Policia de Catalunya

On the oil spill, pundits say, they can offer Obama little comfort.
A profound pronouncement? And a circular one at that? You bet.
But it's no better than Obama's forgettable quote on Friday:
"My job right now is just to make sure everybody in the Gulf understands: This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about. The spill."(Sorry, but the "spill"? The "spill"?!? And his primary job is to make sure we understand he's thinking about it? Axe, are you on vacation or something? Axe . . . ?)
More reassuring was Big P's priceless quote from its stunningly empathic CEO: "I would like my life back." (So would we all, my friend, so would we all. And the livelihoods of Louisianans, while you're at it.)
Seriously though, I think I've found someone who can help Spock Obama. Someone he can model himself after, during this unfolding nightmare.
Now, the fellow I have in mind is no super model, I'll grant you that. Obama would crush him in a pick-up game, in two minutes flat.
But if you're looking for a "bullhorn" man, may I present the rotund, frank, and clearly feeling Billy Nungesser of Louisiana's Plaquemines ("plack-a-means") Parish.

This ADD fellow -- who gets things done, by the way -- is a man after my own heart, and my country's.
By way of example, here's a snippet from a recent New York Times profile of wild-marsh Bill:
How did Mr. Nungesser come to own an elk ranch in the parish?
The elk, he said late Thursday night over a 10-minute dinner of Sun Chips and soda, were bought from a man in Nebraska with the money he got from selling his house to his sister when he went to live in a shipping container.A few minutes later, he added:
"I had a Jacuzzi," he clarified. "It was nice."
See why I love this guy, nonsequiturs and all?
Because he's real. He's there. And he cares.
"The buck stops with me," said the president. "And the muck does, too," said I. And Billy.

Labels: Billy Nungesser, Marshes, Obama, Oil Spill, Plaquemines Parish

After one of my own oil spills, a kind reader remarked, "my heart breaks for your obvious distress" or words to that effect. At the time, it seemed a tad dramatic.
Now? Not so much.
This disaster is truly too huge to fathom. Every oil-laden wave strikes a blow to our country's psyche.
So to get a handle on how big this really is, let's gently put the oil-drenched pelicans aside for a moment, and follow the money.
Moody's Investor Service says the oil catastrophe could be worse than the global recession. Chew on that for a while.
In another onerous development, the prices for credit-default swap contracts for BP (how much it costs a BP creditor to insure against BP's default on a loan) have skyrocketed.
Now it will cost BP a pile of pounds to borrow money. The headlines say it all: "Credit Markets Treat BP as if it were Rated Junk." Sickening news indeed.
Credit Suisse is a shade more optimistic, tagging BP's exposure at $37 billion. It arrived at this number based on ultra-conservative estimates of exactly how many barrels of oil are gushing into the gulf each day.
Matt Simmons (who, you should know, has a dog in this hunt) says there is a lake of oil sitting on the sea bed. This "lake," he claims, is over 100 miles wide, and 400 to 500 feet in depth.
You can paint the coastal towns black, he says, if a hurricane picks up this under-water plume.
One recent news report lends anecdotal support to Simmons's claim that our long national nightmare has yet to be realized, while the oil lurks and lingers beneath the gulf's surface.

On a brighter note, the delta dawned on Obama. His administration announced Sunday that the President understands we have an immense, immeasurable crisis on our hands.
Phew!
The crisis is so dire in fact, that Obama will be addressing our nation in a few short days, live from his Churchill-shorn Oval Office.
Downplaying Explaining the President's upcoming address, David Axelrod said the oil "saga" has reached "an inflection point." (Which is better than a "tipping" one, don't you think?)
Now then. Let us raise our voices in perfect pitch, shall we?
But never genuflecting, Axe continued on in his unaffected baritone, seeking to reassure: BP has "the prospect of continuing."
Oh, David! Think again.
Obama wants BP to escrow billions to cover estimated damages. But this cannot be done.
With $12 billion in cash on hand and about $236 billion in total assets, BP is inarguably big. Still, "BP" does not stand for "bottomless pit."
So look for Obama -- as he's done with everything else -- to call BP's escrow a "down payment." This disingenuous wiggle-room phrase must poll well, given its ubiquity.
Where the rest of the money will come from is anyone's guess.
As is how much will be the grand total, or the time it will take to tally. Because it will take years to assess the damage. Years.
The fines imposed by the Clear Clean Water Act are but one example. Under this act, BP will owe the U.S. government more than $9 billion -- assuming 40,000 barrels are spilling into the gulf every day, as many experts believe.
In a related note, government-assembled experts want to send equipment down to better measure the flow, when BP switches the "caps" yet again. To date, BP hasn't responded to this request.
Small wonder BP keeps stalling and low-balling the barrels-per-day estimates.
No less comforting, BP estimates its clean-up costs at around $6 billion.
So now then. What might be the losses to Floridians? Early estimates predict the state will lose 195,000 jobs and $11 billion dollars in tourism income.
In northern Florida, at least one legislator is considering an immediate lowering of property values to give affected owners instant relief.
But such a measure would dramatically lower tax receipts, leading to drastic cuts in city services, "tax seepage" into inland counties, decapitating muni-bond ratings.
Tourism between Mississippi and the Florida panhandle accounts for nearly 4 billion dollars annually. Some estimates show tourism revenue in this area is already down some fifty percent. Hotel cancellations are at a fever pitch and extend well into the foreseeable future.
Who will get paid and when? By the time Captiva is inked in black oil, I'm afraid BP will be long gone.
The real estate horror in Florida was already hemorrhaging red; foreclosures before this crisis were unthinkably bad. But now? The state we call Florida will soon be Floriclosure.
Throw Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi into the mix, and short-sighted calls for BP boycotts (which only hurt American franchisees), coupled with Obama's crisp and grammatical, "whose-ass-to-kick"?
Shhhhh (whisper, whisper) but bankruptcy may be the only viable option for this self-insured company.
Indeed, Texaco v. Pennzoil provides an awfully enticing model for BP. Cast off the offending limb and proceed anew in a different body, is basically how it works.
So, President Obama? Could you please dial down the down-with-BP, I'd-have-already-fired-Hayward nonsense?
Why cut off our noses to spite our fate? Like Chris Matthews said, "This is more important than a presidency."
But oh, gentle readers, lest you truly despair, fret not. Admiral Watson is from the government and he's here to help.
On Friday, he boldly wrote BP, to wit:
"I am concerned that your current plans do not provide for maximum mobilization of resources to provide the needed collection capacity consistent with the revised flow estimates. Recognizing the complexity of the challenge, every effort must be expended to speed up the process."Even I was moved by his direct and to the pointedness.
Now, the press is calling the admiral's missive an ultimatum. Umm, okay. Whatever it is, it has no teeth. "BP, you've got until Sunday to come up with a better plan or . . . or . . . "
If I were Obama, I'd take "incompetent" over "impotent" any minute of the day, any day of the week.

Say, ever wonder how our government can claim BP is sucking up half of the leaking oil when it has no idea whatsoever what the total amount leaking is? I have to ask, are we just throwing darts here?
Alrighty then.
Is there a silver lining to be found in all of this? Any good news to report at all?
Well, err, yes, actually. Coastal properties in Spain are getting a nice little bump.

Labels: Axelrod, Bankkruptcy, Bp, Down Payment, Florida, Foreclosure, Inflection Point, MoodyS, Obama, Oil Spill, Pennzoil, Texaco

Ruh-roh.
Per Richard Wolffe, a frequent guest on the Keith Olbermann show, Obama has known since Day One that this oil "spill" was super, super-duper bad. Armageddon bad. End-of-the-Ocean-As-We-Know-It bad. A 10.0 on the Richter Scale.
Yet the golfing . . .

and fundraising . . . .

and miscellaneous hobnobbing . . .


and Marv Alpert baseball interviews continued. Unabashedly. Unabated.

All this, when Obama knew the entire time that this was the worst environmental crisis ever to have occurred in our country's history.
Good God Almighty.
And for my detractors, this footnote: "The Daily Show" makes up much of my source.
The clip shown below, mind you, was broadcast long before we discovered that Obama has known the magnitude of this utter and as-yet unmitigated, planet-wide disaster since it began.
I'll say it again: this is not a good headline.
Here's the John Stewart clip:
The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cThe Spilling Fieldswww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTea Party
And to those of you who would say I'm being unfair or partisan, I give you this, printed and published over and over and over and over again, by the press:
They showed no mercy then. And we owe them none now.
Frankly, I wouldn't be quite so damned mad if Obama hadn't suckled at the teat of BP and given them the benefit of the doubt when this underwater geyser first spouted.
What would I have done differently? Deploy supertankers immediately, to suck up everything in sight; all available military troops within our country's border would have hit the beaches that night. And all that still undeployed boom resting idle on the shores of Louisiana? The Coast Guard would have ordered into action.
And that's just for starters.
Sure it's easy to Monday-morning quarterback this disaster. Except that these calls don't require hindsight. Or a Presidential office. They're intuitive.
Especially when Obama knew, from Day One of the well blowing, that he had an enormous crisis on his hands.
Perhaps Obama was distracted by the Turkish flotilla that came late this week, loaded (by all estimable reports) with terrorists trying to enter Gaza. Israelis entered the flotilla with paint ball guns, only to be forced into battle and subsequently scorned, unfairly, with international outrage.
Now we know what happened. Israel was right. But did Obama stand with Israel? Hell no. He still needs to gather more facts, you see.
Please.
We all know Israel's intelligence is exceptional. If Israel, which merely required a quick inspection (which this flotilla stubbornly refused) says there were bad guys on board, that's good enough for me.
The rational world is growing weary and leery of Obama's international apologies and "fact- gathering" delays, be they oil-related or otherwise. And so am I.
*Updated 6/5/2010 @6:57 p.m. to correct a typo
* Updated again to add link to supertanker solution.

Labels: Animals Dying, Bp, Closed Beaches, Obama, Oil Spill

Finally Obama channels Billy Nungesser of Plaquemines, sort of.

"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar!" he exclaimed to Matt Lauer in an interview to air tomorrow.
He's cursing. In "bring 'em on" Bush fashion, he wants to kick some a#*.
This oil spill could be a potential crisis.
And lest you thought otherwise, this is NOT, repeat NOT, a college seminar.
Maureen Dowd must be feeling mighty proud.
So what do you think? Was this a "bullhorn" moment?

Labels: Bullhorn Moment, College Seminar, Maureen Dowd, Obama, Oil Spill

If only this were Obama's "Katrina." No, it's his Pearl Harbor. And it keeps growing and growing.
The stream of bad news is unrelenting. Expect oil spewing into the gulf through August, the Administration told us today.
And there may be more than one leak from BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico. Recent news accounts, albeit thinly covered by the press, suggest this is the case.

The topic consumes me. I grew up in South Florida. My soul is in those beaches. They are my zen.
Going to the beach is part of my annual rite of getting-right passage, and my family's summer pilgrimage.
My son has been enjoying these beaches since he was three. I remember his first trip, when I forgot to tell him to close his eyes, that the water was salty.
Countless hours I've spent reading into the night, comforted by the sea gulls squawking and the sound of the surf hitting sand just steps away from me.
And it's all about to go away.
Did you know:
* FEMA has plans in place to evacuate Tampa Bay so if a "controlled burn" is conducted, residents will not be injured by the toxic fumes. Holy hell!
* At least seven workers involved in the oil-on-shores clean-up effort have been hospitalized.
* Worse, the live-streaming feed of the leak we're all glued to? May only be a "small" leak -- just a "mouse" in the greater (more awful) scheme of things, as some claim.
The failed "top kill" maneuver was more like a mouse-chasing-elephant endeavor, they say.
But here's the really bad news: there is a second underwater plume of oil, confirmed just this past Thursday, which is nearly twenty-two miles long, six miles wide, and three thousand feet deep. It's enough under the water that you can't see it in any aerial shots.
BP says, "nonsense." There are no plumes. There is no oil under the water.
But according to some experts, there is no way the "small" leak seen on BP's constant-ish "spillcam" feed can account for this much oil.
So don't let the surface photos, horrific as they are, fool you.

Maybe we don't know the half of it.
Especially ominous, the second plume was found some forty-five miles away from the leak.
The MSNBC video below shows two old oil guys discussing their "second leak" theory, and what they'd do to stop it. They seem to know their stuff. (But, to be fair, some posters on "the oil drum" blog claim these guys are whacko.) You be the judge.
Spoiler alert: the old oil guys in this video do NOT agree with what BP has been doing.
And here's the video one of the old oil guys mentioned, of the white fish swimming through the "small" leak, emerging on the other side as white as ever, corroborating his theory that there is another, much larger leak. (UPDATE: Err, never mind. The video stream changed after I inserted this link. Hmmph.)

In any event, BP's"Corexit" dispersant is looking more like a toxic super "Kerfuxit," just pushing the oil down and underneath the surface, so we can't see it. Out of sight, out of mind . . .
Here you can catch a glimpse of what it's like to scuba through underwater oil. Hold your breath.
So where are the gunky mammoth plumes coming from, if not from the "dinky" leak we see on BP's live feed?
Why is BP denying the very existence of these plumes?
Where are the oil-sucking-up supertankers?
Go here if you want to see what the guys in the industry are saying.
Here's the live feed "spillcam" from BP, courtesy of NPR:
My heart hurts.

Labels: Aerial Photos, Bp, Closed Beaches, Katrina, More Leaks, Obama, Oil Spill, Pearl Harbor