The Suspect MMS.
Spoke Kieran Suckling, BiologicalDiversity,org, a green gang that knows a deal about the special language of the Gulf fields. Keith Olberman welcomed Kieran Suckling as a guest back on May 5. We spoke May 24 re the fact that the Department of the Interior Minerals Management Services, which is the supervisory regulator for the offshore rigs, does no supervision at all, just processes permits, waivers, bypasses and so forth -- as it has done for decades. The assumption is that Big Oil can manage its own risks and technology. Learned that Ken Salazar and POTUS have both been parsing language for weeks now to avoid speaking flatly that six rigs have been given permits for new drilling in deepwater since April 20. No permits for "new" wells is the way the POTUS has been avoiding the fact -- just using existing wells to drill new boreholes. Four of the six are in "ultra deep" water, greater than 9100 feet. All MMS-approved.
Deepwater Horizon.
Also learn that MMS granted a bypass waiver for a new borehole at Deepwater Horizon on April 15, just five days before the explosion and fire. Kieran Suckling tells me that the gusher at 5,000 feet is a product of only five days of drilling. Whatever happened that led to the failure of the BOP was in a small window of April 15-20. Also, what was wrong with the previous borehole that BP had to apply for a new start? MMS approved it the same day of the application for the waiver. No inspection, no questions. SOP. I do not have a firm timeline, but I have enough to suppose that the investigation will reveal alarming details about safety, decisions, arrogance and BP policy on the drilling floor. And what is the SOP at the ultra-deep boreholes? And who is watching over the drillers now? And if the robots are at their extreme limits at 5,000 feet, how are they at 9,100 feet? And what about the BOP at the ultra-deep sites? Who inspects a piece of technology that is little changed for 90 years? The BOP are manually operated, by robots. Do the ultra-deep BOPs have remote triggers -- as the Deepwater Horizon BOP did not? I am just learning. The MMS has a lot of 'splainin' to do. So do POTUS and the Department of the Interior -- even for the poor and less-than-transparent education of the public since April 22. These look to have been man-made errors of the third kind: answering the wrong questions precisely. Unless the Obama administration has been practicing errors of the fourth kind -- answering the wrong questions precisely while knowing full well and cunningly that they are the wrong questions to answer.
This story from the very beginning has not sounded quite right. I’ve seen everyone under the sun blamed so far, including Dick Cheney. Loads of political points scored. And it all sounds way too hollow. Something about this is seriously missing. I believe the real culprit is still at large – as is the solution.
None of the 100 or so eyewitnesses have so far been publicly interviewed. This follows a somewhat similar tack re the sinking of the South Korean war ship by the North. For weeks we were to believe that a flock of birds did it; or that the sailors blew themselves up lighting Marlboros. Accident? Until it could no longer be kept under wraps. Now we know why. It demanded a response from the Obama administration. And the anti-war sissies in the White House had no response to offer.
Okay! So maybe it wasn’t the North Koreans in the Gulf. But something did happen out there and now we’re stuck with it. More than a month has passed and we’re still not any closer to solving it. Why? Could it be that the only solution is something the administration is loath to consider? Might it involve a nuclear detonation? What would be the implication were a famously anti-nuclear, anti-military president to attempt it?
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
The press better wake up!
I remember back when there was another Democrat administration in the White House and Madeleine Albright was dispatched to North Korea. We all saw her waving a piece of paper in front of the cameras and toasting the dear North Korean leader. Here at home Albright was declared a diplomat par excellence. And her president was declared an outright genius. All was right with the world.
In the meantime nothing much had changed. Disturbing reports about hunger and gross human rights violations continued to leak out of the North Korean Alcatraz. Kim Jong-Il would go on to ignore what had ostensibly been agreed to. He would continue to build nuclear weapons and delivery systems. He would continue to export WMD and related technology – particularly to the near and Middle East. He would continue to conduct tests in international waters. He would continue to threaten his neighbors and world peace in general.
Since Obama has been president, Kim has become even more belligerent because he now knows that nothing stands in his way. (By the way, we can now substitute ‘China’ for ‘North Korea’ in our narrative.) In fact, the western Marxist state-controlled (see-no-evil) press can be counted on to cover-up, suppress and sugar-coat any wayward dictatorial impulse and thus aid in maintaining the status quo as pertains to the world’s elite decision makers. A happy sound bite here and there, a handshake, a pair of painted smiles, the delicate clink of Champagne glasses has become enough to placate the masses and blind them to the atrocities in blood committed by any one of the current crop of securely entrenched (dear) leaders. The proletariat has been forced from the stage.
I can well imagine the morning after Israel has been nuked out of existence. There will be no headlines; no breathless news reports; no analysis. The only indication we will have of the horrific genocide that had just taken place - if we happen to be at the airport that fateful morning – is that all flights to Tel Aviv have been cancelled indefinitely.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Peter,
Though I concur with the sentiment that the current administration has presented a weak front and posture to the world a turning away from the "burden" of containment and the responsibility of defending the aspirations of freedom throughout the world, I think you sink here into hyperbole. South Korea is fully capable of militarily "handling" the North and dealing a death blow to the regime but they have another long range aspiration to reunification that is threatened by taking such action that might jeopardize this intent and incidentally be a bloody mess. You may think it cowardly to avoid war and I think the distaste for armed conflict is often rooted in such fear, but sometimes there is a greater wisdom in such a play. I'm not saying that the current administration has a plan but I don't see a plan on your part either. Do we threaten? Do we posture? With a character like Kim Jung "Mentally" Il ??? What does he have to lose in calling our bluff? Are we capable of committing so many thousands of our troops to such a deployment as a 'hot"war would call for? Dowe NUKE them?
As for Israel I'm sure there is a fail safe mechanism providing for a mutually assured destruction that would would make your predicted genocide less than one sided not that this is reason for comfort.
I have a general issue also withthe attraction to conspiracy theory and accusations of Marxism . I thought of a Bentson/Quayle paraphrase in this regard_ I knew Karl Marx,Karl Marx was my friend, and you sir are no Karl Marx_ These "journalists are such a watered down version of the hard core disciples of dialectical materialistic strivings to be unrecognizable to the term. They are however no less, and perhaps more dangerous in their appeal to the average unsuspecting masses out there. What I am saying is that you cannot reach the people you need to affect by using terms they can dismiss so easily and thus defeat your entire more relevant points. If you cannot prove a conspiracy it is better to keep harbored suspicions close to the vest.In this way one has a beter chance of disarming the protective layers over these nefarious possibilities.Also the "Boy who Cried Wolf" parable becomes instructive in that THEY will make you out to be a paranoid crank with so many unsupportable theories.
As for the Gulf disaster and the possibility of sabotage, I have my doubts- but ???
dr.yo - I am holding back, believe me. I wouldn't dare utter what I really think about this administration. Nothing I’ve said hasn’t been said before, and every day I’m hearing more and more people say it.
I don’t see the press as Marxist – though they might as well be. I see them more in terms of the ‘useful idiots’ of a Marxist regime. It all works out to the same, I suppose.
As for North Korea: South Korea could defend itself against the North, as you say. But it could not defend itself against China without U.S. help. That is why there is all the hand-wringing on SK’s part. The people of SK clearly expect their government to do something. They have that right. They cannot be expected to play Jesus and ‘turn the other cheek’.
If I were to come up to you and kick you in the shins, what would you do? A wolf would lunge at my throat. A dog, already beaten into submission, would allow itself to be abused further, and you’d have a Myanmar-like situation. I do not believe the South Koreans are there yet, even though the liberal media and the university students there have some issues with capitalism.
As to our own country: Though we’ve had our issues with George W., most of us would be happy to see him back. If a hundred years from now we should happen to go through a list of past presidents, we would note that the list goes directly from #43 to #45 (skipping #44). This would be because the 45th president would have had to reverse everything the 44th president had set in motion. Every bill overturned; every executive order voided; every treaty re-negotiated; every appointment recalled; etc. It would be as though we never had a 44th president. (The oil spill in the Gulf continues to be an appropriate metaphor for the Obama administration.)
Do I actually believe this will happen? No, not really. And neither do I believe we will still be around 100 years from now.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
"What I am saying is that you cannot reach the people you need to affect by using terms they can dismiss so easily and thus defeat."
Yes, all one needs to defeat the determinedly wrong-headed is an elegant argument. Not to worry, doc. You can't reach those people to whom you refer with a mountain of facts and an ocean of data either, e.g., Socialism is the thin-entering wedge for mass murder. See, G. Lackoff: "Facts don't matter unless they support one's preconceived ideas."
Why are we surprised that a limited government perverted into an unlimited one is unable to meet basic goals of securing an oil rig. Mal investment caused this. BP, instead of burning billions on "alternative energy" and DC wasting billions on the "great green hoax" - should have been focusing on making the extraction technology robust and moving us on the long road to a nuclear/hydrogen based economy.