They Are Still At It
The Miami Herald reports that U.S. approves drilling plans without study
WASHINGTON — Despite President Barack Obama’s promises of better safeguards for offshore drilling, federal regulators continue to approve plans for oil companies to drill in the Gulf of Mexico with minimal or no environmental analysis.
The Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service has signed off on at least five new offshore drilling projects since June 2, when the agency’s acting director announced tougher safety regulations for drilling in the Gulf, a McClatchy review of public records has discovered.
Three of the projects were approved with waivers exempting them from detailed studies of their environmental impact — the same waiver the MMS granted to BP for the ill-fated well that’s been fouling the Gulf with crude for two months.
It is time for Ken Salazar to discover the joys of family life back in Colorado, because he doesn’t seem to understand that people are upset about the lack of oversight on offshore wells. Replacing the head of the Minerals Management Service obviously wasn’t the answer, so we need a Secretary of the Interior who finds the answer. At a minimum we need to find someone who understands what a “six-month moratorium” means.
The heads of the major oil companies have already admitted the obvious, that none of them has the resources to deal with a run-away well, so wells shouldn’t even be in the pipeline until those resources are available.
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Ahhh yes! But this is how US and BP leaders deal with a crisis.
From ‘The Globe and Mail’:
BP chief under fire over yacht race
From ‘The Hill’:
Obama hits golf course with Biden on another hot, humid weekend
This is of course the perfect way to deal with a crisis. I’d sure do it, if I could! 😛
Frankly, I’d just as soon that both of them got the hell out of the way and let people who actually know what they are doing, do it. Watching a geologist and lawyer trying to deal with a “plumbing” problem has not been very satisfying. Maybe if they had asked a few pipefitters or others skilled in the arts of leaks, the spill would have been stopped before the wellhead got sandblasted.
Sorry, I was being logical again.
Who names a sailboat “Bob”?
Oh, it’s Father’s Day [Sunday], another faux American holiday created to sell stuff. The golf is supposed to be a guy thing. I’ve never seen the point of hitting a ball and then walking after it to hit it again. It was offered at my first university and I was supposedly a reasonable player “with potential”, but I could never get beyond the conclusion that it was stupid.
Curiously, I learned and played Golf whilst in School. The School was right next to a big Course. I’d sneak over at lunch time and make money finding lost balls. I wanted to get a couple old clubs to practice with. The club made me a deal, they would give me a putter and an iron in exchange for me waiting for the balls to stop rolling before I *found* them! 😆 (True story!) I also washed the balls (err… the “golf” balls, of course!) of the punters for 20c, and would sometimes get more. I was allowed to use the greens on a slow day. I could drive pretty well, but putting was terrible! 😆
Ehhh… Fathers day! We have it here too. A day I’ve never celebrated! If I had a Father worth celebrating, I may have. Mothers day was very different! My Mom was worth celebrating. 🙂
Sadly, logic is lost in today’s World Bryan. We are now… anachronisms! *sigh* On the plus side, we don’t have much longer to put up with it. 😈 😆
Golf “stupid”?…oh, oh…you’re treading on some thin oily water there my friend. My father was a golf professional. I grew up on various golf courses and learned many things about life via golf..i.e, patience.
Boats, like racehorses, should have glorious names. Of which, “Bob” is not one. My stepdad’s boat’s name was Nocturne. She was fast, furious and had a black hull, on which we scrubbed many an hour. I remember sailing by the oil derricks in the Santa Barbara channel on Nocturne. They are humungous entities.
I can’t freakin’ believe that they would still greenlight offshore drilling. WTF are they thinking? WTF are they smoking? What sort of non-reality do those bozo’s live in?
OK…just think I blew that Golf Life lesson I learned. I’ve lost my patience.
OK…just think I blew that Golf Life lesson I learned. I’ve lost my patience.
😆 😆 😆
You and me both cookie jill… happens to me often lately! It’s one of the reason’s I’m seeing a Councilor weekly. Bryan isn’t the only one with *anger* issues! 😉 Mind you, I always thought the biggest lesson I learned was… “Don’t drop that damned shoulder when you swing! Dammit!!” (in the words of my always patient and helpful instructor). 😆
Nocturne is a good name for a boat. 🙂
Actually, Kryten…the biggest life lesson I learned from Golf was actually the appreciation of Buddhist beliefs in “being in the moment.” You can’t think about the last hole you played nor can you think about how you will play the hole in front because thinking about either while you have a club in your hand will affect your concentration on the job at hand…hitting the ball now.
Yes…I miss Nocturne.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/santabarbarian/311784284/in/photostream/
According to the local Sunday paper, tarballs and slicks are now appearing on Panama City beaches.
After that tank showed up on Panama City Beach, it was only a matter of time because the current was obviously headed that way. We are going to lose the Apalachicola oyster beds anytime now, another industry destroyed.
Oh, Jill and Kryten, personally I classify golf with cricket, essentially an excuse for goofing off.
I would think that every CEO in Britain would be required to show up for the “JP Morgan Asset Management Round The Island Race”, but the name of the boat, whether a person or slang for a shilling [nickel, 5p, to USians] is another example of cluelessness.
Oh, Jill and Kryten, personally I classify golf with cricket, essentially an excuse for goofing off.
Ahhh… yeah… And your point is? 😉 😆
Actually, Golf was the hardest *sport* I’ve ever tried to master! Squash was far easier. But you don’t get the view and fresh air. (Most of the squash courts I’d been on either smelled like old gym socks or overpowering disinfectant!) 😆
*Bob* makes me think of ‘Bob the Builder’! 😆 Pretty childish… so probably appropriate in this case. 😉
Yeah… I read about the oil at Panama. And that map I posted a while back shows that the oyster bed is definitely under threat.
I have t say, that right now, I am far more pissed at the Obama administration than I am at BP. I expect this crap from a mega corp.
Bob the Builder would have stopped the leak by now, “Yes, we can!” [A week of him when my oldest great nephew visited. I accused the Obama campaign of ripping off BtB for their slogan.]
As I hate grass, golf courses are my version of the apocalypse in all of its water-thieving, manicured worst. I goof off working with my hands, doing mindless projects, or off in the woods with a hammock and a book.
The biggest problem is that the current administration hasn’t figured out that corporate management doesn’t know what the corporation actually does, as all of the “dirty work” is outsourced. As this is the first day of the third month of this disaster, you would think that it occurred to them that BP is incompetent and has no “expertise”. They are the “arsonists” not the “fire department”.
Golf… blech. Zzzzzzzzz. I do like to go bird watching on the golf course though. A couple of times a year we count birds on one of the local courses. Amazing how many species can be found there. I suppose bird watching could also be considered goofing off.
You can’t truly be goofing off if you are writing things down, as long as those things are not made up, like golf scoring.