May 07, 2010 — Ring of Fire's own Mike Papantonio and Bobby Kennedy team up for an appearance on Hardball with host Chris Matthews, to discuss the political, economic, and environmental impact that awaits the Gulf Coast as BP's oil leak continues to pump more than 200,000 gallons of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico.
Ring of Fire with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Mike Papantonio
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mike Papantonio, take on the economy, the environment and just plain ugly politics in their weekly radio show on Air America Radio.
Category: General
Website: http://www.ringoffireradio.com
and from Keith Olbermann discussing Cheney's role in deregulation of Oil Industry ignoring safety concerns or the high probability of a major oil spill.
Is Halliburton To Blame For Gulf Oil Spill
May 8, 2010
How to guarantee a Gulf oil spill :Take one regulatory agency, instruct it to take its cues from the private sector, and add oodles of cash by Andrew Leonard via Salon.com May 7,2010
The Gulf oil spill mess keeps spreading, and not just near the shores of Louisiana. The pressure is ratcheting up on the Minerals Management Service, the Department of Interior agency that watches over offshore drilling. One expects The New York Times and Financial Times to be on the job. But when even the Wall Street Journal feels compelled to blame a government agency for getting too cosy with industry -- "Oil Regulator Ceded Oversight to Drillers" -- you know it's been a tough week in the office.
It seems worth pointing out here that not only has my own baleful eye been fixated on MMS for years, but in what I am pretty sure was one of the more lurid accounts of the GAO inspector general's notorious expose of MMS bad behavior in Sept. 2008 I channeled and unwanted glimpse of the future. For your enjoyment, I give you the first three paragraphs of "Snorting Speed Off Of Toaster Ovens." (Italics all mine. )
Try, if you can, to ignore all the lurid coke-and-sex bombshells contained in the three Department of Interior Inspector General reports about the shenanigans at the U.S. Minerals Management Service (MMS). The program director who snorted speed off a subordinate's toaster oven, and made her give him a blow job while driving around the neighborhood. The two "MMS Chicks" who were notorious for getting plastered at conventions and having one-night stands with oil industry employees.
Try -- and yes, I know it's hard -- try even to ignore the allegation that one program director told a subordinate that if she could score him some coke during the MMS performance appraisal period, he would increase her performance award. What's the big deal? Who wouldn't be motivated by such an incentive? And what's a little drunken sex and coke binging on government time among friends? It happens to the best of us.
The significance of the three reports delivered by the inspector general to Congress on Wednesday lies not in the prurience of some of the indiscretions, but in the symbolism. The Royalty-in-Kind Program of the U.S. Minerals Management Service is where offshore drilling meets the U.S. government. And gosh, is it ever one heck of a mess. You want a toxic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Just read the reports.
Whistleblower at BP accuses BP of ignoring various safety regulations in order to cut costs-which resulted in the deaths of 11 employees and the contamination of the Gulf area. The CEO's including Dick Cheney should be tried and jailed for their criminal activity. But don't hold your breath-the elite no matter what if they can will defend other members of the elite. The oil industry is permitted to police and regulate itself how convenient but so do lawyers and doctors-they too are part of this untouchable class . An ordinary person steals food for himself and his family gets a few years in prison-rich person kills eleven people get s a small fine and a tongue lashing as he laughs all the way to the bank.
Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf Jason Leopold, at Truthout April 30, 2010
A former contractor who worked for BP claims the oil conglomerate broke federal laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firms other deepwater production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, according to internal emails and other documents obtained by Truthout.
The whistleblower, whose name has been withheld at the person's request because the whistleblower still works in the oil industry and fears retaliation, first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world's largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008. Atlantis, which began production in October 2007, has the capacity to produce about 8.4 million gallons of oil and 180 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
It was then that the whistleblower, who was hired to oversee the company's databases that housed documents related to its Atlantis project, discovered that the drilling platform had been operating without a majority of the engineer-approved documents it needed to run safely, leaving the platform vulnerable to a catastrophic disaster that would far surpass the massive oil spill that began last week following a deadly explosion on a BP-operated drilling rig.
BP's own internal communications show that company officials were made aware of the issue and feared that the document shortfalls related to Atlantis "could lead to catastrophic operator error" and must be addressed.
and expert Sawyer concluded :
In a report Sawyer prepared after his review, he said BP's "widespread pattern of unapproved design, testing and inspection documentation on the Atlantis subsea project creates a risk of a catastrophic incident threatening the [Gulf of Mexico] deep-water environment and the safety of platform workers." Moreover, "the extent of documentation discrepancies creates a substantial risk that a catastrophic event could occur at any time."
"The absence of a complete set of final, up-to-date, 'as built' engineering documents, including appropriate engineering approval, introduces substantial risk of large scale damage to the deep water [Gulf of Mexico] environment and harm to workers, primarily because analyses and inspections based on unverified design documents cannot accurately assess risk or suitability for service," Sawyer's report said. He added, "there is no valid engineering justification for these violations and short cuts."
also see:
Congressman Compares Gulf Coast Oil Spill To 'Chocolate Milk,' Says It Will 'Break Up Naturally' by Liliana Segura via Alternet,May 3, 2010
Slick Operator: The BP I've Known Too Well by Greg Palast via Truthout, May 5,2010
Joe Lieberman On Massive Oil Spill: 'Accidents Happen' Huffington Post,May 5,2010
Nonprofit Conservation Group Has Ties to Oil Interests, Gulf Oil Spill by Marian Wang, ProPublica - May 4, 2010
Huh? Using Anonymous And Dubious Sources, NYT Wonders Whether Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Is Really That Bad. at NYTpicker, May 4, 2010
On Halliburton Cheney corruption see:
" Daylight Robbery " : BBC Film Details How Cheney's Halliburton and other American Corporations Steal From Their Own Government Gord's Poetry Factory June 12 2008
9/11 TRIBUTE FILM MERE PROPAGANDA TO SUPPORT WAR IN IRAQ & THE COMING WAR WITH IRAN Sept, 6, 2008
From Huffington Post : Former Halliburton CEO to Get Jailtime For Cheney Era Corruption Sptember, 4, 2008 by Marcy Gordon
Flip-Flopping McCain; Bill Moyers And Henry Waxman On Corruption in The Bush Regime May 22, 2008, Gord's Poetry Factory
Gord's Poetry Factory:Pimping John Cusack's WAR INC. A MUST SEE ! Hillary Duff - Satire ON Bush & Iraq War & Interview of John Cusack on CBC May 16, 2008
More on Support Your Troops as long as it doesn't cost a lot of money !!!
Is Haliburton & KBR more worthy of Americans support than are the troops ???
VA Ordered Not to Diagnose PTSD by Mike Connery, AlterNet May 15, 2008.The VA is ordering its staff not to diagnose veterans with PTSD, short-changing our soldiers and making worse an already under-treated condition.
This is a disgrace. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and VoteVets.org have discovered that the VA is instructing its staff to avoid diagnosing soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD
and so it goes,
GORD.
No comments:
Post a Comment