Oil found 5 miles off the coast of Clearwater, FL

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

It's hard to say, I'm not sure of how credible the LA Times is as as media source, I just know that the St. Petersburg Times is gospel, and the Providence Journal is a fucking rag. (see also, my previous post about the RI FOX station just focusing on a parade in Bama)

But it wouldn't surprise me that the conservatives would be doing whatever possible to make the Obama Administration look bad, including saying that foreign aid wasn't accepted. They didn't know how bad the spill was 10 days after the fact or how bad it would become.

I DO know that the state of Florida has purchased machines that filter oil out of sand privately without federal aid, or at least, so sayeth the Tampa contingent of the Suus. Like I said, this news doesn't get up here, and I don't have much time to go digging for it so most of my knowledge comes from my panicky family.

I would venture to say that anything coming out of st pete is probably as valid as the orlando sentinel. in that it's just vague news with no real depth. just some facts haphazardly thrown together.
that's how florida does shit. half assed. at everything.
i mean shit, i'm barely using punctuation here and what's a capital letter? who knows.
duuuuuuuuuuuuuhflorida. i bought honey from a guy with two teeth off the side of the highway today. no shit. git off mah lawn.

[Suu]

Actually, the St. Petersburg Times is one of the nation's top news publications. They run Politifact and and a shit ton of other publications around FL, and have won something like 9 Pulitzer Prizes. They're also pretty liberal for a Florida, if not a southern newspaper.

Plus, ANY paper that will effortlessly rip apart their home sports teams without batting an eye is totally worth a read.

Seriously, when I worked for the NY Times, and then got stuck reading the ProJo and Boston Globe on a regular basis, I think my IQ dropped. I have a hard time trusting newspapers that have typos in their fucking headlines.

[Sir Squid Diddimus]

BLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!

[Suu]

I sorry your newspapr is teh shitteh. 

[Suu]

Anyways, it appears it was a fuel sheen. Someone thought it would be funny to empty their boat's gas tank in the water.  

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

some twat thinking it would be funny to empty a gas tank in the ocean - "it already full of oil, a little more wont hurt"

I hate the human race. We deserve extinction for our ecological arrogance.

[Suu]

Apparently it's been happening a lot now in the Gulf. I mean, it's a BIG body of water, and it's still very much in use for fishing and commerce in the areas that aren't effected, so people are just being shitheads. Ugh.

[the last yatto]

nsfw womp thread

[Telarus]

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6039614-media-restriction-to-oil-spill-causes-concerns

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/media_boaters_could_face_crimi.html

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=media+restriction+oil

[Cain]

Why the FUCK are we refusing help?!

Because it's cheaper:

From Washington to the Gulf, politicians and residents wonder why so few skimming vessels have been put to work soaking up oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Investment banker Fred D. McCallister of Dallas believes he has the answer. McCallister, vice president of Allegiance Capital Corp. in Dallas, has been trying since June 5 to offer a dozen Greek skimming vessels from a client for the cleanup.

"By sinking and dispersing the oil, BP can amortize the cost of the cleanup over the next 15 years or so, as tar balls continue to roll up on the beaches, rather than dealing with the issue now by removing the oil from the water with the proper equipment," McCallister testified earlier this week before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. "As a financial adviser, I understand financial engineering and BP's desire to stretch out its costs of remediating the oil spill in the Gulf. By managing the cleanup over a period of many years, BP is able to minimize the financial damage as opposed to a huge expenditure in a period of a few years."...

A report released Thursday by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform included a photo depicting "a massive swath of oil" in the Gulf with no skimming equipment in sight. The report concluded: "The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean."...

BP spokesman Beaudo said McCallister was notified his offer of skimming vessels has been declined because the vessels will not pick up heavy oil near shore. Beaudo said he did not know when McCallister was informed. McCallister said he received communications from BP on Thursday that indicated his proposal was still under review. In fact, he sent supplemental material Thursday, which was accepted, to show the skimming vessels will pick up heavy oil like that bombarding Mississippi's coastline. The 60-foot vessels, he said, can skim high-density crude up to 20 miles offshore. Equipment on board separates the oil from water...

"Just because it's a skimmer doesn't mean it's effective," Malvaney [who heads the Mississippi Coast cleanup effort for BP subcontractor U.S. Environmental Services] said. "There's a lot of people out there saying, 'We've got skimmers.' Some are effective, some are not. That's what we're trying to wade through right now."

[Triple Zero]

But that doesn't add up when you take this into account:

"The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts." -- http://www.financialpost.com/Avertible%20catastrophe/3203808/story.html

One of the two stories must be inaccurate, or perhaps they are describing different events.

[Cain]

Maybe BP think they should profit from cleaning the oil spill, not just merely break even?  I can see them being bastards of that magnitude.

[Triple Zero]

Well yeah, they're doing WORK, so they have to make profit, of course!

[Suu]

I think the media is jaking the fuck out of us. It's all one big game to them.

[Cain]

Well BP bought the local police stations on the coast where the oil is washing up (literally bought them, with new equipment, extra funding etc), I see no reason why they couldn't buy the media as well.