Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Fleeting News

You had better read this one before it disappears. When Rahm Emmanuel finds out about it, they will unleash the minister of propaganda to kill it:

Can't Find Any Oil as Dilution Works

The crisis can't be allowed to go to waste. They emphasized for 100 days the size of the spill, always quoting volume in "millions of gallons" rather than the more common measurement for crude oil of barrels. You don't get a large enough number that way.

They deployed a fleet of beach sweepers (creating "jobs") and we got deluged with images of white coverall clad crews gathering tar balls from pristine white sand. Yet, the pictures seldom showed blackened beaches. More commonly it was yards of crime scene tape, shielding a couple of dozen sun-bathers from water access while the clean-up crews stood around with a rake in one hand and a Glad-bag in the other. Media would zoom in on close ups of a black marble or two. Talking heads would raise a Zip-Loc with brown stuff in it as symptomatic of the ecological disaster.

Hundreds of boats were sent to sea (creating "jobs") to skim oil while thousands of flight hours were expended carrying video crews to shoot reddish spumes below the surface with little basis for evaluating dimension, quantity, or condition of what was pictured.

How many miles of video were shot of that oil-soaked brown pelican? Can you endure another picture of a baby sea turtle being held affectionately before relegation to his oil-soaked fate?

Politicos came visiting, posing, promising, touring, nodding sympathetically and then going home. Our own VP Biden brought his expertise to the Gulf Coast and then submitted a $750,000.00 tab for his travel expenses which quite arguably were either unnecessary to the effort or an essential part of his duties not an additional expense.

Businesses along the coast suffer. People stay home or vacation elsewhere. Fisherman are denied access to their livelihood. Diners question whether seafood is safe to consume.

Yet, apparently, nature is taking its course. For the last several days there have been minor items indicating that skimmers and collectors are having difficulty finding any spill to gather.

Maybe the 10 to the XX-power waters of the Gulf are absorbing the 10 to the 3rd power oil spill and what isn't diluted to inconsequentiality is evaporated to nothingness.

What will the Bamster have to talk about next? Maybe a discussion of how the DOD let 91,000 classified documents walk out the door under the arm of an E-4?

3 comments:

Ralph said...

The point about the reference to gallons instead of barrels of oil is well taken, and is yet another example of mischief in the mainstream media. Another point that the media ignores is that most of the environmental harm in the Gulf oil spill was caused by our own government, not BP. Yes, many of us believe that BP was negligent in its practices, and should be subject to due process of law. But the agencies of the federal government are responsible for protecting us, ensuring both regulatory compliance and proper emergency response by leaseholders. The federal government may (and often should) delegate tasks, but it cannot delegate the responsibilities that are imposed on its departments and agencies by law. Had the federal response been prompt and adequate, it is very likely that no oil would have reached the shore.

By the way, many pilots who read Thunder Tales will be familiar with the concept of fail-safe designs. The FAA (under FAR Part 25) requires that transport aircraft have fail-safe redundancy so that (e.g.) a damaged spar will not result in a wing failure; other spars would absorb the loads. Likewise, there is redundancy in hydraulic systems, backup pitch trim and other design features to keep us safe. It seems clear that the current technology of blowout protectors (BOPs), while generally reliable, falls short of the fail-safe level that experts like Dr. Bill Wattenberg have advocated. What are our federal regulators going about this, or are they waiting for our technically illiterate media to bring this up?

MagiK said...

Ive said before here and other place, I have friends in the Gulf, some near beaches that were specifically pointed out as having oil washing ashore, and yet my friends having been there on the day in question saw no oil, nor in fact anyone worried about oil....Im sure there was some damage done but the actual consequences have been completely obliterated by the hype machines. Another "Much ado about nothing" used to bamboozel the unwashed.

TheOtherLarry said...

...and all that hype has caused home values in some areas of Florida to take a(nother) nose dive.

Intentional?