Can we just blow up the oil well in the Gulf and be done with it?

Some say it's a viable option, but to do so would cost BP more money. Boo hoo. It'd be interesting to hear more about whether this is a real option. More from Crooks & Liars:

So why aren't we talking about doing this? Well, Brownfield explained that too:

Brownfield: If we demolish the well using explosives, the investment's gone. They lose hundreds of millions of dollars, from the drilling of the well, plus no lawmaker in his right mind would allow BP to drill again in that same spot. So basically, it's an all-or-nothing thing with BP: They either keep the well alive, or they lose their whole investment and all the oil that they could potentially get from that well.

As Brownfield explains, "We need to seal this thing off." Desperately. But why hasn't anyone been bringing a complete shutdown of the well to the table?

Brownfield: Yes, I think -- stopping the spill immediately. And the reason why we haven't seen that option is because, frankly, BP is still at the helm. I think President Obama needs to take charge of this, bring all the assets of our military to bear, bring the U.S. Army Corps of engineers, bring the U.S. Navy, and bring in all the private-sector organizations that have the equipment for deep-sea operations to make this happen. Let's explode this, collapse the well, and put an end to it.

Not that I'm advocating this, but reportedly the Russians have used nukes 5 times to seal gas well fires.

Using a nuclear explosion to try to plug the gushing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico might sound like overkill, but a Russian newspaper has suggested just that based on past Soviet successes. Even so, there are crucial differences between the lessons of the past and the current disaster unfolding.

The Russians previously used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires. A targeted nuclear explosion might similarly help seal off the oil well channel that has leaked oil unchecked since the sinking of a BP oil rig on April 22, according to a translation of the account in the daily newspaper Komsomoloskaya Pravda by Julia Ioffe of the news website True/Slant.

And here's more from Brownfield:

On Day 1 of the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, my gut instinct was to nuke the well shut. This was not simply an aggressive urge to brandish the most beastly of weapons in our mighty American arsenal, but a serious way to snuff out an enormous problem that grows worse by the day.

For more than 100 years, explosives have been used to break the necks of runaway oil wells, snapping the long, narrow columns and sealing them shut with tons and tons of rock. Over the last several days, our 24-hour news cycle has pumped us full of excruciating details about the failed efforts to siphon, cap off, and ultimately recover the oil that is gushing into the Gulf. The latest nonsense and false hope, a mile-long pipe designed to divert some of the oil flow, is like putting a 4-inch straw into a 22-inch-diameter fire hose. It's a sordid attempt by BP at drinking its own milkshake. But the problem with this disaster response is that the ideas BP has brought to the table all seem to ignore the simplest solution: permanently destroying the well.

The ideas BP has brought to the table all seem to ignore the simplest solution: permanently destroying the well.
BP’s incentives are obvious. A deep-sea oil well costs hundreds of millions of dollars to drill, so the company prefers to bumble through never-before-tried recovery efforts than destroy its investment. Furthermore, BP is probably hedging its bets—if it loses this well, lawmakers will likely ban it from drilling there again. In other words, if BP loses the well, it loses both the enormous sunk costs of drilling it and the expected cash flow from all the remaining oil. Thus, even in the midst of this crisis, BP appears to be just as concerned with protecting its shareholders as with stopping this catastrophe.

Enough is enough. It’s time to destroy the well and put the matter to rest.

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Stunning time lapse video of Iceland volcano

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

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BP using less effective, more toxic, oil dispersing chemicals than it needs to

NYT:

BP PLC continues to stockpile and deploy oil-dispersing chemicals manufactured by a company with which it shares close ties, even though other U.S. EPA-approved alternatives have been shown to be far less toxic and, in some cases, nearly twice as effective.

So far, BP has told federal agencies that it has applied more than 400,000 gallons of a dispersant sold under the trade name Corexit and manufactured by Nalco Co., a company that was once part of Exxon Mobil Corp. and whose current leadership includes executives at both BP and Exxon. And another 805,000 gallons of Corexit are on order, the company said, with the possibility that hundreds of thousands of more gallons may be needed if the well continues spewing oil for weeks or months.

But according to EPA data, Corexit ranks far above dispersants made by competitors in toxicity and far below them in effectiveness in handling southern Louisiana crude.

Of 18 dispersants whose use EPA has approved, 12 were found to be more effective on southern Louisiana crude than Corexit, EPA data show. Two of the 12 were found to be 100 percent effective on Gulf of Mexico crude, while the two Corexit products rated 56 percent and 63 percent effective, respectively. The toxicity of the 12 was shown to be either comparable to the Corexit line or, in some cases, 10 or 20 times less, according to EPA.

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Top Interior official in charge of offshore drilling to 'retire'

Seems like a no-name head to roll, but I suspect the environmentalists will rightly be relieved, since they were concerned about this guy's ties to industry:

The top Interior Department official who oversees offshore oil and gas drilling for the Minerals Management Service will retire on May 31, The Washington Post has learned.

Chris Oynes, who oversaw oil and gas leasing in the Gulf of Mexico for 12 years before being promoted in 2007 to associate director for offshore energy and minerals management, informed colleagues in an e-mail that he will step down. He has come under fire from former MMS officials for being too close to the industry he regulated.

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Texas teacher singles out Latino student during SB-1070 discussion, says Mexicans always ‘expect handouts.’

Si, se puede fire your racist ass:

Ortiz, who was wearing a jersey from a Mexican soccer team, said the teacher told him to sit in the front row. She proceeded to single him out repeatedly, Ortiz said, pointing at him as she made comments like, “The Mexicans with their attitudes are the racist ones.” Continuing to point at Ortiz, she allegedly told the class that Mexicans always “expect handouts” and “soon it’s going to be the United States of Mexico,” according to Ortiz. [...]

Another student in the class that day, Reina Mondragon, 18, corroborated Ortiz’s story. “The kind of discussion that we had on Thursday, May 6, wasn’t like the discussions that we normally have,” she said, adding the teacher questioned why documents in the United States frequently are translated into Spanish and whether Mexicans should be allowed to own land in this country.

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London shows new 'routemaster'

If you're a public transportation geek, you will love it. It's a modern looking design based on the old classic.

The double-decker uses green technology to be 40% more efficient, it has two staircases and an open platform enabling people to "hop-on hop-off".

London Mayor Boris Johnson said the new bus for the capital would be "iconic" and "beautiful".

A spokesman for Transport for London hoped the bus, which has three doors to speed-up boarding, would be in service in 2012.

A Transport for London spokesman said the bus will be 15% more fuel efficient than existing hybrid buses, and 40% more efficient than conventional diesel double deckers and much quieter on the streets.

It has a "glass swoop" at the back and "an asymmetric design for the front-end completes the futuristic look".

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Obama admin picks climate-change-denying homophobe to 'fix' Gulf oil spill disaster

The oil industry would be proud of Jonathan I. Katz, the man the Obama administration has chosen to take a stab at fixing the Gulf oil spill disaster. He's an avowed "proud homophobe," who thinks that "sodomites" are responsible for infecting "innocent victims" with AIDS, and he's an Al Gore hating climate change denialist too!

Here are his thoughts on climate change and Al Gore:

Who is stoking the alarm about global warming? There is Al Gore, an over-the-hill politician who wants to remain in the public eye. His house uses 20 times as much electricity as the average American house and he flies private jets. Obviously, he does not believe what he preaches; it must be an act. Conservation is for the little people. I'll think about reducing my emissions after he reduces his by 95%. Then there is Jim Hansen, would-be dictator who wants to throw in jail anyone who disagrees with him or burns coal. He may wish himself another Mussolini (or worse), but people just laugh at him. And finally John Holdren, who in his younger days was prophesying disaster from the ice age then just beginning (so he said). Fictitious crises are a demogogue's route to power.

Fortunately, global warming is probably good for humanity. Sit back, relax, and watch it happen.

And here's what Katz has to say about the "innocent victims" of AIDS:

"These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves."

But I'm sure a climate change denier is a really good scientist otherwise. (Other than that Mrs. Lincoln...) Much more on AMERICAblog Gay, including this action alert. Read the rest of this post...

Jobs are the keys to political recovery, but the GOP will still be extreme

Paul Krugman points out that the media's discovery that the extremists have taken over the GOP isn't news. It's been happening for awhile. But, he also examines the tilt right during the recent economic crisis. I expected that same thing as Krugman. After the GOP leadership led to the economic crisis, I really did expect the American people to hold them accountable. But, that's not what happened -- and it's not what usually happens:

When the economy plunged into crisis, many observers — myself included — expected a political shift to the left. After all, the crisis made nonsense of the right’s markets-know-best, regulation-is-always-bad dogma. In retrospect, however, this was naïve: voters tend to react with their guts, not in response to analytical arguments — and in bad times, the gut reaction of many voters is to move right.

That’s the message of a recent paper by the economists Markus Brückner and Hans Peter Grüner, who find a striking correlation between economic performance and political extremism in advanced nations: in both America and Europe, periods of low economic growth tend to be associated with a rising vote for right-wing and nationalist political parties. The rise of the Tea Party, in other words, was exactly what we should have expected in the wake of the economic crisis.

So where does our political system go from here? Over the near term, a lot will depend on economic recovery. If the economy continues to add jobs, we can expect some of the air to go out of the Tea Party movement.

But don’t expect extremists to lose their grip on the G.O.P. anytime soon. What we’re seeing in places like Utah and Maine isn’t really a change in the party’s character: it has been dominated by extremists for a long time. The only thing that’s different now is that the rest of the country has finally noticed.

Finally.

And, this is another reason why Democrats should be doing everything they can to foster job growth. Read the rest of this post...

Please don't tweak the nipple of hypocrites of power

Hilarious, absolutely brilliant (and NSFW if you play it).

From the Geiko voice-over artist who was trashed, then fired, for "drunk-dialing" FreedomWorks and leaving a nasty message — a sort of apology cum explanation cum PSA.

(I wanted so badly to use the line "From the gecko's lips to your ears" so you could ask, "Geckos have lips?" But sadly, he was just the announcer for the commercials. Oh well; enjoy.)

(h/t HuffPost)

By the way, this was written and directed by D.C. Douglas himself, the actor involved in the spat. If this is an indication of his creative work, he's got a heck of a career behind the camera in front of him.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Live stream of AFL-CIO K street protest

Watch live streaming video from aflcio at livestream.com

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VIDEO: Arizona, it's different for white people

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NOAA: Tarballs found on beaches from Galveston to Florida

The most disturbing part of the story is that they're not all from the latest oil rig leak. Where are the others from? Read the rest of this post...

Gulf oil leak updates - limited success and lots of safety problems

As I posted yesterday "some" success could mean most anything. When it's coming from BP who has been systematically distorting the truth all along, you have to dissect every last detail to try and get to the real information. BP was boasting yesterday about their fantastic new plan but one scientist is saying this will probably only capture 15-20% of the oil gushing out into the Gulf. It's an improvement but it hardly lives up to the hype promoted by BP.

Meanwhile, the safety history record of BP is taking more hits. To be fair to BP though, they were doing what they (and probably others) knew they could get away with. When regulatory agencies don't regulate and have cozy partnerships with industry in oil or banking or whatever other business, this is what happens.

After several tough weeks, this is shaping up to be another rough one for the company. A U.S. Labor Department official told the Financial Times that BP has a "systematic safety problem" at its refineries.

"BP executives, they talk a good line. They say they want to improve safety," Jordan Barab, a senior official at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told the paper.

"But it doesn't always translate down to the refineries themselves. They still have a systematic safety problem."

Last year U.S. regulators slapped a record $87.4 million fine on BP for failing to fix safety violations at its Texas City refinery after a deadly 2005 explosion.

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Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

This should be a busy week. On the legislative front, the Senate will probably wrap up its work on the Wall Street reform bill. It's going well for the most part, which means the GOPers, on behalf of their Wall Street benefactors, haven't been able to weaken the legislation (yet).

Today is the "K Street Showdown" here in DC. The AFL-CIO, SEIU and several other groups are holding a protest against lobbyists for Wall Street and the big banks at 11:45 a.m. More info. here and here. And, the event will be livestreamed by the AFL-CIO. Lobbyists are often vilified, but rarely are they mentioned by name. That's changing.

Also, today's the last day of campaiging for primaries in Arkansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The premiere races in each state are the Senate races. In Arkansas, conservadem Blanche Lincoln is facing a fierce challenge from Bill Halter. It's likely there will be a runoff in Arkansas. In Kentucky, there's an open seat. On the GOP side, Mitch McConnell's hand-picked candidate, Trey Grayson, is probably going to lose to teabagger candidate Rand Paul. On the Democratic side, the Lieutenant Governor Dan Mongiardo is running against Attorney General Jack Conway. That one should be close. In Pennsylvania, GOPer turned Democrat Arlen Specter is getting a tough challenge from Rep. Joe Sestak. I'm pulling for Sestak in that one.

Obama is meeting with the Women's NCAA Champs from the University of Connecticut today.

What do we need to know? Read the rest of this post...

Desmond Tutu blasts corruption in government

He also had some very positive remarks as well including the country staying together following the murder of the white supremacist Eugene Terre'Blanche. The bulk of his criticism was probably aimed at the shamed ANC Youth leader Julius Malema who is eager to stoke racial hatreds and divides. If South Africa ever falls into the hands of Malema or anyone like him, it's game over and another Zimbabwe. The world needs a lot more like Desmond Tutu.

Expanding on this, Tutu wrote: "Issues such as corruption would certainly hurt him, as well as the gutter level of discourse by some politicians within the ruling party. We naively thought struggle attributes such as altruism were transferable, but sadly this was not the case, as seen by the high level of corruption that has plagued us since we gained our democracy."

The 78-year-old continued: "Poverty, health issues such as HIV and Aids, inadequate service delivery and lack of balanced discourse are some of the issues that would worry Mandela. One would have imagined that in our old age, we would sit back and watch the younger generation making a go of turning South Africa into a pride."

The remarks could be seen as a swipe at Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress youth wing, who faced a party disciplinary hearing over his recent behaviour. Malema has hurled personal abuse at opponents, been convicted by a court of hate speech, and called a BBC journalist a "bastard" and "bloody agent". He has also been accused of using his connections for financial gain.

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Euro at four year low against greenback

When the dollar was being hammered and hitting new lows, it never felt completely right. Sure, it was easy to see the charges against the dollar but it was just as easy to see equally bad news in euro-land. A one-to-one ratio sounds about right so there's still plenty of room to drop for the euro. Besides the heavy debt in the region, the other concern is that the strict austerity programs will prevent any growth in eurozone countries. BBC:

The euro has fallen to a four-year low against the dollar, after being hit by renewed fears over the strength of the eurozone economy.

The euro fell to $1.2237, while one pound was worth 1.1702 euros.

Despite the huge sums of money pledged in support for eurozone countries, severe austerity measures are needed to cut budget deficits and debt.

This is affecting the value of the euro as analysts worry the cuts will hold back economic growth in the eurozone.

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Rush hour traffic in the Netherlands

I wish I had enough time to sit in one location and take video like this when I was up there a few weeks ago. For any cyclist, Holland is an amazing place. Copenhagen has what looks like a good system as well but the Dutch are years ahead of everyone else in terms of organization. On a blog post here about the video someone had mentioned "cargo bikes" and how they are becoming increasingly popular there. I noticed many more in Copenhagen where parents rode their youngsters to daycare or used them for carrying groceries back home. Riding in the rain or the winter leaves much to be desired but like anything, you get used to it. Read the rest of this post...