(Update at the bottom)
It has taken me about nine days to focus on the oil spill in the Gulf and realize what is actually happening out there. But that’s not half bad. It took Obama 8 days.
This thing happened on April 20th and yet last weekend the Obamas were vacationing in Asheville hiking in the Great Smokeys and eating ice cream, and BBQ, playing golf, no children with them, stopping traffic for miles around, not a care in the world, not in the least bit concerned about this disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Only yesterday did he seem to even become aware of it, now that it is the 9th hour the oil is reaching the entire Gulf shore, destroying fish and wildlife.
They call it a “spill” and when I think of something spilling, it means to me the contents of a container has spilled out, leaving it empty. But that’s apparently not what’s happening here. This is not really a spill but instead it’s a gushing oil well 5,000 feet beneath the water, explained this way in the excerpt I posted below:
“…..the oil is coming out of fractures on a severed pipe connected to the wellhead, 5,000 ft below the surface.”
And they can’t get it stopped.
Is this Obama’s Katrina? You better believe it is. Surely he knew the nature of this disaster while he was on his “middle class” vacation in the mountains. Was he just briefed yesterday? No matter how you look at it, here we have the smartest man in the world, without exception, and he didn’t realize this spill was, in fact, an untapped oil well? And when he finally reacted yesterday one of the first things he did was send the Justice Department and SWAT teams?
(It took him 8 days to respond to the spill. He “responded” to the Governor of Arizona even before she actually signed the anti-immigration bill into law, condemning her and trying to intimidate her, and coming to the defense of all illegal immigrants.)
And certainly one of the most important aspects of this was that 11 people were killed out there. Who were they? What are their names? Were they Americans? Do they have families? How did they die? I’d like to know.
From Times on Line.
It also emerged yesterday that the oil rig did not have a remote-controlled shut-off switch used in other oil-producing nations, such as Norway and Brazil, which could have closed down the well after the explosion.
The device, known as an acoustic switch, is not required under US law, but the lack of one added to questions about BP’s operation of the Deepwater Horizon. It exploded 50 miles off the Louisiana coast on April 20. The cause of the blast, which killed 11 of the 111 workers on board and set the rig ablaze before it eventually sank, has yet to be determined.
Mr Suttles said that Deepwater Horizon was equipped with other safety devices that should have prevented this type of spill, in which the oil is coming out of fractures on a severed pipe connected to the wellhead, 5,000ft below the surface.
Dozens of vessels were trying to contain the spill, using a variety of methods. Crews triggered a series of controlled fires to burn off the thickest parts of the slick, while booms, skimmers and chemical dispersants were used to stop the rest from reaching shore. Heavy seas, forecast to last into next week, are hampering the operation.
BP was due to start drilling a new “relief” well that would allow them to stop the flow from the seabed, although officials said that it would take at least two months to complete.
A separate effort was also under way to try to place a dome on the ruptured wellhead but that, too, could take weeks.
BP has also tried, unsuccessfully, to close the wellhead using submersible robots.
I definitely think it’s racial. It’s just because a whole lot of white people live on the gulf Coast, probably a lot of them are just a bunch of “teabagging rednecks,” and this president just does not care about white people. Not. at. all.
Posted: 05.01.10
P. S.: Turn-about is fair play.
May Day. May Day. SWAT teams to Arizona today? I don’t know. They may all be engaged in watching the oil spill and intimidating the tea partiers.
VACATION IN ARIZONA.
UPDATE – MORE: The New York Times writes today:
“Here you have the company that is responsible for the accident leading the response to the crisis,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program. “There is a problem here, and the consequence is clear.”
“But it is still the government, in this case the Coast Guard, that has the final say. A law passed a year after the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster makes the owner of a rig or vessel responsible for cleaning up a spill. But oversight of the cleanup is designated to the Coast Guard, with advice from other federal agencies.”
This made me think of a little publicized Obama plan to CUT the active duty personnel in the Coast Guard, along with cutting $100 million out of port security This is, of course, after spending the USA into bankruptcy on things we don’t want, grabbing power here and grabbing power there. Will the media mention this?
From March, 2010:
“The Obama administration plans to cut 1,100 active duty personnel from the Coast Guard, the smallest of our military services. Funds for port security—our first line of defense—will be cut by $100 million.
The incoming Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Robert Papp, has said he would have to consider cutting homeland security training and operations. This is tantamount to announcing to the terrorists “the coast is clear.””
http://biggovernment.com/kblackwell/2010/03/17/obamas-scheme-to-gut-the-coast-guard/#more-90994
Update: 05.01.10 @ 8:25 p.m.
can i just finish my waffle? 