Rand Paul: Obama's criticism of BP 'un-American'

[donnay]

Rand Paul: Obama's criticism of BP 'un-American'

By MICHELE SALCEDO (AP) – 2 hours ago

WASHINGTON — Taking another unconventional stand, Kentucky's Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul criticized President Barack Obama's handling of the Gulf oil spill Friday as putting "his boot heel on the throat of BP" and "really un-American."

Paul's defense of the oil company came during an interview as he tried to explain his controversial take on civil rights law, an issue that has overtaken his campaign since his victory in Tuesday's GOP primary.

"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'" Paul said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business."

Other Republicans have criticized the administration's handling of the oil spill, but few have been so vocal in defending BP, the company responsible for the deep well and offshore rig that exploded last month, killing 11 workers.

Paul appeared two days after a landslide primary victory over the Republican establishment's candidate, Trey Grayson. He has been scrambling to explain remarks suggesting businesses be allowed to deny service to minorities without fear of federal interference, even though he says he personally abhors discrimination. On Friday he said he wouldn't seek to repeal the Civil Rights Act or Fair Housing Act, which prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of race, among other areas.

On the oil spill, Paul, a libertarian and tea party favorite, said he had heard nothing from BP indicating it wouldn't pay for the spill that threatens devastating environmental damage along the Gulf of Mexico coast.

"And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen," Paul said.

The senate candidate referred to a Kentucky coal mine accident that killed two men, saying he had met with the families and he admired the coal miners' courage.

"We had a mining accident that was very tragic. ... Then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen," he said.

An eye doctor and political novice, Paul defeated a rival recruited by Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell. He immediately invited Obama, whose approval ratings in Kentucky are fairly low, to campaign for the state's Democrats.

Paul, 47, credited tea party activists with powering him to victory on Tuesday. The first opinion poll since then showed him with a wide lead over his Democratic rival, Jack Conway.

Paul blamed the 24-hour news cycle for the controversy over his civil rights law comments, a point his father, Rep. Ron Paul, -Tex., endorsed.

In a sometimes testy exchange with reporters in the Capitol on Thursday, the elder Paul said liberals were treating his son unfairly and reporters were hoping to stop his political momentum with "gotcha" questions based on out-of-context remarks.

"Making something out of nothing is just not fair," he said.

[jeremystalked1]

Let's all throw our weight behind the pro-corporate-personhood, pro-big-business loon.  Shit happens, ya know?  Who among us hasn't spilled a few million barrels of unrefined crude?  If you don't like the way the government is treating British Petroleum, nothing's stopping you from exercising your freedom to bring satchels of cash to individual politicians, just like the oil companies do.  BP is why America is great!

I'm dying to hear what the Free State Project nuts have to say about this guy.  Oh, wait:

http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=19390.msg243114;topicseen

They like him a lot.

[MonkeyPuppet]

Let's all throw our weight behind the pro-corporate-personhood, pro-big-business loon.  Shit happens, ya know?  Who among us hasn't spilled a few million barrels of unrefined crude?  If you don't like the way the government is treating British Petroleum, nothing's stopping you from exercising your freedom to bring satchels of cash to individual politicians, just like the oil companies do.  BP is why America is great!

I'm dying to hear what the Free State Project nuts have to say about this guy.  Oh, wait:

http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=19390.msg243114;topicseen

They like him a lot.

Way to dumb down the subject.

Dr. Paul doesn't support government interference NOR lobbying for government favor.  He's against BOTH.  As for his stance on corporate person-hood and "big business", it would be better to actually get his take on it before accusing him of being "pro" either of them.  Knowing how his father feels about them, my money's on him not being a fan of either... but, I'm willing to hear it from him first.

[Dig]

Let's all throw our weight behind the pro-corporate-personhood, pro-big-business loon.  Shit happens, ya know?  Who among us hasn't spilled a few million barrels of unrefined crude?  If you don't like the way the government is treating British Petroleum, nothing's stopping you from exercising your freedom to bring satchels of cash to individual politicians, just like the oil companies do.  BP is why America is great!

I'm dying to hear what the Free State Project nuts have to say about this guy.  Oh, wait:

http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=19390.msg243114;topicseen

They like him a lot.

Motive for Carbon Trading Bankers in sabatoging BP Oil Rig

ON FEBRUARY 17, 2010, BP SAID THEY HAD ENOUGH OF THE CLIMATEGATE DENIERS
TWO MONTHS LATER, THE UNEXPLAINED DISASTER THREATENS TO END THEIR COMPANY FOREVER
THERE IS OVERWHELMING EVIDENCE THAT IMMEDIATE ATTENTION WAS DENIED AND CONTINUED "SOLUTIONS" ARE COMICAL AT BEST
MORE RESEARCH NEEDS TO BE DONE


Defections Shake Up Climate Coalition
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2010/02/defections-shake-up-climate-coalition/
February 17, 2010
Posted by Dan McGrath

By Stephen Power And Ben Casselman

Three big companies quit an influential lobbying group that had focused on shaping climate-change legislation, in the latest sign that support for an ambitious bill is melting away.

Oil giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won’t renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.

The move comes as debate over climate change intensifies and concerns mount about the cost of capping greenhouse-gas emissions.

On a range of issues, from climate change to health care, skepticism is growing in Washington that Congress will pass any major legislation in a contentious election year in which Republicans are expected to gain seats. For companies, the shifting winds have reduced pressure to find common ground, leading them to pursue their own, sometimes conflicting interests.

Last week, the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Billy Tauzin, said he would step down as president of the industry’s main lobby in Washington, amid criticism from some in the industry over the alliance he made last year with the White House to support health-care legislation.

The administration had worked hard to persuade industry groups to climb aboard its major legislative initiatives—a tack many business interests saw as sensible following the Democrats’ big gains in the 2008 elections. But “unlikely bedfellows make for breakups,” said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners, a consulting firm.

Spokesmen for ConocoPhillips and BP said the companies still support legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, but believe they can accomplish more working outside USCAP’s umbrella. Caterpillar said it plans to focus on commercializing green technologies.

ConocoPhillips’s senior vice president for government affairs, Red Cavaney, said the USCAP was focused on getting a climate-change bill passed, whereas Conoco is increasingly concerned with what the details of such a bill would be.

“USCAP was starting to do more and more on trying to get a bill out without trying to work as much on the substance of it,” Mr. Cavaney said.

A spokesman for USCAP said it intends to continue its work. More than 20 other large companies, including oil company Royal Dutch Shell PLC and industrial heavyweights General Electric Co. and Honeywell International Inc., remain in the coalition with environmental groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council. The USCAP said it expects to add new members in coming months.

“We think there’s momentum to get [a climate bill] done,” USCAP spokesman Tad Segal said. “President [Barack] Obama’s State of the Union address made it clear the administration is behind us.”

Listen up folks it's a sabotage:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWMCaSoc2Hc

Interesting angle (again I do not believe everything from these guys and they still push the left/right nonsense, but some good areas to investigate here):


Sabotage of BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig - cat bonds - catastrophic event
http://abeldanger.blogspot.com/2010/05/sabotage-of-bp-deepwater-horizon.html
May 3, 2010

Dear Lord Pearson:

UKIP – Cameron Crony Saboteurs – Boot on Neck of BP

Hawks CAFE asks you to investigate the role of David Cameron and his crony associates in HM Treasury, the European Union and the U.S. Senior Executive Service, following the apparent sabotage of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our KSM agents have evidence that Mr. Cameron and Norman Lamont, a former N.M. Rothschild banker and Cameron's former boss in HM Treasury, transferred Met Office / MOD assets into the custody of the crony members and their customers in the Legal Sector Alliance and authorized the use of the assets to sabotage the Deepwater Horizon, trigger cat-bond insurance frauds and launch a naked short-selling attack on BP's shares.
http://www.legalsectoralliance.com/about/members


"1970: British Prime Minister Edward Heath makes Lord Victor Rothschild the head of his policy unit. Whilst he is in that role Britain enters the European Community .. N. M. Rothschild & Sons British Newfoundland Corporation, Churchill Falls project in Newfoundland, Canada, is completed. N. M. Rothschild & Sons also create a new asset management part of the company which traded worldwide. This eventually became, Rothschild Private Management Limited .. 1980: The global phenomenon of privatisation starts. The Rothschilds are behind this from the very beginning in order to seize control of all publicly owned assets worldwide. 1981: Banque Rothschild is nationalised by the French government. The new bank is called, Compagnie Européenne de Banque. The Rothschilds subsequently set up a successor to this French bank, Rothschild & Cie Banque (RCB), which goes on to become a leading French investment house .. N. M. Rothschild & Sons advise the British government on the privatisation of British Gas. They subsequently advise the British government on virtually all of their other privatisations of state owned assets including: British Steel; British Coal; all the British regional electricity boards; and all the British regional water boards. A British MP heavily involved in these privatisations is future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont, a former Rothschild banker."

""Let me be clear: BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying the bill," said Obama as he visited the area and pledged a "fully coordinated, relentless relief effort" in the region where the coastlines of four Gulf states are being menaced. The oil firm said it was doing its best to shut off the well nearly one mile (1.6 km) underwater on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, but described an extraordinarily complicated operation that could take weeks or months. It was like performing "open heart surgery at 5,000 feet in the dark with robot-controlled submarines," BP America Chairman and President Lamar McKay told ABC News .. "We a dealing with a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster," Obama said. Many of the coastal communities in the path of the oil slick, including Venice on the west bank of the Mississippi River, were devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "It's just like Katrina, catastrophic," Frances Lacross, a local resident, told Reuters. Desperate efforts above and below the ocean surface -- using boats, planes and even an underwater robotic vehicle -- to check the oil flow and disperse and contain the spreading slick were being hampered by high winds and rough seas. "BOOT ON THE NECK" OF BP A team of government agencies is working on relief, but Obama and his deputies made it clear BP would be on the hook for what could be billions of dollars in cleanup costs. "Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on CNN. The final bill for cleaning up the spill could be $7 billion (4.6 billion pounds), said Neil McMahon, analyst at investment firm Bernstein in London. Analysts at Morgan Stanley put the figure at $3.5 billion .. Attorneys-general from five U.S. Gulf states met in Mobile, Alabama on Sunday and said they would draft letters to Obama and to BP, seeking the swiftest possible delivery of federal aid and compensation to those affected. The officials said they wanted clarification from BP on the firm's commitment to cover the cost of the cleanup and paying legitimate compensation to those affected. "We need to make sure if BP is picking up the check, they do so in a pretty big hurry," said Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell."

As to our allegations re Mr. Cameron and the Legal Sector Alliance's role in generic carbon-footprint and cat-bond insurance frauds, please refer to the lawsuit "Hawks CAFE v. Global Guardians" and related links below.
http://www.hawkscafe.com/107.html
http://abeldanger.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmgeA3dr2uY&feature=youtube_gdata  

"Knowing" movie and the Oil Rig Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico  

BOTTOM LINE...

WHY WERE SWAT SENT TO ALL RIGS IN THE AREA?

THE ONLY REASONS ARE TO CONDUCT TERRORISM OR TO PREVENT IT.

THE GOVERNMENT IS ADMITTING TO NEITHER!

There ya go.

[jeremystalked1]

Way to dumb down the subject.

Dr. Paul doesn't support government interference NOR lobbying for government favor.  He's against BOTH.

He's extending the benefit of the doubt to BP.  "I've seen nothing to indicate they won't pay for the spill clean up", he said.

I think BP's "clean up" is going to be limited to recovering (and selling) the low hanging fruits of the spill, and that they're not going to be held to any promises by the authorities, unless a successful public relations campaign against BP is waged.  This campaign should include but not be limited to citizen-journalists carefully documenting the effects of the oil spill.

So, basically, I'm not counting on officials or executives to do the right thing without people rising up and making them do it.  I see this as a perfect storm of governmental/corporate (i.e. fascist) incompetence.  I don't see R.P.'s words as the right tonic for this illness.

[vlamingi]

Hey,

They are killing our land and water and everything that would be close to it! And he calls it un american.... He can truck off and go truck himself.....

He is unamerican to tell someone who lives in the gulf area (much less all people) that it's unamerican to be hard on bp!

[InfoArsenal]

You have to always give people the benefit of the doubt.

Trust, but verify.

Meaning you can't hate on a company unless you have investigated them and reviewed the evidence.

Obama is only posturing so that the Prez can attack legitimate companies while in the back room he's puckering up for BP's behind.

When you stand for freedom you have to take the high road to remain legitimate.

It's Freedom Politics VS Mob Rule Politics

[Dig]

Hey,

They are killing our land and water and everything that would be close to it! And he calls it un american.... He can truck off and go truck himself.....

He is unamerican to tell someone who lives in the gulf area (much less all people) that it's unamerican to be hard on bp!

Who is they?

BP left the land, sea, air, wildlife , and human killing carbon credit scheme...two months later their rig blows the f**k up.

So I say again, who is doing the killing?

[hardrain77]

Inept and corrupt governments are the only things that can make corrupt and inept corporations look good.

If you were to ask me, Dick Cheney and his Halliburton buddies should be throwing on scuba gear and going to the gulf themselves since they were probably the ones with the faulty material that let everyone down.

[Dig]

You have to always give people the benefit of the doubt.

Trust, but verify.

Meaning you can't hate on a company unless you have investigated them and reviewed the evidence.

Obama is only posturing so that the Prez can attack legitimate companies while in the back room he's puckering up for BP's behind.

When you stand for freedom you have to take the high road to remain legitimate.

It's Freedom Politics VS Mob Rule Politics

He went in and fired the head of GM. That turned out great didn't it?

WHY ARE THE COAST GUARD USING THEIR RESOURCES TO HELP FAKE PLANE VICTIMS FOR FAKE TERROR ACTS IN BOSTON FOR NLE10 DRILLS RATHER THAN IN THE GULF DEALING WITH THIS SHIT?

[Dig]

Inept and corrupt governments are the only things that can make corrupt and inept corporations look good.

If you were to ask me, Dick Cheney and his Halliburton buddies should be throwing on scuba gear and going to the gulf themselves since they were probably the ones with the faulty material that let everyone down.

It was government that gave the rig a safety award and stopped legitimate inspections.

As far as Haliburton, is their anything they touch that does NOT turn to shit?

[vlamingi]

Because they, bp is not letting them. Now it may go further up the chain of command to include others like haliburton and so forth....It doesn't matter at this point as the spew needs to be stopped!

I was told by a friend who an Gulf off shore mechanic that Bp doesn't care about how much is spilled in the gulf. Paying off those peon's is nothing compared to the money the oil makes them from that one well. That explains why they are trying to siphon it instead of blocking it. My friend also said all they have to do is cap it and angle drill it to reintersect the well, but they aren't doing that. It's all about the money the well produces substantiates the amount of payoff's that will happen.

He described how the us gubment allows other countries to come close to a certain buffer zone and that these countries angle drill onto our land and take our oil.....Now if one of these wells was to go bad....You know what that means.....It means we have to eat it as it's done over open waters even though they are angle drilling onto our land........... Again we are left paying the bill......What a f#$%ing mess!

That is whats going on out there!

[InfoArsenal]

He went in and fired the head of GM. That turned out great didn't it?

WHY ARE THE COAST GUARD USING THEIR RESOURCES TO HELP FAKE PLANE VICTIMS FOR FAKE TERROR ACTS IN BOSTON FOR NLE10 DRILLS RATHER THAN IN THE GULF DEALING WITH THIS SHIT?

Remember him having the Presidential Seal before being elected?

It's all a show to make it look like he's the Boss when he's really the Loss.

[jeremystalked1]

Who is they?

BP left the land, sea, air, wildlife , and human killing carbon credit scheme...two months later their rig blows the f**k up.

So I say again, who is doing the killing?

Yep, it could be a large predator sacrificing a smaller predator for big goals.  RP's stance on BP could therefore be interpreted as anchoring for a limited hangout in which high ranking administration officials are shown to be protecting the financial interests of BP.  It also helps with the left-right divide as Democrats try to pin everything on BP and Republicans sputter in rage at the damage (which, you'll notice, is hitting red states right now) and the Coast Guard (government) protecting BP's interests.

[Monkeypox]

As far as Haliburton, is their anything they touch that does NOT turn to shit?

For some people, everything Halliburton touches turns to GOLD.

 

[donnay]

Yep, it could be a large predator sacrificing a smaller predator for big goals.  RP's stance on BP could therefore be interpreted as anchoring for a limited hangout in which high ranking administration officials are shown to be protecting the financial interests of BP.  It also helps with the left-right divide as Democrats try to pin everything on BP and Republicans sputter in rage at the damage (which, you'll notice, is hitting red states right now) and the Coast Guard (government) protecting BP's interests.

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."   ~Abraham Lincoln

[Dig]

"The money powers prey upon the nation in times of peace and conspire against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than a monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, and more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or throw light upon its crimes. I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the Bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.. corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money powers of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in the hands of a few, and the Republic is destroyed."   ~Abraham Lincoln

Anyone who doubts his awakening to the true enemies of the people of the US is a moron!

Great quote...but this disaster has been exposed as a government operation on par with 9/11. Obama is attempting to lay all blame on BP (not that they are saints), but they denied the bankers the carbon tax and the bankers have struck back with a vengeance.

Anyway, everyone should know about this:

PROOF THIS IS PART OF NLE !!!!!!!!!!!
http://coastguardnews.com/coast-guard-announces-sons-2010-national-level-exercise/2010/03/19/

 Coast Guard announces SONS 2010 national level exercise
Mar 19th, 2010 by cgnews.

The U.S. Coast Guard and 50 other federal, state and private organizations will conduct the triennial Spill of National Significance Exercise or SONS 2010 from March 22-25 in the northeast region of the U.S.
SONS 2010 is a full-scale exercise designed to test response to a Spill of National Significance. A SONS is a spill that due to its severity, size, location, complexity or impact requires extraordinary coordination of federal, state, local, and responsible party resources to contain and clean up.

As the lead federal agency for pollution incidents in coastal zones, the Coast Guard conducts this type of exercise every three years. Since 1994, exercises have taken place in Pennsylvania., Alaska, Texas, California, and the Midwest.

The Coast Guard’s role in environmental protection dates back more than 175 years to the Timber Act of 1822 that mandated the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service protect government timber from poachers. In 1968, federal roles and responsibilities for oil spill responses were defined by the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan, also known as the National Contingency Plan. The plan was updated in the early ‘90s, to include the lessons learned from the March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. Today the Coast Guard continues to protect the marine environment as one of its 11 statutory missions.

This year’s exercise will focus on the response to a simulated oil spill affecting the Northeast . The scenario will include a collision between a tanker transporting of 430,000 barrels of crude oil and a car carrier during a severe snowstorm. The simulated collision will occur about 15 miles from shore in the Gulf of Maine. During the response, the tanker will simulate the loss of 69,000 barrels of crude oil while sinking at the entrance to the harbor in Portland, Maine.

“The support of our vital federal, state and local partners, and our industry partner, Shell, has been phenomenal and we expect to have a vigorous and valuable exercise,” said Rear Adm. Paul R. Zukunft, SONS 2010 exercise director. “The lessons we learn together with all our partners will influence national response policy and improvements to the National Response System.”

The SONS Exercise Program has four overarching goals: increasing the preparedness of the entire response organization from the field level up to agency leadership in Washington, DC.; exercising the National Response System at the local, regional, and national levels using a series of large-scale, high probability oil and hazardous material incidents; providing an environment for an unprecedented level of cooperation throughout all levels of government, private sector, and non-governmental organizations; and offering broad opportunities to improve plans and procedures.

SONS 2010 is the only Coast Guard-sponsored Department of Homeland Security Tier II exercise on the Homeland Security Exercise and Evaluation Program five-year calendar. The exercise involves more than 600 members from a variety of federal, state, local, tribal and private organizations.

http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/blog/archive/2010_03_01_archive.asp



Spill of National Significance SONS 2010 Exercise Begins Today


Guest blog from Captain Anthony Lloyd, Chief, Office of Incident Management and Preparedness

Today, the Coast Guard-sponsored DHS Tier II Spill of National Significance (SONS) 2010 exercise begins. The exercise is based upon a scenario in New England involving a collision between an oil tanker and a car carrier causing a catastrophic oil spill. It is an operations-based, full-scale exercise intended to stress all levels of the response organization.

The Coast Guard National Command Center is leading the way by sending exercise information via electronic alerts to simulate critical communications much like what was implemented during Haitian response operations. Exercise partners include: Transport Canada, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, Department of Transportation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Navy Supervisor of Salvage, National Response Team, Shell Oil Products US, as well as the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Exercise design and execution are major efforts that require the full participation of all partners.

The SONS 2010 Exercise Design Team developed the scenario and scripted actions for the first 48 hours to facilitate a ?warm start.? This approach allows full-scale activities on Day 3 to focus on immediate interaction between the National Incident Commander (NIC), played by RADM Jim Watson, and senior leaders throughout DHS and the NRT departments and agencies, as well as field response in New England.

Scripted products include draft Incident Action Plans and an Area Command Operations Guide representative of the first two response days. The development of these documents generated valuable discussions about Federal On Scene Coordinator authority, organizational elements, the role of the NIC, and response issues such as places of refuge. Lessons learned from these discussions will be included in the exercise After Action Report (AAR) further increasing preparedness throughout the National Response System.
Exercise play begins on March 24th.
_____________________


http://www.uscg.mil/comdt/blog/archive/2010_02_01_archive.asp

Wednesday, February 24, 2010
National Oil Spill Response Exercise 2010

Guest blog from LT Kelly Dietrich, USCG
Oil and Hazardous Substance Response Division U.S. Coast Guard Headquarters - Office of Incident Management and Preparedness

The United States Coast Guard is excited to sponsor the 2010 Spill of National Significance (SONS) Exercise which kicks off on March 22th with training, equipment deployment, and exercise play in Portland, ME; Portsmouth, NH; Boston, MA; Portsmouth, VA; and Washington, D.C. This exercise will include on-water use of oil spill response equipment including boom, skimmers, response vessels, and aircraft deployed by Transport Canada, US Coast Guard, US Navy, State, and commercial contractors.

The purpose of SONS 2010 is to implement and stress all elements of oil spill response plans and organizations at the local regional, and national levels in accordance with the National Contingency Plan (NCP) and National Response Framework (NRF). This includes the engagement of the National Incident Commander (NIC), a national level support position responsible for coordination and communication at the national and strategic levels.

The exercise has been designed by over 200 representatives from over 50 participating agencies over the past year. Shell Oil volunteered to support the exercise as the industry Responsible Party. We look forward to a realistic and valuable learning opportunity designed to test and examine the NRS.

Exercise partners include: Transport Canada, Department of Homeland Security, Department of the Interior, Department of Transportation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Navy Supervisor of Salvage, National Response Team, Shell Oil Products US, as well as the States of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. Exercise design and execution are major efforts that require the full participation of all partners.


A short photo collage titled Oil Spill Response featuring some images from the Cosco Busan oil spill in San Francisco Bay November 2007.

For more information about the SONS 2010 exercise and past SONS exercises please visit www.SONS2010.com.
______________________________________
SEE BELOW LINK FOR EMBEDDED LINKS:

It looks like they are using this global catastrophe as another one of their real world network centric warfare observation/behavioral analysis laboratories:

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/disaster/Technologies-Track-Oil-Spill.html

Technologies Track Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Provide New Views of its Effects
by Jessica B. Mulholland on May 20, 2010

The now-infamous oil leak resulting from an April 20 oil rig explosion had, as of May 17, spewed an estimated 5.7 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, according to estimates from a PBS NewsHour widget. With 210,000 gallons flowing into the ocean each day, myriad technologies have been deployed to not only stop the leak, but also to track its devastation and cleanup. The New York Times, for example, has created an interactive map showing where the oil has drifted each day, pulling data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and U.S. Coast Guard.

Crowdsourcing — outsourcing tasks to a larger group through an open call — could allow the federal government to get another look at the spill's impact. Using online submissions, texts, tweets and e-mails from those experiencing the spill's effects, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB), a New Orleans-based environmental health and justice nonprofit, is collecting and posting incident reports on its Oil Spill Crisis Map.

The Oil Spill Crisis Map is based on Ushahidi open source software and produced by students at Tulane University, in conjunction with LABB and Radical Designs. Ushahidi, pronounced "ooh-sha-hee-dee," was initially developed to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout Kenya after the post-election fallout in early 2008. LABB already was coding Ushahidi for reporting environmental hazards, and students in Tulane Professor Nathan Morrow's GIS classes helped modify the open source application to track the oil spill.

Morrow said what initially prompted Anne Rolfes, founding director of LABB, to implement the map was that in Louisiana, although citizens can report vague environmental hazards to the state's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the DEQ only accepts detailed reports via phone from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Friday. "She works with all these communities that want better access to reporting accidents and chemical spills," Morrow said. "And that's how the idea came about — to give these citizens a little more voice, so they could write or text in any time they see an accident or smell a bad odor."

Rolfes added that although there was no restriction on frequency, DEQ's response in general is terrible. "This is one [way] we were going to take matters into our own hands," she said.

Because the architecture for this project already was in place when the oil spill occurred, the focus shifted from general environmental hazard reporting in the state to reporting specifically on the spill. "It was timing and coincidence that the students were still there, still available," Morrow said. "They just took it and inched it up to the application you see now."

To get community participation for populating the map, LABB put out a press release asking citizens to share sightings and other experiences related to the oil spill by text, tweet, e-mail and online submissions. Each eyewitness report requires a description and location information, such as address, city and state, ZIP code or coordinates. Photos and video also can be uploaded via the Web. Citizen reporters can remain anonymous or disclose their contact information.

When users submit reports, the reports are automatically added to the map. LABB has someone on shift every hour to look at those reports and ensure that they're legitimate, Rolfes said, marking them as verified if they're in line with what LABB is hearing from others in the region. "If it's something completely new that we haven't heard," Rolfe said, "we'll either wait to get more reports on the subject or we'll go look in the news and see if it's being reported in the larger media."

The current map at LABB's website is a very early version and will get much better as more functionality is added, Morrow said. "The students are still interested," he said, "and there's a whole lot more you can do with the reporting and the way things are presented and organized."

Crowdsourcing and using open source technology is beneficial in emergencies for a few reasons, Rolfes said. "In the purest sense, it gives a person a voice no matter how rich or poor you happen to be; it allows you to put your situation up on the map for the world to see, and that's really important," she said. "The other important part is that it can share the magnitude of the problem."

With Hurricane Katrina, Rolfes added, no one was recording and collecting people's experiences in one central location. The LABB, she said, thinks the solution is a collective repository, like the Oil Spill Crisis Map.

"We believe it can help inform the emergency response and hold it accountable," Rolfes said. "In some ways this is a work in progress, but we think that by putting all the problems out on the map for all the world to see, it then creates a demand of government and of responders to meet those problems that are expressed."

LABB's efforts are paying off too. After meeting with the organization on May 11, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson wrote on her Facebook wall: "Just wrapped a meeting at Tulane University speaking with scientists and public health experts from four states. Discussed Ushahidi, a crowdsourcing technology from Kenya that is helping people across the community track and report [oil] spill developments."
 
[Photo courtesy of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.]

[Dig]

Lot of evil doers involved with this conspired effort to enhance the size of this catastrophe...

http://www.fishnet-usa.com/FishAndOil.htm

[Dig]

db`sbones: May. 18, 2010 - 8:27 AM EST
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37373.html

it didn't take 9 days for the admin to respond; from napolitano's testimony may 17, 2010 ' title='http://www.governmentsecurity.org/global-security-news/secretary-napolitanos-testimony-on-assessing-the-nations-response-to-the-deepwater-horizon-oil-spill.html
'>http://www.governmentsecurity....

The next day, Saturday, April 24, BP found the first two leaks and alerted the federal government. The first three equipment staging locations were quickly stood up across the Gulf Coast, and additional personnel and vessels were deployed to the area. We began to deploy boom the next day. On Wednesday, April 28, the first controlled burn operation was conducted, and was successful. Controlled burning is a strategy designed to minimize environmental risks by removing large quantities of oil, concentrated and collected in fire boom, in the Gulf of Mexico. Later that day, BP discovered an additional leak from the oil well. The President was notified, and we further bolstered our response while directing BP to leverage all additional resources to stop the leaking oil.

understanding how difficult it is for some to deal with facts, the first leaks weren't detected until FOUR days after the explosion.

Napolitano's own testimony is quit damning and when you factor in all the other information that we know about the governments so-called plans to mitigate an oil spill, and clearly shows the administration dithered. The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the NOAA oil spill plan established in 1994 basically put the federal government in control of these types of incidents because our government did not trust oil companies to be responsible and timely in reacting to a matter of this kind. Under the 1994 NOAA plan the government was to have fire-resistant oil booms in place and they had pre-authorization to burn without getting any other form of government approval or waiver. The government did not even own a fire boom and had to borrow one. That is why the first burn didn't start until 8 days after the incident, and 4 days after the major leak was found. The booms should have been deployed to the gulf when almost a million gallons of diesel fuel were dumped in the gulf as a result of the initial accident, and the first 8,000 gallon oil leak was spotted days before the large leak was found.
http://www.epa.gov/emergencies/content/lawsregs/opaover.htm

' title='

http://www.epa.gov/emergencies/content/lawsregs/opaover.htm
'>

http://www.epa.gov/emergenc... http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html
' title='

http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/fire_boom_oil_spill_raines.html
'>

http://blog.al.com/live/201...

Napolitano stated: "On Thursday, April 29, I designated the events a Spill of National Significance, which built on the operational and policy coordination already underway from the beginning of this response and enabled us to appoint a National Incident Commander to coordinate resources and communication at the national level."

Napolitano waited 9 days to basically declare a state of emergency related to the spill which allowed the government to start coordinating resources and communication at a national level. She waited 9 days to enact a policy that was put in place almost 16 years ago to provide almost instant government control over the situation. She waited 9 days to start communicating on a national level?

The oil companies have been paying [passed on to the consumers] into the government mandated Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund since 1986. That fund placed a tax on every gallon of oil pumped out of the ground in this country and was to be used in part to fund the government's emergency oil spill plan. The government not only didn't enact their pre-designed plan, they didn't spend the money on the equipment that NOAA identified as being critical in dealing with this type of situation. I hope the government didn't waste the money in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund the way they squandered the Social Security Trust Fund.
http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/About_NPFC/osltf.asp


PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT A FULL DRILL WAS CONDUCTED ONE MONTH EARLIER BY HOMELAND SECURITY!

[chris jones]

I got to say it despite any flak. rand took a shot at the big dog, OK, any stake in our commander and chiefs heart is just hunky dory.

I just wish RP had simply said , we need an investigation NOW on all fronts, GOV, BP, 11 men are dqd and this spill is catasrphic.

BP big dogs are not are not sainted, I hope Rand expands on this!
On statement he made, and he and this spill is on a national spotlight, "We had a mining accident that was very tragic. ... Then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen," he said. Ya, accidents happen but if we do not investigate they will continue, to add some disasters are not accidents.

Am I stretching this? The generality of his remark causes me concern. As Sane pointed out, Rand is not running for president, Kentucky is the mainstay. BUT, there is national attention on this issue........

[Freebird100]

If Rand Paul`s mission was to throw something back at the democrats he sure could of picked something easier to understand.

In most people`s minds BP got around paying the half million dollars for the device that would of closed off the well in case of a accident.It was their call.

Forget everything else.

[Dig]

I got to say it despite any flak. rand took a shot at the big dog, OK, any stake in our commander and chiefs heart is just hunky dory.

I just wish RP had simply said , we need an investigation NOW on all fronts, GOV, BP, 11 men are dqd and this spill is catasrphic.

BP big dogs are not are not sainted, I hope Rand expands on this!
On statement he made, and he and this spill is on a national spotlight, "We had a mining accident that was very tragic. ... Then we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen," he said. Ya, accidents happen but if we do not investigate they will continue, to add some disasters are not accidents.

Am I stretching this? The generality of his remark causes me concern. As Sane pointed out, Rand is not running for president, Kentucky is the mainstay. BUT, there is national attention on this issue........

can't argue with any of that, but i do invite people to see the entire interviews, read the entire interviews. the sound bite reverb machine is on 11.

[Dig]

If Rand Paul`s mission was to throw something back at the democrats he sure could of picked something easier to understand.

In most people`s minds BP got around paying the half million dollars for the device that would of closed off the well in case of a accident.It was their call.

Forget everything else.

He has hit them on over 100 things, this is the one that the media is running with 24/7 via sound bites rather than the full interviews.

[Dig]

ABC INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE STEPHANAPOLIS:

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/scott-whitlock/2010/05/21/rand-paul-rips-bias-george-stephanopoulos-your-talking-points-come-m

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: And Senate candidate, Dr. Rand Paul joins us now. Thank you for joining us again, Dr. Paul. And let's get right to it. On the Civil Rights Act, you say now. I wouldn't repeal it. I wouldn't voted for it. I'm against discrimination. But it comes against the background of similar views you have expressed in the past. I want to talk about the Fair Housing Act, which prevents discrimination in selling or renting of houses. You wrote in your local paper, that the Fair Housing act doesn't recognize the distinction between private and public property. "Should discrimination be prohibited for public, taxpayer-financed institutions such as schools to reject someone based on an individual's beliefs or attributes? Most certainly. Should it be prohibited for private entities, such as a church, a bed and breakfast, a retirement neighborhood that doesn't want noisy children? Absolutely not." And you went on to write that a "free society will abide unofficial private discrimination, even when that means allows hate-filled group, to exclude people on the based color of their skin." So, if you feel someone doesn't want to sell their house to someone, based on the color of their skin, that's okay?

RAND PAUL: Good morning, George. Good morning, Robin. When does my honeymoon period start? I had a big victory. I thought I got a honeymoon from you guys in the media.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Uh, well, you know, we're asking questions that come in the context of this campaign. And, sir-

PAUL [Laughs]: Well, they really come up in the context of the Democrat talking points. For example, I've been trashed up and down one network that tends to side with the Democrats. For an entire 24 hours I've suffered from them saying, "Oh, he wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act." But, that's never been my position. So, really, this is a lot about politics. This is about, you know, look. We're up 20 points in Kentucky. Democrats are going to have a tough time winning down here. So, they're going to make up a lot of stuff and go forward with that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I just showed your own words up on the screen. I'm just asking if you still believe them.

PAUL: Right. What I say is that I'm against repealing the Civil Rights Act. I'm against repealing the Fair Housing Act. I've never campaigned on that. It's not part of our platform. And so, what these are red herrings that people are trying to bring up because the Democrats are way behind in Kentucky and are going to have a tough time beating us down here. You know, I mean, if you want to bring up 40-year-old legislation, why don't you bring me on with Senator Byrd. And we'll talk about how he filibustered the Civil Rights Act. You know, make him, call him to task for something he actually did, as opposed to calling me to task for something that they insinuate that I might believe that is not true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Sir, I haven't insinuated anything. I'm reading from a May 30th, 2002, Letter you wrote to your local newspaper, The Bowling Green Daily News where you said-

PAUL: Right and I just answered you, George. Yeah, but I just answered you, George and said I don't believe in repealing the Fair Housing Act. So, the thing is, what's going on here is an attempt to vilify us for partisan reasons. Where do your talking points come from? The Democrat National Committee. They also come from Rachel Maddow and MSNBC. You know, I've just been trashed up and down. And they're saying things that are untrue. And when they say I'm for repealing the Civil Rights Act, it's absolutely false. Never been my position. And something I think is basically just politics.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I haven't said that. I'm reading from The Bowling Green Daily News.

PAUL: I know and I've answered you. I've answered you that I'm not for repealing the Fair Housing Act.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to move on. Got it. Fox Business Network, January 2nd, 2010. You talk about government regulations and what you think should happen with government regulations. Take a look.

[clip]

PAUL: Get rid of regulations. Get the EPA out of our coal business down here. Get OSHA out of our small businesses. We need to restrain government to let small businesses and business men and women create jobs.

[clip ends]

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, I want to see how far you would push that belief. You know, the front page of The USA Today this morning, we've been talking about it. "EPA Tells BP to Use Less Toxic Chemicals." Do you believe the EPA should not be allowed to tell companies they cannot use chemicals to enforce safety regulations on the rig out there?

PAUL: No. What I was referring to with the EPA is I find it particularly galling that the EPA puts out a press release and says that if Congress doesn't do anything about greenhouse emissions, that they will. I think that's a regulatory commission run amok. And I think we need congressional oversight. I don't think regulatory agencies should write regulations without approval of the people through their representatives. And I stick to that. And that's absolutely my point of view.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, you don't want to get rid of the EPA?

PAUL: No. The thing is, that the drilling right now and the problem we're having right now is in international waters. I think there needs to be regulation of that. It always has been. I think there's hundreds of pages of regulation. What I don't like from the President's administration is this sort of, you know, "I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP" I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that, it's always got to be someone's fault. Instead of the fact that, maybe, accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident. And I've met the miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But, then, we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you believe the regulation of BP was adequate?

PAUL: I don't know what the regulation of BP is. I think there's hundreds of pages of regulation of drilling in the ocean. And I think most of that's justified. I think we'll have to figure out from this accident, is there anything that could have been done to prevent it? What can we do in the future to make sure it doesn't happen again? So, I think we use logic. We use objective facts. And yeah, we try to go forward. Nobody wants this to happen. I love the beautiful beaches down in the panhandle of Florida. And nobody wants to see oil washing up on the white sand beaches.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Should the federal government be able to set a minimum wage?

PAUL: Repeat that one more time. We had a little bit of an echo.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Should the federal government be able to set a minimum wage?

PAUL: It's not a question of whether they can or cannot. I think that's decided. I think the question you have to ask is whether or not, when you set the minimum wage it may cause unemployment. You know, those who are at the lowest wages, if you raise the wage to a certain rate, if it's above what the employer deems that their labor is worth, they won't get hired. So, the least-skilled people in our society have trouble getting jobs, the higher you make the minimum wage. And it's one of those things where you see on the surface. You say, "Oh. All these workers at McDonald's got raised 50 cents an hour." But there were 21 workers. And now, there's 15 workers if you raise the minimum wage too high. You know, if it were a good idea to raise the minimum wage and it worked, why don't we raise it to $20 an hour? Or $30 an hour? Obviously, there is a point where you get to that you cause unemployment. And I'm not sure the government's always the smartest in the world as far as economic decisions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you wouldn't repeal it?

PAUL: Repeal the minimum wage? No. I think the vote comes up a lot of times to raise it or not. And I think what you have to ask yourself is, do you create unemployment by raising the minimum wage too high? But, I think it's a good example of how people with good intentions- You know, many Democrats say, we want to help people. They have good intentions. And I take them at their word that they want to do what's best for people. But what happens is, they don't think through the ultimate consequences of it. It's sort of like all of the things we're doing, by having such a massive debt in our country, they're doing it with good intentions. But what's happening now, is we are in danger, as a country, of going the way of Greece if we're not careful. Moody's has talked about knocking our AAA rating down to AA. So, I mean, we have to watch what's going on and begin to reform our spending or we're in a world of hurt as a country.


CNN INTERVIEW WITH WOLF BLITZER

http://157.166.255.31/TRANSCRIPTS/1005/20/sitroom.01.html

BLITZER: All right, guys, we're going to continue to work our sources and get some more information. We have a lot more on this coming up right at the top of the hour. We'll be all over this story.

Two days after winning the Republican Senate primary in Kentucky, the darling of the tea party movement, Rand Paul, is coming under some fire. Critics are seizing on remarks he made about the civil rights act of 1964, and his Democratic opponent is accusing Rand Paul of promoting what he calls a narrow and rigid ideology with dangerous consequences. Joining us now is the Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, Rand Paul. Dr. Paul, thanks very much for coming in.

RAND PAUL, (R) KENTUCKY SENATE CANDIDATE: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: I want to give you a chance to explain because there's a lot of confusion right now about precisely where you stand. I'll ask you a simple question. If you had been a member of the Senate or the house back in 1964, would you have voted yea or nay for the civil rights act?

PAUL: Yes, I would have voted yes.

BLITZER: So, why is there all this confusion emerging right now? Give me your analysis, because you had to issue a statement today. There've been interviews on NPR yesterday and MSNBC. Tell us what's going on. PAUL: Well, first of all, Wolf, I thought I was supposed to get a honeymoon. When does my honeymoon start, you know, after my victory?

BLITZER: No such thing in politics, Dr. Paul.

PAUL: No such thing, I think you're right. I think what troubles me is that the news cycle's gotten out of control. I mean, for several hours on a major news network yesterday, they reported repeatedly that I was for repealing the civil rights act. That is not only not true, never been my position, but is an out and out lie. They repeated it all day long. It started with my Democrat opponent asserting this but has never been my position.

BLITZER: You support that -- because the argument was -- the argument was made that you support the civil rights act in terms of federal -- in terms of government responsibilities. There should be no racism or segregation, but if there's a private club or a restaurant where they don't want to serve African-Americans as abhorrent as that is, you think that they have -- you suggested, correct me if I'm wrong, they would have a right to do that?

PAUL: What I did suggest was that it was a stain on the history of the south and our country that you know we desegregated in 1840 in Boston. William Lloyd Garrison was up there with Frederick Douglas being thrown off trains and going through what happened in 1840 in Boston. So, I think it is a stain on our history and something that I am sad for and something that if I had been alive at the time, I would hope that I would have been there marching with Martin Luther King.

One of our biggest county coordinators was there with Martin Luther King, attended the rallies in D.C., and considers himself to be a civil rights activist, and he takes it as a personal insult that people will say that our movement doesn't believe in civil rights.

BLITZER: But I just want to be precise on this, Dr. Paul. I want to be precise, did Woolworth Department Store have a right at their lunch counters to segregate blacks and whites?

PAUL: I think that there was an overriding problem in the south, so big that it did require federal intervention in the 1960s, and it stemmed from things that I said, you know, have been going on really 120 years too long, and the southern states weren't correcting it, and I think there was a need for federal intervention.

BLITZER: All right. So, you clarified you would have voted yea, you would have voted yes, in favor of the 1964 civil rights act.

PAUL: Yes.

BLITZER: Would you also have voted for the Americans with disabilities act?

PAUL: Well, I have some questions about it. I mean, the one question that comes to mind -- to my thinking is, let's say you have a local office and you have a two-story office, and one of your workers is handicapped. Should you not be allowed maybe to offer them an office on the first floor or should you be forced to put in a $100,000 elevator? I think that sounds like common sense that you should be allowed maybe to give them a first floor office. I think, sometimes, when we have a federal solution, we make it one size fits all and that we recognize the problem which I do al of someone who's handicapped, but then, we don't take any consideration at all the business owner or the property owner.

So, I think it's a balancing act and I'd have to look at that legislation to see how they balanced it, but my understanding is that small business owners were often forced to put in elevators, and I think you ought to at least be given a choice can you provide an opportunity without maybe having to pay for an elevator?

BLITZER: So, the answer is you don't know for sure if you would have voted yes or no on that Americans for disabilities act?

PAUL: Yes. I mean, I'd have to look at it and see. I think you do have -- it's a balancing act. And I am in favor of trying to have the workplace open. My office is open to the handicapped. We try very hard, but, you know, it's been open to the handicapped for decades, so, you know, it doesn't always take government for people to do the right thing. Sometimes, government has to step in extraordinary circumstances, but I think a lot of times that the -- the private world can step up and do the right things or we can find local solutions over federal solutions, so it's not always whether you oppose something.

It's about where the solution should arrive, whether it arrives at the federal government or the local government. I do think, though, that there is a big civil rights issue out there. I think the Democrats avoid it, and that's school choice. I think the biggest thing holding down our inner city communities is a lack of good education, and I say give them a choice. Let them choose to go to a school anywhere in the city or outside the city, and so I think school choice is the civil rights issue of our era, and many people are saying that.

BLITZER: I want you to have a chance to differentiate, if you want to differentiate, with your dad. I've interviewed Congressman Ron Paul on many occasions, and we've gone through all of these issues. He's a principled libertarian, as you well know. First of all, are you as principled a libertarian from your perspective as your dad?

PAUL: Some will say not. I call myself a constitutional conservative, which means that I believe that the constitution does restrict and restrain the federal government, and we should be doing a lot less than what we're doing, and if we did so, I think we would balance the budget, and we would have more local and state control.

BLITZER: All right.

PAUL: So, we'll agree on a lot of issues, and we'll disagree on some, and there may be some nuance. But I would say, you know, he will probably still be the number one libertarian in the country. I'm probably not going to supplant him there.

BLITZER: You're not going to be able to compete because there are four votes, and I've discussed this with him, himself, in which the vote was 425-1, 421-1, 424-1, for example, asking Arab states to acknowledge genocide in Darfur, asking Vietnam to release a political prisoner, condemning the Zimbabwe government, awarding a gold medal to Rosa Parks, your dad was the only member on the Democratic and the Republican side to vote against that because he's a principled libertarian. He doesn't want the U.S. government involved in any of these issues. Are you the same as him?

PAUL: Probably not. And the thing is, is that he is incredibly principled, and I admire him for the stands he's taken. Interestingly, some of those things, it sounds like how could anybody be against that? The reason he votes against it a lot of times is not that he disagrees with the position. Often, he'll agree with the position of the resolution, but just think that the government really shouldn't be making a statement on some of these things.

I think it's yet to be seen how I'll vote on resolutions, non- binding resolutions, but I'm probably not going to be the great path breaker that he is. But I think he stands on principle, and I think he's well respected because he doesn't compromise his principles.

BLITZER: We're going to continue this conversation. I'm hoping on many occasions, Dr. Paul. Thanks very much for coming in. Glad you had a chance --

PAUL: Thank you.

BLITZER: To explain your positions precisely. These are, as you well know, as a novice politician, among the most sensitive issues out there.

PAUL: Thank you, Wolf.

[Geolibertarian]

He's extending the benefit of the doubt to BP.

Yes, but is his reason for doing so rooted in fact or in blind devotion to Austrian School dogma?

Unfortunately, it appears to be the latter:

------------------------------------

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19027

Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig from Regulatory Requirement

by Tom Eley



Global Research
May 6, 2010

Last year the Obama administration granted oil giant BP a special exemption from a legal requirement that it produce a detailed environmental impact study on the possible effects of its Deepwater Horizon drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, an article Wednesday in the Washington Post reveals.

Federal documents show that the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) gave BP a "categorical exclusion" on April 6, 2009 to commence drilling with Deepwater Horizon even though it had not produced the impact study required by a law known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The report would have included probable ecological consequences in the event of a spill.

The exemption came less than one month after BP had requested it in a March 10 "exploration plan" submitted to the MMS. The plan said that because a spill was "unlikely," no additional "mitigation measures other than those required by regulation and BP policy will be employed to avoid, diminish or eliminate potential impacts on environmental resources." BP also assured the MMS that any spill would not seriously hurt marine wildlife and that "due to the distance to shore (48 miles) and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."

Kierán Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Post that the Obama administration's exemption effectively "put BP entirely in control," adding, "The agency's oversight role has devolved to little more than rubber-stamping British Petroleum's self-serving drilling plans."

In fact, BP's self-assessment of the potential for a disaster reproduced that of federal regulators. In 2007, under the Bush administration, the MMS carried out three studies of the potential environmental impact of deep sea drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, including one that pertained specifically to the area where Deepwater Horizon was ultimately deployed, known as "Lease 206." The MMS determined that a "deepwater spill" would not reach the coast and would not exceed 4,600 barrels.

The most conservative estimates now put the Deepwater Horizon spill at about 72,000 barrels and counting. The real figure could already be as high as 350,000 barrels, about 75 times the MMS's worst-case-scenario prediction. In closed-door congressional hearings on Tuesday, BP executives admitted that the well could begin to emit as many as 60,000 barrels, or 2.5 million gallons, a day. At such a pace it would eclipse the size of the Exxon Valdez spill every five days.

The Obama administration's delivery of a special exemption for Deepwater Horizon in April 2009 is the latest in a litany of examples that reveal the close collaboration between the MMS and BP.

Only 11 days before the explosion, BP requested a broadening of the April exemption, and in a separate letter dated September 14, 2009, a BP vice president for operations in the Gulf, Richard Morrison, requested that the Obama administration not put in place new guidelines that would have required audits of its rigs every three years. "We are not supportive of the extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed in this rule," Morrison wrote. BP favored voluntary self-regulations, which, Morrison said, "have been and continue to be very successful."

As late as March 2010, the MMS approved new deep sea oil drilling operations for another Gulf lease, referred to as "215." The approval cited the safety of other drilling operations, including Deepwater Horizon's Lease 206. (http://www.gomr.mms.gov/PDFs/2010/2010-003.pdf.)

At the end of March, Obama announced a dramatic expansion of offshore drilling in Florida's Gulf waters, the Atlantic seaboard, and the northern waters of Alaska—basing himself largely on MMS claims that new drilling poses no major risks to the environment.

The MMS is, even by the standards of Washington, openly in the embrace of the oil industry. A September 2008, Inspector General's report revealed that MMS regulators had for years accepted gifts and money—and even drugs and sex—from the same oil industry executives they were ostensibly tasked with monitoring. The Obama administration's rubber-stamping of "self-regulation" for the oil industry makes clear that while the top political appointees at MMS have changed since the Bush years, the policies have not.

As more details emerge, it is becoming increasingly clear that federal regulators under both the Bush and Obama administrations ceded enforcement of legally-mandated safety and environmental regulation to the oil industry, while providing governmental approval for unproven methods. It is these policies that led directly to the deaths of eleven workers on the Deepwater Horizon and the environmental catastrophe overtaking the Gulf of Mexico.

The Obama administration's and BP's protestations that the Deepwater Horizon disaster was unforeseeable are lies. In fact, not only had scientists and environmentalists warned for years that an uncontrollable spill from a deep water oil rig was likely, sources in the Bush and Obama administrations had made similar warnings.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) sharply criticized the very MMS studies that Obama used to approve the Deepwater Horizon site, it has been revealed. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), which supports whistleblowers among federal employees, published a memo sent by NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco in October 2009 to the Department of the Interior ridiculing MMS assessments of drilling operations.

Among other comments, Lubchenco called the MMS studies "understated and generally not supported or referenced, using vague terms and phrases such as 'no substantive degradation is expected' and 'some marine mammals could be harmed.' This is particularly problematic for expanding oil and gas production."

The internal warnings go back as far as 2004. The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported the contents of a study, commissioned and reviewed by the MMS that year, which raised serious doubts as to whether blowout protector mechanisms—the equipment that failed to seal the Deepwater Horizon well after its piping ruptured—could even function in the deep sea. The devices were simply untested under such oceanic pressures. The study warned that “this grim snapshot illustrates the lack of preparedness in the industry to shear and seal a well with the last line of defense against a blowout” in deep water.

Obama's decision to disregard scientific evidence is not the result of a mistaken policy, however. It is the result of definite class interests.

[Continued...]


http://www.prisonplanet.com/the-cover-up-bps-crude-politics-and-the-looming-environmental-mega-disaster.html

The Cover-up: BP’s Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster

Wayne Madsen
May 7, 2010

WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign — more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a “mega-disaster.”

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR’s federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world.

Plans by BP to sink a 4-story containment dome over the oil gushing from a gaping chasm one kilometer below the surface of the Gulf, where the oil rig Deepwater Horizon exploded and killed 11 workers on April 20, and reports that one of the leaks has been contained is pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration, according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources. Sources within these agencies say the White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. They add that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf.

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security was to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

From the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Gulf state environmental protection agencies, the message is the same: “we’ve never dealt with anything like this before.”

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm.  Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.

However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are  monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick — which is larger than that being reported by the media — it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.

There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.

The Corps and Engineers and FEMA are quietly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only recently, has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. WMR has also learned that inspections of off-shore rigs’ shut-off valves by the Minerals Management Service during the Bush administration were merely rubber-stamp operations, resulting from criminal collusion between Halliburton and the Interior Department’s service, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves.

The impact of the disaster became known to the Corps of Engineers and FEMA even before the White House began to take the magnitude of the impending catastrophe seriously. The first casualty of the disaster is the seafood industy, with not just fishermen, oystermen, crabbers, and shrimpers losing their jobs, but all those involved in the restaurant industry, from truckers to waitresses, facing lay-offs.

The invasion of crude oil into estuaries like the oyster-rich Apalachicola Bay in Florida spell disaster for the seafood industry. However, the biggest threat is to Florida’s Everglades, which federal and state experts fear will be turned into a “dead zone” if the oil continues to gush forth from the Gulf chasm. There are also expectations that the oil slick will be caught up in the Gulf stream off the eastern seaboard of the United States, fouling beaches and estuaries like the Chesapeake Bay, and ultimately target the rich fishing grounds of the Grand Banks off Newfoundland.

WMR has also learned that 36 urban areas on the Gulf of Mexico are expecting to be confronted with a major disaster from the oil volcano in the next few days. Although protective water surface boons are being laid to protect such sensitive areas as Alabama’s Dauphin Island, the mouth of the Mississippi River, and Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, Florida, there is only 16 miles of boons available for the protection of 2,276 miles of tidal shoreline in the state of Florida.

Emergency preparations in dealing with the expanding oil menace are now being made for cities and towns from Corpus Christi, Texas, to Houston, New Orleans, Gulfport, Mobile, Pensacola, Tampa-St.Petersburg-Clearwater, Sarasota-Bradenton, Naples, and Key West. Some 36 FEMA-funded contracts between cities, towns, and counties and emergency workers are due to be invoked within days, if not hours, according to WMR’s FEMA sources.

There are plans to evacuate people with respiratory problems, especially those among the retired senior population along the west coast of Florida, before officials begin burning surface oil as it begins to near the coastline.

There is another major threat looming for inland towns and cities. With hurricane season in effect, there is a potential for ocean oil to be picked up by hurricane-driven rains and dropped into fresh water lakes and rivers, far from the ocean, thus adding to the pollution of water supplies and eco-systems.

------------------------------------

[Dig]

Yes, but is his reason for doing so rooted in fact or in blind devotion to Austrian School dogma?

Unfortunately, it appears to be the latter:

His criticism was with Obama and the administration focusing all attention and anger on BP, when FEMA/DHS is most responsible for the catastrophe, this can hardly be dienied...

Napolitano waited 9 days to basically declare a state of emergency related to the spill which allowed the government to start coordinating resources and communication at a national level. She waited 9 days to enact a policy that was put in place almost 16 years ago to provide almost instant government control over the situation. She waited 9 days to start communicating on a national level?

The oil companies have been paying [passed on to the consumers] into the government mandated Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund since 1986. That fund placed a tax on every gallon of oil pumped out of the ground in this country and was to be used in part to fund the government's emergency oil spill plan. The government not only didn't enact their pre-designed plan, they didn't spend the money on the equipment that NOAA identified as being critical in dealing with this type of situation. I hope the government didn't waste the money in the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund the way they squandered the Social Security Trust Fund.
http://www.uscg.mil/npfc/About_NPFC/osltf.asp


PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT A FULL DRILL WAS CONDUCTED ONE MONTH EARLIER BY HOMELAND SECURITY!

And now what is the admin's response even before cleaning this crap up? They have Bob Graham heading a commission to investigate. Bob Graham was told and faxed evidence that the 9/11 hijackers were going to use planes and fly them into the world trade center months before the 9/11 false flag attack.

http://www.justiceblind.com/warnings.html
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&projects_and_programs=randyGlass
http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/main/randyglass.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2167266

The bottom line is that BP is being pressured to push the carbon trade tax, they will be immune to any gov regulation going forward, but the middle and lower level oil exploration companies will face an insurmountable barrier to trade and will go under. Just like this BS bank regulations. That is my stand and Rand questioning why the president is going out of his way to blame only BP is at the least an arguable position which hopefully provokes deep inquiry. The documented dozens of government screw ups plus the very real possibility that this was a bona fide false flag should not be ignored notwithstanding BP's crimes and corruptions.

[Geolibertarian]

His criticism was with Obama and the administration focusing all energy on BP, when FEMA/DHS is most responsible for the catastrophe, this can hardly be dinied...

Yes, but if he doesn't explain the apparent role that FEMA and DHS played, then that key perspective is lost, and the masses are consequently left with the impression that he's defending an overprivileged oil company merely out of ideological bias rather than out of valid suspicion of a false flag.

Now, if, in the context of defending BP, he offered such an explanation, then kudos to him. If he didn't, then this was, at best -- and with all due respect to Dr. Paul, -- an ill-advised statement on his part.

[Dig]

Yes, but if he doesn't explain the apparent role that FEMA and DHS played, then that key perspective is lost, and the masses are consequently left with the impression that he's defending an overprivileged oil company merely out of ideological bias rather than out of valid suspision of a false flag.

Now, if, in the context of defending BP, he offered such an explanation, then kudos to him. If he didn't, then this was, at best -- and with all due respect to Dr. Paul, -- an ill-advised statement on his part.

Although I am praying for him to expose this truth, I would not place odds on the bet. See, he is not as ideologically unrealistic as you think

sorry for all the spinning, you obviously explain the best scenario in a very respectful and logical way. I believe even though it might have been ill advised what was said, he has brought the debate to the forefront IMO. And I do trust the awakening (maybe more than I should) that people want more complex explanations rather than just "BP Bad" or "Al-Qaeda hates our freedoms" or "fat finger caused 1,000 pt stock drop".

As far as the actual statement (not Rothschild's spin in the headline):


STEPHANOPOULOS: I want to move on. Got it. Fox Business Network, January 2nd, 2010. You talk about government regulations and what you think should happen with government regulations. Take a look.

[clip]

PAUL: Get rid of regulations. Get the EPA out of our coal business down here. Get OSHA out of our small businesses. We need to restrain government to let small businesses and business men and women create jobs.

[clip ends]

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, I want to see how far you would push that belief. You know, the front page of The USA Today this morning, we've been talking about it. "EPA Tells BP to Use Less Toxic Chemicals." Do you believe the EPA should not be allowed to tell companies they cannot use chemicals to enforce safety regulations on the rig out there?

PAUL: No. What I was referring to with the EPA is I find it particularly galling that the EPA puts out a press release and says that if Congress doesn't do anything about greenhouse emissions, that they will. I think that's a regulatory commission run amok. And I think we need congressional oversight. I don't think regulatory agencies should write regulations without approval of the people through their representatives. And I stick to that. And that's absolutely my point of view.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, you don't want to get rid of the EPA?

PAUL: No. The thing is, that the drilling right now and the problem we're having right now is in international waters. I think there needs to be regulation of that. It always has been. I think there's hundreds of pages of regulation. What I don't like from the President's administration is this sort of, you know, "I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP" I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. I've heard nothing from BP about not paying for the spill. And I think it's part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that, it's always got to be someone's fault. Instead of the fact that, maybe, accidents happen. I mean, we had a mining accident. And I've met the miners and their families. They're very brave people to do a dangerous job. But, then, we come in and it's always someone's fault. Maybe sometimes accidents happen.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you believe the regulation of BP was adequate?

PAUL: I don't know what the regulation of BP is. I think there's hundreds of pages of regulation of drilling in the ocean. And I think most of that's justified. I think we'll have to figure out from this accident, is there anything that could have been done to prevent it? What can we do in the future to make sure it doesn't happen again? So, I think we use logic. We use objective facts. And yeah, we try to go forward. Nobody wants this to happen. I love the beautiful beaches down in the panhandle of Florida. And nobody wants to see oil washing up on the white sand beaches.

[donnay]

BP is simply the fall guy in all of this.  Again, not saying that they are without guilt.  However, the Obama Administration are hell-bent in distroying our sovereignty and our economy and our liberties.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
~Rahm Emanuel

Sane is right, they are using BP to push the carbon trade tax--what better opportunity to do so?


Rand Paul is looking at it from a truly free society point of view where the people regulate businesses, not government.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." ~Thomas Jefferson

[Damascus]

I'm really glad that sane has made up with the queen. So only government can conspire to do these things, without help from corporate? In (/11 the major corporations involved were given huge incentives for their cooperation. I'm sure the British Petroleum was in no way complacent in the event. They will probably not be getting bail out money for their Incompetence. They will not draw insurance from this event, and they will probably not bear the brunt of the huge clean up cost either.

So even if this corporation stopped with the carbon trading who's to say they won't be compensated for their cooperation in an ecological disaster that will be used to push tons more eco-regulations that will then be ignored once again by the moneyed class that can lobby for special dispensation. Is it not both the banks and the corporation the grow up around them that will robe us of our freedoms and leave us slave on the country which we founded?

[trailhound]

Another Government Failure Magnifies Oil Spill Disaster

by Da King on May 4, 2010

in Uncategorized, ecology, environment, federal spending, national security, offshore oil drilling, pork

Something I think people of all political stripes can agree upon is this – a primary responsibility of the federal government is to keep us safe, to provide national security.

Yet, it seems the federal government has become involved in so many different areas that it has lost sight of it's legitimate and primary focus. It seems the priorities of the federal government are misplaced. We saw evidence of it in the inferior flood protection in New Orleans. We saw evidence of it in the government-engineered financial crisis. We saw evidence of it in Obama's crazy quilt of a stimulus package.

If you don't believe me about the stimulus package, consider this – the stimulus package, the poster child for wasteful government spending, contained over 57,000 pork projects. It spent over $643,000 for a public housing parking lot in Illinois that nobody wanted. Akron, Ohio got $1.5 million for a suicide prevention fence on the Y-Bridge. Indiana University got $356,000 to study how kids perceive foreign accents. Memphis got $250,000 to repair a dilapidated laundromat. Lexington, Kentucky got $4.7 million for a trail connecting downtown to a horse farm. Florida got $3.4 million for a wildlife eco-passage to transport animals over a roadway. Oklahoma got $1.15 million for a guardrail for a lake that doesn't exist (it's a dry hole). There was $800,000 for the little-used John Murtha Airport (three flights per day, all of them to D.C.). Murtha's airport had already received tens of millions in previous government funding. There was $10 million to renovate an abandoned train station that hadn't been used in 30 years. The town of Union, New York, got a $578,000 grant it did not request for a homelessness problem it claims it does not have. A National Forest in Missouri received $462,000 to replace toilets. The “Microsoft Bridge” in Seattle received $11 million. The bridge connects different areas of the Microsoft campus. Microsoft is estimated to have over $20 billion in cash reserves. Tualatin, Oregon, will spend $2.5 million on a “train-horn-free” zone. Montana’s state-run liquor warehouse will receive $2.2 million in stimulus cash to install skylights. Pawtucket, Rhode Island is spending $550,000 on a skateboard park. Yale and the University of Connecticut are receiving $850,000 in stimulus for research “to study how paying attention improves performance of difficult tasks.” Maine will spend over $1.3 million on “government arts jobs,” including $30,000 for basket makers, $20,000 for story telling, and $12,500 for a music festival. The National Institute of Health is giving Yale University $680,100 in stimulus funds to study the effectiveness of diet and exercise at reducing obesity.

The list of stimulus spending goes on and on and on and on and on. Obama spent money on everything from the mating habits of tree frogs to roadway signs telling us how great the stimulus package was.

But somehow, even with all our incredibly irresponsible exploding government spending and expansion, what follows was left out. And it would have contained the BP oil spill, saving us from a potential environmental disaster.

    If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land.

    The problem: The federal government did not have a single fire boom on hand.

    The "In-Situ Burn" plan produced by federal agencies in 1994 calls for responding to a major oil spill in the Gulf with the immediate use of fire booms.

    But in order to conduct a successful test burn eight days after the Deepwater Horizon well began releasing massive amounts of oil into the Gulf, officials had to purchase one from a company in Illinois.

    At federal officials' behest, the company began calling customers in other countries and asking if the U.S. government could borrow their fire booms for a few days, he said.

    A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn up to 1,800 barrels of oil an hour, Bohleber said. That translates to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility that the spill could have been contained at the accident scene 100 miles from shore.

    "They said this was the tool of last resort. No, this is absolutely the asset of first use. Get in there and start burning oil before the spill gets out of hand," Bohleber said. "If they had six or seven of these systems in place when this happened and got out there and started burning, it would have significantly lessened the amount of oil that got loose." < former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration oil spill response coordinator Ron Gouguet -- who helped craft the 1994 plan -- told the Press-Register that officials had pre-approval for burning. "The whole reason the plan was created was so we could pull the trigger right away."

    Gouguet speculated that burning could have captured 95 percent of the oil as it spilled from the well.

I'm not placing all the blame on Obama, of course. That wouldn't be fair. The government failed to produce the fire booms for sixteen years. It is notable, however, that in a stimulus package that literally threw money in every direction the government could think of, nobody thought of those booms, which would have contained a major oil spill like this one. Is there nobody in government who thinks to prepare for such disasters ? How can that be ? How can we be spending money to study the effects of diet and exercise on obesity (well, DUH) over this ?

Or maybe the government is just hell-bent on destroying Louisiana for some reason. This is the second massive government foulup affecting those poor folks.

Here's the kicker. The cost of the fire booms is a few hundred thousand dollars each. Chicken feed when compared to an $876 BILLION stimulus package.

But at least now we know proper diet and exercise can prevent obesity, and Rhode Island will have it's skateboard park.

Way to prioritize, government.

I can't believe it. The next time you hear a government official say they are doing everything possible to address the BP oil spill…..no, they didn't. Again.

[Dig]

I'm really glad that sane has made up with the queen. So only government can conspire to do these things, without help from corporate? In (/11 the major corporations involved were given huge incentives for their cooperation. I'm sure the British Petroleum was in no way complacent in the event. They will probably not be getting bail out money for their Incompetence. They will not draw insurance from this event, and they will probably not bear the brunt of the huge clean up cost either.

So even if this corporation stopped with the carbon trading who's to say they won't be compensated for their cooperation in an ecological disaster that will be used to push tons more eco-regulations that will then be ignored once again by the moneyed class that can lobby for special dispensation. Is it not both the banks and the corporation the grow up around them that will robe us of our freedoms and leave us slave on the country which we founded?

Well ya got me on that one, no dobt.

But maybe the Queen has made up with me?

ON FEBRUARY 17, 2010, BP SAID THEY HAD ENOUGH OF THE CLIMATEGATE DENIERS
TWO MONTHS LATER, THE UNEXPLAINED DISASTER OCCURS


Defections Shake Up Climate Coalition
http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2010/02/defections-shake-up-climate-coalition/
February 17, 2010
Posted by Dan McGrath

By Stephen Power And Ben Casselman

Three big companies quit an influential lobbying group that had focused on shaping climate-change legislation, in the latest sign that support for an ambitious bill is melting away.

Oill giants BP PLC and ConocoPhillips and heavy-equipment maker Caterpillar Inc. said Tuesday they won’t renew their membership in the three-year-old U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a broad business-environmental coalition that had been instrumental in building support in Washington for capping emissions of greenhouse gases.

NINE MONTHS BEFORE 9/11, THE TALIBAN BURNED THEIR OPIUM FIELDS

Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban
http://www.opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html
JALALABAD, Afghanistan
February 15, 2001 8:19 p.m. EST

U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer -- since banning poppy cultivation last summer. A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to come out of Afghanistan this year. "We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields," said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier -- a sea of blood-red poppies. A State Department official said Thursday all the information the United States has received so far indicates the poppy crop had decreased, but he did not believe it was eliminated.

Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, about 75 percent of the world's supply, U.N. officials said. Opium -- the milky substance drained from the poppy plant -- is converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. The 1999 output was a world record for opium production, the United Nations said -- more than all other countries combined, including the "Golden Triangle," where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet. Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, banned poppy growing before the November planting season and augmented it with a religious edict making it contrary to the tenets of Islam.

The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 percent of Afghanistan it controls, has set fire to heroin laboratories and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops. The U.N. surveyors, who completed their search this week, crisscrossed Helmand, Kandahar, Urzgan and Nangarhar provinces and parts of two others -- areas responsible for 86 percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan last year, Frahi said in an interview Wednesday. They covered 80 percent of the land in those provinces that last year had been awash in poppies. This year they found poppies growing on barely an acre here and there, Frahi said. The rest -- about 175,000 acres -- was clean. "We have to look at the situation with careful optimism," said Sandro Tucci of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Vienna, Austria. He said indications are that no poppies were planted this season and that, as a result, there hasn't been any production of opium -- but that officials would keep checking. The State Department counternarcotics official said the department would make its own estimate of the poppy crop. Information received so far suggests there will be a decrease, but how much is not yet clear, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "We do not think by any stretch of the imagination that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has been eliminated. But we, like the rest of the world, welcome positive news."

The Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment.

No U.S. government official can enter Afghanistan because of security concerns stemming from the presence of suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. Poppies are harvested in March and April, which is why the survey was done now. Tucci said it would have been impossible for the poppies to have been harvested already. The areas searched by the U.N. surveyors are the most fertile lands under Taliban control. Other areas, though they are somewhat fertile, have not traditionally been poppy growing areas and farmers are struggling to raise any crops at all because of severe drought. The rest of the land held by the Taliban is mountainous or desert, where poppies could not grow. Karim Rahimi, the U.N. drug control liaison in Jalalabad, capital of Nangarhar province, said farmers were growing wheat or onions in fields where they once grew poppies. "It is amazing, really, when you see the fields that last year were filled with poppies and this year there is wheat," he said.

The Taliban enforced the ban by threatening to arrest village elders and mullahs who allowed poppies to be grown. Taliban soldiers patrolled in trucks armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. About 1,000 people in Nangarhar who tried to defy the ban were arrested and jailed until they agreed to destroy their crops. Signs throughout Nangarhar warn against drug production and use, some calling it an "illicit phenomenon." Another reads: "Be drug free, be happy." Last year, poppies grew on 12,600 acres of land in Nangarhar province. According to the U.N. survey, poppies were planted on only 17 acres there this season and all were destroyed by the Taliban. "The Taliban have done their work very seriously," Frahi said. But the ban has badly hurt farmers in one of the world's poorest countries, shattered by two decades of war and devastated by drought.

Ahmed Rehman, who shares less than three acres in Nangarhar with his three brothers, said the opium he produced last year on part of the land brought him $1,100. This year, he says, he will be lucky to get $300 for the onions and cattle feed he planted on the entire parcel. "Life is very bad for me this year," he said. "Last year I was able to buy meat and wheat and now this year there is nothing." But Rehman said he never considered defying the ban. "The Taliban were patrolling all the time. Of course I was afraid. I did not want to go to jail and lose my freedom and my dignity," he said, gesturing with dirt-caked hands. Shams-ul-Haq Sayed, an officer of the Taliban drug control office in Jalalabad, said farmers need international aid. "This year was the most important for us because growing poppies was part of their culture, and the first years are always the most difficult," he said.

Tucci said discussions are under way on how to help the farmers. Western diplomats in Pakistan have suggested the Taliban is simply trying to drive up the price of opium they have stockpiled. The State Department official also said Afghanistan could do more by destroying drug stockpiles and heroin labs and arresting producers and traffickers. Frahi dismissed that as "nonsense" and said it is drug traffickers and shopkeepers who have stockpiles. Two pounds of opium worth $35 last year are now worth as much as $360, he said. Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban's top drug official in Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the Taliban received aid or international recognition. "It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not, poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country.

[Pierce2378]

BP is against the Carbon scheme?  Where is this information at, I googled it up but could not find much.  I was unaware of this revelation.

[Dig]

BP is against the Carbon scheme?  Where is this information at, I googled it up but could not find much.  I was unaware of this revelation.

They backed out 2 months before the 9/11 style explosions...

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2010/02/defections-shake-up-climate-coalition/

[trailhound]

http://theworldisnotready.com/tag/oil-spill/

BP: Keeping it in Perspective
Published on May 20, 2010  
It has been about a month since the BP “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill” first shook the headlines of every major news source across the globe. At every turn we have heard about the chaos and destruction that has been caused by this oil spill but not once has anyone talked about the real victim in all of this, BP.

It is very easy to vilify BP for this oil spill. Even our government is advocating we take a hard line on BP. US press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said that the government intended to keep “its boot on BP’s neck.” However what many people fail to realize is this spill is an accident not an act of environmental terrorism. BP is not profiting from this spill. As a matter of fact 11 people lost their lives, where is the media coverage of that?

It is easy to lambast a company when events like this occur, but one must see beyond the media spin. It’s easy to splash some images of birds covered in oil and point a finger at a successful multinational company like BP and let the environmentalists go wild. Let’s keep in mind that BP is losing hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil daily. Their stock prices have plummeted and a company that has provided excellent service for many years to power our lives is at risk of collapsing. This means that small time subcontractors will suffer to feed their families, jobs will be cut, and entire industries will feel the shock as gas and oil prices will shoot sky-high. We rely on oil to live our lives and as such any event like this affects all of us on an economic level. It is because of this that BP is a victim and I feel bad for them. No one in this scenario profits.

Actually that’s not entirely true. It just so happens that environmentalists and government profits the most in these situations. Environmentalists who jump at the bit to berate a company like BP have done the most profiting. They are on all the media networks expressing deep remorse while other members of these groups are lobbying in Washington. Now with a chance to coin this a “disaster” they can leverage to get their agenda through on the hill.

What is this agenda? More regulation, less productivity for companies, a potential ban on offshore drilling, and increased taxes. Their fear mongering will do little to help animals. These companies that put the life of an animal above the life of a human aren’t the least bit concerned with the animals. They want to tell you what to be afraid of, and who you can blame for it; all the while making sure they manage to gain from it. If they have their way oil would be nonexistent. Life would be somewhere in the middle ages and all the good that oil does would be wiped away. This is unacceptable.

The other profiteer is Government. If anyone is to blame it is the government. Setting legislation for limited liability creates moral hazards, much like the TARP bailouts! United States federal law limits BP’s liability for non-cleanup costs to $75 million unless gross negligence is proven. Why isn’t liability 100%? A 100% liability cost would match a companies need to make sure it was doing business as safe and as efficient as possible. Government doesn’t encourage this, it creates a chance for companies to cut corners. Keep in mind that it is also government regulation that forces these companies to dig in deep water to begin with. Government interference prevents more sensible drilling on land or close to shore.

Government also profits because it now has a platform to steal more money in taxes. Without question taxes will be on the rise so bureaucrats who have no idea about oil spills can fund their proposed bills and social programs through “Oil Spill Prevention Acts”. These acts will do nothing to prevent oil spills and everything to assault civil and commercial liberties. There is even talk of ending tax breaks for oil companies. Seems like a nice way to increase the price we pay for oil and drive more companies away from doing business in the United States, really productive ::sarcasm::.

Government meddling with business drives companies out, taxing them into oblivion won’t clean up oil, it will hurt Main St. All of this does one thing and that is hinder the free market. Let free market forces determine the fate of BP, the market will correct this, like everything else. The government can’t sop up oil any faster than private industry can. All government can do is give it a lackluster effort and bill you for the cleanup. If we vote with our money than BP will do whatever it takes to satisfy its investors and customers. Not to mention what private individuals will come up with as a solution.

Let us keep in mind that these events are rare. Government does not need to step in and destroy the American oil industry. We don’t stop buying cars because people get in accidents, we don’t stop flying because a plane goes down, and we don’t need more regulations on the oil industry that will only hurt average everyday Americans at the pump. We need to understand this was a terrible accident, lives were lost, and a company hangs in the balance. The animal life will undoubtedly suffer and that is terrible. Let it be known that I feel for these animals, they did nothing to deserve this. However, it must be noted that government cannot protect them better than free individuals can. This is a true tragedy of the commons.

Finally, BP is not a terrorist organization hell-bent on destroying the American way of life, it is a company trying to turn a profit. Couple that with asinine limited liability  (government intervention) and you are left with what you have today, a company doing what it can to fix the mess it made within its legislated ability. Had the free market been in place this oil spill would have been 100 times less damaging, if it even happened at all.

    From Mr. Lew Rockwell Ron Paul’s former Chief of Staff:
    The abstraction called the “ecosystem” – which never seems to include humans or their civilization – has done far less for us than the oil industry. So let us not forget that the greatest tragedy here is BP’s and its subsidiaries’ and subcontractors’, and the private enterprises affected by the losses that no one intended. If the result is a shutdown of drilling and further regulation of private enterprise, people will lose. And that is what counts.

[Geolibertarian]

I believe even though it might have been ill advised what was said, he has brought the debate to the forefront IMO.

I suppose that can be viewed as the silver lining in all this. But until questions regarding a possible false flag are raised and seriously addressed, it will continue to be yet another "controlled opposition" debate.

As left gatekeeper, Noam Chomsky, was honest enough to put it:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Like everyone else I'm hoping for the best, but in the mean time I have to call it like I see it.

[trailhound]

Let's all throw our weight behind the pro-corporate-personhood, pro-big-business loon.  Shit happens, ya know?  Who among us hasn't spilled a few million barrels of unrefined crude?  If you don't like the way the government is treating British Petroleum, nothing's stopping you from exercising your freedom to bring satchels of cash to individual politicians, just like the oil companies do.  BP is why America is great!

I'm dying to hear what the Free State Project nuts have to say about this guy.  Oh, wait:

http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?topic=19390.msg243114;topicseen

They like him a lot.

 Im sure you dont use any petroleum based products seeing the high horse you ride.

[Dig]

I suppose that can be viewed as the silver lining in all this. But until questions regarding a possible false flag are raised and seriously addressed, it will continue to be yet another "controlled opposition" debate.

As left gatekeeper, Noam Chomsky, was honest enough to put it:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum -- even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Like everyone else I'm hoping for the best, but in the mean time I have to call it like I see it.

It may be out there, but in here there ain't no controlled opposition debate. And slowly all the out there is coming in here (not in a literal sense, but in an awakening sense where people no longer just look to blame one side for 8 years then the other  side for the next 8 years - i think those days of propaganda manipulation are coming to an end).

[Geolibertarian]

Rand Paul is looking at it from a truly free society point of view where the people regulate businesses, not government.

That's a rather silly thing to say in view of what I posted earlier:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19027

Obama Sheltered BP's Deepwater Horizon Rig from Regulatory Requirement

It was this cartoonish notion put forth by the Austrian School that all government regulations (not just most) are bad and evil by definition that inspired the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and we all know where that got us.

See what happens when ideologues try to oversimplify reality so that they don't have to think as much? We wind up throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Pierce2378]

They backed out 2 months before the 9/11 style explosions...

http://www.globalclimatescam.com/2010/02/defections-shake-up-climate-coalition/

Not saying I don't believe this, but, why is it that its has to be a globalclimatescam.com site, if these companies backed out of the climate coalition it should be somewhere mainstream.