I watched CBS’s news show last night with Katie Couric so you don’t have to. They spent quite a lot of time marveling at how clean the beaches were and how the skimmer boats had practically nothing to pick up. Showed graphics on how massive oil spill had now shrunk to seemingly insignificant size. Guess the crisis is over. If you can’t trust Katie who in this world can you trust?
“WASHINGTON (AFP) – With BP’s broken well in the Gulf of Mexico finally capped, the focus shifts to the surface clean-up and the question on everyone’s lips is: where is all the oil?”
NEW ORLEANS (Mother Jones) – I don’t know who the fuck these everyones are, but I’m happy to help out them, and ABC, and this AFP reporter writing that due to BP’s stunningly successful skimming and burning efforts, “the real difficulty now is finding any oil to clean up.”
I sent one text message to Bloomberg’s Lizzie O’Leary, who’s standing on Grand Isle, Louisiana, right now, asking how the beach looks. “Lower part past the barrier untouched with globs of oil that washed up last night,” she said. By “untouched,” she means by cleanup crews, and that “barrier” she’s talking about is the one the press isn’t allowed past.
[…]
I can’t even count the number of correspondents down here who’ve pointed out that digging a finger under the surface of supposedly clean sand turns up crude, or the number of cleanup workers who’ve said cleanup efforts are strictly cosmetic, or that no matter what they do the contamination just keeps bubbling up.It’s BP’s job to whitewash this story and make it easier to indulge the desire to forget about the scope of the devastation, guys. Not the media’s.
It’s the fucking Bobbo show again!
Free insults!
You can always rely on Bubo to come through with the tried and true liberal defense:
Whine, you are taking me out of context;
Sniff, you just don’t understand me;
Whoa is me, it’s all for the children;
Long sigh, nobody cares about the fish;
Boohoo, why can’t you grasp my wonderfully nuanced drivel;
and on and on;
then repeat.
#8 Bobbo,
Mainstream media means the TV networks and big newspapers. Fox News and WSJ are both mainstream and are obvious exceptions, but the rest have been pro-democrat, anti-republican for decades. Media that is not mainstream would be anything that is targeted to a particular audience and does not have mass appeal. Podcasts, blogs, and talk shows currently all fall into this category. Any of these formats could be considered mainstream if a show got big enough, (Oprah maybe?), but that is generally not the case.
#1 Greg Allen,
How is this even up for debate after the JournoList scandal?
(–Link removed for some hope of getting through spam filter.–)
How anyone can honestly not admit this is not the case as of 2007 since this evidence has come forward? Besides, what else would you expect the 60s throwback professors who control most journalist schools to produce? How many liberal arts students did you know in school who had an opinion contrary to what they were being indoctrinated with? (Thankfully you learn to think for yourself in engineering schools.)
Look at the softball coverage this administration has received compared to that of the previous administration. Did you see anyone quizzing Obama on how many foreign leader names he knew? Have you ever seen anyone ask him a tough question?
Want more proof?
(–Link removed for some hope of getting through spam filter. Google ‘measure of media bias study’–)
Know of a contradicting study? And “I read an post on a liberal blog once saying this study has been refuted” doesn’t count.
#31- agreed and it’s tiresome, one of the reason’s I seldom come here anymore.
#20- correct, dispersant’s are designed to sink the oil, all BP was doing was trying to hide the amount for PR purposes, rainbow colored oil slicks filmed from the air aren’t good for BP’s bottom line.
The oil is either on the bottom or as said earlier floating as tiny globules underneath the surface.
Got to love brain dead media parroting corporate media response points.
3 days after a well that leaked for 3 months and they’re blathering about “Where’s the oil”
Anyhow, John C Dvorak, shame you abdicated any responsibility for this site by claiming “It’s a blog, learn how blogs work” With over 30 years of watching and reading your opinions and respecting you I’ve lost that respect.
“looks at Dvorak Uncensored, looks at BP”
The things people do for money.
#14 MikeN said,
“I’m curious to see if Maureen Dowd will write a column taking Obama to task for not knowing Snooki.”
I saw that too. The HORROR!
The media is lying? I am shocked, shocked I tell you.
It is interesting to see the spill in scale
via CNBC: http://tinyurl.com/27hvu3o
#3 Greg Allen said,
“2) It’s sitting there. There is also a Oklahoma-sized oil slick but it hasn’t fully rammed the coast (yet).”
That headline is misleading as hell but what the hay, it’s for the cause.
“Mr. Amos has created a map, shown above, that combines all the areas of the gulf that were hit by the oil slick as it drifted around with the winds and the currents. His main finding is that the slick, at one point or another, covered a total of 68,000 square miles of the ocean surface, about the size of the state of Oklahoma.”
#33–JB==very weak. I guess thats all you’ve got when you aren’t used to actually having to defend your position?
You can always rely on Bubo to come through with the tried and true liberal defense:
1===Whine, you are taking me out of context; /// I never used the word or the concept. Making up BS to hide your vacuity. Please state how I took you out of context.
2==Sniff, you just don’t understand me; /// See number 1.
3===Whoa is me, it’s all for the children; /// See number 1.
4==Long sigh, nobody cares about the fish; /// Ah good. I was hoping your response wouldn’t be totally made up BS. Nobody cares about Tuna? Lets see, how can I say anything that is not whiny, out of context, or for the children? I see a lot of tuna for sale at my local store and probably use a can every other week? I guess they throw out all those other cans after I leave. Hmmm. Let me add some of my wonderfully nuance drivel then: I think your better argument might be that the worlds need for oil exceeds their need for one or two species of fish? Wouldn’t that be debateable? No? Its big oil over food all the time? Ha, Ha.
5==Boohoo, why can’t you grasp my wonderfully nuanced drivel; /// Your failure to respond demonstrates my arguments to you have been understood. You can’t reply on point. You lose.
6==and on and on; then repeat. /// Well, we are going to wait and see if you repeat your failed arguments in future posts. So far, evidently, thats all you got. Sad.
So, dear kiddies, why do I get upset enough to issue insults? Because it is ideas and attitudes like JB’s that is ruining this country. He says and probably honestly thinks he has the same interests, but he is a fool. You can see that by his failure to offer a single response to his BS catechism of talking points: ineffective to anyone who hasn’t drank the Kool Aide==and too many have.
The Repuglican Party: “I’m here for Big Business and Rich People==all off shore and not paying as much taxes as you!” Vote for me. And you idiots do.
Jim W #37
That is a very impressive graphic showing the relative size of the spill.
A 24 ounce can compared to the entire Cowboys domed stadium with an internal volume of approximately 104 million cubic feet.
#34–cranky==does it disturb you at all how lock step the media is with “the administration” both Rep and Dem on SO MANY ISSUES? So, even if we admit to a bias to the liberal/demo side of things, isn’t the REAL CRITICISM that they simply don’t dig for any real news? They long ago bargained away their Fourth Estate obligations in favor of so called “access.”
I’m not calling for a revolution, just not a whole sale sell out.
bobbo,
“Outside the USA, deep oil drillers are required to drill TWO relief wells in case of a blow out.”
You have mentioned this before do you have a link? That means for every exploratory well three wells must be drilled. How do you drill a relief well to a well that is in the process of being drilled? In other words, it’s a moving target.
“Interesting to see the spill in scale.” /// Yes, but what does it “mean?” Why not the scale of the surface area of the spill to the surface area of the Gulf? Hint: less difference but still smallish. But what does it mean? What are the relevant variables?
Silly Hoomans.
Bubbo sarcastically said: The Repuglican Party: “I’m here for Big Business and Rich People==all off shore and not paying as much taxes as you!” Vote for me. And you idiots do.
Way to go Boobo – Clever way to sidestep the oil spill issue and the preponderance of facts once again. True to form, you just change the subject.
I’ll give you another chance to to prove that famous quotation: It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Why are USA states with Democrats in control always the ones that are near bankruptcy, such as California, Michigan, and New York?
With the Democrats running Congress since 2007, why are we facing 10%+ unemployment?
Why has the deficit tripled under Democrat control?
Why are the monthly deficits under the Obama administration greater than the annual deficits under the past Republican administrations?
With a trillion dollars in stimulus money, why are we looking at a paltry 2% Q2 GDP number (to be released tomorrow)?
I’ll stand by my statement. You love employees, but you hate employers.
Shouldn’t we go back to flaming about how the Obama Administration is doing such a poor job by not bombing BP into the 15th century, the way the Republicans would have traditionally “solved” it?
well,
since you folks like Bitching at each other insted of the problem…
Its like this.
1. ITS SURFACE CLEANUP..
Understand this has nothing to do UNDER WATER.
2. They will probably Clean down to 20-50 feet, THEN anything that hits the beach.
3. they will LEAVE the rest to nature to destroy. Which doesnt happen QUICKLY.
4. this is like a CHEAP video game you cant win. NO MATTER what you do, you cant RUN AROUND and suck it all up. You cant go down 1 mile and SUCK IT OFF THE SAND..
#42–Mextli==a fair request. I heard it, or read it, at least twice. I have a dim recollection it was a long standing requirement in the North Sea. I’ve done a quick google and can’t turn it up. So===I won’t make that statement again until I do find a link.
Still a good idea? The contra being something I did find googling that the additional bore wells introduce more danger of oil leakage/blow out.
Makes green energy look better all the time.
So Nobama killed the US oil industry?
Oddly, this brief industry analysis has no mention of any moratorium or administration or Gulf spill effects on the industry. Many other links out there look about the same. I wonder why??
jbenson: Why has the deficit tripled under Democrat control?
Well, considering the deficit tripled under Reagan, and doubled again under Bush2, what’s your point?
Bobo,
and you FOLLOWED him out into the middle of nowhere.
MOST of these posts are so far away from the topic, its getting stupid.
Time to change the title.
PASS THE BUCK, who’s responsible.
#51–ECA==so what? Most threads stray from the straight and narrow. “Who is responsible?” isn’t the subject of this thread===haw, haw. So, this thread is “mostly” irrelevant because it isn’t on the irrelevant tangent that you would like to explore?
Ok. Responsible for what? Mostly responsible or partly responsible? first in the chain of causality or last?
GO!!!!!
Similar story ran on CNN a few days ago. Actually, it ran all day. We had it on in the background at work and all I heard was how great it is the crisis was over, beaches and water are clean, COME ON DOWN!, feast on dispersant laden sea food, so on and so forth.
Some guest mentioned that due to the millions of gallons of dispersant, the oil is now just under the water’s surface; CUT HIM OFF! Oh look… Mel Gibson.
May God bless and keep you one and all.
Let’s see: warm water, sunlight, bacteria used to eating petroleum from natural releases in the Gulf.
And WHY exactly were was anyone expecting tasty oil to hang around?
Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
It’s the eco-zealots who should look like idiots here, but since they CAN’T be wrong, idiot greenie liberals look for conspiracies.
55,
There are a few problems..
1. the amount of crude.
2. bacteria takes TIME.
3. go look at a sample in alaska, they still have problems after ??? years?
4. IF we clean it up, we PROBABLY can use most of it.
5. what do you do, BEFORE the bacteria eats it all?
6. what do the Birds/fish/humans/crabs/prawns/clams do, BEFORE the bacteria eats it all?
You understand that BACTERIA will clean your toilet, DONT YOU? It will grow in there and digest most things AFTER TIME. its called a cesspool.
Would you like to LIVE/SWIM IN THAT??
Tell me it will only take 5 years for the bacteria to digest it…
TELL me the OIL wont round the cape of florida during that time..
Tell me about WHEn your kid, let the air out of your tires, and you TAUGHT HIM how to fill them back up.
#56 ECA
There are a few problems with your post
The amount of crude in the Gulf is the equivalent of one one-millionth of an ounce of oil in a bathtub of water.
Bacteria is a small part of the solution. The big solutions are the sun and the type of oil.
Back on May 4, the LA Times reported: “Experts working to control the Gulf of Mexico oil slick got one piece of good news Tuesday: Tests on new samples appear to show that the material is typical Louisiana sweet crude, a light oil that can be either burned or readily dispersed.”
The oil did not contain a high concentration of asphalt and other nonvolatile components which are more resistant to degradation in the environment. So the oil can break down much faster.
But for the past 3 months, we have been deluged with Chicken Little the sky is falling warnings by the enviro-nuts on the left.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/05/gulf-oil-spill-tests-confirm-oil-is-light-grade.html
A positive from the media/BP whitewash: tourism in the Gulf may go from zero to a number that might let the area business owners eat thru the winter. No telling what next season will bring for them tho.
Those here lightly dismissing an ecological disaster blow my mind. What a bunch of vacuous disingenuous idiots. Regardless of blame, technology, aftermath, and money, the Gulf was already pretty f*cked ecologially and this does nothing to help and everything to hurt it. To dismiss what will certainly be decades in recovery as nothing of real consequence frightens me and makes me wonder how much the corporations paid you for your soul.
BTW, the dispersants aren’t a magic bullet, dickheads. They themselves are toxic chemicals and tons are now rampant in the food chain there.
There are none so blind who WILL NOT see.
the only problem i have with the mother jones piece is that writer and the readers just can’t even possibly for one millisecond consider that mother nature could clean this up before man. it just completely screws up their reality distortion field. i think we need to look at the parts per billion on this… ppl are looking at this like its a repeat of the exxon valdez and it isn’t. the gulf is way warmer, the oil is lighter crude, and the base tempe way hotter. it’s not a great jump to think the oil would break up better than it didn in alaska but doesn’t mean its gone from the food chain there.