Gulf Oil Spill

[Tyria]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...243494620.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEADNewsCollection

What do you think about it? What do you think will happen?

 

[TheHmmmm]

We'll get more commercials from Dawn talking about how they saved the birdies.

Poor birdies always get the short end of the stick, especially penguins.

 

[Sparrow]

Environmental catastrophe. Will affect the region for 30-40 years or something.

So, offshore drilling?

 

[Claverhouse]

I'm Still His Son...

Yet suppose I have absolutely no thought on this tragic event rattling around in my empty little skull, other than 'Fuck, that will crimp those further permissions the industry and I plan...'


In that case, I turn to one of my speechwriters --- the Reverend does bang on about them being all wicked little jewish gnomes of darkness on the phone every week, but he's kinda prejudiced --- and their rare skill in trivial banality always manages to strike the right note of pious nothingness. Ideally, I can say something that means nothing, but satisfies everyone.


"I continue to believe that domestic oil production is an important part of our overall strategy for energy security, but I've always said it must be done responsibly, for the safety of our workers and our environment."



As a child I used to practice speaking to the birds, but when I later found out they had no votes I stopped caring about them.





Claverhouse

 

[Claverhouse]

Lawrence Auster has crunched some interesting figures, comparing the flow to the Exxon Valdez Disaster and the Ixtoc I Disaster.


Exxon Valdez, the most famous oil spill in the popular conscousness, spilled 40,900 cubic meters of crude, less than one tenth of the Ixtoc I incident which spilled 480,000 cubic meters, and I've never heard of the latter incident. I don't know what this means.

Now how much is being spilled in the BP disaster. According to the linked article in today's NYT:

Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day. But the government, working from satellite images of the ocean surface, has calculated a flow rate of only 5,000 barrels a day.​

So the estimates range from 5,000 barrels a day, to between 25,000 and 80,000 barrels a day, with 80,000 barrels equaling 3.4 million gallons. It gets difficult to relate these various reports together, what with three different units of measurement being used, gallons, square meters, and barrels. But Ixtoc 1 leaked a total 3 million barrels (though Wikipedia is ambigous on that point--that may be just the amount that affected the U.S. coast). According to the just quoted high estimate of the BP oil spill, it is spilling 80,000 barrels a day. The BP oil spill began April 20. At a rate of 80,000 barrels per day, by May 20 it will have spilled 2.4 million barrels, many times more than Exxon Valdez but less than the Ixtoc 1. If it continues for another month, which is entirely possible, it will have leaked 4.8 million barrels, far more than Ixtoc 1. If it continues for a total of six months, it will have spilled 14.4 million barrels, almost five times more than the Istoc 1, the previously largest accidental spill in history.

Please note: the 80,000 barrels a day figure that I used above is the very highest estimate which has just been made recently by scientists who believe the official estimate is way too low. The estimate still officially used by the government and BP is 5,000 barrels a day. At that much lower rate of leakage, after one month the total spill will be 150,000 gallons, which, at 42 gallons per barrel of petroleum, equals 6.3 million gallons, compared to the 10.8 million gallons of Exxon Valdez, or 58.3 percent of Exxon Valdez.

View from the Right




It is surprisingly difficult to locate the Wiki for the ongoing Disaster since they have named it non-intuitively Deepwater Horizon oil spill; despite the fact that it is not a spill, and that few people would think Deepwater Horizon, and that the word Disaster ought to be in there somewhere. Possibly Fucking Disaster.

Which is adequately critiqued in the discussion page amid the arguments over semantics which are among Wikipedian's greatest strengths and accusations that BP has corrupted Wikipedia.

Mr. Wales having stepped down in disgust at the criticisms of his cleansing the Augean Stables of Wikipedia Commons from child and other porn ( can't say that Wikipedia would be my first choice to search for porn on the internet... ) is not present to counter such criticisms.


*****



The big question to be answered is whether Obama's own policy of supporting offshore drilling was a reason for the department not doing its job in the Gulf, or whether he and Salazar just didn't have the gumption to pick a fight with the energy industry, and the bureaucrats at its pet agency. Neither option makes the president look good.

US News


*****




More certain is that the American government refuses to compel companies to install switches --- expensive switches --- to turn off the flow as do other countries:

Turns out there was a push a while back to get oil rigs drilling in American waters to install remote-control shut-off switches, which were designed to prevent underwater spills in the event something went wrong with the rig. The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service decided it was too expensive a requirement to burden the oil industry with, as each switch cost about $500,000 dollars to install. That may seem like a small price to pay now in light of the spill, with clean-up efforts projected to be somewhere between 2 and 14 billion dollars.
...

Official documents show that pushback from the oil industry resulted in easing of requirements for new technologies to prevent the kind of blowout that led to the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and ensuing leak of at least 5,000 barrels of oil a day, and possibly much more, into the Gulf of Mexico. Pushback from BP and others against installing a new kind of acoustic blowout preventer succeeded. The Minerals Management Service declined to make them mandatory, as other oil-producing nations have.

Moreover, a safety document from the Minerals Management Service 10 years ago raised the alarm about the potential for catastrophic spills, which could be alleviated by requiring backup and secondary blowout preventers for deepwater drilling. But the MMS didn’t require any such system, leaving it to oil companies to decide what was best.

At least some of this was under Obama’s watch, illustrating the continuity between both the Bush and Obama administration’s policies toward Big Oil. British Petroleum and other oil companies have deep pockets, and have been lining the pockets of politicians in both parties for decades. Indeed, it turns out Barack Obama was the top recipient of BP campaign cash in twenty years. BP lobbying efforts have been staggering – pumping $15.9 million into their energy lobbying efforts last year alone. Obama received $77,051 from BP during his brief tenure in the Senate and during his campaign for president.

http://trueslant.com/erikkain/2010/...k-cheney-and-the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill/


*****



Here's a page from April 29th showing that even by then the Administration was still dithering about whether to send Navy help:

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration may dispatch military ships to the area, and a spokesman for BP, the oil company whose well exploded last week, said the company would welcome such help.

President Barack Obama began his daily intelligence briefing with an update on the spill. Obama then announced that he was dispatching three Cabinet secretaries, including Napolitano and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to the site.

http://www.truthout.org/us-may-send-navy-oil-spill-threat-environment-grows59007



I daresay some members of the American public would welcome them being left there permanently.


*****



The Department of Homeland Security waited until Thursday to declare that the incident was “a spill of national significance,” and then set up a second command center in Mobile. The actions came only after the estimate of the size of the spill was increased fivefold to 5,000 barrels a day.

The delay meant that the Homeland Security Department waited until late this week to formally request a more robust response from the Department of Defense, with Ms. Napolitano acknowledging even as late as Thursday afternoon that she did not know if the Defense Department even had equipment that might be helpful.

By Friday afternoon, she said, the Defense Department had agreed to send two large military transport planes to spray chemicals that can disperse the oil while it is still in the Gulf.

Officials initially seemed to underestimate the threat of a leak, just as BP did last year when it told the government such an event was highly unlikely. Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry, the chief Coast Guard official in charge of the response, said on April 22, after the rig sank, that the oil that was on the surface appeared to be merely residual oil from the fire, though she said it was unclear what was going on underwater. The day after, officials said that it appeared the well’s blowout preventer had kicked in and that there did not seem to be any oil leaking from the well, though they cautioned it was not a guarantee.

New York Times 30th April



They seem in an ongoing fugue state of being unclear about everything...


*****



The White House itself boasts, listing each day the totals, that as of today:

Total response vessels: more than 750
Containment boom deployed: more than 1.3 million feet
Containment boom available: more than 360,000 feet
Sorbent boom deployed: more than 400,000 feet
Sorbent boom available: more than 750,000 feet
Total boom deployed: more than 1.7 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)
Total boom available: more than 1.1 million feet (regular plus sorbent boom)
Oily water recovered: more than 6.6 million gallons
Surface dispersant used: approximately 580,000 gallons
Subsea dispersant used: approximately 45,000 gallons
Total dispersant used: approximately 625,000 gallons
Dispersant available: more than 390,000 gallons
Overall personnel responding: more than 17,000




However if one goes back to the 30th, what they had actually sent by then, 9 days from the start, was:

Total response vessels: approximately 75
Boom deployed: 217,000 feet
Boom available: 305,760 feet
Oily water recovered: 853,146 gallons
Dispersant used: 139,459 gallons
Dispersant available: 51,000 gallons
Overall personnel responding: approximately 2,000


White House




Claverhouse

 

[onthewindowstand]

Everyone knows the oil spill happned because enviromentalist frogmen wanted to make the oil industry look bad. The enviromentalist frogmen planted C4 on the BP oil rig and made it explode causing huge enviromental challenges for years to come.

To all enviromentalist frogmen out there, we know that oil rigs can be dangerous but please dont cause another oil rig to explode to make a point. K thanks

 

[s0nystyle]

*sigh* conspiracies

 

[onthewindowstand]

lol just kidding. That is something that Rush Limbaugh said actually... he might be insane.

 

[Thoughtful]

What do I think of it? you mean aside from "Bloody Hell Not Another One?". Distasters seem to be in ready supply these days. I'm just wondering what will happen when hurricane season hits.

 

[Claverhouse]

President 'Terrible Swift Sword' has for once taken decisive action on this.


Admittedly it was in regard to firing a major physicist for his personal --- non-science related --- opinions from the Gulf Disaster Taskforce he had been appointed to by the president, but it's a start.

Prof. Katz critiqued homosexuality from a traditional jewish sensibility ( see The Old Testament passim ) and spoke for individuality, not race in assessing persons ( which is rather ironic, considering he was canned for individual beliefs ):

"The diversity movement is racist at its core," he writes. "When dealing with people we should be concerned with intellect, talent, character and accomplishment. People aren't dogs or cattle; race matters only to racists."

​

A St. Louis scientist who was among a select group picked by the Obama administration to pursue a solution to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been removed from the group because of writings on his website, the U.S. Energy Department confirmed Wednesday.

Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz was one of five top scientists chosen by the Department of Energy and attended meetings in Houston last week.

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2010/05/oil-spill-dream-teamer-canned-by-obama.html


In a bold attempt to make such groups seem even more clownish and self-obsessed:

A.J. Bockelman, director of PROMO, a St. Louis-bases advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, applauded the decision to remove Katz.

"It's disappointing at a time like this that when all Americans need to come together and focus on relief efforts and recovery efforts in the Gulf, someone divisive was placed in a position of power," Bockelman said.


​

Few realise the expertise and qualifications offered by their local LGBTG's Morals Division in fighting massive oil leaks, flash fires and earthquakes...


As for both Prof. Katz's disgraceful elimination for his non-related beliefs and the ominous call that only non-divisive persons should be appointed to any 'position of power', it seems to presage our descent into a new --- oil-soaked --- scientific Dark Age.





Claverhouse

 

[Claverhouse]

Drudge has some updates:

The Obama administration questioned BP's competence Sunday, when Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar told reporters he was "not completely" confident that BP knows what it's doing..

"If we find they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing, we'll push them out of the way appropriately," Salazar said.

...

Suttles said on ABC's "Good Morning America" that BP's next shot at plugging the well this week stands a very good chance of success. But he said the global oil company has more plans in case the latest efforts fails, like several before it.

BP plans to use heavy mud and cement to stop the breach, a maneuver called a top kill. Suttles said on the CBS "Early Show" the effort should start Wednesday morning and they'll know the same day if it works.
​

...

On Sunday, some brown pelicans coated in oil couldn't fly away on Barataria Bay of the Louisiana coast. All they could do was hobble. Their usually brown and white feathers were jet black, and eggs were glazed with rust-colored gunk.

When wildlife officials tried to rescue one of the pelicans, the birds became spooked. Officials weren't sure whether they would try again, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Stacy Shelton said it is sometimes better to leave the animals alone than to disturb their colony.

Pelicans are especially vulnerable to oil because they dive into the water to feed. They could eat tainted fish and feed it to their young, or they could die of hypothermia or drown if their feathers become soaked in oil. Just six months ago, the birds had been removed from the federal endangered species list.

With oil pushing at least 12 miles into Louisiana's marshes and two major pelican rookeries now coated in crude, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal** said the state has begun work on a chain of berms, reinforced with containment booms, that would skirt the state's coastline.

"As we talk, a total of more than 65 miles of our shoreline now has been oiled," Jindal said.
​

BP says doing all it can, everyone's frustrated

Frustrated Louisianans took the oil cleanup into their own hands Sunday, heading out in boats to lay protective booms around a bird sanctuary threatened by a black tide. "We're going out to Cat Island right now where a thousand pelicans are breeding," Billy Nungesser, president of the coastal Plaquemines Parish told AFP.

Some of the birds at the island sanctuary have already been coated in oil and have carried it back to the nests, he said.

While they're not trying to rescue the oiled birds for fear of doing more harm than good, Nungesser said local residents refused to stand idly by as more oil lapped up into the fragile wetland.

"Our crews are out there laying the absorbent boom," he said, adding that he couldn't understand why BP and the Coast Guard weren't doing more to protect his coastal parish.

In neighboring Jefferson Parish an emergency manager commandeered all 40 boom-laying boats hired by BP which were sitting idly at Grand Isle as oil sloshed onto beaches.
​

Louisianans take oil cleanup in own hands as frustration mounts

Responding to the massive BP oil spill, Congress is getting ready to quadruple — to 32 cents a barrel — a tax on oil used to help finance cleanups. The increase would raise nearly $11 billion over the next decade. The tax is levied on oil produced in the U.S. or imported from foreign countries.. [ As opposed to... ? ] The revenue goes to a fund managed by the Coast Guard to help pay to clean up spills in waterways, such as the Gulf of Mexico.
​

...

President Barack Obama and congressional leaders have said they expect BP to foot the bill for the cleanup.

"Taxpayers will not pick up the tab," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Monday.

BP executives told Congress last week they would pay "all legitimate claims" for damages. But the government needs upfront money to respond to spills, as well as money to pay for cleanups when the responsible party is unable to pay, or is unknown. Money spent from the fund can later be recovered from the company responsible for the spill.

​

Oil tax increase would help pay to clean up spills





I doubt that the gas tax will go up that much; however I have no idea why people would think that if BP pays instead of the government taxpayers won't be paying the ultimate cost: it comes out of BP's profits and they'll just tax through price-increases.



At this point my own solution would be that the US government had dropped a surplus submarine, preferably not nuclear-powered, over the leak. If mud and cement can plug the gap I would imagine 7800 tons of metal will do the trick.

And if Mr. Obama hands over his duties to Mr. Biden as POTUS and takes command of the sub himself then at least there is an admirable new 'Presidential Disaster' Summer Blockbuster waiting to be made.




Claverhouse




**

I was terribly funny about the strange Mr. Jindal last year on Digg...


What a villainous little creature Mr. Jindal looks. Reminds me of a rascally Lascar we shipped on the Mary Celeste..


I broke my ankle the night before, so missed her last voyage; yet the little chap scowled devilish ugly at me while her sails billowed bravely as she left Staten Island docks --- and I shuddered with a dark foreboding. 'That fellow is a confounded scoundrel,' quoth I to Captain O'Hara, by my side, and he nodded grimly, and spat his quid upon the paving with an equally dark foreboding. It was a far less sanitary age back then.

 

[Claverhouse]

The Top Kill should go ahead in a couple of hours --- whilst the Obama administration, having added together their entirely natural technical incompetence ( whom amongst us has the capacity to destroy an oil blowout a mile sea-deep ? ) to their preternatural political incompetence and come to the right conclusion, has backed off from blaming BP or suggesting that they will take over the operation. But started making angry noises about threatened punishments to come like a loving, pissed-off mother who will never follow through from soft-heartedness.

Engineers were doing at least 12 hours of diagnostic tests Tuesday. They planned to check five spots on the well's crippled five-story blowout preventer to make sure it could withstand the heavy force of the mud. A weak spot in the device could blow under the pressure, causing a brand new leak.

BP has been drafting plans for the top kill for weeks but had to delay it several times as crews scrambled to assemble the equipment at the site 50 miles off the coast. A flotilla of rigs, barges and other heavy machinery stood ready there Tuesday.

A top kill has worked on aboveground oil wells in Kuwait and Iraq. BP CEO Tony Hayward pegged its chances of success in this case at 60 to 70 per cent.

Kent Wells, a BP senior vice-president, cautioned that engineers are speeding through a planning process that would normally take months. He warned that the top kill could be delayed or scuttled if Tuesday's pressure readings are bad.

Once the test results are in, scientists with the federal Minerals Management Service will examine them and BP will consult with government officials before deciding whether to press on, Curry said.

If all goes as planned, engineers will pump fluid twice as dense as water from two barges into two 3-inch (8-centimetre)-wide lines that will feed it into the blowout preventer. Crews plan to pump it in at a rate of 1,680 gallons to 2,100 gallons (6,300 to 8,000 litres) per minute in hopes of counteracting the upward pressure of the oil gushing to the surface. They stockpiled some 50,000 barrels of the heavy mud, a manufactured substance that resembles clay.

Wells said it could take anywhere from a few hours to two days to determine whether the top kill is working.

If it succeeds, BP plans to follow through by injecting a stream of cement to permanently seal up the well. They may also install a new blowout preventer on top as a fail-safe.

Lazybuzz





​

Most people will hope this works today, for the sake of the environment.

And because...

The company's backup plans include a junk shot, which involves shooting golf balls, tire scraps, knotted rope and other assorted objects into the well to clog it up.




​

Claverhouse

 

[Cogwulf]

The company's backup plans include a junk shot, which involves shooting golf balls, tire scraps, knotted rope and other assorted objects into the well to clog it up.
​

​

The junk shot doesn't try to clog the well up, it's used to clog up the BOP. The problems with it are that whether it works or not, it could strip the BOP of any remaining functionality, it depends on there being at least some obstruction inside the BOP already (i.e. half closed valves) and BP probably isn't certain this is the case, and it's likely to cause a large pressure spike which could cause even more damage.
It was being considered previously to be used at the same time as the top kill rather than as a backup, the junkshot would be used to direct more of the mud down the well.

If the top kill fails they will be cutting off the riser at the BOP and fitting something directly the the top of it to capture the flow. The problem with this is that once they remove the riser the flow will be even faster as the damaged pipe is currently a partial restriction, and this will make the work very difficult

 

[Cavallier]

Meanwhile back at the ranch Obama is quoted as saying, "Oops! My bad. But...but not really because of those rascally good ol' boy connections between BP and the FERC."

 

[Cavallier]

Top Kill has officially failed. They are going ahead with the Slice and Cap attempt. If this fails it will be August before the relief well is built.

NPR All Things Considered:

Government forecasters say they expect a busy hurricane season, one that could see a hurricane cross paths with the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.

"We're facing a season that could rank among the more active on record," said Jane Lubchenko, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"If there is a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, and if it makes landfall someplace on the Gulf Coast," Lubchenko said, "it is possible that some of the oil that is at the surface might be transported through storm surge as high up as the storm surge goes."

That could mean 10 or more feet higher than normal tide levels, which could push oil miles into coastal wetlands in some places.

There are three reasons to expect a lot of hurricanes and tropical storms, Lubchenko said.

First, El Nino wind conditions, which discouraged storms last year, have dissipated.

Second, water temperatures in parts of the Atlantic are up to 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average, which would help hurricanes become more powerful.

And third, the Atlantic remains in a period of high hurricane activity that began in the mid-1990s.

 

[Cavallier]

I'm really starting to get sick of this crap.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37368377#37368377

 

[Claverhouse]

And In Five Minutes Flat

YouTube- And the band played waltzing matilda by the houghton weavers



I found it rather too depressing to share the links collected, but I guess --- like BP --- it's best to start again...

I tried to enclose a little oil leak ticker as a widget, but due to the restrictions of vBulletin, not even Ragnar could put html in php: for those who want to slide the rate of flow about to see how much so far is in the ocean black, go to here.



First, a meditation:


The administration has solidly attempted to evade responsibility --- not for the explosion, which no-one blamed them for, although the fact that the MMS regulators and the oil industry had in some cases, touchingly, been little boys and little girls together from an early age, seems lax; and inspires as much confidence as the average person now has in Mr. Cheney ( who was additionally one of those responsible for this remarkable coincidence ). Mr. Obama's uncertainty as to whether the woman in charge of the MMS had resigned or been pushed demonstrates his effortless hands-off approach to the whole crisis.


One of the major reasons why --- over six weeks --- Americans are not angry, is that they have not been told what to think. For the Right, this is an opportunity to blackguard the credulous and incompetent Obama, yet how can they go against the Oil Companies whom they love more than they love their very families, and against Private Enterprise, the greatest invention of Mankind ? For the Left, this is an opportunity to excoriate Capitalism and Anti-Environmentalism, yet this necessitates criticizing Obama, and giving comfort to those filthy, fucking, hate-filled, racist, moronic scum who have doubts about him. And who probably live in Arizona.

So reactions are muted. The French would have probably held a national strike by now. The Left's main reaction has been to jeer at the simple-minded worrriers by asking what the hell they expect the president to do ? Generally including something such as: 'Do you expect that Obama should dive in a frog-suit a mile deep and fix the riser himself ?'


This also has been the attitude of the administration. From the start they have pointed out that they have no equipment or skills that would work, that only BP has, and that it is solely BP's responsibility to fix any leak.

This is absolute rubbish. As is well-known, when the dam burst BP executives were holding a party on the rig to celebrate 7 years good luck in running Deepwater Horizon without any accidents. The blast blew in a wall where the party was held.

Now, hypothetically suppose that all of BP's experts died then --- as well as those men who did die --- and BP been unavailable to fix anything at all: are we to imagine that in such case the government would merely have sat and wept by the oily waters of Babylon, unable to do a single thing ? There are other oil companies, some in Houston, and those other companies --- who have all been helping BP ---have equipment; maybe as far away as Norway or Alaska, yet transport from those places need not take the six weeks that have resulted in nothing, let alone until August --- or conceivably, with someone like the unspeakable Albert Speer in charge, equipment could be manufactured in an emergency fashion along the coast.

Which is the point of competence. However unadmirable, nearly any of the old brutes murdered at Nuremberg --- except Goering --- could have taken charge and made a better job by now than Obama or Bush: without violence even.

And their foreign peers to some extent. Admittedly the soviets would have executed a dozen managers by now, and sent the relevant cabinet ministers to guard small holes in Siberia, but still fucked it up as badly as this administration; yet past efficient American presidents, such as Hoover or FDR, would have the thing under control by now. Even Carter, who after all had served as nuclear engineer in the Navy, would have done far better.


There are other forces, effectually abetting government inaction, who have not been silent: the ever-popular --- not to mention populist --- internet libertarian tendency. Urging that disasters are best left it to private industry to fix --- which ignores the fact that in a world without regulation coercively imposed by government there may be no reason for an oil --- or any other --- company to do the faintest thing but walk away from any disaster they cause. What's in it for them ? ( Alternatively the libertarian might claim companies may be sued by private individuals, but who then owns the courts ? Not to mention that law that is breakable can only be dictated by government, not by mutual agreement between citizens --- some of whom are thieves. )



Mr. Obama seems to have anticipated there would be no emergencies or sudden challenges under his watch. He hates surprises; and hates being expected to do stuff. All he needed was be inaugurated in order to heal the world, then to just continue the Bush Legacy as planned; to be sure, as expected he followed that doctrine both in the wars he inherited and in economics, and has extended it mightily: not even Bush dared announce the new power Obama boldly enunciated recently, that as president he has the right to have any American abroad murdered without trial upon private decision that he or she is Not A Nice Person. Then again, even Philip II of Spain, who had a lot of people murdered, never claimed this as a regal right. He just did it.


Which is an excellent motto for anyone.




More links after the break.





Claverhouse

 

[BigApplePi]

I couldn't remember what I wanted to say about this and was going to give up when I remembered.

Disregarding the current events, do you think companies in general should be held responsible ahead of time for environmental or social damage they directly or indirectly bring about? Never mind legal proof. Make it no-fault. They pay, say half and the taxpayers pay the rest.

The problem is, we need such companies to produce and if they cause damage that bankrupts them, we no longer have the companies.

 

[Cavallier]

Today on CNN I watched a man in Gulf Shores Alabama talk about tar balls and worse washing up on the shores of Orange Beach. I learned how to swim there. I have family there.

I am utterly sick. Damn you BP. Damn you Obama administration. Damn you all.

 

[BigApplePi]

Today on CNN I watched a man in Gulf Shores Alabama talk about tar balls and worse washing up on the shores of Orange Beach. I learned how to swim there. I have family there.

I am utterly sick. Damn you BP. Damn you Obama administration. Damn you all.

Yes Cavallier. BP be damned. The Admin be dammed. Damn all of you for demanding oil to grease the works. BP was in too damned much of a damned hurry to play it safe because we are all in a damned hurry. Slow down everyone.

Cav what were you doing out on the damned beach?

 

[Cavallier]

Cav what were you doing out on the damned beach?

In the evening when the air and water have reached the same temperature and the currents carry you softly back and forth you learn what it means to dissolve. Where the water begins and your own body ends is a meaningless contemplation. Fingers widen and stretch. They bob and wave with the slight shuttering of water. Edges lose their distinctiveness. Toes sink down so that your heels dance along the sand. The ripples and shells message away the paths of their own sensations. You’ve finally released the thread ever connecting you to awareness. You are merely driftwood carried about in the vastness of the gulf. You calmly gaze into the ether with no desires, no needs, and no will.

The sky above you is ruddy after a long day of labor. It turns thick with purple swaths and deeply darkened blues as it dons its evening robe. After an enduring separation it to longs for a combining. It swirls above in anticipation of rejoining its lover the horizon. Patiently waiting, she has cloaked herself in the endless gulf. She undulates with swells of pink as she reflects the sky descending upon her. He pulls her to him folding her long arms against his expansive chest. This evening, this moment, this time is made of a gentle unhurried mixing.

 

[BigApplePi]

Beautiful Cavallier.

 

[Kokoro]

Indeed. Where is the rest of the book?

 

[Cavallier]

Meh. It was the effluvia of a bored 14 year old mind. Apple's use of the word "hurry" made me think of it. Who would have thought I'd remember having written that scrap so many years later?

Edit: Oil washes up on the Orange Beach:

Oil on Gulf Shores beach: