Thanks BP for ruining our beaches with oil

[-Angel-]

Was his script writer watching Family Guy perchance?

[amateurstuntman]

Piper Alpha, same year as the Lockerbie bombing, can you imagine if Maggie had compared the two and blamed it on the Americans...

 

Incidentally, I also think of Piper Alpha every time Mr T says "cold water never hurt nobody".

[Triggerhappychappy]

^Double negative = cold water did hurt somebody...

 

Anyway, saw an interesting article about the Exon Valdez (sp) spill yesterday:

 

clicky

 

Given that they reckon it will take upto a century or more for all of that oil to completely disappear, I think the mess left behind from this latest disaster will take centuries to completely disperse.

[The End]

 

After a phone-call to the British Prime Minister in which Obama denied that he was endorsing "Anti British sentiment" with his comments about the BP oil spill, he's gone and compared the event to the f**king 9/11 attacks.

 

Now, to be fair, I do understand what he's really saying but the guy REALLY needs to to get himself a better speech writer.

He's either utterly ignorant of the offence that comments like that cause or he IS actually trying to promote anti-British sentiment in the USA.

 

 

 

its not really a big deal comparing it to 9/11. 9/11 is a historical landmark, it ushered in the "war on terror" era. Like wise this spill will also be a landmark on US history. Really, the analogy is appropriate. Once again, its just a matter of people trying to make news out of nothing. And the Piper Alpha incident, though regrettable is different. It did not cause a major environmental catastrophe like the BP incident.

[Stealthbomber]

its not really a big deal comparing it to 9/11. 9/11 is a historical landmark, it ushered in the "war on terror" era. Like wise this spill will also be a landmark on US history. Really, the analogy is appropriate. Once again, its just a matter of people trying to make news out of nothing. And the Piper Alpha incident, though regrettable is different. It did not cause a major environmental catastrophe like the BP incident.

Uhuh.

 

I did say that. It just concerns me that mentioning "BP" and "9/11 attacks" in the same sentence is going to cause some stupid people to get the wrong idea.

As we all know, a large percentage of americans still think that we invaded Iraq as a response to the WTC attacks so we know how easy it is for americans to get the wrong end of the stick - and then sharpen it and use it to stab the first person they don't like the look of.

 

Point regarding Piper Alpha was more that the British Government didn't publicly demonise Occidental (even before any official causes for the incident have been established) and then insist they offer compensation for all percieved damages.

I guess that just serves to highlight the huge differences in our respective cultures.

[ThaFlash]

If BP is not a British company as you say then what's the "anti-British" issue?

[Stealthbomber]

If BP is not a British company as you say then what's the "anti-British" issue?

Well, clearly having everybody from your President on down referring, incorrectly, to the company as "British Petroleum" suggests there IS an issue or we wouldn't have our Prime Minister phoning up your President to ask him to show a little restraint.

[Azulsky]

FWIW the Global Head Office is in London

 

I dont see the need for a protective backlash from you guys. If its a multinational company, why are you feeling so patriotic about it? Nothing xenophobe meant by it, its just the name still associated(mistakenly) with the company. The only heads we want on pikes are theirs.

 

The only sentiment is anti-BP, not anti British. You boys are creating/fanning/flaming the issue entirely on your own, given our man is by no means an Anglophile. If it makes you feel any better i would say with a great amount of certainty that most of the anger is aimed at our government right now.

[Stealthbomber]

I dont see the need for a protective backlash from you guys. If its a multinational company, why are you feeling so patriotic about it? Nothing xenophobe meant by it, its just the name still associated(mistakenly) with the company. The only heads we want on pikes are theirs.

 

The only sentiment is anti-BP, not anti British. You boys are creating/fanning/flaming the issue entirely on your own, given our man is by no means an Anglophile. If it makes you feel any better i would say with a great amount of certainty that most of the anger is aimed at our government right now.

To be fair, I was defending a point I never made.

I can tell you that a lot of Brit's do feel like there's a certain anti-British feeling over this, whether it's meant or not.

 

The real point wasn't related to any particular nationality though.

It was simply that comparing the BP disaster to the 9/11 attacks is likely to make stupid people get the wrong idea.

 

I mean, if the Indian PM had drawn any parallels between your little fiasco in Bhopal and Saddam gassing Kurds I suspect you might have been a little bit upset about it, right?

[ThaFlash]

Well, clearly having everybody from your President on down referring, incorrectly, to the company as "British Petroleum" suggests there IS an issue or we wouldn't have our Prime Minister phoning up your President to ask him to show a little restraint.

 

So the P.Diddy -esque name change didn't work... who knew?

[Misfit]

FWIW the Global Head Office is in London

 

I dont see the need for a protective backlash from you guys. If its a multinational company, why are you feeling so patriotic about it? Nothing xenophobe meant by it, its just the name still associated(mistakenly) with the company. The only heads we want on pikes are theirs.

 

The only sentiment is anti-BP, not anti British. You boys are creating/fanning/flaming the issue entirely on your own, given our man is by no means an Anglophile. If it makes you feel any better i would say with a great amount of certainty that most of the anger is aimed at our government right now.

 

You may want to read this:

 

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Barack-Obama-RSA-Chief-John-Napier-Accuses-President-Of-Being-Anti-British-For-His-Attack-On-BP/Article/201006215647312?f=rss

 

Or the tons of other, similar articles you can find on google by searching 'BP anti british'.

[Azulsky]

You may want to read this:

 

http://news.sky.com/...215647312?f=rss

 

Or the tons of other, similar articles you can find on google by searching 'BP anti british'.

 

 

From that article:

"And the fact it's being received over here as an anti-British rhetoric - that may not be his intent, but that is how it's reading."

"coming across"

"There is a sense here that these attacks are being made because BP is British."

From other articles:

alleged "Britain-bashing" "faintly xenophobic"

The only thing i can actually see that is causing all this is his use of "BRITISH Petroleum". Seriously the attacks are being made at BP because in the end they were the bottom line for what happened here. Sure it could have been the fault of x number of y subcontractors cutting corners. But you guys are letting pundits on your side of the pond fan the flames over this? Again alot of the comments seem to be in patriotic defense of BP, while just a paragraph later the article disavows BP as a British Company. Dont get me wrong for a second. Obama was golden boy who is getting served alot more than he was ready for, so yes he is backed into a corner and yes he will do everything to make this not look like his version of Chernobyl including the "unstatesmenlike" conduct. I just think the panties are in a wad over nothing, thats all

 

Meanwhile a BP exec harmlessly called the affected residents "small people" and im sure Rush Limbaugh is advancing his impending aneurysm thinking about it right now

 

Its all going back and forth and it probably will amount to nothing except pundit ammo on both sides

Anyway onto the good news

$20bn escrow account and no quarterly dividends for BP shareholders...despite the bashing at least they are prepared to go all the way with relief, hats off

[Stealthbomber]

Sorry, too hard to quote your post with all the different fonts in there but still...

 

Surely there must come a point where you (in general) need to think "Hmmm, perhaps we ARE doing something wrong?" rather than continually claiming "not to mean it"?

 

I mean, it's kinda like somebody going around saying "We must do more to stop black men raping women" and then, when a bunch of upset black people complain, just saying "I don't mean to offend black people".

Sooner or later you need to reconsider and, regardless of whether you are doing it intentionally or not, concede that you ARE doing something to offend people.

 

I'm sure that the media is doing its best to put a spin on things but, personally, the thing that irks me is that I have never yet heard ANY mention of TransOceans or Halliburtons role in this.

I also think it's particularly improper to be so openly critical of ANY party before any official enquiry has been concluded.

 

I mean, what's gonna happen if some enquiry finds that BPs operating standards were fine, the safety precautions were fine, the drilling rig and wellhead were all perfect and the only problem was that a guy named Fred Walsh forgot to open a relief valve when the pressure started to rise?

Is Fred Walsh, or his next of kin, going to get the bill for the clean-up?

Are the families of the dead going to be taking fred Walsh to court for negligence?

Are the fisherman of Louisiana going to get rid of the "We hate BP" banners and put up "We hate Fred Walsh" banners instead?

 

Just seems like your politicians are flapping their jaws with no consideration of the consequences to individuals or other countries.

 

As I said, things would probably be better if you just went about clearing up the mess in the same way we swept up your crashed 747 and your burned-out oil rig; without trash-talking Pan-Am or Occidental at every opportunity.

[elrey]

It bothers me as well that Halliburton and Transocean haven't been mentioned more. Obviously Obama is trying to stir up populist anger against BP to deflect blame away from himself and his administration, and it would be better if he wasn't going on about "*albatross*-kicking" and what not, but I think getting the name wrong was an innocent mistake and not an attempt at anti-British rhetoric, since BP is clearly not a British company.

[Azulsky]

I'm sure that the media is doing its best to put a spin on things but, personally, the thing that irks me is that I have never yet heard ANY mention of TransOceans or Halliburtons role in this.

I also think it's particularly improper to be so openly critical of ANY party before any official enquiry has been concluded.

 

I mean, what's gonna happen if some enquiry finds that BPs operating standards were fine, the safety precautions were fine, the drilling rig and wellhead were all perfect and the only problem was that a guy named Fred Walsh forgot to open a relief valve when the pressure started to rise?

Is Fred Walsh, or his next of kin, going to get the bill for the clean-up?

Are the families of the dead going to be taking fred Walsh to court for negligence?

Are the fisherman of Louisiana going to get rid of the "We hate BP" banners and put up "We hate Fred Walsh" banners instead?

 

Just seems like your politicians are flapping their jaws with no consideration of the consequences to individuals or other countries.

 

As I said, things would probably be better if you just went about clearing up the mess in the same way we swept up your crashed 747 and your burned-out oil rig; without trash-talking Pan-Am or Occidental at every opportunity.

 

 

Yeah the fonts got wonky from pasting from the different articles

 

 

At least we agree on the nature of the political climate here

 

 

The BP bashing is coming from the feeling of helplessness.

 

Lets be honest, BP is doing everything they can to seal the well, BP has upfront agreed to pay for everything, BP is mobilizing basically all the resources they can.

 

Its helplessness because unlike a Hurricane cleanup there is nothing a person on an individual basis can do to fix it. Its all reliance on the gov for this sort of fix, and when you are seeing nonstop attempts at fixing this issue for the last 60 days that continue to fail and you watch your way of life just get mucked over.........who do you let the anger out on?

 

And you have the media taking every oppurtunity to flash the pictures of the dead birds and the oil soaked beaches(which actually up until a week ago were fairly pristine outside LA barrier islands), cutting tourism revenue all over the coast way before there was oil in sight, inflaming public opinion, pundits gets spooled up and then its off to the races.

 

The political climate here is a cannibalizing monster that has nothing else to do but spin this up to high heaven.

 

As the heat moves up the political ladder finally it gets to the Oval Office and now its a blame game. He took the opportunity to mention in his speech yesterday several times that he has been trying to fix MMS(Mineral Management Services) and it all goes back before his office(which it does), fault of x,y,z agencies, companies, mismanagement, history of negligence, etc. In a big election year like this, the oil spill was the last thing that the current administration needed.

 

I wish cooler heads would prevail but that is not the typical result of the pinball machine.

 

I dont know how all the legal stuff works out. As usual there are probably a ton of people to share the blame with, probably enough that they will never succinctly pass judgement on it. The heat is on BP now because they have committed to closing the well and it is not working.

[Stealthbomber]

A very honest and open-minded post.

 

I will admit that I do get a little offended by some of the inferences that have been made, intentional or not, but that genuinely isn't my main concern.

My main concern is simply that all the jaw-flapping IS whipping up bad feeling and if an official report finds that a couple of specific individuals were particularly at fault then they're suddenly going to find themselves the subject of a HUGE amount of pressure.

 

The alternative, of course, is that any official report will end up as something of a white-wash purely in order to spread blame amongst faceless corporations and spare individuals from the weight of national ill-feeling.

That'd be done with the noblest intentions, of course, but it'd mean we'd never find out what really happened.

 

As I say, it just seems like a really bad idea to be stirring up so much bad feeling if there's a chance it might all end up being targeted at some poor sucker who was unlucky enough to get left to look after something while the supervisor went to take a dump or whatever.

[Azulsky]

http://www.guardian....aign-bp-britain

 

Ok, i'll admit it that was below the belt

[Habakure]

Wow, could this been seen as racism? In relation to the british comment (Via the link provided above by Azulsky) in the advertising campaign, I mean, it serves no purpose at all, and it is deflamitory. Also, Dame Helen Mirren, wtf was she on about (On the David Letterman show, again via that link provided by Azulsky)?

 

P.S. Sorry for the spelling mistakes (Spell check seems to crash my connection, as in, when I load word to check my post, it crashes the mobile broadband connection, wierd but not the first time).

[Stealthbomber]

http://www.guardian....aign-bp-britain

 

Ok, i'll admit it that was below the belt

And.... there goes any remaining sympathy I had for the yanks.

 

I suggest the affected fishermen of Louisiana come up with some decent recipes for Pelican meat (cooked in oil) and take it from there.

[Jon L]

Can I just raise the point of, other than temporarily banning any new drilling, what has the government done with regards to changing legislation/ increasing government agency inspections? Currently it seems a case of the company did wrong lets flame the company. But surely if the government tightens the law within the industry that would help sooth those who have been affected?

 

Also it would be setting a precedent for other companies to follow, a buck up your ideas or jog on sort of thing.

 

I caught this video on youtube

interesting idea as the over use of dispersants has been criticised. Could you not turn out the national guard and get them down to threatened beaches/areas with bales of straw and get them putting this stuff down?

[Stealthbomber]

....with bales of straw and....

Straw soaked in a flammable liquid?

 

The trick with anything designed to mop up oil is that you need something that won't soak up water but will soak up oil.

Straw won't really cut it.

[ThaFlash]

Can I just raise the point of, other than temporarily banning any new drilling, what has the government done with regards to changing legislation/ increasing government agency inspections? Currently it seems a case of the company did wrong lets flame the company. But surely if the government tightens the law within the industry that would help sooth those who have been affected?

 

Also it would be setting a precedent for other companies to follow, a buck up your ideas or jog on sort of thing.

 

That would take years and even with a disaster of this magnitude I am not confident that legislation would pass. The lobby is too powerful, the politicians are too easily swayed and more importantly the people don't really want it. Yeah, today you see fishermen with no work, but that's just to get ratings. I don't think the conservative population really considers more government intervention as a good thing even when taking into account this situation. I guess at the very least, much more government inspection could have forced the use of a proper safety valve, built and maintained to specs and in that situation we'd only have to worry about the rig and its 700,000 gallons of diesel.

 

I caught this video on youtube

interesting idea as the over use of dispersants has been criticised. Could you not turn out the national guard and get them down to threatened beaches/areas with bales of straw and get them putting this stuff down?

 

The LA Guard is there, has been for quite some time. People assume they haven't been mobilized, probably because they're not really being televised for some reason. But yeah, give them hay, give them whatever they need.

But it seems that most of their work has been to set up systems to divert water away from the delta as much as possible.

 

 

Speaking of flammable liquid:

If they just torched the main slick from the get go, could it have remained small up to this point? Is the burn rate fast enough?

[Stealthbomber]

Speaking of flammable liquid:

If they just torched the main slick from the get go, could it have remained small up to this point? Is the burn rate fast enough?

Did you see the underwater video taken by the guy diving?

 

I think a lot of the problem is, cos the well is so deep, the various currents are carrying the oil for dozens of miles before it even hits the surface.

I guess you can predict some of it but, due to the varying make-up of the crude oil that's escaping, it's pretty random where it actually hits the surface.

That's another reason why (ignoring problems with rough weather) an offshore boom system would have to be huge.

Plus, even if it was in one huge puddle, a fire of the required magnitude would bring it's own problems; you'd probably end up with a huge, dirty, smoke cloud.

[Azulsky]

I think alot of the underwater plumes are attributed to the fact that they are hitting the oil with dispersant way down at 5000 feet. Its mixing and screwing up the specific gravity of the crude.

 

According to some geophysicists i have spoken to, a good bit of the crude that would be refined and used actually evaporates away, hence the dark brown color you end up with. There was a specific name to the type of crude, cant recall.

[PianoBlack]

I found today's hearing to be nothing more than populist political posturing with an eye toward mid-term elections. Bart Stupak's comment about the CEO getting his life back and a golden parachute back in England seems to exemplify this xenophobia/nationalistic tone. I bet nobody is paying much attention to Toyota right now.

 

-Piano