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As long as we clean up the surface oil, we can sweep the rest under the rug and have a 40-foot-thick carpet of oil on the sea floor.
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
Zero G. always alleviates the gravity of the situation. :D
@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
Life is filled with horrors from man's ego and inconsiderations. I worked for a major corporation for years and helped with events when VIPs and CEOs were attending. The corners that were cut and the scrambling that when on to make everything perfect for them was comical and exhausting. If things went wrong, jobs were even at stake. I've seen people bump into each other and drop what they were carrying because they were in such frantic states. Yes, it is quite likely this happened on the rig that day. Shame.
Zero G.!!! You're Back!!!! excuse me for a minute while I do my happy dance.
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.
Senator Bernie Sanders wins a big one:
Senate OKs Fed Audit as Part of Bank Overhaul
by Kevin Drawbaugh and Andy Sullivan
@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
What Accountability, Mr. President?Obama on Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan: 'I am Accountable'
by Jeremy Scahill
"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.
@harry, 5,000 barrels = 210,000 gallons (42 gallons/barrel)
That's 954,678.9 liters (you can probably safely round that up to 1 Million liters though since its all a rough estimate anyway)
N
thanx maxrot
re: oil spill: I"m confused. I've been hearing over 200,000 gallons per day. Here,Im hearing 5,000 perday.
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 ;-)
"Beaners?" what is this...1950?
RE Gulf Oil Spill, I've been reading a few reports on the Web (so take them with a grain of salt) that there is a possibility that the pipe and valve at the source of the leak may completely fail because of the high pressure oil and associated grit spewing from it. If that happens, it is likely that we go from 5,000 barrel-a-day to 50,000 barrel-a-day spill. That's 2.1 Million Gallons per day.
N
Ghod! I hate looking at that photo on the home page of that fat hairy guy. The media is getting us used to the fact that fat is the new normal. I even hate flipping thru TV and getting a glimpse of the low hanging man-boobs on Biggest Loser. I can't wait til tomorrow for a new photo.
@Louise
Apology accepted, from myself anyway. If I didn't think that Thom provided one of the most progressive voices on the commercial media, I wouldn't be here. I do hope some of my comments here have been appreciated by the show's staff, I assume so since I was a member of the day a few weeks back....
@Mstaggerlee
Leftists generally don't form echo chambers, there are too many various divided factions and everybody has an opinion, but in talking to the right wing, well how do you politely stay honest when talking to folks whose income is dependant on the exploitation of others, the bombing of civilians, the torture of prisoners, etc. Today Seymor Hersch is reporting that the US is executing prisoners on the battlefield. This is now, under the Hope and Change administration. War is a Racket, same as it ever was...
Some have suggested RFID chip implants. Next would be the implant with GPS. Next might include an audio/video transmitter.
Didn't East Germany have about half the population spying on the "others"?
Nothing succeeds like success. The execs came to celebrate the safe drilling of a fat new well. There is an independent review in process by repected engineer Dr.B in process now. Times Picayune reporters said he has found there was a debate about how to transition from exploration to production and the mud removal side won over the people concerned about the plug stability. Oops. Seems like the law of unintended consequences is in play here: that well was 'hot' with gas - too hot to handle. The T-P said that the mud geysered up 200 feet when the natural gas burped out the plug and then the well pushed out methyl hydrate slush all over the rig and that burst into flame as it evaporated into natural gas. Nothing succeeds like success - until it explodes in your face.
@harry, no, no vocal device, I type it all in, I'm just not following best writing practices and re-reading everything I write... twice before submitting.
N
Manpower used to be the number one employer in the US. I think it was in the early 1990s.
I worked temp once for $7.50 an hour. one of the employers who hired me told me he was paying the temp company $14 an hour. so the wage is obviously not the issue.
In an earlier segment Thom spoke briefly about the Estate Tax (or Paris Hilton Tax). Something I think we should be pointing out is that repealing the Estate Tax would result in a big middle class tax increase while giving the extremely rich a big tax break.
The Estate Tax is really a great big capital gains tax cut for people inheriting estates under a bit more than a million dollars (or 3 to 5 million under certain circumstances) - in other words it is a tax break for the middle class.
What the Estate Tax really does is give heirs a break on the cost basis of capital property they inherit - when it is sold the capital gains will only be calculated from the value at the time it was inherited rather than when it was originally acquired - this is the "step up" in the cost basis that they get. In exchange for that huge tax break, a tax is charged only on the portion of an estate above the limit (up to 5 million for family farms and 3 million for family businesses).
With no Estate Tax, there is no step up basis for capital gains of inherited property. Therefore the middle class will pay far more captial gains taxes on inherited property.
This year there is no Estate Tax, but it comes back next year. A few years ago Congress passed a 'bridge' bill to retain the capital gains step-up for this one year.
Very large estates benefit because with capital gains taxes at half the old rates, it is less expensive than the Estate Tax. And of course the same handful of families pushing for the elimination of the Estate Tax also want the complete elimination of Capital Gains taxes - that is next on their list.
So - Estate Tax repeal = big increase in middle class taxes, big cuts for the very wealthy.