"Sister Carol Keehan, CEO and President of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) openly acted in favor of President Obama’s health care reform and in opposition to persistent requests from the bishops, said Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), during their spring meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida.
During the bishops' executive session held Tuesday morning to address the fallout of CHA’s support for the health care legislation despite the bishop's opposition, Cardinal George recounted the events that took place prior to President Obama's signing of the health care reform. The prelate then concluded his remarks by criticizing CHA and Sr. Keehan, saying they have created the dangerous precedent of a parallel magisterium to the bishops."
So... what'cha gonna do about it?
"In the events leading up to the final health care vote, the USCCB president presented arguments on how the bishops' conference “remained consistent to the two guiding principles throughout the whole process: number one, everyone should have access to health care; number two, no one should be killed.”
The consistent moral position of the bishops, Cardinal George explained, centered around protecting life, conscience protections and the inclusion of immigrants."
This is a complete misrepresentation of the facts. Everyone had access to health care before the bill was passed so there was no reason to create the law. Yes, the bishops were consistent in their opposition to abortion. The first paragraph states there were two principles that guided the bishops yet the second paragraph introduces a third, immigrants. Now we're getting to the heart of the matter, social justice and the insistence of the bishops that this evil tenet of Marxist belief be brought to bear upon the citizens of the United States. In this, they and Sister Keehan find their common ground.
"...According to the Archbishop of Chicago, when the Stupak Amendment was defeated in the Senate in December 2009, “everything went south.”
That is when “the Catholic Health Association and other so-called Catholic groups provided cover for those on the fence to support Obama and the administration.”
Cardinal George clearly remarked that “Sr. Carol and her colleagues are to blame” for the passage of the health care bill. He continued by revealing that the bishops repeatedly tried to reach out to Sr. Keehan both before and after the vote. “I personally met with her in March to no avail,” the cardinal reported."
Really? It's all Sister Keehan's fault? All the time and money that the USCCB has spent backing the democrats and their health agenda along with the bishops incessant preaching on the wonders of socialism and against the truth taught by the Church had no affect whatsoever?
Who's running for cover now? Are the American bishops sensing that the staff of the Bishop of Rome is about to come down on their heads?
"...In that regard, Cardinal George highlighted that the USCCB and CHA’s positions on Obama’s health care are not just “two equally valid conclusions inspired in the same Catholic teaching,” and reiterated that what the bishops said on May 21 in their statement “Setting the record Straight” is and will remain the official position of the USCCB on the contentious issue.
The document, presented by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice, Peace and Human Development, and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Immigration, says: "As Bishops, we disagree that the divergence between the Catholic Conference and Catholic organizations, including the Catholic Health Association, represents merely a difference of analysis or strategy (Catholic Health World, April 15, 2010, “Now That Reform Has Passed”). Rather, for whatever good will was intended, it represented a fundamental disagreement, not just with our staff as some maintain, but with the Bishops themselves.
“As such it has resulted in confusion and a wound to Catholic unity."
If the bishops had held fast to and preached the word of God and the teachings of the Church instead of distorting both to support their Marxist views, Sister Keehan wouldn't have had the power she did. We wouldn't have seen all those Catholics on the fence. The bishops put them up there and handed them over to the Sister Keehan's of the world. This is on the shoulders of the bishops and no one else. This confusion and wound to Catholic unity can be laid right at their feet. All the sniveling blame spreading will come to no avail.
Your days are numbered boys! We're coming for you, following the Pope and cleaning house.
"More than 90 U.S. banks and thrifts missed making a May 17 payment to the U.S. government under its main bank bailout program, signaling a rising number of lenders are struggling to meet their obligations.
The statistics, compiled by SNL Financial from U.S. Treasury data, showed 91 banks and thrifts skipped the May dividend payment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. It was the first missed payment for 23 of the banks; for the others, it was at least their second miss.
The number of banks missing their TARP payments rose for the third straight quarter. In February, 74 banks deferred their payments; 55 deferred last November.
...In some cases, small banks are renegotiating the repayment terms. Midwest Banc Holdings [MBHI 0.02 --- UNCH], for example, agreed to swap $84.8 million in preferred shares issued under the TARP program in 2008 for $15.5 million in common shares. That would have meant an 80 percent loss for the government—and the U.S. taxpayer—on the initial investment. But the swap was contingent on the bank raising more private capital, which it failed to do. Regulators seized the bank in May." CNBC
The banking industry is mirroring the home owners it lent money to. I'll bet that the banks get a lot more slack cut them by the government than they cut their customers. I tried to renegotiate with my mortgage holder because my house has lost value and I don't make the money I once did. Neither is their problem really, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. There is no give with those guys.
We made a deal and I'll stick to it; that's how life goes. I just hate and despise the way the system works, though. The guys with the power (in the banking industry it's the Citi's and BofA's and their ilk) function under one set of laws while the rest of us live under another. And the people pay for all of it, one way or another. That isn't how this country was supposed to operate and this is the thing, the injustice, that will lead to the coming political storm.
"...Leifer is a member of a team of experts deployed by US President Barack Obama to estimate the volume of oil currently flowing in the Gulf of Mexico. Just last week, the scientists almost doubled their estimate and now say that between 25,000 and 30,000 barrels of oil a day is gushing out of the well into the Gulf of Mexico. On Tuesday, they once again upped their estimate -- to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day.
BP's most recent efforts to stop the flow of oil have only made the situation worse, says Leifer. The engineers' attempt to seal off the well from above, using a method known as "top kill," failed and only enlarged the borehole, according to Leifer. Now, he adds, there is almost nothing stopping the oil from flowing out of the well." Der Spiegel
In the article above the topic is the effectiveness of the relief well , or "Bottom Kill", plan in the Gulf and the dangers and risks associated with it. In the course of the article Ira Leifer, a geochemist at the University of California in Santa Barbara, verifies what others in posts I posted yesterday have said; the well bore is wide open because the casing is destroyed. Those pictures we see of the oil blowing from the pipe are not of the well bore and so are just one part of the leak. BP and everyone else involved are basically out of options. They seem to be focused on the relief wells with no mention of the nuclear option except to say that it won't be considered.
I wonder if that lack of consideration is the truth? At this point my guess is that they'll say that for political reasons while at the same time preparing the bomb needed to get the job done, if that truly is the best or only option. At least, I hope that's the case. I hope that the government in general and the President in particular, have got their hands wrapped around this.
Based on the speech last night, I'm not so sure. It seemed that Obama was making a political speech, more focused on clean energy than the problem at hand. He had no clear solution nor did I get the impression he was overly concerned about finding one. His main concern seemed to be the people and industry affected and promoting some sort of ephemeral and imaginary new energy source. He talked about windmills and solar panels. WTF?
The President just doesn't seem to understand the possible impact of this blowout and its effects on not only the Gulf Coast area but the potential for massive, life altering disaster. It's like we just had Pearl Harbor attacked and the president runs out to play a round of golf. Obama was and is not prepared to lead in a crisis. His whole career, belief system and reason for existence is political in nature and professorial in application. He has lived in the world of academia and protests, places where real life experiences that would prepare a man for leadership never occur. Everything is theory.
He's in the real world now and he's floundering. His solutions are political solutions; create more commissions and panels, more regulations, more red tape. Instead he should clear the decks of everything that is standing in the way of stopping this thing. If we don't get it shut down, and now, all those new regulations will be meaningless because everything will have changed so dramatically.
And the thing he doesn't understand and probably wouldn't accept is that it's regulation that got us here in the first place. Yes, we need regulation of the oil drilling process, not the industry as a whole. It is the proper role of the government to insure that adequate precautions and good practice occur on the rigs because their failure can effect the entire nation and its energy supply.
The thing is that the government expanded its regulation well past the safety issues and got into the business of drilling itself. BP was drilling in deep water because the government forced them to. Regulations and rules have distorted the business of producing oil. Oil companies are not allowed to drill in areas that are far less prone to disaster such as in shallow water off the coast of Florida or California, or on land in places like ANWAR or Montana. Because of this, the only big reserves left to drill in America are in deep water.
Furthermore, government interference in the free market has distorted risk. A cap of $75 million dollars was placed on damage done by oil companies in the Gulf. The government established the cap, I'm sure with the help of their friends in the oil industry.
Risk is an essential component in pricing and in even deciding whether a company wants to take on a job. I've turned down a lot of work over the years because of risk aversion. I look at the price I can charge and weigh it against the potential costs the company would incur in case of failure. Every job I do goes through some sort of risk/benefit analysis. That's the way business works. If I had some outside agency from the government limiting my exposure, well I would definitely have taken some of those jobs. Why not? The risk/benefit formula has suddenly been tilted in my favor. The risk is now on the backs of the taxpayer. I keep the gain and socialize the downside.
This is what happened in the financial markets and we all know how that worked out. Why would it be any different in the oil business?
And of course, as we see happening in the oil blowout crisis, the same government that created the environment that forced the emergency to happen will then use the emergency to blame the company and to create even more regulation of the free market; more control of our lives. This is a wholly predictable pattern and exactly the reason to limit government in every aspect of our lives. It's never satisfied with a little power, it wants it all!
So the oil pours from the blown out casing while the administration focuses on how it can use the crisis to further its political agenda of ever increasing government control of our lives and destruction of our individual freedoms. One of the few legitimate powers the federal government has is to protect the country from harm in times of national emergency. This definitely fits the bill. While this same government has no problem shredding the Constitution to create national health care and will do it again with cap and trade, it just can't find the strength to take care of the blowout.
The video and text below are fromDemcadviaSHTF. The video would seem to verify the info from Matt Simmons and The Oil Drum posted earlier at Catawissa Gazetteer.
"A new study by marine scientists indicates that the oil spill was pumping not 5,000/barrels of oil in the Gulf per day, but a whopping 70,000. Meanwhile, a oil leak video has surfaced and it is spending shockwaves throughout the world. On the video, we see oill leaking from the oil floor. What does this mean? It means that the oil pipe in the ocean has burst and now the oil is leaking from the seafloor. Simply put, there's probably no realistic way we can stop this. I highly recommend you check out the video above."
Matt Simmons verifies the statements made in the post below in the commentary fromThe Oil Drum. If the casing is no longer in the hole then we have oil pouring uncontrollably from underground with absolutely no way to control it. If the nuke doesn't work, and if the casing is gone, the oil will flow until the pressure equalizes. According to Matt Simmons that could take over twenty years.
I think that if I was in charge of making up the numbers to report to the public I'd go real high. That way, every once in a while I could lower them a bit; make everybody feel better. I'm thinking these guys have never been in any kind of negotiations before.
"The official estimate of the flow rate from the leaking gulf oil well has surged again, with government officials announcing Tuesday that 35,000 barrels (1.47 million gallons) to 60,000 barrels (2.52 million gallons) of oil a day are now gushing from the reservoir deep beneath the gulf.
Just last week, government-appointed scientists on the Flow Rate Technical Group estimated the leak at roughly 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day (840,000 to 1.68 million gallons), but that came with a caveat: They were using older data, including video taken of the damaged riser pipe when it still had multiple leaks.
After the pipe was cut on June 3, and a containment cap placed on it, the flow became easier to estimate. In the past 24 hours scientists have taken direct measurements of pressures inside the so-called top hat that is collecting oil and gas." Washington Post
The comments below are from a reader atThe Oil Drum website. I don't know who he is or what his background is. That being said, it's worth going over to read the whole thing because what he says is very close to what I've read from others in the industry. The things he says also stand to reason because what's happening a mile beneath the surface of the ocean is still regulated by the laws of nature. If the casing is damaged far below the surface and oil is rushing through it then we know that the damage will continue to grow because of friction and pressure. We also know that all that oil blowing through the seafloor will cause erosion, because we know that if a pipe above the ocean blows out underground it does the same thing. There really isn't much that's mysterious about this.
So we are in a race against time to try and drill the relief wells before the whole sub sea structure fails; and then we have to pray that the relief wells can stop it. Because if it isn't stopped,the floor of the ocean could open up wide, and the bottom of the Gulf could fall away. Crazy talk? If we had a high pressure leak with sufficient force above ground and it was situated over a cave, it could collapse the roof of the cave. And the cave wouldn't have all that pressure inside of it pushing out, either.
Pray, pray, pray!
"...It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad, same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.
Contrary to what most of us would think as logical to stop the oil mess, actually opening up the gushing well and making it gush more became direction BP took after confirming that there was a leak. In fact if you note their actions, that should become clear. They have shifted from stopping or restricting the gusher to opening it up and catching it. This only makes sense if they want to relieve pressure at the leak hidden down below the seabed.....and that sort of leak is one of the most dangerous and potentially damaging kind of leak there could be. It is also inaccessible which compounds our problems. There is no way to stop that leak from above, all they can do is relieve the pressure on it and the only way to do that right now is to open up the nozzle above and gush more oil into the gulf and hopefully catch it, which they have done, they just neglected to tell us why, gee thanks.
A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.
This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.
The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.
...The system will collapse or fail substantially before we reach the finish line ahead of the well and the worst is yet to come.
Sorry to bring you that news, I know it is grim, but that is the way I see it....I sincerely hope I am wrong.
We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.
The magnitude and impact of this disaster will eclipse anything we have known in our life times if the worst or even near worst happens...
We are seeing the puny forces of man vs the awesome forces of nature.
We are going to need some luck and a lot of effort to win...
and if nature decides we ought to lose, we will...."
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth."
1st John 2:18-21
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”
Dante Alighieri
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
John Quincy Adams
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
George Washington
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
Thomas Jefferson
" I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
Willard Duncan Vandiver
"The issue is, to use a sporting metaphor, whether in the game of life the government shall captain the national team or shall act as referee."
S. Harcourt-Rivington
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
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