Tar Balls found in Key West...

The "Oil Drum" blog has info on the Tar-Balls that are starting to wash up on shore in Key West near Fort Zach. I will be in the Keys coming up in June and will be looking to see how this spill effects the Keys and coastline...

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NOT from the Deepwater Horizon as reported here....

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401K, Gold, or Coffee Can?...

With our Government(s) being Trillions of dollars in debt and even more Trillions in unfunded liabilities. We have elected officials who refuse to directly face the obvious threat and continue to ignore that promised benefits must be cut. They fear and know that many will not be re-elected if they cut benefits to many Americans who depend on these benefits but yet they do not understand they would get the votes and approvals from those paying the tax bills...

(Consider the 47% that does NOT pay any Income tax and who they will support)

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Now after saying this what should those who have sacrificed over the years, saved their money, invested in a retirement plan, and worked towards securing their future retirement without depending heavily on the Federal government, what should they do?

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Should we leave our money in the 401K account, Stocks, Mutual Funds, Bonds, with the hope that the government will not determine down the line that to "make the playing field more fair for all" changes are needed. Will they determine that we have too much in personal savings and the government will need those assets to provide for those who did nothing for their retirement?

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So should I cash in my 401K and assets into Gold bars?

Or add to what I already have in the Coffee Can buried in the backyard?

Is it wrong to protect these assets from the Government and would that make me a "Bad Guy"?...

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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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