Thom, thanks for bringing up this topic. It really hits home. We ARE becoming a 'temp worker' society. I work in the staffing industry, and believe me, the temp. contracting business encompasses all skillsets now, from unskilled day laborers to highly sofisticated technical. legal, and medical professionals. More and more companies are cutting their permanent staff and bringing in temporary contract employees for 3 months - 2 year projects. Once the project is completed, the emloyees are gone. They do this to save on the costs of benefits packages. Yet another reason why we need universal health care and to bring back strong union organizations. Highly unlikely that we'll have either one in place, at least to the extent that it will help most of the workforce in the near future, but maybe in another generation or two... One can dream ;-)

thanx maxrot

"5,000 barrels = 210,000 gallons (42 gallons/barrel)"

Remember when they said it was only 1000 barrels a day? Now some are saying it is really closer to 27,000 barrels a day = 1.134 million gallons.

Or as Rachel calls it, an underwater oil volcano.

@Blue Mark, I understand that if the pipe and valve at the source fails (and their is a good chance it might) all bets are off. The Oil Rigs produce 30,000 barrels a day under controlled conditions. Time is not on our side (all of humanity not just the lefties).

N

@Nels,

Thanks for the words of support. As I understand the oil flow, the fallen riser pipe is acting now as a reducing valve contolling the volume of oil coming from the drillhole. This riser pipe is being buffeted by grit and sand and may be sandblasted straight through. If this were to happen then the flow would be less or unrestricted.

@Zero G. yeah, that oil geyser seems like its just getting started. One of the things that's really beginning to bother me are the reports that say these blowouts happen frequently. I think a number quoted earlier was 40 in the last decade. Now what bothers me isn't the frequency and the likelihood of them happening in the future at the same rate (though I'm not ecstatic about it), no what bothers me is why is this one so much more destructive, in other words why is this one incident so different (I'm doubting its the depth). The silence on this is becoming deafening, or am I just being overly reactionary on this?

N

Another thing that's bugging me is why haven't we seen the Deepwater Horizon laying on the Ocean floor? I mean its not like it could have drifted too far from where it began to sink, is oil gushing out of it too from storage tanks? Is it laying on top of one or a couple of the leaks? Is there obvious reasons why this happened that can be seen on video in the wreckage?

I can't believe they haven't had time or interest to look at it.

N

Anytime I can cause a happy dance, or just a smile, gives me pleasure.

I can see the rule-of-law analogy from today's show playing out like this:

A lack of rule-of-law-for-people+creation in Somalia allowed waste dumping which wiped out fishermen who became (or were press-ganged) into piracy.

A lack of rule-of-law-for-people+creation in US allowed giant growing oil slick which will wipe out fishermen who will fall (or be forced) into temp jobs.

Heck the Gulf Coast fisherman probably already have off season temp jobs. If BP gave a rats ass they would already have hired ALL the fishermen for a temporary boom-a-rama. I'm pretty sure that BP has neither the necessary 1000+ of miles of booms nor enough oil recovery ships, but they could've bought, hired and rigged that up by now if they cared about the Gulf Coast people and ecology. But BP cares only about $75million worth which is, after all, a tiny pimple on their >$10 Billion profit. They simply won't care unless made to experience reduced profits by rule-of-law, but even then any corporation prefers the law which says they must care about profits first. They will NEVER care more than it costs them or they aren't good capitalists right?