Thursday, June 3, 2010

(Revised) Live feed of capping oil leak in Gulf

Today, I tried to link to a live feed of the oil workers in the Gulf placing a cap on the well head. I failed as miserably as the workers are failing. Something in my pop-up blocker stops me from posting it correctly. I felt that I had other work that I should be doing, so I abandoned the post. Brian, my buddy at the front counter tried to fix it and he failed also. So if you really want to see what is going on down there, click on CNN.com (There is a link over there on the left-hand side of this page) then click on the live view of the seafloor operation.

I don’t know if what they did today will stop the flow, but maybe they can pump it out to the surface. They say that they still have to drill a “relief well”, and that won’t be finished until August sometime. I have trouble keeping up with this disaster and work too, so if you have any good information as to when this oil is going to stop flowing into the gulf. Let me know.

I groaned when I saw how they were trying to cut the well pipe. Any fool knows that you can’t cut something in a bind, because it will only pinch your saw blade. The right way to have cut it would have been to use the pincher-cutters that they ended up using, then trimming it clean with the saw. Once it is screwed-up. It can’t be fixed. It’s typical of how engineers work. They design things, and the people that have to make it work have to tell them what’s wrong with it.

I don’t watch the oil soaked birds, and fish dying. It is just not productive for me to do so. The people of the gulf coast are facing and end to their way of life, a life that in most cases is the only life that they know. I said when a did my first post on this oil spill “that you haven’t seen nothing yet”. I gives me no pleasure to say I told you so.

It seems strange to me that people don’t seem to be that outraged. Our local “environmentalists” are still proceeding with their “Save Richardson Grove” protest. I suppose that it is okay, but if I had the time to spend protesting, I think that it would have something to do with what’s wrong with our government regulators and the oil companies. I just took a tour of the redwoods on the north coast, and believe me they are in no way endangered. They are still all over the north coast, and they are still growing like weeds

Sorry that I got sucked into the oil spill again, It’s just so damn frustrating to watch what is happening in the Gulf. I still say “You haven’t seen nothing yet”. We still have the hurricanes to deal with. I don’t think that the gulf will recover for a long, long time.

Thanks for bearing with my sad rant.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, newly disclosed internal Coast Guard documents from the day after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast indicated that U.S. officials were warning of a leak of 336,000 gallons per day of crude from the well in the event of a complete blowout.

The well didn't have such a failure. But the volume turned out to be much closer to that figure than the 42,000 gallons per day that BP first estimated. Weeks later that was revised to 210,000 gallons. Now, an estimated 500,000 to 1 million gallons of crude is believed to be leaking daily.

Anonymous said...

quote from BP trying to put a lid on the Gulf oil gusher

Anonymous said...

How bad can the spill get?.
"NOAA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) have released this animated model of how the oil slick from the Deepwater Horizon well will travel along the coastal waters of both the Gulf of Mexico and the potential impact along the eastern seaboard of the U.S."

Ernie Branscomb said...

Thanks for the links anon.

I thought about my cousin Oregon when I saw what they were trying to do with the saws down on the well head. He could have told them to not try to cut a pipe with a strain on it. I wonder why they didn't ask him?

Anonymous said...

I want to start off here by saying I type with one finger and don't think much faster. I just typed two paragraphs and all was lost. So I will start over but with less material than the last writing.

Ernie, i used to cut logs (fall timber) back in the 60's. You know as much as me how to read, cut trees. I also used to dive in the ocean. Now to get to the pipe, the current moves all the time, it is a mile away (down) and you/we/them are trying to cut a pipe 5,000 feet away by computer and they are doing the best they can. Oil is coming out and those folks are working as hard as you or I would to fix it. Now there are some smarter folks that come along with a better idea. Lets sue those oil folks and better yet lets arrest them and make them pay.
Now I ask you folks out there, is this a good idea? I know YOUR President can't fix the oil leak but he can help with clean-up and our South Boarder

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Holy Cow Mildred!! Two things here, I can't believe I'm up this late and your President capped the oil leak! Yahoo!!

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

My frustration over this oil spill is multi-faceted. Without ranking the facets; the eleven people that died, the incredible, and also muli-faceted, destruction to the environment of the gulf coast and the people that live there.

It is also not without great frustration that I view the fact that, in the face of the ever deepening recession that we are mired in, America needs energy more than ever right now. I believe that Obama knows that we need a dependable local supply of energy. That is one point that he and Sarah Palin agree upon. I believe that may have had something to do with the relaxed safety standards that were in place for this Gulf drilling. Adequate safety standards should be required for any drilling operation.

A less understood frustration is the fact that I know that offshore drilling can be done safely, but now nobody will ever believe that again. The oil companies prostituted their character for profit. America has vast reservoirs of oil offshore that are from now on unattainable, thanks to the oppressing greed of the oil executives and Wall Street.

Bunny said...

"thanks to the oppressing greed of the oil executives and Wall Street."


and Haliburton and mr cheney. YOUR people Oregon.

Fair's fair said...

From "Left Coast Reble" "BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama."

Bunny said...

I see your point but all the Wink Wink happened on Bushes watch.

Anonymous said...

Wow Bunny, shootin' arrows now huh? I'm just an old man that wished it was like the old days. I just judge folks by how they treat me and I do have political views. The big problem is the ones that don't see it my way are wrong. I know how the people feel on the gulf coast with their way of life being wrecked. I went through that in Humboldt County when the tides of hippy, back to landers came in waves and washed over the land. No stopping that. I watched the Clinton administration shut down the Tongass National Forest to logging and I had to leave there too. All the aerial photos of the land being raped in the Tongass was Indian land. The big secret is that the trees grow back up there without having to be replanted. I see on the news where the people in the gulf coast are having their life style and culture changed and or ruined. Tell me about it Bunny!

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

The thing that I find the most sad is the way people defend "their side", right or wrong. No politician nowadays can call themselves "honest". They are ALL on the take, Democrats and Republicans alike. When they start saying, "take your campaign contribution and shove it, I'm not for sale, any money from you would only soil my reputation",then I'll believe that they are honest.

The problem that I'm having right now is that I don't really care who's in office. It's counter productive to keep trying to push the blame back and forth when they are all shamefully guilty of the worst possible crime. If anyone doubts that, just look at the pictures, if you have the stomach... I don't!

I really don’t give a rat’s ass who the president is, the president should have been on top of this BEFORE it happened. ALL divisions of government report to the president and he/she is RESPONSIBLE, to extent that he/she is the president of the united States and should be concerned about this kind of thing. You can point your finger of blame the other way if you want, but what you are doing is called “enabling”. Nobody gets any free passes on this one.

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon said:"I'm just an old man that wished it was like the old days."

He almost had me feeling sorry for him, then I remembered that he eats nails for breakfast. You'll have to give him credit for honesty though. He didn't like the nieghbors that moved in on him, so he moved. They followed him, and he moved again. I saw that would happen, so I stayed. The neighbors got better. All's well that ends well.

One thing that you should all know if you are judging people, is that you couldn't find a beter person to have your back, if you got into trouble, than "Oregon".

Anonymous said...

Ernie, I'm not defending anything. You might be stuck on the oil spill and I am stuck on the boarder. The spill is bad and will be worked on but the boarder is bad but not getting any attention from our current administration. Why is that? You and I both know why.
California Penal Code 834b. Look it up, google it, check it out.

Oregon

Ernie Branscomb said...

I don't have a speck of a problem with the "Mexicans". Some of the most interesting people that I know are Mexican. I do have a big problem with the "illegal" part. There is not a reason in the world why they shouldn't apply for legal visitation or citizenship before they come here. In fact, I would insist upon it. Most people are required to knock on my door before they come in my house also.

If you look deep enough, you will also find political graft and corruption, mostly at the federal level. That's why the states are screaming bloody murder and the feds are say "Huh, What problem".

Anonymous said...

Washington State, I hate that!!!!!! Sounds like a college. I wrote to my state reps about changing the name of our (my) state. Mostly cuz when I lived in Alaska and I saw "Washington" on a news thingy, TV or Newspaper I thought, cool, close to home. Wrong.
Talk about arrogant. Yuck. Those "Adam Henry's" on the news stuff always say " now in Washinhton the latest news" Blah Blah blah... Why are they not PROFESSIONAL and say Washington DC or DC?

Did I git away from what I was trying to say? Laughing here, sure you don't know what I was going to write, cept Bunny.
Mex's are not the problem, it's the Federal Administration. If y'all look up Yakima, WA. there might be a crime rate on there. Almost ALL are Mexicans and illegal and are the bad people. Some have been deported over 5 times and end up back in Yakima within 2 weeks. Some, one last week killed his girlfriend. Lots of rape and murder in that town. All Mexican. Now I want Bunny to know I have several close friends that are Mexican and I am not even running for an government office but it needs to stop somewhere. Of coarse I thought that back in the early 70's where I lived at the timOregon

Joe said...

Politicians get elected mostly by tearing down their opponents. The more money they have, the more dirt they can dish. Even so, few of them come out of these skirmishes smelling like roses. The art of throwing stink grows increasingly effective, and much of the stink sticks. To the point that many of us now think the whole pot full of politicians, from local to national, smells pretty bad. Now, making the other side seem to stink worse has become the full time occupation of most politicians, and many of the talking heads who get paid a lot of money--just to continually lob feces at one side or another. It is no surprise that government and those involved in it are not held in high esteem.

Yet, it IS our government and it is our responsibility to TRY to make it work as we think it should. I'm thinking that neither ignorance nor apathy is any solution at all. But, then, I do not know how to end the trend.

Cheers to all.

Joe

Anonymous said...

Hey Joe, I have much respect for you so I am asking you, why do the folks running for political office have to spend so much money?
For me, it is apparent in the first couple of weeks whom I am going to vote for.
Is it because people that vote are stupid and can be swayed after 2 years of campaigning?

Oregon

Bunny said...

I'm hoping the pendulum swings back and common decency will come back to the people of America. This can't get much worse. I think it's the internet and the speed of idiots. I have many opinions on how we have gotten here. I'm at a loss about how to fix it. I'm glad I'm old and don't have any kids.

Ross Sherburn said...

Oregon and I must have had the same Typing teacher??? It sure wasn't Mrs. Smith!!!

Anonymous said...

Ernie and Bunny, I apologize for my rants. I'm out of beer now so it is safe to come back.
Ross, I do need a new key board so I can't blame our old typing teacher. I don't look at what I am typing on the screen, I watch the keys and sometimes words get run over and left behind.

Oregon

Bunny said...

no problemo mi amigo

Ross Sherburn said...

Oregon,you ever ride with Hazel Barnes?

Ernie Branscomb said...

I thought it was Hazle Bates, and yes she was my bus driver all through school off and on. Churatha Moore took her place.

Anonymous said...

My bus driver too. CMoore as she was called rode the bus with me too.
Ghuratha and I were good friends.

Oregon

Ross Sherburn said...

Bates!!! I stand Corrected!!! Been tooooo many years!!! But I try Hard!!!! LOL!

Anonymous said...

Nancy Sinatra is 70 today.

Anonymous said...

We will be ranting for years. BP well may be spewing 100,000 barrels a day, scientist says.


The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics...
.

Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places.

Joe said...

Why does it cost so much money? In some cases it is to just overwhelm the competition. And it is mainly to get your name in front of people. Imagine the cost of sending a mailing to every voter in a congressional district (I've heard it is about 150,000 people, on the average, per district). In my district the incumbent just spent about $300,000 trying to get DEMS to write in his name on their primary ballots. He's a Republican who had no opposition--yet, he dropped $300K on an election. He had heard that the DEMS might have a write-in candidate. The DEM write-in guy spent near nothing and one the DEM spot on the NOV ballot. But I want to know HOW the $300K was spent. Who got the printing and mailing and PR money? Was it the candidate's wife's PR firm? Was it a big donor? The guy is a crook as was his father before him. Between them they have held the congressional seat for 38 years. Everyone knows he is a crook, but they say, "well, he's OUR crook." He helps businesses get government contracts and pork-barrel funds, and that is exactly what the majority of the electorate here wants him to do.
It's not unusual. The DEM in the next district west operated exactly the same way, and even had many of the same donors.
Oh well....