Finally, some good news

After three months, billions of dollars spent on PR campaigns (with a little on oil cleanup as well), unprecedented media blackouts, and a couple of charred whales, BP has finally gotten around to capping that gushing plume of black death that was turning, whoops... TURNED, the Gulf into an open oil pit. Commence mild celebrations that things from this point forward can no longer get much worse.

BP said on Friday the early test results on its recently capped undersea well were heartening and there were no signs of fresh oil leaks, as the stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico held tight overnight and into the morning.

Kent Wells, a senior vice president at BP, told reporters on a conference call that the pressure inside the well had built up steadily, as engineers had hoped it would, and that engineers would continue to perform different analyses and scour video feeds from cameras to look for any underground leaks.
...
The oil stopped flowing from the well around 2:25 p.m. Thursday when the last of several valves was closed on a cap that the company installed at the top of the well last week, Mr. Wells said. Earlier in the week, Mr. Wells said that the longer the test continued, the better, because it would indicate that the pressure inside the well was holding and that the well bore was intact. On Friday morning, the live video feeds from nearly a mile undersea showed no burbling geyser of oil and gas — only cloudy blue waters and white specks floating across the screen.

Well done. What's the old saying? If you give a Brit 90 days and billions of dollars, he'll eventually be able to do something that would have seemed like the obvious solution months ago? I might be paraphrasing.

Though really, at this point, I wouldn't put it past BP to have rigged up a dummy site underwater and a fake feed showing no oil flowing. Then while everyone celebrates, they cancel their P.O. box, pack everything up, and move their offices five miles down the road. By the time we realize we've been had and that they faked us out yet again, they're gone and we don't know where to find BP or how to get in contact with them. You see, we'd never think to look five miles down the road.

So things are looking up for the oil soaked cuddly wuddly animals of the Gulf. Oh, and all those human creatures, what with their shattered lives, ruined homes, and crippled economy. Hey, we can all start giggling when people say "tar balls" again! It's not such a dire and serious situation anymore! TAR BALLS! Tee-hee-hee.

Anyone want to rain on this parade? President Sunshine?

In Washington, President Obama hailed the development but cautioned against concluding that the corner had been turned, noting that it was still possible for there to be complications that “could be even more catastrophic” than the original leak.

Christ, can't we get 15 minutes into a celebration without President Bring-down bringing us all down? This is literally the only thing that will get done in this country from now until the election, then after the election where Republicans win enough to keep filibustering everything or win outright and Democrats start filibustering everything, and on until the 2012 elections when we elect Sarah Palin and the Mayans hit the self-destruct button.

Give us this small victory, Barry. There's no more oil coming out. Plus, in 10,000 years all that oil will finally be cleaned up. Well, 10,000 years given a few massive technological leaps in our oil gathering and cleaning up technology. See, I'm feeling optimistic again.

Fire water

A scene from Josh Fox's Gasland, a documentary on the natural gas industry, hydraulic fracturing/"Fracking", contamination of the water table, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, dead animals, illness, the environment, the EPA, and dangerous chemicals.

It debuted on HBO last night and was a horrifying look into how the natural gas industry's complete exemption from any and all environmental laws and the expansion of drilling all over the country has lead to increased water contamination and illness amongst the people living nearby. Of course the natural gas companies deny this is happening, that the hundreds of dangerous chemicals they pump into the ground in a process called hydraulic fracturing can't possibly be harming anyone, and how no one is essentially keeping an eye on this. It kind of makes you sick as you watch it over the nearly two hour running time of the film.

So, watch it or DVR it if you have a chance. Here's an interview with the director on PBS. Here's the trailer.

Positive news? From the Gulf? Head...spinning...

OK, so the news out of the Gulf has been an unending dirge of depression and awfulness stewed in a sauce made of human tears. Drunk dolphins? Oh, the humanity.

But lest we be accused of only focusing on the negatives and only pillorying BP, let us announce that there is finally some semblance of good news: the entire BP Board of Directors and executive group has been gored to death by stray rhinos.

Wait, no. I mean we're finally getting towards that point where the oil spewing out underground is being fully collected. Sure that means there's still a shit ton of oil in the Gulf, but must you rain on everything? We're inching closer to a zero sum game. Given the way things have gone, that's a victory of almost Venezuelan election proportions.

BP captured 18,600 barrels of oil from its leaking Gulf of Mexico well yesterday, a 78 percent increase from the previous day and the most since the spill began in April.

BP increased the capture rate in the first 12 hours today, gathering a total of 12,500 barrels of oil, the company said on its website.

BP, based in London, plans to increase the recovery rate to 28,000 barrels a day next week and to 53,000 barrels a day by June 30, said U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander. Allen spoke today during a conference call with reporters.

OK sure, the cloud to that silver lining is that estimates are that 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day is leaking into the ocean and that might be a low estimate... but hey, that's still within a respectable distance of 100%. Think of it as a closest to the pin contest in golf. No one expects you to get a hole-in-one, so just put it close and hope Kevin Costner gets you the rest of the way home.

Picture of the day

Via the Big Picture blog, the oil spill, it's effect on animals, and the cleanup.

"Can you believe this shit, Merv?" "No, Phil, I can't. I'm a fucking pelican."

"NO, YOU LOOK INTO THE CAMERA AND SAY 'IT'S A LIVING'!"

"So fresh and so clean clean! Right?" "I don't get the reference, Phil. Again: I'm a fucking pelican."

Chart of the day

Via liberal rag the New York Times, comes this interactive graphic about the oil spill. Included are time lapse representations of the size, volume, and area of the oil spill, landfall areas and boom setups, diagrams of how efforts to stop the leak (HAH!) would go, and all kinds of wildlife that won't exist anymore.

It's quite well put together.

Quote of the day

We've long since left the health care debate and Barack Obama and the Democrat Party's desire to murder everyone's grandma. We've now moved on to climate legislation. Or not.

But did you know that this climate bill was also a liberal plot to murder Americans? It's true. So says Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA).

BROUN: A lot of old people in Georgia and Florida and all out through the southeast and southwest they’re depending upon air condition just to live. And if their electricity goes sky high, and the energy bill is gonna make that happen if it ever passes. And a lot of people aren’t gonna be able to afford to run their air condition anymore. And a lot of people are gonna have a hard time with, hyperthermia is what we call in medicine as a medical doctor, their body temperature is gonna go up. They’re gonna get dehydration and people are gonna have a lot of problems and it’s gonna have a greater impact on our health care system and people are gonna die because of that. And it’s gonna kill jobs too.

OH OBAMA, WILL YOUR ENDLESS ATTEMPTS TO KILL EVERYONE'S GRANDMA NEVER END? WHY!?!?!?!?!?!? HYPERTHERMIA IS WHAT THEY CALL IN MEDICINE AS A MEDICAL DOCTOR!!

The climate bill will force everyone in hot states to turn off their air conditioning, causing massive heat based death. Makes sense to me.

You know what isn't going to cause heat related deaths? Global warming. So hopefully we follow Broun's lead and do nothing about it.

Picture of the day

Because every so often we need a satellite based photographic reminder of just how fucked the Gulf Coast is, NASA has provided yet another stunning example of just how much goddamn oil is in the water.

And even the satellites are not able to show the full devastation. There's all those underwater oil plumes that BP says don't exist and then there's the fact that "satellite images are not a perfect tool for detecting oil on the surface of water. Outside of the sunglint area (the part of the satellite image where the mirror-like reflection of the Sun is blurred into a wide, washed out strip by waves), the oil may be imperceptible against the dark background of the water."

So there's that. And just how much oil is in the water? Recent estimates about the oil spill have doubled. Which, if you remember, was after the previous estimates had been increased tenfold from previous estimates which had increased fivefold, from previous estimates which had doubled. And they still are probably underestimating the amount of oil in the water. Just imagine the biggest number you can think of and then double that. That's how much oil is in the water. One kajillion fafillion bazillion gallons of oil.

Anyway, onto NASA's latest photos. Click to embiggen.



Take that Mother Earth. We've finally defeated you.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 06.04

Portland artist Alexander Rokoff painted a portrait of Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock... standing in front of a boar whist wearing lederhosen. This is not that important, except for the part where it now hangs in the office of the mayor of the city of Portland, Oregon. Eat it, Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green!

Sean's off on a street corner, preaching from the bible he wrote and looking for "converts", so it falls to me to recount the things that happened today that weren't related to oil being everywhere. That doesn't leave much, so there's some oil stuff in here too. Fuck you if you don't like it.

Local Pittsburgh politician and future victim of having trash dumped on his lawn, Councilman Matt Drozd, has a bright idea for the Stanley Cup finals going on right now between Philadelphia and Chicago: he wants people in Pittsburgh to root for Philly based on some arcane tax revenue/yay Pennsylvania reasons. After my urge to stab him subsided, I decided to honor the Flyers in much the way I'm sure they did when the Pens were in the Finals the past two years... but then I decided against urinating on myself while decrying a league wide conspiracy against my team. Fuck you Drozd and don't ever suggest -even in jest- that we root for anything to happen to Philadelphia besides some epically Biblical smiting.

Let's check the score on BP and celebrities. Listened to Kevin Costner? Check. Listened to James Cameron? That's a negatory good buddy, with BP turning down the director/undersea documentarian's help in providing access to underwater equipment/technicians. Cameron responded by saying "those morons don't know what they're doing" and referred to BP's handling of access to video and the site as "asking the perpetrator to give you the video of the crime scene". Uh-oh, looks like I know who the thinly veiled, subtle as a sledgehammer, mustache twirling villains of Avatar 2 are going to be. Hurts, doesn't it, neocons?

In "Democracy" news, Diebold, the crooked, politically active, former makers of easily hacked and zero paper trail voting machines, had to pay $25 million to the SEC to settle a fraud case. The SEC will continue to pursue criminal charges against three of Diebold's executives. Gee, if this is the way they handle their books and their accounting, it really warms your heart to think about the way they handled all those voting machines.

In "This is how the world works" news, a recent lawsuit that attempted to sue pretty much every energy company for creating emissions and global warming conditions that helped exacerbate Hurricane Katrina -effectively a trial on global warming- will not be allowed to continue. Why? because so many of the judges on the 16 judge appeals court panel had to recuse themselves because of "conflicts of interest" with the energy companies, that no true majority opinion can be reached and thus the case cannot proceed. So that makes it pretty much all three branches of government that are completely entwined with private interests. I was worried it was only two.

A study recently published by two UCLA economics professors showed a surprisingly political effects between "nudging" people about energy conservation -i.e. providing energy saving tips as well as information on electricity usage to households- and energy consumption. Those who were registered Democrats who received the "nudges" tended to cut consumption by 3-6%. But those who were registered Republicans actually increased consumption as a result of the "nudges". They essentially scientifically showed that conservatives would actively act out against their own interests if they received what they perceived as a "liberal"/"pussy environmentalist" message on it. For further evidence of this phenomenon, I submit the past two decades in US politics.

Finally we close with the best orangutan/hound-dog buddy video of the week. Caution: you might overdose on cute and go into catatonic "Awwwwwww" shock.

Feel like shitting yourself?

via the NYT's Green blog, The National Center for Atmospheric Research has a predictive model for where all that oil is going to go. Hint: the Atlantic seaboard.

Now they coach their model with "it's not peer reviewed" and "it's merely a projection", but I'd like to commence pants shitting and proclamations about the ruination of all sea life and beach going on the eastern coast of America. Not to get reactionary or anything.

Commence happy smile time:

Nice shilling

Now that BP has almost completely devastated the Gulf Coast (full devastation won't be reached until next week) you begin to see why the oil giant has spent so much money over the years buying off a great number of politicians. Excuse me, I mean "making campaign contributions". Because while to everyone else with a functioning set of eyes and a working moral compass, this looks like a massive environmental disaster. If you've gotten millions of dollars from oil companies, you are struggling to understand why this little snafu has even gotten any media attention.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has gotten $1.8 million from Big Oil and is out there aggressively downplaying the damage even as his state is starting to be covered in oil. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) is out there attempting to bring this kind of environmental devastation to Virginia's shores. And Texas Cockknocker Rick Perry (R) would rather blame God than BP for the oil spill.

Let's add Rep. Don Young (R-AK) to the list of people whose BP check cleared.

Young said: “This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a national phenomena. Oil has seeped into this ocean for centuries, will continue to do it. During World War II there was over 10 million barrels of oil spilt from ships, and no natural catastrophe. … We will lose some birds, we will lose some fixed sealife, but overall it will recover.”

Yeah, when I look at these pictures of animals in peril or the ruined coasts and marshes, the first thing I think is "Clearly, this is not an environmental disaster. What is everyone whining about anyway?"

But maybe we should pause and pity these poor politicians. I mean after all, our livelihood as gormless political hacks isn't held in the hand of an oil executive with an open checkbook, or that in order to get elected in Alaska I have to essentially swear a blood oath to the black dinosaur blood that fuels our cars, or the fact that some lobbyist probably has photos of me engaging in that dark ritual with its masks, animal sacrifices and nude dancing. We're allowed to view reality objectively.

So, nicely shilled Don. Tony Hayward will personally pat you on the head and toss you a treat. Word of advice: don't say that to anyone whose livelihood or home has been ruined by the spill. They're likely to beat you to death or drown you in the open oil pit that used to be a body of water.

Poor, poor pitiful Tony

With the 'top kill' having failed, the only short term solution to deal with the oil spill a maneuver that might make the oil spill worse, and somewhere between a shit ton of oil and all the oil of earth spilling into the Gulf, some of us might have decided to naively focus our sympathy and pity onto the animals, ecosystem, environment, economy, or people of the Gulf Coast. That's natural, seeing as they're the ones who are being affected most by this catastrophe.

But perhaps we should show a little more concern for a certain group of individuals who don't seem to be getting the sympathy they deserve; forced to live each day with this country not even offering up as much as a "How are you doing personally, you poor, poor men?" I am of course talking about BP executives. Specifically BP CEO Tony Hayward.

As Mr. Hayward said to fellow executives in his London office recently, “What the hell did we do to deserve this?”

Was it the lax safety guidelines? The prioritizing profit over safety thing? Lobbying for for less oversight? Prioritizing money over the lives of your rig workers? Prioritizing money over the environment? Prioritizing money and PR over telling people the truth about what's going on? General incompetent leadership at the top and a decades of poor decisions all leading inexorably to something like this? Am I getting warm? I wonder if Hayward ever asked if he deserved his multi-million dollar salary?

Let's ignore that and move on to the pity parade.

"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."

Aww. Poor Tony. I can't believe a little thing like a massive oil spill his company caused that is completely ruining the Gulf Coast is monopolizing all of his time and causing him some negative publicity. Let's all take a moment out of our lives to feel bad for him.

So come on. Sure, take your time to feel for the oil soaked animals, the residents or the fishermen who have had their lives ruined by BP. But let's not forget who the real victims are here: executives who are taking a PR beating and having to pull extra hours at the office just because they oversaw the greatest environmental disaster in world history. Aren't they the ones who are suffering the most? I don't want to even think about any beach houses they might have had that are losing property values as week speak. It's just... too soon.

Quote of the day

It seems like with reports finally classifying this spill as the largest ever, all kinds of ecological damage happening to coasts and marshes, that BP is willing to come out and say this is all kids of bad. Honest. BP CEO Tony Hayward said so.

“This is clearly an environmental catastrophe,” Hayward said today in a CNN television interview. He also called the situation “a very significant environmental crisis”

Of course when everyone else was saying the spill was an "environmental catastrophe" Hayward was telling us that the environmental impact was only going to be "very, very modest". So I just want to warn you all that this spill might be even worse than we imagined.

If BP is willing to classify things as a "Very significant environmental crisis", the Gulf must almost be an uninhabitable wasteland. The oil must have become a self-aware, sentient organism and is now starting to fight back; claiming the marshes for it's own purposes, seeding the beaches with tar balls that will become gruesome lumbering tar people, and dragging down ships into the murky, oily depths.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we're in a war against the oil now. That's the only conclusion one can make from BP admitting that this crisis is bad. They certainly can't be telling the truth. They're incapable of that, as we've learned over the past month. No, this is an attempt to cover up something even more sinister. May God have mercy on our souls.

Picture of the day

Now that we know the happy fact that it's basically "top kill" or months of oil flowing into the sea and now that the disaster has officially been named "the worst in US history", the Big Picture blog brings us a look at what environmental devastation has already occurred.

It is, of course, damage that is happening to Louisiana. Always willing to take the brunt of an disaster they are. West Virginia is thinking of contracting out a few mine collapses to them.

As always, click to embiggen

Your daily dose of brightness and sunshine

With the 'top kill' efforts seeming to show some progress, people are starting to be optimistic about finally stopping all that oil from gushing into the Gulf. But make no mistake, the 'top kill' procedure is a measure of last resort, before they basically have to throw their hands up and say "any crackpots have some off the wall ideas out there"? And then we start talking about detonating nukes underwater. Seriously.

But if this doesn't work? Well... all the clamoring for President Obama to send in the military, take over, and so on isn't going to help. David Roberts of Grist explains.

The BP Gulf oil disaster is reaching an interesting phase. People's gut instinct, their first reaction, is to find someone to blame. They blame BP for negligence; the Obama administration for its tepid response; the Bush administration for lax regulatory enforcement. People have been casting about for some way to compartmentalize this thing, some way to cast it as an anomaly, an "accident," the kind of screwup that can be meliorated or avoided in the future.

We are, however, drifting toward a whole different kind of place. [Today] BP is attempting the "top kill" maneuver -- pumping mud into the well. If it doesn't work, well ... then what? Junk shot? Top hat? Loony stuff like nukes? Relief wells will take months to drill and no one's sure if they'll work to relieve pressure. It's entirely possible, even likely, that we're going to be stuck helplessly watching as this well spews oil into the Gulf for years. Even if the flow were stopped tomorrow, the damage to marshes, coral, and marine life is done. The Gulf of Mexico will become an ecological and economic dead zone. There's no real way to undo it, no matter who's in charge.

I'm curious to see how the public's mood shifts once it becomes clear that we are powerless in the face of this thing. What if there's just nothing we can do?

We'll know if there's nothing we can do by tomorrow. Feel better yet?

He goes on to make points about how we do this kind of irreversible damage to the Earth every day in the search and excavation of energy and wonders that if having that sort of catastrophe shoved in our face like this will make us reconsider how we go about things. Easy answer: we're Americans, it won't.

But there we are. The damage has been done already and all the yelling about Superman, big business, or the Government to come in and do something is moot. The 'top kill' move is pretty much it before we have to resign ourselves to a minimum of months of this well throwing oil into the ocean. So then what? Do we just keep bitching, like we always do, and keep trying to retroactively blame someone and take measures to close the barn door after the horses got out... and spilled oil everywhere? Or do me actually try to move forward as a society and actually, for once, try to make a commitment to transforming our energy needs into methods that don't contain a potential "colossal environmental disaster" scenario? I think you know what I think we'll do. But, I do like to be surprised.

Video of the day

Good Morning America goes under the water oil in the Gulf. Things are about as terrible as expected.

Quote of the day

Look, it's clear that people are overreacting to this unprecedented oil spill thingy dingy in the Gulf. I mean BP CEO Tony Hayward spelled it out for us last week when he explained that the spill was "relatively tiny" when compared to the overall size of the ocean and it's total water volume.

I mean, yeah, when you think about it, covering the entire Gulf of Mexico in oil isn't that big a deal when you consider the earth is over 70% water. Plus it's only the top of the water that's covered in oil. What about all the water underneath that's still perfectly good? What about the depth of the ocean? That's a lot of water, BP could have only massively polluted a small fraction of it. When you think about it, taken against the entirety of human achievement and failure, this is only a small failure on Heyward's part.

Proving that no one in BP's PR Department was brave enough to smack him in the back of the head and ask Heyward what the fuck he was doing, Tony went right back out there to keep hitting that line of defense.

I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest. It is impossible to say and we will mount, as part of the aftermath, a very detailed environmental assessment as we go forward. We’re going to do that with some of the science institutions in the U.S. But everything we can see at the moment suggests that the overall environmental impact of this will be very, very modest.

Yes... modest. Very, very modest.

Plus, it's not like this is the only Gulf. If people want to see a Gulf they can go to the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Gulf of Tonkin, or the Gulf of Riga. Everyone loves Latvia, right? So when you think about how many Gulf's there are and how much ocean water there is by area and volume, it's like this didn't even happen. You hear me? THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN!

Bull Durham will fix this Gulf thing

Who do we look to when environmental crises are afoot? Celebrities. No, I'm not kidding. In their efforts to be holier than thou on a range of issues, mostly on the environment and humanitarian needs, celebrities go the full nine in learning about an issue so they can get bonus points for seeming smart. And it works to humanity's benefit. Just look at Bono in Africa, Angelina Jolie for the UN and refugees, or Sean Hannity for the families of soldiers. Actually, discount that last one.

Hell, Jack Nicholosn was touting hydrogen cars and solar power three decades ago. We should have listened to him.

So now with the oil spill in the Gulf, no one clear on how much oil there is or where it's going, no one sure if the leak was even completely plugged, our betters largely acting as if they're unaware of underwater oil hazards, better oil dispersant technology going unused and tests being needlessly delayed, isn't it time we turned to Kevin Costner? No, seriously.



97%? If that's true and can be deployed large scale, I promise to buy two copies of Mr. Brooks and see that Coast Guard rescue movie that he made with *shudders* Ashton Kutcher. Apparently Costner has been funding this project for 15 years, which was spearheaded by his brother, who is a scientist.

So let's get Kev out there in with a pump on a semi-futuristic boat, have Dennis Hopper fire guns at him while chain smoking, and we'll call it Waterworld 2. It'll entertain and help clean up a large scale environmental disaster. Hey, Costner in a pontoon couldn't do a worse job than BP.

Rush asks the important questions

If there's one thing that we've learned over the past few days it that BP certainly isn't responsible for that giant, massive oil spill. Transocean, the offshore drilling company, isn't responsible either. Neither is good 'ole Halliburton, the services contractor who thought they were probably not getting into anything controversial when they signed on for this duty. How do we know this? Because all three basically explained that it wasn't their fault during their pathetic, fumbling testimony last week.

So someone else is to blame and some else is responsible for paying for all the cleanup and the animal carcass removal and the physical rehab for people getting repetitive stress disorders from shaking their heads in disbelief at this whole ordeal. This much is clear. But who? After a week of spitballing theories amongst the Bunsen burners and beakers full of different color liquids in his bullshit lab, El Rushbo is coming double barrel at who he thinks the real culprit is. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

"When do we ask the Sierra Club to pick up the tab for this leak?" Limbaugh asked

Uhhh.... I'm at a loss on this one. Is the answer "When the Sierra Club spills millions of barrels of oil into a large body of water?" Is that when? No? Now? Maybe you're going to have to explain what I'll generously describe as "the logic" on this one, Rush.

The environmental group has been driving oil producers off the land to "way, way, way offshore," into more high-risk situations. According to Limbaugh, the oil companies have had no choice but to drill for oil one mile underwater.

Ah yes, the Sierra Club has forced oil companies to drill for deep sea oil all the way out in the deep sea. Christ, why can't these envirowhacko hippies let the oil companies drill for deep sea oil in a place that's easy, like an mystical oil fountain in a field of marshmallows. Why do they have to move all the deep sea oil out into the deep fucking sea. That place is really difficult to get oil out of!

So, in case you were thinking of giving money to the Sierra Club, because of their stance on protecting the environment and trying to get laws passed to protect us from these kinds of massive ecological nightmares... regulations the oil companies help block, don't. You're just enabling the Sierra Club to cause more of these oil spills... evidently. Better to give it to the oil companies. It doesn't have to be a direct donation to BP, you'll just end up spending it when the gas prices are inevitably jacked following "supply issues".

Picture of the day

Yesterday, in part of Fox News's never ending commitment to shill for industry and downplay their mistakes at all opportunities, Brit Hume took time out of his busy days chastising Tiger Woods to become Christian to offer up his brilliant insights into the Gulf oil spill.

WILLIAMS: First of all, don’t you think, this spill now is going to be in excess of what happened with Exxon Valdez.

HUME: Let’s see if that happens. There’s a good question today if you are standing on the Gulf, and that is: Where is the oil?

Well Brit, the oil is all over the fucking Gulf of Mexico. Thankfully NASA has satellites far enough into space that they can actually capture the magnitude of the disaster. Which, for your edification Brit, is far beyond a mere Exxon Valdez or two at this point.

Click to embiggen or click here to even further embiggen.

You'll note that all the murky stuff that' bracketed by azure blue... is the fucking oil. With the darker oilier spots being the parts where it's just pretty much all oil. Rather staggering isn't it?

As a bonus the picture also kindly shows the beginnings of that whole thing we'll be talking about over the next few days: the Gulf Loop Current taking the oil to the Florida Keys and Florida Gulf Coast. Happy times.

Money, money, money, money... mon-ey

In all this talk about the massive oil spill in the Gulf, too often the focus has been on things like the marine life, the coastal ecosystem, and the citizens of the Gulf Coast. Sure, a rare tern, whale or citizen of New Orleans covered in oil is a very sad thing, but will no one think of the poor oil company? What about BP? Think of their bottom line. This whole crisis must be putting a severe strain on their finances, right?

Not so much.

For now, at least, BP’s prodigious costs combating the oil spill in the Gulf are outweighed by prodigious profits.

On Monday, BP said it spent $350 million in the first 20 days of the spill response, about $17.5 million a day. It has paid 295 of the 4,700 claims received, for a total of $3.5 million. By contrast, in the first quarter of the year, the London-based oil giant’s profits averaged $93 million a day.

Oh thank God. I was worried there that this was going to cause additional blowback in the ivory backscratcher and yachting wear markets. Turns out the daily clean-up, payouts, buyoffs, and sadly comical failed attempts to actually stop gushing oil from flowing into the sea barely make a dent in their profits.

But I am worried about what will happen when they finally get the leak capped, sometime in 2011. I mean that's when the big cleanup costs will come due and BP might have to make due with only making a couple billion or so in profit for a quarter. They won't be able to write that shit off!

Just kidding, if someone other than the American taxpayer has to foot the bill, I'll die of shock. And even if they end up having to pay, say, $5 billion... like Exxon was ordered to after the Valdez tanker crash, they can just tie it up in court for decades before finally getting to the Supreme Court, where conservative justices 5-4 you down to a measly $507.5 million, like, say, happened to Exxon after the Valdez tanker crash. So don't worry about BP, it'll all work out for them in the end. It always does. $93 million a day.