NEW ORLEANS – BP finally choked off the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday — 85 days and up to 184 million gallons after the crisis unfolded — then began a tense 48 hours of watching to see whether the capped-off well would hold or blow a new leak.
Keep your fingers crossed.
Meanwhile, having apparently learned nothing from the succession of catastrophes on Wall Street, in the coal mines and out in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama White House is conferring with the Business Roundtable about eliminating many more federal regulations that protect the environment, workers, consumers and investors.
#1 by Larry Bergan on July 15, 2010 - 11:28 pm
What has happened to OneUtah authors pictures and names. Is somebody being threatened?
#2 by cav on July 16, 2010 - 6:39 am
Two of my concerns: Are the leaks on the sea-floor, elsewhere in the installation, or from any of the other hundreds of wells?
The clean-up! Now the work begins.
#3 by cav on July 16, 2010 - 6:44 am
oops..Are there leaks…
And thirdly: fixing the regulatory package!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#4 by Dwight Sheldon Adams on July 16, 2010 - 9:07 am
I’m wondering the same thing as Larry. Somehow Richard isn’t quite as handsome as an oil rig.
#5 by Dwight Sheldon Adams on July 16, 2010 - 9:09 am
That last sentence came out sounding totally wrong! LOL
#6 by Richard Warnick on July 16, 2010 - 2:37 pm
Pics are back. Now you can make a side-by-side comparison.
#7 by Larry Bergan on July 16, 2010 - 5:17 pm
But why are the authors pictures and names missing from the comments pages? Is there some kind of a problem?
#8 by cav on July 16, 2010 - 5:24 pm
Our host has peen thinking about changing the comments system for a while now.
I predict we’ll be hearing from him in this regard in, 5…4…3…
#9 by Larry Bergan on July 16, 2010 - 9:37 pm
The old saying is true:
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Thanks for reinstating the pictures and names, webmaster! You know how I hate anonymity.
#10 by Larry Bergan on July 16, 2010 - 9:37 pm
This blog rocks!
#11 by Gary Kunkel on July 16, 2010 - 9:39 pm
I was kind of hoping the pictures would stay away for awhile, but maybe I’ll just recrop so my head is a bit smaller…
#12 by Larry Bergan on July 16, 2010 - 10:15 pm
Come on Gary, nobody’s picture is worse then mine. Cliff took it when I was out on the street. I’ve thought about having him change it for years, but what the heck; nobody cares.
#13 by Gary Kunkel on July 17, 2010 - 7:30 am
Fair enough, Larry
but I yet still may have to put some special effects on mine…
#14 by shane on July 17, 2010 - 10:29 am
Back to the main story…
I guess this is what really winds me up about the current poly-tics in the land of the star speckled banana. We have a president who is pretty center of the road, a bit left on one or two issues, and a bit right on several more. He is continuing many of the worst policies of the last admin simply because he is so center of the road.
…and the rightwing nuts and teabaggers scream socialist. Seriously. If we had a liberal party in America, we would be in good shape!
F’ Overton’s Window and all the extreme rightwing ‘tards that have moved it so far.
#15 by Larry Bergan on July 18, 2010 - 12:18 am
It is maddening isn’t it Shane. Obama gives their side a whole lot more then his own base, and they act like he’s some kind of radical threat.
All over the television, they are asking the question, “how will the oil spill affect the Obama administration in the coming election”, as if he was the person responsible for causing the spill.
#16 by Larry Bergan on July 19, 2010 - 4:38 pm
Honestly now!
This is the guy that Obama wanted to appoint and Glenn Beck took out of contention for, fleetingly, questioning 911?
Don’t ask me about the Chevron commercial, because I can’t even begin to answer.
#17 by shane on July 19, 2010 - 8:56 pm
I couldn’t get the Chevron commercial out of my mind for the entire talk. That kind of irony floors me.
#18 by Larry Bergan on July 19, 2010 - 9:16 pm
Pure and unadulterated irony. No doubt about it.
I guess the story here is whether Van Jones knew this ad would be connected with his great talk. I really doubt it!
#19 by cav on July 23, 2010 - 11:10 pm
Van Jones:
Well, first of all, I think we have to recognize that we are in a new world. So that people criticize the White House, criticize the NAACP, to criticize different news outlets. We’ve never been here before. You remember that 2006 was the first election that YouTube impacted with the “macaca” incident and George Allen. We’re in a world where we’ve taken away our immune system, the old filters, the old gatekeepers, the old Walter Cronkites. We’ve banished them, but we don’t have new ones, so we’re in a situation without antibodies and so the information system has taken a huge leap forward but the wisdom system has not. The wisdom system has not.
So you can any data you want to about anybody at any time and do anything with it you want to. And people are now engineering viruses and pumping them into the body politic. And we don’t have the antibodies yet. And it will be a long process. What eventually will happen, big picture, is that 5% of the country will have an experience like mine, lose a job because of something on Facebook or something, and then 10%, and then it will be 15% and then it will stop because enough people will have seen it and enough people had it happen to them to too a friend that there will be a completely different level of wisdom that will emerge in society. That’s the long-term.
You see, you can have confidence in your country, you can confidence that we will adapt as a culture to these changes in the technology. In the short term, it will be tougher because there are financial incentives to be more shrill, to be more outrageous because there are more outlets so the people that scream the loudest will be rewarded in the short-term.
…
What I think I would say about the overall situation, though, is that this is a learning moment. And you’re right. I had a much more colorful life than Ms. Sherrod. I mean, let’s be honest: I was distinguishable as a radical leftist in the Bay Area when I was young… You’ve got to get up early, you’ve got to work weekends to be distinguishable as a leftist as a young guy in the Bay Area. So sure, it’s easy then to grab stuff and to make people think that I’m somebody who’s scary.
This woman is like Rosa Parks. This woman is as pure as the driven snow and she got slimed. And so, again, to be clear, people learned quicker. Luckily people could find the full video and audio, which wasn’t as easily available in my case, that kind of stuff, and the thing turned around fast. So we have a happy ending.
#20 by cav on July 23, 2010 - 11:16 pm
Van Jones was quiet gracious in his absolving the WH of blame, but frankly that’s not his call. When someone assaults one of your guys, and he offers to resign so as not to create a problem, you have a choice. Yes, he’s being a good soldier by offering to fall on his sword, but a good leader has to determine whether to let him. If he’s in that position out of his own malfeasance then sure, cut him loose and let him take the hit. But that isn’t what happened to Van Jones. He too was the target of an unfounded smear campaign through no fault of his own, and the high road response would have been to decline his resignation and call out the scum who attacked him. Their failure to do just that has led to continued attacks on their (apparently rightly) perceived weakness and unwillingness to stand behind their own people.
Where was Tom Vilsack’s offer to resign for what was unmistakeably his very own fuckup? Not forthcoming. The powerful white guys don’t have to even offer, but the lower echelon black people are expected to go quietly and quickly. Bad policy. Bad politics.
#21 by Larry Bergan on July 23, 2010 - 11:46 pm
cav:
Thanks for the Van Jones message. This is a smart guy – just read and listen to what he says – and he’s right:
The Sherrod episode has finally exposed what should have been exposed long ago: the willingness of Democrats at ALL levels to hide behind Fox “news” and all the other crappy “news” organizations who only print what they are told until hell freezes over and then some.
The gig is up and an apology is due to Van Jones and ACORN by anybody who still has integrity in this stupid circus we call a democracy.
No more cowering, every time somebody says “tin foil hat”, “little green men” or any of the other triggers that immediately discredit people on the left, but usually not the hucksters on the right.