American Morning
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June 4th, 2010
07:00 AM ET
Who will get slimed in oil spill politics?
(CNN) – The growing oil spill in the Gulf has raised the political stakes for President Obama and others looking to make a splash in the mid-terms elections. Our Jim Acosta reports on that part of the story for us.
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I can't understand why we let our government (congress) grandstand the way they do with hearings such as this. They all want to be on record as saying this or that, pointing a finger or to hopefully quote a catchy phrase that the press will play over and over again.
Can anyone other than me see the virtual drama in this and the lack of real benefit? Are we ok to let such serious issues continue to bring down our country, our people and our economics? Our leadership continues to allow failures to only later act as if they individually knew a better method. We can not continue to govern after the fact.
Our U.S. Judges/Justices have repeatedly been warned this fact-pattern was likely to occur in each and every environmental lawsuit which sought to stop the deep-sea drilling over the last 30 years or so.
According to a recent AP release, "more than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases, an Associated Press analysis of judicial financial disclosure reports shows."
I think blaming BP instead of the U.S. Judges that encouraged the deep-sea drilling, makes as much sense as blaming a bully who beats-up/steals lunch money from defenseless kids instead of blaming the bully's parents who encouraged their kid to bully others in the first place.
I'm with Jack on this one; this crap will keep right on happening until Joe Sixpack and Suzy Soccermom are somehow weaned off their gas-guzzling nightmares.
Once again, though, entrenched special interests will bar the way: The bean-counters of Big Oil, who couldn't see beyond the end of the next fiscal quarter even if their lives depended upon it; the so-called 'environmental movement,' which has long-ago devolved into just another paycheck-collecting institution that survives by automatically condemning anything anything even remotely resembling technology; and, of course, the biggest barrier of all, the people who look back at us every morning from the bathroom mirror.
Good luck to us; we'll need it.
Back when Mr. Obama won the election, I said to a friend "Wonderful; but what's going to happen when he has to deal with someone who's not impressed by pretty speeches?"
Well, I was wrong. It wasn't someONE, it was someTHING.
Hey, Mister President! Try *apologizing* to it!
This is a national catastrope. Americans should be coming together not being pulled apart by a media promoting opinions over facts and partisan politics.
To say that Jindal is a hero rather than a "drill baby drill" and "small gov't; no regulations" politician is ridiculous. He is perfo9rming for the cameras hoping for a 2012 run and CNN's latest spin is to promote this.
What a sad example of "journalism"!!
Instead of just another photo op couldn't our president just bow to some leader of another country or mabey even to the president of B.P. Then our pres. could give another of his inspiring speeches that in reallity means nothing. What great leadership.
It's time to get very serious about an alternative way to fuel our transportation. Isn't that what the President called for upon his election?
1) – Oil Containment Rings OCR’s – Need to be installed Now
If we collect 99% of the oil being spilled – then bp can take time to kill the well.
Start to build a “oil collection ring” flotation miles in diameter which has large booms (100′ by 6′ diameters)with deep aprons that zipper together as they extend deep(300′ or more) below the surface (this happens physically as aprons on modules are zipped) and capture the rising oil leak – which is continually pumped into tankers/barges – circumvent first ring with a second and so on as needed.
Do not use any dispersant – pump out water seperation from collected oil.
2) – Simplest Fix – Replace old flange and attached broken (now snipped) pipe at top of BOP – has " hex nuts" – with new flange and associated pipe to surface !
unscrewing "hex nuts" and replacing with new outer flange should make non leaking connection to surface collection.
once again do not use dispersants into leaking oil so can be collected by tankers at at surface – where are they ?
This could have been done after the smoke cleared (day 2) and this disaster avoided ...
p.s. It is unfathomable how this was not done.
3) – Seal Well Now – drill +1000' parallel proximity shaft – place proper amount of explosives – seal new shaft – detonate !