World-News

Boston Globe

06/21/10

It wasn’t until seven weeks after the BP oil well began gushing that the company acknowledged oil remained hidden under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and it continues to dispute the extent of miles-long submerged plumes. But an unusual experiment conducted in 2000 off the coast of Norway, a trial run of a deep-water oil and gas spill that BP helped pay for, showed that oil could remain underwater for some time. The North Atlantic exercise was designed to understand how a spill would behave as the drilling industry plumbed new depths to extract oil and gas. The federal Minerals Management Service and 22 companies took part in the test, at about half the depth of the gulf disaster...

http://tinyurl.com/39xtnum



BP and the unmitigated disaster

Intellectual Conservative
by Alan Caruba

06/21/10

The Gulf of Mexico could turn into a giant dead zone if some means cannot be found to staunch the flow of oil and toxic gases emerging from the damaged well beneath the Deepwater Horizon. Industry insiders who understand the engineering of wells are beginning to speak openly among themselves of an unmitigated disaster. … The event and previous explosions at its refineries were the result of years of an internal BP philosophy that focused on profits before safety. Whether it was accident-prone refineries or corrosion in the Alaska pipeline, BP cut corners...

http://tinyurl.com/242p577



Defending aggressors is not a market virtue

Center for a Stateless Society
by Ross Kenyon

06/23/10

The left-wing blogosphere is alight with anti-corporate sentiment, and rightfully so, at Congressman Joe Barton’ s (R-TX) apology to British Petroleum. He recently called the $20 billion restitution fund a ’shakedown.’ Although the congressman has rescinded his comments, I also share his strong dislike of this scheme, but not because this is any more of a shakedown than anything else the state does. The American government has a magnificently horrible record of managing any quantity of money both practically and morally, and I don’t see how they would be any better at distributing funds to innocent victims of environmental disasters. The state has also made it standard operating procedure to protect aggressive firms from being brought to complete justice through limited liability laws in an anti-market and fascistic way...

http://c4ss.org/content/2932



Barack Obama, dictator

Campaign For Liberty
by Jacob G. Hornberger

06/23/10

What better example of dictatorship than President Obama’s dictate to BP to deliver $20 billion to a special fund that will be distributed by some political appointee to victims of the BP oil disaster? Either a nation is ruled by a dictator or it’s governed by the rule of law...

http://www.campaignforliberty.com/article.php?view=959



Sympathy for the devil?

Libertarian Minds
by James Padilioni, Jr.

06/23/10

So let me get this straight. We have a court system designed to allow citizens to petition the government for a redress of grievances. However, instead of using the Constitutionally-established judicial system, the president decides that he will tell-not ask, but tell BP that they must put money aside to compensate those who have been harmed as a result of BP’s actions, as well as suspend the payments of dividends to their investors. This fund will also be managed by an unelected, unaccountable third party. And also, don’t forget that for the last 3 weeks the Justice Department has been in the Gulf region looking into what criminal charges they can bring against BP. Here we have the POTUS using his authority, and presumably the threat of his DOJ, to strong arm a private business to do his bidding, without any due process. If this were done to a private citizen, we’d all cry tyranny. But when it happens to a large corporation, the cries are few and far between. There are many reasons why establishing a fund may be a good thing, but there are no legal ones...

http://www.libertarianminds.com/sympathy-for-the-devil



Oil gushes and power rushes

Reason
by Jacob Sullum

06/23/10

Last week, after President Obama pressured BP to create a compensation fund for victims of its oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, Rep. Joe Barton denounced the arrangement as ‘a $20 billion shakedown.’ The Texas Republican said the fund has ‘no legal standing’ and circumvents the ‘due process system’ for assigning blame and ordering compensation. Although Barton was widely mocked for appearing to defend a huge corporation that is responsible for the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, he had a point. Obama’s grandstanding money grab exemplifies the lawless unilateralism that he condemned as a candidate yet embraced as a president...

http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/23/oil-gushes-and-power-rushes


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

BP's Other Gifts to America-and to the World

By Lawrence S. Wittner

Given the sordid record of BP and other giant oil companies, we might wonder why we tolerate them at all.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25793.htm



The Real Shakedown to Apologize For

By Marty Kaplan

If Barack Obama's extraction of $20 billion from BP was-as Texas Republican Joe Barton called it - a "shakedown," then what would Barton call the $14.4 million he has extracted during his career from oil and gas interests, electric utilities, the health sector, chemical manufacturers, finance and all the other industries forking over cash to him?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25791.htm

--------

Judge Who Ruled Against Offshore Drilling Moratorium Invests in Oil Industry
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/22-16

--------

Obama gives BP a get out of jail free card
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/873.html

It's raining oil in Metro New Orleans
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/874.html

--------

BP Mistake Allows Oil to Flow Unhindered Into Gulf

McClatchy Newspapers: "Workers pulled the 'top hat' device collecting crude oil from BP's gushing Deepwater Horizon well Wednesday morning in a major setback to efforts to contain the leak."

http://www.truth-out.org/bp-oil-leak-setback-top-hat-removed-oil-flow-continues60705



BP-Style Extreme Energy Nightmares to Come

Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch.com: "On June 15th, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America's leading oil companies argued that BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration - something that would not have occurred with proper corporate oversight and will not happen again once proper safeguards are put in place. This is fallacious, if not an outright lie."

http://www.truth-out.org/bp-style-extreme-energy-nightmares-come60684

--------

Why Is Obama Aggravating the Oil Spill Tragedy?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams39.html

--------

A French environmental reporter's take on the Gulf Disaster
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9757/

--------

Offshore Drilling Opponents to Stage Global Beach Protests
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/06/24-8

Center for Biological Diversity: Petition Filed to Increase Protection of Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Devastated by Rushed Oil-Drilling Permits
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/06/24-4



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unilateralism
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=dictatorship
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=tyranny
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=the+rule+of+law
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Joe+Barton
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Joe+Barton
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=DOJ
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=oil+spill
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=drilling
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Minerals+Management+Service
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=British+Petroleum
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=environment+disaster
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alan+Caruba
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Lawrence+S.+Wittner
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Marty+Kaplan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+T.+Klare
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/w-williams
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Ross+Kenyon
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+G.+Hornberger
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=James+Padilioni
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+Sullum
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Nathan+Ehrlich