London Olympics 2012 pastoral opening ceremony: sucking at every level

UPDATE 12 July 2012 at the end of this post.

Let them snort coke. It was announced today that the centrepiece of the London Olympics 2012 opening ceremony is to be a pastoral idyll. Sheep & cows will star — Marie Antoinette would be proud.

The fact that Britain was the world's first industrial nation with the first working class will take up ten minutes of the three-hour mediaeval fantasy opener — costing £27mn and directed by Danny Boyle — puts the politics into a screwed-up perspective. I wonder if Highland clearances and enclosures will feature, although I am reminded that modern clearances have already taken place with local authority housing tenants banished hundreds of miles away from their Tower Hamlets home. Not to mention the geographical exclusion zones that allow the games' organisers to bully small local businesses with the temerity to mock up their own olympic rings from flowers or hula-hoops.

How is it possible for such a major event to suck at every level? I mean at EVERY level. Even the Olympic Torch. Who cares if some of the 8,000 torch-bearers have emulated the sponsors (as above, so below) and tried to make a few bucks from their torches? It's penny ante stuff compared with the money to be made from fleecing a captive audience with overpriced food and drink (expect your water bottles to be confiscated at the border) and fewer than ten ATMs in the entire Olympic Park now that VISA have had the other twenty cash dispensers belonging to rivals ripped out.

Far more significant to the ethics of the event was the Olympic Torch route taking in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. No mention, of course, that Lewis was purchased by James Matheson (later Sir) in 1844 with his narcotics money made from selling opium to China alongside his partner William Jardine. Matheson created his own rural idyll by expelling 500 locals from Lewis in 1851 (1,771 in total), packing them off to Canada, and building Lews Castle at Stornoway for himself. So the Tower Hamlets clearances have at least one Olympic-connected precedent.

The sponsors comprise a rogues' gallery of some of the most despised corporations in the world. Food giants Coca-Cola and McDonalds — making us fat on crap (very athletic); Dow Chemicals who still haven't cleared up the mess and human misery resulting from the Union Carbide chemical explosion at Bhopal in 1984 which killed 3,000 within the first few weeks and injured half a million more; the ArcelorMittal steel giant whose queasy acquisition of Romania's national steel factories required the help of Tony Blair to whose party he'd donated £250,000; Adidas uses worker-abusing Li & Fung; perversely, ATOS, the French company chucking sick people off incapacity allowance is a big name behind the Paralympics (Jon Ronson video report here); BP whose corruption under Lord Browne and prior blowout in Azerbaijan two years before the Deepwater Horizon gush in the Gulf of Mexico is documented in Greg Palast's Vultures' Picnic.

Although the sponsors paid only two per cent of the total Olympics cost, they are receiving an estimated 38 per cent of the tickets while the actual talent — the athletes themselves — have been allocated a parsimonious two tickets for their own events. The ticket sales have been a long-running fiasco.


Then there's the militarisation of the event in the name of security. Missiles located on blocks of flats — Bow Quarter, a large apartment complex close to the Olympic stadium and Fred Wigg Tower, a 16 storey residential tower block in Walthamstow, east London — include a load that don't work in bad weather; G4S, the world's biggest security company in the world (actually an army) acted as hired guns for illegal Israeli settlers and will police the London games despite being accused of human rights infringements; HMS Ocean warship moored in the Thames; promises to shoot down hijacked planes even if they're over London's intensive urban sprawl: this is all increasingly reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's dystopian film Brazil, itself based on George Orwell's 1984.

And don't get me started on the transport nightmare expected to start a full TWO WEEKS before the start as media and athletes arrive. My home city turns into a no-go area for drivers; getting to the events; and the press are carping about stressed-out public transport drivers getting a measly £500 bonus. Cheap at twice the price.

But with several Goldman Sachs bankers — past and present — associated with the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (Locog) board, what do you expect?

If this turns out to be the final Olympics before everything turns to shit and World War 3 erupts for real, it will actually have been most apt and I congratulate the organisers for their cynicism and prescience. Have a nice day.

Bread and circuses but not for everyone: In this age of austerity and cuts imposed on those most in need, the government and Olympics organisers have some strange priorities. We found £11bn for the games, yet British people are struggling to survive. Interviews by Kate Belgrave.

Tax swindle at the "ethical" Olympics

The Austerity Games 23rd July, Hackney Marshes

Dave Renton on The Neo-liberal Games.

Comments on the games including the destruction of potential assets to the community such as the new bridge over the A11.

UPDATE 12 JULY 2012: It gets worser and worser, even.
G4S assured government of finding 10,000 security staff only two weeks ago, now admit failure. Army to send in 3,500 troops just back from Afghanistan.
Locals lose fight to halt ground-to-air missiles being based on their roof at Fred Wigg Tower. We note that there are none on the posh blocks lining the Thames.
Democracy and freedom of speech bite the dust as banned items at the Olympics include bottles of water and Che Guevara T-shirts.
Chips banned as MacDonalds demands right to be sole purveyor of fries at the Olympics.
Politicians trough down as MPs accept free top tickets, including from BT despite conflict of interest.
All the fat cats are larding up while poor musicians are expected to perform for free.
More exploitation.
And now a new TONY BLAIR SCARE ...
Not only back but rumoured to be showcasing his private clinic NHS bloodfest at the Olympics: Mee Healthcare (of course!

Greg Palast Vultures' Picnic London launch 26 June

Vultures' Picnic: feasting with the on one per cent by Greg Palast, is launched 26th June in London (an event extraordinaire which I am delighted to have been invited to MC). The video above gives you a taste of why the book is important while an unrestrained feral elite steals everything in sight.

An evening with GREG PALAST
With Warren Ellis, Anna Chen, Laurie Penny, Nick Dearden, John Hilary
26 June - 'The Venue', ULU, Malet Street, London at 7pm - 9 pm

Greg Palast will be joined by special guests Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Crooked Little Vein), Anna Chen (Madam Miaow Says - Blog), Laurie Penny ( of The New Statesman, Penny Red), Nick Dearden (Jubilee Debt Campaign) and John Hilary (War On Want) for the launch of the UK edition of Palast's new book,
VULTURES' PICNIC: A Tale of Oil, High Finance and Investigative Reporting

In association with Jubilee Debt Campaign, Greenpeace and Occupy London and War On Want.

Seats are very limited, so reserve yours here now.

A minimum donation of £10 gets you admission and a signed copy of Palast's new book, Vultures' Picnic.
£5 minimum donation for admission only.

Vultures’ Picnic is an eye-opening, heart-pumping, mind-blowing experience that should not, MUST not, be missed. - Nomi Prins

Download and read Chapter 1: Goldfinger.
Or you can pre-order Vultures' Picnic here.

if you have friends in London make sure they don't miss this.

See you in London,
Greg

BP Blowout at Crooks & Liars

Greg Palast on Twitter

On Facebook

Media enquiries to OliverShykles@gmail.com

Greg Palast Vultures' Picnic: stunning. Everyone should read this book

Greg Palast's Lady Baba-Land: The Islamic Republic of BP (BP in Azerbaijan and worldwide for Channel 4 Dispatches)

If you ever suspected how filthy big business is at the top but never knew the details, investigative journalist Greg Palast's latest book, Vultures' Picnic, will have your jaw hitting the floor every few pages. Greg gives the ins and outs of the dirty deals that are screwing our planet by a bunch of psychopaths (see Jon Ronson's fab The Psychopath Test) with nothing but money and power on their minds.

"You know what the perfect crime is? It's the one that's not illegal."

You knew about BP's Deep Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 men and that we feared would never stop spilling oil (it's still seeping). But did you know this wasn't the first time the dodgy Halliburton cement had failed at a BP well? Yeah, yeah, they swore blind to Congress that this was their first such accident but did you know they'd had one two years before in the land of Eurosong, Azerbaijan? Did you know HOW they got the solo contract in that part of the Caspian Sea?

How about the Euro? You think it's an accident that the new currency is taking us down? Did you know that this was its design? The US under Reagan realised that they hated Europe with its pussy socialist welfare systems and decided to bring it down. Mundell was the architect [Edit: Robert Mundell of Reagonomics infamy]. If that sounds far-fetched, Palast studied under Milton Friedman so he knows the Chicago School of Venality better than most.

Or take the repeal of FD Roosevelt's 1933 Glass-Steagall Act prohibiting saving's banks from merging with the casino "investment" banks: FDR would guarantee deposits but not gambling losses. Following intensive lobbying, US Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin smashed up the act in 1999 and promptly joined Citigroup as co-chair on $126 million "compensation". (Check out Rubin's CV since then to understand how fucked we are.) This is what we're reaping now, swallowing America's toxic financial assets: derivatives, sub-prime mortgages, "and all the other exotica coming out of the mad bankers' laboratories"."Let Ireland, Brazil, and Portugal pay cash money to take on the US bankers' risks.... How do we bust down financial rules across the planet? ... It was not enough to erase the laws against speculating with bank deposits in the United States if it was still a crime to do so in Brazil, India, Spain, and Greece."

And, lo, the Financial Services Agreement (FSA) was rewritten, errant nations brought to heel. And here we are today.

So what of China, "the juiciest target of the new FSA"? They signed, joined the WTO and allowed JP Morgan and Citibank into Shanghai. "In effect, US workers' jobs would be sold for the bankers' right to gamble in the new market." Skynet's tentacles have encircled the globe.

Greg Palast is part Hunter S Thompson, a large dollop of Spider Jerusalem and a hefty chunk of Sam Spade. He pursues his corrupt quarry with a breath-taking zeal and steel. In a wrist-slitting scenario, his great strength as a writer is that he gives us all courage in the face of overwhelming odds and overwheening power.

* * *

Engelbert Humperdinck sang "Only love will set you free" at the Eurovision Song Contest last Saturday. Well, in Azerbaijan that's right, 'cause little else will.

Here's an article written by Greg about BP in the Eurovision host country.

EuroVision in the Islamic Republic of BP
The "sexiest Muslim woman in the world" has already won
by Greg Palast

Will "Beyond Petroleum" oil giant BP pick the winner of the EuroVision Song contest this Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan? If so, I wouldn't be surprised.

When I was arrested by the military police of Azerbaijan during my investigation of BP for Channel 4's Dispatches in 2010, one of the cops who surrounded our crew in the desert told us, with great pride, "BP drives this country."

Photo: Military police chief, Azerbaijan, photo by Palast, under arrest, with hidden pen-camera.

Indeed it does.

In 1992, the newly independent former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan elected a kindly Muslim professor Abulfaz Elchibey as President.

But the voters had made an error: Elchibey refused to give BP an exclusive contract to drill the nation's massive Caspian Sea fields as the company wished. In 1993, with the assistance and, reportedly, guns provided by MI6, Elchibey was overthrown by the nation's former Soviet KGB boss, Heydar Aliyev.

Within three months, Aliyev handed BP a sweetheart deal, called "The Contract of the Century", to take Azerbaijan's Caspian oil.

The way to the no-bid deal for BP was "greased," to use the term applied by former BP operative Leslie Abrahams, with several million dollars in illicit payments and weekends with lap dancers in London for Azeri officials. I asked Abrahams, who was ordered by BP to provide military intelligence to MI6, whether he understood that he was paying "bribes on behalf of BP and the British government." He replied, "Absolutely, yes."

Photo: BP Executive/MI6 operative Leslie Abrahams at BP Baku office, with Kalashnikov, during 1993 coup.

Since BP has taken control of Azerbaijan's oil, the nation has become fabulously wealthy--at least for those close to the Aliyev family and BP.

And they eat well. The daughters of the new President, Ilham Aliyev (son of Heydar), picked up the tab for dinner in London for a half dozen of their friends. It came to £300,000 (excluding tip and VAT).

According to Robert Ebel, the CIA's former oil intelligence chief, the whereabouts of $140 million in BP and other oil industry payments are "totally unknown."

This week, EuroVision Song Contest viewers will be treated to the images of the ancient city of Baku where the Silk Road streets are filled with Maseratis and Bentlys. The Bently dealership, and much of the capital, is owned by Azerbaijan's First Lady,

Photo: First Lady Hon. MP Mehriban Aliyeva (middle) and daughters.
Mehriban Aliyeva, the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. That's official, the vote was taken by Esquire Magazine. (She's actually the twelfth Sexiest Women in the World, but the other eleven, infidels all, can be ignored here.)

I'm not saying she doesn't deserve the title: her fashion model face has been created at great expense by "so much plastic surgery," according to the US State Department Manning/WikiLeaks cables, that Lady Mehriban "appears unable to show a full range of facial expression."

But when I left the Old City and its Gucci and Dolce & Gabbana stores and headed off to Sangachal, the town where BP's terminal operates, I found a nation heading full speed into the 14th century.

Baku, once the world's leading manufacturer of oil drilling equipment, is now one of the world's leading centers of oil-toxin cancers.

Walking along the main street of Sangachal, the aptly nick-named, "Terminal Town," was like doing the rounds in a cancer ward. The local shoemaker, Elmar Mamonov, who hasn't sold a shoe in two years, told me, “This one’s daughter has breast cancer; there, Rasul had a brain tumor. Cancers we had never seen. His funeral was last week."

Azlan, afraid to give his last name, paid to have a cancerous lung cut out,” because employer BP wouldn't pay. He says the oil company fired him after he could not keep up with his work.

And there was Shala Tageva, a schoolteacher, who has ovarian cancer. She needs treatment soon, but how to pay for it, Mamonov can’t imagine. Shala is Mamonov’s wife. Suddenly, Mamonov stopped himself. “If I am arrested, you will help me, yes?”

Sorry, sir, not in the Islamic Republic of BP.

Oil, their main industry, has seen employment drop about 90% according to journalist Khadija Ismayilova. Her father, the former oil production minister, was fired by Aliyev when Ismayilov suggested that shopkas, bribery, was behind the destruction of the industry, bribes which allegedly allowed BP to avoid "local content" laws that would have saved those jobs.

Throughout the nation, we heard the same refrain: nostalgia for the old days of freedom and prosperity under Soviet rule. Under BP rule, the people's health, income and freedoms have decayed rapidly, as pollution has turned their Caspian fisheries into a dead, chemical toilet.

But Azeris are well entertained. The massive expenditure for the EuroVision Song Contest follows the government's spending $1 million for an Elton John concert during a depression.

Today, only one in seven dollars of GDP is paid in salaries (versus four of five dollars in the US and UK). Where have the billions gone?

No one dare look for it, nor the source of the First Lady's wealth. The last journalist who asked about the funds, Elmar Huseynov, was gunned down in his home. A journalist who questioned what happened to Huseynov was jailed. No third journalist is investigating what happened to the first two.

Azerbaijan is, nominally, a democracy. Indeed, the First Lady won a convincing election to Parliament (as did every other candidate supporting her husband's regime–- there was not a single member of the opposition elected). But it doesn't, in the end, matter who is voted in, as long as "BP drives."

Within hours of our arrest, my crew and I were released by the Deputy Chief of the Security Ministry: Imprisoning a Channel 4 reporter would have been an embarrassment for BP. But our witnesses to BP's horrific drilling practices didn't do so well. One made it out of the country, but others disappeared.

When you watch the Euro-warblers compete this Saturday, just remember that in Azerbaijan, the winners are already chosen: BP and the family of the Sexiest Muslim Woman in the World. And that's not a pretty sight.

Greg Palast's book on BP, Vultures' Picnic: a tale of Oil, High-Finance and Investigative reporting, will be released in Britain on June 26.

Welcome to the 21st Century in which Skynet makes its move. In the words of Prince, "I've seen the future and, boy, it's rough!". And, while we're on the subject, the present ain't that great, either.

More on this at Left Foot Forward

Greg Palast on YouTube

UPDATE: Special Guest Warren Ellis (Author of Transmetropolitan), Nick Dearden of Jubilee Debt Campaign and John Hilary of War on Want (more guests to be confirmed) will be sharing the stage at the Vultures' Picnic launch in London 26 June with special guest appearances by Laurie Penny and Anna Chen.

BP In Deep Water: Greg Palast Dispatches C4

An extraordinary exposé by Greg Palast tonight on the subject of BP and, among other locations, the oil company's interests in Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea area in Dispatches: In Deep Water for Channel 4. The Caspian region holds one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Two interviewees state that MI6 was involved in Azerbaijan. There's an interesting photo taken of Tony Blair and BP's Lord Browne and Caspian basin representatives taken in 1998. Blair allies such as George Robertson of NATO and Anji Hunter did well in this milieu.

The US was signing contracts for pipelines from the Caspian Basin to Europe, including one to Skopje in Macedonia, just 20 km from Kosovo. Stability and control of the Balkans would be crucial to the oil industry's bonanza.

In 1999, Britain and the NATO allies attacked Serbia, ostensibly in defence of Kosovo.

Elsewhere:

The objectives of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, according to US officials, is to reduce dependence on OPEC oil producers in the Middle East, create a secure supply of oil to Israel, and begin to end dependence on Russian and Iranian oil transportation networks from the Caspian region. ... Controlling pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea has been identified by strategists as a key post Cold War objective.

Now China blamed for BP oil spill. I mean: Hunh?

Pic from Don't Tea On Me

The latest in the Guardian's increasingly demented run of attempts to blame China for every disaster screeches out: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China". Tim Webb's article then goes on to admit:

There is no evidence that the significant modifications to the blowout preventer (BOP), which were carried out in China in 2005, caused the equipment to fail. But industry lawyers said BP could be made liable for any mistakes that a Chinese subcontractor made carrying out the work. It would be almost impossible to secure damages in China, where international law is barely recognised.

No evidence, but I guess the Guardian lives in hope.

In contrast, over at the Observer, their stablemate/rival, Tim Webb dispassionately reports the fact that there are moves afoot to "pass the buck" for responsibility away from BP's awful health and safety record, th'awl bidness's general screw-you to local communities, Halliburton's dodgy cement, and JR-style cronyism with ambitious/influential politicians, to China! When in doubt, blame the Chinese.

The Observer has learnt how Cameron [International, not Dave] will try to pin the blame on BP for the failure of the BOP: lawyers will claim that BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured.

A different emphasis entirely.

When the Western nations' duplicity over the secret Danish Text at the Copenhagen climate change summit was about to hit the headlines last December, The Guardian and Ed Milband led the field in switching attention (hey! Look over THERE!) to supposed machinations from China, in order to protect a deal that would have left the US still producing four times per capita the carbon emissions of the Chinese. My own attempts to join the debate and present an alternative argument at the Guardian's CiF (Comment Is Free, irony duly noted) resulted in my comments being deleted and my being banned.

In 2000, when the government's mishandling of the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in the UK resulted in pyres of culled livestock across this green and pleasant land, The Guardian was one of the loudest in suddenly accusing the UK Chinese of starting the outbreak (while the Independent was alone in maintaining a healthy scepticism). When this lunacy resulted in an apology and vindication from Nick Brown, minister at the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food, the story melted away, with the late Hugo Young conceding in an email exchange that there were wheels within wheels, and one Guardian reporter telling a UK Chinese defence campaigner that there had been a dressing-down at the very top with the instruction that this should never happen again. If only Young were still with us and on watch ...

Isn't it about time the Guardian acted like a newspaper and offered us unbiased news reporting so we can make up our own minds? What is their agenda? What are they warming us up for? With the US conducting military exercises in the Yellow Sea and Cameron's statement that nuclear war with China is an option during the General Election campaign, is the West seriously building up to a conflagration with its giant economic rival? Could China's relationship with Iran be a factor, perchance?

As if we haven't had enough wars started by the West. Still, no war news is bad news if you happen to have arms industry companies in your share portfolio.

UPDATE: Note that both articles were by Tim Webb but with a different emphasis. The Observer's homepage featured the more sober headline and standfirst: "What lurks below the surface for BP? Even amid the 'cowboy culture' of offshore drilling, BP's operational record raises concerns BP safety device was sent to China"

The Observer piece acknowledges the buck-passing strategy currently being employed and makes it clear that "BP ordered Transocean to modify the BOP in China so significantly that the remodelled component no longer resembled what Cameron had originally manufactured." The implication is that the Chinese subcontractor only worked to BP/Transocean's money-saving specs.

The Guardian's home page, however, had the headline: "BP oil spill: failed safety device on Deepwater Horizon rig was modified in China." The piece by the same journalist implies that any fault — which has yet to be determined forensically — was down to Chinese work alone despite there being "no evidence" that any modifications had anything to do with the BOP failure at all.

It would be interesting to to know if either of these versions represents the actual views of the credited journalist.

UPDATE 2: Monday 19th July. As both articles seem to be good examples of objective reportage, containing some interesting material and placing the blame for the oil spill firmly with BP/Transocean, I am left wondering why the Guardian Online chose to foreground the China angle even though the article itself makes it clear that, "... the modifications were carried out at BP's request and "under its direction" ... '. It looks as if both headlines and standfirsts were written by eds at the Observer. The Observer home page led with the "What lies beneath the surface" angle, focusing on BP, and which features China as only part of the equation. Take out China and replace it with anywhere else in the world (India and South Korea also get these jobs) and you are still left with a cost-cutting scandal that is the responsibility of the oil industry. But the majority of the subsequent blizzard of Tweets didn't reflect this, homing in instead on China.

The Observer newspaper published the China angle on page 7, and the "Beneath the surface" article on page 36. So what is going on?

BP claim leak completely stopped by new cap

BP is now claiming the new cap has completely stopped the flow of oil from the Gulf of Mexico leak according to Channel 4 News.

This followed fears that further damage could have been done to the already weakened well bore and seabed. This isn't the end of it. Two more days of tests are required to determine whether the cap and the well-bore can take the pressure. With hurricane season upon the region, BP's sicentists and engineers have to work out whether they can leave the cap in place.

C4 News Science Correspondent Julian Rush writes the next 48 hours are vital:

The next 48 hours are crucial in BP's attempts to stem the flow of oil, writes Channel 4 News Science Correspondent Julian Rush.They are proceeding very slowly and carefully for very good reason. The worst case scenario would be a well blow-out - a rupture in the sections of metal drill pipe that go down the hole for thousands of feet to the oil-bearing rocks. That could lead to oil surging up the hole uncontrollably and a gusher of unconstrained oil and gas that would dwarf the current disaster.

Waiting for more news and confirmation. Well, we live in hope.

Deepwater Command live video feed here and here at Restore The Gulf.

The Oil Drum.

Greg Palast: The Amazon To Arctic Investigation

Previously ...

BP Spill Coffee and Seabed "fractured beyond repair" here.

Is The Oil Leak Unstoppable and BOP Tilting here.

Will Criminal Charges Be Brought? here.

BP Spills Coffee: sea floor "fractured beyond repair"

Great video doing the rounds that sums up industry ineptitude over the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

OK, laughs over. Steel yourselves for this, for what it's worth:

"Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico Sea Floor Fractured Beyond Repair"

A dire report circulating in the Kremlin today that was prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology warns that the Gulf of Mexico sea floor has been fractured “beyond all repair” and our World should begin preparing for an ecological disaster “beyond comprehension” unless “extraordinary measures” are undertaken to stop the massive flow of oil into our Planet’s eleventh largest body of water.

According to Sagalevich’s report, the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is not just coming from the 22 inch well bore site being shown on American television, but from at least 18 other sites on the “fractured seafloor” with the largest being nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) from where the Deepwater Horizon sank and is spewing into these precious waters an estimated 2 million gallons of oil a day.

Interesting to note in this report is Sagalevich stating that he and the other Russian scientists were required by the United States to sign documents forbidding them to report their findings to either the American public or media, and which they had to do in order to legally operate in US territorial waters.

As a prominent oil-industry insider, and one of the World's leading experts on peak oil, Simmons further warns that the US has only two options, “let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well.”

I don't know this source (supposedly the Kremlin) and I'm not sure that the nuclear option is viable for a raft of reasons. And we are talking about a great depth of solid rock said to have been damaged. But it does look as if the pipe itself is doomed. And that sets up a whole load of additional problems.

UPDATE: Saturday 19th June 2010. Naomi Klein on the hole in the earth and the "hubris at the heart of capitalism".

If Katrina pulled back the curtain on the reality of racism in America, the BP disaster pulls back the curtain on something far more hidden: how little control even the most ingenious among us have over the awesome, intricately interconnected natural forces with which we so casually meddle. BP cannot plug the hole in the Earth that it made. Obama cannot order fish species to survive, or brown pelicans not to go extinct (no matter whose ass he kicks). No amount of money – not BP's recently pledged $20bn (£13.5bn), not $100bn – can replace a culture that has lost its roots. And while our politicians and corporate leaders have yet to come to terms with these humbling truths, the people whose air, water and livelihoods have been contaminated are losing their illusions fast.

UPDATE 2: Saturday 19th June. Although we're venting our collective anger at the arrogant Tony Hayward, he has only been at the BP helm since 2007. Part of his brief has apparently been to correct the culture of cost-cutting negligence and irresponsibility overseen by Lord Browne during his ten-year tenure as Chief Executive and a lifetime spent with BP. This same Lord Browne is now on Team Cameron, leading the onslaught on the poor through its policy to claw back as many of the gains made by the British working class as they can muster before being kicked out on their fat behinds. Meanwhile, the wealthy, many of whom brought on the recession, remain unscathed. Given the size of the calamity in the Gulf of Mexico which looks increasingly due to BP's cavalier attitude to safety, my view is that Browne should be banged up in prison with the other criminals, not flouncing about in ermine. BTW, he's one of Tony Blair's mates. Quelle surprise!

Big Oil and global pollution. We need renewables fast.

UPDATE 3: Sunday 4th July 2010. Lord Browne's former lover is now assisting the American lawyer prosecuting BP and alleging that it is Browne's cost-cutting measures that left to such disasters as the Texan oil explosion in 2005 and the unstoppable Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. He is also the person brought in by David Cameron to lead the attack on the poor and make cuts of nearly £7 billion. I hope this doesn't descend into an orgy or homophobia and that everyone remembers Browne is a scumbag because of his class interest and not his sexuality.

Is BP Oil leak unstoppable? BOP tilting

Boris Johnson, Norman Tebbit and Toby Young, among other priority-warped pundits, may be screeching about BP dividends and imagined anti-British sentiment in the US, but there are more pressing concerns.

On May 14th I blogged about the possibility that the BP Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico may be unstoppable. Now spilling 150,000 barrels a day according to some estimates — not BP's — the nightmare scenario that the entire oil reserve may break open is now increasingly looking like a reality. [EDIT: official figure now around 40,000 barrels per day.] The Oil Drum — a website for oil industry geologists, engineers, technicians and other experts — carries this comment by dougr. I recommend you read it.

Essentially, there are signs that the well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean.

All the actions and few tid bits of information all lead to one inescapable conclusion. The well pipes below the sea floor are broken and leaking. Now you have some real data of how BP's actions are evidence of that, as well as some murky statement from "BP officials" confirming the same. ... It means they will never cap the gusher after the wellhead. They cannot...the more they try and restrict the oil gushing out the bop?...the more it will transfer to the leaks below. Just like a leaky garden hose with a nozzle on it. When you open up the nozzle?...it doesn't leak so bad, you close the nozzle?...it leaks real bad,
same dynamics. It is why they sawed the riser off...or tried to anyway...but they clipped it off, to relieve pressure on the leaks "down hole". I'm sure there was a bit of panic time after they crimp/pinched off the large riser pipe and the Diamond wire saw got stuck and failed...because that crimp diverted pressure and flow to the rupture down below.

A down hole leak is dangerous and damaging for several reasons.
There will be erosion throughout the entire beat up, beat on and beat down remainder of the "system" including that inaccessible leak. The same erosion I spoke about in the first post is still present and has never stopped, cannot be stopped, is impossible to stop and will always be present in and acting on anything that is left which has crude oil "Product" rushing through it. There are abrasives still present, swirling flow will create hot spots of wear and this erosion is relentless and will always be present until eventually it wears away enough material to break it's way out. It will slowly eat the bop away especially at the now pinched off riser head and it will flow more and more. Perhaps BP can outrun or keep up with that out flow with various suckage methods for a period of time, but eventually the well will win that race, just how long that race will be?...no one really knows....However now?...there are other problems that a down hole leak will and must produce that will compound this already bad situation.

This down hole leak will undermine the foundation of the seabed in and around the well area. It also weakens the only thing holding up the massive Blow Out Preventer's immense bulk of 450 tons. In fact?...we are beginning to the results of the well's total integrity beginning to fail due to the undermining being caused by the leaking well bore.

The first layer of the sea floor in the gulf is mostly lose material of sand and silt. It doesn't hold up anything and isn't meant to, what holds the entire subsea system of the Bop in place is the well itself. The very large steel connectors of the initial well head "spud" stabbed in to the sea floor. The Bop literally sits on top of the pipe and never touches the sea bed, it wouldn't do anything in way of support if it did. After several tens of feet the seabed does begin to support the well connection laterally (side to side) you couldn't put a 450 ton piece of machinery on top of a 100' tall pipe "in the air" and subject it to the side loads caused by the ocean currents and expect it not to bend over...unless that pipe was very much larger than the machine itself, which you all can see it is not. The well's piping in comparison is actually very much smaller than the Blow Out Preventer and strong as it may be, it relies on some support from the seabed to function and not literally fall over...and it is now showing signs of doing just that....falling over.

If you have been watching the live feed cams you may have noticed that some of the ROVs are using an inclinometer...and inclinometer is an instrument that measures "Incline" or tilt. The BOP is not supposed to be tilting...and after the riser clip off operation it has begun to...

... What is likely to happen now?

Well...none of what is likely to happen is good, in fact...it's about as bad as it gets. I am convinced the erosion and compromising of the entire system is accelerating and attacking more key structural areas of the well, the blow out preventer and surrounding strata holding it all up and together. This is evidenced by the tilt of the blow out preventer and the erosion which has exposed the well head connection. What eventually will happen is that the blow out preventer will literally tip over if they do not run supports to it as the currents push on it. I suspect they will run those supports as cables tied to anchors very soon, if they don't, they are inviting disaster that much sooner.

Eventually even that will be futile as the well casings cannot support the weight of the massive system above with out the cement bond to the earth and that bond is being eroded away. When enough is eroded away the casings will buckle and the BOP will collapse the well. If and when you begin to see oil and gas coming up around the well area from under the BOP? or the area around the well head connection and casing sinking more and more rapidly? ...it won't be too long after that the entire system fails. BP must be aware of this, they are mapping the sea floor sonically and that is not a mere exercise. Our Gov't must be well aware too, they just are not telling us.

All of these things lead to only one place, a fully wide open well bore directly to the oil deposit...after that, it goes into the realm of "the worst things you can think of" The well may come completely apart as the inner liners fail. There is still a very long drill string in the well, that could literally come flying out...as I said...all the worst things you can think of are a possibility, but the very least damaging outcome as bad as it is, is that we are stuck with a wide open gusher blowing out 150,000 barrels a day of raw oil or more. There isn't any "cap dome" or any other suck fixer device on earth that exists or could be built that will stop it from gushing out and doing more and more damage to the gulf. While at the same time also doing more damage to the well, making the chance of halting it with a kill from the bottom up less and less likely to work, which as it stands now?....is the only real chance we have left to stop it all.

It's a race now...a race to drill the relief wells and take our last chance at killing this monster before the whole weakened, wore out, blown out, leaking and failing system gives up it's last gasp in a horrific crescendo.

We are not even 2 months into it, barely half way by even optimistic estimates. The damage done by the leaked oil now is virtually immeasurable already and it will not get better, it can only get worse. No matter how much they can collect, there will still be thousands and thousands of gallons leaking out every minute, every hour of every day. We have 2 months left before the relief wells are even near in position and set up to take a kill shot and that is being optimistic as I said.

Over the next 2 months the mechanical situation also cannot improve, it can only get worse, getting better is an impossibility. While they may make some gains on collecting the leaked oil, the structural situation cannot heal itself. It will continue to erode and flow out more oil and eventually the inevitable collapse which cannot be stopped will happen. It is only a simple matter of who can "get there first"...us or the well.

... We need to prepare for the possibility of this blow out sending more oil into the gulf per week then what we already have now, because that is what a collapse of the system will cause. All the collection efforts that have captured oil will be erased in short order. The magnitude of this disaster will increase exponentially by the time we can do anything to halt it and our odds of actually even being able to halt it will go down.

Also carried by Mother Jones. Via @warrenellis and @stevesilberman.

BP is a multinational company, 49% non-British (Edit: 39% owned by Americans), having been privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Today's $20 billion fund Obama has made BP put aside for reparations plus future fines are beginning to look like chump change for an industry that may have poisoned irreparably the world's oceans.

Will criminal charges be brought?
Porn, cancer, drugs and gifts at the Minerals Management Service.
Collapsing seabed a possibility.

UPDATE: Friday 18th June 2010. "Scientists Warn Gulf Of Mexico Sea Floor Fractured Beyond Repair"

A dire report circulating in the Kremlin today that was prepared for Prime Minister Putin by Anatoly Sagalevich of Russia's Shirshov Institute of Oceanology warns that the Gulf of Mexico sea floor has been fractured “beyond all repair” and our World should begin preparing for an ecological disaster “beyond comprehension” unless “extraordinary measures” are undertaken to stop the massive flow of oil into our Planet’s eleventh largest body of water.

According to Sagalevich’s report, the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico is not just coming from the 22 inch well bore site being shown on American television, but from at least 18 other sites on the “fractured seafloor” with the largest being nearly 11 kilometers (7 miles) from where the Deepwater Horizon sank and is spewing into these precious waters an estimated 2 million gallons of oil a day.

Interesting to note in this report is Sagalevich stating that he and the other Russian scientists were required by the United States to sign documents forbidding them to report their findings to either the American public or media, and which they had to do in order to legally operate in US territorial waters.

As a prominent oil-industry insider, and one of the World's leading experts on peak oil, Simmons further warns that the US has only two options, “let the well run dry (taking 30 years, and probably ruining the Atlantic ocean) or nuking the well.”

UPDATE 2: Sunday 4th July 2010. Former BP chief Lord Browne's former lover is now assisting the American lawyer prosecuting BP and alleging that it is Browne's cost-cutting measures that left to such disasters as the Texan oil explosion in 2005 and the unstoppable Gulf of Mexico oil gusher. He is also the person brought in by David Cameron to lead the attack on the poor and make cuts of nearly £7 billion. I hope this doesn't descend into an orgy or homophobia and that everyone remembers Browne is a scumbag because of his class interest and not his sexuality.

BP Oil Spill Top Kill Fails: will criminal charges be brought?

We should never have laughed at that Mayan prophecy about the world ending in 2012. We're on course to make it just in time.

As I updated yesterday, I was watching the live oil spill feed in the morning and noticed that the leak was belching black again, rather than the dense brown mud we'd seen over the last two days. This was bad. In the evening (GMT) the media confirmed that the Top Kill effort had failed and even the junk shot wasn't working.

We now have vast dead zones being created as a result of the continuing leak. The entire food chain could be devastated. The blue fin tuna spawning ground is just south of the spill so an already distressed species may become extinct.

Everything is compounded by the use of 800,000 gallons of Corexit 9527 which is even more toxic than the oil. The main purpose of this poison appears to be cosmetic as it makes it look better. One marine toxicologist warned: "That ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed. With 800,000 gallons of this, we can only imagine the death that will be caused."

BP has been withholding information and has given figures that massively underestimate the volume of oil being released, surprise, surprise, possibly in anticipation of legal action and liability to come. BP is lobbying for a Houston-based oil industry-friendly judge to hear the plethora of spill cases mounting up.

We're now hearing about all the other spills and negligence by BP, such as with their other spill this week, in Alaska. There's been one in Singapore, and of course, the ongoing hellhole created by Shell in Nigeria.

Bush and Cheney favourite, Halliburton, is in the frame for the inferior cement that was supposed to hold back the oil.

This affects us here. In the two months it will take for BP to drill the relief wells, the oil and chemicals will have been picked up by the same Atlantic currents that bring the warm waters of the Gulf to Britain and Ireland, making us unusually warm for our northerly latitude, and will be headed here. Then the rest of the West coast of Europe gets it. Readers of this blog know how much I love Cornwall. I'm already picturing it dead and toxic.

Bankers and oil men. Dontcha just love 'em?

A new Google Earth Map Tool lets you compare the size of the spill with your area. I just typed in London and the slick covers almost the whole of the south east of England.

UPDATE: 7th June ""Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen." New eyewitness accounts via @MacMcLelland.

UPDATE 2: Rustbelt Radical has this left overview of BP and the rape of the Earth: Expropriate the Expropriators.

BP Oil Spill Top Kill Fails: will criminal charges be brought?

We should never have laughed at that Mayan prophecy about the world ending in 2012. We're on course to make it just in time.

As I updated yesterday, I was watching the live oil spill feed in the morning and noticed that the leak was belching black again, rather than the dense brown mud we'd seen over the last two days. This was bad. In the evening (GMT) the media confirmed that the Top Kill effort had failed and even the junk shot wasn't working.

We now have vast dead zones being created as a result of the continuing leak. The entire food chain could be devastated. The blue fin tuna spawning ground is just south of the spill so an already distressed species may become extinct.

Everything is compounded by the use of 800,000 gallons of Corexit 9527 which is even more toxic than the oil. The main purpose of this poison appears to be cosmetic as it makes it look better. One marine toxicologist warned: "That ruptures red blood cells and causes fish to bleed. With 800,000 gallons of this, we can only imagine the death that will be caused."

BP has been withholding information and has given figures that massively underestimate the volume of oil being released, surprise, surprise, possibly in anticipation of legal action and liability to come. BP is lobbying for a Houston-based oil industry-friendly judge to hear the plethora of spill cases mounting up.

We're now hearing about all the other spills and negligence by BP, such as with their other spill this week, in Alaska. There's been one in Singapore, and of course, the ongoing hellhole created by Shell in Nigeria.

Bush and Cheney favourite, Halliburton, is in the frame for the inferior cement that was supposed to hold back the oil.

This affects us here. In the two months it will take for BP to drill the relief wells, the oil and chemicals will have been picked up by the same Atlantic currents that bring the warm waters of the Gulf to Britain and Ireland, making us unusually warm for our northerly latitude, and will be headed here. Then the rest of the West coast of Europe gets it. Readers of this blog know how much I love Cornwall. I'm already picturing it dead and toxic.

Bankers and oil men. Dontcha just love 'em?

A new Google Earth Map Tool lets you compare the size of the spill with your area. I just typed in London and the slick covers almost the whole of the south east of England.

UPDATE: 7th June ""Are you fucking happy? The rig's on fire! I told you this was gonna happen." New eyewitness accounts via @MacMcLelland.

UPDATE 2: Rustbelt Radical has this left overview of BP and the rape of the Earth: Expropriate the Expropriators.

Porn, Cancer, Drugs and Gifts: Oil Spill Top Kill Guesswork Under Way

Gulf Oil Tracker spillcam PBS.com If it's not working, try the BP website live feed

So what do we know so far about attempts to halt the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, now estimated at covering 16,000 square miles? While BP tries choking the broken riser with mud in an increasingly desperate series of measures — a "Top Kill" method never attempted at these depths which risks blowing the rupture wide open — corruption surrounding the oil industry emerges faster than the gusher of oil.

The 600,000 of gallons of toxic dispersant chemicals dumped in the sea has a largely cosmetic effect, breaking up the oil and making it harder to capture, making a nightmare situation even worse.

Corexit is carcinogenic, mutagenic, and highly toxic, and scientists are concerned about its effect on marine life. Corexit is banned in Great Britain.

The chemical company, Nalco, has a former BP executive on its board.

"Why would you use something that is much more toxic and much less effective, other than you have a corporate relationship with the manufacturer?" asked Jerrold Nadler, a Democratic congressman from New York told a hearing on Wednesday

US oil spill clean-up boats have been recalled as crew fall ill. Something is certainly toxic, and not just the relationship between government and oil companies.

We now know that government workers at the Minerals Management Service who dealt with the gulf oil industry, and whose job it was to inspect offshore drilling and rigs, accepted gifts, took drugs on the job and spent their work time slavering over porn. Meanwhile, Rick Steiner, a fierce critic of the oil industry, lost his grant and was elbowed out from his university.

Steiner observes that the BP plan is almost 600 pages largely consisting of lists, phone numbers and blank forms. "Incredibly, this voluminous document never once discusses how to stop a deep water blowout even though BP has significant deep water operations in the Gulf," he said.

Mary Kendall, acting inspector general at the department of the interior, told a congressional committee yesterday that there were problems with "gift acceptance, fraternising with industry and pornography" at the agency. She suggested there was a problem with the closeness of ties between watchdogs and industry executives: "The individuals involved in the fraternising and gift exchange – both government and industry – have often known one another since childhood."

BP oil spillers face no charges while peaceful Greenpeace protesters have been charged with felony.

The Obama government is still issuing environmental waivers. This despite the fact they already issued the BP permit for the Gulf of Mexico knowing they would be drilling on a tectonic plate with known earthquake activity — there was an underwater earthquake in 2006. Today there's talk of a well overdue oil moratorium. And, at last, a drive to stop Shell drilling in the Arctic.

As with any gripping action drama script, there's a time-factor involved and a ticking clock before something more catastrophic occurs. The escaping oil is eroding the seabed and has probably entirely eaten away the riser casing by now. This weakens the sea bed over the world's second largest oil reserve. This means not only more leaks, but if an entire chunk of seabed collapses, we get the mother of all tsunami and the release of a helluva lot more oil into our oceans. An extinction event if ever there was one. If Top Kill fails, BP's last remaining options are a junk shot (so-called because the idea is junk), where they throw everything they can get their hands on including golf balls and old tyres, calling Superman, and prayer. At the moment, the last two have the edge.

National Geographic: What happens if we can't stop the leak? Gulf oil leaks could go on for years until the reservoir is dry.

UPDATE: 19:00 Top Kill slowing down the leak.
UPDATE 2: Saturday 29 May. Top Kill fails. I noticed around 11am GMT that the leak was gushing black again, and a bit later both black and brown (dense mud). 7pm, just saw the NY Times has just confirmed it's failed.

At a Gulf Aid event, where locals were angry that the state of Louisiana got so little from the massively profitable oil industry in their own area, the BP man declared that the company had contributed $15 million towards encouraging tourism while pledging $500 million over ten years to study the impact of the oil spill on the environment. When you consider that BP makes $66 million per day, you realise how insulting this is. There should surely be a principle that the people whose resources are being exploited should share in any bounty. Instead, Louisiana's education system is second from bottom in the US.

Good source of oil spill news at The Oil Drum
Philppe Cousteau Jr video: Scenes under the sea — ‘This Is a Nightmare… a Nightmare’
Hat Tip Their Vodka

Has BP oil spill seabed collapsed?

Not sure how reliable this is as I can't find anything in the newspapers yet, but it looks as if the seabed at the BP oil-spill has collapsed following a series of explosions, resulting in massive escape of oil.

Found the video screen-grab above at Harmony Central where there's an interesting debate. Speed Ball Blues writes : "Update: Here's a screen grab showing the new hole in the seabed. That's not the riser end from a new angle. This was grabbed while the ROV on the riser end was panning around. The BOP is over 600 feet away, so it is not that, either."

Does this mean an entire oil reserve is being released into the sea?

The BP live webcam has gone offline.

God help this planet if it's true.

Previously: BP incompetence, criticism of BP oil spill "UnAmercian", and volcano of oil unstoppable.

More pictures of seabed collapse

Heavy advanced technical debate as to what went wrong at Drilling Ahead, oil and gas professionals. The bits I can understand are fascinating.

BP Deepwater is the second largest oil deposit in the world, Daily Kos.

Gulf of Mexico: BP have been drilling on a tectonic plate prone to volcanic activity. More here.

Disturbing pictures of the effects of the oil as it reaches land.

Casing finally worn through 300 ft below seabed with oil finding new exits. This is bad.

Deepwater Horizon Response Unified Command

Obama government still issuing environmental waivers.

NOAA Gulf Spill Restoration website.

The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill - History & Analysis

USGS Oil Spill Response

Criticism of BP oil spill "un-American": "Drill, baby, drill!"

Now, why does Rand Paul remind me of The Manchurian Candidate?

Kentucky's Republican Senate nominee and Tea Party darling, Rand Paul, who could kindly be described as "eccentric" by our wussy Brit standards, has gone all gooey over BP, defending the company and its gosh darn bad luck oil spill against that mean Barry Obama.

"What I don't like from the president's administration is this sort of, 'I'll put my boot heel on the throat of BP,'" Paul said in an interview with ABC's "Good Morning America." "I think that sounds really un-American in his criticism of business. ... And I think it's part of this sort of blame-game society in the sense that it's always got to be somebody's fault instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen," Paul said.

Now, I know practically zilch about US politicians and how they are financed, but are they in any way related? Has the oily one been greased in any way?

Gee, what's all the fuss about 11 dead workers, the Gulf Of Mexico nixed, Louisiana's coast turned into a wasteland, the livelihoods of entire communities gone, and the sea turned into a sewer, anyhow? Get real, people. We make money. And that's what makes the world go round. Or kills it. Same diff. Make like the planet and rotate. Accidents happen.

BTW, to our dear American friends, please don't blame us Brits for the appalling damage done to the planet by yet another greedy corporation. Most of us would gladly help you string up the guilty parties. Metaphorically speaking. They arrest you for making such jokes in these heah parts, our freedom of speech going much the same way as your beautiful Louisiana coastline.

UPDATE: Randall Paul, Son of Ron, also said he wouldn't have voted for the Civil Rights Bill. And he was only the third person in 62 years to pull out out of the prestigious Meet The Press current affairs debate show. The other two were Louis Farrakhan (1996) and Saudi Prince Bandar (2003).

"Volcano of oil" in Gulf may be unstoppable

The breached pipe in the video is 20 inches in diameter

The Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill off the Louisiana coast is now being described as a "volcano of oil" under such high pressure at these depths that it may be impossible to stop.

According to one reading of the situation:

Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. ...Even the word "spill" is incorrect. This isn't some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean -- it's a "volcano" of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It's under extremely high pressure, it's spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site).

This is potentially catastrophic on a global level as the oil is swept beyond the Gulf and into Atlantic currents which will take it around the world, devastating fishstocks and the communities dependent on them, animal and human.

As I wrote last week, it looks as if they may have been drilling deeper than the 20,000 feet allowed by the government. Estimates of the spill may have been vastly underestimated with the real tally being closer to a massive 25,000 barrels per day, five times the official figure. (EDIT: Some are now saying 70,000 barrels a day — one Exxon Valdez every four days.)

It also looks as if doubts about the safety of the drill-equipment were brushed aside with reports that all three companies responsible, "ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment."

No other facilities seem to have been shut down pending investigation. Quelle surprise.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have been holding an "oil and gas" breakfast fundraiser for Texas representative Kevin Brady who touchingly defends the safety of the industry.

More here. And a whole smorgasbord of oil spill horror from the Huffington Post.

When Rosa Luxemburg said the choice for us would be between socialism and barbarism, she wasn't kidding.

Hat tip Gavin Martin. Thanks to Ollie for the video link. Let's hope there's a miracle and they close it off soon.

UPDATE: Deepwater Horizon oil rig didn't have necessary permit for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

UPDATE 2: 17th June 2010. The well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean — Mother Jones and The Oil Drum.

"Volcano of oil" in Gulf may be unstoppable

The breached pipe in the video is 20 inches in diameter

The Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill off the Louisiana coast is now being described as a "volcano of oil" under such high pressure at these depths that it may be impossible to stop.

According to one reading of the situation:

Reports about the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill have been largely underestimated, according to commentators, including Paul Noel, a Software Engineer for the U.S. Army at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. He believes that the pocket of oil that's been hit is so powerful and under so much pressure that it may be virtually impossible to contain it. ...Even the word "spill" is incorrect. This isn't some ship of oil that spilled into the ocean -- it's a "volcano" of oil spewing from the belly of Mother Earth herself. It's under extremely high pressure, it's spewing a huge volume of oil directly into the ocean, and there so far seems to be no human-engineered way of stopping it (short of setting off an underground nuclear bomb near the well site).

This is potentially catastrophic on a global level as the oil is swept beyond the Gulf and into Atlantic currents which will take it around the world, devastating fishstocks and the communities dependent on them, animal and human.

As I wrote last week, it looks as if they may have been drilling deeper than the 20,000 feet allowed by the government. Estimates of the spill may have been vastly underestimated with the real tally being closer to a massive 25,000 barrels per day, five times the official figure. (EDIT: Some are now saying 70,000 barrels a day — one Exxon Valdez every four days.)

It also looks as if doubts about the safety of the drill-equipment were brushed aside with reports that all three companies responsible, "ignored tests in the hours before the 20 April explosion that indicated faulty safety equipment."

No other facilities seem to have been shut down pending investigation. Quelle surprise.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have been holding an "oil and gas" breakfast fundraiser for Texas representative Kevin Brady who touchingly defends the safety of the industry.

More here. And a whole smorgasbord of oil spill horror from the Huffington Post.

When Rosa Luxemburg said the choice for us would be between socialism and barbarism, she wasn't kidding.

Hat tip Gavin Martin. Thanks to Ollie for the video link. Let's hope there's a miracle and they close it off soon.

UPDATE: Deepwater Horizon oil rig didn't have necessary permit for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

UPDATE 2: 17th June 2010. The well pipes below the Blow Out Preventer (BOP) may be being eroded to the point where the seabed collapses and the entire oil reserve is emptied into the ocean — Mother Jones and The Oil Drum.

Gulf of Mexico oil spill "containable" but BP incompetent

Bhopal's coming home. Katrina's bringing all her cousins. And now the corporations commit another stunning example of ecological and social vandalism.

I hear sickening news that the oil slick headed towards the Louisiana coast following the explosion at the Deepwater Horizon rig was entirely containable but that BP, already responsible for the catastrophic Exxon Valdez clean-up debacle in Alaska, has screwed up again. And this time, lives as well as livelihoods have been lost.

Greg Palast reminds us of BP's role in the Alaskan oil spill:

... 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. ... On that March night in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez hit Bligh Reef in the Prince William Sound, the BP group had, in fact, not a lick of boom there. And Alyeska had fired the Natives who had manned the full-time response teams, replacing them with phantom crews, lists of untrained employees with no idea how to control a spill. And that containment barge at the ready was, in fact, laid up in a drydock in Cordova, locked under ice, 12 hours away.

Little has changed. Assurances that BP was equipped to deal with the sort of emergency we're seeing off the coast of Louisiana verge on the fantastical:

Where was BP's containment barge and response crew? Why was the containment boom laid so damn late, too late and too little? Why is it that the US Navy is hauling in 12 miles of rubber boom and fielding seven skimmers, instead of BP?... Becnel tells me that one of the platform workers has informed him that the BP well was apparently deeper than the 18,000 feet depth reported. BP failed to communicate that additional depth to Halliburton crews who therefore poured in too small a cement cap for the additional pressure caused by the extra depth. So it blew.

Will anyone be held accountable in any meaningful way? BP share prices are already on the rise again after an initial drop of $32 billion off its market value, so maybe heads won't roll after all. How about compensation for the loss of a way of life and the devastation of environment and community? The Exxon Valdez order to pay $5 billion was slashed to $500 million by the Supreme Court. According to Reuters, "A federal statute caps damage recoveries from oil spills at $75 million, if no negligence is established. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are working on a measure to increase that to $10 billion."

Will Americans stand up to the teabaggers who demand even fewer regulations for big biz?

Athens is interesting: a people who refuse to foot the bill for their Masters' mistakes. I hope they'll inspire all of us in the same leaky tub.