Time to nationalize oil.

Consider what we get for our 600 billion+ annual military budget. This public support of the military does not include the cost for the wars in Afghanistan (Pakistan) and Iraq. We get a military that seems to be at the beck and call of the oil industry. The war in Afghanistan is all about the pipelines from the Caspian Sea Basin, the war in Iraq is about seizing and controlling the oil fields.

Here's proof: http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=pipelinePolitics

The public is asked to bear all costs for big oil while big oil takes ALL the profits and actually sells the oil on the world market. That's a double slap in the face to taxpayers.

We should push to nationalize oil exploration and production. If we are going to use US taxpayer monies to overthrow sovereign foreign governments and install our hand picked puppet dictators, i.e., Hamid Karzai, Unocal consultant, then we should take the next step and control the resource or, better, let those sovereign nations develop their own resources and buy from them on the open market. Capitialism today is not Free Market. Capitalism is mega large corporations infiltrating the govt and creating policy and laws that further benefit (in this case) big oil. Big oil uses those profits, not to develop emergency containment measures, not to develop green energies, but to install political candidates of their choice and to further corrupt those already in Congress.

The disaster in the Gulf is testimoney of our national religion, the worship of money and power. It makes no sense going forward that a handfull of people can control the earth's finite resource and lobby against green energy development while raking in hundreds of billions of profits. Things will only get worse. Companies merge, fewer and fewer are in control, the population grows and energy consumption grows proportionally.

BP, Halliburton and Transocean are persons and should be executed. Their assets should be seized by the govt, i.e., we the people, and the heads of those companies and their boards of directors should be charged with treason and reckless endangerment and gross negligence.

Obama's reaction proves, if court jester Bush didn't, that the presidency of the United States is a figurehead and the global elites really are running everything . . . in the ground.

The really sick part of the HS 'senior photos' case is that the courts had already slapped down the prosecution of three of her schoolmates for similar photos.

Quote ACLU of PA: N.N. was a schoolmate of Marissa Miller, Grace Kelly, and Nancy Doe, who sued last year over District Attorney Skumanick's threat to prosecute them for child pornography for revealing pictures of themselves found on other students' cell phones if they did not take the same D.A.'s re-education course that N.N. was forced to take. Earlier this year the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a ruling preventing the three girls from being prosecuted.

And in that case the photos were on other people's phones. The school and the DA should have known better in the current case of N. N.

It is not very surprising about the "three little pigs" that any corporation would put the dollar at a higher value than human life. I'm glad it's out though. Maybe people will wake up a little bit to the corporatist greed inherent in our economic system.

A little physics on the problem of plugging a gusher oil well is in order. You cannot just put something on top of it. I do not know the exact pressure of the oil in the well, but I have heard numbers on the order of 10,000 PSI and larger. If someone can confirm any information about that, I would appreciated it. I do know that it has to be > 2150 PSI which is the approximate pressure of the sea at 5000 feet of depth. Even at 10,000 PSI, the weight needed to simply plug the riser pipe of 21" in diameter is 10,000 PSI * pi * 10.5" ^ 2 = 3,463,605 lbs. Yes, that is 1731 tons (1571 long tonnes, i.e 1,571,000 kg).

The other issue with containment of the oil out of the riser/BOP is that the pressure inside the containment vessel more or less equalizes with the well, unless the vessel is continually vented to the outside (or surface in a tanker). Any containment vessel also will be larger than the riser pipe, massively multiplying the mass needed to keep it sealed. Perhaps this pressure can be harnessed in driving the oil and gas to the surface in a controlled manner, but with methane freezing at that temperature and pressure and oil being very thick, I am not sure that is even viable. This doesn't even account for the buoyancy of the methane and hydrates displacing the water inside the vessel. I believe that the only option to capture the oil is to use a free flow system that just lets it flow out of the riser into a collector. I think that this is what the initial attempt with the 100 ton box was all about. At 40' x 10' x 10' (roughly) the 100 ton box requires only about 1 PSI on the inside surface to raise it (each side roughly 400 sq. ft (4 of them) and 100 sq ft on the top, so 1700 sq ft. total. That is 244,800 sq. in. of surface and 1 pound on each of those is 244,800 pounds!

I think that this underscores how hard this problem is and how close we are to the limits of our techonology for this kind of drilling.

I sincerely hope that the mud in the BOP and well head works. This is turning into a global catastrophe for our environment.

Thom & Lamar say of Peter Dale Scott: (and a few others)

...we encourage our readers to seek out and read any and all of their work. Legacy of Secrecy, pg 855

At the risk of being called out again by Mrs. Hartmann maybe Thom could have Peter Dale Scott on the show some time?

ENVIRONMENTAL TERRORISM MUST BE CONSIDERED A CRIME!!!

I recently joined the Financial Times Website after listening to a promotion by Thom Hartmann. I love to watch and read news. When in high school I admired Henry Kissinger's diplomacy. Ever since 9/11 I have been observing terrorist networks, organized crime and drug cartels. I have seen a disturbing pattern evolve. When Governments, Banks, United Nations, and foreign aid abandoned the poor and impoverished, the previous above mentioned take over. The wealthy nations of the world have created a power vacuum, and will have to fight a continual battle in hot spots that will pop up all over the world. The U.S. military will most likely lose the battle in Afghanistan, and will focus next on Somalia. They will have to find and fight guerilla warfare battles on a never ending cycle. Drug Cartels like in Mexico and most recently in Jamaica have taken over poor neighbors. Now their countries’ own military has to try to clear them out. Once you kill one drug cartel member, there are many other poor desperate citizen waiting in the wings. Organized crime in Italy has prospered in the lending of money in the Southern portion of the country because the banks greatly limited lending to local businesses. I recently joined the Green Party because eventually the U.S. Government will bankrupt itself fighting these ill thought out battles and a new foreign policy strategy will be needed and implemented.

@flotron9, the internet is great for information. Corporations can bring down countries. All operations from the goose-steppers are overt because they believe Americans are stupid.

I also read Carville's comments re Obama and BP. On one hand, like you said, he's from down there and is much closer to what's going on and his comments were appropriate. On the other hand, I thought, is Hillary thinking this is Obama's Katrina and it's a trial balloon for Hillary in 2014???

Please have Marcy Winograd on!! She's running against Jane Harmon in June 8 primary. Marcy is a real progressive, a long time activist, a teacher and educator. Marcy is the peace and education candidate we need in Congress now. Thank you in advance.

What about Ed Schultzs' favorite product. Bio-Green-Clean. How does that effect oil in water? It's 100% bio degradable and 100% American made.

N

@Zero G. to those that worship at the Idol of the Almighty Dollar, money is the only thing of worth, making them worthless people. These people work their way to the top of Corporate and Political organizations, and in turn make such organizations leviathans of evil, bent on fulfilling the philosophy of their leaders. Since money is the only thing they care about, dolling out some seems like such a sacrifice, they can't understand how anything else as a value.

How we can expect the greed minded leaders to even fathom the devastation they cause is about as improbable as expecting them to understand the value of the lives they are destroying.

Money obviously can't equate to many of the things in our life we value.

So obviously, I'm in total agreement with you.

N

@Gene,

Tom Tomorrow is one of the best!

The very idea that knowledge handed down from generation to generation could or should be monetized trivializes such knowledge. Not that these people don't deserve some monetary compensation to survive, just that these folks cannot be repaid anymore than the families of those killed in illegal US wars can be repaid by financial considerations.