Click pic for more
UPDATE: Obama is furious. You can’t tell it by his voice or his face or his pounding the table (which is isn’t doing) or anything, really. But he does say, “My job is to solve this problem.” Uhhh… OK. I feel so much better now. So… ummm, I forget. What is he going to do?
Here are more clips from the hard hitting, no holds bared interview with… Larry King… OK, forget the hard hitting and all that part.
Let’s just hope Obama and the rest turn down any BP campaign contributions this year.
Yeah, like that is ever going to happen. Another broken promise.
#31 Bobbo
It’s sad but I don’t think that willful ignorance can be overcome through eugenics. Willful ignorance is a self reinforced conditioning and is more a result of character. Culling the character trait of willful ignorance might also surpress tolerance.
I know, I know, you were only clowning when you put that there. I just needed to talk about something else. This topic is really starting to burn me out.
#19 Phydeau said: “Funny to see the anti-government types bash Obama for not getting the government involved.”
Yeah, a real laugh riot, fool!
This is what the government is supposed to do. Protect its citizens.
Wingnut, do you even read what you write? OF COURSE the government is supposed to protect its citizens. And the best way to do it in this case is regulation, i.e. make sure the safety devices are in place so these kinds of disasters are less likely to happen. Those are the regulations that your boy Dubya spent his whole administration tearing down… burdensome government regulation, doncha know. And the inevitable disaster happens, and you want to blame the next guy who came along, not the president who stripped away the regulation and caused this disaster.
Whatta moron.
# 4 GregAllen said, on June 3rd, 2010 at 10:07 pm
>>Google it. It’s all over the place. You might also watch the 60 Minutes story on it.
Right, the internet and 60 Minutes, the epitome of honest and fair news reporting. I wouldn’t believe anything 60 Minutes had to say about anything. Yellow journalism at its finest.
#34–amodedoma==burned out? True that. Watching our environment being destroyed through casual corruption and ineptness is something most of us can agree on regardless of our other individualities. Cherish the moment, it only lasts until we decide how to pay for it all.
Is Obama mad enough to return BP campaign money?
After all, he was the largest recipient of BP contributions.
#36 Someone’s lost in the Fauxzone… if Fox didn’t say it, it’s not true! 🙂
jbenson2: This is what the government is supposed to do. Protect its citizens.
Absolutely!
Seems to me that prevention of an oil disaster would have been the prudent course, as opposed to some agency preparing for a cleanup with warehouses full of dispersants and booms. Would you agree? But my question is how do you propose government should do that? Because honestly, this whole “let the market regulate itself” argument is nothing but pure bullshit. The 2010 killing of the Gulf of Mexico proves the point quite nicely.
Let the market regulate itself.
#40 I think you’re trying to reason with Libertarians… like arguing with a post. 🙁
#40
Trust me when I say this. Preventive actions are very very costly, time consuming and for the most part hardly ever needed. That is not to say that you shouldn’t have them if a clear understanding of the situation is involved. I do this everyday as part of my quality responsibility.
And you can never have enough preventive measures to compensate for the stupidity of human beings. You can’t. Just live with it and pray you’re not one of these human beings on Earth.
In this case, those preventive measures utterly failed.
Who put all that oil under the gulf to begin with?
That’s who is responsible in the end.
If it wasn’t there there would have been no spill!
BTW, it’s not BO’s fault.
but I bet he want’s to kick someone’s but*!
#42 Costly and time consuming? As costly and time consuming as millions of gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico? And of course they’re hardly ever needed. But when they’re needed, they’re really needed.
Preventive actions are of course a cost/benefit tradeoff. Preventing millions of gallons of oil from spreading throughout the Gulf of Mexico is a goal worthy of spending a large amount of time and effort on.
And of course preventive measures can fail. People still get killed in car crashes when they’re wearing their seat belts; does that mean we should get rid of seat belts? Of course not.
Bottom line, the collective “we” will do anything to maintain our standard of living.
>> KD Martin said, on June 4th, 2010 at 9:43 am
>> Right, the internet and 60 Minutes, the epitome of honest and fair news reporting. I wouldn’t believe anything 60 Minutes had to say about anything. Yellow journalism at its finest.
Did you see the 60 Minutes piece? They interviewed people who where on the rig. They interviewed people who where at the meeting where BP representatives insisted that dangerous shortcuts be made. They interview experts.
Real witnesses. Real experts. That’s the definition of real journalism.
As for “Googling” — I assume people have the good sense to go to legitimate news sources — not just “the internet” generally. If you can’t identify real journalism, then it’s hopeless for you.
I agree with a balanced approach, but in this new frontier of deep-ocean drilling, lax regulations just killed the gulf. How much was it worth?
>> # 38 RSweeney said, on June 4th, 2010 at 9:56 am
>> Is Obama mad enough to return BP campaign money?
>> After all, he was the largest recipient of BP contributions.
Since conservatives just make crap up, I had to check this claim — and yes it’s true — but highly deceptive. (no surprise).
Obama has taken $77,000 from BP over 20 years. Do you realize how little that is? He raised over $750,000.000 to run for president! (That’s 0.000001% from BP in case you don’t have a calculator handy).
In that same period of time, BP and its employees have given a total of 3.5 million to federal candidates (Obama’s share is 0.0000022%). Last year they spend over $15 million lobbying.
So, as usual, even when Fox has a fact straight, they are still being dishonest. The amount of money given to Obama by BP is completely trivial.
http://tinyurl.com/38udc59
Even so, I think $77,000 is $77,000 too much. We need total public funding of elections.
>> jbenson2 said, on June 4th, 2010 at 7:40 am
>> Not according to Obama’s campaign promises. He was going to eliminate racism, heal the planet, remake America, lower the seas and even the press believed it (I felt this thrill going up my leg).
If you want to be taken seriously, then make a serious argument. This is just stupidity.
Why not get to the real bottom of the problem. Why are they drilling in the ocean in the first place? Why take such a stupid risk at all?
Start at the top. BP execs, the president. Then you look at who controls them… congress, shareholders, lobbyists. They are controlled by oil demand, economic stability, profit. Those are controlled by job demand, product demand, transportation. Those are controlled by our desire to live comfortably and cheaply with lots of extra stuff that we would rather not acknowledge comes from oil.
Too simple? Feel free to fill in the gaps.
>> bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo? said, on June 3rd, 2010 at 11:50 pm
>> Still time to place a super tanker in the Gulf and siphon out as much oil as possible.
I’ve heard this solution on the media a bunch of time — but I don’t understand it.
I spent a fair amount of time looking at oil “super tankers” when I lived in the UAE.
The tankers don’t have any skimmers attached or anyway to dredge up anything. When you see them moored, the oil goes in/out from big pipes hooked to on-shore tanks. How could this possibly be modified to skim oil off the surface of the water?
Furthermore, these tankers need miles to turn around — how could they zig zag through Gulf skimming oil off the water?
I’m not saying you’re wrong — but it just doesn’t make any sense to me. Can you explain?
Who put the bomp
In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp?
Who put the ram
In the rama lama ding dong?
Who put the bop
In the bop shoo bop shoo bop?
Who put the dip
In the dip da dip da dip?
>> Skeptic said, on June 4th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
>> Why not get to the real bottom of the problem. Why are they drilling in the ocean in the first place? Why take such a stupid risk at all?
Exactly.
I would strongly support a law which says that oil can only be drilled in places where people can directly service the well to shut it off when the inevitable accident happens.
#53
Who was that man?
I’d like to shake his hand
He made my baby
Fall in love with me (yeah!!)
Hey it’s Friday! 😀
i was tempted to rewrite that song to be about an oil slick, but you saved that day Phydeau. 🙂
… saved the day. Geez, it is Friday.
#52–GregA==what I heard was that the oil tanker is just what it is–a recepticle. You place it near the operation but the actual pumping and separation of sea water and oil takes place on smaller ships. They do the work and fill up the super tanker. Best use of resources.
I have been “amused” at some of the concerned industry experts. I’ve heard several now say that given what they have to work with (sic!) BP has done the best possible job they could do. The flawed logic there is glaring. But they go on to say “If a supertanker would help the situation, there would be one out there.” Then I heard that no super tankers were available because they are all being used to store oil reserves on speculation.”
I suppose the details will all become clear over the next few years and the Frontline special as to why shrimp costs $30 pound and only the Japanese can afford it?
Now, I’m just a pastry chef but it seems to me the best way to clean up the beaches and marshes is to pick up the oil while it is still out at sea===but as stated, I’m no expert.
For all of you conspiracy lovers on this blog.
#59 aslightlycrankygeek –
Thank you for digging up that very important article. I’m sure Adam Curry will be reporting it as fact on the next No Agenda.
Also, thanks for lightening up my Saturday morning.
Anon said, on June 4th, 2010 at 7:36 am
“Uncle Dave is correct.
The Obama administration granted BP a waiver from environmental regulations in April 2009. Obama received lots of campaign contributions from BP.”
Hah! And they said regulation wasn’t working!
Uncle Dave is on to something here.
Comrade BO does seem more like he’s laughing up his sleeve than struggling with barely suppressed rage.
He was rather smooth about changing the topic there. I guess he knew the question might come up.
Still, he has already tipped his hand. It’s another example of “not letting a crisis go to waste”.
He still wants that cap-and-trade scam and you are going to have to be pretty worked up to go along with a 2-3 dollar per gallon increase in the price of gas.
Consequently, he’s not really all that fired up about containing the spill.
GregAllen said, on June 4th, 2010 at 11:28 am
KD Martin said, on June 4th, 2010 at 9:43 am
Right, the internet and 60 Minutes, the epitome of honest and fair news reporting. I wouldn’t believe anything 60 Minutes had to say about anything. Yellow journalism at its finest.
>>Did you see the 60 Minutes piece? They interviewed people who where [sic] on the rig. They interviewed people who where [sic] at the meeting where BP representatives insisted that dangerous shortcuts be made. They interview experts.
>>Real witnesses. Real experts. That’s the definition of real journalism.
Right. Real journalism. Did you mean real editing? Pick and choose those people you interview from all the tapes and take snippets from each to support the story you want?
Yeah, real journalism. Har! Did you see their “piece” (of sh*t) story on General Aviation? As a pilot of thousands of hours and 30 years experience, I couldn’t stop laughing at their so-called journalism. Talk about a slanted, misleading POS. Nice editing, but totally misleading.
BP leased the well. “The Deepwater Horizon drilling platform had been leased by BP from its owner, Transocean Ltd.[15] The U.S. Government has named BP as the responsible party in the incident, and officials have said the company will be held accountable for all cleanup costs resulting from the oil spill.[16][17].