bark, bugs, leaves, & lizards

I Guess Shrimpers Should Make Hotels Out Of Their Boats

The Consumerist flags this WSJ piece about BP engaging in happy talk about the economic impact of the Macondo Gusher on affected communities:

But in Planet BP — a BP online, in-house magazine — a “BP reporter” dispatched to Louisiana managed to paint an even rosier picture of the disaster. “There is no reason to hate BP,” one local seafood entrepreneur is quoted as saying, as the region relies on the oil industry for work.

Indeed, the April 20 spill on the Deepwater Horizon is being reinvented in Planet BP as a strike of luck.

“Much of the region’s [nonfishing boat] businesses — particularly the hotels — have been prospering because so many people have come here from BP and other oil emergency response teams,” another report says. Indeed, one tourist official in a local town makes it clear that “BP has always been a very great partner of ours here…We have always valued the business that BP sent us.”

“Louisiana has bent over backwards to power the rest of the country, and has bent over frontwards to serve Big Oil.”

Oyster nails it.

The Know-Nothing Solution

Right after the Macondo disaster began a friend told me he supported the Russian solution to nuke it.  For the record, I think I looked at the ground and shook my head.  Mumbling may have occurred.

I finally got around to reading Oyster’s latest at The Lens about all this and it has me longing for the days when we all had a more palpable suspicion of all things nuclear:

I’m as frustrated as everyone about this disaster (strike that: I’m sure the fishermen et al. are more frustrated).  I share Oyster’s definition of “bold”:

I channel Nungesser whenever I hear BP promising to “redouble” their efforts, or when the Feds declare that they will “triple” the available manpower. Why aren’t we already at the maximums in both categories? When BP explains that a clean-up crew is leaving the beach in the early afternoon because it’s hot outside, I’m wondering: where’s the bus bringing in the second shift of workers? When the government proudly boasts that they forced BP to drill two expensive relief wells instead of one, I’m prompted to ask: why not four, just to be on the safe side?

Take BP over, build the sand berms, bring everything we’ve got short of nukes.  I have a healthy skepticism of experts but there comes a point when we–bloggers, whiners, agitators, victims– have to accept we don’t know what the fuck we’re talking about.  Detonating a nuclear bomb to stop the Macondo gusher in the Gulf of Mexico is probably one of those occasions.

Receivership [Updated]

Robert Reich @ TPM:

If the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and the auto giant General Motors and replace their CEOs, in order to keep them financially solvent, it should be able to put BP’s North American operations into temporary receivership in order to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

Update: Reich has written a useful Q & A follow-up @ Salon:

Q: Why should we trust the government?

A: This isn’t an ideological contest about how little you trust a giant oil company versus the federal government. It’s a matter of accountability. BP’s primary responsibility is to its shareholders. And it will cut corners — as it has before — if that’s the best way to maximize the value of their shares. But only the government, through the president, is directly accountable to the American public, and responsible for protecting it.

TPM Pick-UP [Updated]

TPM has posted some of my oily angst I sent their way.

Update: Another TPM reader clarifies the breadth of personnel involved in dealing with the Macondo disaster.  Here’s a nugget:

If you only monitor the national coverage, you’d think BP is going it alone while we all sit by, but the reality is this is an industry-wide effort because we all know what’s at stake.

He doesn’t want Obama to make a big deal about it and he has good reasons.  What I still have trouble with is the issue with the estimate of the spill rate (the lack of transparency with all aspects to how bad this thing is), as well as little movement on immediate and sustained compensation for the people most directly affected.

Count Me In [Updated]

Editor B says,

On Facebook, a friend of mine noted that “unfocused rage never solved anything.” I agree with that. However, the rage is already there, and public actions such as a protest rally can serve to give that anger a focus that it might otherwise lack. If we don’t come together, we tend to feel isolated and weak.

I hope some protests will be organized closer to the water.  I’d go.

Update: But Al Giordano apparently wants us to sit in quiet reflection over our rampant petroleum usage:

Yelling doesn’t solve anything. And it sure won’t plug the leak or make anyone else do it faster, because nobody has yet figured out a surefire way to do it. But they sure ain’t gonna think faster with you yelling in their ears.

I’ve been fairly unmoved by this line of thinking: you can’t complain if you drive a car, etc.  I think that oversimplifies.  That’s not to say he doesn’t have a point.  I just don’t think it’s enough to forestall yelling and protesting and all the rest because this is a uniquely horrifying moment that could galvanize the movement to have a serious national discussion about these very issues.  It’s not about style points.

Maybe Not

I guess it’s bad form when you’re in need of rescue because of the actions of a key conservative constituency to come out with a book called Real Hope, Real Change: New Conservative Solutions to Rescue America.

No, It’s Not Over

The Lens has a heartbreaking report out of St. Bernard Parish.

Oil Angst [Updated x2]

Ezra Klein:

If one believed BP’s original estimate, there would only be 1.4 million gallons of oil in the gulf so far. If you believe the adjusted figure from NOAA and BP, 6.9 million gallons of oil have already hemorrhaged into the Gulf. But if outside experts are right, the figure is likely closer to 131.6 million gallons – or nearly 13 Exxon Valdez spills.

I can only conclude the Obama Administration has been a failure in how it’s handled the Macondo oil gusher in the gulf.  I can’t get my head around why it has allowed BP to run the show as it has, to the point of being complicit in disseminating inaccurate information about the extent of the calamity.  I don’t care about why–if it’s political fear or (mis)calculation (I don’t buy their line that they can’t worry about figuring how extensive the gusher is because they’re so focused on fixing it).  They’ve flat out allowed BP to fuck us.

What’s even more dispiriting, however, is that the country’s “loyal” opposition party is even worse when it comes to Big Oil.  Same goes for the state’s Congressional delegation, Republicans and Democrats alike.  What’s Bobby Jindal going to do?  Grandstand.

My only hope is the Obama Administration finally gets it together.  But it feels like it’s too late already–but no, it’s never too late to cap this thing.  It can get worse.

Update: Joseph Romm @ Salon:

Obama needs to take charge of the spill response, yes. But more important, he needs to communicate to Americans that the disaster was ultimately caused by our addiction to fossil fuel — and to make it clear that we face a far greater disaster if we don’t start working toward ending that addiction. In short, it’s time to move away from the dirty, unsafe fuels of the 19th century and to embrace the clean safe fuels of the 21st century that never run out.

Update 2: Josh Marshall is puzzling over criticism of Obama’s response to the unfolding disaster and raises good points:

I also think there’s a decent argument that as frustrating as it is, it’s the people who actually run these rigs who know best how to stop them and how they run. So it’s (not) like the president can just tell BP to go take a hike and call in the Navy to plug the thing up.

What’s been eating at me has been: 1) Why wasn’t the Obama administration more effective at getting accurate estimates of the oil flow rate? 2) Aren’t there resources beyond what BP had at the outset that should have been brought in to help solve these problems?  Even if one accepts BP has more expertise than the government, what about getting scientists and the like from other oil companies?  Or from other areas in the private sector?  Why just BP?  3)  Why does BP have so much authority in the clean-up efforts?  4) I’m a little ashamed to say it, but yeah, I want to see some ass getting kicked, maybe a rolling head.  The enormity of BP’s blunder is too big to go without a swift slapdown of some kind.  5) The people whose livelihoods are threatened need immediate and sustained compensation and so far it looks like BP has been doing less than the minimum. 6) Also feel a bit like after the levees breached: People aren’t getting how bad it is. Where’s the primetime presidential address?

Arrest Someone Already

If Al-Qaeda had caused a calamity such as British Petroleum’s Macondo gusher, how would the federal government have handled it? Would we have asked oil companies to take care of it?  If I dump a few hundred gallons of Havoline 10w40 in the St. Charles Avenue neutral ground and the police show up, can I just tell them to stop the streetecar and keep people away, that it’s my oil and I’ll take care of the situation?