Deformed Gulf Shrimps On the left is a Gulf shrimp with growths, while on the right are a group of shrimps without either eyes or eye sockets. Left: Keath Ladner. Right: Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera just published a thoroughly disturbing report on the deformed fish and shellfish that are being pulled from the Gulf in the wake of the BP oil spill. Shrimp without eyes or even eye sockets, snapper with large pink growths, undersized and misshapen crabs–the fishermen in the Gulf that Al Jazeera talked to have never seen anything like it.
An excerpt from the report:
Darla Rooks, a lifelong fisherperson from Port Sulfur, Louisiana, told Al Jazeera she is finding crabs “with holes in their shells, shells with all the points burned off so all the spikes on their shells and claws are gone, misshapen shells, and crabs that are dying from within … they are still alive, but you open them up and they smell like they’ve been dead for a week”.
Rooks is also finding eyeless shrimp, shrimp with abnormal growths, female shrimp with their babies still attached to them, and shrimp with oiled gills.
“We also seeing eyeless fish, and fish lacking even eye-sockets, and fish with lesions, fish without covers over their gills, and others with large pink masses hanging off their eyes and gills.”
Can we look at the bright side (GOP talking points side) for a minute: so you’re getting pink masses and lesions on your shrimp and fish at Red Lobster — doesn’t that mean you’re getting more for your money?
The NYT article directly below is a must read. The oil industry “is among the most heavily subsidized businesses,” according to the tax code. Yet the oil industry would have us believe that imposing an extra tax to pay for clean up — even with all the subsidies and profits — would transform our country into Thunderdome. And catch the videos below — there are allegations that BP has been dumping sand on the beaches to cover the oil.
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.
The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.
At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon — a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.
With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.
But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.Continued…
However, BP admitted to The Sunday Telegraph that it does not use safety cases on any of its US wells, including the high-pressure deep water Macondo well from which up to 60,000 barrels of oil per day are still leaking in the Gulf of Mexico.
It is now 75 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, killing 11 men and triggering the catastrophic spill.
The US Government wants to make the safety case process a legal requirement for floating offshore drilling – one of five recommendations to change processes in the Gulf. More…
… The display typically costs $15,000 and city officials were poised to cancel it because of a budget crunch. But representatives of BP’s office in southwestern Colorado surprised the council by announcing the company would pick up the tab.Company spokesman Curtis Thomas says BP knows how important the celebration is to the community and didn’t want it to be lost. He says BP hasn’t asked for any advertising in exchange for its donation.
Many conservative leaders have jumped on the “shakedown” bandwagon, seeing BP’s $20 billion for an escrow fund as a real danger to the company’s viability. But if the company can pay for fireworks and baseball trophies while launching aggressive media campaigns and funding a front group to downplay the disaster, BP can cover its responsibility to the victims in the Gulf.
.
Has BP been dumping sand on the beaches in order to cover up oil? Via Allison Kilkenny: (Louisiana)
Bob Cesca: [Jindal]‘s only deployed 1,053 out of 6,000 available National Guard troops. But he’s doing a lot of yelling and helicoptering! That’s just as good as troops, no?
Rundown of Louisiana and Bobby Jindal oil spill failures, via Jed Lewison:
The state’s oil spill coordinator’s office has had its budget slashed by 50% over the last decade.
Last year, Jindal cut funding from the state’s oil spill research program.
The state’s oil spill contingency plan’s include “pages of blank charts that are supposed to detail available supplies of equipment like oil-skimming vessels.” A plan for a worst-case scenario was labeled “to be developed.”
Before Jindal decided to attack the Federal response, state officials signed off on all Coast Guard response plans.
Jindal, who raged at the Federal government for not having enough boom, requested three times as much boom as the state’s plan had called for — and 50% more boom than existed in the entire nation.
More Jindal FAIL:
He issued an order that June 27 be designated a “Statewide Day of Prayer” for perseverance through the BP oil spill. That ought to do it, right?
The other day I posted this video about tar balls washing ashore on Destin Beach (near Pensacola Beach). You can’t see the tar balls anymore, thanks to the oil. .
. Fortunately, people aren’t out swimming on this beach – with or without Goo Gone (they were doing that on the Destin Beach in the first video).
And Joe Barton will probably apologize to BP for all this sand soaking up their oil. . . .
The new NBC/Wall Street Journal pollasked people how they’d respond if a Congressional candidate had various hypothetical attributes. Asked how they’d feel if a candidate were “endorsed by Sarah Palin,” the response was….
Enthusiastic about this attribute 8
Comfortable with this attribute 17
Have some reservations about this attribute 15
Very uncomfortable with this attribute 37
So a majority, 52%, reacted negatively. And an astonishing 37 percent would be “very uncomfortable” about a Palin endorsement, more than four times the eight percent who would be “enthusiastic” about it.
.
. Compare: Here’s what people on a Pensacola beach think about BP’s newly installed tar balls:
The GOP sure is raising up quite a crop of canny politicians this year.
JD Hayworth, the “true” conservative (i.e. teabagger) running against “Maverick” McCain in AZ, was a celebrity endorser of “free” government grant money in 2007. TPM has the video: Take a look.
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and state Attorney General Buddy Caldwell asked a U.S. judge to lift a six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico within 30 days to avoid “turning an environmental disaster into an economic catastrophe.”
So yeah. Jindal wants new oil rigs now. No need to take a second look at necessary safety precautions. Just GO! GO! GO!
When asked yesterday on ABC’s This Week about Rep. Joe Barton’s (R-TX) accusation that the White House engaged in a “shakedown” of BP, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel noted the remark was “not a political gaffe,” but rather a statement based on “prepared remarks.” He linked Barton’s comments to the GOP’s “larger philosophy,” saying it “is an approach to what they see. They see the aggrieved party here is BP, not the fisherman. And remember, this is not just one person.”
Conservative pundit Sarah Palin quickly blasted Emanuel’s comments on Twitter:
But as Think Progress points out: If a chorus of over 115 Republican members agreeing with Barton isn’t a reflection of GOP philosophy, what is?
“That is an approach — they see the aggrieved party here as BP, not the fishermen. Remember, this is not just one person. Rand Paul running for Senate in Kentucky. What did he say?
He said, the way BP was being treated was un-American. Other members of the Republican leadership have come to the defense of BP and attacked the administration for forcing them to set up an escrow account and fund it to the level of $20 billion. These aren’t political gaffes,” Emanuel continued.
“I think what Joe Barton did is remind the American people, in case they forgot, this is how Republicans would govern,” he said.
*BP 114 = 114 members of the Republican Study Committee opposed to the president’s $20-billion escrow fund for oil spill victims. .
