CNN says that Frustration grows over oil spill

(CNN) — Saying BP has “from day one, frankly not fulfilled the mission it was supposed to fulfill,” Interior Secretary Ken Salazar expressed frustration Sunday with the delay in stopping an underwater oil gusher 33 days after an oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico.

“I have no question that BP is throwing everything at the problem,” Salazar said. “Do I have confidence that they know exactly what they’re doing? No.”

But he and other federal officials likened the task to an “Apollo 13” mission.

Marcia McNutt, director of the U.S. Geological Survey, told reporters that while BP has failed to meet its own schedule for stopping the gusher, their schedule was probably not feasible from the outset given that the tasks involve construction, mobilizing equipment and fabricating devices.

BP’s effort is being directed by their legal department, not engineers. Once you accept that reality everything falls into place. If BP was actually trying to stop the leak, they wouldn’t have had two containment structures built, they would have been working on stopping the leak.

They have the same pipe that is used in the riser available, and could have devised a shut off valve that would be added to the pipe in days, not over a month. The manifold system for the mud has been in place from the beginning, but hasn’t been used at all.

It is long past the time when this operation should have been taken over by someone who actually wants to stop the flow of oil.

A lot of people have enjoyed the announcement that Chicken costumes are banned at Nevada polling places, as they are considered to be directed at a specific candidate, Sue Lowden.

The chicken costumes were just plain mean… and totally appropriate political speech, given that Lowden has been attempting all kinds of things rather than admitting what is clearly on tape. She thinks she’s Bill O’Reilly.

Of course, people have been having a snark-fest with the words of wisdom from Rand Paul, and he is certainly deserving of the ridicule. However, given that he is running for a seat that the voters of Kentucky gave to Jim Bunning, twice, I don’t think it will have much impact on the voters. Paul doesn’t even make it into the scouting reports for the farm teams of the league of crazies that Jim Bunning stars in.