It. Is. Big.

[howard112211]

The oildisaster is big. It is huge. I think we haven't fully grasped the scale of this yet. I think we are witnessing big oils tschernobyl here.

edit: Pay close attention Barack Obama. This is the price of caving.

[Duer 157099]

1. I wonder what the toon makers are thinking

Somehow they always manage to encapsulate issues so well, I just wonder what they'll do for this one. No doubt it will be sad indeed.

[loudsue]

58. What if it was Hawaii????

Then, maybe, Obama would get it?

[Drunken Irishman]

2. That's what she said.

[eShirl]

14. +1

someone had to say it
:thumbsup:

[Nuclear Unicorn]

27. Yeah, I said it.

And it was good!

:P

[Luminous Animal]

3. So, who do you suppose is giving Obama a lesson on caving? God? Mother Nature?

To whom is Obama supposed to pay attention?

[peace13]

4. Time will tell. n/t

[tavalon]

5. He said offshore drilling would be great

He's getting a lesson about the less great aspects of it.

[FunkyLeprechaun]

8. The thing about offshore drilling

And the UK has lots of offshore oil rigs, is how the oil rig is constructed. This rig was so poorly constructed that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

It's a shame that nothing was done to secure this rig.

[gleaner]

9. He could try to pay attention to history ....

I live in California. We had offshore drilling here in the 60s. We had several catastrophes and near catastrophes before they made the oil companies stop.

There are some rigs left because they had 99 year leases and refused to leave. One of our most beautiful state park beaches has big globs of oil wherever you step and small flecks all through the incoming surf. Sometimes it affects the sea life and the ecologies like a water bird estuary which depends on the sea. It is not like Obama could have failed to notice that this happened. California and Oregon both scream our lungs out every time someone suggests resuming the offshore drilling.

Do you think that he thought that there was some magical force that would keep the same thing from happening back east? Is that what you think? Or is this the usual "protect the reputation" at all costs regardless of the consequences to anyone else? Now is the time for you to attack me if we go by the usual choreography. Knock yourself out. I really don't care. I'm more interested in substance than sham.

[AsahinaKimi]

15. Two words:

SANTA BARBARA

[gleaner]

45. Yes ....

And the beach I was talking about is Carpinteria State Park. It is still beautiful but you have to carry acetone and rags or some other solvent to wash the oil glops off your feet before you get in the car to drive home. That is the least of it really, it is behind the channel islands and full of Sea Lions, Seals and many sea birds. Even the occasional Pelican. The surf is gentle so you find intact shells but many of them are stained with oil, and every now and then you see birds walking around gummed up.

Even at the best of times, those platforms were leaky and not reliable. The one that is gushing now is probably no better. Thanks for pulling up the photo. I still remember the images from the news when I was a kid and people were trying to clean and save the wildlife that were affected by the spill. It took years and years to restore it. Offshore drilling should be banned everywhere. Virtually no gain for a lot of risk.

The earth is not replaceable, and there is no do over if you destroy its ecology. I wonder where the proponents think we well all live if we kill the earth?

[Lorien]

43. If he were to start doing that then we'd be out of Iraq and no longer "compromising"

with the GOP.

[gleaner]

46. Yes we would, and long past time to get out and stop....

pretending the Republicans are reasonable or have anything to offer us other than greed and inhumanity.

[KG]

10. all part of the 40-dimensional chess game, oh ye of little faith!

:P

[solara]

21. Amen. Exactly.

:patriot:

This oil spill is not directly attributable to Obama. Geez. People need to get a grip.

[piratefish08]

17. how about to himself and his campaign platform?

a year and a half ago we were all outraged at the right's 'drill baby drill' cheer. our president grasped on this and we all cheered alternatives.

then he flip-flopped. if there is any caving going on, he owns it.

[Whisp]

25. could you please tell me exactly which rigs and when they will be constructed

that Obama has to take personal ownership for?

...... (tick tock)

yah, thought so. NONE.

[Lorien]

44. How about everyone who worked to get green energy promoting CANDIDATE Obama

elected?

[Luminous Animal]

47. My responsed to the OP because I couldn't understand his point.

He seemed to be saying that the spill, itself, was the result of Obama's caving. Sort of like Pat Buchanan blaming hurricanes on feminists.

Personally, I think Obama's about face on drilling is pathetic but I just can't seem to find the connection between Obama caving and the recent oil spill.

[sabrina 1]

59. Maybe to the people who elected him?

They were pretty smart people. They AGREED with him about Offshore drilling back then. HE changed his mind. Apparently he's been listening to people who are not so smart since he got to the WH. Why is he doing that?

He seems to have lost his ability to think for himself, not just on this, but on so many issues since he got to DC. Is there something in the water there? The number of important issues he has caved on is astounding in such a short time, and even more astounding is the fact that he doesn't seem to feel the need to explain all these flip-flops to those who gave him the job in the first place.

[Xenotime]

65. How about Himself. He compromised His core values.

[Triana]

6. Big and getting bigger. They have not yet managed to cap the damn thing

Friggin disaster dujour.

[northernlights]

51. it will be months before they are able to cap it

or drill a relief well. This will be gushing 5,000+ gallons per day for months.

A lot of wildlife -- birds, sea turtles -- will die. Once they're all gummed up, they're doomed.

[sohndrsmith]

55. If this keeps flowing for 5 months, (not to mention that it exists as it is,

now) will be tragic for wildlife and nothing I say undermines the importance of that-not in the least, but there are more casualties to consider, too.

This will affect far more than shrimpers and coastal fishermen (again, not undermining it's threat to all of them).

Residents, businesses, tourism - all could potentially be devastating. Big time.

People can smell the oil. Even if they manage to boom it off as much as possible (and the waves are breaching what they have now) and keep the beaches fairly unscathed, how many vacationers are going to keep their reservations/plans to spend time along the coast with a pervasive smell of oil?

Thankfully, many will flock there to help save wildlife in all forms - their health and habitat is no less important than it's potential affect on people.

I read a comment earlier that FEMA isn't involved because this isn't a disaster affecting humans.

Um... WHAT?? This is easily as potentially destructive to any/everyone living along who-knows-how-many miles of coastline this may touch. And it snowballs from there. But isn't it called "FEMA" because it has "Emergency Management" in it's name?

This is one heII of an emergency. Valdez was huge - and criminally devastating to the planet and wildlife, but this f/up has the added component of being in a highly populated region... there are a lot of innocent species (including many humans) who are not at fault here, and they are the ones who will pay the highest price if they don't get this contained. Yesterday.

I'd like to dump all those responsible in that slick while they watch me try to clean off and save a cormorant.

Good bloody grief.

[northernlights]

60. don't it alway seem to go, you don't know what you've got till it's gone

so many nesting birds, turtles and others are in its direct path. 250,000 birds died from Valdez. This will be far, far worse. Not just this generation, but the next generation of those animals.

It just makes me ill. Every time one of these catastrophes happens, I have this overwhelming urge to drop everything and race there to try to save as many animals as I can. But I have animals here that depend on me 24x7, so I watch on helplessly.

It's a teaspoon against a tidal wave. The birds can only try to get the oil off by preening... so even after they've been cleaned the odds are high that they will die anyway from ingested toxins.

FEMA will get there only *after* some number of people's lives have been ruined. Probably not until it affects people who actually "matter." The rest of us don't...at least not in their exalted universe.

[DemReadingDU]

7. It is now 5 times bigger than first thought

Originally estimated at 1000 barrels (42,000 gallons) per day, now 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons) of oil per day.

:(


edit to add link
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/29/louisiana.oil.rig/index.html?hpt=T1

[drm604]

11. Notice how they've changed units from gallons to barrels.

I've been hearing the figure "42,000 gallons" for several days. Now that the estimate has increased so dramatically, they're suddenly talking about "barrels" instead of "gallons". To people not paying attention, 5,000 sounds lower than 42,000.

[DemReadingDU]

18. I noticed that too. I found some info about the Exxon oil spill

The March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill resulted in the discharge of approximately 11 million gallons of oil (240,000 barrels) into Prince William Sound, oiling 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of the remote Alaskan coastline.
lots more info...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExxonMobil
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

This leak has the potential to be even larger than Exxon, an epic disaster. I heard on radio, that burning the oil could leave a thick sludge even worse to clean up than the original oil.
:(

[sohndrsmith]

57. And it's been 10 days (nearly). GIven that BP seemed to "concede"

that the fed estimates were right (and MUCH higher), that doesn't mean that the new estimate just started today simply because we heard about it.

My guess is it's been spewing far more that "originally estimated" all along... It's possible that it increased slowly, but it was an explosion, after all. That's a pretty immediate, and shocking, event.

Still, I don't know, obviously. But that doesn't mean that it hasn't been spilling 200K all along, which means we reach TWO million - tomorrow.

And until they stop it, every 5 days means 1 million more...

That's beyond frightening.

[gleaner]

12. As a Californian who remembers ....

what happened here with offshore drilling, I am not at all surprised. That thing could leak for years and it will ruin the ecology on shore. It is a big price for everyone to pay for Obama caving. He really hasn't done us many favors.

I'm sure the western states are next on his agenda. We have been fighting things like this for years, so he might get some pretty stiff resistance if he wants to test us.

K&R :kick:

[BrightKnight]

13. spill, baby, spill! - nt

[mdmc]

16. 1

[malaise]

19. Did you notice that Rear Adm. Mary Landry

said 'we' before correcting herself and saying BP.
One more bailout for corporations.

[Odin2005]

20. And now they increased the estimate from the abount of oil comming out by x5.

[crikkett]

22. Am I wrong or was this rig up and running before Obama caved?

Tell me.

[Whisp]

23. Obama is not responsible for this. We';ll get enough of that blame from the Pugs

so we don't need shit like that on this site.

what a lame ass thing to say. I bet you dollars to donuts if I searched your posts you would be a bellyacher on every fucking thing Obama thought or did or was alive when something bad happened.,

good cripes, sick of this shit here

[dionysus]

68. ding

:thumbsup:

[HughMoran]

24. "This is the price of caving."

Are you saying this was an act of terrorism?

[howard112211]

26. No. Absolutely not.

I say that this would not have happened with a firm ban on offshore drilling in place. I understand that there is political pressure. Why does it always take something like this first though?

[ShortnFiery]

28. Watch out. If the ruling elites could somehow blame THIS on liberals and/or democrats, they would.

:(

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. You mean it wasn't Bill Clinton's fault?

[ShortnFiery]

33. No, Clinton was too busy promoting NAFTA than get involved with this specific topic.

:evilgrin:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

37. I don't know about the ruling elites BUT

I've heard some of the local nutter-butters saying it was an act of domestic terrorism by liberals. I kid you not. These people are so filled with hate and irrational expectations they're scary.

[HughMoran]

29. But this was in process already

I'm not sure how banning future drilling would have prevented this disaster, though I'm happy not to be seeing BP ads on MSNBC any more!

[ShortnFiery]

32. It only takes one accident. For example, one fire detector failing can burn the whole house down.

:shrug:

[Lone_Star_Dem]

35. You're confusing Obama's wanting to open exploration to more drilling and current permitted drilling

This falls in under the heading of currently permitted drilling. Which was sadly never under any threat of being banned.

[adigal]

30. You sleep with the dogs, southern states

You wake up with fleas. And I mean the majority of the citizens and politicians, not the good people here who have to fight them every day.

I was saying last month that I am sure NY and NJ will fight the oil rigs and even good Dems told me oil rigs are safe.

Humph. I guess we see how safe they are.

[Cali_Democrat]

34. How can u blame Obama for this?

Was this oil rig built recently, or was it always there?

[harun]

69. Not blaming Obama, just blaming him for taking a position of

expanding offshore drilling area's to appease Repug's and the oil companies. The oil companies have more than enough spots right now to drill but aren't tapping them yet. No need to open more. The opening of more is just to set a precedent of continuing the expansion of drillable area's.

This situation would prove a good time for Obama to highlight how we need to put more resources in to developing electric cars, the infrastructure for them and an improved emphasis on wind, nuclear energy. Dem's in Congress should throw a bill at the Repug's today on more funding for battery development, wind farms, etc.

[ChickMagic]

36. I'm going to be on the Gulf Coast in June

My husband and I are delegates to the State Convention and we're going to stay a few
more days as a delayed 10th anniversary getaway. He would hate it, but I feel compelled to volunteer to clean animals. I've done it before during the Bay of Campeche spill. Oh, and P.S. We didn't use Dawn detergent. We used Johnson's Baby Shampoo so their little eyes wouldn't sting.

[eppur_se_muova]

39. JOOC, does Johnson's form suds in salt water well?

I remember reading years ago that, according to sailing lore, the only dish detergent that forms suds even in salt water is Lemon Fresh Joy. That's probably outdated info, but I thought it might be relevant in the present context.

[ChickMagic]

40. Lemon Joy is preferred

and can be used on larger animals such as pelicans. Believe me, there will be pa-lenty of those. Safety goggles also have to be worn because they'll go straight for your eyeball. They are really accurate. Ducks are also good with Joy. What you do is rinse off the salt water first - give them a good warm soaking and then just the Johnson's on the little ones and around the eyes of the bigguns.

There's also feral cats that get stuck in the muck. You know what it's like to bathe them - especially if they are feral.

[eppur_se_muova]

41. Thanks for the info, who knows when it might be used!

Be sure to dress appropriately for those feral cats.

[ChickMagic]

42. No kidding!

And I love Troy Hurtubise's anti-bear suit! Have you seen the videos of the
prototypes? They are hysterical.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3CzYw5-qdA

[femrap]

52. I absolutely

detest these f*cking Oil Boyz. They're worse than the damn Money Boyz/Banksters.

[ChickMagic]

64. They are equally bad in my book

The oil boyz have corrupted many ecosystems and have
risen to the highest levels of power allowing them
to take dictatorial empowerment in order to enrich
themselves and their buddies which include the banksters.

[ChickMagic]

67. I should have told you something else

The animals aren't cleaned in situ. They are brought to a lab with huge sinks, so sudsing isn't a problem.

[FrenchieCat]

38. Obama's decision on Off shore drilling didn't have a thing to do with this incident.....

so your hyperbole in attempting to somehow blame him is silly,
and something that detractors would do if they felt that they
could get away with it.

As a PR move, the timing isn't good for the WH, but that is about
as much as this signifies....

plus, if you want to "blame" Obama's caving in on the concept as
fault for the incident at hand, then you'd have to blame a whole
lot more people than that, and it would include folks on both sides of the aisle,
as well as Americans who appeared to support offshore drilling in the
majority.

Americans favor offshore drilling
CNNMoney.com - 23rd Feb 2010

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As the nation struggles to meet its energy needs, a majority of Americans think Offshore Drilling for oil and Natural Gas is a good idea, according to according to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Wednesday. The poll, which surveyed more than 500 adults by phone in July, found that 69% of respondents support the idea of Offshore Drilling, while 30% opposed it. In June, 73% were in favor of Offshore Drilling.
http://politifi.com/news/Americans-favor-offshore-drilling-216659.html

Support for Alternative Energy and Offshore Drilling
March 2, 2010
At the same time, the public continues to broadly support expanded offshore oil drilling: 63% say they favor allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters while 31% are opposed.

These opinions also have changed little since 2008.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1509/alternative-energy-offshore-oil-drilling-nuclear-cap-and-trade

Obama To Open Up Offshore Drilling, But Not That Much
By SEAN HIGGINS, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 03/31/2010 06:57 PM ET

It wasn't exactly "Drill, baby, drill" but President Obama still surprised friends and critics alike by announcing Wednesday the administration would allow some off-shore drilling.

The operative word here is "some." Industry experts and key congressional staffers told IBD that the policy change really creates only the possibility of drilling off Virginia's coast. In most other cases, huge procedural, legal and legislative hurdles remain.

A Republican staffer called it simply a "well-orchestrated media stunt."

"They got a lot of stories that said 'the president opens vast areas,' when in reality he closed more than he opened," the GOP staffer said.

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, whose district includes Richmond, Va., applauded the decision but said it wasn't much good to anybody outside his state.

"By standing in the way of developing these vast resources in an environmentally safe way, the administration is actively blocking job creation and needed revenue at a time when our country needs it most," he said in a statement.

The timing of the announcement sparked speculation among congressional staffers and energy lobbyists. Some thought the administration was offering an olive branch to industry and the GOP ahead of a proposed cap-and-trade bill. That follows Obama's recent moves to help finance new nuclear power plants.

Others thought it might be a pre-emptive move to take drilling off the table during those cap-and-trade bill negotiations.

The general impression was that the less-than-meets-the-eye drilling plan would not move the ball much on cap-and-trade.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=529062

[cdsilv]

61. IF the oil from american territory were only sold to the american market, I could see increasing..

drilling in american territory. BUT the fact that the oil extracted from american territory goes onto the 'world market' only means that we're helping supply oil to the world while endangering our environment with disasters such as this.

I've read elsewhere that the oil from Alaska goes mostly to Japan and China due to geographical proximity...

[branders seine]

48. so far he has avoided being held accountable for caving.

I think that may be no longer true.

The drilling crap was a particularly blatant flip flop, although by no means his largest or the most damaging.

[BlueIris]

49. Obama has yet to learn the price of caving. nt

[RagAss]

50. Another WingNut Dream That Turned to Shit !!

[roamer65]

53. 210,000 gallons per day is spewing out, and they can't shut it off.

Imagine one month of it...or more...

The entire US Gulf Coast area will be affected, including Mexico and possibly Cuba.

[sohndrsmith]

54. every 5 days this goes on = 1 million gallons.*

Just because the 200,000 per day amount wasn't the original estimate - doesn't mean that's what it has been since the explosion.

If it has been that much, that would amount to 2 million gallons already. Tomorrow.

damn.

*(repost from LBN)

[lonestarnot]

56. Fucking depression and sadness of epic proportion!

:cry:

[CTLawGuy]

62. you're right! And the next time a plane crashes

Obama should ban (because he's a dictator with a magic wand) all flight, and shut down all airports :crazy:

[northernlights]

63. because the crash of a plane

destroys beyond repair hundreds if not thousands of square miles of a fragile ecosystem, destroys the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people, potentially damages the health of millions, and kills millions of wild animals.

Scale, baby, scale. This isn't a small, contained disaster. This is a massive catastrophe. If you don't care about the environment or animal lives lost at all, so be it. Consider the tourism business across 4 states that will be heavily damaged, the health of the residents forced to breathe potentially very toxic fumes (which is already making them ill with the spill still miles off shore), the fishermen's livelihood destroyed. Not to mention the huge amount of money it will cost taxpayers to try to limit the damage and "clean up" (rhetorically speaking-- the area will be coated with oil for decades). Oh, yes, BP will pay us back someday. Right. :eyes:

[closeupready]

66. I think so, too.

Very big.