Obama: "I Will Not Tolerate More Finger-Pointing".... Wait a minute.....

In a "Pure Political Movement", President Obama has said he is tired of all of the "Finger-Pointing" that is going on with the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico and their is plenty of responsibility to go around, including the Federal Government... But who is he pointing at in the Federal government?

"I understand that there are legal and financial issues involved, and a full investigation will tell us exactly what happened. But it is pretty clear that the system failed, and it failed badly. And for that, there is enough responsibility to go around. And all parties should be willing to accept it.


"That includes, by the way, the federal government. For too long, for a decade or more, there has been a cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill. It seems as if permits were too often issued based on little more than assurances of safety from the oil companies. That cannot and will not happen anymore. To borrow an old phrase, we will trust but we will verify.... I will not tolerate more finger pointing or irresponsibility."

But it appears that Obama, his administration, and the "Back-Pocket" mainstream mass media, has decided to ignore the reports that the FedGov failed to have the fire boom available when the explosion occurred as required. It could have been a completely different situation in the Gulf now if we had the required Fire Boom as reported in the IBD...

"When the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, the feds had not a single fire boom ready to deploy in accordance with the plan. Federal officials later had to scramble to purchase one from a manufacturer in Illinois. By then it was too late, as the oil had begun to spread out of control and emulsify from the water and the weather."

How much difference could it have made?....

"A single fire boom being towed by two boats can burn 1,800 barrels of oil an hour. That translates to up to 75,000 gallons an hour, raising the possibility the spill could have been contained at the accident scene far from shore."

It has been said that the "Thin-Skinned" President Obama has not been happy when several media outlets started to call this incident "The President's Katrina" and this is likely why Obama came out with the "Tired of Finger-Pointing" and "Enough blame for everyone" speech. But will he step up and take responsibility for the lack of required Fire Booms?...

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Universal Healthcare... WWJD? "What Would Jesus Do?".....

While driving home today I listened to several different talk radio shows and settled on the much talked about Universal health care issue on the Wilkow Majority program…

Andrew Wilkow has always done a good job at providing fact based info in his discussions and allowing callers with dissenting viewpoints to also call in to debate the issue…

The Universal Health care issue has been a hot and ongoing topic for months and it continued all during this show. As usual it went both ends of the issue and once again it got around to who will pay the lions share for this health care and who will get it without contributing little or nothing.

Once again a caller called in with the argument that every person is entitled to universal health care and it is a “right” as a citizen and it is the governments function to provide it…

This caller proceeded to use a phrase used by many universal health care supporters often to put the “Conservative Religious Right” on the spot and said: “What would Jesus do regarding health care?”…

Wilkow responded with a question of his own…

“Would Jesus use the tip of the Roman sword to enforce it?”…

The caller paused for a moment and then said “No”…
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2,227 psi at the well head...

I had to go back to Scuba Diving Physics and after making a quick call to my PADI SCUBA Instructor to confirm it, Chet helped to refresh some calculations regarding water pressure at depth...

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"We know that water is much heavier than air, so it exerts higher pressures with less volume. A cubic foot of water weighs 62.5 lbs, whereas a cubic foot of air weighs 1/12 lb. Sea water is even heavier - a cubic foot of sea water weighs 64 lbs. To exert 14.7 psi (1 ATM) it takes 50 miles of air, whereas it only takes 33 feet of water to exert the same pressure."

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It is reported that the Deepwater Horizon wellhead is at a depth of about 5,000 feet saltwater.

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5,000 ft-sw divide by 33 and multiply by 1 atmosphere (14.7 lbs) is equal to

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2,215 lbs per square inch

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of pressure at the wellhead. If you were to push a single golfball out of a pipe at that depth you would need 2,215+ psi just to push it out the end of the pipe...

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N.I.T.B.Y. "Not In Teddy's Back Yard"...

"America's first offshore wind farm has been approved by the Obama administration despite years of opposition from local Indian tribes and the Kennedy family".

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Back when Jimmy was President...

Problem with the Containment Dome...

The "Oil Drum" blog has some info on the problems with the containment dome that has been lowered over top of one of the main leaks at the Deepwater Horizon site....

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They had to wait on permits before they could use the Fire Booms?!...

I had the opportunity to listen in on a conference call hosted by (API) American Petroleum Institute regarding the operations going on at the Deepwater Horizon site…

During that call there was a question asked about reported delays of getting a required Fire Boom to the site right away to attack the oil spill while it was in a more contained area.

The question and responses can be found in the conference call transcript at the Energy Tomorrow blog at 29:42 minutes into the call….

"It has been reported that the government did not have required "Fire Booms" on hand to deal with the initial incident before the slick became so large and could have started oil burning techniques earlier". (from a media report) "If U.S. officials had followed up on a 1994 response plan for a major Gulf oil spill, it is possible that the spill could have been kept under control and far from land."

But if you look at a response to the question at 30:39 into the conference call you find that it took days to get the required permit to actually use the fire boom. "It did take time to get the permit. I was told it took a couple of days to get the permit"...

Are you telling me that while the above fire was being fought for days in the Gulf of Mexico and with required equipment on site and more coming that they had to wait on "Permits" before they could use the Fire Boom?...

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There have been questions asked about the slow response by the Obama administration and in fact FoxNews Chris Wallace took them to task here:

WALLACE: "A number of Louisiana officials are saying that the Obama administration was slow to respond to this crisis. And I want to review the timeline of what has happened here. On April 20th, the explosion of the drilling platform. For days, BP and the Coast Guard say there is no leak. On April 24th, we're told it's leaking 1,000 barrels a day. On April 28th, the estimate is raised to 5,000 barrels a day. It's not until April 29th, nine days after the accident, that the president makes his first statement about what is now called an incident of national significance".

Gotta love Wallace and it's obvious why Obama will not come onto FoxNews and really "Face the Nation" for fear of hard questions without a pass from Wallace...

Or maybe the Obama administration was taking the advice of the President's Chief of Staff when he said "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
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The Virginia Right blog has info that the Obama administration in fact knew the cause for the explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig the first day it happened....
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Drill, ~Baby~ Still,

Poll shows support for "oil exploration and drilling in America's national territorial waters." at 59% and down just 5% from a 2008 poll on this subject...

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Investors Business Daily has a article on this and good read...

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Valdez? No... More like Apollo 13....

The Energy Tomorrow blog has a link over to a story done by the Houston Chronicle about how the Coast Guard Admiral is comparing the ongoing challenge in the gulf more like the Apollo 13 challenge rather than the Valdez incident...

Mr. President... Thinking about turning off that Oil Valve?...

President Obama and his crew of Cabinet players have been busy following the advice of the President’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel when he said “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” And now it is evident that the gang in DC will do their best to blame, accuse, attack, fine, and portray the oil producing industry as the evil empire to the citizens of the United States at every opportunity since the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico…

But simple observations of the Administrations players since the explosion and sinking of the oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico makes it apparent the administrations lack of coordination, response, knowledge, and their true agenda with this incident…

Yesterday I heard a interview with Chris Wallace who had an interview with Secretary of Homeland Defense Janet Napolitano where he asked Napolitano what BP needed to do concerning the spreading oil slick that was headed towards land. Napolitano said “BP needed to do more” to stop the leak. Napolitano said “BP needed to do more” to control the oil on the surface. Napolitano said “BP needed to do more” to protect the shorelines…. Chris Wallace asked Secretary Napolitano several times what exactly BP specifically needed to do but Napolitano could only repeat the “BP needed to do more” mantra with no specific solution or actions offered. Truth is she did not have a clue as to what is needed to be done and is only out their to repeat the pre-packaged response from the Obama administration which is a prime example of the above “Never let a crisis go to waste” quote from the President’s Chief of staff… It is now obvious why Obama would never go onto FoxNews during the campaign or now to answer hard questions like the ones coming from Chris Wallace…

Would have loved to hear Wallace ask Secretary of Homeland Defense Janet Napolitano why were SWAT teams sent to other oil rigs in the gulf and if there is fear of a terrorist strike?… Why did you send SWAT teams to the rigs to inspect the rigs and for what? Is there info that this was an act of terrorism? Why else would you be sending SWAT teams to other oil rigs?

Then there was the quote from Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar when he met with BP management and engineers where he urged them “work harder and faster and smarter to get the job done”… Now there is some leadership and advice coming from a administration on the ball…

But Salazar did follow up with his version of taking advantage of a “crisis” when he said “We cannot rest and will not rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead and until they clean up every drop of oil” to assign blame on BP and the industry… Once again, place all blame on BP before you know exactly what happened. Why were those SWAT teams sent to the oil rigs again?…

So go ahead Mr. President. Blame BP and the oil industry for this disaster, or terrorist strike, or whatever the cause of the incident. Use this “crisis” opportunity to make this “Other than Green” energy industry out to be the evil empire that is the cause of all environmental problems in the world without acknowledging the importance of affordable energy to keep this nation running and producing…

The Obama administration, it’s Democratic party members in Congress, their environmental allies, Global Warming drones, and one-sided mainstream alphabet media outlets have focused for years on broadcasting the “obscene” billions made by the Oil\Gas industry in profits with it being “unfair”. But yet they fail to show or educate their simple minded followers, and voters, who do not comprehend how simple economics work and how it effects us all…

But let us look at what the oil companies have paid the government(s) over the years as compared to their profits: “over the past 25 years, oil companies directly paid or remitted more than $2.2 trillion in taxes, after adjusting for inflation, to federal and state governments—including excise taxes, royalty payments and state and federal corporate income taxes. That amounts to more than three times what they earned in profits during the same period, according to the latest numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and U.S. Department of Energy.”

Where is John Gault?...

With all that tax revenue over the years you would think our “all knowing” and “all caring” government would have the essential equipment on hand for a major oil spill like this. Turns out they Did NOT have the needed booms required to burn off the oil when it was first concentrated in the early days of the incident. But reading this you find that our government(s) have failed us again. To quote Sec Home\Defense Napolitano: our Govt. “needed to do more”….