Gulf states in political conflict

It's about oil, government and money.

They're ruled by despots and oil hungry companies.

The people are full of radical religion and might take up arms against the infidel.

Oil has brought them money, but also environmental degredation.

Someday, God will save them, insh'alla

This is the Gulf....

the Gulf of Mexico

I'm talking about Louisianna, Texas, Florida, Mississippi and Alabama

And you thought I was talking about the Middle East, didn'tcha?

The despots are the money-hungry politicians, like Bush43, who are destroying environmental laws.

BP is the main oil company in the Gulf. They saved a billion by firing all their safety personnel.

The radical religion is fundamentalist Christianity, with guns. The infidels are the present government, the one that's actually trying to save these people from Bush43 and from themselves. They still might just end up paying the ultimate price. There's no telling what a fanatic with a gun will do.

There are jobs, but there's also one hell of a mess in the Gulf.
Anybody got a match?

Adios carbon-burning muchachos

From Mejico
-Costick67 (8^P

checkitout: from Greg Palast
Slick Operator: The BP I've known too well

by Greg Palast for Truthout.org

May 5, 2010

I've seen this movie before. In 1989, I was a fraud investigator hired to dig into the cause of the Exxon Valdez disaster. Despite Exxon's name on that boat, I found the party most to blame for the destruction was ... British Petroleum. That's important to know, because the way BP caused devastation in Alaska is exactly the way BP is now sliming the entire Gulf Coast.

Deepwater Horizon in flames before sinking. Photo provided by D.BecnelTankers run aground, wells blow out, pipes burst. It shouldn't happen but it does. And when it does, the name of the game is containment. Both in Alaska, when the Exxon Valdez grounded, and in the Gulf over a week ago, when the Deepwater Horizon platform blew, it was British Petroleum that was charged with carrying out the Oil Spill Response Plans ("OSRP") which the company itself drafted and filed with the government.

What's so insane, when I look over that sickening slick moving toward the Delta, is that containing spilled oil is really quite simple and easy. And from my investigation, BP has figured out a very low cost way to prepare for this task: BP lies. BP prevaricates, BP fabricates and BP obfuscates.

That's because responding to a spill may be easy and simple, but not at all cheap. And BP is cheap. Deadly cheap.

To contain a spill, the main thing you need is a lot of rubber, long skirts of it called "boom." Quickly surround a spill or leak or burst, then pump it out into skimmers or disperse it, sink it or burn it. Simple.

But there's one thing about the rubber skirts: you've got to have lots of it at the ready, with crews on standby in helicopters and on containment barges ready to roll. They have to be in place round the clock, all the time, just like a fire department; even when all is operating A-OK. Because rapid response is the key. In Alaska, that was BP's job, as principal owner of the pipeline consortium Alyeska. It is, as well, BP's job in the Gulf, as principal lessee of the deepwater oil concession.

Chugach Natives of Alaska clean Exxon Valdez oil off their beach, five years after the spill. 1994©James McAlpine for Palast FundBefore the Exxon Valdez grounding, BP's Alyeska group claimed it had these full-time oil spill response crews. Alyeska had hired Alaskan Natives, trained them to drop from helicopters into the freezing water and set boom in case of emergency. Alyeska also certified in writing that a containment barge with equipment was within five hours sailing of any point in the Prince William Sound. Alyeska also told the state and federal government it had plenty of boom and equipment cached on Bligh Island.

---more on truthout.org

[oh, the f$^*£kin humanity of the thing. 11 people died]