grossly misinformed for whatever reason, and that includes a substantial number of people in this thread.
Do you know why Faux News is winning the war? Because James fucking Carville can get on CNN and spout off about how the Obama Administration “isn’t doing anything” and how we need investigations and to get more aggressive with BP and so forth; and then a bunch of liberals start bemoaning those very facts, without taking the goddamn time or effort to verify whether it is, in fact, true. And then when people point out this vicious cycle, the typical response is “WE WANT THE PRESIDENT TO BE ANGRY ON TEEVEE!” Awesome, he’ll be there on Friday. Go stock up on popcorn and read up on the cleanup efforts in the meantime, because you obviously care more about being upset than learning what is actual happening on the ground.
@stormhit:
Honestly. I am kind of surprised Cole didn’t post this as a thread in response yet:
But I guess these kinds of things don’t count if they are happening behind the scenes, and not from a Bully Pulpit on a sand dune covered in oil down in Louisiana.
Tsulagi
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You got that right. If dragonchick had bothered to click on the helpful link she could have learned under “Latest Information” the latest can of whoopass the admin has opened on this mother…
That’ll get the job done. Step back, duck and cover, they’re going to unleash bipartisanship. And if that isn’t enough to cause constipation in Deepwater Horizon stemming the flow, they’re keeping consensus in reserve. Hopefully some helpful Dem has prepared tea for Olympia in case it’s going too fast for her again.
Va Highlander
I think this belongs here, too:
kay
@Max Power:
If pundits want to make suggestions on “optics”, fine, that’s the bullshit they specialize in. When they start making stuff up to push that agenda, I think they are then lying.
celticdragonchick
@NobodySpecial:
Indeed.
The failure of people in this thread to understand such a basic premise is gobsmacking.
Epistemic closure is not just a feature of the right.
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
I saw that last night, and you’re right, it’s interesting.
You’ll be happy to know CNN has been reporting it all morning.
Barbara Boxer told them.
AhabTRuler
So what? Now you can’t use hyphens to separate two associated words? FYWP!
celticdragonchick
@Tsulagi:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.
Unfrakking-believable.
John D.
Attempting to unfuck the comments.
kay
@celticdragonchick:
It’s not that. It’s that you have to stick to your story.
The substantive response is one thing. That’s facts. That’s what John’s post is about.
The political tenor of the response is another.
I’m simply asking that the political side stick to the factual basis, rather than misstate the facts to buttress the political argument.
I’m convinced that that’s how we get into these messes. The way to stop doing that is not “Democrats make more and better shit up, in pursuit of their agenda”.
Va Highlander
@Glen Tomkins:
Oh, horseshit!
What are you going to do if…say…the top four drilling engineers walk off the job? Are you going to dispatch a US Marshall to bring them back at gunpoint?
I think that’s a practical concern, myself.
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
Good for Sen. Boxer. And even better that CNN is putting their professional stenography powers towards getting that information out there.
I think it’s fascinating so many people continue to believe that BP has no incentive to get this leak fixed and to fix it ASAP. Like BP’s lawyers didn’t know about this clause? Like there isn’t a reason they keep trying to prevent us from finding out just how much oil is actually spilling into the Gulf right now? Like they don’t know the government can prove negligence in order to make sure BP gets hit with the maximum fine?
It is complete insanity. They already are on the hook for $13 billion in potential civil fines. You think they don’t desperately want this top kill plug to work?
But I guess if you have no faith in the Obama Administration, then it makes sense that you would scoff at the idea that they could ever follow-through over the next several years to see that process through.
And that’s what this big brouhaha is really all about at the end of the day, isn’t it?
celticdragonchick
@Midnight Marauder:
I wonder if there isn’t anything under EPA hazardous waste laws that BP can be additionally penalized on without running into the 75 million cap…
http://www.epa.gov/wastes/laws-regs/regs-haz.htm
One of the things I learned working as an intern at Earth Technology in Diamond Bar, California, was that producers of toxic wastes are responsible for said wastes in perpituity.
celticdragonchick
@kay:
I completely agree, although I still think that a factual and aggressive public information campaign from this administration will be needed, even if every technical possibility is being explored. People need to know that and it needs to be said in prime time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@celticdragonchick: Why is it unfrakking believable? That’s their job, oversight. This isn’t in place of substantive, scientific action, it won’t get in the way of same. And considering that our elected leaders, on both sides of the aisle, are not the brightest bulbs in the lamp shop, some of them probably do need to be physically shown and hand-held through the explanation of just how fucking big a mess this is.
And, FWIW, in terms of message management, I do agree that Obama waited too long to schedule a press conference on this, but it is a big, complicated mess, and there wouldn’t be much point in getting out there earlier with less information. “We’re takin’ this real serious, and we’re lookin’ real hard for a solution, and in the mean-time, Laura and I are prayin’ that these good folks who don’t believe that Jeebus made the world in six days find some guvvermint solution to the problem brought to us by our glorious, unregulated, free market solution to endin’ our dependence on foreign oil.”
wrb
There is
kay
@celticdragonchick:
But they’re not going to listen to Carville now, celtic. He flat-out lied about the effort.
If he wants to advise, or be listened to, maybe not leading with a baseless charge would be smart.
During the health care debate, I listened in amazement as Keith Olberman did that insane rant about how he would go to jail rather than purchase an insurance policy.
But there’s no IRS enforcement method in that bill. There’s no liens. There’s no criminal penalty. He made it up.
You tell me how that’s different than “death panels”.
Why would the administration listen to Olberman on health care, after that?
I don’t want “my side” using tactics like this.
celticdragonchick
@kay:
Nor do I.
We actually do have facts to work with…not that they are worth much in today’s idiotocracy…but I think we should be using them.
Cyrus
No, you blithering idiots, perception is not reality. That’s a particularly abhorrent view because it’s a core belief of neocons – remember where the phrase “reality-based community” came from, anyone? – but it’s also stupid independently of that. For example, I perceive that celticdragonchick is a jackass. So what? Is she? Well, maybe she is, but that has nothing to do with whether or not I perceive it. Reality is reality. Murder isn’t OK if no one notices the dead body, a healthy relationship isn’t healthy if one person doesn’t notice the problems, and the perception at any particular moment that a politician is weak or stupid or evil doesn’t mean it’s actually true.
Perception (of politicians) shapes political outcomes. That’s about as close as it comes to “being reality”. Lots of other things also shape political outcomes, including but not limited to perceptions of things other than politicians and demographics and money and the economy and the structure of government, and figuring out the relative weighting of each of them is beyond my abilities and too good for you WATBs anyway.
I agree with whoever it was way upthread who said that the government might very well be doing everything it could about the current spill already (or it might not, I don’t know) and histrionics from Obama won’t get it sealed any quicker, and legislation and prevention is a separate issue from that. If nothing gets done about those by, to pick a date out of the air, August, then I promise I’ll get pissed off at Obama too. Pinky swear! But the people working on the spill will have to be among the people working on the legislation or regulation, and I can’t blame them if they’re putting today’s spill first.
All that being said, to be fair though, I don’t have any particular faith in BP’s efforts. Good, they’re on the hook for billions. What happens if they declare bankruptcy?
Mary G
This article in Mother Jones is interesting about BP’s trying to keep reporters away and shows some pictures and interviews with guys who are getting $10/hour to shovel oil off the beach:
mapaghimagsik
@Brandon:
Yeah, that’s problematic, and Obama could have some positive impact on those problems. Its more behind the scenes.
I think, politically, Obama has done a good job.
I’ve only scanned The Oil Drum. You can get totally sucked in there, and this is not an easy problem to fix, and the moment the Feds take ownership of this, the screaming monkey brigades will rename it “Obama’s Katrina”. *And* they’ll still fight for offshore drilling.
And, if there’s any way to get the next Senator that blocks lifting liability caps in the Senate arrested under the “Anti-ratfuking America Law” I’m all for it. But that’s more the Senate, not Obama.
I do support:
1) Reasserting the Moratorium on Offshore drilling until we can make sure the rigs operating now don’t have the same issues
2) Getting the Coast Guard to stop spooning BP.
3) I really do think Ken Salazar should be done.
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
Or, you know, read the actual stories from the AP instead of relying on Faux News summaries.
Your complaint is that the massive amounts of information about the response to the oil spill that are on the White House website aren’t accessible enough. Obama’s two previous visits to the Gulf weren’t enough. His multiple speeches, including this week’s Weekly Address weren’t enough. The fact that there actually is an ongoing and comprehensive investigation and attempt to find a solution isn’t enough.
So tell us, wise one, what more should he do? Go door-to-door in the whole country so he can personally explain what happened and what the government is doing about it?
At some point, citizens have to take some responsibility for informing themselves. Scanning articles so casually that you miss things like the fact that the actions you’re demanding happen immediately have already happened is not the president’s fault.
angler
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You mistake your surroundings Jim. This is the thrice weekly internecine food fight thread that BJ throws up to rekindle the magic of pres. primary season. There may be some reasoning out of positions going on for some here but for most it’s just the joy of the threadwar.
Seriously, do you think this thread is here to argue about the Gulf clean up and whether talking heads have any beef behind the soundbytes? It’s to call each other names and score imaginary debating points. fun times!
Mnemosyne
You know, with all of these people swearing up and down that Obama is being horribly damaged by the events in the Gulf, I started looking for some polling information to support that. And I can’t find any, even from Rasmussen, which is always eager to carry water for Republicans. The most I can find is a Gallup poll from May 14 that concludes that people don’t blame Obama for the spill.
So can I ask where all of these people who are livid with Obama are other than hanging out at FDL and DKos?
angler
@tomjones:
See earlier post, #10.
Southern Beale
I’ve asked this a gazillion times before but don’t we have submarines? Can they not go to these depths? Doesn’t USGS/NOAA/etc. have some kind of remote submersibles? Or hell, call the freaking Cousteau society?
I find it hard to believe that “we don’t have the equipment” to stop this leak. We have the equipment to go to the moon and launch nuclear missiles. Surely we have *something*.
Fern
@Southern Beale: What do you think those subs would do even if they were able to dive to those depths?
kay
@Southern Beale:
Submarines can’t withstand the pressure that exists at that depth.
That’s what the oil engineer from Rice just said.
I just think that 22,000 people (that’s how many feds are on scene) working for 4 weeks, probably considered submarines.
Calliope
@Southern Beale:
No, we do not have submarines that can go down to 5,000 feet. Nobody does. Navy subs can only go down to 2,000 feet. Any deeper, and they will be crushed by the enormous pressure.
Btw, we HAD the equipment to go to the moon. 30 some years ago. We don’t have it now.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
I actually agree that he isn’t doing this “right” politically. He seems incapable of those sort of “Presidential” gestures. It’s not a deal-breaker, or anything, but I think it’s probably a flaw in a politician.
He has that flaw.
I didn’t think he should come out with hair on fire for the terrorist attempts, because that doesn’t make sense to me. But should he go and make some sort of gesture to show he’s present and attentive? Yeah. I think he should. Frustration and sorrow and anger are real things. They exist. They should be acknowledged.
He doesn’t have to play daddy, or hold hands, or hug, but he should do more than witness and manage from afar. I have no fucking idea why he hasn’t held a press conference. I think that’s just flat-out dumb.
celticdragonchick
@Cyrus:
Face/palm
*tells self to calm down and that some people really do confuse their political grudges with non partisan political and social mores*
You seem to be a literalist of some sort.
Here is the deal: In Politics(!!!), perception becomes the reality because politics is about perception. Okay? Maybe the mayor is an asshole in personal life, but he makes sure not to project that to the voters because he would never get elected.
Got it? It worked for Bill Clinton, who was reputed to be…an asshole in real life.
The converse is also true.
Nice, well meaning people who are diligent and competent can be tarred as reckless, indecisive or whatever you want according to the situation. If it sticks with the public, then your target will lose political power.
This administration is in dire danger of having this converse situation come about, and there is a 24/7 propaganda channel dedicated to doing just that by using the gulf catastrophe as the “tarring” mechanism.
NobodySpecial
I’ll take ‘Hasn’t been watching the last 20 years’ for $200, Alex.
Glen Tomkins
@Va Highlander:
Absolutely, if the four top engineers’ services really were critical, send in the marshalls. You don’t think the situation warrants that?
That said, as a practical matter, why would the engineers at BP care who they’re working for? You think they like subordinating sound engineering to the PR considerations their current bosses subject their decisions to? At the very minimum, you have to admit that BP is systematically concealing as much as possible of the problem from outside expertise. I have little respect for the professionalism of any engineers inside the organization who approve of that arrangement. If they do, I suspect their engineering doesn’t amount to much. Insofar as they are professionals, I suspect they would much rather work in a clean environment, one where they have one mission, an engineering mission, stopping or ameliorating the leak, a mission not constantly compromised in order to protect BP’s interests.
Besides, I thought that the discussion had moved past the idea that there is some miracle cure out there, that there are “four top engineers” anywhere who could pull off such a cure, and that the very worst that could happen would be for some imagined “top talent” to go Galt on us. A realistic view of the matter as it stands now is that it is beyond any simple means of just stopping the leak in any timely manner, no matter how ingenious the engineers involved, and even assuming that the geniuses all work for BP, and that they would resign in some sort of Randian huff if asked to apply their genius for the gummint rather than BP. What’s needed now is a sober public acceptance of what the options for amelioration are, and what trade-offs they will involve. The geniuses have had their shot at this, and failed. It’s time for plodding realists and sober acceptance, which will be fatally hindered by corporate secrecy, should we allow that to continue to surround this matter.
This disaster happened because we blithely assumed that leaving every question to “the top talent”, which of course must work for the industry, because they pay best, was the only way to go. Had enough of that path? Walked far enough down it yet, or do we need some disaster closer to where you live to bring it home? Ready for the radical notion that, just maybe, paying best buys good yes men, and buys legislators, but just maybe, can’t buy competence at anything but making money in an environment where having thrown all that money around has made it possible to make gobs of money while remaining perfectly incompetent at managing real world processes?
Maybe BP does have on staff the four best engineers for dealing with the leak. But why would that be? Their legal staff and lobbyists were so good at offloading all risk of the consequences of a leak, that wasting money on engineers competent at dealing with leaks would have been a waste of money. Whatever BP isn’t good at, they seem to be pretty good at not wasting money on non-essentials. The genius of the marketplace at work.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Too, it leaves a hole that assholes with an agenda like Carville and Nelson (and their internet megaphones) are all too eager to fill.
Put someone from the DOJ on to counter Carville’s nonsense.
Put the Coast Guard commander on, and let Nelson tell that guy he isn’t working hard enough.
They wouldn’t have to spend so much time countering myths if they didn’t let the myth-makers go unanswered.
celticdragonchick
@Mnemosyne:
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20005039-503544.html
Oh, never mind. It is MSM after all…
I think he will need to do a better job then what he is doing, though, if he wants to deflect blame.
kay
@Mnemosyne:
Although my husband says he doesn’t want the CG Commander on cable tv shows because he’d rather the CG Commander be down there working on “top kill day”, so maybe there are practical considerations that pundits don’t have to worry about.
kay
@celticdragonchick:
BP is paying claims very quickly. They had distributed 27 million as of yesterday and today they’re at 33. 11 million of that went to Louisiana fisherman alone.
That helps.
4jkb4ia
Thank you, brave commenter.
kay
@celticdragonchick:
Which is the other reason the “seize the assets” cry is ridiculous.
The fisherman probably have heavy monthly notes on that equipment. BP is paying claims, in an expedited system. How long would it take the DOJ to seize their assets and administer claims payment?
Mnemosyne
@celticdragonchick:
That’s kinda my point. The MSM and the pundits are having a hissy fit, but where’s the evidence that their hissy fit is (a) connected to reality and/or (b) is having any effect on public opinion. The MSM doesn’t go to the polls in November. The public does. So what does the public think about what’s going on?
Mnemosyne
@kay:
He did, during that first trip to Louisiana that people like tim have conveniently blocked from their memory. He hasn’t had one at the White House, but since the MSM decided to throw a hissy fit that they were being ignored, he’s having one tomorrow.
Tsulagi
@Southern Beale:
Navy has deep submergence rescue vehicles on call in case one of our subs go down. And since time would be critical in that situation, they can be loaded into a C-5 on their own trailer, wheels up within a few hours, then be hauled to the nearest port to the incident.
Don’t know if Mystic is still operational, but it has/had a maximum operating depth of 5,000ft. IIRC, the Mystic class has a grappler arm and cutters. Mystic is piloted, but a newer system intended to replace that class is remotely operated.
Also don’t know if they would be able to do anything to help stem the flow, but would think they could at least provide an independent assessment. While not so much with oil drilling, Navy does have some experience with stuff in the water. But maybe no need, as a CG admiral said, BP is our friend. They’re an honorary real American.
@Calliope:
Diver in a hardsuit can go down to 2,000 ft.
Mnemosyne
@Southern Beale:
The other problem is, as a couple people have mentioned in this gigantic thread, apparently oil is now coming out of the seabed and they’re not sure why. It’s not just a leak in a pipe that we can zero in on using a submersible.
brantl
@Va Highlander: And how long have they had? With all of their “equipment” and “expertise” , all that they seem to be good at is getting caught in lies, and running off newspeople.
Brandon
@les: Actually, because you asked, I have a BS in Chemistry, a MS in Environmental Science, and a JD. In a previous life, I first worked as a Remedial Project Manager (the remediation equivalent of the emergency responders called On-Scene Coordinators who are the ones down there in muck coordinating cleanup efforts with BP) for the Superfund program in EPA Region 9. Later I worked at EPA HQ in DC coordinating federal Superfund policy. In case you were not aware, EPA Superfund Programs are responsible for implementing CERCLA and the Oil Pollution Act. Over the 8 years that I worked at EPA, I have been responsible for the successful remediation and monitoring of probably a dozen industry lead cleanups under Consent Agreements and several fund lead cleanups, including 3 NPL sites. So in other words, I know my shit when it comes to the fate, transport and remediation of environmental contamination. If you want to be an obnoxious ass, be my guest, but let this be a lesson when you try to impugn others, you never know who’s on the Internet.
Back to the topic at hand, I have worked on one fund lead NPL marine site, but it was sediment contamination. While I have never worked in emergency response or on an oil cleanup, I have a pretty good idea of what the proper and appropriate implementation of institutional controls are and I can say fairly certainly with a significant degree of confidence that from the pictures I’ve seen, they are doing it wrong. Also too, in the position of RPM/OSC, you are responsible for all contracting of cleanup construction works. Unfortunately you have little control over subcontractors and I’ve seen my share of stupid shit. But the absolute worst is when I have had oversight of DoD lead cleanups. When the responsible party doesn’t give a shit and/or gives poor instructions to contractors, the outcomes are as obvious as watching miles of boom wash up on shore.
But to get back to your insults, while I have not had oversight of a cleanup in over a decade, I have vastly more experience and knowledge of this situation than you do, both where the rubber hits the road out in the field and in my expertise on CERCLA and the OPA. So I guess what I’m trying to say is: STFU.
Kirk Spencer
@Va Highlander: Sorry to be so late returning to this — long day.
See the screen captures from the live feed at monkeyfister’s blog – particularly this post.
[edited to add] See also the videos for Top Kill. There used to be three holes. One was capped. They started pumping, and they’ve got debris coming from one, two, THREE holes, one of which is not from a pipe. Now this makes it more likely it’s a casing break, but it’s still potentially double plus ungood.
celticdragonchick
@Brandon:
I think that drew blood.
On the bright side, it is entirely possible I may end up your line of work, since geology dovetails with water quality and waste management. :)
Mnemosyne
Here are some poll numbers, finally. People are pissed at Obama, but they’re far more pissed at BP.
lol chikinburd
@celticdragonchick:
Specifically, it’s Chip Reid.
Harley
Here’s a good fisking of Rayne’s thinwitted suggestions. Hey, it’s FDL, so what do you expect?
MBSS
this website would look good in orange.
Sharl
In a Wednesday evening post over at TPM, Josh Marshall provided a redacted account from an e-mailer who seems to know what’s going on – and it’s quite a bit, with BP joined by a lot of other experts in the biz, even from competitors (Exxon cited specifically). Note too that, in answer to comments above, while the depth is too great for subs and human divers, but they do have ROVs down there (Remotely Operated Vehicles).
Most of Marshall’s correspondent’s post follows:
excuses
One term president.