WHY HASN'T ANY OF THE MEDIA PICKED UP ON THIS BIG BIG NEWS STORY??????
Bob Dudley, BP executive on ABC'S This Week May 30:
"The relief well at the end of August is certainly the end point on this game."
relief well to be finished. That implies a few days or so after July.
It's like $ .99 instead of $1. The truth is that Bob Dudley, a BP executive said to Jake Tapper at
the very beginning of his interview "The relief well at the end of
August is certainly the end point on this game." THAT MEANS WE WAIT
UNTIL SEPTEMBER, NOT AUGUST. 30 MORE DAYS OF OIL SPILL THAN THE MEDIA
IS SUGGESTING. COME ON PEOPLE, REPORT THE BIG NEWS THAT 'THIS WEEK'
GAINED AND NOBODY NOTICED !! Rachael Maddow has reported that the relief well may
take 5 or 6 tries before hitting the right spot. Each try is another well
I saw Neil young tonight at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta. He was his powerful awesome self. He also did 2 things that I loved that I had never heard before, one was a sweet song about his little friend Leila, who I assume is his daughter or granddaughter; but the other was genius: he played a harmonica along with a pump organ called a caliopé, that is usually played in the circus. The combination was extraordinary and I've never before heard those two instruments combined. Also appearing as his opening act was Bert Jansch, a Brit who is one of my favorite guitarists. He's a decent singer with decent songs but his guitar playing is of the first order. Also he has an unmistakable sound; you would never mistake him for anyone else.
When Neil was still playing around Toronto, his friend sent me a tape for advice. I told him that Neil was very special but he needed more time and should get out of Toronto and head to New York or L.A. He headed to L.A. When the Buffalo Springfield formed, they hung out at my New York office when they were recording their first album and played their day's work on my good (for the times) record player. I heard the final mix on For What It's Worth before anyone outside of their record company and Producer. I was the guest Editor of a song magazine called Topic at the time and I was the first to print a Neil Young song - Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing - which contains the line "Who's putting sponge in the bells that once rung". Needless to say I have been a Neil Young fan since his early days and I'm proud to have been of some modest help. Lily and I are especially impressed with his concentrating on and following the music without the usual music biz bullshit. He has kept himself pure and whole. He is the only one of his generation to not sell out. Hell, even Dylan did commercials for Cadillac and Victoria's Secret. Neil's secret is he listens to his heart and follows his music muse.
When I tried to get to see him after the concert, his security dude wouldn't tell him that my wife and I were standing there. I couldn't get pass the asshole, who was doing his job a lot over the top. I told him I've known Neil for many years and that he would be glad to see us, but the dude kept saying he's heard that story many times before. All he had to do was to stick his head in the bus door and ask; he did a serious disservice to me and Neil. I hope Neil discovers that Lily and Herb Gart tried to pay their respects in Atlanta.
A list. That's all it would take to prevent the malfunction of
equipment on that oil platform. It can really be that simple. A
written check list of all that needs to be done in order to protect
the work. I know how minor this sounds to you but consider this: In
hospitals across America, Nurses, surgeons, and staff have found that
by having a checklist MISTAKES WERE REDUCED OVER SEVENTY PERCENT.
The checklist is one of the best protections from the normal human mind's
inherent psychology. We all make mistakes, but where it counts: oil
rigs, the operating room, and many other important functions, the
damned check list will reduce accidents over sixty percent. Not good
enough, but much better than today.
BP's OTHER Spill this Week
by Greg Palast for Buzzflash.comFriday, May 28 2010
Oil spill residue, Chenega, Alaska©1997James Macalpine-PIF
With the Gulf Coast dying of oil poisoning, there's no space in the
press for British Petroleum's latest spill, just this week: over
100,000 gallons, at its Alaska pipeline operation. A hundred thousand
used to be a lot. Still is. On Tuesday, Pump Station 9, at Delta Junction on the 800-mile
pipeline, busted. Thousands of barrels began spewing an explosive
cocktail of hydrocarbons after "procedures weren't properly
implemented" by BP operators, say state inspectors "Procedures weren't
properly implemented" is, it seems, BP's company motto. Few Americans know that BP owns the controlling stake in the
trans-Alaska pipeline; but, unlike with the Deepwater Horizon, BP
keeps its Limey name off the Big Pipe. There's another reason to keep their name off the Pipe: their
management of the pipe stinks. It's corroded, it's undermanned and
"basic maintenance" is a term BP never heard of. BP: Red, White and Bush I don't want readers to think BP is a foreign marauder unconcerned
about America. The company is deeply involved in our democracy. Bob Malone, until
last year the Chairman of BP America, was also Alaska State
Co-Chairman of the Bush re-election campaign. Mr. Bush, in turn, was
so impressed with BP's care of Alaska's environment that he pushed
again to open the state's arctic wildlife refuge (ANWR) to drilling by
the BP consortium. You can go to Alaska today and see for yourself the evidence of BP's
care of the wilderness. You can smell it: the crude oil is still on
the beaches from the Exxon Valdez spill. Exxon took all the blame for the spill because they were dumb enough
to have the company's name on the ship. But it was BP's pipeline
managers who filed reports that oil spill containment equipment was
sitting right at the site of the grounding near Bligh Island. However,
the reports were bogus, the equipment wasn't there and so the beaches
were poisoned. At the time, our investigators uncovered four-volumes
worth of faked safety reports and concluded that BP was at least as
culpable as Exxon for the 1,200 miles of oil-destroyed coastline. Nevertheless, we know BP cares about nature because they have lots of
photos of solar panels in their annual reports - and they've painted
every one of their gas stations green. The green paint-job is supposed to represent the oil giant's love of
Mother Nature. But CEO Tony Hayward knows it stands for the color of
the Yankee dollar. In 2006, BP finally discovered the dangerous corrosion in the pipeline
after running a "smart pig" through it. The "pig" is an electronic
drone that BP should have been using continuously, though they had not
done so for 14 years. Another "procedure not properly implemented." By not properly inspecting the pipeline for over a decade, BP failed
to prevent that March 2006 spill which polluted Prudhoe Bay. And
cheaping out on remote controls for their oil well blow-out preventers
appears to have cost the lives of 11 men on the Deepwater Horizon. But then, failure to implement proper safety procedures has saved BP,
not millions but billions of dollars, suggests that the company's pig
is indeed, very, very smart.