Tag Archives: Deepwater Horizon

Morning in the bunker

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FLOTSAM

  • Cool East Village studio design: LikeCool
  • Sandwiches in a can? Candwich! Discuss it with the Salt Lake City-based company that actually makes this monstrosity on Twitter.

POLITICS!

  • Coburn And McCain troubled by Stimulus Debt, which is 488 times smaller than debt impact of Bush Tax Cuts
  • The Tea Party is the Republican Party: A new poll by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation shows that 41 percent of Republicans believe President Obama was either probably not or definitely not born in the US.

MISC

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Morning in the bunker

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  • (Think Progress) – Colorado Tea Party candidate Ken Buck on abortion: “I don’t believe in the exceptions of rape or incest.” Buck’s extremist stance may help him regain favor with his far-right supporters, some of whom he recently got into trouble with when he called them “dumbass” birthers.
  • (Jeffrey Goldberg) – The Cordoba Initiative, which is headed by an imam named Feisal Abdul Rauf, is an enemy of al Qaeda, no less than Rudolph Giuliani and the Anti-Defamation League are enemies of al Qaeda.  Bin Laden would sooner dispatch a truck bomb to destroy the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed community center than he would attack the ADL, for the simple reason that Osama’s most dire enemies are Muslims.
  • (NY Times) – GOOD NEWS: The government is expected to announce on Wednesday that three-quarters of the oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak has already evaporated, dispersed, been captured or otherwise eliminated — and that much of the rest is so diluted that it does not seem to pose much additional risk of harm.
  • (Greg Sargent) – Pew Research just released a new poll finding that more than twice as many Americans see a Palin endorsement as a negative for a Congressional candidate than view it as a positive. Sargent summarizes, “she’s successfully tightening her emotional grip on her devoted legions of supporters at the expense of just about everyone else. Far more see [Palin] as a turn-off than as a turn-on.”
  • (Reuters) – Barnes & Noble, the number one U.S. book store chain, is putting itself up for sale as business suffers in the high-stakes battle for a leading role in the digital books market.
  • (NYTimes) – 2.4 million more [Americans] became obese from 2007 to 2009, bringing the total to 72.5 million, or 26.7 percent of the population. The numbers are part of a continuing and ominous trend. The nine states with obesity rates of 30 percent or more are Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and West Virginia. The highest rate, 34.4 percent, was in Mississippi.

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How’s BP holding up after the “shakedown”?

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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.

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NYT: As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies

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…

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BP admits failing to use industry risk test at any of its deepwater wells in the US

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…

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In another effort to repair its image, BP picks up tab for fireworks show in Colorado.

… 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.

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Has BP been dumping sand on the beaches in order to cover up oil? Via Allison Kilkenny: (Louisiana)

See more videos of Pensacola Beach here

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BP, British Petroleum, Deepwater Horizon, drill baby drill, GOP, gulf oil spill, nature, offshore drilling, video

We are “a rule of laws”

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Cesca: [Palin] explains how she, as governor, personally forced Exxon to pay victims of the Valdez but then suggests that the president’s BP escrow fund is “government overreach.”
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“…I think Obama is kind of flirting with also, some government overreach. We are a rule of laws, not a rule of presidential fiats that I think President Obama would rather have sometimes, it seems.”

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Checklist for ‘successful’ Palin appearance:

Irritating  glass-shattering voice: ✔
Tortured logic: ✔
Convoluted thought process and intellectual laziness: ✔
Word salad: ✔ ✔
Bumpit for prom hair: ✔

(Bob Cesca)

The world’s whitest beaches. Past tense.

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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.
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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.
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Idiot watch

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Little Green Footballs:

Here’s Nevada Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle, saying that the unemployed are “spoiled.”

The GOP sure is raising up quite a crop of canny politicians this year.

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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.

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Bob Cesca:

Screw safety. Just let them drill away!

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!

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Rahm, u lie

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:

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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?

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Sharron Angle, Nevada, Tea Party, JD Hayworth, Arizona, John McCain, Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, Rahm Emanuel, Joe Barton, Sarah Palin

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This is how Republicans would govern: BP 114*

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Regarding Joe Barton’s apology to BP this week,  this morning White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told Jake Tapper on ABC’s This Week:

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USAToday

“That’s not a political gaffe. Those were prepared remarks. That is a philosophy,” said Emanuel.

“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?

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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.
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[Rawstory]

Tell Republicans “Stop Apologizing to Big Oil”


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BP is burning sea turtles alive

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Buzzfeed: Mike Ellis is a boat captain who’s been rescuing the endangered Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles near Deepwater Horizon.

He’s got some pretty horrifying news to share: BP is burning turtles caught in the oil spill and turning away rescue workers who want to save them.

Watch Video ›

Also:

Death by fire in the gulf: Sea life incinerated alive in ‘burn boxes’

So-called burn boxes are torching oil from the water’s surface at the sacrifice of turtles, crabs, sea slugs and other sea life.

[Desdemona Despair]

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Morning reading

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Politics:

DNC TV Ad: ‘Stop Apologizing’
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According to John Cole, Keith Olbermann quit DKos because someone criticized him and accused him of planned fauxtrage.

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Bob Cesca notes the U.S. Senate, including 21 Democrats, voted to continue paying Big Oil’s $35 billion annual welfare check — in the midst of the biggest environmental disaster in American history — but voted down the extension of unemployment benefits for jobless Americans.

BP:

Best comment on BP Chairman Tony Hayward will step down from managing daily operations in Gulf:

If his appearance yesterday is any indication, he has no clue what the daily operations are. ~Soup

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via Desdemona Despair (it’s definitely worth a few minutes to page down and see the images of the Gulf on this blog):

Burning oil on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, 17 June 2010. James Duncan Davidson via flickr

James Duncan Davidson, TED’s conference photographer, is among a crew of five photographers and videographers reporting on the Gulf of Mexico for the TEDxOilSpill Expedition. His photos, taken aboard a plane above the Deepwater Horizon accident site, reveal the staggering extent of the oil slick.

Aerial photos of the oil slick

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via Wonkette:

[T]he Washington Post just posted this story with the view from BP’s partner on the Gulf well. Guess what? The partner company says BP was “reckless” and the whole disaster was “preventable.” Good to know!

It was the first time since the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that Anadarko Petroleum had given its view of the accident, and its chief executive, Jim Hackett, did not mince words. In a statement, Hackett said he was “shocked” by information that has emerged from investigations of the accident. He said it “indicates BP operated unsafely and failed to monitor and react to several critical warning signs during the drilling of the Macondo well.”

Misc:

Who knew? via TYWKIWDBI:

“Unlike the dog or the horse… the cat walks by moving the front and back legs on one side of its body and then the front and back legs on the other. The only other animals to move that way are the camel and the giraffe.”

– from Life Regarded as a Jigsaw Puzzle of Highly Lustrous Cats, by Michael Bishop, in Nebula Awards 28 (1994).

I don’t see it though

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The founder of Wikileaks fears the U.S. will detain him and is currently in hiding. But in an email to supporters, he says he has new video of alleged U.S. ‘massacre’ in Afghanistan that’s more shocking than the first.

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