The Whole Delivery

Somehow, conservatives will still advocate for more deregulation despite more disturbing evidence of why enforcing rules and laws on powerful industries is paramount to a country's sanity : Halliburton knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job, the presidential commission investigating the accident said on Thursday. In the first official finding of responsibility for the blowout, which killed 11 workers and led to the largest offshore oil spill in American history, the commission staff determined that Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards. Corporations such as these have no shame in cutting corners, if if they violate crucial safety rules. And we see the disastrous effects of not only their ill-advised choices, but also the lack of suffic...

Look at one some folks found ! Scientists on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico are finding a substantial layer of oily sediment stretching for dozens of miles in all directions. Their discovery suggests that a lot of oil from the Deepwater Horizon didn't simply evaporate or dissipate into the water — it has settled to the seafloor. The Research Vessel Oceanus sailed on Aug. 21 on a mission to figure out what happened to the more than 4 million barrels of oil that gushed into the water. Onboard, Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, says she suddenly has a pretty good idea about where a lot of it ended up. It's showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast. "I've collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico, including around this area. And I've never seen anything like this," she said in an interview via satellite phone from the boat. But ...

It was only a matter of time it appears, but over the last few days, it seems some media outlets are becoming British Petroleum's 2nd Public Relations Group. Yesterday on CNN, both Rick Sanchez and Anderson " BOTH SIDES DO IT " Cooper asked one of the all time most incompetent and egregious questions ever on American news television, saying to their viewers "Where is all the oil?" In fact, Sanchez went on to have the audacity to inquire, "Why is the left and traditional media outlets asking that question?" But wait, just when you think that maybe limited to just that "neutral" network's occasional addiction to "neutral do nothing" journalism, this whole memo of inquiring about the location of all that now invisible oil (and even questioning whether the amount of oil dumped into the gulf of BP was actually as much as some people estimated like Cooper did last night) was not just limited to those two. Just get a load ladies ...

They can't even do clever Photoshopping well. AmericaBlog has been all over BP trying to get on their "inner Adobe Photoshop" the last three days. What makes this story even more extraordinary is the fact that you have the corporate media actually give bloggers/left journalists credit. The Washington Post, who basically morphs back into the Washington Toast with how Bill Arkin fails to attribute Timothy Sherlock and Jeremy Scahill on writing his "American Top Secret" (more on that latter) a while ago story, actually did something kind of cool. Post writer Steven Mufson actually gives America Blog and Gawker credit for identifying how much deceiving clowns these pathetic people are. Now if only he could tell that to Arkin and the rest of his staff.

Our job here is done ! I keeping telling myself $20 billion still is not enough for their repayment damage funds. Especially when they are already making it difficult for people to repay them and robing New Orleans in the process.

Because there is a whole lot more things they will need to do after this gets done. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy Still a long way to go here.

What a song, what a song, what a song, and you have to appreciate Talib even more for this one. More than just about BP, for those who didn't know. Reflection Eternal "Ballad of the Black Gold" from Sam Ellison on Vimeo .

What is wrong with this country ? A federal judge in New Orleans on Tuesday sided with the oil industry , striking down the temporary moratorium on new offshore exploration and deepwater drilling the Obama administration imposed last month. That judge, it turns out, has in recent years had interests in Transocean—the world's largest offshore drilling company and the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig—as well as other energy companies engaged in offshore oil extraction. According to the most recently available financial disclosure form for US District Court Judge Martin Feldman, he had holdings of up to $15,000 in Transocean in 2008. He has also recently owned stock in offshore drilling or oilfield service providers Halliburton, Prospect Energy, Hercules Offshore, Parker Drilling Co., and ATP Oil & Gas. Feldman was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. So this Reagan appointee with ties (at least old ties, at the very least) to the oil industry, rules in favor for ...

And basically leading to a great political day for all Democrats : That is what you do for your masters . The White House and Democrats have gone right away at seizing on Barton's unbelievable stupidity . "What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused this disaster than the fishermen, small business owners and communities whose lives have been devastated by the destruction. Congressman Barton may think that a fund to compensate these Americans is a 'tragedy', but most Americans know that the real tragedy is what the men and women of the Gulf Coast are going through right now. Members from both parties should repudiate his comments." And how did the TV people cover it?? Update 4 -- CNN and MSNBC both replayed Barton's apology to BP at the top of the hour. Fox completely ignored it. Go figure. CNN also played Markey's response. I guess Barton's other masters at Fox didn't want to see their ...

That was the key quote, but still a lot of questions. And was really up with that excuse of approving drilling? Anyway, the full text of the speech . The full speech.

This could really start spelling the end of Bulls--- Polluters: That commercial may not be able to save them: People in other states, especially Florida down in Pensacola, are angry that all of this darkness has headed on their shores. Their shores that they don't even do offshore drilling on. I think people could literally, actually, be done for here. Because it is looking like a hopeful wish not just shared by the dirty hippy community.

She's a liar everyday, every second, and a nutcase every single time. Nevertheless, she has won this title in a long time, so she definitely deserved it for how desperate she always is to say everything and hope it sticks. It's always funny to see : We may have made a great discovery here. She has found a set of people she hates more than Levi Johnson. And for that dramatic discovery, she retains a long overdue....... ....Straight Jacket Award!

Not........Good............... AT.....................ALL : Figures he might say that, since he believes in the "Heckuva Job" philosophy as well I guess : The managing director of one of the big companies of this world, with this type of judgment and foresight. No wonder why we are in the dire mess that we are in.

What a shame . The New York Times has the bad news: BP engineers failed again to plug the gushing oil well on Saturday, a technician working on the project said, representing yet another setback in a series of unsuccessful procedures the company has tried a mile under the sea to stem the flow spreading into the Gulf of Mexico. BP made a third attempt at what is termed the “junk shot” Friday night, a procedure that involves pumping odds and ends like plastic cubes, knotted rope, and golf balls into the blowout preventer, the five-story safety device atop the well. The maneuver is complementary to the heavily scrutinized effort known as a “top kill,”which began four days ago and involves pumping heavy mud into the well to counteract the push of the escaping oil. If the well is sealed, the company plans to then fill it with cement. The technician working on the project said Saturday pumping has again been halted and a review of the data so far is under way. “Right now, I would not...

President Obama held a press conference right outside of what was formally the Gulf of Mexico today, slamming British Petroleum and indicating that they "will be held accountable" for their actions. Obama also indicated that BP is financially responsible for the entire 7 week disaster that has transpired in front of the nation's eyes. But we shall see if BP is made to pay all of it and held fully accountable for their pestilent actions in due time. First on the mind is for operation "top kill" to work. And for BP's sake, it had better work.

After all of that talk and hype, it will have to wait another day : Ugh : HOUSTON — BP had to halt its ambitious effort to plug its stricken oil well in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday afternoon when engineers saw that too much of the drilling fluid they were injecting into the well was escaping along with the leaking crude oil. A technician at the BP command center said that pumping of the fluid had to be stopped temporarily while engineers were revising their plans, and that the company hoped to resume pumping by midnight, if federal officials approved. The technician, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters, said the problem was not seen as serious. "We’re still quite optimistic," he said, but cautioned: "It is not assured and its not a done deal yet. All of this will require some time." Midnight they say is when it will continue.....we shall see.

The news is breaking that "Broken Promises", I mean, Bristol Petroleum has plugged the whole . And here's the delivery : Reporting from Houma, La. Engineers have succeeded in stopping the flow of oil and gas into the Gulf of Mexico from a gushing BP well, the federal government's top oil spill commander, U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Thursday morning. The "top kill" effort, launched Wednesday afternoon by industry and government engineers, has pumped enough drilling fluid to block all oil and gas from the well, Allen said. The pressure from the well is very low, but persists, he said. Now from the live feed, stuff is still coming out of the Pipe: But they have pronounced that they have closed it. We shall see if that news, which would be very welcoming, is true. Update 2: Now a Reuters report is saying that isn't officially the case yet : The unified command tackling the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cannot confirm or deny a Los Ange...

Photo from the Associated Press To put their workers in such danger, leading to their death, is already enough of a case for these monsters to be incarcerated now. But added intentional negligence on their part adds to the punishment they should have already received . A shocking memo has revealed that British Petroleum admitted to congressional investigators that their decision to ignore warning signs hours before an oil rig exploded led to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Tests indicted that something was wrong on the Deepwater Horizon, yet BP made a "fundamental mistake" in continuing operations, according to the memo released by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.). Two hours afterwards, the rig exploded, ultimately killing 11 workers. "The data suggests that the crew may have attempted mechanical interventions," the memo said. "But soon after, the flow out and pressure increased dramatically and the explosion took place....

It really needed to happen : A White House source said today that President Barack Obama will travel to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast on Friday to to assess efforts to halt the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No details on the visit were immediately available. Sargent makes another terrific point : But it seems to me there's another solution to this perception problem. Maybe Obama should take an additional path of decisive action that clearly is an option right now, which is to use the crisis to rally the public towards real energy reform. Reasonably people can disagree as to whether there's more the White House could be doing to stem the current crisis. For the sake of argument, let's say the White House is right: There's nothing more in the way of decisive action Obama can take in response to the disaster. If that's so, Obama may as well take another course of decisive action that is open to him: Seize this opportunity to shift the energy reform debate...

First, the tweet of the day from yesterday. It is from the invaluable Marcy Wheeler : And from the Philadelphia urban hellhole legend that is Duncan Black : More than that, someone needs to get on the teevee and point out that no, it is not ok for any actor - state, big corporation, or terrorist - to destroy the coastlines and economies of several states. You don't just get to say 'woopsy' and move on. Gigantic fuckups need to have consequences for the perpetrators, even though these days that seems like an amusing notion. Oh so easy, but oh so hard for common sense to be implemented.