Posts from — June 2010

Let’s start with the Pensacola News Journal story: Getting oil spill cash easier said than done

First, the State of Florida was to reimburse counties for oil-spill expenses, drawing from the $50 million BP sent the state.

Then the rules changed, and counties were told to file directly with BP.

Initially, the counties were told to include cities within their boundaries. Later that same day, they were told not to.

For a while, the state was going to pay for protective boom. Then it wasn’t. Now it is.

Then from the Local Puppy Trainer: today on the barrier island

OKALOOSA ISLAND — Lifeguards have cordoned off a 100-yard stretch of Okaloosa Island so teams can assess and clean up a concentration of tar balls that have washed up there.

“We’ve got some product the size of golf balls, half dollars, very weathered oil,” said Okaloosa County Public Safety Director Dino Villani, who was called to the beach early Wednesday morning.

The from the AP via nola.com: the barriers to news coverage. They were told to stop it, but the media is still being systematically denied access to areas where the oil has come ashore, and the FAA is blocking low-level flying over the area.

Rick Outzen reports on Obama’s speech: How It Played in the Gulf. Bottom line, the only people who liked were hardcore Obama supporters. Generally when it was obvious that it wasn’t really about the spill, people tuned out.

McClatchy has a Miami Herald piece up, Tired of waiting for BP, Florida towns plan to fight oil alone. The reason I went with this link is the picture. It isn’t because it’s a blond in a bikini, it’s that she has a glob of oil on her right side. The caption talks about the shop rag in her hand, but that oily smear is the last thing tourist officials want to see on visitors to the beach.

The article is a nice overview of what we are dealing with along the Panhandle. At this point everyone who is supposed to be helping us above the county level, is just getting in the way of our efforts to protect the coastline.

The Bavaria Brewery of the Netherlands have done it again: Two women in court over World Cup Dutch ‘beer stunt’.

This was a much better looking, from my point of view, than the 2006 stunt. Orange mini-dresses on 30 young women is certainly preferable to orange lederhosen with lion tails.

Why American Budweiser is allowed to be the official “brew” of the World Cup, is beyond me. It’s not like many of the people who would watch the World Cup would actually drink it, even if it were free. FIFA is all about money.

At least they haven’t banned the vuvuzelas. A B♭ plastic trumpet isn’t everyone’s idea of fun, but at least they drown out the commentators so you can watch the game. They at least switched to plastic from the original metal versions, which has reduced medical costs, as well as the cost of the horns.

Group H:

Honduras 0-1 Chile
Spain 0-1 Switzerland

Spain dominated the pitch with the exception of the net. Switzerland took advantage of one of the few times they managed to get in range, while Spain never converted any of their opportunities into a netted ball.

The first round of Group play is over.

In Group A second round: South Africa 0-3 Uruguay

Team	Group	Points	Matches				Goals
			Played	Won	Tied	Lost	For	Against	Difference
	C	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
	C	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
	D	3	1	1	0	0	4	0	4
	D	0	1	0	0	1	0	4	-4
	E	3	1	1	0	0	2	0	2
	H	3	1	1	0	0	1	0	1

Mustang Bobby covers our Orange-American governor being stupid: Come On Down. Bobby is absolutely correct that tourists come for the beaches more than any other reason. If there is oil on beaches they are not going to come. Hell, the oil is hitting beaches on the western end of the Panhandle and people are canceling vacations in South Florida, because geography is not an American strong suit.

Someone needs to hit Charlie up side the head and explain that if you keep the oil off the beaches, it can’t get to the wet lands. Charlie apparently doesn’t understand that the wetlands are behind the beaches. We don’t care how “easy” some people seem to think cleaning beaches is – WE DON’T WANT OUR BEACHES POLLUTED!!!

Juan Cole takes off his Mideast expert hat and responds to a common charge of corporate supporters: Big Oil’s Predations are not Your Fault.

I voted for Jimmy Carter, not Ronald Reagan. There were things I didn’t like about Jimmy, but he understood the root of the 1973 oil crisis, and knew the best way of dealing with it.

I have a bicycle and use it around town, mostly because it is faster than driving, but still… I fill the car with under 10 gallons of gas every two months. I would use public transportation, but we don’t have it. I have been using CFLs since they cost $10 apiece, and used small circular florescent bulbs in screw in adapters before CFLs. I have had a low-flow shower head and low-capacity toilet since the ones that actually work came out. When appliances break, I replace them with energy efficient models. I am not “saving the earth”, I am saving my money. Conservation is cheaper than wasting resources. The “return on investment” for “green” appliances in this area is quite short because of the utility rates.

The money that corporations are going to lose if we get serious about conservation and global climate change is our money that we aren’t going to be giving to them because what they want us to buy isn’t efficient. Corporations would rather spend billions to convince people that they need what the corporations are selling, rather than spending it on the resources to build what people want.

If you look at the Leak Meter at the top of the page you may notice that it has jumped to 75+ million gallons and the default rate is now 1.47 million gallons per day. It reflects the new estimate of the teams that are actually using several methods to measure the rate at which the oil is flowing, rather than a number pulled out of the air by BP.

The Pensacola News Journal says that Florida to get its own oil spill chief

Florida, Alabama and Mississippi will each get its own deputy incident commander to lead oil response and cleanup efforts.

President Barack Obama discussed the move today in Pensacola with U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander who established the three deputies.

So, there is a problem in communications, and the President decides to add another intermediate layer to the table of organization. What a typical MBA/bureaucratic solution – let’s make it even harder to get answers. 😈

The Local Puppy Trainer has my county’s response to the problem: Okaloosa defies Unified Command over East Pass plans

DESTIN — Okaloosa County isn’t taking oil spill orders any more.

County commissioners voted unanimously to give their emergency management team the power to take whatever action it deems necessary to prevent oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill from entering Choctawhatchee Bay through the East Pass.

They are tired of coming up with solutions and then waiting for them to be approved by the Florida DEP, the Coast Guard, and BP. They are also fed up that the state has told the counties to bill BP, rather than asking for some of the $25 million BP has already given to the state. What the hell is the state doing with the money that it was given to cover the immediate costs of dealing with the oil?

Jams O’Donnell has given me a wonderful idea for dealing with BP management, soak them in Obsession For Men and send them on a safari. 😈

In Group F:

New Zealand 1-1 Slovakia

Group G:

Côte d’Ivoire 0-0 Portugal
Brazil 2-1 PDR Korea

New Zealand scored in the injury time to draw against a skilled Slovakia side, which was their first World Cup goal.

Group G has no weak teams. Four continents represented and the four sides all came to play.

This is how the teams I follow are fairing:

Team	Group	Points	Matches				Goals
			Played	Won	Tied	Lost	For	Against	Difference
	C	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
	C	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	0
	D	3	1	1	0	0	4	0	4
	D	0	1	0	0	1	0	4	-4
	E	3	1	1	0	0	2	0	2
	H	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

John, by the grace of God, king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June, 1215, signed the Great Charter in the presence of assorted heavily armed peers of the realm, who assured him it was the right thing to do.

The British Library has pictures of the Magna Carta available, and Wikipedia has a nice discussion of the document.

The Magna Carta of 1297 is permanently residing in the US National Archives.

The Avalon Project’s translation of the 1215 version with an index and definitions.

John abided by the charter for several months, before he returned to business as normal, but the principle was established – no one is above the law.

Yet another investigation has pointed the finger directly at the decisions of BP to ignore warnings and use methods that were only designed to save BP time and money:

WASHINGTON — BP knew its Macondo well was troublesome in the days leading up to a fatal April 20 blowout, congressional investigators found, but the company “appears to have made multiple decisions for economic reasons that increased the danger of a catastrophic well failure.”

From the company’s uncommon well design to its fatal decision not to circulate drilling mud, which could have cleared out pockets of gas, and the lack of critical testing, which could have pinpointed problems with its cementing, the company had many points at which it could have prevented an explosion, investigators with the House Energy and Commerce Committee have found.

One of those decisions concerned the type of cement Halliburton used. It was frothy, and was designed to reduce the heat of the curing process. It is used when a stratum of of gas hydrates is encountered to seal it off and keep that gas out of the well. It isn’t as strong as the normal type of cement used to seal a well.

Since it is probable that the cement failed, that layer is open. These layers are normally discovered by the drilling mud draining into them. The existence of the stratum makes sealing the well more difficult. The relief well might be able to plug the bottom, but gas from the open stratum may continue to boil out.

The bottom of the Gulf is layered with sedimentary rock, sand, hydrates. This is why it is difficult to drill. The people who have advocated using explosives to seal the well don’t understand that the rock involved is more apt to splinter that crumble, and if it shatters, there is no way of stopping the flow.

In Group E:

Netherlands 2-0 Denmark
Japan 1-0 Cameroon

In Group F:

Italy 1-1 Paraguay

Italy had to come from behind to take a draw which is not what you expect from the defending champion. The South American teams all come ready to play, so it’s hard to believe that Italy wasn’t prepared.

Adopted as the flag of the United States of America by the Flag Resolution of 1777 enacted on 14 June, 1777.

The flag was first flown from Fort Stanwix, on the site of the present city of Rome, New York, on August 3, 1777. It was first under fire three days later in the Battle of Oriskany, August 6, 1777.

An official flag has a rise to run ratio of 1 to 1.9 [the flag should be 1.9 times as long as it is high] with the canton [the dark blue part] that rises over the top seven stripes with a run of 40% of the flag’s run.

The only time you will see a “correct” US Flag is if you see the official colors of a military unit. Most flags are 3’X5′ or 4’X6′ instead of 3’X5.7′ or 4’X7.6′.

Frances Bellamy, the Baptist minister and socialist who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance was from Rome, New York.

Badtux called it a cult of safety, which was exemplified by a CNN poll showing that 68% of the respondents thought it was too dangerous for a 16-year-old “girl” to sail around the world alone.

If I were Abby Sunderland’s insurance agent, I would much prefer that she engage in something as safe as a solo sail around the world, than being a teenage driver in California. The southern oceans are treacherous, but not as dangerous as the I-405 or Pacific Coast Highway with chemically impaired celebrities whizzing around. Just look at the numbers.

The ABC noted that:

The parents of 16-year-old US sailor Abby Sunderland have defended her solo round-the-world attempt after her successful rescue by a French fishing boat.

The Australians are not apt to get too carried away with the “danger” to Ms Sunderland, as they just welcomed home Jessica Watson, a 16-year-old Australian who just finished her sail around the world. Ms Watson sailed a S&S 34, a proven design, and kept connected with a blog.

Ms Sunderland sailed a slightly larger Open 40, designed for solo sailing, and her vessel had already been around the world many times. She too had a blog.

Despite being demasted and losing its keel, the vessel remained afloat, and Ms Sunderland followed the proper protocol for seeking assistance. Imagine what would have happened to her if she had been t-boned by SUV blowing through a red light?

What father in his right mind wouldn’t want his 16-year-old daughter sailing around the world solo, rather than attending the local high school [it’s a “guy” thing, because we know what 16-year-old guys are like]?

In Group C:

England 1-1 US
Algeria 0-1 Slovenia

In Group D:

Serbia 0-1 Ghana
Germany 4-0 Australia

Goalies are having problems. Both Robert Green of England and Faouzi Chaouchi of Algeria lost control of balls that you would expect them to handle. Some people have complained about the new ball acting weird. Both goals were late in the games but that shouldn’t affect people good enough to make their national teams.

Another goalie in pain, this time physical, is Tim Howard of the US who may have broken ribs. He stayed in the match after the injury, but may have to be benched.

Carl Hiaasen notes of our government Now you don’t trust BP, but it’s too late.

What does it take for the clowns in Washington to figure out that corporations only care about profits? Just because the new crew are educated doesn’t mean they are smart.

Speaking of stupid people: Boaters break booms in area waters

Boaters are cutting boom that has been deployed to protect inland waters.

Crews have found boom cut and removed at Star Lake, Lafitte Cove and Palafox Pier by people trying to get their boats out of the inland waterways, Escambia County officials said Saturday.

County Commissioner Gene Valentino said he saw a boater drive over boom.

“We will pursue our options to the fullest extent under the law,” he said at a briefing at the Escambia County Emergency Operation Center. “This is not to be taken lightly. We are in an emergency condition.”

Confiscate their boats. The boats were used in a crime, and boats are needed, so confiscate them. Publish the pictures, names, and addresses of those involved so people know who to sue when the oil gets in. 👿

It floated more than 200 miles across the Gulf: Piece of Deepwater Horizon rig washes ashore

PANAMA CITY BEACH — Bay County’s first tangible landfall from the Deepwater Horizon accident is not tar balls or oil plumes. Instead, it was a suspected piece of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana in April.

According to U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Steve Caskey, a tank weighing 5,000 pounds with a 550-gallon capacity washed ashore near 14th Street and Front Beach Road in Laguna Beach.

“It was leaking when it washed up on the beach,” Caskey said. “There is some oil in it. There was sheen created from the tank leaking.”

Caskey said there were BP markings on the tank and other evidence that it came from the Deepwater Horizon rig.

At this point I think we can assume that any oil we see is from BP’s Well from Hell. This pretty much establishes the drift pattern.

Invest 92 is well out in the Atlantic but it has the beginning of a closed circulation over very warm water and a lot of moisture in the surrounding air.

Currently the wind shear isn’t a major problem because it is South of the jet stream, so it could spin up in the next day or two, as it heads for the Caribbean.

Because of the counter-clockwise winds around tropical storms, if it spins up and enters the Gulf, it would be nice if it stayed to the East of the Well from Hell, as that would push the oil away from the shore line. If it passes over or to the West of the Well, we’ll have oily storm surge to contend with and the interior waterways will get polluted.