'Obama's Katrina': an Illustrated Timeline

21 April 2010: All 115 workers are evacuated from the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig.

22 April 2010: President Obama delivers a speech on Wall Street to advocate more government intervention in the country's financial sector, but offers no reforms for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which helped precipitate the 2008 meltdown. He also delivers a speech regarding the contributions of Earth Day to environmental awareness.

23 April 2010: President Obama blasts the Arizona governor, state legislators, police officers and residents for backing federal laws that prohibit illegal immigration.

24 April 2010: The president delivers his weekly radio address, which focuses on further regulation of Wall Street. He also calls upon certain segments of his original supporters -- African-Americans, Latinos, Hispanics, and women -- and asks them to mobilize for political action.

24 April 2010: Efforts to contain the spill are hampered by lack of resources and difficult weather.

25 April 2010: President Obama interrupts a weekend getaway to meet with the Rev. Billy Graham in North Carolina.

25 April 2010: Oil spreads across the gulf and heads toward the Louisiana shoreline.

26 April 2010: President Obama appears in a "Vote 2010" video, distributed by his political action wing Organizing for America, which serves as a stark appeal to blacks and Latinos -- specifically -- for their votes in November.

26 April 2010: The Coast Guard warns that the spill could become one of the worst in United States history.

28 April 2010: The President holds a rare, impromptu press conference on Air Force One, addressing "questions on the Arizona immigration law, the financial regulation bill and other issues." Obama also prepared to make his second nomination to the Supreme Court and warns of a "'conservative' brand of judicial activism in which the courts are often not showing appropriate deference to the decisions of lawmakers."

28 April 2010: large pools of oil are spotted close to the Louisiana shore line.

29 April 2010: the White House Flickr Feed is updated with a photo of the President meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and senior administration officials, including National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, which indicates that they are urgently working the issue of the oil spill.

29 April 2010: Meanwhile, local officials, the Coast Guard and private citizens continue their efforts to prevent damage to the Louisiana coastline.

Perhaps if the oil breached the Louisiana levees, then caught on fire, and then turned New Orleans into a Dresden-like inferno, the President would stop campaigning for a couple of days and actually pay attention to his own, personal Katrina. Even The New York Times has noticed, decrying the President's lackadaisical response. But I'm guessing that somehow, someway, it's all President Bush's fault.

The ASA VOICES BLOG favors posting the opinions of the Hard Left and, under various flimsy guises, finds ways to silence and/or bar any EFFECTIVE rebuttals to those opinions.

No matter, I have done my correction below to [1] one of this blogger’s misrepresentations and below that, [2] I introduced him to the real world from which he hides. This response is posted publicly in my thread. (My thread itself also addresses most of the rest of his misleading assertions).

You may read the entire ASA blogger’s post here:

The Deepwater Horizon Disaster
http://www.asa3online.org/Voices/2010/05/04/the-deepwater-horizon-disaster/comment-page-1/#comment-298
May 4th, 2010 By Richard Blinne
[snip]

The deliberate misrepresentation he makes that I want to correct is this one:

[1] Blinne misleadingly writes: “....... The entire industry has been fighting regulation by the MMS. I checked the WSJ’s assertion about the so-called acoustic switch with industry expert, Bob Cavner, shown being interviewed by Fox News here. It’s amazing all the “reporter” was interested in was the “terrorist” angle. I guess she was taking orders from Rush:

“…lest we forget, the carbon tax bill Cap and Trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. Then it was postponed, a couple of days later… what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plans, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing, here. “ ~ Rush Limbaugh

[end quote]

I will now post Rush’s words in context so you will know how this mealy-mouthed professing Christian has deliberately misrepresented him.

NOTE: SWOT stands for: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT Teams)

Regime: SWOT Teams Sent to Gulf
April 29, 2010
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_042910/content/01125113.member.html

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Mike in South Florida, great to have you on the EIB Network, sir. Hello.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. I have two concerns that are quite bothersome to me. The first is on the oil leak, the big oil spill.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: And I haven’t heard anything about this but we know what happened in the ClimateGate situation, and we know about the faulty research and the faulty data, et cetera, and I’m sure that something like this has been done but it’s a thought. Is it possible that somebody on the other side might have thought in their minds for the greater good to maybe not have done some maintenance on the oil lines, to maybe have what they thought might have been a controlled oil leak that got outta hand to try and shut off or shun the thought of having any more offshore oil drilling?

RUSH: Well...

CALLER: And all of a sudden we have this huge leak. The whole thing now shifts to we shouldn’t be drilling offshore because of this leak.

RUSH: ..... Now, back to your question. Sure these kind of suspicions, the reason you haven’t heard anything about is because nobody’s got any proof.

CALLER: Right. I’m wondering if something has been launched to look into even something like this; that it wasn’t just a spill, a break, but maybe something that was done purposefully.

RUSH: There was an explosion. There was an explosion and some people died in this. Now they’re trying to contain the oil spill, which is pretty big. They’re trying to surround it and corral it and tow it out there then they’re going to set fire to it. You know, oil floats on water so what they’re going to try to do is have a controlled burn of this stuff. Now, Homeland Security is investigating what happened here, which should inspire lots of confidence that we’re gonna get to the bottom of it. Then the regime is going to have a statement here on the oil spill in the Gulf coming up pretty soon. After the regime speaks on this, we’ll have a better idea because however this happened, accidentally, however it happened, the regime’s going to use this for all it’s worth. (laughing) We know this. So it really doesn’t matter, Mike, if this was an accident or an act of sabotage. The regime will use the occasion of this event to its own political advantage.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t hear this myself, but I have been informed that President Obama is sending SWOT teams to the Gulf oil rigs. SWOT teams? I’m waiting on audio sound bite confirmation of this, but why in the world would you send SWOT teams to Gulf oil rigs? Oh, I know! Obama probably thinks the tea party blew up the rig. That’s what it is. (laughing) Yes. Of course the tea party did it! (laughing) Seriously, you know, this rig... We had this call from a guy out there who said nobody’s talking about whether this was an act of sabotage because I guess they can’t prove it, but they’re going to send SWOT teams down there? He was going to send a SWOT team to the rig that blew up or are you going to send a SWOT team to other rigs? What’s going on here? Remember, this rig blew April 21st, which is one day prior to “Erf” Day.

I have a story here from Reuters, September 24th, 2008 (shuffling paper) right here in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers: “Nobel Peace Prize winner and environmental crusader Al Gore urged young people on Wednesday to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon.” So you got the guru here urging civil disobedience, you got the regime sending SWOT teams down there to all the rigs in the Gulf. They’re sending SWOT teams to all the rigs in the Gulf! Whoa ho-ho-ho. So obviously Obama thinks the tea partiers are expert scuba divers as well or maybe they have their own fleet of underwater submarines that can go deep enough to go undetected, set explosives, and hightail it back to the protests in Ohio, or wherever they (laughing) happen to be.

So 15 years of no global warming. “That’s just anecdotal! It doesn’t disapprove anything! It doesn’t disapprove that there’s a man-made threat going on.” But one oil spill — one oil spill which might have been intentional — is enough to prove that offshore oil drilling is unsafe and should never be done. This is the logic we’re forced to live with. There hasn’t been any warming in 15 years, that doesn’t mean anything. Those e-mails were hoaxed! The readings at the climate unit in East Anglia, they were all made up. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is who leaked those e-mails. What the e-mails said doesn’t matter.” But those guys made it all up, and they wouldn’t produce the data that led to their conclusions. They say they lost it. “Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter at all!” But it hasn’t warmed in 15 years. “It doesn’t matter.” But I just saw a story you guys say you’re looking for the “lost” heat. “Doesn’t matter.” One oil rig blows up, and it proves we can’t dig, drill, find more oil.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, here’s the regime kicking into action here on the Gulf oil well or the rig explosion, President Obama mere moments ago in the Rose Garden before presenting the teacher of the year award.

OBAMA: I do want to speak briefly to the American people about the recent BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Earlier today DHS Secretary Napolitano announced that this incident is of national significance and the Department of Interior has announced that they will be sending SWOT teams to the Gulf to inspect all platforms and rigs and I have ordered the secretaries of interior and Homeland Security as well as administrator Lisa Jackson of the Environmental Protection Agency to visit the site on Friday to ensure that BP and the entire US government is doing everything possible not just to respond to this incident but also to determine its cause.

RUSH: Wow. All right, so SWOT teams, we’re sending big sis down there, Janet Napolitano, to look at all the valves and stuff, make sure they’re properly greased. He-he-he-he. Ahem. And Lisa Jackson is doing the same thing. So obviously the regime is open to the idea that this is not an accident. The regime is open to the possibility that this could well have been on purpose. Don’t forget, the original Earth Day, 40 years ago, was inspired by the river in Cleveland catching fire. Forty years later, the day before Earth Day this year, the Gulf is on fire. Coincidence? Jury’s still out. The regime is on the case, soon to tell us what happened.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I want to get back to the timing of the blowing up, the explosion out there in the Gulf of Mexico of this oil rig. Since they’re sending SWOT teams down there now this changes the whole perspective of this. Now, lest we forget, ladies and gentlemen, the carbon tax bill, cap and trade that was scheduled to be announced on Earth Day. I remember that. And then it was postponed for a couple of days later after Earth Day, and then of course immigration has now moved in front of it. But this bill, the cap-and-trade bill, was strongly criticized by hardcore environmentalist wackos because it supposedly allowed more offshore drilling and nuclear plants, nuclear plant investment. So, since they’re sending SWOT teams down there, folks, since they’re sending SWOT teams to inspect the other rigs, what better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I’m just noting the timing here.

From The Hill, about the Senate bill: “Sierra Club chief Michael Brune told The Hill’s E2 Wire: ‘We will go to the mat for defending Clean Air Act authority.’

Brune also pointed to another potential stumbling block: offshore drilling. ‘We will not be able to accept the dramatic giveaway that offshore oil drilling represents,’ he said.”

The five hurdles the climate bill must clear, and one of them is offshore drilling. That’s in TheHill.com.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Our official climatologist, Dr. Roy Spencer has just sent me something. I’ve been wondering about this. He must have been reading my mind. We’ve got 5,000 barrels a day being spilled from the rig, and Dr. Spencer looked into it. You know, we’ve talked of this before. There’s natural seepage into oceans all over the world from the ocean floor of oil — and the ocean’s pretty tough, it just eats it up. Dr. Spencer looked into this. You know the seepage from the floor of the Gulf is exactly 5,000 barrels a day, throughout the whole Gulf of Mexico now. It doesn’t seep out all in one giant blob like this thing has, but the bottom line here is: Even places that have been devastated by oil slicks like... What was that place up in Alaska where the guy was drunk, ran a boat aground? (interruption) Prince William Sound. They were wiping off the rocks with Dawn dishwater detergent and paper towels and so forth. The place is pristine now.

You do survive these things. I’m not advocating don’t care about it hitting the shore or coast and whatever you can do to keep it out of there is fine and dandy, but the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there. It’s natural. It’s as natural as the ocean water is. (interruption) Well, the turtles may take a hit for a while, but so what? So do we! Hell, remember that story we had at the beginning of the show: The barred owl that flew into the windshield of the Wentzville, Missouri, fire truck, and they got to the fire and the thing was still hanging on out there. It had a broken wing and they took it to some animal veterinary sanctuary or hospital or something. Just give it a pain pill! Why not? That’s what they had for us, and we don’t even launch ourselves into the windshields of fire trucks.

END TRANSCRIPT

[2] Blinne continues: “.......Why we even do deepwater drilling is beyond me. The President should re-institute the moratorium on offshore drilling.” ~

Below we will see another reason why Blinne chooses - every chance he gets - to misrepresent what Rush says. Rush lives in the REAL world and makes fun of all that emotionally immature, illogical leftists hold dear:

RUSH: Okay. So the regime has shut down drilling in the Gulf. But you know who hasn’t shut down drilling? The Russians are drilling in a deal with the Cubans in the Gulf. The Vietnamese and Angola are drilling for oil in the Gulf in deals with the Cubans. And of course the Mexicans have this giant new find that they’re getting ready to go get. There’s no mention of the Louisiana oil spill on FEMA’s website. Which tells me, you know, I think Obama must really have it in for wildlife down there, ‘cause these are the first victims, and who knew that he had this kind of animus for animals out there?

Which is the concluding paragraph in this commentary:

Obama Pays Oil Slick Lip Service; He’s Interested in His Agenda, Not His Job
April 30, 2010
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_043010/content/01125106.member.html

The Luxury of Conservation
http://www.doczero.org/2010/05/the-luxury-of-conservation/#more-14446

Writing on her Facebook page about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Sarah Palin explains why she remains committed to developing domestic oil resources, even though she had a front-row seat to the Exxon Valdez disaster:

Alaskans understand the tragedy of an oil spill, and we’ve taken steps to do all we can to prevent another [Exxon Valdez] tragedy, but we are still pro-development. We still believe in responsible development, which includes drilling to extract energy sources, because we know that there is an inherent link between energy and security, energy and prosperity, and energy and freedom. Production of our own resources means security for America and opportunities for American workers. We need oil, and if we don’t drill for it here, we have to purchase it from countries that not only do not like America and can use energy purchases as a weapon against us, but also do not have the oversight that America has.

There is also an inherent link between energy and environmental conservation. Energy is one of the crucial raw materials for prosperity, and only prosperous societies can minimize their impact on the environment.

Socialist nations have awful environmental records. When the value of property is abolished, land is treated as worthless. The masters of a political economy will bring their boots down on the necks of flora and fauna, as well as people, as they march to the conclusion of their five-year plans. Politicians are extremely skilled at evading accountability. The maximum leaders of a collectivist tyranny don’t worry much about the fate of birds and fish when they’re looking for someplace to bury their industrial failures. Great Leaps Forward leave fields of corpses planted in alkaline soil.

The general poverty of collectivist societies makes their environmental depredations worse. The conservation of nature is a task for high technology, in the hands of people who can afford to preserve vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness. Advanced economies are much less land-intensive than poor nations. Efficient energy production is a big part of the reason why. A college in my home town recently trumpeted the creation of a vast solar farm that would cover a sizable percentage of its energy needs with the angelic purity of harvested sunlight. After the farm was built, the college was horrified to discover it had been necessary to cut down a huge chunk of its wetlands preserve, to make room for all the solar panels.

The lowest income brackets will be hit the hardest by rising fuel prices. The production and distribution of all goods consumes energy. Food is particularly dependent on low shipping costs for large volumes of freight. Adding ten or twenty percent to the cost of food would be devastating to the poor… as would reducing their already dismal employment prospects, by pricing transportation out of reach. Respect for the environment dissipates rapidly in the face of starvation. Look at the desperate poverty in places like India and Africa, and note how little energy those unfortunate souls devote to environmental sensitivity.

Madcap environmentalism is partially to blame for the massive oil spill in the Gulf. As Vladimir at RedState puts it:

We’ve placed promising areas like the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, the East Coast, offshore California, offshore Alaska and ANWR off limits. This current spill will provide ammunition for the anti development folks. But since our collective thirst for petroleum will be unabated, that will mean more oil and refined products will have to be imported in tankers, with their accompanying risk of spill.

BP looked for oil in the deepwater off Louisiana, partly because (paraphrasing Willie Sutton) that’s where the oil is, but also, domestically, it’s one of the few places where they had access.

Maybe it’s too risky for oil companies to drink each others’ milkshakes with 5000-foot straws… but where else are they supposed to go? Reasonable sources of energy that could be exploited safely and with minimal environmental impact, such as ANWR, have been swept off the table by fanatics.

There’s a lot of pressure to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, which also carries the risk of environmental damage, because the oil must be carried on tankers – that’s what the Exxon Valdez was doing when it ran aground. The Great Wazoos of the environmental movement demand fuel to get their private jets and limos to the next global-warming conference. The best way to meet everyone’s needs would be a sane energy policy that doesn’t send oil companies off to root in Davy Jones’ locker, to avoid disturbing the mosquitoes of northern Alaska.

Ace of Spades considers the risk to media-friendly sea otters from the Gulf oil spill, and notes with exasperation that “cute, fuzzy animals will doom America to energy dependence.” Only a wealthy nation can afford that kind of sentimentality. When people become poor and hungry enough, they’ll roast those cute and fuzzy animals on sticks, and barely notice as they wipe out entire species. The environment has no deadlier enemy than the directors of a total state, fighting to control a bitter, impoverished population.

(Access hot links within commentary by clicking on link below)

May 6, 2010
Obama’s Katrina and Obama’s Enron WORSE Than Original Bush Scandals
http://www.floppingaces.net/2010/05/06/obamas-katrina-and-obamas-enron-worse-than-original-bush-scandals/

Yet media silence on money, incompetence and corruption is nearly total!

The Enron scandal during the early years of the Bush Administration was small potatoes compared to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdowns which led to the loses of $trillions for investors worldwide. Yet, the “news” media at the time was filled with stories about campaign contributions to President Bush from Enron and questions of what kind of access or special treatment they might have received from the Administration.

Now, the shoe is on the other foot in a big way and the silence is deafening:

Is Goldman Obama’s Enron? No, it’s worse [updated]
By: J.P. Freire
The Washington Examiner
April 20, 2010
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Is-Goldman-Obamas-Enron-No-its-worse-91613449.html#ixzz0nB9w7sus

Financial professional work in the Goldman Sachs booth on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)
Campaign contributions from Goldman Sachs employees to President Obama are nearly seven times as much as President Bush received from Enron workers, according to numbers on OpenSecrets.org.

In 2002, the New York Times wrote: “President Bush is seeking to play down his relationship with Enron’s embattled chairman, Kenneth L. Lay. But their ties are broad and deep and go back many years, and the relationship has been beneficial to both.” (h/t Lachlan Markey)

But the mere $151,722.42 (inflation adjusted) in contributions from Enron-affiliated executives, employees, and PACs to Bush hardly add up to Obama’s $1,007,370.85 (inflation adjusted) from Goldman-affiliated executives and employees. That’s also not taking into account how much Goldman contributed to Obama cabinet member Hillary Clinton ($415,595.63 inflation adjusted), which was itself almost three times as much as Bush received as well.

It would be fair to say that the total amount the Obama administration has received from those affiliated with Goldman Sachs is ten times that of what Bush received from Enron.

Goldman is being sued for civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission for deliberately putting unwitting clients on the wrong side of a mortgage security trade that had been designed to fail.

It’s not even just campaign contributions. There’s quite the revolving door. According to our own Tim Carney:

Greg Craig, Obama’s first White House counsel, has joined Goldman, we learned this week. He may not have too much pull in the West Wing, which drove him out for hewing too close to Obama’s campaign promises, but as a former insider he will provide valuable intelligence to the world’s largest investment bank.
Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff, was paid $35,000 as a consultant to Goldman while also working as Bill Clinton’s top fundraiser. Obama’s fundraiser and economic adviser Warren Buffett is very long on Goldman, having bet on them in 2008 in the expectation of a bailout. Mark Patterson, chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a Goldman Sachs lobbyist until months before joining Team Obama.

Obama’s Katrina

Readers will recall the criticism of President Bush in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Some went so far as to suggest that he was slow to act because he hated black people who were among the victims in New Orleans.

But in the wake of the British Petroleum oil spill, the Obama Administration did next to nothing to address the issue. They failed to follow emergency procedures which might have alleviated much of the spill problem. Worse still is that the Obama Administration exempted BP from some environmental regulations and that BP lobbyists were seeking to extend those exemptions in the days before the explosion which led to the spill.

What factor might explain this lax attitude towards environmental regulations on the part of the Obama Administration? Did the fact that Obama was the biggest recipient of BP related campaign contributions have anything to do with it? This after Obama pledged during the campaign that he wouldn’t take money from big oil. Yeah, like he’s really lived up to his campaign promises! BP now brags about how effective their lobbying and campaign contribution effort has been.

If the story line for Enron and Katrina was Bush incompetence sprinkled with political corruption then that same story line should apply to Obama whose Administration is much deeper in the money and connections game than Bush ever was.

But don’t expect to get daily updates on these stories on your nightly news the way we did with Bush!

What Went Wrong on the Deepwater Horizon
http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore
May 07, 2010 12:00 PM By Greg Pollowitz
From today’s Times-Picayune:

The investigation into what went wrong when the Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20 and started spilling millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico is sure to find several engineering failures, from cement seals that didn’t hold back a powerful gas bubble to a 450-ton, 40-foot-tall blowout preventer, a stack of metal valves and pistons that each failed to close off the well.

There was, however, a simpler protection against the disaster: mud. An attorney representing a witness says oil giant BP and the owner of the drilling platform, Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd., started to remove a mud barrier before a final cement plug was installed, a move industry experts say weakens control of the well in an emergency.

When the explosion occurred, BP was attempting to seal off an exploratory well. The company had succeeded in tapping into a reservoir of oil, and it was capping the well so it could leave and set up more permanent operations to extract its riches.

In order to properly cap a well, drillers rely on three lines of defense to protect themselves from an explosive blowout: a column of heavy mud in the well itself and in the drilling riser that runs up to the rig; at least two cement plugs that fit in the well with a column of mud between them; and a blowout preventer that is supposed to seal the well if the mud and plugs all fail.

In the case of the Deepwater Horizon, Scott Bickford, a lawyer for a rig worker who survived the explosions, said the mud was being extracted from the riser before the top cement cap was in place, and a statement by cementing contractor Halliburton confirmed the top cap was not installed.

Mud could have averted catastrophe

If all of the mud had still been present, it would have helped push back against the gas burping up toward the rig, though it might not have held it back indefinitely.

The rest here:

Safety fluid was removed before oil rig exploded in Gulf
By The Times-Picayune May 06, 2010, 10:35PM
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/safety_fluid_was_removed_befor.html

A good .pdf illustration of what went wrong here: http://media.nola.com/news_impact/other/oil-cause-050710.pdf

An illustration of how they’re attempting to plug the leak here:
http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/05/bp_attaches_shut-off_valve_and.html

Where Is All the Oil on Shore?
May 13, 2010
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_051310/content/01125116.member.html

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

[......]

RUSH: Now, I know I’m going to get raked over the coals for this. Snerdley and I were just talking about this at the top of the hour. How many weeks have we been awaiting Armageddon?

CALLER: I’m telling you —

RUSH: How many weeks —

CALLER: — hurts these merchants.

RUSH: How many weeks have we been waiting for the entire southern coast and the East Coast of Florida to be drenched in oil? We’re supposed to by now have seen thousands of dead birds and pelicans, all of it covered in black gold, and so far, so far it’s not an event. I know it still could be, and I know the media is hoping it still will be, but it isn’t yet. I mean there’s one dead dolphin, they found some sea turtles, but they don’t know why. We don’t have dead birds yet. We don’t have any of that. Now they’re talking about it going to Texas.

[......]

40 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:47:31 AM by Matchett-PI
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2513342/posts?page=40#40

Where’s the oil? Model suggests much may be gone (Rush was right!)
AP ^ | 5/14/2010 | CAIN BURDEAU
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jxVZPEia62NMX5dlz3lamD6wPv9gD9FMHP000
Posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 6:44:36 AM by tobyhill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513342/posts

Excerpt:

A common refrain among experts and officials is that every oil spill is unique.

Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, said the Deepwater Horizon spill reminds him of the last catastrophic oil flood in the Gulf.

In 1979, Mexico’s Ixtoc I in the western Gulf blew out and spewed about 420,000 gallons of oil a day for nine months. Large quantities of oil did not reach Texas beaches.

“This was a problem we ran into with Ixtoc, we never found the oil,” McKinney said.

Some of the comments in the above thread excerpted:

I watched a Prof. from Texas A & M on Fox, another professor from Miss. said to leave it alone, the oil is an organic material and nature will take care of itself. Shep even asked him if the hay would work. He said the hay does work in a smaller area. The Texas guy said that oil is mostly carbon and once it hits the surface, the toxic chemicals will evaporate almost immediately.

Instead of blowing the hay out in the gulf, why don’t they have the shrimp boats and other fishing boats set up the hay barriers closer to shore where they can control the oil before it gets inland, especially near the marshes? I would think that would be better than chemicals.

7 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 7:01:57 AM by panthermom
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513342/posts?page=7#7

Oil naturally seeps int the gulf all the time. Check this photo out, by NASA form May 13, 2006! The streaks you see are NATURAL OIL SLICKS...........
Picture: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513342/posts?page=27#27
Picture: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2513342/posts?page=29#29

5000 barrels of oil leaks from the floor of the Gulf everyday. Naturally. The ocean will clean this up the way it always does. Naturally. The rest is just posturing by the media.

41 posted on Friday, May 14, 2010 8:51:44 AM by Republic of Texas (Socialism Always Fails)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2513342/posts?page=41#41

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