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I'm posting this article in its entirety because it's important to understand the possibilities for disaster presented by the oil spill. The news of containment and caps are distractions; of that I am convinced. The time lines on the reporting have smelled bad the whole way through what with Armageddon in the morning and salvation in the afternoon. This catastrophe is pushing and probably exceeding our technological capabilities so I know these reports of the simplicity of dropping an 80 ton concrete container over this thing and stopping it are just so much B.S, generated by someone that wants the truth hidden. This isn't a conspiracy, just good old fashion C.Y.A. Everyone is trying to shift blame to avoid liability, fiddling while the world burns.
We've got a major problem on our hands.
One other thing to consider. I find it interesting that in the article below this spill is likened to a volcano. There have been many prophecies of late relating to volcanic activity and the effects spreading across Europe, causing great harm. Many have thought these words referred to the Icelandic volcanic activity, and maybe they did. But, what about this? If the oil hits the Gulf Stream it will spread to Europe, potentially causing incredible damage. Could there be a connection?
The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster
Written by Wayne Madsen
WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign -- more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP's liability for damage caused by what can be called a "mega-disaster."
Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP's chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR's federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.
Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any "damaging information" about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.
Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a "national security issue." Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano's actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.
From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: "we've never dealt with anything like this before."
The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.
However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a "volcanic-like" eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by the media -- it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.
There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.
The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs' shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department's service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.
The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.
The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida's Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a "dead zone" if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.
WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama's Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida's Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.
Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR's FEMA sources.
There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.
There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.
This story contributed by the Wayne Madsen Report for Oilprice.com
H/T SHTF
The article posted below comes from The Coming Depression blog. I don't know anything about the guy that wrote it or if it has any basis in fact, scientific or otherwise. That being said, it gave me pause.
Over the last week, watching this whole story evolve I've been struck by a few things that have made it different than the normal, run of the mill disaster that seems to come along with predictable regularity. Usually some experts are run out in short order to explain the fix. This time around, not only have the experts been lacking but so have the solutions. What has been discussed is the massive difficulties involved, but not in detail, only vaguely. I've had the feeling that there really isn't a solution, at least not one that is readily available. We haven't heard any real details of precisely what the repair crews are facing; the kind of details that are normally broadcast in a minute by minute fashion. Look at the recent mine collapses as an example.
The only real solution I've heard to this is to drill a relief well. How long will that take to put in place? And how much oil will be spilled in the meantime? How much oil can be spilled before the effects begin to grow beyond the local coasts and fisheries? Can they? How much oil leaks into the oceans everyday naturally? How many years will it take the gulf states to recover from this assuming at a minimum months of leaking? How will that effect the economy of the nation?
Also, there was a news conference a few days back from Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana. He looked like he was well aware that this was something much greater than the public was being told about. He had a sort of Hurricane Katrina look about him. It looked and sounded as though he knew that what was coming couldn't be stopped and that massive damage was inevitable.
Then there's this from the Daily Comet today:
"Today, Governor Bobby Jindal said he remains concerned about BP’s ability to respond to the oil spill in the Gulf and the state is developing contingency plans in order to protect Louisiana’s way of life. The Governor stressed that it is critical for BP and the Incident Commander to provide funding approval and authorization quickly for these contingency plans in order to protect the state’s coast.
Governor Jindal said, “We continue to be concerned about BP’s ability to respond to this incident. As we continue to work with local leaders on the ground, we are focused on forward-leaning and proactive action. I want to be very clear on this point – this incident is not just about our coast. It is fundamentally about our way of life in Louisiana (emphasis added).
“Our shrimpers, our fishermen, the coasts that make Louisiana Sportsmen’s Paradise – this all makes up Louisiana and this is our way of life. We have to do absolutely everything we can to protect our land, our businesses and our communities.
“We are past the point of waiting for any clean up plans from BP or the Incident Commander. We have already begun developing contingency plans for parishes – meaning we are preparing detailed secondary response capabilities to protect our land and our people. We are developing those plans ourselves and we need two things to implement these plans – funding approval from BP and authorization from the Incident Commander."
I applaud the Governor and his proactive stance. However, the hesitancy and inaction on the part of both the federal government and BP tells me that they don't have any sort of plan, that this thing is much bigger and worse than they're letting on. It almost sounds as though the Governor is resigned to no real help and knows that he will have to do what he can, with the understanding that it will be woefully inadequate.
All of this is purely subjective on my part; just things that have been bothering me as I watch this unfold. Is the guy in the article below an expert? Is he right in his assessment of the situation? I don't know.
Not to mention the Biblical perspective and the words of many of the modern seers regarding the oceans and the worlds water.
What I am sure of is that this oil leak is far more significant than is being reported. It bears close watching.
"Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
"Saturday, May 1, 2010
An Nuclear Bomb Can Only Fix This Oil Spill
A reader who is an engineer of considerable experience says watch this one evolve carefully because it is destined to continue to grow and he shares this long (but worthy explanation why:
"Heard your mention of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico this morning, and you (and most everyone else except maybe George Noory) are totally missing the boat on how big and bad of a disaster this is.
First fact, the original estimate was about 5,000 gallons of oil a day spilling into the ocean. Now they're saying 200,000 gallons a day. That's over a million gallons of crude oil a week!
I'm engineer with 25 years of experience. I've worked on some big projects with big machines. Maybe that's why this mess is so clear to me.
First, the BP platform was drilling for what they call deep oil. They go out where the ocean is about 5,000 feet deep and drill another 30,000 feet into the crust of the earth. This it right on the edge of what human technology can do. Well, this time they hit a pocket of oil at such high pressure that it burst all of their safety valves all the way up to the drilling rig and then caused the rig to explode and sink. Take a moment to grasp the import of that. The pressure behind this oil is so high that it destroyed the maximum effort of human science to contain it.
When the rig sank it flipped over and landed on top of the drill hole some 5,000 feet under the ocean.
Now they've got a hole in the ocean floor, 5,000 feet down with a wrecked oil drilling rig sitting on top of is spewing 200,000 barrels of oil a day into the ocean. Take a moment and consider that, will you!
First they have to get the oil rig off the hole to get at it in order to try to cap it. Do you know the level of effort it will take to move that wrecked oil rig, sitting under 5,000 feet of water? That operation alone would take years and hundreds of millions to accomplish. Then, how do you cap that hole in the muddy ocean floor? There just is no way. No way.
The only piece of human technology that might address this is a nuclear bomb. I'm not kidding. If they put a nuke down there in the right spot it might seal up the hole. Nothing short of that will work.
If we can't cap that hole that oil is going to destroy the oceans of the world. It only takes one quart of motor oil to make 250,000 gallons of ocean water toxic to wildlife. Are you starting to get the magnitude of this?
We're so used to our politicians creating false crises to forward their criminal agendas that we aren't recognizing that we're staring straight into possibly the greatest disaster mankind will ever see. Imagine what happens if that oil keeps flowing until it destroys all life in the oceans of this planet. Who knows how big of a reservoir of oil is down there.
Not to mention that the oceans are critical to maintaining the proper oxygen level in the atmosphere for human life.
We're humped. Unless God steps in and fixes this. No human can. You can be sure of that."
The author of the first article from Asia News makes the argument that there is a connection between the sudden outburst of coverage about the Catholic abuse scandal along with all of the attention suddenly being placed on the Pope, and the coming war in Iran. He believes that the media, particularly The New York Times, is helping to bury the story about Iran by pumping the story about the Church.
On the surface this seems far fetched but then when I think about the way the media in America has worked hand in hand with this administration on every other issue, like health care, why wouldn't they help in the run up to war?
The Obama administration has gone out of its way to isolate Israel over the last few weeks. Why? Is the hope that Israel will feel that it has no choice but to act on its own and thus attack Iran? And if it does, who do we side with? Would we use this as an excuse to attack our longtime ally in an attempt to ingratiate ourselves with the Muslim world?
With the current administration, nothing, no matter how crazy, is off the table.
"...The fact that that the Times applies a double standard is not a problem since few people view the paper as a good authority anymore. British hypocrisy over its own dirty secrets is also unimportant because it is expected. What is more worrisome is the fact that on the day Laurie Goodstein’s article was published, Reuters ran a story out of Jerusalem, reprinted on 26 March 2010 by the Washington Post,5 a story that eventually disappeared from the “independent” Anglo-American press and that of almost all of the rest of the world, namely the possibility that Israel might use tactical nuclear weapons in a preventive attack against Iran.
This is linked to other news that appeared two weeks earlier, which also disappeared from the “independent” press, namely that US President Obama had special “bunker-buster” bombs, originally destined for Israel, diverted to the US base in Diego Garcia, in the Indian Ocean, for possible use in an attack on Iran.6 Located about a thousand miles south of India, between Mauritius and the Persian Gulf, the island is ideally placed to launch an air strike against Iran. According to an expert, US bombers are already capable of hitting 10,000 objectives in Iran in just a few hours, and totally destroy the country.7 Once the weapons are deployed (presumably in one or two months), the disposition for attack will be in place and a military operation could be ordered at any time. In other words, the United States wants to have all options available, whilst Israel wants to press the accelerator and threatens to use tactical nuclear weapons if the US decides not to do what Israel wants.
On 9 April 2010, Russia and the United States signed an agreement in which the two parties agree not to use atomic weapons against countries that have signed the non-proliferation treaty (leaving out Iran and North Korea as well as Israel, although this is not said). Recently, Obama and Sarkozy have worked together to get an international consensus on new sanctions against Iran. This might be achieved in a few weeks, or even a few days. It is thus clear that sanctions could be followed by a catastrophic attack against Iran."
Asia News
"From the Sunday Herald in Scotland: “Hundreds of powerful US bunker-buster bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in preparation for a possible attack on Iran. The Sunday Herald can reveal that the US government signed a contract in January to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 Blu bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures.”
Hmm.
How did a newspaper in Scotland of all places learn of this? From the story: “Contract details for the shipment to Diego Garcia were posted on an international tenders’ website by the US navy. A shipping company based in Florida, Superior Maritime Services, will be paid $699,500 to carry many thousands of military items from Concord, California, to Diego Garcia. Crucially, the cargo includes 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.”
Daily Mail
"Deeply concerned as it is by the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran, Israel has never even hinted at using atomic weapons to forestall the perceived threat.
But now a respected Washington think tank has said that low-radioactive yield "tactical" nuclear warheads would be one way for the Israelis to destroy Iranian uranium- enrichment plants in remote, dug-in fortifications.
Despite the 65-year-old taboo against carrying out - or, for that matter, mooting - nuclear strikes, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) says in a new report that "some believe that nuclear weapons are the only weapons that can destroy targets deep underground or in tunnels."
Montreal Gazette
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