Disenfranchised Citizen

Oh wait, this is a bad thing...

Today in Plaquemines Parish, WVUE correspondent John Snell and Parish Coastal Zone Director, PJ Hahn accidentally struck it rich. After the initial disappointment in finding no oil on the water’s surface, PJ and the crew were stepping across the barrier island, when one of the crew stepped in the right place and oil began bubbling up through the sand by way of a hermit crab hole.

Additionally, Hahn told the station that he found thick, heavy crude underground after digging a few feet with a shovel. “I would have never thought that this oil would be this deep underground,” Hahn said.

Bob Dudley has apparently canceled his trip to Russia with Tony Hayward and will soon be arriving to claim the oil for British Petroleum.

Read the article, watch the video…

Where’s the oil? It’s oozing out of the Louisiana ground

Sleep well.

It's okay...BP and Thad Allen say that oil is not really there...go watch TV

A funny thing has happened in the Gulf of Mexico these past couple weeks…that oil spill?

It’s over, the oil spill is more or less over, all taken care of so you can switch the channel now.

The fisherman will be back at work soon, the oil isn’t in the marshes, it’s not on the beaches and it certainly isn’t flowing out of the Macondo Well. The wildlife, all good, didn’t you see that they relocated the sea turtle eggs and they’re now hatching on a different coast? And British Petroleum put up 20 billion dollars that will take care of everybody. No one has to suffer, not really…not anymore. Yeah, we’ll still have the occasional tar ball for a little while, but just send out your kids with toy shovels and a bucket so they can scoop it up and carry it over to a very tanned lifeguard in his chair; he’ll contact BP right away.

Tragedy yes, terrible…agreed.

It took a very long time to solve this problem, BP knows, they understand, but the important thing is its solved. Didn’t you hear? Skimmers are being sent home…no oil to clean up anymore, not really, at least not any that Thad Allen can find because the dispersants have gotten rid of it all. Those closed fisheries? They’ve started to reopen, no matter if they are still toxic and the EPA and FDA haven’t been trustworthy on the effects of the spill…these are mere details. With few minor exceptions, all is going according to the plan. They’re even removing boom now, it was doing more damage than good, don’t ya know…British Petroleum and the Coast Guard would like to thank you for your patience, America. Though we’re certainly not out of the woods, the clearing is in view and that view is a beautiful sunset over a body of water that in very short order, will be crystal clear again. In fact, it’ll be even better than before…

Well, that’s a version anyway.

Unfortunately, it is quickly becoming the official version for too many mainstream media outlets.

Oh yeah, and it’s bullshit.

From Riki Ott’s outstanding article in the HuffingtonPost:

Regarding the hard to find oil:

Bay Jimmy on the northeast side of Barataria Bay was full of oil. So was Bay Baptiste, Lake Grande Ecaille, and Billet Bay. Sitting next to me was Mike Roberts, a shrimper with Louisiana Bayoukeepers, who has grown up in this area. His voice crackled over the headset as I strained to hold the window. “I’ve fished in all these waters – everywhere you can see. It’s all oiled. This is the worst I’ve seen. This is a heart-break…”

Regarding the safety of chemical dispersants:

The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol. Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber. Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber impellors in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement…plastic corks used to float the absorbent booms during skimming operations dissolve after a week of use…medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body: They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2-butoxyethanol is a human health hazard substance: It is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders.

Regarding the downplaying of the dangers by BP, the Coast Guard, OSHA, NIOSH, the FDA and the EPA:

BP insists that solvents “disappear” after only a day or two. Retired toxicologist and forensic chemist John Laseter disagrees. Laseter told me that solvents “solubilize” or become soluble in oil and remain a threat for up to two months. He said the oil-solvent mixture sticks on biological tissue – gills of fish, the organic film coating sand grains and raindrops – and can wreak havoc. He told me that the dispersants are “almost certainly” making the oil penetrate more deeply into the skin and could very well be causing the rashes in the Gulf. The Mobile television station WKRG took samples of water and sand from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Katrina Key, and Dauphin Island. The test was nothing fancy. The on-air reporter simply dipped a jar into the ocean and another into some surf water filling a sand pit dug by a small child. In the samples, oil was not visible in the water or the sand, but the chemist who analyzed them reported astonishingly high levels of oil ranging from 16 to 221 parts per million (ppm). Except for the Dauphin Island sample — that one literally exploded in the lab before testing could be completed. The chemist thought maybe the exploding sample contained methane or 2-butoxyethanol.

Yet Mr. Dudley, soon to be CEO of British Petroleum believes it is time to scale back cleanup operations…

Hey Thad Allen, meet the new boss…same as the old boss!

Really, read the article,

Oilgate!     BP and all the President’s Men (except one) Seek to Contain Truth of Leak in the Gulf (Photos and Video)

Have a nice day.

We are the champions!

So a federal scientific panel now has an accurate estimate of the amount of oil British Petroleum has unleashed into the Gulf of Mexico…After months of competing estimates, typically pitting independent scientists against British Petroleum and the Coast Guard, the number is 5,000,000 barrels of oil.

5,000,000, at a recent flow rate of 53,000 barrels per day before the well was capped and an estimate of past flow rates of 63,000 barrels a day. This flies in the face of BP and the Coast Guard’s earlier number of 5,000 barrels, that number they held onto desperately for months as they battled to control their public face while the oil washed over the wetlands.

This estimate makes the BP catastraphuk the biggest accidental oil spill, ever.

Congratulations gentleman, drinks are on me…

Read the article,

BP to try pushing oil back into underwater reservoir

Have a nice day

You too can work for the FDA

Now that the oil well has been capped in the Gulf, some waters have been reopened for fishing. Inspectors throughout the Gulf Coast are conducting smell tests to determine if the seafood is safe for human consumption. It might seem silly, especially in this day and age there are no better ways to test for chemicals, but the practice is actually quite common.

Course, not everyone is buying it:

“If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?” asked Rusty Graybill, an oysterman and shrimp and crab fisherman from Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish. “I wouldn’t feed it to you or my family. I’m afraid someone’s going to get sick.”

The FDA and Doug “I’d feed it to my family” Suttles however, disagree.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said the government is “confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that Gulf seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish and shrimp that will be coming out of this area.”

In contrast to FDA opinion, Tulane researchers have indicated Corexit and crude are being found in crab larvae from Texas to Florida, so worries grow that the chemicals and crude may bio-accumulate. University of New Orleans Martin O’Connell, Phd explained bio-accumulation this way, “If you’re a small fish and you eat 1,000 of these small crab larvae and all of them have oil or Corexit droplets in them they could get into the fish — that little fish could be eaten and so on and so on.”

A tissue test is being developed by the FDA to more thoroughly check for chemicals in the seafood, yet there is no word on when the test might be ready…of course…between not having a tissue test and not doing more testing on dispersants, both slated to be done since the Exxon Valdez disaster twenty years ago, one might be inclined to think that the FDA and the EPA aren’t overly concerned with the safety of the food supply.

Okay, maybe that’s too harsh…

But then what tests might the FDA be doing, what might they be looking for? What indication can they give us, the public to help us feel better about their determinations… Well, taking a page from BP, the Coast Guard, the NOAA, the EPA…the FDA has declined requests to provide any such information.

That’s right.

What are they testing for? None of your business. What have they found? None of your business. You…yes you, are on a need to know and in the Gulf Coast these days, you don’t need to know nothing…but if it doesn’t smell like chemicals… you’re all good.

Come on FDA…really, let’s re-open the waters safely with full disclosure of all pertinent information…we’re not children, you’d be surprised what we can take.

Read the article…

Not Even Gulf Fisherman Buy the Government’s “Smell Test” Policy On Oil Exposed Seafood

Have a nice day.

Sometimes you need a break…

Nine Inch Nails – Burn

The hidden subtext?

Obviously…       You can be anything you want when you grow up, even President of the United States.

Have a nice day